Technical Services Committee Meeting: September 28, 2016

conference call

Members attending: 

Melissa Burel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville); Keith Eiten (Wheaton College); Jessica Grzegorski (Newberry Library); Ann Heinrichs (Catholic Theological Union); Mary Konkel (co-chair; College of DuPage); Joelen Pastva (co-chair; Northwestern University); Cynthia Romanowski (Governors State University)

Members absent: Nicole Ream-Sotomayor (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); Sandy Roe (Illinois State University)

CARLI staff attending: Ted Schwitzner; Nicole Swanson

Announcements: 

From committee members:

• Mary Konkel announced that College of DuPage has hired an interim dean, JoAnn Ivory
• Anne Heinrichs announced that Catholic Theological Union has a hired a new e-resources librarian, Christopher Rogers
• Joelen Pastva announced that she will be conducting her first webinar this afternoon based on her midwinter presentation regarding FAST terms in a non-Marc metadata setting

CARLI reports:

• Nicole Swanson reported that the CARLI Annual Meeting is on Nov. 18 in Champaign and six of the committees will be presenting. Keith will be giving a 10-15 minute presentation about this committee’s work and will attend a conference call on October 5 to go over the presentation requirements.
• Nicole Swanson reported that CARLI continues to work with OCLC on migrating our batchloading projects to Collection Manager’s data sync collections. The backloading collections transition is taking longer than expected since OCLC was not able to view the test data in their system until September 23rd. They will be able to view our LHR test records on September 30th. LHR’s regularly scheduled processing date is not until October 21.
• Ted Schwitzner announced that CARLI is providing advanced acquisitions training on October 27 and another session is scheduled for November 10. This is the first time that CARLI will provide this intermediate training with a prerequisite training. This way, attendees will be familiar with the basics before moving forward. Currently there are no plans to record the training.
• Ted Schwitzner announced that on Friday the I-Share Next taskforce will be meeting with the procurement officers. This is important since they will be working with the RFP and the process will be moving forward.
• CARLI recently sent out an email about the new web-based access reporting system. CARLI systems staff involved with the project have received some feedback and questions. All on the committee are encouraged to test out the new system and send in feedback on desired reports or questions.

Discussions:

• CatER Subcommittee report: The subcommittee had to cancel their last meeting and will reschedule. Mary has been able to compile the comments for the document into a new clean copy. The subcommittee will engage in more edits before the document is finally brought to the Technical Services Committee.
• Box: Joelen has added meeting agendas there and updated the deadlines document. It was suggested that the member taking the minutes could do so in Box so that the committee could see it happening in real time.
• Annual project – topic: Access reporting/database maintenance
  • Members of the committee discussed the database maintenance priorities project list (https://www.carli.illinois.edu/products-services/i-share/cat/Cat-maintpriority)
  • Ted Schwitzner discussed the progress on revisions to the priorities list with the release of a revised OC6. CARLI is changing the look and feel of the list so that each priority is more self contained instead of a wall of text. It was discussed that it would be possible to put the content behind a blind so that users could select cleanup projects by the type of record involved (bib, holding, item, circ.), it’s impact (access, searching, etc.), priority, and some other data. Also a chart is an option that has some limitations. OC6 has an Incident Count document that can assist libraries in understanding their areas of needed cleanup, which can be useful for helping librarians to know where to start.
  • Because of the nature of report requests, Jen was unable to query the Request Tracking system to determine the most common reports that cause problems for CARLI libraries. 
  • “How to Get Started” guide:
    • A guide for helping libraries get started using the prioritization list to accomplish database clean up. 
    • The guide could also include steps for what to do with the data once it’s pulled and the possible tools to address needed changes (macro, manual edit, import a new record, etc.).
    • It was mentioned that it would be nice to support/tie in with CARLI’s efforts and have a product that would be accessible from the webpage that CARLI already has and it could point to other resources in CARLI as well.
    •  The manual could include 2-3 basic examples, for a bib, holding, and item record, and use queries that can be used as building blocks for more complex queries. 
    • Members agreed that it is important to include the right amount of information so that users can learn and not become overwhelmed.
  • Videos:
    • It was discussed that there is a precedent for creating video tutorials for an annual project, which could be a component of the project depending on the training needs of CARLI members. 
  • Newsletter:
    • It was discussed that a newsletter that reminded CARLI members of the resources that already exist within CARLI might be useful in prompting people to engage in database clean up.
• Spring Forum
  • Outreach to other committees
    • Joelen Pastva reached out to the Public Services Committee. The committee communicated that they have a lot on their plate and chose not to collaborate at this time.
    • Mary Konkel reached out to the Collection Management Committee and received positive feedback to a collaborate forum.
• Discussion:
  • The Collection Management group is brainstorming ways that they can demonstrate the value of library collections through data. It was discussed that the Technical Services Committee portion could address how to pull the data and/or emphasize the importance of having clean data for this work.
  • Four members of the Collection Management Committee are willing to form a subcommittee to brainstorm ideas. Cynthia Romanowski, Keith Eiten, Mary Konkel, and Joelen Pastva all volunteered to participate in this subcommittee.
  • It was recommended that it might be helpful to look at IFLA Conference submissions for ideas.

Decisions:

• The August minutes were approved.
• The committee agreed to start work on a “How to Get Started” guide for database clean up.
• Four members of the Technical Services Committee volunteered to participate in a joint Collection Management/Technical Services Committee Spring Forum subcommittee.
• The meeting was adjourned at 10:32 a.m.

Tasks assigned:

• All members: Start thinking about a possible outline for the “How to Get Started” manual.
• Joelen Pastva will create a folder in Box where everyone can submit their outline ideas and/or comment on other people’s outlines. She will also provide a document where all ideas can be compiled into a workable outline.
• Mary Konkel will email the Collection Development Committee to communicate that the Technical Services Committee is on board to collaborate for the Spring Forum.
• Nicole Swanson will set up and send out a Doodle Poll to the Spring Forum subcommittee.

Meeting Dates and Deadlines:

• Next meeting: September 28, 2016, 9:00–10:30 a.m.
• Schedule of upcoming TSC meetings (all via conference call): 
  • October 26, 2016, 9:00–10:30 a.m.
  • November 30, 2016, 9:00–10:30 a.m.
  • January 4, 2017, 1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.
  • February 22, 2017, 9:00-10:30 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Melissa Burel