Discovery Primo VE Committee: December 6, 2023

Members attending: Andrew Belongea (COL), Allan Berry (UIC), Colin Koteles (COD), Matthew Short (NIU), Lindsey Skaggs (ISU), Laura Spradlin (IWU), Nathan Thebarge (TIU)

Members absent: Aimee Walker (JJC), Marlee Graser (SIUE)

Staff attending: Jessica Gibson, Amy Maroso, Annie Serrano, Amy Enberg-Aravena

Taking Minutes: Laura Spradlin

Next up: Nathan Thebarge

• Approve Minutes
  • November 1 minutes approved.
• Ongoing Work
  • Collection discovery webinar: “Discovering Collection Discovery” on December 12, 11 am
    • Question: If the presentation is primarily live demo, should we still have PowerPoint?
      • Yes, it’s helpful for both future documentation and accessibility (also note that PowerPoint presentations are better for screen readers than PDFs). Even if the actual webinar is mostly demo, still have the slides available.
    • Andrew will share info about adding images to records to add more visual appeal to collections if time permits.
    • At the end of the webinar, Laura will share info about idea exchange and encourage attendees to consider voting for Alma collections: Allow to add from network zone.
    • Amy, Andrew, Lindsey, and Laura scheduled to meet for a runthrough before the webinar.
  • Local resource types
    • Andrew reported that cleanup work is underway. No actual changes to local resource types will be made until the cleanup work for a section is done.
    • Lindsey asked if we are going ahead with models. Because this is mostly documentation for institutions without a significant impact on NZ, Andrew can work on having rules ready for the next meeting. Lindsey will share examples from ISU and Jessica has an example as well. This will be a good quick win for local resource types!
    • To do: Lindsey and Jessica will share examples of models, and Andrew will work on rules for models for our next meeting.
• • Local Fields
    • Matt shared updates and asked for some specific feedback on fields with custom normalization rules:
      • Statement of responsibility: Is there a more patron-friendly label for this field? It is not being indexed for search or facets.
        • No suggestions
      • Publisher: Not yet finished. This field was added so it can be indexed for search (the out-of-the-box field is for display). Because Publisher label is used, what should this be?
        • Suggested label is Publishers.
      • Playing time: Playing time format does not currently include any demarcations (ex. 010930). Is this okay?
        • Demarcations would be helpful. Nathan suggested modifying the label to include this info (ex. hhmmss). Lindsey suggested having both demarcations and label info would be best if possible.
        • To do: Matt will try to insert colons and if not will try modifying the label. Allan offered assistance using javascript for colons; Matt will follow up if colons won’t work with norm rule.
      • Technical specifications: Includes label for subfield and value (ex. type of recording, recording medium, sound content).
      • Description of work: Tabling for now.
      • Audience: Displays type of audience and actual audience itself in a single display field.
      • Creator characteristics: Mostly done. We are limited to indexing 10 fields for searching and have used 4 so far. Does this need to be searchable and a facet?
        • Consensus is to make this available for search and facet.
      • Publication place: How to demarcate hierarchical geographic location?
        • Committee is good with using dashes between locations.
    • Matt will finish others before the next meeting. Thanks to Jessica and Matt!
• • FRBR/Dedup
    • Regarding the “Bible” records, Jessica did not receive any objections to deduping/deFRBR-izing in the production NZ. A request CARLI received to de-FRBR two other records did not go as expected but was a learning opportunity to better understand the process for the Bible instance.
    • Andrew asked why the records weren’t being broken apart, and Jessica wasn’t sure but thought it could have been an indexing problem. Matt reported also having problems with indexing when testing normalization rules.
    • Jessica is hoping to run the process on Bible records in late December/early January so people can come back in January to see the records broken apart. Trying to be conscious of not making big changes during this time of year (CARLI tries to observe the UIUC “no change period”).
• • Idea Exchange / “Vote stuffing”
    • Discussion: What will be our mechanism for choosing idea exchange items to champion on a regular basis?
    • Best to add calls to vote to webinars, office hours, etc. on similar topics so they are more engaging/less likely to be ignored. Jessica noted that written announcements are also opportunities to encourage voting on related topics.
    • Other CARLI committees could choose topics related to their webinars, events, etc. to promote them as well. Allan will work with other CARLI committees on this. CARLI staff can take this to their colleagues to suggest the same for CARLI-driven events.
    • Jessica asked if there were any related ideas to tie into local resource types or FRBR? Andrew suggested Customize CDI activations by resource.
    • To do: Andrew and Matt could look through spreadsheet and nominate any other ideas that may be related to local resource types/FRBR.
    • To do: Allan will reach out to other CARLI committee chairs (CARLI can help provide emails) to suggest that they choose topics related to their webinars, events, etc. Allan will develop something equivalent to Lindsey’s infographic to pass around. For next meeting, Allan will have suggestions from different committees for ideas to promote.
    • Andrew brainstormed coming up with an idea exchange topic for local resource types.
    • Ongoing to do: If you draft an idea exchange nominee, let the committee know so we can highlight it!
• New/ongoing discussion topics
  • Search Ranking/Resource Recommendations (Spring webinar planning)
    • Colin asked if the committee was still on board with a spring webinar on Resource Recommender, boosting, search ranking, and the group agreed.
    • Colin reported that COD is planning a two-stage pilot for Resource Recommender. Colin met with different committees (public services, faculty) to demo Resource Recommender and got quick buy in. The first stage of the pilot, planned for winter break, is to focus on 10-20 “big ticket” e-resources that may be underutilized and are tied to broad keywords as a way to boost their visibility. Used Analytics to hone in on specific phrases being used to search. COD is compiling a spreadsheet of resources, brief justifications, and keywords to track. They’ve decided not to show more than 3 resources at once to prevent it from being overwhelming, and it was noted that the mobile view is done well. The second phase of the pilot is to go beyond e-resources to recommend subject librarians and guides.
    • Lindsey set up Resource Recommender for Harvard Business Review, since there are multiple versions/editions. ISU’s next task is identifying what other titles this should be done for (ex. items that should be number one result but are not).
    • Andrew plans to combine Resource Recommender with Collection Discovery. For example, if people search for New York Times, a news source collection could be recommended.
    • Resource Recommender is a good topic for I-Share libraries because there is immediate impact, it is achievable and sustainable, and libraries can customize to their needs. Jessica commented that it’s good to tie in a topic with success stories from libraries.
    • To do: Continue work on this topic individually and bring experiences back to the group.
  • • Search Ranking Configuration vs. Boosting Records in Blended Search Profiles
      • Jessica noted that there are two different configurations that both use the descriptor “boost.” It may be necessary to address both as you test search ranking and boosting.
      • This came up as Jessica and Annie were troubleshooting a CARLI ticket from Laura, who shared that IWU has been having issues with receiving interlibrary loan requests for ebooks and titles that the library owns. Laura briefly demoed the Boosting Records in Blended Search Profiles setting in Alma.
      • Question: Does “local” in this setting include NZ records?
        • To do: Laura will test and report back. If unclear, CARLI can inquire with ExLibris.
      • CARLI has helpful documentation on this topic: Blended Search Profiles and Ranking Configuration
      • To do: Keep working on ranking and boosting tests.
    • Open access indicators for OA books in Primo VE
      • Lindsey’s colleagues asked how the OA indicator is applied to records. Some are NZ records that don’t have an indicator, but they would like to promote OA content as much as possible. Can’t run normalization because records are in the NZ (and Andrew and Jessica reported that unlinking/linking records can be buggy).
      • No one on the committee has explored this, but there was interest in pursuing this.
      • Jessica suggested taking this to the CARLI Tech Services committee to consider enhancing these records, or perhaps a project for Cataloging Maintenance Center.
      • To do: Talk to colleagues or look at records at your institution to see what we could use to flag open access materials. Once identified, Lindsey will take this to the Tech Services group for further consideration.
  • New business
    • I-Share discussion
      • Lindsey’s usability testing revealed that students do not have awareness of the term “I-Share.”
      • Question: Are we required to have the “All I-Share Libraries” search target?
        • Yes.
      • Question: After users sign in, can we change the request link label, and does it need to say I-Share?
        • Yes, label can be changed. No policy on including “I-Share,” but it may be a good idea.
      • Other committee members shared their labels, which include terms like interlibrary loan, partner libraries.
      • Question: Can you collapse list of I-Share institutions in Primo VE?
        • Yes, CARLI has documentation.
      • Ongoing to do: There is ongoing difficulty with patrons not understanding I-Share. Keep this on our radar to explore ways to support an understanding of I-Share, clarify the I-Share process.
  • • “Easy win” topic for next meeting:
      • Colin proposed that we do not need to identify a new large topic given the amount of current ongoing work, and the group agreed.
  • • January meeting
      • The committee agreed to cancel January’s meeting. Amy will cancel the Jan. 3 meeting.
      • To do: Send an email-based update on ongoing work via the listserv sometime in January.
  • Adjourn
    • Colin thanked everyone for a successful fall!