SFX Systems Committee Minutes September 9, 2015

Conference Call

Attendance

Present:  Mary Burkee, Xiaotian Chen,  Denise Green, Lauren Johnson-Beck, Max King, Jeff Matlak, Andrew Meyer,Steve Oberg (Chair), Cynthia Scott, Peter Tubbs (Minutes taker),  Paige Weston.

Minutes:

1.  Comments on meeting minutes from 19 August

   Steve Oberg requested additional comments on draft minutes. No revisions suggested. Xiaotian confirms that his display order comments were correctly recorded.

2. CARLI Update

   Service pack 8.4.1 is on the test server. 3 libraries were identified as needing to reconcile templates. Problem reports from Eastern and Carbondale have been resolved. Update will be applied to Production this weekend.

   In the course of reconciling templates, Paige noticed that Capture Citation template (OpenURL to MLA etc.) default is "1990 state-of-the-art" (inaccessible, tables, no CSS, no headers, etc.). Peter suggested adding a disclaimer that citations are only as complete as OpenURL metadata.

   Margaret Chambers updated SFX FAQ on CARLI's phase-out of software maintenance subsidy.

   Action: Explore possibility of revising and updating the Capture Citation template.

3. Review of free and open access targets proposal from Denise and Paige. Xiaotian reported that it was not possible to affect order of display for shared instance targets via SFX admin interface. Paige determined that typing in the full, correct name of targets (ignoring autofill suggestions) in the shared instance does allow Display Logic rules to be implemented. Documentation for this will be produced. This clears up the remaining major concern in rolling out shared and open access targets via activation in the shared instance.  One of the committee members asked which criteria was used to choose Tier 1 journals. Denise explained that the Committee composed a preliminary list, beginning with targets designated by "free" in name and the presence of getFullText service. Other criteria: valid linking to title list, level of linking provided, duplication of titles provided by other free targets, primary language of publication (English). Working from this list, Denise has maintained a spreadsheet divided into Tier 1, Tier 2 (criteria include: lack of article level access), Tier 3 (criteria include: non-English). The list will be made available to SFX admins to allow individual institutions to activate tier 2 and 3 journals; list will be updated quarterly.

    Action: Add this as a topic in the upcoming open conference call, and then activate targets on the following Monday (September 21).

    Action item: Produce documentation on implementing Display Logic for targets provided by the shared instance

4. Final review of SurveyMonkey questions for distribution after upcoming open conference call. Steve requested any additional revisions to SurveyMonkey questions to be distributed after next open conference call. Denise suggested using questions as-is, and then potentially tailoring questions to subsequent conference call topics. The survey will be sent out the same day as the conference call. Notification will be made by email to sfx-ig list, as we want responses from both attendees and non-attendees. Questions will not be re-ordered into a logical order (e.g. "loved it to hated it")
5. FY16 deliverable ideas.  Deliverable choices are due to Susan Singleton by November 2, not deliverables themselves. Deliverables are to be completed by the end of FY16. Currently, we have three listed, two more still need to be written.

      Still to be written:
         A.    SFX workflow(s) and intra-library best practices (Peter)
         B.    How are CARLI libraries using SFX (Laura). Due to lack of concrete ideas for developing this topic into a deliverable, it was agreed to drop this from the list of FY16 deliverables but keeping the topic in mind as a strategy for approaching SFX committee work.

       Statements of purpose:

       A.    Libraries are using multiple KBs/linking tools (Denise)

• This could lend itself to a survey, interviews, case studies examining how multiple tools are used, and how the committee can help reduce duplication of effort. Serials Solutions and OCLC (specific KB?) were mentioned as common alternate KBs. Wheaton uses OCLC, SFX and [?] to provide a discovery layer (via WorldCat Local/Discovery), but then provides linking through SFX. This necessitates "double activation" to enable access to a resource through both services. The SFX and WorldCat knowledgebases are not in parity, which often necessitates careful monitoring to keep them in sync, both at the target level (to insert a SFX concept) but also at the object level. Steve notes that KBART is a big improvement, but problems still exist in areas of the system which are not exposed to administrators (e.g. whatever OCLC algorithm matches items to OCLC numbers).

• Suggested deliverables: White paper? Steve suggests simply characterizing/documenting currently-in-place workflows, practices and challenges for librarians managing multiple knowledgebases. A concern was raised that this has the potential to extend beyond the mandate of the SFX committee, and that deliverables should be, at least to an extent, circumscribed by the committee's mandate.