Reference Working Group, 1/15/2008, OSL Office

Meeting came to order at 2:20
Those in attendance:  Barbara Bussart (WNS), Prudence Fallon (WRR), Janet Richardson (BAR), Kathy Beaird (BAR), Lynda Ross (CRA), Linda Caisse (NKI), Diane Hogan (EGR), Julie Holden (PAW), Hope Houston (OLIS), Deborah Homer (JAM), Mary Anne Quinn (WAR), Ann Poulos (PRO), Betty Havrylik (CUM), Pat LaRose (NPT), Lisa Davis (OSL)

Minutes of last meeting reviewed and approved.

Joan's letter about ENCORE was discussed.   Jenifer Bond and Beth Johnson both went to the steering committee meeting when the ENCORE vote was taken.  Two committees reviewed and wrote reports - the LIT committee report did not voice any clear recommendation one way or the other, the Reference Working Group recommended NOT purchasing at this time, though some members did favor buying Encore, most did not.  Much discussion took place at their meeting concerning the pluses and minuses about the system, and as suggested by the two committees, the decision was made to purchase Encore with the addition of the federated searching component (Research Pro) and the visual contents (book jackets). See Joan's message posted on OSL email.

HELIN is also purchasing ENCORE, so the students who use both the academic and public library systems will be familiar with the interface.

When is the projected launch date for OSL?  Pat thinks that the contract needed to be signed by Jan. 15.  No time frame has been given for implementation.  
Is there going to be an announcement, or any marketing, when this finally comes up? Certainly Joan will let OSL members know more soon, and Lisa will keep us informed.
Once implemented both the OPAC and the ENCORE interfaces will be available.  Each library will probably have to provide links from their websites.

The TAG CLOUD - this is not a new search, merely a narrowing of the original search.

ENCORE is not designed for reference librarians, as it is not a sophisticated search engine.  We will still be using the client and the OPAC along with the ENCORE interface.  When instituting an advanced search on one of the test library's catalogs, you were linked to their OPAC's search page.

The ENCORE page design may not be good for visually impaired patrons, especially those using screen readers.  III should be aware and testing it for compatibility.

Is ENCORE still in "beta"?  We think so, as most libraries currently using mention it as "in development".

The federated searching will incorporate the shared databases for one lump fee for the consortium, but if individual libraries want to include databases that they subscribe to, there will be further fees for that library.

Is the federated searching seamless or do you have to click on a link to access it?  No answer to this at this time.

WEBFEAT - another federated searching product that HELIN subscribed to, but which they dropped because it did not do what they wanted it to do.
AQUABROWSER - similar to ENCORE/visual faceted search tool
SCRIBLIO - an open source next gen search interface, major problem with it, as noted by Rick Payette and Peter Bennett at Steering mtg., it is not hooked into database, so subscribers needed to upload their database on a regular basis.

ENCORE - this is an outright purchase, rather than a subscription.  After two years, OSL will own this product.

Millennium Issues:

We still need to consider altering the icons in the OPAC.  We have the capability of adding additional icons.  Barbara, Linda, Julie, Lisa, and Jenifer will get together and put together a presentation for next meeting.

Some HTML code has started to pop up on the OPAC since the upgrade.  Lisa will let Peter know.

Changes since the upgrade:

Your library's location now comes up first in the client in a list of items. Nice change!
        
Transit slips have become more informative.  Is it possible to change the layout, so that the destination library is at the top of the page in a larger font?  This could eliminate the need for additional (blue) transit slips.
Various groups have differing instructions on the blue transit slips.  What information is supposed to be included?  Date shipped, destination library, originating library, return/ILL/system-wide hold, etc.  Pat reminded everyone that blue slips are for delivery system, and changes/questions should go through OLIS.

Some Circ people are finding that when they check in a hold, they are given the NAME of the destination library, not the 3-letter code.  Peter is aware of this, and is working on it.

When placing multiple holds for a patron in the client, the librarian is sometimes given a "Patron record in use" message after the first request.

When filling the holds lists, it seems like there is now another step involved.  This could actually be just that the order of steps has changed, and one that could be eliminated by one answer is now no longer eliminated.

EBSCO:
Training is available to any library that want it.  Contact John Henderson or Ann Murdock at EBSCO.

Is the Do-It-Yourself database part of EBSCO? Need to check their website for products.  

When the group purchasing committee met with vendors, each presented their own package of databases.  EBSCO was more flexible than others in allowing OSL to supplement/eliminate certain databases.

EBSCO's e-books division represents many more publishers than other vendors.  E-Books are not really considered to be "Reference" materials, but they should be considered when viewing the package as a whole.  Some ref books may be ebooks.

Should we have the vendors come in and demonstrate their products to this committee?
Does this committee need to have a specific charge to consider these purchases?
The group purchasing committee can be re-instituted at any time.  This committee should develop a working relationship with them.

EBSCO will demo their new NovelistPlus at PLA in March.  This new product includes Non-fiction reader's advisory.

EBSCO will send individual libraries statistics of their library's usage.

We as a consortium need to implement more PR for the databases that we subscribe to.  Maybe a push during National Library Week in April?

On the OPAC home page, the link for EBSCO is unclear as to what it is.  Can we change the wording to make it clearer? (Such as Research databases from EBSCOHOST, instead of EBSCOHOST research databases.  This emphasizes research databases, as opposed to EBSCOHOST).

Dedicated OPACs do not permit access to the databases.  Many libraries are eliminating Public Browser, allowing links to the internet because of these databases (ENCORE is also going to need access to the internet).

On many of EBSCO's databases, there seem to be more international sources than U.S. sources.  
Business Source Premier has not proved to be particularly useful to some - many of the sources referenced are not really business sources, and the hits do not pertain to the search request.

Full text is limited - a lot of hits are actually just abstracts or citations.

Kids Search is disappointing.  The interface is interesting and attention-grabbing, but the contents is lightweight.

Auto Repair - the images are too small or too blurry to be of much use.

EBSCO Visual Search - an awful lot of clicking before you actually get to any results.
There does not seem to be a "Full Text Only" option in the visual search.

Novelist is actually very useful.

We can give feedback about these databases to John or Ann at EBSCO- both have proved willing to listen to our concerns.

Reference Round Table suggestions:
        Follow-up to the previous "Future of Print Reference" - not overly popular
        Marketing the Databases - VERY popular!  
        We will discuss this further at our next meeting.

If we want to schedule trials of any of the databases we are considering, we need to do it quickly.  After school ends, the patrons most likely to use the databases will not be using the library on a regular basis, and will not have the assignments needed to really test the databases.

We'd like to invite the EBSCO vendor to our March 18 meeting.  Lisa will follow up.
We need to save our questions and comments for that meeting.

Next meeting Feb. 26 at 2:15, at the OSL offices.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara J. Bussart (WNS)