TECHNICAL SERVICES STEERING COMMITTEE

Minutes

January 27, 2004

 

 

Members Present:  Rich Bennett, Bill Covey, Michele Crump, Martha Hruska, Erich Kesse, Tom Minton, Cathy Mook, Lawan Orser, Betsy Simpson, Phek Su, and Naomi Young

 

1)                Announcements & Updates

 

·         Systems

o        There are approximately three-dozen hosts on campus actively sending out the latest malware.  The Library’s virus scanners are catching the viruses.  We are fine as long as it goes through our mail server.

o        The pushing of Microsoft and Trend updates is working well.

o        Cox Cable is trying to install a line at the Book Detention Facility.  Until this is complete there will not be any IP addresses for that location so development of plans to discharge materials from that facility are on hold.

 

2)            Budget Update – Michele Crump

 

·         Materials budget - $730,086.02.  It is not all in the right places.  There is concern that this is not enough to pay all invoices.  Numerous paper and electronic serials are in the red.

 

3)            Aleph  – All

               

·         The load process for Subset 5 is scheduled to begin on February 1, 2004 at which point the UF Test Client will be unavailable.  The Subset 5 review is expected to begin mid-February.  As usual, UF Test will be read-only until FCLA releases it for testing/training after the review.  The Subset 5 review will involve a subset of the Aleph data reviewers.

·         The UF Production Client can be used to test workflow now.  Data may be altered and added.  Use TRAIN TRAIN to access.  Contact Michele Crump or Betsy Simpson if problems are encountered.

·         The May 3, 2004 STP date is firm.  FCLA is doing a full test load of our data in the UF Reports Client (as opposed to UF Production or UF Test), which will provide a good indication of how long it will take to do the final production load.  Currently, April 1, 2004 is the target date for beginning the final production load and that point at which cataloging in NOTIS will cease.  If FCLA discovers that more time is needed, the final production load (and the cataloging freeze) will start before April 1.

·         Deadlines are approaching that involve making decisions on how we want the client to be set up for different functional areas.  Decisions also need to be made about what reports will be generated on a regular basis.  Work is being done with Daniel Cromwell on a plan for setting up base permissions.

·         Michele Crump is waiting to hear from John Hein about pattern issues.

·         Training and planning for training and workflows is in process.

·         Metalib training is scheduled for February 9^th and 10^th.  A new version will be released at a future date.  Training will be conducted using the current version.  No firm STP date has been established.

 

4)            Re-class project – Lawan Orser

 

·         The CBS staff is continuously working on the re-class project. 7,858 volumes (almost all of 900’s) have been re-classed since the beginning of January.  There is a good possibility the project will be completed in February.

·         Martha Hruska believes that the re-classed materials will be integrated with the Library West stacks materials once the stacks are moved to the Book Detention Facility.

·         Lawan Orser hopes that the re-class project will continue at LAD.

 

5)            CAGER – Naomi Young

 

·         Draft guidelines (assembled by Betsy Simpson, Phek Su, and others) for minimal level records for large collections were discussed during the last CAGER conference call. The group was surprised that CAGER level endorsement was sought for the guidelines. CAGER’s understanding for what would be done with the guidelines was to put forth an idea of what could be done not what had to be done. CAGER thought minimal guidelines were ok for any local body to decide what kind of guidelines they wanted to use for a specific local projects.

·         The group will look at rewriting guidelines at state level to make sure they are just guidelines and not what every agency must follow.

·         Erich Kesse noted care must be taken because some fields are required when data is moved over to the digital library side.  A lot of the data is picked up and used by the digital library technologies.  Naomi believes those distinctions have been made however she will take this point back to the group.

·         The group felt in most cases there wasn’t much difference in the guidelines UF put forth and what was already in the CAGER guidelines.  However, concern was noted about the use of uncontrolled subject access.  The individuals who didn’t care for uncontrolled headings in a database didn’t offer a practical solution.  The lack of comprehensive authority control in a digital database has always been controversial.

·         Naomi will talk to CAGER about CAGER Web pages being hosted by FCLA instead of FSU.

·         Naomi will send a summary of the CAGER conference call to TSSC members.

·         Naomi has not been successful in getting CAGER to take up the topic of access to LTQF once UF migrates to ALEPH.  It is not clear how UF will derive records from ALEPH into LTQF and how will UF get the LTQF records back into ALEPH.  A suggestion was made to take this topic to FCLA.

·         New consortia packages were discussed during the conference call.  The stumbling block with this was the difference in practice between libraries that use a single record approach and libraries that use double record approach.  When the double record approach (a separate record is created for electronic journal) is used then all SUL libraries derive into a common partition or we could all derive the same subset of the electronic record directly into our own database.  Some SULs (including UF) do not use the double record approach.  When UF receives an electronic version of a journal we currently have in print, a link for the electronic version is added to the record that already exist in the catalog for the print version.  This is not a best practice however it is a practice that public service staff have said is very desirable. The double record approach becomes impractical when moving large number of records.  There are benefits to the double record approach when large packages are involved.  The entire SUL could devise a common list of all the record numbers to import and perhaps even batch import them.  When the single record approach is used and certain titles need to be imported a batch run of a group of titles is not possible because a manual search for the titles UF already has would have to be completed.

 

6)            TOC enhancements - all

 

·         Consideration is being given on how to add table of contents (TOC) records to support online browsing.  Resource Services staff are looking at what it would cost to add the TOC.  Erich Kesse suggested that as materials circulate out of storage that staff could make copies of the TOCs and possibly the indexes when the materials are returned.  Then DLC could run the copied materials through the high-speed scanner and links to the catalog record could be created.  Some OPS hours would be required to make the copies.  A variety of possible procedures were discussed.

 

7)            Library web – Tom Minton

 

·         The Libraries’ web site is going to be revised.  Revisions will result in a more consistent, comprehensive, and cohesive web site. Tom distributed the Library Web Design Development Plan, draft homepage, and a template based on the draft homepage.  The WAG (Web Advisory Group) is seeking feedback in the following areas:

o        Homepage layout

o        Links that should appear on every page (user prospective) and the relative importance of such links

o        Desired features

o        Type of pages needed at the second and third levels

Tom has presented the web design development plan to the Library Council and is going to attempt to present it to the divisional steering committees.

·         After feedback is collected a draft will be developed and presented to leadership groups, web content providers, library units, staff in general, and users.  Tom hopes to have the design and architecture finalized by the end of spring 2004 and style sheet training in summer 2004.  Staff will be able to use the same editors.

·         External style sheets, using XHTML code, will be used for the new design. External style sheets will allow presentational elements to be changed by altering a single file on the server.  XHTML and external style sheets are the coming standard and make pages more flexible.  Flexibility is very desirable given that we do not know what accessibility standards UF or the federal/state government will require in the future.  Web standards are constantly evolving. By using external style sheets mark up of the pages will not be a concern.

·         On target titles will need to be developed since external style sheets will be used and the links will be hard coded into the header.  If we had a content management system the links that appear on all pages would be in a database. Changes to the links that appear on all pages could than be made by changing the database.

·         UF is developing new web standards.  Tom anticipates that certain presentational and navigational elements will be required on all UF pages.  He anticipates at a minimum departments will be required to have the new UF brand and a search element (to the UF Web site) toward the top of each page.

·         Some committee members expressed an interest using the external style now.   The style sheets are still in the development phase and are not yet available for use.

 

8)            DLC update – Erich Kesse

 

·         The Baldwin Literature for Children Collection - continuing without funding.

·         Aerials Photography: Florida - still in process.

·         Ephemeral Cities – using city directories and newspapers to gather names.  Generating 10s of thousands of names, which in return is generating 10s of thousand of potential name author problems.  This project is a little behind schedule because the funding got lost on campus.

·         There was a meeting with FCLA this past Friday to discuss upgrades to Text Technology to Version 10.  Version 10 will provide support to our prime recognition text conversion system.  This has been pushed back to March 1, 2004.

·         Image Class, which provides support for the display of images, is going in at Version 11 and will have JPEG 2000 support.  JPEG 2000 support is beneficial because it supports highly compressed images that are scaled.  Lizard Tech is currently being used for this purpose but the company is having problems.

·         Erich is still trying to bring in people to talk about newspaper technology.  He will send an announcement when someone will be here.

·         Work is still being done on Archives. Archives will go in as Version 11 DXLS and will give more control over how electronic finding guides are created and how digitized images are attached to the finding guides.

·         FCLA is almost back to full staff.  Due to staff shortages they are three to four months behind.

·         Jan Swanbeck is trying to get UF more involved in the ARL initiative to digitize federal documents.

·         OCLC is marketing Content DM.  Erich Kesse doesn’t care for it.  The newspaper technology component is good however it has a bad pricing model.

 

9)            ALA news/highlights

 

·         The FRBR meeting went well.

·         There were good discussions about newspaper standards.

 

10)          Update on Electronic resource management

 

·         The digital statistics group met and selected Joe Aufmuth as chair.  The group has not met again as Joe is in Egypt.  Michele Crump is meeting with Shelley Arlen to discuss this topic.