Barton Advisory Group

To: all-lib@MIT.EDU
Subject: Barton Advisory Group Minutes, Apr. 25, 2001
Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 14:01:07 -0400
From: Walter Powers



Present: Darcy Duke, Michael Finigan, Charlene Follett, Kim Maxwell,
Georgiana McReynolds, Christine Moulen, Walter Powers (minutes), Sarah
Shreeves (facilitator,) Beth Siers


1. Members gave 3rd Barton updates:

   a. Kim sent query to ps-lib concerning "receipt history" records
      and received some responses; she will construct examples to
      elucidate the likely difficulties with such records in the Aleph
      Web OPAC

   b. Michael met with the Circ Team; the text of the drop-down boxes
      and patron screens are nearly finalized. Circ Functional
      Training will be taking place next week.

   c. Georgiana met with the Reserves Team; a decision has been made
      not to migrate Reserves-only records

   d. Beth reported that clean-up scripts are in place for the
      upcoming full test load; the Cataloging Team has a test plan
      formulated; BAS managers met with Charlene to talk about the Acq
      to Cat workflow; indexes for authorities and reserves are done
      and sent to Ex Libris; certain hand-picked individuals are
      trying out third party software for likely cataloging and
      processing procedure macros - no definitive conclusions
      yet. Beth is looking into using a PERL script so that we can
      continue to use expansion codes

   e. Charlene gathered input from Christine, Sarah, the Cataloging
      Team, and ps-lib concerning the present Acq macros; it was
      decided that the "Q" macro will be no longer be used in
      Aleph. Workflows are being documented and tested in the Aleph
      test database. Charlene met with Beth, Christine, Sarah, Marilyn
      McSweeney and Michael Kaplan and participated in a conference
      call that included YBP and Ex Libris representatives - Ex Libris
      assured us that GOBI ordering will be made to work in
      Aleph. Charlene will be meeting with Marilyn, Christine, Kim,
      Jennifer Banks, Carol Fleishauer and Susan Marshall of Ex Libris
      to discuss year-end closing and to make final decisions.

   f. Walter reported that planning for OPAC training is underway. The
      Staff OPAC Training Team met with Deb Helman and Sarah Wenzel to
      discuss coordination of the Staff OPAC and Web OPAC
      training. Walter, Sarah, Nina Davis-Millis and Rebecca Lubas met
      to discuss Cataloging Functional training.

   g. Christine reported that all migrating data had been off-loaded.
      She attended Serials Functional Training (with Beth, Walter, and
      Kim.) Her current projects are tables - she will want to confer
      with Team leaders on table set-up, and reports - a list of
      contemplated reports will be sent out to the Group and members
      should make any necessary additions. Carl Jones will be working
      on staff permissions.

   h. Darcy has been working with Michael on GUI OPAC and Web requests
      for the ILL, document delivery, and photocopy functions. Some
      members of the Docs Team will be going to Circ Functional
      Training. Sarah Wenzel will be sitting in with the Docs Team as
      ILL liaison, in Michael Pavelecky's absence.

   i. Sarah reported that Erja and the OPAC Team were meeting with a
      Web specialist from Ex Libris. Sarah has been working with Joan
      Kolias on planning for local documentation. Collections Services
      will be working with the Processing Committee to improve access
      to documentation. Systems Librarian Training has been
      rescheduled, and a session on reports in Aleph has been
      scheduled. Publicity flyers about the advent of 3rd Barton have
      been sent out, and Sarah is preparing a informational letter for
      selectors

2. Kim noted that there is no Aleph equivalent to the "Ship to:" slot
   in Advance, which will disable effective claims reports.  She has
   proposed adding new sub-library codes for centrally-received
   serials and journals to distinguish them from the subscriptions
   that are locally received; she will send proposal for comments, and
   ultimately submit it to DLC/TSAC.

3. Sarah reported that Casetracker will not be available for use as a
   central repository for problem-reporting in the next round of
   testing. She declared that we will track problems as before;
   testers should report problems to Team leaders, who will archive
   them in e-format, and report them as they come up to the
   project list or to Christine as appropriate.


4. Christine asked that a consensus be reached on the preferred
   indexes to include in the functional modules.


Next meeting: Thursday, May 3, 9:30-11:00, Barker Conference Room