Barton Advisory Group


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Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 21:07:39 -0400
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From: Michael Finigan <fin@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Barton Advisory Group minutes, April 24, 2003
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Barton Advisory Group, minutes for April 24, 2003

Present: Finigan (minutes), Follett, Hartman, Maxwell, Moulen, Siers

Aleph enhancements
The group discussed the suggested Aleph enhancement requests recently distributed by the North American Aleph Users Group. The deadline for submitting our votes has been extended to May 7, so Christine will put our comments into a more coherent order for an email discussion to decide how to allot our total votes to our preferred enhancements.

Version 15 upgrade
The group discussed what's new in version 15 and whether we should take the time to upgrade to it or just proceed to version 16 next summer. Although there are a couple of nice things in 15, there was agreement that we can wait beyond this summer for them. Installing patch 5 will correct more things for us than version 15 will. Christine will check with Harvard, who is getting version 16 this summer, to see whether we can come see version 16 in action once they have it installed and have been working with it for a while.

Patch 5 update
Our hot fixes are in, and if the loader really works we'll be ready on our end to go ahead with the Patch 5 installation sometime after the end of the Spring term.

Damaged processing status
Stephanie reports this is ready to go. To fit into the 15-character limit, the display for this status will read Dmaged-Withdrwn.

Staff OPAC training
If the Libraries want to continue with this training, it's time to pass the responsibility for it to another individual. We questioned whether the number of people who show up for these sessions justify going ahead with them; only a handful of people show up each time, and on occasions some sessions have been eliminated due to no participants. Should this training be part of the orientation packet for new staff, be held more often than quarterly? If so, there still exists the basic problem that someone needs to take ownership of staff training for the Libraries. We decided that it made sense for our group to be the responsible party for seeing that this training takes place, continuing to work with volunteers from outside the group who will do the actual training. Christine will bring our thoughts to Nina for further discussion.

Next Meeting Thursday May 8, 9:30-11 in the Hayden Conference Room.
Enhancement voting
Outstanding Aleph support issues

Questions? Contact us at barton-lib@mit.edu.