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SFX-Verde Group Home >
Minutes
March 7, 2005 - Minutes
Attending: Ellen Duranceau, co-chair, Nicole Hennig, co-chair, Jennifer
Edwards, Tracy Gabridge, Millicent Gaskell,
Kim Maxwell, Beth Sears, Rich Wenger (minutes)
I. The eight options for Vera - Verde were reviewed, and a list of questions
and comments regarding each one was developed as follows:
Option 1: Keep Vera, bring up Verde, populate Vera with Verde data
- What would we export and how?
- How much time would be involved in exports?
- Would this allow us new functionality in Vera?
- What data mapping problems are likely between Verde and Vera?
- Could we limit the fields mapped--possibly map only the public Vera?
- There are likely variations between Vera and Verde on how data is coded?
Variation on option one:
-Map only public Vera fields, use Verde for all back office information
Option 2: Keep Vera, only bring up Verde when we bring up Metalib
-Will we get MetaLib, and if so when?
-What version of MetaLib would be needed?
-What functionalities of MetaLib v. 3 are helpful to us?
Option 3: Keep Vera for databases only, use Barton and SFX for e-journals,
use Verde for back end
-Assumes that Verde is being brought up.
-Databases could be maintained separately in Vera or could they be exported?
-Duplicative maintenance could be an issue.
-Two variations:
1. Databases are exported/imported among products.
2. Databases maintained separately.
-What usability information do we have related to finding e-journals in
Barton?
-How could we alter the look and feel of the Barton opac for e-journals
to make it work for users?
-What would an SFX A-Z list look like?
-What role would citation linker play?
Option 4: Drop Vera, Bring up Verde, use Barton and SFX as front end
to Verde; use SFX A-Z list and/or Citation Linker as
additional front ends.
- How much can Barton do to provide discovery, esp. for databses?
- Since people are not used to looking for databases in Barton, education
will be needed--we could create a logical base called 'Vera' within barton
and make it look more like vera.
- We should not think of Barton as we know it today when we think about
it as the search option.
- There is a great deal of style sheet functionality and customization
in the Barton opac that we have not yet taken advantage of.
- How much cataloging cleanup would be needed to create the necessary
Barton logical bases?
- When we talk about 'vera' we mostly mean the front end of eresource
access
- What is the name brand recognition for Vera?
- If we have 2 or 3 places, eg Barton, SFX, Citation Linker, is this confusing
to users?
- How much flexibility will this give us for making changes as needed?
- What happens when Barton goes down?
- How would data move from Verde to Barton and vice versa?
- How much license info would we want displayed to users?
-How would staff access to Verde data differ in these different options?
Variations on this option:
- Barton could have more or less Verde data displaying;
- We could use SFX functionality primarily, or also try to have Barton
displaying Verde data.
Option 5: Keep Vera, bring up Verde, maintain both systems separately
in parallel
- Dropped as impractical
Option 6: Keep Vera, do not bring up Verde
- We are not sure this is really an option, but don't want to close it
off yet.
- Could we enhance Vera for staff in this option?
- What about improvements to front end?
Option 7: Keep Vera and develop discovery functionality
- This is really a variation on #3. We implement Verde but we develop
discovery functionality in Vera.
Option 8: Use Barton as front end for ALL resources
- Variation of 4--not using the SFX A-Z or Citation Linker
- This is very unlikely as a scenario, and should probably be eliminated.
II. Several questions were suggested for focusing our evaluation efforts
for each option:
- How will staff maintain e-journals and databses?
- How will the public search our e-journals and databases for known items?
- How will the public browse our e-journals and databases for unknown
items (discovery)? It was noted that discovery for
databases is more complex than for e-journals.
- Should we handle e-journals and databases similarly or differently?
- How do our users think of Vera? Is it primarily an e-journal finder,
or primarily a database finder, and how does this vary by
discipline? [Dewey patrons think of it as database finder; Barker &
Science mostly consider it an e-journal finder]
We began to develop criteria by which each of the options will be evaluated,
and came up with two groupings:
first tier (most important) and second tier (somewhat less important).
1st tier:
1. "first do no harm"--do not detract from current public user
experience
2. Should provide public users with self-explanatory access methods
3. Should effectively include aggregator title access
4. Should provide reasonable local control, customization and extensibility
5. Should provide good user experience for the staff
2nd tier:
1. Enable smooth transition without staff acrobatics
2. We should be aware of whether there will be a high or low impact on
users
3. We need to present costs for each option
4. Does the option allow an exit strategy?
Work on ranking criteria will continue at next meeting.
III. The group received brief updates on the Ex Libris conference call
related to Google Scholar concerns, the installation of
SFX version 3, and the implementation of Barton as an SFX source.
IV. Action items:
- Ellen and Nicole will organize the options and criteria into a grid
chart for the next meeting.
- Tracy will demo McGill's approach to listing e-resources in Aleph
- Rich will send SFX version 3 urls to the sfx-verde members.
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