============================================================================ Novanet Acquisitions Committee Meeting 07 December 2000 at 1:30 p.m. University of Kings College Library Present: Linda Aiken (DALLAW), Karen Chandler (DALKIL), Mary Macdonald (DALWKK), Peter Glenister (MSVU), David Manning (SMU), Gail Fraser DALWKK), Marilyn Foote (NSAC), Linda MacLeod (DALKIL), Mary Dobson (UCCB) by speaker phone. Regrets: Lloyd Melanson (AST). Bev Neable (NSCC) Elaine MacLean (SFX), Nick Sobol (UCCB), Paulette Coolen (Kings), Helen Blanchard (MSVU), Barbara Nelke (DALTEC) 1. LM volunteered to take minutes. No additions or changes to agenda 2. Minutes of previous meeting (21 Sept. 2000) approved 3. Business arising. ACQ Reports: -Bill Birdsall had requested confirmation from KC as to which ACQ Reports still needed work by Novanet staff during the Committee of Chairs (COC) meeting on Nov.21,2000. -The Reports mentioned were: Renewable Order Report, Serials Reference Report (as reported via email to Richard Lamer by KC on Sept.22,2000). ACQ Reports and 6.8 Implementation: DM: Implementation Steering Committee had asked Richard to review reports to find any reports not working prior to testing in 6.7 and 6.8. Spent Year to Date for example. 4. Report from Committee of Chairs (COC) Meeting. 4.1 Agency representation/Committee membership -concerns problem with King's staff not being able to attend Novanet Committee meetings -Committee of Chairs drafted a letter Oct. 4, to send by e-mail but deferred to next meeting (Nov. 21) for discussion where letter was drafted and sent Nov. 23 to the Chair of the Novanet Management Committee, Bill Maes. Reply from Management Committee should be received in the New Year. DM stressed the importance of communication through the committees for consistency of usage in Novanet consortium and the implications for training in 6.8 4.2 Problems with protocols for the use of listservs -At Nov.21 meeting of COC, members rejected the 3 recommendations of the Novanet Executive Committee regarding listserv use which were presented following the NEC meeting on August 11,2000 (see NEC Minutes on web). COC added to protocols list a guideline regarding the forwarding of emails to listservs (i.e. seeking approval of individuals prior to forwarding any emails to listservs). -KC expressed interest in a formal statement about responsibility for training/dissemination of protocols (Novanet/supervisors) -DM questioned the reason for formal protocols: problem with inappropriate messages; time taken in e-mail reading? -PG noted protocols may not be in effect at the time of this meeting of ACQ/SER. When in effect, protocols will be sent to everyone and, in future, to new members with acknowledgement of subscription to listservs by Novanet staff at the time of registration. 4.3 Governance workshop -LA reported - purpose of workshop was to suggest the best model for Novanet. -many suggestions were made on the number of levels for the hierarchy: Executive Committee, COC, Management Committee -the present structure of Novanet was analyzed: bad/good. It was noted that the Novanet Board of Directors has no student body representative. -most agreed that we need better way to communicate between levels -Executive Director's role was discussed in the context of Novanet's recent vision and missions - Novanet is more than an automated system. DM noted, however, that Novanet still needs to fulfill the role of system support and all that entails, including the expertise to deal with equipment, operational maintenance, new implementations, etc. -there was discussion of the need to revise Novanet's mandate/vision concerning systems management and policy.During the session, many issues needing clarification were identified such as: communication between policymakers and the staff who work at the grassroots level, the mandates of the various groups within Novanet, etc. 4.4 Novanet staffing (Nov. 21 meeting of COC) -Job Description was to be drafted for a third Technical position at Novanet office (as indicated in email from B.Birdsall on Nov.20,2000). -looking at outsourcing/secondment depending on need/cost Discussion followed about whether there was widespread support for additional staffing and what the financial implications of adding staff might be. Ultimately, Management Committee will have to decide on this issue. LA will pass on any new information. 5. Report from Implementation Steering Committee 5.1 Overview of the implementation process/schedule by DM. -DM Steering committee has had two meetings on working group tests since our last ACQ meeting. -DM discussed the initial impressions of work to be done on reports, data cleanup, database fixes and 852 problems 5.2 Training DM: Training in two parts: a) on server b) on clients (Implementation Steering Committee met after this training) -Server training (DEC and SUN) for Implementation Comm. members -some differences between 6.8 and 6.7 were noted (i.e. 6.8 has new permissions granted per module and permission levels must match in the module). -Impact of changes varies with modules/clients. - in Circ/Acq biggest changes in Holdings module/client. -it was noted by those who attended GEAC training in November that those who attended rec'd minimal training in serials functionality. Agency/consortia functionality was not tested at all! A few questions were posed to GEAC staff and trainees noted material from the Impact Statement for future discussion re:checkin. - asked for date of GUI for serials. Supposed to be ready Module training -serials module training took about 45 minutes Cathy Dahl Was the Acq trainer. -Demonstrated 6.8 using GUI. - although has multi-agency capability doubts whether it works -MM:"Novanet has to demand training" -KC: discussion of modes of training and who gets trained where -the possibility of a conference call with Geac regarding serials checkin issues has been discussed (i.e. if we can present some samples of functionality issues) -very little printed documentation was made available by Geac to those who took their training in November. Some members of Implementation Steering Committee have some data and there are online manuals linked to Steering Committee homepage. Cathy Dahl's training manuals available at: http://www.novanet.ns.ca/steer/onlinedoc.htm -biggest change in 6.8 is in Holdings module/client! - GEAC trying to follow MARC and Z39.50 standards - difficulty will be in learning the differences between 6.7 and 6.8 -6.7 checkin history has now become PARTS in 6.8 -Any multi-volume set in 6.7 will create in 6.8 a copy set and will require a location structure that includes a publication pattern (but not like 6.7 pub pattern which requires us to predict for receipt). -6.8 the copy set creates a textual summary holdings from the PARTS/PIECES ACQ MODULE/CLIENT (6.8): -In ACQ only major difference seems to be in permissions. May restrict other agencies from seeing information (i.e. vendor statistics) Report on testing (DM) - completeness of data seems good and transfer seems very good -tested more on migration than functionality for serials and multi-agency use. Publication patterns are split (but not quite). Checkin of one agency will cause all agencies boxes to move and become expected/due - publication patterns linked to each agency - linked to different formats - linked to locations in OPAC -training emphasized that there was more than one way to do things -hope to get hands on exposure in the new year when the testing phase is complete for data and know what to fix up. -GUI for the Acq/Serial client requires lots of set-up plus 17"-21" monitor. Some equipment needed now for testing. -PG:"Why use GUI?" - slow, cannot do all functions, and requires new hardware (i.e. minimal 17" monitor) Committee members to do testing -list of numbers/types, etc. distributed by DM -send message to list of members when done your testing. -DM coordinator functionality testing for ACQ -Data/functionality testing to be done by Jan.30,2001 Meeting adjourned