Resource Discovery Meeting Minutes

1. Welcome, Apologies for Absence and Membership Update

Present: William Marsterson (Chair - WM), Gavin Beattie (GB), Stewart Brownrigg (SB), Sarah Crofts (SC), John Gilby (Minutes - JG), Gurdish Sandhu (GS), Maureen Wade (MWa), Marcus Woolley (MWo).

Apologies: Rosemary Lynch (RL), Robert Hall (RH).

RL had stood down from the group and the members recorded their thanks for her valuable contribution to the work of the group.

2. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes

The minutes from 20 November 2008 were approved.

3. Action Update and Matters Arising

Progress on actions from the previous meeting held on 20 November 2008 and earlier meetings are summarised below.

Previous meeting:

Action 5.1a-e JG to do further work on usage statistics - Group agreed that 'visits' were the most useful data to demonstrate that the services were being used. JG to add suitable graph or image to an InforM25 web page and pass to the group for comments, Action continues.
Action 6.1 JG & GB to draft InforM25 Review Brief - complete and discussed under Item 5 below.
Action 6.2 All to input ideas for potential consultants to InforM25 Review - complete.
Action 8.1 JG to confirm future meetings - complete, meetings planned for 6 May and 24 June 2009.

Actions from earlier meetings:

JG to progress InforM25 'Landscaping' document - Action superceded as group agreed to incorporate this issue in the review of InforM25.
JG to look into the Talis Directory further and also about the feasibility of using the existing Find-a-library data/system with Google Maps - Action complete, use of Google Maps demonstrated in new version of Find-a-library, and Talis Directory should be dropped.
MWa & JG to draft letter to RCN about the addition of their Z-server to InforM25 - Action superceded, the RCN has not renewed its membership of the Consortium so are no longer represented on InforM25.

4. M25 Support Team Manager's Report

JG had previously circulated a report in line with "M25 Support Team InforM25 Tasks" document. Issues arising from the report included:

The group gave a vote of thanks to Jean Sykes and colleagues at the LSE for agreeing to second a programmer to the Support Team to work on a backlog of tasks.
Following a demonstration, the group welcomed the addition of images and Google Maps to the Test version of Find-a-library and suggested that it should be advertised when live. Action 4.1 JG to obtain and add more images and once live, advertise the new developments.
AIM25 linking was now on the live "Search-catalogues" service.
A WAM25 Steering Group meeting was planned for later in the month. Action 4.2 JG to arrange who would be the new RDWG contact on the WAM25 Steering Group as RL had stood down.

5. External Review of InforM25

JG and GB had circulated their draft brief for the review and the following are some of the key points from the ensuing discussion:

The group agreed that an appropriate financial procedure must be followed
The specification for the website re-design might have some ideas that could be incorporated.
A sub-group of MWa, GS and GB was setup to finalise the document following further work and to be involved in the consultant selection process
A number of potential consultants were identified
Group agreed that the requirement should be sent out at the end of March 2009, consultants selected by end of April 2009 for work to take place May-July 2009. Noted that it should be feasible for a draft report presentation at the 24 June RDWG meeting.
Ways of 'landscaping' the M25 library collections should be included in the review

Action 5.1 JG to contact the M25 Treasurer to discuss the most appropriate financial procedure that should be followed to engage consultants for the review.

Action 5.2 MWa, GS and GB to send group final draft specification by 20 March 2009 and rest of group to respond within three days.

6. AOB

There was none.

Minutes by JG

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