Resource Discovery Meeting Minutes

NOTE: The following minutes are unapproved and will be formally agreed at the next meeting of the working group.

1. Welcome, Apologies for Absence and Membership Update

Present: William Marsterson (Chair - WM), Gavin Beattie GB), Josephine Burt (JB, in lieu of Marion Peulevé), John Gilby (Minutes - JG), Robert Hall (RH), Brian Murphy (BM).

Apologies: Stewart Brownrigg (Kent), Catriona Cannon (CC), Liz Chapman (EAC), Rosemary Lynch (RL), Marion Peulevé (MP), Maureen Wade (MW)

2. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes

The minutes from 17 March 2006 were approved.

3. Action Update and Matters Arising

Actions and matters arising from the previous meeting held on 17 March 2006 are summarised below:

•  Action 1.1 - WM had contacted Di Martin about potential contributions to the work of the group. Action complete.
  
•  Action 1.2 - MW had sent emails about recruiting more members for the group. Action complete.
•  Action 3.1 - continues - JG to look at plotting usage trendlines for 4 InforM25 services.
  
•  Action 3.2 - RDWG Action Plan is covered under Item 5 below. Action complete.
•  Action 3.3 - continues - JG to plot graphs of weekly 'visits' to the InforM25 services.
  
•  Action 3.4 - WM had mailed IMA focus group attendees for suggestions of catalogues to add to InforM25 and to see if anyone wished to join the group. Action complete.
•  Actions 5.1 to 5.4 are covered in Item 4 below. Actions superceded.
  
•  Action 8.1 Meetings had been arranged. Action complete.

4. M25 Systems Team Manager's Report

JG began this item by highlighting issues included in his recent report which went to the M25 Steering Group:

• The M25 and CPD25 websites are now live on the new M25 server hardware and the InforM25 services are running from the www.inform25.ac.uk domain on the old server.
• Access for website editing is much easier with the CMS, all done via the website and editing is also much quicker.
• Institute of Development Studies and University College for the Creative Arts are now on Find-a-library.
• There were zero Z-server connection problems during the past two months and the V&A was now on Search-catalogues.
• Much effort had gone into transferring the new websites and CMS from the web designer's server to the new M25 server. The process was more difficult due to not having programmer effort readily available.

JG attended a meeting with London Connects, the LLDA and DS who maintain the WiLL service. There is interest in linking WiLL and InforM25 but it was unclear what level of linking was under consideration. The discussions are continuing.

From the previous meeting action, JG had scoped updating the M25 Subject List and estimated that it would take seven days effort. No progress had been made with scoping the transfer of Find-a-library data to the RSLP Schema, partly due to the ongoing discussions with the LLDA about WiLL. 

JG outlined the results of his investigations into a new Z39.50 client for Search-catalogues:

• Jafer – as previously noted, Jafer was a JISC 5/99 project and worked well as Z-Z middleware on the CC-interop Project but its Z-client capability had not been tested. Jafer uses Java which is not used on the M25 services. It is still unclear as to what support might be available for the software as the project is no longer funded and its website dated.
• ZOOM-Perl from Index Data – This Z-client can now do asynchronous operations which means it can do parallel searching. Previously this was not possible but ID have developed the product further since the last meeting. Help would be available from ID who have been a leading light in Z39.50 for over 10 years and the client is still being supported/developed.
• Other options -
  There are a number of other clients that are available with different “wrappers” or “bindings” such as Java or C++. The Search-catalogues software is written in Perl so will interface more easily with a Z-client that has a Perl “wrapper”. This limits choice quite a lot to avoid re-writing a substantial part of the software.
  
  The Zeta-Perl client that is used on the ULS does not appear to be supported now and other Perl Z-clients are not open source, i.e. cost money.
  

There would be a certain amount of work (initially estimated at 3-4 hours plus inevitable bug fixing) involved in getting a new Z-client working with the existing software.

JG then outlined another recent product from Index Data that could act as Z-Z middleware. This would allow machine-to-machine interfaces to Search-catalogues in the same way as Jafer was trialled in CC-interop. Metaproxy is commercial software and Index Data would install the product and get it working. There would be an unknown amount of work involved to interface the product to the existing M25 software.

Finally, JG had been in touch with the web designers and it looked quite feasible to carry out the Find-a-library functionality within the CMS. Some costings for this were awaited. 

Discussion

The above issues were discussed in detail and the following conclusions reached with specific actions:

• Installing ZOOM-Perl on the new M25 server for Search-catalogues was the highest priority task and should be carried out as soon as possible.
• Updating the InforM25 user interfaces to the new Consortium 'look & feel' was also agreed as high priority.
• Action 4.1 JG to forward cost estimate for moving Find-a-library into the CMS to the group.
• Action 4.2 JG to write a mini-project/job specification for the subject list revision work
• The group were interested in Metaproxy but agreed to postpone consideration for this development until the next academic year. Action 4.3 JG to look at a broad estimate of the potential costs and work involved in installing Metaproxy.
• Continuing work on the usage statistics should also be carried out, other priorities permitting.
• Action 4.4 JG to write a brief paper for the next meeting covering the 'landscaping' functionality within Search-catalogues.

5. RDWG Action Plan for 2006-7

6. Future Bids and Ideas

WM reported that the Steering Group had asked the group to look at the recent JISC Circular 3/06 (JISC Capital Programme) to see if there were any possibilities for M25 bids, particularly for resurrecting the SWARM25 bid from 2005. A short discussion followed.

Action 6.1 BM to contact UCL to see if there are any possibilities of partnership bids. 

7. AOB

None.

8. Future Meetings

Action 8.1 JG to arrange two future meetings just before the Steering Group meetings.

Minutes by JG
23 May 2006.