Resource Discovery Meeting Minutes

1. Welcome, Apologies for Absence and Membership Update

Present: William Marsterson (Chair - WM), Gavin Beattie (GB), Stewart Brownrigg (Kent), Catriona Cannon (CC), John Gilby (Minutes - JG), Rosemary Lynch (RL), Brian Murphy (BM), Marion Peulevé (MP), Maureen Wade (MW).

Apologies: Robert Hall (RH).

In attendance: Andrew Edwards "Ed" (AE, M25 Systems Team)

2. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes

The minutes from 22 September 2006 were approved.

3. Action Update and Matters Arising

Actions and matters arising from the previous meeting held on 22 September 2006 are summarised below:

•  Action 3.1 - Action 3.1 continues - JG to continue looking at usage statistics including looking at Google Analytics plus the statistics available from the CMS.
•  Action 3.2 - Action 3.2 continues - JG to carry out further work on the InforM25 'Landscaping' document.
•  Action 5.1- Action Complete - JG had worked with the Advocacy Working Group on promoting the new-look InforM25.
•  Action 6.1 - Action Complete - JG had received a small number of comments on the draft of the Risks document.
  
•  Action 6.2 - New Action 3.3 JG & MW to complete review of risks and look at actions that can be taken to reduce risk.
  

4. M25 Systems Team Manager's Report

To begin his report, JG invited AE to summarise activities and progress with the InforM25 Subject List mini-project. AE gave a brief background and then detailed progress as follows:

• Compared original 101 term subject list with UKAT
• Collated suggestions for additional subject terms received by the Systems Team over the past 12-18 months and compared terms to UKAT
• Devised a selection criteria for new terms and drafted a new subject list of 120 terms, 87% UKAT compatible
• Emailed M25 members for further suggestions and chased responses, 36 from 56 replies received so far.

AE then described the remaining tasks which he hoped to complete before the end of the year. A short discussion ensued about the increasing length of the subject list pull-down on the user interface and also agreed that it was preferable to avoid adding a thesaurus to Find-a-library as an additional means of selecting subject terms.

Action 4.1 JG to add a link from the InforM25 website to UKAT

Action 4.2 JG to consider alternatives to the subject pull-down list on the Find-a-library user interface since the list will soon be in excess of 120 terms.

JG introduced his previously circulated report by confirming that the new-look InforM25 service had gone live on the afternoon of 20 November 2006. Since going live, 35 responses to the Prize Draw had already been received, nearly all giving positive feedback but lacking in detailed comments.  JG also noted that software had been developed to use Find-a-library to list ULS libraries, as an alternative to the current flat HTML help page - this was not quite finished so would be added in due course.

The Group congratulated JG, the web designers and M25 programmer on the launch of the new-look InforM25 and re-iterated the need to keep promotional activities ongoing.

Finally JG commented that following an email to M25 members regarding the export of Find-a-library data to the Inspire Project's service Find It!, he had received a few messages of support and that the full data had now been sent. 

5. e-Journals, the ULS, Research Information Network (RIN) and JISC Model Licence

WM explained the background to this item was a discussion at the last M25 Steering Group meeting concerning potential extension of the ULS to include e-Journals. Currently, no access to e-Journals to 'walk-in' library users was inhibiting existing access agreements. It was felt beneficial to investigate the issues involved in allowing reciprocal access to e-Journals, for example from JISC's point of view or with authentication.

Following some discussion, the group agreed to form a sub-group consisting of MW, JG, RL & GB to discuss the issues further and thence to report back to RDWG and the Steering Group.

6. Possible Future Funding Bids

The group dicussed briefly the current JISC calls and the recently released report from the RIN on researchers and discovery services. The group were disappointed that InforM25 and other clumps were not listed as resources in the report and felt that the Consortium ought to send a response to the RIN. This issue to be discussed at the next Steering Group meeting.

It was noted that investigations for the RIN report was primarily conducted with researchers and that this confirmed that InforM25 needed promoting to end-users.

7. AOB

The group agreed to review the Action Plan at the next meeting.

Action 7.1 JG to review task status for the group's Action Plan and inform group members.

Systems Team priorities were agreed as usage statistics and new Z-clients for the Search-catalogues and ULS services.

WM noted a period of extended absence during Spring and Summer 2007 and BM kindly agreed to chair the group during this time. 

8. Future Meetings

Future meetings were arranged for 3 May and 15 June 2007. The next meeting is 23 February 2007 at the LSE Library. All meetings begin at 2pm.