| Advocacy Working Party 3 December 2004 |
Meeting MinutesNotes from the meeting held at the LSE LibraryPresent: Máire Lanigan (St. Mary's & Chair), John Gilby (LSE - Minutes), Marysia Henty (LSE), Julie Howell (London Metropolitan University), Nicholas Martland (SOAS), Janet Percival (UCL), Madura Rasaratnam (LSE). Apologies & Membership:Apologies were received from Frances Norton (Wellcome Library) and William Marsterson (Middlesex). Ginny Malone (Greenwich) had resigned membership from the group and it was noted that she had been with the group since its inception. Ewan Mathieson (KCL) had also given notice of standing down from the group. The group recorded grateful thanks for the work they had done for the Consortium. ML suggested that the group would ideally like to recruit some new members, preferably with marketing and copy writing skills, to keep numbers up. This was agreed by the group. ML commented that the January 2005 Consortium Meeting had marketing as a theme so the group could advertise for additional members there. JG and MR volunteered to take minutes for all future meetings and this met with approval from other group members. 1. Previous Meeting Minutes & Matters ArisingThe minutes from the previous meeting held at KCL on 27 September 2004 were agreed as a true and accurate record, subject to the correction of a typo in Item 1. (Subsequently corrected on web version of minutes.) Review of Actions:
2. Feedback from October 2004 Steering Group MeetingNotes about this agenda item are contained within other sections of the minutes. 3. Review of Work in ProgressAnnual ReportML reported a good discussion from the October Steering Group meeting and they took on board the AWG comments. It had been agreed that the 2003-4 Annual Report will be in a new style and will include financial data. There is a need for it to be completed by the January 2005 Full Consortium meeting (28th). Top Ten FactsThe Top Ten Facts still require updating. 2004 M25 Awareness SurveyFollowing discussion it was decided to write a press release about the awareness survey. The key points to make are: that the Consortium had celebrated its tenth anniversery; that it was a thriving Consortium; that it was offering a lot of useful services to its members; results were very positive and the Consortium was well appreciated; and that there was more knowledge and use of the Consortium and its services since the last survey was carried out. The release could also include some (drafted) quotes from Consortium officers. The group will consider sending a contribution to the SCONUL Newsletter early in 2005 with a more extensive report on the survey. Press ReleasesML noted that the Disaster Management WG had requested help with writing a press release regarding their work and ML agreed to draft some text. It was noted that there is a SCONUL guide to writing press releases on their website and group members were encouraged to read this. There was some discussion as to where best to send press releases. Suggestions included the Times Higher, CILIP Library and Information Update, UC&R Relay and UCISA. 4. Preparation for January 2005 Full Consortium MeetingFor future full Consortium meetings, the Steering Group plan to assist members in finding out about what tasks the different working groups are carrying out. The suggestion was for two groups to report at each meeting and the AWG were doing a presentation in January 2005. CPD25 are also presenting and it was noted that MH will be presenting on marketing, independent of the working group. Jan Wilkinson from the BL will also be presenting. MH commented that if any group members knew of any marketing initiatives in their libraries then she would be grateful for any information. NM suggested some information on current issues in marketing within SOAS and ML commented on St. Mary's marketing in the community. ML will be doing the AWG presentation and will include details from the 2004 Awareness Survey. Action 4.1 JG to: tell ML when the AWG began; to look up any old web pages that could be used in the presentation; and to put together a display of old flyers, posters, etc.. Action 4.2 ML to: tout for new members, preferably with marketing and copy writing skills, at the January Consortium meeting. 5. M25 Web Statistics SpecificationJG briefly introduced his requirement specification for statistics on usage of the M25 web pages and live services. He explained that the paper was to be discussed at the next Resource Discovery Working Group meeting that afternoon and that he felt it was important to get some qualitative figures for how much the different elements of the website were being used. In bringing the paper to the AWG, JG wished to give members the opportunity to make any general comments and also to see if anyone thought of additional areas of the M25 website that should be included. MH commented that such statistics were essential for reviewing the website. It was also agreed that it would be useful to compare relative usage of different areas of the website. JH suggested that the document could be split more clearly into two parts, one dealing with the static web pages, the other with the live services. She suggested that (the LSE) institutional web statistics software could be used for the static web pages for ease of implementation but that the live service recording would be more specialised. JH also added that there would be benefit in including more 'business case' details as to why the work was necessary, in order to obtain funding for the work. It was noted that data on Access Information web pages ought to be included. Another comment was to monitor everything (within the M25 domain) that was linked to from the Consortium home page, and that the data would inform the website development. 6. Any Other BusinessThere was no other business. 7. Date of Next MeetingFollowing discussion, it was decided that the next meeting would be after January 2005. Minutes by JG/MR |
