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| Resource Discovery 18 November 2005 |
Resource Discovery Meeting Minutes1. Welcome and Apologies for AbsencePresent: William Marsterson (Chair - WM), Stewart Brownrigg (SB), Catriona Cannon (CC), John Gilby (Minutes - JG), Robert Hall (RH), Brian Murphy (BM), Maureen Wade (MW). Apologies for absence: Liz Chapman (EAC), Di Martin (DM), WM welcomed everyone to the meeting including MW having taken the place of Jean Sykes (LSE) who had stood down. It was noted that Robert Kiley (Wellcome) had also stood down from the group. 2. Approval of MinutesThe minutes from the previous meeting held on 30 September 2005 were considered accurate and approved. Comments from Jean Sykes who was in attendance at the previous meeting were also noted by the group. 3. Action Update and Matters ArisingActions from the previous meeting held on 30 September 2005 are summarised below:
There were no other matters arising. 4. M25 Systems Team ReportJG highlighted issues from his report and commented that the new M25 server had recently been delivered and that installation would begin soon. Other highlights from the report are:
JG commented that recently, Systems Team effort had been directed towards the on-going websites review. It had been decided to adopt an open source Content Management System (CMS) for the M25 business pages and for CPD25. It was planned that the CMS would be the first thing to be installed on the new M25 server, ready for continued work on the new websites. Usage statistics for the business pages would be looked at further once details of the CMS were known. JG showed 'visits' graphs generated in Excel from data exported from Webalizer for the four services (see previous meeting Action 4.1). Data was from June 2003 to September 2005. Find-a-library data showed a similar pattern of visits to Search-catalogues but with a steeper (positive) trendline and showing more visits at weekends and during holiday periods. For Visit-a-library, the graph was plotted from when the system went live in December 2003. Generally there were not many visits logged but this is arguably to be expected. Overall the trend was slightly downward (ie negative). A Peak shows up on Visit-a-library on 4th August 2005 which corresponds to the day institutions were asked to check their data!
A previous action was to look at plotting just the four trendlines. JG suggested that rather than plotting the (Excel calculated) straight lines, he looked at plotting a weekly 'visits' totals for each service as this would remove the weekend "troughs" but still show shorter term trends such as holiday periods. A straight trendline could also be added to these plots similar to before. This suggestion was agreed. Concern was expressed by group members regarding delays to the usage statistics work due to staff effort being directed towards the website re-designs. In a related discussion, it was agreed that it would be beneficial to look into how InforM25 was promoted by M25 institutions, e.g. where can links be found on library websites, etc.. 5. Update on M25 Websites Re-design and Potential Future Promotion of InforM25As reported earlier, the M25 business pages and CPD25 websites would be created using a CMS. Currently, the CMS is installed on a server operated by the website re-design company and content was being migrated. It is planned to present the new look websites at the January Consortium meeting and also to show what InforM25 might look like. A set of three logos had been finalised, a revised Consortium logo plus 'family related' logos for CPD25 and InforM25. Similarly it was planned that the three domains and websites will have a family resemblance. From the previous meeting (Action 7.1) JG had designed a draft home page for inform25.ac.uk. This received favourable comments. JG explained that talking to some other M25 staff, it made more sense from a user's perspective to include (static web page) information about accessing M25 libraries in the Visit-a-library area of the website. This was agreed subject to the search tool still being prominent. BM enquired whether establishing a CMS on the M25 server and its subsequent use for the websites would take up more of JG's time. In reply, JG commented that there would be a learning curve associated with the CMS but that once familiar with the system, it should make editing web pages much easier and quicker. Having a CMS would also give the option of allowing other M25 representatives to edit and publish content. JG then presented some ideas and future issues concerning the InforM25 user interfaces and ways in which the services worked, including:
Once the InforM25 web page re-design is completed, JG suggested that a promotion campaign could be carried out. A number of ideas were suggested, including a CPD25 training event, getting help from the Advocacy WG and a launch or 'big splash' at the June 2006 AGM. There was a need to reach (M25) librarians directly but also to promote the services wider to academics who would in turn, feed details of the services to the students. 6. Future InforM25 Development/ExpansionWM spoke about the limited response he had obtained in asking the M25 membership for suggestions of institutions to 'enrich' Search-catalogues. It was suggested that further ideas be sought from the IMA focus group participants. Also, it was thought that some bodies would like their collections on the service to make them more visible but this needs to be balanced with the benefits to the user of adding catalogues.
Action 6.1 WM to mail IMA focus group attendees for further suggestions of catalogues to consider adding to Search-catalogues. WM read out an email from DM regarding catalogue enrichment and possible reasons for the limited response from M25 members. DM suggested giving thought to delivering access to full text digital resources and this was discussed by the group. It was agreed that there was a need to keep in mind the end user in system design and where possible/feasible, the aim would be to link to full text. Following further discussion, it was agreed as beneficial to carry on talking to the LLDA about resource discovery issues. 7. Funding for Systems Team for 2006 and Beyond
WM presented his previously circulated draft funding bid that was planned to go to the December Steering Group meeting and thence the January 2006 full Consortium meeting. A small number of changes and additions were suggested by the group. 8. Advocacy WG Update and e-BulletinJG commented that he had written a short note about the IMA report for the November e-Bulletin and also mentioned recent work of the Advocacy Working Group. Additionally, an article written by Fraser Nicolaides on the attempt to link InforM25 to AIM25 had been published in the recent issue of Vine (Vol.35 Iss.3), and DM's article on InforM25 had also been published in the New Review of Academic Librarianship (Vol.10 No.2). RH noted that he had recently had a paper about the Consortium published in Polish. WM commented that the group should be raising awareness of InforM25 throughout the UK for potential users who may visit London. The group briefly discussed an idea for some form of article for a journal like the CILIP or SCONUL Newsletter. 9. AOB
JG informed the group that occasionally requests are received for additions to the M25 subject list. The list has not been revised for some years and would benefit from revision, particularly as it does not adequately cover the newer M25 member's collections. JG noted that he had compiled a 'Wish List' of subject terms to consider. 10. Future MeetingsFriday 3 March 2006 in the LSE Library, room R301 at 2pm. J Gilby, 23 November 2005. |
