Meeting Minutes

Present: Di Martin (chair), Brian Murphy, Sarah Gerrard, Jean Sykes, John Gilby.

Apologies for absence: William Marsterson, Robert Hall, Brendan Casey, Stuart Brownrigg, Denis Heathcote.

1. Minutes of the meeting of 24 March 2003

The minutes were accepted as an accurate record.

2. Matters arising from the minutes

2.1 SENDA/disability issues

JG reported that staff at Middlesex and Westminster had kindly look at sample M25 web pages and tested them. There will be a meeting with Caroline Holbrook of CPD25 to look at the results of the testing to see what needs doing. A decision may be taken not to tackle old documents (eg minutes of meeting going back more than, say, two years). It was noted that Resource are due to publish some guidelines soon, and the LSE Website Manager is working on evaluating various software packages and is keeping JG informed. The group expressed its gratitude to William and Suzanne for allowing their staff to help out. Action: JG to report progress to the next meeting

2.2 Consortium web pages

It was noted that the re-design of the pages is due for completion during 2003/04 as part of the Consortium Action Plan.

2.3 RSLG Report

Noted that the M25 secretary had met with David Mason, who is doing some consultancy for HEFCE on the governance of the proposed RLN.

3. Access Eligibility Tool

SG summarised the major issue which is whether to roll out the version (calling it version 0) as it is, despite its weaknesses, or whether to recommend to the Steering group waiting for further refinements to the tool.

JG reported on progress to date with the short term amendments agreed by the Task Group; most of them have been done, with the rest scheduled to take place in June. Further investigations are being undertaken by Maria Hiscoe and Susan Baker, who have been asked to look at the AET from the user point of view and scope what ideally the user needs to know. It was felt by the Working Group that the results of this study will be important in terms of the further improvements required including the layout and terminology on the AET screens and the content contained on individual library web pages to which the AET currently links. It was suggested that in due course a few M25 libraries could be approached to pilot the improvements to the user perspective and gather real user feedback. The Working Group decided to recommend to the Steering group that the AET eventually change its name, that it can go live now but must be clearly labelled TEST Version, that statement about consulting the local library must be placed more prominently on the screen, that scheme names should be removed from the AET screen, and that when the details of the scoping study are received, SG will email the group and report to the Steering Group meeting on 17 June.

JG and SG were thanked for their efforts on this very complex project. Actions: SG to report to Steering Group; JG to effect the minor changes

4. M25 Systems Team

4.1 Team Report

JG spoke to his written report on the recent work of the team. Surrey are now live on InforM25 and the Find a Library and search catalogues functions are about to go onto the new server. The Bath Profile and WILL tasks are going well and there are small extra funds for WILL work in August and September. A version of WILL is to go live this summer, and Crossnet will be paid to keep WILL going till end of March 2004 initially. A report under the CCInterop Project is being finalised with the results of comparative testing of COPAC as a Z39.50 searchable catalogue against searches made of the individual M25 libraries within COPAC. The conclusions reached are likely to be important for the future development of an UKNUC, and point to significant issues which may have to be faced by individual libraries (in respect of their cataloguing processes) and library suppliers.

Action: JG to send copies of FN's summary to working group members

4.2 Forward funding issues

The working group spent some time discussing the funding issues. There was acknowledgement all round that the team is doing a good ongoing job of keeping InforM25 going, and that considerable effort is needed to deal with new joiners to the Consortium, the small number of original M25 members whose catalogues are still not on InforM25, and the day to day issues that arise in InforM25 participants Z servers etc. Yet it was also acknowledged that the financial commitment of the Consortium to the team is considerable, and that members need to understand what the team does for its money. The possibility of the team offering paid consultancy on Z server and firewall issues to libraries outside the Consortium was suggested, and it was also agreed that the original rule whereby new joiners to the Consortium were automatically expected to join InforM25 should be reconsidered. Not all new joiners have appropriate library systems to join the clump, and the systems team does not have the capacity to add extra libraries each year within the current Consortium financial contribution. Keeping the team fully funded for next year is proving extremely difficult, and it was agreed that the LSE continues to make a considerable contribution in kind to this work through the provision of server support, accommodation, management, etc. Yet everyone agreed that the InforM25 catalogue is the best known of all the M25 successes and is critical to the reputation of the Consortium, and it is not yet near to being overtaken on any scale by such proprietary tools as Metalib and SFX, although it is anticipated that a time will come when it will be superseded (both by UKNUC and by the Metalib type tools).

Action: DM to advise the Steering Group that consideration should be given to new joiners to the Consortium not automatically being required to (or demand to) be linked to InforM25.

5. Forward Action Plan

5.1 Draft Action Plan 2003/04

The Working Group agreed that version 0 of the AET as a test version should be put up on the web soon, and that version 1, following the scoping study, will be launched sometime during the forthcoming academic year.

5.2 Objectives for 2003/04

To carry out the AET work as outlined in 6.1. Also to conduct a survey of members' resource discovery priorities, in order to inform the working group's priorities and forward plan. To maintain InforM25 and ULS. To watch the implications for InforM25 of RSLG/RLN progress. And to have a brainstorming session in December/January on the future of resource discovery, perhaps inviting additional expert participants eg from JISC, Resource and other agencies.

5.3 Objectives for 2004/05

To act on the results of the brainstorming session and continue to keep abreast of both RLN developments and the progress made by products like Metalib.

Action: DM to include these in her report on the work of the RDWG and forward plan for the Steering Group

6. London Connects conference/workshop

The group agreed that InforM25 and AIM25 are the topics to put forward because in both cases the audience will see something demonstrable and of direct relevance beyond the HE sector. Also possibly WiLL

Action: DM to email Suzanne Enright and Robert Hall to recommend these three topics.

7. Date of next meeting

DM will circulate possible dates for October via email.

AL 17.6.03