Resource Discovery Meeting Minutes

1. Welcome, Apologies and Membership Update

Present: William Marsterson (Chair), Catriona Cannon, Liz Chapman, John Gilby (Minutes), Robert Kiley, Jean Sykes.

Apologies for absence: Stewart Brownrigg, Robert Hall, Di Martin, Brian Murphy.

WM welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Robert Kiley who was joining the group from the Wellcome Library.

2. Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the previous meeting held on 3 December 2004 were approved.

3. Action Update and Matters Arising

Actions from the previous meeting are summarised below:

• Action 2.1 Complete, WM had recruited a new group member.
• Action 6.1 Complete, DM had submitted a paper to the Steering Group about standardising texts on the Visit-a-library tool which had then gone to the January 2005 Consortium Meeting where approval was granted for the editing to take place.
• Action 7.1 Complete, JS/JG had informed the group the the Perseus Team at the LSE were able to undertake the statistics and web logging work.
• Action 10.1 Complete, DM had sent a draft Invitation to Tender for discussion by the group (See Item 5 below).
• Action 13.1 Complete, JG had arranged room bookings for the meetings.

4. M25 Systems Team Manager's Report

JG highlighted key points from his report covering the period from 27 November 2004 to 24 February 2005. These are listed below:

• There have been 8 new web pages and 13 edits to existing pages during the period
• Assistance has been given to the temporary CPD25 Administrator with the CPD25 website
• Throughout the m25lib.ac.uk and cpd25.ac.uk domains all email addresses are now encoded to prevent them being recognised by spamming robots
• There were 22 updates on Find-a-library following review
• Encouragingly, only 4 M25 members had yet to respond regading the Find-a-library review
• As agreed, standard texts on Visit-a-library are in the process of being implemented and UKLP data is now standardised.
• Brighton had been added to Search-catalogues
• Sussex and TVU will be added to Search-catalogues soon
• Kew is under test and will also be added soon
• Problems with some searches at Kew and NHM have recently been resolved
• Liaison with Talis has enabled a standard identifier search on Talis Prism Z-servers
• Testing of Talis and Unicorn sites has shown that many of the Z-servers can accept Bath compliant search types. This has prompted some work in defining an M25 Bath sub-set which will be implemented over the next few months.
• Work in making the transfer of ULS data more secure continues
• There were over 200 communications dealt with over the reporting period and the average time-to-fix was under 2 days

WM raised a query regarding why the membership of the ULS remained as the University of London libraries plus Westminster. In reply JG commented that technically, there was no reason why other libraries could not be included. WM appreciated that some effort would be required to add further members but suggested that the issue be considered again at a later date.

LC handed JG some comments from UCL staff about the ULS which were gratefully received. All agreed that this showed that the ULS was being used and the importance of developing the usage statistics.

JG reported that the usage statistics work was progressing but slower than originally thought due to the availability of project staff. It was anticipated that the work would be completed by mid-April. In connection with this work it had become apparent that it would be beneficial to change the Z-client used by Search-catalogues and the ULS. A newer Z-client would make adding the logs easier, speed up searches and make maintenance easier in the future. Any costs associated with this work would be covered by the current Systems Team budget. The group approved of these changes.

JG had carried out a survey of M25 libraries' interest of making Search-catalogues both an OpenURL 'target' and accessible via Z39.50. Fourteen replies had been received (from the membership of 52) and all were supportive of these developments. There was a slight preference for the Z39.50 access. Action 4.1 JG to look at costing the OpenURL and Z39.50 Access developments.

5. Potential Future Resource Discovery Developments for M25

WM introduced this item by reminding the group that there were a number of different areas of resource discovery and most were assigned to individuals to keep a watching brief on developments to inform the group. As previous chair, DM had coordinated the 2004 survey among M25 libraries to begin to look at what M25 wishes to do in the future and what the Consortium would like to pay for. WM comented that the Consortium has a number of services that are used and respected so it was an important issue as to what to do next as the M25 Steering Group will need to know.

JS reminded everyone that Consortium funding for the Systems Team was agreed to July 2006 but that some of the funds were put aside as a contingency. She suggested that it was unlikely that there would be 'the next big idea' within the timescale of funding and all agreed that future funding for the Team needs to be discussed in a timely manner.

WM further commented that the Systems Team had its origins in a JISC funded project (M25 Link 1998-2001) and that this led on to the M25 services that the Consortium was benefitting from. M25 Link also led to other related project work both from JISC and externally. It was felt that the Consortium should not let go of resources that may be useful in the future. All agreed that technology and its take-up was moving forward more slowly than originally envisaged, for example:

• SUNCAT, although now launched has a long way to go until all ULS libraries are contained
• National Catalogue, ongoing delays but there is still potential for a JISC funded programme of work
• Uptake of resource discovery type products has been less than anticipated and where installed, there is the desire to link to InforM25 rather than configure individual library catalogues to be searched

The issues will be discussed further at the next meeting.

The group briefly looked at the draft Invitation to Tender by DM resulting from the earlier work with the group's survey during 2004. It was agreed that after finalising the document, it would be sent out to the four potential bidders suggested. Once tenders were received, they would be passed around the group and ranked to get concensus of which one would be successful.
Action 5.1 WM to send draft to meeting non-attendees and invite comments.
Action 5.2 JG to seek RDWG budget for this academic year and inform WM.

6. SHERPA-LEAP Update

WM began discussions on this item by commenting that there was interest within Consortium libraries on institutional repositories: the current SHERPA-LEAP Project, the recent JISC call, interest expressed at the January Consortium meeting and other individual mails from M25 libraries. It was felt appropriate that these issues be discussed by the group. LC gave a report on the status of SHERPA-LEAP and its plans for the future including partnership in SHERPA DP and ShibboLEAP. CC outlined KCL's view and WM summarised points made by interested Consortium members.

RK outlined what work Wellcome are doing in this area and commented that from their perspective, there needs to be more emphasis on longer-term preservation (5 years plus) of the items deposited. WM also summarised a mail from Maureen Wade (M25 Secretary) about possible future Consortium involvement in a regional depository. An extended discussion took place about how best to proceed and it was agreed that UCL should take the lead in future activities on behalf of the Consortium. Action 6.1 LC to take ideas discussed back to UCL to prepare details for next M25 Steering Group Meeting.

7. Google Update

JS gave a verbal update on recent discussions held with Google. After a bit of delay in sorting out mutually convenient times, a phone call took place between JS, JG, John Paschoud (LSE) and Celeste Chung of Google. Google had not realised that InforM25 worked using Z39.50 and had assumed that it was a single catalogue. It became obvious that InforM25 was not quite what Google were after but they were interested in Copac. There has not been and there is unlikley to be any further contact but it was appreciated that Google approached M25 in the first instance.

8. Advocacy Working Group Update

JG updated the group on the web review activities of the Advocacy Workig Group (AWG). It was noted that there may be a role for the AWG with possible repositories projects.

9. AOB

JG informed the group that he had been approached by a library system vendor regarding some Z39.50 related work. He was awaiting further details as to the exact scope of the work. The first priority of the Systems Team is to M25 tasks however there might be possibilities for obtaining additional effort for M25 tasks so releasing JG for consultancy work. JS commented that this was what the Systems Team's role was always envisaged to be. The group approved the idea in principle.

10. Future Meetings

The next meeting is 20 May 2005, Room R301, LSE Library. Action 10.1 JG/WM to sort out an additional meeting date via email.

J Gilby 8 March 2005