Meeting Notes

June 20th, 2007

9-noon at Macalester College

 

 

Present: Kathy Blough (St. Olaf), Dave Collins (Macalester), Julie Gilbert (Gustavus), Eric Hinsdale (Carleton), Iris Jastram (Carleton), Sarah Johnston (St. Olaf), Jim Parsons (CSBSJU), Dave Wuolu (CSBSJU), Ann Zawistoski (Carleton)

 

Absent: Natalie Wall (St. Olaf)

 

Note Taker: Iris Jastram

 

Notes on the day’s discussion:

• Elected Jim Parsons as chair and Iris Jastram as note-taker
• Dave Collins reported on a planning project that CLIC is undertaking.  They are exploring the relationships between their catalog, their community, and learning.
• Jim Parsons reported that MnPALS has also instituted a discovery tool taskforce. This taskforce did a survey which found that people think the catalog is difficult to use, but as far as enhancements go, people really only latched on to federated search and Open URL compliance as solutions to their problems.  They are also identifying features that they can add on to their OPAC to make it more useful (such as LibraryThing for Libraries).
• Discussed the charge from the MnObe directors to determine what we thought it asked us to do and how best to accomplish that.  Decided to draft a document listing our foundational principles and some strategies for moving our library’s toward some kind of major change over the next 3-5 years.
  • Decided to think in terms of “what students/faculty can do from home” with the idea that the system would either have to be flexible enough to satisfy librarian needs or be equipped with an interface that works for advanced/complex searching.
  • What is a “catalog”?  It’s not just for information about printed material and some material (like musical) needs specialized search tools.
  • Decided not to  come up with a feature list (will be out of date and possibly confining).
  • After presenting this document, people will have a better idea of what we need to do next, so we’ll hold off on developing a committee until this document is approved for action.

• Questions to ponder:
  • How do our needs differ from those of large universities, and what can we learn from the experiments they’re doing with discovery tools (i.e. Endeca and WorldCat Local).
  • We will never have as much money as the big web companies to pay for research and development.
  • How much local work is important for the service we provide, and what are the tradeoffs if we move to aggregate data (like in WorldCat)?
  • Where does Google Print figure into this discussion?  For that matter, how do other paid and free resources figure into this discussion?
  • Will Mellon or another funding source be able to help us in this venture?