PROSPECTOR CATALOG/REFERENCE COMMITTEE

APRIL 22, 2004

 

PRESENT:  Cynthia Wilson, Wendy Baia, Lois Jones, Pam Blome, Sarah Stein, Mary Walsh, Mary Beth Chambers, Gwen Gregory, Florence Jones, Janet Lee, Joan Beam, Terry Lewis, Barbara Allen.

 

  1. Minutes. The March 2004 minutes were approved -- no additions or corrections.

 

  1. Announcements.  Cynthia handed out George’s update on the following items:
    1. Endeavor Libraries. The problem that was preventing the resending of CSM records to Prospector has been solved, and updating the CSM database will resume within the next week.
    2. New Server. Prospector’s new server had some serious hardware problems requiring the replacement of the motherboard.  While the system appears more stable now, Alliance staff want to run it for another week or so to make sure all is well.
    3. Denver Public Library. Phase I programming to redo the interface between DPL/CARL and Prospector is finished. Records are now updated within hours rather than days and fulfillment ratios have risen from 50% to 75% in the last month. Discussions with III are continuing to determine whether extra IP ports to handle DPL updates can be obtained.  So far III has only done this for III sites, and there may be some development and other costs on the III side to do it for a non-III site.
    4. Center for Research Libraries. Still discussing, no agreement signed.

 

  1. IUG Enhancement Process. From Florence & Gwen. There were two sessions. Circulation first, then Cataloging.  Next year the selection process will be conducted online rather than at the annual IUG meeting.  Prospector requests didn’t fare very well. Nos. 43 (Patron view local record) and no. 44 (Clearer delineation of holdings display) were moved into the General & Other Category where they got a two rating, four being the highest.  No enhancement request got a four. Our other suggestions, nos. 45-46, were thrown out, and No. 47 also moved to General as a web OPAC enhancement.  The two highest requests were No. 19 (Display 945 tag) and No. 40 (Record matching and merging the 019). Cynthia will check to see if results of the voting have been posted yet, and report to the list. Cynthia thanked Florence and Gwen for carrying the torch for us. 

 

  1. Web Redesign. The Web Redesign Task Force met on March 29, and again on April 29.  At the March meeting the Prospector database was moved to cascading style sheets format allowing Task Force members to view and test.  Individual Prospector libraries can also view their own catalogs in cascading style sheet format by removing the last slash in their OPAC address and typing :2082. George has now turned this on for Prospector so local libraries can also see and test it.  The good news is that the Task Force found icons on DPL records where DPL was the only holding library.  The question still: Where is this information coming from since DPL/CARL bibs don’t have the III Mat Type. The Task Force recommended that the “miner” be retained; that the basic spectrum colors (cream and tan) will stay the same but a lighter shade; and that an AVS-type search screen take the place of the default main menu screen with drop down boxes used to choose/refine a search. With the Millennium Silver release (CU-Boulder is a beta test site) libraries will have the ability to break up style sheets into 30 parts. Each part could be assigned a different color to dress up the browse screens. Joan recommended looking at Portland Community College Libraries catalog via CS-Direct. They were awarded the most Innovative web OPAC.  And the new CSU/Sage AVS screen uses four search boxes with drop down menus.  The TF will look at the use of graphical buttons and shopping cart icons, and bring  recommendations to the Committee. A testpac will be set up for committee members and library staffs to view and comment on before any general release.

 

  1. Material Type Mapping. The discussion involved two separate issues: the ability to limit by format in Prospector and the ability to display icons on the Prospector browse screens. Responses from members present varied from in favor to against mostly dividing along public vs. academic library lines.  If there was any consensus: most libraries seemed to feel that they would not be interested unless DPL (and the other non-III sites?) could be included and that limiting by format in Prospector must work really well even if the formats listed were far fewer than what an individual library had mapped.  Cynthia will ask III the following questions: (1) Where is III getting the information to show icons in the cascading sheet display: Is it hard coded? (2) How would Inn-Reach handle the DPL display? (3) Can we change the Prospector label names for Material Type? (4) Is the limit feature in the local catalog carried up to Prospector? (5) Can we turn off the limit feature if we don’t like it? (6) Can we get an updated list of BCode values from III? (7) What would happen if a local library wanted to change or add a new BCode 2 value locally and how would that change be mapped to Prospector? (8) Limit by date before and after does not work.  Can it be fixed locally or can III fix, and how?

 

  1. May 20 Meeting. Our next meeting will be a workshop on serials management systems: SFX, Gold Rush, and SerialsSolutions.  There will be time following the demos for discussing issues and troubleshooting problems.  The meeting will be held at Auraria Libraries, Room 245, 1:00-4:00 pm.  RSVP (one-two people) to Cynthia Wilson, cwilson@jefferson.lib.co.us by May 1.  No regular business meeting at this session.

 

  1. NetLibrary.  When Lois discovered that access had not been turned off to all the NetLibrary records from the list that George handed out at the March meeting, she e-mailed David Wagner (NetLibrary), but he never responded.  These  titles should not have been sent to consortia and are not available for purchase. Each library will go ahead and delete these bibs from their local catalogs.  Joan will ask George when we can expect the next quarterly update.  Wendy/CU-B will ignore the number discrepancies in the first quarterly load removal.