Friday, October 27, 2000
Members present: Paul Johnson, Matt Wilkerson, Pam Berg, Helen Flynn, Tim Childers, Cheryl Bushnell, Pam Berg from the Illinois State Museum was welcomed to the committee as a new member.
The Web2 interface was discussed with thanks given to Matt and Helen who worked so hard to make all 5 flavors work - "Keys" were sent out to 27 Public Libraries, 14 schools, 3 academics, and 9 special libraries for a total of 53 libraries. Any library who is interested in using the Web2 Interface for their patrons to use in the library or from home should contact Matt Wilkerson and fill out the application form from the website so that he knows which of the 5 choices you want. http://www.rpls.ws/Web2_Interfaces_form.pdf
This interface cannot do everything that the old classic can do and is just for an OPAC (online public access catalog). It is not for cataloging or circulation functions. This is a new product and still somewhat under construction. There have been several suggestions of functions that librarians wish the Web2 could do - some functions one or two people feel would be nice and some that seem extremely important to many people. Some functions we are not quite sure if they behave consistently or not. As this is a product we have made local changes to we may need tweak it some more. One function everyone wants and is being investigated is to See Local Holdings Only - Like we were able to do with Limit by Location on Classic.
Overdues are now able to print on a regular printer at will from the web site. The library does not have to have a special DEC printer and Special Overdue forms. This was important for schools who do not mail out overdues - they can look at them, save them to a file, and edit them. The " Reports" page has sections for Overdue Notices, Expired Request lists, and the weekly updates of the High Demand List - The 16 Most Wanted Books (which each library should be checking to be sure those titles are not on Local Request Only or NON-Request and are should be for 2 week checkout for ILL). The Reports page is at http://www.rpls.ws/dra_reports.htm .
The Firewall installation should be completed before Christmas - it will be installed after some cleanup of cabling is finished and after the new T1 line is in from the Illinois Century Network. The switching of each library to access DRA through the firewall will be done individually and may involve a phone call from Matt to the librarians to lead them step-by-step for any setup changes that need to be done at the library end.
The OBC has been distributed and tested by several libraries. One caution is that a few hours of down time at some libraries may not be worth the hassle if they have few checkouts and returns during that time. A second caution is that if you are down in the morning and use OBC, then come back on line in the afternoon and send the OBC file to RPLS, those changes will not show up until the next day as the file is processed overnight. That does not usually cause any problem unless you try to checkin a book in the afternoon that was checked out that morning on the OBC. Libraries are encouraged to test it out early so that they can be ready in case of a system problem, a line problem, or a local network or local IP problem.
The question of a need for a Tech Committee Tips sheet was discussed and Matt will repeat some of the key "everybody should know" - "just in case you missed it" information in the Tech News sheet.
The next meeting will be Tuesday, November 28.