St. Cloud State University
Atwood Memorial Center, Voyageurs North
9:00 - 10:45 a.m.

Michael Kirby, Convener

Attendance

(In Person): Stephen Elfstrand/PALS, Michael Kirby/Dakota County Technical College, Linda Richter/PALS, Melissa Prescott/St. Cloud State, Keith Ewing/St. Cloud State, Angela Wortham/St. Cloud State, Kathleen Ashe/Southwest MSU, Vi Bergquist /St. Cloud TCC, Thomas Bremer/Winona State, Todd Digby/MnSCU, Larry Kellerman/Central Lakes College, Kevin McGrew/College of St. Scholastica, Bridget Reistad/Lake Superior College, Pam Wible/Central Lakes College

(Via Web): Carrie Curie/MSCTC-Moorhead, Jean Kramer/Minnesota State University Moorhead, Pete McDonnell/Bemidji State University

MINUTES 

1. Introductions; Appoint Secretary

Carrie Curie will be secretary

2. Amend/Adopt Agenda

3. Approval of Minutes from the April 14, 2011 UC/EC Joint Meeting

Minutes Approved

4. Fall 2011 User Group Meeting - set for October 19 at Minnesota State University Moorhead

The User Group Meeting is following the UMWUG Meeting on October 17-18 in Fargo. So far the order for the day has been discussed. 

PALS is thinking of having Ex Libris present on Alma and Primo during a breakout session. 

Business meetings will run for about an hour, and there will be breakout sessions running concurrently.  The next convener call is on Monday, September 19 from 1:30-2:30.

PALS is still looking for breakout session ideas/presenters. Please post them on the forum or send them to a specific UG convener.

5. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Update – Todd Digby

Todd had not arrived yet. His update will be given later in the meeting (see below 7. Workday Planning)

6. PALS Update – Stephen Elfstrand

PALS is still working on being financially responsible. They are marketing Evergreen and have contacts in South Dakota. They are also working on the discovery product.

PALS has increased revenue, and they have some savings from unfilled positions and other expenses that have been cut. They are receiving money from the IMLS grant.

They are starting to use VuFind with other information.

One cost-saving measure is using Minnesota State University, Mankato for servers and PC support. They also renegotiated their rent.

Stephen is planning on visiting PALS institutions in Minneapolis-St. Paul (some of the colleges and state libraries). If you want him to visit, let him know.

PALS plans to replace Mary Ann in about six months. They will also fill a technical position. Michele is leaving PALS, and they will see if Trudy can cover the work.

PALS has booths reserved at the major library association conferences. They will be giving Rapid City, SD a presentation on Evergreen.

PALS is still working on Aleph. There is a technical person familiar with an area supporting reports for that area.

The next service pack will be installed on September 18.

Globe University will be withdrawing from the consortium; they gave their six months notice. Their records will be removed after December 31, 2011. This will result in some lost income.

Aleph version 21

PALS may install version 21 next summer, but they will need to test it once released.

Alma - Software would be leased; Ex Libris would run it. They could not quote a price, yet - not ready for consortion until version 2.1.

Primo Central, SFX, BX, Aleph-in the-Sky. Bx is the recommender. Keith Ewing - Works better for a large consortium.

Marketing Update

Will see if North Dakota wants to swap services expertise - our PALSconnect Linker for their federated search.

ERM - University of Utah and La Crosse are interested. SUSHI is now working.

MnPALS Plus has been worked on. The database will be reindexed in November, then some of the changes will appear. Next projects to be worked on: ILL requests, mobile friendly, ability to turn off Wikipedia and Amazon reviews.

VU Find - worked with St. Olaf and Carlton to customize it for their Bridge Consortium. Luther Seminary and Arrowhead System are interested in an overlay product.

Evergreen - ECRL is up and running. PALS is active in the Evergreen Community and working on contributing help, etc. KCLS Skin is coming, so non-programmers can work on interface.

Fedora/Islandora - Linda Richter

Islandora is from Prince Edward Island University, built on Drupal, and other open source products. This Institutional Repository will not be based on a specific reader/device (i.e. CDs, etc.).

PALS currently has this project on a test server with SOLR, Fedora, and Islandora.  They are looking for an institution with a project (instutional, research, or grant) so they can test this suite.

Stephen - University of Minnesota has picked Fedora and Islandora for their projects

Keith asked for clarification on preservation aspect. Linda responded that the data will be available into the future.

Keith - Fedora is more of a framework. There is a lot of additional work to do. DSpace at University of Minnesota is being moved over to Fedora. St. Cloud State University has asked them about expanding this out as a state-wide service. Working to structure the separate parts (research information, institutional content, born digital content) of the repository which may present challenges.

Linda - PEIU/Discovery Garden company has ten developers on staff to develop this product.

Keith wanted to know if Islandora has granularity on embargoes, etc. Linda responded that it does because it will work at the institution level.

Steven let us know that a proposal has been sent to the Chancellor. It lists services PALS would like to improve centrally. This would provide these services to all MnSCU institutions. Phase two of the plan includes working with EBSCO’s API for XML (Primo uses it). Phase 3 has an Open Journal System (an component of Islandora) and Digital Preservation product.

Single Sign-On

Keith wanted to know about the status of single sign-on to Aleph services. Stephen responded that Aleph could use PDS authentication which would go to Aleph data or LDAP. It can only be turned on for all, not one at a time. That could mean working with 63 LDAP servers. He wondered about the development of StarID.

Keith responded that StarID is still being developed. He said St. Cloud State University can locally do their own single sign on. He is also wondering what PALS is doing to develop statistics on linkage. St. Cloud State University was concerned about privacy, but they really need this data to measure effectiveness. Institutionally, they want to find affinities for students: same high school, library usage, etc.

Stephen said that Aleph could look at majors of users, as filled in on the patron records. He brought up concerns about on campus access, because that does need patron information.

Keith said St. Cloud State University can trace this on campus by who logs on to the computer. Also, they are going to have Wittenberg visit and will discuss their practices. Right now, they follow University of Minnesota’s model for a minimum number of students that need to use/register for something to actually examine data. University of Minnesota uses five, St. Cloud State University uses ten. Otherwise, they do not look at the data-it may be too easily traced back to a specific student.

Films on Demand

Steven said DCTC and Al will be working on adding Reference Collection records for Films on Demand. Riverland, Concordia, and Hennepin TC have added their holdings to records by working with PALS.

Keith asked for clarification on whether PALS is buying or harvesting the records. Stephen said the records will be harvested and put in MnPALS Plus. PALS will load/maintain the records, but they need to know how to format each institution’s URLs for the records they need their holdings attached to. Films on Demand needs account number as part of the URL. Institutions like Normandale are loading them their own way because they need to for Serials Solution or some other product.

Keith wanted to know if the facet is coming from the bib record. Stephen said it’s coming from the collection code. The method Al used to load these can be used by other collection sets.

LibGuides

Stephen said 15 PALS institutions subscribe individually, right now. They may give us a small discount (probably around 5%), if PALS could get a few more libraries (probably 10-20). PALS would have to be the central billing point, and then bill the other institutions.

Melissa said St. Cloud State University has been trying to prioritize needed fields for users. Their development work would allow institutions to easily change interface. Right now, they are working with developers at the University of Minnesota.

Keith said 23 MnSCU schools go through St. Cloud State. One of the key problem an institution would encounter is that a PHP programmer is needed, but pairing it with Drupal reduces that need. Some options for getting around the backend problems are taking the APIs into a Drupal front-end, or a wholesale overhaul.

Melissa said there is great interest in developing this easier to use way. They are working on a mobile interface for the subject guides. Let Melissa, Keith, or Gordy know if you are interested in helping them test this.

Research Calculator (different from the Assignment Calculator ELM uses)

Keith said Research Calculator now requires a secure server. It would probably be better to have a MnSCU address with a generic logo, instead of pointing to SCS. They will work with Todd to see what can be done.

Melissa said one of the improved features is the ability to have multiple templates for differing assignments.

Keith said the template would be on the front-end for whoever needs to use it. Assignment Calculator would need these changes on the back-end (with PHP).

7. Workday Planning 2012

Tabled until after Fall UG meeting.

5) Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Update – Todd Digby

MnSCU allotments came through. They should be disbursed to the campuses this week or next. The PALS bills will be following.

Larry Litecky is now the interim VP for Academic Affairs. One of Chancellor Rosenstone’s top priorities is to have Academic Affairs go through a year-long strategic planning process. Also, there are three Associate Vice-Chancellors now, instead of five.

Todd will be working as Director of Academic Technology (D2L), but will still be in charge of libraries. Media streaming is one his upcoming projects. Faculty will be able to use it to put videos in D2L. One thing that will be looked at the first few years is bandwidth. Also this is not really a high-quality storage solution.

Somebody asked about copyright. Todd responded that nobody will be monitoring what faculty put up. There will be questions, as they upload to make sure that copyright is not being violated.

Keith had a question regarding the MOU between MnSCU and University of Minnesota and whether the intent was to keep the two systems fairly similar. Todd answered that yes, they want to keep the two systems similar. University of Minnesota will just tie theirs in to Moodle, while MnSCU instututions use D2L. Otherwise, the product should remain at similar stages. Send any other concerns about MOU language to Penny Dickhudt.

Keith wondered how will the metadata protect faculty/staff videos. Todd said Gary Hunter will be monitoring the project, but they understand this is important. Todd will be taking over as primary project manager from Penny Dickhudt (who is retiring in December).

Currently Chancellor Rosenstone is reading all of the suggestions coming his way.

8. MnPALS Futures Interest Group Update – Michael Kirby

There was a conference call on Friday, September 2.

One of their top priorities is to show the correlation between student success and library use.

In November, there will be a Future of Education Conference Call.

9. User Council Report to the Executive Committee

Michael will provide a summary for User Council.

10. Other/Adjourn

Motion: Pete (?), Seconded: Angela

Adjourned at 10:50 am.

User Council Meetings:
November 10, Web Only
February 9, Web Only
April 12, St. Cloud State University (Joint UC/EC and Annual Meeting)

User Group Meeting:
October 19, Minnesota State University Moorhead

Draft Agenda

Adobe Connect meeting: https://umconnect.umn.edu/ucec090811/
Conference Call Phone Number: 507-389-1014

Maps, Directions

Visitor Parking Information

Framework for User Council and Executive Committee Meetings

1. Introductions; appoint secretary

2. Amend/Adopt Agenda

3. Approval of Minutes from the UC/EC Joint Meeting on April 14, 2011

4. Fall 2011 User Group Meeting

• Set for October 19 at Minnesota State University Moorhead
• Schedule for the day
• General session topics, topics for user groups and breakout sessions

5. MnSCU Update - Todd Digby

6. PALS Update - Stephen Elfstrand

• PALS staff update
• Aleph Version 21
• Marketing update
• Global changes
• Digital Resource Subscriptions
• LibGuides

7. Workday Planning 2012

8. MnPALS Futures Interest Group Update - Michael Kirby

9. User Council Report to the Executive Committee

• User Group Meeting
• Other

10. Other/Adjourn