Migration for the Eta libraries is moving along on schedule. Five more weeks of training remain for these libraries. Additional post STP WebMeeting refresher sessions will be offered to this group of libraries on each module. Watch for announcements regarding refresher training opportunities on the Aleph Migration list.
Down time for libraries in production now will be from Thursday, April 13 at 5:00 pm until Monday, April 24.
Aleph ILL training is under way. Training classes are announced on the Aleph Migration list and are posted on the PALS homepage under the Training & Workshops link www.pals.msus.edu/pals/workshops.html.
ALEPH Advanced Systems Class XSL Report Configuration Workshop is scheduled for the Epsilon/Zeta libraries on March 21, 22 & 23, 2006. For details check out the PALS homepage link for Training & Workshops www.pals.msus.edu/pals/workshops.html.
Aleph ILL
The first group of libraries received training on Aleph ILL on February 17 and went live on February 27.
There are six groups of libraries identified for the most part by geographic region. Training will begin in earnest on March 13th with the second group.
This second group of MnPALS ALEPH libraries will begin to use ALEPH Interlibrary loan to accept interlibrary loan requests from their patrons and exchange interlibrary loan requests using ALEPH interlibrary loan beginning on Tuesday, March 14th.
The Second group of MnPALS ALEPH ILL libraries is Crown College, Department of Transportation, Minnesota Attorney General, Pollution Control, Department of Revenue, Department of Employment and Economic Development, St Mary's University Winona and Twin Cities, Department of Natural Resources, University Center Rochester, Legislative Reference Library
Training will occur approximately every two weeks with the goal of having all of the MnPALS libraries trained and in production on Aleph ILL by mid May of 2006.
Each library will be asked to attend a half day Webmeeting and one full day of in-person training. Please see the "Aleph ILL Training/Production Schedule" www.pals.msus.edu/aleph/illtrain200602.html for full details of projected training dates and which libraries are included in each training group.
Impact of Aleph ILL in production on the MnPALS OPAC. Please check out the following link to the PALS homepage for the document that fully outlines this www.pals.msus.edu/aleph/ill20060224.html.
Registration information for each group will be posted to the Aleph Migration list. Please watch for these postings. There will be a separate posting for each group.
PALS eDesk
Trudy has completed the project to assign appropriate sub-products to all of the Aleph answers in the eDesk knowledge base.
Cathy and Susan meet with Kyle and Frank to begin to explore what needs to be done to turn on rules in RightNow. This allows support requests to be automatically assigned to a support specialist.
Trudy has completed the backlog entry of what libraries and library staff have been trained on specific modules of Aleph. As additional trainings are provided Trudy will keep this information up to date.
PALS eDesk Tips:
Attachments - To view an attachment associated with an eDesk request you need to actually go to the eDesk. Log on to the eDesk and then open your question. The attached documents can be found linked to your support request down toward the bottom of the page.
One incident per submission - Please send in only one topic per support request, this will allow us to get answers back to you more efficiently.
Answer feedback - We really like it when you provide answer feedback to us, it helps us refine these answers so they really target the information you are looking for. When you use the Answer feedback option of the eDesk please share as much information as possible about how the answer could be improved.
Task Forces Authorities Task Force
February 17th meeting:
They are looking for more information on the authority enhancements that will be coming in version 18.
Display issues:
link field (781) now appearing in geographic place names (see - Lake of the Woods);
changed label "Public Note" in browse list to "General Note" to coordinate with display in authority record.
field labels in GUI Full+Link and Name Tag views in authority records will be changed to be the same.
Changed to one meeting per month.
March 7th meeting:
The group reviewed a sampling of SYS19, rejected authority records, and helped determine why they are being rejected
Group Convener Anne Levin will be presenting on the Authorities panel at the March 7th Regional ExLibris User group meeting. For complete information of the above meetings go to their web board at: http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=17
Indexing Task Force
February 6th meeting:
This meeting was held with the PALS administration and Todd Digby, MnSCU Systems Librarian.
User Council is asking that each User Group review the charges of their task forces.
PALS will test the indexing of SYS01 fixed fields, assess the overhead this indexing will require, and report back to MITF.
MITF will study and discuss the indexing of SYS60 (holding records) and then educate and promote the consortium on MARC Format Holdings Data (MFHD) and promot its use.
MITF will note the changes on the new MINITEX/MSL Indexing standards with our current indexes and then notify PALS to make those changes.
February 27th meeting:
Need a joint meeting with MnPALS Access Task Force (MATF)
Will recommend to Cataloging User Group that 650 #7 subfield $2 be added to browse index to allow browse searching on thesauri other than LSCH ... would allow for local subject themes;
tab_type_config
definitions need some tweaking before ver. 17 re-indexing,
need to address the order of the types in the table list,
discuss necessity of this in the OPAC at a joint Cat/Ref meeting;
Asked PALS to send a message to all libraries that they could add, change or delete logical bases before re-indexing occurs with the new load of migrated libraries ... due to PALS by March 31st.
Fuse Talk (web board) use by Task Forces - The new web board system (FuseTalk) is up and running. All members of these groups are now communicating, posting meeting agendas and minutes to the new system. MnPALS librarians can now access these boards to read conference posts made to the agenda/minutes, discussion, policies/procedures, and completed work areas. These are the web addresses for each group:
Consortium of MnPALS Libraries Spring User Group Meeting Planning for Spring 2006 User Groups is well underway. PALS staff have met with the User Group Convenors via conference call to plan and prepare for these meetings.
Dates: Thursday, April 20th and Friday, April 21st.
Where: St. Cloud State University, Atwood Memorial Center.
Call for agendas have been posted on various discussion lists, deadline to get agenda items to User Group Convenors is March 20.
Registration announcement will be posted to the PALS discussion list on March 13th.
MnLINK Gateway Update
The first group of libraries to begin using Aleph ILL has been pointed to the Aleph server for authentication via the MnLINK Gateway (ZPORTAL) and the "Get It" button now transfers requests into Aleph ILL.
We have had the "Get It" button removed from ZPORTAL for Pioneerland, in preparation for their move to their new ILS, Innovative Interfaces. Pioneerland will begin using VDX for interlibrary loan near the end of March.
Issues in process:
Adding a link from "My Requests" in ZPORTAL to direct the patron into the user interface of the ILL module in PALS or Aleph, so they can check the status of their requests there. MnLINK is pursuing this with Fretwell-Downing, the vendor.
Getting the password field to be case insensitive for Aleph users in ZPORTAL. Ex Libris is working on this issue and a fix is pending.
Changing the mapping from the ELM databases in ZPORTAL, so that the year is in a separate field to aid in tracking copyright compliance.
Learning Management RightNow -
Activity for the RightNow implementations continues to increase. In February Kyle and Frank conducted implementation training for the eFolio interface. The six-month tune-up meetings took place for the MSU Mankato and the Anoka-Ramsey Community College interfaces; both of which received positive feedback from the local administrators at the respective campuses. A RightNow demonstration was held at Normandale Community College which resulted in Normandale allocating funding for an interface expected to be rolled out in the fall.
FuseTalk Forums -
Testing and implementation of the FuseTalk forums continues on daily basis. The email notification problem experienced by the Office of the Chancellor staff who use GroupWise was resolved. Kyle is now focusing much of his time on developing independent branding templates on a forum-by-forum basis. Rod is continuing to work on the release of the chat module.
Meeting/Training/Workshop Attendance
Using Microsoft Word 2003 for Multi-Page Documents - February 1, Michele
Using MavDISK - February 1, Michele
Aleph Acquisitions Training - February 7-9, Becky, Dan & Dee
Aleph Acquisitions Training - February 14-16, Becky
MINITEX Forum - February 8, Perry
Aleph Course Reserve WebMeeting Training - February 8, Mary Ann, Cathy & Susan
MnLINK/MINITEX ILL Subcommittee Meeting - February 9, Susan
Aleph ILL WebMeeting Setup Training - February 10 & March 6, Sonja & Susan
RightNow Implementation, ARC - February 10, Kyle
eFolio Implementation - February 16, Kyle
MnSCU Webmasters Meeting - February 16, Perry
Aleph ILL Functional Training - February 17, Sonja & Susan
CISCO Training - February 20-24, Dan & Paul
NDC RightNow Demonstration - February 23, Kyle
Perceptions... OCLC seminar held by MINITEX - February 28, Becky
Aleph Serials Training - February 28-March 2, Dee & Cathy
Aleph Tables Training - March 7-9, Becky, Susan & Dan
Ex Libris Regional Meeting - March 7-8, Cathy, Mary Ann, Sonja & Perry
RightNow Agent Training for MWW - February, 6-7, Kyle
Questions?
Please send any questions regarding the Support & Training Report to http://pals.custhelp.com/
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