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Consortium of MnPALS Libraries
Annual Meeting
Support and Training Services Report
April 11, 2006 |
Cathy Kolbinger
A summary of activities in the Support and Training Services area since the 2005 Annual meeting.
Support Services
In October, 2005 the PALS Customer Support eDesk migrated from Clientele to the RightNow Technologies software. The new eDesk went live on October 17 and has been well received by the PALS libraries. Due to the migration from old to new, the statistics available this year are from November 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006.
Even as the level of Aleph expertise of the PALS Support Staff grows daily we have discovered that more time is required to answer questions. Problem resolution for Aleph is much more complex in general than what we have experienced in the past.
In the tables below it is estimated that the numbers are under-reported by at least 20 percent. Efforts to direct libraries to the eDesk are improving but not at the 100 percent level. We continue to encourage staff from our libraries to enter requests into the eDesk.
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eDesk Service Summary
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Date
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Searches of End User Pages
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Answers Viewed
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*Sessions
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Support Requests via the eDesk
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Nov. 05
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202
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633
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865
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190
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Dec. 05
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797
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475
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1026
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219
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Jan. 06
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1490
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1039
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1581
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348
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Feb. 06
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1072
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751
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1521
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351
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Mar. 06
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920
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537
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1581
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341
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Total
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4481
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3435
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6574
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1449
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*End-user session starts when an end-user visits any end-user page and ends when a log off or time out (1 hour) has occurred.
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Support Requests by Organization Type (Email, eDesk, Phone)
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Interval
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Community Colleges
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Consolidated Colleges
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Private Colleges
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Public & K-12 Libraries
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Special Libraries
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State Gov’t Libraries
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State Universities
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Technical Colleges
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Nov. 05
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40
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30
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31
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6
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35
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6
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58
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29
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Dec. 05
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33
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54
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34
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4
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30
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13
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79
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34
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Jan. 06
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47
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79
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42
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11
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48
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20
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96
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66
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Feb. 06
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59
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89
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71
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2
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43
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29
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90
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37
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Mar. 06
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37
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62
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77
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8
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67
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28
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76
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42
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Subtotal
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216
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314
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255
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31
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223
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96
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399
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208
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Total
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1742
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Support for Pioneerland and Traverse des Sioux public library systems has stopped. We enjoyed working with the staff at both of these public library systems and will miss the contact.
Task Forces and Study Groups
PALS Support Staff continue to be involved with our libraries in several task forces and study groups. The following is a list of the task forces and study groups that Support Staff have worked with or served on during the last year:
- Authorities Task Force - Mary Ann Greenwald
- Database Quality Management (DBQM) Task Force - Mary Ann Greenwald
- Indexing Task Force - Mary Ann Greenwald
- Minnesota State Library Standards Review Task Force - Becky Bell
- MnLINK ILL Development Group - Sonja Eilertson and Becky Bell
- MnLINK ILL Testing Group - Sonja Eilertson and Susan Dueis
- MnLINK Item Booking and Media Management Group - Sonja Eilertson
- MnPALS Access Task Force - Perry Madden
- Validation Tables Study Group - Mary Ann Greenwald
Professional organizations, state wide meetings and keeping current on technology remains a priority. These activities provide us with opportunities to learn what's important to libraries, stay current on technology, and allow us to have additional contact with our libraries. During the past year we have participated in: ARLD, CALCO, CISCO Training, eStudent Services Committee, LaSSI, MLA, Microsoft Suite Training, MnLINK Gateway Operations, MnLINK ILS Operations, MnLINK User Groups, MnSCU Libraries Day, MnSCU WebMasters, NAAUG, Regional Ex Libris Users Meeting, RightNow User Conference and many other library related seminars and presentations.
Staffing Changes
- Gary Lundin, PALS Systems Librarian Specialist, retired in May, 2005
- Doris Selover, PALS Circulation Support Specialist, retired in August, 2005
- Susan Dueis, PALS Circulation & ZPortal Support Specialist, moved to this position from the support of VDX
- Frank Embree, PALS Online Knowledge and Learning Support Specialist, new to PALS in April, 2006
Aleph Implementation
The Eta Library group has almost completed all of its training and will switch to production at the end of April. This is the last group of libraries to migrate to the Aleph ILS. Three library groups will have migrated to Aleph in the last year. The Epsilon and Zeta library groups switched to production in January of 2006.
There is a sense of accomplishment among the PALS Support Staff to have all of the consortium libraries on Aleph. We anticipate returning to a more normal mode of operation. At the same time we honestly don't know what normal will be. Our hope is that we can begin to address some of the additional needs of Aleph that our libraries have already identified as important.
Focus will now turn to Aleph version 17. We anticipate that the effort required to get all of the libraries onto this version of the software will be significant.
Training Sessions
17 days of in-person training and 4 half-days of web meeting training were offered to each of the Epsilon, Zeta and Eta library groups. Each of these sessions was offered 2 times to the Epsilon and Zeta library group and 3 times to the Eta library group. The total number of training days provided to these migrating libraries by PALS trainers was 85 days of in-person training and 20 web meeting training sessions.
We continue to offer web meeting refresher sessions to migrated libraries shortly after their switch to production date. Sessions are offered in Acqusitions, Serials, Cataloging and Circulation.
Training for Aleph ILL is under way. Sonja Eilertson has undertaken a Herculean effort to have all of the MnPALS libraries trained on Aleph ILL by the end of May, 2006. Aleph ILL training constitutes one day of in-person functional training preceded by sessions to set up and configure tables to allow Aleph ILL to work properly.
In addition to the Migration Training, we provided the following customized training sessions:
- Aleph XSL Report Training
- Aleph Label Printing Training
- PALSTAC Circulation II training for Minneapolis College of Art & Design
- PALSTAC Report Writer Workshop
- PALSTAC Serial Refresher for Metropolitan State University
- PALSTAC Systems Librarian Training for Minnesota School of Business
- PALSTAC ILL Training for Minnesota School of Business and Minneapolis College of Art and Design
PALS Support and Training services plans to continue to offer opportunities for libraries to refresh or learn new Aleph skills.
MnLink Gateway - Susan Dueis
The PALS office continues to provide user support to the Consortium of MnPALS Libraries in their use of the Fretwell-Downing ZPORTAL (searching) software. Two groups of libraries have begun using Aleph ILL software and this necessitated working with Fretwell-Downing to make changes in the setup in ZPORTAL to transfer requests initiated by Aleph users in ZPORTAL into the Aleph ILL software for management. As the rest of the libraries on Aleph begin using Aleph ILL, we will be changing their setup to transfer requests from ZPORTAL into Aleph ILL.
We continue to work with Fretwell-Downing on the following:
- Changing the mapping from the ELM databases in ZPORTAL, so that the year is in a separate field to aid in tracking copyright compliance.
- Getting the password field to be case insensitive for Aleph users signing in to ZPORTAL. Ex Libris is also working on this on the Aleph side and a fix is pending.
- Adding a link from "My Requests" in ZPORTAL to direct the user into the user interface of the ILL module in PALS or Aleph, so they can check the status of their requests there.
The PALS office continues to represent the Consortium of MnPALS Libraries on the MnLINK Gateway Operations Committee, which meets quarterly.
Learning Management Systems - Kyle Snay
RightNow Technologies
Demand and interest for the RightNow Technologies customer service solution has nearly tripled over the past year as campuses and institutions take advantage of the perpetual contract that is available to them. PALS adopted RightNow this past year to be the support vehicle for their eHelp Desk. As a result of the increased demand, PALS has hired another support specialist to assist with RightNow implementations, training, and support.
FuseTalk
In December, PALS initiated an online discussion forums application called FuseTalk, which is designated to replace the WebBoard system that went down last year. Currently the FuseTalk application is being released at a pilot level, but the responses from users have been favorable so the demand is expected to increase significantly.
Questions?
Please send any questions regarding the Support & Training Report to http://pals.custhelp.com/
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