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MnPALS ConsortiumMembersVision StatementMission StatementGovernance and PoliciesDeans/Directors/CoordinatorsExecutive CommitteeUser GroupsUser CouncilTask ForcesFundingCalendar |
Consortium of MnPALS Libraries Annual Meeting 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.
*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.
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:
Staffing Changes
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:
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:
The PALS office continues to represent the Consortium of MnPALS Libraries on the MnLINK Gateway Operations Committee, which meets quarterly. |
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