Circulation User Group Fall 2005 Minutes

1. & 2) Convener Lynne Weber of MSU/Mankato (Lynne) introduced herself and the recorder for this meeting, Joni Myers also of MSU/Mankato. Lynne gave a summary of the user council and provided highlights of the two previous meetings.
   
   
3. There were no additions or changes to the agenda.
   
   
4. Minutes from the Spring, 2005 meeting (April 26, 2005) were approved.
   
   
5. Susan Dueis of PALS (Susan) introduced herself and provided a brief PALS report. Susan noted the removal of birthdates from the PLIF load.
   
   
6. Lynne explained that enhancements to NAAUG were accepted by ex Libris and that the top three requests in all areas will henceforth be implemented with no voting required.
   
   
7. Lynne put out a call for topics for the Spring, 2006 breakout sessions. Topics should be submitted to Lynne by February 2, 2006. Sonja Eilertson of PALS (Sonja) suggests that topics can be non-Aleph related, but that the topics be good ones to share regarding circulation/library issues. Lynne mentioned MSU's development of training modules aimed at student workers. Leah Anderson of Concordia (Leah) talked about a "stress busters" program for staff at her library. Jay Nordstrom of Gustavus (Jay) suggested a discussion of procedures for training/training documents. Lynne noted a recent series of visits from Southwest State library staff to MSU for the purpose of sharing just this kind of information.
   
   
8. Susan discussed PLIF issues and addressed some specific concerns.
   
   The problem of the time lag between registration and library barcodes being "activated" was addressed by Mike Barnett of PALS (Mike). Mike informed the group that this issue is being resolved and also explained the complications behind coming up with a fix for this problem. Kathleen Ashe of Southwest State (Kathleen) noted that a similar problem has been seen with faculty/staff cards and their status showing up as "student". Mike explained how this is related to the card activation lag time issue and will be resolved through the same means devised for that.
   
   Ala Garlinska of SCC (Ala) outlined some additional problems with student records. Mike said appropriate action is to contact Susan via the HelpDesk software.
   
   Kathleen asked for clarification of who is responsible for id card production and who should be contacted when there are problems. Mike recommended the business office or registrar depending upon the institution.
   
   The idea of removing gender from the PLIF load was discussed. This idea had been introduced by Mark in a previous discussion. Vernon Leighton of Winona (Vernon) who was present on behalf of Mark, was not completely sure of the reasons behind this.
   
   A lively discussion ensued about private data in Aleph records and privacy issues in general.
   
   Roberta Spangenberg of MSU/Mankato (Roberta) stated that she would like to see the issue of birth dates in the records revisited. Some discussion of this maybe just being month and day followed. Roberta noted that the Social Security Number and/or a birthday is very helpful in a large institution to help distinguish between patrons with the identical name. PALS assured attendees that such adjustments could be accommodated.
   
   It was determined not to vote on the birth date and gender issues now, but to table these until the next meeting when Mark can be present to provide some additional perspective. Attendees were reminded that the rule is one vote per institution. Angie Schaper of Riverland-Albert Lea (Angie) suggested that the voting could be done via email. PALS said that can be accommodated.
   
   
9. Dave Wuolu of SBJ (Dave) had questions about the institution codes for patrons for ILL. The PLIF mapping addresses these concerns.
   
   Kathleen asked how other librarians are training workstudy students on loading and working with patron records in circulation. Janet van Oosten of Crown College (Janet) responded that they very successfully use "duplicate" rather than "new" when loading records.
   
   Dave asked about how other libraries handle holds for items in various item process statuses. He asked if anyone could explain how to put together a report limited by a particular item process status. Kathleen, Deb Meissner of MSU/Mankato (Deb), Diane Scheierl of SBJ (Diane), Jenn Schwichtenberg of SBJ (Jenn), and Rosie Mock of MSU/Mankato (Rosie) offered some good, specific tips on this.
   
   Carolyn Kelleher of Ridgewater (Carolyn) had questions about working with Lost item status records. Rosie and Roberta responded and gave a step-by-step explanation of the process while Becky Bell of PALS (Becky) walked through the loan report on the computer.
   
   Kathleen had some questions on the global privilege for patrons and the effect this might have on ILL. Susan and Sonja responded to this question, explaining that the global privilege issue doesn't really come into play with ILLs.
   
   Rosie then talked about the possibility of customizing reports by adding fields to various tables. There was considerable interest in this topic. Bonnie Kalla of SBJ (Bonnie) had several questions about how to do this.
   
   Janet expressed concerns about performing transactions when the Aleph system is down. Several others also indicated that there were fears about making mistakes and losing data when operating in offline mode. Rosie said she backs up data twice daily at her library to try and prevent data loss. Vernon indicated he has used a different software to address this concern and save data. Becky reminded the group that PALS does not recommend nor provide support for the software Vernon was referring to. Bonnie asked for recommendation for a second pop-up to try and avoid loss of data (prompting with a "Do you really want to..."-type message). Mike responded that it was unlikely this would be implemented.
   
   Lynne asked if there would be any problem with loading all new walk-in patrons as "local" and not using "global". Mike said that was unwise since it affects other, unwanted areas such as the address and expiration date. Updates don't happen to address. Angie suggested a fix her library uses with manual updates. Susan noted the possibility of ILL problems. Sonja urged that libraries ask themselves if they want to change the level of privilege for these patrons and base the decision on that.
   
   Leah was curious whether reserve training has been or will be scheduled. Bonnie indicated that there is some information on the PALS website. Becky said they have tentatively scheduled training for February, 2006. It was recommended that course reserves NOT be migrated.
   
   Kathleen asked about an inventory module. Becky stated that it is on the work plan but did not have a date.
   
   
10. There was no other business.
    
    
11. Meeting adjourned at 12:23pm.

1. 10:45 Opening Remarks - Convener: Lynne Weber (MSU)
   
   
2. Recorder - Joni Myers (MSU)
   Please identify yourself when speaking at the meeting to ease the recorder's job.
   As the recorder you may ask someone to repeat or verify your notes.
   
   
3. Additions/Changes to Agenda
   
   
4. Approve Spring, 2005 Minutes - April 26, 2005
   
   
5. 11:00 PALS report - Susan Dueis (PALS)
   
   
6. 11:10 NAAUG Voting - Discussion and Action: motion or recommendation for MnLINK U.G.
   
   
7. 11:30 Breakout Sessions for Spring 2006 User Groups - Discussion
   
   
8. 11:45 PLIF discussion - PALS staff
   
   
9. 12:05 Questions/Problems/Solutions regarding Aleph Circulation Issues: Opportunity for new Aleph users to ask questions of experienced Aleph users
   
   
10. 12:25 Other
    
    
11. 12:45 Adjourn
    
    

6. Enhancements & Voting
   • The final NAAUG Enhancements for 2005-2006 Version 19 have been posted.
   • There are a total of 15 proposed enhancements: three each for Acquisition/Serials, Cataloging/Authorities, Circulation/Reserves, OPAC, and Systems/Administration.
   • You will notice that Ex Libris has assigned development weights to each proposed enhancement. Ex Libris has agreed to do 120 development weights for Version 19, due out in January of 2007. Each of the two server sites for MnLINK is allowed 100 votes for a total of 200 votes.
   • The MnPALS User Groups will submit their recommendations to the chairs of the MnLINK subsystem user groups.
   • The MnLINK User Groups will meet on October 31 to discuss the enhancements. They will submit recommendations to the ILS Operations Committee and the Policy Advisory Council. The ILS Operations Committee and the Policy Advisory Council will meet the beginning of November to decide where to place our 200 votes.
   • The 200 votes can be distributed to many of the enhancements or only a few. Those votes must be submitted to the NAAUG chairs by November 15. The votes are then tallied and submitted to Ex Libris for Version 19.
     
     
   Action: Each individual subsystem group should review their 3 enhancements and discuss them. It is also a good idea to be aware of the enhancement requests from other subsystems as that enhancement may also be beneficial in your area. After discussion, a motion or recommendation from your subsystem group should be made and forwarded to the MnLINK meetings on October 31.
   
   
7. Future Breakout Sessions
   • This agenda item came from User Council.
   • The User Council would like to see the MnPALS User Groups as an opportunity to discuss software issues as well as other issues related to functional areas.
   • These breakout sessions could be planned for just a particular subsystem meeting or if it is something other people would be interested in it could be scheduled as a separate breakout session.
   • By discussing it now, people would have time to plan for the next user group meeting in April.
     
     
   Action: The group should discuss possible ideas for breakout sessions either for everyone or just that particular subsystem. Volunteers to do these breakout sessions would also be needed. It may be necessary to form a task group to work on this.
   
   
8. PLIF Issues
   1. Barcode
      Currently when a patron in the MnSCU system is assigned their barcode, a flag is set in the ISRS system denoting the fact that the patron barcode needs to be sent to us. When the evening run at ISRS is done, the ISRS system sees this flag and then knows that it needs to send the barcode. If the patron is registered for a class at their institution, the information is sent, including the barcode. If the patron is not registered for a class, nothing is sent.
      
      This is what causes the problem. The flag on the barcode change is cleared, but because the patron was not registered for a class, the barcode was not sent to us.
      
      If the patron now registers for a class a couple of days later, their information is sent to us. The barcode update flag is no longer set, it was cleared in the earlier run, so it is not included in the update.
      
      Mike has requested, and MnSCU has agreed to change the procedure. When the barcode flag is set, if the patron is not registered for a class, the flag will be reset. This way when the patron registers for a class the barcode flag will still be set and the barcode will be sent with the student information.
      
      
   2. Birthdate
      At the April 2004 User Group, a concern was raised about the fact that birthdates are coming into the Aleph PLIF load and whether or not it would be possible/desirable to leave that information out. The group recommended that birthdates should be omitted from patron records. This change was made on September 30, 2005. This will affect new patron registration data, not existing patron records in Aleph.