User Group Conveners Conference Call - November, 2006

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Attendees: Michael Kirby (DCT-Systems), Sheila Hatchell (MHS-Cataloging), Lynne Weber (MSU-Circulation), Diane Richards (MSU-Acquisitions), Becky Schwartzkopf (MSU-Serials), Sharon Evenson (VCC-ILL), Pete McDonnell (IHC-Reference), Linda Richter (PALS), Cathy Kolbinger (PALS), Becky Bell (PALS), Perry Madden (PALS), Michele Throldahl (PALS), Sonja Eilertson (PALS), Trudy Bement (PALS)

Conference call facilitator: Sheila Hatchell
Recorder: Pete McDonnell


Next Meetings:

• Conference Call in January, exact date TBD - Preliminary spring UG planning
• In-Person - February 1 at Brooklyn Center - Draft agenda and plan UG days
  
  

1. Evaluations
   1. General logistics of the days
      • Evaluations of the Fall 2006 User Group meetings in Mankato were positive in general. About 1/3 of the attendees sent in evaluations; people liked that the general session had a live feed and was recorded. There were 17 concurrent connections to the live feed; no statistics on how many have listened to the recorded sessions.
      • Venue discussion: It has been hard to reserve space in SCSU student union, and the costs for recording the session have been prohibitive in the past. It was agreed that User Groups could be done in Mankato again. Todd Digby could ask MnSCU for funds to help defray the cost of recording sessions at SCSU. ACTION: PALS staff will ask Todd to seek funding from MnSCU to allow for live transmission and recording of sessions when held on the SCSU campus.
      • Facilities/Meeting setup discussion: the "big square" type of arrangement for large meetings didn't work that well. For future large meetings, classroom-style room with presenters, steering committee and recorders sitting up front would be best. A microphone will be provided for the convener, as well as a traveling microphone for group discussion.
      • Attendance was not significantly down; according to Linda Richter, attendance at subsystem meetings was up. Perry Madden noted that the having the meetings sequentially rather than concurrently improved attendance.
      • Cathy asked the User Council to think about which subsystem meetings should be run jointly for the Spring meeting.
      • ACTION for User Council: Sheila asked that everyone look over the evaluations from the Fall meeting in preparation for the User Groups planning conference call in January.
   2. General session
      • The group agreed that recording the general session was a good thing, and that in the future, having a general session on only one day (rather than two) is fine, as long as the session is recorded and has a live feed. Some ideas for improving the general sessions for future meetings: Sheila suggested that a keynote speaker could be brought in for general session, or a program like Todd Digby's future of consortium discussion. Sheila also noted that having Linda Richter and Becky Bell give presentations at the general sessions was important.
      • Sheila recommended that email distribution and discussion of reports prior to the User Group meetings would help free up time for other programming. Sharon thought that only one general business session could be offered per year, and that this would free up time on the first day for education programming/keynote speakers. Cathy thought that more breakout sessions could be offered during the subsystem meetings.
      • The evaluations suggested more "how-to", practical information is desired. Introduction to the consortium and PALS staff for new attendees.
      • Further discussion of changing format of general session was deferred until the Spring User Group meeting planning conference call in January.
        
        
2. Subsystem agendas
   1. Action items
      • Changes to Workplan: None recommended.
      • Task Forces/Working Groups discussion: subsystems feedback on the Task Force Policy Document suggested that some wording on the representational membership of the size and types of libraries should be added. After some group discussion, Diane Richards moved to insert the wording "Every effort will be made to insure representation by size and type of library" after the first sentence of #4 of the policy document. Motion passed unanimously.
      • Lynne brought up that the Circulation group had concerns with section 7.b of the Task Force Policy Document. The Circulation group thought that the wording was too definitive--what about changes that just aren't feasible or that don't work out? Some discussion took place on how Task Forces and Working Groups should take into account feasibility when making recommendations for design changes. The User Council decided to act on the Circulation group's concern. Lynn made the motion to change the language in sec. 7.b from "When the Task Force finds that their work has met the goals of their charge" to "If the Task Force finds that their work has met the goals of their charge". Motion passed unanimously.
      • Sheila brought up the MnPALS Governance Structure document; Bobby Bothmann has made some edits to the consistency and format of document, but has had no comments on it so far from the User Council. She suggested that the work of hammering out the edits to the document should be done by the User Council. The conveners could then bring the revised document to their Steering Committees for comments.
      • Steering Committees discussion: all subsystem groups except Acquisitions/Serials agreed that Steering Committees were needed, and that their purpose was to act as an executive committee for the subsystem group. Most groups wanted steering committees with members from the different library types; the ACQ/SER group wanted to have a smaller 3 member committee. Possible duties for Steering Committees are: Assist with creating the agenda, serve as or designate a secretary for the meeting, set up task forces, and ultimate decision makers if no response from or unable to query the user group members. Sheila Hatchell recommended that the governance structure and steering committees discussion be put on the agenda for the February User Council meeting.
      • A January conference call of the User Council was agreed upon to plan for Spring and adding time to the user groups sessions for steering committee from each group to meet.
   2. Reports from subsystem meetings
      • Perry noted that the Reference subgroup would like its recommendations on catalog enhancement products to be brought to the upcoming Strategic Planning sessions.
      • ACQ/SER formed a task force which will report back at the Spring user group meeting
      • Cataloging formed a small group to evaluate 3rd party (non-OCLC) records in the catalog; decided to elect a steering committee via email
      • Circulation decided to add forced changes to patron records to the Workplan; some discussion of a noticeable drop-off in circulation statistics since the Aleph migration
      • Sheila mentioned that the Database Quality Management Task Force has been disbanded. A motion passed, agreeing to move the archived DBQMTF documents over to the new PALS website (when that is operational), with a 5-year sunset date, after which the documents can be deleted.
      • Perry Madden clarified that Keith Ewing is still the chair of the MnPALS Access Task Force
        
        
3. Spring User Groups
   Dates for Spring User Groups Meeting: Monday, April 16th 2007, and Tuesday, April 17th
   
   
4. Added agenda item: Fall 2007 User Group meeting dates
   • The dates conflict with the Minnesota Library Association annual meeting (Oct. 24-26, 2007)
   • The week of October 8, 2007 was decided upon as the most promising time to hold the meeting. Which days, probably Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of that week, remains to be determined. Do we have a location for this? If it is SCSU, isn't it limited to M-T or Th-F? Cathy will check MEMO and Metronet library event calendars for possible conflicts.