Support and Training Services Report
2007 MnPALS Annual Meeting

If you have any questions regarding these statistics please send a request to the PALS Support Center at http://pals.custhelp.com – choose MnPALS as the Product, and Information as the Subproduct.

The PALS Support Center’s first full year using the RightNow Technologies’ CRM service has gone very well.  We believe that it has been easier for our libraries to use than our previous system and an excellent tool for Support Specialists in managing the volume of requests that are received.  Continued additions to the knowledge base of Answers and FAQ’s by the Support Specialists will make the PALS Support Center even more useful over time.

Over the summer months PALS replaced the Akiva "Web Meeting" product with Breeze.  Breeze has proven quite a bit easier for libraries to connect to for the web training sessions that have been offered.  MetNet offers this service to us and has been very responsive to any problems we have reported or encountered.

 

Task Forces and Study Groups

PALS Support Staff continues to be involved with our libraries in several task forces and study groups.  Below is a list of the task forces and study groups that Support Staff has worked with or served on during the last year.  Authorities, Indexing, MnPALS Access, and Validation Task Forces have forums available where their minutes, agendas, and discussions are posted.  Following is the name of the groups with its corresponding link.

• Authorities Task Force – Mary Ann Greenwald http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=17
• Gateway Operations – Susan Dueis
• Indexing Task Force – Mary Ann Greenwald http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=15
• MARC Records Task Force – Mary Ann Greenwald
• Marketing Task Force – Cathy Colby
• MINITEX/MnLINK ILL Committee – Susan Dueis
• Minnesota State Library Standards Review Task Force – Becky Bell
• MnPALS Access Task Force – Perry Madden http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=16
• Reports Group – Becky Bell and Luda Lindahl
• Validation Tables Study Group – Mary Ann Greenwald http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=19
• Vendor Guidelines Task Force – Dee Nolan

PALS Support Staff continues to be active in organizations and training related to their area of expertise.

Aleph Implementation

In 2006 the following activities occurred relative to the Aleph Implementation:

• Completed the migration of the MnPALS libraries to version 15.5.
• EDI Ordering for Baker & Taylor, Midwest Library Services, and Blackwell’s Book Services.
• EDI Invoicing for EBSCO.
• Inventory Service on Aleph was made available in July, 2006.
• Collection Management for Blackwell’s Book Services was implemented.
• Aleph ILL was put into production and training was provided to all MnPALS libraries.
• Completed the training and preparation necessary for upgrading all MnPALS libraries to version 17.

 

Training Sessions

In August, 2006 PALS began using ABC Signup as a tool to help us manage registrations for training sessions offered via Web or in-person.  The table below details attendance at these events.  Numbers for the Web Session column count institutions rather than people.  Some institutions had attendees at more than one session or had attendees from different sublibraries at different sessions, so would be counted more than once.

Training sessions not reflected in the table:

• Training for migrating Eta Libraries to Aleph.
• Refresher sessions offered to all Epsilon/Zeta Libraries.
• Aleph ILL training for all the MnPALS Libraries.
• EDI EBSCO Web training.
• Workshops and customized training offered prior to August, 2006.