Support and Training Services Report February 2007

• Support Staff continue to work on problem reports related to the upgrade.
• Work begins on new features:
  • Summary Holdings is functioning. PALS plans to offer training on Summary Holding as time allows.
• Feature Return (now working in version 17):
  • EBSCO EDI invoicing.
  • EDI ordering with Baker and Taylor, Midwest Library Services, and Blackwell's.
• Revisions for version 17 and new answers continue to be added to the Knowledge Base of the PALS Support Center regularly.
  
  

• Check out the following link from the PALS homepage for a full listing of training offerings and links to registration forms http://www.abcsignup.com/view/view_month.asp?as=16&wp=112&aid=PALS.
• Individual invitations will be sent out each time we add a new session to our offerings.
  
  

• Mark your calendars! MnPALS Libraries User Groups are coming up April 16 & 17, 2007 at St. Cloud State University, Atwood Center.
• Subsystem agenda items are due to User Group Conveners by Friday, March 9th.
• For a link to the registration form for User Groups Check out the following link http://www.abcsignup.com/view/view_month.asp?as=16&wp=112&aid=PALS.
  
  

• Using the CC: feature.
  Remember the cc: feature is available for your use to keep other staff members in the loop on requests you have sent to the PALS Support Center. When you place someone's email address in the cc: line any time a response is sent to you from the PALS Support Center they will also be notified. Please separate each email address with a semi-colon and a space. The maximum number of characters on the cc: line is 255. If you have several people at your institution that you are sharing information with we would suggest setting up a mailing list that you can place in the cc: line.
  
  
• Using the reply between the lines function.
  When you receive a notification from the PALS eDesk that we have responded to your request with additional information you will now see the message below.
  
  

  Recently you requested personal assistance from the PALS Customer Support eDesk. Below is a summary of your request and our response. We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 28 business days. Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Please update your incident by clicking on the link below. If you choose to reply to this email rather than clicking the link below, you MUST enter your reply in the space below. [===> Please enter your reply below this line <===] This is an example of where you can update your request with information. [===> Please enter your reply above this line <===] To update your question from our support site, click here.

  
  
  When you reply to a notification from the PALS eDesk with updated information you need to reply between the lines that are in the email. Your other choice is to update the information in your request by clicking on the link in the email notification and update the information through the PALS eDesk web interface. If you do not reply between the lines your message will bounce back to you and your request will not get updated.

• Authorities Task Force
  • The group has not met the past month.
  • Past activity and discussion can be viewed on their WebBoard at: http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=17
• Indexing Task Force
  This group had 2 meetings in February.
  • February 5, 2007
    • PALS reported indexing of new records is occurring in a timely fashion and that running ver. 17 in production puts memory use of the server nearly at its maximum.
    • Discussion of adjacency (phrase searching) not working with quotation marks.
    • See also references are not appearing in the subject browse - SI sent to ExLibris.
    • Clickable links in the 856 of a Holding Record do work. 856 $y should be used as text to replace a long $u URL link. MITF recommends that PALS submit an SI to change how this works so that rather than a icon appearing that the text of the #y appear.
    • Excel spreadsheet was presented on fields and tag fields to index in SYS60. It was approved as issued. MITF convener will request that this indexing be implemented on Lute for MITF to test.
    • Fixed Field keyword (wff) indexing will be announced to MnPALS and demonstrated at Spring '07 Cataloging User Group.
  • February 26, 2007
    • Clarify details of turning off adjacency indexing. Report this to joint Cat/Ref UG meeting.
    • Sent ticket to PALS Support Center that contain example of new adjacency characters be displayed in WebOPAC.
    • Full text search in Advanced Menu code shows TXT index. What is this? PALS will research this and report at the next meeting.
    • SYS60 indexing wasn't implemented on Lute since the last meeting. It will be done now and then tested.
    • Further discussion on examples for Fixed Field Keyword demonstration at Cat UG.
    • For complete MITF minutes go to their WebBoard site at: http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=15. The next meeting is scheduled for March 5, 2007 from 1:30-3:00 p.m.
• MARC Record Group
  • This group met on February 8, 2007 to discuss a guideline and minimal standards for bib records that are imported into the MnPALS union catalog supplied by vendors other than OCLC. They discussed many points and will write a guideline at their next meeting, March 1, 2007. This guideline will be taken to the Spring '07 Cataloging Subsystem User Group for approval. If approved at User Group, then it will go to User Council.
• Marketing Task Force
  • The Marketing Task Force held its first meeting on February 13th. During this meeting they:
    • Reviewed the work of the previous Marketing Task Force.
    • Reviewed the Strategic Planning Resource Document.
    • Identified a tool to use "Marketing Workbook for Non-Profit Organizations" for working through the Action Planning Worksheets from the Strategic Planning Document specific to the Marketing Taskforce
  • Met via Conference Call on Thursday, February 22nd to work on the "Set Marketing Goals on Participation and Funding worksheets".
  • Next meeting will be Tuesday, March 13th at Metropolitan State University.
• Validation Work Group
  • This group has not met yet this past month.
  • Libraries had sent 2 validation errors to the PALS Support Center and they were added to the validation tables. They are:
    1. 029 field as valid.
    2. 'zxx' as valid language code for scores that have no sung or spoken text.
  • Additionally, PALS office checked that the validation tables from ver. 15.5 converted intact to ver. 17. In some instances there were differences, so PALS copied them across.
• MnPALS Access Task Force
  • Perry sent a message out to the group on Friday, Feb 23, stating that we are down to 7 priority recommendations, and wondering if those are really still our top priorities or if we start looking at some other priorities.
  • Web board address for MATF http://boards.pals.msus.edu/fusetalk/forum/index.cfm?forumid=16
    
    

• No New developments or action at this time.