USMAI

University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions

User Interface Task Group DRAFT minutes

Tuesday, January 9, 2006
McKeldin - Room 6103
10:00am - 12:00pm

Present: Lenore England, Janet Evander, Sean Henry, Tierney Lyons, Linda Seguin, Cindy Todd, Susan Wheeler, Laura Wrubel (recording)

Topic 1: Approve minutes from last meeting

Minutes of the December 5, 2006 meeting were approved.

Topic 2: Interface change requests

The change to the 852 $z did not receive any feedback via the COI and has been moved to live.

The E-books filter currently includes electronic theses and dissertations. Campuses should monitor this to see if it's a problem for their users. There are a number of possible problems users may experience, such as incorrect cataloging that puts a print book in the filter, lack of or incorrect Find It access, and subscription problems. Library staff should report these through the Rx Web.

Topic 3: New titles catalog

Work is continuing on the algorithm for placing items in the New Titles base. CP Off-site Storage was removed from the algorithm. Heidi will put the algorithm on the UITG wiki. Linda will contact CPC about the need for best practices for cataloging items in order to get them to appear in the New Titles base.

UITG discussed a number of changes to the search screens. Changes Heidi will implement include:

Remove the Basic search option; "grey out" basic search link in top yellow bar
Remove the yellow highlight from the list of preset dates and highlight instead the definition of New Titles.
Add a line above "word search" that describes the option of searching. Move search anchors (i.e., word search, browse search, command search) from top of section to this line.
Remove the date limiter from the other bases' advanced search
Change the default selection in the date limit dropdown to "six months".

The group noticed a problem with the search error messages when there are no results for a search. The error is not always the same (or have the same icon at the beginning).

Heidi will make these interface changes by next Tuesday (Jan 16).
Linda will write text describing New Titles for the Help screens.
The algorithm and the searching need testing, but there currently isn't enough data in Aleph Test right now to make testing productive. Heidi will investigate whether we can apply the algorithm (once finalized) to the live database and use a search screen not available to the public for testing. The seeding process needs testing also.

The work left makes it unlikely that the New Titles catalog can be released by the beginning of Spring semester. UITG agreed that it is fine to release it as soon as it's ready and does not need to wait until the end of the semester to appear.

Announcements

Sean Henry is serving on the Aleph Version 18 task group.
MetaLib version 4.0 looks like it will be released in March instead of January. ITD is investigating when Maryland might receive the new version.
The next meeting is Tuesday, February 6th. Sean will be notetaker. Possible topics include: New Titles, update on version 18, MetaLib 4.0. The next E-News is due before our next meeting. Laura will draft something and place on the wiki.

USMAI | ITD | Metalib/sfx | Aleph