User Interface Task Group Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, August 8, 2006
McKeldin 6103
10:00am-12:00 noon

Present: W. Bass (guest), L. England, J. Evander, H. Hanson, L. Seguin, C. Todd (recording), S. Wheeler, L. Wrubel

Topic 1: Communication strategy

In response to recommendations from CLD that we make monthly progress reports, we agreed to contribute to E-News. At the end of each meeting we will identify items for inclusion in that report. We will draft the E-News contribution on our Wiki. We will also start sending agendas of our meetings to COI UI prior to our meetings. Janet and Laura will be attending the October CLD meeting to report on our usability testing.

Topic 2: Authorities in the Catalog

Heidi led the TG through a guided discussion similar to the earlier discussion that she held with UMCP volunteers on July 26. She distributed notes to the UITG from that conversation (they are on the UITG wiki as well). We focused on three aspects of subject authorities in the Catalog: 1) Browse result screen, 2) Headings information screen, 3) Initial search screens.

UITG agreed with several of the UMCP proposals: UMCP group suggested icon instead of text link, e.g. when linking to authority record from browse results. The UMCP group suggested valid heading at top and sorting alphabetically within category, i.e. like McGill when arranging information in the authority record display. The UMCP group recommended that clicking a term should take the searcher to a browse results screen from the authority record.

Next steps:

1. UITG members will share this information with constituencies focusing specifically on subject searches. We need to come back with notes about whether or not we agree on strategies noted.
2. We should look at search shortcuts.
3. HH will continue to add to the wiki.
4. HH will set-up as "out of the box" in TEST.

Topic 3: Find It Button

Laura will move the "rounded button" into RP and the Catalog leaving the rectangular button when required by the database. Laura will send message out to COI ALL.

Topic 4: Report from ELUNA

MetaLib: Version 4.0 due out in January 2007. It includes:

• Usability by JAWS, Dragon, Section 508 compliance, different browsers, and reduces use of Javascript.
• Changes to de facto search syntax:
  • Supporting use of " " to indicate phrase search
  • Multi-word searches are treated as Boolean AND keyword searching, instead of phrase search
• Version 4 e-journal lists:
  • Adding Consistency with SFX A-Z lists
  • Access to categories
  • Filters that currently exist on SFX side
• Clustering and facets:
  • Clustering: organizes search results into topic categories, each result may be in multiple clusters. Generated on the fly, based on text mining of records. Intended to expose new relationships
  • Facets: group search results by Author, date, type, etc. Search results may be in multiple facets. Could be pre-generated for local records, or generated on the fly, based on metadata extraction.
  • Using Vivisimo for clusters and facets

SFX: no new version expected until Q3 2007. There are a number of knowledgebase changes coming in July, with the data to be added later in the fall:

• Proceedings data elements will be added as part of July Monthly Update. KB data may not be there until August or September. Specifically, they're adding ISSNs to KB, and using related Object to relate ISBNs to each ISSN. Adding Object Type SERIES and PROCEEDING instead of just journal or book.
• Linking level. Will be able to make display logic decisions based whether Find It links to journal, issue, or article level
• Peer Reviewed value Y/N (watch for in fall).
• New Object types: NEWSPAPER, TRANSCRIPT, DATABASE, WIRE, CD, MANUSCRIPT
• E-Books: 41 E-Book targets right now, Adding more title data, ISBN/eISBN relationships

Aleph PAC Functional Discussion Group Meeting

• Due to a reorganization in the structure of ELUNA, the group decided to transform itself into the Public User Interface Interest Group, which focuses on the user interface of all Ex Libris products. The contact person for this group is Brian Thompson (Brian-thompson@uiowa.edu). A discussion list is forthcoming.
• Discussion included the lack of relevance ranking in the Aleph OPAC. Despite the fact that it was the number one PAC enhancement request last year, E.L. refused to assign any development points to relevance ranking. A number of people reported that their libraries' chose to make Title Browse the default search in their catalogs, because Title Word results are so poor. Poster Sessions
• Aleph Web OPAC Usage Analysis Using Z69 (Heidi has handouts)
• An (almost) automatic New Titles list (Linda has handouts)

Topic 5: Interface Change Requests.

UITG briefly reviewed the change requests. This will be a topic at our September meeting.

Next Meeting:

September 5, Health Sciences, 10-noon . Topics: Error messages, User Interface Changes, Authorities, ERIC Group report (probably urls in the CAT)