Minutes of User Interface Task Group Meeting

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Present: Betty Day, Lenore England, Janet Evander, Diane Fuller, Heidi Hanson, Sean Henry, Jean Phillips, Linda Seguin (minutes), Cindy Todd (co-chair), Susan Wheeler, Laura Wrubel (co-chair)

Topic 1: Review agenda and action items from last meeting

[My notes were too cryptic to interpret; anyone have anything to put here?]

Topic 2: Report from ERIC usability subgroup (Laura, Janet, Heidi)

Laura distributed a list of "Usability questions for the catalog (and Find It in the catalog)" that the group plans to ask of users at CP and Towson. The examples show materials in various states of availability and ask students how they would go about obtaining them. After completing the tasks, students will be asked to interpret labels on the navigation bar and results screens.

• Cindy suggested that if the students misinterpret the labels, they should be asked to suggest more meaningful wording.
• Jean pointed out that most of the tasks could be completed without clicking on Find It at all. Laura responded that that would be part of the testing--to see if they would use Find It or the routes already in the catalog.
• Linda suggested more questions having to do with serials in order to exercise more options in the Find It menu (one with no full text available; one with full text that doesn't cover the volume needed).
• Jean recommended that ERIC 2 members present the proposed catalog Find It menu at the next User Interface meeting.

Topic 3: Demo of UMUC and FSU library website (Lenore and Sean)

Frostburg: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/library
See Sean's handout on "FSU Ort Library Website and USMAI shared services.

• Jean asked if the site uses deep links (yes) and if there is a campus login (yes).

UMUC: http://www.umuc.edu/library/library.html
Lenore demonstrated UMUC's new library web site. The style is dictated by a campus-wide format and includes a large amount of white space on the right.

• "Articles & More" links to databases and e-journals by title and subject and is the most heavily used link. There is no link to Research Port yet; UMUC is waiting for the release of MetaLib 3.13.
• "Books & Media" links to Catalog USMAI.
• "Document Express" links to ILLIAD.
• "Learn How To" links to help and tutorials on a variety of topics.
• "E-books" is heavily used; UMUC would like to have e-books in the catalog.
• "Journal Finder" is Citation Linker with the volume information removed. Users have reported that they want to be able to specify volume and use it as a citation linker.
• "Handheld/PDA Users" provides a reformatted version of the upper level Web pages designed for viewing on those devices (this means that 2 versions of each page must be maintained).

At the next meeting Diane will present the Health Sciences site and Susan will present the University of Baltimore site.

Topic 4: New Books List (Jean)

This item appeared in the top 5 of UB's, Towson's and CP's priorities lists. It appeared on a total of 7 priority lists. On the ITD plan, it is slated to be in place by May 1, 2006. The main task for this group is to define what a new books list would be in Catalog USMAI. It would take the form of a filter, rather than an actual list.

Heidi demonstrated the New Titles Catalogue in the McGill Catalogue (MUSE) http://aleph.mcgill.ca/F/ . It is found on the "Sub-Catalogues" tab. It allows users to limit to materials added in the last 7 days to 6 months, or allows them to specify an accession date. The help screen for New Titles defines what is in the filter:

• A title is automatically marked as "new in MUSE" and assigned an accession date when it leaves the library technical processing area, and heads for the library shelves.
• Titles with an item status of [Order initiated], [On order] or [In process] are not ready for the shelf and therefore are not in the New Titles Catalogue except when they are added copies of newly arrived titles.
• Because newly received journal issues and electronic material such as ebooks are not processed in the same way, they are not in the the New Titles Catalogue.
• The record for an older title already on the shelves will be added to the New Titles Catalogue whenever a new additional copy (or volume, if it is a multi-volume set) is processed and added to the library collections.

There was general agreement that this definition is desirable, though it would have to be defined for each campus. Also, people did not find its presence under Sub-Catalogues to be intuitive. An alternative would be its placement under the yellow navigation bar next to CATALOG and JOURNALS.

Action Item: Gather feedback on what needs we are trying to meet with a "newbooks list." Via e-mail, we will formulate a question to be put out on the COIuserinter to obtain a common definition of "new books." Be sure to get responses from campuses who had this issue on their priorities lists.

Topic 5: MetaLib 3.13 options (Laura)

Laura distributed the document "MetaLib 3.13 interface options." She demonstrated what Quick Search and Cross Search do and showed some usability tests on the services. The new option is to stop on the Search Summary page between the search and the ultimate results screen. In Quick Search the user must click on "View Retrieved" to proceed to the results screen. In Cross Search the intermediate page offers the ability to view "Search & Link" results, view results in a particular database or view the "First 60" in a combined set. General impressions from the group:

• The intermediate screen is not useful in Quick Search, as it does not offer any additional options and slows down the "quick" search just to give information.
• The intermediate screen in Cross Search has useful information and options, but they are very poorly presented, with confusing language.

Laura pointed out that these options cannot be implemented on a campus-by-campus basis. Betty reassured the group that the decision need not be made before implementation of MetaLib 3.13.

Action Item: Gather feedback from our campuses about the new options. There is a link to the Research Port test server on the User Interface Task Group Web page. http://usmai.umd.edu/interface/

Topic 6: Wikis (Heidi)

Heidi demonstrated wikis by showing http://www.pmwiki.org . You can see how it works by playing in the "Wiki Sandbox" on that site. Users can type or paste text into an edit window in order to place items on the shared site. Edit privileges can be password protected. Linda asked if read access can be password protected in case discussions include sensitive information. Heidi responded that one can post links to password protected documents/pages. The group agreed that it would be useful to try out a wiki.

Action Item: Heidi will pursue setting up a wiki for the group.

Topic 7: Plan agenda and location for next meeting (November 11, 1-3 P.M.)

Location: Health Sciences Library-Diane will reserve a room.

Agenda:

• ERIC 2 report
• UB and HS Web site demos
• More MetaLib options