DIGITAL LIBRARY STEERING COMMITTEE Minutes Meeting of December 13, 2005
Present: Jody Combs (chair), Janice Adlington, Marshall Breeding, Paul Gherman, John Haar, Bill Hook, Dale Poulter, Rick Stringer-Hye, Roberta Winjum.
Notes by John Haar
- Jody announced that he received two revisions to the draft charge for the SFX maintenance team (Dale Poulter, chair; Rick Stringer-Hye; Kitty Porter; Ann Ercelawn). There is a place for one additional member. The committee agreed to allow the maintenance team to select the additional member.
- Jody asked if there were revisions to the draft minutes of our last meeting. Janice recommended revising the last paragraph so that it will not imply that we would not proceed with new initiatives until we complete a community survey.
The committee then continued our discussion of digital library priorities. Each member has submitted a list of his or her top four priorities.
Jody: Last time we talked about the need for an “information hub” or “portal.” At the same time, we agreed that we do not want to require users to access digital collections and services only through the portal—that we should be able to “project” digital services into other contexts or information hubs, e.g., OAK or a school or discipline based "information hub." We also concurred that we want to get user input on designing the portal. And we discussed developing a policy for building digital collections. Today let’s bring in detail from the top four priorities each of us identified earlier.
Dale: Most of us identified some sort of evolution of the library’s web presence among our top four priorities. One way to pull this together is through a central site that allows users to pull out services or use the entire portal. Sirsi’s EPS service allows customization for each of our libraries, and it includes a test environment that could allow users to test the portal.
Marshall: It’s too early to discuss specific software. First we need to decide what our web presence will be; then we can decide how to construct it.
Bill: Concerned that we could write specs for a system that doesn’t exist.
Paul: I’ve thought of the digital library as content, not services. What does everyone else think?
Jody: We’re considering an expanded concept, an information hub with both digital services and digital content. [The group generally agreed.]
Rick: We need to integrate everything into a one-stop shop.
Jody: Eight of nine of us included website redesign among our top four. But it is equally important not to force users go to services and content in only one way.
Marshall: Multiple sign-ons (for Acorn, databases, Illiad, etc.) are a problem. We need a single sign-on and a sense of continuity in using library services on the web.
Paul: What about a “my library” approach?
Marshall: “My library” is losing favor these days. NC State discovered that few patrons use it. It still has advocates, however; Notre Dame is promoting it heavily.
Bill: This is an example of an expectation without a solution. Personal customization of the portal is something we should do, but not unless we can do it well.
Paul: Maybe we divide our users into groups: faculty, grad students, undergraduates.
Dale: Google does a good job of allowing users to select features within a unified environment. We want to allow users to customize or enable specific services.
Rick: Are we willing to create our own system is there is nothing suitable on the market?
Marshall: No, there may not be a single system that will do everything we need. We may need multiple packages.
Dale: The product we choose has to be based on open architecture so we can integrate services.
Bill: How would we deal with the single sign-on?
Jody: At the university level. There is a project to develop a unique VU identifier and to provide authentication services based on that. VU ITS projects that this will take 3 to 5 years.
Marshall: Maybe we try to pass people among our services as seamlessly as we can whatever the university does.
Rick: How time-consuming will the changeover be, and will technology pass us by as we create our new tool? We need to realize that we’ll have to change whatever we create.
Jody: Our target may move while we’re working toward it. It may take us two to three years to get to a portal.
John: Should we think sequentially? What should we do first?
Jody: First we should pull the current web pages into a management structure of some sort. We have over 10,000 web pages, but precious little integration. We might concentrate on finding a way to integrate these and make the process more efficient.
Marshall: We need to decide whether we should have one website our multiple sites, one for each library.
Bill: If we can provide an environment that makes it easier for each library to manage within our structure, there will be an incentive for libraries to work within the system.
Marshall: Our libraries need to want to work within the system, so we need to make it good.
Jody: Many or our library websites are “vertical portals” for their customers. We need to allow this.
Bill: Portals could be more finely grained than just the libraries. They could include a subject approach, for instance. If we provide automated tools for this, the libraries will use them.
Rick: Can we do this?
Marshall: There are a lot of content management systems, but they can’t build in all our content. They can help us get our web pages under control, though.
Janice: We need to put some attention on our databases and electronic resources. Do we want to open the metasearch question again?
Marshall and John: Yes, even as we’re building a management structure.
Dale: Many metasearch engines come with portal software built in, so we could duplicate effort if we build our structure while we’re investigating metasearch products.
Paul: What about the Center for Academic Life? Should other campus unit join us in developing the portal?
Dale: OAK is an example.
Marshall: Organizationally we’re not there yet, and the process of developing the Center for Academic Life shouldn’t hold us back.
Paul: We don’t want to pursue a unilateral library path and then have to revise our work to add other units.
Bill: We need to build a library structure that can incorporate other units later.
Jody: Blackboard has a content management system that we should look at. Also this has a large public service footprint. The development effort should involve other library committees and groups.
Marshall: What if the university switches to Sakai [open source] or another course management system while we’re developing Blackboard?
Rick: But we can’t be handcuffed. We should investigate more than one product.
Dale: We have to be able to maintain and migrate content no matter what system we choose.
Roberta: Should companies demo for us?
Dale: We shouldn’t limit our search to companies. There are many good open source alternatives.
John: Do we develop a concept, and then do a product review, or review the products in order to develop a concept?
Rick: What’s the timeframe?
Marshall: We need a new homepage by the fall—a managed website if possible, but static html if not. Maybe we can complete a more thorough revision by the following fall.
Jody: We need to talk with other committees and the web editors at each library to bring them into this.
Marshall: Maybe we should hold a joint meeting with the Research Services Committee to see if they think we need a new homepage by fall. We can see if they think this is urgent.
Bill: If we target fall, we’ll need some parallel project tracks.
Rick: Do users want to move in a portal direction?
Marshall: How do Janice and Rick see users relating to the website?
Janice: Some users have difficulty finding our catalog on the homepage.
There was general agreement that we should meet with Research Services.
John: The Heard homepage is viewed as essentially the Central Library homepage. Other libraries have emphasized their own pages. It will be interesting to see what relevance the Heard homepage has for each library.
Bill: We use it in Divinity when we need resources in fields outside our area of specialization.
Paul and John: We should not be limited by library units.
John: The conversation should be about the library’s web presence, not about the Heard or individual library homepages.
Paul: How would users want us to organize information?
Janice: Different users want different approaches. This is why we need both integrated and individualized approaches.
Jody: I’ll raise this issue with the Digital Library Advisory Board. It includes some heavy web users, as well as a few who have expressed concerns about the library's existing web presence.
Paul and Jody agreed to work on an email survey of DLAB members.
Jody: To summarize, our decision is that we want to develop an improved management structure for the website by next fall.