LINC Policy Council Meeting Minutes (not yet approved)

December 1, 2004

Members Present: Scott Drone-Silvers, Rick Dulaney, Lynn Schmit, Cynthia Helms, Alice Cisna, Glenna White, Anne Newman, Mary Bissey, Fred Sclipf, Jan Ison

Members Absent: Barb Turner

LTLS Staff Present: Donna Schaal, Maria Nowak, Pat Boze

Others Present: Marsha Grove

Scott Drone-Silvers called the meeting to order at 1:30. The minutes for the September 15 meeting were approved.

Financial Update

Jan gave the financial update, summarizing that the current balance in the Automation Equity Fund is $425,427.51. We are still holding two large checks for the Horizon software; these will be paid within the next few months.

LINC Update

Pat gave an overview of what staff has been working on with Horizon since the last meeting. We have:

-Added a work form for equipment ånon-marcπ records

-Worked extensively on the LINCPac servers to guarantee stability

-Added format specific indexes

-Turned off item-specific requests in LINCPAC (for patrons only)

-Fixed the display of magazines in LINCPAC

-Fixed Syndetics so it is working 100%

-Worked with Champaign and Urbana on network issues

-Released WebReporter

-Reduced the number of items on the daily pull lists for Champaign

-Fixed some displays in Horizon

-Configured WebFeat on each library LINCPac

-Cleaned up city codes

-Added a borrower address editing tool

Also, the FAQ site has been expanded, Onarga Public Library is now online, and Clifton Public library has signed a contract to join LINC.

CODI Conference

Pat, Jan, and Nannete Wargo attended the CODI (Customers of Dynix Inc.) conference at Portland, Oregon in November. The conference is a chance to hear where the Dynix company is headed and listen to presentations on new products. The next version of the web catalog, 4.0, is tentatively scheduled for release in early winter. This product will have a whole new look. Horizon 8.0 is set for tentative release the next winter.

LINCPac Enhancements Committee

Pat gave an overview of the work this new committee is doing. So far, the group has met once and has decided to focus on fixing functionality in LINCPAC instead of drastically changing the look of the product, since the web catalog, 4.0 is going to drastically change the look of LINCPac. Pat also gave a preview of 4.0. The main features concentrate creating a patron-empowered catalog, which means that patrons can shape how their catalog looks (My Yahoo-like). New features include SDI alerts, where patrons can be alerted whenever a library purchases an item in their interest area, and choices of limits and features that the patron is interested in. Unfortunately, the Kids Catalog wonπt be available when we move to 4.0, at least for a few months.

Itype Reduction Committee

Scott gave an overview of this new committee. The group has met twice and has reviewed the many itypes that individual libraries have. There has been a start of contacting libraries with itypes that have no records attached and asking if they can be deleted as a way to begin reducing the numbers. Many have been cooperative in the deletion process. LINC Policy Council then generally discussed the approach this committee should take and asked that a more concerted effort be given to quickly arrive at a list of shared itypes that would be useable by all libraries.

Horizon Holds Functionality

Dynix support has told us that Horizon is infinitely configurable in how holds can be set up, but they have also told us to not do anything more with holds until the number of itypes is reduced. There was more discussion of how holds currently work in Horizon as well as some general discussion of the hold survey and the results from that survey. Not all libraries have responded, so another effort will be made to get responses from all. There was more discussion about local holds policy and the process for making a decision about it. The idea was brought forth about potentially doing local holds for a "trial period" to gather data about the effectiveness of the initiative.

The next meeting of LINC Policy Council is January 12, 2005, 1:30 pm, at LTLS. The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm.