Digital Reference Committee
Meeting of June 4th, 2003 10:30-noon
EPSL Conference Room (meeting changed venue due to fire alarm at HBK)
Minutes

Facilitator:  Ann Hudak
Note taker:  Cindy Todd
Present:  Eileen Abels, Ann Hudak, Neal Kaske, Jim Miller, Beth Roberts,
Joan Stahl, Cindy Todd

1) Digital Reference Lecture Series.  Joan reported that LEC supports
the idea of a Digital Reference Series, but suggests spreading it out
over time to better accommodate staff participation.  We discussed the
value of seeking co-sponsorship with CLIS.

We agreed to invite Jeff Penka and Paula Rumbaugh to do our first
session.  We agreed on July 21, 22, 23 as possible dates.  We agreed on
a tentative title:  Digital Dateline:  Evolving Reference Service as the
topic for the first session and that speakers should be prepared to talk
for 45 minutes-1 hour.  Joan will extend invitation and confirm whether
or not they will be able to accept the honoraria.  Once Joan has a date
from the speakers, she will tell the committee and inform Diane Barlow.
Eileen agreed to check with the CLIS student groups to see if they are
interested in co-sponsoring.

We agreed to evaluate our experience after the first session and
tentatively agreed that the next offering will be in late October.

2) Email reference statistics.  We discussed the value of keeping full
text of our email reference questions/responses as well maintaining as
various statistics.  Since much of our general email traffic relates to
library policy, procedures, and do you have?  Questions, we agreed that
one good use of user email questions is to determine how successful
users are in using the libraries' website.  Cindy expressed her concern
about some of the personal data that has been retained.  The committee
agreed to delete the Ask a Librarian? Email text files that are
duplicated on the Access data file. That data file will be copied to zip
disk.  Neal will investigate the possibility of data extraction as a
class project as well as creation of a database designed to strip out
unwanted information.

3) Round Robin:  Joan reported that she hopes to start the Art Library
QuestionPoint/OCLC pilot project in September.