Digital Reference Committee Meeting Minutes
March 10, 2005; 9:30 to 11:00AM
Art Library
Facilitator: Kim
Notetaker: Kari

Present: J. Hatleberg, T. Johnson, N. Pandya, K. Ricker, K. Schmidt, J. Stahl, L. Wrubel

I. Update on Spring Program (Joan / Kari)

  • Kim and Jenny volunteered to buy refreshments for the program and to work with facilities on the room set-up. Laura will have the session taped. Kari will request that someone from the Library Matters photo pool take pictures. Travis will work on the program evaluation questionnaire.
  • Kari reported that work on publicity is going well. The website is up (http://www.lib.umd.edu/groups/digref/future.html) and it is linked off the Digital Dateline page. Niyati, Kim and Kari will start sending out to area listservs next week (MLA, VLA, DCLA, MDL, Catholic, American, WRLA, Health Science Libraries, CLIS, UM Libraries Staff). They plan to send a total of three announcements to area listservs before the event. An article about the program will be in next week’s Library Matters. An article/calendar listing will appear on MLA E-Crab as well as DCLA and VLA newsletters. Kim posted an announcement on the Libraries’ calendar and Maggie has the program posted on the staff events calendar. An article will be submitted to Library Matters and the website will be updated after the event.

    • II. Teaching with Technology: Update / Work of Subcommittee (Joan)

  • Ask Us will be the only poster session at the conference. The group discussed what information should be on the poster. Travis, Niyati and Kim volunteered to make the poster and Joan will talk with Rebecca Wilson about designing/printing a poster. Joan and Laura will staff the morning poster session 8:30-9:15AM. Joan and Kim will staff the lunch poster session 12:00-12:30PM. Laura volunteered to design a handout and will coordinate with Travis, Niyati and Kim. Joan will forward all the materials she has on the conference to the subcommittee.

    • III. Update on Recommendation #1 (Redirection of Effort # 9 + #10) sent to IRS-T (Joan)

  • Joan sent the narrative outline, staffing model and cost-benefit matrix to IRS-T for their meeting this past week. Unfortunately, IRS-T did not have a quorum and could not meet. IRS-T is scheduling a special meeting to be held between the 16th and 30th. Joan will present Recommendation #1 to IRS-T at the special meeting. Joan reminded the group that right now the Committee is simply working on the process in response to the redirection of effort as charged by the leaders group. Due to the subject, Joan requested that documents and discussions of the process be kept within the committee. After the presentation, IRS-T will decide the next steps to take.

    • IV. Report on Recommendation # 2 (i.e., merging chat services) / Conversation with Joe

  • Joan spoke with Joe about the costs and benefits of merging the chat services. Currently there are two categories of participating libraries, academic and public, with College Park being one of four academic libraries. The benefit of membership allows coverage from other libraries in the state in exchange for a set number of service hours. There are a number of possibilities in terms of service if College Park were to invest in 24/7 Question Point. 1. A queue can be set up, at no additional charge, were College Park would only answer academic questions. College Park might have to contribute hours for coverage of the public queue, however. 2. College Park can set up its own queue for an extra cost. There would be less responsibility with a separate queue. College Park would still have 24/7 backup. 3. College Park could go on its own, but there would be no back-up and Human Click does not have the functionality of 24/7 Question Point. Joan will send out some more information on the functionality of 24/7 Question Point.
  • Joan and Travis will work on the cost-benefit matrix for Recommendation #2 and distribute to the group via email.

    • V. Chat & Usability Testing(Wrubel)

  • Laura presented some video footage of usability testing of the library web site. There was a question that led participants to chat. Laura also distributed some observations from the usability testing that can be used in web page redesign if the chat services are merged. For example, the group agreed there is too much text on the current chat page. The group will return to the observations from the usability tests in the future.

    • VI. Round Robin

  • Laura will work with Kari on posting the Resources for Chat Operators page to the committee website.