Meeting Minutes: March 10, 2005
InfoEyes Advisory Committee Meeting
Attendees:
Crystal Lentz, Melora, Deborah Margolis, John Mugford, Diana Sussman, Lori, Catherine, Heather Muller, Sharon Ruda
1) Statistics and Usage Report
A number of questions that came in during February were not closed in QuestionPoint, which made it hard to determine whether or not to count them for statistical purposes. Please remember to close questions in QuestionPoint once you are finished answering them. There were 19 sessions in January and 30 sessions in February (28 countable). There was a discussion about what countable sessions are and it was agreed that multiple questions within a single session should be counted individually. Response time is pretty slow, perhaps due to weekends. Thursday is the day we get the most questions, so it would be great to get Friday coverage to help with response time, or maybe someone could volunteer to check for email questions over the weekend. It was suggested that we put a notice on the website that email isn't checked on holidays or weekends so people know what to expect.
2) Web Page Design
http://www.infoeyes.org/home2.html
The beta version of the website has been updated to incorporate the changes suggested at our last meeting. The beta version was shown and it was decided that it will be posted.
3) Schedule
Maryland will soon be staffing desk hours. Joe Thompson is working with librarians there to see what they can do. They are working around our existing schedule, so it's possible that we won't need to change what anyone else is working. If a change is needed, it will be announced.
4) Are we interested in a two month trial of the new netlibrary/Recorded Books digital audiobook service from OCLC?
Those who are interested in the trial should contact Lori Bell in the next couple weeks. It doesn't have to be the whole group - it could just be certain libraries. The libraries that decide to participate can get together to develop a timetable and arrange for training, etc. We can try to arrange the trial around newsletter publication dates, or other promotional opportunities, and Lori will check with OCLC about the possibility of staggered trial periods for the interested libraries. There could be a link to the audiobooks on the InfoEyes webpage for everyone, or there could be links on individual library websites. It was asked how people will sign up for audiobooks (individually through NetLibrary or through us) and Lori said she will ask. If we participate in the trial as a group, we need someone willing to be the go-between to handle the volume of request, support questions, etc. or we need them to go directly to OCLC/NetLibrary. Lori can provide contact info if someone wants to look into getting audiobooks for just their library.
5) Timing out in QP
People have had trouble with QP timing them out when they are working on answering an email question, and they have lost all their work. To change your settings in QuestionPoint so that you don't get kicked out: log into QP, click on "settings." Change your "session time-out period" to 2 hours and click save. A way to get around the time out problem is to cut and paste your answers to and from a word document.
6) Claiming questions
Someone claimed a question recently, but then discovered that someone else claimed it after she had done so. It is being looked into to see why it happened. Make sure to check if the question you want to answer has already been claimed. If a question is claimed, it is already being worked on.
7) Advocacy
No one had any new advocacy ideas.
8) Wrap up. Other issues?
Are other disabilities excluded on purpose? According to the website, InfoEyes is a community for the visually impaired. People with other disabilities could benefit from the voice-over technology. It was decided that the website will be changed to say something like "Infoeyes is a question and answer service for the visually impaired and those with other print disabilities."
Next meetings:
April 21; May 19; June ?