Meeting Minutes: September 21, 2005
InfoEyes Meeting
Attendees:
Diana Sussman, Catherine Durivage, Linda Rossman, Sharon Ruda, Joe Thompson, Robin Rousu, Meghan McDaniel
Calendar Issues
Diana questioned whether we want librarians to have access to the online calendar when there are shift substitutions for the day-to-day coverage of InfoEyes. It was decided that it will be the responsibility of the person requesting substitute coverage to notate the change in shift in the yahoo online calendar that Diana has set up. The should be done extremely carefully only by one of the librarians who knows how to make these changes correctly and has been trained to use this calendar system, so that our calendar does not lose its integrity! Diana gave us simple instructions for how to make note of a substitution in the calendar and then how to take it off.
Log onto system. Go to add events and put in the name of library subbing (i.e., Illinois Subbing)
Check off All Day Event (or if need be you can put in the times)
Make sure to leave system on NON REPEATING EVENT!
(Important Note: Everyone needs to be extremely careful not to delete any repeating events, such as New York working every Saturday or the calendar may need to be completely redone!)
When the "subbing" is no longer relevant, delete only that "non repeating" event. Please be very careful!
Catherine asked if there could be any way to save an online master of the calendar. It was agreed, to avoid confusion, that the best way to handle this is to be sure to have print copies of the entire online master calendar as a backup.
Training and New Routing System
Diana has not yet heard back from Jeff Penka at OCLC so certain items are still up in the air. We need to know how to make the members of the InfoEyes listserve the recipients of the email when people click on the link to schedule a live session. Because we are still missing this information, it is hard to change the website and update the scripts.
For now, when October schedule starts, for the interim we need to have the link say “click here to schedule an appointment to talk live with a librarian on the internet.” Until we change the system, a patron clicking on that link will just be filling out the same e-mail form as our regular questionpoint email form. The person responsible for the InfoEyes shift that particular day should be checking the QP questions as often as possible both to answer incoming questions, but also to be sure to know about any person who wants to schedule a live session. For the time being if we get someone wanting to have a live session, send the patron back an email and just copy and paste the link to the online iVocalize Reference Room and send the link by email to the patron also telling the person what time you can meet them live.
The link is:
http://67.19.231.218/v4/login.asp?r=5966500b&p=0
You will need to have them go to this link, then type in their name and enter.
(If you have trouble getting into the room for any reason, you should work with Talking Communities to solve the problem: www.talkingcommunities.com)
We will be working with OCLC to refine this system so that requests for live service scheduling will go to the listserve and also so that the email form for live services will be distinguishable from the regular email requests.
Statistics Report
Catherine said that there were 19 questions in August, but that four of the questions were requests for further clarification of the questions. There had been 11 questions in July.
Membership and Coverage Issues
Diana stated that Catherine and Linda will be the new coordinators of Infoeyes for a one year term starting in October 2005.
Diana asked about the language we should use for letting people know our hours. She asked if we should leave it totally open or refer to "normal business hours." It was agreed it would be preferable to say we are open during "normal business hours."
Diana discussed how she had worked out the system for the various contributions that the member libraries would make over this year. Diana reviewed the ways in which the different member libraries would be contributing to the InfoEyes Project. ILL, NY, MD and WA are all working every week for one day. As MN and MA are co-directing this project, they will work every other week, one day during the week they are scheduled. IL has paid for three memberships for two years. WA state maintained the website this year; however, next year WA BTBL will maintain the website. MD will be secretary during the coming year, although they would like to share coverage with another library. Diana suggested it would be great if PA and ME might be able to provide some secretarial work next year to make their contribution equal to other libraries. She also brought up the question on how to recognize those libraries that have provided extraordinary contributions. Sharon stated she did not feel that we need to be concerned with this issue as everyone is participating in a good way and is very committed.
Secretary Still Needed:
Diana stressed that we still need to have a volunteer to share secretarial duties with Joe. Although we have monthly meetings currently, we may get to a point where we meet less frequently. Meghan from PA said it is difficult for her to be secretary as the meeting time had conflicted with her desk time on InfoEyes, but she may be able to work it out. Joe stated the meetings he didn't think he could cover would be January 19th and April 20th (through the end of June 2005). Meghan said she could cover those meetings and could back Joe up as Secretary.
Miscellaneous
Sharon and Linda said they had experienced some problems choosing the audible sound they wanted to hear when new users entered the iVocalize room since the upgrade to version 4. Linda said she would try to contact Talking Communities to get some technical support to resolve this issue.