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A-Team minutes
Thursday, November 17, 2005
10:00-11:30AM

Members present: Mary Drigger, Melba Lampp, John Martin, Michel Wilbanks-Fox, Carol Whitmer, Suzy Potter, Jean Bostwick, Dot Hope, Jason Fleming, Kendra Carter, Doug Kiker, Travios Schaben, Angela Stewart, Pamela Cunninghal-Williams, Jody Hewitt, Joe Baca, Cindy Frey, Margeaux Johnson, Paula Tarrant, Raimonda Margjioni, ANita Lambert, Ann Baird, John Seay, Jami Beserock, Cathy Martyniak, Roberto Barrios

 

1. “Round robin” introduction of all present A-Team members. Naomi Young and Bobby Parker were out sick.There will be member introduction each time this group meets, as it is so large and membership can change quickly.

2. From the September meeting, Cathy and Naomi were supposed to write up a document outlining how to fill out the Web OPAC note on Tab 2 of the Aleph Item record when the bound volume will be incomplete. They did not get to it and Cathy apologized to the group. A brief discussion was held. The group consensus was that no abbreviations should be used (msg could =message OR missing which is confusing to patron). Spell out the word Missing and then use the appropriate enumeration captions (v. for volume, no. for number, etc.) to indicate which issue(s) are missing. A question about what to do when many issues are missing was raised. C athy suggested that the years only be used in the Description and Line A and I on tab 4. Then, be VERY explicit in the Holdings statements.

3, Doug talked a bit about cancelled paper titles (we are not getting them any more becuase we cancelled the subscription. Many times this is because we are getting the electronic title instead.) He showed three ways to tell either from the Serials Module or the Nav Map how to tell a title has been cancelled. He will be writing up a document for inclusion in Aleph Pro (online Aleph documentaiton index at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/alephpro/) that will have example of these 3 methods.

Doug also mentioned that his Unit had started to work out a procedure to make some changes in ALeph to clearly indicate to people that the paper title was cancelled, to disable the 853X field so no more paper records would be predicted, etc. He will work on that procedure as well. Someone asked about lsits of which paper titles were cancelled, by which vendors. (Oxford, Cambridge and Springer). He has copie sof those lists and will break them out by sublibrary, collection and forward them to the appropriate person at each branch.

Next time, Naomi can talk about how to tell when a titles has ceased (is no longer being published).

4. Tied closely to #3 is the idea of how to let the patron know that the paper title has ceased and that they should look at the electronic version is now available. There is a projector and laptop available and Serials Solutions was examined. It was hoped that most patrons would find the electronic record first and not go to the paper unless they needed back files. This topic generated much discussion but no real clear cut consensus on how to approach a solution.

5. Jason gave a demonstration of the third part of a three part Macro on speeding up the Item Record (re)sorting process. There was a discussion re: getting ME installed at the branches and training performed so that people could learn to use it.

6. Permissions: Doug asked who needed what kinds of permissions in Aleph, what could they not do that they needed to do ( for example, most people cannot change the claim intervals in Aleph, though they could in NOTIS). Rich is working on this and is trying to come up with a permission template for a typical arrival person or a typical binding person. Letting DOug know what you are not allowed to do witll help Rich know what to add, so tell Doug if you have any problems.

7. Reports: Aleph still does not spit ouit reports easily or in a straight forward manner. It is a problem and Doug needs to know which reports that you used to get but cannot get now are a priority for me. The Continuations title list was mentioned. Again, put a list of the reports you need to gether and send it to Doug.

8. Tight Budgets: There is not a ton of money this year to buy books. Therefore, there MAY be some monograph acquistions staff who have time to help with some periodical/serial clean up orojects. Cathy asked arrival and binding staff members to let her know how far along they were with various Aleph clean up projects, including 866 conversion and item record (re)sorting. Cathy will write up the data she received from A Team members and get them to review it for accuracy.

Tracking which titles had been 'cleaned up' is important. This might be accomplished using a TKR (tickler) field or via Aleph reports generated some other way.

NEXT MEETING: TBD, due to ALA Midwinter conference on 3rd Thursday of January