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Public Services Steering Committee
September 2, 1998
Minutes

Present: Carol Turner, Rich Bennett, David Hickey, Sally Craven for Jan Swanbeck, Carol Drum, Gary Cornwell

Absent: Colleen Seale

Agenda:

1) Updates and Issues for Academic Year

a)  Use Patterns
Carol Drum announced that Marston Science Library was incredibly busy on Saturday. She said this might have been due in part to the fact that CIRCA was closed.
Gary Cornwell suggested that weekend hours might need to be revised next semester. Carol Drum said current staffing didn't allow for extending hours on Saturdays. To do that, an extra circulation person would need to be added.
Carol Turner said she had been visited by a graduate student who pointed out that evenings, weekends and intercessions were when the graduate students were most able to use the libraries. She suggested that there might be more support for shifting hours if it was to benefit graduate students.
Gary said that intercessions were the times the libraries were least used. Carol Drum also said that intercession was the only time the circulation staff took vacation time and that to increase hours during intercession would hurt the staff.
It was agreed that the priority was to extend the Saturday hours.
b) Technology Carol Drum said she is still waiting for the new computers to be set up at Marston Science. She said they are trying to hire a student to work in the mornings and take care of the computers.
Gary Cornwell said 11 machines were set up for e-mail in Reference.
Rich Bennett said Centurion is being put on many library computers to filter the email.
Carol Drum said that the 13th Chemical Abstract is already loaded but 12th still needs to be added. She will work with Rich to make up an index page.
Carol said that the new circulation manual doesn't include procedures for when computers are down. This needs to be added.
Rich announced that there are many new ways of maximizing the use of WebLUIS. He is considering offering a training course for PSC and TSC.
Rich also discussed downloading and printing files in WebLUIS. He said in the test of this process you could actually see an entry and what they intend to do with when it is fully operational. He is going to call FCLA to see when this will be operational. He hopes it will be ready by the end of September. c) Instruction Carol Turner hopes to get volunteers to offer library instruction to freshman English classes. She said many biology classes are also offering Library instruction.
Carol Drum said the Gartner products are being used, but they need to be utilized more. She would like to see a workshop given on how to utilize Gartner Group products. This workshop would be for the Public Services staff who help users. It could be a forum or Colleague Connection. d) Handouts Carol Turner said that a lot of handouts have been created and distributed. Are there any others that need to be created?
Rich said he was working "WebLUIS vs LUIS" for possible inclusion in Faculty News as well as for a general handout.
Carol Drum said she recently did a handout to inform researchers how to access the Royal Society of Chemistry full text site with a password and user ID. Gary said he did a similar handout for other sites that needed password and Ids. It was decided that there should be a standard form for everyone to use to make this more consistent.
2) Planning a) PS Forum Topics Ideas for topics include Gartner Group, reciprocal borrowing for circulation staff when the community colleges start borrowing from the SUS schools.
Rich suggested that the community college borrowing procedures is mostly a matter of communication but doesn't necessarily require a full forum. Carol also stated that community college borrowers would be treated as Special Borrowers, not like UF patrons.
Changes in ILL was also mentioned as a forum topic. ILL would like everything to be done electronically by the end of the school year. b) Carol announced that the web page would be online soon   c) David Hickey announced that when the Board of Presidents meet, they would endorse community college patronage of SUS libraries. We will need to validate that a person is a community college student or professor. This can be done through a web site. A decision needs to be made as to whether the circulation staff needs to verify their status each time they check a book out or just the first time. 3) November 18 Ken Osfield will put together a session on working with disabled persons. It was decided that the session should be open to all PS staff.

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