Meetings on Sept 29 and Oct. 8 of OPAC Group
The OPAC Functional Group (OPAC FG), OPAC Technical Group (OTIG) and the
Voyager PR group met Monday Sept 29. Anne Fullerton gave a demo of the Web
and Windows clients. There were lots of questions and discussions on how
each client works since the OTIG and PR members had had limited experience
with either client. The roles or work assignments of each of the OPAC
groups was also discussed.
In the afternoon, the OPAC FG and Bill Oldfield (OTIG) worked on the
opac.ini and help.ini files. Changes to these fields will be made at each
library's clients.
***********************************************************************
* ANYONE WHO HAS ACCESS to the Voyager 97.1 beta clients, please *
* look at our efforts and send Anne, Diane and Helen your comments. *
* Hopefully, the changes will show in 97.1 gold SOON *
***********************************************************************
Decisions:
1. search tabs changes
Headings becomes Author/Title/Subject
Builder becomes Combine Keywords (Boolean)
Any Keyword becomes Keyword Anywhere
Command becomes Advanced Searching
2. default tab Author/Title/Subject
3. textbox help - we chose some Canadian examples and reformatted the
information in each box so that it is easier to read
(we think)
We also met with Mark Haslett to discuss some issues that arose from the
3 reports we submitted to VPMG Oct. 17. (TUG printing options, web vs.
windows client in library, databases to access from
Voyager)
Recommendations:
a. OPAC FG has recommended that all workstations be fully functional on
DAY 1 and that express (e.g. catalogue only) workstations or any other
reduced function workstation be created if the need arises after DAY1. We
felt it was better to see how our users use the workstations rather than
anticipate problems ahead of time and impose unnecessary
restictions.
b. OPAC FG has recommended that all 3 clients - web, windows, ascii - be
available on all the public pentium workstations with appropriate messages
from the webpage that launches these to tell the users the major
advantages/disadvantages of each (e.g. web is the interface they may be
used to from outside the library but patron info is not secure unless you
exit the browser after use; searching in Windows client is faster and
includes some features not available in the web client).
We feel that users should be able to choose the interface which suits
their needs. We will learn from reports and evaluations during the first
term of use which interface is being used most often etc. (NOTE: at UW,
only the web client will run on the PowerMac workstations as there are no
MAC clients for Voyager).
c. OPAC FG will support plans to distribute the Windows client to users
outside the libraries only if the Systems Dept. of our libraries or other
designated group are willing to handle all the support issues associated
with this kind of distribution. We do not feel that this responsibility
should fall to the Information or Circulation desk
staff.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The OPAC FG met with Jan Brett on Wed. Oct. 8 at Guelph and made some more
decisions about the windows OPAC client:
Decisions:
1. We chose to have one long record instead of 2 tabs with parts of the
record under each tab. We re-arranged the fields in the record display
into the following order with spaces between the
lines as indicated:
title
series
conference name
author (includes editor, corporate authors)
publisher
material type [renamed - Endeavor called it Primary
material]
status [that's circulation related messages]
call #
location
title changes [that's for periodicals]
subject headings
description [includes notes]
We dropped Number of Items but may need to add it in again depending upon
how multiple copies at the same location are displayed in OPAC. We decided
to try one record with the most important info near the top is because
users don't read and are unlikely to choose the aditional tab for the
subject information (and miss out on the hot links to other books on
their topic).
In Voyager, one record fits all. We will need to see a variety of record
types to determine whether our decisions work for
all.
2. Limits - we kept the Endeavor defaults for language, date, type. Under
medium, we changed serial to periodical. We need to investigate how to
minimize the length of the locations list and to have the most frequently
used locations near the top of the list.
3. We discussed what types of reports we will need for the opac. If the
workstatin log is not available until 97.2 then it is not clear how these
reports will be generated:
#users x time of day
#users x workstation x time of day
search types x time of day
search types x workstation
failed searches
databases accessed x time of day
help screens used x time of day
help screens used x workstation
We would want to see summary graphs of this information by day, week,
month, term, year. And results for each client. If the web client can be
tracked by in library vs outside library access,
that would be helpful.
4. we talked briefly about how to create a Reserves only workstation.
Disabling all the tabs except Reserves seems possible. If faculty are
submitting webpages or scanned docuemnts as part of reserves, Netscape may
be needed as an application. How to place limits on the use of netscape in
this case is not clear.
5. Our next meeting is Tues. Oct 14 9:30 am at Davis Centre Library, UW.
After that, we plan to meet Monday afternoons as
often as needed.