July 29, 2004
University of Portland, Buckley Center, Room 163
Members attending in person:
· Eastern Washington University: Gary Jeffries
· Evergreen State College: Mindy Muzatko
· George Fox University: Louise Newswanger (Chair)
· University of Oregon: Shirien Chappell
· University of Washington Pam Mofjeld
· Willamette University: Maresa Kirk
Members attending by phone:
· COCC: Tina Hovecamp
Members not present:
· none
Guests:
· Alliance staff: John Helmer
· Alliance staff: Travis Honea
· Alliance staff: Nancy Nathanson
· Alliance staff: Michelle Williams
Discussion ensued.
o Maybe we should do one to see how well it's going. We've noticed that we get items later than we should from some schools on a regular basis, but not from other schools.
o NLN: It's not that simple to do a courier transit time study. We must be confident that everybody is doing the survey the same way so that you're not comparing apples to oranges. Everybody needs to do it on the same day, do it the same way. For example, some sites wrote down when it left the packaging area, some wrote the date the courier came. The data with regard to specifics: it's all over the board. In general, it helped figure out the general patterns.
o NLN handed out documentation which had been used in previous courier transit time studies. To see the pages, go to the this page.
o What questions are we answering with a courier study? Do we need it now? If generally we are not having a problem, why take the staff time to do it?
o We have a sense that what comes from CWU, EWU, and WSU takes a day longer than materials coming from other schools. Could we find out what the hub and routes are, maybe?
o Is it worth considering a scaled-down random test? Not everybody having to mark everything the same day, time, but just one site, if they're curious or having problems, putting a note in a bag to another specific site saying, "Hey, write down when you got this and send it back, ok"? NLN: if you want to do that, you should have Alliance staff help you write the forms so the right information gets recorded.
o Some patrons say they requested it a while ago and never got the notice or the book. We think a transit survey would help this.
o But did you check the patron record before assuming it was the courier? The slow down could be the owning site not having filled the request yet, or something else.
o It's not a good time now to do the survey due to the contract process coming up. What good would it do us now, to know their turnaround time? Maybe we should do one after we have the new contract in place.
o Interesting digression from John Helmer: Just a reminder that the primary reason that the Alliance is in the courier business for Summit Borrowing. A secondary reason is to serve Alliance ILL needs, and a third reason is to serve other (non-Alliance libraries) needs. There are competing ideas about what a courier service is or should be, so when we run into those, the guiding principles are that Summit Borrowing needs take priority.
Decision: In general we are ok with the time taken during transit, so we recommend that we not take the time to do another survey now, unless the Alliance staff find it's necessary for the new RFP. If a site feels that the transit time is too long, then they should first take steps to document it by assuring that the patron's complaint about "where's my book, I ordered it a long time ago" are not based on another site not sending the book earlier, or on the patron's site not processing the book quickly enough. That is, they should check the status to be SURE it's a transit problem, and start documenting that. If we find that the transit time is indeed taking too long, then we should do the study. Also, individual sites who may be having problems with other individual sites can do their own transit survey, and should ask for the help of Alliance staff.
Discussion ensued.
o How is this any different from a book which is supposed to be sent to the patron's library but accidentally ends up at a third site? We depend on the status to decide who gets to pay for it...
o Well, depending on answers to NLN's queries, maybe we won't be paying each other for any lost books in a year or three, anyhow, so maybe this should wait.
o It may be that this is not any more of a problem with PUA than it was without it.
Decision: Will reevaluate after PUA has been in place for a longer period of time. Let's find out if we have a problem. Let's wait until we hear from NLN about the numbers of net losses, system-wide.
Should the time be changed from three days to seven days?
o We do report, we sort by date and ignore the ones you don't want. NLN will add that to the "tips" page.
Decision: Do not make change in the timing.
Louise, do you need input for this report from the Steering Committee? A: if she does, she'll let us know.
o Challenges
o Horizon Issues
o Big events of the last year
o note success of last two days (Summit Borrowing Day, Committee meetings)
o Ask whether council can discuss increasing the mandatory minimum contributions of ITypes for Summit Borrowing. (Shirien's later note: Please see the Collection Management Task Force's draft Final Report and Recommendations to Council. It may be that we will be charged with some work in the future.)
o Statistics
Can we get rid of this PType?
o NLN: The council said we were no longer to "adopt" each other's patrons, but to use Visiting Patron feature, instead.
o Given some of the comments from the Summit Borrowing Committee meeting about sites adopting patrons and the discomfort expressed about this practice, maybe we should resolve to remove the possibility of adoptions by deleting the 205 PType mapping from the Central machine.
o We should get rid of those PTypes so that schools who cannot use Visiting Patron (the record is blocked for some reason) will not be able to create a patron record in their own database for a student from another Alliance school (and then expect the other Alliance school to pay for items that the student did not return).
o Nancy could send an email to all announcing it will be discontinued as of 12-31-04, and advise about deleting from local records and tables.
Decision: The Steering Committee voted to discontinue the use of PTypes 205 (Summit Visitor) and 235 (Summit Visitor w CRL) by December 31, 2004. Require sites to use the Visiting Patron feature of the software, as directed by Council.
o Louise: should we plan another one for February?
o When does the Council want to meet with the Steers? Maybe we could have that meeting right after a Steering Committee meeting.
o JHelmer: next exec meeting is December, another in March, usually held in Portland
o Maybe the Steers should meet shortly before they meet with the Executive Council, to plan what they want to say, etc.
Decision: let's find out when the Exec. Committee will be meeting with the Steering Team and schedule around that.
Minutes prepared by: Shirien Chappell, August 4, 2004
Approved: