OSL Minutes: Reference Working Group, October 7, 2008

Group welcomed two new members, Carol Shedd from George Hail in Warren and Lauri Burke, the new head of Reference in Barrington.

NoveList Plus no longer has the option to "Search the library catalog" - is this something that needs to be activated by each individual library or can Ebsco do it globally for all of us?

Links to Ebsco databases seem to change without warning. Some links work from home, some do not. Discussion ensued about whether Ebsco remote authentication was by library barcode or zip code, and when would geographic authentication be in place? Would geographic authentication be by IP address? Ebsco is working on the IP authentication, but will try using zip code until it can all be sorted out.

Karen Mellor is in charge of the new Ebsco statewide databases. According to OLIS, Karen is our contact for issues regarding the new statewide databases. Discussion ensued about whether or not we needed to link to the new databases through AskRI or just a direct link from our libraries' homepages. Getting all the steps right in activating this will take some time.

Communication: who is checking the message boards? How can we reach more people? Pat had advertised our group on the OSL web mail, but did not seem to get a huge response from other reference librarians. Is there a better way we can reach other libraries? Pat mentioned sending letters in the delivery, and someone else mentioned sending letters to directors urging their staff to check the email daily.

Blu-ray disc records are showing up in the OPAC, mostly from Greenville. Catalogers have put in the system details field a message that says "This is a Blu-ray disc and will not play in a standard DVD player" but the concern is that patrons will not scroll down to see that message. Discussion ensued about the best way to alert patrons that the movie is a blu-ray disc, by getting an icon posted immediately.

Lisa mentioned that perhaps as an interim step, she will make all Blu-ray records not holdable until a solution can be found. The Database Management committee is also looking into this.

Beth mentioned that Blu-ray discs are not DVD's, so we should not catalog them under DVD's in the OPAC. Public service staff should be aware when they place holds on new movies that they are not placing a hold on a Blu-ray title unless the patron specifically asks for it.

Staff turnover at OLIS: see message from Howard Boksenbaum on OLIS website, and be aware that services from OLIS may be slower than usual due to the high turnover.

AskRI links to Live Homework Help, but is the product called Live Homework Help or is it called Tutor.com? Staff and patrons are confused by the interchangeable terminology. Tutor.com has done a poor job with their marketing, calling themselves one thing and marketing their product under a different name.

AskRI is supposed to be doing a statewide marketing and PR campaign for the new statewide databases (Ebsco, WorldBook, and Live Homework Help) but we are unclear when this marketing will take place. Some libraries want to start marketing now, and don't know if they should wait or just go ahead and market by themselves. They should wait.

Ebsco databases: each library can have an administrator username and password, which allows you to revise the settings of Ebsco and get user statistics. Please contact Lisa Davis and she will set up an account or reset passwords for each library.

World Book Online now has 4 separate interfaces: World Book Kids, World Book Discover, World Book Student, and World Book Advanced. Patrons are asked to choose which one they want to search in, but each library can set the link to go directly into one of the four if they want. Julie mentioned that Pawtucket has chosen to link directly to World Book Student as it represents a middle ground between all 4 interfaces and replaces the old World Book Online Reference Center that existed previously.

ProQuest: suddenly is no longer including obituaries in the Providence Journal archives. Older obituaries are still there, but newer ones from 2008 are not appearing. Lisa Davis is going to find out why they did this and if there is anything we can do. We do not want to pay $75K for a product that does not include obituaries. Our current contract expires 6/30/09.

Encore: Joan mentioned that the Encore installation has been put off until Nov. 18th. At that time, Encore will go live only in the OSL offices. Once they have tweaked it and worked out the training needs, the plan is to release Encore to all public libraries within the next few months. Beth mentioned that the Cranston Public Library will not be installing Encore.

Steering Committee: Pat mentioned that she thought it was a good idea if someone from the group attended the Steering Committee meetings, because we do not have up-to-date information about what is discussed at those meetings. Joan said that they are working on getting "unapproved" minutes posted quickly instead of waiting until minutes are approved. The group decided that if anyone had the time to go, then they would attend, but it would not be mandatory.

Reminder: the InRhode database includes all of the Helin library catalogs, plus Brown. The Helin catalog only contains the Helin member libraries. You can search the InRhode catalog right from the Helin main search page.

Next Meeting: Tuesday November 18th, 2 p.m. OSL offices.