Date: Tue Nov 16, 2004
6:45 pm
Subject: My meeting notes
Ideas and Questions -- Web OPAC Committee Meeting
The following are a few ideas and questions we discussed at the Web
OPAC Committee Meeting.
Policies -- What policies do we want to recommend?
Should there be a template for OPAC pages, or should individual
libraries have complete freedom to design their own OPAC pages?
What standards should we adopt for MLN OPAC pages?
Show MLN logo on OPAC page
Link to MLN home page
Features We Like (so far) from other Millenium OPACs (with thanks to
Jan for her list)
"Book bag" instead of shopping cart (Deakin Library
<http://library.deakin.edu.au/>)
Combination of dropdown menus and direct links (Mills College,
<minerva.mills.edu>)
Search box available from first OPAC screen (Mills, Deakin, others)
Mouseover explanations of search options (Newcastle,
<http://library.newcastle.edu.au/>
Immediate Changes
There are a few things Kay said she could change almost immediately,
if we agree that they would be useful. First, we could keep
"Keyword"
as a search option on every search menu. Second, the phrase "My
Millennium" could be changed to "My Account" which is
clearer. Third,
those of us at the meeting don't really like the shopping cart icon on
the mark/save items button. Kay could change it to something that
looks less like a commitment to buy something; Deakin Library's
"Book
Bag" seems like a good choice.
Action Items
The following would help answer some questions about the Hold function
in My Millennium:
Try placing a hold from within your library, from home, and (for
Robin) find someone who has a public library agency code / student
patron type and ask them to place a couple of holds. Try using a
patron's card and your own card (staff). See what happens to these
requests -- do they seem to use the IP range, the agency code, or the
patron type to determine the patron's home library? Report back if
you figure anything out!
Keep looking at other III catalogs. Let the group know if you find
something interesting -- you can add a bookmark on the Yahoo! Group
site, and/or post a message to the group.
There's a lot we can do with the Web OPAC. We just need to figure out
what we want and how to do it!
Oh, and we discussed scheduling another meeting -- probably sometime
in January. Is it too early to begin talking about a date?
Robin
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