2001 NAAUG Roundtable Comments
ACQUISITIONS Interesting topic was raised it was well discussed and talked about. Overall good. Briefly good session. A free form discussion useful in discovering problematic areas experienced by different libraries in adapting to ALEPH/Ex Libris. Very useful to learn the problems of other institutions. Excellent discussion of issues. Thanks very much. These sessions were very informative and productive. Good issues for system improvement. Three of these sessions may have been too many. Lively discussion, small group. Useful having Ex Libris rep. Moderator - good, calm, let conversion flow. Discussions were interesting & informative although not structured as much as they could have been. CATALOGUING Excellent sharing ideas. Fast-paced, very informative. Very helpful and will be more so after weve actually gone up on ALEPH. Group setting fairly informal, format yielded some good ideas about details related to tables. It might have been a better allocation of time to have 2 roundtable slots (perhaps one hour each) instead of 3 and to devote the rest of the time to longer site presentations. (1/2 hour was too short for those) As it turned out, it seemed that the same people in general attended all 3 cataloguing sessions. Useful info on Unicode/conversion and issues. Other practical matters related to cataloguing implementation. Identification of tables - Key info. Interesting sharing of experiences. Might have been more useful to have a specific topic rather than just a free-for-all. This is a comment for all the roundtables. I suspect there were repeats for some people, and other topics got missed. I would like to see some more formal means of generating enhancement and sending them to the working group. We did have good general discussion of peoples experiences with implementation and training. I think it would be very helpful for an appropriate Ex Libris staff person to attend all roundtable meetings to hear discussions and answer questions.
Roundtable Comments 2001
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Very interesting kept moving covered a lot of ground. All the sessions of this roundtable were informative. As a newbie, I could not follow some of the jargon and therefore did not get as much out of the sessions as there was to get. Loose is best no agenda, flow of discussion was fueled by need and sharing. Great place to exchange hints, facts and even some griping. Well-done session, good discussions, recommendations, sharing! CIRCULATION Margie was very good at facilitating our discussions, keeping us on track, keeping the discussions & topics moving at beginning & ending on time. The moderator kept the group on target. Very well this is important. There was a simple agenda which generated good discussion. Ezra was able to hear peoples concerns about input and representations. Ex Libris should be represented or available to these NAAUG groups. Fair time was allotted to each institution/concern. Consensus reached on decisions. It was good to have Ezra and/or Marie at the roundtable sessions to get answers about problems/questions or information about development. It was great to hear ideas, questions, and concerns from staff members from other sites. Agenda presented by moderator with opportunity to amend and add very helpful & important. Good exchange of ideas moderated when needed by Margie. A roundtable of chairs would also be helpful, instead of lecture style arrangement. Very informative, good discussions. Like multiple sessions on same subject do discussions could be continued or elaborated upon without becoming over long. Cant think of any way to improve upon sessions moderator did good job keeping things moving. List discussion topics ahead of time as people may prepare a little more and know what they are talking about. LARGE RESEARCH LIBRARIES Good session presented burning issues. Preliminary agenda or issues to be addressed would be useful. Valuable Roundtable Please continue. Very useful. Good moderator. The session was very useful. The focus was on several problems. Ex Libris officials responded well and tried to set the record straight. The various representatives were from universities that already had ALEPH or were about to get ALEPH. Reports already covered in 2 other sessions. Ex Libris replied
Roundtable Comments 2001
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and clarified. Keyword search adjacency problems because of large size of records. Ex Libris discusses how to cope with problem. Other problems discussed or presented depending on library and experience of librarian. Care should be taken not to bash the Ex Libris reps.
SERIALS Room not conducive to open discussion. But thats minor and we worked it out. It would help new users to have an advance list of sample discussion topics, might also move the groups out of complaint mode. The roundtables drive themselves quite successfully. Would like to see a liaison from Steering Committee appointed to facilitate communication on organizational and process concerns. Have a list of questions that you can prime the pump with, because asking general questions about what questions people have is hard to respond to. I thought it was fine and I liked the organization of groups. Good - interesting to hear other institutions questions, concerns. Sign up sheet for participants - If this is a discussion group, the table should be in a group setting not classroom. It was great to have Ezra in the group would be nice to always have an Ex Libris expert. For the time I stayed the discussion was interesting. Really great roundtable the - communication with ALEPH maker - I believe the Serials group feel less in the dark. Great group! SYSTEMS Donnas list of possible topics was excellent. How about a roundtable? Arrange chairs, tables in square or circle discussion seating. Donna did a good job. Very informative. Its great to network with people who are experiencing the same types of problems & issues and to have someone else solve some of your problems. Was OK. Topics were appropriate. Having a topic list worked well. The discussion wasnt constrained, but kept to general, broad topics. It was good to hear all the varying ways Systems staff achieve the same end. Sessions were good in that they were essentially wide open to any concerns that individuals brought forward. A list of possible topics was given and individuals could focus on their interests.
Roundtable Comments 2001
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Excellent sharing of information. Extremely helpful. If this is going to continue, next year we will send our programmers. I came in late so I dont know if this was done. However, it would be nice if everyone took 2 minutes to introduce themselves and what their status with ALEPH is. Nice to see what others do. Great to share problems and solutions. Very good exchange. Questions put out ahead of time and some spontaneous, so there was good exchange. General topics system admin. enhancement, this years voting, next years process, well-lead discussion, focussed, a lot of input. Discussion of enhancements was a good intro to reasoning behind new features requests. UNION CATALOGUES The discussion is as good & as informative as the participants. In this case, all participants had much to contribute. Good discussion in session 1 at least (writing this in session 2 some of us hung around because we were too lazy/unmotivated to move on). Made good contacts.
OPAC Points raised in beginning of session were discussed in a clear, organized manner (much better than yesterday) Hoping that URLS mentioned in meeting will be on website Thank you. Perhaps the most useful part of the conference. Well moderated. Good drawing out of issues. Helpful having Ex Libris represented. Solicit topics beforehand. I would like an OPAC session of system developers after the reference staff have presented their needs. A website sharing solutions, java scripts would be very helpful. I only attended one session so I might have missed this, but would like to see some consensus on issues. Suggestion for changes Ideas to approach ALEPH on for future development. Seemed to miss a lot from not attending the previous session. An hour was better length than hour slots.
Roundtable Comments 2001
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People should be encouraged to use microphones or the moderator should do so and repeat questions. Good moderator except for above issue. Decision that Ex Libris make web OPAC architecture completely known. At the present, the brief record is not easy to use problems with having to click on the numbers in the left-hand column for full record and electronic address & not being able to click on electronic address immediately in the brief view. Students do not generally need the sentences explaining how to use. Very useful, as always! Were not in production yet, so I came to get a sense of what problems people are facing when managing OPAC. Only suggestion: maybe set u...