Meeting Minutes: January 19, 2006
InfoEyes Advisory Committee Meeting
Attendees:
Linda Rossman, Catherine Durivage, Robin Rousu, Meghan Clark McDaniel, Sharon Ruda, Ann Hay
Location:
Online iVocalize Room
Time:
1:00 pm Central
1. Statistical Reporting
Catherine delivered her report on statistics. Catherine discussed the differences between the 2004 and 2005 statistics. An increase is shown but the statistics cannot be directly correlated because the statistics were gathered differently in each year. The service is being used almost daily. Collection of surveys began in October of 2005 and will continue.
Since statistics are cumulative, it was decided that in order to simplify statistics gathering, in the future stats will be shown per year as opposed to per month.
In order to make the statistics better reflect actual questions, Robin suggested that the "Add Descriptive Codes" feature of Questionpoint be used to code questions as to their real purpose (training, patron, test) so that in the future statistics can reflect only the questions that are patron based. In order to help Catherine keep statistics, it was decided that whoever claims a question is responsible for designating the question with the appropriate code.
If needed, live form statistics will be added.
2. Discuss the status of new live chat form
Ann Hay said that OCLC has the form she emailed to them. A few problems are still occurring involving scripting and action statements, so more troubleshooting is necessary.
Ann hopes to get feedback this week and will let Infoeyes know OCLC's response.
Catherine reminded everyone that when the live form is running, live questions would be sent to the listserv.
3. New Platform coming up for Talking Communities Conferencing Software
Linda said that Catherine was at the OPAL workshop where changes to the conferencing software were discussed.
Sharon said that PC Conferences was working on updating the service to meet the needs of users. Some new features might be whiteboarding and sharing. Robin asked about the accessibility of the whiteboards. Sharon said that George Buys would make accessibility a priority.
Catherine said she had heard similar information from Tom. Changes will be made in the next 3-6 months. OPAL is also examining Illuminate, another service. Unfortunately, Illuminate does not allow as many members in a conference. Members of OPAL can test out Illuminate. Lori Bell will check the accessibility of the service. It might be considered for purchase in the future.
Catherine also said that people at the workshop were asking about other uses for TC software. Some people were charging a fee for using the software, some were holding friends meetings, and some were using it for subregional meetings.
Catherine also reported that the annual fee starts in August, but OPAL can be joined at a prorated fee later in the year. There is a small sign up fee. Each member is obliged to present programming during the year.
For more information http://www.opal-online.org.
4. Other Business
Robin had a training session with a librarian from Seattle Public. Seattle would like to be a partner/ refer patrons to InfoEyes. The librarian gave Robin a list of virtual reference procedures. Two of Robin's readers' advisors who are blind are training and finding it to be very accessible with JAWs.
Robin also brought up that when an InfoEyes member asks for a clarification, the patron's response will be diverted to "ask@oclc". Linda added, if a patron listed an incorrect email, there would be no way to follow up with the patron. Catherine said that she or Linda would try to sort out the email problem.
Robin would like to add a city/state section to the patron form so that regional questions could be answered and librarians could find out locally available databases.
Sharon said that getting the surveys has been helpful feedback, and now she is using the information on a local evaluation of services.
The group decided that monthly meetings should continue.
The next meeting will be February 16, 2006 at 1pm Central time.
Minutes submitted by Meghan Clark McDaniel.