Meeting Minutes: July 16, 2015
InfoEyes Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes July 16, 2015 via Online Meeting Room Provided by Accessible World
Present:
Catherine Durivage, Herrick Heitman, Dan Malosh, Linda Rossman
Statistics Report:
Catherine reported that the statistics have been posted through June and that there were quite a few questions during that month: There were 8 questions, with 12 answers sent. We have answered about 35 questions this year so far with about 8 per month. This shows a fairly steady interest, especially considering that no extra marketing has been done.
New Web Hosting Arrangement:
Dan reported that we are on the final "cusp" of finalizing A Small Orange as our website host. (Dan's comment: Instead of Go Daddy being our Internet domain registrar, Tucows will now play that role.) The major problem was due to Media 309's wanting to continue to handle our domain name, and that is what confused the issue and caused the final delay. The actual transfer of the website process was the easy part, and the transition has been seamless to patrons. Catherine and Linda expressed their appreciation to Dan for handling the details and working out such a smooth transition with our new web host.
Comparing Notes on New QuestionPoint Interface:
Linda reported that she has had some trouble when "clicking on" the Send, Answer or other buttons in the new QuestionPoint interface. Others have not experienced this, so we will all keep watching how it is working. Linda reported one of the problems may have happened when two people were trying to answer the question at the same time, but it has happened more frequently than that experience.
Other Business:
We discussed the issue of a recent question that had come in on whether we can serve as a bulletin board for a research study. Catherine and Linda agreed that InfoEyes is not the correct venue for this, but Linda will refer this user to other more appropriate sources for this question.
Catherine and Linda discussed the possibility of a reduction in fees for yearly dues now that the website hosting fee is just a $15 to $20 yearly fee, which is quite a reduction from Media 309's yearly fee of $239. Linda reviewed the spreadsheet figures from the Perkins Fiscal Agent account and the balance for the year is about $802 after paying for web hosting fees this year. It was suggested that the monthly dues might now be reduced to $25 per year rather than $78.75 from each member library.
Dan introduced the subject of working with QuestionPoint again to make the form more accessible. (Dan's comment: Dan created a more accessible question submission webpage which is posted online but is not in use: http://www.infoeyes.org/question.html.) He has had some discussions in the past without many results. Dan wondered if it was possible to pay QuestionPoint to have the form changed. Given our arrangement with Maryland, we decided not to pursue this option at this time. Dan will continue to work with QuestionPoint and hopes that now that they have the new interface, a change may be easier to accomplish.
The next quarterly advisory committee meeting has been set for Thursday, October 15th.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Rossman
Reference Services Librarian, Perkins Library
Co-coordinator, InfoEyes
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown, MA 02472
617-972-7245