20 Jun 07 ITTS Update Meeting – June 18, 2007
1. Enhancements to current services (Sherri)
* Equipment roll-out
– 64 laptops
– 115 desktops arrived today and are being configured
* Migrating to Outlook and Exchange
– Attorneys are looking at contracts but delay because of illness on their end
* Installment payment option in iMIS (Tim)
– as of last Friday, we’re ready to let members pay dues in installments
– could also take pledges with regular payments now
– updates will be rolled out to staff as the new desktops are implemented
– SpaceMaster integration for CHOICE in iMIS (does sales, billing, and payments against invoices) will also be happening soon
2. Web Issues
* Web Editorial Board activities (Karen)
– Working with Marci Merola to launch “I Love libraries’ website
– Planning for the usability kiosks for the website at Annual
– Many discussions about how to handle the awards information on the website and improve it
– Meetings are on Wednesdays at 2:00 p.m.
– Will be discussing another “extreme makeover-like” event for this fall, revamping the Sympa landing page, where to get information in the KMS, and more
– All of the information is available on the blog and wiki
* IloveLibraries.org will debut the afternoon of June 18 as a soft launch but won’t be publicized until we know everything is working properly – http://ilovelibraries.org/
– this is an initiative of President Leslie Burger
* Collage Implementation (Rob)
– AASL has gone live; ran into a few problems but were able to solve them
– Duo’s progress on the migration has been slowed by their sudden involvement in the “I Love Libraries” website
– Will get back into a regular implementation mode after Annual
– Hoping to have everyone live in Collage by the end of August
* Sympa Upgrade (Rob)
– Now that we have migrated completely to Sympa, need to devote some attention to the not-very-good Sympa home page
* Website Redesign (Rob)
– Will have wireframes at Annual for members to give feedback on
– These are rough drafts of a possible structure for a redesigned web page
– It’s more a tool for gathering information, rather than a sample design
– Is supposed to get people to react, which is why they are [intentionally] rough
– Two kiosks will be available the whole time at the registration desk where folks can view the wireframes and a survey
– There is a press release on the website under “news” that divisions/units can use to help promote this
– 36 members were recruited to be walked through the wireframes as an activity that UserWorks will run the Monday and Tuesday of conference
3. Knowledge Management System (Karen)
* Electronic Serials Routing is in place
– means the electronic serial comes to Karen and she can then redistribute the link to those in-house who sign up for it
– Planning to combine the searches to make it easier to find things
– Adding more databases for staff to be able to search
* “Ask ALA” (Karen)
– A virtual reference system to pull in questions from the public website into the knowledge management system
– Will route questions to the person or unit best able to respond
– Will direct users to FAQs to try to reduce the number of questions
– Will help us build a knowledge base of answers that can be shared
– Will gather statistics for how many questions are being answered and by which individual units/divisions, as well as the interval between when the question is submitted and when the answer goes out
– Can track topics for possible publishing topics
– Users get a guaranteed response
– Responses can be enriched with attachments and links
4. New Capabilities
* Moodle (Matt)
– still seeking feedback about this software as a replacement for WebCT
– will allow units/divisions to be more independent in what they implement
* Dreamhost
– working on documentation and policies
– have tested the service with two blogs for the “I Love Libraries” website and AL Focus video site; have not experienced problems with any of these sites
– a week or two after conference, Matt will send out an email announcement for how to get blogs and wikis on this service
– does mean units/divisions will have more responsibility for these
* Podcasting (Jenny)
– a reminder that ITTS has two iPods with microphones for those want to record sessions, interviews, or anything else at Annual (or any other time); contact Jenny to schedule getting one
– ITTS has also purchased a video camera and a Mac laptop for editing video for any staff member to use
– “American Libraries” has been the guinea pig for video; Dan Kraus has helped AL launch a new video site called “AL Focus” – http://alfocus.ala.org/
– Contact Jenny to find out about booking the video camera at Annual or other times
* New wiki functionality
– Thanks to research done by the members of Project HH of the Emerging Leaders program, we can now embed screencasts, videos (in Flash), RSS feeds, and Meebo Chat Rooms in our wikis
– To add this functionality to your wiki, contact Jenny
5. Association 2.0 (Jenny)
* Second Life
– the group hasn’t had much chance to meet lately, but we will start back up again in July
– Karen pointed out that the Library has two copies of “Second Life: The Official Guide,” one for circulation and one for reference
* Meebo Chat Rooms
– Meebo, a website that lets you connect to multiple instant messaging services at once via the web, now offers copy-and-paste chat rooms you can place on your own site for free; see the Chat Online page on the ALA Annual 2007 wiki for an example
– you can create one of these to add to your own pages, as well!
* RSS feeds
* Twitter feed for Annual
– Twitter is a service that lets you post short status updates to your friends via the web, instant messaging, or texting
– there is a Twitter account for the Annual 2007 conference at http://twitter.com/alaannual2007
– it already has a few friends
– lets us broadcast messages to these friends
– also gives members a way to coordinate meeting up at conference, as well as giving those who can’t attend a more personal view of Annual
– have set up something similar at Jaiku – http://alaannual2007.jaiku.com/
6. Training (Louise)
* Ongoing training
– Lots of Collage training until the conversion is complete
– Have done almost all of the iMIS committee refreshers; two left after conference
– Collage Hand Holding Help is being scheduled on an “as needed/requested” basis as time allows
* New training
– Added a new class for “shadow asset resolution the easy way”
– If anyone needs other training at this point, contact Louise to schedule something
* Online Communities
– If need Online Communities training after conference, let Louise know
– Doing a member/staff survey about Online Communities to see who has adopted it, what you like about it, what you dislike about it
– Trying to get this launched during conference
– Want more input before moving forward with anything for OC
* Ongoing projects
– Getting the ALA Staff wiki ready with some content/documentation
– Working on a staff needs assessment for Outlook
– need to know what staff do now in order to know how to train for changes in these processes in Outlook
– In June and July, Louise is getting trained on Outlook and Office 2007 to anticipate training for staff
– Always extending the Collage wiki
– Ordering some copies of Camtasia and Snag-It
– trying to set up a computer with software that is infrequently-used by staff for occasional bookings
– Louise, Tim, and Irene attended the national iMIS users group conference
– they saw some interesting third party extensions/software we can add to iMIS
Next session: July 16, 2:00 pm
Keep up via this blog and the Web Planning wiki at http://wikis.ala.org/webplanning/.
