Conference Call with Ameritech/ICS Task Force
July 21, 1999 10:00 am - 12:00 Noon PDT

Participants: Randy Menakes and John Bodfish from Ameritech; Jo Ann Bradley, Gail Cosmo, Lore Gravino, Elizabeth Housewright, Pat Lavigna, Kelley Martin, Kathleen Messer, Deborah Schaeffer; Marvin Pollard, Harold Schleifer.

Meeting Notes:

Randy and John walked us through the "simplest case scenario": what happens in a patron initiated request.

Agenda Item # 1.

If automatic search of local catalog is enabled:

Prepare a list of partners. This is a dynamic list utilized from the CSU union catalog.
This list is chosen according to the following criteria:
  • Ownership: Choose libraries that own the item.
  • Availability: From this list, choose libraries that have the item available.
  • Randomness: From this list, choose libraries randomly on the string.
For CSU we would want column 1, 3rd row, unmediated requests:
  • Search Union Catalog
  • Ascertain availability using above formula
  • Patron authenticated
Committee members agreed that CSU would always want libraries picked randomly. Randy and John agreed to have randomizing libraries as the default.

Harold questioned whether records are placed "on Hold" at the point where a patron requests the item. At this point they are not but it this is scheduled for version 3.1.1.

Pat and Kelley remarked there should be an override for local users who would have preference. Randy and John agreed there would be an override for Circulation/ILL staff.

Authenticated patron who is blocked for local reason, e.g. fines.

These patrons would be prevented from using unmediated service. A locally designed text of explanation would be displayed for patrons. Each campus would decide whether the requests would be immediately rejected (customizable by patron type) or whether ILL staff would then mediate all or some of these items.

Committee members agreed that there should be a locally designed option to allow patrons to override this block based on their status, e.g. faculty. Cases in which a campus decided to allow patrons with delinquent statuses to submit requests:

Work Flow:

Blocked patron requests would drop into RSS as flagged requests.

Ill staff reviews requests from blocked patrons on daily basis and chooses following options:

  1. "Allow" — override block and process.
  2. "Reject" — reject request and send notice to patron.
  3. "Authenticate" — re-submit the patron ID through the local system to see if fines etc. have been cleared.
Elizabeth suggested an automatic timing that would re-authenticate after one week; Ameritech cannot commit to the being scheduled for 3.1 time frame but liked the idea and may work it into 3.1.1 or later build/version. (The enhancement committee might want to asterisk this one for future discussion with Ameritech.)

Patron request submission possibilities:

  • Unauthenticated Patrons:
  • Reject people who are not in library database.
  • Refer these people to Circulation to update their records.
  • Remote patron authentication not possible in all cases at this time (DRA, e.g.)
Item found locally and available
If item is "available" but not on shelf need override for Circulation to be able to change status of item to "temporarily missing" so patron can order through unmediated process.
Agenda Item #2. Automatic searching and automatic partner assignment.

For this agenda item we used Bit maps provided by Ameritech via Marvin

Holdings Information to determine availability: (These were the agreed upon basic criteria needed.)
Define by:
  • Location
  • Availability
  • Call Number
  • Local Note
 Each campus will have to build a profile defining availability for Pharos unmediated ordering. Marvin will compile the profiles for all CSU libraries and copy to everyone’s server. Determine partners to search:
Use "Request Pattern ‘Copy-Staff’" and "Request Pattern List" bit maps.
We can determine sequences of partners to search that are not used by other CSU libraries.
To be determined: What attributes should be on the list of Request Patterns. Some suggestions were to try these libraries first, always send to the last resort.

Suggested sequence: OCLC, Infotrieve (or other contracted vendor), BRI, CISTI.

Agenda Item # 4: Release schedule for 3.1

Ameritech is promising a full beta version of 3.1 the first week of August.

Randy will call Marvin regarding schedule for delivery date and schedule for training ICS.

It was agreed that when Ameritech delivers 3.1:

  1. Marvin will test and install at Chico and San Diego.
  2. San Diego (Kelley) and Chico (Jo Ann) will test for bugs, etc.
  3. Ameritech will train ICS task force members and some ILL staff on 3.1.
  1. Training will be a day and a half
  2. And geared to ILL staff not familiar with RSS.
Randy will send edited ICS Enhancement sheets to Marvin.