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Present: Andy Kirk, JISC (Chair)<br />
Barbara Miller, Aylesbury College<br />
Sylvia Handy, Crawley College<br />
Susan Taylor, Cricklade College<br />
Joanna Canessa, Esher College<br />
Beverley Vaughan, IOW College<br />
Mary McAlister, IOW College<br />
Angela Jones, Mid-Kent College<br />
Andrew Bryan, Mid-Kent College<br />
Beatrice McAdam, College of North <strong>London</strong><br />
Craigie-Lee Paterson, College of North <strong>London</strong><br />
Jocelyn Bailey, Community Coll. Hackney<br />
Badriah Chan, Enfield College<br />
Jean Gribben, Enfield College<br />
Brenda Bannister, Tower Hamlets College<br />
Naeem Ahmad, Tower Hamlets College<br />
Joan Smith, Sixth Form College, Colchester<br />
Nicola Scott, Community College, Hackney<br />
Jenny Rutt, Queen Mary’s College<br />
Claire Budden, Queen Mary’s College<br />
Joan Hodgson, W. Kent College<br />
Elaine Scutt, W. Kent College<br />
Diana Methold, Woking College<br />
Lynda Kilby, Crawley College<br />
Fiona Price, Crawley College<br />
AUTOLIB USER GROUP - SEEL (SE, E and <strong>London</strong>)<br />
First meeting Friday 17 th June 2005, Crawley College<br />
Apologies: Mark Tonkiss, Carshalton College<br />
Jacqui Cooke, Taunton’s College<br />
Rowan Williamson, Merton College
Lorraine Sperring, <strong>RSC</strong> for <strong>London</strong><br />
Catherine Bone, <strong>RSC</strong> Eastern<br />
Agenda<br />
1. Welcome, introductions and aims of group<br />
a. Formal or informal?<br />
b. Future meetings<br />
c. Involvement with Payne Automation<br />
2. Possible future work with Northern Autolib user group – national as well as regional?<br />
3. Reporting by Autolib<br />
4. LMS and VLE grid<br />
5. AOB<br />
Agenda <strong>Item</strong> Matters arising Action<br />
1,2 & 4 Delegates gave name, college, version of Autolib (2000, XML or ASP), length of<br />
time on Autolib, and VLE used.<br />
Andy Kirk, Lorraine<br />
Sperring, Catherine<br />
Some colleges had had Autolib for 7 or 8 years, and one only for 4 months.<br />
Bone to collate full info of<br />
At least 4 colleges used Blackboard VLE and 3 used Learnwise; one used LMS and VLEs in use<br />
Moodle and another is moving to Moodle.<br />
across the group’s three<br />
regions<br />
Aims and structure of the group were discussed<br />
‣ The group aims to bring some pressure to bear in improving Autolib’s<br />
support – expressing a coherent set of problems and wants, with more<br />
clout than colleges acting individually. Could help efficiency in Autolib<br />
support by reducing the number of calls made to log the same problem.<br />
‣ <strong>Number</strong> of meetings, and Autolib involvement? termly, and yearly<br />
respectively. 3 for the group and an extra one for Payne Automation?<br />
(minutes of the meetings not attended by Autolib to be sent to David<br />
Payne - and Bill Medling?) Minutes also to go on JISC Mail list.<br />
‣ Venue, Chair and Secretary: different member colleges to provide venue,<br />
with Chair from the hosting college each time (Chair: Andy Kirk will cover<br />
for the moment)<br />
AK to forward minutes to<br />
David Payne & speak to<br />
Bill Medling
Agenda <strong>Item</strong> Matters arising Action<br />
‣ Times: 1400-1600 for general meetings. Expand to AM when Payne<br />
Automation representative present.<br />
‣ AK’s role is in initial guidance and help, and help in setting up meetings<br />
‣ Have a regular agenda to cover eg Serials, Reports, Acquisitions.<br />
‣ Nicola Scott suggested, with such a large group, separate discussions for<br />
XML and 2000 users with Plenary afterwards<br />
‣ Keep group meetings for CoFHE and COLRIC type libraries although<br />
schools and other sectors welcome to join JISCmail list<br />
‣ Join up with other groups to make a national User Group? Agreed that this<br />
could be a longer term objective once regional group established. North<br />
West Autolib user Group representative, Jim Temple invited to join our<br />
discussion list. One representative from our group to be nominated to join<br />
North West discussion list<br />
‣ See Heritage User Group for an example of a user group,<br />
http://www.hugonline.co.uk/ (they hold an annual conference and ask IS<br />
Oxford for training) and see the North West Autolib user group online:<br />
http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/autolib/<br />
AK happy to chair when<br />
necessary<br />
All to circulate their key<br />
pros and cons of system<br />
via the JISCmail list<br />
AOB<br />
Common problems:<br />
Support:<br />
‣ Logging problems and getting promises of support which are not kept for<br />
ages (but Autolib people are so nice we believe them!)<br />
‣ Logging on the web is less effective than logging by phone. (One college<br />
records all contacts made)<br />
‣ Day visit by Autolib to sort out problems charged at £500<br />
‣ Updates not received, or not documented when received<br />
‣ Fixes that come and then disappear, and fixes that disrupt something else<br />
‣ Lack of manuals (but see below)<br />
‣ Inconsistency between systems at different colleges – different fixes<br />
applied<br />
‣ Modules were sold, it was suggested, before being fully developed and<br />
tested<br />
‣ No general service level agreement (unless insisted on by college)
Agenda <strong>Item</strong> Matters arising Action<br />
Operations:<br />
‣ Slow when issuing many items to one reader<br />
‣ Date order is missing in several parts of the system – a basic requirement<br />
Acquisitions<br />
‣ Acquisitions: Crawley didn’t like Autolib’s order letter, and lack of filing<br />
order on each order. Mid-Kent found Acquisitions orders fine – no problem<br />
Circulations<br />
‣ Reserving and renewing online? West Kent uses this, with the reader<br />
having a specific Autolib password<br />
‣ Self-issuing? Tried in Mid-Kent, but could not get it working. (Plescon selfissue<br />
equipment)<br />
‣ Overdues by email? Not working universally.<br />
‣ Load readers’ photos? Esher College tried this, and consequently lost the<br />
fines and history buttons from the issue screen<br />
Reports<br />
‣ Management information and statistics – unreliable and/or slow (2 colleges<br />
reported discrepancies in statistics gathered eg issue counts)<br />
‣ Slow speed in running reports (over an hour in one case) and reports not<br />
intuitive<br />
Serials<br />
‣ Serials – there are problems generally with this module<br />
‣ Crawley is waiting for it to run properly, and has not yet paid for the<br />
module, although using it since January (still using manual system as well)<br />
‣ Articles do not link with the periodical copy on the OPAC<br />
Stocktaking<br />
‣ Stocktaking? Problems in 2 colleges. Lists of accession numbers by<br />
themselves are not very helpful when you have to go back and find the<br />
book on the shelves. Direct connection to the catalogue is needed.
Agenda <strong>Item</strong> Matters arising Action<br />
Crawley has piloted another procedure for small sections of stock, which<br />
could be used for a rolling stocktake<br />
General points<br />
‣ Online help is available to one college (West Kent) at least (by hovering<br />
the mouse and pressing F1)<br />
‣ One college has just had complete manual<br />
‣ would the hosted version of Autolib be better? (no representative from<br />
hosted Autolib site today)<br />
‣ Own server? Some had theirs in the library, others in IT, and one librarian<br />
had the system on her PC’s hard drive.<br />
‣ Firewalls can be a problem with getting support access from Autolib and<br />
for Saint updates (but updates can be on disk). (Saint updates have to be<br />
requested.)<br />
‣ Beatrice McAdam suggested an audit from each college about specific<br />
issues with Autolib to establish key areas where training may be needed.<br />
Invite Payne Automation to address these issues at Spring Term 2006<br />
meeting<br />
All to circulate key issues<br />
for pros and cons audit.<br />
Keep brief, AK to<br />
circulate Word template<br />
via JISCmail list<br />
How can we help ourselves?<br />
‣ BM suggested we share manuals which we have written for our own<br />
libraries<br />
‣ Share good practice via visits between ourselves (let’s highlight the good<br />
news!) Audit may draw up common problems or issues that can be<br />
resolved by peer group<br />
‣ Organise group training (at Payne HQ?)<br />
All to share any useful<br />
inhouse manuals. Mail to<br />
AK, for inclusion on<br />
JISCmail file area and/ or<br />
respective <strong>RSC</strong> websites<br />
What do we want?<br />
‣ Better support and tracking of logged calls<br />
‣ Better training – on the level of the staff operating the system, not on a
Agenda <strong>Item</strong> Matters arising Action<br />
technical level. Perhaps a dedicated trainer, library-trained.<br />
‣ OPAC which works (Woking college – problem with ST3 network?)<br />
‣ Training on Reports (including SQL and field names) so that we can build<br />
our own reports<br />
‣ Statistics especially are important for management information<br />
‣ More staff at Autolib in Support? There was a feeling that the company<br />
has exceeded its capacity to support existing customers.<br />
Discussion list<br />
Andy to add all non members – please circulate URL to any other colleagues who<br />
may wish to join http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/jisc-rsc-autolib.html<br />
.<br />
Date of & venue of next meeting<br />
Brenda Bannister has offered Tower Hamlets as the venue for Autumn term<br />
meeting<br />
Date to be worked out by Meetomatic from group’s responses (Fridays during<br />
Nov/ Dec preferred) Complete choices at<br />
http://www.meetomatic.com/respond.asp?id=A9LAD7<br />
AK to add names<br />
AK to circulate<br />
Meetomatic via JISCmail<br />
list
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