Alma EOC Meeting Notes



June 16, 2022, 2:00pm

Agenda/notes


March 17, 2022, 1:00pm

Agenda/Notes

Reviewed consolidated project plan for Google and Hathitrust Discovery and Data Maintenance. This plan bring all tasks together so they can inform one another. Laura will update the project list. 

Discussed solutions for GFA.

Reviewed project list: Work to replace Inscriptio continues. Hathi work is prioritized. SAML work is on track. Work on RESHARE POD continues with schedule role out for mid-July.

Laura will add column to prject list for listing date of status update.

January 10, 2022, 3:00pm

Agenda / Notes

Amy Deschenes joined for discussion on HOLLIS Benchmark survey report.

Library is collaborating on migration of Borrow Direct back end to be in place for Fall 2022. Kara will participate on group and report back to LTS.

Amy presented new memebership refresh for fulfillment working group. The working group will focus on documentation and monthly enhancements while completing 2020 outstanding functioality such as lost reports, in-transit requesting, etc.

The project list was reviewed and updated.

September 16, 2021, 3:00pm

Agenda / Notes

Discussion focued on ExLibris Metadata Platform and opportunities to join as development partner and how it fits into other metadata sharig projects. At this time it is felt there is not the staff time available to work on a project with Exlibris, but that sharing metadata with them is in line with our open metadata policy.

June 7, 2021, 2:00pm

Agenda / Notes


Review action items from 5/10/21

  • Claire will follow on with Amy Dittman about a meeting with Comptroller's (Tom B, Sarah B) office to discuss proposed strategy for leveraging Ebsco to help with serials check in.
  • Service would cover approx 9K annually (13% of our serials)
  • Staff impact statement has been drafted to share with staff as a precursor to discussing

New Topics

  • Governance questions and thoughts - follow up from 5/10/21 & review of any new information from the committee review process, org, refinement, etc.

EOC discussed our role in the Alma governance structure and how we can support the Alma Working Groups wtihout being a bottleneck to their decision-making in their areas of expertise. We proposed moving to a quarterly meeting cadence and creating clearer authority for working groups to proceed on matters in their functional areas. They will report out for our awareness on a more regular basis.

We reviewed the in-process project list, including the following progress or updates:

  • Alma-D for course reserves materials

--Portfolios in HART is an issue that is being examined based on a request in the reporting community

--News on Inscriptio replacement: There are 3 options being considered; We are awaiting a Springshare response. At this point, they estimated of 8 weeks by a team of 4 developers; with another 2-4 weeks on Accessibility

May 10, 2021, 2:00pm

Review action items from 4/5/21

  • Reinstating Direct-to-Destination auditing reports (Michelle).  Minna created a report that pulls all the invoice numbers that were paid with D2D processes check for Item in Place (for both Remote Storage and Stacks).  Audit should occur at 6 months after receipt.  Working with Cynthia Winters to put the workflow back in place.
  • Report back from Anne Adams to clarify her needs re: her batch process request from last month (Michelle).  Community would like a process like the 001 overlay process in place but with the 035 as a match point.
  • Claire will follow on with Amy Dittman about a meeting with Comptroller's (Tom B, Sarah B) office to discuss proposed strategy for leveraging Ebsco to help with serials check in.

New Topics

  • Question about 920 analytics proposal from LTS (Claire). Proposal not yet ready for our consideration.
  • Discussion of priority project prioritization process (Suzanne).
    • Reiteration that requests may come in via multiple channels (support tickets, email, working groups). work that can be done by LTS in less than 16 hours will be put forwards as work to be done by LTS as time permits. Work that will take more than 16 hours should go to the working group and then be prioritized by the EOC. At the simple end of the spectrum, the Working Groups can move forward on certain types of actions without EOC Sign Off when it is firmly in their area of expertise that they have vetted.


April 5, 2021, 1:00 pm

  • Special guests Allison Powers and June Rutkowski will provide an update on OCLC project and an overview of OCLC error reporting processing options.
    • How does this relate to general ongoing updates to upgrade records to a different OCLC number, etc?
      --NOTES:

Allison reported that OLC symbol consolidation is done; all holdings are now under 11 (?) symbols.  About 98% of collection is reclaimed. The project team is assessing the manuscripts and locally digitized holdings as the last outstanding collections.  [Claire asked Robin to list Claire as an admin for all the symbols. They will evaluate how the admin powers are used and what roles those powers map to in our organization to determine who should have admin powers with these symbols going forward.]

Allison reported that the project team is also working on systems details, such as what needs to be scripted and outlining a process for weekly files for maintenance and new updates.

Allison indicates they are about 50% completed for the overall project.  Some ILL specs are open questions, such as bytes for retention or deflection. Laura recommends that our lending data be uploaded to OCLC so that it is transparent for external communities. Allison has invited an OCLC person to join the weekly project meetings with June so that they can uderstand from an OCLC insider how those bytes function in ILL and could be used to improve our workflows.

June described the documentation work that she has been working on with Amy Armitage after the departure last year of previous co-chair, Karen Carlson Young, who retired in December 2020. June has picked up from Karen to partner with Amy on explaining to staff using WorldCat what steps they need to attend to for keeping our holdings up to date in specific workflow scenarios.  Also, June and Amy are working on error reports and how to make corrections without creating duplicates in WorldCat. Links to these docs are:

Maintaining Holdings in WorldCat doc:  OCLC Data Sync: Maintaining Holdings in WorldCat

Error reports doc:  OCLC Data Sync: Processing error reports from staging

This work has lead to their considering re-evaluating the timing of staff assigning Harvard holdings in WorldCat.  What once was an attempt to get early record updates through BNS by setting our holdings early in our workflows (i.e. on brief bibs, whether created by us or an existing brief vendor bib), it is now determined that it causes more problems than benefits. Our holdings are set often on the less-preferred record when the updates happen on another bib that OCLC neglects to merge with our record. Duplicates in OCLC has seemed to get worse after they moved to a different duplicate detection/resolution (DDR) process when their new Data Sync process was developed.  The group agreed that re-evaluating the workflow timing for setting holdings is warranted.  The project team will evaluate these scenarios further.

Allison mentioned a new backend database called WorldCat Staging, where rejected records are kept and can be promoted to WorldCat after error resolution or upgrades make the records acceptable for import to WorldCat. Claire and Michelle would like to learn more about WorldCat Staging to see what possibilities it may hold for metadata lifecycle workflows with Metadata Management and other units.

  • Anne Adam's request for a batch process to update bibs in Alma with newer versions from OCLC (Forwarded by Michelle to EOC mailing list on 3/30)

The EOC discussed a request from Anne Adams to develop an on-demand batch upgrade process for bib records using OCLC number as the match point to enhanced bibs in OCLC.  Laura expressed that LTS scripting resources to make a fully automated tool would not be available sooner than September, the EOC discussed possible simpler solutions to Anne's request, such as one involving an Import Profile that could be rolled out to trained Alma users in the community.  Michelle will reach out to Anne to learn more about the use cases she has and the level of features she envisioned in her request.

  • Alma Project Requests
  • Review action items from 3/1/21
    • Michelle will schedule a meeting with Controller's (Tom B, Sarah B) office to discuss proposed strategy for leveraging Ebsco to help with serials check in.
      --NOTES:

Michelle checked in with Amy Dittman as a first step, as this topic seemed like one that Amy Dittman was already shepherding herself, and Michelle didn't want to step in unnecessarily.  Amy corroborated that she and Claire already have this project well in hand and will be submitting paperwork to Finance that outlines costs and any relevant details that Finance needs about the vendor service.
--Re-reading the notes from Feb 1, which had the Action Item for Michelle, Michelle noted there was confusion on how the Action Item was framed for her for the March meeting which subsequently caused the confusion above.  The Action Item from Feb 1 meeting related to auditing for the Direct-to-Destination workflows, which Michelle has been working on during March with Minna Popkin.  She will report back at the May EOC meeting to close this loop!

March 1, 2021 1:00 pm

  • Review action items from 2/1/21
    • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and June Rutkowski
        • 1/13 update.  Amy has cleared the addresses to be used with Laura Wood.   Because Botany is highly used for Special Collections (third highest), having them being the public address is Laura's preferences. Amy will close the loop with Laura and send update to Robin's email.

        • 2/1 update. FAS had some follow up questions. Amy Van Epps will get back to Amy Boucher with their final address decision. Allison Powers will be given the green light to move forward with the reclamation.
  • Review projects list

February 1, 2021 1:00 pm

  • Action items from 4/6/20
    • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and June Rutkowski
      • 1/13 update.  Amy has cleared the addresses to be used with Laura Wood.   Because Botany is highly used for Special Collections (third highest), having them being the public address is Laura's preferences. Amy will close the loop with Laura and send update to Robin's email.
      • 2/1 update. FAS had some follow up questions. Amy Van Epps will get back to Amy Boucher with their final address decision. Alison Powers will be given the green light to move forward with the reclamation.
    • Laura will ask Kara to update the Alma configuration to allow renewals on Hathi ETAS loaned items
      • This is done.  But it won't really help because the items in question are likely overdue.  Extend due date doesn't work for items that are overdue.  Amy will look for examples for LTS to look into for determining if there are continued issues.
  • Giving an Alma login to a vendor.
    • Amy Dittman working on an alternative proposal for finding a way to allow Ebsco to assist with serials check in. Would allow for more of a remote workflow process. Laura pointed out that we'll need to run that proposal by Tom Becker to make sure that the new workflows satisfy audit requirements.
    • Tom and Sarah have also asked about the last time an audit was done for receiving processes. Direct to destination pilot was the first project  that included steps to cover the auditing needs with a new workflow.
    • Michelle will pull together a meeting to discuss the auditing requirements with Tom Becker, Sarah Bento-Wensinger, Laura M. and Bill Walsh.
  • Laura showed us the implementation of Hoopes prize papers from HUA in Alma D: Alma-D for Special Collections Access. Using the IA reader.
  • Michelle asked if we should plan a meeting with Ex Libris in the future. Probably a good idea to first review our priority projects list. Hasn't been updated in a while due to all the other large scale projects this year. We will review at the next meeting.
  • Laura updated the group on the university HART project for a data analytics tool from Oracle to replace Cognos. Includes Google analytics data, Alma item data, HD data. Power users have been testing it for the past few weeks. Will be adding more data over the next few months. Cognos is now off support. Eventually HART will expose all the data that used to be in Cognos. Only for reporting we cannot do via Alma Analytics.

January 13, 2021 1:00 pm

Review of past action items

  • Action items from 4/6/20
    • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and June Rutkowski
      • 1/13 update.  Amy has cleared the addresses to be used with Laura Wood.   Because Botany is highly used for Special Collections (third highest), having them being the public address is Laura's preferences. Amy will close the loop with Laura and send update to Robin's email.

    • Laura will ask Kara to update the Alma configuration to allow renewals on Hathi ETAS loaned items
      • This is done.  But it won't really help because the items in question are likely overdue.  Extend due date doesn't work for items that are overdue.  Amy will look for examples for LTS to look into for determining if there are continued issues.
  • Batch Update Reminder.  How can we best remind folks who can run batch jobs about best practices for both testing and submitting jobs, but also for post job review of data to confirm the job worked as expected?
  • Analytics & Reporting.  Laura summarized status of HART.  Roll out in process, login process to be designed.  Alma Item data in the system is available, bibs and holdings are in process.  Claire would like to explore ways to extend knowledge and comfort to more users to be report consumers/authors.  This will be an ongoing conversation.

Notes - See also public notes

December 7, 2020 2:00 pm

  • Review of past action items
    • Action items from 4/6/20
      • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and Karen
        Discussion Notes:
        While Amy was unable to join us for the December meeting, those in attendance discussed the background correspondence from Robin Wendler below.  The group agreed that given our past practice of not embracing brevity in our naming OCLC symbols, that we could simply concatenate the names associated with the two symbols being consolidated, and call it: "Ernst Mayr Library of Comparative Zoology & Botany Libraries" for maximum clarity.  We agreed that the address for MCZ would be most appropriate to use, since of the two libraries, MCZ will likely be more active with Resource Sharing.
  • Status discussion regarding reimplementation of OCLC Bib Notification Service (BNS)
    Michelle inquired about the possible timeline for resuscitating BNS, knowing that LTS resources are scarce for projects.  Laura expressed that ReCAP and BD Shared Index projects are active projects that would take prescidence. The latter project does not have a hard timeline yet, so an estimate to completion is difficult to determine.

    The group discussed pre-work to the BNS project that might be done by others outside LTS. That could include analysis of the current OCLC service and developing a greater understanding of what would need to be added to protect our records more than previously. (To avoid such debacles as the "Winnie the Pooh" etc. incident)

    The OCLC service is now called WorldShare Record Manager and is a completely new architecture than the former BNS service, so it would be a whole new service implementation, even though some of the shared rationale and background work with the HL community that the prior BNS Working Group did would still have value.  Scott suggested that we should look at what peers are doing with OCLC and Alma, including what Penn is doing and what Minn is (Laura will inquire with Betsy at Minn before she retires at the end of the month).  We will revisit topic in new year when we review project list.

  • Hathi Trust ETAS - renewals policy.  Is there anything we can do to renew items that were checked out at the time of shut down? We are not assessing fines so there is no financial impact but the overdue notices are stressful for users. Could alter the text of the notices to let people know that if their items are in ETAS they will not be able to renew them. Big push for the Sept. 10 due date is now done.”
    Discussion Notes:
    The group discussed how we can facilitate renewal of HathiTrust titles that have been prevented from renewal at this time. We decided to could turn off the "do not renew" flag for ETAS.

November 2, 2020 11:00 am

  • Suzanne took notes.
  • Special guests: working group co-chairs: Amy Dittman, Corinna Baksik, Allison Powers, Elizabeth Vernon, Julie Petzold, Kara Young
  • Working Groups - updates and concerns
    • Analytics - Elizabeth and Allison noted that the group has been able to work remotely quite well. Analytics drop in sessions are a little challenging to promote the same atmosphere of a drop-in on Zoom. Next time they will try setting up individual appointments instead. Progress being made on the enhanced data through Cognos project. Will need to do some outreach and education when that data is available. HD and RD data in the new OBI environment coming son - reporting through the same interface we currently use for Alma data. May need to tweak authentication/user accounts. Demand for analytics very high - need to grow knowledge of using reporting. Get training and learn how to create reports themselves. Encourage staff to do more experimentation. Cognos is being retired and we are moving into OBI as a cost saving measure. Alma item and HD data should be available in OBI by the end of 2020. They offer videos on their wiki and classroom sessions over Zoom. Having the same interface should prevent a big learning curve for folks used to Cognos. Bit of a challenge letting staff know what canned reports can already provide. Might help to ask managers what data/reports they are looking for and then can either point them to already prepared reports or create one on demand.
    • Fulfillment - Julie and Kara. Item policy standardization project - moving recommendations through approval and implementation stages. Their working group is facing some challenges from the remote wokring environment, not having all hands available to look up physical items. Calirfying best practices for due back dates for physcial reserves - currently on hold - object is to prevent objects from automatically going to missing before they really are. Getting to a regular schedule for projecting Alma hours. Due for a referesh now, Julie will be bringing to Access extended leadership team this week. Creating a contact list fo access staff who are not currently represented on active groups/lists. Stymied on a couple of projects - items on the hold shelf that are now very extended holds. Thinking about the day we return to normal operations. Reprioritizing projects.
    • Technical Services - Amy D. and Corinna. Spawned a new working group focused on e-resources. Focused on CDI migration. Working through workflow and best practices when ejournals are cancelled. Looking to implement new features, such as populating number of simultaneous users. Main TSWG meets monthly and covers ongoing issues such as migration data cleanup, tryiing out new API products that other institutions have created to try them out. Transition to remote work was very smooth. Might acutally be easier to do remotely. Have onem ember in Italy and one member with a broken foot had to join remotely, easier now that everyone is connecting online. Some performance issues with Alma that they have brought to Ex Libris. Some improvements but not as many as quickly as they were hoping for. TSWG will also help with the ReCAP work.
  • Data Sync leadership - Karen Carlson Young is retiring at the end of 2020. Need to have techncial services/metadata expertise represented in that role. Question of whether it needs to be someone already on the group or not. Allison thought not. Karen is very good at representing staff and asking staff specific questions as needed. Would be helpful to have someone who is familiar with the data syne project overall. Will Graves is also retiring so it might be good to add a new member to replace him as well. Allison will send the AOEC some names for us to consider. The sooner we can identify a new chair the better so there can be some overlap before Karen retires.
  • Review of past action items
    • Action items from 4/6/20
      • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and Karen. Botany and MCZ consolidation language needs to be refined.
  • Current action items
    • Suzanne will bring OCLC symbols and registry representation proposal to the VPDR. (Allison sharing Google Doc with details)
    • Allison will send the AEOC names to consider to rpelace Karen Carlson Young on the OCLC Data Sync working group.


October 9, 2020 11:00 am

  • Laura took notes.
  • Reviewed of past action items
    • Action items from 4/6/20
      • Amy will send decision on OCLC Registry (re HLS address) to Allison and Karen
      • Scott will liaise with the OCLC Coordinators Group to ask them to review the Harvard entries in the WorldCat Registry to determine the questions that need to be asked across the system in order to support a consistent view into Harvard libraries. Scott will let them know but this will probably not be their top priority. He has prepared to ask them to give us an update on data sync. Lots of work has been done but not everyone knows what has been done. (See email to AEOC from Laura on 9/9/20)
    • Action items from 5/13/20
      • Once the ask for Collections crew in Widener is known, for data sync prep, then communication can happen with Eliz before farming out the work to staff (if needed). Underway but data sync group is refining the process overall; not focused on Widener specifically. Scott would like to have one ask for them - one to update the full community via an open meeting. If we have any specific questions we could send them to the group in advance. Could also ask them to join us for a meeting afterwards if we had any tricky follow up questions. (See email to AEOC from Laura on 9/9/20)
    • Action items from 8/13/20
      • Suzanne will draft message to chairs about joining our next meeting for introductions.
    • Action items from 9/8/20
      • Suzanne will add Hathi ETAS renewals as an agenda item for our December/January meeting to plan for February. (noted on calendar)
  • The following action item was cancelled due to lack of agenda items for full group meeting at this time.

      • Suzanne will work on scheduling a meeting for all the working group members as soon as we have a better sense of when we will all be on campus again.
  • Reviewed and signed off on Alma security audit communications.


September 8, 2020 3:00 pm

  • Suzanne took notes.
  • Discussion of HathiTrust ETAS
    • Issue of renewals for items in HathiTrust. Is there anything we can do to renew items that were checked out at the time of shut down? We are not assessing fines so there is no financial impact but the overdue notices are stressful for users. Could alter the text of the notices to let people know that if their items are in ETAS they will not be able to renew them. Big push for the Sept. 10 due date is now done. We will discuss again in December and/or January to prepare for the February renewals.
  • Review of past action items
    • Action items from 4/6/20
      • Amy will send decision on Registry to Allison and Karen
      • Scott will liaise with the OCLC Coordinators Group to ask them to review the Harvard entries in the WorldCat Registry to determine the questions that need to be asked across the system in order to support a consistent view into Harvard libraries. Scott will let them know but this will probably not be their top priority. He has prepared to ask them to give us an update on data sync. Lots of work has been done but not everyone knows what has been done.
      • Suzanne will work on scheduling a meeting for all the working group members as soon as we have a better sense of when we will all be on campus again.
    • Action items from 5/13/20
      • Once the ask for Collections crew in Widener is known, for data sync prep, then communication can happen with Eliz before farming out the work to staff (if needed). Underway but data sync group is refining the process overall; not focused on Widener specifically. Scott would like to have one ask for them - one to update the full community via an open meeting. If we have any specific questions we could send them to the group in advance. Could also ask them to join us for a meeting afterwards if we had any tricky follow up questions.
    • Action items from 8/13/20
      • Suzanne will draft message to chairs about joining our next meeting for introductions.

August 13, 2020

  • Laura took notes
  • Review of past action items
    • Action items from 4/6/20
      • Michelle and Scott to talk to Collections crew in Widener about helping with OCLC data sync clean up tasks
      • Amy will ask Laura Wood how MCZ and Botany should be represented in the OCLC registry now that they are sharing the MCZ symbol and confirm that we should use the Widener information for the HUL symbol
      • Amy will send decision on Registry to Allison and Karen
      • Scott will liaise with the OCLC Coordinators Group to ask them to review the Harvard entries in the WorldCat Registry to determine the questions that need to be asked across the system in order to support a consistent view into Harvard libraries
      • Suzanne will work on scheduling a meeting for all the working group members as soon as we have a better sense of when we will all be on campus again.
    • Action items from 5/13/20
      • Suzanne will coordinate a message for the CC, targeted in June, with a link to the cc article in a message to harvard-alma-list.  Should include the above, recent items from release notes, and how to request changes (via ideas exchange, Alma Support ticket for WG review, etc).  Sent on 6/8
      • Once the ask for Collections crew in Widener is known, then communication can happen with Eliz before farming out the work to staff (if needed)
    • Action items from 8/13/20
      • Suzanne will draft message to chairs about joining our next meeting for introductions.
      • Michelle will continue with Acorn group and guide them into creating more actionable user stories prior to brainstorming options.
  • Working membership change requests were reviewed and approved. EOC will not have membership changes this year.
  • Michelle gave an update on discussions to use Acorn data in additional systems to support research.
  • Laura and Spruill gave an update on Digital Reserves.

June and July 2020 Meetings Cancelled

May 13, 2020

  • Laura agreed to take notes
  • Review action items from 4/8/20
    • Allison will give Michelle some sample OCLC data sync reports
    • Michelle will ask Michael to review the sample reports and experiment with creating subsets to bring to Widener collections experts
    • Michelle and Scott to talk to Collections crew in Widener about helping with OCLC data sync clean up tasks
    • Amy will ask Laura Wood how MCZ and Botany should be represented in the OCLC registry now that they are sharing the MCZ symbol and confirm that we should use the Widener information for the HUL symbol
    • Scott will liaise with the OCLC Coordinators Group to ask them to review the Harvard entries in the WorldCat Registry to determine the questions that need to be asked across the system in order to support a consistent view into Harvard libraries
    • Suzanne will work on scheduling a meeting for all the working group members as soon as we have a better sense of when we will all be on campus again.
  • Michelle described a collaboration interest between ITS and Preservation involving ACORN and HOLLIS.  A conversation has been started with Michelle and Brenda re: expert information in ACORN that may be of interest to researchers (for example, historical binding information).  Exploratory conversation at this point.  ITS Staff are looking at the data and structure in ACORN to think about feasibility.  Conservation images in DRS may be of interest to researchers as well.
  • OCLC Shared Print API.   Michelle attended a webinar and felt there were synergies with the different collaborative collection development initiatives.  She wondered if the API could support some of the BDSI or ReCAP projects.
  • Item API for processing serials.  This would require code review and possible code revision before implementation.  The success rate of the item API is 65%, so there would be a need to determine how errors are captured and processed.  Scott will add to the requested projects wiki.
  • Talked about ergonomic and other improvements to Alma and how to discuss this with the broader community.
    • Laura will ask Carmit for the update on the roadmap vis a vis ergonimics
    • Laura will ask Tech Team to summarize the work of the groups in this place
    • Suzanne will coordinate a message for the CC, targeted in June, with a link to the cc article in a message to harvard-alma-list.  Should include the above, recent items from release notes, and how to request changes (via ideas exchange, Alma Support ticket for WG review, etc).
  • OCLC update.  Widener library reports should be ready for distribution soon to Widener staff.  CAB review is next up.  


April 8, 2020

Suzanne agreed to take meeting notes.

Review action items from 3/2/20

  • Terms for membership on the Harvard Alma WGs - align with the C4 committee process. Laura will let Corinna know our plan/decision
  •  Suzanne will ask Victoria to find a late-April date that works with the EOC membership's calendar for a meeting with all members of the working groups.

OCLC update from Allison and Karen - see Data Sync project notes. 

    • OCLC data sync project has three parts
      • Symbol consolidation. From 26 going down to 10. Reclamation for each symbol moving to HUL. 16 will be in HUL, two in MCa, and 8 will have individual symbols. 
      • Implementing ongoing process for sending our symbols to COLC
      • Alma configurations for the new symbol consolidation. 
    • Standardizing reports, documenting their process. Going library by library. Started with Berenson. After clean up is done for each library, the follow up steps should go quite quickly. 
    • Will also be working with the libraries that are retaining their symbols. 
    • OCLC has been very collaborative and responsive. Will improve how our holdings are represented in WorldCat and will make things easier for resource sharing. 
    • There are four different categories for processing with OCLC. Trusted OCN - matched on OCLC numbers only. Assigns symbol based on that match. Separate process for materials that have not ever gone through the data sync process (i.e. added in the past two years). Another process has been set for reproduction formats (microfilm, etc.) Also have a manuscript collections for our unique materials, require special identifiers. Those items will be a "trusted partner" collection in OCLC. The group is doing a collection analysis to confirm that all the records are going into the appropriate stream of processing. 
    • During the work form home period their might be staff who could help with the data clean up process. Now might be the best time to farm some of that work out to people who are in a moment of needing new tasks to accomplish at home. Allison is willing to create reports and provide training to help get that started. Any clean up tasks that are more critical than others? All feel equally important. Might be good to start by asking for volunteers in Widener who would be familiar with the collections that need to be altered.  Once record go into staging there is an additional wave of cleaning that might be needed. First step would be asking collection experts in Widener for their input. Usually will be easiest to divvy up by library code . Then can subdivide by language, which might help distribute the tasks. 
    • MCZ and BOH symbols - is there a preference for how they are represented in OCLC registry? See: https://worldcat.org/registry/institutions/3748 . Amy will ask Laura Wood. More generally we should look at our registry information overall. Will ask the OCLC coordinating group to evaluate and make recommendations to the Alma EOC. Scott will take that request to that group. 
    • Next steps: running reports to create actionable subsets. If Allison can give sample reports for Widener to Michelle, she can work with Michael Beckett create some subdivisions to take to Widener folks. 

March 2, 2020

Michelle agreed to take meeting notes.

We reviewed action items from 2/3; all prior commitments had been completed.

SHAER portal & Bibliographer needs for data:  We are interested in creating a culture shift to make "data literacy" a core skill. Currently SHAER plans to show each bibliographer how to add the widget and where to see the usage data on the Alma front screen.

3-day Loan Code:  Spruill requested that the EOC reinstate the 3-day loan within Alma. It is needed for existing technology loans and would work within the new framework that is being established for technology lending being worked on by an RTL working group. "Technology" will be made another Fulfillment unit in Alma/Primo, with the Tech loaning locations listed, and the 3-day item loan would be associated with this Fulfillment unit.  The 3-day loan code will only be appropriate for tech loans.

    --Spruill will update the wiki page that lists the Item Policies that are active and those that are superceded, along with their mapping chart to show how former loan codes are mapped to active.

    --Laura will have a Fulfillment unit created.

Establishing terms for Working Group members:  EOC supports two-year terms with staggered terms and with the LTS members as ex officio/co-chairs.

--We will plan to host a meeting with all the working groups to review highlights with each other of what groups are working on and what would benefit from communicating across the WGs.

    --Suzanne will ask Victoria to find a late-April date that works with the EOC membership's calendar

--We will also host an open meeting for the larger Harvard Alma community; we can use above meeting to help plan agenda.  

--Laura will contact Corinna to answer her question regarding WG terms

We spent the remainder of the meeting reviewing the "Requests To Be Prioritized by the Alma Executive Committee" section of the Project ListWe updated a few entries with newer information. LTS currently has no capacity to take on any additional projects, so EOC did not prioritize any new projects. Suzanne suggested that we make note of any projects that will help BD and ReCAP shared functionality and so that those can be first up when there is capacity.

General Updates:

  • HL is hiring a project manager to manage our involvement in the ReCAP and BD Shared Index project. Both projects are moving forward soon.  
  • A ReCAP FAQ has been written and approved by CCDSC.


February 3, 2020

Scott agreed to take meeting notes.

We reviewed action items from 1/6

Scott and Michelle have initiated the process to bring the FAST headings discussion to D2D.

Michelle determined there was no need to submit an Alma Support Request detailing requirements for 920 addition to loaded vendor records as the need will be met through a local solution.

Laura will have LTS close the Development Library in Alma.

Michelle communicated our prior meeting decisions to the Google Books Discovery and Access WG

We spent the remainder of the meeting reviewing the Project List

At our next EOC meeting, we will review the  'Requests To Be Prioritized by the Alma Executive Committee' list.



January 6, 2020

The EOC reviewed and discussed recommendations from the Google Books Discovery & Access WG report. EOC agreed to move forward as follows:

Recommendations 1 – 4:  These recommendations require similar work and can be looked at as a project. LTS will review requirements and scope work for project prioritization. LTS has begun work updating inventory (recommendation 4) for items sent in most recent scanning phase.

Recommendation 5: As there is no source for this data from google, the EOC does not approve this recommendation.

Recommendation 6: The EOC will refer this recommendation to D2D for prioritization

Recommendation 7: The EOC believes this recommendation needs further analysis after the new Hathi user interface is released.  LTS work to update GLIB related scripts would be needed. This will be referred to D2D for prioritization when new Hathi UI is available.

Recommendation 8: The EOC will further discuss this recommendation at the February meeting.