Attendees:  Anne Kenney, Angela Horne, Pat Schafer, Kathy Chiang, Katherine Reagan

Guest Speakers:  Karen Calhoun

1)         Report on the Chat Reference meeting

Angela gave an overview of the well-attended April 28th "Chat Reference @ CUL" meeting that provided interested staff with an opportunity to discuss various aspects of chat reference. 

2)         ASSC charge

PSEC reviewed the recently revised charge of the Access Services Steering Committee and approved the new charge.  However, PSEC agreed that regular membership of ASSC should be expanded to include a representative from the Dept. of Preservation and Collection Maintenance, so that collection managment for Olin, Uris, and Kroch/Asia will be represented on the group.

3)         PSEC website discussion

In an effort to make information about PSEC activities as widely available as possible, the committee will develop a team website.  In July, the IRIS Design Group will begin an analysis of the desired information that would be contained on the PSEC website.  This will include asking stakeholders what information they would like to be able to find and refer to. 

4)            ENCompass Find Articles/Find Databases recommendations (Karen Calhoun)

Karen Calhoun joined us to provide an overview of the new soft launch of the ENCompass Find Articles/Find Databases search systems, implemented on the Gateway on May 19. The week of June 9, Find Articles/Find Databases will replace the "E-Reference Collection" search screen on the Gateway.  Endeavor has offered to do performance (load) testing for us this summer, to ensure that the system functions normally under a heavy load of simultaneous users.

To encourage the public to begin using Find Articles/Find Databases, the ENCompass team would like to add links for the new system on the "Quick Links" left scroll bar on the Gateway homepage, where it will be more visible. This change should generate the volume of use of Find Articles and Find Databases that is needed for Endeavor's load testing to be effective.

A complete change over to the new Find Articles/Find Databases system will take place on August 11, after the end of the final summer school session. Until that time, users will have the option of selecting the "classic" E-Reference Collection search interface.  There will be announcements on CU-Lib about the dates for load testing and the timing of the switch over, and IRPC will be consulted for further feedback or comment.

PSEC approved the ENcompass team proposal for switching to the Find Articles/Find Databases system.  Although some disruption and confusion will be inevitable, timing the change over between course sessions should minimize this.

5)         Study comparing Google Answers to CUL reference service

Anne discussed the results of a study comparing CUL digital reference services with Google Answers, a new reference service from Google that utilizes free-lance researchers.  This study will be published in the June issue of D-Lib Magazine.  The results of the study lead to several recommendations: 1) self-assessment and peer review should become a mainstay of evaluation 2) academic librarians should regularly monitor developments in the commercial information environment, and 3) research libraries should adapt some of the successful marketing strategies and ancillary services offered by commercial enterprises to encourage greater use of intellectually vetted resources.

6)         Update on the the User and Systems Assessment Review group

The User Assessment group met mid-May.  They reviewed their charge and generated the questions for a general brainstorming session.  They will hold one session on 6/16 (the open invitation has gone out) and schedule the next one for July.  The timeline for the charge is summer through December, when they hope to have recommendations and suggestions on how to help user and usability testing run efficiently and effectively.

7)         Public computing and laptop surveys

Anne reported initial findings from two IRIS surveys.  For two weeks, hourly counts were taken of public computer use in Olin, Kroch Asia, Uris, Music, Fine Arts, and Africana.  The results indicated that library only computers were available most of the time in all libraries, but the demand for personal productivity machines (PPCs) was greater than the supply, especially in Olin Library, where 63% of the time (98 hours out of 155 hours) all PPCs were occupied. The second survey was of laptop users in Uris/Olin and was designed to secure information on the impact of charging a fee for use.  432 surveys were completed during the 2 week period.  Most individuals indicated they would not pay to use the service, but 11% indicated they would be willing to pay $5.00/hour for the service;  25%+ of respondents  indicated they would pay a fee to use a laptop with a fully charged battery (as opposed to one that had to be plugged in to use).  A fuller analysis of the results of these two studies will be available shortly.

PSEC reaffirmed their support for public computing capabilities but believe that laptops should move toward a cost-recovery basis.

8)         RLG SHARES Move to Peer to Peer ILL -- Status of ILLiad ISO Compliance

Pat reported that Cornell staff had been working with RLG and OCLC's Atlas, the vendor for ILLiad, on testing the functionality of the ISO compliant version of ILLiad. This is in anticipation of the move at RLG at the end of June from a mainframe environment for interlibrary loan to one that is peer-to-peer. Currently, 117 of the 140 libraries in SHARES have chosen RLG's ILL Manager or ILLiad as their ILL management system. These libraries represent 95 percent of the RLG ILL traffic. Both systems are ISO compliant, but testing between the two systems has not been completely successful.  Next week Cornell will install and test the latest version of ILLiad that will include adjustments which will hopefully solve the problems. Pat said that she is cautiously optimistic.