Meeting Minutes for 12/03/2019

Demo of new features, bug fixes, and documentation for the upcoming release

• Release Notes
• Deployment delayed until 12.10.2019
• Sierra libraries please kick tires for patron interactions in test sites that would alert us to issues with APIs

Discussion of development priorities for the next release 

• Road Map

Current Release

• PHP Language Update and PHP 3rd Party Library
  • Will spend December focusing on this project in order to move all the Pika sites in January to the upgraded PHP
  • We should see performance improvements and more features  
• Memcache vs Memcached

Next Release

• Record Grouping Adjustments
  • Rescheduled to begin in January
• Stability Version - Will be worked on for most of 2020
  • Stability Version - Record Grouping: New grouping categories
  • Stability Version - Record Grouping: Language

Next Quarter

• Stability Version - Record Grouping: Improved handling for grouping Category: Movie
• Control of Econtent Manifestation Display in Search Results and Grouped Work Views

Other discussion topics

• Membership Updates (Minute 21:11;13)
  • Marmot has four Discovery Partners who have recently changed their ILS system and are moving to another service option for their OPAC.
  • Adam wanted to publicly wish AspenCat, Arlington, Anythink, and Nashville the best during their migration and moving forward.
  • In the meantime, this has no negative implications for Marmot’s voting or associate members such as pricing.
  • Marmot staff will now have more time to work on the Pika priorities. 
  • Marmot remains committed to the member-driven by the member approach for prioritizing development that we have evolved over the last nine months.   
  • Marmot also has a number of libraries who are asking for demos of Pika that seem to be good fits with Marmot.  Marmot will send out news as those demos and further conversations progress.  
• Feature request to iii for the API : (Please Vote!) (Minute 22:28;02)
  • Add “not until” to holds  
    • At this time it is not possible to set a date for the notWantedBefore date when placing a hold through the API
    • The Pika team can get that information for a hold that has the notWantedBefore date, they cannot set that information on behalf of the patron.
    • Marmot submitted a feature request through the iii Idea Lab process.
    • The Pika team is asking all the Sierra libraries to vote on this feature to encourage iii to implement it, so they can add the feature in Pika.
    • For those of you who were at MUG, this was a priority winning issue.  
  • ​Trigger local hold when Inn-Reach item is received
    • This is an issue that iii has not handled well in the API yet.
    • Having iii fix this issue makes handling of INN-Reach holds through the API a little easier for the team.
  • Guide to Sierra Idea Lab
    • This is a guide to help to explain how to use and sign up for Idea Lab.
    • In order for these ideas to move forward, there is a Tasks link on the bottom of each ticket.  It will show how many views, votes, and number of posts are needed to move the idea to the next level.
• “Access online” button should open in a new window? [IN-2095] (Minute 25:53;15)
  • When you click on the “Access online” button it will open in the current tab.
  • There has been a request that when someone clicks on the “Access online” button it will open in a new tab.
  • Ashley asked what people would prefer, and what would users like to see for that kind of interaction.
    • Alysa commented that open is another tab is not very user-friendly for mobile devices.  
    • Tallie chatted  that she thinks for the “older” patrons are happier when they do not have to open many tabs
    • Cari chatted that she is all for the same tab going with the mobile-first design perspective.  She also commented that she is in her beginner computer classes, tabs still confuse older users.
    • Jo chatted that  personally, she prefers 'open in a new tab', but can see the value of letting patron determine
    • Chris chatted that it looks like 5 people are against the button opening in a new tab, and 2 people are for the button opening in a new tab.
• Do we include nominees in awards facet? [D-2802] (Minute 29:01;04)
  • Ashley mentioned that with the awards facet that there has been some kind of confusing stuff that crops up when you are searching for Caldecott Medal winners, among others.
  • Currently, the award facet is displaying the award winners as well as nominees. 
  • Ashley opened up a discussion about whether nominees should be part of the award facet, or go with the winners specifically.
  • Pascal informed the group about the background for the ticket. Someone wanted to use the award facet to create a browse category for just the award winners. Currently, there is not a good way to in Pika to restrict to award winners. The information is coming from Lexile that gives both winners and nominees, and it is all being indexed and included in the awards facet. 
    • Sean asked if it would be a good idea to put on the search facet award winners instead of just awards   
    • Ashley liked Sean’s idea and suggested maybe having awards as a more general facet and another facet that is award winners that is a little more  granular 
    • Ashley asked how difficult it would be to create separate facets
    • Pascal could do it within a release but would  have to look more closely at the Lexile information
    • Liz chatted that personally, she  likes the nominees showing 
    • Alysa chatted that they outsource award lists and those lists always just give them the winners
    • Brooke chatted that she thinks people love to know nominees when it's recent, but they're not as interested in nominees from years ago.
    • Ashley suggested that the conversation can be continued using the Discovery Committee email list

Next Meeting is Tuesday, January 7th