Meeting Minutes for 12/07/2021

Demo of new features, bug fixes, and documentation for the upcoming release (Minute 00:41)

• Release Notes

Discussion of development priorities for the next release (Minute 32:56)

Road Map 

Q4 2021 and Q1 2022

• Work on the Marmot patron password pins issue.
• Chris has done work on some Dockerization coding for Pika.
  • This would have Pika code split out into separate modules that Marmot could use in a different server environment that will hopefully improve the response rate and lower indexing resource requirements.  
• Stability Version - Search: Indexing
  • The Pika team will be taking a new approach to think through the reindex process to make it process faster without consuming as many resources.
• Q4 2021 Wrap Up
  • Looking through current projects and what will be happening next year.
  • Coming up with a more detailed outline of what that work will look like including some of the user stories the members have helped prioritize through the surveys over the past few months. 
• Schedule for enhancement surveys going forward
  • The developers have made so much progress on the tickets and feature requests that they are now getting to a point where the number of feature requests coming in is pretty low.
  • Starting in 2022, the enhancement surveys will be every other quarter. This way the team can still make sure they are reaching out to the community for feedback on what needs to be prioritized for new requested enhancements. 
  • Marmot will always monitor what the rate is for getting new feature requests. If there is an uptick in requests then they will go back to having quarterly surveys.  

Other discussion topics 

• Marmot Knowledge Base and Pika documentation on Marmot website (Minute 37:42)
  • Marmot Knowledge Base and accessing Pika documentation on Marmot website
• Marmot sideload indexing (Minute 39:15)
  • When updating large sideloads files which might be up to 500,000 records,  the overnight index takes most of the night. Generally, this is mostly the academic libraries that have the larger sideloaded content.
  • Pascal is doing work to try to reduce the time for the full index to run, but he has not succeeded yet.
    • He is trying to make sure the index has finished before libraries open up in the morning
    • His goal is to have the index done by 9 a.m. and ideally before 8 a.m. The reason to finish earlier is that once the day starts the number of users makes it obvious that the search is slow, unresponsive, and sometimes inconsistently responding.
    • Sometimes there are large sideloads or multiple sideloads on the same day. The sideload changes need to be regrouped, which can sometimes take a lot of time.  
    • In order to prevent that problem, while working on a solution for the full index, Pascal has put a 90-minute time limit on regrouping.
    • What will happen when we hit the time limit is the updates will not get grouped that night and will have to wait until the next night.
• Marmot Pika Admins mailing list (Minute 42:44)
  • Ashley has created an email group for the Marmot Pika Admins for issues specific to Marmo Pika. This way, the Pika team can inform that group instead of sending out an email to the entire Discovery Committee group.
  • The libraries using this email group can send emails when they are going to be making large updates to their sideloaded content. Other folks who were planning on doing sideloads as well can either hold off or coordinate with others to figure out the best days that work for each library. 
  • This may not impact the public libraries that are doing smaller sideloads. 
• Udemy shared sideload interest (last call) (Minute 45:54)
  • Ashley sent out an email to the group about the shared Udemy sideload, and heard back from one library
  • Ashley is going to set up libraries with individual Udemy sideloads
  • Udemy has been used in lieu of LinkedIn Learning
  • Email Ashley (pika-at-marmot.org) if you need a Udemy sideload created for your library

• Reports from libraries on special projects (Minute 47:02)
  •  Flatirons is adding pins to their patron authentication
    • They are going with the last four digits of the patron’s phone number for their initial pin.
    • They are hoping that patrons will change their pins to something more secure.
    • Any patron without a phone number will need to get in touch with their library or reset their pin if they have an email address in their account. 
    • They got rid of any shared Sierra login and will change Sierra password every three months.
  • A Lion library is doing vaccine clinics.
  • Grand County has gotten snowshoes to check out for their Library of Things.
  • Lake County has started working on a Tool Library.
  • Anne Arundel launched their new website.

The next meeting is Tuesday, March 01, 2022