Meeting Minutes for 12/05/2023

Discussion Topics

Accessibility updates with C.J. and Adam (Minute 00:50) 

• Colorado HB21-1110 is in effect. 
• The law requires library websites to fully comply with the Colorado law's (WCAG 2.1) accessibility standards and the components to have the AA level rating.
• WCAG 2.2 has been released. Adam checked with the Governor’s Office of Information Technology, and we must comply with 2.2 in the future. However, we are not expected to comply in time for the July 1, 2024, deadline.
• Marmot conducted a comprehensive review of Pika to assess its compliance with the 2.1 standards. They were pleased to find that in most instances, Pika met at least level A compliance, if not level AA. 
• Marmot is beginning to review the items that must be elevated to Level AA from Level A. 
• The guidelines are organized under four principles within the 2.1 standards. 
  • Principle 1 is Perceivable
  • Principle 2 is Operable 
  • Principle 3 is Understandable 
  • Principle 4 is Robust
• Principles 2 and 4 regarding Pika can be seen as global development updates. These principles involve Marmot's ability to change the central code base for Pika, which can then be implemented across all libraries using Pika.
• Principles 1 and 3 require more individualized work with each library to achieve full compliance.
• The plan is to have C.J. work on standards within Principle 2 and will follow up with Principle 4. Marmot is getting the global accessibility items taken care of first for the Pika March 2024 release.
• Marmot will schedule individual meetings with libraries to review their preferences for the particular Principles 1 & 3 standards with another deployment before the July 1, 2024, deadline.  
• C.J. is working on principle 2, and the operable guide has five subheadings. Marmot is making good progress and is on schedule to complete the operable guide by the end of the year.
• The State Library is collaborating with Marmot on accessibility resources. Adam is meeting with them to discuss the release timing of these resources and training dates.
• Web accessibility will be a significant undertaking for every library in the state during the first half of next year. This is because it involves not only ensuring Pika is accessible but also making all PDFs, documents, images, and plug-ins linked on the website, as well as the website itself, accessible to everyone.
• After Adam gets information on the release date for the State Library resources, the Marmot Knowledge Base will host content that will guide libraries on how to comply with various standards. 

Updates to the HooplaProcess (Minute 8:46)

• Libraries noticed a few months ago that some of the popular titles were missing from display in the catalog.
• Upon further investigation, Marmot discovered that the missing titles were not included in the MARC record set provided by Midwest Tapes.
• The folks at Midwest Tapes could not explain why specific popular titles were missing from the set. However, they were in the process of developing a new MARC record delivery system. Marmot offered to participate in this new system to obtain a complete collection that would include those missing titles.   
• Midwest Tapes completed its new delivery system in October. Marmot received the record sets and tried them on the test server to see how robust they were. 
• Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Pascal put the new record set into production.
• Now, all libraries with Hoopla collections should be displaying those popular titles in their catalog.  
• This new process is more convenient as Midwest Tapes now sends the record set to Marmot so they can immediately update the collection.
• The first update was delivered on November 9, 2023, so the next update of the records should be provided around the same time in December.
• Since these updates will only happen once a month, you may still have missing titles not displayed in the catalog until  Marmot gets the new record set.  

Demo of new features, bug fixes, and documentation for the upcoming release (Minute 11:13)

• Release Notes

Discussion of development priorities for the next release (Minute29:02)

• Accessibility update
  • The next upcoming releases will be scheduled for March, and the later part of June, so Marmot is just ahead of the July 1st deadline.
  • Marmot will address the WCAG 2.1 Principles 2 & 4 in the March release
  • Marmot will address the WCAG 2.1 Principles 1 & 3 in the June release
• Feature Requests
  • After wrapping up the accessibility compliance, Marmot will start picking back up on feature requests and getting those scheduled out for future releases.   

Reports from libraries on special projects (Minute 30:16)

• Boulder Public Library will be a library district by the next Discovery meeting. They thanked the Marmot staff for doing a lot of work to make that happen.

The next meeting is Tuesday, March 5th, 2024