Meeting Minutes for 01/07/2020

Discovery Committee Meeting
January 07, 2020
Minutes

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

Discussion of development priorities for the next release 

Current Release

  • PHP Language Update and PHP 3rd Party Library
    • Chris has made a lot of progress 
    • He will continue working on it for January
    •  The Pika team expects to be able to upgrade all the Pika sites to PHP 7 at their next release
  • Implement RBdigital Magazines APIs
    • Marmot has decided to move up the RBdigital API integration for Pika 
    • Patron interactions and maybe availability will be possible 
    • Marmot is doing this because RBdigital has expanded its magazine offerings 
    • The API integration is just for magazines at this time
    • Once Pascal looks at the API, he can determine if API is unified for all their platforms
  • Control of EContent Manifestations Display in Search Results and Grouped Work Views
    • If there is extra bandwidth Marmot will try to do this project
    • This will allow libraries to select which eContent source displays first in the grouping 
    • The place hold button or the access online button will control  the priority for the display for the eContent sources  

Other discussion topics

  • OverDrive Settings for Hold Queue Position (Minute 14:55;01)
    • Members suggested that the hold queue position be turned off for OverDrive due to the Advantage Plus shared holds
    • Patrons find it very confusing when they move backward because of the way Advantage Plus works.
    • Ashley suggested that it might be something that can be made an option in the OverDrive settings to turn off or on.  
    • Discovery Chat Log
  • Sierra Scheduler full export jobs (Minute 25:29;18)
    • We can begin to obsolete these for Sierra libraries using APIs
      • You can turn the job off, but please let us know if you do so we can change some configuration settings
    • What the process entails, intermittent needs for full exports
      • E.g. stats rollovers, large global changes (more than 10k records)
      • If making changes over for more than 10K records, you should alert staff that statuses may be off in Pika until the process catches up
  • Sierra / III ticket concerning item hold status from API (Minute 30:07;17)
    • The item status and hold status are getting out of sync, so the API is not getting a proper status
    • This is a bug in Sierra API version 5 that does not exist in version 4
    • The III ticket has the status of “In progress”
    • Until resolved by III, the ‘in transit’ status for a hold may not display as such (specifically with version 5 of APIs)
    • The holds are showing up in the users account in Pika 
    • This was reported more by Marmot libraries
  • Lynda.com updates (Minute 32:11;17)
    • Seems like folks still have access via their library card numbers in the Lynda site (Chris is still able to use Mesa County Card to access Lynda)
    • In terms for libraries who are keeping it, Marmot is still getting to get a MARC download right now
    • Marmot does not know if the authentication is working as it should, or the holds are being updated   
    • Let the Pika team know if you are going to keep up with LinkedIn Learning and you experience any record access problems
    • Discovery Chat Log
  • Subject facet documentation (Minute 35:40;04)
    • Lloyd Chittenden wanted to talk with the group about the subject facets
    • Lloyd wanted to talk about what the facets are actually doing in the background
    • The facets are pulling the subject headings apart in a way that they were not intended which is leading to weird results
    • Lloyd reviewed all the issues with the subjects listed on the Available Subject Facets documentation
    • Lloyd suggested that the Subject facet is the most useful one and with a little tweaking (like excluded genres) could be more useful until there was a working group created to discuss changes needed for the subject facets
    • Action Item: Ashley will coordinate a small working group
      • Charge of defining what the facets ‘mean’
      • e.g. topic vs. subject
  • Reports from libraries on special projects
    • The following libraries have gone fines free
      • Bud Werner (Marmot)
      • Grand County (Marmot)
      • Mesa County  (Marmot)
      • Anne Arundel (fines free for kids only)
      • Bounder County (Flatirons Consortium)

Next Meeting is Tuesday, February 4, 2020  

 
Meeting Date: 
Tuesday, 2020, January 7
Documentation Type: 
Meeting Minutes
Committees: 
Discovery Committee