Harmonic Consortium Meeting January 26, 2006 DSTC 112 – 1:00

Present: Mark Harris, Cruz Lewis, Terry Melton, Sandra Dies, Greg Tramel, Ty Beauchamp, Mike Dedinski, Adrienne Stapleton, Kathy Green, Anne McGittigan, Maryann Readal

Handouts: November minutes, Harmonic Forum minutes, Intraconsortium statistics, Intraconsortium summary statistics, Joint Library Borrower Analysis, Harmonic Training Handout.

The November minutes were approved.

Terry Melton reported that the Harmonic Circulation Committee met and discussed labels to distinguish between in-transit holds and in-transit returns. MCMLS is now using larger tubs and has requested that the bins not be filled beyond the fill line. Greg Tramel reported that the MCMLS pick up and drop off of books at the Tomball Branch during the Christmas holidays was successful. Sandra Dies reminded Circulation Coordinators to close their pull lists so that items that cannot be filled are released for another library to fill. At the next Circulation meeting, the group will review routing maps and courier schedules.

It was decided that MCMLS will ask their administrators to review the policy requiring HCPL patrons in the “golden circle” to have MCMLS library cards to check out materials. Currently, “golden circle” HCPL branches are honoring MCMLS cards but not vice versa.

Sandra Dies requested that each system review the training handout for accuracy and report any changes to her. It was decided that as new policies and procedures are decided or clarified, they will be reflected in this document. Sandra will continue to manage the document.

Harmonic Committee Membership was revised. The charge to the Circulation Committee was accepted. The college Library Directors will nominate reference librarians for the Reference Committee. All committees will keep the user’s perspective in mind when making policies and procedures. The projects identified by December’s Harmonic Forum were divided up among the Harmonic Standing Committees as follows:

Steering Committee: 1. Improve the transportation of items between systems. o Hire a dedicated library courier that could travel between counties o Hire a consultant to study the transportation issue o Investigate other package delivery services like DHL and UPS. 2. Provide total access to all collections. 3. Implement universal library card o Instead of expiring students, convert to public patron o Improve Colleague/Horizon interactivity by putting the library barcode in Colleague Circulation Committee: o Standardize policies and procedures between systems. Reference Committee: 1. Collect data o Analysis of titles that move between systems – compile data by call number o Analysis of unfilled requests o Collection analysis done by OCLC o Use NHMCCD information tools to expedite data analysis o Analysis of search terms used in the catalog searches o Track HIP usage patterns overall (HCPL is already has a script to do this) o Analyze Tomball stats by btype to predict demand for college materials by the publics 2. Work together on database licensing 3. Make ILL work 4. Make it possible for staff to get item and patron detail information in HIP. Problem is that staff must use two catalogs when working with patrons. Search engines are different in both in both interfaces.

Mark reported that a successful script for setting up E-branches for MCMLS and NHMCCD has been created. While it is easy to complete the Horizon part, it is a time- consuming, manual process to set up each item in RPA. Luke Rosenberger is working on it. MCMLS would like their patrons to be able to distinguish between TSLAC and college-owned netLibrary books. It was suggested that MCMLS could treat the electronic resources as databases until the individual records can be entered into RPA.

Mark reported that EZ Proxy is up and working for some NHMCCD databases. HCPL is looking at HIP 4.0 or EZ Proxy for database management. HCPL is also considering using Web Feet for patron authentication and consolidated searching. MCMLS is also interested in this product. Mike said that they would keep MCMLS in the loop on their discussions with the vendor.

Access to Safari Tech books, Dartclix, Learning Express and Tumblebooks was discussed, as this was one of the benefits promised by the Harmonic Consortium. This access is still not implemented. Online government documents are still not showing up in the HCPL catalog. Resolutions to this issue were discussed. It was suggested that a separate location be created for the online government resources. Maryann said that ownership of these resources must indicate North Harris College and that statistics must be able to be generated. Any changes to government document records should be reviewed by Maryann before implementation. Because of IP authentication conflicts, CyFair is not able to access the HCPL’s Proquest product ancestry.com. It was suggested that the simplest thing would be for NHMCCD to subscribe to this product. Mark will arrange a trial and will have the NHMCCD Database Committee and LIBEX review it. He will talk to LIBEX about this matter.

Mark reported that two Dynix programmers were working on the 5 million unlinked authority records in the catalog. HCPL requested to be actively involved with this project so that they can put pressure on Dynix to complete the project.

CyFair and Tomball are still not able to see these newly created indexes in HIP: New DVD, New Video, New Audiobook and New CD. Mark will investigate the status of this.

Mike reported that indexes are rebuilt on Mondays and there could be some catalog slow down at this time. If the catalog is slow, HCPL wants to know.

MCMLS reported that the redundant T1 line between MCMLS and HCPL was in place and working.

Next meeting will be in The Woodlands at DSTC 112 on February 20 at 1:00.