SRG Meeting Minutes
September, 16, 2009
Attendees: Ralph Bingham (GCLS), Brenda Muhlbaier (GCLS), Ann Kohn (GCIT), Carol
Wolf (GCLS/GLA), Flo Rosenberg (GCLS/MHB), Judy Ballard (GCLS/MHB), Anne
Wodnick (GCLS/LGB), Kathy Capobianco (WDL), Karen Boucher (WDPL), Carol
Baughman (GCLS/EAS), Gwen Carotenuto (WES), Violet Valentin (PAU), Marie
Flaherty (PIT), Jean McGowan (DPL), Bunny Jacobsen (DPL), Carol Atkinson (GCC),
Pat Hirsekorn (GCC), Lynn Harpool (MON), Marge Dombrosky (GCLS/SWE), Karen
Shiles (GCLS)
The minutes were read and approved.
Karen opened the discussion about the October downtime. Sirsi will be going down on the 6 th and will be back up no later than the 9 th ; it will come back up whenever they are done transferring to the hosted server. GCLS will put into their circ calendar for no due dates for those days. West Deptford has already done so. Karen asked for everyone to share what their libraries are going to do. Please let Karen know ASAP if you want her to put in ‘closed’ days for the downtime.
There is a Sirsi created manual for ‘Offline (Workflows)’ in the login blog under the
‘training’ heading. It is approximately 80 pages long; keep in mind that this was created for anybody using Sirsi and covers more than what we do. Karen has also created her own version of an offline help guide that is approximately 20 pages long. Sirsi has always had a version of an offline mode – is was not really reliable. Sirsi promises that this version is much better (even going to the trouble of renaming it); GCLS will be giving it a try and will use it while we are down. If anyone else wants to try it, please let
Karen know. The downside is that we will not be able to look anyone up; they must have a card to check out. Offline will also not know if there are overdues, expired holds, etc.
The URL for the blog is: http://blog.gcls.org/login/
There is a dialog box that will offer the opportunity to work in Offline Mode; you need to check the box ‘show this window on start-up’. To bring up the dialog box, go Preference
(in the top toolbar) and then select Configuration. Check the box for ‘show this window on startup’ the night before we go down. Carol W. asked Karen to remind the directors and SRG members on the Monday before.
Karen will call around when Sirsi is finished transferring to their server, so that we are not all trying to upload information at the same time. There is an Error Report that everyone can run when a PC connects to Workflows that will list any problem from the downtime. The list will be long as Workflows will make 2 copies of each error. PLEASE do not check anything in until the records from the downtime have been loaded.
A portion of the server will remain active during the server transfer in order for Remote
Patron Authentication to work. Please contact Ralph about any vendors you use. They will need to have the correct server information for authentication to work after the server switch.

Snapshot Day: we will be doing on October 1 st , since we will be down on the original date.
GCCL customers: do we modify a GCC record or issue new? (If a patron comes in that lives in your community and has a GCC card.)
--if the card is current
– use that for borrowing
--if the card is expired
– you can modify the record to match your own agency profiles
-- if there any problems with the record – call the college about getting them fixed.
OPAC message ‘estimated wait time undetermined’ – why does this appear sometimes, but not always?
The estimated wait time feature is actually turned off, but if there is only one copy of an item and it is in transit, iBistro will still show this message. The feature is actually based on the check out date; if the item is in transit, there is no due date and the system defaults to the message.
Monroe Update: Most of the move has been successful, but the technology has been a hold-up. Verizon had issued a work order in July for the internet, and they just came out this week. The data lines have not been set up yet, and some of the cabinets are in fact covering the data lines. They will have to get holes cut into the cabinets to allow for access to the data lines. As a result, they do not yet have a date for when they will be open to the public.
As they are not open, holds are blocked on their materials. Lynn has discovered that some libraries have overridden the holds block. These holds will not be filled until
Monroe is up and running.
Paulsboro Update: One staff person has been out for surgery, and another has been out sick; so Violet has been handling the rebarcoding herself.
Open Discussion:
All GCLS branches will be closed on October 2 nd . We are having our Staff Development
Day.
Marie asked about material on the Long Overdue Report that is not theirs
– who is responsible for sending out the overdue notice? It was discussed that the checkout library is responsible, and since the reports are set up for the checkout library, they can assume the material had been checked out at their location.
Pat H. asked about the limit for amount due (delinquency). GCLS has a limit of 10 items overdue or $10.00, Margaret Heggan has a limit of $.01. Karen said to look at the circ rule used for the checkout and then look at the billing structure for that circ rule.
Next meeting: November 4 th at 9:30 at Mullica Hill in Meeting Room A.