Reference Services Committee Meeting Minutes

October 8, 2014 9:30–11:00am

Alice Moulton Room—Gerstein Science Information Centre

Present: Judith Logan (Chair, Robarts Reference); Agatha Barc (Minutes; Victoria); Heather Buchansky (Student Engagement); Jesse Carliner (Robarts); Richard Carter (Kelly); Chad Crichton (UTSC); Heather Cunningham (Gerstein); Colin Deinhardt (Victoria); Brandon Fratarcangeli (TALint); Lucy Gen (East Asian); Lisa Gayhart (for Marc Lalonde) Debbie Green (Robarts); Helen He (Dentistry); Holly Inglis (Rotman); Joan Links (Media Commons); Courtney Lundrigan (Trinity); Anne McGillivray (Knox); Tim Neufeldt (Music); Irene Puchalski (Architecture); Natalya Rattan (Fisher); Angelique Roy (TALint); Patricia Serafini (OISE); Andrea Shier (Criminology); Nalini Singh (Inforum); Rita Vine (Faculty & Student Engagement); Karen Wishart (Emmanuel/TST); Dawn Wong (Canada Hong Kong/East Asian); Nich Worby (Robarts Reference).

Regrets: Margaret English (Art); Marcel Fortin (Map and Data); Angela Henshilwood (Engineering); Marc Lalonde (ITS)

1. Selection of a minutes-taker: Agatha Barc.

2. Minutes of last meeting: approved with no changes.

3. Business arising from the minutes:

a. Revised Guide for LibGuide Authors now live—Judith Logan:

  • The guide includes a flowchart that can be consulted before a new LibGuide is created.

b. Science Literacy Week 2014—Heather Cunningham:

  • The event took places across all three campuses and was very successful.
  • There are plans to host it again in 2015.

c. BrowZine—Judith Logan:

  • The app is now compatible with iPhone and Android smartphones and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store (previously, the app was only available for tablets).
  • New journal titles have been added to the app.

4. Report from ITS—Lisa Gayhart:

a. Website redesign:

  • Last chance to provide feedback on the prototype for the new UTL home page: there are two more sessions on St. George campus.

b. Library info pages:

  • They will be updated and include a map to the library, links to the library’s web site and social media profiles, and multimedia.

c. TSpace:

  • Also undergoing a revamp; search functionality will be improved.

5. Criterion on Demand—Joan Links:

  • It is an online, subscription based “video on demand” package, one of the several available.
  • UTL does not own the content—it is a subscription service.
  • UTL is in a third consecutive contract with the provider, the cost is $250 per term
  • The videos are not the same quality or resolution as a movie on a DVD.
  • They can be downloaded only for 48 hours: protected by the DRM.
  • The content of Criterion can be searched using the catalogue and the selection might change over time.
  • Question: will the catalogue be updated if new titles are added to Criterion?
  • Joan thinks so.
  • Question: is it possible to search the content of Criterion in the catalogue in other languages?
  • Joan: no, but it can be negotiated in the future.
  • Question: can we use the “Meaningful Content” link instead of the default home page as the landing page? From the user’s perspective, he or she would not know that educational videos are grouped under that category.
  • No remote access: currently, there is no remote, off-campus access to the content from this provider.
  • Therefore, the videos can only be streamed and/or downloaded while the user is logged in on-campus.
  • There are efforts underway to rectify this issue: the provider is not used to dealing with the educational sector.
  • Technical issues: there was a concern that Chrome and Safari users would not be able to stream the content, but it does not appear to be the case.
  • There is no limit on the number of concurrent users.
  • About seventy percent of the documentaries in Criterion are available on DVD in the Media Commons collection.
  • However, Joan still welcomes suggestions for additions to the physical collection.

6. Catalogue display issues—Tim Neufeldt, Bilal Khalid, Judith Logan:

  • There are two features in development for the catalogue: shelf browse and auto-complete function for the search bar, which will suggest exact titles.
  • If anyone experiences serious lack of function while using the catalogue, he or she can contact the ITS.
  • Difficulty distinguishing between e-resource records and enhanced print resource records in the catalogue:
  • Enhanced print records (e.g. Novel by George Singleton) may contain external links to tables of contents or a summary.
  • Sometimes, the information is duplicated under “Contents note” area of the record.
  • The duplication may cause confusion to library users.
  • Public service issues stemming from relevance sorting of catalogue search results:
  • Tim demonstrated that searching for Oxford History of Music by title does not produce the expected outcome: the record for the title should appear on top of the results page, not as number four or five as it is the case.
  • Bilal explained that the issue stems from relevance ranking of the resources: ITS has to identify which MARC fields are more important (e.g. 245—Title Statement) than others for searching.
  • Preferences may vary between the libraries.
  • ITS will try to improve the visibility of search results over the next few weeks.
  • Catalogue issues with “searching within” the search results:
  • Currently, it is only possible to do one “search within” at a time.
  • The user is required to re-create the original search to generate the same list of results that can be searched within for the second time.
  • The ITS is aware of this limitation and it is on top of the list.
  • ITS staff would like to gather feedback from library staff on their experiences with searching the catalogue in other languages.
  • They can be contacted at .

7. Research report—Debbie Green:

  • Debbie presented her research findings on service quality, which examines public services as part of user experience.
  • She consulted the following sources, among others:
  • Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013 (2014)
  • “Commonalities in LibQual+ (Dis)satisfaction: An International Trend?” by Selena Killick and Martha Kyrillidou (2014)
  • “Being and Becoming: the Report” by Task Force on Robarts Service (1992).
  • Debbie also researched the history of the Robarts Library and its connection to service quality—renovations to the ground floor and the establishment of the Scotiabank Information Commons, changes in the location of the service points over the years:
  • The physical collections become “unhooked”: after the introduction of e-resources, library staff spent a considerable amount of time instructing users how to connect to e-resources, as it was a very complicated process.
  • Service quality research has morphed into service science, with more emphasis on theory:
  • Includes study of service design.
  • Service recovery has to take place in the moment of service failure in order to encourage users to return.

8. Report from Student Engagement Librarian—Heather Buchansky:

a. TALint students: Heather introduced two Faculty of Information students who are involved in the TALint program, Angelique Roy and Brandon Fratarcangeli:

  • The students are employed at the University of Toronto Libraries as part of their graduate program at the iSchool
  • They will collaborate with librarians on the assessment of the Personal Librarian program, new initiatives (including undergraduate research), and other projects.
  • Angelique and Brandon might e-mail library staff for assistance.

b. Library resources in Blackboard:

  • There will be a training session for the Blackboard Fixit tool.
  • The revised Guide for LibGuide Authors contains a flowchart, which helps to distinguish between using LibGuides from Fixit.

c. Essential teaching and learning LibGuides:

  • The new Academic Integrity web site lists a number of LibGuides related to citation, plagiarism, research, which should be maintained regularly.
  • They are listed in the “Essential LibGuides” document, in addition to guides on teaching of information literacy, peer review, primary sources, and others.
  • Heather would like to encourage others librarians to contribute to the document with suggestions on other essential guides that are relevant to teaching, publishing, and research.

8. Other business: none.

Date of next meeting: November 12, 2014.

1