NAAUG Participation in the ICAU Focus Group on the Client Interface

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Brief History

The ICAU Staff Client Interface Focus Group was formed in 2001. The Group was formed to collaborate with Ezra Schwartz, interface designer at Ex Libris in the analysis and development of a re-designed staff interface. The original Focus Group was comprised of Ezra and seven ICAU Module Coordinators. A fairly detailed history of the first two years of the Group can be found at the ICAU web site at:

http://sab.unisi.it/icau/focusgroup/focusgroup.html

The first meeting was in November 2001 in Hamburg, Germany. The primary task of the first meeting was to establish an organizational and methodological framework for a long-term collaboration between Ex Libris and the user community.

The second Focus Group meeting was held in April 2002 on Cyprus following the Systems Seminar. Jane Aitkens, McGill University, attended and represented NAAUG. The primary focus of the 2nd meeting was an initial presentation of the new Circulation Client.

The third meeting was held in conjunction with ICAU 2002 in Paris. By this time, the Focus Group members had had time to work with the Circulation Client and they presented their feedback to Ezra. After the third meeting, it was decided that NAAUG should have a permanent representative on the Focus Group and Sue Julich, University of Iowa, joined the group.

The 4th Focus Group meeting was held in March 2003 in Hamburg. Sue Julich attended this meeting. At this meeting, an initial presentation of the rest of the clients was presented. The group discussed and made recommendations regarding workflows throughout the preliminary version of rel. 16.

In September, 2003, the 5th meeting was held in conjunction with ICAU 2003 in Vienna Austria. Jane Aitkens and Sue Julich attended the meeting. Many of the concerns and workflow issues that had been highlighted at the fourth meeting were addressed during the Vienna meeting.

Shortly after the 5th meeting, the Focus Group learned that Ezra was leaving Ex Libris and the Focus Group was “orphaned” for a short while. The Focus Group met briefly in Porto, Portugal (ICAU 2004) to plan next steps though there was no Ex Libris representative at that meeting. Soon after the Porto meeting, it was announced that Judy Levi would join the group as the Ex Libris representative.

During Fall/Winter 2004-2005 the Focus Group, with input from the user community worldwide, developed and priority ranked a list of reported problems with the new clients. This list has been forwarded to Judy at Ex Libris and will form the basis of discussions at the 6th official meeting of the Focus Group which will be held in conjunction with the System Seminar in Kos in April 2005.

The number of North American institutions now using the re-designed interface has grown to the point where the NAAUG Steering Committee requested that 2 additional representatives from NAAUG be added to the Focus Group. ICAU agreed and Jane Aitkens (McGill) and Laura Morse (Harvard University) have been added to the group.

Next steps for the Focus Group are expected to be to address the InterLibrary Loans interface and to work to streamline workflows within the clients.
 

ICAU's call

In January 2005, in preparation for the upcoming Focus Group Meeting during the Ex Libris System Seminar in Kos, ICAU asked the national groups to comment on and assign priorities to their list.

The NAAUG rankings were determined by responses from these NAAUG sites:

College Center for Library Automation, Florida
Harvard
University of Iowa
Marlene Vikor of the University of Maryland
MIT
Notre Dame
UC Davis
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Virginia Commonwealth University
 

NAAUG's response

Cover letter to ICAU - includes ICAUs' list ranked 1,2,3 as requested. Also includes suggested additions by the NAAUG membership.

ICAU's list, in NAAUG priority order

The Focus Group Meetings at Kos - April 2005

During the Ex Libris System Seminar in Kos, 3 meetings were held between the ICAU Staff Client Interface Focus Group and Ex Libris. Both ICAU's ranked list and additional suggestions sent in by various national groups were discussed.

Annotated List from the Kos Focus Group Meetings, by the Chair of the ICAU Focus group, Jiri Kende and by Owen Stephens.

The issues basically divide into 4 categories:

1. Most were functionality and/or workflow issues needing Ex Libris' attention. Ex Libris is planning to present a timetable for resolving these issues in version 16 and up. You will notice that for some issues, Ex Libris asks for examples. If you do have examples, please send along to suzanne-julich (at uiowa.edu) or laura_morse (at harvard.edu).
    
2. Those issues already reported as PRB/CRM incidents need to be followed up using that mechanism.
    
3. A very few issues are not possible to resolve in the current conceptual model of the Client.
    
4. A few issues for which Ex Libris needs additional feedback. Ex Libris has asked that the user community be surveyed regarding the importance of the new suggestions. For other issues, Ex Libris is interested in hearing how we would like them to be implemented. Responses should be sent to laura_morse (at harvard.edu) by June 1, 2005.