K-State Libraries: Conference Reports

ALA MidWinter - EndUser Board Meeting

EndUser Board Meeting with Ex Libris

Simon, from Monash U., facilitated the discussion.

Those present included EndUser board members & individuals from Ex Libris: CEO, North American Director, Director of Strategy, VP of Customer Srvc for NA, and former Endeavor folks (now part of Ex L): Director of Marketing (Randy Fink), Director of Customer Relations (Susan P.), VP of Marketing (Nancy ?), Director of Product Management (Kathryn Harnish), VP of Global Support (Don Mucchino), and Director of Global Support (Dave Carlson). (I think I have the names/titles correct! Sorry I couldn't get them all!)

Ø Board to have discussion at MidWinter with Ex L VIPs.

Ø Hope to have a formalized plan for Endeavor users by the end of the year

Ø Will put out preliminary info to the listserv very soon

       Ø EndUser conference 2007 will go on as planned

Ex Libris folks introduced themselves and gave some history

Ø With the Endeavor acquisition, the company has grown from 500 to 1500 customers in

North America

Ø Current discussions center on the integration of the 2 companies; working on a plan

Ø Will combine the R&D of both groups

Ø Focus on standards and interoperability; support collaboration & resource sharing

Ø Maintaining 2 of the Endeavor products: Voyager and Journals OnSite

Ø Customer/tech support: will consolidate though this will take a bit of time – cross training will begin in 2^nd quarter 2007; Ex L support model is different: have regional 1^st line support, leverage systems, regions, & know-how

• Board members report that phone & tech support has not been too good lately (i.e., Nov./Dec) but things seems to be getting back on track. Support staff hasn’t changed much.
• CEO says structure is stable for the moment; no other imminent changes.

Dave (Director of Global Support ):

Ø schedule of upgrades can proceed

Ø backlog: closed more incidents than opened in 2006

Ø dedicated development staff now

Ø will move to Pivotal for reporting/tracking/searching incidents (Ex L has been using this)

 EndUser Conference

Ø will cover product lines & enhancement

Ø registration will open in Feb.

Ø Ex L staff will be there

 Products

Ø Enhancements: Del Hamilton reported on the enhancement voting: very clear info, will be shared soon with customers. 80% of folks voted on the top 10 issues; top 7 – 50%.

o Ex L plans to respond to customers as soon as possible; ongoing eval by Ex L staff; help develop strategies to move products forward

o The “me, too” functionality is being worked on

o Board voted to dissolve the current enhancement process & enhancement board: new “board” will be in place by EndUser

Ø OPAC interface: in light of merger & Ex L product Primo – there is (?) need to develop & support WebVoyage; trying to determine what can be used from prototype (what prototype?) and looking at ADA compliance. More info at EndUser

Ø Maintenance costs: have not changed pricing 

Regional User Groups: will continue with some support and Ex L staff will attend in 2007. 

Legacy Systems:

• Susan’s group will be contacting customers with legacy products very soon to determine how to manage.
• Board suggests that Ex L send out targeted emails to customers because there is much confusion

South Central Voyager Users Group

October 12-14, 2006, South Central Voyager Users Group, San Angelo, Texas

The weather was warm and lovely for this year's South Central Voyager Users Group (a.k.a. SCVUGM) Conference held in San Angelo, Texas at Angelo State University. Where is San Angelo you might ask? Far from everything, even by Texas standards. In fact, most attendees of this year's conference drove from all corners of Texas. Non-Texans were a little harder to find, but everyone attending was very friendly and helpful.

Margaret and I presented "Tales of survival: How to work with two vendors to get a major database cleanup successfully planned and implemented (Download tales_of_survival_2.ppt)." The presentation was a case study of the K-State experience and included information on smaller projects that could be done in advance of sending the database away for cleanup. The session was well received.

Beyond our presentation, I attended a number of other sessions that generated many ideas for future database maintenance and library systems projects. The University of Georgia has developed a free Voyager reporting system which is useful for canned reports. The UGA reporting system provides an easy to use reporting interface. Rather than working directly with Access, your work is completed using a series of menus and buttons. Access runs in the background, but you do not need to know how it works nor do you see any of it. There is a minimum amount of set up involving the Oracle drivers.

Other presentations I attended included a session on conducting a shelf inventory for missing materials using some customized Access tables and ideas for automating some library functions (e.g., on-the-fly journal A-Z list, patron authentication for ILLiad, etc.) using programming expertise.

Endeavor held a hands-on demonstration of their new Analyzer product. While I had seen the demonstration earlier at 2006 ALA Annual, it was interesting to hear the information again and see how the product had developed since last summer.

Finally, there is possibility that SCVUGM might come to Kansas in a few years. Stay tuned.