The Group Formerly Known as SOER

Meeting Minutes

08/30

In attendance:

• Tom Lehman
• Cheryl Smith
• Mary Lehman
• Eric Morgan
• Anastasia Guimaraes
• Dan Marmion
• Linda Sharp
• Kathryn Ryan-Zeugner
• Mark Dehmlow
• Laurie McGowan
• Alan Krieger

Minutes:

Tom is looking into recruiting a branch library member to ensure that the branch libraries are represented on the group.

1) Discuss Charge with Dan

After a short discussion, the following charge was determined.
The group (yet to be named) will:

a) be responsible for the oversight of the vocabulary used by the database driven website (DDW) with consideration for how it is used by other tools such as Metalib, virtual bases in Aleph, and instructional materials; this includes establishing, maintaining, and making decisions regarding the formal process that handles requests for changes to the vocabulary.
b) be responsible for communicating changes to the libraries and its staff and faculty.
c) formulate written guidelines/standards for how the vocabulary is used.
d) have the authority to make decisions and enforce those decisions with full support from the library administration.
e) have a membership rotation and structured membership constituency. This could include:

i. evaluating after ~18 months and determining whether to continue or change.
ii. rotating 1/3 of the membership 6 months.
iii. having core representatives that never rotate out, such as Tom Lehman, and Mary Lehman.
iv. having representation from both collections and services including CADM, DAIAD, Electronic Resources, Collection Development, Reference, and Instruction.

Dan will run the charge by LEC for approval.

2) Below are some issues that were raised following the discussion of the charge.
It is important to have cataloging representation on the group.
Much of the communication of the group will happen over a listserv that will be established once the name is chosen.
Vocabulary should be based on warrant/need. We may remove unused terms that are in existence.
What would be the advantages/disadvantages of setting limits to the number of facets and terms?
It is important to consider the mechanics of how the vocabulary works in the DDW when making vocabulary decisions.
Would it be possible to have a test DDW environment where vocabulary decisions could be tested before being implemented?

3) Pick a New Name

As a group, we brainstormed some name ideas.

• Libraries Controlled Vocabulary
• Facets and Terms
• Thesaurians
• Vocabulary Standards Group
• (Website) Wordsters
• Website Vocabulary Group

The name should indicate what the group's purpose is.

We decided to think about the name before the next meeting and come up with suggestions.

4) Setup Meeting Schedule

We decided to meet every Wednesday at 2 pm for 1 hour. The frequency and length of the meeting may change in the future as needed. (Note: because of an ongoing meeting in room 222A Wednesdays starting at 3:00 p.m., the time was changed to 1:30-2:30 p.m. - Tom)

The room location is still being considered. (Note: Laurie has scheduled 222A for us - Tom)