April 15, 2011 - MnPALS Circulation and Interlibrary Loan Workday

Had a productive joint Circulation and Interlibrary Loan workday! I participated in the Opening session topic discussing how we serve our online and distance students. There were also presenters from Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU), Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSUM), and Northland Community College. I think an entire day could have been spent on this topic!
The first breakout session I attended was Circulation Reports and How We Use Them - this was a good refresher of available reports and it was nice to hear how other libraries use the data. Breakout #2 was about How Lost Items are Handled in Circulation. As a result of this session, I will be requesting some table changes in order to clean-up our lost items replacement fees in circulation. This session also reminded me to look at Patron Scrubbing practices. The final Breakout of the day was Keeping your Circulation Tables up to Date - again this was a good refresher about which tables need to be updated and when to make those changes. I've already been able to make a few changes in the tables with information I learned at the workday!

April 14, 2011 - Consortium of MnPALS Libraries Annual Meeting

Enjoyed the annual meeting with presentations by Stephen Elfstrad, PALS Director, Adam Marsnik (Normandale Community College) of their SUMMON instance, and Todd White (College of St. Scholastica) and their use of the EBSCO search product. We also heard from Todd Digby (System Director of Libraries for MnSCU) and Bill DeJohn (Minitex).
The afternoon was spent in small and large group discussion on a variety of topics affecting the consortium. Topics included The Future of Discovery, Open Source vs. Vended Solutions, The Future of the ILS, Future Funding, Minimum Set of Library Technology Services (this is the group I was on), and Open Access Data and Digital Repositories. The ideas generated will be brought back to the PALS office as they continue their planning efforts.

MnPALS User Groups - October 28, 2010

I attended the MnPALS User Group meetings at the Wellstone Center in St. Paul on Thursday, October 28, 2010. As the Circulation User Group convener, I had been involved in the planning for this day and was looking forward to seeing librarians from around the state! It was a good, but packed day of meetings. I attended the following sessions:
ILL Subsystem Meeting
Circulation Subsystem Meeting
Systems Subsystem Meeting
Lunch/General Session
Reference Subsystem Meeting
Cataloging Subsystem Meeting
The staff at the PALS Office does a great job of keeping us informed of changes, especially in regards to the upcoming version change. The upgrade to Version 20 is scheduled for January 28-30. Online training sessions will be held with more details, but it was nice to catch a glimpse of some coming changes.
One of the biggest things I pulled away from this day of meetings is to take some time to look at the report options in ALEPH. The Reports Group has been working hard to create new reports that are key to the consortium. There is much clean-up of records that needs to be done, so I've started working on that project.
Overall it was a great day for connecting with colleagues and being active in the consortium.

Consortium of MnPALS Libraries User Group Meeting - October 28, 2009

The Fall User Group meeting was jam-packed with business meetings for each user group as well as a variety of breakout sessions. As one of the Convener's involved in the planning process for this day, I'm really interested to hear the feedback as this was a bit of a different schedule than usual.
Here's what I attended:
9:00-9:50 - Breakout - General Cataloging Q&A....tips learned:

• Vendor Neutral for Electronic Books
• check our Local Holdings on OCLC - need to keep it updated
• Heard about RDA on the way - MII will likely lead trainings when the time comes

10:00-10:50 - Breakout - MnPALS Plus Version 2.0

• Since we just moved to this interface, I wanted to hear what others were experiencing and see what was on the horizon for improvements. Continue to watch this on the Forum.

11:00-11:50 - Breakout - ILL Best Practices Survey

• Always good to hear from MII what things we can do to make their lives easier and more efficient for patrons. One thing they mentioned was to always be sure to include the Due Date on the paperwork that is inserted into the item.
• Ran out of time on this one, but they will be posting the Housekeeping items for Lending and Borrowing, so will want to review that when it is posted...they weren't sure if it would be on a wiki, the website, etc.

12:00-1:20 - Lunch/General Session

1:30 - 2:20 - Systems Subsystem Meeting

• Not much to report from this business meeting. One highlight from this group is how much the Reports Task Force did this year to get some new reports in place. Kudos to that group!
• Planning for a Spring Workday...

2:30 - 3:20 - Circulation Subsystem Meeting

• I am the convener for this group, so I led this meeting.
• We are going to use the forum to determine interest/participation in a Spring Workday before scheduling one.
• Have work to do yet on the Consortium Circulation Policy -- starting with a survey.

3:30 - 4:20 - ILL Subsystem Meeting

• Following Circ lead and posting on the Forum to gauge interest in having a Spring Workday.

Homeward bound :)