Reference Committee
17 March 99

The meeting was hosted by the Kings County Library at its 
Hanford branch. Present:

Kay Anthony, Coalinga-Huron Library
Mary Ellen Huls, SJVIS
Nila Stearns, Kern County Library
Maria Rutledge, Kern County Library
Marie Stanley, Fresno County Free Library
Greg Koster, Fresno County Free Library (Secretary)
Janet Harader, Kings County Library
Jane Cothron, Tulare County Free Library

No one attended from the Madera County Library,  the Mariposa 
County Library, the Porterville Public Library, or the Tulare 
Public Library.

Louann Nickerson, the Committee Chair, was absent because she 
had the flu. She had asked Marie Stanley to lead the meeting. 
She called the meeting to order at 10:02. 

1. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting - The 
Committee approved them unanimously.

2. Committee recommendations to Mary Ellen Huls about the 
configuring of the WebPAC version of Dynix that will be 
released for public use soon - The Committee repaired to a 
terminal, so Mary Ellen could demonstrate what features were 
available. Mary Ellen told the Committee that depending on the 
processing power of the individual computers, it could take 
some time to load.  She also told the Committee that the present 
version of WebPAC does not have the "?" symbol enabled, so 
individual jurisdictions can't use it as a "help" or 
"explanation" symbol. She will also enlarge the font size on 
the search results screen, and think of a new way to label 
WebPAC's "back" and "forward" buttons, so patrons will not use 
their browser's back and forward buttons. 

After the demonstration, Jane Cothron asked if MARC records 
(which are hidden in the current generic version of WebPAC) 
could be made visible to library students who might need to 
view them for assignments. Marie Stanley asked if the phrase 
"search settings" could be changed to "search limits." Mary 
Ellen thought this could be done. Greg Koster asked if a 
"branch limit" could be added to the search limits, but after 
discussion, the Committee determined that this would be too 
cumbersome.

At present, it is not possible to print from WebPAC. This 
change when new releases become available.

The Committee recommended that Mary Ellen fine tune the generic 
version of WebPAC, and release it to all the jurisdictions. It 
will contain these searches:

Author, Exact Title, Title Keyword, Subject, Subject Keyword, 
Call Number and Series.

Each jurisdiction will be free to ask Mary Ellen for any 
modifications to its version of WebPAC.

3. Report on negotiations with IAC to obtain remote access to 
InfoTrac on the Web - Mary Ellen Huls reported that the 
principal obstacle to this access was the need to identify 
requestors as being within SJVLS's jurisdictions. At present, 
using a patron's barcode will not suffice to identify a 
requestor unless the requestor is using the telnet version. 
This method is cumbersome to operate. Mary Ellen is working on 
a way to clear requestors, and hopes to release it when WebPAC 
is released. (NOTE: On 22 March Mike Drake of SJVIS sent an 
e-mail saying the problem had been resolved, and that the 
patron barcode was sufficient to allow patrons to log on to 
Infotrac.)

Marie Stanley asked if there were any visible systemwide trends 
in use of InfoTrac. Mary Ellen said that the smaller 
jurisdictions were not using it as much in relation to the 
larger jurisdictions. The Committee discussed this. The 
conclusion was that older equipment is the problem. To use the 
Web version of InfoTrac satisfactorily, you need equipment that 
has at least a Pentium processor.

4. Kern County's report on pricing of American Business 
Information (ABI) - Nila Stearns reported for Louann Nickerson. 
Her memorandum on pricing is in Appendix One. The cost for one 
stand alone version of ABI is about $3500. With 5 users, the 
cost drops to $2400 per user. With 10 users, the cost drops to 
$1600 per user. There was some confusion about whether ABI 
units could be added one at a time, or if users would have 
to increase in jumps, from 5 units to 10, say. Kay Anthony 
had not used ABI before and asked about it. Greg Koster 
explained what could be done with this tool. The Committee 
discussed the issue and decided to ask Louann to arrange a 
demonstration, at the next Committee meeting at Visalia on 9 
June.

5. Report on the Library of California - Deferred until the 
next meeting, because those who were to report on it were not 
present.

6. Revision of the Valley Almanac - This tool is available via 
every jurisdiction's home page, with every jurisdiction 
responsible for local authorities within the jurisdictions 
(for example, Mayors and Supervisors.) But there were questions 
about what else each jurisdiction was responsible for. The 
Committee discussed this at some length, and decided to ask 
Greg Koster to search the minutes and comb the files for a list 
of who is responsible for what. A copy of these results is in 
Appendix Two.

7. Other business - Greg Koster asked Mary Ellen Huls if it 
would be possible to suppress the Dynix bib number from all 
public versions of the Dynix catalog. He pointed out that 
sometimes patrons mistake this number for a call number, and 
then cannot find a book. He showed the Committee a list of 
seventeen bib numbers that a patron had looked up and written 
down, that had to be looked up a second time. Mary Ellen 
thought it might be possible to suppress this number and said 
she would investigate this and report back to the Committee.

8. Sharing of Reference tools.

Meeting adjourned at 11:30.

Respectfully submitted,
G.J. Koster, Secretary