Meeting Minutes August 14, 2009

Roll Call
Troy Brown (IL), Tom Ceresini (Lyrasis), Steve Gregory (CO), Susan Fipps (INCOLSA), Darci Hanning (OR), Christine Kreger (CO), Tom Metzger (INCOLSA), Bev Obert (IL), Michael Sauers (NE), Rose Schooff (VA) – minutes by Justine Shaffner (Collaborative Coordinator)

Approve 7/10 Joint Project Coordinators/Tech Group Meeting Minutes
We took a check mark poll and the minutes are approved.

Status of Plinkit 2.0 work
Hanning said it’s going well, people are doing dry runs of the migration process.  Next week Hanning will be testing the migration on her servers and then the last step will be checking for bugs.  We’ll hopefully wrap up on 8/25, but bug fixes could delay this.  There’ll probably be some manual tweaks needed in the migration process.

Gregory got through all the migration documentation and had a nearly successful migration.  The only bug is the calendar portlet and Enfold should get back to him on this today or Monday.

Brown is about halfway through the script, but is on a slow server and did it on all instead of a subset, plus there was a typo in the script which meant he skipped a step, so he’ll need to start from scratch redoing it locally.  It’s a learning process.

Once TX knows when they’ll have their new server for production available Enfold will be able to do their migration for them (as they have so many sites it was too overwhelming for them to do themselves).

a.User’s manual
Kreger said since we decided to have the technical writer do it she’s only editing the CO manuals.  Ceresini apologizes for being missing in action during this process.  Hanning has the proposals and will look at the different pricing options given soon, then Hanning will send out the price options for us to make a decision on. Once the technical writer starts doing the work we’ll definitely need people to help review the draft.

SOW for Skins
Brown has started the document (on Google Docs).  The plan now is for Brown to share it with the rest of the group and get everyone’s input as writing a SOW isn’t his forte.  The three skins have been chosen (barring any tech issues that’d keep us from using them).  He’s happy with the choices which are Estate Lite, Subskins_preset_one, and Lite PloneSkin.   They are fairly simple skins, which will make it easy for people to switch to another skin instantaneously.


Mentoring program
We need more mentors as we have Hanning, Brown and Stokes only.  And we need an administrator/usher.  The administrator/usher would just need to spend one to two hours with each new member and then deal with other issues that come up.
 
Shaffner resent the description that Norris developed and asked for volunteers again.

Obert might take on the admin/usher position if no one else will but she’s already on this committee (and chairing it) and is on the Steering Committee, so she’s kind of overloaded with Plinkit work.  Shaffner will put this on the next agenda.

Boot camp reports
a.Things learned and/or interesting and/or to be incorporated into Plinkit
Sauers wondered if we’ll have a blogging tool added into the new template.

Hanning said let’s talk about that at the Tech group meeting.  Sauers can only be in that meeting for 15 or 20 minutes, so they’ll talk about that item first.

Ceresini found boot camp stimulating.  It was time well spent.  He likes the blog idea or any kind of web 2.0 features as the states he’s talking to about Plinkit would really like to have that kind of thing.

Schooff said she enjoyed it, Joel was great so the 40 hours of hearing about Plone weren’t taxing.  She’s looking forward to the upgrade.  Her first library went live on 8/3 and it went well.  Obert said congratulations!  Schooff has two more libraries coming aboard at the end of August and then ten others, but they aren’t in a huge rush.

Obert asked if there was anything else they’d heard about at boot camp that they’d like to explore in the future.

Ceresini said once they start using the system in an active way it may generate more ideas and suggestions.


Status reports from each state
CO – Kreger said that there was not much new to report, she has libraries waiting for the new version to go live.

INCOLSA – Fipps said she’s busy revamping the Plinkit project as they’ve moved it completely to IT (previously it was split between two departments). The two staffers handling this are on a learning curve, (it’s Susan and someone who’ll be doing training).  They are doing a pilot with two libraries until the end of 2009 and they’re holding off on any others until the new software is ready.  She’s creating a marketing plan.  She did a program at a conference last week.  She hopes to have an unpaid intern to help with the marketing plan.  They are in merger talks with the Michigan Library Consortium which is taking up a lot of time.  She hopes to have more time to contribute in the near future.

Obert said that no apologies are necessary, time crunches happen to all of us, but please share anything you can from your marketing plan and efforts.

Lyrasis – Ceresini said they are seeing a light at the end of the merger tunnel and he’s picking up the pace.  He’s working on a proposal for one of their states and they should get that in the next few weeks.  He’s also working on a broader plan to talk to other states in their region.

NE – Sauers said they are in a holding pattern at this point.

VA – Schooff is now really good at CSS customization.  Hopefully she won’t lose that in the migration (Hanning wrote that she won’t lose it but she may need to tweak it).  They are talking to Enfold re hosting their sites as in VA they’ve outsourced IT and since Plinkit’s on a Linux machine they don’t support it, which is frustrating. 

OR – Hanning said two libraries have requested sites, but will wait until Plinkit 2.0 is up and running.  The OR site has been moved to the new version.  Obert said thank you for your work on upgrading the Plinkit.org website (also the Steering Committee expressed their thanks to Hanning at their last meeting and said the new site looked really sharp).

IL – We forgot to ask about them!

TX and MI – No attendees (though Norris tried to come…).


Innovative things done by states
Kreger started a monthly newsletter Colorado PlinkiTips.  She tries to showcase something an individual library is doing – last time it was web statistics.
The goals are:
•         to help create a community of Colorado members (e-mail sent out via a    listserv for Plinkit libraries in Colorado)
•         to remind libraries of various functions, features etc. of Plinkit
•         share tips and tricks of working with Plinkit
•         to showcase unique and fun things libraries are doing with their Plinkit sites.
The list serv e-mail links them to a news item on the Colorado Plinkit site… and each piece of information is a page stored within her training, marketing, website content, ideas folders for findability.  Here’s a link to the newsletter http://colibraries.org/colorado-plinkitips-newsletter

To Do list status
Shaffner said there are a number of things on there that people just haven’t had time to do because of all the work on Plinkit 2.0, but they aren’t vital.  But we are making progress.  Brown’s almost finished his work on the SOW.  The link check of the template has been organized.  Everyone has given Obert their suggestions for User’s Advisory group members.

Report on website contributions for the month
Shaffner posted a news item re the award winning training manual being updated.

Other Business
Shaffner said that though the Steering Committee has decided not to aggressively pursue new members, they will talk to people who approach us and that we had two inquiries this month.  Since they are both in Lyrasis territory, Yurcaba will talk to the SC medical library collaborative, and will also be on the conference call with the Georgia State Library (which Hanning, Shaffner, Duncan and Littrell will also attend).  GA has a system set up similar to TX’s so Littrell can speak about TX’s experience.

Shaffner reminded the Technical Group to please discuss Plone Boot camp timing/rotation so at the next joint meeting we can finalize the recommendation for Steering.

Shaffner asked how everyone felt about continuing to use web conferencing.  Sauers mentioned Go To Meeting is a lot slicker.  Sauers would just need to send the url for a meeting.  Brown said Wimba is run by Web Junction, but if there are better solutions we can try them  Sauers said it wouldn’t cost us anything, but he won’t be at the meeting in September so we’ll need to wait until October to try this.  Shaffner sent him the October meeting day and time so he can set this up. 

Ceresini said all things being equal he likes the teleconference line best. Shaffner said it costs $25-$50 each time and could cost more as more people attend meetings, so Steering would like to save money on this and the web conferencing is free.  Schooff likes being able to have private conversations in the chat screen.  We decided to continue using web conferencing technology for future meetings.

Kreger asked if we have a rough timeline for when the manuals and software will be done.
Hanning said the software should be wrapped up @ 8/25/09.  The User’s Manual will take about three weeks after we’ve agreed on the option and price.  The Administrator’s Manual is more up in the air as Hanning is still working out details of what Toni, the technical writer, will do versus what Collaborative members will do.

Next meeting - Remember connecting via web conferencing – September 11, 2009 Friday - 11:30am Eastern Time, 10:30am Central Time, 9:30am Mountain Time and 8:30am Pacific Time

2nd part of meeting – Technical Group Discussion – 45 minutes