Minutes February 19, 2021

Nancy Babb (UBuffalo)
Nancy Babb (UBuffalo)
Last updated 
SUNY Discovery Working Group meeting, 2/19/2021, 1:00 pm, via Zoom
Participants: Nancy (chairing/notes), Amanda, Heidi, Holly, Jen, Jessica, Jill, Michelle, Pam 
  • Discussion of Primo 2021 Roadmap https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Materials/Roadmap
    • Show Journal Coverage Dates in Brief Results Page (H2) - although generally jubilant about this planned development, Nancy noted concern about lack of physical holdings in this coverage.
    • Allow users to easily navigate to next and previous pages and define number of results per page (H1) - suggest we may be able to "force" institutional display of other than 10 results; great appreciation and anticipation for change to page navigation.
    • Indication and direct link to PDF from the brief results (H2) - will be interesting to see how Ex Libris functionality compares to BrowZine; this is something that frankly the system should be doing already (i.e. linking directly and correctly to content).
  • Feedback on testing of CDI source field and related trouble-shooting
    • Not a magic fix nor quite as helpful as we'd been hoping; haven't yet found it to be a terrific help in trouble-shooting problems.
    • Facet identifying activation source collection rather than record source: better than nothing but not (yet) fantastic; note that Alma/SFX collection seems to be diminished or gone.
    • While we've been hoping that these features would help with trouble-shooting, we've been encountering a plethora of new problems that aren't really addressed by them, such as E-ISSN vs ISSN lookup and bad underlying metadata resulting in bad EBSCO linkage; having to devote time and energy to these other problems has taken away from testing.
    • Question: can a Staff View be configured, so that the facet could be enabled for staff but not general public?
      Answer: yes, can create any number of desired views, and generally they will be hidden to those who don't have exact URL. But some cautions and caveats: it sometimes seems as if settings may inadvertently or unexpectedly carry over between views; some settings (labels, etc.) may apply to all views, and be aware that opening Alma in multiple tabs in the same browser *will* cause chaos (don't do it!).
      For some examples of staff-oriented views, see UB's LibGuide on FRBR/Dedup testing, with links to multiple views of Everything & Catalog scopes: https://research.lib.buffalo.edu/frbrdedup_tests 
  • Revisiting Release Tracking document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jamIAp4yhoZPrlK5A8YUiLuevAZf1QcpG0-tpmo5Kbc/edit?usp=sharing
    The group previously created a release testing rubric, but has not yet implemented a regular procedure for testing, due in part to some major system regressions in recent releases and need to address other priority issues. The group agrees that regular procedures for testing new releases in Sandbox and Production instances would be both timely and beneficial.
    TO DO:
    •  Add Monthly Release Date reminders to Discovery WG Basecamp schedule for the Monday after release in Sandbox and Production;
    • Add tabs for 2021 entry within the Tracking document;
    • Establish monthly testing routing, including: reminder after release; link to document; discussion topic within Basecamp for each release.
  • New issue: testing "Did you mean..." thesaurus and spell check: Jill reported on extensive testing of this functionality and reports that there seems to be improvement. Initially she had been finding very weird recommendations, with nonsensical "did you mean..." suggestions; she is now finding generally better recommendations are being provided.
    Note that this "Did You Mean" functionality is different than the auto complete functionality, which offers search suggestions based on previous searches; some institutions have disabled auto complete due to its proclivity to suggest misspellings and content from other search scopes. Nancy has an open salesforce ticket regarding source of auto complete recommendations.
  • Discussion of February release: change to pin behavior: pinned records are now highlighted and thus displayed more obviously in search results; it may be necessary to amend local customization to display. Note also that almost everything now has an animation.
  • How to... apply HTML styling to labels, such as adding bold to availability statement?
    HTML code can be added within the label description in the table; see for example: 
    c.uresolver.request.request_type     = Request Type: <font color=red>ALL FIELDS REQUIRED!</font> in documentation Modifying Display Labels.
  • How to... add a problem report form within Primo VE?
    Several libraries have shared the code they are using, and there are some GitHub scripts available, but not all of them are easily compatible with Primo VE. 
    Amanda shared the link to Broome's custom.js: https://suny-bcc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/custom/01SUNY_BCC-01SUNY_BCC/js/custom.js for reference.
  • How to... search for posts in Workplace?
    Suggest consult with Kelly Williamson: Kelly.Williamson@suny.edu for assistance.