[Evergreen-reports] Ideas for the Future of the Reports Interest Group

[Jessica Venturo]

Hi all,

 

The Reports Interest Group met for the first time in a long while at the
Evergreen International Conference in Cambridge.  Participants were asked to
answer a series of questions on 3 X 5 index cards.  I am still in the
process of compiling the responses to post of the RIG wiki page.

 

In the meantime, I would like to initiate a conversation about the future of
the Reports Interest Group.  I have a few ideas that I would like to share
with you all:

 

1) Revamp the meeting schedule

 

I would like to see RIG meet less often in IRC.  Perhaps quarterly?  This
will make meetings more manageable.

 

2) Down with agendas!

 

Attempting to stick to an agenda has led to rather repetitive meetings.  We
agree at every meeting that we need to learn more SQL and look at the
documentation more.  We often don't get into meatier conversations until
we're half way done, and then there are other agenda items to attend to, so
we have to move on too soon or we end up going over time.  Furthermore, our
meetings have primarily focused on "finding something to do."  From now on,
I would like to focus less on action items and more on discussion and
education.

 

Instead of having an agenda, I propose that each meeting have a central
discussion topic.  I can think of a few topics they may generate an hour's
worth of questions and discussion: managing shared reports, learning SQL,
third party reporting tools, training library staff to use reports, common
report hang-ups, manipulating data with Excel, etc, etc, etc.  We could vote
on the topic before the meeting, or find some "experts" on the particular
topics and see if they would be willing to hang out in IRC for an hour and
chat with us.

 

3) Supplemental meetings or events in Google Hangouts

 

I see two advantages of having SOME meetings in Google Hangouts - 1) It
would give us a chance to do live demos of things rather than just talk
about them abstractly, and 2) It would allow the IRC-uninitiated to
participate.  I have an idea for our first Google Hangout event, which I'll
post once I have more details!

 

4) Try to be more inclusive of folks who use reporting tools outside of the
Evergreen reporter

 

We tend to focus our energies on talking about the Evergreen reporting tool,
but it is evident from our discussion at the  conference that there are many
organizations that use other tools to extract information from their
databases, whether they are home-grown tools or something like Jasper
Reports.  I want to be able to include these folks in our discussions and
learn from them.  

 

What are your thoughts about these ideas?  Do you have any ideas of your
own?  Please share!

 

Jessica

 

---

Jessica Venturo

Applications Support Specialist

Bibliomation, Inc.

24 Wooster Ave.

Waterbury, CT 06708

203-577-4070 ext. 105

 

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