[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Requirements for academic reserves: request for comments

[Stuart Miller]

I assume it's ok to post comments here. Some reactions:

1. This is fine as far as it goes, but it's based on all print--half of our reserves are electronic. We don't make photocopies any more--anything that needs copying is scanned and files stored locally; anything that is in an online subscription resource gets pointed to that resource. Any course reserve module has to be able to deal with virtual as well as physical items.

2. We no longer offer a course reserve catalog to the public because access is provided via Blackboard so only those registered for a class have access to the course list--which is what we want for copyright compliance. We want something that can be tightly integrated with a course management tool like Blackboard.

3. We are in need of copyright compliance features; there is no mention of that.

4. Making brief MARC bib records for copied articles, etc. has been the bane of our existence for years--it has caused endless problems. We want records created specifically for course reserve to be in a separate database. But it's also true that when an existing paper title is temporarily placed on reserve, we want to be able to change the location, loan period, etc. as described in the RFC.

5. We definitely want to offer our faculty more options than sending us an email of titles.

We are seriously evaluating Ares for course reserve--I would suggest that you take a look at that product if you want a good sense of what many would consider an up-to-date course reserve product. It is integrated into Blackboard and offers practical copyright compliance features--two very strong features that make it very attractive to us.

Stuart Miller
Library Systems Analyst
University of Chicago Library


-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Dan Scott
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:21 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group; Evergreen Development Discussion List
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Requirements for academic reserves: request for comments

Hello:

I have written up a first draft "request for comments" (RFC) of a set
of requirements for academic reserves at
http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature:academic_reserves

The intention of the RFC is to explore the community's needs from an
academic reserves system so that we can have a reasonably stable set
of requirements before we move into the design and implementation
stages. Please read the RFC and post any comments to the list (or send
email directly to me, if you prefer). I am particularly interested in
finding out:

1) If a feature were built that met the currently expressed
requirements in the RFC, would it be lacking any aspects that your
users enjoy in your current system?

2) If a feature were built that met the currently expressed
requirements in the RFC, would it satisfy your needs? (This is
different from #1 in that it is possible to satisfy needs without
implementing all possible aspects of competing systems).

2a) If you answered "no" to 2), what else would the feature require to
satisfy your needs?

3) What would be the best possible addition(s) to the requirements in the RFC?

Many thanks in advance!

--
Dan Scott
Laurentian University