WebPac Implementation Team

Charge

With the the Library's continued commitment to Innovative Interfaces through the purchase of the Millennium product, the improved developments in the III WebPAC, and the decision to bring authority control to our bibliographic records, the library is positioned to make a transition to using the WebPAC for our public online catalog.

Charge: The WebPAC Implementation Team is charged with the planning, design and implementation of the public interface to the WebPAC. Specific points to consider include :

• Functionality: Searching, limit capabilities, circulation and binding status information, User- initiated requests, links to electronic resources, export of records to citation software, etc.
• Design: layout of screens, including graphics, color, navigation, contents, arrangement of displays, etc.
• Instructional aspects: Opportunities are built into the WebPAC interface to provide guidance to the user. The team should give attention to both content and presentation, to provide clarity and understanding.

Implementation: Develop an implementation plan. Create criteria for when the product is ready for release. Recommend a plan for how and when the library will transition from the existing public catalog to the WebPAC. This should include phasing (cutover vs. running parallel systems for a designated period of time; when to make the change), a marketing plan for advertising the change to our users, and documentation and training materials for staff and users.

Maintenance: Recommend a mechanism for ongoing maintenance of the system that will provide for the consideration of new features in future software releases, monitoring of various suggestion boxes and searching statistics provided by the system, redesign based on user feedback, etc. Develop documentation of the work done, to support this maintenance.

The WebPAC Implementation team should draw on expertise outside the team.
In designing one piece of the III integrated library system, the team should draw upon expertise in various library departments (collections services, circulation services, reference services, etc.) to ensure the best possible product from this process.

The Team should maintain regular communication to keep staff informed of the process. The catalog should be available for testing during the development period, and the Team should encourage input from staff and users.

Timeframe: The WebPAC Implementation Team should complete their design and transition planning work by December, 2000.

Reports to: the Library Online Systems Committee