University Libraries Committee Charge (Draft)
Committee Name: Aleph Working Group Date: 1/26/2006
Purpose/Goals: This group is charged as the primary working decision-making body for the Michiana Academic Library Consortium’s shared Aleph 500 Integrated Library System (ILS), which is hosted at the University Libraries of Notre Dame. Aleph 500 is a commercial ILS application produced by Ex Libris, Inc. There is a certain amount of customization, maintenance, and oversight required to implement, test, and maintain this product at any customer site, and this group will be responsible for decisions, work delegation and general oversight of the MALC ILS . The scope of this work will include:
- Provide leadership for regular maintenance testing, application, and sign-off
- Design and provide staff training and ongoing education on the various Aleph modules
- Vet and share best practices for Aleph workflow that are developed from module workgroups (eg. Serials Working Group, Circulation Working Group, etc.)
- Liaison /consult with stakeholders throughout the member institutions to present and gather feedback early on and throughout each upgrade project
- Design strategy, provide leadership, decision-making and implementation on when and how to implement version upgrades
- Provide an evaluation of the project implementation process at the end of the project
LEC Liaison: Dan Marmion
Individual/group charging this committee: Pascal Calarco
Decision-making authority: Complete decision-making authority from concept to delivered product rests with the Aleph Working Group.
Parameters and outcome requirements:
- Budget-dependent items (additional training, consulting, etc.) need to be authorized with the LEC Liaison and MALC Directors
- AWG cannot make decisions that will impact any existing library policy without this being forwarded to the proper decision-making body to approve
Process and Communication Expectations: Identified stakeholder groups, who will have significant input into the project process:
- MALC member libraries’ librarians and staff
- MALC Library Directors
- Library Systems Dept.
- Circulation Working Group
- Screen Design Committee
- Serials Working Group
- University of Notre Dame undergraduate and graduate students
This Committee will issue and post public minutes of its meetings, and issue regular ULON and other communications to the Libraries after meetings and at milestones throughout its work. The minutes and links to the public interfaces, documentation, and other links will be posted on UL@ND.
Resources: Technical support for this application will be provided by the Library Systems Dept., the Chair of the Screen Design Committee, and Ex Libris’ Aleph Customer Support.
Membership: Team will meet monthly, as needed. If there are no agenda items for meetings, the group will decide to cancel them on the day prior to the meeting. Members are encouraged, but not required, to groom successors who have the skill set and acumen to represent the interests of their modules on the Working Group.
Minutes recording responsibility will cycle through the entire membership, in alphabetical order. If a member who is scheduled to take minutes misses a meeting, the next available person down the list will take minutes, and the person who missed the meeting will be responsible for the next AWG meeting. The person who took the minutes will be skipped in that cycle.
All members’ initial terms will be for January 1, 2006 – December 31, 2008. Members and their areas of responsibility:
- Phil Andrzejewski: application support and maintenance
- Aaron Bales: Web OPAC design and customization
- Kevin Blowers: Bethel College
- Pascal Calarco (WG Leader): systems librarian, project management
- Sue Deitl: Circulation and Course Reserves
- Tom Hanstra: system and database administration, application maintenance
- Mandy Havert: application support and maintenance
- Mary Ellen Hegedus: Holy Cross College
- Katherine (Kitty) Marschall: St. Mary’s College
- Mary McKeown?: Authorities and Cataloging
- Pam Nicholas: Acquisitions and Serials
- Lisa Stienbarger: Serial Publication Patterns
