ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 60 | December 2002
Future
Enhancements to Kinetica
The Role of the Expert Advisory Group on Enhancements
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| Western Australia Kinetica Users’ Group discussing enhancement priorities |
The National Library is keen to obtain feedback from all Kinetica members to assist the planning of development to improve the Kinetica service for all Australian libraries. Over the past three years some advice has been sought through user meetings and various groups. The year 2002 provides the opportunity for users to take a serious look at the service and provide structured comments through a new advisory committee.
The Kinetica Advisory Committee at its meeting in August 2002 endorsed a proposal that Kinetica establish an Expert Advisory Group to investigate and prioritise enhancements to Kinetica services. This new group will continue the work done in 1999 by the Expert Advisory Group on Reference and End User Services and the Expert Advisory Group on Document Delivery. Most of the enhancements recommended by these two groups have been delivered and the Advisory Committee believed it was time to undertake a more strategic review of enhancement priorities.
The establishment of this group continues the process of encouraging discussion by representative groups of users. Because of the extensive nature of the issues relating to future developments, it was agreed that emphasis should be placed on consultation with all the State user groups where users had an appropriate forum in which to make suggestions and participate in rigorous and constructive discussion. It was also agreed that the group’s terms of reference would be:
Expressions of interest were invited in late August from Kinetica members with expertise in cataloguing/metadata, reference, document delivery, system development and/or interface design who were interested in participating in the group.
On the basis of these expressions of interest, three members were appointed to the group. In addition to the three ‘expert’ members, the group has five other members comprising a State user group representative, nominated by the convenors of the State user groups; two members of the Kinetica Advisory Committee; and two Kinetica staff members.
Members of the Expert Advisory Group on Enhancements are :
The group commenced meeting via teleconferences in October to plan for workshops to be held in conjunction with the Kinetica user group meetings in all States and Territories. Members were encouraged to attend these workshops and contribute to the discussions. Record participation by members was documented at most user group meetings with members contributing to valuable and challenging discussions.
Jay Douglas, the expert nominee who has been convening national participation from our members, has found participating in the Expert Group has provided her with an opportunity to talk with her colleagues about key enhancement features to Kinetica. She thanked the National Library ‘for setting up this opportunity for Kinetica users to be involved in discussions on prioritising enhancements’. Beth Frayne, from the State Library of Western Australia, also expressed her appreciation at being able to discuss key enhancement features with her colleagues when she convened the Kinetica user meeting in Perth on 14 November.
Our expert nominees continue to facilitate and encourage discussion from our members about enhancement priorities and to assist in the preparation of a report that will be tabled at the next Kinetica Advisory Committee meeting to be held on 13 March 2003.
Documentation produced by the Expert Advisory Group is available on the Kinetica web site at www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/eag_enhance.html
To accommodate those members who were unable to attend the State/Territory meetings, an input response form has been devised to enable customers to email their preferences or comments. This form is located at www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/eag_enhance/form.html
Customers can also
send their comments directly to Kinetica via email to: kinetica@nla.gov.au,
or phone on 1800 026 155. Additional information about the progress of the Expert
Advisory Group on Enhancements can be found at www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/eag_enhance.html
—Rob Walls and Cheryl Brickell
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: gateways@nla.gov.au