Notes from TSI JSMIN meeting, Nov. 13, 2014
Attending: Adam, Jim, Joyce, Mark, Naun, Robert; with guests Irina Kandarasheva and Lois Purcell
2CUL Technical Services Documentation. Lois presented her work thus far, with input from Irina, on an "Index of Procedures Used in Technical Services at Cornell and Columbia," as well as some challenges and questions regarding the approach she's taking. It was clear from the discussion that we still need to answer broader questions about the purpose of this effort since the change of direction in TSI. If we are no longer aiming to integrate our operations and if we are no longer sure if and when we will be implementing a shared LMS, how much effort should we invest in shared documentation and a common platform for it? While on the one hand, having some kind of mapped inventory may be of general interest immediately and of possible use in preparing to migrate to a shared system, the focus of any documentation effort preparatory to system migration is likely to be on new system documentation rather than on existing procedures. Further, while Cornell has explicitly dedicated a certain amount of staff time to developing TSI documentation from salary savings generated from the Mellon grant, Columbia has not, and it will be difficult for Lois to create a mapped inventory of 2CUL documents without additional help from a number of staff on the Columbia side.
We settled on two options:
- Create a mapped inventory of our current Columbia/Cornell documentation, perhaps as a Google Doc, along the lines of what Lois has already started. This task will require support from Columbia staff, primarily from Irina but from other staff as well, to identify and provide access to all documentation relevant to TSI for Lois and, to some extent, all Cornell technical services staff.
- Suspend work on creating such a comprehensive mapped inventory unless and until we decide to migrate to a shared LMS, and re-evaluate the need for this work at that time.
In the meantime, Joyce will work on getting Lois access to everything she needs at the Columbia side.