[304] in magellan
3rdBarton Bi-Weekly Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Carl Jones)
Mon Oct 25 10:49:52 1999
Message-Id: <199910251449.KAA13498@torill.mit.edu>
To: magellan@MIT.EDU
Cc: stc-lib@MIT.EDU, 3rdbc@MIT.EDU, 3rdbarton@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 10:49:42 -0400
From: Carl Jones <carlj@MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: carlj@MIT.EDU
Project Name: Third Barton Project (Project to find a replacement
for the MIT LIbrary Management System)
Project Management Team: Nina Davis-Millis, Joan Kolias, Carl Jones
Report Date: October 24, 1999
URL: http:/macfadden.mit.edu:9500/c3/3dbarton
Accomplishments Past Period:
- We had our next to last demo with DRA last Tuesday and the
technical session on Weds. We have only one more general demo to go,
Ex-Libris this Monday-Tuesday. Looking back, the weeks of demos have gone
relatively fast and it's a almost a little strange (although I'm sure a relief
for some!) to imagine them almost being over.
- We've been trying to arrive at a workable critical framework for making the
initial selection. Ideas include making some site visits (and asking selected
staff to accompany us), conference calls, staff evaluation forms, etc.
Goals Coming Period:
- Ex-Libris this week (Mon-Tues).
- After the demos are over we'll meet with functional groups to gather
more staff feedback on vendors from the perspective of having seen all
the systems. Deciding on who makes the initial cut will be a
difficult task, but staff have become more demo-savvy over the past weeks. As
staff have more questions we've started forwarding these follow-up
issues to the vendors via email.
- We're also in the process of scheduling a few site visits with institutions
using the systems from each of the vendors in order to
get some additional perspective, particularly on issues of overall
satisfaction with the product, vendor responsiveness, etc.
- Scheduled Monday a.m. meeting with staff member who formerly worked
at an Endeavor site.
- After demos are over, will begin work in earnet on the brief RFP
which we will send to the vendors who make the initial "cut".
Team Dynamics: None
Key Learnings: None
Issues:
- Cutting the field down to 2 or possibly 3 vendors will be no easy task.
Especially considering all the systems appear to be well-designed and address
most of our core functional needs (except for security, which all the vendors
claim they are willing to work on to meet MIT's requirements). The
aforementioned site visits will help us get a better picture based on actual
customer use and comments.
- DRA's lagging timetable and the fact there is only one institution actually
running their TAOS software makes this even more difficult. One possibility
would be to pick two vendors and leave DRA open for a closer look in a few
months' time.
