2022-10-20 Metadata Management Meeting notes

Erin Nettifee is looking for 2-3 volunteers to join a working group for item state (see UXPROD-1590 - Getting issue details... STATUS and UXPROD-1530 - Getting issue details... STATUS ). Participants would commit to working with the group for a few months, giving some of their time for discussion and elaboration.

The discovery integration group has a number of brainstorming documents open for contributions if you would like to add anything: Discovery Integration Subgroup

2022-10-20 Meeting Notes

Documentation: EBSCO had been paying a consultant to organize the documentation group to catch up; her contract ended on October 6. Marcia is willing to come back and help if funding can be found. Aiming for funding for 6 months ($25,000 to $30,000); a call will be going out to institutions to help fund this.

FOLIO in China Q&A: slides and questions are linked from the PC meeting wiki page. China libraries have some different ways of integrating technology. They've made changes based on performance and specific needs for Chinese libraries.

Jennifer Eustis 

MM SIG Release Note & Other Highlights

Bound-withs: There is work being done on the UI in Inventory. You can see the link to the bound-with accordion in the holdings record.

New bound-with work on the holdings record in development, and right now only on FOLIO Snapshot.
UIIN-2212 - Getting issue details... STATUS There is a bug when you click on the link, the app crashes. This bug is described in a GitHub Pull Request.

Kristin Martin Sharon Wiles-Young 

Please take some time to read and answer the questions in this document. In a Product Council meeting at WolfCon, there was a discussion on the health of the SIGs. Each product council member agreed to go to a SIG meeting to gather information. These questions are to guide the discussion.

Can you share the purpose of your SIG: functional area/cross cutting/affinity group, etc?

The purpose is to support the metadata functions of FOLIO: cataloging, database maintenance, authority, holdings and item metadata. There is a description on the About page. In the About summary, there are functions that were developed elsewhere. It also wasn't very clear who had responsibility over some of these functions. The language should say that we are collaborating on these areas or functions.

What is the intention of this question? If we decide ourselves, then we would define ourselves differently. There is no charge from the community. As the product matures, the cross app functionality becomes more important.

What areas does your SIG have responsibility for?

This has been a point of contention where we have been buffeted by external forces. We have done good work. There is some frustration. There's also entity management where why are we moving one way or two ways rather than another way. There were visions for inventory where inventory became a mashup of an application. It would be interesting to re-evaluate inventory to see if it meets our needs. The specifications and expectations of the project are now 4-6 years old. What are we supposed to be doing to go forward with the project? Inventory as an app in regards to FOLIO as it develops - the CODEX was abandoned. Inventory is a central locus of where apps meet. Inventory is the primary location of where metadata people work, it just can't be under MM's control. Inventory is a central hub and has to recognize this as a central cross app and can't be with one group. We talk about marc data and reporting. We need to talk about source data that has international standards behind them no matter the standard. We need to access and report on that data across standards. Many technical services units are to manage resources for patrons and we have to do that work. There is frustration about being able to provide access to resources.

What do you feel like your SIGs purpose is currently? Has it changed over time?

Do you have product owners who regularly work with the SIG? Do you feel that your requirements are being successfully developed into FOLIO?
How do you feel about the resources allocated in the development areas that are focused on?
What are some of the challenges facing your SIG/subgroup? Are there ways in which you feel the SIG has been unable to accomplish it's mission?

If you work on areas of development, do you feel like there are areas of development not resourced at all or significantly under-resourced?

Search. Anything at the tenant level or user level. Search results list view. More configurations at the tenant level. Cross record searching and cross app searching. Inventory is under-resourced. Charlotte needs more resources. It feels like a bias where product owners are not listed for metadata or are not subject matter experts. Data Import is under-resourced. Why is this the case? We don't see the requirements. Does the process need to be evaluated in terms of requirements and what is communicated to developers? We have a laundry list of workarounds for non-existent functionality. There is no clear way to export the data. Re-loading it back isn't easy. Export transform reload is challenging as a workaround. Data Import seems so broken. Very little of our work is done in FOLIO. Even searching the collection at one institution is done in their old system. The lack of ability to rely on FOLIO to get this work done is telling of the lack of resources that have been dedicated to this area. Data Import is also one area where the ability to set priorities is not fully taken into consideration. We'd like to see a working app before adding on new things. MARC Modifications have never worked correctly. Scaling is another industry standard and for Data Import it is around 500 records at a time. What is listed on the wiki isn't accurate to what can be really done. It is frustrating. There's no real acknowledgement. Capacity, scaling, and performance is a problem. This can be a concern when new functionality like authorities linking is introduced. Different institutions have different needs. For larger institutions, scale is an issue. Smaller institutions might have other needs. It is a balancing act but prioritization is not clear where institutions have conflicting needs.

What has been successful with the SIG? What things contributed to that success?

The bound with model was a success. Feedback was taken seriously. Data export's first iteration was successful. FOLIO is improving! Our MM SIG is great in that we work together, identify things to discuss, develop workarounds.

What could the Product Council do to help the SIG?

PC could facilitate communicate with the Technical Council and capacity planning. PC could help communication in general. Some feel that developers seem angry about our needs or requests. Charlotte has facilitated good discussions with developers and MM SMEs in the past. Khalilah does UAT for her apps that she's a PO on to get feedback back to the developers early on. Filip Jakobsen did a lot of UAT early on and making sure frequently that what we wanted was being represented. It seems that interactions have been mixed with the developers. Is there more or a different type of facilitation that needs to happen? In Acquisitions, it seems like there is a different interaction with the PO and developers. In MM, it seems like these interactions are more varied. It is helpful to have developers join discussions in terms of learning what can be done. It is sometimes not understood how much harder some of these issues make our work every single day and what the impact of that is on people. We're not always aware of who's responding to our needs. Some fear that the "mark for deletion" is suffering similar dismissal from many corners. We still need the package record. We're trying to develop a new generation LSP not the old one. It isn't the POs that are dismissive. It is the edge cases that people need a system to help most with. There are also cases where we developed things that have turned out to not be great. It is difficult to back out of those early decisions. A lot of problems come from functionality not fully developed or integrations being abandoned. In a lot of cases, we have a knowledge deficit. When we say talking to developers, we mean the PO where sometimes there seems like there's a buffer. Could Product Council help with training POs? We can ensure there is a PC liaison.

Do you feel like the Roadmap accurately represents the work of your SIG (both desired and already accounted for)?

We don't really use the Roadmap because it doesn't come into regular SIG conversations. Does the roadmap consider what needs to be developed? Product Council is having trouble with the Roadmap especially with no control over resources. Maybe we need to visualize the cone of uncertainty.

How can we improve our communications with the SIG? Does the current monthly reporting work? Would have a dedicated PC meeting for your SIG be helpful?
Is the SIG comfortable communicating with the PC and have a sense of when a PC conversation would be helpful?
What functions should the PC be accomplishing and how would the SIGs like to have those need meet?