2025-10-20 Resource Access Meeting Notes

Date: Oct 20, 2025 

Recordings

NOTE: RESOURCE ACCESS SIG USES EITHER ZOOM’S AI NOTES FUNCTIONALITY OR MICROSOFT COPILOT TO PROCESS THE TRANSCRIPT. If you would prefer that we do not use AI any session you attend, we are happy to! Please alert the convener at the start of the meeting.

Find all recordings here: https://recordings.openlibraryfoundation.org/folio/resource-access-sig/ (pw: folio-lsp)

Zoom

https://zoom.us/j/337279319 (pw: folio-lsp)

Attendees

Discussion Items:

Meeting Notes

MM has included in their top 5 an update of the UI in Inventory. Look at Inventory App and Users App to surface pain points for the search interface.

Laurence raised the need for the ability to shift-click to multi-select interfaces with checkboxes. At the very least, boxes should NOT be deselected when you click outside - Laurence will write up a ticket. Jira UXPROD-5582 has been created.

AI-Generated minutes (pardon any errors)

Based on the provided meeting and chat transcripts, here is the analysis and summary of the Resource Access SIG meeting held on October 20, 2025.

📄 Discussion Points:

• Fee/Fine Subgroup Kickoff (00:10:40 - 00:13:45)

  • The group discussed the revival of the Fee/Fine subgroup, which had been on hiatus. Thomas Trutt agreed to lead the initial meeting scheduled for Thursday, October 23rd.

    Agenda and Goals: The primary focus of this subgroup will be to review existing settings pages within the Fee/Fine module to identify ways to streamline them and improve usability for staff.

    Logistics: To simplify attendance, the group decided to use the standard SIG Zoom link so the meeting would appear on members' existing calendars. Susan Kimball also committed to sharing the recording of the WolfCon Fee/Fine session to ensure all members start with the same foundational knowledge.

     

• Wildcard Lookup Extension and Barcode Validation (00:13:45 - 00:34:23)

  • This topic was triggered by a Slack post from Renata Dyer at the National Library of Australia (NLA) regarding issues where barcodes were being truncated during the item creation process.

  • Validation at Creation: Susan Kimball queried whether FOLIO currently validates barcodes when they are first entered. Thomas Trutt explained that while FOLIO checks for duplicates, it does not strictly validate the format unless a specific barcode number generator is used.

  • Scanner Configurations: Scott Peterson suggested that the NLA's issue might be solvable through hardware configuration. He noted that many scanners can be programmed to automatically insert a preamble (like "NLA") that might be present on the physical label but missing from the digital scan.

  • Wildcard Search Extension: The NLA requested expanding the wildcard lookup feature (which currently only supports end-truncation) to include front-truncation.

  • Technical Risks: Thomas Trutt and David Bottorff raised concerns that short wildcard strings could return a massive number of results. For instance, at Cornell, 95% of barcodes share a "31924" prefix; a front-truncated search on a short string could potentially crash the UI or lead to staff selecting the wrong item in a high-speed environment.

     

• Bulk Selection and UI Multi-Select Improvements (00:34:23 - 00:41:59)

  • Laurence Mini introduced a feature request regarding the difficulty of selecting multiple items in the UI for bulk actions, such as changing due dates.

  • User Frustrations: David Bottorff noted the absence of standard "Shift-click" and "Ctrl-click" functionality. Currently, a single errant click can deselect an entire batch of items, which is particularly frustrating when processing dozens of items at once.

  • Path Forward: Susan Kimball suggested that this might require a new Jira ticket and recommended that Laurence draft a proposal for a UXPROD to review these selection patterns across the platform.

     

• Vega Team Jira Backlog Review (00:41:59 - 00:52:24)

  • Anne Ekblad proposed that the SIG review a list of older, unresolved "Tasks" assigned to the Vega development team that have been open for more than 21 weeks.

  • The intent is to determine if these tasks are still relevant or if they can be closed to help the developers focus on higher-priority items. Susan agreed that this review would be appropriate to start once the group finishes its current review of the Volaris list.

• Hold Shelf and "In-house Use" (00:52:24 - 00:55:10)

  • The group briefly discussed the "For use at location" (formerly "In-house use") feature, focusing on how shelf expiration dates are calculated.

  • There was a specific inquiry regarding how expiration dates are updated when a loan finishes and the item is returned to the shelf. This topic is slated for a deeper dive during the meeting on November 10th.

     

• Administrative Updates and Wrap-up (00:55:10 - 00:58:00)

  • Susan Kimball announced a newcomer-focused session on November 3rd to help new members get acquainted with the SIG's work.

  • The agenda for October 27th remains open for member suggestions.

     

✅ Decisions Made:

• Fee/Fine Subgroup: The subgroup will convene on October 23rd using the standard SIG Zoom link.

• Response to NLA: The group decided to provide feedback to the National Library of Australia suggesting scanner-level preambles as a primary solution before pursuing core code changes for wildcard lookups.

• Task Review: The SIG will begin reviewing the Vega team's "stale" tasks (older than 21 weeks) in upcoming meetings.

   

📄 Action Items and Follow-up:

• Fee/Fine Communication: Susan Kimball will send a Slack message regarding the subgroup kickoff and provide the WolfCon session link.

• Technical Feedback: Scott Peterson and David Bottorff will add comments to the NLA Slack thread regarding scanner configurations and prefix issues.

• UI Selection Ticket: Laurence Mini is tasked with drafting a Jira ticket or UX proposal to improve multi-item selection (e.g., Shift-click) in the UI.

• Jira Filter Refinement: Anne Ekblad will finalize the Jira filter for the Vega team tasks to be reviewed by the SIG.