The Discovery Working Group is comprised of library staff across public and technical services. The group supports the SWAN discovery platform through participation in user research and testing; library staff training; and input on development priorities, configuration changes, and desired enhancements. This meeting is limited to the working group members only.
Agenda
- Welcomes and introductions
- Your name and role...
- I think Aspen is great because...
- I think Aspen is terrible because...
- Review the group charge
- Aspen projects on the horizon
- Discussion: DUX group research project in 2026
- Brainstorm a major project for the group
- Activity to select the top project
- Open time
Notes
The group discussed the Aspen projects on the horizon and some of the lingering development requests from last year, which we will continue to work on.
We also discussed an in-person usability test this year, which would ideally be wrapped up by October to discuss findings in our last meeting of the year. We are looking for 1-2 volunteers from DUX to provide meeting space, and the group will work on a usability testing script in our next meeting.
Finally the group brainstormed and selected a deep-dive research project for the year. This year, our focus will be on the question: "How might we improve patron account management?" In our next meeting, we will map out a research plan to explore this question and develop recommendations by the end of the year.
In our introduction icebreaker activity, group members shared what is great and what is terrible (or just annoying) about Aspen. This seeded some ideas to think about potential research projects as well as providing some ideas to look at over the year as we work on improving Aspen.
Aspen is great because...
- We get to work closely with Aspen developers
- It is continually improved by the Aspen community
- Aspen is super customizable
- Displays correct characters for foreign languages
- Empty search
- Masquerade mode
- Record grouping
- All of the filters, so many options
- Filter by location
- Lexile filters
- Number of things you can plug in (calendars, etc.)
- We get most of our e-books and e-audiobooks in the catalog
- Spotlights and browse categories - helpful for collection teams, promote lists etc.
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Pretty intuitive to navigate consortium as a new person coming in
Aspen is terrible (or just kind of annoying) because...
- Managing lists and browse categories is hard
- It is easy to get lost in the administration menus
- Don't like the way spotlights look
- How terrible it is at grouping
- When other staff don't realize how being a consortium works, seeing things we don't own
- Keyword search and searching in Aspen could be a lot better, new kids titles especially
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Every new feature sheds light on issues in our bibliographic data