User group meeting & agenda 16 December 2008

= Proposing ideas for this agenda =

To propose or discuss ideas for this agenda, please use the Discussion tab above. As the meeting draws near, we will review the items proposed on the Discussions page and decide which ones should get highest priority on the agenda.

= Agenda =

Administrative items

 * 1) Assignment of time keeper and note taker
 * 2) Introduction of new members: 10 seconds for name and desired takeaways.
 * 3) Prayer --
 * 4) Review of Minutes (Jimmy Parker)

Information items

 * 1) User group meeting is cancelled next week (the 23rd). Have a great holiday!
 * 2) Update on committee meetings regarding article headings. See Maryland Newspapers (Michael)
 * 3) Using the wiki's ISBN functionality to reference a book. See Maryland Newspapers (Michael)
 * Bug: FCKeditor, the wiki's WYSIWYG editor, is breaking ISBN links. (Michael) See forum for discussion and potential fix. Thomas Lerman 20:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Finding the ISBN number of a book (Michael)

Discussion items

 * 1) What to do when a book you want to reference in a wiki article has no ISBN number. (Michael)

Carryover Items from Last Week's Action List

 * 1) Kip Enger will invite Mark Feickert to this meeting.

= Minutes =

Facilitator was Michael Ritchey, Note taker was Jimmy Parker, Time keeper was Kip Enger.

Prayer by Barbara Baker.

This week, there are now [#] registered users of the FamilySearch Wiki. That is an increase of [#] new registered users over the last week.

Attendees
Michael Ritchey, Stephen Bobowski, Kip Enger, Jim Greene, Barbara Baker, James Anderson, Jimmy Parker, Baerbel Johnson, Mollie Forbes

Remote Attendees
(Anne Roach), Thomas Lerman, (Michael Ritchey), Lise Embley, Sister Debbie Edward

Items Discussed

 * Next Week's meeting (December 23rd) has been cancelled. Have a Merry Christmas!
 * A series of meetings are being held to discuss the suggestions for "best practices" for headings in record type articles. Michael Ritchey showed an example from the page for Maryland Newspapers. This is a very rough draft of a suggested approach to such articles. Michael has asked all the users to review this page on the Wiki, then go on the discussion page for that subject and provide feedback. Some of the things to consider include: are the headings in the proper order? Should other headings be considered? Is the wording of the headings the best?
 * Michael led a discussion on Wiki ISBN functionality. ISBN numbers should be added in the Wiki for all books that have them. Older books seldom have ISBN numbers, but often do have OCLC numbers of other identifying book numbers that would be more "world-centric" than just added FHL call numbers to those books. There are some problems with adding FHL call numbers into the Wiki, the most serious one being that a change in the FHLC directory will break all the links to FHL call numbers. It is better to add ISBN numbers (except that there seems to be a bug in the Wiki that breaks the ISBN link under certain conditions -- that bug is being worked on). ISBN numbers provide a much wider access to a book than does FHL call numbers which lead the users only to a book in the Family History Library, most of which do not circulated.
 * See forum as noted above for discussion and how to fix the link so the file may be edited without breaking the link. Thomas Lerman 21:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be great if the Family History Library, public version, would allow ISBN numbers search. Unfortunately, it does currently allow that, even though the catalogers' version of the FHLC has that functionality. That capability must be added as soon as possible in order to make the Wiki and the FHLC more functional for a world-wide audience. Steve Fox needs to be contacted about that possibility.
 * To learn how to find the ISBN number, Type ISBN in the search engine of the Wiki which will allow you to link to an article on that subject. At least three sources for the ISBN number are listed in that article. At the present time, Book Butler seems to be the fastest at locating the number.
 * If the ISBN number is not available, it may be worthwhile to search for the OCLC number or the WorldCat number, especially for older books and list those references in the Wiki. The questions then becomes, how many book numbers whould be listed in Wiki articles and which ones?
 * There was a brief discussion about rolling back articles in the Wiki. No articles should be rolled back without at least flagging the page to explain to a contributor why it is being rolled back and entering a reason in the discussion for that page. Michael Ritchey will prepare a page on proper etiquette for rolling back pages in the Wiki and other things of that ilk.
 * Thomas Lerman raised a concern about proper internal links to keep them from breaking in the future. He has been asked to prepare a demo on this matter for the Users Group Meeting on the 30th of December.

Action Items

 * 1) ALL MEMBERS OF THE USERS GROUP -- Review the sample page for a subject -- Maryland Newspapers -- and provide feedback by clicking on the Discussion tab and adding comments.
 * 2) ALL MEMBERS OF THE USERS GROUP -- In the next two weeks, try writing a records type page, choosing the headings that would most benefit the Wiki users.
 * 3) MICHAEL RITCHEY -- Work on a page regarding the proper etiquette for doing roll-backs on the FamilySearch Wiki.
 * 4) THOMAS LERMAN -- Prepare a demo on proper internal links for the meeting to be held on 30 December, including external links to internal pages.
 * 5) ???? -- Contact Steve Fox about making ISBN searches available in the public version of the Family History Library Catalog.