Primary Responsibility: Review Proposed Policy Changes
The PINES Subcommittees review and provide feedback on proposed policy changes and how these changes would affect PINES libraries, staff workflows, and patron experience.
Typical Workflow
(This may vary somewhat depending on the type of proposed change.)
- A director of one of the 51 regional library systems in PINES submits a proposal for a policy change by sending it to the PINES Program Director (Elizabeth McKinney).
- Occasionally, a decision about a PINES-wide setting or new feature may also be submitted by PINES staff for review by the subcommittee members.
- The PINES Program Director reviews the proposal with relevant parties to determine what types of questions or problems may arise.
- The Subcommittee Coordinator (PINES Program Manager, Terran McCanna), creates a survey to collect feedback from the PINES Subcommittee Members, then sends an alert with the proposal documents and the survey to the Subcommittee mailing list (SUBCOM-L).
- The Subcommittee Members review the proposal with their local staff and with each other on the SUBCOM-L list, then submit the survey.
- If members have questions, they should ask them in SUBCOM-L before submitting the survey.
- In most cases, all members can respond to all proposed changes. Library system directors who are not on a subcommittee may also submit responses. The responses from the relevant subcommittee will be compiled separately from the other subcommittees and from the directors. For example, if a cataloging question arises, the responses by the members of the Cataloging Subcommittee will be given emphasis, but the responses by the other subcommittee members and the directors will also be included.
- The Subcommittee Coordinator compiles the survey results and presents them along with the proposal to the PINES Executive Committee at their next scheduled meeting (May, September, and December).
- The PINES Executive Committee discusses the proposal, reviews the Subcommittee feedback, and makes a final decision.
- The PINES team updates the appropriate PINES Policy manual.
Secondary Responsibilities
Evergreen Feature Feedback
When a new software feature is being considered for development or needs testing, the PINES team may ask the Subcommittees to review the proposed feature and offer feedback / questions / suggestions to bring back to the larger Evergreen community.
Upgrade Testing
The PINES Subcommittee Members are asked to participate in pre-upgrade testing in their areas of expertise. Most software upgrades happen in February, and the pre-upgrade testing usually occurs in December-January. This testing includes testing new features / changes, and also testing existing workflows to ensure that nothing has broken with the addition of new code.
