NERS was used for the first time by Primo customers in December 2009, in order to vote on a list of forty enhancements. These had been filtered from a much larger list sent to the Ex-Libris Primo Product Manager, Gilad Gal. As the Primo customers were pioneers there were some predictable glitches in getting the system working but the process was ultimately successful. Initially the names of institutions that are members of ELUNA and IGeLU had to be loaded onto NERS. Some attempt was made to identify all the Primo customers but this was not possible as full information is not readily available. Each customer has 100 votes and a limit of 10 votes per enhancement was set. This is something the individual PWGs will probably wish to review. Once the system was ready to go a message was sent to the Primo Mailing List asking people to vote. The deadline was originally 31st December but this was extended to 11th January at the request of several people. 55 institutions took part in the voting, 35 from IGeLU and 20 from ELUNA. Reports are available within NERS so customers can see the results of the voting.
The IGeLU Primo PWG is now planning to meet at the Royal Library of Denmark in Copenhagen on 17th February where one of the main agenda items will be the management of the enhancement process. I would like to thank Bob Trotter and Mark Dehmlow of ELUNA for all their work in getting the system working and their quick responses to fixing one or two bugs. It will be interesting to hear how other product groups find the voting process too.
Mandy Stewart
