Aleph development requests:

Submission, processing and negotiation with Ex Libris

1. Constitute an Editorial Board of members specialising in particular Aleph modules; general questions should be processed by the pertinent members.

2. The requests should be submitted according to the timetable decided by the steering committee every year. In order to co-ordinate and limit the number of requests sent to the Editorial Board, all members are requested to first discuss their requests inside the national groups.

3. The editors will edit the requests: clear up and unify duplicate or very similar requests, discuss overlapping requests with submitting libraries, and clarify vague or confusing formulations. The unfulfilled requests from preceding years could be resubmitted by members.

   The Editorial Board discusses the requests with Ex Libris development staff to obtain their input regarding company development plans. In addition the Ex Libris development staff assesses the requests concerning resources needed and assigns them a relative value of 1 being the easiest to 10 the most difficult.

4. The Editorial Board presents the clarified requests together with Ex Libris assigned "points of complexity" to the Steering Committee. After approval by Steering Committee, the requests are presented to members for voting.

5. The membership votes.

6. The Steering Committee meets and negotiates with Ex Libris the prioritised requests.

7. The Ex Libris statement is appended to each request, providing information as to in which version they plan to implement the request.

8. Ex Libris commits to implement 100 "points of complexity" of highest scoring requests.

Technology:

• the requests are submitted using a WWW form on the ICAU server and will be automatically sent via e-mail to a pertinent editor and at the same time to Alephint.

• the "edited requests" are presented for voting electronically in a way decided by the Steering Committee.

Approved timetable for 1997

Jerusalem, 15 October 1996