| Members present: | Christ, Cowan, Dolgonas, Hartford, Lucier, McCredie, Michaels, Pantelia, Pryatel, Stead, Varian, Werner, Peete. |
| Members absent: | Beck, Chandler, Clark, Copeland, Hay, Henry, Kennel, Samuelson, Sautter, Sharrow, Tiffney. |
| Staff: | Lawrence. |
The Chair convened the meeting at 10:10 am.
1. Welcome and Introductions: Review of Meeting Objectives
Christ convened at 10:10. Members introduced themselves, and the meeting
objectives were reviewed.
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2. SLASIAC 1999-2000 work plan
Background materials:
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Lucier reminded the committee that at the last meeting, they had expressed a preference that about half of each meeting be devoted to updates, and half to one or two substantive issues. Both today’s agenda and the 1999-2000 committee workplan reflect that preference. Christ asked the committee for comments and suggestions on the workplan. Dolgonas and McCredie suggested that the item on network infrastructure be moved from Spring to Winter, and focus on both CALREN-2/CENIC networking and the UC Common Authentication Infrastructure; they would be willing to lead that discussion. Christ suggested that we add an update on copyright issues and the work of the Copyright Task Force; as the revised task force report is due to be distributed for formal comment in early fall, this could be timely for the Winter meeting. Stead raised the issue of a class of library collections that could be termed "orphan books," published between the 1820s and 1940s, still in copyright but whose publishers have gone out of business: identifying rightsholders and securing permissions for use, reprinting, preservation reformatting, etc., is highly problematic. It was agreed that a discussion of this topic could be deferred until Spring.
Lawrence indicated that the library statistical reports included in the meeting packet were distributed in part to acquaint the committee with the institutional data now available to support SLASIAC’s deliberations and other library planning and policy development activities. Reports for the most recent six years have just been completed and published; henceforth these will be compiled and distributed on a regular annual schedule. These reports are the latest in a series going back to 1945, with the present format dating back to 1981. Data are reported in five broad categories:
3. CDL Update
a. Shared Collections
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Lucier, filling in for French, reported on some of the outcomes of the first eight months of the REQUEST service. As of the end of May only about 10 percent of inter-campus requests for books were accounted for by REQUEST transactions. However, a February survey showed consistent high praise for the service by its users, loan turnaround appears to have been cut by nearly 50% for REQUEST transactions, users have recommended numerous enhancements, and the service was handling nearly 2,000 requests per month by August. Following the advice provided by the committee last fall, REQUEST service for periodical articles will be implemented in January 2000. Because periodical service might have a more dramatic effect on activity levels, campus collections, and library staff workload, UCOP is prepared to consider using Resource Sharing funds provided by the state in the 1999-00 budget to help offset these effects for large net lenders. Following the implementation of periodicals REQUEST, the committee will once again be consulted regarding priorities for further development of this service. Among the topics arising in subsequent discussion were an interest in knowing more about the use of this service, and of conventional intercampus lending, by the location, status and discipline of the requesters; an observation that many available resources are in "hidden collections," aggregations of digital publications (e.g. Dow-Jones News Retrieval) the elements of which are not reflected in library catalogs; and an interest in obtaining information on the extent of payments to copyright holders and rights clearance organizations for copies made for intercampus lending.
Continuing on French’s behalf, Lucier described some of the problems associated with licensing of digital content for library use. Our ability to adhere to these licensing guidelines is compromised by opposing forces: the time required to negotiate each license often is substantial, but faculty demand (which is experienced most directly by front-line librarians on the campuses) exerts pressure to conclude negotiations quickly. Our ability to adhere to guidelines in publisher negotiations can be undermined by the precedents established by other institutions. As a result of these forces, it is often difficult to hold the line on key licensing issues, but also difficult to walk away from an unsatisfactory negotiation. Cowan suggested that it might be possible to mitigate the faculty pressure by asking the Senate (perhaps UCOL?) to set a policy framework for these issues that would provide support for librarians while educating faculty. Varian suggested that having the interested faculty share in the cost of licensing in some way might be useful. McCredie expressed the hope that faculty efforts in this direction might also be extended to the University’s software site licensing activities, which experience similar pressures. Lucier went on to report that price increases by major commercial journal publishers are beginning to moderate in some instances, but several scholarly societies are beginning to post unusually large annual price increases. The CDL is also experiencing increasing pressure (from both external and internal sources) to provide access to licensed content for non-UC groups – it is evident that few people understand the nature of the limitations on authorized access imposed by the licensing regime.
Lucier turned his attention to the list of CDL licensed resources, noting that with a few exceptions these resources are universally available to all UC faculty, students, and staff. Future plans call for both continued expansion of licensed offerings and growth in provision of non-licensed information. Two examples are an initiative, now in its final planning stages, to organize and provide access to federal and state government documents and data, and expansion of the Online Archive of California to include increasing amounts of scanned material from UC archives and special collections.
b. Scholarly Communication
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The March, 1999 meeting of the committee was largely devoted to discussion of possible strategies for a UC scholarly communication initiative. Subsequent announcement by the NIH of PubMed Central and related eprint archive announcements have generally served to validate the advice offered by the committee in March. In addition, the faculty forums described briefly in March have generally supported the University’s strategy of moving forward with focused experimentation; these forums have also provided a wealth of information about faculty concerns and attitudes. The forum program is continuing, with the next series scheduled for UCSF in December. As a result of these discussions, UC is moving ahead with detailed planning for it’s own initiative, named eScholarship, as described in the Executive Overview. Lucier noted that UC Press Director James Clark had just been added to SLASIAC, and announced that, as part of the major CDL update release in January 2000, links will be added from pertinent MELVYL catalog records to the Press’ digital books; other relationships between the CDL and the Press are also under discussion. Varian noted that he is aware of a possible opportunity for eScholarship in economics. Christ reported that, from a faculty perspective, the CDL forums were highly stimulating for the UCB participants and the broader campus scholarly community, leading Lucier to suggest that future forums of this kind might be cosponsored with the Senate if there were interest in doing so. Lucier renewed his call from the March meeting for assistance in identifying other ways to work with the faculty on scholarly communication, and Cowan noted that UCORP has a strong ongoing interest in this area. Varian, updating the group on information provided at the March meeting, reported to the group that the "Digital Library Initiative 2" proposal submitted jointly by Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Stanford in partnership with SDSC and the CDL has been funded; the broad faculty participation in this research program provides another way to inform and engage the faculty.
c. MELVYL System redesign
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Lucier summarized the issues involved in updating MELVYL technology, emphasizing that the RFP process, at this stage, was primary a means to help the University focus on priorities and design trade-offs for the MELVYL catalog. For this reason, the CDL will, at appropriate times, involve SLASIAC, the Senate, and other key constituencies in the discussion. The RFP Steering Committee is currently composed of staff drawn from the libraries, but they are charged to consult broadly with their respective campus communities to ensure that all stakeholders are involved. Other reports prepared by CDL-T in support of this effort are available on the Web at <http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/technology/projects/unioncat/>. Varian noted that Michael Cooper at UCB’s School of Information Management and Systems had just completed a paper on analysis of MELVYL transaction logs that would be particularly relevant to this endeavor. Peete encouraged the RFP process to go beyond the OPAC function to examine basic assumptions about the scope of the MELVYL system and explore other functions that could be performed by shared central systems. Lucier responded that this kind of inquiry is within the scope of the RFP process.
[Note: Michaels’ presentation on the budget (Item 5 below) was taken here, out of sequence, to accommodate scheduling requirements. Notes on this item are presented below].
4. Review of Collection Management Strategies
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Lucier introduced the topic by emphasizing that the document provided as background for this item was intended solely to frame the issues as an aid to discussion – there are no preconceived notions about how SLASIAC should define the problem or proceed to investigate it. The forces leading to this inquiry lie outside the control of the libraries, and include the pressure of enrollment growth, the scarcity of capital funds, and the likely priority of new library facilities in campus capital programs. Lucier directed the committee’s attention to the key assumption underlying this inquiry, the "one University, one library" principle, indicating that it was critical for SLASIAC to either endorse or re-examine this principle as a foundation for its work on this issue. The key objectives of the committee’s work in this area are to:
In initial discussion, the committee agreed that:
5. Regents’ Budget update
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Michaels summarized the overall approach to the 2000-01 Regents’ Budget, which is framed by a proposed higher education partnership agreement with the Governor. The partnership includes four key elements:
6. Future meetings
Staff will begin scheduling meetings for December and March as suggested in the SLASIAC Planning Framework.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:45 pm.