1.  Preliminaries
     1.a. Welcome and introductions
     1.b. Review of meeting objectives

Hume convened the meeting and asked members to introduce themselves. The meeting objectives were reviewed.
 

MEETING OBJECTIVES 1.  Recommend strategies for providing faculty advice to the eScholarship program. 2.  Advise on issues regarding the transition processes for the MELVYL Catalog and abstracting & indexing (A&I) databases. 3.  Advise on strategies for continued development of the shared Universitywide print+digital library collection. 4.  Establish the Committee's work plan and meeting schedule for 2001-02. 5.  Receive and discuss presentations on the UCSF Tobacco Control Archive and UC enrollment planning 6.  Receive updates on:      a.  Collection Management Initiative and Standing Committee on Universitywide Library Collection Management Planning      b.  The Standing Committee on Copyright      c.  Authentication developments      d.  The  2001-02 budget      e.  The SLASIAC Scholarly Information Program Task Force

2.  Strategies for Managing Scholarly Information
     2.a. eScholarship: The UCSF Tobacco Control Archive (Discussion)
 

Background Materials: Tobacco Control Archives: Reports on Tobacco Industry Activity ("State Reports"), <http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/state.html>, link distributed by email 6/4/01.

Professor Glantz began by recounting the history of his involvement in tobacco control research and publication, beginning with the acquisition of a body of previously-secret industry documents in 1994. These documents were first scanned for publication on CD-ROM, but were put on the Web in 1995, a landmark event in Internet publishing. Notwithstanding the considerable publicity surrounding the industry documents, proposals for a book on the tobacco papers were rejected 40 times by commercial publishers. The Tobacco Wars book was published in print and on the Web by the UC Press and the eScholarship program; the Web version featured online links to the source documents, another milestone in Internet publishing. This activity has become the center of a growing body of scholarship, currently focused on the UCSF Tobacco Control Archives, supported by a $15 million foundation grant that will permit digitization of some 40 million pages of documents. The National Cancer Institute has awarded 10 substantial grants to support research using the Archive’s materials, and the Archive has become an important resource for academic research, the news media, and the advocacy community. One problem is that the resources of the Archive are too rich to be dealt with fully within the constraints of the typical medical journal article. More extended treatments are needed, and eScholarship is a key partner in supporting the development and distribution of such works. An advisory committee of distinguished faculty and leading journal editors has been established to guide this work.

The ensuing discussion touched on several points, including:

• The possible benefits of simultaneous publishing on the Web as a stimulant for print sales.
• Issues of academic credit, and the importance of involving the University Committee on Academic Personnel in these developments.
• The difficulty of separating issues related to digital publication with "new journal" effects, since virtually all digital-only journals are newly established.
• The discipline imposed by the physical limitations of print publication and the concern about lowered quality when digital journals proliferate.
• The importance of "branding" in journal success – quality, recognition, longevity.
• The importance of having journals indexed in major A&I services, for access and citation tracking.

French reminded the group of the outcome of the March 28, 2001, SLASIAC discussion (<http://www.slp.ucop.edu/consultation/meetings6.html>) that concluded that an eScholarship advisory committee should be established as a subcommittee of SLASIAC. She noted that at some point in its maturation, eScholarship would need a larger advisory group including external members, but that a smaller and more nimble internal group was needed at present. The Committee advised that the University Committees on Academic Personnel should be represented, as well as UC faculty who are editors of major journals. Viswanathan noted that eScholarship is not well known among UC faculty, and recommended that a description be published in Notice. French observed that a provision should be added to the draft charge addressing communication to the UC academic community. Hume reiterated the consensus of the Committee that there should be at least one presentation annually from an eScholarship faculty partner.

(Note: per agenda, Item 2 is continued below.)

3.  Planning Context
     3.a. Enrollment Planning (deferred – see below)
     3.b. Standing Committee on Copyright (Update)
 

Background Materials: King to Chancellors, 5/15/01, w/enclosures, Draft copyright policy proposals.

Hume reported that the draft policies included in the background materials were the result of thorough internal discussion by the Standing Committee on Copyright, and have been delivered to the administration and the Senate for distribution and wide discussion. In the ensuing discussion, points were raised about the meaning of "derivative works" as used in the policy and the relationship of UC’s policy developments to the recent announcement that MIT would place course materials for all its courses on the Web for unrestricted access. There was also considerable discussion of the meaning of the term "syllabus" as used in the policy, and the extent to which syllabi are collective vs. individual works and University vs. faculty works. Hume stated that the Committee would do further work to frame the issue of syllabi.

The Committee welcomed Sandra Smith, UC Assistant Vice President for Planning, who began by observing that the potential impacts of UC’s enrollment growth and summer session strategies on libraries were not well understood, and she welcomed the opportunity to learn more about these today. Smith distributed and discussed some key data on UC enrollment plans and reviewed some of the assumptions underlying the planning, emphasizing that projections of application and enrollment are necessarily uncertain. Among the unforeseen factors that might affect the current projections are: reduced graduate admissions, likely a result of limited funds for student support and strong competition from other institutions; estimates of community college transfers, which have been variable in the past, but now show a strong upward trend; and changes in eligibility rules that have resulted in increased freshmen admissions. Analysis has shown that existing UC campuses can absorb only about 2/3 of the projected growth during the normal academic year. As a result, UC is phasing in a for-credit, State-supported summer session, beginning with Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara in 2001-02, and, if funding is provided by the State, expanding to the remaining general campuses the following year. This is a risky strategy, in that we cannot be certain how many students will choose to enroll (or faculty choose to teach) in the summer, but the three initial campuses have been creative in providing incentives for summer enrollment, and evidence to date suggests that student participation will exceed expectations. Viswanathan noted that the University has consciously chosen to characterize its summer initiative as a "summer session," rather than "year-round operation," in order to provide campuses with maximum flexibility in designing their summer instruction programs while accommodating the variety of non-credit academic and service programs typically hosted during the summer period.

Smith then set the stage for discussion of library issues by reiterating that library impacts have not been specifically discussed in the enrollment planning context, and noting that the State will continue to fund enrollment increases, and the University will continue to allocate these funds to campuses, on a per-student basis (based on the marginal cost per student), that the allocation of these funds to libraries is at the discretion of individual Chancellors, and that funding has been provided (through the "one percent" provision of the Partnership Agreement with the Governor) to address past shortfalls in library collections funding, although we are unlikely to be successful in securing those funds for 2001-02.

Peete noted that this had been discussed extensively at LAUC’s Spring Assembly. Librarians are concerned that new enrollment-related resources may not "trickle down" to the library, while the librarians must cope in the summer with both expanded regularly-enrolled students and greatly-expanded special summer programs, as well as finding time for activities normally scheduled during summer "down-time." Smith responded that the experience of the three initial campuses might be useful to others in this regard, and that she wanted to make it possible for these three campuses to share their first-year experiences, both for a required report to the Governor and Legislature and for internal discussion. Werner reported that the UCLA campus team is very good, and she is not worried about specific library impacts, but there is general campuswide concern about accommodating Tidal Wave II. Sharrow noted that the big issue for UCD is attracting new librarians to UC; Peete echoed these concerns, and added the observation that libraries are highly dependent on student assistants, and cannot now foresee how the redistribution of student enrollments across the academic year as a result of summer sessions might affect them. Schottlaender indicated that the primary issue at UCSD appeared to be instructional space, with the campus looking to the library to accommodate more instruction-related functions; student use of library space has shifted, with greater demand for computer workstations, group study space, and longer hours of service (the renovated Cluster library at UCSD has been designed to accommodate these needs). Stead noted that the increasingly limited availability of on-campus student housing drives greater demand for library study facilities. Werner reinforced this point: dorms are generally not conducive to study, and demand for group study facilities is increasing. Low-speed dial-up connectivity from off-campus locations means that studying at home is not an adequate substitute. Hume raised the question of whether new technology would make a substantive difference in our ability to accommodate enrollment growth, and invited speculation on whether the CDL could be an asset here. Peete observed that technology has compelled librarians to devote more time to user education and training, and to new developments such as technology-based reference services; Schottlaender noted that UCSD has emphasized technology strategies in promoting community college transfer. In response to a question about graduate enrollments, Smith mentioned the University’s commission on graduate education, which is working through four subcommittees on government support, private support, making the public case for graduate education, and improving the campus environment for graduate study. The commission’s last meeting is in July, with recommendations expected to go to the Regents in September.

2. Strategies for Managing Scholarly Information (Continued)
     2.c. Melvyl/A&I Transition (Discussion)
 

Background Materials: CDL-Hosted Database Transition (CDL, 5/25/01) "CDL-Hosted Journal Article Databases" (<http://www.cdlib.org/news/cdlhosteddatabases.html>, accessed 5/25/01).

French reported that the transition of the Melvyl catalog to a new technology platform is now underway. A contract has been signed, a project team is now in place, and an RFP for hardware is under development. The transition of centrally-hosted abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases to vendor platforms is in the advanced planning stages. Recommendations for vendors to supply access to all CDL-hosted databases have been made, and discussions with the vendors are underway. French introduced Farley to give the Committee an update on the A&I transition process.

Farley reported that a steering committee for the A&I transition has been appointed, and has developed a number of principles to guide the process:

• Provide access to as much or more content as was available before the transition
• Provide at least the same level of service, including ensuring links to content, holdings and Request service.
• Design a user-driven process

With regard to the particular issues of interest to faculty and students:

• The ability to link to holdings and to full text has been thoroughly reviewed with each potential vendor, and no loss of linking capabilities is expected as a result of the transition.
• For those UC users who prefer the Telnet interface to Melvyl-hosted A&I databases because of speed and the ability to enter search commands from the keyboard, most selected vendors provide a command-language option, and speed and other performance characteristics of the vendor products are currently being studied using data provided by the vendors.

• Off-campus access arrangements will be the same as those provided currently for access to licensed journals, using campus proxy services. It will no longer be necessary to issue passwords to authorized users, and this practice will cease when the transition is complete.
• The University’s public-key authentication initiative has been discussed with all potential vendors, and most have expressed at least some interest in working with us on the implementation of PKI certificate-based authentication.

Schottlaender began by updating the committee on the Mellon-funded Collection Management Experiment, noting that the project team had been focused on establishing the operational and advisory infrastructure for the project (Steering Committee, Research Advisory Committee, Operations Advisory Committee, hiring of project staff) and creating a database of eligible journal titles (available in print and digital format, with appropriate data on the use of digital available from the publisher/host) from which campuses would participate in selection of 200-400 titles to be included in the study.

Schottlaender proceeded to describe the first two meetings of the Collection Management Planning Group (CMPG, the colloquial name of the Standing Committee on Universitywide Library Collection Management Planning, a subcommittee of SLASIAC established pursuant to SLASIAC Resolution B, <http://www.slp.ucop.edu/consultation/SLASIAC_Resolution_B.html>). The first meeting of the CMPG, in February 2001, was an introductory session; at that meeting, the group agreed initially to focus on new roles for the UC Regional Library Facilities (RLFs). At the second meeting, in April 2001, the CMPG focused on the RLFs and the possibility of creating a Universitywide "shared print collection" paralleling the shared digital collection. Discussion centered on three issues:

• Whether and how the RLFs could play a "pre-coordinating" role as repositories of shared collections (as opposed to the ad hoc role as a depository of materials selected for storage by the individual campuses); for example, could the RLFs become the repository of choice for one or two copies of all federal documents, as contrasted with the selective acquisition of these materials by the campuses.
• Whether the RLFs could play an explicit archival role with respect to some materials, for example, by directly acquiring one-two copies in print of all journals available digitally through the CDL; this parallels a current role of the RLFs as redundant repositories of master and working copies of negatives of microforms created by the campuses as part of their preservation reformatting operations.
• If "shared print collections" are created at the RLFs, how should these collections be counted by the campuses in their routine statistical reports; e.g., no one counts them (the RLFs become separately-reported UC libraries for this purpose), everyone counts them (as they are shared equally, and are equally accessible, by all campuses), or they are allocated proportionately to some measure of campus collection size, use, etc.

French observed that the discussion papers included with this agenda follow on material previously presented to SLASIAC, including a paper on the role of co-investment (see SLASIAC meeting notes for March 28, 2001, <http://www.slp.ucop.edu/consultation/meetings6.html>) and a letter from CDL University Librarian Lucier on the effect of campus purchasing decisions on CDL negotiations with publishers. These discussion papers result from evaluations by CDL and Systemwide Library Planning of some recent negotiating experiences, and from an informal symposium, organized by the CDL and OhioLINK, to explore some characteristics of the economics of licensing of digital journal publications (this symposium has engaged Mark McCabe, professor of economics at Georgia Tech, and has relied heavily on some of the work of SLASIAC member Ted Bergstrom, who is a participant in the discussions). Bergstrom summarized his views of the problems associated with bundling of titles by publishers, and the countermove of aggregation of demand by consortia, and suggested that the University pursue the search for immunity from antitrust charges (first suggested by McCabe, formerly an economist for the federal government), perhaps through the Association of Research Libraries. Werner posed the policy question related to these planning efforts: should UC accept the business models and prices emerging from the current scholarly publishing regime, or should it develop aggressive strategies to combat these trends? In response, Bergstrom summarized his working concept that change could be fostered if large purchasers like UC rewarded "well-behaved journals" (i.e., journals that set prices at the average cost of production) and forced "ill-behaved journals" to sell their value proposition to individual faculty and departments. Luce noted that UC may have enough clout with publishers to influence the market.

4. Technological Infrastructure Support
     4.a. Authentication developments
 

Background Materials: Proxy Server and PKI Implementation Overview (June 11, 2001) [Distributed at the Meeting] UC Proxy Server Status and Contacts: SLASIAC Meeting (June 11, 2001) [Distributed at the Meeting]

Campbell began by recounting the characteristics of CENIC (the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California) and CalREN2, the California implementation of Internet 2. CalREN2 offers an optical network with a 12-fold increase in capacity. Campbell, McCredie, and John Bruno (UCD) are on the CENIC board of directors. While CalREN2 is proceeding well with institutional contributions and grant funding from NSF, campuses are incurring increasing costs for connection to the legacy "commodity Internet"; for example, the bandwidth requirements of the SETI@home service, which makes use of available cycles in home and office desktop computers, has added about $15,000 to the annual cost of Internet Service Provider (ISP) services at UCB. Campbell noted that the transition of Melvyl-hosted A&I services to vendor hosting may have an additional impact on the cost of ISP services at the campuses. As described in the handout, all campuses now provide proxy services for access to licensed library content; UCOP will provide these services through the UC PKI certificate infrastructure, which is on schedule for rollout.

In discussion, it was noted that faculty and other library users are not necessarily aware of campus proxy services or the University’s PKI initiative, and may not be able to easily find out what they need to know about these services.

5. Budget Plans and Strategies
     5.a. 2001-02 Budget (Update)

Heinecke reported that owing to the two dominant factors influencing the State budget for 2001-02, the downturn in the economy and the cost of energy, the State budget for 2001-02 would not fully fund the Governor’s Partnership Agreement for higher education. In response to these conditions, the University’s highest priorities for 2001-02 and 2002-03 are to restore and continue Partnership funding (including the "1 percent" provision to address historic shortfalls in funding for library collections and other specified programs), to fully fund the Summer Session buyout, and to address faculty and staff salary issues. French conveyed the view that this would be at least a two-year problem. In response to a question from Werner, Heinecke observed that under Governor Davis it was highly unlikely that student fees would be allowed to rise to respond to these budget shortfalls. Sharrow suggested that, under these circumstances, it might be prudent for the CMPG to accelerate its discussion of alternative roles for the RLFs, and especially to address the issue of duplicate deposits as between the two facilities. Werner pointed out, however, that the discussion of new roles for the RLFs would need to consider the means of funding RLF operating costs for both traditional and innovative roles, and further suggested that SLASIAC consider redirecting the charge to its Scholarly Information Program Task Force to address the issues arising from the changed circumstances of the State budget. Hume noted that French would be discussing these issues with the University Librarians, and suggested that additional time be devoted to these questions at the Fall meeting of SLASIAC. ACTION: Lawrence to include in the Fall SLASIAC agenda.

French briefly updated SLASIAC on the composition and status of the Task Force, which will meet initially in Summer 2001, and provided some background on the "New Strategies" document prepared in preparation for the first meeting of the Task Force. Schottlaender, a participant in the brainstorming session described in the background material, noted that former University Librarian for Systemwide Library Planning Richard Lucier had felt strongly that the issue of ongoing price increases for library material would not be a successful argument, either within the University or with the State, in increasing funding for the UC Libraries, leading the brainstorming group to explore innovative rationales to focus and justify funding for library and scholarly information services.

6. Future meetings and agendas
     6.a. SLASIAC 2001-02 work plan
     6.b. Scheduling for 2001 meetings
 

Background Materials: SLASIAC 2000-01 Activities and 2001-02 Plan (6/1/01)

McCredie suggested that the issue of creation and management of visual resources be reviewed by SLASIAC during 2001-02, noting that the UCB Vice Chancellor for Research had appointed a faculty committee to explore this topic, with a report due in the Fall. The committee also expressed a strong interest in discussing the eScholarship role in the development of digital scholarly journals, and suggested that the next presentations by eScholarship faculty partners might focus on the proposed UCLA-based environmental journal and the UCD-based Dermatology Online Journal.ACTION: Lawrence will incorporate these suggestions into the Committee’s 2001-02 Plan, and begin scheduling meetings for 2001-02.