University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the August 24, 2004 Meeting

Present:

Agnew (via telephone), Boyle, Fultz, Gaunt, Golden, Puniello, Sewell, Tehrani, Zapcic

Absent:

Mullins

Guests:

Shaun Ellis, Samuel McDonald, Lucye Millerand

University Librarian's Report - Gaunt

• VALE Executive Committee Meeting: There will be a kickoff and press conference on the afternoon of October 26 at UMDNJ Stratford for the Knowledge Initiative. The invitation will include the President's Council and others associated with the initiative. The State Library will be negotiating the database licenses for the Knowledge Initiative; they are in the process of getting quotes from vendors to determine how much the $6M will buy. We are hoping that the State Library will be able to negotiate refunds or credits to those institutions that may have already paid for the KI databases to which they already subscribe.
• Gregory Blimling has been appointed as Vice President for Student Affairs; Gaunt will invite him to attend a Cabinet meeting in the fall.
• ACRL and SPARC has developed a new Open Access brochure to introduce and help explain the why and how of "open access" to research publications. We will be ordering copies to distribute to various groups including library liaisons, campus library committees, the University-wide Libraries Advisory Committee, and the Scholarly Communication Committee. The focus is on the benefit to the faculty of open access and encouraging them to publish their work in an open access journal or a scholarly publication that allows them to have their work available in an open access archive.
• The 2nd Annual NJEDge Technology in Education Conference will be held October 11-13. The conference is designed for faculty, administrators, and decision makers from colleges and universities throughout New Jersey. Those attending will include Administrative Vice Presidents, Provosts, Chief Information Officers, Head Librarians, network managers, deans, financial officers, technical leaders in video, data, and eLearning, and faculty who serve the State's 400,000 students. Agnew will be participating in the conference. Due to the cost and focus of the conference, system-wide funds for attendance will be limited.
• Gaunt and Hendrickson have been reviewing the budget figures and will meet again next week for another review. Based on the number of positions expected to be open, we do not predict as much in salary savings as last year, but need the units to consider their projections. The system-wide reserve fund to support new hires at a higher salary and reclassifications has been reduced severely based on last year's hires and reclassifications. It will not be replenished until there is movement in having positions become open and hires at a lower salary. The budget will be an agenda item at our next Cabinet meeting. There will be a discussion of available funds from all sources as well as rising costs in certain areas and desirable new purchases.
• Recruitment announcement for President for RU Foundation and Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations will be going out soon.

Demonstration of New RUL Event Scheduler and Room Reservation Application – Boyle/Fultz

Following Boyle's introduction on the need for an online room and equipment scheduler for RUL that would allow for more efficient reservation of conference rooms, equipment, and usage of personnel, Ellis, Fultz, McDonald and Millerand gave an overview and a demonstration of the new RUL Event Scheduler and Room Reservation Application, BookRoom, which has been developed by McDonald and Ellis. The scheduler will be used to schedule single-site and multi-site meetings on and among the three campuses. With Cabinet support, the next stage will be to schedule a meeting with all the room managers and support people who will be involved in using the application to practice using it and to identify areas of change or other things that would need to be incorporated and continue with development of the scheduler.

2005 Collections Budget Discussion – Sewell

Sewell distributed a handout listing the 2005 collections budget as of 8/18/04 including the base, funds from ICI, and additional funds from the Vice President of Academic Affairs. After budgeting for fixed costs (all standing orders and serials, memberships, binding, reserves, interlibrary loan, shipping) and carry-over firm orders, there is very little remaining for new purchases. In planning our budget strategy we may expect additional funds from various sources, including the Executive VP, deans, the NJ State Library from the Knowledge Initiative, or from salary savings or other system-wide gift funds. As we don't yet know if these funds will be available or how much, Cabinet recommends that the current remaining free funds be applied to the approval plan books; that all new firm orders be made from gift and endowment funds; and that we reassess this strategy at the next Cabinet meeting when discussing budget and again in mid-November when we can expect to know about additional funds from other sources indicated above. In addition, we will alert Acquisitions to hold payment on invoices for the Knowledge Initiative databases to which we already subscribe to save reimbursement or credit paperwork when the State Library negotiates costs. This, too, will be reassessed in mid-November.

Communications Audit Review and Follow-up – Boyle

Boyle distributed a corrected page 48 to the "Communications Analysis for the Rutgers University Libraries," which contained a data error, and asked for Cabinet advice on rollout and discussion of the report within RUL. Cabinet agreed that it was a very useful document, with things in various categories – from those that do not require funds or personnel, those that do require a budget and personnel, and those that are awareness issues. Cabinet suggested that it be organized into topic areas so that it would be easier to discuss recommendations on implementation. Also discussed the recommendation in the report for a Communications and Marketing Advisory Committee and its role, as many of the items enumerated for the committee to undertake already have a committee or individual responsible for them. Boyle will invite the consultants back to make a presentation of the report to RUL and facilitate an open discussion, after which they will meet with Cabinet to discuss a rollout.

Follow-up on Creth Visits - Gaunt

Sheila Creth will visit with the Newark and Camden faculty and staff on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a meeting with Cabinet Thursday afternoon to discuss findings. All comments made by every group will be included in a topical chart of comments already being assembled from the New Brunswick discussions. This will be shared with RUL. We will also discuss with Creth a process for responding to the items most frequently mentioned by all groups and to other priority areas. Creth noted previously that we might find that some items are local issues, some are important and easily tackled topics, and others may need to be included in the strategic planning process. We will discuss next steps with Creth following her visit on Thursday.

Director's Workstation and iLink - Agnew

Agnew gave an overview of SIRSI Director's Station, which is a client-server based system that generates data that is downloaded to the dedicated server nightly. Data is current, but not "live" so that report generation does not compete with SIRSI use. Statistics can be generated across modules; Director's Station features a web-based, intuitive client. Any faculty or staff with a need, including committees, etc., can generate reports. There is potential use for TAS benchmarking, ARL statistics preparation, RUL Assessment Committee support, RUL budget requests, and collection development analyses. Output includes Excel and graphical outputs that can be incorporated in report; features include deep analysis tools, "on demand" reports, email alert service, ability to influence future developments. SIRSI's new web presentation, iLink, is currently included at no cost and Boyle spoke to the value this will be for users with better and additional functionality than the current IRIS. Following Cabinet discussion of the many advantages to having both the director's workstation and iLink, Cabinet recommended the purchase.

Announcements

Zapcic

• President McCormick congratulated the Foundation staff at a recent meeting on a job well done in the campaign now ending, and encouraged them to prepare for the next campaign.
• In the spirit of raising the libraries' visibility, Gaunt is one of the three deans invited to speak at the major recognition event the Foundation is hosting on October 9. They wanted units who demonstrate real outcomes of the campaign.
• The Libraries' Development Office is planning for our own donor recognition event; we will also be inviting parents to thank them for their support to the libraries. More information will follow.

Sewell

• Sewell established three task forces: a fund code task force to review fund codes which were established in 1993 before SIRSI; a task force on collections policies and what is essential to have on the Web, and a task force to do a thorough review on what other research libraries are doing.

Agnew

• Agnew plans to return to campus following foot surgery to have TSC meeting and come in next week on a limited basis.
• The NSF Engineering Directorate has nominated Agnew to represent it on the review team for collaborate proposals for the development of the infrastructure for a national power grid.

Boyle

• Discussed next date for new employee orientation.
• Confirmed that the date for State of the Libraries should be early November. Suggested that we tie the program to our strategic planning initiatives.
• Met with Kevin Watsey of the Rutgers Washington office. The libraries will continue to be the university spokesperson on issues that are important to us – database protection, copyright, open access. The Libraries will be more aggressive this year in responding to requests to contact legislators on issues important to libraries.

Puniello

• Passed around for Cabinet review Global Librarianship, edited by Martin A. Kesselman and Irwin Weintraub. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2004, which includes chapters by James Niessen, Tom Glynn, Thelma Tate, Patricia Libutti and Martin Kessleman.
• The American Association for State and Local History (ASSLH) presented the Women's Project of New Jersey's "New Jersey Women's History" Web site a Certificate of Commendation. The AASLH Awards Program is the nation's most prestigious competition for recognition of achievement in local, state, and regional history. Ferris Olin is the project manager and the site is hosted in the SCC.

Golden

• Susan Beck, Gary Golden, and Jeanne Boyle will represent RULS on a LibQual committee within VALE.
• Renovations are almost complete.
• Our "Walmart" Greeters program will begin the first day of classes and continue into the next week. We will station faculty and staff at front entrance to welcome students, remind them about registering their barcodes, hand them some information and some candy.
• All access services will have business cards to hand out to patrons. They will also have a nameplate for use at the Circulation Desk.
• New magnetic signs will be in place at Circulation and Reference. We will use these to alert patrons about recalls, e-mail, etc. In addition, we will have floor mats with advertising posters produced by us. Our first one alerts patrons to the fact that we have wireless and wired access throughout the Library. An outdoor sign will be hung informing patrons about our 24/7 access and our URL.
• The E Village at Camden County College opened and has computer access for Camden residents. We will try and encourage patrons to use pc's there rather than spending many hours on Robeson computers.