University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the November 8, 2005 Meeting

Present:

Agnew, Boyle, Fetzer, Fultz, Gaunt, Mullins, Puniello, Sewell

Videoconferenced from Camden:

Golden

Absent:

Zapcic

University Librarian's Report – Gaunt

• Anne Murray, Deputy University Librarian from Cambridge University Libraries visited Rutgers on November 3 as part of a study tour arranged by Nancy Elkington of RLG. Cabinet will think about whether they would like to participate on a reciprocal basis.
• The October 2005 issue of the "ARL Newsletter" has a wonderful article on "The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis," by Jonathan Band. His thinking is that Google is well within copyright compliance; gives you a sense of how to analyze some of these issues. The newsletter is being sent to Cabinet.
• Cabinet will also receive a copy of the October 2005 issue of the "CLIR Executive Summary" that contains an article on "Acquiring Copyright Permission to Digitize and Provide Open Access to Books," by Denise Troll Covey, which is related to the orphan works legislation about how difficult it is to get copyright permissions for older books.
• FASIPS are due December 16.
• The Libraries are not submitting Academic Excellence Awards this year. The awards are given for things that tie into the university's initiative, and most of last year's awards were science related. The Libraries might want to submit something next year that demonstrates an impact on undergraduate education.
• Jerry Warshaver is replacing Carol Goldin in Institutional Research; he will be planning for the next Middle States Review. The Middle State's focus is evaluation and assessment, and the University will have to decide on a targeted review or broad university review. Cabinet might start thinking about evaluation and assessment for undergraduate education as a strength to the Libraries, which might be related to Project Sails, ETS, assessing information literacy, and information competencies; we have two years to think about it.
• Sybil James is the new ombudsman for the students. There will be a website on how to contact her, the process, what she handles. Cabinet may want to invite her to attend a meeting; Boyle will contact her and introduce herself.
• University Senate voted on the clinical faculty about two months ago, but the President wrote back to the Senate that they would leave the decisions on caps to the deans and faculty. They thought the caps were arbitrary and wouldn't meet the academic needs of the department.
• The Libraries are putting in a request for a federal earmark for processing our congressional papers. University said they put in fewer requests than in the past, with all the money going into the war and Hurricane Katrina relief, they don't think there will be as much from the legislators this year. Requests that will get top priority will be related to stem cell research and big initiatives.
• Gaunt, Bernice Ginder and Ann Montanaro attended the Digital Assets Management Conference at the ARL Membership Meeting in October. Montanaro and Gaunt will plan to do a lunchtime seminar debriefing on what was discussed, much of which centered on how you define digital assets within the university. PowerPoint presentations from the meeting are on the ARL website. Gaunt will send to rul_everyone.

Report on ARL Conference on the Future of Government Documents - Fetzer

• Fetzer and Mary Beth Weber attended the two-day conference in Seattle, Washington on October 6-7. The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) intends to "focus the Federal Depository Library Program (FDL)) on Digital Content Management, and this has resulted in discussions among government documents librarians and GPO. The symposium was to allow key ARL stakeholders the opportunity to discuss issues and describe a future for libraries in providing access to government information. Fetzer saw it as a first step dialogue. Topics at the conference included Expectations and Establishing Team Goals, The Best of Documents Librarianship: Identifying Key Values and Principles, Future Directions in Federal Policy Development, Emerging Patterns of User Expectations/Behaviors, Collections: Management and Stewardship, New Roles of Government Information Libraries, Incentives for Remaining in the FDLP, and Creating a Perfect Future. It was agreed that training and creating the next generation of government specialists is the expertise we need; keeping our staff trained and from being diverted to other areas. There is a big area of concern over what libraries are digitizing what and how far are they going in terms of providing access. Reducing redundancies and covering gaps in our collections should be covered. On a local basis our concerns are duplication of collections among our campuses and getting more records into our catalog. We have been very behind in that regard; records for federal materials going to 1976. We are loading from 2002 forward. People connecting remotely don't know we have that material. It was recommended that Cabinet put on the agenda to look at the government records. For New Jersey documents we are in good shape.

Open Letter to All University Presidents and Provosts Concerning Increasingly Expensive Journals - Sewell

• Sewell discussed with Cabinet the open letter from Theodore Bergstrom, University of California - Santa Barbara, and R. Preston McAfee, California Institute of Technology, which was sent to Gaunt and also forwarded to Gaunt from Vice President Furmanski. The overall thrust of the letter is that non-profit is cheaper and we should develop some kind of index to identify expensive journals, especially those that are not cited much. They recommended "universities assess overhead charges, and that university libraries should refrain from buying bundled packages from large commercial publishers." Although Cabinet thinks that the document itself is a catalyst for discussion on issues with the faculty and could be brought to the Councils as a piece of information, they agreed not to endorse the recommendation.

Prioritizing Recruitments - Agnew/Puniello

• Troy was videoconferenced from New Brunswick for this agenda item. Cabinet discussed the recommendation drafted by Agnew and Puniello that outlined a process that would help us use our faculty and staff resources as well as we could for any changes the libraries would be undergoing in the next number of years and filling vacancies with what we need. They tried to develop a framework that would allow for a staffing analysis undertaken by Cabinet to identify critical staffing needs for the next three years, which would be reviewed annually under the leadership of the University Librarian and the AUL for Administrative Services for responsiveness to system wide needs; current vacancies would be analyzed to determine the role that position currently plays compared with the role the position could potentially play; Cabinet discussed the constraints between faculty and staff lines. Will start with the university's profile - are there questions we might still want to ask without making duplicative work, look at where we are going and whether we have the expertise to manage digital projects, instruction and language skills, use of vouchers, changes in campus demographics and priorities, and come up with a matrix sensitive to those things. Need to maximize resources so when we use one or the other, we feel comfortable that we are using our resources effectively. Gaunt will ask the Planning and Coordinating Committee to come up with a holistic view of expertise we now have, what we need, and from a priority perspective, for use to continue to move forward. Staffing will need more work to come up with a document that looks at some of the questions we would want to know about staff positions; Cabinet identified a committee and a chair to look at developing staffing guidelines; Boyle, Sewell and Gaunt will develop a charge.

Media Report - Sewell

• Cabinet discussed "Lights, Camera, Action: Down Beat! The Media Task Force Final Report (July 15, 200), which it acknowledged as a great report. The three councils and the University Librarian at several meetings have reviewed the report, and have a good understanding of where we want to go. Important to remember the primary focus was commercially available video and sound recordings. Overall thrust is that we need to mainstream media into our everyday lives. Selectors should be aware. Following Cabinet discussion, it was decided that the plan should be changed to reflect the IJS and Dana's role in preservation for the library system, inaccuracies in cataloging, and planning for the annex to include audiovisual materials. Cabinet was pleased with the media report overall; once the changes are made, Cabinet can endorse the report and it will be used as a reference tool.

Goals 2005/06 - Gaunt

• Due to time constraints, this item was tabled to the next Cabinet meeting.

Announcements

Mullins

• At State of the Libraries, Natalie Borisovets did a demo of integrating library materials into course management systems. Mullins thinks this should be incorporated into the Libraries' goals. The idea is to move to the classroom management frame for students. Borisovet's data shows that the students' responses and the hits to the information sources have grown.
• The Reinventing Newark exhibition is at the Dana Library Robeson Gallery. This is a joint project with the Department of Public Administration on the campus. At the end of the month there will be a panel of current planners in the city of Newark talking about how we can improve the aesthetic dimensions and affordable housing, and human dimensions of living in a city like Newark by taking a look at the designs of the past.
• Tomorrow there will be a jazz concert in the Dana Room as part of the lunch concerts. It ties into an article by the dance institute on the top ten trends in the library over the next few years, which talks about the library moving into becoming a cultural center and mixing with the museum.

Puniello

• The Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, the urban planner and registrar met with Puniello, Kyu Whang, Kayo Denda, and Frank Wong. They are interested in the information commons and found us on the Internet.
• The Douglass Library had an opening two weeks ago on the next generation of women's artists.

Golden

• Golden asked that Cabinet refer to a November 7 email message sent from Howard Dess to rul_everyone about the University of Minnesota's "Undergraduate Virtual Library" as a model for which we should be striving; an interesting approach to giving undergraduates what they need. Based on LibQUAL+ undergraduate reactions, this would be a positive step.
• The Camden Campus is probably going to get a new dorm; don't know how big, but will be a part of the dorm complex. Will be two years from start to finish.

Sewell

• Dave Kuzma has developed a New Jersey subject research guide that is spectacular. Kuzma does reference work on questions that come through Ask A Librarian. It is located on the research guides page.

Agnew

• Agnew did a poster session on the MIC at the NDEDge Conference on November 3.
• The OIRT Instructional and Research Technology Symposium is being held tomorrow; Au will speak about the information available on the web page, where it is, and plans to upgrade. Agnew will discuss the development of the institutional repository; the need to be aware of cyber infrastructure and the need to make a decision on how far we're going to push the repository.
• Li Sun started Monday as the Asian Languages Cataloger. She has nine years of cataloging experience from the University of Arizona.

Puniello

• Announced that the New Brunswick holiday party is scheduled for December 15. Puniello, Gaunt, and Sewell will plan Cabinet entertainment.