University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the August 3, 2007 Meeting

Present:

Agnew, Au, Boyle, Denda, Fultz, Gaunt, Puniello, Zapcic (late)

Absent:

Joseph, Sewell

University Librarian's Report – Gaunt

• A small NJKI Team met with Jane Oates in Trenton to discuss the $1M loss in the NJKI funding. Because of the timing of the loss of funding, the strategy team decided not to drop the databases but carry them for as long as the funding would cover—approximately through the end of February; we would otherwise have to go back individually and negotiate new contracts for each database and there was not time. We discussed options for restoring the funds or getting funding from other agencies; responsibilities for following through on these strategies were assigned to the group. We determined that all the strategies discussed needed to be investigated by November 1. At that time we will have information for VALE libraries on the cost of purchasing the databases for the rest of the academic year, and any additional funding strategy options.
• The A/P/S negotiations are starting. This is the first contract for the A/P/S group with the university. It is likely that the negotiations will take longer than contract renewal negotiations because this is the first contract, and will involve all the issues. Gaunt will be on a large advisory group for the administration that will seek input from all the units of the university to insure that negotiations cover the administrative needs of the various units. Lucye Millerand is on the bargaining team for the A/P/S group.
• Gaunt was invited to an advisory meeting for ARTstor composed of several large academic library directors. The discussion focused on new areas that ARTstor is exploring and how they matched the needs of the large academic community. A wide variety of areas were discussed demonstrating ARTstor's interest in expanding its coverage and technical capacities. Several SCILS faculty were also interested in ARTstor; Gaunt will arrange a meeting at Rutgers for key ARTstor staff including SCILS.
• Gaunt met with Don Smith, Interim Vice President of InformationTechnology to discuss areas of mutual interest, including Sakai, Shibboleth, instructional technology support, software site licensing, RefWorks, the repository, NJVid, and the Digital Media Working Group activities. There are many areas of common interest and we agreed to continue to collaborate on them; will invite Don to attend a future Cabinet meeting to discuss agendas.

Interlibrary Loan and Article Delivery Demonstration – Glenn Sandberg/Puniello

• Glenn Sandberg gave an introduction on the public use of ILLiad software and the new interlibrary loan/article delivery service, and previewed the interlibrary loan and article delivery services web page. Interlibrary Services had spent considerable time reviewing potential software that they needed to migrate to because of the merger of RLG with OCLC. The timing of the implementation of the new system and the public interface was extremely short and the staff has done admirable work in making this available publicly before the start of the new academic semester. Cabinet provided Sandberg with comments on the system and thanked him for the work that has been done.

RLG Partnership - Boyle

• RLG has been collapsed into OCLC, and RLG programs are focusing on the research services agenda within OCLC. The key program within RLG that Rutgers has been interested in has been SHARES for interlibrary loan. In order to participate in SHARES an institution must continue to be an RLG partner for the extra fee. Thus far we have needed our SHARES partners, so we will continue to be a member. The RLG programs have expanded well beyond SHARES, and Boyle distributed the agenda topics and discussed what she has learned from attending meetings in New York and Washington, DC where the RLG program has been discussed. RLG is now asking institutions to indicate which areas within the RLG program they wish to be involved. The program is lengthy and the areas for participation in each agenda topic may not be specific. None the less, Cabinet determined that the areas we would agree to participate in should be areas where we have specific expertise or where we wish to shape an agenda. There are three areas: theme 3: Renovating Descriptive and Organizing Practices - especially metadata. Grace Agnew will be the contact; theme 5: Measurements & Behaviors, Jeanne Boyle will be the contact; and Project 2c: Contribute to the Development of a Registry of Copyright Evidence, Grace Agnew has done work in this area and is interested in working on this project. Boyle will respond to RLG on our areas of participation.

Strategic Plan Grid Results - Boyle

• As a preliminary step to looking at goals in September, Boyle discussed the strategic plan grid results with Cabinet. The grid is organized by the strategic plan goals on one axis and the various committees on another. In each box committees/groups have indicated a primary role, secondary role, or tertiary role for the goal. It is clear from the results that groups have viewed their role in two different ways: that they have primary/secondary/tertiary responsibility for carrying out that goal, or primary, secondary/tertiary interest in the goal. The grid has been useful in seeing which groups should be collaborating on some goals, and where groups may not exist to accomplish a goal. Michael Joseph, Faculty Coordinator, and the Planning Committee also used the grid in describing the faculty's proposed two-council structure and to define charges/areas of responsibility. Next year we'll have our annual reports organized by the strategic plan. Lucye Millerand is currently compiling all the goals submitted by groups to accomplish the strategic plan's agenda for the upcoming year; they will be ready before the meeting in September; the format for presentation will be the strategic plan objective. Thanks to all the committees who took the time to do this.

Announcements

Golden

• Robeson is getting furniture for the new computer area, but the old hasn't been removed yet; hoping it will all be done by the time school starts.
• OIT will give Robeson 18 three-year-old computers to replace the 4-5 year-old computers; we will be on the schedule to replace public machines; working with Anne Butman to get them set up.
• As part of the RUConnection card process for incoming students we will give coupons for free copicards.

Puniello

• The Virtual Reference Task Force will present their report at the next Cabinet meeting.
• Second Life Working Group has been meeting.
• At our next Cabinet meeting, Mei Ling Lo will present the concept of a library tool bar.
• Thomas Izbicki joined New Brunswick as Humanities Librarian; Tao Yang will join New Brunswick in October as East Asian Librarian; working on the social science data librarian position.
• Reformatted the "Explore, Discover, Learn" brochure. The New Brunswick student orientations are being centralized, and we received a request for 8,000 brochures.

Au

• Distributed statistics for RefWorks. There are 1,145 users on the system; the table shows that the largest number of users did not identify themselves as faculty, undergraduate, or graduate student; the average session per user is significant. RefWorks instruction is done with the PhD students in the business school; could be done as part of graduate student orientation.

Agnew

• A team from RUL visited Virginia Tech to demonstrate FEDORA and the WMS and it went very well; we already have a few VT items mapped over in the repository. Virginia Tech is visiting Rutgers on August 20-21.
• Fay Austin is doing a presentation on the role of women in information services; talking about the role the libraries should play based on her experience with libraries in Guyana; will ask her to do a presentation for the libraries.

Boyle

• Middle States reports from the Libraries have all been submitted.
• Sakai User's Group has been meeting. Mary Page is a member and Lucye Millerand will be involved.
• We are working on the retention schedule for data from Ask-a-Librarian.

Zapcic

• Glazer sent out the new Rutgers visual identity protocol along with links to capture the logo image.