Minutes of April 19, 2001 Meeting

Present:

Beck, Becker, Boyle, Calderhead, Consoli, Dess, Montanaro, Nettleman, Page, Sewell, Sloan, Soong (recorder), Tallau, Womack (for Vazquez).

1. Mary Page reported that while Acquisitions has been focusing on state fund orders, substantial non-state fund orders are backed up. The department will immediately begin to work on state orders and non-state orders at the same time.
2. A list of "digital resources acquired 2001" was reviewed. HRAF Human Resource Area Files is to be deleted. The price information on Medieval Treasury of French Literature is clarified. We will go ahead and order AP PhotoArchive which is $5,500 (instead of $2,640). Brian H. will be asked to further verify the availability of Index Islamicus. Joe C.will look into the issues related to Periodical Contents Index.
3. Draft Procedures for Acquiring Digital Resources from Central Funds, prepapred by Mary P., was reviewed and approved with the understanding that we still need to discuss and develop retention policy for archival print copies and related procedures.
4. Mary also presented a proposal for deleting old orders from Sirsi and initiating regular claim cycles. After discussion, it was agreed that a project to delete from Sirsi all 1998 and 1999 orders that have not yet been rec'd will be done. Beginning July 2001, the first and the only claim will be issued for domestic orders after 3 months, foreign orders after 9 months. Domestic orders will be cancelled after 9 months, and foreign orders 18 months. Lists of cancelled items will be sent to selectors for review and action (i.e. reorder from another source or in another format). Not-yet-published items will be treated differently.
5. Ann Montanaro shared with the Council the last database usage figures. No comparable data is available from Dow Jones. A 7/00-3/01report on the number of times user access exceeded concurrent-user limits was also shared. There were many exceeds for Web of Science before its concurrent users increased from 10 to 15. Due to instructional sessions held, some databases also showed unusual high number of exceeds.
6. Ann M. reported that there will be two scheduled "ready-only"catalog times, May 23-24 to load the new software and 2 weeks after the summer sessions during which to load authorities and to rebuild indexes.
7. Bob Sewell presented a proposal for a new allocation procedures for the collections budget in 2001/02. With the working assumption of a fixed collections budget for new FY and available information on fixed cost items and projected inflation figures for various subject areas, it is possible to do initial allocation of state funds for fixed cost funds (periodicals, series, etc.) during the summer.
8. Campuses will be able to complete the allocations, including discretionary funds (monographs) and non-state funds allocations, much sooner in the new fiscal year. (Six weeks after they receive their allocations.) Adjustments can be made when the actual university allocations for collections are known, usually in October. Supporting the proposed changes, a number of council members however suggested that early cancellation (before roll-over which usually takes place in July), to go with these changes in procedures and to take advantage of vendor discount, be considered. Bob will take this to Cabinet for consideration and will develop a schedule for implementing these changes.
9. Bob reported that, as of 4/18, the RUL over free balance (uncommitted funds) was $459,982and the total encumbrance was $764,565, with one campus proportionally higher than the others. The free balance will go down in the near future because orders are still being processed, and there will be a number of expenditures for acquisitions that are not encumbered such as ILL, Document Delivery, Binding, and the N.B. approval plan (about $40,000 before the end of the fiscal year). But it appears there will be money for big ticket purchases, around $250,000. With a large number of possibilities, e.g. e-resources in the works or not yet in works and large microform sets, the immediate question is how best to spend the remaining funds before end of fiscal year. Bob asked people to use the appropriate online form to recommend in the very near future big-ticket items for consideration. They will be considered along with other e-resources that are on various teams' "waiting list". All request should be submitted to Bob by no later than May 4.
10. Bob also reported that the VALE Executive Committee has recommended that the State funds (pending approval by the legislature in June) be used to purchase Ebsco's Academic Search Premier (ASP) database for all VALE libraries at no charge to the members and to subsidize continued access to Bell and Howell's ABI/Inform. Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) will no longer be subsidized by VALE. The L-N subscription cost for Rutgers would be about $64,000 if we wish to continue it. To ensure a smooth transition, a number of people suggested that we keep Proquest Research Library until we have had adequate time to present/catalog Ebsco's ASP and work with it to determine the most appropriate action, i.e. keep or drop Proquest Research Library, for coming years.
11. After Ryan W. presented the coverage, implications, and potential accessibility of SourceOECD, the Council approved its purchase.
12. Veronica C. presented various options of NetLibrary which currently includes several thousand 1997, 98, 99 (some 2000) e-books in the areas of business & economics, computer science, history, language & literature, medicine & allied health, sci & math, and others (e.g. educ, fine arts, psychology, philosophy, music, religion, sociology, etc.). A large number of questions related to price/fee, access, etc. were raised. After discussion, it was agreed to use $30,000 in the central funds this fiscal year on a NetLibrary package account. This will be considered a pilot project until we have a better understanding of its various implications, including costs/benefits. A small group will discuss all relevant implementation issues with a goal of introducing this new service in Fall 2001.