Minutes of December 15, 2005 Meeting

Present:

S. Beck, J. Boyle, V. Calderhead, J. Gardner (guest), S. Harrington, K. Hartman (recorder), J. Howard, A. Montanaro, K. Mulcahy, L. Mullen, J. Nettleman (via teleconferencing), G. Sandberg (guest), J. Shepard, B. Sewell (chair), C. Sterback (guest), B. Warwick (guest)

Absent:

G. Agnew, R. Becker

1. Director's Station: An Introduction – Chris Sterback and Bob Warwick

Chris Sterback and Bob Warwick provided a review/demo of the features, functions, and constraints of Director's Station. Highlights of the system include:

• It provides a graphical interface to Unicorn data and can be used to uncover trends/patterns and perform comparative analyses through data mining.
• System allows for calculations on the fly and natural language queries.
• Automated email alerts can be set up, e.g., when a free balance for a fund is under a particular threshold.
• One can print, email and export data to Excel easily and share reports.
• It can be accessed anywhere, including off-campus.
• Ten simultaneous users are allowed.
• Best response time for the system currently is 8:30 am to 5pm.
• Systems would like to gain confidence in the accuracy of the data through validation against other measures of the same variables.
• Detailed training sessions will be scheduled for Spring, 2006 and documentation will be added to the “useful links” category on the Systems staff page. It was also suggested that multimedia training files could be placed on the T: drive and a FAQ's page be developed in the future.

2. ILL and Missing Books Update – Judy Gardner and Glenn Sandberg

J. Gardner reviewed several ILL services-CCC, Ingenta-user initated, Current Imprinting Project- with accompanying data (these reports are available at: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/staff/staff.shtml)

• Judy noted that the Ingenta direct to user service was quite expensive but not used very much. There are problems with functionality, matching titles, publisher's not permitting access, etc. She suggested that this commitment should be reviewed. We could cancel this service for users. ILL would maintain an account and the Reveal email alert service would also continue. CDC recommended that the service be terminated at the end of the fiscal year. A small group will review all the implications and determine how carried out this recommendation.
• Costs for the Current Imprint Project have gone down, most likely due to the PALCI service.
• G. Sandberg described RAPID, a university-to-university ILL journal request service that RUL will be joining as a full member in January, 2006.
• All participants in RAPID guarantee a 24 hour turn-around. We had a trial of the program as a borrower in November, and RUL will both lend and borrow, beginning in January. Lending will be only from the Alexander collections at present.
• Training for lending will be given in January. This service requires new procedures, and involvement of additional staff form Imaging Services for lending. We will begin slowly in order to adjust to the turnaround time demands.
• Payment to RAPID is a flat fee; the expectation is that our RLIN shares will go down as a result.

J. Gardner also reviewed the missing books schedule and reported that the Selector's missing books reports, September and December are available on the T: drive.

Other updates: ILL journal requests are getting to our users in 3-7 days, although this is not guaranteed. RDS turnaround is 2-3 days.

3. AUL Report – Bob Sewell

Bob noted that there is a contest to name the digital repository.

The Eighteenth Century Collections Online will be purchased. This resource includes every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in UK and thousands of works published in English in the Americas during the 18th century. In contains over 150,000 printed volumes. The price was negotiated down and will be paid over four years from several funds. The N.B. FAS Dean's office has committed to fundraising for this product. Price includes the MARC records. There is also an annual access fee that starts in the second year. The content is by in large complete but titles are being added to this database. The English, History and Political Science departments have been lobbying for important resource but it will be valuable to many other humanities fields.

4. Update from the Networked Resources Teams – Team Leaders

Status labels for the Central Funds Requests webpage (http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/staff/groups/cdc/reports/central_net_requests.shtml) were discussed and agreed to.. They are: submitted, approved, not approved at this time, ordered, and available to users. These may be revised in the future.

The Arts and Humanities and Sciences team leaders, S. Harrington and L. Mullen, will be making recommendations to the CDC in January.

K. Hartman, Social Sciences Team leader, recommended purchase of Accounting Research Manager and the Elsevier Book Package-Psychology. Both were vetted and accepted by the CDC.

5. New Jersey Clicks – Jeanne Boyle

J. Boyle initially wanted CDC to consider if any of the New Jersey Clicks databases should be considered for our indexes/abstracts list. However, she noted that technical issues may not even allow RUL connectivity and access for our users. She will explore this first and consult CDC in the future.

6. Acquisitions Update – Janet Howard

J. Howard reported that firm orders are coming in and are up-to-date.

YBP can now function as a go-between for NetLibrary and RUL and offer these resources.

7. Policy Review: Translations, Textbooks, and Maps – CDC

Translations: This policy was reaffirmed.

Maps: This policy needs revision. For example, the first sentence should be removed, a digital statement needs to be included, with reference to GIS data, etc.

Textbooks: This policy requires more discussion and revision.

Next Meeting: Thursday, January 19, 2006, 9:30 am.