Minutes of November 20, 2008 Meeting

Present:

Ron Becker, Mary Fetzer (Chair), Karen Hartman, Tom Izbicki, John Maxymuk, Kevin Mulcahy, Laura Mullen, Jim Niessen, Cathy Pecoraro Vincent Pelote, Glenn Sandberg (recorder), Bob Sewell, Gracemary Smulewitz, Elizabeth Leister (for Mary Beth Weber), Roberta Tipton, Judy Gardner (guest), Rhonda Marker (guest), User Services Council (guests)

1. Adoption of Agenda. Adopted as presented.

2. Approval of minutes of October 16 meeting

Minutes were approved with the following revisions:

• Under #8, E-Book Task Force: correct "Megan Lowe (?)" to "Mei Ling Lo."
• Under #4, Budget Update: leave $234,375 until further information received from Bob Sewell.

3. Chair's Report (Fetzer)

1. The Goals Task Force met, and the list of goals were distributed to LRC members. Hearing no comments or questions from members, the goals are approved as presented. Status of our goals will be reviewed at the January 2009 meeting of the LRC.
2. Team Leaders met on November 10 with Gracemary and Cathy also attending. Pursuant to the VALE Electronic Resources Committee’s survey requesting selector input, the leaders recommended three databases for VALE consideration. All three had been vetted previously by the team leaders: Mental Measurements Yearbook, LexisNexis Congressional, and Black Studies Center. The possibility of RUL’s adding databases available from OCLC was also discussed, but was tabled until the PALINET meeting that Cathy will attend has been held. Sewell reported that we had hoped to get money back from Business Source Premier, which we paid for and which then became available through NJKI. Following negotiations, we have now been offered an additional year of access to BSP. This will save us about $21,000 this year, but we will have to include that amount in subsequent years’ encumbrances. Bob invited members to submit requests for alternate resources.
3. The Team Leaders witnessed a demonstration of the Serials Solution overlap analysis tool. It would be useful to demonstrate its use at a future NBCG meeting, and it will also be previewed at the VALE Users’ Conference in January.
4. Rutgers University Press is considering repackaging their e-book program. They are forming a focus group and have extended an invitation to RUL to participate. Karen Hartman will represent LRC.

4. Budget Update (Sewell)

$394,000 is the target for a permanent reduction in the Collection Development budget; the original overall target for RUL is $1.2 million. Cancellations have been completed for this year. Cabinet advises that, because of the hit taken by higher education this year, it is possible however that we may not need to give money back to the university until sometime during the next fiscal year. Therefore an additional $300,000 may potentially be freed up. How would we want to spend this money? Bob recommended one-time purchases, pre-pays, and a contribution to the approval plan. Keep Bob abreast of pre-pay opportunities and back files of journals that selectors may want to purchase. E-books are also a possibility, but hosting fees for e-books can be rather exorbitant. We can discuss this further at our December meeting; the deadline for purchase recommendations is January 2009.

5. RUCore and Selector Involvement (Marker and Niessen)

Jim Niessen reported that RUCore is now open for business. It is not too early to communicate to your constituencies about using RUCore. Rhonda Marker stated that librarian liaisons are not expected to “sell” RUCore to their constituencies, but librarians should be able to talk about it. As work progresses on this initiative, we want to be able to develop RUCore in response to user needs. With regard to RUCore, e-journal development is a goal, but it is not pending. Depositing science data sets is also desirable, but not yet possible. The focus of RUCore is scholarly documents of enduring value. For example, Kayo Denda is working on depositing a trove of posters from the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. A metadata consultant is working on digitizing these posters. A second example is the deposit of classics texts in the public domain. Tom Izbicki is working on this project along with a SCILS student. To summarize, we are trying to accommodate the needs of all academic departments, but we need input from selectors.

A question and answer period followed.

• Can RUCore accomodate sound files and photographs? Yes.
• Is there a limit to the file size? No.
• Can we digitize a paper document for deposit? Yes. Imaging Services is working on this with us.
• What exactly is the origin of these posters owned by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership? This may raise copyright issues. Some posters were acquired from without; other posters were produced from within the Center.
• Is RUCore limited to the deposit of Rutgers materials? The priority will be Rutgers materials, but we certainly welcome competing priorities!
• Why is there is currently no link under Who May Submit on the RUCore web page? There are many changes and updates coming to the RUCore web pages.
• Are materials deposited in RUCore discoverable through Google Scholar? Yes.

Rhonda distributed a handout on the decision tree for submission of articles to RUCore, and Jim discussed the plan on how to move forward with RUCore. Publishers have been generally receptive to depositing articles in RUCore. Keep in mind that the article author has the option and negotiating authority. European publishers and out-of-business publishers are not a problem. Authors should seek permission to deposit a publisher’s PDF of their article. Publishers will more readily grant permission to deposit pre-publication manuscripts, but they are less desirable for researchers and authors.

Following further discussion, Jim demonstrated the deposit process in RUCore and Rhonda demonstrated how to create a custom portal.

Valeda Dent Goodman inquired what the role of User Services Council should be regarding RUCore, and Sara Harrington suggested that a list of talking points would be useful for selectors when discussing RUCore with faculty. Rhonda concluded the presentation with a discussion on marketing new library services to our constituencies.

6. ILL and Consortial Agreements (Gardner)

Judy Gardner presented a PowerPoint on ILL and consortial agreements. [Editor’s note: The Powerpoint is now available on both the Selector’s and on the USC site in sakai]. Regarding an inquiry about turnaround time, Judy cited the times posted on the ILS web page. Glenn Sandberg said he would follow up with Lending Coordinator Mary Belasco on a question about publishers and their restrictions on access to e-journals. In answer to another question, Glenn replied that there are indeed preferred suppliers for both books and journal articles. After searching the OPAC, requests are referred to a succession of preferred groups of lenders by membership (i.e. RAPID article delivery service, JerseyCat for book requests, etc.). After that, requests are forwarded with attention paid to geographical proximity to Rutgers.

7. Announcements

Kevin Mulcahy reported that the New Brunswick Allocations Committee is considering setting aside some money for the purchase of reference e-books. There may also be sufficient funds for pilot e-book package(s) in social sciences & humanities. He will report back to the LRC with more information at a future meeting of the council.

Smulewitz reported that the e-Book Task Force has met twice recently and has come up against numerous workflow issues involving purchasing, cataloging, and access. LRC concurred with her that the Council is the preferred venue for sharing the initial findings of the Task Force. Hosting fees for e-books are incredibly high, as are perpetual access fees. Discussion of whether or not we always need perpetual access ensued. A question was also raised about the price differential for different types of e-books. Gracemary replied that the Task Force is planning a preliminary presentation for the December meeting of the LRC [Editor’s note: a fuller presentation, including pricing and the status of Net Library, will be planned for the January meeting]. Bob suggested a moratorium on e-book purchasing until the e-Books Task Force has had a chance to present their findings to the Council. Laura emphasized that this moratorium must come from Bob.

NEXT MEETING: December 18, 2008.

11. Adjournment: 1:00 pm.