Minutes of October 26, 2000 Meeting

Present:

T. Frusciano, J. Sloan, S. Soong, J. Gardner, N. Borisovets, A. Montanaro, J. Boyle (Chair), M. Wilson (Recorder).

Absent:

S. Beck, M. Weber, R. Sewell

1. AUL Announcements:
   • The next PSC meeting is scheduled for November 30th. Gracemary Smulewitz asked to be on the agenda to make a presentation on "MARC Holdings"
   • Jeris Cassel requested to be on the agenda to discuss the Public Services Policy Memo regarding instruction policy.
   • PROP has been referred to the Research and Leave Review Committee.
   • In addition to increased funding for collections, the Library also received an additional $100.000.00 to improve the infrastructure of the digital documents delivery system that includes the e-reserve system, the Rutgers Request Service, and a complete network printing layout.
   • Many of the Councils' recommendations will be demonstrated at the "State of the Library" affair scheduled for Tuesday, October 31.
   • A Vale User Group meeting is scheduled for January 4th, 2001.
   • The Friends of the Library's biannual Hot Topics series is scheduled on Sunday, October 29th (2-4 pm) at the Library of Science and Medicine. Professor Gerald Pomper will speak on "What's at Stake: The Major Issues in the 2000 Presidential Election."
   • Metro is sponsoring an E-book showcase on November 29th. For further information, contact Jeanne.
   • Jeanne followed up on the following items from the SACOPS/PSC Recommendation Logs.
     • COMFIL and other old designations for CD-ROMs will become what was agreed to at the meeting on 1/22/98, i.e., STACKS-COM, REF-COM, PER-COM, DOCUS-COM. After many discussions over the past two years, we now know that IRIS can not currently be configured to allow creation on the fly of the lists of CD-ROMs by library.
     • An outstanding item on the OCLC search blocks will be taken up by a new group composed of Ann Montanaro, Judy Gardner, and Myoung Wilson (or someone she designates).
     • The request for downtime notices, when RUCS does network maintenance is no longer relevant.
2. Ann Montanaro shared the samples of the cataloging records of the Early English Books Online. The IRIS record of "other libraries" almost always refers to the microfilm holdings of the same book in the Alexander Library. The cataloging record provides the corresponding microfilm reel numbers. There are about early English 16-20 physical books that are not cataloged. These will be cataloged in the near future and the records will appear in IRIS. The entire cataloging record will be loaded by the end of November.
3. Webfeat -For those who missed the Webfeat demo last month, an online demo is available. Concerns were expressed regarding response time when the number of simultaneous users is increased. There are also similar products that are emerging in the market such as "iBistro" developed by SIRSI and "Watson" by the Info Lab based at the Northwestern University. Jeanne will continue to investigate other similar products and will see about setting up some demos for us during ALA midwinter.
4. Multimedia and Digital Libraries Service

   Jane Sloan gave updates on the Multimedia and Digital Libraries Services in the New Brunswick Libraries. She reported that the unit now has full staffing in three sub-areas:

   • Matthew Wilk is the Manager of Media Services who oversees classroom support. This unit is responsible for the delivery of collections and equipment to classrooms and technical support for smart classrooms. The number of smart classrooms has increased from twenty in 1996 to sixty in 1999. The Teaching Excellence Center is formerly charged by the Vice-President Seneca to look into the smart classroom situation. RUMedia Vision (campus cable broadcast) also falls under this unit. The opening of RUMedia Vision is dependent on renovation and is not up and running yet. Broadcast rights may require licensing in order to broadcast our own collection. This unit is also responsible for non-print collections at Media (housed in Kilmer) and Music Media (housed in Douglass)
   • Richard Sandler is the Manager of Presentation Services and oversees technical support for fee-based special events including those at the SCC and presentation equipment rental. This unit works with all academic departments and units, providing a much requested service; many of the services offered are available to the libraries at no cost.
   • Constantia Constantinou is the manager of the Scholarly Communication Center (SCC) that oversees event facilities and fee-based program services and that provides technology support and training for library faculty. Two new staff have been transferred to the SCC; the Center has established regular public service hours. The Teleconference Lecture Hall is now classified as a smart classroom; therefore, its equipment was upgraded with smart classroom funding.

     Jane asked for input for future development and emphasized that the goal of the SCC public services is to work with librarians to increase expertise across the board. Lonnie Johnson began his project with the materials he selected from Special Collections

     Tom commented that his experience in using IHL for the Electronic New Jersey Project has been flawless with technical support services. Jeanne commented whether finding aids can be developed for uncataloged materials or gray literature.

5. Jeanne gave a detailed report on the Rutgers experience of network printing and copy machine upgrades that began in FY 1997-1998. Several RFPs have been developed in cooperation with the University Purchasing Office. Eventually, the most cost-effective vendor, IKON, was selected; a separate vendor for debit card, Jamex ,was selected at a later stage. Camden, Dana and parts of the New Brunswick libraries are now using IKON copiers. The Library identified three major problems with the current LBTI software for network printing and the vendor provided patches. Problems and errors still persist in Alexander and Cheng. Chemistry and Physics will use the same systems set up on standalone workstations. The Copy Center offers new services such as scanning and the library will continue to search for a reliable system.
6. PSPM 5 (weather)-Jeanne will check with the University Librarian regarding campus specific notification during inclement weather.

   PSPM 6 (Mail Delivery and Pick Up)-approved with the proviso that the word "automatically" will be deleted from the third para., first line under Other Mailings.

7. Cell-phone-Although PSPM #1 covers noise issues in the library, the Council members agreed that a sign will be put up prohibiting (discouraging) the use of cell-phones in the stack and study area. Jeanne will develop appropriate language. Such notices will also be posted on the NEWS page.
8. Reference Statistics-Jeanne distributed reference statistics and a chart of completed reference transactions taken from the recent user survey. The Council members felt that the current ways of collecting reference statistics need to be rethought in the digital library environment.
9. Donna Cryan demonstrated E-reserve processing using the newly acquired Minolta PS 3000 scanner.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:15.

Respectfully submitted by
Myoung C. Wilson
Secretary pro-temp