Minutes of March 27, 2003 Meeting

Present:: Jeanne Boyle (chair), Susan Beck, Natalie Borisovets, Tom Frusciano, Judy Gardner, Rebecca Gardner, Mary Kesselman, Ann Montanaro, Leslie Murtha, Robert Sewell (recorder), Mary Page (guest)

1. AUL Report

Transition/interim plans for how to handle the responsibilities of two major administrative openings, New Brunswick Libraries Director and AUL for Administration Services, will be announced by the University Librarian in mid-April.
Budget cutting plans include significant reduction in Science Direct cost and possibly curtailing ingenta document delivery service.
UMDNJ/RUL Working Group is setting up focus group discussion of joint program faculty and students in New Brunswick/Piscattaway to determine how to enhance services to this group. VP Seneca has also asked Deans for separate proposals for the UMD New Brunswick/Piscataway campus.Some suggestions so far: LSM hours in sinc with RWJ academic calendar, making RUL databases available to UMD faculty and students and visa versa, and document delivery to and from RWJ Hospital Library.
A draft of the university copyright policy will soon be made public for comment.
Judy Gardner will chair a staff working group on Audio Reserves to review the pilot project and possibly a mainstream service.
On April 1, there will be a new borrow card, a community borrowing card, which will cost $100/yr. We will discontinue the multiply kinds of non-Rutgers user card categories - Friends, Corporate, and individuals with special or unique research needs. All of these users will be treated the same.
There may be ProQuest training for Factiva and American Periodical Series in the fall. Other suggestions are welcome.
All are encouraged to advocate with legislators to reverse the proposed budget cuts to higher education. Send letters, meet with legislators. Bob Sewell recently met with Sen. Barbara Buono, who is on the state Budget and Appropriations Committee and she informed him she has used the information he provider her to advocate for Rutgers on this important committee.
An updated list of brochures with distribution numbers issued from the Office of Public Services and Communications was distributed.

2. E-Resources and Authentication Problems

Mary Page discussed problems of access to databases related to RUCS recent enabling of VPNs and the introduction of a new IP range. IP addresses are used to authenticate Rutgers users. Acquisitions has contacted vendors about these new IP ranges to make sure all e-resources would be connected to them. Some problems remain for a small number of users in these new ranges, primarily e-journals from sites that host publishers resources, such as High Wire Press. Acquisitions hopes to solve these remaining problems.

3. Serial Solutions

Mary Page discussed the implementation of Serial Solutions. It was purchased primarily to help Acquisitions and Cataloging to manage e-journals. Serial Solutions provides monthly updates of holdings of e-serials and can be used with OpenURL software to merge print and e-holdings. It has public service implications. ILL can check e-holdings to see what is accessible for lending, but access to licensing terms related to ILL is not yet available. When fully implemented, public services will decide if it should be made or how it should be made available to the user. Mary will make the Serial Solutions journal list available to librarians to test in the new future. A way needs to be found to incorporate cataloged government e-journals.

Links to Holdings From Databases:

Ann Montanaro announced that were are now links to local print holdings from citations within over 30 of our databases.

4. Goals Review

Wide-ranging discussion of PSC goals including progress on goals set for 2003 and the goal creation process.

Significant progress has been made on the goal to Evaluate Software to Expand Access to E-Resource. A Working Group is specifically evaluating OpenURL software (SFX, SIRSI, Ebsco, and Open Source) and will have a recommendation for purchase by the end of academic year. Cost ranges from less than $10,000 to a maximum of $30,000.
Goals relating public services’ role in recon priorities, creation of digital projects, and preservation are now considered outside the purview of PSC, but council members were glad to hear of progress in recon related to the NJ documents project, purchase of MARC records for microform sets, and systematic recon of LC classes of material in Alex stacks.
Progress was noted in other specific projects such as PALCI collaboration, piloting Real-Time Reference, etc.
Two 2003 goals were discussed together Assess Reference and Investigate Changing Roles of Reference Librarians. It was decide that these, and many other PSC goals revolve around the concept of a User-centered Library. It was determine that next year’s goals, indeed multi-year goals, should be framed with this concept. The purpose of this way of presenting the goals would be to raise consciousness about the concept and the need for expanded needs assessment and to devise specific actions to accomplish a User-centered Library.

5. Announcements:

Marty Kesselman announced that the front entrance to the Douglass Library has been closed and will remain so during renovations of the library. The entrance is now in the back of the building.