Minutes of June 7, 2001 Meeting

Present:

Mary Page, Samson Soong, Jeanne Boyle, Ann Montanaro, Erica Gorder, Rhonda Marker, Lida Sak, Theo Haynes, Wen Ren, Mike Chumer

1. Updates
   
   Acting AUL/TAS (Soong):
   • AUL search update. The next candidate will interview on July 9, with a public presentation at 2 p.m. and a meeting with Technical Services Council following the presentation.
   • Distributed a list of VALE databases which RUL will receive
   • The new RUL Training Coordinator will be invited to our next TSC meeting
   
   
   Cataloging (Marker):
   • Cataloging continues to function, and is feeling the effects of year-end orders arriving.
   
   
   Systems (Montanaro):
   • The new Unicorn Administrator, Chris Sterback, begins on July 30.
   • The Unicorn 2000 upgrade was successful, though it took about six hours longer than expected.
   • The new payroll software is installed; we will shift to it by the end of June
   • There is a Systems Lunch on authority control today
Acquisitions (Page):
• Acquisitions continues to place orders for state funds and non-state funds but no longer can assure that they will be paid in the current fiscal year.
• Receiving is heavy.
2. Reports on UUGI
   • Marker, Montanaro, Page reported on a useful meeting, with much gained through the sessions and also through informal contacts with our colleagues at other libraries and with Sirsi employees.
3. Brief NASIG report
   • Page reported on a “content-filled” conference. Noteworthy were a plenary speaker who talked about the Tempe Principles; another plenary speaker who talked about the “least publishable unit,” the practice of getting as many publications as possible out of one research project, and the scholars’ role in creating the current periodicals crisis; and Steven Merritt on Generation Y, “the Millenials,” and their expectations.
4. Update, Catalog Portal Project
   • Chumer reported on the work of the Catalog Portal task group (Boyle, Bob Warwick, Tad Hershorn, Mary Beth Weber, Gracemary Smulewicz, and Chumer). They will use Dublin Core as the metadata standard for a pilot, applying descriptive tags for the Mary Lou Williams project to DC. By the end of the summer, they will have something to demonstrate.
5. Catalog records for e-resources
   • Soong and Boyle reported a variety of responses at the Public Services Council to the idea of having separate records in IRIS for the e-version of a print publication. TSC agreed that the GMD (general materials designation) should not be indexes [Note: The GMD already is not indexed.] Marker agreed to provide examples in the test catalog of titles with print, microfilm, and electronic formats. She also will provide an example of something with multiple URLs, i.e., the same title from multiple sources. A decision about what to do should be made soon so that we can begin planning.
6. Transition from ProQuest to Ebsco
   • TSC asked to have the ProQuest extended two months so that we can manually delete the ProQuest URLs from catalog records after the Ebsco subscription is in place. We are working on the assumption that Ebsco will replace ProQuest.
   • TSC recommended that we get a testbed of Ebsco records into the test catalog as soon as possible. We are working on the assumption that we will load separate catalog records for the Ebsco journals. Cataloging will work with Systems on this.
7. Faxon situation
   • TSC discussed the Faxon serials vendor situation.
8. Linking software tools for e-journals and cross-database searcher
   • The AULs plan to form a small committee to look at various products, after ALA. They will bring in vendors to demonstrate.
   • TSC members were asked to visit relevant exhibitors at ALA.

The next meeting is on July 5, 2001, 9:30 a.m. in the TSB Conference Room.

Recorder, R. Marker