New Brunswick Collections Group Meeting Minutes
Friday, October 10, 2003

Present: Howard Dess (chair), Kevin Mulcahy, Jim Niessen, Laura Mullen, Mei Ling Lo, Mary Fetzer, Tom Glynn, Matthew Sheehy, Brian Hancock, Karen Wenk, Karen Hartman, Jackie Mardikian, Kayo Denda, Sara Harrington, Gracemary Smulewitz, Pat Piermatti, Ryan Womack, Helen Hoffman, Jane Sloan (recorder), Ellen Calhoun.

1. Approval of Agenda: Agenda was approved.
   
   
   
2. Approval of Minutes: Minutes from the previous meeting were approved.
   
   
   

3. Budget Update: Howard reported that Marianne and Bob have ruled that no serials should be cancelled for budgetary reasons, only as part of "normal" collection development adjustments carried out at the discretion of individual selectors. Another collections budget improvement for New Brunswick announced by Bob and Marianne this week: there will be an increase of $195,000 for the NB collections budget due to a revised campus split on funds for local collections: New Brunswick will receive 75%, Newark 17%, and Camden 8%, instead of the standard 70-20-10 ratio. This increase will greatly aid a severely depleted mongraph purchase budget.

   Allocations for NB state funds should be out in the next couple weeks from Bob Sewell and distributed by the NBCG Budget Allocation Committee.. Non-state funds are still being worked on by central admin. Kevin indicated that, overall, approximately 60% of last year's book funds will be available in the current fiscal year.

   If selectors wish to proceed with any subscription cancellations, Gracemary must be notified immediately. If the fund code is not already negatively balanced, it is possible to move monies opened up by cancellations into monograph funds.
   

   
   

4. White Paper discussion: Suggestions/comments:

   • in presenting to administration, anticipate objections to new ideas, e.g. on pro forma invoicing or use of deposit accounts (possibly not permitted under NJ law ; needs to be investigated).
   • focus on strategy to solve lack of coordination between late allocations, spending within a "short ordering season", and end of year cutoff
   • helpful to track payment, publishing, and purchasing patterns in a timetable
   • hire a consultant to investigate and review our current combined acquisitions/collection development process.
   • recommend that monographs should be treated as a fixed cost, in the same manner as periodicals; this will better sustain humanities budgets, which run 63% non-serials
   • look at other university budget models [Aside: ARL stats allows custom comparisons -- http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/arl/] and processes
   • provide additional staff support in Acquisitions for purposes of offering ongoing enhanced analysis and control of purchase operations and to facilitate the introduction of new online resources either as replacements for print formats or as premium add-ons.
   • reconvene committee , add introduction to paper
   
   
   RGS has expressed his support of the efforts of this white paper committee. Future coordination with CDC is planned.




5. Tim Corliss from Special Collections presented a talk on mold in books, and how to beware of it in gifts. Mold affects not only materials, but sickens people who are susceptible. It may be any color but always presents itself as a 3-d fuzz. Accelerated by heat and humidity, items can be isolated in plastic, freeze dried, vacuumed, erased - all while using a respirator and gloves. Best and quickest is to discard. The overall presentation was extremely effective in encouraging a wary view of the acceptance of old book collections.
   
   
   
6. Gift books: what to accept, how to accept, what to say to donors? Howard will bring forward the draft policy for future vetting.
   
   
   
   Submitted by J. Sloan
   10/10/03