New Brunswick Collections Group Meeting Minutes

December 2, 2005 (Friday)

9:30 am at the Library of Science and Medicine

Present: Kayo Denda, Constance Finlay, Tom Glynn, Bill Hemmig, Helen Hoffman, Triveni Kuchi, Mei Ling Lo (recorder), Jackie Mardikian, Kevin Mulcahy (chair), Pat Piermatti, John Shepard, Jane Sloan, Gracemary Smulewitz, Lourdes Vazquez, Ryan Womack, Connie Wu, Ying Zhang

1. Approval of agenda - approved

2. Approval of minutes - approved

3. Chair's report (including budget updates)

The overall state budget for 2005-06 is up about 10% compared to 2004 allocation, and 3.65% compared to 2005 allocation. The increase will help us keep abreast of inflation.

State: The state monographs budget for 2006 is only 62.12% of 2004 allocation. There is continued movement of periodicals to central budget in the state funds. A couple of transfer funds for covering overflowing funds, for example for retro serials, were set up.

Non-State: The figures for New Brunswick non-state funds are radically down because not all non-state funds have been allocated in Workflow. Also, phonothon has received less donations and part of the allocation has gone to Newark and Camden.

In general, the budget is slightly up compared to 2004.

All of state allocations are now in Workflow. Kevin encouraged all the selectors to spend out state funding because it cannot be carried over. Phonothon allocation is at least complete by library level. Gift funds allocation is nearly done.

The process of allocation was done in a consultative way. It therefore slows down the process.

Regarding the issue of losing1 month access of electronic journals packages, Gracemary reported that there would be more staff working on electronic materials to clear the backlog.

Regarding the cataloging of SPIE conference proceedings and other electronic publications, Jane Sloan will present the issue to Technical Services Council.

4. Team leaders report:

The team leaders followed the model discussed at the last Oct. NBCG meeting while doing the budget allocation.

Ryan Womack: Social Sciences Team Meeting will be held on Dec. 9.

Lourdes Vazquez: It has been difficult and complex to allocate the funding. An Asian Fund has been set up to support areas in East and South Asia. More money has been distributed to support "theatre".

5. Moving to shelf-ready approval books:

Kevin urged selectors who have high return rate with their approval books to meet with Steve Hyndman from YBP when he comes to Rutgers. Minor adjustments are possible.

Books that go to different libraries may face bigger problems. Examples of those areas are - women studies, theatre & literature, business, psychology & social work, history of science and general science. Selectors in those areas will need to meet and assign the library location by LC.

Some concerns about shelf-ready approval books are the following:

LC classification is not enough to be used as criterion when assigning books to different libraries. For example, in the case of music, "format" will be more useful.

The books will come in labeled. However, YBP does not label v.2 and any accompanying materials. Local units will have to review each item and make sure that the books are labeled correctly.

Considering some of the issues, Kevin will find out if certain LC ranges can be excluded from the shelf-ready plan. Also, Kevin will find out if a test period can be setup.

Other concerns include the actual savings involved with the shelf-ready plan and the actual workload that will be shifted from TSB to local technical services.

6. Continuing discussion of Selector Role

There was a discussion on the term "selectors". It was agreed that "bibliographers" or "subject specialists" would be more appropriate to describe our roles. However, the term "selection" is what distincts us from Google. There was a concern that we have lost some control when it comes to decision making because many journal titles are in packages and cannot be canceled easily. Now, we focus more on reviewing statistics and making decisions such as moving print to electronic only. We should operate more collectively with our colleagues not only at New Brunswick, but also at Camden and Newark. We should work as teams and take advantage of current constructive structure to voice our opinions. A suggestion includes a White Paper to clarify our duties and come up with an organized way to transform CDC to meet the changing needs. The Selectors' tool kit was regarded as the first concrete outcome of CDC. The discussion on suggesting changes at CDC will continue at next NBCG meeting. Some special forums can also be set up to address particular issues.

7. Other Reports and Updates:

Constance Finlay: Janus Conference was held at Cornell University. The conference was an invitation only collection development conference. Quick time videos of the presenters are available at the web site. Constance will give the details to Kevin.

Kevin Mulcahy: Jim Niessen and Howard Dess will come back from Sabbatical.

Lourdes Vazquez: Lourdes will go on sabbatical. Triveni, Kyle and Kevin will help out with collection development in the areas of African studies, Latin American studies and Religion.

Kevin Mulcahy: There is a Humanities Librarian Search Committee meeting on Dec. 19. Please send suggestions to Kevin.

Kayo Denda: The East Asian Librarian Search Committee chaired by Connie Wu met on Dec. 1.

Kayo Denda: For the next NBCG meeting, Kayo would like to have a discussion on purchasing MARC records which will contain the table of contents for books titles.

Tom Glenn: Tom noticed that in CSA Sociological Database, footnotes are included in the keyword searching and therefore the search results are messed up. The best way therefore is to do Advanced Search instead of Basic Keywords Search.

Gracemary Smulewitz: Brittle and damaged books are not automatically repaired. A spreadsheet containing those titles was sent out to selectors via email. Subject specialists have been asked to review the books on the cart at Alexander Library. Inventory for each collection has started. The staff will determine the condition of each collection. Reports are available for each call number range for their sustainability. The sub-group for paper preservation will set up criteria so that not all the books will be on the cart for selectors to review.

Adjournment: 11:25 am