Present:   Jeris Cassel, Kayo Denda, Constance Finlay, Rebecca Gardner, Sara Harrington, Triveni Kuchi, Mary Fetzer, Tom Glynn, John Shepard, Helen Hoffman, Mei Ling Lo, Kevin Mulcahy (chair), Laura Mullen, Pat Piermatti, Jane Sloan, Marty Kesselman, Ryan Womack, Lourdes Vázquez (recorder), Connie Wu.
Guests:  Marianne Gaunt, Bob Sewell

1. The agenda was approved.

2. The minutes for February 23 will be approved in the next meeting.

3. Report of the Chair.

4. The Chair gave an introduction of the purpose of the visit to MG and BS.

   Budget Status: Approval Plan: A report was given by KM on the status of state and non-state funds (two spreadsheets were distributed).

   Updates from Team Leaders: Reports by team leaders: The Humanities Subgroup chair informed that this year Latino Studies received the first non-state funds. Last year Performing Arts began receiving non-state funds. The Social Sciences Subgroup chair informed that spending was continuing and that $1000 in additional endowment funding was offered to each selector to try to spend more in this fiscal year.

5. Discussion of Collections budget issues with guests M.Gaunt and B. Sewell. A dynamic discussion took placed. Some of the issues presented were:
   • The institutional commitment to continue acquiring books;
   • To consider the approval plan as a "fixed cost" and include it in our base budget; Are only serials eligible for ‘fixed cost’? What makes a fixed cost vs. a non-fixed cost? Why can’t YBP be a fixed cost?
   • The acquiring of foreign languages books. It seems that the acquiring, cataloguing and processing of books is not a priority;
   • The inability to purchase during the year, restricting the purchase of materials to a couple of months during said year,
   • Budget lack of support to new research centers and new departments;
   • Lack of support for Furmanski’s initiatives such as international and multidisciplinary studies. RU is pushing for these areas, thus incurring a need for collections that traditional disciplines do not include;
   • Acquiring materials on the graduate level, but not enough funds to acquire materials for undergraduates;
   • WorldCat report on foreign language publications that Marianne forwarded to us. Statistics show that ARL libraries constitute over 50% of the total WorldCat holdings of non-US publications. For Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Eastern Europe, this figure rises to 75%. So ARL holdings for publications from these areas are 3 times the amount of all other libraries combined. An essential function of research libraries is to acquire non-US publications.
   • As a research library, should we be acquiring textbooks? What are the implications for our budget and for the collection? Should the reserve policy be revised?
   • Cataloguing department lack of staff (only two tenured cataloguers) and the extra pressure of RUcore;
   • A backlog of gift cataloguing materials, most of them in foreign languages;
   • Lateness in cataloguing e-books due to poor resources in TAS (ex: lack of budget to buy MARC records; ex: 100 titles bought, not able to access them in IRIS)
   • Tools needed for teaching faculty tenure and promotion (ex: Scopus vs. Web of Science);
   • Databases approved by Collection Development Council to which we couldn’t subscribe due to lack of budget;
   • A possibility of reducing the simultaneous users in databases in order to lower costs?

   Some of the recommendations to MG and BS were:

   • Create a categorized list of needed resources in order for MG to bring these issues to Vice President Furmanski, as well as RUL Faculty Advisory Committee.
   • Create a list of needed resources by new departments such as the Stem Cell Research Institute needs for same purpose;
   • Create a list of cataloguing special needs such as MARC records. MG thinks this should be a priority;
   • Create a list of special needs for undergraduates;
   • Evaluate the Expenditures Statistics vs. the Budget Statistics of AUL. What % of expenditures is coming from other regular budget?
   • Compare our collection and budget with other peer institutions. Cabinet will be discussing this issue soon. Who are RUL peer institutions?
   • Moving externally, usually to departments with the message. Usually departments are heard in the Office of the Vice President Furmanski.
   • MG also informed of the Capital campaign initiative, the NH challenge grant in Humanities and Social Sciences and the NJ knowledge Initiative in order to
   • Increase the collections endowments.

   General recommendations/ideas/concerns:

   • Do we need to change fund code structure?
   • It was suggested to include CDC in the lists compilation, in order to give Newark and Camden the opportunity to submit their lists.

6. NBCG Elections. Some NBCG will be vacant and elections will be in process: Chair for the NBCG Group, and Chairs for the following subgroups: Reference, Social Sciences and Sciences. A clarification was made as per the Chair for the Humanities Subgroup. This particular election will take place in one more year. KM will be sending (through Charlene) the voting ballots during April.

7. Updated on Projects: A report was given for the Selector Took Kit (Mullen) and the Harvesting Faculty Data (Denda) projects.

8. Announcements:

   The search for East Asia Librarians and the Social Sciences Data Librarian is in process. The search for the Humanities Librarian concluded. We are waiting for an offer to the candidate chosen.

   Connie Wu: Confucius Institute at Rutgers: The institutes are established by the government of China and are meant to support the expansion of Chinese language and culture abroad. The Institute in Rutgers will be launch soon.

   Travel Funds for ALA report by Marty Kesselman.

   The Labor Library received the John Sessions Memorial Award.

   The Music Department went through the Re-accreditation process, with very positive remarks to the library.

   The Pharmacy department re-accreditation is taken place this spring.

Adjournment at 11:30 a.m.