Minutes of November 21, 2008 Meeting

Present:

Cassel; Denda; fetzer; R. Gardner; Glynn; Harrington; Hartman; Hoffman; Izbicki (recorder); Kuchi; Lo; Mardikian; Mulcahy (chair); Mullen; Niessen; Schulman; Sewell; Smulewitz; Wilson; Womack; Yang

1. Agenda was approved as distributed

2. Minutes of the July 18 and September 19 meetings were approved as distributed

3. Report of the chair (Mulcahy)

• Approval plan - spending with YBP is slightly up from last year - there is room for detailed analysis of coverage of subject areas
• Allocations - allocation of non-state money is under way - money will be set aside again for purchase of electronic reference titles - funding of an e-book pilot project is being discussed - hold individual orders for e-books unless they are already submitted via Gobi

4. Library Resources Council (Fetzer)

• A representative of the User Services Council will be added to the E-Books Task Force
• The Cancellations project is complete. We may not have to give back collections money this year, but we will have to give it back next year. The money that was to be given back could be used to pre-pay for next fiscal year, including paying invoices for multi-year purchases due next year; buy back files; buy e-books; buttress funding of the approval plan.
• NJKI picked up Business Source Premier after we had paid. EBSCO is offering an additional year of coverage if NJKI does not pick up the database next year - but not a refund.
• Judy Gardner reported on Interlibrary Loan and document delivery at the most recent meeting of the LRC. The data will be on the Sakai site. A discussion of the benefits of belonging to the Center for research Library followed. CRL does cooperative digitization, as well as accepting deposits and loaning.
• RU Core also was discussed at the most recent meeting.
• E-Books will be discussed at the next meeting. There also will be demonstrations to Serials Solution and Counter.

5. Distributed Technical Services (Smulewitz)

• A report on the cancellations project is being prepared. It includes changes to 1228 titles, free up ca. $234,000. New Brunswick retained more titles than Newark or Camden, serving as the Rutgers primary collector but paying for the subscriptions. There also will be impacts on receiving, binding and reshelving.
• A pilot project for tracking print reshelving will be done at Alex using bard codes tracked in SIRI.
• The consolidation of print journal holdings at a single site for each title needs discussion. Would this include Camden and Newark? What would be the impact on system-wide document delivery? Would this include print indexes? Would we discard duplicates?

6. Collection Management Projects Update

• Alexander (Smulewitz and Mulcahy) - reference weeding is undertaken. The first stage will focus on printed dictionary catalogs. There is room for these at the Annex. National Union Catalog pre-1956 is excluded from this move. Second stage will be print indexes superseded by online versions. A third stage will be weeding of the subject reference collections by the subject librarians. Criteria employed might include age, subject and condition.
• Alexander Stacks also are tight. Subject librarians might remove directories and superfluous duplicate volumes. Non-Alexander subject librarians can participate in both reference and stacks projects as appropriate.
• The Alexander reference room might be used in part to create student space and even a café. The reference desk is likely to be downsized and made more modular.
• Business Relocation Project (Womack) - Business titles from Alexander Stacks in the H class will be reviewed. Those of historical value might be retained. Others, with more practical value might be moved to Kilmer. Duplicates and textbooks might be weeded. Denda recommended adding Business titles at Douglass to this review.
• Art (Harrington) - Stacks space is tight, and a review is under way. Last copies in the N class at all locations are included in the review.
• Music and Douglass (Izbicki) - the group approved a recommendation that a task force review the space at Douglass. Among the issues to be addressed are integration of Media facilities, including the Music media facility. Also to be considered are the print Music collections that need to be near the media facility, the location of reference service and the weeding of the Douglass stacks. Sloan will chair a group of approximately 6 persons, including Denda, Glynn, J. Gardner and Izbicki.
• Kilmer (Cassel) - The reference collection is being reduced. Microforms also are being reviewed. Some items will be discarded. Finding a good copy of a retained item is among the criteria being employed.
• Math Library (Lo) - The journals have been weeded, especially vs. JSTOR. Pre-1985 volumes are particularly being reviewed. Books will be reviewed. Kilmer can remove titles that duplicate those retained at Math.
• Government Documents (Fetzer) - Access to Alex documents is being improved by using records for Gov Pubs in IRIS but not in Alexander.

7. Living in Hard Times

An intensive discussion ensued. Issues addressed included the value of ownership instead of access, the role of the Rutgers Libraries as research libraries., lost faculty lines, alternative hiring strategies (such as cluster hires) and new lines specified in the AAUP contract. Much of the discussion turned on how to justify being a research library in the Internet age.

8. Announcements

• PsychInfo will have an additional Search screen, Multi-field.
• The Networked Resources team Leaders are drafting a letter to the subject librarians about prioritization of the databases listed in Drupal as primary, secondary or tertiary for a field.
• There will be a forum on scholarly communication in the spring of 2009.

After adjournment, subject librarians met with their team leaders to discuss budgets.