Present: Kevin Mulcahy (Chair), Linda Langschied (Recorder), Rebecca Gardner, Mary Fetzer, Howard Dess, Trivini Kuchi, Stephanie Bartz, Farideh Tehrani, Patricia Libutti, Karen Hartman, Jeris Cassel, Penny Page, Jackie Mardikian, Sara Harrington, Karen Wenk, Lourdes Vazquez, Connie Wu, Ron Jantz

1. Approval of the Agenda.
2. Approval of the Minutes from May 16 NBLF meeting. Decision: Recorder (Libutti) will incorporate changes e-mailed to her in previous days and resend. Approval will take place at next NBLF meeting.
3. Interim Director's Report - Tehrani.
1. Wireless project for library buildings. Tehrani reported that designated buildings will be wireless-ready by fall semester. Project initiated via VP Salapatas' office; NB ISSG (Myoung Wilson, Chair) produced plan. Areas with wireless coverage will be: Alexander - graduate and u-grad reading rooms; reference, periodicals reading area, atrium, Scholarly Communication Center. LSM - all three floors ideally; possibly only 2 possible with current budget. Kilmer - Main floor. SERC and CHANG work begins 2nd week of July.

2. Request from Ron Becker re storage in Annex for Edison Papers Project materials. RU History Dept. requests space for storage of 117 containers in the Annex for at least 2 years during their building renovation. While sympathetic, the NB Faculty voted not to support this request because 1. space is already a problem in Annex for our own collections and 2. the Edison collection would be in "constant use" - and Annex staff would be tremendously overburdened trying to support the shipping/returning demands of the department. Libutti shared her experience in trying to process 50 boxes of gift materials in the Annex - it cannot be handled adequately there and she is under pressure to move her materials out as quickly as possible.

3. Kick-off meeting for Art Library renovation - July 10. Internal space is being renovated. Committee: F. Puniello, F. Tehrani, J. Consoli, S. Harrington, and representatives from RU Facilities.

4. Merger of Collection/Access Services. Tehrani presented a detailed chart that documents the organization of the merged departments. The reorganization was devised to both reduce redundancy of two large departments, and close service/work gaps in instances where each department perceived the other as responsible. Tehrani will manage the merged department, with 2 assistant heads (Gracemary Smulewits for Collections and Matthew Sheehy for Access), and one proposed Preservation/Collection Mangagement Librarian IV (reports directly to the Director of NBL and works closely with the Head of Access/Collection Services. A question arose regarding the role of the "Functional Team" members, and the reporting structure. Tehrani explaned that each individual reports officially to their unit supervisor, not to a functional team coordinator. Membership on functional teams may change, and the coordinator is elected, while the Unit Supervisor's position in relationship to the team member is formal and official. The faculty endorsed the proposed reorganization. Tehrani will give periodic reviews and updates at future NBLF meetings.

5. A replacement for Jazmine Faherty has been hired (start date July 1) to provide administrative support at Kilmer Library and LSM.


4. Faculty Chair's Report - Mulcahy. Year's highlights/activities included:
1. Open lines: Collections/preservation and SCC Project Manager position descriptions have been completed and are submitted to RUL Administration. Langschied added that the positions would be considered for filling only after the RU/RUL budget for next year is known, and that the Media is on hold pending an analysis of the collection/preservation needs.

2. Ryoko Toyama's retirement - providing NB faculty input to RUL Administration re qualities desirable in the new NB Library Director.

3. Coming year's challenges:
   1. Ongoing transition; budget cuts a large factor.

   2. Recruitment of library faculty in this environment. We need consider how we present ourselves, since we are attempting to recruit experienced and highly-qualified candidates to positions that may have smaller budgets than they are accustomed to. The current recruitment for a Music Librarian is a case in point. We will interview a candidate for this position July 10 and 11.

   3. Tenured faculty - 7 personnel actions this year. Untenured must be prepared to close ranks (e.g. in reference/instruction) as the tenured faculty work on this heavy load of 6 reappointments and 1 tenure action.

   4. NBL needs more involvement from faculty (particularly tenured) in faculty issues/governance. Of 5 elected positions this year, only 1 election was held as few would agree to stand for election. In the case of the Deputy Chair, Mulcahy was "drafted" immediately after serving as Faculty Chair. Those who have not held elected NBL positions in the past few years are encouraged to run for office next year.

   5. Meeting refreshments - Historically the NBL Chair has provided. Mulcahy urged that we revise the practice, suggesting a possible system: rotation among the tenured faculty.


5. Brief Reports …
1. Collection Development Group - Dess

   For FY 2002/'03 the overall RULS collections budget rose by by 11.3% over the preceding year, to $7.8 mill., but this number is inflated by carryovers from the preceding year and one time funding inputs, and does not represent a steady state, sustainable budget figure. A major portion of this increase was allocated for monograph purchases via the NB approval plan, firm monograph orders in individual selector accounts and standing orders: this was deliberately done in recognition of the lag in monograph purchases in the arts & humanities and social science dicsiplines over the past few years, and which was especially painful in 2002 due to the purchasing freeze that was imposed early in the year. Expenditures from individual selector accounts both for current periodicals and periodical packages dropped by 7.6% reflecting the ongoing shift from print to electronic access via Central, and the concomitant reallocation of funds from the selector accounts to Central (Central's share of the overall RULS budget grew by 36.5% this year). Finally, availability of non-state funds for collections dropped by almost 15% as compared with last year, reflecting lower donations overall and reduced earnings on endowed investment accounts.

   Next year's collections budget scenario looks very grim at present due to the fiscal crisis prevailing throughout the state of NJ as a whole.Bob Sewell has advised CDC to work on two contingency budget reduction plans that envision a worst case cut of as much as 27% and a smaller but still devastating cut of "only" 13% (we will not get firm budget numbers until later in the summer after the Legislature and Governor sign off on the overall state budget, which includes Rutgers). Expressing the 27% cut solely in terms of journal cancellations and reduction in monograph purchases, a budget reduction of this magnitude translates into a loss of approx. 10,300 mongraphs NOT purchased next year, and cancellation of some 2874 journals. These estimates are for purposes of illustration only, and do not reflect other alternatives such as cancellation of some major electronic packages such as Science Direct. This option is already a subject of negotiation with Elsevier. The fate of other electronic resources will be the subject of recommendations to be made by a working group comprised of the CDC Networked Resources Teams plus RGS. Finally, another working group consisting of RGS plus the NBCG Chairs of the Arts & Humanities and the Social Sciences subgroups will determine how the NB approval plan might be pared down to keep approval costs more in line with anticipated budget shortfall.

   Thanks to NBCG Chairs & selectors. Challenges: Reappraising division of funds among humanities/social sciences/sciences.

2. Information Services Group - Cassel (for M. Wilson). The year's activities included:
   1. Hiring temporary librarians to cover numerous personnel gaps

   2. Supervising a SCILS intern

   3. Developing "common criteria" for Pay-for-Performance evaluations of Unit Computing Specialists.

   4. Developing web-based reporting system for BI and Reference statistics. (Thanks were given to Stephanie Bartz.) Use will start July 1, 2003.

   5. Investigated cyber solutions for information services and instruction

   6. Expended money from an ACIC grant that upgraded reference desk PCs, and submitted a new grant.

   7. Developed priority zones for wireless service in NB libraries.

3. Scholarly Communication Center - Langschied. The SCC staff/librarians are embarked on developing the RUL digital library platform. The statewide NJ Digital Highway project has served as an impetus to push forward on this development in anticipation of a possible award in September from the Institute for Museum & Library Studies. The award notwithstanding, SCC will continue development of modules for RUL's DLI, and to make them public for testing and review as they are developed. Langschied demonstrated a prototype one such module - a "Federated Search" system that allows cross-repository searching of XML and Z39.50 databases. (http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/~triggs/YAZ/)


6. NBL Director Search Committee - Mulcahy. The search committee is:
   
   Ronald Becker, Head of Special Collections
   Prof. Rudolph Bell, FAS-NB History Dept.
   Jeanne Boyle, AUL for Public Services and Communications
   Kayo Denda, Womens' Studies Librarian
   Howard Dess, Physical Sciences Librarian
   Ann Montanaro, Head of Systems
   Kevin Mulcahy, Humanities Librarian
   Lynn Mullins, Director of Dana Library, Chair
   Prof. Kathleen Scott, FAS-NB, Biological Sciences
   Roger Smith, Access Services Supervisor
   Myoung Wilson, Social Sciences Librarian
   Sandy Troy, Personnel Officer, ex-officio
   
   
7. Announcements
   1. Mulcahy - New NBL Officers:
      1. Rebecca Gardner, Chair NBLF

      2. Kevin Mulcahy - Deputy Chair NBLF

      3. Myoung Chung Wilson - Chair ISSG

      4. Howard Dess - Chair, CDG (Jackie Mardikian - Sciences Team Leader; Mary Fetzer - Social Sciences/Humanities Team Leader)

   2. Fetzer - Annual Reports. Fetzer reminded everyone that annual reports certainly be solicited soon from Puniello/Tehrani, and will be critical to informing the new NB Director of activities, as well as in their use in FASIP this year.
   
   
8. Other - none
   
   
9. Adjournment - in time for lunch

L. Langschied 6/25