From: Gay Dannelly <gnd+@osu.edu>
ALA/ALCTS/CMDS
Chief Collection Development Officers of
Large Research Libraries Discussion Group
Midwinter Meeting
February 15, 1997
Washington, D.C.
Minutes
Heike Kordish (N.Y. Public Library), Chair
Gay N. Dannelly (Ohio State) Secretary/Chair-Elect
1. Introductions and Announcements:
Agendas were distributed to both members and guests. The Joint Meeting
with the Academic Librarians Discussion Group will present a special
report from Don Simpson, Center for Research Libraries
2. Agenda change: Bob Sewell was not able to attend Midwinter. The Final
1996/97 Library Materials Budget Survey of the ACCTS/CMDS Chief Collection
Development Officers of Large Research Libraries was distributed to members
by e-mail on February 21 and a printed version was mailed on February
24, 1997.
3. Outsourcing and collection development :David Farrell
David Farrell reported on the experience that UC Berkeley has had with
outsourcing technical services that impact collection development. While
Berkeley outsources collection development to approval plans (as do many
other institutions) they are now doing more direct outsourcing of the
management of the approval plans. What is new is the outsourcing to
support cooperative arrangements. The digital age provides an opportunity
to share resources more easily and thus to also take advantage of shared
selection decisions. UCB does not specifically see this as Outsourcing but
rather as a means of sharing selectors as has been done in other
institutions.
UCB has used contractual arrangements to decrease the cost of acquiring
serials and monographs. This has released staff for reassignment.
Technical services staff in these activities has been decreased by 33% .
Greater use is being made of student staff assistants.
UCB Acquisitions has transferred major approval plans to blanket order
plans. The more than 20,000 volumes acquired last year in approvals are
now encompassed by blanket order plans, are nonreturnable, and are based
on streamlined profiles. They are received bar coded and with security
strips. This has improved UCB's discount slightly, but preparation costs
are approximately $1.50 per volume which is charged to the collections
budget.
Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 subscriptions has been placed with RoweCom,
the virtual subscription agency. UCB transmits orders to RoweCom. RoweCom
places the subscription electronically, transmits the order to the
publisher and the funds are electronically transferred upon confirmation of
subscription. UCB claims directly if the publisher is not RoweCom
compliant. RoweCom charges a flat $5.00 per title service charge, thus
saving an estimated 8--9% on the serials budget.
UCB is also experimenting with OCLC's Prompt Cat. The in process orders
are in the OCLC database, are upgraded as necessary on receipt of the item
and the bar code is entered. Costs are usually charged to the technical
services budget, but occasionally to the materials budget.
Staff reduction has largely been in Technical Services. Many of those
have been transferred into public services and collections. The impact of
these changes has resulted in consolidate liaison arrangement and
reorganized collections and services staffing.
Technical services has become very efficient and the changes have
stimulated computerization of operations. While there are significant
start up costs in time, the changes have resulted in the more rapid and
efficient delivery of resources. There have been slight savings to the
serials budget through the RoweCom operation, but with the costs for
monograph preparation, the total budget shift is a wash.
In the future, UCB plans to have monographs arriving shelf ready with
property stamp to ship directly to shelving locations. Serials can be
managed at receiving location, although there are questions of where such
activities should take place. To receive large numbers of materials in
locations requires more space for such activities.
Discussion of issues raised included the role of binding, which UCB still
does in house; the method of determining the "home" location of a selection
supplied automatically; the inclusion of call number and labels on received
materials and the impact on cataloging efforts. UCB has noted that at
least half the selectors in the Main Library have decided to no longer
review approval titles received, although this is not yet the norm for
everyone. Reports from other research libraries emphasized the needs for
coordinated change, emphasis on clients, and the diminution of micro
management for a more systemic approach to the provision of resources.
The expansion of such programs to foreign vendors was considered since
there could theoretically be significant savings. UCB noted however that
there are still major system incompatibilities and that is a significant
barrier at present.
4. Model licensing agreements: Ann Okerson
The Yale Library's development of the World Wide Web LIBLICENSE site
(http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense) was supported by the Council on
Library Resources and the Commission on Preservation & Access. It was
developed with the services of a seasoned contract attorney. The purpose
of the site is to inform and educate the library community about
electronic content licensing, to aggregate WWW resources related to
electronic content licensing, and to provide a site for non-library
participants in the information chain to learn about the licensing needs
of libraries.
Ann distributed and reviewed a handout which provided a fuller description
of the LIBLICENSE resource. One of the sections of the Web site
includes a collection of publishers' electronic content licenses,
including, for example, HighWire Press, Project Muse, Academic IDEAL,
JSTOR, and others. These are made available with the cooperation of the
publishers.
The original intention behind the LIBLICENSE project was to work toward a
model license for electronic resources. However, experience suggests that
the notion of a single kind of license language as applicable to many
providers and many institutions does not seem realistic. Some sections of
an electronic license could be standardized, but others become
problematic. For example, technology formats and distribution bases vary;
pricing models are very diverse; products (particularly large collections
delivered by "aggregators") are complex. That said, librarians are now
taking license language very seriously indeed and as a market, they are
speaking to vendors -- who tend in many cases to be responsive to their
customers.
Members of the audience expressed the concern that negotiating
sophistication may be found only in consortial negotiations, which
therefore achieve good terms; while single institutions may be at a
disadvantage in this kind of marketplace. Ann observed that individual
libraries with informed, aggressive librarians, are being successful in
the licensing arena.
Steve Bosch noted that although we are still in early days, the single
license per single product approach will strangle libraries, because the
time taken to negotiate each title or resource can be very lengthy and
therefore costly. Ann requested feedback and input from the audience to
improve and add to the LIBLICENSE site.
The accompanying discussion list, LIBICENSE-L has about 1400 subscribers
as of January 1997. To subscribe, send a message to:
listproc_at_pantheon.yale.edu
leave the subject line blank; and in the body of the message type:
subscribe liblicense-l FirstName LastName
5. National principles for licensing information (Brian Schottlander)
Five organizations have put together a shared working group on legal
capability:
AALL, ALA, ARL, MLA and SLA who have copyright interests. They have
jointly hired legal counsel to monitor developments and have extended their
interests to licensing. Using the University of California document and
other related documents, the group has created a document that comprises 3
sections: narrative preamble setting stage, core use rights (of which they
have identified 6 so far, including: licensee should assign to the
licensor no broader rights than those granted under intellectual property
laws; other strategic considerations: need to differentiate between
principals and negotiated strategies; define authorized users as broadly
as possible; terminology). When the 3rd draft is complete plans calls
for distribution of the draft for selective review (5 to 10 from each
constituent group); to reconvene in April to develop the next draft for
submission to counsel for clarification of legal language. Then the
working group will craft final draft for submission to SLC.
The SLC's hope and expectation is that it will be posted on the bulletin
board of every CDO in the country to assist in negotiation of licenses at
the local level. The document should provide principles to live by in
information resources license negotiation.
6. Consortia: Getting State Support (Gay N. Dannelly)
Illinois has a strong history of state support for libraries. This is
partially due to an overall commitment to resource sharing and allowing the
maximum number of users into libraries. Illinois has a federation of
libraries from K through the university plus public libraries. The state
has put a lot into the newly selected shared DRA system. State Library is
very big player in the development of cooperative efforts. Such support
helps the libraries to envision new collections and new management of
collections through resource sharing.
Virginia: State Council on Higher Education supported VIVA, the Virtual
Library of Virginia. Two million dollars of support this year and
continued next year to support the 39 higher education institutions.
Participating private schools have more limited access. However, the
support for the system came at the expense of ind individual budget
increases. VIVA is still adding databases. While the results are
impressive, it is not a case of research libraries getting more money,
per se.
Georgia: GALILEO, the shared state system is an example of how to use a
state lottery well! Galileo supports a statewide system of more than 100
electronic databases, facilitates ILL. Including technical schools and K-12
as well as higher education, the system obtained the funds through
working with Chancellor's Office. Lobbying occurred through this process,
beginning in 1989 with technology changes and the subsequent appointment
of a Vice Chancellor for Information Technology. New Chancellor looking for
things to do with the lottery funds and the Library Directors had a plan..
Ohio: OhioLINK is a shared system present in all state supported
institutions of higher education and funded through the State Legislature.
Private institutions have joined and pay to participate in specific
programs. Initiated by a planning process based on the avoidance of
construction of new libraries, resource sharing became the means to an end.
Providing more than 60 databases, electronic journals, other full text
resources and both monograph and serial article document delivery, OhioLINK
reflects the difference that external and effective funding can have in the
development of information delivery mechanisms.
LC Proof slips: Ross Atkinson
LC is considering eliminating LC proof slips. Cornell finds them vital for
access to books published by small or unusual publishers. Members reported
that the use of LC slips is decreasing. Bill Schenck has relayed the
concerns of the research library community to LC. Price of proof slips has
increased about 30%. Slips reflect non mainstream publishing. Are there
other sources that are used at other libraries?
Bill Schenck reported that Winston Tabb took action to retain proof slips.
He then asked the group of the lack of use was caused by:
LC's lack of information;
Are there problems in LC's receipt of info? UNC also uses all the
time.
Can't imagine surviing without them. About 25-33 percent of the membership
are still receiving and using them for mainstream publishing not reliably
covered by approval (using as a check up), gray literature and non
mainstream areas. Some institutions reported that funding is no longer
available to purchase such materials so the use of proof slips has
decreased.
8. Collection Management Issues (Lou Pitschmann):
Where are we going with our low use materials? A number of us are
experiencing larger and larger collections with lower use rates. In the
University of Wisconsin Madison, if a title is not in English and not
published in last 40 years, it is less likely to be checked out. UW is
devoting a large part of physical space to low use materials and is
running out of space in the main research library. How can we accommodate
growth. University administration has mandated no more on-site storage;
but the faculty want browsing capability. In the past we have not relied
on each other for print in the ways we now rely on cooperation for
electronic resources.
Further discussion :We assume projects such as the Farmington Plan did not
succeed due to a lack of need and no adequate delivery system. Can we
manage older materials in a cooperative manner. Several members
questioned the number of copies of low use materials that we need to
retain at a local or central location.
In an environment of rapid bibliographic access, through more efficient
physical, fax, or digital access, miniaturization may actually succeed.
Are there opportunities for cooperative management of collections now
available to us that were not previously possible?
For example, CRL originally was a Midwest storage facility. Their role
has expanded. University of Wisconsin is now looking at historical
collections and considering weeding of them. Now weeding multiple copies.
There is a need to demonstrate that UW is making best use of library space
and to show the University administration that there is no other viable
option. However, if funded for storage, what kind of thing should it be?
Redundant sites? Redundant copies? Is this an opportunity to establish a
new way of managing our collections?
Barbara Halperin asserted that we need to address this issue now. The
success of collection development has led to storage problems. Harvard has
been completing major reckon projects which have made formerly invisible
materials visible. This means that the storage selection process must be
changed for the future. A very detailed study was done by date of
publication, language, etc. of depository items. At 50 years, they have
found a sharp drop off in use. But prior to that date there doesn't seem
to be a clear change in impact. Harvard is now returning materials to on
site locations for titles recalled 3 times. Among the biggest issues, is
the local political situation.
Ross Atkinson reported that Cornell Trustees have ruled that once current
renovations are completed, no more storage will be built on site. In
January 1998, Cornell will begin to house 1 million volumes remotely.
Because many selectors will choose foreign language materials for remote
storage, the onsite collection will become increasingly monolingual with
the exception of the foreign language and literature collections. Ross
question whether technical capabilities have changed things? We are
seeing more pressure on the collection due to new access mechanisms through
electronic databases. Part of what we need to consider is the cost of
coordination between institutions and the selection for remote storage.
Because such coordination is often so labor intensive, requiring very
careful negotiations and guarantees, many of us apparently just view it as
cheaper to shelve an item in remote storage rather than try to set up some
cooperative arrangement with other institutions.
Ann Okerson reported that in the summer of 98, Yale will have 2.9 million
volumes in off site locations, including archival and ms. materials not on
site. Yale found that the cost of building a storage facility is about $3
million. Cost of selecting and loading that facility is about $8-9 mill.
Yale originally approached NYPL and Columbia about a joint site. The
real issues in the subsequent discussion were not access, but the questions
of who keeps ownership of single items, etc.
Tony Ferguson reported that Columbia is still in the planning stage with
NYPL and possibly with NYU. It is too early to know the answer, but the
advent of statewide catalogs and patron initiated borrowing will have a
large impact. Maybe librarians will be able to make those cooperative
storage decisions, but it will take a while for this kind of arrangement to
work out.
Connie McCarthy reported that Duke is planning a second storage facility
building on campus with idea that they will bring in the Triangle
partners. Results of recon projects have been very interesting, causing
increased circulation each year. She noted that technology advances are
helpful, but our print materials are only as good as our ability to deliver
them to our users.
Brian Schottlander reported that UCLA has been doing remote storage for so
long that it's second nature. Five campuses share the souther California
facility and by far the greatest bulk is UCLA. The have depository quotas
and invest the physical capital for transfer to remote storage. None of
the participants meet their quotas regularly, but one assistance is that
"withdrawal in lieu of deposit" counts on deposit quota. They are now
faced with the need for increased intellectual capital to process and to
speed up the physical capital. Circulation continues to be the most
defensible reason for selection but it is not easy to explain to the
public. It is far easier to explain selection by date to the public. But
no one likes the solution.
Deborah Jakubs, Program Officer with ARL stated that the objective of the
ARL global resources program is precisely to protect our collective ability
to provide access to such materials. It is a very difficult process to
engineer a cooperative scheme to rely on someone else for specific things
and it is also very difficult to defend to users. It requires a change in
perception and practice in library culture.
Diane Perushek reminded the meeting that the silent partners we are all
working with are those people/firms who are provide the information.
Their mechanisms and decisions will have impact on how we manage our
collections.
Dale Argueles noted that users are getting more accustomed to virtual
browsing. The question is are we making storage decisions collectively or
individually? What is the overlap? Is there redundancy in this storage
process?
11. Subsidized access to canceled journals: Richard Ring.
Richard Ring reported on the experience of the University of Kansas with
subsidized access to CARL UnCover. Two years ago KU began talking about
unmediated subsidized document delivery to faculty and graduate students.
KU blocks access to titles owned at KU. They have saved money (spending
less on document delivery than on the equivalent subscriptions) and expect
document delivery to increase. Data doesn't yet reflect canceled serials.
KU has taken the availability (article supply capability) into
consideration on cancellations and in fact haven't had much use of UnCover
for titles that are canceled. But use of UnCover seems to parallel ILL use
over last several years. By having availability of the document delivery
mechanisms KU has been able to manage the politics of cancellation better.
Such arrangements raise the much larger issues about what we are doing in
the library community in our growing reliance on document delivery systems.
Discussion followed on a number of issues associated with document
delivery: more advantage to some disciplines, impact on ILL service, impact
on libraries who regularly borrow from KU,
The meeting adjourned at 11:30 PM for a Joint Meeting with the Collection
Development Librarians of Academic Libraries Discussion Group.
Respectfully submitted,
Gay N. Dannelly
Secretary/Chair Elect
Received on Mon Jun 23 1997 - 18:50:21 EDT