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Virginia Tech
Governance Minutes ArchiveSeptember 8, 1988
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY COMMITTEE MINUTES 8 September 1988 PRESENT: John Bowen, Vet Medicine Nicolaus Tideman, Business Norman Dodl, Education Francis Ventre, Architecture Paul Gherman, Library Michael Vorster, Engineering Nancy Harris, SGA Peter Wallenstein, Arts & Sciences Lok Kok, Agr. & Life Science (for David West) GUESTS: Bela Foltin, Library Charles Litchfield, Library Shirley Glazener, Library Frances Painter, Library Phyllis Johnson, Library ABSENT: Eugene Carson, Provost's Off. Jane Wentworth, Human Resources Jack Duke, Faculty Senate GSA Representative The minutes of the last meeting were entered into the record. The committee acted on establishing the time and date for future meetings and on rules of procedure for the University Library Committee for the 1988/98 academic year. I. NEW BUSINESS 1. TIME OF MEETING (Committee): The University Library Committee agreed to meet in the Library Board Room at 4:00 P.M., on the second Thursday of each month during first semester of this academic year. The committee will meet at the same time for the first meeting after the beginning of second semester and, if necessary, agree to any changes at that time. 2. ASSISTANT CHAIRPERSON (Committee): It was moved and seconded that Frances Ventre (Architecture) would serve as the Assistant Chairperson, and he accepted. 3. PROCEDURES FOR THE 1988/89 ACADEMIC YEAR (Committee): Committee discussion resulted in the following decisions: a. Visitors: Persons wishing to attend the University Committee meeting as guests will obtain permission of the Chair before the meeting. Guests will be allowed to speak for three minutes when recognized by the Chair. Visitors to the meeting may not place items on the agenda, but their ULC college representative may do so on their behalf. b. Alternates: If a committee member must be absent the Chair should be notified of the identity of the alternate attending in his/her place. The alternate will vote for the absent member. c. Agenda: Agenda items should be submitted to the Chair, in writing if possible, by two weeks after the preceding meeting. In cases of emergency, exception to the rule will be made so that late items are considered. The secretary will mail the minutes of the last meeting and the agenda at least one week before the next meeting. d. Library Faculty Association President (requested by N. Dodl, Chair): The person holding the office of President of the Library Faculty Association will be listed with the Assistant Directors of the Library as a permanently invited guest to all meetings of the ULC, and to receive all mailings of minutes and agendas. 4. BUDGET (B. Foltin): a. Budget update: The budget situation is much improved, with the legislature having appropriated an additional amount for library materials for this biennium. The beginning materials budget for FY 1988/89 is $2,943,500, with an additional $400,000 added in the following year. The budget for monographic spending will increase from $594,000 last year to a beginning budget FY 88/89 of $877,000. The serials review project, in which all colleges were involved last year, is in the final stage. The list of serials titles designated by faculty members for cancellation is now being circulated through the department heads to all faculty, to check for cross disciplinary titles. Any cancellations then made will enable the library to order new subscriptions in the same academic areas from which cancellations were made. The deadline for the return of the lists is Sept. 23, and a report on the results will be given at a later ULC meeting. The library is still considering possible cancellations of some duplicate issues of serials. These would mainly be microform backups. Last year the library prepaid about $300,000 for periodicals. Reports of increases in foreign journal prices for the coming year are expected to average 7% for 1988/89, which is a smaller increase than originally projected. b. Long overdues: The library will run a program to identify long overdue items once a semester, rather than once a year. c. Survey of branches: A survey of the branch libraries was conducted at the end of last year. The results of this survey will be reported at a future meeting. d. Liaison guidelines: Based on a request from last year's committee, guidelines for library liaison representatives from the different departments, and for the subject area librarians were prepared and delivered to each department head on campus. A copy of the guidelines was distributed to the committee members. 5. LIBRARY NEWS: a. Recon Project (C. Litchfield): The Recon Project began work a month ago, with the hiring of 7 FTE staff. The project is working through the shelflist catalog of library holdings, beginning with A, and is now in the Cs. The entire project will take 2 years and, at completion, all materials that the library currently has cataloged will be in the VTLS online system. b. Conversion to the new 950 computer (S. Glazener): The library is in the process of bringing up new computer hardware and transferring the online catalog database to the new equipment. We are able to run the HP 3000/70 concurrently, while testing and setting up the 950, and anticipate very little interruption in access service. c. Library plans and future projects (P. Gherman): The projects listed below are in the planning or early discussion stage. Telefax: The state has allocated funding to have high level telefax machines in state libraries. SCHEV is purchasing the equipment, which is taking longer than anticipated. Therefore, the library has rented a machine to use in the interim. As soon as a telephone line has been installed it will be operational. It will be available to faculty and students at a charge yet to be determined. Document delivery: The library is considering document delivery on campus, i.e., delivery of journal articles and books to faculty offices. J. Littlefield, Marketing, is working with the library on a marketing questionnaire to determine interest in this service, and the price the departments might be willing to pay. Easy-Net: The Telebase Company of Pennsylvania markets Easy-Net, a program for accessing over 900 databases by translating their command language structure to a single command language to be used for searching those databases. The user may choose from four levels of difficulty for searching. A search would have a basic cost of about $7.00 at the lower level. Erv Blythe is interested in offering this service through the new telephone system. Again there are pricing and policy issues still to be determined. There are plans to have a pilot project later this fall, and there will probably be a joint CNS and Library Task Force to consider the policy issues. Mainframe databases: In the very early stages of discussion is the possibility of loading onto the mainframe high-use databases, such as ERIC. Mike Williams, Director of the Computing Center, estimates it will take $200,000 for the necessary hardware and software in addition to the annual subscription fee for the databases, which can be anywhere from $5,000 to $40,000 per year. Distance learning: The library is facing a new concern, which will soon need to be considered. The University's program of Distance Learning now offers courses at 24 sites across the state where the classes are received on television. By January there may be many more. For an example of the problem, there are 40 matriculated Tech graduate students in Abingdon taking courses, but with no access to library materials. Delivery of library services and the related costs of such services pose important academic and fiscal problems for the Library and the University. Some of the same issues were raised in the meetings of the Telecommunications Policy Group. F. Ventre (Architecture) will try to obtain information which can be shared with ULC. The meeting was adjourned at 5:05 P.M.
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