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Governance Minutes ArchiveDecember 5, 1990
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY COMMITTEE MINUTES December 5, 1990 PRESENT: Bill Cox, for Engineering Carl Pfeiffer, for Vet Med Norman Dodl, Education J. Scott Poole, Architecture Edward Fox, Arts & Sciences J. D. Stahl, Faculty Senate Paul Gherman, Library Karen Watson, GSA Kara Goldberg, SGA Rod Young, Ag. & Life Sciences Ken McCleary, Human Resources GUESTS: Frances Painter, Library Paul Metz, Library ABSENT: John Bowen, Vet Med Arthur Keown, Business Carol Burch-Brown, Provost's Office Michael Vorster, Engineering Holly Ferguson, CSAC MEETING SUMMARY: The meeting was called to order at 4:00 p.m., and the minutes of the November meeting were approved as submitted. There was an initial discussion of issues and goals for Information Systems 1991-96. Members were asked to bring to the next meeting their comments and ideas for further discussion. E. Fox, Arts & Sciences, gave a presentation about projects on which he is working that have applications for the library. REPORTS: LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENTS (P. Gherman): I. P. Gherman distributed a chart detailing the new library organization, effective January 1. The new organization is in response to the elimination of an Assistant Director position--the second key administrative position the library has eliminated because of budget cuts. The duties previously assigned to the position of Assistant Director for Public Services and Collection Development are now distributed as follows: F. Painter will assume responsibility for administration of public services as Assistant Director for Personnel and Public Services, and P. Metz, Principal Bibliographer, will assume budgetary and policy responsibility for collection development. P. Gherman will assume direct responsibility for the budget and supervision of the business and support services offices of the library, formerly administered by F. Painter. II. Susan Jurow, Director of the Office of Management Studies of the Association of Research Libraries, will return to campus on January 24 and 25, 1991. She will conduct a series of focus group sessions on issues identified during her first campus meetings in September. At the January meeting of ULC it should be decided what further involvement the committee will have with her. III. The January ULC meeting was originally scheduled for the first Wednesday, January 2, 1991. However, the library will be closed that day for replacement of the library's main electrical power supply switch. N. Dodl directed that the committee hold the meeting on the following Wednesday, January 9, 1991. NEW BUSINESS: I. INFORMATION SYSTEMS ISSUES AND GOALS FOR 1991-96 (N. Dodl): N. Dodl distributed a document entitled Information Systems in 1996: A Vision, that contained revisions he had made (see attached). The genesis of the document was a discussion held during a meeting of the Chairpersons of the University Library Committee, the Communications Committee, the Computer Committee, and of the Directors of those units. The document presents issues which the group wishes to place before these committees for discussion. E. Fox had earlier received a copy of the document handed out by N. Dodl (without the Dodl revisions) from M. Williams, Director of the Computing Center. M. Williams invited him to attend a meeting of the Computer Committee and asked him to prepare comments on the document for the meeting. He distributed to ULC members copies of the statement he prepared in response to that request (see attached). The idea is to development a plan representing the views of all groups on campus who are concerned with information access, and the way in which that access is to be planned for and supported by the university over the next five years. The document contains statements developed by the original group, plus several statements added by N. Dodl in his revision, and was presented as a starting point for discussion. E. Fox: My prepared statement of comments on this document are addressed to the general issue, therefore some comments are relevant to communications and computing issues, not necessarily the library. My view is that the discussion should start with deciding where we should be in five years, not with how much it is going to cost. N. Dodl: I think that point is well taken. Ultimately, the questions of finance will need to be addressed. In the past we've just expected that there would be the necessary funding appropriations to cover essential services and changes. P. Gherman: In the Fox document, what is meant by the statement that library services to help researchers find the right information should be the library's core responsibility, rather than the focus on collection development. E. Fox responded that he was referring to the process of finding the right information. P. Gherman: What is the larger role we should be playing? E. Fox: The library should play a larger supporting role in helping the student or researcher with mechanical and staff support in the intellectual and conceptual process. It is my belief that students should be in a mode of discovering in the learning process. Also we are all at fault for not remedying the situation when a researcher is afraid of doing an online search of the literature-- because he doesn't know how--and as a result writes a proposal for useless or frivolous research. P. Gherman: Does this mean that the library staff should be personally involved in the research--do more "hand- holding"--to find the right information? E. Fox responded that there should be more encouragement to students to use library resources and to have electronic access in lieu of that. P. Metz: This also is a variation on the access/ownership theme. People think there is a great deal more electronic information available than there actually is. But if you are looking toward the mid-90s then what we own may be less germane that what we are able to get at. Carl Pfeiffer: The Fox document, under the heading of motivation for faculty, speaks of university rewards for use of electronic format for publication. Yet the individual faculty member is still responsible not only to the university, but to the national and international community of the discipline in which he works. Most do not yet use an electronic format for publication, and the faculty member is obligated to use conventional publication methods. E. Fox: I think we need to focus on where we are going and this document is looking five years ahead. There will be many transition problems to be worked out. P. Gherman: Some of the questions raised in the vision document are central to what we are going to do with Susan Jurow as we development the library's new strategic plan. For instance, the question of whether we should have decreasing access to physical information while increasing our access to electronic information is one of the major issues the library will face in the next five years. K. McCleary: The questions raised in the document don't seem to me to be debateable issues. For instance should all faculty have computer terminals at their desks. I thought they already did. E. Fox: At this point about 2/3 of them do. N. Dodl: I was also surprised by the question of whether all staff members should have access to the networks at their work places--I don't know how a staff member at this university could function without such access. That seems to me to be a non-issue. K. McCleary: We have an electronic journal in my field, published at this university. I reviewed an article electronically, sent it back, and shortly thereafter, it was available. The time-saving and efficiency are unbelievable. N. Dodl ended the discussion stating that the purpose of the agenda item was to get the discussion started. ULC members were asked to talk to their colleagues and solicit ideas and, if possible, prepare written comments by the next meeting when the discussion would continue. II. PROJECTS WITH LIBRARY APPLICATIONS (E. Fox): E. Fox distributed handouts to accompany his presentation. The first paper was on research and development in library automation and concerned projects E. Fox is conducting in collaboration with library staff. The first project, in collaboration with P. Gherman, is the Virginia Disc Series of CD-ROMS, produced with funding from Numbus, SCHEV, and CIT. Copies of VAD1 and VAD2 are available in the library. The second project, in collaboration with Linda Wilson, is REVTOLC: Retrieval Experiment Virginia Tech Online Catalog. The purpose of this study was to compare advanced retrieval methods with a large collection. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), and CLR (Council in Library Resources). The second handout contained comments about library catalog retrieval. The comments were intended to stimulate discussion, potentially pointing out that there are improvements possible in the way access to catalog information is provided. The points covered in outline form in the paper were: 1) Campus bibliographic/text search capabilities 2) Problems with most current systems 3) Technological aids 4) Potential benefits at VPI&SU of an improved system 5) Possible capabilities at VPI&SU. The third handout was photocopied from the OCLC Annual Report and reports on research they funded that was carried out at VPI&SU in connection with library catalog access. E. Fox's presentation elaborated on these projects and included a slide presentation about the Virginia Disc Series and about a retrieval experiment based on data from the online catalog at the library. The meeting was adjourned at 5:05. The members were reminded that the next meeting would be held one week later than originally scheduled, on Wednesday, January 9.
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