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Governance Minutes ArchiveJanuary 10, 1990
These minutes were approved as submitted at the February 7, 1990, ULC meeting. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY COMMITTEE MINUTES January 10, 1990 PRESENT: Sharon Brusic, GSA Arthur Keown, Business John Bowen, Veterinary Medicine J. Scott Poole, Architecture William Cox, (for M. Vorster) Jane Wentworth, Human Resources Norman Dodl, Education David West, Arts & Sciences J. C. Duke, Faculty Senate Roderick Young, Agr. & Life Paul Gherman, Library Science GUESTS: Carol Dallman, CSAC Frances Painter, Library Bela Foltin, Library Linda Richardson, Library ABSENT: Michael Kainer, SGA Michael C. Vorster, Engineering Provost's Representative MEETING SUMMARY: The meeting was called to order at 4:02 p.m. Minutes of the December 6, 1989, meeting were approved as submitted. The committee will continue to meet on the first Wednesday of each month at the same time. There was continued discussion on the issue of access vs. ownership, and discussion of library space needs was begun. OLD BUSINESS I. CONTINUED DISCUSSION OF ACCESS VS. OWNERSHIP N. Dodl: The committee should develop a procedure to bring this issue clearly before the committee members' faculty constituencies. What strategy would the committee recommend? P. Gherman: Dr. Heterick and Dr. Carlisle also believe this to be an important issue which needs to be understood by the university community. Perhaps this committee, or jointly with the Faculty Senate, could sponsor a symposium on the topic. A. Keown: I wonder why we discuss this, as it seems to be an issue that the library doesn't have control over. Outstanding new products are developed and it seems a foregone conclusion that they should be purchased. D. West: Some faculty with whom I've spoken aren't aware of what is happening, and they do need to be alerted to the trends that are emerging, even though we probably don't have much control. P. Gherman: Library staff are making decisions in this area. Every time the library spends money on "access" rather than ownership the decision is being made. When a CD-ROM product is bought which tells where information is, rather than providing the information, or the Center for Research Libraries is joined, access to information has been bought rather than ownship. Increasingly, a portion of the library budget is moving towards access and away from ownership. B. Foltin: The budget issue is forcing the staff to closely define the core of materials really needed "on board" as opposed to those only occasionally needed in order that collection development can proceed in a coordinated way. Traditionally, the library had to anticipate what might be needed in the future and buy materials accordingly. It is now necessary to reduce that "guessing" portion of library acquisition, and through access products perhaps share in coordinated collection development with other institutions. N. Dodl: Do committee members have any thoughts on what the committee should be doing or saying to colleagues. Has Faculty Senate talked about this. P. Gherman: I have spoken to Faculty Senate, and had some response. An additional issue is that not every faculty member or student has a PC on his/her desk, and if access increasingly means the necessity to have electronic devices available, then not every faculty member or student will have equal access to information. Not all of the information will be free, and faculty may have differing amounts to spend on information. Another issue pertains to CD-ROMS owned by departments? Should they be centrally cataloged so that everyone has access to them? There will be many equity governance issues about access to information. Libraries may be thrown into the role of gatekeeper to information rather than provider of information. Libraries will need sound policies to guide them in that role. At the last meeting the committee talked about scholarly journal publishing reverting to the universities, rather than the for-profit publishing industry taking what scholars produce and then selling it back to them. What if universities were to assert that everything written by faculty is not for individuals to copyright, but belongs to the university? The university would then assume all negotiations with publishers, and would make the decisions about publishing electronically or traditionally. J. Duke: If editorial boards examine manuscripts electronically, much as they review hard copy, and then create a file of the reviewed manuscript, it could be shipped electronically. The editorial board could ship the reviewed document only to subscribers. In some technical fields the advertisements in journals are also important information. Advertisements could be segmented in electronic files to be sent with every article accessed. The operation could probably be subsidized based on the charges to advertisers. Illustrations are a more complicated issue, but in the near future that will probably be solved. P. Gherman: Senator Gore is sponsoring a bill to build a national telecommunications highway for higher education, called NREN (National Research in Education Network). It would allow communication with all higher education for free or at very low cost. This has strong support on both sides of the House and it is expected to pass. It would eliminate the problem of telecommunications costs. D. West: This is just the sort of thing that faculty should be apprised of. Most faculty like to browse journals, not just to look at tables of contents for specific articles, but to see what is going on in related fields as well. The contents of huge databases are too much sensory input to be coped with. Faculty may suddenly wake up one day to realize they can't browse a journal any longer. B. Foltin: There are other paradigms being developed, such as HyperText and HyperMedia, which do create an environment in which you can browse. J. Duke: We're talking about trying to develop policy to deal with information and access to it, but a good part of this discussion has been about influencing the development of access technology. The function of this committee is to concentrate on the issues of access; how to develop policies to facilitate access, or how to develop funding for access. Whether, or when, the technology happens we have to develop policies in advance to react to them. For example, we can develop a policy that generally addresses the issue of access to a department owned database or CD-ROM. One part of this issue is the technology and how fast it's developing. Should we try to influence that because of it's impact on budgetary aspects of the library operation? The other part is that if the issue is simply stripped down to economics we may lose some of the other things people are talking about here. We should focus on keeping abreast of the technology development and developing policy to that end. We should bring this before the faculty and try to learn if other units in the university are bringing invited lecturers to campus to address this issue, etc. N. Dodl: The position of this committee is not one of trying to control this process, but to be concerned about direction, to communicate adequately in advance to our colleagues, getting their prospective, and bringing that information back to the library. We need to decide how the committee facilitates an ongoing discussion of a change that is obvious, but that nevertheless needs input from the university community. At the next meeting we will talk about strategies for bringing this more squarely before our colleagues. NEW BUSINESS I. MEETING TIMES FOR 2ND SEMESTER It was agreed that the committee would continue to meet on the first Wednesday of each month at 4:00 p.m. in the library Board Room. II. SPACE NEEDS OF THE LIBRARY N. Dodl: Space needs is a general category for discussion around which there were questions raised having to do with storage needs, growth in the library, and utilization of present space. J. Duke: The library is not in need of space at this moment in order to do its job. Discussions about space have centered on the future--if advance planning is not done, the library will not be able to overcome the problem, since the time frame for finding a solution is not short. There are those on campus who are in a crisis situation right now in regard to their space needs. When they read that something new has been added in the library they don't understand why the library talks about a space problem. We need to make clear to the community that the issue of space is being addressed here from a planning point of view. P. Gherman: You're right. We do not have a space crisis today. We do have a space problem in the near future, probably sooner than we can build space to deal with it. At the same time there are strategic opportunities to bring new services to the library that can't be passed up today just because there will be a space problem 3 or 4 years from now. Recently we've brought in the film collection and the consulting service for the computing center. Some of the more acute space needs that now exist in other units on campus would be solved for some time to come with additional square footage. The library's problem grows day-by-day with the addition of every new book and every new service. There will never be a time when it's possible to say that since the library is full no more books will be bought. An added problem is that as the library fills the labor costs of constantly shifting the collection escalate. N. Dodl: We have enjoined the issue of space as it relates to future need for more space. There is also the issue of utilization of existing space. We know that the state has said they will only consider requests for compact storage space. P. Gherman: In the university's formal capital plan the library is not mentioned for a decade. Dr. Carlisle has said he hopes to move the library forward in that priority. J. Bowen: When new books move in, aren't there an equal number of old books moving out to Cheds? B. Foltin: The problem exists at both ends. Cheds will be filled at the end of this summer. P. Gherman: Also, Cheds is rented and the rental option is up in a year. The rent will probably increase. A related problem is that the more that is sent to storage, the less faculty and students can browse. N. Dodl: Nothing suggests there is any potential in the next couple of decades for building more browsing space. The only building will be for storage. The planning enterprise seems to have certain fixed limitations. J. Duke: Then it is in that context that the committee needs to develop policy. Do we know when Newman Library will be filled? P. Gherman: In 1992 or 93. J. Duke: Then, if it will be ten years before there is more space for the library we need to change the slope so that it is not filled until ten years from now. N. Dodl: It would be useful to the committee if the Director could be talk about things the committee might do that would be helpful in the policy arena. P. Gherman: The library is going to appoint a group to study how the collection is used. This will tell us what part is heavily used and cannot be moved to storage, and what part can, so that decisions are made in an orderly fashion. REPORTS I. LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENTS (P. Gherman): It has been almost five years since the library developed its Strategic Plan. It is time to begin another intensive planning effort. This planning effort will be done so that there is significant faculty input from the beginning of the process. It will begin within a month or two, and hopefully finish in the fall. The library would like to have active participation from the University Library Committee. So far the budget situation has not impacted the library, but it is going to be a difficult biennium and it is unlikely the library will remain unscathed. Budget cuts for next year would almost certainly mean serials cancellations; the monograph budget cannot be cut again. The meeting was adjourned at 5:02 p.m. The next meeting will be on February 7, 1990.
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