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Governance Minutes ArchiveJanuary 9, 1991
These minutes were approved at the ULC meeting on February 6 with some editorial changes which have been incorporated in this version of the minutes. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY COMMITTEE MINUTES January 9, 1991 PRESENT: Bill Cox, for Engineering Arthur Keown, Business Norman Dodl, Education Ken McCleary, Human Resources Holly Ferguson, CSAC 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 GUESTS: Shirley Glazener, Library Paul Metz, Library Frances Painter, Library John Straw, Library ABSENT: John Bowen, Vet Med Michael Vorster, Engineering Carol Burch-Brown, Provost's Office MEETING SUMMARY: The meeting was called to order at 4:00 p.m., and the minutes of the December meeting were approved with one correction. Under New Business, Information Systems Issues... in the third paragraph the fifth word should be "develop" not "development." There was a discussion about Susan Jurow's visit to campus, and continuing discussion of issues and goals for Information Systems 1991-96. The committee agreed that the ULC meeting time continue to be the first Wednesday of each month at 4:00 pm in the Library Boardroom. The next meeting will be February 6. REPORTS LIBRARY ANNOUNCEMENTS (P. Gherman): There were no library announcements. OLD BUSINESS I. SUSAN JUROW'S CAMPUS VISIT (P. Gherman): Susan Jurow, Director of the Office of Management Studies of the Association of Research Libraries, will be on campus January 24 and 25. The schedule is not yet confirmed, but she will arrive the morning of the 24th and stay through the 25th. There may be a session scheduled for Thursday evening. The purpose of the return meeting is to hold focus group sessions on specific topics. It is desired that at least one of the sessions include faculty and students from around the university. The committee was asked to suggest topics that might be addressed at that meeting. The library has considered as possible topics 1) collection development: how to make decisions about what electronic information the library should buy, what portion of the library's expenditures should be for electronic information versus paper-based information, how should the library develop a policy statement in that area, 2) what expectations are the library's clientele going to have of the library five years from now: what price of services should the library plan for, how will anticipated changes in the university over the next five years affect the library, 3) staff development and retraining: what new expertise and ability will the staff need in five years. These ideas provide material for three major focus sessions, but during the two days of the Jurow visit there will be room for four or five sessions. E. Fox: Suggested that as a matter of procedure the sessions should be open, in particular that at least one member of the University Library Committee attend each session. Another focus group session might be devoted to the issue of library space. P. Gherman: The university administration is aware of the library's space problem and seems committed to finding a solution. Since the state has said that no further full- service library space will be constructed, it can be assumed that any solution will be with some kind of storage facility. However, a focus group could discuss how best to use any space that might become available in Newman Library after a storage solution is found and, more importantly, what materials should be stored and the implications of increased storage for the library's services. In response to E. Fox's first comment, the committee members are encouraged to attend as many meetings as possible, and to become as involved in the sessions as their schedules will permit. There will be a task force appointed to write the first draft of the strategic plan, and hopefully some committee members will be on the task force. The library plans to have the first draft ready for distribution sometime in April and the final version ready in August or September. N. Dodl: Perhaps the library could send sign-up checklists to the committee members as soon as the schedule for the focus sessions is confirmed and the members should plan to attend as many meetings as possible. II. INFORMATION SYSTEMS ISSUES AND GOALS FOR 1991-96 (N. Dodl): Committee members had been asked to bring to the meeting their own reactions, or the reactions of their colleagues, to the paper Information Systems in 1996: A Vision, which was first discussed at the last ULC meeting. E. Fox presented comments from the Ad Hoc Arts & Sciences Library Committee. A summary paper of his meeting with the committee was distributed. E. Fox: In looking to the future the A&S Library Committee wanted to preserve the browsing capability now present. They also felt it was very important that the community be educated to understand the economics and cost benefit tradeoff of new library approaches. They wanted to be sure that the ULC have a role to play in the library's planning process, and expressed the desire to be kept aware of the distribution of funds for library materials. The A&S Library Committee also expressed additional concerns: some frustration with VTLS and a desire for study of alternate systems; wanted S. Jurow to visit with other university groups while on campus; wanted ULC to be involved if there are cuts in the library's collections or services; wanted standing orders to be preserved, and wanted the library collection held sacred from the budget cutting process. K. McCleary: In speaking of the budget cutting process and possible reduction of serial titles--will there be any interaction with other state libraries to try and not duplicate cuts? P. Gherman: I met with the Directors from William & Mary, VCU, and UVa to review each school's proposed cuts so that inadvertently all schools don't cut the same titles. The collection development officers from each school will also be meeting. The coordinated effort also means that the state's libraries will go first to a sister institution for interlibrary loan, thus making better use of all the state's libraries. N. Dodl: I would like to see this kind of information shared with all the faculty in a timely manner. Faculty should be alerted to the positive things the library is doing. P. Metz: I am planning a letter to all faculty at the time the lists of potential cuts are circulated to all departments at the end of February. R. Young: The vision statement was discussed in a meeting of the College of Agriculture Library Committee. The potential exists for everyone at the university to have access to all of the computer operations on campus. One question raised is how this could be paid for without taking it off the top and reducing operating funds. It's nice to have but not if there is no money left to work with. Another point was the idea of having professors work in the electronic publishing format--can the university be convinced to accept this? At present the expectation is for publication in a "peer journal." N. Dodl: One idea is to put universities in at least a competitive position with commercial publishers by publishing scholarly research in electronic journals. There are copyright issues to be settled, and even the question of whether universities should be doing this. P. Gherman: The idea that universities take back ownership of what the faculty produce and find a way to distribute it is gaining momentum. The scholarly societies are beginning to look at this. I have talked to faculty groups here on campus and found overwhelming support for the idea of no longer giving away to commercial publishers the product of their work. It is in the faculty's best interest to see this new order evolve, and it is in their hands to do it. They sit on the review panels, and editorial boards, they are the members of scholarly societies and they are the ones who submit their articles to commercial journals and assign copyright to them. The faculty are the ones who control the process. N. Dodl: The University Computer Committee has had the Computer Center set up a listserve arrangement. There is an administrator for any given listserve group, and the group members are able to conduct an electronic dialogue. This is for internal group discussion, not for electronic publication. There is a group set up to deal primarily with the issues on this vision statement. We could do that for this committee. R. Young: Another question was whether student use of the network would overload the system. P. Gherman: M. Williams is working to create an anonymous access capability on the 3090, where students without an ID can dial in and look at various files and services. E. Fox: We don't seem to be near the point as yet where the system will be overloaded. "Junk" mail may become a problem. N. Dodl: In addition to whether we provide access universally, there are related issues. What resources should be available to students: e-mail, directory service, file service, library access, etc.? My feeling is that directory service and library access would be appropriate first steps, and ought to be available to students as soon as possible. I would be more reluctant to recommend e-mail as an open-ended device initially, since that might have the capacity to glut the system. E. Fox: The only way e-mail would work is if the single- system image project, which is already being tested, proceeds further. That involves students with PCs using them as a connection device which would not involve having a regular campus account or disc space on the system. It's a different concept than everyone having an ID. N. Dodl: If you took the current system and assumed that the entire student population had an ID on the system would that be feasible given the existing system? E. Fox: I doubt it. The other solution is more appropriate in our environment. P. Gherman: Many things available to faculty on Profs University Info could be made available to students with the development of the anonymous access system; accessing library hours, asking for interlibrary loan, asking for a book from Cheds, etc. Shortly the new books list will be available online to faculty. The library would like to experiment with scanning reserve lists and materials so that they may be read online. At present, copyright law prevents full-text articles being used, so the library wants to experiment using a professor's own material. Another application would be to place course syllabuses online. These are exciting prospects for students using the anonymous access. N. Dodl: The real benefit is for students to access all kinds of information in their rooms. This is a major issue. The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm. The next meeting will be on February 6, 1991.
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