VIVA Publicity, Kathy Perry, VIVA's First Year/title> </head> <body> <h1>VIVA Outreach</h1> <h3>Publicity & Promotional Materials</h3> <p><font size="2">Perry, Katherine A. "VIVA's First Year." <br> in <i>Virginia Librarian</i> 41(4) (Oct.-Dec. 1995): 14-16.</font></p> <p><font size="2">Kathy Perry is VIVA project director. Copyright Virginia Library Association. Reprinted with permission.</font></p> <p><b>Note: </b>This HTML file was transcribed from the original paper format.</p> <hr> <p ALIGN="CENTER">VIVA’s First Year</p> </b> <p ALIGN="CENTER">By Katherine A. Perry</p> <p>VIVA (the Virtual Library of Virginia) is the consortium of libraries from all the publicly supported colleges and universities of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Twenty-eight private institutions participate where possible. VIVA’s funding is primarily from the Virginia General Assembly’s appropriation of $5.2 million for the 1994-96 biennium. This funding supports the two major goals in approximately equal measure: to enhance interlibrary loan functions throughout the Commonwealth ($2,710,773) and to support resource sharing, including shared electronic collections ($2,527,448).</p> <b> <p>Accomplishments</p> </b> <p>VIVA accomplished a great deal during this past year. These are just the highlights.</p> <p>The Electronic Collections Committee (ECC) had the immense task of allocating $500,000 during this fiscal year. They determined selection criteria; developed a list of candidate resources; researched, negotiated, and developed the appropriate procurement vehicle for each; and traced each along the procurement process. The ECC procured the following VIVA resources: FirstSearch, Open Text search software, Encyclopedia Britannica, and three Chadwyck-Healey full-text databases (English Poetry, African-American Poetry, and English Verse Drama). The ILL Enhancements Committee (ILL) prepared the Ariel software order (software for both send-and-receive and print-only for transmitting articles over the Internet to be printed at other participating ARIEL sites). Working with the Technical Issues Committee, ILL developed the hardware specifications for the Ariel Workstation Equipment Trust Fund (ETF) orders, and developed Document Delivery Protocols for Ariel, purchased fiche-to-fiche copiers for 12 VIVA institutions, and began planning for the summer 1995 ILL Regional Workshops.</p> <p>The Special Collections Committee (SCC) is developing a structure to present uniformly coded VIVA finding aids via the World Wide Web.</p> <p>The Technical Issues Committee (TIC) convened the Z39.50 Vendors’ Fair in November 1994 and followed up with a detailed analysis of each of the Z39.50 applications. They developed the VIVA web site; provided technical assistance, both to the other VIVA committees and to individual VIVA libraries throughout the Commonwealth; and conducted an equipment survey of VIVA institutions.</p> <p>The User Services Committee (USC) developed the User Services Bibliography and convened the User Services Regional Meetings in April 1995 for training on FirstSearch and for giving an overview of the VIVA project to all libraries.</p> <p>Not to be overlooked, all of the VIVA libraries and librarians accomplished a great deal during this first year of VIVA’s operation. Their adaptation to new tasks, new equipment, new technologies, new databases, and, in many cases, additional committee assignments and hours of travel and meetings is to be commended. This is especially noteworthy during these years when the Commonwealth’s library budgets and staff members are stretched thin.</p> <b> <p>Budget</p> </b> <p>The General Assembly appropriation was allocated to VIVA in several different segments: the state’s Equipment Trust Fund (ETF), individual libraries budgets, and to SCHEV (State Council of Higher Education in Virginia). In many cases, it was helpful for the library directors to know what their ETF allocations were and for the project to monitor the spending of those funds. VIVA has prepared a proposal for the 1996-98 biennium, which incorporates lessons learned during the first year and will continue the financial advantages of VIVA for the Commonwealth. The private institutions participating in the VIVA project have also determined that they need to secure some outside funding to assist them in their full participation in the VIVA project and to help them take advantage of these consortial prices.</p> <p>One significant mandate built into the project was that VIVA should not develop a central bureaucracy. Funded staff support is relatively minor; the project only funds staffing for one Interlibrary Loan staff member at each of the doctoral institutions. All other people involved in the VIVA project (committee members--both public and private, their library staff members, and the VIVA project coordinator) contribute their time to the project, courtesy of their home institutions.</p> <p>While the VIVA project has adhered to this principle, several institutions are supporting the project with significant contributions of time and resources. For the future, there is a need to provide some resources for the central clerical wages staff (student wages for VIVA clerical functions are currently supported by the George Mason University Fenwick Library administration). As well, several committees are considering other forms of assistance for their future committee work.</p> <b> <p>Organization</p> </b> <p>VIVA carefully established the committees, balancing membership to include doctoral institutions, comprehensive universities, two-year schools, and private institutions. VIVA now has Steering, Electronic Collections, ILL Enhancements, Special Collections (formerly a subcommittee of the ECC), Technical Issues, and User Services committees. Each committee has at least one member of the Steering Committee on it, usually serving as Chairperson.</p> <p>Whether or not there is a law in physics stating that "committees will expand," VIVA committees have, in fact, been expanded over the course of this year to include additional representation for specific groups. Over the course of this first year, the Steering Committee increased representation by one comprehensive school and ex-officio representation by the Chair of the SCHEV Library Advisory Council. The Electronic Collections Committee will increase in size, in part to be able to take on a broadened responsibility of cooperative collection development. The Special Collections Committee will include representation from the Library of Virginia and a Steering Committee member. The Technical Issues began with one representative from each of the types of library systems running in the Commonwealth and increased membership to include community college representation and all of the doctoral institutions that will serve as resource centers. The User Services Committee will increase in size to include representation by a government documents librarian.</p> <b> <p>Technological Surprises</p> </b> <p>The major surprise for the first year was the relative lack of progress by vendors on meeting the Z39.50 standard. VIVA convened the "Z39.50 Vendors’ Fair" in November 1994 and followed up with in-depth technical analysis of each of the systems, only to reveal that the systems were not yet fully developed. And, unfortunately, we are still unable to link all of the academic catalogs throughout the state.</p> <p>The second surprise to all of us is to see the major changes brought about by the growth of the World Wide Web. When the Virginia Virtual Library proposal was first written, few people had heard of the Web, few libraries had Web pages, and few systems librarians imagined the major role that we now believe the Web will play in providing a standard interface for the VIVA products.</p> <p>The major lesson learned from this is that VIVA must strive to remain technologically flexible. Our goal is to be able to exploit fast-moving technology to the benefit of all VIVA members.</p> <p>This is especially important because VIVA must meet the needs of a wide variety of libraries (ranging in size from small two-year schools to very large doctoral institutions), with a very wide range of hardware options, six major library OPACs, different levels of campus infrastructures, and so on.</p> <b> <p>Role of Private Institutions</p> </b> <p>Although VIVA is funded with public funds and the resources are largely designated to support the publicly funded academic institutions, 28 private colleges and universities are part of the VIVA project and all committees include private school representation. Negotiations for purchases included consideration of the private institutions in what has turned out to be mutually beneficial. For example, prices for the Ariel software were reduced in large measure because we were able to present a larger combined order (albeit with separate invoices) for both the private schools and the publicly funded academic institutions.</p> <b> <p>Communication</p> </b> <p>VIVA members dedicate a great deal of time to communications via meetings, email, regional meetings, and speeches. Most of the VIVA committees met on monthly schedules during the first year. This represents a tremendous investment of staff time but was deemed essential during the start-up period. In addition to committee meetings, which are open to all VIVA participants, VIVA sponsored the first regional meetings in April of 1995. The unforeseen benefits of these meetings were many, including the value of having many of the library professionals (beyond the directors) increase their breadth of vision within our own state and, in the case of the regional meetings and speeches before library professionals and others, there has been significant recognition for VIVA’s impressive scope of accomplishments.</p> <p>One of VIVA’s first accomplishments was the establishment of the VIVA listserv, used for all official announcements (e.g. all committee meeting announcements and minutes, all completed procurements, budget information) as well as conversations about technical issues and procurements under consideration. All decisions about procurements are always available and open on the VIVA listserv and the dialog has proven to be very useful in the decision-making process.</p> <p>If you are not already on the listserv, send email to: <a HREF="mailto:listserv@borg.lib.vt.edu"><font SIZE="2">listserv@borg.lib.vt.edu</font></a> with the following message: subscribe VA-VIRTUA-L Your Name. Leave the subject area blank. You should get a confirmation from the listserv that you have been added to the list.</p> <p>Overall, the VIVA listserv has been a very successful means of communication for the VIVA members, but there are two limitations VIVA members must keep in mind. One is that the VIVA listserv, by our design, is an open and unmoderated list, and we must therefore avoid including proprietary or confidential information on it. The other is that until all VIVA schools are fully networked, there are some people and some locations without access to the listserv. (In many instances, official communication has had to include paper copies to all of the libraries.)</p> <p>It became clear early on that each of the committees would need to know the appropriate contact in their respective areas. A Contacts Directory has been prepared for all of the VIVA participants (both public and private schools) for the Director, collection department, interlibrary loan, serials/union list, special collections, technical issues, and user services areas. This directory is available through the VIVA Web Page and is searchable. Updates are made as often as necessary. The VIVA World Wide Web site (http://new.vivalib.org/) provides general information about VIVA and a standard interface to VIVA products and services.</p> <p>VIVA will continue to strive to provide an open forum for discussion on VIVA issues and procurements. The listserv is open to everyone and the VIVA web page provides access to general information and services. All meetings are open to VIVA members. Comments may be directed to the VIVA Project Director (email: kperry@fen1.gmu.edu</font> or Voice: 703/993-4652) or to any VIVA committee member.</p> </body> </html>