Collections Committee -- Minutes
March 26, 1999 -- 10:00 AM
Alderman Library, University of Virginia
Gene Damon, Presiding
Present: Doris Archer, Dave Beagle (RFP),Gene Damon, Jim Deffenbaugh, Sharon Gasser, Karen Hartman, Paul Metz, Chris Milson-Martula, Pamela Morgan, Iris Moubray (RFP), Susanna Pathak, Kathy Perry, Jim Self, Jacque Dessino (for Janice Wade), Ruth Stanton, John Tombarge, John Walsh
1. Announcements (Gene Damon)
Gene gave an overview of the vendor presentations from the recently completed ICOLC Meeting.
2. Additions to the agenda
Academic Press (Kathy Perry); High Wire (Jim Self)
3. Approval of minutes of the February 25th, 1999 meeting
Gene made two changes to the draft minutes. Minutes as amended were approved by consensus.
4. VIVA's Collections budget (Kathy Perry)
Currently there is a positive balance in the budget. There most likely will be additional funds available for collections from the administrative budget. This will be determined shortly.
STAT-USA came in at less than anticipated, due to a new model and pricing formula (based upon number of IP addresses and student FTE).
The estimate for the private institutions' use of FirstSearch during the first quarter has been changed.
5. Academic Press (Kathy Perry)
Two items were presented for discussion.
Estimate of the price increase for CY 2000.
Price quote for 19 new journals that Academic is adding to IDEAL
Currently our total commitment to Academic is based upon Virginia's 1994 subscriptions as a base), and the cost-sharing "split" is: 35% paid centrally by VIVA and 65% paid by individual institutions (actually each institution is billed by and pays to VIVA its assessment and VIVA pays the entire bill centrally). Academic will keep it's increase for CY 2000 to no more than 9%.
In order to maintain current dollar levels of assessment of members, the cost- sharing "split" would have to move to 40% VIVA and 60% institutions. (VIVA has already been moving in this direction since this cost-sharing model began two years ago with a 25% - 75% split).
The question was raised, concerning allocation of cost to members in whatever the formula split is, as to why the initial major subscribing institutions are still carrying the largest assessment burden. Should other schools be asked to share more of the cost proportionately? It would probably be best to look at this issue for the CY 2001 renewal..
Paul Metz suggested that irrespective of the above it might make sense to add 5% more to the VIVA-funded share each year so that the amount assessed institutions would remain basically stable.
Gene Damon proposed consideration of a 45% VIVA - 55% institutions split for the coming renewal. This would actually result in a small reduction in each member's assessment. Gene also raised the notion of the California model of determining a statewide core list of journals needed in full-text. There was some discussion of this idea.
Sharon Gasser informed the group that use stats by individual journal title are now being provided by Academic, and are on the web. However a journal by institution use matrix is not available.
There was discussion of the price quote from Academic for the addition of the 19 new journals (Livingston ). It was decided not to pursue these new journals at this time, based upon their specialized medical content and the fairly significant additional costs.
The Academic Press discussion ended with some statements of displeasure concerning the whole idea of purchasing electronic journals as packaged deals.
6. Business & Management Practices (John Tombarge)
The discussion of whether or not to block this recent addition to the FirstSearch database group was led by John Tombarge for the Business CCM, who had investigated database content. Their recommendation was to leave it active and the Collections Committee agreed by consensus.
7. Request for Proposal for A & I Databases
The request includes CINAHL, ERIC, MLA Bibliography, Psychological Abstracts, and Sociological Abstracts.
The RFP Committee briefed the other members of the Collections Committee on the progress and process of this undertaking. They presented a final draft version of the RFP document for the committee's consideration. After discussion it was agreed that the committee would be able to proceed with its rather ambitious schedule (see last meeting's minutes). All questions or inquiries dealing with the RFP should be referred to Iris Moubray at James Madison University.
8. Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) (Chris Milson-Martula)
An A & I index on the www with full-text of many non-main stream publications (working papers, etc.) vetted by a Columbia University-based advisory board. The decision at this time is to set up a VIVA-wide trial.
9. H. W. Wilson Dictionary of Biography (Gene Damon)
Discussion is on hold until we can review some new developments in our IAC database packages.
10. OCLC FirstSearch Update (John Walsh)
The new interface should be ready for use by librarians sometime in May and is scheduled for release in August.
The RMT is working with OCLC and SOLINET regarding potential problems with port usage and the implementation of Electronic Collections Online by some members.
SocioFile has been blocked ((because of our access through Cambridge Scientific Abstracts).
We have new representatives from both OCLC (Anita Reeb) and SOLINET (Joanne Kepics).
Our latest data shows that our turn-away rate continues to remain low. Our port level seems to be adequate.
11. International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) and International Index to Music (Susanna Pathak)
Periodicals (IIMP) are two Chadwyck-Healy databases which include full text. Susanna Pathak reported on her initial talks with the vendor and , after some discussion, it was agreed to set up VIVA- wide trials for these two databases.
12. CRL Membership for the state (Jim Self)
Jim will get some actual proposed pricing info from them.
13. Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan) (Paul Metz)
Paul will get continue to work with them and get additional information.
14. HighWire (Jim Self)
Jim reported that subscribers do not have to purchase the entire package
but may choose title by title. However the titles are fairly specialized (medical, etc). This last point was debated by certain committee members. They are major journals, whether highly specialized or not. The formula appears to be that price for each site is non-negotiable but that the number of sites (or what constitutes a site) is. We will continue to look at this.
15. HarpWeek (Paul Metz)
Since four Virginia Institutions have already bought HarpWeek (VPI, WM, UVA, GM) VIVA would get an excellent price. In order to recompense the early purchasers (which has allowed VIVA to get such an excellent price) it was suggested that VIVA "credit" each of these institutions for part of their purchase price.
This was agreed to by consensus.
16. IEEE/IEE IEL Full Text Product (John Walsh)
John Walsh has had some initial discussions with the IEEE and Information Handling Services (HIS) concerning the possibility of a consortial arrangement with VIVA and also concerning the possibility of group discounts for a large group of interested institutions (not all of VIVA). He will continue to talk with them.
17. American Chemical Society Journals (Susanna Pathak)
Susanna will be speaking with them again shortly. Basically their model is 25% premium for electronic. (currently 26 journals)
18. VIVA Cost/Value Added Survey
Discussed at the March 11th, 1999 Steering Committee meeting. This item will be held for our next meeting.
19. Collections Committee web page
It was decided that the "Not Recommended" page was useful.
20. Nursing and Allied Health CCM Report (Chris Milson-Martula)
Serials Protection Program: The CCM will conduct a Fall survey of perception of benefits; they will also work at the incorporation of the updated Brandon Hill lists into the protected list.
The CCM will look into statewide ILL data and demand.
Possible future directions of the project: group purchase of medical texts; also monographs.
The meeting ended with a general discussion of the organizational changes to VIVA that will commence with the new fiscal year.
Next meeting is May 7, 1999