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Resources for Users Committee -- Minutes



October 11, 2002 -- 10:00 AM



Alderman Library, University of Virginia







Present:  Gene Damon (Chair), Karen Cary, Jacque Dessino, Sharon Glasser, Pat

Hausman, Louveller Luster, Paul Metz, Jane Penner, Kathy Perry, Jim Rettig, Jim

Self, John Tombarge, and John Walsh.



1. Announcements



None



2. Changes to agenda



Surveys and Highwire renewal were added to the agenda. 3. Approval of Minutes of

, 2000 meeting



No changes --Minutes approved by consensus.



4. Budget --



Kathy distributed copies of the current 2002/03 budget, noting an uncommitted

amount balance of $300,000 from cancellations completed this Spring. Kathy

explained to committee members that the pricing for Cambridge Scientific

Abstracts should be in the estimate column of the budget document because she

has not received a new quote. Charging independent schools purchasing fee for

participation is $34,500. Kathy mentioned that there is a pricing cap for PCI.



Kathy provided copies of the VIVA Takes Steps to Balance Its Budget and a

breakdown of possible budget cuts to VIVA funding based upon 7, 11, or 15

percent SCHEV budget reductions for FY 02/03. If SCHEV gets a cut of 7%, then

VIVA's cut will be zero. However, if SCHEV's budget reduction is 11%, then

VIVA's cut will be $168,239 (4%) and at 15% SCHEV cut, VIVA's cut will be

$458,219 (11.08%). This means current uncommitted funds would be $300,000 at

SCHEV's 7% cut, $131,761 at SCHEV's 11%, and -$158,219 at SCHEV's 15% budget

cut.





Note: The cut announced in late October was $458,210



4. Training Committee - P. Hausman



E-mail evaluations of the Factiva/Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Workshop were

positive. In general the workshop went well. All training workshops are now

locally organized.



5. AP IDEAL Update - K. Perry



Kathy stated that we started in March to cancel AP IDEAL. Access to AP IDEAL

1996-2002 Archives will cost $1,000 per tape. Kathy is soliciting a written

proposal from Solinet about ECO service cost to load AP IDEAL Archives tapes.

This would be one-time versus continuing cost. As an alternative to the ECO

proposal, Paul Metz suggested that the archival tapes could possibly be loaded

on a server at one of the VIVA institutions, accessible to all VIVA members.



6. OCLC FirstSearch Update - J. Walsh



Doug Potts informed John Walsh about the OCLC "hybrid configuration" that allows

up to 18 users for each database, therefore, VIVA has access to 18 ports per

database instead of 16. It was recommended that we do not block ArticleFirst,

ERIC, Medline and World Almanac because this does not cost additional monies and

there is no port contention problem to unblock access. Committee recommended to

re-open the four blocked databases with an amendment that we monitor port usage.



John reported an overall 20% turn-away rate for WorldCat during the month of

September. The committee discussed the issue and voted to not increase port

level. John also reported that use of other FirstSearch databases is decreasing.



7.  ACS - S. Glasser



VIVA will have archives for 3 years through 2003, but will have to negotiate

after that period. ACS will offer access to Chemical and Engineering News for an

additional fee.



The committee recommended renewal for ACS.



8. MathSciNet - P. Hausam



The price for MathSciNet  and AMS Journals has not changed substantially for the

public institutions. No private institutions currently subscribe to AMS

journals.



The committee recommended renewal for MathSciNet and AMS journals.



9.  Project Muse - K. Cary



For the 2003 renewal of Project Muse the Solinet consortium discount is the same

as last year at 50%. The discounts for category of institution also remain the

same as last year.  There are 26 new titles in 2003 for a total of 221 journals.



The committee recommended renewal of Project Muse.



10. Cambridge University Press - P. Morgan



There is a price cap of 7%, however, we lost access to 7 titles, but gained

access to an additional 6 new titles. We do not have the final price from

Cambridge.



The committee voted for renewal with a not exceed  cap.



11. Highwire - J. Dessino



Jacque reported the renewal information for 5 Highwire journals. There is a 15%

increase for this set of titles.  The major source of the  increase is from the

Journal of Cell Biology at 38% increase, 20% increase for Molecular Biology of

the Cell and 5% for everything else.



The committee recommended renewal of the Highwire Journals.



12. Discussion on priorities for database retention - G. Damon



Committee members discussed the ranking of VIVA databases to respond to further

cuts that VIVA may face because of the current State budget situation. There

were three levels of ranking, including high, medium, and low.



Committee assigned high ranking for



Science, ACS, MathSciNet, AMS Journals, ACM, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts,

Sociological Abstracts, InfoTrac, Project Muse, Congressional Universe,

FirstSearch (Base Package and Searches), OVID Nursing Journals, CINAHL, MLA

International Bibliography, PsychINFO, Oxford University Press, Dow

Jones/Factiva, Highwire Press.



Medium ranking was given to



ABC-CLIO, Annual Reviews, Galenet, Statistical Universe, Lippincott Journals.



Low ranked databases were



CIAO, Britannica, BIP, PCI, STAT-USA.





RUC members agreed that the five low rankings would identify the tools that

would be recommended for cancellations if we have to cut resources. Kathy Perry

informed the committee that funds for Britannica and PCI have not been expended.

RUC voted to renew CIAO for 2002/03 and to review this product for possible

cancellation in FY03/04. Gene Damon reminded the committee that before the

November meeting we must determine how to measure the impact of VIVA cuts on

your individual institutions. RUC members were asked to survey the number of

titles their institution canceled because VIVA offers electronic access to the

title or the institution may no longer need the title because the program is not

offered currently. This includes dollar amounts.



RUC members discussed how we should go about identifying databases we might want

to purchase and should be aggressively researched and evaluated such as JSTOR,

Literature Resource Center, Eric E*Subscribe, and Wilson Education Full-text

Collection. Jane Penner will work to get pricing information for JSTOR.



At the next RUC meeting, the committee will generate a list of databases for

high level retention and recommendations of database cancellations and discuss

the impact of cost per institution due to VIVA cancellations and the need for an

individual institution database subscription because VIVA canceled its

subscription. Gene Damon will send an e-mail inquiry on journal cancellations at

committee members' institutions. Some of the RUC members will have assignments

to get database pricing information.





13. Other Business



Kathy Perry informed the committee that it appears that all publics will renew

their subscription to PsycArticles and she is still getting information from the

privates.



The next meeting will be held on Friday, November 22, 2002.