Steering Committee Meeting
Thursday, March 9, 2000
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE: Present: Ralph Aberico, Cal Boyer, Gene Damon, Eileen Hitchingham, John Jaffe, Jean Major, Connie McCarthy,
Frank Moran, Don Samdahl, Roy Strohl, John Ulmschneider, and John Zenelis. Also Present: Doug Hurd (UVA), Kathy
Perry (VIVA), and Elsie Stephens Weatherington (VSU). Absent: Karin Wittenborg.
I. Minutes of the December 2, 1999 meeting were unanimously approved.
II. PROJECT UPDATE:
A. Chair's Report (Roy Strohl)
1. Virginia Heritage Project (Elsie Stephens Weatherington)
Elise reported on the Virginia Heritage Project Task Force's progress to date. Elsie reminded the Steering Committee that the task force is scheduled to continue through June 2000. They have submitted a major proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the results of that application will be heard in April. The Task Force is also working on a proposal to the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities for a small grant. This work will focus on identifying and digitizing primary resources in VIVA libraries to support the Commonwealth's Standards of Learning. The project is continuing its work with Daniel Pitti (UVA) on the Encoded Archival Description (EAD). Elsie shared guidelines prepared by Daniel Pitti "The Encoded Archival Description Retrospective Conversion Guidelines" and these are available on the web. Elsie reported that the committee has met regularly throughout the year and continued working between meetings so that a great deal of progress has been made. Even if outside funding is not received during this next quarter, Elsie urged the Steering Committee to consider continuing this task force to serve the citizens of Virginia and beyond.2. General Assembly: Results of the General Assembly's Conference Committee on SB 30, Item 162 are not yet available. The session ends on March 11 and additional information regarding VIVA funding will be forthcoming.
3. Retreat: The Steering Committee discussed the need for a retreat this summer. Graves Mountain Lodge and Mountain Lake were suggested as two low-cost possibilities for the retreat.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved planning for a retreat, to be scheduled for an evening and a one-day session during August 7-9, 2000.
4. Personnel Committee (John Zenelis): The Steering Committee went into executive session to review the evaluation of the VIVA Director.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the Personnel Committee's report.
5. ECVA: Roy reported on the February 28 joint meeting of the Electronic Campus of Virginia (ECVA) with the Deans and Directors of Continuing Education held at the MWC James Monroe Center.
6. Forum on Access to Electronic Journals (Eileen Hitchingham)
Eileen reported the Forum was held on January 7 at VCU. Both Elaine Day and John Duke were major planners in convening this forum. The room capacity of 65 was exceeded and all participants considered it to be very successful. The papers are available on the web in either PDF or html formats: <http://library.jmu.edu/libstaff/ts/er/vivacat/forum2000.html>
B. Director's Report (Kathy Perry)
1. Results of the Steering Committee's electronic vote held on February 14, 2000.
a. Retreat: although all members were in favor of convening a retreat, 2 people were unable to attend a retreat held in May.
b. The Steering Committee unanimously approved the renewal of ABC-CLIO products.
c. Since there was not unanimity on pooling resources for licensing Science, the discussion was tabled until the March 9 meeting.2. Associate Memberships: VIVA currently has one Associate Member, the Library of Virginia. The Steering Committee discussed the current guidelines and the applications pending.
ACTION: The Steering Committee formed a subcommittee of John Ulmschneider, John Jaffe, Connie McCarthy, and Kathy Perry to review the issue of VIVA Associate Members. Further discussion and the vote on the VIVA Associate Member applications were tabled.
3. The next Virginia Library Association meeting is scheduled for October 19-20, 2000 in Norfolk. The Steering Committee discussed the value of convening the 4th VIVA Users Group meeting in conjunction with the VLA meeting. It was suggested that the session might benefit from being longer to allow more training for our members.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved convening the next VIVA Users Group in conjunction with VLA, scheduled for October 19-20, in Norfolk.4. Travel and Training Budget: Kathy distributed a summary with projections for the remaining fiscal year for the central administrative funds (travel, training, central supplies and personnel).
5. Kathy reported that she has been involved in several outreach efforts --a. A negotiating task force for the ICOLC with ITKnowledge during ALA, January 14, 2000.
b. Interviewed for the Library Journal article entitled: "Consortia Hit Critical Mass; Library groupings boom, spurred by the need to acquire electronic journals." Unfortunately, rather than state that our Virginia Heritage Project had submitted an application, the article stated that the project was already funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Kathy sent a letter to the journal requesting correction and Elsie sent a copy to her NEH contact. Nevertheless, inclusion in the article was considered to be good publicity.
c. A Digital Video Conference with Greek librarians on February 14 through the auspices of the State Department.
d. Attending the February 28 ECVA meeting and distributing the new VIVA brochure with the ECVA members as well as the deans and directors of continuing education programs. VIVA received excellent visibility at this meeting.e. As a result of the February 14 digital video conference, Kathy was invited and has accepted an invitation to speak at a symposium entitled "Weaving new webs: Cooperation for survival in the New Millennium" at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, March 20 - 21, 2000.
f. Kathy has accepted an invitation to speak at the Society for Scholarly Publishing, June 1, in Baltimore, as part of a panel on Library Collection and Access Issues. Jim Neal (Johns Hopkins University) will represent a library director's perspective and Paul Metz (VPI) will represent one library's collection development process.
III. COMMITTEES
A. Resources for Users (Gene Damon)
1. In addition to the ABC-CLIO renewal approved by the Steering Committee on February 14, the Committee recommended the following actions regarding renewals:
a. Renewal of CIS-Statistical Universe at the fixed price.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the renewal of CIS-Statistical Universe.
b. RUC had completed its study of the Encyclopedia Britannica Online version as it compares to the free service over the Internet. The committee recommends that VIVA not renew the Britannica Online subscription for the 2000-2001 year. The current subscription ends May 31, 2000. After that date, VIVA institutions will need to remove the VIVA symbols from their web pages and change the links to the free version.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the Resources for Users Committee's recommendation NOT to renew the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online for 2000-2001. Kathy will pursue getting the refund due us for the November 1, 1999 - February 29, 2000 period when the free service was available.
c. The Committee recommended the purchase of an additional 100,000 searches for FirstSearch. Due to a number of reasons (including moving several databases to OVID and the confusion over the New FirstSearch, VIVA FirstSearch searches have declined about 25%. The OCLC credit to VIVA is on deposit with Solinet and will be applied to this purchase.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the purchase of another 100,000 block searches.d. The Academic Press review subcommittee's work is ongoing but they are experiencing some delays getting statistics from AP. The Resources for Users Committee still plans to have a recommendation early enough to allow for replacement planning if VIVA decides to cancel the license agreement for AP Ideal.
e. The GaleNet review subcommittee's work is also ongoing. The subcommittee will conduct a survey soon, will analyze use statistics and database content. These elements will form a base for a recommendation to the RUC.
2. Training: Gene reported that the committee's Task Force on Training conducted two Training Fairs earlier that week. Both sessions were at capacity: over 90 librarians and 11 vendor representatives attended the fair held at the University of Richmond on March 6 and 43 librarians and 9 vendor representatives attended the Training Fair held at Virginia Tech on March 7. At both sites, all librarians attended the morning demonstrations of New FirstSearch and Ovid OpenLinks. Participants had their choice of many different formats and products for the afternoon sessions. The evaluation forms will be tallied later, but early responses and comments by those present indicated that the sessions were very well done and very worthwhile. Gene complimented Jane Schillie for her work in organizing the session and her 2 committee members, Pat Hausman (W&M) and Jacque Dessino (TCC), as well as the hosts VPI and University of Richmond.
3. Other Issuesa. The Steering Committee discussed different approaches to acquiring pooled funds for additional collections funds. The Steering Committee will pursue this topic further at the retreat.
b. Also, the issue of VIVA serving as a billing agent for VIVA purchases for a subset of our members raised issues to be explored further at the retreat.
B. Resource Sharing (Don Samdahl)
1. ILL Forum: Don reported that the ILL forum held on January 11 at UVA was attended by over 100 participants and well received by the ILL practitioners. He presented Dennis Robison's final report entitled "VIVA Interlibrary Loan Forum; Report and Recommendations" for discussion.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved Dennis Robison's report on the ILL Forum. Don will bring a list of the recommendations requiring Steering Committee action back to the June Steering Committee meeting for further discussion.
2. Proposed Revised ILL Guidelines: Don presented the ILL Guidelines (approved May 12, 1997) along with a draft of a new Section 4 "Special Loans". Don and Doug pointed out that most of these are either already supported by the ACRL or the ALA, or they require consideration on a case-by-case basis. In all cases, they remain "special" loans. Members were reminded that they were "guidelines" and not "mandates". The Steering Committee discussed the value of conducting a "first reading" with their staff members.ACTION: The Steering Committee agreed to review the ILL Guidelines and particularly the proposed Section 4 with their library staff members. Comments and suggestions are to be conveyed to Don Samdahl no later than April 21, 2000 in order to allow the committee to make changes before the June VIVA and LAC meetings.
C. Outreach Committee (Ralph Alberico)
Ralph reported that the committee met on February 7 in Charlottesville.
1. VIVA Brochure: The redesigned VIVA brochures was completed and distributed to VIVA member libraries. Member libraries are encouraged to distribute copies to board members and administrators. Additional copies are available from Kathy. Ralph thanked Berna Heyman and Karen McCluney (College of William and Mary) for their work on the brochure design.
2. Outreach Committee Web Site: The Outreach Committee web site has been moved to the VIVA server at VCU. The web site includes the new Spotlight design element and new features have been added. A documentary record of articles about VIVA is largely complete and on the web site.
3. Press Releases: The Outreach Committee completed press releases on the HighWire Press titles and the UVA/netLIbrary initiative. The committee has developed working guidelines on developing press releases. They will develop releases for existing services and resources when changes are substantive enough to be considered newsworthy (e.g. additional 70 titles in Project Muse). The committee has decided not to prepare press releases related to cancellations, but will leave that to the Resources for Users Committee and the local institutions.4. Documenting VIVA Impact: Related to some discussions on the need to document VIVA's impact on faculty and students, the committee is exploring ways to highlight faculty who have been recognized as outstanding teachers or researchers. The goal is to have examples of these testimonials and a video segment prepared by mid-April. Possibilities for disseminating this information include a VIVA Viewbook:, a VIVA video, and a web presentation.
5. VIVA Promotional Materials: The committee decided not to develop any other promotional items (e.g. pens or mousepads) unless there is specific interest expressed by the Steering Committee.
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
The next VIVA Steering Committee meeting is scheduled to take place Thursday, June 8 at JMU.