Steering Committee Meeting
Thursday, June 8, 2000
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE: Present: Ralph Aberico, Cal Boyer, Eileen Hitchingham, John Jaffe, Connie
McCarthy, Don Samdahl, Roy Strohl, John Ulmschneider, and John Zenelis. Also Present: Edward Gaynor (UVA), Kathy
Perry (VIVA), and Jim Self (UVA). Absent: Gene Damon, Jean Major, Frank Moran, and Karin Wittenborg.
I. Minutes of the March
9, 2000 meeting were approved.
II. PROJECT UPDATE:
A. Chair's Report (Roy Strohl)
1. General Assembly: Despite early indications that no additional money would be received for VIVA, VIVA received a total of $2.7 million additional funding for the next biennium. This will be used for the priority areas of electronic collections, inflation and support for the private institutions. Roy reported that this success was due to the efforts of many people, including Gene Damon and the VCCS for their early work on our behalf, Robert Lambeth, and the Virginia General Assembly members.
2. Retreat: The VIVA Steering Committee will be held in August 7-8.
ACTION: Roy appointed a Retreat Planning Subcommittee, chaired by Connie McCarthy, Eileen Hitchingham, John Jaffe, Roy Strohl, Karin Wittenborg, and Kathy Perry.
3. Task Forces:
a. Virginia Heritage Project Task Force (Edward Gaynor)
Edward presented two action items for discussion. The Virginia Heritage Project Task Force was successful in obtaining the NEH grant to create the union database of finding aids to archival resources in Virginia and that it was reviewed very favorably and received unanimous support from all reviewers. However, the project was not funded at the level requested. Therefore, the VHPTF submitted a reduced budget and had to eliminate the consulting and travel from the NEH portion. Since the participating schools are already supporting the project with $223,000 for in-kind costs, the VHPTF requested funding for the consulting work ($3,500) and the travel necessary to make this distributed model successful. Edward made it clear that the travel would be handled as other VIVA travel is handled as reimbursements according to the state regulations submitted throught the central VIVA office.
ACTION: The Steering Committee unanimously approved the funding for the consulting work and support for the travel reimbursements for task force meetings necessary for this project.
Roy congratulated the task force on their success.ACTION: Kathy will write a letter to convey the Steering Committee's strong support for their work on the Virginia Heritage Project.
The VHPTF requested that the Special Collections Committee be reconstituted to handle more general issues and projects related to library special collections. They also reported that the VHP would reorganize to manage the Virginia Heritage Project.
ACTION: The Steering Committee commended the task force for their work to date and encouraged the task force to organize the VHPTF as may be most appropriate, both in order to achieve the goals of the Virginia Heritage Project and to share information with our colleagues throughout the state. The Steering Committee deferred review of the issue of reconstituting the Special Collections Committee until a later time. The VHPTF progress will be reviewed again in June 2001.
b. Cataloging and Intellectual Access Task Force: Kathy distributed the report from the CIA Task Force. The Steering Committee discussed the task force's work to date and their plans for the next year.
ACTION: The Steering Committee commended the task force for their work to date and unanimously approved the request to continue the project as outlined in the proposal through June 2001. The CIA Task Force progress will be reviewed in June 2001.
4. Associate Membership Task Force (John Ulmschneider)
John reported that the task force (John Jaffe, Connie McCarthy, Kathy Perry, and John Ulmschneider as chair) had met and corresponded via email. Before specific guidelines can be prepared on Associate Membership, the task force recommended that the Steering Committee discuss and specify the obligations, responsibilities, and expectations of full members. The primary obligations and expectations enunciated are to: 1) participate fully in the VIVA ILL resource sharing, following the established and agreed upon VIVA standards; 2) allow on-site access by all VIVA members to VIVA resources subscribed to by that library; 3) share expertise and knowledge in VIVA projects, management and operations; and 4) advance library services for all participating academic library users.
ACTION: The Associate Membership Task Force will have a draft Memo of Understanding for all VIVA members available for review before the August Steering Committee retreat.
A. Director's Report (Kathy Perry)
1. Results of the Steering Committee's electronic vote held on May 10, 2000:
a. FirstSearch: The Steering Committee approved licensing 27 ports for the base package, pending successful negotiations. Kathy reported that the negotiations were successful. The start date for the New FirstSearch is still uncertain. We will wait to hear from them on when they believe the system will be ready for the VIVA schools' migration to the new service.
b. InfoTrac: The Steering Committee approved renewal of InfoTrac for the July 1, 2000 -June 30, 2001 year.
c. The Steering Committee approved funds for the July 14 ILL Community Forum.
2. VIVA Procurement (Ralph Alberico)
The Committee went into executive session.
ACTION: The Steering Committee unanimously approved an increase of $3,500 for the JMU procurement office for the 2000-2001 year, bringing the total to $34,500 for the year. The VIVA Director will write a letter thanking Iris Moubray for all of her work on behalf of VIVA members over the past year.
3. HarpWeek Reconstruction I: Kathy reported that there are 6 schools purchasing Reconstruction I. The independent private institutions have agreed to use their pooled funds for the remaining $9,900 so that all VIVA schools can gain access to HarpWeek Reconstruction I. The Steering Committee discussed the proposal to reimburse the 4 participating public institutions a portion of their fee for this.
ACTION: The Steering Committee unanimously approved a reimbursement of $2,500 for each of the 4 public institutions (GMU, Longwood, UVA, VaTech) to offset some of their costs in helping bring HarpWeek Reconstruction I to all VIVA members.
4. Independents' Pooled Funds (John Jaffe): John reported that the expenditure of fiscal year 1999-2000 funds for the 29 participating Independent schools has been completed with the licensing of InfoTrac Expanded Academic Index, FirstSearch, Ovid access and ERIC, and HarpWeek Reconstruction I. In fiscal year 2000-2001, the independents will receive $250,000/year from the state, to which they will add $125,000 again. The Collection Development Committee for the VIVA independent schools (Christopher Bean, Lis Chabot, John Jaffe, Jim Rettig, and Ginger Young) met and determined that their priorities for the year will be to continue support for FirstSearch, InfoTrac Expanded Academic Index, and Ovid access and ERIC, and to add Ovid Psych Info, Ovid MLA and the Bell and Howell (formerly Chadwyck-Healey) PCI Web products. They will present these priorities at the meeting of the directors on June 23. The policy will be that the participating schools will receive all of the resources selected for acquisition with the pooled funds.
5. CIS Statistics: Kathy reported that the preliminary work was complete in order for VIVA to obtain VIVA members' statistics on Congressional Universe and Statistical Universe. The letter had been sent (via email) to all VIVA directors and (as of June 6) no directors had asked to prevent the sharing of these statistics with VIVA 's central office. A compilation of the VIVA statistics will be posted to the VIVA Statistics web site , http://library.gmu.edu/vivasafe/index.html as soon as they are received.
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica Refund: Kathy shared a copy of the letter she wrote on March 28, requesting the refund from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. She reported that the refund check had been received in early June.
6. Kathy reported on a number of publicity efforts and meetings, including:
a. Elaine Day's article in the Virginia Libraries (Vol. 46, No. 1, Jan/Feb/Mar 2000, p. 10-12) (copies were distributed),
b. March 20-21, Kathy spoke at the conference on "Weaving New Webs: Cooperation for Survival in the New Millenium", Thessalonica, Greece,
c. Gene, Roy and Kathy attended the ICOLC meeting April 13-14,
d. Dan Ream (VCU) demonstrated VIVA resources to the State Council of Higher Education,
e. Kathy participated in the Ovid Publishers' Round Table, May 15-16,
f. Kathy presented a speech on VIVA's collection policies and selection criteria as part of a panel at the Society for Scholarly Publishing on June 1. The moderator was Gail McMillan (Virginia Tech) and the other panel members were Paul Metz (Virginia Tech) and Jim Neal (Johns Hopkins University), and
g. The VIVA Users Group Meeting is scheduled to take place at VLA on October 19 at 3:30 -4:30 P.M. The RUC Training Subcommittee is planning to follow the Users Group Meeting with a training update session in the same room, from 4:45 - 5:45 P.M.
7. Miscellaneous: Kathy reported that the job description for her fiscal assistant is being review by the GMU HR department. Also, VIVA has acquired a fax machine for the office and the number is 703/993-4662.
III. Committees
A. Resources for Users Committee (Jim Self)
1. The Committee recommended the purchase of a subscription to 29 titles of The Annual Reviews online. This includes the back files for many of the issues. The committee has negotiated a comparable price for the interested participating private institutions.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the subscription to The Annual Reviews online.
2. The Committee recommended licensing 17 Nursing Journals through OVID. These journals are not included in the InfoTrac Health Resources Center.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved licensing these 17 Nursing Journals through OVID:
· American Journal of Nursing
· American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
· Anesthesia and Analgesia
· Anesthesiology
· AORN Journal
· Cancer Nursing
· Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
· Computers in Nursing
· Geriatric Nursing
· Heart and Lung
· JOGN Nursing
· Journal of Advanced Nursing
· Journal of Emergency Nursing
· Journal of Nursing Administration
· Nurse Educator
· Nursing & Health Care Perspectives on Community
· Nursing Research.
3. The Committee recommended that any excess funds in the collections budget be used to purchase FirstSearch block searches at the current year price.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the expenditure of any remaining collections funds on the FirstSearch block searches.
4. The Committee recommended the purchase of additional FirstSearch block searches up to 250,000 searches at the current fiscal year contract rate, with payment to come from next fiscal year.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the purchase of additional FirstSearch block searches from next year's fiscal year funds.
5. Kathy requested approval of payment for the OVID OpenLinks product, as specified in the contract with Ovid. Kathy reported that early implementation should begin soon for VIVA members.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved licensing OVID OpenLinks at the price specified in the contract.
6. The Resources for Users Committee (RUC) reported that the VIVA community has been looking at two databases offered by SOLINET, Access Science and the new OED. As a result of the OED trial and questions about VIVA's existing contract with OUP, the Committee did not recommend purchase of OED. Also, due to very mixed review of the Access Science product, RUC did not recommend that VIVA subscribe to Access Science at this time. RUC will continue to review this product. The committee reminded members that VIVA institutions may take advantage of the national pricing for both of these databases through SOLINET by purchasing individual subscriptions.
ACTION: The Steering Committee affirmed their support for the committee's process and decisions.
7. Jim reported that the Gale subcommittee on the GaleNet products (which he chairs) had completed their systematic review of statistics, cost, qualitative ratings of the products, and narrative reviews. He presented their findings. As a result of this work, Jim wrote a letter on VIVA's behalf to the Gale Group requesting attention to several things, including improved statistics for Contemporary Authors. There was substantial discussion on the process and appreciation for the presentation.
8. Jim reported that the subcommittee on the Academic Press review is continuing their work. They have received detailed use data from AP they are now analyzing. The subcommittee is now preparing a survey that will be sent to the VIVA institutional contacts.
B. Resource Sharing Committee (Don Samdahl)
1. ILL Forum (January 2000): Don led the Steering Committee in a discussion on the January ILL Community Forum Report recommendations developed by Dennis Robison and approved by the Steering Committee at its March meeting. He emphasized again that VIVA is a cooperative and that VIVA works because library directors dedicate the resources to make it work.
2. ILL Forum (Summer 2000): As specified in the consultant's report, the annual meetings were to continue beginning this summer. The committee has selected July 14 as the date for the next ILL Community Forum and registration is underway. Mary Jackson will be the featured speaker.
3. ILL Guidelines: Work is progressing on revising the VIVA ILL Guidelines. The Resource Sharing Committee will strive to have the revised guidelines available for discussion at the August Steering Committee Retreat.
4. Express Mail Subsidy: The committee wanted to provide library directors at the public institutions and ILL staff with some lead-time on their fiscal year 2000-01 express mail allocation. The committee had reviewed the statistics and although the in-state lending has increased at most VIVA schools, they did not recommend an increase in the amount of VIVA money to be allocated for this purpose. The detailed analysis and recommendations on the individual payments for the express mail will not be available until late July, but should be available in time for review and approval at the September VIVA meeting and the quarterly SCHEV Library Advisory Council meeting. The committee recommended that the Steering Committee approve the same formula for the $225,000 allotment for the public institutions as has been used for the past several years (i.e. allocations are available only to libraries not charging VIVA members for ILL. The allotment is based upon each library's proportion of in- state lending compared to the total VIVA in-state lending.)
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the continuation of the express mail allocation (both the total dollars appropriated and the formula as established) for the fiscal year 2000-2001.
C. Outreach Committee (Ralph Alberico)
Ralph reported on the Outreach Committee's progress with gathering VIVA testimonials in a variety of formats (e.g. print, digital video, web, PowerPoint) for promotional purposes. He provided a demonstration of a Flash animation. The Steering Committee stated their support for this work.
III. Other Business
A. The dates for the next two ICOLC meetings were presented.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved funds to send representatives to the next two ICOLC meetings.
B. The VIVA Steering Committee Retreat will be held beginning the evening of Monday, August
8, continuing all day August 8, 2000, and ending after breakfast on Wednesday, August 9 at the Mountain Lake Hotel.
C. The next VIVA Steering Committee meeting dates are:
Thursday, September 14, 1-5 P.M., Old Dominion University, Norfolk
Thursday, December 7, 1-5 P.M., Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg
Thursday, March 8, 1-5 P.M., Richard Bland College, Petersburg
Thursday, June 7, 1-5 P.M., Washington and Lee University, Lexington