Steering Committee Meeting
Thursday, December 9, 2004
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, VA
MINUTESATTENDANCE: Present: Ralph Alberico, Robin Benke, Gene Damon, Mary Mayer Hennelly, Eileen Hitchingham, John Jaffe, Connie McCarthy, Kathy Perry, John Ulmschneider, and John Zenelis. Also Present: Ann Pettingill (ODU) and Jim Self (UVA). Guests: Sharon Gasser (JMU) and Paul Metz (VT). Absent: Alan Edwards, Dave Hayes, Virginia O'Herron, Elsie Stephens Weatherington and Karin Wittenborg.
I. MINUTES
The minutes of the September 30, 2004 meeting were reviewed.ACTION: The September 30, 2004 meeting minutes were approved.
II. PROJECT UPDATE
A. CHAIR'S REPORT (Ralph Alberico)
1. For-Profit Membership. Ralph reported that the Executive Committee met with the Attorney General's Office and the SCHEV Director, but no further news was available to report.
2. VIVA Administrative Vacancy. John Zenelis reported that there will be a vacancy in the VIVA office. The position is currently a classified position, but the nature of the work requires another professional librarian. A draft job description was distributed and comments were requested.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the search for a fulltime Associate Director for VIVA by changing the current classified position to an administrative faculty position. Kathy will chair the job search and will work with the Personnel Committee to fill the position as quickly as possible.B. PROJECT DIRECTOR'S REPORT (Kathy Perry)
1. Electronic Votes. Kathy reported that the Steering Committee approved 2 items via electronic vote on November 8, 2004: the Bowker Training and the acquisition of the Gale Literature Resource Center Digital Archives. Kathy reported that favorable terms were reached on the LRC price cap and that the participating private nonprofit institutions will contribute $70,000 toward the cost of the digital archives in both FY 04-05 and FY 05-06.
2. Budget. Kathy reported approximately $4,000 remaining in the VIVA account of the GMU Foundation and that another $2,000 pledge will be paid by OVID after January 1, 2005. The Steering Committee approved the allocation of funds for a few more recognitions. The VIVA Central Budget will have sufficient funds to cover the approved changes in personnel.
3. Project Ideas. Five project ideas were discussed.
ACTION: One suggestion, the idea to train attorneys on library licenses, was referred to the Library Advisory Committee for consideration. The project idea of convening a training session on digital repositories was referred to the Virginia Heritage Project. The 3 remaining project ideas were tabled for consideration at a Steering Committee retreat.4. PsycArticles. The Steering Committee reviewed the widely divergent price increases for the participating VIVA public colleges and universities and discussed 3 different options.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved a pricing plan for all public institutions participating in the OVID PsycArticles subscription in which all schools will see the same increase.5. Publicity:
a. Ralph Alberico reported on the VLA VIVA Users Group meeting held at VLA in Williamsburg on October 28.
b. Ralph reported on his presentation at the Charleston Conference on November 5.
c. Gene reported on the Gale Strategic Board meeting held on October 28-29.
d. A summary of the ¡Viva VIVA! celebrations appeared in the November 2004 VLA Newsletter.
e. Kathy attended the ICOLC meeting in Barcelona, October 28-30 and gave a presentation there.
f. An interview with Kathy appeared in the Thomson Gale Focal Point in late October 2004. <http://www.gale.com/enewsletters/focal_point/2004_10/viva.htm>
g. Kathy participated in a panel at the AAP/SSP Roundtable in New York City on November 17.
h. Kathy and Jim Self are working on behalf of VIVA and other consortia as a test site for the Project COUNTER statistics project. They drafted new Project COUNTER language to specify how vendors should present statistics for consortia.III. COMMITTEES
A. RESOURCES FOR USERS COMMITTEE (Gene Damon)1. Ulrich's Serials Analysis System. Gene introduced Paul Metz (VT) and Sharon Gasser (JMU), the co-chairs of the RUC Subcommittee on Ulrich's Serials Analysis System. Paul presented the committee's report and recommendations.
ACTION: The Steering Committee commended the RUC Subcommittee on Ulrich's Serials Analysis System and approved the recommendations made by the committee:a. RUC will post a list of journal titles owned by one VIVA school. This will be for information purposes only and there will not be an effort to enforce retention of the "last copy".
b. RUC will continue to explore consortial packages with journal publishers identified as having high quality journals held by a fairly high number of VIVA libraries.
c. VIVA should seriously consider renewing the subscription for this analysis product.
d. VIVA should work with Bowker to improve the product for the future and should negotiate to receive a significant discount for this contribution to the product.
2. Renewals. The Committee recommended renewals of these products
a. ABC-CLIO
b. AMS: MathSciNet
c. AMS Journals
d. IOP Archives
e. Cambridge University Press Journals
f. HarpWeek Maintenance
g. AP IDEAL Archives (OCLC ECO)ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the following renewals:
a. ABC-CLIO
b. AMS: MathSciNet
c. AMS Journals
d. IOP Archives
e. Cambridge University Press Journals
f. HarpWeek Maintenance
g. AP IDEAL Archives (OCLC ECO)3. Training.
a. The RUC Training Subcommittee held 2 training sessions on the Bowker Books in Print and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Twenty-eight participants attended the first session on Thursday, December 2 at Hollins University and 49 attended the session held on Friday, December 3, at the College of William and Mary.
b. The RUC Training Subcommittee is beginning to plan a one-day training session to be held in the spring.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved funding for a one-day training session in the spring for selected VIVA products.4. New Purchases.
a. Institute of Physics Journals. RUC recommended the acquisition of the IOP current journals to augment the IOP Archives currently licensed. The acquisition will be paid for on a cost-sharing basis. Current subscribers for the 2005 subscription year have already paid their subscriptions and the VIVA central budget will pay only the additional cost to bring in the remaining VIVA public colleges and universities. In 2006, the VIVA central budget will pick up 50% of the local subscription costs and the premium for the remaining members. It is anticipated that the VIVA central budget will pay the entire license fees for the VIVA public institutions in the 2007 subscription year. Pricing for the private institutions will be announced.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the acquisition of the Institute of Physics Journals and the cost sharing proposal outlined by the committee.b. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and EngnetBase. RUC recommended the acquisition of CRC Handbook of Chemistry and EngnetBase.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the acquisition of EngnetBase and CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.5. Information.
a. FirstSearch Ports. Gene reported that the Fall usage figures showed increased turnaways. RUC has approved increasing the number of ports on FirstSearch by 3 ports, starting February 1, 2005. The cost of these ports will come from the "reserve" funds approved at the time of the FirstSearch renewal.
b. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. RUC members have discussed participation in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the members are getting products reviewed by their campus philosophy faculty.
c. Dissertation Abstracts. RUC evaluated a proposal for Dissertation Abstracts but remains divided on support for licensing this product. The Steering Committee agreed that a stronger recommendation from RUC is necessary before bringing this product to a vote at the Steering Committee level.
B. OUTREACH COMMITTEE (John Ulmschneider)
The Outreach Committee met on October 22 and will be working on press releases and other promotional items, as well as the VIVA homepage.
C. RESOURCE SHARING COMMITTEE (Kathy Perry for Eileen Hitchingham)
Ariel 4.0. Eileen negotiated further with Infotrieve and the Resource Sharing Committee recommended the acquisition of the Ariel 4.0 software for VIVA member InterLibrary Loan services. The Committee recommends that member institutions wait a while before installing the software so that any "unanticipated features" can be patched.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the acquisition of Ariel 4.0 upgrades for all public and private nonprofit VIVA members. All requests for new full software packages (not upgrades to existing software) will be considered on an as needed basis. The central VIVA office will handle all shipping of the software.IV. NEW BUSINESS
The next VIVA Steering Committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, March 3, 2005, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Steering Committee Minutes
- Contact: Kathy Perry, VIVA Director
- Last Updated 1/19/2005