VIVA Steering Committee
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Shenandoah University
Winchester, VA

MINUTES

Attendance:  Present:  Ralph Alberico, Gene Damon, John Jaffe, Mary Mayer-Hennelly, Connie McCarthy, Virginia O’Herron, Kathy Perry, Don Samdahl, Roy Strohl, and John Zenelis.  Also Present:  Dave Hayes (Radford), Craig Herndon, Tansy Matthews, and Jane Penner (UVA).  Absent:  Robin Benke, Eileen Hitchingham, Mary Sellen, John Ulmschneider, and Karin Wittenborg.

I.       MINUTES

          The July 13, 2006 meeting minutes were reviewed.

        ACTION:  The July 13, 2006 meeting minutes were approved.

II.        PROJECT UPDATE

A. CHAIR’S REPORT (Connie McCarthy)

  1. Connie introduced Tansy Matthews, the VIVA Associate Director.
  2. Connie reported that the Advocacy Committee has been very busy.  John Ulmschneider, Gene Damon, Kathy Perry, and Connie met with Fran Bradford on August 3.  John, Kathy, and Connie will meet with Susan Magill, a newly appointed member of the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, on September 25. 
  3. Connie reported that the committee had developed an initial proposal for a specialized ebooks package and had communicated with Dan LaVista about the idea.  The Steering Committee discussed the idea further, with several members voicing their support for the concept, the support this collection will provide for the Commonwealth’s technology initiatives and goals, and the high use of these materials in their libraries.  Gene and Kathy will work with others over the next several months to gather more information about the concept and current holdings in this area.
  4. The Steering Committee went into executive session. John Zenelis, Chair of the Personnel Committee, provided an update on the staffing of the VIVA central office and reported on the annual (2005-2006) performance evaluation of the VIVA Director.

B. DIRECTOR’S REPORT (Kathy Perry)

  1. Kathy reported that the Steering Committee renewed the following VIVA resources by e-vote on August 18, 2006:
    1. ACM Journals
    2. Factiva
    3. Gale - GaleNet
    4. Gale – Literature Resource Center access
    5. Nature Journals
    6. Ovid – LWW Journals
    7. Ovid – Nursing Journals

  2. Kathy presented the Portico proposal for VIVA endorsement.

ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved VIVA’s endorsement of Portico.

  1. The Steering Committee discussed the allocation of the EBSCO refund for PsycARTICLES Backfiles.

ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved the allocation of the refund for collections, preferably a one-time acquisition appropriate for a majority of our members.

  1. For Information:
    1. Oxford University Press Journals has provided refunds to JMU for overpayments during the 2005-06 year. 
    2. Information on the ILL expedited delivery allocations was distributed in early September.
    3. Procurement is working to consolidate eVA costs to the VIVA budget.  The private colleges’ Pooled Funds Program will be assessed their portion. 
    4. John Jaffe is following up with the private colleges for their 2005-06 annualized FTE numbers.
    5. The Director will attend the ICOLC meeting in Rome and has been invited to speak to a convention of Italian librarians the day preceding the ICOLC meeting.
    6. The VIVA Users Group will meet at VLA, November 9, 5-6pm in Williamsburg.

III.  COMMITTEES

A. RESOURCES FOR USERS COMMITTEE (Gene Damon)

  1. The Committee recommended renewal of the following VIVA products:
    1. American Chemical Society Journals
    2. American Mathematical Society Journals
    3. AMS MathSciNet
    4. CIAO
    5. CRC/EngNETBase
    6. LN Congressional

    ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved the renewals for the following:
  1. American Chemical Society Journals
  2. American Mathematical Society Journals
  3. AMS MathSciNet
  4. CIAO
  5. CRC/EngNETBase
  6. LN Congressional
  1. The Committee recommended accepting the Gale offer to add the Gale Academic OneFile to the InfoTrac collections.

ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved the addition of Gale Academic OneFile for all VIVA public members and all VIVA private members participating in the Pooled Funds Program.

  1. Gene presented the latest version of the Blackwell Synergy offer and cost-sharing proposal. 

ACTION:  The Steering Committee The Steering Committee approved the initiation of the Blackwell Synergy Collection.  Gene and Kathy will prepare a letter to each library director outlining the deal and the commitment.  Members will verify their 2006 total print spend and agreement to participate by October 16, 2006.

  1. For Information
    1. Two other cost-sharing proposals are being actively investigated, the ACS Archives and the IEEE IEL package.
    2. Several renewals may require electronic votes before the December 7 meeting, including the Duke University Press Journals and the Project Muse package.

B. VIRGINIA HERITAGE PROJECT (Dave Hayes)

Dave reported that the Virginia Heritage Proposal Task Force has met several times and has developed a draft proposal which the members had reviewed.  The Steering Committee discussed the best way to handle the indirect costs.  The group will convene a meeting on October 19 of the original Task Force of archivists and special collections librarians to present the proposal concept and to answer questions. 

C. MULTIMEDIA TASK FORCE (Ralph Alberico)

  1. Ralph provided an update on Shibboleth.  Several schools have agreed to install the Shibboleth Origin software on their campuses and to join the InCommon federation.  Ralph has followed up with the other schools to ask about their participation.  Iris Moubray has reviewed the UVA contract with InCommon and recommends that schools should duplicate the language in that contract. 
  2. The Task Force expects to finalize the set of encoding standards suitable for high (800kb) and low (300 kb) bandwidth distribution before the end of September.  JMU has developed processes to handle the encoding but projects the work will not be completed before the end of the semester.  UVA has explored the cost for a commercial firm to do the work.  The Steering Committee applauded JMU’s willingness to bear the brunt of this work but decided the quick turn around time and relatively low cost of the commercial service would make that option more attractive. 

ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved funds to outsource the encoding of the PBS video files to bit streams suitable for online distribution. 

  1. Ralph discussed the issues of video quality and provided a demonstration.
  2. Ralph outlined the next steps:
    • Finalize initial participants in Shibboleth experiment to join InCommon
    • Build Shibboleth/Darwin connector
    • Install Shibboleth Origin at test institutions
    • Encode a test set of files and mount them on a server at UVA
    • Begin testing files on different circuits
    • Finalize mass encoding strategy
    • Develop a plan for distributing encoded files
    • Begin developing a strategy for cataloging, file system and user interface to the collection
    • Begin developing a strategy for user support.

C. RESOURCE SHARING COMMITTEE (Kathy Perry for Eileen Hitchingham)

  1. The ILL Community Forum was held at Sweet Briar College on July 21, 2006, and was very successful.
  2. Eileen attended the “Moving Mountains: A Symposium Exploring Library Courier Services” in Denver, Colorado, and gathered a great deal of information that will be useful to the Resource Sharing Committee as they continue to explore this option. 
  3. Don Samdahl presented some preliminary cost information he had gathered regarding ILLiad Resource Sharing Management Software for VIVA members.  The Steering Committee was interested in seeing reduced pricing for a local option service for our members. 

ACTION:  The Steering Committee referred this item to the Resource Sharing Committee for further exploration as a local option under a VIVA contract. 

D. OUTREACH COMMITTEE (Kathy Perry for John Ulmschneider)

The Outreach Committee met by conference call on August 25 and in person on September 18 to discuss the Committee’s plans to create a gateway with links to training, promotion, and publicity materials related to VIVA products.  The Committee proposed convening a meeting to bring together staff from additional institutions beyond those represented on the Outreach Committee to demonstrate the work they are doing in instruction and promotion related to VIVA resources and to help design the gateway.  The Steering Committee voiced interest in hearing more details. 

IV.  New Business

The next Steering Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, December 7, 2006, 1-5 pm at Sweet Briar College.