VIVA Steering Committee
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Longwood University
Farmville, VA

MINUTES

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

 

  1. MINUTES
    The December 7, 2006, meeting minutes were reviewed.
    ACTION:  The December 7, 2006, meeting minutes were approved.
  2. PROJECT UPDATE
    1. CHAIR’S REPORT (Connie McCarthy)
      1. Connie reported that she has appointed Gene Damon (Chair), Eileen Hitchingham, and Mary Sellen to serve on the VIVA Nominating Committee.
      2. Connie reported that she was unable to attend the Learning Technology Advisory Committee (LTAC) meeting in December.  Ralph Alberico gave a summary of the meeting and the discussions on online learning and technology projects.  Ralph will send out the URL for the LTAC Wiki Site being used to communicate on these issues. <http://www.tip-wm.net/schev/index.php?title=Main_Page>
    2. DIRECTOR’S REPORT (Kathy Perry)
      1. Ralph reported that JMU is requesting an additional $10,000 for their procurement services and that although the private schools’ fees are indexed (1.8% of the previous year’s invoices), the fees for the public institutions have not been adjusted since fiscal year 2001.  ACTION:  The Steering Committee agreed that the adjustment was warranted, both due to the increase in the number of contracts and dollars handled and the increase in labor costs and benefits over the years.  The Steering Committee approved the amount of $10,000 increase for the JMU Procurement Services and will work with Ralph to determine the appropriate source and allocation of fees for the services.  Ralph will work with Kathy and John J. and will bring back a recommendation on the fee structure at the June meeting. 
      2. The Steering Committee reviewed and discussed the draft Memorandum of Understanding between VIVA and James Madison University Procurement Services.  Kathy reported that this was a new effort to itemize the roles and responsibilities of both parties, including the need for a 12-month warning of a change in the partnership.  The consensus was that the draft was an improvement over the handshake and protects both parties from a sudden change in operations.
      3. Kathy reported that the George Mason University Libraries paid for new modular furniture for the VIVA outer office.  She thanked John Zenelis and the libraries for the improved furniture.
  3.  COMMITTEES
    1. RESOURCES FOR USERS COMMITTEE (Gene Damon)
      1. The Committee recommended renewal of the following VIVA products:
        1. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
        2. Gale – Academic OneFile
        3. Gale – MLA
        4. Science
        5. Stat-USA
          ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved the renewals for the following:
        6. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
        7. Gale – Academic OneFile
        8. Gale – MLA
        9. Science
        10. Stat-USA
      2. Gene reported that Training Subcommittee was working on the summer training sessions.  The focus at these regional meetings will be government statistics.
        ACTION:  The Steering Committee approved the funds necessary to convene the regional training sessions to be held in early summer.
      3. Gene reported that the contract negotiations with Nature were not going well and the Nature Publishing Group has refused to make changes generally accepted by other publishers.  They have also warned us that the prices will be reviewed.  Gene has appointed a subcommittee, chaired by Pat Van Zandt, to do a thorough evaluation of the Nature journals and their place in the VIVA list of resources.
    2. OUTREACH COMMITTEE  (John Ulmschneider)
      1. John briefed the Steering Committee on the plans for the Training/publicity clearinghouse initiative, scheduled to take place at UVA in June.    
      2. The Committee is working on a press release for the cost sharing initiatives for IEEE and Blackwell journals which leverage VIVA investments. 
      3. The branding project is progressing.  Tansy Matthews has completed branding for CSA. 
      4. The Outreach Committee discussed a number of ways to assist the Virginia Library Association attract more academic librarians and also to invigorate the VIVA Users Group meeting we convene at VLA each year.
    3. VIRGINIA HERITAGE PROJECT (Dave Hayes and Connie McCarthy)
      1. Dave reported the University of Virginia was addressing problems associated with the Finding Aids loaded at UVA.  Four schools are assisting with the testing and UVA was well on its way to having the system fully restored.
      2. A meeting of the Virginia Heritage grant participants was held at the University of Richmond on January 26.  Dave thanked Jim Gwin and the University of Richmond for their assistance hosting the meeting.  Presentations about the project concept and design were made and Bea Hardy answered questions about the proposal for the participants. 
      3. Connie reported that there was a last minute complication regarding the combined budget.  [Note:  Connie reported the next day that the IMLS proposal for the “Virginia Heritage:  Struggles for Freedom” project was indeed submitted in time for the March 1 deadline and we should hear back in the fall.]  The Steering Committee thanked all participants for their hard work compiling the proposal for the IMLS grant.
        4.  
    4. RESOURCE SHARING COMMITTEE (Eileen Hitchingham)
      1. Eileen reported the committee has investigated delivery services to see if there is a cheaper or better way to deliver and return the VIVA InterLibrary Loan originals without lowering the service standards.  This review is also considering the value of the state’s contract for UPS service which all colleges and universities (including the private nonprofit colleges) may use.  The committee will consider options that will encourage VIVA members to return the materials quickly.  The subcommittee will work with the front-line ILL staff to explore the impact of various changes on the procedures. 
      2. The Resource Sharing Committee has reviewed the possibility of a VIVA contract for ILLiad but has determined that the cost of the system is not necessary for all VIVA members.  VIVA members wishing to acquire ILLiad now may wish to form a sub-group to acquire ILLiad, in much the same way that other sub-groups have been formed to acquire subscriptions to some of the journal packages.
      3. The ILL Subcommittee, chaired by Dan Wilson (UVA), is planning the next ILL Community Forum, scheduled for Friday, July 13 at Sweet Briar College.
         
    5. MULTIMEDIA TASK FORCE (Ralph Alberico)
      1. Ralph reported that Jim Jokl at UVA has the Shibboleth/Darwin streaming serving up and he is contacting colleagues at member institutions to do some initial testing of Shibboleth.  The project requires that each school join Internet2’s InCommon Federation http://www.incommonfederation.org/ and install a small dedicated Linux Box.  Authentication will be at the local level. 
      2. JMU staff split up the source files into single episodes prior to encoding work.  TapHere! was awarded the job of encoding the videos and picked up the files on February 7. Ralph anticipates that the encoding work will be completed before the end of March, at which time the Task Force will do some quality testing.  JMU will develop server and file system specifications for QuickTime and will make those available to any school wanting to locally load these on their own QuickTime Server.  The Task Force will work on developing specs for other platforms. 
      3. JMU has prepared a manifest and descriptive metadata about each of the files.  TapHere! will embed brief descriptive metadata about the files within the files which will allow most media players to display some limited information (e.g. title, data, producer, brief description) about the files as they are playing, much like the iTunes service does.  The Task Force is exploring ways to make the MARC records available to VIVA members as well as providing the links to companion information on websites, where those are available.  The Task Force is also pursuing branding the files with both PBS and VIVA logos.
  4. New Business
    The next Steering Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, June 1, 2007, 10:00 am at the University of Virginia and the VIVA Steering Committee Retreat is scheduled to take place Wednesday evening, July 25, and all day Thursday, July 26, followed by the LAC dinner on Thursday and the LAC meeting on Friday, July 27 at Rappahannock Community College.