Attendance:
Wendell Barbour, Christopher Newport College
Theresa Byrd, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College
John Duke, Virginia Commonwealth University
Charlene Hurt, George Mason University
John Jaffe, Sweet Briar College
Virginia O’Herron, Old Dominion University
Carol Pfeiffer, University of Virginia
Dennis Robison, James Madison University
Also Present: Peter Blake, SCHEV, and Kathy Perry, GMU.
I. REVIEW MINUTES
Charlene Hurt called the meeting to order. The minutes of the July 29,
1994 VVL Steering Committee meeting were approved with two corrections:
Carol Pfeiffer suggested that the minutes reflect the committee’s
intention of purchasing ONE copy of the Ariel software for each of the 51
participating VVL institutions; and Kathy Perry noted that Lew Terpstra’s
institutions was incorrectly identified as the Virginia "commonwealth"
College System (instead of the "Community" College System).
II. PROJECT UPDATE
Charlene reported that John Molnar had agreed that the Ariel software could
be purchased out of the collections development money and the SCHEV could
handle the purchase for us. Peter Blake added that he had spoken with the
SCHEV purchasing person who said that would be fine. SCHEV could handle
the ordering for the 51 copies of the Ariel Software, more if necessary.
The committee discussed the issue of items over the $10,000 needing approval
from the governor’s office and the Peter recommended that a letter
be prepared to William P. Bigger to explain the issue, source of funds,
vendor information, explanation of sloe source, and why there may be more
than 51 copies ordered.
Kathy and John Jaffe are preparing the memos to the public and private institutions respectively to ask for estimates on the number of copies of the Ariel software for windows. They will provided the numbers to Dennis Robison later. Since there was some concern that it might not be appropriate for SCHEV to act as the purchasing agency for private institutions, John said that his institution could cut one check for the private institutions. This might enable their order to be included in the combined order as a prepaid portion of the whole. It is anticipated that an early to mid-October Ariel order date would procure the software in November.
The committee discussed the issue of upgrades from the Ariel for DOS to the Windows version.
ACTION: It was agreed that Dennis Robison, ILL Enhancements Committee Chair, would write the letter to William Bigger. Dennis will also pursue the question of whether a reduced price for combined purchase of upgrade software could be obtained. Kathy Perry and John Jaffe will complete their surveys of the public and private orders for Ariel software.
Kathy reported that she loaded meeting announcements on the listserv, attended the Selecting Electronic Collections meeting, was working on the survey for the Ariel software offer, had drafted a note to John Molnar on the Travel and Training funds, and had worked on publicity for the VVL. She reported that the new CAUSE electronic news had run our story in the previous day’s edition.
I. COMMITTEE ENHANCEMENTS
A. ILL ENHANCEMENTS
Dennis Robison reported that he had distributed a memo on Ariel workstations
for the VVL (August 5) to all library directors in the Virginia Public Institutions
of Higher Education. His committee will meet again next month, when they
will discuss the patron assisted ILL and the draft Ariel protocol requirements
(based upon the Ariel Document Delivery Protocol for Health Sciences Library).
He also reported that he had attended the Seminar on Academic Computing , held in Colorado, August 7-10, and that the CIC is using ARIEL , a sole source vendor.
Charlene asked if the steering committee agreed with the minutes and the August 5 memo that Ariel for Windows was "recommended", implying that the committee would support the other purchases for the Virtual Library. The committee agreed that the project "highly recommended" Ariel for Windows and, in fact, would only use VVL funds to purchase the Windows version. Project training and support issues required the committee to mandate the Ariel for Windows version for all participants.
Carol asked whether the VVL project money could be used to support an Ariel workstation or software of a lending library not involved in the VVL within their system. The committee agreed that if a health sciences library charges for ILL, then the Ariel software and workstations purchased with VVL project funds should not be distributed to them. The committee agreed that the issue of sharing databases with those units was not as clear.
C. SELECTING ELECTRONIC COLLECTIONS
Carol Pfeiffer reported that the Selecting Electronic Collections Committee
had not had enough time to hear all reports at their second meeting. They
focused on three areas: electronic encyclopedias, First Search ,and Virginia
Newspapers.
1. Electronic Encyclopedias: selected for consideration as one of the
earliest they might recommend for purchase. It would provided us with experience
with the RFP process, would probably be small enough for one institution
to load on their system, would have general interest, and might lend itself
to loading on multiple sites. Four encyclopedias were researched: Encarta,
New Grollier, Compton’s, and Encyclopedia Britannica.
2. First Search: is under consideration for its ability to provide so
many options for our participating libraries. Carol reported that this
will be carefully researched to determine what they recommend in terms of
: package design (e.g. Basic services vs. customized; block purchase vs.
simultaneous logons; full purchase or partial subsidy; citations only or
full text articles (First Search advertises access to 1000 journals), etc.
Carol reported that she had talked with Tony Yankus and they had agreed to communicated with each other, since neither VVL nor VLIN would want to work at cross purposes and there may , in fact, be areas where the public libraries and academic libraries could work together.
The possibility of full text articles was very attractive to several Steering Committee members, particularly the community colleges, so that use would not just generate citations which would increase the ILL load. Dennis suggested that the availability of full text articles might mean that some schools would be able to reduce money spent on document delivery. Carol reminded the committee that we did not yet have details on the full text option. Charlene also reported that she thought that the full text option was not readable on line but would have to be printed before it could be read.
John Duke reminded the committee that database selections will have an impact on the hardware, and that we should be sure to allow enough time for institutions to purchase the appropriate hardware, but that the purchase of First Search would not cause a problem for the Technical Issues Committee or the institutions.
Carol reported that UVA is looking at First Search for ILL use, but it is not Z39.50 compatible. Dennis expressed concern over the direct ILL patron use, but John D. said that systems can be configured to automatically forward the request to the home institution’s ILL office first.
The Steering Committee agreed that the Selections Committee should continue to pursue purchase options as they can make decisions, rather than try to develop an entire plan for the 94-95 purchases before any purchases are made. The committee agreed that there are advantages to having services up and running in spring and summer 1995 in order to show results. The Selecting Electronic Collections Committee will continue its research on First Search.
3. Virginia Newspapers: Carol reported that the committee had decided to look into acquiring Virginia newspapers for the VVL as a special project for Virginia. Their research revealed that Virginia Tech is working with the Landmark Communications Co. to archive and access electronically the Virginian Pilot and Ledger Star (Norfolk) and the Roanoke Times and World News. Other options are also being investigated for making Virginia Newspapers available.
Other issues:
a. Vendor Fair: The committee had discussed possibility of including
database vendors in the Vendor Fair the Tech Issues Committee had proposed.
It was decided to keep the Vendor Fair to a single purpose.
b. Use listserv to get more feedback: the committee supported the idea
of using the listserv to alert participating institutions of possible recommendations
(before they go to the Steering Committee), with the added suggestion that
the committee recommend a deadline for feedback.
c. On the idea of negotiating with vendors for a mix of formats to provide
access to the same product, the committee warned against purchasing products
that can’t be widely networked. The overall goal of the project is
to provide widely distributed access, not access limited to terminals in
the library. The committee may need to pursue some intermediate steps in
the short term, but in general, the committee did not recommend pursuing
a group purchase for all 51 libraries for cd rom (that would then require
purchase of additional workstations).
Overall, the steering committee agreed that the project should serve to be a catalyst to assist all public institutions in reaching a higher level of networking information.
d. Procurement: Carol asked if VCCS was considered one institution or many individual ones, and Lew said that it is sometimes considered one institution, but that it is fairly decentralized. The committee also discussed the issue of one institution signing for all of the VVL Institutions. The idea of having all 51 library directors sign for each database was rejected as taking too much time. Peter Blake said that SCHEV is interested in pursuing the appropriate person or organization to sign for databases. Peter said he would like to get together with Carol Pfeiffer and Bill Bigger to figure out who should be responsible for signing licenses. The committee briefly discussed the idea of establishing another legal organization to handle the responsibility, but was reminded of John Molnar’s expressed desire to reduce central bureaucracy.
D. TECHNICAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
John Duke reported that the ETF funds memo had been distributed prior to Steering Committee approval because of the press of the ETF deadlines. John had talked with Dan Hix before sending the memo out, and Dan’s advice was to make the lists general and that items could be specified at a later date. The Committee decided that the memo should be revised to be more direct in the recommendations, specifically about the general types of equipment needed to meet certain levels of functionality, the type of language to be used to maintain flexibility, and the need to include additional items so that the list totals approximately 30% beyond the amount appropriated. (ETF encourages submissions of 130% of appropriations since the price of items is so dynamic.)
In general, the Steering Committee agreed that the ETF funds should be used to support the broad goals of the Virtual Library Project, including a number of priorities: all libraries should be able to participate in the ILL enhancements project (with Ariel software for windows and workstations) and provide the Z39.50 linking. The six doctoral are expected to build their infrastructure so that they can be the resources centers. Charlene suggested that the might mean that each resource center should be able to provide 10 gigabytes of storage and that t the resource centers will need to be prepared to support whatever the collection committee decides to purchase. We can proceed with the purchase of Ariel software (outside of ETF), but we should wait to make decisions about the Z39.50 software until after the Vendor Fair. Overall, we should prepare the lists with an eye toward maintaining flexibility.
ACTION: John Duke will revise the ETF memo and send it out to Steering Committee members for response by Friday and will then redistribute the memo on the listserv.
The committee discussed aspects of supporting campus networking and agreed that the ability to send information out was the first priority and that the long-term goal is not just access within the campus or within the library. The status of Internet access for the community colleges was also discussed. Rather than concentrate on using workstation money for purchasing routers to provide Internet access, Carol suggested that the community colleges might consider using money budgeted for Z39.50 ($55k) for their routers and IP address access.
ACTION: Lew Terpstra will follow up on costs to provide Internet access for the community colleges.
The issue of communication among schools with similar systems (NOTIS,
VTLS, Innovative, etc.) came up.
ACTION: The Committee agreed that since each member of the Technical Issues
Committee represents a different system, they should each contact the other
libraries within the state with similar systems. In addition, so as not
to burden the Chair, the steering Committee directed the Chair to add an
additional VTLS representative to the committee.
The Committee was reminded that there are at least two major controls assuring the proper use of the VVL Project ETF budget: the first is that all participating public schools have agreed to send a copy of their initial ETF list and the final purchasing list to the project (to Kathy Perry’s attention), and the second is that SCHEV will be able to track the lists back to the VVL project.
The Steering Committee agreed that they need to remain flexible Dennis
suggested that the committee plan on taking stock next summer on what equipment
has been purchased and what has been learned, so that the project maintains
momentum and continues to learn from progress made. Peter suggested that
the committee plan to do an annual report on June 30, 1995.
ACTION: Kathy Perry will work with the Steering Committee to prepare a
fiscal year report for June 30, 1995.
The Steering Committee discussed the Vendor Fair. The Committee recommended
holding it in Richmond at DIT if possible or to look into the possibility
or working with the VLA to hold the fair at their annual meeting (Friday,
October 28) in Williamsburg.
ACTION: Buddy Litchfield and Kathy Perry will work on a small Vendor Fair
specifically designed to highlight the Z39.50 clients only. Rather than
to try to hold a special vendor fair for the potential databases, Carol
find out which vendors are already scheduled to attend VLA.
John Duke reported that the Technical Issues Committee will be looking at the Mosaic client for the Virtual Library. It is clear that although more workstations across the state are capable of running gopher software, not all databases will be accessible through gopher. The issue of load on the networks was discussed and the value of viewing some items through a non-graphical interface (gopher or lynx) was discussed. The committee agreed that it might be a god idea to include both the mosaic client and the gopher software in the project. John reported that he and a colleague will work up a sample home page for the Virginia Virtual Library.
E. USER SERVICES COMMITTEE
Wendell Barbour announced that his committee will meet on Thursday, Sept. 1, 10am-1pm at Virginia Commonwealth University.
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
1. Kathy reported that there were several changes to the mailing addresses for the Steering Committee.
ACTION: Kathy will revise the list, send it out for review again, and then distribute it to the listserv.
2. Charlene reported that GMU, UVA, and VCU were very close to being able to link their catalogs using Z39.50. She proposed that this be advertised as the first step in the Virtual Library.
3. Carol asked if we need a new name since other organizations were
using the name "virtual". The committee discussed this. Kathy
offered the name "VIVA" for Virtual VirginiA.
ACTION: Kathy will put that suggestion out on the listserv and see about
the responses.
4. Peter said Vernet, the platform for the VVL, is meeting on Friday and would like someone form VVL Steering Committee to attend. Buddy had asked John Duke to attend for him and John agreed to attend. An important issue here is that Internet costs are expected to increase next year.
ACTION: The committee encouraged John to represent them at the Vernet
Board meeting. The committee would also like to invite someone from the
Vernet Board to meet with them at the next meeting. Peter will talk to Bud
Robison at the Vernet meeting about attending the next Steering Committee
meeting.
5. Next Meeting: The Steering Committee chose to meet on Thursday, Sept.
15, in Lexington, from 10am-2pm, followed by the full LAC meeting.
ACTION: Charlene will coordinate the schedule with John Molnar.
6. Future Meetings: The Steering Committee chose the second Thursdays of every month from 10am to 2pm as a standard meeting time unless otherwise notified.