ATTENDANCE: Present: Wendell Barbour, Theresa Byrd, Barbara Ford, Eileen Hitchingham, Charlene Hurt, John Jaffe, Jean Major, Carol Pfeiffer, Dennis Robison, Elsie Stephens, Roy Strohl. Also Present: Mary Ann Chappell and Kathy Perry. Absent: Nancy Marshall.
I. MINUTES
The minutes of the December 14 meeting were approved as presented.
II. PROJECT UPDATE (Charlene Hurt and Kathy Perry)
A. Travel and Training Budget: Kathy reported that the travel and training
budget has been allocated for the remainder of the year. The patent copy
machine is estimated to cost more than $31,000. Barbara reported that VCU
could pay for part of the machine's cost. Kathy requested assistance in
monitoring the year's remaining budget.
ACTION: By February 15, Committee Chairs will provide Kathy with an update on the projected number of committee meetings for the remainder of this fiscal year, as well as good estimates on the anticipated costs for workshops and other expenses to be charged against the travel and training budget. In addition, Kathy will urge VIVA travelers to submit their travel reimbursement forms within one week of travel.
B. Membership: Dennis reported that Linda Farynk was the nominee to fill out Wendell Barbour's term on the VIVA Steering Committee.
ACTION: Charlene will invite Linda Farynk to replace Wendell Barbour on the VIVA Steering Committee.
C. Solinet meeting: Charlene reported that she, John Jaffe, Dennis Robison and Carol Pfeiffer will represent VIVA at the Solinet meeting on the Virtual Lbrary.
ACTION: Charlene, John, Dennis, and Carol will report at the next Steering Committee about the Solinet meeting on Consortia arrangements.
D. Workshop/Retreat: Kathy presented Maureen Sullivan's proposal for
a workshop for VIVA library directors. The committee discussed the relative
merits of having such a meeting during this fiscal year.
ACTION: The committee tabled discussion on convening such a workshop aimed
at VIVA Library Directors during this fiscal year.
Jean presented a plan for a retreat for all LAC members to discuss VIVA's goals and progress toward meeting those goals.
ACTION: Jean, Carol, and Linda will prepare a plan for the VIVA retreat in two phases, first with the LAC to revisit VIVA goals and our progress toward meeting them and then with the VIVA Steering Committee to translate concepts into actions. The retreat is tentatively scheduled for June 13-14, 1996. The Retreat Planning Committee will identify potential facilitators for the retreat.
E. Legislative Demo Week: Kathy reported that the volunteers, exhibit, and equipment were lined up for the legislative demo, February 19-23 in the General Assembly Building.
F. National Library Week: Kathy reported that the User Services Committee recommended Jon Marken, of Lamp-Post Publicity to design and prepare publicity for VIVA's National Library Week press kits.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the use of Lamp-Post Publicity for the National Library Week press kits. Copies will be mailed to all VIVA Library Directors in time for the April 16 "logon@thelibraryday".
III. IAC IMPLEMENTATION (Committees and Mary Ann Chappell)
The Steering Committee discussed lessons learned from this major purchase and agreed that in general, the cross-committee team concept was successful for the procurement phase, and that such a team should continue in place for the implementation of major procurements. At the same time, there was recognition that many, but perhaps not all, of the implementation issues cannot be addressed until the award has been made.
Carol reported that the Collections Committee was scheduled to meet the next day and would be analyzing which additional databases to purchase.
Mary Ann Chappell reported that installation of the 6 servers will be complete by February 12. The Technical Issues Committee was deciding if all VIVA IP addresses would be valid at all 6 servers, and the Steering Committee gave support to that approach. Telnet access will be the only approach until the IAC web interface is made public (projected to be mid- to late March). The issue of telnet access is made slightly more complicated by the fact that telnet programs that work well with FirstSearch, do not work well with IAC. Technical Issues Committee is searching for a solution that will handle the FirstSearch proxies well, handle IAC screen formatting, and that will allow VIVA institutions to print the IAC documents easily and reliably. Since the FirstSearch web interface is due out later in February, compatibility with FirstSearch may be less of a problem.
Mary Ann presented an interim solution, which was to get IAC available as of February 29, with Trumpet Telnet as a compromise telnet program. It has the disadvantage of not showing the IAC screen's line drawings, but at the same time, it does not distort the information, prints very reliably and easily, and works with the FirstSearch proxy well.
ACTION: TIC will work to get IAC available via telnet by February 29, with access via the VIVA web site to follow as quickly as possible.
Barbara reported that the User Services Committee is going forward with plans for the IAC training, currently scheduled for late March or early April. These are to be designed for the user services librarians at all VIVA institutions. The Steering Committee suggested that they include some time for questions and answers with technical issues people and requested that Mary Ann Chapell be available at all of these regional meetings, as well as the local technical issues contacts.
ACTION: User Services will continue work on designing the half-day regional training sessions on the IAC databases. Mary Ann Chapell and local technical issues representatives will be available to answer questions at each site.
The Steering Committee discussed the need for additional training at a later date to share information about implementation problems and solutions.
ACTION: Technical Issues and User Services will design a follow-up training session, tentatively planned for June or July in a central location, to bring together technical issues people and user services representatives after they have had more experience with IAC, to exchange information about problems and solutions.
John Jaffe requested that IP addresses for the independent schools be included in the IP validation table for the VIVA IAC databases.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the inclusion of the independent schools' IP addresses in the list of VIVA IP addresses for the IAC databases.
Although the list of IAC customers is considered proprietary, the Steering Committee requested that they be allowed to see the list.
ACTION: Kathy will work with IAC to provide a list of IAC customers to VIVA Library Directors.
IV. COMMITTEE REPORTS
A. COLLECTIONS (Carol Pfeiffer)
1. Carol reported that the committee is reviewing the statistics on FirstSearch
use, with projections on several alternatives for future use and preliminary
cost-benefit analysis. The committee is also preparing a survey for the
VIVA institutions on FirstSearch use to aid in this analysis.
2. Carol presented the VIVA Collections Budget for 1995-96 and preliminary estimates for the 1996-98 years.
3. The Subcommittees on the Cooperative Collection Management Issues will be chaired by Pat Howe (Longwood) for the business resources project and Ruth Kifer (Northern Virginia Community College) for the nursing resources project. Carol reported the nominees for these subcommittee members and encouraged the Steering Committee members to send any further suggestions to her.
ACTION: The Steering Committee authorized Carol to make the appointments for the Cooperative Collection Management Subcommittees.
Carol distributed a draft document of objectives for the Cooperative Collection Management subcommittees.
ACTION: The Steering Committee members are to send comments to Carol on the draft document of objectives for the Cooperative Collection Management subcommittees' work.
4. Carol provided a status report on 3 other procurements:
Project Muse: negotiations are complete and the service will be made available
on the VIVA web site.
OED: negotiations are complete. They provided VIVA with access for both
the public and the private schools for the same price. UVA has mounted
OED using Open Text software.
Books in Print: The Collections Committee is re-evaluating whether or not
to have a separate vendor for this product, given the potential implementation
issues.
B. ILL ENHANCEMENTS (Dennis Robison)
1. ILL is working on several workshops for the next few months:
a. a session for Ariel, primarily intended for the community colleges.
b. one session on ILL -- Beyond the Basics, presented by Solinet, at VCU
in April [now scheduled to take place on April 1].
c. one make-up session on Union List of Serials, presented by Solinet,
at VCU in April [now scheduled to take place on April 2].
d. 4 regional ILL workshops in early August. These are tentatively scheduled
to be held at VCU, JMU, ODU, & at a site in Northern Virginia.
2. The committee is working on the Document Delivery RFP and hope to have it ready so that service can begin as soon after July 1 as possible.
3. The Steering Committee considered the request by a VIVA institution for additional equipment to run Ariel software for ILL.
ACTION: The Steering Committee decided not to reopen the issue of purchasing additional Ariel equipment.
C. TECHNICAL ISSUES (Eileen Hitchingham)
1. Eileen reported that the MARC records for the Chadwyck-Healey databases
are available and institutions should contact the vendor to obtain a copy.
(Chadwyck - Healey, 703/683-4890, 1101 King Street, Suite 380, Alexandria,
VA 22314.)
2. Eileen distributed FirstSearch statistics on VIVA use between July and
December 1995.
D. USER SERVICES (Barbara Ford)
Kathy reported that the subcommittee on the VIVA web site had met, approved
a new VIVA logo and overall page design and were working to develop general
style guidelines and to reorganize the VIVA web site before the General
Assembly demo.
E. PUBLICITY (Jean Major)
Jean reported that two press releases had been distributed for the IAC databases
to all VIVA Library Directors. Charlene reported that VIVA was featured
in The Chronicle of Higher Education (2/9/96) and the Fall 1996 issue of
the VLA Newsletter.
ACTION: Jean will prepare publicity for the VIVA Library Directors on the just completed OED and Project Muse procurements. Kathy will distribute the relevant parts of the VIVA contracts to the Library Directors.
V. OTHER BUSINESS
The March 14 VIVA Steering Committee meeting, held in conjunction with the
LAC meeting, previously scheduled to be held at Radford, will be held in
UVA in Charlottesville.