ATTENDANCE: Present: Theresa Byrd, Gene Damon, Linda Farynk, Barbara Ford,
Eileen Hitchingham, Charlene Hurt, Jean Major, Dennis Robison, Roy Strohl,
and Elsie Stephens Weatherington. Also Present: Jim Campbell, Jon Marken
(Lamp-Post Publicity), Kathy Perry and Betsy Pittman. Absent: John Jaffe,
Nancy Marshall and Carol Pfeiffer.
I. MINUTES
The minutes of the February 8 meeting were approved as presented.
II. PROJECT UPDATE (Charlene Hurt and Kathy Perry)
A. Membership: Charlene welcomed Gene Damon and Linda Farynk to the committee
and distributed a revised Steering Committee membership list.
B. Training and Travel Budget: Kathy reported that the travel and training budget is fully allocated. This year's budget can only support reimbursements submitted before May 31. Information for the actual costs and ordering status for the additional Ariel workstations and the Minolta MircoDAX 3000 Image Processing System should be forwarded to Kathy. All VIVA participants are urged to turn in their travel and meeting reimbursement vouchers promptly, especially during the last quarter of the 94-96 biennium.
ACTION: At the end of May, any remaining travel and training money will be transferred to the Collections budget to be applied to collections purchases in this fiscal year. The MircoDAX machine will be paid for out of the Collections budget, either this year or next.
C. The Steering Committee discussed the results of the week-long display in the General Assembly Building. All participants were thanked for their hard work. It was agreed that while a number of good things resulted from that work, it may not be necessary to do another display at that site in the future. The User Services Committee will be alert to other opportunities to use the display.
D. VCCS: Gene reported that the VCCS has recently hired Larry Hengehold as new Vice Chancellor. The upgrade to the Internet backbone is complete and everyone is working hard to make sure that the community colleges would get the benefit of VIVA's investments.
E. Participation by the Independent Schools: [Reported at the LAC meeting] John Jaffe reported that SCHEV sent a letter of support for the proposal to the Teagle Foundation.
III. COMMITTEE REPORTS
A. Collections (Jim Campbell)
1. IAC has agreed to delay the start of the paid subscription until April
1. The Steering Committee discussed their interest in having the contract
begin May 1, especially considering the delay in the web-based product and
VIVA's role in the beta testing of the web version.
ACTION: Carol is authorized to see if the IAC contract can begin on May 1, rather than April 1.
2. Project Muse is now available.
3. OED is now available.
4. The Collections Committee is researching the availability of Books in Print (through IAC) and the Code of Virginia.
5. The committee has received a price proposal from Chadwyck-Healey for the American Poetry database, but has requested a more attractive proposal.
6. The two subcommittees on Coordinated Collection Management -- one for Business and the other on Allied Health -- will be meeting later in the month. The Steering Committee discussed whether or not this spring would be the best time to report to the IPAC again, but agreed that timing might be better next fall after these CCM subcommittees have had a chance to do their work. In particular, the Steering Committee raised concerns about the instability of the Internet and the necessity of a stable environment before major steps could be taken to reduce duplication.
7. The Committee presented an action plan for consideration of FirstSearch
renewal. Final decision needs to be made in time for the end of June contract
expiration. The Collections Committee has sent out a survey to get VIVA
participants' feedback on the FirstSearch service and the TIC and CC members
have been investigating problems with slow response time. The Collections
Committee presented three options to consider in the FirstSearch renewal.
The Steering Committee voiced support for the professional judgement of
the Collection Committee members, but expressed initial support for the
option providing the combination of port-based subscriptions and the block
searches for other databases to be determined based upon usage statistics.
ACTION: The Steering Committee voiced their preference for option 1 on the FirstSearch renewal action plan, which would allow for port-based subscription to base package databases, plus MLA. In addition, VIVA could purchase blocks for searches that could be applied to other databases.
B. PUBLICITY (Jean Major)
1. Jon Marken (Lamp-Post Publicity) presented the draft materials for the
National Library Week -- the poster, bookmark, fact card, and reprints of
articles. The committee agreed that 3 sets of the press kits would be adequate
for each campus.
2. Jean reported that she was gathering quotes from VIVA faculty members on ways they were using VIVA resources and would make a sample faculty newsletter available to the other members.
3. Kathy reported that the VIVA web site (under "About VIVA") has a VIVA Icon Library for the various sizes of the new VIVA logo. Institutions were encouraged to use the "tiny.gif" or the "small.gif" on their web sites when they refer to VIVA resources.
C. TECHNICAL ISSUES COMMITTEE (Eileen Hitchingham)
1. TIC's next meeting will include discussion of Virginia's network issues.
2. FirstSearch statistics were distributed and discussed.
D. ILL ENHANCEMENTS COMMITTEE (Dennis Robison)
1. Dennis distributed the results of the Ariel Survey. The committee has
concluded that many of the problems with Ariel are localized, especially
in terms of network access. They are compiling a list of IP addresses for
the VIVA Ariel workstations.
2. ILL is working with OCLC to obtain customized OCLC ILL reports covering VIVA institutions' ILL borrowing and lending with other VIVA institutions. They are hoping to get detailed reports covering 2 retrospective fiscal years and ongoing quarterly reports that will be sent to Kathy and distributed from the central office.
3. The committee is sending out a survey in preparation of the RFP for delivery of books and objects. The deadline for response is April 1.
4. The committee is planning regional ILL meetings to take place August 4-9, 1996. These are tentatively scheduled to be held at the University of Richmond, James Madison, Old Dominion, and Northern Virginia Community College (Manassas campus).
E. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS COMMITTEE (Betsy Pittman)
1. Special Collections will review project ideas to digitize subject oriented
collections within the VIVA institutions at their May 2 meeting.
2. The committee is drawing up plans to develop a thesaurus (or index) to identify significant special collections by topic within the VIVA institutions.
3. Gail McMillan is preparing a report on her training at the Cornell Digitizing Workshop. When completed, this report will be disseminated over the VIVA listserv.
4. The committee is making presentations about VIVA at two regional MARAC meetings.
5. The committee will send out a letter of inquiry to all Virginia high school history faculty requesting suggestions for digitizing projects.
F. USER SERVICES COMMITTEE (Barbara Ford) [reported at the LAC meeting]
1. The User Services Committee is working on the IAC regional workshops,
scheduled for March 22 - 28, to be held at George Mason University, Old
Dominion University, Piedmont Virginia Community College, Virginia Commonwealth
University, and Virginia Tech.
2. The ad hoc Subcommittee on the VIVA Web Site has developed a consistent look for the web pages.
3. The committee distributed table tents to highlight the Chadwyck-Healey African-American Poetry Database for Black History Month.
4. The committee was represented at the VCCS New Horizons Conference.
5. The committee was working with Kathy Perry and the artist in preparing materials to promote VIVA's during National Library Week and after. The posters are designed to be used multiple times, with new resources being featured as they become available.
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
A. Retreat Planning (Jean Major) [reported at the LAC meeting]:
Jean reported that the Steering Committee is planning a two-day retreat
to take place in June around the time of the previously scheduled LAC meeting
at Radford [probably during the week of June 9 -14]. The first day will
be for the entire Library Advisory Council and the second day will be designed
for the VIVA Steering Committee to take the ideas and shape them into an
action plan for the next year.
ACTION: As soon as a keynote speaker has been confirmed, the dates of the retreat will be announced to the VIVA Steering Committee members and on the CHE-LAC listserv.
B. Solinet Meeting Report: Charlene reported that she, Carol, Dennis, and John represented VIVA at the February 15 meeting to discuss various concerns common to other consortia in the southeast. Dennis is working with Solinet to plan the next meeting. Carol is working on the Solinet sponsored meeting between vendors and virtual library projects.
ACTION: Charlene will mail all VIVA Library Directors copies of the chart (developed at the February 15 Solinet meeting) on all of the virtual library projects in the southeast.
C. Jean announced that Solinet is offering a workshop on Evaluating
Electronic Resources.
ACTION: The Steering Committee referred this to the Collections Committee.
D. Next Steering Committee meeting: May 9, 10 - 2, William and Mary.