Steering Committee Meeting
Friday, October 8, 1999
Virginia Community College System
Richmond, Virginia
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE: Present: Ralph Aberico, Cal Boyer, Gene Damon, Eileen Hitchingham, Jean Major, Connie McCarthy, Don Samdahl, Roy Strohl, John Ulmschneider, and John Zenelis. Also Present: John Duke (VCU), Kathy Perry (VIVA), and Carol Pfeiffer (SCHEV). Absent: John Jaffe, Frank Moran, and Karin Wittenborg.
I. Minutes of the July 9 meeting were unanimously approved.
II. PROJECT UPDATE
A. Chair's Report (Roy Strohl)
1. Roy shared a copy of final letter sent on July 23, 1999, to Charlotte Parsons (Abingdon Public Library) on behalf of the VIVA Steering Committee. That letter reaffirmed the Steering Committee's support for both the SACS Criteria for Accreditation and the ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services. He also reported that since the time of that letter, he had also shared with Ms. Parsons the information that the Virginia Highlands Community College's library has increased their staffing and hours to address the needs of the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center students. No response has been received.
2. Eileen reported on the proposal for the 2000-2002 Biennium. Three areas were requested: inflation support, additional support for the independent institutions and additional Full Text electronic resources, particularly for the science and medical areas. A lengthy discussion followed on this year's process and suggestions for the future. In particular, it was agreed that work should begin earlier on the proposal and further work is necessary to exhibit VIVA's collaborative nature and cost effectiveness.
B. Director's Report (Kathy Perry)
1. Kathy summarized the results of the September 28-29 email voting:
ACTION: The Steering Committee unanimously approved subscriptions to the following 10 journal titles via HighWire Press:
- Academic Psychiatry
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Biophysical Journal
- Clinical Chemistry
- Journal of Applied Physiology
- Journal of Biological Chemistry
- Journal of Cell Biology
- Journal of General Physiology
- Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry
- Molecular Biology of the Cell
ACTION: The Steering Committee unanimously approved renewal of the Dow Jones Interactive license.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the allocation of funds for the brochure design work.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the Assessment Subcommittee's recommendation to subcontract with Greg Byerly for the VIVA Five-Year Assessment Report.
1. Kathy distributed and discussed the VIVA budget for the 1998-2000 biennium. Approximately 75% of the Reallocation Funds has been received to date by JMU. She also shared the draft of the Academic Press IDEAL invoice letter.
2. Roy reported on the July SCHEV meeting with private college presidents he and John Jaffe attended. Kathy shared the summary "Benefits of VIVA Participation by Independent Institutions, 1994-99" and the list of the schools the Commonwealth Attorney General determined can receive state funds (these same schools are eligible to receive Tuition Assistance Grant funds). John Jaffe is working with these eligible schools to determine their monetary participation based upon their FTE.
3. Kathy provided an overview of the decentralized services currently provided by the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, James Madison University, Sweet Briar College, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Tech. Services include managing several listservs, committee web pages, and other services provided at schools throughout the Commonwealth. She will follow up with the library directors at these schools to ascertain their willingness to continue these services for VIVA.
4. Other:
a. The Chronicle of Higher Education's Almanac edition (August 27, 1999) incorrectly reported that state funding was made available to the private for profit colleges and universities in Virginia. SCHEV has requested that a correction be printed.
b. The Electronic Campus of Virginia is going to submit a proposal to the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education for structural support.
c. Kathy made a presentation about VIVA to the Maryland Digital Library committee on September 23. They are waiting for their "Year Zero Funding" of $500,000 and considering various organizational issues.
C. Organization Issues
1. Assessment (Ralph Alberico) Ralph reviewed the Assessment Plan. The preliminary assessment report will be submitted no later than November 29, 1999.
2. Proposed Special Project (Eileen Hitchingham). Eileen presented a proposal for 1 day conference on creating web lists with hotlinks for VIVA full-text journals from aggregator sources. Audience will include technical, user services, and cataloging staff members from VIVA schools. The format will include demonstrations and discussion of ways several member institutions are approaching the task. An effort will be made to learn from each other about strategies for developing such lists with an eye toward preventing duplication of effort among member libraries.
ACTION: The Steering Committee approved the proposal to develop an interdisciplinary one-day workshop to exchange information about how different VIVA sites are cataloging and linking their users to full text periodicals from VIVA aggregator services. Eileen Hitchingham will take the lead on this project and work with representatives of the Cataloging and Intellectual Access Task Force as well as designated technical and user services librarians.
III. COMMITTEES
A. OUTREACH Committee (Ralph Alberico). Ralph reported on his committee's first meeting and their work to date.
1. Ralph presented a plan to revise the "VIVA in Action" feature, both in format and name. Different VIVA resources will be featured each month. The primary audience will be the VIVA members and the committee plans to encourage integration of the link into the local institutions' web pages.
ACTION: The VIVA Steering Committee approved the revised plan for the "VIVA in Action" publicity.
2. Ralph described their plans for the VIVA brochure.3. Ralph reported that the committee has prepared 3 press releases and the first two, HarpWeek and Ovid, have been distributed via the VIVA listserv.
4. The committee is developing a web site which will include the VIVA in Action (to be renamed) feature, press releases (in both HTML and Word), and other VIVA promotional materials including PowerPoint presentations. The committee will work to avoid duplication of effort on tutorials and the database information clearinghouse.
B. RESOURCES FOR USERS COMMITTEE (Gene Damon). Gene reported on his committee's first meeting and their work to date.
1. The Resources for Users Committee recommended renewing the current titles in the Project Muse subscription. Consideration of the new titles will be deferred until later.
ACTION: The VIVA Steering Committee approved the renewal of Project Muse.
2. Gene reported on the approvals for the HighWire Press journals and the Dow Jones Interactive renewal approved in the electronic vote of September 28.3. The Committee has reviewed the new FirstSearch and has recommended that VIVA members not switch to the new service until all databases are available and the depth of coverage on all databases has been converted.
4. Gene reported that Jane Schille (VPI) did an excellent job with the InfoTrac Web training and the Ovid Training in August and September. Jane will lead a subgroup to determine VIVA's training needs.
5. Gene reported that the Committee intends to complete an assessment of a couple of VIVA's resources and has identified a subcommittee to develop a methodology for evaluating existing resources. Sharon Gasser (JMU) will begin to work on the assessment of the GaleNet databases. Following soon upon that experience, Jim Self will identify a subgroup to analyze the value to VIVA of our Academic Press IDEAL subscription, particularly in light of the several service disruptions and the total dollars (both VIVA central dollars and the local institutional contributions) VIVA pays for this resource.
6. Gene reported on the International Coalition of Library Consortia meeting (COC6) that he and Kathy attended September 30 - October 2 in Chicago. The Steering Committee discussed a number of issues and ideas from that meeting.
ACTION: The VIVA Steering Committee unanimously approved sending VIVA representatives to COC7, scheduled for April 2000.
C. RESOURCE SHARING (Don Samdahl).
1. Don reported on his committee's first meeting, August 20. He presented an idea for a pilot project to evaluate key journals held by VIVA members. The Steering Committee said that the project had potential but requested that Don work with Gene on defining the project for a future Steering Committee meeting.
ACTION: Don Samdahl and Gene Damon will work together to explore the pilot project to evaluate key journals.
2. Jean Major asked the Resource Sharing Committee to explore the value and possibility of bringing the ARL Workshop on Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery to Virginia.
ACTION: Don Samdahl will work with the Resource Sharing Committee to evaluate the value of the ARL Workshop to Virginia and various ways the costs might be shared.
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
A. Due to the length of the meeting, the review of VIVA's web presence was postponed until the next meeting.
B. Roy reminded the committee that the VIVA Users Group Meeting is scheduled for Friday, October 29, 10 -11 AM at the VLA meeting at the Homestead.
C. The next VIVA Steering Committee meeting is scheduled to take place Thursday, December 2 at UVA.