Five Colleges of Ohio

Five Colleges of Ohio

Library Committee

March 2–3, 2006

Welcome and Announcements

· Present: Chris Barth (chair), Theresa Byrd, Scottie Cochrane, Ray English, Damon Hickey (recorder), Susan Palmer, and Michael Upfold,.

· Congratulations to Ray on being ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year and SPARC Chair.

· Kenyon testified before Board of Regents last fall.

· Governor Taft will give brief remarks at the Kenyon conference on Integrating Libraries and IT, which Chris has largely written, referencing OhioLINK and other cooperative efforts.

· Oberlin is hosting ALA/ARL “Are We Safer in the Dark?” program March 13.

Review of Minutes from 12/1–2/05

· Theresa’s minutes were accepted with thanks.

Old Business

Annual Reports (Chris)

· No reports from Access Services or Government Documents.

Storage Consultants (Chris/Susan)

· Storage Consultants coming in September (Susan Perry and Karin Wittenborg). Susan handed out information. Discussion of schedule. CAOs want to meet with them after they’ve seen all libraries.

Ray: Should we make clear we are willing to investigate any strategy for slowing physical collection growth in order to reduce the need for off-site storage? Oberlin, e.g., is considering as candidates for withdrawal low-use materials that are represented by at least 11 OhioLINK copies, piloting with Dewey 100s.

· Several OPAL libraries (Otterbein, Findley, Mount Union, Malone) are interested in the same issues, and OHIONET is holding a sizeable contingency fund for OPAL. Might we pursue discussions with them and others (Case, Dayton, etc.) about shared off-site storage?

JSTOR Print Weeding/Library of Record/Storage (Ray)

· At Oberlin and Denison, there is an urgent space need to develop Information Commons, and getting JSTOR journals out of the library is a component. Ray would like to see us declare whatever copy of JSTOR journals are in CONStor as the copy of record so that it can circulate in CONSORT and OhioLINK.

Scottie and Damon: why store a copy of record of JSTOR journals? (Susan Perry has already asked this question.) Ray: because (1) some contain important illustrative material and (2) occasionally faculty need to consult a longer run of a journal in print. Scottie: would CRL copy of record be adequate (we are members through OhioLINK)? Ray: not on every campus. (The storage consultants may recommend against our keeping a copy of record in off-site storage. If they do, we may have to alter our practice.)

Getting as many JSTOR journals in CONStor as possible and freeing the rest to be deaccessioned (if that were the individual library’s decision) would be a gesture of good faith, showing that we are doing what we can to promote deaccessioning of unnecessary duplication and to promote “weeding.” We might also consider putting one copy of the U. S. Serial Set in CONStor so that others could be deaccessioned. Might we want to limit the circulation of these sets to the Five Colleges libraries?

There is general agreement to the above, subject to discussions on our individual campuses. We are in complete agreement that whatever copy of JSTOR sets or the Serial Set goes to CONStor first becomes the copy of record, and we will try to build as complete a set around these volumes as possible for circulation within the Five Colleges only. (Ray will discuss with Susan Perry why we are doing this and how it relates to our commitment to reducing duplication.)

We need to make clear to the consultants that we need recommendations as to how to deal with our problem, including what to do with what is in CONStor now. If the recommendation is not to build a Harvard-style facility, what would they recommend? Ray is personally interested in investigating cost figures for a variety of possibilities (buying the entire current CONStor facility, buying an abandoned property, building a Harvard-style facility, etc.).

Susan: We should add the IT directors to the consultants’ schedule, probably when they visit each campus.

Michael: Currently we have just under 89,000 items in CONStor, with an estimated fill date of about 1.5 years (currently about 70% full)! That includes only spaces that have shelves currently. Renting additional space would be additional cost.

IT Collaboration/December Follow-Up (Susan)

· Susan shared John Bucher’s e-mail response (2/20/06), discussing possible uses of a central storage facility for data storage and recovery, but also as a common, staffed Five Colleges IT facility (shared e-mail, course management software, academic software applications, maybe some administrative software needs, and new shared IT services). Kalamazoo and Lake Forest are sharing e-mail and hope to do other IT things together. We will thank him and include his thoughts in the packet of information to be shared with the consultants

Another collaborative possibility currently being discussed by Kenyon: outsourced online hiring geared to an academic environment (Peopleadmin.com). Also, the Emerging Technologies initiative at the Ohio Learning Network is providing discounts and support for course management software (contact Cable Green at oln.org).

Cover Images in CONSORT (Michael)

· Done. Reactions have been positive. Damon: Can we do more to make the look of our catalog interesting, as with Westerville Public Library’s, Wayne State University, and Lincoln University’s catalogs?

We will all let Michael know what we would like to see specifically in the look of our catalog, and he will respond with some examples.

DVD Circulation in CONSORT (Theresa)

· We do not want any special criteria for sharing video materials that we do not apply to the sharing of other library materials. (These materials may be designated “Local Use Only” if they are on reserve or if the purchase agreement requires that they be used at only the purchasing college.)

For the time being we agree that the media cases for materials from any school that wants tapes or DVDs to be used only in the library will bear a label that says, “Library Building Use Only.” However, libraries are not expected to guarantee that these materials will not be taken out of their buildings.

We are not revisiting the circulation policies for VHS tapes at this time. The policies for DVD tapes will be the same as those for VHS tapes.

Library Systems Manager Position Review (Susan/Chris)

· Susan distributed the February 2005 Position Description. We will have a conference call later to go over it.

Scottie: Are the Service Expectations (availability during all the hours the libraries are open) realistic?

· E-mail to Susan from Lisa Bazley at Denison (7 Feb.) asks that we designate someone as a backup to Michael from within one of our libraries. Chris will talk with Karen Greever at Kenyon about doing this. Kevin Furniss will be second backup. There is also a larger question of tracking the hours involved in various consortial tasks.

· Michael would like to arrange to be on each campus one day a month. The library directors would like that, and he will be in touch about times.

· We will have a conference call about the review of the Library Systems Manager on Friday, March 24, 11:00 a.m. Susan’s office will send out details.

New Business

Library Committee Charge (1995) (Susan)

· We reviewed the Board’s 19 June 1995 charge to the Library Committee, and agreed that we need to review it and recommend appropriate changes for the Board to consider on April 18. Other groups, especially the CAOs need to have their own charges that may affect ours. At present we report to the Board (made up of our presidents). We are happy with this arrangement and would like to see it continue. Chris will work on revisions and circulate them for comment.

2006–07 Budget Changes (Susan)

· Susan distributed a draft budget (dated 2/28/2006). She trimmed a few lines where we were not spending what was budgeted in 2005–06, partly in order to fund Serials Solutions (see also “Serials Solutions” below). She also included Videoconferencing and Networking and Telecommunications costs that are not part of the Libraries budget. The draft budget for 2006–07 is $18,310 larger than 2005–06’s.

Future budgets may have to be prepared by October since several colleges are moving their budgeting processes forward.

· ERes has an online interface with Copyright Clearance Center, and it’s up to the individual library whether to use it or not.

NCSU Catalog Initiative (Theresa)

· What NCSU has done is peculiar to them, running a customized version of Endeca on top of their Sirsi system, but it could be run on top of any system. It would require local programming. Could we do it as a Five Colleges project? No library system vendor is moving in this direction. Michael will investigate costs, etc.

Discarding Materials—Better World Books (Theresa)

· Better World Books (betterworldbooks.com) sells discarded books on consignment through online marketplaces and applies its profits to promote literacy around the world. Kenyon is using them now. Would we all want to use them? We will continue discussing it by e-mail.

Serial Solutions (Susan/Michael)

· The budget with increases for Serials Solutions has been discussed with the Operating Committee and has to be acted on by the Board. We may be asked about it by our administrators, since the budget is about 6% over last year’s (see “2006–07 Budget Changes” above).

Subcommittee Reports

Access Services (Theresa)

· Good meeting, full group. Discussed change in renewals to match OhioLINK, reconciliation, videos/DVDs, Wooster’s program for advertising OhioLINK DVC, use of Odyssey by OhioLINK as preferred ILL module. Next meeting June 7 at Kenyon.

Collection Development (Scottie)

· Will start group approval plan for religious studies; a task force is working on the details. Oberlin has not decided whether to participate. Next meeting May 1 at Oberlin.

CONSORT Catalog (Michael)

· Met January 31. Nothing to report.

Government Documents (Megan)—No Report

Reference & Instruction (Ray)—No Report

Denison/Kenyon Collection Services (Chris/Scottie)

· Amy Badertscher, associate director for collection services at Kenyon, has been here a month, working 50% at Denison, 50% at Kenyon, with an office in both places and e-mails at both. Maureen Sullivan will be coming for a closing retreat as grant period ends.

Chris Barth, chair

Damon Hickey, recorder