SCHEV -- LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
9th Floor of the
March 3, 2006
9:00 a.m.
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE:
Ralph Alberico (James Madison University), Tom Camden for Nolan Yelich (Library of Virginia), Virginia Cherry (Richard
Bland College), Gene Damon (Virginia Community College System), Elaine Day (Averett University), Alan Edwards (SCHEV), David Hayes
(Radford University), Eileen Hitchingham (Virginia
Tech), John Jaffe (Sweet Briar College), Virginia Kinman
for Wendell Barbour (Longwood University), Connie McCarthy (The College of
William and Mary), Colette Macin for Tommy Bogger
(Norfolk State University), Mary Mayer-Hennelly (Tidewater Community College),
CALL TO ORDER: Don Samdahl, Chair, called the meeting to order at 9:00 A.M.
INTRODUCTIONS AND PRELIMINARY COMMENTS:
Don Samdahl thanked Alan
Edwards and SCHEV for hosting the LAC meeting.
Don announced that this would be Alan’s last meeting as the SCHEV LAC
liaison and that Craig Herndon, SCHEV Associate for Academic Affairs would be
serving in that capacity in the future.
Don expressed appreciation for Alan’s extensive support and valuable
advice for libraries during the past four years.
Don then welcomed special
guest Dr. Daniel J. LaVista, SCHEV Executive Director. Dr. LaVista acknowledged the LAC’s role in creating a network of information exchange
that is of special benefit to SCHEV. Dr.
LaVista summarized recent General Assembly activities and commented on issues of
interest to SCHEV and libraries, including HB1478 (Textbook sales at public
institutions of higher education), the Learning
Technology Advisory Committee, and education performance measure as they relate
to the Higher Education Restructuring Act.
Dr. LaVista noted opportunities for library involvement and partnerships
with K-12 schools. Dr. LaVista also responded to questions from LAC members
about accreditation standards for For-Profit institutions, higher education research
initiatives and library funding, and the proposed public four-year
degree-granting institution in south central
The minutes of the
VIVA REPORTS:
A. December
update
Connie shared progress on
initiatives from the Steering Committee retreat, noting two items in
particular: a. Institutional
Repositories -- no further exploration
is required at this time; b. Maximizing VIVA student use and access – Don
Samdahl and Elaine Day are co-chairing a subcommittee to work on this; a
workshop is not needed at this time.
B. March
update
1. A survey was distributed to VIVA libraries,
asking if they needed additional collection storage space and if they would use
central repository space if it were offered.
The survey results were inconclusive and more study is needed.
2. The Steering Committee is drafting the agenda
for its July retreat in
1. Two electronic votes were held and renewals
approved for the
2. The Steering Committee approved membership of
the Jefferson College of Health Sciences as one of VIVA’s
nonprofit independent members.
3. The Steering Committee approved the inclusion
of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research as a new VIVA research
facility in
4. Kathy distributed a handout about the
proposed IMLS Grant on SmartFox (open source browser
tools for digital collections) and noted that VIVA institutions will be invited
to participate at some point in the future.
5. The Online
6. Kathy and John Ulmschneider
hosted the VIVA Users Group meeting in October at the annual Virginia Library
Association conference
B. March
update
1. The July planning retreat
will provide a good transitional opportunity for new representatives of 4- year
schools who begin their term July 1, 2006.
2. The Institute for Psychological Sciences, a
private nonprofit institution, was approved for VIVA membership.
3. Kathy invited Ralph Alberico to summarize
action on VITA (Virginia Information Technology Accessibility Standard) that
went into effect November 4, 2005. VITA promulgates new standards of accessibility
for disabled students, including accessibility to web services. VIVA has
ensured that all VIVA databases comply with accessibility standards.
4. Kathy summarized Steering Committee
discussion of electronic journals archiving issues – examining options such
as PORTICO and CLOCKSS. Is there a role for VIVA? What are schools doing who participate in
these programs? What are the business
models?
Resource Sharing Committee: Eileen Hitchingham,
Chair
A. December update
1. Eileen presented interlibrary loan statistics
for 2004-2005, noting that while there was a slight decline in the number of
journal articles lent via
VIVA members.
2. VIVA member libraries are gradually
implementing Ariel 4.1 software.
3. Several schools using Innovative in the I-81
corridor were investigating a pilot project for sharing their catalogs within the
group, but it was determined that implementation was not cost-effective.
B. March update
1. Eileen reported that VIVA currently spends
$400,000 annually on interlibrary loan reimbursements to members. The Resource
Sharing Committee is analyzing more cost-effective delivery mechanisms so that
VIVA institutions can offer comparable ILL services for less. The committee will develop a questionnaire
for college and university ILL staff and will then use the data to make
recommendations to the Steering Committee.
Eileen shared a sample grid developed by ASERL that displayed the
delivery times and costs of moving library materials between libraries.
2. Eileen reminded members of
the VIVA Interlibrary Loan Community Forum,
VIVA Resources for Users Committee: Gene Damon, Chair
A. December
update
1. The VIVA Steering Committee approved these
renewals: a. ABC-CLIO; b. Cambridge
University Press; c. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online;
d. HighWire Journals; e. Journal of Advanced Nursing;
f. LexisNexis Statistical; g. Oxford University Press
Journals; h. Science.
2. The Steering Committee approved the
acquisition of these new resources: a.
the Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection, and b. Fifteen e-books from the
Gale Virtual Reference Library.
3. The Steering Committee recommended that
negotiations continue concerning the terms of the Stat-USA subscription.
B. March update
Gene disseminated the “VIVA
Resources for Users Committee Report to the Steering Committee, March 2, 2006,”
summarized the Committee’s recommendations for renewals and reported the
Steering Committee’s actions on other matters:
1. The VIVA Steering Committee approved five
renewals: a. Duke University Press
journal package; b. Gale InfoTrac; c. Gale MLA; d. AP
Archive; e. IOP
2. The Steering Committee approved the RUC
recommendation to continue the Stat-USA subscription, reversing its earlier
vote to cancel the subscription.
Renegotiations with the vendor generated a substantial price adjustment;
however, the committee will continue to review the value of this title to VIVA
libraries.
3. The RUC Training subcommittee will solicit
recommendations for training sessions.
The Steering Committee approved a training workshop budget not to exceed
$5,000.
4. Work continues on building a cost sharing
proposal for the Blackwell journal collection.
The RUC is looking at a core collection of Blackwell titles with
universal, statewide electronic access and is also examining various pricing
models for the colleges.
A. December
update
1. The Outreach Committee and Eric Rector
incorporated the web design changes that the Steering Committee recommended for
the VIVA web site.
2. Progress continues on maintenance of the new
VIVA website. Software will be provided
to participating “custodians” for the committee pages and other sections of the
web site.
3. Press releases were developed and posted for
new VIVA resources.
B. March update
John
distributed the “VIVA Outreach Committee Quarterly Report, 3-2-06” that noted a
committee meeting in
1. Web site implementation – The new web site
design was brought online in early January 2006. Eric Rector and John Duke were recognized for
their exceptional contributions to this project. Additional work continues on cleaning up VIVA
committee web pages, posting the VIVA 10th Anniversary page,
revising the VIVA feedback mechanism, and training custodians for each VIVA web
page.
2. Branding – After thorough review, the
Committee determined that the technical obstacles and local challenges related
to branding made a consistent branding approach across all institutions
unfeasible at this time. Instead, the
Committee decided to focus its efforts on five VIVA resources that offered more
flexible branding options.
3. New initiatives – Consideration is being
given to the best possible options for sharing VIVA training and support
materials, especially those developed locally. Proposals include: a clearinghouse modeled on Merlot, a
VIVA-sponsored workshop, a blog combined with an RSS
feed, and a combined pool of VIVA subscription information.
Virginia Heritage Project Task Force: David Hayes, Chair
Dave distributed the “VIVA
Steering Committee Report From Virginia Heritage Task Force, March 2, 2006,”
which summarized recent task force activities:
1. The VIVA Steering Committee approved funds
for the March 21, 2006, VHP training session for staff entering finding aids.
2. A subgroup of the Task Force is making progress
on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant proposal to be prepared by mid
July. The theme of the grant proposal is
“The Struggle for Freedom.” As stated in
the Report, “The proposal seeks to enhance preservation of and access to
primary source materials by creating archival masters and digital surrogates
for original documents currently housed in academic libraries and archival
repositories throughout the
Several related issues were
highlighted: (a)Virginia Tech has volunteered to host the archival TIFFs images and other archival masters; (b) The question
of a centralized or decentralized location for serving the digitized documents
was debated and discussion will be continued at the next meeting; (c) The
Steering Committee reviewed the draft Memorandum of Understanding for
participating members and made several suggestions.
Dave Hayes thanked Kathy
Perry and John Zenelis for their helpful participation in drafting the grant
proposal and memorandum of understanding.
1. Ralph reported that JMU had received the PBS
video collection (more than 300 titles) and that staff were beginning to work
with them. Committee members were reminded
that VIVA retains distribution rights to this PBS collection in perpetuity.
2. Ralph noted that he had selected 12 – 13
members from many qualified nominations for the MultiMedia
Task Force. This group will hold its
first meeting on March 20, 2006. Its
long-range goal is to establish a framework for managing multimedia
distribution among VIVA institutions. Its immediate goals are to establish
effective communication about the project throughout the wider academic
community, to determine how to distribute encoded streaming files, to develop a
few basic approaches that take into account different technical environments,
and to survey the VIVA library directors about their current multimedia
environment. Ralph distributed a draft copy of the survey. Many other related
matters will be considered by the Task Force, e.g., publicity, budget
implications, catalog records, file structure, encoding levels, access paths.
Strategic Plans of Libraries: John Zenelis and Dave Hayes
Don Samdahl introduced the keynote
presenters who provided a briefing on library involvement in long-range
planning at VIVA institutions: John
Zenelis of
Dave Hayes first shared some
of the strategic planning lessons gleaned from the Harvard Leadership Institute
he attended recently as well as guidelines from Bolman
and Deal’s book Reframing Organizations. Dave
also distributed McConnell Library’s draft strategic planning document and
addressed the key points within that document, i.e., vision and mission
statements, resources, budget, access, infrastructure, personnel, and
assessment, all of which were linked to
John Zenelis compared two
models of strategic planning at
Both John and Dave emphasized
that successful institutional planning will include the library as a core
academic element, not just a support service.
SCHEV Update:
Alan Edwards
1. Alan extended a warm
welcome to the LAC members and assured the group that he would continue working
with the committee until the end of the legislative session. Alan will be serving
in two new roles as SCHEV Director of Policy and Studies and as the Acting
Director of Academic Affairs and Planning.
2. Alan encouraged the VIVA Steering Committee
to request inclusion on SCHEV’s July 2006 meeting agenda. The Steering Committee and LAC were urged to
maintain strong leadership roles and to keep SCHEV well-informed of academic
issues that impact libraries.
3. Craig Herndon and Alan Edwards will
participate in the SREB online webinars on disaster
preparedness.
Library of Virginia Update: Tom Camden for Nolan Yelich
Tom summarized several House and Senate bills related
to the Library of Virginia’s role of managing and archiving public records.
For the Good of the Order
1. Elections – Elsie Stephens Weatherington and Dave Hayes have terms that are scheduled
to end on June 30, 2006. Don Samdahl
will conduct an online election.
2. VIVA Steering Committee retreat -- The retreat will be held Wednesday evening,
July 12 and Thursday, July 13, 2006, at the Virginia Tech Inn., followed by the
LAC meeting on July 14 at
3. Don Samdahl thanked Alan Edwards and his
staff for hosting the LAC meeting and for providing refreshments and electronic
support for the presentations. Don
affirmed once again Alan’s strong contributions in an advisory capacity to the
academic libraries in
The meeting was adjourned at 12:05
p. m.
Future LAC Meetings with VIVA
Steering Committee the preceding day:
July 14, 2006
September 2006 ? Host
site needed
Aileen Schweitzer, Secretary