LIBRARY
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
VIRGINIA TECH
JUNE 6, 2003
MINUTES
ATTENDANCE:
Ralph Alberico (James
Madison University), Christopher Bean (Shenandoah
University), Calvin Boyer (Longwood
University), Barbara Brown (Washington & Lee), Virginia Cherry (Richard Bland
College), Elaine Day (Averett University), David Hayes (Radford University),
Eileen Hitchingham (Virginia Tech), Doug Hurd for Karin Wittenborg (University
of Virginia), John Jaffe (Sweet Briar College), Connie McCarthy (The College of
William and Mary), Mary Mayer-Hennelly (Tidewater Community College), Virginia
O’Herron (Old Dominion University), Frank Moran (Blue Ridge Community College),
Kathy Perry (VIVA), Don Samdahl (Virginia Military Institute), John Ulmschneider (Virginia Commonwealth
University), Elsie Weatherington (Virginia State University), Nelson Worley for
Nolan Yelich (Library of Virginia), and
Craig Gibson for John Zenelis (George Mason
University).
CALL TO
ORDER:
Elsie Weatherington, Chair, called the meeting to order at 9:00 A.M.
INTRODUCTIONS
AND PRELIMINARY COMMENTS:
Elsie Weatherington thanked Eileen Hitchingham for
the VIVA and LAC arrangements at Virginia Tech. She also welcomed Elaine Day from Averett University and
Christopher Bean from Shenandoah University.
Everyone expressed retirement wishes to Barbara Brown who is attending
her last LAC meeting.
The minutes of the March 7, 2003, meeting were approved.
VIVA REPORTS:
Ralph Alberico will continue to serve as chair of the VIVA Steering Committee. Elise Weatherington will represent the comprehensives.
Kathy Perry and Eileen Hitchingham were appointed by Ralph to examine VIVA’s structure and there will be an email vote.
The VIVA Retreat held February 4, 2003 set several
priorities: (1) To investigate
reference linking and federated searching.
Elaine Day was thanked for her leadership role for the Content Linking
workshop at Sweet Briar College and her submission of an excellent and thorough
report of the workshop. The complete
report will be available in the next few days on the VIVA website. (2) Serials management for cooperative collection management,
collection development, interlibrary loan and research access. Kathy Perry discussed serials
identification. (3) Digitization of
book collections beyond Special Collections.
(4) Shared automation with a subset of VIVA members working to acquire a
shared automation system. Eileen
Hitchingham will chair. (5) Karen Wittenborg will explore storage options for
VIVA members.
John Ulmschneider distributed
“Strengthening VIVA- A Case Statement /draft June 2003)”. The paper presented the case for increased funding to support the three goals of the Plan
for Higher Education adopted by SCHEV in December 2002. “The Systemwide Strategic Plan for Higher
Education adopted by SCHEV in December 2002 identifies three goals for
Virginia’s public higher educational system—enrollment growth, increased
sponsored research, and improved instructional quality. A strengthened Virtual Library of Virginia
(VIVA) will advance these goals through highly efficient use of financial
resources that directly target key outcomes.
The State Council recommends that the Commonwealth increase funding for
VIVA significantly in the coming biennium, thereby putting in place a
cornerstone that will promote success in all areas of the System wide Strategic
Plan.” The paper addressed the challenges faced by academic libraries and
how stronger funding will be used by VIVA.
Kathy reminded everyone to pay VIVA bills on time and that late fees will be initiated beginning July 1, 2003. Kathy distributed “VIVA Statistics-status as of 6/3/03” indicating the reporting activity of VIVA products.
Resource Sharing Committee:
John Ulmschneider, Chair
John disseminated two handouts: (1) Proposed revised Interlibrary Loan Guidelines (revised May 2003) indicating additions and deletions, and (2) Final VIVA Interlibrary Loan Guidelines (which were approved by the Steering Committee). Virginia Cherry moved and Ralph Alberico seconded the motion that the ILL Guidelines be accepted. A discussion followed with remarks about the value of interlibrary loans on individual campuses. Faculty do value this important service. Barbara Brown remarked that tenured faculty at Washington and Lee University are amazed and thankful for the speed of receiving interlibrary loans.
John disseminated the
“Final Schedule of the 5th Annual VIVA ILL Forum” to be held July
11, 2003 at the University of Virginia.
Usually at the end of the LAC meetings, a discussion
topic is pursued. At this meeting, an
ILL presentation was given by Harry M. Kriz, Director of Interlibrary Services
at Virginia Tech. Due to time issues,
the discussion topic was changed from end of meeting to middle of meeting. Four handouts were disseminated: (1) Trends
in ILL and Document Delivery, (2) VIVA Detailed Interlibrary Loan Report from
OCLC Data-Fiscal 2002-Data revised by OCLC April 21, 2003, (3) How many lenders
do we need? and (4) VIVA Benefits ILL Turnaround Time. The
VIVA Benefits ILL Turnaround Time (Posted to ILLiad-L on May 1, 2001, indicated
that it can be demonstrated “that borrowing from VIVA libraries results in a
significantly shorter turnaround time than borrowing from other libraries. All lenders took 10.31 days while VIVA
lenders took 7.54 days.” The second
handout “How Many Lenders Do We Need?” was posted to ILL-L and ILLiad-L on
February 7, 2001 and indicated that it took 1,000 libraries to support Virginia
Tech’s research needs during a single year and underscored the fact that
library cooperation is important and that
“no library can own everything its users need.”
Ralph Alberico
underscored the interdependency of libraries and to find a way to incorporate
this independency especially in VIVA advocacy programs.
Connie disseminated the “VIVA Outreach Committee Report to the Steering
Committee, June 5, 2003.” The Committee
met May 9th and welcomed new member Priscilla Perkins, Head of Technical
Services at Lynchburg College.
Library instruction workshops, “Fifty-Minute Librarian: Strategies for
Effective Library Instruction” are being planned and once final confirmation is
received, the information will be posted on the VIVA listserv. There will be three workshops: Virginia Tech
(no date yet), Hampton University (August 7) and the University of Virginia
(August 14).
The Committee is continuing its advocacy program. The Committee had several examples of
letters from librarians for the advocacy letters. The Committee is now working on a couple of draft templates to
send out to directors in August to determine how the letters might be used to
engage students in a VIVA advocacy program in the fall.
VIVA Resources
for Users Committee: Kathy Perry for
Gene Damon, Chair
“VIVA Resources for Users
Committee Report to the Steering Committee (June 5, 2003)” report was
disseminated. The Committee recommended
renewal of the LexisNexis Congressional subscription, Annual Reviews
package, FirstSearch subscription, and the following OVID renewals: CINAHL,
PsycINFO, LWW collection of journals, 7 non-LWW nursing
titles. Kathy will be in contact with
institutions about PsycARTICLES pricing. ACM renewal had no recommendation at this
time. The Committee recommended
purchasing a subscription to the journal Nature.
The Steering Committee charged
the Resources for Users Committee to look at collective serials holdings, with
a view to provide better management of VIVA funding in this area. A sub-committee of the RUC committee has the
following initial set of goals:
identify current holdings for VIVA institution; identify commonly held
titles that may be candidates for electronic purchase, develop a method to
identify the “last copy” of key titles within VIVA as well as an “archival” or
pint copy of these journals. The
Committee recommended purchasing a one-year license to the Bowker serials
analysis service that will assist with this project.
An RFP has been
issued for MLA.
Virginia Heritage Project: John Jaffe, Chair
“The Virginia Heritage Project Task Force (VHPTF) VIVA Steering Committee
Report (June 5, 2003)” was disseminated.
The report highlighted the SOLINET Outstanding Library Program Award
(SOLPA) presented to the VHPTF. Susan
Riggs presented a report to the committee of her trip to the SOLINET Annual
Meeting and the presentation of the award in the category “Preservation and
Electronic Resource” to Virginia Heritage Project.
Susan Riggs and Jodi Koste made a presentation on Virginia Heritage
Project at Longwood University on May 16th to the SOLINET Virginia Users Group.
The Best Practices Committee presented the report on best practices for
encoding new finds aids. The Best
Practices Guidelines have been placed on the website at: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/vhp/admin.html
The Technology Assessment Committee presented the results of their search
into the technology standards and resources for digitization of material and
this information will be placed on the Virginia Heritage Project website.
It was requested by Edward Gaynor that VHPTF begin usability testing and
review of the VHP site.
Susan Riggs suggested that VHPTF pursue a grant from the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities to put a Jamestown bibliography on the web.
Library Support and Advocacy Task Force: John
Ulmschneider, Chair
The “Library Support and Advocacy Strategy Task Group SCHEV LAC report
July 6, 2003” was distributed.
At the VIVA retreat, a more assertive agenda for VIVA was adopted. The agenda aims to increase VIVA funding in
the next biennium by communicating an exciting vision for VIVA and academic
libraries rooted in VIVA success.
Advocacy Committee briefed key SCHEV staff members on May 9, 2003. Attending: Ralph Alberico, Kathy Perry, John
Ulmschneider, Gene Damon, Phyllis Palmiero, Alan Edwards, and Nancy Cooley.
Future initiatives include a presentation to SCHEV Council on July 16,
2003 and meetings with key Richmond leaders in August 2003, which will be
similar to last year’s meetings.
Content Linking Workshop: Elaine Day, Chair
Elaine
Day reported on work of the VIVA Content Linking task force. Beginning in April 2002, the group met to
address VIVA options for seamless access to full text content through e-serials
management, reference linking, and cross domain or "federated"
searching. They conducted an extensive literature review and environmental
scan,
discussed case studies and demonstrated local implementations, but did not have contact with vendors other than communications they would normally have in supporting their own institutions. They conducted an e-serials management needs assessment in Fall 2002, and produced a report and recommendations for VIVA, Integrating Access to VIVA Collections: Report of the Content Linking Committee
(http://www.viva.lib.va.us/viva/tech/cat/link/content_linking_2003_June.pdf), which was accepted by the Steering Committee on June 5, 2003. They also offered a workshop on May 22, at the Elston Conference Center, Sweet Briar College, drawing over 70 VIVA members.
Comments and suggestions from workshop participants, including responses to survey questions on content linking priorities, were incorporated in the task force report.
The report serves as both an educational tool, intended to introduce VIVA members to the three underlying technologies and related standards, such as OpenURL, and as an outline of measures that can be undertaken to integrate access to collections of VIVA libraries. Prominent among the recommendations are 1) Prefer VIVA vendors who implement Open URL, DOI's, and related protocols to enable reference linking at the article level, and 2) Monitor cross domain searching technologies and development initiatives, and encourage VIVA database vendors to offer capabilities for cross domain searching. A more immediate benefit may be establishing a VIVA community of content linking expertise to share resources and knowledge access integration technologies. The task force also saw opportunities for a coordinated strategy to license a remotely hosted reference linking resolution service.
Other
Information and For the Good of the Order:
Elsie Weatherington reported for Roy Strohl, the Nominating Committee’s slate of incoming LAC officers. (Nominating committee was composed of Roy Strohl-Chair, Don Samdahl, David Hayes.) Robin Benke will serve as chair of the LAC and Aileen Schweitzer will serve as secretary. Eileen moved and Barbara seconded the motion that the slate be accepted. The motion was accepted unanimously.
Barbara
Brown was presented with an appreciation certificate. It read:
Whereas Barbara Brown has
served as University Librarian of Washington & Lee University for more than
two decades and, whereas said Barbara Brown has represented the independent
colleges and universities of the Commonwealth through service on the Library
Advisory Committee of the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, and
whereas said Barbara Brown is now embarking on well earned retirement,
Therefore, we, the assembled members of the Library Advisory Committee, do
express our greatest affection, regard, and best wishes in appreciation of her
thoughtful, intelligent, stylish, insightful and effective representation and
do cause this citation to be read and inserted into the official minutes of the
SCHEV-LAC. Done this Sixth Day June in
the Year 2003 at Virginia Polytechnic and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
The
members of LAC thanked Elsie and Virginia for their service as chair and
secretary.
The meeting was adjourned 11:30A.M.
Future
LAC Meetings with VIVA Steering Committee the preceding day:
September
11-12, 2003 Rappahannock Community College
December
4-5, 2003 SCHEV/Richmond hosted by Gene Damon and John Ulmschneider
Virginia
Cherry, Secretary