LAC meeting minutes prepared for the web by Virginia Cherry
LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
MARCH 8, 2002
ATTENDANCE: Ralph Alberico (James
Madison University), Robin Benke (University of Virginia’s College at Wise),
Calvin Boyer (Longwood College), Barbara Brown (Washington & Lee), Lisabeth
Chabot (Mary Baldwin College), Virginia Cherry (Richard Bland College), Nancy
Cooley (SCHEV), Gene Damon (VCCS), Tracy Elliott (Rappahannock Community
College), David Hayes (Radford University), Eileen Hitchingham (Virginia Tech),
Doug Hurd for Karin Wittenborg (University of Virginia), John Jaffe (Sweet
Briar College), Connie McCarthy (William and Mary), Kathy Perry (VIVA), Don
Samdahl (Virginia Military Institute), LeRoy Strohl (Mary Washington College),
John Ulmschneider (Virginia Commonwealth University), Elsie Weatherington
(Virginia State University), and John Zenelis (George Mason University).
CALL TO
ORDER:
The meeting was called to order at 9:00 A.M by Elsie Weatherington, Chair.
INTRODUCTIONS AND
PRELIMINARY COMMENTS:
Elsie thanked Don Samdahl for the VIVA and LAC arrangements at Virginia Military Institute.
The minutes of the December 7, 2001, meeting were approved. Correction: Robin Benke (University of Virginia’s College at Wise) was in attendance.
VIVA
REPORTS:
“Budget Reduction Considerations-March 7, 2002” report prepared by Kathy Perry and Gene Damon was disseminated.
Recommended maintaining 100 percent of VIVA travel reimbursements for all Standard Committee meetings and any statewide meetings deemed essential to VIVA’s mission during this critical time period. John Ulmschneider requested that the minutes reflect that only 1 percent of the total VIVA budget is for Travel & Training. It was also voiced that the ILL Allocations should be protected since resource sharing is a main tenant of VIVA. Recommended maintaining same level of wages for staff and Kathy does not foresee requiring any major equipment in 2002-03.
The Collections budget area will need to be discussed in order to explore the possibility of reducing these funds proportionate to the VIVA budget cuts. RSU considered a number of options in order to reduce expenses and this will be in the area of collections. The rules to consider when cutting collections:
Affirm funding for Pooled Funds for the private institutions at same level.
Kathy Perry has requested 5,000 additional VIVA brochures be printed.
Ralph Alberico disseminated “VIVA Ad Hoc Technical Issues Committee on Content Linking for Electronic Serials and Other Digital Materials Report to the Steering Committee, March 6, 2002”. Elaine Day will chair the committee. It was agreed to approve funding of up to $500 during FY 2001-2002 and up to $1,000 during FY 2002-2003 to reimburse travel expenses incurred by its members.
Quarterly
Report disseminated.
Planning
for three teaching skills workshops has been deferred because of state budget
cutbacks. Even though costs for
regional workshops would have been minimal it was felt that the timing was
inappropriate particularly if the burden was on local institutions to send
staff. Some ideas and efforts were
contributed to aid the advocacy role of VIVA with the General Assembly. The new VIVA brochure developed by the
Committee in collaboration with Gale marketing staff was distributed in time
for General Assembly contacts made by Kathy Perry and members of the Advocacy
Committee. The Committee will continue
to develop press releases to promote new products and looking at ways to
develop and improve the VIVA web page.
RESOURCE
SHARING COMMITTEE: John
Ulmschneider, Chair
Report “VIVA Resource Sharing Committee Report to VIVA Steering Committee 3-7-02” disseminated.
The Committee agreed with the recommendation of the ILL subcommittee that VIVA hold another ILL Community Forum in Summer 2002. The RSC recommended some changes to the forum, both to keep expenses low and to address issues identified by feedback from the 2001 event: single invited speaker, program for only a full morning and lunch; more time for informal networking among ILL practitioners and recommended that VIVA ask each institution to cover one-half the participant costs, with VIVA covering the remainder. However, the Steering Committee approved full funding to cover the participant’s travel to the meeting.
Harry Kriz and Jean Cooper of the RSC will inventory
ILL data statewide in order to determine what data is available and how VIVA
can use this data.
A draft of the ILL bookmark was disseminated. The Gale Group has agreed to produce the
bookmark for a very low cost to VIVA.
The RSC also agreed that this initially should include a fax cover for
the non-returnables to be used with fax and Ariel ILLs.
Mary Molineux will continue John Lawrence’s ILL
FAQs for the VIVA ILL web page.
A copy of the Goals and Objectives Statement for
2001-2002 was disseminated.
·
Continue
to foster community and good communications among VIVA ILL practitioners.
·
Maintain
and promote the VIVA listserv and the RSU website including the VIVA ILL
Guidelines.
·
Review
ILL Guidelines.
·
Enhance
ILL FAQ/Best Practices.
·
Support
the VIVA ILL Sub-Committee in organizing, promoting and holding the annual VIVA
ILL Forum in summer 2002.
·
Continue
to collect and analyze data describing VIVA ILL activities and performance.
·
Identify
and consider proposals for projects and programs that would improve the
performance of VIVA ILL.
·
Monitor
progress of emerging ILL standards, protocols and systems and arrange
demonstrations of successful new systems.
·
Upgrade
to Ariel 3.
·
Investigate
current state of technology for unmediated and peer-to-peer ILL by defining
terms used in technology applications for ILL.
·
Access
vendor software offerings and make recommendations to VIVA Steering Committee
regarding the potential for technology-assisted ILL initiatives in VIVA.
VIVA
RESOURCES FOR USERS COMMITTEE: Gene Damon, Chair
Report disseminated.
The Steering Committee approved
the renewal of Statistical Universe, Gale Infotrac, and Stats-USA.
The Steering Committee approved
funds for a statistics workshop, “An Informal Introduction to Statistics for
VIVA Librarians” on May 14, 2002 at The University of Virginia. Jim Self, Director of Management Information
Services, University of Virginia Library, will be the main speaker. The workshop will be an introduction to
statistical concepts, with an emphasis on practical applications, especially
understanding and making use of VIVA product statistics.
LIBRARY
SUPPORT AND ADVOCACY STRATEGY TASK GROUP: John Ulmschneider, Chair
Report disseminated.
The Task Group is continuing its three-fold strategy
of working with SCHEV and SCHEV Council, working directly with legislators and
helping VIVA libraries work within their institutions to improve budgets. The Task Group devoted most of its time to
the particular challenge of the VIVA budget using these approaches.
The Task Group representatives met with Carl Kelly,
SCHEV Council President, in November.
Representatives also met on January 18, 2002 with the new Director for
Academic Affairs at SCHEV, Nancy Cooley.
The VIVA representatives described VIVA and reviewed its history with
Dr. Cooley, and also discussed the Task Force’s legislative strategy and
prospects.
The Task Group continued its regular meetings with
legislators following the SCHEV LAC meeting on December 8, 2001. The luncheon and presentation included
Delegate Vivian Watts, Diana Dutton, legislative assistant to Delegate Harry J.
Parrish and Valerie Sutter, legislative assistant to Delegate James M.
Scott. VIVA attendees were Ralph
Alberico, Lisabeth Chabot, Cathy Sabol, Kathy Perry and John Ulmschneider. The VIVA representatives followed a script
that presented various facets of VIVA that emphasize VIVA’s value to the
Commonwealth and the funding requirements of academic libraries and projects
such as VIVA. A small packet of
materials was provided to the three legislative attendees. As with previous luncheons, the initial
presentation quickly evolved into a useful dialog and conversation, with
knowledgeable and insightful questions from the legislative attendees. The meetings were productive and need to be
continued. Another meeting has been
planned to correspond with the June LAC meeting in Newport News.
Response to budget challenges: The Task Group traveled to Richmond on
January 17-18 to promote amendments to Governor Gilmore’s budget that would at
least restore the VIVA budget. The members
met with legislators, legislative staff and with members of the new
administration. The group also created
and operated an eye-catching exhibit on VIVA in the lobby of the General
Assembly Building January 17-18. The
Task Group arranged to provide all House and Senate members and their staff
with access to VIVA for the duration of the legislative session. Members and staff were notified of their new
access privileges with hand-delivered letters.
The letters provided information on VIVA as well as search tips.
In addition, the Task Group catalyzed an information
sharing effort in support of VIVA.
Kathy Perry wrote to VIVA directors providing scenarios and data that
described the consequences of a VIVA funding reduction. VIVA directors then used this data to raise
awareness on their campuses and in their
communities. In addition, Ralph
Alberico coordinated an effort to send letters to regional legislators from
representatives of multiple libraries in different regions around the State.
John thanked his committee for the enormous amount
of work they have committed to the group. Ralph Alberico commended John for his
work on the Advocacy Task Group.
OTHER REPORTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Elsie introduced Dr. Nancy Cooley who is the Academic Affairs Director of SCHEV and our new liaison with SCHEV. Dr. Cooley began at SCHEV on November 2001. Prior to that, she served as Dean of the College of Education and Human Services at Ferris State University in Michigan. As Academic Affairs Director, Dr. Cooley is responsible for working with the Council, the Executive Director, and other SCHEV directors to fulfill statutory duties. These duties include system wide strategic planning and policy development related to institutional mission and organizational change, programs and implementing Strategic Planning. There will be a four-year planning cycle rather than the previous two-year cycles. There will be 15 regional focus groups in the State. There are 5 draft goals:
· Collaborative efforts; streamline regulations
· Enhance higher education; promote economics
· Support research
· Promote excellence in teaching and learning
· Build the technological infrastructure
If interested in serving on the strategic planning small groups, send an email to Dr. Cooley. Email: nancy.cooley@schev.edu.
IPAC meeting on March 22nd at SCHEV Central Office.
Nolan Yelich via email to Elsie reminded LAC to
track the Wilder Commission on Higher Education.
Due to reduced state funds, the proposal for
Virginia’s Virtual University has a low priority with SCHEV at this time.
Ralph Alberico discussed how the library is playing
a role in Institutional Effectiveness (ROIE).
Ralph emphasized the important role that all academic libraries can and
should play on our campuses in fulfilling the SCHEV requirement for technology
competency. Ralph also expressed the
opinion that information literacy is a higher order skill than the technology
competency. Ralph asked that members
look at a library component (information literacy) in each skill since students
must pass an information literacy test. JMU’s
site is a good model for your institution. Technology should be considered an
entrance skill.
Kathy thanked Phyllis Palmiero, Executive Director of SCHEV for her support of VIVA.
Roy Strohl reminded LAC members that they need to continue to advise and update SCHEV staff about VIVA and its activities since SCHEV has changed personnel over the past 5 to 6 years.
A discussion of budget cuts on our campuses
followed.
FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER:
John Ulmschneider announced the opening at Virginia Commonwealth University on February 18th of the State’s largest health education library for consumers. The CHEC (Community Health Education Center) will offer print, online and video resources and librarian assistance at no charge. The web site is: http://wwwhealth.org/chec/.
Meeting adjourned at 10:40 A.M.
The next LAC Meetings (with VIVA Steering Committee
meetings held on the Thursday afternoons):
June 6-7,
2002: Christopher Newport University
September 12-13, 2002: Virginia Tech
December 5-6, 2002: Mary Washington College
Virginia Cherry, Secretary
May 14, 2002
LAC meeting minutes hosted by SCHEV