Coordinating Committees

Collections and Resource Sharing Coordinating Committee

Progress Report, April 22, 2008 (Revised 4/23/08)

Since my January report to CUWL, the Collections and Resource Coordinating Committee has held three monthly conference calls with significant progress being made in the following areas:

1) Completed the project of estimating the cost to extend access systemwide for the major STM journal publishers, i.e., Elsevier, Blackwell-Wiley, and Springer, and core resources identified by Madison campus librarians for Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, English, and History. These disciplines were selected as representative of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Life and Physical Sciences. The compiled data helped to justify the figure submitted for the 2009-11 DIN budget request. 

The publisher or vendor-supplied data was shared in a report sent to the CUWL directors in February.  As updates continue to be received from publisher representatives, the latest coming from Springer this week, the spreadsheets are revised to reflect these changes. 

2) Appointed the Universal Borrowing Working Group in March to evaluate the effectiveness of the Universal Borrowing service and to make recommendations on improvements/enhancements in its functionality. Mary Rieder from Colleges and a member of the CRS Coordinating Committee, chairs the group. Other members are Edie Dixon and Dineen Grow (both of Madison), Emily Rogers (Green Bay), and Michele Strange (La Crosse). 

The UB Evaluation group has had one teleconference meeting to discuss how to proceed with their charge, with follow-up discussions via e-mail. They have distributed copies of the 2006 and 2007 System-wide UB settings recommendations, as well as posting them on their CUWL Wiki page. They are currently surveying the UW libraries to update the UB settings chart created by last year's UB Working Group. The results will be compiled and discussed at their second teleconference meeting on April 22nd.

3) Appointed the Library Dynamics Working Group to determine the most expeditious and cost-effective ways of providing training systemwide in the Library Dynamics programs, and to identify areas of overlap/duplication among two or more campuses.  Joan Robb (Green Bay) is chairing the group and is assisted by Ewa Barczyk and Janet Padway (both of Milwaukee), Barb Hamel (Madison), John Jax (La Crosse), and Lisa Pillow (River Falls).             

The LD Working Group plans to review the product with the Wisconsin data at its initial meeting. This meeting has been postponed due to delays in the data load which is now set for April 18th. A previously scheduled overview of the product and basic training for CDC members will be held on April 25th at the CDC meeting. Once the data load is completed, the Working Group plans to meet to establish guidelines for use of LD within UWS libraries.

4 ) Uploaded the spreadsheets referenced in no. 1 above, and the Shared Electronic Collection budget as password-protected documents on CRSCC’s webspace.

The Collection Development Committee, not having met since November, conducted a vote via email to renew the Gale package (Associations Unlimited, Biography and Genealogy Mater Index, and Contemporary Authors), obtained through the CIC, and due for renewal by April 4th. 

The CDC will be meeting on April 25th to review summer renewals (renewal costs just in), hold a training session to implement Library Dynamics, establish a committee to review bid specs for the expired contract for Periodicals Subscription Services, and review our last copy statement which had been drafted in 1999. CDC will also elect a new secretary/chair elect and hopes to meet with Cheryl Bradley (WiLS) to have a discussion about negotiations with vendors and what we can do as a system to get the best deals.

Working Group on Document Delivery funds
CUWL and the Collection and Resource Sharing Committee approved the additions of Full Text Article Delivery Services from Science Direct and Wiley.

Science Direct was made available to UW comprehensives and Colleges at the beginning of March. This took several weeks of negotiation before an account was set up and all libraries were registered to use the full text article delivery service. Through March nine libraries have used it at least once, spending only $600 of the designated funds. April numbers have not been collected yet.

Wiley was more difficult to set up because they are not accustomed to working with consortia and several logistical hurdles had to be worked around. The working group intended to start this by purchasing $5,000 worth of article "tokens." Hopefully the final arrangements for Wiley will be set up shortly and libraries can begin using this.

The low use of Science Direct from Elsevier so far has been disappointing. There has been no formal survey of library perceptions yet, but some libraries have reported student-initiated journal article requests which could have been filled through Science Direct had the project’s scope been extended to undergrads and graduate students. In addition, the limited experience of some libraries with commercial document delivery in general may be handicapping its use.

Low use may also be attributed to the timing of when faculty do their research. Some faculty indicate that they concentrate their research during intersession and summer, so it is possible there may be a spike in usage in May and June.

The Working Group recommends:

  • encouraging individual libraries to either begin using or expand the use of Science Direct as a commercial document delivery service for ILL requests for faculty, especially since it will be at no cost to their budget;
  • implementing Wiley as soon as possible;
  • expanding the variety of commercial sources available if there is a demand for any others;
  • promoting the availability of Science Direct articles through ILL to faculty at the participating institutions.

Submitted by Richard Reeb (Madison), CRSCC chair

Other CRS members are Ewa Barczyk (Milwaukee) Ron Hardy (Oshkosh), Karen Jander (Milwaukee), John Jax (La Crosse), Lisa Jewell (System), Dina Kaye (Parkside), Lee Konrad (Madison), Lisa Pillow (River Falls), Tom Reich (Stevens Point), Mary Rieder (Colleges), and Kathy Schneider (WiLS).