Minutes

Council of University of Wisconsin Libraries

May 2, 2002

Teleconference

 

 

Present: Moriarty (chair), Jax, Wilkinson, Bredeson, Evans, Nordgren (for Carmack), Van Horne, Galt, Rose, Hansen, Frazier, Murray, Watson-Boone, Peischl, Baum, Arneson, Huang, Schneider, Docken, Voss, Goss, Meachen.

 

 

Moriarty called the teleconference meeting to order at 1:30 p.m.

 

(The minutes were approved via e-mail, with no additions or corrections reported.)

 

CDC Report

 

Docken reviewed the report, subbing for Carr who could not attend.  Docken highlighted the total budget for 2001/02 for renewed and recommended resources of $1,433,587.  The budget would also have a carryover of $166,381 in unallocated funds.  A MOTION (Peischl, Huang) was made to approve the CDC recommended budget, including $367,500 for July 2002 renewals of Academic/Statistical Universe, Grove’s Art, McGraw-Hill Access Science, OED, Earthscape, and e*-subscribe.   In the discussion, Docken said that low usage of Grove’s Art prompted a reduction in simultaneous users for the renewal contract.  Galt and Wilkinson both reminded the group that perhaps more could be done in “awareness” issues for faculty for some of the databases.  Earthscape was another database showing fairly light use.  Wilkinson said that UW-Oshkosh has used it significantly, but that may be due to 2-3 faculty members promoting its use to students.  Frazier said that Earthscape is supported by a Mellon Foundation grant and has ties to SPARC; he said it also goes beyond a mere electronic version of a print equivalent and tries to link across disciplines in its scope.   The MOTION was unanimously approved.

 

 

Docken then reviewed the e-books portion that calls for additional expenditures for 2001-02.  Proposed was a $15,000 addition for additional titles for the NetLibrary  academic consortium, scaled back from an earlier recommendation of $59,000 due to NetLibrary issues with bankruptcy, and technical issues with configuration and printing.  The technical issues will continue to be discussed with NetLibrary/OCLC in the upcoming year, she said.  Frazier asked why, with measured success, was NetLibrary being scaled back?  Jax said that there had been some concern with viability at first, and that perhaps some funds could be held back for possible use with other e-book vendors.  Docken also said the subcommittee had some general reluctance to push further with e-books in general.  Huang and Docken also said that archival and backup questions for the consortium made the committee reluctant to expand the collection at this time.  Frazier argued that NetLibrary has been used frequently and has offered a very solid return on the investment, therefore it is not reasonable to scale back something simply because a few people simply don’t like it.  Huang explained that the committee decided not to put the whole $59,000 into NetLibrary for the moment, not that e-book products in general were suddenly in disregard.  Wilkinson asked if the rest of the academic consortium had agreed with the scaling back option; Huang said, yes, it seemed to be the consensus.  Docken said that there has always been widespread overall support for e-books among library directors, and that both public and private universities had benefited greatly from both the product and the act of building the consortium.  Watson-Boone questioned the automatic nature of the renewal request; he asked that in the future, the money might be better put in a reserve fund and revisited in a following budget year, especially when budgets are tight.  Docken summarized the discussion, and said that the CDC recommendation would go ahead for the additional $15,000 for 2001-02.

 

The group then briefly discussed the separate $9,900 expenditure for history e-books, via the American Council of Learned Societies.   Evans, Arneson, and Wilkinson each lauded its outstanding features.   The expenditure was approved with no dissent.

 

The next section of the CDC report was the revision of the Guidelines for Shared Electronic Collections, with revisions by Carr since the January CUWL meeting.  A couple of minor edits were noted (word “no” removed under Renewal Criteria, 2^nd bullet, 1^st word) and a lengthy discussion ensued on the final two words in the document “inappropriate pricing.”  Watson-Boone asked if that was the best phrase to use there?   Meachen, and others, suggested “extraordinary pricing,” but others thought it hinted that high-price alone would be misleading.  The group finally settled on the Arneson recommended,  “unacceptable pricing models.”  Arneson also commented on the improved clarification of accessibility needs, but asked that under a different section the word “accessibility” be changed to “access” under Selection Criteria (Additional Criteria, 6^th bullet).  The group agreed to the word changes, and as amended, the Guidelines were Unanimously Approved.

 

The final component of the CDC report package was a memo sent from CDC to the Wisconsin NetLibrary Consortium regarding collaborative efforts.  Watson-Boone questioned the pre-emptive nature of the letter, specifically, that CDC itself is not a budget-allocating body and that the CUWL board should have had final say on the expenditure commitment confirmed by the letter.  He also questioned the itemizing of voters’ names at the end in principle; Huang explained that one CDC member requested that his “nay” vote be itemized.   Wilkinson and Watson-Boone also had questions about 2002-03 commitments for e-books; Wilkinson noting that his 2002-03 budget is already allocated at this point without a possible payment into UWS and thought that others may be in the same boat.  Docken said that she would try to schedule a teleconference meeting to help clarify things as soon as Carr returns to work (family illness).

 

 

 

Report of the Nominations Committee

 

Rose had e-mailed a slate of candidates earlier and asked for further nominations from the “floor.”   Hearing none, a MOTION (Watson-Boone, Baum) was made to close the nominations and the slate was elected by acclamation, seating Evans (chair-elect), Hansen (secretary) for 2002-03. 

 

 

2003-05 Budget Discussion

 

Goss said that the legislative process is proceeding slowly and UWS is still waiting to see what the final 2001-03 cuts will finally be.  He said that efforts are being made to get libraries into the cost-to-continue portion of the budget for 2003-05.  He said there was also no news on DIN proposals as yet; he is continuing to gather supporting data for a separate library DIN and may be contacting directors for additional information.  Meachen advised the group to hold off on contacting legislators on 2003-05 issues until the cuts for 2001-03 are finalized.

 

 

New Business: Question Point Electronic Reference Pilot

 

Schneider said that WiLS is awaiting participation levels to determine the cost to present for WiLS board approval for the upcoming pilot program.  The cost to participate would be $2,000 up front, plus a staff time commitment, per campus, no matter the size of the campus.  Schneider said WiLS is hoping to get at least 10 campuses, maybe as many as 20.  She said there have been questions about what constitutes a “site,” e.g., South Central Library System wants to participate as one site.  Schneider said that she hopes the CUWL Reference Coordinators Committee would step in and commit one or more UW campuses as part of the pilot.  She said no UW campus has committed yet.  Hansen asked if a campus were part of more than one consortium, would the cost be $2,000 per each consortial agreement?  Schneider said no.  Meachen asked if it would be possible for UW Learning Innovations to sign on as a subscriber as one site?   Meachen and Schneider said they could discuss it further.  Watson-Boone later asked why further discussion would be “offline?”  Meachen said that the short teleconference timeframe wouldn’t allow enough time to discuss the wide number of initiatives Learning Innovations is trying to bundle with other online components.

 

 

 

New Business: Enhanced Resources Sharing Committee

 

Docken said that it is still the goal to have a desktop delivery system in place by fall, although she admitted that it is unlikely to be fully operational by then.  The committee will meet with OCLC reps again to finalize several items.   WiLS would be the default provider of desktop service in the interim.  Moriarty asked that CUWL get the final report from the committee ASAP so that a possible meeting could be held in mid-June for final approval.  Moriarty said that the meeting could be a teleconference or possibly a face-to-face meeting, depending on agenda and UWS and campus travel restrictions.  He said that the incoming and outgoing Executive Committees traditionally meet in June anyway, and he could gauge the scope of the potential meeting once we had more details.

 

 

 

New Business:  Tributes to Moriarty and Carmack

 

Rose and Jax duly noted that today’s meeting would likely be the last full board meeting with retirees Moriarty and Carmack.  Jax cited Moriarty’s excellent leadership on the UWS automation task force in recent years and his many dedicated years at UW Platteville.  Jax also commended Carmack (who couldn’t attend today) on his leadership at UW Superior over the years and said he would pass best wishes on to him directly.  Tokens of esteem would be forthcoming to each.  Here here, by acclamation.

 

 

The meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Bredeson

CUWL Secretary