Council of University of Wisconsin Libraries

CUWL Meeting

Held at UW-System ITMC Conference –
Heidel House in Green Lake- April 21 & 22, 2008

Monday, April 21  

Attending:  Leanne Hansen, Patrick Wilkinson, Lisa Jewell, John Pollitz, Marlys Brunsting, Joshua Ranger, Richard Reeb, Vanaja Menon, Ewa Barczyk, Anita Evans, Joyce Huang, Kathy Davis, Kristin Eschenfelder, Michael Pickart, Ed Van Gemert, Jon Musselman (representing UW-Platteville), Ken Frazier, Tony Gulig, Michele McKnelly (representing UW-River Falls), Mark Rozmarynowski, Steve Frye, Kathy Schneider, Jean Gilbertson, Paul Roberts.

Jean Gilbertson called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m.  Introductions and announcements followed.

Jean Gilbertson from UW-Madison, Chair of CUWL

Paul Roberts from UW-Stout, Secretary of CUWL

Leanne Hansen from UW-Green Bay

Pat Wilkinson from UW-Oshkosh announced that a new computer analyst is being hired for the library. UW-Oskosh is moving ahead with an information commons for their library, planned for the fall

Lisa Jewell from the UW System Office of Learning & Information Technology

John Pollitz from UW-Eau Claire

Marlys Brunsting, Chair of the Library Technology Initiatives Coordinating Committee

Joshua Ranger, Chair of the Digital Initiatives Coordinating Committee, announced that UW-Oshkosh had also hired a half time records manager. The funding for the position is coming from their Provost’s office.

Richard Reeb, Chair of the Collections and Resource Sharing Coordinating Committee

Vanaja Menon from UW-Parkside announced that they are interviewing candidates for the position of Electronic Resources Librarian. They expect to candidates for interviews for Chancellor during the first week of May.

Eva Barczyk from UW-Milwaukee announced the funding and plans for their new Learning Commons. She distributed copies of a document meant for distribution to the general public with a summary of the UW-Milwaukee Library Strategic Plan.

Anita Evans from UW-LaCrosse announced that their new Provost will begin on May 19.

Joyce Huang from UW-Whitewater was attending her last CUWL meeting. She also mentioned that UW-Whitewater is interviewing for their next Chancellor.

Kathy Davis from UW-Stevens Point stated that they are doing a self study; they will have an external visit this fall. UW-Stevens Point got 100K added to the library budget. They are also exploring an information commons area in the Library.

Kristin Eschenfelder is a CUWL Faculty Member from UW-Madison

Michael Pickart is a CUWL Faculty Member from UW-Stout

Ed Van Gemert from UW-Madison

John Musselman representing UW-Platteville at this meeting

Ken Frazier from UW-Madison was attending because of the Library Budget DIN.

Tony Gulig is a CUWL Faculty Member from UW-Whitewater. He is serving on the search committee for new UW-Whitewater Library Director. The Committee hopes to have candidates for interviews on campus soon.    

Michelle McKnelly representing UW-River Falls announced that their Chancellor has resigned.  

Mark Rozmarynowski is the new representative from the UW-Colleges. He noted that the colleges are currently hiring four of thirteen college library director positions.

Steve Frye is the Chair of the Users Services Coordinating Committee.

Kathy Schneider is from WILS.

Jean Gilbertson announced the new faculty appointee to CUWL from UW-Extension will be Paula Huff.  

Consent agenda (items approved or accepted by one motion, unless a member asks to have something set aside for separate discussion)

  • Minutes of January 23, 2008 CUWL meeting
  • Review of Exec Committee minutes from Feb. 27, 2008 and April 1, 2008
  • Approval of agenda

Leanne Hansen moved the Consent Agenda be accepted, Pat Wilkinson seconded the motion, and the consent agenda was approved.

Update on DIN/Budget request (Van Gemert)

Ed Van Gemert updated the meeting on the current status of the DIN/Budget request.

  • In general the DIN request is in a good position in terms of strong support. He thanked the Library Directors for their work in briefing Provosts, Chief Business Officers and Chancellors.
  • He recommends copying the Faculty Senate Resolutions to President Reilly also to the Board of Regents.
  • The focus is on students across the system. Ed requested any images that individual libraries may have of students at work in their library.
  • The next order of business is a possible presentation to the Board of Regents since the proposal goes to the Board in the first week in June.
  • Caroline Oldershaw has helped us craft a FAQ to be used by the Library staff for internal communications.

Discussion followed on the topic of the Budget DIN. Major points in the discussion where:

  • Ken Frazier discussed the amount of the request and added that in the current environment, budget requests may get changed and reduced. We will have trouble in delivering on our mission if we do not get a budget increase.
  • Pat Wilkinson emphasized that this request is not for the libraries. It is for the students and the faculty. 
  • Ed Van Gemert distributed a memo dated April 2, 2008 from Freda Harris, Associate Vice President, that listed the four cross system resolutions.   

Discussion then ensued on the next steps for the Library Budget DIN. 

  • The issue of student support for the Library DIN was discussed. 
  • We have been asked to put together a presentation for the Board of Regents.  
  • Discussion then followed on the next steps after the Board of Regents meeting.  
  • The Board of Regents passes the University budget in August. The October CUWL meeting would be a good time to discuss further steps.
  • Discussion ensued of emerging industries and businesses that may support the DIN. The Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Network (WEN) was mentioned. Discussion on the process and efforts to date. 

UW System Update (Jewell) 

Lisa Jewell will be doing campus visits as the next part of her becoming established in her new position. She has visited Whitewater and will now start to visit the campuses near Madison. She provided the following updates.

  • Budget update
    • At January meeting we learned that the 100K contingency fund for next year was allocated for another UW System initiative. It is unknown if it is gone for good. System did fund the DIN DVD this year. BLDSC (British Library) and CISTI use has been greater than expected and System will spend some of this year’s contingency funds to lessen the impact for next year.
    • Tomorrow from 9-11am there will be a demonstration of the D2L Learning Object Repository.   
    • The ALS survey for this year is out. The survey next year is the formal survey from the federal government. It is important to get surveys in to Lisa by the end of April.  
  • Automation update
    • There are requests for more Metalib training and she is working on providing it. There is some money to fund training from the System.
  • LibQual – what’s next
    • Ed Van Gemert has found someone who would be able to compile data from the campuses to help out the system staff.   
    • The four Coordinating Committee representatives will be getting together to act as a group to coordinate analysis across the system.   

A question arose about how well the Coordinating Committees were working. Jean Gilbertson noted that there will be a formal evaluation of the committees. 

COLAND Visioning Summit (Frazier and Pletcher)

The Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction, Elizabeth Burmaster, and COLAND are sponsoring a Strategic Visioning Summit for Libraries. Ken Frazier is the CUWL representative to planning group for the summit and Kathy Pletcher is the Chair of COLAND. Kathy noted things are moving along for the summit and that invitations have gone out to invited participants. The summit will be held at the Heidel House in Green Lake on May 5th and 6th. Preliminary details of the summit were given. Superintendent Burmaster will be attending. A facilitator will keep the summit participants focused. There will be a lot of working sessions and currently the planning group is extracting themes for the conference from preliminary surveys and questionnaires. The outcome of the conference will be a beginnings report. It is intended to generate a lot of ideas. They want from the summit a list of things that will have general support and that will be widely supported by the library community. The planning group has been careful to have geographic representation within the state, as well as representation of library types, and representation of people at different levels. The age spread demographics will include some of the newest librarians in the state since they will be carrying things through to the future. Other CUWL attendees are Ed Van Gemert and Valerie Malzacher, along with a staff member from the UW-LaCrosse Library. Lisa Jewell will also be there since she is on COLAND.  

WLA Foundation Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries (Hansen and Evans)

Both Leanne Hansen and Anita Evans are on the WLAF board. The Board has a current Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries. They have promoted both School Libraries and Public Libraries in the past.  The WLAF Board now wants to know if there is anything they can do to help promote Academic Libraries. As with other library types the Board could help fund a survey about the impact of Academic Libraries on Wisconsin, since the WLAF Board has a broad mandate to serve and help all types of libraries. They approached the CUWL Executive Committee about input and the Executive Committee recommended they present at a general CUWL meeting.  The WLAF Board wants to do a study in 2009 to show the value of Academic Libraries to the Community.  A Colorado study was cited as an example. The WLAF Board is willing to help us fund a survey to show the value of Academic libraries to Wisconsin.  Leanne and Anita want to open up discussion and get some ideas out and then go back to WLAF board and decide what to do. If LSTA money is not available there may be foundation money available. The proposed survey may be conducted in unison with other colleges (private, etc.). The funding would be available in 2010, but planning should start   in 2009.  The funding would be to promote Academic Libraries, not necessarily evaluate them.  Leanne and Anita are looking for ideas to present to the Foundation Board, ideally at its May meeting. Leanne asked that members send ideas to Anita and her for further consideration by the CUWL Executive Committee.

Long- term shelving needs (Van Gemert and Barczyk)

UW-Madison has been talking about a preservation facility since 1994. UW-Madison is interested in working with the Wisconsin Historical Society and Veterans Museum for a unified storage facility. It is an attractive proposal due to the collaboration of the three units. Ewa Barczyk has been working on a survey to CUWL about a shared facility for UW campuses, but decided to wait until the recently proposed facility in Madison could be discussed with the general CUWL membership. General discussion followed about the need for a shared storage facility and implications of a shared collection. As part of the discussion Richard Reeb suggested adding another question for the survey:

If a centrally located site was built and copies of your holdings are located there, would you consider withdrawing your copies?

Discussion continued about the proposed facility. It was noted that we are talking about low use items. There would be a reading room at the facility. The turn-around for delivery from the facility would be like the current UB turn around. There would be enough space for 2 million volumes. 

WiLS report (Schneider and Wilkinson)

OCLC Governance study

  • Pat Wilkinson reported on the OCLC Governance Study.  Basically it is concerned with how the non-profit governs itself.  There is currently a Board of trustees with fifteen members and the majority of members are librarians.  The second tier is the OCLC Members Council.  The Board has the most responsibility.  Over the last five to seven years the information environment has changed for OCLC.  Because OCLC is moving from a big library cooperative to a global information company, it decided to do a governance study. The Members Council will be voting on it in May.  Basically there would be a board, but it would be smaller with fewer librarians and more people with skills needed for a global company (financial, technical, etc). The Members Council would be replaced with regional councils due to the growth of OCLC’s global customer base.  There would also be an annual membership meeting along the lines of the ones that large corporations hold. Governance of the organization would reside with the board and there would also be Regional Advisory Councils.  Pat feels that the governance proposal will probably pass.  2008-09 will be a transition year and most likely there would be a transition committee.  The changes would go into effect in July of 09.  The mood exists to make a significant change. 

OCLC-WiLS Partnership  

  • Kathy Schneider had sent CUWL an e-mail earlier about the future of the OCLC-WiLS partnership.  She reported that there is not enough information at this time to have a full discussion. At this time she wants to inform the CUWL members about what the potential changes may be.  For the coming year nothing will change and any changes will be in 2009.  WiLS is moving ahead with plans for a Midwest coalition with other information utilities. A proposal going to other colleague organizations will be discussed when they meet in Ohio in May. WiLS will be sending a survey out within the next couple of weeks. Discussion followed about the questions in the survey.  Ed Van Gemert said that a Midwest coalition makes a tremendous amount of sense. Discussion ensued of what the possible relationship will be in the future.  Specific issues discussed included:
    • Training
    • Sales
    • Product support for specific products
    • Product expertise, specific product area expertise nationwide. 

  • OCLC management feels that there should be more training in smaller snippets using online access etc.  It is likely that there is now more formal training being done than people want to pay for.  OCLC feels that training should be self-service. 
  • Issues about pricing were discussed.
  • SOLINET and PALINET are looking to merge.  They are in the due diligence phase right now. 
  • Discussion of possible future problems.

Kathy Schneider distributed informational handouts about current CUWL WiLS activity that included how we are doing this year on ILL net lending and borrowing, and British Library and CISTI account activity by campus.

Final General Schedule for Library Records (Ranger)

Joshua Ranger agreed to give report for UW System’s Laura Dunek. The general schedule for Libraries is largely complete but may still be subject to change.  Specific concerns that were discussed included:

  • Security Records. If you pass security records to your University police the records become their records. If you keep them, you may keep them longer than the minimum listed in the general schedule. However, you should adhere to the guidelines as much as possible. The discovery process in a law suit may trip you up if you keep records too long.
  • Surveillance videos. The recommended retention of videos is 120 days, not 90 days. This makes it more of a burden to keep those tapes. The period is 120 days because this is the length of decision time for someone to sue the government.  If you do not keep the tapes the minimum time, the assumption is that you have destroyed evidence for your benefit.  Libraries have to keep the tapes the minimum time or stop videotaping.  This is an unfunded mandate. Your Chancellor will have to sign off on the General Record Schedule.  If you decide to opt out of the General Record Schedule you must have another schedule ready to go. 
  • Once the General Record Schedule passes, it is recommended that all library management review in detail the schedule and create a records policy based on the General Records Schedule.  In other words, how your library will deal with the General Records schedule requirements? It is important to have a policy in place if you plan to keep records longer than the minimum.  You need to have Staff identified as record custodians of various parts of the Library records and it doesn’t matter if it is print or electronic.  Any questions of interpretation should be made to your individual Campus Records Officer. 
  • If there are additions or adjustments to the Library General Records schedule please forward them. 
  • This schedule should be law by late June or July.  The Schedule will last ten years before the next revision. 

Provocative Statements on the future of academic libraries
See http://www.taigaforum.org/documents/ProvocativeStatements.pdf

There had been a suggestion that CUWL discuss “futures” statements issued by two national library groups. One example is the ACRL list of top ten assumptions for the future of academic libraries and librarians.  The other is the TAIGA list of provocative statements regarding the future of libraries. 

Ken Frazier had been asked to kick off the discussion and he said we should not take the TAIGA provocative statements too seriously.  We do know that the future will be much different from the past.  How do we discuss things such as profound staff turn-over?

General discussion of the statements followed.

The meeting was adjourned for the day at 5:00 p.m. by Jean Gilbertson.


Tuesday, April 22

The meeting was reconvened by Jean Gilbertson at 8:30 a.m.

User Services CC (Frye)

Steve Frye gave the following report on the activities of the User Services Coordinating Committee.
The User Services Coordinating Committee (USCC) has been meeting monthly via teleconference. To accomplish our charge and complete our action items, four working groups have been formed: Information Literacy Assessment, MetaLib Assessment, New Reference Models, and Web 2.0 Tools.  Recently, the Distance Library Services standing committee was also created. 

Information Literacy Assessment Working Group:
Co-Chairs: Ella Cross (UW-Superior) and Dave Dettman (UW-Green Bay)
Members: Kathie Mason (UW-Barron County), Molly Mathias (UW-Milwaukee), Sarah McDaniel (UW-Madison), Cristine Prucha (UW-La Crosse), and Ann Vogl (UW-Baraboo/Sauk County)

The Information Literacy Assessment group is charged with exploring information literacy/library instruction assessment tools and making a recommendation.  After reviewing the literature, we have narrowed our focus of assessment tools to the following three:

  • iSkills, formerly ICT Literacy Assessment from the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
  • Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (Project Sails) developed and maintained at Kent State, University in Ohio
  • Information Literacy Test (ILT) developed collaboratively by the James Madison Center for Assessment and Research Studies and JMU libraries

We will also examine best practices throughout the various phases of the assessment cycle including establishing assessment goals, gathering data, analyzing and interpreting data, and marketing data.

Finally, a survey has been completed and will be sent to librarians in charge of information literacy assessment at all state institutions and private colleges. The survey will gauge how the three instruments have been used state wide and will also encourage survey takers to document what other types of formal assessment are being carried out. The gathered data will be shared at the June conference.

MetaLib Assessment Working Group:
Co-Chairs: Steve Frye (UW-Madison) and Valerie Malzacher (UW-River Falls)
Members: Ronna Hoeper (UW-Whitewater), Scott Silet, (UW-Waukesha), Terri Muraski, (UW-Stevens Point), Maureen Olle-LaJoie (UW-River Falls), and Joia O’Brien (UW-Madison)

The MetaLib Assessment Working group is charged with assessing user response to MetaLib as a useful search tool. To date, we have conducted a literature review and compiled a bibliography posted on the CUWL wiki.  We are in the process of gathering quantitative assessment data. We are also in the process of creating a protocol for a qualitative user assessment of MetaLib – specifically the comparison of MetaLib Quicksearch with individual databases. We will present our findings to date at the June conference. 

New Reference Models Working Group:
Co-Chairs: Renee Buker (UW-Oshkosh) and Jill Markgraf (UW-Eau Claire)
Members: Kimberly Bartosz (UW-Parkside), Patti Becker (UW-Stevens Point), Nancy McClements (UW-Madison), Albert Quattrucci (UW-Madison), and Jana Reeg~Steidinger (UW-Stout)

The New Reference Models group is charged with providing an environmental scan of current models of reference service and staffing in the UW System and reporting on emerging trends and innovations in reference services. 

The group is currently focusing on the following areas of interest:

  • Use or decline of the traditional reference desk and alternative methods of reference service
  • Roles of professionals, paraprofessionals, and students in providing reference services
  • Prioritizing methods of providing reference service

In conducting an environmental scan in these areas, the group is taking a two-pronged approach.  The group has drafted a survey for UW System reference staff, to discover current reference models in use. The survey will be conducted via SurveyMonkey, with a target distribution date of early May.  It will be sent to reference heads or coordinators at each UW campus, with the request that it also be forwarded to all reference staff for input. The group is also conducting a literature review to discover reference models and trends beyond the UW System. Group members are contributing to a collaborative bibliography via CiteULike. A complete list, with annotations, will be posted in early June.

Web 2.0 Tools Working Group
Co-Chairs: Barb Bren (UW-Whitewater) and Nick Weber (UW-Parkside)
Members: Patricia Fragola (UW-Whitewater), Leah Ujda, (UW-Madison)

The working group has surveyed all UW campus libraries about their use of Web 2.0 tools. Results have been posted on the CUWL wiki, except for Milwaukee and Superior, which should be forthcoming shortly.  Many campuses have incorporated blogs as a communication tool with library users. Most UW Library blogs have been started within the last two years.

Several campus Libraries, especially larger ones, have also started using instant messaging/chat software, such as Meebo. Wikis appear to be less common and tend to be used primarily for internal purposes. Other tools that were mentioned by fewer libraries include: photo sharing (flickr), video sharing (YouTube), social networking (facebook), social bookmarking (del.ici.ous) and various other Web applications (gadgets/ widgets).

Some libraries have incorporated interactive elements into their web site, e.g., UW-Madison’s College Library provides users the opportunity to submit their College Library photos or a poll for the home page. Very little assessment of Web 2.0 tools has been done by the libraries using them. While most have not begun to assess these tools, they agree that this is the next necessary step.

At this time the group has started working on a literature review.  Each member of the working group will post citations on the CUWL wiki and the most useful ones will be discussed at a future meeting. 

Distance Library Services Standing Committee
Co-Chairs: Leigh Dorsey (UW-Milwaukee) and Heather Weltin (UW-Madison)
Members: Renee Sikma (UW-Colleges),  Jill Markgraf (UW-Eau Claire), Anne Kasubosa (UW-Green Bay), Stefan Smith (UW-LaCrosse), Renee Buker (UW-Oshkosh), Rick Krause (UW-Parkside),  John Leonard Berg (UW-Platteville), Brad Gee (UW-River Falls), Aaron Nichols (UW-Stevens Point), Jana Reeg~Steidinger (UW-Stout), Ella Cross (UW-Superior), Kyle Naff (UW-Whitewater)

The members of this recently created committee include the designated distance service CUWL liaison from each UW campus. We’ve met once via teleconference. Co-chairs have been selected and a meeting time – a teleconference every other month – has been chosen.


Library Technology CC (Brunsting)

Marlys Brunsting gave the following report on the activities of the Library Technology Initiatives Coordinating Committee.

  • D2L and Library Integration - Due to Marc Boucher’s departure, I am working with Pat Fellows on this goal.  She presented on this topic with Marc and Mark Robson at EDUCAUSE in March and their session was very well received.  She was to have presented a condensed version at this conference, but was unable to attend. She has indicated that she will begin working to coordinate this with interested campuses this summer. She is on leave now and also short-staffed, but hopes to have some help in June. Her plan is to train the SIS people in one session and librarians in another session.  She believes it is not something that DoIT can assist with.

Discussion ensued at this time on the topic of D2L and library integration.  D2L 
A product was demonstrated at WAAL, LibGuides from SpringShare. Discussion followed about its advantages and disadvantages. Discussion also ensued of why integration of library resources into D2L is moving so slowly.  The current College model for D2L has pre-populated each department page with a set of resources and information can be tailored if a faculty member and librarian get together. In a second model, information is chosen by chairs of the departments for their specific areas. The LibGuides product requires a faculty member to place a link to the D2L. LibGuides are more subject oriented rather than course related. Another open source product mentioned is LibData from Minnesota. This is a possible topic to put this on the Summer Meeting schedule. 

  • Review of Voyager invoicing and licenses - Lisa Jewell heard from Linda Voyles about what data is needed to review our licenses, but the information conflicted with what we had sent previously. Mitch Lundquist (Madison) emailed Linda for clarification and Linda is now checking with the accounting and support teams to see if the information collected from Madison’s script is sufficient.

  • Voyager upgrade - Bill Doering (La Crosse), chair of the Hub and LAMs groups, is coordinating this with Lisa. We decided to upgrade to 6.5.4 due to the late release date of Voyager 7. We also plan to upgrade Oracle this summer so that we don’t have that to deal with at the same time as the Voyager 7 upgrade, which will be more time-consuming for some staff due to the new OPAC interface. Upgrade dates will probably run mid-July to mid-August.  Linda Voyles is checking on dates for all of the campuses. Madison and the hub will do their own upgrades, but need an Ex Libris engineer available. Eau Claire and Stevens Point, who have not joined the hub yet, will need Ex Libris to perform their upgrades.

  • ILLiad upgrade - Jon Mark Bolthouse (Colleges) will coordinate this with Lisa. This upgrade is more involved than usual due to a change in the way the email notices go out, although not as much work as the last upgrade that changed all of the web pages.  Jon Mark is helping people setup the Email Manager ahead of time to make sure it works.  Then we will decide on upgrade dates and Lisa will schedule it with Atlas.

  • MetaLib/SFX refresher sessions - Several campuses indicated an interest in SFX and MetaLib training due to staff turnover.  Milwaukee is willing to host, if this is an option for us. Lisa is checking on this.

  • Assisting others with automation questions - several LTCC members have been approached to see if our committee could offer assistance in getting some specific automation projects setup. We coordinated a conference call between Eau Claire, Stout and several other campuses to answer questions about setting up Voyager to checkout textbook rentals. We are happy to serve in this way to connect people to appropriate resources and experts as this is one of our stated goals. Bill Doering has also offered to present at the summer conference to show an Access database he setup for electronic resource management.

  • Ex Libris/UWS meeting May 8 - Ex Libris key staff will come to Madison to meet and greet Lisa; LTCC members will attend for the strategic planning discussion.

  • Sharing access queries - The LTCC discussed this suggestion which came from Marc Boucher recently, but has been suggested numerous times over the years at LAMs meetings.  We looked at Bill Doering’s extensive database of queries. Although this can be quite helpful, queries and reports often have to be customized further to meet individual needs. We also talked about using the same queries for the ALS survey so that our data would be comparable across campuses and we wouldn’t all be duplicating the work of creating appropriate queries. We recognize that sharing queries won’t be possible for every question on the survey.  Differences in cataloging practices sometimes mean that the data is not in Voyager or is coded differently for different libraries.  Standardized queries may not even be desirable if the numbers differ radically from the previous year. Yet the savings in time could be significant and the data more reliable than paper tallies.  The question of whether we might switch to shared access queries was taken to the Executive Committee and they agreed that we will run the ALS queries as usual this year, and then compare the results to standard Access queries.  Then we will be able to see if this will save a significant amount of time and we’ll see how closely the numbers match or differ.

The CUWL Membership adjourned for a Joint presentation with LTDC on the D2L learning objects repository product.
This product could be included in the next D2L contract.   
Discussion ensued on Learning Objects Repository and its applications and future.   CUWL returned to their regular meeting.

Congratulations to Joyce Huang on her retirement. 
At this time Jean Gilbertson led the membership in congratulating Joyce Huang on her well earned retirement.  Joyce was presented with a gift and card from her colleagues.


Digital Initiatives CC (Ranger)

Joshua Ranger gave the following report on the activities of the Digital Initiatives Coordinating Committee.
The DICC as a whole was scheduled to meet April 10th. The meeting was cancelled due to an illness of the chair’s son. The group met via teleconference that same day, however, to discuss two issues: access to sensitive materials in digital collections and to consider three new UWDC proposals. 

SENSITIVE MATERIALS

The issue of “sensitive materials” came up during the digitization work of the records of the Gay People’s Union which published a news, entertainment, and literary magazine for approximately 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s.  In a few instances, UWDCC staff members found some material in these magazines that may be inappropriate for young researchers: photographs with full frontal nudity (no intercourse or sex acts); sexually graphic drawings; and erotic fiction and poetry.

The UWDCC staff and the DICC continue to believe strongly in the important social and historical value of the Gay People’s Union collection. We do, however, understand our responsibility to our world-wide, multi-age audience and the University System’s reputation.  A proposed project of Klu Klux Klan materials brought up other “sensitivity” questions as well.

The DICC discussed the situation and agreed that committee members Doylen, Tobias and Gorman would investigate technical means to “guard” --not prevent--access to the magazine portion of the collection while still permitting discovery.  Most specifically, this solution would offer a description on the home page of the digital collection that informs researchers about the content of the collection, one that takes care not to prejudge the material or the sensibilities of our online users. We also may employ some sort of technical means of guarding access.  This MAY include routing all online traffic through the "front door" of the collection so that researchers do not discover individual parts of it out of context. There may be other options as well.  UWDCC staff and the DICC will report back to CUWL on how we plan to proceed on this front. 

At the same time, the group will formally draft a policy position on controversial material that is consistent with the mission of both the digital programs of UW System as well as that of the University itself.  The DICC will formally recommend these solutions to CUWL at a subsequent meeting.  Until that time, reformatting of the Gay People’s Union material will continue.

ACTION ITEMS: PROGRESS REPORTS

Action Item 1 - Comprehensive digital plan.

The digital plan is currently being drafted by Ranger to be reviewed by the remainder of the working group.

Action Item 2 - Assessment

Tobias and working group member Melissa McLimans have been working with UW-Madison Assessment Librarian, Nola Walker to flush out objectives, outcomes, scope and methodology of the assessment program. A formal status report was not given due to the meeting change of the 10th. This will be given officially at a make-up meeting in May. 

Action Item 3 - MINDS@UW

The MINDS@UW working group met twice; once in February and again on April 9th.  Due to the cancellation of the meeting of the 10th a full report on their progress was not given but will be at a May “make-up” meeting.  The group has been brainstorming ideas for important changes to the MINDS model as well as preparing a survey of library directors. 

Action Item 4 - Migration of off-line media

It was determined that an effort to work on similar issues at UW Madison is only in its nascent stage.  It was hoped that this action item could have “piggy-backed” on those efforts.  At this point the timeline for deliverables on this action item must be adjusted to the late fall.  DICC respectfully asks CUWL for this extension.

PROJECT PROPOSALS

At its April 10th meeting the DICC approved the following projects:

1) Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs - 60 bound volumes of this important government document series from WHS. Proposed by Dr. Anthony Gulig, UW-Whitewater. Estimated cost: $13,403.

2) Additions to the Great Lakes Maritime History Project - 450 glass plates and 170 period prints and stereo cards from UW-Superior. Estimated cost: $1,121.64

3) Ku Klux Klan in Northwestern Wisconsin, circa 1915-1950 - 10 pamphlets, newspaper clippings, ephemera, archival papers and records, two robes from UW-River Falls and UW-Eau Claire. Estimate cost: $1,298.50.

  • Special note on KKK collection. We consider this a “special circumstances” case that requires CUWL attention. The KKK material is a very popular set of materials that is used consistently at Eau Claire and River Falls as well as elsewhere in the ARC system.  Currently, for example, it’s being used at UW-Oshkosh for a course on the history of the early 20th century.  It has incredible research potential for the study of KKK in the north, racial and religious prejudices in the early 20th century, etc... 
    The materials, however, contain membership lists that contain names of people who may be still alive or have families still in the community.  There is some concern that “publishing” these records on the web could embarrass certain individuals. The DICC’s perspective is that these records have been widely available for years and used by countless students from the region and no backlash or fallout has been recorded.  Membership lists are handwritten and therefore will not be discoverable via OCR. Some typed documents might include names of Klan leadership, although they arguably are entitled to slightly less privacy. 

    Similarly to the Gay People’s Union material, we plan to employ some “about” text that deals with the sensitivity issue. However, we do not believe the technical solution to force entry through the home page will be needed. The policy the DICC will draft on sensitive material will deal with hate-group related material as well as sexual content. The DICC seeks general agreement from CUWL that this plan of action vis-à-vis the KKK collection is acceptable.


Collections and Resource Sharing CC (Reeb)

Richard Reeb gave the following report on the activities of the Collections and Resource Sharing Coordinating Committee.

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 system-wide 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 system wide 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 web space.

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 faculties do their research. Some faculty indicates 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.


Discussion of WIKI postponed until next Meeting.
Growth of the CUWL wiki for communication and collaboration (Frye)

  • Range of content
  • Demo - maybe
  • Offer all CUWL members rights to add and edit content

An Agenda Item added at the request of Kathy Schneider   
Kathy Schneider reported that we can now receive requests from the WISCAT system into Illiad. The success rate for completion is now 97%. This opens door for us to receive ILL requests this way. This means we may receive requests on Illiad from non-OCLC libraries. And we would be working directly with the borrowing libraries. This new service has not yet been broadly discussed.  It also has implications about filling requests to small libraries.  Requests will no longer have to go through WILS. Kathy recommends that we check with our ILL staff to see what they will be doing about this new process.  The first step is to talk to ILL people to see how it is going and also what is the current ILL status.  CUWL needs to do some analysis of current ILL status and plan for further steps.  Kathy will be putting together questions and sending them out to the group. 

Summer library staff conference (Gilbertson) 
Jean Gilbertson noted that the Chairs of the Coordinating Committees have done the major part of the planning for the summer meeting/conference. 
Please refer to the CUWL WIKI at http://cuwlwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Annual+Conference for the draft conference schedule.

  • Number of attendees – based on director submissions
    Jean Gilbertson sent a message to CUWL directors requesting information on the number of attendees from each library. We now have a pretty good sense of the numbers. Discussion followed about the number of possible attendees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At this time there are 143 possible attendees with 36 from Madison. The auditorium has capacity of 170 occupants and so numbers are not a problem at this time. One difficulty is that the breakout rooms officially seat 30 maybe 35 occupants maximum and there may not be room enough for any particular breakout session. A survey will be sent out to everyone to see what breakouts people are planning to attend to try and maximize use of the auditorium for large breakout rooms. Directors are to e-mail Jean by this Friday if anyone else from their library is attending who is not on the original list.

  • Assessment/LibQual breakout
    The breakout session at the summer conference on LibQual was discussed. A straw poll of CUWL members was conducted on what is needed for this breakout session.  The question was to open it up to more generic questions of assessment or focus on specifically on LibQual+.  The purpose of the session is not clear at this time.  Jean will send out an E-Mail asking for input regarding preference for this breakout session.  Discussion followed with a suggestion that it be more broadly based general assessment session.

Nominations Committee Report/Elections (Barczyk)

Eva Barczyk served as the Chair of the Nomination committee with Patrick Wilkinson and Valerie Malzacher as the other members.  The Nomination Committee presented the following slate of candidates.

Chair-elect                   John Pollitz    
Member at Large         Vanaja Menon
Secretary                     Deb Nordgren

Ken Frazier moved that the nominations be accepted and Tony Gulig seconded with a suggestion that they be passed by acclimation.  The nominations were passed by acclimation by the membership.  The new officers take over on July 1.

Other business/Future agenda items/Summer CUWL meeting date 
Summer CUWL meeting will be July 22, 2008.  As in years past this is the day before the WiLS World Conference.  Future agenda items include:

  • Assessment of new committee structure
    The Coordinating Committees structure has to be assessed by end of 08-09; so sometime during the next year assessment will have to be done.  Assessment of the summer conference will also have to be done.
  • Operating procedures will be brought forward for approval at July meeting
  • UWSAC report 
    Jean Gilbertson talked to Peter Gottlieb.  Due to an ongoing scheduling it is difficult for him to attend the spring CUWL meeting.  We will plan to have UWSAC report at the summer meeting.  
  • Article
    Mark Rozmarynowski suggested that the membership discuss an article distributed by Ewa Barczyk at a future CUWL meeting.  The article is about publishers suing Georgia State over digital course packs.

Adjourn

Pat Wilkinson moved that the meeting be adjourned.  The motion was seconded by Tony Gulig and accepted by the CUWL members.

Jean Gilbertson adjourned the meeting at 12:15 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted by Paul Roberts, CUWL Secretary, May 2, 2008