CUWL Collection Development Committee (CDC) meeting, January 7, 2005

 

Attending:  Susan Barribeau (Madison), Kim Bartosz (Parkside), Patti Becker (Stevens Point), Sylvia Beardsley (Parkside), Roni Carey (Eau Claire), Jo Ann Carr (Madison), Karen Jander (Milwaukee), Bill Johnston (Stout), Sharon Knight (Whitewater), Michele McKnelly (River Falls), Todd Mountjoy (Colleges), Deb Nordgren (Superior), Richard Reeb (Madison), Mary Rieder (Colleges), Joan Robb (Green Bay), Judy Wurtzler (Platteville).

Guests:  Ewa Barczyk (Milwaukee), Ken Frazier (Madison), Nolan Pope (Madison).

 

Sylvia Beardsley called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m.

 

A motion for acceptance of the minutes of the October 4, 2004 meeting was made by Roni Carey and seconded by Joan Robb.  The minutes were approved. 

 

1.   American Chemical Society update:  The terms of the current contract specify that each campus pays for 85% of the content in e-form and System pays the remaining 15%.  Campuses are assessed an additional 15% surcharge if they elect to also receive the print.  Five campuses have already cancelled receipt of their print subscriptions, and others are moving in that direction.  This year ACS’ invoicing has added further complications in not following this split payment arrangement.  Any library which has received an invoice should not process it but fax it to Lorie Docken who is working with ACS to resolve the problems. 

     The only option we now have is to lease, rather than purchase,  the ACS archive for $26,000.  To put this cost in perspective it was pointed out that in terms of usage ACS has the lowest per use cost—about 1/3 that of Elsevier journals and 1/5 the cost of Wiley publications. 

 

2.   Discussion and brainstorming with CDC and CUWL Collection Management Task Force members:   Five of the committee members were present--Ewa Barczyk, Jo Ann Carr, Lorie Docken, Ken Frazier, and Joan Robb.   It is well known that annual increases in publications, especially for journals and databases, combined with flat budgets have resulted in a significant decline in buying power.  Strategies for dealing with the crisis include a reduction in duplication among our collections for both serials and monographs and furthering efforts for cooperative collection development.  The former strategy should be aided by the studies now underway on usage of our monographic collections and the overlap of serial holdings.  It was suggested that cooperative collection development might be more successful by starting with a niche subject–could be either esoteric or mundane.  Another possibility for achieving success and then building on it would be  to have each campus identify their areas of collection strength, and have that serve as a starting point for cooperative purchasing.  The idea of initiating a cooperative approval plan was also mentioned.  

 

The discussion also drew on several articles dealing with consortial collection development.  The article on the OhioLINK experience seemed particularly relevant.  Ewa Barczyk made the following points in summarizing the lengthy discussion:

 

1) recognition that collaborative collection development is necessary

2) identify collection strengths starting with the non-doctoral campuses

3) advocacy and promotion of this form of cooperation

4) interest in inviting someone to Wisconsin from OhioLINK

5) need to streamline our operations

6) interest in inviting reps from Blackwell and Yankee to explore possibilities for cooperative purchasing

7) use OCLC’s new Collection Analysis tool to identify collection strengths

 

3.   UW-Madison’s Middleton Shelving Facility:  Richard Reeb summarized the work of a local committee charged with recommending titles to transfer into the ground level of the former Middleton Health Sciences Library on the Madison campus.  With the installation of compact shelving the facility has a capacity for 335,000 volumes (27,900 linear feet).  The committee proposed that volumes available online through JSTOR, backfiles of Elsevier titles accessible through Science Direct, and pre-1965 Ph.D. dissertations and Masters’ theses as candidates for transfer.   Extracting data from Voyager a spreadsheet was created that analyzes charge and browse usage for the last fifteen years for the LC collection in Memorial Library.   Its purpose is to identify subject-based low use materials that might also be transferred.  Only one copy of a volume will be permitted in the shelving facility.  It is expected that duplicate copies will eventually be withdrawn.  The final report, completed in December, has been made available to the CDC.

 

4.   Spring 2005 renewals:

a.  BioOne: Lorie reported that the cost will increase to $69,112

b.  Institute of Physics:  There is a 15% surcharge for e-access.  A move by Joan Robb to renew both resources and seconded by Karen Jander was approved.

 

5.   Discussion of other resources:

a.   ArtSTOR: For systemwide access to this image database there would be a one-time charge of $231,000 plus an annual access fee of $115,500.  As there are insufficient funds in the SEC’s balance, the licensing of ArtSTOR could not be given further consideration.  It was noted that the Colleges have already purchased this resource.

b.   Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:   In order for this publication project to become self-sustaining, the SEP has proposed creating an endowment that over the next three years will raise $3,000,000 from the academic/library community.  The suggested donation level, based on the number of bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. programs among the campuses, would be $14,000 for FY05 through FY07.   Madison and Milwaukee had already expressed interest in supporting this alternative publishing model, and the discussion indicated broader support from other campuses.   Given the limited funds available in the budget,  Richard Reeb proposed a contribution of  $10,000 to the SEP for each of the next three years.  The proposal was approved.

 

6.   LOCKSS Project discussion:  Nolan Pope described the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Program initiated by the Stanford University Libraries several years ago as a way to collect, store, and preserve online resources.  As a participant in the pilot Madison is one of about a dozen universities running a LOCKSS server.  Once permission has been secured from a publisher the e-journal is harvested and stored on at least six servers.  The LOCKSS software automatically runs bit checks and compare results as the mechanism for determining stability of the data.  The program which has largely been supported by grants must now become self-sustaining if it is to continue. Among the commercial titles in LOCKSS are those from Highwire Press and Project Muse. So far Madison has secured permission to harvest the contents of two little magazines.  Additional information on the project is available at http://lockss.stanford.edu/about/about.htm

 

7.   Assessing the UW System Shared Electronic collection – “Guidelines for a Shared Electronic Collection.”  http://www.uwsa.edu/olit/cuwlweb/cdc/cdcscpr2.htm

Lorie invited ideas on ways of assessing the importance/value of resources which go beyond our reliance on usage data.  The impact of SFX and MetaLib, for instance, now needs to be factored into this evolving picture.  Joan Robb pointed out that the original intent of the SEC was to provide a balanced selection of resources in terms of subject coverage, and suggested that perhaps an analysis comparing the current consortially purchased resources with majors should be considered.  Lorie stated that our goal is to maintain balance and preference for full text. 

 

8.   Web of Science – discussion of options for 2006:  The Web of Science ranks as the second most expensive title after Lexis-Nexis.   Roughly half of the $208,000 is based on Madison, a smaller portion for Milwaukee, and  the remaining campuses account for 25%-33%.  Susan Barribeau, Sylvia Beardsley, Karen Jander, and Joan Robb volunteered to conduct a closer review of this resource before the title is scheduled for renewal next year.

 

9.   NCES Academic Library Survey

The deadline for completing the survey is March 22^nd.  The survey asks for the number of databases added and held by each campus including those jointly purchased, i.e., acquired through BadgerLink or the UW Shared Electronic Collection.  Thanks to Joan Robb the total number of databases of shared ownership has been determined and sent it to the CDC group list to include in their campus counts.

 

10. Report from the UW Digital Collection Advisory Committee: Nolan Pope, chair of the UWDC Advisory Committee, gave an account of the Collections’ history and contents.  Created in 2001 by COWL and System's Office of Learning & Information Technology, the UWDC is intended to provide digitized resources from the libraries to the academic community and the citizens of Wisconsin.   Proposals for collections to digitize are submitted to the Advisory Committee for approval.   Preference is given to Wisconsin-specific subjects drawn from materials in special collections and archives.  For further information  http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/

 

The meeting was adjourned at 2:40 p.m.

 

Submitted by Richard Reeb.