**** DRAFT ****

 

 

Minutes

Council of University of Wisconsin Libraries

January 29, 2002

Pyle Center, Madison

 

Present:  Moriarty(chair), Rose, Jax, Bredeson, Baum, Peischl, Gulig, Galt, Gottlieb, Hansen, Evans, Frazier, Murray, Watson-Boone, Wilkinson, Arneson, Carmack, Huang, Schneider, Docken, Goss, Meachen.    Guests: Cora Marrett, Nolan Pope, JoAnn Carr, Tanner Wray.

 

Moriarty called the meeting to order at 1 p.m.

 

Minutes of the October 1-2, 2001 CUWL board and January 9 executive committee meetings were unanimously approved (Carmack, Gulig).

 

Moriarty announced that the nominations committee is working to fill two slots on the board for next year, chair-elect and one at-large position.  Moriarty also asked if CUWL would like to take part in a second joint ITMC meeting in April 2002; after brief discussion, the answer was no, not this time.

 

Endeavor Report

 

Docken said that all sites are now updated to Voyager version 2000.2, with universal borrowing (UB) functionality.  UB is running at 7 campuses; Colleges should be soon, but they are still having some complications with the call slip functions.  Madison will enable its call slip functionality beginning March 4.  A teleconference to discuss the few remaining bugs with UB issues was held recently; Docken will report the problems at the upcoming Endeavor meetings.

 

Encompass releases were viewed at ALA Midwinter meetings; Docken said that some of the modules are broken apart now and available separately (Digital Collections, Resource Access, and LinkFinder).  Frazier added that with the latest demos of Encompass, some of the functions look promising for our long-term needs; he said he doesn’t have full confidence in Endeavor, but the new modules are at least worth taking a closer look.  He said Ex Libris also has an updated software with linking capability, but it does not appear to be close to a “one-search” engine just yet.  Docken said the next step would be for UWS to sit down with the product development people in striving for a comprehensive system.  Jax said that it might be a good time for Endeavor to bring in some demos again, perhaps primarily to the resource sharing or new reference coordinators group.  Moriarty mentioned that UW Platteville had had some success with the BRIO software (People Soft) in producing reports. 

 

Wilkinson said that UB functions pointed to the urgent need for more uniform circulation policies across campuses.  Docken said that the standardization of fees issues created little interest last summer, but now there is more pressure to resolve those.  She said that most sites are reporting that loan periods are working OK, and most problems have been sorting themselves out.  Frazier added that it can sometimes be tough to iron out these problems at the circulation level, and perhaps this would best be done at the director level.

 

 

Enhanced Resources Sharing Group

 

Subcommittee chair Tanner Wray presented a written summary and said that his group had identified two products as possible solutions.  They have set up a private Web site for vendor critiques and responses; private so as to protect the vendors’ rights and still allow frank discussion.  Demos are scheduled in Madison for February 19.   The goal is to acquire a system or systems that would address a wide range of needs across UWS; allow requests to flow across different levels with little or no re-keying……peer to peer, ideally.

 

Wray summarized the report with three questions for CUWL: 1) Do you agree in principle to the Goals/Objectives/Priorities and Next Steps?  2)  Do you view vendor-supplied search interfaces (such as ZPORTAL or simultaneous searching) as part of the resource sharing software?  3)  Should the task force identify and report on infrastructure gaps (such as campuses lacking scanners or ARIEL for non-returnables)?

In discussion, Frazier asked if there were basic problems with OCLC and ILLIAD ILL?  Wray said that the only one might be too many points of interaction forced on end users; assuming that we’re looking for the one “BIG” system, but short of that, just trying to fill the gap in needs of the campuses.  Schneider added that for some campuses, the question of equipment needs varied with the volume of service expected.  Frazier said that for UW Madison, the case of document delivery to the desktop was viewed primarily as a re-allocation of resources (offset by canceled journals); these re-allocation dollars need to viewed as a part of any new system.   Schneider asked, why go outside OCLC?  If we feel that the transaction fee is the big hang-up, we at least talk to OCLC about that.  Blank forms is still a workable option, in addition to importing a bibliographic record.  Equipment-wise, she said that not that much more is really needed; everyone has the receive capability for non-returnables already, just not creating/sending documents.  Docken also said that campuses have a very wide range of policies right now; we might have to make some of those more consistent.  Frazier said that the committee does not need to identify a universally effective product.

 

Frazier also said that the real issue is supplying desktop document delivery for faculty across UWS.  Jax asked that CUWL also keep the needs of students in mind as well.  Frazier said that students are currently choking on the massive amount of information available in various formats right now and therefore not in great need of extended services such as document delivery.  Jax, and others, said that some of the graduate students and distance ed students were likely to need these services at certain times.  Huang said that Whitewater charges $1 on all requests anyway, just to keep the number of frivolous requests down.   Meachen said that a shared pool of UWS money should shape the issues as much as possible, as well as shaping policies.

 

Related to the Feb 19 demos in Madison, Carmack and Peischl asked if there was a way to open up the presentations to more within UWS?   Peischl asked if each campus could have at least one representative.  Docken said that these demos are really just initial demos, and detailed information would be shared with everyone in the next steps.

 

 

WiLS Report

 

Schneider briefly described a new customized service associated with the recent journal cuts at Madison and Milwaukee.  WiLS provides articles from journals within 48 hours to either campus.  Watson-Boone said this was a promise being kept to faculty to offset cut journals.  He acknowledged that it sets up a dual system, but it hopefully would be a temporary measure; a rationing system not based on evil intentions, but just simple economics. Schneider said that the service couldn’t guarantee e-access to the desktop unless the item is at the Madison campus.  Schneider said that OCLC would be demonstrating digital services in Madison on March 11, with video conferencing possible.  She said it would be great chance to talk with OCLC about where they’re going with digital delivery initiatives.  Gulig said that we should all stand up and applaud the digital delivery services capability; it’s simply a fabulous service for any researcher to have access to.

 

Wisconsin Historical Society Report

 

Gottlieb reported on the grim budget picture for the society.  He said they suffered a 10% cut for this fiscal year already and it now could go as high as a 17% cut.  Upcoming meetings in the next few weeks will determine exactly where cuts would come from; he said that they’ve had wide-ranging discussions already and everything they do is “on the table.”  He highlighted the recent progress in digital collections work, aimed at both academic audiences and the general public.  He said that providing digital access to popular genealogy resources and clippings files for local history sources has been very popular with public libraries and the general public.  He said that e-commerce is very important in its planning; tax support will not keep the society running adequately in the future.   Fee services, for genealogists and others, are being discussed.  The society is planning a user survey for the library and for Area Research Centers across the UWS, in conjunction with UW SLIS graduate students. He said that UW-Milwaukee recently acquired the television news archives from WTMJ.  He reported that Area Research Centers loans had expanded five-fold in the last three years.  Frazier asked if the potential service cuts would be part of a discussion, or if the cuts would just be announced?  He said joint discussion would be critical.

 

 

Special presentation, UWS Senior Vice-President Cora Marrett

 

At the invitation of CUWL and Ed Meachen, Marrett talked to the group about the upcoming budget process.  She acknowledged the outstanding work of libraries in working collaboratively and said that budget priorities would necessarily support efforts to solve problems cooperatively across campuses and functional areas.  She said budget talks would focus on an era of re-trenching, but it would be critical to keep pushing new initiatives as well.

 

The aim is to make a presentation to the Regents at its April 4-5 meeting.   Meachen said that our strength would be selling our collaborative efforts.  Frazier said that the mere numeric facts of libraries’ states might not be enough; we need to tout our creative problem solving.  He said the “value added” of what UWS contributes to the knowledge industry in this state is the real story to tell; it is a critical part of any economic growth.

 

Marrett suggested tying as much of our presentation as we can to students, and the overall quality of the educational experience.  She said United Council of Students would be making a presentation at the February Regents meeting and our follow up presentation could make a strong impression with a tie-in to students.  Carmack said that a main point of our presentation should be to educate Regents and legislators that it’s just not all out there on the Internet; quality of information is still a critical part of our mission.  Watson-Boone said with this year’s budget approach, we should emphasize our essential purpose and show that there are definite benefits for non-academic audiences as well.  Marrett said that some critical things need to be provided by the state; that commercial interests just won’t provide certain products or services.

 

 

CDC Report

 

Jo Ann Carr detailed some items in her printed report, explaining that for the projections for 2002-03, Net Library was left out of the list because of its uncertain status at the time.  It is expected that we would continue some NetLIbrary service, once assurances from publishers and OCLC are more fully secured.

 

Carr also sought approval to renew the BioOne subscription, which runs April 2002 – March 2003.  A MOTION (Evans,Rose) was made to approve the expenditure of $50,343 (a 5% increase) for BioOne .

The motion was unanimously approved.

 

Carr also summarized the coordinated renewal process, which resulted in more than $510,000 in cancellations.  The coordinated cuts are part of building toward coordinated access to a potential Elsevier journals bundle.  CDC is also investigating databases that might be supported through cost sharing in 2002-03: J-Stor, RILM, and PsycArticles.  A final recommendation will be made for the May CUWL meeting.

 

Carr also led the discussion of a draft revision of the UWS Libraries Proposed Guidelines for Shared Electronic Collection.  Besides some minor wording changes, a lengthy discussion followed based on ranking and voting questions.  Does CDC do both ranking and voting?  Should directors be more directly involved?  How do we deal with close decisions and our self-imposed cost ceiling?  Jax asked ADA guidelines for accessibility be factored into the decision process.  Carr said the CDC would re-work the revision for the May CUWL meeting.

 

Report of the UW Digital Collections (UWDC) Advisory Committee

 

Wilkinson reported that the group is still working on guidelines to get projects started and develop a production plan.  The committee is still lacking two faculty advisors; he asks that CUWL help identify and enlist potential candidates.  The committee asked UW Madison to help detail proposals on topics related to conservation and the environment.  Wilkinson asked that directors work to identify appropriate materials in their own collections as possible projects.

 

One ongoing project is the Pioneer Experience, with two campus projects moving forward.  The committee is looking for other campuses to step forward.  Wilkinson acknowledged that the one drawback is the commitment of a certain amount of staff time, which he admits discourages proposals initially.  Galt asked, why not open it up and broadly solicit proposals across UWS.  Wilkinson said he was not sure the group could handle the scope of all that yet and still address all the variables involved.

 

A MOTION (Wilkinson, Galt) was made to pass a resolution of appreciation to thank Deb Anderson (UWGB) and her staff and Nolan Pope and the staff of the UWDC Center for their work on the Belgian-American project.  Through their efforts, they have produced a potentially important research collection and have informed the continuing efforts to create a UW Digital Collections.  The motion was unanimously approved.

 

 

Demonstration of the Belgian-American Collection Project

 

Nolan Pope gave a brief demo of the project and described the Cite Search software and the indexing level, which is not “deep Web” right now.  A few sound clips from interviews are part of the project and more clips are expected to be added.  Galt asked who the primary audience of this project was?  Pope said the projects were identified by local campuses as “significant.”  The Belgian-American project was picked because it would serve multiple audiences, but also was related to the UWGB curriculum.  Rose added that it would also give UWS an idea of many of the cost assessment questions.

 

 

The day’s meeting was adjourned at 4:58 p.m.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Bredeson, CUWL Secretary

 

 

 

*****  DRAFT  *****

 

 

 

Minutes

Council of University of Wisconsin Libraries

January 30, 2002

Learning Innovations Center, Madison

 

 

Present: Moriarty(chair), Rose, Jax, Bredeson, Baum, Peischl, Gulig, Galt, Hansen, Evans, Frazier, Murray, Watson-Boone, Wilkinson, Arneson, Carmack, Huang, Docken, Goss,  Meachen.  Guests: Debbie Cardinal, Denise Babin, David J. Ward & staff of Learning Innovations.

 

 

Moriarty called the second day of the meeting to order at 8:35 a.m.

 

Moriarty introduced David J. Ward, Executive Director of UW Learning Innovations.  Ward outlined the short history and goals of the organization and how it has meshed with existing programs and software.  He said that most courses are packaged with Blackboard software at this point, and that the number one thing they’ve learned over the years is that personal support for software and courses is critical to its success. 

 

In the discussion that followed, Ward and CUWL members highlighted a few of the ways libraries can be more proactively involved:

·        Librarians need to be working with course preparation at the development stage with faculty and LI staff

·        Faculty and librarians need to work in reviewing courses at various stages for updates to resources

·        Library resources need to be built in to the main stream Web presentation, with ubiquitous linking capabilities

·        LI and Blackboard components are still in their relative infancy; good time to get in at the early growth level

·        A virtual reference contact component (Web-based, 800 #, etc.) needs to be built and perhaps the distributed learning models are the best place to create this

 

UW System  OLIT Update

 

Meachen highlighted the “crown jewels” of OLIT’s many initiatives right now:

1)     Learning Innovations collaborations with various campuses

2)     Several MyLibrary and .edu operations for departments

3)     Fast Star (People Soft derivative) projects for UWSA, creating data warehouses for MIS roles within Blackboard and other programs

4)     Digital Innovations (Wisconsin Public Television and Pyle Center), collaboration on digitizing, editing, and metadata tagging for media assets that could be plugged into courseware

5)     Academic ADL Co-Lab partnerships with Dept of Defense in creating training courseware and platforms; the Co-Lab works with 34 other institutions across the country

 

Meachen also discussed the ongoing project for creating a repository of Learning Objects, something he says that the commercial publishing industry is very interested in.  OLIT’s goal is to assemble these learning objects into a course, with indexing and metadata tagging.  Meachen also talked about “second generation” Web tools that might be capable of assessing end user learning styles and perform mass customization and re-assembly of courseware to those individualized styles.  OLIT is also experimenting with hand-held technology, both for distributed learning and also for general education.  Most of the OLIT experimental projects are primarily funded with private money, some as “in kind” contributions.

 

Evans asked who is responsible for the metadata tagging work?  Meachen said mostly IMS folks, and some national standards groups.  Frazier asked what are the economic models down the road for this research?  Meachen said that publishers are expecting something in return for these pieces of learning objects, however they are finally configured.  Frazier then said, how about the UWS and libraries originating and preserving the learning objects under open archives initiative principles?   Meachen said he expects a mix of commercial and educational repositories and licenses.   Murray harkened back to Meachen’s list of crown jewels earlier, saying the maybe libraries should have been one of them; we’ve adapted to changes as eagerly as anyone else, and supported these parallel operations extremely well over the years.  Wilkinson added that library efforts are under-appreciated even though we performed most of these responsibilities very well for years.  Meachen summarized by saying that libraries have been “pull” rather than “push” organizations.

 

 

Advantages of an Endeavor Test Server

 

In hopes of lifting some of the technical strain from individual campuses for Endeavor updates, etc., Meachen and Docken have proposed a possible test server for the UWS office.  Meachen said that they have a small group investigating the economics of test servers and what extensions could be run from that.  Docken said that in a quick survey of the LAM’s, they had some doubts that they would have enough time to work on parallel servers, despite the advantage of having them separate.

 

 

LAM’s Report

 

Denise Babin distributed and discussed an extensive survey of campus e-reserve usage in UWS.  She said that overall, most campuses are happy with what they’re doing so far.  Several campuses have homegrown systems and some are using Docutek Services as a vendor.   A few campuses, mostly UW Colleges sites, still have no e-reserve system in place.  PDF file formats are by far the most popular, according to Babin.  Moriarty said that there doesn’t seem to be any push to go to a common system or to address ADA needs uniformly at this point.  Babin said that some campuses still had some concerns about copyright issues; that there are a wide range of interpretations of fair use.  Cardinal pointed out that OCLC has an archival module that allows off-reserve functions if anyone is interested.  Frazier stated that the current state of fair use provisions has worked very well for UW Madison, without jumping through so many hoops.  Murray added that we don’t do anything that violates the spirit of the fair use provisions.  Babin said that the TEACH Act has some built-in restrictions that seem to go beyond the scope of fair use.  As far as those campuses not yet running e-reserves, Frazier offered the facilities of his staff to help with training and start-up for those campuses.

 

 

2003-05 Library Budget Strategies

 

Rose discussed the report of his funding group in light of the grim budget outlook for the next few years.  Rose said the group felt that we needed something of a slogan, which it pulled from the Strategic Planning Report for CUWL, “One System, One Library.”   Rose said it is clear that in telling our story to the Regents or Legislature, we need to be folding in faculty and students to help us.  United Council of Students would be the contact point for student efforts, and Meachen said he would try to coordinate with UC’s other presentation to the Regents in February.  Frazier said that most comparable university systems don’t have to go through a similar DIN process battle directly with the legislature; budget increases are simply increments to general budgets, grant overheads, and tuition.  Meachen said the DIN process in the last budget was a big battle for UWS to get the few things through that it did, and included nothing specifically for libraries.  Jax said that the technology fee concept worked well for UWS in the past, and perhaps that’s a good model for a library fee.  Meachen said that we would have to carefully craft something very precisely in order to extract any tuition slice that would point towards libraries.  Murray said we could sell a tuition fee as a straightforward payback investment.  Frazier said he feels the DIN option is dead for 2003-05; we need to incorporate the cuts we’ve made and compile comparative data for other Big Ten schools and try to gain our increases within UWS.  Watson-Boone doesn’t want to see the legislative approach die off since it is one thing that has at least worked for us in the past from time to time.

 

Rose asked, what is the will of the CUWL group?  After more discussion, Moriarty said it sounds like both DIN process and internal process should proceed.  Meachen, and others, suggested having the CUWL executive committee meet with student Regent Thomas Jones in advance of the April Regents meeting.  Meachen said that with the Regents, our best storyline might be best presented without specifying an exact amount.  Watson-Boone said it would be important to clarify that we are here because of the failure of the DIN process to consistently pay off for us.  Frazier added that we would need to show the statistics as well, to show how inflation has eaten away at budgets and show the sharp decline in purchasing power.  Gulig reminded the group that it seems critical to add a student member of the CUWL board ASAP.  Meachen said any Regents presentation would need to be coordinated with Kathleen Sell and Cora Marrett, and he would follow-up with them.  Goss added that it would be important to solicit support from each of the campus chancellors as well.

 

 

Recommendation for a CUWL Reference Services Committee

 

Moriarty asked if there were suggestions to the committee charge that had been drafted?  Jax asked that this committee add to its duties some help in resolving the many “one-search” compatibility discussions that have happened at various levels.   A MOTION (Jax, Watson-Boone) was made to approve the formation of the Reference Coordinators Committee (RCC) as a standing committee with the amended draft charge.  The motion was unanimously approved.

 

 

Congratulations to UW Stout

 

Moriarty asked that the minutes reflect congratulations to the UW Stout for its reception of the Malcolm Baldrige Award for university campuses for this year, led in no small part by its outstanding library.

 

 

The meeting adjourned at 11:50 a.m.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Bredeson, CUWL Secretary