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September 20, 2000
Attending: Ross Atkinson, David Brumberg, Karen Calhoun, Lee Cartmill, Paul Constantine, Lenore Coral, David Corson, Pat Court, Susan Currie, Rebecca Davidson, Barbara Berger Eden, Elaine Engst, Erla Heyns, Tom Hickerson, John Hoffmann, Gordon Law, Susan Markowitz, Jean Poland, Allen Riedy, Steve Rockey, John Saylor, Marty Schlabach, Don Schnedeker, Marisue Taube, Sarah Thomas, Tom Weissinger, Ed Weissman, Linda Westlake
Lenore Coral announced that the official inauguration of the new Music Library will be on October 20 and 21, with a party on October 20. There will be presentations and performances of commissioned pieces for the event. Library staff will be invited. She asked that we mark our calendars.
Sarah Thomas extended best wishes to Rebecca Davidson. Rebecca will be going to Princeton to become Curator of Graphic Arts.
Sarah Thomas thanked Gordon Law, chair, and the members of the CUL Committee on Distributed Learning (Erla Heyns, Tim Lynch, Katie Margolis, Don Schnedeker, Nancy Skipper) for their work.
She indicated that the newly announced CUL position, recommended by the committee, for a Coordinator of the Office of Distributed Learning will be funded by the Kroch bequest and report to the Deputy University Librarian, Ross Atkinson.
Ross talked about the vision for distance learning. He reviewed the history of e-Cornell discussions in the Faculty Senate. This is not a degree granting program. Faculty will have control of content, and it will be funded by the university, rather than by outside investors as was originally planned. E-Cornell will concentrate initially on a few showcase courses, mainly in the professional schools, for which there is a known market. What the faculty and the Library learn from designing and providing these courses can then be applied to future courses. The CUL Committee on Distributed Learning will continue in an advisory role. The committee includes directors of libraries in schools and colleges from which those showcase courses will be taught.
Ross reminded attendees that the staff web page has the committee report (http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CouncilLibs/Distributedreport080900.html ) as well as a summary of a recent meeting of LMT with the committee (http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CouncilLibs/Pandolfimeeting.html).
Ross underscored two goals for distributed learning: enhanced access and a broader audience. These goals are defined in the introduction to the committee report. They are complementary and we must aim for both if we are to have a successful DL program.
E-Cornell is essentially a business. We need to work with that but also with faculty doing distributed education outside of e-Cornell. This moment is important for library services to be made part of DL, because if we do not establish that at the outset, it will be very difficult to bring that about once DL becomes a regular feature of the University. We need to promote the concept that remote access implies access to library sources and services. We are facing two threats. We need to avoid a situation in which distributed learning is defined as being provided without information sources or services. That is one of the threats. The other threat is that an outside, private information business could be established which would provide such support in competition with libraries. We need to create that business ourselves; if it is really successful, then perhaps we will even be able to provide such DL information support to other institutions which do not have libraries of our quality. Ross expressed concern about the concept of equivalency. Services to distributed learners should be equivalent to those of residential learners. This does not mean the same experience, but that the outcome should be equivalent. The experience is not yet defined.
In order to make this work effectively, regular Library staff are going to need to provide services (the ODL will not provide those services, but will rather support and assist regular Library staff to do that). We would then obtain compensation from e-Cornell for this, and use that compensation to support the regular work the Library staff are unable to do while providing DL services. That is what we mean by "backfilling."
Sarah emphasized that the position description for the coordinator includes responsibility for alumni access. She said Kroch funds will support the coordinator position for several years, the university will support one position and the other one or 1.5 positions will come from reallocation. Sarah encouraged us to consider ourselves and others for the coordinator position. It is being posted beyond Cornell on several listservs.
LMT will hold a retreat on Monday, September 24 to discuss the future of CUL's physical facilities. Sarah asked for input before that meeting. She said we need to develop two things: a sense of strategic direction and a fund raising strategy for physical structures. Our plans should be part of the campus master planning process. Staffing and services need to come before physical library decisions. The Council brainstormed ideas for the LMT retreat.
Each unit will be asked to provide information they have gathered from door or gate counts to help us find out about trends in library usage.
Respectfully submitted,
Jean Poland
Associate University Librarian
Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences
293 Clark Hall
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rev. 10/18/00 jwg