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Database Review Task Force 1998/Agenda

AGENDA

First meeting will be on Tuesday, 17 March, 2:00-3:00, in B59 Kroch.

Charge: (a) evaluate networked resources that are presently centrally funded, (b) assess the quality, suitability, availability of networked resources not currently offered through CUL, (c) make adjustments to the collection of centrally funded networked resources for 1998/99. Last year, we concentrated primarily on bibliographical databases; this year we want also to look more carefully at full-text networked resources.

Issues for discussion at 17 March meeting:

2. Schedule for future meetings.

3. Budget. We will have a 5% increase in appropriated funding (after we undertake the reallocation) for the 1998/99 materials budget. I am assuming that we will again tax that increase for a certain amount, in order to maintain or expand centrally funded networked resources. The size of that tax should depend upon our assessment of what is needed and available, as well as upon feedback from selectors and reference staff. We will need, in any case, to complete our decisions in time for the materials budget allocation inmid-May.

4. Input Methods. How do we ensure that we have input from collection development and reference staff at each step in the decision process? I am assuming that the primary links will be through the four selection teams, IRPC, and ERC. We will need to assess both the networked resources now in place, and those not currently provided. Should we again consider some kind of poll, or can we do something less elaborate this year?

5. Consortia. We need to bear our consortial links in mind as we undertake this review, especially those opportunities offered by NY State and by NERL. This complicates our assessment considerably, but it can also result (and has resulted) in substantial dollar savings. I will need some help keeping up with the deliberations, discussions and negotiations of the NY and NERL consortia. What steps do we need to take to ensure coordination between our local decision-making and the deliberations of the consortia?

6. Special Pressures. I foresee this year several new pressures that we did not face (to the same degree) last year. We need to discuss how we will cope with these:

• Increased Costs. We must expect substantial cost increases next year for some of the networked resources we are providing this year--especially the social science databases owned by Elsevier and the databases provided by our primary aggregator (OCLC). These increases need to be factored into both our selection and budgeting decisions.

• Change Tolerance. This year has been the first that we have had in place a broader range of general databases for use throughout the system. Making substantial changes in those many services will causes some difficulties for both users and staff. This inconvenience of continuous adjustment is something new that we need to take into account as part of our selection decisions. All other things being equal, we will probably want to keep what we've already got (although admittedly the chances of all other things being equal are not great).

• Politics of Funding. Feelings about the tax last year were mitigated somewhat by the fact that some of the databases we selected were already being paid for by individual selectors. The tax was therefore offset somewhat by savings in some subject lines. That is likely to be far less the case this year. In all likelihood, we will select more items this year that have not previously been made purchased through the subject lines.

• Full-Text Complications. Some of the full-text resources available are "derivative," in the sense that they are online versions of material that we already purchase in paper. As past discussions in CDExec have shown, there are a variety of opinions among the selectors (and also among faculty users) about the advisability of "duplicating" paper resources in online form. We will need to resolve these issues, if we are to make selection decisions on networked derivatives.

  See you Tuesday.

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  3/25/98 peo

  rev. 4/6/98 dih