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10/12/98
Attending: Karen Calhoun, Tim Lynch, Ed Weissman, Diane Hillmann, Scott Wicks, Bill Kara, Suzy Szasz-Palmer, David Block (chair)
Loose ends: Scott brought us up to date on his activities in making a seamless connection with Thomas' Register and arranging for Cornell to connect its NTIS account with SilverPlatter's remote server. Ed announced that there will soon be a Gateway connection with the Campus Store's subscription to BIP and Ulrich's.
Documentation/Trouble Shooting: We revisited our need to document the various aspects of our relations with vendors of networked electronic resources-- now being raised in several other quarters, with PSPC the latest to weigh in. We are using a compilation of electronic licenses, as prepared by Patricia O'Neill, as a preliminary document. David invited the committee members to offer additions, etc., and informed them that he had made a similar solicitation to PSPC. Once we have assembled a list of the items that need compiling, we will tackle how to distribute the resulting compilation. David will also ask Holly Mistlebauer to contribute to the items list.
ERC Activities Document: Version two, a tabled list of discrete issues, their documentation and disposition, was more contentedly received than its predecessor-- a more abstract synthesis-- had been. Karen identified an additional activity that needs to be added to the list, and other committee members made suggestions on format and wording, but we felt that, with a bit of tinkering, the document is ready for release.
Epistemology: David had circulated copies of Ross's charge to the Committee and Tim's short essay that combs out purpose and function from the tangle of the library's current and past electronic committees. Then Ed and David foregrounded the discussion with two interpretations of those documents. Ed favored an approach that follows up each issue that the Committee considers with what we came to call a "designated nagger," while David emphasized the importance of establishing generalities (i.e. procedures) rather than concentrating on any specific issue. Several spirited exchanges built a case for doing both. Without monitoring, issues discussed by the Committee have faded in our collective memory without implementation. Lack of procedures for the selection and processing of electronic resources have had the same effect. At our next meeting we will review the activities table and assign a designated nagger to each item. As a first step toward a procedure for adding networked electronic resources to the Gateway, David will prepare and circulate the selection piece.
That next meeting will be 10/26/98, same place and time.
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rev. 10/16/98 peo