13 April 2000
RWA Notes
The netLibrary implementation task force (Greg Lawrence, Tom Turner, Tom Gale, Marty Kurth, Nancy Skipper, Kathy Chiang, John Saylor) has done an extraordinary job working with this very unusual resource. There will be a netLibrary trainer on campus next Tuesday (18 April); she will provide an in-depth (three hour) training session for a limited number of staff. If there are selectors who are interested in this level of training, they should contact Greg Lawrence. David Block will be attending.
David Block reported that ERC has made the decision to catalog netLibrary selections in NOTIS. Once Voyager is in place, the issue of adding monographs to the Gateway will be revisited. This decision should not affect the selection of electronic monographs: selectors should continue to select these as appropriate.
Sarah How said that when multiple monographs are available online--especially when these are being offered without cost to libraries that have purchased the paper, as some publishers are now doing--we need to work out a method that does not require the selector to submit a separate order for each monograph.
The general funds are in reasonably good condition. The approval plan line is 82% spent, but this is due in part to my inability to totally eliminate the deficit from the previous year; we are still ca. $25K short of the initial allocation, and I am hopeful that I can fill this gap with the remaining general endowment funding--so that we will not carry over a deficit in the approval plan line. The central postage line is also 83% spent. In order to ensure that we do not build deficits in these two large central lines, we will need to increase them by at least 5%.
The first problem is to figure out what that level will actually be by 2001/02. We know that in 1997/98, we would have needed to spend $1.2 million on electronic resources to be among the upper ten ARL libraries reporting. According to the ARL statistics for 1997/98, we spent $508,055, which places us as 96th out of 102 ARL libraries reporting in terms of the percentage of our budget we spent on electronic items. Needless to say, this expenditure figure, which is based on the class codes, is inaccurate. Christian Boissonnas has therefore undertaken a study, and has determined (based mainly on format information in the catalog) that we did in fact spend at least $885K on electronic resources in 1997/98--and almost certainly more than that. In the 1997/98 ranking, that would have placed us somewhere around 23rd of members reporting: much better than where we had been placed, but still some distance from our objective.
If we assume that we would have needed to be spending in the neighborhood of $1.2 million in 1997/98 to build the level of electronic resource collection that we aspire to, and if we assume that the figure of what we want to spend (and what libraries will be purchasing) will be increasing at 10% per year, then we should expect to be spending ca. $1,750,000 by the target year of 2001/02. Christian has calculated that we spent at least $1,179,000 on electronic resources last year (1998/99). Let us therefore assume that we will spend at least $1,250,000 this year (1999/00). To create the kind of electronic resource collection we are aiming for, therefore, we will need to increase expenditures on electronic resources over the next two years by ca. $500K. That is how we will define "substantially." I want furthermore to achieve this objective without decreasing base budgets, because we do not have the hard data we would need to make such reductions fairly. We will need therefore to take this $500K from our budget increases. I want to allocate $350K of this $500K in 2000/01, leaving $150K for 2001/02. I want to allocate more this year than next year because (a) we are in the midst of the digital futures plan, so the rationale for this action is more on our minds now than it may be next year--but more importantly (b) we have a special increase in endowments this year, part of which we can put to this purpose.
The endowments will be increased by 18% in 2000/01. We will use the same method to deal with this that we used three years ago: in the cases of those endowments that are not overly restricted, I will reduce the base budget of the appropriated fund by an amount equal to a 13% increase in the endowment. This will leave selectors with a 5% increase. I am hopeful that I can (with the assistance of Tom Hickerson and David Corson, who have control of many of the endowment funds) obtain $150K in this manner. The appropriated funds on the endowed side will increase by $356K for 2000/01. I plan to take $200K of that, which, with the $150K from the endowments, will bring us to the $350K level; that $350K will be added to fund 519. This will leave us with $156K in appropriated funds. I will need $35-$40K to increase the central approval plan and postage lines by 5%. That will leave ca. $110K, or 1.5% to allocate.
Even though this is a small amount of funding, I feel strongly that we need to have budget hearings as usual. It is essential that we share information about the current conditions of the budgets with each other, and I am hopeful that all selectors will participate. Because of Voyager, we are on a somewhat shorter timetable this year, and we will need to send the allocation to Accounting by 1 June.
I realize there is a sense that a larger portion of the budget spent on electronic resource is going to the sciences--and that our continued building of a central database line will affect the equilibrium among the subject areas. The science databases are probably more plentiful and certainly more expensive. I calculate that we are spending around one-third of fund 519 on science databases, although that depends admittedly upon how one counts. If we include Web of Science (which includes citation indexes on social science and humanities, as well as science), the actual cost of SCI (if we could break it out, which we cannot in our current vendor agreement) would indeed be larger that what we would spend on SSCI and A&HCI. But it is also important to remember that I have on several occasions made base budget transfers from the science lines into fund 519--a significant amount, in fact, to purchase Web of Science. We did no similar transfers from social science or humanities funds for SSCI or A&HCI. The new subscriptions to Crossfire and SciFinder represent a significant part of the science electronic subscriptions. In order to pay for those, I am transferring approximately half of their cost from the science lines into fund 519. The sciences are also transferring funding into fund 519 to pay for part of the costs for the online Elsevier journals. I do not feel, therefore, that we are favoring the sciences unduly. I am also expecting DRC to keep track of those ratios of expenditures by subject.
Because there will now be much more funding in fund 519, we may need to alter the criteria used by DRC for accepting recommendations. That is something that CDExec and DRC will need to work out together. We will probably also need to formalize the process somewhat, so that CDExec (rather than just me) will approve the DRC recommendations in future.
Electronic resources that continue to be funded by subject lines will remain, of course, the responsibility of the selectors in charge of those lines. Decisions on maintaining or canceling those resources will be made by individual selectors--and while we have seldom canceled electronic subscriptions in the past, I expect we will begin to see some cancellations, as more options become available to us. Because I will need to keep closer track of expenditures on electronic resources in future, I would like to ask selectors to let me know when they cancel (especially larger) electronic resources, so that I can factor that information into my calculations.
We began the discussion by noting that the way we count our costs will now change, as we begin to subscribe to more materials in electronic form. Several of the large science publishers are counting their electronic versions as the main subscription. If we count these costs correctly, therefore, we will see dramatic increases in our expenditures on electronic resources from that alone. (I know that we definitely need to do this--and that it will help the statistics. But we must also keep reminding ourselves that our main goal is, of course, not to spend more money, or to be high in the statistics, but rather to provide better digital services and resources. Certainly we need to keep more accurate records that reflect changes in how we and our vendors count what we spend--but those changes in counting will obviously not all by themselves enhance our digital services.)
Lenore said that the availability of fund 519 does little good to those disciplines which have few multidisciplinary materials. DRC has set guidelines which require that recommendations be for materials that are inter/multidisciplinary. Allen said that the area studies subjects are in a similar position: there are few databases, and those that are available are often in languages that would preclude the claim that they are useful across campus. I have indeed noticed that there is a much stronger sense of multidisciplinarity in the sciences than in the humanities. Yoram responded that DRC set those guidelines as a basis for its decision-making. The whole point of DRC is to ensure that there is consistent selection for fund 519. While guidelines are essential for DRC's work, the current guidelines can certainly be reviewed, in light of the change in the quantity of the f. 519 budget. Michael, following up on Allen's remark, pointed out that there is not much point in recommending electronic resources, if they are in languages that we do not have the technology to accommodate. Fred noted that we have purchased some electronic resources that we still cannot provide access to, for this very reason.
We talked further about the multidisciplinary guideline. I said that selectors should not be deterred from making recommendations to DRC: like the approval plan line, fund 519 belongs to all selectors. Rebecca said that she plans on submitting recommendations for databases that use visual materials, because many disciplines are making increasing use of visual information. Phil Davis and Caroline Spicer said that we need to look at all of the reasons different institutions collect digital information, if we are going to compare ourselves to them. Those institutions that emphasize fields that depend mainly on monographs, for example, are going to be buying less digital information at the present time than those institutions that support more serials-based subjects. The top ten ARL libraries may be very different in the kinds of disciplines they support and collect for. I said that this has been discussed in both LMT and CDExec. The sense of those discussions is that we do indeed need to supplement our monitoring of the largest ARL libraries by staying in close contact with those institutions that we consider to be our peers in terms of subject emphasis.
Mary Ochs cautioned that we not lose sight of the qualitative side of collection building with all of our emphasis on the budget. We need to concentrate on ensuring that we are aware of all of the key electronic resources that are now available in all relevant disciplines. Allen Riedy and David Brumberg expressed strong concerns about the effects of the planned strategy upon the traditional and unique strengths of the Cornell collection: the more we spend on electronic materials, the less we can spend upon those specialized items that provide our collections with depth. We must avoid a situation in which all libraries become homogenous, each collecting roughly the same thing. It is our high quality, rare and unique holdings that make us special and that attract many important scholars to us. I agreed that we need to try to protect key strengths, as we move at the same time into the new electronic environment.
Sarah How made the point that she is collecting electronic materials increasingly, because that is a primary emphasis of the Library--but these materials are not always the kinds of things that current faculty are working on at present. She and Janie also stressed that the rules and values for collection development are clearly changing--and yet those changes have not been discussed and explored in any real detail with all selectors. We make policy changes, but we are not talking about the values that underlie those changes. I agree that we need to set aside some time, create some space, in which we can talk about the future directions of collection development at Cornell in general, rather than always focusing only upon budgets and policy. CDExec will work on this.
Linda distributed, among other things, pictures of the kinds of screens that selectors will be able to use to monitor the current condition of their funds. The same fund numbers that we have developed for NOTIS will be used in Voyager. John and Linda explained that certain kinds of information--the kind we generally associate with the class codes in NOTIS--will be available only through reports. Other kinds of information cannot be gathered through reports, and will therefore be produced by creating subfunds. Eight "required" items of information can be added to funds (e.g., remote electronic resources, replacement copies); in addition, selectors can add alpha codes that reflect the special information they need individually (akin to the information now gathered through the NOTIS L3 codes). John has been visiting selectors, to work out these codes with them individually. He asked any selectors, with whom he has not yet met, to send him an e-mail, so that they can schedule a time to meet. Linda would like to have all of these funds completed by 30 April, so that they can be input. John and Mary will get together to ensure that the endowed and statutory funds are consistent.
Selectors will need to begin to use these new funds on 17 May.
The fund reports have not yet been written, John said, and it is not yet clear when they will be available--but we know they are needed, and they will be done as soon as possible. The first step will be to create Voyager reports that are equivalent to NOTIS fund accounting reports 9 and 17.
Linda Stewart asked about maintaining information on circulation history that will not be transferred to Voyager. I said I still need to work on that, but we will do something to ensure that we do not lose that information. Lance asked about the effect of Voyager release 2000 on reports. John said that we do indeed expect that the new release will affect reports: we need to be careful, therefore, not to invest a lot of time in creating current reports, when it is likely we will soon need to change them.
Scott explained that implementation will be characterized by a "down time" in acquisitions--from 17 May until 23 June. During that time, we will not be putting anything into NOTIS, but Voyager will not yet be available. Throughout this period, English language materials will be ordered through Yankee, and paper information will be maintained to add to Voyager. Orders for foreign materials will be prepared for order, but will not be actually ordered until Voyager comes back up in June. Special orders (e.g., antiquarian materials) and rush items in all languages will be ordered manually. Scott asked that selectors in future batch their orders together by fund code: this will save time when processing orders in Voyager. Aside from that, selectors should submit orders as usual.
Minutes recorded by Ross Atkinson.
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