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26 January 1999
RWA Notes
1. Virtual Carrel. I mentioned the current work on the virtual carrel, and noted that it has some collection development and public services implications; it does in a way provide the user with a selection capacity for the building of a personal collection. The Library will need to consider how it will provide users with the tools and skills necessary to build that collection and to update it over time.
2. Mid-Year Budget Review. We looked at the mid-year class code report, which shows 31% of the budget so far spent on monographs, and 53% on serials. This is normal, and these percentages will even out somewhat as the year progresses. It is important that selectors continue to use class codes, since it is only through the class code report that we can identify what percentages of the budget we are spending on different formats, including especially electronic resources. -- We also looked at the mid-year budget. We are about 70% spent in appropriated funds, which is a bit more than usual--and about 40% spent in endowments. This may be an indication that selectors have in some cases not yet shifted to using the new endowment funding; more reliance on endowment funding will be necessary in the second half of the year. As always, selectors should ensure that they spend all of their budgets (both appropriated and endowed), but no more.
3. Web Pages. David Block distributed a sheet listing the Web pages that support CUL collection development. This list is now in test at http://latino.lib.cornell.edu/collectiondevelopment.html . David asked selectors to look at it and provide him with suggestions. These pages will be accessible through the StaffWeb. A new item in this list is a "Significant New Acquisitions" page, in which the Olin selectors have included reviews of a few new Olin main stacks items that are likely to be of interest to a range of users. David invited selectors to look at this page, and to contribute if they are of a mind to.
Lenore noted that some of these items, especially the gift policy, should be available to users. External Affairs may also want to add something to this policy to encourage and promote donations. I will forward this on to the Documentation Committee, with a note that External Affairs may want to be involved. We thought this may also relate to the work Marty Schlabach's group is doing on the CUL Home Page.
4. CPCR Update. Linda Stewart, who is Chair of the CPCR Design Task Force, reported on CPCR progress. She said that Patricia O'Neill is putting all of the current CPCR information into an Excel spreadsheet, so that we can eventually transfer it to a database management system. Two new columns have been added. There is now a notes column, where we can include exceptions. There is also a collection notes section, where supplemental information can be added (e.g., conspectus level, selectors also interested in this subject, and other information that will assist coordination). There are a number of areas that still overlap, and it will now be the responsibility of CDExec to resolve those.
I reviewed again the rationale for the CPCRs, and noted that CDExec has four main jobs remaining: (a) resolve overlaps, mainly from social sciences, (b) ensure that the coordination between social sciences and area is completed (as well as any remaining coordination needed between humanities and area), (c) codify responsibilities of CPCR holders, and (d) put in place a system for updates. I reiterated that CPCRs will not result in any initial shifts in budget, nor will they create a situation in which one selector has leverage over another.
As a result of remarks made by Fred on the subject of Buddhism, it seems there may be some overlaps in Area that still need to be resolved. Sarah asked about the status of CPCRs for Uris; Suzy said she assumed (as had I) that Uris would be excluded from CPCRs. We noted, however, that Uris may have some unique selection responsibilities on campus (e.g., recreation and physical education), so that CDExec may need to revisit this.
5. AAU/ARL Global Resources Program. This is a program aimed at providing demonstrations on increased access to international materials. It is a broadly based and strongly supported program nationally, consisting of several projects in which we are participating. It is intended to respond to a perceived decline in access to international materials in US research libraries.
Fred Kotas talked about the Japan project, which is updating the Union List of Japanese Serials and Newspapers. The new version will be on the Web, and Cornell will add its holdings. The project has made possible access to the databases of Japan's National Center for Science Information Systems. Five US librarians (one of whom was Fred) traveled to Japan as part of the project for training on NACSIS systems. Special ILL agreements have also been put in place between US and Japanese institutions.
Martha Hsu reported on the German project, of which Sarah Thomas is co-chair (with Winston Tabb). This project has recently been concentrating on possibilities for exchanging materials online with German libraries. The project now has four working groups: collection development, document delivery (which Martha is on), digital libraries, and bibliographic control. The goal of the document delivery group is to put in place a system that will allow a borrower to receive information in digital form requested from a German library within forty-eight hours.
Ved noted that there is a fourth project now developing as part of this Program, which will concentrate on South Asian materials.
Yoram said we would probably want most to know whether users are finding the information they need--and if they are not, is this because we do not hold that information, or because they cannot locate what we do hold?
Bill Walters said that the assumption on the part of users that we do not hold information may sometimes derive from their inability to identify what we do have. He also said that he should be interested in learning how users want access. Do they want remote access to as much information as possible? Would they be willing to walk from one library to another, if we only hold one copy?
Linda Stewart noted that we sometimes do not hear much from graduate students, and yet they are in some subjects our power users. Targeting them particularly in this survey would be helpful.
David Block said we want to survey non-users as well, and Peter responded that this is one reason we intend to do a phone survey. This might be followed up with focus groups or paper surveys of particular groups of users. Christian said the Task Force will design the survey, but the actual phoning will be contracted out.
John Saylor said it is essential that we decide on what we are trying to learn: do we want to know how well we are doing, or do we want to learn from users which direction they feel the Library should move in? John said he thinks we should be aiming for the latter. Bill Walters agreed: if we just ask users whether they are satisfied, they will just say yes. We want rather to learn from this survey how we can alter our behavior, in order to provide better services.
Christian raised the issue of special sampling. If we want to target particular groups, we can do that, but it will cost more--and there are no ends to such refinements. Yoram responded that you get what you pay for: we should be willing to spend a bit more in order to obtain information that shows significant distinctions among user groups.
7. Approval Plans. I said that CDExec has had some discussions on the possibility of expanding approval plans in future. If done on a sufficient scale, this can have significant pay-offs for acquisitions. It may save selector time, or it may not. It will change the nature of the resulting collection, and we will need to study the effect of those changes. Above all, we need to determine what kinds of expanded approval plans would be most useful for different disciplines.
Martha reported that Harrassowitz now permits approval plans by publisher, which is much preferable to merely having plans by subject. She, David Block, Patrick Stevens and Yoram have worked together to make a proposal to Harrassowitz for such a publisher-based plan in their subject areas. They have identified some forty-nine publishers, and have asked for information on the costs of such a plan for nine broad subject areas. One problem they encountered is that Harrassowitz is apparently unable to weed out our standing order series, so that there would be some possibility that we could receive the same item twice--and would need to return it (thus eliminating some of the savings in acquisitions time). But they have made the decision with Scott to try this plan anyway. After it is in place, we will analyze the results, and then try to determine whether it would be possible to attempt something similar for other geographical areas.
Peter suggested, and I certainly agree, that this work might best be carried out at the team level. Yoram noted that we should also be looking for opportunities to expand existing plans, notably by adding publishers to our arrangement with Yankee.
8. Gateway Content. We ended with a brief discussion about the current content of networked resources on the Gateway. The Library Gateway has now been in operation for one year. The Library has invested significant effort in making it work effectively. Collection Development is responsible for its content. Some time ago, we decided that we would designate no selectors specifically responsible for networked resources, but rather all selectors should select such materials in their respective subject areas. We also decided a while ago that we want no separate electronic resources policy (beyond the advice in the CER report), because the same criteria used to select traditional materials should be applied to networked items. It is important, therefore, for selectors to approach the content of the Gateway as a collection, in the same way that they approach and maintain their traditional collections.
I noted that, while it has been a year since the shift from the Mann Gateway to the Library Gateway, the majority of the resources on the Library Gateway appear still to be in the areas of agriculture and life sciences. What methods can we use to undertake an evaluation of Gateway content? Patricia noted that we now have some useful information on the use of Gateway materials over the past year, although this information is somewhat inconsistent (i.e., some tracks only access to databases, while in other instances we have information on the actual use of databases). As Linda Stewart pointed out, in cases where users have bookmarked databases, we will not know they are accessing those databases. Patricia asked selectors to provide her with any information they have about particular databases or database publishers that might help us obtain more and better use statistics. It was clear from this discussion that we probably need to provide selectors with more information on how to use and interpret such statistics. Christian said that this discussion will be informed by the results of the Focus Group study of the Gateway, which should be publicly available in the near future.
CDExec will continue to study this issue of Gateway content assessment. In the meantime, selectors should continue to review Gateway resources in their individual subject areas.
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rev. 1/27/99 peo