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Public Services Forum

13 July 1998

RWA Notes

1. CRL Program. We talked about a new CRL program that would allow us to discard superseded reference works--so far mainly the books-in-print variety. CRL would maintain full copies of all of these materials, and would provide members with telephone or e-mail reference. There were questions about the nature of such a service. Rich Strassberg had previously sent me a note about the amount of work CRL might be willing to provide (would they, e.g., look up several hundred citations for us?). Nancy Skipper and Fred Muratori were both concerned about the depth of the reference CRL would be willing to do.

There was a strong sense that the uses made of such backfiles are quite different from the uses made of the latest editions of such publications. The few users who do want to use backfiles for historical research must often consult large runs. It is unlikely that CRL would be prepared to do that kind of work at a distance. There was also some question about whether CRL would be taking requests from users, or whether all requests for assistance would need to be routed through member reference departments. We decided in the end to observe how this program proceeds, but not to participate in it ourselves for the time being.

2. L/N Advertisements. CIS intends to mount some advertisements on Academic Universe, and has put together a task force of their customers to advise them on what kinds of advertisements would be acceptable. CIS has indicated that advertisements would provide users with considerable savings (although admittedly, as Fred noted, CIS has no intention of opening its books to its customers, to show how its advertising revenues are reducing its costs). I distributed a copy of the recommendations of the task force to CIS.

The PS Forum had two main concerns with the recommendations. First, the recommendations include animated gif's, which could be very distracting to scholars and students trying to make serious use of the service. Second, the recommendation that local library staff (i.e., reference) screen any complaints about advertisements to winnow out "fringe" complaints was thought to be unrealistic. We felt that all complaints should be sent directly to CIS, and that reference staff should not be expected to distinguish between what is "fringe" and what is not.

3. Mann using NetPrint. Kathy Chiang reported on the decision by Mann Library to begin charging for most public printing through NetPrint. Kathy said that the provision of free printing was reasonable, when users were mainly printing citations. Now, however, that so much full-text and graphical information is available, and is even being assigned in class, the costs of printing are skyrocketing, and servicing printers is beginning to impair other operations. Mann began searching for some kind of fair fee-based systems, and ended up returning to the (now much enhanced) NetPrint service, based on net IDs. For non-Cornelleans, who do not have net IDs, Mann plans on possibly creating a series of bogus net IDs, which could then be sold to individuals. Ideally and eventually, they would like to make this kind of printing accessible through the same vendacard system that we use for photocopy. Still, Kathy said, some free printing is justified--namely for citations. Mann will therefore continue to provide free printing (with dot matrix printers) on their telnet machines.

Lenore noted that one result may be to drive more Mann users to other libraries, where printing is still--for the time being--free.

Susan Currie asked about whether Mann has compared the cost of administrative overhead for fee-based printing with the cost of free printing. Kathy said that Mann had indeed done these projections, which supported their decision to move to NetPrint.

Deb Lamb-Deans noted that ILR has discussed the option of continuing to provide free printing to ILR faculty and students, but to charge others for printing.

Kathy and others talked about technology changes that reduce the need for printing on-site, such as the user's ability to send e-mail to him/herself. Kathy said Mann remains concerned about the fact that NetPrint does not solve the citation issue, i.e., that there are some forms of printing, such as the printing of citations, that should remain free. There seemed to be a general sense that we need to do some work on distinguishing between print jobs that really do need to be done in the library, and printing that is mainly to provide the user with something to take away to read later, similar to photocopy. We are moving toward a condition in which we will probably be charging for the latter, but not the former.

Nancy noted that she heard at ALA about several research libraries that had begun to charge for printing; in each case, the users accepted this as necessary.

4. Reallocation Options. As a way to begin the discussion on reallocation, LMT has raised some examples of areas in which changes might be made in order to recoup or reallocate resources. Some of these have clear public services implications:

• Eliminate Kiosk Bear Access. Jerry Caswell explained that we have committed to keeping the current Bear Access on public machines for 1998-99, but Bear Access will change next summer in ways that will require possibly considerable work on the part of LTD. We need to decide in the course of this year, therefore, whether we can discontinue Kiosk Bear Access next summer. The Gateway rather than Bear Access would then serve as the introductory screen. I heard two main concerns expressed about this. One was that we must still have access to Just the Facts. The second was a concern expressed by Nancy and others that the Gateway may not be sufficiently robust to accommodate access to the catalog. Jerry responded that, before leaving Bear Access, we would have to make absolutely certain that the Gateway would be able to sustain that heavy level of use. I heard no other serious service concerns expressed about this.
• Reduce Local Loading. Local loading has a real cost. We need to decide when it is necessary to load databases locally, and when we can provide access to them remotely. This had previously been discussed at IRPC. We talked about the hook to holdings, and while this is important for a few databases, it does not appear to be as key an issue as it was a few years ago. Jerry also remains hopeful that we will be able provide such a hook by way of Z39.50 in the near future. Kathy expressed the concern that, if we have unlimited access to databases loaded locally, we must be sure that access is available to a sufficient number of simultaneous users so that we are not in effect reducing access by shifting from local loading to remote access.
• Freezing Databases Accessible through the Navigator. Another question is whether we could discontinue increasing the number of databases we make accessible by telnet (through the navigator)--as part of the long-term effort to shift access to the Web. Jerry said that discontinuing the provision of telnet access would be somewhat akin to no longer filing cards in the card catalog, once the shift was made to the OPAC. Fred was concerned about the slowness of Web access. He also felt that the cost of making such files accessible through the navigator is not great--basically his time and a small amount of time from LTD. Nancy said that users (especially undergraduates) greatly prefer a single interface for many databases that parallels the NOTIS interface. Jerry said that we need to provide a common Web interface for this reason. Michael Engle said that, once such a common Web interface is available, we might consider abandoning the navigator; but we should continue to provide telnet access until an appropriate Web interface has been developed. Lenore said that there are a not insignificant number of humanities faculty who still do not have access to a level of technology that will permit them to make use of the networked services we are providing.
• Photocopy Fees. We discussed the implications of raising vendacard photocopy fees from $.08 to $.10. Mann already charges $.10. I am assuming that either the proceeds from such an increase would go into a central fund, or that new responsibilities would be passed to the units along with the increased photocopy revenue to pay for those responsibilities. The main concern, raised by Lenore and Pat Schafer, was that an increase in the vendacard rate would make the vendacard rate and the cash rate the same. This might encourage users to rely more on cash for photocopying, which could have an effect on the amount of pressure on the desks for making change. We have tried in recent years, at the suggestion of an audit, to reduce significantly the handling of money at circulation desks. Carmen noted also that the vendor we currently use for vendacards has been reluctant to provide refunds, even when these appear warranted. If we do increase the price to $.10, therefore, we might use this as an opportunity to discuss with our vendor a more reasonable refund policy.

5. Reallocation Process. We did not have time to discuss the reallocation process in general. I said that my discussions of the need for reallocation with the functional groups had revealed several issues. One of the main issues has been the ever-present equilibrium between the service ideal of increased customization and the economic goal of greater interdependence among units and functions. This is always a concern in any budget discussion; the reallocation is bound to accentuate this dichotomy, and we need to be prepared to maintain that balance. I also asked for separate (e-mail) suggestions from the PS Forum on reallocation values, methods and potential pitfalls.

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rev. 7/21/98 peo