Attending:  Ross Atkinson, John Saylor, Susanne Whitaker, Mary Ochs, Steve Rockey, Marty Schlabach, Jean Poland, Leah Solla, Mark Funk, Phil Davis, Linda Stewart, Mary Patterson.

1. Physical Sciences Library:  Ross Atkinson attended the meeting to get input from the Science Team on the current budget “crunch” for the Physical Sciences Library. The group discussed the issues that have contributed to this problem, including escalating serial prices over a number of years, e-journal contracts with limits on cancellation of titles, and the fact that new staff in PSL needed time to adequately assess the collection and its clientele. The team recommended to Ross that PSL be given special consideration this year to avoid cancelling core material. Suggestions for new initiatives to help balance the PSL budget in the long term included 1) using much of the Elsevier cancellation allotment for PSL and Math, 2) seeking new endowments through a campaign for the EMPS Libraries, 3) cancellation of print for some e-journals and 4) other cancellations, including Chemical Abstracts. The team agreed to point 1. PSL and Math will be given the Elsevier allotment for cancelling next year. Points 2 through 4 will be taken under consideration by Ross and PSL staff.

   Leah discussed the cancellation of print Chemical Abstracts. Physical Sciences libraries throughout the country are cancelling Chem Abs in print. There has been concern about the long-term archiving of the electronic files from CAS. Leah is talking with CAS to help ensure that Cornell retains long-term access to the database. We agreed to look at other means of funding the print, but did not have time to discuss it at this meeting. With current budget constraints, keeping the print may not be possible.

2. NERL:  Phil distributed information relating to the Wiley NERL e-journal contract. The final contract is available on the NERL web site. Science Team members will review the details of the deal, and continue the discussion and final decision-making process via e-mail.

3. Blackwell Science:  Phil continues to investigate the Blackwell Science e-journal deal. All libraries with Blackwell holdings will examine the deal and make a decision. More to follow via e-mail.

4. ISI:  Much of the meeting was devoted to a demonstration by Scott Bard of ISI. Scott and several other representatives of ISI presented their Table of Contents service, which would allow us to distribute the Tables of Contents for journals selected from their 8500 available titles. Greg Lawrence and Mary Ochs will follow up on this.

Minutes recorded by Mary Ochs

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11/27/00, jwg