Science Team June 11, 2004

Attendees:  Leah Solla (chair), Phil Davis, Mark Funk (by phone), Mary Ochs, Mary Patterson, John Saylor, Marty Schlabach, Pat Viele (scribe), Suzanne Whitaker

1.  Schedule of meetings of Science Team

The team decided to try meeting from 10:30AM to Noon on one Monday each month.  Leah will check member's calendars to determine which Monday, probably the 4th Monday to avoid IRPC and other conflicts.  Two Elsevier representatives will join us for the August team meeting.  Randi Fluge is our new sales representative. Kimberly Hill our account representative, will also join us to talk about usage statistics reports.

2.    Elsevier Backfiles

Elsevier has sent us a price list for backfiles.  We have the back files for the Elsevier mathematics journals, Steve paid a one-time fee of $10,000.  There is no maintenance fee as long as we subscribe to Science Direct.  Two questions discussed were:  is there a title-by-title option for backfiles?  Can we swap in back files for current subscriptions?  Leah will check with Randi, our Elsevier rep on these points.  There is some room for negotiation if two or more backfile areas overlapped.  Overall, team members felt that it would be hard to justify buying back files for titles that we already own in paper within current tight budgets.  With Scan and Deliver and Document Delivery, access is improving.

3.  Nature Renewal

Monthlies (now called Research titles) and Review titles

Pricing for these journals in 2005 has been restructured:  the Monthlies/Research titles and Review titles are priced together and are based on Science FTEs, defined as all science majors and half the science faculty.  Cornell is in the 5K-10K range of Science FTEs.  The list price for the Research/Review titles involves a base price and a additional amount for each journal.  The NERL deal eliminates the base price and calculates the price cumulatively for the 15 titles.  Currently we have all but one title, Nature Reviews in Drug Discovery.  There is interest in this title, which would be about $1000 extra to include in our package.  It was agreed the full package would be appropriate.  These titles are currently paid by the team, we need to review the % breakdown now that the titles are priced together.  Leah will gather this data from Scott and Bill and Phil and present to the list.  We also had some questions about print- is this package bundled with print at all?  does it include a free print copy of each title?  are we restricted in cancelling current print copies?  John will check with Joan at NERL and with Peter our Nature sales rep on these questions.

4.  Nature Monthlies/Research Backfiles

This offer is also based on the new Science FTE pricing model, and includes just the four Research/ Monthly titles that were being published before 1998 (current online subscription).  The price would be a one-time fee of $10,080, plus an annual maintenance fee of $706.  There was some discussion of what would be considered a reasonable annual fee- the Royal Society of Chemistry charges $800 per year, or about 2% of the cost of the backfiles, but for many more well known titles going back into the 1800s.  HighWire offers many journals completely free of charge after 6 months to a year.  Overall, the content of the Nature Monthlies/Research backfiles was felt to be too shallow to justify the price.  These publications tend to present current hot topics, the more substantial articles are in the main title.  Phil will contact our Nature sales representative with our "no thanks" offer.  Phil also mentioned that the Stockton Press imprint titles may be joining the package now that Nature Publishing has bought up Stockton Press.  They carry very specialized titles, such as Oncogene.

5. Cancellation Outlook for 2005

Mann is considering 147 Elsevier titles for cancellation.  They are also looking at titles from Springer, Kluwer, Haworth and their social science serials.  They are using several criteria for consideration including price, electronic usage, number of articles per year, citations by Cornell users, publications by the Cornell community and scope.  This is Mann's third year with a flat materials budget.

Geneva has not identified specific titles, but anticipates substantial cuts, especially in duplicate and print copies.  There is support from the faculty for going to e-only, especially if the titles are available in paper on the Ithaca campus.  Mann and Geneva are coordinating duplicate cancellation and cost-savings between the two libraries.  Due to substantial Station cuts, the Geneva Library budget is back to the level of funding before the Lee endowment.

Engineering did substantial cutting last year and anticipates minimal cancellation for 2005.  Mann will transfer Computers in Biology and Medicine to Engineering and John will re-evaluate the subscription (originally an Elsevier "swap" title).

Vet also cancelled heavily last year and will consider only selective cancellations this year.  They have $30,000 of Wiley duplicate titles they are unable to cancel.  John will follow up with Wiley to ask if that money can be swapped to pay for other Wiley materials, possibly the Current Protocols or reference works.

Med does not anticipate cancellations this year.  As a result of Cornell leaving the "deal" the cost of electronic access to Elsevier journals more than quadrupled for the Med campus.

PSL anticipates substantially cutting print copies from Elsevier and selective cancellations from other publishers.

John Saylor, Mary Ochs, and David Block are representing Ross and will be negotiating with Elsevier this year.  We have opted out of multi-year deals, so this will be an annual event.

6.  Scholarly Communication Discussion

Mary Ochs will be leading a discussion on Scholarly Communication at ALA.  The forum is sponsored by the Science and Technology Section of ACRL.  Mary is asking for in-put from the team regarding Cornell's efforts to discuss the issues in scholarly communication with our faculty.  The team suggested several efforts she can use for examples, including: the Open Access Task Force, D-Space, D-Caps, arXiv, the website, various articles, the faculty resolution and other discussions with the faculty senate, trustees, etc; the online sticker shock display, and unit faculty-library committees.

Announcements:

John Saylor mentioned that the CRC publications are available on a trial basis.  This is now the only way to access the CRC Handbook on-line (no longer offered through knovel.com).

The Safari Books are now available (electronic).

Mary Ochs, Mark Funk, and Michael Wood (the e-resources librarian at Med) have formed a mini-task force to investigate the costs involved in making the CU Ithaca and CU Med seamless.  This is at the request of Janet McCue and the Director of the Med Library.  The Med Library still maintains a list of their e-journals which can be perused by the Ithaca community.  Many of these titles are available to the separate campuses by means of separate licenses.  Total access between the campuses will not be entirely feasible financially, but the team recommended working with public services on developing communication and educational tools about the options for access between the campuses.

Phil will be working mornings only from July 1 to the end of December, 2004.

Leah Solla