Science Team Minutes 8/11/99

Present: S. Barnes, D. Brumberg, M. Funk, P. McDonald, J. Poland, S. Rockey, J. Saylor, P. Viele, B. Walters, S. Whitaker.

Absent: M. Ochs

The agenda:

1. e-journals
2. CPCRs
3. SciFinder update and contract
4. e-books and NetLibrary.com
5. new Science Team chair
6. unit reports, etc.

Minutes:

1. e-journals

   WILEY: John S. presented the pricing arrangements of Wiley Interscience. For combined print/electronic access, Wiley charges a "content fee" (90% of the print-subscription cost) plus a print copy fee (10% of the print-subscription cost) plus an electronic access fee (6% of the print-subscription cost). To maintain our current print subscriptions and add electronic access, we'd therefore have to pay $338,085 -- 106% of our current print-subscription cost.

   We discussed the possibility of cancelling some print subscriptions now in order to get lower-cost access (print and electronic) next year; and the possibility of getting electronic access to only some of our current print holdings. John Saylor will look into these possibilities. John handed out a copy of the pricing worksheet, which I've put in Mary's mailbox.

   KLUWER: Kluwer rep Adam Chesler will be speaking to John S. this week. As noted before, it behooves CUL to work with NERL to consider a Kluwer contract before 1/1/2000 after which the "free" 4 year rolling archive of Kluwer material will not be available for the introductory price.

   AMERICAN SOC. OF CIVIL ENGINEERS: John said that EngLib will soon sign a contract with ASCE whose e-journal contract mirrors the IOP model, with a base cost for e-access at 85% of print, and both for 100%.

2. CPCRs
   Both Ross and the Science Team feel that it's important to get the Rs out of the way. We agreed that the first step is to determine whether CU Med should be listed as a CPCR holder in any case. (CU Med must weed one volume for each new print volume added, so they aren't maintaining an archival collection of pre-1960s journals and pre-1970s monographs. For this reason and due to their distance from Ithaca, Mark Funk feels that CU Med should probably NOT be listed as a CPCR holder.) Peter will raise this first issue at the next meeting of CD-Exec.

   The second issue is the delination of CPCR responsibilities, given the fact that CU Med will not (or will) be listed as a CPCR holder. Peter made a list of people who should probably be involved in those discussions. They include Mann, Vet, Med, Janie, Martha, John S. (and possibly Steve R., David B. and Law). Ross is urged to appoint someone to spearhead this final push to completion.

   Steve Rockey mentioned that the Math Library would like to be involved, since they collect biomedical statistics. But are biomedical statistics within Mann's scope for the biometrics program? Bill W. didn't raise this issue at the meeting since he wasn't certain of Mann's scope in this area -- and it didn't seem like an issue that all the Science Team needed to be involved in.

3. SciFinder update and contract --
   Both SciFinder and Beilstein are now fully available to the CU community. In order to gain access to Beilstein one must contact Leah Solla in PhysSciLib. Jean mentioned that there may be modest savings in SciFinder through NERL with the savings recommended to be distributed back to the paying partners among SciTeam units.

   CUL is currently participating in a NERL trial of SciFinder Scholar that will end August 19. We have identified the funds to pay for SciFinder Scholar and will probably realize some savings because our funds were identified assuming a lower discount than CAS is offering. There will almost certainly be a gap in access to SciFinder between the trial and completion of negotiations between NERL and CAS.

   Beilstein Crossfire is fully available.

4. e-books and NetLibrary.com
   There is a brokered deal being pushed by Columbia to create a mini-consortia among 4-5 Northeast ARL libraries to sign a contract with netLibrary.com. The nominal price of admission into this select group is $15,000. The general outline of the contract is that the 2500+ titles available thru netLibrary are single user access only across the consortia, so if someone at Dartmmouth "checks out" a book it is NOT available to anyone else at any other institution. There is no downloading capability and printing to desktop printers is cumbersome one-page-at-a-time, mimicking what we do at photocopiers.

   On another front, Yale is planning a cooperative evaluation of e-books among NERL members by approaching the Mellon Foundation for an e-book project analysis grant. CUL is invited to join.

   The Science Team has a decidedly negative view of spending $15,000 to join Columbia on the netLibrary contract. The 9 month contract seems far too short to hope to get any valuable usage data. The restrictions to access as noted above are also problematic -- and there was general consensus that philosophically, going with netLibrary is a no-win proposition. If we really do want to have an influence, we have to get control of publishing back into academic hands -- not go with the netLibrary's of the world. The Team felt that Ross's proposal -- to go ahead with e-books in Columbia's consortial arrangement -- is almost certainly premature.

   If any go-ahead is needed to help CUL better understand e-books, following Yale's lead with the Mellon Project is deemed far more sustainable and worthwhile. Given the extensive and pressing need for better access to e-journals such as Wiley, Kluwer, Elsevier and others, THIS FISCAL YEAR! -- the Science Team strongly urges Ross to reconsider joining netLibrary.com via Columbia at this time. The $15,000 would be far better spent elsewhere on more important access to our users.

5. new Science Team chair
   Peter McDonald is stepping down as chair of ScienceTeam effective 8/20/99. Ross will be talking with people who might want to be the next chair. Please let him know if you have any interest in the position. The chair leads the Science Team meetings, of course, and also serves on CD-Exec.

6. unit reports, etc.
   Bill W. gave a brief outline of our new division of responsibilities at Mann Collection Development. He stressed that things are still in a transitional stage, and that the final division of responsibilities within the life sciences will not be made until we have filled the currently open position (Jen's replacement).

   Susan Barnes, acting on a discussion with Janet McCue, asked whether there was interest in getting web access to Current Contents. Vet currently subscribes to Reference Update. Furthermore, CUL currently gets most but not all of the several components (social sciences, life sciences, etc.) in print. The print edition is inexpensive while the web version costs about $25,000. As a resource with interdisciplinary appeal, the webversion might be a candidate for central CUL funding, however.

   The Science Team expressed interest in the idea and asked Susan to investigate more fully. We agreed that users would probably prefer the web version, since it provides additional features (the option of listing only those journals that came out since the individual user's last search, for example); and since the paper copies tend to "walk away." I mentioned the Table of Contents service for journals held by Mann, and that Current Contents might possibly be an adequate replacement for that service.

Minutes recorded by Peter McDonald.

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Rev. 9/1/99, mc