Attending: Lee Cartmill, Joanne Davenport, Elaine Engst, Claire Germain, Anne Kenney, Susan Markowitz, Ellen Marsh, Janet McCue, John Saylor, Ed Weissman.
1) Announcements
Anne announced that she was reinstating bi-weekly meetings of the Library Management Team.
Anne reported on several recent meetings she attended:
- University Library Faculty Board, February 5. She discussed indefinite loans for faculty and e-reserves with members of the Board The indefinite faculty loans policy will continue based on the good response to recall requests and the apparent lack of "faculty hoarding." Also, the Board was concerned about the drop in e-reserves from last spring. Peter Hirtle presented the new policy that could provide faculty with greater flexibility in placing materials on reserve for more than one semester. Faculty use of the Fair Use Checklist <http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/policy/Fair_Use_Checklist.pdf> should be encouraged.
- Student Library Advisory Council, February 6. Seventeen students attended and offered their perspectives on the value of using newer technologies, such as instant messenger, podcasts, and portable devices in the provision of library services. They also commented on the Cornell University Library Guide and on the kind of merchandise they would like to see a Cornell Library Store offer. Library Communications is exploring a library store concept.
Susan announced that Library Human Resources will be sponsoring two sessions for library managers this spring on Effective and Compliant Recruitment at Cornell.
Janet reported that she had attended the February 5 meeting held by Provost Biddy Martin and David Wippman,Vice Provost for International Relations to solicit ideas and feedback on the ways in which Cornell can be more strategic and effective in its approach to problems in sub-Saharan Africa in support of the Africa Initiative that President Skorton announced.in his State of the University address. The Library can be involved. For example, the work being done to extend VIVO will make it possible to find out which faculty are working on or in Africa. The AGORA and TEEAL projects directly benefit African researchers. Janet also reported that Chris Greer, the program director for the cyberinfrastructure initiatives at the National Science Foundation was at Cornell last week. Chris specifically recommended that Cornell researchers partner with the Cornell Library on cyberinfrastructure projects.
2) Priorities for the Transition
Anne briefly reviewed the priorities for the transition period.
Large Scale Digitization Initiative: In addition to the partnership with Microsoft, we are considering two other projects. Staffing and financial factors are being examined.
Get It: The Get It Team, led by Jesse Koennecke, continues to work on simplifying the delivery request process.
arXiv/Digital preservation: We are working to codify policies with regard to arXiv and to transfer the registration of the domain name, arXiv.org, from Paul Ginsparg to Cornell.
Blackboard Phase 3: Anne noted that e-reserves had been integrated into BlackBoard and that the Library, working with CIT, was looking at further enhancements, including the integration of Find It search capabilities.
DPubS: The grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ends in June 2007 and we will be looking at ways to fulfill our obligation to maintain DPubS over the next five years.
Core Technical Infrastructure: Karen is working with Lee to document the Library's technical infrastructure needs.
Building our Base
The Campaign: Anne will pursue with Alumni Affairs and Development the issue of fund-raising for Olin Library renovation during the campaign. She also reported that Vice Provost John Siliciano has offered support for the Library's fund raising efforts.
Data farm: David Banush is taking the lead on a project to investigate possible models for a Cornell Library data farm, a compendium of statistics, user survey data, and other measures. He is working with Xin Li and the staff of the Public Services Administration Research and Assessment Unit.
Information fluency: The Priority Objective #3 Information Fluency Team is working on a proposal to the Mellon Foundation for a grant that would allow selected Cornell librarians, instructional technology staff, administrators and faculty to attend a pilot summer institute at Berkeley.
Olin renovation: Library Communications is working on a display in Olin Library that will to showcase the results of the Olin user survey that was taken in the falland continue to build awareness of the renovation process. Also, the Student Assembly is working on a resolution calling for 24 hour access in Olin. We are working with the Assembly to include in the resolution support for the renovation project. We are waiting on the design documents from the architects at Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, and Anne hopes to present them to the university's Capital Funding and Priorities Committee in April, the next step in getting approval for the renovation project.
Staff development/succession planning/recruitment: Anne identified staff engagement as one of her top priorities. She will be holding all staff meetings the week of February 26 to share her goals or the interim period and to allow staff to ask questions or offer comments on library activities. She will also hold monthly brown bag lunches and will use Inside CUL as a vehicle to report on key issues and activities. Anne is committed to following up on recommendations in the Innovation without Burnout report produced by Priorities Objectives Team #9.
Library Fellows: Susan is reviewing the applications the Library has received from then posting this fall. We expect to have two Library Fellows this summer.
Planning to plan: Angela Horne is chairing a group that is making recommendations on the process for developing the next strategic plan. She will report these recommendations to Anne shortly.
Creating the Future
Next generation gateway/discovery (e,g., future catalog, WebFeat): A Web Vision Team, chaired by Zsuzsa Kolta, has been charged to "develop a compelling vision for how CUL should present itself and the information landscape to its users, highlighting the unique value that the Library brings to the Cornell community."
VIVO extension: With funding from the Provost's Office, work is underway to enhance and extend VIVO (the Virtual Life Sciences Library) beyond the life sciences to include people and activities from across Cornell. Medha Devare is coordinating this project.
Scholarly communication: John has been instrumental in forming the Cornell University Scholarly Communications Council and will hold its first meeting soon. The Council brings together faculty, librarians, and administrators from across the Cornell community who interact with scholarly information as authors, editors, readers, publishers, and curators to look at the current environment, analyze alternative models and explore ways to support and encourage the transformation of the scholarly communications landscape.
Cyberinfrastructure/data curation: Janet is taking the lead in this area. A Data Working Group for CUL that is co-chaired by Gail Steinhart and John Saylor is charged, among other things, to "consider and recommend strategic opportunities for CUL to engage in the area of data curation."
Global view of Cornell (not just Ithaca)-transparency for users between Weill and Ithaca campus libraries: Ed is working with the Life Sciences Steering Committee and others to identify the problems that need to be addressed and the steps needed to resolve the outstanding problems. A report will be made to President Skorton this spring.
3) Gifts that have had a "real impact"
At the February 1 Academic Assembly meeting, President Skorton asked the Library for three examples of where gifts have made a difference in the library that he can use to during the campaign. Anne asked LMT to come up with examples, particularly ones that have had an impact that is measurable. Karen will look to identify faculty grant projects that would serve as good examples. Susan will review the Library Fellows program . Elaine will look at impact resulting from the acquisition of the Huntington Free Library Native American Collection. Also, we will survey student workers to see if they feel that working in the Library has made them better students. Anne asked that examples be sent to Michelle Eastman for compilation.
4) Remote access to licensed resources
LMT reviewed recommendations from an ad-hoc working group (Carmen Blankinship, Amy Blumenthal, Peter Hirtle, Bill Kara, Anne Kenney, Scott Wicks) that Ed chaired about providing remote access to licensed resources within the framework of the license terms to various categories of individuals including employees of Cornell affiliates, individuals who are sponsored for Cornell net ID's by members of the Cornell community, Cornell retirees, and university volunteers. Among the recommendations that LMT approved are: a) continue to provide access to employees of organizations that are officially affiliated with the university, for example the Boyce Thompson Institute, the Cornell United Religious Works and the Palaeontological Research Institute; b) provide access at the request of a Cornell sponsor only to those individuals who have a formal affiliation with the university and who need access in order to perform services directly related to the business of the university; c) request that the university assign a separate permit to retirees so that we can distinguish retirees from current faculty and staff. Retirees who are not working for another organization will be granted access at the request of a Cornell sponsor in order to perform services directly related to the business of the university; d) provide access to university volunteers at the request of a Cornell sponsor who need access in order to perform services directly related to the business of the university. The group also recommended that in future license negotiations the definition of authorized users be modified to reflect the language used in the CLIR/DLF model license, namely access is provided to "current faculty, students, staff, affiliated researchers, and independent contractors." The license should also include, whenever possible, retirees without any other affiliation. The Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections will make the final decisions regarding requests for access.