Library Management Team.
4 June 2003.
Present: Sarah Thomas, Ross Atkinson, Karen Calhoun, Lee Cartmill, Claire
Germain, Tom Hickerson, Anne Kenney, Jean Poland.
Summary Minutes.
1. Library and University Policies. Ross summarized his work as the
Library representative on the OIT Policy Advisory Committee. LMT agreed
that he should continue to serve on this group, but that he should identify
advisors in different policy areas throughout the Library, from whom he could
ask for advice on draft policies. Tom also sees the completed policies in
his role as a member of FABIT. (Oliver Habicht, as a member of another
advisory committee, also sees these policies in draftso the Library is well
represented.) The Library has been careful to check with University
Counsel on any policy issues that might have legal implications. LMT
decided that staff with a question for submission to Counsel should send that
question to their AUL. It will then be the job of the AUL either to
submit the request to Counsel or to relay it on to the appropriate person in the
Library. In the case of questions relating to intellectual property, for
example, such a question would be relayed to Peter Hirtle--who would then
decide on whether to submit it to Counsel.
2. PIP. LMT agreed on the wording of a note Lee will send to staff
on CU-LIB about the Pay Improvement Program. [sent out by Lee at 16:42
6/4/03] If in future an LMT member needs to make adjustments to the
guidelines agreed upon by LMT for the PIP, that need should be sent to the LMT
list for discussion.
3. ARL Actions. Sarah had sent LMT a list of issues that arose at
the most recent ARL meeting.
a. Global Resources Program. ARL institutions wishing to support
the GRP are asked for a contribution of $1,500. Since the GRP is a
collection development effort, this contribution will be made from the
materials budget. Ross made this decision, based upon positive input from
selectors last year on the need to support the continued existence of the GRP.
b. Regional Depositories. There is considerable discussion in the ARL
community about the creation of regional depositories for paper
materials. Sarah will be attending a national planning conference
sponsored by CRL on this subject in July. Karen noted that the
information from the MAS2010 market survey on repositories should provide us
with useful information on the extent to which there is interest in such a
concept. LMT discussed the difference between a cooperative program, in
which each institution stores its materials in the depository, and a
collaborative program, in which duplication is eliminated, so that different
institutions would share a single copy. Jean said that a collaborative
approach would make sense from the standpoint of EMPSL subjects. Tom
advised that the CRL conference should not endorse collaboration unless those
attending that conference are prepared actually to effect such a policy.
Sarah speculated that one approach to regional depositories might begin with
some of the larger institutions in ARL agreeing not to discard any of their holdings;
this would allow other institutions to discard some materials held at the
larger institutions; it might also encourage other institutions to enter into
agreements with the larger institutions to deposit some more unique materials
at the larger institutions. Sarah also wondered about the costs of
creating a few national depositories that have browseable stacks. Shortly
before the CRL conference, Sarah will schedule an open meeting for any
interested staff to provide her with input on these issues.
c. Subject Conduits. Another concept discussed at the ARL meeting
was the potential for institutions to have online subject guides that connect
local users not only to key electronic information, but also provide the user
with an e-mail connection to the subject specialist. It was noted that,
if CUL did not have a specialist on a particular subject, some mutual
arrangements might be made with other institutions to connect our users to
subject specialists elsewhere. Anne said we need to provide better subject
access through the Gateway, because our users view information from a subject
perspective; we place perhaps too much emphasis on access to individual
libraries, which may not be helpful to some users who are unaware of the
subject specialties of the unit libraries in the CUL system.
d. LibQual. Some ARL institutions are working on effective methods
of communicating the results of their LibQual surveys. Anne said IRIS
will work on a summary of LibQual and other survey information we have
gathered. LMT had some further discussion of the on-going problem of
statistics: many institutions continue to measure their effectiveness on
the basis of input statistics, such as volume counts. We need more
effective methods to capture and compare outputs. The ARL e-metrics
project is still developing measurements for tracking the use and value of
e-resources, but ARL has not yet identified a replacement for its input-based
rankings.
4. Budget. LMT had received a revised spreadsheet of possible
budget reductions. Sarah made the decision to keep the Minority Fellows
Program, at least for another year, because it has proven to be so effective in
attracting outstanding minority staff. Sarah noted that we have now
identified ca. $300K of the $675K we need for the immediate budget
reduction. She asked LMT to be prepared to discuss priorities at the next
meeting, upon which decisions for finding the remaining $375K can be based.
Ross Atkinson