Library Management Team

Notes from January 25, 2006 Meeting

Attending: Karen Calhoun, Anne Kenney, Jean Poland, Sarah Thomas, Ed Weissman.

Guest: Nancy McGovern, John Saylor

1) Janus Conference Follow-up

John Saylor and members of the Library Management Team who attended relevant meetings at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Conference reported on discussions about the redrafted six challenges presented at the Janus Conference on Research Library Collections: Managing the Shifting Ground Between Writers and Readers held at Cornell on October 9-11 2005. The key ALA meeting was the CMDS Chief Collection Development Officers of Large Research Libraries Discussion Group where the group aimed "to identify next steps? what, who, and by when." Notes from the open discussion at the meeting and from the breakout sessions on each of the six challenges is available at <http://library.cornell.edu/janusconference/januskeys.html>.

LMT discussed how we would support the challenge action items here at Cornell. We have particular strength and interest in three of the challenges--#1 RECON (Convert the scholarly record (to digital form)), #5 Archiving (Ensure the coordinated, long-term maintenance of traditional and digital holdings), and #6 Alternative Channels for Scholarly Communication (Create a network of publishing structures that scholars can use as a supplement or alternative to standard scholarly publishing channels.) Sarah asked John to make sure that we make our particular commitments to these areas known. At the same time, we will continue to work on the other three challenges.

2) Quality Measures

Nancy McGovern joined the meeting to discuss with LMT how best to develop effective quality measures for the Library. Nancy noted the importance of engaging managers and administrators to help identify what would be useful to measure and what it will take to gather the data. It was suggested that identifying quality measures across the Library was quite a broad charge and that it might be more effective to start with a more narrowed focus.

Edward Weissman