November 15, 2005
Agenda
1. Administrative matters. Should we use OAK and or our library wiki as communication tools?
2. VU eArchive guidelines. The eArchive is now operational, and we are attempting to attract submissions. This means that we also need to develop guidelines for accepting or rejecting submissions.
3. Lexis Nexis State Capitol. Law has received a request to purchase this database, which is available at a discount through Solinet. But the request comes from a Medical Center administrator. Is there interest in a shared purchase?
4. Reaccreditation. The university is preparing a self-study for reaccreditation, and we need to provide information about library collections. We’ll discuss what information is needed and how to present it.
5. Selling materials withdrawn from the collection. Amia has asked whether each of the libraries places withdrawn items into a book sale.
6. Future agendas. What other system-wide collection development and management issues should we address?
Minutes
1. Administrative matters
John explained how we would use the committee wiki page to post agendas, minutes and other information. The group decided to defer on creating an OAK course until it seemed appropriate for particular projects.
2. Lexis Nexis State Capitol.
The Law Library received a request to acquire this database, which includes state bills, laws, regulations, and other documents. The request came, however, from an administrator in the Medical Center. A Law staff member also received a request from someone in the Political Science Department. Mary Beth noted that Central had previously conducted a trial of the database and that Amy Stewart-Mailhiot and Larry Romans were unenthusiastic about it. They felt it did not cover state laws very thoroughly and was not especially easy for patrons to use. They also felt it was no better than a second-tier possibility to support the Political Science program. Central is willing to contribute toward a subscription, however.
Solinet offers the database at $.33/FTE, which would be about $3,600 for Vanderbilt. Law is also willing to contribute, and Peabody may be interested because of their new public policy program. Biomedical was initially not interested. John suggested and the group agreed that Deborah will contact the administrator who requested the database, to assess her information need. Mary Beth will try to contact the person in Political Science who requested the database. We will determine how to proceed when we learn more.
3. Selling materials withdrawn from the collection.
Amia asked whether it was standard practice and in conformity with university policy for libraries to place withdrawn items into a book sale. Several committee members indicated that their libraries regularly sell withdrawn books.
4. VU e-Archive guidelines.
Paul charged the committee to propose guidelines for accepting or rejecting submissions into our institutional repository, the VU e-Archive. We discussed areas where we might need to make guidelines, such as:
Should we accept materials only from Vanderbilt faculty and students? Can we include work that faculty created before or after they worked at Vanderbilt? Should all submissions be born digital or will we agree to convert print documents?
Catherine addressed the e-Archive Advisory Board recommendations, which cover some acceptance criteria, and noted that we should take these recommendations into account. The Board recommended, for instance, that at least one member of each community should be a VU faculty member. The recommendations, termed an interim report, were submitted to the Provost’s Office about a year ago, and there has been no response.
Kathy said that Special Collections, because it is responsible for the University Archives, is very interested in using the e-Archive for creating an archive of university-related electronic documents and records, mostly of an administrative nature. Catherine suggested that we might create a separate e-Archive for these kinds of materials so faculty won’t balk at depositing their writings into an administrative archive.
Discussion turned to the concept of communities and whether these self-governing bodies are a viable idea.
Bill asked whether materials such as books digitized for the ETANA project and videotapes of the Cole and other lecture series would be appropriate for the e-Archive. Others thought such items were entirely appropriate and suggested that tapes of other campus speakers should also be deposited, though copyright might be an issue.
We also talked about whether teaching aids would be acceptable. Kathy noted that such materials could be historically significant. Catherine noted that it is not easy to archive them in OAK. John proposed that our discussion had raised several important issues and that we examine each of them at our next meeting and attempt to come to closure on a set of guidelines we can recommend to the Strategy and Planning Committee. The committee agreed.
5. Reaccreditation.
The university is preparing for reaccreditation, and we need to provide information about library collections. John distributed a questionnaire that included two questions about the provision of and access to adequate library collections and learning/information resources that support the university’s teaching, research, and service mission. The committee raised points that might be included in our narrative response:
- We solicit and respond to faculty requests to acquire materials for the collection.
- Faculty liaison is a key responsibility of our subject bibliographers. Their job is to be aware of faculty interests.
- We are aware of new academic programs as they are created and respond to them by acquiring materials as appropriate.
- We maintain collection policies.
- We rank at the middle level of ARL libraries.
- We hold very deep collections in many disciplines, and our library incorporates several specialized libraries that build and maintain extensive collections in their fields.
- Our materials budget is adequate.
- We have established a very strong collection of digital resources.
- We belong to several consortia that make acquiring electronic materials more affordable, and we are developing a collaborative collection development program within the Information Alliance.
- Our Interlibrary Loan Office is able to acquire most materials that are not part of our collection.
- We have an active preservation program to care for the materials in our collection.
The group agreed that it will be important to gain a better sense of exactly what the university expects from us for the narrative before we compose it. John will raise these points at a discussion of reaccreditation in the OUL staff meeting.
6. Future agendas.
Kathy would like us to discuss the need for written collection development policies. Amia expressed concern about older, superceded career books in netLibrary. Can we shadow their Acorn records?