Present: Rick Stringer-Hye, Bill Hook, Flo Wilson, Paul Gherman, Dale Poulter, Jody Combs, Marshall Breeding, John Haar, Janice Adlington
Agenda Items
- Discussion of Primo partnership – Ex Libris Proposal
- Flo’s proposal for ACORN/Webcat development
- Brief report from Paul G. on “Living the Future” conference
1. Primo Discussion -
Jody framed the discussion by outlining several “large bucket” topics that we are already dealing with (or have committed to deal with) this year. How does a possible partnership with Ex Libris fit in with these previously identified priorities?
- OAK development -- a high priority long-term development endeavor. Jody indicated there is a possibility we might be able to have a development server installed and configured with the Community and Content services added by this summer.
- Development of a Content Management approach to the library web presence(s)
- Enhancing resource discovery / llinking to full-text resources.
- Scholarly Communication / e-journal publication: a growing demand likely to increase further within the next year.
Other projects already underway, not necessarily as high priority as the previous points identified as top priorities in earlier DLSC discussions, are:
- Global Music Project
- ETANA – migration of ETANA-DL software from Virginia Tech to VU support.
- Migration of Unicorn to Oracle platform
Jody framed the question for discussion as whether we can do 4 or 5 high priority projects over the next year.
A wide ranging discussion ensued. Consensus support for further exploration of the partnership with Ex Libris emerged, with shared concern for staff work-load implications if we move forward on a variety of fronts. There was general agreement that we should pursue multiple efforts, that partnering with Ex Libris did not preclude developing alternative Webcat interfaces as Flo’s proposal outlined, or other efforts to explore ways to enhance user interfaces and discovery tools.
General support for further investigation of the Ex Libris proposal and details of the agreement should be pursued. It was pointed out that a partnership with Ex Libris would be a contractual obligation, one which would resist re-prioritizing later if we were to wish to do so. It was also pointed out that the commitment we have made to the university to support and develop OAK, while not a formal contractual obligation in the same manner, ought to be understood as equally binding and significant as any agreement we sign with Ex Libris.