AJCU Library Deans' Business Meeting
Le Moyne College
May 3, 2006
8:30 - Noon
Present: Richard Amelung, Tyrone Cannon, Joel Cohen, Karl Debus-Lopez, Ivan Gaetz, Jim Hogan, Michael LaCroix, Leanne Langdon, Jim McCabe, John McGinty, Evelyn Minick, Joan Overfield, John Popko, Elizabeth Salzer, Bob Seal, Janice Simmons-Welburn, Jim Simonis, Jeanne Somers, Gail Staines, Mary Lee Sweat, Bonnie Strohl, and Jerome Yavarkovsky. Also in attendance was Judy Trump for the Virtual Reference Project.,
The meeting came to order at 8:30 a.m. Joan Overfield, presiding over the meeting, welcomed new Directors/Deans (Janice Simmons-Welburn, Jeanne Somers, Gail Staines, and Bob Seal) and those representing their institutions.
1. Minutes: With the correction of CONTENTdm to contentDM, on a motion by Jeanne Langdon seconded by John (Fordham), the minutes were approved..
2. Confirmation of 2007 Meeting Site and Dates:. Michael LaCroix verified the dates for the 2007 meeting: Creighton University, Omaha April 29th- May 2, 2007. Sunday evening will be a single malt opening reception. Evelyn Minick questioned if there were a conflict with ALA Legislative Day.
There was discussion about whether the session in which people review their institutional reports could be eliminates since the common data and reports are available in print. Points made in favor of dispensing with reviewing the reports:
- There are many opportunities to ask about things in others' reports
- The weekend is packed with meetings. Eliminating this session would give an opportunity for better travel connections on Wednesday by finishing Tuesday night (there would be an opportunity for meeting Sunday night).
- There is no opportunity to tour the campus of the hosting institution
Points against:
-In reviewing reports, sometimes people think of additional items for commentBy a show of hands, eleven people were in favor of a 2 day conference and five favored 2.5 days.
The Conference hotel will be the Doubletree, $99 per night, walking distance to the campus. Many of the meetings will take place in the Union Pacific Room in the Library.
3. Confirmation of the 2008 Meeting Site and Dates: The 2008 meeting in San Francisco will be a joint meeting with IT. Tyrone said that the dates have not yet been set. The dates need to fall between Eastern Orthodox Easter and graduations.
4. Appointment of Program Planning Committee for 2007: The meeting came to order at 8:30 a.m. Joan Overfield, presiding over the meeting, welcomed new Directors/Deans (Janice Simmons-Welburn, Jeanne Somers, Gail Staines, and Bob Seal) and those representing their institutions.
5. Virtual Reference Future Plans: Judy Trump reported on the current status of the software and the contract which is due for renewal on July 15, 2006. An evaluation of another product would take 6 months for a good trial with a month to set the infrastructure, installation, and training. Demos are insufficient for assessment.
Three questions were asked in Judy’s April 30th PowerPoint presentation:
(1) Should there be a meeting of the virtual reference coordinators?
(2) Who will continue to participate?
(3) Should we chose a new vendor?There was discussion concerning funding a part time position to coordinate, set up training materials, liaison with tutor.com, evaluate transcripts, schedule, develop policies as necessary, generate a best practices document, promotional materials/strategies and maintain a website.
Judy noted that Georgetown has its own brand of virtual reference plus AJCU participation. There are multiple names among us for the same service.
It was decided to ask Dick Vigilante of JesuitNet if there were funds for a half-time position since it is a consortial activity that relates to distance education.
Gail Staines mentioned Sheryl Knab, Assistant Director, Western NY Library Resources Council as a person with experience with multiple libraries and a fee structure for service using QuestionPoint. Judy Trump noted that our model is not a fee for service but paying in to make the service available. With fewer participants, the cost goes up for the remaining libraries; with fewer hours, librarians do not have a chance to develop the necessary skills. From midnight to 8:00 am, the service is provided by librarians on demand.
Key points from the discussion were that taking a session is no more of an interruption than taking a phone call or having someone stop in your office; students seem to communicate with IM and this might be the way to go; some enjoy providing the service for others, the hours for which they are scheduled fall at a time when there is insufficient staff. Judy Trump explained the procedures for business/non-business, time zone, and size of staff drawing of hours. Tyron Cannon called the three questions.
(1) The Virtual Reference Coordinators will meet at USF. Two people will rotate off the governance group. Locke Morrisey is the incoming chair. We will ask Dick Vigilanti at JesuitNET about funding a part time person. Mary Lee Sweat noted that we need to know more about what the position will do, for example, if the person travels, how those expenses will be covered. Gail Staines, Tyrone Cannon, and Mary Lee Sweat volunteered for a subcommittee to look at these questions.
(2) Who will participate? JJoan Overfield will ask Springhill and Wheeling about their interest in participating. Michel LaCroix, Jeanne Langdon, and Joel Cohen have a problem staffing the hours. There was a discussion of a new model that would allow a higher fee for less service hours.
Jim Hogan resolved that we should reach a consensus by the Steering Committee that everything should be done to explore models for fees and hours to include all who want to participate to make the consortial effort as broad as possible. Ivan Gaetz seconded. The motion carried.
(3) Evelyn is studying other providers including IM.
Liz Salzer expressed thanks to Judy Trump. Judy thanked Patty Porcaro from Holy Cross, Locke Morrisey from USF, Helen LaFrance from Santa Clara, Erin McCaffret from Regis and Alberto Herrera from Marquette.
6. Action on Committee/Task Force Reports:
a. LibQUAL+™ Jim Simonis said that there were differences in understanding about what to do with the results. There was discussion of whether there would be a benefit in a presentation on what to do with the results (not Bruce Thompson for LibQUAL+™). There is a presentation at ALA. The consensus was that we could, among ourselves, have a panel discussion of what we have done with the results, what was advantageous, what was learned, what was done with the information on the Jesuit questions. Jeanne Somers volunteered to work on this.b. Conference Web Site. Bonnie Strohl distributed copies of the Library Deans Conference Main Page and the Information Sharing page. Charles Kratz asks that institutions provide information in the categories on the Information Sharing page. These can be sent to Charles as attachments. He would also appreciate feedback on the pages. There were thank yous to Charles and Vincent Yanusauskas for work on the pages.
c. Digitization of Campus Newspapers Michael reported that there was not much interest in outsourcing scanning. This should be moved to the Archivist’ area.
d. Last Copy of Religious Studies Journals. Bonnie Strohl distributed copies of the Library Deans Conference Main Page and the Information Sharing page. Charles Kratz asks that institutions provide information in the categories on the Information Sharing page. These can be sent to Charles as attachments. He would also appreciate feedback on the pages. There were thank yous to Charles and Vincent Yanusauskas for work on the pages.
The way to proceed was two options:
If a library were targeted as the last location by others who chose to discard before it did, would that library know?
Should the library most likely to retain the title be the regional depository?
Summary of discussion: only Jesuit titles, entering your own titles and condition following a model like LLMC/LIPA to register titles, run, institution and OCLC symbol if you agree to retain the title.
Karl said we need to consider how these will be preserved and accessed. John said we should identity those that are not digitized.
Gail Staines, Richard Amelung, Karl Debus-Lopez, Chris Confine, and Ron Crown volunteered to work on the project. Gail thanked Richard for his work during the transition.
e. JesuitNet. Dick Vigilante distributed copies of the Library Services Student Section for JesuitNET Distance Education. At the meeting at Fairfield, the AJCU Library Deans agreed that each would support the information needs of shared distance learners. The proposal states that if a student who lives near Xavier and is enrolled in a distance class at Santa Clara, Xavier would support that student, making local arrangements if its collection did not have materials to support the course. A taskforce of library deans identified the following access and services:
a. links to AJCU webpages,
b. statements of library policies including research skills, the online JeusitNET service philosophy and commitment to levels of access,
c. procedures for accessing various resources,
d. a generic online information literacy tutorial,
e. identification of library liaisons at each institution, and
f. the establishment of a channel of communication (newsletter or listservs) to address ongoing issues/future developments.
Discussion concerned the minimum number of data elements for online registration to get into the host institution’s pages, generic services, coordinated policies that indicate what a student could get from a nearby AJCU institution, FAQ, and restrictions on access to licensed databases. Eileen Bell-Garrison and Ivan Gaetz will investigate the tutorial.
Charles Kratz, JoAnne Young, Ivan Gaetz, and Eileen Bell-Garrison will return to the group with how to interpret the proposal for Dick and the Board by September 1st.
Joan Overfield described the responsibilities of training and marketing for the part-time Virtual Reference Coordinator and asked Dick about funding the position. Since Dick asked for more about the functions of the job, Judy Trump will provide a more detailed job description. Where the position will reside is a future discussion.
f.. Jesuit Library Passport. John McGinty distributed statistics for September 2004 to December 2005. While 45 faculties obtained cards, only 10 used them. Of the 59 titles borrowed 32 where by one person. There were no reported problems of damage or loss. For additional public relations, there are more posters; all brochures have been distributed.
g. NSS. Evelyn Minick distributed the National Survey of Student Engagement data for 2003-2006, including the 2005 Jesuit Consortium Questions, email from Bonnie Gratch-Linauer with the experimental items and the list of 33 institutions that included the information literacy questions as a test of the validity of the items and a chart matching a category of information literacy to behaviors/activities.
CRLN investigated information literacy and student engagement. NSSE accepted the 4 questions. Not all AJCU libraries participated in the test of the questions because of their cycle of administration of the measure. Notification goes to the chief academic officer. All are related to mission. In 2006, should the questions be for everyone or add to the existing 13 questions? Discussion concerned more focused questions after LibQUAL+™, the fear of over testing students, requirements for IRB approval (if data is shared outside the institution) and using the questions as they were tested.
Joel Cohen moved, seconded by Tyrone Cannon that we endorse asking NSSE to include the 4 questions. The motion carried.
h. Jesuit Archives Project. The Proposal for a pilot digital consortium involving archival collections included the charge from the meeting at Fairfield to convene a meeting of archivists to discuss Jesuit-related materials at the institutions, to create a steering committee, to recommend a pilot project and identify a timeframe and resources necessary to support the project. The meeting at Marquette was well attended. The Subcommittee for Content and Selection suggested that each institution would contribute 45 scanned images with standardized metadata to highlight the Jesuit contribution to Catholic education and scholarship from three categories: 1) AJCU unique spiritual and leaning environment, 2) AJCU’s focus on social responsibility and/or 30 Jesuit heritage.
The recommendations of the Subcommittee for Technical Issues and Platform were discussed. Discussion included the purchase of a CONTENTdm license based on the number of images, federated searching, narrowing the definition of the pilot project
Among the group, there are 8-9 CONTENTdm licenses but Loyola College in Maryland is an incorporated, independent library with staff and servers dedicated to digitization. The conclusion was that John McGinty would get a licnses, expenses would be shared and that the enthusiasm of the archivists should not be derailed by requiring a revision of the pilot project. Matt Lessing will host the group at ALA.
i. WorldCat Collection Analysis. Bonnie described comparison by LC class for uniquely held and overlap and searching by keyword in the WorldCat Collection Analysis FirstSerach database. The match is not perfect since it is by OCLC control number. She will email the slit of current subscribers to all; respond to Charles Kratz with your intention to continue/cancel participation.
New Business :
There was discussion of funding for attendance by Wheeling and Spring Hill.Jim Simonis’s efforts in hosting were evident in the smooth running of the conference. The group acknowledged his efforts for the great experience.
Bonnie described comparison by LC class for uniquely held and overlap and searching by keyword in the WorldCat Collection Analysis FirstSerach database. The match is not perfect since it is by OCLC control number. She will email the slit of current subscribers to all; respond to Charles Kratz with your intention to continue/cancel participation.