ACJU Library Deans & Directors Business Meeting
Chicago, Illinois
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Convener: Tyrone Cannon (University of San Francisco)
Attending: Barbara Boehnke (Canisius), Michael LaCroix (Creighton), Margaret Auer (Detroit Mercy), Joan Overfield (Fairfield), Jim McCabe (Fordham), Eileen Bell-Garrison (Gonzaga), Jim Hogan (Holy Cross), Jeanne Somers (John Carroll), Robert Johnson (LeMoyne), Bob Seal (Loyola Chicago), John McGinty (Loyola Maryland), Kristine Brancolini (Loyola Marymount), Mary Lee Sweat (Loyola New Orleans), Janice Simmons-Welburn (Marquette), Ivan Gaetz (Regis), Laurie Hathman (Rockhurst), Tyrone Cannon (San Francisco), Evelyn Minick (St. Joseph’s), David Cassens (Saint Louis), Charles Kratz (Scranton), Liz Salzer (Santa Clara). Susan Wardzala (Loyola Chicago), guest.
Absent: Artemis Kirk (Georgetown University), David Hardgrove (St. Peter’s College), Gentry Holbert (Spring Hill College), Kelly Mummert (Wheeling Jesuit University), Bob Cotter (Xavier University)
Tyrone Cannon called the meeting to order at 8:37 a.m. Michael LaCroix agreed to be the recorder. Draft minutes will be sent to Margaret Auer, Liz Salzer, and Charles Kratz for review. Once their review is complete and changes made, the minutes will be considered approved and distributed.
2008 Minutes:
Minutes from the April 2, 2008, meeting at San Francisco were previously reviewed and approved by three readers.AJCU Virtual Reference Update:
Susan Wardzala (Loyola Chicago) spoke to the Deans as a representative of the AJCU Virtual Reference Steering Committee. She distributed copies of a PowerPoint report and spoke to meeting dates, the steering committee service (Joanne Helouvry, Chair), and levels of support. Scheduling is done for equity and in a three year rotation. Some hours are covered by tutor.com. Usage is increasing even though some libraries are also using IM, which is seen as a complementary service, not a replacement. Greatest users are undergraduates, followed by graduate students. The number of dropped calls has decreased as the year has progressed. There is still no co-browsing from tutor or any other company. Concerns include libraries dropping out and compatibility with certain software and databases.Discussion: Marquette has expressed an interest in dropping its participation, but with the amount of usage, the Dean wants to have further discussions with MU librarians. The level of usage may be dependent on marketing. Some of the value added features presented were that every participating librarian gets to see the best practices at other institutions and there is good PR mileage at the home institution from both the president and faculty when stating that 24/7 reference service is available. Virtual reference assistance is very valuable if hours in the local library need to be reduced. New librarians are interested in the new technologies and their contribution to service. Parents are pleased with the concept of 24/7 virtual reference and the fact that it is a Jesuit cooperative program. It was agreed that it is important for the coordinators to get together each year for discussion and continuing education. Ivan Gaetz moved that the Library Deans wished to express their thanks and appreciation for the work and leadership of the steering committee and its continued success. Seconded by Margaret Auer. Motion passed.
Jesuit Passport Update:
The program has seen very little use, but it has public relations value for showing that all AJCU libraries are working together. Many of us participate in other cooperative programs and find this easy to add since it is such low volume. We are encouraged to do more marketing, since faculty members have changed since we originally introduced this cooperative venture.
OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis:
Six libraries participated last year. It is coming up for renewal on June 30, 2009. If the number of participants remains the same there will be no increase in cost. Smaller libraries are charged $2,000 and larger institutions are charged $2,500. It was requested that there be a presentation about how some libraries are using this service at the 2010 meeting. Gonzaga and Creighton have individual subscriptions, which permits comparison with other institutions outside the AJCU group.
Archives Digital Project Update:
The discussion revolved around what collaborative projects to more forward on, because no matter what we do, there are budget and resource implications, for the individual institutions as well as the collaborative group. Some members already have CONTENTdm or other digitization software.After discussion, it was determined that we do not want to duplicate work and that the best way of managing the different levels of expertise and resources would be to develop a “collection of digital collections” with pointers from a central site. This would permit institutions to maintain resources on their home institution servers, servers at OCLC, the servers of local consortial partners, or utilize the CONTENTdm license on the Loyola/Notre Dame Library servers.
The relationship between the AJCU Digital Project and the Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA) was mentioned. Five of the AJCU libraries have also contributed content to this latter project.
Margaret Auer proposed and Kris Brancolini seconded the following statement:
The AJCU Digital Project will proceed in the following manner: Institutions will continue to add to the photograph project site and work on the “collection of collections” project. Where possible, individual institutions will continue to develop the digital site with such items, for example, as: institutional history/histories, eminent scholars, student yearbooks/publications and college catalogs. This would enable us to highlight the quality of our institutions.
Discussion on the motion included the need for each home institution to define “eminent scholar,” that in the future the project be titled “AJCU Digital Collections Project,” that AJCU libraries be encouraged to include other digital projects being developed at their home institutions, and a friendly suggestion that “for example” be added to the motion was accepted. Motion passed
The archivists, from their meeting on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, gave the Deans two documents: 1) Next steps for the AJCU Archivists Project – 11 were listed 2) Challenges – 9 were listed.
Bob Seal moved and Evelyn Minick seconded to accept the archivists report with minor changes. The changes will be communicated by Bob Seal to the Archivists. The Deans expressed appreciation for the work the archivists and digital librarians had done. There was support for archivists/digital librarians to establish a steering committee. After discussion, there was a consensus to establish a new AJCU Digital Projects listserv for the archivists and librarians and make it broadly accessible. John McGinty agreed to contact Georgetown about adding this new listserv. He will also query the Deans about who should be included in the listserv.
We agreed that there should be at least a minimum amount of metadata for items going into a digital archive. This would be something for the steering committee or its designees to develop, utilizing best practices and standards. Loyola Notre Dame Library will continue to maintain the Digital Photos project. As was pointed out, complex projects take years, with many discussions and refinements among the parties involved.
John McGinty distributed a draft AJCU Digital Collections Project Mission and Goals statement drafted by Jeanne Somers, Kris Brancolini, Margaret Auer, and himself. Since editing by committee is difficult, John McGinty agreed to send the draft document to the Deans for feedback.
2010 Conference:
Discussion began on Monday, where a preliminary presentation regarding the dates of the 2010 Joint ITM/Library conference and the space challenges was given by Jim McCabe. Based on the thoughts expressed by the Deans at the previous day’s meeting, John Popko and Janice Simmons-Welburn submitted a proposal regarding re-examining the biennial joint meetings with ITM. The motion to accept the proposal was moved by John Popko and seconded by Evelyn Minick. The discussion that followed focused on softening the language in the proposal, the lack of input by the Library Deans early in the conference planning process, and rethinking the collaborative spirit. Discussion needs to be held with ITM representatives on how to have a successful joint conference. Based on the discussion, and the need to revise the motion, John Popko and Evelyn Minick were asked to withdraw their motion from consideration – both agreed. John Popko agreed to prepare a new draft based on the recommendations that came out during the discussion for all to review and comment. From there, the 2010 Library Deans Steering Committee (Bob Seal, Jim McCabe, Tyrone Cannon) will take the revised proposal to the ITM Steering Committee.
It was resolved that next year’s meeting of the Library Deans would be Sunday-Wednesday, April 25-28, 2010 at Fordham. The program planning committee for the 2010 meeting will be Jim Hogan (Chair), Jim McCabe, John McGinty, and Charles Kratz.
Web Site Content:
At the secure web site being hosted at the University of Scranton, we are encouraged to contribute our annual reports, strategic plans, and organization charts. It will be updated to include a link to the conference site when that becomes available. Charles Kratz will send the link and the password, since some have misplaced or never received them.Contact follow-ups concerning what should be added to the web site will by done by : Evelyn Minick for Spring Hill and Wheeling Jesuit and Jeanne Somers for St. Peter’s and Xavier.
CONTENTdm: Models of funding were discussed. John McGinty will send information regarding the cost of CONTENTdm while asking: Is there any benefit to negotiate together? How much flexibility would need to be given up by the individual institutions? It was decided that it would be optional whether or not to participate in the group purchase.
Resource Sharing and Document Delivery:
Ivan Gaetz reported on a project that Regis’ Dayton Memorial Library is participating in BCR’s Shelf2Life Program which is an opportunity for libraries to make their unique collections available in digital format. Developed by Liz Bishoff of BCR (lbishoff@bcr.org), books in the public domain are converted to a digital format and made available in a print-on-demand format. The contributing library then receives a royalty for every copy purchased and a digital copy to have online. There is no cost to the library to participate. Library risk may be the loss of the book. Regis is working to develop a Catholic Studies Collection. Shelf2Life is committed to a two week turnaround time.
New Business/Items:
Ivan Gaetz will draft a statement regarding the value of libraries in academic institutions, particularly related to the economic conditions, using comments from Jim Hogan and Tyrone Cannon.
In the future, annual institutional reports will be sent to the listserv and submitted to the AJCU web site in addition to being sent to the program chair.
An idea for next year’s program was put forth: how libraries live their institutional mission beyond providing resources toward excellence in education.
Ivan Gaetz described the free, open access journal, Collaborative Librarianship, for which he serves as general editor, and which publishes scholarly and professional writing on collaboration by and among libraries of all types.
The Deans expressed their appreciation to Bob Seal and the staff of Loyola Chicago for hosting the conference this year. Kris Brancolini and the members of the program committee were also thanked for the work they did this year in putting together a fine program.
Meeting adjourned at 11:19 a.m.
Respectfully submitted, with significant assistance from Margaret Auer, Liz Salzer, and Charles Kratz,
Michael LaCroix
Recorder