Working with the Unit Managers, we’ve identified several important projects ongoing in each unit. Dates to be completed are indicated in parentheses.

Serials Unit

* Working with Jack, have invoice renewal dates in report for AGRSSR (no later than 12/9).

* Serials Assessment: reviewing titles to determine online vs. print/online = print to online only (Spring/Summer 09).

* Early steps & procedures of the JStor project (Spring 08).

* Investigate check-in for LibWest (open discussions in Jan. 09).

* EDI claiming/invoicing: began projects (Dec. 09, invoicing being Grover’d) part of A & L goals

* Mform processing moved back to Serials. (March 09)

Monographs Unit

* Replacements – are we ready to start? (Steve will email Lori Driscoll, week of 11/24)

* Reserves – summarize the initiative/update procedures. (Dec. 09)

* Blackwell’s – EDI (approval invoicing by Dec. 08; firm order invoicing by early 09). part of A & L goals

* Blackwell’s ordering systems – stats on Approval Plan and form orders; status of approval plan profiles; status of new CM and ramifications for the ordering process; status on Blackwell visit in January. (Nov/Dec 08) part of A & L goals

* Paul working with Jason, begin the Endowment Fund/Virtual Bookplates project. (Dec. 08)

* Proactive steps to the 1 Bib record CSUL initiative. (begin Dec. 08)

* Standing Orders reorganization. (March 09) part of A & L goals

            - collapse all STO’s into one area

            - begin to use Approval Funds for all non-annual STOs

- revise Blackwell’s STOs budget/order record info (includes old NOTIS records); determine which STOs not coming in shelf-ready can be made shelf-ready.

Paying Unit

* Have the E-Res and Print Serials renewal dates report for Judy by the next AGRSSOR meeting (12/10).

* Working with Chris & Steve, have the TIPS $ and shared resources with Health initiative complete by the end of the semester.

* Address shortage in serials funds. (Nov./Dec. 09)

* Detail the OPS allocations/expenditures by unit. (Nov. 08)

* Create a UFFoundation gift fund. (Nov./Dec. 08)

* Investigate the switching of shared E-Resources (with Health) to Harrassowitz – evaluate the deals with each vendor and determine cost-effectiveness of the switch.

E-Resources Unit

* 360 Link migration complete (Dec. 08) part of A & L goals

* New ERM Committee (Dec. 08)

* Coordinating the old tasks of Rich, Jason, and other FCLA issues – update.

* Order records for E-Resources, update. (begin Spring 09)

* Links checking – develop procedures and schedule for this task. (Dec. 08)

part of A & L goals

* Usage stats for E-Res: coordinate, compile and display larger packages via a Web page. (Spring 09)

* Licensing workflow revised. (March 09)  part of A & L goals

General:

ü  CM form/database idea (Chris, Paul, & Raimonda will work with Winston and IT – begin Dec. 08).

ü  Web pages, Blog, and Wiki or StaffGuide for procedures? Web pages, Blog, and Wiki or StaffGuide for procedures? part of A & L goals (Finalize pages; procedures to StaffGuide from Jan. – March 09).

When I asked Brad Eden about UNLV doing away with serials check-in, I discovered after a quick Google search that it was my mistake – wrong library! Per a 2004 bulletin board post by Rick Anderson responding to heated questions about his library’s decision not to perform check-in:

“I’m going to stay faithful to my promise not to engage in this argument
on-list, but I do want to remind everyone that we’re the University of
Nevada, Reno — not Las Vegas.”
—-
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries

Good morning,

The email server is offline at this time. Systems is working on it.

Jack

Return on investment of Academic library e-journal collection: a study of ROI in grant writing activities
(11/7/08)
Speakers: Carol Tenopir, Univ. of Tennessee; Tina Schrzastowski, University of Illinois; Judy Luther – President of Informed Strategies.

In this presentation, the speakers presented the results of a study that was undertaken to discover the ROI university investment in the library. As university administration has many priorities, often money is invested in areas that produce a higher ROI. The project was provoked by challenges that budgets presented to libraries and addresses budget issues through a business perspective. The goal of the study was to demonstrate that library investment in electronic journal collections benefits the grant writing process, which in return generates income to university. The study was conducted at Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where a number of tenured faculty members were surveyed.
The results of the survey demonstrate that references are vital in grant writing process. 94 % of respondents said that they use library resources in writing grant proposals and 75.3% of them said that references are absolutely essential in the process. In response to the question about the impact electronic resources have on the grant writing process, the responses illustrated that electronic content increases productivity, which leads to more grants proposals written, a higher acceptance rate, and more money granted to university.

The study at UIUC showed that for every dollar spent in electronic journals, $4.36 are returned to university.

Later, the speakers discussed the future of this study which will include phases 2 and 3.
Phase 2, which will have a narrow focus and broader range of universities, will extend the research to nine worldwide universities. One of the criteria of selection was that these universities were able to provide ten years of data on grant proposals and acceptance.
Phase 3 will have a broader focus and will be applied to a narrow range of universities. It is hoped that during phase 3 the research will extend beyond effects of ER on grants only and will identify impact on other university areas as well.

Closing the loop: Making collections relevant through assessment
(11/7/2008)
Speakers: Teri Koch & M. Sara Lowe – Drake University

In this session, the speakers provided the case study of a assessment program used at Cowles Library at Drake University. Cowles Library is a medium size private academic library, which employs11 librarians and 11 staff members. The library serves a population of 5,000 students. The collection is comprised of 520,000 monographs, 1,500 journal subscriptions, 27,500 full text electronic journals, 35,000 e-books. The library has an annual acquisition budget of $1.4 mil.

During the first part of the presentation, Koch discussed the importance of assessment and factors needed to undertake assessment. Assessment is necessary to show accountability, is a big commitment, is an ongoing process, and it must be supported by technology. At Drake, assessment was used to validate the mission of the library and to compare the data gathered with the expected outcome. The assessment was conducted during a 4 year period, during which a “Criterion” committee and a “Future of the library” committee were created. For the actual assessment, a Data Repository was created on the library’s Intranet. The data repository was populated with data from each department. To make the assessment successful, everyone was asked to participate with management taking the lead. IT provided a great deal of assistance in the project. The results from LIBQUAL were also used for the assessment.
It was interesting to learn that an IT Fee was added to student tuition. IT Fee is meant to support ER in libraries without having to cut print serials and monograph budget. The fee has increased gradually from 2002 when it was first created.
In a few words, this is the assessment cycle followed at this library:
Evidence (assessment) – IT Fee – New Resources – Evaluation

During the second part of the presentation, Lowe presented the actual assessment and showed us some of the tools used for the process. Serial analysis was performed in stages using WorldCat collection analysis and Ulrich’s serial analysis. Monograph analysis was achieved using WorldCat collection analysis and Bowker’s collection analysis.

The workflow cycle followed during the assessment is as follows:

Acquisition budget (including IT Fee) – Acquisition purchase – Assessment (Data & LIBQUAL) – Library repository

Although this assessment was conducted for accreditation of the University, the Cowles library plans to do this assessment yearly and add data to their repository.

The role of more accurate acquisition data in the shift from print to digital format (11/7/2008)

Andrew White & Sarah Pomerantz, Adelphi University

This session discussed how Adelphi University Libraries modified their acquisition procedures in response to the “from print to online subscriptions shift.”

It must be noted that the Library had been without an acquisition librarian for ten years. When a librarian was finally hired in 2007, she was faced with multiple challenging tasks. The data she found lacked consistency and accuracy. There were multiple copies and multiple formats of the same title purchased; fund codes used were complex and difficult to track; there was no coordination between acquisition data and library administration reports.
Recognizing the importance of accurate data and the role it plays in budget management, accountability and justification, the acquisition dept made a number of changes on the way purchases were made and recorded. The most notable changes include the creation of order codes for different order types. In addition, format types were assigned to materials of different formats: books, non-print, periodicals and continuations. Also, fund codes were created for different material formats.

As a result of these changes, Acquisition data is now clearer and easy to track and there is a better coordination between Acquisition and library administration.

An issue that is worth investigating: how should e-books treated: are they considered monographs, one time purchase, and therefore paid for by monograph funds, or are they considered subscription with perpetual access to subsequent editions and therefore paid for by continuation funds?

I’m back from my first Charleston conference and I want to share what I found out at some of the sessions I attended.

Using Usage Data to Support Collection Management Decisions During An Economic Slowdown

Speakers: Gayle Baker – Faculty, The University of Tennessee Library; Virginia R. Kinman – Electronic Resources Librarian, Longwood University

This main thrust of this session was that budgets are tight and usage data, with value added from other sources, can be a valuable tool in making collection management decisions.  The University of Tennessee combines data from COUNTER and SFX to provide a look at not only what journals are being used, but how they are being used.

Longwood University (Virginia), gathers data from e-resources and from other library sources (ILL data, gate counts, Web traffic, etc.).  Three large issues (measurement, impact, and analysis) were identified. Examples of measurement issues are interface variations, data sources and user behavior.

Vendor Usage Reports: Are we all on the same page now?

Speakers: Oliver Pesch - Chief Strategist of E-Resources, EBSCO Industries Inc.; Peter Shepherd – Director, COUNTER; Adam Chandler – Information Technology Librarian, Cornell University; Patricia Brennan - Product Manager, Thomson Reuters.

The participants in this session discussed COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources), which sets standards for usage reports, and SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) which is the standardized process for harvesting these statistics.

What characteristics do usage statistics have?  They should enlighten us, and they should be practical and reliable.  But, they are only part of the story and must be used in context.

COUNTER Codes of Practice

·         Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases (Published August 2008)

·         Release 2 of the COUNTER code of Practice for Journals and Databases (Published April 2005)

·         Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works (Published March 2006)

To be COUNTER compliant, vendor statistics must be auditable.

SUSHI is an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resource usage data using the web.  It is intended to replace the user-mediated collection of usage data reports.  It is used to produce Excel or XML reports. 

It should harvest local metrics (Local library or consortia, at the journal, collection, and publisher level.)  It is employed to derive statistics to calculate cost effectiveness and assess the value of “big deals.”  Global metrics can be harvested as well.  These may include: authors, funding agencies, and publishers).

Usage statistics should replace impact factors, which can distort publishing, which are overused and of value mostly to researchers rather than journal users.

Usage data should be easy to understand and reflect value to all users.

ONIX-PL: Linking Electronic Resources and their Licensing Terms

Speakers: Friedemann Weigel (Moderator) – Managing Partner, Director IT, Harrassowitz; Bob Boissy - Manager, Agent Relations, Springer;  Rick Burke – Executive Director of SCELC, the Statewide Californian Electronic Library Consortium;  Brian Green – Executive Director, EDItEUR.

ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL) is an XML format designed to handle the licenses under which libraries and other institutions use electronic resources. It builds on the  work of the Digital Libraries Federation’s Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) and the joint EDItEUR / NISO work on ONIX for Serials.

·         It is designed to allow libraries to:

·         express licenses in a machine-readable format,

·         load them into electronic resource management systems,

·         link them to digital resources, and

·         communicate key usage terms to users

Currently, Serials Solutions is the only ERM with a pilot project planned for ONIX-OL (late this year or early 2009), although other ERM vendors (EBSCO for example) are also interested in adding ONIX-PL functionality to their applications.

An ONIX-PL compliant license is easily expressed to end users.

Since we are a Serials Solutions library, I believe ONIX-PL merits further investigation.

We want more e-books! Lessons Learned from Seven Years of Embedding Electronic Books into a UK University Library Collection

Speakers: Kate Price – E-Strategy & Resources Manager, University of Surrey

The University of Surrey was an early adopter of e-books.  They began with reference titles, but rapidly moved into other areas.  In 2008 they added MyiLibrary to their holdings, which now encompass all levels and all subjects.

The biggest area of concern was the amount of staff time required for e-books – particularly in cataloging.  Early e-books acquired at Surrey had a high level of cataloging, but this has diminished over time.

Surrey also participated in a study of how e-books and their users.  Some interesting findings from the study: 

E-book users are more dependent on library resources than free resources (Google and other search engines)

E-book users are dissatisfied with the availability of print resources

Only 7% of e-book users print to read (in other words they do not read any of it online)

60% of e-book users screen read without printing.

Hello everyone,

I am back from the Charleston Conference and wanted to share with you some of my notes from the programs I attended. I found the sessions to be interesting and worth attending; they clearly demonstrated that the future of information production and delivery is electronic. Everybody agrees on that. Although progress is made, I can say that libraries, publishers and vendors still operate from different perspectives and there is a lot of work to be done toward fulfilling the information needs of users. In one session, for example, the vendor rep discussed how their goal is to deliver the info to users fast – and this is great; however, she failed to discuss what they are doing to secure the preservation of this information for future use. But in general, I enjoyed the conference very much and was glad to learn what our colleagues are doing to solve some of the problems we face here at our library.

So here it goes:

Migraine-free migration: Librarian and publisher perspectives on facilitating the transition from print to electronic formats for academic content (11/6/08)

Speakers: Jackie Zanghi-LaPlace, Director of electronic databases, IGI Global; Julia Gelfand ,Univ. of California Libraries; Selden Durgom,NC State Univ. Libraries.

This session focused on the current state of publications as libraries continue to acquire materials in print and online formats and publishers continue to produce print and online editions of publications. As libraries move toward a complete digital academic content, this session focused on steps that libraries and publishers could take to make the print to online transition a migraine-free one.
As libraries and publishers agree that users prefer online content over print, it is important that a transition to ER plan is in place to facilitate migration from print to online. As different institutions have different needs based on the clients they serve, it is important that each institution develops a plan that accordingly and strategically responds to the needs of its users. There is not one plan that works for all. It is important to have data and usage statistics to support your plan.

Additional issues to consider before transition:
Don’t make self hazardous decisions, i.e. switching to online format because of space shortage.
What are the needs of academic programs the library support?
What discipline areas can safely be moved into online only content?
What areas do we need to watch?
What is the cost of print vs. online ownership?
Consider archival records offered by publishers when dealing with embargoed publications.
If a decision is made to keep a copy of print, plan accordingly to store print in one location.
As vendors sell database packages, and not individual titles, let them know of libraries’ expectations.
Make sure that all content is included in online version of journals.
Let publishers know that perpetual access is important to libraries and it should be allowed for print and online subscriptions.
Consider the instances of titles dropped from databases and then added back in.
Know flexibility of license agreement with regard to info sharing, ILL, use for instruction, etc.
Consider existing business models and platforms used by publishers.

I thought this was a great session where problems were discussed from the libraries and publishers’ perspectives.

Opening the doors to collaborative collection development (11/6/08)

Speaker: Michael Arthur, Head of Acquisition & Collection Services, UCF.

This session discussed how Florida Universities responded to Ross Atkinson’s Six Key Challenges Facing Collection Development otherwise known as the Janus challenge.
Florida University Libraries started working on this initiative in February 2007, when state’s Collection Planning Committee (CPC) met to discuss various issues.

Although Florida Universities already have a history of resource sharing, including FCLA, which provides 185 shared databases and an average of 50% cost reduction on shared statewide licenses, there are several issues to be considered for future cooperation. These issues include: storage space, flat or declining budgets, demand for seamless borrowing and delivery of content, reduction in staffing, preservation of print materials, ownership rights to online content, the need to share expensive technology, collections that make libraries unique and a lot more.

CSUL created six task forces, which were asked to provide ideas of how to meet the six key challenges and recommend specific actions.

Recommendations include: convert to digital format to enhance access, move from singe institution vision to state wide vision, sharing of resources, protect materials and increase visibility of unique collections, establish a shared E-book collection, set benchmark for amount each institution will spent toward shared E-books, focus on buying perpetual rights for online content, and develop a shared reference collection.

With regard to archiving, the speaker discussed the shared storage facility at UF and the recommendations for selecting the best copy in the state. He noted that two copies of bound volumes for serials and one copy for monographs will be selected for storage. To preserve title count, which is important to libraries, ownership will remain for those institutions that owned copies of an item selected for storage, regardless of whose copy will physically be transferred there.

The Janus Working Group will meet in Gainesville on Nov 13^th to mesh final reports into a final document to be approved by CPS and then forwarded to CSUL for approval.

Achieving community goals in our decentralized environment (11/6/08)

Speaker: Roger Schonfeld , Manager of Research, Ithaka.

In this session, Schonfeld discussed the fundamental structure of the American academic community: decentralized and fairly competitive, and how it has been impacted by the technology development in a digital environment. In a digital environment, the community goals of higher education remain the same: improve access to higher education for learners, maximize impact of research output, and preserve information for future research and he introduced some practices that seem to work in a digital environment.

CourseWare, for example, is the perfect opportunity to distribute the information to learners in digital environment. But while our current online course dissemination is institutionalized, Schonfeld introduced a case from India, where institutions are using a centralized learning method and are sharing something like “The best of …” information through shared CourseWare. Through this method the best information becomes available to learners. However, the speaker noted, we must keep in mind that central funding is needed to accomplish this centralized learning method, something unfeasible in the U.S.

Digital environment has created the perfect opportunity to maximize access to information. While content is available for a low price or even free through open publishing platforms, we have to keep in mind what is important to our researchers. Faculty, for example, value information that is “widely read in their field” and don’t necessary care about what is available for free.

With respect to preservation, Schonfeld reminded us that similarly to the traditional purchase, local ownership and storage of a print collection, libraries should get involved in the economically sustainable digital preservation of digital content. And lastly he noted that we “hope” that a print collection is kept somewhere. How many copies should be preserved? It is up to institutions, which know the real value of their collections.

Monographs in the Age of Digitization

-          Discussion centered on the Espresso Book Machine being used at several academic libraries, such as Univ. of Michigan. This is a print on demand initiative that allows patrons to order books not held in the library. Has long-term ramifications for Collection Management – books won’t have to be ordered until a patron requests them, which takes out the guess work; and ILL, as books can be ordered, printed, and supplied to the patron much faster than ILL and it becomes part of the permanent holdings (no returning the piece to the lending library).

Developing a Library Collection Development Allocation

Jeff Bailey and Linda Creibaum — Arkansas St.

-          Growth of the university with new programs including PhDs. Starting with no allocation formula in the late 90s; one or two programs accounted for the bulk of the budget (one dept. received about 20% of the materials budget).

-          1977 Spec Kit was used as a starting resource; within is a formula devised at Colorado St.; Ark. St. took elements and made changes in a Quattro Pro spreadsheet.

-          Factors implemented in the Ark. St. allocation formula: semester hours (enrollment); classes and degrees offered; faculty per dept.; cost of materials from Bowker Annual. Others could be used:

v  Use of materials

v  Number of courses

v  Number of degree programs

-          Assigned weights to each factor – based on institution’s priorities (Ark. State used a range of 1-10); they did not vary weights within a factor, just assigned weights to the factor itself; recommend test runs to adjust weights, priorities, and allocation amounts if needed. At Ark. State the faculty of depts.. select materials – only a percentage of the materials budget is allocated to faculty selections, the other percentage is spent by the library for a variety of materials (the library keeps funds for its e-resources/journals, etc. off the top).

-          Rolled E-Resources and journals expenditures in subjects into the subject allocation.

-          Expenditures by subject do affect the allocations.

Patron-Driven Purchasing in ebooks

Kari Paulson – EBL, “Making of a Demand-driven Acquisitions Model”

— describes the ongoing results of a project started in 2003 -  collaborating with CERN (science firm/association) and highly specialized researchers who wanted to do a demand – driven project. EBL worked with publishers to make it happen; libraries can build profile, decide on no. of titles offered in the catalog, duplicates can be de-duped.

-          Three models of demand-driven: 5 minutes access (mediated) libraries can then decide to rent or buy; non-mediated short term loan; automatic purchase.

-          60% of EBL sales are coming from demand – driven; 60% of libraries are doing demand-driven.

-          Avg. book price is $90 approx.

-          Model allows library to offer many titles; justification of purchasing books (they are being used by default); budget stretching is doable by expanding the pool of titles seen by patrons; selectors don’t have to access the print vs. ebook availability; seamless acquisitions of titles; profiling allows a ‘approval plan’ of sorts.

-          Challenges: how much of the budget will be used; duplication occurs; print vs. ebook is an issue; marc records – how do we catalog selections? All publishers are not on board; acquisitions workflows can be challenged, fund codes holding records and PO generation.

UTexas

-          Partnered with EBL: currently offer 600,000 Ebooks; contracts with 4 ebook contractors; started in 1999; tried many platforms, provides and selection models.

-          EBL Pilot began 07/08 with 300K

-          2 of 3 books were rentals vs. purchases

-          PPV cost approx. $4

-          Blocked anything over $700

-          Anything over $50 is vetted by library before use.

-          Print books were available but across campus or checked out; 37% of ebooks ordered did not have a print copy in the library.

-          Tried to identify print books and publishers not being used via the EBL project.

-          PROS: User-centric (24 x 7 desktop service); “don’t assume librarians know better than users what users want.” UT never takes a package ‘of the shelf’ – will tweak the titles offered, costs, etc.; PPV is cost-effective as only books being used are being paid for; PPV addresses gaps in print collections; usage stats are high; highly effective delivery and cost/use benefit; and ‘rent to own’ is a possible model.

-          CONS: MARC records are not full initially and slowly delivered; some faculty want ebook even if a print copy is in the library; resistance is found only in selectors, esp. science librarians.

Elsevier: behind patron-driven model and despite some concerns (very few) they feel it is in the best interest of libraries and publishers to adopt the model.

Summary:

-          ISBNs as well as ISSNs should be included in the future within the knowledge base SFX at UT.

-          ‘Rent to Own’ model – after so many rentals the library purchases the title; this model is questioned by some publishers but it desired by libraries.

-          What is a good dollar threshold for starting a project – varies so libraries can use profile parameters or no. of titles limited by date ranges, subject areas, etc. And deposit $ can be inputted into the system.

-          According to EBL, 3 or 4 accesses are the avg. no. of access hits before purchase.

-          UT gets ebooks via several platforms, ebook aggregators, via consortia, and title-by-title.

Expanding the Ebooks Buying Experience: Approval Plans

Librarians from institutions part of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) describe the variety of methods of acquiring ebooks: purchases through aggregators, directly from publishers, through consortia packages, or via title-by-title selection; this ‘hodgepodge’ of purchasing ebooks has created gaps between the ebook and print book collections; to standardize collection building, the libraries are planning to use or have recently begun to acquire ebooks through existing approval plans.

Tammy Sugarman – Georgia State has already begun to purchase ebooks in their plan as a pilot project:

-          Selectors liked the ability to view slips for ebooks

-          Selectors used print book money for ebooks

-          Each Selector received about $5,000 to spend on ebooks

Greg Raschke – NC State

-          A. Pace in 2000 said in 5 yrs. Ebook sales will match print; in 10 yrs. ebook sales will surpass print.

-          Seeing return of investment via downloads..

-          More purchases = more user familiarity

-          Issues: Is item by item efficient? Dropping print or offering both? Are both print and ebook version available at same time? Long-term preservation? Consortia collecting – how does this affect the initiatives?

Ann-Marie – YBP

-          Print / ebook

-          Approval Plans

-          Vendor consideration

-          Issues: timing delay of ebooks vs. print; price models are complicated; how to deliver, aggregator or publisher-direct one or multiple aggregators? Title by title vs. batch purchases?

Summary:

-          A-M, profiling is more complicated with ebooks involved – no physical books to show workflow and where titles are in the pipeline.

-          Does ebooks get used more that makes it cost-effective?  Yes, according to usage study at Wright St. Also, value is fair at NC State.

-          Patron-driven? At NC State it’s ongoing and showing promise.

-          Adding links to Link Resolver to increase visibility? Haven’t done this at NC State but good idea.

-          Faster access is helping usage to increase (NC State)

-          Title by title through ebrary, are single selections being used? Unknown at this time at Ga. State.

-          Limit no. of titles being offered to lower the amount of patron-driven selections and not blow the budget too fast; but, at NC State they have a set amount of funds to spend so this is not an issue.

-          Get rid of single user option in today’s libraries this is outmoded.