Folks, I’ll be out Tues. afternoon through Friday (3/24-3/27) attending this SUS conference. I will be out next Monday (3/30) as well for another (unrelated) trip to Tallahassee to visit our fine legislators and see them in action. I’m sure the budget problems will be stage center.

Remember, Rachel starts her new Division Directorship on Monday..

While I’m away, Chris has agreed to act as head of A & L with Jack his able backup. Thanks to both of them. See you next Tues. Steve

Folks, have you all had a chance to read the blog on the HSCL/Smathers integration? Please do, here is the url:

http://smathers-hscl-integration.blogspot.com/

Under the section “Preliminary Integration Plan as of March 13, 2009,” part 4, is a clause that concerns our dept., “The Smathers Libraries Acquisitions department will handle financial transactions related to the acquisition of content for HSCL; these services are already well integrated due to the current level of joint purchasing. Selection of content to be purchased or licensed will remain the responsibility of HSCL, as will budgeting for acquisition of content.”

Questions: other than already established shared purchase and licensed e-resources, how will this affect our daily Paying Unit operations? how will this mandate affect joint monograph and print serial orders and payments?

Chris Poehlmann will be acting Chair while I’m away and Jack will be backup. Thanks, see you next Thursday.

Below is a letter from Science Direct

Dear Elsevier Customer:

Two weeks ago, we informed you of an error occurring in the August 2008 through December 2008 ScienceDirect customer usage data. This is the second in a series of forthcoming communications where we will update you on this topic.

During the release of the new Access & Entitlement system for ScienceDirect, software code related to the usage reporting was removed for performance testing. Unintentionally, the code was not reinstated once the testing process was complete. The impact is limited to August 2008 – December 2008 usage reports; and we are currently running an analysis to assess the impact per customer. We will contact each customer individually in the coming month to communicate the impact to your data, i.e. an overall percentage per year, but we will not have the breakdowns per journal for another few months.

January 2009 data is now being run with the new customer usage reporting software and will be posted on the reporting system by end of March. Owing to the large amount of data involved, it will take two to three months to correct the remaining August through December 2008 monthly reports. Elsevier has long strived to achieve the highest standards of accuracy in usage reporting. For several years, we have voluntarily submitted our systems to annual external audit. In fact, this problem was identified via an internal check well in advance of the external audit.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will work diligently to assess, communicate, and correct the data over the coming weeks and months. A rigorous system of cross-checks has been implemented to avoid a recurrence of any problem of this nature.

Thank you for your patience. As stated earlier we will continue to communicate with you on this topic once the assessment by institution is completed.

With sincere regards,

Hanneke Steuten, Director Usage Research & Project Management

Interesting copyright complaint just filed today.

USDC Southern District of New York

Elsevier BV; Elsevier Inc.; Mosby Inc.
v.
UnitedHealth Group Inc.; ACN Group Inc.; Optimum Choice Inc.; Ovations
Inc.; Uniprise Inc.; United Behavioral Health Inc.; Ingenix Inc.; ABC
Company Nos. 1-10
3/9/2009 09 CV-2124 Pauley

Copyright infringement arising from defendants’ unlawful use of plaintiffs’ copyrighted online database known as “ScienceDirect.”

$150,000 per infringement.

CPC members are in need of reports on expenditures for electronic
resources and has formed a joint Task Force with CPC. The Task Force has
sent out the following message to CPC and TSPC members.

Good morning,

The Fund and Object Code Task Force members would like you to
please discuss the following background information and recommendation
with appropriate acquisitions staff members in your library.
This request will be sent to TSPC Committee members by Cecilia Botero, a
member of this task

There is a need to harmonize the electronic resources object
codes for all SUL libraries so that expenditure reports can be
generated. The SUL libraries have different ways of tracking this
information which makes it very difficult for FCLA to provide
standardized expenditure reports. We need to standardize e-resources
object codes so that we can run ARROW reports based on ALEPH information
across all institutions. In the current environment FCLA would need to
run a report for each institution and would not be able to create a
uniform report for everyone. The SUL libraries will need to agree on
standardizing the use of electronic resource object codes when coding
payments and creating orders in Aleph.

Tracking and reporting of all electronic resource orders and
payments would also mean identifying orders in a consistent manner
across all SULs. For example there would be no way of running a report
of what e-resources have not been paid in a given FY without knowing
which orders are for electronic resources. The logical field would seem
to be the Material Type field. Staff in some libraries might need to
makes changes in the current Material Type values while others would be
using Material Types for the first time.

We recommend that SUL Libraries agree to harmonize electronic
resource object codes and to add or replace object codes accordingly, as
well as, include electronic material types on these records.
We advise acquisitions staff who are not using object codes for orders
and payments for e-resources and are not including electronic material
types on the records to agree to start using them so
that the respective libraries will not be hindered in their ability to
get acquisitions reports for electronic resources.

Please send your responses to the TSPC List concerning the
acceptance of the recommendation by *March 20, 2009.*

Thanks in advance for your assistance and prompt responses.

Cecilia Botero
Member, Fund and Object Code Task Force