UC U.S. and British History and Women’s Studies Consortium

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

UCLA

Agenda item 4: Status of current/ongoing negotiations

1. Women and Social Movement: should go online soon after the start of the fiscal year. Campus shares are $250. Current subscribers will receive credits.
2. GLBT Life: all campuses except UCSC will participate. Wendy is negotiating (much on this from Sherri since the meeting). JSC thinks $18,000 price is too high.
3. NISC Sexual Diversity Studies is disappearing.
4. D. NCM update – no news
5. . ECCO – in the notes it says “stay tuned” but that’s old news. We all have access although terms and conditions differ by campus.

Agenda item 2: UC Shared Print program – J. Ariel

1. The group raised some general issues about level of communication between CDOs and selectors. This appears to vary by campus and could have an impact on how effectively we can work together on shared print (and other) projects.
2. OCLC Collection Analysis Tool: Joan led a discussion on this tool which became available to participating campuses (and CDL) in March. CDL is testing its usefulness, especially with respect to shared print projects. Several questions were raised, including:

- How might we use the CAT both on individual campuses as as part of any CDL project?

- Can/will systemwide run reports for us? Can a campus, a Bib Group, or an individual librarian request a report from CDL?

- Do either CDL or SPP have particular projects in mind for this tool? (Answer: Anglophone literature is one potential project. Series in History is another possibility)

- What holdings for UC are in OCLC and what are the gaps? Concern voiced that RLIN libraries may not be reflected in WorldCat.

- How flexible is CAT? Can you manipulate results once you get them? What are the options for sorting data?

- What level of specificity might we find useful? Some thought that title level might be too micro.

- How do we export the data and make it useful?

- Is there any chance of going back to OCLC to do the data crunching?

After Joan did a demo of group analysis, the Consortium had a number of additional questions:

- Can we get an aggregate for each campus?

- Can you do an overlap between 3 or more campuses?

- Is there a way to export the titles without displaying them?

- Can you drill down in subject classifications?

- Is there a way to speed up the system? It seems very slow.

- Can you pre-limit by call number ranges or do you need to go through the clicking through process?

- Is it possible to view the conspectus/hierarchy?

- What do we do with the information once we have it?

- Can/will OCLC run CAT on a separate server?

- Big question is what’s our goal for collection analysis?

- What topics, subject areas, levels of specificity would be useful for us to query the system? (Some possibilities: local history <British>, states).

- Is CAT useful to shape prospective buying?

- Can CAT be used to help us identify areas of strength so that campuses would not need to check each time before making or not making a purchase?

- Could we have a UCL symbol in OCLC so that we could run searches against what we acquire as UC-shared print?

- -For the same amount that it’s costing to subscribe to CAT, couldn’t we hire someone at Systemwide to create a UC collection analysis tool?

- What’s the relationship between what Shared Print (SPP) wants to do with CAT and what the campuses want to do?

- Why are we choosing this tool as opposed to other collection analysis tool? UCR is looking at 3 other possibilities.

Dan Goldstein suggested that a subgroup of the consortium work with Nancy and Joan in identifying a subject to test the effectiveness of CAT - pilot projects, one for history and one for women’s studies. Consortium members thought it might be useful to get data on areas we already know as well as using CAT to identify areas of uniqueness. Some suggestions for Women’s Studies were immigrant women, rural women, transnational feminism. There are problems in finding subjects that we actually “define. In addition, language is a problem. Can this tool be made to perform analysis on a complex subject such as transnational feminism?

ACTION: Elliot, Ellen, and Emily will work with Joan to identify areas to focus on as a pilot. We set some targets which, regrettably, we did not meet. I include them here in the interest of full disclosure and accurate recording of the meeting:

-pilot plan by end of summer

-testing by the time the Consortium meets in December

Additions to the agenda

1. Need new Resource Liaisons for GenderWatch and Contemporary Women’s Issues. Polled group to see if anyone was interested in taking on either of these. Mention made that Dan Tsang (UCI) was RL for Ethnic NewsWatch and Alt-PressWatch. Question of whether it would make sense for him to add GenderWatch as well. Consortium agreed that it would make sense for one person to deal with a vendor but added that it was important to articulate the rationale. Should the decision be vendor-based or subject-based. Vicky will ask Dan if he is interested in assuming responsibility for GenderWatch. Then Sherri will communicate our suggestion and rationale (one person/one vendor) to Cindy Shelton (our CDC liaison).

Sherri volunteered to assume responsibility for CWI.

Agenda item 8: Website (Elliot)

Joan will be “re-added” to listserve/reflector.

Agenda item 9: History microforms list

Elliot extracted the U.S. History titles from the WS list and turned it into an Excel file. He then combined this list with the UCD list and a Proquest holding analysis. We need to check holdings for U.S. History/Proquest and verify that we actually do have the film and/or the guide.

A second list will include PSM, SR, and K.G. Saur. Elliot will combine the lists.

Elliot asked consortium members to review the list carefully to insure that we have guides. We also need to be especially vigilant when dealing with vendor-provided lists because these tend to have inaccuracies.

Elliot will contact Lexis-Nexis for UPA titles (comparable to what he did for PSM, SR, etc.)

Sam Dunlap has expressed an interest in doing something similar with European Studies.

Query: which libraries have copies of Sarah Eichhorn’s union list of UC microform holdings?

Query: Is there any role for Shared Print Program in acquisition of major microform sets?

Consortium agreed that we need a searchable database of some kind or the development of a portal to microform collections. How might work already under way in this area be articulated with the Shared Print Program?

SALAAM discussed the creation of an electronic index with digitize-on-demand component for microform sets.

Apparently a number of groups are discussing access to microform sets – as well as incrementally upgrading metadata. Query: What are the levels of upgrade that can reasonably be accomplished? Suggestion: Tag at collection level only – pull up collection by subject.

Action items:

1. Send Elliot information on collections that we know we have
2. Joan can recommend to Nancy the addition of a tag in MELVYL as a searchable field at the collection level. Suggestion is to start with the Women’s Studies list because it’s more complete. If anyone can find the SCAP list that would be a great prototype. Several people volunteered to check historic files for the SCAP list.

Query: Would it be a useful project to make an effort to get guides across the system? Model would be central coordination and shared resources. Everyone agreed.

Recent microform acquisitions plus questions:

1. Berkeley recently acquired series 8 of Gay Rights Movement. They also plan to acquire series 9 (based as well on GLBT Historical Society)
2. Question posed about acquisition of series 4, 5, 6 which are not currently in the system. Might this be a possible shared print acquisition and might SPP help coordinate this kind of shared acquisition.
3. Guide now available for Papers of M. Carey Thomas.

Agenda item 10: Women’s Studies Microform list and Desiderata

1. Sherri reported that she had not yet integrated PSM and Scholarly Resources titles (Scholarly Resources, PSM, and Norman Ross now all under one umbrella)
2. New sets of possible interest:

- Florence Nightingale

- Women, Writing and Travel

- Women and Medicine

- Sex and Gender

- Women’s Language and Experience, pt. 6

Discussed whether any of these might be digitized at some point which led to a further question about the degree of duplication in the system between large microform sets and licensed digital products. In particular, people wondered how much of Defining Gender is available in EEBO, Gerritsen, etc.

Defining Gender points to a list of Adam Matthew microform sets on gender issues. [my notes get fuzzy here – something about one-time purchase, non-consortial, no maintenance fee, approx. $16,000. Does this refer to Defining Gender?]

There is some interest in acquiring Defining Gender but fairly limited so question arose about whether this title is a priority. There are a number of other resources available for conduct/advice literature and libraries throughout the system have a lot in microform. Consensus: most useful for undergrads or masters level. Decision: not a priority.

Agenda item 6: JSC letter to Bib Groups

JSC/CDC thinks there may be enough to work on based in last year’s survey. They are asking instead for proposals for critical tier one resources as information about these resources becomes known. JSC is also seeking recommendations of open access materials for shared cataloging.

Suggestions made at the meeting for open access materials to catalog:

-Documenting the American South

-Making of America

-American Memory

-Valley of the Shadow

Tier one suggestion:

-Oral History Online.

In response to JSC’s “request,” are there titles that we need to push up in our priorities? Ethnic Studies Librarians are interested in North American Immigrant Letters and Diaries.

UCLitBibs are interested in Latino Literature.

Question posed about strategies to leverage interest in a number of Alexander Street titles.

Three groups have expressed interest in PAIS Historical (us, Gov’t Info., Poli Sci). Question posed as to whether this has been included in current subscription to PAIS.

Designing Applied Arts Index(?) – [did not catch the reference to this; something about inclusion in a WS list a number of years ago]

Discussed the continuing issue of support for Parliamentary Papers. UCSD got a $60,000 quote. This is a possible candidate for consortial or CDL purchase. We voiced our support for acquiring the index. Sherri will recommend to CDL that they try to convince Proquest to sell the index separate from the full-text.

Heard some prices for production of the San Francisco Chronicle:

1865-1922: $789,000 to produce “full-service; $311,000 for less version.

1865-2004: $4.1 million; $1.6 million for local history and newspaper style format. Possibility of cost-share between CDL and Proquest (CDL 80%, Proquest 20% - could this be right?).

Not much interest expressed in Archive of Americana: Broadsides and Ephemera.

UCLA and UCI have acquired Empire Online. Berkeley will acquire as well. Adam Matthew will provide MARC records.

Agenda item 7: UC Merced

Merced has been invited to join the consortium. We are still awaiting a response.

Ellen Broidy, UCLA

Recorder