Minutes, U.S and British History/Women’s Studies Consortia Meeting,

December 4, 2006

UC Davis

 

Present: Chimene Tucker (SB), Sherri Barnes (SB), Ben Stone (Stanford), Kay Collins (I), Alanna Moore (SD), Elliot Kanter (SD), Margaret Phillips (B), Phoebe Janes (B), Kerry Scott (SC), Daniel Goldstein (D, recorder), Diana King (D, chair)

 

ACTION ITEMS Extracted from minutes.

 

ACTION: Diana King will draft a proposal sent to the JSC/CDC suggesting a formalized mechanism that would permit groups to review and indicate their support of products suggested by other groups.

 

ACTION: Therefore, members are asked to express support for adding History Compass  to the Blackwell contract when the title swap process begins this year.

June, 2006 meeting minutes approved as amended.

 

ACTION: Dan will contact Lettie Bennett and request trial access to C-19 for the Consortia.

 

ACTION: Diana King will contact Heather Christenson, Resource Liaison coordinator for her input/advice [regarding vendor relations].

 

ACTION:  Diana agreed to begin a draft revision to help clarify what the last copy agreements can and should cover in the present.

 

Minutes:

 

Gail Yokote, AUL for Research Services and Collections presented an update from the JSC and CDC.

  • JSC is still discussing the 2006-2007 Shared Collections workplan.  Gail mentioned, in particular:

·         JSC looks for overlap among various groups’ survey responses, as well as broad areas of common emphasis that might help shape this year’s acquisitions decisions.

·         Bibliographers Groups should submit suggestions throughout the year, not only at the time of the annual survey—particularly in the case of special discounts and offers.  This is true for cataloging open access materials as well as for products for license or purchase.

 

  • With regard to the digitization projects ongoing with Google and the Open Content Alliance (OCA), she stated that:

·         OCR files are being created for both projects (in addition to page images)

·         HOPS will probably be given the task of evaluating and making recommendations regarding search functionality in the future.

·         There is some overlap between the two projects.

·         Foldout materials are not being fully handled by either project.  Google is scanning them, but the OCA is not.

·         Google is more interested in modern than older imprints.

·         Special Collections materials are being treated only by the OCA and not by Google.

·         Robin Chandler is in the process of forming a mass digitization advisory committee which will provide guidance on the selection of material for digitization (not access questions).  5 names have been proposed but not yet formally appointed (therefore I am not including them in minutes).

 

  • Ivy Anderson and Colleen Carleton have submitted a report on the Jstor archive project that is currently under evaluation.  Principal issues are:

·         The real cost of this very high level of archive, relying on a page-by-page validation of archived materials.

·         Staffing needs

·         A fairly high rejection rate of submitted materials.  Much of it was too worn from heavy use to meet the standards for inclusion.  As a result, many campuses are being asked to contribute materials that they did not initially volunteer.

 

  • Other Shared Print proposals, including a proposal from UC Santa Cruz and the Project Muse proposal are currently under discussion.  No decisions have yet been made.

 

  • The IEEE proposal from UCD and UCB is going forward.

 

  • Regarding the question of licensing of commercially digitized collections of Out-of-Copyright material Gail Yokote said that the criteria for doing so had come out earlier but that JSC had not yet evaluated proposals from this group for the British Parliamentary Papers and the Times of London databases to see if they satisfied those criteria.

 

  • A “Value-Based Pricing Report” will be coming out soon that will propose a set of methodologies to arrive at a fair price for journal packages.

 

  • The Taylor and Francis Online Journal Package proposal is still under discussion.

 

The discussion following this report focused on JSC’s decision-making process and the apparently greater weight given to acquisition proposals supported by more than one bibliographers group.  It was generally agreed that this group should try to consult with/coordinate with other groups next year.  However doing so might prove difficult given the timing of the call and the ways in which the various groups conduct business.

 

ACTION: Diana King will draft a proposal sent to the JSC/CDC suggesting a formalized mechanism that would permit groups to review and indicate their support of products suggested by other groups.

 

The other principal question that emerged from discussion of the report was:  What are the implications for the role/significance of the annual survey and the JSC workplan if groups are encouraged to submit acquisition proposals at any time and perhaps with an eye to take advantage of special pricing opportunities? 

 

CAMPUS REPORTS DISCUSSION.  It was noted that UCLA and Riverside were unable to send anyone to the meeting due to ill-health and scheduling conflicts.  Highlights of a verbal report from Irvine (written version to follow) included:

  • UCI will re-open its search for a history bibliographer.
  • the UL is taking paid administrative leave in order to conduct research.
  • Judy Kaufman, AUL for Personnel will serve as Acting UL.
  • New faculty have been hired in the areas of Asian history, Persian and Middle Eastern history; as a result demands on the budget are growing faster than the budget itself.

Other points to come out of the Campus Reports Discussion included:

  • Some campuses are receiving “shelf-ready” approval books without the option to return.
  • Stanford is switching its US/UK approval plan from YBP to Coutts and will shift to increased paperless ordering.

Kay Collins and Elliot Kanter gave an update from the Newspaper task force.  They reviewed the charge and reported on some preliminary findings, most notably that there is surprisingly little overlap among the various electronic newspaper products—most of them containing upwards of 70% unique titles.  The Task Force report is in the editing stage.

 

There was considerable discussion of Consort’s interest in various newspaper products, and in improving the interface and search capabilities for the California Newspaper Project at UC Riverside.  However it was decided to wait to send forward any recommendations until after the Task Force report has been released and we have had a chance to discuss its contents.

 

There followed a discussion of mid-year shared purchase proposals which included the following. 

  • Some members expressed concern about the increasing burden of access fees.
  • Kay Collins stated that there is strong interest in the History Compass from Blackwell at her campus.  Based on her inquiries, CDL does not want to treat the Compass products separately from other Blackwell titles. 

ACTION: Therefore, members are asked to express support for adding History Compass  to the Blackwell contract when the title swap process begins this year.

·         There was considerable interest in ProQuest’s “C-19” product for indexing various 19th Century resources.  It was suggested that we compare its content and features with those of Paratext’s “19th Century Masterfile” with an eye to the possibility of cancelling the latter, if the former were acquired.

ACTION: Dan will contact Lettie Bennett and request trial access to C-19 for the Consortia.

 

FEMINIST PRESSES PROJECT

Diana King provided an update on the Feminist Presses Project including:

·         A description of her visit to Volcano Press with Beth Sibley.  They finalized plans to acquire the Press’s archives, some 21 boxes of which have now been delivered to the Bancroft.  They also include significant information on the history of the GLIDE foundation of San Francisco.

·         She has updated and redone the press list and reviewed campus responsibilities for “their” presses. 

·         She emphasized members ongoing responsibilities both to continue acquiring books from “their” presses as well as to identify any new presses that ought to come under agreement.

·         On campuses where the Women’s Studies fund is stretched too thin to acquire everything for which that campus is responsible, it was suggested that literature (or other relevant subject) bibliographers might be willing to help out.

VENDOR RELATIONS

Phoebe Janes led this discussion of her recent experiences with the increasingly demanding and aggressive behavior of database vendors with products under consideration for CDL acquisitions. Among other things certain vendors claim that CDL has informed them that it won't take action (consider purchasing at product) until they receive personal telephone calls of support for the product under consideration from individual selectors.  Phoebe feels that the procedure for CDL acquisition is clearly spelled out in JSC instructions and since the consortia contributes to that effort yearly, this request is unwarranted, and obnoxious.  All members of the consortia agreed with this assessment. We will continue, when necessary, to reaffirm this procedural information to vendors, but will not, and do not, wish to become caught between vendors and CDL. This raised the question of what, exactly people at CDL are telling vendors, and how much of what vendors claim is accurate.  Other topics raised included:

  • AULs for Collections should refuse to meet with vendor representatives.
  • Members of this group should review any information on the CDL website pertaining to vendor relations.

ACTION: Diana King will contact Heather Christenson, Resource Liaison coordinator for her input/advice.

 

JOURNAL LAST COPY AGREEMENTS

The formal agreements have not been updated since 1993.  They were reviewed and seen as in need of revision, especially in light of the dramatically changed digital environment.  Several issues were raised.

ACTION:  Diana agreed to begin a draft revision to help clarify what the last copy agreements can and should cover in the present.

 

WOMEN’S STUDIES INTERNATIONAL DATABASE UPDATE:  Currently accessed through the NISC platform, it will apparently also be available on EBSCO’s platform.  Diana has confirmed that both versions will be maintained, at least for now.  She will request pricing and trial information from EBSCO.

 

Brief updates reported on the microfilm projects and the Consortial Web site.

 

Daryl Morrison gave attendees a tour of the Michael and Margaret B. Harrison Western Research Center, a recent addition to UC Davis’s Department of Special Collections.

 

 

Next meeting tentatively scheduled for June 4-5 at UC Irvine