Minutes

Introductions. Corwin Booth acknowledged several membership changes. Adam Stone is taking Ted Sopher's place, Ann Tomaselli will be handling some of the committee's administrative issues, and Dianne Brenner will produce minutes of the meetings.

ACTIONS:

The link from the library website needs to be changed to point to the updated website. There should also be a link from the A-Z index to the LLC.

The committee will meet every other month, and Jane will post the meeting schedule on the website.

1. Division Review
Corwin reviewed LLC’s recommendations regarding Division Review. Jane Tierney reported that submission guidelines are being updated, with the intent of minimizing the number of key clicks.

ACTION:

Adam Stone is to do one more version of the RPM update, and then it will be final.

2. Budget & Staffing Update

Jane reported the resolution of funding for Archives FRC storage costs (funded by IT Division) and disposal of Bubble Chamber film (accomplished within budget). Library staffing is currently lower than usual, but 2 new hires are expected in May. The library would like to be able to do more outreach, to keep lab staff aware of what services are available.

3. Circulation Policies and Practices

There was a lengthy discussion of some of the issues that have become evident, and some possible solutions. The large number of long-term, overdue books raises several issues, including the possibility of discontinuing on-line renewals, the need to determine which books should be replaced, the possibility of initiating longer-term loans, and the need to link up with the termination/retirement process. An inventory of the collection would be useful to determine the scale of the problem presented by the number of long-term over due books. The collection in its current condition isn’t serving the wider Lab community.

4. Book Collection

Jane requested committee input on strategic purchasing. Issues include: whether or not to purchase books in evolving disciplines; the question of diverting funding from journals to books; avoiding duplication of holdings at the UC campus library; lack of information about Division spending on books; reference collection vs. circulating books; pursuing a distributed collection strategy; how to encourage compliance/culture change.

ACTION:

Committee members would like to review the list of standing orders that have been cancelled.

5. Journal Backfiles

Journal publishers are shifting access to backfiles and creating a significant problem for researchers. Sandy Merola suggested that a higher level approach to this problem might be needed. Librarians, labs, professional societies might need to join together on this.

ACTION:

Corwin, Jane and Edith Bourret-Courchesne will create a 1-page table of the journals and backfile access problems, for review by Dr. Chu, perhaps the Secretary of Energy, and the like, (DOE, Congress, NSF…). Define the problem in one page.

Scientists are reminded not to sign away copyrights.

6. Library Space

Sandy made a brief presentation (due to lack of time) about several considerations regarding space for the Library. He asked committee members to consider what information they will need in order to provide the ALDs with a recommendation on this issue. Options include 1) relying entirely on on-line access to backfiles; 2) maintaining paper copies of journals; and 3) a hybrid of the two. This will be a major agenda item for the next LLC meeting.

Attendance

LBNL Library Committee AttendanceMarch 7, 2006
Division / LLC Members / Division / Invitees
AFRD / Eric Esary / X / IT Division / Tammy Welcome
ALS / X / IT/Lib/ARO / John Stoner
X / CRD / Esmond Ng / X / IT Division / Sandy Merola
X / CSD / Corwin Booth (chair) / X / IT Division / Dianne Brenner
X
X / EETD / Doug Black
Venkat Srinivasan / IT / Beret Renelletti
EH&S / IT / Eva Reffell
X / ENG / Greg Stover
X / ESD / John Christensen
FAC
FSD
Gen/JGI / Ina Dubchak
HR
X
X
X / IT / Jane Tierney (Library)
Jose Oliveres (Library)
Adam Stone
LSD / Albert Davalos
Shyamala Harris (Alt.)
Tamas Torok (Alt.)
Ulli Weier (Alt.)
x / MSD / Edith Bourret-Courchesne
Jeff Neaton (Alt.)
X / NERSC / Esmond Ng
X / NSD / Richard Firestone
X / PBD / Nigel Moriarty
X / Phys / Robert Cahn
Next Meeting: May 2, 2006, 2 – 3:30 p.m. 2-100B

These minutes were prepared by Dianne Brenner. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact