Resources for Users Committee -- Minutes
January 25, 2002 -- 10:00 AM
Alderman Library, University of Virginia
Gene Damon, Chair; Karen Cary, VCU; Jacque Dessino, TCC; Sharon Gasser, JMU; Pat Hausman, W&M; Jonathan Lord, UVA Health Sciences Lib; Louveller Luster, VSU; Paul Metz, VPI; Pam Morgan, ODU; Jane Penner, UVA; Kathy Perry, VIVA Director; Jim Rettig, UR; Sylvia Rortvedt, NVCC; Jim Self, UVA; John Walsh, GMU..
1. Announcements
Britannica: VIVA will be receiving Encyclopedia Britannica through SOLINET. Although the contract is still in process, Britannica is making the encyclopedia available immediately to VIVA institutions using its old IP list. The url is Sylvia will send a message to the listserv to announce the availability with instructions for reporting any IP addresses that are not active.
Kathy handed out copies of the new VIVA brochure and thanked the Gale Group for it’s assistance with the brochure production
2. Changes to agenda
Statistics update, Oxford University Press Update, and Statistical Universe renewal were added to the agenda
3. Approval of Minutes of , 2000 meeting
No changes --Minutes approved by consensus.
4. Vendor Assignments
Gene distributed his list of members’ vendor assignments. Please let him know of any changes.
5. Budget -- K. Perry
Kathy Perry handed out updated copies of the current budget document. She asked all committee members to verify the entries for their products. She reported that she is going forward on all pending new products. Some of the details of the AMS journals contract are still being worked out. She will announce the product when the contract is signed. Kathy also distributed a projected budget for the next biennium.
6. Statistics: J. Self and K. Perry
Jim Self reported that he and Kathy are trying to get VIVA statistics in compliance with ICOLC. He stressed the importance of using the statistics in purchase decisions. Paul suggested that we document the dollar cost per unit for each resource.
Kathy is looking for ways to reduce the staff time needed for updating VIVA statistics on the Web. The committee members agreed that posting two months of statistics at a time and only posting the Excel spreadsheets would meet their needs. Kathy also hopes to create cost per use and cost per FTE statistics. Also discussed were a summary page for all resources and privacy issues.
Jim Self presented an introduction to statistics workshop for UVA and would be willing to do it again and include VIVA. The training committee will work with Jim to coordinate a workshop.
7 Legislative Activity: G. Damon and K. Perry
Kathy commended Library Advisory Committee chair John Ulmschneider for his leadership throughout the year to make legislators aware of VIVA. Gene and Kathy gave an overview of the VIVA presence during the current legislative session, including a General Assembly exhibit and access for legislators to VIVA during the current session.
Governor Warner’s budget proposal included reinstating the cuts from base budget that were part of Governor Gilmore’s budget.
8. Product Reviews: J. Self
Jim reported that he has received 51 responses so far on the combined CSA/OVID survey and 19 on the HighWire survey. He will send Kathy another message for the listserv on Monday
9. Renewals
Statistical Universe: P. Morgan.
No price increase for 2002-2003 with no charge for the community colleges. 2-4% increase for 03-04 with no charge for the community colleges. Renewal approved.
Gale Group: J. Rettig.
Books In Print & InfoTrac databases. No increase for BIP, 2% for InfoTrac package. Renewal approved for the InfoTrac databases. BIP vote tabled until the next meeting pending more discussion and analysis.
Stat-USA: S. Rortvedt.
5-6% increase for 2002-03. Renewal approved.
Oxford University Press: P. Morgan.
No statistics available. Ebsco clients should have begun implementation of the 75% print discount. New sales rep quoted a higher price than that which had previously been approved. The Steering Committee approved the purchase at the previously quoted price and the contract is signed. Pam will work to resolve the price discrepancy.
10. OCLC Update (John Walsh)
RILM: Subscription for 01/27/02 to 06/30/02 was approved by email vote. Funding for the subscription will come from the FirstSearch reserve. The subscription has tentatively been set up at the 5 simultaneous use level. 2002-03 subscription was not approved. The possibility of a VIVA cost sharing subscription was discussed. John will survey VIVA institutions to determine how many will subscribe.
Search projections: VIVA needs to purchase 150,000 searches for the remainder of the fiscal year, which will use most of search reserve.
Usage: John distributed a chart of usage statistics by database. The committee discussed ECO usage. ECO is the only database with turnaways, but that hasn’t seemed to affect port usage. It is possible that the problem is with OCLC’s statistics.
FirstSearch cost savings possibilities were discussed. One possibility is to begin the fiscal year with less ports and monitor turnaways; this strategy was used successfully for 2001-2002. Other possibilities discussed included ensuring that all institutions block access to the databases on the VIVA block list and identifying other databases that are ‘near equivalent’ to non-FirstSearch databases and blocking those.
11. How to handle cost increases within existing base budget – Discussion
Given the likelihood of no new funding to cover cost increases in existing VIVA subscriptions, the members discussed the criteria to use to determine the best use of the existing funds. Based on our current projections, we need to cut about $400,000 if 2002/3's prices increase at the rate they have over the last few years.
Questions to be answered include:
How much reduction in convenience can we accept to maintain content? For example, with simultaneous use resources, what level of turnaways are we willing to accept in order to continue to have access to the content?
Can we convert any resources to simultaneous use that are now unlimited access and thereby reduce the cost of that resource?
What parameters would a vendor have to meet for continuation? One primary consideration is the availability of statistics. Without statistics it is difficult to assert that the resource is a good use of our funds.
Other considerations may be the impact on individual institutions, the possibility of replacement at the individual institution level, the resource’s ‘near redundancy’ to another resource even if there is some unique content or presentation, and the availability of the same resource at a lower cost from another source. We also need to look at the big picture when making recommendations for cuts to ensure that no one type of institution or one discipline is hurt disproportionately.
Specific resources discussed were:
ACM: has statistical problems that have not been solved.
CSA/OVID: review in process.
Academic Press: will be added to Science Direct. Karen to evaluate impact.
FirstSearch: Paul will assist John in further evaluating specific cost saving measures. The business subgroup will be asked to evaluate currently available FirstSearch business resource.
HighWire: review in process.
Project Muse: limited subscription options problematic.
BIP: Jim and Paul will evaluate BIP options.
PCI: Jane and Pat will evaluate.
12. Other business: none
Next meeting: Wed, March 27, 2002, UVA