Present: Elizabeth Byrne (Chair), Michaelyn Burnette, Jan Carter, John
Ceballos, Myrtis Cochran, Carlos Delgado, Beth Dupuis, Manuel Erviti, Paul
Hamburg, Shayee Khanaka, Carrie McDade, Scott Peterson, David Sullivan and
Bruce Williams
Guests: Jim Gordon
ANNOUNCEMENTS
B. Dupuis gave a brief update about the "Committee for the 10 millionth
Item". A report from the committee will be delivered to Admin within the week.
B. Williams reported that the East Asian Library and Center for Chinese
Studies are preparing to conduct interviews soon for the Head of the Center
for Chinese Studies and for the Chinese Bibliographer/Reference Librarian
positions. Also the plans for the East Asian Library are moving forward.
D. Sullivan reported that few applications have been received for the AUL
for Collections position. Admin may need to hire a headhunter to create a
deeper pool of candidates, though Council members are encouraged to use
their professional networks to identify other strong candidates.
YBP APPROVAL PLANS
D. Sullivan distributed an updated version of the document "Series on
Approval vs. Standing Orders after Collections Council Discussion, February
15, 2005 for Discussion at Subject Councils." J. Gordon highlighted some
details of the initiative and emphasized that the question about whether to
move to this plan with Yankee Book Peddler (YBP) is one that can be decided
on a title-by-title basis by each selector. M. Burnette shared her
experiences summarizing that while there have been some problems the
process there are greater benefits for certain types of materials. Items
that require special handling (serials, items for reference collections,
analyzed sets, etc) are not recommended for consideration. Items that
would likely be copy cataloged and for which an OCLC call number is
acceptable are better candidates. Benefits include: materials are likely
to arrive to campus and get to the shelves faster; each item would require
less attention from technical services staff since they come shelf-ready;
there is greater control of duplicates; and it is cheaper for the selector
since the AUL for Collections covers the cost of cataloging/processing for
PromptCat materials. J. Gordon suggested selectors look at the list of
titles [list sent to the Council list by D. Sullivan on 3/16 as attachment
"Series on approval for YBP.xls"] and determine which, if any, they feel
would be suitable for this plan. There is no specific deadline for those
decisions.
NAP BLANKET ORDERS
J. Gordon summarized the plan to move to a blanket order for National
Academy Press titles. This transition primarily affects the sciences and
social sciences.
CHANGES NEEDED FOR MELVYL
M. Erviti and D. Sullivan summarized the change CDL had made to Melvyl to
address the inadequacies of searching by uniform titles in the
catalog. While the proposed change addresses some of the problems when
searching for books by allowing users to sort individual records by uniform
title, there is still no hierarchical display to show all works by uniform
title. Additionally, the change has not provided better functionality for
identifying sound recordings for which a browse function by authorized
headings is the most needed solution. The Council agreed to write a letter
supporting the need for continued work to improve the functionality of
Melvyl in these areas; D. Sullivan volunteered to draft the letter.
S. Khanaka emphasized the need to ensure that diacritics are displayed
correctly within Melvyl. P. Hamburg noted that installation of Arial
Unicode MS needs to be installed on the computer and set as the default
font for Melvyl for users to correctly display text; also adding a special
keystroke function allows users to search Melvyl using diacritics. The
Council agreed to pursue this issue on two levels. E. Byrne will invite
Paul Payne, or another person from Systems, to a future Council meeting to
discuss approaches to having these changes made to all staff and public
workstations, perhaps in conjunction with the move to Windows XP. B.
Williams will contact a colleague at UCLA who has information about their
approach to having a language kit installed on campus servers to introduce
these changes to all campus labs. Additional conversations with CDL could
reveal if programming changes within Melvyl could resolve some of this
issue for people not using library and/or campus workstations.
FUNCTION COUNCIL REPORTS
Technical Services: P. Hamburg reported that the most recent meeting
focused on selecting the Systems GLADIS priorities. S. Peterson announced
that selectors who wish to print online materials and have them catalogued
need to print onto acid-free paper, include the date printed and URL, and
have the materials bound before sending the item to Technical Services;
this process should be documented in the Berkeley Processing Manual (BPM)
though it is unclear when that will happen.
Administrative Services: B. Dupuis reported that the Library Statistics
Task Force has been charged and listed the membership of that group.
Collections Council: D. Sullivan reported that the most recent meeting
focused on selecting the Systems GLADIS priorities (including Title VI
program improvements and title analysis improvements). Bernie Hurley
announced that the Library has requested a permanent funding increase of
$550,000 in FY05/06 to cover the cost of collections inflation caused by
increasing prices, growth in the quantity of materials published and the
decline of the dollar. This increase will keep the Library's collections
budget in balance and prevent a $1,100,000 cut in journal and monographic
purchasing that would be planned and implemented in FY05/06 to take effect
in FY06/07. E. Byrne questioned whether Collections Council would revisit
the issue of devaluation of the dollar abroad and consider possible
adjustments; D. Sullivan will take that issue to the next meeting.
FUTURE POSSIBLE TOPICS
1. Panel of selectors reflecting on their recent international buying trips
and sharing information about their approaches to selection. Virginia Shih
has agreed to speak. Other members are encouraged to let E. Byrne know if
they are interested in joining the panel at our April meeting.
2. Demonstration of the Library Group Instruction Statistics database. E.
Byrne and B. Dupuis will set a time for this and invite staff from any of
the Councils to attend if interested.
3. Demonstration of ARTStor and Luna databases. E. Byrne will contact
Kathryn Wayne about scheduling this session.
4. Update about Grokker software. B. Dupuis will contact Isabel Stirling
for an update about the plans for this software.