Present: Anthony Bliss, Elizabeth Byrne, Michaelyn Burnette, Jan Carter, John Ceballos, Myrtis Cochran, Carlos Delgado, Chuck Eckman (guest), Manuel Erviti (recorder), Paul Hamburg, Shayee Khanaka, Steve Mendoza, John Roberts, Virginia Shih, David Sullivan (chair), Kathryn Wayne, Bruce Williams
1. Chuck Eckman Visit
C. Eckman was provided a list of topics for discussion in advance of his visit, a list compiled at the previous A&H Council meeting and distributed to Council members by email on September 1, 2006. Not all topics on the list, reproduced below, were addressed in the remarks or discussion that centered on budget, operations, and collections management, but began with consideration of unspent balances being carried forward in the budget.
There may be new limitations now, but large balances are not necessarily an indication of over-budgeting, Eckman acknowledged. Other factors affecting unspent balances include staffing changes and inadequacies, the holding-back of purchases in certain fields while awaiting the appearance of anticipated publications, etc. C. Eckman believes this important development in control is good.
a. It is often suggested that base allocations may not be properly aligned with campus programs. How would you deal with this issue?
Alignment is not the problem or the answer. Eckman wants to avoid the need to re-base, but doesn’t diminish the need for data to help build a case for more funding. No single factor translates into program support.
b. There have been shifting policies in recent years about how much of the general endowment income should be allocated out to subject specialists, and whether it can or should be used to support ongoing monographic purchases. We’d like to hear your thoughts on this.
Unrestricted endowment streams are not a fix to 19900 collections funding. AUL-controlled endowment funding is best used elsewhere.
c. For us, the fact that there have been more or less automatic increases to serial allocations and none to monographic ones has had a serious impact on the collections. How would you address?
Perceptions of budgets and numbers are not reflected in the statistics. Eckman hopes the campus will hear pleas but he will not change things right away. No systematic cuts, but no increases.
d. Can you talk about what you see as your role in fundraising, and how we can help you advocate for our needs?
C. Eckman imagines a natural collegial relationship with Development and has met with D. Duer about the Library and capital campaign. The issue is how to slip the idea of collection support into the themes selected by Development. All in the Library need to play a more active role in building community/programs and being engaged.
e. Can you give us an update on the Task Force on Custodial Collections?
An Early Bird is scheduled Monday, Sept. 11, to give selectors an insight into the issues and discussions of the Task Force, and to enable them to express their views on collecting and custodianship of special collections on the Berkeley campus. The Task Force was created by UL Tom Leonard in Spring 2006 and will complete its activities and issue its report in November 2006.
f. Many of us feel that a key player in the collections program both for you and for us is missing: an Acquisitions Librarian. Do you have a take on this?
g. We’re very concerned about the upcoming in NRLF circulation codes. Has a final decision been reached, or can we still influence it? What’s the timetable for those of us who will need to make item-by-item decisions to change circulation status? What is the process that is envisioned?
More to come, but the suggestion that UCB materials may be bumped from NRLF begs revisiting the question, “What is NRLF?”
h. We’d like to revisit the decision to freeze DiLib, and reconsider what the role of centralized funding for expensive (mostly electronic and recurrent) acquisitions should be.
A selector workshop with an overview of AUL-level funds, including digital funds DILIB and DILIS, is needed.
i. We’d also like to revisit the decision to make a permanent cut to monographic allocations when new serials are ordered.
j. There’s been some talk at various times about “generic 21st century librarians”. In the Humanities, we feel that very specific subject knowledge, not all easily acquired, is critical to building collections. What is your view on this?
C. Eckman affirms that working with librarians possessing specific subject knowledge is an essential part of collection-building.
k. How can we help you succeed in your work?
2. Electronic Publishing in Classics
Prof. Donald Mastronarde, invited guest, was unable to attend the meeting due to illness; the agenda item was postponed.
3. Future Librarian Recruitments
What are we looking for in the recruitment of professional librarians? A boilerplate list of qualifications was generally considered inappropriate as a means of taking the needs of a position in a particular search into consideration, though some common elements or language to searches certainly does exist. Administration and CAPA should get together on the direction of this language. D. Sullivan and S. Khanaka will form an A&HC working group to toss around ideas and report back to the Council.
4. Function Council Reports
Collections Council (K. Wayne).
a. New faculty startup funds are now 3k, rather than 2k; the list of new faculty is not out yet, but anticipated [distributed by I. Stirling on 9.19.2006].
b. Please email K. Wayne your views on issues of vandalism, loss, and collection security by September 19th for a future Collections Council discussion.
c. Email with information on base budget amounts due soon [distributed by C. Eckman on 9.19.2006]. This email contains information not reflected by Innopac figures.
Technical Services Council (V. Shih).
a. RLG plans to transfer records to OCLC with its planned merge and an integrated RLG/OCLC database will provide the master record as the default record but will offer some kind of option to display a linked institutional record. L. Leighton sent a UCB collective summary of RLG Union Catalog Contributor Questionaires to OCLC. An OCLC-RLG Technical Services Transition Team has produced a 10-page table for user reference, entitled “Comparison of RLIN21 and OCLC Connection Features”
b. UCB to adopt CONSER access-level serial cataloging records and a UC CONSER group will provide training before the implementation date, targeted for Nov. or Dec. 2006. The simplified serial record represents no difference for users, while providing a significant percentage of time saving in Technical Services work. The CONSER Working Group Final Report is available at <http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/alrFinalReport.html>.
5. Announcements
The deletion of RLG Cultural Materials from the ERF was a result of recent changes to the SFX (UC-eLinks) KnowledgeBase, as reflected in the ERF.
There is a trial period through the end of September in progress for RLG’s ArchiveGrid, a new web resource describing primary historical sources (archives, manuscripts, etc.) in all fields held by more than 2,500 institutions worldwide. See <http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~fhelsing/ERES/etrials.html>.
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