CAG MINUTES, 20 NOVEMBER 1996

Collections Advisory Group

20 November 1996     1-3 p.m.

Present: P. Bischof, M. Burnette (recorder), B. Glendenning, V.
Roumani-Denn, E. Sibley, A. Urbanic (chair), B. Weil

Ex-Officio: D. Farrell, K. Fromberg, Lee Leighton

Guest: J. Spohrer

Minutes of 6 November were corrected and approved.  Minutes will
be sent to the selector reflector and also put on the Web.

Farrell discussed the current status of the collections budget. 
Some numbers are still subject to correction because of the way
in which liens were being handled.  Several funds have low, even
negative, numbers in the monograph funds after money was
allocated to their approval plans.  The three AULs may address
this problem with their reserves.

Next came a brief discussion of the new social sciences faculty
funding.  Dean Simmons provided a thousand dollars for each of 18
new faculty members, and The Library matched the money.  Barbara
Kornstein is pursuing getting this money transferred to The
Library.  Citing the difficulty of keeping track of how much has
been spent, several selectors asked that the money go into
separate new faculty funds rather into their monograph funds.

Farrell passed out copies of "Principles for Acquiring and
Licensing Information in Digital Formats."  He then began a
general discussion of the digital library and its implications
for collections by summarizing several current digital projects. 
These include:

1. JSTOR--over a million page images of pre-1990 journals in
economics, history and ecology.  UCB is participating in a study
of JSTOR's interface and functionality, so we have access to this
database at no charge until the end of December.  Giving up
current subscriptions to paper copies is not presently an option
because the JSTOR backfile ends at 1990.  Before we sign onto
JSTOR, we need to investigate reported problems of scanning
quality.  Another issue that must be addressed is the duplicative
nature of the digital file.  Can we afford to repurchase what we
already own?  Would JSTOR provide significant storage savings?  
The Business/Economics Library worked on printing and interface
problems during their extensive use of JSTOR; faculty and
graduate students are enthusiastic about continuing access to
JSTOR.  UCOP is interested in system-wide acquisition.

2. Project MUSE--provides access to current issues of  over
twenty  journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press. 
The UC-CSU consortium has been offered very favorable rates after
the trial ceases at the end of December.  MUSE offers the
possibility of UC and CSU libraries forming a consortium that
will lead to large savings based on an increased number of
potential users.  This is the first UC-CSU digital project and
offers the opportunity of more cooperative projects.

3. SilverPlatter/ERL Remote Access Project--after testing access
to a variety of indexes through the SilverPlatter Web, Farrell
has asked selectors to submit titles which they believe we should
subscribe to through this interface.  He will put together a
package of titles for discussion with SilverPlatter about
pricing.

The issues brought up during this discussion were varied and
included identifying sources of funding for digital products,
publicizing their existence, coping with multiple sources for the
same data (e.g. Melvyl and cd-roms or the web),  the difficulties
of cancelling the paper versions of key indexes and journals, and
a desire to provide seamless access to digital resources through
BearCat, the web version of Gladis.  CAG will take up many of
these issues in future meetings.

The resource group AULs will soon be discussing the requests for
collection travel and supplemental collection funding.  Copies of
the requests will be sent to CAG members along with a prioritized
list from the resource group AULs.  Members should be prepared to
discuss the priorities at the next meeting.
 
Next meeting: 4 December from 1-3 p.m. in Room 303.  Michael
Rancer will be the guest.

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