Minutes
Present: Jan Carter, Jim Gordon, Rebecca Green, Linda McLane, Barclay
Ogden, Margaret Phillips, Alan Ritch (Chair), Andrea Sevetson, Debbie
Sommer, Allan Urbanic (recorder), Beth Weil
1. Announcements
A. Sevetson will be leaving the Library in mid-August. The Social Sciences
Council selected Debbie Sommer to fill her slot on the council, joining
other new members: Suzanne Calpestri from Social Sciences (absent), Beth
Weil (Sciences), Jan Carter (Arts and Humanities), and Linda McLane
(Affiliated Libraries).
B. The next meeting will be on August 7th. Beth Weil will be the recorder.
Scheduling conflicts with the interviews for the Head of RRC will be resolved.
2. Welcoming of New Members and Review of Collection Council charge
The new members were welcomed and introduced. Ritch distributed a revised
charge (6/01) along with a list of ongoing issues and tasks under
consideration by the council. Among these are: better handling of missing
replacements, developing the role of the Electronic Resources Librarian in
collection issues, improving the Collection Development web page, planning
for the next FY collection budget including continuance of the Collection
Budget Subcommittee, persistent soliciting of the campus for increased
collection funding, managing the newspaper collection including papers
still remaining on tier 9. Ritch asked the new members to review this list
and to add their perspective on these issues. Ritch also invited the
submission of additional projects and issues for consideration.
3. Electronic Resources Update
A. Phillips announced that a new form has been added to the Electronic
Resources Toolkit. The "E-Journal Order Form," a simplified version of the
"E-Resources Form," can be used when ordering an e-journal for which we
already have a print subscription. It is available at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/AboutLibrary/Staff/CDP/ejournal_order_form.html
B. Fleur Helsingor (working on the foundation created by Gail Ford) will be
responsible for the enhancement of the Electronic Resources Alphabetical
List which includes a link to statistics when available.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~fhelsing/ERES/ElectronicResourcesA-Z.html
C. E-books: Phillips has assumed the task of monitoring the Library's
contract with netLibrary. Selectors will be encouraged to investigate the
UC Press books offered through netLibrary and to consider adding them to
the collection (see item 6 below). Growth of netLibrary acquisitions in
other areas is not necessarily being encouraged at this time.
4. Collections Budget Update
A. Ritch distributed the Collections Budget spreadsheet (reviewed by
Roundtable on 6/28) showing basic allocations and expenditures. Sufficient
funds are available to cover expected inflation for serials (9%) and
monographs (3.2 %). The council approved adding these amounts to the base
budgets and requested that Gordon update the base budget spreadsheet for
presentation at the August 7th meeting.
B. Ritch distributed a list of requests for future funding which were
already on the table. This list is a contingency for expending funds
quickly should the campus challenge unspent collection balances.
C. Ritch raised the issue of large, unencumbered carry over amounts in
certain funds. The council will consider this issue early on in the
current fiscal year so that it can develop guidelines for selectors to help
address this situation in the future. Various issues relating to the
problem were briefly discussed. No action is planned to deal with large
carry over balances from the previous FY.
5. Collection Budget Subcommittee
The Subcommittee has lost or will be losing most of its members. Phillips
was added to the subcommittee roster to help evaluate requests for
electronic resources and Urbanic was asked to continue. Volunteers for the
remaining places on the CBS should contact Ritch by email.
6. CMI Project Update
Ritch forwarded a project update report submitted to CMI liaisons by Cecily
Johns. Several potentially useful tables of ejournal titles showing matched
pairs of control and experimental campuses, control campuses needing
experimental partners and experimental campuses needing control partners,
have been posted to the web site to encourage a second round of campus
contributions to complement the first. However, these tables were
initially so riddled with errors that the project implementation calendar
will be pushed back a week or two. When the errors have been corrected,
Ritch will send out a new call to all selectors to broaden participation.
7. Visit to UC Press
A. Ritch, Green and Phillips visited UC Press and spoke with two of their
representatives. The pros and cons of a blanket order for UC Press titles
to speed up or ensure acquisitions were discussed. The full UC monographs
list could be purchased at a 50% discount and possibly housed in Moffitt as
part of the desired revitalization of the undergraduate
collection. Selectors would still be free to add copies of UC Press titles
for other locations. This proposal will be vetted by the Collections
Budget Subcommittee along with other budget requests.
B. Some UC Press titles are available electronically for free on the UC
Press website and through netLibrary. netLibrary will distribute others
through their service for a fee and is undertaking a project to make
available over a thousand older UC Press titles not currently in electronic
form. The quality of the UC backlist would make it a useful source from
which to add to the critical mass of e-books in The Library, and selectors
will be alerted to the list and encouraged to use their own monograph funds
to purchase items from it.
8. Subject Councils
Ritch reminded the council that they should bring issues raised in the
Subject Councils to the attention of the Collections Council. In the
future, Ritch will work with the chairs of the Subject Councils to better
coordinate agendas so that issues of mutual interest can be discussed in a
timely fashion.