Present: S. Calpestri, J. Carter, R. Green, M. Mahoney, B. Ogden
(recorder), M. Phillips, A. Ritch (chair), A. Urbanic, B. Weil
1. Announcements.
Alan Ritch's last day in the Library before retirement will be March 15, 2002.
Two new librarians will be starting soon: Sarah McDaniel, a humanities
librarian (from USC) in May; Manuel Erviti, a music librarian (from Univ.
Illinois) in April.
2. Collections budget update.
Alan presented a model for collections budgeting for the next three fiscal
years. The model has several features and makes a number of assumptions
(documented in an Appendix below: "Three year planning model for special
uses of collections budget.") The major goals are:
- inflation coverage;
- collections support services (including processing);
- correction of a perception that the unspent funds indicate that there
are more collections funds than are needed.
Specific annual actions proposed include:
- at the request of Library Administration, dedicating $350,000 to
collections support services. $150K already has been allocated from
the collections budget; $100K previously earmarked for digitization
would be repurposed for collections support, including digitization;
$100K would be taken from the AUL-CD endowment for collections.
- budgeting AUL-CD 19900 funds adequate to cover anticipate inflation
in materials costs for the next three years;
- creating an annual one-time requests fund of $250K by budgeting $200K
from AUL-CD endowments and $50K from selectors 19900 carry forward funds.
Council members expressed general approval of the concept of using
collections funds to restore balance between acquisitions expenditures
and staffing costs. It was recognized that, even without the recent
anxiety about possible future cuts to the Library's budget, some funding
transfer was needed to address the current and growing imbalance which
was causing serious backlogs in the processing and payment of orders
and in cataloging. Concerns were raised regarding the transfer of
individual selector funds to the centralized one-time requests fund.
Alan has been to reduce a potentially embarrassing balance, and the
amount proposed is relatively modest (roughly 10% of the $1.5million
carried forward by selectors at the end of the last fiscal year).
Alan proposed that the Collections Budget Subcommittee (CBS) and
Jim Gordon look closely at the distribution of the selector balances
and bring to CC at its next meeting a specific proposal which would
share the impact as fairly as possible.
3. Collection development futures beyond March 2002.
Alan outlined several major roles he plays as AUL-CD for review for
continuation following his retirement. He suggested that a restructuring
of the ways in which the AUL-CD communicates with selectors may be in
order to address problems of fragmentation of communication created by
selectors reporting to different AULs. He invited Collections Council
members, as well as selectors, to send him email expressing ideas and
concerns relative to the future of CD activities. Comments can address
conducting CD business during the interim between AUL-CDs, as well
long range needs.
4. CMI Project update.
Cecily Johns (UCSB) currently is now working full-time for CDL, and
recently increased the level of project activity. Thus far, reports
indicate there were almost no requests for stored print versions of
project titles. A survey has been distributed to capture examples of
consultation with faculty in planning the CMI experiment.
5. Sharing the cost of digital resources.
UCB's success with increases in collections funds has led to an increase
in the percentage UCB contributes to UC shared digital resources funds.
In 1997, UCB's collections funds constituted 19% of all UC collections
funds; in 2001, UCB's collections funds were 24% of UC collections funds.
Using a running three-year average, UCB's contribution will be pegged
this year at 22%. Though Berkeley is contributing a larger percentage
than previously, the benefits far outweigh the additional costs; it is
estimated that the collective buying power of UC funds nets the Berkeley
community three times as much access as could be purchased by UCB acting
alone.
CBS will be convened to recommend a method for local cost sharing for
digital resources. Possible methods include: cost sharing based on
perceived value to subject selectors; a formulaic method, e.g., the
subject selector contributes half; a central DILIB allocation to cover
costs; and case-by-case review of titles by a committee such as CBS.
One concern suggested that because shared resources often are serials
there is little selector input, control, and accountability for continuing
costs and benefits of the subscribed titles, particularly those titles
of interest to several selectors.
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Appendix.
DRAFT three year planning model for special uses of collections budget.
This model represents a preliminary attempt to project over the next three
years the use of available collections funds, both 19900 and non 19900,
to subsidize collections support and collection development positions
costing approximately $350,000 annually, as requested by the Admin group
in December. The model, subject to adjustment as budget information
becomes clearer, is based on broadly estimated funding, to be confirmed
by Mike Rancer and Jim Gordon. It assumes the following:
A. Available funds
1. Over $1,768,000 of unallocated funds were available for FY2002.
2. This reserve is unlikely to be exhausted by inflation until 2005.
3. $155,000 have already been allocated annually to "access support"
but not yet used.
4. $100,000 provisionally allocated to "digitization program" will now
be taken from operations.
5. At least $3 million are available in one-time carryover 19900 funds.
6. Roughly half of this sum is held in centralized AUL managed accounts,
but this is where the unallocated funds (A1, above) are stored.
7. The rest is distributed among selector accounts, most plausibly
justified and defended.
8. About $3 million is also available in one-time non-19900 funds.
9. About $850k is available in AUL endowments.
10. Almost $500k is in large, fairly unrestricted funds:
e.g., aulhe $150k, humae $160k, silbe $124k.
11. Perhaps $100,000 could be legitimately used for collections support
positions, annually over 3 years.
12. Perhaps $200k/yr in AUL endowment funds could also be used to
support one-time requests.
B. Identified needs
1. Inflation is conservatively estimated to be 7.7% for serials and
2.5% for monographs.
2. Inflationary costs are optimistically estimated from $500k to $600k
in each of the next 3 years.
3. The total cost of inflation during this period is expected to be
about $1,647,000.
4. $355,000/yr has been provisionally committed to collections support
staffing.
5. $155,000/yr has already been allocated from 19900 funds (see A2 above).
6. $100,000/yr could come from AUL endowments (see A10 above).
7. Over $1.7m of requests for one-time and ongoing supplements were
received in the past two years, of which over $1m (2/3) were funded from
AUL accounts. The ability to meet these needs from AUL 19900 and endowment
funds would be substantially reduced.
C. Using carry-over funds.
One-time 19900 funds which have been carried over (A5) could also be used
either to extend a positive collections balance beyond 2005, or to increase
the funds allocated to collections support positions, or to add to the
funds available for one-time requests (B7). For example, we could set
a goal of $50,000 annually. Contributions to this sum from AUL and selector
funds could be based on some fair and reasonable formula, until the
carryover funds were exhausted.
Alan Ritch (distributed to Collections Council, 1/15/02)