Northern Kentucky University

December 12, 2008

Steely Library – Room 510

Present:

Arne Almquist, Lois Schultz, Yasue Kuwahara, K.C. Russell, Thomas Heard, Vicki Culbreth, Katherine Kurk

Not present:

Lane Clarke, Greg Martin

Arne began the meeting with a welcome and opening remarks followed by introductions around the table.

Arne gave a current update that we may face a substantial budget cut and that we have 1½ positions waiting to fill.

He also reported that we just completed a grant application that will benefit the new Library Informatics Bachelors of Science degree. The new program will be an online program in partnership with Bluegrass Community College, which currently offers an Associates degree in Library Technology. The proposed grant project will work to help move non-degreed library directors and library employees through the bachelors program, hopefully increasing the numbers of library employees moving on to the Masters degree. This should help to improve library services in the at-risk areas of Kentucky. Statistics show that 1/3 of all public library directors in the state lack any degree at all. We will find out in late spring/early summer if we receive the grant. We are going to CPE shortly for final approval of the program and hope to accept applications for the program for Fall 09. This program will help the state of Kentucky and provide a service of great interest to other areas of the country as well.

Arne reported on the current status of SACS – we are addressing various questions from the team.

STEGO sculpture on the 3rd floor – the artist, Pat Renick, recently deceased. The unveiling ceremony will be held January 23rd or 24th. Assembly day was exciting. The donor, Laura Chapman, had all the workers sign the inside of one of the doors and some of the artist’s ashes were placed inside the sculpture.

New signage (W. Frank Steely Library) has been installed at the fountain entrance to the Library, replacing the former Welcome Center sign.

Lois Schultz reported on the status of the electronic journals project. We have been gradually doing this but we accelerated the move this year. Faculty and students like to be able to access from home. Stats (see handout). We saved over $9,000 by converting all our Elsevier journals to electronic. The 5 most expensive journal titles are still in print and would cost $25,000 to switch. Labels are being placed on shelves to indicate when hard copies have been replaced by electronic. Usage stats will be used to help determine whether titles will be added or cancelled. Ten years ago, before the rise of electronic journals, we had approximately 1,700 journal titles. Three years ago, projections were made that if we didn’t get additional ongoing funding to cover journals inflation or do something with journals there would be no money for new books. With the new collection development model, we have increased the number of journal titles and have grown our ILL/document delivery capabilities. We were also able to purchase some important new database titles this year. Interlibrary Loan is still very effective. The Library subsidizes its use for faculty and students. Kathy asked for a list of journals that were cancelled and asked if it was broken down by college. Lois indicated that many titles were interdisciplinary. Arne said we can provide that as well as put it on the ULAC site. If we had not gone electronic, inflation of 9-10% would have caused us to cancel and cut book monies. In addition, our patron-driven acquisition service was discussed. We purchase items that we cannot get via ILL, limiting the purchases to 5 items per person at no more than $100 per item.

Allocation Formula Subcommittee – Lois said this committee was created 5 years ago to create a formula for allocating book funds among departments. Initially grad programs were not included. They were added and now it’s time to review again with potential changes to be made based on the new serials model and to address independent programs (interdisciplinary and programs not connected to any single department, e.g., Honors and Univ. 101). One other issue for the committee to consider is that some departments that don’t need books want to turn back some monies - tell us early in the process.

Three ULAC members volunteered to serve on the subcommittee: Lane, Greg & Tom. A meeting time was proposed and an open call was made for additional volunteers. Lois didn’t anticipate a tremendous overhaul, just minor updating.

Arne indicated that after the deadline, any remaining monies are combined and the Library’s Collection Management Team purchases large dollar items. Arne noted that we have a monthly report that is generated and sent after the first of the month w/balances. He suggested pulling the last 3 years of April reports for comparison - Lois will provide to the subcommittee.

Arne mentioned the Milburn Outstanding Professors Portrait area – somewhere along the line we stopped getting portraits and it was brought to our attention by the donor. We have developed a plan to highlight the area - a lighting and signage proposal has been requested and we are looking for independent funding for a lounge area. Lois suggested using the bookcase to highlight faculty books. It was decided to keep the awards in a scholarly environment vs. social one (e.g., the new Student Union). New books will be moved to the first floor.

Lois discussed the renaming of our information brokerage service (ILL, document delivery, patron-requested purchasing). She indicated that the service, provided through the Illiad interface, was a trial for the first 2 years. We would like to have a new name that can unify these three services in the minds of users. Lois passed out a handout of potential names for people to view/vote. Everyone made their selections and returned them to Lois.

Lois mentioned recent additions – we have been keeping some money for collection enhancement. One new product is SCOPUS (an Elsevier product). We have had very positive feedback and have decided to move forward with it. The product is comparable to Web of Science. One nice feature is the ability to do citation analysis. We have also added Premier version of Project MUSE and Cochran for Nursing, an electronic collection of research, surveys and reports. We remain the only institution in KY to have purchased the entire JSTOR collection.

Kathy asked about the Ellison die and laminator equipment for student teachers and how to make that more accessible. Arne said a formal plan for a glass enclosed “production room” on the third floor is in the works, money permitting, and that it is one of the projects for which we are actively fundraising.

Arne mentioned that we are purchasing additional space on our server to house one new COB resource of stock quote information. The product consists of over 800 DVD’s of back data.

Arne also commented on our theft problem. Custodians are finding security tags stripped from books in the waste receptacles. They appear to be- random materials possibly for resale. DPS has been consulted.

Tom Heard asked if we are continuing to purchase a title that was checked out from net library 3-times or more; Lois, no. Arne said there was a consortium of 3 libraries at first and it is no longer happening.

Adjourned for a Library tour with Arne.