Library Office Notes

EBSCO is offering three new, free databases that contain articles from journals that are not, strictly speaking, academic in nature but may be of interest to certain disciplines.  Two are education-related databases of primary and secondary materials.   The third is a database of military journals.  Paula W. had announced these on libnews-l and asked for input regarding whether we wanted the databases to be accessible from our website.  There is definite interest in the three resources.  We discussed having direct links to them from the article database page as well as some other changes to the EBSCO top-pages to improve ease of access.  Paula will contact EBSCO to add links to additional free content within EBSCO Academic Search Elite (journals for which e-access is free with print, for example, through INGENTA).  David Ward and Lori DuBois, who established the existing configuration, will make the appropriate changes in the administrative module.

II. E-Journal Page Task Group

There are a few issues with regard to data entry for the E-Journals Page that it would be good to resolve before implementation of the new Gateway (e.g., standard names for publishers).  Becky and Mitzi volunteered to meet with Paula and Darlene Chirolas to formulate recommendations to bring back to the committee.

III. Gateway Implementation Policy Issues

We also agreed to schedule a special meeting with John Weible on Thursday, February 21, 2002, to discuss some policy issues for the new Gateway that were referred to EIRC by the Administrative Council..

IV. Report on the New York Times Historical Edition

Karen and Nuala reported on a review of the New York Times Historical Edition.   The interdisciplinary content is extremely valuable especially for reference purposes.  However, Proquest is adding content in a peculiar way that makes it impossible to know the level of completeness of results retrieved.  The interface does not provide for effective limiting, especially by date.  Paula pointed out that indexing and retrieval from newspapers is notoriously difficult and that the Chadwyck-Healey newspaper interface also has serious problems.  There was a suggestion that we compare the Proquest interface to the Chicago Tribune which we will have on trial soon.

We did not reach a final decision on whether we want to temporarily withdraw support from a product that is clearly still under development and instead fund something that offers high value in terms of both content and searchability.

V. Friends Supplementary Funding

We had a brief discussion of the possibility of using Friends Supplementary Funding for some of the e-resources that have been recommended for purchase.  As with non-recurring funds in er14, Friends funds could be used for multi-year short term funding of serial frequency items.

VI. Kluwer Proposal

Paula W. had circulated a proposal to the science librarians and EIRC regarding a possible way to purchase access to full text of all titles from Kluwer (priority 1 item for LSD and PSED, priority 4 for SSD, and priority 5 for CPS).  The proposal is to use the $9,000 in recurring dollars in er14 (fund 2001) "earmarked" on the "unfunded" list for BioOne and the Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences as a core of funding for the Kluwer journals.  (BioOne is priority 3 for LSD and the Encyclopedia is priority 5.) To this core would be added the ~$4,500 currently being paid in 20% surcharges for e-access to titles in their collections by Math, Physics, and Biology ($2,500 to $3,000 for 21 titles in math, ~$1,500 for 5 titles in physics, $300 for one title in Biology).  Math, Physics, and Biology would be asked to agree to maintain this commitment for the 3-yr. term of the CIC Kluwer agreement we would join.   The expectation is that the Library's budget situation will have improved substantially by FY05 and that the central fund will absorb the portion of the overall commitment supported by Math, Physics, and Biology.  Bill Mischo had been intending to add e-access to some Kluwer journals and has agreed to cover whatever shortfall in recurring money remains.

BioOne and the Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences will be funded this year on non-recurring funds with the hope that additional non-recurring funds can be found to continue these subscriptions until permanent funding is available.

The Committee endorsed the proposal.  In effect, the science libraries will subsidize systemwide access to the business, social science, and legal journals included among Kluwer’s 700 titles.

VII. Review Purchase Recommendations

The agenda framed the discussion as follows

Irrespective of dollars available ... which among the items requested should have our highest priority?  (Remember our guidelines "Produce the greatest good for the greatest number at the least cost BUT provide online resources to areas ignored in the past")

Janice pointed out how little had been done to support area studies and special collections, especially in comparison with the sciences.  She stressed the growing availability of resources in these fields and the importance of materials in vernacular languages to researchers in area studies.  After fairly brief discussion, the Committee recommended purchase of the Universal Database of CIS and Baltic Publications, the Universal Database of Parliamentary Papers, and the  MagazinePlus (Japanese Periodicals Index).  Three year contracts will be sought for these to be paid in advance from the non-recurring dollars in er14.  Paula W. will talk to Karen Schmidt about funding for the Digibis CD ROMs for Latin American.

Next meeting January 31, 2002, at 3 p.m.  Paula asked members to think about what should be our highest priority purchases.  Ideally, when we can reach consensus on what they are, we can figure out how to fund them.

Complete position announcements, including listings of the members of search committees, are available on the Library Human Resources website.  The URL is http://www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/human/positions/employment.htm

Support Staff Positions Open

Library Clerk II, 100%, Law Library
Library Clerk II, 100%, Law Library
Library Clerk III, 50%, Circulation Library
Library Clerk III, 50%, Asian Library
Library Clerk III, 100%, Government Documents Library
Library Technical Specialist, 100%, Music Library

(J. Lowder)