Program Announcement
CSUL-S's summer program,
"Demystifying Systemwide Electronic Information Resources," will be held
on Friday morning, June 1, 2001, at the Chancellor's Office in
Long Beach. The program will feature current and former members of the
EAR Committee, who will speak about the structure and various functions
of the committee within the larger context of SEIR. This is an excellent
opportunity to learn more about the work and impact of this very influential
body within the CSU.
Program Summary
Recorded by Judith Downie
Brief introduction by CSUL-South President Barbara Quarton.
Lisa Moske: History, Structure and Vision
SEIR is based on a number of C’s--consortium, cooperation, connections and coordination.
SEIR was founded in 1989 with the support of the CSU Council of Library Directors (COLD).
This consolidates the purchasing power of 23 campuses to get better pricing and organize the renewals and reviews process.
Six staff members including herself and Evan Reader. (Provided some personal details on each one to reduce the impersonal remoteness.)
SEIR collaborates with SCELC, UC, and the California Community Colleges.
SEIR also maintains the contracts for resource delivery, beyond database licenses, this includes various library services and document delivery.
The SEIR website provides access to a variety of information: coded memos, subscription information for the SEIR and EAR listserves and past discussions of database features and reviews.
EAR is the standing committee that reports to COLD. It evaluates information from the CSUs on electronic resources. Members perform surveys and reviews. They serve two-year terms and are appointed by their library director. The committee consists of 2 deans, 8 librarians, 1 information resource manager, and the SEIR director and assistant director.
EAR locates new resources and reviews them in a weighted evaluation. They then make recommendations for which SEIR pursues pricing and license negotiations.
Mark Langston: EAR Committee Operations
His two-year term ended December 2000.
Four responsibilities: Meetings, benchmark criteria for decision-making, select for review, and special projects (ebook pilot project.)
Meetings are two days long, and are scheduled quarterly. These are open to all who wish to attend and are held at various locations.
Criteria documents used are "Principles for CSU Acquisition of Electronic Information Resources", guidelines for web site advertising, and guidelines for statistical measures of usage.
Resource identification--anyone in the CSU can recommend (through their SEIR contact person on each campus OR at EAR members) a resource for consideration. Refer to Principles document for criteria. The resource is scheduled for review (they try to review 3 each quarter) and the results are posted to the web site.
Special projects: ECC (electronic core collection), Journal Access Core Collection, Ebook Pilot Project.
EAR’s information is on the web (membership, minutes, criteria, reviews, etc.)
How to work with EAR: rely on contact, subscribe to EARINFO, and participate on the EAR committee.
Evan Reader: Common Core of Electronic Resources
ECC is the online bibliographic and full-text collection that supports the CSU Core Curricula (criteria is that 15 of the 23 CSUs must carry this subject.)
Criteria:
1 year of use
Multidisciplinary coverage
Retrospective coverage
Search capabilities
Local and remote accessibility
Minimal technical support by library staff
Technical capability
Economies of scale in price
Acceptance in the ECC is not permanent, each resource is subject to review every three years.
Begun with five databases and has grown to twelve by Evan’s count. Elsevier Science Direct will be added 7/1/01. The core collection provides access to 10,000 unique journals.
2000-01 FY saw the establishment of a permanent general fund allocation from the Chancellor’s Office. Costs run over $3,000,000 annually.
Distance Learning is supported by the work of SEIR.
Carol Bednar: Collection Development (local issues)
She was a 96-99 member of SEIR and worked on the criteria.
Inner EAR committee is CSUF’s version of EAR. It is split into 2 teams: Collection Development (print) and electronic. The list she has provided has astericks next to the positions that serve on both teams.
Keys to success:
Leader stays aware of deadlines and works as a team builder.
Commitment is to have a consistent meeting time slot and make sure to be there.
Have the support of library administration.
Have a support person (library assistant with good organizational skills).
Keep clear minutes and make available to all.
Let EAR do the work for you--don’t duplicate.
A printed list of databases considered, reviewed, etc is popular.
Mary Woodley: Cataloging Issues
Her department is hoping to move from campus to consortial level cooperation with the work they are doing.
"A serial record never dies" is the key to the challenges faced by cataloging. There are constant changes, even if the title changes and becomes another record.
Barriers to good records--no record at all, expensive to maintain, not retrospective…
Web site address with task force report on best approach (see handout).
Working to make records availability a part of the database evaluation.
[She presented in her final slide a set of four citations of which only two were on the handout. Here are all four citations:]
Britten, William A. and et al. Access to periodicals holdings information: creating links between databases and the library catalog. Library Collections, Acquisitions and Technical Services. 24:1 (Spring 2000), p. 7-20
Cary, Karen and Joyce L. Ogburn. Developing a consortial approach to cataloging and intellectual access. Library Collections, Acquisitions and Technical Services. 24:1 (Spring 2000), p. 45-51
Calhoun, Karen and Bill Kara. Aggregation or Aggravation? Optimizing Access to Full-Text Journals. http://www.ala.org/alcts/alcts_news/v11n2/gateway_pap15.html
Wakimoto, Jina. Taming the Aggregators: Providing Access to Journals in Aggregator Databases http://library.csun.edu/jwakimoto/NASIG2001JW.ppt
Question and Answer period
Who is responsible for maintenance of vendor-provided tutorials?
SEIR does not provide tutorials, this is the responsibility of the vendors and maintained on their sites.
How is committee travel funded?
Chancellor’s Office has a SEIR budget, but does not pay for travel for chair or vice-chair.
Has the UC system gone with single-record cataloging (in serials)?
The union
catalog is single, the library’s OPAC is controlled by individual
institution.
Seems workload of databases is increasing, especially in subject-specific
areas. Will this affect the structure of the committee in the
future?
There has not been discussion on different direction driven by workload. They don’t feel overwhelmed as they prioritize the offerings. ER added that some choices are limited by the fact that the resource is so focused it would not qualify for volume purchasing.
Is there a formal procedure for allotting time for EAR work?
Members must agree to a certain amount of time for the work knowing there are 6-10 reviews a year. 2-3 hours average in review of a product. Special projects do add more work.
Comment made on the quick turnaround on decision-making by each CSU whether to participate or not.
Check the minutes to see what is being discussed. Sometimes SEIR is given very short turnaround by vendors. SEIR tries for 1-3 months for evaluations. Watch for coded memos they are announced on EARINFO.
Will there be digital archiving?
Aggregators do not have the right to content. Publishers can give rights to access in perpetuity, but format can be a problem as there are not rights to the interface/search engine.
Request to include rationale for short decision turnaround in evaluation announcement.
Evan Reader will add.
Is ILL mentioned in Guidelines document? This causes problems with requests from non-members for loans/provision.
Not really. They will try to post terms and conditions on SEIR web.
Duplication of titles/deals (ER called it ‘churning’)
A better deal may come along, but we have to commit at some point and can’t wait forever. We are starting to sign multiple-year deals to cap annual increases. A CSU can add the database after the initial signup period and have it prorated, but that is not the most advantageous for the original price negotiation.
What is SEIR’s role when a database pulls a substantive part?
SEIR’s role is financial with no control over content. We should not have to continue to pay for the removed content. Language in our contract is to refund money when this happens. What is the next step? Go through normal process to try to replace as there is a lot of exclusivity going on.
Does SEIR have any role in adding content by an aggregator?
Not really our role, but if there is enough demand, it would be supplied by someone.
Why is a coded memo ‘coded’?
Tradition. Each memo is identified by the originator, year and order of publication.
Summary of Cataloging Segment
Recorded by Andrew Shroyer
"Consortial Buying! Consortial Cataloging?" (Segment to CSU-L South program, June 1, 2001 by Dr. Mary Woodley)
Speaking to a large group of librarians which included a mere handful of catalogers, Dr. Woodley emphasized common-sense aspects of the effort to develop a cooperative cataloging program for full text e-journals. It is simply not cost-effective for 23 campuses of the CSU to separately create records for the many thousands of full text e-journal titles that are purchased in common by CSU. The cooperative effort within the UC system, known as the California Digital Library (CDL), may provide a useful model, wherein one campus cataloging unit provides bibliographic records representing e-journal titles to all UC libraries. CSUšs Council on Bibliographic Control (COBC) has proposed to the CSU Library Directors the development of a consortial cataloging program for the CSU system. The question of single vs. separate records for titles held in paper but also accessed electronically presents a challenge for the CSU--while users may prefer a single record, not all campuses have the cataloging manpower to fashion combined access records where applicable. Other standardization issues need to be ironed out as well. Dr. Woodley emphasized that records need to be reviewed for quality control; automatic loading of record sets into OPACšs is not advisable without review and editing of records. Panelists seemed to concur that adoption of the COBC proposal would be quite desirable, with possible funding by the Chancelloršs Office. Dr. Woodley suggested that the EAR Committee include provision of bibliographic access (through record sets, or at, minimum, title-level URLšs) by vendors in evaluations of future database offerings.