Maine Shared Collections Strategy Project Team
February 13, 2013
Fogler Library Conference Room
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Attendees: Sara Amato (on phone), Clem Guthro, Barbara McDade, Matthew Revitt, Deb Rollins
Absent: James Jackson Sanborn
1. Project Updates
a. Collections Analysis
i. SCS – purchase update, data pull & planning session
Matthew reported that all of the paperwork for contracting with Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) had now been completed and signed by both the University of Maine and SCS.
Matthew commented that it had been a relatively smooth process in that nothing had to be changed in neither the proposal nor the sole source document for it to be approved. However, there were a few delays, initially caused by confusion in the UMaine purchasing department regarding whether a request for a PO had been submitted to Susan Clement (UMaine Fogler Library Financial Manager), then delays caused by Susan being absent and some clarification issues regarding how the work was going to be funded (see below for more details).
Matthew reminded the Project Team that since the last meeting the MSCS Technical Services Committee had decided to include in the data pull items created after 2005 and also bill status (for public libraries) for 60 days. However, SCS can use parameters to remove this data again should we so choose.
Sara has exported bibliographic records for print monographs for SCS. Sara reported that there had been some back and forth between herself, Rick Lugg and Andy Breeding (SCS) concerning the data pull to resolve issues, in particular for Bates because their item data did not go through.
Matthew noted that SCS appeared to be showing good due diligence in checking the data they received. There are still some issues which need to be addressed at Friday’s Planning Session. The questionnaires that Matthew has distributed to the MSCS Technical Services and Collection Development Committees will also be useful in identifying what data is available from library catalogs. Matthew reported that some committee members had been asking about the questions, so he hoped this meant they were being completed.
Unfortunately, the Bangor Theological Seminary Library (BTS) is closing, but both Colby College and Bangor Public Library hope to take materials from them to ensure they are retained and preserved. The Project Team and SCS have discussed whether BTS records should be included in the data pull. Concerns were expressed regarding whether including their data would delay the process. Sara felt that including the data would not delay things as III had previously been fast with processing export requests in Minerva. Venice (Maine InfoNet) has opened a call with III to have the export table match the URSUS export table, which would include additional fields such as circ data and item record number. Sara reported that about 50% of BTS records had OCLC numbers. The Project Team agreed that they would further discuss BTS records with SCS on Friday.
Matthew asked Clem (on behalf of Rick Lugg) whether the relocation of material from Colby’s Miller Library to off-site storage would affect SCS’s collection summary reports. Clem did not think so because the new location is just going to be treated as branch of the Library, but he will discuss this with Rick on Friday. Clem went on to update the Project Team on the progress of completing the storage facility. The facility will be ready on March 1st and materials need to be moved by May 21st. The facility is located ¾ mile from Colby on Washington Avenue in Waterville.
Matthew reported that the final details for Friday’s SCS Planning Session had been completed. There will be 20 persons attending in-person and Sara attending on Skype. Of those invited only Brian Damien (Portland Public), Mary Saunders (The State Library) and Barbara can’t attend. Whilst the Project Team were disappointed that Brian couldn’t attend (he is on vacation), he has passed on his thoughts to Sarah Campbell who will be representing Portland Public. In Mary’s absence, Peggy O’Kane alone will represent the Maine State Library. Barbara will be attending an URSUS Directors meeting, but she was confident that Christine Coombs and Judie Leighton could represent Bangor Public Library.
Matthew informed the Project Team that he will start Friday’s proceedings with an introduction to SCS, the purpose of the session, review the MSCS objectives (particularly useful for those who have not previously attended MSCS meetings), and update attendees on current grant activities.
Matthew received approval from the Project Team to post the SCS proposal on the MSCS website and hoped it would promote the work of MSCS. Matthew will remove pricing information from the version posted.
ii. OCLC WorldCat Collection Analysis – updates from ALA Midwinter
SCS Greenglass. Matthew first described a demo he had received of the SCS Greenglass product which SCS are marketing for individual library collection analysis. Matthew confirmed what Rick had thought when he came to visit the Project Team in December that the product will not be of use to MSCS because the focus of MSCS is group analysis. The product can only be acquired as part of the regular package of SCS services.
OCLC. Matthew updated the Project Team on what he had learnt at ALA regarding developments to OCLC’s WorldCat Collections Analysis (WCA) tool. Kathryn Harnish (OCLC) showcased the new version of WCA at the Print Archive Network (PAN) session. Kathryn responded to some of the issue other presenters had raised with WCA. These issues were familiar to MSCS and included: delays in receiving data back from OCLC and lack of data manipulation & reporting to facilitate analysis. Kathryn recognized that the current WCA product has issues and that it does not take advantage of new technologies. OCLC have stopped taking on new WCA projects for the past 6 months and are currently in the process of a pilot project with 10 groups. The pilot project ends in February 2013, with a general launch scheduled for May 2013 for one-to-one comparisons, and then a release including group comparisons in November 2013. Matthew reported that the product did look impressive and could have met MSCS’s needs had it be developed on schedule.
The Project Team were surprised that MSCS had not been updated by OCLC on these developments sooner.
b. OCLC Shared Print Symbol & 583 testing
i. OCLC comments at ALA Midwinter
Lizanne Payne at the Print Archive Network (PAN) discussed the OCLC Shared Print Symbol. Whilst she again emphasized that the symbol is not ideal, she did discuss the reasons for implementing them:
• OCLC believe that shared print items will circulate differently for example, in-library use only and circulate only to shared print partners.
• Separate symbols allow definition of different policies in OCLC Policies Directory, but will require separate processing queues, which is why the satellite fee is required for all ILLiad users.
• Share print items are usually low usage so using the ‘easy web interface’ in Worldcat Resource Sharing will not be problematic.
Lizanne also used Bangor Public Library and Bowdoin College as examples of projects piloting the symbols.
Matthew and other MSCS representatives also raised concerns with the fee at the OCLC shared print sessions at ALA Mid-Winter. Other attendees had not got as far as MSCS had with shared print symbols or had chosen not to use the symbol. One of the attendees wanted OCLC to conduct more analysis regarding how the symbol will be used before they implemented it. There were also concerns expressed regarding how the symbol will affect workflow and whether the fee structure will reduce ILL circulation.
Whilst the Project Team still does not agree with the satellite library fee, in order to meet grant objectives MSCS partner libraries are going to need to acquire the symbol and thus will incur the fee. Matthew will again raise the issue at the next Directors Meeting on March 28th.
ii. ILL Testing
Matthew reported that Guy Saldanha (Bowdoin) has had discussions with Atlas regarding workflow for shared print items. Atlas confirmed libraries need a satellite site which would cost $750 per year added to the annual license. Matthew and Sara were surprised when they heard this, because it was a price reduction from the $1,200 previously quoted! Atlas also confirmed that there is no way to have one site download and manage multiple OCLC symbols so you would need to login to each site separately for processing. Barbara responded that this would have a negative effect on workflow for ILL. Matthew shared the comment from a presenter at PAN that print preservation should be in the background something that is done, but without fuss. Issues with changing workflow to accommodate the symbol would make it too visible.
Guy has also produced an assessment of the comparative advantages/limitations of WorldCat Resource Sharing and ILLiad for processing MSCS items requested through Interlibrary Loan. Matthew has shared this document with Bill Carney (OCLC) and hopes OCLC will take note of our concerns.
iii. LHR OCLC Tool testing
Sara reported that this has been on hold whilst she completes the data dump for SCS.
iv. Communications with III – ‘n’ & ‘z’ field tags
After the previous Project Team meeting, Sara had produced and circulated to the Project Team a document with the current options for displaying retention and preservation information.
Sara reported that retention information had been successfully displayed in MaineCat Inn-Reach in the item record in the 856 field. However, further tests have been on hold while she completes the data dump for SCS.
c. HathiTrust
i. Consortial membership pricing & data pull
Sara compiled OCLC record number information for the HathiTrust pricing quote. Sara had originally hoped that while grabbing records for SCS (see above) she could pull serials as well, but unfortunately SCS dumps serials because they feel they can’t make good comparisons, and so they don’t include them in their analysis. Sara has had to take them out and pull separately for HathiTrust.
Clem felt that serials could be an issue for collections analysis because partner libraries have different catalog practices for them. Some catalog them individually and others as a group. Clem intends to raise the issue with SCS on Friday. Deb commented that those libraries who catalog serial items individually will just be the ones to commit to their retention and preservation.
Sara currently has all of the bibs, but just needs to pull the 001s and, for URSUS, sort them by school. She should have all the data sorted by the end of the week. Matthew will then send the data to Jeremy York (HathiTrust) to see if there are any cost savings to be had in consortial rather than individual membership.
ii. Authentication issues
Clem reported that Colby have implemented Shibboleth and that Bowdoin are beginning the process. He added that CBB (Colby, Bates, & Bowdoin) are going to discuss HathiTrust and also whether Shibboleth can be used for hosting a web version of III.
Deb reported that the University of Maine is still not ready to implement Shibboleth.
d. Budget
i. SCS funding sources – grant & partner contributions
Matthew reported that the grant is going to be charged $95,100 for SCS which will come out of the $105,600 budgeted for a programmer in Years 2 & 3, whose role has been replaced by a combination of SCS and Sara. The partners will contribute $3,335.84, which is the same amount they would have contributed if MSCS had chosen to continue with WCA. This is significantly less than they would have originally contributed for an Espresso Book Machine, but they will still be meeting their matching funds requirements.
ii. Update on spending for Grant Year 2
Matthew reported that he had received notification that IMLS had approved the MSCS budget reallocations.
Matthew updated the Project Team on current spending and compared it with what had been budgeted. In Year 2 MSCS had budgeted $65,000 for Sara’s System Librarian work, but so far, with only 4 months remaining of Year 2 left only $25,112.50 has been expended. This means there is $39,887.50 left to spend in Year 2 and another $60,000 for Year 3. When producing the revised budget, Matthew thought that Sara would be completing programming work for collections analysis, but because of the contracting of SCS this has not been materialized.
So far, for travel in Years 1 & 2 (both for in-state and out-state) MSCS has spent a total of $27,602.94. In the revised budget $35,991.45 was allocated which leaves a total of $8,388.51 for the remainder of Year 2 to cover WebWise, project meetings, and Timberline conference costs.
There is also $15,000 budgeted for III services in Year 2 and $2,000 for Print-On-Demand (POD) testing in Years 2 & 3.
Matthew asked the Project Team to consider MSCS related activities that could be funded by grant funds for example, consortial membership of the HathiTrust.
Clem responded that MSCS still needs to address how to implement E-book-On-Demand (EOD) and Print-On-Demand (POD) into MaineCat. Now that some of the authentication issues are beginning to be addressed (see above) MSCS needs to start looking at, for example, getting HathiTrust records into MaineCat. This is going to require programming which the Project Team wants Sara to work on and also work which III would needed to be paid for. Depending on how HathiTrust is implemented it could almost be like adding another library to the catalog.
Clem also suggested that grant funds could be used to bring Jeremy York (HathiTrust) to speak at the Maine InfoNet Collections Summit with Constance Malpas about the HathiTrust. Jeremy could also attend MSCS project groups (with the Advisory Board) to discuss (possibly lead workshops) more specifically about how HathiTrust could be used in MaineCat. Matthew will speak to Jeremy about whether he is available for the dates of the Summit and Advisory Board visit. Matthew will also seek advice on whether it would be permissible to use grant funds to pay for this work.
A discussion then ensued regarding different options for accessing HathiTrust records in MaineCat. The first option is that patrons of the partner libraries can only access e-versions of items that libraries have in the HathiTrust. The second option is that everything that HathiTrust have in the public domain is made accessible. The Project Team agreed that only the second option would ensure the grant objective of EOD is implemented. Another issue to be investigated is whether just links to HathiTrust items are added, or whether entire new records are brought in.
Barbara asked Clem how it would work if a Bangor patron requested a HathiTrust item held by Colby. Clem responded that it would be handled as an ILL request, but the patron would be given choice of: read online, PDF delivery, or receive a printed copy.
The Project Team requested that Matthew speak to Sara about options for implementing HathiTrust. Clem recommends that a good starting place for Sara would be to speak to John McCullough Vice President, Product Management at III about integration between MaineCat and HathiTrust.
Clem also reminded Matthew that travel to the IFLA Conference (see below) would be costly, so any travel funds remaining from Year 2 could be used towards those costs.
e. IMLS Interim Financial Report
i. Issues with submission to IMLS
Matthew reported that he, Deb, and Susan Clement had been having some serious issues with ensuring the MSCS Interim Financial Report was submitted to IMLS. The report should have been produced and submitted by The University of Maine Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP) by December 31st 2012. However, Deb received a delinquent report notification from IMLS for this report.
After contacting ORSP about this report, Matthew was told that it had been submitted, but after checking with IMLS Matthew was informed that they had not received it. He then had difficulty in identifying someone to take responsibility for ensuring that the report was submitted and also in getting a copy of the reports to look at. It was only after getting Joyce Rumery (Dean of Libraries, University of Maine) and Mike Hasting (Director of ORSP) involved that it was finally submitted on February 11th. Matthew also received notification from IMLS that they had received the report. Matthew has still not received an explanation for why the report was not submitted on deadline, but he will send out reminders to ORSP when the next set of report are due.
Matthew has asked Susan Clement to compare the figures in the reports with what she has for actual spending to ensure they match.
f. MOU
i. Comments from Maine InfoNet Board Meeting
Matthew asked Clem and Barbara, who attended the meeting, what had been said regarding the MOU. Clem responded that the Board felt that the wording in the MOU was still unclear regarding how many Executive Committee members are required and their term limits. Concerns were again raised with the potential disproportional influence of smaller libraries. Therefore the MOU has been referred to the Maine InfoNet By-Law Group (Barbara and David Nutty, USM) to look at the governance structure of MSCS. This Group will then rewrite parts of the MOU and report back to the Maine InfoNet Board with their findings.
g. Maine Policy Review article
Matthew informed the Project Team that he had been asked by Joyce to produce a sidebar article on MSCS for an issue of the Maine Policy Review that will be on the topic of libraries. Matthew has a draft version completed and will submit a final version by Tuesday 19th February.
2. Conferences & Meetings
a. ALA Midwinter – MSCS representatives feedback
i. PAN session, January 25, 2013
Matthew, Sara, Clem, and Joyce attended the Print Archive Network (PAN) Session at ALA (some of the issues discussed are also covered above). Matthew found it interesting how many different types of shared print projects there are. He also hoped that MSCS would be invited to speak at the next PAN Session. Clem suggested that perhaps a discussion of using HathiTrust data in the collection analysis decision-making process would be interesting, because most other projects have not used this to base retention, preservation and de-accessioning decisions on.
The MSCS IMLS Performance Report was included amongst the PAN project update reports.
ii. OCLC sessions, January 25 -26, 2013
Matthew, Sara, Clem, and James attended OCLC Shared Print User Sessions at ALA (some of the issues discussed are covered above). Matthew reported that the sessions took the form of a focus group with OCLC wanting to hear more from the library representatives than expressing their own opinions.
Bill Carney, who is the OCLC Shared Print Community Liaison, presented a concept of an OCLC Shared Print project that he wanted to get feedback on. It was only a concept, so the details are still a bit sketchy, but essentially it involved larger libraries being financially rewarded for agreeing to retain and preserve materials and smaller libraries would contribute to the cost of storage. The benefit for larger libraries is the revenue source and the benefit for smaller libraries is they can reduce their storage costs, whilst still ensuring their patrons can access the materials. Clem responded that it is similar to an idea Barbara had for Maine with larger and smaller libraries. However, whilst Clem felt the concept was sound, there are going to be issues with differences in resource sharing protocols. Also, the current OCLC business models do not work for the majority of smaller libraries, like those in Maine.
Matthew had commented at the sessions about the difficulties in identifying the dividing lines between SCS and OCLC. Kathryn Harnish responded directly to him that she felt the relationship was ‘coopetition’ (which was a new word for the Project Team). SCS use OCLC data, but are a separate company that offers some different services, in particular the consulting side to go alongside the data. Kathryn also covered the differences at the joint OCLC & SCS session she and Rick Lugg (SCS) delivered titled ‘OCLC Collection Analytics: Using Data to Drive Decisions’.
iii. ALCTS CMS Collection Evaluation and Assessment IG, January 23rd, 2013
Matthew attended the ALCTS CMS Collection Evaluation and Assessment IG session. The 2 presentations looked at using data to make decisions regarding which publishers to acquire books from and strategies for delivering E- Patron Driven Acquisition rather than purchasing print copies.
Matthew put his name down for speaking at future ALCTS events which Clem commented are usually good sessions.
c. Speaking Opportunities
i. Timberline Conference, Mt. Hood, Portland Oregon, May 18 – 21, 2013 – MSCS paper approved
Sara proposal was accepted by The Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge for the 2013 Timberline Conference. She will be presenting on Sunday May 19th from 3:30 – 4:15 PM. The grant has paid for Sara’s registration (which includes meals) and she will submit a claim for 2 nights at the lodge.
Also presenting at the conference will be representatives from the Michigan Shared Print Initiative (MI-SPI).
ii. 2013 IFLA Conference, Singapore, 17 – 23 August, 2013 – MSCS paper
Matthew will be notified whether, or not he was successful by February 28th, 2013.
d. Advisory Board May Visit update
Matthew has informed the Advisory Board that the Project Team had agreed upon the dates of their visit. Matthew had the chance to briefly discuss the visit with the Board members at ALA Midwinter and has booked them hotel rooms for 3 nights from the 22nd May -25th May.
Matthew asked the Project Team what they thought the Advisory Board should present on at the Maine InfoNet Collections Summit. Clem responded that Matthew should check with Jeremy York first (see above), but if possible have Jeremy and Constance present for 20 minutes each (with time for questions) on the HathiTrust. Clem would like to know their availability sometime in the next 3 weeks.
Matthew also reminded the Project Team that on at least one of the nights the Board are here he will arrange a meal with them, Jeremy York (if he can attend), and MSCS representatives.
3. Upcoming meetings
a. Feb 15, Friday, 10- 3:30, SCS Planning Session, Colby College, Robins Room in Roberts Union
Deb asked Matthew if he knew how long it would take SCS to get data back to MSCS by. Matthew responded that in the proposal it was a couple of weeks – by the end of March.
Both Deb and Clem wanted to come away from Friday knowing when we can have the data by, so there is enough time to arrange follow up meetings with MSCS groups.
b. March 6 – 8, WebWise Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World, Baltimore, MD
Matthew and Deb will be attending the 2013 WebWise Conference. Matthew intends to sign up to deliver a ‘Lightning Lunch’ presentation on MSCS. Deb suggested it might be possible for both of them to present at different tables.
c. March 13, Project Team Meeting, Fogler Library
d. March 28, Directors Council Meeting, Colby College Miller Library