Maine Shared Collections Strategy Project Team
January 9, 2014
Fogler Library Conference Room
8:00 – 10:00 AM
Attendees: Sara Amato (called in), Clem Guthro, James Jackson Sanborn, Barbara McDade, Matthew Revitt, Deb Rollins
1. Project Updates
a. HathiTrust/Google Books & POD
i. Loading records into Solar update & finding new home for records
Sara has successfully loaded records into MaineCat with Google Books, HathiTrust links, and the Print-On-Demand (POD) request option. As agreed at the December 11th Project Team meeting Matthew sent a message on the MELIBS, URSUS, and MEINFO listservs announcing the news. Matthew received a couple of positive comments from subscribers and queries about the services. Since this first batch of records there was a short stoppage as Sara investigated issues with false results for downloadable PDF availability in Google Books and also looked at tracking uses (see below). Sara has now successfully addressed these issues and redid the load table. The Google link will now only appear when there is a downloadable copy.
James reported that Solar is due to be discontinued in July 2014, so there will need to be a new location for these records and a new way to move these records to MaineCat. A possible solution is to set up a new reference collection in the new Small Library System. However, James commented that Maine InfoNet still needs to look into this as he is not sure whether this would be the correct use of the Small Library System. Clem commented on the dangers of overloading local systems with 1.6 million records. Deb and Clem suggested that the records could reside in URSUS with a new branch added to be associated with the records.
James agreed that Maine InfoNet will look into different storage options and report back to the Project Team on their progress.
Sara has been speaking to Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet) about requesting that Innovative Interfaces, Inc. increases the size of the bib temp file limit in MaineCat, so she can load more records at a time.
ii. Tracking EOD/POD hits
Bob Kieft had mentioned in one of his comments in the Advisory Board report that there was a way to track to see how much demand there might be for POD vs. number of uses online. Since then, Sara and Maine InfoNet staff looked into various tracking options and have managed to successfully turn Google Analytics on for tracking outbound link events in records.
Sara showed a screenshot from Google Analytics of events that have been set up to track clicks to the POD Request Form, Google Books link, and HathiTrust link. The Project Team agreed that these figures will make for interesting reporting to IMLS.
iii. POD requests
Two weeks ago (December 27th) MSCS received its first Print-On-Demand (POD) request for The Invisible Flag by Peter Bamm (on the subject of the Second World War). This title was viewable in the HathiTrust, but couldn’t be downloaded in Google Books, and was only available as a full download to patrons of a HathiTrust partner. As UMaine aren’t a partner yet Matthew had Clem download it and send it to him so Matthew could submit to the UMaine Print and Mailing Services for printing. Clem commented that he been able to download the book even though he hadn’t even been at Colby and that using Shibboleth the login process had been very smooth.
Matthew received the printed book back from Print & Mailing Services on Tuesday January 7th. Matthew commented that because the request was in the holiday period it took them a bit longer than the usual 2-3 business days to fulfill the request, but as he sent out the book yesterday it should still be within the predicted two weeks period. The cost of printing is going to be approximately $20 for a 205 page book, which is less than they charged before, and is cheaper than copies available on Amazon. The Print & Mailing Services will charge one of MCS’s grant account numbers directly and Matthew will monitor the spending so it doesn’t exceed the amount allocated. Matthew will also ensure the grant is charged for posting and packaging, which he will handle at Fogler.
At the end of this month, Matthew will send out the POD feedback survey form to requesters.
Matthew reported that he had added screen shots to the POD/EOD guidance on the MSCS website to help users better navigate the services.
Matthew asked the Project Team whether with only one request submitted thus far he should publicize the service more widely including on the MSCS website and Twitter account.
Clem responded that one request did not make a business model, so that if by the end of the month there had not been any more requests the service should be more widely publicized. Deb asked Sara what percentage of records had been loaded thus far. Sara responded that 1/5 – 1/4 of the total amount of records had been loaded.
The Project Team agreed that Matthew should wait until all the EOD/POD records have been loaded before sending out further message about the services on Maine library listservs.
iv. Building HathiTrust custom collections
Sara and Deb have been corresponding with Jeremy York (HathiTrust) about building a local interest “Maine” custom collection in the HathiTrust which can be created and regularly updated by Deb and others at UMaine in batches–without having to add items individually. Deb commented that this was something Richard Hollinger Head of UMaine Fogler Library’s Special Collections had been keen to create.
Using Jeremy’s instructions, Sara attempted to build a collection based on an advanced full text search where the subject is “Maine”. However, she ran into some issues which Jeremy had to assist her with. Matthew commented that the fact that these issues hadn’t been identified before suggests it is not a widely used service. Deb responded that there are some custom collections already in HathiTrust. Sara commented that the issues arose when she was trying to build a collection of more than 1000 items. Since HathiTrust had fixed the issues with the advanced full text search it took less than an hour using the advanced search full text interface to manually create the “Maine” collection. Sara commented that while tedious, it’s easily doable. However, one downside was that Sara couldn’t find a way to exclude things from a search like “Maine (France)” and “Maine (Battleship)” items. Also, there appeared to be no way to get only recently added items, but it’s easy to remake the collection (though it appears you either need to delete the items – a slow process – or make a new collection which has a new URL). Sara started with out of copyright items since it was quicker to test, but she confirmed for Deb that it’s possible to have both in and out of copyright items included in the collection.
Deb commented that Sara shouldn’t worry about trying to exclude items from the collection. Sara will share the collection with Deb once it is indexed. Sara commented that ideally there should be functionality to allow saved searches that could be run to ‘refresh’ a collection.
v. Membership update – UMaine’s progress
James reported that although Shibboleth is up and working at the University of Maine there are still some issues between how UMaine IT and HathiTrust want to release the partner attributes. UMaine want to release it for all of maine.edu, but HathiTrust want it restricting to UMaine Orono only as only they are becoming a HathiTrust partner (not the whole of the UMaine System).
James confirmed for Deb that he had made Joyce Rumery (UMaine Dean of Libraries) aware of the issues because she had asked Deb and Matthew how the partnership process was progressing.
Deb commented that it needs to be made clear to UMaine IT that to meet MSCS grant requirements, UMaine needs to have paid to become a member before May 2014. Clem commented that it was understandable that UMaine would not pay for something they could not use.
James agreed to continue to speak to UMaine IT about addressing this issue and if necessary ask Joyce to contact Dick Thompson (UMaine Chief Information Officer).
vi. IA links
Matthew commented that there had been previous discussions about including links to Internet Archive items in MaineCat, alongside those to Google Books and HathiTrust. Matthew asked the Project Team whether this was something it still wanted Sara to investigate.
Clem responded that perhaps this question should be raised at the next MSCS Collection Development Committee meeting on January 14th, 2014. Clem went on that the answer might be that nothing should be loaded because the items available in the Internet Archive are such as mixed bag and are often in formats that will not be supported by libraries, so would be a burden to staff. As a result of issues with format, Colby had chosen to not turn on the discovery of the Internet Archive in Summon. James commented that it would involve a lot of training for libraries in MaineCat to understand the different formats, which would be made even more difficult because Maine InfoNet are currently without a systems training and support librarian.
Sara reported that from a brief look at Internet Archive formats and records she concurred that it would not be a straightforward process to load the records.
Matthew suggested that based on these comments rather than taking this decision to the Collection Development Committee the Project Team makes a decision that MSCS will not proceed with investigating including Internet Archive links in MaineCat. Clem commented that MSCS had looked at Internet Archive collection overlap with SCS, but because they are not uniform records it was not possible to provide EOD links and this can be reported to IMLS. Matthew commented that MSCS had already achieved a lot by having links to Google Books and HathiTrust in MaineCat.
The Project Team agreed to not investigate loading links to Internet Archive items in MaineCat.
b. IMLS reports
i. Performance & Financial Reports submitted
Matthew thanked the Project Team for their comments on the IMLS performance report. Matthew submitted the report to UMaine’s Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP) who in turn submitted it to IMLS on deadline (before December 31, 2013). A copy of the report is now on the MSCS website. Matthew commented that MSCS received a message back from IMLS saying that the report had been approved, thanking them for submitting such a detailed report, and that it was good to learn some of the challenges faced and how MSCS continue to figure out the best strategy to achieve the desired results.
Matthew sent multiple reminders to ORSP about them submitting the financial report which was due before December 31, 2013, but neither he nor Deb received a confirmation of submission, so Matthew contacted ORPS again this week and on Wednesday (January 8th) he and Deb were cc. in ORPS submitting it to IMLS. Matthew commented that after ORSP staff had been so helpful in other areas of the grant it was disappointing that again the report had not been submitted on deadline, despite his multiple reminders. Matthew will report this issue to Joyce Rumery (UMaine Dean of Libraries). The Project Team agreed that this delay was not good for the reputation of the grant or UMaine.
c. Budget
i. Budget vs. actual spending update
Matthew presented an update of MSCS spending spreadsheet to reflect some actuals including Sara’s latest invoice. Matthew added projected travel costs for Deb and Sara to attend ALA Annual 2014 and a reduction in costs for WebWise because of Matthew and Alisia attending together. Matthew also added funds to pay for part of Sara’s travel costs to attend the OCLC Developer House (see below) and removed Facilities and Administrative costs for specific ALA charges that won’t be charged the fee.
It appears that MSCS haven’t been billed yet for the OCLC batch loading. Matthew has sent the batch loading service team an email about MSCS billing requirements, but he has not received a response. Bill Carney should also have made it clear to them that MSCS wanted the grant to be charged via the UMaine OCLC Symbol. Matthew has asked Sara next time she corresponds with the batching loading team to ask for further information on billing, so MSCS know whether to expect the bill in the grant period. Clem and Deb confirmed that OCLC usually bill monthly and include one off charges.
Based on current projected spending and funds encumbered and allocated for Matthew and Sara, MSCS have $1,794.68 that is not currently allocated. The Project Team were pleased that it was no longer a large amount.
ii. National end of project event planning – review agenda, costs, and approaching presenters
Mathew reported that the title and agenda for the event had gone through several changes since he had first shared it with them for editing and comment, but he is pleased with the content and presenters, and thinks it will be attractive to potential attendees. Matthew commented that he was very close to having a version of the agenda he can discuss with presenters and at the PAN meeting in two weeks (as Bob has given him a couple of minutes to let attendees know about the session). However, there were a few outstanding questions that Matthew had that he went through with the Project Team:
● Matthew asked whether the Project Team were O.K. with the length of the session (not including lunch) being just under 4 hours? Matthew thought that any longer than this would be too much for a pre-conference.
The Project Team debated the need to allocate more time for lunch based on previous of experiences of finding restaurants at conferences. Matthew commented that there should be plenty of restaurants if the meeting was held near the Convention Center, but he was less sure if they had it at UNLV (see below). Clem commented that one hour was only enough if it was catered at the event.
The Project Team agreed that an extra 15 minutes should be added to lunch which means the event will now end at 3:00 PM.
● Matthew asked whether having 30 minutes of speaking time and 15 minutes set aside for questions (except for the the group discussion and the introduction and closing remarks) was acceptable? Matthew commented that as this was a pre-conference event he wanted the chance for audience interaction.
The Project Team agreed that the times allocated were acceptable.
● Following the last Project Team meeting Matthew and Clem discussed having Ben Showers from the UK National Monograph Strategy present and Matthew had agreed that it was a good idea to invite Ben, even if he was just virtually using Skype because the discussion needed a national (and international) perspective. Matthew contacted Ben to see if he was interested and Ben replied that he was and that he would get back to Matthew after Christmas to confirm whether or not he could attend in-person.
Matthew commented that he would prefer it if Ben could attend in-person to avoid potential technical issues with using Skype. Clem commented that the eight hour time difference between the UK and PST could also be an issue should Ben join remotely.
Matthew agreed to contact Ben again to see whether he can attend in-person.
● The one session where there is the most uncertainty is the digital collections one. Jeremy York has said that either he or the yet-to –be-appointed chair of HathiTrust’s distributed print archiving network project would present. But the real issue is who else MSCS gets to speak on this topic. Originally, Matthew was in favor of having someone from Google Books present as he thought it would be interesting and would attract attendees, but after speaking to Jeremy York and Bob Kieft he was not so sure, as it appears Google really don’t have anyone equipped to discuss this sort of issue as it’s not something they consider. They just hope lots of people view the digital copies. Interestingly though Jeremy’s Google Books contact also didn’t think that libraries should get rid of the print copies, though libraries might want to reduce the overall number if certain copies are identical. Both Bob and Jeremy think that having someone from a Google partner library would be the best way to go. Or MSCS could do as Bob suggested and include a more general discussion beyond HathiTrust and Google of reading devices and software, different kinds of books being digitized, readers’ stated preferences and reading practices, different library settings, etc.
Matthew commented that he was concerned that Google Books would want to focus on the digitalization process, which is an interesting subject, but not particularly germane to the subject of shared print.
Matthew had decided that there was insufficient time to also have presenters from the Digital Public Library of America and Internet Archive in this session.
Matthew asked the Project Team for their thoughts on potential presenters and subjects.
Both Sara and James commented that they were in favor of having someone from Google Books presenting as it would be good to hear their perspective. Barbara commented that the comment from Jeremy’s Google Books contact about not relying on digital copies was very interesting and showed they had thought about this issue. Deb commented that when researching a presentation she delivered on Google Books she had quoted James Crawford (former Google Books Engineering Director) who had interesting things to say about using their digitized material. Deb suggested that perhaps the description needs changing to better reflect what someone from Google Books is able to discuss.
The Project Team agreed that they would still like someone from Google Books to present.
● Matthew commented that the group discussion should be an interesting one. Bob is going to speak to Andrew Stauffer this week to see whether he would be interested in presenting. Matthew asked the Project Team for their thoughts on this session.
Clem commented that he had heard Andrew speak at a MLA event and that he had some interesting things to say about 19th century reading habits and looking at what people write in books, not necessarily the books themselves.
The Project Team were happy with the subject and presenters.
● Matthew has contacted Emily Stambaugh about presenting at the event, but had wanted to wait until the agenda was more final before he asked her to be keynote.
The Project Team agreed that Matthew should approach Emily to be the keynote speaker and that MSCS would pay her a stipend.
● Matthew asked Clem whether he wanted to deliver both the introduction and closing remarks.
Clem agreed to deliver both the introduction and closing remarks.
Now that there is agreement on the agenda, Matthew will approach all presenters.
In terms of logistics for the event:
● Matthew has spoken to ALA Housing and has created an account to schedule a meeting should MSCS decide to go that route. Matthew commented that it seems a pretty straightforward process, but he will need to make sure they understand MSCS want to book space for longer than their standard two hour session.
● Bob Kieft has also been in contact with UNLV about using space there. Matthew intends to compare rates between them and ALA. Matthew commented that there were some potential downsides of having the meeting at UNLV, one being that that the campus is 3 miles from the conference convention center which might put off drop-ins, and those who want to easily get to and from other sessions, also food options required walking.
The Project Team agreed that they preferred the event to be close to the conference center and so Matthew should look at booking ALA meeting space.
● In light of the fact that MSCS is no longer providing lunch and would be booking meeting space well in advance, Matthew asked whether there still needs to be pre-registration.
The Project Team agreed that pre-registration was still a good idea because if attendee numbers were higher than anticipated, steps could be taken to address this. Matthew will setup a pre-registration form.
d. MSCC Sustainability
i. Post-grant activities – planning ideas
There had been a discussion at the last Project Team meeting about Maine InfoNet providing statistics for MSCS libraries borrowing from non-partner libraries. Matthew asked James whether Maine InfoNet had looked into compiling these stats. James responded that he had not yet asked his staff to look into this, but he will do so.
Matthew commented that as things stand, other than the MSCS Collections & Operations Committee (to be formed) meeting to address retention issues that weren’t got to in the grant period the Project Team haven’t identified any further activities in the short-medium term (with further collection analysis no sooner than 5 years away) which current MSCC libraries are likely to be involved with and therefore be willing to pay for. Barbara responded that not having further activities would not been in keeping with the business model described in the MSCC Memorandum Of Understanding.
Matthew has spoken to Lizanne Payne about Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) financial model and she explained that the fees that WEST members pay cover three cost categories: Archive Builders receive a financial subsidy to help them consolidate and validate holdings for Silver and Gold titles. Their fees also cover collections analysis costs of using PAPR, and project management (program manager and data analyst and consultant). Deb commented that WEST is able to use this model because it only has academic partners who were able to pay for such services.
Barbara commented that smaller libraries are unlikely to be willing to pay for MSCC libraries to store materials on their behalf; they would look to the Maine State Library and ARCC libraries to take responsibility and pick up the costs. Barbara felt that there should be legislative enforced reimbursements for holding collections on behalf of other libraries. Clem expressed doubts that this could be achieved. A discussion then ensued regarding the types of libraries that would be willing and able to pay for storage services.
Clem commented that currently MSCS only have anecdotal evidence regarding the Maine library communities’ storage needs. Therefore he suggested that MSCS survey Maine libraries to ask them about their storage needs, whether they are downsizing their collections, but have preservation concerns, their thoughts on a last copy center, and what they would be willing to pay for collections analysis, retention, preservation, and storage services. The survey should be sent out on MELIBS and a physical copy should also be sent out to libraries
The Project Team also discussed the need to organize an event in Maine to report on the work of the grant and recruit new members. Matthew commented that previously the Maine InfoNet Collection Summit had been mentioned as a possible location. A discussion then ensued about whether the survey should be sent out before an event or after. Matthew thought that survey results should be discussed at the meeting (similarly to the Northeast Regional Print Management Project). The Project Team agreed that the survey should come with a two page description of the work of MSCS, so no one hears about MSCS for the first time at the meeting. The Project Team recognized that not all libraries would be interested in this work or respond to the survey, but at least MSCS would have a clearer idea of the storage needs of libraries.
Matthew agreed to work on the survey and accompanying MSCS description.
e. Collection Analysis
i. Allocation estimates from SCS – comments from Collection Development Committee
Following the last Project Team meeting, Matthew checked back with Andy on a few issues that had been raised at the meeting. Andy confirmed that the Commit To Retain (CTR) & Needs Further Examination (NFE) figures definitely were in title-holdings (not title-sets) and that 368,920 title-holdings are being committed to retain using the allocation algorithm with 604,391 title-holdings in the NFE category.
Matthew sent the allocation estimates he received from Andy to the Collection Development Committee to review in time for the meeting next week, but unsurprisingly as there is a lot to take he has not received any responses. Matthew hoped that between himself and Andy they could explain the spreadsheets at the January 14th meeting.
ii. Journal/serial/series analysis – merged CTR lists update
All of the filtered journal/serial/series lists which only include those titles the Collection Development Committee think their libraries should Commit To Retain (CTR) have now been submitted to Matthew and Sara. Sara combined CTRs for the local protection titles and created a merged CTR spreadsheet list to be used to see if there were possibilities for making shared retention decisions. So for example if Bowdoin & Bates both have committed to retain the same title do both of them to need to CTR it, or is there a way to make a decision that only Bowdoin do on behalf of the group. After reviewing the list Sara, Deb, and Matthew felt that the MSCS libraries are going to want to continue to CTR everything on the list, so it doesn’t make sense to go through the lengthy process of comparing holdings for 383 titles. Matthew will be asking the Committee for their thoughts at their January 14th meeting.
Clem asked whether there were opportunities here for collection building. Deb responded that there probably are, but it would involve a lot of work to go through the lengthy process of comparing holdings for 383 titles as it took her two days to review a list with less than half of that amount of titles in the ‘not in vendor set’ category (see below). Deb commented that it might be a quicker process if there were links to the catalogs in the spreadsheet rather than having to search for the item each time. Sara responded that she could add these links to the spreadsheet.
Deb was also concerned about the practical implications of making commitments on large amounts of titles because of the amount of work required to manually add the retention statements in local catalogs. Deb wondered whether for titles in special collection locations (which a lot the local protected category titles are) there needs to be a CTR statement as they are likely to be retained by libraries regardless of whether it was assigned a CTR. Clem felt there would be situations where libraries would be willing to give up ownership of some titles in special collections and transfer it to other institutions, where the material better meets fits their collection development policy.
Clem asked whether it made sense to separate the retention disclosure work between local catalogs and OCLC, so that the local work could be done first. Sara replied that in fact adding commitments locally would be a manual process, but that in OCLC it could be done in batch.
Clem commented that perhaps some post-grant work could be digitizing titles that nobody else will have. Having digital copies available would allow libraries to provide access to a wider audience.
The Project Team agreed that these issues would be discussed at the January 14th, Collection Development Committee meeting.
The other list of journal/serial/series Matthew sent to the Collection Development Committee for review included titles in the ‘not in vendor sets’ category which are held by two or more MSCS libraries and which Deb felt MSCS should CTR. Again, the goal here was to identify opportunities for making group retention decisions. However, unlike the local protected titles this list had not been filtered to only include CTR titles as it was produced before those lists were submitted. Therefore some titles in this list were not selected for retention by the Committee members in their filtered lists. Deb based her retention decisions on a number of factors including: online availability, missing/incomplete holdings information, and works that have been superseded which either didn’t have historical value or were on subjects that had low institutional value. CD-ROMs and travel guides were examples of material which Deb felt didn’t need to be retained. Where Deb flagged a title as needing a CTR she also marked which MSCS library she thought should be assigned retention responsibility. Deb came to her decisions by comparing holdings information and identifying which library had the more complete collection. Also, libraries who stored a title in offsite storage were generally assigned the retention responsibility if Deb thought it was a title that should receive a CTR.
Matthew has asked the Collection Development Committee to review the list, so a decision can be at Tuesday’s meeting regarding whether to retain the titles on Deb’s list.
Sara reported that she has also identified some titles that were mistakenly excluded from the URSUS lists the Committee reviewed first time around. The cause of these omissions was that when Sara started looking at locations in the 945s to get item/checkin level locations rather than the 998s, which had only branch level locations. The intent was to get microfilm out and identify special collections. However, Sara’s login was for Orono, and checkins in other accounting units were not outputting 945s (only 998 info.) Sara was not sure how many titles this affects, but there is going to be a bit of extra list reviewing for Maine State Library, University of Southern Maine, and Bangor Public.
Portland Public Library (PPL) will also have a few more titles to review that weren’t on their original list because in dumping the marc records for the series lists, Sara was limiting to ‘material type’ = ‘a’ , usually mapped from marc 006 position 6 – form of item. However it turned out that this is not the same as the ‘material type’ fixed field in the PPL catalog, so Sara only got things with the ‘material type’ = a – printed, and missed things that were ‘w’ – magazine or ‘n’ newspaper’.
iii. Access to SCS database
Nothing to report on this.
f. Loading & display of retention information in catalogs
i. Local Catalog – loading updates & public display
Sara will have to wait until the Step Two retention commitments have been finalized before she has more loads to complete.
Sara reported that once Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin go live with their new merged catalog on February 6th they will start working on the public display of the MSCS retention statement. Matthew asked Sara whether she had heard anything from Portland Public Library about implementing the display in their catalog. Sara responded that she hadn’t heard anything, but will get back in contact with them.
ii. OCLC WorldCat – batch loading process update
The OCLC batch loading services team have still not completed the LHR updates. It looks likely that it won’t be completed until nearer the 90 day timeframe they reported in their auto-response to Sara’s request. The Project Team expressed their disappointment at the length of time its taking to fulfil this request. Mathew commented that knowing how long the process is going to take is an added incentive to make sure MSCS agrees on retention commitments for Step Two titles as quickly as possible to ensure it is completed within the grant period.
Sara commented that she hopes that at the OCLC Developer House she can look further into the possibilities of using their new metadata API to add retention statements into local holdings records, which would mean she wouldn’t have to go through the lengthy batch loading process. Sara also hoped the API could be used for collections analysis information.
iii. MaineCat
James reported that on January 7th he had received an email from Tom Jacobson Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) that stated “we are pleased to announce that a new software release is in the works for general availability in 2014. This release will include a number of large and small enhancements for INN-Reach central systems, as well as local Sierra, Millennium and DCB systems as appropriate.” One of the plans for release includes: “Initial support for shared collection management through the inclusion of 583 retention fields from the local catalog in the union catalog. Key data elements from local 583 fields will map into the institution record within the union catalog, and be visible within the OPAC, thereby giving shared collection management partners a single place to search and find decisions being made by all participants.”
Clem asked James if he knew whether III would be picking up any 583 because some projects are putting retention statements at the bib level and others like MSCS are putting it at the item level. Clem asked James to contact Tom to make sure they do both.
g. Website
i. Increase in MSCS hits Nov-Deb
Matthew reported on the good news that there had been an upturn in visits to the MSCS website from November to December, which he thought could probably be put down to people clicking on the retention statement link (from local catalogs) and viewing information about the EOD/POD services.
ii. Annual RainStorm support plan expected
Matthew is expecting an invoice from RainStorm for their annual support plan for the MSCS website soon. Last year MSCS were invoiced for $299 which was the price stated in their proposal. But Matthew commented that he is expecting them to try and bill for their increased rate of $350 this year. Matthew asked if this happens should he pay it, or question the amount, like he did last year.
The Project Team agreed that MSCS should pay the $299 amount agreed in RainStorm’s proposal.
2. Conferences, Events & Meetings
a. MSCS presentations & reports
i. Charleston Conference paper publication
Matthew asked Deb whether she knew when her and Becky’s paper would appear in the Charleston Conference Proceeding. Deb responded that the final deadline for late papers was only in January, so she is not expecting the paper to be published anytime soon, but she will let Matthew know when it is.
ii. Potential for IFLA paper publication
Matthew sent Julia Gelfand an email asking if the IFLA Acquisitions and Collection Development Committee had decided yet on which paper they will put forward to be published in the IFLA Journal, but he has not heard back from her yet.
iii. Timberline Conference – MSCS paper submitted
Sara has submitted her presentation paper to be considered for the Timberline Conference and hopes to hear whether she was successful soon.
b. Northeast Regional Print Management Project – MR & CG updates
Matthew reported that the Northeast Regional Print Management Project Journals & Serials Working Group’s report with initial recommendations was submitted to the Steering Committee just before Christmas. Clem commented that the Committee is meeting on January 29th to review the recommendations. The recommendations are heavily based on the WEST model, but there are also some similarities to the MSCC business model. Recommendations of note include:
● Pre-designating certain institutions as archive holders/builders and limiting the analysis of holdings to those libraries. Like WEST & MSCC there will be a tiered membership with archive holders/builders and supporting members.
● Titles with many holding libraries will be considered first for the greatest space recovery benefit, then consider those titles identified through a nomination process.
● Like WEST, have Gold, Silver and Bronze levels of risk classification with different levels of validation required.
● Using existing discovery tools specifically OCLC & PAPR.
● Using a distributed model will be used which may include some shared storage facilities.
● Holding libraries will retain ownership of the CTR materials. Most CTR material will remain available for circulation including ILL, but there have been discussions about whether some material in the Gold category should be in-house use only.
● Multiple copies should be retained across the group.
● Retention period of 25 years, which will trump shorter local retention periods like MSCS.
Clem reported that the Monograph Working Group (which he is a member of) is already on to the second phase and that a lot of their recommendations were based on MSCS experiences. Unlike the Journals & Serials Working Group they had recommended a retention period of 15 years.
c. PAN Meeting, Philadelphia, January 23, 2014
Matthew will be giving a short description of the MSCS/CRL ALA Annual event at the end of the PAN meeting. Clem will also be attending the meeting.
d. WebWise Conference, Baltimore, February 10 – 12, 2014
As agreed at the last Project Team meeting Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet) will be joining Matthew at WebWise. Matthew commented that there doesn’t appear to be a lightening lunch this time for participants to give shorts presentations on their project which is a shame.
e. OCLC Developer House, Dublin, OH, February 3 – 7, 2014
Sara will be attending a weeklong OCLC Developer House in Dublin, OH from February 3 – 7, 2014. MSCS will be paying for any of Sara’s travel costs not covered by OCLC.
Clem reported that OCLC and CIC are co-organizing a two day shared print event on March 27 – 28 in Dublin, OH and he has been invited to be on a panel discussing regional shared print efforts.
3. Upcoming meetings
a. January 14, Collection Development Committee Meeting, Miller Library
b. February 6, Project Team Meeting, Fogler Library
Matthew thanked the project for voting in his Doodle Polls for the dates and times of 2014 Project Team meetings. Matthew will need to send out another poll for meetings from May – August.
c. February 24, Directors’ Council Meeting, Miller Library