Faculty Library Committee Meeting Minutes 4/11/11
Members present: D. Affleck, B. Brown, S. Brown, K. James, A. Klene, D. Patterson
Members absent/excused: Dean Allen, C. Exley, A. James, D. Mackey, A. Wilcox
The meeting was called to order at 4:20 p.m.
The minutes from 3/14/11 minutes were amended and approved.
Business Items:
Professor Sherrill Brown nomination for Chair-elect was approved.
The revised procedures were approved.
A draft year-end report will be circulated electronically for members to approve. It will be
presented at the May 5th Faculty Senate meeting by Chair James.
Communication Items: Library updates
The library is currently searching for three positions: Digital Archivist, College of
Technology Librarian and Government Documents Librarian. Interviews will likely take
place after the end of the semester. Dean Allen would like to know whether committee
members will be available and interested in attending some of the interview sessions.
Several members indicated they would be interested. The Committee will be copied on the
interview schedules.
The next biennium’s library budget is still unknown and depends on the actions of the
Legislature, the Governor, and the Board of Regents. Reductions to the library collection
budget may or may not occur, and present law adjustments may or may not be included. The
library is always concerned that it needs additional funds each year to cover inflationary
increases in order to continue providing access to current journals and databases. In May
2009 the Faculty Library Committee adopted a resolution that went to the Faculty Senate in
support of an inflationary increase, which helped the library to receive the increase. If there
is no inflationary increase and the library has a 5% budget cut the total decrease would
actually be 12 - 13%. It is likely that cuts would be to the collection rather than operations.
A 5% decrease would likely result in a roll back of traditional indexes, monographs and
media. A 12% degrease would require a reduction in the approval plan, and some of the
electronic journal packages.
Professor Brown distributed the library’s collection wish list for end- of- year funds. The list
has been on-going for ten years. A high cost, interdisciplinary priority would be for journal
back files for all the major publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Blackwell, Taylor &
Francis, etc.). Many of the electronic journals are currently available from 1995, 96 or 97
forward. One committee member mentioned that this is a real problem for the Humanities
and the Arts. Some of the sciences also regularly use articles published prior to 1995 as well.
The Committee generally supports the purchase of back files as a priority. The library
provides the affiliate campuses with access to materials that cost $2 million. If they had to
purchase access separately the cost would be much higher. The decision for how to spend
any End of Year funds will be made with input from the liaison librarians, affiliated libraries
and approval from the library dean. It may be possible to slightly hedge next year’s budget
by putting some year-end-funds into the approval plan.
The library is noticing a decrease in the use of materials not available electronically. The
perception of the library is changing. The library tracks user search statistics and conducts a
variety of use analyses. It may be interesting for the committee to view this data in the
future. The library contracts with Portico to insure perpetual access to electronic content. It
has yet to have a need for this service.
The library has PhD dissertations and thesis digitally available from 2007. Students are also
required to send their dissertation to ProQuest as well. The library is working with the
Graduate Office to ensure that the correct version with identified embargos is submitted to
the library. One item on the wish list is to digitize all print theses and dissertations. This
would be UM’s unique contribution to global information. It is hoped that at some point this
could be a collaborative effort for the Montana University System funded perhaps from a
grant or legislative appropriation.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:05 p.m.
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