2011-12 Council on Libraries, Information Systems and Computing (LISC)
Minutes
October 24, 2011
1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
AS-122
Attendance: Nancy Newman, Chair, Bill Ziman, Debra Dickerson; Christine Haile;
Mary Casserly; Diana Dumesnil; Jean Guyon; Bruce Dudek; Abebe Rorissa; Charles
Hartman; Larry Raffalovich; Kimberly Van Orman; Tim Stephen
I. Report from the Chair – Nancy Newman
Nancy Newman introduced Kimberly Van Orman, ITLAL representative, and
Charles Hartman, Chair of the Library Committee, and welcomed them to LISC.
After a motion from the Chair, and seconded by members of LISC, the
September minutes were unanimously approved.
SEC Update: http://www.albany.edu/senate//executive_committee_agendas-minutes.htm
Nancy reported on the SEC meeting, which meets two weeks prior to the Senate
meetings. The SEC sets the agenda for the Senate meetings and the SEC
report can be found on the Senate website. Nancy commented that LISC does
not have a lot of pressing business like some of the other committees.
President Philip and Provost Phillips reported at the SEC. The President
reported that the 9-acre parcel of land in McKownville that UAlbany made a bid
on was rejected and no further effort for that plot is on the table. The Provost
announced the groups for the Strategic Planning Committees. In response to
SUNY 2020, the Provost announced preliminary round of hiring proposals. Also
discussed was the Board of Trustee’s proposal to have shared services among
campuses, which has not been met with universal approval. Chris Haile
discussed the effect of shared services on IT. Every campus is operating with
lean IT staff, but there is potential for sharing and collaboration to be found in IT
services, i.e., business practices (BI). Mary Casserly stated that the Libraries
would have a vested interested in shared services.
II. Report from Dean of Libraries, Mary Casserly
This is Open Access Week. Works that are open access are digital, online, free
of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. The purpose of
Open Access Week is to promote the idea of open content. On October 26th the
University Libraries and ENY/ACRL are sponsoring a presentation by Dr. David
Hogg on “open Science, Free Software, and Citizen Astronomers.” The program
will be in the Standish Room in the science Library. Afterward, there will be a tour
of the College of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering. The University Libraries
has sponsored about a dozen programs on open access over the past 10 years
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and we are committed to continue the conversation about open access on this
campus. Unfortunately, this program conflicts with the Fall Faculty Meeting.
FACT2 and some textbook publishers are sponsoring a program entitled “New
Concepts in Teaching and Learning: E-Texts, Open Educational Resources and
More” on November 4rh at the Embassy Suites in East Syracuse.
We have been given our budget for the year and we will not have to cancel any
journals this year.
We are still working on the plans for the renovation of the University Libraries.
The most recent set-back is that Campus Planning fired the architect. We will be
meeting with them shortly to get the details on this surprising development.
The SUNY license with Elsevier for ScienceDirect expires on 12/31/2013 and the
University Center and Health Science Center Library Directors have been
discussing the next contract. Earlier this month the University Center Library
Directors meet with our Elsevier sales representatives and told them that we
cannot afford to renew this contract. We will need to work with them to develop a
contract that includes only the content we want/need and that will not require that
the UCs subsidize access to the collection by the 4 year and 2 year SUNY
institutions.
III. Report from Chair of Information Technology Usage Committee:
Larry Raffalovich
Larry is in the process of scheduling a meeting with his committee. Nancy asked
Tim Stephen if there was a committee he would be interested in serving on. Tim
will get back to Nancy.
IV. Report from Chief Information Officer, Christine Haile
Chris will ask Christopher Moore to update the LISC members on the new
Blackboard Version 9 at the November meeting.
ITS is in the midst of the UAlbany mail conversion. All faculty, staff and students
on webmail have been moved to the new system. Exchange e-mail users will
move next and notification will be sent out within the next couple of weeks. The
sooner we get everyone on a common system, the smoother it will be. ITS would
like to know if anyone is having difficulties with the new system. For those who
are Outlook/Exchange users, the mail will look the same.
Elluminate piloting project is underway for web conferencing capabilities. Chris
will ask someone to come to a future meeting to demonstrate after the first of the
year.
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V. Strategic plan Working Group, Bruce Dudek
There has been one organization meeting of the group; the next meeting is
scheduled for October 28th. Bruce will be happy to share the summaries of future
meetings.
Emerging Technologies:
 What does it mean?
 How are we going to define these items?
Most of the issues relate to provision of staffing to support. Business Intelligence
(BI) is an analytical decision report which will create rapid data reporting to
interpret and use for faculty, i.e., course assessment.
IV. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
scheduled meeting is November 21 in UNH 306.
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