Collections Committee -- Minutes
May 7, 1999 -- 10:00 AM
Alderman Library, University of Virginia
Gene Damon, Presiding
Present: Doris Archer, Gene Damon, Jim Deffenbaugh, Sharon Gasser, Karen Hartman, Paul Metz, Chris
Milson-Martula, Pamela Morgan, Jim Self, Ruth Stanton, John Tombarge, Janice Wade, & John Walsh.
1. Announcements
Gene Damon stated that the new committee(to replace Collections and Users) had not yet been formed
but that requests for nominations had gone out.
2. Changes to agenda
ACS Journal report to be given by John Walsh in Susanna Pathak's absence.
3. Approval of Minutes of March 26, 1999 meeting
No changes --Minutes approved by consensus.
4. Budget -- No report
5. High Wire (Jim Self)
Jim distributed a list of the titles available, which could be purchased title by title and not just as a
package. Jim had not been given any consortium pricing. Other questions that still needed to be
answered are
(1) How are sites counted,
(2) Could the doctorates come up with a list of core titles,
(3) Will archiving be available
(4) What about backfiles?
(5) What titles would non-doctorals want?.
Titles of interest should be e-mailed to Jim.
6. Abstracting & Indexing RFP (Sharon Gasser)
Sharon stated that five (5) bids had been received. Those were: OVID, EBSCO, Cambridge Scientific
Abstracts, OCLC, and a joint bid from SOLINET and Silverplatter. She also stated that each member of the
RFP committee would be faxed copies of the proposals so that scoring could begin. The final meeting for
scoring would be June 23rd ( after the June 16th presentations). Gene received a consensus that the
Collections Committee would meet on Thursday, June 24th to make it's recommendation to the steering
committee. Database trials begin May 20th.
7. CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online) ( Chris Milson-Martula)
Chris stated that he had received five (5) responses to the trial. Most comments on the service were
favorable. Karen Hartman said that she liked the web site, but she had experienced a few navigational
and search screen problems. Overall, she still liked it because it contained good information and subject
indexing to publications like the Conference Board that are not indexed anywhere else. Chris moved that
we endorse the product, John seconded, it was passed.
8. International Index of the Performing Arts (Susan Pathak)
Susan was to report on this product. In her absence she passed on her assessment to John Walsh, who
reported that the full text product would be available in early summer and her suggestion was to wait
for a trial at that time.
9. OCLC Update (John Walsh)
John stated that he and Kathy Perry had met with our SOLINET and OCLC representatives and had
received new price quotes and renewal conditions based upon our dissatisfaction with their earlier
offer. Our charge for the coming FY will be increase for the base package while block search prices will
remain the same. However our block and base subscriptions will all have unlimited port access.
The new FS interface will have cross database searching (probably initially limited to three databases at
a time) which V IVA will have to disable since we cannot afford and could not even accurately budget for
that amount of block searches (in other words each search will use three searches if the cross- database
feature is invoked).
Two recommendations were made by John:
That we renew FirstSearch
That we spend the remaining FY 99 collections budget on purchasing block searches.
Both motions were seconded and passed.
John also noted that there was FirstSearch training on June 17th and 18th free to VIVA members at the
University of Richmond and one other institution. Janice Wade stated that the second school was
Randolph Macon and that there was a limit of two per institution for training. John stated that the new
FirstSearch would be available for librarians sometime in May. John Tombarge stated that the beta test
was up now, but that it didn't look that promising.
10. New Opportunities
Wiley Interscience- Paul Metz will look into this.
Yankee Book Peddler- Jim Self stated that they were interested in a consortial deal.
Elsevier- John will get information.
There was discussion on the format of future new products. Gene felt we had bibliography well-covered
and needed to go to electronic journals. Jim Deffenbaugh felt we still needed coverage in the
humanities. The question arose as to what manner we should concentrate, by publisher or discipline. It
was also brought up that we should take another look at IAC. Are they adding titles as promised?
Response was that we were to give them two years.
11. Middle English Compendium (Paul Metz)
Paul stated that the offer was a good price for individual institution subscriptions. He suggested that we
consider after a trial, but that the result would more likely be a number of individual subscriptions.
12. HarpWeek (Paul Metz)
The question had been raised as whether we should purchase the extended subscription – post 1864.
Paul that it was a heavily didactic tool and his recommendation was to wait a year and see how the first
part is used.
13. ABI Global Image (John Tombarge)
John distributed copies of a letter addressed to Kathy Perry from Larry Lugar, the account executive for
UMI, for review. He explained that the offered price did not include the community colleges. He
recommended that we wait and see if UMI would have a better offer in twelve months.
14. IEEE (John Walsh)
John stated that we had a trial until May 28th and that to date IEEE had no U.S. consortial agreements.
The deal would include ten or twelve years of all their journals , conferences and proceedings included.
His library has the CD-ROM version and finds it to be a good product. He hasn't tried the web version.
Pamela Morgan asked about its relation to INSPEC. John said that it doesn't include all of INSPEC. John
also noted that they don't allow interlibrary loan. Pamela also asked about it's archival policy. John said
that he would get something in writing about that.
Although there are no requirements regarding the maintenance of print subscriptions to IEEE
publications, there is a significant price break if one is a subscriber to the ASPP (All Society Periodical
Package).
15. ACS Journals (John Walsh)
John reported in Susanna's absence. The offer is somewhat misleading since when ACS looked at all VA
schools and their print subscriptions (and already-purchased electronic access) to calculate a price quote
offer they did not factor in the monies already paid by VPI, UVA, MWC, etc.
Minuses, you can not cancel print subscriptions, not even duplicates, there's an ILL clause where you
have to keep up with your ILL statistics. Pluses: Everybody has access to everything. Not too impressed
with the offer. He doesn't think that Susanna would recommend. A similar deal is being offered by
SOLINET. Jim Deffenbaugh's chemistry department rejected this.
Recommendation- Not to pursue by VIVA. Some schools may deal locally.
Next meeting Thursday, June 24th.