SSH Cluster Bibliographers Group
August 13, 2008
1-2:30
Room 276

Meeting Summary

Present: Adele Barsh, Victoria Chu, Linda Conser, Sam Dunlap (convenor), Holly Eggleston, Tony Harvell, Martha Hruska, Rebecca Hyde, Sanae Isozumi, Patrick McCarthy, Rob Melton, Alice Perez, Annelise Sklar

Announcements and Updates:

Tony introduced--and the group welcomed--Linda Conser, Head of Library Collections Fiscal Management.

Sam noted that Elliot would have mentioned The San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922), available as part of ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Rob reminded the group of Leslie’s announcement of the Design and Applied Arts Index, a ProQuest product, that is also good for researching the design aspects of theatre and dance.  Promotional material reads: Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) is the leading source of abstracts and bibliographic records for articles, news items, and reviews published in design and applied arts periodicals from 1973 onwards.

Stacy announced that two Ebsco databases will be coming on line very soon: Film & Television Literature Index Full Text and the International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance Full Text.

Victoria announced that a new EastView database is in the works for the full text Chinese-language daily newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army Daily (1956-present).

Martha announced that a CDL level trial to all Springer eBooks is in the works through December. Access has not yet been turned on and titles will not be cataloged during the trial. Our hope is that patrons will discover them via Google Scholar and other online searches.
Holly updated the group on the status of various eBook packages.  Ebrary Academic Complete is live and contains over 38,000 titles in addition to the Duke University Press collection of around 1000 titles and the roughly 150 individually ordered titles—a lot of eBooks, and records are being added to Roger!

Holly also provided the following information:

1. To read the book content, you need to have the Ebrary reader software installed on your machine. This will automatically install when you access a book on the site. If you receive an error message, this likely means you will need to ask your DSSL to install the software under Admin mode. Mail has already been sent to the DSSL’s and academic department IT contacts to give them a heads up.
2. Contact your DSSL and ensure that all reference / information desk machines have been installed with the reader.
3. The reader software has been installed on the library infostations and the ACS campus computers. A note for front-line staff – if a user is having problems accessing the content of a book from a library or campus machine, recommend that they access Ebrary using Internet Explorer.
4. Individual titles records are being added to the catalog and will link directly to the title on the Ebrary platform.

More information can be found at  http://tinyurl.com/ucsd-ebrary. This page is linked directly from the database-level Ebrary Academic Complete record and will allow you to click through to the platform.

Budget: Tony and Linda Conser distributed copies of the libraries overall budget as well as subject specific permanent allocations that have been added to Millennium.  We should know about endowment income in early September. $138K in “use and tax” will be covered this year from the collections bank. Next year these charges will be assessed to individual libraries and permanent allocations will be reduced accordingly.  There is an end of fiscal year “snapshot” of expenditures by fund that Linda will distribute to the subject fund and collection managers so we can better estimate the encumbrances that were carried forward. We will need to scrutinize new continuations carefully and cancel titles of corresponding value or transfer monies from subject mono funds to continuations.  60% of our continuations budget (43% of the total state funds collections budget) is earmarked for our CDL coinvest contribution for Tier 1 and Tier 2 resources: $3.8.  Martha reminded the group that we get a lot of value of our CDL contracts which include multi-year price caps.

Prospective shared print: Martha announced that the CDC is exploring the development of prospective shared print collections, most likely to be in the Area Studies, specifically for German-language materials. We have excellent vendor support and UC-wide collaborative infrastructure in place and expect to obtain a larger universe of print materials across UC.

Replacements: Linda and Tony announced that there is a shortfall between what is collected for replacements in lost books and funds available to replace them.   Linda is working with DBF to reconcile the two funds so we will have a better idea of how much is really available for replacements.  For now, and until the recharge issue is resolved at the campus level, we are unable to place orders for replacements on this fund.  We may use our individual subject funds, if we like.

SSH Tower Weeding Program: Sam announced that the 6th Floor weeding project is proving to be much “easier” than we originally anticipated and everyone will be able to meet the end-of-summer deadline before the fall quarter begins on Sept. 22.  Kelly Smith and Kourtney Murray are tracking withdrawal numbers so we can reach the desired 75% capacity level.

Discussion:

UC San Diego Library Collections page:  Sam gave an overview of the new public collections presence that Martha and Dan are helping with and gathered useful suggestions to consider.

Format migration and Portico: Stacy Nelson distributed the Format migration update 8/08 and we are identifying additional presses for cancellation before the renewals are paid on Sept.1. CDL has negotiated perpetual online access for publishers such as Cambridge, Duke, U Chicago, and MIT, we would be able to generate between $15-20K in savings to the continuations funds, and bring our overall cost base down now.  These presses are all members of Portico and content would be made available electronically in the event of a “trigger” event.  S&E and BML have agreed in principle to cancel titles that are in Portico. The SSH Cluster will proceed along these lines, in light of the Preferred Journals Format policy and our commitment to format migration.  If there are is a title that collection managers want to retain in print, they should send a written justification to Sam and Martha by Monday, August 25.

Note: While fund codes are mapped to the records for individual CDL titles, subject funds are not charged for this content nor are selectors required to identify a funding source for these titles when they are added.  This is why “savings” do not revert to the subject funds; rather, our goal is to bring down the overall cost base for continuations now, in anticipation of the next two or three tight budget years.