SSH Cluster Bibliographers Group
October 14, 2009
1:00-2:30 p.m. Room 276

Meeting Summary

Present: Leslie Abrams, Ken Calkins, Victoria Chu, Harold Colson, Kathy Creely, Sam Dunlap (convenor), Ryan Finnerty, Tony Harvell, Martha Hruska, Rebecca Hyde, Karen Lindvall-Larson, Alanna Aiko Moore, Alice Perez, Kelly Smith.

Announcements and Updates:

• Rebecca reported that three Full text collections were recently added to the LexisNexis Congressional Database:
  • Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports 1916 - present
  • Congressional Committee Prints 1830 - present
  • Congressional Hearings 1824 - 1979

These are all searchable through the main search interface that previously only indexed the Hearings and Committee Prints and did not include any historical content for CRS Reports.

• Victoria reported that we have access to two Chinese-language resources:
  • PLA Daily -- This daily newspaper is an authoritative media of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to release military news and comprehensive military-related information. It is the official newspaper of the Central Military Commission.
  • NICNP -- Index to Chinese newspapers and periodicals published between 1833 and 1949. NICNP covers various subjects in the humanities and social sciences. Online request function not functional. Request articles through UCSD's Interlibrary Loan Units.
  
  
  
  

CCG updates:

The was discussion of featured collections from the Libraries’ Collections page and Sam asked for people to contribute write-ups of resources to highlight there, as well as on individual library home pages and the digital signs.

We have taken an 8% cut to the collections budget over the last two years and we have taken an additional one-time cut this year.  FY 2010/2011 will present a challenge to us financially.  We are realizing saving, thus far, through a combination of cuts to the binding budget, cancelling duplicate formats and the pre-bound service within current periodicals at Geisel.  We will make greater use of endowments to fund ongoing monographic purchases, as appropriate.  Finally, we continue to make cuts at the Systemwide level with title adjustments within journal packages and additional review of Tier 1 and Tier 2 resources. 

Funding for Springer ebooks: YBP has converted Springer titles to slips for UCSD’s approval plan.  Last year, UCSD funded acquisition of the Springer e-books with a combination of CDL funds and one-time local funds.  This year, costs will be divided based on subject distribution and assessed to the individual subject funds based on receipts.  As a general guideline, the three funds affected this past year within the SSH Cluster are psychology (1.19% of the package), economics (6.08%) and the SSHL general fund (7.57%).

Sam has been working on policy and workflow documents pertaining to course reserves and has forwarded them to Catherine and Martha for review.  These include statements for internal use by staff and for external use by faculty and instructors.  There is also an internal workflow procedure for acquisition of reserve requests that faculty believe should be a part of the permanent collections.  Finally, there is a revised letter to faculty that outlines our budget situation and requests them to provide a personal or desk copy of item(s) they request for course reserves that we do not have in the collection.  We make the additional offer to have our Preservation Department repair any damage to the volume, beyond normal wear and tear, using standard preservation treatment techniques.

Discussion:

We began a discussion of the CDC Concept Paper (The University of California Library Collection: Content for the 21st Century and Beyond) that has been making the rounds.  We will need to develop expertise, locally and Systemwide, to adapt to the range of new formats and media being used by our faculty and researchers.  There is acknowledgement that support and training opportunities must be provided.  Physical collections are expected to have a reduced footprint as libraries reduce duplication.  At the same time, we will expand our digital footprint by capturing unique campus and Systemwide content.  There will be additional discussion of the concept paper and the challenges and opportunities it envisions for the future.

2010 Title adjustment process: In brief, our turn-around time for review is very short this year.  Subject specialists should review the Taylor & Francis and Wiley-Blackwell title lists the best they can within the timeframe and send titles they recommend to retain to their library’s collection coordinator by Friday, Oct. 16.  CDL suggests reviewing the add/transfer lists first (while keeping the costs in mind) and then proceeding to the list of proposed cancellations, in order to accommodate the cost of the added titles.  We should also review the T&F unsubscribed titles list to identify titles to convert to subscriptions in order to retain access.  Unsubscribed titles are those which no campus currently subscribes and which T&F could remove from the package at any time.