University of California Archivists Council

 Meeting Minutes, April 30, 1997

 
 Members present: John Skarstad (UCD), Sid Berger (UCR), Dave Tambo
 (UCSB), William Roberts (UCB), Deborah Day (UCSD-Scripps), Jackie Dooley
 (UCI), Robin Chandler (Recorder, UCSF), Brad Westbrook (Convener, UCSD)
 
 Not Present: Charlotte Brown (UCLA), Rita Bottoms (UCSC)
 

 Old Business:

 I) UCAC Governance
 
 It was reported that Peter Briscoe, Representative to the Collection
 Development Committee (CDC) had suggested to the CDC that the Heads of
 Special Collections (HOSC) and the UCAC should not be sanctioned members
 of the CDC.
 
 Jackie Dooley indicated that Brian Schottlaender, AUL UCLA, thought
 defining UCAC differently from other CDC groups would lend support to
 the UCAC request for CDC sanction.  Schottlaender also suggested that
 the UCAC Chair should attend CDC Meetings
 
 In context of this discussion, UCAC members decided UCAC activity
 warrants two meetings a year, and a schedule of quarterly meetings could
 be established - two for HOSC and two for UCAC - throughout the year.
 
 Finally, it was decided to revise the UCAC Mission Statement, including
 in it a statement of the professional concerns of the UC archivists,
 projects underway and anticipated, plans, expectations for two meetings
 per years, liaison role to CDC and Records Management Council, and
 description of committee mechanics re: leadership, agendas, minutes,
 etc.
   
 II. E-mail Policy:
 
 Deborah Day reported that changes in the UC e-mail policy now public
 reflect the concerns UCAC discussed at the UCAC Spring 1996 meeting and
 forwarded to UCOP.
 
 III. Core Records (Bill Roberts led discussion)
 
 See Handouts: Core Records List & Draft Record Schedule for the
 Development Office
 
 The purpose of the discussion is to identify core records to be
 collected at each campus in order to provide basic documentation of the
 University of California.
 
 General discussion about aspects of the Core Records List:
 
 · whether or not to include vice chancellor(s) in the Chancellor's
 Office
 
 · clarification of purpose: intended to capture the highest level of
 records and the list of core records is flexible - subject to
 implementation at each campus
 
 · clarification of intended audience, i.e. the larger purpose of this
 document is for UCAC to identify core records needed to be collected to
 serve as justification for additional resources
 
 · suggestion that a functional statement be added for each item on list
 to clarify the utility of core records for administrators in library as
 well as for records creators.  Helen Samuel's book "Varsity Letters" is
 a good resource
 
 · heated discussion of what constitutes essential/core records which
 clarified that these are records that reflect the mission of the
 university in teaching, research and public service, but the longest
 debate focused on the question whether or not the records of Department
 Chairs, ORUs, and Institutes are to be added to the list of essential or
 core records?
 
 Specific discussion about elements on Core Records List:
 
 · include under publications materials such as Environmental Impact
 Reports (EIR) and PPIMS
 
 · suggestion to break down publications into
 Administrative/non-Administrative
 
 · are newsletters from Academic departments required?
 
 · review of the new draft records schedule for the Development Office
 which recommends that the records generated from gifts over $ 1 Million,
 foreign gifts, and endowments be considered permanent records intended
 for archival retention (these records include UDEV 100 forms, gift
 acceptance letters and the donor's letter of the gift.
   

 New Business:

  I. UC Archives Collection Policies - Round Robin discussion
 
 UCSD University Archives (UA) has currently revised the collection
 policy.  First area of action has been the elimination of many duplicate
 university publications collected in the Library collections.  This
 decision refined the collection scope, consequently putting some UCSD
 publications out of scope.  The UCSD Archives will collect publications
 about the university, but not publications published by university
 offices but not about the university.
 
UCSD Archives has created an organizational chart of all administrative
 offices, staff support groups, and student groups and is pre-assigning
 record group numbers to inhibit the splitting of record groups on the
 basis of personality and to heighten awareness of the hierarchial
 relationship of one record group to another so that duplication of
 information might be reduced.  UCSD Archives's classification of record
 group descends only to the primary administrative unit level or
 department chair.  Secondary administrative units are not collected
 except by virtue of being represented in the records of the primary
 administrative office.
 
 Other campuses provided handouts of their collection policies.
 
 Discussion:
 
 Collection policies are generally two to three paragraph statements
 defining areas of collecting, and a collection strategy is the plan by
which to attain those goals in the collection policy.  Some archivists
 see the record group system as dying a deserved death - they take too
 much time to maintain.  Others feel that record groups will provide the
 advantage of knowing your organizational history
 
 Some archivists feel one important criteria for determining which
 faculty papers to collect can be determined by which faculty are getting
 the grants.
 
 Discussion concluded about record groups with the observation that
 common practice for UC Archivists is to assign incoming collections
 accession numbers and, as accretions accumulate for a department or
 faculty member, to assign a collection number, which serves as an
 umbrella number linking the accumulated accessions.
 
 Discussion shifted to the idea that specific campuses could be
 responsible for specific areas of collecting system-wide, which would
 lead to strong cooperation across campuses in the areas of collecting
 and processing. As an example, it was noted that the British Archives of
 Contemporary Science (BACS) funded by the Royal Society specifically
 processes scientific papers and then transfers the records to
 appropriate universities for access.  Such a program implemented at UC
 might mean that UCSD would become a center for primary source material
 in the area of theoretical physics.
 
 Robin Chandler described a project underway to develop a collaborative
 collecting model focusing upon the development of an archival collecting
 model for the field of biotechnology to acquire original papers,
 manuscripts and records from selected individuals, organizations and
 corporations as well as participating in the effort to capture oral
 history interviews with many biotechnology pioneers.  This project
 combines the strengths of the existing UCSF Biotechnology Archives with
 the UCB Program in the History of the Biological Sciences and
 Biotechnology, and it will contribute to an overall picture of the
 growth and impact of biotechnology in the Bay Area.  During 1997, Robin
 Chandler is interviewing scientists in academia and industry, UC
 administrators, and corporate information keepers. Products resulting
 from this collaboration will include specific archival appraisal
 guidelines for biotechnology papers and records to be used by archivists
 for selecting records; identification of specific papers and records for
 UCSF and UCB to collect from academia and industry, and project
 recommendations to UC and industry for actions needed.
 
 There are natural pools of subject expertise at our UC campuses that
 could be utilized for assistance with processing.  In addition, the UC
 EAD project is a another tool that could be used to monitor and
 coordinate collecting across UC.   One of the goals of UC EAD is better
 coordination of subject collection development across campuses, which
 could leverage additional financial and staffing support for arrangement
 and description as well as better coordination of processing expertise.
 For example, discussion focused on the documentation of
 Japanese-Americans throughout the UC Libraries.  The availability of
 finding aids on the internet through the UC-EAD project will provide a
 means for assessing where subject strengths and weaknesses exist across
 the UC Libraries systemwide.  This information can foster the
 development of coordinated collection policies between the campuses.
 Further discussions at our future meetings are needed to address
 cooperative collecting, cooperative processing, and additional means
 for leveraging the UC-EAD project.
 
 II. Documenting / Collecting Web Pages
 
 Dave Tambo asked if any of the UC Archives were actively investigating
 the collection/preservation of campus web pages.  This grew into a
 larger discussion of the need to preserve electronic records.  At the
 SAA Annual Meeting in Chicago - August 1997, Phil Bantin of Indiana
 University will be presenting a status report on his project to
 implement the University of Pittsburgh Functional Requirements as part
 of his Electronic Records Keeping Project.  The UC Records Schedule does
 not have a schedule for electronic records; however, UCSD has recognized
 the need to get better control and has established a special task force
 to examine electronic records at risk.  They particularly focused on
 daily financial records that the university is obligated to preserve for
 a period of time for legal and fiscal purposes.
 
 It was suggested that UCAC establish a means for internal review of
 electronic record keeping practices.  Our first step should be to
 determine who has a model we can use for assessment.  The Indiana
 University (IU) Project might provide a model.  Our second step should
 be to determine what kinds of electronic records are on our individual
 campuses - and would the IU model fit our University?   Note that the
 central records at UCSD are now being digitized, as well as being
 retained in paper until confidence in the electronic system is such that
 the paper system can be abandoned.  It was pointed out that many other
 campuses are digitizing central records also.  There are also
 system-wide initiatives for standardizing digitization projects for
 records in contracts and grants, human resources, and student
 affairs--areas in which campuses must frequently share information
 either with each other or with UCOP.
   
 III. Electronic Thesis and Dissertations
 
 University Microfilms (UMI) is now accepting dissertations in the PDF
 format.  Additionally, UMI is taking dissertations in legacy microfilm
 and transferring these into the PDF format.  The advantage of PDF is
 that it can be made available on the web without marking up the
 document, and it is readily printed.
 
 UMI is examining business models and is considering per page charges for
 web access.  UMI may look at the dissertation document type definition
 (DTD) being developed at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia.
 Possibly, students will be required to submit dissertations in the ETD
 DTD format.  Virginia Tech is currently saving $17,000 a year by
 providing dissertations on the web - this is cost savings from bindery,
 handling, servicing and shelf space. The beta test at Virginia Tech is
 as follows:  1) student brings in dissertation to the graduate program,
 where a technician checks the coding; 2) document is placed on server;
 3) library catalogs the item; and 4) version transferred to UMI.  Some
 of the cost of the process are transferred to student - who must code
 the dissertation, and to the user. who pays for access.  Note that UMI
 gets the license to provide copies, but the student still retains the
 copyright.
 
 The University of Waterloo is also currently involved in dissertation
 electronic conversion.  The question is what can be leveraged out of
 UMI? Can a licensing arrangement be agreed upon that will provide
 Universities free access to their dissertations?