Systemwide Operations and Planning Advisory Group (SOPAG)

SOPAG Meeting, 10/29/99, Action Minutes

Present: A. Bunting (recorder), K. Butter, C. Clark, L. Farley (guest), M. Heath, B. Hurley, B. French, C. Johns, L. Kennedy (LAUC), P. Mirsky (Chair), J. Ober (guest), A. Ritch, J. Tanno

A. Nov. 19th Joint Meeting with ULs:

Agreed that SOPAG will plan to meet until 2:30 p.m. after the joint session with the ULs.
B. CDL Related Items:

E Scholarship

J. Ober shared background documents and reported that electronic scholarship ("eScholarship") refers to the overall scholarly communication initiatives of the CDL. The first initiative will be called "University ePub," a name suggested by President Atkinson. University ePub focuses on using digital technologies to create a UC supported electronic print (e-print) infrastructure for epublications and support services.

The first major activity will be to create a mirror site for the Los Alamos (LANL) physics eprint server. The second step is to create new or migrate existing digital journals, working closely with scholarly societies and publishers. President Atkinson has made a 3 year funding commitment to the project beginning at $500K and growing to over $1 million by year 3, though detailed budgeting will follow the normal budget cycle and process.

CDL has also received a SPARC grant-this funding will primarily support the community building activities (e.g. steering committee and editorial boards) of University ePub. The steering committee will consist primarily of faculty (some overlap with the SLASIAC membership) and will include some librarians. Some interested faculty have been identified via the editors forums held at UCB, UCLA (UCSF and UCSD next). Seven disciplines have been identified as the most likely areas of focus: environmental engineering, economics, tobacco control, dermatology, physics, chemistry/chemical engineering, international/area studies. The LANL mirror - to be used initially for development of new services - is expected to be online in early 2000. Dermatology Online Journal, edited by UCD faculty, will be online by summer 2000.

University ePub will have a small core staff (4-5). EScholarship planning has included discussions with UC Press. The January release of the revised CDL web page will include links to UC Press electronic publications (ca. 60 monographs).

PIR Phase 2
Phase 2 is on schedule, the testing of article requests will begin next week. Campuses have been asked to load test user records. The test version will have very generic messages, these will be refined before the January release.
ACTION: SOPAG members should encourage campus staff to participate actively in the test, especially testing the feature that should prevent a request from going through if a campus has an electronic version of a journal. CDL OPAC RFP Steering Committee
Farley reported that the recent meeting of this committee went very well. Goal is to have the RFP drafted by March 2000 (later than in original charge). The RFP will provide for the possibility of selecting two vendors (one for the MELVYL catalog, another for the A&I databases). Committee plans to hold sessions on each campus between Nov. 15 and Jan. 15. It will be a challenge to develop succinct and clear documentation for these sessions. L. Kennedy noted that it is very important to make clear why CDL needs to replace the MELVYL system—these reasons are not widely understood. "Sacred cows" need to be examined and discussed to determine the functional capabilities they represent. Sessions with faculty are also planned; each committee member has been charged with determining the best approach for his/her campus. SOPAG noted that discussion of the RFP process would be a good agenda item for the ULs joint meeting with UCOL, that is usually held in Feb/March. SOPAG was asked how/if it will involve its groups in the review/discussion of the draft RFP; it was agreed that the ACGs will be consulted.
ACTION: Mirsky will alert the ACGs that they will be asked to comment on the draft RFP, emphasizing that a short response deadline will probably be necessary. SOPAG members on the steering committee (Clark, Hurley, Tanno) will insure that the timetable for the RFP review will take into account consultation with the ACGs. Mirsky will suggest to the ULs that discussion of the RFP process would be a good agenda item for the ULs joint meeting with UCOL. January Release of CDL Web Revisions
Farley noted that the staff section of the CDL web (http://www.cdlib.org/libstaff/jan2000/) provides detailed information on what will be included in the January release, along with timelines. The tests of Searchlight and Alexandria have been delayed until Nov. 15th.
ACTION: SOPAG members should encourage campus testing of the new features of the CDL web, and provide feedback. Communication
Farley was concerned that the recent request for input on CDL Directory vocabulary from some selector groups had created a number of questions and concerns from librarians. Kennedy noted that this was discussed at the LAUC Board and that the concerns centered around insufficient understanding of the rationale of the request, timing of the request, and the amount of time allowed for feedback. Despite the CDL forums, there is still lack of understanding of the relationship of the CDL Directory to the MELVYL catalog. We probably need an educational session to review the environment (e.g. coexistence of the web directories/catalogs and our other online catalogs) in which we are now operating. SOPAG members noted that an effective communication process for CDL, SOPAG, and within campus libraries has been difficult to achieve. Even though the CDL web has a great deal of information that can provide the background to issues under discussion, many individuals have not developed a practice of checking it when questions arise. Email communication is often overwhelming, so messages are deleted after cursory reading.
ACTION: Kennedy will ask LAUC what steps it can take to assist with communication. Campuses should also consider what could be done locally. Government Information Initiative
The latest version of the report was sent to the ACGs for comment. The agenda for the Nov. 19th ULs/SOPAG joint meeting has one hour reserved for discussion of this report. SOPAG recommended that the Executive Summary be revised to make it clearer that federal documents are included in several of the recommended initiatives; that the proposal to develop an interface to the CD-ROMs does not involved mounting them on a jukebox; and that the data archive can serve as a springboard for handling federal datasets. French will be prepared to provide a five minute background review for the ULs on Nov. 19th.
ACTION: Each SOPAG member should meet with their ULs prior to the Nov. 19th meeting to review the report and convey the strong enthusiasm that SOPAG and the government document librarians have for these initiatives. Each campus should also rank the initiatives in priority order. French will insure that the Executive Summary is rewritten in time for distribution prior to the meeting. C. Task Force on Collaborative Strategies for Archiving of Print in the Digital Environment
SOPAG reviewed the charge to this committee is to develop a plan for archiving the print so that discussion of the issues related to canceling print can take place in other forums with the knowledge that print backup will exist. Additional comments on the draft report included: taking into account national preservation efforts (e.g. CRL, NLM) and recasting the section on ownership to focus on access and identifying these journal titles as "designated archival resources" that will be available to all campuses. The report to the ULs on Nov. 19th will be only an update on the progress to date; the draft report is not ready for their review.

SOPAG agreed that Santa Cruz’s questions/suggestions concerning long-term loans of materials stored in the RLFs should be the purview of the RLF boards, as they related primarily to access policies for materials in the RLFs.

ACTION: Johns will provide feedback to the TF on the SOPAG discussions/suggestions. Ritch will contact the directors of the RLFs to ascertain current policies related to long-term loans of RLF materials. If policy changes are needed to meet Santa Cruz’s needs, these will be referred to the appropriate RLF board.
D. CDL Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections
French reviewed the history of the relationship between the STIC Task Force (appointed before the CDL existed), the JSC, and CDC. French, Starr (chair of STIC TF), and the JSC concur that it is time to disband the STIC Task Force and subsume its work within the JSC. The STIC TF’s work of establishing priorities for STIC and consulting with faculty is completed. The CDL will appoint an additional member to the JSC to represent the sciences. JSC recommended retaining the STIC liaisons on each campus; SOPAG recommended that the liaisons be disbanded in favor of communicating with the two science selector groups (health sciences; science & engineering). SOPAG noted that campus CDOs will have increased responsibility for communicating to science selectors on their campuses as a result of disbanding STIC TF.

French reported on the upcoming Nov. 9th JSC sponsored meeting at UCI on Negotiating for Multi-campus License Agreements in the Humanities and Social Sciences. She apologized for the fact that SOPAG was not informed of the individuals invited to the meeting so that they would know in advance about travel funding requests. It was also acknowledged that UCSF should have been included in the meeting since there are a number of social science programs on the campus.

The response to the Kluwer offer to add unsubscribed titles at a great discount was discussed. SOPAG agreed that CDC should consider funding these titles on a systemwide basis.

ACTION: French will contact STIC TF members about disbanding the TF prior to any announcement. French will remind CDOs, at the upcoming CDC meeting, that they will have increased responsibility for communicating to science selectors on their campuses as a result of disbanding the STIC TF. She will also ask CDC to consider funding the Kluwer titles on a systemwide basis. Butter will determine whether anyone from UCSF can attend the Nov. 9th meeting at UCI.
E. SOPAG Web site
Kennedy reported on the status of the SOPAG web site. SOPAG members were very pleased with the results, and expressed their thanks to Lisa Weber (UCB) and UCB. Mirsky will be the resource contact listed at the bottom of the web page. Will include on the page: minutes of the ACG meetings; final reports of all committees (not drafts); documents for which comments are requested; subgroups of the ACGs and their membership.


F. OCLC/ILL Routing Algorithms

Hurley agreed that UCB would discontinue its practice of asking campuses to list them twice on their OCLC routing algorithms. He noted that this may result in decreased fill rates for UCB.


G. Resource Sharing Committee

Mirsky reported that the RSC will make a recommendation to the ULs (Nov. 19th meeting) that Tricor costs continue to be supported from CDL resource sharing funds in 2000. A review of the RSC minutes raised a number of questions. Is RSC obtaining the information SOPAG wants about undergraduate use of ILL (e.g. do campuses process ILL requests for UGs; how many; are there specific issues concerning providing ILLs for UGs that we need to consider). SOPAG may need to clarify what we meant by asking RSC to do an environmental scan of "implementation of copyright." It was agreed that committee appointments to ACGs committees (e.g. Circulation Heads, ILL Committee) do not need UL approval. Johns suggested that it would be helpful to appoint a SOPAG liaison to RSC. Bunting agreed to serve as liaison.
      ACTION: Mirsky will contact Jorgensen to clarify issues raised in SOPAG discussion and inform her of the SOPAG liaison appointment.
H. Meeting Dates for 2000
The following meeting dates for the first six months of 2000 were selected: January 21, Feb. 25; March 31; April 28; June 2.
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