SOPAG Meeting, 1/8/99, Action Minutes

Present: B. French, M. Heath, P. Mirsky, J. Wilson, J. Tanno, A. Ritch, L. Farley (guest), L. Kennedy (LAUC), C. Clark, B. Schottlaender, C. Johns (recorder), K. Coyle (guest), J. Ober (guest).

1.   CDL Related Items

A)  Update on 'Request' (PIR)
B. French and M. Heath reported on a couple of PIR software details that should be resolved in a matter of days.   All campuses should test their OCLC Profiles.  Not every campus has tested their profiles. Innovative Interfaces is still working on their interface, but it is anticipated that it will be completed by the start date.  SOPAG confirmed that the start date for 'Request' is still January 20.

B)  Adding articles to 'Request'
SLASIAC, in their discussions of PIR, recommended that access to journal articles be added next to Request. B. French recommended that we decide by June if we can go forward with the implementation of Request for articles in the Fall of 1999.    P. Mirsky reported that within the UC last fiscal year, 68,000 requests for photocopies were filled while 66,000 loans of returnable items were recorded.  A. Ritch suggested that we might implement Request one database at a time.

The role of the CONTU guidelines as it affects loans through 'Request" was discussed.  The question is whether or not CONTU is applicable when we are talking about direct borrowing (with delivery directly to the individual) as opposed to ILL.

B.French asked SOPAG for recommendations of individuals with appropriate skills to address the next phase of 'Request' (PIR).   There are technical, legal, and operational issues to address in this next phase that are not involved in direct book borrowing.  B. Hurley emphasized the importance of finding the most efficient technical solutions we can in this phase (e.g., if full-text ASCII is available in one database, can it link to another?)

C)  PIR Evaluation
B. French handed out a copy of the revised CDL Request Phase 1 Evaluation Plan, January - April 1999 (7 Jan 1999 email from P. Mirsky).

K. Coyle met with SOPAG to talk about plans to evaluate the concept of a virtual catalog and to evaluate commercial online catalogs to replace the current union catalog.  She handed out two documents: "CDL Melvyl Union Catalog Architecture Evaluation Requirements" and "Analysis for the CDL Public Access Catalog."   As part of the preparation of these documents,
the group reviewed the UCLA RFP, the Library of Congress RFP and the California State University RFP.  However, K. Coyle emphasized that the "Requirements" document is not meant to be an RFP but rather a preliminary document which clarifies CDL's thoughts.  It also addresses many of the issues raised in the CAT/PE planning process.  At this point the group is requesting input on the Requirements document.

K. Coyle reported that individuals from CDL Technologies will be meeting with vendors at ALA for preliminary investigations.  She also emphasized that the virtual catalog, if that were the model chosen, would be as much work at the campus level as at CDL Technologies.

SOPAG discussed the importance of communicating with our staffs these plans and initiatives prior to ALA.  We should emphasize that we want feedback only on "show stoppers".  It was also emphasized that the Requirements" document features will at some point be prioritized.  The documents will be distributed electronically to all campus group for review.  P. Mirsky will draft a cover memo to go with the documents.

J. Ober reported that not all campuses have responded to his email of 16 December 1999 requesting CDL evaluation liaisons.  J. Ober plans to build focus group expertise on the campuses.  Two or three campuses will be invited to attend a workshop designed to build focus group expertise which will require scheduling rooms and staff to chair focus groups.  The constituents of the focus groups will be students, faculty, and librarians.

Because of ALA, SOPAG recommended a delay in the focus group training sessions in the north and the south until mid February.

B. Schottlaender clarified the definition of the OAC as content from California, not content about California.  He distributed a DRAFT "Online Archive of California: Benefits and obligations."  This will become a pamphlet to be distributed throughout California.  B. Schottlaender would like input on the draft for the OAC Advisory Group.

B. Schottlaender reported that the next phase of OAC is digitizing archival content.  The Working Group is talking about a thematic approach, called for now, the "California sourcebook" concept.   A call will be issued soon for curators to identify collections that represent California with information such as size of collection and whether or not rights exist to digitize the collection.  The call will go out not just to UC campuses but to other California institutions as well.  This is in preparation for an LSTA grant proposal.

B. Schottlaender is identifying a consultant to develop a process in flow chart form for determining whether or not it is legal to deploy archival content.

It was decided that in addition to size and rights, B. Schottlaender will also ask curators for information about use, in terms of high, medium and low.

Andrea Sevetson, Berkeley, has been appointed as Special Assistant for Government Information for the California Digital Library, to develop a white paper on digital government information as a systemwide collection. She will work half time for 6 months on this project.  She will coordinate with Libbie Stephenson, Data Archives Librarian at UCLA and CDL representative to the DLF workshop on social science data.

A)  LTAG charge
M. Heath reviewed modifications to the LTAG charge and goals which SOPAG had suggested.  LTAG approved the changes.  The LTAG charge and goals are now approved.

B)  HOPS charge
The group agreed that resource sharing would be not be within the purview of HOPS.  SOPAG discussed the draft charge from HOPS and requested that P. Mirsky communicate with the chair suggestions for focusing the charge and developing goals.

C)  Circulation heads, Interlibrary Loans heads, Special Collections heads and Archivists

These groups were asked to meet and determine if they want to continue and if so to develop a charge and goals.  The Special Collections group and Archivists are developing a charge, however there is considerable overlap in the membership of these two groups.  SOPAG will wait until charges have been developed to make a decision about combining or not combining Special Collections and Archivists into a single group.

The Melvyl Users Group will be discharged when the Users Council has been formally constituted.

D)  TFER 2
Cynthia Clark will communicate with the co-chairs and ask them to develop an interim report on the pros and cons of a single record versus multiple records for multiple formats.  They will also be asked to forward the GPO, L.C. and CONSER policies to SOPAG by February 15.

Gary Lawrence offered to explore mechanisms for posting SOPAG minutes on the UC Systemwide Library Planning site.  This web site would also provide charges, rosters and minutes of the All Campus Groups.

7.  Guidelines for negotiating licenses for electronic publications

J. Tanno stated that UC needs to take a strong stand on fair use and ILL in negotiations with publishers and vendors of electronic publications. SOPAG recommends that the CDL negotiate licenses that allow for Universitywide licensed digital materials to be printed and then used for ILL, subject to the provisions of Section 108, regardless of whether print-copies exist in the UC library system.  Gary Lawrence noted that while the JSTOR license agreement had been a model in this regard, they have ceased their ILL provisions December 31.

P. Mirsky lead a discussion of resource sharing and the impact of PIR on the current level of UC ILL activity, including Tricor costs.  SOPAG members will brief their UL for their meeting next week.