SOPAG Meeting, 6/2/00, Action Minutes

Present: A. Bunting, K. Butter, B. French, M. Heath, B. Hurley, C. Johns (recorder), L. Kennedy, S. Lessick, L. Millsap, P. Mirsky, J. Tanno
 

A. CDL-related items

1. Request-update on vendor evaluation process and undergraduate implementation:
 
Karen Butter reported that the Consortial Borrowing System Evaluation Team met with five different vendors, Wings, Clio, Relais, Illiad and Fretwell. ILL staff from the campuses participated in three of the interviews. This allowed the team to make detailed and thorough comparisons. Karen distributed a chart that lists a number of basic functions and whether or not each vendor supports that function. Technical functions, which every vendor supports, are not displayed on the chart. She noted that size of company was considered important as a measure of a company's ability to support the UC system.  Mary Heath pointed out that no company has fully tested ISO compliance.  All the systems that were evaluated are in about the same place with ISO compliance. The evaluation team is considering their next steps, for example, should they develop an RFP. The results of the vendor visits and the evaluation results will be shared with participants at the ILL Best Practices Workshop in June. Costs for systemwide implementation are unknown at this point. A discussion about centralized vs. decentralized configurations followed. One suggestion was to allow campuses to implement separate systems that would be integrated as part of the PIR project. The project team will investigate the feasibility and cost of this option. SOPAG also discussed a reasonable cost for a nine campus system. One way to look at cost of software is to consider the OCLC savings and how long it would take to recover that expense. Karen will ask Tammy Dearie to collect that figure from the campuses as a baseline.

Request, Phase II - Summary of Request User Surveys
 
Karen reviewed the summary of responses, which John Ober had compiled, with the group. Generally, Request was well accepted by users and the screens are clear. The project team is considering some changes based upon suggestions from the surveys.  A final survey of all interlibrary loan staff regarding ILL practices will be sent out between June 1 and 14. This is in preparation for the ILL Best Practices workshop. It was also suggested that the project team consider another round of visits to the campuses to discuss new features and answer questions.

Undergraduate implementation of Request
 
Two tasks are underway to implement Request for undergraduates this fall. Karen has asked Tammy Dearie to work with the Resource Sharing Committee to develop guidelines and recommend policies and procedures. Their deadline for recommendations to SOPAG will be the end of June. The second task is implementation of the Application Program Interface (API) to provide real time access to patron files. III and DRA Classic sites will implement the API once the campuses purchase that component and the project team writes and tests a program for the PIR resolution server to access the program. Berkeley has already developed an interface. UCLA has not yet developed the interface but should be able to implement one soon. Only Santa Barbara is unable to comply. One solution is to increase patron data loads from Santa Barbara. Cecily Johns noted that because of a recent NOTIS upgrade they have been unable to export patron files as often as they would like.

2. RFP Update
 
Bernie Hurley reported that a draft timeline and charge to the RFP Evaluation Steering Committee, which Bernie will chair, has gone out to the UL's for their review. Given the RFP responses will become less relevant as they "age," the evaluation must be conducted in a timely fashion. However, the extensive campus consultation used to develop the RFP will help expedite the evaluation process, as the RFP is a well articulated description of our needs. It is hoped that the RFP will go out in mid June from the Systemwide Business Office on the UCLA campus. The evaluation process will include hiring a consultant from outside UC to score the RFP. Bernie asked for names of possible candidates for the outside consultant.

PID server
 
The PID server will give UC libraries the ability to use persistent ID, which do not change, in place of URLs as links to Web based content. For example, a PID would replace a URL in the MARC 856 field. When a PID is "clicked" the PID server is called to transparently map that PID into the most current URL from its database. The advantage of the PID server is that it has special tools for managing changes to URLs. The CDL Technology Architecture and Standards Work Group has recommended using OCLC's PURL technology to implement persistent ID's for the UC libraries. For more information see CDLINFO, May 16, 2000, Vol.3, No.6.  The Shared Cataloging operation has already created hundreds of records for CDL shared collections, using a PURL server implemented by CDL Technologies.  A number of policy and procedural decisions will be necessary to deploy the PID server in a distributed environment.  SOPAG concurred with CDL's plan to refer policy and procedural questions to HOTS.  HOTS  will be asked to report its recommendation to SOPAG.

3) Updates on OAC, California Counts, Shared Cataloging
 
Beverlee French reported that Robin Chandler, Director of the Online Archive of California, has begun.  Shared Cataloging has begun to use PID's in the shared collection catalog records.  They have finished producing catalog records for the aggregate ejournal packages for the most part and are moving on to catalog proceedings.

B. Digital and Preservation Issues

1)  Final Charge and Membership for Digital Preservation and Archiving Committee
 
Bernie Hurley reported that the Digital Preservation and Archiving Committee membership has been approved with the addition of Sal Guerena (SB) and Howard Besser (UCLA).  Kate Peckovich (UCLA) will serve as a formal representative of LAUC.  Minor revisions will be made to the charge that was accepted at the UL/SOPAG meeting.   Phase I will be completed by December 1, 2000.
 
2) Collection Management Initiative
 
Cecily Johns reported on the Collection Management Initiative, which is under Systemwide Library Planning rather than the CDL.  A grant proposal has gone to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a planning phase of six months (a copy was distributed with the agenda for the UL/SOPAG meeting).  The University should be notified about the planning grant sometime after June 16.  During the planning phase, which will extend from June through the end of the year, a grant proposal will be developed for an implementation phase of roughly two years.  Cecily will be the project director, devoting up to 25% of her time to the project.  Richard Lucier is the PI.  A project manager (50% FTE) will also be recruited.  Cecily distributed draft job descriptions for the project director and the project manager positions and asked for comments on these job descriptions by Monday if possible.   She also asked for suggestions for individuals to fill the project manager's position.  Several names were suggested.  An advisory committee for the planning phase will be appointed and the composition of the committee will include the following:
 
Faculty (Richard Lucier will request names from the Academic Council); a UL, SOPAG member, Resource Sharing Committee, collection development librarian from the Joint Steering Committee, a branch librarian, a public service librarian, technical services librarian, a Regional Library Facility person, a LAUC representative, and CDL staff.  Some members of the committee will represent more than one area.   Cecily asked SOPAG for suggestions and several names were recommended.

Cecily felt that the issue of shared ownership would have to be addressed at some point in the planning phase.   There was a useful discussion and this issue will be re-visited later with SOPAG.

Linda Kennedy reported that the LAUC Spring Assembly unanimously supported a UCSB-sponsored resolution requesting UC Office of the President support for campus space.

Claire Bellanti has agreed to lead a project team on desktop delivery.  The initial task will be to develop an implementation plan.  Funds have been allocated to support the planning.  CDL will appoint the project team and consider how it will be aligned with the Request project team, especially with its efforts to evaluate and select consortial borrowing software.  A number of names were suggested for the team.

Susan Lessick introduced a discussion of digital reference service and the recommendation from HOPS that a task group be convened to explore ways UC libraries could collaborate in providing digital reference services.  She noted that it would be important for a task force to focus on cooperative digital reference service goals and models.  Some UC campuses are already testing a product called Webline to provide interactive reference consultation, including UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis along with several other institutions.  Several issues surfaced, such as the staffing implications of a 24 hour, 7 day a week service; scalability to UC systemwide implementation; and the need to include the user's perspective.  Most of the campuses are already providing email reference service but they lack a referral and interactive capabilities.  The group also discussed developing a database systemwide of questions frequently repeated with answers.
 
SOPAG agreed to appoint a task force to explore the issues but as a first step asked that HOPS develop a draft charge for SOPAG to review.  The charge should examine sustainable, scalable models of digital online reference services.

1) Copyright checklist
 
We agreed that Phyllis Mirsky will forward the Checklist, which was developed by IAG, to the UL's.
 
2) Counting of Request "borrowing" activity
 
Alison Bunting confirmed with RSC that campus ILL centers are counting requests received/filled via PIR in the interlibrary loan statistics each campus reports annually to Gary Lawrence.  Thus, when we review PIR statistical reports we need to keep in mind that they are a subset of the overall ILL statistics.
 
Alison Bunting also provided an update on the recommendation made several years ago by the HOPS-ILL Subcommittee that items borrowed from a regional library facility be counted as borrowed from SRLF or NRLF, not from the campus that deposited the item as is the current practice.  This recommendation was referred to the Working Group on Library Management Data, and preliminary recommendations about it are included in the report that will be discussed by University Librarians on June 19th.

Allison Bunting distributed the proposed charge to a task force to be appointed by the CDL.  She noted that an increasing number of UC faculty and students report that they prefer using the web-based Pub/Med that offers advantages over CDL Medline.  The task force will consider whether CDL should continue to maintain Medline/Health Star or migrate users to Pub/Med.

Beverlee French reported on some issues that JSCSC is considering.  They have discussed pursuing a contract with one or more vendors who would carry out to UC standards (including the requirement to link at the article level from databases) to license ejournals from multiple publishers.