Carey opened the meeting by introducing Joe Thornton, the new Systems Librarian/Database Administrator for OLIS. Joe briefly described his background and explained what his new responsibilities will be. His most recent position was with Skidmore College.

Members agreed to hold the "Server Sites" discussion after approval of the minutes so that Mike Pisa could participate from Oswego by phone.

The minutes for the meeting of October 8, 2002 were approved as distributed.

Carey and Mike talked about server sites from staffing, management and financial perspectives. After some discussion among the SAC members, it was agreed that ITEC and Oswego will serve as the two server management sites. Janet agreed to contact Farmingdale, who had offered to be a host site, to inform them of this decision.

Carey explained that 26 sites have been trained. All pilots are up and in production. OLIS held a number of conference calls with those trained in October and calls with the November campuses are currently being scheduled. Feedback is generally positive. According to Carey, everything is proceeding as expected.

Carey stated that the delivery contract is presently with the state comptroller.

Carey explained that there has been a 5% reduction in the budget. For the remainder of this fiscal year, the reduction stands at 2 ½%.

With the addition of Joe Thornton, the OLIS staff is up to its original count. Carey stated that it would be difficult to get any additional staffing.

Carey distributed a document entitled "ARL Directors’ Meeting" dated November 12, 2002. He advised this group to read the document since members will soon be faced with policy decisions regarding implementation of the US Patriot Act and data linkages in Aleph. Carey said the topic "Parallel Indexing" is also pertinent.

Barbara is chairing a storage subcommittee consisting of Ed Rivenburgh, Frank Mols and Pat Callahan. The group will discuss Reese Dill's report and will present recommendations for the next steps at our February meeting. Carey stated that Reese’s document was favorably received by the Construction Fund and that it will serve as a basis for further study. Cost estimates were prepared for studies at Buffalo ($79,000) and Binghamton ($56,000). SAC recommended funding the studies.

Maureen reported on a series of conference calls held among members of SAC, Group 2 and the OLIS staff. She distributed a written report to the Council. A summary of the recommendations from those discussions will be distributed to SCLD by Maureen and Carey within the context of the focus of OLIS activities for Group 3 campuses and beyond.

Maureen provided the following information regarding the LMS update:

1. Union Catalog

• There have been many discussions among OLIS and Ex Libris staff regarding options and expectations. OLIS/SUNY expectation is to build off from models already in production rather than be a co-developer with Ex Libris on a new product as SUNY does not have the staff to support a full development.
• OLIS requested that a working model be available for testing next summer. The model would include the union catalog with ongoing updates, a central patron database, configuration for intra-campus circulation (universal borrowing), and use of the LC authority file for the union catalog. Expectations from SUNY include:
• SUNY needs to learn how the components are set up and maintained
• the model should be as straightforward as possible
• borrowing will be unmediated
• load-balancing capability will be available
• non-Aleph sites will not be involved (at least initially)
• Ex Libris needs to determine how to manage the implementation and ongoing support of the union catalog from a development activity to a production environment. They will need to determine whether union catalog implementation and support will be US or an Israel led effort.
• In order to move forward OLIS requested that Ex Libris provide a detailed project plan that addresses specific activities with clearly defined expectations for time and staff resources required from both Ex Libris and OLIS/SUNY. Start with the CDL version (estimated production date of Dec. 7) to examine applicability to SUNY.

1. Albany/Buffalo

• Carey and Maureen meet with Buffalo staff in August and Albany staff in October to review each campus' plans for the Aleph 500 implementation
• Albany - May 2003-July 2004 anticipated implementation timeframe
• Buffalo - March 2003-May 2004 anticipated implementation timeframe
• Ex Libris needs to determine responsibility for project support
• Follow-up meetings to be scheduled each with Buffalo and Albany and with Ex Libris and OLIS representatives. Proposed items to address:
• version choice (15.x or 16.x); migration timeframe; conversion, training, and implementation support
• hardware basics and options, indexing (including downtime), parallel re-indexing concepts and impact on storage, two task (web servers) setup, stress testing, benchmarking documents

1. Group 4

• Group 4a - March 2003-September 2003 anticipated implementation timeframe
• Alfred Tech, Alfred Ceramics, Alfred University, Corning
• Group 4b - April 2003-October 2003 anticipated implementation timeframe
• Buffalo College, Erie, Jamestown
• Group 4c - May 2003-November 2003 anticipated implementation timeframe
• Finger Lakes, Genesee, Geneseo, Monroe
• All Group 4 sites will be housed on Westaleph server ITEC
• Review of Memorandum of Understanding - additions on campus network support; anticipated/recommended staff requirements for Aleph implementation and ongoing maintenance; other?

NOTE: Items 2 and 3 were reviewed at a meeting with Michael Kaplan, Carey Hatch and Maureen Zajkowski on November 15, 2002 at OLIS.

Maureen explained that Alfred University, a non-SUNY institution, is scheduled as part of Group 4 to begin the implementation process in March. SAC members stated that Alfred University would participate in the Union Catalog and Universal borrowing components of SUNYConnect.

Follow-up meetings will be scheduled for the Albany and Buffalo meetings described above.

Larry reported on a conference call he held with Carey, the directors and other campus representatives regarding the Elsevier renewal agreement. A meeting with Elsevier in early February is being arranged to include Carey, Larry, the University Centers and the other doctoral campuses. With respect to Gale, Larry explained that the renewal of certain data at different renewal lengths was being explored. After some discussion regarding the Gale renewal and core database strategy, SAC members passed the following motion.

Dr. Salins joined the meeting at this point. The group presented a summary of SAC activities during the past year, including those related to the delivery system, SFX, the Union Catalog, the privacy policy, progress with storage as well as changes going on with budgeting and funding. Regarding storage, Dr. Salins recommended that SAC continue its work with the Construction Fund. He briefly discussed the SUNYConnect goal of minimizing redundancy and maximizing the scope of the collections in SUNY libraries. He also described ways in which funding could be addressed.

The group decided to stay with the agreed upon current rates of $2.00 (4yr and university centers) / $1.00 (2yr colleges). Carey will develop the relevant framework for the next meeting. Members also discussed a "Chinese menu" approach to database selection. They will look at this in more detail at the next meeting.

Ted provided a brief update of SUNYNet activities. He explained that SUNYNet’s transition to the new network is 2/3 completed. Ted said that no true barriers have been encountered thus far.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 5, 2003 in Syracuse.

Prior to the next meeting, the By-laws group will distribute revised bylaws, and the Storage committee will meet.

Adjournment.

Respectfully submitted,

Pam Peters, Secretary

Draft prepared by Connie Perrin (Staff)