Guests: Rick Steiner, Carrie Nyc, Peg Palmiere

Excused: Laurie Thompson

The minutes for the meeting of June 11, 2002 were approved.

Maureen Zajkowski gave an update on the Aleph500 Migration Activities.

Group2

• Cortland and Upstate Medical switched to production. This completes the Aleph migration of the seven sites in Group2. It also results in a new milestone in the SUNYConnect LMS project with the switch to production of all campuses from the Syracuse Multilis LAIP cluster.
• The nine campuses in the former Syracuse LAIP cluster were notified that the Multilis system would remain available to them until October 2002. At that time the cluster hardware will be dismantled.
• An Aleph workshop day given by SUNY staff was held with Group2 sites to address the configuration of reports, forms and templates.

Group3 Preparations

• Eleven campuses make up Group3: Oneonta, Sullivan, Orange, Potsdam, Jefferson, Canton, Purchase, Delhi, Rockland, Ulster, and Stony Brook Health Sciences Center
• OLIS staff had several meetings to examine the Group2 process and to determine the structure for moving forward with the Group3 implementations that will begin in August.
• Three Ex Libris staff will be divided among the eleven Group3 campuses.

• Initial kickoff meetings for a subset of Group3 campuses will be held in August. Additional kickoff meetings for the remaining Group3 campuses will be held in September and October.

• Three sessions of Aleph training (each session made up of several classes) will be held for the Group3 campuses due to the number of SUNY sites involved. Scheduling for training facilities has begun. OLIS will provide a significant portion of Aleph training for the Group3 campuses. However, Ex Libris will also provide Aleph training to ensure those three sessions of classes can be presented.

ITEC/OLIS/Oswego

• The ITEC, Oswego, and OLIS representatives that make up the SUNYConnect Technical Project team have been working on change management procedures for the multi-campus server sites. Standard downtime for routine maintenance activities was established and publicized to Ex Libris and the SUNY campuses that would potentially be impacted by the schedule.
• Staff at ITEC have been preparing the Aleph environment on the Westaleph server that will support the Group3 campuses. They have also been preparing the Aleph environment for Fredonia in support of Fredonia's migration from Aleph version 12.4 to 14.2.

Union Catalog

• OLIS representatives met with Ex Libris staff to work out a plan for moving forward with the Union Catalog. A revised timeframe was discussed and will be reviewed in August.
• The Union Catalog software on Aleph1 will be refreshed by Ex Libris to address problems that have been identified to date. Ex Libris personnel are expected to begin loads of the sample SUNY records that had been previously identified by OLIS staff.
• OLIS staff will work with ITEC to start the process of loading the Library of Congress Authority file for names and subjects on the Westaleph server.

• OLIS and Ex Libris staff are expected to reconvene at the end of the month to assess progress on bibliographic and authority record loads.

NAAUG

• OLIS staff presented an overview of the SUNYConnect Aleph migration project at the Opening Session of the North American Aleph Users Group (NAAUG) Conference held at Boston College on July 28-30. Representatives from two SUNY campuses also gave presentations during the conference. Ten SUNY campuses and over 30 SUNY staff were represented at the Conference.
• OLIS staff met with representatives from Florida and Minnesota consortia at the NAAUG Conference to review common issues related to the implementation of the Aleph. It was decided that we would form a consortia working group and try to work directly with Ex Libris to address concerns related to the development and implementation of consortia components. OLIS will take the lead on moving forward with this group.

Planning

• Planning will begin for the development of a workshop on implementing acquisitions in the Aleph environment. Staff from OLIS and Fredonia will develop the session.

• Mike Pisa reported that Paul Voninski, the Director of Instructional Technologies at SUNY College at Oswego, will return to full-time teaching. Mike will be taking over most, if not all, of Paul’s duties beginning in September, including all SUNYConnect related work. Carey will arrange for the Provost to send a letter to Paul thanking him.

• OLIS will be investigating the development of workshops as an aid to help campuses implement acquisitions and/or serials after switch to production. Vince Courtney from Fredonia is currently working with OLIS staff to develop a workshop this fall for acquisitions.

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• A question was raised regarding Farmingdale's request to be a server host site. At a previous meeting, SAC decided to evaluate this request after the Oswego server site had more time to evaluate the technical support requirements of maintaining multiple campuses in a production environment. This should be an action item on the agenda for the December 3 meeting.

• Group 3 is divided into three subgroups:

Begin in August: Oneonta, Sullivan, Purchase

Begin in September: Potsdam, Jefferson, Canton

Begin in October: Orange, Delhi, Rockland and Ulster

• Breaking the link between patron records and circulation history: Ex Libris has provided information on how patron information can be removed from circulation history. This fall OLIS will be investigating the process outlined by Ex Libris in order to ensure that it can be incorporated into standard library operations.

• Alfred:

The College of Ceramics at Alfred and College of Technology at Alfred are included in Group 4 scheduled to begin implementation in the Spring of 2003. Alfred Ceramics is not part of the LAIP project and houses its Multilis data on a server shared with Alfred University. Both Ceramics and Alfred University have a long history of cooperation and anticipate migrating to Aleph in the same timeframe. Since Alfred University is a non-SUNY institution there are a number of financial and policy issues that need to be addressed.

It was agreed that the arrangements with non-SUNY campuses would follow a business model. The Executive Committee will outline recommendations for addressing policy issues, and the Finance Committee will develop a payment model. These recommendations would be reviewed at the October 8^th SAC meeting

• The LMS migration schedule will be re-examined with the intent of giving campuses a better idea of when they will start the migration process and to ensure that campuses have adequate time for their implementation activities. This revision will be discussed at the next Council meeting scheduled for October 8.

Carrie Nyc and Peg Palmiere from Nylink joined the meeting to give an update on delivery service. The RFP received six responses. Nylink recommended a vendor to the SUNY Business Office, though the name can not be released until it is final. Nylink would like to start in September. Carrie said she will notify the vendor this week or next and then they can announce it. They agreed to a $4250 per drop flat rate and the second drop would be $1750. Our Finance Committee needs to look at the cost of multiple drops per campus within the context of the SAC Financial Plan.

Carrie Nyc and Carey Hatch will develop a procedure for collecting SUNY information (contact info, location, etc.) for each library. There are start up costs, eg, buying nylon reusable bags (one bag per shipping destination, multiple books per bag), which Nylink needs to know in advance Janet asked if it would make sense to have SUNY ILL staff involved to review guidelines; Carrie said that that would be helpful. Nylink will call OLIS to schedule a meeting.

Financial aspects of the delivery system.

1. multiple drops (who should pay for additional sites; what constitutes a site)
2. amount of money budgeted in SAC financial Plan

We need more information. How is this going to affect the way work is done locally? It was decided that no decision could be made now. Carey will work with Carrie Nyc to work on a survey process to get this information together and analyze it. We need to be clear that even though we may say there will be a two-day delivery that it may take longer once materials arrive on campus.

Carey said the initial training in June at SUNY Training Center went well for Fredonia and Cobleskill. The training could be trimmed down to one day, which Carey recommended to Ex Libris. SUNY libraries may want to learn how to customize SFX locally, which could be accommodated in15-20 minutes during training. Carey said that we should send out information ahead of time to participants. Randy Gadikian suggested a clerical staff rather than librarian could be sent for training if that person would be managing the serials list information. Carey said that it helps to have the librarian trained, but the more rote aspects of the work could be delegated to other staff.

An SFX listserv has been set up. Updates of the knowledge base are made on a monthly basis. It takes about ten minutes. Does OLIS do it or should the campuses? Carey wants to investigate how to automate this. At the end of the training, Carey talked to Andy Perry who said SFX is more of a marketing (to students/faculty) than a technical issue. A conference call is scheduled with Ex Libris on how to cut back training.

OLIS is working with the Training Center on the training. ITEC will be ready. It is not a complicated application. Everybody will be trained this Fall. Ones that didn’t elect to implement SFX: North Country, Niagara, Dutchess, Westerchester (not a choice for ESF or Cornell.)

Randy said that ALIS is putting together capital requests for the next budget cycle (03/04 through 08/09). Carey presented to the Finance Committee:

1. storage
2. electronic resources (example, E-Books, J Store, Backfiles)
3. digitization

What else could we consider? Replacement hardware for host? We don’t have to be specific now. The proposal to raise database fees needs to be considered.

Reese Dill was hired as a consultant to assess SUNY’s storage needs. Carey distribured Dill’s report to the Council. Dill visited Binghamton, Oneonta, Cortland, Oswego, Buffalo, Fredonia, and Geneseo. The report identifies major needs for storage and recommends a $4.5 million facility at Buffalo and a $2.5 million facility in Binghamton.

After everybody has had a chance to read the report, it will be discussed at the next meeting. Carey will ask Reese Dill for an electronic copy so Carey can distribute electronically. Carey will also talk to Mr. Diesel about how we can work with the SUNY Construction Fund on this project.

Larry Randall reported on the SLiCAT Meeting of July 10^th. This group is charged with making recommendations to OLIS for electronic resources that will be considered for subscription or purchase for the SUNYConnect project. They have been working on recommendations for core resources. At the meeting in July, they narrowed down the selection of major aggregator databases (OneFile et al.) to two. The next meeting will be in two weeks in Utica at which the committee is expected to reach a final decision. The committee will also discuss whether it makes economic and intellectual sense for OLIS to continue the SUNYConnect subscription to the OCLC FirstSearch Base Package. Larry said SLiCAT would have recommendations to present to this group at its next meeting. Larry was asked: In order to set fees for 2003/04, what should our time target be for when we need this recommendation? He said that the recommendations could be made immediately following the SLiCAT meeting in two weeks. However, part of the decision-making process is dependent on whether and when Nylink has agreements in place for all the recommended products.

There are a lot of questions that arise. We have to say, "This is what we want to offer through SUNYConnect and here is what the cost estimate would be." Janet told Larry that she would like to see a prioritized list with dollar figures. We will wait to hear from Larry after the August SLiCAT meeting so the Finance Committee can discuss the recommendations and costs before the October SAC meeting.

There is nothing new about this right now.

Carey Hatch demonstrated the Footprints application. OLIS is using it primarily as a knowledge base to maintain documents on the Web. Currently, it is in the process of migrating to a new server. All SUNY campuses will be given access to this. This will fill the void of updating web content they can’t do right now. It will probably be sent out to the Library Directors and a posting to SUNYLA that they have this information.

They opted to advertise through Contract Reporter and will be setting it up to fund money through the RF. A Call for membership fees is going out to privates in a couple of weeks and will process payment when they can. They hope to hire someone by January, but that is optimistic. The by-laws are still a big issue.

Interviews for an OLIS System Manager are scheduled for next Tuesday, with telephone interviews on Wednesday.

Those already mentioned:

• Arrange for a letter from Provost Salins be sent to Paul Voninski at Oswego as he leaves his position as Director of Instructional Technologies to go back into teaching;
• Discuss Farmingdale’s request to be a server site at December 3^rd meeting;
• The Alfred issue should be brought up at next meeting. The Exec. Committee should begin preliminary discussion and the Finance Committee should develop a payment model.
• Maureen will propose a revised schedule and will bring it back to the October meeting.
• Nylink will call OLIS to schedule meeting re: various aspects of the new delivery service.
• Carey Hatch will send electronic copy of Storage Report to the SAC so that it can be discussed at the next meeting. Carey will also talk to Mr. Diesel about this.
• The SliCat group will have recommendations ready to present to SAC at the next meeting. Finance Committee will review recommendation prior to that.

Future Items:

1. We probably should go through our by-laws to see if we need any changes made.
2. Look at if there is any action required in the information literacy area.
3. Reference Services should be looked at whether SUNYConnect should have a 24/7 reference comp.
4. Acquisition Policy – a meeting is scheduled with the Provost in December.
5. Discuss what services SUNYConnect should offer for its electronic resources. Eg, Laura Cohen raised the question of who coordinates title changes for ScienceDirect and other vendors, who handles technical problems, etc.

Not all will go on agenda. The Finance Committee and the Executive Committee will meet before October 8^th.

John Anderson offered his services in case there was a need to communicate with the Academic Vice Presidents group. The Council will think about this.