A discussion of the four year colleges and Inter-Library Loan was added to the agenda as item 7b. Also added after item 6 was a discussion of the research aspect of SUNYConnect.

The minutes for the meeting of June 11, 2003 were approved as distributed. To clarify, the Finance Committee is as follows:

It was clarified for the group that Nancy will be sending the minutes to both the SAC and SCLD lists.

The group approved the following dates and locations for this year’s SAC meetings:

October 22, 2003 Syracuse

December 17, 2003 Albany (with Provost)

February 11, 2004 Syracuse

April 14, 2004 Syracuse

June 23, 2004 Albany (with Provost)

Maureen provided the following LMS update:

At the June 11, 2003 meeting SAC approved a motion to move New Paltz into Group7. However, New Paltz subsequently requested that they remain in Group8.

The first SUNYAUG meeting was held September 19, 2003 in Syracuse. The conference was well attended and offered a number of informative and practical sessions. Handouts and presentations from the conference will be available from the SUNYAUG web site:

http://library.morrisville.edu/sunyaug/

• A consultation day was held in July with OLIS and Ex Libris to discuss next steps for the union catalog implementation.
• A prototype catalog was made available to OLIS in mid July. In included full data loads for Binghamton, Cortland, Upstate Medical, Cayuga, Stony Brook Health Sciences, Oneonta and Sullivan. The URL is http://aleph1.sunyconnect.suny.edu:4555/ and click on 'Guest'.
• Conference calls were held to discuss data pre-processing considerations and load parameters.
• OLIS provided a data review report of the prototype catalog. A status update on reported problems is pending.
• The Ex Libris project manager was away from work for much of September. An interim project manager from Israel was assigned. It is not clear which project manager will continue with SUNY after the end of September.
• This aspect of the implementation is not as far along as we had anticipated; there are still problems with the merge algorithm and load issues. Carey and Maureen will be working with Ex Libris to request bib file by April 1, 2004 so work can begin on patron authentication portion.

Maureen mentioned that Katrina Anderson, the new Vice President of Operations for Ex Libris, will be attending the next SAC meeting in October. After some discussion, members decided to present her with some talking points regarding the Union Catalog and issues surrounding Ex Libris’ response to letters sent by SAC to the Chairman of the Board of E.L. in March. Maureen, Randy and Carey will further refine the list.

• Eleven campuses are in various stages of migration. They include Alfred State, Alfred University, Alfred Ceramics, Corning, Jamestown, Buffalo State College, Erie, Finger Lakes, Genesee, Geneseo, and Monroe.
• Alfred State is expected to STP on September 25.
• Production loads are completed for Alfred University (STP anticipated October 2) and Alfred Ceramics (STP anticipated October 8). The Corning production data extract is to be completed by September 26 (with expected STP on October 15).
• The remaining sites are reviewing either 2nd or 3rd test data loads. STPs for Group 4 are scheduled to be completed by mid-December 2003. Note: Buffalo State College is an III site and Genesee is a DRA Classic site. The remaining 9 are Multilis sites.
• Genesee is working with their third Ex Libris project manager.
• OLIS and Ex Libris continue to develop processes to streamline the migration process. Activities new for Group4 include:
• ongoing documentation of data conversion expectations; more consistent use of forms for identifying conversion decisions
• OLIS developed table editing tool based on generic windows/word processing capabilities
• attempts to be more systematic in identifying types of tables to edit and priority for updating
• OLIS doing some of the HTML baseline configuration work for each sites' Course Reserves and will be adding Z39.50 configuration as an addition to the baseline Web OPAC customizations already done by OLIS.
• pre-STP checklists to coordinate the various activities that are required by Ex Libris, campus, OLIS and ITEC to prepare for the transition from the test server to the production server environment.

• Ex Libris and Albany had kickoff and system analysis meetings over the summer. Albany plans to implement on Aleph version 16 with a summer 2004 STP timeframe.
• Training on version 16 with Ex Libris staff began in September.

• Initial meetings are expected to be scheduled for December 2003 and January 2004. STPs are scheduled to be completed by July 2004.
• Nine campuses will make up Group7: Brooklyn, Farmingdale, FIT, Maritime, Nassau, Old Westbury, Optometry, Suffolk, and Westchester.
• Westchester is a PALS site. Brooklyn is a DRA Classic site. The others are Multilis sites.

• Binghamton moved to patch 5/6 and has implemented the frameless version of the Web OPAC.
• Fredonia completed the upgrade from Aleph version 12.4 to 14.2.4 in July. Fredonia is now housed on westaleph at ITEC.
• Stony Brook (STB) moved to production on patch 7 during August.

• Planning and testing is underway to migrate the campuses on the shared servers to 14.2 patch 7. The anticipated timeframe for completion is early 2004.
• Sites on oswlib: Broome, Cayuga, Cortland, Herkimer, Morrisville, Onondaga, Oswego, Tompkins Cortland, Upstate Medical
• Sites on westaleph: Alfred Ceramics, Alfred State, Alfred University, Buffalo State College, Canton, Corning, Delhi, Erie, Finger Lakes, Fredonia, Genesee, Geneseo, Jamestown, Jefferson, Monroe, Oneonta, Orange, Potsdam, Purchase, Rockland, Stony Brook HSC, Sullivan, Ulster

• A set of reports approved through SUNYAUG have been placed on the oswlib and westaleph server environments. The reports are available on the Aleph Staff Menu via the Custom Services link.
• SUNYAUG has requested an additional set of reports to be recommended for development by October 2003.
• OLIS decided to allow local library staff to go forward with creating customized Aleph reports with the understanding that:
• third party ODBC clients (MS Access, etc.) would be installed by local campus staff on their own local equipment (not on one of the shared Aleph multi-campus servers)
• local campus staff would turn to local campus DBA support for help
• access to the database would be read-only
• access is restricted by IP address
• sites inform OLIS of the reports they are going to run and the timeframe via the address: olis_service@ls.suny.edu
• this decision may be re-evaluated if it looks like there are performance problems on the servers

Carey announced that at the most recent OLIS staff meeting on September 11, the group decided to focus primarily on issues of implementation.

Carey reviewed ideas for the future of SLiCAT that were discussed in a SAC subcommittee meeting. He proposed that SLiCAT become a standing committee of the SAC and that SAC provide SLiCAT with an annual charge to help direct its effort. Carey agreed to work on a one year charge to present to SAC as a resolution. This charge would focus on the selection of free online resources such as e-journals and institutional repositories/archives and the tools necessary to manage and harvest these types of resources. Carey said that MetaLib is worth exploring and will be scheduling a demonstration at a future SAC meeting.

Carey reported that Elsevier representatives have met with the medical colleges and university center representatives to discuss the future of the ScienceDirect contract. Carey will be meeting with Elsevier representatives and Mike Lavin of Buffalo on September 25 to further the contract negotiations. Campuses need to know very soon what the outcome of the negotiations are so that they can manage their serial subscriptions appropriately. The conversations among the SUNY representatives regarding Elsevier have lead to significant discussions of how we purchase, access and manage our collection. Carey met with the Library Directors of the University Centers early in the week and there was agreement to begin a process to look at these issues in a deliberative fashion over the next several months.

There was agreement that serious investigation of cooperative collection management could lead to possible alternative or revised needs for shared storage. Carey reminded the group that we already have a consultant’s report and that there are several alternatives to building a facility. Everyone agreed that we should investigate alternatives based on needs that arise from a formal process for cooperative collection management.

Andy reported that the Finance Committee met in Plattsburgh on July 25 to discuss the status of reserve funds, among other topics. The group’s major decision was to invest in an infrastructure that enables better delivery. An ongoing plan for hardware replacement was also discussed. Carey said he would talk with Mr. Richter about how to address the funding needed for this. Carey also agreed to explore what is needed in order to set up a SUNYConnect endowment.

Andy reported that with the current financial strategy, the balance of contribution is 50% OLIS and 50% campus contributions. Carey said the emphasis is now on improving current services as opposed to investing in new ones.

Rick suggested talking with the Provost to determine where research belongs with SUNYConnect. He recommended utilizing the Research Foundation. Carey suggested talking with the Vice Presidents of Research to see what is available. Barbara said she would talk with her Research V.P. The topic will most likely be an agenda item when the Provost attends the December meeting.

Andy and Randy have proposed setting up a small pilot project in which Binghamton would serve as a host for end processing. The materials would then be shipped to Fredonia by LAND courier. Randy explained that one of the rationales for setting up such a project would be to study the feasibility of a technical processing hub which institutions could share. The shared Aleph system makes this possible. This project represents one example of building on the SUNYConnect infrastructure. Randy is seeking funding for one year and will develop a formal proposal for the group for the next meeting.

Carey explained that Ed Rivenburgh, Director of Libraries at SUNY Geneseo, has been using ILLiad to expedite ILL. The group discussed the idea that if the four year colleges did so, they could get a better idea of what their collections are as a group and what materials are being used and how often. Carey agreed to ask Ed for a formal proposition.

Dave Ritchie sent a request to have SUNY Cortland begin preparation for upgrading to Version 16. Maureen explained that there is not a migration path from version 14 to 16, and we have not seen version 16 in production. Randy said he would respond to Dave by telling him that plans are under way to migrate as soon as it is feasible. Maureen will be asking James Steenbergen of Ex Libris when the tools for migration will be available, but nothing is anticipated before mid-2004.

Adjournment.

Respectfully submitted,

Nancy Van Deusen, Secretary

Draft prepared by Connie Perrin (Staff)