SUNYConnect Advisory Council

October 12, 2005

 

 

Present:            Don Boyce, Carey Hatch, John Homburger, Walter Lukhaup, Janet Potter, Dave Ritchie, Stephen Roberts, Judy Sikora, Nancy Van Deusen, Rick Winant, Maureen Zajkowski, Connie Perrin (Staff)

 

Excused:           Tim Flanagan, Randy Gadikian

 

Rick Winant chaired the meeting in Randy’s absence.

 

Approval of Minutes

The minutes for the meeting of September 7, 2005 were approved as distributed.

 

Aleph 500 LMS Update

Maureen provided the following LMS update:

 

Implementations

  • Initial test loads have been delivered for Group9a - Institute of Technology, Mohawk Valley, Brockport and Niagara.
  • Campus calls to review data load reports are underway.
  • Group9b - Empire and North Country had their kickoff meeting with Ex Libris and OLIS; development of conversion specifications for Empire and North Country are underway.
  • Aleph Intro and Advanced System Librarian training for Group9a has taken place.
  • Group9a sites will expect to receive their 2nd data loads at the end of October and early November.
  • University at Buffalo held its kickoff meeting with Ex Libris; discussions have been held regarding server sizing and a project plan has been developed.

 

Version 16 Upgrade

  • The open issues related to the upgrade express programs have been addressed; focus is now on testing functionality.
  • An Upgrade Express workflow has been drafted for campuses on the shared servers; the workflow outlines the activities to be done by ITEC/OLIS related to the Upgrade Express programs.
  • Regional Aleph 16 demos presented by Chris Holly from Ex Libris have been scheduled.  The demos held October 6-7 at Purchase and Old Westbury were well received.  Attendees were enthusiastic about the new version of Aleph and stated that is was informative.
  • The remaining demos will be held November 29 (Hudson Valley CC); November 30 (Onondaga CC); and December 1 (Genesee CC).
  • A draft outline of activities associated with the version 16 migration was reviewed.
  • Carey and Maureen agreed to draft a motion regarding the frequency of Aleph version upgrades.  The resolution will be e-mailed to SAC for review before voting on it at their next meeting.

 

Union Catalog

·        The 54 campuses in production are now all included in the Union Catalog.

·        Weekly batch updates are in place for campuses on the shared servers.

·        Incremental updates for the University Centers have not yet been automated.

·        The remaining campuses to be added are currently in implementation:  Brockport, Buffalo (University), Empire, Institute of Technology, Mohawk Valley, Niagara and North Country.

 

Universal Borrowing

  • Ex Libris installed a newer version of the UBC software.  Jerry completed his testing before turning it over to OLIS.  OLIS will review the functionality and provide feedback by the end of October.

 

UC/UBC Committee

Carey discussed the UB charge and draft report which the Ad Hoc committee recently submitted to SAC.  This information was also shared at the four year directors’ meeting in September.  It was decided that Carey, Dave and Randy would work with the group to:

1.      Clarify assumptions of the model under review

2.      Look at flowchart/workflow considerations related to

                                                             a.      circulation

                                                            b.      ILL

                                                             c.      mixed circulation and ILL

3.      Review application management issues associated with Illiad

4.      Revisit the draft SUNYConnect Universal Borrowing policies and performance thresholds (dated April 2005) for comment

5.      Address issues pertaining to staffing and sustainability

 

Carey will analyze the financial implications of the three options and share his findings with SAC.

 

Five Year Strategic Directions

It was agreed that Randy would send an e-mail to SCLD with the most recent version of the planning document along with a survey.  The e-mail will state that SAC requests the directors’ assistance in determining specific objectives, action items and performance indicators for each strategic area.  Each director will be asked to designate a team (or teams) to respond to the survey.

 

Carey’s Report to SAC on E-Resources

  1. A draft charge for the committee to review SUNYConnect e-resources is available for comment.
  2. The SFX consolidated instance includes 18 libraries (Canton, Cayuga, Empire, Erie, Farmingdale, Herkimer, Jamestown, Maritime, Mohawk Valley, Old Westbury, Onondaga, Suffolk, Sullivan, Tompkins Cortland, Ulster, Clinton, Orange –pending, Westchester –pending).  We are working with Ex Libris to sort out the savings this will give us in SFX maintenance and knowledgebase updates fees.
  3. SFX Version 3 migration – several campuses have not made the migration (Albany, Columbia Greene, Dutchess, FIT, Nassau, Plattsburgh, Schenectady, and Stony Brook HSC still have not migrated).   We are in contact with these campuses and are providing assistance.

a.       We may need to force the final campuses to migrate by shutting down the Version 2.

  1. We have discovered that Upstate and Stony Brook Univ. are no longer using SFX, opting instead for Article Linker from Serials Solutions.  We will continue to maintain the Upstate and Stony Brook instances for one year to allow us to determine if SFX will play a role in integration of Union Catalog/Univ. Borrowing solutions.
  2. ARTstor – Cortland, FIT and Binghamton will participating in a two year pilot to have their local images hosted by ARTstor.
  3. John Schumacher has completed his special assignment researching institutional repositories.  John’s report, working materials, and draft presentations will be made available through the SUNYConnect Dspace application.
  4. John will be giving presentations at CIT and SUNYLA, and to UUP and the Faculty Senate on the requirements of a successful digital repository project.
  5. John’s performance program is now centered around electronic resources and institutional respositories.

 

Carey discussed the E Resources Evaluation Team and its charge in more detail.  He said he will be drafting an organizational piece to address issues such as timelines and membership.

 

SCAC Annual Report

The group discussed the SUNY Collections and Access Council’s Annual Report.  Some of the group’s past endeavors and future directions were cited.

 

It was agreed that Nancy would send members of SCAC an e-mail expressing appreciation for all their work and congratulating them on their accomplishments.

 

UUP Proposal

The following points about the UUP proposal were made:

1.      According to Dave, the proposal is “virtually a lock” to be in the UUP 2006 legislative agenda.  The recommendation for this proposal will be reviewed at the 10/28 UUP Executive Board meeting.

2.      There was discussion on how the UUP proposal might tie in with a similar proposal from the University Senate Operations Committee (October 2005) draft resolution on library funding.

3.      SCLD might be a better group than SAC for promoting the proposal at the campus level.

4.      Carey will talk to the Chancellor in their November meeting about library funding issues as reflected in the UUP and University Senate proposals.

 

New Business

Carey briefly described Project Primo, which was on the agenda at the ICAU conference he attended in London during September.  This uses off the shelf technology to crawl and harvest data and index it.

 

The group discussed the possibility of using a UUP Joint Labor/Management Grant to fund a project related to the purchase of monographs, digital images or to study faculty rights in a digital age.  Carey will investigate.

 

Adjournment.

 

Next Meeting

The next SAC meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, November 16, 2005 in Syracuse.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Nancy Van Deusen, Secretary

Draft prepared by Connie Perrin (Staff)