SUNYConnect Advisory Council

Minutes

November 16, 2006

 

Present:           Walter Asonevich, Mary Bell, Don Boyce, Carey Hatch, Lynne King, Cerise Oberman, Dave Ritchie, Nancy Van Deusen, Rick Winant, Maureen Zajkowski, Connie Perrin (Staff)

 

Excused:         John Homburger, Walter Lukhaup, Steven Roberts

 

Approval of Minutes

The minutes of the meeting of October 10, 2006 were approved as distributed with the correction of John Homburger’s name.

 

Review of Agenda

Carey asked to add an agenda item so that he could describe his assignments from Provost Palm.

 

Carey’s Assignments

Carey explained that Dr. Palm has asked him to prepare a two page document describing three possible scenarios:  1) how he would perceive OLIS if it expanded, 2) if it could continue as it is or 3) if it ceased to exist.

 

For another assignment, Carey has been asked to submit his ideas on what the reorganization of University-wide services should look like.

 

The SAC members agreed to explore the first item by developing some pros and cons for each area during lunch.

 

UUP Grant

Carey said the UUP grant has been reworked and that the request is now for $25,000, mostly for travel and planning.  He will present it to Dr. Palm tomorrow (11/17).

 

CIO Meeting Report

Cerise drew a chart of the structure of the SUNY Academic Provost’s office to demonstrate the many services involved.  She said she attended the CIO meeting where the group addressed the lack of collaboration among the various services.  A resolution was passed by the CIOs to initiate more collaborative projects and new priorities.  Future meetings regarding this have been planned.

 

Action

Carey, Cerise and Lynne agreed to draft a letter to Dave DeMarco with copies to Provost Palm and Chris Haile in support of a coordinated approach to services across SUNY.  Stress will be placed on the importance of teaching, learning and research.  The letter will mention that Rick and Lynne will be attending the next scheduled meeting.

 

Syndetics

Carey reported that from a financial perspective, SUNY can afford Syndetics for one more year.  He said that in order to continue beyond a year, changes need to be made to the financial plan.  He said he will be working on a campus cost share.

 

Union Catalog

Maureen reported that the University of Buffalo records are being loaded and should be completed by the week of Thanksgiving.  This will complete all SUNY Aleph campus loads into the Union Catalog.

 

The SAC members agreed that any announcement regarding the conclusion of the campus loads will be kept low-keyed, but when the work of the Borrowing Task Force is finalized a larger announcement will be made to keep SUNY Libraries in the forefront for students and faculty.

 

University-wide Collection Building

After some discussion, the following resolution was passed by the SAC in relation to collection building:

 

On motion made by Rick Winant, seconded by Cerise Oberman and carried, Steve Roberts will be asked to form a study group to see if a “last copy policy” should be developed for SUNY in light of SUNY Buffalo storage policies and procedures.

 

Rick offered to contact Steve regarding this.

 

Borrowing Task Force Recommendations

Several issues were discussed and are listed below.

 

Ø      Rick will contact Dana Dietz of OCLC to see if she is available to discuss ILLiad at the January SAC meeting (instead of Matt Goldner).

 

Ø      Carey talked to Betsy Elkins and said she is interested in ILLiad for ESF.

 

Ø      There are no pilots underway at the present.  Nancy and Lynne are considering presenting ILLiad demonstrations for the community colleges and technology colleges.

 

Ø      Rick said that Carla Johnson is supportive of involving SCLD in SUNY-wide borrowing discussions.

 

Ø      The SAC Finance Committee will be meeting soon to discuss pricing issues.

 

Ø      Carey, Lynne and Rick will be talking more with Mary Alice Lynch about how Nylink, SUNY and the 3Rs can partner to improve state-wide ILL.  Suggested topics include ILL, LAND, Training, best practices and support.

 

Ø      Carey said the Borrowing Task Force will explore the possibility of developing some Borrowing pilots during next week’s meeting.

 

E-Resources

Carey announced that the Resolution on Enhancing SUNY Access to Electronic Databases was passed by the SUNY Senate at the Plenary meeting in October.  He will ask for feedback from SUNYLA and the Directors.

 

Aleph Update

Maureen provided the following Aleph update.  Her Union Catalog discussion is above.

 

Aleph Related

  • OLIS staff focus has been on providing support in response to Footprint entries
  • There have been assorted problems reported to Ex Libris - related to pc_servers dying/need to clear UTF files often; aleph shutdowns hang; problem with SSL apache compiles and problems with remote base searching
  • Service packs
    • a test server environment is anticipated to be ready within a week for loading and testing the current service pack
  • Syndetics
    • has been implemented across the campuses on the shared servers
    • University Centers
      • Stony Brook is testing
      • Albany, Binghamton and Buffalo have it in production

 

SAC Task Force on Aleph Shared Services

  • First meeting held November 15, 2006
    • meeting focused on discussions of Aleph baseline functionality, Aleph managed services, and training/support issues
    • draft of meeting discussions to be prepared for Task Force to finalize on recommendations
  • Aleph managed services pilot
    • MOU has been created for campuses that includes a spreadsheet which documents proposed managed services
    • sites that have been contacted and are interested in pilot
      • Clinton
      • Purchase
      • Rockland
      • Ulster
      • Westchester
    • OLIS to begin scheduling site visits to pilot campuses for assessments of current environment
    • Timeframes for starting the project will spread from December through likely February depending on the timing of initial site visits and other campus scheduling concerns
    • Anticipate having approximately a 12 month testing period with ongoing assessment
  • Status of Aleph Shared Services Proposal for Central Technical processing
    • campuses contacted were the same as those for the Managed services pilot
    • interest was expressed but the general response was that it was better to take on one project at a time as implementing both the Managed Services and the Central Technical processing pilots would have a tremendous impact on all staff
    • OLIS will revisit this after the Managed service pilot gets started
  • Next meeting scheduled for December 20
    • begin discussion on Ex Libris proposal for large shared systems

 

Digital Library Collection Plan

The SAC agreed to call the plan the “SUNY Digital Library Business Plan.”  Carey needs to develop the third scenario for funding options before distributing it.

 

Old Business

Tech Rep for E-Resources Task Force

Based on nominations from Tech Sector libraries, Shafeek Fazel from SUNY Maritime was selected to serve as the Tech Rep on the E-Resources team.

 

Borrowing Task Force

Carey asked Connie to again contact the designee for the medical school rep on the Borrowing team.

 

The next meeting is scheduled for December 14 in Syracuse.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Nancy Van Deusen, Secretary

Draft prepared by Connie Perrin (Staff)