Minutes of the July 17, 1997 VALE Task Force Meeting at Rutgers University

| Minutes of 6/26

1. In John Gaboury's absence, Anne Ciliberti convened the meeting and provided the group with an update of recent events:
   
   a. bond legislation has been approved by the Legislature, awaiting Governor's signature
   b. work has begun on drafting the regulations to implement the bond
   c. an RFP is out for hiring a consultant who will draft the RFP for projects requesting funding under the $5 million intercampus portion of the bond.
   d. WPUNJ's President is still contacting additional college presidents to serve on the Task Force.

   Tom Lancaster clarified that the consultants hired by the Presidents will be involved only in the intercampus piece of the bond, not the $45 million to be allocated by sector to individual institutions.

   Marilyn Veldof reported briefly on a meeting held July 15 at the State Library. John Gaboury, Anne Ciliberti, Penny Brower (TESC), Gary Golden, and Alex Boyd (NJLA) met with Marilyn and Jack Livingstone to discuss possible areas of cooperation between the VALE initiative and technology plans being advanced by the State Library for public libraries funded by the State Library's $5 million part of the bond. One area of mutual interest is in statewide database licensing.

   Navjit Brar reported that her Ariel workgroup had met and focused their work on three aspects of document delivery: procurement of the Ariel software, procurement of digital microfilm scanner hardware and software, and installation, set-up support and staff training. She will post a brief survey on the Council's listserv inquiring about what libraries already have Ariel and about libraries' Internet capabilities.

   Gary Golden reported that the Electronic Resources workgroup had met and developed a survey which has just been mailed to all Council members.

   Stan Nash and Jeris Cassel reported that their Help Desk workgroup has good membership and that after preliminary discussion they have posted on the Web Forum some Help Desk protocols used at Rutgers. This will serve as a beginning for futher discussion. Gary Golden clarified that the Galileo Help Desk provided systems support for the libraries, so Stan and Jeris will clarify whether their group is end-user only or includes system-type support.

   Barbara Simpson announced that her Training Workgroup would meet next week or shortly thereafter.

   Les Michelson stated that his Automation workgroup would convene after the results of an Automation Survey that he, Phil Long and Judy Cohn had developed were compiled. The survey, along with the electronic resources survey, was mailed to all Council members on Monday, July 14.

   The group had an extended discussion about the suggestion that the VALE project focus on providing statewide access to information resources and not try to include steps to automate the yet un-automated libraries. Several people felt that by focusing on the electronic resources, libraries would be better able to provide their "match," since existing expenses could simply be re-directed to the project. The need for additional funds would therefore be minimized. This idea will be discussed again at the next Task Force meeting after the survey results have been compiled. It may then be easier to see the magnitude of the automation problems.

   Several members agreed that VALE should be successful in doing some form of collaborative project, even if the whole original concept is not manageable. They felt that a successful project of smaller magnitude would be an important foundation for additional funding from other state, federal and private sources.

   A draft VALE vision statement was distributed and several suggestions were discussed. These ideas will be continued at the next meeting.

   A next meeting will tentatively be called for the week of August 11.

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