VALE Steering Committee

Minutes of the October 19, 1998 Meeting

Present: Chervenie, Ciliberti, John Cohn, Judy Cohn, Gaboury, Gaunt, Getaz, Hunt, Mihalick, Price, Rigby, Simpson, Sweeney, Tumulty.

1. John Gaboury reported on several initiatives, as follows:

a. In conversations with staff from the Commission on Higher Education, it is clear that there is an ongoing commitment to VALE and that future funding efforts will include VALE needs at some level. It is also clear, however, that VALE funding requests must be in line with the overall funding requests and should not over shadow the sum requested for the entire statewide network. A working request for VALE might be around $1.5 million of annual appropriations. Of this, something in the ballpark of $300,000 should be set aside for VALE staffing and overhead needs, leaving about $1.2 million for the acquisition of shared resources.
b. An opportunity to approach Assemblyman Zecker for funding requests has occurred at William Paterson University and John and Anne Ciliberti will be preparing a proposal.
c. A meeting has been set with the State Library and the Region Directors on November 10 to discuss the possibilities of joining together to provide statewide database access.
d. A meeting was held to discuss the possibilities of a Virtual University in New Jersey and Wendy Raynor, the Governor's Chief Information Officer, distributed a written summary of the VALE project as part of their discussions.
e. William Paterson is just completing preparation of the VALE invoices to be sent to the participants in the next week or two. The database subscription dates will be November 1, 1998 to October 31, 1999.

2. Marianne Gaunt provided the following update:

a. The RFP for the statewide network proposed under the Technology bond funds provides for funds for staffing the network and therefore may set a precedent for the future use of funds for VALE staff.
b. Although the VALE servers have been received at Rutgers, there were problems with the order and it has taken some time to get the hardware configured properly. The November 15 target date for the roll-out still holds, however.
c. OCLC has assigned a new project manager to the VALE project, Ericka Yaeger. Several conference calls have been held and written implementation schedules are prepared regularly. Marianne will post a copy of the latest schedule on the VALE listserv.
d. There will be an open meeting for all VALE participants at Rutgers on November 3 at 2 pm to discuss the rollout plans and to provide an opportunity for all participants to ask questions about the project. Libraries will be encouraged to send two staff members.

3. A general discussion about the VALE logo and slogan was held. The advisability of maintaining the word "academic" in the VALE logo was questioned, especially if the project broadens to include public libraries and other groups. The consensus of the group was to keep the focus on academic at this point. The group's inability to agree on a VALE slogan was also discussed and the Public Relations subcommittee agreed to bring a recommendation to the next meeting which is catchy, if not fully descriptive.

4. Joan Getaz–report of the Public Relations Subcommittee

After extensive discussion about the need to sponsor an appropriate "celebration" of the VALE rollout for the Commission, the Presidents' Council, and the participants, John Gaboury agreed to clear with the Commission the following plan:
1. A brief, 10-minute powerpoint presentation will be prepared as part of the agenda of the Commission's December 18 meeting at Mercer County College.
2. On the afternoon of December 18, also at Mercer County College, a reception will be held for the VALE library participants to celebrate the VALE rollout. Commission members, presidents, etc. will be invited to stop in following their meeting, no legislators nor the governor will be invited.
The group is also preparing a tri-fold flyer for public distribution about the VALE project. It will be ready by mid-December and estimates are being gathered for printing costs. The need for a local information packet was also expressed as well as the need to advise local presidents of the VALE plans prior to the Commission's meeting in December.
John Gaboury and John Mihalick reported that OCLC staff are also working on promotional materials, including a press release to the Chronicle of Higher Education, scheduled for December.
Marianne asked Joan and her group to send her an estimate of the funds needed for the reception, printing, invitations, postage etc. Since there are no VALE funds for these expenses, Marianne and John will look into possible sponsors.

5. Barbara Simpson–report of the Training/Help Desk Subcommittee

The group met on October 14 and discussed strategies for getting training materials prepared and distributed as soon as the customized SiteSearch interface becomes available. They determined that a brief "cheat sheet," posted on the web will be about all that is possible before November 15. The role of OCLC in providing training was clarified to be that of holding several "train the trainer" sessions, possible using the services of Palinet. It was also suggested that a live demo of the interface be presented at the October 28 meeting of the training group. Help Desk planning will delayed until the training materials and sessions are underway.

6. John Cohn–report of the Technical Support Subcommittee

His group has been active and have drafted a list of recommended action items and a draft checklist for troubleshooting hardware and software. They will be meeting again on October 21 and John felt there was a strong need for Dave Hoover to join them and describe the technical details of how VALE will work.

7. Judith Lin Hunt–report of the Electronic Resource Subcommittee

The group will be meeting on October 22 and a listserv has been created for their use. They will review the results of the first electronic resource survey and discuss three categories of potential new VALE resources: commercial databases, public domain databases and free web sites. Rich Sweeney suggested that in the future different funding methods be explored for difference database services. She acknowledged the need, suggested by John Gaboury, to have some database preferences identified so that preliminary negotiations with vendors can occur at midwinter. Judith also suggested that there be a VALE presence at NJLA's annual conference.

8. Brother Paul Chervenie–report of the Assessment/Evaluation Subcommittee

The group met on October 2 and discussed several recommendations for collecting VALE usage data. These were prioritized into two groups and described in a written report which was distributed. The Steering Committee approved these recommendations which will now be passed along to Dave Hoover to ascertain which can be implemented at the rollout. Brother Paul also pointed out that the group recommends focusing on quantitative data in Year 1, but broadening its data collection in Year 2 to include more qualitative data about VALE use and user satisfaction.

9. Rich Sweeney–report of the Interface Subcommittee

Rich distributed pages from a web site which describe how to add the VALE logo to your institution's local home page. These same instructions were passed out at last week's Council meeting and all participants were encouraged to add the VALE "presence" locally for political and funding purposes. Rich will post a message to this effect on the Council listserv.

10. John Milhalick–report from OCLC

John announced that plans for moving forward with the State Library to provide statewide online access to NJULS, although the details of where the database would be mounted and maintained need to be addressed. One possible solution is to include it on the VALE servers, but there are implications for internet and staff ing loads. Jay Jordan, the new president of OCLC, has been invited to attend the reception on December 18.

11. The next meeting of the VALE Steering Committee will be a luncheon meeting at Rutgers on November 3 from 12 to 2, just prior to the open meeting on VALE.

Minutes prepared by Anne Ciliberti

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