| Minutes of 6/26 | Minutes of 7/17 | Minutes of 8/14
Present: Brar, Navjit; Cassel, Jeris; Ciliberti, Anne; Cohn, John; Gaboury, John; Golden, Gary; Greene, Phil; Hafner, Arthur; Lancaster, Tom; Long, Phil; Michelson, Les; Miller, John; Schatz, Scherelene; Simpson, Barbara.
1. John Gaboury opened the meeting with the news that the Governor has signed the Bond legislation.
2. Phil Long reported that the Subcommittee on Infrastructure of the Commission's Task Force on Technology received four proposals in response to the RFP for a consultant to review the interinstitutional proposals. He anticipates that a consultant will be named within the next two weeks.
3. Phil also reported that work is progressing on the development of the regulations for use of the bond funds and it appears that there may be a strict interpretation limiting the use of the funds for equipment and infrastructure needs. Phil and John will explore this issue further with the Higher Education Facilities Authority.
4. In view of these developments, the group agreed about the necessity of keeping the library directors appraised of the developments via the Council of Directors.
5. Navjit Brar reported on the work of her Ariel Workgroup and distributed a written report. Based upon survey results, the workgroup estimated a cost of about $340,000 to install hardware and software in all academic libraries in NJ and their branches.
6. Jim Rush suggested that a future consideration might be the statewide storage of scanned Ariel documents for future use. The group acknowledged that this would have copyright implications and that the current VALE proposal must include an acknowledge the copyright responsibilities of Ariel participants.
7. Gary Golden and Anne Ciliberti distributed copies of the Electronic Resources Workgroup recommendations. Their recommendations for general or undergraduate resources include: acquisition of one full-text, general periodical database, Encyclopedia Britiannica, and FirstSearch. For specialized or graduate resources, the group recommends PsycLit, ABI Inform or IAC Business ASAP, Biological Abstracts or Ovid's biomedical collection, and Academic Press's IDEAL collection of full-text science journals. Gary and Anne also recognized that new databases and new products come on the market daily, so that their recommendations may increase to include products such as Lexus/Nexis and SciFinder Scholar by Chemical Abstracts Service.
8. Jeris Cassel distributed copies of the Help Desk Workgroup recommendations and explained that the recommendations are based upon the creation of a Help Desk Team with representation from each participating institution.
9. Barbara Simpson reported on the recommendations of the Training Workgroup and distributed copies of its report. Key among the recommendations was the need to provide training opportunities across the state using a variety of delivery mechanisms ranging from on-site, personal sessions to interactive, video and cable presentations. Tom Lancaster assured the group that there were several multi-media methods of distribution statewide which could be used for this purpose. A second important element in the recommendations was the need to request that all database vendor proposals include training components.
10. Jim Rush reported that OCLC has begun to explore alternative pricing schemes for FirstSearch beyond the traditional per search price basis. He explained that an agreement had been reached with a consortium of Pennsylvania academic libraries that provided unlimited access to 60 FirstSearch databases based upon a cost per FTE. Jim noted that he felt this newer option might be valuable to our project.
11. John Gaboury distributed two options for how the "matching" component might be calculated. After discussion, the consensus was to recommend that the match be calculated based upon an institution's FTEs and that participants be permitted to be selective in choosing the services and resources in which they wished to participate.
12. The group acknowledged the need to keep local presidents and library directors informed. John agreed to try to make a presentation at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Presidents' Council and at the fall meeting of the Council of Library Directors.
13. The need for a VALE fiscal agent was also discussed and the group was assured that, based upon NJIN's experience, this would not be a problem.
14. The group reviewed two more drafts of a VALE vision/mission statement and agreed to a version submitted by Marianne Gaunt. See VALE web page.
15. John Gaboury announced that a writing group composed of Marianne Gaunt, Phil Long, Anne Ciliberti and himself had been formed for the purpose of drafting the full VALE proposal. He asked for additional volunteers and noted that the group will meet at Alexander Library on Friday, September 16 and Monday, September 29.
16. The next meeting of the Task Force was set for Friday, October 10 at 10 am at the Alexander Library. The agenda will be to review the first draft of the VALE proposal.