Continuing Resources Policy Committee
Minutes from February 26, 2003 Meeting
Smathers Library Conference Room, 2:00 p.m.

Present: Rich Bennett, Jean Bostwick, Pam Cenzer, Robena Cornwell, Michele Crump, Jason Fleming, Leilani Freund, Doug Kiker, Cathy Mook, Jan Swanbeck, Naomi Young

Announcements
Positions - Rod Uecker is leaving MSL and will be working at Preservation. Carol King will be retiring from the Serials Acquisitions Unit in two weeks. Paul Wartenberg will be the new night person in Library West Reference.

ALEPH migration update
Circulation and Acquisitions have completed their functional training. Circulation reports that training went favorably, while Acquisitions came out with mixed results. Michele reports that the first day was on ordering and everything was straight forward and went well. The second day focused on claiming and invoicing. There were a lot of unanswered questions because training went by so fast and there were not a lot of hands on examples for the group to study. There were also a lot of screens involved which added to the confusion.
FCLA is meeting today and tomorrow as a group to prepare for their meeting with UF's local steering committee on Monday. Coming out of the meeting on Monday there should be a clear understanding of whether or not we will STP on May 12th or if that date will be pushed back. If it is pushed back the new date might be in July.

NOTE: A general staff update will be sent out about the status early this week. It will indicate that we are aiming for a revised STP in early July, 2003, but that this could change.

A key factor will be the need to have the library closed during this time. There are a lot of considerations that they will be discussing.
No matter what happens with the STP date the training sessions with Ex Libris will remain on schedule. Our challenge will be to stay fresh and not forget what we have learned before ALEPH is live. Michele offered that we should develop exercises to be gone through in our internal training sessions using the MSL room.
Data migration is going well. FCLA has become the project manager for our ALEPH conversion and now Ex Libris is playing more of a consulting role. A full load has been completed, but before it is released it needs to be indexed and the authorities aren't in place yet.
Michele wanted to know what would happen when 16.2 came out, would we upgrade. Rich said that there were a lot of factors that would be involved in making that decision. We would probably upgrade but not until later. Timing would be a key issue in such an event. All Florida Universities should be switched over within the next 2 years.
Acquisitions functions will continue until the end of the year. Check in can be done, but anything after STP will not migrate over.
Predictive check-in will be added to the list of questions we want to bring to FCLA. Check in will be done manually until Predictive check-in comes online.

Update on binding Project
Cathy Mook reports that preservation was given $5,000 to go to the branches with backlogs and get caught up. To that end they have hired Hank Young who has already started on AFA and EDU, LAC and LW will be focused on soon thereafter. The goal is to have 2,300 volumes bound within 14 weeks. They are shooting to have everything done before the May 12th STP date.

Cataloging Databases
Michele reports that Martha Hruska was finding a lot of electronic journal titles that had not been cataloged. i.e. Springer link has a provisional but why isn't it cataloged? There are two issues at stake here:

  1. Database Publisher Packages
    • the only one cataloged right now is JSTOR
    • Michele's question: should the publisher packages like Springer Link be cataloged?
      i.e. Springer Link has a provisional for staff purposes that doesn't show to the public, but why isn't it cataloged?
  2. Martha is talking specifically about individual journal titles that we get electronically as part of a package but do not have 856 links in the individual print BIB records.

In the future it will be less likely that any electronic only titles will give specific vendor link information unless it is put in locally or outsourced(see links at bottom of this section) We have suppressed these records so that patrons cannot see them. Rich suggests a small record in LUIS to accomplish the task.
Rich Bennett reports that the Database Locator may go away after all the SUL Libraries have switched to ALEPH (since that's when the WebLUIS Search System -- which is the platform for the DBL -- will be retired). That's at least two years away."
Martha would like us to consider outsourcing the cataloging for electronic titles. Naomi offers that there is no way to manually keep on top of these packages. Rich will get a quote from serials solutions on this.

The committee recommends that we consider outsourcing the cataloging of our electronic titles.


 To view a pdf of the EBSCO handout passed out click here
http://www.serialssolutions.com/atoz.aspA to Z title lists by Serials Solutions


Naomi wanted to mention that is ISSN numbers do not match up as we check in serials, then they need to be brought to her attention.
There is a need to figure out how to handle Analysed Monograpgh Series that come to us in electronic format. Naomi is going to draft up a resolution to deal with this concern.