Information Alliance
Collection Development Counterparts Meeting - Rugby, TN November 1, 2002
The Information Alliance held its annual collection development counterparts meeting at Rugby on November 1, 2002. Collection development officers at the three IA institutions facilitated the meeting:
- Jim Burgett (University of Kentucky)
- John Haar and Mary Beth Blalock (Vanderbilt University)
- Linda Phillips (University of Tennessee).
Disciplines under discussion included:
- German Studies (Susan Widmer-VU, Sara Williams-UT, Jim Burget-UK)
- Latin American Studies (Paula Covington-VU, Sandy Leach and Molly Royse-UT; Judy Fugate-UK)
- Music (Dennis Clark-VU, Pauline Bayne and Margaret Kaus-UT, Paula Hickner-UK)
- Science and Technology (Sherre Harrington-VU, Ron Gilmour-UT, Maggie Johnson-UK).
- COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS
- The collection development officers reviewed the goals of counterparts meetings. A special topic of interest was the question of how to get more foreign language expertise into the collection development area. The general consensus was that in order to increase the availability of foreign language proficiency, that skill needs to be specified in the job description -- as a desired skill, if not a requirement. John and Linda then facilitated a discussion with the Science and Technology group on the topic of models for funding journal database purchases, while Jim met with his counterparts in German Studies.
- GERMAN STUDIES:
- Selectors from UK and UT used this meeting to acquaint the
recently hired German selector at VU with the Germanists’ Project,
now into its fifth year. The Germanist Projects represents an
effort to distribute the acquisition of contemporary German-language
writers as identified by the Harrassowitz Contemporary Authors
List among the three institutions. The three selectors agreed
that this was still a worthwhile project to continue. They also
discussed a plan to assign new authors added to the List since
the inception of the Germanist Project to the primary collecting
library.
The counterparts also explored the desirability and feasibility of building a joint audio-visual collection, noting that film studies were becoming popular at the respective institutions. Films on DVD would serve not only the German departments, but would also potentially have inter-departmental appeal for courses in general film studies and even comparative literature. With the advent of DVD, a format that is easy to transport, the sharing of AV resources via ILL has become easier and more realistic as an IA project, but institutional guidelines on the interlibrary-loaning of AV materials must be examined, possibly amended, before firm commitments can be made.
The three Germanists also decided to contact ProQuest to request a quote on a consortial subscription to the Brecht and Kafka electronic collections. Finally, the selectors agreed to share journal lists and to consult with each other in the event of a journal cancellations. They plan to meet at ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia (Jan. 2003) to follow-up on the Rugby discussions. - Selectors shared budget information and reviewed current
journal subscriptions at the respective institutions. They compared
the services of various vendors, reviewed their ability to supply
approval materials, and shared their experience in using ‘deposit
accounts’ to expedite the acquisition of some materials.
The participants also compared collecting strengths and focal points at the three institutions. Their discussion suggested that it might be possible to divide collecting responsibility beyond core materials by country. To facilitate resource sharing, UT and UK will join LASER, a web-based project that creates union lists of videos, journals, etc and their holdings at participating institutions.
The three selectors also agreed to share plans to purchase ‘big ticket’ items and to coordinate those acquisitions when appropriate. Finally, they decided a useful project would be to compare holdings by call numbers and possibly by subject headings. - MUSIC:
- http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/music/ia/
Music librarians first met in the Fall of 1999 and generated ideas for collaboration, but for various reasons these plans were not implemented. The selectors are now meeting again with renewed energy due to additional personnel at UT/VU and a new fine arts library at UK.
The counterparts discussed approval plans. Two of the three institutions currently have approval plans for scores, but they will now share the list of composers covered by these plans and possibly divide collecting responsibilities. They plan to share information about plans to purchase monumental editions of scores and will coordinate those purchases more closely.
In addition, there was agreement to pursue consortial pricing of electronic resources where possible and to investigate the lending of music-related AV materials among the three institutions. An initial step toward this goals is to review and revise AV lending policies at the respective institutions. - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
- The Science and Technology counterparts from the three libraries
began their report with a celebration of past successes, namely
consortial subscriptions to INSPEC and SciFinder Scholar.
They also discussed an IOP journals package offer that all are interested in, but will also look for other participants beyond the IA partners; they are working with a deadline of December 15, 2002. In view of the impending subscription to the Kluwer journal package, they will explore ways to consolidate holdings in these titles.
A good part of the meeting was devoted to identifying the sci-tech journals listed on the IA Serials Archive spreadsheet. Plans are to continue to review these titles and establish an appropriate ‘library of record’ for selected titles by the end of the year. The library of record would maintain the print archive of the assigned titles on behalf of the IA consortium and would place a note in the serial record to that effect.
Click here to return to the Information Alliance homepage.
LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES:
