Collection Development Council
Minutes of the Meeting of September 15, 2005
SML 409
2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

Present: Gwyneth Crowley, Christine de Vallet, Jo-Anne Giammattei, George Miles, Haruko Nakamura, Tobin Nellhaus (Chair), Audrey Novak, Ann Okerson, Kimberly Parker, Susanne Roberts, David Stern, Paul Stuehrenberg, Dorothy Woodson.

Absent: Cynthia Crooker, Marcia Romanansky, Andrew Shimp, Martha Smalley, David Walls.

Guests: David Gewirtz, Roberta Pilette.

Recorder: Graziano Krätli.

I. Announcements.

A. Cambridge University Press Journals. Kimberly Parker, Head of Electronic Collections, announced that CoDGeR decided to acquire the entire package of Cambridge University Press online journals, which will give us access to titles we do not currently subscribe to for a small additional fee.

B. Curatorial Responsibilities and Assignments at the Beinecke Library. George Miles, Curator of the Western Americana Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, reminded CDC members of the new division of curatorial responsibilities which followed recent staff changes (Stephen Parks's retirement, Vincent Giroud's departure) and will continue over the next 3-4 years. Last spring, Kevin Repp was appointed Curator of Modern European Books and Manuscripts, which covers the period from 1800 onward, and interviews are still being conducted to identify a suitable candidate for the position of Curator of Early Modern (1600-1800) European Books and Manuscripts, who will be responsible of the Osborn Collection as well. Among the consequences of this reorganization are that Vincent Giroud's former responsibilities as Curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts will have been divided among three curators (Timothy Young, Patricia Willis, and Nancy Kuhl).

Dorothy Woodson, Curator of the African Collection, asked where other (i.e., non-European and non-U.S.) parts of the world fit in the new curatorial landscape, expressing some concerns about the title of the position to be filled and how it emphasizes a Eurocentric approach.

George Miles confirmed the existence of a Eurocentric approach, adding that it reflects the nature and composition of the Beinecke collections, which for the rest of the world rely heavily upon the advice of the area curators. While collecting will continue in areas such as travel and exploration, as well as English language and literature materials wherever they are produced, efforts will be made to fill significant gaps in African literature and Middle Eastern materials from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.

II. Integrated Systems & Programming: polling on projects for fall.

Audrey Novak, Manager, Integrated Systems and Programming, invited CDC members to think about possible projects for her group to undertake during the semester, although a large amount of their time and energies will be taken up by the update of the Voyager system, on which they recently embarked. Audrey added that one of her group's goals for this year is the redesign of the Collection Analysis Tool, which was developed for a specific function (LSF selection). One of the major challenges will be the sizing of the collections by non-LC call numbers.

Dorothy Woodson noted that it would be helpful if ILTS could do programming that will enable selectors to extract statistics submitted annually to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Audrey replied that they have been discussing this issue for several years, but it is well beyond what her group can tackle.

Kimberly Parker asked whether streamlining of the huge MARC record loads would be a possible project for the year. Audrey replied that every record set is unique, since each vendor uses MARC in a slightly different way. The challenge consists in identifying the type of changes that need to be made, and unless records-producers start using MARC in the same way, it will be difficult to increase efficiency in this area.

George Miles asked if Audrey's group could assist with an inventory, since it has been probably fifteen years since the last shelf reading at the Beinecke. Audrey replied that it is possible to create a file of the Beinecke's holdings. As a matter of fact, Voyager can generate a list of the books that should be on the shelves, although it would limited to LC items, the rest being in a category called "Other." What could work for Beinecke in a limited way would not necessarily work for other libraries at Yale.

Kimberly inquired about support for the Electronic Records Management (ERM) system cross-connection to Voyager. Audrey stressed that the link between the ERM and Voyager should be seen as a library-wide initiative and, therefore, bigger than can be handled during an academic year or semester.

David Stern, Director of the Kline Science Library, asked if there is a way of conducting an analysis of the Mathematics collection, which falls into the group of materials classified as "Other" (non-LC), and Audrey explained the difficulties of such a task.

Ann Okerson asked if there is another list of record sets to be loaded, in addition to those detailed in Audrey's e-mail of September 15. Audrey explained that authority control processing was suspended from February to June, during which time the library accumulated a huge load backlog (ca. 3,000 records a week), and she is very keen on sending these records out to authority control and then for re-loading back into Orbis. Yes, there are other record sets to be loaded, but they are still with the Catalog Department for analysis and have not yet been direct to ILTS for loading.

III. Digital Preservation Committee policy.

Audrey Novak and Roberta Pilette, Head of the Preservation Department, distributed and described a document outlining the Digital Preservation Policy recently drafted by the Library's Digital Preservation Committee, of which they are co-chairs. The Committee was appointed by the Integrated Access Council in 2004, with a three-year charge to develop policies and procedures regarding long range plans for a digital preservation program. The policy does not provide technical and procedural guidelines - i.e., "how we are going to do it" - which will be addressed by a set of best practices currently under development.

The document is articulated in the following sections: Principle Statement, Identification of Content, File Format, Sources and Collecting Levels; Life cycle; Storage; Authenticity; Metadata; Access; Intellectual Property; Financial; Glossary; and Sources.

Audrey highlighted some key points of the document, namely that:

• preservation decisions are made: (a) collectively by selectors, curators, and bibliographers in consultation with information technology and preservation experts, and (b) at the time of creation, acquisition, or licensing of digital resources, whenever possible;
• YUL retains preservation responsibility whether the digital resource is preserved at YUL or entrusted to an outsource agency;
• the "life cycle" section is there primarily to point out that digital resources have a life cycle, a long one;
• metadata are a fundamental aspect of any digital preservation policy; and
• an initiative of this kind is expensive - potentially more so than for print materials - and requires an ongoing financial commitment, as pointed out in the "Financial" section.

Bobbie noted that the final draft does not incorporate the comments that the Committee is getting. David Gewirtz, Research Programmer in the Academic Media & Technology unit of ITS and a member of the Digital Preservation Committee, added that the University is planning a campus-wide digital preservation program and that, storage being an important component of it, substantial investments in this area will be necessary over time.

Tobin asked if the Policy differentiates between "digital" and "digitized" materials, to which Audrey replied that the question had to do and will be dealt with the set of best practices under development. George Miles complimented the committee on the document, adding that there were only two cases in which he could not find proper answers to his concerns, one being the definition of "perpetual access" and the other the concept of life cycle in relation to digital resources. Perpetual access, as interpreted by George, should not mean that a vendor continues to send us files, but that we continue to have access to those files in spite of what happens to the vendor. Audrey agreed that a more comprehensive definition of "perpetual access," such as the one proposed by George, should be incorporated into the document and illustrated by examples (Ann's suggestion).

In regard to the concept of life cycle, George argued that the comparison with the print world should be made to "text" rather than "book," the latter being simply the physically-decaying container of the former, whose contents transmigrates from one edition and book format to the next. Audrey disagreed on the comparison to "text," adding that the concept of "version" as referred to in digital resources is different from what "edition" stands for in the printed world.

David Gewirtz noted that part of the life cycle is to look at how the user wants to "consume" a particular resource, to which Kimberly underscored the importance of making early decisions in regard to this kind of situation: if you want to preserve the way the Encyclopædia Britannica online looked in 1997, then you should have captured it back then.

IV. Casalini records: a brief intro.

As a foretaste of a future discussion to be joined by Meg Bellinger and Joan Swanekamp, Ann Okerson distributed copies of a letter sent by Joachim Bartz, Director of Casalini Libri, on September 8, 2005, describing a pilot project undertaken in collaboration with the Library of Congress. In the fall of 2004 Casalini Libri, the largest provider of Italian books to libraries in Europe and North America, was approached by the Library of Congress with the proposal of a pilot project that would enable Casalini to deliver LC-core level catalogue records and accompanying authority records for Italian books purchased by LC.

The economic model of this proposal was based on the assumption that the high cost of original cataloging would be shared by the institutions that make use of the records, the Library of Congress, the major libraries that buy the records, and the utilities (OCLC and RLG) that distribute them to other libraries. Since the utilities replied to the proposal saying that it was not possible to share the costs, Casalini added a clause to their proposal in which they asked libraries not to distribute the core level records to the utilities as form of protection of their (Casalini's) investment and as a way to maximize their income.

The proposal and its financial impact at Yale and beyond is worth discussing, since other vendors such as Harassowitz (another major vendor for Yale Library) may undertake a similar project.

V. OCLC Collections Analysis Tool: a brief intro.

Ann Okerson briefly described the Worldcat Collection Analysis, a new service introduced by OCLC last spring and whose utility, at least for her, would be enhanced by the possibility of generating figures to the Secretary of the University's Office, particularly in regard to international programs and collections. After a few questions and brief discussion, the group agreed that they would like to hear more about the service and that Ann should invite OCLC to campus to make a more detailed presentation.

Next meeting: September 29, 2005.