Meeting Date: 
November 1, 2017
Date: 
11/01/2017 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Location: 
The Valley Library, Information Desk
Event Description: 

A PDF of the minutes can be found here.

Minutes: 

Voting Members Present: Tim Alcon, Richmond Barbour, Melissa Santala, Emily Shroyer, Justin St. Germain, Enrique Thomann, Sean Yang
Ex-Officio Member Present: University Libraries – Faye Chadwell
Guests: Don Frier, Kerri Goergen-Doll, Cheryl Middleton

Welcome and introductions

Review of Last Year’s Notes

Emily Shroyer opened the meeting by introducing herself, then gave an update on where the Committee stood last year. Faye then provided an update on the Library, followed by some things the Committee would like to see done this year.

There were a lot of open discussions on the Open Access (OA) policies. This issue has risen to a higher level across the university, and this has been on the mind of the Oregon State Board of Trustees related to affordability.

The Committee briefly talked about student membership on the Committee. Emily stated she would like to create an action item to get students on the committee. Richmond suggested Vickie Nunnemaker as a point of contact for interested students. Faye offered to send out a call for filling these positions. Last year there was one undergraduate and one graduate student.

Richmond heard back from Provost Ed Feser that administration would talk about the Library Research Travel Grant; but he hasn’t received any follow up. Richmond recommended that the Committee might pursue seeking a gift instead of soliciting from central administration again.

University Librarian Update

The library has had to make a 1% cut as part of the budget reductions, which resulted in the cut of a position in the library. The library has also received $400,000 for collections, which about matches the inflation seen on an annual basis. There is currently a multi-year contract with a vendor which would cost the library more to void the contract than to allow the contract to expire.

Action: Faye will bring this topic back to the Committee for feedback.

The library is undergoing a strategic planning process, and they’ll be sharing the results of that planning as it continues.

The University intends to tear down the library’s current off-site storage location in 2019; the library needs to identify an alternate location for the contents. The UO libraries renovated their science library, and got back-files of some of their journals as part of that renovation. As part of the relocation of the off-site storage, the library may also wish to consider looking at back-files of journals. It would be preferable if something could be achieved collaboratively with other universities or campuses in Oregon. Kerri offered that next-day service would still expected as part of this move. Tied to this is repurposing space in the library – both public space, and office space that is shared with Extended Campus.

The Press has partnered with the Open Oregon initiative to support the creation of course material. The library has a lot of materials that faculty might not realize is accessible, which could be provided through a license instead of requiring students to buy these textbooks. Emily asked if there was a list somewhere, and Faye offered that the 1search function could be utilized to access information.

Open Oregon has been pushing the open textbook initiative and, down the road, there’s an option to work with publishers to license textbooks; however, that would still require the bookstore to receive a cut of those proceeds due to their agreement with the University. The bookstore no longer sells OSU Press titles or books published by OSU Faculty.

There have been discussions and changes to reporting within the university, including realignments of many units under Academic Affairs. There was talk of moving the library underneath Information Technology, but it will stay under Academic Affairs.  Faye will keep the Committee informed of any changes or developments in this area. The library reported to Information Technology in the 1990’s, and was moved away from them.

Committee Business

  • Emily asked how the Committee can help deal with inadequate funding for collections and what role the members can play. Faye offered that the University is coming up for accreditation, and that the library’s collection is a big part of that. This will be an opportunity for the Library Committee to help the library, by talking with the team that comes to the library.
  • Clarification on the Library Committee’s Standing Rules is something that the committee can take on by Email.
  • Richmond asked if there was effective communication with the Faculty Senate.  Emily mentioned that she should be meeting with the Faculty President when his schedule allows. There is also more that could be done in sharing opportunities within departments about the services the library offers.
  • Melissa asked how much time someone would want to present to a given department. 
  • Enrique asked what libraries are doing about publishers and their relationship with publishers. Cheryl indicated that the paradigm has to shift, and there are different schools that are looking at pulling out of big deals (such as Elsevier). There are ideas to use discipline-specific repositories that could produce journals. 
    • Action: Faye offered to send some additional information on this to the committee.
  • Who will follow up on the travel grant? 
    • Action: Emily said that she could follow up with central administration, and Richmond offered to talk with Dean Rogers about fundraising potential. Emily will send the letter out to the Committee for feedback.
  • Emily opened the meeting to the Committee for any other items they might have.
    • Melissa asked where all the overhead goes, and why it’s a fixed amount and not a percentage. Faye said that she thinks it is a percentage. All of the library’s cost recovery (about $2.6 million now) goes to collections. With the new budget model, there will be some discussions related to contributions. 
      • Action: Faye said that she’ll follow up with Cynthia Sagers on the details of the overhead cost recovery.