VLAC Minutes

Absent: Hannelore Rader, Arne Almquist, Bill Hansen, Jim Nelson, Kathy Hamperian, Jennifer Scarborough

Guests: Tari Keller, Paul Fuller

1. Courier Service 2003-2004 Contract Update (Northern)

We had given Lanter Delivery Service the estimated reduction in service and they replied with a price of 15 percent increase in price. The most recent contract pricing supplied by Lanter is a difference of about $49,000 total. The number of stops will drop from 445 to 316 for the 2003-2004 contract year. Northern feels this is probably pretty good and stated that we cannot cut more stops and the service still be viable. The new contract amount has not been approved.

Typically, this kind of project would have been assigned to the Resource Sharing Work Group as they work with the courier and interlibrary loan services. Wohlstein suggested that the Resource Sharing Work Group be charged with working with the public libraries and KCTCS to meet the reduction goal of 316 stops. The VLAC Courier Interim Subcommittee report will be treated as a confidential report for now. The KCTCS library directors expressed a willingness to reduce their stops as they can. Private institutions will have to pay the per stop rate.

Motion was made that the Resource Sharing Work Group be charged with looking at the distribution of the reduced number of stops (316) for the public entities and staying within the proposed contract amount. The Resource Sharing Work Group has a meeting scheduled next Monday. As long as we tell Lanter that we will renew the contract, that it will be at the reduced amount, we have some time to work on a new service plan.

Motion was passed.

2. Collections Work Group Report on Databases (Davis)

The Work Group has been working on this report for a long time. They have actually assessed the databases and in May of 2002, it was determined that a formal assessment of the current family of databases was feasible because they were in place long enough to actually to give a clear picture. We approached some instate assessment experts, Gay Perkins from WKU and Melissa Lanning from U of L, whose assistance was invaluable. The databases were assessed by qualitative and quantitative assessment process. We used database user surveys and had intended to use focus groups. The surveys were deployed on KYVL website and sent out in paper form. Librarians were the greatest users (66%), K-12 users were diligent in responding to the survey, as were public libraries and universities and colleges. About 70% of users are accessing databases at the libraries. Several comments were made that people do not know the names of the databases or how they got to the information, through the portal, etc. Overall, people love the databases but that is not reflected in the numbers.

There were 71 people that were interested participating in the focus groups - 11%. Because we had to extend the survey deadline, to get optimal number of response, it was impossible to have focus groups. The assessment sub-committee worked on alternatives: they determined that they would like to approach the group with standard questions (attachment B). What they wanted to do was to meet face-to-face. If that wasn't a choice, then a telephone conversation, then as a last choice was email. The 71 people polled were asked what would be their favorite form of participation, they chose email. Database survey follow up was completed. Password was a negative issue as well as the lack of newspapers and full text. This was an experiment and we felt it went very well and we received a lot of good data.

Quantitative Statistics: Monthly usage statistics were looked at from of October 01- December 02, basically when the contracts have been in place. It should be noted the Wilson numbers reported are suspect in conjunction with the Wilson Biography reference bank and IP address recognition.

Conclusions/Recommendations: Excellent overall rating. The Work Group looked at low usage and looked at the bottom ten. Most of those are in packages, they were all priced by packages by those particular vendors. We contracted for three of the Grolier Encyclopedias and one of them was the Spanish Language Encyclopedia and the Workgroup has been surprised by the low usage. The Work Group recommends that KYVL ask Grolier to substitute the New Book of Knowledge for their Spanish Language Encyclopedia. New Book of Knowledge is good for elementary students. There was discussion about the whether the decision to pull the Spanish Encyclopedia, when there is such momentum to reach out to that particular population.

Database requests for MLA: Cost is a major issue. We would like to respond to this expressed need from the community. It was suggested that perhaps the academics could get together and get a quote through KYVL, but that it would also need to serve the whole family of libraries including publics. We are in the contracts for five years and we are now in the third year. It was mentioned to the Workgroup that they would need to start on the RFP process.

Newspaper databases are still at the top of the list. These are very costly but may have to be put in place at some point.

Comments were made that the report was very well done and Charlene will provide via email.

3. Database Vendors 2003-2004 Cost Update (Wohlstein)

We had requested numbers for the 2003-2004 contract year. EBSCO is a known contract amount as this will be the 3rd year in a three-year contract. The loss of Sociological Abstracts was discussed. We have not heard from Grolier or Wilson. OCLC is not going to increase our contract amount from 02-03 to 03-04. It was suggested that the decision be made prior to the academic year beginning. Contributions to the databases from the consortium would remain the same.

KDE states that KYVL needs to be made 508 compliant and that is imperative in order to receive further funding. KYVL is fully aware of the needs to be compliant and will take steps in doing so. Due to staffing levels, these delays are to be expected.

4. VLAC Bylaws Discussion (Wohlstein)

Due to the short amount of time left, we will revisit the bylaws at the next meeting. We are at 16 members. We are correctly distributed with regards to membership as according to bylaws. We do need to review our bylaws and membership to ensure that all of KYVL’s user communities are represented.

5. Work Group Reports

Information Literacy Work Group didn't have anything to report, as there were no projects. Since they are in existence, try to take action on the responses that were received through the survey - Database usage survey.

Collections and Resource Sharing Work Groups are active. Kentuckiana doesn't meet they usually correspond. Government Information Work Group is inactive. The Virtual Reference Desk Work Group is active in the sense of VRD pages assigned to experts.

6. Other Discussions

KYVL would like to establish several new work groups. One for ADA compliance of the KYVL website, with the hopes that we can start looking at the W3C guidelines. (WWW consortium guidelines) If VLAC is in agreement, the KYVL ADA Work Group could be established.

People don't know how to use the databases and that KYVL is website only, etc. Information Literacy/Marketing or "Outreach" Work Group could perhaps have one page downloads that people could use.

A third work group would be formed find Site Search replacement this year. This would be a Portal Work Group. We would also charge the work group with investigating other portal activity or research happening in the state so that we might avoid duplication of effort but also create a resource for our colleagues. It would make sense to do a statewide license as opposed to individual license. We might want to look at NEC? (New E-government - ECommerce Contract) State level and is self-funding. They have been successful in 17 states already. They target specific apps that they know that they have to have to make money. They are new to Kentucky and they have indicated that they would entertain some projects that are not money making.

Wohlstein will present charges and tasks for the new work groups at the next meeting. The composition of the group follow more or less the membership created by the new bylaws.

Davis mentioned the Database Survey report and several comments mentioned statistics sources. Statistics database are very expensive. Has been there any thought of integrating the kinds of resources found in the Virtual Reference Desk in terms of weblinks? It is a technical issue, for the most part.

7. Membership Terms

We have several people whose terms expire in June. Most of the representatives serves three year terms with the exception of the chair and vice chair - They can serve 3 years terms but only chair or vice chair for one year.

8. KSUG/VLUG Combined Conference

Reminder – The Kentucky Virtual Library Users Group will have a joint meeting with the Solinet Users Group meeting on May 30 in Barbourville at Union College. There will be hands on training in two sessions with EBSCO and Wilson.

Next Meeting Date: June 13, 2003

Last Updated: 1/15/04