VLAC Minutes

Absent: Bill Hansen, Larry Rees, Kathy Hamperian, Mary Molinaro, Jennifer Scarborough

Guests: Daniel Rabuzzi, Charlene Davis

1. KYVU Update (Rabuzzi)

Adult Education has come under the CPE umbrella. This is a very exciting development.

In the near future, the work of the Council will be heavily focused on the budget. The Council must present its budget recommendation for public higher education by November 15.

After three years of negotiation, Kentucky now has a joint engineering program in place. Degrees will bear the names of each participating institution. Council’s decision was to not build a third College of Engineering in the state. This is seen as a good decision. CPE is looking at joint programs in other disciplines as well.

KYVU’s numbers continue to increase. Operating efficiency continues to improve as more people are served without additional monies.

Revolving Loan Program: Interest free loans are available for up to three years. There are currently 9 loans outstanding to 6 institutions. There is still money in the program and KYVU would like to see more applicants. They are looking at a revision to the RFP process to move from the current annual application schedule to a revolving schedule.

Go Higher: This is a statewide portal for recruitment of learners. A contract was signed between KHEAA and a California concern to make it much easier for a prospective student and parents to find out what is available in higher education, how to apply, and how to pay for it. This extends efforts already in place for the private colleges and universities.

KYVU and the Virtual High School have launched KYVU for K-12. Services are available in 4 counties. Supplemental services are being offered under the “No Child Left Behind” program.

KYVU is in the forefront with regard to ADA compliance for online instruction. Senate Bill 85 in the last session (textbook accessibility) mandates that anyone who wishes to sell textbooks in KY must provide alternative sources of media to meet disabilities.

A repeat announcement was made of an offer announced at the last DLAC meeting: Due to a well-negotiated deal with Angel, members can receive unlimited usage for free through KYVU’s license. This could give an institution the opportunity to experiment with the platform at no cost. This will last at least through FY 2004. Rabuzzi suggests that the product is useful for things other than traditional course management. Wohlstein specifically mentioned group communication, survey tools, and the possibility of providing training via the Angel platform.

KYVU hopes to have live e-commerce capabilities shortly. This will allow students to pay with a credit card online.

2. Courier Schedule Reductions (Wohlstein)

The Resource Sharing Work Group has met a couple of times and reviewed the proposed courier schedule. Letters went out to all KCTCS directors, special academic libraries (medicine, law), and public libraries in both e-mail and hard copies. All were asked for voluntary reductions. There was a low response rate (30%) and there were many requests for more, not less, service. The result was that there was insufficient voluntary response to meet the proposed 129 stop reduction. The group decided to go forward with the original 316 stop proposal. Letters will be going out Monday to let directors know how they will be cut. The cuts were based on report past usage for 2001-2002. It was emphasized that no individual node was dropped. A very few public libraries may actually see an increase in stops.

The new agreement may cause some discomfort, but cuts were needed to meet the budget. The schedule will be reviewed again next year. Libraries may purchase extra stops. The new contract and new schedule will take effect on July 1st.

3. Database Contract Costs 2003-2004 (Wohlstein)

The Collection Development Work Group has obtained a price for MLA Bibliography from EBSCO. The quoted price would be for the full KYVL community. Grolier was asked if they would replace the Nueva encyclopedia Cumbre en linea with the New Book of Knowledge and keep the same price. They have agreed to do so. The change will be effective 1 October with the start of our new contract year.

Wohlstein discussed a handout which showed that the majority of database vendors have not raised their prices for 2-3 years. This has resulted in a “surplus” in the database fund. In addition, EBSCO is dropping Sociological Abstracts which will gain us some savings. It was asked if it would be possible to use that money to try to add additional resources.

Rader pointed to the tight state of the budget at a number of our institutions and asked if these monies should not be used to minimize increases in the assessments. Discussion ensued as to whether we could look at other products that could be added instead of MLA to minimize costs. Davis stated that the Collection Development Work Group suggested MLA due to recurring requests, but that the group could look for other databases, particularly in the area of the arts.

Motion: Van Orsdel moved that money be held until additional resources are identified. The motion passed unanimously.

4. VLAC Bylaws and Membership Additions Discussion (Wohlstein)

Changes: Commonwealth has been dropped in all places. Membership—increasing to 18 with 13 voting and 5 non-voting. Changed Item 2-“colleges” becomes “institutions.”

Van Orsdel questioned voting representation by Adult Ed as they move under CPE’s umbrella if they are no longer a separate budgetary entity. Van Orsdel clarified that if they are a part of CPE and don’t have an identifiable budget over which they have control, she feels that they should not be a voting member. Discussion ensued. The point was made that Adult Ed would be bringing in money and constituents.

Northern suggested that perhaps the CPE could be given 3 reps, 2 of which would be non-voting. This would provide representation for the CPE constituencies while dealing with Van Orsdel’s concerns.

Wohlstein pointed out that none of us have formal agreements as members of KYVL. We pay our assessments as the result of handshake deals. If we formalize membership, we may want to formalize the agreements for payment making them binding.

5. Proposed New Work Groups—Mission, Membership (Wohlstein)

The charges and proposed membership of each work group were distributed to the Committee. Van Orsdel asked if volunteers were being solicited. Wohlstein enthusiastically responded that volunteers are welcomed.

ADA Work Group: Asking for volunteers or recommendations within a week. The workgroup will work with the web team from CPE/KYVU.

Portal Work Group: A portal is being looked at as a SiteSearch replacement. KYVL is one of only a couple sites within the state that still use that package. We continue to want a single interface to the databases, as well as the opportunity to have a custom package that would allow seamless access to everyone. Currently, there is a team working on a Kentucky state portal which will provide a common interface to all state resources. Is there an interest in taking this to a wider perspective to buy something that would be usable by other entities (our libraries) within the state? We want to get workgroup membership finalized by July 1.

Outreach Work Group: We can think of this as partially a marketing effort. The KYVU marketing person (Sue Patrick) has volunteered to serve on this group. We will be looking for low cost solutions since there is not much of a marketing budget. Names of suggested members are due by July 1.

With the exception of Outreach, these work groups will probably last no longer than 18 months. The Information Literacy and Government Information Work Groups are becoming more active.

6. Virtual Reference (Rader):

Ten ASERL libraries are going to be working together on a collaborative service using OCLC QuestionPoint. Almquist mentioned that the SAALCK libraries are also investigating a collaborative virtual reference service using QuestionPoint and some member libraries are already experimenting with the software. Wohlstein mentioned that KYVL would like to investigate QuestionPoint also in terms of the public libraries. While talking with public library directors about the courier cuts, many mentioned searching for a virtual reference software.

7. VLAC Membership—Introduction of New VLAC Members/Change in Existing Members (Rader)

Almquist is incoming Chair. Nominations for Vice Chair were taken. Diane Culbertson was nominated and elected by unanimous vote.

Members rotating off: Onkst replaced by Lisa Rice

Rader mentioned that the new representative for UK will be Carol Diedrichs, incoming Dean of Libraries.

8. Work Group Updates (Work Group Chairs)

Collection Development: Hasn’t met.

Endeavor: Met yesterday. Endeavor will be updated this summer—absolutely. If the test update runs well, it will be done in August, with the work being done by our people over a four day weekend on August 4th. If not, the update will be done in July probably the weekends of the 21st and 28th. WestLib will be done first. At this point, it is felt that the update will most likely be done in August.

Virtual Library Users’ Group: There is a new listserv. This is a result of the May meeting of the group.

9. Announcements: Tanzi Merritt is now a board member at the Carnegie Literacy and Learning Center.

Kathleen Imhoff, the new Director of Lexington Public is moving here shortly. Her spouse is looking for work in libraries. He has degrees in history, but no MLS. He loves working nights. He is very skilled and experienced. Contact Lee if you have need for someone of this description.

KYVL passwords will stay the same until August.

Next Meeting Date: August 15, 2003

Last Updated: 1/15/04