Maine Shared Collections Strategy Directors Council
December 07, 2012
Colby College, Miller Library Conference Room
1-3 PM
Attendees: Clem Guthro, Linda Lord, Judy Montgomery, James Jackson Sanborn, Barbara McDade, David Nutty, Steve Podgajny, Joyce Rumery, Gene Wiemers, Matthew Revitt
Absent: Deb Rollins
1. Project Updates
a. New Program Manager
Matthew Revitt, who was appointed the new Maine Shared Collections Strategy (MSCS) Program Manager (as of 9/10/2012), formally introduced himself to the Directors.
b. 583 testing
i. OCLC Shared Print symbol costs – WorldCat Resource Sharing fee
OCLC requires an additional symbol for shared print items. The Project Team has decided upon shared print OCLC symbols in the format of <current symbol>sp, e.g. BBHSP for Bowdoin College.
Although the creation of the symbol itself is free. Sara was informed that there is a $300 annual cost per symbol for it to be used in WorldCat Resource Sharing at the time of symbol creation. If we decided to move to ILLiad at a later date they would credit the charge to the ILLiad purchase.
The Project Team has agreed that it would be sufficient to proceed with only two Shared Print Symbols for testing, until we are ready for retention decisions and have the WorldCat Resource Sharing turned on, which would trigger the $300 charge per institution. We agreed to test one public and one academic and URSUS. Barbara volunteered Bangor and we chose Bowdoin as the academic.
Barbara and Judy were happy with Sara to proceed with the purchase of those symbols. Gene asked about the ILLiad satellite library fee which is described in point iv.
Sara was unsure whether the $300 charge would generate a new invoice, or simply be added to existing OCLC bills.
Sara is still waiting for OCLC to provide her with the Shared Print codes.
ii. Local Holding Record OCLC Tool testing
Local Holdings Records (LHR) will need to be created in OCLC. This can be done via batchload services, which requires a one-time $345 setup fee.
Matthew expressed his hope that whichever method is chosen it should not have a huge impact on workflow, a concern which had been expressed at the last Technical Services Subcommittee meeting on October 23, 2012.
OCLC also is testing a prototype ‘do it yourself’ LHR creation service. This is still in its infant stages, and it is unclear if it will be ready in time for us to use. Sara Amato (MSCS Systems Librarian) has been involved in the initial testing of this prototype.
Matthew reported on the phone conversation he, James, and Sara had with Tom Jacobson from Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) where they discussed purchasing export tables from III to export retention data and create LHR records for batchloading for III. However, Sara believes that it is looking less likely that we will need to do this.
iii. ILL Testing
Sara is still waiting for the shared print codes. Once the shared print symbols are created, Guy Saldhana at Bowdoin has volunteered to test out ILL and help advise if using WorldCat Resource Sharing is a better solution than paying the charge for an ILLiad satellite library for the new symbols.
iv. ILLiad satellite library fee
After speaking with Bill Carney at OCLC, Sara confirmed that Atlas charges an annual fee of $1,200 for the additional OCLC symbol for each ILLiad library (which includes the academic MSCS libraries).
Clem believes that this fee is unreasonable and is going to take it up with Kate Birch, who has been identified by Sara as a contact person. However, based on an email received from Ms. Birch, Matthew expressed doubts whether this is something that would be waived.
The Directors expressed grave concerns about the $1,200 fee. Gene went as far as saying that it was a ‘game stopper’. He asked whether there was a way of avoiding the fee and what the impact of not using the symbol is. Clem believed that the $300 annual cost was reasonable, but not the $1,200 fee. Clem felt that because of the national emphasis of MSCS it would be a shame if we didn’t acquire the symbols. Whilst other libraries will not be able to see the symbol to identify it as part of a shared print project, the retention commitment will still be visible in local catalogs in the MARC 583 subfield. Clem clarified that the symbols are not needed in Inn-Reach – only in OCLC. Gene also pointed that the collections covered by MSCS are generally going to be low use items anyway.
The Directors were concerned that a company affiliated with OCLC was benefiting from the shared print symbol policy, when MSCS was intending to responsibly meet OCLC requirements. A discussion then ensued regarding the relationship between OCLC and Atlas where Clem clarified that they are separate companies.
Steve asked what the purpose of the symbol is. Clem and Matthew responded that the symbol would be used to publicize MSCS. Also other libraries would be able to make decisions regarding their own collections safe in the knowledge that libraries in Maine are retaining the material.
The Directors agreed that the $1,200 fee would not be scalable to other Maine libraries that eventually will be a part of MSCS.
The Directors also discussed whether those libraries involved in the OCLC Shared Print Archives Pilot Project had been expected to pay this fee.
It was agreed that Clem should still discuss the issue with Ms. Birch, but if the annual fee of $1,200 per library is not waived the Directors would not approve purchasing the symbols.
v. Communications with III
Retention decisions will be recorded in 561/583/852 fields in the item records in the local catalogs. The Project Team believe that we will be able to batch create these, so shouldn’t have a huge effect on workflow.
Unfortunately, these fields do not display by default, and do not flow to the central server (MaineCat.) The MSCS 583 Subcommittee is currently testing a dedicated ‘n’ tagged note field for display in both the local and central systems. Venice from Maine InfoNet is coordinating this testing with III and URSUS.
Matthew reported that during the conversation with Tom Jacobson (see above) they discussed paying III for custom programming to transfer the retention related fields, though we are still waiting for a price quote, and they suggest it would be around $25,000 and 6-9 months out.
James went into the issues with displaying the 583 field in more detail. He explained how unlike other fields the 583 field does not currently flow from Millennium to Inn-Reach. It was agreed that this work is something that III should make a priority to look at and that it would be to their advantage with the likely increase in shared print projects across the country.
It was agreed that this issue would be brought up with III at the meeting scheduled during the ALA Mid-Winter Conference in Seattle, WA.
c. Collections Analysis
i. Sara Amato’s OCLC data manipulation
In late September, the Project Team requested that Sara Amato manipulate the data received back from OCLC to help facilitate the collections analysis activities.
Sara has done an impressive job with this and provided the Project Team with a link to a form over an SQL database with the OCLC/Circ data in it.
Matthew report that the Project Team feels Sara’s work will complement that of SCS and is a useful exercise; comparing what is possible with in-house work vs. contracting with a SCS.
A general discussion ensued regarding the high esteem in which Sara is held, particularly at Bowdoin College.
Whilst working on the form, Sara has been ‘normalizing’ data as she noticed issues. For example, there were some odd checkout dates. The fact that the data was not 100% clean did not surprise the Project Team.
Matthew also reported that in regards to the reloading of 001 fields from the reclamation: URSUS and Colby are completed. Bowdoin is in process with Bates to follow soon. Sara intends to have this finished before the pull of the data for SCS.
ii. Sustainable Collections Services (SCS) proposal
Prior to the meeting, Matthew had sent out for review a proposal from Sustainable Collection Services (SCS) for collections analysis services.
Matthew explained that after coming to the realization that OCLC WorldCat Analysis was not going to meet our needs and regarding data and reports needed to make retention & preservation decisions he, Clem and Deb met with the SCS team at the Charleston Library Conference in November. They discussed with SCS the project goals and the MSCS collections analysis requirements. Matthew shared with them the data received from OCLC.
The Project Team received a proposal from SCS in mid-November and has since been negotiating with SCS regarding requested changes. The proposal that was sent to the Directors was the original version and did not include proposed changes.
Matthew outlined the proposed costs of using SCS and explained how the funding for it would come from the costs sharing funds of $13,085 per library for subscription to collection analysis tools, which was in their partner library commitment letters. There are also grant funds available which were originally intended to contract with a project programmer to build a collection analysis system.
Judy asked Matthew if he could provide more information on what the $13,085 amount covered because she understood it to also cover subscription to HathiTrust. Matthew explained that the $13,085 amount only covered a contribution to the subscription of collection analysis tools. Colby were the only partner whose costs sharing also covered subscription to the HathiTrust which is why their contribution also includes $13,300 to the annual cost of subscription to the HathiTrust Digital Library
David also requested that Matthew looks again at the $13,085 figure, because he was under the impression that subscription to OCLC WCA was well below this figure. David made it clear that the University of Southern Maine would not be able to contribute additional funds to MSCS. Matthew is going to review the budget and get back to the Directors regarding costs sharing funds.
David referring to the part of the proposal which states that: “SCS will compile all streams of collection, item, circulation, and external holdings data into a consolidated MSCS database, which will be maintained on SCS servers” asked whether we would be getting the data back from SCS once it had been sent to them.
James answered this question referring first to an email sent from Rick Lugg (SCS) in which he stated that: “SCS uses a postgres database hosted by Amazon Web Services for this purpose–and we use the postgres PG Admin client to construct queries against it. This will be a massive file, of course, and it may be more practicable for us to provide MSCS with login access rather than porting it. But we can probably move it if necessary. As long as MSCS has the necessary query-writing skills and capacity, you can use it for as long as you think the data remains valid. We’ll need to think carefully about what data elements you’ll want to query on, to be certain we build them into the roll-up at the outset. Alternatively, SCS can continue to host the data and run queries on your behalf. We would also provide some form of ‘allocation database’ that shows for each title who has committed to retain it and who may withdraw it. In the past, we have provided this as an Access database, but we are open to alternatives”.
James responded that having access to the dataset for at least a couple years (if only for comparison purposes) is sufficient. Also that writing SQL queries should be within our capabilities either in-house or through Sara, so not having to mount a local copy is fine with him. A discussion then ensued regarding how valid the data is beyond 2 years (which is how long SCS retains the data for).
David asked whether any additional funds would be required to pull data again for SCS. Matthew replied that other than Sara’s time (using the OCLC API) no additional costs will be incurred.
Matthew reported that the Project Team are going to speak with Rick at the MSCS Project Team meeting on December 12, 2012 where he hopes the proposal can be agreed and get SCS to start work ASAP.
Matthew did point out that no agreements would be signed until a revised proposal had been produced and reviewed by the Project Team. Matthew went on to explain that he had produced a University of Maine ‘Sole Source Justification’ document which outlines why the Project Team believes that this is a case where there is no alternative supplier for a similar product. Matthew outlined his argument in the report which is that SCS’s superior reporting ability and consulting is what sets them apart. Although this document had been produced it will not be signed by Joyce until the Project Team agrees on the terms of the proposal. Matthew will keep the Directors informed of any decisions made.
Matthew emphasized that SCS will only facilitate the collections analysis decision-making NOT make the decisions for MSCS. Judy recommended that he keeps the Collection Management Committee abreast of any decisions regarding SCS. Whilst Matthew had informed the Committee of the decision to not renew the OCLC WorldCat Analysis subscription and that we were reviewing a proposal from SCS, he will make sure to update them.
Matthew discussed how for SCS this would be the first project where public libraries would be involved. Clem also believes it would be the first time in a SCS project that HathiTrust data is actually used as a basis for making retention decisions.
Judy asked why special collections data was included in the data analyzed. Clem responded that in some cases this may be the copy that is retained.
A discussion then ensued regarding non-circulating items, for example, reference material.
David asked if URSUS libraries not part of MSCS would be removed from the proposal. Matthew replied they would, along with generic content not related to MSCS.
In light of the delays in agreeing the proposal with SCS, Clem was asked if he was still confident that the February deadline (stated in the proposal) for having summary data to review could be met. Clem responded that he was still confident this deadline could be met.
d. HathiTrust
i. Judy Montgomery discussions regarding consortial membership
Judy reported that she had contacted Deb and Clem regarding discussions she had with Paul Courant, University Librarian at University of Michigan and also a member of the HathiTrust Board of Governors and their Executive Committee. Paul mentioned the possibility of consortial HathiTrust membership which other groups have used.
Judy checked with the MSCS Project Team whether consortial membership was something they wished to pursue using Paul as a contact. The Project Team agreed that Judy should pursue this and she sent a message to Paul. Judy received a positive email from Jeremy York regarding this where she was informed that consortial membership for Maine Larger Libraries is a possibility. Jeremy outlined the two general scenarios for consortial membership:
“In the first, where a consortium can be represented as a single entity through its holdings, contracts and authentication, it can join HathiTrust as a single entity. There are several advantages to this arrangement. We gains efficiencies from dealing with one, rather than multiple entities. The consortium benefits by having a lower cost (as a result of being treated as a single entity), and gaining access benefits, as all institutions are considered to have the collective holdings of the consortium.
In the second scenario, a consortium acts as a collective of institutions. In this scenario, the partnership fee for each institution is calculated separately (the fee may be paid by each institution, or all fees may be aggregated and redistributed by the consortium), and all holdings are considered separately. As costs to HathiTrust are the same as dealing with many separate institutions, and because HathiTrust fees are designed to cover only the base costs of the repository and partner work, there is no financial benefit we can give to consortia that join in this way. Nevertheless, institutions in this scenario may see benefits to acting as a collective of institutions. For instance, they might pool their votes in partnership dealings to have more impact, or consolidate work in ways that they gain efficiencies (such as preparing holdings data or digital content for submission to HathiTrust”.
James mentioned that the first scenario would be acceptable. However, there is still the issue of Shibboleth, which has not been implemented. James doubted where Shibboleth is something that could ever be implemented in public libraries where patrons have multiple ‘identities’. A library could not be confident in saying that they know the identity of a patron at another library. James believes that the bar has been set too high for accessing HathiTrust (using Shibboleth) when even for EBSCO this isn’t required.
Judy reported that Bowdoin is looking at joining Shibboleth and some faculty are using HathiTrust items.
Steve asked James whether there is a lower level authentication that could be used to feed into Shibboleth. James explained the issue with HathiTrust is when you have multiple institutions involved.
Clem expressed surprise at potential costs savings with the scenarios outlined above, because his understanding is that pricing is based on volume of holdings (unless it looks at cross over?). Judy discussed the level of membership which will also impact costs.
Clem agreed to investigate whether there are any HathiTrust partners who do not use Shibboleth.
James agreed to contact HathiTrust about Shibboleth on behalf of MSCS and look into single collection and single authentication issues stating the fact that MSCS fact that MSCS would like to join, but cannot because of the Shibboleth issues.
Judy asked the question that if consortial membership is not possible for MSCS, is there libraries where it is? This is something that will be looked into if MSCS membership is found to be not possible.
e. Budget
i. Partner libraries commitment letters
Matthew thanked the Directors for returning to him signed copies of the commitment letters. The letters committed libraries to match grant funds received from IMLS. The letters can be used as evidence if IMLS should ever investigate funding.
ii. Budget revisions
Matthew explained how the majority of his time so far has been spent revising the budget. Valerie had started working on it, but it required a complete revision. Matthew used the actual figures for spending in Year 1 and so far in Year 2 to calculate how much funds were left and how much were needed for specific budget items.
There were changes in cost sharing funds because of the decision not to purchase an Espresso Book Machine and changes in personnel resulting in salary and benefit amounts changing. These meant reallocating the cost sharing funds to cover the new items of: subscription to a collection analysis tool, subscription to the HathiTrust for Colby College and to cover increases in salary and benefits. The amount outlined in the commitment letter reflects those changes.
Matthew reported on the various issues along the way, in particular making sure all of the multiple documents matched which resulted in multiple revisions.
After getting to a stage where Matthew thought the budget was complete, he met with Andrew Ines the UMaine Grant & Contract Administrator which resulted in more complications as he had to complete a UMaine budget document as well. Andrew also wanted to only submit a budget starting from the present rather than go back and revising the budget for Year 1 and the beginning of Year 2.
iii. Agree final budget change justification report
Matthew described that after going back to Andrew with another version which again he thought was the final version it was decided that rather than submit a complete revised budget he would just send a budget change justification document, only outlining those changes to the budget which were significant.
However, it became apparent whilst working on this report that the changes to the budget were not as significant as we once thought. Although funds have been moved around, the totals for budget categories have not changed greatly.
This left the Project Team with the decision whether to simply record these changes in the IMLS Interim Performance Report (see below), or to send a scaled down budget change justification document.
Steve asked Matthew what level of change to the budget required approval from IMLS. James outlined the IMLS requirements and the Directors decided that changes made as a result of not purchasing an Espresso Book Machine met the following IMLS requirement:
“the transfer of funds among direct costs categories, or, if applicable, among separately budgeted programs, projects, functions or activities, when the federal share of project costs exceeds $100,000 and the cumulative amount transferred exceeds 10 percent of the total current approved project budget (IMLS funds plus cost share)”.
Therefore the Directors decided that Matthew should send a scaled down budget change justification document, only including changes made to cost sharing funds as a result of not purchasing an Espresso Book Machine.
David asked Matthew whether MSCS is still in budget. Matthew replied that it was indeed.
f. IMLS Interim Performance Report
Matthew produced a draft IMLS Interim Performance Report which he sent to the Directors prior to the meeting.
Steve complimented Matthew on the report which had helped him understand the Project issues. Matthew reported it was a team effort with the Project Team making edits including reducing the length. Valerie’s Year 1 update report was also useful for the period before Matthew started.
Judy asked whether SCS should be mentioned in the report. Both Clem and Matthew responded that because a final decision has not been made they should not be included, and also so we don’t go over the page limit.
Judy asked what had been done in regard to Print On Demand (POD). Clem responded that in spring 2011 the Project Team had made the decision not to purchase an Espresso Book Machine after feedback from two academic libraries with installations. Particular concerns were the costs and the fact that the machine required leaving on to be sufficiently warm enough to print. Valerie had investigated and tested various POD options including using the University of Maine’s Print Services to print a book.
Judy pointed out that in the report there is mention of the availability of POD and EOD options at MSCS partner libraries which she was not aware of. Matthew responded that he would clarify with Deb what she meant by the description. Once this has been done the Directors were happy for Matthew to submit the report to IMLS.
g. MOU
Changes requested at the August, 22 Directors Council Meeting have been incorporated into the latest version sent to the Directors by Matthew prior to the meeting.
The changes included:
MOU 1.6 Collection Builders: Collection Builders are those Collection Holders who agree to ingest and validate retained materials. Agreed this statement will remain unchanged. A procedures manual will have detail defining “ingestion”, “validation, “ etc.
MOU 1.7 Supporting Members: Supporting members will pay membership fees in exchange for ensured access to retained materials. Agreed this statement will remain unchanged. Agreed to add a statement to MOU “The Executive Committee is authorized to set membership fees.” [possibly as section 2.4-DR]. It was noted we need to make a good argument for other libraries to join as members.
MOU 2.1 Executive Committee: Line changed to: The program will be governed by an Executive Committee, consisting of a subgroup of the Maine InfoNet Board of Directors, drawn from those members of the Board whose institutions are part of or who represent the types of institutions that are part of the Cooperative.
MOU 6.2 Duplicate materials: Members may retain or withdraw duplicate copies of titles retained by a Collection Holder. No library is required to discard any materials. Agreed this statement may remain unchanged; however, may need to revisit after Collections Committee makes decisions on minimum number of retained copies.
Barbara mentioned that she had presented the draft version of the MOU to her Board who expressed fears about what happens when the Executive Committee is opened up to the rest of the State, including smaller libraries who could make decisions regarding pricing. The Board wants the Directors to look carefully at the criteria for selecting individuals to sit on the Executive Committee. They did not have recommendations for rewording though. The Directors felt that the rewording of section 2.1 (see above) meets these needs. Clem also expressed his doubts that smaller libraries would ever dominate the Board sufficiently to make decisions regarding pricing. Barbara agreed with these points and will present them to her Board.
The intention at this meeting was to agree the final draft of the MOU, for the Directors to get the agreement signed. However, Gene was not willing to present the MOU for signing until MSCS had actually made retention and preservation decisions. Clem agreed that the agreement should not be signed yet as it could possibly be revised once the Project is further along in the process. The Directors agreed that the MOU does a good job of laying out the principles of MSCS.
There was a discussion regarding the opening paragraph of the MOU. Matthew requested that the word ‘citizen’ be replaced because if meant literally it would prevent non-citizens from accessing the material. It was agreed that ‘citizen’ be changed to ‘library users’. In reviewing ‘citizen’ Steve pointed out that the whole paragraph needed changing as it didn’t flow correctly and was generally too lofty.
Judy pointed that her Dean would think that a commitment to retain material for 15 years was too long.
The Directors agreed to change in:
6.1 Ownership “Collection Holders agree not to sell, discard, donate, or otherwise relinquish ownership or control of any of the archived materials prior to the Retention Date, except to transfer materials to a Collection Builder or with permission of the Executive Committee” to instead “with permission of the Collections and Operations Committee”.
9. Withdrawal change the term from one-year to 6 months. Because of the rapidly changing library world (particularly funding issues) that is the most a library could realistically commit to.
2. Conferences & Meetings
a. NELA & Charleston Conference Presentations
Clem & Barbara presented at the NELA conference.
The Charleston Shared Print Pre-Conference went well with presentations from Clem & Deb. Matthew reported that it was a worthwhile experience to learn more about some of the projects that are dealing with similar issues to us, the vast majority of which used SCS. In terms of collections analysis MSCS started later than the other projects, but have done more work around the 583 field.
Presentations are available on the MSCS slideshare website with links on the MSCS website.
b. Clem meeting with Michael Emly (University of Leeds), re: COPAC Collection Management Tools Project
Clem reported that he had a very interesting time visiting Michael Emly. Of particular interest to MSCS is the Leeds University ‘Criteria for deciding the category of a particular collection’ which has 4 categories: ‘Heritage’, ‘Legacy’, ‘Self-renewing’ and ‘Finite’. MSCS could potentially use these categories when making retention decisions. They are also looking at brittle paper issues and other collections at risk and whether collections at risk are a different category, which need more copies and/or digital copies. Even if one decides to retain the material, if steps are not taken to preserve it, it will become dust.
c. Potential Speaking Opportunities
Matthew reported that he had been looking into potential speaking opportunities. The most likely so far is as part of an SCS session at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Linda warned Matthew of the difficulty of finding a place on the schedule. Matthew agreed and reported that this is why he hoped MSCS could find a spot on the SCS session.
d. Advisory Board Visit May 2013
The Project Team decided that instead of coming at the very end of the project in Year 3 the Advisory Board will come to visit in Year 2.
Clem suggested we look at them attending the May 24 Maine InfoNet Collections Summit which is an all-day event. They could come the day before and attend other To Be Confirmed sessions. Matthew checked with the Advisory board members and those dates work for them, so the Project Team needs to finalize the schedule of events. David requested that the Directors get to spend more substantive time with the Advisory Board on this trip.
e. Date of next Directors Council Meeting
Matthew will send around a doodle poll with date options for the next Directors Council Meeting, which should be in March 2013.