URSUS Reference Heads Agenda
Monday, May 16 from 1-3PM  
214 Lewiston Hall, Bangor Campus/polycom

Present: Angelynn King (UMM), Ben Treat (UCB), Lisa McDaniels (UMA), Ana Noriega (UMA), Nancy Lewis (UM), Laurie MacWhinnie (UMF), Evelyn Greenlaw (USM), Elaine Apostola (ME Law & Leg Lib), Peggy O’Kane (MSL), Donna Bancroft (OCLS), Ginny Fischer (UMPI), Sofia Birden (UMFK), James Jackson Sanborn (Infonet)

1. Implementation of Summon/OneSearch. 

Issues/Access:
UMPI reported it goes to URSUS OK, but there are often certificate errors for full text articles. Ginny will follow up with James as necessary on this. 
There are four implementations of Summon: UM, USM, the 5 small campuses combined, and Statewide/Marvel.
Summon includes all resources subscribed to statewide, system-wide and at individual campus level as submitted by the individual campuses.  At the book level, it includes URSUS holdings.  Although all shared database resources are included, the amount of content in those resources represented in Summon varies (example: about 96% of the content in Academic Search Complete is represented in Summon).
We do not currently know how the HathiTrust materials will work in Summon and if results will include items that are not available to a campus/library and student won’t be able to access them. James does not yet know how those items will be integrated into the collection. The first step will be the download of 2 million out of copyright items that will be accessible to all libraries. The second round will be content digitized in HathiTrust will be mapped to the URSUS collection so anything we have in URSUS will be indexed in full text in HathiTrust. We don’t know what that will be as James only has whatever information he has received from press releases. The third step will be access for those 8 (UM, USM, MSL, …) who have the subscription to the trust under the grant funding.
E-book access is problematic in Summon. MSL and the Law & Leg Lib reported their users get search results containing e-books that patrons cannot access. This appears to be an issue even if the search is limited to a specific library location.  James mentioned this is scoping issue.  It is likely we will see more of this kind thing as more e-books and e-book collections are added to URSUS.  UM mentioned they also have site-specific e-books in their collections that can only be accessed on-site. The group agrees there needs to be more collaborative collection development for e-books and e-resources. These issues should be addressed by the collection development/e-books committee being established pursuant to the charge from the URSUS library directors.
There is the option to change the search defaults and create a custom search using the online form (http://maineinfonet.net/summon/customize/), but it is not possible to limit searches to materials types such as reference, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.  
James asked that any “what works, what doesn’t” issues be sent to him.  Any technical errors/issues should be addressed to Tim Pellet.
Implementation by Libraries:
UM is teaching it to first year introductory courses and using it a lot at the reference desk and with chat.  URSUS has become a hidden tab on their library homepage and OneSearch made prominent.
USM has it right on the front page, then URSUS, E-reserves, etc. behind it. They are using it in first year/introductory courses.
UMFK has it on the front page, but has not had the opportunity to teach it yet as instruction for the semester was pretty much over before it became available. They plan to use it with FYE/intro. classes in the fall, while still pointing students at all levels to the subject specific databases.
Target Audiences:
Most libraries are or plan to promote it as an entry level or basic searching tool. General consensus among the group is Summon works for introductory level research, but is not as useful for upper level because results cannot be limited or fine tuned enough for more advanced research.

2. Database Subject Headings in Mariner:
Sofia Birden gave an update on this item. The Cataloging Standards subcommittee on Mariner subject headings is being reconvened and Katie at UMFK is in charge. They will be working on review of the existing headings and how they are being used. The group will see what needs to be done to clean those up and take their recommendations to the Cataloging Committee in September. Ideally, the subject headings should be defined and updated by fall.

3. Information Literacy Workshop:
There is interest in doing a day-long information literacy workshop.  Ideas included contacting Colby College to see if they would be interested in having their Maine Library Day conference focus on Info Lit., doing a workshop with the larger libraries – UMS, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, PPL, MSL, BPL, etc., or doing our own conference focusing on high school to college transition. Most favored a statewide conference day on high school to college transition. Intended audience would be librarians from academic, public and school libraries. Format suggestions included a keynote speaker in the morning, then group sessions/presentations. The final part of the day could be set aside for attendees to developing an action plan for next steps after the conference (connecting school, public and academic libraries in their area and establishing ways to work together to support H.S. to college transition). UM could provide the conference space and would be a good location for those traveling from far north and east. Possible people to connect with for planning and promoting include Pam Gaucher from the Dept of Ed. (she is currently interim liaison between the MSL and school librarians) and the “College for ME”/Upward Bound programs. Peggy O’Kane will see if there are other state programs that focus on high school to college transition. Evelyn Greenlaw will check with someone she knows in the “College for ME” program.

There was the suggestion that the group should look for grant money or other options for funding and see if it would be possible to coordinate the timing of the conference with school development days so more school librarians might be likely to attend. Anticipated conference date would be Summer 2012 or later.

Laurie MacWhinnie will draft a proposal to submit for the committee to review for submission to the library directors.

The group agreed there should be regular/annual Reference and instruction meetings, alternating between the two topics.

4. RefWorks:
UMA is getting a subscription to this and there is currently a one-time offer from the provider for a system-wide subscription. It would be campus-wide access (UMS) and include access for alumni. The subscription quote is approximately $20,000 for the system.  It will work with most databases as many already have the option to import citations in to a citation manager and should also work with URSUS and III.

UM wants this. They have nothing and currently teach EndNote selectively to grad students, but get requests from students for RefWorks all the time. Other campuses also would like to have RefWorks and agree free citation programs such as Zotero are not worth the effort. 

There are some tutorials, but they are not all that good. 

The group will recommend to the library directors the system get a system-wide subscription to RefWorks.

5. Other:
There was a question about Sierra and what that might mean for the system.  III is developing a Millennium replacement called Sierra. The first libraries to go live with it would be the end of this year/early next year. They are looking for commitments from existing customers by the end of this summer and the pricing would be comparable to an in-house upgrade rather than a full migration for existing clients. It is not open source, so James is not sure if we would be able to do our own customized applications. The system is still discussing if they want to stay with Millennium (which will no longer be upgraded by III), go with Sierra, or chose another option entirely.

James reported they have a new library support technician, Albee Dunn, and he is a welcome addition to their operational support team. Also, they will be implementing an URSUS listserv over the summer that will automatically subscribe all of the current library contacts (both committee lists and the official list of contacts). This one list can be used to share information with everyone, replaces the need for multiple lists that need to be updated frequently, and reduce the number of duplicate e-mailings people might received as members of different committees or contact groups.

The grant funded position has been filled by Valerie Glenn. She is from Tuscaloosa and has a background in government documents.

Recommendations to the Directors:

1.	Include at least one representative from the Reference Heads committee on the new Collection Development committee to offer input on e-book access/user issues, collaborative reference e-book purchasing, and related issues.

2.	Provide support for planning, promoting and conducting an information literacy workshop/conference day.

3.	Purchase a system subscription to RefWorks for all campuses.

(5/28/11)