Faculty Senate Library Committee

Meeting Minutes

19 November 2003

 

 

In attendance: Tim Gerber (Biology), Paul Beck (Murphy Library), Glenn Knowles (Economic), Denis Provencher (Modern Languages) Gwen Achenreiner (Marketing), Karl Kattchee (Mathematics), William Barillas (English), Cynthia Berlin (Geography), Elisabeth Peyer (Student Representative)

 

Consultant: Anita Evans (Library)

Visitors: Jen Holman and John Jax (Library)

Excused: Scott Dickmeyer, Boon Murray, Beth Seebach, Darlene Lake,

 

The meeting was called to order at 4:00 pm. 

 

  1. The committee chair introduced William (Bill) Barillas.

 

  1. The committee approved the October meeting minutes (9/0/0/ approval). 

 

  1. Jen Holman and John Jax attended this meeting to present a brief report on periodicals.  Jen Holman presented a summary of Murphy Library’s Periodical Collections from 1999-present.  Between 1986 and 2001, periodical prices have increased in price by 8.5% per year and Jen noted that journal prices grew twice as fast as health care prices during the same time period. In 1999, Murphy Library had spent $378, 000 for 1406 titles; in 2003-04, the Library spent $434, 000 for 1366 titles. In sum, universities (including Harvard and Cornell) are unable to keep up with the inflation rate and are canceling periodicals.  Murphy Library has been functioning with a cancellation philosophy based on several criteria.  A periodical will be cancelled if: 1) the title has received little or no use; 2) the title is available electronically through Project Muse; 3) the title has a current cost/use ratio of greater than $35. If journal cost/use is more than $35 than it is better to buy it through a document supply service; 4) the title no longer supports the curriculum.  Murphy Library has cut almost all that it can and what remains is primarily core titles (i.e. there is not much left to cut across departments). Furthermore, the Library is no longer able to support traditional print access to scholarly communication through print access alone. 

 

Where do we go from here?  Jen Holman presented a few options for faculty members to consider:  1) Post a copy of one’s own article to personal web site or institutional web site if contracts do not preclude; 2) Investigate the possibility of free archives that become available to the public from publishers after a relatively short time period (for publicly funded research). One option in this regard is High Wire Press. Some commercial publishers to avoid: include Elsevier, Wiley, Kluwer; 3) Continue to seek out author friendly publications.  Jen also pointed out contract terms that authors should look for in this regard.   

 

Jen presented a series of useful websites to help faculty better understand the options available to authors.  For more information on self-archiving and to get an idea about the policies of different publishers, see Project RoMEO at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/).  For other publishing alternatives, see the Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org/about/history.html); BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) and Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org).   

 

Also, various universities have put together institutional archives.  These include The University of California (http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/); Caltech Collection of Open Digital Archives (CODA) (http://library.caltech.edu/digital/); and Sparc Institutional Repository (http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=m1#usa).  Jen will also post this information to the Murphy Library website.  For more complete information, please see her posting at: http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/facultyLibrary/Periodicals%20in%20Crisis_files/frame.htm

 

Finally, Jennifer presented a few questions for faculty members to consider:

1) Should UWL /Murphy Library build an institutional archive?  2) Would it be helpful to have a web page regarding scholarly communication initiatives?  General discussion ensued during the committee meeting to encourage such efforts and to discuss these issues in a campus forum.   

 

John Jax and Anita Evans have spoken to Ken Frazier (Director of UW-Madison Libraries) and would like to bring him to UW-L to further discuss issues related to “Scholarly Communication.”  He was recently at UW-Oshkosh, to speak about library resources.  Committee members suggested inviting him to campus in spring semester, preferably a Friday in February (sponsored in part by Murphy Library, Faculty Senate Library Committee, and the Provost’s Office). 

 

Other general conversation ensued about electronic data basis (other than electronic journals) and the quality and variety of pdf-version journals. 

 

Tim Gerber will send Jen Holman’s presentation to committee members and encouraged them to send it out to their respective departments.  John Jax and Jen Holman also encouraged house calls with individual departments.

 

 

  1. Library Director’s report about Curriculum Center

 

Anita Evans spoke briefly about Murphy’s Curriculum Library team (this includes John Jax, Michele Strange and Karen Lange).  The Curriculum Center is on the 2nd floor of Murphy and houses materials related to teaching, pedagogy, etc.  Murphy Library has been able to fill a ¼ position to help with this initiative.  Anita would like to encourage faculty to help decide what particular direction the Library should take in terms of library support for the educational curriculum. Web-based questionnaires have been sent to people teaching education courses.  Murphy Library is trying to rebuild the center in terms of usability, and would like input on collections.  John Jax has been purchasing new materials for this initiative.  Please contact him with your suggestions.  This seems quite appropriate and timely as the Provost is supporting a move to create more connections between content areas and education (as it relates to NCATE).  

 

Adjourned at 5:00 pm. 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Denis Provencher