Faculty Senate Library Committee

Minutes

March 10, 2006

In attendance: William Barillas (English), Jim Batesky (Exercise and Sports Science), Paul Beck (Library), Anita Evans (Library), Karl Kattchee (Mathematics), Glenn Knowles (Economics), Darlene Lake (Modern Languages). Student representatives: Kurt Moderson; Gwen Deutsch.

Meeting was called to order at 1:13 p.m. in Rm. 120, Murphy Library

Minutes. Minutes of the February 10 meeting were approved.

“Mirage of Continuity”. John Jax presented to the committee the state of Murphy Library’s collections, 2005-2006. John emphasized that there has been erosion of our purchasing power since 2000. The details of John’s report are as follows:

2006

Total volumes=687,207 (Books, bound periodicals, gov’t documents)
Periodical subscriptions=1,181 (over 120 e-only and growing)
Electronic databases=218

UWS Shared Electronic Collection

25 titles
Approximately $1.56 M in UWS funding, plus individual campus contributions of 100K

Collections and Resources. Over the entire system, people perceived both as weak, especially graduate students. Faculty also thought holdings were somewhat weak. The faculty at UWL were concerned about electronic journal collections.

Interlibrary Loan and Copyright/Fee Costs

ILL requests by UWL patrons (FY 2004-2005):

Last year, 42% increase
Fall 2005, 82% increase

FY 2004-05=$1,400
Fall 2005 already at $6,642.47

Murphy Budget

Books/Multimedia:

$261,193=

Standing orders $85K

Books $147K

A/V $26.5K (recently trying to increase this)

Electronic Resources

$144,975 (=the 218 databases)

Journals

$488,976

Journal Cancellations

$231,963.71 cancelled since 2000
$31,451.12 added

Funding

Remains at FY 2000 level
No increases expected
Inflation eroding purchasing power

FY 2006/2007 Projected Cost Overruns: Costs could be more, depending on the inflation rate (estimated total=100+K)

Collection Coping Strategies

Continuing to reallocate $$ toward journals/databases
Buy fewer books
Continue to cancel journals

Collaborative Collection Development: Multiple libraries are getting together and pooling their resources so that all of their holdings are greater.

Totals

2003/04 Academic Library Survey: $20.9M

$7M books (print and electronic)
$14M serials (print and electronic)

Multiple formats of journals are kept for preservation (it’s very easy to take things off online).

Answer

Framework to share has been built
More reliance on UWS resource sharing
Access-not ownership

Book Circulation at Murphy is going down. If we want to rob the book budget to pay for journals, our purchasing power goes down. We have huge circulation rates for the books we buy.

What do we do?

Re-engineer budget, focus on institutional strengths
Group purchase when possible
Decrease monographic allocations for STM
Can no longer afford to subscribe to journals costing more than $500 that are used less than 10x per year

Glenn brought up the point that perhaps the library needs to be like Darth Vader and cancel expensive journals. John replied that accreditors want some things on your campus. Publishers also put great restrictions on journals. The library does look at the titles requested—if one is requested frequently, they’ll subscribe to it. Journals at Murphy are heavy toward the sciences. Books are heavy toward humanities.

Director’s Report: Anita handed out a summary of the Strategic Directions for 2005-07.

Stefan and Anita met with Chartwell’s and Larry Ringgenberg. They have talked about different providers. There is concern among students to have a coffee associated with fair trade. Larry will schedule vendors to come talk. Can some people on the Library Committee attend these meetings?