§ SAALCK Directors' Council Meeting
12:00 noon, November 1, 2002
Louisville, KY
- Present:
- Lee Van Orsdel, EKU (Chair); Arne Almquist, NKU; Mike Binder, WKU; Janet Brewer, Murray; K. McDaniel, KSU; Mary Molinaro, UK; Hannelore Rader, U of L; Larry Rees, KCTCS; Carol Nutter represent Larry Besant, Morehead
- Absent:
- Larry Besant, Morehead
- Minutes of October 11th Meeting: Accepted as presented.
- Updates:
- KYVL's/CPE's Ability to Serve as SAALCK's Fiscal Agent: In Lee's recent conversation with Daniel Rabuzzi (KYVU), Rabuzzi indicated that KYVL/CPE will not/cannot serve as our fiscal agent. We will need to look at other options (SOLINET, etc.).
- Web Task Force: The group has been officially appointed. Van Orsdel has heard from the Chair, Michael Rose (NKU). He has asked where the site will be housed. Van Orsdel indicated to him that we need an update plan from the group before that decision is made.
- Virtual Reference Task Force: This group has also been appointed. Their first meeting will be on Friday, November 8th.
- KYVL Director Search Committee: There are about 20-25 applicants in the pool. A short list has been created. The next step is to set up telephone interviews. The search committee hopes to begin interviewing next week. The committee has made a genuine attempt to understand some of the qualifications that SAALCK has emphasized.
- Van Orsdel's Meeting with Rabuzzi: Van Orsdel related to the group the substance of a conversation that she had with Rabuzzi regarding her request for an informal one-on-one meeting with him. In brief, she shared with him the unease that SAALCK feels concerning the limitations of KYVL as it is currently constituted, and related concerns about the director search. She mentioned that there was concern that the single voice of the academics is Miko Patti (KYVL). While there was no criticism intended, she indicated that Rabuzzi needed to know that Patti doesn't express the viewpoint of the public university libraries in Kentucky. She noted that the request for a meeting was intended to present alternate views to him before the KYVL Director's search was concluded.
- Rabuzzi asked if they could wait until the new director was hired. Van Orsdel replied that the group wanted to bring its comments forward before a new person was in place to better influence the future direction of KYVL.
- What started out as a quick "heads-up" turned into a two hour meeting. Van Orsdel explained SAALCK's desire to see KYVL expand its role as a facilitator of collaborative efforts among all libraries and again brought up the idea of a tiered system of databases (i.e., a core collection for everyone, with additional databases available for a fee at a negotiated discount to those who want them).
- Rabuzzi did not agree with that vision. He indicated that he felt that the university libraries should work on their own using their own resources. He suggested that KYVL's role should be to primarily serve the general public, "most of which will never set foot upon your campuses," and that we have enough money to do what we need by ourselves. Indeed, he stated that legislators are complaining that there are not enough resources appropriate to the needs of the common citizen. Concerning the suggestion that KYVL, since it is not really serving as the academic library to KYVU, should be a separate entity, he was very adamant that KYVL remain a part of KYVU. Van Orsdel pointed out that SAALCK was the body most responsible for the creation of KYVL and felt that KYVL should therefore be more open to the needs of the academics. Rabuzzi suggested that this was not the case, that KYVL was created by others with a minimum of input from the academics.
- SAALCK members expressed concern about Rabuzzi's comments, particularly the comments about SAALCK's role in the founding of KYVL. It was suggested that we need to express our concern regarding KYVL's direction to our provosts. Rees expressed concern, shared by others, regarding the VLAC meetings. They currently seem to be a show-and-tell rather than a forum for concerns. There were questions about the responsibilities/powers of the VLAC Chair in regard to the setting of agendas, etc.. A side issue arose with the question of a possible KYVL budget surplus in the area of electronic database subscriptions. Rader will check with Patti to see if a surplus exists, and if it does, will add the issue to the agenda of the next VLAC meeting. It was also suggested that a copy of the original proposal for KYVL be routed to Rabuzzi to provide him with background on SAALCK's heavy involvement in its creation.
- Rabuzzi had been scheduled to attend today's meeting but cancelled at the last minute. It was suggested that he may have decided to wait until the new director had been hired before meeting with SAALCK.
- HarpWeek:
- Almquist reminded the group that the HarpWeek proposal to the Brown Foundation had been rejected. HarpWeek has forwarded the names, information, and custom brochures for three additional foundations (Abercrombie, Gheens, and Humana). We will approach one at a time. Almquist suggested that we try to bring the private colleges and universities into the grant. HarpWeek is still willing to include them in the package. He suggested that we make contact with individual library directors to bring them on board and then to contact Gary Cox to see if AIKCU would be interested. Accordingly, McDaniel will contact the directors at Berea, Center, and Georgetown and Van Orsdel will contact Sue Brown at Transylvania.
- Nature update:
- Almquist described contact to date with a rep. from Nature. There has been no meaningful discussion at this point.
- Future Meetings:
- The next meeting will be held at NKU on December 17th at 12 noon. Information will be sent out by Almquist before that date.
- There will be no meeting in January.
- Remote Storage:
- Mary McLaren from UK has received funding in the form of an award from ALA to travel around to look at existing installations. She will provide a report on possible options in early 2003.
- Rader is researching the issue of last physical copy storage.
- The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by A. Almquist