Senate Library Committee

Final Report on committee Activity for Academic Year 2001-2002

Submitted by Charles L. Stansifer, Chair

March 29, 2002

The University Senate Library Committee (SLC) met six times over the course of the year (October 26, 2001, November 16, 2001, December 14, 2001, January 25, 2002, February 15, 2002, and March 15, 2002). Members of the Committee were: Charles Stansifer (Chair, History faculty), Ron Francisco (Political Science faculty), Paul Gump (Emeritus faculty), Michael Hoeflich (Law faculty), Michael Johnson (graduate student, Vice-Chair), Stanley Handshy (student), Karen Keith (student), Justin Mills (student), Michael Mosser (Graduate School), Walt Racker (Purchasing Office, classified staff), Allen Pasco (Hall Professor of French and Italian), and Kathryn Nemeth Tuttle (Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center, unclassified staff). Ex-officio members were: Julia Rholes, (Interim Dean of Libraries), Mary Ann Baker (classified library staff, second semester), Joyce McCray Pearson (Law Librarian), Carmen Orth-Alfie (classified library staff, first semester), and Brad Schaffner (unclassified library staff).

The following narrative lists the charges given to the SLC and the Committee's responses, recommendations, and conclusion. The attached minutes of each meeting provide further detail.

Standing Charge 1. Keep informed of the budgetary needs and priorities of the KU Libraries, including acquisitions, staffing, space allocations, and accessibility of library materials. Obtain the counsel of the Library leadership regarding these matters.

In sessions with either one or both Interim Dean of Libraries Julia Rholes and Acting Associate Dean Richard Fyffe before each meeting of the SLC, Stansifer sought counsel about budgetary needs and priorities. Either Rholes or Fyffe (and sometimes both) attended all SLC meetings. Budgetary needs and priorities came up at all SLC meetings. Perhaps the three most significant budgetary needs addressed were the growing urgency of the need for a Books, Archives, and Records Depository, the chronic problem of inadequate staff salaries, and the continuing increase in the costs of serials. These issues are addressed under the relevant charges that follow.

Standing Charge 2. Monitor the function of the Library Appeals Board and request a year-end report on the Board's activities. Recommend any changes in policies or procedures that seem advisable, particularly so as to avoid unfairness and ensure timeliness of actions.

At the meeting of October 26 Sarah Couch, Head of Access Services in Watson Library, distributed the Library Appeals Board report for Spring and Fall 2001, and the Procedures for Handling Appeals of Library Charges. After discussion of common problems, such as inadequate documentation by borrowers who say they have returned books and the occasional confusion resulting from books being returned to the wrong library, and after considering alternatives to the standard policy of accepting borrowers' statements as truthful, the Committee decided that the Appeals Board was doing the best that it could under the circumstances and recommended no changes in procedures.

Standing Charge 3. Communicate with the ACTC Committee to promote effective use of library technology.

An attempt to communicate with the ACTC and to exchange minutes of Committee minutes was unsuccessful.

Standing Charge 4. Assist the Library administration in the development of potential user- responsive modifications to library services.

Discussion of this charge focused on the issue of providing access to libraries at later hours to accommodate students with special needs and concerns. Most particularly discussion centered on student response to last year's opening of Anschutz Library for 24 hours and whether or not such access could be arranged for other libraries. Library personnel reported that the response to 24-hour access to Anschutz was highly favorable and had resulted in greater use of Anschutz during the day. However, this policy does not seem feasible in other libraries because the physical layout of Watson made it impossible to guarantee security with minimum staffing and highly unlikely in branch libraries because of staffing costs. The Committee suggested that the University should consider making more space in the unions and the dorms for students, especially for graduate students, during night-time hours.

Standing Charge 5. Report and monitor on the use of revenues generated by the new library services fee.

Richard Fyffe distributed a report on the how the libraries plan to use the Student Library Fee in FY 2002 (amounting to $618,386), following priorities from Student Government. Fees are being used primarily to support security officers in Anschutz Library for 24-hour access, upgrading public-use computers in all libraries, purchase of books and journals from NetLibrary, and for staffing reference and circulation desks in Watson. Suggested additional uses for these funds included providing computer access in Watson stacks, improving copier maintenance, and purchasing new copiers.

Standing Charge 6. Submit to SenEx: a) the approved minutes of each meeting (minutes must be kept), b) recommendations for action as they are approved by the committee, and c) a final report by April 1, 2002. The final report should make clear what was done (or not done) about each of the charges to the committee and recommendations to SenEx for action. The report should also provide the names of committee members and include suggestions for charges to, and the chair of next year's committee.

Minutes for all six meetings have been submitted and this report fulfills the other submissions required.

Additional Charges

7. Support and assess efforts by the Library administration to inform, faculty, students, and staff of important information concerning the use of university library services via Currents and other publications focusing on public relations.

At the meeting of January 25 Bill Myers (Libraries External Relations Officer) and Frances Devlin (Assistant to the Dean) made presentations on Currents, Reference Guide to the Libraries, and library information sent by the Libraries to the Oread and the University Daily Kansan. Currents, which has been published since 1997, is sent to faculty, other ARL libraries, Kansas libraries, and donors. Reference guides are updated annually and sent to faculty and graduate students, and are available in each library. Committee members suggested that e-mail distribution of Currents might be more effective and cheaper. Another suggestion was to improve its visual appeal. As for the reference guides, members suggested that statistical material on circulation and size of collections be included, and that more information about collections in each library be added.

Julia Rholes mentioned that Guides for Readers (which describe research tools available for various subject areas, disciplines and collections), and the KUILS Guides (KU Interactive Library Systems, which describe the Libraries' networked electronic resources, were also available on the web and that extensive revisions to the website are in the offing.

8. In coordination with the Planning and Resources Committee, and, where appropriate, the Provost, explore and make recommendations to SenEx on how the libraries can effectively deal with the rising cost of serial journals, including the impact of on-line journals.

The issue of rising serials costs occupied the attention of the Committee during the entire meeting of February 15. Richard Fyffe presented statistics concerning costs of certain kinds of journals and an analysis of variation in costs of journals. He projected a 5% increase of journal costs this year (meaning an additional cost of $118,148 for the same titles.) He pleaded with faculty to use their influence in professional associations to exert pressure on publishers to hold down increases. He responded to the suggestion that libraries cooperate to pressure publishers with a reminder that restraint of trade laws prevented collusion, but that the Greater Western Library Alliance does share information about what each is doing to hold down costs. Libraries, he said, have had better success in negotiating prices with electronic publishers than with print publishers. The Committee recommended that the Libraries bibliographers share price increase information with faculty to encourage faculty to drop subscriptions or pressure publishers to hold down costs.

9. Work with the Provost and investigate ways to improve the University's ARL rankings.

Richard Fyffe prepared an extensive report on procedures and annual rankings of the Association of Research Libraries. He distributed two papers addressing ARL statistics. As of 1999-2000 KU was ranked 45^th of the 112 libraries and 17^th among US public institutions. To move up among public institutions KU would have to pass institutions such as Maryland (26), California, San Diego (25), Michigan State (24), California, Davis (23), Texas A & M (22), and North Carolina State (21)., Arizona State (20), and Rutgers (19). Ranking is based on the number of volumes, the number of volumes added, number of serials received, total operating expenditures, and number of professional plus support staff. The statistics should not be intended as a measure of how "good" we are, said Fyffe, who added that the KU Libraries had made significant increases in all variables since 1999/2000.

Committee discussion centered on the uncertainties of the ranking system (for example, the number of books counts, but not necessarily their importance), and the uncertainty of moving up when KU has no control over expenditures of other libraries. Because KU ranks low in the categories of professional and support-staff salaries and wages, the surest way of improving the ranking would be to raise salaries and increase library staffing. Although Committee members were highly in favor of raising salaries and they favored any measure to improve the quality of the KU Libraries, they also cautioned that the ranking per se meant very little.

10. Monitor the BARD and possible de-selection issues, including the report of consultant Jay Schaefer from his Spring 2000 visit to assess its impact.

The Committee reviewed the recent history of the SLC's consideration of BARD for the last several years and also reviewed the report on BARD by Jay Schaefer of February 2000. The Committee strongly recommends that the University not lose sight of Schaefer's extensive report and its conclusions that a genuine library space crisis is inevitable if construction of a remote depository is not undertaken soon. There are no significant space-saving measures on the horizon and capacity, which would mean curtailment of purchases, would be upon us in 2004. The Committee believes that the University simply cannot ignore this problem any longer.

11. Monitor the effects of the Elsevier purchase of Endeavor.

Elsevier is one of the commercial publishers of scholarly journals whose high prices, high annual prices increases, and interest in merging with other publishers have caused financial difficulties for libraries and concern within the scholarly community over the broad accessibility of scholarly information. Endeavor is the company that produces and sells the Voyager computer system the KU Libraries use for cataloguing, acquisitions, circulation, and related functions. Elsevier recently purchased Endeavor. Although this development provokes concern that pricing trends of journals will be applied to ongoing costs of Voyager, there seems little that libraries and scholars can do about it just now except keep a close watch over trends.

12. Consider the implications for the Lawrence libraries of the new academic programs at the Edwards Campus.

The December meeting of the SLC was almost entirely devoted to the Edwards Campus issue. John Stratton, Head of the Regents Center Library (RCL), gave an overview of the structure and services provided on the Edwards Campus (EC) and answered questions. There is some duplication of books and journal subscriptions, but this does not appear to be a major concern. After the state courier service ceased to operate the Libraries contracted with UPS as a courier service between Lawrence and EC and discussions are under way for a cooperative shuttle service. Stratton said that RCL has sufficient space for the collection but insufficient space for patrons and staff, but he is confident that current fund-raising efforts will produce a new building. In answer to questions about staff, space, and cooperation with libraries in Lawrence, Stratton maintained that there were no major problems.

13. In consultation with the Provost, Dean of Libraries, and various library staff, monitor access to information and acquisition of material.

Although the Committee did not consult directly with the Provost, the Committee maintained close liaison with the Dean of Libraries and Library staff concerning access to information and acquisition of materials. Material discussed under Charges 1, 5, 7, and 8 relate to this charge.

In addition members of the SLC attended interviews with candidates for the Dean of the Libraries and presented their observations to the search committee.

Last minute unnumbered charge. Consider the restructuring of the SLC possibly to include representation of all the schools of the University.

The committee discussed this issue during its last session on March 15 in response to the Provost's suggestion and SenEx in February. Although there was little time to consider this issue in depth the committee recognized the value of wider representation and suggested that it be seriously considered in next year's SLC. Some members expressed concern that it might make the committee too large to be effective, especially in view of the University requirement that students must make up 20% of governance committees. Some thought that the schools already had representation through the deans of the schools. Another reaction is that such representation might focus attention too much on collection development rather than on broad issues such as access, space, and information issues.

Suggested Additional Charges for 2002-2003

1. Monitor the Books, Archives, and Records Depository issue.

2. Examine teaching activities of Library personnel in relation to faculty and student needs.

3. Monitor the success of the Libraries acquisition of international materials in relation to the needs of the five international area programs.

4. Examine space and acquisitions procedures of the University Archives

5. Consider the restructuring of the SLC to include representation from all schools