The RLSC Financial Planning Meeting at Lewis & Clark College in December 2005 was a huge success. In attendance were Chief Financial Officers, library directors, attorneys, and development staff from several institutions. The agenda covered key topics like the organizational model, fund-raising, and site selection. The newly formed RLSC Leadership Group will play a major role in the next phase of the planning process, including:
collaborative fundraising
site selection recommendation; sites currently under consideration are OHSU-West Campus and Linfield College
ERC is congratulated for the hard work that went into a group deal for ScienceDirect. Diane Carroll (OHSU) is particularly thanked for her leadership and wizardry with Excel spreadsheets.
A license template was negotiated with Elsevier
16 libraries participating in Unique Title List (UTL) had their fees added to the template and e-mailed for individual signatures
Two libraries subscribed to one or more subject collections; two others are still evaluating for subscription
Waiting for Springer to complete 2006 subscription reconciliation to determine duplicate credits that will be applied to gaining access to all unsubscribed titles
Springer has committed to maintaining access to the 2005 content while they finish their work
The 2006 license should move easily since the wording has changed very little
Welcome Lane Community College and Walla Walla College!LCC and WWC went live on November 8, 2005 and January 25, 2006 respectively. Patrons at both institutions are thrilled and began requesting Summit items immediately after borrowing was "turned on."
PR: Banners & Bookmarks
Two Summit banners (3' x 6' and 2' x 4') are now available to any member wishing to borrow them for promotional use. Also, the Summit bookmarks have been updated and reordered. If you would like to reserve the banner or request a supply of bookmarks, please contact Michelle Williams.
The
Database Continues to Grow
As of October 2005, Summit includes
26,392,736
item records and
8,129,087
bibliographic records after merging. To put that in perspective, consider the Library of Congress online catalog that contains approximately 14 million bibliographic records.
Summit
Borrowing Statistics
Summit Borrowing fulfillments in FY05 were 22% higher than fulfillments in FY04. Equally impressive is the number of fulfillments since the Orbis Cascade merger was effective for requesting in June 2003: 735,000. Monthly and yearly borrowing figures are posted on the statistics index page.
Holiday Requesting
Summit continues to be busy throughout the holiday period, although at a somewhat reduced rate. As expected, the holiday requesting report shows the percentage of requests made by undergraduate students decreases, while the percentage of requests made by other patron groups increases.
Loaning More Items in Summit: Testimonials
A web page of testimonials is now available to help members who are planning to lend more items on Summit (i.e. items outside the generally circulating collection). The testimonials address topics such as damage, transit-time and receptiveness of faculty.
Summit Borrowing Committee
The Summit Borrowing Committee (SBC) continues to actively discuss a variety of topics related to Summit Borrowing: encouraging members to loan more items, Just-in-Time processing, converting ILL to Summit Borrowing. To aid future discussions, the Steering Team asked Nancy Nathanson to set up a blog that can be used by the committee and anyone subscribed to the summit-circ listserv. The blog has been unveiled; the inaugural topic is "Courier dropsites and Summit Borrowing." Minutes, reports, and current surveys can be found at the Committee home page.
Summit Catalog Committee
The Summit Catalog Committee's inaugural year proved to be both exciting and rewarding. Representatives were appointed to the SCC, and the Steering Team has met several times. They have created three Working Groups to address the following issues: Electronic Resources, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), and Internet Search Engines. The SCC-ST conducted a teleconference on February 3, 2006. Their agenda covered many topics, including working group reports, the possibility of regional meetings, and catalog quality control issues.
Summit
Borrowing Day
Eighty-two participants contributed to the success of Summit Borrowing Day 2005, a conference for all staff members who work with Summit. The sessions covered topics like Pickup Anywhere, Just-In-Time Processing of materials, and Multi-volume requesting and cataloging. The yearly conference provides an important educational forum for all involved, and it creates an opportunity for staff members separated by several hundred or even just several miles to meet face to face and learn from common experiences. Planning for this year's conference will begin at the March SBC-Steering Team meeting.
New Limit/Sort Screen in Summit
The Limit/Sort Screen in Summit has been redesigned. The next time you need to narrow down a search that offered you too many results, why not take the new limit/sort screen for a test drive!
Senvoy is the new courier vendor for the Alliance, serving 64 dropsites. A Senvoy representative visited every dropsite before they assumed courier duties on July 1, 2005. Thank you to Senvoy and all the courier dropsites for making the transition a remarkably smooth one!
The Alliance courier web pages were redesigned to incorporate the new vendor and to add some new features, including an online label maker, and web-based problem and claim report forms that e-mail information directly to Alliance and Senvoy staff.
ILL Bags
7,000 ILL bags have been ordered and will be delivered directly to 14 dropsites for subsequent distribution. They are reusable, zippered bags that are easy to distinguish from other courier bags. The new bags will simplify addressing and greatly reduce waste and the cost associated with purchasing padded envelopes, packing tape, etc.
2-Day Service Option
A new courier option is now available: 2-day service. Corban College is the first library to sign up.
The
Orbis Cascade Alliance Council
page has been updated to include the agenda and draft minutes from the recent January 12-13 meeting. Council has been working on a wide
variety of issues, including: creating an RLSC Leadership Group, approving the budget for the next fiscal year, addressing and revising membership criteria, and planning for the April Council retreat that will take place at the University of Washington. Past Council meetings have also featured presentations such as The Future of Integrated Library Systems, The Net Generation: Implications for Libraries and Higher Education, The NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium, and The Future of Reference Service in Academic Libraries.
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee will meet March 8-9 at WSU-Vancouver. In addition to conducting a business session, they will meet with all four steering teams. This combined group will discuss committee activities, plans for the future, topics that impact the charge of more than one committee, and communication between committees and steering teams.
Task Force on Digital Assets Initiative
Council and the board of NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium agreed to form a Joint Task Force on Digital Assets Initiative. This group is exploring ways that the two consortia, libraries and computing centers can collaborate on a broad array of digital initiatives. Stay tuned, we'll soon have a web page available listing the members and tracking the activites of this new group.
Warner Pacific College
Executive Committee conducted a site visit and Council voted to approve a membership application from Warner Pacific College. Warner is engaged in fundraising for system migration and is expecting to act on Council's membership offer within the next two years.
Concordia University
Concordia University has applied for membership in the Alliance. Council expects to vote on this application in July 2006.
Conferences
Northwest Academic Library Directors Symposium
The Northwest Academic Library Directors Symposium's conference committee met on May 9, 2005, to discuss the purpose of the symposium, its content and format, and possible dates and locations. The group is finalizing plans for a keynote speaker and will then set a meeting date.
Acquisitions Institute
The sixth annual Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge was a huge success. Eighty people attended the conference and enjoyed sessions that ranged from "Retail Bookselling and Libraries" to "Living with E-Books." Although the Acquisitions Institute will not be held in 2006, it is expected to return in May 2007.
Visiting Members
John Helmer, Nancy Nathanson, and Greg Doyle visited SOU and OIT in November 2005. It had been more than 10 years since consortium staff had the opportunity to visit with staff from these member institutions. Alliance staff learned a great deal about priorities and projects underway and also had an opportunity to share information about Summit, Courier, ER Program, and the RLSC. As time allows, we hope to visit several members each year so, watch out ... Alliance staff may be headed your way!
