1. The meeting was called to order by Phil Smith at 3:35 p.m.

2. Book Store--Jane Case-Smith, Chair of the Senate Steering Committee, and Helen DeSantis, Assistant Vice President for Business Operations, presented information related to inclusion of the activities of the former Book Store Committee under the umbrella of the proposed Library and Information Technology Council. There is a perceived need to have a group that could serve as a conduit for information between the campus community and the commercially operated book store. There were varying opinions as to whether such a function fit appropriately into the governance structure; perhaps an advisory committee outside of the Senate governance structure following the model used by the University Press would be more appropriate. Helen DeSantis will provide information to Phil Smith for distribution to Council members prior to the next meeting in March concerning how Barnes and Noble interacts with other universities where they are managing the campus book stores. Ted Riedinger volunteered to prepare a draft response concerning the Council's views on inclusion of matters relating to the book store in the Council's purview. Resolution of the issue was postponed to the March Council meeting.

3. Digital Knowledge Bank--Joe Branin is a member of a group discussing the development of a Knowledge Bank at OSU. A subcommittee composed of Joe Branin, Sally Rogers, Pat McCandless, Blake Carver, Susan Metros, and Bob Kalal is charged with developing an overall plan by April; the subcommittee is seeking input and opinions from the campus community. The question of rights management will be key to the successful operation of such a repository; activities in this regard at MIT rely on the faculty to identify what is to be included in the database. Central support and standards are necessary, preservation of the data is important, as is data modelling and metadata identification. There is a large amount of data currently available on campus, e.g., the Web Media Collective, but it is currently distributed widely. The plan that is being developed needs to identify the big picture, as well as identifying individual projects to work on that will help lead to the overall vision.

4. Budget Reduction--Joe Branin presented a short update on the budget reduction status in the Libraries. Six and a half of 10 positions that need to be cut are currently vacant; a serials cancellation project is underway that would result in a minimum of a seven percent cut, but could require as much as a 20% reduction in the purchase of current journals. Necessary cuts in the funds available to hire student employees could result in curtailment of library hours. The situation should be dealt with as reasonably as possible; the Libraries is not being specially targetted for these budget cuts. Expressions of concern and strong support for the return of funding when the economic situation improves would be more appropriate.

5. The meeting was adjourned at 5:07; the next meeting will be held on March 13.

Elizabeth Sawyers for
Joseph Branin