| October 22, 2003 Volume 38, No. 1 |
Science & Engineering Library Room 090 |
| COUNCIL ON LIBRARIES AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
MEETING
| |
| MEMBERS PRESENT: | Joseph Branin, William Clark, Popat Patil, Akhila Ramnarayan,Ilee Rhimes, Dimitri Tatakis, Lewis Ulman
|
| MEMBERS ABSENT: | Kim Boyer, Nikki Conklin, Susan Huntington, Edward Riedinger, Alana Shockey
|
| GUESTS: | Wes Boomgaarden, Tom Cetwinski, Pat McCandless, Susan Metros, Chuck Morrow-Jones, Gerry Raimann, Sally Rogers, Betty Sawyers |
1. The meeting was called to order by Lewis Ulman, Chair. The attendees introduced themselves.
2. Schedule for the Year--The third Wednesday of the month from 2:30-4:00 appeared to be a satisfactory time for Council meetings.
The members present will be canvassed for agenda topics at the end of the meeting. Regular items on the agenda are updates from the Libraries and CIO's Office; we will continue to follow the strategic planning initiative of the CIO and the renovation of the Main Library. Council members are an important reporting mechanism to get information to the campus community, as well as bringing community concerns for discussion by the Council.
3. IT Strategic Plan--They are in the fifth stage of a six-phase process and are hoping to complete the writing of the final document and an executive summary by February. A presentation packet is also being developed that will allow members of the team to travel around campus providing opportunities for comment and discussion. There has been good participation and feedback throughout the entire process, and there is still opportunity to provide input. A document providing an overview of the strategic plan was distributed, and the attendees were encouraged to visit the PlanIT Web site.
A number of over-arching critical factors have been identified. The plan was presented to the Board of Trustees and was well received. They didn't ask for an endorsement, but the Trustees said they wanted to be kept apprised. New tuition funds are earmarked for technological advances; $2.7 million has been set aside for technology. Usually there is a 76/24 division between central and distributed computing. This time it will be 69/31 to give more centrally to help with spam, better monitor e-mail, establish more smart classrooms, and enhance seamless access to information for students. Students want them to set up portals that will tailor homepages for them. Students are very interested in the process--they think they should have a say in how the money is to be used. Tomorrow they will be talking to the Council of Deans and will know more about allocations after that.
A discount has been obtained from WOW for broadband access and is in effect now. As an extra benefit, Time Warner is meeting WOW's prices.
Some initiatives that have been identified require little or no funding, but others will require additional monetary support. They tried to stay economically realistic. A key element of the plan is to regularize funding for IT; student funds will help in this regard. Identifying the proper distribution between central and distributed computing is an ongoing consideration and may vary from year to year. E-mail has become mission-critical, with a need to have mirrored systems.
4. New e-mail system--Ninety-two thousand users were migrated to the new e-mail system in August and September; only a half a dozen or so noticed it had changed. They are still fine-tuning and working to make sure the system is absolutely right; it seems to be working quite well. A major milestone was achieved with the availability of Web-based e-mail. People who've been having problems with third party providers are now encouraged to use our secure system at Webmail.osu.edu. If you use central e-mail, you can use the Web-based mail for both receiving and sending e-mail; anyone else can use it to send mail only. An announcement was made to students last Monday, and it will also become one of the three rotating messages on the homepage. Articles will also appear in OSU Today and OnCampus to let folks know it exists. A couple of features weren't implemented, but they will continue to be investigated for possible future implementation. There have been very positive student and staff responses.
5. Digital Union--Susan Metros reported that a space on third floor of the Science & Engineering Library has been made available for the establishment of a Digital Union, a joint project of the CIO's Office and the Libraries. The goal of the project is to provide a place where faculty, staff and students can explore and use new technologies; a place to work together on collaborative projects. The planned opening will be in January [subsequently moved to February]. It will be fully staffed and there will be grants to encourage use. We hope to extend research into the undergraduate classroom, do more with dynamic images, etc. for Electronic Theses and Dissertations and work with the Knowledge Bank, as well as public radio and television using digital format.
Pat McCandless reported that the room has been painted and new carpet has been laid. Two individuals from the Learning Technology Center are on site in room 300 in the Science and Engineering Library. An adjacent room has hands-on computers available for signup. We'll be looking at furniture this week, and plan to create a new entrance that is more inviting. All partners in the project are contributing either money, services, or in kind; Regents' equipment funds are also being used. The facility is available to explore new technology before committing to it. It's an experimental space, and interdisciplinary action is encouraged.
Libraries are beginning to see something called an Information Commons, which brings together a number of information and technology activities--computer assistance, checkout, reference, writing center; one stop shopping for a variety of information needs. We're looking at doing something similar on the first floor of the Science & Engineering Library and are also thinking of implemention in the renovated Main Library.
6. TEACH Act--There will be a Web cast dealing with the TEACH Act from 3:00-4:30 in the Moritz auditorium on October 30. It is anticipated that the Web cast will be archived and available for viewing.
7. Alumni Portal-Alumni Online Library--The Libraries has partnered with the Alumni Association in making a number of databases available to alumni; students get used to accessing databases while they are here and have lost that ability once they are no longer on campus. Approximately 25 databases have been purchased from EBSCO, and a number of additional databases that can be accessed free-of-charge have been selected by librarians. This service is also being made available for members of the Friends of the Libraries. We have the largest or second largest alumni organization in the country. Providing database access is an important service and hopefully will prove to be a viable development tool.
8. Renovation--We've been busy working with the architectural team in writing the Program of Requirements (PoR) for the Main Library Renovation Project. How many books, how many seats, and in what configurations? We want more in the new library. We have a good architectural team--Acock Associates has the lead, with Graham Gund as the design architect, plus a construction manager and engineering firms. Van Valkenberg, the landscape architect for the Oval, is now involved with the landscaping for this project. Design concepts are to be presented to the Design Review Board tomorrow night. How it will look and fit on the Oval is the major thrust. The penultimate Memo of Understanding (MoU) covers 220,000 assignable square feet (330,000 gross square feet; we need to be very budget conscious. We may move Social Sciences collection currently housed in the Education, Human Ecology, Psychology, and Social Work Library (Sullivant Hall), the Cartoon Research Library (the Wexner Center), and the Theatre Research Institute Library (Lincoln Tower) into the new building. Technical Services, Preservation, and Information Technology would be moved out of the building to Sullivant Hall to allow a larger collection size. We're hoping for a maximum of 2,000,000 volumes and 1,500-1,700 seats. The biggest headache now is phasing; if we can close the library for two years we can finish more quickly and more cheaply. We're looking at rental space at the ABB building on Ackerman Rd. for use during construction which is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2005. Open meetings have been scheduled for November 12 and 13 to present alternate design concepts to the campus community. Fund raising is also important; we have a goal of $30 million of which we have $13 million in hand. The campaign is scheduled to go public next spring. We've been granted Campus Campaign visibility for next year, and will be a major focus for the next couple of years.
9. Potential agenda items--The following topics were suggested:
Additional topics should be sent to Louie Ulman via e-mail.