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Ohio State University logo University Libraries arrow Collection Management header
CAC Report to the Faculty
April 8, 2004
Submitted by Jim Bracken, Chair, Acting Assistant Director for Collection Development


  1. Introduction

    • With the departure of Carol Diedrichs and chairship passing to Jim Bracken in July, 2003/2004 is a transition year for CAC. This report is limited to CAC's activities after July 2003. To the present CAC convened on seven of its nine scheduled dates (including one later today), plus two additional meetings for review of centrally funded serials as part of the current serials cancellation project (SCP05).

    • In keeping with CAC's charged "advisory capacity" and service "as a first level forum for review of all collections management memoranda, discussion of specific collection policies, recommendations for centrally funded resources and to address other related issues," Bracken invited Trisha Davis (S/ER), Marsha Hamilton (MOD), and Tschera Connell (TSAA) to serve as ex officio members of CAC, to assist in presenting the agendas, provide background on past CAC activities, etc.


  2. Accomplishments

    1. Reviewed major CIRM and other OhioLINK and CIC proposed purchases and other consortial initiatives: CAC served as a sounding board and gave feedback that informed decisions related to OSUL's participating in OhioLINK's purchases of such resources as the Institute of Physics (IOP) and Thieme (chemistry) backfiles; Proquest's APS American Periodicals Series; Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO); and Sage's journal collections; and to OSUL's declining offers to purchase (initially, at least) such resources as DMC-Classical.com and Lexis/Nexis U.S. Serials Set. In particular, discussion of the Sage journal collections influenced and helped to shape Collection Development Office thinking about funding print/electronic duplication. CAC also discussed OSUL's purchase of Marcel Dekker backfiles. Over the course of several meetings, CAC was advised of OhioLINK's impending (in 2004) budget shortfall and discussed how proposed solutions might impact OSUL.

    2. Reviewed materials and the initial efforts of the Friends of the Libraries and the Collection Development Office to put into place an endowment stewardship program: CAC reviewed draft spreadsheets of information for endowments and donors, the letter announcing the program to collection managers, and the sample letter to be sent to living donors. The program was announced on 6 October 2003. To date, Friends reports that there has not been "much of a response from the collection managers (except for those in special collections) regarding letters to endowment donors." CAC may discuss follow-up in the future.

    3. Reviewed two proposals for Digital Initiatives Steering Committee (DISC) funding: CGA's Hale Scrapbook; and RAR's Donald B. Cooper Collection on Brazilian and Latin American Epidemic Disease and Medicine.

    4. Reviewed the state of materials budget in preparation and planning for a continuations cancellation project and helped to develop the current Materials Budget Adjustment Strategy.

      It should be noted that CAC in June 2003 included a wrap-up of the 2003 cancellation project. In fact, CAC never went far from the subject. CAC in September included discussions of the costs of using "sinc1" funds to cover processing printed copies of journals also received electronically; and over-committed 1 & 2 monograph funds and considered changing pre-order searching to identify (and return) requests for which OhioLINK shows multiple holdings. By October 2003, CAC was obliged to begin with an explanation that everyone's book money had gone into everyone's serial's inflation and the need for revisitation of a continuations cancellation project in 2004 (for 2005), the present SCP05 now in progress. CAC's discussions informed the subsequent Collection Mangers Forum on 10 October. CAC in December 2003 discussed the procedures outlined in "Materials Budget Adjustment Strategy" (outlined in Bracken's email to collection managers on 18 December 2003), with related meetings for collection managers on 21 January 2004 about continuation cancellations; on 25 February 2004 about slowing approval spending; and a meeting (now scheduled for 19 May 2004) about modifying acquisitions practices and policies that take into account statewide resources, among other topics. As noted above, CAC invested more than two full special meetings (on 26 February 2004 and 18 March 2004), in addition to part of CACs regular March meeting, to review and prioritize centrally funded serials.


  3. Featured guests to date

    1. Shannon Tippie discussed stewardship as regards endowments (see A.1).
    2. Tom Cetwinski discussed plans to involve collection managers in distributing information about the Knowledge Bank to faculty and departments.
    3. Tam Dalrymple of OCLC discussed a collection development and management product currently in development by OCLC that we would have to rent or buy.


  4. Agenda items for the immediate future

    1. Review progress on various aspects of the current Materials Budget Adjustment Strategy, including the implementation of more efficient practices.
    2. Review more database proposals to OhioLINK and CIC, including developing a response (if any) to any OhioLINK shortfall and its implications for OSUL.
    3. Revisit endowment stewardship.
    4. Re-think how we do collection development in order to try to do it better with fewer dollars, people, resources, etc. (pick one or more).