[Florida International University Libraries]

Faculty Senate Library Committee
Minutes of Meeting
November 3, 1997
[blue bar]

Present: Ken Furton, chair; Marc Resnick, Engineering; Zisca Dixon, Health; Peter Goff, Hospitality; Patricia Iannuzzi, Library; Laurence Miller, Library (ex-officio); Salvador Miranda, Library (visitor); Sherry Carrillo, Library (visitor).

The first meeting for the new academic year was held in the library conference room.

1. Report of Meeting at Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) - Ken Furton.

Ken summarized the meeting he attended in Gainesville with Joe Patrouch (History) and Dr. Miller. The directors of the ten libraries of the SUS systems met with faculty to discuss common concerns and priorities for library services.

2. State of the Libraries Report - Dr. Miller

Library Budget
The library materials budget for this year is $4,032,457. This increase includes a one time allocation from non-recurring fund of $600,000 to support new programs.

Quality Improvement Program Grant
The libraries have submitted a grant request under the President Maidique's new Quality Improvement Program. The request is for $900,00 in funding over 3 years to support programs identified by the university as targeted "Areas of Excellence":
  • Architecture
  • Music
  • African New World Studies
  • Liberal Education
    • This funding would help the library develop breadth and depth in collections to support these programs

    GIS Lab
    The new remote sensing Geographic Information System (GIS) Laboratory has been established in the library. Under the leadership of Jennifer Fu, Documents Librarian, and with support and funding from Academic Affairs, the GIS lab serves as centralized facility for research and teaching across all subject areas. The GIS lab currently occupies temporary space on the 5th floor of the library. When construction is completed, the GIS faculty will occupy 3,000 sq. Ft. of space on the 2nd floor, housing state of the art equipment and space for individual research as well as group instruction.

    Everglades Digital Library
    Everglades Digital Library under the leadership of Gail Clement, Science Librarian and Project Director of the Everglades Information Network/Digital Library (EIN/DL), and in partnership with the south Florida Research Center at Everglades National Park, the National Park Service, and FCLA, the Everglades Digital Library has become a reality. Funding from the Everglades National Park supports the project director's work to digitize materials form the park an make them available for students, researchers, and the public worldwide on the Internet. The EDL has also established a bibliography database of materials related to the Everglades that is and made available to the world hosted by FCLA through LUIS/WebLUIS. A present article about the EDL Project was published on the front page of The Miami Herald.

    New Librarians
    Five new librarians were recently hired, mostly to fill vacancies at the North Campus. This brings the librarian staff to a total equal to that of 1991. A search is currently underway at UP to fill a librarian position for Coordinator of Electronic Reference. The libraries have also received permission to hire two new librarians: a documents librarian to replace Jennifer Fu whose position has evolved into GIS Librarian; and a science librarian to replace Gail Clement whose position has evolved into Coordinator of Digital Library Services.

    Building
    Construction is proceeding on schedule and should be completed by April 22. The current challenge is that we are short over $1 million needed to purchase furnishings for new spaces. This figure assumes the continued use of existing furniture in many public and office spaces. Dr. Miller is optimistic that this obstacle will be overcome.

    Ziff Reception
    A reception for the Ziff's is scheduled for December 4 p.m. at the Faculty Club. The entire FIU community is invited to come meet these library and university benefactors and to welcome them to the FIU family. The Ziff's donated $1 million in deferred giving to the Library Endowment Fund. In honor of their generosity, the library breezeway will be named the Ziff Colonnade.

    Challenge of Electronic Services
    The library is making significant progress to expand remote access to library databases. We continue to face the challenge of expanding access to full text databases.

    3. Status Report on Electronic Information Services - Patricia Iannuzzi

    FIU's virtual library of electronic services has grown significantly in the past 6 months. There are several major new services, new formats and interfaces to existing services, and several major citation and full text services currently under consideration. Access these services, as well as information about them, is available on the FIU Libraries Home Page at www.fiu.edu/~library

    New Services
    The FIU Libraries now provide access to the following web based electronic services. Details are described on the attachment Library Resources and Information Literacy, and an article is in the forthcoming issue of Info.

    Firstsearch
    Funded by the State's Distance Learning Library Initiative, all publicly funded institutions of higher education have access to the Fisrtsearch service. (Over 60 databases in many subject areas, including some full text) FIU users have remote access via www or telnet.

    Encyclopedia Britannica
    The web version of Encyclopedia Britannica is also funded by the State's Distance Learning Library Initiative.

    Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
    A web based interface of over 30 databases in biosciences, environmental studies, computer science, and engineering.

    EI Village
    A web based service form Engineering Inc including 16,000 web sites selected and described for engineering professionals.

    Different Formats for Existing Services

    Under Consideration
    The following electronic services are currently under consideration by FIU as part of a consortial licensing agreement with other SUS Libraries.
    Lexis/Universe
    The web version of Lexis/Nexis with some differences in scope and content. The passwords for the current ecuational contract are $14,000. Our consortial price for web access in $35,000. Since the princing for the educational contracts are increasing dramatically over the next three years, this is our only viable option for Lexis access.

    ISI Web of Science
    ISI publishes three citation indexes: Arts and Humannities Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Science Citation Index. These three indexes provide very broad access to the literatrue in those disciplines. They are very expensive products. UF, FSU, USF, FAU, and UCF have already committed to a consortial licensing agreement to acquire a five years batch file and current subscription to Web of Science - the web databases of all three areas. The web version includes abstracts and offers the citation search feature. FIU is considering participating but the cost may be prohibitive.

    Elsevier
    Elsevier is a major and expensive publisher of journals in social science and science. They pulish 1,200 titles. FIU subscribes to 181 titles for whcih we pay $280,000. We are currently negotiating a price to acquire full text access to the titles we have in print. Furthermore, if we participate in the SUS Elsevier initiative, participating libraries will pool theri titles and we will all have access to the titles owned by all of us. Right now, UF, USF, and FSU have 681 titles. When we join, we will have access to all 681 titles in electronic format via WebLUIS. The data will be stored at FCLA and WebLUIS will be the interface.This is a very exciting opportunity for remote full text access to important research journals. Not only will we have our own subscriptions, but we will have access to several hundred additional titles. We also have the opportunity for cooperative collection development whereby duplicate print subscriptions can be canceled in order to purchase new Elsevier titles to add to the database.

    JSTOR
    JSTOR is another full text journal project, very different in scope and concept from Elsevier. It is a non-profit effort to digitize archival runs of core journals. There are currently about 30 periodicals titles available through JSTOR, (e.g., American Historical Review, 1895-1991; Journal of Philosophy 1904-1991; Annals of Mathematics, 1884-1990). The cost to FIU would be a one time fee of $40,000 and an annual subscription cost of approximately $5,000.

    There was some discussion about overall notification of faculty about new services and the role that faculty can plan in providing evaluation of these new services. Peter Goff suggested a link on the library home page for services that are being considered. Patricia will follow-up.

    It was also noted that the banner on the library home page announces new services and trials, and that faculty in specific departments have been invited to participate in an evaluation for services relevant to their discipline. (e.g. Biology faculty for Cambridge Scientific Abstracts).

    4. Allocation of Funds - Salvador Miranda

    The 1997-98 Materials Budget was presented to the committee for discussion and approval. The faculty funds for monograph purchases is $231,000, twice the amount of FY 96/97. There is also $55,000 in funding made available for new serial subscriptions. We have not had any new funds for serial subscriptions for three years. Representatives are asked to review outstanding requests which will be returned to you in order to review again. Titles that remain a priority should be forwarded to the Serials Department on each campus for review by the Serials Committee. Faculty library representatives are responsible for collecting and forwarding orders to the library. LRFs for monographs with U.S. imprints must be submitted by March 1, 1998. Requests for foreign imprints must be submitted by February 1, 1998.

    5. Training for Virtual Library - Patricia Iannuzzi

    The library now provides access to over 150 databases through at least 8 different Web interfaces and dozens of other interfaces for CDROM and online services. Expanding access increases choices and only underscores the need for both technical and critical thinking skills for students and faculty alike to become information literate. The libraries continue to offer classes for students. The libraries also offer workshops for faculty and graduate students. (See attached Brochure). Workshops are scheduled for a specific department and customized to focus on resources in the discipline. Library representatives are encouraged to work with Patricia to schedule one or more workshops for their departments.

    The next meeting was scheduled for Friday January 16 at 10:00 a.m.

    The meeting adjourned at 11:10 a.m.

    Respectfully submitted,
    Patricia Iannuzzi

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