Collection Management Committee Meeting: October 21, 2020

Zoom / Conference Call

Members present: David Bell, co-chair, (Eastern Illinois University), Chad Buckley (Illinois State University), Keith Eiten (Wheaton College), Kelli Getz (DePaul University), Paolo Gujilde (Northwestern University), Lorene Kennard (University of St. Francis), Niamh McGuigan (Loyola University Chicago), Scott Thompson (Rush University)

Member absent: Dan Blewett, co-chair, (College of DuPage)

CARLI Staff present: Jennifer Masciadrelli, Nicole Ream-Sotomayor, Jennifer Taylor

CARLI Staff absent: Elizabeth Clarage

Tasks Assigned

• Kelli took minutes.
• All committee members should review the committee’s charge (https://www.carli.illinois.edu/governance/committee-directory/comm?comm_id=40&constit=no&dates=yes) and be prepared to discuss it and the committee review at the next meeting.
• David will be making a video update of the committee’s activities for the CARLI Annual Meeting.
• Jen will work with the web services to create the CMC chat sessions for the CARLI calendar and work with CARLI web services to includes a registration page for the program.
• Jen will reach out to the Technical Services Committee regarding the weeding ebook project.

Decisions

• The September minutes were approved.
• The Committee will meet monthly on the third Wednesday from 9:30 – 11:00am.
• Elizabeth will schedule the meetings and send connection information to all.
• The Committee will discuss at its next meeting an overall committee review and projects for the year.
• The Committee decided to put the training project for Alma Analytics on hold until folks have had a chance to finish their tweaks in Alma.
• In Spring 2021, the Alma Analytics subgroup will examine the canned reports that are already in Alma. They will be checking out the relevancy of the reports and that all links are working.
• The committee decided to pause the Collection Development Help – Consultant Directory project because the timing is not right. It might be easier to restart the project in the summer.
• The CMC will hold a series of informal chat sessions beginning on December 11. The chats are intended for CARLI members to ask collection development questions and have them answered by CMC members. The first chat session will be on December 11. The topic will be on reflecting collection development over the past year and using that to inform decisions in the new year.
• For the Open Access Pilot Project, the committee agreed that CARLI staff using the criteria developed will screen possible OA collections to add to the collection. The subgroup is dissolved, and the full CMC would take over the subgroup’s former responsibilities of discussing those collections that have been vetted by the CARLI staff.
• The meeting concluded after 11 am.

Announcements

• CARLI Update
  • Reminder about CARLI professional development opportunities: https://www.carli.illinois.edu/calendar
  • CARLI annual meeting registration is now open.
  • CARLI selections system is open until November 6.

Discussion

• Alma issues
  • Several libraries noticed that Alma has been slower since the October update. What is slowing Alma down?
  • No one is sure about the slowdown, although it could be due to growing pains.
  • Problems finding a solution include Alma documentation overload and difficulty in easily finding an answer. Perhaps streamlining the Alma documentation would help?  
• 2020-2021 Projects Reports and Discussion
  • Alma Analytics
    • This is still a worthwhile project. The committee decided to put the training project on hold for now until folks have had a chance to finish their tweaks in Alma.
    • In the spring, the subgroup will examine the canned reports that are already in Alma. They will be checking out the relevancy of the reports and that all links are working.
    • The vocabulary is an issue for public services staff. Creation of a glossary would be helpful. Starting with the basics is fine, and more obscure terminology can be added later.
    • The 2021-2022 Collection Management Committee can work on training for additional Alma Analytics reports at the consortia level, which would include interlibrary loan/universal borrowing.
    • All agree that the learning curve for Alma Analytics is steep.
  • Collection Development Help – Consultant Directory
    • This project is tied to partnering with ILA and IACRL because they were working on creating a directory.
    • IACRL hasn’t been able to get the directory started.
    • The committee decided to pause the project because the timing isn’t right. It might be easier to restart the project in the summer.
    • In the meantime, the CMC will hold a series of informal chat sessions beginning on December 11. The chats are intended for CARLI members to ask collection development questions and have them answered by CMC members. The first chat session will be on December 11. The topic will be on reflecting collection development over the past year and using that to inform decisions in the new year.
  • Open Access Ebooks
    • There was a discussion about turning the screening selection process over to CARLI staff.
    • It was agreed that the CMC subgroup would work on identifying open access ebook collections. CARLI staff would then decide if a  collection will be turned on in Alma based on the selection criteria created by the subgroup.
    • CARLI had to pause the OA ebook process due to the migration. CARLI staff will soon be able to resume activating OA ebook packages in the network zone.
    • All agreed that the subgroup could be dissolved, and the full CMC would take over the subgroup’s former responsibilities.
  • Weeding Ebooks
    • The subgroup will continue working on the ebook weeding report.
    • Jen will find someone from the Technical Services Committee with recent electronic resources experience to serve on the subcommittee.
• 2020-2021 Activities
  • Committee Charge -- Discussion and Review
  • There wasn’t time to have this discussion. The discussion will be moved to the meeting on November 18.
  • Re-envisioning the committee’s mission discussion
  • This will be moved to the agenda for November 18.

Next Meeting and Deadlines

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 18 from 9:30 – 11:00 am.