Commercial Products Committee Meeting: November 18, 2024

CONFERENCE CALL

Members Attending: Chad Buckley (Illinois State University), Michele Hunt (Northern Illinois University), Ann Johnston (Olivet Nazarene University), Marie Martino (Moraine Valley Community College), Thane Montaner (Prairie State College), Ashtin Trimble (Black Hawk College)

CARLI Staff Attending: Jenny Taylor, Nicole Ream-Sotomayor, Elizabeth Clarage, Yanira Cruz, Marisa Tolbert

Members Absent: Audra Deemer (DePaul University), Rosalind Fielder-Giscombe (Chicago State University), Scott Thomson (Rush University)

Announcements   

CARLI Updates

• CARLI staff are recovering from the Charleston Conference where they met with many of our vendors, which will support upcoming spring renewals with several big vendors.
• CARLI E-Resources staff are wrapping up calendar year selections this week.
• CARLI is looking for feedback from members on their experience using Consortia Manager and how it went renewing with it for the first time. An email soliciting feedback will go out in the near future.
• Elizabeth Clarage shared that in the near future members will be hearing details about the FY26 EBook Program.
• Marisa Tolbert shared that the E-Resources Committee sent out a survey that received a high number of responses. Marisa thanks everyone who participated and will be sending out a summary of the response soon.

Discussion

PRODUCT PROPOSALs

• There were no proposals to review.

Annual Project

• CPC Annual Project Discussion: AI Symposium Collaboration - Next Steps
  • We reviewed the email sent by the Public Services Committee with details about the date and format with a deadline to confirm participation.
  • There is enough interest to have separate sessions planned by each committee who is collaborating. The Primo VE Committee will cover the AI component within Alma. The Preservation Committee might have an outside speaker.
  • We discussed actions taken by members since our last meeting to further our session planning. Marie Martino emailed EBSCO about their new AI feature, but hasn’t heard back yet. Michele Hunt emailed the AI group at her university but has not heard back yet. Ann Johnston attended several AI-related webinars and identified Dr. Mary Borgo Ton as a knowledgeable resource we might want to consult with depending on the topic we settle on.
  • The committee discussed our potential topic again and if we wanted to continue to go the route of an overview of vendor AI products. With so many recent webinars on this topic, a suggestion to pivot toward assessment, policy, and/or contractual-related discussion pertaining to the implementation of AI at an institution. The pivot in topic was well-received due to being a more diverse topic so that we don’t repeat recent webinars audience members might feel burnt out seeing.
  • Nicole also pointed out that we don’t have to stay in the product or vendor category of topics due to our committee’s general focus.

Decisions

• Minutes of the October 9, 2024, meeting were approved.
• The CPC members agreed that we want to participate in the AI symposium and we are ready to confirm by the deadline of December 9, 2024.
• The meeting was adjourned at 11:29am

Tasks Assigned

• CPC members will continue research on our potential AI symposium topics.
• CPC members will come to the December meeting with focused ideas for our presentation and we will drill down details then.
• The Co-chairs will respond to the Public Services Committee with our confirmation of participation in the symposium.

Meeting Dates

• Next Meeting: Wednesday, December 11, 10-11 a.m. (minutes: Rosalind Fielder-Giscombe)