Collection Development Working Group
15 January 2005
ALA Midwinter
Boston, MA

Present

Jim Niessen (Rutgers University) (Chair); Gordon Anderson (University of Minnesota); Helene Baumann (Duke University); Elizabeth Darocha Berenz (CRL); Jeffrey Garrett (Northwestern University); Dick Hacken (Brigham Young University); Tom Kilton (University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign); Thea Lindquist (University of Colorado at Boulder); Eudora Loh (AAU/ARL Global Resources Network, UCLA); Don Panzera (Library of Congress); Evelinde Hutzler (University Library, Regensberg); Katalin Radics (University of California, Los Angeles); Louis Reith (Georgetown University); Chip Robinson (Harvard University); James Simon (CRL); Meg Tulloch (European Regional Library, Heidelberg)

1. Approval of the minutes

Approval will be deferred, pending comments to be sent electronically.

2. DigiZeitschriften (Jim Niessen)

This database featuring 19th and 20th century journals has been in preparation the past couple of years. Dr. Elmar Mittler serves as director of the project. The Web site of the product (http://www.digizeitschriften.de/digizeit/index.html) lists partner institutions, subscribing libraries, and the North American trial subscribers (18 institutions signed up for the free trial). The trial has resulted in useful feedback, and some of the issues have been addressed – articles are now available in PDF format for printing, and the producers claim improved searching capabilities. Future improvements will include the provision of user statistics and a regular newsletter.

The trial session has officially expired, but Niessen requested an extension to encourage further user testing. Some of the comments expressed disappointment in the lack of full-text search capability and the low volume of available resources. Project representatives indicate that there are currently 1.3 million pages available, with an estimate 3 million pages to be available by 2005. The site lists titles currently completely online (verfügbar), and those still incomplete.

In San Diego a year ago, the CDWG discussed ways to price DZ for GNARP that would reflect the anticipated user community in North America. Project members were to discuss a census method to determine number of users, but this has not yet occurred. Elmar Mittler (Niedersächische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek) and Hildegard Schaeffler (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) participated in these discussions.

Subsequently the German side presented a pricing offer of €1500 for a large institution based on FTE. Project participants felt this pricing structure could not be supported, given the number of users who could use the resource (primarily in German), even if more materials become available. Currently, there is only author and title search capability. If full-text searching is not possible, the product is limited in its utility. Even though the current functionality is fairly unique (essentially, as a searchable bibliography), it needs to be tailored to suit the needs of current research.

The group refrained from making recommendations regarding subscription, but recommended that further trial will not be necessary at this time. The project will continue to review developments of the project to assess whether improvements merit further review.

3. Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (EZB)

The Electronic Journal Library (EZB), http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/, is an international cooperative library service that seeks to promote the effective use of scholarly electronic journals. The EZB database is a gateway that features over 20,000 titles, including 2453 online-only journals, covering all subjects. Journal entries are available via subject browsing and title search (there is currently no article-level searching). The database includes journals available via open access or by subscription only; participating institutions may indicate whether journals on subscription are available to their patrons, and can add local access information for their users.

Based on a database developed by the Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg (University Library of Regensburg), in cooperation with the Universitätsbibliothek der Technischen Universität München (University Library of the Technical University of Munich), the EZB has been in operation since 1997 and includes hundreds of research libraries and institutes in Europe. Participating libraries collaborate to enter and maintain the journal metadata. In 2003, the Library of Congress became the first North American member of this consortium.

Don Panzera related the Library of Congress’ experience with the project. As a collaborative effort, the database is impressively large and is well maintained. Library representatives found that 99% of titles included in the database were of research value for LC. 70% of the titles are in scope for LC’s virtual collection. The library has engaged in further cooperation with the project, exchanging journals data through the Deutsche Bibliothek. The Library of Congress is able to offer its users improved and more expansive access to electronic journals and at the same time the EZB enriches itself with a considerable number of titles.

Further discussions between the Library and the EZB partners concern a "whole life cycle" exchange of government e-journals. This project is intended to lead to an exchange between U.S. national libraries (including the Government Printing Office) and German National Libraries (including the EZB) of online government e-journals. Terms of the agreement would include a commitment to preserve and provide access to each country’s own government e-journals the right to freely download and archive a subset of the other government's e-journals. The exploration of the viability of various LOCKSS architecture models for the GPO depository program will be considered in the context of this exchange.

This effort may inform and provide direction for the proposed “electronic Cooperative Acquisitions Program” (ECAP) modeled in part on the Cooperative Acquisitions Program run by the LC overseas offices.

Clarification on some details of the EZB were discussed. EZB uses persistent URLs (PURLs) to maintain control. Users may link to EZB through their home pages. Searching is currently only at the title level, though the information can be enhanced to provide links to articles and full text through services such as those being provided by vascoda (http://www.vascoda.de/). Costs of the project are low, currently only involving staff commitment of .5 FTE.

At this point, the project representatives and Library of Congress are seeking reaction from this group. As the Library of Congress advances its ideas for ECAP, GNARP will be a valuable resource for feedback and an audience for resources being considered.

4. Steering Committee report (Garrett)

a. DKV – 12 customers subscribed in the original solicitation. ProQuest chose not to continue the special price for GNARP members at this time. Garrett hopes they will revisit the special deal once specific enhancements are made. Northwestern and the University of California, San Diego are cataloging DKV resources to the volume level with analytics for contents.

b. BDSL online – this subscription is up and running. 24 institutions subscribed (Harvard is considering). Retroactive payment to April 1, 2004 was made by the subscribing institutions. Another invoice will be coming due before April, 2005.

c. BdDL – MARC record conversion. 8 participating libraries received records for free as part of their participation. 2 institutions purchased records as a WorldCat set ($7500). 1 GNARP member purchased from German National Library ($750). Thea Lindquist vouched for the quality of access these records provide. Institutions are encouraged to take part in this.

d. xipolis - GNARP lost $12k as part of the fallout of the agreement with Tanto. ARL, CRL and the project are still examining options for recovery. Brockhaus Duden Neue Medien is to offer a new deal for interested participants. The costs for service are very reasonable (amounting to approx. $185 per institution). GNARP would like to charge members extra (total $400) to cover administrative costs or project activities, and also to provide some compensation for those institutions most affected by the Tanto deal. The funds will also provide a buffer in case of escalating license costs due to increased usage. GNARP could offer its members a guaranteed price rise cap of 6%. Access will change over to BDNM once IP addresses are confirmed with the publisher.

e. E-CAP – discussed above.

f. WBIS – A proposed large scale cataloging conversion project for the World Biographical Information System. Garrett proposed a conversion of records from Germany for the fiche or electronic project. However, Northwestern cannot take this project on. German National Library wants to work with GNARP rather than Gale. The question is, who can do the work?

g. New steering committee – outgoing members include Helene Baumann, Ewald Brahams, Riemer Eck, Claudia Fabian, Lou Pitschmann, Dorothea Sommer, and John Van Oudenaren. Incoming members include Askey, Hsu, Lossau, Radics, Sonnenburg, Trevvett (Mittler and Sens are pending confirmation). Helene Baumann was thanked especially for her long work on the committee.

Submitted by James Simon, 1/18/05