September 10, 2020 Meeting of Area Studies

Area Studies Division Meeting

September 10, 2020

10:00am-11:00am

Online Zoom Meeting

1. Sign up for Note Taking
2. Accolades and Announcements
   1. Joe Tenure Celebration – Postponed
3. Approval of the Minutes
4. Sign up for Research Presentations
5. Discussion
   1. Impact of Fulfillment Plan on Collections Budgets Discussion (Matt Roberts)
   2. Guest Speakers for Future Division Meetings
   3. Accessing areas studies collections at the University Library
6. Reports

 

Area Studies Division Meeting

September 10, 2020

10:00am-11:00am

Online Zoom Meeting Minutes

In attendance: Mara Thacker, Atoma Batoma, Steve Witt, ShuYong Jiang, Joe Lenkart, Kit Condill, Antonio Sotomayor, Laila Hussein, Bob Geraci, Paula Carns,

Meeting started at 10am.

Discussion item #1: Matt Roberts: “Impact of Fulfillment Plan on Collections Budgets Discussion”:

• Paula Carns offered an introduction to the topic: Concerns over ebook-first model came out of Arts and Hum divisions discussion. They are spending too much money on ebooks. Paula talked first to Social Science Division, and then Kelli at Life Sciences Division. Selectors are burning through their budget overall. E.g., Paula spent $800+ on a single book. Arts & Hum particularly hit, also Soc Sc. Div. Books from Spain not overwhelmingly in e-format, so impact is less in that country.
• Matt: He talked to Tom. Tom’s response: To supplement, to fulfill these ebooks we should look at endowment funds. Matt states this as problematic because he uses these funds for databases. Tom said there is no extra funding. He said to contact vendors to arrange a special deal to buy ebooks. Matt thinks there are other alternatives like JStor, Project MUSE, etc, but not sure how that would work. Would IAS be interested in collaborating with Arts and Hums to come up with joint purchasing? Paula’s question: retrospective or new material? Matt: he doesn’t know. We need to explore how such collaboration would look like. Joe’s Q: 1. Discussion on CDC on this matter, has Paula talked with Tom as Div coord? Paula: not yet. Joe’s Q.2 Do you know if there’s availability of ebooks for some of these countries. Paula: yes, some in Spain and Italy. But for Italy, they sell entire package, not single titles. France no platform yet. Kit: He has heard the idea of the endowment, but not everybody has endowment funds. Kit’s Q: are we talking about a massive shift away from print and towards ebooks, or burning through budgets with fac requests? Steve: should we do a straw pole about how much we are spending? Steve is spending 2 or 3 times his budget more on ebooks. Mara: same boat as Steve. Ebooks very expensive. Shuyong: What type of funds are in question, Gobi or state? Paula: any type of funds. Atoma: so far he has purchased three ebooks, one from Gobi and two from firm order. Antonio: ebooks will be much more expensive. Kit: also, ebooks are more expensive. Paula: are vendors prepared to offer ebooks? Shuyong: her vendor is preparing offers for ebooks. Shuyong’s Q: is collaboration around English language material or vernacular? Steve: publisher, English only. Antonio explained CLACSO’s OA book initiative. Matt: At this point there are only gathering information to see if there are overlaps in concerns to collaborate. Sounds like ebook packages are not used with our vendors and publishers. Not getting a lot of request to get ebooks. Is that correct? Mara: she has received some requests for ebooks. Matt: He’s receiving too many ebooks purchase requests to make it manageable. Steve: He would like to think about long term packages from vendors, how would that impact our paper collections. Also, (for Paula and Matt) what happens when you run out of funds this year, and we receive more request…? Matt: there are not solid plans, they are just thinking through the problems of current ebook first policies.  Kit: this discussion highlights the importance of print. Shuyong: If we are talking long term, let’s consider the fund structure. Need to differentiate vernacular funds and the needs of those materials. Mara: Should we invite Tom to come to Area St. Division to keep discussing this issue? Kit will bring our concerns to CDC, and we will invite Tom to Div. meeting. Paula: there are central funds to buy ebooks of paper copies in our stacks that have been requested by patrons. When those funds empty, they might ask subject selectors for our funds to cover central requests. Joe: did Paula discuss the central funds with Tom? Paula: not yet. Kit: regarding stacks books, Wendy started using central funds to cover request from last semester from stacks books. Shuyong: regarding funds, are those temporary or permanent. Paula: temporary. Shuyong: short term or long term? Paula: both.

Announcements: Joe’s tenure party, with increasing cases on campus, they decided to postpone it until conditions get better.

Notes (in lieu of minutes) from last meeting will be circulated later.

Schedule to share research activities for next meetings: Kit will share his research activities at our next meeting. Steve will share in Novemnber, Antonio in December, Bob in January.

Discussion item #2: “Guest Speakers for Future Division Meetings” Mara will invite Tom to talk about fulfillment issues. Shuyong suggested bringing someone to talk about cataloging needs. Steve: he has talked to MJ about this. MJ says cataloging needs to be done at room 1. Steve thinks it would be like reference contributions, but cataloging would need to be done in balance between cataloging and reference contributions. Mara: should we still invite MJ to division meeting? Steve: sure, but she could come or an IASL meeting. There is a history of centralization of cataloging that could be revisited under MJ’s leadership. Mara: in agenda for next meeting a discussion about challenges and proposed solutions for area studies cataloging, identifying needs and such. Joe suggested inviting the head of IGI (IL Global Institute) and George from Acq.

Discussion regarding accessing area studies collections moved for the next IASL staff meeting.

Reports moved to next week.

Meeting adjourned at 10:58am.