Florida Center for Library Automation
Advisory Board Meeting Minutes
September 11, 1996

This meeting was held from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the DOE Conference Room 1701, Tallahassee, Florida.

Those present were:

  • Anne Marie Allison, UCF;
  • Dale Canelas, UF;
  • Jim Corey, FCLA;
  • Andrew Farkas, UNF;
  • Sam Fustukjian, USF;
  • Carolyn Gray, FGCU;
  • Richard Madaus, CCLA;
  • Charles Miller, FSU;
  • Larry Miller, FIU;
  • William Miller, FAU;
  • Helen Wiggersma for Grady Morein, UWF;
  • Lauren Sapp, FAMU; and
  • Lorraine Summers for Barratt Wilkins, Florida State Library.

    • 1. Agreement on agenda.

    The agenda was accepted as presented.

    2. Correction to minutes of last meeting - Sept. 27, 1995

    There were no corrections to the minutes of the last meeting.

    3. Next meeting - Date and Place

    The next meeting will be September 18, 1997 in Tallahassee. On the second day, we will plan to meet jointly with the CCLN board at Richard Madaus' invitation.

    4. Report of FCLA Director - J. Corey (Attachment distributed by J. Corey)

    Jim Corey gave an extensive report on FCLA operations which covered the following:

    NOTIS

    Maintenance of current systems. These projects take precedence over any development project. The list of ongoing production tasks covered some 49 items. (See Attachment A.)

    Web LUIS. This is to be available to staff for debugging the week of September 16th. Instead of using the IBM software that was originally to serve as the basis of Web LUIS, FCLA has developed its own software.

    Joint Committee Recommendations of 11/95. Jim distributed a handout (See Attachment B.) showing the status of these--The top priority is completed and priorities 3 and 4 are active. Priority 2 has spec work underway. In addition, six priorities from earlier years are under active development and four have been completed since the November, 1995 meeting.

    Electronic Collection Committee Recommendations. Elaine Henjum has been assigned to work on these. The Bowker Publisher/Distributor file has been completed and phase 1 of transferring CINAHL to the server; phase 2 should be completed in October. the Psyc Info Thesaurus is now loaded in a test file. Six other projects are in varying stages of activity. " Jim reported that the the Electronic Collections Committee had recommended the continuance of the discussions with IAC concerning the full text project. He also indicated that this recommendation may have been made based upon the self imposed presumption that the Committee had no other alternative to the IAC. Jim also indicated that negotiations with IAC had been considerably difficult. After considerable amount of discussion, the Board assured Jim that he had the authority to pursue other options available to the SUS."

     Digital Library Projects

    IBM Project. This has been delayed pending improved software from IBM.

    IAC project (Full Text). This will be available shortly (see above.)

    Digitization of Unique SUS Collections. Several of the libraries are digitizing collections (FSU using Helios software to digitize the Pepper Papers, FIU with National Park Service Funding to digitize Everglades material, etc.) Jim said that additional server capacity is available at NERDC if local servers do not have adequate storage for all the digitization projects that are underway or contemplated.

     Telecommunications

    Progress on full implementation of Z39.50. This project has been on the back burner because there were so many other priorities. They will put it back in production to create an interface to Silver Platter for patron authentication and hook to holdings.

    Progress on Internet Gateways. FCLA has had character based gateways for access to RLG, First Search, etc. This provides us the advantage of not having to give passwords to students and faculty who need access to these databases. FCLA will now develop web- based gateways for areas in which we purchase electronic data through FCLA to get a concurrent user price cheaper than we can do it individually.

     Maintenance Funds.

    Jim will continue to distribute maintenance funds annually as in the past and we can use the funds to maintain our FCLA equipment. Please give him your account number to transfer the funds by the end of September.

    5. Guidelines for use of LAN money.

    The directors adopted the guidelines for allocation of the LAN money as distributed by Jim Corey.

    6. Update on and discussion of improved statistics on system use.

    This issue was deferred for lack of time.

    7. September, '96 recommendations of the Electronic Collections Committee.

    Dale Canelas presented the September, 1996 recommendations of the Electronic Collections Committee. The directors approved:

    1) retaining the RLG CitaDel files as currently available with the exception of dropping "Inside Information;"

    2) retaining the LUIS files currently licensed;

    3) evaluating the delivery systems available for IAC full text files;

    4) assessing the libraries approximately $591,676 for the cost of the jointly purchased LUIS electronc files as distributed in the report;

    5) setting as an ECC priority the evaluation and funding to shift to the FCLA Unix server SilverPlatter databases currently on CD-ROM and subscribed to by 5 or more of the SUS Libraries;

    6) having the ECC evaluate Gale Research Net, Encyclopedia Britannica, Readex Newsfile, and Academic Press publications;

    7) setting as an ECC priority, development of "Florida Principles" modeled on the California principles for the purchase of electronic publications.

    8. Recommendations for management of Joint Committee Meeting from the Public and Technical Services Planning Committees.

    After considerable discussion, the directors approved the recommendations of Public and Technical Services Planning Committees to change the procedures used by the two groups to manage their annual joint meeting. It was pointed out that in the past, conduct of the annual meetings had been difficult when so many system changes were recommended for discussion that the group had difficulty on focusing on the important ones and prioritizing them in the time available. The approved procedure indicates that the two committees plan to work in advance of the meeting to winnow and prioritize in a preliminary fashion the suggested changes.

    9. Update on and discussion of statewide information initiatives - B. Wilkins

    Lorraine Summers briefly described the current work of the Florida Distance Learning Network.