1993 Joint Meeting Report

Due to travel restrictions, no official Joint Meeting was held. An informal FCLA Joint Committee Meeting was held on May 12, 1993 at FLA in Daytona Beach. All nine university main libraries and the UF Legal Information Center were represented as well as FCLA. The meeting was convened at 10:30 am.

The following handouts were distributed:

1. Status report on FCLA projects since the June 1992 meeting.
2. FCLA Information sheet
3. Online transactions: all, LUIS, circ
4. Draft policy on database selection
5. Spreadsheets comparing costs for prospective databases

Several handouts from the SOLINET annual meeting were shared as well:

1. Southeastern ILL statistics
2. SOLINET/OCLC price history since 1988
3. Memo on the 93/94 pricing

A quick review of the status report produced the following information:

I. Ongoing projects (from Joint Meeting)

A. Databases, local and remote

1. CRL load/purge from FSU (DONE)

The directors of the CRL member libraries are concerned that having CRL in a separate database may not be facilitating maximum use of this resource. A discussion of options such as duplicating the file in each member's catalog and merging the index entries in the MHI (author/title/subject) indexes for each library was held. No decision was reached, but it was agreed that no decision would be unilateral. The merging of the index entries would be analogous to what's being done for the union author/title index. Programming would be needed to merge the keyword indexes; such a merger would have significant impact on the results users would get (e.g., more limits reached and more costly searches). 2. Wilson ASTI/BAI loads (DONE)

3. ERIC reload for 5.0 and split (DONE)

The ERIC split has reduced the cost of searching now that the current file is only 140,000 records: fewer limits reached and smaller search results. Backfile searching is 14% of the total ERIC searches while the current file is 86%. 4. IAC reload for 5.0 (DONE)

5. Small databases

a. Sea Turtles (DONE): growing in popularity via the Internet as word spreads to researchers world-wide. We found out that there is a user at Miami-Dade C.C. when a menu change inadvertantly dropped Sea Turtles.
b. Florida Documents -- this will be an online version of the data now printed in the FAU Kwic-Kwoc index (brief entries without abstracts, subject headings or descriptive information). Individual library holdings statements could be added if the file is set-up to allow it. There seemed to be general support for this. 6. Link to CCLA (pre-Z39.50) (DONE)

7. Gateways are being used but are proving problematic because of the incompatibility of the IBM3270 and VT100/ASCII protocols. Also, other libraries change their procedures so that the connects stop working. Everyone should report such occurrences to Donna Alsbury (fcldda@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu) but its best to wait a day and try the connection again since often the problem is a 'system-down' condition at the other end. RLIN, OCLC, and CARL are problematic because we don't have a good solution for scripting the transfer of the system authorization/password so that it is hidden from the users. FCLA and NERDC continue to pursue solutions to these problems but it is looking like any mainframe software solution will cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

B. NOTIS Enhancements

1. LUIS 5.0 OPAC debugging and performance improvements (DONE)

2. Keyword/Boolean improvements (In development)

Anyone using the NERCICST test region needs to be aware that LUIS is undergoing daily changes as code is developed for both Z39.50 and accompanying keyword/boolean enhancements. The biggest change is the requirement to use the '=' sign after the search type. Other changes being worked on include ability to do complex boolean searches from the command line. The question was asked about how to get a larger input area for this since all the screens except the revise screen only allow one line? It was noted that it would be inefficient and non-intuitive for users to have to do a worthless search in order to be able to enter the 'R' command to get a screen that enabled the desired search to be input. This concern was noted and will be passed on to the programmers. Once the changes have been stabilized and the FCLA librarians have a good idea of what they will all be, a posting to FCLLIST will be made asking for everyone's help in testing. 3. Online ONI (In development) Online ONI has turned into a larger project that was first envisioned thus resulting in a longer development schedule. No revised time-frame is available at this time. C. HEA IID grant (In development): grant ends Sept. 30, 1993. Objective is to have functioning Z39.50 server and LUIS client by then. D. Internal improvements as time permits 1. LSYS performance improvements (DONE)
2. Convert techmode to CICS command (In process) II. Balloted items

A.2. Hook-to-holdings (In development)

B.1. Statistics by call # range (some activity

FCLA has acquired some software developed by Wayne State University for producing statistics by a pre-defined set of call number ranges that conform to those required for the North America Title Count (previously the North America Shelflist Count). Minimal modifications will be made to this software and it will be run for every library during the summer. III. Other activities completed A. Loaded MeSH files (central and HC/SM processing units)
B. Customized menu development
C. Display of holdings notes in brief/long views in OPAC
D. Changed 'In process' display in OPAC
E. Change media designation displays in OPAC
F. Display ED/ED rather than RE/RR/RC/RJ codes in LUIS ERIC indexes
G. Changed text of order status in OPAC
H. Ability to update overdue status without printing first notice
I. Changed schedule for printing bill letters
J. Switch to weekly processing of LCSH/NAF updates


FCLA Statistics

A brief discussion of the handouts giving use statistics identified the following points:

1. CICS usage continues to grow at a monthly rate of 10-24%. The newest peak month was March with 22,769,028 transactions. LUIS use is now 70% of the total (it was closer to 60% last year).

2. OPAC searching is still the majority of LUIS transactions (percentages are SUS-wide averages):
 

Home catalog 64.6%
Other SUS catalogs  6.7%
SUS-wide union index   2.8%
General academic index (1988-to date)  8.4%
Business index (1988-to date) 6.0%
ERIC (1988-to date) 6.0%
Wilson ASTI 1.5%
Wilson BAI  0.9%
All remaining files  3.1%
The tables give percentage of total institution transactions across databases and percentage of total database usage across institutions. 3. Circulation transactions also continue to increase. The following are the total charges and renewals for Jan.-March:   
 
FAMU 25,859 UF 593,358
FAU 132,301 UNF 137,054
FIU  231,334 USF 404,673
FSU 429,262 UWF 122,011
UCF 230,102 TOTAL   2,305,954

Policy on Selection of Databases for LUIS

This draft had been mailed to the directors the week before FLA and was presented to the Joint Committee for its information. It was not discussed at the meeting, but should be discussed internally for the purpose of providing input via the library directors. Potential database spreadsheets

FCLA staff gathered information from the vendors on all of the databases that had been in at least one library's top 5 during the round of informal email balloting done last fall. The tables provide the vendor's pricing, the first year and ongoing disk storage requirements and costs, and other information about the format and coverage of the data. They also give the institutional breakdown of the vendor costs based on the vendors' preferred method: pro-rated by FTE, flat rate by institution, number of simultaneous users, among others.

FCLA has arranged to have 8,000 megabytes of disk available in FY 93/94 to be used for new databases. Depending upon the choice of databases and their sizes, this could be one, two or three. FCLA staff is ready to begin negotiations with the vendors as soon as the SUS libraries reach consensus on choice of databases.
 

FCLA Long-range Plan

Mr. Corey described briefly the document "Toward an Electronic Journal Article Delivery Service" which makes six recommendations for funding. This proposal was approved by the Library Directors on Nov. 23, 1992 and by the Council of Academic Vice Presidents on Dec. 4, 1992. It is now at the BOR office awaiting the step of being converted into language to go into the SUS budget request for FY 94/95. The six recommendations are:

1. Additional LUIS enhancements: search logic improvements such as proximity and limiting; hook-to-holdings (which we've already started); download and print.
2. Replace dumb terminals with PCs.
3. Funding for 400 popular academic titles in electronic form; disk storage; print servers and printers.
4. More citation databases.
5. Electronic Reference Collection.
6. Improved gateway between LUIS and rapid document delivery service providers. Intricately linked into all of the above is the requirement to upgrade communications connections to handle the transmission of high density documents and images.

The plan describes each of the above recommendations in much more detail.
 

Petition for an SUS Caucus in FLA

The group decided to petition for the creation of an SUS Caucus in FLA so that we could request meeting space and time through official channels rather than on an ad hoc basis. A copy of the form was circulated. Michele Dalehite volunteered to be chair the first year and to get all of the paperwork processed. Kathie Goldfarb (FSU) had offered to help but she had to leave the meeting early. In her absence, she was elected Vice Chair/Chair Elect by acclimation.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 pm.