TexShare Electronic Information WG Minutes
October 23, 2001 10:00-3:00
Rm. 210 Sam Houston Building, Austin, TX Minutes

Ebook Collection Development (Todd Peters):

· Ebooks statistics were reported.
· Group decided not to change the checkout period (24 hr) at this time.
· Group decided that the checkout period should be the same for all netLibrary ebooks.
· Action on ebook collection development postponed pending information on netLibrary bankruptcy.
· Jane Dillon described downloading ebooks to a PDA. She will keep us posted on PDA use.

Revised working group terms (Tommie Wingfield):

· Elizabeth Norman moved that the group extend the terms of all members to end in August rather than December. This allows the whole group to coordinate its activities with the academic calendar year. Jane Dillon seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. Group recognized that Tracey Cuellar will be unable to serve through August and will have to be replaced.

New Constituents per HB3591 (Beverley Shirley & Tommie Wingfield):

· Group discussed the potential number of new libraries added by HB3591 and the impact on current practices. TSLAC staff was directed to find out the cost impact of adding the new constituency (Libraries of Clinical Medicine).
· Linda Levy suggested that StatRef had generated some interest in the last round of purchases and could be considered as a database that would help meet the needs of the added constituents.

Database usage statistics (Beverley Shirley)

· Bev reported that members can get information for accessing database usage statistics from the TexShare website (http://www.texshare.edu/memberinfo/statistics/statsinfo.html).
· Statistics at the individual library level are available for EBSCO, Gale, netLibrary, OCLC and Big Chalk.
· Grolier and Bowker are close, but not available yet.
· She handed out the consortium-wide statistics compiled so far this year.
· Group discussed guidelines and standards for statistics we would vendors to follow. Sue Phillips mentioned the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) revised guidelines that are due to be published in December should provide leverage for getting better statistics reporting.

Ovid Turnaways (Beverley Shirley)

· Bev reported that TexShare members subscribing to the Ovid TexSelect Databases have been experiencing an unacceptably high number of turnaways. Additionally, she reported that adding simultaneous users does not seem to be affecting the situation. Ovid states that the technical configuration is correct and that the additional simultaneous users should address the problem.
· Bev will check again with OVID to make sure that our ports were indeed pooled. She was also to ask for comparative statistics from OVID to see if a longer run of statistics could tell us more about the true problem.

Poetry offer (also Columbia-Grangers) (Beverley Shirley)

· We need to look at one-time purchases for the upcoming year.
· Group reviewed offer by Roth for a one-time purchase of Poemfinder and directed TSLAC staff to find out if there would be yearly access fees associated with that offer.
· They also directed staff to inquire about one-time purchase pricing for databases that are of interest in the upcoming years.

ACS Journals (Tommie Wingfield & Beverley Shirley):

· The American Chemical Society proposes that in the future TexShare libraries pay a base fee to access the ACS Web Editions.
· The Group commented that the proposed pricing is not equitable for smaller institutions and would like to request that ACS decrease the buy-in amount for small schools (tiers 2 & 3).
· Also, the group would like price changes to be phased in over two years and request pricing for public library participants.
· Additionally, ACE has added three new titles to Web Editions that are not covered by our contract. TexShare needs to get pricing for including these titles to our agreement.

FY02 Purchases (Tommie Wingfield)

· We tried to set a timeline for planning next year's purchases.
· A list of suggestions and vendor offers that have come in so far this year was provided. Bev will get information on renewal fees and known commitments.
· We will wait and see what happens to netLibrary, as that vendor is in bankruptcy proceedings.
· There was interest in pricing for Serials Solution both in terms of generating a consortial list and as a TexSelect product.
· We would like to get pricing for MLA from EBSCO, Gale, and OCLC as a TexSelect product.
· It was mentioned that TIF might give us another $1 million for databases of interest to medical libraries. PsycInfo is a possibility should this funding come through.
· We need that information before we can plan for next year's expenditures. We want to begin the planning process in late January - after ALA Midwinter. We can do the preliminary work by email, but we will probably have one spring meeting.
· Regarding current subscriptions - We would like to talk with EBSCO regarding CINAHL and Medline MESH searches and product enhancements.

Remote Access Projects and Informational Efforts (Beverley Shirley)

· Copies of press releases and promotional items sent out by TSLAC were provided to the group.
· The group would like to see TSLAC develop something for genealogy groups. Also they would like to have informational items posted on the Web site in both Word and HTML formats.