TexShare Electronic Information WG Minutes
February 01, 2002 10:00-3:00
RM. 202 Lorenzo de Zavala Bldg., Austin, TX Minutes

New Community College rep (Tommie Wingfield):

· Group discussed four candidates, considering their qualifications and ability to provide geographic diversity in the group. Tracey Pineda of South Plains College was recommended.

Database Usage Statistics

· Public library use of the databases has grown over tenfold in the past three years. In CY98, public libraries performed 127,537 searched and retrieved 66.006 documents. In FY01 public libraries performed 1,553,291 searches and retrieved 822,214 documents.
· Database stats will be posted on the TexShare website.
· The group would like a list of which vendors DON'T provide useful statistics & which vendors offer to email monthly statistics.
· The group discussed the importance of statistics and ways to encourage public libraries to get their usage statistics.

OVID Turnaways

· There had been no turnaways since 1/24/02.

Unfinished Business

· Russlene read Linda Levy's report on MeSH headings on the Ebsco interface. In June Ebsco's interface will automatically default to MeSH headings.
· Decided to stay with the Basic Search Screen for Ebsco and First Search.
· Gale will add three papers to our subscription in compensation for the delay in loading the El Paso Times. Group selected The Guardian and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the International Herald Tribune.

Database Access

· Discussed how to let libraries know about licensing agreements was discussed. TSLAC will look into option of mounting redacted copy of licenses in a password-protected space.

Potential TIF Funding

· TIF budgeted $1,000,000 for a medical/health database. Group discussed whether this one-year award would be sustainable.
· EIWG asked TSLAC to look into possibility of a two-year subscription to a medical database for that price and to evaluate the sustainability of such a subscription.

Budget for Next Year

· Group reviewed anticipated revenue and anticipated renewal prices.

New Constituents

· Group decided that libraries of clinical medicine that are brought into TexShare should be added to the databases as quickly as possible.
· EIWG expressed concern that some of the vendor quotes for adding this constituency seemed excessive. TSLAC agreed to see if vendors could offer some additional concessions for the additional cost.

e-books Collection Development

· netLibrary will honor its contracts.
· Free MARC records are still available from netLibrary. TSLAC will send out an announcement.
· Usage statistics show continued popularity of computer resources.
· Group recommends that we continue to build the collection, but at a more conservative rate this year.

Priorities/Purchases

· One time purchases for this year
· Serials management software
· A database attractive to the new constituency (libraries of clinical medicine)

Informational Efforts

· Russlene showed what was sent out to the systems offices for public libraries to make them aware of the databases. Suggestions were sought for similar pr packages for medical/academic libraries.