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July 2005 Minutes

LAUC-SD Membership Meeting
July 26, 2005

Attendees: Leslie Abrams; Mary Linn Bergstrom; Peter Brueggeman; Amy Butros; Ken Calkins; Jim Cheng; Shi Deng; Sam Dunlap; Catherine Friedman; Maureen Harden; Karen Heskett; SuHui Ho; Simona Konecna; Ardys Kozbial; Karen Lindvall-Larson; Sue McGuinness; Arvid Nelsen; Alice Perez; Jennifer Reiswig; Trish Rose; Susan Shepherd; Barbara Slater; Susan Starr; Esteban Valdez; Paul Weiss; Jeff Williams (recorder). ShinJoung Yeo.

1. Mary Linn Bergstrom welcomed everyone to the final LAUC-SD Membership meeting of the 2004-2005 year.

2. The minutes of from the May 3, 2005 LAUC-SD Membership meeting were approved.

ANNOUCEMENTS

3. LAUC-SD Committee Appointments 2005/2006: Mary Linn thanked the outgoing members of the 2004/2005 committees.

The 2005/2006 LAUC-SD Committee members are:

LAUC-SD Executive Board
 Chair                                 Peter Brueggeman
 Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect          Tammy Dearie
 Secretary/Treasurer             James A. Jacobs
 Member-at-Large                 Megan Dreger
 Delegate                            Ken Calkins
 Immediate Past Chair          Mary Linn Bergstrom

CAPA (2 year term)
 Continuing: Jim A. Jacobs, Elliot Kanter
New: Leslie Abrams, Sue McGuinness

Diversity Committee (2 year term)
 Continuing: Ken Calkins, Shi Deng, Elisabeth Leonard, Alice Perez   
 New: ShinJoung Yeo

Mentoring
 Duffy Tweedy, Chair
 Katy Farrell
 Elisabeth Leonard
 Esteban Valdez

Research and Professional Development (2 year term)
 Continuing: Tony Harvell, Marlo Young 
 New: Harold Colson, R Arvid Nelsen, Adolfo Tarango, Jeff Williams

UCSD Academic Senate Library Committee 
 Kari Lucas

LAUC–SD Webmaster
Vacant

4. Report from Spring Assembly: LAUC-SD Spring Assembly was held June 2nd and June 3rd at UC Santa Barbara.  The delegates received a nice welcome the University Librarian Sarah Pritchard.

Business Meeting, Thursday, June 2nd:

  • Myron Okada indicated the possibility of a COLA this year, no specifics
  • Ad Hoc Committee on Instructional Roles for Librarians: this committee was formed in response to the concerns Kari Lucas expressed about The APM lacking language to support the role of librarians, formally or informally, in instructional capacities. Additionally there are no other sections of the APM to provide librarians with policy support for instruction duties.  The committee has just formed.

Position papers:

  • Position Paper No. : Development of Effective Communication between Statewide LAUC and Library Council – Retired
  • Position Paper No. 3: Documentation Guidelines for the Review of Librarians – Re-affirmed and updated
  • Position Paper No. 4: Review Procedures for Librarians Outside the Normal Campus Peer Review Process – Re-affirmed without change
  • Position Paper No. 5: The Academic Librarian in the University of California – Re-affirmed and updated

Committee on Committees, Rules and Jurisdiction: presented report to the assembly detailing there work to facilitate the revision of the bylaws.  The report is available at http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/committees/crj/report-spring-2005.html

Executive Board meeting Friday, June 3rd: Mary Linn, Peter Brueggeman, Jenny Reiswig, and Paul Weiss were present from UCSD.

  • Peter commented that UCSD is well-served by Paul leading the bylaws revision work, acknowledging that it will be very complex
  • The proposal to establish an Open Access LAUC journal was discussed.  Input from the divisions is needed

Transition meeting will occur in August

COMMITTEE REPORTS

5. Diversity Committee: Mary Linn reported for Tony Harvell that the committee is waiting to hear if the Diversity Fellowship will be approved.

6. Mentoring Committee: Waiting for word on budget proposal.

7. Research and Professional Development (R&PD) Committee: one more program will be sponsored this year:

Libraries, Learning, and Technology: NetGeneration Student Preferences
 PRESENTERS: Katy Farrell and Marlo Young
 WHEN: Thursday, September 8th, 1:30 pm -3:00 pm
 WHERE: Seuss Room

The R&PD budget allows the committee to provide $200 per librarian in extra professional development in 2005/2006.  This will likely be the last year this extra money is provided.

Mary Linn acknowledged Brian Schottlaneder’s recent decision to increase the professional development funding provided to each librarian. Mary Linn thanked Brian (not present) for the record on the behalf of LAUC-SD.

8. Academic Senate Committee on the Library: Barbara Slater discussed the June 15th meeting of this committee.  Items on the agenda included:

  • ACS/PubChem controversy – Barbara reported that the reaction of the committee to this topic was mixed.   It was an education opportunity for the library.
  • Summary of the Libraries Budget presentation to the Chancellor
  • Proposal foe Scholarly Communication Luncheon Symposium Series
  • Library Annual Report was distributed
  • Announcement: Dr John West (SOM) will be the chair next year

DISCUSSION

9. LAUC-SD Member Contributions Proposal: Mary Linn distributed a handout detailing the proposal for modifications to the amount of the suggested voluntary contribution amount.  The proposal listed the following assumptions:

  • Need to keep balance of at least $400 in account to avoid incurring fees
  • Pizza parties are valued by the membership, but no-cost event like a “bring your own lunch” event at Canyon View would be welcomed as well
  • Gifts acknowledging retirements or departures of colleagues with more than ten years of service are meaningful.  Cost of gifts should not exceed $45
  • Members were not opposed to raising the suggested contribution amount

Based on this, the LAUC-SD Executive Board recommended raising the suggested contribution amount to $15.  No one was opposed to this proposal.

10. UC Open Access Ejournal Proposal: members were asked to view proposal located at http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/committees/oaej/report-spring-2005.html

The membership was asked the following questions:   

  • Should LAUC pursue this?
  • Do we have concerns?
  • Are there alternatives we should suggest?

Mary Linn read a portion of James Jacobs’ email with his reaction to the proposal.  James asked for this to be added to the record.

1) Are you in favor of a LAUC sponsored OA journal?

I'm in the "no with qualifications and reservations" camp. While I'm intrigued by OA, believe that OA has an important future in the library community, and agree that librarians actually participating in OA would help in our relations with faculty vis-a-vis advocating for OA, I think that there are extremely high hurdles to overcome with the proposal in its current state.

2) What red flags or problems are there with the proposal?

The proposal is weak in several respects. I do not think that the reasons stated in the proposal for creating a LAUC-OA journal are convincing. A LAUC-OA journal would do nothing to alleviate the permanent access issue *in the field as a whole*. Further, a LAUC-OA journal would not alleviate the problem of writers only wanting to publish in strong journals noted by one librarian (in the mission statement rationale). I also question whether a LAUC-OA journal would be sustainable. As the proposal showed, there are already quite a few OA journals in LIS (although only 1 in the US!), as well as several strong, non-OA journals.

The largest issue I see with the proposal is in the costs section. I question if any library administration would be willing to give 20-30% release time for 3 years. More importantly, I question the lack of exploration into alternative funding models.

OA is especially interesting to me because it strengthens the idea of publishing as communication. It does this by changing the funding model so that the costs of publishing are spread more evenly and equitably among the community that is actually doing the communicating, and cutting out the profit incentive that has given commercial publishers far too much power. Right now, libraries are shouldering the costs of communication and publishers are reaping far too much economic benefit. This proposal fails to get at this fundamental issue by asking for continuing monetary support from UCOP. It is OA in name only. OA is not primarily about free access, but about changing the economic structure upon which scholarly communication is built. I would be more supportive if the proposal had looked into alternative funding models (institutional subscriptions, author fees, etc) rather than proposing to ask UCOP for the money ? a when-hell-freezes-over proposal IMHO. But I would still be against it because I think there are other alternatives that would do more to support OA than a LAUC-OA journal.

3) What alternatives are available?

I think the proposal's argument does not support the creation of a LAUC-OA journal. What it DOES do is argue for LAUC (or some other UC body like SOPAG) to explore the perpetual access issue. Less than ½ the scholarly publishers have plans for long term access? A LAUC-OA journal does nothing to alleviate that. How about if LAUC (or UC, or CDL) work with publishers (perhaps starting with the 35 OA LIS titles) to create archival space for OA journals using the e-scholarship repository. Not only would this cut UC library costs by giving us perpetual free access to locally stored content, it would go a long way toward putting OA on more stable ground. It would put our "rhetoric in practice" by working on the issue that few people in the OA community want to talk about -- preservation and perpetual access.

Another alternative is to strongly advocate for authors' keeping their copyright. If LAUC (or SOPAG, UC...) pushed hard for this, then we could offer authors an alternative -- a pre (or post) print repository with the already-established e-scholarship repository. This would give UC an interesting collection of scholarly research that will grow over time, allowing us to integrate scholarly communication into our current bibliographic tools and to pursue for innovative ideas in the future.

These 2 alternatives are far more in keeping with librarians' role in the scholarly communication process. Advocating for them would be more in keeping with LAUC's mission.

I hope the discussion goes well on tuesday.

James R. Jacobs

Other comments included:

  • Paul Weiss: has concerns, does not fit within scope of bylaws, or the purpose of LAUC, or LAUC-SD.  Also, this would be a lot of work; LAUC does not have staff for this?
  • Sue McGuinness: Other publishing venues exist.  Do not see the need for this.
  • Sam Dunlap: Concerned there will be a lack of submissions due to the lack of time for librarians to do research and write.
  • Jim Cheng: I would not necessarily publish in this journal, I would publish where I get the most benefit for my career.
  • SuHui Ho: The idea that creating this journal to “practice what we preach” to faculty about open access is not convincing.
  • Peter Brueggeman: Asking UCOP for funding is a problem with the proposal.

At this point, Jenny Reiswig, as incoming LAUC chair, asked what LAUC-SD’s reaction to the proposal would be if funding the journal was not an issue.

Comments included:

  • Mary Linn Bergstrom: Feel this is not LAUC’s job.
  • Susan Starr: LAUC has a role in professional development, is there a way this could support professional development?
  • Paul Weiss: Concerned about the sustainability of this.  Alternatives include pushing within our professional organizations to make changes with open access policies.
  • Jenny Reiswig: Interesting idea, but hard to see how LAUC’s structure could support this.
  • Paul Weiss: Might drain energy from other important projects.

Meeting was adjourned.