Section on Acquisition and Collection Development

Number 18
Fall 1998

1. Minutes of the Standing Committee Meeting held at the 1998 IFLA Conference

Attendance

Apologies were received from: D. Champlon (France), M. Crasta (Italy), V. Pangratiu (Romania) and A. Romanov (Russia).

General Introductions

After a delayed start in a last-minute change of location, Marjorie Bloss welcomed members and guests, who were asked to introduce themselves. A list of email addresses of those present was compiled to speed up future communication between Standing Committee members.

Anneli Virtanen's offer to represent the A&CD Standing Committee at the IFLA booth on Wednesday was gratefully received. At the second meeting she reported that the hour had been, not unexpectedly, fairly quiet.

Adoption of the Agenda

The agenda was accepted as given, although the order was revised to meet specific priorities.

Adoption of the Minutes from the 1997 Standing Committee Meeting at Copenhagen

The minutes were approved as written.

In response to a question from Sara Yontan, Tatiana Afanasieva confirmed that the Acquisition and Collection Development Bibliography was in hand; further discussion on this took place under agenda item 6.2.

Reports

4.1. Report of the Financial Officer

Marjorie Bloss, as the Section's Financial Officer, provided the following report. All figures are in US dollars.

REVENUES: Balance: 31 December 1997     Administrative funds     Project funds Revenues: 1 January 1998 to date     Transfers from IFLA HQ     Project funds     Bank interest (applied to Admin funds) TOTAL REVENUES (Balance plus revenues) Administrative funds Project funds     (1) Collection Development     (2) Bibliography EXPENSES: 1 January-9 August 1998     Administrative funds     Project funds Anticipated expenses: 10 August - 31 December     Administrative     Project ANTICIPATED YEAR-END BALANCE: Administrative funds Project funds

722.71 360.00   0.00 482.03 1.93   724.64 842.03 (360.00) (482.03)     0.00 0.00   0.00 0.00   724.64 360.00

The Financial Officer reported that, since the British Library had absorbed the costs of producing and distributing the Section's Newsletter and the brochure had been paid for previously out of administrative funds, there had been no expenditure under administration funds. The Section had been allocated project funds previously to begin work on the Collection Development Project which, to date, had not been spent. Additional project funds would be sought to pay for compilation of the next instalment of the Bibliography.

The financial report was accepted as submitted.

4.2. Report on the Section Open Programme

4.2.1 Sara Yontan previewed the Section's Open Programme Collection development issues in building the digital library, which would take place on Tuesday 18 August at 08.30am. There would be five presentations, to be given in the order: Jim Neal, Catherine Petit, Lars Bjoernshauge, Trix Bakker and Sonia Zillhardt. There was no formal written paper from Jim Neal. The session would be moderated in French by Sara Yontan, and simultaneous translation would be provided throughout.

4.2.2 At the second meeting the Committee noted that there had been record attendance at the Open Programme - up to 200 people. The organisers were congratulated on a successful session, which had included a variety of papers on a popular theme and which had kept to the allocated time. The benefits of simultaneous translation, avoiding reliance on English, had been appreciated.

4.3. Report on the Section Workshop

4.3.1 Marjorie Bloss reported that following the withdrawal of Dominic Farace's Grey Literature Workshop, Ann Okerson had "pulled off a miracle" by organising in conjunction with the Publishers Liaison Committee a Workshop entitled New collections, new marketplace relationships: electronic resources and the phenomenon of library consortia. It would take place on Monday 17 August at 08.30am. There would be five speakers from four countries: John Gilbert, Elmar Mittler, John Shipp, Barbara McFadden Allen and Katherine A. Perry; the sixth, Cugdem Ozbag, had unfortunately had to pull out at short notice for personal reasons. Ann Okerson would be moderator, and early registration was recommended. The Committee approved $84 printing costs associated with the event.

4.3.2 At the second meeting the Committee noted that the Workshop had been heavily over-subscribed - despite a formal limit of 75, there were around 125 people present, with others barred from entry - thereby demonstrating the huge continuing interest in the subject. The range and quality of the presentations at this excellent event had held the audience's attention and stimulated active participation during the four-hour session.

Reports on the First Meetings of the Professional and Co-ordinating Boards

[As Marjorie Bloss reported at the appropriate points of the agenda on various matters of interest from these meetings, they are not repeated here.]

The Committee endorsed the idea of setting up a Discussion Group on Licensing under the auspices of A&CD, and requested the Chair to present the proposal to the Professional Board. If successful, the first meeting would be largely occupied in setting the agenda for the new Group.

Activities of the Standing Committee

6.1 Projects
6.1.1 The Committee approved submission of a bid to the Coordinating Board of 1,000NLG for continued compilation of the Bibliography.

6.1.2 Marjorie Bloss reported orally on the response to her questionnaire on collection development policies: 12 of the 15 replies had been positive. Nine of them already made use of a written policy, and ten expressed an interest in being involved further. The Committee agreed to work towards producing basic, non-prescriptive guidelines for libraries wishing to embark upon writing a collection policy statement. This could be based on existing published documents but would be tailored to IFLA's international audience and translated into the official IFLA languages. Dora Biblarz offered to send an outline to the Chair for transmission to the interested parties and to Committee members for comment. A covering note would be issued seeking an editor of the work.

6.2 Publications

There was a discussion on the best medium for publication of the Bibliography, and it was decided to issue it in both printed form (possibly through UAP Office) and on IFLANET. Tatiana Afanasieva reported that the 1998 entries would be ready by February 1999. The Chair would investigate the possibility of funding being found in future years from the IFLA Publications Committee budget.

6.3 Medium Term Programme

6.3.1 The Committee reviewed the Medium Term Programme for 1998-2001 and endorsed the stated goals. Some deviations from the 1998/99 Action Plan were identified, but were regarded as being fully justified in reaction to changing circumstances and priorities.

6.3.2 Item 5.2 on the Action Plan was to translate the A&CD text of the new brochure into the official IFLA languages. The Chair asked for volunteers and the following were forthcoming: Russian: Tatiana Afanasieva; German: Rolf Griebel; Spanish: Dora Biblarz; and French: Sara Yontan. Between 50-100 copies would probably be required in each language, and Marjorie Bloss would estimate the costs.

Assessment of the Amsterdam Conference, 1998

As mentioned under agenda item 4, it was agreed at the second meeting that the A&CD contribution to the Amsterdam conference had been a resounding success.

Bangkok Conference, 1999

8.1 Marjorie Bloss reported that, although there was to be no Divisional Open Forum at Bangkok, Sections of Division V were being encouraged to address the common theme of East-West relationships.

8.2 There was a discussion of possible subjects for the A&CD Open Programme, and the Committee agreed that East-West partnerships in collection building, concentrating on printed material, would be an appropriate and important theme. Papers should examine both sides of the equation in establishing projects and procedures for acquisition/supply and donation/receipt. A particular angle could be the need for unconventional approaches in South East Asian acquisitions. Jim Vickery agreed to identify Section members in South East Asia; Marjorie Bloss would then issue an announcement seeking involvement in the Open Programme. Email would be used as far as possible, but Joe Hewitt advised discovering who is going to attend before approaching potential speakers. Sara Yontan said that a single organiser should be responsible.

8.3 Ideas for a Bangkok Workshop were discussed at the second meeting. The Committee thought that the interest in licensing was sufficient to warrant a half-day Workshop on the theme of pricing and value for money in acquiring electronic resources. The topic of 'differential pricing' of electronic journals arose, and Rolf Griebel agreed to be involved in developing this idea. Ideally publishers and vendors would be directly represented at the Workshop, possibly making this a full-day event. Marjorie Bloss would speak to Ann Okerson about the options, and keep Serials Section, Document Delivery Section and the Publisher Liaison Committee informed of any A&CD proposals for collaboration.

Jerusalem Conference, 2000

Suggestions for Jerusalem included the previously mooted changing organisational structures. Joe Hewitt proposed a session on the development of special research collections. There may also be a Divisional Programme on sharing resources across national and ethnic boundaries.

Any Other Business

10.1 Jim Vickery reported back on the Publisher Liaison Committee meeting (see report later in this Newsletter). The need to cooperate directly with publishers was noted, but Rolf Griebel's announcement during the meeting of Elsevier's latest price increases changed the mood to one of frustration and anger. There was a feeling that some serials publishers would take notice of IFLA only when faced with worldwide cancellations, and that the main role of PLC may be to help IFLA members put their case more effectively.

10.2 The Chair reminded members that next year was an election year, and that approved nominations were due at IFLA HQ by March 1999. It was agreed that it would be useful to determine the number of vacancies before inviting members of the Section to stand for the Standing Committee. If active recruitment proved necessary, then all existing SC members should play a part, seeking help as required from the Chair and Secretary. Marjorie Bloss said that she would be standing down in 1999, so there would be a need to find a new Chair for the Section.

10.3 Jim Vickery reported on the Information Coordinators meeting held during the week, and reminded Committee members that all documents for posting on IFLANET should be sent via him in order to ensure technical compatibility and uniformity of presentation. Sections should not be setting up their own Web sites, but were encouraged to put all useful documents up on IFLANET.

2. Workshop on ' New Collections: New Marketplace Relationships' held at the IFLA Conference in Amsterdam on 17 August 1998

At the 1998 IFLA Conference in Amsterdam, the Section on Acquisition and Collection Development with support from the Publisher Liaison Committee organised a workshop on different experiences of the consortial approach to acquiring electronic resources. It proved extremely popular: despite the official limit of 75 participants (the maximum at such events), over 125 people filled the medium-sized room, and others were turned away. In the event the papers and discussion fully justified this vote of confidence.

The convenor and moderator was the indefatigable Ann Okerson (Yale University and Coordinator of North East Research Libraries Consortium (NERL). Six speakers were scheduled, but Cugdem Ozbag (Middle East Technical University Library, Ankara) was unfortunately unable to be present, so the four-hour session was divided between the five remaining presenters.

The stated theme of the workshop was 'collection development scaled up: electronic resources and the phenomenon of library consortia'. Speakers from different types of library consortia gave brief overviews of their organizations and discussed topics of particular importance to them. The presentations were succinct, leaving time for questions and comments from the floor.

Ann Okerson began the session by referring to the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC). [See note at end] In March 1998 ICOLC announced its Statement of Current Perspective and Preferred Practices for the Selection and Purchase of Electronic Information.
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/statement.html
The Statement established for the first time an international perspective on consortial licensing and purchasing of electronic information by libraries. The preferred practices section covered contract negotiations, pricing, data access and archiving, system platforms, licensing terms, information content and its management, and user authentication. The ICOLC Statement was based on the German/Dutch Licensing Principles, emanating from the GVB and UKB consortia which are described below.

The first speaker was Katherine Perry of George Mason University, who described the VIVA project, which she manages. VIVA is a consortium of 39 public colleges and universities in Virginia; it has a democratic committee structure, with just one full-time project director (Perry) and a part-time assistant. There are Resource Management Teams, calling upon the expertise of various personnel, for each of the 21 products acquired from 14 publishers. Only one of the products is priced by use. Since 1994, comparing the consortia costs against each institution buying products all individually, $31m of resources have been acquired with only $6m funds. Katherine Perry said that the process involved a continuous round of negotiation, training and evaluation, and alluded to the problem of securing meaningful, standardised use data to evaluate whether value for money was being achieved.

Elmar Mittler of Niedersächsische Staats- and Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen then presented an outline of the Gemainsamer Bibliotheksverbund (GBV). GBV constitutes 200 academic and 5 public libraries in North Germany, and is linked to PICA, the Dutch library cooperative. A regional network financed by member states, it seeks licences providing access for all the libraries in the areas covered. Various models for payment and access were described by Elmar Mittler, who also noted the unresolved issue of securing consortial licences for low-use materials at a reasonable cost.

Barbara Allen of CIC spoke next. She manages the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Center for Library Initiatives, which is a resource-sharing programme for 13 major research libraries in the American Midwest. CIC has no extra acquisition budget, but has achieved substantial savings on the 24 contracts so far signed. Libraries in CIC pay for only those products that they want, but the growing number of products on the market poses a problem not only for funding but also for selectors and technical support teams. A particular issue raised by Barbara Allen was multi-year licences for annually-funded institutions. There are various pricing models, but the norm in CIC is fund allocation according to the number of students in each institution. The ultimate aim is the CIC Virtual Electronic Library, which would provide seamless integrated access to electronic products and services for all 500,000 students and faculty.

John Gilbert represented UKB, a loose grouping of all the major Dutch research libraries comprising the Netherlands Association of University Libraries, the Royal Library and the Library of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Members serve on the advisory board of PICA, and there are also links with Germany and Belgium. A common collection policy is being formulated, but more funds are needed to establish UKB as a fully-operational national site licence centre. John Gilbert noted that no national licence has yet been signed with Elsevier despite 12 months negotiation. A particular concern of his was the problem of persuading autonomous, competing institutions to cooperate wholeheartedly.

John Shipp of Sydney University Library spoke on behalf of the Council of Australian University Libraries (CAUL), which also includes CSIRO. Initial government funding was forthcoming in 1994-1996, but since then the economic aim has been cost-recovery through charged access to the databases. Australian universities receive common federal funding, but there is increasing competition for students. The administrative support office is funded by an annual fee from members. Lengthy free pilot trials were run before access deals with producers were signed. The special circumstances of Australia mean that unique agreements are often necessary, which can make negotiation difficult as most products are American or European. There are also problems posed by less technically-advanced sites in remote areas and small campuses. John Shipp pointed out that Australians already make heavy use of the Internet. It is a key aim of CAUL to use the consortium approach to acquire electronic products economically and effectively.

It was clear from the exchange of information in the workshop that consortial licensing is here to stay. The debate concerned how best to fund, organise, and review the arrangements and to involve and train staff. Some of the technical and pricing problems that arose in the early days are being resolved, but the rate of progress varies markedly from country to country.

Some specific questions that arose during the session were: should authors retain rights to their electronic articles? what is the role of serial agents? is local/regional archiving still necessary? and how can off-site users gain access to products restricted to IP addresses? The long-term aim of achieving integrated access, so that users do not have to take a different approach when using each product, was again recognised.

Participants in the workshop agreed that working internationally through consortia should increase the power of libraries in an area where scholarly publishing is increasingly a global enterprise. ICOLC may be a way forward here, and workshops like this one help by allowing consortia leaders from various countries to share their successes and failures. We need to talk to publishers about the broader issues as well as negotiate separately with them. The ultimate solution to the whole issue must be international agreements, but there are major barriers in the form of differing national legislation.

Note on ICOLC
The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) is an informal organisation that began meeting in 1997. Comprising about sixty library consortia in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, and Australia, the Coalition represents over 5,000 member libraries worldwide. The Coalition serves primarily higher education institutions by facilitating discussion among its members on issues such as new electronic information resources, pricing practices of electronic providers and vendors, and other issues of importance to consortium directors and their governing boards. Meetings provide a forum for consortial representatives to discuss products with the information provider community and engage in a dialogue with Coalition members about issues of mutual concern.

Jim Vickery
Secretary - IFLA Section on Acquisition and Collection Development

3. Publisher Liaison Committee

It was noted that CLM reports to the Executive Board, covering policy and legal aspects and representing IFLA's formal position; whereas PLC reports to the Professional Board, dealing with the professional and practical implementation of links between libraries and publishers. The key word was 'liaison', ie working together for mutual benefit.

The logical consequence of this approach was that publishers should be represented on PLC, so that the voices of such bodies as IPA and STM could be directly heard. The Chair of PLC Graham Cornish agreed to make a proposal to the Professional Board for the continued existence of PLC under revised terms of reference. He would also write to other relevant IFLA Committees seeking input on existing informal contacts with publishers.

The theme of 'obstacles to availability' was discussed as a fruitful one for future IFLA conferences, involving not only PLC and A&CD but also Serials and Document Delivery Sections. Suggestions for workshops at Bangkok included: problems of acquisition in South East Asia; changing patterns of book supply and problems of acquisition in former Soviet Union countries; status of national in-print tools and cooperation with the book sector in providing bibliographic data; and problems posed by non-Roman scripts.

It was noted that the International ISBN Agency was to take responsibility for implementing Digital Object Identifiers. Graham Cornish also raised the possibility of updating the UAP directory of national acquisition systems, first published in 1986.

The remaining items on the agenda were mainly concerned with updates on various copyright projects.

Note
The importance of publishing to IFLA was confirmed during the conference: a call was made at the opening plenary session for a common platform for formal discussions between IFLA and the international publishing community. At the closing session it was announced that IFLA is to set up a Task Force on Publisher/Library Relations. Secretary-General Leo Voogt stated in a letter in October 1998:

"In its last meeting, the IFLA Executive Board (EB) has decided to review the relations IFLA as an organisation maintains with the publishing community internationally. This was a result of the mandate of the new Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters(CLM), the need to strategically rethink the brief of the Publishers Liaison Committee, and the 'overtures' from the same publishing community. To this effect, the Board has established a Task Force under leadership of Klaus-Dieter Lehmann. Other members appointed to be part of the Task Force include: Marianne Scott (Chair CLM), Marjorie Bloss (Professional Board, Member of the Publications Committee), and Graham Cornish (Secretary CLM, Director UAP Core Programme). The new Task Force on International Publisher-Library Relations is expected to look at the broad range of aspects to this relationship in a comprehensive way and to advise the Executive Board accordingly. The Chair is expected to report to the EB both in the meetings in December 1998 and March 1999.

It is expected that by the Bangkok Conference a model will be presented to advise IFLA on the way an efficient and effective dialogue between the library and the publishing communities (between IFLA and IPA/STM specifically) should be conducted and the issues that ought to be on the agenda. Special attention will need to be given to the involvement and the commitment of the various volunteer groups and office-holders within IFLA, and to the relationship to existing bodies like the CLM Committee and the Publishers Liaison Committee.

Pending the outcome of the work of the Task Force the EB has instructed me to inform the Chair of the PLC through this letter that the activities of the Publishers Liaison Committee will be suspended until the Task Force has submitted its final report. Also, in representational matters involving either STM or IPA, the Chair of the Task Force will now be the official IFLA representative."

4. Elections

Marjorie Bloss and Veronica Pangratiu will be standing down next year, and the five members whose first four-year term ends in 1999 will need to seek re-election if they wish to continue for a second term. There are twelve remaining members, so another eight names are required to reach the maximum of twenty for the Committee. Prospective members must be endorsed by either their national library association or by two affiliated IFLA institutions in their country. It is important to note that all Committee members are expected to play an active part in furthering the work of the Section, and to attend most IFLA conferences at no expense to IFLA.

Below is an extract from the IFLA Handbook giving some useful information.

1. In the fall of each even numbered year, nominations are sought for members of Standing Committees of the IFLA Sections. Only institutions or associations that are members of specific IFLA Sections may submit names for those Sections. IFLA Headquarters initiates this process by sending the nomination forms to IFLA Association and Institutional Members. IFLA Headquarters also includes instructions for providing information about the nomination as well as the expectations that each nominee should meet.

2. Standing Committee members serve a four-year term and are eligible to serve for a second continuous four-year term on the same Standing Committee. Once elected, these Standing Committee members play an important role in shaping IFLA's professional agenda and activities. As wide a geographical distribution as possible on a Standing Committee is highly desired.

3. The deadline of 1 March for submitting the names of nominations will be applied strictly. After that date, the situation for each Section will be analyzed. There is a limit of 20 members on each Standing Committee. When nominations exceed the number of available seats on a given Standing Committee, a postal ballot will be conducted.

4. A nominee does not have to be an IFLA Member, nor does s/he have to work for an institution with an IFLA membership to be nominated for a position on a Standing Committee. A nominee must receive the support of one IFLA Association or two IFLA Institutions in order for the nomination to be valid. IFLA encourages the widest possible participation in these nominations, both to open up its professional groups to the world's leading experts, but also to strengthen links to non-IFLA institutions as part of a membership development effort.

5. Once elected, a Standing Committee member's term begins with the IFLA Conference immediately following the appointment (in uneven numbered years). New IFLA appointees are eligible to vote for the SC officers and are strongly encouraged to attend this conference.

6. Standing Committee members are expected:
   • to be fluent in at least one of the official IFLA languages (English, French, German, Russian, Spanish);
   • to attend, at no expense to IFLA, at least 3 of the 4 annual conferences during their four year term if at all possible;
   • to contribute actively to ideas for projects and programme meetings;
   • to be prepared to join fully in the work of the Section (e.g. undertaking projects, organising workshops, preparing translations, etc.);
   • to observe strictly deadlines for reporting financial and other information about projects which they are undertaking with IFLA funding to the Financial Officer of the Section;
   • to be available to respond to requests from IFLA Headquarters for advice, representation at non-IFLA meetings, etc.;
   • to assist in the publication of a regular newsletter, a publicity leaflet, or disseminating information about Section activities;
   • to arrange for the translation of the newsletter, publicity leaflet, or papers for Conference programmes into as many of the IFLA languages as possible;
   • to help to broaden regional participation in the Section by encouraging new standing committee or corresponding members;
   • to assist in the allocation of responsibilities ("portfolios") to each individual member (e.g. editing the newsletter, broadening Section membership, organizing translations)."