National Resource Sharing Working Group

Minutes of the Ninth Meeting, 2 March 2001

The meeting was held by teleconference.

Attendees

Susan Magnay (Chair)

Sue Grimes
Donna Runner
Margaret Gauld
Christine Cother
Dianne Ollerenshaw
Ross Withnell
Gil Darby
Tom Ruthven
Margarita Moreno
Kristen Ritchie (Minutes)

1. Minutes of last meeting

Minutes accepted as an accurate record of the meeting.

2. Apologies

Apologies from Sharon Howells and Cynthia Love. Welcome to Gil Darby from the University of New South Wales who is a new member of the NRSWG.

3. Business arising

It was noted that development of a manager's package previously discussed to accompany the ILRS Code had not yet been completed. It was agreed that it would be useful to wait until the feedback from the ILRS Code workshops had been received before drafting this paper.

The NRSWG proposal to report on the ILRS Code and Benchmarking Study at the Special, Health and Law Libraries Conference in August had been accepted. It was agreed that it would be worth approaching the organisers of the public libraries conference in November to present a similar paper.

Action:
· Ms Magnay to forward an electronic version of the submission to the Special Libraries conference to Mr Ruthven and Ms Grimes.
· Proposal for a paper to be submitted to the public libraries conference.

4. ILRS Code - reports from the Canberra and Sydney workshops

Members noted that participation in the Workshops had been good. The exception was Alice Springs, which had subsequently been cancelled.

The assistance of Ann Flynn at the University of Technology, Sydney in providing a venue for one of the Sydney workshops was appreciated.

Mr Ruthven indicated that the Canberra workshop had been well received, although it had been disappointing that some attendees did not feel empowered to change the ILL/DD workflows within their library.

Ms Grimes noted that at the Sydney Workshop she was involved with a number of specific issues were raised about the Code, but generally people were happy to adopt it. Ms Ollerenshaw indicated that the second Sydney workshop had similar results.

Specific issues raised at the Workshops included:

  • whether the default level charge would apply if an item was on loan and could not be supplied within 5 days (members agreed that this would not apply as long as the requesting library had been notified of the status of the item within 5 days - the requesting library was then making the choice to wait for the item from that library rather than looking elsewhere);
  • whether it was possible to build a 'flag' system into Kinetica to identify when loans had taken longer than 5 days to be responded to and the default fee would apply;
  • the possibility of developing aids to assist people to implement the new Code (e.g. recommendations for standard emails); and
  • whether the default delivery methods needed modification.

Participants also queried the implementation date of the new Code. Members agreed they should be encouraging libraries to have adopted the Code by Monday 30th April (although it was recognized that this would be a progressive process).

After discussion, members agreed that detailed information about copyright issues would not be provided at the remaining workshops as the small amount of time available was not sufficient to adequately inform participants. However, information about where to obtain details about the recent copyright changes would be included in the Workshop papers.

Action: Members to send any notes/feedback taken at Workshops to Mr Ruthven to develop a single list of issues.

5. Update on the benchmarking study

Ms Ritchie provided an update on the progress of the benchmarking Study. She indicated that:

  • there were 7 libraries with data outstanding;
  • most libraries had needed to be contacted to clarify or provide additional information about their General Characteristics Questionnaire and Cost Worksheets;
  • the majority of the 20,000 turnaround time and patron satisfaction forms had had their data entered into spreadsheets; and
  • the work was about 4 to 6 weeks behind the original schedule but it was hoped to have the data completed by mid-April.

It was noted that there was considerable variation between the unit costs of various libraries. In addition, it did appear that there were differences between library sectors. No detailed analysis had been done yet.

It was agreed it would be useful for the Data Collection and Survey Sub-Committee to meet to discuss the data and analysis at a later stage (possibly late June/early July).

Action: Mr Ruthven and Ms Ritchie to consider whether the external membership of the sub-committee needed to be altered.

6. Forward plan for 2001, including ALCTF and the ILL loan period

Members discussed possible issues for consideration by the NRSWG in the coming year. Issues identified included:

Loan period. (ALCTF has requested a standard loan period)
· examine range of user needs and discuss issue with ALCTF, options may be a flexible service (standard loan period and negotiated), or longer loan period and no renewals
· should the loan period end when the requesting library sends the material back or when the supplying library receives the material.

Charges
· to come from the Benchmarking study for a high performing supplier. ALIA would like to set the charges.

Delivery
· evaluation tool for carrier performance
· checklist for picking a postal service
· examine Borrow Direct service model for applicability/trial/promotion in Australia

Access to electronic material for ILL/DD
· standard clause for inclusion in a contract for an e-resource
· data collection needed for review in 3 years of the digital clauses in the Copyright Act (Nick Smith to lead)

Terms of reference
· review mid-year

7. Changes to membership

Ms Magnay indicated that this was to be her last NRSWG meeting as she was shortly to go overseas for an extended period. She was disappointed not be involved in the completion of the work of the NRSWG and thanked members for making the NRSWG such a productive, effective and enjoyable group.

Members thanked Ms Magnay for her wonderful work as Chair of the NRSWG and wished her well in her new endeavours.

8. Other business

Ms Cother indicated that she was relacing Dr Burrows as the NRSWG member on the Expert Advisory Group on Electronic Resources while he was away on leave. At the previous meeting the Group had discussed in detail draft guidelines for publishers.

9. Next meeting

The next meeting would be a teleconference held at 2.30pm on Friday 30th March.

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