Midwinter 1999 Meeting Minutes
ALA Midwinter, Philadelphia, PA
Monday, February 1, 1999, 8:30-11:00 a.m.
Wyndham Franklin Plaza - Salon 4
Members present: Eveline Yang (Chair), Charlotte Dugan, Joanne Halgren, Keiko Horton, Naomi Krym, Lars Leon, Nada Vaughn, Richard Uttich, and Angela Wright.
Absent were Rebecca Gomez and Wayne Mullins.
1. Welcome and Introductions and Announcements
Eveline Yang, Chair, welcomed everyone in attendance. Committee members and liaisons introduced themselves. An attendance sign-up sheet was circulated.
Announcements were as follows:
Dugan will take minutes for the meeting
Linda Doff announced a LAMA/SASS Committee program for ALA Annual, Saturday, June 26, 2-4 p.m., on document delivery management issues and asked our ILL Committee to co-sponsor it. John Brunswick (U. of Delaware) will be one of the program presenters.
Eveline Yang announced the publication of Leslie Morris's, Interlibrary Loan Directory, 6th edition.
Mary Jackson circulated a card for members to sign for Margaret Ellingson (Emory University), on the birth of her daughter in early January.
2. Approval of the agenda and Minutes of June 29, 1998, ALA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
The agenda was as amended to add an item at the end on the discussion of the revision of the Interlibrary Loan Code. Minutes were approved as presented.
3. ALA Virginia Boucher OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award.
Eveline Yang acknowledged and thanked the work of the Awards Sub-Committee, which was chaired by Mary Hollerich. As a result of the Sub-Committee's effort, the "Virginia Boucher OCLC Distinguished Interlibrary Loan Librarian Award" was approved by the ALA Awards Committee and the RUSA Executive Committee and will be awarded for the first time in the year 2000 at ALA in Chicago.
Action: Eveline Yang will work with RUSA Executive Committee to appoint the members on the Award Committee. Mary Hollerich will be recommended to chair this committee.
4. Sub-Committee on Delivery Issues
Nada Vaughn and Lars Leon reported that they conducted an e-mail survey on delivery issues but that there was not a good response to the survey in terms of numbers. There was some discussion of how to conduct surveys and gather information about delivery issues to garner a better response rate. Nada and Lars thought that statistics management packages would be helpful to use to gather information about delivery issues. Dennis Massie, RLG, reported he conducted a survey in January 1999 to follow-up one he conducted in June 1998 hoping for a better response. However, he also did not experience a good response rate, although it was better in January as compared to June. In discussion of contacting/surveying libraries internationally, Mary Jackson suggested talking to mail order businesses such as LL Bean about mailing/surveying internationally as well as contacting National Libraries.
Action: Tony Melvyn volunteered to share information about OCLC survey techniques since OCLC is interested in helping with delivery mechanisms that will shorten turn around time.
5. Copyright Report
Rick Uttich, CUNY, reported that with the approval of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the focus of the ACRL Copyright Committee shifted from a legislative to an educational agenda. An advisory group will be formed to help ALA develop educational packages and gather anecdotal evidence for instances when distance education (D.E) might be impeded by copyright restrictions. The current copyright law for distance education doesn't adequately address new electronic technologies. Distance education exemptions are confused in the performance (D.E. is education) vs. distribution argument (digitization is distribution). Current public hearings re. copyright are being held in LA, N.Y., Chicago, etc. Licensing cannot be accepted as a replacement for copyright law.
6. Privacy and Confidentiality Issues
Eveline Yang shared a letter forwarded to her by Cathleen Bourdon from a patron who was upset that her/his name had not been kept confidential during the transmission of an ILL request she/he made. The letter pointed out 4 issues regarding confidentiality: 1) Appearance of patron name on ILL request forms transmitted or sent from one institution to another, 2) Status of patron is/should be confidential, 3) Lender should not ask confidential information about a patron from staff in the borrowing institution, and 4) Borrower staff should not tell the lender staff anything about a patron. Some discussion followed and it was concluded that all ILL operations should be careful to keep patron confidences and avoid discriminatory practices in ILL.
7. Copyright to the ILL Requests "Forms"
Revising the ALA/ILL Request Form was discussed. One question discussed was, "Who exactly owns the copyright to the ALA/ILL Request Form?" If ALA owns the copyright, it may well be the ILL Copyright Committee's responsibility to revise it.
Mary Jackson proposed and a motion was made and carried that the ILL Committee to investigate removing the copyright statement on the ALA/ILL Request Form which would put the form into public domain, and then charge the ILL Committee with reviewing and revising the form to accommodate any changes.
Action: Eveline Yang and Mary Jackson will submit the proposal to an appropriate ALA Office for its consideration.
8. Annual Conference Program Report.
A motion was passed that the ILL Committee will co-sponsor a program for Annual 1999 with the LAMA/SASS (Systems and Services Section).
The 1999 Program Planning Sub-Committee, (Charlotte Dugan, Keiko Horton, and Richard Uttich) reported the ILL Committee program, "Going the Distance: Interlibrary Loan in the Virtual Information Environment" is scheduled for Sunday, June 27th, 1999 2-4 p.m. at ALA Annual in New Orleans. Co-sponsors are ACRL-Distance Learning Section, ACRL-Copyright Committee, and LITA-Distance Learning Interest Group. Speakers and panelists include: Barbara Wittkopf, Reference and Distance Education Librarian, Louisiana State University; Patricia Pitkin, Director, Wallace Library, Rochester Institute of Technology; Kate Adams, Distance Education Coordinator, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Enid Teeter, ILL Manager, University of Wyoming; and Carol Goodson, Head Library Access Services, University of West Georgia.
9. ARL Updates/ILL Workshop
Mary Jackson reported the ILL Workshops would continue to be held. Those held so far have been effective in helping implement changes in operations for better service. Non-ARL participants outnumber ARL study participants at the workshops. A "Trends and Issues in ILL" workshop will be held May 5-7, 1999 at OCLC which is a week before the Colorado Interlibrary Loan Conference. Plans are in the works but not yet finalized for one-day "hands-on" workshops on "how-to" specifics on OCLC features, such as IFM.
10. ILL Continuing Education Workshop
Barbara Preece, SIU, who has a new position and is no longer directly involved in ILL, chaired the previous ILL Continuing Education Sub-Committee.
Action: Eveline Yang appointed Mary Hollerich to be the new chair of this Sub-Committee. Members include: Mary Jackson, Angela Wright, Keiko Horton, Charlene Schatz, Susan Morris, Margaret Ellingson, and a member of OCLC. The Sub-Committee will report at the ILL Committee meeting in June 1999.
11. U.S./Russia ILL Pilot Project
Tony Melvyn of OCLC presented an update on the project on behalf of the Project Chair, Lynn Wiley. The Russian Pilot Project will continue to participate in OCLC ILL. The Russian Technical University will become an OCLC participant. The participation was enabled by a grant support from the (George) Soris Open Society Foundation
12. ILL Code Revision
Eveline Yang reported that Tom Delaney of Colorado State University suggested that the ILL Code be reviewed for revision or rewrite. The latest version of the code was made in 1993." Mary Jackson stated that all codes and regulated are suggested by ALA for review and revision once every seven years. Eveline Yang appointed Tom Delaney to be chair of the Code Revision Sub-Committee. Other members are Lars Leon, Rick Uttich, Charlotte Dugan, Kay Vahnek, Naomi Krym, and Mary Jackson.
Action: The Sub-Committee will look at rewriting the old code with special attention to issues in 1) technology, 2) copyright, and 3) privacy. Committee recommended that Tom Delaney encourage representatives from special libraries to join his committee. The Sub-Committee will report on the Code revision progress at the ILL Committee meeting, June 1999.
13. Other
The ILL Committee Web page was discussed. Suggestions for the Web site included archives and rare book documentation, AV Guidelines, Packaging Guidelines, committee members, minutes, proceedings, program/s etc.
Action: Eveline will submit the Committee meeting minutes and member roster to MOUSS web master.
Virtual membership was mentioned. At the request of the ILL Committee, the virtual committee members must be appointed by MOUSS Committee Chair.
Pagination problems in Web delivery of documents was discussed with the suggestion that producer/vendors be persuaded to include pagination in documents. Mary Jackson will check to see if there are standards, like NISO, for pagination.
Action: Tony Melvyn will check some databases or list of databases to determine ways in which pagination is handled.
14. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Charlotte Dugan
Secretary for the Meeting