CEIRC (CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee)

CEIRC (CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee) Meeting 2008/1 5 February 2008 from 9am to 3pm RMIT Library Conference Room, Melbourne

DRAFT Minutes (Updated 25/3/08) http://www.caul.edu.au/meeting$/ceirc- meetings.html 1. *Attendance. Andrew Wells (chair) and Greg Anderson, Philip Kent, Anne Horn, Alison Neil, Colleen Cleary, Diane Costello (CAUL), John Redmayne (CONZUL),Tom Girke (CSIRO). 2. *Minutes of the meeting 22 November 2007. The minutes were accepted. 3. Business Arising from the Previous Meeting, not otherwise listed on the agenda. a) The Go8 report on BioMed Central was circulated to members and was made available on the CEIRC meetings page. b) The report prepared for JISC by Maggie Jones on the practical value of perpetual archiving clauses in licences was made available on the CEIRC meetings page. Some institutions won’t cancel print unless this clause exists, others won’t take up offers. Portico is the most common back-up solution. Portico has a match-up service – could CEIRC match its own products against Portico. CEIRC could match package titles but it cannot pull the lists from ERMs as required. UNSW is planning a match up exercise, and the committee will wait for a report on the process. (Action: AN) c) Datasets Coordinators taking leave in renewals season. Diane Costello reported on the unusually large number of Datasets Coordinators taking leave during the renewals period of September to December, some for a week and some for a month, and the difficulties incurred in finalising group renewals when there is either no backup, or the backup has insufficient knowledge to manage the process. It was agreed that Andrew Wells would advise CAUL members. (Action: DC, AW) 4. *Starring of Agenda Items The agenda items marked with an asterisk have been starred for discussion. CEIRC members may star any additional items for discussion. Unstarred items are for information only. 5. *CEIRC Planning. Operational Plan for 2008. The plan will be reviewed at the end of 2008, and be added to the agenda for CEIRC 2008/4. (Action: DC) a) Item 5. 4.2 Publish a statement of benefits report annually on CAUL website and in CAUL annual report. This will be allocated to Andrew Wells’ replacement, assisted by Andrew Wells. (Action: AW, GA, DC) 1.5 Work with market place to negotiate competitively priced products – Sage, Taylor and Francis, Fairfax, CCH and LawBook Online. 2.2 Review operational procedures and staffing. This will start after CAUL has decided what to do with the program. 2.3 Invest in skills development and awareness of issues for CEIRC members. This is ongoing and will be covered in 12b.

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 1 3.1 Take stock of CEIRC licences to identify perpetual access provisions. To be covered in 8b. 2008 issues. The annual survey will be subsumed by the CEIRC review so not held in 2008. Identification of new products is undertaken at the Datasets Coordinators meeting. 6. *CEIRC Review. Proposed timeline: June 28: CEIRC meeting discussion on draft July: Draft finalised July 26: CAUL Executive discussion; seek approval August: RFQ issued August 2. August 31: Final date for submission of quotations Sept 1-15: A selection committee (to be determined) shortlists proposals, interviews respondents, makes recommendation to CAUL Executive – the selection committee met by teleconference on September 12 and made a recommendation to the Executive Sept 20-21: CAUL Executive and CAUL approve process and funding Sept 24: CEIRC meeting Oct: review commences the first teleconference was held with the consultant, Nigel Penny, Claritas Australia, on September 26; letter of engagement finalised September 29; consultant met with Andrew Wells and Diane Costello at the CAUL office on October 3; consultant reviews work processes in the CAUL office on October 4; meeting with legal consultant in Brisbane on October 22; review of 2007 subscriptions provided to consultant October 30; draft report received November 12; workshop scheduled for November 21; the penultimate report was provided January 2; the final report was provided January 8. Members discussed the review then worked through the recommendations and will be taken to the Executive meeting on February 18: It is good to have an independent view that the program is on the right track. It validates what CEIRC is doing and notes the value to CAUL of the program. It was very complimentary about the operations, even though noting the potential improvements in operations through more automation. What are the future objectives of the program – good to have this question on the table. CAUL should become more engaged in the larger questions again. Moving from clearinghouse arrangements to a stronger strategic direction. The legal opinion provides comfort, and shows how some things can be done e.g. clarifying CAUL’s role in the signing of any licences. Haven’t been strong enough about the saving of time at the institution end, through sharing expertise and handling of the business end. Needs more focus on member benefit. The review wasn’t intended to cover operations at the institution end. Can look at what the nominal value of the content that you have access to. Some institutions no longer have to go to tender if they buy through CEIRC. Some benefits of going through CEIRC, even if small numbers of takers are: getting easier access to the vendor; reliable source of invoice; Comment that we should be more aggressive regarding process has possibly come from vendors. Should more resources be put into it. More proactive identification of new vendor sources – is this possible? Does this contradict being more focussed?

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 2 One of the terms of reference was collaboration with other consortia – this wasn’t really addressed, though it is not clear who else is out there and would there be any value. If CEIRC didn’t exist, would there be another group that members could go to? External members made no specific comments at the meeting yesterday regarding the recommendation to add no more members. Where should the cut-off point be? the amount of the discount? the cost of the dataset? the number of members? When do you withdraw is the best question to ask? There hasn’t been an expectation that CAUL would pull out? The financial benefit possibly hasn’t been stressed enough. Recommendations: 2.1.1 a. More proactive identification of new Vendor sources Institutions refer vendors to CEIRC. When vendors make institutional visits, members ask if they have approached CEIRC. Ask members at the meetings what they want. Can remind members that they can suggest products. 2.1.1 b. Increased time spent in communication with CEIRC Program Members on specifics of individual Vendor offerings (4.1.2; 4.1.3) Increased explanation about vendor offers. Some are more complicated. The most difficult part is reconciliation of current holdings, and it is sometimes hard to know the institutional history. How much is it the responsibility of CEIRC or the institution? Andrew Wells addressed the Datasets Coordinators re their role and asked them to discuss with their University Librarian. Need to keep up with the training of Datasets Coordinators. Recommend more information being added to the CAUL website – better outcomes are more relevant than more time spent on specific documents 2.1.1 c. Investigation and joint development of CEIRC Member needs and subsequent discussion and negotiation with Vendors to provide these specific needs (4.1.3) From the vendor survey – not a problem 2.1.1 d. More aggressive price negotiation with Vendors (4.1.2; 4.1.3) What scope is there for additional negotiation – is the price fair, what value is there and does it reduce over time? Should this be looked at on a case by case basis? Needs evidence to show that it can be done better. Needs resources to support the investigation and negotiation. Andrew Wells will ask the consultant for more specifics on the comments. (Action: AW) 2.1.2 We believe that despite the inclusion of non CAUL members to the CEIRC Program (i.e. CONZUL and others), there is no current dilution of the Program’s value to CAUL members who are still the major subscribers to the vast majority of all subscription offers. We would recommend, however, no further expansion of the membership of the CEIRC Program to others. (4.1.1) 2.1.2 is accepted. 2.1.3 Current performance reporting to CEIRC is largely qualitative based on activities and issues. It could be enhanced by the inclusion of a series of standard and repeatable key performance indicators based around delivery of the key strategic goals of the Program. These key performance indicators would be derived once CEIRC has determined its future key objectives for the Program resulting from the outputs of this review This addresses how the program reports back to its membership. When doing the benefit statement, is it possible to look at quantitative as well as qualitative information? 2.2.1 Unincorporated status of CAUL. “There is no doubt that the status of CAUL as an unincorporated association does give rise to potential liability for committee members. Having

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 3 said that there are good practical reasons why no change should be made to the current set up.” (4.2.2; Appendix 2) The recommendations are not to change anything, particularly regarding incorporation. 2.2.2 Personal injury liability and other similar risks. “There are risks of claims for personal injury arising in relation to the use of the office at ANU or in relation to meeting places. Given the nature of the scope of the work done by CEIRC the risk is not one which would require significant changes. Steps should be taken to check proper compliance with workers’ compensation legislation if that has not already been attended to and to check the extent of insurance cover held or available. You could go through and do a detailed risk assessment of the activities carried out by CEIRC and CAUL but it is a matter of considering what has already been done and whether anything further is really warranted.” (4.2.5; Appendix 2) It was suggested that insurance be investigated. (Action: DC) 2.2.3 Contractual risks. “There are risks associated with the execution of agreements with database vendors. There are potential claims by database vendors against the licensee for breach of the agreement. That risk can be addressed by the use of standard clauses clearly identifying the members of CEIRC as the licensee and/or clearly limiting the potential liability of CEIRC to matters over which CEIRC has real control. It is important to ensure that terms of any agreement have been provided to the members using the relevant databases. Whilst no fees are based on usage or are paid in arrears of usage there is no real potential for any problem with non payment to data base vendors. In relation to claims by members with respect to any breach by the data base vendor and in particular any issue of non supply, it would be possible to add to CEIRC terms of reference a provision to the effect that it accepts no responsibility for any default on the part of data base vendor or any inadequacy or defect in the database.” (4.2.3; Appendix 2) It was recommended that CEIRC pursue legal advice re contractual risks. (Action: AW) 2.2.4 Misappropriation of funds and accounting issues. “The collection of monies to meet payments due to database vendors gives rise to the usual risk of misappropriation which is always there when dealing with large sums of money, but the risk seems to be able to be controlled with adequate checks and balances in accounting procedures. There are sometimes some delays in the submission of final accounts by data base vendors. Provided that there is no misrepresentation as to the basis on which an invoice is submitted there is no reason why preliminary invoices cannot be submitted.” (Appendix 2) It was agreed that adequate checks and balances are in place for handling funds. 2.2.5 Trades Practices Act. “There is no need, in my opinion, to seek any clarification or approval from the ACCC. You can if you like make an informal approach to the ACCC but at the moment I am of the view that unless there is a real risk that in practice someone outside CEIRC could not get access to the data bases provided through CEIRC without being a member of CEIRC you do not need to do anything.” (4.2.6; Appendix 2) There are no concern re Trade Practices Act. 2.3.1 a. A significant reduction in workload for the CAUL Office would result from focusing only on high take up Vendor subscriptions. Lesser take up offers could be negotiated directly between the CEIRC Program Member and the Vendor (although this needs to be balanced against decisions taken in section 2.1 regarding the strategic purpose of the CEIRC Program). (4.1.1) Should CEIRC come up with a number regarding when to let go, rather than when to stop take- up? Should this be reviewed at renewal time? Need some criteria to know when? What guidelines do other consortia have re what to take up? (Action: DC) 2.3.1 b. Consideration should be given to investigating products such as ACT by Sagesoft to reduce CAUL Office processing time and double handling resulting from the in-house system currently in place (4.3.1; 4.1.2) The report synopsis was very complimentary about office operations. Any software which may reduce transaction time should be investigated. (Action: DC) 2.3.1 c. The current allocation of costs underestimates the amount of CAUL Office personnel time spent in support of the CEIRC Program. Consideration should be given to a fee increase

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 4 which would have the additional benefit of adequately resourcing the CAUL Office to expand into some of the ‘value-added’ strategic activities highlighted in Section 2.1.1 and to ensure that competitive remuneration can be paid to CAUL Office staff (4.3.2) The Executive should determine the resources need for sustainability of the program – it is unlikely that there will be time freed up as the number of subscriptions increases, but it is important to review the resources to support the program. It was noted that the current cost to members is minimal. Remuneration will be reviewed by the Executive. (Action: Executive) 2.3.1 d. Interest income should be viewed as additional income to CEIRC Member levies and should be used to support investment needs rather than subsidise the CEIRC levy (4.3.2) Will recommend that interest earned not be treated as budget, but that the funds are used strategically. Both the web redesign and the consultancy come from these funds. 2.3.1 e. An external consultant should be appointed to improve the quality of design and operation of the website (4.1.2) This is underway. A table of recommendations will be prepared. (Action: DC) 7. CEIRC Membership. 8. Contracts / Licences. a) CEIRC Model Licence Clauses. b) * Perpetual Access in Licences. Colleen Cleary has completed the snapshot of agreements with perpetual access clauses and it is available from the CAUL web site. It was agreed to ask all vendors to join Portico/CLOCKSS. It was agreed to select a best practice clause from another licence for perpetual access and add it to model clauses. It was proposed to work through the licences to list those without an appropriate clause and plan to include them. (Action: DC, CC) c) Indemnity Clauses. Philip Kent has revised the document on indemnity clauses following discussion at the previous meeting. d) *Template for consideration of amendments to CAUL licences. Diane Costello will draft a template and make it available. (Action: DC) 9. Major Database Agreements. a) *American Chemical Society. Andrew Pitts has agreed to discuss the new model at the meeting of Datasets Coordinators on February 4. The survey of members prior to committing to a simple increase for everyone for 2008 resulted in 21 nominating a preference to move to the new model immediately and five wanting to wait. Fourteen CAUL/CONZUL subscribers did not respond. It is extremely unlikely that ACS would change the model just for Australia. The first proposal to CAUL in January 2007 included an average 20% increase, but this has since been reduced to 1.43%. Many publishers have different pricing models for different countries. The model and proposal for migrating to the new pricing will be put to CAUL. (Action: DC, GA) b) *Fairfax Business Media. After a follow-up, Rick Bremble sent a revised offer on February 4. All will review the revised document by February 15. (Action: CEIRC) It was noted that members have been coping very well without it. Pricing may still be a problem, though access has been increased to 25 users. c) *Nature Publishing Group. Diane Costello has been invited to attend NPG 7th annual library committee meeting in New York, April 28. It was noted that access conditions in the licence are good particularly for students. Some members experienced a large change in prices due to the change in FTE calculations. Diane Costello will ask Datasets Coordinators for their feedback. (Action: DC) 10. CEIRC Wish-list for 2006/7. This section will be used to report on the wish list of offers or licence amendments to be sought from 2006. Diane Costello will report on the status and what CEIRC can do.

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 5 a) CCH. CCH has recently appointed a national account manager, Ron MacNeill, to manage all university libraries as part of an initiative to take an holistic perspective in this market segment. Ingrid Segota and Ron MacNeill visited CAUL in December to discuss options for CAUL, essentially for the 2009 subscription year. b) Thomson Legal & Regulatory. Law Book Online. The previous representative, Peta Menck, was not able to put any proposal together between April and November. Her replacement, Diahanna Senko, has been approached. c) British Pharmacopoeia. Neil Renison has provided some information about licensing issues. Diane Costello has been corresponding with James Newell, Channel Manager at TSO, but it is not promising at this stage. d) Building Code of Australia. 11. New CEIRC offers. A report on various offers in the works, generally vendor-initiated. Offers for new products have been received for: a) *Sage Backfiles and Reference Collection. A revised back-file offer was received on November 28, now taking into account the number of collections with back-files already acquired by subscribers. EBSCO was very helpful in getting the revised offer earlier than might otherwise have been expected. 7 institutions have taken up the offer. 3 have purchased the reference collection. 28 institutions have subscribed to Sage Premier. 12. Involvement of Datasets Coordinators & CEIRC Working Groups. Datasets Coordinators on the committee will report on issues not covered so far, or which have been raised by Datasets Coordinators, or which are emerging issues for the group. Members may identify work to be handled by a specially tasked working group. This is a standing item on the agenda. Colleen Cleary and Alison Neil. a) *Datasets Coordinators meeting, February 4, in conjunction with VALA February 5-7. Colleen Cleary reported that the meeting was very content-rich and delegates learnt a lot. There was sufficient time for discussion. The format was different and the themes worked well. It was good to have both Datasets Coordinators and external people presenting. There is potential for holding an EZProxy workshop as a follow-up. It should be noted that there was less argument with vendors than previously, perhaps a sign of maturity of the industry. The group was very engaged and there was clear value in sharing experience and expertise within the group. The SerialsSolutions process was discussed. Obtaining titles lists for legal databases is a continuing problem. b) *CEIRC-facilitated training. Diane Costello and Richard Sayers of CAVAL are drafting a program of Excel training targeted at managers of library statistics. Tansy Mathews from VIVA is likely to run the workshops. A budget has been prepared, and expressions of interest in hosting the workshops, and in attending them, will be called soon. (Action: DC) It was agreed that CAUL would support any reasonable shortfall. The Sydney forum was well attended and the response was very positive. c) *UKSG E-Journal Technical Update. This course summary was circulated to the committee. Andrew Wells recommended that a similar exercise be considered as part of CAUL’s program. 13. *CAUL Datasets Audit. David Sidebottom provided a report on CAUL datasets which may be included as separate SerialsSolutions sets. OUP and OVID are resolved. Springer and Taylor and Francis are not unique datasets for CAUL members so I am afraid each library has to maintain accordingly. Clients should contact our Serials Solutions client support if they need any assistance. Blackwell/Wiley are still being addressed but we are waiting on response from the publisher. He was advised that the Springer set was indeed CAUL-specific, and a Springer contact has been put in touch with SerialsSolutions. TandF has taken the option of providing institution-specific

CEIRC Meeting 2008/1 – 5 February 2008 – Melbourne – Minutes 6 sets to SerialsSolutions, but it is not yet clear how this is sustainable. CAUL’s OUP collection is the full set, not specific to CAUL. We are still waiting on the Wiley-Blackwell. When procedures are established with SerialsSolutions, the publisher lists will then be provided to other vendors. (Action: DC) 14. CEIRC Position Papers. 15. Relationships with other organisations. a) ICOLC. Diane Costello will attend next meeting in North America will be held in San Francisco, April 13-16, 2008. Jocelyn Priddey may attend with funds from her CAUL achievement award for 2006. The agenda has been circulated. 16. CEIRC Risk Management. Risk management will be addressed at the second and fifth meeting each year. http://www.caul.edu.au/dataset$/ceircRiskAssessment42.doc 17. *CEIRC Budget. The current update to this year’s budget & expenditure is at http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-doc$/budget2007.xls The “actual expenditure” for CEIRC activities has been revised to show the actual proportion of time expended by the CAUL Office in 2007. This is significantly more than the budgeted amount, as foreshadowed at various times during the year. When decisions are made on the questions raised during the CEIRC review, a reassessment of staffing (and therefore budget) requirements will be needed. 18. *Next Meetings. a) Meeting schedule. Potential clashes: 2008 – Sage Library Advisory Board, Melbourne, February 8; Easter 21-24 March; ICOLC, San Francisco, April 13-16 (Diane Costello attending); IATUL 2008, Auckland, April 21-24; IFLA Québec City, Canada, 10-14 August; ALIA, Alice Springs, 2-5 September; EDUCAUSE, Orlando, Florida, 28-31 October; Leave planned: May/June Diane Costello (tbc); John Redmayne 31 May – 13 July, CONZUL 28- 29 Feb, Graduation May 12-16 and 28-29 Nov; Greg Anderson 16-28 June; A draft schedule for 2008 is: i) CEIRC 2008/2. Wednesday 2 April, Sydney, prior to CAUL 2008/1 ii) CEIRC 2008/3. Monday 7 July – CEIRC budget preparation, including the CEIRC levy. UQ is holding a forum on this day. Perhaps a change to July 9 in Brisbane. (Action: DC) iii) CEIRC 2008/4. Monday 1 September Melbourne (with CSFG on the 2nd) iv) CEIRC 2008/5. Thursday 13 November v) CEIRC 2009/1. in conjunction with Sydney Online 20-22 January. 19. Other business. a) CAUL-Industry Think Tank. Andrew Wells referred to the SII projects which have established strong communities sharing expertise and knowledge. Sten Christensen and Tom Ruthven have proposed holding a forum for managers of institutional repositories. CAUL’s Scholarly Communication Working Group ceased activity some years ago. NCRIS does not provide a venue for library type interest, but it more targeted at technical personnel. There may be a need to pick up scholarly communication and publishing again in our own forum, through the CAUL executive. b) Members expressed appreciation to Andrew Wells for his leadership of the committee, and his contributions over the past three years. The meeting concluded at 12.45pm

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