Next-Generation Technical Services Update: May 2012
Power of Three group activities are being reported as they align with the strategic goals of NGTS:
Cooperative Collection Development
POT 7 has been working on recommendations to manage and communicate all of the existing cooperative collection development activities within UC. The group is drafting charges for lightning teams to work on the evolving role of the “bibliographer,” “subject selector,” or “curator.”
Collaborative Collection Services
POT 2 is continuing work on a tentative shelf ready plan. The team has selected promising shelf-ready vendors and is defining criteria for evaluating vendors.
POT 3 has documented principles and approaches for “More Product, Less Process” (MPLP) in development of a manual for efficient processing of archival collections. POT 3 is also documenting best practices from UC case studies and defining MPLP baselines for all collection types. The group has charged a lightning team (http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/ngts_pots.html) to identify a methodology for capturing processing rates and assessing processing benchmarks.
POT 5 submitted its final recommendation regarding Shared Cataloging Program record distribution to the Management Team. The Management Team reviewed the report with the POT members and has forwarded it to the Systemwide Operations and Planning Advisory Group (SOPAG) for consideration.
Three lightning teams working under POT 6 have completed their information gathering on current and projected campus staffing needs; existing and needed tools that support collection services operations; and existing backlogs, including special collections. The POT is identifying potential pilot projects based on the information gathered and on existing or recent collection service arrangements.
Collaborative Digital Initiatives
POT 1 currently has seven lightning teams up and running. The teams are working on development of requirements and technical models for a system-wide Digital Assets Management System (DAMS) along with discovery and delivery functions; criteria and guidelines for collections to be included in the UC Digital Collection; identification of existing digital collections to be included; identification of mechanisms for continual discovery of digital collections; a gap analysis of the Merritt repository service; and a rights management framework.
Financial and Technical Infrastructure to Support Collaboration
POT 4 reviewed its interim report with the NGTS Management Team. The group made the recommendation that CDL Acquisitions provide monthly reporting to allow campuses to track local expenditures predictably. It has also recommended that the campuses continue to use the recharge system as the method of co-investment. POT 4 plans to conduct a follow-up survey on the new deposit account system after all campuses have used the system for a full fiscal year. After further study on the establishment of a secure website for tracking recharge activities in real time, the POT found that the additional investment of effort to create and maintain such a site would not yield significant benefit, and that consistent monthly reporting from CDL Acquisitions appears to meet campus library needs.
SOPAG has accepted the recommendations from POT 4 and has submitted the recommendation not to pursue creation of the secure website to the Council of University Librarians for consent.
POT 4 has also developed Financial Data Best Practices to guide communication between library accounting staff and campus financial staff regarding the recharge process for CDL co-investments. These will be circulated among the campus library accounting officers for review.