Electronic Collections Committee
SUS-ECC Report to the SUS Board
February 18, 1999

The ECC has no items for Board action. A report follows
Highlights of the Year 1. SUS Digital Library Collection Evaluation

Members of the SUS-ECC have undertaken a review of the electronic information services acquired for SUS institutions out of joint funding. This review includes databases purchased from FCLA funds as well as those purchased from DLLI funding. As part of this evaluation, small working groups have been charged to provide an analysis of electronic information sources for targeted audiences and/or disciplines. The working groups are comprised of one ECC member and subject specialists volunteers from various libraries. The working groups established thus far are: Business, Health, and Education. A fourth working group was charged to make recommendations for core, interdisciplinary, Basic Level databases.

To facilitate this process, ECC developed descriptions for four collecting levels of electronic services: Doctoral/Research; Masters, Bachelors, and Basic. (see attachment below)

The guidelines for the working groups are to:

1) Review the BOR documentation on approved programs for all SUS institutions. (Table 23 of the Fact Book, Academic Degree Programs Inventory, 1998, and FGCU List of Degree Programs)

2) Identify programs and level of program in common first to all SUS institutions, then to nine, within the discipline assigned to each group. (e.g., all 10 institutions offer a Masters in Educational Leadership, and nine offer a Doctorate in it.)

3) Identify electronic information sources necessary to support the programs identified, for the level identified. Include specific products, or types of products as appropriate. Include full text resources (such as reference sources and e-journal collections) when they are specialized for the discipline. If the level of the program necessitates a specific search engine functionality, include that fact. (e.g., online access to the ERIC thesaurus is necessary for doctoral and masters level research, but not for bachelors)

4) Refer to the list of electronic information sources already acquired through FCLA or DLLI funding. Identify those that support the programs identified by your group.

5) Use Collecting Levels for Databases to assign a level for each database identified by your group.

6) Compare the list of sources or types of sources identified against the list of sources already owned to identify gaps, or possible areas of redundancy.

Progress reports were delivered at the ECC face to face meeting on February 12, 1999. Working groups are running trials, evaluating search engine functionality and identifying databases for their subject areas.

A web site for documentation related to this project is available under SUS Digital Library Collection Evaluation Documents at: http://www.fcla.edu/FCLAinfo/ecc/eccpg.html

2. Various ECC members have taken the lead to run trials for:
BIOSIS
NTIS
HRAF ( Human Relations Area Files)
Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys

3. ECC will begin investigating the following:
OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
Kluwer (e journals)
ERIC E Subscribe service
IEL (IEEE/IEE full text e journals)

4. New System
ECC will develop a checklist of expectations for a new system, from the perspective of building electronic collections. This agenda item was scheduled for the February 12 meeting but was postponed. It will be discussed at our next conference call.

5. Florida Heritage Collection
ECC is interested in learning more about the process for building the Florida Heritage Collection. We will invite the Chair to participate in our next conference call to provide an update.

6. Michelle Newberry and Patricia Iannuzzi will attend the International Consortium of Consortium meeting as representatives of SUS.

7. Patricia Iannuzzi had an "informal" lunch meeting with Suzanne Lynch, Chair of the Community Colleges Public Services Group, to begin a dialogue about possibilities for collaboration. Information about our respective decision-making structures was shared. The Community Colleges still have significant hardware challenges in many of their libraries. Many do not have web interfaces and can only subscribe to services with telnet access.

Attachment: Board Report from SUS-ECC

Florida State University System – Electronic Collection Committee (SUS – ECC) SUS Digital Library Core Collection Evaluation Project Collecting Levels for Databases

A. Doctoral/Research level.

Databases with comprehensive or specialized coverage for a defined discipline. The content of these databases would support academic programs through the doctoral and research level. The user interface may be more complex if necessary to support greater functionality in the search engine. Databases in this category may include advanced search features such as code searching and online thesauri.

B. Masters level

Databases with comprehensive or specialized coverage for a defined discipline. The content of these databases would support academic programs through the Masters level. The user interface may be more complex if necessary to support greater functionality in the search engine. Databases in this category may include advanced search features such as code searching and online thesauri.

C. Bachelor's level.

Databases with broad coverage for a defined discipline, as well as databases that are related to the specific discipline. The content of these databases would support research and curriculum support for undergraduate majors in the field. Special features in the user-interface and functionality of the search engine may be compromised in order to provide broader access to remote users. Databases in this category may include advanced search features such as code searching and online thesauri.

D. Basic level.

Broad multidiciplinary databases with superficial scholarly and popular content for many disciplines. Also includes databases for general research for materials in various formats. (e.g. – government information, newspapers) The content of these databases would support research and curriculum needs for undergraduate students, for users with basic information needs, as well as for the general public. The importance of a user friendly interface and the desire to provide broader access to remote users, may limit the functionality of the search engine, making the database insufficient for more advanced research and curricular needs.

Submitted by Patricia Iannuzzi, Chair, ECC