Date: Wednesday, 1/16/2014

Attendees: Russell Merritt, Sarah Elman, Irina Kandarasheva, Melanie Wacker, Susan Summer (Columbia)

Chew Chiat Naun, Pam Stansbury, Sarah Ross, Cynthia Rich, Pedro Arroyo (Cornell)

I.  Recap of relevant facts discussed since the submission of Phase 1 report (also referenced in the JSMIN minutes), namely:

  1. The delay of Alma implementation, which will affect our approach, and require some “imagination and creativity” (in Mark Wilson’s words) on our part to move forward in the meantime.
  2. The decision that reporting lines will not cross institutions.  That is, Cornell staff will not supervise Columbia staff, and vice versa.
  3. The intent to investigate Remote Desktop as an option for working across institutions, rather than having 2 separate clients at each workstation.  Irina indicated that it may be possible to set up the interface in a meeting room fairly soon, and will let us know what happens.
  4. The need for a “Proof Registry”. – Further discussion ensued on the definition of this term, which refers to a record of the work undertaken and benefits achieved from TSI.  We will receive more specific direction about how to do this from the TSI steering committee or JSMIN in due course. The importance of such a list is stressed, particularly because the 2CUL project is grant-funded.

-   Naun also pointed out that 2CUL will produce benefits for 1 or both sides differently across or even within the groups-- for example, if Columbia contributed more to the Collection Development side of Cornell, and Cornell contributed to the Cataloging side of Columbia.

II.  On the Charge for Phase II:

  1. It was discussed and decided that we combine the Phase I Copy Cataloging and Original Cataloging staff inventories into a single document, and work from there to assess strengths and responsibilities.  We can also supplement this document with key staff from other areas. The charge mentions this type of approach, and Naun and Irina could decide on actionable items from this type of document.  It would also allow staff in other departments to see what we’re up to.  Irina and Naun will set up a document in Google Docs for this.
  2. Re: parts 11 and 13 of the charge, some difficulty cited in the ease of communication thus far, and in reference to pt. 3 of the charge, it may be more difficult to combine some of the current cataloging workflows, and easier to collaborate on newer endeavors. 
    1. It was acknowledged that there have been some issues here, but the hiring of a documentation specialist will help to clean things up and make it easier to reach a ‘common platform’.  Perhaps the cleaned-up documents can be a pre-requisite to more concrete planning, so that there will be something to work from.  Toward this end, access-related difficulties (e.g. password-protected files and other time-consuming glitches) will be resolved and tested, with possible help from the Steering Committee.

- At this point, the first 2 pursuable action items were set out: (1.) The combined inventory of Cataloging Staff and Specialization, and (2.) The gathering and optimization of relevant documentation (and of the access to them across institutions).

    3.  Additional discussion on the availability of Columbia’s very useful CJKT-related documents, which Cornell has in paper form.  There’s a wiki for East Asian technical services documentation on the Columbia Libraries' Wiki site. Sarah E. is moving key documents from the network server to the wiki. She will see if it can be open to the public or not. (Resolved to include this in the above document-gathering action items above).

    4.  Re: Part 7 of the charge- Would it be possible to have Robert Rendall act as CONSER representative for both institutions?  Cornell has worked well with him on CONSER matters before, and hearing reports from him is better than gleaning the material from a website.

            a. There was some discussion on how the double-representation might work with CONSER and other organizations, especially in rare scenarios where a vote may be involved (‘will he raise 2 hands?’).  Topic of how he would report back to us was also discussed a bit, but in general, it was agreed that this was ‘doable’.

IV.  On Columbia’s visit to Ithaca:

  1. Tentatively settled on some week in April, after discussion of possible conflicts in other months (e.g. ALA in June).  Pending further discussion among Columbia staff, they’ll propose some dates.

V.  On How Often to Meet:

  1. Some discussion on monthly vs. more or less often (as even monthly can seem frequent).  Decision was made to schedule a monthly meeting, and we would have the option to cancel once in a while as necessary.  This would also allow Columbia to schedule their meeting room in advance, as the calendar is very busy.

- There was some discussion of Columbia East Asian Library representation on the group.  Sarah is currently serving on the group but we will probably involve Columbia’s newly hired Chinese cataloger at some point. Sarah said she’d see how it goes, and will decide whether it may be beneficial for both of them to attend, so the new hire can see how it works.

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