IowaOCLC Users GroupAnnual Report, 2003/2004
Submitted by Jodie Morin, IOUG President
Executive Council Report:
Ballots cast in Spring 2003 resulted in the following slate of officers for 2003/2004.
President: Jodie Morin, Buena'Vista University
Vice President/Chair Elect: Michael Wright, University of Iowa
Past President: Claudia Frazer, Drake University
Secretary: Marianne Malinowski, Ames Public Library
Cataloging Chair: Susan Moore, University of Northern Iowa
Cataloging Vice~Cha_ir:- Samantha Schmehl, National Czech &. Slovak Museum
Library
Interlibrary Loan Chair: DiAnn Kilburg, Loras College
Interlibrary Loan Vice-Chair: Florene Cork, Buena Vista University
ReferenceChair: Mary Heinzman, St. Ambrose University
Reference Vice-Chair: vacant
Ex officio members were: Rich Doyle (Coe College) representing the OCLC Users
Council andme Corson representing the State Library.
The Executive Board met three times throughout the year. The gavel was handed over
from Past-President Frazer to President Morin at the August 15, 2004 meeting at Drake
University. The second meeting was held on October 15 at Stewart Memorial Library,
Coe College. The third meeting of the year took place on March 12 at Ames Public
Library. Flaming for the Spring Conference on May 27-28 at Buena Vista University in
Storm Lake took up most of the meeting time. Other topics discussed were selecting a
slate of officers for 2004/2005, strategies to boost membership, and making a grant to the
Iowa Heritage Digital Collections Project to support their works. No action was taken on
making a grant to the IHDCP because we lacked a quorum of board members at all the
meetings this year. This is a topic that should be discussed and voted on next year if
possible.
Spring Conference:
The 21St annual IOUG conference, “Dynamic Designs: The Library Infosphere,” was held
on Thursday, May 27 andMang28, 2004 on the campus of Buena Vista Universityin
Storm Lake, Iowa. Forty people attended a pre-conference workshop on Thursday, May
27. Two different pre-conference workshops were offered. Michael Wright served as
trainer for the cataloging workshop on Connexion. Ann Schwab, BCR Member Services
Librarian, offered an interlibrary loan workshop on the Staff View option. Both
workshops were filled to capacity (20 participants each) and were well-received
according to evaluation sheets and comments made to the President.
The BVU Library Staff hosted conference attendees at an informal-picnic at Chautauqua
Park on Thursday evening. About 34 people attended the picnic. The food was catered
by the Storm Lake Hy-Vee.
The Conference itself began at 9:30 am. on Friday, May 28 with a welcome from
President Morin and Buena Vista University President Fred Moore. Cathy DeRosa,
Vice-President of Corporate Marketing at OCLC, gave the keynote address entitled,
“Pattern Recognition: The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan” which was enthusiastically
received by the 56 attendees. Ms. DeRosa noted in some of the preliminary information
about her presentation, “The OCLC Environmental Scan looks at patterns and serves as a
tour guide through the) landscape that libraries and the Web inhabit.”
Mary Wegner, State Librarian, reported on the funding picture fer" the State Library,
which remains so far unchanged from last year. Wegner is anticipating a tough funding
scenario during the next legislative session. The State Library is investigating offering a
shared catalog for the State of Iowa. This is a neWer service OCLC is offering and would
in effect operate like WorldCat but would show only the holdings of Iowa libraries. The
data could also be divided to just show academic or public libraries within the state.
Wegner is putting together a task force to investigate this shared catalog option further
and asked for a representative from IOUG. Funding will be the biggest issue, but making
the cost equitable for all participating libraries and getting ALL Iowa libraries involved
are also issues to be considered.
Ann Schwab, BCR Member Services Librarian, gave the OCLC Update which
encompassed pricing fornext year and the demise of the Passport software. Schwab was
assisted by Lew Maurer, OCLC Library Services Consultant for the BCR Region, who
spoke about ContentDM.
After lunch and door prizes, a business meeting was conducted. Morin thanked the
executive board, the BVU Library staff and the speakers for their participation. Officers
for next year were introduced. They are:
Michael Wright, University of Iowa, President
Jennifer Davis, St. Ambrose University, Vice-President/President Elect
Jodie Morin, Buena Vista University, Past-President
Marianne Malinowski, Ames Public Library, Secretary
Susan Moore, University of Northern Iowa, Cataloging Chair
Samantha Schmehl, National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library, Cataloging Vice-
Chair
DiAnn Kilburg, Loras College, Interlibrary Loan Chair
F lorene Cork, Buena Vista University, Interlibrary Loan Vice-Chair
Mary Heinzman, St. Ambrose University, Reference Chair
Barb Corson, State Library of Iowa, State Library representative
There are two members of the OCLC Members Council in the'state, Greg Cotton, Cornell
Collegeyand John Pollitz, St. Ambrose University. Pollitz was in attendance at the
conference and was introduced.
Rich Doyle, Coe College, was recognized for his service to the IOUG Executive Board
and his completion of two terms on the OCLC Members Council. y
The floor was then opened for nominations for an IOUG representative to the State
Library Shared Catalog task force. Sheryl Taylor, Dordt College, and Mary Heinzman,
St. Ambrose University were nominated. Heinzman won the election.
Section meetings were held after lunch. Section meetings were lengthened to one hour
this year in reaction to comments made after last year’s conference. A ContentDM
“interest group” also met at this time led by Claudia Frazer, Drake University and Nancy
Kraft, University of Iowa.
The conference was wrapped up by having the section chairs give brief reports about the
discussions in their section meetings.
Section Reports:
The Reference Section met after lunch at the IOUG Spring Conference at Buena Vista
University. There were only 7 members in attendance. Discussion centered around
reference services, such as virtual reference, and changes that had been noticed in
FirstSearch databases. Reference staff would like more notice when OCLC makes
changes to the F irstSearch databases. One example was the fact that several of the
Wilson indexes “disappeared” from FirstSearch this year due to contract changes with the
vendor.
(Submitted by Reference Section Chair, Mary Heinzman, St. Ambrose University)
The Cataloging Section co-sponsored a pre-conference on the Connexion client sofiware
given by Michael Wright. The pre-conference served as an excellent introduction to the
latest version of the OCLC software and was well-attended.
The Section's break-out meeting at the conference allowed the discussion of several
topics of interest to the group. The topics included how local systems interacted with
OCLC, reactions to the keynote address, and various cataloging issues. Susan Moore will
continue as chair and a new vice-chair will need to be elected since Samantha Schmel has
accepted a position out of state.
(Submitted by Cataloging Section Chair, Susan Moore, University of Northern Iowa) I
In our breakout section we commended Ann Schwab for her great pre-conference session
on using the F irstSearch Resource Sharing Module. Being able to work through various
aspects of the module, including things such as custom holdings was extremely
beneficial. All of those attending the break-out session were able to attend the pre-
conference. It was also decided to compose a letter to OCLC suggesting enhancements” -r
for the module that may be considered in the fimire as this is being developed. There was
some concern regarding the life expectancy of the software currently being used and Ann
assured all that ample Warning would be given regarding the demise of passport, etc.
Ideas for future breakout session were discussed.
Respectfully submitted,
DiAnn Kilburg, ILL Section Chair
Digital Preservation (ContentDM) Interest Group
Based on the interest in last year’s breakout session on topics of digital preservation, a
follow-up session was held on Friday, May 28. This session focused on the planning
phases and-implementation of the Iowa Heritage Digital Collection ProjeCt. Nancy Kraft,
Head of the Preservation Department at the University of Iowa, and Claudia Frazer,
Resource Description and Materials Management Librarian at Drake University,
discussed this collaborative venture with approximately a dozen conference attendees.
(Submitted by Digital Preservation Interest Group Chair, Claudia Frazer, ‘Drake
University)
Secretary/Treasurer Reports:
Membership
In the 2003/2004 year we had 100 institutional members representing libraries from
academic, public, corporate and school library settings. Membership dues remained at
$15.00 per year for institutional members.
Treasurer’s Report
Beginning balance (August 2003): $4,537.59
Expenditures:
Conference 2,167.32
Copies, postage 558.67
Executive Council expenses 164.34 Y
Sub-total: 2,890.33
Revenue
Conference 1,141.00
Membership 1,5,00,00
Interest 3.84
Sub-total: 2,644.84
Ending balance 2004): $4,292.10
(Submitted by Marianne Malinowski, Secretary/Treasurer, Ames Public Library)