Minutes of Previous Meeting - College Library Committee

College of Science & Engineering
Library Committee
Minutes of meeting held on Thursday 7 June 2012 at 9am in the Hodgson Room,
Weir Building, King’s Buildings
Present:
Prof. Simon Parsons
Mr Richard Battersby
Dr Anna Kenway
Mr Murdo Gillanders
Mrs Sheila Cannell
Dr Victoria Martin
Dr Nick Colegrave
Dr Iain Murray
Dr Tibor Antal
Sarah Wyse
Apologies:
Prof. Colin Pulham
Dr Eva Panagiotakopulu
Dr Gail Duursma
Dr David Williams
Convenor
Head of IS College Consultancy Services (HCCS)
College Office, Head of Planning & Communications
(HPC)
College Academic Affairs Officer (AAEO)
Director of Library Collections (DLC)
School of Physics & Astronomy (PhyR)
School of Biological Sciences (BioR)
School of Informatics
School of Mathematics
Secretary
School of Chemistry
School of GeoSciences
School of Engineering
College Academic Administrator
1. Item: Minutes of the meeting held on 13 March 2012
With reference to Paper A
Dr Kenway raised the issue of the continuing difficulties in downloading large
author lists on PURE. Mrs Cannell undertook to get an update on this from
her colleagues. Dr Kenway asked that it be noted that there had been a long
and wide-ranging discussion on PURE at the meeting.
Dr Antal noted that he was recorded as absent at this meeting when he was, in
fact, in attendance.
Dr Murray noted that he had sent his apologies.
In Minute 5.2, the two references to “Convener” should read “HCCS”
Dr Colegrave had raised an enquiry regarding action point 8 issues to be
discussed. Mr Battersby stated that Fiona Brown would be in touch regarding
it.
Dr Murray raised the issue that there had been several spelling discrepancies
in Minute 7. The corrections are: LaTeX, BibTeX, UTF-8.

2. Item: Matters arising
2.1 LibQual and survey College reports
The 2011 LibQual College focused reports had taken LibQual quite some time to
produce. They had now arrived and are in the process of review. A summary of these
will be distributed in due course, though these should be treated with a degree of
caution as the response in CSE was not particularly high.
3. Item: Convenor’s statements
Mrs Cannell expressed regret that this would be the last Committee meeting that she
would be attending due to her pending July retirement. She also indicated that she had
been impressed by the intellectual input of these meetings which she has found
extremely useful. The Committee thanked her for all her help and support during her
many years in the University and wished her a long and happy retirement
4. Item: Library materials budget
4.1 This financial year
A small over-spend is currently being predicted. This has been a difficult financial
year due to the full impact of the increase in VAT coming through and on-going
publishers’ price increases. Additional funding of £82,000 several months ago from
IS had reduced the predicted deficit. In recent weeks the focus of expenditure on the
outstanding funds had been on purchasing student texts. It was noted that the £25,000
ring-fenced funding from the College’s sustainability pot had been used, at the request
of the Head of College, to fund research texts. Bids had been sought from Schools for
this and items ordered.
4.2 Collections Review recommendations
Paper B was circulated to committee members, detailing the Library materials budget
2012-13
This item was taken together with the next item.
4.3 Budget of 2012/13
Mrs Cannell outlined the recommendations from the recent Collections Review,
chaired by Senior Vice-Principal Nigel Brown.
It was noted that £500k (out of the £1M requested) had been provided to IS from the
Centre.
The view from IS, reflecting the decision taken by the Centre, is that the £500k must
be spent on “new items” with the intention of changing the model of library
purchasing and thereby encouraging Schools to spend in new ways to drive change in
how the library materials budgets are managed.

A counter-argument was made by members that this funding should be used to
support existing purchases, rather than forcing Schools to spend on “new items”. The
College would then be approached to provide funding for “new items”.
It was noted that the Colleges were now being asked by IS to provide a share of the
matching £500k and, while HSS has agreed to this, CSE and MVM have not.
The forecast is that for Science & Engineering there will be a substantial deficit next
year. It was further noted that, although the overall library materials allocation to the
Colleges had increased by 3%, under the current Income and Expenditure Attribution
Model the actual allocation to this College had declined by 0.06% and the allocation
is £1,252,247.
It is currently predicted that there will be an overall increase in publishers’ costs next
year of around 3%. Taking a 3% increase on existing journal/database subscriptions
will mean that savings to the tune of £180k will be required, unless additional funding
is forthcoming from the College. A 5% increase in costs would require savings to be
made of around £211k.
A process would have to be agreed by the College as to how such savings should be
spread across the Schools. Decisions on cancellations will need to be taken over the
summer with them coming into effect in January 2013.
Action: Lists will be compiled by library staff of existing subscriptions available for
cancellation to enable cancellations to be identified by Schools, as required.
Action: Dr Kenway would speak with the Head of College and College Registrar
about inviting Mrs Cannell to attend the next meeting of CSMC.
5. Item: Library and study space changes at KB
5.1 Dates for Summer 2012
With reference to Paper C
The new library, the Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library, is scheduled to open on 31
July 2012. The Robertson and JCM Libraries will close on 6 July 2012. During this
period the newer book collection will be unavailable, however a collection service
will be provided and items will be obtained for free via the Inter-Library loan system
where this is requested by users.
Additional study space is being provided on the upper floor of the Darwin Library
once the books are moved out. This floor will then be re-branded “Darwin Learning &
Teaching Cluster”.
Access to the older book collection and the journal collection will be maintained
throughout the summer.
The associated KB Centre re-development project is underway, with completion
expected late August / early September 2012.
Full information to be found at:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/science-engineering/about/kings-buildingslibrary
6. Open access; the way ahead
With reference to Paper D
There was a wide-ranging discussion on the paper written by Mrs Cannell at the
request of the Research Policy Group. The paper will be considered by the Group
in July.
It was recognised that this is now a key issue for researchers everywhere and there
was a discussion on the suggested next steps for the University. It was noted that the
Finch report on open access issues is due for publication in mid-June and will signal a
major step forward.
A range of comments were made about PURE.
Mr Battersby undertook to feed all the comments back to Sheila as she revises the
paper for the Research Policy Group.
Action: Mr Battersby to pass comments to Mrs Cannell
7. Item: Update on library projects
With reference to Paper E
Committee members were referred to point 3 of the paper: “Reading List System..”
about the pilot reading list system which will be launched later this summer. It is
intended that some courses in Biological sciences will feature in the pilot.
8. Item: Students’ Issues and Concerns
No points had been raised.
9. Item: Main Library Redevelopment Project: review
With reference to Paper F
Committee members were referred to the paper for information. Any arising questions
should be directed to Mr Battersby.
.
10. Item: Any other business
No points had been raised.
Dates of meetings next session
To be confirmed.