Noon, Faculty House


Attending: Ralph Savarese, Martha Voyles, Vince Eckhart, John Stone, Christopher 
McKee, David Harrison, Doug Caulkins, Bill Francis, Helen Scott, David Ellison, Kevin 
Engle


Minutes of October 16 approved.


Discussion of Ellison survey:  Wants to have faculty input on needs and wants regarding 
online resources.  


Advantages of online resources: 
-Enhances research
-Student learning
-Teaching resources
-Is available off campus
-Eases copyright issue-if the College subscribes to a service, articles can be 
made available to students.


Possible obstacles: 
-Online journals change.  
-The College can subscribe to a service, but cannot dictate the content the server 
provides
-There is no tangible product.  If the College terminates the subscription, we lose access 
to everything we had access to previously, except in the case of Project MUSE.  
However, if access is lost, we can use Inter-Library Loan.  The College will still have a 
large number of resources at hand.  There is some risk implied, but many feel the 
benefits of online service outweigh those risks
-Aggregators may lose access to publishers through negotiations and contract changes
-The College cannot control access fees
-In some research areas, such as cultural studies, physical characteristics of a work are 
just as important as the content
-Changes in technology could make access to old files nonexistent
- How important is it to have archival materials?  Online newspapers do not always 
include columnists' columns, advertisements, etc., that future generations my want to 
study.


Regarding length of survey: David will reformat to make it appear shorter.  He doesn't 
feel any questions can be cut.  It was suggested that David point out potential risk 
factors on the survey, as well as question importance of archival materials.


Departmental vs. Individual response: It will be very difficult to formulate one response 
when faculty within a department use resources differently.  The survey should be 
discussed in department meetings, but distributed individually.


In most cases, paper copies of journals will continue to be kept even if there is online 
access.  The College will need to decide which online journals to subscribe to.


Kevin, David E., Rebecca Stuhr, and Jennifer Greene will draft a revised survey.  John 
Stone will contact Dean Swartz in regard to having the survey sent through Institutional 
Research.  Discussed having the survey sent online, including a pdf option.  The 
question then arose about accuracy of responses.  To avoid multiple responses by 
someone, it may be necessary to authenticate the user using the P-Card or an assigned 
serial number.


The survey will be distributed early in the spring semester.