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| Updates on Digital Content Evaluation, Universal Borrowing and Planning |
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As reported in Volume 1 of the PASCAL newsletter, work is progressing
on both the universal borrowing and the digital content fronts.
The
universal borrowing solution is tied to the current ILS procurement of
the 8 public institutions, and that RFP is in process. This is where
the union catalog report must end until the contract has been signed,
except to say that we will indeed need to begin working on just what
"universal borrowing" will mean in more concrete and operational terms
shortly.
Meanwhile, the PASCAL Consortial Purchasing committee (CPC) prepared a recommendation for content acquisition based on the preparatory survey work that has been conducted over the past year. The Board adopted the plan outlined in the report during its retreat in August. Based on the plan, the CPC developed a letter requesting proposals from a number of major vendors to supply content in four major content areas -- Literature, Business, Nursing, and the Sciences. This letter was sent to vendors on September 17, and the CPC and the PASCAL office will be evaluating responses during October and November. The CPC, chaired by Jan Cambre (USC), will be contacting institutional representatives directly to solicit volunteers to serve on four evaluation teams (one for each subject area). We will be coordinating trails and soliciting general feedback as a part of the process. While the vendor responses to this letter will no doubt involve major expenditures of the lottery funds, the CPC is also planning to contact additional publishers directly, and we will reserve the right to purchase as much or as little as is appropriate and prudent in this initial request. It is also important to note that a major element in our evaluation be consideration of the relationship and/or impact of our choices on DISCUS. At its August retreat the Board began to grapple with the issues involved in building these programs. The point of departure was the discussion at the May general meeting. We are making progress on a report and proposals to the membership for the Fall meeting. (Date not yet set - We will be working on this in the near future.) I expect that this will be a frenetic season for PASCAL. We will make every effort to stay in touch as things progress. Referenced documents: Newsletter, # http://pascalsc.org/programs/pr/docs/newsletter_0408.pdf CPC - Digital Content Acquisition http://pascalsc.org/programs/databases/eval04-05-public/index.html Rick |