Sara Lowman and Sandi Edwards reported on the study on expanding the LSC. A recent kickoff meeting included perhaps 25 stakeholders, including representatives from Facilities, Engineering & Planning and campus IT. Mark Boone of Shepley Bulfinch will serve as architecture lead. The group will explore any existing options for expanding LSC storage space plus resolve questions regarding building life, desired capacity, etc. A new unit need not be exactly the same size as the existing LSC module. Dec. 31 is the target date for the report on planning LSC expansion.
Led by Sara Lowman in an annual exercise, the group reviewed a spreadsheet showing the fees Fondren pays to belong to membership organizations such as ARL, GWLA and the like. Group members will check on the usefulness of a few memberships, but no cuts were recommended this year. Campus interest persists in having Fondren join the Hathi Trust. A membership may be considered following completion of Fondren’s reclamation project, which will align all our historical holdings on OCLC and locally.
The group then discussed the topic of the library’s participation in open access (OA) publishing initiatives. Rice pays article processing charges (APCs) for authors publishing in journals operated by BioMed Central and PLOS (Public Library of Science). Fondren has also participated in OA efforts through Knowledge Unlatched (http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org). The library has more recently become involved in monograph OA publishing ventures Punctum and TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem, associated with the Association of Research Libraries). The price for publishing a single OA monograph through TOME is $15,000. Obviously, these prices prompt questions of budget, fair access and scale. Both the California Digital Library and MIT have campus plans for their libraries’ support for open access publishing. The group discussed the possibility of setting up an advisory group that would include faculty and/or supporting OA-published works via an award system. Sandi Edwards is currently working with a small, informal group: Joe Goetz, Shannon Kipphut-Smith and Lisa Spiro. Fondren’s LibGuide on Open Access Fees will be revised and expanded.
Due to time constraints, the SWOT analysis exercise was again postponed. Sara Lowman clarified that, in a future meeting, she wants the group to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for each of Fondren’s large strategic goals.
Sara Lowman noted that Gillis Award nominations are due November 30. She also noted the status of several new or pending library endowments, and that the Friends’ gala proceeds this year are being directed toward a University Librarian’s Discretionary Fund. She further noted that the Friends have approved the expenditure of $250,000 from last year’s gala towards short-term refurbishing (e.g. furniture, paint) of the Brown Fine Arts space on the third floor.