THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF INFORMATION SCHOLARLY INFORMATION SERVICES/LIBRARY

LAW LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE (LAWLAC)

Minutes of the first LAWLAC meeting held on Monday 31 May 2007 at 11am in the Library Meetings Room, R.G. Menzies Building

Present: : Prof S Bottomley, Prof P Cane, Mr T Cibiras, Ms K Collier, Mr V Elliott (Chair), Ms J McPherson (Minutes), Mr T Smyth, Ms D Trew, Ms S Walpola.

1. APOLOGIES

Mr T Smyth attended as the new student representative.

2.MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING OF 19 JUNE 2005

The minutes were adopted as a correct record.

It was noted that a LAWLAC meeting was held on 6 December addressing the issue of Relocation of collection to off-campus store.

3. BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

Ms K Collier reported that the Library is working through implementing the Collection Development Review recommendations agreed to by LAWLAC.

Ms K Collier reported that some duplicate copies of law reports, that were withdrawn from the collection, including the ALR, CLR and ALJR, have been donated to the Pacific Law Library Twinning Program of the Australian Law Librarians Association. The Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department Library currently coordinates the Twinning Program. (Note: the law reports will be sent to the National University of Samoa to enable them to establish a law collection that will be accessible to lawyers and members of the public, as well as University staff and students.)

Ms K Collier reported that as a result of implementing the Collection Development Review recommendations agreed to by LAWLAC savings of $16,000 have been achieved by cancelling serial titles in 2006.

Prof P Cane requested that the list of serial titles cancelled in 2006 be annotated to indicate electronic availability and be distributed to the College of Law.

Agreed: That the Library should email the list of serial titles cancelled in 2006 to academic staff, for information. The list should include information about online availability.

Prof P Cane requested that instructions on accessing pdf versions of journals articles on Westlaw be provided to the College of Law.

Agreed: That the Library should provide instructions on accessing pdf versions of journals articles on Westlaw be provided to the College of Law.

3. (a) DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Access and Collections Budget - University Library
Mr V Elliott reported that the University Library Access and Collections Budget allocation for 2007 is $8 million, the same as 2006. In 2006 an additional $.5 million was added from DOI sources rather than recurrent funding. Currently $1.5 million of $7.5 million is drawn as a levy from academic budgets.

Monographs - committed funds
Funds committed to monograph order placed before the end of 2006 total $374,975.00 and have been provided for separately from the A & C budget for 2007.

Contingency funds
Contingency reserve - no longer allowed
$350,000 - Director's contingency
In 2007 the Library has purchased US$2 million at AU$0.78: US$ is now AU$0.82.

DOI Assurance Advisory Committees
The May 2007 meeting of the University Information Strategy Committee, endorsed the creation of DOI Assurance Advisory Committees (AAC), under the Governance Framework for ANU information Systems*.

The terms of reference for an AAC are: -
(i) To advise on the scope and completeness of planning processes to consider their consistency with Framework (*) principles.
(ii) To advise on policy for ensuring coordination across University organizational units, and that measures are in place to assure expected outcomes.
(iii) To alert management to implicit risks.
(iv) To report to the University Information Strategy Committee on any emergent concern with the Framework.

In the current implementation AACs cover information services in four areas; namely Administration, Academic, Scholarly Information (Library) and Infrastructure. The LACs are part of the Scholarly Information (Library) component.

Storm
The Law Library collections were not effected by the storm on 27 February 2007. Chifley was the worst affected Library. In Chifley, approximately 1,200 books were lost and Level 4 was closed for 3 months. The Menzies Library was not damaged. The rare books were not damaged as they are held in Menzies.

Store
Attention is being given to the sustainability of the off-site storage approach. The Group of Eight Libraries are working cooperatively on a last copy retention policy; University of Western Australia has withdrawn from the project. Stage 1 will cover print back-runs of serial held online, stage 2 infrequently used serials and stage 3 books. There is less overlap in book collections than in serial collections; about 40% of book collections are unique to each Library.

Similar projects are in place in the United Kingdom, with the UK Research Reserve that also involves the British Library, and in the United States. However, the Group of Eight project is a first for Australia.

Staff appointments
Dr Markus Buchhorn has been appointed Director, ITC Environments, following the retirement of Brian Molinari, Director, STS.

Collection and Access Budget 2007 - questions
In response to a question from Prof S Bottomley regarding a proposal relating to the library share of consultancy overheads, Mr V Elliott reported that he was not aware of the proposal and that there is no direct link between student numbers and library funding.

In response to a question from Ms S Walpola regarding the perceived continuous decline in the monograph budget, Mr V Elliott reported that the A & C budget has remained at $8 million for 2006 and 2007, but there has been a decline in purchasing power due to inexorable cost inflation for serials of at least 7%. For many law serial titles, eg Lexis, the increase is much higher. In order to meet the ongoing financial commitment to serial titles, the one-off purchase of monographs has been reduced, across all of the Precinct Libraries.

In response to a question from Prof P Cane regarding the process and the responsibility for monograph ordering, Mr V Elliott reported that academics drive purchase decisions. Prof S Bottomley commented that many academics think there is automatic ordering; they do not submit requests for purchase. Prof P Cane said there is a need for a more systematic and coordinated approach to eliciting purchase requests from academics, so that the shape and balance of the collection is maintained, in the interests of students.

4. RELOCATION OF COLLECTION TO OFF-CAMPUS STORE

Mr V Elliott reported that the finalisation of the budget, of $2.3 million over 3 years, for the collection relocation project, is imminent. The removalist will commence work in about 5 weeks. The Hancock building is the main target for the relocation of collections, and for re-purposing of space. About 2,800 square metres will be released from the Library for use by the College of Science. The Hume Store contains 25 kms of shelving and has more intensive compactus style shelving.

Mr V Elliott reported on the scanning trial, at the Hancock Library, for pre 1989/90 serials identified for relocation to store. The scanned journal articles are delivered to the desktop of the requestor. Problems that have been identified include (1) how to resource the service and (2) responses to the possible question "why have anything on Campus?". In response to questions Mr V Elliott and Ms K Collier explained that the scanning and book loan service will have a 24-hour delivery time from Monday to Friday, scanning requests are submitted by clicking on an icon on the catalogue entry for the serial title, there will be multiple drop-off points but they are as yet undecided, on-site access at the Hume Store will be available by appointment and books for loan may be borrowed. Mr T Smyth asked if books that are not for loan may be borrowed if requested from the Store; Mr V Elliott said the Library has not yet determined a policy on this category of material.

Ms K Collier and Ms D Trew reported the Law Library material being relocated does not include any monographs and that the pre 1990 serials criteria has not been applied to legislation and law reports.

In response to a question from Mr T Smyth, Ms K Collier reported that the Law Library now subscribes to one print copy only of the Commonwealth Law Reports.
(Note: The Library's subscription to the CLR includes loose parts and bound volumes; the Library retains and binds the loose parts, resulting in 2 sets of bound volumes, at relatively low additional cost.)

5. ACCESS AND COLLECTIONS BUDGET 2007

Ms K Collier presented the Law Library Access & Collections Budget for 2007.

The total allocation is $590,254 including $584,254 for serials and monographs and $6,000 for binding. Serials commitments for 2007 are estimated at $613,137. Monographs commitment and expenditure, as at 22 April, is $9,479. As at 22 April 2007, the Budget is in deficit by -$38,362; however, after taking account of the savings of $16,251 from serials cancellations in 2006 the deficit is reduced to -$22,111.

Mr V Elliott confirmed that financial support for the purchase of monographs, during 2007, will be provided from the Director's contingency fund. He emphasised that LAWLAC and the College of Law need to review expenditure on serials.

In response to a question from Prof P Cane, Ms K Collier said that estimated serials commitments for 2007 comprise $331,000 for online titles and $250,000 for print titles including legislation and law reports.
In response to a question from Mr T Smyth regarding options for accessing journals and books not held by the Library, Ms K Collier briefly explained the Library's Document Supply Service. In response to a question from Prof P Cane regarding payment for document supply services, Mr V Elloitt explained that there is a Library-wide document supply budget of $100,000 and the Library generates some income from supplying materials to other libraries.

Prof S Bottomley spoke of the ease in browsing new content of current print journals compared with the difficulty in doing so with e-journals.

Agreed: That the Library will investigate ways of informing academics of the new content of current e-journals, eg, email distribution of table of contents.

In response to a comment from Prof S Bottomley comparing 2006 and 2007 expenditure against allocation, for Law, Ms K Collier explained that while in 2006 Law was the only Precinct having a budget deficit due in increasing serial costs, in 2007s other Precincts also have deficits.

6. POSSIBLE CANCELLATIONS

Ms K Collier and Ms D Trew presented 12 serial titles that had been identified for possible cancellation of the print copy and substitution with online access, with a potential saving of $38,697.

Agreed: That 2 of the titles listed should be retained in print, as well as online, due to the omission of important content in the online version, as follows
(1) Law quarterly review Sweet & Maxwell ISSN 0023-933X
(2) Public Law Sweet & Maxwell ISSN 0033-3565

Agreed: That the Library should check the online version of the Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation for the insert (Note: News Section) found in the print version.

Agreed: That the Library should email the remaining list of 10 serial titles identified for possible cancellation to academic staff. Unless a strong case is made to retain the titles, they will be cancelled.

Agreed: That the Library should continue to consult academic staff regarding possible cancellation of serial titles.

7. REQUESTS FOR NEW TITLES
Ms K Collier and Ms D Trew presented 16 new serial titles requested by academic staff.

Agreed: That the 4 titles that were requested, with support from at least 2 senior academic staff, be subscribed to, as follows:
(1) Immigration Review online / Crock, M; Goddard, J. LexisNexisAu
(2) Journal of Equity LexisNexisAU ISSN :1833-2137
(3) Media & Arts Law Review LexisNexisAU ISSN 1325-1570
(4) Journal of Migration and Refugee Issues. Sandstone Academic Press
ISSN1832-064

Agreed: That the requestors of the 12 titles that were requested, without support from at least 2 senior academic staff, be advised to obtain support from at least 2 senior academic staff if they wish to re-submit their requests.

Agreed: That the list of BRILL titles (ie titles lapsed due to a change of publisher from Kluwer Law International to BRILL) be emailed to academic staff to determine support for re-instatement of the subscriptions. Unless a strong case is made to subscribe to these titles, they will lapse.

8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Mr T Smyth raised the issue of the recent funding crisis for AustLII. Prof S Bottomley explained that the College of Law contributes financially to AustLII and that the issue of AustLII funding is more appropriate for the discussion by the College, than LAWLAC. The benefits of AustLII and the importance of encouraging support for AustLII were commented on by Mr T Cibiras and Ms D Trew.

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