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AAU/ARL Research LibrariesAction AgendaPublished online: 17 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: (2000) AAU/ARL Research Libraries Action Agenda, Journal ofLibrary Administration, 29:3-4, 207-217, DOI: 10.1300/J111v29n03_13

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AAU/ARL Research LibrariesAction Agenda:

An Update and Map Check

Convened by Jerry CampbellPresiding President, ARL

MR. CAMPBELL: I would like to give a brief introduction as wego into Program Session I. We have a panel here to update you on theARL joint project with the Association of American Universities(AAU). To do that we have members of the AAU/ARL SteeringCommittee, Betty Bengtson, Elaine Sloan, and Susan Nutter. We willalso hear from Duane Webster, Executive Director of ARL, and JohnVaughn, Executive Officer AAU.

It was an interesting experience for us to meet with the AAU presi-dents on the Steering Committee recently, and I want to provide anoverview as introduction.

I want to communicate the sense of urgency with which the presi-dents view the project and the calendar with which they want us topursue it. There was a slight difference in how long each of us thoughtit would take to upscale the pilot projects, but the bottom line is thatwe are going to have the plan for the upscale available to the AAU inApril.

The second thing I want to emphasize is that we continue to facedifficulties in the uneasy relationship between the educational worldand the commercial publishing world: there is nothing in our recentexperience that allows us to trust commercial publishers. So there isalso the concern that we rapidly create a viable, not-for-profit, scholar-

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘AAU/ARL Research Libraries Action Agenda: An Update andMap Check.’’ Campbell, Jerry. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Library Administration (TheHaworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 29, No. 3/4, 2000, pp. 207-217;and: Management for Research Libraries Cooperation (ed: Sul H. Lee) The Haworth Information Press, animprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2000, pp. 207-217.

. 207

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ly network alternative for publishing, so that higher education maybegin to own and control its own information and access to it.

With those introductory comments, I now turn the podium over toDuane.

MR. WEBSTER: The original efforts in these areas were begununder the sponsorship of the Association of American Universities.The presidents of those institutions expressed an interest in betterunderstanding the problems and challenges facing the future of re-search libraries.

Their interest centered around concern that the rising cost of infor-mation, the rising volume of information, and the proliferation offormats of information would simply make it impossible to maintain astatus quo over any sort of time. They were aware of the journalpricing pressures on libraries, and they were looking for a way torespond to those issues in a practical, concrete, action-oriented way.So AAU asked ARL to meet with them to look at what some of thesedifficulties might be.

There are 60 institutions belonging to AAU, and the presidents ofthese institutions are the people who attend their meetings, engage theissues, and work on the interests of the Association. The Associationdoes not have a project-operating capability like ARL; the presidentsconsider this set of economic and scholarly communication issues afundamental concern to the future of academic institutions, and theyasked ARL to work with them on an initial project.

The project started in 1992. It involved an AAU steering committeethat was initially chaired by Hanna Gray, from the University of Chi-cago. Her leadership was a very important stimulus in capturing thepresidents’ interest, beginning the process, and getting involvementfrom significant leaders within AAU.

There were three AAU task forces initially. Out of those three taskforces, Acquisition and Distribution of Foreign Language and AreaStudies Materials, Scientific and Technical Information, and Intellec-tual Property, we were able to identify a series of themes, a series ofissues, and, most importantly, at least from the presidents’ point ofview, a joint AAU/ARL action agenda. The reports of these task forceswere published in 1994 and are available at http://www.arl.org/aau/frontmatter.html.

Now, it is relatively unusual for the AAU presidents to be willing tomaintain an interest in a set of issues from the point of identifying an

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action to moving to implementation, but in this instance they havebeen very much interested in staying involved and working with us tomove these issues along.

As a result, we were able to move from that initial project with threetask forces to the creation of a steering committee to oversee what isnow characterized as an AAU/ARL joint project. To better advancethat agenda we have two devices.

The first is the Intellectual Property Task Force. This group is reallyan extension of the first task force with this title, but it has broadenedits scope to include exploration of the creation of alternative scholarlyelectronic publishing networks; looking at how universities can refineand/or define their policies on the use of intellectual property on theircampuses; and looking at alternative ways of managing that intellectu-al property. The Task Force has also been very interested in looking atthe implications of the ITTF White Paper and proposed legislation forthe future of intellectual property within the university setting.

The other device that we have established is the Global ResourcesPilot Project. The focus is on increasing access to a broader array ofglobal information resources. Through the three pilot projects encom-passed in the Global Resources Pilot Project (the Latin AmericanistResearch Resources Pilot Project, the Japanese Scientific and Techni-cal Information Demonstration Project, and the German Demonstra-tion Project) we are looking at developing a readily available, elec-tronically distributed set of information resources throughout NorthAmerica.

We have been very fortunate to have had the support of RichardEkman and the Mellon Foundation in getting funding to advance theLatin American Project. As a result, this project has been the mostvisible, and the one where we have made the most progress.

Activities in the Intellectual Property Task Force and the GlobalResources Pilot Projects since 1994, when the Task Forces made theirreports and the agenda was established, are described in the ARLActivities Report. We have been able to do a fair amount of work in arelatively short time frame.

Let me just mention some of the players in these activities. TheResearch Libraries Steering Committee has co-chairs, and it is impor-tant to note that at this time we have a co-chair who is a universitylibrarian (Jerry Campbell, Duke University) and one who is a universi-ty president (Myles Brand, Indiana University).

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Myles Brand assumed leadership of the first Steering Committeefrom Hanna Gray, and he has taken a strong, energetic, and personalinvolvement in directing this project. The other university presidentson the steering committee are Robert Prichard, University of Toronto;Donald Langenburg, University of Maryland; M. Peter McPherson,Michigan State University; and Harold Shapiro, Princeton University.

Each AAU president has been involved in one or more of themeetings. I am particularly pleased to see Canadian involvement fromRob Pritchard, who has taken a very active interest in these issues andpresents a valuable perspective, particularly on intellectual propertyissues. Finally, John Vaughn, AAU, and I have been the supportingstaff for the Steering Committee.

The Intellectual Property (IP) Task Force includes a range of tal-ented faculty, university press representatives, scholars, and librarians.We have established advisory committees for each of the demonstra-tion projects. There are also a number of groups involved in an advisoryand a governing role in this project. From the ARL point of view, theBoard of Directors is the overall coordinating group. It is the one thatreviews all of the decisions and activities and is, of course, our point ofdeparture supporting or acting on a recommendation.

The standing committees are a crucial source of advice and help inadvancing the work of these project groups. In particular, the ResearchCollections Committee has taken a very active role in shepherdingalong the Global Resources Pilot Projects. They have both created thevision of where we want to go with this concept of a distributednetwork of resources, and they have been directly involved in design-ing the project, taking responsibility for making it work, and advisingthe separate groups that are overseeing the work.

ARL’s Working Group on Copyright, which is made up of represen-tatives from all of the standing committees that have an interest inintellectual property and copyright issues, has also played an impor-tant advisory role for the IP Task Force.

We also try to keep you, the membership, informed of these rapidlymoving projects, making sure that you not only understand what ishappening, but that you have an opportunity to get involved. We use,of course, the ARL Newsletter and the monthly electronic news. Thelast three or four issues have all covered some portion of the activities,focusing particularly on the work of the Intellectual Property TaskForce.

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Let me briefly review for you the AAU/ARL Steering Committeemeeting in Boulder last Sunday. The Steering Committee meets twicea year where the presidents are meeting. In these last discussions therewas great interest in aggressively pushing forth the following threeareas.

First of all, there was a very strong interest in having the IP TaskForce prepare a preliminary document exploring options for establish-ing an investment vehicle for a variety of ways to provide electronicnetwork-based scholarly publishing. This is an effort to attract invest-ments from the university presidents to support experimental projectsthat would create alternatives to the currently available, and highlyexpensive, scholarly publishing resources.

The second focus of the Boulder discussions was on the question:What might constitute the terms of reference in a model comprehen-sive license for copyright permissions through the Copyright Clear-ance Center (CCC)? The Task Force will look at whether there isenough interest to continue negotiations or discussions on such alicense.

Finally, there was a great deal of support for the concept of buildinga distributed collection of resources that would broaden the pool ofinformation available to scholars within the university environment,while sustaining costs.

Their question is how to move quickly to this concept of a distrib-uted collection. We have been very much focused on making the pilotprojects work, and we are very pleased with the extent to whichmember libraries are involved with each of the three projects, allowingus to assess their experiences with a view toward identifying the bestway of scaling it up. However, we are under considerable pressurefrom the presidents to not spend these three pilot years doing some-thing that would require scaling up in over a ten or 20 year period.They want to be able to build on the success of these pilot projects asquickly as possible.

On a continuing basis there are very broad strategic concerns, aswell. We want to look at how best to use investments in the researchlibrary to broaden access and to assure richness of collections. We alsoneed to devise a way to integrate the new electronic information re-sources into our systems of access, to make sure that these new modelsare economically sustainable, and to ensure equitable access. Thisbroad range of concerns is what we are specifically focusing on with

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the work of the Intellectual Property Task Force and Global ResourcesPilot Projects.

MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Duane. I’d like to ask John if hewould report to us on the AAU Executive Committee response tothese activities, and anything else he would add.

MR. VAUGHN: These projects, particularly the electronic scholar-ly publishing project and the proposal to explore some alternatives tocopyright arrangements through site licensing, are the kinds of proj-ects that have some real risks involved in them. Presidents are oftenrisk-aversive, but this is a case where they really have been anxious toprovide resources and move more rapidly than usual.

One of the specific proposals that is embedded in this, and that wasdiscussed in some detail with the AAU Executive Committee rightafter the Steering Committee met, is the notion that, when we meetagain next April, we request that all AAU institutions commit someamount of money, $30,000 was the amount talked about, to supportprojects that we would collectively manage, providing new forms ofscholarly communication in the electronic environment.

If we propose this as a blanket fee for all institutions, it would beliterally unprecedented. For most of the activities AAU is involved inthere is a general sense that the institutions’ financial commitment islimited to their dues, but there was surprisingly strong support for thisrequest.

So really, to use a cliché that I think is really quite appropriate now,the ball is in our court. The presidents are receptive to a proposal.They are pressing us to move these three interrelated activities asrapidly as we can. If we can put together a package that makes sense, Ithink that the organization is going to take this on and commit thefinancial resources necessary, and, probably even more importantly,commit the institutional resources in terms of administrative support.

So what we plan to do is send out a written description of our workbetween now and April so that the presidents will be able to have theirappropriate institutional people, be they provosts, general counsels, orlibrary directors, take a close look at these proposals. It will give theman early warning, an opportunity to talk this through, so that they willcome to the April meeting willing to make a decision and make acommitment.

Now, it could be that when we send out what we are working on andthey see it in writing and share it with their colleagues, it will all fall

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apart, but I hope not. There is a willingness now to take hold of thisopportunity and develop a genuinely university-managed mode ofscholarly communication. Peter Nathan, University of Iowa and chairof the IP Task Force, gave a description of the general terms aimed toincrease access, reduce cost, and enhance quality of scholarly infor-mation; and Jerry Campbell talked about this endeavor as developingin a not-for-profit environment. These general concepts, I believe, arethe ones to which the presidents are most attracted.

There is an important dimension to this that has some broaderramifications. That is that all the institutions that participate in suchnew modes of communication will make the necessary arrangementsso that faculty involvement in this will be reflected favorably inpromotion and tenure decisions. If that kind of principle is embeddedin this from the presidents of the institutions on down, there will be acritical connection between what we are trying to do and facultywillingness to participate in it.

I am really quite encouraged, and I am quite confident that, if weput together the right kind of package with the right properties, we willhave the backing of the CEOs of these institutions.

MR. CAMPBELL: Let’s invite questions from the membership.MS. TAYLOR (Brown University): I was wondering what the in-

volvement of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is in acouple of the projects that are related to digital publishing and copy-right licenses.

MR. WEBSTER: The Coalition has been involved in the progressof the project from the beginning, and Paul Peters, as CNI ExecutiveDirector, was one of the staff members who we were able to drawupon to support the Scientific and Technical Information Task Force.We have not moved to a point where we are defining organizations’roles in the network for scholarly publishing or in the development ofthe proposal, so it’s fair to say that it is still open.

MR. VAUGHN: There is obviously an awful lot going on in thisarea, and, in the discussion with the Steering Committee, one of thethings that came up was their anxiousness to look at these three AAU/ARL initiatives in more detail in order to see how they relate to otherongoing activities.

As you all know, the Mellon Foundation has a very ambitiousagenda, and they are making enormous progress in a lot of these areas.As part of our further development, it is important to get a clear sense

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of other initiatives that are being undertaken, in order to not duplicatethings others are doing, and to make sure that we have a complementa-ry approach that will help fill in the gaps and move the overall effortforward.

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes. It does seem that one of the key tasks of themoment is weaving together a rational, integrated network approach towhat are now a number of disparate projects. That may be a role thatAAU/ARL can play here.

MR. STUDER (Ohio State University): Could you say somethingmore about this interest in a comprehensive licensing program? Whereis that going to move?

MS. SLOAN (Columbia University): I would not characterize thatproposal as moving with any rapidity. If you recall, the ScholarlyCommunications Committee had a conversation with someone fromCCC talking about their proposal. The Intellectual Property TaskForce took this idea forward, has been looking at the pros and cons. Atthe recent Steering Committee meeting we talked about the issues andencouraged the Intellectual Property Task Force to continue this sortof examination so that the membership could be more fully informedof the issues. We did not give them any approval to go forward withany kind of negotiation, but they are continuing conversations, explo-rations, and particularly information collection.

MR. STUDER: I took this to mean that the presidents grabbed holdof this with some degree of interest. Was that a misinterpretation?

MR. VAUGHN: This again was discussed at some length with theAAU Executive Committee, and I think there is really understandingthat there are a lot of risks along with some opportunities here. RobPrichard was quite clear that he was a dissenter, given the Canadianexperience with comprehensive copyright licensor agreements, to pur-sue a comprehensive licensing arrangement at this time. We hope tohave some feasibility discussions without making any commitments.

We do have concerns that by accretion you can, through individualinstitutional commitments, create an environment that is not in thebest interests of higher education. Obviously, we would have moreinfluence if we address these issues together.

So, there is an interest in exploring whether a licensing program is afeasible approach, but, in the meantime, there is a clear understandingthat we aren’t at all ready to make any binding commitments. That iswhere things stand.

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MS. NUTTER (North Carolina State University): We also felt thatit was important to see what was going to develop with regard tocopyright law revisions, and we are not anxious to enter into anyagreements or arrangements until that outcome is clearer.

MR. NEAL (Johns Hopkins University): The Working Group onCopyright had an extensive discussion on Wednesday about the CCCproposal, and endorsed the plan to focus on the definition of terms insuch a license, instead of moving too quickly into actual negotiation.

We also thought it was important to look at the Canadian licensingagreement that is currently in place. There are some important differ-ences, but that experience would be critical to our own progress herein the States.

We were concerned that the CCC proposal under discussion in theIP Task Force, as it currently stands, appropriately puts a great deal offocus on library related issues, but gives little or no attention to facultyand student perspectives in terms of how the agreement might affectresearch and learning activities on our campuses.

We also noted that the proposal is primarily analog-based, and it isvery critical that any agreement that we discuss needs to embracedigital resources as well.

MR. BILLINGS (University of Texas): To some extent I find this alittle bit vague at the moment, and I wish there were a way of sharpen-ing what it means to have the ball back in our court.

Generally speaking, when we start talking about institutions con-tributing $30,000 to library programs, the issue of money comes backin our court, not out of the institutions. So I’m wondering whether weare going to get into a position of where that institutional commitmentshows up first. In terms of a request to the presidents for the institu-tions to provide funds, will this ball come back into our budget court,which typically seems to happen?

How are we supposed to sharpen the ball game and move on in avery specific way? Also, in terms of the commitment from the AAUpresidents, are we looking at going directly to them for funds?

MR. VAUGHN: Harold asks disconcertingly piercing questions,but the answer I would give is that we haven’t yet filled out the criticaldetails of how to spend $1.8 million, if we were to generate that poolof money. How we would manage that fund of venture capital andwhat kind of committee we would put together to judge who gets

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proposals funded and who doesn’t is one part of the set of steps wehave to take.

In terms of scaling up the Global Resources efforts, I think a num-ber of us were struck by the differential progress that is being made inthose three projects, Latin American, Japan, and Germany, and whatyou can trace this to the level of financial and managerial commit-ments to each. They have encountered a great deal of cultural resist-ance, understandably. Faculties see that their resources may be threat-ened with new shared arrangements.

Duane and I have talked about trying to get a committee of provoststo work collectively to start finding, from the top of the institutions,the kinds of decisions and commitments that have to be made in orderto move more rapidly to distributed collections.

So what we need to do between now and April is spell out someformal proposals. There has been some discussion about where$30,000, for example, would come from. We probably won’t be direc-tive on that, but we may make some recommendations. It is exactly thesort of issue that we have to spell out, to move from general conceptsto specific operating projects.

MR. WEBSTER: I might also add that there is documentation avail-able, and at our meeting last fall the Research Collections Committeepresented a rather detailed, comprehensive, and strategic plan forwhere we want to go with the distributed library. So that has beendescribed and documented, and you have had a chance to look at that.

There are other documents involved here that are works of art inprocess. They have been developed by the Task Force on IntellectualProperty, and they have been presented to the presidents. We have alsogiven them to the ARL groups that are providing advice and input tothose efforts, but as I noted earlier, they are not yet ready for generaldistribution.

The presidents have given us very specific instructions on how theywould like to see the documents developed. So part of moving this ballforward, and John suggested that the presidents would like to see this,is to have an additional group to support the Global Resource PilotProjects. That group might well be a group of provosts with a group oflibrarians, making sure that whatever is designed is feasible.

MS. SLOAN: I would just like to add, Harold, that some of yourimpatience was also present in the Steering Committee meeting lastSunday, as was the question about where the money would finally

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come from. I would just add that the work the Task Force brought to uswere concept papers. They wanted the Steering Committee’s approvalto go forward. It’s not quite vaporware, Harold. There are some strongideas. They just have to be fleshed out.

Certainly one of the issues that was not dealt with in the conceptpaper, but has been alluded to here, is the very critical issue of theorganization of these several projects, providing us with a whole,something we can look at, examine, and evaluate as it proceeds.

MS. VON WAHLDE (SUNY-Buffalo): This is going to require someplanning and discussion on our campuses. I would like to interject anote of skepticism from my own perspective. I certainly endorse thesecombined efforts, and I think it is extraordinary that we have capturedthe presidents’ attention. I’m not so sure that when we get to the locallevel, though, that our presidents will be very interested.

There are many other things on their minds, and you’re talkingabout the two biggest black holes on the campus in terms of thiselectronic network: the library and the computing center. I don’t see,and perhaps I’m wrong, where you are getting input from peopleinvolved with telecommunications, networking, and wiring on cam-pus. You must integrate those players if you expect to create thescholarly network of which we are speaking. Maybe there is a way toadd some additional people or think about how to bring in that constit-uency, because they are the support people that will make this work. Iwould be thrilled if, through peer pressure, my president were willingto look at these issues on the campus, giving them a higher prioritythan I think they currently do.

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