The LLMC-Digital Newsletter
Issue No. 26: August 2007
The LLMC-Digital Newsletter
August 24, 2007
Issue 26
Contents:
1– Annual Charter Members' meeting –p.1-2
2– Report on July 2007 Board meeting -p.2-3
3– Search for new technical partner -p.4
4– Interface Critique Committee -p.4
5– Finishing state court reports project -p.4
Report on the 2007 Annual LLMC Meeting
LLMC has held annual meetings for libraries participating in its microfiche program every year since 1978. To facilitate attendance the meetings are held during the annual AALL conventions. Our 30th annual meeting took place last month in New Orleans. The meeting was conducted under the rules adopted at the 2003 meeting, when LLMC's fiche–era librar-ies voted to transfer control of LLMC’s assets and also their accumulated voting rights to the Charter Members of LLMC-Digital. As always, the main official business of the meeting was to elect Directors and Councilors for open slots on our two governing bodies: our Board of Directors and Advisory Council. (Endnote # 1) Ballots reflecting each library’s subscription status were made available to delegates on arrival. Some 63 representatives of the 265 LLMC-Digital libraries attended.
In the Board of Directors election two slots were open due to the completed terms of Mar-garet Leary, Dir., Univ. Mich. L.L. and Ann Rae, Dir. Ret., Univ. of Toronto L.L. The outgoing Board of Director’s nominations for these positions were Marian Parker, Dir., Wake Forest Univ. L.L. and Regina Smith, Dir., Jenkins Memorial L.L. Both were elected by acclamation of the membership.
In the election for Councilors, six slots were available, one due to Councilor Parker being tapped for service on the Board of Directors, and another five due to the expiration of the terms of Councilors Michael Beaird, Dir., U. Ark. L.L.; Carol Billings, Dir. (Ret.), Law Lib. of La.; Anne Crocker, Dir. (Ret.), U. New Brunswick L.L.; Blair Kauffman, Dir., Yale Univ. L.L.; and Mary Ruth Storer, Dir., Orange Cnty. (CA) L.L. Elected to the open positions were outgoing Board members Mar-garet Leary & Ann Rae and Joel Fishman, Dir. Lawyer Services, Duquesne U.L.L.; Jolande Goldberg, Senior Cataloging Policy Spec., LC; Marcia Koslov, Dir., Los Angeles Cnty .L.L.; and Jeanne Price, Asso. Dir. for Readers’ Serv., U.Texas L.L. As a result of the above elections, the composition of our leadership in 2007/2008 will be as listed be-low. The final year for each person’s term follows their name.
Board of Directors
Richard Amelung Asso.Dir., St.Louis U.L.L. (10)
Georgia Clark L.L. Dir. (Represents Wayne St. Univ.)
Judith Gaskell Dir. U.S.Sup.Ct.L. (08)
Stuart Ho Atty. (Represents Univ. of Hawaii)
Bruce Johnson Dir. Ohio St.U.L.L. (09)
Elizabeth Mckenzie Suffolk U.L.L. (09)
Marian Parker Dir. Wake Forest U.L.L. (11)
Kathleen Richman LLMC Executive Dir. (ex officio)
Carol Roehrenbeck Rutgers-Newark U.L.L. (08)
Chris Simoni Dir. Drexel U.L.L. (10)
Regina Smith Jenkins Memorial L.L. (11)
Advisory Council
Glen-Peter Ahlers Dir., Barry U.L.L. (09)
Joel Fishman, Dir. Law. Serv., Duquesne U.L.L. (10)
Jonathan Franklin Libn., U.Washington L.L. (08)
Jolande Goldberg, Sen. Cat. Policy Spec., LC (10)
Joe Hinger Hd.Tech.Serv., St. John's U.L.L. (09)
Roger Jacobs Dir., Notre Dame U.L.L. (08)
Marcia Koslov, Dir., Los Angeles Cnty .L.L. (10)
Holly Lakatos, Libn., Chicago-Kent S.L.L. (08)
Margaret Leary Dir., U.Mich. L.L. (10)
Ann Morrison Dir. Dalhousie U.L.L. (09)
Gail Partin Dir. Dickinson S.L.L. (08)
Lee Peoples Dir. Oklahoma City U.L.L. (09)
Kumar Percy Libn. Georgetown U.L.L. (08)
Jeanne Price, Asso. Dir., U. Texas L.L. (10)
Ann Rae Dir. Ret. U.Toronto L.L. (10)
Steven Weiter Libn. N.Y. App. Div. L.,Rochester. (08)
Jules Winterton Dir., In.Advan.LegalSt.L.L. (09)
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On behalf of all members we extend our sincere thanks to colleagues Margaret Leary and Ann Rae for their just-completed four years of service on the Board of Directors and their willingness to put in yet another three years as Councilors. In addition, we thank Michael Beaird, Carol Billings, Anne Crocker, Blair Kauffman, and Mary Ruth Storer. Each one has given years of service on one or the other, or both, of our governing bodies.
The last major business of this year’s Members Meeting was the installation of our new Executive Director, Mrs. Kathleen Richman. (Endnote # 2) Kathleen was introduced by Board Chair Richard Amelung, who also did the honors in presenting a plaque to outgoing executive director Jerry Dupont as an expression of the Members appreciation for his many years of service in that position. Jerry will be going into partial retirement, with his principal energies being devoted in the future to content development for LLMC-Digital.
Report on July Board of Directors Meeting
The LLMC Board of Directors usually meets twice annually, normally at the annual AALL and the January AALS meetings; in both cases with the aim of economizing on travel costs and maximizing attendance. The recent mid-summer meeting was held on Friday, July 13, from 9:00AM to 3:30PM. The meeting was hosted by the Law Library of Louisiana, being held in the rare book room of the library portion of the splendidly restored Supreme Court building in the French Quarter.
Highlights among the policy decisions made by the Board at its July meeting were:
— Price raises coming in 2008 —
In 2003 the subscription fees for LLMC-Digital Charter Members were fixed for five years. That guaranteed period ended this year. Also, non-charter fees have not risen since 2004. Given that long delay and the intervening inflation, plus the fact that by next year the service will be offering in excess of 25,000 volumes, the Board decided that a substantial one-time price increase is now justified. But the Board also felt that it should devise a pricing policy that would avoid large single-year jumps in the future. It therefore adopted this policy. Fees for the year 2008 will rise roughly 18% across the subscription schedule. For the five years thereafter, fees rises will be tied to the rise in the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) in the preceding year. Implementation of that decision results in the following subscription schedule for 2008.
LLMC-Digital Fee Schedule (Eff. 01/01/08)
Category A: Standard: $7430 [up $1150] — Charter: $6850 [up $1050]
US law school libs. / law libs. over 250K vols. / law firms with above 750 lawyers
Category B: Standard: $5090 [up $780] — Charter: $4540 [up $690]
Non-US law school libs. / law libs. over 120K vols. / US federal circuits / firms with above 300 lawyers
Category C: Standard: $3365 [up $515] — Charter: $2950 [up $450]
Law libs. over 80K vols. / law firms with above 150 lawyers / universities w/o law schools
Category D: Standard: $2255 [up $345] — Charter: $1950 [up $300]
Law libs. over 40K vols, / law firms with above 75 lawyers / public libraries over 1M vols.
Category E: Standard: $1540 [up $240] — Charter: $1300 [up $200]
Law libs. over 20K vols, / law firms with above 10 lawyers / public libraries under 1M vols.
Category F: Standard: $1015 [up $155] — Charter: $885 [up $135]
Law firms with under 10 lawyers small non-profits with under 10 lawyers
Category G: Standard: $354 [up $54] — Charter: $295[up $45]
Individual subscribers
Category F: “Lifeline” rate: $1000
For non-profit law libs., in-library access only.
— Fiche discounts to be reduced —
Since 2003 LLMC-Digital charter members have qualified for a 66% discount off the LLMC list price of $2.25 per fiche, while the discount for other LLMC-Digital subscribers was 33%. However, in the last few years LLMC has been forced out of the fiche duplication business because our in-house machinery died of old age and replacement duplicators are no longer made, either in the U.S. or abroad. As a result LLMC has been forced to out-source all of its fiche duplication work,
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and costs have risen so substantially that we are coming close to losing money on fiche sales. Clearly, either the present discounts must be cut back or the list price per fiche needs to be raised. The Board was loath to do the latter given the impact that would have on those customers who are not digital subscribers. So they decided to roll back the digital discounts. Effective 01/01/08 fiche purchase discounts for LLMC-Digital charter members will be 33%, while non-charter members will be eligible for 20% discounts.
— Scanning Congressional Record, etc. —
Both Hein and Lexis plan to start offering the Congressional Record in 2008. So the Board needed to decide whether LLMC should use its limited resources to create a competing version. On one hand LLMC serves in a “TVA” role, helping to keep pricing levels in the industry reasonable. On the other hand, we don’t need to do this by competing with every single title. Scanning of the Congressional Record would absorb the equivalent of a full year of LLMC’s production capacity. The Board decided that the opportunity costs of using that production capacity to scan other needed titles outweighed any benefit to our subscribers that might accrue by our offering a third version of this title. However, the Board did feel that LLMC should retain a capacity to scan this title some day should that become advisable. The administration was directed to continue to solicit hardcopy for this title with the goal of preserving a vetted version in our Kansas salt mine archives. (Endnote # 3)
— Scanning California Records & Briefs —
LLMC has received an offer of an additional (Endnote # 4) partnership with the Los Angeles County Library aimed at scanning their uniquely-complete copy of the California Records and Briefs. This resource sees extensive use within the library; being its most used class of material. Its digitization would be enormous boon to lawyers in California and even outside the state. Successful completion of the project would also give LLMC-Digital a presence in the biggest U.S. market. In the pro-posed partnership, LaLaw would shoulder the labor costs for data capture, while LLMC would handle the image processing, OCRing, and data hosting functions. That amounts to roughly a one-to-two sharing of expenses. All materials would be guillotined and fed through high-speed scanners on site, with the paper blocks then being stored in the LLMC salt mine archive. After detailed discussion, the Board approved the project in principle, contingent upon the Executive Director finding room for the related expenses in the LLMC overall budget. Further details are now being negotiated with LaLaw. If the project goes forward, it is anticipated that both sides will be gearing up for a project launch in early-2008.
— Making LLMC an official LIPA archive —
In a joint action during AALL, the LLMC and LIPA boards of directors resolved that the hardcopy materials archived in the LLMC salt mine facility will be considered as one of the official five copies of primary U.S. legal materials for which LIPA seeks to ensure long term preservation. Since LLMC might someday decide that the copies it is preserving no longer serve a corporate purpose, LLMC also committed to give LIPA at least three years notice if it planned to discard the materials. It is assumed that this would give LIPA a reasonable chance to make alternative arrangements if desired. It was felt by the LIPA Board that this guarantee at least equaled the assurances that they could expect from any of the other all- volunteer archives.
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Searching for a new technical partner:
As announced in April of 2006, (Endnote # 5) LLMC feels that it has outgrown the opportunities for growth available at the University of Michigan, our incubator partner. So we have been looking for a new partner with greater support services. However, while we want to improve our situation, we don’t feel that there is any need to panic. Since our relations with our colleagues at the University of Michigan re-main cordial and productive, we have had the fortunate luxury of being deliberate and methodical in our search. At this point one company, National Business Systems (NBS) of Egan, Minnesota, has evolved into a very serious suitor. It is still too early to make predictions on the outcome, but the courtship has proceeded sufficiently that the Board devoted three hours of its July meeting receiving an NBS presentation, discussing its goals with NBS personnel, and conducting its private evaluation of the NBS proposal. The upshot was that the Board commissioned NBS to develop a possible new interface for LLMC-Digital. (Endnote # 6) The goal is to have the model completed in time for final Board evaluation early in 2008.
Involving Our Best Experts in the Search:
Board members are aware that most of their number are now library directors, with limited time and opportunity to be as familiar with the various digital services as are those of their colleagues who serve on the “firing line” as reference librarians and legal research instruc-tors. As this search process has progressed, the Board made a serious effort to involve some of our most savvy colleagues. An Interface Critique Committee (Endnote # 7) was recruited in March to evaluate the current LLMC-Digital interface and provide the Board and NBS with recommended improvements and desired new features. LLMC patrons owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Critique Committee members, who worked long and hard to produce a de-tailed and valuable set of guidelines for NBS to follow. Now that we have entered the final phase of this process, the Board has reconstituted and expanded the Critique Committee. (Endnote # 8) It will serve as the Board’s principal source of advice on evaluating the NBS project. All of us owe a great deal of thanks to those of our colleagues, especially the “re-ups,” who will be doing this onerous work for our benefit.
Now Your Consortium Needs You:
While we scan in many subject areas, our main effort in the past three years has been to create the world’s most complete collection of U.S. state court reports; exceeding even what we did in our fiche years. We are near the end of that project, but we need some serious help to round up the remaining gap volumes. The special insert included in this issue (The special Insert appears below, following the endnotes) contains a Phase One desiderata list of those items. Because of the large number of titles involved, in this installment we focus on the supreme court and intermediate courts of appeal series. Our next list will concentrate on the many side reports for the several states. We have designed this process to involve as little paperwork as possible. All that is needed is for someone in your library to check for any duplicates you may be able to donate, mark the form and then fax it in. We will contact you before your chosen deadline to tell you if your offerings are needed. If they are, we will be happy to reimburse for postage.
When done our digital state court reports collection will far more complete than most of our libraries have ever held, numbering over 12,000 volumes. We already have scanned ca. 83% of those books. With your help we can have this collection completed by mid-2008.
Endnotes:
1.) If you are one of those who wonder what the Advisory Council does, you are not alone. The Advisory Council was created so that our Board of Directors would have a representative group to turn to for advice when major issues came up on short notice. The terms of service on the Council are not onerous, since the Board has referred questions to the Council only sporadically. But when implemented, the ‘sounding board’ mechanism proved very useful, and we were glad to have it in place. Advisory Council members are elected at LLMC's annual membership meetings, with nominations taken from the floor. While we occasionally get out of sync due to resignations, etc., typically a third of the Council seats come vacant each year.
2.) Biographical material for Kathleen can be found in Issue 24 of this newsletter. See www.llmc.com/Newsletter.asp; Issuew # 24, 4/8/07, p. 1.
3.) Regular readers may remember that the Board made a like decision regarding the Federal Register. See www.llmc.com/Newsletter.asp; Issue # 22, 11/6/06, p. 2, ftnt., last parag.
4.) LaLaw, as it is now branded, is already in one productive partnership with LLMC, given that, since January of this year, they have been running a very productive extern scanning site which is making major contributions toward the completion of our Common Law Abroad project. Users of our British Empire Studies digital collection will see a rapid expansion of the titles offered over the next months as the LaLaw-scanned titles get cataloged.
5.) See www.llmc.com/Newsletter.asp; Issue # 18, April 12, 2006, p. 1
6.) Both parties are taking risks at this point. NBS is processing all existing LLMC images (14M at this point) on spec, while LLMC is committed to pay $50K in programming costs, regardless of the outcome; although, if a partnership does not result, LLMC will retain ownership of the work product.
7.) Committee members were: Barbara Garavaglia, Ch.Ref.Libn. U.Mich.L.L. (Chair); Linda Corbelli, ResearchLibn., U.S.Sup.Ct.Lib.; Mike Hannon, Asso.Dir., U.Minn.L.L.; Lee Peoples, Ch.Ref. Libn. OK-CityU.L.L. & Rob Richards, Ch.Ref. Libn., DrexelU.L.L.
8.) New members are: Dan Giancaterino,, Internet Libn., JenkinsMem.L.L ; Cheryl Nyberg, Ref. Libn., U.Wash.L.L.; & Jeanne Price, Asso.Dir., U.TexasL.L. Due to prior commitments, Lee Peoples could not serve this time around.
Special Insert:
Desiderata List # 1
Focus: State supreme & intermediate appeals courts series & regional reporters
(states and series not listed are already completely scanned thru 1923)
Alabama – Vols. 1-80, 95-6, 104-5, 108-10, 145, 155, 181-4, 186-8, 194-7, 200-4, 206
Alabama Apps. – Vols. 1-18
Arkansas – Vols. 1-15, 17-28, 36, 47, 49, 129
California – Vols. 15, 44
Colorado – Vols. 63, 65-71, 73
Connecticut – Vols. 41, 99-104
Delaware – Vol. 31
DC Appeals Rpts., Vols. 2-16, 49-53
Florida – Vols. 1, 5-10, 12-22, 29-32, 74, 103
Georgia – Vols. 45, 69, 104, 105-6, 117, 122-3, 137-8
Georgia Apps. – Vols. 2, 4, 9, 14, 18
Illinois – Vols. 5, 96, 114, 129, 144-5, 155, 166
Illinois Apps. – Vols. 155, 172
Indiana – Vol. 63
Iowa – Vols. 6, 29, 46, 86, 118, 122, 162
Kansas – Vol. 11
Kansas Apps. – Vols. 1-10
Kentucky – Vol. 187
Kentucky Law Reporter – Vols. 3-8, 10-18, 20-2, 23(Pt.2), 24(Pt.2), 26, 33
Louisiana Apps. – Vols. 1-19
Maryland – Vols. 18, 40-1, 100
Massachusetts – Vols. 128-9, 137-8, 143-4, 146, 151-60, 163-8, 170, 175-80, 184, 187-8, 196,
202-6, 216, 224, 229
Michigan – Vols. 35, 39, 41, 69, 95, 101, 111, 173, 188, 221
Minnesota – Vols. 3, 7-8,11-2, 27-37, 43, 47-8, 57, 76, 78-9, 83, 91-2, 94-6, 103, 105, 107-10, 118, 125-7, 129, 131-7, 139-40, 142, 145-9, 153, 155-6
Mississippi – Vols. 1-22, 35, 41, 64, 127, 129
Missouri – Vols. 1, 4-6, 9, 11-2, 13-6, 25-6, 36, 39-40, 47, 69, 71, 73, 76, 95, 115, 143, 160, 177-8, 186, 199, 206, 215, 227, 230, 237, 240, 243, 245, 251-2, 255, 257, 270, 280, 294, 296-300
Missouri Apps. – Vols. 4, 8, 14-5, 20, 51-4, 60, 74-81, 84-93, 97, 112, 134-5, 139-40, 145, 149, 154, 156, 160, 179, 194
Montana – Vols. 10-11, 49, 53, 58, 60
Nebraska – Vols. 72, 74, 81, 83-9, 104-110
Nevada – Vols. 12-3, 27
New Hampshire – Vols. 24, 65-9, 71-2, 74
New Jersey Law Rpts. – Vols. 16, 49, 77
New Jersey Equity Rpts. – Vols. 1, 11, 32, 40, 63, 86
New Mexico – Vols. 1, 8, 20-1
NY Ct. Apps. – Vols. 1-225, 231, 233-6
NY App. Division Rpts, — Vols.1-81, 84, 87-190, 192, 205-6, 210, 247, 262, 275, 277, 282-6
North Carolina – Vols. 1-62, 65-9, 73-6, 78, 83, 85, 90, 92-3, 96, 101, 103-4, 106, 116, 118, 123-6,133, 143, 150, 174, 183, 215, 253, 281, 345-59
North Carolina Apps. – Vols. 8-9, 26-28, 35-8, 40-1, 45-6, 50-2, 56, 68, 106, 124-39
North Dakota – Vols. 1, 4. 6-8, 10-11, 16, 28, 31, 48
Ohio State Repts. – 1st Ser. Vols. 1-2, 4-45, 49, 59, 85-90, 95-6, 106-8
Ohio Apps. – Vols. 1 (1913), 16
Oklahoma Criminal – Vols. 1-3, 13, 16-23
Indian Territory – Vols. 1-5
Oregon – Vols. 15-30, 47, 61, 70
Pennsylvania St. Rpts. – Vols. 4, 30-1, 74, 107, 114, 119, 125, 133, 178, 200, 204-5, 212, 260, 266, 275
Rhode Island – Vol. 8
South Carolina – Vols. 1, 3, 24, 69-71, 100, 122-33
South Dakota – Vols. 3, 10, 28-37, 42
Tennessee – Vols. 1, 3, 18-9, 24, 37, 39, 41-3, 45, 52-3, 55, 58-9, 62-84, 86, 90-2, 96, 113
Texas Supreme – Vols. 4, 8, 11, 25, 33-4, 36, 41, 70, 73, 76
Texas Criminal Apps. – Vols. 13-5, 34, 38-9, 42, 66, 84, 86
Texas Civil Apps. – Vols. 1-4, 41, 62
Utah – Vols. 1, 23-5
Vermont — Vols. 1-58, 73-4, 81-2, 88, 90-3
Washington Rpts., 11st Ser. – Vols. 4, 23, 37, 66, 146, 161-3, 166-7, 171, 175
Washington Rpts., 2nd Series, – Vols. 32, 33 59, 66-7, 75, -84
West Virginia – Vols. 3, 8, 10, 13-4, 22-5, 29-30, 33-4, 36, 38, 40, 42-3, 50-1, 93-4
Wisconsin, 1st Ser. – Vols. 1-5, 15, 18-9, 21, 23-8, 30-1, 34-5, 38, 40-5, 56, 62, 88, 90, 112, 127, 149, 160, 176, 178
Wyoming – Vols. 8, 17
State Appeals Courts — The Regional Reporters
Northeastern Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vols. 1, 18, 107-8
Northwestern Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vol. 17
Pacific Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vols. 31, 110-11, 154, 161, 164, 182, 193
Southeastern Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vols. 16, 58
Southern Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vol. 94
Southwestern Reporter, 1st Ser. – Vols. 63-75, 157, 193, 230, 250, 254
TO: LLMC at Fax No. 808-235-1755; Attn. Content Development Department
Our library: ____________________________________________________________________
is willing to donate the volumes circled or otherwise indicated above to the LLMC-Digital scanning project. We realize that, even if you may already have commitments for these materials from elsewhere, it takes some time to receive and check gifts to be sure that the items sent are scanable, so we will hold this material for you as a backup until 12/31/07 or until ___________.
The person who should be contacted if you still need these materials is:
Name ______________________________________ Position ___________________________
Phone ________________________ E-mail __________________________________________
End of Issue # 26
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