The CIC, Committee on Institutional Cooperation, is a long-standing regional consortium that involves the universities of Chicago, Iowa, Illinois (Urbana and Chicago campuses), Indiana, Michigan and Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Pennsylvania State, Purdue and Wisconsin. Within the CIC member institutions there are numerous groups that have ongoing meetings and cooperative activities from the presidents and provosts, to the library directors and directors of information technology along with admission directors, deans, registrars, etc. There are two robust projects that have been initiated within the past few years that are separately funded by the provost of each campus: the Center for Library Initiatives and the Learning Technology Initiatives program. The Center for Library Initiatives has focused on the development of the Virtual Electronic Library project and numerous other activities in which the libraries and their local campuses benefit from consortial approaches to issues and problems.
In 1996, the directors of CIC presses and libraries determined to establish a small working group to explore new options for University publishing in the electronic environment. This group developed a proposal for establishing a project to create a long-term collaborative program to support a new model for publishing in higher education -- a model that could lead to alternative ways of conceptualizing and satisfying the market for scholarly work.
This working group was later expanded and established as a Steering Committee with the following individuals from directors of university presses: Lisa Freeman, University of Minnesota, Colin Day, University of Michigan, Sanford Thatcher, Pennsylvania State University; directors of libraries, Robert Wedgeworth, University of Illinois, Urbana, Sheila D. Creth, University of Iowa; and, more recently, J. Gary Augustson, executive director of computer & information systems, Pennsylvania State University. Roger Clark, director of the CIC, is an active member of this group as well.
The proposal that has evolved from discussion within the Steering Committee is to create a testbed and a synergistic environment for cooperative publication among the CIC university presses, libraries, and related units in which:
The ultimate objective is to create a collaborative scholarly information technical service and distribution center, and an environment in which to demonstrate the features of such a center. The entire CIC, including its presses, libraries, bookstores, computing facilities, faculties, staffs, and students, will form the testbed for a new electronic publishing and distribution system.
In the new electronic environment, we believe that the libraries and presses, together with computing and networking organizations of our institutions, must explore new symbiotic alliances that might better satisfy the needs of all concerned.
This project, when launched, makes possible a way to marshal the human resources by designing a truly collaborative electronic publication and distribution process thus reducing the financial capital necessary for successful entry into this endeavor. This collaboration will produce a powerful combination of interests and expertise, and it will be extremely valuable for the participants, who will gain experience and knowledge through their interactions, preparing them for the future of electronic publishing.
The project, under the general oversight of the library and university press directors, also will include experts and scholars from other areas of the universities, such as computing and telecommunications, the schools of library and information science, and other academic departments.
The project plan will incorporate the following major features:
As currently envisioned, the planning process will result in the design and definition of a pilot system in which the CIC presses and libraries will collaborate to make selected university press publications available in electronic formats via the CIC libraries, ultimately expanding to the broadest possible market and range of products.
The first stage will include the definition and creation of a coherent body of press publications in various electronic formats. Monographs will be emphasized, but some journals will be included to create a reasonable basis for studies of marketing, licensing, usage, and cost recovery. Text encoding, document display, and document delivery will be based upon existing standards. Succeeding stages of the program will include the exploration and testing of a variety of publishing formats and delivery methods. In outline format here is the process that is envisioned for this multi-institutional project.
Stage One
- Develop operational guidelines.
- Design pilot digitization, storage, and delivery system.
- Design evaluative studies.
Stage Two
- Implement operational guidelines in testbed creation.
- Deploy the pilot system.
- Conduct evaluative studies.
Stage Three
- Expand the numbers and types of publications in the system.
- Modify the model on the basis of experience and evaluations.
Stage Four
- Extend the model beyond the CIC universities.
A steering committee and three specialized working groups will be established to direct and carry out the project. I have mentioned the steering committee already. The working groups will draw from the great strengths that are found throughout the CIC institutions, including but not limited to personnel from libraries, presses, and academic computing centers. In addition they will include faculty and staff who are able to contribute to the different aspects of this project.
This group will address three significant activities:
This group will recommend methods and procedures for gaining access to electronic publications that will be tested during the pilot project with specific attention given to:
This working group is intended to design studies on users, usage and economics to be conducted throughout the project. The results from these studies will provide guidance for later stages of the project and to ensure that the recommendations for changes to the project will benefit all participants.
The project proposed by the press and library directors of the CIC institutions will bring together a complex community within our universities whose members have previously viewed themselves as separate. We believe we will find through the planning process, the common ground that will enable us to design a successful project with a high payoff for all concerned. Such a project also has implications more broadly for higher education in considering how universities could facilitate scholarly communication that will be much affected by electronic publishing in the future.
Note: This presentation has been developed from a grant proposal developed in December 1996 by Roger Clark, Director, of the CIC, on behalf of the CIC libraries and presses.