STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Letter from the Chair

Dear STARS members,

It’s hard to believe I’m nearing the end of my term as STARS Chair. Thanks to all of you who have engaged with our work this year. We’ve heard from many of you through our surveys and I’m grateful for the enthusiastic participation! International ILL had a wonderful response to this year’s survey, and Research and Assessment is working hard to analyze responses to questions about how we count resource sharing statistics. Outreach and Promotion conducted its member survey and I was thrilled to see responses about volunteering with STARS and helping us think about future directions for our organization. The Vendor Relations Committee wrapped up their scanner survey and shared their report in ALA Connect.

Speaking of volunteering, it’s not too late to join a committee for 2019-2020. STARS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect David Ketchum continues to make appointments to STARS committees for the coming year. Visit http://www.ala.org/aboutala/committees/volunteer/frm_vol to volunteer.

This year, we’ve started discussions about what members want from STARS and how we can engage our members. I hope you’ll join us at ALA Annual during the ILL Discussion Group at 10:30 AM Saturday to spend some time on this important topic (among other exciting agenda items). If you can’t come to the conference or would prefer to share your thoughts privately, don’t hesitate to send me an email with your ideas.

In addition to the ILL Discussion Group, there are more STARS events in Washington, D.C. Anyone is welcome to attend the STARS All-Committee meeting on Saturday at 8:30 AM. Start your day bright and early with discussions on resource sharing and related topics! Some committees will meet virtually rather than in person, so please feel free to stop by and see what conversations are happening and contact me if you’re wondering what groups will be present.

The Outreach and Promotion Committee is planning a STARS social for Annual. We’ll honor the winners of this year’s STARS-Atlas Mentoring Award, Publication Recognition Award and Virginia Boucher Distinguished ILL Librarian Award. Join me in congratulating our winners and thanking our generous sponsors, Atlas Systems and OCLC. Watch for details about the social on our social media accounts (https://twitter.com/rusa_stars?lang=en and https://www.facebook.com/groups/rusa.stars/) and the STARS listserv.

One final item to add to your ALA Annual schedule: STARS is co-sponsoring a program with ALCTS on “Streaming Video: Confronting the Barriers to Sharing Between Libraries” on Monday, June 24, at 4:00 PM. Wrap up your time in D.C. and learn more about streaming video and sharing.

Thanks for all you do, and I look forward to seeing many of you in Washington, D.C.!
Best wishes,

Megan Gaffney
STARS Chair, 2018-2019

STARS Committee Reports

Research and Assessment Committee

The RUSA STARS Research and Assessment Committee has been focused on our special charge to explore whether the resource sharing community should have best practices and guidelines for statistics reporting in resource sharing. This project is geared for all types of libraries in the United States which we will speak to in our recommendations. Our report will go to STARS Exec by May7 so that Exec can consider actions for ALA Annual 2019. Committee members also completed the 2019 Midwinter STARS Discussion Group assessment.

The Committee will do some creative brainstorming at ALA Annual on additional actions in support of our charge. All ideas for ways in which we can support the community through research and assessment are welcome.

Lars Leon, Chair

 

International ILL Committee

The fourth iteration of the RUSA STARS International ILL survey was open from March 5 to April 16, 2019. 394 responses from 65 countries were received, which exceeded the 2015 survey, in terms of number of responses and countries represented. Data analysis is now underway in preparation for presenting a paper entitled “International Interlibrary Loan in a Changing Environment: Results from the 2019 RUSA STARS International ILL survey” at the 16th IFLA Interlending & Document Supply Conference, October 9-11, 2019, in Prague, Czech Republic.

Hilary Thompson, Chair

 

Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee

The Committee selected Kim Ammons, Access Services Evening Associate with the Mount Holyoke College Library (South Hadley, MA), and Michelle Taylor, Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Specialist with the Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), as this year’s STARS Mentoring Award recipients. Each will receive a scholarship from Atlas Systems to help defray the cost of attending the 2019 ALA Annual Conference.

We are seeking veteran librarians to serve as mentor/contacts for the winners. The volunteers would help these newcomers navigate the ALA Annual experience. Please contact Ken Carriveau, at Kenneth_Carriveau@baylor.edu, if you are interested in helping.

Ken Carriveau, Jr., Chair

 

Legislation & Licensing Committee

The RUSA STARS Legislation & Licensing Committee has been exploring the many issues that arise with copyright and licenses in daily resource sharing work and is trying to secure speakers for webinars and sessions on these important topics. Corey Halaychik and Blake Reagan have agreed to discuss electronic resource licensing in a webinar in the upcoming months.
Committee members have passed a model electronic resources license clause to the STARS Executive Committee for consideration. This model assigns broad interlibrary loan permission and have requested the charge of the Committee to be broadened from “resource sharing” to “access to resources.” This would include course reserves, digitization, and other non-ILL forms of sharing resources. Committee members are also reviewing the legislation and licensing resources listed on the ShareILL site.

If you have questions or suggestions for the committee or would like to suggest a presenter or topic for a webinar, please email geec@ecu.edu.

William Gee, Chair

 

Publication Award Committee

The RUSA STARS Publication Award Committee is pleased to announce that J. Silvia Cho and LeEtta Schmidt were chosen as the first winners of this new award. You can find more details on the RUSA Update page: https://rusaupdate.org/2019/04/cho-and-schmitdt-chosen-for-the-stars-publication-recognition-award.

Amy Paulus, Chair