The meeting was called to order at 7:30 a.m. at Café DeGrasta by Chairman Harvey Bender. Also in attendance were John Adams, Gail Bederman, Maureen Boulton, Roger Jacobs, David Mengel, Mark Pilkinton, Margaret Porter, Walter Pratt, Larry Rapagnani, Laurence Taylor, John Weber, Jennifer Younger, observer Joanne Bessler and secretary Melodie Eiteljorge.

The minutes of the meeting of February 24, 2002 and March 21, 2002 were approved as written.

The director reported on the report presented to the Academic Council at its March 27, 2002 meeting and which will be included as an appendix to the minutes in the Notre Dame Report. At the February meeting of the Academic Council, a question was asked about the trajectory for library funding and subsequently, Nathan Hatch, Provost, requested a report on library funding. Younger's report presents information on recent University investments in the library, comparisons with other research libraries, and the funding trajectory for the library. Also, information on the serious challenge to and strategies for maintaining purchasing power for books and journals is included as these are issues integral to understanding the impact of the funding trajectory for library resources.

Discussion focused on the issues raised in regard to the funding trajectory for books and serials. Currently, the library is projecting that the library collections budget will increase overall about two or two and a half percent next fiscal year. There is no increase in the non-salary unrestricted budget but there is an increase of four percent in the restricted budget. In regard to library funding for books and journals for 02/03, Younger reaffirmed that the library must use its existing budget as effectively as possible. She will be sending a memo to all faculty informing them of the issue and requesting their assistance in reviewing book and journal commitments with the goal of reducing our current commitments. The challenge of maintaining sufficient purchasing power is not a new one, but for the recent past, we have been able to cover the inflationary price increases due to a +77% increase in our collection budget between 1994/95 and 2000/01. This year, however, our collections budget will increase more modestly and only through the 4% increase in the endowment income directed to the collections. Within the Libraries, we are using a target of six percent as the goal for reducing commitments. Gay Dannelly identified one goal as preserving access to content and spoke to the complexities of reviewing serial commitments as many of the electronic journals are in publisher packages.
There was general agreement of the need to inform the University administration about increased financial support for library materials. In recent years the University has not increased the non-salary budgets on campus; however, this significantly reduces the purchasing power because book and serial costs are increasing from six to ten percent annually.

The description of UCL in the University Faculty Handbook specifies that UCL "reports annually to the Academic Council," which UCL has not done in the last four years. It was decided the Committee should make a report this year and requested that Harvey Bender and Jennifer Younger prepare a draft for review at the May meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Melodie Eiteljorge
Secretary