CCL-EAR Committee Chair's Report

By Tamara Weintraub, CCL-EAR Committee Chair

As California community colleges near the one-year anniversary of the temporary move to full- or partial remote learning and services, the CCL-EAR Committee will also mark its first year conducting all business remotely. In fact, the Committee was last scheduled to meet in-person the same week my own institution ceased on-campus instruction last March. The rest is history.

Some days -- as my mind teeters on technology overload -- I long for a literal “water-cooler” conversation to commiserate about work stuff with someone other than a cat (to be clear: I value the cat’s opinions on many things, just not this). Then I remind myself that so many of our students’ education and information needs are only be met right now because of some amazing technological marvels, including digitized information resources and the tools to access them. Delivering knowledge to our students this way during a global pandemic makes everything else seem surmountable.

And, so, I am grateful for this technology that lets us keep “doing what we do” in real-time to ensure students may succeed in their educational goals. I am also appreciative that our libraries have the CCL-EAR Committee to help facilitate access to one type of technology, electronic information resources. Here are a few of the things we are working on right now to do this:

• Product reviews of Leganto, and Libguides vs Libguides CMS (comparison) are now available, and others are underway. Keep your eyes open for announcements in the cclibrarians-all listserv.
• CCL-EAR is undertaking a second CCLC NetLibrary/EBSCO eBooks shared collection deselection project. The first project in 2014-15 resulted in weeding approximately 12% of titles in the collection. Five years later, additional titles are out of date and/or no longer applicable to curricula. This new project is happening in two stages:
  • Stage 1: Initial selection of out-of-date titles by the CCL-EAR Committee, applying the subject/imprint criteria used in the first deselection project. This stage is currently underway, with a target completion of March. Before anything is weeded from the collection, CCL librarians will have an opportunity to view the list of titles recommended or removal and offer input. Keep your eyes open for this notification in the cclibrarians-all listserv.
  • Stage 2: Upon completion of Stage 1, we will begin an in-depth review of the remaining collection. All CCL librarians are invited to participate in this stage. Interested in volunteering as a reviewer for this stage? Keep your eyes open for more details in the cclibrarians-all listserv.
• CCL-EAR’s fourth annual Electronic Access and Resources Survey of California Community College Libraries closed in January. An impressive 56% of CCL libraries responded. Over the next several months CCL-EAR will share and examine results closely to better understand, and take action to address, the interests and concerns of our membership.

Do you purchase any library e-resources directly from a vendor because you did not know they are available through CCLC? Be sure to talk with Library Consortium Director Amy Beadle about CCLC product availability or cost before placing an order with someone else – you may be pleasantly surprised!

Consider joining CCL-EAR as a Regional Representative or attending our meetings – all Consortium members are invited. Learn more about what’s involved and who we are, and, as always, contact me if you have questions or would like to become a Committee member.