Letter from the President

By John Taylor, Orange Coast College & CCL President

Hi all,

This semester is done for most of us and it has been busier than expected – for me and many that I know and work with around the state. We have done a lot of great work toward creating the future we want to live in but we aren’t done yet. The LSP Task Force has worked with CCL to suggest a way forward with the Chancellors Office on how to spend the LSP annual grant. We have recommended a new charter with revision to acknowledge that the LSP Governance Committee makes recommendations for how to spend money, not the final decision which the Chancellor’s Office required remain in their duty. We then proposed an annual process which allows for recommendation in the Fall of every year, and again in Spring for the LSP Governance Committee to send forward recommendations for software purchases that would benefit the entire state. We sent forward three recommendations in Fall of 2022, with the expectation that they be contracted and implemented in January 2023. We have had no response from the Chancellor’s Office on the status of any of the recommendations we made. In three separate documents, we recommended that the Chancellor’s Office purse metadata and cataloging accounts for all of the LSP participating community colleges. In recommendation two, we recommended that the Chancellor’s Office enter into a contract with OCLC for EZ Proxy for all the libraries. In recommendation three, we recommended that the Chancellor’s Office contract for LibKey for all the community college libraries. It is DOI linking software that slips into Primo very easily and make linking to the article level easier that Primo does. We look forward to the decisions of the Chancellor’s Office and will continue to work with them toward a long term solution. Without resolution on the purchase recommendations, we cannot know the disposition of unspent funds for this year’s LSP grant. We currently recommend rolling them forward, but realize that the Chancellor’s Office may determine to return them to the colleges and force another rounds of reimbursement requests. We hope this will not occur, but we do not make the final decision. We are also in monthly meetings with the Foundation who will be the agency negotiation the 2024 renewal of the ExLibris (now Clarivate) contract. After that contract concludes, the Chancellor’s Office will hold the contract and the possibility of requesting reimbursements for payments made to the CCLC for Alma and Primo will be a thing of the past. We are looking forward to a great in person Deans and Directors meeting in Sacramento. Please look forward to a Save the Date email from us soon.

John Taylor
CCL, President
Dean, Orange Coast College