Cynthia Mader
maderc@lib.muohio.edu

Gaylord Opryland Hotel, Nashville, TN
Tuesday, June 8, 2004
Sponsor: SIAM
Notes: Kris Fowler
Moderator: Cindy Mader

This year's Math Roundtable was attended by over 35 participants and focused on topics pertaining to digitization and instruction/information literacy initiatives in mathematics and statistics. After thanking SIAM for sponsoring the session, attendees were asked to introduce themselves and the Roundtable proceeded with three presentations followed by a roundtable discussion.

Project Euclid Update
Terry Ehling, Director of Electronic Publishing, Cornell University, teresa_ehling@cornell.edu

Project Euclid was formally launched May '03, funded by Mellon Foundation. Mission is to support independent and society publishers in mathematics and statistics, "bootstrapping them into cyberspace." Currently 70 subscribers, mostly U.S. institutions, but some in other countries as worldwide sales representation is now active. Contains about 25 journals, with 10 on the way in 2-3 months (e.g., International Press titles, such as Journal of Differential Geometry, which will be a direct subscription). Also coming: complete backfile of Pacific Journal of Mathematics; Nagoya Math Journal (9/04). Current subscription models are driven by publishers: the aggregated subset (Euclid Prime), individual titles through Euclid, individual titles direct from publisher. Current prices are "lower than they should be" for Euclid Prime package, soon to include 20 journals. Plans focus on recruitment of more participating publishers/titles. Future pricing models include breaking out smaller bundles of titles by sub-topic.

SIAM Archive
Mary Rose Muccie, Journals Publisher, SIAM, muccie@siam.org

Online backfile, Locus, will provide content of all journal titles from vol. 1 to 1996. Articles will be in fully-searchable PDF, with XML metadata; including MR/ZBL links and CrossRef links. Pricing model, developed with feedback from librarian advisory committee and others, involves one-time cost plus small yearly fee (approx. $100) put in escrow to fund improvements; discount for early orders, Fall '04. Developing search tool that will cover both Locus and current journal content. Also hope to offer pay-per-view. Plan not to roll back content from current years to new backfile, at least for 10 years.

Math Subject Research Guides
Scott Warren, Librarian for Physical and Mathematical Sciences, North Carolina State University Library, scott_warren@ncsu.edu

Virtual Browsing via Deep-linked Catalog Searches at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/risd/guides/mathematics/index.html generates pre-set searches of NCSU catalog for selected mathematics topics, based on LCSH and/or LC call numbers, as chosen by librarian. Intended to open up print collection by providing more browsing functionality, since no separate mathematics collection. Limits by format (books, journals) as well as topic (e.g., Hilbert spaces or game theory). Driven by XML and JavaScript, specifically designed for NCSU's Sirsi catalog system (Unicorn). Dependent on appropriate cataloging, e.g., inclusion of subject heading for numerical analysis--periodicals. Released January 2004; contact Scott for more info or to borrow code.

Roundtable Discussion

1. Tips for reaching out to math/stats faculty and students
   • library instruction for teaching assistant orientation, writing-intensive courses, freshman seminars, math class with history assignment
   • collaborative work space
   • librarian "office hours" in departmental lounge
   • emphasize "context" rather than "information literacy"
   • IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship)and VIGRE (Vertical Integration of Research and Education) NSF grant programs
2. Other examples/strategies used in Pathfinders or instructional handouts to promote information literacy in math/stats
   • focus on hot topics/topics of local interest, e.g., bioinformatics, biomathematics
   • dynamically-driven search tool for electronic and print resources by subject at http://www.library.yorku.ca/rg/jd/math.jsp; see http://www.yorku.ca/jdupuis/ola2004/ for more info; the Open Source code is available by contacting John Dupuis at jdupuis@yorku.ca.
3. How digital books are used by Mathematics/statistics communities (e.g., Lecture Notes in Mathematics, etc.)
   • some skepticism of how much math e-books are used; mathematicians may see print and electronic books as complementary, not substitutes; very general resources, such as Schaum's Outlines may be most popular, LNM somewhat; at least one school has cancelled print LNM because of online access through the California Digital Library; at least one school expects to learn more about its users' preferences from use statistics for MathNetBase and StatNetBase
   • what is the policy under which CRC selects titles for MathNetBase?
   • use of tables in any format may be decreasing because of functionality in Mathematica and other mathematics computing packages
4. Other new math/stats digitization projects or updates to current projects
   • Turpion is digitizing all their English journal content; 10-year backfiles should be available in 2005, although some permission from former publishers haven't yet been finalized; expected annual cost is approx. $500, but it might be possible to negotiate a one-time purchase; the Russian Academy of Sciences mathematics section is talking with Zentralblatt about possibly digitizing the Russian-language backfiles.
5. Other news: Carol Hutchins reported hearing that Wiley is exiting pure mathematics publishing.