The USF Virtual Library Planning Committee (VLPC) first convened in September 1995. Eight librarians, representing five of the University of South Florida (USF) Libraries and Florida Gulf Coast University, were charged with formulating a virtual library development plan for presentation to the USF Library Directors. Because of the immensity of the task and the significant geographic distance among several of the participating libraries, the committee members decided to conduct weekly conference calls to communicate individual progress relating to the project. Electronic mail was also used extensively for the transmission of draft versions of the planning document.

Comprehensive Literature Review
The eight members of the committee entered the project with varied backgrounds, job assignments and technical expertise. A comprehensive review of the literature was begun to bring everyone to an equitable level of understanding on virtual library issues. To cover as much of the vast amount of literature as possible, the literature search was shared by all members of the committee. The bibliographic databases which seemed most promising on the subject were selected by group consensus and assigned to committee members for examination. Each member was asked to select two to four articles from their assigned databases to share with the rest of the committee. Library Literature, LISA, ERIC, Periodical Abstracts, WorldCat, UnCover, Lexis/Nexis, ABI Inform, and Business Index were all searched for the keywords: (electronic or digital or virtual) and library. Because this is a rapidly changing field, it was decided that the searches should be limited to the most recent three years of publication. Particular attention was also given to documents discussing planning aspects of virtual libraries. A report by the State University of New York - Stony Brook proved especially useful for its discussion of planning strategies. In addition to the bibliographic databases, an examination was made of documents which had been mounted on the World Wide Web. The literature analysis allowed the committee members to absorb a great deal of background information on the topic and, although the initial literature search was completed by late 1995, members continued to watch for relevant documents throughout the planning process.

Attendance at National Conferences and Workshops
While the literature search was in progress, each committee member selected a relevant conference or workshop as a means of obtaining the most recent view of the virtual library. Electronic listservs such as LIBREF-L, LIBADMIN, PACS-L, ASIS-L and LITA-L were particularly helpful for locating conference announcements. The Eventline database in FirstSearch also provided useful information on relevant meetings. Conferences selected for attendance included the ASIS Conference on Digital Libraries (Dallas, February 1996), Computers in Libraries (Crystal City, February 1996), ACM Digital 96 (Bethesda, March 1996) and "The Successful Library" (Cornell University, April 1996). While all the conferences provided valuable information on state of the art technology, the Cornell workshop was particularly useful for the planning aspects of the project.

The Survey
An important component of the project was an analysis of the existing infrastructure at the participating libraries to determine levels of funding, hardware and staffing needed to implement the plan. For comparison purposes, the committee selected fifteen universities that could be considered peer institutions to USF based on ARL and ACRL statistics for enrollment, staff size, collection size, and budget. A survey instrument was developed which contained a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data. The peer institutions were asked to provide information on electronic collections and services, the level of cataloging available for electronic resources, staffing for electronic services, hardware and connectivity issues, and budget allocations for electronic resources and services. Eight of the fifteen peer institutions responded to the survey. Each participating library within the USF system also completed the survey and those responses were compared to the responses of the peer institutions. A tabular summary of the survey was included with the planning document.

Assessing User Needs: the Focus Groups
One of the primary goals of the Virtual Libraries Planning Committee was to create a resource that would be user-centered. Focus groups were used as an initial method for examining the needs of USF users. Because of the diverse populations residing within the USF community, a total of twelve sessions were conducted. User groups included USF students, New College faculty and students, Marine Science faculty and students, USF teaching and research faculty and staff, USF library staff and faculty, and Florida Mental Health faculty, staff and graduate assistants. In addition to the general focus groups, two focus groups were also conducted with the USF Academic Computing Committee and the Systems Administrators Group. The goal of each focus group was to develop an impression of the current use of electronic resources at USF and the perceived electronic needs and desires within the USF community. Focus group meetings were advertised through local electronic bulletin boards, printed flyers, and word of mouth. The desired size of each group was ten to twelve participants although many groups were smaller. Each session lasted approximately ninety minutes. The following questions were included in the faculty, staff and student sessions:

-- What does the phrase "virtual library" mean to you? -- How would you define a virtual library?
-- Do you currently use electronic resources in your work or in your personal research? Where do you use them?
-- Which electronic resources do you use?
-- Describe an experience using these electronic resources, positive and negative.
-- What services would you like the virtual library to provide to you?
-- What changes do you anticipate in your research behavior related to the virtual library initiative?

A Virtual Libraries Planning Committee member was selected to moderate each session with other committee members acting as note takers. To allow the focus group participants to speak as freely as possible, committee members did not normally participate in sessions conducted on their home campuses. In order to provide anonymity within the groups, participants were identified by their status only. The notes from each session were transcribed and examined using cluster analysis.

Writing and Editing
The final writing and editing of the document took approximately two months. The first concern was finding a method that would most effectively condense the vast amount of accumulated information into an organized, coherent document. The committee decided to organize the document into four sections: services; collection and content; interface and infrastructure; and organizational structure. Each of these sections was to include a brief opening statement of philosophy followed by benchmarks, standards, and action items. To begin the writing process committee members teamed up into small groups to work on selected portions of the document. When the initial draft of each section was completed, the information was transmitted to all committee members using file transfers over the Internet. After the sections were revised and edited into their final format, they were consolidated into a single document. Appendices were added in the final stage of the writing process to provide details on the methodology and the results of the focus group and survey research. The appendix also contained a complete listing of the action items and the recommended standards. A brief glossary, a bibliography and a three page executive summary were also included. The majority of the final editing process was accomplished during numerous conference calls. The completed version of the planning document was saved to a disk and given to a library administrative assistant for final formatting and binding.

Presenting the document
Each of the USF Library Directors was presented with a bound copy of the planning document in early July 1996. In September the Library Directors met with the entire Virtual Library Planning Committee for a discussion of issues relating to the project. The Directors were very supportive of the document and gave their approval to begin implementation of the plan.

The first step: The Electronic Collections Team
The Library Directors felt that a first step in the implementation of the virtual library was to begin an organized examination of various electronic resources that might be appropriate for the virtual library collection. An Electronic Collection Team (ECT) was established with representation from all participating libraries. Because the addition of new electronic resources would impact all areas of the library, representatives from public services, technical services and library systems were included on the team. The group decided to set up weekly conference calls to communicate ongoing progress and a working web site was constructed to provide easy access to documents related to the ECT. An initial task was to construct an evaluation form that would provide standardized, essential details related to a proposed electronic resource. Among other things, the form includes vendor contact information, a description of the product, how the product relates to existing print resources, the projected impact on staffing, the availability of demonstration sites, and preliminary pricing information. The initial list of resources for examination were selected by group consensus with each team member responsible for completing the evaluation form for a selected resource. Once an evaluation is completed, the remaining team members examine the resource and decide whether to recommend the product.

The logistics of the recommendation process proved somewhat complicated since recommended resources require approval from the USF Collection Management Committee and from the USF Library Directors prior to subscribing to a new resource. With that in mind, another early project for the ECT was the development of an electronic collection development policy and a procedures statement for the process.

The process has been refined as new concerns arise. It quickly became apparent that the ECT could not function efficiently without the full implementation of the virtual library project. Major concerns included the need for a project manager to represent and coordinate work related to the project. A common interface was also of critical concern so that resources could be mounted, organized and easily accessed by patrons at all the campuses. In addition, training and marketing was needed for each of the new electronic resources.

The Project Manager
The Library Directors agreed that it was imperative that a project manager be named to coordinate the implementation of the project. The Head of Reference at the Tampa Campus Library and the former chair of the Virtual Library Planning Committee was their first choice for this position based upon her knowledge of the process in preparing this document , her knowledge of the structure of the USF Libraries, and her knowledge of the state university system Because this is a full-time position, some time was needed to resolve issues relating to the appointment of an interim department head. She began her duties as the project manager in February 1997.

The Virtual Library Implementation Team
To provide consistency throughout the project, the seven Committee members from the USF Libraries were re-convened in February 1997 as the Virtual Library Implementation Team. An eighth member was added to the team to provide representation from technical services. This group will be working with the Project Manager to make recommendations to the Library Directors on various issues relating to the implementation of the project. One of the first tasks of the team was to analyze what specialized teams, in addition to the Electronic Collections Team, would be required. In addition, the group has been examining the hardware, software and staffing that will be necessary to begin to develop the interface.

One of the strongest recommendations in the planning document was the need for better communication and staff development throughout the library system. With that in mind, the implementation team developed a brief presentation to provide information on the virtual library project to the rest of the USF Libraries staff. This Powerpoint presentation demonstrates examples of existing virtual library projects at other universities and summarizes what the USF Virtual Library project hopes to accomplish. The presentation will include time for questions from the library staff.

CITATION: Metz-Wiseman, Monica; Grohs, Kim; Hanson, Ardis; Neville, Tina, and Ed Sanchez (1996). A Blueprint for Development: The USF Libraries Virtual Library Project. Poster session presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Annual Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee, April 1997. [http://www.fmhi.usf.edu/library/projects/acrl/usfview.html

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