Meeting Minutes

Wednesday December 14, 2005 – 10:00a.m. To 12:30

Maine State Library Studio, Augusta, ME, via ATM Gorham High School, Sanford High School and Bangor Public Library

In attendance:

MSL: John Clark, Chris Eames, Rebecca Francis, Brian Usher, Melora Norman, Bonnie Collins, Peggy Malley, Karl Aromaa, Linda McConnell, Lynda Sudlow, Rick Speer, Pat Brunell, Barbara Harness, Judith Frost, Ann Siekman, Cora Damon, Pam Gormley, Anne Phillips, Janet Bolduc, Linda Lord, Gary Nichols, Susan Beane, Cindy Mitchell, Stephen LaRochelle, Nikki Maounis, Marian Peterson, Vicky Smith, Martha Ott, Betsy Pohl, Karl Beiser, Amy Averre, Linda Bills, Sarah Sugden, Dean Corner, Jay Scherma and Melanie Taylor Coombs.

Gorham High School: Emily Graham, Carin Dunay, Priscilla Payne, and Jessica Thomas.

Sanford High School: Melissa Rivers.

Bangor Public Library: Debbie Lozito, Candy Emlen, Karen Reilly, Laurie McQuarrie, Nancy Howland, Julie Russell, Anne Romans and Sue Jagels.

Review and approve minutes from the last meeting, June 15, 2005

The minutes from June 15, 2005 were approved as written.

Reports

MINERVA update on Title Priority Paging (Karl Beiser)

Title Priority Paging was implemented last Thursday on December 8th and immediately had problems. 3-4 libraries were unable to print, 8-9 libraries lost the ability to print other notices like overdues, bills and holds, and 75-80% of Minerva sites have 50% fewer requests than they normally do, and the rest of the libraries are fine. Karl assured us he and Innovative are pursuing this intensely. He will be able to fine-tune the system after the other problems are resolved.

Finance Committee report (Cora Damon)

The Finance Committee obtained quotes for Syndetic Solutions from Bowker and Content Café from Brodart content enhancement software. After evaluating each, they selected Syndetics. They decided to get the entire suite of services at $14,900.00 per year. A sample of what we will be getting can be viewed by looking at Portland Public Library’s card catalog at http://www.portlandlibrary.com/ The subscription covers some AV formats that they are adding to all the time, but it is very limited due to their primary focus being on books. An announcement will go out to Minerva libraries when it is up. All other issues were tabled until after Linda’s report was out.

Borrowing/Lending Committee report (Martha)

The committee submitted a written report of the issues they are working on. The first dealt with enabling Title Priority Paging. The committee recommended the software be enabled (which it was on Dec. 8th ) and that patron designated pick-up locations NOT be enabled.
Patrons who are “working” the system (i.e. people ILLing items and keeping them well past their due dates then return them with no penalty and keep requesting things.) The committee moved that Minerva libraries institute system-wide automatic requesting blocks on patrons who have at least one item that has reached the third overdue notice level. The motion was accepted with the friendly amendment that the word ” billed ” replace “third overdue notice” since everyone is doing different things with their notices.
Some audio books are circulating for three weeks while others only circulate for one week. The problem seems to be in the way they are coded. Karl will build a list of those materials that are miscoded and librarians will be asked to check their own items before a global change is done.
Great settling-up. Still a work in progress.
The committee is also working on creating a borrowing and lending web site where all ILL information can be accessed.

Statistics Committee report

Judith Frost said this committee was waiting for Linda’s final report before they did anything further. They were hoping the report would give them more direction.

PR/Education Committee report

The committee has not met recently and did not submit a report.

Old Business

There was no old business discussed.

New Business – Linda Bills’ report and recommendations

Betsy Pohl gave a quick review of how we got to the point of having a finished evaluation from Linda.
Gary Nichols then said a few words about where we stand with the state library. Gary congratulated Linda on her brilliant report. He supports our effort to be independent and be more autonomous. He wants to be constructive and move forward with us. He said he will continue to give us staffing support, counseling and contractual advice, and make sure finance handling is clear as we move forward. He suggested we work slowly and deliberately over the next year and take into consideration the collaborations we have with other entities that we worked so hard to achieve. He urged us to include the new CEO of InfoNet when they come aboard possibly in March in our restructuring efforts.
Linda then thanked Gary for his support and encouraging words. She said the report essentially came from us, as we are the experts in Minerva. Now what is the process for reaching the next stage? One problem for governance is that our bi-laws say we make decisions one way, but we have grown from there and are making decisions another way. The state owns the III software license so that fact was critical when the bi-laws were drafted. The critical question that needs to be answered is what do we want to look like as an organization? The ambiguous relationship with MSL needs to be dealt with. A suggestion was made that this issue goes to the Executive Committee and they come up with options for the different directions we could go in. It was also pointed out that growth be addressed in tandem with this issue and that we need a hiatus from adding new libraries in order to deal with it properly. Karl said there are 4 or 5 libraries that are in the pipeline in various stages of joining Minerva. He would like to draw the hiatus line after them. These libraries will need to be told there are changes coming and they need to have the choice of continuing to join or hold back until the changes are made. Moving away from MSL would be more expensive for us because the support from MSL and UMaine might not be there and we would need to negotiate for a combination of support that made sense to us. We will need to envision what we want our end product to look like and then build a stable organization along the way. This needs to be kept in the forefront and all players come to the contract with agenda’s clear. Linda observed we now have tension between our public and private enterprises as well as people who feel they can cope with the system from the beginning and people who feel pushed around by the software. A motion was proposed that we take A hiatus on adding or soliciting new libraries not already in the pipeline to join that will be in effect so we can work on our structure. Someone from the Executive Committee will meet with the incoming libraries to discuss our status and let them decide if they would still like to join. A copy of Linda’s report will be given to them as well. The hiatus will be in effect for one year at which point we will evaluate where we are in the process and vote to either end the hiatus or continue it if our work is not done.The motion carried.
How do we come to a consensus for how we envision ourselves and what needs to happen to get us to that point? What do we want to look like in 10 years? During this process, we should be sure to communicate with each other continuously and thoroughly. Who might be involved in this process? Our users could be surveyed; our trustee’s involved somehow, maybe the district consultants? The new InfoNet CEO? The Executive Committee? How will these people be chosen? Betsy suggested that every library needs to participate. Maybe an outside facilitator could help with these sessions. We will need to appropriate money for that. How can we get libraries involved that are too small, too far away or too short staffed to participate? Maybe we could look at alternate meeting structures to make sure we get input from everyone. The Executive Committee will structure the work of gathering regional input to get a sense of what it is we need to tackle however they choose. A motion was made to have the matter of planning the plan referred to the Executive Committee. They should choose an ad hoc committee to define issues of government and define the process where issues can be dealt with in a retreat format. They should define if a facilitator will be necessary and how much it will cost. They should be allowed to use the reserve funds to seek advice or other legal council and bring back their findings to the full user’s council in four months. Gary mentioned that Nelinet did a fine job with preliminary work for the InfoNet report. The motion was amended to include that the group should also contact Nelinet to make them a part of the process . The motion passed.