Meeting Minutes

Topsham Public Library
Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Meeting called to order by Kevin Davis (Chair, Minerva Executive Board) at 10:10AM.
Acceptance of Minutes from May 25, 2011 Users Council Meeting

Approved with no corrections/amendments.

Agreement to Participate

A committee was put together to revise the ATP. Members include Steve Norman (Chair), Nancy Crowell, Pam Turner, Kevin Davis, James Jackson Sanborn, Linda Lord, Judith Frost and Jay Scherma. The ATP Minerva members signed many years ago has parts that are archaic and obsolete.  In order for new libraries to join Minerva, we need a new, valid ATP that clearly outlines the responsibilities of the MSL and member libraries.
The goal was to have a draft for discussion at today’s meeting.
In the spirit of “due diligence,” Linda Lord asked the State AG’s office to review it; now it has hit a snag…
The committee will be working to address the concerns of the AG’s office with the hope of presenting a draft ATP to the membership at the Spring Users Council meeting.
Kevin Davis is taking the draft ATP to legal counsel at the Maine Municipal Association for feedback on the document from a municipal/public library standpoint.

Reports

Minerva Executive Board – Kevin Davis, Chair

The Board’s recent work has centered on revisions to the bylaws and the ATP.
The frequency of meetings has been reduced to every other month.
There is no school library representative on the Board currently due to lack of availability.  As this is not ideal, the Board is committed to finding ways to involve school libraries in Minerva governance.

Maine InfoNet Director – James Jackson Sanborn

New MARVEL! resource – Ancestry Library.  If any libraries are having issues with access, please contact Tim Pellett.
Download Library
Kindle versions of ebooks now available.  These do function differently than the Adobe versions.  When checking out a Kindle ebook, the patron is taken to Amazon to complete the checkout, which has caused some concern among patrons and librarian regarding privacy.  It should be noted that the patron (not Maine InfoNet) is sharing his/her checkout information with Amazon.
Ebook checkouts have surpassed audiobook checkouts
The grant money has been fully expended.
New and renewal memberships – Renewal invoices coming out soon; expect a $50-$100 increase, which will all go toward purchasing additional content.  Libraries that want to join need to contact James by 12/15.
New scopes have been ordered, mostly for children’s collections and grade levels (schools.)  There will be a “Just Books” scope added as well, which came as a recommendation from the Cataloging Committee.
Mobile interface for Minerva – James is getting price quotes from III and Bowker (Library Thing’s “Library AnyWhere.”)  The URSUS libraries have recently placed an order for Library AnyWhere.
James is working with Linda Lord on the III contract renewal; no changes are expected.
James is not recommending the pursuit of III’s Sierra (currently in beta) at this time for Minerva.  (Neither the URSUS libraries nor any of the standalone III Maine libraries are considering Sierra either…)  What does this mean?
We’ve set a “ticking clock;” the alarm will go off in 3-5 years as III will likely phase out Millennium over time.
James’ “blurry vision” of the future:
We will not be a III library system in 3-5 years.
MaineCat will continue as a concept and a set of services, but will not be tied to III software.
James introduced David Nutty, Director of the USM libraries and Chair of the Maine InfoNet Executive Board.
Minerva is well represented on the MIN Executive Board – Liz Reisz (York Schools) represents school libraries and Judy Frost (CMCC) is the official Minerva representative
The MIN Executive Board is looking closely at the future of libraries in Maine.  A committee has been appointed to look at the infrastructure with a 3-5 year vision.  What does the next generation system need to have/do in order to meet our needs?
Sierra is not the answer; is not the transformative product we need now and into the future.
Looking into OCLC WebScale Management and open source system (Evergreen).
MIN Board has asked URSUS to implement WorldCat Local as an experiment.  James has approached OCLC for a price quote/plan to move all MIN libraries into OCLC…
MIN Board also working on other issues/initiatives: SOLAR, growing MaineCat, governance issues, continuing to offer statewide conferences and workshops, etc.

Maine InfoNet Representative – Judy Frost

After James and David spoke, Judy had nothing additional to share.  She reminded Minerva folks that she is their voice at the Maine InfoNet level and to be sure to communicate concerns/issues to her.

Minerva Technical – Alisia Revitt

Alisia reported that the rampant Millennium outages seem to have gone away since the patch from III was installed in early November.
Minerva will be updated to Millennium 2009 1.1 soon.  URSUS will be updated to this version over the holiday break.  Alisia does not anticipate this update will cause any interruption in service.
At the upcoming “Libraries United” conference, Alisia plans to schedule both circulation and cataloging meetings and offer training sessions on various topics.  If anyone has suggestions for training topics, please let her know.

Delivery

As everyone knows, Dean Corner has retired from the MSL.  Mary Brochu has taken over delivery responsibilities.
The Minerva Executive Board authorized the ordering of additional medium-sized bags (670 for approx. $3000); they should arrive sometime in January.

Finance and Budget

Nikki Maounis, Minerva Treasurer, presented a budget report for July 2011-December 2011 and informed the membership that we are in a healthy state at the moment.
Jay Scherma asked about projections for next year’s membership costs.  Specifics are not known at this time; the cost of the delivery service is the wildcard.

Committee Reports

Circulation

Cyndi reported that a best practices manual has been posted to the listserv, and it includes the policy on patron record creation.

Cataloging

Katherine Morgan reported that the Standards Committee has drafted an eReader policy and is working on a cataloging Web site with PDF handouts.  Also, they have developed procedures for merging audiobook records and have done a survey of cataloging initials (with the goal of ensuring that each person who catalogs has his/her own initials.)

Other

No other business.

Meeting was adjourned at 11:40AM.

Present: Janet Blood (EMCC), Cyndi Burne (Topsham Public Library), Ellen Conway (Falmouth Public Library), Kevin Davis (South Portland Public Library) , Shelly Davis (Saint Joseph’s College), Judith Frost (Central Maine Community College), James Jackson Sanborn (Maine InfoNet), Beth Kane (Norway Memorial Library), Karen LaForgia (UKV Schools), Jennifer Lewis (Augusta School Department), Nikki Maounis (Camden Public Library), Laurie McQuarrie (Bangor Theological Seminary) , Katherine Morgan (Norway Memorial Library), Steve Norman (Belfast Free Library), David Nutty (USM/Maine InfoNet Board), Martha Ott (Kaplan University), Betsy Pohl (Lithgow Public Library), Susan Preece (Topsham Public Library), Liz Reisz (York Schools), Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet), Jim Roy (Maine State Library Outreach), Jay Scherma (Thomas Memorial Library), Cindy Schilling (Wells Public Library), Lyn Sudlow (Falmouth Public Library), Susan Winch (Scarborough Public Library)

Respectfully submitted by Shelly Davis, 12/12/11.