Meeting Minutes

Maine State Library Studio

Meeting called to order at: 10:00 am by Steve Norman.

In attendance were board members: Kevin Davis, Janet Blood by phone, Steve Norman, Karen LaForgia, Liz Doucett, Shelly Davis, Jay Scherma, Martha Ott, and Cindy White. Also attending were: Alisia Revitt, James Jackson Sanborn and Venice Bayrd, Maine InfoNet; Cyndi Burne, Topsham Public Library and Circulation Standards Committee chair; and Susan Preece, Topsham Public Library.

Minutes of the October 14, 2009 Meeting were accepted.

Reports

• Maine InfoNet Representative – no report, Judy not present.
• Maine InfoNet CEO – James reported on staff. Venice Bayrd is newly on board – from Longwood Gardens, PA. There is an open library support specialist position – applications are being reviewed. Telephone screenings are contemplated with 1-2 interviews in early February. This will bring us back to full staffing. We still have an intern into the spring semester – she is a URI MLS candidate. Nelson is participating in load profile training in PA. Maine InfoNet is taking over space next door. We have a contract with Serials Solutions for Summons WebSource Discovery (federated search tool) which will be in place in a few months. Audiobooks – renewals and new applications are due by Feb. 15. Cost is the same as last year. (For new libraries there is a $300.00 one-time fee). The SSL issue: the company we had to sign SSL certificates messed up, and Mozilla is being sticky. We will switch vendors (must pay). In the meantime, SSL is turned off so transactions are currently non-encrypted.
• Minerva Technical – Alisia reported that the recent hard crash of the Minerva server (cause unknown) happened at the same time as the SSL problem. We are still having problems with the secure site access (get rid of the “s” in the url). The only lingering problem with the crash is a few scoping issues with items that were being cataloged at the time of the crash. The Millennium upgrade is scheduled for the 31st – a Sunday. URSUS didn’t have problems. She closed with a reminder to use the ticket system.
• Finance – Jay is trying to get to the bottom of Pembroke issue. Lyrasis is double-checking on their payment. 60 of 62 libraries have paid – not SP Schools and Warren. Marcive billings are now up-to-date.
• Circulation Standards Committee — Cyndi Burne reported that the settle-up documents are in place – out on a Google Docs page –changes can be made as necessary. The $20.00 block and max 15 holds are not yet in place. The circulation standards committee will work on a best practices manual. Settle-up will require a change to standing Minerva policy to allow an owning library to touch another library’s patron record to “collect money”. Kevin made a motion that the circulation standards committee create wording to ensure that the settle-up policy is compatible with Minerva records policy. Karen seconded, and the motion passed unanimously. There is a problem with the cataloging of TV series and multi-volume video sets (it impacts circulation from the patron viewpoint). Jay made a motion that the circulation standards committee investigate the impact of splitting sets on patron use. Liz seconded – she feels there is a major impact on day-to-day operations and public relations. The motion carried unanimously.
• Cataloging Standards Committee – Written report from Carin Dunay. Status code changes have been implemented. The committee is contacting libraries that haven’t attended the required number of cataloging roundtable meetings.
• Statistics—Nothing to report
• Membership—Written report from Pam Turner. The committee is waiting on progress on the revised agreement to participate. The committee is getting ready to send out requests for updated member information

Old Business

• Financial Officer – Still Pam Gormley. Gratitude to Pam expressed. The search for a new financial officer brought forward the major issue of Minerva funds being in a Lyrasis account. Steve, Jay and Linda Lord met with Sarah Forster from the attorney general’s office. Her finding was that Minerva funds need to be moved back to the state’s coffers (there can be a special account set up that can’t be touched by covetous nonlibrarians). There was enabling legislation to set up Maine InfoNet, of which Minerva is a part; therefore funds need to be within the state’s financial system. We will need a bylaws revision. Since the State Library is charged with administration and control of all the finances, the money has to reside within state accounts. It appears that the funds could always have been sequestered. Concerns were expressed about potential tax liability during the interim. Liz made a motion that the Board authorizes Jay and Steve to work with the State Librarian and the Attorney General’s office to move funds where they need to be, and to resolve issues of tax liability and Minerva’s status as a nonprofit. Janet seconded. Susan Preece initiated discussion of Minerva’s place within the changing library landscape – districts, URSUS, Maine InfoNet, etc. There are many ramifications of this ruling – on the memorandum of understanding, etc. How much can the Maine State Library actually delegate in cases where there is specific legislation? Existing agreements need to be examined. The feeling was that these were the bigger, strategic issues – we need to deal with the immediate matter of moving the funds. The motion passed unanimously. James’ perspective was that the MOU from a financial perspective is being negated, but he felt that Minerva will still be able to work in many ways the same. Day-to-day operations will not change– the system under which we operate is the Innovative contract and there is no problem there.
• Nonprofit status – Take it a step at a time. We will watch development of Maine InfoNet’s progress in this area.
• Agreement to Participate – Nancy Crowell, Linda Lord, Steve, and James are ready to go on that. They were waiting on the AG opinion. (And, for the future, we must know where signed agreements are kept!)
• Review Non-Payment Policy – Warren Memorial Library and South Portland Schools haven’t paid and are removing themselves from the consortium. Pembroke’s payment is being checked on. From our perspective, the NELINET/Lyrasis merger was not without challenges.

New Business

• Authorize transfer of Minerva funds to State account—Done
• Implementation of settle-up procedure – Jay made a motion to designate March 1 as implementation day, Cindy seconded, all were in favor and the motion passed. Steve will promptly send a notice out to Directors with an alert and the date of implementation (in case directors need to go to their Boards).
• Posting of minutes and reports –Alisia is posting on the web. She will post draft minutes (Steve will send them to her.) What about attached reports? These will be pasted into the minutes. We will ask people to submit written reports electronically. How much do we keep on the Web? Perhaps we will delay that decision for a while.
• Process for developing policies and implementing changes – How do we develop and implement? The bylaws say there is a requirement for a circulation roundtable – the chair should appoint chairs of the cataloging and circulation roundtables. These entities provide the communication piece. They raise problems, they weigh in, they report back to their libraries. Alisia was appointed chair of the circulation roundtable. Steve will ask Carin if she will act as cataloging roundtable chair (or if she has a suggestion for a suitable chair). How do we flag issues for directors that might affect local policy? The Bylaws imply that if, in the judgment of the board, something is controversial enough, then it then gets punted to the full Users Council. A change in code files, or something similar, should be a guidepost to signal that an alert should be sent out.

Other

• Next meetings – 2nd Wednesdays are still good. Future meetings will be Feb 10, March 10, Apr 14, and May 12 – at 10:00am. Snow dates will be the next Wednesdays

The meeting was adjourned at noon.