Important Considerations and Library Readiness Measures • Maine InfoNet

Important Considerations

1) Overall Member Participation Requirements

All members must:

continue to maintain regular collection development and acquisitions to ensure that the library has resources to share with other members of Minerva. Joining Minerva is not a substitue for local collection development and acquisition budgeting.
appoint an official representative to the MINERVA Users Council to attend full Users Council meetings and who is empowered to vote on behalf of their library.
require at least one staff member to participate in each Minerva-L, MinervaCats, and MinervaCirc email discussion lists.
appoint staff to attend on a regular basis the Circulation and Cataloger’s Users Group meetings.
train a staff member in the use of Minerva statistical reports.

2) Cataloging Considerations:

All members must:

send staff to, or view DVD of, at least 3 Catalogers’ User Group meetings per year.
have at least one staff member who is capable of identifying acceptable catalog records before loading records into the shared catalog.
operate under the level of cataloging permissions granted by Minerva, dependent upon a staff person’s knowledge, skills, and ability
adhere to a formal manual of cataloging guidelines developed by the Cataloging Standards Committee.
have at least one member who is responsible for monitoring the MinervaCats email discussion list and implementing any new standards posted there by the Cataloging Standards Committee.
adhere to Minerva standards for old and new records and agree that all incomplete records containing only author and title will be suppressed in the OPAC.

3) Circulation Considerations:

All members must:

observe full participation in Minerva’s open-lending policy.
ensure timely processing of all intra-Minerva borrowing requests
adhere to Minerva (system-wide) borrowing policies rather than local policies in cases of conflict.
pay for at least one day of delivery van service per week.
send staff to the Circulation Users Group meetings. These meetings will also be available to view on DVD and distributed via the van delivery system.
have at least one member who is responsible for monitoring the MinervaCirc email discussion list and implementing any new standards posted there by the Circulation Standards Committee.
use codabar 14-digit barcode for materials and patrons

Library Readiness Measures

General Readiness

The following is a suggested list of measures that might indicate if your library is ready to become a fully participating member of Minerva.

Regular, permanent paid staff with a least one member comfortable and committed to establishing an automated library with some experience with automated integrated library systems.
Regular, permanent staff with a comfort level and basic understanding of cataloging procedures and the need for standards critical to a shared environment with different library types.
A history of stable budgets with the necessary funds in place for first year dues, start up costs, and yearly renewal.
Records of your holdings in an automated catalog. If not, you must be financially able to undertake the cost and effort of retrospective conversion of the collection so that it meets Minerva cataloging standards prior to joining.
Willingness and ability to create and maintain a current database of patrons.

Technical Readiness

All applicant libraries must have or be willing to obtain all necessary local hardware sufficient to run the Innovative Interfaces Sierra software utilized by Minerva and Internet access with sufficient bandwidth to support the Minerva applications.

Internet connection: A standard MSLN connection is sufficient
Public access catalogs: A sufficient number of public access catalog computers that run a current web browser.
Staff workstation computers: A sufficient number of circulation and staff-use computers. All staff computers should meet the system recommendations for running the Sierra software.
Electronic bibliographic records: Migration-ready bibliographic records in electronic form and available in MARC format. Most libraries should expect to purchase migration and record enhancement services from an approved vendor.
Barcodes: Item and patron barcodes must follow the 14-digit codabar convention and the current MaineCat Barcodes Registry suggested format.
If current item barcodes do not follow the 14-digit codabar convention, the library must convert its collection to meet the standard.

Financial Considerations
Joining Minerva will impact a library’s budget in a number of ways. Due consideration should be given to the following areas that will impact the library’s budget.