Minerva Exec Board 1/26/11

Meeting Minutes

Members present –

@ MSL:  Kevin Davis, Jay Scherma, Steve Norman, Betsy Pohl, Judy Frost, Shelly Davis.  Via PolyCom:  James Jackson Sanborn, Janet Blood, Alisia Revitt

Secretary: Lisa was not present; Shelly volunteered to record the minutes.

Acceptance of Minutes of the December 1, 2010 Meeting: Kevin had not received the minutes in time to send them out before the meeting; they will be reviewed at the next meeting.

 

Reports

Maine InfoNet Representative – Judy

  • The last meeting was held in December.
  • 501(c)(3) status still being pursued
  • A strategic planning “retreat” will be held in the near future.

Maine InfoNet CEO – James

  • A retreat will be held at the end of February; items for discussion include SOLAR (how it should work and function) and the future of MaineCat.
  • Applications are being reviewed for the Library Support Technician position.  Interviews will commence soon.
  • MaineCat migration – A quote is out for the hardware, James is in contact with III to settle on a date.  The migration will result in a full day of downtime, and will happen on a workday (to save on cost.)  Downtime = no searching or requesting in MaineCat.
  • Download Library
    • Increase in use of ebooks (approx. 1900 checkouts in November to 3400 in January) while slight decrease in use of audiobooks (4600 checkouts in November to 4200 in January.)
    • Twenty-two new libraries joining the collaborative in February.
    • Publicity – James was interviewed by MPR and will be by Channel 9 news.
    • Future membership rates – May need to increase slightly, but too soon to tell.  Contract with OverDrive expires at the end of this membership year, with the option to renew.  Some consortia have experienced OverDrive wanting to renegotiate the contract during renewal process which has resulted in increased costs.  Because we are continually adding items and copies to the collection, James does not anticipate this will be an issue for us.
  • Advocacy
    • Statewide meetings regarding advocacy have been held.
    • MSL has a draft report that includes the “value” of MARVEL – The $186,000 spent on a subset of the MARVEL databases,(including ProQuest, MasterFile and Health Source) translates to $3.5 million in value.  The final report is forthcoming.

Minerva Technical – Alisia

  • Alisia is loading records for OverDrive ebooks and Audiobooks into Minerva.  These will be added to the main scopes of all member libraries.  The records do not indicate availability of titles; patrons will have to click through to the Download Library for that information.

Finance – Jay

  • November and December reports were sent for review.  At the end of December, approx. $31,000 of the budget had been expended.  There are some large expenses on the horizon (i.e., III for approx. $30,000.)
  • All members have paid their dues.
  • FY12 – Proposed budget
  • Due to increased costs for delivery and Syndetics, the membership cost will increase from $3750.00 to $3947.00.
  • Steve made a motion to accept the FY12 budget as presented; seconded by Betsy.  Motion carried – all in favor, none opposed.
  • Next step – Present the budget to the membership.

Circulation Standards Committee – Cyndi

  • With the agenda, Kevin sent the latest recommendations on the creation of patron records.
  • Jay made a motion to accept the report; seconded by Betsy.  Motion carried – all in favor, none opposed.
  • The policy is now official and will be sent to the membership.

Cataloging Standards Committee – Carin

  • Recommendations on changes to material types were reviewed.
  • Betsy made a motion to accept the report; seconded by Kevin.  Motion carried – all in favor, none opposed.

Statistics Committee – No report

Membership – No report

 

Old Business

  • Bylaws – No comments/feedback received from the membership; ready for a vote by the membership.  Kevin will work with Lisa on the email voting procedure.  Shelly suggested they get in touch with Martha Ott, previous secretary, for tips.
  • Budget – Discussed as part of Finance report; see above.

 

Items for Continued Discussion

  • Email ILL requests (per Infonet Director’s Summit)
  • The role of the ARRCs
  • Walk in borrowing – logistics / issues
  • Inn-Reach billing
  • To get a conversation started regarding walk-in borrowing, Judy proposed holding a summit of public library directors, the ARRCs, and the MaineState Library to discuss issues and how to move forward.

Other

Billing individual libraries for III add-ons

  • Collections module Auburn Public wants will be paid for by them – both initially and all on-going costs.
  • What should be done about self-checkout licenses held by Auburn, South Portland, Scarborough, and Curtis that may have been rolled into the annual maintenance fee paid equally by all libraries?  Grandfather these folks and charge libraries moving forward?  Ask these libraries to pay a surcharge from this point forward?  Kevin will put out feelers to these folks to see how they feel about the issue.

 

Next meeting

March 9, 2011 (No meeting in February.)

 

1/27/11  sd