Summary of Project Team Meeting, November 13, 2013

Maine Shared Collections Strategy Project Team

November 13, 2013

Fogler Library Conference Room

1:00 – 3:00 PM

Attendees: Sara Amato (called in), Clem Guthro, James Jackson Sanborn, Barbara McDade, Matthew Revitt, Deb Rollins

1.    Project Updates

a.    Collection Analysis

i.    Retention Scenario Two – review usage count charts from SCS & plan for 11/18 Collection Development Committee meeting

There had been discussions at the October 8th Collection Development Committee and October 10th Project Team meetings about how usage might be used to decide how many title-holdings of a Committed To Retain title-set should be retained across the MSCS group. Based on these discussions Matthew asked Andy Breeding from Sustainable Collection Service (SCS) to send aggregate circulation for title-sets.

After reviewing the resulting graphs and charts, Matthew and Deb felt that the ranges of circulation for example “10 or fewer”, “20 or fewer’… would have made it difficult to apply rules because there was overlap in the ranges. For example, some title-sets in the “20 or fewer” would also be in the “10 or fewer” range. Matthew and Deb spoke to Andy Breeding (SCS) about what MSCS had in mind for the type of usage charts and graphs that might help in the analysis and asked him to produce a new version with data for average usages per title-set in mutually exclusive ranges. Matthew and Deb hope that MSCS could make a decision, for example:

●    Any title-sets with an average of 1-3 circulations MSCS will CTR two title-holding across the group (exactly two, no minimum or maximum, which really doesn’t work for MSCS). But title-sets with high circulation for example, an average of 10-15 circulation MSCS will CTR three title-holdings.

●    Using the date of last circulation MSCS may want to breakdown the highest average circulation ranges further and say “if the latest last date of a title-set circulation is over x years ago, could retain two instead of three title-holdings”.

Matthew has circulated the charts to the Collection Development Committee for comment, but has not received any responses which he hopes means that the Committee feel they will be useful, but he is aware that not everyone will have had the chance to review the charts and that those who had might have found them somewhat confusing (as he and Deb had found initially). Matthew hopes the charts could be used to make decisions and that additional charts would not be required because that would only serve to delay the analysis.

Clem commented that he could see how the second set of charts with average usages could help in the analysis, but not the first set with aggregate circulations.

ii.    Journal analysis update – update on CTR lists received & plan for 11/18 Collection Development Committee meeting

The deadline for Collection Development Committee members having their filtered “NotInVendorSetsOCLCunder50” spreadsheets done is November 18th (in time for their meeting). The filtered list should ONLY include those serial titles they wish to Commit To Retain (CTR).

Matthew has sent a couple of reminders about the November 18th deadline and intends to send another one with the agenda for the Monday November 18th Committee meeting. Matthew commented that there are probably going to be questions about the lists at Monday’s meeting.

So far, Deb has completed her lists for UMaine and sent them to Sara. Becky Albitz has submitted Bates’ CTR list for the local protected serials list and Christy Coombs has submitted a spreadsheet with Bangor’s CTR for the “NotInVendorSetsOCLCunder50″. Sara reported that Becky Albitiz is also looking at Colby’s titles (in a review file) because Toni is tied up with the preparations for the shared Colby, Bates & Bowdoin catalog.

Matthew commented that the Committee had originally agreed that anything on the protected list will receive a CTR, but both Becky’s and Deb’s analysis have shown that some titles should not receive a CTR. For example, some titles (for example newspapers) already had existing short-term retention policies which trump the MSCS policy.

The Project Team agreed that Matthew should remind the Committee to also review their ‘Protected” category title list (in addition to the “NotInVendorSetsOCLCunder50” spreadsheets) to ensure there are no issues with the titles the titles they are committing to retain. If no objections are raised then Sara will go ahead and add commitments on the titles in the list.

iii.    OCLC WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool – report on meeting with Kathryn Harnish & Sara Randall at Charleston

Matthew reported that because he had not received a response from Meghan Hopkins (OCLC) about MSCS’s deferred access to the OCLC WorldCat Collection Evaluation tool he had contacted Kathryn Harnish directly. Kathryn confirmed Clem’s suspicions that Meghan had left OCLC and apologized for not being in contact. Kathryn asked Matthew if he could meet at Charleston, so he contacted MSCS representatives who were there to see if they could meet with her. Clem and Becky agreed to meet with Kathryn Harnish and Sara Randall (Meghan’s replacement as program manager) to discuss the progress of the group functionality and MSCS deferred access. Mathew was particularly interested in knowing if MSCS could use the tool to compare MSCS holdings against those of new Maine Shared Collections Cooperative (MSCC) members because considering that MSCS is due to end in May its use for MSCS libraries will be somewhat limited.

Clem reported that based on the meeting it is clear that OCLC have made progress with the tool, but that it is still not ready for MSCS to use. Clem confirmed that Kathryn had been receptive to the idea of MSCS using the tool to bring in other libraries for MSCC and compare their collections against the holding of MSCS. Matthew commented that he had hoped this would possible and was pleased it had been discussed at the meeting.

Deb commented that the official note taker (for “Against the Grain”) at her Charleston presentation was from a Maine library (Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick?) and that she was going to discuss MSCS/MSCC with her director. Clem commented that Curtis Memorial and Camden public libraries were both possible candidates for the first wave of new MSCC member. Deb went on to report that she and Becky and met with Kathryn Harnish after their presentation and they had discussed possible uses of the Collection Evaluation tool. Matthew will ask Becky (who had taken notes) for her thoughts on the meeting at Monday’s Committee meeting.

iv.    Access to SCS database

Nothing to report.

b.    Loading & display of retention information in catalogs

i.    Outcomes from 11/6 Technical Services Committee meeting

The MSCS Technical Services Committee met (virtually) on November 6th. Sara updated the Committee on the status of loading Retention Scenario Step One retention commitments and that MSCS were near the one million mark (which has since been reached) Sara also updated the Committee on the display of the retention message in partner library OPACs.

Sara reported that the Committee had agreed that although OCLC Shared Print symbols are set as non-suppliers, shared print monographs will also be coded in the local holdings record (LHR) field 008, as having the lending policy of “Will not lend”, because this can be batch loaded the Committee felt that should policies change in the future it can be easily reversed.

The Committee also discussed that because holdings for serials will need to be individually encoded for those titles that do not already have closed holdings in the record disclosing commitments for journals/serials will be more labor intensive. Sara commented that the numbers of titles with open holdings are low enough that it shouldn’t be too time consuming.

ii.    Local Catalog – single copy & multi-item loading updates & public display

Sara reported that except for Portland and Bangor public libraries which still need their multi-copy and multi-volume sets commitments completed the Retention Scenario Step One retention commitment loads (including reversals) are now complete.

Matthew commented that because of the proposed CBB catalog merger Sara had been working to a tighter deadline than originally anticipated to get the commitments complete, which has led to delays in the Print-On-Demand and Ebook-On-Demand work (see below).

Sara and Albie Dunn (Maine InfoNet) have loaded the MSCS retention statements into the URSUS OPAC. Matthew sent a message on the URSUS listserv letting libraries know that they were going to see the message in the records of MSCS libraries and what the retention statement meant.

Deb commented that she had received multiple emails from UMaine Fogler Library staff with questions about missing, paid damaged items. Deb has created a review file with example problems/issues with specific titles where it is not actually appropriate to keep the book or the record despite the MSCC designation. Deb wants to amass a number of examples so the MSCC Collections and Operations Committee (to be formed) can make bulk policy decisions later on about whether replacements are required. Deb gave an example of a title where the exact edition of the book is public domain in HathiTrust. Deb felt that in this situation UMaine should not be expected to replace the print copy. Barbara commented that at Bangor Public Library they had already identified some hardback titles in poor physical condition which they wouldn’t want to replace. Clem commented that it is the intellectual property not the format that MSCS libraries are CTR. Matthew responded that Becky at Bates had also reported that although she is happy for Bates to CTR the titles they currently hold she did not want to be expected to replace the titles. Matthew will raise the replacement issue at Monday’s Collection Development Committee meeting.

Sara has been discussing with Portland Public Library the process for implementing the display in their OPAC. CBB are waiting for their merged catalog to go live before they work on the display.

iii.    OCLC WorldCat – batch loading LHRs & recording multiple copy works

Sara reported that she has been going back and forth with questions and examples with her OCLC batch loading contact and that UMaine’s should be out this week. Clem asked when the commitments would be visible. Sara responded that she is not sure when they will be publically viewable, but she hopes it will be soon and that the commitments will then show up in MaineCat.

iv.    MaineCat

No progress, as dependent on commitments being loaded first into OCLC (see above).

c.    HathiTrust/Google Books

i.    Loading records into SOLAR & displaying links in MaineCat – loading update

Sara reported that she had been working on the load table for HathiTrust records which involved consulting with Alisia Revitt (Maine InfoNet). Sara hopes to complete this work within the next two weeks.

Matthew asked Sara and James if they had anything to report on hiding the URLs of the HathiTrust and Google Books links in MaineCat records. James responded that he thought this work had already been completed by Albie Dunn (Maine InfoNet), but it appeared in the test record they were still visible. James contacted Albie during the meeting and asked him to suppress the URL in the staging server. Albie used a Web Option in Millennium called “DISPLAY_856” where you can set which subfields display and whether or not the link should open in a new window. If the DISPLAY_856 Web Option is undefined, the URL displays. MaineCat is now set to “DISPLAY_856=3z|False” (i.e. First choice = subfield 3; second choice = subfield z; link opens in the same window). This means the links are now hidden.

ii.    Custom collections

Nothing to report.

iii.    Membership update – Colby completion & continued delays with UMaine Shibboleth installation

Clem confirmed the good news that Colby is now officially a partner of the HathiTrust have gone live and that he is working on a press release to announce the news. Clem commented that from a user perspective the partner login was very easy. Matthew responded that it would be useful if Clem could show how login works at next week’s MSCS meetings.

Clem and Matthew thanked Sara for her work on this, retrieving the required records for HathiTrust from both Colby and UMaine.

UMaine are further behind in the process because of the continued delays in getting Shibboleth installed. James reported that he met with John Grover from UMaine IT who had explained that the delays were caused by debates with them and the consulting firm Glu (who were responsible for installing Shibboleth) about where the data should reside. Those issues have now been resolved and November 22nd, 2013 has been scheduled as the go-live date.

Deb wants to wait until Shibboleth is enabled before UMaine formally becomes a partner, which Matthew commented is understandable because until Shibboleth is installed UMaine users won’t receive any partner access services. Deb commented that if the installation was delayed any further she would have concerns about MSCS being able fulfill its matching funds requirement of $26,000. James agreed to keep the Project Team updated on the progress of the installation.

d.    Print On Demand

i.    Implementation of links & form in MaineCat

Sara presented a draft POD request form. Sara asked James where the form should live so that she can add links to it; she assumed it would be Maine InfoNet somewhere, or on the MSCS website if needed. James responded that he had no preference which installation of WordPress it went on (either Maine InfoNet or MSCS), but he will check with Albie Dunn (Maine InfoNet) about the links. Sara commented that ideally the form should be consistent with the display of MaineCat.

A discussion then ensued regarding whether before (or during) a POD request is submitted an automatic search MaineCat could be generated for existing print copies which informs a requestor that there are existing hard copies available at MaineCat libraries and when there isn’t a hard copy the POD request form should appear. The consensus was that a user probably wouldn’t want to request a POD copy anyway if they knew they could borrow a copy from a MaineCat library. Sara was concerned that they might not be a clean way of knowing you got a hit with a search.

James asked what about requestors from non-MaineCat library users–could they still get a POD copy if it’s available in MaineCat. He went on to say that perhaps a simpler solution is that once a request is made Deb searches in MaineCat whether a hard copy exists. Clem responded that this would still be a complicated process because Deb and Greg Curtis (Interim head of ILL at UMaine Fogler Library) would lose the connection of who the requestor is.

Clem asked Sara whether OCLC numbers could be used as a match point to search for print copies. Sara responded that this was not perfect as HathiTrust MARC record equivalents of hard copies were often assigned new numbers (different to that of the hard copy), so the numbers wouldn’t be of much use.

Matthew commented that rather than wait until a search for hard copies is complete the form (with minor tweaks to content and design) should go-live ASAP so MSCS has sufficient time for testing. He went on that it might be interesting to report on those requests where a physical paper copy already exists. Matthew asked Sara when she thought she would be ready to go-live. Sara responded that she needs to speak to Albie about getting links up and make some tweaks to get the process right, but that the records are ready to go. Matthew responded that it would be good to be to show the service in action at the November 21st MSCS Directors’ Council the POD service in action, even if it was only a few test examples to present. Sara will attempt to have this work completed by November 21st.

e.    Advisory Board

i.    Review MR draft of update report

Matthew had circulated prior to the meeting a draft copy of the six month update report for the MSCS Advisory Board which is due by the end of November. Some Project Team members had already made suggestions, but as this meeting was the only chance before the report was due he thought it might be useful to hear any general comments/suggestions. Matthew commented that obviously it is a lot longer than previous reports, but he thought it was a good thing because it reflects the significant progress MSCS have made.

Matthew will use this report as the basis for the IMLS performance report (which is due by the end of the year), but it will need condensing as it should only be 3-4 pages.

f.    Budget

i.    Grant extension request update

MSCS submitted a grant extension request to IMLS in September via UMaine’s Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (ORSP). Because Deb and Matthew hadn’t heard anything from either ORSP or IMLS Matthew sent a reminder to his contact at ORSP who in turn sent a reminder to MSCS’s new grant officer at IMLS Kathy Mitchell, but so far he haven’t received a response.

Deb reported that she had received a response from IMLS (on Monday 11th November) and apologized for not forwarding it to Matthew, but she will do so following the meeting. The response included details of what additional information IMLS required.

Matthew will review the IMLS response and inform the Project Team of what action is required.

ii.    Budget vs. actual spending update

Matthew reported that MSCS continue to underspend grant funds. Although (as predicated) Sara’s billing has increased, MSCS still have $56,242.50 remaining for the seven months of the grant, which is unlikely to be spent at Sara’s current billing levels. Matthew commented that if MSCS do get the extension there will still be available funds to pay Sara.

Not including the money MSCS have left over for Sara and predicted expenditure (which Matthew presented), MSCS have $36,081.56 remaining between now and May 2014. If MSCS were to get the extension it would have $12,906.50 after extracting Matthew’s salary and benefits for the extra three months. However, Matthew reported that in actuality MSCS would probably have more funds than this because of funds remaining from Sara’s work and from the period when Valerie left and Matthew started as Program Manager.

Matthew commented that should MSCS get the necessary approvals there will be sufficient funds for both a national and regional event.

iii.    National end of project event planning – feedback from CRL re. PAN

Since the last Project Team meeting Matthew spoke with Marie Waltz (CRL) who co-organizes PAN about the idea of MSCS co-organizing a full-day PAN session. Matthew reported that Marie was very positive about the event, but she wanted to avoid having vendors take over the show, but once he explained what MSCS had mind for the panel and the names of some of the potential vendors (SCS, OCLC, III, etc.) she seemed to be more OK with it. Clem commented that if SCS and OCLC were invited then Serial Solutions should be as well.

Marie intended to speak with Amy Wood and Bernie Reilly at CRL (who Matthew included in his original message about the session) and let Matthew know their thoughts. Because Matthew knew he was going to be reporting on this at today’s meeting and next week’s meetings he sent a reminder to Marie and is awaiting a response.

Matthew presented a draft prospectus for the session (as Bob Kieft requested) with some thoughts on the content of the session, which he asked the Project Team to review. Matthew commented that he wasn’t sure if the intention of the prospectus should be just to attract vendors. Clem responded that although that is a traditional purpose it should function to attract both vendors and attendees.

The Project Team agreed to review the prospectus and get back to Matthew with their thoughts.

g.    MSCC Sustainability

i.    Post-grant activities – review MR sustainability document

Based on the discussions at the last Project Team meeting Matthew produced a document with some ideas regarding the post-grant activities of MSCC. Matthew commented that in some cases, writing this document had raised a lot more questions than it necessarily had answers, but he felt it was a good place to start planning and thinking about some of the issue involved. Matthew hoped the Project Team could agree on the content of the document so it could be presented at the November 22nd Directors’ Council meeting.

The Project Team reviewed some of the comments/questions in the documents:

●    The Project Team are likely to be heavily involved in the MSCC Board of Directors and that because they will be appointed from the Maine InfoNet Board Executive Committee it is likely to be self-selecting and structured in a way to avoid it being dominated by smaller libraries.
●    The Collections and Operational Committee should NOT have representatives from every MSCC library particularly if MSCC grows beyond the original members. Instead, possibly there should be five members representing different library types.
●    How the project manager role will be funded was discussed. One option is that membership fees are used to pay for the costs of the role. Deb commented that she had doubts whether it would be practically possible for members to contribute towards salary & wages. Clem suggested that perhaps Maine InfoNet could act as the fiscal agent, or it could be done through the University of Maine as is done currently for the MSCS Program Manager. Deb commented that there would need to be a legal agreement to ensure libraries keep to the contribution agreement and that it would be something she would need to speak to Susan Clement about, as it would involve paying benefits as well.
●    The Project Team agreed that it is hard to know how many hours the project manager will spend working on MSCC. Clem commented that if MSCC never grew beyond the original partners then possibly it could be a rotating responsibility that is passed on to each library, but if MSCC grew for example, to include an ARRC journals project–a dedicated position would be needed. Deb thought because the hours required is unpredictable it may make more sense for the role to be just be included with the responsibilities of an employee–rather than being a dedicated position. Clem responded that asking directors to find someone who could have the responsibilities added to their role would be a harder sell than asking them to commit funds to pay for a dedicated position because libraries have limited amounts of staff and people’s time is tight. Clem thinks that the position won’t be a permanent one because shared print is going to be the norm as part of regular workflows. Deb commented that she will discuss with Joyce Rumery (Dean of University of Maine Library) the document and MSCC staffing issues.
●    Matthew asked the Project Team to consider what the benefits of joining MSCC will be. Clem responded that for smaller libraries in particular it will be an insurance policy as they know they can discard materials safe in the knowledge that other MSCC libraries are committing to retain them. Libraries could partner with collection builders to ingest material they can no longer retain.
●    Clem commented that membership costs should make sense and reflect library sizes, similarly to the current fee structure of the Download Library (OverDrive).
●    The Project Team agreed that with MSCS funding hopefully being extended to the end of August 2014, it seems likely that most new libraries won’t join MSCC until 2015 (as stated in the MOU).
●    Clem commented that although the document was a good start and touched upon issues of cost it didn’t define a business/financial model to identify who would pay for it. Matthew responded that his intention had been to outline the activities of MSCC first and potential costs, but other than collection analysis (which will be paid for by the member library involved) and the costs of the project manager (see above) he could not identify any other MSCC activities that members would pay for. Matthew asked the Project Team to think about what other activities might be involved and based on this he will look at potential costs and funding models.

The Project Team agreed that Matthew will send the sustainability planning document to the MSCS Directors’ Council to review before their meeting next week, so they have an idea of the Project Team’s thinking.

ii.    MOU requirements for replacing missing or lost items –  obligations of libraries

See above.

h.    Marketing

i.    IFLA presentation paper mentions MSCS

MSCS were included as an example of shared print projects in a 2013 IFLA presentation paper titled “Rethinking Library Resource Sharing: New Models for Collaboration”. The paper was written by Brenda Bailey-Hainer (American Theological Library Association), Anne Beaubien (University of Michigan), Beth Posner (CUNY Graduate Center) & Evan Simpson (Tufts University).

ii.    MSCS included in “Against the Grain” article

MSCS were included in the column “Curating Collective Collections” which appeared in the September 2013 edition of “Against the Grain”. The column includes an update on MSCS activities and specifically the plans to disclose retention commitments in OCLC. The article was co-authored by the WEST program manager Emily Stambaugh and Column Editor Sam Demas.

iii.    Publish through ALCTS

Nothing to report, but the opportunity for producing an article is still there.

2.    Conferences, Events & Meetings

a.    MSCS presentations & reports

i.    NELA Conference, Portland, October 21, 2013 – feedback from MR/DR presentation

Matthew reported that he and Deb’s NELA presentation went well. The attendance could have been better (they were on at the same time as Lee Rainie from PEW research), but they did get good comments and questions.

Matthew has posted the slides and handout on the MSCS website.

ii.    Charleston Conference, November 8, 2013 – feedback from DR/BA presentation

Deb reported that her and Becky Albitz’s presentation went well, but they had expected a higher attendance. They had an interesting question about whether MSCS had conducted an inventory before beginning the process and whether any condition checking had been conducted. Sara commented that similar questions had been asked at her 2013 Timberline Conference presentation. The Project Team agreed that in an ideal world an inventory and condition checking would be completed, but that libraries don’t have the resources, especially when it would involve potentially millions of items.

Becky is going to write the required paper for “Against the Grain”.

Matthew has received the presentation slides from Becky and will upload them on to SlideShare and the MSCS website.

iii.    Potential for IFLA Paper publication

Clem reported that he had spoken with Julia Gelfand from the IFLA Acquisition and Collection Development Committee about MSCS’s paper being published in the IFLA Journal. Julia informed Clem that she will be sending out a message soon about which paper got selected by them to represent the Committee in the Journal. If it is not selected it will be published by Emerald.

iv.    Timberline Conference – MSCS paper

Sara reported that she has been toying with the idea of submitting a paper not necessarily on specifically, but looking at a couple of different ways of conducting collection analysis. Sara felt this type of subject was in keeping with Timberline’s focus on practical solutions. Matthew responded that this sounded like an interesting subject and was something he had been looking at for the Northeast Project (see below).

v.    MSCS representation at ALA Mid-Winter Conference – potential meeting with Marie Waltz & Northeast Journals & Serials Working Group meeting

Matthew requested permission to attend the Print Archive Network session at ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia to discuss with Marie Waltz MSCS plans for the national event, promote the session at the event, and meet with potential contributors. Matthew reported that following PAN there is likely to be a Northeast Journals & Serials meeting. Matthew commented that this would mean he would only actually need to be there on the Friday of the conference.

The Project Team agreed that Matthew should attend the PAN session in Philadelphia.

vi.    WebWise Conference, Baltimore, February 10 – 13, 2014 – MR attendance

Matthew reported that he had booked his travel and hotel for the 2014 WebWise Conference, which be held in Baltimore again in February. IMLS requires that two representatives from MSCS attend the conference. Matthew asked the Project Team to think about whether they want to attend. A discussion then ensued regarding the topics, presenters, and structure of the 2014 conference.

Matthew and Deb (who attended last year’s conference) were pleased to see the pre-conference workshops were now included as part of main conference because they covered interesting subjects.

b.    Northeast Regional Print Management Project – MR update on 10/17 & 11/01 Journals & Serials Working Group meetings

Matthew attended the inaugural Northeast Regional Print Management Project Journals & Serials Working Group meeting on October 10th. The Group is still in the early planning stages. Matthew was given the tasks of looking at what other shared print projects are out there (which he had shared with the Project Team) and the different selection focuses for collection analysis. Matthew commented that the other Group members have been very interested to hear about MSCS’s experiences. The Group has scheduled virtual meetings every 2 weeks and a couple of in-person meetings have been proposed as well. Matthew’s travel costs will be covered by the Five Colleges–not MSCS.

Clem, who as well as being on the Steering Committee is also on the Monographs Working Group, has had a conference call to plan for the monograph strategy.

c.    OCLC shared print webcast, October 15, 2013 – MR feedback

Matthew attended OCLC’s “Collective Insight: Driven by Shared Data” event, “Getting off the Island: Collaborating to Create Boundless Collections.” webcast on October 15th (which can be watched again online). The event was co-organized by MSCS Advisory Board member Bob Kieft.

The first presentation was from an OCLC researcher discussing their evaluations into library user behavior, including use of print and electronic resources.

Bob delivered a thought provoking presentation about collective collection development becoming the norm. He gave a lot of the background about the drivers of shared print and current projects including MSCS.

Emily Stambaugh gave a presentation that, similarly to her “Against the Grain” article, included a revised vision for shared print monographs going beyond the established activities of collection analysis to look at improving discovery and access of materials, going beyond one-off analysis to the decision of “what to retain next?” making collection analysis more routine and at a network level. Some of the plans Emily was talking about MSCS are currently doing: for example, looking a POD & EOD delivery services and comparing collections to holdings of OCLC and HathiTrust.

Clem, who had listened to a repeat of the webcast, agreed that Emily’s presentation was very interesting moving from individual to network shared print activities.

d.    UK National Monograph Strategy Project events

Matthew had circulated information about the UK National Monograph Strategy Project (which is still in its early planning stage) that is looking at problems with monographs that MSCS are very familiar with. Their website includes some interesting visual materials (including presentations). They also have some webinars coming up at the end of the month which Matthew plans on attending.

Clem has met Ben Showers from JISC who is the Programme Manager on the project. Clem commented that if MSCS could get the correct permissions, Ben could be a good potential speaker at the MSCS national event.

Clem reported that Tom Jacobson from Innovative  Interfaces, Inc. had spoken to him about  III expanding their interest in shared print outside the U.S. III have contracted with a Sero Consulting in the UK to produce a white paper on shared print. Owen Stephens from Sero is going to be talking with Clem about this work on November 20th.

3.    Upcoming meetings

a.    November 18, Collection Development Committee Meeting, Miller Library
b.    November 21, Directors’ Council Meeting, Miller Library
c.    December 11, Project Team Meeting, Fogler Library

Matthew reminded the Project Team that the next Project Team meeting is at 8:30 am NOT the regular 2 PM because of the Maine InfoNet roadshow.