Maine InfoNet Board Meetings, December 13, 2006

Agenda

November 6, 2006 1:30pm
Maine State Library Studio, Augusta

Introduction of new School Libraries representative
Approval of November meeting minutes
CEO Report
Continued discussion of Development of New Programs for Maine InfoNet report by Marilyn Lutz:
Update on MIN Federated Search Options
1. Continued discussion of Digital Collections—Phase 2 and 3
2. This post on Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog I found relevant to our current discussion of MIN goals: http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001215.html
Draft communication to all libraries and brochure/website suggestions
Reflections from LITA National Forum: Learning 2.0 idea
Walk-in borrowing: the issues
Other Business

Minutes

(Draft)

Next Meeting Wed. Jan, 31, 2007, 1:30 p.m. Maine State Library

Members Present:; John McManus, Director Millinocket Public Library (via ATM, Bangor Public Library); David Nutty – Director of Libraries at USM; Sue Jagels, Eastern Maine Medical Center Health Science Library Director; Barbara McDade, Director, Bangor Public Library; Clem Guthro, Director Miller Library, Colby College; Richard Thompson, CIO for the State of Maine; Joyce Rumery, Dean of Libraries at UM; Karl Beiser, InfoNet CEO; Gary Nichols, Maine State Librarian; Elizabeth Reiss, Library Supervisor York School Department; Steve Podgajny Director, Portland Public Library Linda Lord (non member – recording secretary); Jon Forest and Deb Hensler were present at the beginning of the meeting to be introduced. Jon, who is filling Karl’s previous position as Library Automation Manager, will be responsible for Solar, Minerva, MaineCat, and Wireless.

Members Absent: Ralph Caruso, CIO University of Maine System; Judy Frost, CMCC

1. Introductions: Elizabeth Reisz was introduced as the school library representative on the Board. The York school system has joined MINERVA and Liz was at the users’ meetings this morning.

2. Minutes from the Nov. 6, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved after a motion from Gary, seconded by Clem.

3. Karl Beiser, Maine InfoNet CEO, presented his report (attached to these minutes) and a copy of Marilyn Lutz’ recommendations which were first distributed last month.

Discussion ensued about the Maine State Library’s pending legislative request, “An Act to Provide Essential Library Resources to all Maine Communities”. This request has five components: (a) public libraries collection development; (b) Delivery System (c) Quality Electronic Publications; (d) Digital Preservation, (e) Regional Reference Collections.
Jonathan Williams and Marilyn Lutz are creating a pilot aggregated search tool named Espresso. It will be a simple-interface search engine initially limited to URSUS bib records, Windows on Maine, Marvel Indexes and Databases and Serial Solutions Data from Fogler Library. If successful, it could later be expanded to include all of MaineCat, records from other digital library collections held at Maine institutions, and open access journals among other resources
Karl envisions a Maine-focused Google database that includes resources about Maine. Joyce asked how Espresso would fit in with this. Karl replied the relationship can be molded many different ways as there are a variety of options. The final one has not been determined. The Board endorsed continued work on Espresso.

4. Continued Discussion of Development of New Programs for Maine InfoNet report by Marilyn Lutz:

A general discussion took place concerning a variety of simple and enhanced Maine InfoNet search options.

Google Books is not a possibility for enhancing searchability of materials in MaineCat because export of the required item-level information is not supported. However, a Google rep has met with Innovative and suggests that this problem may be resolved soon. Karl has also asked about development for a fee and is looking into non-Innovative work-arounds but they are unlikely.

Meanwhile, Serials Solutions’ Article Linker is the missing piece needed to enable use of Google Scholar search functionality. UMS uses Article Linker already. Subscribers pay for the number of article profiled NOT by the number of users. InfoNet would build on the UMS current subscription. The vendor has quoted a price for additional MARVEL resources. A library user can get from search results to content in one click.

Endeca was also discussed. It makes searches smarter by enabling the user to see and use facets by which results of a search can be progressives narrowed. For instance a search on “mercury” will retrieve materials that pertain to all the meanings of that word. An Endeca-style search might call attention to topics (Mercury as planet, Mercury as mythological god, Mercury as chemical element, mercury specifically used in dental fillings, Freddie Mercury the pop music figure, Mercury Morris the football player, etc.), time period (differentiating old from new scientific publications on the element for instance), physical medium of the material.

Karl suggested that Endeca’s faceted browsing model makes provides “disambiguation” of searches that is easy to understand for the user and easy to use.

A motion to explore funding opportunities for Serials Solution was unanimously approved following a motion to do so by Gary that was seconded by Clem. Karl will find out about future years costs (will there be an increase of 10% per year) and possible connections to MaineCat.
#8 in Karl’s report refers to OAI (Open Archives Initiative) which makes an URL useful to spiders. There is an error in #8 repeated from Marilyn’s report: NELINET is creating a registry, not a repository.
#9: There will be a facilitation meeting Jan. 8 or 9 among Gary, Karl, Arnold Hirshon (facilitator from NELINET) and the Minerva Board to craft an agreement on changes in the relationship of the parties. This might result in a change in members’ cost structures. Minerva might also add staff on their own for additional services. The questions were asked, “Is Minerva a state-wide service or a consortium that is ready to spin off on its own?” “What policies and authority should they have?” 65 libraries currently belong to Minerva based on only two documents: the Users’ Council by-laws and the Agreement to Participate that all members sign.
Key question: What is the role of the InfoNet Board in all this? Much discussion ensued. Dick Thompson reminded the Board to focus on actual concerns in all discussions surrounding these issues and not to be lured into “what if’s” and “potentials”.
A caveat: “Independence might impact state contracts for Minerva.
OCLC was explained. OCLC is now creating content out or records. Research development is an important component of their work, e.g. World Cat.
#10 Karl’s report: Google has been soliciting us. Not all information in MaineCat can be exported to Google. OCLC route may be the way to go. Karl is meeting with an OCLC rep tomorrow. Cost will be critical. The database in MaineCat is structured differently (drill down through paths) than Minerva. All other Inn-Reach systems find themselves in the same position at present if they include at least one consortial system as a member. Clem asked if Karl could ask libraries to export records locally every 6 months or so in order for us to be connected to Google.
#4 from Karl’s report was skipped over.

5. Lorcan Dempsey is V.P. of research at OCLC. David shared information from his weblog about Resource Sharing and is reassured that Maine reflects the current thinking about these issues. A last copy center was discussed. David mentioned that one cost study indicated it costs $10 per book to pull it off the shelf and move it to storage.

6. Draft Communication to all Maine Libraries and brochure/website suggestions: These reflect one of the InfoNet Board goals which is to communicate with every library in the state about goals, identity, etc. Sue J. spoke of the necessity to make sure that recipients will understand the terminology used in the letter, e.g. “federated searching”. A draft brochure was also reviewed. Changes will include adding the InfoNet URL to the cover and changing the logo. The phrase “Statewide Digital Services” will be omitted from the front of the brochure. These will be mailed to libraries in the State early in January 2007. Karl did a MARVEL! display at the Center for Disease Control conference in Augusta which was attended by approximately 100 people. It was suggested that the content of the web site could be fleshed out and that more “flash” could be added if allowed by state rules and accessibility requirements. David thanks Ellen Wood for the great ballot she prepared for online voting of Board positions. The letter to librarians and the brochure will be added to the InfoNet web site.

7. “Reflections from LITA National Forum” was passed over.

8. Walk-in borrowing: this item was passed over.

9. Other business: The motherboard on Karl’s computer has failed and he is still waiting for a new motherboard after two weeks. Configuring a backup machine, moving backed up data to it and resuming normal operations has involved more delay and frustration than expected.

10. Sue J moved, Joyce seconded and the Board unanimously approved adjournment at 3:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Lord, Recording Secretary

Maine InfoNet Logo

Report to the Maine InfoNet Board
Karl Beiser, Executive Director

December 13, 2006
Maine State Library

1. Jon Forest is Library Automation Manager. Training taking considerable time over next month.

2. Library legislation will ask for $600,000/yr additional for online electronic resources, $100,000/yr to support digitization of valuable local resources. More funds for delivery.

3. Minerva Authority Control Project proceeds, but slowly

4. Group web calendar for staff, other new communication approaches in the works.

5. Linking Policy Issue

A library subscribes to a database of its own choosing. Sometimes a search returns a journal reference for which no corresponding full text is provided as part of the subscription to that database. The library wishes, in such cases, to be able to automatically link to the full text contained in one of the Marvel resources, when it is available there, using open url linking software it has acquired and installed locally. When it does this, it generally does not, and often cannot, notate specifically that the resource is being provided courtesy of Marvel or Maine InfoNet. Sometimes Marvel staff are asked to intercede in dealing with the Marvel vendors to allow this to happen. As this involves complex and time-consuming issues involving key software to which only the local library has access, it does not seem a productive use of staff time.

We propose to set the policy that libraries may link to Marvel full-text without tagging resources as Marvel-derived, though we encourage sites to give Marvel credit insofar as possible in documentation of their services to their users. We also propose that we grand blanket permission to Marvel vendors to respond to local library linking requests from Maine libraries without intercession of Marvel staff.

6. Pilot: Espresso, A Maine-Focused Google Database, a custom, aggregated index or search engine pilot using, existing hardware and open source software, as a single point of access to Maine collections. We would like to move forward with this plan, particularly as it has little impact on the budget. Note that this is not a federated search engine.

7. Pilot: Google-Scholar interface to Marvel resources

An Open-URL resolver is a pre-requisite for using Google Scholar in the manner we intend. We have a quote of $8906 to add the Marvel resources to the license for Serial Solutions’ Article Linker software currently used by the University of Maine System. The quote expires 12/15/06. Whether we proceed in this pilot depends on whether we can find these funds or identify, install and learn to use some alternative open source Open URL link software. A significant, but not immediately staff time requirement is involved here.

8. NELINET and the Digital Registry

Marilyn looked into this and reports that, NELINET is not creating a repository. It offers search and browse capabilities of New England libraries that have contributed metadata to their harvester. Ultimately they anticipate offering hosting and storage services for local libraries that lack the infrastructure. We can contribute the metadata from the digital collections the University Libraries have created (currently accessed through the Gateway to Digital Collections), once we implement the OAI protocol for each collection…”

9. Minerva Moratorium

At its Dec 13 meeting the Minerva Users Council voted to continue the moratorium on addition of new libraries up to 6 months. In the interim, Minerva representative will meet with Gary Nichols and Karl Beiser to craft an agreement on changes in the relationship of the parties. The meeting is to be facilitated by Arnold Hirshon of NELINET. After an agreement a special Users Council meeting will be convened to consider lifting the moratorium.

10. Google MaineCat outcome

Export of required item location information from MaineCat is not possible currently. Google rep reports upcoming meeting with Innovative. Have asked about development for a fee and am looking into work-arounds, but they are unlikely.

For the Public

For Librarians

Maine InfoNet Board Meetings, December 13, 2006

Agenda

Minutes