Minerva Users Council Executive Board Meeting Minutes
Wednesday September 21, 2005 - 10:00a.m. To Noon
Lithgow Library Meeting Room
In attendance: Amy Averre, Sarah Sugden, Cora Damon, Stephen LaRochelle, Jennifer Lewis, Karl Aaroma, Karl Beiser, and John Clark.
I. Review/approve minutes from last meeting - August 17, 2005
The minutes from August 17, 2005 were approved as written.
II. Reports
A. Minerva update (Karl Beiser)
- Karl spent nearly 2 weeks working on the telecommunications issue where several libraries kept getting dropped in Millennium. MSLN finally isolated the issue to be a router that timed out when traffic levels got to a certain point. This ultimately delayed the authority project and the great settling up.
- Release 2005 update went well. Some features are not turned on yet. Title priority paging will be turned on soon which will help with the marooned holds issues. It might go into effect in early October if we can address some transition issues. Other features like being able to save parameters in notice printing have been turned on.
- Linda Bills got a chance to work with Karl and John on some technical issues.
- Summer clean up is still going on due to some equipment problems. A target date of early October has been set to finish up.
- Witherle Library in Castine is joining, Rice in Kittery is interested and Warrant will be showing up soon. Pittsfield and Ricker are both "nibbling."
- Karl and John think Linda Bills will make a recommendation of pitching a server especially for schools and paid for by the Department of Ed. This also touches upon the broader issue of the growth of Minerva. Is it possible to set up a model of groups of libraries that can sustain themselves financially?
- John suggested we use Yahoo Groups to start up another user support address like we had before the other support list died where people needing help can send a message to one address and either John or Karl can pick it up. It is free, has a searchable archive for the messages and can be moderated by us privately. The new address is sosminerva@yahoogroups.com . People can join with John's approval. All they need to do is send a message to John and he will invite them. There are three ways to be signed up; one where you get all e-mail, a second for digest format and the other is where you just post to it and no e-mail is sent but can be read online.
B. Finance Committee report (Cora Damon)
- Cora presented a quote from each content enhancement company (Syndetics and Content Café) to aid us in our decision of which we should choose to go with. It was agreed that we should give it a month's trial where we can go back to our libraries and get our staff and patron's opinions. Portland Public subscribes to Syndetics and Bangor Public to Content Café and are easily accessed by anyone on the web. Some concerns that were discussed include how they work...one opens a new window, the other frames. Karl is going to contact the people at each of these libraries that maintain the system to see how much technical support is needed and how do new cataloging bib records get attached to the service. Also, how does it load for people with slow Internet connections? Have people try looking at the way they both display information for fiction books as well as non-fiction books. The group was asked to be ready with feedback at our October meeting. A web connection will be arranged with Lithgow before our meeting so we can all discuss it together while viewing it live.
- Karl purchased extra user licenses. They were $1,500 each last time he did it, this time they were $850. He spent only $25,500 instead of the $40,000 allotted, but the committee said to spend the whole $40,000 on them to make sure we had all we needed.
C. Borrowing/Lending Committee report (Martha)
The Borrowing and Lending Committee submitted a written report. They covered:
- Priority paging which they recommend it be enabled.
- There will be more choices when you check in books if there are holds on them. You can choose to fill the hold, don't fill and cancel the hold, don't fill and retain the hold and do not fill and transfer the hold. It was suggested that some wording be developed to educate circulation staff to guide them in what the proper response should be. If they can't fill the hold they should certainly retain the hold so another library can fill it.
- Patron designated pick up locations would be a huge problem for us. The committee recommends against enabling this feature.
Other issues brought up by Minerva librarians:
- Someone had an idea of having a library card presented at checkout so that the person's materials aren't put on the wrong account. The committee feels this is unworkable.
- There are patrons "working" the ILL system. They are reminded they can institute patron blocks at any time to help curb some of this activity.
- Needs to be more readily accessible info on the entire borrowing and lending process. Maybe ILL stuff can be put in one place somehow.
- Books by mail are having difficulty with the 1-week borrowing period on videos, as they are already overdue when the patron gets them. Many libraries do not want their AV out that long. Maybe a sheet explaining the situation to the MSL patrons would help in their understanding.
- Diane Jones can no longer continue on the committee. New member names to ask included Kevin Davis from South Portland Public and Jane Babbitt of Rockport Public.
D. Statistics Committee report (Steve?)
Steve called Brian Damien for ideas, but didn't get a hold of him. Nothing new to report. There was a question about cross tabs reports reporting tables are now too large to display. Karl said he would look into it.
E. Cataloging Standards Committee report
There was no formal report for this committee, but one thing they are addressing is the problem of order records bringing in bad 300 description fields. Some education needs to be done so people know to clean those up.
F. PR/Education Committee report
There was nothing sent from this committee.
III. Old Business
A. Linda Bills
Linda has now completed another week's rounds in Maine . This time she visited with the Lewiston/Auburn area, Waterville area and the Augusta area as well as worked with John and Karl. Her final report will be out in November or December sometime. Maybe we can have her present it at the next semi-annual full user's group meeting in December.
B. Distribution of bags beyond Minerva
Amy will draft an informational announcement that states that mail bags can now be used to send Minerva items to a non-Minerva library. It was felt that this was already happening anyway, and in the long run, it benefits Minerva users by saving packaging time and it a good PR to encourage borrowing and lending.
C. Semi-annual meeting
Someone should e-mail Betsy to see what Linda Bills' schedule is before we set a date. John tentatively set the 2 nd Wednesday in December (the 14 th ) as a day we could meet and Friday 12/16 as a snow day.
IV. New Business
Karl had two issues to bring up:
- Auburn Public Library will be moving to a new building and wants to buy two self checkout machines that each need a SIP2 license. Our software comes with one. The other is $2,500. There was a motion approved that libraries that want to use SIP2 licenses need to pay for them. Auburn will need to pay for both of their licenses.
- Linda Bills suggests that acquisitions and serials would operate more satisfactorily if libraries could operate within their own "accounting unit." They are $10,000 each. The Executive Committee agreed that it should be advertised that people could purchase their own units if they'd like.
- John mentioned at the end of the meeting that when he was visiting in Rockport, a child psychologist gave him many books to give away on child psychology to anyone who could use them. They are in his office if anyone would like them.
V. Confirm meeting dates
Our next meeting will be October 19 from 10-12 at the Lithgow Library meeting room.
Respectfully submitted 9/26/05 by Jennifer Lewis, Secretary
Members of the Minerva Users Council Executive Committee 2005-2006:
Public Libraries
Sarah Sugden, Waterville Public Library, Waterville ssugden@waterville.lib.me.us
Vicky Smith, Vice Chair, McArthur Library, Biddeford vjsmith@mcarthur.lib.me.us
Karl Aromaa, Rumford Public Library, Rumford karomaa@rumford.lib.me.us
Betsy Pohl, Lithgow Library, Augusta betsy@lithgow.lib.me.us
Academic Libraries
Martha Ott, Andover College , Portland mott@andovercollege.edu
Amy Averre, Chair, Husson College , Bangor averrea@husson.edu
Stephen LaRochelle, Kennebec Valley Community College , Fairfield slarochelle@kvcc.me.edu
Special Libraries
Cora Damon, Maine General Medical Center , Waterville cora.damon@mainegeneral.org
Jennifer Lewis, Secretary, Augusta School Department, Augusta jlewis@augustaschools.org
Ex-officio
Karl Beiser, Maine State Library
John Clark, Maine State Library
