Present: As attached.

1. CALL TO ORDER/WELCOME – Marjorie Hill-Devine. Marjorie called the meeting to order at 10:15. Bonnie Strong volunteered to be acting secretary in Sue Koronowski’s absence. Anne Pound of Bradford College announced the library is closing Friday and the last day of operations will be May 31^st. Anne arranged with Ron and Greg Pronevitz of NMRLS to have any Bradford books sent to a specific location after May 31^st. Sharon Gilley announced that NMRLS has awarded the contract for after hours Reference Service to Reading Public Library. This service will provide morning, evening and holiday telephone reference service to all the Northeast Regional patrons beginning in the new fiscal year.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES. The Minutes from the February and March meetings were voted on. Diane Young made a motion to accept both minutes; Bonnie Strong seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous.

3. TREASURER’S REPORT. Ron Gagnon presented the report in Tom Cesarz’s absence. Ron explained the Power Conditioner Maintenance line item has increased to over 100% spent due to the fact that our auditor apportioned half of last year’s cost into this year.

4. NOMINATING COMMITTEE REPORT. Anne Tullson reported that Tom Scully of Beverly Public Library was nominated as treasurer for a two-year term, and Mary Rose Quinn of Saugus Public Library was nominated as clerk for a one-year term. Marjorie thanked the outgoing officers Tom Cesarz and Sue Koronowski.

5. ELECTION OF TREASURER AND CLERK. Marjorie asked if there were any other nominations for the positions of treasurer or clerk. There were none. Marjorie asked for a vote of those in favor of the candidates proposed. The vote was unanimous.

6. MANAGER’S REPORT – Ronald Gagnon. The NOBLE Directory was passed around for updating. Ron reported staff from the North Suburban Library System in Illinois visited NOBLE last week. They currently have a Geac Plus system and are going through the selection process of a new vendor. They were inquiring how our process went and viewed our Innovative system. Our PC Support Specialist, Dean Baumeister, represented NOBLE at the MLA Conference at the end of April. The session he spoke at was "Technical Assistance A to Z" and featured the three PC Support Grant programs that were funded by MBLC. Dean’s presentation included LANDesk Management Suite and NOBLE’s Program appeared to be the furthest along. Ron reported that Dean also has been doing hands-on training sessions on WinU, and Improving PC Performance. Additional sessions will be scheduled during the summer. Coming up Dean is doing a session in NOBLE’s Meeting Room on PC Security products. Also Ron reported that NOBLE received a "denial of service" attack threat from a Media One subscriber on April 21^st for an attack to occur May 12^th. Martha forwarded the message to Media One’s abuse department and they took care of it. Ron stated that NOBLE received a contract from NMRLS for $2,500 to cover additional ILL Center costs for fees from loaning institutions.

Elizabeth Thomsen. Elizabeth reported that NOBLE staff had a training session on EBSCO Admin with an EBSCO trainer. Libraries can get statistics and set up reports with particular criteria. The results can be e-mailed on a regular basis. EBSCO has redone how they handle consortia so each library can make changes and link together separate profiles. More information will follow on how to do this. Elizabeth pointed out that college libraries might want to consider how they want IP validation as this can effect EBSCO statistics. Also "persistent links" is close to being ready. This is the ability to create a link to a particular article.

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Martha Driscoll. Martha reported that Data Comm Systems, now Dimension Data, contacted her last month about trying a piece of equipment called a "quality of service device". This device sits on the LAN and monitors traffic. It can be set to prioritize traffic so library connections to the Innopac can have priority over web traffic. Can also provide statistics and cache web pages. It was installed in Salem Public Library and will be tested for a couple of weeks. The test is being done at no cost, but if NOBLE decides it is something that works to our benefit the equipment costs approximately $2,500.

7. MILLENNIUM PROJECT UPDATE – Ron Gagnon. Ron reported NOBLE migrated a month ago from Release 1 to Release 2 of MilCirc. There have been problems and III is working with NOBLE staff to correct them. NOBLE staff has met with the Executive V.P. of Operations and the heads of the Help Desk and Implementation to discuss concerns and areas of weakness of the product for consortia. Some improvements for consortia will be coming with Release 3, which should be out this summer. III provided a free day of training and consultation as a result of our concerns. While the trainer was here staff also had their statistics training. Many issues were addresses and are being worked on. Ron, Elizabeth and Martha attended the Innovative User’s Group Conference in Philadelphia the weekend of May 1^st. They attended many sessions but focused on the ones that discussed public library and general consortia issues, as well as Release 2001, which is scheduled to be released this fall. The circ client and the web catalog are coming out with enhancements. Also with the loading of Release 2 the implementation of update "B" was accelerated in response to our concerns which is supposed to rectify many issues outstanding from Release 1. Also monitoring software was installed that e-mails the III Help Desk staff with any problems.

Martha Driscoll. Martha reported that with Release 2000 new versions of Guicat and MilCirc clients were installed. At that time we had several calls open with the help desk and they closed them assuming Release 2000 would resolve them. Not all problems were resolved therefore some issues were re-opened. Libraries were asked to report any old and new issues that came up. Also Martha reported that the patron display has been improved in the new client and some functionality has been added to MilCirc, such as,

in house usage updates and course reserves. Some problems in web management reports that were fixed are the cross tab reports and hourly reports, and statistics now agree. The receipt printers still are not working well. Martha and Michele Morgan have been visiting libraries to observe the circulation desk and see the problems with MilCirc. One major problem is that items that are on shelf that were returned, but the system says they are checked out. A resolution to this problem is to turn off the laser beep. The lasers have a beep that means it scanned the bar code, but doesn’t mean the system picked up the bar code number and did the check in. Also libraries have been asked to turn on MilCirc sounds which means the system got the bar code and check in happened. If there is a misread it has a different sound. Martha reported on upcoming training. Next week there are Circulation Workflow sessions scheduled, one for colleges and one for publics. In July and August there will be hands on Circulation training. In June and July there will be Web Management Reports hands on training. Also looking into having an Excel training session for NOBLE libraries with Rick Taplin of MBLC as instructor. Martha sent out information on setting up authorizations so libraries can limit different staff from particular functions. This will also be put on the Staff Information System.

Elizabeth Thomsen. Elizabeth reported she would be creating a document to put on the Staff Information System that will list all the training sessions in one location. Elizabeth reported on past training. In April there were two Technical Services Workflow sessions, one for centralized cataloging libraries and one for OCLC libraries. These sessions were more of a discussion group and will be scheduled on a regular basis to be determined. Also in April was a Web Linking session. This session was a presentation that showed how to create a web page that links into the web catalog. Elizabeth is working on putting together on our web page a group of book lists where libraries can get this information and choose which book list they want and put it on their web site. Instructions were given out on how to change the scope for your library. Elizabeth would like this to be a cooperative with other III libraries in the country.

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Elizabeth reported on Create Lists training. Create Lists is a program on the system that lets you bring together a group of records that have something in common. There is a session scheduled in September in the Meeting Room to discuss what people have learned. After that there will be more hands on specialty sessions scheduled. The areas that will be focused on are tech services, collections, children’s services, and circulation. Also scheduled are two introductory Create Lists sessions in June, possibly one more in July and August. Thereafter the sessions will be quarterly. Authorization for Create Lists will be based on individual logins. Elizabeth also reported there is a Web Catalog session on June 6^th. Some issues that will be reviewed are the new keyword search engine, synonym list, "My Millennium", and the Staff Web Catalog. Other upcoming sessions are College Course Reserves on June 7^th and June 15^th, and a Tech Services Meeting on June 13^th.

8. NETWORK TRANSFER GUIDELINES VOTE/HOLDS WORKING GROUP REPORT –

Marjorie reported that one of the items added at the Executive Board meeting is missing from the Guidelines. Lorraine Jackson stated that under part 2, "Borrowing libraries are expected to", the following phrase should be added: "return an item promptly to the owning library after its loaned to the original requesting patron". Marjorie thanked committee members, Tom Cesarz, Lorraine Jackson, Diane Young, Linda Hummel-Shea, Alyce Deveau, Barbara Lachance, and Bonnie Strong. Marjorie discussed what the committee was working towards as an end result. The Executive Board did review the Guidelines and made some changes. Diane Young stated the committee wanted to provide libraries with a reference that can be used by their staff for interlibrary loans. Ron Gagnon brought up that the holds and network transfer process will change, but needed to get a policy in place now. The policy will continue to be reviewed and make changes as necessary. Tom Scully brought up that everyone agrees on broad guidelines, but not on specific ones, and he felt that at some point it needs to be specific as to exactly what libraries are expected and not expected to lend. Tom also discussed the public relations issues that are arising when one library won’t borrow from another library a title that the original library owns, but there is a reserve list and another library has it "on shelf". Mary Ann Niles discussed she didn’t agree with the point that if a patron from a borrowing library loses the material that the borrowing library will accept and keep payment for the lost material. She felt that the reimbursement should go back to the lending library. John Beauregard agreed also. The college libraries have costly collections of materials and would prefer to be reimbursed so the materials could be replaced. Some of the public libraries keep the fees for lost materials. The discussion continued. Diane Young suggested an amendment to the Guidelines that payment for lost materials owned by a public library be collected and kept from the borrowing library only, and payment for the college libraries would have to be paid at the college library. The discussion continued. Mary Rose Quinn stated the Town of Saugus would want payment for lost materials and she would want to return payment to other libraries for their lost materials. An amendment to the Guidelines on page 2, item 2, was made as follows: delete the phrase "and lost payments" and at the end add "If funds are collected for lost materials the funds should be returned to the owning library with an appropriate receipt". The vote for the amendment was unanimous. Tom Scully made a motion to accept the Guidelines as amended, Bonnie Strong seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous.

9. PC SUPPORT PROGRAM GUIDELINES FY 2001 – Ron Gagnon. Ron reported he sent out guidelines for PC Support Services for FY 2001 that were approved by Executive Board. The cost to the libraries is increasing about 2%. When a library participates in the program all of their PC’s that are on NOBLE’s network have to be included. The program is subsidized by NOBLE.

10. DATA NETWORK UPGRADE – Ron Gagnon. Ron reported that there were some concerns with Digital Broadband and Mass Community Networks and due to those issues and some e-rate issues it wouldn’t work out. NOBLE signed a contract with Bell Atlantic to have them upgrade the network by installing one T-1 connection at each library. Dimension Data will be working with Bell Atlantic to begin the changeover on July 1^st. Also Ron reported we signed a contract with Genuity, our new Internet Service Provider. That service will begin July 1^st.

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11. ADJOURNMENT. Alyce Deveau made a motion to adjourn the meeting, Bonnie Strong seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 12:20.

Respectfully submitted,

Bonnie J. Strong

Acting Secretary