NOBLE MINUTES

MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION MEETING

AT NOBLE

JANUARY 16, 2003

Present: Sixteen libraries were represented at the meeting, attendance sheet attached.

 

1.  CALL TO ORDER.  Deborah Abraham called the meeting to order at 10:10.

 

2.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES -  Tom Cesarz made a motion to accept the Minutes from the November 21st meeting, Doug Rendell seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

3.  TREASURER’S REPORT -  In Tom Scully’s absence Ron Gagnon discussed the report.  The audit is complete and the tax returns have been filed.  Line items that had audit adjustments are in bold.  The only exception is line item 65840, Equipment Other, which was for the purchase of a network printer for notices.  Expenditures are at 47% six months through the fiscal year.  Carol Gray moved to accept the treasurer’s report, Mary Rose Quinn seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

4.  MANAGERS’ REPORT.  Ron handed out NOBLE’s Member Directory for updating. 

 

Library Loan Rules – This issue was brought up at the November meeting regarding libraries not honoring loan rules of the owning library.  Ron sent out a message to directors and circulation email group on December 2nd restating what the policy is.  The violations have continued, therefore Ron contacted the library directors whose libraries had the worst offenses.  NOBLE staff will continue to monitor this issue and contact the libraries as needed.  Hands-on circulation training to be held in June will cover these kinds of issues.  All libraries will be required to send one person of authority who can train their library staff.

 

Organization Meeting – Ron, Elizabeth, and Martha met to review their objectives for the fiscal year.  They are on schedule, with the exception that the catalog redesign will be in June instead of January.

 

Personnel: Sick Leave – Ron reported that sick leave incentives included in the Employee policy update a few years ago are paying dividends, as six of NOBLE’s employees had one or fewer sick days in 2002.  As a bonus, the employees are entitled to receive 2 or 3 additional vacation days or days of pay, and reduce their sick days by the same amount.  From 2000 to 2002 sick leave has been reduced by 80%. 

 

E-rate – Form 470 was posted in November.  Ron was contacted by other network maintenance vendors and met with some.  NOBLE will continue with Atrion. Form 471 will be filed over the next few weeks.

 

Virtual Catalog – NOBLE staff had training on December 18th.  There is a Manager’s Overview tentatively scheduled for the second half of February’s Members Meeting. 

 

III Software Updates – Phase 2 of Release 2002 has been loaded on the training system.  Millennium Statistics is currently being beta tested on the training system.  Millennium Acquisitions V.3 will also be beta tested.  A message was posted to directors and local tech that Windows 2000, NT, or XP will be required to run this Millennium Upgrade.  The cost is $50/upgrade license through the state software vendor, ASAP. 

 

ILL Meeting – Ron, Elizabeth, and Marilyn Graves attended the annual NMRLS ILL Meeting at Hamilton/Wenham.  Many libraries are now doing their own shipping due to the charges, therefore NOBLE’s shipping volume is down. 

 

Conferences/Meetings - Elizabeth will be speaking at the IUG meeting preceding the ALA Mid-Winter Conference next week.  In April, Ron and Elizabeth will be attending the Annual IUG Meeting in California.  While there Elizabeth will present three sessions of Create Lists & Beyond.  Ron and Elizabeth will also be attending the Annual ALA Conference in June. 

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January 16, 2003 

 

 

PC Support – George Lally will be attending training sponsored by the Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA. Travel, lodging and training are all paid by the Gates Foundation.

 

Elizabeth Thomsen.  Reopened the search for a part-time cataloger.  She also is working on Retrocon projects with Winthrop and Merrimack.

 

Collection Management – A meeting is scheduled for February 13th, which will be an overview of ideas and what is planned.  Reports for smaller topics have been reviewed, now need to find ways to extract the data for larger higher interest topics.  Another concept being reviewed is Subject Strengths.  Each library has subject strengths that they may base their purchases on.  By comparing a particular subject to what other libraries are purchasing in that subject this will validate if those subjects are being circulated as expected.  This concept will helpful in reviewing books that were purchased the previous year and seeing how often they circulated.

 

Training – Elizabeth reviewed the training schedule for January – June. 

 

Catalog Redesign – Elizabeth is working on this project with the Electronic Resources Working Group.

John Beauregard mentioned that many times when a search is done the answer is below the bottom of the screen.  Elizabeth stated she is aware of this and will be fixed in either Phase 2 or 3.

 

In another matter a bib record was set up for Harry Potter Book 5.  Release date is June 21st, therefore having the bib record set up now will help in moving the “holds” along in June.

 

Martha Driscoll. Handed out a chart showing the Millennium releases, Java version, and beta tests scheduled for this year.  This is on the Staff Information System.   

 

Domain Names – Libraries can have their own domain name for their web site, i.e. www.mylibrary.org.  The cost to register a domain is $25 per year.  Martha handed out information on this.  Please contact her if interested in doing this.

 

Staff Information System – The Staff Information System is going to be passworded.  It will be set up so a password doesn’t have to be entered if within NOBLE libraries. 

 

PC Support – George Lally is installing Remote Administrator and Symantec Anti-Virus.

 

5.  APPROVAL OF BORROWER’S CARD POLICY REVISION. 

 

Ron explained when we went to the III system there were guidelines and procedures that were set up by a working group to register borrowers, but was never made a policy.  The older policy in place makes reference to the Geac System.  Ron and Martha worked on a revision merging these two documents.  Ron posted this revised version to directors and it was approved at Executive Board.  One change that came up was the issue of colleges serving public library patrons that didn’t already have a card.  The new concept is issuing these patrons a “generic” NOBLE public library card.  These will be provided to the college libraries at NOBLE’s cost so they can register a public library patron and the card could be used in the public libraries.  Some new text was added to the policy regarding not altering college patron records.  Alyce Deveau moved to accept the revised policy, Mary Rose Quinn seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6.  COVER IMAGES. Deborah Abraham reviewed what the concept is about.  She explained that many web sites use cover images and this would be a step in moving NOBLE’s catalog forward.  The cost would be $150 per library.  Deborah stated Mary Ann Niles offered to share the costs with other Members that could fund it.  Ron had polled directors to see where they stand on this issue.  Out of 22 responses, 16 were for and 6 against.  A discussion ensued.  Dennis asked about the possibility of NOBLE funding the cost.  Ron stated NOBLE could fund the cost if that’s the Members consensus.  The annual cost is $3,800.  The discussion continued, but no conclusion was forthcoming.  Tom Cesarz moved to table the issue and have Executive Board discuss other options for financing at their next meeting.  Doug Rendell seconded the motion, the motion passed.

 

7.  VIRTUAL CATALOG CONFIDENTIALITY ISSUE.   The Boston Library Consortium operates and is the fiscal agent for the Statewide Virtual Catalog direct interlibrary loan system.  Epixtech is the provider of the Virtual Catalog software.  While Epixtech trainer Ken Bonney and  BLC project manager Sonya Walters were at NOBLE training staff, two issues came up that conflict with NOBLE policy.  One is no PIN is required to log in, and the other issue is that transactions are stored on the system forever.  These conflict with NOBLE’s Patron Confidentiality Policy.  Ron handed out a copy of a letter he sent to Paul Kissman of the Mass. Bd. of Library Commissioners regarding these issues.  Martha has been working on resolving the PIN issue.  She has derived a solution and did an overhead demonstration. Users access the catalog from MLIN’s home page.  When NOBLE is selected as the library to log into, a NOBLE log in screen will appear and will prompt the user to enter their NOBLE card and PIN.  Martha has been working with Paul Kissman and Sonya Walters on this issue.  Tom Cesarz asked if other networks were concerned about the PIN issue as NOBLE.  Ron stated apparently not since NOBLE is the first to bring it up.  Ron attended a Users Group meeting at which he raised the issue of archiving transactions.  No one at the meeting was in favor of it, therefore Sonya Walters is looking into this issue with Epixtech.  Ron stated Executive Board was not in favor of archiving, but wanted to get the Membership’s opinion and have stronger support.  Tom Cesarz made a motion “NOBLE will not participate in the Virtual Catalog project if transactions are archived”.  Kim Lynn seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous. 

 

8.  WORKING GROUP UPDATES.

Electronic Resources Working group - Elizabeth reported the group is working on the catalog redesign.  ERWG also discussed issues relating to reloading the base EBSCO records, and will be surveying the Membership on whether to continue, expand, or stop putting bib records for a web sites in the catalog.  Meetings are scheduled the first Monday of every month.

Database Quality Working Group and Holds Committee haven’t met.

 

9.  NEW BUSINESS.  Nothing to report.

 

10.  ADJOURNMENT.  Tom Cesarz made a motion to adjourn, John Beauregard seconded the motion.  The meeting adjourned at 11:45.

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

Kimberly Lynn

Secretary