NOBLE MINUTES

MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION MEETING

AT NOBLE

FEBRUARY 19, 2004

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

 

CALL TO ORDER: Mary Rose Quinn called the meeting to order at 10:10.

 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:  Linda Shea moved to approve the Minutes from the January 15, 2004 meeting.  Doug Rendell seconded the motion.  The Minutes were approved unanimously.

 

TREASURER’S REPORT:  Ron Gagnon presented the report in Tom Scully’s absence, and stated   spending is on target.  Barbara Lachance moved to accept the report, Nadine Mitchell seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

MANAGER’S REPORT

Ronald Gagnon:

·         State Budget - Ron explained that line item 9506, which supports network funding, has been zeroed out in the governor’s proposed budget.  Support is needed to get the funding restored. A Joint Ways and Means budget hearing was held February 6th at North Shore Community College’s Lynn campus.  Attendance was low due to inclement weather.  Ron, Tom Scully, and Greg Pronevitz were there as well as Nadine Mitchell, who spoke in support of restoring the line item.  Legislative Breakfast is March 12th in Beverly and Haverhill.  Mary Rose Quinn added that Bond Bill, H.1199, would restore core services if it is passed.

·         E Rate – FY 2005 forms were filed for voice and data lines.  Reimbursements were submitted for voice and data lines for the first six months of the current fiscal year.

·         Network Administrators Meeting –NOBLE hosted the January meeting.  Discussions included budget and LSTA.  There was a presentation on Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags.  This is a new trend that replaces bar codes on either patron cards or items.

·         PC’s - Three PC’s were purchased for staff through the Big Buy.

·         ILL Center – Ron attended meetings regarding the pilot project of charging out-of-state libraries a $12 borrowing fee.  The project was a success with $912 in income and $607 in fees from

      October-December.  It will continue through the end of the fiscal year.

 

Elizabeth Thomsen.

·         Everything EBSCO session was well attended.  Follow up is being done via email groups; one on EBSCO Admin and one on EBSCO searching. NOBLE staff has library’s authorizations as to who can access EBSCO Admin.  Continue to work with EBSCO on issues and enhancement requests.

·         On February 4th EBSCO and Serials Solutions did demonstrations of their electronic journal integration products, A to Z, and Link Resolver products, which is software that passes citation information between databases.  Consortia pricing is being looked into.

·         Attended a meeting at NMRLS on planning for a multilingual grant.

·         Multilingual Roundtable scheduled for March 30th.  There is a page on the Staff Information System with multilingual resources.  Researching ways to enhance libraries and NOBLE’s web pages.

·         Reviewed the March-June training and roundtable sessions.

·         NOBLE staff submitted 76 enhancement requests to IUG, a total of 1,222 were submitted.  Elizabeth is a functional expert for systems and will be involved in prioritizing the requests that IUG members will vote on.       

·         The IUG Annual Meeting is April 3rd-April 5th in Boston.  Elizabeth, Martha, and Michele are doing sessions.  The IUG Clearinghouse will be demonstrated at the meeting.

 

John Beauregard asked if there is a way to link articles between Boston Public Library and NOBLE in regard to serials.  Elizabeth stated they are always looking at ways to streamline for the patron.

 

 

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February 19, 2004

 

Ron added that the consortium holds enhancement requests developed by CW/MARS, CLAMS, Minuteman, and NOBLE has been sent to Innovative’s CEO and executive staff.  Ron is on the planning committee for the next Consortia Partners meeting.

 

Martha Driscoll.

·         On February 2nd patron access to the Virtual Catalog began. 

·         Martha reported there was a problem with a patron who has Hotmail, not receiving our email notices.  After discussing the issue with tech support at Hotmail our emails were getting caught in their SPAM filters.  Hotmail made some changes to their filters and has rectified the problem.

 

Mary Ann Niles stated that Middlesex Community College is going to be holding classes at Woburn High School and was inquiring if it would possible for those students to be able to search our catalog and receive items.  Elizabeth stated they would look into it.

 

Randy Gowman asked if there was a way to simplify the labeling of items from the Virtual Catalog.  Martha explained that is how the system is set up to identify their items. Ron stated there was talk of upgrading the software, but not for a while.   

 

APPROVAL OF NEW LSTA NETWORKING GRANT

Ron discussed the two issues facing NOBLE’s telecommunications; security and age.  The LSTA Grant round in November, NOBLE received $42,400 out of the $126,622 that was requested.  This will fund forty-six new switches for libraries, as well as ten routers for libraries with wireless and servers. The second grant round proposal, due March 18th, will fund the remaining routers, security devices for wireless libraries, new central site router, and upgrade to central site firewall and network.  Ron is also researching the cost for an additional T1 line. The first round funds are expected shortly, and installation of the new switches and routers is anticipated in April.  Grant notifications for this round will be sent in June, with the funds available in the fall.  A Cooperating Group vote is required for the grant and Executive Board recommended the following motion: 

 

Security issues with NOBLE’s network present a real threat to the ability of our libraries to maintain service.  In light of the age and lack of manufacturer support for NOBLE’s library routers and the telecommunications system’s inability to handle modern security needs, Executive Board recommends that the Meeting of the Members vote to submit a grant application to the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners under their Network Connections and Servers grant round in March, 2004.  We seek the grant funding for replacing routers at libraries and at NOBLE, upgrading the network at NOBLE and implementing specific network security hardware and software for wireless and wired LAN and WAN connections to increase security and reliability.

 

Sharon Gilley made a motion to accept Executive Board’s recommendation as stated above.  Linda Hummel-Shea seconded the motion.  The motion passed by unanimous vote. 

 

REVISION TO NETWORK TRANSFER GUIDELINE

Ron explained the Holds Committee recommended to Executive Board a revision to Network Transfer Guidelines, Section 2, 5th Bullet.  After discussion the Board did not approve the Committee’s proposed recommendation, but did approve the following revision:

 

            Old Section 2, 5th Bullet: 

·         refrain from requesting popular titles in order to fill a display.

New Section 2, 5th Bullet:

·         refrain from placing holds on titles in order to fill a display.

 

 

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February 19, 2004

 

After a brief discussion Linda Hummel-Shea made a motion to approve Executive Board’s recommendation to revise the Network Transfer Guidelines as stated above.  Kimberly Lynn seconded the motion.  The motion passed by unanimous vote.  The Collection Management Team will further review this issue. 

 

NEW BUSINESS

·         Mary Rose Quinn attended a joint workshop by MLA and NMRLS titled “Survivor”.

·         Randy Gowman asked if the additional Internet bandwidth would address the slowness problem in   

      the afternoon.  Martha stated that it would and that our two T-1 lines are at maximum between

      2:00 pm – 6:00 pm. 

·         John Beauregard asked if there is a way to segregate bandwidth.  Martha explained there are  

      bandwidth management tools that do that, but NOBLE does not have them at this point.  We do have 

       prioritization in place so that traffic going to our servers is a higher priority than Internet traffic.

 

WORKING GROUP UPDATES

·         Collection Management - Elizabeth reported the group met yesterday.  They divided the conspectus into thirty-six segments.  The first six months is assigned, and their goal is to have the reports on a schedule so libraries know what to expect on a regular basis.  Other issues the group will be working on is to set up special project reports on a regular basis, and to review “display” issue that was referred to the group by Executive Board and ways libraries can share their collections.  Pilot programs will be set up.

·         Electronic Resources Working Group - Elizabeth stated they are working on a “fact” file for patrons that have problems using the AOL browser in our catalog.  The group is continuing to work on the redesign of the catalog.

·         Holds Committee and Database Working Group have not met.

 

ADJOURNMENT

Kimberly Lynn made a motion to adjourn.  Alyce Deveau seconded the motion.  The meeting adjourned at 11:50.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

Kimberly Lynn

Secretary