Present: As attached.

1. CALL TO ORDER/WELCOME- Doug Rendell. Doug called the meeting to order at 10:10. He noted that Bonnie Strong was unable to attend the meeting and that Paula Acquaviva was filling in to take Minutes for the meeting. Also Doug mentioned that he and several members from NOBLE, Patrick Cloherty, Sharon Gilley, Dennis Kelley, and Deirdre Hanley recently participated in the Mass Library Initiative. They will be meeting to try and come up with new concepts that MBLC will be able to present to legislature. The goal is to increase funding for libraries in Massachusetts by four million dollars each year over the next three years. Will keep everyone informed as to the progress. Ron Gagnon noted that the By-Laws requires somebody acts as an officer/secretary in the absence of the secretary and that Deborah Abraham has agreed to fill in.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES. Minutes from past meetings that were not voted on. Tom Cesarz made a motion to accept the Minutes from the February, June, and October meetings. Linda Weinstein seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.

3. TREASURER’S REPORT – Tom Cesarz. Tom presented the report and indicated that spending is on target at 35%. Also that he and Doug signed the tax returns. Linda Weinstein moved to accept the report. Alyce Deveau seconded the motion, and it was passed unanimously.

4. MANAGER’S REPORT – Ronald Gagnon. Ron completed the Annual Report and it was sent out to directors. Includes review of fiscal year 1998 and objectives and fiscal year 2000 objectives that were voted on last meeting. Also, he recently attended two meetings at the Region, the Annual meeting and Executive Board meeting. Continuing to work with the Region to provide ILL services and training facilities under contract that has been included in NMRLS fiscal year 2000 budget. Audit and tax returns have been completed, no problems reported. Bob Guimond made year end adjustments this month and the changes will be reflected in next month’s report.

Elizabeth Thomsen. Reported recently had Technical Services Interest Group meeting. Discussed how she is working with tech services representatives in going over the RFP for the new system. How it relates to cataloging and reports and what the important elements are they will be looking for, such as database, item records, resetable circ counters, item creation date, reports and inventories and being able to get any type of report we want. Web catalog concepts, true scoping, linking from web page to web catalog, special indexes. Discussed decisions that will need to be made about implementing indexes on the new system. After a system has been selected she would like to have an implementation group on the catalog issues that combines public services and tech services people. Discussed database clean up. Also her and Martha came up with a plan that they are going to make archive copies of both databases and copy into them public or college and retain AT key. This will allow the ability to check old records. Will be done before bibliographic purge. ILL and Collection Management Interest Group meetings coming up in December.

Members of the Corporation Page 2

November 19, 1998

EBSCO – Training is done. Was informative as to what issues and problems there are and what people are looking for. Also looked at different searches. Came up with a list of enhancement requests that has been discussed with EBSCO. Elizabeth has seen new product, separate children’s version. There have been technical problems.

Searching the WWW – Very productive and informative. Trying to put together more advanced Searching the WWW sessions. One possibility is to have a master class that doesn’t involve teaching but do a group of searches and discuss which search engines worked best, etc.

Children’s Services – Opportunity for any library staff member to learn about searching the World Wide Web for children. Various search engines, professional resources, etc were discussed. Also discussed was NOBLE’s own children’s resources in regard to what works and what doesn’t, and suggest any changes.

Martha Driscoll. Discussed our recent e-mail problems. On November 11^th NOBLE’s system was spammed with 30,000 messages. She was in touch with the ISP where the messages came from but they didn’t offer much help. She was also in touch with our ISP and they couldn’t offer much help either. The spammers are using our system as a relay to send messages out over the Internet. First tried to plug up the security hole by compiling a new version of the mail program but not successful. Our version of operating system is obsolete and couldn’t get newer version of mail to work on it. Geac couldn’t help either. Martha is building a new mail server that will have security and anti-spam programs. Ron reported that it was intended as part of the new system to have a separate mail server, but the process got sped up due to recent problems. A new PC was purchased and Martha is configuring it. Dennis asked if this is slowing down our system. Martha said yes because of the processing all the mail and that a bigger problem is running out of disk space. Martha reports she knows when the spammers come into the system and she shuts down the mail so disk space isn’t filled up. Martha has asked people to go through their e-mail and delete messages they don’t need. Instruction will be sent out on how to get folders off the system into Netscape. Camilla stated she was able to receive but not send messages. Martha said that when the mail server is shut down you could not send messages. The best time to send e-mail is between 8-2. Elizabeth reiterated that this only temporary until the new mail server is ready. Elizabeth reminded everyone that anything that is sent to "netinfo" or any of the groups is archived in the Staff Information System. When new server is up messages can be moved over to that system. Martha stated she shut off the old domain name, noble.mass.edu, from our server. Discussion about unsubscribing from lists. Elizabeth will send out directions on how to unsubscribe. Don’t need to unsubscribe from any internal NOBLE lists, only ones outside of NOBLE. Discussion about forwarding your mail from Pine. Directions will be sent out. Ron stated that much of this information has been provided to the e-mail trainers of each library in the past and it is important that the person in that position is up to speed on these issues. Elizabeth pointed out that any of the e-mail documentation that has been sent is also archived on the Staff Information System. Helena Minton asked Martha if it is encouraged to use a PC for their mail. At this point doesn’t matter, but when we get a new system we will be looking at a client/server system so terminals will be eliminated and may want to begin looking toward that. When new mail server is up first thing that will be available is Pine then, secondly, will be able to connect using a client program. Martha mentioned that she wants to investigate a web-based e-mail program.

Martha reported that WLN Collection Management has successfully received all the records from the college database and is processing them.

Members of the Corporation Page 3

November 19, 1998

5. GRANT UPDATES – PC SUPPORT GRANT. Dean Baumeister began as PC Support Specialist on November 3, 1998. He has been installing, configuring and troubleshooting PC’s at the libraries that have signed onto the program. Discussed various problems that have come across. Currently conducting site visits at the libraries. At end of the visits going to compile a report of the PC’s and software that are at the libraries, and make recommendations on maintenance tips and keeping error logs. Doug asked about the billing procedure for putting additional PC’s on the Program. Ron stated to contact Paula directly.

SYSTEM GRANT – Ronald Gagnon. The Request For Proposal (RFP) was sent out to ten vendors. Responses due back on December 29, 1998. Heard from four vendors who are going to respond, Innovative, DRA, Sirsi, and Geac. The RFP is for a single third generation client server system. This will require PC workstations at libraries and no more dumb terminals. Working out selection acquisition process with Rob Maier and Doug and Executive Board. Ron reports that process is everything and need to document our process. Careful to document that we are talking to Interest Groups and exchange information, and letting the Interest Groups know who represents their interest on the System Selection Working Group once it is selected. Ron stated that Rob Maier has suggested that at the system full day demos, which will take place in February or March, one representative, the director or designee, of all libraries be invited to attend. Letters of Intent due December 17, 1998. Grant is due late March. This is the federal LSTA Grant schedule. The Commissioners of the MBLC have not voted to act to have any program to disburse the state technology money that was cut by the Governor. The Commissioners are scheduled to discuss the state money at their meeting in early December. The Selection Process moving along on Step 5. Over the next six weeks will be working to appoint SSWG. Once appointed will forward the RFP’s to them as well as to the Executive Board. Once the RFP’s are in will narrow down to three or four vendors for full day demos. After that SSWG will pick one or two to have back for demos and questions. The SSWG will make vendor recommendations to the Executive Board in April. Looking to negotiate a contract in April contingent on funding and get on a vendors list for installation. Linda asked if we knew whom CW/MARS chose. Ron said they chose Innovative. Brief discussion about the ten vendors who the RFP’s were sent to. Ron pointed out that it will be one year since our last demos and important to survey the market and see what new products are out there. Deborah Abraham stated that MVLC sent out invitations for demos and that Geac declined. Ron said he heard the same thing from Bill Manson that Geac didn’t want to until their next release is out. Brief discussion about any update on Geac’s release 2.6.

Ron reported that twelve libraries are participating in the PC Support Program. Dean has been out visiting libraries gathering information.

6. YEAR 2000 COMPUTER ISSUES – Dean Baumeister. Reported that there are four places in library PC’s that have the clock/year. First is the BIOS, secondly and thirdly is how PC applications and network operating systems have been coded, and fourth, applications that are dependent on date calculations such as spreadsheets and databases. Discussion about resolutions for the above. Ron mentioned we are continuing to work with DataComm and Geac. Under maintenance agreement with DataComm software will be updated in the routers and when time comes will be downloaded overnight. Geac’s current release we have is not Y2K compliant but new release 2.6 is. The underlying parts of Plus is, they were written with four digit dates. Some applications will need to be re-written.

Members of the Corporation Page 4

November 19, 1998

7. EBSCO UPDATE AND STATISTICS – Ronald Gagnon. Ron passed around a chart showing statistics from FY 1997 and FY 1998. Use of EBSCO has increased on an average of 14% in FY 1998 over FY 1997. Overall cost is 58 cents per user session or 26.9 cents for full text article access throughout NOBLE. Elizabeth is working with EBSCO in developing the next generation of the user interface.

Martha discussed some down time issues and problems with technical support not being responsive. Elizabeth added that we are relaying these problems to EBSCO and they are attempting to resolve these issues. Linda asked what our projection is for when the contract comes up. Ron stated it is a couple years away and will have to wait and see at that time, but something to think about. Elizabeth briefly discussed their reference guides and how EBSCO is continuing to enhance and update their databases. Lorraine asked in the monthly statistics what Salem State remote means. Martha gave explanation that it tracks it by IP address. Anyone that has to log in with their bar code is a remote user. Elizabeth added to discussion. Ron stated would look into it further.

8. COLLECTION MANAGEMENT – Martha Driscoll. Scheduled to have all reports done by end of December. Business going out now followed by computer science, then education. Elizabeth stated going to send out some comments on Business and Computers. Further discussion at December 15, 1998 meeting. Marjorie asked why you couldn’t see what has gone out in the past two years. Elizabeth answered the only circ counter we have in an item record is a historical circ counter.

9. ADJOURNMENT. The motion to adjourn was made by Linda Weinstein and passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 12:00.

Respectfully submitted,

Deborah Abraham

Acting Secretary