Present: Ron Gagnon, Alyce Deveau, Marjorie Hill-Devine, Doug Rendell, Deborah Abraham, Pat Cloherty, Camilla Glynn Healey, Dee Brennan, Sue Koronowski, Martha Driscoll, Sharon Gilley, Bonnie Strong, Elizabeth Thomsen.

Marjorie called the meeting to order at 2:05.

Marjorie commended NOBLE staff on their efforts during the upgrade.

Camilla Glynn Healey moved to approve the minutes of September 8, 1999, seconded by Doug Rendell. Motion passed.

Treasurer’s report was presented and accepted.

Ron met with Greg Pronevitz to renew the NOBLE ILL contract with region for FY01. Region announced that it was moving up the evaluation of the need for two ILL centers. Marilyn Graves has been appointed to regional ILL committee, as is Elizabeth Thomsen. MVLC also has two representatives. Bonnie Strong asked if cost effectiveness was a consideration.

Elizabeth will be attending mid winter ALA, meeting with III.

NOBLE has been asked to meet with EBSCO to provide imput on the product and service. Five reps are needed, please contact Ron if interested.

PC support specialist position was discussed, with an emphasis on expanding services now that the large number of PC’s necessary for the new system have been installed.

SAILS has selected Sirsi as their automated system.

Pam Kahl, the Director of the Montserrat College of Art has resigned, no replacement has been announced.

Overall the upgrade went well, considering it was a very complex implementation. Most difficulties were a result of combining the academic and public databases and at the same time adding the newly converted data of the new members.

Positive highlights included; all staff had been well trained, PC’s worked well and the catalog has experienced a wonderful reception from patrons and staff.

Difficulties were encountered in the following areas: data transfer and holds implementation. In process holds migrated incorrectly causing the unnecessary transfer of materials, local holds transferred as system holds and old holds were trapped as a result. There will be a holds refresher at P & Q’s meeting.

The delete process will be streamlined, notices have been run, locked records continue to be a problem, and until the cause is identified, please call NOBLE and they will be glad to unlock them for you.

Tech services sessions on imputing have clarified the process and marc record tags are being loaded into catalog,

Catalog & Patron working groups will reconvene soon to deal with many of the implementation issues.

A few colleges are having connectivity issues, also MBLC and this is a priority that NOBLE is working on.

III questions being pursued directly with our implementation team, who has been most helpful.

Great progress has been made on many issues since the initial activity settled down.

Serials module work will begin next week with Salem State as beta site.

Release 2000 upgrade will be moved up since it is believed that it will solve many of these issues.

A discussion followed that included the following: Bradford data, wisdom of moving quickly to 2000 release question, increased availability of training, NOBLE staff time to deal with training and communication with members, and more staff training.

It is necessary to identify specific vendors on applications and speed of connections increase bandwidth has been a concern. NOBLE and Data Comm have continued their discussions with Digital Broadband as a potential supplier. They have just been awarded the statewide educational supplier contract. Concerns include: the sheer scope of rolling out statewide network in a timely manner, libraries would be secondary to schools, security and confidentiality issues have not been resolved. It seems wise to continue with Bell Atlantic, with the option open to move to Digital Broadband. We will also continue with UMASS as our Internet service provider, they have been able to solve some problems and are now monitoring usage of lines and have documented the need for increased lines.

New telephone system and the new e-mail server are eligible for e-rate discounts and have been included in the application.

There was a brief discussion on the effect state de-certification of public libraries would have on NOBLE services, since many towns are experiencing budget shortfalls this year.

Camilla Glynn Healey moved to adjourn, Alyce Deveau seconded.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:30.

Respectfully submitted

Sue Koronowski,

Secretary