Call to order: Marjorie called the meeting to order at 2:11 pm.

Minutes: Minutes for March and April were not available.

Treasurer’s Report: A motion was made by Doug Rendell and seconded by Deborah Abraham to accept the Treasurer’s Report. The vote to accept the report was unanimous.

Executive Director’s Report: Ron discussed the ongoing issues with Verizon and mentioned the extremely high cost increases announced by Dimension Data. He would work out a pricing scale with them for possibly less sophisticated services. The new phone system will be installed June 20ieth. In addition to voicemail, the system has the capability to interface with cell phones. Staff who are away from the office can have calls forwarded to their cell phones. The cost for the new system is $6,400.

The Network needs to spend the remaining $1,000 balance of a BLC grant to complete its part of the project. The grant funded a study related to security. The ILL contract has been extended for four years.

We have postponed the reindexing for keyword searching until our concerns over the "limit function" have been addressed. At the Circulation meeting yesterday, there was a lengthy discussion of patron placed holds. Other topics for review included hold-shelf maintenance, and release 2001. Central Site has completed the physical inventory (as recommended in the auditor’s report). Meetings of note include III discussions with Consortia, a meeting with other Networks at Minuteman, and a group to discuss improving cross-state delivery.

The Network’s Strategic Plan needs to be updated. We have waited until III implementation was completed before starting the revisions. An updated plan must be on file in order for the Network to be eligible for LSTA funding opportunities.

Holds: There was lengthy discussion about the impact patron placed holds would have on the way we currently do business. The Board decided that no system limits should be set for the number of holds a patron could place. Deborah made a motion, seconded by Alyce that the Executive Board recommend to Membership that no limit be set on the number of holds a patron may set in the system. The motion carried unanimously. In a related vote, Tom made a motion, seconded by Doug to recommend to Members that the Network Transfer Guidelines be amended by striking the language that limits holds to patrons’ "home" libraries. The motion carried unanimously.

CIPA and E-rate Subsidy: There was universal agreement on the approach NOBLE should take with regard to the E-rate funding based on compliance with the filtering component of CIPA. Tom made a motion, seconded by Doug to have NOBLE not apply for that portion of E-rate funding that is contingent upon compliance with CIPA. The motion was approved unanimously.

2001 Update: There was a brief discussion about the schedule for the 2001 upgrade.

Summer meetings: The Executive Board is tentatively scheduled to meet July 11^th and August 8, 2001.

Update on Working Groups:

Brochure Committee: The Brochure Committee will meet in July to discuss reopening the search for a graphic designer.

New Members Committee: Tom Scully reported on the committee’s conclusions with regard to Associate Memberships. An Associate Member is defined as a library that does not circulate and has a collection of less than 15,000 volumes. Associate Members must be members of the Region, must be willing to add all new materials, and must complete a retrospective conversion of their holdings within 3 years. The cost for an Associate Member would be $3,500 (for 2 terminals) with a $3,000 fee for each additional PC. Acceptance of the report was unanimous.

Database Quality: There was some discussion about grants for retrospective conversion grants, especially related to local history collections. The focus of the group at this time is developing standards.

ERWG: ERWG will meet on June 14^th to discuss NetLibrary, Web Site cataloging, and scoping for bibliographic records with URLs.

The meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Rose Quinn,

Secretary