Minutes of the 1/6/2010 MHLS Directors Association Meeting
Meeting was called to order at 9:31 a.m. by Julie Kelsall-Dempsey.
Present
Columbia County
Luisa Sabin-Kildiss Chatham, Sally Alderdice Claverack, Corey Fleming Hudson, Julie Hamrah Johnson Kinderhook, Jeanne Bogino New Lebanon, Vicki Kurashige North Chatham
Dutchess County
Carol Rodriguez Beekman, Terry Sennett Clinton Corners, Gloria Goverman East Fishkill, Lisa Karim LaGrange, Nancy Rogers Millbrook, Marguerite Hill Pine Plains, Daniela Pulice Pleasant Valley, Tom Lawrence Poughkeepsie Arlington Branch, Steven Cook Rhinebeck, Joanne Meyer Rhinecliff, Erica Freudenberger Staatsburg, Arlene Christiansen Stanford, Matthew Pfisterer Wappingers Falls
Greene County
Linda Deubert Coxsackie
Putnam County
Maria Steinberg Brewster, Jean Buck Carmel, Gillian Thorpe Cold Spring, Carol Donick Garrison, Frank Rees Kent, Patricia Kaufman Mahopac, Patti Haar Patterson, Kathleen McLaughlin Putnam Valley
Ulster County
Kelly Tomaseski Esopus, Julie Kelsall-Dempsey Highland Clintondale Branch, Margie Menard Kingston, James Cosgrove Marlboro, Laurie Coccio Milton, John Giralico New Paltz, John Georghiou Plattekill, Faith Johnson Town of Ulster, Amy Raff Woodstock
Mid-Hudson Library System
Josh Cohen, Christina Ryan-Linder, Merribeth Advocate, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Laurie Shedrick, Linda Vittone
Action Items
T. Lawrence moved that the minutes of the previous meeting be approved. S. Cook seconded and the motion passed.
Welcome to E. Freudenberger, new director at Staatsburg.
Motion to change March 2010 meeting date to March 3: moved by T. Lawrence, seconded by S. Cook. Motion passed.
Motion to change recommended wording of text for Resource Sharing Document regarding VIP Status: moved by T. Lawrence, seconded by S. Cook. Motion passed.
Motion to accept AirPac: moved by S. Cook, seconded by T. Lawrence. There was discussion regarding the annual maintenance fee of $275, which will be shared by everyone. Motion passed.
Holds clearing: moved by S. Cook, seconded by D. Pulice. Discussion regarding trainings, which will be offered in March and April. Motion passed.
New P-Type: moved by T. Lawrence, seconded by S. Cook. Motion passed.
Courtesy notices: moved by T. Lawrence, seconded by L. Karim. Discussion regarding email sender, which can be blocked without affecting circulation notices. Discussion regarding bounced emails, which will not come back to the libraries but will be seen only by L. Shedrick in a batch file. The notices will go out three days before the item is due and will go to patrons who use email as their preferred notification. Question regarding sending notices of expired cards, suggestion to send only date due notifications. Resource Sharing will discuss. Motion amended to be effective 3/1. Motion passed.
MHLS Reports
MHLS Executive Director’s Report Josh Cohen
A written report was circulated in advance of the meeting.
2009 State Funding: Midhudson still has not received the balance. It is supposed to come in January.
Search committee: probably five board members (one from each county), two directors, one MHLS staff, and one representative from Central Library. S. Cook and M. Pfisterer have volunteered to serve on the committee. Discussion regarding how the directors are chosen. There was a suggestion that one director be selected from Columbia/Greene/Ulster counties to represent small libraries and one director be selected represent Duchess and Putnam to represent large libraries. M. Pfisterer withdrew and J. Johnson volunteered. Directors on the search committee will be S. Cook and J. Johnson.
Proposed Library Deaccessioning Legislation: This legislation would require libraries to publish a register of items in their collections and all newly acquired and deaccessioned (weeded) items. All libraries should have a collection management policy which explains how items are purchased and weeded, but this legislation would make it necessary to justify everything weeded and would also dictate that any money raised by selling weeded items should be used to purchase new materials. Action is needed to oppose this bill.
Budget: J. Cohen reviewed all budget lines. Question regarding retirement costs, which doubled because three people retired in 2009. Amended sheet for projections was distributed showing effects of proposed cuts. Assuming these figures are correct, the unrestricted fund balance will cover the budget through 2011. 2012 shows a deficit. If the governor’s proposed 10% cuts go through, this will have significant impact on 2011. Suggestion to remove the 56% reference under Estimated Fund Balance because it may be misleading. The MHLS Capital Fund is not included in the budget because it is based upon E-rate.
SOPAC: It has been discovered that there is an issue between SOPAC and Innovative and will not work for us. SOPAC has not worked with consortia before and may not have all the connectors we need. Could cause problems with new Millennium releases. Many of the desired features can be achieved without using SOPAC.
MHLS Board Liaison Report Frank Reese
No meeting. No report.
The next meeting is scheduled for January 9.
Advisory Committee Reports
Central Library/Collection Development
No meeting. No report.
The next meeting is scheduled for February 22.
Continuing Education/Professional Development
No meeting. No report.
The next meeting is scheduled for April 20.
Marketing and Program
No meeting. No report.
The next meeting is scheduled for February 24.
Resource Sharing
No meeting. No report.
The next meeting is scheduled for January 14.
Consultant Activities
Outreach & Education Coordinator Merribeth Advocate
A written report was circulated in advance of the meeting.
Benefits/Leads survey: Do people want this now or will it conflict with Annual Report? It will be sent now with a long deadline.
Serials Solutions: We no longer have this, which was the software that said what publications were in each database.
Health Information Project: has received funding for 2010. Contact B. Clapp for info.
Ad Hoc Committee: A reminder that this committee is reviewing the structure of the DA and Advisory committee meetings. Looking at Info that came from Retreat.
Card Sort: Link will be sent out to the DA to look at how content is tagged and how people search. This info will be used in the revamping of the MHLS member website.
EZ Program Databases: An action memo will be sent out soliciting feedback.
Coordinator of Membership Information Rebekkah Smith Aldrich
A written report was circulated in advance of the meeting.
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM): The hope is that this will increase our statistics. For the month we focus on a particular product, we will watch to see if usage went up. They are doing this informally at Ulster and patron response has been positive.
Lobby Day: Reminder that it is coming up on March 2. Transportation details are coming. Legislators did not support us this year, since they not only took governor’s cut but went deeper. Strong participation is needed.
Youth Services Coordinator Christina Ryan-Linder
A written report was circulated in advance of the meeting.
Kid’s OPAC Survey: coming out this week. For staff and directors who work with the Kid’s catalog.
Children’s Services Roundtable & Teen Outreach Roundtables: will be held on the same day, Jan. 22 at MHLS. Also a second roundtable group meeting on Jan. 25 at Germantown.
Hudson Children’s Book Festival: Question whether MHLS supporting Kid’s Expo, as well. Duchess directors have not yet determined when Kids Expo will occur, may be delayed until Fall due to funding. Venue is also a question.
Automated Systems Manager Laurie Shedrick
A written report was circulated in advance of the meeting.
YTD Circulation Statistics: On New Year’s Day, these stats were corrupted and now have disappeared from each item record. Innovative can not recreate this data. Total checkouts and last circulation date are still there for weeding purposes.
Circ/Bib Stats: Very good for 2009 which L. Shedrick attributes to Mandatory Circ Training.
Database statistics: Expected to show a drop due to fine tuning of data collection methods. This will help in actual database comparisons. The state does not require statistics on database hits.
Music CDs: Many libraries have changed these to a 1 week loan period.
Annual report stats: L. Shedrick will post the database online to show how the stats are compiled.
System Funding Task Force – T.Lawrence
A written report was distributed at the meeting.
Patron Databases: T. Lawrence requested that libraries pay attention to cleaning these up. There are many deceased patrons still listed. Price that everyone is paying is based upon these numbers, so this adds cost. Question whether patrons who are expired but owe money can be moved to a different place? Resource Sharing will look at this.
2012 Funding Issues: Decisions regarding funding issues for 2012 will hopefully be resolved by the end of 2010. Looks like money should be coming from Tires & Wires.
The next meeting is scheduled for February 8.
Old Business
None
New Proposed Business & Information
Overdrive: Offers a better choice than NetLibrary including current bestsellers. We would start with one copy of each title which will be monitored by Central Library committee. We will start out with adult materials only. Contains unabridged items only. No prepublication items will be purchased. Patrons can choose their own loan period – 7 days or 14 days. Westchester County uses a 7 day loan period, which they believe helped lower patron frustration with long wait times. Each patron can check out two titles at a time and can have two holds in queue. Items can’t be returned early. There is a nice collection of items which are “always available” and have no limit of simultaneous checkouts. The opening day collection consists of 25 “always available” items. These must be purchased as a group. There is a percentage of collection available to use anywhere and we are focusing on those (Windows Media, MP3, IPOD formats). Hope to call this collection “digital media”. As collection is built, we can diversify. The most universal format is MP3. Question about what percentage of collection is IPOD compatible. At this point there is no sense of what percentage of the collection is specifically IPOD compatible. Questions: If a library chooses to purchase multiple titles, can they be shifted to the whole consortia after the local demand declines? Do we have a system set up so that a new copy is ordered when a threshold is reached? Do we create individual accounts for libraries to purchase their own titles? Items can’t be returned early. Promotional materials will be coming soon. March is the WOMM time slot. NetLibrary will be gone at the end of January. There will be at least 3 opportunities for staff training through Webinars. These will come out as a workshop notice.
Adjournment
T. Lawrence moved to adjourn the meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 11:56 am.
Respectfully Submitted:
Jeannie Bogino
New Lebanon Library