Pioneer Users Council Meeting
December 3, 2001
Present: Patty Cutright, Shirley Roberts, Vicky Brace, Jo Cowling, Carol Ann Thew, Carmen Wickam, Marsha Richmond, Anne Uhl, Pat Bradshaw, Beth Longwell, Aletha Bonebrake, Tara Bartley
Speaker Phone: Darcy Dauble, Ken Reading, Dale Edwards, Jolyn Wynn
Recorder: Tara Bartley
Agenda:
1. Weather conditions
The council agrees that due to weather conditions and people having to travel back the meeting will conclude at 12:00.
2. Minutes of October 1, 2001
Darcy wanted to clarify the wording within the above minutes under #7 Discussion, section b. It was not stated in October’s meeting that non-circulating libraries had to utilize EOIN to borrow items found in the Pioneer Library System yet they are encouraged to use this process.
The council suggests the bylaw committee look at the use of EOIN and create a consensus that allows for conformity among the non-circulating libraries.
Minutes of October 1, 2001 approved with the above modifications.
3. Review/Changes to Agenda
Anne Uhl will make a report on cataloging policies. This will be at the beginning of migration project reports.
Discussion on Power back up will be added to the agenda during Protocol development issues.
4. Information Handouts
Shirley handed out the project time line and Interim report. Due to time she will wait on distributing the link checking/library hierarchical handout.
5. Reports
(a) Council Agreement and Bylaw Review
i) Due to travel during the month of November for training sessions Shirley requests to table her recommendations for word changes to the Pioneer User Council Agreement for next months council meeting.
ii) Council Agreement bylaws will also be tabled to next months council meeting. The bylaw committee is in the process of modifying the old by-laws for the current council.
Decision Made:
Patty Cutright nominates Ken Reading as chairperson for the by-law committee. Motion seconded. Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
(b) Project Web Site
Due to training session travel in November no real update has occurred on the Web Site.
(c) Pioneer System Administrator Position
The position of System Librarian was accepted and then declined by Mr. Yi Kong. Council is now in the position of deciding what the next step is in this process.
Patty clarifies that she did contact Mr. Faizur Rahman after learning that Mr. Kong had declined the position. Mr. Rahman had recently accepted another job offer. Patty suggests reevaluating what credentials are needed for this position. She proposes opening the position as MLS preferred but not required.
Dale questions what this will mean to the salary if the position is opened to a bachelor in computer science or related technology fields. Patty explains that there would not be a big change in salary due to Eastern’s salary matrix.
Aletha expresses that she prefers someone with Innovative experience.
Decision Made:
Aletha Bonebrake moved that the new Pioneer System Administrator position be advertised as MLS preferred with Innovative experience.
Discussion: The council agrees that to many prefers will hinder the process. It would be best for someone who has integrated library system experience.
Amendment Made:
Aletha Bonebrake amended the motion to open the new System Administrator position, as Bachelors degree in computer science or related field required with experience in integrated library systems. Motion is seconded. Vote is unanimous.
Darcy suggests advertising to college listservs. Shirley had put previous searches out to several of the surrounding college listservs. The council requests that they put it out to more of them.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Shirley will put together the announcement and send it to council members. Council members are responsible for getting the position out to the list serves that they are associated with.
(d) Migration Project Report
i) Timeline Update —the timeline is attached
ii) Record Link Checking
Libraries need to review bib locations and location item assignments. New software called Reference link checking automatically puts bib locations in after an item has been attached. Based on Innovative recommendations a hierarchy was formed. This hierarchy needs to be reviewed as a group and modified.
iii) Patron Requesting
Initiate patron requesting for new libraries need to be addressed as soon as possible.
iv) Equipment Update
As of December 3 everything has been purchased. Umatilla Public Library has reported possibly one defective computer.
Shirley informs the council that Hermiston Public had a concern with the Dell computer keyboards. The keyboards have a key that has a moon on it and when pushed the computer will be forced to sleep. They want to send the keyboards back and get a lower level keyboard. The council suggests they put something over the key that doesn’t allow patrons to use it. If this is not feasible for them they can pursue this problem on their own.
v) Software Update
Offline Circulation — This software allows circulating libraries to continue circulation transactions [checkout, renewal, etc.] during times when connectivity is interrupted or server is down at Eastern. The software is available for downloading from Innovative.
Regional Holds — Software that utilizes agency fields in patron and item records. It will not be available until September of 2002. Debrah Lazio, 3I Team Leader, notified Shirley of the possibility of being a beta test site for this effort.
Darcy is concerned about being a testing site when the whole project is still being tested. She would like to know when we would start this experiment.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Shirley will get a hold of Debrah Lazio and find out when they want to begin. She will bring the information back to January’s council meeting.
Patty suggests communicating and deciding by e-mail if they want to start sooner on this project.
vi) Budget Update
As of December 3, the budget is in good shape. Due to time constraints a detailed discussion will be tabled until next months meeting.
Darcy informed the council that the EOLN node has suggested having a ball mouse rather than the ones they are currently using. She would like to add this to the enhancement list.
(e) Additional Migration Reports:
i) Cataloging Report
Anne Uhl introduced herself and her position for the next year. She wants to start making cataloging policy recommendations as soon as possible. She is going to get in contact with library directors and catalogers and find out their questions and concerns. Reviewing the no hits is one of the first issues she will address.
Carol Ann explains the three ways the records are getting in. Eastern will be the first to be attached to if a record matches. Eastern records can not be overlaid due to Orbis. TVCC and BMC will be the next in line to be attached to. If the records are not found in these libraries an exact match of title and ISBN number will attach it to the rest of the libraries.
Aletha does not want any record to be overlaid due to a match by an ISBN number. She doesn’t want to accept false attachments opposed to large duplications.
Decision Made:
Aletha Bonebrake moves to have the ISBN match point eliminated.
Discussion: Patty will agree with the motion as long as the council will concur that they will clean up their duplicates monthly. Council agrees to Patty’s request.
The motion is seconded. Vote is taken with an opposing vote by Pat Bradshaw.
Darcy requests an explanation for the opposing vote. Pat explains that she does not want to get rid of ISBNs in records. It is clarified to her that the record would still have the ISBN but the system would not attach by the match of an ISBN. The clarification changes Pat’s opposing vote. Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Carol Ann will put in a request to Innovative about turning off the ISBN match in attaching records.
Darcy recommends putting together a committee for the catalogers so they can address these types of issues and report back to the council.
i) Due to time constraints Carol Ann will not make a report. She will contact people personally to aid in problems or questions.
ii) Beth is in the process of updating the web page. She encourages anybody with problems to contact her directly.
iii) Shirley requests members to pass on to participating libraries that the problem of being born before 1950 has been solved. If they see any patron records coming up as being born in 2000 – 2049 contact Shirley.
6. Protocol Development issues
(a) Communication
It was suggested to have a universal mechanism that allows libraries to communicate. The web page and a listserv were two ideas given. The listserv would be used for the day to day questions and the web page would contain a work order form for any problems.
Decision Made:
Dale Edwards moves to create a work order form on the web page. The list serve would address problems, changes, etc. Motion seconded. Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
Patty proposes two separate list serves. One list serve for all the council members and the other for the 70 participating libraries.
(b) Unique Items [not in Pioneer or Super CAT]
When a library doesn’t find a record match in the system they have the option to use a template and put a status of t for temporary. These temporary records will be sent off for further cataloging. This process is being worked out right now.
(c) Holds Priority Table
Shirley handed out the hold priority table for regional holds. She explained that requests would be sent according to the size of the library. Eastern, TVCC, and BMC will be the first to be contacted due to their size. From there the requests trickle down until it has found a library that can fill the request.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
EOU or Innovative will prioritize libraries distributing and will review as usage begins for effectiveness.
(d) Power Outages
When Eastern is effected by a power outage there needs to be a phone tree that will let everyone know that the server is down. Patty is going to look into putting our server on a generator.
7.Public Relations
(a) Local Celebration
Patty wants to introduce the new system to the community soon. Eastern is going to introduce the system between January 7th through the 11th.
Darcy wants to know if money was set aside in the budget for any marketing. There was no money allocated specifically for public relations activity. Dale expressed concern regarding the expectations that libraries would be expected to pay for future public relation articles, etc if we pay for this publicity. After further discussion it was noted request for advertising would come from Pioneer Library Council and not individual libraries to avoid developing unintended expectations of paying for publicity by the individual libraries.
Action Item/ Person Responsible:
Eastern will create an ad and then send it over e-mail to the surrounding libraries. Each library can tweak the ad so it will fit in with their community.
(b) OLA Presentation
Due to time constraint discussion on the OLA presentation was delayed. Patty Cutright (Pioneer), Marsha Richmond (EOLN), and Dale Edwards (SOLN) are the three presenters. Shirley will be moderator of the panel.
8. Other
Patty wanted clarification on a few concerns for the System Administrator search process. The council has agreed to move quickly on the System Administrative position. It will be advertised in the ALA electronic version. They will give two weeks for candidates to respond and then they will start the interviewing process
9. Next Meeting
The next council meeting is scheduled for January 7th 2001.