Pioneer Users Council Meeting
February, 4 2002
Present: Patty Cutright, Ken Reading, Darcy Dauble, Beth Longwell, Aletha Bonebrake, Vicky Bruce, Jo Cowling, Marsha Richmond, Carol Anne Thew, Anne Uhl, Dale Edwards, Shirley Roberts, Tara Bartley
Speaker Phone: Jolyn Wynn, Pat Bradshaw
Recorder: Tara Bartley
1. Minutes of January 7, 2002
Pat Bradshaw was concerned with the sentence within the above minutes under agenda item 5-Announcements, Congratulations and Victories, paragraph 4, sentence 4. She wanted to clarify that she did not say the sentence “The problem with this situation is remote sites would not be able to borrow from Nyssa without a lot of work on the on the part of Malheur County Library and education of all participants.” This sentence will now read, “It was noted by members present that there would be a problem with this situation…”
Minutes of January 7, 2002 approved with the above modifications.
2. Agenda Review /Modification
Shirley would like to add to the bottom of the agenda a serial module and acquisitions demonstration if time permits.
Anne wants to approach the Council with a request for additional funding for cataloging purposes. This will be addressed in the budget additions and budget review section.
An issues and resolutions section will be added right after Information Handouts.
3. Information Handouts
Beth distributed four handouts: Administrative Authorizations, How to Menu, Requesting screen example, and My Millennium instructions. They are attached with the minutes.
4. Issues and Resolutions
Darcy initiated a discussion on what is expected by Beth in the System’s administrative position. Three issues need to be discussed and have resolutions determined, and they are priorities, training, and organizational development.
a) Priority
There is a need for responsiveness with issues of concern. Some libraries are vexed that their questions and problems are not being answered in a timely matter. At times they are unsure of whom to contact and how to reach them. At the node levels they are uncertain of what they are and are not responsible for.
Beth admits that she needs to communicate more with the libraries. She encourages the nodes to answer their libraries question if they know the answers. If it is a critical question that needs to be answered immediately, give her a phone call. If it does not need to be addressed at once put in a work order form. If no response is given to an e-mail follow up with a phone call to her. She encourages anybody to contact her if they are having problems.
Dale is unsure of the responsibilities he holds as SOLN’s node representation. He wants to see a committee created that will determine who makes decisions for certain problems. Guidelines need to be established and responsibilities need to be identified. The committee will distinguish the levels of responsibility.
Patty informs Council that the question of whom is responsible for what has always been a concern. It was determined that problems with the actual system the System Administrator resolves. If problems arise in certain groups related to a process (i.e. cataloging, circulation), that is where node representation is vital. If there is no resolution to a problem the System’s Administrator is always contacted.
Beth is concerned that the listserv is not reaching everyone it should. She feels that additional staff members need to be included in the discussions. This would make the listserv more useful and more active.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Council members need to give Beth their staff e-mail addresses, along with what they do in the library. She will subscribe them to the listserv.
b) Training
It was expressed that there is a need for additional site training. The training needs to address problems with things not working right and/or not knowing how to do certain functions. It was noted that some of the sites will need this training soon.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will travel to the sites having difficulties for additional training. Milton-Freewater, Pendleton, Ontario Middle School, Ontario High School, and Vale need circulation training. Malheur and Nyssa need additional training in cataloging. Marsha will get back with Beth to see if Boardman needs training. The training will be scheduled as soon as possible.
The council has emphasized an additional training course by 3I. As of now they are unsure what they will need to be trained on, but a date needs to be scheduled. The training will be customized to fit the needs of the libraries. It was decided that May would be a good time to have the refresher-training course. At this time there will be a better understanding of where libraries stand for the serials and acquisitions training in June.
c) Organizational Development
It was suggested that work groups need to be established. Issues can be shared as a group and then reported back to Beth. Three different work groups need to be created, which are cataloging (already in place), circulation, and systems group.
The cataloging committee will establish standards for cataloging no hit records and any other issues dealing with cataloging. The circulation work group will deal with request holds, display, and interlibrary loan issues. The systems work group will deal with node responsibilities, workflow, and authorizations.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
The circulation work group is proposed to be made up of Heidi Florenzen from Hermiston Public, Susan Gaines from EOU, Tom Hilliard or Mary Finney from Pendleton Public, Faith Adams from Nyssa Public, Carmen Wickam from Baker Public, Karen Eddy from BMCC, Claire Larson from Harney Public, an OTLD representative, and Beth Longwell. Heidi Florenzen will be asked to chair the committee. This work group will begin as soon as possible.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
The system work group will be made up of Beth Longwell, Ken Reading, Dale Edwards, Bob Jones, Claire Larson, and Pat Bradshaw. Beth Longwell will chair the committee. This work group will begin in the middle of March.
Once the work groups get established a hierarchy of responsibility will be created. The work groups will help channel issues and concerns to Beth. The system group will determine node representatives. It was suggested that if the representatives are chosen soon enough they could attend training sessions with Beth.
Quality is an issue some libraries are concerned with. Millennium software is a lot slower than the telnet system. The software OS 10.1 for iMacs could be the solution for speeding transaction activity. Beth informs the group that the system will react differently at different sites.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will look in the possibility of upgrading all of the iMacs to OS10.1.
5. Reports
a) Systems Administrator
Beth reviewed the handouts she handed out earlier in the meeting. She explained that the Administrative Authorizations handout displays what authorization codes are accessible to each library.
The How-to-Menu handout shows that new instructions have been added to the web page. She encourages everyone to look at the instructions and get back to Beth with any suggestions. She is putting a modified date on the bottom of the page to keep everyone straight on which one is the most recent.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will put a link to the manual on the How-to-Menu page.
The request screen handout shows recent changes to the screen. People suggested that the verbiage be more informative.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will change the verbiage at the top of the screen from, “Some libraries may charge for requests. Please check with your local library,” to “Your home library may charge for requests. Ask your librarian.”
Aletha would like a button on the request page that will take you back to the search results.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will add the option to return to the search results page from the request screen.
Beth informs the group that Innovative has turned on a function that will send paging slips on to the next library if not printed within 72 hours. Each library still has the option to move the paging slip on manually.
b) Cataloging Work Team
Anne had e-mailed Council members the recommended standards for bibliographic records that shows the cataloging teams recommendations (handout is included). It is clarified that these are the standards for creating a new record for the no-hits. Attaching to records is also addressed. She informs the group that as of now it is temporary. The cataloging group hopes to review and evaluate the standards after a certain time period. Anne suggests looking at these standards as a permanent on going process.
Decision Made:
Dale moves to accept Anne’s standards for bibliographic records. Motion is seconded. Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
Anne informs the group that on the fly records have not been discussed, but will be looked at soon. Anne will send the cataloging minutes out to the Council members. It was suggested that the minutes being sent out to the listserv too.
Beth wanted a clarification from the Council on how much the cataloging workgroup can implement without reporting back to the Council. It was stated that as long as it stays within the parameter of the work group it is not necessary to bring everything back to the Council. Test runs are ok to experiment with, but anything that will be made permanent to the system needs to be reported back to Council. The Council listserv is an option of getting information out to them and getting a quicker decision made.
c) Memorandum of Agreement of Pioneer User Council/Pioneer User Council Bylaws
Shirley requests that Council members send her their corrections to the Memorandum of Agreement. She handed the worksheet out in January’s meeting. She wants the changes before next council’s meeting.
The Bylaws also need to be reviewed and returned to Aletha with any changes or deletions. She will add in the Bylaws a reference to the handout for the standards of bibliographic records.
d) Migration Project Report
i) Timeline
Shirley gave a timeline worksheet at January’s meeting. The timeline has not changed considerable for February. She informs the Council that Open Houses are scheduled for February 18-22. February 19th will be Harney County’s Open House, February 20th will be Malheur County’s, and tentatively either February 18th or 21st will be Union County’s.
Shirley encourages people to give notices to the newspapers about the open houses. Each node is responsible for placing their advertisement with billing to be sent to Eastern for grant payment. Patty encourages the group to take the advertisement and invitations sent out by Eastern and change it to fit their library.
ii) Budget Review (handouts included)
Shirley handed out a detailed budget review. It breaks down the money issued by each individual grantor. It details the money used, waiting to be used, and the savings we have incurred. She also handed out a Budget Additions worksheet and a Review of the Ongoing Costs for Pioneer Library System handout (the handouts are included).
The pending amount in the budget is $77,189 with a remaining amount of $22,500 in unallocated funds. If there are any questions about the budget please contact Shirley.
Shirley requests that each member look at the budget addition worksheet and decides what they would like to spend the additional savings on. Shirley will have firmer saving numbers in March and April and they can make a decision then what to spend the additional money on then.
Hand Held computers for inventory is an option for using the additional money on. Beth will get a firmer figure on what it would cost to purchase this equipment.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will get a dollar quote for the purchasing of the hand-held computers.
Anne requested money to be budgeted in for her to use OCLC for cataloging purposes. She has had requests from libraries to help catalog some of their original books or help clean up some short records. The members of the Council decided that those libraries asking Anne to aid with cataloging issues would have to pay for her OCLC use.
6. Next Meeting
The remaining agenda items will be tabled until March’s meeting due to time constraints. Look at the remaining agenda items and be prepared to discuss them.
The next council meeting will be scheduled for March 4th.