Pioneer Users Council Meeting
January 7, 2002
Present: Patty Cutright, Shirley Roberts, Darcy Dauble, Aletha Bonebrake, Jo Cowling Beth Longwell, Carol Anne Thew, Vicki Brace, Anne Uhl, Ken Reading, Tara Bartley
Speaker Phone: Dale Edwards, Pat Bradshaw, Jolyn Wynn
Absent: Marsha Richmond
Recorder: Tara Bartley
1. Minutes of December 3, 2001
Minutes of December 3, 2001 approved as written.
2. Agenda Review/Modification
- Hold issues will be added to project reports.
- The Bylaw draft will be discussed under the Memorandum of Agreement report.
3. Information Handouts
No handouts will be given at this time. Council should look at this section as a time to share any pamphlets or information that could be helpful or informative to the group.
4. Reports:
(a) Pioneer Library System Administrator
Patty announced that Beth Longwell has accepted the position of Pioneer Library System Administrator. Patty asks that everyone be patient with Beth as she is currently doing both Systems Administration for the Pioneer System and Eastern. Eastern hopes to fill her previous position as soon as possible in order to relieve Beth of both duties.
(b) Memorandum of Agreement of Pioneer User Council-handout is attached
i) Shirley clarified that the Agreement for Pioneer User Council signed in October of 2000 is different then the Bylaws, Aletha has to present.
Shirley handed out the Agreement for Pioneer User Council. She indicated that this is a draft and that anything deleted would have a strikethrough and anything added would be in bold and Italics. Patty and Shirley both agreed that with minor changes made in the agreement there wouldn’t be a need for individual contracts, it could be a node agreement. She encourages everyone to review the agreement and be ready to take action on the item in February’s meeting.
ii) Aletha handed out the Bylaws draft (handout attached). She encourages everyone to take home and review the changes that were made. The changes are in Italics and the deletions are marked in the draft. Aletha points out that Eastern has to review Article II, section 3 titled Compensation to the University for Staff Resources and make necessary changes.
The committee recommends that all members of the Pioneer system must be members of EOIN. Even non-circulating libraries need to become members of EOIN. This maintains the responsibilities the libraries have to resource sharing.
Both the Agreement for Pioneer User Council and the Bylaws draft will be submitted for action at February’s meeting. Any discussion or questions can be addressed on the listserv.
(c) Web Page: Use and Progress
Beth reported that everyone should have received an e-mail that announced the usage of the web page and its address. If there are any questions or suggestions for the web page let Beth know.
(d) Migration Project Report
i) Timeline Update–the timeline is attached
Shirley reviewed December with the council to let them know what was accomplished this last month.
ii) My Millennium
Beth explained the feature option of My Millennium on the Millennium software. With this option, patrons can log in and have a personalized session that will be tailored to their needs. They can receive e-mails that update them on material that is new and added to the library’s collection and many more personal selections for the patron. It is an important function that needs to get on the table and the timeline.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will prepare a demonstration for next month’s council meeting on My Millennium
iii) Aletha expressed her concern for the General Material Designation (GMD) in a title. Anything with GMD that also has an h field is suppressing the c field. She is finding this in many of the audio and video examples.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will look into this indexing issue and correct it.
5. Regional Holds
At the December meeting Shirley had introduced the regional holds software that would allow for requests to go directly to the region that is requesting the material. The council had discussed being a beta test site for this software. Shirley has now found out that beta testing has already been completed for this product. There is a chance that within 2-6 months they will allow us to get agency fields added to the patron records. If this does not happen we will wait until September when the 2002 Update is released.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Shirley will check back with Georgia Fujikawa, Innovative Trainer, in two months to see if we can get early access to the regional holds enhancement.
6. Beth informs the council that requesting is now up and running. She encourages sites to have patrons request holds.
Ken expresses concern that some libraries will not be able to afford the postage charges. It was mentioned that some libraries charge their patrons for a requested item. Aletha informed the council that if the libraries were Net Lenders that some of the charges would be reimbursed. The theory is that the benefit will be as much as it costs.
It is decided that each individual library has the right to charge patrons to absorb some of the postage charges, but they will not charge other libraries..
Action Item/Person Responsible
Beth will add verbiage to the request screen that informs patrons to view library policy before requesting an item, as there may be a charge. She encourages libraries to send her their individual policies and charges so she can link them to the library information display.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will clarify the pin # on the requesting screen to make it more clear to the patron.
A reminder to all circulating libraries needs to go out about printing paging slips and cancellation notices daily.
Action Item/Person Responsible
Beth will send a reminder out to circulating libraries that they need to check their notices daily.
a) Training
Shirley informed the council that they still have five days of training scheduled from Innovative. Some members have asked for refreshing courses on Circ and Cataloging. The Serials and Acquisitions training for Eastern would take one day, leaving four days left for a refresher course on these areas.
There is a possibility that some of the other libraries will want to use the Serials and Acquisition module and will need training in this area also. If this is possible additional training will be needed. The extra days of training will cost an additional$1000 per day.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will prepare a demonstration for next meeting that explains what the serial module can do. She will also contact Innovative to find guidelines on when a library should use the serial module.
b) Cataloging
Anne reported to the council that she plans to travel to individual libraries in spring to do one-on-one training. She wants to visit the remote libraries also to get them more involved.
Aletha suggested getting the catalogers together to go over cataloging procedures.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
A committee made up of Anne Uhl, Carol Anne Thew, Aletha Bonebrake, Jo Cowling/Vicki Brace, Dea Nowell, Jean Ruud, and Debra Spidal/Marjorie Hoeft will look at cataloging procedures. Both Supercat and OCLC will be discussed.
Beth and Anne want to know how the remote libraries are cataloging no hit items. They need to know who in the nodes are doing the actual cataloging.
Ken reports that Dea does all the cataloging for EOLN remote sites, while the Circ sites put a temporary record into the database with a “t” status in the message for temporary. Dea then goes in and cleans up those temporary records.
Dale reports that each site does their own cataloging for SOLN sites. Temporary records are being added by some of the libraries.
Anne needs a consensus from the council on whether or not they will accept temporary records.
Patty informed the council that Eastern had been using temporary records when ordering an item to avoid being charged twice by OCLC. Eastern will no longer be putting these temporary records in.
The council has agreed it is desirable that temporary records not be in the catalog, but are unsure on how they will get the records in quickly for live site no-hits.
Dale notes that he does not want to hurry into anything until they have talked to the libraries that are making the temporary records.
Anne suggested using Cat Express, which was designed for rural libraries, and have a 98% hit rate. Due to time constraints for the meeting the committee will review all suggestions. They will devise a plan in solving the problem of temporary records and bring their recommendations to the next council meeting. [Note that on the fly records are allowed for Inter Library Loan.]
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Anne Uhl will chair the cataloging committee. They will review the discussion of temporary records as soon as possible. Discussion will take place on the listserv and at committee meetings.
c) Periodicals
Aletha expressed her concern for the maintenance of weekly journals. The libraries are receiving some of the same weekly journals, which is making it difficult to get into the system to attach the item when everyone is in at the same time. She suggests four separate records, one for EOLN, SOLN, Pioneer, and Eastern.
Further discussion brought about the possibility that each individual site have their own bib record for the journal, or to break the records up by year. Beth wants to hold off on this decision until she can present to the council how different solutions may be displayed.
Action Item/Person Responsible:
Beth will create some different schemes to show members and then decide how to handle the situation.
d) Property Disposition
Shirley informed the council that she was working with the necessary people at Eastern to get the free printers and speakers that were received with their equipment off of Eastern’s books. This will give ownership to the libraries that received the free equipment. Beth was contacting Vecmar to purchase the old wise terminals. She will get back to the libraries when she has received a quote from them.
Dale is surplusing most of their old Dynix systems.
e) Public Relations
Patty wants to introduce the new system to each community. She inquired about the dates of January 22nd-25th for having a grand opening. The tentative schedule would be 1/22 at Burns, 1/23 at Ontario, 1/24 at Pendleton/Hermiston, and 1/25 at Umatilla.
Ken suggested waiting until they have been on the system longer. He wants to be up and running at least 90 days before having a grand opening. It was suggested to have it during the week of February 19th-22nd, with the same schedule planned for January [Tuesday – Thursday]. The council agreed that all libraries have their grand openings during this time. The nodes will be responsible for their own plans.
Jolyn requested that members be present when the Harney library board goes in front of the Harney County Commissioner on January 16th.
f) Budget Review
Ken reported that Boardman and Milton-Freewater are having problems with their Internet connection. They might have to switch carriers in order to get a faster connection. Boardman is currently using Centurytel and it is not working well. An agreement with Michael Lasher, Umatilla ESD and BMCC/Boardman is in the works at a monthly cost of $75.
Milton-Freewater is currently using a 256k wireless connection, which is too slow. The money that was budgeted for their equipment fund needs to stay there for the time being as additional equipment may need to be purchased.
Shirley will have a detailed budget report for next months meeting.
7. Announcements/Congratulations/Victories
Pam Horan, Technology Planning Consultant at Oregon State Library, is encouraging the Pioneer libraries that did not have automated systems before to sign the ILL lending agreement. She has information about the ILL Net Lender Reimbursement and will be giving these libraries data on their reimbursement rights.
Aletha reported that they are in the process of working with the Net Lender program on obtaining a higher reimbursement rate for net lenders in consortiums that do not have ground courier. They are evaluating distribution formulas, seeking more money for lending reimbursement and looking at what and how lending/borrowing requests are reported.
Ken is concerned that some libraries are e-mailing requests back and forth, rather than joining EOIN. He wants the council to make a policy that requires each participating library to join EOIN. It is $10 a month for the libraries to join.
Pat is concerned that some libraries are so tight with their budgets that they will not be able to meet the $10 month membership fee. In the past Nyssa library put requests into Malheur County’s library and Malheur would order off of EOIN. She inquired if Nyssa could continue to order through them and not become a member of EOIN. The problem with this situation is remote sites would not be able to borrow from Nyssa without a lot of work on the part of Malheur City Library and education of all participants.
If we allow one library to bypass the membership other libraries will want the same. There needs to be a policy in place that all libraries follow. Patty suggests that grant monies pick up membership fees for the 22 non-EOIN libraries through June. This gives the libraries time to work the extra costs in their budgets for next year.
User council asks the nodes to be responsible on getting message out to their libraries of required EOIN participation. They will train libraries to use EOIN. All 22 libraries would get help until fiscal year ends.
Policy is in proposed by-laws under consideration.
Decision Made:
Ken moves to adopt now the policy in proposed bylaws that “all Pioneer libraries are required to be active members of EOIN.” Motion seconded. Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
Decision Made:
Aletha moves to expend grant funds for mitigating the fees for these libraries through June 2002 in which they will have budgeted the cost for the next fiscal year. Motion is seconded.
Discussion: Each node will let participating libraries know.
Vote is unanimous. Motion passed.
8. Next Meeting
The next council meeting is scheduled for February 4, 2002 at 9:00 a.m.