Sage Council-March 11 2009

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Sage Council Minutes


March 11, 2009, 1 pm Pacific Time (New Meeting Time)
 
Attendance:  Karen Clay, Beth Longwell, Perry Stokes, Jo Cowling and Louise Weeks; via video:  Ken Reading, Kat Davis, & Marsha Richmond, Cheryl Hancock, and Amy Hutchinson; via conference call:  Marie Baldo, Kathy Street, Denine Rautenstrauch, and Paul Weiss our new Project Coordinator.

Council Chair Karen Clay called meeting to order at 1:10 pm PDT. 

  • Agenda Review—Add 7.) Standards for attaching to Patron records—(kc) 8.) Meeting time and 9.) OPAC redesign
  • Approval of Minutes—(kc) Perry motioned to approve as written.  Motion passed.
  • Committee reports—
    • Open Source—(pw) we are locked down with Solenet (through Equinox).  There will be training the week of April 6 to the:
      • In La Grande Circulation and Cataloging on day 1
      • In La Grande Admin on day 2
      • In Ontario on day 3
      • In Hermiston on day 4

Still working on profile information.  Server is working and Equinox will install Evergreen this week or next.   Re:  Acquisitions, we will be available to see on May 1st.  Serials and Reserves module will be available later this year.  We hope it is included, but Paul will check on it.  Solinet has a free 2-hour training and overview of Evergreen.  Next one is 3/31 for other people who want to know and can’t make the training.

Acquisition documentation is being written along with development.  How close are we adhering to our schedule?  We are about 1 ½ weeks behind schedule.  Shae didn’t seem overly concerned at this point. 

LSTA Grant deadline is also that week of 4/6 -4/10.  We should be getting a quote from Equinox, but also need to add in travel plus other details.

  • Courier Committee—(kc & bl) Courier Committee has met a couple of times.  We received an extra $6,000 from the State grant.  Beth didn’t think it will be less than what we need to pay our bill.  Click-N-Ship in February was over $3000.  Brainstorming ideas to think of alternatives.  Two sites have agreed to try a different way of shipping for one month.  One simple but too obvious way, would be to purchase stamps and let sites weigh out and send via media mail with correct postage.  Kathy Street from Gilliam Co. Library will try this method.  Beth is devising a reporting idea. 

The main crux of the Click-N-Ship issue is that there is no flexibility—we have to send priority mail.  We want to use Media mail.  USPS website has a downloadable program.  Kathy Street suggested using even library mail.  A second method would be to use an outside vendor like stamps.com or Endicia.  There is a charge of $10 per month.  Beth is concerned about having 30+ libraries @ $10/month, which is about $300 or $3600 a year just in monthly fees and doesn’t include postage.  However, Elgin PL will try Endicia for one month as there is a free trial period.   Both libraries were chosen by volume of in/out borrowing.  

  • Budget Approval—(bl) Beth did NOT assess a 4% increase on membership. As much as possible we want to avoid increases.  We want to cut costs in the courier system rather than increase our courier fee.  There was discussion regarding both pros and cons of each and about doing BOTH—cutting costs and increasing fee.  Increase by how much?  Increase by a flat amount such as +$10 at the $150 level; +$25 at the $400 level; and +50 at the $700 level.  The other option could be a percentage increase, such as 10%.  Marie moves to approve the budget with an increase of Courier fee by 10%.  Jo seconds.  Motion passed unanimously with no nays or abstains.
  • Automation projects at Grant County and Union Public—(bl) Grant Co. PL and Union Carnegie PL are both in the process of getting all their books cataloged digitally.  Both hope to be fully digital by this time next year.
    • Grant County—Grant Co. is using student help with supervision with those students who have experience in library cataloging at their high school. 
    • Union Public—Union is also cataloging and bar coding at this time.
    • Fishtrap in Joseph—has expressed an interest in joining our consortium.  We are in conversation with them, probably as a non-circulating library with a special collection. 
  • Consortia pricing from Global Road Warrior for geographical database—(bl) Marsha [Hermiston PL] is planning, but has not subscribed yet.  Milton-Freewater does subscribe. Beth figured out it would cost $19,000 consortium-wide.  Marsha:  <10,000 population = $360 per year.  Sounds like some libraries would get a better price than others. 
  • Standards for attaching to Patron records—(kc) Re: messages, we have not established a policy.  Messages are mostly used locally.  Some standards to consider:  Library name; Perry:  based on standards from King Co. DIBàdate, initials, branch name.  Take up in Circulation Committee?  One of the strengths of Evergreen has a very detailed message display at library-only, and another display consortium-wide. 
  • Meeting time—(kc) There was discussion about changing the time again.  Consider alternating times, Wednesday PM and Tuesday AM.  We will need reminders—Karen will go back to survey and see what the second top result was. 
  • OPAC redesign—(bl) Holds are not getting completed.  After submitting hold, you should get a final button screen.  People are not scrolling down.  It is not displaying in Internet Explorer.  Beth is looking into this issue in order to fix. 

On the main page, there is a link at the very top on the right hand side “Trouble viewing this page.”  àNo side bar.  Scaled down access to catalog. 

Meeting adjourned at 2:15 pm PST

Next meeting will be on May 13, 2009

Louise Weeks, Recorder