Sage Library System User Council
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Council Minutes
Call to order and roll call (Chair)
Perry Stokes, Delia Walis, Ann Zuehlke, Mary Reser, Dea Nowell, Ryan McGinnis, Marie Baldo, Mary Finney, Linda Stahl, Beth Longwell, Maggie Pando, Brent Mills, Buzzy Nielsen, Marylou Martin, Heidi Florenzen, Cheryl Hancock
Additions/deletions to meeting agenda (Chair)
No additions or deletions
Approval of January 2016 minutes (Chair)
Minutes approved
Open forum for the general membership (Chair)
Reports
Sage Staff (Longwell/Mills)
Things are going well. We added a new keyword index which will do cross-searching on 10 and 13 digit ISBNs. We hope to address cleanup of libraries no longer in Sage using a new feature that allows easier deletion of locations. We are trying to take advantage of some of the new features. Some libraries have been interested in enabling the prevention of negative balances feature.
Perry asked for an explanation of how this feature works. What happens if a patron has paid for a book and then it is returned? If they are eligible for a refund how does that look? Discussion on specifics of the settings was deferred to the upcoming circulation committee meeting.
Reports training held in Hermiston went well. Slides and handouts are up on the Sage web site under the Reports section. Brent is planning on doing a holds training and local systems administration training online.
Brent has been posting system updates as blog posts on the Sage web site and sending out a link on the listserv.
Cataloging Committee (Beth)
The committee did not meet at the beginning of this month but will meet next month. They are continuing to work on resources for the Sage web site. Regional trainings are being scheduled. The patron survey is wrapping up. A report will be given at the next council meeting.
Circulation Committee (Brent)
The Circulation Committee is meeting tomorrow. Updates will be given on various circulation related projects. The survey on volume holds will be reviewed. The committee is also looking at Overdrive integration with Evergreen, a topic which will be covered in a session at the upcoming Evergreen conference. The age protection messages will be worked on so that they are clearer. The 18 month age protection setting is being removed based on the results of a survey and items having that setting will be moved to the 6 month setting. Lastly, there will be a review of check-in modifiers available to staff.
Courier Committee (Beth)
The courier committee met and made it partway through the review and update of the courier procedures document. The goal is promote consistency in how packaging and labeling is handled. Beth is in the process of ordering audiobook boxes and CD boxes. Mary Finney reported that the boxes have made a big difference in the tidiness of the library’s ILL area.
Governance Committee (Marie)
Marie has been tied up with LEO responsibilities but will work on getting a meeting set up to approve the new member documents.
Old Business
Budget (Perry)
The budget will be voted on by email.
An explanation of the budget format was given. Sage has to have enough money in reserve to pay expenses until the Sage membership fees are collected. The membership fees reflect a 2% increase over last year, amounting to a total of 205,000. Other projected income next year will be the LSTA courier grant and funds received from subscribed libraries to pay CatExpress charges. Beth’s salary was calculated with a possible 3% cost of living increase. Administrative services (Baker’s accountant) comes to $5600. Discussion on the increase of retirement benefits took place. Buzzy indicated that the average increase is projected to be 20%. We may need to add to this category. Perry added another $900. Health insurance is projected to stay about the same – will use $7900 here. Buzzy gave a quote for Brent’s salary and benefits which includes an increase in their health insurance and other incidentals.
Materials and services budget items were discussed. Budget kept the same as last year. The fiscal agency fee is calculated at 2% of the Sage budget. The Technical services category covers LTI authority work and will be kept the same. Budget postings will have to be clarified as some supply charges are actually courier charges. For travel we may just combine training and conference travel. Beth will be asking for the same amount for the LSTA courier grant.
The budget will be sent out for a vote by email. Buzzy asked if cataloging committee considered keeping cataloging specialist position after the grant ended. Of course, additional revenue would have to be sought. Beth indicated that although the cataloging committee did not discuss this, it had been discussed among the cataloging mentors and the consensus was that we needed a period of time after the grant to assess future needs and determine whether we would be able to handle training and support needs through mentors. They may bring a proposal in the future to the budget committee.
Dea asked about timeline for budget vote. The consensus was that two weeks to vote would be appropriate.
Beth asked if we should bill out publics and schools separately so that we could make sure that we have adequate income toward the beginning of the fiscal year. Perry also indicated that some libraries don’t receive funding until November. We may need to survey libraries to see which fall into this category.
Renewals and Lost/Missing item survey (Brent)
There were a total of 25 responses to the renewals survey. The options were to increase the renewals to 3 or 4 or leave at the default of 2. Over 13 said they wanted to keep the renewals at 2. Ten indicated that they were in favor of 4 renewals. Two wanted to raise renewals to 3. Beth asked if the survey responses were representative. Brent responded that they were.
Buzzy indicated that two renewals is very low in comparison to what other systems are doing. Reasons given for keeping renewals the same: it is plenty of time for patron to have item and can be overridden for special circumstances, reduces the amount of time that a student has to fess up to losing the item. Holds will prevent renewals. Is there a disparity between school needs and public library needs? We need to think of patron service. Any reason to keep it the same should be strong enough to counter balance a loss of service. Survey results were close enough that this topic should remain on the table. Do we resend survey in a couple months? Do we implement a trial? It is tough to go back after implementing. We will see if we get more responses.
Lost/Missing Item Survey
Suppressing these items from view would only be in the public view, not the staff client. The majority (19 to 5) were in favor of suppressing these from view. This is the default behavior in Evergreen installations. The decision was made to go forward in making this change. Perry mentioned that libraries have different schedules on when something is marked lost and they may need to make adjustments.
There are new spreadsheets listed on Sage web site with each library’s lost and circulation policies
Evergreen conference sponsorship
This was discussed at the last meeting and a decision was postponed until the budget was reviewed. Sponsorship at the $1000 level was considered reasonable and suggested as ongoing support. Marie made a motion to sponsor the conference at the $1000 level and Delia seconded. All were in favor.
New Business
Nominating Committee
The committee is normally composed of the Sage chair plus volunteers. The task is finding new members for the board. Members going off are Ann Zuehlke, Debbie Lind, Dea Nowell, Ryan McGinnis, Buzzy Nielsen. Ann indicated she would be willing to continue as the school representative. Dea volunteered to be a part of the committee. Mary Finney is also willing to continue as a representative as well as serve on the committee. Buzzy reminded everyone that our goal was to involve more people and change membership of the council. We will also need to consider filling the chair position. Perry indicated that May is our general membership meeting and we should work on a location for that. Marie encouraged the participation of library directors in council meetings even if they are not currently on the council. We need to get more people involved, especially since we have Gotomeeting available. Perry suggested the idea of a discount if someone served on council.
Agenda items for next meeting (Chair)
Nominations for Chair and Vice chair positions
Nominations for new council members
Cake