Sage Council Meeting
March 16, 2021
Minutes
Attendees: Mark Rose (chair), Perry Stokes (Vice-chair), Beth Ross (Sage), Jon Georg (Sage), Marsha Richmond, Dea Nowell, Ryan McGinnis, Rachael Fox, Denine Rautenstrauch, Ann Zuehlke, Kip Roberson, Kathy Street, Mary Reser, Becky Doherty, Michele Timmons
Request for additional agenda items– None offered.
Approval of November 2020 minutes – Dea Nowell motioned to approve minutes, Ryan McGinnis seconded. Minutes were approved.
Request by Ione Community School (Resource sharing partner) to forego membership this year due to school closure and no ILL
Council members were concerned that this would set a precedent and that we were too far into the Sage fiscal year for non-payment. One of the suggestions was pro-rating the fee. It was recommended that this be referred to the Budget committee and a recommendation brought back to the Sage Council at the next meeting.
Automatic Renewals – some libraries have begun using this service. Should we consider Sage-wide?
Two libraries (Hood River and Cook Memorial) shared their experience and the positive response from patrons. Marsha (KCC) indicated that auto-renewals would not be good at the community college level with materials needing to be returned on a timely basis for use by other students. The decision was made to just institute auto-renewals for those libraries who wish to turn it on for their patrons. The suggestion was made to send out a message to the listserv advertising the availability of the service.
System Update – server purchase and upgrade to version 3.6 in Evergreen (Beth & Jon)
Jon reported that upgrading the application servers from 9gb to 16 gb of RAM solved the issues we were having the Evergreen system lagging and having to restart services multiple times a day. New Dell servers have been ordered for our Evergreen database. The plan is to install version 3.6 on these servers and move the data over from our existing servers. We will continue to use EOU servers to host our application servers and we plan on increasing the number of application servers from 2 to 4. EOU will place Sage servers in a secured cage in one of their data centers in case we need separate physical access at some point. Beth and Jon are meeting with Equinox next week to find out more regarding a potential implementation date and projected cost. Beth will send out an email with features and updates included with 3.6.
Draft Sage Budget for 2021-22 Review (Perry)
Perry presented an overview of the budget draft along with salary increase options for Beth as Systems Manager. The council opted to approve a step increase and cost of living increase and that figure was a part of the budget draft. Kathy moved to approve the 2021-22 budget and Ryan seconded. The budget passed unanimously.
Proposal for slight modification to member fee structure (Perry)
Two proposals were presented for structuring member fees for the upcoming fiscal year. The first option would be a 3% increase across the board for all membership levels. The second option takes into account population increases and decreases based on the 3-year average population served for each library. The population numbers are gleaned from the State Library report. Perry adjusted those that had unexplained wild swings. There was general approval for the new method as it is more equalizing. Due to the fact that this is a potential change to the membership fee structure it was decided that it should go to the general membership for a vote by email.
Annual Sage meeting?
Normally Sage holds an annual meeting in person in May or June. Mark – We’ve gained experience at tele-meetings and it is simpler to meet this way. Consensus was made to hold the meeting virtually this year.
Additional discussion – Library2Go now offering magazines. Baker is now successfully accepting credit card payments via the OPAC through Payflow Pro. Beth will work with Hood River on getting Paypal to work. If any others are interested in turning on credit card payments, please let Beth know.
Meeting adjourned at 11:30 am PT