Sage Council Meeting Minutes
May 18, 2021
Attendees: Perry Stokes (Vice-chair), Dea Nowell, Heather Spry, Kathleen Schmidtgall, Mark Rose (chair), Marsha Richmond, Jon Georg (Sage), Beth Ross (Sage), Ryan McGinnis, Rachael Fox, Maggie Pando, Ann Zuehlke
Approval of March minutes: Perry moved to approve the minutes, Ryan seconded. March minutes approved unanimously.
Cataloging Committee report – The committee met on April 5, 2021. One topic of discussion was the consistent use and importance of the marc tag 999 for scoping of searches. Also discussed were local subject headings. Monographic parts were reviewed and a demonstration of that functionality was given. The meetings are recorded and available for viewing on the Sage YouTube channel.
Server Upgrade (Jon) – The new physical database servers have been put in place and the postgres software installed. Things are ready for Equinox to replicate the database over to the new databases. We are using this opportunity to move everything over to the new subnet. We already have the app servers and bal server on the new subnet and just need to bring over the log server. We are going to break out z39, SIP, and Nagios monitoring software onto small virtual machines. We will have redundant load balancers as well. We will eventually have 4 app servers and a redundant log server. Jon will be meeting with Tim at EOU and Galen at Equinox to work out details. It will be a 10 gigabit network rather than a 1 gigabit, which will also speed things up. Mark asked about network security. Jon indicated that all data has to go through EOU firewall, through load balancer and then to the databases. We will be completely isolated in our own subnet.
Evergreen upgrade (Beth) – We don’t have a date because we have been waiting for the hardware switchover. Hopefully late June. At the end of the meeting we could watch a video put together by Equinox on some of the 3.6 features or save it for a separate meeting. The demo shows features of the new angular staff catalog, course reserves module, and hopeless holds feature.
Budget Adjustments (Perry) – We need to adjust starting cash balance, and fix social security lines since Beth opted out of health insurance and it was added to salary. We spent some out of contingency to fund extra hours for Equinox. Supplies were increased some. Travel and training are down so that line was decreased. We’ve paid out the last portion of the membership credits we were holding onto. Mark – are there any areas of concern? Perry said no. Important to build up salary structure so that we can replace either Sage staff positions in the future. Ryan moved to approve the budget adjustments. Ann seconded the motion. All were in favor.
Council Openings – 4 openings as of July 1. Between now and then we will need to get volunteers and nominations. Beth will send out an email to the general listserv asking for volunteers. If anyone has any suggestions, please let her know. We would like to prioritize those who haven’t served recently if possible. These positions are voted on by libraries in their group so once we have candidates we could send out a request to vote. In summary, we have a circulating schools position, public libraries under 5000 position, public libraries 5000 to 15000 position, and a public libraries over 15000 position. Ryan – have we discussed incentivizing a council position? Yes, we talked about a member credit for serving on the council. Discussion took place around whether incentive is necessary. The other idea is to have a random drawing to select a library or we could have a rotating schedule. Traditionally officer positions have been held by large libraries but we could have a rotating schedule amongst those libraries. We may need to make a bylaws change if we change policy. Dea – concerned that if we force participation, we may have less attendance than normal. Kathleen –likes incentive option better than requiring participation. Might have better outcome with meeting attendance. More positive than negative. How large would incentive need to be? If they don’t show up, would they lose part of credit? Credit per meeting would be applied to their next membership bill. Would there be more incentive for holding chair and vice-chair positions? This would impact the budget with less money coming in from membership fees.
Additional topics –
Beth could feature demo to entire consortium. Suggestion was made to offer two different times. Evergreen is having their online conference next week so there may be other things to share. Course reserves module can be used for more than just community colleges, possibly for things on display.
Beth – Are you seeing a lessening of Covid requirements? Hermiston – Taking some time but open more hours. Mixed bag still. Requiring masks. Baker – Perry set June 1 as date to end mask requirement.
Beth – Are folks still quarantining courier materials? Mark – 24 hours , Ryan – no, Kathleen – 24 hours for items in the book drop. Beth was hoping to remove OPAC message that indicates there will be a delay. Consensus was that it was ok to remove.
Wowbrary – How does it identify it as a new book? It appears to be based on the create date.
Ryan moved to adjourn, Dea seconded. Meeting adjourned at 11am, Pacific Time