Sage Council Meeting Minutes (Draft)
May 31, 2019 (Annual meeting)
Attendees (in person and online): Ryan McGinnis (chair), Kathy Street, Beth Ross, Cecili Longhorn, Mary Reser, Denine Rautenstrauch, Perry Stokes, Carrie Bushman, Erin McCusker, Adam Sims, Rose Peacock, Nola Huey, Michele Timmons, Mark Rose (vice-chair), Marsha Richmond, Delia Fields, Erin Wells, Dea Nowell, Arwen Ungar, John Brockman, Ann Zuehlke, Jon Georg
Immediately prior to the annual Sage Council meeting was a demo of Niche Academy, a training resource database that the State Library is implementing and could be a platform to provide and monitor Sage training.
Approval of March 2019 minutes – Perry moved to approve. Kathy seconded. Minutes approved with all in favor.
Committee Reports
Cataloging Committee – Summary provided by John Brockman, chair of Cataloging Committee
New authorities from LTI
Training resources – Mentors have conducted a few new training sessions covering topics such as correct practice for entering series, referencing authorities, and maneuvering the web client. They have been uploaded to Youtube, and more training sessions are scheduled for the coming months. With the next update to the ILS making the staff client obsolete, web client training will be prioritized.
Display changes – As a result of new protocols for series, some changes have been made to the OPAC to facilitate easier discovery. For example, items belonging to multiple series will now display all series entries, and series part names now display.
Website/Youtube changes – With the amount of new resources, some reorganization is planned for both the Sage Cataloging website as well as the Youtube page. Lists of resources will be changed to hierarchies and/or folders for easier discovery.
Realia/Library of Things – More libraries are adding items into Library of Things collections. Discussions of best practices are ongoing in regards to consistent description and circulation protocols.
Circulation Committee – no meeting held. Kathy is willing to chair this committee and a meeting will be scheduled.
Courier Committee – no meeting held but there have been courier changes. We made an attempt to speed up delivery to Klamath Community College by creating ClicknShip accounts for main drop sites to direct mail to Klamath but USPS changed their software and it blocks the use of the Sage credit card if the billing address does not equal the sending library address. This makes it useless for Sage purposes. In the meantime, materials will have to return to going through EOU. In the new fiscal year we are pursuing setting Klamath up as an Orbis Cascade drop site, either under OIT or individually.
A couple weeks prior to this meeting we received word that the courier providing service to the Wallowa County libraries and Elgin was no longer going to provide courier. After scrambling a new courier has been found and will start Monday. Still working on a courier solution for materials going out of the Umatilla Special Library District during the month of August since BMCC will be closed. Need someone an hour a day in Pendleton to create the Expak courier labels. Will continue to work on a solution and communicate with libraries involved.
Kathy indicated that there are still packaging issues that aren’t being addresses – i.e. labels being put directly on the DVD box which ruins the box, inadequate packaging. There is continued frustration. Receiving boxes from The Dalles which items that aren’t bagged. When arriving at the IMESD they don’t have bags to put the items in so they are delivered loose in courier bins. Emails were sent out but it is still happening. Baker receives large, heavy boxes from Hood River. DVDs not put in boxes. Then, sometimes, the opposite occurs where the dvd is a box inside a padded envelope inside a green bag. Maybe pictures are needed for packaging instruction. IMESD has milk crates and space is limited so excessive packaging impacts them also. Kathy has communicated directly with sites sending boxes and it is still occurring.
Has Sage done an inventory of bags? Beth ordered more bags and we do have a good supply at EOU. Bag requests can be sent to the sage listserv or to Jeff McDonald at EOU directly. The suggestion was made that we have regional hubs where extra bags could be stored and easily obtained by libraries close by. Adam asked if there was a shortage of DVD boxes. Beth said that she ordered more because they were out at EOU.
Resource sharing is continuing to increase and likewise the time spent getting items ready for the courier has increased. Beth shared that we received word that our LSTA courier grant has been funded for the upcoming fiscal year.
Systems Update – We had some issues a couple weeks ago with space for backups and with Equinox’s help we re-configured things for now but are looking at long term solutions. Jon and Beth may do a minor upgrade depending on whether bug fixes are considered significant enough.
Followup to Niche demo earlier – Kathy heard from Darcy at the State Library that they will host all possible videos from Niche Academy and that libraries will be able to link from their web sites to the trainings. However, individual libraries will not be able to create their own academies and tutorials. Sage would have to have their own subscription. If other Evergreen libraries create one and make it shareable through Niche Academy we would be able to access it. Beth will get a price quote. A really nice element is the ability to monitor which staff members have taken specific trainings and the ability to have Sage specific trainings.
Enterprise reported a problem with circulation freezing in the desktop staff client if unused for 15 or more minutes. Discussion occurred regarding issues some had with check-in on web client. Suggestion was made to put up a Google doc where problems could be shared.
Beth shared a Powerpoint presentation about three conferences that she went to along with sessions attended – a northwest Evergreen symposium, OLA, annual Evergreen conference. Powerpoint presentation will be shared along with the minutes. Beth also shared a presentation of new features for 3.2 and 3.3 – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QcuUf_CUl20YS2lhky4oQikkXldKwI4gd0-ucY7emXE/edit?usp=sharing . There was interest in training on Acquisitions this summer.
Plan is to upgrade test server to latest version of Evergreen so that we can experiment. Perry asked how we will be able to test speed issues. Beth indicated that there was a known decrease in performance when too many items on check-out screen. Perry suggested that we have a time period where everyone uses web client as a trial.
Lunch Break
Part 2 of the Annual meeting
Sage budget portion of Baker’s LB10 form was shared with minor changes. More cash carryover than anticipated. Didn’t collect as much in member fees with change in some member levels. Insurance rates changed some. Had to buy more Equinox hours. Decreasing administrative fee. LB10 changes approved.
Informal discussion period
Mark wanted input on self-checkout stations. The ones they have are older and down a lot. Are there improvements with the new software? Who else is using? – La Grande, Pendleton. Ryan said they purchased new refurbished unit for $100. Mark will communicate with Ryan and Beth will check to see if improvements have been made.
Perry would really like to do online payments and would like the software to be compatible with Square. They would like to purchase a Point of Sale unit that works with Square. Other libraries indicated an interest in pursuing online payments, some of which were already using Square. Evergreen works with Paypal and Stripe but nobody has implemented yet. Baker has Paypal Pro so we need to re-test and try to get this working.
Mary would like receipt template to show bill type, i.e. copies. May have to change template to a custom one.
Perry brought up the topic of cyber security and a recent experience that a library outside of Sage (Kentucky) experienced. Jon looked into our security and indicated that our servers are behind a firewall and not viewable externally and that we have redundant backups. We would be able to restore from backup if we are attacked.
Can we activate patron history for the patron or have it turned on by default? No, because of patron privacy. A tutorial is available under Help/Using My Account. Carrie created a step-by-step guide to creating a Library2Go account, she will send out on listserv.
Kathy asked about embargos on new items, something that was discussed at last year’s meeting. Have we done anything about it? Doesn’t seem to be consistent. We had talked about everyone using 3 months. It is based on active date. Dea indicated that date displayed in the OPAC appears to be using create date. Beth will look into. Six-month setting is being used by some libraries, Carrie indicated that she is using with homeschool collection but that could be controlled with a hold policy. Should this be a topic for the circulation committee? Standardized loan rules indicate a 90-day embargo. Six-month one should be removed.
Gilliam County wants their DVDs to check out for 3 weeks. Beth has to set up a circulation policy for this. Kathy has an issue with Blu-Ray checking out for 3 weeks when it should be 1 week. Support ticket could be created.
Circulation committee may want to discuss automatic renewals. Potential increase in items being lost with automatic renewals. Patrons auto-notified by email of renewal. Would this be a problem with those that don’t have email.
Courtesy notice can be sent by text if set up in your account. Does this work? Could there be a training/tutorial to make people aware?
It would be great if we could have two regional all day staff trainings. Is two regions enough?
Are we utilizing our catalog to its full potential? Should we have a tip of the week? Facebook page? Need to post more and possibly a marketing chair.
Some discussion took place on lost items and how to work with the owning library. Libraries have individual policies on what they are willing to do, so a phone call or email is necessary. In some cases, just the book replacement fee was sent without the processing fee included. Mary indicated that the web client was not adding processing fee. City vs special districts may have different policies on whether they refund for return of lost items. Discussion also took place on responsibility for damaged items. Note should be added when damaged.
Is there a way to add a patron review? Beth will research.
Another feature we have not explored or configured in the popularity sort for OPAC search results. May want to look at this in the coming year and whether we want to make changes or set this as the default search sort.
The splash page for the desktop client and the web client need to be updated with additional links. The sagelib web site password has not been updated in a long time and should be changed.
Kathy is looking at a Readers Advisory. Is this something we want to do Sage-wide? Emails sent out when something new is added to the collection in their area of interest. Beth is looking at creating links for genre lists in different categories. BeanStack app has this. NoveList alerts are possible via user accounts. Good Reads has something similar and we were going to add this along with FantasticFiction. Survey needed to determine if we should use GoodReads rather than FantasticFiction as standard. GoodReads has recommendation tab. LibraryThing is also useful.
Do searches on Google bring up our catalog results? A Chrome extension will search the catalog. One of the things that can drag down performance are search robots, so they are often blocked.
How often do we review MOU? We reviewed it last when fiscal agent changed from EOU to Baker. Web site may need to be updated with latest MOU. Discussion at that time was for reviewing annually. Maybe we could look at reviewing each time we develop a new strategic plan.
Strategic planning committee – Beth developed a draft strategic plan as a part of her MLIS. Committee needs to be revitalized. Erin McCusker is willing to be a part of the committee.
Council positions up for renewal. Member information needs to be updated as well. There are many changes.
Meeting adjourned.