OSL Minutes: Ocean State Libraries E-Zone Committee, October 31, 2008

The meeting was held at the Ocean State Libraries (OSL) office in Warwick and was called to order by Chris La Roux at 10:05 a.m.

ALWAYS AVAILABLE (E-ZONE)

Chris La Roux attended an OSL steering committee meeting and requested, on behalf of the OSL E-Zone committee, that OSL divide equally among its members the fee of $6,000 for two subscriptions of Always Available titles. These titles are leased for one year, with each subscription consisting of 50 titles. Always Available titles can be borrowed by an unlimited number of simultaneous users. The fee per library would be about $122 for the year. The steering committee decided to defer the vote on this matter until the 10/23/08 Steering Meeting so that members could have time to comment. At the following meeting a member spoke to the issue that the Always Available titles are in fact a new service, and would need to be approved as such by the OSL membership. The membership meeting at which this will be discussed and voted on is November 6.

MP3 FORMAT
There was discussion on the new MP3 format that is available with a limited number of titles. MP3 format data can be downloaded to iPods and any other MP3 player. Selection of MP3 titles is slim at the current time, and the EZone website needs to be modified before users can actually download MP3 format titles. Both Chris and Lisa D. have spoken to Laura and Simon at Overdrive about this issue, and it appears that it takes about five or six weeks after the first MP3 format title is ordered, for the website to be configured so users can actually download those titles.

There was much confusion among E-Zone members about when the MP3 format titles would be available for ordering. Some libraries have money set aside waiting for the new format to become available. There are approximately 3,000 MP3 titles available on the Content Reserve site. The consensus of the committee is that more titles will become available as time goes by, because it is the format most requested by users.

Rick Payette and Lisa D. answer several calls each week from users of the E-Zone who are having problems. Users who have holds on E-Zone materials and get a new library card number, for whatever reason, cause a common problem. The new card number does not migrate to the held items. Those holds bounce back to the OSL office.

Mattie G. mentioned that Recorded Books’ titles are also available all the time.

DIGITAL BOOKMOBILE
Cranston Public Library offered to be the site for the digital bookmobile, as it is centrally located in the state. Lisa D. has let Simon and René, at Overdrive, know that OSL E-Zone is interested in having the digital bookmobile come to Rhode Island next year. Nothing has been confirmed yet.

ORDERING-LISTS
Three libraries have taken advantage of the content lists done by some members of the E-Zone. Lisa D. will find out how many libraries are ordering content for the next committee meeting.

DOWNLOAD STATIONS
Susan D. brought up the issue of download stations. This has been discussed in the past, but no one purchased one because of the cost. An Overdrive representative at the NELA conference mentioned that the price for the software had been reduced considerably. Lisa D. was asked to find out if we could have a group discount and if a license can be shared by a consortium. There was some discussion that because of the economic situation some patrons may cancel their high speed Internet connections, and would welcome being able to download their audio at their local public library.

PSPRINT
Julie H. mentioned that she was successful in downloading E-Zone PR material from the OSL support site and uploading it to PS Print, which in turn printed bookmarks at a reasonable price. One can access PS Print at www.PSPrint.com.

NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is scheduled for January 30, 2009 at the OSL office.
Respectfully submitted,
Christopher La Roux