1. CALL TO ORDER
This regularly scheduled meeting of the CLAN Steering Committee was called to order by President Regina Slezak at 9:35 A.M. at the Warwick Public Library.

Steering Committee members in attendance: Susan Aylward, Judy Bell, Carol Brouwer, Shirley Long, Laura Marlane, Leslie Page, Beth Perry, Regina Slezak, Karen Taylor, Ulla Virks. Absent: Dan Austin, Eileen Socha, Kathryn Taylor

Also in attendance: Joan Gillespie (CLAN); John Carney (EPL), Doug Pearce (WAR)

2. MINUTES OF September 7, 2006 STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the September 7, 2006 meeting as presented. (Ulla Virks, Laura Marlane).

3. TREASURER'S REPORT-Shirley Long
There was no new Treasurer's Report to present. The August 31st report presented at the September 7th Steering Committee meeting and the September 14th CLAN meeting is the current report.

4. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT-Joan Gillespie
Joan reported on the following items:

• Atrion Contract-She is continuing to negotiate with Atrion regarding CLAN's contract for maintenance on the telecomm system.
  
• HELIN-At their request, HELIN's Executive Committee will meet with CLAN's Executive Committee on October 6th at 3PM at the North Kingstown Free Library.
  
• Lunch after membership meetings-Joan felt that lunch was so delightful after the membership meeting that she would like to do this at all of the quarterly meetings. Perhaps CLAN could fund coffee and dessert and library representatives could bring a bag lunch if they would like to stay for informal discussion with their colleagues.
  
• Contracts-Joan reported having worked with a really good technology contracts attorney at LION and recommended that she would like us to keep that open as an option for future contracts that CLAN negotiates with vendors.
  

Joan will send a notice to the membership with the proposal asking for comments. The deadline for comments will be prior to the October Steering Committee meeting (October 26th).

ST. GEORGE'S SCHOOL-Joan presented some options of different kinds of CLAN membership (affiliate) or fee for service-based relationships with non-public libraries that addressed many of the concerns expressed by the membership at the September 14th membership meeting. The Steering Committee discussed these options in detail. The consensus was that it would be most appropriate at this particular time to look more closely at the "fee for service-based" relationship that Joan had outlined. She will work this idea up in more detail for further discussion by the Steering Committee.

6. NEW BUSINESS
HORIZON ACCESS-Joan reported that many libraries are contacting Data Processing staff on a regular basis (multiple requests daily) to access information about patrons and holdings that is still accessible on the old Horizon system. Because of a number of issues, Peter and Cindy have recommended to Joan that the DP staff no longer field these requests and that we set a deadline at which time the plug will be pulled on the Horizon server so that we can make a break with the old system and complete the transition to the new system. After much discussion, the Steering Committee agreed that the DP staff should be freed immediately of any responsibility to provide information from the old Horizon system and that the information will no longer be accessible after December 31, 2006.

CONFERENCES FOR THE YEAR-Joan presented a list of conferences she would like to attend through the end of this fiscal year.
VOTED TO APPROVE the expenditure of $4,996.70 for Joan's attendance at NELA, ALA Midwinter, HELIN, IUG Innovative User's Group, RILA and including the cost of the Triple I Public Consortia conference already approved by the Steering Committee. (Susan Aylward, Laura Marlane)

7. OTHER
DECISION-MAKING-Judy Bell expressed her concern about the decision-making process and the lack of voting on pending issues at the membership meetings. Regina reminded the Steering Committee about the substantive changes in the organization that came about as a result of the bylaws revision. The changes in the bylaws gave much more decision-making authority to the Steering Committee. In terms of the issue of the grace periods, which is what prompted Judy's immediate concern, Regina pointed out that we would not have been prepared for the membership to vote at the meeting on this issue. It is in CLAN's interest to have a separate meeting, so that people can get together to discuss the issue in full, before the Steering Committee votes or asks the membership to vote about it.

COMMUNICATION-Shirley Long brought up the issue of communication problems and the ways in which members expect to get information. Many members are still using minutes of meetings to get important information, which is always a problem. Joan is continuing to think about ways to improve communication.

8. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 11:40 AM.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Aylward, Secretary
Approved as presented 10/26/2006