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, Howard Boksenbaum, Carol Brouwer, Shirley Long, Laura Marlane, Leslie Page, Regina Slezak, Eileen Socha, Kathryn Taylor, Ulla Virks. Absent: Dan Austin, Karen Taylor

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

2. MINUTES OF THE NOVEMBER 30, 2007 MEETING
The following corrections were noted: Karen Taylor was in attendance. New Business #9 should say that Laura Marlane and Joan will be working on writing a charge for the committee. VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the November 30, 2007 meeting as corrected. (Brouwer, Virks).

3. TREASURER'S REPORT (Shirley Long)
The Treasurer's report thru December 31, 2006, which was distributed to the Steering Committee prior to the meeting showed expenditures to date of $833,493, which represents 53.5% of the $1,557,585 budgeted expenditures. The budget shows income to date of $757,552.22, which represents 48.6% of the budgeted income.

4. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT-Joan Gillespie
Joan reported on the following issues/items:
a. CLAN part-time vacancy-There have been a number of applicants for the vacant part-time position.
b. Ken Corsetti-Joan has received a number of positive comments about the addition of Ken Corsetti to the CLAN staff.
c. Recent system downtime-Joan reported that some CLAN members were upset that there was not more advance notice when the Internet and Millennium went down recently and she explained that it was an emergency situation, not routine system maintenance. The system was about to crash on its own before CLAN staff brought it down to solve the problem. The staff is looking at ways to have a broadcast message come across the Millennium screen when they have to bring the system down unexpectedly.
d. NELINET-Joan & Patience met with the NELINET rep in December and Joan met with an OCLC rep at ALA Mid-Winter to discuss CLAN's OCLC membership through NELINET. Joan is working to determine whether it would be more advantageous for CLAN to get OCLC services directly rather than through NELINET.
e. ILL test with HELIN libraries-At the joint HELIN/CLAN Exec Board meeting in the fall, the two boards decided to pursue a test with a couple of libraries in each consortium to determine if it would work to do ILL directly between the consortia without using the ILL Clearinghouse. Newport, South Kingstown, and Westerly directors volunteered for their libraries to participate in the test. Joan will talk to Bob Aspri about setting up the test.
f. Staff Performance Reviews-Joan would like to begin performance reviews of CLAN staff and would like to set up a meeting with the Personnel Committee to discuss this.
g. RINET contract-The FY 08 CLAN budget includes a figure of $127,500 for RINET fees. RINET has notified Joan that the actual cost of those fees in the FY 08 contract is scheduled top be $124,237.
h. Karen Quinn of the State Law Library has been in touch with Joan for information about the databases that CLAN provides its member libraries. Karen is working with the legislative commission on the proposal to fund statewide databases.
i. Pension Plan-The new pension plan provider (TIAA-CREF) for CLAN staff is almost in place.
j. Insurance issues-The property insurance is in place; the life insurance for CLAN staff is almost in place.
k. Technology Plan-Joan wondered if the Steering Committee would like to revise the Technology Plan that she wrote to meet E-rate compliance regulations and presented at the November Steering Committee meeting. Howard suggested that a subcommittee of Steering review it. Laura volunteered to lead that committee.
l. Triple I teleforms product-Joan reported that she talked with Triple I representatives at ALA about CLAN's dissatisfaction with the teleforms product. Peter reports that the product has settled down after his having added significant memory to support it. However, he still feels uncertain about the effect of adding 70 some messages to the product in order to get it to operate the way that CLAN needs it to operate.
m. Overdrive-Joan has been talking with the Overdrive rep about CLAN-wide pricing and about the confusion on the Overdrive web page, which makes it seem as if all R.I. public libraries have this product available. There was a great deal of discussion about Overdrive, about other vendors of downloadable audiobooks, and about the possibility of having a vendor day for downloadable audiobooks so that CLAN libraries would be able to see other options.

5. SYSTEM STAFF REPORTS (Peter Bennett, Cindy St. Amour, Rick Payette, Ken Corsetti)
The Steering Committee did not have questions for Joan on the written reports from CLAN System staff that had been distributed prior to the meeting. Regina highlighted the item in Cindy's & Peter's report that Cindy is willing to go out to libraries to answer questions on Millennium. Joan will send out an announcement to this effect so that all CLAN libraries are aware that this is an option. Regina also highlighted Ken's report and its record of accomplishments in the short time that he has been on the staff.

6. COMMITTEE REPORTS (Circ, LIT, Database Management, Reference & Childrens')
The Steering Committee did not have questions on the committee reports that had been distributed prior to the meeting. Regina brought up an issue that the Reference & Childrens' Committee has highlighted as a problem, i.e. the teleforms message text that says an item is "now" available for you…Apparently, some patrons interpret this to be "not" available for you. Joan will investigate and correct the problem.

7. LIB FUTURES COMMITTEE REPORT (Eileen Socha)
Eileen reported that the Legislative Commission has met twice and has developed three main goals: to secure funding for statewide databases; to develop a strategic state plan for libraries; and to consider revisions to the state statues for libraries. The focus in the next legislative session will be to secure funding for the databases. They have extended the life of the Commission through April 2008, with a report to the General Assembly due in June 2008. Beth Perry reported that OLIS has links to the Commission and the LIB Futures Committee on the OLIS website.

8. OLD BUSINESS
a. IMPLEMENTING THE CLAN NAME CHANGE-Joan presented the top three vote getters (in all their various permutations) in the logo sweepstakes. She and the CLAN staff will whittle the permutations down to one version for each of the top three vote getters and these will be presented to the membership for a final selection at the February general membership meeting. Joan is still in search of an attorney to help with the legal aspects of changing the corporate name.
b. ST. GEORGE'S SCHOOL-Joan reported on her meeting with the librarian at St. George's who feels that she has a good YA leisure reading collection that would be of interest to public library patrons. She also feels that St. George's will not be over-taxing the ILL system because the librarians at the school assist the students in making ILL decisions. The Steering Committee agreed with Joan that the proposal, which was finalized at the November Steering Committee meeting, is ready to be presented to the membership for a vote at the February meeting.  
c. COMMITTEE CHARGE FOR GROUP PURCHASE COMMITTEE-The Steering Committee reviewed the charge that Joan had drafted for the committee. After much discussion, the Steering Committee VOTED unanimously to change the title of the Committee to Group Services & Technology and to accept the charge to the committee as drafted by Joan. (Socha, Virks)
d. COMMITTEE CHARGE FOR TRAINING COMMITTEE-The Steering Committee discussed the need for a training committee. Before accepting the charge to the training committee that Joan had drafted, it was decided that Regina would first appoint a chairperson.
e. RESULTS OF STRAW VOTE FOR STANDARDS-Joan presented the results of the straw vote for the standards. There were five votes that had clear mandates: two in the fines category (to eliminate 2 cent and 3 cent fines; to leave at $5.00 the fine level at which a patron cannot take out more materials); one in the holds category (if an item with a pending hold is on the return cart and not checked in, it cannot be given to a local patron); the renewals category (all changes proposed); and the grace periods category (no grace period at all). VOTED unanimously to bring these five standards to the membership at the February 8th meeting for approval. (Brouwer, Virks)
9. NEW BUSINESS
a. OLIS ENDING LORI E-MAILS-CLAN is not going to be able to offer an alternative to LORI e-mail accounts for library staff. Joan has checked with Rick and though he did have a possible alternative, the staff time needed to manage it was prohibitive.
10. OTHER-There was no other business.

11. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 11:05 AM.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Aylward, Secretary