1. CALL TO ORDER
This special meeting of the OSL Steering Committee was called to order by President Laura Marlane at 9:42 A.M. at the Ocean State Libraries Office.

Present were: Susan Aylward, Debbie Barchi,  Becky A. Boragine, Joan Gillespie, Shirley Long, Laura Marlane, Leslie Page, Regina Slezak, Eileen Socha, Ulla Virks, Sharon Fredette, (alternate Western Region Rep) Absent: Jon Anderson, Dan Austin, Doug Pearce.

Also present: Howard Boksenbaum (OLIS) David Macksom, Beth Johnson (CRA) and Jenifer Bond (WES)

2. MINUTES OF THE NOVEMBER 29, 2007 MEETING
VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the November 29, 2007 with changes to the Lib. Futures report. (Aylward, Virks).

3. TREASURER'S REPORT (Shirley Long)
There was a reduction in the Triple I Maintenance line to $91,674.  There were no questions on the Treasurer's Report.

4. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT-(Joan Gillespie)
GATES -NELINET will officially be the intermediary between those Rhode Island Libraries eligible for the grants and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  OSL will have a say in hardware. Official announcement of the libraries identified as meeting the first eligibility requirement for the new U. S. Libraries Opportunity Online Hardware Grant Program will be made soon.

5. OLD BUSINESS
a. III's ENCORE PRODUCT -
Feedback from Member Libraries, reports from the LIT Committee and Reference Working Group, a report from Rick and Peter, a quote for Research Pro and a quote for Book Jackets, etc from Bowker/Syndetics were passed out prior to the meeting. After much discussion, a motion was made by Sharon Fredette and seconded by Debbie Barchi to accept Joan's proposal, entitled "If OSL bought Encore and subscribed to Research Pro and subscribed to Syndetics book covers." Motioned passed 8 to 2

6. NEW BUSINESS
a. Not running Vista on Millennium PC's - Motion was made by Susan Aylward and seconded by Leslie Page that we will not run Millennium on those computers that have the Vista operating system  until it is approved by Peter.

7. OTHER
8.ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00AM.

Respectfully submitted,
Becky A. Boragine, Secretary
Next meeting: January 24, 2007 at 9:30am, at OSL Offices

Reasons for approving the purchase of Encore and subscribing to
Research Pro and Syndetics

Easier for patron to use
More user friendly
User centric
What the patron is looking for
Opens library to be used by remote users
Allow people to search on cell phones pda's etc
Maximize investment already made
Federated searching will bring info from databases
Allows us to catch up technology wise
Much more visually attractive
Still have access to the catalog
As long as E-rate stays in effect monies will be available