|
Ocean State Libraries Steering Committee Meeting July 10, 2008
1. CALL TO ORDER: This regularly scheduled meeting of the OSL Steering Committee was called to order by President Susan Aylward at 9: 35 AM in the Ocean State Libraries Office.
Present were: Joan Gillespie, Susan Aylward, Shirley Long, Cheryl Abouelaziz, Ulla Virks, Amy Neilson, Leslie Page, Eileen Socha, Leslie McDonough, Howard Boksenbaum, Jon Anderson
Absent: Laura Marlane, Becky Boragine
Also Present: Susan Reed, David Macksam, Celeste Dyer, Beth Curran, John Carney
2) CORRECTION TO MINUTES OF FEBRUARY 28, 2008 MEETING:
New Business 2)a Mileage Rate Change: Minutes should indicate the motion was approved.
New Business 2)b: Circulation Committee should read: The Circulation Committee was directed to develop a procedure for damaged check-in items.
Voted to approve the minutes as corrected on a motion by Ulla Virks, seconded by Leslie McDonough.
3) CORRECTION TO MARCH 20, 2008 MINUTES: Should read "Joan met with Keith Lang and Tim Gorham from the Champlin Foundations. She described to them Encore as well as Envisionware and they are willing to consider funding these products. Regarding the matching monies required by the Gates Foundation to receive these grants, Champlin would like to see copies of what Gates is allowing before considering the request. Champlin approved the use of $5,000 in interest income to supplement the purchase of OSL office furniture, which they had previously funded with $20,000.00".
Voted to approve the correction on a motion made by Leslie McDonough, seconded by Eileen Socha.
4) TREASURERS REPORT: Shirley Long
Shirley explained several line items on her report.
The payment for Ebsco databases for FY 2008 was made in the last fiscal year and does not appear on this year's reports. (Joan mentioned that when the audit is done, the money is entered into the proper fiscal year and that EBSCO will be paid in July this year.)
Our RINET billed was reduced by the ERate funds paid directly to RINET.
Income: The $33,525.60 listed as income was a reimbursement from Champlin for moving expenses.
Refunds were also received from the bank and for switches.
5) EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS REPORT: Joan Gillespie
Change in Auditors:
This year's audit will be prepared by Denise Lavoie of Aaronson, Lavoie, Streitfeld, & Diaz. Her quote was a reasonable one. She has provided us with sensible advice about the new IRS rules that suggest separating the preparation of our financial reports and the annual audit. The threshold for this separation is based upon the number of financial adjustments that are necessary as part of the audit process. After the completion of this year's audit, we will evaluate with her whether she recommends the necessity of separating the tasks.
Outstanding Vacation and Sick Time:
Joan reported on the significant obligation of the organization in terms of the outstanding vacation and sick time that OSL employees have on the books. She recommends that we look at Personnel policies in the very near future to address the concerns about this obligation. The Steering Committee charged the Personnel Committee, chaired by Susan Aylward to review OSL's current policies, revise where necessary, and create new policies where necessary. The Personnel Committee will report to the full Steering committee no later than October.
RINET Meeting: Joan met with Sharon Hussey to discuss having OSL staff train OSL librarians in assisting students with their portfolio preparation when they are in the public libraries. OSL would go out into the communities to train. It was suggested that the five libraries receiving Gates Foundation grants could host the trainings. These libraries would be compensated by RiNet by receiving funds toward their "matches" for the Gates Foundation Grant. There was much discussion on the issue and it was decided that Joan continue her discussions with RINET.
System Administration Handbook: Renée is organizing this with inputs from OSL staff. As the first step in the handbook, she is developing a clearer back up and disaster plan.
Gates Grant Conference: Five libraries receiving Gates Grants are: East Providence, Central Falls, Providence, Tiverton, and Westerly. The formal announcement of the grants will be made the week of 7/15/08 by the Gates Foundation.
Nelinet Discounts: Joan has posted the discounts membership in Nelinet provides on the message board and there will be a link to 3M for discount purchasing put on the OSL website soon.
6) System Staff Reports: No comments or questions.
7) Committee Reports: E Zone Committee: No comments or questions
8) Lib Futures Committee Report: Eileen Socha
The Lib Futures Committee is at a stand still for the summer.
9) New Business:
a) Cataloging Hours: Patience Terrizzi will be out on sick leave for some time. Joan has asked two part-time employees in the OSL office to work extra hours to offset the gap. She outlined the cost to continue this plan until Patience is able to return to work. VOTED to approve the use of contingency funds to continue paying for the twp part-time catalogers in the OSL office to fill-in while Patience continues to be out, on a motion by Leslie McDonough, seconded by Leslie Page.
b) Communication Improvement Initiatives: Susan Aylward
Previous Steering Committee minutes have been posted only after they have been approved. Susan suggested that the minutes should be posted before approval. There were no objections to this suggestion. Going forward, unapproved minutes will be posted and then replaced once minutes are approved. Agendas will be posted prior to Steering Meetings for everyone.
Reworking the OSL Support and Web pages so that information is easier to find and navigate is being looked into. The OSL staff has been examining this. There have been approximately 10,000 hits to our web site a month. During last year, two months showed 20,000 and 40,000 hits as well. Joan has contacted one web designer who gave a ballpark figure of $1,000 for redoing the opening page and another $3,000 to put in a content-management and auto-archiving system for minutes and reports. Joan asked for Steering committee approval to move forward with the project by designing specifications and getting more specific quotations and she suggested that St. George's membership fees would be a funding source for the project.
VOTED to authorize Joan to move forward with the project by designing specs, getting more specific quotations, and using St. George's membership fees to fund the project,on a motion by Leslie McDonough, seconded by Ulla Virks.
c) Statewide Reference Service-Tutor.com and EBSCO Databases:
The legislature gives money to the Providence Public Library to provide a statewide reference services. Providence has arranged to purchase Tutor.com, and World Book with state-wide licensing. There will still be some remaining money that could be applied to procuring state-wide databases. Joan will meet with representatives from Ebsco and with Bob Aspri from HELIN to see if OSL and HELIN can combine their purchasing power to negotiate getting databases on a statewide basis. Much discussion followed and it was decided that: The groups involved specify what databases they would like, that better pricing be discussed, and negotiation for a possible 1-2 year contract be presented to EBSCO. The goals to be achieved are: No one ends up with less, but gets more and no one pays more. This may require several meetings and take some time to be achieved.
11) Other:
Lynn Thompson would like to see museum pass loan periods changed. The matter will be referred to the Circ Committee.
Cheryl Abouelaziz discussed the possibility that the Town of Tiverton may go bankrupt because of the town's economy. There is the possibility that the library may be cut or closed completely. She asked what would happen if that should take place. After some discussion, it was decided to research what policy is in place and see what was done when West Warwick closed a number of years ago. This will be put on the Agenda for the August meeting and at that time a committee may be established to further define OSL policy on that subject.
Howard thanked everyone for putting pressure on the legislators. The outcome was that library grants were level funded and not cut.
Howard also mentioned that a new OLIS job position has been posted: Information Services Technician I. The posting is listed on the "Job Line" on their website.
ADJOURNMENT;
The meeting was adjourned at 11:05 AM
Respectfully submitted:
Elaine Clark, Office Manager OSL
Next Meeting: August 7, 2008 at 9:30 AM in the OSL Offices
| 
