May 2003 Executive Committee Meeting

May 29, 2003
Rock Eagle 4 H Camp

The meeting was called to order by Chairperson Diana Tope at 10:15 a.m.  The minutes of the February 23, 2003 Executive Committee meeting were approved as presented.

David Singleton announced that PINES was fully staffed and then introduced the new PINES Program Director, Julie Walker. 

The PINES staff reported.  Notes of reports are attached.

Chairperson Tope reported the results of the election of new executive committee members:

        Large library - Steve Schaefer
        Medium library- Dusty Gres
        Small library- Lyn Hopper

The tabulation sheet and all original ballots were made available for view by anyone interested.

Chairperson Tope reported on the by-laws revision.  An amendment to the PINES by-laws, Section V, #4 that was proposed by some PINES members, was posted on the list serve as a petition.  One third of the PINES member libraries did not sign the petition; therefore this proposed revision was not included in the revision of the by-laws subsequently presented to the PINES membership.  These voting results were made available for anyone interested.

The revision of the PINES by-laws, as proposed by the By-Laws committee, was sent to all PINES members as a ballot. It passed.  The voting results were made available to all PINES members.  The PINES staff will make the revised by-laws available to all PINES member libraries.

Subcommittee nominations were presented by Julie Walker.  Additional nominations from the floor were requested. Jack Colbert was nominated to the OPAC subcommittee.  Gary Swint was nominated to the Cataloging subcommittee. Walter Murphy moved to accept the list of subcommittee nominations with the additions.  Alan Kaye seconded the motion.  After discussion, the motion was approved unanimously. 

The recommendations of the subcommittees were presented by Julie Walker as follows.

• Fees associated with trying to collect debts or track down long-overdue materials were discussed.  Greg Heid moved to accept the subcommittee recommendation with amendments as read by Diana Tope, that such fees should be returned to the owning library and that once collection is undertaken, the user must contact or return materials to the owning library to settle the problem and pay any fees and to add "COLLECTION" as a Bill Reason.  Barbara Hutsell seconded the motion and it was approved unanimously.
• Following significant discussion, the subcommittee recommendation to require a photo ID in addition to the approved list of identification currently included in the PINES policy was deferred until the general membership meeting, following this Executive Committee meeting today.
• The subcommittee recommended that "WEBSOURCE"  be added to the PINES item types and that "WEBSITE" be added as a home location.  Alan Kaye moved to accept this recommendation of subcommittee to create the two new profiles.  Barbara Hutsell seconded the motion and it was approved unanimously.
• The subcommittee recommended that "UAINTERNET" and "UJINTERNET" be added as new user profiles for the purpose of identifying users for unfiltered Internet access.  Susan Cooley moved to approve the subcommittee's recommendation as stated.  Greg Heid seconded the motion and it was approved unanimously.
• The subcommittee recommended that "BOOKSMAIL" be added as a CLASS profile as a 2 month loan period that is billable.  Barbara Hutsell moved to approve subcommittee's recommendation.  Walter Murphy seconded the motion and it was approved unanimously.

Chairperson Tope adjourned the meeting at 11:50 a.m.

Submitted by Deboarh S. Manget, Secretary

PINES Staff - Notes of Verbal Reports

Addition of Conyers-Rockdale Library System: Elizabeth reported on the addition of Conyers-Rockdale Library System. Due to time constraints, the PINES staff opted to perform the data work for this project.  This resulted in a significant financial savings as well as a very low error rate in merging the data. In addition, the PINES-wide cataloging freeze time was reduced from one month to a single weekend due to the fact that we didn't have to schedule around various vendors performing data work.  The addition of Conyers brings the total number of libraries in PINES to 248 libraries in 44 library systems. The Conyers collection added 103,154 items and 91,601 titles to the PINES database.

Cataloging and Bibliographic Database Update:

Database Cleanup - Brad reported that Dr. Lois Upham, Jason and he continue to refine the algorithm for deduping in the PINES Database.  There are several progressive de-deduplication efforts planned over the next few months, incorporating match algorithms to automate merging and de-duplication wherever possible.  The remainder of the work will largely need to be completed by the Cataloging staff merging records manually.

Authority Control -authority control work has been scheduled for Fall 2003 due to the additions of Piedmont Regional and Conyers-Rockdale Library Systems.  A significant amount of cataloging freeze/downtime may be involved with this work, so it seemed most appropriate to delay the project rather than having lengthy amounts of cataloging downtime during the busy Vacation Reading Program months. 

Training: Elizabeth reported that an online training calendar and registration form are being developed so that libraries can plan and participate in upcoming training sessions.  Plans are being made to provide Circulation Refresher training, Searching training and Reports Training.

Group Order Status: Elizabeth reported that 46 vendors were contacted for quotes on barcode labels and patron card/keytag sets.  Pricing has been excellent for this order.  Some of the considerations taken into account when requesting quotes are: product specs/quality, price, willingness to invoice and ship separately, willingness to provide acceptable minimum quantity/pricing to small libraries (ordering individually in the future as needed), turnaround times, and company history.

Patron-Placed Holds: Julie reported that patron-placed holds began on May 1, 2003.  To date, everything seems to be working well.  Patrons and libraries have provided positive feedback on this new feature.

E-mail Notification:  Julie reported that email notification of 7 and 14 day overdue notices began on Monday, March 31st. So far 26,078 notices have been sent which translates to $9643.31 in postage savings.  This provides a money and time-saving benefit to the patron as the overdue notice is delivered to the patrons inbox immediately rather than being delayed for several days in transit via US mail.

Overdue Report:  Julie Walker distributed a spreadsheet reporting the total number of overdue items in PINES Libraries.  To date the number remains relatively low statewide.