February 2010 Executive Committee Meeting

DRAFT MINUTES

10 AM - February 18, 2010
Toco Hills-Avis G. Williams Branch of DeKalb County Public Library

I.    Call to Order                            Lecia Eubanks, Chair

Lecia called the meeting to order at 10:15 a.m.  Members present: Lecia Eubanks, Alan Harkness, Marsha Christy, Thomas Jones, Claudia Gibson and Donna Howell.  Nancy Tillinghast participated by teleconference.  PINES/GPLS staff present: Emily Almond, Chris Sharp, Elizabeth McKinney, Tim Daniels, Elaine Hardy, Katherine Gregory, Dawn Dale, and Bin Lin.  Others present: Kathryn Ames, Judy Atwood, George Tuttle, Susan Cooley, and Leslie St. John.

II.    Welcome    Lecia Eubanks

Lecia welcomed all attendees and thanked them for coming.  She also thanked DeKalb County Library staff for hosting the meeting in their beautiful new library.

III.    Approval of December 2009 Meeting Minutes         Lecia Eubanks

Minutes from the December meeting had been made available on the PINES web page prior to the meeting.  Alan made and Claudia seconded a motion to approve the minutes.  Motion carried.

IV.     PINES Boot Camp Recap

PINES Executive Committee members attended the first PINES Executive Committee Boot Camp on February 17 at GPLS.  Lecia thanked the PINES staff members for their work in providing so much information to the group and gave a recap of the day’s events.  To begin the Boot Camp, the group was given insight into a “day in the life of the PINES staff” showing their routine and what they were responsible for in PINES.  This was followed by a discussion on where we are as the PINES Community and where we want to be.  Lecia asked Emily and Chris to share the slides shown at the Boot Camp with the wider PINES Community.  The slides illustrate where we are, where we want to be and what we need to do to get there.  Lecia asked PINES Staff to repeat a portion of their presentation and share an analogy that illustrates the position we find ourselves in – between a rock and a hard place.

Emily addressed the importance of the costs and benefits of going with an open-source ILS like Evergreen, especially in terms of the shift in responsibility we are experiencing. As the PINES community continues to grow the Evergreen ILS, it’s vital to keep in mind that with great power comes great responsibility: we must continue to invest in the internal support infrastructure necessary to keep Evergreen a healthy ILS for PINES. As we shift the costs/responsibilities, the benefits will follow.  We have a plan to contract out for a short-term project which will put us well on our way to realizing more benefits and having more control over our PINES version of Evergreen.

Donna pointed out that Equinox and PINES were forced to move and react quickly when the developers left employment at GPLS.  Hence, the state of our PINES bucket is the result. GPLS and the PINES staff continue to redefine their business relationship with the staff at Equinox.

Chris Sharp provided an overview of the development process showing where we have control now and where we need to have more control.

Susan Cooley asked where the money would come from to implement these plans.  Elizabeth said that because of the development freeze that has been in place since November 2009, PINES had saved about $50,000 to date and further savings are anticipated before the end of the fiscal year.  In addition, our participation in the Kids Catalog project is possible because our portion of the partnership will be paid from the current development savings.

In order to move PINES toward the “Where we are now; where we need to be” diagram above, the currently vacant Systems Administration position will be split into hardware administration and database administration positions to allow for more internal control.  Funding is available for one position as of July 1, 2010 if an exemption from the hiring freeze can be obtained.  A second  PINES position exists  (as Usability Specialist) but is not currently funded.
In addition, PINES currently contracts for all services under one contract with Equinox. Line items for payment include hardware administration, software development, system administration and training.   Going forward, the PINES staff will issue RFPs for three contracts: hardware administration, software development and system administration.  Training will be incorporated into the three contracts. All contracts will be posted, advertised and contracted according to competitive state bid/purchasing rules.

All of these changes will allow greater control over release and upgrade install schedules and allow for more thorough testing of those releases and upgrades before they go live.

Because of the productive discussions and the ability of the EC to better understand the action and discussion items and any other PINES issues, Lecia has asked that they and the PINES staff have a work session prior to future PINES EC meetings. The PINES staff will repeat their presentation and discussion at the PINES Annual Membership Meeting.

V.    PINES Staff Reports                        Elizabeth McKinney

1.    Emily Almond
•    Upgrade Update
Emily reported that most of the PINES issues related to the last Evergreen release have been identified and fixed and that we should stay with the current version for a while.
•    Software Development
Several development request items have been accomplished including transit slips printing on the thermal receipt printer slips, due date correction on non-cat items, and blocking renewals when $10 in fines are owed.  Some items being worked on include a kids catalog in conjunction with Bibliomation (MA), King County Library System (WA), and SITKA (British Columbia) using some of the savings from the development freeze with Equinox.  She said that remaining active in the wider Evergreen/open source community was vital to taking advantage of new and innovative enhancements to PINES.
She also reported that PINES staff will have a production window where they can know when updates are coming.  Lecia indicated that discussion on the best way to disseminate PINES information to member libraries was ongoing and that PINES libraries.
2.    Chris Sharp
•    PINES and Evergreen Documentation
Chris announced that a big project was underway to review and update PINES policy manuals.  Phase one is to review original policies and update them with EC decisions as reflected in the minutes of their meetings.  Phase two will be proofing and polishing the updated policies.  And Phase three will be review of each section by the subcommittees and presentation to the PINES community at the annual meeting.  He also said that each policy will have its “version” with the month and year of the EC decision to revise the policy.  PINES staff is contracting for PINES specific Evergreen documentation to make it easier for systems administrators to understand and use the software.  There will also be patron documentation, but no timeline is available yet.
•    Training
PINES policy training for library staff is being provided in PINES libraries.  They recently attended staff day at Chestatee Regional Library’s February staff day and provided this training.  Claudia said it was excellent and really helped her staff.
3.    Katherine Gregory
•    Statistical Reports
Copies of the overdue reports and intra-PINES loans reports were distributed.  Intra-PINES loans (not including same-system loans) increased about 40,000 from the same quarter last year.
4.    Elaine
•    The Database Clean-up RFP
Elaine reported that there had been problems with getting the RFP finalized with SPD (State Purchasing Division) because of some confusion over the correct form to be submitted.  The RFP was pulled after we received responses and all copies returned to the vendors. SPD had seen the RFP before but did not raise concerns over the template used.  The RFP should be re-posted this week and will be up until March 31st.
•    ACQ  and Inventory Module Updates
The Acquisitions Working Group will meet via webinar with ESI on March 10th to review development to this point.  Work is progressing on the requirements document for the inventory module.  Elaine is also working on cataloging module requirements and documentation revisions.
5.    Bin
•    Cataloging Update
Bin Lin indicated that Cat 1 training was not being offered currently because of the budget issues with travel.  Cat 1 training is mandatory and every library system must have a Cat 1, so they are trying to accommodate new cataloging staff ASAP.  Currently three systems need the training.  Items that need original cataloging in systems where no one is trained are being sent to GPLS and Bin Lin is cataloging them.  She is also reviewing all B&T original cataloging before it is loaded to OCLC and PINES.
6.    Dawn Dale
•    New Helpdesk Software
The new helpdesk software is a big improvement over the old and will be implemented March 1.  It will do a better job of tracking all tickets from a single location, making known issues viewable to all PINES helpdesk users and keeping up with status and follow-up on tickets. Reports maybe run on helpdesk tickets to see trends and get statistics on use.  Instructions on using the new system to open tickets will be sent in about 2 weeks.
•    Training
Training at the May annual meeting will include Circ, Reports, Cataloging and PINES policies.  She will be asking for suggestions from PINES libraries for specific training needed before the May meeting.
•    New card/barcode/receipt printer order
Several libraries need more materials barcodes, library cards and receipt printers.  Dawn is helping to coordinate the orders and get pricing.  Please contact her ASAP if you need to be included.
•    Courier
Non-PINES library headquarters have been added to the courier routes.  They are not having a lot of volume yet.
7.    Elizabeth McKinney
•    PINES Anniversary
The PINES 10th anniversary celebration will follow the PINES annual membership meeting in May and will be at the Aviation Museum in Warner Robins.

The new PINES anniversary logo is now up on PINES.  It is a clickable link to PINES history and information.  PINES staff is making a concerted effort to collect and preserve the history so that as we lose staff, like David Singleton, we don’t lose that history.
It seems that this anniversary is the perfect time to take a closer look at where we want to go in the next ten years.  Julie Walker and PINES staff will be facilitating a long-range planning process for PINES and it will begin sometime this year.

VI.    Executive Committee Action Items       

•    AI1.  Handheld Devices Used by Patron to Check Out Items
This item had been referred to the circulation subcommittee at the last meeting.  Discussion on this item centered on security of the PINES card and whether this mean any facsimile of the card such a as a photocopy would be accepted, responsibility for handling these devices by library staff, and practical usability issues such as whether the scanned image would actually be readable by library barcode scanners.  After much discussion, Alan made a motion to allow patrons to use their PINES card/barcode scanned to a handheld electronic device to check out materials and use library services requiring a card when the image on the device is readable by library scanning equipment.  Claudia seconded the motion.  Motion carried.
•    AI2.   Claims Return Policy
Discussion on this item centered on who should be responsible for marking an item “claims returned” – the owning library or circulating library, and whether all libraries should be using it.  After much discussion no action was taken except to request that the proposed definition, “Claims returned is when both a library system and a patron are unable to agree on the location of the disputed item thus creating a ‘draw’ or ‘amnesty’ for the item.”, be added to the policy manual.  And to encourage all library system to run the claims returned report and do shelf checks on a regular basis to try to clear as many as possible from the system.
•    AI3.   Date of Birth a Required Field in the Patron Record
After brief discussion, Thomas made a motion to make date of birth a required field.  Marsha seconded.  Motion carried.

VII.    Executive Committee Discussion Items   

•    DI1 Circulating Handheld Devices (such as Kindles)
The EC recommends trying something within the current framework of PINES without a specific policy change at this time.  If a new circulation modifier or some other change is needed, it can be proposed by any library when needed. 
•    DI2 Longoverdue Workflow and Specifications
Guidance is needed on what kinds of options libraries need to have available to make the automated status conversion at 180 days work for all PINES libraries.  The main issue is the automatic charging of a processing fee that does not work well for some libraries using a debt collection vendor.  After discussion it was decided to give libraries an option of automatically applying a processing fee and at what level within the automated process.
•    DI3 Holds Abuse
After discussion, it was decided that localized holds abuse is really a local issue.  How to deal with it is a local decision as long as the actions of the PINES library does not violate existing PINES policies.

VIII.    Old Business

None

IX.    New Business

None

X.    Next Meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for May 12 in Warner Robins.

XI.    Adjournment

As there was no further business, Lecia adjourned the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Donna W. Howell