NOBLE

MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION MEETING

AT STONEHAM PUBLIC LIBRARY

NOVEMBER 21, 2002

Present: Nineteen libraries were represented at the meeting, attendance sheet attached.

 

1. CALL TO ORDER /WELCOME - Deborah Abraham.  Deborah called the meeting to order at 10:15.  She briefly commented on the NMRLS Annual Meeting and the III Users Group Meeting. Doug Rendell and Rob Maier spoke at the NMRLS meeting.  Doug Rendell made a presentation to Hugh Williams, who is retiring as director of Stoneham Public Library.  He wished him well and thanked him for his many years of service.

 

2.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES.  Tom Cesarz made the motion to accept the Minutes from the October 17, 2002 meeting, John Beauregard seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

3.  TREASURER’S REPORT.  In Tom Scully’s absence Ron Gagnon presented the report.  He stated NOBLE is one-third of the way through the fiscal year and have expended 31% of the budget.  Tom Cesarz made a motion to accept the report, Linda Shea seconded the motion.  The vote was unanimous.

 

4.  MANAGERS’ REPORT – RON GAGNON.

Personnel - Our part-time cataloger, Jessica Weiss, resigned November 13th.  An ad has been posted to fill the position.

 

Audit - Our annual audit is almost complete.  Ron has received a draft of the financial statements. 

 

Training - In January George Lally, our PC Support Specialist, will be attending training in Seattle, WA.  This is in conjunction with the Gates Grants, and is paid for by the Gates Foundation.

 

Conferences/Meetings - NOBLE co-sponsored with Salem State College, Managing Electronic Serials, which was held at Salem State.  Some products that were demonstrated were Serial Solutions, Journal Web Site and a similar product from EBSCO.  NOBLE staff attended the III User’s Group Conference at University of New Hampshire.  Elizabeth was a speaker.  Earlier in November, Ron attended the Commissioners meeting and the hearing on regulation changes for regional systems.

 

NMRLS - Ron, Elizabeth, and Marilyn Graves attended NMRLS Annual Meeting.  Ron has received the revised ILL Contract from the Region.  The contract has been reduced from $87,000 to $80,000 per year.  Some of the expenses that were included in the original contract will be reimbursed in addition to the $80,000.  Also, in NMRLS’ October Newsletter, NOBLE’s ILL service ranked highest in the Region’s satisfaction survey. 

 

Laser Printer - A new network laser printer will be purchased for printing notices.  The current dot matrix line printer is approximately 10 years old and the annual maintenance contract costs about the same as purchasing a new high speed printer.  The current maintenance contract will be cancelled when the term ends in 90 days. About $3,000 in maintenance costs will be saved over 3-years, and about $700 a year will be saved in paper costs. 

 

Statewide Virtual Catalog – This project is moving forward.  NOBLE has signed a contract with Epixtech and the Boston Library Consortium.  Profiling information has been filled out and Epixtech trainers are scheduled to come to NOBLE on December 18th.  Ron reviewed what the project is about.

 

MBLC - MBLC is seeking a 3-Year Bond bill from the Legislature to fund library projects that were cut in the state budget. The bond is for $3 million each year and will try to restore some network telecommunications and statewide database funds. 

 

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November 21, 2002

 

ELIZABETH THOMSEN

Training – Roundtables coming up in December are Multi-Lingual Issues, Reference, and Children’s Services.  She is working on the January-June calendar and reviewed some of the sessions that will be scheduled.   There will also be technique sessions scheduled, which are specific to a certain issue. The calendar should be posted to the Staff Information System by the beginning of December.  Also Elizabeth is working on providing a month-by-month schedule for Collection Management so libraries know what to expect each month. 

 

MARTHA DRISCOLL

Spam Issue - Martha has been working on reducing the amount of spam email that is being received over the network.  We have been using a “black hole”, which is a server out on the Internet that lists known spam servers. There have been a few problems with it not working properly, therefore NOBLE will be using a paid service known as Mail Abuse Prevention System.  There is an annual fee of $150 to query this service. 

 

Statistics Survey – Was sent out to libraries asking if they are receiving from NOBLE the types of monthly statistics needed.  She has received most of them back, but can still fax or email to Martha.

 

5.  APPROVAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY – Ron Gagnon.  Ron handed out a revised Telecommunications Policy.  It came to his attention that some areas in the policy needed clarification. 

In the 4th paragraph, 1st sentence after “NOBLE network,” the following is inserted: “utilizing equipment not owned or managed by the library, including patron-owned PC’s,”.  In the last paragraph , 2nd sentence the word “by” is replaced with “through”.  Ron explained that in order to maintain security over the network at the libraries, NOBLE staff needs to know what equipment a library is planning to purchase in advance so they can assure the security of the network.  Deborah Abraham stated the Executive Board recommended these revisions and asked for a motion to approve.  Doug Rendell made a motion to approve the revised Telecommunications Policy, Hugh Williams seconded the motion.  The motion passed unanimously. 

 

6.  APPROVAL OF SERVER POLICY – Ron Gagnon.  Ron handed out a Local Server Policy.  He explained that if a library plans on having a server at their library, NOBLE staff needs to know about it in advance to assure that security will be maintained and who will be responsible for it at the local level.  Deborah Abraham added that servers were one of the options as part of the Gates Grant, therefore more libraries are considering getting them.  Deborah asked for a motion to approve the Local Server Policy.  Linda Shea made a motion to approve, Martha Holden seconded the motion.  The motion passed unanimously.

 

7.  SPELLMASTER AND OTHER DATABASE MAGIC – Elizabeth Thomsen.

Elizabeth did a demonstration on how spelling errors in the database are fixed by using a script Martha wrote called Spellmaster.  The script will do a keyword search on a list of misspelled words and export the records to a review file. The records will be reviewed before the changes are processed.  The review file will use the new Millennium's Global Update program.  This information is on the Staff Information System at www.noblenet.org/sis/innopac/techserv/dataquality.htm.

 

8.  CIRCULATION ROUNDTABLE ROUNDUP.  Ron, Martha, and Elizabeth reviewed some issues that have come up at these sessions.  One issue was using an old Geac “stop” field for marking patron records if they owe fines.  In our system a patron’s record is clearly marked if they owe fines, therefore using the old Geac field or other manual fields is duplicating the information and distracting attention from the system’s record keeping.  Also, different libraries have different delinquency thresholds.  The system cannot clear the manually-entered messages once the problem is resolved and so misinformation about a patron may be communicated. 


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November 21, 2002

 

Holds Management was another issue that was discussed.  Martha explained the importance of library staff reviewing holds on an ongoing basis so materials can move along efficiently.  Michele Morgan has provided information on a program the system can run to review a library’s holds material. 

 

Loan Rules Policy was another issue.  It was brought up there have been instances where a library is not honoring the loan periods of the owning library and are checking out material longer.  Martha explained the Network Transfer Policy requires the borrowing library to honor the loan period of the owning library. While looking into this issue it came to attention of NOBLE staff that some of these instances were from library staff checking out materials for themselves.  A discussion ensued.  Dennis Kelley asked if a list of these violations could be provided for a library.  Elizabeth stated yes, but if they do that then library staff should be made aware of it first because there is the issue of confidentiality.   The discussion continued.  Elizabeth pointed out that directors need to make sure that whoever they appoint as their circulation supervisor, is enforcing these policies and responsible for staff.  She suggested having some Circulation and Tech Services Management sessions for library staff that are in these positions. 

 

Changing Hold Queues was also discussed.  Library staff person’s names sometime appear at the top of a hold list out of chronological order without any explanation as to why their name got to the top.  Martha suggested placing an explanation in the field when it is done, which should only be to rectify a problem.

 

9)  WORKING GROUP UPDATES.  None of the Working Groups have met yet.  Bonnie Strong will be chairperson of the Holds Committee.

 

Deborah Abraham mentioned the Regional Legislative Breakfast is being planned.  There’s a planning meeting December 16th in Methuen. 

 

Doug Rendell announced some recent staff changes at Danvers Library.  Marjorie Hill-Devine announced new Board of Trustees at Winthrop.

 

10)  ADJOURNMENT.  The meeting adjourned at 12:00.

 

 

Respectfully submitted by,

 

 

 

 

Kimberly S. Lynn

Secretary