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NOBLE MINUTES MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION MEETINGAT NOBLESEPTEMBER 18, 2003 |
Present:
Seventeen libraries were represented at the meeting, attendance sheet
attached.
1. CALL TO ORDER – Mary Rose Quinn called
the meeting to order at 10:05 and asked everyone to introduce themselves. Mary Rose welcomed Elisabeth Tully, director
at Phillips Andover, to the meeting.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – Anne Tullson made a motion
to approve the June 19th Minutes.
Dennis Kelley seconded the motion.
The Minutes were approved unanimously.
3. TREASURER’S REPORT – In Tom Scully’s absence,
Ron presented the report. He explained
there are a few expenses that are paid early in the fiscal year, such as
NELINET, which is paid annually in advance.
Therefore it appears that a couple of line items are expended
already. Also some of the expenses are
from FY 2003 and will be adjusted when the audit is complete. Deborah Abraham made a motion to accept the
report, Dennis Kelley seconded the motion.
The vote was unanimous.
4. MANAGER’S REPORT – Ron reported staff has been
working on the web catalog, FY ’05 budget, and system software upgrade over the
summer, and most recently the worm, all of which will be discussed later on the
agenda.
Uninterrupted Power System
(UPS) – Ron
explained that NOBLE’s current UPS, installed in 1989, is becoming aged and
needs to be replaced. The annual
maintenance cost is $6,000. The
maintenance and replacement batteries were budgeted last year. After researching the cost to purchase a new
UPS unit, it would pay for itself in 2½ - 3 years. The current maintenance
contract expires at end of the year, therefore a new unit, which will be more
efficient and lower operating costs, will be in place within the next couple of
months.
Phillips Andover – NOBLE staff held a welcome
meeting for Phillips Andover on August 28th. The data line to Phillips was installed on
August 22nd. Elizabeth
Thomsen is coordinating the project to integrate the data and provide training.
Audit – Robert Guimond, our auditor,
has contacted us to begin the annual audit.
Telecommunications Funds– Our request has been filed
with the MA Board of Library Commissioners.
There is a meeting September 25th at which we will find out
the amount of funds NOBLE will receive.
E Rate – The voice and data forms
were filed. Since CIPA was not in place
the past two fiscal years, we were able to receive funds for our Internet
connection. This was approximately $20,000.
Cisco Grant – NOBLE was not awarded a
grant from the telecommunications equipment manufacturer due to volume of
requests received.
Minuteman Network - Has offered NOBLE their old
DRA central servers, which are similar to our Innovative system server. Staff
is researching to see if the servers could be of any use.
ALA – Ron, Elizabeth, and Marilyn
Graves attended the annual conference in Toronto.
NMRLS ILL Committee – NOBLE staff is working with
the committee looking at ways to improve the ILL service we provide under
contract to the Southern region of the network. With their budget cuts a year ago, NMRLS suspended supplying
requests out of state. The committee is
thinking of reinstating this service with a charge. Also working with NMRLS on tracking in-transit items.
PC Specifications – The recommended PC specs
have been revised and are on the Staff Information System. Ron passed around copies.
Ron
stated that John Beauregard presented to NOBLE a copy of an annotated
bibliography he wrote on William Wilberforce.
Ron has received thank you notes from John and Pat Cloherty for the
gifts NOBLE presented them for their retirement.
Elizabeth
Thomsen.
In
addition to working on the catalog over the summer, she has been meeting with
libraries individually for acquisitions training. Elizabeth explained if a library is doing acquisitions or serials
they are assigned an “unit” for data.
NOBLE purchased a certain number of units when we purchased the system,
which are now all used. More will need
to be purchased to accommodate Phillips Andover and other libraries
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that
are planning to use serials or acquisitions in the future. Messages will be sent to those
libraries.
Catalog
Operations – Part-time
cataloger Kelli Bacon has resigned.
Carolyn Wakefield has been working the hours to assist with the
workload. Staff has been working on
adapting procedures for doing new temp records, which have changed as more
libraries are doing acquisitions. Also
performing systematic checks of name headings and compiling a list. A policy has been established to add death
dates to records.
Martha
Driscoll.
Welchia
Worm –
Prior to Martha’s report, Ron showed the video of the Channel 5 news report and
interview with Mary Rose Quinn and Ron of the worm’s effect on NOBLE, which
aired on the 5:30pm news on Sept. 11.
Martha explained the virus appeared to affect the whole network
simultaneously. It sends out “pings”
and tries to find other computers to infect, which caused an overload of
traffic on the Internet lines. The affected PCs had to be shut down and a patch
installed in order to remove the worm.
Dennis Kelley asked why some libraries were not affected. Martha explained that Microsoft put a
security patch out in mid-July and she believes if libraries had updated
Windows on their PCs it would have prevented the virus. Also there were some
reports that computers running NT were not affected. During the worm week
Microsoft released another patch that addressed issues the first patch did
not. Martha feels the virus got through
our network by looking for ISS web servers, or it could have been carried in on
a laptop that was plugged into the network.
Our firewall does block traffic like this, but it doesn’t if someone
comes in from outside the firewall and connects to the network. She reiterated the importance of libraries
keeping their anti-virus software and Windows updates current. Windows updates can be downloaded
automatically and we recommend libraries have their staff PCs set up for
this. George Lally has been going to
libraries on the PC Support program and setting up those PCs. He also had
downloaded the patch and put it on the Staff Information System so libraries
could remove the virus. On October 8th there is a Local Tech
meeting. The virus and security will be
the primary discussion. Mary Rose
thanked Martha and George for all their work on rectifying this problem, and she
came across George’s July email about the patch. Also Martha has contacted Atrion to see if our routers can be
configured to prevent one library from connecting to another library. Mary Rose explained how the news report came
to be. Barbara Lachance also thanked
NOBLE staff for their assistance during the virus.
5. FY2005 BUDGET PRESENTATION – Ron did an overhead
presentation of the proposed FY 2005 Budget, which is presented in September
and voted on at the October meeting. He showed a pie graph that depicts how the
expenses are distributed: 1/3 Personal, 1/3 Telecommunications and INNOPAC, and
remaining 1/3 for Rent, Computers, Capital, Catalog, Continuing Education, and
Professional Services.
REVENUE
– Due
to state cuts in telecommunication funds NOBLE’s grant revenue has decreased by
approximately $200,000, and with the Lynn branches closing has reduced revenue
as well. Reinstatement of some
telecommunications funds from the MBLC should bring NOBLE approximately $30,000
in FY 2004, which we will carry over to FY 2005. With Phillips Andover membership beginning in January will also
help offset some of the lost revenue, as well as a surplus of $109,000 from FY
’03. Most of the surplus is from line items, but also with the reevaluation of
our general liability/property insurance the
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coverage
limits decreased due to hardware being less costly then when we purchased the
system in 1999.
COST
OF OPERATIONS
– Increased 1.5%, the CPI was up 3.9% from last year. By replacing the UPS with a new unit this eliminated the annual
maintenance cost and helped keep the operations increase to a minimum. Ron
reviewed the base operating costs.
Salary,
Office and Administration, Occupancy Costs, Computer Support, and Professional
Services –
All have slight increases.
Catalog - Two line items were new in
FY 04, Deduping Project and Cover Images. The Deduping Project is a
one-time expense in FY 04, but Cover Images will continue in FY 05. This results in a slight decrease in this
category.
Continuing
Education
– Is level funded for FY 05.
Equipment
Upgrade –
Has a new line item, Server Upgrade, in FY 04 and will continue in FY
05. This is to purchase software for
the web and mail servers. Equipment
Other increases for FY 04 for the purchase of the UPS unit, and decreases
for FY 05. III Software Reserve
was for acquisitions, therefore is reduced for FY 05.
Capital
Fund –
Ron explained in the past an annual increase for capital of 2% of the budget
was figured into the budget. In FY 04
the capital contribution was reduced from FY 03 to balance the budget. In FY 05 the assessment is staying level at
approximately $100,000. The capital
assessment each year will pay for costs of improvements for which grant funds
may not be available and to cover our share of grant projects. Our central systems will be four years old
this winter and our telecommunications equipment seven years old and will need
to begin looking into upgrading them.
REIMBURSEMENTS – Overall have decreased
from $156,000 in FY 03 to $107,000 in FY 04.
For FY 05 we are expecting to receive $113,000. The base operating costs is $687,000 with
the reimbursements applied against the FY 05 budget. The base is divided by the number of members, therefore the base
cost per member will be $25,452 for FY 05.
This is an increase of 1.9% from FY 04.
SIMULTANEOUS
STAFF USERS –
Ron explained this part of the budget is distributed by libraries number of
staff users. He reviewed the sheet that
makes up the costs of simultaneous users: Central Innopac Maintenance, Data
Lines, Internet, Telecomm Maintenance, and Power Conditioner Maintenance.
Subsidies of $320,000 are applied against these costs. The cost per staff user for FY 05 is $1,095,
which is an increase of 2.1% from FY 04.
The average increase for libraries overall assessment is 2% for FY 05,
except for Lynn, which has a decrease of 8% due to their branch closings.
MaryAnn
Niles asked what defines a simultaneous user. Ron and Elizabeth offered
explanations and ways for libraries to utilize their staff users. Dennis Kelley asked if there is a way to
tell how often a library is running at their maximum simultaneous users. Martha stated there is a menu item on the
system that can provide information on users.
She will look into it further.
Sue
Koronowski asked Ron if it is possible to get a graph depicting how income is
broken down. Ron stated he could
provide one.
6.
CATALOG REVISIONS – Elizabeth Thomsen.
Elizabeth
discussed the catalog revisions. Some
highlights are the implementation of a new keyword search engine, using
cascading style sheets, and custom forms.
A “Member Library” link has been added to make it easier for patrons to
contact a particular library. Elizabeth
showed an overview of the new main web catalog search page and the keyword
search engine. It no longer does an implied “AND” search, it does a phrase
search. In Phase 3 there is an option
to have the implied “AND” search on by default. Also if a search is put in
quotes it will be searched as a phrase.
This information is on the Staff Information System with examples on the
training system. Electronic Resources Working Group will continue to work on
improvements and goals for the catalog.
Mary Rose thanked the members of the committee for their work.
7.
ADJOURNMENT. Barbara Lachance made a motion to adjourn,
Deborah Abraham seconded the motion.
Meeting adjourned at 12:00.
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Respectfully
submitted,
Douglas
Rendell
Pro
Temp Secretary