NOBLE MINUTES

MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION MEETING

AT PHILLIPS ACADEMY

MARCH 18, 2004

PRESENT:  Sixteen libraries were represented at the meeting, attendance sheet attached.

 

CALL TO ORDER: Mary Rose Quinn called the meeting to order at 10:15 and thanked Elizabeth Tully for hosting the meeting. 

Mary Rose also congratulated Kimberly Lynn for organizing a record-setting event recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, the Longest Human Conveyor Belt, for the Reading Public Library.  Mary Rose participated in this event and reported they did set a new world record with 2,040 people passing a book, more than doubling the old record.

Deborah Abraham announced Mary Puleo is the new assistant director at Everett.

 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:  Deborah Abraham moved to approve the Minutes from the February 19, 2004 meeting.  Carol Gray seconded the motion.  The Minutes were approved by unanimous vote.

 

TREASURER’S REPORT: Ron presented the report in Tom Scully’s absence.  At two-thirds through the fiscal year 62% of the budget has been expended.  Alyce Deveau made a motion to accept the report.  Lorraine Jackson seconded the motion.  The motion passed by unanimous vote.

 

MANAGER’S REPORT

Ronald Gagnon:

·       PC Support Program – The cost for FY ’05 will be $95 per PC and $190 per server.  This is an increase of $5 and $10 respectively from the current fiscal year.  The annual fee will remain the same at $275.  The increase is largely due to cover the rising personnel and travel costs.  Executive Board approved this recommendation. 

·       Proxy Server Meeting – NOBLE staff met with college libraries to determine if there is interest in this.  A proxy server allows you to log in once and search different databases without having to be authenticated each time.  This will be looked into further.

·       Virtual Catalog Project – Participated in the meeting that discussed the new structure and responsibility for the statewide Virtual Catalog.  UMass Boston was awarded the contract from the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners to manage and oversee the project. The server has been housed at UMass, and all the UMass campuses are participating in the project. 

·       NMRLS – Ron wrote a letter of support for their Multilingual Grant application. 

·       Innovative Meeting – Ron is on the Steering Committee for the Innovative Consortium Partners

Meeting.  The Consortium Partners is group of 25 large consortia that meet with Innovative every couple of years to exchange ideas and feedback.  The next meeting is planned for September in Grand Rapids.  This is the same group that has been working on the consortia holds improvements. 

·       Legislative Funding – Ron and Elizabeth attended the Legislative Breakfast in Beverly.  The emphasis was to restore line item 7000-9506, which is the Telecomm and Resource Sharing fund for networks.  Rob Maier was optimistic that the fund would be restored during the legislative process.  MBLC has been level funded otherwise in the Governor’s proposed budget.  April 7th is MLA Legislative Day at the State House.

 

Elizabeth Thomsen:

·       Innovative User’s Group – Staff has been preparing for the IUG Conference on April 2nd-April 5th.  Elizabeth is doing a session on Create Lists, Martha’s session is on using Pearl Scripts, and Michele’s session is on Reportster.  Elizabeth is a functional expert for the enhancement process in the area of systems for IUG.  Fifty out of 250 enhancements were chosen to go on the IUG ballot.

·       Clearinghouse Committee – Elizabeth is part of the IUG committee working on the new Clearinghouse project, which is a central location for III networks to exchange and share ideas, scripts, and information.  This has been modeled after NOBLE’s Swap Shop. 

·       Training – Several Create Lists sessions are scheduled, as well Multilingual Roundtable, Circulation, and Tech Services Roundtables.  The March-June schedule is on the Staff Information System.

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March 18, 2004

 

Martha Driscoll:

·       IUG Conference – Has been working on scripts for the conference.

·       EZ Proxy Program – This is a freeware program that has been installed on our Linux machines.  Martha is looking at how it will serve our consortia environment.

·       Email Server – Upgraded software is being installed and tested on an old server and will be moved onto the email server.  The current software on the server is outdated and needs to be upgraded for anti-spam issues.

·       Web Site Hosting – NOBLE is now hosting the Peabody web site.  Ron added this is the eighteenth library web site NOBLE is hosting.

 

NETWORKING GRANTS UPDATE:  The second LSTA grant round application was submitted.  The total grant request was $88,263.75.  NOBLE funds would be $54,901. In the November grant NOBLE was awarded $42,400 which will fund our first priority of replacing hubs with switches, and part of our second priority which will fund ten out of the thirty-three routers.  Ron and Martha are meeting with Atrion to develop an implementation plan for equipment installation, which should begin April 1st.  Ron was notified by MBLC there is $21,000 remaining in grant funds that will be awarded to NOBLE to fund more of our project.  With the additional funds, thirteen more routers to be installed this summer.  Martha will contact libraries to set up a schedule for equipment installation.

 

E-MAIL PROBLEMS AND FUTURE: Ron explained the importance of libraries having two email trainer representatives and what their responsibilities are for the library.  Email accounts are opened at the request of the director.  If an account is inactive for 30 days it is locked.  Directors receive monthly reports on open email accounts. 

Martha Driscoll –

Martha discussed the major issues effecting our email is Spam and viruses.  Measures being taken to deal with this are subscribing to a “black hole” list, which is a database of known spammers.  Last month 12,000 messages were blocked, and 6,000 so far in March.  Also Brightmail, an anti-spam software product, will be purchased and loaded on a server.  The software continuously checks its database for known spammers, as well as Spam message patterns.  Our server will query their database every minute.  The company that developed this product maintains updating the Spam and rules.  Martha displayed on the overhead an example of a Spam message she received.  She discussed the different attachments Spam and viruses use.  Anti-virus software should be current and updated daily.  Spammers also use a method called Phishing, which is a fraudulent email message that is sent to people that appears to be coming from a legitimate bank or business they may deal with. These messages ask the recipient to update their personal financial information.  Martha displayed an example on the overhead.  Ron added that Executive Board approved $8,000 to purchase a new server and the Brightmail software licenses.  Elizabeth Tully asked Martha if these examples could be posted on the Staff Information System so staff could see them.  Martha stated that would be done.  Elizabeth Thomsen added, the web site, www.antiphishing.org, has more examples and latest information on Phishing.  There was some discussion about if there are any the legal issues or legislation surrounding this.  Martha discussed Majordomo, which is a program for creating email lists.  NOBLE staff provides this service to all NOBLE libraries; information is on the Staff Information System.

 

COLLECTION ASSESSMENT PROCESS: Elizabeth reported beginning in April collection assessment would be done on an on-going basis.  The Conspectus is the system that divides all knowledge into twenty-four categories.  Elizabeth handed out sample reports and explained the reports can be sorted different ways, such as, publication year, call number, checkouts, or popularity.  The Collection Management Working Group has divided the Conspectus into thirty-five sections and projects will be done on a three-year rotation.  The first six categories have been scheduled and the rest of the schedule will be posted once it is decided. Paper reports will no longer be produced, they will be sent in PDF files.  Libraries are required to assign a Collection Level Indicator to the area of the collection reviewed each month.  Information will be sent to the Collection Management Email List.

 

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MEMBERSHIP UPDATE: Ron reported that Malden Public Library and Roxbury Community College have expressed interested in NOBLE.  Deborah Abraham and Dennis Kelley have taken an active role in promoting NOBLE to the Malden Public Library, as they are the neighboring communities. Information has been sent to the directors of both libraries. 

 

NEW BUSINESS: 

·       Carol Gray asked if there was a way in the system to have sign ups for their library Internet use as opposed to doing it manually.  Ron stated there is a module that can be purchased from Innovative.

 

WORKING GROUP UPDATES:

·       Database Quality Working Group had nothing new to report.

·       Holds Committee have not met.

 

ADJOURNMENT:

Carol Gray made a motion to adjourn.  Alyce Deveau seconded the motion, the meeting adjourned at 12:15.

 

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

 

Kimberly Lynn

Secretary