Present were: Becky Turnbaugh, Connie Lachowicz, SKI; Joyce Brothers, NAR; Carol H. Brouwer, NSM; Sandra Mundy, BUR; Peter Bennett, Bev Klyberg, Shirley Long, Cindy St. Amour, PRO; Cynthia Edson, Leslie Page, WNS; Janet Levesque, CUM; Ann Crawford, CHA; Joan Hackett, HAR; Eileen Socha, John Carney, EPR; Susan Millard, WIL; Frances Farrell-Bergeron, WWA; Leslie McDonough, SCI; Robert Balliott, MID; Jenny La Perriere, FOS/TYL; Ruth Golumbirke, LCO; Lori Mcnaught, LIN; Joan Prescott, BRI; Judith Bell, JAM; Anne Bulin, Joan Schaefer, BAR; Donna Dufault, NKI; Margaret Victoria, WES; Paul Holliday, CRA; De Johnson, JOH; Ginny Taken, Rick Payette, CLAN; Tom Shannahan, CFA; Andy Egan, Dorothy Frechette, OLIS; Sharon Fredette, WAR; Karen Taylor, Maya Davis, EGR; Christine Jeffers, Susan Reed, PAW; Edna Wells, Regina Slezak, NPT; Chris LaRoux, GVL; Gayle Wolstenholme, GLO; Mary Ellen Hardiman, NPR; Pam Laurenzo, CLA; Jeanne Warren, WPO; Sarah Weed, WRR.

The meeting was called to order at the North Kingstown Library by Tom Shannahan, President.

A motion to accept the previous meeting’s minutes was seconded and approved in a vote.

Ginny Taken introduced Charlie Garry of Unique Management Services who gave a presentation about his company’s service: recovering lost materials. She then introduced Steve Dumas and Sal Ianolla of Network Plus. They gave a presentation on their service: provision of DSL lines for CLAN and voice lines for individual libraries.

Ginny Taken welcomed new library directors and saluted director departures. The surplus pcs donated by Jamestown and W. Warwick libraries have been distributed. Pascoag Library has decided to join CLAN and they have applied to the Champlin Foundations for funding. Negotiations continue with Moody’s, Facts on File and World Book for remote access through CLAN. The annual audit is in full swing. CLAN staff has been advising RILINK about networks.

Any Egan reported that the greatest training needs seem to be for Microsoft Word and troubleshooting. OLIS and CLAN will provide some joint, and some separate offerings. Some classes may be out-sourced, depending on costs.

Specific Task Forces are discussing the recommendations of the Burger Report. Each committee is gathering information from other states. Prioritizing activities to make a plan may be assisted by a hired facilitator. Minutes of the Task Forces are available on LORI under Programs.

Peter Bennett stated he has been looking at the network architecture with Data Comm. He has been in touch with DYNIX about MARC format integration and Patience Bliss is the expert on this. Inadvertent crashes of the indexing programs have occurred when a contents note is put in the LCCN filed by mistake. Also, if a typo of a semicolon is made in email addresses, it "chokes" the email. In the past couple of weeks Peter has ordered more DYNIX licenses. Some terminals are not logged off properly, so he has to reboot the system once a week. Some parts of Telserve 2 have shown up and some have gone astray. Installation should be complete by the end of the year.

Robert Balliott asked if CLAN web addresses could be alpha instead of numeric. Peter stated this could be changed at the time of the Network Plus re-addressing process.

Cindy St. Amour Made a few announcements: Data Processing will be open on Sundays from 1 PM to 5:30 PM starting September 12. Surplus WYSE terminals donated by Portsmouth, Jamestown and Newport have been set up as a loaner program. Cindy has talked to DYNIX about Telxon repairs. Electric Thinking Inc. has been hired to do repairs and some have come back actually repaired! Turnaround time is now six weeks. Data Processing will now be running day end processing on Sundays, too.

Rick Payette wanted to make sure everyone knew CLAN minutes are available on the CLAN web site. Anyone sending him meeting minutes should send them in a text file in Microsoft Word and he will mount them on the Web. He warned us that Windows 95 may not be Y2K compatible there is a patch available that will alleviate the problem. CLAN supports the use of Anzio and Anzio Lite. Rick can help will onsite installation and if there is a lot if interest he will hold a training session. Group purchasing of pcs went well last spring with Dell. If you need pcs now, send a fax to Rick with the number you’d like to get. Each one will cost around $1400. Rick anticipates ordering computers four times a year. Cindy will substitute for Rick while he takes a weeks vacation this month.

Dorothy Frechette distributed "CLAN lending and Borrowing-fiscal 1997-1999", a series of charts showing cooperative lending and borrowing statistics. She turned the floor over to Andy Egan who reminded us of the workshops, "Soaring To Excellence 2000" which will be held November 19, January 14, and March 24. There will also be a teleconference on October 28 with Steve Cofflan advocating a universal electronic library. Dorothy stated there will be a session to discuss Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) activities before that teleconference. All the BRC Task Forces have posted information on LORI. Dorothy discussed the state’s budget for 2000, which will have at least a $300K increase for public library funding. Some libraries are receiving more than 25% of their local appropriation. Carol Brouwer came up with the idea that state funding should be held at least at the current level for those libraries. If that premise is accepted, it would mean at least a $550K increase in state spending for public libraries. The next Library Directors meeting will be held October 1^st. OLIS is in the process of hiring two new staff. RHILINET funding applications have been sent though the messenger service. The Literacy funding applications will soon be delivered.

Database Management: The committee met on September 7. Any suggestions for classic editions should be brought to the next meeting on November 12 at WAR. The 999 project has completed 30,000 records, so the project is 55% complete.

Circulation Heads: The next meeting will be held Thursday, September 16 at 9:30 AM at NPR.

Ann Crawford distributed copies of the Coastweeks Calendar and urged our participation in the annual event as program providers.

Fran Farrell Bergeron reported that the Funding Task Force of the BRC is faced with some complicated issues, such as: "how is the 25% funding level determined?" and "should grant-in-aid and resource sharing be combined into one allocation?" She would like feedback on these issues and also on OLIS’s specific program initiatives in Item 5B. There will be a meeting of the directors of medium and large libraries on September 16 at 9:30 AM at GVL.

Donna Dufault offered to give interested parties a tour of NKI’s renovation and expansion after the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:15 PM. The next CLAN meeting will be held on November 18 at WAR.

Respectfully submitted,

Sarah Weed

Secretary