The meeting was convened at 9:50 AM at the Harmony Public Library by Chairperson Deborah Barchi. In attendance were: Deborah Barchi, BAR; Judith Bell, JAM; Peter Bennett, CLA/PRO; Patience Bliss, CLAN; John Carney, EPL; Dorey Conway, PRO; Frances Farrell-Bergeron, WWA; Jim Giles, NSH; Joan Hackett, HAR; Gretchen Hanley, CHA; Paul Holliday, CRA; De Johnson, JOH; Connie Lachowicz; SKI; Shirley Long, PRO; David Macksam, CRA; Leslie McDonough, SCI; Ginny Moses, CLAN; Barbara Neri, NPR; Anne Parent, OLIS; Rick Payette, CLAN; Doug Pearce, WAR; Doug Swiszcz, BAR; Debra Tirrell, EPL.

The order of the agenda was changed to allow Attorney Staci Sawyer of Blish and Cavanagh to speak first.  Ms. Sawyer deals mainly with First Amendment issues and was asked to attend the meeting to talk about CIPA issues and how CLAN will be affected.

She believes most of CIPA will be struck down as unconstitutional—but not right away.

Ginny: CLAN anticipates receiving $90K to $100K in erate money this year.

David: CLAN libraries might be able to “opt out” of compliance with CIPA, library by library, for the first year. But after that ALL federal money will become subject to CIPA (not just erate money), so we would be in trouble.

Staci: This could become a PR nightmare for libraries—it could give the appearance to the public that we support allowing children open access to pornography.

David: Libraries have internet policies but did not necessarily conduct public hearings about them (which CIPA requires)

David: Could CLAN conduct one large public hearing or would each library have to do a separate one?

Judy: If we are seeking and advocating local control of library policies we ought to have local hearings.

De: Blocking only images, as CIPA requires, is impossible given current technology

Staci: Bven if the technology doesn’t work we might be able to be in compliance by using a faulty filter

Staci: It is likely an injunction will be issued because in law the status quo is usually favored over new requirements

Much discussion ensued.

Debbie to Staci: Would your work for us, looking into matters regarding CIPA as they impact CLAN, be pro bono or . . .

Staci: While my firm does quite a lot of pro bono, I would need to charge at least an initial flat fee of $200 to look into the matter

Moved: De

Carried: unanimously

Staci will prepare a letter detailing her findings within the next 2 weeks.

Thank you, Ms. Sawyer.

Executive Director’s report (Ginny Moses):

• Books Are Wings seems quite successful.

Discussion ensued, with concerns and suggestions being presented.EPL, NPR, WWA and PAW have had their sessions, with many children attending.

• There will be a Champlin Grant Request Workshop presented by CLAN on May 17, 2001 at 9:30 AM in WAR’s big meeting room. Ideas on what your library needs to have for our transition onto Horizon will be presented. So will refreshments.

• Holly Albanese of HPE will represent CLAN at the annual Library Legislative Day in Washington, D.C. on April30 and May 1, 2001.

With much to discuss, Ginny was as brief as possible.

Systems and Network Administrator’s report (Peter Bennett):

• The new DYNIX hardware installation went well and is very nice.We now have lots of capacity and speed.

• The software migration from DYNIX to Horizon will probably not occur before the first quarter of 2003. By then most of the applications should be up to snuff.
• epixtech has guaranteed to support DYNIX for at least 10 more years

Paul: Will the releases continue?

Peter: Yes, R182 is coming soon—it is currently in beta testing

• We are looking forward to iPAC, which will release webpacs, etc.It is an HTML application that doesn’t need to use z39.50 server.
• IPAC will be released in December 2001, so it is time for libraries to get their wiring up to date and upgrade to ALL PC’s.
• We are making progress with telecommunications installations—of the DSL installations all but 2 are up.
• Frame relay and T1 installations are going slower—1 is done, 2 are almost done and the rest are yet to be done—all by Conversant.
• OSHEAN is replacing 56k lines from libraries to PRO with full T1’s or 384k fractional T1’s.We are starting with 19 full T1’s using ATM protocol. From PRO to OSHEAN there will be a 15 mgb pipe.Once these are all done the other lines will go away.The first 19 connections just started appearing without notice—but Verizon ordered them wrong so the schedule is pushed back.
• Costs to cover lines will be covered by the tariff. We’ll pay for connections to OSHEAN. It will be expensive, but not any worse than now.
• OSHEAN will give us extra bandwidth which will allow some access to video conferencing, etc.
• NKI has a test OSHEAN line which is working well—it is being monitored.
• DO NOT ALLOW VERIZON TO UNPLUG EXISTING CONNECTIONS AT YOUR LIBRARIES WHEN THEY COME TO INSTALL NEW LINES.

De: Has epixtech indicated when Perfect Paul will be replaced?

Peter: The next version in under development but is not yet ready.Libraries can have Perfect Paul turned off in their Telecirc II accounts for outgoing calls but not incoming calls.

Judy: There seem to be problems with the length of time allowed for patrons to pick up holds.Perhaps it would be a good idea to reinforce the need to use the 10 calendar day limit.

Technical Support Specialist’s (Rick Payette) report:

Most of my information will be better to present at the May 17 Champlin Grant workshop.

There is a huge PC order going in to Dell—expect delivery in 1 to 2 weeks. After this order we will be switching to ordering new models.

De: Will you be ordering laptops?

Rick: Yes, but not every quarter—too few were ordered last time.Contact me if your library will want to order laptop(s)

OLIS Representative’s (Anne Parent) report:

At the Advocacy Task Force meeting of April 25 a report was made on progress regarding funding for the Library Links project. There is as of yet no bill in front of the legislature. Joan Reeves says that Gordon Fox is still interestedin helping. Brochures entitled “LINK” have been printed.

David: I have doubts that the funding will occur. The meeting left it unclear whether there will be a bill or a budget article. Budget article is the back door method of getting funding—last year it didn’t work.The Advocacy Task Force wanted a bill.

Anne: I will be going to Legislative Day in DC.

David: Me, too.Expect lots of CIPA talk

Doug S.: Is there any hope for construction grants?

Anne: We are hopeful that the legislature will squelch cutting LSTA.

David: This is getting a lot of attention.

Database Management Committee report presented by Doug S., Deb T. and Patience:

Deb: We have a handout detailing the committee’s concerns about OLIS’s new standards not requiring a professional librarians as catalogers. Cataloging is NOT just data entry—it requires judgment and professional training.

Anne: What is it the committee wants?

Patience: Accountability for cataloging work done—the ability to show Champlin we are working on improving the database rather than continuing to spend good money to clean up on-going poor records.

Fran: How do the sloppy records get into the database?

Patience: People entering items are not specific enough as to types of items.We at CLAN cataloging deal with over 100 errors per month in daily cataloging for member libraries—not including discoveries of older bad records. Also, people are creating new records rather than attaching their items to records that already exist—Guinness Book of World Records, for example.

De: We need a regular training schedule, several times a year, to train new employees and refresh the training of others.

Patience: We will be glad to train in-house at libraries and/or in CLAN’s new training area.

Anne: This idea is commendable. I recommend it be presented not as a fall back position from OLIS’ standard requirements but as a CLAN policy.

Moved: that the 4 goals as specified in the handout (to be modified by Database Management) be presented and recommended to the membership

Second: De

Carried: unanimously

The revised handout will be sent to the membership before the May 10 membership meeting.

Connie (regarding a specific part of the suggested policy that would require that bad records be deleted if they are not fixed in a specified length of time): the Director, as well as the cataloger, of such a library should be notified if that is going to happen.

No other committees reported.

Other:

Fran: Regarding shared databases—years ago we talked about cooperative purchasing, but that was at the time considering traditional materials only. Since it are not likely to get state funding for database, why couldn’t CLAN take the lead into doing it? We need to look at electronic collection development. CLAN could and should begin to develop it. I suggest asking PRO, in the persons of Dorey and Shirley, to do the work since they have had quite a bit of success doing it for PRO. CLAN could pay PRO to buy subscriptions to databases and mount them on PRO’s website.

Leslie: Where would the money come from? SCI has no money at all for databases.

Fran: Wwe need a committee to examine the ideas of how, who pays, etc.

Judy: Why should I pay for certain databases? Health Reference Center is available now.

Shirley: It is available as a remote product because some CLAN libraries are paying to continue the subscription.

Fran: CLAN should contact HELIN, etc. about this idea—regardless of whether we get state funding or not—and tell them they are welcome to join us.

Anne: This shouldn’t be an “either/or” funding situation—take it any way you can.

Debbie B.: Should the work be done through CLAN rather than PRO?

Shirley: Maybe we could create a working group to do it.

Debbie B.: Yes—administered through CLAN.

Rick: Idea of a common user interface should be looked at (see Blue Ribbon Committee recommendations, etc.) We could seek grants, too. Let’s go at it the right way.

Debbie B.: Should the membership at the CLAN annual meeting be polled to create a group to investigate the possibilities?

Steering Members: Yes.

Jim: I have a question concerning erate. How is it done—with software?

Peter: It is a combination of software and hardware (a server).It could be done centrally through CLAN, which would be the cheapest, but it would slow down our traffic very badly.Also, all libraries would have to agree on what to filter—and that’s not likely to happen. It could be done by individual libraries but it becomes very expensive—and it means there would be 73 possible sites for things to break down. If we did a central system libraries could opt out.

Remember: CLAN meets May 10, 9:30, at NAR.

Meeting adjourned at 11:45 AM.