1. CALL TO ORDER
This Special Meeting of the CLAN Steering Committee meeting was called to order by Chair Kathryn Taylor at 9:45 A.M. at the Warwick Public Library.

In attendance: Ginny Moses (CLAN); Anne Parent (DSL); Susan Aylward (NKI and CLAN Secretary); Regina Slezak (NPT); Carol Brouwer (NSM and CLAN Vice Chair); Doug Pearce (WAR); Leslie McDonough (SCI and CLAN Treasurer); Kathryn Taylor (WES and CLAN Chair); Ulla Virks (CHA); and Peter Bennett (PPL)

2. DISCUSSION OF INNOVATIVE/INN-REACH, INN-RHODE POSSIBILITIES
The Committee discussed a number of issues related to the possibility of CLAN´s migrating to Innovative Interfaces (III) and the possibility this presents to move forward on a statewide catalog with patron-initiated ILL. The committee discussed the following issues: the options on the table, funding for the project, gathering information and getting input to help in the decision-making process, other related issues, and the logistics of making the decision.

Peter Bennett provided technical information and advice; all Steering Committee members participated in an expansive discussion of the pros and cons of the issues; and audience members Fran Farrell-Bergeron and Susan Reed spoke on a couple of issues. The following is a summary of the questions and issues raised during the discussion, arranged by broad topics. When there was agreement by more than one Steering Committee member on a particular issue, names of all those who spoke on the issue appear in parentheses rather than as a transcript of what was said by each individual.

THE OPTIONS:
OPTION 1 is to migrate to the Innovative Interfaces platform in order to be able to implement cost-effectively the INN-REACH, INN-RHODE statewide catalog with patron-initiated ILL. (INN-REACH is III´s name for their ILL product; INN-RHODE is HELIN´s name for the implementation of INN-REACH)

Peter explained that to try to implement the statewide catalog with CLAN and HELIN on separate systems would be prohibitively expensive (in the $700,000 per year range as an ongoing expense). Logistically, two separate systems would mean maintaining two separate holds procedures with two separate pull lists and would also require maintaining an interface between the systems.

Anne Parent pointed out that there is also the possibility that Dynix would not have any particular stake in making sure that their system would always be compatible with INN-REACH.

Steering Committee members expressed enthusiasm for the statewide catalog with patron-initiated ILL (Kathryn Taylor, Anne Parent, and Susan Aylward).

Leslie McDonough thinks the idea of a statewide catalog is interesting but wonders if it should not be left up to the Futures Committee to study and implement the project. Anne Parent explained that the Legislative Commission has a huge job ahead of it which also involves not just public and academic cooperation, but schools as well. A CLAN/HELIN project is not the only issue before the Legislative Commission. They are charged to meet just through this calendar year and it will make a big difference to their work if CLAN has already made its decision regarding the statewide catalog and patron-initiated ILL. She suggested that CLAN needs to decide what is best for CLAN and not rely on the Legislative Commission to do that for us.

Doug Pearce is not convinced that this is the only way to accomplish the statewide catalog.

Peter continues to hear a great deal of dissatisfaction with Horizon, though he tends to hear only from the folks who are not happy with the system.

OPTION 2 is to stay with Horizon, continuing to work to bring the system in line with our practices and procedures and to make it a goal to begin making some cooperative decisions about policies and procedures system-wide to make implementation of Horizon (or any platform) easier for staff and patrons.

Steering Committee members expressed a sense of caution about CLAN members expecting a migration to Innovative to be a panacea for all of their problems. Is III necessarily going to be better than Horizon? Will any system do all that we want it to do (Doug Pearce, Leslie McDonough, and Anne Parent).

FUNDING
Steering Committee members expressed concern about the impact that funding for a migration would have on Champlin Foundation grant awards to individual CLAN members (Doug Pearce and Leslie McDonough) since it appears that some of the total amount available to CLAN members for technology would have to be re-directed toward funding the migration.

Ginny is concerned about the effect on this Champlin grant cycle since the CLAN staff has a huge job ahead in coordinating the grant process for CLAN members in the next month. Knowing how much everything will cost depends on quantities requested and volume discounts. Kathryn wondered why it would not be possible to move forward as if the entire Champlin amount would be available and then pare those requests down if necessary depending on what the membership decides about the migration.

Doug expressed concern that it would be embarrassing for CLAN to ask Champlin to fund a migration to another platform after having migrated to the Horizon/Dynix upgraded platform just last year. Anne countered that argument with her assurance that we do not have to be embarrassed about change. Change is not negative; it is progressive for us to be thinking about change and not at all embarrassing.

Fran Farrell-Bergeron suggested that CLAN needs to consider seriously, either by appointing a standing committee or an ad-hoc committee, the issue of developing funding sources beyond that we receive from The Champlin Foundations.

INFORMATION GATHERING
Peter has arranged a conference call/WebEx session with Innovative for tomorrow (3/17) so that he can answer some of his specific questions (and ours): what is the basic data structure of the Innovative System, how does the system handle transits, notices, reports, statistics, what are the controls over the data, what is the architecture of the system and how does the system treat members of a consortium (as individual libraries or as a main library with branches)?

Peter volunteered to work up a document that will digest what he learns at the WebEx session as well as outline some information that it would be helpful for members to know before next week´s special CLAN meeting at which the membership will discuss the possibility of the migration. This document will be on the CLAN support site and/or the electronic bulletin boards some time before the meeting on the 24th.

Anne Parent suggested a possible field trip to the Worcester Public Library which is a member of CW/MARS, a consortium which includes 175 multi-type libraries in central and western Massachusetts. Innovative is C/W MARS´s fourth system in 18 years and they are very satisfied.

CLAN members can certainly look at III in-state at any HELIN facility and Bob Aspri (from HELIN) as well as representatives from III have volunteered to appear at a CLAN meeting to answer questions.

RELATED ISSUES
Peter reported that whether or not we switch to Innovative, we need to get a new server soon, since the existing one does not have enough capacity to run day end processing before the backup starts, nor to run the weekly database consistency check in an efficient timeframe. He expressed some concern about the timing of getting the new server in relation to the timing of switching to III if that is what the membership decides to do.

Peter stressed that he will be equally enthusiastic about either option. He is very excited about the possibility that the migration to III would finally accomplish the statewide catalog, which is something that Rhode Island librarians have been talking about for a number of years. He is also enthusiastic about trying to make Horizon work. Horizon is a very flexible, very powerful system. That flexibility and power also makes it very complicated. Much of the documentation, which would have been helpful to have before the migration, was held back by Dynix until after we came up after the migration. There are many things Peter really loves about Horizon. And there are some things he hates about Horizon. Unfortunately the bad things tend to be really awful.

The Horizon migration, from a technological standpoint, actually went quite smoothly. The biggest problem was that we came up on a release that had a bad bug. The cure for that bad bug turned out to be worse than the disease.

LOGISTICS
Doug Pearce believes we need to work towards a consensus and to take our time and think it through.

Anne Parent advocated (and Susan Aylward agreed) that if it appears that CLAN is going to migrate to III, we should move quickly to do so because we would want to limit the investment of time and money in making Horizon workable if we know that we will be moving to another system.

There was a great deal of discussion about the responsibility of the membership in the decision-making process and providing appropriate means for membership comments, questions, and participation. Regina Slezak spoke strongly about the need to identify exactly what we want our computer system to do; what we want our network to look like in terms of cooperative functions; what must we give up as members of a cooperative and what can we retain. Fran Farrell-Bergeron and Susan Reed agreed on the importance of finding out the expectations, particularly of front-line staff, and then making sure that any system we consider can meet those expectations.

Doug Pearce reminded everyone that we are not inventing an ILS out of our heads. Most systems all perform basic functions. Peter agreed. It is the detail of those basic functions that tends to vary. He will have answers to some of these basic questions after the WebEx session.

There was a consensus among Steering Committee members that the first step is to have some basic information that will provide the basis for preliminary discussion at next week´s special CLAN meeting. The document that Peter will put together will be the basis for that discussion.

3. CIRC HEADS RECOMMENDATION REGARDING TELECIRC NOTIFICATION
VOTED to accept the recommendation of the Circulation Heads committee and recommend to the full membership at the March 24, 2005 special meeting that all libraries switch to Telecirc or the default notification method of mail in order to prevent patrons from slipping through the notification cracks on a motion by Anne Parent, seconded by Regina Slezak.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:15 A.M.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan Aylward
Secretary