1. CALL TO ORDER
This regularly scheduled meeting of the CLAN Steering Committee was called to order by Chair Kathryn Taylor at 9:50 A.M. at the Warwick Public Library.

Steering Committee members in attendance: Susan Aylward, Peter Bennett, Carol Brouwer,  John Carney, Fran Farrell-Bergeron, Shirley Long, Anne Parent, Doug Pearce, Pat Redfearn, Regina Slezak, Kathryn Taylor, Ulla Virks. Excused absence: Dan Austin

Also in attendance: Debbie Barchi (BAR), Elaine Clark (CLAN), Laura Marlane (CFA), David Macksam (CRA), Rick Payette (CLAN), Mary Skaba (BUR), Cindy St. Amour (PPL), Karen Taylor (EGR)

2. MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 21 STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the August 17, 2005 meeting as presented. (John Carney, Ulla Virks).

3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT (Peter Bennett)
MIGRATION UPDATE
Peter reported that Dynix finally knows we are leaving and that he has told them quite forcefully that it is too late to win us back.

The training sessions went well last week, somewhat better than Peter expected. They were intense and particularly grueling for him and Cindy because they attended all of the sessions. In order to make the next training sessions, which are scheduled in December, as realistic as possible, Peter will be re-loading the entire bibliographic and item database along with a couple of hundred actual patron records during the week of November 14th. The gap load then will be a little bigger, but not unmanageable. By having the entire database available for training and at such an early date will make a big difference in helping all library staff members get up to speed. We will have from December through March to work on learning the new system with real records from our own database. Peter and Cindy have a huge job ahead of them from now until November 8th and they will be "incommunicado" for much of this time period.

Peter has been wrestling with trying to get the 8e6 filtering box working. He now is confident that the setup is correct, but it is not yet doing entirely what it should be doing. The 8e6 folks will be taking a look the problem. Peter particularly likes that 8e6 has two clear categories-pornography and child pornography-which are the two blocking categories required by law for CIPA compliance. The categories in 8e6 are much clearer than they are in WebSense. The two categories for CIPA compliance as described above would become the minimum blocking level default for CLAN libraries, when 8e6 is implemented.

Shirley Long and other Steering Committee members expressed some concern about what decisions the Circ Heads would be making at next Monday's meeting about circulation parameters. Shirley was especially concerned that the Circ Heads would be deciding circulation policy issues without input from their directors. Peter and Mary Skaba assured the group that the Circ Heads will be deciding how to take our current parameters and translate them into Triple I terms. There are 99 defaults that have to be defined. Mary has a list of these and she will send an e-mail with this list as an attachment for those libraries that want to see them. Peter also assured everyone that most of these defaults are changeable at a later date; we just have to have something defined in order to get started.

Peter and Cindy also need a couple of things from each library: one is information about receipt printing-Do we use receipt printers? What do we want printed on the receipts? The second is information about spine labels-Do we generate spine labels through the cataloging system? What is the format of the spine labels? What size labels do we use? Where does the call number break? He talked about having each library send a sample of their receipts and their spine labels and he or Cindy will be posting a message on the CLAN message board asking for this information. Everyone should be checking the CLAN message board to see what information we need to provide to Peter and Cindy.

There was additional discussion and comments about the need for standardization wherever possible. Peter explained how well the Location Code standardization has gone. The hierarchy for the location codes is logical, straightforward, and follows the same premise from library to library.

4. WEBSENSE (Cindy St. Amour)
Cindy St. Amour distributed the WEBSENSE Filtering Information document she created, which includes an explanation of the filter; an outline of what is being blocked; instructions for how to unblock a site; and future plans for filtering. The Steering Committee accepted Cindy's draft, with much praise at a job well done, for distribution to the membership via the message board and in hard copy at the November membership meeting.

President Kathryn Taylor reported a request from the ACLU to provide them with a list of categories that are being blocked at each CLAN library. The Steering Committee discussed the request. Since creating this document would take a great deal of CLAN staff time, which they do not presently have since we are in the midst of a major migration, and since the Steering Committee does not presently see a need for CLAN itself to have such a document, it was the consensus of the Steering Committee that the ACLU can contact individual libraries if they have questions regarding the filtering process at the local level. Anne Parent pointed out that CLAN is not a governing body which has control over individual libraries in the decision-making process regarding filters. It is each individual library's decision to make in the context of local standards in each community.

5. TRAINING
President Kathryn Taylor reported on the concerns among the membership that we ensure adequate training for all library staff members, including those who work at the Reference and Children's desks. Mary Skaba expressed her willingness as the Chair of the Circ Heads to include Reference and Children's staff members in the circulation training plans, though she feels that much of the circulation training would be irrelevant for these folks. Steering Committee members discussed the matter in detail. It was decided that we contact HELIN to arrange for their assistance in training Reference and Children's Desk staff. Peter will make the connection with HELIN. It was further decided that the RICHI Committee take on the task of coordinating this training on the CLAN end, using the same model of "training the trainers" that is being used for Circulation and Cataloging training. Regina will talk to Pat LaRose of her staff, who is the chairperson of the RICHI Committee. Fran Farrell-Bergeron volunteered the West Warwick Public Library computer lab as a possible site for this training. Debbie Barchi stressed the importance of each library's responsibility in the training process. Obviously, not all staff members will be able to attend the large group training sessions. So it is important that the delegates from each library who attend the training sessions, go back to their individual libraries and train the rest of the staff.

Rick Payette has put instructions on the CLAN message board and on the CLAN support site with information about downloading the Millennium client software and the web address for looking at the Millennium OPAC. As he mentions in the message, he will be happy to assist libraries with the installation of the software - it will need to be installed on each PC in order to use the training database and to use the new system when we go live in March. Be advised, at the moment, the Millennium OPAC only has about 1/9 of the full CLAN database. As mentioned above in Peter Bennett's report, the full database will be loaded the week of November 14th.

The Steering Committee also discussed how to field questions that come up as library staff members begin to look at the Millennium software. Questions regarding circulation issues should be forwarded to the Circ Heads Committee (Mary Skaba-BUR); questions regarding cataloging issues should be forwarded to Patience Bliss (CLAN Cataloging staff); and questions regarding searching the OPACs should be forwarded to the RICHI Committee (Pat LaRose-NPT). It will be very helpful for these folks to have the questions, so that we can address them in the group training sessions.

5a.CLAN STAFF REPORTS
Rick Payette reiterated the information about the OPAC website and the downloading of the Millennium client. He also expressed his feeling that the Millennium OPAC is much more user-friendly than what we are used to.

Elaine Clark reported that the auditor is about 75% finished with the audit. He will be meeting with the Finance Committee to go over the audit wrap-up and is willing to meet with the Steering Committee if that is needed. Elaine has given the draft of the personnel and property liability insurance proposal to Kathryn for her review. Elaine also reported that the meeting with CLAN staff and the Ad Hoc Personnel Committee went very well. Elaine will be attending the Steering Committee and membership meetings from now on.

6. REVIEW OF LEASE AGREEMENT WITH WARWICK PUBLIC LIBRARY
CLAN Steering members expressed concern over the complexity of the lease agreement and the lack of a clause giving both sides an opportunity to withdraw early, particularly since the term of the agreement is for 10 years. Doug Pearce explained that the space is owned by the city of Warwick and that the agreement had been drawn up by the City Solicitor. He also expressed his concern that a long-term agreement is mutually beneficial to both the Warwick Public Library and CLAN given that demands on space for city use might make the space now occupied by CLAN attractive to the city of Warwick for other purposes. After much discussion of the issue, it was decided that Anne Parent will have the state's attorney take a look at the agreement before we proceed with further discussion of it.

7. TREASURER'S REPORT INCLUDING 2006 BUDGET PREPARATION
Treasurer Shirley Long went over the budget narrative that she had distributed prior to the Steering Committee meeting, which the Committee found to be informative and well-drafted. Steering Committee members asked about the NELINET/Cataloging fee, which decreased significantly. The decrease is due to a fundamental change in the way they levy their charges; not in the amount of cataloging services that we get from them. The Network Equipment Maintenance also shows a significant decrease because of the 3-year agreement that Peter negotiated with Atrion, which resulted in substantial cost savings.

Peter explained the contract with Atrion.
The Steering Committee VOTED unanimously to enter into the three-year maintenance contract with Atrion at a fee of $175,000 per year for a three-year period. (Carol Brouwer, Fran Farrell-Bergeron)

Further discussion of the budget proposal ensued. Fran Farrell-Bergeron praised the budget narrative, especially the delineation of percentages for Providence personnel. As a future goal, she would like to see CLAN look at a contractual agreement with Providence Public for employees and services, negotiating one figure for those contracted services. Peter Bennett relayed the information that Dan Austin is certainly willing to do whatever CLAN wants along these lines.

Steering Committee members wondered about contingency monies, which Shirley and Peter explained are part of the balance in the savings account line. This account is used as a holding place for contingency funds; a temporary way station for funds that are being held to pay a specific bill; and a source for maintaining a healthy cash flow for the organization. Anne Parent expressed some concern about the OLIS grant for the migration showing up in the savings account. Actually, those funds have already been expended according to Peter Bennett, since we have made initial payments to Triple I. Shirley Long will make a correction in the budget text to reflect that.

The Steering Committee VOTED unanimously to adopt the budget as proposed and to recommend its approval by the membership at the November 10, 2005 general membership meeting.

7a. GROUP PURCHASING of DATABASES (Laura Marlane)
Laura Marlane reported on her negotiations with database vendors. She has posted information to the message board about the Power Search capability for the Gale databases. She has contacted EBSCO to discuss some of their databases. And she has been talking with Proquest about the Providence Journal online database and archives. Proquest has offered CLAN a deal of PRO JO online for everyone, including unlimited access and remote access, if we sign by late November. They will split the billing for the rest of this year and charge only 50% for December through June. The cost for the whole contract, which includes every CLAN library, would be $74,500. Steering Committee members generally felt that this would be a wonderful addition to the core services of CLAN, since the Providence Journal is the newspaper of record for our state and since this pricing includes unlimited and remote access.

There was much discussion about starting this service in the current fiscal year. Though the pricing structure is very attractive, particularly for small libraries, it will be very difficult for many libraries to absorb additional CLAN fees in the middle of a budget year. The Steering Committee asked Laura to go back to Proquest to see if the deal can be negotiated for Fiscal Year 07, with the possibility that libraries wanting to begin mid-year this year could do so and be billed by CLAN on an individual basis.

The Steering Committee VOTED unanimously to recommend to the membership that the Proquest Providence Journal online be added as a core service in FY 2007 for the $74,500 fee that was quoted to Laura Marlane and that a new iteration of the fee schedule be generated to include this service. (Shirley Long, Fran Farrell-Bergeron)

8. AD HOC PERSONNEL COMMITTEE REPORT (Kathryn Taylor)
Chair Kathryn Taylor reported that the Ad Hoc Personnel Committee met with CLAN staff. The Committee has decided to move forward with having an Executive Director and a subcommittee is working to draft the job description for the position.

9. OTHER
Debbie Barchi described the changes that are taking place in the R.I. Center for the Book now that Providence Public Library has withdrawn its financial support. CLAN has been hosting the R.I. Center for the Book's web site on its web server. Debbie asked if CLAN would be willing to continue doing that; Rick has said that it is not a problem. The Steering Committee VOTED unanimously to host the web site for the R.I. Center for the Book on the CLAN web server. (Fran Farrell-Bergeron, Regina Slezak)

Anne Parent asked if it has been a problem for CLAN to act as the fiscal agent for the Gates grants. Elaine explained that she keeps a running tally of the money and has a system up and running to keep track of the activity. It has been no problem for her to do this and CLAN will continue to act as the fiscal agent for the new Gates Grant.

Pat Redfearn wondered if it would be possible to have a list of CLAN members' e-mail addresses. Rick reminded everyone that there is a global address book on the Exchange server that will give you the whole address book for riclan.org. The problem is, of course, not all directors use the riclan.org as their primary (and most often-checked) e-mail address. Elaine has a list of the other e-mail addresses. We can be in touch with her if we need the list.

10. ADJOURNMENT TO EXECUTIVE SESSION TO DISCUSS PERSONNEL ISSUES
There was no business which necessitated adjournment to executive session.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 AM.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Aylward
Secretary