1. CALL TO ORDER
This regularly scheduled meeting of the CLAN Steering Committee was called to order by President Kathryn Taylor at 9:40 A.M. at the Warwick Public Library.

Steering Committee members in attendance: Dan Austin, Susan Aylward, Carol Brouwer, John Carney, Fran Farrell-Bergeron, Beth Perry (representing OLIS), Pat Redfearn, Regina Slezak, Kathryn Taylor, Ulla Virks. Excused absence: Shirley Long, Anne Parent

Also in attendance: Peter Bennett (System Administrator); Cindy St. Amour (Head of Data Processing); Elaine Clark (CLAN), Rick Payette (CLAN); Becky Boragine (LIN), Susan Reed (PAW)

2. PERSONNEL COMMITTEE REPORT
President Kathryn Taylor reported that we have an Executive Director. Joan Gillespie has accepted CLAN's offer of employment. She has an MLS and an MBA from Simmons and is currently working as the Executive Director of the LION network in Connecticut. We do not yet have an official starting date for Joan, but she will be attending the CLAN membership meeting on May 11th.

3. MINUTES OF MARCH 16 STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
VOTED unanimously to accept the minutes of the March 16, 2006 meetings as presented. (Carol Brouwer, Fran Farrell-Bergeron).

4. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT (Peter Bennett)
Peter reported that the migration was very successful and that he is beginning to recover, slowly, from the days and nights of work that it required for him to make the migration such a success. Kathryn asked Peter if his role in the migration would have been easier had he gone to the training sessions in California. Peter said no because the main problems were with the way that Horizon handled some of the data, making it difficult to extract it.

He and Cindy have got Teleforms (the Millennium equivalent of Telecirc) working and he characterized it as much nicer than Telecirc. He and Rick have the Patron API feature working and they are both impressed with how it works. (This is the feature that allows for patron authentication in such programs as Cybrarian). Bringing up the self checks is still to be done and Peter and Rick will be getting that feature going soon.

In this year's bid for the PUC Telecomm pool, Verizon has won back all of the libraries that were switched to Cox last year. Since Cox has appeared not to be too interested in the library market, the switch back to Verizon will be advantageous for CLAN. Also, the 20 libraries that had ATM lines in the beginning are going to now have two T-1ines, doubling their band width.

When we switched from OSHEAN to RINET for our internet service provider, RINET was supposed to take on our DNS, but they were not ready at the time and Johnson & Wales has been hosting CLAN's DNS. Now RINET is ready to take us on. This will have ramifications for each of the CLAN libraries, which will have to make changes with database providers and on network servers.

Peter and Rick have been looking at network-wide wireless management and security systems. Wireless is going to be a big expansion area in libraries and CLAN will need the infrastructure to manage this. The cost of a network-wide wireless management and security system is likely going to be a component of this year's Champlin grant.

5. CLAN STAFF REPORTS
Rick Payette-Rick reported that the Champlin grant process is moving forward. 36 libraries have submitted their requests. The total to-date of items requested is $612,000, but the amount could go over $850,000 when all the requests are in. Peter and Rick will be meeting with Champlin soon to get a feeling for the amount that will be available this year for the CLAN request.

Cindy St. Amour-Cindy reported that libraries have begun to report things that are non-problems, which is a good sign that the migration itself is nearly finished. She reiterated what a wonderful job all of the trainers did to get staff members at CLAN libraries prepared before the migration. The Millennium trainer will be in Rhode Island in June doing some work for HELIN and Cindy asked if we could arrange to pay her to spend a couple of days with CLAN at the same time to do some follow-up training and some training on the statistics. The Steering Committee thought this was a fine idea. Kathryn said that the Steering Committee had previously approved funding for additional training. Since we ended up not using the money, it is still available for training.

Elaine Clark-Elaine reported that she has been working with Rick on the Champlin grant and also on updating the CLAN library directory.

6. TREASURER'S REPORT
There was no Treasurer's report since Shirley Long is ill and could not be at the meeting.

7. NOMINATING COMMITTEE REPORT (Susan Reed and Doug Pearce)
Susan and Doug presented the proposed slate of officers: for Vice President/President Elect-Laura Marlane; for Treasurer-Shirley Long; for Member-at-Large-Eileen Socha.
VOTED unanimously to accept the slate prepared by the Nominating Committee for election at the May 11th annual meeting. (Regina Slezak, Fran Farrell-Bergeron)

8. CLAN NAME CHANGE COMMITTEE (Fran Farrell-Bergeron)
Fran Farrell-Bergeron presented four names for CLAN that she and Debbie Barchi recommend as viable possibilities:  FLAIR (Free Library Access in Rhode Island); PLAN: (Public Libraries Automated Network); PLUS (Public Libraries United to Serve Rhode Island or Public Library User System); or SAIL (Statewide Automated Interrelated Libraries). Because Fran and Debbie were both diametrically different in their top choice, they decided to bring all four possibilities to the Steering Committee for the Committee to pick one outright or to choose two for a runoff vote by the members. The Steering Committee took a ballot vote with each member listing the top two choices. There was no clear consensus in the vote, so the Committee decided to bring the top three choices to the membership for a vote. These are: FLAIR, PLUS, and SAIL.

9. TRANSIT CODE PROPOSAL (Mary Skaba, Circ Heads Committee)
Mary Skaba presented a proposal to the Steering Committee from the Circ Heads Committee requesting that CLAN ask OLIS to change the delivery codes to match the library codes in use in the Millennium system. After discussion, including a presentation from OLIS by Beth Perry, it was the consensus of the Steering Committee that asking OLIS to change the delivery codes would swap the problem of library staff members adjusting to the new codes by creating a larger problem for the delivery system providers. The Steering Committee felt it was more expedient for CLAN staff to cope with the change, by creating "cheat sheets" that convert the Millennium codes to the delivery codes. The Committee will not be asking OLIS to change the delivery codes.

10. EBSCO CONTRACT/STEERING COMMITTEE AUTHORITY
The Steering Committee reviewed its authority, as outlined in the bylaws, in signing the EBSCO database contract.

11. MEMBERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY ENFORCEMENT
President Kathryn Taylor expressed her desire to ensure that members are encouraged to accept their responsibilities to participate actively in the organization by attending meetings, by reading the information posted on the message boards; and by paying membership fees in a timely fashion. Elaine reported that there are two libraries which are very delinquent in paying their membership fees. The Steering Committee discussed ways to enforce the timely payment of the fees, including having the President write to the Library Director and/or the Town/City Treasurer and also suspending a member library's benefits until such time as the bill is paid.

12. CIRCULATION POLICIES FOR LITERACY COLLECTIONS (Pat Redfearn)
Pat Redfearn brought up a request from LVA East Bay for CLAN to create more consistent borrowing policies for literacy collections statewide. Regina Slezak reported that she has had requests from this patron previously and what the patron wants is a 3-month loan period for these collections. It was the consensus of the Steering Committee that most libraries are very accommodating to their literacy patrons and there is no need for CLAN as an organization to dictate this policy to its members.

13. OTHER
Susan Reed brought a request before the Steering Committee regarding the Mobile Collection Unit, which is a module of Millennium that might make it easier to move groups of materials between libraries, branches, and also bookmobiles. She asked the Steering Committee to give its permission for her to have Barbara Herzog (the Innovative sales rep for our area) to come out and discuss what the Mobile Collections Unit can do, to see if it would be helpful. VOTED to grant permission to invite the Innovative sales person to come to CLAN and talk with anyone who is interested in this module. (Fran Farrell-Bergeron, John Carney)

14. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 AM.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Aylward
Secretary

Next quarterly membership meeting, May 11, 2006, 9:30AM, North Kingstown Free Library
Next Steering Committee meeting, May 25, 2006, 9:30AM, Board Room, Warwick Public Library