Ocean State Libraries Steering Committee

February 11, 2010

Call to Order: This regularly scheduled meeting of the OSL Steering Committee was called to order by President Eileen Socha at 9:36 a.m. in the Ocean State Libraries Office.

Present were: Howard, Boksenbaum, Carol Brouwer, Prudence Fallon, Heather Field, Joan Gillespie, Shirley Long, David Macksam, Leslie McDonough, Leslie Page, Eileen Socha.

Also Present: John Carney, Fran Farrell-Bergeron, Sharon Fredette, Cindy St. Amour.

Minutes of the January 21, 2010 Meeting: Voted to approve the minutes of January 21, 2010 on a motion by Carol Brouwer, seconded by David Macksam.

Treasurer?s Report: Shirley presented the Treasurer?s Report. There were no questions. A motion was made by Leslie McDonough, seconded by David Macksam, to accept the Treasurer?s report.

Executive Director?s Report:

-the OSL table at the State House on 2/9/10 received many visitors.

-OSL will receive all the bandwidth increases requested from RIDE beginning July 1, 2010.

-have a written commitment from RINET that they will expand the bandwidth capacity for public libraries in the afternoon.

-once we see whether the increase in bandwidth satisfies the demand, we may wish to consider purchasing more bandwidth.

-a request was received from WAR to consider raising the minimum fines allowed before a card is blocked from $5.00 to $10.00.

-working on setting up vendors for the April 1 Demo Day.

-audit is finished and Form 990 is ready to file.

-will receive a 10% discount if we purchase E-Commerce and Patron Registration by the end of February.

-suggests charging libraries interested in using the product $250/year for maintenance for each product. The Steering Committee concurred.

System Staff Report: Ken spent last month on routine maintenance and verifying backup equipment preparing for installation of switches in libraries who ordered them with Champlin funds; Renee is working on resolving the issues that resulted from the Beta upgrade; Lisa continues to provide classes and workshops, has found a manual for Web Management Reports and met with OCLC at ALA Midwinter.

Karla Harry Commission Report: The Commission has not met since the last Steering Committee Meeting. Eileen expressed concern that at events during the library celebration days at the State House, many attendees continue to refer to us as CLAN. There was discussion on what can be done to raise awareness that we are now Ocean State Libraries. A motion was made by Carol Brouwer, seconded by David Macksam, to allocate from $3,000 to $5,000 from the contingency funds to allow Joan and the OSL staff to provide OSL posters, stickers and decals to help reinforce branding. The motion was voted on and passed.

Old Business:

a.)  Stimulus Grant status: OSL has received $1.245 million in stimulus funds to purchase about 600 new computers, new routers and switches, 10 mobile computing centers and hire two part-time bi-lingual trainers. The OSL staff has created an algorithm to help allocate new computers to member libraries.

New Business:

            a.)  Request for separate bandwidth from PPL: with the news about the increased bandwidth

            that OSL will receive, the request has been withdrawn.

            b.)  OSL Self Evaluation Project: Eileen will distribute a survey at the February 18, 2010             Membership Meeting. The responses will be used to decide how to proceed.

            c.)  Reconsideration of Database contract: the Steering Committee charged the Reference

            Working Group with evaluating the EBSCO products and recommending about $50,000 in            reductions to present as a report at the July 15, 2010 Steering Committee meeting.

Adjournment: A motion was made by Carol Brouwer, seconded by Leslie McDonough, to adjourn the meeting at 11:02 a.m.

Respectfully submitted:

Leslie A. Page, Secretary

Next Meeting: March 18, 2010 at 9:30 a.m., at the OSL Offices.