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LIBRARIES OF MIDDLESEX AUTOMATION CONSORTIUM

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

LMxAC Office

October 2, 2014

MINUTES

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Joan Henry – Dunellen

Judy Mansbach - Edison

Chuck Dolan – MCC

Bonnie Sterling – Milltown

Cheryl McBride – North Brunswick

Carol Quick - Plainsboro

Susan Kaplan – Sayreville

MEMBERS ABSENT:

Allen McGinley – Piscataway

LMxAC STAFF PRESENT:

Eileen M. Palmer

The meeting was called to order at 1:34 pm by President Cheryl McBride.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA: (Document #14-35)

Susan Kaplan moved to add a discussion of Executive Board meeting times to the agenda. Chuck Dolan seconded. All members were in favor of approving the agenda as amended. The motion carried.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING: (Document #14-36)

The Board briefly reviewed the July minutes. Eileen pointed out an error and suggested adding “for a few libraries” to the end of the first sentence of the fifth paragraph of the Director’s Report, so that it reads “The State Delivery Task Force met and has made the recommendation of dropping 5 day delivery down to 4 days for a few libraries”. Susan Kaplan moved to approve the minutes of the July 24, 2014 meeting as amended. Bonnie Sterling seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The motion carried.

TREASURER’S REPORT: (Documents #14-37 & #14-39)

Susan Kaplan deferred the Treasurer’s report to Eileen Palmer. Eileen noted that we are early in the year so there is not much to highlight in the statements for July and August. The Bibliographic Service Fee is already at 100% because it was paid upfront to Sirsi for the entire year. The aged receivables for August show a few libraries over 30 days. The $50.00 bill for the City of Boise is for attendance by one Boise staff member at a meeting of the Sirsi User’s Group (COSUGI), for which LMxAC acts as fiscal agent. The July and August budget reports were filed for audit.

BILL LIST: (Document #14-38 & #14-40)

The August and September Bill Lists were presented. Eileen explained some of the large payments. The August payment to Comprise is for SmartPay and SAM. The payment to OCLC is the annual cataloging cost. The September payment to Dell Marketing is for two new office computers. The subtraction of $78.50 for Carteret is for a lost check; the check was cancelled and reissued. All members were in favor of approving the August and September Bill Lists. The motion carried.

DIRECTOR’S REPORT: (Document#14-41)

·  Eileen reported that there will be a system upgrade on December 7; it will be discussed in greater depth at the General Membership Meeting.

·  BLUEcloud PAC, which is a replacement for the existing iBistro user interface, has been loaded on the test server for testing by the LMxAC staff. It is a significant improvement on iBistro and comes free with our current contract. Eileen will send a link out soon to all library staff to try it out.

·  The ILS Committee had 144 responses to its user satisfaction survey, which was considered a very good turnout. The committee had a very productive meeting to assess the results and formulate a game plan to proceed, which will be discussed later in this meeting.

·  The Delivery Task Force has received bids and is reviewing them. Eileen asked everyone to take pictures of what is not picked up at their libraries and email them to her. She said that volume has not changed, but that there is a great disparity across the state about how volume is counted. Some libraries count bins, some count books. This year the committee is also factoring in state ILL figures. The delivery services measure volume only by the number of packages, which is not a useful measure for libraries.

·  The on-site work for this year’s audit is almost completed. Eileen is hoping the audit will be ready for December.

·  Eileen has begun working on a personnel manual; it has been reviewed by an attorney and is almost ready.

·  Eileen has two strategic planning contracts this year, in Matawan and South Brunswick. There was a suggestion to add this service to the LMxAC website. LMxAC offers a streamlined strategic planning process, less expensive than a consultant.

·  LMxAC has had trouble keeping employees in the part-time position formerly held by Lauren. We are on our fourth person in the last three months; two of them left after only two weeks. Another was just hired.

OLD BUSINESS:

a.  Potential New Member Update. Elizabeth Public Library is extremely interested in joining LMxAC and appears likely to do so soon. The proposal will be going to the Elizabeth library board, and Sirsi is ready to assist. Elizabeth’s contract with Sirsi is up in June. Elizabeth hopes to have the papers before the Executive Board by the end of the year. A discussion followed about the effect on delivery time of having a more distant library like Elizabeth as a member; it would not be unprecedented because there are already libraries in Union County, but volume would increase and we can’t expect delivery costs to stay the same. There have also been ongoing discussions with a former LMxAC member library that has expressed strong interest in joining once again. Eileen told the director that another large library is likely to join soon and we cannot bring in both at once; the director said they are not in a rush. Eileen reported that we gave this library an estimate several years ago based on their circulation numbers and it was judged to be too high. As a result of this, Eileen has discussed with the Board the idea of implementing a “volume discount” on circulation, which would cap circulation charges at 500,000 to help bring costs down for larger libraries and make our offer more attractive to larger potential members. Between the two new libraries we would see about $100,000 in new revenue, which would offset the discount to the large libraries.

NEW BUSINESS:

a.  2015-2016 Budget (Document #14-42). Susan Kaplan introduced the new budget and discussed changes made to the assessment formula. The existing formula depended heavily on circulation, which is declining among many libraries. This has changed the balance of funding, so that the few libraries gaining circulation were being disproportionately charged for their growth while those losing circulation (even the larger libraries) were paying less each year. The Budget Committee reached a compromise solution which freezes the circulation proportions at 2013 levels and adds a flat 2.5% increase across the board. The new budget includes funds for purchasing Enterprise (or a comparable discovery layer for Sirsi) and eResource Central, as well as continuing all existing services and collections (including Zinio). The total increase to the budget would be 3.1%. The cost of bringing a new library into the consortium would not have a huge budget impact. It would be mainly in staff time; all Sirsi charges would be passed directly to the individual library. A discussion of the fairness of this new formula followed, and there was a broad consensus among Board members that the formula is fair. Bonnie Sterling made a motion to recommend the budget to the general membership at the October 10 meeting. Joan Henry seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The motion carried.

b.  Report from the ILS Committee. Eileen reported that the ILS user satisfaction survey showed lots of agreement among library staff. LMxAC and Sirsi both received high marks, as did shared electronic collections. Overall, it was clear that there is not a strong desire to move to a new system. The big complaint was response time. There was also a clear priority on keeping costs down. The results indicated that we are on the right track looking for a renewal of the Sirsi contract, with attention to improving system response time and a new discovery interface. Demos of several discovery products have been set up for next week: Sirsi’s Enterprise and EBSCO EDS next Thursday October 18, and ProQuest’s Summon next Friday October 19. The demos will be open to everyone. To get the best price from Sirsi we must move quickly; Eileen’s goal is to have a renewal proposal before the Board by the December meeting. The December time frame is essential if we go with Enterprise; if we decide on EBSCO or ProQuest, we have until February.

c.  SirsiDynix Proposal (Document #14-43). Eileen outlined the new SirsiDynix contract proposal. It would be a five-year contract with a circulation threshold of up to 6,000,000 items per year, and no cost for adding new members as long as we stay below the threshold. Our current circulation is around 4,500,000, and adding Elizabeth and the second interested library would not put us over the top. The only new line in the proposal is for Enterprise. eResource Central is not in the proposal, but Eileen has gotten pricing for it and has factored it into the budget. Eileen has asked Sirsi to have this year count as the first year of the contract, but has not yet received their response. She would recommend that the $18,310 for Enterprise be paid for with capital funds, along with eResource Central and several other one-time expenses. Sirsi reduced the price for Enterprise for us from $25,000. No action is needed right now; we will wait for the ILS demos and general membership input. We should be ready to act at the December Board meeting.

OTHER:

There was discussion about the benefits of changing the Executive Board Meeting time to 1:30 p.m. moving forward. The Board agreed to try it again for the next meeting.

Cheryl reported that Joan Henry is retiring and the Board will need a new Vice President. As Nominating Committee chair, Joan will reach out to Allen McGinley to ask if he will serve. This will leave an open position on the Board with a term that expires next June, and the group discussed possible candidates for appointment. Since all current members are from Middlesex County the discussion leaned toward non-Middlesex County directors. Kimberly Paone, Michael Maziekien, and Tonya Badillo among others were mentioned as possibilities. Joan will follow up to see if any of those mentioned would be willing to serve.

Bonnie reported that she went to a meeting at Piscataway yesterday about the Affordable Care Act. The open enrollment period is coming in November and only lasts for three months. There is a group that will come to libraries to help with enrollment; they will send out literature soon. Bonnie suggested that libraries could share and collaborate in providing this service.

COMMUNICATIONS:

None.

ADJOURNMENT:

Judy Mansbach moved to adjourn. Carol Quick seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Charles Dolan, Secretary