Executive Committee Meeting - November 2005

1. Introductions, sign-in sheet
   
   
2. Amend/Adopt Agenda
   1. A motion was made to approve the November 10, 2005, agenda. The motion was seconded and approved.
      
      
3. Approve minutes from September meeting
   1. A motion was made to approve the September 8, 2005 meeting minutes. The motion was seconded and approved.
      
      
4. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (Todd Digby)
   • There are staffing issues to be addressed.
   • Todd will send the libraries.project.mnscu.edu link and the PALS Study Group report out
     
     
5. User Council Report
   • The council's 1st motion was to make migration, interlibrary loan, and version 17 the top priorities according to responses about changes to the office work plan.
   • The council's 2nd motion was to communicate changes as they are completed; report likely changes to be worked on; which changes will be addressed in version 17, and changes not to be addressed this year.
   • The council addressed the charge to the Access Task Force and approved it.
     
     
6. Director's Report
   1. Location
      • February meeting will be at North Hennepin Community College (Brooklyn Park). It has conference call capability, so there will be the option to attend or conference.
      • Still looking for a location for the March meeting.
      • May meeting will be in Eden Prairie.
   2. Staff
      • The technical staff position vacated by Larry will be filled.
   3. Eluna
      • Eluna will replace NAAUG and SMUG, and incorporate other Ex-Libris user groups, beginning in January
      • Eluna will begin with a steering committee composed of SMUG and NAAUG steering committee members. The first meeting, in June, will elect a committee.
      • The new by-laws and constitution are on the web.
      • Any Ex-Libris product user can be a member ($250 year)
      • Any member can elect people to the steering committee and vote on bylaws.
      • Eluna membership does not mean you get to vote on future enhancements
   4. NAAUG enhancements
      • Ex-Libris will do all of the enhancements because they are so close to what they were already doing in version 19.
   5. fiscal year 2005 financial report
      • 2005 income higher than expected
      • Investment income is a reflection of the state of the economy.
      • Keeping reserve at a higher level, additional cushion will raise user fees gradually.
        
        
7. User Fees for Fiscal Year 2007
   • MNSCU increase was approved (in King letter): 7% in 2007 and 2008.
   • Hardware replacement will be about $900,000
   • Executive Committee made recommendation for increases in fees; approving 7% for 2006, which didn't happen.
   • MNSCU dues will increase $50,000 for next year
   • MnSCU will looking at PALS staffing levels after implementation services complete. Comment made that staff at PALS is needed after migration to continue to implement Aleph functions. Also need training to make fuller use of the system.
   • The 7% is applied through the current funding formula. MNSCU has grown the most and the fees were set so MNSCU comes out at 7%.
   • There is a flat fee for membership, fee for size, then a bibliographic records count, so not everyone has same increase.
   • The number of patron records in the system is based on registration in the automated library system.
   • Aleph only counts barcoded students
   • In the past, estimates were in October, and the finals will be in January.
   • Version 17 will allow for deleted patrons
   • PALS tech positions will be refilled to keep up support and take input for updates
   • The numbers for the funding formula were taken from October 1.
   • "Minimum patron 50%" means $1.97 per patron, unless your library has very few patrons, then it is 50% of your bibliographic cost.
   • Committee agreed that these numbers should be sent to the membership as estimates.
     
     
8. Aleph Update (Becky Bell)
   1. ILL
      • Interlibrary loan is about ready.
      • The epsilon-zeta group will be trained shortly after STP, and the eta group dates will be figured out.
   2. ARC
      • ARC has been on the system since June; some libraries are testing it
      • The ARC license ordering information is forthcoming, but will be $300 each (one time license)
      • If a library is already in aleph and interested in ARC, PALS will order licenses
      • One library so far is interested in purchasing an ARC license
   3. Migration update
      • Keeping test libraries on led to a technical issue. Aleph has a limit of administrative units, which it ran into this week. Also, a limit of 200 libraries on the system; and Ex Libris created a fix to raise the limit to 500, and raised the limit on the table. It should be fixed today, and will be incorporated into service pack and future versions
      • After the fix, PALS will start with the linking process again
      • Nearing completion of training
        
        
9. Public Acknowledgement or Celebration of the Completion of the Migration?
   • Does the timing fit with the annual meeting?
   • Version 17 should be August
   • The MNLink Policy Advisory Committee talked about gathering stories to show legislators what we have accomplished. The stories will be done in 2 weeks, then compiled.
   • Legislators will be in session March-June if we wanted to demonstrate our accomplishments
   • We could partner with the annual meeting day to do the recognition
   • The Law Library has wireless so laptops could be used for the recognition event
   • The public recognition could be separate from any celebration
   • It should involve the University of Minnesota due to their efforts.
   • Any festivities or public acknowledgement will be talked about at a future meeting
     
     
10. Discussion of Core Purpose and Scope of the Consortium
    1. Concerns Not Addressed
    2. Report from group formed to discuss how to proceed with the report from the combined UC/EC meeting.
       • No report
    3. Strategic planning
       • Focused on getting the system implemented
       • We will finish the migration and then go to version 17.
       • By the time we get implemented we will have to look to new systems again
       • The next generation of system might be more distributed
       • Dis-integration could involve having vendors making systems work together
       • In March, we should have two sessions, one for future planning, and one for Aleph optimization
       • Ex-Libris has a long term planner, who may come to future meeting
       • We should start planning vision now and not all at once
       • MNSCU should cooperate with PALS on vision
       • A keynote speaker could get the "ball rolling" and foster discussion
       • The directors may already have some ideas about speakers
       • The group needs to remember that this should be constantly talked of, not planned every-so-often
         
         
11. Other/Adjourn
    • Minitex criteria requires a full time professional - those that don't have one, get InterLibrary Loans stopped at the University of Minnesota: Wilson holdings. We need to examine how we deal with consolidated campuses. We will inquire to MNSCU to determine how these campuses will deal with the criteria. There are some parallels with K-12 libraries.
    • The state planners have completed their rounds of forums.
    • www.mnreflections.org was just launched
    • Two town meetings are coming soon: at the end of the month in the Grand Rapids area, and in Brookdale tonight
    • The Minnesota Digital Library report just put out, surveyed 77 social studies teachers, and showed that high school teachers who don't use digital resources
    • The OCLC environmental scan survey was done.
    • St. Cloud will be hosting assignment calculator software for MNSCU institutions. Examples: Metropolitan State, the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud. The assignment calculator is open source software.
    • Over 92,000 photocopies and loans went to Minnesotans
    • A motion was made to adjourn. The motion was seconded and approved.
      
      

1. 1:00 Introductions, sign-in sheet
   
   
2. Amend/Adopt Agenda
   
   
3. Approve minutes from September meeting
   
   
4. 1:10 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (Todd Digby)
   
   
5. 1:20 User Council Report (Kathleen Ashe)
   1. User Group meetings
   2. Improvements in communications
   3. Other
      
      
6. 1:30 Director's Report (Linda Richter)
   1. Location of future meetings
   2. PALS staff update
   3. ELUNA
   4. NAAUG enhancements
   5. Fiscal year 2005 financial report
      
      
7. 1:50 User Fees for fiscal year 2007
   1. Budget projections (Linda)
   2. Approval by MnSCU (Todd)
      
      
8. 2:15 Aleph Update (Becky Bell)
   1. ILL
   2. ARC
   3. Migration update
      
      

• 2:30 Break
  
  

9. 2:45 Public acknowledgment or celebration of the completion of the migration?
   
   
10. 3:00 Discussion of core purpose and scope of the consortium
    1. Concerns not addressed by the mission statement - How are funding decisions made?
    2. Report from group formed to discuss how to proceed with the report from the combined User Council/Executive Committee meeting on March 31, 2005.
    3. Strategic planning for the future of the consortium - Are we more than the automated system?
       
       
11. 4:00 Other/Adjourn
    
    

• February 2 (Mike Kathman will attend User Council)
• May 4
  
  

• March 30
  
  

• April 20 and 21, 2006, St. Cloud State University
• October 23 and 24, 2006, Mankato