MARINet

Board Minutes

To: MARINet Board and Interested Parties

From: MARINet Staff

CC: Val Morehouse; Glade Van Loan

Date: 07/30/98

Re: 03/26/1998 Meeting at Marin Civic Center, 414, 9 a.m. (Approved as Corrected)

Attending:

Board Members---Mary Richardson, MARINet Chair (Sausalito Public Library); Debbie Mazzolini , MARINet Board Secretary (Belvedere-Tiburon Public Library); Anne Montgomery (Mill Valley Public Library); Vaughn Stratford (San Rafael Public Library); Carol Starr, Marin County Free Library); Sara Loyster (San Anselmo Public Library). Staff---Val Morehouse (MARINet Systems Administrator).

 

The Board Meeting was moved from Room 410B to the Marin County Library Administration Conference Room due to a scheduling conflict. Board Members introduced themselves to a Sonoma State education student who stayed to observe the meeting as part of her course assignment. 

Announcements: 

Vaughn Stratford alerted the Board to the new San Rafael Public Library Home Page at http://marin.org/libs/srf/

 Carol Starr detailed the numerous position openings at the Marin County Library, which will be filled as part of the County Library's reorganization plan. One of the key positions is for a Senior Librarian to manage Technical Services. Another is the Marin City Branch Manager. The Board recommended that Carol advertise the open positions at the State Librarian's upcoming meeting for Public Library Directors.

Technology Inventory and Form 471: 

Form 471 for the next round of E-Rate submissions is due in mid-April. Vaughn Stratford will also send out the Technology inventory forms. The State Library will need these as part of the certification of technology plans, and MARINet will need these as part of the process for acquiring the new CPU.

 Notes from the Board Retreat:

 Vaughn Stratford is not finished transferring the sheets to typed format. This item will be continued on the next agenda. In the meantime, Val will contact Vaughn to get the parts pertaining to Technical Support, which she will need to confer with Dave Hill of Information Services.

Audit:

The auditor has requested costing of equipment items for an inventory of the original Innovative System purchase. An inventory of MARINet equipment does not exist, so Glade Van Loan has been working with Innovative to recreate some of the costs for various items. The addenda to the Innovative Contract has been somewhat helpful, but item costs in that document are often bundled, which requires repeated consultation with Innovative. Andrew Yon has obtained an estimated cost of $10,000 for the 4 year audit.

Board members expressed a preference to pay the bill out of this year's budget if the ending balance will allow it.

 TALX:

 The "no hits" have not been downloaded, and the Marin County cataloger has expressed concern that bringing these poorly cataloged items back into the catalog will overlay records that she and others have improved since the TALX project started more than a year and a half ago. Val will investigate whether or not a conditional overlay can be done based on codes.

Personnel Reclassification:

Sheryl Lindquist is working on Glade Van Loan's reclassification request. She will interview Glade and probably Val Morehouse to audit the tasks listed in Glade's request. This is scheduled to be presented to the Board of Supervisors at the April 21st meeting for approval if Human Resources recommends the reclass.

San Anselmo visit to Larkspur Board:

 San Anselmo director Sara Loyster updated Board members on her visit with the Larkspur Public Library Board in March. She mentioned that Larkspur Board members were very interested in how San Anselmo got the funding to join MARINet.

San Anselmo Resolutions progress:

 The County Library still has to get the Board of Supervisors' signature on the San Anselmo admission resolution. Val will need copies of all the resolutions when they are finished in order to place them in the MARINet JPA file.

MARINet Committees Update:

The Board decided at the annual retreat that MARINet Committees will be a permanent agenda item each month. Anne Montgomery, the City Representative to the Systems Integration Group, talked about the meeting she attended. A catch-up session on pinging and IP numbers has been planned for the San Anselmo Library for city reps to TUG, the Technology Users Group. These individuals are being trained to mentor other staff in their home library. Val stated that she had received names for the TUG group, but needed two more to complete the city representation. Lorna White will represent San Rafael, and Heather Lamb will represent Belvedere-Tiburon.

During the Retreat, the Board had decided to send a letter to the MARINet committees clarifying the Board's expectations for committee work and the committees' role with respect to the Board and to MARINet. Mary Richardson will circulate a letter draft among the Board members. Once the letter is finalized, selected Board members will visit with the various committees to present the letter and discuss the Board's expectations.

 Contracting:

Val discussed the need to pursue contracting with Phil Youngholm both for the remainder of this year and for next year in order to complete certain projects. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the County contracts process is very cumbersome if the contract is larger than $5,000. For this year, MARINet would like to contract with Phil for some additional San Anselmo training, for an investigation of tax code resources, and for a MARINet-wide introduction to Release 11. For next year, MARINet would like to pursue the training plan presented at the Board Retreat as much as possible. Carol Starr and Val will meet to discuss how these objectives may be achieved.

 Vacation Coverage:

 Glade Van Loan has finally decided to take some of her vacation time April 10-30. It takes a minimum of two full time people to keep the MARINet systems office running smoothly, so some type of help for Val Morehouse will be necessary during Glade's absence. After discussion, the Board recommended that at a minimum, clerical help be hired to run the print jobs and do the mailing. Val will do backup and daily system tasks. Carol Starr and Val will pursue substitute help from among the Civic Center Branch staff, since Civic Center staff are on site. If this person can be identified, Glade will train them before she leaves. This individual would be a likely candidate to fill the extra hours designated for next year by the Board during the Retreat.

 Patron Registration Forms:

 The Board had a short discussion on standardizing patron registration forms. Sample forms will be shared at the next meeting.

 Next Meeting: April 23, 1998 at the Civic Center, Rm. 410B.