MARINet
Board Minutes
To: MARINet Board and Interested Parties
From: MARINet Staff
CC: Val Morehouse; Glade Van Loan
Date: 09/14/99
Re: 07/22/99 Meeting at Marin County Civic Center, Room 410B, 9 A.M. (Approved).
Attending:
Board Members---Mary Richardson, Outgoing Board President (Sausalito Public Library); Anne Montgomery (Mill Valley Public Library); Board Member and incoming Board Secretary Sara Loyster (San Anselmo Public Library); Carol Starr (Marin County Free Library). Absent: Debbie Mazzolini, MARINet Board Secretary & incoming Board President (Belvedere-Tiburon Public Library) and Vaughn Stratford (San Rafael Public Library). Staff present--Val Morehouse (MARINet Systems Administrator). Guests present--Bibliographic Standards Committee Members Lorraine Stribling and Beverly Burke.
.The Automation Update this month covers two months work. This will be the last issue as the Board decided to discontinue the publication in order to conserve staff time. Minutes for the June 1999 meeting were approved. Previous Minutes can be found online at http://marinet.marin.org under "About Us."
Bibliographic Standards Committee members Lorraine Stribling and Beverly Burke were introduced to the Board. Beverly Burke distributed a draft grant proposal designed to support the Board's database cleanup goal, and presented the committee's recommendations that MARINet apply for a Retrospective Conversion grant from the California State Library. A project cataloger would be hired to examine the remaining poor records left over from the CLSI load, many of which have very incomplete titles and no subject access. No machine only processing is possible. These poor records would be replaced with a full record selected by the cataloger, and attached holdings moved to the full record. The Board made several suggestions and accepted the Bibliographic Standards Committee proposal to apply for the grant.
Announcements: San Rafael New Branch, YA Librarian, System Status Handout, Vaughn Stratford NBC Chair, Anne Montgomery New Asst. City Manager.
Vaughn Stratford discussed the changing status of the Canal Learning Center. The San Rafael City Council approved funding to move the Learning Center to branch status in the fall. It already has a small collection with a Pickleweed location code. The plan is to have it open 20 hours per week with a Library Assistant as staff. The branch will have Vietnamese and Spanish materials. In addition to the branch funding, Vaughn indicated that a one-half time Young Adult Librarian has been funded. Also, Vaughn is the new Chair of the North Bay Cooperative. Anne Montgomery informed the Board that she has been promoted to Asst. City Manager, and that she still has the Mill Valley Library in her portfolio. Cathy Blumberg will become Acting Mill Valley Library Director. Congratulations to Vaughn and Anne. In other business, Val Morehouse indicated a handout showing Innopac System Status as of July 1, 1999 at 9:55 a.m. System totals for bibliographic, order, checkin, authority, item and patron records are included in the snapshot.
Additions to the Agenda:
Library of California was added to the agenda under New Business. It will a standing item for the immediate future in order to track developments of the Library of California. Sara Loyster also added the topic "Renew registrations online".
Personnel Update:
Val queried Board members about personnel changes. Val stated that MARINet is behind still on numerous projects due to the system security issue, budget closing, the move to accrual accounting, ERATE deadlines, etc. which required immediate attention from the Systems Office. She stated that both she and Glade were nearing burnout and would like to take some time off by spelling each other. Also, they would like to use August for more catch up work: in particular the MARINet inventory (which must be redone before a new audit can begin), and the backlog of projects, open calls, and contracts. The Board discussed options for cutting the incoming workload during August to facilitate this. The Automation Update will be discontinued. Val will not attend MARINet Committees during August, and the Board will not meet during August, in order to pick up time ordinarily spent on meeting preparation.
Budget Update, Designation of Fiscal Agent Approved, Preliminary Approval of Two-Year Audit:
Val presented the Budget Update for 7/1/98-6/30/99. She stated that due to the move to accrual accounting, there is still confusion about what is and is not included in the completed fiscal year. She is not comfortable that everything has been included as of the date of the report; therefore, she will do another pass over the FY98-99 transactions to pick up any strays. In the meantime, she is opening the file for the new fiscal year. She reminded members that July is the time to designate the fiscal agent for the new fiscal year. Vaughn Stratford moved that Marin County be retained as fiscal agent, and Debbie Mazzolini seconded. It was approved unanimously and signed by the Board.
The Board discussed the need to do the two-year catch up audit. Carol Starr reported on her conversation with the Auditor's Office concerning the length of time taken for the previous four-year audit and the disruption caused by repeated requests for documents already provided. As a result, the Auditor's Office agreed that Susan Forsyth would do the audit with cost accommodation to be made for the problems with the four-year audit. The Board looked at the audit letter and the long list of documents required for the two-year audit, and decided to accept the Auditor's offer pending reissue of the engagement letter with corrected dates and costs, and to request that document copying be minimized to avoid a repeat of previous problems. A closure date will be requested as well. Debbie Mazzolini will prepare and circulate a draft letter.
Delayed Payment Request & 1/8 Cent Sales Tax:
Discussion moved to Marin County Library's request for delayed payment of its MARINet bill until December 31st, 1999. The Joint Powers Agreement requires payment by a certain date each fiscal year. Debbie Mazzolini presented various options for payment, and stated that since fiscal difficulty could happen to another library in the future, the Board should develop a policy which would fit not only the current situation, but also future situations. One example from the Minuteman network include a per cent increase on the unpaid balance to compensate for lost interest. She stated that that method encourages political jurisdictions to pay on time. Mary Richardson asked if Marin County Library could pay half now and half in January. There was discussion that Vaughn and Debbie form an ad hoc sub-committee to flesh out the possibilities for a late payment policy or procedure. There was considerable discussion of payment methods but no definite conclusion. This was tabled for a future meeting.
Carol Starr brought up the subject of ERAF funding being returned which has "bought another year" before the budget problem re-develops. She discussed the possibility of a county-wide advisory, or Blue Ribbon committee to look at all public libraries and how they are financed, in advance of any ballot issue on the 1/8 cent sales tax. Money has been set aside to work on the issue for surveys, printing, consultant, etc. From the Board Members she requested names of persons for possible committee members, and asked for advice on the best way to approach the political jurisdictions about such a committee. Discussion on methods followed.
Security Policy Revised and then Re-Approved:
The security policy was revised slightly, and final approval was unanimous. Clean copies will be sent to each Board member. Val will also post it to the Intranet's Private Site.
Internet Policy Revisited and Approved:
Board members revisited the proposed Internet Policy for MARINet (systems level). The final copy of MARINet's system level Internet policy was approved unanimously. Val will post it to the Intranet Public Site.
Remote Menu Access Form:
Val discussed use of the Remote Menu Access form for staff and included a reproducible copy of the form in the Board packets. This is another piece in the security tapestry. Val will investigate if a particular type staff access can be allowed for certain IP's only.
System Update:
Val mentioned that she had not finished compiling descriptions of the Millennium modules and requested that the Millennium item be tabled.
MARINet has continued to work on the "holds" problem with the WEBPAC. A number of item status codes such as "missing" or "reference" had never been made "not holdable" since the beginning of the system. This has caused problems in the WEBPAC. Many of these codes have been identified and changed to "not holdable". Also, Val altered the WEBPAC holds command after explaining the problem to Innovative and receiving a recommendation from them. Glade has discussed the San Anselmo order situation with Sara and recommended a different code to her that will allow the system to work more normally instead of sticking on San Anselmo orders. Belvedere-Tiburon requested that Val investigate how to fix the WEBPAC to display in-library holdings first. There is still some mystery about why BET is getting what appears to be so many WEBPAC holds. Further tracking is needed.
New Business: Election of Officers.
Val reminded Board Members that it was time again to elect new officers. After discussion, Debbie Mazzolini was elected MARINet Board Chair, and Sara Loyster was elected Board Secretary. Congratulations to Debbie and Sara.
New Registrations Online:
Sara Loyster mentioned a patron suggestion requesting the ability to renew and/or register as a borrower online. Val mentioned that the suggestion had come in anonymously, so the MARINet office had been unable to respond to the patron. Currently the system requires that a patron appear in person at a library to register as a borrower. The Board discussed the various types of information required in the borrower record, including ID and verification of address. There is no way for this to be done without a face-to-face transaction.
Children's Juvenile Pak:
Carol Starr mentioned that she would like to move the Juvenile Book Pak from Technical Services, but due to the late hour, this will be tabled for future discussion.
Tabled for Future Discussion:
Besides the Juvenile Book Pak, discussion on the Management Institute, the bibliographic Nolo Press issue, Millenium orders and planning, Committees Update, EBSCOhost, OPAC lockdowns, SuperSearch reserve charges, BIP, Library of California, and the Late Payment Policy were tabled for future discussion.
The next meeting will be Sept 23rd, 1999 at Civic Center, Room 410 B, 9:00 AM. There will be no meeting in August.
Attachments:
Agenda for the Meeting
MARINet Draft Minutes for June Meeting.
Automation Update: 4/30/99-6/30/99
Innopac System Status on July 1, 1999
MARINet Budget Transaction Report 6/30/99
Resolution form for Designation of Fiscal Agent
Audit Materials
Computer Security Policy
Internet Policy
Staff Login Form
Bibliographic Standards Minutes, May 20th
C:\data\board\990722m.doc vm