Steering Committee Meeting Minutes, January 30, 2002: Wisconsin Public Library Consortium

Steering Committee Meeting Minutes: January 30, 2002
Location: South Central Library System

Present: Mellanie Mercier (WCFLS), Peter Hamon (SCLS), David Weinhold (ESLS), Peggy Shaffer (LLS), Stef Morrill (SCLS), Phyllis Davis (SCLS), Inese Christman (Marathon Co.), Mary Tlusty (L.E. Phillips), Karen Lovejoy (WLS), Amy Lutzke (MWFLS), Linda Miller, Project Manager, and Kathy Schneider, WiLS.

The meeting came to order at 10:00 a.m.

Linda Miller introduced Karen Lovejoy from Winnefox and Amy Lutzke from the Dwight Foster Public Library, representing MWFLS.

1. Partner Reports

SCLS created promotional brochures for netLibrary. There are eight of them on specific topics. These will not only be for in the library, but will also be distributed outside the library, such as to businesses. SCLS is willing to share these materials and perhaps make them available on the Web. They have also created promotional bookmarks for the readers along with a laminated instructional card. Not many reader surveys have been returned yet. Some reader devices have died, and it is taking a long time to get them repaired, but most are working well.

ESLS reports that ebook readers are into their second set of rotation for the demonstrations at ESLS. The first four libraries did all of the set up for them. About 15 evaluations have been returned to Himmel and Wilson. Not everybody was able to complete a book during the 4-5 weeks that the library had them. Many just let their staff members use them for a day or so. Some did check them out to trusted customers and in one case that turned into a personal purchase of an ebook reader. They are only $150 at OfficeMax. Only had one unit that had a problem. Gemstar now allows you to order titles on the website which is easier.

The Mead Public Library is using the readers for their book discussion group. One of the comments that came back from the evaluation is that the readers should be marketed for a different age group - young people that are low interest readers. More titles are needed for children and young adults. More netLibrary accounts are being created. ESLS is monitoring usage and have found that some do come back and use it again. One school librarian purchased some netLibrary titles and created an account, but now cannot access the WPLC collection because of the IP address conflict. Kathy Schneider pointed out that she could add her collection to the library collection.

Lakeshore has investigated netLibrary statistics. Peggy continues to be concerned that the turn-away statistics are not accurate.

WVLS is offering a workshop for member libraries in April on using netLibrary as a reference tool. Nineteen new users were added in January alone in Marathon County. These seem to be more technology oriented individuals. Inese is concerned about the offline readers disappearing. She has questions about the statistics.

Winnefox reported some statistics problems at first, but statistics seem to be working now.

MWFLS libraries are interested in knowing more about the netLibrary project and how to get statistics.

WCFLS reported that things are quiet. The Badger Association is concerned about the loss of the offline reader. Out of the 105 ebook readers, two have failed and are being repaired. There seems to be about $500 worth of titles that have not been charged at Powells.

Some IFLS members are concerned about the commitment to netLibrary considering the budget cuts.

Stef reported that a SCLS library has purchased a reader that was like an REB for kids at WalMart for $30.

2. Reader Interest Group

Linda mentioned that David had inquired about interest in creating a new group or committee focused on the readers. David mentioned that there are issues with the readers that need to be resolved in separate groups to help each other solve problems and deal with issues specific to the reader.

SCLS has formed an internal group for this. It was agreed that the WPLC list be used for these discussions so everyone has access to the information.

3. Budget

Linda thanked Phyllis Davis for updating the budget.

Phyllis reported that the original budget for the reading devices was $28,000 and almost $13,000 was spent, leaving $14,639 that won't be spent. $20,000 was budgeted for reader titles. A little over $9000 has been spent, with $11,077 remaining. WILS has billed for some promotion and training cost, and there is $1275 remaining. For evaluation and planning, Himmel and Wilson were paid $5000. Someone else will do the rest of the evaluation. netLibrary - we have spent about $131,000 for titles and that leaves about $19,778. We have spent or encumbered $205,000 out of the $252,000 and that leaves $46,000 at this time. SCLS will be invoicing members for 2002.

Linda asked how the balance of $46,000 should be spent by June. Phyllis recommended that using funds to purchase titles that are getting frequent turn-aways. Kathy believes that the remaining money in the netLibrary portion of the budget can be spent. netLibrary is now fully owned by OCLC and stable. She believes that netLibrary will be able to keep their publishers based on discussions she had at ALA. O'Reilly will not participate. There seems to be some progress in planning for Spanish titles also.

Inese asked if there was any news on a new format from netLibrary that is PDA compatible, but Kathy reported no news.

Phyllis recommended enriching the existing netLibrary collection to be more useful for reference.

It was agreed that additional netLibrary titles be purchased with the money available and that other products be introduced in the grant. The progress will be reassessed in April.

6. Training

Kathy reported that a workshop is being developed. There will be no charge for the development, only for the presentation of the workshop. WiLS proposes to prepare a set of short lessons and offer these online. They would be available for a specific period of time through UW-Madison for a semester. The trainer would also be available via online chat. The material will also be made available in PowerPoint format by the end of the grant. After one semester, the committee could decide whether to continue to make it available for further semesters.

David mentioned that there would still be a face-to-face course presentation. And with a PowerPoint presentation, this would provide three different training methods.

Phyllis asked how to evaluate this new type of training. Would statistics or surveys be available? Kathy responded that there are surveys available and she will check on statistics. All of the development would be done before the grant ends.

Linda shared Sue Matthews comments on training. Sue does not believe that additional training is needed for staff. Training isn't really the issue as netLibrary is fairly straightforward and easy to use. The issue is for already trained library staff to actually use the service. Sue also commented on the difficulty in training customers and wondered if we should be thinking about the end users.

Amy stated that library customers should be able to access the training from home.

David moved to use up to $6000 from the total $46,769.36 for the WebCT online course based on WATF approval. Peggy seconded the motion. Motion carried.

5. netLibrary

Kathy asked for parameters for producing a report of turn-away titles. It was decided that anything above five turn-aways would be considered for purchase. Kathy will run reports for this. It was agreed that remaining funds will be used for netLibrary.

Linda distributed access statistics for 2001.

Linda reported that she had asked OWLS to provide an update on referring URLs. Barbara reviewed the 400+ accounts that had been created for the library system. She found that almost all were in the patron database. She is confident that the majority are library users. OWLS is also in the process of implementing patron authentication for their Geac system. When a remote user chooses netLibrary from the OWLS site, the user will be prompted for their barcode and authenticated against the patron database. Barbara also brought up the issue that if a user comes to the library website, searches the catalog, finds a MARC record of a netLibrary title, that person could get to the netLibrary title without being authenticated. For libraries using referring URLs, then the user could create an account. She doesn't see this as a great risk or reason for concern. If a library is using IP addresses to authenticate, this should not be an issue. The user would not be able to create an account because they would not be authenticated via IP address.Everyone agreed that we should revisit this issue of allowing referring URLs at a future meeting.

Schools will be encouraged to participate in the netLibrary service. Libraries can use the letter posted to the list by Kathy and modify it accordingly. Each system should notify Kathy how the promotion will be handled - if the library will contact a particular school themselves or if they want WILS to contact the schools.

4. Evaluation

Linda mentioned that the report by Himmel and Wilson is available at www.lmatechwork.com/wplceval.htm. Bill has received reader surveys from Waukesha County, ESLS, and SCLS will be sending them. Linda will ask him to separate the data for each system. Remaining reader surveys should be sent to him by May 1, 2002.

Phyllis is preparing an interim report which is due by February 1, 2002. She will post it on the list.

Peter reported that Bill and Ethel will continue working with the staff survey and the ebook reader surveys. We also asked them to provide information on how things are being done in other states. Peter suggested that CAC review the netLibrary usage statistics. WPLC has Josh Morrill to do the following:
1. An extensive survey of the current users will be conducted. He will contact you for a list of users to send email messages. This will be voluntary and confidential.
2. A control group of 32 people will be trained on netLibrary and their use of netLibrary will be studied. Training will be done at Sun Prairie and also Spring Green. Participants will be paid $20 before and $20 after.
3. A survey will be sent to target groups for specific partner relationships.

Linda asked that everyone on the list be notified that such surveys will be sent to users.

7. Future services

There is $15,000 in the 2002 budget for new services and projects. A process is needed for selecting projects.

Phyllis stated that WPLC needs to determine what will be the philosophy behind the decision. There may be ongoing costs as a result of a purchase that would impact the ability to do further research and development.

Peter recommended a couple principles that can apply:

It should be a one time cost without ongoing cost
We should check on what others are doing

The number of participants should be known. Ongoing costs could be picked up by members that choose to continue with a service. The agreement states that members don't have to participate in all projects. Money could also be spent on research and development, information gathering, not just for implementation. WPLC could serve as a resource for other projects also. Perhaps partners should submit project proposals. This way we know that such a project has some backing. Any proposal should have a requirement to publish or present.

Inese and Peggy discussed Serials Solutions and a possible relationship with BadgerLink.

Further discussion determined that there should be no limits on the amount of money for a single proposal. Proposals will be discussed at the next meeting. They should be due one week before the next meeting.

8. Website

Winnefox has agreed to develop a website for WPLC. The audience of the WPLC site is the partners. There should be illustrations along with information about the background of WPLC on the site. The SRLAAW website is a model as a central site for gathering information.

Further discussion brought out that the audience could include schools and future granting agencies. It could be used as a means to distribute training materials. It should share information on current projects, a directory of all partners with links and maps. Requirements for partners could be included.

Kathy reported that the academic libraries are interested in merging netLibrary collections. There is interest among WPLC members. Kathy will investigate implementation details and issues and post these to the list.

The next meeting of the Steering Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, April 30, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. at the SCLS offices.

The meeting adjourned at 12:45 p.m.

Linda K. Miller
linda@lmatechwork.com
815-229-8215 voice
815-229-5362 fax


		Home > Meetings > Minutes > Steering Committee Meeting, Jan. 30, 2002

Members Bylaws Committees Meetings Discussion List Statistics Current Projects Proposals for Future Services Reports Links Home Contact Us		Steering Committee Meeting Minutes: January 30, 2002 Location: South Central Library System Present: Mellanie Mercier (WCFLS), Peter Hamon (SCLS), David Weinhold (ESLS), Peggy Shaffer (LLS), Stef Morrill (SCLS), Phyllis Davis (SCLS), Inese Christman (Marathon Co.), Mary Tlusty (L.E. Phillips), Karen Lovejoy (WLS), Amy Lutzke (MWFLS), Linda Miller, Project Manager, and Kathy Schneider, WiLS. The meeting came to order at 10:00 a.m. Linda Miller introduced Karen Lovejoy from Winnefox and Amy Lutzke from the Dwight Foster Public Library, representing MWFLS. 1. Partner Reports SCLS created promotional brochures for netLibrary. There are eight of them on specific topics. These will not only be for in the library, but will also be distributed outside the library, such as to businesses. SCLS is willing to share these materials and perhaps make them available on the Web. They have also created promotional bookmarks for the readers along with a laminated instructional card. Not many reader surveys have been returned yet. Some reader devices have died, and it is taking a long time to get them repaired, but most are working well. ESLS reports that ebook readers are into their second set of rotation for the demonstrations at ESLS. The first four libraries did all of the set up for them. About 15 evaluations have been returned to Himmel and Wilson. Not everybody was able to complete a book during the 4-5 weeks that the library had them. Many just let their staff members use them for a day or so. Some did check them out to trusted customers and in one case that turned into a personal purchase of an ebook reader. They are only $150 at OfficeMax. Only had one unit that had a problem. Gemstar now allows you to order titles on the website which is easier. The Mead Public Library is using the readers for their book discussion group. One of the comments that came back from the evaluation is that the readers should be marketed for a different age group - young people that are low interest readers. More titles are needed for children and young adults. More netLibrary accounts are being created. ESLS is monitoring usage and have found that some do come back and use it again. One school librarian purchased some netLibrary titles and created an account, but now cannot access the WPLC collection because of the IP address conflict. Kathy Schneider pointed out that she could add her collection to the library collection. Lakeshore has investigated netLibrary statistics. Peggy continues to be concerned that the turn-away statistics are not accurate. WVLS is offering a workshop for member libraries in April on using netLibrary as a reference tool. Nineteen new users were added in January alone in Marathon County. These seem to be more technology oriented individuals. Inese is concerned about the offline readers disappearing. She has questions about the statistics. Winnefox reported some statistics problems at first, but statistics seem to be working now. MWFLS libraries are interested in knowing more about the netLibrary project and how to get statistics. WCFLS reported that things are quiet. The Badger Association is concerned about the loss of the offline reader. Out of the 105 ebook readers, two have failed and are being repaired. There seems to be about $500 worth of titles that have not been charged at Powells. Some IFLS members are concerned about the commitment to netLibrary considering the budget cuts. Stef reported that a SCLS library has purchased a reader that was like an REB for kids at WalMart for $30. 2. Reader Interest Group Linda mentioned that David had inquired about interest in creating a new group or committee focused on the readers. David mentioned that there are issues with the readers that need to be resolved in separate groups to help each other solve problems and deal with issues specific to the reader. SCLS has formed an internal group for this. It was agreed that the WPLC list be used for these discussions so everyone has access to the information. 3. Budget Linda thanked Phyllis Davis for updating the budget. Phyllis reported that the original budget for the reading devices was $28,000 and almost $13,000 was spent, leaving $14,639 that won't be spent. $20,000 was budgeted for reader titles. A little over $9000 has been spent, with $11,077 remaining. WILS has billed for some promotion and training cost, and there is $1275 remaining. For evaluation and planning, Himmel and Wilson were paid $5000. Someone else will do the rest of the evaluation. netLibrary - we have spent about $131,000 for titles and that leaves about $19,778. We have spent or encumbered $205,000 out of the $252,000 and that leaves $46,000 at this time. SCLS will be invoicing members for 2002. Linda asked how the balance of $46,000 should be spent by June. Phyllis recommended that using funds to purchase titles that are getting frequent turn-aways. Kathy believes that the remaining money in the netLibrary portion of the budget can be spent. netLibrary is now fully owned by OCLC and stable. She believes that netLibrary will be able to keep their publishers based on discussions she had at ALA. O'Reilly will not participate. There seems to be some progress in planning for Spanish titles also. Inese asked if there was any news on a new format from netLibrary that is PDA compatible, but Kathy reported no news. Phyllis recommended enriching the existing netLibrary collection to be more useful for reference. It was agreed that additional netLibrary titles be purchased with the money available and that other products be introduced in the grant. The progress will be reassessed in April. 6. Training Kathy reported that a workshop is being developed. There will be no charge for the development, only for the presentation of the workshop. WiLS proposes to prepare a set of short lessons and offer these online. They would be available for a specific period of time through UW-Madison for a semester. The trainer would also be available via online chat. The material will also be made available in PowerPoint format by the end of the grant. After one semester, the committee could decide whether to continue to make it available for further semesters. David mentioned that there would still be a face-to-face course presentation. And with a PowerPoint presentation, this would provide three different training methods. Phyllis asked how to evaluate this new type of training. Would statistics or surveys be available? Kathy responded that there are surveys available and she will check on statistics. All of the development would be done before the grant ends. Linda shared Sue Matthews comments on training. Sue does not believe that additional training is needed for staff. Training isn't really the issue as netLibrary is fairly straightforward and easy to use. The issue is for already trained library staff to actually use the service. Sue also commented on the difficulty in training customers and wondered if we should be thinking about the end users. Amy stated that library customers should be able to access the training from home. David moved to use up to $6000 from the total $46,769.36 for the WebCT online course based on WATF approval. Peggy seconded the motion. Motion carried. 5. netLibrary Kathy asked for parameters for producing a report of turn-away titles. It was decided that anything above five turn-aways would be considered for purchase. Kathy will run reports for this. It was agreed that remaining funds will be used for netLibrary. Linda distributed access statistics for 2001. Linda reported that she had asked OWLS to provide an update on referring URLs. Barbara reviewed the 400+ accounts that had been created for the library system. She found that almost all were in the patron database. She is confident that the majority are library users. OWLS is also in the process of implementing patron authentication for their Geac system. When a remote user chooses netLibrary from the OWLS site, the user will be prompted for their barcode and authenticated against the patron database. Barbara also brought up the issue that if a user comes to the library website, searches the catalog, finds a MARC record of a netLibrary title, that person could get to the netLibrary title without being authenticated. For libraries using referring URLs, then the user could create an account. She doesn't see this as a great risk or reason for concern. If a library is using IP addresses to authenticate, this should not be an issue. The user would not be able to create an account because they would not be authenticated via IP address.Everyone agreed that we should revisit this issue of allowing referring URLs at a future meeting. Schools will be encouraged to participate in the netLibrary service. Libraries can use the letter posted to the list by Kathy and modify it accordingly. Each system should notify Kathy how the promotion will be handled - if the library will contact a particular school themselves or if they want WILS to contact the schools. 4. Evaluation Linda mentioned that the report by Himmel and Wilson is available at www.lmatechwork.com/wplceval.htm. Bill has received reader surveys from Waukesha County, ESLS, and SCLS will be sending them. Linda will ask him to separate the data for each system. Remaining reader surveys should be sent to him by May 1, 2002. Phyllis is preparing an interim report which is due by February 1, 2002. She will post it on the list. Peter reported that Bill and Ethel will continue working with the staff survey and the ebook reader surveys. We also asked them to provide information on how things are being done in other states. Peter suggested that CAC review the netLibrary usage statistics. WPLC has Josh Morrill to do the following: 1. An extensive survey of the current users will be conducted. He will contact you for a list of users to send email messages. This will be voluntary and confidential. 2. A control group of 32 people will be trained on netLibrary and their use of netLibrary will be studied. Training will be done at Sun Prairie and also Spring Green. Participants will be paid $20 before and $20 after. 3. A survey will be sent to target groups for specific partner relationships. Linda asked that everyone on the list be notified that such surveys will be sent to users. 7. Future services There is $15,000 in the 2002 budget for new services and projects. A process is needed for selecting projects. Phyllis stated that WPLC needs to determine what will be the philosophy behind the decision. There may be ongoing costs as a result of a purchase that would impact the ability to do further research and development. Peter recommended a couple principles that can apply: It should be a one time cost without ongoing cost We should check on what others are doing The number of participants should be known. Ongoing costs could be picked up by members that choose to continue with a service. The agreement states that members don't have to participate in all projects. Money could also be spent on research and development, information gathering, not just for implementation. WPLC could serve as a resource for other projects also. Perhaps partners should submit project proposals. This way we know that such a project has some backing. Any proposal should have a requirement to publish or present. Inese and Peggy discussed Serials Solutions and a possible relationship with BadgerLink. Further discussion determined that there should be no limits on the amount of money for a single proposal. Proposals will be discussed at the next meeting. They should be due one week before the next meeting. 8. Website Winnefox has agreed to develop a website for WPLC. The audience of the WPLC site is the partners. There should be illustrations along with information about the background of WPLC on the site. The SRLAAW website is a model as a central site for gathering information. Further discussion brought out that the audience could include schools and future granting agencies. It could be used as a means to distribute training materials. It should share information on current projects, a directory of all partners with links and maps. Requirements for partners could be included. Kathy reported that the academic libraries are interested in merging netLibrary collections. There is interest among WPLC members. Kathy will investigate implementation details and issues and post these to the list. The next meeting of the Steering Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, April 30, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. at the SCLS offices. The meeting adjourned at 12:45 p.m. Linda K. Miller linda@lmatechwork.com 815-229-8215 voice 815-229-5362 fax

		Updated October 22, 2004