THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 2002
Those in attendance: Bill Calhoon, Marywood University; Bonnie Oldham, Osterhout Free Library; Jennifer Luksa, College Misericordia; Mary Jane Donnelly, King's College; Judith Tierney, Kings' College; David Schappert, East Stroudsburg University; Mia Bassham, Luzerne County Community College; Cathy Schappert, Marywood University; Michelle Sitko, Marywood University; Kevin Connelly, Keystone College; Narda Tafuri, University of Scranton; Linda Neyer, University of Scranton.
President Bill Calhoon called the meeting to order at 10:15 in Room of the Luzerne County Community College's Conference Center.
President's Report
The minutes of the July 12, 2001 meeting were approved. Bill greeted everyone and thanked us for attending.
Bill mentioned to the group that Brodart is interested in working out a purchasing arrangement with us. We currently get a 15% discount through Palinet. Bill will check with Brodart to see if the discount will apply to book buying as well.
Director's Report
Cathy Schappert announced that the Joint Spring Conference with NE PaLA and NPLN netted a total profit of $279 and that the money would be divided evenly between NPLN and NE PaLA.
Cathy also distributed an Itemized Categories Report for NPLN's income and expenditures for the period of 07/01/01 to 06/26/02. Total income for the period was $11,395.000; total expenses were $7,411.63, leaving NPLN with an overall total of $3,983.37.
The Palinet Member Statement, General Ledger Report, was also distributed, with information on the NEPBC Union List Project. The total OCLC charges, year-to-date, are $2,413.27, and the PALINET membership fee, year-to-date, is $325.
Cathy announced that the NPLN list-serve is being purged and that everyone will need to re-subscribe as of July 1, 2002. She also announced that the Board should begin looking for a new server for NPLN, because she anticipates that at some point Marywood will no longer be able to provide a server.
Committee Reports
Nominating Committee
Bill gave the following nominating committee report for Betsey Moylan, Chair. The following slate of officers has agreed to serve as candidates for the upcoming year:
William Calhoon - President
Bonnie Oldham - Vice-President
Lolly Kersey - Treasurer
Linda Neyer - Secretary
Betsey also expressed her thanks to Carole Tome and Mary Jo Devereaux for serving on the nominating committee.
Mary Jane Donnelly moved to accept the report of the Nominating Committee, and Narda Tafuri seconded the motion. The motion passed.
Automation and Technical Services Committee
Mary Jane Donnelly mentioned that they have met twice this year, once in January and today. There is currently no charge for the committee. Mary Jane asked if there was anyone else from other NPLN libraries who would be interested in joining the committee.
Mary Jane also asked if the Electronic Resources ad hoc committee was to become a permanent committee. If not then it might be subsumed under this committee.
Currently the biggest technical issue is working for a consistency of holdings displays from library to library.
Mary Jane inquired who is responsible for updating the NPLN web site; Cathy replied that Miao Hong is acting as web master.
Other topics or issues that have been brought up in this committee are staff training, filtering, OCLC changes from Passport to other systems.
Cathy brought up the issue that LSTA did not give NPLN a grant for the online serials catalog. Perhaps the group could cost it out among all the libraries; the cost would be relatively low, about $5,000 a year. The advantage is that the list could be updated four times a year; TLC would host it. If the list were available online, Cathy suggested that perhaps not as many print copies would be needed or even no print copies would be needed - individual libraries could print off any copies they might want. Narda will talk to TLC about the cost. There would be a link form NPLN's web site to TLC's server to access the database. Bill will contact MaryJo Devereaux to see if HILNNEP would be interested. Cathy said that the money is in our budget.
Cathy asked if there was any sense of whether ILL had changed due to NPLN being online. Generally, people felt that it was about the same or that a slight increase had occurred. Direct borrowing at King's was down somewhat.
Bonnie asked whether NPLN would be moving to the ILL module. It was suggested that Brian Sacolic, chair of the ILL committee, be asked to look into this.
Ad Hoc Committee on Joint Databases
Bill reported that the previous discussion about CINAHL did not result in any action. Too many different versions of CINAHL were used by NPLN members, and no consensus could be reached. However, Wilson Web is now being used by Kings, LCCC, Keystone, Marywood, and the University of Scranton. Michelle Sitko suggested that we list which databases we have in common; Narda volunteered to send out a list and suggested that we might be able to get a better deal or more databases for the same pricing if we negotiated as a group.
ILL/Reference Committees
No report.
Support Staff
The Support Staff is looking for a new chair. If you know of anyone at your institution who might be interested, please contact Bill Calhoon.
Continuing Education
Linda Neyer, co-chair, gave the following report for Mary Jo Devereaux, chair.
The group sponsored four workshops this year:
1."Managing Electronic Resources for Patrons", Dec. 4, 2001, College Misericordia. Speakers were Jane Gill, Bethlehem Public Library, who spoke on "Evaluating Electronic Resources"; Brit Roth, Geisinger Health System, on "Delivering, Marketing, & Servicing Electronic Resources"; and Joe Fennewald, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleden Campus, on "Promoting Student Use". CE credits earned.
2."Book Repair Workshop", Apr. 3, 2002, Scranton Public Library. Presented by Kapco Library Products. CE credits earned.
3."Call Me Indispensable! Marketing and Customer Service in the Library", May 30, 2002, Wilkes University. Joint conference with NE Chapter of PaLA. Speakers were Joe Gibbons, the Gibbons Company, who spoke on "Marketing Your Library"; and Ray Woronowicz, the Alliance Management Group, who spoke on "Customer Service". CE credits earned.
4."Paper Past, Digital Future: Managing Metadata Standards in Transition", June 13, 2002, University of Scranton. An OCLC Institute "Steering by Standards" videoconference, prerecorded May 29, 2002. CE credits earned.
Potential future programs may include virtual reference services shared among members of NPLN; exploring the topic of funding and grants; revisiting problem patrons (public librarians in particular have expressed an interest); and a discussion on professional image and salary.
It was brought up that Barbara Tillett of the Library of Congress mentioned that LC will do free workshops; it was suggested that we might look into a future program from LC or from OCLC (for a fee).
Cathy Schappert mentioned that LSTA has $25,000 for CE to be awarded by the end of October. Joe Fennewald knows more about this. Perhaps the CE Committee could schedule something for November, applying before the deadline. The money could be used to pay for speakers and their travel expenses.
Cathy also wished to thank MaryJo for the professional manner in which she submitted the CE budget information.
Old Business
There was no old business.
New Business
Cathy noted that IDS has changed their fee structure and that Wilkes and College Misericordia have both dropped IDS. Some discussion ensued. IDS is trying to level prices across all libraries and this is the reason for the fee structure changes.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:20 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Neyer, Secretary
