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In attendance:
Barbara Goetschius (RCS Community Library), Cherry Neil (Guilderland Public Library), Suzanne Winkler (Guilderland Public Library), Beth Nagel (Sand Lake Town Library & Brunswick Community Library), Lee Ricci (East Greenbush Community Library), Lisa Neuman (Menands Public Library), Kathy Stempel (Berne Public Library), Ginny LaJuene (Altamont Free Library), Darlene Miller (Castleton Public Library), Beverly Provost (Bethlehem Public Library), Kim Kniele (Troy Public Library), Ann-Marie Cicchinelli (William K. Sanford Town Library), Joyce Laiosa (Voorheesville Public Library), Diane Riganti (UHLS) Mary Fellows (UHLS)

Pre- and post-meeting
Three folks from small libraries met before the meeting for the small library concerns discussion. After the meeting, five representatives of larger libraries met for discussion.

UHLS updates:
SRP Workshop is next Thursday, March 6, at Schenectady County Public Library. Mary will email directions to participants early next week.

Lobby Day March 18 – Mary asked the group to consider coming to Lobby Day. There will be a rally on the Capitol steps from 12:30-1:30. Close-by libraries are asked to encourage daycares and schools to bring their students. Notify Mary if you can participate.

Summer Reading Program – there is discussion at a statewide level of changing the way the statewide SRP is created. Mary and Beverly Provost will attend a meeting on March 31 at Bethlehem Public Library at which other possibilities will be discussed.

Riverway Story Festival – Mary will send out complete information to libraries very soon. YS librarians are especially encouraged to attend the Saturday morning workshops on storytelling.

Storytelling Camp report:
Mary reported on the process of the LSTA grant Imagination River Storytelling Camp. Participating librarians Kim Kniele, Darlene Miller, and Ginny LaJuene shared opinions, anecdotes, and pictures from the camps, and answered questions. All three felt it to be a very successful experience with lots of positive public relations for the library. The main drawback expressed was the lack of time to do other programming during the school break week with the storytelling camp going on. Without a representative from Albany Public Library, Mary briefly discussed some of the difficulties encountered in that camp situation, which stemmed primarily from the reading and focus level of the class chosen by the school to participate. She noted that positive though smaller scale results were nevertheless realized there as well.

LSTA and other grant ideas for next year
The group brainstormed the following ideas for possible grant projects:

• Science (relative to Tech Valley)
• Storytelling Camp again and/or at different libraries
• Inventions
• Young Writers Club/ Young Artists Club
• Graphic Novels (show in lib, comic book company person review portfolios)

IPAC
The Advisory Council went through the iPAC and identified issues and concerns, and made suggestions.
Question: when we get KidsPAC, does it search just YA and juvenile books?
Concerns:

• Need for a back button. Now there is no easy way to get back to the previous screen.
• Quicker sorting. On the first search screen, there should be a way to limit the search by format or I-type.
• User should also be able to do an advanced search from the first screen
• When results are displayed, there is a need for books in the user’s library location (NA if the user is accessing from home) to be highlighted even if the choice was to search all libraries. There is also need for a sort button on the results screen so user can sort results by displaying user’s library location materials first (again NA if user is accessing from home).
• A hierarchical system of limiting, where user might first limit by juvenile materials and then have another level of choosing further limiting (picture book, easy reader, etc.) might help cut down on confusion for other users.
• At any point user should be able to switch to a new search searching “all libraries” without having to go to the opening screen again.
• Need to fix the indexes that are being searched. (We know we own the book, but it does not come up on the screen when we are searching)
• In Basic Search, the following choices are recommendations to be kept: All Title, Author Browse, Barcode Browse, Best Seller Browse, Dewey Call Numbers, General Keyword, ISBN/ISSSN Browse, Name Keyword, Series Browse, Subject Browse, Title Keyword, Video Title Browse.
• Members were also encouraged to look at Hennepin County Public Library catalog as a model. http://www.hclib.org/pub/wsc/rw.cfm

News from You
Lee (East Greenbush Community Library) highly recommends Beth Bidwell from the Wildlife Institute. She is in the Performers database

Darlene (Castleton Public Library) has a very successful chess club meeting on Monday nights.

Joyce (Voorheesville Public Library) has started a very successful “Readers Recommends” display.

Cherry (Guilderland Public Library) the Board of Trustees has approved a position for a YA Librarian. Guilderland Public Library has received a Grant from DEMCO.

Great Reads
Kim (Troy Public Library) Catalyst-Laurie Halse Anderson
Mary (UHLS) Heir Apparent-Vivian Vande Velde

Next Meeting: Friday, April 11, 2003 - UHLS