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Attending: Jeff Cannell (APLM); Ginny LaJuene (ALTM); Nancy Pieri (BETH); Carol Trager (BRUN); Deborah Canzano (COHS); Bob Jaquay (COLN); Pat Nonamaker (EGRN); Barbara Nichols Randall (GUIL); Carol Gaillard (HOOF); Lenny Zapala (MEND); Pat Sahr (NASS); Daryl McCarthy (NGRN); Margie Morris (POES); Judy Felsten (RCSC); Rebecca Lubin (RVLL); Barbara Kubli (STEP); Phil Ritter (UHLS); Bobbi Crowther (VAFL); Barbara Schoen (WVLT); Elaine Albrecht (WSTR)

Visitors: Sara Dallas (UHLS)

Meeting convened at 9:00am

Minutes:

Motion: (Cannell, Felsten) to approve February 1, 2002 minutes. Carried.

UHLS: Phil Ritter

• Presented three areas of concern raised by the Resource Sharing Advisory Council:
  
  Lost Receipt Parameter – “The Directors’ Association has already stated that ‘the replacement cost for lost materials is to be remitted to the owning library’. We need clarification on this. Is cash okay, or just checks? Can it be sent through the courier? Should there be a receipt? The group has already drafted a receipt.” (draft receipt distributed) The directors present at this meeting responded that cash is okay and can be sent through courier, but use common sense and safeguards – put the smaller envelope in a larger envelope and make sure it addressed to a specific person at the receiving library. Call that person and tell them to be looking for it. A receipt should be included. There was discussion of the draft receipt and whether the statement on the bottom of the front of the receipt should be omitted.

Motion: (Kubli, Morris) Delete statement at the bottom of the lost item receipt and replace with “see back for instructions”. Carried.

       Agency Cards – “Some libraries issue agency cards (bar-coded cards given to nursing homes & day care centers). One library thinks agency cards should be valid at the home library only, and that it is up to the individual library to waive or accept any fines that might accrue. What does the Directors’ Association think?” Overall opinion is that these cards should not be fine exempt, they are valid only at home library (Lenny Zapala suggests keeping the cards on file at the home library), and should be red-lined under barcode. Barbara Kubli asked about agencies using ILL online to get books from other libraries. Nancy Pieri clarified that the home library would be responsible for books lost by the agency.
Patron email addresses – “One library thinks that libraries need to remove the email addresses, or update them, of their own patrons if the addresses are incorrect. The group also thinks that the Notes field should be used to remind staff to ask the patron for a new email address. What does the Directors’ Association think of this?” A problem that has come up is that notices are being returned to libraries from patrons that have not updated email address changes. The Notes field is for use by the home library and can be used to alert staff to ask for corrections.

• UHLS information requests – UHLS regularly gets requests for information about member libraries (i.e., What legislative district is library A in?). Heidi Fuge has suggested that a database be created for information so that it is easy to add and update. To begin with everything in the annual reports can go in, as it is public knowledge. This can go on the Internet. There are some items that we may want to have only on the Intranet. Phil asked what does the Directors’ Association want in the database, what on Internet and what on Intranet? Please call or email Phil with comments and suggestions. They will start with the state reports.
• Legislative Day – The Library Advocacy Advisory Council will meet on Wednesday, March 6th at 7pm at UHLS. They will finalize plans for this day. Sara Dallas has already made appointments to meet with the 7 legislators in our area. A briefing will be held at 8:30am and the first scheduled appointment begins at 9:30am and the last at 3:00pm.
• Adult Literacy Grants – Sara distributed application to interested libraries. They must be back to UHLS by April 1st in order for UHLS Board to rank them and submit them by April 17th. Applications are also available online.
• Trustee Training – UHLS will be moving forward with plans for this.

UHLS Board: P. Nonamaker

• Annual meeting date changed to Tuesday, June 11th at Albany Country Club.
• Still negotiating with Task Force for lease. UHLS is holding firm on cost increase.

UHLS Finance: P. Nonamaker
No report

UHLS Administration: N. Pieri
No report

Services: J. Felsten
No meeting held

Automated Services Committee: N. Pieri

• New email service – this will begin after new server is installed. This service will have antivirus protection.
• Presentation on SAM software – manages Internet stations and printing that results from use.
• New Internet service provider – UHLS is going to use Roadrunner. Rawdon will change IP addresses for databases through UHLS. If any library provides databases individually, they will need to add a new IP but do not delete the old one. Rawdon is also looking at a backup Internet service in case Roadrunner goes down.

Central Library: J. Cannell

• Focus has been on re-chartering – The Board approved a tax levy of $4 million dollars. This will increase school taxes for residents by a little over $99.00 per year.
• The City of Albany will give the titles to three library buildings to the library – the main branch, Pine Hills and Howe.

Nuts & Bolts:
ALTM: On Sunday (3/3) at the Berne-Knox High School, the Albany Berkshire Ballet will present Dance in the Hills. The library teamed with the Berne-Knox PTA to make this performance available. Also, the library has hooked up with Community Care Givers to help make aware and provide services to homebound residents.

RCSC: Held 2nd of three Community Advisory Committee meetings – Judy had difficulty getting members to make the connection that library services are part of community services.

STEP: Interviewing architects for new addition/renovation. NYLA is supposed to provide free consultation by an architect to NYLA members. Barbara contacted them and an architect got right back to her but never showed up .

COLN: A project 10 years in the making is getting underway. The library will have a ceiling replacement, new lights and new carpeting.

COHS: They are doing a major weeding of nonfiction (30-40%). Jeff Cannell said she could send books to the Book Cellar.

GUIL: Guilderland Library Foundation, which began in the summer, has produced a brochure and has been canvassing the neighborhoods for support. As a result, they will be getting a member item grant for TTY and phone line and to replace the amplifier in the community room.

Old Business:

• Pool Collection – Survey was sent out to directors. There was discussion and clarification as to the equitable way to distribute the collection. Sara asked if the regular pool collection pick-up and distribution could be suspended for a short period of time to allow couriers to get the discontinued items distributed.

Motion: (Felsten, Kubli) Audio-Visual Pool Collection rotation should continue during the process of distributing discontinued pool collections. Carried. (1 nay)

Motion: (Canzano, Trager) If needed, UHLS should suspend book pool collection distribution during the process of distributing discontinued pool collections. Carried.

• Fines – Nancy collected information from 23 libraries regarding their fine structure/policy. She distributed a chart with the responses. More discussion needs to take place about standardizing fines. It is possible that the member libraries will never come to consensus on this issue. She asked if we could agree to standard replacement costs for lost or damages books. There was discussion about the defaults that are already set in the system if the actual cost is not entered for an item. There was also discussion as to whether there is any difference in the rate of return for videos with fines being set at $1.00 per day or $.10 per day. Some libraries have lowered the video fines as most videos cost less than hardcover books.
• Sara Dallas reported & apologized that she missed the deadline for the Folk Art Grant. This was due to the unexpected amount of time that it took for state reports (it was suggested that this cost be added in when calculating cost to do annual report this year). It will be ready to go for next year. She will distribute a copy of the proposed grant for review.

New Business:

• Nancy Pieri asked if UHLS could post small websites with directory information for those libraries that do not have a website yet. Phil stated that Peter Kowalski is working on this and is working with libraries to establish websites and/or update old ones.
• Judy Felsten asked if anyone had information for her about how long it took to do the annual report per library. Phil & Sara are compiling some statistics that they were going to have for Legislative Lobby Day about how much money New York State gives to libraries, the per capita cost and what it cost to do the annual report due to the issues surrounding that. It was suggested that this information should not go to the legislators but to the Commissioner of Education. Jeff Cannell suggested that it is hard for libraries to support the New Century Libraries when we have such difficulty with the state report.
• Bob Jaquay asked if other libraries have had problems with heavy damage to DVDs after just a few circulations. DVDs are more fragile than CDs. He plans to call some videos stores to see how they handle this. Bob’s question goes to how responsible we should hold patrons for these damages. It is hard to track and check each DVD after every circulation.
• Nancy Pieri – Her staff is concerned about the repetitive motion of opening CD cases at the circ desk. Barbara Kubli has used a “churchkey” can opener for this problem.

Motion: (Zapala, LaJuene) Meeting adjourned 10:50am. Next meeting April 5, 2002 at UHLS.