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Public Library Advisory Committee (PLAC)
Minutes

Thursday, August 7, 2008
SCLS Administration

Present: Belongia, Brewer, Davis, Friesen, Hedrick, Jensen, Susan Lee, McCabe, Morrill, Brinnan
Shaffer, Bruce Smith, Stack, Wright, Yurgil

CALL TO ORDER:  S. Hedrick called the meeting to order at 10:04 a.m.

CHANGES/ADDITIONS TO THE AGENDA: None

MINUTES: B. Stack moved approval of the June 5, 2008 minutes.  H. Jensen seconded.  Motion carried.

SCLS REPORT:

Phyllis noted System Celebration will be held September 25th at Devils Head.  If anyone has any ideas to enhance the event in the future, especially in the area of awards, please let Phyllis know. If member libraries have pictures they would like included in the slide show, please forward them to Mark Ibach.

Deb Haeffner and Mark Ibach have been working on space planning with Deb Johnson, director of the Fitchburg library.

Brodhead has begun construction on their new library.  Rock Springs is considering opening their library in the same building, but not in the lower level.

Susan Hedrick inquired whether LaValle would like to receive book donations from member libraries.  She will email LaValle and forward the information to member libraries.

Some SCLS staff and members attended WiLS World and most presentations were about open source software.  Afterward, there was a question and answer session at Madison Public with John Rose of LibLime. Staff will be gathering more information about features currently available in open source products and information from other consortia about their plans for open source development.

The three technology planning groups have been busy.  Survey responses regarding our technology services rated things quite high, and many comments and suggestions were made for changes and/or improvements.  Five focus groups have been created to discuss the comments and suggestions from the survey.  Russell Consulting will gather the information from the focus groups and present their findings.  Governance models and technology trends are being investigated as well.

The SCLS Foundation Board met in July and a meeting with M&I Bank, SCLS Foundation Board members and participating member libraries will take place in October. That date will be announced soon.
Phyllis participated in the Wisconsin Way forum held in Columbia County.  Hans Jensen (Portage) and Jeanne Radke (Cambria) also attended. Several people spoke up about libraries.
WPLC received a “Digital Pioneer Award” presented by OverDrive, partially because of the work SCLS staff put into authentication.

Albany and Vesper are searching for new directors. Phyllis will have her annual review the end of August/early September, so the SCLS Board Personnel Committee may survey PLAC members. 
Stef noted SCLS is working with Siegel-Gallagher on the facility space planning.  The needs assessment with Automation and Administration is being prepared and evaluation of spaces will begin soon.
Decisions have been made regarding our future email service.  Eudora will be replaced by Thunderbird and we will be keeping the server in-house. Gmail will be offered as a web interface for folks who would like to use it, but will not be a required component.

Committee Reports:

1. Joint Technology:  The LSTA 2009 grant proposal was approved.  It will include requests for funds for staff & patron training, digitization, an ELMO document projector to circulate to member libraries, and funding to offset the costs of a Library Online Server.  More netLibrary titles may be requested again in the 2010 grant.  LINK projects include an RFID conversion unit and software/hardware maintenance for antivirus.
   
   
2. Interlibrary Loan Committee: Met in July and will meet in October.  Baraboo is going to be the first library to try patron-initiated ILL, which will allow patrons to complete ILL forms through WorldCat.  The requests will be reviewed by staff before being put into the ILL system.  Madison will be transitioning to ILLiad, a new product for ILL request management.  We hope it will streamline workflow, provide member libraries with status updates on requests as well as accessible statistics.  SCLS libraries will eventually complete a different ILL request form.  Cheryl and Beth will provide a timetable for this change.
   
   
3. Reference Committee: The Auto Repair trial is complete, which was the first trial under the new process where member libraries were responsible for the process.  More details of the process can be found at:  http://www.scls.info/reference/eresources/trialprocess.html
   
   
4. Multitype: Did not meet in July because so few members could attend.  Next meeting is in October.
   
   
5. Youth Services:  SLP is winding down and nearly all libraries reported record breaking registration and completion rates.  This could be attributed to higher gas prices and families staying closer to home looking for fun summer things to do together.  The 2008 Early Math focus literacy grant has been very successful and Shawn would like to continue to explore the math theme in 2009, but also include science and kinesthetic learning as a way to build literacy skills.  The tentative 2009 grant will be called “Do and Learn.”  SCLS will provide training on ways to provide kinesthetic learning in their programs and hopefully have a program on working with people in poverty.  Participating libraries will receive $1500- $2000.  A memo and contract to participate went to all libraries August 5.  SCLS will receive $4200 in 2009 to help public libraries purchase and install adaptive technologies and equipment.  Funds can be requested via a mini grant application form in early 2009.  WPT received a grant from the WI Alliance for Family Care Giving to create public viewing and discussion programs of the documentary, Caring for Your Parents.  WPT is providing $173 to cover program costs to participating libraries, which include Marshfield, Verona and New Glarus.  These libraries were chosen based on location.
   
   
6. PR Committee: The pages created for the reference databases were the topic of the Citizen Tech Advisory Group survey for July.  The next project on the table is an informational campaign regarding the transformational aspects of public libraries, which would include real-life stories from member libraries.  The campaign might include print ads, editorials, press releases, etc.  
   
   
7. Delivery Advisory Committee:  Did not meet.

OTHER BUSINESS:

a.         SCID/SCIL report:  Susan Lee noted MPL would like to discontinue funding the purchase of books on cassette and instead purchase books on CD.  PLAC agreed to that decision.

b.         2009 Annual Meeting Subcommittee:  Denise Anton Wright and Susan Hedrick volunteered for this subcommittee.  Anyone else interested in participating, please contact Stef.

DISCUSSION: 
Delivery Service discussion:  Libraries who lost Saturday delivery service because of the cuts delivery made to help reduce costs, expressed their concern and the manner in which  the changes were implemented.  Although there was understanding and acceptance of the need for these changes, the consensus was that better communication is needed.  It was suggested that a subcommittee of PLAC be created to discuss policies related to delivery as the current Delivery Advisory Committee currently is more involved with procedures and has more practitioners than directors. It was decided to leave things as they are and invite more directors to attend Delivery Advisory meetings related to policy since Delivery Advisory is already a  subcommittee of PLAC.

Mark Miller, State Senator and chair of the Joint Finance Committee, will be touring our Delivery Facility and Mark Pocan’s office stated he would try to tour the facility in the Fall.  We hope to use this opportunity to inform our legislators of the need for funding in the next state budget.

The other discussion topic was tabled due to time constraints

Meeting adjourned at 11:41 a.m.                              

The next meeting will be September 4, 2008 
Heidi Moe, Recorder

For more information about the Public Library Advisory Committee, contact Heidi Moe.

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