ILS Committee Minutes
April 2, 2025, 10 am
Phone/video conference
Action Items:
The IC approved the 2026 Cataloging Agreement.
The IC approved the CMS recommended change to the Books Searching and Matching Policy regarding annual serial publications to eliminate the reference to specific years for annual serial publications.
The IC approved the ILS Evaluation Lead Workgroup recommendation to migrate to recommends that the SCLS LINKcat libraries migrate to SirsiDynix SymphonyWeb/BlueCloud.
Present: Erin Foley, ACL (1), Debbie Bird, POR (2), Eddie Glade, STP (4), Kate Hull, SUN (7), Phil Hansen, FCH (8), Nate Snortum, DCL (9, 10), Molly Warren, Margie Navarre Saaf, Tina Marie Maes, MAD (11 -13)
Absent: Suzann Holland, MRO (3), Lauren White, PDS (5), Stacy Kundinger, ARP (6)
Excused: None
Recorder: Michelle Karls (SCLS)
SCLS Staff Present: Vicki Teal Lovely, Amy Gannaway, Heidi Oliversen, Shannon Schultz
1. Call to Order at 10:02 am
a. Introduction of guests/visitors
i. None.
b. Changes/Additions to the Agenda
i. None.
c. Requests to address the Committee
i. None.
2. Approval of previous meeting minutes: February 5, 2025
a. Motion: M. Navarre Saaf moved approval of the February meeting minutes. N. Snortum seconded.
b. Discussion: none.
c. Vote: motion carried.
3. Action Items
a. Approve 2026 Cataloging Agreement
i. Motion: D. Bird moved to approve the 2026 Cataloging Agreement. E. Foley seconded.
ii. Discussion: V. Teal Lovely reviewed the Cataloging agreement. The only changes were made to years and dates. MAD is still holding the fee, which they have for many years.
iii. Vote: motion carried.
i. Motion: This recommendation came from the Collection Maintenance Subcommittee.
ii. Discussion: A. Gannaway reviewed the changes to the policy. The language referenced Serials before 1995 and after 1995 so it was outdated. The committee removed the specific date references, and revised the policy to note that annual serials should match on year or year range and volume. V. Teal Lovely suggested adding the language “to eliminate the reference to specific years for annual serial publications” to the end of the recommendation to provide more detail.
iii. Vote: motion carried.
c. Approve ILS Evaluation Lead Workgroup recommendation
i. Motion: This recommendation came from the ILS Evaluation Lead Workgroup and was presented at the March All Directors meeting.
ii. Discussion: This body should ratify the recommendation as it is from a work group of the ILS Committee. It was presented at the March All Directors meeting. E. Glade asked us to the clarify level of confidentiality. V. Teal Lovely stated that this is still confidential and we would prefer people not to talk about it outside of SCLS. We received a question as to why we’re not considering a third-party discovery layer at the same time we would implement the SirsiDynix SymphonyWeb/BlueCloud migration. We could consider this if this group chooses to include it, however the recommendation from the Lead Workgroup was to use the Discovery Layer included in the ILS software package. The Discovery Layer Evaluation Workgroup ranked SirsiDynix Enterprise as #1 and Aspen, a third-party discovery layer, as #2. Bibliocommons was ruled out by this group as a possibility. Implementing a third-party Discovery Layer during the migration to SirsiDynix would take additional staff time, during an already tight timeline. Since the cost of the Enterprise Discovery Layer is included with the base price of Symphony, it would cost substantially more to add a 3rd party discovery layer. We wanted to present this option at this meeting in case there was other interest. We would need to do a motion to present this as a second option for the Directors to vote on. Having a second voting option could create confusion. M. Warren doesn’t think we should consider it. We evaluated all the Discovery Layers and Vendors, and made the recommendation. D. Bird does not believe Cluster 2 would welcome the idea of adding that kind of additional cost based on conversations she’s had with them for the last year. We already made the decision/recommendation. T. Maes said having two different systems would make migration much more complex from a cataloging perspective. K. Hull asked if they should get feedback from the clusters. The Directors will be voting on this at the May All Directors. So far, we have not received any other questions following the recommendation. People seem to be comfortable trusting the extensive work of the Discovery Layer workgroup. E. Glade mentioned it would be helpful to provide links to the Enterprise Discovery Layer and acknowledges that the Discovery Layer is the “face of the library.” A. Gannaway reported we do have links to the Discovery Layer options on the ILS Evaluation web page available for library staff. A. Gannaway mentioned that the mobile app is another important component and pointed out that there are patrons who prefer to use an app like they do with Libby. Should we postpone the vote on this, so libraries can go back to their clusters? M. Warren is prepared to vote today. The rest of the group felt ready to move forward with the vote with the recommendation as is.
iii. Vote: motion carried.
4. Reports
a. ILS Report
i. V. Teal Lovely reviewed the February/March 2025 ILS Report.
b. Circulation Services Subcommittee
i. H. Oliversen reviewed the March meeting minutes.
c. Collection Maintenance Subcommittee
i. A. Gannaway reviewed the March meeting minutes.
d. Discovery Interface Subcommittee
i. A. Gannaway reviewed the March meeting minutes.
e. ILS Evaluation Lead Workgroup
i. A. Gannaway reviewed the February and March meeting minutes.
f. Resource Sharing Workgroup
i.
V. Teal Lovely gave an update on the Resource Sharing
Workgroup and reviewed the notes from the February meeting. They did not meet
in March and are scheduled to meet tomorrow.
5. Items from Clusters for initial discussion
a.
None.
6. Requests for New Service
a.
None.
7. Discussion
a. Preliminary 2026 ILS budget proposal
i. Discussion: V. Teal Lovely reviewed the preliminary 2026 ILS budget proposal. She worked out both ILS scenarios (If we stay with Bibliovation vs. migrating to SirsiDynix) but the draft budget reflects the cost of staying on Bibliovation for now. Contract development is budgeted at $10,000 and goes to LibLime for management of development projects, etc. We can eliminate this fee if we migrate to another ILS. We have around $300,000 in the ILS contingency fund that will be allocated to migration costs (a one-time payment to LibLime to extract our data and payment to SirsiDynix to migrate our data). We are still reviewing the third-party maintenance costs as some may go away if we can use functions included with the new system (for example, Authority control). We will be working out those details in the next two months. The telephone and text charges are stable. There was an increase last year because we had to convert to VOIP, but the increase was covered by SCLS state aid. Staff increases are unknown until we look at the cost of living. In 2025, the cost-of-living increase for staff was covered by SCLS state aid. We will know more about this by the June meeting. The cataloging increase was due to OCLC and not MAD Cataloging. We hope to have this information by the June meeting. The increase is about $24,000 before staff costs, but could be lower after we finish evaluation of the SirsiDynix services.
8. Plan for Next meeting: June 4, 2025 at 10 am via Zoom.
a. Action: Approve final 2026 ILS budget proposal
b. Discussion: Possible summer or fall ILS Users’ Summit
9. Adjournment at 11:06 am
For more information about the ILS Committee, contact Vicki Teal Lovely.
SCLS staff are available to attend cluster meetings to share information and answer questions pertaining to this committee meeting and other departmental projects.
ILS Committee/Minutes/04-2025