Document #07-14

LIBRARIES OF MIDDLESEX AUTOMATION CONSORTIUM

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

LMxAC Office

February 15, 2007

MINUTES

BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:

Robert Belvin - New Brunswick

Mary Faith Chmiel – Spotswood

Irene Goldberg - Monroe

Lewis Ostar - Middlesex College Library

Anne Roman – Piscataway

BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:

Margery Cyr – Old Bridge

LMxAC STAFF PRESENT:

Eileen M. Palmer

Elisa Bash

The meeting was called to order at 10:15am by President Anne Roman.

APPROVAL OF AGENDA: (Document#07-08)

Irene Goldberg moved to approve the agenda of the February 15, 2007 LMxAC Executive Board Meeting. Bob Belvin seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The motion carried.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING:

Bob Belvin moved to approve the minutes of the January 18, 2007 LMxAC Executive Board meeting (Document #07-09). Mary Faith Chmiel seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The motion carried.

TREASURER'S REPORT:

Lewis Ostar presented the detailed Financial Statements for January 31, 2007

(Document#07-10). Lewis noted that the revenue and expenditure percentages were routine for this time of the fiscal year. Eileen noted certain expenditures had not originally been budgeted for and we had to dip into the Development Fund account to cover those expenses. She mentioned that the first payment for the Enhanced Data is anticipated for March and there may be a need to fall back on the Cash Management and Development fund accounts. The report was reviewed and filed for audit.

FINANCIAL POSITION STATEMENT

Balance as of 1/31/07:

Accounts Receivable $ 184,755.38

Checking $ 61,656.13

Cash Management $ 687,770.57

Development Fund $ 311,564.23

Cash Assets Total: $1,245,746.31

Liabilities:

Accounts Payable 2/15/07 $ 34,674.84

APPROVAL OF BILL LIST: (Document #07-11) Eileen highlighted some invoices on the bill list. The checks to Bound Brook and Cranbury Libraries were for their portion of the 2005/2006 E-rate refund. Irene Goldberg moved to approve the Bill List for February 15, 2007. Bob Belvin seconded the motion. All members were in favor. The motion carried.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT: (Document #07-12)

Eileen M. Palmer presented her report to the Executive Board and discussed several issues including: E-rate; Unicorn Downtime; SAM upgrade; Dunellen; Federated Searching; Sirsi meeting; BWI discount; Activity Report and Meetings.

Eileen noted that the E-rate application has been filed. She had worked with Verizon to get all circuits on the same 36 month contract date except for the Plainfield Public Library. Eileen reported on the downtime recently experienced due to hard disk failures on the Sun server. Sun swapped out the bad hard drive for a good one. In testing it was determined that similar errors were occurring on other disks. We asked Sirsi and Sun to help us understand what may have caused these multiple failures. Reasons cited were that disks manufactured at the same time may fail at the same time, as well as noting that LMxAC had not yet installed maintenance patches that Sun recommended. LMxAC has instituted new ongoing Sun maintenance procedures and will closely monitor the situation. Eileen will investigate a different maintenance plan with Sun. In the current Silver Support agreement, the time frame caused delays in getting the system up in a timely manner. Eileen mentioned that the Mike Bagileo is proceeding with the SAM upgrade and that BWI will be offering a discount on playaways to all LMxAC members. Eileen noted that the activity detail in her monthly report has expanded with additional information. Eileen spoke about the federated search product and recommended a proposal for Central Search from Serials Solutions. The federated search product is a high priority and a critical issue for the County College and some libraries. Due to the contractual agreement between Sirsi and Middlesex County, the first year of Central Search is free. Eileen explained that libraries can elect to add on their own databases at a cost of $1,408 for 1-5 additional databases, $2,816 for 6-10 databases; $4,224 for 11-15databases and $5,632 for 16-20 databases. The ongoing cost for this product is approximately $22,000 depending on the number of databases added. The Board felt that given that Sirsi has changed the product promised to us, we should conduct an evaluation of the marketplace to be sure that this is an appropriate solution. The Board agreed to ask the Reference Committee, and other interested members to identify specific vendors, coordinate product demos and make a recommendation.

OLD BUSINESS:

REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE:

Eileen had prepared and presented different assessment models to the Committee. The scenarios were based on assessment models in use by other consortia. Each model created changes that had caused large increases for some member libraries. The committee agreed to continue to work with our basic assessment model while making changes that address cataloging costs and PAC charges. The committee will be meeting again in March.

REPORT OF THE PERSONNEL COMMITTEE: The committee reviewed a draft of the updated Personnel Manual. The draft needs review by an attorney and we are awaiting a recommendation from Evelyn Hartmann. New personnel policies will be presented to the Board for action including an On-call policy with details of expectations from LMxAC staff members. Eileen is researching information to clarify employee designation with regard to overtime payment and comp time.

NEW BUSINESS:

REPORT OF THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE: Bob Belvin reported that he received several responses for the vacancy position on the Executive Board.

The Committee nominated Joseph DaRold, Director of the Plainfield Public Library to fill in the Member at Large position. As a motion from a Standing Committee, the nomination was approved and will be presented to the General membership at the next General Membership meeting in April.

OTHER:

Eileen mentioned that she communicated with Cindy Yasher, Director of the Jamesburg Public Library about the Library’s membership. There had been some confusion with the ILSA agreement from the Jamesburg Borough. Eileen contacted Evelyn Hartmann, LMxAC attorney for assistance to resolve the issue with the Jamesburg Borough.

COMMUNICATIONS: There were no communication documents.

ADJOURNMENT:

The meeting adjourned at 11:54am. The next meeting is scheduled for March 22, 2007 at 10:00am at the LMxAC Office.

Respectfully Submitted,

Eileen M. Palmer (for Margie Cyr)