Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - July 22, 1999 FAC Present: FAC Absent: FLICC/FEDLINK Present: Maxine Brown (Chair) Cheryl Thomas Susan Tarr Denise Lomax Milton MeGee Bonnie Klein Patti Fields Ken Nero (Vice-Chair) Joseph Banks Carla Pomager Sheila Riley Fred Rettenmaier Mike Conklin AGENDA 1. Approval of the June 17-24, 1999 Electronic FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair 3. Technical Processing Services Briefing -- Patti Fields, NPS 4. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff FEDLINK Financial System Revolving Fund October 28 Membership Meeting 5. Committee Reports 6. Old Business 7. New Business 8. Announcements 1. Approval of the June 17-23, 1999 Electronic FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC Fred Rettenmaier moved that the minutes be accepted. Denise Lomax seconded the motion. The FAC approved the minutes of the electronic meeting June 17-24, 1999. 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair Discussion on effectiveness of the Electronic Meeting. Carla Pomager, given her distance situation, liked the electronic meeting. Sheila Riley offered that, from the Secretarial point of view, the compilation of minutes was easier (used cut and paste functions) and she felt more engaged in the discussions because she was not typing minutes. The extended time frame permitted her more flexibility (could read and react as time permitted). It also allowed her time to query more knowledgeable staff in her library before responding. She wondered though if she was receiving everything and whether the forum offered as much openness and free discussions as personal meetings. Fred Rettenmaier said he didn't think it worked well; he thought the participation could be characterized more as position papers than discussion; he likes more personal interaction. Maxine Brown felt limited as to what she could say; she prefers personal meetings. Denise Lomax thought it curtailed the side discussions we have in person and would hate to adopt it as a regular means of meeting. Bonnie Klein had a change of email address and was unaware that we were meeting. Milton MeGee said that this was a good experiment and that it taught us that we need more checks and safeguards. Ken Nero had a bad email connection and Milton had to email him everything separately. Susan Tarr did not think the electronic forum achieved a greater level of participation. All agreed that it could be used as a backup in a pinch. Cancellation of August FAC meeting We discussed the need to have an August FAC meeting. Bonnie Klein moved to cancel the meeting. Fred Rettenmaier seconded the motion and the FAC approved cancellation. Attendance at FAC meetings Susan Tarr checked the FAC By-Laws. The FAC must meet at least bi- monthly (We have meetings scheduled monthly so have built in some leeway) and have a quorum of 5 members to conduct business. FAC members who miss more than 4 meetings can be voted out. Should there be a resignation, there are provisions for bringing in replacements. 3. Technical Processing Services Briefing -- Patti Fields, NPS For staffing reasons (Patti's retirement) and financial reasons (does not cover the operating costs and the time devoted by staff in consultations), FEDLINK is trying to decide whether to continue to offer these contracting related services. They will continue for another formal final year and then continuation is very much in doubt. Patti Fields distributed FEDLINK Technical Processing binders, briefed the FAC on the service and asked us to answer a survey. Action Item: Fax the survey and comments on survey to Patti Fields at 202-707-4828. Although the service has been good for small libraries for small <$2500 purchases, FEDLINK would need more membership participation and a few big purchases to make it worthwhile. Next year is the time when FEDLINK must decide whether to go to the expense of recompeting the BOAs. Maxine asked about consequences of not offering this service. Susan Tarr responded that she didn't know but said that FEDLINK would make sure the specifications (SOWs) were available for libraries to do out their own procurement. She wondered if FEDLINK may need more marketing of this service. Big libraries might have occasional need to do for backlogs, special projects and end of year funds spending. Fred Rettenmaier suggested moving the survey out to FEDCAT-L or TechNotes. We could also discuss at the Fall meeting. Patti answered affirmatively when Carla Pomager asked if the service could handle Russian language materials. To Mike Conklin, who inquired about cataloging Treasury Dept. documents, Patti responded that she would have to delve deeper about the value/uniqueness of the materials, etc. Milton MeGee stated that we need to get contract and cataloging types together and talk - need to look at requirements to compete up to $100,000. Mike Conklin and Ken Nero thought that FEDLINK as a procurement agency should be talked up. Mike said the Web Page helps but suggested perhaps a 3 year marketing plan targeted to library directors. A lot of library functions are going to private companies. Seems like the whole privatization push should be mentioned in a white paper and libraries should get credit for whenever they outsource. 4. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff FEDLINK Financial System No luck in obtaining an external system. Last year a letter of intent sent to vendors resulted in no bids. This year the RFP to attract smaller system vendors resulted in bids which cost too much: over 1 million dollars for the 1st year. Options: 1) Work with LC on its requirements for a replacement financial system of which FEDLINK could be a piece. Concern here is that FEDLINK interests would be lost in the whole. Compromise may be possible. 2) Build inside. Have been planning for positions for several systems persons and are looking at software packages. Bottom line is that FEDLINK will not have replacement for DOS system next year. Revolving Fund Susan Tarr said this is moving along. Last talks changed the strategy. They missed the window of opportunity with the appropriations process. The Congressional Relations Office didn't get it through committees. The proposal is generalized now. FEDLINK has been promised that if the authorizing committee doesn't approve, they will move it through appropriations process in 2001. It is on the Hill now and could get passed on full bill or at latest in 2001. October 28 Membership Meeting Susan Tarr proposed taking advantage of INCOLSA's October 28thnational presentation of speaker Steve Coffman, Director of FYI at the LA County Public Library. He is the head of fee-based reference services who has written a lot on digital libraries. He could be our speaker through a down link. FEDLINK would pay cost of downlink. Because he is not speaking till 3:00 EST, OCLC User Group meeting could shift to the a.m. with FEDLINK in p.m. (committee reports and end with speaker). FEDLINK would inform member libraries regarding the downlink sites or they could buy in cheaply to do a downlink with INCOLSA. Maxine Brown said this would require advance marketing and FEDLINK could promote the program through the listserv. Susan Tarr continues to look for more distance learning programs. Maxine mentioned that Sami Klein had wondered what the results were of trying to bring in Richard Luce. Milton MeGee answered that he was on a list to consider. Susan thought we could shape an education program around him because he has thought about market share and who is using the library, an approach that would fit into a marketing context. Maxine invited Vice-Chair, Ken Nero, to do the membership meeting welcome/introductions. Milton Megee and Joe Banks will do the FLICC/FEDLINK reports. Susan Tarr will arrange the downlink which will be presented in the Pickford theater (70 seating capacity). Given past attendance (40- 50) this should be sufficient. The program is free, however, and could be popular so Milton suggested that FEDLINK watch the registration numbers. The FAC approved the agenda for the October 28 Membership meeting. Joe Banks provided the FAC with the FEDLINK fiscal forecast. The report as of July 12th shows a downturn in transfer pay while direct services shows FEDLINK ahead of last year. Fee revenue: $300,000 behind last year. FEDLINK kept the fees down but did not receive the boost they thought they would from keeping the fees stable. In terms of expenditures this means FEDLINK won't be getting a financial system this year. The resulting forecast being sent forward is that they are $350,000 off last year's pace. FEDLINK has reduced operating expenses to accommodate that reduction. Luckily they had worked hard to put aside $300,000 for system procurement, so at this time no staff will be affected. If this is a trend, however, we have a problem for next year. FEDLINK was just holding steady on revenues and then they cut back by lowering fees. FEDLINK needs to bring in more business for staffing to be kept at the same level. FEDLINK was successful with FSD to extend the date to add funds to September 15th - this was a survey recommendation. This will be good for end-of- year funds, if a contract does not need to be competed - could for instance buy reference databases on subscription. 5. Committee Reports LC Bicentennial - the FAC viewed and discussed the latest pencil sketch for the poster being created by artist, Eric Peterson, and a graphics group in Cleveland. The banner will be "Federal libraries - a record of our past; a link to our future - over 200 years of public service." Posters will go to each federal library. Because of all the symbols, the FAC suggested providing libraries with an explanation gloss of the poster. There is no permission to put up on website; have rights only to make bookmarks and poster. Copyright would cost $2500. Would need copy right for the poster to be sent out through GPO to federal depository libraries. Education - Denise Lomax reported on the Federal Handbook. At the Quarterly meeting presentation, she had put a response form at end of packet and got several returned to her both at meeting and afterwards. She thinks that putting the Handbook up on the Web will engender more responses. Susan Tarr announced that the new chair of the Education Working Group is Sandy Morton- Schwald. Preservation and Binding - New co-chairs are Dolores fairbanks (Dept. Of State) and Robert Schnare (Naval War College). Personnel - Reviewing the Labor Dept. qualification definitions for librarians which will be used to identify qualified contract workers. Want to work to ensure that they are as strong as the OPM qualifications to make sure the costs are equivalent. Awards - finalized brochures for 99 awards cycle. - applications due by November 15th. 6. Old Business OCLC deficits will be addressed by Ruby Thomas in the FAC's September meeting. The FAC applauded Milton's FLRT award received at ALA. Susan Tarr said she would check on the action to get a certificate printed for Janet Wright. Denise Lomax asked where she could get the video of the Copyright Symposium: it is not ready yet but it will be available through ILL from the National Library of Education. It will be sent free to paid symposium registrants who were unable to attend. July 29th - is a follow-up session on the initial General Counsels forum where we began discussion of copyright and fair use. Since then the Dept. of Justice distributed its paper on "fair use" by federal agencies (stating essentially that decisions are made on a case by case basis) and this time the hope is for discussion of cases and what they think is fair use. The strategy seems to be to assess risk based on whether they will be challenged or not ("challenge" does not necessarily mean in court). Because we are Federal, one of the conditions of fair use is a given for us but other conditions need review. Advice is don't just accept the standard CCC license. Another rule is that if it is government written, it can't have a copyright. 7. New Business - None 8. Announcements - None The meeting was adjourned at 11:40 a.m.