Minutes - October 5, 2009

Introductions
Bev Obert is the director of the Rolling Prairie Library System, a multi type library system in Ilinois.  She’s the chair of the Plinkit Project Coordinators’ Committee.  She thanked everyone for agreeing to be on the Plilnkit Advisory Group. 

Justine Shaffner, the Plinkit Collaborative Coordinator introduced herself and said she’s been using Plinkit since Spring 2008.

Cary Cox from The Colony Public Library in Texas went live with Plinkit about a year ago.

Barbara Fischer, library assistant and website editor at the Waldport Public Library in Oregon has been using Plinkit since February 2007.

Connie Walker is with the Venus High School and Community Library in Texas and they’ve used Plinkit for six months.

Sharon Long is with the Newton County Public Library, which is in Texas, very close to the Louisiana border.  They’ve been using Plinkit for 9 months.

Lacey Wright of the Barclay Public Library District in Warrensburg, Illinois (part of the Rolling Prairie Library System) started using Plinkit in June 2007

Not attending but sent in questionnaire -
Luke Kralik, from the Tillamook County Library in Oregon has been using Plinkit for 1 ½ years.

Kristi Lindsey, the director of the Penrose Community Library in Colorado has been using Plinkit since early in 2006.


What do you like about Plinkit?
Lacey likes being able to update it herself and keep it current.  Sharon had a stagnant website until Plinkit and she likes being able to keep her community advised about what is going on at the library.  Barbara likes that it is really easy to use and keep current and she can do it herself instead of outsourcing the work - this is the first time her library had a website.  Connie said their website was part of the school’s website so people couldn’t find the library easily, but it’s now a separate website and can be updated easily and she gets great support from the North Texas Regional Library System.  Cary agreed that Plinkit is easy to use.  Her library was on the city website before Plinkit, so she had the same problem as Connie.

Not attending but sent in questionnaire -
Luke Kralik wrote ” I like how easy it is to do most things.  I like how stable it seems.  I also think there is a slight feeling of camaraderie I have associated with using Plinkit.”

Kristi Lindsey wrote “I like the fact that it is very user friendly.  It has made a huge difference in our ability to market ourselves to our community.  We recently completed a fundraising campaign and it was instrumental in helping us to raise funds for our new library.  One complaint that I have heard from libraries not using Plinkit is that all of the different library sites look very similar.  I feel that this is a bonus because it makes it easier for our patrons to navigate if they frequent other library’s sites.”
People like that the website can even be updated from home and agree with Luke that because there are other users using Plinkit, there’s a kind of camaraderie.  They have positive feelings about it so it is easy to recommend it to other libraries.


What one thing about Plinkit would you tell another library to encourage them to use it for their webpage?
Sharon is one of two area libraries using Plinkit.  Henry Stokes came down for a workshop that included many other libraries and she was able to say how easy it is to use.  There’s no way they could afford a website like they now have otherwise and she thinks it’s important for libraries to market themselves and a Plinkit website is a great way of being able to do let people know what services and programs you have.  Others agreed and felt the template is so library friendly, you don’t have to figure out what you’ll put on there, plus it’s easy to use. 

Bev said in Illinois they charge $250 per year per website, but still have over 80 libraries even with the charge, and they have hospital and high school libraries too.
Lacey thinks libraries need to keep users informed and this is easiest way to do it.

Barbara said that whenever she gets stuck Darci provides assistance.  Others agreed it’s nice to have that technical support available.

Not attending but sent in questionnaire -
Luke Kralik wrote “I would tell them that Plinkit puts them in control of their library’s website.  They don’t have go through their city or county webmasters in order to add new content.  Plinkit is a way for librarians to be responsible for their sites content without anyone being afraid that they will break it.”

Kristi Lindsey wrote “I would point out that it is FREE and if there is a problem, it is not my responsibility (or cost) to fix it.  It is ideal for small, rural libraries that most likely do not have the tech support a larger library might have.”


What questions do you have about the current version of Plinkit that you have always wanted to know but were afraid to ask? 
Justine said Plinkit 2.0 is ready now, but we are still doing work on improving the user interface on recurring events which will hopefully be done by the end of this month.
Sharon said her only complaint is the repetitive events that happen monthly.  It’s very time consuming to put them all in, so she’s really glad that the recurring events user interface will be improved.  Barbara saves recurring information on a flash drive so she can just copy and paste it onto the website later.


What would you like to do on or with your Plinkit site that you can not presently do?
Both Luke and Krista want better recurring events.  We knew this was so important to our users that we asked for additional programming to address this.  Krista would like spell check.  We’ll ask the full group about this and get back to you.  Luke would like to be able to add files and images in batches.

Barbara would like to be able to put images in the community pages.  We’ll add it to the list.  Cary wants to know about embedding videos.  Bev said we can do that and we’ll put some instructions out about how to do that.  Bev mentioned you can also embed images from Flickr accounts and since the alt tags go with the pictures, your site remains ADA compliant. 

Cary said they have monitors with varying resolutions in the library so sometimes the website likes good on one computer but not on other computers, so she’s trying to adjust for that.  Barbara said when she has an image problem she sends it to Darci and Darci fixes it and puts it on the website for her.  We should make instructions for this.  Cary said they have databases they get from the state library but the state library requires her library to do the authentication and she’d like to see this in the future.  We’ll take this back to the group.

Cary’s seen websites where blog entries appears on the webpage and that would be nice.  Bev said Lacey links into an online event registration calendar – www.engagedpatrons.org  – which is free to libraries with budgets under one million –engagedpatrons.org customized it for her so it look like her Plinkit website.  She can print out list of registrants, contact information… and it sends email reminders.  Lacey keeps that calendar current as it’s easier to update than Plinkit’s calendar.  There’s a link on her menu to it see http://barclay.lib.il.us/Library%20Calendar%20-%20   We’ll need to look at adding this – Bev will have Lacey write something up – it’d be great if it could link from the Plinkit calendar.

Connie said her patrons love the Digital Library – http://www.venuscommunitylibrary.com/eshelf-research/exhibits - she’d love this to appear on the homepage rather than having things dig for it.

Will the different version have more font and color sizes and choices?  Bev said she thinks there’s a few more but isn’t sure and mentioned giving lots of choice can be problematic with remaining ADA compliant.  Bev mentioned that we’re creating some different color schemes and themes to choose from.

Summary – Improvements Users Would Like
Recurring Events
Spell Check
Add files and images in batches
Add images to community pages
Embed videos
Embed images from Flickr accounts
Website displays the same on varying computer monitors
Remote database logon authentication
Blog entries appear on webpage
Way to register patrons for programs or an interface to something like engagedpatrons.org
Have Digital Library appear on Venus’ home page
More font and color sizes and choices

We asked if members would mind if we post their library names, email address and names under a Plinkit Advisory group” page at the website and all attendees were fine with that.

Bev asked how often we should meet – once or twice a year – everyone agreed twice a year would be good – Mondays or Tuesdays are good for one person.  Justine will remind Bev two months before the April meeting to set it up.

People please review the minutes and send any corrections to Justine.  She’ll send the minutes to the Technical Group and the Steering and Project Coordinators’ Committees.


Evaluation of the meeting
Cary likes being able to say what she’d like to see on the website and likes teleconferencing since she’s on vacation today so just got on and joined the meeting.  Barbara enjoyed the meeting and likes talking to everyone – she thought it was a good meeting overall. Connie likes getting the agenda in advance and likes teleconferencing.  Sharon feels the same.  Lacey likes talking to people who are doing the same thing she’s doing. 

Bev said at the next meeting we’ll all be on the new version and talking about what we like and don’t like about it.  She’ll also send links to all the attendees’ websites so they can see if others have features that members might like to know more about.

We’ll set up a listserv so we can communicate between meetings.