November 21, 2008 Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
1) Roll call – Devra Dragos (NEBASE), Jim Duncan (CO), Steve Gregory (CO), Darci Hanning (OR), Deborah Littrell (TX), Christine Martire (PALINET), Bev Obert (IL), Michael Piper (INCOLSA), Jim Scheppke (OR), Justine Shaffner (BCR), Henry Stokes (TX)
Duncan welcomed our new members from INCOLSA, NEBASE and PALINET.
2) Minutes – There was some confusion and discussion about a comment Illinois made (that was attributed to Texas and then corrected on the posted version of the minutes) about INCOLSA increasing their workload which Obert clarified was not definite but might be a possibility. Duncan asked if anyone didn’t approve of the minutes and no one said no, so the 9/19/08 minutes are approved.
3) Report on financial statements –Duncan has not received any financial statements from BCR. He just has what Scheppke turned over to him when Duncan took over as Chair. He asked that Shaffner put some gentle pressure on Vigil (BCR) to get these ASAP. Once he has them he’ll send an email to the Steering Committee re what our balance is and what recent deposits we’ve had.
4) Brief reports from the states -
TX – They still have around 50 active sites, and have had additional training recently. They have a number of sites in the pipeline which should double their web site count to around 100 live sites within a few months.
OR – They are getting two to three requests for Plinkit sites per month and should have around 52 sites live by January or so. Hanning expects they’ll top out at around 65 web sites which is about half of the libraries in their state.
IL – They are still pushing Plinkit and will probably do another big push in the spring but are happy with the 100 sites they currently have.
CO – They now have a Plinkit coordinator, Christine Kreger, who started about three weeks ago and hit the ground running. She’s being trained for the next couple of weeks and will then start working on her own. Since they are fully staffed for Plinkit now, they will start on five new sites very soon.
Duncan said it would be great to get up to date counts on the number of libraries live and in the pipeline and send them to Shaffner so she can post this information on the public part of Plinkit.org. Scheppke suggested using Google Maps to see where the libraries are and Hanning said as soon as we migrate to Plone 3.0 we can do that. She can show us a sample of a library location map she did at another site. Shaffner can do the data entry part of this by inputting the name of each library and its address. Duncan said Colorado’s Plinkit site already has this info. Hanning will work with Gregory to export this data so Shaffner doesn’t have to input it again. The Committee would like to have this posted by Christmas. Scheppke said Oregon will send a spreadsheet of their live libraries so Shaffner can just cut and paste them. Shaffner will email the Tech Group/PCs to get this information and will let them know that whenever they add a new Plinkit site they should tell Shaffner so she can add them to the map.
INCOLSA – They are working with Hanning to configure their server, but she hasn’t been able to connect with Tom Metzger this week as she’s had extra projects, but she expects to be able to work with him next week. Duncan asked if there was any way for other technical people to help and Hanning said if Gregory or Brown is comfortable with debugging they could help. Gregory and Obert asked for Hanning to email Gregory and Brown re how they could help. INCOLSA is putting together a pilot group of people interested in Plinkit which will convene as soon as possible.
PALINET - Martire said they announced that they joined Plinkit in their e-newsletter which goes to all members and at their recent annual conference and people are already interested. They’ll be getting their technical folks up to speed soon.
NEBASE –Dragos said they had an unconference on Wednesday and people are already asking when NEBASE will be ready to start working on adding Plinkit sites.
5) Project Coordinators/Tech Group progress report – Obert said the SOW was our biggest topic and Hanning is working frantically on finishing it and it will hopefully be done today. Once it’s been sent to the Tech Group/PC list serv they’ll have four to five days to comment on it and then Hanning will work with Shaffner to send it out to the vendors, giving them 25 business days to respond, so we should get responses back by the first part of January. Gregory said the state reports were pretty much the same as those given at this meeting and confirmed the SOW was the big topic. Hanning added that the Tech Group will be adding one blog entry per month to entice new members to join as it will highlight interesting things Plinkit libraries are doing.
Duncan added that there was also discussion at the Tech Group/PC meeting re looking at the Plinkit site to make it more user friendly and to share other suggestions for improvements to it. Obert asked that the new partners especially look at it, as they’ll see things with fresh eyes.
6) Expansion of the Plinkit Collaborative – Duncan said we are continuing to expand as we’ve just added Virginia and INCOLSA/PALINET/NEBASE and Michigan is heating up.
7) Establish group to look into the long term cost model – Duncan would like to discuss the possibility of prorating Michigan. Littrell mentioned Piper’s email yesterday as Michigan is an INCOLSA state and Piper said they would like the chance to work out an arrangement with Michigan first. Duncan said during his last conversation with Michigan they’d indicated that they are evolving a new model for providing Plinkit services which will be different from what any member does now. They may contract out support of Plinkit and different aspects of support could be contracted to different people or groups. Hanning concurred and said they are working on an RFP that they’ll send once they are accepted into the Collaborative. She thinks hosting and admin may be combined as one piece for people to bid on, but help desk … would be separate pieces to bid on. Duncan said maybe INCOLSA will bid on the RFP and Piper agreed.
Scheppke said this doesn’t have bearing on the membership fee issue and he’s willing for Michigan to pay a $5000 annual membership fee for the remaining half of the year. His only worry is how Library of Virginia might feel (since they just joined) and suggests we check in with them first. Littrell agreed but wondered when they plan to join. Duncan said it could be sooner rather than later but they may need an answer to their question about a prorated fee first and if they can’t get the fee prorated they may stall until the next fiscal year. Piper suggested prorating membership from the date the software is active. Hanning disagreed as she said she’s already working with PALINET so thinks they should start paying when they join and she confirmed that Michigan is waiting to hear from us about prorating before sending their RFP out.
Duncan said we should divvy up the work load so the work of bringing a new member up to speed doesn’t always fall to Hanning. He then said he’ll check with Virginia and if they aren’t concerned about our prorating Michigan’s fee then he thinks we should move forward with letting them join for $5000. Someone asked what happens if it takes longer? Will we let them pay $2500 if they don’t join for another two to three months? Scheppke said no – the $5000 for a half year membership should be the only prorating we’ll do and Littrell, Martire, Dragos and Obert agreed.
Scheppke motioned we offer a $5000 membership to Michigan contingent on an expression of support from the Library of Virginia. Littrell seconded. All said aye. Duncan will report back to the Committee once he checks with Virginia.
Piper wanted to be sure he understand the precedent we’re establishing and wondered if a library from PALINET’s area wanted to join Plinkit what would we do? Scheppke said we don’t want to take away the possibility that a state library who wants to bring Plinkit to their state could join on their own. Martire asked if they pursued state libraries in their region and brought them in through PALINET would this be okay? Scheppke said yes this is not precluded and we envision your role as working in states where the state library has no interest in joining.
Littrell assumed that if the network partners already had a presence in a state it’d be unlikely that that state library would want to join on their own. Duncan agreed and said e.g. if BCR had joined Plinkit, Colorado would have worked on Plinkit through them, rather than joining on their own. Piper said they’ll try to work through the state library agencies as it’s most efficient and economical to work on this scale rather than approach individual libraries on their own. They’ll actively market at the state library level but will let them know they have an option to join on their own.
Duncan called for volunteers to work in a group establishing a long term cost model. Obert volunteered. Littrell mentioned it would be good to have someone from both a network and a state library on this group and that it’s good Obert volunteered as she’s kind of in between. Littrell and Martire then volunteered. They should come up with recommendations and ideas and report on these at the next Steering Committee meeting. Littrell asked that Shaffner send the three of them their contact information and Shaffner’s contact information and help them to set up a conference call to discuss this. She should also send them the charge to the group. Scheppke will send them his ideas and said that their charge is to find a better way to assess membership fees to the collaborative. People objected to trying to establish a uniform cost recovery fee especially at this time but Duncan suggested everyone share their cost recovery fee plans with each other.
8) Trademarking the name Plinkit – We were running out of time and Scheppke had to leave so this was tabled to the next meeting.
9) Logo – Since we are out of time this will be discussed via email. Littrell said they aren’t sensitive to any comments, so please be frank, your comments are welcome. Martire and Gregory said they didn’t get the logo email sent yesterday so Shaffner will send it to them. Obert would like a blank logo too since not all their libraries are public and member states and organizations may eventually have libraries that aren’t public.
10) Letters of Agreement between BCR & Plinkit member library – Shaffner read what Brenda Bailey-Hainer had written about this and Duncan suggested that members may need to do this on a case by case basis as most members didn’t think there were any issues so far with their organizations paying BCR’s invoices. All agreed, so this is how it will be handled. Shaffner will report this to Bailey-Hainer.
11) Other business – There being no other business the meeting was adjourned.
Next Steering Committee meeting is January 16, 2009 Friday - noon-1pm Eastern Time, 11am-noon Central Time, 10am-11am Mountain Time and 9am-10 am Pacific Time
