Attending: Dee Magnoni, President; Tom Jewell, Vice President/President Elect; Leslie Schoenherr, Past President; Cathy Lee, Treasurer; Linda Stetson; Cynthia English; Paul Kissman, MBLC; Sunny Vandermark, MMRLS
Meeting called to order at 2:40 PM.
Approved: Schoenherr/Jewell
Sunny passed out a sheet detailing the “Budget vs. Actual Expenditures for the nine months ending March 31, 2007”. Dee inquired about adding another column for percentage increases/decreases. Sunny will attempt to add the column if the software allows. Tom asked if any line items were troubling. Sunny responded all were in good shape.
Dee noted that a Board member and a few other Metrowest members are needed to serve on the Finance Committee. At present there are 4 on the Committee; 6-9 members would be ideal. Cynthia English is considering the request to join.
Beth Galloway will be resigning at the end of June to pursue independent consulting work. (We will miss her and wish her well!) The Personnel Committee met before this meeting to review the job description and salary. The Personnel Committee recommends all trainer/consultants use the same step level. The job will be posted on the Metrowest homepage; MBLC site; Simmons site; NE Jobline; MSLA listserv. The salary range will be from $57,753- $61,270.
Sunny and some MBLC and Regional coordinators visited sort sites in Seattle. Sunny has submitted an Application for Automated Material Handling Sort for the region under an LSTA grant for $2.6 million. Metrowest was selected to serve as a pilot project due to our high delivery volume. Sunny will coordinate with the Northeast and Southeast regions and possibly Boston to develop a business plan as the pilot project proceeds. Susan McAlister from Minuteman will also serve on the committee. An RFP went out to hire a consultant to investigate the transportation component and look at delivery routes for efficiency. Sunny has received several proposals from consultants, but only one, Trans-Solutions in Newton, Mass., answered the required questions. Trans-Solutions had stellar references. The three regions (MW, NE, SE) asked them to come back with a proposal to investigate the sort issue and the transportation issue. The two studies include:
1. Transportation study for all the regions. Metrowest will pay $8,667 for its share of the study. Trans-Solutions will work on this study in the next few months.
2. Sort study for Metrowest, SEMLS and NMRLS. The cost will be $15,000 per region. This study will be done after the transportation study. After some discussion the Board opted to hold a decision to fund the second study at this time.
Motion by Tom Jewell: Move support to authorize expenditures of $8,667 as our portion of the transportation study as conducted by Trans-Solutions.
Seconded: Linda Stetson. All approved.
Dee questioned Paul if there is other funding, such as an IMLS grant. Paul defined it as an infrastructure project and that a capital request is a likely scenario.
Plans for the Legislative Breakfasts are going well. The date is March 23 from 8:00 am – 9:00 am at Millis Public Library and Watertown Public Library. A third of the Public Libraries have already contributed to help defray costs. Paul mentioned that the MLA website does not have the date on their calendar.
MLA is again requesting a donation of $1,000 to cover the costs of a lobbyist.
Motion by Tom Jewell: Move to send $1,000 to MLA towards the Leadership Partner program.
Seconded: Cathy Lee. All approved.
There was no written report.
Judy was out on medical leave from Friday, January 26th through February 21st. She started back part time on February 22. Beth started her 80% job week the end of January.
We did our newsletter online this quarter. This was done in part because Judy was out and also because we have been thinking about moving to an online format. As of February 13th the newsletter was downloaded 837 times. The online newsletter is so popular that I recommend we continue this format. The Board agreed with the request that we maintain an archive for future reference. This will continue an ongoing online archive.
I attended a WEBnet Directors’ Meeting on January 31st. WEBnet is a consortium of academic libraries including Bentley (soon to be a stand-alone library), Babson, Pine Manor, Olin College, and Regis College. I was there to talk about the Delivery Best Practices Document. I also talked briefly about workshops to go and other opportunities for academic librarian participation, including committee work.
I attended the MLN Circulation Meeting on February 7th to talk about the Delivery Best Practices Document. Approximately 50 MLN staff were able to ask questions and make comments. There was an interesting discussion about the potential of automated sorting.
Meeting adjourned at 3:40 pm.
Submitted,
Leslie Schoenherr, Past President