OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FIFTIETH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Minutes — June 12, 2015

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred fiftieth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, April 10, 2015 by Board Vice-Chair Becky Schultz at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Marty Beets, Susan Brown, Ben Chinni, Karen Davis, Cindy Lombardo, Michael Penrod, and Becky Schultz. Jamie Mason arrived at 10:15.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges, Laura Solomon, and Karl Jendretzky (OPLIN); and Chris May and Travis McAfee.

The Vice-Chair asked that everyone introduce themselves to Chris May and Travis McAfee, who have been appointed to the Board effective July 1.

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Don Barlow motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Michael Penrod seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Vice-Chair called for public participation, and there was none.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of April 10 meeting

Susan Brown motioned to approve the minutes of the April 10 meeting as presented; Cindy Lombardo seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Stephen Hedges presented information about the current fiscal year budget as of May 31. With the exception of salaries and Board travel expenses, the Administration accounts should not change much before the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Stephen noted that it also appears there will be no late fees this year for Board Financial Disclosure Statements. The Information Resources accounts and the Library Support Services accounts should also not change before June 30, but Telecommunications account balances will change until June 22, the last day to post payments in FY 2015.

Reporting on revenues and cash balance, Stephen discussed some of the remaining expected income. E-rate income will be much lower this year than originally anticipated, since delays in installations of new AT&T circuits will cost OPLIN $90,000 or more in lost E-rate reimbursements. Likewise, income from website kits has slowed while work shifted to upgrading sites. Some of the expected expenses, however, will also not be needed, so the final cash balance for June 30 that was projected at the beginning of the fiscal year will probably be fairly accurate.

Don Barlow asked if we expect similar income next year. Stephen noted that OPLIN funding in the new biennium budget is the same as it has been for several years now, so overall income should be very similar in the next two years. Michael Penrod asked if that would be enough income, considering that the cash balance left at the end of each fiscal year has been dwindling. Stephen replied that he expected disbursements for telecommunications costs to stabilize at a slightly lower amount once all of the current circuit upgrades are completed, which should also stabilize the cash balance.

Don Barlow asked what process would be followed to increase OPLIN state funding. Stephen replied that any increase would have to be included in the initial budget request made at the beginning of each biennial budget process, but he also cautioned that, since OPLIN funding at this point still comes from the Public Library Fund, it would be very wise to get the approval of the public libraries before such a request was initiated.

Michael Penrod motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Susan Brown seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

6.1. Review draft of Strategic Plan

Stephen Hedges provided a draft of a strategic plan that he created following Board discussions at the April meeting. Because the format of the plan is significantly different from the current plan, he proposed that he talk through the plan at this meeting, and that any Board action on the plan be postponed until the next Board meeting.

The most significant changes are: Discussion of the Ohio Revised Code has been incorporated into the introductory materials; marketing has become a strategy for achieving each goal, rather than a goal in itself; information about financing has been added; the "Databases" goal has been revised as "Online Information" to include more than just information databases; and "Activities" from the current plan are now listed within Strategy sections.

After a discussion of the amount of detail in the plan, Cindy Lombardo suggested that some sort of "executive summary" of the plan should also be created. The Board also thought that the plan could cover two years, to coincide with the biennium budget, but still wanted to review it annually.

Stephen will work on these changes and present the revised version to the Board in August for possible approval.

6.2. Discuss outsourcing of website kits hosting

Stephen Hedges briefly reminded the Board of discussion at the April meeting regarding hosting the website kits on external servers with technical support available after business hours.

Laura Solomon reported that she and Karl Jendretzky identified three reputable Drupal hosting companies, but quickly rejected two for various reasons. The third company was unresponsive, but Laura suspects that their annual pricing would have been in the six-figure range. She and Karl therefore started considering hosting companies that do not specialize in Drupal hosting, and would cost in the range of $5,000-$7,000 per year.

Karl pointed out that he is about to re-purpose the unused Zimbra server for website kit hosting, and questioned how much benefit there would be in outsourcing the hosting. Several Board members wondered how much after hours support website kit customers expect. Karl noted that he is not an on-call systems administrator, which is what you would get with a hosting company. He also noted that the intrusion protection measures recently implemented in the network remove the cause of many server problems.

Susan Brown pointed out that the website kits are not a universal service provided to all libraries, so OPLIN charges website customers to cover OPLIN costs, and would have to increase those charges if OPLIN decided to pay for outside hosting.

Don Barlow asked if the libraries' catalogs were dependent on the website kits; Laura replied that the catalogs run on separate servers, but access to the user interface is generally linked from the library's website.

Jamie Mason felt that the level of support we currently provide for website kits was commensurate with the annual price we charge website kit customers for maintenance. Karl noted that during business hours, he could completely restore a website server within an hour.

The consensus of the Board was to move the website kit servers to the more robust OPLIN hardware that is now available and possibly revisit this issue in the future as needed.

6.3. Discuss Service Objectives

Stephen Hedges noted that the Board had a similar discussion about service expectations at the April meeting, and Marty Beets had suggested it might be good to publish something like service level agreements (SLAs) for OPLIN services. Stephen then reviewed the services catalog published by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) for state agencies. Based on OIT's practice, Stephen added two "service objectives" to the descriptions of OPLIN services on the OPLIN website: Incident Response, and Incident Resolution objectives. Stephen distributed a copy of the service objectives for each service and noted that these descriptions reflect current practice, so publishing these service objectives did not require any Board action.

Cindy Lombardo asked if OPLIN would be measuring how often these objectives were met. After some discussion, it was decided that the ticketing system already in use would provide sufficient performance measurement.

Discussion turned to Board uneasiness that so many services are dependent on Karl Jendretzky to fix them in the event of problems. The Board could not see any good remedy for this situation, other than communicating the problem to libraries if necessary.

7. NEW BUSINESS

7.1. Approve email policy

Stephen Hedges informed the Board of a new OIT policy on "Use of Internet, E-mail and Other IT Resources" that includes direction that state agencies shall also implement similar policies. Stephen provided the Board with a policy he had drafted accordingly and explained it briefly.

Susan Brown motioned to approve the Policy on Use of Internet, Email and Other IT Resources; Jamie Mason seconded.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; Jamie Mason, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

8. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges reported on recent actions by the State Library Board that affect OPLIN. At their April 17 meeting, the State Library Board approved an LSTA grant in the amount of $39,916 to support the "DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) in Ohio" planning project. OPLIN is also supporting this project with $5,443. At their May 28 meeting, the State Library Board approved an LSTA grant in the amount of $1,600,000 to support the Ohio Web Library collection, and also appointed Chris May and Travis McAfee to the OPLIN Board and re-appointed Jill Billman-Royer and Susan Brown.

Stephen received an invitation to meet at OIT and discuss OPLIN and the Ohio One network on April 21. At that meeting, he cautioned that integrating OPLIN libraries into Ohio One must be a good move for the libraries and for Ohio One. A follow-up meeting that would include network engineers to discuss a plan to propose to the OPLIN Board that would benefit both parties was discussed. Before that meeting could be scheduled, however, OPLIN staff looked back at the history of service requests to OIT over the past six months and found that there were 29 unfilled requests dating back as far as last December. This is not the time to discuss integration into Ohio One until other issues are resolved, so Stephen canceled the follow-up meeting. Don Barlow cautioned that the Board should not lose control of the library network. Stephen and Karl Jendretzky answered numerous Board questions about the political and technical aspects of Ohio One.

Stephen shared his experiences at the April 25 Ohio History Day awards, where he presented the two special awards for "Advanced Digital Researcher" that the Board had approved. In choosing the award winners, Stephen reviewed 22 "process papers" describing the students' research work. He noted how often the student went to the library just to get books, and did not consider digital resources unless a librarian pointed them out.

Stephen reported that he was a panelist at the School, Hospitals, and Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Annual Conference in Washington DC on May 21, speaking about library broadband planning and procurement.

Finally, Stephen informed the Board that the Ohio House's budget proposal reduces INFOhio's funding by about 42% from the current budget and the Governor's budget proposal. Most significantly for OPLIN, the House budget proposal removes the $500,000 that INFOhio currently contributes to the Ohio Web Library cost.

In regard to other office activities, Stephen highlighted presentations at Ohio Library Council Chapter Conferences and the SEO Directors Forum, and participation in the annual meeting of the LSTA Advisory Council.

8.1. Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky reported on recent improvements to the support.oplin.org and ohioweblibrary.org websites. Karl also reported that he had assisted with the turn-up of Internet service as the Dayton Metro Library's new data center, and that many changes were taking place to circuits in the CLEVNET area.

Karl also provided information about recent changes regarding the company that provides the intrusion protection for the OPLIN network, which he considers to be a positive development. In response to Board questions, he supplied technical information about the operation of the intrusion protection measures.

Karl reported on continuing growth of the SMS messaging service, the progress of the VoIP installation at the OPLIN office, re-purposing of OPLIN servers, and a thorough review of the network which resulted in some housekeeping changes.

8.2. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon reported that Braindunk has completed work on the website kits upgrades ahead of the schedule specified in their contract.

Laura also reminded the Board of discussion at the April meeting about "ads" for the databases which libraries could use in newsletters, etc., to promote the databases to patrons. Interestingly, she is finding that libraries are using the ads she has created as links to the databases on their library websites. Laura had not intended to build ads for all the databases, but if libraries start using them as website links, there should either be ads for all the databases, or ads should intentionally be built to "expire" after a period of time to discourage their use as website links.

While it is flattering that libraries prefer Laura's graphics to those supplied by vendors, the Board questioned how much work would be involved in creating ads for all the databases. Karl suggested placing the ads in the same location where OPLIN places links to databases for libraries to use, with a note that more ads can be created if there is demand.

8.3. Database usage and LCO statistics

Stephen Hedges reported that searches for the last two months are below normal, while document retrieval is up. Stephen noted that both searches and uses of LearningExpress Library are down significantly from last year, but the most likely cause of the change in overall statistics is a lower number of searches and a higher number of documents viewed in the EBSCO databases.

Stephen also distributed copies of the statistics handout he had provided at the State Library Board meeting when requesting LSTA funding. The effects of the EBSCO Discovery Service used by INFOhio and OhioLINK are quite obvious. The handout also included costs for each database and the contributions of each Libraries Connect Ohio partner toward those costs.

8.3.1 New Ohio Web Library page

In the interest of time, Stephen Hedges elected not to demonstrate the new Ohio Web Library access page that will debut in early July, but instead asked Board members to review the page at http://dev.ohioweblibrary.org and email him any comments or suggestions.

9. CHAIR'S REPORT

 

9.1. Resolutions

Vice-Chair Becky Schultz recognized Cindy Lombardo to offer the following resolution:

WHEREAS, DON BARLOW has been a member of the Board of the Ohio Public Library Information Network since June 2009, and WHEREAS, he has helped secure the success of OPLIN by freely giving his time and energy during SIX years of service, and WHEREAS, he has provided additional service as the Secretary of the OPLIN Board from July 2013 through June 2015, and WHEREAS, he has unfailingly contributed his valuable opinions to OPLIN Board and OPLIN Executive Committee deliberations, and WHEREAS, he has been a dedicated and active advocate for OPLIN throughout his tenure on the Board, and WHEREAS, his service as the Director of the Westerville Public Library gave him an important perspective on OPLIN and its services to libraries, NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that on the 12th day of June, Two Thousand and Fifteen, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Public Library Information Network recognize and acknowledge the considerable contributions made to public libraries and library service by DON BARLOW during his exemplary tenure with this Board, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board extends its most sincere thanks and appreciation to DON BARLOW for his critical volunteer service as a member of this Board.

Jamie Mason seconded the resolution. All aye.

Vice-Chair Becky Schultz recognized Michael Penrod to offer the following resolution:

WHEREAS, BEN CHINNI has been a member of the Board of the Ohio Public Library Information Network since June 2009, and WHEREAS, he has unselfishly given his time and efforts to ensure the advance of OPLIN by serving on the Board for SIX years, and WHEREAS, he has provided additional service as the Treasurer of the OPLIN Board from July 2013 through June 2015, and WHEREAS, he has reliably contributed his productive opinions to OPLIN Board and OPLIN Executive Committee discussions, and WHEREAS, his experience as a Trustee of the Euclid Public Library allowed him to share a distinctive outlook on OPLIN operations and services, and WHEREAS, he has been a steadfast guardian of OPLIN interests throughout his tenure on the Board, NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that on the 12th day of June, Two Thousand and Fifteen, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Public Library Information Network recognize and acknowledge the noteworthy contributions made to public libraries and library service by BEN CHINNI during his distinguished tenure with this Board, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Board extends its most sincere thanks and appreciation to BEN CHINNI for his vital volunteer service as a member of this Board.

Susan Brown seconded the resolution. All aye.

9.2. Director's evaluation

Susan Brown motioned to enter Executive Session to consider the compensation of a public employee; Michael Penrod seconded.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; Jamie Mason, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

The Vice-Chair invited Travis McAfee and Chris May to attend the Executive Session.

The Board entered Executive Session at 11:58 a.m.

The Board returned from Executive Session at 12:12 p.m.

10. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Don Barlow and second of Ben Chinni the Board adjourned at 12:13 p.m.

OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-NINTH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Annual Planning Meeting

Minutes — April 10, 2015

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred forty-ninth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, April 10, 2015 by Board Chair Jill Billman-Royer at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Marty Beets, Jill Billman-Royer, Susan Brown, Ben Chinni, Karen Davis, Joe Greenward, Cindy Lombardo, Michael Penrod, and Becky Schultz.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges, Laura Solomon, and Karl Jendretzky (OPLIN); Beverly Cain and Jamie Pardee (State Library); and Michelle Francis (Ohio Library Council).

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Susan Brown motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Don Barlow seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Chair called for public participation.

Beverly Cain reported on the most recent ILEAD (Innovative Librarians Explore, Apply and Discover) immersion program, with three teams of librarians working on technology-related projects, which Beverly described. This is the second ILEAD session that the State Library has supported.

Beverly also announced the upcoming State Library Board retreat in Akron, with Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) support of the "Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) in Ohio Planning Project" being a major agenda item. Beverly noted that federal funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which includes LSTA funding, is currently in jeopardy in Congress, though it still seems to have support in the Senate. Currently, $2.1 million of LSTA funds impact OPLIN, through the Libraries Connect Ohio requests for LSTA funds to purchase information databases and the LSTA funds for the Digitization Hubs. Beverly has prepared talking points regarding the importance of LSTA funds to Ohio; Stephen Hedges will email this document to the Board members.

After receiving congratulations on her new baby, Michelle Francis reminded the Board of upcoming Ohio Library Council (OLC) Chapter Conferences around the state, then provided an extensive report on the status of the Ohio biennial budget legislation. She reported that the House Finance Committee heard testimony on OLC's behalf from Tom Adkins of Garnet A Wilson Public Library of Pike County, who highlighted the need for an increase in the Public Library Fund (PLF) and described public library activities supporting workforce development. Three Representatives are now sponsoring an amendment to raise the PLF to 1.75% of the General Revenue Fund. The House substitute budget, including any accepted amendments, should be released in a few days. Michelle also shared information about the upcoming OLC Legislative Day.

Beverly Cain asked Michelle if she had heard anything recently about the status of Ohio Means Jobs, since many public libraries provide a link from their websites to the Ohio Means Jobs website. Michelle had no new information, but noted that legislators seem to be most interested in hearing about specific outcomes of public library support for workforce development.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of February 13 meeting

Karen Davis motioned to approve the minutes of the February 13 meeting as presented; Michael Penrod seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Jamie Pardee presented information about the current fiscal year budget as of March 31. Expenditures in all Administration accounts are on target for this time during the fiscal year. One large expenditure in the Support Services accounts is for part of the purchase cost of the system to combat denial of service attacks on the network; three invoices were submitted for different portions of the service, and the remaining balance of that encumbrance was paid after March 31. Jamie noted that the Office of Information Technology (OIT) now bills OPLIN for services quarterly, rather than monthly. Jamie also presented the actual and projected cash balance reports.

Jamie also informed the Board that the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has completed lease negotiations and come to an agreement with the landlord for a small increase in rent for the OPLIN office during the next biennium.

Michael Penrod noted that the actual and projected cash balances get smaller every year. Stephen Hedges explained that OPLIN received some additional E-rate funds one year resulting from an appeal to the Federal Communications Commission, and that has provided some fiscal leeway; otherwise, the continuing drain on the cash balances would be a concern.

Cindy Lombardo motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Don Barlow seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

6. REPORTS ON STATUS OF OPLIN SERVICES

Stephen Hedges proposed that the planning meeting begin with a review of the status of current OPLIN services.

6.1. Email

Stephen Hedges provided a brief description of the events which brought about the collapse of the OPLIN email service for library staff on Friday March 6, since detailed accounts of these events had already been published on the OPLIN website and distributed on the listservs, Facebook and Twitter. Essentially, the system suffered an unrecoverable breakdown, leaving only the possibility of starting a new OPLIN email service from scratch or notifying libraries that they would need to making arrangements for their own new email services, and Stephen judged that the most expeditious solution was to avoid the bureaucratic delays of establishing a new state-provided service and instead provide advice to libraries about quick replacement email services. As it happens, OPLIN staff are still waiting for state-provided email through OIT, and have been using personal email accounts for OPLIN business while waiting.

Jill Billman-Royer noted the difficulties faced in communicating with the libraries when the OPLIN email system was down, and Stephen shared feedback from one library that pointed out that they were also unable to communicate with OPLIN by telephone, since the office was closed over the weekend. Stephen cautioned that OPLIN should be wary of offering critical services, such as email, without any after-hours support. Don Barlow remarked that is had also been unwise to have a single point of failure for so many library email accounts.

Stephen reported that after he had decided not to pursue establishing a new email service, staff activities shifted to communications and remediation of the effects of the email demise. On Monday March 9, a forwarding server was set up and librarians who provided OPLIN with their old email address and a new address started receiving emails at their new address that had been sent to their old address. As of the Board meeting, about 1,400 librarians were using this forwarding service. OPLIN will probably use oplin.ohio.gov as the new email domain for staff email, so this forwarding server can operate without any conflict with the oplin.org email domain. On March 12, the Board Executive Committee agreed that this forwarding service could be provided indefinitely, so libraries would not immediately need to replace stationery and business cards with old email addresses printed on them.

Karl Jendretzky described the software he built to find and identify emails from the old system files and assign them to old email accounts. Once this software was built, it ran for three days to comb through all the files, after which librarians were able to login to a temporary server and download their old, unsorted emails that had been stored on the email server prior to March 6. This had been a major concern for many librarians, including OPLIN staff.

Cindy Lombardo asked about the response from libraries, and Stephen reported that a large majority of librarians had been very supportive, particularly those responsible for information technology in their libraries. Michael Penrod speculated that there may be more feedback at the Stakeholders Meeting this year. Jill Billman-Royer noted that all of the Board had received an email from one library trustee, to whom she had responded, and Stephen and Karl shared what they had already done to directly assist that library with setting up a new email service. Jill explained that trustees may not always know everything about a situation at their library, and she applauded this trustee for seeking information directly from OPLIN.

Michael Penrod asked other Board members if they had been contacted by anyone else about OPLIN email; several Board members reported receiving a telephone call from one librarian, and Michael reported receiving a call from a second librarian, but that seems to have been the extent of librarian communications with OPLIN Board members.

Marty Beets asked if libraries were using the free Outlook email service provided by Microsoft to educational entities, and Stephen answered that it was his impression that many of them had pursued that option. Regardless of the email replacement service libraries chose, Stephen noted that almost all of them would now have 24/7/365 support for their email. Jill thought it was important that libraries understand that the email forwarding service would not have after-hours support, and while it would be maintained indefinitely, it would not be maintained permanently. At some point in the future, the OPLIN Board will need to decide on an end date for the service and publish that information to the libraries.

The Board expressed their appreciation to the OPLIN staff for the work they did to ameliorate the effects of the email system collapse.

Michael Penrod asked how to respond if libraries asked how the SEO library consortium was able to offer their members email service so quickly. Stephen answered that SEO was using member fees to purchase outsourced email service, and thus were not obligated to follow procedures required of agencies spending state funds.

6.2. Server inventory

Stephen Hedges provided the Board with an inventory of OPLIN servers compiled by Karl Jendretzky. Many are too old to support modern operating systems, and a few are just being used for replacement parts. Replacing servers is difficult at the moment, because OIT prefers agencies to pay to use OIT servers rather than buying new equipment. Access to the current servers at the State of Ohio Computer Center, where OPLIN computers running services for the libraries are located, is increasingly restricted.

Stephen and Karl Jendretzky now reviewed the OPLIN services currently running on each server. They discussed the servers running Dynamic Website Kits and the possibility of hosting the kits through a company specializing in Drupal hosting, a hosting service not available through OIT.

Susan Brown noted that most of the meeting discussion so far highlighted the fact that many OPLIN services were dependent on Karl to keep them running and asked if there was a plan in the event that Karl was not available; Karl replied that OPLIN staff had diverse skills that allowed OPLIN to offer diverse services. Jill Billman-Royer remarked that this was a bigger problem than old equipment, and Cindy Lombardo noted that OPLIN did not have enough staff for succession planning. Michael Penrod expressed frustration with state policies that thwarted the ability of the OPLIN Board to acquire needed equipment and staff.

Stephen returned discussion to possibly moving the website kit hosting to a company specializing in hosting Drupal sites, to solve the current problems of aging servers and lack of after-hours support. Laura Solomon noted that there is one company that is clearly the best, but she has not yet received any pricing from them. Don Barlow asked about expected costs, and Stephen replied that it was possible the current annual maintenance fees charged to libraries would cover the cost of outsourced hosting. Jill Billman-Royer noted, however, that there would be no cost-recovery for the time Laura and Karl would still spend on the website kits, and OPLIN must recover all costs associated with the website kits service.

In response to a question about after-hours support, Stephen described the status of support for OPLIN services. All services are supported by the OPLIN Support Center from 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday. OPLIN pays OIT to provide after-hours support for the Internet connections, but no other OPLIN services are supported after hours.

Jill Billman-Royer expressed caution about describing OPLIN services as "unsupported." Marty Beets suggested that a better approach might be to publish Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for the OPLIN services that would specify response times.

Marty was concerned about the age of the OPLIN servers and asked for more details about outsourcing Drupal hosting. Stephen promised to bring more information to the June Board meeting about outsourcing some OPLIN services, and drafts of SLAs for other services.

The Board recessed at 10:56 a.m. and Michelle Francis left the meeting. The Board resumed meeting at 11:03 a.m.

6.3. Website kits

Laura Solomon provided an update on the progress of the website kit upgrades being done by Braindunk LLC, which ran into a few problems but seems likely to still finish on schedule. There are currently 72 libraries actively using website kits and four more are in development. Cindy Lombardo asked which library using a website kit is the largest; Laura replied that there are several county systems, with Clark County perhaps being the largest.

6.4. SMS notifications

Stephen Hedges shared a chart showing the steady growth rate of the SMS notification system since May 2012, as well as a case study about the OPLIN SMS service which was published by Trumpia, the company that actually handles sending the messages to cellphones.

6.5. Databases — outcomes of Content Advisory Committee meeting

Stephen Hedges reviewed the minutes of the Content Advisory Committee meeting on February 26. Much of the discussion at that meeting was about marketing the databases, and in particular they felt it was important that libraries present the databases as if they were provided by the local library, rather than by a statewide organization unfamiliar to the patron. Don Barlow speculated that this could possibly make OPLIN less visible to legislators, but generally the Board agreed that the databases were more likely to be used if they were presented on the local library's website.

The Committee also recommended that a network of people available to assist libraries in their area with use of the databases, similar to INFOhio's iCoaches, might be a good way to increase usage. Beverly Cain noted that the development of the iCoaches program was supported by federal LSTA funds.

In regard to additional resources the Committee would recommend purchasing if the opportunity arises, they suggested Lynda.com, auto repair guides, and language instruction resources.

The Committee also reviewed some proposed changes to the Ohio Web Library search page, and Stephen showed the Board some screenshots of the proposed new page incorporating some suggestions from the Committee and some suggestions from attendees at the OLC Northeast Chapter Conference. He also showed screenshots of the database pages on the websites of some libraries where Content Advisory Committee members work.

OPLIN staff will continue to work on preparing a new Ohio Web Library search page that will probably replace the current page sometime in June. Stephen invited Board members to send him comments and suggestions at any time.

6.6. Network connections

Stephen Hedges reported that once the current round of upgrades is complete, OPLIN will have only 13 circuits at less than 20 Mbps speed, 113 at 20 Mbps, six between 20 and 100 Mbps, 116 at 100 Mbps, two at 500 Mbps, five at 1 Gbps, and one at 2 Gbps. With this many large circuits in place, future semi-annual upgrade cycles should only involve a few libraries. The consolidated Internet access used by the libraries hovers around 4 Gbps at peak times.

Stephen noted that working with OIT has become more complex whenever OARnet is also involved in provisioning a circuit, and response to service requests can be very slow. He reported that OPLIN staff may choose a willing library from the next upgrade cycle and try connecting that library directly to the Internet through the telecommunications vendor, bypassing the state network. Total cost for a 20 Mbps circuit acquired this way would be about the same as a state network circuit, once OIT management fees are added to the state circuit cost.

Karl Jendretzky explained some arrangements that telecommunications vendors would have to make to allow OPLIN to monitor such a circuit. Karl also noted that OIT Security has recently been blocking websites they do not want state agencies accessing, but this also blocks access from public libraries, a problem that would not occur if the library was outside the state network.

Stephen and Karl also reported that they have heard indirectly that OARnet may want to place additional switching equipment in libraries. There was discussion of the increasing complexity of working with OIT and OARnet. At this point, not enough trustworthy information is available to make any policy decisions.

Cindy Lombardo asked how OPLIN staff project future bandwidth needs. Stephen replied that the annual Cisco Visual Networking Index has been a pretty accurate indicator of future library bandwidth needs. Karl noted, however, that bandwidth usage has not increased since late last fall, and he suspects it has been capped by OIT at 4 Gbps.

6.7. Network testing

Stephen Hedges reported that this service is still offered to libraries, and Karl Jendretzky said he probably works with two or three libraries each month on identifying internal network problems. In most cases, Karl is able to diagnose the network without any need to travel to the library.

6.8. OpenDNS (filtering)

Stephen Hedges reported that this service is working well, and there have been no significant increases in license costs.

6.9. Intrusion protection

Stephen Hedges reported that the final invoices for this new service have been paid and it appears to be working very well. There have been rumors that the vendor of the solution may change in the near future, but that should not affect operations.

6.10. Communications with librarians

Stephen Hedges related the importance of social media in communicating with librarians after the OPLIN email service failed. Jill Billman-Royer noted that libraries are getting very good at using social media. Stephen then noted that much of OPLIN's communication strategy is still dependent on old techniques, such as the annual Stakeholders Meeting and the quarterly online newsletter. Stephen feels that smaller and more frequent communication, using both email and social media, would be more effective.

Don Barlow suggested that an emailed e-newsletter would be more effective than an online newsletter in pdf format, and several other Board members agreed. There was also discussion of the difficulties for an organization like OPLIN in using Facebook effectively. Discussion returned to effective ways to distribute e-newsletters and what should be included in the content. Jill Billman-Royer suggested that a summary of Board meeting activities would be appropriate content; other Board members offered additional content suggestions. Board members also suggested that information could be sent to OLC for inclusion in their e-newsletters. Michael Penrod also cautioned that communications should inform libraries of OPLIN challenges, too, not just OPLIN successes.

Stephen asked if we should continue to do Stakeholders Meetings, and the Board felt it was particularly important to do a Stakeholders Meeting this year.

The Board recessed for lunch at 12:12 p.m. and resumed discussions at 1:00 p.m.

7. DISCUSS CHANGES TO STRATEGIC PLAN

Stephen Hedges noted that the Strategic Plan will need some significant revisions this year, so he proposed talking about general issues today and bringing a detailed revision to the June meeting for further discussion. He suggested re-thinking the ways OPLIN fulfills the mandate of the Ohio Revised Code. He also suggested that the Marketing goal in the current plan should be folded into each of the other goals, rather than standing as a separate goal.

Susan Brown asked about the frequent references to "OPLIN participants," and Stephen explained that this wording comes from the Ohio Revised Code. Board members felt that it was important to specifically name public libraries as the recipients of OPLIN services, even if this added more words to the plan.

Michael Penrod asked about OPLIN's support of digitization activities in public libraries, and Stephen agreed that this should be added to the plan. Michael suggested that this could be done simply by changing references to "databases" to "electronic information."

Cindy Lombardo suggested that "Technology Leadership" was actually "Technology Support." She also suggested that actual leadership in the broad field of library technology is probably beyond the capabilities of OPLIN, and several Board members agreed.

(Agenda Item 8 was "LUNCH")

9. OLD BUSINESS

9.1. Approve support for DPLA planning grant

Stephen Hedges briefly reminded the Board of previous discussion about supporting the "DPLA in Ohio" planning grant that would develop the application for Ohio to join the Digital Public Library of America. Stephen reported that Columbus Metropolitan Library has now written an LSTA grant proposal that will request $39,916 in federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds from the State Library Board at their April 17 meeting in Akron; these funds would cover most of the cost of the planning process.

Stephen shared some images of the DPLA website and explained that Ohio would join DPLA as a single service hub, requiring extensive collaboration between all interested parties in Ohio, including the four public library Digitization Hubs. The DPLA application program interface (API) would facilitate building various online collections of digitized materials. The organizations leading the effort to join DPLA have decided to apply for an LSTA grant, with Columbus Metropolitan Library acting as fiscal agent, to hire consultants to coordinate a planning process for creating the Ohio application for DPLA membership.

When the Board discussed this planning process at the February meeting, there was reluctance to taking responsibility for additional costs beyond what would be covered by LSTA funds, since those costs had not been defined. Stephen now presented a grant budget which would require $5,443 in local funds to cover additional costs associated with the final phase of the planning process, which would be development of the final application to DPLA. Stephen now asked the Board to approve providing $5,443 to cover the additional costs of the planning process.

Cindy Lombardo motioned to provide $5,443 in support of the DPLA in Ohio planning process; Susan Brown seconded.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; Becky Schultz, aye; and Jill Billman-Royer, aye.

9.2. Joint IT conference with OLC IT Division

Stephen Hedges reminded the Board of their previous discussion of a "TechFeis" social/sharing event for library Information Technology staff, and the Board's feeling that it would be better to combine such an event with some other IT workshop. Stephen reported that the Information Technology Division of OLC is planning to offer a one-day IT conference this fall for the first time in several years. Laura Solomon and Stephen met with most of the members of the IT Division and with OLC staff on March 12 to discuss the possibility of adding a social/sharing event the evening before the more formal IT conference.

The result of the discussion was a tentative plan for an event at the Holiday Inn Worthington that would start on the evening of Thursday, November 5, with an "icebreaker" social event, followed by a day of presentations in a more formal conference setting on November 6. Stephen shared a possible basic agenda for the icebreaker. The two days would be jointly sponsored by OPLIN and OLC, with OPLIN paying for room and equipment rental, which Lori Hensley from OLC estimates would cost about $750. Attendees would need to register through the OLC website; there would be no charge for the social event, but probably a $75 charge for OLC members for the formal event. People could register for one or both events.

Board members asked Laura Solomon if she thought this plan would meet her original goals for a social/sharing event, and she said it would.

Susan Brown motioned to accept the proposal for jointly sponsoring an IT event with OLC and to commit up to $750 toward allowable costs for such an event; Don Barlow seconded. There was no further discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

10. NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business to come before the Board.

11. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT (with database usage)

Stephen Hedges reported on State Library budget testimony on February 19, which was held at the Ohio History Connection instead of the Statehouse. Beverly Cain did an excellent job, both in her testimony and in her responses to the committee's numerous questions, which generally had less to do with the State Library and more to do with libraries in general, especially public libraries. Only one question dealt directly with OPLIN: Shouldn't at least some OPLIN funding come from the GRF, since the libraries are providing so much e-government access?

In regard to other office activities, Stephen highlighted the INFOhio Board Retreat, where he, Beverly Cain, and Gwen Evens (OhioLINK) presented information on Libraries Connect Ohio.

Stephen also reported on database usage. He has worked with EBSCO to determine the cause of the large increase in searches in January, and they think it probably came from a special link they provided to a library promoting Consumer Reports. He also noted that the documents totals in the report now include views of abstracts, a change that resulted from discussion with INFOhio and OhioLINK staff in the process of preparing the LCO request for LSTA funds.

Karen Davis asked if OPLIN should provide libraries with special links to particular databases for promotion, since that seems to have been so effective. Jill Billman-Royer also suggested that such "ads" for databases could be published via social media. Stephen thanked the Board for the suggestions.

12. CHAIR'S REPORT

 

12.1. Report from Nominations Committee

Chair Jill Billman-Royer requested a report from the ad-hoc Nominations Committee. Don Barlow briefly reviewed the nominations received, then explained the reasons the committee had decided to recommend Chris May, Deputy Director of Mansfield-Richland County Public Library, and Travis McAfee, Systems Administrator for the Way Public Library, to fill Board vacancies. Board members familiar with these individuals agreed that they would be good additions to the OPLIN Board.

The Chair called for a vote on the committee's recommendation; all aye.

Stephen Hedges will now take the recommendation to the State Library Board and ask that these two individuals be appointed to the OPLIN Board.

The Chair thanked the committee for their work.

12.2. Director's evaluation process

At the request of the Chair, Stephen Hedges provided an overview of the evaluation process used in the past and offered to make changes to the process if the Board so desires. The Chair asked Vice-Chair Becky Schultz to collect and collate the evaluations prior to the next meeting of the Board.

12.3. Executive Session to discuss discipline of a public employee

Michael Penrod motioned to enter Executive Session to discuss discipline of a public employee; Ben Chinni seconded.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; Becky Schultz, aye; and Jill Billman-Royer, aye.

The Board entered Executive Session at 1:43 p.m.

The Board returned from Executive Session at 1:56 p.m.

13. ETHICS TRAINING

Stephen Hedges proposed that the Board complete the annual Ethics training by watching training videos provided by the Ohio Ethics Commission. The Board can either watch a series of short videos together at the end of meetings, or individually watch a longer video and notify Stephen when they have received the certificate of completion. The Board collectively decided to watch the longer video individually.

14. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Don Barlow and second of Michael Penrod the Board adjourned at 2:00 p.m.

OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHTH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Minutes — February 13, 2015

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred forty-eighth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 13, 2015 by Board Chair Jill Billman-Royer at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Jill Billman-Royer, Susan Brown, Ben Chinni, Karen Davis, Joe Greenward, Jamie Mason, Michael Penrod, and Becky Schultz.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges, Laura Solomon, and Karl Jendretzky (OPLIN); Doug Evans (Ohio Library Council); and Jamie Pardee and Ann Watson (State Library).

Chair Jill Billman-Royer welcomed Ann Watson, the new Associate State Librarian for Library Services, and asked everyone to introduce themselves.

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Jamie Mason motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Michael Penrod seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Chair called for public participation.

Doug Evans provided an update on the Governor's proposed biennial budget and its possible impact on public library funding, but he cautioned that this will not be the final budget. Hearings on the budget are already underway in the House, with associated lobbying from interest groups.

Doug also reported that work on the federal Ebook Project has been paused pending an analysis of the new Congress' interest in the project. Doug also mentioned a number of upcoming Ohio Library Council (OLC) workshops and events, and thanked the OPLIN Board again for their support of the OLC Convention & Expo. He also announced that OLC Director of Government and Legal Services Michelle Francis recently gave birth to a new daughter.

In response to a question from Jamie Mason, Doug provided more details about the progress of the budget. Jamie Pardee noted that State Library staff and Stephen Hedges had a meeting with the Legislative Service Commission regarding the State Library's budget, and that testimony on that part of the budget has been scheduled before the House Finance Subcommittee on Higher Education. Michael Penrod asked if there were any changes in the proposed budget for the State Library and OPLIN, and Jamie reported that the proposed budget is essentially the same as the current budget.

Doug noted that the OLC Legislative Day is scheduled for April 28 and efforts will continue toward increasing the Public Library Fund (PLF) percentage to 2.2% of state tax revenue. The Office of Budget and Management is currently predicting an increase in tax revenue and the PLF under the Governor's proposed budget, but legislative changes to the budget could negate that increase.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of December 12 meeting

Karen Davis motioned to approve the minutes of the December 12 meeting as presented; Ben Chinni seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Jamie Pardee presented information about the current fiscal year budget as of January 31. A little more than half of the administrative budget has been disbursed, which is as expected. One large open encumbrance is being held for purchase of the system to combat denial of service attacks on the network. Jamie also presented the actual and projected cash balance reports.

Stephen Hedges noted that the amount budgeted for fees for Board financial disclosure statements may not all be needed if Board members file their statements before the deadline, since about half of the amount budgeted is held for late filing penalties.

Susan Brown motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Michael Penrod seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

6.1. Approve revised teleworking policy

Stephen Hedges reported that following Board action on revising the office teleworking policy at the last meeting, the resulting document was sent to the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) for review. DAS made a number of very good suggestions for improving the policy, which were reflected in documents Stephen provided to the Board. The intent of many of the changes was to clarify that teleworking is covered by the same employee policies as work performed at the OPLIN office, and to emphasize that OPLIN has the authority to offer or revoke teleworking arrangements at any time. DAS has already issued a letter of approval for the version of the policy incorporating their changes, and Stephen now asked the Board to grant their approval of the revised policy.

Stephen also noted that since the wording changes did not affect the original intentions of the Board, a roll call vote was probably not necessary.

Jamie Mason motioned that the revised teleworking policy with the recommended wording changes from the Department of Administrative Services be approved as presented; Karen Davis seconded. There was no further discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

7. NEW BUSINESS

7.1. Discuss possible OPLIN TechFeis

Stephen Hedges reported that OPLIN staff have discussed the idea of an annual social event for library IT staff in late spring or early summer that would provide some of the informal information sharing opportunities once provided by the TechConnections conferences. He has talked to Lori Hensley at the Ohio Library Council, who confirmed that the OLC IT Division does plan to do a formal event for library IT staff later this year — their first event in several years — but a spring social event would not affect their plans, and in fact they would probably be interested in knowing what topics were discussed at any such event. So far, the idea has been developed to the point that Stephen proposes an afternoon social event taking place for two hours at an Irish pub, calling the event TechFeis. ("Feis" is Gaelic for "festival".) The venue for such an event would need good parking and would also need to be within walking distance of good hotel space.

Jamie Mason questioned the two-hour timeframe as possibly too short, particularly if library directors are going to be asked to allow their IT staff to travel to the event. The Board in general agreed that informal meetings in a social setting were valuable sources of information, but suggested that an agenda would make it easier to initiate the sharing of information.

Karl Jendretzky admitted that he was not convinced that an afternoon event would work, and suggested the event could be held in the evening after a more formal conference. Doug Evans noted that there had been similar discussion in the OLC office, particularly in regard to the possibility of holding the social event in conjunction with the IT Division's fall workshop.

General discussion ensued about the timing of the event and ways to reduce the likelihood of attendees driving afterwards. Several Board members suggested that the event could be held the evening before the IT Division workshop, so attendees would have a good reason to stay overnight. Stephen will work with Lori Hensley to see if that can be arranged and will report back to the Board.

7.2. Approve support for DPLA planning grant

Stephen Hedges provided information about the new application process that the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has started. One desired outcome of the Digitization Hubs project is placing materials in the DPLA. DPLA can only handle one content "feed" per state, however, so many of the interested organizations in Ohio have started working on submitting a coordinated application for Ohio DPLA membership. After several meetings, these organizations have decided to apply for a grant, with Columbus Metropolitan Library acting as fiscal agent, to hire consultants to coordinate a planning process for creating the application. The State Library has indicated that about $40,000 of federal LSTA funds could be available for such a grant, which would probably cover the cost of the consultants themselves, but no additional costs, such as travel costs for a DPLA representative to travel to Ohio and assist with the process. Stephen asked if the Board would be interested in covering such costs, probably less than $10,000.

In response to questions, Stephen reported that these particular federal LSTA funds would not require matching local funds. There were also questions about the exact nature of some of the additional costs; Stephen replied that the planning process would probably be similar to the process that created OPLIN, with at least one large meeting to bring all interested parties together, and some of the additional costs would arise from that.

The Board was not comfortable with taking responsibility for just the additional costs, due to the nature of those costs, and discussed some other possible ways to provide financial support for the planning process. Stephen will work with the interested parties to find some other way to structure the grant funding, and may return to the Board with a more specific request for funding.

7.3. Approve support for Ohio History Day

Stephen Hedges provided a copy of correspondence with the Ohio History Connection regarding sponsoring a Special Award for student participants in Ohio History Day. Organizations usually set their own parameters for awards and those parameters usually support the organization's mission, so they suggested a monetary award of $100-$250 for the student who made the best use of the Ohio Web Library databases in their project. Stephen noted that almost 7,000 students across Ohio participate in this program each year, and the OPLIN Policy on Sponsorship of Events Planned by Others lists "awareness and usage of any kind related to OPLIN-provided databases" as an area eligible for OPLIN sponsorship.

Ben Chinni motioned that OPLIN sponsor an Ohio History Day award in an amount not to exceed $250; Jamie Mason seconded.

Susan Brown asked if OPLIN would develop the criteria for the award, and Stephen answered that he would do that. Jill Billman-Royer suggested that Stephen inquire if it would be possible to split the funds into two or more awards. The Board also asked Stephen to make sure no OPLIN Board family members received an award.

There was no further discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

8. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges noted that there were not many other significant events to report during the holiday season, but he did report on reaction at the ETM meeting in Lancaster to his question about interest in OPLIN building or providing Summer Reading Program software for libraries, a discussion item at the Board's December meeting. Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library, one of the ETM members, reported that they have been working on building their own Summer Reading Program software that they intend to share with other libraries. Stephen offered OPLIN's help to Heights Library should they ever want it.

In regard to other office activities, Stephen highlighted the data security hearing he attended before the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee, an OPLIN-sponsored webinar on Managed Wireless, and presentations about OPLIN given to the State Library Board and the CLEVNET library directors. Stephen, Jamie Pardee, and Ann Watson also commented on the Legislative Service Commission meeting about the State Library Budget.

8.1. Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky provided a chart showing the increase in usage of the SMS notification system since 2012; the system is currently sending about 50,000 messages a month to library patrons. Karl reported that CLEVNET is considering using the system, which would add about 500 messages a day.

Karl also reported on a new hardware component for the OPLIN core router that would allow transmission of 10 gigabits per second. Over 110 circuits were upgraded and moved to new connections at the core in January.

Karl has also been revising OPLIN logos into vector art and rebuilding some OPLIN websites on a Bootstrap framework, for better response on mobile devices. Stephen noted that this work, as well as some other marketing that Laura has been working on, is being undertaken in preparation for the twentieth anniversary on June 30 of the original OPLIN enabling legislation.

8.2. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon shared a summary of the scoring of the bids received in response to the Request for Proposals for re-theming of the website kits as they are upgraded to Drupal 7. OPLIN has contracted with Braindunk LLC to do this work and Laura has been working with them for about three weeks; she described the re-theming process.

Laura has now been able to work on OPLIN marketing, starting with some re-branding of OPLIN services, so they could be marketed as individual products. The target date for the re-branding is the June anniversary of OPLIN.

8.3. Database usage

Stephen Hedges reported that the January EBSCO statistics have a drastic increase in searches, which is clearly an error, but to date he has not been able to trace the problem. He also reported that LearningExpress is now including Workforce Skills usage statistics within the regular LearningExpress statistics.

9. CHAIR'S REPORT

 

9.1. Board nominations committee

Chair Jill Billman-Royer appointed Don Barlow, Ben Chinni, and Jamie Mason to the ad-hoc Nominations Committee. She charged the committee with working with the OPLIN Director to solicit nominations for the OPLIN Board, after which the committee will review the nominations and recommend two candidates to the full Board at the April Planning Meeting. The committee will also prepare a slate of officer candidates for consideration by the Board at the August election of Board officers.

9.2. Discuss April Planning Meeting

At the request of Jill Billman-Royer, Stephen Hedges provided an overview of the agenda and procedures for the Board's April 10 Planning Meeting,

10. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Jamie Mason and second of Susan Brown the Board adjourned at 11:37 a.m.

OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVENTH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Minutes — December 12, 2014

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred forty-seventh meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, December 12, 2014 by Board Vice-Chair Becky Schultz at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Marty Beets, Susan Brown, Ben Chinni, Karen Davis, Joe Greenward, Cindy Lombardo, and Becky Schultz.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges, Laura Solomon, and Karl Jendretzky (OPLIN); Doug Evans (Ohio Library Council); and Jamie Pardee (State Library).

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Susan Brown motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Cindy Lombardo seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Vice-Chair called for public participation.

Doug Evans shared information about a Congressional Roundtable regarding e-books that the Ohio Library Council (OLC) hosted at the OCLC offices in Dublin on October 22. Local Congressmen Pat Tiberi and Steve Stivers attended and learned about library lending of e-books. The Ohio Legislature has also passed SCR22, asking Congress to ensure public access to e-books through public libraries.

The Ohio legislature is also discussing a sales tax holiday which could reduce the Public Library Fund by about $1 million per year. The legislature also came to agreement on re-districting reform. Doug explained that funds which the legislature allocated to townships was actually a re-purposing of funds that had been intended for grants to townships and not any indication that the legislature was increasing any local government funding.

Doug also distributed a graphic of the new OLC Strategic Plan draft and invited comments.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of October 10 meeting

Don Barlow motioned to approve the minutes of the October 10 meeting as presented; Ben Chinni seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Jamie Pardee presented information about the current fiscal year budget, which looks as expected about half way through the year. The listed Office of Information Technology (OIT) charges are much lower than usual, because a change from monthly to quarterly billing introduced errors that have not yet been corrected by OIT. Stephen Hedges noted that OIT also changed some of the OPLIN global charges to charges assigned to specific libraries, which caused some initial confusion. He also reported that it appears as if total OIT charges will be reduced by about $3,000 per month, due to a decrease in bandwidth cost beginning July 1. Jamie then presented the actual and projected cash balance reports.

Stephen reported that OPLIN has just received word that their office building is under new management, which may affect the negotiations that the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) is about to begin for the next biennium lease.

Karen Davis motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Susan Brown seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business to come before the Board.

7. NEW BUSINESS

7.1. Approve maintenance credit for nineteen website kits

Stephen Hedges presented a list of nineteen (19) website kits customers who had been more severely affected by a Drupal security problem than the other website kit customers. Drupal released a critical security patch for Drupal version 7 late on October 15, then two weeks later announced that any website that had not been patched overnight had likely been compromised and would need to be completely rebuilt from backups done prior to their announcement. Laura Solomon did indeed detect evidence of intrusion in the Drupal 7 sites she had patched, so she and Karl Jendretzky worked with the libraries to make copies of all content they had added to their websites in the previous two weeks, and then rebuilt the sites from backups done early on October 15.

For the nineteen libraries under discussion, however, the October 15 backups were unusable, so those libraries had to recreate everything they had done on their websites since August 15, the date of the last usable backups. The backup system has now been repaired, but Stephen suggested that OPLIN also provide a year of free website maintenance and hosting to these libraries as compensation for the extra work they were required to do.

Don Barlow motioned to approve a year of free website maintenance and hosting to nineteen libraries as suggested; Cindy Lombardo seconded.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

Stephen Hedges noted that none of the Board members present were employed by any of the nineteen libraries.

7.2. Approve RFP for outsourced Drupal theming

Stephen Hedges reported that Laura Solomon has been working on upgrading Drupal version 6 website kits to Drupal version 7 kits, which takes about a week for each library's kit. There are still thirty library website kits that need this upgrade, but Stephen proposed that it would be better to use Laura's talents on other projects and outsource the re-theming portion of the upgrade work, which is the part that requires the extended time commitment.

Stephen presented a draft Request for Proposals to perform the re-theming work and asked for Board approval, also noting that acceptance of any proposal would be much easier and faster under state procedures if the amount was under $25,000. Laura Solomon provided a more complete description of the work involved with the upgrades and the portion that would be outsourced. Jamie Pardee noted that such work, which would require specialized skills, was not available through any existing state contracts or IT Staff Augmentation through DAS.

Don Barlow motioned to approve release of the proposed RFP and give the OPLIN Director the authority to review proposals and enter into a contract for re-theming of thirty library website kits, as long as the cost did not exceed $25,000; Ben Chinni seconded.

During discussion, it was noted that outsourcing this one project allowed for more efficient use of OPLIN staff resources. In response to a question, Stephen clarified that the proposals would be reviewed by OPLIN staff. Stephen also noted that he hoped the work would already be underway by the Board's next meeting in February, since the contract end date had to be June 30, 2015, the end of the budget biennium.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

7.3. Approve State Library personnel policies, work rules, and payroll forms

Stephen Hedges called attention to the wording of Ohio Revised Code Section 3375.66(A)(5)(a), which states that the State Library shall prepare and process payroll and other personnel documents "that the board approves." While OPLIN has followed State Library personnel policies and procedures since it was created, the Board has not approved any of those policies since this language was added to the Revised Code in 2008. Stephen suggested that it might be wise to approve all existing payroll and personnel documents, which were distributed to the Board prior to the meeting.

Susan Brown noted that the Code language could be interpreted in more than one way, and Stephen agreed. Stephen also noted that the payroll document for recording work hours was restrictive when used by OPLIN, since it does not provide a place to log evening work hours. Several Board members noted that OPLIN staff are salaried, and questioned the practice of requiring a "time sheet" from salaried staff; this led to extensive discussion of how pay, leave and overtime is calculated for OPLIN staff.

Cindy Lombardo motioned that the Board direct the State Library and the OPLIN Director to make changes to the time log sheet to accommodate evening hours, and that the Board ratify the revised time log sheet and all existing State Library payroll and personnel documents for use by OPLIN staff; Susan Brown seconded.

During discussion, Jamie Pardee clarified that OPLIN staff are categorized as "overtime exempt" and are therefore expected to log 80 hours of work and/or leave in each two-week pay period.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, abstain; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

The motion passed with one abstention.

7.4. Approve revised 2008 teleworking policy for re-submission

Stephen Hedges explained that the State Library is writing a new teleworking policy; however, the OPLIN Board already approved a teleworking policy for OPLIN staff early in 2008 and sent it to DAS for approval, but never got a response from DAS. After discussing the situation with the State Library, agreement was reached that in this case, rather than following any State Library teleworking policy, it would be best to bring the 2008 OPLIN policy up to date and re-submit it, alongside the State Library policy, for DAS approval. He presented a new version of the policy with minor revisions for Board approval. Cindy Lombardo suggested a grammatical correction to clarify the meaning of one sentence.

Don Barlow motioned to approve the revised teleworking policy with the correction; Karen Davis seconded.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

7.5. Discuss Summer Reading Program software

Stephen Hedges shared an email he had received asking if OPLIN would be interested in hosting ReadingRecord software for libraries; ReadingRecord is an open source web-based application for libraries to track Summer Reading Program participants. Stephen pointed out that the Summer Reading Program is coordinated by the State Library, but OPLIN could work with the State Library on hosting this software if the State Library had any interest.

Board members were skeptical as to how much interest there would be among public libraries, since ReadingRecord would not replace all of the functionality of the popular Evanced products. Doug Evans suggested that feedback on this idea could be collected at the upcoming mid-sized library directors meeting, and Stephen agreed.

7.6. Approve expenditure for network protection solution

Stephen Hedges pointed out that acquisition of a network protection solution had already been approved at the last meeting, but he only recently received three quotes from vendors and decided to take the opportunity to again get Board approval, now that the costs were known. Since the quotes are from State Term Schedule vendors, no bid process is necessary.

Karl Jendretzky reported that he has been able to test the solution for several weeks and is very pleased with the performance. Both Stephen and Karl again cautioned that the solution would not completely stop a very large and sustained attack, but seems to handle "normal" attacks with no problem.

Karen Davis motioned to approve the expenditure for a network protection solution; Marty Beets seconded.

Karl Jendretzky explained the procedure for completing the implementation of the solution.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Cindy Lombardo, aye; and Becky Schultz, aye.

7.7. Approve 2015 OLC Convention sponsorship

Stephen Hedges noted that this request arrived after the draft meeting agenda had been distributed to the Board. The Ohio Library Council requests OPLIN Platinum Sponsorship of the Wi-Fi at the 2015 OLC Convention in Cincinnati. Stephen reviewed the history of OPLIN sponsorship of OLC conventions; OPLIN was most recently a $10,000 Platinum sponsor of the 2014 Convention, covering the cost of the Wi-Fi.

Susan Brown motioned to sponsor the 2015 OLC Convention in Cincinnati at the $10,000 Platinum level; Cindy Lombardo seconded.

Doug Evans informed the Board that the 2016 convention would once again be at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, where Wi-Fi is provided at no additional charge.

There was no further discussion of the motion, so the Vice-Chair called for a vote; all aye.

Doug Evans thanked the Board for their support. Stephen Hedges noted that OPLIN receives not only widespread recognition for its support, but also free exposition booth space, space for the Stakeholders Meeting, and space for the OPLIN Board meeting.

8. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges reported on contact between several Ohio organizations involved in digitization, including the Digitization Hubs, and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). DPLA wants all Ohio to work together and coordinate one connection to the DPLA. DPLA has just inaugurated an application process, so efforts are underway to organize a meeting of interested Ohio groups. He also shared his experiences as a panelist on a webinar sponsored by the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) on broadband in American libraries. Finally, he reported on the progress of the E-rate workshops for libraries conducted by Lorrie Germann.

Stephen noted that he is interested in also providing a webinar for libraries on managed Wi-Fi, a point of emphasis in the new E-rate funding rules and a good way to gather valuable data, but he is reluctant to ask a commercial vendor to do such an informational webinar. He has, however, been in touch with a non-profit that supports managed Wi-Fi in schools, and asked how the Board would feel about sponsoring a webinar done by such a group. The Board felt this would be appropriate only so long as the content of the webinar focused on information rather than a promotion of the group's services.

Regarding OPLIN office activities, Stephen highlighted Laura's online speaking engagements with a University of Illinois class and the Napa County (California) Library, his presentation to the Library Administrators Discussion Group, and his attendance at the final Connect Ohio Technology Association meeting.

8.1. Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky reported that he and the OPLIN Support Center entered 140 orders in late November for upgrades to library circuits, meaning there are now about 180 active orders in process. Some of those orders are delayed by communication problems between the vendors, OIT, and OARnet. Karl also reported that some libraries have expressed interest in acquiring VoIP telephone service through the State, but OIT and OARnet have not agreed on how to implement the service within the OPLIN network.

Karl provided a status report on some other OPLIN services. A few new customers have recently requested OpenDNS service, bringing the total to about 100. He has been doing some work to optimize the SMS gateway, in anticipation of a large new customer; year-to-date, about half a million text messages have been sent to patrons through the gateway.

Karl has also been improving some in-house systems. The backup procedures have been revised following the problem encountered with the Drupal backups. The ticketing system used by OPLIN Support to track issues has been rebuilt.

Finally, Karl noted that peak core bandwidth use to the Internet is now just over 4 Gbps, with 10 Gbps available. He already has plans for upgrading the 10 Gbps connection, though that probably will not be needed for at least a year.

8.2. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon had nothing further to report beyond what had already been discussed earlier in the meeting.

8.3. Database usage

Stephen Hedges reported that database usage continues to total about 20% less than last year. He paticipated in a discussion at the State Library about encouraging libraries to use database discovery services in their online catalogs; to the best of his knowledge only 26 libraries currently subscribe to such a service. Stephen also noted that he will be doing programs about the Ohio Web Library at all but one of the OLC Chapter Conferences next spring.

9. VICE-CHAIR'S REPORT

The Vice-Chair reminded the Board that the next meeting will be held on Friday, February 13 at the OPLIN office.

Doug Evans shared breaking news from the legislature, which had just passed the sales tax holiday bill, now estimated to reduce the Public Library Fund by about $500,000 next fall. OLC will be doing a webinar on legislative advocacy on January 20.

10. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Cindy Lombardo and second of Ben Chinni the Board adjourned at 11:48 a.m.

OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIXTH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Minutes — October 10, 2014

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred forty-sixth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, October 10, 2014 by Board Chair Jill Billman-Royer at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Marty Beets, Jill Billman-Royer, Susan Brown, Karen Davis, Joe Greenward, Jamie Mason, Michael Penrod, and Becky Schultz.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges and Laura Solomon (OPLIN); and Jamie Pardee (State Library).

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Susan Brown motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Don Barlow seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Chair called for public participation, and there was none. Stephen Hedges noted that Doug Evans (Ohio Library Council) intended to visit the meeting briefly before it ended to offer remarks. The Chair will also allow public participation at that time.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of August 8 meeting

Don Barlow motioned to approve the minutes of the August 8 meeting as presented; Jamie Mason seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Jamie Pardee reported on the completed Fiscal Year 2014 finances and the beginning of FY 2015 finances, which are on track to be generally the same. Regarding the Revenue/Cash Balance report, Jamie noted that the timing of E-rate reimbursements affects the balance on hand on June 30, but she currently anticipates a balance of slightly more that $1.1 million on June 30, 2015. Jamie also reported that the formal budget proposal for FY 2016-17 was submitted to the Office of Budget and Management the previous Wednesday.

Karen Davis motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Susan Brown seconded. There was no discussion, so the Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

6.1. Reconsideration of attack protection device

Stephen Hedges reminded the Board of discussion during the April planning meeting about the possibility of purchasing a device to keep library servers from being compromised by Internet intruders and used as part of a network launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on other targets. At that time, it was decided that good firewalls should be able to handle the problem.

Since then, there have been several instances of DDoS attacks in which a library was the target, overwhelming the library's Internet connection and knocking them offline. Stephen provided details to the Board, and reported that OPLIN and Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff believe that a Juniper DDoS protection device would work well with OPLIN's Juniper core router. Stephen also shared a vendor quote for such a device in an appropriate size.

Although the device can protect routers, it is primarily intended to protect web servers, and OPLIN website servers are also beginning to be targeted by aggressive probes for vulnerabilities. The device monitors Internet traffic to learn what is typical, and then takes action to limit traffic that is atypical when an attack occurs. As a byproduct of this monitoring, it provides detailed network statistics. Stephen noted, however, that an attack of sufficient size and duration can exceed the capacity of a protection device, and that it is possible that one of the recent attacks may not have been stopped by this particular device.

Marty Beets commented that he has some experience dealing with DDoS attacks in a previous private-sector job, and it is difficult. Jamie Mason asked if the device could stop probes and malware, but Stephen replied that the device is triggered by the amount of traffic on a circuit, not the type of traffic.

Doug Evans joined the meeting at 10:20.

There was also general agreement that action should be taken quickly, and that we cannot wait for the capital budget process to provide funds for a protection device. In response to questions, Jamie Pardee noted that OPLIN currently happens to have a fairly large reserve of funds that could be used for this purchase. Stephen suggested that OPLIN could also purchase a one-year license for now and work on a capital budget request for a long-term license later, but the Board felt this would end up being more expensive in the long run.

Jamie Mason motioned to authorize the director to spend up to $216,606 to acquire a denial of service attack protection device with perpetual license for the OPLIN network; Don Barlow seconded.

Susan Brown asked if OPLIN had broadcast any information about the attacks to the library community; it was generally agreed that it would not be wise to publish too many details of the attacks and our responses, but OPLIN should let the library community known that protection measures are being taken.

Don Barlow asked what the upgrade path to a larger device in the future might be. Susan Brown asked what would happen with the licensing in the event of an upgrade. Stephen will put these questions to the vendor.

The Chair called for a vote on the motion.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Joe Greenward, aye; Jamie Mason, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; Becky Schultz, aye; and Jill Billman-Royer, aye.

The Chair recognized Doug Evans, Ohio Library Council, for Public Participation.

Doug Evans thanked the Board for supporting the OLC Convention as the Platinum Sponsor, noting that he had received good comments about the wi-fi access OPLIN sponsored. The e-book video OPLIN supported, part of the eBook Access For All campaign, is previewing throughout the convention and will be sent out to libraries for their own use next week. OLC is hosting a meeting on October 22 with US Representatives Tiberi, Stivers and Beatty, and digital content will be one of the topics discussed.

Doug Evans left the meeting at 10:32.

6.2. Discuss Ohio Web Library marketing: survey results and comments, and OLC Chapters program proposal

Stephen Hedges presented the results of a just-completed survey of librarians regarding their use of the ohioweblibrary.org search and general Internet search engines. There were 362 responses to the fifteen questions, and 58 additional comments. Stephen noted that 50% of respondents do not use ohioweblibrary.org, and 21% were not familiar with the Ohio Web Library.

Frequent responses indicated that many librarians use their library's portal to the statewide databases and prefer searching within individual databases rather than using a federated search. Several Board members noted that reflects their experiences in their libraries, too. Respondents who use ohioweblibrary.org rated it better than general search engines for accuracy and trustworthiness, but almost half felt that general search engines have improved in the past few years.

Stephen noted that it makes little difference how librarians get to the statewide databases, so long as they know about them and know they are purchased by Libraries Connect Ohio. He has submitted a program proposal, "An exploration of ohioweblibrary.org," to all the OLC chapters for possible inclusion in their spring conferences.

7. NEW BUSINESS

7.1. Discuss support for Hayes Ohio Obituary Index

Stephen Hedges described email correspondence from Becky Hill, Head Librarian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont. The Hayes Center is in the midst of redeveloping their entire website, including the Ohio Obituary Index, and wants to know if OPLIN would make a monetary contribution toward that cost in return for acknowledgement on the new website. The Index has already been incorporated into Ancestry Library Edition; when Ancestry users search for a name, they might get results from the Index, and clicking on those results takes them to the Index search results page, where they can either order a copy of the obituary from Hayes (if Hayes has it) or be directed to a Hayes partner library that holds the obituary. A similar arrangement is being offered with Ohio Web Library, or perhaps even better; Ancestry just gets periodic updates, so they never have the complete current index file.

There was no apparent interest from the Board in such an arrangement. Don Barlow pointed out that any such arrangement would involve sending public library funds to a non-public library. Stephen noted that the Index is now included in the genealogy sources on the ohioweblibrary.org resources page, which could result in increased traffic to the Index and possible increased revenue from the sale of obituaries.

7.2. Approve building and hosting an Ohio public library digital collections database

Stephen Hedges reported on a meeting with Lisa Long from the Ohio History Connection (OHC) regarding OPLIN's building and hosting a website for finding digital collections in Ohio public libraries. Lisa is working on a Library Leadership project that would include such a searchable directory, and liked the way the OPLIN Find-A-Library site functions. After further consideration, Lisa and OPLIN staff agree that a combination of the Find-A-Library interface and the ExploreOhio interface could be adapted for use in this project, assuming Lisa and her team are responsible for developing the specifications of the database that would support the search interface.

While Stephen noted that OPLIN's portion of the project could be completed in a few days, he also has cautioned Lisa that once the directory expands beyond Ohio public libraries, a different arrangement would need to be made for hosting the database.

The consensus of the Board was that this would be a valuable project, and OPLIN could build and host the database website so long as the data is limited to Ohio public libraries.

8. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges provided an update on the activities of the Digitization Hubs, listing meetings since the last OPLIN Board meeting. The Hubs project communicates closely with the Ohio Digitization Interest Group, and has had conversations with the Digital Public Library of America, so a wide variety of digitizing organizations are aware of the project and interested.

Stephen announced that the presentation slides from the OPLIN Stakeholders Meeting at the OLC Convention have been posted to slideshare.net/OPLIN. He also highlighted Laura Solomon's service as a member of the OLC Convention Program Committee.

8.1. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon reported that there are now 74 library website kit customers, and she has had inquiries from one additional library. The upgrades from Drupal version 6 to version 7 are progressing at a rate of about one per week, with 34 upgrades remaining. Drupal version 8 has been released in beta, but she does not expect it to be stable for a couple of years.

8.2. Database usage

Stephen Hedges reported that after working with EBSCO staff to develop a multi-step process to remove federated search statistics from the database usage statistics, he is including search statistics again in his report to the Board, and has used the new procedures to revise statistics over the last two years. He feels the usage charts now look more "normal." Nevertheless, they still reflect a gradual but constant decline in the usage of the Ohio Web Library databases. Considered together with the survey results he presented earlier in the meeting, Stephen thinks the databases may be a major point of discussion at next April's Board planning meeting.

9. CHAIR'S REPORT

The Chair had nothing to bring to the Board's attention at this time.

10. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Jamie Mason and second of Susan Brown the Board adjourned at 11:10 a.m.

OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY INFORMATION NETWORK (OPLIN)
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FIFTH REGULAR MEETING of the BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Minutes — August 8, 2014

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred forty-fifth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:01 a.m. on Friday, August 8, 2014 by outgoing Board Chair Karen Davis at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Marty Beets, Jill Billman-Royer, Susan Brown, Ben Chinni, Karen Davis, Michael Penrod, and Becky Schultz. Jamie Mason arrived at 10:15.

Also present were: Stephen Hedges, Laura Solomon and Karl Jendretzky (OPLIN); Jamie Pardee (State Library); and Doug Evans (Ohio Library Council).

Karen Davis congratulated Don Barlow on his selection as the Ohio Library Council 2014 Hall of Fame Librarian, and Jamie Mason on his appointment as Interim Director of Rocky River Public Library.

2. NOMINATION and ELECTION OF BOARD OFFICERS

Karen Davis informed the Board that the Executive Committee had met by phone on June 23 and now submitted a slate of Board officer candidates consisting of Jill Billman-Royer for Chair, Becky Schultz for Vice-Chair, Don Barlow for Secretary, and Ben Chinni for Treasurer. Karen asked if there were any additional nominations from the floor; there were none.

Karen Davis requested approval of the slate of Board officers submitted by the Executive Committee. All aye.

3. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Don Barlow motioned to approve the agenda as presented; Susan Brown seconded. There was no discussion, so Jill Billman-Royer called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

3. ESTABLISH BOARD MEETING SCHEDULE for FY2015

Jill Billman-Royer asked for a motion to approve the following schedule of Board meetings. All meetings except the April all-day planning meeting will begin at 10:00 AM and end about 12:00 PM. Meetings will be held at the OPLIN office, 2323 W. Fifth Ave., Suite 130, Columbus unless otherwise noted.

• August 8, 2014
• October 10, 2014 (at Columbus Convention Center)
• December 12, 2014
• February 13, 2015
• April 10, 2015, 9:00 AM (planning meeting)
• June 12, 2015
• August 14, 2015 (pending approval by the FY2016 Board)
• October 9, 2015 (pending approval by the FY2016 Board)

Karen Davis motioned to approve the proposed Board meeting schedule; Becky Schultz seconded. There was no discussion, so Jill Billman-Royer called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

5. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Jill Billman-Royer called for public participation.

Doug Evans provided an update on the Ohio Library Council's (OLC) federal ebook project, "eBook Access for All," and the public awareness campaign supported by OPLIN. Doug shared the news that Macmillan has agreed to license their frontlist ebooks to libraries, the last of the major publishers to do so. The public awareness campaign already had a video and a website almost ready to inform the public of the ebook availability problem for libraries; now a new ending for the video will be created to shift the message to informing people that they can get ebooks at libraries. While pricing and licensing terms are still problems, and advocacy efforts will continue in Washington, these are not issues to motivate the general public.

Doug also reported on preparations to lobby the state government to return Public Library Fund (PLF) contributions to 2.22% of general state tax revenues. Information documents for legislators are almost ready, and Doug shared some of the library usage statistics from those documents. Michelle Francis has had good meetings with the legislators likely to be in House and Senate leadership positions next year. Doug also shared results of the recent elections for the OLC Board of Trustees.

6. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of June 13 meeting

Susan Brown motioned to approve the minutes as presented; Becky Schultz seconded. There was no discussion, so Jill Billman-Royer called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

7. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Don Barlow motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Karen Davis seconded.

Jamie Pardee reported on the completed Fiscal Year 2014 finances, and on the FY2015 budget, which should differ little from FY2014. Regarding the Revenue/Cash Balance report, Jamie noted that some significant E-rate reimbursements arrived after the close of FY2014, so E-rate revenue will look unusually small in FY2014, but unusually large in FY2015.

Jill Billman-Royer called for a vote on the motion to accept the Financial Reports; all aye.

8. OLD BUSINESS

Stephen Hedges first took a moment to thank Karen Davis for her service as Board Chair over the past year, and noted that he had enjoyed working with her.

8.1. Report on the website kit workloads

Stephen Hedges reminded the Board of discussion at the previous meeting about the possibility of limiting the number of website kit customers, because it seemed that upgrades to existing kits' software were beginning to take all of Laura Solomon's time. There had also been discussion of the possibility of using some outside help with kit maintenance tasks.

Laura Solomon reported that on the newer website servers, she can now use an automated tool to handle Drupal security upgrades, which will save a lot of time. Some of the current website servers will need to be upgraded, however, before this tool can be implemented. As for migrating websites to newer versions of Drupal, she is no longer asking libraries if they want to make changes to their sites while she is doing the migrations. While doing changes concurrently with a migration seems like a good way to encourage improving websites, the extra work involved slows the migration process too much. These two process changes have improved Laura's work flow considerably.

Stephen also noted that OPLIN is no longer posting announcements when new websites go into production, which seems to have reduced demand. Jill Billman-Royer felt that OPLIN should be making such announcements to let libraries know what we are doing; the announcements could omit any type of recruitment of additional website kit customers. The rest of the Board was in agreement, so Laura will resume making these announcements.

Laura reported that there are now 73 website kits in use, and 42 of those still need to be upgraded to a newer version of Drupal.

8.2. Discuss marketing and focus groups

Stephen Hedges provided a document for discussion regarding marketing the Ohio Web Library, following discussion of this same topic at the last Board meeting, and discussion among OPLIN staff since that meeting. He proposed that the marketing goal was to make sure librarians know about these resources that are partially purchased with PLF money. OPLIN collects a significant amount of anonymous data about how the ohioweblibrary.org website is currently used, and it is clear that resources of personal interest to people are used much more often than general research resources; for example, Ancestry Library Edition accounts for over 50% of all items from the Ohio Web Library viewed in public libraries.

Stephen noted that the ohioweblibrary.org search site has been modified to improve the responses to some of the more common searches, but he speculated that the site might still be changed to highlight resources of personal interest to users, which would be a legitimate marketing activity. He also proposed that the best target for any Ohio Web Library promotions would be librarians. Stephen provided information about a 2001 professional campaign to market the "OPLIN databases" to the general public, which did not have the desired results. Finally, he noted that libraries seemed to prefer public promotional materials to which they can add their own branding.

Susan Brown asked if OPLIN had any data to indicate how many librarians were aware of the Ohio Web Library. Discussion turned to methods to gather such data, ranging from focus groups to surveys of librarians. Don Barlow noted that linking to Ohio Web Library from library homepages, something that is a standard feature of all website kits, would help increase awareness. Michael Penrod noted that it can be difficult to get small libraries to participate in either a survey or a focus group. Susan speculated that a good place to find librarians for focus groups would be at the OLC Annual Convention in October. Jamie Mason pointed out that the Chapter Conferences next spring might be a better venue, and there was general agreement and discussion of how best to do that.

Stephen will plan on doing a survey within the next couple of months, and will submit a proposal to the Chapter Conferences for a program that will gather librarian reactions and suggestions regarding the Ohio Web Library.

9. NEW BUSINESS — none

10. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges reported on two recent meetings with Ohio Means Jobs (OMJ), starting with discussions between OMJ and Libraries Connect Ohio (LCO) about LearningExpress Library (LEL) subscriptions. All of the content of LEL is available from OMJ through their contract with Monster.com. Because the OMJ site is much more useful for job seekers and students than the LCO subscription to LEL alone, LCO will encourage everyone to use ohiomeansjobs.com instead. The second meeting included Beverly Cain and laid the groundwork for OMJ training librarians on the resources available at their website.

Stephen also called attention to the recent FCC order modernizing the E-rate program. These major changes mean that the wait for a new Form 470 has delayed our usual schedule for requesting upgraded services for libraries. They also will necessitate much more E-rate training for libraries, so Lorrie Germann will be doing her Form 470 and Form 471 workshops at both the State Library and the regional library offices this year. Doug Evans has also offered the use of OLC's webinar capabilities to deliver the Form 470 workshop to a limited number of desktop computers.

Regarding OPLIN office activities, Stephen highlighted Karl Jendretzky's trips to libraries for network troubleshooting, Stephen's visit to the Columbus Driving Park branch library opening, and a presentation about the Digitization Hubs to the Ohio Digitization Interest Group meeting at Columbus Metropolitan Library.

10.1. Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky reported on the many library circuit changes in the past two months, due either to upgraded bandwidth or moving them to a new 10 Gbps Time Warner Cable interface at our network core. He also reported that the new 100 Mbps circuit upgrades have exposed a considerable number of network problems within libraries, occupying a lot of his time. Karl also noted that Cleveland Public Library (and CLEVNET) will soon be the first circuit to exceed 1 Gbps, and he has identified some good hardware that will be needed to handle that large a circuit. Total aggregated OPLIN bandwidth at the network core now exceeds 4 Gbps. Many of the new upgrades involve OARnet as well as the vendor, which can create complexities that cause problems for a while.

Regarding the text-messaging service for library notifications, Karl reported that usage is still growing by about 25% a year. Use of the OPLIN OpenDNS filtering system remains consistent.

10.2. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon had nothing further to add to the information discussed earlier under Old Business.

10.3. Database usage

Stephen Hedges reported that as of July 1, he is not including search totals in the data provided to the Board. With the increasing number of discovery layer integrations between library catalogs and databases, as well as federated searches like ohioweblibrary.org, it has come to the point where the large majority of searches are initiated by a computer, not by a patron. That being the case, Stephen feels that search statistics have become meaningless clutter. The database usage statistics for July 2014 now simply show that 382,504 items were accessed by Ohio Web Library users, which is a 1% decrease from July 2013.

The Board had no objections to this change.

11. CHAIR'S REPORT

 

11.1. At-large appointment to Executive Committee

Chair Jill Billman-Royer appointed Karen Davis to the at-large position on the Executive Committee.

12. EXECUTIVE SESSION

Jill Billman-Royer motioned to enter executive session to discuss the compensation of an employee as permitted by O.R.C. 121.22(G)(1), and invited Stephen Hedges and Jamie Pardee to attend the session; Don Barlow seconded.

Recorded vote: Don Barlow, aye; Marty Beets, aye; Susan Brown, aye; Ben Chinni, aye; Karen Davis, aye; Jamie Mason, aye; Michael Penrod, aye; Becky Schultz, aye; and Jill Billman-Royer, aye.

The Board entered executive session at 11:20 a.m.

The Board returned from executive session at 11:36 a.m.

13. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Jamie Mason and second of Susan Brown the Board adjourned at 11:36 a.m.