December 10, 2010 Minutes

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

Minutes—December 10,
2010

1.
WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred twenty-third
meeting of the Ohio Public Library
Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at
10:00 a.m. on Friday, December 10, 2010 by Board Chair Sandi
Plymire at the State Library of Ohio in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members:
Don Barlow, Gary Branson, Jason Buydos, Ben Chinni, Karl Colón, Karen
Davis, Jamie
Mason, and Sandi Plymire. Bonnie Mathies joined the meeting at 10:11
and Jeff Wale joined the meeting at 10:20.

Also present were: Stephen
Hedges, Karl Jendretzky, and Laura Solomon (OPLIN); Diane Fink and
David Namiotka (State Library); and Doug Evans (Ohio
Library Council).

2.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Sandi Plymire requested approval of the meeting agenda.

Jason Buydos motioned to
approve the agenda as presented; Jamie Mason seconded. All aye.

3.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

The Chair recognized Doug Evans.

Doug reported that OLC has been actively making contact with new
administration officials as they are appointed by governor-elect
Kasich. OLC continues to hear many rumors about changes which may be
coming in the new administration, but has not been able to confirm that
any changes have yet been discussed regarding public libraries. He
noted that tax revenues are currently running ahead of predictions, but
it is unknown what effect that may have on the next biennium budget. He
asked that Board members share any rumors or information they
might hear.

Don Barlow asked if there were any developments in the East Cleveland
Public Library effort to join with the Cuyahoga County Public Library;
Doug had nothing new to report in that regard. He did report, however,
that OLC has used an LSTA grant to engage Driscoll and Fleeter to
provide information to the State Library task force investigating
issues related to library mergers and consolidations.

4.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
of October 8 Meeting

Don Barlow motioned to
approve the minutes of the October 8 meeting; Jason Buydos
seconded. All aye.

5.
ACCEPTANCE OF THE
FINANCIAL REPORTS

Diane Fink presented the Financial Reports as of November
30, 2010.

Report A showed the
budget and expenditures at the end of Fiscal Year 2010 and Fiscal Year
2011 through November 30. Two FY 2010 purchase orders had small
balances that were canceled as of November 30, the last day FY 2010
purchase orders could remain open. The total "available
balance" of $469,507 for FY 2010 actually represents the unused portion
of OPLIN's $2
million spending authority for potential non-state income. Diane noted
that one large
purchase order to the Office of Information Technology (OIT) for the
new Juniper routers is awaiting an invoice; these funds are available
from the last capital budget. OPLIN has another request for funds in
the current capital budget, but it is unknown when the legislature will
consider this budget.

Moving to the FY 2011 budget, Diane noted the expenditure for new
desktop computers to replace 7-year-old staff computers. She reported
that all fiscal year
funds going toward purchase of the information databases has been
distributed to Wright State University, and eTech
Ohio has been paid for E-Rate services and workshops. Diane pointed out
that no payments had yet been made to OIT as of November 30, but OPLIN
has since started to receive OIT invoices. She also noted that all the
filtering assistance grants approved at the last Board meeting have
been disbursed, with the exception of one library that requested a
delay until January 1.

Report B showed the
revenue and cash balances for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. The $1.3
million cash balance at the end of FY 2010 rolled over to FY 2011.
Shortly after the beginning of FY 2011 a transfer of $3.7 million was
made from the Public Library Fund (PLF) to OPLIN, and additional
revenue has been received
from E-Rate reimbursements and web services for libraries. The cash balance
as of November 30 was a little more than $2.8 million.

Diane
also reviewed the FY 2012-13 budget request that was submitted to the
Office of Budget and Management (OBM) on November 1.
She mentioned the payroll
budgeting increase in FY 2012, when an extra pay cycle falls
within the fiscal year; the total budget request, however, is the same
as the current OPLIN budget. As funding recommendations are developed
by the Governor, the House, and the Senate, they will be added to the
report. Regarding future cash flow projections, Diane noted that OPLIN
should receive about $1 million in E-Rate reimbursements from 2005,
following approval of an appeal to the Federal Communications
Commission. If all spending authority is used, the projected cash
balance at the end of FY 2013 will be about $100,000.

After the OPLIN budget request was submitted to OBM on November 1,
as part of the State Library budget, it underwent a technical review by
OBM staff, then OBM requested additional copies to forward to
the legislature and governor-elect. An IT Plan was a
required component of the budget request; David Namiotka assisted in
the preparation of this plan. On December 1, OBM publicly released all
agency budget requests. OBM also requested and received a
brief summary of the State Library budget request, organizational
structure, and services for the governor-elect. Diane noted that the State Library and
OPLIN should be able to retain all staff at the requested budget level;
however, the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has also encouraged
all unclassified staff to submit their resumes to the governor-elect's
fixohionow.com website.

Stephen Hedges called attention to the ever-decreasing cash balance
at the end of each fiscal year, with a projected balance of only
$100,000 at the end of the next biennium, and noted that this will need
to be a topic of discussion at the April Board retreat.

Gary Branson motioned to
accept the Financial Reports; Karen Davis seconded. All aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

6.1. Second round of Internet filtering
assistance grants

Stephen Hedges presented the applications
received from libraries for the second round of filtering grants. The
first round of grants was awarded at the last Board meeting, to help
libraries with the cost of installing new Internet content filters or
upgrading existing filters. This second round of grants will also
include renewal costs for existing filters. Forty-four (44) libraries
applied in the second round, bringing the total for both rounds to
fifty-three (53). (One library submitted separate applications in both
rounds.) $53,395.89 of the original $81,000 earmark is still available
after first-round awards; the total of the second-round requests,
however, was $79,313.09.
Because of the big difference between demand for assistance and
available funds, Stephen aggressively restricted his recommendations to
costs that are clearly for content filtering, removing requests for
funds to support server maintenance or security firewalls. Despite this
editing of the requests and the $4,500 maximum award per library
system, there are still three library systems (with relatively large
revenues) that would not receive any assistance in response to their
request; libraries with smaller total revenue receive a higher priority
for funding.

Stephen recommended that
the following requests, totaling $53,395.89, be funded:

Stephen explained his reasoning for the requests not recommended for
funding. In the case of Galion Public Library Association, Stephen has
asked them to supply a vendor quote to complete their application; if
this quote is not forthcoming, their grant would not be awarded. Any
funds left over after award adjustments would be put toward the request
from Warren-Trumbull County Public Library, which was for $4,500.

Jeff Wale motioned to
approve the recommended filtering assistance grants as presented; Gary Branson seconded.

Roll call: Don Barlow, abstain; Gary Branson, aye; Jason Buydos, aye;
Ben Chinni, aye; Karl Colón, abstain; Karen
Davis, aye; Jamie Mason, aye; Bonnie Mathies, abstain; Jeff Wale, aye;
and
Sandi Plymire, aye.

Jeff Wale suggested that in future OPLIN should investigate the
possibility of installing a central filtering solution, rather than
distributing grants. Stephen and Karl Jendretzky briefly explained why
they have previously not been able to find an acceptable central
filter, but agreed to investigate again.

6.2. Gayle Patton resolution

Stephen Hedges noted that he had neglected to prepare a resolution
honoring Gayle Patton at her last Board meeting, and now proposed that
the following resolution be approved and read into the minutes:

Karl Colón motioned to
approve the resolution and place it into the minutes as read; Jason
Buydos seconded. All aye.

7.
NEW BUSINESS

There was no new business to come before the Board.

8.
OPLIN DIRECTOR'S
REPORT

Stephen Hedges reported that OPLIN has finally received E-Rate
funding
commitments for the current year (July 2010-June 2011). Along with the
regular Priority 1
funding for telecommunications and Internet access, OPLIN also received
some Priority 2 funding for eight new routers for libraries that
average 85% discount. Approval of the remaining routers OPLIN requested
(at 80% discount) and approval for maintenance agreements for all the
new routers is still pending, so this purchase will probably be delayed
until next spring. Lorrie Germann from eTech has hosted the first of
two E-Rate
workshops (on the Form 470) for libraries. Because there are so many
changes this year, as a result of
the FCC's recently-released Sixth Order, the normal E-Rate process will
be delayed for a few weeks, and Lorrie is consequently going to do the
second workshop (on the Form 471) in January instead of December.
Meanwhile, the OPLIN office is collecting the Letters of Agency and
Forms 479 which we must have from all OPLIN participants in order to
apply for discounts on the services provided to them. Unlike previous
years, OPLIN is no
longer bound to purchase telecommunications services from contracts
negotiated by OIT, so OPLIN released
an RFP to accompany our Form 470 to provide a detailed
description of our needs to inform this year's expanded potential field
of bidders.

Stephen has submitted the October OPLIN biannual report to the
Governor and legislative leadership, and posted a copy on the OPLIN
website. In the cover letter, he proposed to supply this report on
demand, rather than on a biannual schedule, starting in the next
biennium. To date, none of the recipients of the report has
asked to continue receiving the biannual report instead of on-demand
reports. Changes to the OPLIN budget language submitted by the State
Library would put the proposed change into law.

On November 30, Stephen attended a day-long brainstorming retreat
hosted by Horizon
Telcom, one of the major recipients of ARRA funding for broadband
middle-mile fiber installs, to look ahead to broadband development in
southeastern Ohio after the ARRA projects are complete. The meeting
included a wide range of representatives from schools, colleges,
hospitals, local governments, development agencies, and business
people. Most
attendees agreed that some form of loose organization should continue
after the ARRA projects in order to facilitate communication between
all the broadband stakeholders, and to minimize duplicative projects.

Looking at the calendar of OPLIN office activities, Stephen
highlighted his visits to the SEO office in Caldwell and the Pike
County library's Appreciation Day, Karl Jendretzky's trips to review
the networks at the Cincinnati and the Lane libraries, and Laura
Solomon's presentation to the Medina County library staff on Veteran's
Day. He also mentioned a visit to the OPLIN office by Tim Rogers,
Executive Director of North Carolina's NC LIVE consortium, and a
Libraries Connect Ohio presentation to the INFOhio board.

Don Barlow asked if the OLC Government Relations Committee had any
reaction to the proposed OPLIN budget continuing to come from the PLF.
Stephen answered that he had conveyed this information both to the
committee and to the OLC Board, and there was very little reaction from
either group.

Bonnie Mathies asked if Stephen had any information to share about
possible changes to OhioLINK. Stephen reported that Jeff Trzeciak did
not take the position of OhioLINK Executive Director as was expected,
so John Magill will continue as Interim Director until the end of the
fiscal year and David Penniman has been hired to assist with
operations; other than that he had no information.

8.1.
Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky reported that the SMS messaging system is now
handling almost 2,000 messages per week, and he calculates that it
could handle as many as 13,000 messages a day. Two-way messaging is
also now possible.

Karl has installed a new ticketing system for the OPLIN Support
Center, with more capabilities than the old system. The new system will
also allow OPLIN to shut down the last servers still running Windows
server software. Karl Colón asked how much OPLIN still pays in software
licensing fees, and Karl estimated that cost is now about $2,000
per year.

Karl also reported that about 30 circuit upgrades are currently in
process, which is normal. More total bandwidth is now available at the
OPLIN core for use by libraries, with total usage approaching 1.5 Gbps.
Karl is finding that the larger circuits at metro libraries are raising
some unexpected issues, because some local network equipment
(particularly firewalls) may not have the correct capabilities or
configuration to properly handle circuits larger than 100 Mbps. OPLIN
works with library staff to identify such problems. Karl also noted
that a pending circuit upgrade to Pickerington Public Library will test
a possible new network topology for the Central Library Consortium.

Finally, Karl reported that the Barracuda spam filtering device has
processed about 80 million e-mails over the last two years, blocking
about 90% as spam.

8.2. Library Services
Manager report

Laura Solomon reported that almost all website kit development was
put on hold in November so she could upgrade all kits from Drupal version 5 to
Drupal 6. Five libraries have received training on using their
new website kits, so they should be going into production soon, and three
more library website kits are now under construction. Laura has been
working on implementing an alpha-version Drupal module developed at
Worthington Libraries that integrates the Evanced event scheduling
software into Drupal; this will enable libraries that use Evanced to
manage their events in one place, rather than having to update their
website manually. Similarly, she and Stephen have met with staff from
BookLetters about smoother integration of BookLetters content into
website kits for those libraries that subscribe to BookLetters.

8.3. Database usage

Stephen Hedges presented statistics of
database usage. The number of searches each month continues to
fluctuate, but document retrievals are still gradually increasing and
will soon reach half a million per month. Amie McReynolds recently
developed a brochure regarding the shortcut links OPLIN provides to
access the databases, such as "ohioweblibrary.org/tests," which are
easy to communicate to library users. One library suggested using the
Ohio Web Library business cards to write down shortcuts for library
users, and this suggestion has resulted in renewed demand for the cards.

11.
CHAIR'S REPORT

Sandi Plymire had nothing to report.

12. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Jason Buydos
the Board adjourned at 11:12.