December 8, 2023

Minutes —December 8, 2023

The one hundred ninety-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 8, 2023 by Board Vice Chair Roger
Donaldson at the OPLIN office in Columbus, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Ben Bolbach, Michael Butler, Roger Donaldson, Holly Richards, Sue
Schuld, CJ Stephens, and Meredith Wickham.

Also present were: Jessica Dooley, Christine Morris, and Don Yarman (OPLIN); Michelle Francis and Jay
Smith (Ohio Library Council); and Shazad Bakhsh and Collins Onyia (Toledo-Lucas County Public
Library).

Attending virtually : OPLIN Board members Travis Bautz, Bill Lane,
Jennifer Reynard,; Laura Solomon (OPLIN); Jamie Pardee and John Stewart (State Library).

Holly Richards moved to approve the agenda as presented; Ben Bolbach seconded. There was no
discussion, so the Vice Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

The Vice Chair called for public participation.

From OLC, Jay Smith reported that the legislative session will wrap up Wednesday, December 13,
emphasizing movement on proposals for property tax relief and on virtual meetings. The December PLF
amounts were just released; the calendar year PLF was at $510 million, higher than calendar year 2022.
Michelle Francis outlined OLC events, thanking the OPLIN Board for their support of the OLC
Convention and Expo. There will not be an OLC Convention in 2024 as the Public Library Association
will hold their biannual conference in Columbus April 3-5; OLC is coordinating “front end events” to
showcase Ohio libraries. OLC is helping public libraries prepare for the solar eclipse April 8. OLC is
doing a webinar with Broadband Ohio December 18 about new broadband coverage maps and the
challenge process.

John Stewart reported that State Librarian Wendy Knapp is on medical leave until early January. John and
the State Library management team are splitting Wendy’s duties between them for the time being.

Sue Schuld moved to approve the minutes of the August 11, 2023 meeting as presented; CJ Stephens
seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

Jamie Pardee reviewed the financial reports, noting that they are dated October 31 as November business
has not been closed. Expenses are on target for the year, with roughly $2.7 million spent and $2.7 million
remaining. $500,000 remains to spent on Information Resources, the second installment of OPLIN’s
contribution of $1 million to the statewide databases. Pardee said that, should the Board approve the
request for additional OPLIN funds for the Northstar subscription later in the agenda, there are sufficient
reserve funds to cover that expense.Yarman added that he will be filing for E-rate reimbursements for
circuit expenses for the first half of the funding year in January. He included a projected budget for
FY2025 for planning purposes, in particular to determine what funds may be available for continuing to
license continuous learning resources when the current LinkedIn Learning agreement ends.

Meredith Wickham moved to accept the financial reports; Michael Butler seconded. There was no
discussion, so the Vice Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

Northstar Renewal
Last year, when the State Library Board approved LSTA funds to license Northstar Digital Literacy
statewide, they requested that OPLIN explore a partnership for continued funding, rather than relying
completely on federal funds. Due to the timing of State Library Board meetings, OPLIN did not have the
proposed renewal pricing before the end of the subscription on September 30. On December 7, the State
Library Board awarded $45,600 in LSTA funds to pay for the 114 library systems that are currently “live”
on the Northstar platform ($400 per site), with the understanding that OPLIN, as the administrator of the
project, would cover the remaining $13,900 in subscription costs ($100 each for the library locations that
are set up but not activated on the platform). Yarman asked the Board to add this $13,900 to OPLIN’s
Information Resources budget to cover the expense.

Ben Bolbach asked whether OPLIN had reached out to the “dormant” libraries to discover their reasons
for not participating and providing the resource. Yarman said they hadn’t yet, explaining that Northstar
was originally introduced to libraries in 2021, just as they were emerging from the stresses of pandemic
closures and the radical changes in their services; many were too overwhelmed to think about adding a
new service. This initial Northstar launch was the primary focus of Christine Morris’s job responsibilities
for the first year of her employment, and the major focus of her second year was learning about E-rate and
guiding the five-year selection of the statewide databases collection. With that done, Morris can put more
energy into marketing Northstar to libraries. Morris added that she was planning to reenergize her
Northstar messaging over the next year, as she found success recently in Steubenville by showing staff
how Northstar supports the digital support work liCJ Stephens suggested OPLIN ask libraries whether they will ever go live on Northstar, possibly reducing subscription costs by dropping those locations. Yarman said he thought it was important that all Ohioans have access to the resources, regardless of whether a particular library is actively supporting it, and it might be better to look at where, geographically, Ohioans are unserved, and identify another library or organization that can actively support those patrons. Ben Bolbach asked whether it was possible to move the renewal date away from the awkward October 1 start. Yarman said it is difficult, when federal funds are involved, to straddle the federal fiscal year deadline, but he is actively looking for funding outside of LSTA. There have been promising discussions with Broadband Ohio about funding access to the resource for multiple years.brary staff are already providing. Getting libraries on Northstar, she said, is largely a question of talking to the right person at the right time.

CJ Stephens suggested OPLIN ask libraries whether they will ever go live on Northstar, possibly reducing
subscription costs by dropping those locations. Yarman said he thought it was important that all Ohioans
have access to the resources, regardless of whether a particular library is actively supporting it, and it
might be better to look at where, geographically, Ohioans are unserved, and identify another library or
organization that can actively support those patrons. Ben Bolbach asked whether it was possible to move
the renewal date away from the awkward October 1 start. Yarman said it is difficult, when federal funds
are involved, to straddle the federal fiscal year deadline, but he is actively looking for funding outside of
LSTA. There have been promising discussions with Broadband Ohio about funding access to the resource
for multiple years.

Ben Bolbach moved to add $13,900 to OPLIN’s Information Resources budget to pay that portion of the
Northstar renewal; Sue Schuld seconded. There was no discussion, so the Vice Chair called for a voice
vote on the motion.
Recorded vote: Ben Bolbach, aye; Michael Butler, aye; Roger Donaldson, aye; CJ Stephens, aye; Holly
Richards, aye; Sue Schuld, aye; Meredith Wickham, aye.

E-List Guidelines
Yarman reviewed how an old OPLIN policy setting out guidelines for posting on OPLIN-hosted listservs
was eliminated in 2016, with the intention to instead post those guidelines on the list server. That never
happened. Yarman asked the Board to review the guidelines, suggest changes if necessary, and endorse
them for posting on the OPLIN listservs website. Bolbach suggested adding the following to the line
above the last paragraph under “E-list Guidelines: “Repeated violations of list guidelines may result in
permanent removal from the list.”

Meredith Wickham moved to endorse the guidelines with the suggested change; Ben Bolbach seconded.
There was no discussion, so the Vice Chair called for a vote on the motion; all aye.

OPLIN Director's Report
Yarman outlined the history of OPLIN’s statewide subscription to LinkedIn Learning resources,
beginning when OPLIN had cash reserves exceeding $3 million and needed to spend reserves down to
about one million. Julie Palmer, who was Ohio’s Lynda.com sales representative and has served as
OPLIN’s account rep with LinkedIn, resigned in November. Her replacement has not yet been selected,
but Yarman and Morris met with Palmer’s supervisor and next-level manager on December 1 to discuss
where negotiations stand. OPLIN clarified for them the difference between OPLIN’s own database
contracts vs the statewide contracts negotiated with OhioLINK, INFOhio, and the State Library (Libraries
Connect Ohio). LinkedIn had the misunderstanding that because their bid for shared, statewide access
wasn’t accepted that negotiations were at an end. Yarman explained that it wasn’t, but he did understand
that the pricing they had proposed was their target, and OPLIN staff were aware of LinkedIn’s goals to
standardize statewide pricing. (Ohio’s price, LinkedIn maintains, is 50% off list price.) LinkedIn will
revisit pricing and give OPLIN something to consider before the February Board meeting. The end of the
current contract is June 30, 2004.

Yarman described how the OPLIN core at the SOCC is composed of modular components including
routing engines, modular port concentrators, line cards and transceivers. Some of these components will
need replacing as bandwidth utilization increases. The routing engines will reach end-of-support in 2026,
and will need to be replaced. Yarman was planning to request capital funds to cover the costs of new
components, but the State Library’s budget analyst confirmed that the request is too small to meet
required capital thresholds. He has discussed OPLIN’s future hardware needs with Broadband oplinOhio
staff, and will work with them to explore whether they can provide funding for the new components
necessary to meet increasing library capacity requirements for the next decade.

The State Library Board approved the nomination of Jenny Eyink to fill the remainder of Travis Bautz’s
term on the OPLIN Board. Eyink is the fiscal officer for Auglaize County Libraries and the Coldwater
Public Library, and deputy fiscal officer for Mercer County District Library. Her appointment starts
January 1.

Yarman also reported that he has been in discussions with OhioLINK leadership to discuss the future of
statewide resource sharing. With OhioLINK about to migrate to a new integrated library system, Ohio
libraries are poised for a big upheaval in the current state of materials sharing, particularly with the public
library participants in SearchOhio. Historically, OPLIN was originally created to lead public library
resource sharing efforts in Ohio, but the original mission to “ensure equity of access to information”
became “ensure equity of access to digital information” when OPLIN was later established in Ohio
Revised Code. Yarman doesn’t think managing statewide resource sharing is a project OPLIN “owns”
going forward, but he and other OPLIN staff have been involved over the years in such projects, and
they’re eager to help libraries organize themselves to map their way to the next generation of sharing and
cooperation.

Digital Resources Manager’s Report
Morris mentioned that OPLIN’s support has enabled some libraries that had become frustrated with the
ECF process to receive their funding before the funding windows closed. Board members shared their
experiences with ECF, and frustration with some of the hotspot vendors and with patrons not returning
equipment, a time-intensive process for staff to manage. Most libraries get hotspots back quickly after
turning off access, but there are more problems with getting laptops returned. Sue Schuld reported that
Medina County’s 120 hotspots used 4.11 terabytes of data in six months, so the patron need persists.
Morris will follow-up with Schuld, because stories like that will be helpful as the FCC considers whether
to continue funding library hotspot lending programs.

Morris also said that libraries submitted about fifty branch locations for the omnibus 470 this year, and
that her preliminary proposal for IMLS funding for E-rate State Coordinators has been submitted,
awaiting a potential invitation for her to submit a full proposal.

Library Services Manager’s Report
With Evanced discontinuing support of its program calendar and registration products, Solomon has been
assisting libraries with their moves to a new solution. Evanced subscriptions are expiring on a rolling
basis; final end-of-life is June 2024. The Drupal 10 migration, a project that monopolized much of
Solomon’s time in 2023, is complete. Solomon is now working on new Webkit layouts based on
comprehensive themes that will make the service more sustainable and less modular moving forward.

Technology Projects Manager’s Report
As circuits expire, OPLIN is ordering new circuits with 1 Gb or greater capacity, so larger trunks are
needed at the OPLIN Core, and Dooley has been working with OPLIN’s providers to increase capacity,
including a new 20 Gb LAG (Link Aggregation Group) between CLEVNET’s core in OPLIN’s CoLocation space and Spectrum's trunk. The parallel connections ensure high availability as one link can
be unplugged while the rest remain connected during the transition.

As part of the implementation of their new firewall, the SEO consortium has been encouraging their
libraries to move database authentication away from direct vendor connections to the SEO database and
onto OPLIN’s Mask authentication. Derek Zoladz has been working with SEO staff to assist. Zoladz has
also added programming in Mask to work with Koha’s API, boosting the capability for those libraries
(Cuyahoga County, Athens County, and Westlake).

Dooley discussed the Ohio Persistent Cyber Improvement Program (O-PCI), a CISA-funded program to
the state of Ohio to raise cybersecurity awareness within state and local government. The program will
develop in-state, custom training tailored to be useful for all levels of government employees, including
administrators, decision makers, IT staff, and frontline customer service employees. The training is
organized by county (not communities of interest, such as “libraries”) so training will be coordinated
through county commissioners or county administrators. All government entities are encouraged to show
their interest and OPLIN will be talking about this frequently to encourage public libraries to participate.

Donaldson had nothing to report.

With no other business pending, the Vice Chair adjourned the meeting at 11:13 a.m.