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.