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

Minutes — October 11, 2013

1. WELCOME and CALL TO ORDER

The one hundred fortieth meeting of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) Board of Trustees was called to order at 10:07 a.m. on Friday, October 11, 2013 by Board Chair Karen Davis at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio.

Present were Board members: Don Barlow, Jill Billman-Royer, Susan Brown, Karen Davis, Joe Greenward, Jamie Mason, Michael Penrod, Sandi Plymire, and Becky Schultz. (Ben Chinni arrived at the resort but was unable to walk the distance to the meeting room.)

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

2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Jamie Mason motioned to approve the agenda as presented, but allow the Chair to suspend the rules and accept public participation at any time during the meeting; Susan Brown seconded. All aye.

3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Karen Davis called for public participation.

Doug Evans updated the Board on the progress of the Ohio Library Council (OLC) "Federal Ebook Project" to ease restrictions on library lending of ebooks. Doug thanked OPLIN for financial support of the project and talked about drafted federal and state legislation. Legal research has been completed, so remaining OPLIN funds will be used to develop a public awareness campaign. Doug reported on lobbying activities, supported by other funds, which are encouraging; he expects major developments after the first of the year. Doug also reported on the search committee to find a new OLC Director of Government and Legal Services, following Lynda Murray's forthcoming retirement.

Stephen Hedges asked that OPLIN be notified of any plans to recognize Lynda Murray's retirement, since she has been so supportive of OPLIN from its very beginning.

Beverly Cain reported that the Ohio eBook Project and the SEO Digital Catalog will be combined to create the new Ohio Digital Library, involving 179 public libraries, on November 7. Beverly also reported on Ashlee Tominey's departure from the State Library and Evan Struble's promotion to her position.

Karen Davis introduced Michael Penrod, attending his first meeting as a new Board member.

4. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES of August 9 meeting

Karen Davis requested approval of the minutes of the August 9 Board meeting.

Jill Billman-Royer motioned to approve the minutes as presented; Sandi Plymire seconded. All aye.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF THE FINANCIAL REPORTS

Jamie Pardee presented the Financial Reports as of September 30; Report A covered fiscal years 2012 and 2013 for reference; Report B covered FYs 2014 and 2015; and Report C summarized actual and anticipated cash flow from FY 2012 through FY 2014.

The organization of Report B has been changed slightly. "Other Library Support Services" replaces the "Education, Training and Support" heading. This section will now contain all expenditures other than telecommunications and information resources that directly support libraries, including filtering support, E-rate assistance, and any equipment purchases supporting library services, such as email servers. All equipment expenditures supporting OPLIN office activities will be listed under the "Administration" heading.

Susan Brown motioned to accept the Financial Reports; Becky Schultz seconded. All aye.

6. OLD BUSINESS

6.1. Approve Content Advisory Committee charter

Stephen Hedges reminded the Board that they had reviewed a proposed new charter for the Content Advisory Committee at the August meeting and had discussed some changes, now reflected in a revised version of the charter. The current OPLIN Strategic Plan removed language about the type of databases which OPLIN should purchase, now delegating development of proposed database guidelines to the OPLIN Content Advisory Committee, which has been inactive for several years. The proposed new charter is based on elements of the old charter, examples of other committee charters, and portions of the previously-rescinded Electronic Resources Selection Policy.

In August the Board had noted that the committee is only required to meet once a year, so it could be a year before minutes of the last meeting are approved and posted, but during that discussion the Board generally felt that there was enough latitude in the charter to allow informal review and posting of the minutes before formal approval. At the Board's request, Stephen inserted language into the charter clarifying that committee recommendations should be submitted prior to the Board's annual planning meeting, and this is the only change from the version presented in August.

Jamie Mason motioned to approve the Content Advisory Committee charter as presented; Don Barlow seconded.

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

7. NEW BUSINESS

7.1. Approve financial support of Digitization Hubs project

Stephen Hedges reported that at the June 2012 Board meeting, following discussions started at the April 2012 Board planning retreat, the Board gave informal approval to supporting a statewide digitization project, at that time discussing the commitment of about $250,000 to $300,000 to match federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds to support expansion of the Cincinnati digitization project. Stephen now asked the Board to formally approve the use of OPLIN funds as a local match for an LSTA grant proposal. The current version of the proposal assumes an OPLIN contribution of a little over $260,000; LSTA funds amounting to about $500,000 should be available. LSTA funds and OPLIN funds would cover the cost of scanners and storage array hardware, while the four libraries involved in the project — the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Columbus Metropolitan Library — will likely make additional related purchases totaling about $140,000.

Susan Brown asked if individuals could have scanning done by the labs, and also if they would be restricted to certain labs. Stephen answered that the current vision would allow an individual to go to any lab, but depending on local policy there might be a cost-recovery fee. Stephen described some of the new digitization equipment which will be used in the labs.

Don Barlow moved the adoption of the following resolution:

WHEREAS, the Ohio Public Library Information Network was established in the Ohio Revised Code for the purpose of ensuring equity of access to electronic information for all residents of this state, and

WHEREAS, public libraries offer a wide variety of access to electronic information from public computer use to e-readers, but digitizing historical collections is often overlooked, and

WHEREAS, public libraries are ideally positioned within their communities to also digitize and provide access to historical materials held by other local libraries, museums, archives, and the local communities, and

WHEREAS, the major barriers to public library digitization activities are lack of equipment and software, lack of staff expertise, and lack of guidance in the form of policies and procedures, and

WHEREAS, four metropolitan Ohio public library systems have initiated a "Digitization Hubs" project to overcome these barriers at regional digitization centers distributed across Ohio, and

WHEREAS, this project will upgrade equipment and software at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Columbus Metropolitan Library, creating a statewide network of coordinated Digitization Hubs that will digitize materials held by the institutions where they are located, but will also serve as regional digitization centers serving other libraries, museums, archives, and the local communities, and

WHEREAS, these coordinated regional labs will also insure consistent quality of digital materials and associated metadata, so that the digital materials created in these labs can be efficiently accessed by the public through the Internet,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that on the 11th day of October, Two Thousand and Thirteen, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) commit up to $270,000 of available OPLIN funds to the support of the Digitization Hubs project, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) will also provide and maintain Internet circuits to each Hub location with sufficient bandwidth to enable data communications between the Hubs and public Internet access to the digitized materials, and if needed, will also provide a central web site for searching and retrieval of digitized materials.

Adopted and recorded this 11th day of October, 2013.

ATTESTED TO THIS DATE
FOR THE OPLIN BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Karen Davis, Chair

Susan Brown seconded the motion. The Chair put the question on the adoption of the resolution.

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

8. OPLIN DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Stephen Hedges reported that many of his current activities have been discussed already during this meeting, but he did talk briefly about the staff's work preparing for the OLC Convention, the Stakeholder's meeting, and the publication of the Annual Report.

Regarding OPLIN office activities, Stephen highlighted Karl Jendretzky's trip to the Logan library and his own trip to Logan for the Digital Works center opening, and Laura's work as part of the OLC team preparing the Convention.

8.1. Technology Projects Manager report

Karl Jendretzky reported that circuit upgrades and contract changes have kept him busy; some of those upgrades will make use of the new Agile Wireless service, once Agile completes some E-rate paperwork. AT&T is working on a new state contract which should cut some upgrade costs. Karl also reported that the new email server has arrived and he will install it the next time he upgrades the email software, keeping the old server as a hot-swap backup machine. He also reported that he has been recoding the Ohio Web Library search to improve back-end functionality and compatibility with mobile devices; most users will not notice much difference, but the site's performance will be improved.

Karl described some of the changes currently happening at the State of Ohio Computer Center as part of the state's "IT Optimization" process and how he anticipates those changes will involve the OPLIN core router now that it has a 10 Gbps network card.

8.2. Library Services Manager report

Laura Solomon reported that 63 library website kits are in active use, with nine more in various stages of progress. Concurrent with that work, she is moving existing sites to Drupal 7, which is a major upgrade, and while doing that is working with the libraries to make their web design more responsive to various devices. This upgrade while take a long time, and she is hoping to eventually have a practicum student from Kent State University assist her. Laura also reported that she will be speaking in the next few weeks at the Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA) conference, the Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) conference, and at library conferences in Indiana and New York state.

8.3. Database usage

Stephen Hedges reported that there was nothing unusual about database usage over the past two months, although he thought the statistics indicate that libraries are already reducing their usage of Mango Languages and NewsBank, the two resources which will be discontinued before the end of the year. He also reported that he had a conversation with a librarian at the Convention asking about overall usage trends, and has decided to publish the charts he distributes to the Board on the OPLIN website

9. CHAIR'S REPORT

9.1. Update on personnel compensation request

Chair Karen Davis asked Stephen Hedges to update the Board on the status of Karl Jendretzky's pay increase following the Board resolution at the August meeting. Stephen reported that a Personnel Action (PA) was submitted to the Governor's office, along with the Board resolution and the memo from the Attorney General's office, on the same day the Board passed the resolution. The only way to change a state employee's salary in the state accounting system is through a PA submitted to the Governor. To date, there has been no action or response from the Governor's office, and there is no limit on the amount of time that office may hold a Personnel Action.

Stephen suggested that it could be more effective to have the Board write a letter to the Governor's office requesting information on the progress of the Personnel Action, rather than continued requests from him or the State Library, and Beverly Cain agreed. Chair Karen Davis will write such a letter on behalf of the Board and ask the Governor's office to respond to her.

Don Barlow moved that once the Personnel Action was approved, Karl Jendretzky's pay increase should be retroactive to August 9, but after Jamie Pardee explained that this was almost certainly impossible, the motion was not seconded.

10. ADJOURNMENT

On motion of Susan Brown and second of Jamie Mason the Board adjourned at 11:09 a.m.