1. Chat Service: changing to new chat service, Rhino/livechat. IT has gone live with this new chat, and Nicki will take over concierge (Sofia/Katie are covering this in the meantime) once she’s settled. The library will go live with Rhino before school starts to give us time to get comfortable and familiar with it. Josh has admin rights, any changes or tweaks needed we should ask Sofia who will relay to Josh.
2. Circ Retreat (Deb): says it was interesting.
a. Rest of Circ wants to get rid of fees dealing with billing fines ($5.00) that’s left after an overdue item is returned. The INN Reach fines are ours to keep, no one else is collecting these fines. One reason is a lot of records are hung up with old fines, they want to stop collecting fines (excluding BPL and MSL who still want to). They will be sending out a survey to libraries to see who’s collecting and what in terms of fines.
i. Leslie needs more information and discussion to decide on getting rid of fines. She wants more stats to help make the decision. She would like to know how many fines do we accrue, how much do we collect (community, student, charges, collections) in the past 2 years/4 semesters .
ii. Leslie also needs to follow up with Humberto regarding campus-level holds on student accounts.
iii. Sofia didn’t like there wasn’t a consensus among libraries on this issue though the document said there was.
iv. Leslie asked Deb to watch the discussion about the fines with regards to why, which may raise more questions for her. Deb noted that a lot of libraries waive the fines as they see the important thing is just getting the item back.
v. Leslie would like it to be consistent across campuses with regard to this. For example, students may be confused as to why UMFK charges when UMF doesn’t.
vi. Sofia asked after how many years inactive accounts were to have their fines cleared out, haven’t we had this conversation before - ten years for replacements and 3-5 years for fines? Leslie said there is a policy that was agreed on, which is after 10 years. Sofia cannot find that information written down anywhere. Leslie will look for that information for Sofia. Sofia also noted that we were assured by MIN staff in the past that we don’t need to clean out patron records due to space. Leslie thinks it is great to clean out old patron records.
b. Floating collections- USM had already been considering trying this among their branches. People are tentatively wanting to try this. Discussion on how to handle libraries using Dewey and those using LOC classifications. Possible to have only parts of the collection float. According to III, only $4,000 extra to add the module necessary to do this. No one addressed inventory.
c. Technology petting zoo- handheld scanner used by staff to process requests.
3. Library Directors (Leslie):
a. Floating collections - looking to move forward with this. One caveat though, James is checking with III in regards to questions about what it would be like on the back-end, and inventory. Need more details on how to track and know where items are. Possible to do full floating collections or parts of the library. The Law Library will not be a floating collection. As a campus think about where to find space to shelve books. Sofia asked if anyone had mentioned security issues. Deb said some other libraries don’t have security either. Katie wondered how to handle other libraries lost/stolen items. We are responsible for items here. Leslie mentioned the possibility of tagging nursing books, for example, so that these wouldn’t float. Sofia thought a work around (if we can limit by location by not within a collection, say stacks) would be to create a new location for those items/parts we don’t want to float.
b. Mango languages and e magazine collections- looking at a statewide subscription to language resource (Mango, Rosetta Stone, or one other) as well as 4 e magazine collections through Flipster, Zinio or EBSCO.
c. URSUS Annual Report- to share with VPAs and Vice Chancellor to show what we do. Training manuals to update to share with other campuses.
d. I Lead Team- good if we participate in this. Out of the state library, mixing different libraries (school, public, academic). In a team, a topic is researched and the information shared. One thing we’re not doing so good as a state is mixing libraries and working other. The idea is to get libraries working together.
e. Reading assignments- this year the focus as individual and in groups- active, collaborate and developmental. To help foster conversations to show what we do and provide to the campus community.
f. Lot of turnover during this time, as well as changes impacting the libraries. UMPI has moved the Learning Commons into the library and rearranging staff.
g. PDA ebooks- still trying to figure out system-wide with ebrary
h. URSUS Taskforce New Technologies- last year goals were set, one of which was a task force to look at new technologies.
i. Job Descriptions - Library Director’s positions- they’d like to have in all job descriptions “ability to collaborate as a system,” as well as have someone from the URSUS Committee participate in search committee at the time of candidate campus visits.
i. On-boarding people (IT term dealing with getting someone new into system, then remembering when they’re leaving to remove them). How do you welcome someone new?
ii. Succession planning- how are library directors training staff to take over when they leave?
j. Strategy screens in URSUS - used by Maine Infonet people, directors will use these and go through an exercise.
k. Overall good meeting with lots of discussion.
4. Are the doors to the library going to the archives supposed to be locked? Discussion about safety, as these doors automatically close during a fire. If they’re locked the people on one side cannot get through. Leslie will find out from Andy.
5. Patron account privacy (Sofia): Sofia had a mother come into the library asking to know what her 15 and 19 year old children had on their accounts. Was very upset when this information was not provided to her. While our library card application form does require a parent or guardian to sign for 14 and under, Sofia regarded anyone over 14 the parent still shouldn’t be able to know what the child had out on their account. Leslie thought that legally this may be overruled as they are still under 18 and the parent or guardian has a right to know. FERPA only affects those who’ve taken a class, if they haven’t sign a form giving consent their information cannot be shared. Leslie recommended Deb ask BPL and MSL what their policies are regarding the underage community patrons and parent/guardian rights. Katie suggested putting something on the library card application forms that states something to the effect of once a patron reaches age 18 the parental rights/responsibilities are voided. Sofia and Deb talked about a form they are hoping to use that a patron would sign to give certain individuals permission to pick up/check out items on their behalf, as well as put this information in their patron record so staff is aware of this. Leslie asked Deb to compile information from BPL, MSL and ALA on this issue and then decide how to proceed.
6. The number of items a new patron can check out without proof of residence is 1. This information has been added to the library card application form.
7. Deb asked if we should keep the number of media items community can check out at 10. With the recent influx of select community patrons checking out the max they are able to, it has been confusing and takes time for the work-study students. Currently, for students, they are allowed 50 items, with 10 media items max; while for community patrons, they are allowed 10 items, all of which can be media. We should see how it goes, if need be the max for media items for community can be adjusted.
8. Position management: need for more staff in the financial aid office. Tom B. new hire in Athletics will also help out in PR. Pete, if you call 7818 you may get Pete, or someone downstate. It is the IT help desk line. Leslie recommended we just call Nicki at 8606 instead.
9. New computers for computer lab are only shipping late August.
10. We’ll schedule another staff meeting when Brenda’s back and before school starts.
11. Campus Development session: Leslie says as a campus we will be moving to NEASC. Should be getting feedback to NEASC committees soon.