FALCONS Meeting Minutes
Date: August 16, 2012
Minutes: Motion to accept May’s minutes: Homer made a motion to accept the minutes, seconded by Weedsport and approved.
Present: Auburn, Aurora, Berkshire, Candor, Cortland, Homer, Interlaken, Newark Valley, Ovid, Poplar Ridge, Seneca Falls, TCPL, Union Springs, Waterloo, Waverly, Weedsport and Rex, Eric, Robert, and Jan from FLLS.
Absent: Alternatives, Apalachin, Cato, Cincinnatus, Dryden, Fair Haven, Groton, Lansing, McGraw, Marathon, Newfield, Lodi, Moravia, Nichols, Owego, Port Byron, Spencer and Trumansburg.
Announcements:
- There were no announcements at this meeting.
Old Business:
- An update on the common card was discussed. Tioga County was the last to come on board and have not had any problems. There also have been no problems reported from the Seneca, Tompkins and Cayuga county libraries. On Sept. 12th the Cayuga County libraries will meet to revisit their library policies and try to standardize their library parameters countywide. A question was raised as to how the other counties reached a common ground on parameters. A few did have problems but most were on board and those with specific policy differences were accommodated. Cortland County compromised, some wanted a higher number of grace days, and some wanted lower so they met in the middle. The Seymour Library in Auburn is going through some management changes right now and revisiting their collection agency rules and fines so we may be able to include them in the Cayuga County common card in the near future. A request was made for all libraries to receive their current parameters in spread sheet form. An explanation of grace days was given; if your loan period is 7 days and you have 2 grace days then the patron has 2 days beyond the due date to return the item. If the item is returned within 2 grace days no fine is charged. If the item is returned after the grace days then fines are charged back to the duedate.
- Eric discussed the bulk computer purchase. He needs your license codes before he can finish the PC’s. He does have a few ready but is still waiting on the license keys to be turned in. Symantec needs updating and we will be sending out cd’s with updated instructions on how to install it.
New Business:
- The 2013 Polaris budget was handed out including the new fee increases. Billing comes out in January. Rex pointed out that there has not been an increase in fees since 2009.
- Robert discussed the information in the volume field of the item record. Robert has been correcting errors as he finds them. He will contact the library if it looks like a training issue. Most libraries are following the correct format for periodicals but books are still a mess. Rex will start working on them except for Reference items and Fodor’s and other open ended records.
- Rex discussed the lost/claimed returned billing issue. Some libraries are billing for claimed returns, some are not. You cannot change the status of a claimed return item to lost although this is an enhancement request. Please keep in mind that no bill is generated by Polaris and sent to the patron if the item is manually declared lost. Please think about how you feel claimed return items should be handled and Linda Beins will get a discussion started on the list serve when she comes back.
- Novelist Select was demonstrated. The cost to keep it would be $2,500 a year. Do your patrons like it or should FLLS drop that enhanced content? TCPL remarked they found it useful, it’s very similar to Amazon with links to suggestions on other author, titles, etc. The bill is due at the end of October so please start polling the patrons and give Rex feedback so we can make a decision.
- Hold preferences are set up based on “Prefer My Location”. What this means is that if an Ovid patron places a hold on an Ovid book and wants to pick it up at Ovid, their request will be given first priority. The hold restriction “Preferred Borrowers” allows patrons from within the “Preferred Borrower Group” to place holds and select the library where they would like to pick them up but the “Prefer My Location” rule has the precedence. This means that an item with a “Preferred Borrowers” hold restriction will fill a hold that will be picked up at the library that owns that item before it will ship to another library in the “Preferred Borrowers Group” to fill a hold. Hold restrictions on individual item records like “Patrons from this Branch only” overrule the “Prefer My Location” since they are restricted to that libraries patron only. Rex would like to change it to first in first out. A lively discussion followed on determining the patron’s position in the queue.
Meeting adjourned:
Motion to adjourn by Homer, seconded by Ovid, meeting adjourned at 10:40 am.
Demonstration:
A demonstration was given on collectionHQ by Kathy Graham, a collection management tool which allows libraries to effectively analyze how their collection is performing and take clear action to maximize and manage it.
Next Meeting:
Thursday November 15th from 9:30 to 11:30.