Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - March 18, 1999 FAC Present: FLICC/FEDLINK: Maxine Brown (Chair) Susan Tarr Bonnie Klein Milton MeGee Denise Lomax Mary Wilson Carla Pomager - by phone Lynn McDonald Fred Rettenmaier Steve Kerchoff Sheila Riley Janet Wright FAC Absent: Mike Conklin Ken Nero AGENDA 1. Approval of the February 25th FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair þ FY 2000 Budget Proposal 3. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, and FEDLINK Managers/Staff þ White Paper on the Value of Using FEDLINK þ Revolving Fund Status þ OCLC Deficits Report þ April 29th Membership Meeting þ CORC Project Status þ Scanning Services Update/Survey þ New FirstSearch Introduction Plans 4. Committee Reports 5. New Business 6. Old Business 7. Announcements 1. Approval of the February 25th FAC Meeting Minutes: Janet Wright moved that the minutes be accepted. Fred Rettenmaier seconded the motion. The FAC approved the meeting minutes of February 25, 1999 . 2. FAC Issues and Topics: FY2000 Budget Proposal FLICC Executive Director, Susan Tarr, updated the FAC on two issues affecting the FEDLINK FY2000 Budget projection. In an effort to maintain membership fee cuts and remain level, FEDLINK is still looking at cost reductions of $25,000. Susan is pursuing cost reviews with both the Office of General Counsel (OGC) and the LC Financial Services Directorate (FSD) regarding their respective FEDLINK-assigned staff (FEDLINK paid positions). The OGC is reorganizing. They had been using FEDLINK funds to pay for a series of temporary attorneys which resulted in training/continuity problems. Consequently the Associate GC has been reviewing FEDLINK contracts and BOAS. OGC said that instead they want to staff with a contracts specialist and promised this resource will be devoted to FEDLINK. Susan stated that FEDLINK needs OGC's legal resources for the revolving fund issue so it may be imprudent to ask for a cost reduction now. OGC will keep Meg Williams half-time until their new hire is on board. FEDLINK is funding 4 positions in FSD. Susan has asked for a review of how these positions are being used. Since FEDLINK has automated there is no longer any need for FSD to double key; savings should be realized. She is working with Winston Tabb to obtain a response from FSD. The reality is that FEDLINK also needs FSD support for the revolving fund issue, so again this may not be the time to push. FSD has agreed to do a review of what they are providing to FEDLINK and with whom. Susan needs all these pieces in place by April 15th. The Budget Working Group is asking FEDLINK's top 30 users to answer the FLICC/FEDLINK FY2000 Budget & Fee Questionnaire now on the Web. This will assist FEDLINK in projecting costs and revenues. Because FEDLINK cut fees they are a little behind; good news is needed on the revenue end. The goal is to retain the membership fee cuts. ACTION - Encourage FEDLINK members to fill out this questionnaire. Milton MeGee, FEDLINK Network Coordinator, will see that a notice regarding the questionnaire is put out to the listservs. 3. FLICC/FEDLINK Update: White Paper on the Value of Using FEDLINK. Susan Tarr reported that Robin Hatziyannis, FLICC Editor-in-Chief and Education Coordinator, is the writer in charge. She will proceed according to the action described under Section 4 of the February 25th FAC minutes. There will be a progress report at the April 15th FAC meeting but nothing substantial till May. ACTION - Send input (data or names of procurement persons) to Robin. Her email address is: rhat@.loc.gov. Revolving Fund Status. Susan Tarr reported that she met with the Congressional Relations Office staff and consulted with the Treasury Department. From Treasury she learned that FEDLINK could borrow from the Library of Congress appropriation on an annual basis. LC is planning to call this an augmentation of a revolving fund that already exists for certain acquisitions. The mechanics are already there but must be formalized. The major difference with the existing revolving fund is that it does not deal in Federal monies; clear language is needed that this is Federal money. She is working with Treasury to get a clear written response which would serve as an authoritative document. This is slated as an April initiative. OCLC Deficits Report. Mary Wilson, FEDLINK Fiscal Manager, stated that she and her staff have devised a fiscally responsible plan of action which is also sensitive to members. As approved by the FAC, they hope to make up members' OCLC deficit amounts by drawing from funds remaining in those members' online and training accounts. They analyzed FY94 - FY98 accounts. Initially FY98 showed over $155,000 dollars deficit but since December they have received about $65,000 of that. There are smaller amounts for other years. Ruby Thomas, FEDLINK Member Services Coordinator, will contact members with book and serial accounts to learn if they have placed orders so that FEDLINK does not draw from obligated funds. Some members don't have money in any of their accounts. Mary said that members will receive courtesy calls from the FFO accounting technicians to remind them of account deficits and give members 2-3 days to respond (by FAX). If there is no response they will work with FSD to collect the debt (done at the agency level). Mary stated that they plan to publish an Information Alert on this. To Fred Rettenmaier's question on whether FEDLINK should continue memberships in deficit, Susan Tarr responded that it is very costly to shut down an OCLC membership. Jim Oliver, FEDLINK Vendor Services Coordinator, is issuing a final FY96 invoice call and will send an Information Alert to vendors in early April with an August response time asking them to submit outstanding unpaid invoices. Members will also be instructed in an Information Alert that if they have unfulfilled orders they need to contact their vendors to work on closing out those vendor accounts. April 29th Membership meeting and CORC project status - Milton MeGee reported that speakers from GPO, EPA and the Smithsonian will address the control and handling of electronic materials. There will be reports also on the FLICC/FEDLINK FY2000 budget and from the FLICC Working Groups. Lynn McDonald stated that 6 Federal libraries have joined the FEDLINK Environmental and Earth Sciences OCLC CORC Project group: USGS, NRL, NOAA, Interior, EPA, and NASA Goddard. They are slated for training on April 20th with OCLC. GPO has observer/consultant status. The CORC database is seeded with GPO records. Tanny Franco from DTIC also has observer status. OCLC is holding a CORC participants meeting on April 26-27th in Dublin, Ohio. Some Federal libraries, such as NAL and SIL, are participating directly. The CORC Web address: http://purl.oclc.org/corc Denise Lomax requested an update from the FLICC Personnel WG. Susan Tarr said they are dealing with KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities) and librarian qualifications but have not yet received a response from OPM on the MLS qualifying standard. The WG is trying to delete other qualifications (e.g. the OPM handbook still says there is a test when there isn't a test.) MOTION - Fred Rettenmaier moved to approve the agenda for the FEDLINK Spring Membership Meeting. Bonnie Klein seconded the motion and it was approved by the FAC. Scanning Services Update/Survey. Bonnie Klein added footnotes to Section 4 to remind libraries of their obligations and of copyright issues. Lynn McDonald wondered if archiving should be a separate section because of the largeness of the issue. Bonnie Klein provided information regarding the CNRI Website and the Handle System. Milton MeGee will raise all of this with the FLICC Information Technology Working Group. He stated that Kathy Eighmey, FEDLINK Network Program Specialist, is following up on scanning issues and collecting information. FEDLINK Network Program Specialist, Steve Kerchoff, briefed the FAC on plans to introduce OCLC's "New FirstSearch" (5.0). Some highlights are cross-file searching, inclusion of multiple thesauri, access to full text databases and extensive administrative enhancements. The beta version will be introduced @April 18th and be available to library staff. Full release is planned for August. FEDLINK preparations for training include spending a half day introducing it the May 26th FEDLINK OCLC Users Meeting, demonstrating it at LC and doing demos/workshops at various meetings. FEDLINK plans to train its membership with « day $60 workshops. For larger libraries who require training for 5 or more staff, he hoped to provide onsite training at a cost of @$150. For libraries who do not already have FirstSearch but are interested in seeing it, Steve suggested talking with OCLC Marketing Representative, Andrew Clements, who works with FEDLINK libraries. FAC responses included: Sheila Riley asked whether FEDLINK considered offering train the trainers sessions; Bonnie Klein said the topic of New FirstSearch would make an excellent workshop for military librarians in September; Cheryl Pomager provided names and email addresses for contacts Anne Potter and Cheryl MacMillan; Fred Rettenmaier applauded FEDLINK for taking training out to the membership and hoped this could extend to outside of the DC area. FEDLINK staff responded that they would investigate/act on these suggestions. 4. Committee Reports Denise Lomax reported that Amy DeGroff was stepping down as chair of the Education Working Group. The WG is focusing on the online handbook and are meeting tomorrow to evaluate the chapters and to determine the final direction of the handbook. She hopes to have the online handbook link to sites where data already exists. She is looking for new Federal librarians willing to read and evaluate the handbook for usefulness. She will report more fully at the May 13th FLICC Quarterly meeting. Fred Rettenmaier suggested also including more experienced Federal librarians as beta readers and Maxine Brown suggested putting out a call for readers on the listservs. Susan Tarr announced that Cheryl Thomas is the new chair of the Information Technology Working Group and a meeting has been called for March 23rd. Susan Tarr reported that the LC Bicentennial Working Group approved a design for a poster and FEDLINK is finalizing the financial aspects with a consulting firm. The poster and bookmark will go out in a toolkit in the Fall to promote Lc and all federal libraries. The Federal Library Chronology, a unique document, is growing. DTIC, GPO and Navy libraries have added to it. She wants all Cabinet level and military branches represented. The document will allow libraries to see how their library falls within the overall chronology beginning with the first State Department library. Maxine Brown reflected that this will provide good press and be a good tool for National Library Week. Bonnie Klein hoped the chronology would also include a chronology of online services. 5. New Business: Janet Wright announced that on March 29th she is moving to an overseas position with USIA and could only continue with the FAC with the permission of her new boss. If this is not forthcoming she will need to resign. Her term would normally expire in December. For the membership meeting, a suggestion was made to ask members to think about services in the retrieval area and encourage vendors to be alert to the open season. The serials contract is being recompeted for FY2000. Lynn McDonald will conduct workshops. Denise Lomax commented favorably on a response she received from the president of one of her vendor companies after she filled out a FEDLINK vendor evaluation form. 6. Old Business: None. 7. Announcements: The next meeting of the FAC is April 15, 1999. Chair Maxine Brown adjourned the meeting at 11:05 a.m.