Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - September 16, 1999 FAC Present: FAC Absent: FLICC/FEDLINK Present: Maxine Brown (Chair) Mike Conklin Susan Tarr Denise Lomax Bonnie Klein Ruby Thomas Sheila Riley Ken Nero (Vice-Chair) Fred Rettenmaier Cheryl Thomas Carla Pomager AGENDA 1. Approval of the July 22, 1999 FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair 3. FY2000 Negotiations with FEDLINK Online Vendors --Joan M. Fitts, LC Contracts and Logistics 4 FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff 5. Update on the OCLC Deficits Issue -- Ruby Thomas, FEDLINK Head of Member Services and Accounts Receivable 6. Committee Reports 7. Old Business 8. New Business 9. Announcements 1. Approval of the July 22, 1999 FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC Denise Lomax moved to approve the minutes of the July 22nd FAC minutes; Fred Rettenmaier seconded. The FAC approved the July 22nd minutes as drafted. 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair The agenda for the Oct. 28th Fall FEDLINK Membership meeting is set; the notice has gone out and will be on the listserv. The FAC requested reports from the Awards, Bicentennial and Education Working Groups. Maxine Brown will call Cheryl Thomas to inquire if there will be a report from the Information Technology Working Group. Fred Rettenmaier suggested that spoken reports (in addition to written reports) from Joe Banks and Milton MeGee would be the most effective way of reaching members. Because Susan Tarr will be away at the RONDAC meeting, Milton MeGee and Joe Banks will also represent her at the meeting by giving the FLICC/FEDLINK staff report. Susan Tarr will ask Joan Fitts to report on the contract side where there has been a lot of activity on serials renewal and talks with vendors. 3. FY2000 Negotiations with FEDLINK Online Vendors --Joan M. Fitts, LC Contracts and Logistics (not available due to personal emergency) Susan Tarr reported that FEDLINK staff are talking with 8-9 of the biggest online services vendors (e.g. Lexis-Nexis, Dialog, Gale, UMI, etc...). Kathy Eighmey, FEDLINK Network Program Specialist, prepared by investigating the reported special pricing arrangements made by individual Federal libraries and she checked into SOLINET discounts. FEDLINK is looking for the best price and hopes that discounts could be offered based on volume and consortia pricing. Vendors were asked what they thought of FEDLINK; their offerings to FEDLINK were reviewed; and they were queried on what FEDLINK needs to do to get better prices. FEDLINK staff learned that Federal end-of-year requirements cost vendors money because of rejected invoices and because vendors must wait too long for payment. Susan stated that she expects vendor proposals to come in the next two weeks. Denise Lomax asked if the report/analysis on the vendor meetings could be made available. Fred Rettenmaier talked about FEDLINK's value as a central coordinator of services which offers libraries savings in overhead. With one-stop-shopping libraries may pay a slightly higher price for one thing, but the streamlining gives savings in overall time, effort, and efficiency. The consensus was that if time is not saved and effort on the part of members is not reduced, then the deciding factor does become price. 4. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff Joe Banks' financial report shows that FEDLINK's not buying a financial system resulted in savings. They had set aside $380,000 but because bids came in well over that (at around a million dollars), FEDLINK could not go forward on this. The budget currently shows a $30,000. margin but this assumes that the information on actuals is up-to-date and that every IAG gets signed by next Wednesday. Susan Tarr stated that what harmed FEDLINK was the reduction of fees which was done to keep members in and more active but ironically this did not happen. The Budget Working Group calls the top 30 members each year to determine trends; an analysis of the top 30 doesn't show what one might think. Large FEDLINk customers are not spending less and are not moving from transfer to direct pay. The real budget concern is for next year although FEDLINK will have 3 high level staff vacancies which if left unfilled would realize some savings. In order to have someone for cataloging needs, they do intend to replace Patti Fields but at the entry level. Since the trend is pretty level budgets, Susan said it may have not been realistic to cut fees. If FEDLINK obtains the revolving fund, they may need to raise fees mid-year to cover start-up costs. With the budget as it is, there is no funding for the LC Bicentennial tool kit. The FAC asked if there was a way to use IAGs to contribute to cooperative projects. FEDLINK might be able to set up an account to purchase the LC Bicentennial tool kit. Although shifting the close-out date from 8/15 to 9/15 worked out for member libraries, it did not work as well for FEDLINK. There was less time to see the total revenue for the budget and it slowed the start of the next fiscal year. Susan Tarr will investigate what actual money came in during this past month. Some positive things: Ruby Thomas' proposal to streamline the online registration process for FY 2001 is moving forward. The member institution could start with the IAG rather than registration. FEDLINK could also control what goes into the online form to minimize mistakes. These could be sent in before October 1st which would save time. 5. Update on the OCLC Deficits Issue -- Ruby Thomas, FEDLINK Head of Member Services and Accounts Receivable FEDLINK recouped about 30% of the original OCLC deficit amount. Some members have trouble paying their deficits because they don't have the money. There is a $25,000 deficit for the current year and total of $80,000 deficits running for all years 99-94. FEDLINK is closing out '94 now and will write off that debt. Future IAGs will allow FEDLINK to go into these libraries' other accounts to make up deficits. Another proposal, pending in the General counsel's office since May, is to debit appropriations electronically from the top of a library's organization. They plan to put language in IAG up front so that budget people sign off on this arrangement at the outset. In the meantime Ruby will continue to work with the members in deficit. She and her staff will concentrate on the '99 accounts to get the $25,000 back and will look at canceling or putting on hold OCLC passwords for these libraries. They will also continue to work on prior year monies. Ruby will keep the FAC posted on this reconciliation work. 6. Committee Reports: No committee reports. 7. Old Business Robin Hatziyannis, FLICC Publications Editor-in-Chief, drafted a white paper on the Benefits of FEDLINK for FAC review. Fred offered that, as a statement of benefits on the use of FEDLINK, it was a good sales pitch to Federal libraries who were not members. He reminded us, however, that the original idea was to draft a document which FEDLINK libraries could give to their bosses and procurement offices. Action item - Distribute the draft to the whole FAC on listserv and ask for comments. The FAC should look at the order of items and think about what would be most influential or what needs to be said to convince your boss. Maxine Brown will put this on the agenda for the next meeting. 8. New Business: None 9. Announcements: None The meeting was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.