Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - April 20, 2000 FAC Present: FAC Absent: FLICC/FEDLINK Present: Maxine Brown (Chair) Ken Nero (Vice-Chair) Susan Tarr Louise LeTendre Bonnie Klein Milton MeGee Sheila Riley Fred Rettenmaier Carol Bursik (FLICC Budget WG) Carla Pomager Denise Lomax Cheryl Thomas AGENDA 1. Approval of the March 23, 2000 FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair 3. FY2001 Budget: Final Briefing -- Carol Bursik, Chair FLICC Budget & Finance WG 4. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff 5. Committee Reports 6. Old Business OCLC Board Election -- Louise LeTendre 7. New Business 8. Announcements 1. Approval of the March 23, 2000 FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC Following corrections, Cheryl Thomas moved that the minutes of the March 23rd FAC meeting be accepted as amended; Carla Pomager seconded the motion. The FAC approved the minutes as amended. 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair The FAC reviewed agenda for the FEDLINK Spring Membership Meeting. Susan Tarr will do the update report for the LC Bicentennial WG. Milton MeGee will followup on getting a written report from the Personnel WG. Susan stated that the Personnel WG's scheduled meeting with OPM had been postponed. 3. FY2001 Budget: Final Briefing -- Carol Bursik, Chair FLICC Budget & Finance Working Group Carol Bursik presented the FLICC budget to the FAC. She delivered the presentation which she will make for the FLICC Membership meeting on April 27th. The budget is a lean one. The membership does not want to see an increase in fees so these have remained stable. Costs have been figured against the revenues which have declined in the past several years. There will be modest increases in the training fees. The FAC suggested that the presentation include a slide which lists factors within the federal library community which have contributed to the decrease in revenues. For purposes of looking at costs versus revenue, the FAC also reviewed handouts detailing FLICC/FEDLINK personnel positions/salaries. Susan Tarr outlined the steps in the budget approval process. 4. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff Susan Tarr reported on the FLICC Forum. She thought the awards section went very well. This year the awardees got up and said something which gave more time and attention to each winner. All agreed that the keynote speaker, John Perry Barlow, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was wonderful. Susan said he lowered his speaking charge because he likes libraries. He also stayed to participate in the rest of the forum. Susan passed along to the Awards Working Group the FAC's idea to look at two award levels for libraries in recognition that small libraries have difficulty competing with large libraries. Susan said that this would need to be decided by the FEB in May in order to get into next year's cycle. Susan reported that her staff are looking at contracts processes and investigating whether there are some contracts that can be done as IDIQs, which would allow some minimum commitment of money to contractors. They are exploring with LC managers whether LC has some contracts in place with already selected vendors which are general enough so that they could be used by other Federal libraries. Particularly they are looking at this in the areas of cataloging, preservation, and digitization and Susan reported her progress on these fronts. Cataloging: Susan Tarr met with Beacher Wiggins who said that, with regard to whether federal libraries could ride existing LC cataloging contracts, LC staff are too absorbed with the ILS implementation to investigate this right now. There are no existing LC contracts with cataloging vendors. FEDLINK is still considering what they will do with Technical Services agreements which expire this year. The question remains whether the costs and work needed to revise that RFP would be recoverable through the business they get. Past experience indicates this is doubtful. Preservation: May be workable. The FLICC Preservation and Binding WG is pushing for it. Susan met with the LC Conservation Chief and they are looking at the preservation microforming contract to see whether federal libraries can piggyback on work already being done by LC. The LC manager was generous enough to see that this would be a nice service for LC to offer though the chief asked if other libraries would have the resources to have quality control provisions on contractors' work. Digitization: Nothing done yet on digitization. Last year FEDLINK reviewed whether to offer services in this area but concluded that other options were available to libraries and that it would be too cost-intensive for FEDLINK at that time. They will see whether LC would be interested in putting in their RFP that the vendor could serve other federal libraries using LC specifications and terms. Questions raised were whether federal libraries could get these services at same price and whether it would be a unit or fixed price. Maxine Brown asked if LC had written criteria to determine what is worthy of preservation. Susan Tarr said LC has a collections assessment staff but they focus on what to buy. Susan Tarr will talk to the Preservation/Binding WG about identifying contractors with consulting services for collections assessment. She did not think that FEDLINK should get involved in consulting services because these are usually very customized and collection- specific. The Information Technology WG is taking an advisory role with consortia arrangements and vendors. FEDLINK staff are meeting with Inspec in early May see if they are willing to negotiate a base price decrease. From this experience they hope to develop a strategy. Janet Ormes from NASA and James King from NRL will be advisors in these negotiations. Regarding whether to negotiate with FirstSearch, Lynn McDonald was consulted and she doesn't think federal libraries will get a much better price than by going individually this fiscal year. Carla Pomager inquired whether such deals would include electronic collections and Susan Tarr responded that she thought they did. For UMI Proquest, FEDLINK wants to look at current customers to see if they are buying similar things and can be grouped accordingly. Janes didn't give FEDLINK a network price only individual workstation prices; so FEDLINK is going back to them again on that. FEDLINK hopes to also leverage a deal for the broader federal community with Congressional Quarterly. If the FAC know of any other vendors to recommend, tell Susan Tarr. She will keep us informed. Ruby's staff is using the extended imaging system for the IAG process and electronically transferring those materials so that they don't have to send paper to the Contracts office. They are also trying to get electronic signature software installed for delivery orders so that they can be electronically faxed to vendors. The goal is to eliminate all but one paper file which is still needed for archving. Staff additions include Ann Harrison, FEDLINK Network Operations, and Patrick Miller, FEDLINK OCLC Information Specialist Team. Milton MeGee characterized FEDLINK's participation in April 9-11 National Contract Management Association Conference in Crystal City exhibition as an "interesting experiment." This was not a library conference and they need to evaluate whether FEDLINK's attendance with LC contract officers will help to get their support. Susan Tarr was there for 3 hours. LC contract officers saw their colleagues. This is an expensive exhibit to do but wasn't too bad because it was local. Training for Air Force libraries is accelerating this summer and many staff will be on the road. Lynn McDonald and Kathy Eighmey will be around. The FAC learned that the contracting out of Air Force libraries has caused huge turnovers of contract staff creating these training needs. Discussion ensued: Are contract staff being paid well enough? There is far less turnover of Federal staff. Contractors are bidding on the assumption of stable staff. What does underbidding save? When awarding contracts, panels end up comparing unrealistic bids. How can the cost of turnover and subsequent training be captured? The cost is coming back to Air Force headquarters in training and retraining. Another result is a loss in quality service. Denise Lomax hailed the Soaring to Excellence series for paraprofessionals. She suggested that FEDLINK look into helping with the planning of a similar program in conjunction with Georgetown University. The Law Library Society of D.C. (local chapter of AALL) for the past several years has sponsored a two-day Legal Research Institute in the Spring that is geared to new law librarians, library technicians, and paralegals. The Institute covers the basics of legal research and resources. The Society is not sponsoring the Institute this Spring and she thought FEDLINK might look into doing it for early Fall. Susan Tarr said the Soaring to Excellence series could continue but due to problems with the live downlink, it would make more sense to just offer the video afterwards. 5. Committee Reports Done above. 6. Old Business OCLC Board Election -- Louise LeTendre Louise LeTendre reported that there is an upcoming OCLC Board election and that the FAC can advise the FEDLINK delegates on how to vote. All candidates seem eminently qualified but she argued for a more diverse representation on the board, recommending candidates who are school, corporate, or special librarians. The FAC supported the approach of a balanced ticket and endorsed Louise's recommendation. Maxine Brown will contact the delegate. Maxine Brown in honor of Milton Megee's impending retirement, awarded him with certificates of appreciation and a card. Carla Pomager gave him a poster and some "How to..." books to assist him through his retirement. 7. New Business A two hour segment of the May OCLC Users Council is being offered internationally through downlink sites. Clifford Lynch is the keynote speaker. There is not a site yet in the D.C. area and Susan Tarr is looking for a downlink site. [Subsequently, the National Science Foundation agreed to host a site. Any library with appropriate technology may be a site.] 8. Announcements The next General Counsels/Librarians Forum, sponsored by the LC General Counsel's Office and the FLICC will be June 1st from 2:00- 4:00 p.m. in the Mumford Room. The session will discuss current issues regarding FOIA with special emphasis on the requirements mandated by the Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996. The meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.