Attending: Jim Cosgrove, Josh Cohen, Tom Lawrence, Sue Hermans, Greg Callahan, Gloria Goverman, Luisa Sabin-Kildiss, John Georghiou, Merribeth Advocate, Pat Kaufman.
Not attending: Sally Alderdice, Patti Haar.

Minutes

• Committee reviewed Committee Mission Statement & Member Responsibilities.
• Minutes from 10/11/05: approved by G. Callahan, seconded by L. Sabin-Kildiss. Committee reviewed Action Items.
• Election of 2006 chair: P. Haar has been highly recommended by the committee. J. Cohen will speak to her about this.
• Central Library
  • 2005 Central Library Services Survey
    • 16 responses. T. Lawrence will extend the deadline and remind people to send in their input. Will then develop a summary and report results at next meeting.
  • 2006 Central Reference Library Plan of Action
    • Committee reviewed the document.
    • Issues discussed: more merging up ahead between MHLS and CL with new 5-year POS; CL will need a 5-year plan that is part of the MHLS overall plan.
    • Committee agreed the document should just refer to how the CL funds are spent. T. Lawrence agreed to remove the youth component from the POA.
    • Committee agreed that subject guides/pathfinders have to be geared towards patrons so library staff doesn't have to interpret the info for them and for the CL to look for good existing pathfinders in addition to creating guides for parents and children. Also to remove youth Recommended Links from MHLS managed Kids Stuff web pages.
  • 2006 Central Library Training
    • S. Hermans advertised 2006 CL training opportunities through the MHLS list serv, offering: Customer Service, Readers' Advisory & Electronic Resources. Training will be bought to each county by a variety of CL staff with a standard curriculum. Three counties have responded at this point to schedule centralized training - Carmel, Kinderhook, Catskill will host. S. Hermans will call county contacts if not hear from them, and schedule in their area.
    • S. Hermans will send training dates to M. Advocate to avoid scheduling conflicts and to get the event on the MHLS web calendar for registration.
    • On-demand training in these areas will still be available.
    • Issues discussed: POS focus groups are saying staff have a large need for continual training.
  • Web page: Services Offered by Central Library
    • Committee reviewed text. Target is librarians - marketing towards them.
    • This will be on front section of Reference and Collection Development page of midhudson.org
  • Review of Central Library Book Aid / Central Library Development Aid 2006 application
    • T. Lawrence reported that portions are used to fund staff (biggest portion), databases, travel expenses and binding.
  • Recommendations for Central Library Book Aid / Central Library Development Aid 2007 application
    • T. Lawrence will bring the 2006 application to next meeting for review in preparation for 2007, including a spreadsheet of how money was spent in past few years - indicating trends.
  • Library Staff Core Competency Guidelines
    • Committee reviewed the document, and agreed it was evolving to more of what they were looking for.
    • Issues discussed: Good it focuses on OPAC as most staff use Millennium and these competencies will help them help patrons. Goal is develop staff competencies and develop their ability to teach patrons. Possibility of training for new staff that would incorporate these skills.
    • Committee asked for indication on document that the Basic Level is what new staff would need, and to add an additional top level.
  • Core Competencies Quiz Draft / Sample with Outline of Associated Skills & Possible Answers
    • Committee reviewed the document, and agreed it was a good start.
    • Issues discussed included:
      • Questions should relate to the Core Competency Guidelines to indicate what level staff is w/ OPAC and HomeACCESS
      • Staff taking the test should know this is what they need to know, so they would understand why they need to go to training
    • The committee was asked to give the sample questions to their staff as a validity test, and report back to the committee.
  • Useful Links
    • Usage statistics were distributed indicating an average of 83 visits per month for the last 12 months.
    • Issues discussed: What kinds of online resources are needed for staff to provide reference - ask the members. How to develop this for a children's version where user will be staff or parent -at next meeting we will review some possible products.
  • Review of Collection Development Initiatives
    • Get Ready
      • Feedback from 7 of the 33 subscribers indicated some like it but many do not use this tool for collection development.
      • Issues discussed: how to use this best, how to promote it to member libraries, low usage of this tool may lead to losing the reduced group price ($25 rather than $45).
    • Wilson Web
      • Annual usage statistics were distributed.
      • Committee recommended renewing it.
    • Downloadable audiobooks
      • Look at Overdrive at PLA
    • ProQuest
      • Usage statistics were distributed indicating an average of 4,202 searches per month for the last 12 months
      • Issues discussed: price is currently a bit more than a dollar a search; usage spikes when staff or patron training is offered.
      • Recommend to DA to renew ProQuest. Committee recommended locking in price by negotiating contract for 2 or 3 years. J. Cohen will speak to vendor.
    • Rotating Collections / Spanish
      • Committee reviewed collection statistics and subscription price.
      • Issues discussed: Structured to recover the cost of the collections at this time - a true cooperative service; subscribers benefit from seeing a Spanish pattern of usage - can statistics come from course reserves?
      • MHLS will ask for new subscribers and possibly increase size of collections.
    • Athens product
      • Traffic manager: vendor authenticates and counts per library for databases and audio books. Works through API module connecting to patron database.
      • Offered by Waldo. MHLS will get price and info about whether this will satisfy our 'per-library' need for statistics.

Next meeting 10am June 21, 2006

Actions

1. J. Cohen will ask P. Haar to be the 2006 committee chair.
2. . T. Lawrence will extend the deadline of the 2005 Central Library Services Survey and remind people to send in their input. Will then develop a summary and report results at next meeting.
3. MHLS staff will remove Recommended links from MHLS managed Kids web pages.
4. M. Advocate will add the text of Services Offered by Central Library to the front section of Reference and Collection Development page of midhudson.org.
5. T. Lawrence will bring the 2006 application to next meeting for review in preparation for 2007, including a spreadsheet of how money was spent in past few years - indicating trends.
6. Committee will give the Core Competencies Quiz Draft sample questions to their staff as a validity test, and report back to the committee.
7. S. Hermans will bring to the next meeting products to review for online children's reference where user will be staff or parent.
8. J. Cohen will speak to ProQuest about price for renewing with possibility of locking in price through negotiating subscription for 2 or 3 years.
9. L. Shedrick will see if Spanish Rotating Collection statistics can be pulled for each subscribing library through Course Reserves.
10. J. Cohen will call Waldo about the Athens product to get price and info about whether this will satisfy our 'per-library' need for statistics.

Report to DA from the March 2006 meeting of the MHLS Central Library / Collection Development Advisory Committee

• Central Library Services Survey: Only sixteen libraries responded. The deadline has been extended, and every library is encouraged to send their input.
• 2006 Central Library Training: In a March 9th listserv message, Sue Hermans advertised CL trainings covering:
  • Customer Service
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Electronic Resources.
• Training will be bought to each county by a variety of CL staff with a standard curriculum. If Sue has not heard yet from your county about scheduling these trainings, she will be calling your county contact person. The trainings will be on MHLS web calendar - can register through there. On-demand training on these topics will still be available.
• Overview of Services Offered by Central Library: New information is now listed on midhudson.org when you click on the Reference and Collection Development page <http://midhudson.org/collection/reference/central.htm>. Includes how to contact Central Library reference librarians for reference support to member libraries and also info about consultations and training available, subject guides, how to send in suggestions for new non-fiction titles and criteria for sending non-fiction last copies
• Online Reference Resources for Staff: The committee would like to know what kinds of online resources are needed by staff to provide reference.
• ProQuest: Committee looked at usage statistics and found it to cost just a bit over a dollar per search. Recommending to the DA to renew ProQuest.

Merribeth Advocate