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BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Regular Meeting
Monday, September 19, 2005
8:30 A.M.

This meeting will be conducted at:

Milwaukee County Federated Library System
709 N. 8th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233

AGENDA

 I.        CALL TO ORDER.

 II.       APPROVAL OF MINUTES.

            The MCFLS Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, August 15, 2005.
                                                                   ACTION    ATTACHMENT A

III.      PUBLIC COMMENT. 

IV.       TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE – REPORTS.
                                                                                 September 2005.            ATTACHMENT B
                       
                                                                                                ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE 

V.        ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMITTEE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION.

            A. Finance and Personnel Committee.

                1. Financial Reports – June and July 2005.
                                                                     ACTION         ATTACHMENT C

                2. Audit Bid Document. DRAFT
                                                                         ACTION     ATTACHMENT D

VI.      ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMITTEE INFORMATIONAL ITEMS.

           A. Legislative and System Services Committee.

               1. ByLaws Review. Update.

           B. Letter to Innovative Interfaces.                           ATTACHMENT E

           C. Director’s Report.                                              ATTACHMENT F

           D. Member Agreement. Discussion of Timeline of Member Agreement. Paul Ziehler.    

VII.    NEXT MEETING DATES.

           A. MCFLS Board of Trustees – October 17, 2005.

           B. Finance and Personnel Committee – October 17, 2005.

           C. Legislative and System Services Committee - TBA in October.    

VIII.  ADJOURNMENT.

ATTACHMENT   A

MILWAUKEE COUNTY FEDERATED LIBRARY SYSTEM
Board of Trustees

Regular Meeting Held Monday, August 15, 2005
At
Milwaukee County Federated Library System
709 North Eighth Street
Milwaukee, WI  53233

ROLL CALL

Present:                    Martin Schreiber, President
                                Ron Tays, Treasurer 
                                Dick Maslowski, Trustee
                                Dora Montoya, Trustee
                                Paul Ziehler, Trustee                               
                               
Excused:                   Ryan McCue, Vice President
                                Mike D'Amato, Trustee                                                             

Staff:                        Jim Gingery, Director
                                Steve Heser, Library Systems Administrator
                                Judy Kaniasty, Business Manager/Personnel Assistant (Recorder)                                            

 Others:                    Arnie Gutkowski, TAC Chair and Brown Deer Public Library
                                Beth Carey, Shorewood Public Library                               
                                Terri Delke, Greenfield Public Library
                                Bruce Gay, Milwaukee Public Library                                                      
                                Kate Huston, Milwaukee Public Library
                                Paula Kiely, Milwaukee Public Library                               
                                Pat Laughlin, Hales Corners Public Library
                                Taj Schoening, Milwaukee Public Library

I.          CALL TO ORDER.  President Schreiber called the regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Milwaukee County Federated Library System Board of Trustees to order at 8:42 a.m. 

II.        APPROVAL OF MINUTES.  Trustee Maslowski moved and Treasurer Tays seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held Monday, July 18, 2005, which are shown as Attachment A of the agenda packet.  Unanimously approved as presented. 

III.       PUBLIC COMMENT.  Arnie Gutkowski noted that he had a comment regarding agenda item VI. A. below and it was agreeable that he make that comment at that time. 

Kate Huston, along with a few others, thanked Jim Gingery, Steve Heser and Bruce Gay for their work to solve the computer outage problem of August 9-12. 

IV.       TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE REPORT.  Director Gingery reported that Arnie Gutkowski had prepared a very good report from the August 4, 2005 TAC meeting which is shown as Exhibit 1 attached to these minutes.  Discussion ensued regarding AB483 – which would rescind the Maintenance of Effort requirement for libraries.  WLA opposes AB483. Governor has vetoed similar legislation in the past.  MPL and the City of Milwaukee oppose the bill and have sent a letter.  Trustee Ziehler questioned why unfunded state mandates should be retained and he would like to know the general philosophy of Milwaukee.  Director Gingery noted that the maintenance of effort requirement is a funding requirement for maintaining good standing within a library system. It is a requirement for system membership. Maintenance of effort helps reinforce that each member holds up an adequate level of support so as not to take undue advantage of other members.  The report was Accepted and Ordered Placed on File. 

V.        ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMITTEE REPORTS REQUIRING ACTION. 

A.    Finance and Personnel Committee. 

1.   2004 MCFLS Audit Presentation.  Treasurer Tays reported that representatives from Kerber Eck & Braeckel LLP presented the audit to the Finance & Personnel Committee earlier this morning and the Committee recommends approval of the 2004 MCFLS audit.  Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Maslowski seconded a motion to approve the 2004 audit as presented.  Trustee Ziehler questioned (1) the amount of the reciprocal borrowing subsidy shown on page 14 (This is the amount that is paid out in 2005)  and (2) why member reimbursements show a decrease of $56,000.  Judy Kaniasty indicated that the decrease was because the member libraries had requested less compensated technical assistance work through MCFLS than in the couple years prior to that.  Director Gingery noted that the 2006 budget will reflect a change in those categories accordingly.  Unanimously approved.  (The carryover from 2004 into the 2005 budget is $157,889 which is reflected on the 2005 mid-year budget revision document.) 

2.   2005 Proposed Mid-Year Budget Revision.  Treasurer Tays reported that the Finance & Personnel Committee reviewed the recommendations presented by Director Gingery which is shown as Attachment B of the agenda packet and recommends approval.  Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Maslowski seconded a motion to approve the 2005 mid-year budget revision as presented.  Trustee Ziehler requested a review of the changes and Director Gingery summarized p. 3 of Attachment B of the agenda packet.  Unanimously approved. 

3.   Board Designated Fund  - Hardware Capital Fund.  Treasurer Tays  reported that the Finance & Personnel Committee understands the importance of creating the Hardware Capital Fund as recommended by Director Gingery and explained in detail in Attachment C of the agenda packet.  Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Maslowski seconded a motion to officially create a Hardware Capital Fund for the purpose of budgeting funds for the future replacement of central server hardware projected to be replaced in 2007.  Unanimously approved. 

4.   2006 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant.  Treasurer Tays reported that the Finance & Personnel Committee recommends Board approval of the TAC recommendations for the 2006 LSTA grant funds as shown as Attachment D of the agenda packet.  Treasurer Tays moved and Trustee Ziehler seconded a motion to approve the use of 2006 LSTA grant funds as proposed by Director Gingery and also recommended by the TAC.  Trustee Ziehler questioned whether the funds can be used to renew old products and Director Gingery responded that funds are to be used for new products.  Trustee Ziehler also asked whether new products would commit MCFLS to long term commitments of MCFLS funding.  Director Gingery responded that maintenance fees for the products incur after one year which equals 12% annually of the purchase cost.  Unanimously approved. 

It was noted that the e-commerce product would be higher on the wish list if the product would work for 15 accounts instead of only 1 at this time.  It is hoped that this product will be refined in time. 

VI.       ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMITTEE INFORMATIONAL ITEMS. 

A.        Milwaukee County Fiscal and Budget Analyst’s Review of Milwaukee County Federated Library System.  Arnie Gutkowski commented on the document shown as Attachment E of the agenda packet, referring to page 2 where the review discusses Milwaukee Public Library Central and not the remaining net lending libraries.  Neither Director Gingery nor Trustee Ziehler were able to attend the County budget meeting. Terri Delke and Arnie Gutkowski  did attend and  reported that three items were filed for consideration—one item to have the County Board pay $40,000.00 for a governance study in which no action was taken; a second item of increasing MCFLS’ annual allocation for 2006 from its customary $66,000 to $100,000; have the County reinstitute the County Special collection of funds for reciprocal borrowing.  No action taken regarding any of the three yet. 

B.        Letter from President of West Allis Board of Trustees.  Letter shown as Attachment F of the agenda packet shown for informational purposes.  The contents of the letter will be taken into consideration.  

C.        Director’s Report.  Director Gingery reviewed his report, shown as Attachment G of the agenda packet.  He also distributed a report outlining the CountyCat Server Outage August 9-12 shown as Exhibit 2 attached to these minutes.  Discussion ensued regarding the difficulty in having Innovative and Hewlett-Packard talk directly to resolve the problems as quickly as possible for MCFLS.  Arnie Gutkowski asked whether the replacement of the motherboard in the main server now increase the life of the server and Steve Heser responded that many of the other parts are still outdated.  President Schreiber questioned whether Innovative did all it could to ensure a quick solution.  Director Gingery responded that the software-plus contract with III unfortunately has many disclaimers of responsibility on the part of the software company. The delays that were experienced in solving our problems were unfortunate and in some cases, could have been shortened with more knowledge and collaboration between vendors. 

Trustee Ziehler brought up the topic of asking contiguous counties for $50,000 each for their use of the Central Library as discussed months ago.  Kate Huston reported that two different surveys were done and the results were finalized a few weeks ago which shows that MCFLS may not want to do that.  Trustee Ziehler requested that MCFLS be allowed to see those results and Kate Huston agreed to do so at the September MCFLS Board Meeting. 

Trustee Ziehler reported that the ICC Library Study Committee will now be chaired by Jim Ryan of Hales Corners and they will be looking at a regional approach to the reciprocal borrowing situation and it is hoped that MCFLS will be kept in the mix. 

Trustee Ziehler noted that he noticed in the State Channel newsletter that an interlibrary loan workgroup is meeting and wonders if anything there might be of interest to MCFLS.  Director Gingery responded that Pat Kennedy of the Milwaukee Public Library is on that Committee and the primary reason for being is to discuss interlibrary loan practices.  Trustee Ziehler asked Kate Huston if Pat Kennedy could give an update of the workgroup’s activities.  Kate Huston indicated she would talk to Pat Kennedy.  Director Gingery commented that the next MCFLS Legislative & System Services Committee meeting will include an update. 

VII.      NEXT MEETING DATES. 

A.        MCFLS Board of Trustees – September 19, 2005 – 8:30am.  Shown here for informational purposes. 

B.        Finance and Personnel Committee – September 19, 2005.- 8:15am  Shown here for informational purposes. 

C.        Legislative and System Services Committee  - September 12, 2005 – 8:30am.  Shown here for informational purposes.  The meeting will include by-laws review. 

VIII.    ADJOURNMENT.  With no further business to come before the Board, Trustee Ziehler moved and President Schreiber seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:26 a.m.  Unanimously approved.
 

September 9, 2005

To:  MCFLS Board of Trustees

From: Arnie Gutkowski, Library Director

Re:  TAC Meeting September 1, 2005

At their meeting on September 1, the TAC:

• Youth Services Committee—Ann Piehl—The Youth Services Committee announced their meeting schedule for 2005-06. A table of topics, times, and locations was presented. The TAC thanked Ann and the committee for such a well-organized presentation.
• MCFLS continuing education programs were brought up, these are held in conjunction with the Library Council of Southeastern Wisconsin. Several suggestions were made for topics for the 2006 programs. Addressing challenging public situations for public desk personnel, marketing on-line resources, blogs and  listserves, the “job drop center” at Milwaukee Public Library and other ideas were discussed.
• Overdrive audiobooks (downloadable digital audiobooks) were discussed. Steve Heser indicated that the program has started with a resounding success with 204 of 221 titles being in circulation almost immediately, though this is a program being sponsored by several State Library systems the overwhelming usage is from MCFLS patrons. Due to this popularity, additional titles are being examined for addition to the collection. Statistics for this service were also discussed. The possibility of using the same breakdown as is in use for remote usage statistics may be used.
• Jim Gingery reminded Library Directors to submit their per circulation cost worksheets to MCFLS for use in computing the costs for West Milwaukee patrons to be reimbursed by Milwaukee County.
• The upcoming 5 day period to pick up items from the hold shelf was briefly discussed. Terri Delke was thanked for her publicity.
• Steve Heser reported on progress on the Web OPAC redesign study committee.
• A meeting of the MCFLS Legislative & System Services Committee dealing with MCFLS Bylaws was announced.
• Several online database trials were announced, the database committee meeting following the TAC meeting will also discuss some new offerings, particularly the Biography Resource Center and the Testing & Education Resource Center from Gale publishers.
• The MCFLS Server Outage from August 10-12 was discussed. A back-up tape of root files has been received which would save time in restarting the server if another failure occurs. Jim Gingery indicated that he has not received any bills as yet for any hardware/software elements. Jim also indicated that he will be sending a letter to Innovative to indicate the severity of the breakdown and provide suggestions to prevent the length of the same scenario from repeating itself. A suggestion was made to have an executive from Innovative address the MCFLS Board on what their company intends to do to assist in expediting any needed fixes in the future, including additional communication with hardware vendors if needed.
• Local library updates were provided, along with sub-committee agendas and reports.
   

ATTACHMENT   C

Financial Report for the Six Months Ending June 30, 2005