LINC Policy Council Meeting Minutes (not yet approved)
July 16, 2004

Members Present: Lynn Schmit, Fred Schlipf, Barb Turner, Anne Newman, Alice Cisna, Scott Drone-Silvers, Mary Bissey, Jan Ison, Glenna White

Members Absent: Cynthia Helms, Rick Dulaney

LTLS Staff: Pat Boze, Merdy Smith, Donna Schaal

Others Present:

Scott called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m. Scott mentioned the ground rules for the meeting and asked if there were any additions to the agenda. The minutes of the January 29, 2004 meeting were approved as written. There was some general discussion about continued issues with Communication, where library staff continue to not read emails or subscribe to the online status screen. Scott indicated that a general email should be sent out to all describing the process for submitting issues. There was additional discussion about making the faq site more interactive and investigating a pop-up window in Horizon itself when something needs to be broadcast that is critical.

LINC Financial Update
Jan gave a summary of the current balance in the Automation Equity Fund, which is used to purchase capital improvements and pay for upgrades. The balance is $311,296.73. We have paid for the Horizon hardware but not the software. Response time tests will need to be done before this is paid. We still do not know the LTLS FY2005 budget and are doing a required presentation at ISL today to discuss the LTLS FY2005 work plan.

Horizon Migration Update/Network Review
We successfully upgraded both Horizon and LINCPac to a new version last week. However, some of the new functionality is not yet configured. With helpful responses from a quick survey done among the member libraries, we raised several issues with Dynix personnel at ALA related to the serials migration problem, network connectivity issues, security of data in a consortial setting, statistical reports, holds, and others. With the client/server architecture of Horizon, network issues have been a problem over which LTLS staff has limited control. We have worked with many libraries on a variety of network troubleshooting issues, such as local bandwidth use, firewalls and permissions in routers that can impact Horizonís functionality and response time at each library. Dynix has pledged help to us in resolving some of the more difficult network issues. Besides these issues, we continue to work on day-to-day problems and requests from libraries.

We also heard at ALA about Horizon 8.0. This product, to be released in 2005, will be an entire re-write of both the staff interface and the web catalog interface. The database and the database structure will stay the same but the interfaces used by staff and patrons will look much different.

Security Issues
In order to bring up Horizon, security templates were created for library staff using Dynixís security model as much as possible. However, Horizon does have a different architecture for security. In the old Dynix system, we provided a list of functions that directors could check-off for staff. In Horizon, this list would be over 12 pages long. LINC Policy Council members recommended that we put out a survey, asking for issues related to security that would help guide us in refining the security in Horizon.

LINC Policies Discussion
Pat distributed a list of existing LINC Policies that need to be considered/revised as a result of migrating to Horizon. There was general group concensus on how these changes need to be handled (see below).

There was a discussion specifically on the existing policy, “Circulation-Holds Parameters by Item” because there continue to be disagreement with the existing policy. LINC Policy Council agreed to investigate as a way to more fully understand the disagreement.

Besides existing policies, there was some discussion about potential new policies that are needed. These will need further investigation:
• A policy on changing statuses in Horizon
• A policy that mandates auto notices be printed every day the library is open
• A policy that mandates all libraries be set to mail hold notices
• A policy that discusses how to handle libraries that don’t comply with policies
Some of these issues may be resolved with the upgrade to version 8.0 but that is unknown at this time.

LINC Policy Council Members' Terms
With all of the other activity of the migration, there was no election of LINC Policy Council members. Fred motioned, seconded by Alice, that those 5 members whose terms expired on June 30, 2004 should be extended for an additional two years. Scott then amended this motion, with an extension for all membersí terms for an additional two years. This motion passed.

Adjournment
Upon motion by Mary Bissey, second by Lynn Schmit, the meeting adjourned at 11:00. An email will be sent out with a lists of potential dates for this yearís meetings.