LITAC MEETING NOTES
May 19, 2008

Members Present:
Jeanne Higgins, Leann Hansen, Jim Davis, Ruth Ann Montgomery, Jim Trojanowski, David Weinhold, Dawn Nordine, Robert Zabkowicz, Peter Gilbert, Josh Rangers, Michael Tyree, Judy Lyons, Mark Beatty, Stacy Stevens, Stef Morrill, Cathy Markwiese, Alicia Mundt, Travis Jiskra

Members Absent:
Allan Barclay, Gail Kuhl, Sanata Lau

Staff Present (DPI):
Sally Drew, Donna Steffen, Martha Berninger, David Sleasman, Bob Bocher, Terry Howe

Review and approval of meeting notes from May, 2008
Cathy Markwiese noted several corrections: The date of the upcoming meeting shown in February 1, 2008 minutes needs to be changed to May 19, 2008. In the section on the Badgerlink RFP Process (on page 6) the institution name needs to be changed to the Milwaukee County Historical Society, rather than the Milwaukee Genealogical Society.

Peter Gilbert made a motion to approve the meeting notes and Jim Trojanowski seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Sally Drew noted that some of the issues may be carried over to next year. She noted that none of the Issue papers introduced have been fully completed. Recommendations have been discussed, but consensus hasn't been reached on most.

New Issue Paper: Shared Integrated Library Systems (Bob Bocher, Donna Steffan)

Bob Bocher reviewed the key points of the issue paper then asked Donna Steffan to report on the issue from the perspective of school libraries.

Donna Steffan: Schools have worked with CESA's to provide delivery service. There is very little overall movement statewide toward a single integrated library system for schools. Only about 6 districts overall have worked with a public library system. According to DPI's annual survey of school libraries there continues to be interest among smaller schools to form an integrated library system. About a year ago DPI started a demonstration project in CESA 10 funded by LSTA. It will offer students access to a greater pool of resources. The project didn't really get off the ground until January 2008. LSTA is considering adding two more school districts to the pilot project. A research component has been added to gather information to support evaluation of project.

Jim Trojanowski: Northern Waters Library Service has a school district on our shared system and we've seen a variety of challenges. The media specialist is part time, which complicates the communication process. The library is not on our wide area network (WAN) which makes coordinating our two networks difficult. Simply getting participants together to resolve issues is a big problem because the schedule of the schools is different from that of the public libraries. I'm wondering if ongoing reductions in staff at schools mean this is going to be a continuous problem?

Donna Steffan: Yes, reductions in school library staff is and will continue to be a big problem. Why isn't the school on the state network?

Jim Trojanowski: They are on the statewide network but they're not on the same WAN. We found it hard to connect with the technical coordinators to resolve the issues.

Donna Steffan: CESA 10 does have a certified technology consultant, and it is a priority of the schools in the districts, but the lack of media specialists in each school does make it hard to resolve issues and coordinate meetings.

Jim Trojanowski: I'd like to clarify that I'm not picking on schools. Some municipalities are running their own networks and we have problems with them as well.

Donna Steffan: Lots of these districts are hiring one person to handle technology and library media centers. In those cases the person may be full time, but they're not in the library full time.

David Weinhold: Who is the vendor for CESA 10?

Donna Steffan: Onyx - they've done a similar project in Hawaii.

David Weinhold: Is the purpose to provide resource sharing?

Donna Steffan: Yes, and we're hoping there will be a way to connect with the public library. In many cases there is an informal agreement, and in other cases the school and the public library may be in very close physical proximity which simplifies matters. Delivery is a challenge for moving materials outside of the CESA. There are delivery systems within CESAs. But there is no funding for postage to move items between CESAs.

Mark Beatty: There is an ongoing debate about the number of certified librarians in each school district. Are some districts looking at this as a way to ameliorate this problem?

Donna Steffan: Yes, the declining number of librarians is being discussed, but some schools are looking at ways to replace professional staff. The primary goal is to create a wider pool of resources for students.

Bob Bocher: We have to be careful that schools don't look at this as a way to easily eliminate school media people. District administrators may be thinking that access to more books will do the trick rather than needing librarians. There's also a danger that schools may look at this as a way to cut back their acquisitions budgets.

Donna Steffan: Most school districts - over 90% only use Common School Funds (SCF) for collection development. When I began at Beaver Dam 15 years ago, school budget and CSF equally supported acquisitions, but now most use the CSF. The staffing issue is great, especially in little school districts where there may be three libraries, and 600 students. It's easy for them to rationalize having just one librarian.

Sally Drew: The new component of this paper (it's an update on where we've been & are going) is that there has been a real question as to whether some of the benefits we saw in public and academic libraries will hold for school libraries. We've been speculating for the last five years about the impact of shared ILS on schools, but we haven't had enough experience to fully understand the impact. Part of the reason to put funding into the LSTA pilot project is to have more experience about how this might work.

Donna Steffan: Interest in WISCAT has grown in the schools but there again transportation and delivery are problematic.

Cathy Markwiese: Are schools using OCLC?

Sally Drew: Most don't.

Donna Steffan: Janesville is using OCLC for cataloging.

Sally Drew: The generic version of OCLC's WorldCat is out there but it doesn't give schools the full capability of WorldCat. Interlibrary loan must be purchased as a separate subscription.

Jim Trojanowski: For many small schools the public library is providing interlibrary loan services.

Donna Steffan: In CESA 9 and 12 there is significant interest in this pilot project.

Sally Drew: As long as schools stand-alone microcomputer based systems for individual libraries, it was difficult to test resource sharing. As more move to networked systems it's easier to test.

David Weinhold: Is there an attitude issue in CESAs that the autonomy of the school district and their relationship within a conference could complicate the picture? Schools may be in close geographic proximity but they're in different conferences. What is the impact?

Donna Steffan: That's a good suggestion. We hadn't talked about it. In Lake Geneva area some of the Union high schools and their K-8s have discussed creating an integrated system - the high schools and K-8s have been working together.

Peter Gilbert: What about the evaluation process? This seems like a big project.

Donna Steffan: Yes, it is, but it will begin to give us some information on how school districts might connect up.

Peter Gilbert: Are you doing this evaluation?

Donna Steffan: Some of the pilot project funds are paying for an evaluator from UW Eau Claire.

Bob Bocher: That will give us more hard core data - right now we're shooting in the dark. This project is just getting underway. Things won't get ramped up until the start of the school year. We'll look at statistics in the fall months.

Bob Bocher then asked for comments, questions, or feedback on the issues included in the paper.

Cathy Markwiese: It seems to me that having someone with expertise will be a key problem - which may help explain 11% of public libraries not participating. Open source is great, but it takes a lot of onsite work.

Bob Bocher: I won't comment on specific libraries, but a number have contacted us to find out if grant funds will be available. In most cases these are very small libraries and when they lack technical staff to support computers in libraries.

Stef Morrill: We have one very small library that hasn't been automated. They're looking at an outside technical vendor to help them implement an Open Source solution. Education on open source will be important - we don't really know if this can work.

Bob Bocher: There is a lot of interest in open source solutions.

Sally Drew: It would be interesting to learn more about the experience of that library.

Stef Morrill: The system is totally hosted by the vendor.

Mark Beatty: The Michigan library consortium is starting a consortium of hosted open source services. They're trying to make it available to every library that isn't already in a shared ILS regardless of where library is located geographically. They're working with Equinox and/or LibLine. They're just starting up and they have three or four libraries now joining - we might look at that as a model.

Bob Bocher: Aren't some schools using Open Source?

Donna Steffan: Yes, there are several schools using Open Source software for all their needs. It works were there is a very strong technology department and library media specialists are supporting their own systems.

Bob Bocher: We sent a note out before the April LSTA meeting to gather input on whether or not any district was interested in replacing their Sirsi Dynix system with an Open Source system - no one has stepped forward yet.

Jim Trojanowski: On issue #1 - in NWLS the reason that some libraries are not in a shared system is that the directors are acting as gatekeepers. There are two libraries that aren't in shared systems, and their directors are not tech savvy. Another four that joined shared systems last year had directors who were uncomfortable with giving up some autonomy but they joined reluctantly at the last minute because they saw it as the way of the future. Until the remaining reluctant directors move on we'll struggle. Meanwhile, do we want to provide some encouragement once those directors move on or do we consider this a closed issue?

Josh Ranger: Did the systems that joined come up with numbers quantifying the success they had?

Bob Bocher: No, the audit bureau found that number one service libraries enjoyed was the shared system.

Josh Ranger: Did we see increased circulation in those libraries that joined? As communities' financial problems increase it would be helpful to have numbers to support the benefits.

Bob Bocher: We definitely see increases in ILL - by double digit numbers. Circulation goes up by single digits.

Jim Trojanowski: Anecdotally I would say a lot of the pressure came from patrons who used shared ILS in other communities.

Travis Jiskra: I wonder if the director is the issue, would offering a number of questions to these directors help them reframe their responses? The Division could develop a series of questions to understand what's driving their decision and think about whether or not we want to encourage them to join.

Bob Bocher: Do we bother to try to get them to join? We could survey the non-participating libraries to see what their reasons are. Every year we survey libraries on a host of tech questions, and for a number of years we asked those not in a shared ILS if they were planning to join. Their responses helped us understand what to expect. But we could ask more pointedly why they aren't in a shared system.

Leanne Hansen: Some of the director's intimidation may be based on their misunderstanding of what's required, maybe we need to educate them.

Jim Trojanowski: In one library it's a combination of money and the director's attitudes. In another the director will say its money, but some libraries with less money have joined.

Stef Morrill: I think Jim's right, sometimes it's the director or the board. It might help if we could offer the incentive of LSTA funding. We have some big guys thinking about joining and we hope the LSTA funds will be available to help get them into the shared ILS.

Peter Gilbert: For issue 2 related to delivery services, the increase in resource sharing can be a huge burden for some libraries. It changes the way people use the library. Patron behavior changes, and for a small library that has a strong tradition that change can be very scary. The cost involved in resource sharing can be a big concern.

Sally Drew: In relation to Issue 2 - the Delivery committee is aware of some issues. There are some delivery initiatives across CESA lines or between CESAs and public libraries. We are currently working with trying to find good public library/school library pairs and encourage a coordinated effort between them. These efforts also have to be coordinated with library systems. The statewide delivery backbone does not go to schools. To try to add schools with an undetermined amount of resource sharing would be very difficult.

Cathy Markwiese: Significant pressure on delivery services is one element - what happens in the summer when a request comes in for a book in a school library not staffed over the summer?

Sally Drew: The school can suspend itself from the system. If no staff is working, it is not generally possible to obtain the materials.

Ruth Ann Montgomery: We have a shared delivery system to schools, including Beloit College and Tech colleges. We don't have a shared system but each of those schools pays a part of the cost of delivery. Could this act as a model? It's worked well since the 1980's.

Sally Drew: This might be a model to examine.

Ruth Ann Montgomery: The college pays for delivery.

David Weinhold: The public library system model has been effective at encouraging cooperation among libraries. The CESA model isn't funded the same way. It the Division would encourage the CESA to adopt a similar model it might build support for shared systems and delivery. If you're only going to a certain number of CESA HQs it would be less expensive and onerous to make more stops at individual districts. This might help collaboration develop.

Dawn Nordine: From CESA perspective - CESA 9 serves a lot of districts and we're looking at reducing delivery services - schools are looking at what they can do without not what else they could add. Administrators seem to think they can find less expensive ways to do things that they are now paying CESAs to do. I think schools are looking at whether or not they can do without CESAs. Everybody is looking at money and it would be more economical if ALL districts bought in.

Jim Trojanowski: Northern Waters, Indianhead, and WVLS are looking at contracts with WALTCO - we have some concerns over their ability to sustain the service. We're looking at ways that WALTCO might be better able to survive.

Mark Beatty: In terms of Issue 1 - if what comes out of the visioning summit is one library card we're going to need to consider that in terms of the things we're talking about here. There has to be some pressure on libraries that aren't particularly set up right now to be able to share. We have to give them incentives to increase cooperation as we look at statewide sharing.

Sally Drew: That may be a point to add to the paper - there are social as well as tech issues. We probably should add the institutions to the list because they've put in a shared system.

New Issue Paper: Access to Electronic Resource for People with Disabilities

Sally Drew: Peter Gilbert and Jim Davis have volunteered to pull together some people to think about this. I didn't develop an issue paper because it feels too big - I'd like more input from all of you to narrow it down. At a state level we have the Regional Library for the Blind and the Newsline for the Blind. There are other kinds of disabilities we've barely begun to look at. I gave you some general information on statewide services - my sense when you brought up the topic was that you also wanted to talk about what is happening within libraries. I gave you the BadgerLInk link to an article so we could look at that. I thought we could start there rather than beginning with an issue paper. I'd like to get a little brainstorming on the kinds of disabilities we're most concerned with - are we looking at local level primarily or are we looking at statewide initiatives.

One more comment on the Regional Library. The National Library Service is beginning to digitize the entire stock or talking books. The project has been in the planning stage for 10 years and they're behind schedule. It will change the way the Regional Library distributes materials so it's going to get phased in over a variety of years. If you have any questions about Newsline for the Blind I can answer them but I'd like to begin by brainstorming.

Cathy Markwiese: With limited resources public libraries try to serve the many (sighted) rather than the few - its' good there's the Regional Library.

Stef Morrill: The piece you distributed is dated, and some information has changed since then. We are using some LSTA funding to get larger keyboards and longer cables which are helpful for the disabled. There isn't a clear specification of what DPI considers to be an accessible computer and more detail would be helpful.

Cathy Markwiese: We do have two accessible stations paid for by a grant from Hewlett Packard, but we don't have the ability to add on to them because we don't have funding.

Mark Beatty: On the Madison campus they have gotten money to buy a certain amount of equipment but the libraries and staff aren't expected to integrate those services. There is a campus office that is separately funded, and that office will help patrons use equipment. The staff work with disabled students not just in the library, but anywhere on the community. I think we need to look at the model and work with The United Way or the Lighthouse to see what they think we need to have to serve the disabled. This would enable the library to learn from more informed partners rather than having to learn everything from scratch.

Cathy Markwiese: We worked with two agencies that worked with a whole range of disabilities, and that was tremendously helpful. The agencies trained their clients on how to use different equipment.

Judy Lyons: Are we including elderly in with disabilities? I'm thinking about the aging of the population and I don't know if that would fall under this?

Sally Drew: That's a conversation we've had at LSTA for years. I think elderly aren't necessarily disabled, but they may have separate needs from other patrons. I'm not sure if the intent was to look at both.

Peter Gilbert: We have aging faculty looking at ways to bump up the font size on their machines and we see a "grey area" literally that needs to be addressed. Another kind of tact on the disability issue is that there's the physical accessibility but there's also the accessibility of electronic resources we provide. Accessibility needs to be a criteria in selecting and purchasing electronic "stuff". We need to push our vendors to make sure their databases and products meet the needs of disabled patrons.

Jim Trojanowski: Many of our libraries have websites created by volunteers and those sites probably aren't designed to be accessible.

Mark Beatty: QuestionPoint recently introduced changes that made the virtual reference service more accessible to visually disabled patrons. The changes were huge, and the point is the vendors can do this if we make this a demand.

Cathy Markwiese: Do you have any statistics on the number of disabled using Question Point?

Mark Beatty: I don't think so.

Stef Morrill: Maryland is one of the biggest states using QP and we can see if they have any statistics.

Mark Beatty: Maryland is getting some accessibility funds which may mean they have more information available.

David Weinhold: I agree that having people available to train staff on disability issues is important. I'd like the state to provide us direction on what the agencies are and how we can work with them.

Sally Drew: I don't know a great deal about the concept of mainstreaming but I believe schools make a great many accommodations.

Donna Steffan: The schools need to meet the needs of all students - not just special education students - but also the homeless, the migrant students, and the disabled. School board policies need to address the issue. If the student needs to have specific resources in the library they are there. If the technology is portable the school needs to move it according to the needs of the students (in the classroom or the library, etc.)

Alicia Mundt: A lot of my students had advocates who worked with us to inform us of the technologies the students would need. We had folks who came in to train us on how to use those technologies.

David Weinhold: In the public library sector it is sometimes difficult to learn the technologies and keep our knowledge fresh. I'm wondering if there's the same concern in the schools, or do you have greater incentives because of No Child Left Behind? The Department feels strongly about the school sector, but I'm not clear on what the expectation is for public library staff. It ok to rely on another agency (like at UW) which could take pressure off the public library staff?

Josh Ranger: The difference here is litigation as schools can be sued for not providing support. Libraries can't be sued, can they?

Stef Morrill: Maryland was threatened with a suit that pushed them to push virtual reference service to make QuestionPoint accessible.

Josh Ranger: Can a public library be sued if their resources and website are unaccessible?

Stef Morrill: I think they can.

Cathy Markwiese: I thought the Regional Library played the role of providing access. I think the Regional Library has its own accessible catalog.

Peter Gilbert: Does that count as a reasonable accommodation?

Stef Morrill: I don't know.

Sally Drew: None of this is simple. Making something accessible isn't necessarily work that can all be done by the library. Not everyone has the ability or chooses to use tools available.

The National Federation of the Blind has chosen to use a telephone to make newspapers available, in part because they felt relying solely on computers assumed that patrons had computers and the programs to help with accessibility. The Regional Library's new talking book service will require a specific reader. This is where the intersection with the elderly comes in. In schools people of all ages are being taught how to use screen readers. In the elderly community people can't use keyboards and may have problems even using a telephone keypad.

Josh Ranger: I think the legal issue should be addressed in whatever we draft. It would be good to give direction to libraries so the legal requirements are clear. I'm ignorant in those areas but I know it's a different issue in a public school environment.

Jim Davis: The mandated issue is big. The special needs population in Milwaukee is, in essence, the third largest school district in the state. The IEP process defines what schools need to provide. We send students to special schools because they can offer a better quality of service to them.

Cathy Markwiese: You also have the mandate that everyone has to attend school. There is no similar requirement for public libraries.

Jim Davis: Even in some senior housing areas we're being asked to provide some services.

Jim Trojanowski: The Great Lakes Disability and Resource Center could be a valuable resource. We did have a threat from a patron and the Disability Center stepped in to work with the advocate for that individual and uncovered an unmet training need.

Stef Morrill: It sounds like we're all agreeing that it's important to collaborate with other organizations that can help us meet patron's needs.

Jim Davis: There's a grassroots organization working with almost every disabled population and it's important to work with them to meet our teacher's needs for professional development.

Josh Ranger: Seven years ago I developed cataracts and had to learn how to use screen readers. I've since had surgery and now my vision is fine, but it was a real learning experience. Any of us can develop a disability at any time, and we need to be informed.

Sally Drew: I'm beginning to visualize an outline. Discuss differences between educational institutions and public libraries, mandates they face and reasons they might approach this differently. Discuss different types of disabilities we'll address. We could include sections on practical ideas of technologies we might look at, tips from early adapters, legal issues, and collaboration with agencies focusing on disabilities.

Jim Trojanowski: Mark mentioned some of the accessibility issues with QuestionPoint. What do we know about accessibility with BadgerLink?

Sally Drew: We don't hear complaints, but that may not mean it all is well.

Jim Trojanowski: Starting at the state level we could do a survey on accessibility of electronic resources.

Sally Drew: We need to get people to test resources so we have a sense of issues patrons might be facing.

Cathy Markwiese: The EBSCO representative showed me a variety of changes designed to meet needs of disabled.

Josh Ranger: Surely there are folks in the Wisconsin library community who can help us learn more and assess our products and services.

Jim Trojanowski: Katherine Snyder in Eau Claire, who is blind, may be able to give some personal input.

Donna Steffan: Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative (WATI) should be able to help - they have legal staff and technical staff. There's also a statewide library called Sysmic (?) which loans resources. They know quite a bit about websites and web page design.

Dawn Nordine: I've attended several WATI presentations and there are some very easy to use tools that can help evaluate websites.

Sally Drew: The TRACE Center on campus should also be able to help.

Josh Ranger: Do we think some of these agencies could do this paper for us? I think we should approach them and see what they could offer us.

Stef Morrill: I would be interested in learning what level of service they could provide.

Josh Ranger: These folks are constantly monitoring new developments in a way we will never be able to.

Peter Gilbert: I think the resources in the paper haven't changed that much.

Leanne Hansen: I think we need to address the need for library staff to be sensitive to and aware of the needs of disabled patrons.

Sally Drew: We've been focusing on visually handicapped. Are there other groups we need to consider?

Cathy Markwiese: We have some interesting issues from the wheelchair bound - we've had requests to change their catheterization bags and to handle their personal belongings. We've had to draft some guidelines for what we can and will do.

Jim Davis: We've had to deal with that in the schools. The list of potential disabilities to address is enormous.

Sally Drew: I know and I'm not sure we can address them all - should we try to narrow it down?

Jim Trojanowski: The ability to use a keyboard or a trackball, motor coordination.

Josh Ranger: Motor coordination, visual disabilities, are the biggest I see.

Donna Steffan: I think language is an area we need to look at. Spanish language and Hmong language are high priorities in schools.

Jim Davis: Hmong has surfaced as the 3rd largest group in the state.

Jim Trojanowski: Is language a disability or is it a whole other issue?

Donna Steffan: It is part of the accessibility issue?

Josh Ranger: There are no legal issues around language, are there?

Donna Steffan: The Wisconsin Literacy council has a presence in many public libraries and they're dealing with patrons who aren't primarily English language learners.

Jim Trojanowski: I don't think that language is a necessary part of this paper on disabilities. It is an accessibility issue, but I don't know that it is part of disabilities equation.

Mark Beatty: I think we need to address delivery and electronic resources as part of the total service needed by disabled patrons. There's a certain amount of home delivery and outreach happening in libraries now, but we may need to work more with new kinds of partners to meet the needs of disabled patrons. If we have students being transported to a special school that doesn't have access to all the materials they need, the chances are high that the patron will need help in terms of delivery or working in an alternative space.

Sally Drew: We need to identify organizations - those of you who have suggestions please send us the name of the organization, their location, a name of a contact, and their website so we can begin to gather that in one place. If any of you want to define a specific issue it would be helpful if you could write it up. If any of you have good anecdotes or success stories that we could build on that would be helpful, I will try to find some other resources to help us work on this paper.

Jim Davis: I would like to revisit the question of language - what about incarcerated people. Do we need to provide services to this population?

Jim Trojanowski: I think that's a whole different issue - I think Bob Zabkowicz can provide us with input. But I'd be reluctant to put this in as a disability because we could potentially be making the disability topic SO broad that it can't effectively be tackled.

Sally Drew: And keep in mind the focus of this paper is on technology.

Josh Ranger: I think we do need to focus on the mandates.

Sally Drew: We should focus on access, electronic and school or public library settings. We may not get so far as a paper next time, but we'll try to make some progress. Thanks for the discussion.

Sally Drew broke the group for lunch at 12:00.

Sally Drew reconvened the meeting at 1:00 p.m.

Review Issue Paper: Digital Archive

Abby Swanton provided some background in response to a question from Cathy Markwiese.

Sally Drew asked the group to review the issues and options and make recommendations.

Cathy Markwiese: For issues 2, I like option D. I think it's important to consider long term budget needs and funding options.

Abby Swanton: We might be able to be part of the Persistent Digital Archives and Library system (PEDALS) project which will give us the ability to store our own content on servers in Wisconsin, and that would change the budgetary needs. We won't know for 18 months.

Josh Ranger: The Historical Society funded several positions to define and manage public records programs, and state agencies are essentially being assessed a fee for storing their records. Will they also be assessed a fee for your work?

Sally Drew: Yes, it is possible it could work that way. The Reference and Loan Library does have a contract with DOA to work on the government portal. A lot of Abby's activities are similar to the work required to support the portal though the two projects have different purposes. I'm trying to find ways to build this work into that project, but it's hard to work with DOA because no one at DOA is assigned to work on it from their end.

Abby Swanton: There's a sudden interest from state agencies to manage the lifecycle of their information from creation to preservation. There is buzz about wanting to standardize the publishing process in the government world. What we need to do is pay attention to that buzz and position ourselves to be the service provider to meet their needs. That would make it easier for us to charge back for my work.

Travis Jiskra: For long term stability you may want to focus on specific objectives or activities so you can quantify your activity for the next few years.

Abby Swanton: We're meeting with statewide agencies and I need to begin writing down the outcome of those meetings.

Josh Ranger: What's your assessment of the health of repository libraries?

Abby Swanton: We're going to be focusing on that in a June 6th meeting sponsored by WLA. I've sent out a survey to get feedback. The effort is to bring people in and find out how we can best pool our resources. How do we get people to recognize that one library doesn't have to be the solution for everyone's needs.

Josh Ranger: Maybe a survey of those people's bosses would be useful - to learn how government documents fit into their overall plan. They might have different opinions than people who work in government documents.

Abby Swanton: We lost three depositories for print materials this last year.

Cathy Markwiese: How many depositories are there?

Abby Swanton: 15 selective, 35 regional, 3 state level.

Sally Drew: This is an area where technology has the ability to make a major change in how service is delivered. We are increasingly aware that content that more content is born electronic, and we need to have the digital archive to preserve this content. There are a decreasing number of print items being produced.

Abby Swanton: I did a presentation at WAPL, and I focused on the service aspect of the program. I got good feedback from all eight attendees. I think I can do more of those types of presentations and build a market for the digital archive.

Cathy Markwiese: You need to make library staff aware of what government documents actually are; many small public libraries don't have any idea of what kind of information is available.

Dave Weinhold: In your paper you mentioned high turnover of staff in agencies do you think this will continue to be an issue?

Abby Swanton: I think we need to have very clear priorities for the program. The program has been successful because the scope has been spelled out. I think we can tap into people's desire for standardized process and give depositories what they need.

Sally Drew: Several years ago DOA bought a software package for content management but it wasn't implemented. Now each agency is buying its own which complicates our task, We have to understand how a lot of different packages might work with the Digital Archive.

Dave Weinhold: I don't think we can eliminate any of the options for Issue 1 based on what you've just shared.

Sally Drew: For Issue 2: What are the best ways to assure continued easy and direct access to digital archives records?

Peter Gilbert: What do you mean by option A - web 2.0 technology?

Abby Swanton: We're still investigating.

Josh Ranger: How often do you harvest content?

Abby Swanton: I do it monthly and find 50 to 70 new items.

Josh Ranger: RSS feed might be an option to consider - Wisconsin Historical Society uses RSS feed to communicate new content additions monthly. RSS feed would allow anyone to subscribe.

Cathy Markwiese: I like option C because I think most libraries expect to use Google.

Josh Ranger: Yep, I like C as well.

Abby Swanton: I don't know enough about how this would work but I think the Google Books project used by the State Historical Society is doing this and our records are being discovered that way.

Sally Drew: The records are already in OCLC.

Cathy Markwiese: I don't know how your content would be displayed in Google. If a library adds digital archive content to their catalog and adds their holdings wouldn't it be picked up in Google?

Dave Weinhold: Outside of a library users could use a Google search to find digital archive content, what about having this content available in BadgerLink?

Sally Drew: To incorporate it into BadgerLink you'd need objects stored on a local server rather than OCLC's server in order for these objects to be searched in a federated search.

Abby Swanton: I think once we have more experience with Content DM we might be able to achieve a lot of these things that we're talking about today.

Josh Ranger: I don't see a portal specific for this, but I wouldn't waste a lot of time developing another place.

Abby Swanton: I agree.

Cathy Markwiese: We don't want to have another silo of content to search.

Abby Swanton: This is why we are encouraging libraries to incorporate digital archive content into their catalog so patrons can discover items without having to search more than one place.

Sally Drew: I think some experimentation with adding records in different locations will give us more information on the best way to proceed. We tried to avoid developing another separate "silo" for patrons to search. We wanted to get the project started and figure out where the best place would be to set up a server. It may be a strategy but it's not a goal to have another server for libraries and patrons to search.

Sally Drew: Let's look at the last two issues: Issue 3 - Abby's working with a small set of public records and we're working on defining exactly what we mean by a public record.

Abby Swanton: We're trying to get out the idea that no one library has it all, and we're starting to meet more frequently. We need to prioritize and get the content that people find useful now.

Josh Ranger: I can't imagine that you could tackle all agencies. At the same time the same issue is being confronted in every county in Wisconsin and those of us in the business of collecting these things don't have the tools to do this well. You could have partners right away if library directors were willing to participate. Local public libraries are trying to do this electronically at their level.

Sally Drew: Let's move on to Issue 4 - How can we improve outreach and public relations in support?

Josh Ranger: I think the name Digital Archive is still confusing.

Abby Swanton: We're thinking of re-launching the product when we move to Content DM. I'm getting feedback from the agencies that we need to reintroduce the digital archive and we need to introduce the concept to state agencies that aren't doing enough now.

Cathy Markwiese: If you get a few legislators who are proud of their work on a particular piece of legislation and that item is part of the digital archive they might help.

Judy Lyons: I would recommend that you train the trainers. Teach staff in libraries what the digital archive contains and how it can be used.

Abby Swanton: That has been on my "to-do" list. I think train the trainer is an effective way to build an audience.

New Issue Paper: Privacy and Safety in Electronic Information Access

Bob Bocher: I sent this out electronically the end of last week. This paper doesn't actually deal with safety. It refers more to privacy. We'll either address safety later on in the process of reviewing this paper or as a separate paper. Bob reviewed the paper.

Jim Davis: Do all these laws support one another to ensure that children don't get access to undesirable content?

Bob Bocher: That's a local decision.

Jim Davis: I think schools have a responsibility to prohibit students from accessing inappropriate content.

Bob Bocher: We'll have to address that in another paper.

Josh Ranger: We just wrote a general schedule for library records. If the archive of the library includes a sign-in for patrons who come in to the library to use meeting rooms. Would you consider that record a protected item?

Bob Bocher: I believe a paper record of who signed in to use a computer is probably a record that needs to be protected from a privacy standpoint, but I'm not sure if general records of patrons entering the library would be protected.

Josh Ranger: Our faculty likes the sign-in because they can then see which of their students are using the library.

Jim Trojanowski: As technology allows us to do things that are in conflict with our needs for privacy, we need to look at conflicts between what our patrons want and don't want to be available.

Cathy Markwiese: We use the Innovative Interfaces system, and when patrons create their profile they have to read a notice that explains that joining the system will store their information so they're alerted that their privacy is compromised.

Travis Jiskra: Schools have a lot of resources available to track student's use of materials. If that student is 16 or older are we able to give that to parents?

Bob Bocher: If they're older than 16, the parents don't need to be given access, but they would need to be told if their child broke a school rule and disciplinary action was necessary.

Donna Steffan: If a student is under 16 and accessing a resource through the library, the parent would need to be informed. In the past the court would need to make a request to release this information.

Travis Jiskra: If a student is on the Internet would that access be covered?

Donna Steffan: The acceptable use policy would cover this issue.

Jim Davis: We keep a log of every transaction and we routinely get requests from the police or the FBI. I've never heard that it's illegal to provide this information to the police.

Bob Bocher: It is illegal for the police to ask a public library for this information.

Bob Bocher: In terms of Issue 1, there are a lot of questions with no black and white answers. Let's move on and talk about the other issues. Issue 2 covers the impact of new and evolving technologies. Issue 3 covers hosted services. In the past we had reference databases on CD, but now that content is accessed over the Internet. There is legislation before Congress requiring schools and libraries to filter social networking sites. Are there comments or feedback on these issues? We'll try to get answers to some questions before the October meeting.

Stef Morrill: Do they have anything about privacy in mandatory training for librarians?

Bob Bocher: I don't know. We can look into it.

Stef Morrill: With hosted services we've always looked at them as being covered as part of the administration of duties.

Bob Bocher: The 3rd party Internet service firm has a paper out on signing contracts with 3rd parties and their adherence to state laws. Have you ever asked them what they would do if they received a request for data from law enforcement?

Josh Ranger: I'd recommend, from an IT perspective, that you look at the general schedule for public library records.

Bob Bocher: I don't know if a patron's record of using an Internet resource is considered a public record.

Josh Ranger disagreed. There was significant discussion of whether or not emails received on a government IP is considered a public record. Wisconsin Rapids School District email policy is at issue. This sets a dangerous precedent. If a public library system creates a log of someone using a computer or system, it could be argued that the record is a public record. I think we need to investigate the general schedule for public records to verify the guidelines.

Bob Bocher: We will look at it to make sure it covers all types of records created in public libraries.

Peter Gilbert pointed out a typo "statue" on page 3, the last sentence of the first paragraph under State Library Privacy Statutes in the draft paper.

Jim Davis: There are new rules that ISPs keep records for two years.

Bob Bocher: I think that's a proposed law.

Jim Davis: I believe the telecommunications community is trying to enact this requirement.

Bob Bocher: AT&T and Verizon have said they will keep records even though it's not yet legally required.

Jim Davis: There was a threat on a person's life, and we said it was not made from one of our computers. Law enforcement found that the email came through our server but was not made from our computers. When we start talking about privacy it's so wide, and it's very hard to pin down.

Dave Weinhold: That situation could have been covered as a violation of acceptable practice.

Bob Bocher: Privacy does not trump blatant illegal activities, but I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of gray areas involved.

Bob Bocher: We'll talk with our staff attorneys on some of these issues and report back.

Badgerlink Update

Sally Drew: The major issue are that we are working on is authentication. We have not had a centralized way to manage authentication for all Badgerlink resources. It's been hard to guarantee access to all resources to all users under the current process. We identified a method that will take us further, though it may not solve all our issues, such as local administration of some of these resources. We hope to be at the test stage by July.

Sally Drew and Lisa Reale (BadgerLink coordinator) shared a PowerPoint on Agent authentication and Federated Searching.

Cathy Markwiese: Are AOL users going to be the primary group needing a user name and password.

Lisa Reale: Yes, but also we get requests from students who don't have library cards.

Donna Steffan: Will students ever be able to use their school library card?

Sally Drew: We're working on a solution to that - allowing library card access to schools. We have not encouraged ID and password so far. We increasingly run into patrons using ISPs who can't give us a dedicated IP range for the school. We are working with those schools to facilitate access. We also have patrons who are unlikely to be able to go to the library, and there are elderly patrons who won't go to their library. This system will at least give us the ability to provide access individually rather than posting a generic ID and password.

Cathy Markwiese: What is the turn around when someone requests and ID and password.

Lisa Reale: Usually a day or two, and I'm not sure if that will improve or not in the future. The most time intensive part of the process if verifying that the patron is a Wisconsin resident. You could give user guest access but that would not give them access to everything.

Sally Drew: This doesn't have anything to do with those of you doing authentication at the local level (like SCLS) but now that's not the majority of systems. Library systems and libraries that use referring URLs will continue to be able to do so.

Mark Beatty: When you authenticate on the library card, will you have the dropdown with all public libraries in it?

Sally Drew: We've had to deal with the normalization of library name vs. community name and we usually go with community name. We are planning to use the dropdown list in part because we don't have unique barcodes throughout the state. We could throw all barcodes into one big file but that would not be a very secure system.

Mark Beatty: If someone gets a new card, how long would it take for them to get access?

Sally Drew: It should work right away if we have the barcode pattern from their library.

Mark Beatty: For virtual reference we did a clickable map with county zip code dropdowns which is easier, but its more clicks.

Sally Drew: In virtual reference it doesn't really matter how someone enters the service because there aren't vendor contract terms to be protected.

Josh Ranger: There are accessibility issues with a long drop down menu.

Lisa Reale: If someone is visually impaired they have to listen to the whole long list.

Sally Drew: If someone is visually impaired we could give them an ID and password so they wouldn't have to listen to the whole list. We've also been told by this group and others that they felt it was important to retain that identity with the local library. Once we have more experience with the tool we can investigate how we might fine-tune it. We hope to centralize authentication and if funds are made available we will be able to expand the number of resources available to patrons. Statistics are now being kept for each vendor separately. We're not sure how this will work with the new system.

Stef Morrill: Does this mean we'll lose local level statistics on BadgerLink?

Sally Drew: We don't think it will change your ability to view statistics, but the process is very time consuming because each vendor handles them differently. EBSCO is the only vendor offering us an easily accessible administrative module to view statistics. We're hoping to improve the consistency of statistics. Federated Searching will allow us to search across multiple databases. We want to allow patrons to search all databases or to select specific databases for searching.

Lisa Reale demonstrated federated searching capabilities via screen shots.

Sally Drew: We're tying to make it possible for patrons to select the three interfaces EBSCO provides to meet the needs of different age children. Implementation of federated searching will happen before we meet again, and I wanted to preview the ways we've attempted to meet the recommendations made by this group in the past.

Josh Ranger: Will the current and historic newspapers be searched together?

Sally Drew: Yes.

Cathy Markwiese: Will we be able to select either current or historic sources?

Sally Drew: We could go that way.

Josh Ranger: I think that would be helpful.

Update on COLAND May 5-6 Visioning Conference

Sally Drew: The Visioning conference was attended by a variety of folks here today. I just wanted to give an overview of the process and open a discussion of the major themes that were developed. Jamie LaRue of Colorado gave the keynote address and gave people a lot of ideas to help people think broadly before our break out session. David Ward, whose firm created the Economic Impact study, was the luncheon speaker.

The rest of the conference was a group process working with a series of facilitators. We gathered input before the conference on how people envisioned the library of the future. Peter Gilbert worked on consolidating the results, and almost 200 total responses were received. The responses were used to create five posters that highlighted major themes and included specific comments.

The group divided into five breakout sessions and discussed their specific themes: services/roles, organizational collaboration, infrastructure and technology, education and literacy, and economic development and finance. The groups brainstormed to identify the most important issues. The groups created PowerPoints that were presented to the whole group. We identified the key elements from each group's presentation.

Sally Drew distributed the PowerPoints created by the infrastructure and technology group. There was overlap between the groups. After the key ideas of each presentation were listed out the participants voted on the most important ideas. A "Beginnings" report is being created to outline the results of the process. The ideas coming out of the conference will need to be fleshed out by a variety of groups, possibly including this one, before any real work can begin.

One idea that was very popular was the concept of the statewide library card, and this group may well be asked to contribute work to this program. Some states have instituted the one card concept, but they haven't necessarily used it to replace any other local library card, it was more of a PR concept.

The concept of adding more statewide databases also came up - it may end up meaning more BadgerLink resources, but it may also mean more "group buys" of resources.

There was talk of a statewide portal to include more local resources, not confined to library resources. We discussed digitization of a variety of content types. The idea of taking the library where people are was an ongoing theme among many groups. There was also lots of talk about the importance of having more bandwidth. We talked about the need to train the staff and provide strong customer service. We also talked about branding and marketing of library services and sources.

Mark Beatty: What's the timeline for the report?

Jim Trojanowski: The committee is meeting in the next week. A draft will go to Rick Grobschmidt and then to Libby Burmaster in the coming month.

Sally Drew: COLAND met right after the conference and they were concerned about whether there were any items that required immediate legislative action. COLAND will meet again before the end of the month to review that question. The budget ideas submitted by COLAND may be revised to accommodate needs arising from the Conference. All of the participants had to fill out comment cards and Cathy Markwiese reviewed them. In general feedback was promising, and about 80% of participants indicated a willingness to work on initiatives. The trick will be to take the outcome and frame specific questions. Jamie pushed collaboration a lot in his presentation. He talked about using GIS systems and mapping the user base. If you have the chance to view the presentation, you'll find it very eye-opening.

David Weinhold: The approach Jamie presented to using statistical information may be a topic worth discussing here in LITAC. There's a lot of information that could be valuable to the community, businesses, and students, but it's not easy for the average patron to use and that may be a value-added service we could study.

Travis Jiskra: It sounds like a paradigm shift - changing the way citizens value their library.

Jim Trojanowki: At legislative lobbying day we found it was a surprise to some that BadgerLink is a library service. We think the day may come when library services are interwoven into the full range of community services, and the identification with the library may be blurred, which could be a positive or a negative thing.

Sally Drew: Federated searching of BadgerLink will be one step in this direction.

Josh Ranger: Branding and marketing will be even more important.

Jim Trojanowski: Jamie made a great case for the importance of professional branding and marketing and building a library identity in the community.

Sally Drew: The key themes were educational literacy, a single library card, branding and marketing, getting the library out into the community, legislation and economic development, staff development.

Jim Trojanowski: I think the hope is that the other presentations by the other groups will be posted on the COLAND site.

Sally Drew: Yes, they all will be posted.

At the next meeting Sally Drew will share a report on the current state of all of the issue papers.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 p.m.

For questions about this information, contact Robert F. Bocher (608) 266-2127

Last updated on 10/24/2008 2:35:10 PM