Sage Council Meeting

September 20, 2022

Attendees: Beth Ross, Mary Reser, Lili Schmidt, Dea Nowell, Mary Mitchell, Delia Fields, Carrie Bushman, Heather Spry, Ryan McGinnis, Kathy Street, Jon Georg, Perry Stokes, Marsha Richmond, Michele Timmons

Approval of May 2022 minutes: Dea moved to accept the minutes as amended (correction to audience field discussion), Ryan seconded, and all were in favor.

Discussion took place as to whether a quorum was present. Consensus was that council members awaiting replacements would represent until those replacements were in place. Therefore, a quorum is present at this meeting.

Carrie (library director at Cook Memorial) indicated that she would like to assume Ryan’s seat on the council, feeling that it is important for the director to be involved. Since Ryan is interim chair, discussion on selection of chair and vice-chair may need to take place even though historically this selection has waited until the new council members are in place.

Committee Reports

Cataloging Committee – The Cataloging Committee met June 6 and August 1. Topics covered included: a new document available for guidance on biographical information, Library of Things discussion group starting up, matching standards for dvds, new Sage approve genre term for LGBTQ fiction, graphic novels/manga series, tracking circulation on non-cataloged items.

Circulation Committee (Kathy) – The Circulation Committee met and continued to go over circulation policy document. Question was raised about what the current hold limit is and where that is located. Dea indicated that it can be found in the standard loan rules but Kathy couldn’t find it. It may have been removed in error. Kathy asked Beth about the creation of a document showing what libraries are currently using for hold limits. We used to be very consistent, with variations by patron profile group, but adjustments were made during Covid pandemic to fill local holds for drive-up service. Having more holds may represent a hardship for larger libraries. Kathy indicated that they would discuss this at the next Circulation Committee meeting. Perry mentioned that if our fee structure incorporated whether you were a net borrower or net lender it could influence this decision.

Sage Cataloging Policy changes – Heather presented the changes to the policy proposed by the RDA Subcommittee to move forward with adoption of RDA cataloging principles. A section was added to cover the need for refresher training if a cataloger has not cataloged in over 6 months. The refresher training is available online at no cost to the cataloger. It is not meant to be punitive but aimed at quality control and providing resources needed for cataloging. Perry asked if this policy document is available on the sagelib website. Beth confirmed that it is available on the cataloging resources page. The proposed change document was sent out to the general listserv in advance of the meeting as an attachment along with the minutes.

Perry felt that as a communications standard that the proposed change should be sent out farther in advance of the meeting, such as 30 days. Motion was made to table the vote on this till the November meeting. Ryan seconded the motion. Suggestion was made to send out a synopsis of the changes to the listserv in advance of the meeting.

Sage Council Structure and size –  We have been operating with 12 members rather than 13 because we have not been able to recruit a second circulating school position. We have 9 schools but some of those don’t have staff manning the library. Beth recommended dropping that 2nd position. To keep an uneven number we would need to drop another seat. Discussion took place on which seat should be dropped. Along with dropping the 2nd circulating schools seat, it was suggested the public libraries over 15000 have a seat dropped since the fiscal agent represents a larger library as well. Perry suggested incorporating flexibility in the bylaws by specifying a minimum of 9 positions and a maximum of 13 positions, with the total number being uneven.

Beth and Perry will work together on the bylaws language and share with council. This could be presented at one meeting and voted on at the next meeting but there was concern about the length of time. Consensus was that the bylaws language proposal could be sent out to council for email approval. Once approved by council, Beth would send out the proposed language change and a doodle poll to determine a special meeting time to all Sage member libraries. A quorum of 25% of the membership must attend and in order for the bylaws to be changed 2/3 of those attending must approve the change. At least one week’s notice of the intended vote needs to be given. Dea made a motion to accept this procedure, Perry seconded, and none were opposed.

Sage member invoices – Beth will be sending out membership invoices.

Sage training site – With the help of the State Library, Sage now has a training site as a part of the Oregon State Niche Academy account. This saves us from needing our own learning software infrastructure. Development has already occurred with several videos created by Heather. There will be training in circulation, cataloging, course reserves, reports, and more. It will be available to all staff and they can use their current niche academy login or easily request access thru the State Library.

Council Chair/Vice-Chair – Perry volunteered to continue as interim vice-chair. Carrie agreed to be interim Chair. Dea asked if the nominating committee has met or could meet to work on getting positions filled. Beth said that she had a couple of volunteers for open positions but needs to check to see what positions those were for. Three recruits needed are needed – resource sharing partner, public libraries under 5000, and public libraries 5000-15000. Voting on chair and vice-chair would take place at a future meeting.

Additional topics –

Perry asked about system stability issues. Did we find out the cause of the recent instability? Jon indicated that they couldn’t find a reason. The last two times were due to the load balancer going down. Is there any hardware that we need to invest in? Jon didn’t believe so. Beth asked if we could implement a tool for notification of system problems. Jon will look into a monitoring tool.

Perry also asked if we could have restoration of some display fields. Beth indicated that she does not have access to changing the angular version of the catalog in the staff client. She will check to see if more customization is available in future versions of Evergreen. The public OPAC is more customizable.