Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - April 21, 1999 FAC Present: FAC Absent: FLICC/FEDLINK Present: Mike Conklin Maxine Brown (Chair) Susan Tarr Denise Lomax Bonnie Klein Milton MeGee Ken Nero (Vice-Chair) Carla Pomager Sheila Riley Fred Rettenmaier Cheryl Thomas AGENDA 1. Approval of the March 18th FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Ken Nero, Acting Chair 3. FY 2000 Budget: Final Presentation/Discussion 4. Beta Test of Digitizing/Scanning Survey -- FAC 5. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, and FEDLINK Managers/Staff þ Revolving Fund Status þ CORC Project Status 6. Committee Reports 7. Old Business 8. New Business 9. Announcements Vice-Chair, Ken Nero, opened the meeting at 9:15 a.m. 1. Approval of the March 18, 1999 FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC Denise Lomax moved that the minutes be accepted. Ken Nero seconded the motion. The FAC approved the meeting minutes of March 18, 1999. 2. FAC Issues and Topics -- Ken Nero, Acting Chair American Federal Libraries Chronology We received the March 19th draft of the document being created by the LC Bicentennial Committee. FEDLINK Spring Membership Meeting Susan Tarr reviewed the agenda for next week's April 29th FEDLINK Spring Membership Meeting. The meeting is sponsored by the FAC and we are encouraged to attend. The meeting will focus on digital resources and the OCLC CORC project. GPO, NOAA, and the SIL will talk about what they are doing with regard to electronic resources. The Working Groups will report. Sami Klein, who had chaired the FLICC Budget and Finance WG, resigned from Federal service. In her stead, Carol Bursik, the FEB Liaison to the group, will present the Budget WG report at this meeting and future meetings. Susan needs to reconstitute the Budget WG before the end of July to begin work anew for FY01. Cheryl Thomas, as new chair of the Information Technology WG, will present that report. The FAC suggested that this meeting presents another opportunity to encourage more libraries to fill out the IT assessment survey. 3. FY2000 Budget: Final Presentation/Discussion Susan Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, presented the FEDLINK FY2000 budget to the FAC for approval. Earlier in the week, Fred Rettenmaier emailed the FAC his rationale for approval of the budget. After FAC approval the budget must obtain the approval of the LC Financial Services Officer. The FSO thinks the budget is a little tight if FEDLINK is going to be moving to a revolving fund. The goal remains, however, to keep the reduced fees for membership. Denise Lomax inquired about the OCLC deficit accounts and how they are displayed in the budget. By way of background Susan explained that OCLC is the only vendor where FEDLINK pays the bill before all the money is received from the membership. She stated, however, that money not paid does not show as revenue in the budget. Relevant to the FEDLINK budget presentation regarding service activity base and fee structures, Mike Conklin raised issues concerning the impact of agencies using government charge cards. An innovation in government procurement, the "Smart Pay program," provides credit card authority to contracting and program officials in federal agencies and libraries. Does this procurement authority hold an eventual negative impact for centralized purchasing services such as those provided through FEDLINK and through agency libraries? Use of government charge cards fills needs more quickly and saves on the administrative costs of cutting purchase orders. Susan Tarr believes the issue of decentralizing costs needs study and she acknowledges that the book vendors are not competing with credit cards for quickness. She wondered if there were not additional costs of using credit cards for smaller cost centers and whether the efficiency of central procurement would be lost for information agencies. What is the impact of having decentralized buying versus centralized volume discounts? Another unknown is the costs of follow-up audits. This could be a financial disaster in the making if cost tracking for audit trails is poor and bank records are bad. Cheryl Thomas informed the FAC that LEXIS/NEXIS offered her agency direct pay discounts that beat the FEDLINK fees. In response to this Susan Tarr said FEDLINK needs to ask vendors why it is better for them to go directly to individual libraries rather than through group purchases via FEDLINK? Susan Tarr talked about the Transfer/Direct Cost Breakdown Analysis which is done as a result of the Economy Act requirement that direct pay not subsidize transfer pay services and vice versa. Susan Tarr stated the LC Financial Services Office analyzed positions/work devoted to FEDLINK and projected $30,000 less for FY 2000 than 99. Ken Nero inquired about the use of the LC Office of General Counsel. LC intends to hire a contract specialist to support FEDLINK work and Susan Tarr obtained a commitment for a dedicated attorney. An attorney is essential in the quest for revolving fund authority and the transition from the Economy Act. Sheila Riley moved that the FAC endorse the FEDLINK FY2000 budget proposal. Ken Nero seconded the motion and the FAC approved. 4. Beta Test of Digitizing/Scanning Survey -- FAC Milton MeGee, FEDLINK Network Coordinator, presented the latest rendition of the survey and requested that the FAC fill out the survey from their individual libraries' perspectives as a way to test the survey. As a result several more suggestions were offered. 5. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, FEDLINK Managers/Staff þ Revolving Fund Status Susan Tarr said that they are talking again about this as a separate piece of legislation in FY2000. FEDLINK has a supporter on the Authorizing Committee (Senate Rules Committee) to drive it. Susan will be attending a FLRT meeting to describe the legislation in the hopes that FLRT may propose an ALA resolution to pass at the Summer Conference to endorse the legislation. The benefit of the legislation will be the elimination of the one year funding restriction. FEDLINK would not need to stop and start the program every fiscal year and would not need to re-register all members every fiscal year. One-year money would have to be obligated before the end of the fiscal year but FEDLINK would not necessarily need to have a contract in place to spend that money. They could take the money and then execute the contract. Acquiring revolving fund status avoids Economy Act restrictions (define, obligate, and spend in one fiscal year). This would allow FEDLINK to operate administrative funds on a no-year basis so that they can be carried over and reduce fees for the next year. She estimated that it would save the government a couple $100,000. each year. þ CORC Project Status - Training is going on at Dublin Ohio with OCLC. 6. Committee Reports Denise Lomax reported for the FLICC Education Working Group and stated that Amy DeGroff will serve out the fiscal year as Chair of the FLICC Education WG. They are working on the handbook and will meet soon to view and endorse the Web version design. The WG would also like to do a print version as a beta test for distribution. Denise announced that they plan to demo part of Web handbook at the May 13th FLICC Quarterly meeting. Denise asked whether FEDLINK had funds to publish a print version. While acknowledging that federal libraries are still straddling two worlds (online vs. print), Susan Tarr answered that FEDLINK must meet its mandatory publication payments first and will not know till later in the year whether money is available for this publication. Denise requested that FEDLINK send letters of acknowledgment to members of the working groups. Cheryl Thomas reviewed items that she would report for the Information Technology Working Group at the Spring Membership meeting. Denise Lomax raised the question of how FEDLINK and the FAC can attract new and dedicated people to serve on the various working groups and committees. She said the same names always surface and that people become over burdened. In addition their agencies which are operating with fewer staff are not always willing to allow much time away from the office. 7. Old Business There was no old business. 8. New Business Cheryl Thomas joins the FAC from the Farm Credit Administration Library replacing Janet Wright who announced at last month's meeting that she must resign. The FAC asked that Janet be given a Certificate of Appreciation and that we invite her to next month's meeting for a good-bye lunch. 9. Announcements Mike Conklin of Treasury announced that he has received agency permission to hire for the Chief Librarian position to be filled at the GS-14 level. He also hopes to establish a combined Technical Services and Acquisitions Department. The meeting adjourned at 11:15 a.m.