Sheila M. Riley, FEDLINK Advisory Council (FAC) Minutes of the FAC Meeting - December 16, 1999 FAC Present: FAC Absent: FLICC/FEDLI NK Present: Maxine Brown (Chair) Ken Nero (Vice Chair) Susan Tarr Carla Pomager Bonnie Klein Milton MeGee Sheila Riley Joe Banks Fred Rettenmaier Louise LeTendre Cheryl Thomas Denise Lomax AGENDA 1. Introduction of Newly Elected FAC Members -- Maxine Brown, Chair 2. Approval of the November 18th FAC Meeting Minutes -- FAC 3. FAC Issues and Topics -- Maxine Brown, Chair FAC representative to the FLICC Budget & Finance Working Group and the Nominating Working Group CY 2000 FAC Meeting Dates 4. FLICC/FEDLINK 2000 Performance Plan -- Susan Tarr 5. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, and FEDLINK Managers 6. Committee Reports 7. New Business 8. Announcements 1. Introduction of Newly Elected FAC Members Maxine Brown Denise Lomax, Cheryl Thomas, and Bonnie Klein were reelected. Louise LeTendre, from the Army Research Library, was newly elected and introduced to the group. 2. Approval of the November 18, 1999 FAC Meeting Minutes Cheryl Thomas moved to approve the November 18th FAC minutes as amended to reflect the correct spelling of Louise LeTendre's name. Carla Pomager seconded. The FAC approved the November 18th minutes as amended. 3. FAC Issues and Topics FAC representative to the FLICC Budget & Finance Working Group and the Nominating Working Group Fred Rettenmaier offered to continue as the FAC representative for the Budget & Finance Working Group. Carla Pomager volunteered to assist the Nominating Working Group. CY 2000 FAC Meeting Dates+ The FLICC/FAC 2000 meeting calendar was distributed to all members attending and Milton Megee agreed to also send them electronically. Although a meeting is scheduled each month, the FAC is required to meet only 6 times a year. Last year the FAC met 10 times. Meetings normally begin at 9:00 unless otherwise specified. 4. FLICC/FEDLINK 2000 Performance Plan -- Susan Tarr The annual performance plan (January to December) is usually due to Winston Tabb mid-January and Susan asked for FAC input. Her approach to the plan has been to start with the annual program maintenance goals and then to add specific goals following a brainstorming session with staff. Susan told the staff that she would like FEDLINK to be so good that both members and vendors are consistently impressed by what we know about our business, and their business and by how helpful we are. Some ideas generated: FEDLINK work on its relationships with vendors and focus on them more as a customer so that they offer better discounts and services to members. Online registration for FY 2001. To Cheryl Thomas' inquiry as to whether LC Bicentennial activities would be part of the plan, Susan responded that those projects remaining undone will be in the plan. Denise Lomax suggested 2 issues: To counteract the fact that libraries can approach vendors independently and negotiate contracts outside of FEDLINK, work on showing how FEDLINK provides savings to members. Put effort also into issue of contracting out and doing an authoritative list. Cheryl Thomas offered that social settings and conferences, such as the Charleston Conference in SC, are useful forums for talking with vendors. At conferences librarians can stand up and tell vendors what they want. Susan Tarr said the recent FEDLINK sessions with vendors were beneficial and that they could consider sending staff to the Charleston Conference. Louise LeTendre asked if FEDLINK had done a study on its value to Federal libraries. She would like a way to better explain the use of FEDLINK to our funding institutions, not budget people but directors. She suggested a factual statement from LC that she can throw up on a screen. Susan Tarr said they had done a study where they computed the annual savings for Federal libraries and she would look into getting it on screen. Regarding the impact of contracting out Susan said she has avoided getting the numbers because of the inherently governmental issue and the risk of determining that more libraries like yours have been contracted out. In these cases numbers can sometimes hurt you. Fred Rettenmaier suggested that the contracting out issue go to FLICC. They could collect and have available to its members the facts and numbers. Denise pointed out that it is an issue that is not going away and libraries will need advice. Susan said they had discussed contracting out in terms of the Education Working Group handbook. She also mentioned obtaining a slide presentation on lessons learned which had been done on this issue by a Military Librarians Workshop. Fred Rettenmaier said that more work is needed on stipulating what members get for the 7.75% charged by FEDLINK. Libraries may not realize what that means in terms of staff savings and he emphasized that 7.75% is a real bargain when you consider the quality of FEDLINK services and staff. Carla Pomager offered a testimonial based on experience: Because her library's serial contract was done locally they were required to take the lowest bid and then they did not get all the materials they needed and lost a year's worth of journals. From that point on her library went through FEDLINK. Cheryl suggested posing the question, what it would be like if FEDLINK was not there? She suggested that we might get worse prices individually if vendors were not already working from established published consortia prices. Another aspect suggested by Cheryl Thomas is education of agency administration on the value of libraries. She has been asked by her administration, do we really need you? How do we calculate the value of knowledge management? This is especially difficult in pay-for- performance scenarios where no one gives credit to anyone else. Maxine Brown asked whether FEDLINK would continue doing customer focus sessions? Susan explained that in 1998 FEDLINK had assembled groups to focus on all aspects of FEDLINK's customer service and these surfaced projects for the 1999 performance plan. Susan Tarr was uncertain about repeating these and asked the FAC for advice. She said that they have not yet been able to do a summary evaluation of the customer service projects but will try to get this on the agenda for the FAC January meeting. Fred advised continuing to solicit input with customer service focus/suggestions and Susan asked the FAC to consider how to solicit input? Cheryl Thomas asked if FEDLINK could negotiate the issue of fair use for electronic journals? Could we push for a model license? Susan explained that the fair use concept still exists but once libraries sign a licensing agreement, then it becomes a contractual issue. Fred pointed out that publishers can't control photocopying but have learned they can control the electronic medium. Cheryl suggested putting out press releases promoting FEDLINK to vendors, etc. Louise proposed providing a small handbook to library advisory committees and governing boards. The handbook would give background and explain why libraries cooperate and hence, why FEDLINK. The handbook could take advantage of the imprimatur of the Library of Congress. Susan said she would see if she could get Winston Tabb to sign off on such a handbook. Fred said that FEDLINK could look into whether they need to tighten up delivery orders for journals. Susan responded that this year proved especially difficult because the serials contracts had to be re-competed. Susan said the next step will be to consider all these suggestions and work with FEDLINK staff to formulate an action plan. At next month's meeting, the FAC can review a draft of what will be sent to Winston Tabb. 5. FLICC/FEDLINK Update -- Susan M. Tarr, FLICC Executive Director, and FEDLINK Managers The White paper (i.e. 10 reasons to use FEDLINK) will be out in an early January Alert and will be carried in a FEDLINK Technical Notes issue. Susan Tarr reported that FEDLINK is getting an intern from the Pentagon for 30-60 days to work on financial issues. This person could work with the Defense financial accounting system (DFAS) concerns beginning with a single regional center and then generalize from that. This person asked for a financial internship but works in the library and will likely be sympathetic to libraries. Susan Tarr reported for Joe Banks that FEDLINK receipts are running a little behind last year and last year wasn't very good. They do not know yet if this has to do with the continuing resolutions situation. FEDLINK does have a bad OCLC payments problem and they have notified libraries that if payment doesn't come through, they will have to shut down service. Louise inquired whether libraries could pay monthly. Susan answered affirmatively but said an IAG must be done every month. This is what they ask members to do through the continuing resolution process. 6. Committee Reports Denise Lomax, reporting for the Education Working Group, said the Federal Librarians Handbook is going live ahead of schedule before the end of December. Cheryl Thomas, reporting for the Information Technology Working Group, stated that they are progressing on the idea of developing a distance learning program, how to do one, and how to use it to instruct people in the use of various resources. 7. New Business Fred Rettenmaier reminded us that election of FAC officers occurs at the January meeting. 8. Announcements: Marcia Talley is retiring and she will be replaced by the first alternate for the OCLC Users Council. Fred Rettenmaier moved to adjourn the meeting. Cheryl Thomas seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 12:10 a.m.