Ref Committee Meeting Minutes: Mar 2011

MOBAC Reference Committee Meeting

March 22, 2011 

Marina Branch, MCFL. Thanks to Mary Housel for hosting.

Call to order

In attendance:

Inge Labeaune, MPL

Mary Housel, MCFL

Janie Silveria, CSUMB

Pamela Jungerberg, PGPL

Dana Young, Gavilan

Janet Bombard, Harrison Memorial

Jean Chapin, Harrison

Deborah Ruiz, MPC

Laura Dickie, Cabrillo

Ann Jacobson, NPS

Bill Rawson, Hartnell

Bjorn Jones, Salinas Public

Frank Gravier, UCSC

Pam Downing, SCPL

Recorder – Ann Jacobson

Approval of Feb minutes – done!

Additions to agenda

Janie – another budget item – CALCAT MOBAC may be going away

Reports

Administrative Council: Janie – AC did not meet since our last meeting. Janet reports that budget committee starting to meet. Janet shared some info on the state library budget relating to libraries. A compromise did get passed.

Tech Committee: Dana says there was a proposal to put together camera/mike setups to record video online of various trainings. Just in the works, no action yet.

Janie says we had a video of the eBooks workshop but it didn’t turn out very well; posted on the wiki.

ILL Committee: Hasn’t met since our last meeting.

SPLAMBA: No report

MOBAC Strategic Plan workgroups: Janie says Heather has been added to the group dealing with the migration of the website

Old Business

Workshops for 2010/11

Screen capture workshop March 25, 2011 at CSUMB

Jean reports 27 are signed up

Janie says the room is huge with 56 computers. In BLDG 82, Valley Hall. Not near the library, on the same road as the old library used to be.

Janie asked whether people had decided what they wanted to do their screen casts on. We did some sharing of ideas and current usage of Jing and Camtasia

Joint meeting with SPLAMBA

Mary says they kicked around some ideas including Monterey Public and MCFL on how they do outreach to schools. SPLAMBA group wasn’t totally inspired by the idea of a shared meeting on publicizing databases. They were interested in sharing on “what resources would you use to answer XXX.” Some conversation about coming to a joint meeting prepared to share handouts on databases. Someone brought up the idea of libraries sharing introductory screencasts etc. re: the databases on our website.

We still have one more meeting before that joint session.

Electronic resources promotion as possible joint meeting topic.

Lots of conversation about how schools now don’t have librarians, aren’t educating students about use of databases for research, etc.

Jean will call Don from SPLAMBA to talk about the shared meeting.

New Business

Reference budget request for 2011/12

Handouts shared on database costs, committee budget.

Discussion:

Janet: CLSA funds paid for CALCAT/Worldcat. It is expensive, want to know how important it is to the various libraries. Some discussion, some use it a lot some not at all. Budget Committee will be asking the various committees their opinion on this.

Jean proposes that we submit the same budget as last year because there are too many unknowns next year that still need answers. Seems to be agreement that databases are most important, training has been important but we have had some success doing homegrown training so that might be the area to give up first.

Janie: FirstSearch is changing their database availability quite a bit. There is still $5800 of searches that are unused. We could get a credit for that amount. Will be discussed at next council meeting.

Training budget includes food, transportation. Could ask for a little less than last year.

Janie will prepare the budget and we’ll stay tuned for more informatio n and think about the CALCAT/WorldCat issue.

Reference Shares/Problems

Pamela wonders whether others use Reference USA and have received phone calls for Reference A to Z. Some others have received calls and trailed. Jean C. says it’s not quite ready yet.

Mary wonders what vendor people use for book buying.

Jean asked if anyone has used the new census site. Sounds like a potential workshop! Maybe the site isn’t quite ready yet?

News From the Libraries

Meeting adjourned at approximately 4:40 PM.

Next meeting is at SCPL on Tuesday April 26.

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