Meeting Minutes for 12/04/2024

Future of Vendor Vetting

• Tammy summarized the past practice of having monthly meetings with vendor demos. In August 2023, we held the Vendor Demo Days, during which we invited people to express their interest in various products. However, we did not offer Marmot pricing at that time. While members inquired about Marmot pricing, there was not enough interest to secure any substantial deals.
• Tammy asked the group what they would like for the future of vetting vendors.

Group Discussion 

• Peggy noted that if we are bringing vendors to these committee meetings, it needs to be well before everyone’s budgeting process. Peggy suggested we strategize on adding or changing a vendor for financial viability. 
• Jo mentioned that their library is not very different from Peggy’s and has the same concerns, but changing a vendor has many moving parts and is not a direction that Vail is interested in going.
• Lisa mentioned that the Vendor Demo Days were too much, looking at vendors for a full day. Lisa would vote to have a vendor come to the meetings occasionally for a demo. Austin seconded what Lisa mentioned about Vendor Demo Days and would also like to build the demos into these meetings.
• Jo mentioned that having these demos does not require monthly meetings. 
• Tallie appreciated the Vendor Demo Days for comparing options but understood others' concerns about attending two full days.
• Adam explained that the Vendor Demo Days' purpose was to allow everyone to view vendors before making their budget decisions, as the pricing would have taken effect in January of the following year. He is open to other suggestions for obtaining timely quotes from vendors for products you wish to include in your budgets.
• Tallie suggested that instead of a concentrated two-day event, we could have a two-month period where we hold a demonstration once a week or once every two weeks. It is very beneficial to have demonstrations scheduled before budgets are due.
• Adam asked everyone in the meeting to share the month they need to submit their budgets.
  • Aims - December     
  • Basalt - September
  • Boulder - November
  • Bud - November
  • Buena Vista - September
  • CMC - December
  • Englewood - Springtime 
  • Grand - September
  • Lafayette - December
  • Lake - October
  • Louisville - Biennial 
  • MCPLD - August
  • MCVCSD 51 - April
  • Pitkin - July
  • Summit - December
  • Vail - August
  • Wilkinson - October

Action Item: Adam and Tammy will work on a vendor schedule for next year. 

Committee Chair

• Key responsibilities include managing agenda topics, introducing meetings, and ensuring the agenda stays on track. Reviewing the minutes before distribution to members and sending the finalized minutes to all committee members is essential.
• Co-chairs or a public library representative and an academic library representative.
  • Katy Walker (CMC)
  • Alison Farnham (Telluride/Wilkinson)

Action Item: Adam will speak to the Marmot Board for approval and to get their thoughts on applicant positions and titles.

eResource Renewals

• MLN1 Overdrive Blackstone Audio Renewal Discussion (Tammy)
  • Pricing & checkout spreadsheet (see email for the spreadsheet)
  • Blackstone Audio renewal before 01/19/2025 
• Blackstone Audio Discussion
  • We had about 2,000 fewer checkouts this year than last for the 50 titles. 
  • Lisa suggested only having 25 titles from Blackstone Audio and 25 from Tantor Media. 
  • The group agreed to try both simultaneously use (SU) audio products for a total of 50 titles between both products.
• Lisa discussed how, last year, some people showed interest in the SU school books, but these titles do not receive much circulation. As a result, they may not be the best option to include in the always-available collection. Lisa suggested that the group consider setting aside some cost per circ (CPC) funds for the consortium to potentially acquire these types of titles. However, she was uncertain whether the consortium was allowed to purchase CPC titles.
• Cecilia would like to know if there was an opportunity to do the cost per circ (CPC) for the consortium. She asked if we might be interested in putting in a pool of funds for really standard SU titles that we know will check out a lot because of the curriculum. 
  • Unfortunately, SU titles can only be shared when purchased from the Marmot consortium account. 
  • Adam thinks the Marmot staff do not have enough time to develop the collection, so a subcommittee is needed to make purchasing decisions.

Action Item: Tammy will check on purchasing shared CPC titles at the consortium level.

Action Item: Tammy will investigate committee members' interest in collection development for the Marmot Overdrive and determine how much money participants are willing to contribute to these SU shared resources.

• We invite committee members to actively choose replacement titles for Blackstone Audio to enhance our collection. Your insights are invaluable! Please let us know if you want to volunteer for this task.
• Blackstone Audio & Tantor Media Subcommittee Volunteers 
  • Nathan (Basalt)
  • Selene (Englewood)
  • Tallie (Grand)
  • Lisa (MCPLD)
  • Jade (Pitkin) 

Action Item: Tammy will contact the volunteers to set up meetings to choose new titles for the MLN1 libraries to vote on for purchase before 01/19/2025

• MLN1 Overdrive Duke Classic Renewal
  • Pricing & checkout spreadsheet (see email for the spreadsheet)
  • Duke Classic renewal before 01/17/2025
  • At first, the group decided to only add one eAudibook title for free. 
  • The group decided to continue with all the eAudiobooks and eBooks since the pricing is reasonable. 
• MLN1 Overdrive Magazine Renewal
  • Pricing & checkout spreadsheet (see email for the spreadsheet)
  • The magazine renewal will be on 12/31/2024
  • We renewed early last year, so the cost for 2024 was only  $27,500. We also had one less library last year, so the cost also varied for that reason.
  • The renewal cost for 2025 is the regular cost of $30,000. However, we do have one more library sharing in the cost. This year, we have the Delta County Libraries joining the Marmot OverDrive. 
  • Gina expressed her dissatisfaction with automatic checkout for magazines, as it tends to inflate the number of checkouts. Boulder’s magazine checkouts skyrocketed due to the new feature. They also did not like the fact that it took the autonomy away from the patron. Gina wrote to their rep to let them know that the Front Range Downloadable Library group is unhappy with this change because it does not show a true checkout. If look at your checkouts you may see a spike in late fall of 2023.  
• MLN1 OverDrive Holds Discussion
  • We surveyed directors about our Overdrive reps removing holds before a specific date on the backend. However, it is only currently available at the consortium level, so this group must agree to remove these holds.
  • Each library must manually access a user's account without bulk removal and cancel a hold to remove old or unavailable holds.
  • Survey Results
    • 17 libraries who filled out the survey agreed to bulk removal of old or unavailable holds.
    • 15 people voted to remove holds older than 1 year on items not available 
    • 16 people voted to have this process done every 6 months
    • What "average waiting period" should the consortium aim to achieve?
    • 8 people are not concerned with the waiting period
    • 4 people voted for the average waiting period under 30 days
    • 5 people voted for the average waiting period under 45 days
• Survey Comments & Information
  • Would removing holds trigger a message to the user explaining that the hold was not filled because the item is unavailable?
    • Unfortunately, the system does not trigger a message when a hold is canceled.
  • Someone pointed out in the survey that just because an item is not available to purchase, this does not mean there are no copies available for patrons to check out. 
  • Suspended holds in Pika were created without an end date before the new reactivation date feature was introduced. This new feature requires users to set a reactivation date for freezing OverDrive holds, aligning it with the existing requirement for setting a reactivation date in the OverDrive site and Libby App.
  • Currently, here is the only process that Overdrive offers to move holds to newly processed items. I've used this process, and it's time-consuming.

Hold Bulk Removal Discussion

• Tammy stated that if the group wanted to proceed with the bulk hold removal, she would ensure everyone had sufficient time to transfer their holds to a new edition or contact patrons before the holds were removed.
• Lisa mentioned that she has asked Overdrive to change their process regarding the handling of holds. Whenever Lisa submits a request to move holds to a new copy, which happens frequently, they respond by confirming that they understand the need for automation. She believes they are listening to her concerns. Many of these titles are no longer available for purchase, but we still have copies in our collection. Therefore, it would not be advisable to remove holds on these titles simply because they are no longer available for purchase. Lisa mentioned that most items no longer for sale still have a copy available for checkout. Since it is no longer available for sale, you cannot purchase another copy to reduce the hold queue. However, the patron will eventually receive the OC/OU copy.
• Cecilia mentioned that some holds do not have copies available, meaning the patron will never have their hold fulfilled. Cecilia believes that when designing criteria for removing holds, we should ensure that we check the column indicating if there are copies in the system and preserve those. Lisa agreed.
• Nina noted that she reviewed their old holds according to when the survey was sent out. She discovered many outdated holds and reached out to the patrons. However, the patrons reported that those holds were not in their hold queue. Nina is unsure where the disconnect occurred. One of the holds was from 2022.
• Tammy inquired whether this group viewed it as an opportunity for a subcommittee to review the older holds before their removal.
• Lisa would love to work on a subcommittee since she works with many of these holds.  Lisa would like to look at the holds and get something put together that we can send out to everyone.  
• Tallie stated that she is curious to learn more and participate. Tallie also mentioned that it is frustrating that staff see holds that patrons do not. 
• Jade and Selene will also like to volunteer for the subcommittee.
• Tammy mentioned that we should bring this issue up to our reps. 
• Tammy will probably not be working on this until January. She assured the group that no hold would be removed until everyone agreed.   
• Holds Subcommittee
  • Selene (Englewood)
  • Tallie (Grand)
  • Lisa (MCPLD)
  • Jade (Pitkin)

Other Business 

• Tallie wanted to know if anyone has had a good experience with Reference Solutions.
  • Lisa mentioned that the product is useful for accessing White Pages or for businesses that want to compile mailing lists. Austin pointed out that it is a very popular database at the Mesa County Library, offering valuable resources that are not always easy to find elsewhere. They received a patron request for addresses in a specific geographic area, and there is a tool available that allows users to highlight an area to retrieve all relevant addresses. However, the way statistics are reported doesn’t provide much in terms of individualized data; it appears that only a few people use the service occasionally, while a small group frequently utilizes the database and downloads a large number of records. Overall, Mesa County experiences significant usage of this resource.
  • Alison commented that they had it at Telluride but it did not get used.