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October 7 2010 Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
TBABS Advisory Council Meeting Oregon State Library October 7, 2010
 
Present: Leone Holden, Carolynn Avery, Susan Westin, John Brown, Angel Hale, Robin Speer, Marcia Mee, Jim Scheppke
 
Absent: Bob Disher, Jan Chance
 
Meeting Begins: 1:35PM
 
Changes to the agenda: No
Previous meeting minutes: Approved
Introduction of new members: Angel was introduced as filling the position vacated by Frank Synoground
 
Election of Vice Chair
  1. Angel Hale
 
State Librarian’s Update
  1. Budget Update
    • Two rounds of across the board cuts to general funds ordered by Governor Kulongoski
    • State Library Board has met to discuss cuts
      • $258,000 total for State Library for both rounds
        • Overdues will now be sent out generically in order to qualify for Free Matter
        • He may recommend it to the new Governor
    • Two cuts were made to Talking Books
      • Some personnel savings (1st round) - $13,000
      • Services & Supplies; new printer; Newsletter goes to donation budget (2nd round) - $20,000
    • Cuts were made without any affect on staffing
    • Next biennium’s State of Oregon budget will most likely have another large deficit
      • Won’t know until the next Governor puts forward his budget in February 2011
      • May need lots of help from Advisory Council members to support TBABS
      • At the Governor’s office waiting for his endosement
  2. NFB-Newsline Legislative Concept update
  3. Joint proposal with OCB and NFB to fund NFB-Newsline using Universal Services Fund through Public Utilities Commission
 
Fund Development Report
  1. Spring Appeal: ended June 30th
    • $400 more than last year
  2. More than $6000 so far from 2010 calendars
  3. Fall Appeal going out on November 15th 
  4. 5 current members of the Irene Price Society
    • First letter was sent in February, so our progress is good thus far
  5. Angel suggested a possible monthly-giving strategy that automatically withdraws donations from peoples’ bank accounts and / or debits their credit cards
 
TBABS Program Manager’s Report
  1. Annual Fund Development Report 2009-2010
    • Down about $30,000 total from last fiscal year
      • Not too bad considering state of economy
        • New adult, child brochures
    • NFB-Newsline and Promotional Items were two main ticket items
      • Promotional materials
      • ·         Table-top stands and 7’ banner stand
      • ·         Vendor fees
    • Oregon Recorded Books
    • §  One book out to all recording studios at present
      • Completed; we have satisfied everyone on the initial list
    • About 3,060 people currently have players (62% of patrons)
      • Once the waiting list is done, we’ll start working on systematically sending out players to cassette only patrons
    • Just received announcement from NLS that as of beginning of October only cassette books that are in process will be finished; all others will cancelled.
      • Shortened original plan to send out last shipment of cassette books in February 2011
      • Oregon does have Library2Go, which makes downloadable books available (much like Unabridged)
    • eBooks that were purchased for Unabridged will be random dispersed to consortium members based on total contributions
      • Public libraries will not initially qualify
  2. Digital Transition Update
  3. Our goal set by the Oregon State Library Board was to get through our initial waiting list for digital machines by the end of 2010
  4. About 250 people are left of the second waiting list
  5. About 1,650 patrons haven’t expressed interest in digital players
  6. Unabridged Update
  7. Due to financial hardships of our consortium partners, declining usage, and the advent of BARD, as of December 31, 2010 Unabridged will be discontinued
  8. DVD Update
    • We have purchased ten new DVD titles with DVS 2.0 audio option
    • Next Feb/March we’ll most likely purchase another ten
  9. Advisory Council Members
    • Leone and Kitt have expressed interest in staying on for another 4 year term; Annis is stepping down
    • We put an article in our Fall Newsletter advertising the one opening for Patron at Large; we’ve received 5 responses of interest
  10. Institutional BARD accounts
    • Once all states have individual administrative control of BARD, NLS will start allowing institutional accounts for BARD
 
NFB-Newsline New Features
  1. New feature that NFB is piloting: downloading articles and playing them on NLS digital player
    • Software would download articles each day as DAISY file
      • First you’d have to set up favorites, then every morning you will download straight to the flash drive
    • Cartridges and flash drives would have to be purchased by patrons
    • Angel would like to be on the test group if there is one
 
Daisyworm
  1. iPad, iPod, iPhone app developed in Australia that allows users to listen to books
  2. Doesn’t work with NLS books because NLS refuses to work with Apple
  3. Several state librarians wrote a letter to Library of Congress Deanna Marcum asking why this partnership wasn’t something they were interested in
    • Response was that copyright issues were a concern, and that Apple product users who are blind are a very small minority
  4. Planning to continue lobbying for this partnership
  5. Planning to also pursue partnerships with other mobile phone OS companies like Google, Nokia, etc.
 
Open Forum
  1. No questions
 
Next Meeting Date
  1. Thursday January 20, 2011 at 10PM
 
Meeting Adjourned: 2:51PM