Library Department

ShareNorthwest Regional Library Group
Spring Meeting Minutes
May 4, 2004

The spring meeting of the ShareNorthwest Regional Library Group held at
Warren Area Senior High School on May 4, 2004 was called to order by
Mary Drapcho, president , at 9:20 a. m. Marion Bennett, president
-elect/program chair and Debbie Bevevino, WASH librarian, welcomed all.
Marion introduced Chris Andrews, Sagebrush Books representative.
Minutes emailed previously were approved and the secretary/ treasurer
reported a balance of $1,378.89 in the Sharenorthwest account at the
I.U. as of May 3, 2004

Committee Reports:

Periodical Union List (PUL)—Marion Bennett
1. Marion reminded everyone that this was the last year for the
periodical union catalog.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)—Lynda Knauff
1. No problems have been reported to date except for the Barber Center
which has not been having any pickups. This will be worked out through
Karen Baldwin at the I.U.
2. Although the public libraries in our region are no longer IDS
members, they will still send and receive shipments from libraries in
our area, but only through the I.U. delivery van.
3. Karen Baldwin can be contacted at the I.U. for a complete list of
libraries who are no longer IDS members.

Professional Development/Curriculum—Annette McElroy—no report

Public Relations—Gail Crotty
1. Only 15% of the state funding has been returned to public
libraries. In this year’s budget, the governor hopes to return 10%
more. Public libraries will still be short 25% from what was an already
lean budget. Our lobbying efforts helped, but our help is still needed.

Legislators must be contacted and urged to return full public library
funding.

Electronic Communications—Peter Genco—no report

School/Public Library Liaison—Gail Myer
1. Because of budget cuts, public libraries had to drop their IDS
membership, many other services, and shorten their hours.
2. Gail encouraged us to keep up our letter writing and calling
campaign to local legislators urging them to fully fund libraries.
Pennsylvania School Library Association (PSLA) rep—Priscilla Breese
1. Next year’s PSLA conference will be held at the same time as this
year’s…end of April and the beginning of May.
2. The goals of PSLA this year are reading literacy and recruitment.
3. The PSLA website has a powerpoint on recruitment that any of us can
use.
4. There will be a professional development workshop next year, but the
topic will depend on the choice of the new PSLA president.

Director’s Report—Karen Baldwin
1. By mid March AccessPa had over 200,000 requests.
2. Libraries need to make sure that holdings are updated every year.
3. If a library as over 10,000 holding, that library can have a full
transfer free every year from Brodart. Locally Karin Menz from the
Barber Center is having this done and for further information, members
can contact her.
4. AccessPa training for beginners is September 8. Refresher training
is September 9. Both are all day and both will be held at the I.U. The
morning portion will concentrate on training and the afternoon will
focus on PowerLibrary. If those in attendance want Act 48 credit, they
must stay all day. Attendance is limited and members were urged to sign
up on line as soon as possible.
4. There is a possibility that there will be a meeting between regional
tech people and librarians to discuss ways in which libraries might be
able turn off computer filters for research purposes. Karen will keep
us updated on this.
5. All school libraries will be suspended from the Interlibrary loan
rota from May 14 to August 30.
6. IDS is currently investigating a new delivery service other than
UPS who began, without notice, to charge $1 extra for each rural
delivery. This is raising costs for individual IU’s who are not yet
passing the extra charges on to us. Karen will keep us informed of
developments.
7. A question was raised concerning whether IDS members have to send
materials to non-IDS members outside of our area. This creates extra
costs for the IDS member. Karen stated that we do not have send these
materials.

New Business:

Elections:
1. It was moved and seconded to waive the two week slate notification
requirement for elections.
2. The slate for 2004-05 included Marion Bennett/Jean Jenkins as
co-presidents, Melissa Leonard, vice president/president-elect, and Jane
Carney, secretary-treasurer.
3. It was moved and seconded to accept the slate as presented by
acclamation.

Spring Meeting Date:

1. A concern about having the spring meeting in May was addressed. It
seems that there is so much going on during that month and not enough
subs to cover that we might want to consider having our spring meeting
in April.
2. The group agreed to this suggestion by consensus.

Fall Meeting :

1. The fall meeting of the Sharenorthwest Regional Library Group will
be held at McDowell Senior High School in Erie on a date to be
announced.
Announcements:
1. The IASL Conference will be held in Pittsburgh from October 5-9,
2005.
2. Cobblestone Publishing Company is offering a K-6 focus group dinner
meeting to all interested. Let Karen Baldwin know.
3. Mansfield State is offering an online Masters and certificate
program in library science. It requires a 1 week summer residency.
4. There will be a county wide library inservice program on October 11,
2004 at Iroquois High School. Anyone who has topic suggestions or is
interested in attending should contact Lynda Knauff.

Mary passed the gavel to new co-president Marion Bennett who adjourned
the business meeting at 10:40 a.m. to begin presentations that included
information on Egypt given by Annette Anderson, scheduling in the
elementary libraries by Karen Locke, and the Art Smart Grant by Jeanette
Walter . The day’s program also included keynote speaker and author
Nancy Whitelaw

The day ended at 2:45 after door prizes were awarded.

Respectfully submitted

Jane Carney, Secretary