CARLI Board Minutes: September 18, 2020

Members attending (Via Zoom): Fred Barnhart (Northern Illinois University), Spencer Brayton (Waubonsee Community College), Anne Craig (CARLI), Rebecca Donald (Trinity International University), Karen Janke (Erickson Institute), Jacob Jeremiah (Oakton Community College), Tammy Kuhn-Schnell (Lincoln Land Community College), Taran Ley (Southern Illinois University School of Medicine), Greg McCormick (Illinois State Library), Rob Morrison (National Louis University), Matt Ostercamp (North Park University), Pattie Piotrowski (University of Illinois at Springfield), John Pollitz (Southern Illinois University Carbondale), Sharon Silverman (City Colleges of Chicago), Frances Whaley (Kishwaukee College)

Guests: Sarah Zehr (University of Illinois System)

Staff attending: Margaret Chambers, Elizabeth Clarage, Diane Day, Gordon Fellows, Kristine Hammerstrand, Jenny Taylor

Decisions

• Minutes of the June 12, 2020, Board meeting were approved prior to the meeting.
• The Board approved via email a proposal to make the following changes to loan periods for items currently checked out in Alma.
  • Before October 1, CARLI will change the due date of everything that is currently checked out in Alma and due before February 1, 2021, to be due February 1, 2021.
    • Note that if a patron’s record expires before February 1, 2021, their materials will fall due on the last day their record is unexpired. If their record’s expiration date is in the past, their due dates will remain unchanged.
    • Libraries may wish to work with CARLI to learn how to extend patron expiration dates manually or in bulk.
  • If institutions are circulating short loan materials such as course reserves, equipment, etc., and do not wish these materials to have the bulk February 1 due date applied, they should contact CARLI to ask for reports on these items, and assistance with adjusting these materials’ due dates after the bulk change is made.
  • Before October 1, CARLI will adjust Alma Configuration to set up a fixed due date of February 1, 2021 for all I-Share and local loans for materials that are checked out in Alma until we begin more normal circulation operations or decide to advance the fixed due date further into the future.  For more on fixed due dates see https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Knowledge_Articles/How_to_add_a_Fixed_Due_Date_in_Alma
    • Patrons from one I-Share library, borrowing another I-Share library’s materials, will receive the February 1 fixed due date for transactions.
    • If an institution does NOT want to use the February 1 fixed due date for ongoing circulation of materials to their own local patrons, they can inform CARLI staff that they wish to opt out of the fixed due date for local patrons.
    • Exceptions can also be requested for either specific locations/item types, such as reserves and equipment.
    • CARLI will need notification of any exceptions by September 23, 2020 to be able to make these changes before October 1.
  • CARLI will NOT enable the Alma fulfillment jobs, rules, and settings that cause either local or I-Share patrons to be further fined, billed, or blocked until we can begin more “normal” circulation operations again.
  • CARLI WILL enable the jobs, rules, and settings that create overdue notices on the schedules set by the libraries. If a library has added text to their Alma notices about fines, blocks, and billing, they may wish to review and edit this text.
  • CARLI will revisit this proposal with the Board in January 2021 to decide on whether to remove or extend these policies.
• The Board approved recommendations to end fines and processing fees for overdue and lost materials as follows:
  • The CARLI Board of Directors shall end for all I-Share Members all fining for overdue materials by January 1, 2021, and similarly encourage non-I-Share CARLI Governing Members to end fining for overdue materials. Item types (e.g. reserves, equipment, special collections) that are circulated locally only may be exempt from this policy at the discretion of the owning institution.
  • The CARLI Board of Directors shall eliminate for all I-Share Members all processing fees for overdue and lost materials by January 1, 2021, and similarly encourage non-I-Share CARLI Governing Members to eliminate all processing fees for overdue and lost materials.
• The Board approved the charge and roster for the I-Share Assessment Task Force to begin a lengthy and complex review of cost factors and cost sharing related to Alma in order to recalculate I-Share Assessments beginning in FY25.
• The Board approved a recommendation to pause funding of faculty OER stipends due to the ongoing pandemic and resulting economic unknowns and uncertainty.
• The meeting was adjourned at 12:40 p.m.

Announcements

• CARLI went live in Alma Primo VE for all 89 I-Share libraries on June 24 as scheduled. Work completed since the report to the Board in June 2020:
  • On September 1, 2020, Ex Libris transitioned our project from implementation to “support”. This means that we are no longer working with a dedicated Ex Libris implementation team and are now working through their standard customer support channels.
  • In August, we transitioned from having 5 generic “sandbox” (test) environments to having copies of 5 I-Share libraries’ institution zones as “premium sandboxes”. The five institutions represented are UIU, UIC, SIC, RMC, and MMC. All five sandboxes were fully anonymized by Ex Libris to protect patron privacy and institutional fiscal records. RMC and MMC (Robert Morris Univ. and MacMurray College) both closed between the beginning of the project and go-live, but we are able to keep their institution zones for use as generic testing and training IZs. As this report is being prepared, CARLI has just successfully negotiated for a sixth premium sandbox at no extra charge; its contents are still to be determined.
  • The I-Share libraries have been opting to begin using Alma’s resource sharing service, AFN-Automated Fulfillment Network, on their own schedule. As of this report, 75 of the I-Share libraries are providing at least some AFN service.
  • Circulation activity continued in Voyager until June 19, but most I-Share libraries remained closed due to COVID-19. A few I-Share libraries supported some local requesting (remote request by their own patrons) during the closures.
  • We had planned to keep Voyager’s Universal Borrowing operating until June 11, but it was turned off on March 16 due to the COVID-19 closures including the suspension of ILDS service, and it was not restarted.
  • CARLI has continued to work with institutions that want to use the process of synchronizing user information between campus student information systems and Alma. This process is referred to as “SIS” (student information systems). As of this report SIS setup work is complete for at least 62 I-Share institutions. Institutions set their own frequency for these updates. As our membership includes some special libraries without campus IT shops, we do not expect to ever have all I-Share libraries using the SIS process.
  • CARLI has continued working with library staff, the EBSCO OpenAthens project team, and campus IT staff on getting authentication setup for the I-Share libraries. At this writing, over 60 I-Share institutions completely setup OpenAthens for Alma and Primo VE single sign-on. Work is in process at EBSCO on “Phase 2” of the OpenAthens project which will support e-resource authentication. EBSCO has had some issues that have slowed down this setup work, and it is expected to continue into early 2021.
  • In response to requests from many I-Share library directors, CARLI will again be doing a bulk extension of due dates to prevent patrons from being penalized for unreturned items during the time when many students have not returned to campus due to COVID changes. The CARLI Board has approved extending due dates to February 1, 2021, with libraries having the option to opt out for local circulation. All I-Share resource sharing loans will get the February 1 due date until further notice.
  • CARLI has continued to hold open “office hours” calls to discuss Alma and Primo VE topics and take questions about the products and the migration process. We have moved to an every-other-week schedule as of September. These are held on Thursday afternoons at 2pm and recordings of the sessions are made available on the CARLI website. These calls have been very well attended, often still attracting over 130 participants.
  • CARLI plans to decommission Voyager and SFX on October 30, 2020. No further access via web interfaces, Voyager clients, or reporting will be available after this date. We are aware that some institutions are still relying on Voyager for SIP2 access for Axis 360 and Overdrive authentication. We are working with those institutions and vendors to find an alternative solution as SIP2 is not secure enough for sending personally identifiable information. We may keep the Voyager SIP2 port open after October 30 if an alternative solution is not yet in place.
  • CARLI is purchasing a block of registrations for the new ELUNA Learns webinars being offered by the Ex Libris Users of North America. An announcement of this will be shared in the next few days.
  • With our switch from implementation to Ex Libris support, CARLI will soon start having monthly meetings with some of the Ex Libris customer support staff to review current issues and how they are being addressed.
• CARLI is preparing for the CY21 selection cycle. We anticipate opening the system for libraries to make subscription commitments from October 12 through November 6.
• CARLI is working on renewing our agreement with the American Chemical Society (ACS).  The current agreement expires at the end of the year.
• CARLI is beginning discussions with Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to potentially switch to a transformative model starting in CY22. Our current contract with ACM runs through CY21.
• CARLI held an All Committees Webinar to kick off FY21 to discuss the committee realignment process, which will serve as their annual project. The committees will submit preliminary report to the Board for review at their December meeting.
• CARLI has been working with the library systems to clarify the instructions for quarantining materials in ILDS.
• CARLI has added MARC records to the Alma Network Zone for the Wiley Online Books (publication dates: 2017+), Oxford University Press (publication dates: 2018+), and 18 of the Partner Presses available on the University Press Scholarship Online platform (publication dates: all content available). These titles will now appear in each I-Share member’s local Primo VE instance and the "All I-Share Libraries" Primo VE Scope.
• CARLI continues to migrate services to Amazon Web Services (cloud hosting service procured by the University of Illinois System).
• CARLI has met with the UIUC Library staff and UI System Office Legal about the agreements that would need to be in place prior to extending their Institutional Repository solution to CARLI members in order to establish a multi-tenant IR. Next steps include reaching consensus on the terms and building a timeline for pilot and kickoff.
• CARLI Counts, the IMLS Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant program, moved to Zoom for its scheduled July in-person meeting. Cohort members will make their poster presentations via Zoom for the virtual CARLI Annual Meeting on November 13.
• CARLI has partnered with nine other library consortia to create the Professional Development Alliance (PDA). The PDA is dedicated to sharing professional development opportunities with other alliance members. This cooperative initiative multiplies the number and variety of no-cost online professional development opportunities available to the member libraries of each participating consortium. Sessions cover a broad array of topics of interest to library professionals. Sessions began in September and are added to the CARLI events calendar as new sessions are planned.
• The Program Planning Committee is working with Illinois Wesleyan University’s Stephanie Davis-Kahl on a proposal to develop an undergraduate research program that would showcase and reveal best practices of CARLI member libraries.
• The 40th anniversary celebration planned for November 12 at the I-Hotel has been cancelled. Sponsors that initially provided funding to offset the cost of the event have agreed to allow us to use those funds to support our scholarship. We are incredibly grateful for their willingness to support the CARLI Scholarship.
• The CARLI Annual Meeting, planned for November 13 at the I-Hotel, will transition to a web-only format. The Program Planning Committee is working on an agenda for the virtual events. The Governing Directors Meeting will also be held virtually, as a part of the regularly scheduled Governing Directors Check-in Sessions.
• CARLI will hold a virtual Career Fair in partnership with the iSchool at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The event will be held October 7. CARLI will cover the registration fee for all interested Governing Member libraries. The deadline to register is September 24.
• CARLI is pursuing a federal Open Textbook Pilot Program grant through the US Department of Education. The grant application is due November 16.
• CARLI staff Debbie Campbell and Denise Green have been promoted to Senior Library Services Coordinators.
• A call for applications for Library Service Coordinator for CARLI has been announced.

Tasks Assigned

• CARLI will implement changes in I-Share related to the approved proposal regarding the extension of due dates.
• CARLI will implement changes in I-Share related to the approved proposals to end fines and processing fees for overdue and lost materials.
• CARLI will work with Board members and other relevant sources to create a task force to address changing the CARLI Strategic Priorities to embed concerns related to anti-racism and social justice.

Meeting Dates and Deadline:

• 2020–2021 Board meetings (via Zoom until further notice):
  • Friday, December 4, 2020
  • Friday, March 5, 2021
  • Friday, June 11, 2021
• 2020–2021 Executive Committee meetings (via Zoom):
  • Monday, November 30, 2020 (Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26)
  • Wednesday, February 24, 2021
  • Wednesday, June 2, 2021
• CARLI iSchool Virtual Career Fair
  • Wednesday, October 7, 2020
• 2020 CARLI Annual Meeting
  • Thursday, November 12, 2020
• 2020 CARLI Annual Meeting
  • Friday, November 13, 2020