Good afternoon everyone, Many of you have been receiving bits of information at various meetings, but we thought we needed to send out a message to the entire AEA 8 library media and technology community to talk about a project that we are working on in cooperation and partnership with North Central Library Service Area in Mason City.
Last fall several school libraries (as well as public libraries) started expressing concerns about their automation systems. Many of you are currently running Sagebrush Spectrum software and know that the company was sold to Follett Software Company last year. Some others of you are running older Vision software systems that can no longer be upgraded and does not run on Windows operating system software, or at least the newer versions of Windows. Still others are interested in automating your libraries for the first time and have begun budgeting for this expenditure. Barb Shultz, director of the North Central Library Service Area, has always been interested in library automation and was involved in a regional automation system up in Minnesota when she was director at Martin County. Her library was part of a nine-county system with 45 libraries sharing materials amongst libraries of all sizes and types. Software was updated up in Mankato and automatically downloaded to all computers in the county so that each member library didn't have to worry about having the most current update and finding a good time to install it. We're at an interesting time in technology. Libraries these days can ill afford to try to be everything to all people and try to do it all on their own. By combining our sources of materials, our financial resources and sharing information we can provide better service to our students and library customers in a more efficient manner and deliver a much stronger product. That is why North Central LSA and AEA 8 are in the process of investigating options for setting up a consortium to build an Integrated Library System for all libraries in our jurisdictions to share. A small committee has been meeting several times over the past few months to determine interest, develop a timeline, look at specific software companies, and figure out how to meet the needs of both small school libraries, small public libraries, larger school libraries with multiple buildings, and larger public libraries, and how to do this within the financial constraints of all libraries involved. We recognize that not all libraries will be ready to "jump in" right away; in fact, we're counting on it. While we are aiming for a "go live" date of July 1, 2009, this would be only the first of many, many "go live" dates that libraries would choose to become part of this consortium. Here is a snapshot of where we are right now. A small group has begun writing a Request for Proposal to send out to prospective software vendors to have them send back bids on what it would cost to set up such a system. We have some samples of RFP's from libraries that have done similar projects and we're "borrowing" much of the language from those documents. We hope to have the RFP ready to send out to vendors in August and to have them returned by October 1. Then, we'll be recruiting some "volunteers" to read through those proposals and see what those vendors will do for what price. Once that is completed, we'll announce the vendor of choice, and start negotiating a contract with them. That's when the real fun begins. Until this point, we really won't know how to advise anyone on how much this may cost. That makes it very difficult to project how many of you will want to participate, because most of your decision will be based on "how much will it cost us?" which is the first question we would ask if we were in your shoes. We will need to set up some kind of governance and funding structure. We have not begun to do that yet. In a perfect world, we would like to be able to write grants or find money to cover the start up costs to get the system up and running, and then just worry about the yearly maintenance costs to bill back to the libraries. Again, in a perfect world, we would hope that the amount for yearly support would not be more than what you are currently paying for support if you are on a Follett based system, which is somewhere between $700-$900 per year. For some of you that's still a pretty big figure and for others that would be quite a bargain; hence, we want to see if we can work out some kind of financial structure to be as fair as we can to everyone. The State Library has announced that they, too, are interested in providing an automation system for all types of libraries across the state. Diane Jackson and Barb Shultz have been asked to be members of an advisory group for that project. We believe that the State Library is exploring open source software as the backbone of their automation system, and are projecting going live with their project sometime in 2010. There is an ICN session scheduled for June 18 to discuss more about the State Library project. The North Central-AEA8 consortium is not interested in pursuing open source software for its project. This project is a huge undertaking and you will need much more information than this in order to make any decision about participating. If you have questions, and we are sure you will, go ahead and ask, but know that we might not know the answers for a while. We will do our best to keep everyone updated as to our progress, and give you plenty of time to have discussions with your administration and board when we have more definite cost estimates. Sincerely, Harriet Adams and Scott Fosseen Harriet Adams, Supervisor, Lending Library and Delivery Prairie Lakes AEA Mailing Address: P.O. Box 802, Pocahontas, IA 50574 Shipping Address: 500 NE 6th Street, Pocahontas, IA 50574 Billing Address: 1235 5th Ave. S. Box 1399, Fort Dodge, IA 50501 866-540-3858, ext. 2048 or 712-335-3588, ext. 2048 Fax 712-335-5870 This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this email. You are asked to notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this email by mistake and delete this email from your system. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency. Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency accepts no liability for any damage caused by a
