Summary of the NMRLS Tenth Annual Meeting - November 16, 2006 By Gregory Pronevitz

Nancy George, NMRLS President and Electronic Resources Librarian at Salem State College Library, opened the meeting with recognition of the important activities of Executive Board and Committee members and the NMRLS staff in meeting the needs of member libraries and executing the Strategic Plan. >Nancy recognized four outgoing members of the Board. Barbara Lachance, outgoing Past President and Director of the McQuade Library at Merrimack College, Tom Standring, outgoing Board Member after six years and Trustee at the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, Bonnie Strong, outgoing Chair of the Personnel Committee after eight years and Director of the Abbot Public Library in Marblehead, and Suzanne Monier, outgoing Chair of the Supplemental Deposit Collection Committee and Interlibrary Loan/ Circulation Librarian at the Newbury Town Library.

Nancy presided over the business meeting. The NMRLS membership unanimously elected a new slate of candidates for the Executive Board (see below), the Annual and Financial Reports for Fiscal Year 2006, and the Plan of Service & Budget for Fiscal Year 2008.

Donna Beales, incoming President in May 2007, addressed the membership on the theme of participative management and how successful it is in libraries and library-related organizations like NMRLS. She ended her address, "I have every confidence in the success of NMRLS many goals and objectives over the coming year because I witnessed true participative management in action in the formulation of our strategic plan. One year ago, we the members determined the direction ourorganization will take over the next several years. We collectively chose the course, and we issued the marching orders to the great, supportive staff of NMRLS. Even now, they're diligently carrying out our directives with our continued participation and support. As I said before, I never fail to be heartened by the caliber of individuals who gravitate to librarianship. I'm proud to be part of an organization filled with such individuals. I look forward to serving you all in my upcoming Presidency. May I live up to the standard of excellence you've set for me over the past year."

Greg Pronevitz, Regional Administrator, also thanked Board members, committee members and staff for their contributions. His brief report touched on several aspects of NMRLS services including changes in statistical reporting results for online databases based on the multi-file searching capability introduced last year for InfoTrac and Grolier Online which led to a dramatic increase in the number of searches. He explained that the growth of retrievals provides a more realistic picture of expanded use (see chart below). He said that use of the NMRLS web site by members and the digital library are growing (see chart below). He encouraged members to take a look at the Northeast Massachusetts Digital Library http://www.nmrls.org/nmdl and the new, statewide digital library portal, The Digital Commonwealth http://www.nmrls.org/digitalcommonwealth.

He reported on progress with implementation of the Strategic Plan. Several advocacy events are planned including the Northeast Legislative Breakfast in late February or early March, a spring event on "All Politics is Local," and Massachusetts Library Legislative Day at the Statehouse on April 5th. The Executive Board and Reference Committee are looking into the value, cost, importance and usefulness of the regional reference centers, databases, and collaborative collection development. Next year it is unlikely that NMRLS will be able to fund eLibrary and evening/weekend hours at the Lawrence Law Library. The Continuing Education Committee has taken on a very challenging investigation into developing training standards and staff competencies and an evaluation and recommendations on e-learning. Delivery volume was up nine percent and exceeded two million items last year. The Delivery Committee is finalizing recommendations on packaging to reduce damage to items in delivery and will examine the "Best Practices" document recently approved by the MBLC which includes a suggestion to place bar codes on the outside of materials. You may view this document at http://mblc.state.ma.us/mblc/regional/services/delivery/best_practices/index.php. This would be a first step toward the automation of sorting operations which could lead to improving efficiency at the library and the sort site. Greg encouraged members to contact him with their thoughts on this topic.

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners was represented by five individuals: Commissioners Katherine Dibble and Vicki Kauffman, Director Rob Maier, Deputy Director Nancy Rea, and Reference Information Systems Specialist and Liaison to NMRLS, Marlene Heroux. Rob Maier discussed a number of MBLC activities, e.g., committees on public relations and state aid, the MBLC Legislative Agenda and the recent enacted reductions to MBLC line items which were reduced under Chapter 29, Section 9C, of the Massachusetts General Laws which authorizes emergency spending reductions to appropriations when the state budget is out of balance.

The MBLC accounts affected and the reductions are:

Account 7000-9101 for the Administration of the Board of Library Commissioners
Original FY2007 Appropriation: $1,000,732
9-C Reduction: $11,653
Revised FY2007 Appropriation: $989,079

Account 7000-9402 for the Talking Book Program at Worcester
Original FY2007 Appropriation: $390,000
9-C Reduction: $65,000
Revised FY2007 Appropriation: $325,000

Account 7000-9406 for the Talking Book Program at Perkins
Original FY2007 Appropriation: $2,182,175
9-C Reduction: $203,625
Revised FY2007 Appropriation: $1,978,550

Account 7000-9506 for Library Technology & Resource Sharing
Original FY2007 Appropriation: $2,833,000
9-C Reduction: $794,000
Revised FY2007 Appropriation: $2,039,000

Account 7000-9507 for the Public Libraries Fund
Original FY2007 Appropriation: $250,000
9-C Reduction: $2,911
Revised FY2007 Appropriation: $247,089

Accounts 7000-9401 (Regional Library Systems) and 7000-9501 (State Aid to Public Libraries) are local aid accounts and were not reduced under these 9C cuts.

Marketing for Libraries

Keynote speaker Liz Doucett, Assistant Director at Lucius Beebe Library in Wakefield and an experienced marketing strategist and consultant, shared her expertise on what marketing is and how it can benefit libraries.

Liz made it simple:

1. What's your library's story and who are your audiences? (Marketing strategy)
2. How will you reach your audiences to tell your story? (Marketing tools and tactics)

Through examples of good and bad marketing, Liz presented the elements of a marketing strategy: objectives, segment, target, message and look, and market research. Marketing tools and tactics are the mix of the most effective ways to convey a message to the target audiences. These may include: promotions, direct marketing, public relations and publicity, advertising, and public speaking. The result is a marketing plan that will pull together a library's objectives, a consistent message, target audiences and the tools to reach them, and a timetable.

Liz challenged attendees to go back to their libraries and conduct a simple marketing audit: collect a representative sample of the library's marketing materials and pin them all on one wall. Can you tell by looking at the materials what role the library takes in its community? What messages do they convey?

Liz's presentation is available under "Public Relations and Marketing" on the NMRLS Library Information Files web page: .

Thank you, Liz!