Present:
Bethan Adams, Tim Cullen, John Gilby, Dilys Hall, Ann Murphy (Chair), Christine Wise (Secretary), April Yasamee

Apologies:
Bill Downey, Gurdish Sandhu

1. Welcomes
AM welcomed colleagues to the meeting.

2. Minutes of the meeting held 7 December 2009 and matters arising
These were confirmed as an accurate record, subject to the amendment of “M25 Support Team” instead of “M25 Systems Team” under item 8.

3. Report back from M25 Consortium Steering Group Meeting
AM reported back on the M25 Steering Group meeting and Annual Planning Day held 18 January 2010.  Discussion points had included:
• The draft M25 Strategic Plan 2010/11-2012/13
• Purpose of M25 working groups and potential for task-and-finish groups
• Continuing use of the online M25 Directors’ Room
• Development of a complementary online M25 Staff Room
• Creation of a Marketing and Promotion Sub-Group to review promotional activities
• Creation of a Governance Sub-Group to look at the consortium’s business
• Review of InforM25
AM tabled copies of the draft M25 Strategic Plan and invited comments.
ACTION ALL

4. Current issues of interest to M25 Consortium members not funded by HEFCE
AY reported that she had made contact with the London Museums Libraries and Archives Group (LMLAG) (http://lmlag.wordpress.com/), especially with Ben Taplin of JISC.  Some institutions were in membership of LMLAG as well as the M25 Consortium.  LMLAG had a consortial purchasing agreement with NESLI which enabled members to have access to certain e-resources through discounted licence fees, including Grove Art Online, JSTOR, Wilson Web, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Reference, the Times Digital Archive, and Early English Books Online.  These, however, are not subject areas of relevance to the Horniman Museum, with the exception of the JSTOR, to which the Museum already subscribes at a reduced rate.
AY reported that the JISC project with LMLAG for a model licence for museums is ongoing.  Melanie Grant of the Tate Library & Archive is on the Steering Group for this.
AY had joined the LMLAG mailing list on jiscmail, and had a sent a message encouraging use of the Directors’ Room, for those also in membership of the M25 Consortium.  So far, there had been no response.
AY’s recent posting in the Directors’ Room had also elicited interest in walk-in access to e-resources, which confirmed general interest in this area as information on the M25 WAM project was awaited.  AY would continue to monitor this and other current issues.
ACTION AY

5. Inspire London: update and launch
AM reported that due to the recent inclement weather the planned meeting to discuss the launch of Inspire London and other arrangements had been postponed.  This meeting had now been re-arranged for 26 February 2010.  The issue of funding for updating the website, data maintenance and the launch would be addressed.

6. British Library Reading Rooms Working Group
AM reported on a recent meeting of this Working Group.  An area of current interest was collection of statistics regarding use of the British Library reading rooms, to inform future planning.  Joanna Newman, Head of Higher Education at the British Library, would be attending the next M25 Steering Group meeting to discuss this further.

7. Update on UK library consortia
JG tabled a paper with details of academic library consortia and recent contacts, as at February 2010.  This paper would be brought to the attention of the M25 Steering Group and used to inform planning for a meeting of consortia representatives.
ACTION AM

8. London health libraries: M25 Consortium engagement and current developments
DH reported back on a recent meeting of the London Health Libraries Council.  The Council was looking at library quality assurance framework and at costing models.

9. Review of Working Group’s web pages on M25 Consortium website – http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/collaboration and partnership working group/index.php
TC introduced his paper outlining current content on the Working Group’s web pages.  It was agreed that further content could be added to illustrate the work of the Group, perhaps under a news section.  Working Group members were asked to send suggestions to TC.
ACTION ALL

10. Updates for the M25 Consortium Action Plan
There were no updates at this time, pending the publication of the new M25 Strategic Plan.

11. A.O.B.
AM and JG drew attention to the forthcoming M25 Annual Conference, to be held on 23 April 2010, with Sir Timothy O’Shea as the keynote speaker.  Further details would be circulated in due course.

12. Date of next meeting
The next meeting would be held at in late April 2010 at St George’s, University of London.

CW would canvass colleagues for convenient dates.
ACTION CW