Steering Group Meeting Minutes

Note: The following minutes have been approved.

Minutes for the meeting held at Imperial College London Library

Present: Nick Bevan (Chair), Julie Brittain, Adam Edwards, Julie Howell, Sandy Leitch, Caroline Lloyd, Rosemary Lynch, William Marsterson, Ann Murphy, Mary Nixon, Pete Ryan.

1. Apologies for absence
Frances Norton, John Gilby and Genein Cox – De Sousa sent their apologies.

2. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising
2.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 9th July, 2008 were formally approved
2.2 Matters arising

Action Points not covered by agenda items
3) RDWG “Big idea” to come to December meeting as JG absent.
6) Treasurers report: Done by NB
7) Chairs of Working Groups were reminded to tell AE who they have nominated to keep their web pages up dated. 
9) Web page updating: Deferred to December meeting
10) Web statistics: Deferred to December meeting.  Further to this, WM commented that there is an urgent need for more technical support for JG.  Discussed whether combining the Director’s Room post and the WAM25 post would be a good way to make a full time post with wider appeal or whether this then risked delaying the Director’s Room as there is still no news on the WAM25 bid.  A further option would be to go ahead with a full-time temporary web post now independently of the WAM bid and the Treasurer confirmed that funding was available to support this.  There will be a meeting in October to discuss the Directors’ Room project which should be launched at the June 2009 meeting.  Agreed that these issues would be taken forward outside the meeting in discussion with JG and the issue resolved before the October meeting. A report would subsequently come to the December SG on the outcomes.  Action NB, WM, JG, AE
11) INSPIRE London: AM to work on this shortly.
14) WG dates:  Reminder to chairs to set dates for the whole year and to send these to GCDS for the calendar.

3. New Members              (Nick Bevan)
3.1 Expressions of Interest
• Horniman Museum:  A new Librarian is being appointed, so this will be pursued after that. Action MN.
• Science Museum:  Noted that much of the collection is now in Swindon so outside the M25 boundaries.  Agreed we need to check the London collection is still sufficient to be worthy of membership.  Action AE.
• Potential other members:  Agreed NB will write to the Royal College of Music and the Institute of Cancer Research.   Action NB.

Noted concerns about the balance of membership between HE and non-HE and also the potential problem of commercial versus non-commercial use of databases. In the light of these concerns it was decided to defer approaching RIBA at this stage.
 
3.2 Checklist for assessing prospective member libraries
AE’s paper (paper 1) was approved with three minor changes. CL had also drafted guidelines on access and borrowing. Agreed these would be added to AE’s paper as a second sheet.  The revised document will be lodged in the Directors’ Room as soon as that is available.  Action AE

4. Key projects for 2007/08 
4.1 Charitable and Company Status              (Nick Bevan)
Changes to the Memorandum of Association are required and NB tabled a sheet showing the suggested simplifications of section 3.  This was agreed.  The amendments now need approval at the January members meeting.  Action AE

4.2 Director Services Task & Finish Group   (Rosemary Lynch)
The first exchange of experience session had run in July on the subject of leadership and had worked well. It demonstrated the need for the Directors’ Room as a forum for further confidential discussions of the issues raised.  The planned second event had been replaced by a 1 to1 meeting with the only participant.  Noted that change management was a big issue for participants.  The group is now focussing on creating the Directors’ Room and is meeting in October to discuss this.

4.3 AIM25      (John Gilby) 
Discussion was deferred to December in JG’s absence. 

4.4 WAM25    (John Gilby)
Discussion was deferred to December in JG’s absence.  There was no news on funding.

5. Planning and budgeting cycle  (Nick Bevan)

NB’s paper (paper 2) was discussed. Agreed AE would add the dates of meetings from the agenda to this (draft at end of these minutes) and it would go up on the Directors’ Room as a working document.  Action AE.

6. Financial matters                      (Caroline Lloyd)
Single subscription invoices for all of M25 have now been sent out.  Roy Williams would be asked to audit the three separate sets of accounts for last year.  Action CL.

7. M25 Access Scheme Report (Caroline Lloyd)
CL had submitted a paper by way of an annual report on the scheme (paper 3).  Noted that Ravensbourne College had now joined SCONUL, removing one anomaly. Agreed that discussion of Senate House Library (ULRLS) would await the outcome of its review.  CL thanked JB for taking over this work and JG and others for their help and support. 

8. CPD25 Report   (Mary Nixon)
No events had been held since last meeting due to the long vacation.  Suzy Ball (cpd25 Administrartor) is leaving on 22nd September and will be replaced by a temp.  The office will be moving shortly from Westminster to the LSE putting all of the M25 Support Team in one location.  It is intended that Suzy’s replacement will be a permanent post, not a secondment, as no one seconded has ever gone back to their original post.  JG is working on a revised job description with guidance from LSE’s HR department.

9. Networking Event, Imperial College, 15th September 2008  (Adam Edwards)
This event is well in hand and GCDS was thanked for all the work done before she went on holiday to ensure its success. 

10. Business Meeting 23rd January 2009  (Adam Edwards)
10.1 Update on  the programme and speakers
Karen Senior (Bolton) and Moira Bent (Newcastle) have agreed to speak about the SCONUL report on services to international students.  MW has suggested a speaker from the LSE Languages centre who needs to be contacted.  As an alternative, it was suggested we invite a head of student services to speak on the issues international students present for them. Action AE.  Agreed we should approach Christopher Pressler at Nottingham as a speaker on their services and links to their two campuses in East Asia. Action AE [Done]

Also agreed AE would ask M25 directors for people to give short presentations on collections or developments in member libraries.  These short talks would be given after lunch, before the business meeting, as business meetings were usually short. Action AE.

Noted that Tim O’Shea, new chair of JISC, used to be Master of Birkbeck College and therefore would be a good person to invite to the June meeting as a speaker. Action NB.

11 Support Team Report    (John Gilby)
11.1  Reporting structure and team roles
JG had sent a paper (paper 4) which was deferred for full discussion in December.  The following changes to the paper were requested:
• The section on Inform25 on page 2 should briefly summarise the key points from the appendix, which could then be left out. Action JG.
• The report should address progress on the action points from the July 2008 meeting of M25 SG. Action JG.
Also noted was the need in due course for there to be a means to manage documents for M25 which would allow them to be saved and amended online. 

11.2  Systems Overview Report (detailed systems issues reported to RDWG)
WM reported that there had been no major issues over the summer other than the addition of one library catalogue.  WM agreed to send SG members notes of the July 08 meeting of the RDWG for information.  Action WM. Noted that there has been a discussion about how to set up a single access system for Inform25, AIM25 and  MASC25 facilitated by a wiki set up at Bedfordshire by Marcus Woolley.  WM was asked to bring a paper to the next SG on ways forward on this. Action WM

11.3  Allocating responsibility for updating general web pages (Adam Edwards)
Deferred to December meeting as JG has not yet been able to provide the web statistics requested.  Action JG, AE.
 
12 Reports from Working Groups

12.1 Collaboration & Partnership (Ann Murphy)
WG handed over from AE to AM in July.  The October meeting will be attended by a representative from the British Library.  INSPIRE London issues are now to be worked on.  Action AM. Meeting dates have been set. 

12.2   Marketing & Communications  (Frances Norton)
12.2.1 Image archive business case and plan
MN presented a short paper on discussions with FN in August.  CPD25 will use M25 materials in future with the only CPD25 branded items being the invoice, certificates and evaluation forms, all of which are templates printed when needed.  When the M25 folders are reprinted, CPD25 contact information will be added.  Agreed that bags should be commissioned as these are needed for events. Action FN
Website guidelines will follow in due course. Action FN

12.3   Quality  (Julie Howell)
No meeting since last SG.  Philip Payne has had to stand down from the group and Janet Percival has retired.  JH is to draft a message to go to M25 members to ask for anyone interested in joining the group. Meeting dates yet to be set. Action JH, AE

12.4   Resource Discovery  (William Masterson)
Nothing to add to comments already made above.

14. Any other business

There was no other business.

15. Dates and Venues of future meetings

Meeting                             Date                           Venue
SG Meeting                          8th December, 08        Greenwich University
Members' Business Meeting  23rd January, 09          Goldsmiths, University of London
SG Strategic Planning Day   12th March, 09              Royal College of Nursing 
SG Meeting                         14th May, 09                London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 
Annual General Meeting       18th June, 09                Imperial College London
SG Meeting                          8th July, 09                 Roehampton University

Note: SCONUL dates as check with above:
• December 2008 one day event:   16th December 2008
• Conference 2009:     10th – 12th June 2009 
 

Adam Edwards
Secretary, M25 Consortium
October 2008