Meeting Minutes for 08/10/2021

The Palace Project, a division of LYRASIS and strategic partner of DPLA 

Demo Recording

• The Palace Project
• Lyrasis and DPLA together as strategic partners received a 5 million dollar investment grant from the Knight Foundation to provide a platform, a service, a content marketplace built for and by libraries which is the focus of the Palace Project. 
• The Palace Projects is a digital platform and service that gives creative control and access to library staff. The platform is built by and for libraries. The team works directly with librarians to find out what is important to them and build that into the Palace Project platform and services.
• The Palace Project would like to provide access to all of a library’s digital content in a single app.
• The project wants to remove fake barriers that have been set up by eContent providers so libraries can share collections across libraries and the state.
• The Palace Project is community-owned and driven. It is not from a for-profit vendor. It is a turnkey platform and service. There is a Palace app, Palace manager, Palace marketplace, and Palace bookshelf with tens of thousands of free books that you can integrate into your eBook offerings as a Palace user.
• The Palace Project integrates with a library’s ILS with authentication using a patron barcode or a patron barcode and pin. No information about patrons ever flows to the Marketplace.
• The Palace Project group has been able to negotiate deals with publishers that were not previously offering content to libraries like Amazon-published titles (which will be available to the Marketplace in the fall), and negotiating better licensing models. They also have unlimited simultaneous use content in partnership with Biblioboards. 
• No platform fee for the Marketplace itself. You would just buy the content. There is a wide variety of lending models.
• Amazon is going to be offering four leading models. They will be offering the forty/ten at a time model. They will be offering the five simultaneous lends at a quarter of the list price. They will be offering the 2 years one-user model and the 26 one-user loans.
• The Palace manager will give you analytics from a dashboard that captures all the types of lending events from various platforms in an aggregated report. 

Q & A

• Q: Will magazines be available in the app?
• A: If the magazine is a PDF it is available in the Palace Project. If magazines are needed by the community as a high priority they will be put on the roadmap. 
• Q: Is there a possibility/timeline for audible audiobooks?
• A: The answer to the question cannot be disclosed at this time. Michele mentioned that people should get on their newsletter list to find out more.
• Q: Of the 840k books, how many are academic books?
• A: They are integrating any open academic access materials into the open bookshelf. There might be opportunities from Lyrasis to pull in some academic sources. They are working with academic libraries to pilot the app. They do have Proquest and are working with Springer.
• Q: Is there any integration or plans to integrate OER?
• A: Open Educational Resources are the main focus for them in terms of the Palace Bookshelf. They have already integrated the best open textbooks that are available in ePub. 

Fairness & Equity Subcommittee update

• The subcommittee members have made a draft of the best practices and expectations document for the OverDrive shared collection.
• The draft has a recommended budget expense based on the library service area or full-time equivalent for colleges and schools as far as students.
• Cecilia referred to the Overdrive Equity Study 2021 to look at the past spending for the last 3 years. The spending came out to about $1.06 per LSA or FTE. We are going to move on to that spending model as a recommendation. 
• The subcommittee is also working on changing some of the languages in the former eContent Shared Collection Development Guidelines about when to share and weed the collection. The expectation would be to share your OverDrive Advantage Plus shared content by or before 30 days preferably automatically instead of manual sharing.
• We hope to link to some training so there is an expectation that each library has a staff member who is proficient in the training and is a designated member of that library to communicate information to the director for budgetary purposes and other decisions.
• The document also addresses the differences between lending models and purchasing options. The Cost Per Circ (CPC) and Simultaneous Use (SU) titles are not part of the shared collection. Any SU titles not purchased from the Marmot OverDrive admin account and CPC titles would be considered a separate expense and not included in your planned shared spending. 

Q & A

• Q: Diane asked if we as the eContent Committee (ECC) will be able to look at the documentation and comment before it goes to the Board?
• A: Yes, the ECC group will be able to review the documentation before it goes to the Marmot Board for approval. The document will be ready for next month’s meeting for review on September 14, 2021.
• Q: Betsey asked if the budget recommendation for expenditures will have implications for the 2022 budget? She just wanted to make sure if there was an expectation that everyone is meeting a certain price point that it was shared much sooner rather than later so they can consider it for their budget management.  

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• Adam mentioned that the Marmot OverDrive shared collection has had some very loose guidelines in the past. What he thinks we are seeing especially after last year is just how much of a resource the shared OverDrive collection is becoming for libraries. Some of the questions about equity present an opportunity to maybe shape the guidelines and recommendations a little bit more formally and from a data-driven informed perspective with the idea that one of Marmot’s goals is to continue growing the shared eResource collection because it benefits everyone. The document created by the subcommittee is a data-informed suggestion and will certainly not be submitted to the Marmot Board as a requirement of members, but as a Board-endorsed guideline for participation.    

Average hold times/ automated hold carts/ buying down holds

• One thing that has come out of the fairness and equity subcommittee is working is that maybe not every library understands that it is each library’s rep’s responsibility to buy down holds when they reach 7 to 1 or higher. 
• This recording (Making automated hold carts) is from an older ECC meeting when Abbey came to walk the group through the steps of setting up an automated cart. The video shows you how to set up the cart in your advantage account so you get notified when you have advantage holds over 7 to 1. You will get an email about a cart that is ready when you have holds. If you have a larger budget, you can have the cart be auto-purchased. 
• The interpretation for the 7 to 1 can vary depending on a library’s budget. For example, Pine River waits until they have 7 patrons on hold for an item before buying another copy. While Bud Werner sees the ratio at 7 to 1, they may buy another copy if they have 1 patron on hold for that item. Libraries will have to interpret the 7 to 1 ratio the way it works best for your library’s budget. 
• It is a good idea to set aside some of your eContent budgets to buy down holds.
• Tallie pointed out a title that has 8 holds that is no longer available for purchase. 
  • Liz pointed out that a title can be an older version that is no longer available for purchase, but a new version could be available to purchase. When this happens the holds from the older version will need to be transferred to the newer version. Abbey can help move the holds. 
  • Liz pointed out that Tammy used to send a report to the libraries so they could move their holds to another title and included Abbey. 
  • Tammy pointed out that the group decided to have Abbey just remove holds. However, she realized that if there was another title, the group would not know they could purchase the titles and have Abbey move the holds. The titles with holds that are no longer available for sale and do not have a replacement copy will be the ones that Abbey will handle. 
• Action item: Tammy will go back to running the monthly list of titles that are no longer for sale and have another copy to purchase, and include Abbey to move the holds. 

Best Children’s Apps (Tallie)

• At Grand, they have been discussing their public computers’ apps for children.
• Tallie would like suggestions or recommendations from other libraries on children’s apps they use on their computers.
• The suggestion was for the AWE computers
  • Liz mentioned that the AWE computers are the most stable computers that do not need to be updated
  • You can choose to not connect them to the internet
  • It is filled with kids programs
• CLiC recently sent an email to Libnet about an add'l 10% discount offered by AWE
• Summit County wrote a grant to upgrade their AWE computers. They got two more new ones since the older ones were outdated at about 7 years old.

The next meeting is on September 14 at 1 p.m.