One Hundred-and-Ninth Annual Report

of the

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Fiscal Year 1998

July 1, 1997 to June 30, 1998

648 Beacon StreetBoston, MA 02215617-267-9400800-952-7403 (in-state)Fax: 617-421-9833Web site: www.mlin.lib.ma.us

Table of Contents

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Message from the Chairman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Year in Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

State Aid to Public Libraries Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Public Library Advisory and Technical Assistance Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Public Library Construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

State Aid to Regional Library Systems and Library of Last Recourse . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Library Technology and Resource Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Federal Program for Library Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Fiscal Year 1998 Financial Statement and Statistical Summary . . . . . . . . . 46

Certification Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Agency Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Agency Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Committees and Task Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Strong libraries are essential to education and lifelong learning, to economic develop­ment, to strong communities and to a strong democracy.

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is the state agency statutorily charged to support, develop, coordinate, improve and promote library services through-out the Commonwealth. The Board also strives to provide every resident of the Commonwealth with full and equal access to library information resources regardless of geographic location, social or economic status, age, level of physical or intellectual ability or cultural background.

The goals of the Board of Library Commissioners are to maintain a system of free public libraries, to coordinate and support statewide and regional programs which strengthen and supplement local library services, to promote resource sharing and the utilization of electronic information technology by libraries, and to provide specialized library services to blind and physically handicapped residents. ises muni­cipalities and trustees regarding the operation and maintenance of public libraries and is statutorily authorized to administer state and federal programs for Massachusetts libraries.

The Board was established in 1890 under Chapter 78 of the Massachusetts General Laws and consists of nine Commissioners appointed by the Governor.

Term

1993–1998 Walter L. Cameron, Jr., Chairman, Palmer 1995–1999 Elia D. Marnik, Vice-Chairman, Reading 1993–1997 Michael J. Keating, Secretary, Worcester 1992–2001 Robert D. Hall, Jr., Needham 1993–1998 Irene Probstein, Brookline, to April 1998 1998–2003 Joseph Hopkins, Amherst, from April 1998 1994–1999 John E. Arnold, Westborough 1995–2000 Edward L. Bertorelli, Milf ord 1990–1998 S. Andrew Efstathiou, Boston 1993–1998 Jurgen S. Thomas, Williamstown

Keith Michael Fiels, Director

The Board also adv

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Message from the Chairman

At its annual State House Library Legislative Day in April, the Massachusetts Library Asso­ciation gave the library community and its supporters the opportunity not only to advocate for libraries but also to celebrate their history, their function, their performance, and their essentiality. creation of the Board of Library Commissioners in 1890 and the beginning of State Aid to Public Libraries, there has been much to celebrate. his year we have seen reasons for both celebration and concern.

In the first instance, we have made varying degrees of progress in the ongoing implementa­tion of the Strategic Plan for Libraries, in the advancement of technology, in addressing the crisis in library construction needs, and in moving ahead in services for the blind and physi­cally handicapped. We recognize that what is being accomplished would not be possible without state appropriations, but the prime reason for celebration has to be the work of all those individuals on our libraries’ front lines. o the invaluable and caring members of the Board staff, and to the hundreds of talented, dedicated and underpaid library people per-forming daily miracles of service with underfunded library programs, working in 350 main library buildings, at least 200 of which are in need of major repair, addition, handicapped-accessibility, or replacement – to each of you we extend our deep appreciation and celebrate your contribution.

In the second instance, we do have great concern over our apparent inability to gain more tangible acceptance, from those who provide financial resources for libraries, of the fact that libraries are truly the heart and soul of our towns and cities, not just sources of leisure and recreation. n reality, they provide a host of valuable services to people of all ages, back-grounds, and economic levels. s for reading pleasure, certainly, but beyond that – books for research and education, children’s books, literacy programs for adults, as well as programming for children, young adults, seniors, and the community at large. In this techno-logical age, too, there is access to information from libraries of all types all over the world. Astoundingly, the capabilities of the smallest library can now be elevated to those of the largest.

Libraries are community jewels in the highest sense. hey need help now, and time is not our friend. We must continue our efforts to convey to the state administration and legislature a legitimate sense of urgency. Municipalities are already carrying 96% of the cost of operating our public libraries and only the state can provide the funding required to keep our programs in place and moving forward.

We appreciate the support of our legislators and we know that setting priorities is a difficult task for them. We would hope, however, that in their consideration of library needs they would examine carefully the return on dollars invested in libraries – a return not in dollars, but in services for our people. In these terms, we are convinced that the dollar investment in libraries made by the Commonwealth results in a human return on that investment which is unparalleled in our society.

We urge the Governor and the legislature to join with us, and with each of our towns and cities, as enthusiastic partners in the noble mission of providing for the lifetime use of every citizen an unmatched source of books, information, knowledge and education. he library stands alone in addressing this obligation.

Walter L. Cameron, Jr. Chairman, Board of Library Commissioners

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The Year in Review

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is specifically charged under Chapter 78 of the General Laws with the responsibility for advising municipalities and trustees regarding the operation and maintenance of public libraries. ear, Board staff provide technical assistance, statistical information and research assistance to nearly every single public library in the Commonwealth, answering thousands of questions on topics ranging from library construction to policy formulation and fundraising.

Each year, the Board also distributes nearly $6.9 million in state aid to public libraries which meet minimum requirements for maintenance of effort, hours open and materials purchases. During Fiscal Year 1998, 334 communities participated in the program, representing the highest level of participation in the program’s 30-year history. Aid funds distributed by the Board are used by local libraries to buy library materials (approximately one in five books purchased by public libraries is purchased with State Aid funds), add additional hours, purchase new technology and undertake a wide range of other projects for the improvement of library services. n every community, state aid makes a significant difference in the quality of library service.

The regional library systems and library of last recourse programs administered by the Board provide Massachusetts residents with programs and services which cannot by definition be provided by individual libraries. vital services include the delivery of materials among libraries, supplemental reference services, interlibrary loan services, supplemental deposit collections, shared access to electronic libraries, cooperative pur­chasing services and continuing education and training for library staff. Overall, Massa­chusetts residents receive 3 to 6 dollars on return for each dollar in regional services. Under the Library of Last Recourse program, state funding supports access for all residents of the Commonwealth to the unique research resources of the Boston Public Library.

Resource Sharing and Technology programs administered by the Board provide critical support to the automated resource sharing networks which currently serve nearly 300 public libraries and support a million interlibrary loans. Telecommunications support provided under this account helps guarantee equal access to network services for each community regardless of distance. ram also supports the virtual catalog, which now contains over 50 million titles and makes a wide range of basic electronic resources available to residents throughout the Commonwealth. Statewide delivery, interlibrary loan, and reference and information services further strengthen local library service in every community.

The programs of the Talking Book Library and Talking Book Program provide special­ized library services to 20,000 blind and physically handicapped Massachusetts residents who cannot use print materials. er this program, staff at the Perkins School in Watertown and the Worcester Public Library serve the special needs of handicapped residents by providing talking books and machines by mail and by providing on-site access to adaptive library technology.

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Significant Accomplishments

The year’s most significant news is unquestionably the funding by the legislature of the third phase of the Board’s Strategic Plan. The new programs and services implemented in Fiscal Year 1998 are already beginning to “revolutionize” library services in Massa­chusetts.

By the end of the year, six newly established Regional Library Systems were already serving over 1200 member libraries. These regions provide residents with much broader access to library resources in the Commonwealth by allowing public, college and university, school and special libraries to work together and to share resources. regions have expanded delivery (3.4 million items last year), strengthened supplemental collection programs (over 340,000 circulations of materials purchased by the regions), reference services (nearly 4,000 questions from libraries and over 1 million questions from library users) and provided thousands of hours of much-needed technology training for library staff (nearly 4,000 library staff members attended regional training sessions last year).

Working together, the Board of Library Commissioners and regions have also estab­lished a statewide electronic library – including over a million full text documents – and have made most of these valuable (and costly) databases available free to any resident with a personal computer and a Massachusetts library card. n its first year, over a half million documents were printed by library users.

New statewide programs include a new role for the Boston Public Library, which now serves as a statewide reference center for all libraries and provides one-stop shopping for thousands of journal articles which cannot be located locally or electronically. Statewide delivery now links the regional library systems and provides for fast library-to-library delivery anywhere in the state. ormation services now help local libraries provide information in critical areas such as medicine, law and business.

Support for the automated networks and library technology has helped reduce the cost of library technology for local municipalities, while allowing the Board to develop a library web page and Internet-based Massachusetts MLIN “virtual catalog.” Today, this catalog makes information available on the holdings of 400 libraries – and nearly 50 million books held by Massachusetts libraries.

While years of work lie ahead in fully implementing the Strategic Plan, new services provided under the Strategic Plan already allow every library and every library user to locate accurate information more quickly and easily. , each library can truly pro-vide a gateway not only to the collected resources of a thousand libraries, but also to a vast world of electronic information.

In addition to these advances, the Board was also able to begin implementing a multi-year plan to strengthen services provided to the blind and physically handicapped. Working from a blueprint developed at the request of the state legislature, the Board is seeking to serve more blind and physically handicapped users who currently are unaware of the service, to begin producing more materials of local interest which are currently unavailable in recorded format, and to expand the use of technology, including Internet-based services and the creation of a network of adaptive workstations in public libraries linked to the regional and subregional libraries. n July 1998, initial funding was

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provided to allow the strengthening of regional and subregional library collections in order to better serve users of this important service.

An increase in the newly reauthorized Library Services and Technology Act also permitted the Board to increase the number of federal grants to libraries.

Last, special supplemental budget appropriations in July 1997 and July 1998 have allowed the Board to award grants to 16 of the 37 communities awaiting public library construction funds. ith 1,368 projects now either completed or underway, there are still an estimated 200 libraries in need of renovation or expansion of inadequate, century-old structures.

A Library “State of the State”

Much significant progress has been made over the last several years, but a number of significant challenges lie ahead.

Our public libraries continue to struggle with increasing usage and insufficient public support. hile use of new electronic resources has skyrocketed, circulation of books and other library materials has continued to grow as well. Last year, 4½ million resi­dents used our public libraries, visiting them 19 million times, and borrowing 48 million books and other materials from them.

Economically, libraries continue to provide a tremendous return on the public funds invested in them. n 1997, the average public library expenditure per person was $24. With the average cost of a hardcover book approaching $50, each person receives about $400 in value for this $24 – or about $16 for each dollar invested!

While municipal funding for public libraries has increased over the last several years, library hours are still restricted in the vast majority of our communities. During 1998, public libraries were open 21,000 fewer hours than they were eight years ago. n com­munities large and small, libraries are closed mornings, after school, on Saturdays and weekends despite clear evidence that users need them open more. n our smallest com­munities, many are only open ten hours a week.

Materials purchases have also remained flat in real dollars for the last decade. n an era when libraries are being called on to purchase a wider and wider variety of materials in new expensive formats, this translates into empty shelves, long waits for needed materials and disappointed users in virtually every community.

Public library services for children are also an area of grave concern. ith growing recognition of the critical role that early childhood education plays in educational success, there is too little awareness of the role that libraries have always played for younger children. n almost every community, the library is the place where the vast majority of early learning occurs. ibrary story hours and library books provide our children with the surest guarantee of early literacy and subsequent success. Yet through-out the Commonwealth, there is only a single trained children’s librarian for every 3,700 children. urther investment in our public library services for children is certainly a most effective investment if we are concerned about the quality of education in the Commonwealth.

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Recognizing the continuing struggle of our public libraries, the Board of Library Commissioners has undertaken a major Public Library Initiative. part of this initia­tive, we have met with hundreds of local trustees and librarians, in order to learn about their challenges and needs. Based on this statewide planning effort, the Board is requesting increases in state aid to public libraries and support for improvements in library technology. Over the next two years, the Board will bring the Governor and Legislature further proposals for strengthening our public libraries.

Public libraries are essential to education, to economic development and to our democ­racy. For far too long, our Commonwealth’s public libraries have been allowed to deteriorate. 1998, significant strides were made in strengthening our libraries, but much hard work lies ahead.

Keith Michael Fiels Director

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State Aid to Public Libraries Program

During Fiscal Year 1998, a total of 334 municipalities (out of 348 eligible) was certified as meeting statutory and regulatory requirements. These communities received State Aid to Public Libraries awards totaling $6,899,804. t transactions reported among certified libraries for FY 1998 were 7,370,069. libraries received a per transaction offset of $0.168 out of the $1,239,025 set aside for Nonresident Offset payments.

The State Aid to Public Libraries program has remained virtually the same since 1987, when An Act to Improve Public Libraries was signed into law. This Act increased state aid by adding $3 million to the $2.8 million Library Incentive Grant (LIG) program, and established the Municipal Equalization Grant (MEG) disbursement formula for the additional money. In 1994, the first annual funding was appropriated for the Nonresi­dent Offset.

Data Coordination and Analysis

Of the 371 independent public libraries in Massachusetts, 363 reported financial, staffing and library services statistics for FY 1997. ormation was verif ied, compiled and analyzed in six reports distributed by the Board during early 1998. ear was the Rankings Report. This report ranks, both within a population group and across the state, Massachusetts public libraries according to several key data items, such as total operating income, FTE, and direct circulation. n addition to the print reports, public library data is available for downloading via the Board’s MLIN web site.

The staff continued to issue data reports on demand for both the public library commun­ity and others interested in Massachusetts public libraries. issued by Data Coordination staff in FY 1998 was the newsletter Public Library Facts. This one-page newsletter is issued every other month and contains information, data and graphics of interest to the Public Library community. recent issue of the fact sheet compared Massachusetts libraries to public libraries nationally. Libraries were grouped by population and expenditure, modeled after a report from the National Center for Education Statistics.

In addition to state data coordination, the Head of the State Aid and Data Coordination Unit is also the state coordinator, and vice-chair of the steering committee, for the ten-year-old Federal-State Cooperative System (FSCS) project for public library data. project compiles data for all 9,000 public libraries in the United States, resulting in an annual report of that data. Beyond public library data, the Data Coordination Unit also collects information for a national survey of academic libraries. The Unit looks forward to producing the academic library report in the spring of 1999.

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STATE AID TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Fiscal Year 1998 Statistical Summary

TOTAL number of Massachusetts municipalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Number of municipalities with public libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Number of municipalities without public libraries (Hawley, New Ashford, Washington) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Certif ication to Receive FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries Number of municipalities which filed FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Number of municipalities which were denied certif ication to receive FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries . . . 0 Number of municipalities which did not apply* for FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 TOTAL number of municipalities which received FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Prorating in the FY 1998 State Aid to Public Li braries Round Number of municipalities whose library received a prorated award for not meeting the minimum

hours open standard (Sandwich) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Number of municipalities whose library received a prorated award for not meeting the minimum

materials expenditure standard (Lincoln, Salisbury, Stockbridge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 TOTAL number of municipalities which received a prorated award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

FY 1998 Population-shift Grace Per iod Number of municipalities which used the population-shift grace period (Franklin, Rowley, Shrewsbury) . . . . . . . 3

FY 1998 Waivers of the Muni cipal Appropriation Requirement Number of municipalities which applied for a waiver of the FY 1998 municipal appropriation requirement

(Tisbury) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Number of municipalities denied a waiver of the FY 1998 municipal appropriation requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 TOTAL number of municipalities which received a waiver of the FY 1998 municipal appropriation

requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

FY 1998 Financial Activity FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 6,899,804.00 Disbursed Library Incentive Grant (LIG) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 3,040,528.76 Initial disbursement of the Municipal Equalization Grant (MEG) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 2,591,734.91 Initial disbursement of the Nonresident Circulation Offset (NRC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 1,236,139.69 Second disbursement of State Aid to Public Libraries monies (MEG/NRC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 31,400.64 TOTAL disbursed State Aid to Public Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 6,899,804.00

Number of municipalities receiving a first FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Number of municipalities receiving a second FY 1998 State Aid to Public Libraries award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

*Municipalities that did not apply: Alf ord, Brimfield, Conway, Erving, Gill, Gosnold, Hancock, Monroe, Mt. Washington, Otis, Rowe, Savoy, Tyringham and Windsor.

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Public Library Advisory and Technical Assistance Program

Trustee Visits

The Commissioners and staff continued the trustee visit program, which was initiated in 1994. The purpose of the visits is to introduce library boards to the programs and services provided by the agency. It also gives trustees the opportunity to ask questions, express concerns and discuss important issues. As of June 1998, Board members and staff had visited a total of 102 libraries across the state, 22 of these visits occurring in FY 1998.

Continuing Education for Trustees and Fr iends

The Board of Library Commissioners and the Massachusetts Friends of Libraries (MFOL) co-sponsored three introductory fundraising workshops and two major gifts workshops. With the Massachusetts Library Trustees Association (MLTA) the Board offered a workshop on effective board governance for library trustees. The Board and the Regional Library Systems presented four trustee orientation programs in the Western, Southeast, Northeast and Metrowest regions of the state.

Massachusetts Library Trustees Handbook

The Board appointed a committee to revise the 1988 edition of the handbook which was published in collaboration with MLTA. he handbook provides guidance to public library trustees on their roles and responsibilities with regard to library governance. pon completion of the revision the handbook will be distributed statewide and be available as well on the Massachusetts Library Information Network (MLIN) Web site.

Task Force on Public L ibraries and School Libraries

The Task Force on Public Libraries and School Libraries was formed in 1995. bers included public and school librarians, library trustees, school administrators and municipal officials. he charge of the task force was to assess cooperation between public libraries and school libraries in the commonwealth. ey was sent out to all public libraries and public school libraries to identify examples of cooperation. he survey drew a response rate of 27% from public school libraries and 80% from public libraries. an analysis of the survey results by an independent consultant, an executive summary of the survey was prepared. This, together with a draft report by the Task Force, can be found on the MLIN Web site (www.mlin.lib.ma.us).

The draft report includes a proposed policy on cooperation, issue statements, recommended activities and suggestions for further cooperation. meetings were planned for the fall of 1998, after which a policy on cooperation will be considered for adoption by the Board.

Library Reference and Research Services

The professional library provides information services for the library community, the staff of the Board of Library Commissioners, and for state and local government officials. The collection focuses on the subject of public library administration and services.

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Public Library Construction

Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program

At the close of FY 1997, a Waiting List of 37 cities and towns, eligible for $55 million in state grants for library construction and with a projected total cost of nearly $144 million, had been approved by the Board of Library Commissioners under the Massa­chusetts Public Library Construction Program. n response to this need, the legislature appropriated $14.5 million in August 1997 from the state’s Supplemental Budget toward funding Waiting List libraries. sioners voted in September to fund the first seven projects on the list: Worcester, West Boylston, Newbury, Oxford, Southbridge, Saugus and Somerville.

The Year’s Milestones

During Fiscal Year 1998, many of the projects initiated in prior years of the Massachu­setts Public Library Construction Program held dedication ceremonies for their new or updated library facilities. The year opened with summer dedications of a sunny new building in Wrentham, followed by an artful addition to, and renovation of, Westmin­ster’s Forbush Memorial Library. In September, Swampscott dedicated its renovated facility. s included an extensive reworking of the Haverhill Public Library and a charming conversion of an historic school building in Sheffield, which features three twenty-foot tall giraffes as part of the Children’s Room decor. The reno­vation of Bates Hall, the historic reading room of the Boston Public Library, was cele­brated in November, while a converted high school building in Duxbury began a new lif e as the Duxbury Free Library. A successful café was incorporated into Duxbury’s design.

Groundbreakings were held in the summer of 1997 in Groton for a three-story addition and in the fall for a new building in Dunstable and a renovation/addition in Topsfield. In the spring of 1998 an addition/renovation in Chelmsford began, along with a town hall conversion in neighboring Billerica. s were also begun in Pelham, Truro, and in New Marlborough, where a devastating fire had destroyed the old 1912 Carnegie library the previous year.

The new year opened with the dedication of the Abington Public Library, a new building with a forty-foot high barrel-vaulted ceiling. This was followed by the unveiling of an elegant restoration of the dignified Lucius Beebe Memorial Library in suburban

New Marlborough Town Library after the fire (left) and newly constructed building (right).

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Wakefield in March, which in turn stood in marvelous contrast to the opening, only four-teen days later, of a vibrant, light-filled library on the school grounds in Clarksburg, a small western Massachusetts town on the Vermont border. ation and addition opening in Medway in April was followed just eight days later by the opening of a renovation and addition in Medfield, seven miles away.

By the close of the 1998 fiscal year, a total of 129 public libraries had received con­struction or reimbursement grants since the initial funding of the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program in fiscal year 1991, for a grand total of $92.9 million in state funds. the Commonwealth has generated, in turn, over $346.5 million in construction activity in the state over the ten-year life of the Program.

Massachusetts Public Libr ary Construction Program (State-Funded)

Grants Awarded October 1997

MILLBURY Millbury Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $829,732

NEW MARLBOROUGH New Marlborough Town Library NEW CONSTRUCTION $ 61,462

NEWBURY Newbury Town Library NEW CONSTRUCTION $ 984,216

OXFORD Oxford Free Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,046,490

PRINCETON Princeton Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $ 420,474

SAUGUS Saugus Public Library NEW CONSTRUCTION $1,133,516

SOMERVILLE Somerville Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $3,258,000

SOUTHBRIDGE Jacob Edwards Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,137,836

WEST BOYLSTON Beaman Memorial Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,041,344

WORCESTER Worcester Free Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $5,826,502

Note: Millbury Public Library awarded $829,732 from the MPLCP state program and $344,928 from the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), Title II federal program.

Grants Awarded September 1998

BILLERICA Billerica Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,973,215

CARLISLE Gleason Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $ 919,388

EASTON Ames Free Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,967,655

HAMILTON/WENHAM Hamilton and Wenham Public Library JOINT PUBLIC LIBRARY $3,215,821

HARWICH Brooks Public Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $1,326,501

METHUEN Nevins Memorial Library ADDITION/RENOVATION $2,033,868

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Massachusetts Public Li brary Constru ction Program Waiting List Fiscal Year 1998

RANK CITY/TOWN LIBRARY PROVISIONAL AMOUNT

WORCESTER Worcester Free Public Library $5,826,502 WEST BOYLSTON Beaman Memorial Public Library $1,041,344 NEWBURY Newbury Town Library $984,216 OXFORD Oxford Free Public Library $1,046,490 SOUTHBRIDGE Jacob Edwards Library $1,137,836 SAUGUS Saugus Public Library $1,133,516 SOMERVILLE Somerville Public Library $3,258,000 PRINCETON Princeton Public Library $ 420,474 MILLBURY Millbury Public Library $1,174,660 HARWICH Brooks Free Library $1,326,501 EASTON Ames Free Library $1,967,655 BILLERICA Billerica Public Library $1,973,215 METHUEN Nevins Memorial Library $2,003,868 CARLISLE Gleason Public Library $919,388 HAMILTON/WENHAM Hamilton and Wenham Public Libraries $3,215,821 HANOVER John Curtis Free Library $1,462,505 NEWBURYPORT Newburyport Public Library $2,092,472 NORWOOD Morrill Memorial Library $1,034,499 BROCKTON Brockton Public Library $2,946,768 FALL RIVER Fall River Public Library $590,944 SPRINGFIELD Springfield City Library $1,299,174 WILLIAMSBURG Meekins Library $561,031 MEDWAY Medway Public Library $757,884 EAST LONGMEADOW East Longmeadow Public Library $1,399,840 TOWNSEND Townsend Public Library $1,331,162 AGAWAM Agawam Public Library $1,777,294 OAKHAM Fobes Memorial Library $214,873 BROOKLINE Public Library of Brookline $3,387,318 IPSWICH Ipswich Public Library $ 974,102 LEXINGTON Cary Memorial Library $2,861,621 TISBURY Vineyard Haven Public Library $544,111 LENOX Lenox Library Association $504,601 LOWELL Samuel S. Pollard Memorial Library $2,224,227 NORTHAMPTON Forbes Library $547,301 DIGHTON Dighton Public Library $641,777 SOMERSET Somerset Public Library $519,600 WINCHENDON Beals Memorial Library $767,576

TOTAL $55,870,166

NOTES: #1 through #7 awarded grants on October 9, 1997; #8 and #9 awarded grants on November 6, 1997; #10-15 on September 10,1998.

Millbury Public Library awarded $829,732 from the MPLCP state program and $344,928 from the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), Title II federal program.

13

14

Children’s room, Bushnell-Sage Memorial Library, Sheffield

Federal Construction Program

Several Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) Title II projects were ongoing during FY 1998, including the project in New Marlborough, which replaced the 1912 Carnegie library building that burned to the ground. ation and addition project in Bedford continued, the milestone being the move of library operations into the new addition, with renovation continuing into 1999. an construction, while projects in Warwick and Duxbury came to completion as scheduled.

An award of $344,928 in LSCA Title II funds was made to the renovation/addition project in Millbury, to supplement state funding for the project. project is expected to begin in 1999.

A renov

Pelham’s municipal complex beg

Construction on this

15

Regional administrators (l. to r.): Greg Pronovitz, Ruth Kowal, Cindy Roach, Sunny Vandermark, John Ramsay, and Anne Parent.

State Aid to Regional Library Systems and Library of Last Recourse

Six regional library sys­tems in assachusetts completed their first full year of existence in Fiscal Year 1998. repre­sent ion regional ry systems that were first established in the 1960s to extend public library ser­vi ces ond t h ose offered by local libraries. The six new systems em-brace all types of libraries – ubl ic, school , and pecial libraries – and carry on the mission of providing library services beyond those available from any individual library. ional budgets and plans of service are submitted annually for approval by the Board of Library Commissioners.

Three of the regions – Boston, Central and Western – began with an infrastructure already in place. evertheless, each one experienced change in varying degrees. ll expanded membership considerably by adding new member libraries. The new Boston Region, with only three public library members, welcomed a large number of academic, special and school libraries. The Central Region experienced changes in staffing, a move to incorporated nonprofit status, and a move of the headquarters from the Worcester Public Library to a new facility in Shrewsbury.

Meanwhile, the three brand new regions – Northeast, Metrowest and Southeastern – located and furnished headquarters facilities, selected administrators, hired staff, set up executive boards, advisory councils and committees, established policies and proce­dures, secured independent nonprofi t status, contracted with libraries for the provision of services, and assessed member libraries’ needs – all this while still managing to main­tain existing levels of regional services for their libraries. e was a daunting one, to say the least.

Boston Region

The Boston Regional Library System, a service of the Boston Public Library funded through the Board of Library Commissioners, now has 100 members. The Massachu­setts Environmental Library and the Wayne S. Wright Community Resource Library of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition, Inc. joined during the fall of 1998. embers now include 3 public libraries, 23 school libraries, 46 special libraries and 28 academic libraries.

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The Boston Region provides the following specific services to its members: supplement­al reference assistance, interlibrary loan and document delivery, advisory and technical assistance, staff development and continuing education, and delivery of books and other library materials. A recent enhancement is a project, funded through the region, and in collaboration with the Northeast, Metrowest and Southeastern Regional Library Systems, whereby holders of valid MBLN (Metro Boston Library Network) library cards, as well as holders of cards from NOBLE, MVLC, MLN, OCLN, ABLE, SEAL, and CLAMS automated networks, are now able to access the IAC SearchBank products from outside the library through the Boston Region and the Boston Public Library web sites. ion is currently providing 25 simultaneous user licenses so that holders of valid Boston, Malden and Chelsea Public Library cards, as well as holders of valid cards in the networks noted above, can use the World Wide Web from home, office and other remote sites to access the SearchBank databases.

The MBLN operation is now part of the Regional Services Program, providing new developmental opportunities for both the regional system and the automated network. Questions that have arisen and are being addressed include: how should libraries that are not automated or are on stand-alone equipment proceed, and how can the regional program and the networks work in tandem to support the Board of Library Commission­ers’ virtual library initiative? The formation of a technology interest group for non-auto-mated or smaller stand-alone system users to discuss automation alternatives and plan for future changes is being considered.

One of the principal services of the region is delivery. The projected level of delivery for FY98 was 17,500 items; the actual number of items delivered was 52,858. Discus­sions are ongoing about additional delivery services to accommodate new members and the increased amounts of activity.

Direct resident access (the Boston Public Library provides direct resident access to reference and research materials as Library of Last Recourse for the Commonwealth) was projected to be 708,800 questions handled; the actual level of telephone and walk-in service was 829,452 questions handled.

Seventeen continuing education programs were held during the year, attracting 557 attendees. ram topics ranged from “PC Troubleshooting and Preventive Main­tenance,” “The Internet,” “Evaluating Web Sources,” “Finding What You Want on the Web (without search engines)” and “Search Engines on the Internet” to “We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This (meeting management skills and problem-solving).” also programs dealing with “Managing Internet Resources for Youth Services,” “Connecting to Teachers and Students with Technology,” and a YA Showcase program. The Summer Reading Program, which operated statewide, was very popular in the Boston Region, with 2,636 participants against a projected 2,180. Cooperative work-shops were held to demonstrate to librarians how to make the best use of the program materials. n addition, “The Future Is Here – Start Planning Now,” a program co-spon­sored with the Boston Library Consortium and supported by the Board of Library Commissioners, attracted 241 participants from across the state.

The Guide to Member Library Services was compiled and distributed to members, as were twelve monthly copies of Briefly, the region’s newsletter. e pur­chasing programs for materials and supplies operated as usual, and the Surplus Refer­ence Books program was extremely successful. is is the program through which

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17

reference works no longer needed by the Boston Public Library are distributed to member libraries that request them.

Central Region

The Central Massachusetts Regional Library System (CMRLS) became both a non-profit and a multitype organization this year, serving more than 200 libraries in the 71 communities in the central part of the state. ition of the membership is as follows: 71 public libraries, 112 school, 20 special, and 14 academic. ion’s headquarters for Interlibrary Loan, Continuing Education, Advisory and Technical Assistance, Supplemental Collections and Services and Administration was separated from the aegis of the Worcester Public Library (WPL) in 1998, and moved into a new facility in Shrewsbury.

The Central Region’s full-time staff number ten, including five former staff members who moved to the new non-profit. Five additional staff were hired, and two existing positions were upgraded to meet the needs of the newly evolved organization. region contracts with the Worcester Public Library and the Fitchburg Public Library for Reference and Audiovisual Services, as well as for portions of the Interlibrary Loan, Delivery and Supplemental Collection services.

Delivery via commercial courier and the Worcester contract moved nearly a half million items between libraries last year. delivery on demand” pilot program begun in the spring of 1998 helped assess the volume that some new members might generate, and the number of stops increased in the fall from 176 to 200 permanent stops each week. Additional permanent stops will be added as volume warrants.

Reference centers at Worcester and Fitchburg served residents and libraries, as they had done before the separation of services. questions answered for libraries remained level at around 1,300; those answered for residents were about 105,000, declining slightly from 1997.

The region filled 27,000 mediated interlibrary loans for member libraries, a decline of about 2,000 from the preceding year. the requests received by region was increasingly difficult, however, as libraries were able to fill more and more requests from each other's collections and through the reference databases that are subsidized by the region and the Board of Library Commissioners.

The regional administrator, along with the Western Region’s administrator, serves as a permanent member of the Executive Board of the automated network C/W MARS. major issue for 1998 centered on the selection of a new database vendor. addition of an electronic interlibrary loan subsystem with the new vendor is expected to change the nature of interlibrary loan again in coming months.

The Central Region’s first year with the Net Lending Program was well received, pro­viding first-time rewards for those libraries that consistently lend more materials than they borrow. distributed to the five academic and five public library net lenders, in amounts ranging from $320 to $8,800. or the following year were expanded to include photocopies.

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18

Continuing education is a major “drawing card” for the region. ast year, despite the move, 80 programs were offered in all, with an attendance of nearly 1,000.

Advice and technical assistance is dispensed at a steady pace, with 1998 statistics reveal­ing 155 consultant hours spent answering nearly 1,000 questions, and another 156 hours spent in 78 visits to libraries for on-site consultation.

Circulation of regional materials remained steady at 134,000. the total, 57,000 is on the bookmobile to libraries, 10,000 represents the circulating deposits on special topics, and the balance is audiovisual material and special equipment, such as the Ellison letter-press die cut machine and free-standing “Book Sale” promotional signs. examples of special Supplemental Services unique to this region. vice is design layout and photoduplication of flyers and other promotional materials. Approximately 650,000 copies were supplied to members in 1998.

Audiovisual circulation declined slightly, from 37,000 to 34,000, but the circulation of individually “bookable” items actually increased by 500, representing an increase of 4% in audio and 3% in video. Audiovisual deposits and “bookables” circulate in an approxi­mate 60/40% proportion.

In other activities, the region co-sponsored a children's literature conference last fall with the Alliance for Education, subsidizing registration for Central Massachusetts librarians, who comprised 20% of the total attendance. pring the region also co-sponsors Community Reading Day, a business-education partnership in the area that sends volunteers into classrooms to celebrate the joys of reading. The region has begun to explore cooperative possibilities with the Worcester Area Consortium of Libraries (WACL), beginning with taking on the previously WACL-sponsored teleconferences from the College of Dupage, which has offerings for both professional and paraprofes­sional library staff.

The region's eleven-member executive board met regularly except during the summer, when more than 60 participants in “service committees” collaborated to develop the annual Plan of Service. An ambitious personnel committee developed extensive human resources guidelines for both employers and employees.

The Central Region also embarked on a preliminary exploration of the possibilities for a regional bibliographic database (RBDB.) ction with the Western Region investigated one possible RBDB vendor in 1998, and additional solu­tions continue to be sought.

The newsletter Centralities was published on a biweekly basis except during the summer months. relocation of the headquarters facility , there was only one missed issue for the entire year. inning in 1999, Centralities will move to a monthly schedule.

Metrowest Region

The Metrowest Massachusetts Regional Library System’s executive board appointed an executive administrator who took office at the end of January in temporary space pro-

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vided by the Newton Free Library. n early April a permanent site was found in Waltham for the headquarters offices. thereafter and the total staff remained at two throughout the rest of the fiscal year, although several other positions were advertised and interviews were held for an admini­strative assistant and a library technology consultant to begin in early FY 1999.

Among the first activities of this small staff was the furnishing of the office and the purchase of fourteen computers for staff use and for a computer training room. laptops and two computer projectors for use in on-site and off-site training were also purchased. n mid-June a server was delivered and installation of the local area network was completed.

While the office infrastructure was being completed, committees were formed to work on several of Metrowest’s biggest projects, the development of a regional bibliographic database and the selection of online databases for our members. eyed member libraries to determine the extent of automation already in place throughout the region. nformation was collected on acquisitions, cataloging, and the format of biblio­graphic records. ind the best solution for the conversion of records to machine-readable format. project began with several libraries that already have machine-readable records, and records were sent to a tape vendor for merg­ing and de-duping.

Several database options were examined for possible licensing by the region on behalf of its members. Electric Library was subsequently selected as the one most useful to the members. n addition, Metrowest was part of the cooperative effort between the Board of Library Commissioners and the regions to provide licensed statewide access to Information Access Company’s “SearchBank” databases.

The region contracted with the Wellesley Free Library to provide Reference and Research Services and Interlibrary Loan to its members. ellesley answered 73,680 reference questions from patrons and 1,957 questions from member libraries. Of 8,304 mediated interlibrary loan requests made for regional members, 6,518 were filled. number of mediated requests received for non-member libraries was 20,956. Of these, 3,680 were filled.

Metrowest reimbursed member libraries for net lends to other Metrowest regional members. net lends was 37,733, for a total reimbursement of $143,385. ized the audiovisual services provided through the Boston Public Library. 3,194 booking requests, 2,618 items were shipped.

A survey was sent to all members to collect information about their needs for continuing education. e group presentations were requested, with the top requests being “PC Troubleshooting,” “ Web Page Design,” and “Search Engines.” support continuing education efforts, development of a professional collection of books, periodicals, training materials, policies, and documentation was initiated. ccess to the material is available on our Web site, www.mmrls.org.

Regional materials acquired this year numbered 109, and ILLs filled amounted to 10,198. items sent by regional delivery was 961,480. advisory and technical assistance and two continuing education programs were counted

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(attendance 68). region provided reference service to member libraries 1,957 times, while the reference service to patrons came to 73,680.

The regional staff and the executive board contributed a great deal of effort toward getting the new region organized and running this year. look forward to further developing their continuing education programs and other member services in FY 1999.

Northeast Region

The Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System is headquartered in North Andover. embership totals 254, including 54 public, 13 academic, 160 school, and 27 special libraries. ver the past year, setting up a regional office, acquiring staff and opening up communications with a quickly growing membership were priorities.

An 11-member executive board meets monthly, rotating the meeting to different member libraries. to provide member input and enhance a member-driven approach to services. work with the board and staff in a number of areas, such as continuing education, interlibrary loan, reference, special libraries, supplementary collections, and youth services.

The region is now staffed by three library professionals with contracted assistance pro­vided for clerical and administrative tasks. The region’s current success would not have been possible, however, without the important contributions of the executive board during this first year of operation. on the extensive planning efforts of the interim planning committee in the prior year, the executive board worked hard to initiate a number of important contracts and projects.

Communications with members is facilitated by a monthly newsletter, a quarterly con­tinuing education calendar, a web site, an electronic mailing list for members and staff, a toll-f ree number for members, and an inclusive attitude toward participation on com­mittees. Staff visited more than 50 member libraries during the first year of operations, spending about 129 hours providing consulting services to members on a wide range of library-related topics, such as collection development and weeding, facilities planning, cataloging, library automation systems, computers and networking, and strategic planning.

Member services include a supplemental reference service program provided under con-tract by the Memorial Hall Library in Andover. ional reference center provides reference service to libraries in the region as well as to residents. ices are pro­vided about 100 and 1,700 times per month, respectively, for a yearly total of 20,490. Two interlibrary loan centers, one at Memorial Hall Library and the second at the North of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE), provide assistance, verif ication, location, and materials to member libraries. These centers filled over 500 requests monthly on behalf of the region, some 6,360 for the year. ery services are provided to all public libraries and most academic library members, with some 6,500 items delivered each month, 79,000 for the year.

Continuing education is an important component of the Northeast Region’s service. During the last calendar year, the region hosted 56 workshops, with a total of 661

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attendees (72 percent from public, 8 percent from academic, 15 percent from school and 5 percent from special libraries). topics include reference, interlibrary loan, cataloging, collection development, World Wide Web searching and page creation, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and Year 2000 issues.

Licenses negotiated by Northeast allow member library access to about 300 online databases, covering a wide range of subject areas. ome access to five databases is included in the license arrangement. e services include the full text of publications such as newspapers, popular magazines, scholarly journals, Spanish-language materials, business information, a dictionary and encyclopedia. ice is specifically designed for use by young people and is highly praised by our school library members. Training sessions are hosted to provide orientation to librarians on using these services.

Other services include the following: supplementary services to public libraries serving communities of under 25,000; circulation of items from a targeted collection, which averaged over 500 per month; a collection development policy established to support some areas of the Massachusetts school curriculum frameworks; and a consulting pro-gram to assist libraries in technology,

Additional member services include participation in statewide projects, including the summer reading program, very popular in public library children’s rooms; cooperative purchasing of library books and supplies; and access to film and video collections.

Southeastern Region

The first two accomplishments of Fiscal Year 1998 were finding and moving into a permanent home for regional headquarters and hiring staff. The site location chosen was a corporate park in Lakeville. The new Regional Administrator came on board in January, and through winter and spring, the Assistant Administrator for Technology and Assistant Administrator for Continuing Education were hired. fice manager and an administrative assistant began work in the summer.

At its first annual meeting, the region had 175 members. grow during the year until today there are 295. largest of the six regional library systems (in population served) includes 14 academic libraries, 101 public libraries, 145 school libraries and 35 special libraries.

Over the past year, the region hired a consultant for youth service who made several on-site visits and was available via e-mail. n addition, she presented a series of workshops on weeding, crafts and the Internet. f did a survey on continuing education in June and planned to offer a full slate of workshops in fall of 1998.

Staff of the ILL processing centers offered ILL training workshops for new members. In conjunction with Board of Library Commissioners staff, the region also offered a Trustee Orientation in the spring.

The region’s contracting libraries – Bridgewater, Falmouth, New Bedford and Quincy – provided reference, interlibrary loan and delivery service to member libraries. Member libraries participated in a delivery survey last spring and results showed that

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22

33,010 items moved through our delivery systems. Additionally, members mailed another 300 items.

The Southeastern Region offered a new program to its members this year – Net Lender Reimbursement. ibraries that lent more materials to members of the region than they borrowed from members of the region were eligible for this program. orty libraries participated in the program and received a total of $172,351.20 for 123,000 net lends. As more and more members borrow directly from each other, this program should increase in popularity.

The region worked with the automated networks, CLAMS, SAILS and OCLN, and iden­tif ied special collections that were not currently available on the networks. LS is working with the New Bedford Free Public Library, the Blanding Library in Rehoboth, the Dighton Public Library and the Attleboro Public Library to add local history, whal­ing and other collections to the SEAL and ABLE databases. OCLN and the Hingham Public Library are working together to add the local history collection of Hingham and to develop standards and procedures for network members for adding local history materials to the network databases. AMS is working with the Sturgis Library, the Sandwich Public Library and the Eastham Public Library to add a nineteenth-century monograph collection, a collection on glass and local history tapes.

A proposal for a consultant to help plan the region's bibliographic database was devel­oped; in FY 1999 the consultant will work with member libraries on this major project.

Member libraries are providing their patrons with home access to the SearchBank databases as a result of a cooperative project between the regional systems and the Board of Library Commissioners. The Southeast region has also made possible licensed access for its members to SIRS Researcher and SIRS Discoverer.

Something new is happening with the film booking service. inning in July, The Central Massachusetts Regional Library System began supplying members with videos and films through the film booking service.

The Summer Reading Program involved 112 member libraries this year, and over 200 participated in the cooperative purchasing agreements. Regarding regional materials, 185 were acquired and 2,164 circulated, regional ILLs numbered 17,145 and regional delivery hit 1,716,520. Four continuing education programs were held, with an atten­dance of 201. Electronic network transfers numbered 661,351 and overall reference service included 93,649 questions.

This start-up year of the region saw many successful programs initiated and regional staff and member libraries look forward with anticipation to what future years will hold.

Western Region

By the end of FY98, Western Region’s membership totaled 269, which included the original 103 public library members along with 122 schools, all 18 academics and 26 special libraries. sessions were held, covering interlibrary loan, region­al reference and delivery, with 93 staff from 73 new member libraries attending. These sessions were held both at regional headquarters and at other sites throughout the region.

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The ILL office filled the 21,708 requests it received. A higher percentage of the requests are now more complex and time-consuming subject requests than in the past.

A major development was the establishment of a net lender offset program. The region disbursed over $22,000 to member libraries that loaned more materials to other Western Region members than they borrowed from them.

A regional bibliographic database demonstration project was undertaken jointly by the Western and Central Regions and C/W MARS. t is expected that an Internet-accessible database of the holdings of member libraries will f acilitate resource sharing.

Internet Access. Library Commissioners awarded the region a grant of $67,665 to replace the computers and modems that many of its smaller public libraries had received in the mid-1990s. Western Region purchased equipment for 56 western Massachusetts public libraries, 11 Central Region libraries and 2 Cape Cod libraries. A total of 70 Western Region libraries of all types also applied for Internet access and e-mail accounts, to be provided through C/W MARS.

Electronic Reference Data Base. Along with the other regions, Western Region con­tributed $50,000 to support access for members statewide to the SearchBank electronic reference database, including general, academic, health and business resources.

Delivery . ion was able to expand existing academic delivery routes and provide better linkages between them. delivery has been initiated for those public libraries which are the heaviest users of interlibrary loan, and stops have been added for a dozen other libraries, five schools and one special library. e delivery routes per week are currently operating, totaling 209 stops. lexibility has been built into the schedule to add more libraries as the need arises.

Continuing Education Workshops. FY98, attendance at regional programs was 1,710, up 20% over FY97, the previous all-time record. Computer Training Center have been especially popular.

In the fall, the region offered a highly successful Reference Workshop Series to help directors of small public libraries meet the educational requirement of the State Aid to Public Libraries program. education is one of the most important functions the region can serve, since it is only through a well-trained staff that libraries can pro-vide excellent service to their users.

Reference Services. hile use by member libraries of the Regional Reference Service at Springfield City Library declined slightly in FY 1998, it is expected that orientations to Regional Reference and new members will increase use of this service. ne reason for the slight drop is that libraries now have more information at their fingertips through electronic resources like SearchBank and the Internet.

Youth Services. estern Region coordinated the statewide summer reading pro-gram. A total of 104 member libraries participated in the “Celebration” theme program titled Celebrate! Read! Next summer’s mystery theme program titled Unlock the Mystery – Read! has already resulted in 118 members registering to participate. 1998, the region’s Web site (www.wmrls.org) hosted information about the statewide

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summer reading program and established the statewide Summer Photo Showcase to illus­trate how member libraries from all regions adapted the program for their communities. Many librarians visited this site to garner ideas for their own programming.

In the summer of 1997, the Massachusetts Library Association/Youth Services Section distributed courtesy copies of its Standards for Library Service to Young Adults in Massachusetts. To reinforce this effort, librarians from Western Region libraries volun­teered to facilitate a series of informal discussions on young adult services titled Yakking About Youth Services; these were enthusiastically received by member libraries.

Purchasing Cooperatives. materials and supplies cooperatives were coordinated by the region again this year. 500 libraries participated in the materials cooperative, with an estimated $11 million in purchases. Savings were as high as 45.1% in some materials categories. For the supply cooperative there was participation from 381 libraries, with an estimated $449,026 in purchases. Discounts ranged from 10% to 80%. Both of these programs help increase the purchasing power of member library budgets.

The Regional Headquar ters. The Facilities Committee had determined that the headquarters building in Hatfield would continue to be a suitable location for the region for years to come, with the addition of an elevator and other work. the topic of a long-term extension of the lease with the Hatfield Selectmen, however, it was learned that the town was conducting a study of its own building needs, with the regional headquarters being re-considered for town use. the region will remain in this building or find it necessary to seek a new site in the future.

Bookmobile Service. A feature that distinguishes the Western Region from most other regions is the major emphasis on the supplemental materials program for smaller public libraries. over 197,000 items, which is estimated to have resulted in close to one million circulations to Western Massachusetts residents. Planning will determine how supplemental collection deposits can be made available to other types of libraries.

Communications and Public Relations. n addition to print publications such as WRapper, WRappings and the Youth Services Newsletter, members are encouraged to subscribe to the region’s listserv and to bookmark the region’s home page to keep up with timely information of interest to members. The home page was extensively revised and reorganized throughout the year to remain a useful and vibrant resource.

Staffi ng. Y98 budget called for new positions to meet the demands of an expanded membership, including a continuing education/public relations specialist, a technology specialist, an interlibrary loan clerk, and an additional bookmobile/delivery specialist. ew staff have been welcome additions, enabling a seamless expansion of services to many more libraries without disrupting existing services.

The excellent work begun in FY 1998 has created a sense of optimism, promising that communication and cooperation between all types of Western Massachusetts libraries will produce much improved library services for all area residents.

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Library of Last Recourse

Under MGL Chapter 78, Section 19C, the Boston Public Library is designated as the “ library of last recourse for reference and research services for the commonwealth.” Under this program, the Boston Public Library makes available and provides access to in-depth reference and research service to all residents of the Commonwealth. or 150 years the Boston Public Library has acquired, maintained and provided access to com­prehensive collections as the Library of record of the City and the Commonwealth.

Ongoing acquisitions reflect a high degree of currency and completeness in a wide range of subject areas and formats. ibrary collects materials in over 40 world languages; serves as the only federal regional depository library in Massachusetts; is a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office designated depository library, holding all U.S. patents issued since 1787; has large collections of documentary photographs and architectural draw­ings; subscribes to over 15,000 serials; has backfiles of newspapers for most Massachu­setts cities and towns; and maintains an award-winning Telephone Reference Service. Residents contact the Library daily via telephone, fax, and email for assistance with reference and research. ibrary's collections include over six million volumes and approximately 11 million prints, documents, microformat materials, photographs, post-cards, and manuscripts.

During March of 1999, the departments of the Research Library of the Boston Public Library supplied 15,432 items to residents of Massachusetts who live outside Boston. In addition, as an example of one department’s activity, the Fine Arts Department supplied 1569 items from its special collections to non-Boston Massachusetts residents. Subject specialists in departments of the Research Library respond to thousands of queries on a daily basis, extending the collections and the staff expertise of the Boston Public Library to residents throughout the Commonwealth.

Massachusetts Regional Li brary Systems Services at a Glance

FY1998 Selected Statistics

Regional materials acquired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26,701

Regional materials circulated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341,917

Regional ILLs filled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71,371

Electronic network transfers filled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637,889

Regional delivery (number of items) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,431,885

Advisory and technical services (number of hours) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880

Reference service to patrons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,121,791

Reference service to member libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,156

Continuing education programs offered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Continuing education program attendance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,708

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27

Library Technology and Resource Sharing

Introduction

The second year of funding for the Strategic Plan provided the opportunity to continue shifting the library technology focus from infrastructure-building to content provision. While infrastructure development will be a focal point of Board programs for the fore-seeable future, content provision will be increasingly important as it is now possible to provide access to electronic information resources to all libraries statewide cost effec­tively. This use of the infrastructure is the key to library service in the twenty-first century.

The Board worked to develop content for libraries through its second statewide license for electronic databases, through ongoing development of the agency’s Massachusetts Library and Information Network (MLIN) home page (www.mlin.lib.ma.us) and through the deployment of the Massachusetts Special Collections Database. developed by agency staff, presents information about a wide range of institutions and the special collections they maintain.

Infrastructure investment continued in an effort to assure all public libraries the oppor­tunity to provide their patrons access to content through the Internet. ing state and federal funds, the Board provided essential support to the automated networks for hard-ware and software upgrades. At the same time, telecommunications funds from the state budget, combined with anticipated E-rate discounts, provided nearly a total offset of these costs for network members, and the virtual catalog program provided support to each of the networks for their participation in this initiative.

Virtual Catalog

Under the Board’s Strategic Plan, residents of the Commonwealth will have access to a virtual catalog through which they may locate and retrieve materials from any library on any topic by performing a single search. en the central role of the 10 automated library resource sharing networks in the development and maintenance of this virtual catalog, funding was provided for ongoing support of these networks based on the number of titles, number of holdings, and number of interlibrary loans filled electroni­cally on their systems. A total of $950,000 was distributed under this program in FY98. The network databases included 7,500,000 titles, with 25,900,000 copies of these titles, and provided over 1,100,000 interlibrary loans for residents of Massachusetts.

Telecommunications for Resource Sharing

For the eleventh year, the state provided support for network telecommunications costs. Libraries connect to their networks through telecommunications circuits leased from the state’s telecommunications carriers, such as Bell Atlantic. h membership in a network the library may use such services as: maintenance of the library’s bibliographic database and its patron database, automation of circulation control functions, provision of online catalog workstations, access to informational databases licensed by the net-

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work, training and consulting programs provided by the network, access to the Internet, and access to informational databases licensed by the Board under the MLIN program.

This year, 298 public libraries participated as full or online affiliate members of the 10 networks.

Three programs are funded with the Board’s telecommunications monies ($877,235):

1. Remote-to-host telecommunications offset ($635,305) provides 100% offset of eligi­ble costs of full member libraries, including 211 public l ibraries, for leased telecom­munications circuits connecting main and branch libraries to their network central site.

2. Dial-up and online affiliate access ($125,771) provides 100% offset of the telecom­munications costs for leased circuits and standard modem dial-up costs for 83 public libraries that otherwise would not have access to network services.

3. Inter-network access ($116,159) provides Internet service to each network as a means of linking the networks for easy resource sharing and to provide Internet-based services to member libraries and residents.

Universal Service Fund or E-Rate Program

Libraries looked on the federal government’s new E-Rate program with high hopes this year. ith the need for increased bandwidth to meet patron demand for graphical and multi-media Internet access in libraries and the high cost of wiring libraries, especially those under construction, the Board estimated that the E-Rate discounts could save Massachusetts libraries up to $3,000,000 a year. the fiscal year, however, libraries had not yet received their discounts as a newly-created federal agency sought to process over 30,000 applications.

Congress created the E-Rate program under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Through the FCC’s regulating process it was determined that libraries would be eligible for discounts of 20%–90% on telecommunications services, Internet access fees, and related internal connection costs. The discount a library receives is determined by the percentage of children eligible for the national school lunch program in the local school district. second factor used to determine the final discount is whether the library is located in a high or low cost area for telecommunication rates. We estimate the average discount for Massachusetts libraries and automated networks to be 50%.

As the application process took shape in the fall of 1997, Board staff worked with the regions and networks to schedule a series of workshops to familiarize libraries with this new program, to explain the application process, to provide guidance in creating the required technology plan, and to encourage libraries to take advantage of the program. The Library Development Unit’s E-Rate team presented 10 workshops attended by over 300 people representing more than 150 libraries. ore than 100 libraries submitted technology plans and more than 100 libraries applied for discounts.

State library agencies were designated by the FCC to review and approve library tech­nology plans. eloped a technology planning “ lite” template that

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libraries and networks could use as a guide to meet the most basic requirements for a library technology plan acceptable to qualify for the E-rate. 105 plans were submitted and just under 100 plans were approved.

Unfortunately, as the fiscal year drew to a close, the School and Library Corporation (E-rate administrative agency) was not yet able to commit funds to specific applicants. At the same time, there were a variety of threats to the program, coming from those who had not supported the establishment of the program, those who sought a different mech­anism to raise the funds, and those who saw this as an opportunity to require schools and libraries to use filtering software on Internet-accessible workstations. n short, much remained undecided after many people had invested large amounts of time to make the program a success.

Statewide Interlibrary Loan Net Lender Offset Program

Resource sharing among libraries who are members of one of the six Massachusetts Regional Library Systems has been given a boost by the Statewide Interlibrary Loan Net Lender Offset Program, an initiative of the Board of Library Commissioners. program encourages resource sharing by providing a monetary offset that helps defray the cost of ILL transactions to regional member libraries that lend a greater number of returnable items than they borrow from regional member libraries outside of their own region. ibraries participate in the program by self-certifying their lending activity and must meet a threshold of $100 (approximately 8-12 net loans) in order to qualify for the offset. -five public and 16 academic libraries received a total of $208,660 in this inaugural year of the program, offsetting the cost of 14,500 net loans. Regional net lender programs, which provide an offset for loans within each region, have also been put in place by 5 of the 6 regions to complement the statewide program.

Statewide Delivery

Under a contract with the Board, the Boston Public Library (BPL) administers a state-wide delivery service. Norwood is contracted to move the actual materials, while BPL resolves any problems that arise and maintains an online Massa­chusetts Delivery Routing Directory. ice connects with regional delivery services and ensures efficient and effective resource sharing. During FY98 some 117,208 items were delivered under this program.

Statewide Reference and Referral Center

Under MGL Chapter 78, Section 19 (E), the Boston Public Library is designated as the Statewide Reference & Referral Center. provides mediated supplemental reference and information services via telephone, telefacsimile, and electronic access for Regional Reference & Research Centers, as well as for individual regional member libraries requesting help in specialized subject areas. sing specially dedicated tele­phone lines, library staff handled 518 questions from regional member libraries directly, and 616 questions from Regional Reference Centers. also refer reference requests to specialized statewide MBLC reference providers.

Regional member libraries may also turn to Boston’s free journal article document delivery services under the statewide program when they are unable to obtain articles at the local or regional level. In FY98, the library rose to the challenge, providing 5,604

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articles from its in-house collections, and another 4,836 articles from outside sources. A high fill rate and quick turn-around time are hallmarks of this service.

Specialized Reference Centers

The Strategic Plan identified three subject areas for which “access to a wide variety of specialized and unique reference resources” is most critical for Massachusetts librarians. The subject areas are consumer health, legal information, and business and economic development. were made during FY98 in the development and creation of statewide specialized reference resources in these areas.

FY98 saw the debut of the first of these resources in the establishment of a Consumer Health Reference Center. In April 1998 the Board awarded a contract to the Treadwell Library at Massachusetts General Hospital. Treadwell staff immediately began planning a service program, effective July 1, 1998, in which they will accept mediated library requests for consumer health reference questions, serve as a clearinghouse for referrals to appropriate government or other non-profit organizations and agencies, conduct regional continuing education programs, publish a quarterly newsletter, CHRC News, and maintain a Web site for the Center at www.mgh.harvard.edu/library/chrcindex.html.

The Board also began working toward an agreement with the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries to provide specialized legal reference services. Under the agreement, regional member library staff will have access to mediated legal reference services and continuing education sessions that promote excellence in the provision of legal informa­tion services.

In order to better characterize business and economic development information needs that might be enhanced through a statewide network of libraries, planning began for a Business and Economic Development Summit. ummit, to be co-sponsored with the Boston Public Library and the University of Massachusetts, will be held in Septem­ber 1998. As part of the summit, libraries that provide substantial business and econom­ic development information will meet with representatives from government, industry, business and trade associations, to address collaboratively the challenges they face in preparing the Commonwealth to remain economically competitive in the twenty-first century.

Statewide Access to Electronic Databases

One of the most important and visible value-added services envisioned in the Board’s Strategic Plan is the provision of access to commercial electronic resources available to all regional member libraries through the Massachusetts Library and Information Network. an during FY 1997 and was completed in February 1998 underscored the readiness of libraries throughout the Commonwealth to integrate online resources into their collections. er 1000 libraries of all types have taken advantage of the statewide provision of web access to five of The Gale Group’s (formerly Information Access Company) premier SearchBank databases. Together, these five files cover over 3400 publications, ranging from general interest and scholarly magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and business directories to investment reports. ifty percent of the coverage is full text, including images.

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In ten training sessions held throughout the state, database trainers from The Gale Group treated 286 librarians to an in-depth look at the novice and expert interfaces that allow both the casual library user and the savvy reference librarian to make the most of their online encounters.

In response to the enthusiastic reception of this online access, several additional com­petitive procurement processes were initiated. ith input from regional, network, and consortium libraries of all types, the Board of Library Commissioners awarded an 18-month contract to The Gale Group for renewed access to General Reference Center, General Health Center, Expanded Academic ASAP, and General BusinessFile ASAP, beginning March 1998, with potential for renewals through June 2002. In-library-only access was expanded under this procurement to include campus-wide access for K-12 schools and academic institutions. referential pricing for remote access for individual institutions, regions, and networks was integrated into the terms of the contract. lso significant is the degree of collaboration with the six multitype regional library systems that are sharing in the cost of these databases.

To meet the challenge of licensing additional databases, the Board held a Database Summit on May 1, 1998 in Natick. articipants included 50 librarians representing regions, networks, consortia, and libraries that already have a substantial financial commitment to the licensing of online databases, each spending more than $35,000 annually. The gathering gave direction to the Board as it began its procurement process to determine which specialized databases should be targeted for statewide licensing next year. o underway is the statewide licensing of access to the full text archives of The Boston Globe. ibrary, awarded a grant by the agency to identify and contract with a vendor for this purpose, is working through the process with the goal of achieving access sometime in FY 1999.

Massachusetts Library and Information Network (MLIN)

In the spring of FY 1998, the planning process for an exciting new statewide directory of libraries was begun. roup consisting of regional administrators, Board staff, members of different types of libraries, and representatives from automated networks fleshed out a framework for a Web-accessible electronic directory of the over 1200 members of regional library systems in Massachusetts. will be based on the Internet Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) standard, and will be able to be used as an e-mail “white-pages” service and as an authentication/authorization service for remote library access to certain electronic resources. will be centrally housed on the MLIN Web server and coordinated by Board staff, but will be maintained and updated by the six regional systems. mplementation is to be completed in fiscal 1999.

Automated Resource Sharing Networks

Z39.50 Program

Since 1994, the Board has supported the deployment of Z39.50 software to the auto-mated resource sharing networks and selected academic libraries. Z39.50 Search and Retrieval, an ANSI/NISO standard protocol, allows the end-user to query foreign data-

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bases using the search commands of the local automated system. The current generation of Z39.50 software also allows the end-user to search via the Web. capability, combined with the ability to query multiple systems simultaneously, is the technical foundation for the statewide virtual catalog.

The Old Colony Library Network (OCLN) was awarded an LSTA grant for FY 1998 to install and configure the Z39.50 software. Purchase and installation was deferred since the Z39.50 server was not yet ready for general release. mplementation is now expected in the first part of FY 1999. The OCLN project will complete the Z39.50 pro-gram statewide.

TCP/IP Upgrades

The TCP/IP protocol allows workstations to fully participate on the Internet, and to use graphical interfaces such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer to browse the World Wide Web. automation products, especially those which are based on a client/server architecture, such as the Web or Java, will rely on TCP/IP as the underlying transport method. The agency has a targeted grant program to implement full TCP/IP for all of the automated resource sharing networks. ing both state and federal grant funds, five of the ten automated resource sharing networks undertook TCP/IP upgrades in fiscal 1998:

Netw ork # of Libr aries Affected

Amount Funding Sour ce

Automated Bristol Library Exchange (ABLE) 30 $245,027 Federal Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC) 47 $266,243 State Minuteman Library Network (MLN) 37 $273,683 Federal Old Colony Library Network (OCLN) 25 $235,685 State Southeastern Automated Libraries (SEAL) 17 $225,043 Federal

Total 156 $1,245,681

TCP/IP upgrades have progressed remarkably well. ith the completion of these five grants, approximately 70% of Massachusetts public libraries will have graphical access to the Internet.

Only one automated resource sharing network, Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing, Inc. (CLAMS) remains to be converted. AMS has been awarded a federal grant and will be proceeding with their TCP/IP upgrade in FY99.

Technology Training

The agency’s technology training specialist has continued this year to provide training to regional systems’ member libraries. A total of 54 hands-on workshops were con­ducted in FY98, covering both computer hardware information and training on software programs. included Microsoft Windows 95, Powerpoint, File Management, and Troubleshooting and Maintaining Computers. Agency personnel ed training as well in Microsoft Access and Powerpoint.

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Federal Program for Library Development

The Board of Library Commissioners administered the federal Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) program in Massachusetts since its beginnings in the 1960s. Fiscal year 1998 represented the first full year of administration of the new congression­al legislation replacing LSCA, the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). This new legislation consolidated library programs at the national level, gave greater emphasis to electronic linkages, maintained the existing focus on targeting services to persons having difficulty using libraries, and ended the federal program for public library construction.

LSTA, now administered at the federal level by the Institute of Museum and Library Services rather than the U.S. Department of Education, is also inclusive of libraries of all types. To continue receiving input from all types of libraries, our State Advisory Council on Libraries (SACL) was increased in size from twelve to sixteen members, with additional representation from academic, school, and public libraries, as well as library users. SACL continued to advise Board staff on the grant program and priorities, to participate in the evaluation of project proposals submitted by libraries, and to make recommendations for funding based on the Massachusetts Long-Range Plan, 1998-2002.

In FY 1998, Massachusetts received an allocation of $2,999,106. represented an increase of 6.8% from FY 1997 funding levels. n December, applicants were invited to participate in a competitive grant round, and in January, 136 letters of intent were received. In all, eleven grant programs were offered: five mini-grant programs and six others targeted to specific areas of priority in the Long-Range Plan for both individual libraries and resource sharing networks. At workshops held to assist applicants in pre-paring their applications, agency staff emphasized the need to identify and meet the needs of library users while addressing clearly stated priorities set by the federal legislation.

Two mini-grant programs were offered for the first time. Early Childhood pro-gram encouraged libraries to develop multi-format collections for both parents and very young children and to conduct a series of programs to promote the skills which form the foundations of early learning. Inf ormation Literacy for Students program enabled public libraries to form a working partnership with their local schools to develop at least six selected library research/information literacy skills in students at a specific grade level.

Offered for the fif th year was a Preservation Survey mini-grant program, enabling a public library to contract with a consultant to complete a preservation/conservation survey of its collection(s) and buildings. Upon completion of the survey and a subse­quent action plan, the libraries were then offered the opportunity to apply for Preserva­tion Program funds to preserve/conserve collections determined by the survey to be of significant value.

For a fourth year, Homework Centers targeted communities under 15,000 in population by offering grants to establish centers staffed by homework coaches to provide after school assistance for children and young adults. or a third year, a Health Inf or­mation mini-grant program was offered to help libraries focus on health needs of

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patrons. programs also included Network Upgrades to expand automated services and upgrade hardware platforms. astly, a final year of Z39.50 Software grants was offered to insure network interoperability toward a statewide virtual catalog.

Also new in this round were several programs specifically highlighted in the Long-Range Plan. Inf ormation Literacy invited libraries to design programs to improve the research and critical thinking skills of their adult patrons, particularly those individuals increasingly dependent upon electronic information resources. Connecting Cultures challenged libraries to reach out to a more diverse community and to promote cross-cultural sharing. Finally, the Technical Support for Cooperating Library Groups program enabled funding of several approaches to alleviating the heavy drain on staff time caused by technical problems with library computers and other technology.

Eighty-five applications were received in March, and a total of 72 grant awards were made in these eleven programs. Also, the first award was made under the newly estab­lished Innovative Program. n the new Long-Range Plan, this grant program was created to enable libraries with new and creative ideas to apply without regard to the normal grant round calendar and to propose projects that could, in the future, serve as models for other libraries. alpole Public Library received an award for The Homework Zone, a two-year project that will attempt to use technology to resolve the age-old prob­lem of communicating homework assignments to students, parents, school and public librarians, and other teachers.

In all, awards totaled $1,816,334. ibraries receiving funds for projects to begin in October 1998 are listed at the end of this section.

Left: Homework Center at Hanson Public Library. Right: Homework Center at Ramsdell Public Library in Great Barri ngton.

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Preservation and Collection Management

Disaster Preparedness

Significant progress has been made in the agency’s involvement with disaster prepared­ness and response with regard to cultural resources in Massachusetts. ency Assistance Program was established in 1997 to help libraries cope with unexpected emergencies, such as fire, flood, mold outbreak, collapsed roof, etc. This program has four major components. irst involves placing 100 Rescubes (polyethylene boxes designed for disaster recovery) and two Reactpaks (supplies) in each of thirteen loca­tions throughout the Commonwealth. sentation of disaster pre­paredness workshops. The third component is technical assistance, whereby affected libraries, historical societies, archives, and museums can contact regional and/or agency staff for telephone and/or on-site assistance. or public libraries the program permits them to contact the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) at no charge if neither of the first two are available. Finally, upon the authorization of either the agency or the NEDCC, Munters Moisture Control, under contract with the agency, can be contacted to provide freezing and drying services for public libraries.

Agency staff have been actively involved in the Cultural Resources Disaster Mitigation Task Force, a group of preservation and state agency personnel specifically focusing on the need to identify and protect cultural resources in Massachusetts. ency’s pre­servation specialist also serves as a member of the Massachusetts Emergency Manage­ment Team representing the Task Force.

Preservation Education

This year preservation education focused specifically on disaster preparedness as part of the Emergency Assistance Program. Twelve one-day workshops on “Disaster Pre­paredness and Recovery” were organized and presented by Board of Library Commis­sioners staff, including one for the New England Archivists and one for the New England Archivists of Religious Institutions. These stressed the need to anticipate staff reactions in the event of a disaster and how to deal with damage to the materials by developing and implementing a disaster preparedness plan in advance.

Workshops also included “Basic Repair,” “Security Concerns for Local History Collec­tions,” and “Preservation Planning.”

Environmental Monitoring

This program continues to generate interest and results. ature and relative humidity digital recording dataloggers are installed in the local history/special collec­tions area, general stacks and outside the institution and retrieved five months later. Readings are taken at each location at the time of installation and retrieval. Subsequent­ly, a report is generated which includes observations and recommendations for improv­ing the storage environment for library and archival materials. Twenty-eight institutions participated in the program this year. institutions have already been able to use the recommendations to implement changes or incorporate them into their build­ing renovation or new construction projects.

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Special Collections Directory

The information from the Collections survey conducted last year was developed into a database by the Donohue Group of the University of Massachusetts. Both hard copy and online versions of the resulting directory will ultimately be available. ncluded is infor­mation from 650 public, academic, and special libraries; historical societies; archives; manuscript repositories; and town clerks’ offices. between 3,500 and 4,000 listings of individual collections, with data on the institutions, their hours, services, staff, and contact information. n June 1998, the online version was mounted on the agency’s web page (MLIN) for access by the general public. An index will be prepared next year to facilitate the use of the directory.

Massachusetts Ar chives Strategic Planning Initiative

Cooperation with the Massachusetts Archives continues with participation in the Massa­chusetts Historical Records Board’s strategic planning effort. statewide forum on the care, preservation, and accessibility of historical records in all types of repositories in the Commonwealth.

Preservation Grants

The agency continued to make federal LSTA funds available for preservation in FY98. Surveys, conducted by preservation professionals, provided the institutions with a comprehensive report on the current condition of their building and collections and made recommendations for the amelioration of conditions from the preservation point of view. In FY98 nine libraries received funds for Preservation Surveys, and two received Preservation Program funds to deal with problems highlighted in their past surveys. n addition, nine more libraries were successful in the quest for Survey funds for FY99, and five were granted FY99 Preservation Program funds.

Services to Special Populations

The Children in Poverty mini-grant program targeted communities with pockets of poverty not reached by traditional outreach methods. the eight funded projects was strong cooperation with community service agencies working with the underserved population. or these projects included local schools, day care and Head Start centers, housing projects, family clinics, hospitals and even a local museum. Many of the libraries developed special kits on topics such as self-esteem, making friends, and siblings. e circulated to parents, teachers and home daycare providers. Most reatly expanded their parenting collection which included materials and information on choosing books and other media for children. Many families served by the Children in Poverty grants represented linguistic minorities. Therefore, libraries infused their collections with new bilingual and multicultural materials.

Programming was a special feature of these projects to attract new library users. While some families were recruited through the traditional methods of flyers and newspaper articles, several libraries used part of their funds to hire an outreach coordinator to recruit program participants. erall evaluation of these programs revealed that signifi­cant numbers of new children, their families and caregivers took part in library activities as a result of this program.

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The Health Inf ormation mini-grant program was in its second year. were funded to develop an improved, multiformat health reference collection, to present at least three major public programs on current health topics of significance to their communities, to actively publicize the project, and to work in partnership with local health care providers, such as hospitals, health centers, schools and clinics. Each project library sent staff to a full-day training session on Health Reference. ocus in this training was on print, multi-media and electronic resources and the use of the Internet as a source of health information. libraries targeted specific populations, such as young adults or senior citizens. Others focused on specific health issues in response to a need identified in the community, such as asthma. Several libraries mounted health fairs at their libraries as a way of bringing attention to resources avail-able from other community providers. Several libraries developed “pathfinders,” printed material distributed by the library to “walk” a patron through the steps of exploring a topic, such as cancer or diabetes, using the library’s resources.

Insti tuti ons

Major changes occurred in the correctional system over the past year. Libraries housed in several County Houses of Correction were changed over to state supervision. libraries are now fully funded by the state; however, they still answer to the sheriff’s department, which is responsible to the Office of Public Safety. Outwardly the impact is not evident, but some internal policies have changed. of the staff of these libraries are meeting quarterly with their counterparts in the Massachusetts Department of Correction. This will afford continued support by providing more guidance and plan­ning for library services.

This year the state opened its newest maximum security facility, the Souza- Baranowsky Correctional Center, located on the grounds of the Shirley Complex in north central Massachusetts. The institution currently houses 800 inmates with the potential to hold up to 1,200. The library was designed as a state-of-the-art facility with a 5,000-volume start-up collection from Baker and Taylor. our networked computers are connected internally to a LAN in the librarian’s office; they support six law titles on CD-ROM. Inmates in the segregated units also have access to four computers electronically linked to the library computer. Correction’s first test of computer use by inmates to do legal research and should provide valuable information for other institution libraries.

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LIBRARY SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY ACT (LSTA) GRANTS AWARDED IN FY 1998

CITY/TOWN LIBRARY AWARD TITLE

MINI-GRANT PROGRAMS

Homework Centers

GEORGETOWN Georgetown Peabody Library $6,000 HUNTINGTON Huntington Public Library $6,000 IPSWICH Ipswich Public Library $6,000 MERRIMAC Thomas Hoyt Memorial Library $6,000 MIDDLETON Flint Public Library $6,000 SOUTHWICK Southwick Public Library $6,000 SWAMPSCOTT Swampscott Public Library $6,000 WALES Wales Public Library $6,000 WEST BRIDGEWATER West Bridgewater Public Library $6,000 WORTHINGTON Frederick Sargent Huntington Library $6,000

Health Informatio n

AGAWAM Agawam Public Library $6,000 DEPT. OF CORRECTION Southeastern Correctional Center $6,000 EVERETT Parlin Memorial Library $6,000 HARVARD Harvard Public Library $6,000 LYNNFIELD Lynnfield Public Library $6,000 MARLBOROUGH Marlborough Public Library $6,000 NATICK Morse Institute Library $6,000 SUNDERLAND Graves Memorial Library $6,000 WHITMAN Whitman Public Library $6,000

Early Chi ldhood

AYER Ayer Library $6,000 BELMONT Belmont Public Library $6,000 HOLYOKE Holyoke Public Library $6,000 LAWRENCE Lawrence Public Library $6,000 MANSFIELD Mansfield Public Library $6,000 MASHPEE Mashpee Public Library $6,000 MAYNARD Maynard Public Library $6,000 MONTAGUE Montague Public Libraries $6,000 PITTSFIELD Berkshire Athenaeum $6,000 ROCHESTER Joseph Plumb Memorial Library $6,000 SHIRLEY Hazen Memorial Library $6,000 SPRINGFIELD Springfield City Library Association $6,000 SWAMPSCOTT Swampscott Public Library $6,000 TEWKSBURY Harold J. Patten Public Library $6,000 WAYLAND Wayland Free Public Library $6,000 WILLIAMSBURG Meekins Library $6,000

Information Li teracy for Student s

ACUSHNET Russell Memorial Library $9,000 BELLINGHAM Bellingham Public Library $9,000 BELMONT Belmont Public Library $9,000 BERLIN Berlin Public Library $9,000 EVERETT Parlin Memorial Library $9,000 LAWRENCE Lawrence Public Library $9,000 YARMOUTH Yarmouth Town Libraries $9,000

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CITY/TOWN LIBRARY AWARD TITLE

Preserv ation Surv eys

AMHERST Jones Library $1,000 HARVARD Harvard Public Library $1,000 HARWICH Brooks Free Library $1,000 HINGHAM Hingham Public Library $1,000 HOLYOKE Holyoke Public Library $1,000 IPSWICH Ipswich Public Library $1,000 PEABODY Peabody Institute Library $1,000 PROVINCETOWN Provincetown Public Library $1,000 SOMERVILLE Somerville Public Library $1,000

TARGETED PROGRAMS

Preserv ation

CONCORD Concord Free Public Library $9,060 Concord Scrapbook Preservation EASTHAMPTON Emily Williston Memorial Library and

Museum $6,415 Conservation of Local History and Culture

KINGSTON Kingston Public Library $10,000 Preserving Historic Photographs of Kingston PITTSFIELD Berkshire Athenaeum $10,000 Preserving Pittsfield's Past WEST BOYLSTON Beaman Memorial Public Library $10,000 Photograph Archiving

Connect ing Cul tures

CAMBRIDGE Cambridge Public Library $15,000 On Common Ground HARWICH Brooks Free Library $7,300 Family Roots: Games We Play and Stories

We Share SPRINGFIELD Springfield City Library Association $15,000 Bridges to Community

Informatio n L iteracy

EMMANUEL COLLEGE Emmanuel College Library $14,000 Online Instruction for Research and Library Use

GREENFIELD Greenfield Public Library $13,500 LinkAge: Access for Everyone HINGHAM Hingham Public Library $12,897 Digital Doorway: Skills for the Electronic

Library MARSHFIELD Ventress Memorial Library $9,000 Community Computing NATICK Morse Institute Library $9,000 Information Now! Online! NEWTON Newton Free Library $15,000 Information Literacy at the Newton Free

Library NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH Richards Memorial Library $13,030 The Lay of the LAN STONEHAM Stoneham Public Library $8,000 Information for the New Millennium

Techni cal Suppor t for Cooper ating Groups

NOBLE North of Boston Library Exchange $98,500 Technical Support Relief OCLN Old Colony Library Network $116,000 Technical Assistance Project WMRLS Western Mass. Regional Library

System $140,000 Systems AOK

TCP/IP Softw are fo r Networks

CLAMS Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing

$243,275 Network Communications Upgrade

Network Upgr ade

C/W MARS C/W MARS, Inc. $731,761 C/W MARS System Upgrade

INNOVATIVE PROGRAM

WALPOLE Walpole Public Library $27,596 The Homework Zone

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Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The Braille and Talking Book Library located at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown and the Talking Book Library in Worcester are the regional and subregional libraries, respectively, of the Library of Congress National Library Service (NLS) for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. ides recorded books, playback machines and braille to the Commonwealth. ollection maintenance, circulation and reader’s advisory services at both libraries are funded by the Board of Library Commissioners. Together, the two libraries serve over 18,000 residents of the Commonwealth.

Talking Book Library

The subregional Talking Book Library at the Worcester Public Library is funded through a state appropriation to the Board of Library Commissioners and is administered by the Worcester Public Library. The library provided 62,873 recorded books (a 7.6% increase over last year) to blind, visually impaired or physically disabled readers in central Massachu­setts. he number of active readers increased by .5% to 1,245, and there was an increase of 7.1% in the number of registered borrowers to 1,935. hrough an ongoing weeding process the collection of recorded materials was reduced by 1.5% and consists of 22,271 titles (41,852 copies) including cassette and disc formats.

Talking Book Library (TBL) staff completed conversion of the recorded book collection from non-standardized reader/subject interest codes to codes based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System in order to improve access to the collection.

Outreach activities included a very successful Braille Literacy event conducted by TBL Consumer Advisory Council members and Talking Book Library staff at the Worcester Public Library (WPL) on January 24, 1998 and participation in community health care fairs; visits to senior centers, nursing homes and elder housing sites. recognition event was held on April 23rd at the Worcester library to honor and thank the TBL volunteers who help with book inspection, shelving, recording and a variety of clerical tasks.

Braille and Talking Book Library at Perkins School for the Blind

This year marked the third year of a five-year plan for service improvements. ctivities focused on follow-up efforts with new patrons and inactive patrons, continued strengthening of the library’s collection holdings to meet patron needs, and planning for relocation of the library’s collection to another building on the Perkins campus. Staff contacted all inactive patrons to determine if they wanted to continue receiving materials. Many resumed services due to the direct contact, and those who were no longer interested were assisted in returning the playback equipment.

This is also the third year of adding titles and copies of books in short supply. The number of titles searched for patrons increased 31% this year and the library was able to fill 91% of those requests from its in-house collection, a 34% improvement over last year.

To address the library’ s ongoing space problem, the Perkins Board of Trustees voted to renovate an existing building on the campus to house the library. Architectural plans were completed for Phase I of the project, which will relocate the collection warehouse in the

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spring of 1999. Patron services will remain in the current space until Phase II of the project is completed in the year 2000. ll of these activities continue to bring the library closer to its goal of effectively helping patrons pursue lifelong learning, knowledge through self-education, and the joy of reading.

The regional library continued to provide braille and recorded book and magazine services to residents of eastern and western Massachusetts as well as providing playback equipment and accessories to patrons throughout the state. t successfully established a machine-lending service drop-in site at the Talking Book Library in Worcester. his convenient service allows central Massachusetts patrons to get replacement equipment in person.

The Telephone Pioneer and the G. E. Elfun equipment repair groups continue to provide many hours of invaluable service repairing damaged equipment and getting it back in working order for loan to patrons. heir volunteer efforts were recognized with a special luncheon in April.

In-house volunteers, those who assist with the inspection and repair of returned books, who record and edit studio production, or who perform clerical and other tasks, were honored at an annual Volunteer Banquet in May. er 130 volunteers generously donated their time and efforts to the library this year.

The Consumer Advisory Board worked formally with the Board of Library Commissioners and staff on a report entitled “Study of Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handi­capped.” his was presented to the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means in April. The study compared funding, circulation, staffing levels, collection size and facilities with six other talking book libraries around the country that serve the same number of patrons or have a similar governance structure. he study made recommendations to the legislature on various funding options to improve services to the blind and physically handicapped.

The library continued its outreach efforts to current users by providing speakers to consumer groups upon request. ounted at a number of consumer meetings and conventions, and the library’s radio program, “News from the Braille and Talking Book Library,” aired regularly on the Massachusetts Radio Reading Network.

Braille and Talking Book Lib rary at Perkins

Service Summary FY 1997 FY 1998

Registered Patrons: Individuals 14,863 15,132 Institutions 1,039 1,047 TOTAL 15,902 16,179

Book Circulation: Disc materials 24,991 12,606 Cassette materials 475,479 440,408 Braille materials 8,225 6,262 TOTAL 508,695 459,276

Book Circulation per Patron: 31.9 28.4

Equipment Circulation: 7,862 7,854

Collection Holdings: Titles 51,046 53,886 Volumes 518,474 574,964

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APPENDICES

Fiscal Year 1998 Financial Statement and Statistical Summary; Certification

Agency Staff

Agency Publications

Committees and Task Forces

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Fiscal Year 1998 Financial Statement and Statistical Summary

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS IN ACCOUNT WITH THE BOARD OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONERS

State Fiscal Year 1998: uly 1, 1998 to June 30, 1998

Appropr iations and Allotments:

State appropriations for Board administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ State aid for regional library systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16,005,931 State aid to public libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,899,804 Talking Book Library (Worcester Public Library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194,478 Talking Book Library (Perkins School for the Blind) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,202,919 Library Telecommunications expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,815,235

State Funds Total $ 29,184,959

Library construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 11,617,020 Library construction (Supplemental) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,759,866 Massachusetts Library Information Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71,598

Capital Funds Total $ 13,448,484

Federal funds allotment for LSTA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $512,647 Federal funds allotment for LSCA Title I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,908,060 Federal funds allotment for LSCA Title II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407,336 Federal funds allotment for LSCA Title III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99,333

Federal Funds Total $ 2,927,376

Cer tif ication Activ ities:

Professional certificates awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Subprofessional certificates awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Replacement certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Note: Effective February 6, 1998, Amended Regulation 605 CMR 3.00 Certification of Librarians, section 3.03: Fees states:

(1) The certification fee is $12. oney orders for same must be made payable to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

(2) A charge of $4 is made for a replacement certificate. ent certificates are issued, upon request and payment of the $4 fee, to certificate holders who report that the original certificate was lost or destroyed, or to those who have changed their names.

(3) Certification fees shall be reviewed every two years beginning in 1999 using the State’s standard procedure for the setting of fees.

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Agency Staff

Professional Staff

Director Keith Michael Fiels Assistant to the Director William Morton Head, Internal Operations & Budget Barbara Glazerman Head, State Aid and Data Coordination Dianne L. Carty Head, Library Development Robert C. Maier Public Library/Government Liaison Maureen J. Killoran Consultant for Services to Special Populations Shelley Quezada Consultant for Library Construction Patience K. Jackson Associate Library Building Consultant Anne M. Larsen Preservation/Collection Management Consultant Gregor Trinkaus-Randall Continuing Education/Communications Specialist Louise A. Kanus Technology Training Specialist Richard Taplin Grants Manager Sandra J. Souza Planning and Research Specialist Mary A. Litterst State Aid Specialist Elizabeth M. Wolfe EDP Systems Analyst Ann Downey Reference and Research Librarian Brian Donoghue Public Library/Trustee Liaison Lori L. Stalteri Library Information Systems Specialist Paul J. Kissman Supervisor, Accounting and Payroll Patricia Stornaiuolo Reference Information Systems Specialist Marlene S. Heroux Contract Specialist Carol V. Lee

Support Staff

Administrative Assistant Joleen Westerdale Administrative Assistant Kim Tran Planning and Research Assistant Hannah Lee Administrative Secretary Susan Watkins Delivery and Copy Services Myles Brown Print Services & Desktop Publishing Patrick Lynch Receptionist Sharon Zitser Administrative Assistant Terry D’Angelo Administrative Assistant Marjorie Hamel

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Agency Publications

Agency Brochure A concise description of the goals, programs and services of the Board of Library Commissioners. all 1994.

Architects Who Have Served Massachusetts Libraries: Grant Application Rounds, 1995– 1997 A summary of library construction projects and the architects who worked on them. ro­vides size, cost, population served, and status for each project as of June 1998. ncludes direc­tory of participating architects.

Directory of Massachusetts Public Libraries Also found on MLIN web site.

Emergency Assistance Program Brochure A concise description of the components of the program and important contacts and telephone numbers.

Fact Sheets A collection of fact sheets describing current agency programs, their purposes, and the funding source and authorization for each.

The FY96 Municipal Pie. . . . What's Your Share? Report prepared by the State Aid and Data Coordination Unit using Department of Revenue data showing the amount each city and town spends on public library service as compared to total municipal expenditures. ebruary 1998.

Grants Management Manual: Managing Your LSTA Grant, 1998 Practical manual for grant recipients on managing project details and reporting requirements.

Health Web Selected online resources from the Massachusetts Health Reference Institute of March 1996. ised 1997. ersion only. See MLIN web site.)

MBLC Not es 6 issues Bi-monthly newsletter reviewing actions taken at meetings of the Board of Library Commis­sioners; includes timely announcements and articles of general interest to the Massachusetts library community.

Massachusetts Long-Range Plan 1998-2002, LSTA Five-year plan for administering the federal Library Services and Technology Act program in the Commonwealth. 1997. MLIN web site.)

Massachusetts Position Vacancies Semi-monthly listings of professional library and informa­tion science positions available in the Commonwealth. Electronic version only. MLIN web site.)

Massachusetts Public Library Data: Circulation and Services Report, FY 1997 A report on the circulation, holdings, hours and facility use of public libraries in Massachusetts. ecem­ber 1997.

Massachusetts Public Library D ata: Financial Statistics Report, FY 1997 A report on public library income and expenditure data. anuary 1998.

Massachusetts Public L ibrary D ata: Personnel Report: E ducation and Staffing, 7/1/97 Educational level and staffing information as submitted by public libraries in Massachusetts. December 1997.

Massachusetts Public L ibrary D ata: Personnel Report: Salaries, 7/1/97 Salary information as submitted by public libraries in Massachusetts. ecember 1997.

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Massachusetts Public Library Data: Summary Tables and Graphs, FY 1997 A summary of financial, personnel and public library use data based on the detailed statistical reports published by the State Aid and Data Coordination Unit. ebruary 1998.

Public Library Em ergency Checklist A list of steps to follow in the event of an emergency affecting the building and/or its collections. ncludes contacts and telephone numbers.

Public Li brary Facts A bi-monthly one-page newsletter presenting information collected about Massachusetts public libraries that is not reported elsewhere. irst issue: November 1997.

One Hundred-and-Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Li brary Commissioners – Fiscal Year 1997 June 1998.

Preservation Program Brochure A concise description of the agency’s role in the develop­ment and implementation of a statewide preservation program for libraries and archives. 1995.

Preserved to Serve: The Massachusetts Preservation Agenda The statewide preservation document produced by the Task Force on Preservation and Access. ebruary 1992.

A Strategic Plan for the Future of Library Services in Massachusetts July 1993. found on MLIN web site.)

Your Library C onstruction Project: A Checklist for Success A brief outline of steps involved in planning and implementing a library building project. IN).

Your L ibrary Construction Project: Some Print Resources in the MBLC Library A subject bibliography of books related to library construction and renovation. une 1998. on MLIN)

ELECTRO NIC PUBLICATI ONS:

Massachusetts Library and Inf ormation Network (ML IN) (www.mlin.lib.ma.us) Web site maintained by Board of Library Commissioners. A guide to the library resources of Massachu­setts, providing access to 45 catalogs which contain the materials holdings of 350 public, academic, and special library catalogs throughout the state. n addition, the web site describes the agency’s programs and services, lists position vacancies in Massachusetts libraries, includes a public library directory, and provides links to the web pages of the six regional library systems and many local public libraries. Federal, state and municipal government information may also be accessed through MLIN.

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Committees and Task Forces

Representatives of all types of libraries and user groups serve on various standing and ad hoc committees and task forces established by the Board of Library Commissioners. provide insight and assistance with matters concerning the improvement of library services in the Commonwealth. forts deserve recognition and appreciation.

State Advisory Council on Libraries

Susan Tallman, Chair Public Libraries Ritter Memorial Library, Lunenburg Leslie R. Jacobs, Vice-chair Special Libraries Fidelity Investments Mary-Jo Sweeney, Secretary Institution Libraries Department of Correction Madeline Amorosi Public Libraries Boston Public Library David H. Carlson Academic Libraries Bridgewater State College Alison Ernst Public Libraries Graves Memorial Library, Sunderland Sema M. Faigen Users Wayland Mary Beth Fincke School Libraries Acton Public Schools Senna M. Fernandez Users Harwich Miriam Greenspan Users Brookline James Izatt Libraries – handicapped Talking Book Library, Worcester David McArdle Public Libraries Sawyer Free Library, Gloucester Jane Ouderkirk Academic Libraries Harvard University Emily N. Salaun Users Needham Thomas Stohlman Users Reading Mary Mills Swerling School Libraries Newton Public Schools

Task Force on Public Lib raries and School Libraries

Walter L. Cameron Board of Library Commissioners Dorothy Carmody Massachusetts Friends of Libraries Marcia Connors Massachusetts Library Trustees Association Janet Eckert Western Massachusetts Regional Library System Keith Michael Fiels Board of Library Commissioners Mary Beth Fincke Acton-Boxborough Regional School District Audrey Friend Massachusetts School Library Media Association Robin Glasser Norfolk Public Library Donna Guerin Palmer School District Deirdre Hanley Reading Public Library Thomas Harkins Trustee, Needham Public Library Louise Kanus Board of Library Commissioners Irene Kelley Canton Mary Long Lynn Public Schools Jeffrey Lucove Fitchburg Public Schools Carol Mahoney Cary Memorial Library, Lexington Carolyn Markuson Sudbury Elia Marnik Board of Library Commissioners Edward Molin Municipality of Newburyport Carolyn Noah Central Massachusetts Regional Library System John L. Roberts Trustee, Jones Library, Amherst Lori Stalteri Board of Library Commissioners Sheila Vanderhorst Leominster Public Library Elizabeth Watson Fitchburg Public Library Fran Zilonis Bridgewater State College

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Preservation and Collection Management Advisory Committee

Kathryn Hammond Baker Massachusetts Archives Susan Baughman Clark University David Bosse Historic Deerfield Library Sylvia Kennick Brown Williams College Lynne Burke New England Historic Genealogical Society Mark Contois Palmer Public Library Mary Beth Dunhouse Boston Public Library Tom Edmonds Andover Historical Society Hilding Hedberg Attleboro Public Library Brenda Howitson Massachusetts State Library Brenda Lawson Massachusetts Historical Society Theresa Percy Emily Williston Memorial Library, Easthampton Sarah Pritchard Smith College Ann Russell Northeast Document Conservation Center Gregor Trinkaus-Randall Board of Library Commissioners Elizabeth Watson Fitchburg Public Library Mickey Zemon Emerson College

Trustee Handbook Revision Committee

Mary Lou Branchaud, Trustee Blackstone Sylvia G. Buck, Director Warren Public Library Jan Charbonneau, Branch Librarian Worcester Public Library Joseph Hopkins, Commissioner Board of Library Commissioners Karen Klopfer, Regional Librarian Western Regional Library System Ellen Rauch, Director Gleason Public Library, Carlisle Lori L. Stalteri, Trustee Liaison Board of Library Commissioners Irving Zangwill, Board of Directors Massachusetts Library Trustees Assn.

School Library Planning Advisory Committee

Janet Eckert Western Mass. Regional Library System Barbara Fontes Marlboro High School Joan Gallagher Quincy High School (MSLMA) Louise Kanus Board of Library Commissioners Carolyn Noah Central Mass. Regional Library System Gregory Pronevitz Northeast Mass. Regional Library System Ellen Rauch Boston Mass. Regional Library System Cynthia Roach Southeastern Mass. Regional Library System Jane Ruddock Ottison Middle School, Arlington (MSLMA) Sandra Souza Board of Library Commissioners Lori Stalteri Board of Library Commissioners Mary Mills Swerling Mason-Rice Elementary School, Newton Sondra Vandermark Metrowest Mass. Regional Library System Janis Wolkenbreit Amherst-Pelham Regional High School

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Regional Presidents, Administrators and Liaisons Committee (PALs)

Boston Region: Ruth Kowal – regional administrator Peter Drummey, Mass. Historical Society – president Marlene Heroux – MBLC liaison

Central Region: Anne Parent – regional administrator Bruce Plummer, Becker College – president Dianne Carty – MBLC liaison

Metrowest Region: Sondra Vandermark – regional administrator Kathy Glick-Weil, Newton Free Library – president Rob Maier – MBLC liaison

Northeast Region : Gregory Pronevitz – regional administrator Ruth Hooten, Bradford College – president Lori Stalteri – MBLC liaison

Southeastern Region: Cynthia Roach – regional administrator Dinah Smith, Plymouth Public Library – president Paul Kissman – MBLC liaison

Western Region: John Ramsay – regional administrator Donna Guerin, Palmer High School – president Maureen Killoran – MBLC liaison

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