Mutual response update

[Richard Boyden <richard.boyden@sanbruno.nara.gov>]

Report on meeting with GBALC Board of Directors
Richard Boyden, 11/6/96

On Tuesday, November 5, 1996, Paul Wakeford (UCSF) and I met with
the Board of Directors of the Greater Bay Area Library Council, a
consortium of mostly public libraries and library systems focusing on
network shared services and information delivery. The purpose of our
presentation was to introduce GBALC to the mutual assistance pact
proposed by BAPNet.

Present were Kenneth Dowling, Librarian of the City and County of San
Francisco, Linda Crowe, who directs both the Santa Clara and San
Mateo County library systems, Debbie Masters, Director, San Francisco
State University Library, Ellen Pastore, Director, Monterey County Library
System, Mary Dolven, Diablo Valley Community College Librarian, and
others. (Mary Dolven has written to BAPNet on behalf of her institution in
support of mutual assistance.)

We were given a very positive reception.  Questions were raised about
who would administer our LSTA grant, whether libraries could affiliate
through GBALC, whether our grant could be tacked on to an existing
grant like UC Berkeley?s preservation program grant?  An issue was also
raised about whether the State Library would want to fund us after
funding the San Diego network because LSCA money is usually
demonstration money and San Diego would be the demonstration.

We addressed these questions as follows.  Our grant would be
administered by one of our affiliates and the name that has been raised
is the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District.  We said we would be
open to having libraries affiliate through GBALC, but would have to
discuss it with all concerned first.  (This questions was raised by Mr.
Dowling who said he thought it would be easier for him to allocate $500
buy-in money to GBALC than justify it going to a wholly new program.) 
In answer to the question about inclusion in the existing UC grant, Paul
Wakeford said that UC?s grant was very narrowly focused and that our
program would not easily fit within it.  With respect to San Diego?s
purported one-time money, we responded that IELDRN had previously
received the same kind of grant and that the State was open to funding
us.

Another important issue was raised by Ellen Pastore of Monterey County
about her area?s non-inclusion in BAPNet?s proposed geopraphic scope. 
Mr. Dowling agreed that we would be more likely succeed in getting
funded if our area coincides with the State Library?s Region II, and
others, including Ms. Crowe, agreed.  Our current plans include 10
counties which we think is extremely ambitious (Alameda, Contra Costa,
Marin, Napa, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz,
Solano, and Sonoma).  Region II includes four additional counties (Lake
and Mendocino in the north and Monterey and San Benito in the south). 
We said that we would raise this issue within BAPNet.  In light of what
was said at this meeting, we should definitely consider putting all
fourteen counties in our long-range plans.  For now, if Monterey is
interested and committed, we could include them as part of this grant.

At Mr. Dowling?s suggestion, Ms. Crowe agreed to work on our proposal
and report back.  I assume this means she will liaison with us and
brainstorm some of these issues as well as investigate funding issues
with us and/or for us with the appropriate people.

Postscript, 11/7/96: at today's BAPNet meeting, we discussed these
issues.  A number of points emerged, first, that we have no public
libraries pre-affiliated.  Opinion was divided on expanding to include all of
State Region II, one person saying that this sounds too amibitious at this
stage.  My feeling is that we can place Region II in our long range plans
and meanwhile see if we can include at least Monterey County in the
nearer term if they want to affiliate.  Or we could create a new zone of
Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito, leave Santa Clara as a zone in its
own right, and append the two northern counties to the four existing
north bay counties.   And, of course, we need to discuss this with the
State Library.

Please give us your comments and suggestions.   We also need
volunteers to help out with this and other projects of the Disaster
Planning and Response Committee.  Please email or call me (415)
876-9084.

__________________________________________________________________________
This message was posted through the Stanford campus mailing list
server.  If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the
message body of "unsubscribe bap" to majordomo@lists.stanford.edu