Approve minutes of the February 12 and 13, 2018 Commission Meetings.

Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the minutes of the February 12 and 13, 2018 Commission meetings. Commissioner Givens seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Public Comment. 

Chairman Waters invited public comment and the following individuals addressed the commission:

John Slate welcomed the Commission to Dallas, said he appreciates everything the Commission does and encouraged its continued support for the Texas Historical Records Advisory Board (THRAB) which he served on for 10 years. THRAB has grown from good to great as an advocate for the preservation of the archival record, he said, by vetting grants to Texas archives and libraries and providing sound recommendations and advice on archival matters to the Commission. Mr. Slate said other state agencies have libraries and archives and historically valuable records, but no other state agency has the ability to impact change as the Commission can. Chairman Waters thanked Mr. Slate for the work he does for the City of Dallas and for preserving the history of Dallas.

Wendy Woodland welcomed the Commission to the Texas Library Association 2018 Annual Conference, thanked the Commission for its support of libraries and library professionals across the state, and said that TLA and TSLAC have a strong partnership and work collaboratively on a variety of issues in support of libraries. She said TLA looks forward to continuing that partnership throughout the Sunset Review process. In response to a question from Chairman Waters, Ms. Woodland said that over 6,000 people will attend the conference.

Susan Mann said she is the Director at the Hillsboro Public Library, past president of TLA, and current chair of the TLA Legislative Committee. She thanked the Commission for holding its meeting at the TLA conference, invited the Commission to attend the conference which is put together by volunteers and helps meet the needs of librarians throughout the state. She said the partnership between TLA and TSLAC is visible at the conference because of the large number of educational programs TSLAC presents during the conference. Ms. Mann said she and her library staff are directly impacted by the many programs TSLAC provides for small libraries. She looks forward to working with TSLAC in the future and in participating in the Sunset Review process as an advocate for the agency. Vice Chair Carr said Ms. Mann is a wonderful voice for libraries and thanked Ms. Mann for her service to libraries.

Heather Lowe thanked the Commission for the impact that TSLAC has had in Dallas by providing grant funds for initiatives to help the library’s homeless neighbors resulting in a GED testing center and a homeless engagement center. She said the Dallas City Council supported the programs begun with TSLAC grant funds by continuing funding for the programs. Since 2014, the library has administered 2,000 GED tests and graduated 350 adult learners with a GED. Ms. Lowe said the Dallas District Attorney has now created a homeless diversion court at the library to help the homeless deal with low level misdemeanor tickets by working them off through service. Chairman Waters thanked Ms. Lowe for her service.

Tammy Korens said she wanted to share what TSLAC grant funding has done in the Plano community with programs to enhance early learning, creation of a Family Place library which helps children be ready to learn when they enter school, providing art programs for all ages, and establishing an artist in residence space and art exhibitions in all five Plano libraries which has brought many people to the library who haven’t been to the library in years. In addition, TSLAC grant funding has provided career training, cultural programming, language resources, programs on engineering, math, and science, and been a vital part in providing lifelong learning experiences for Plano residents. Commissioner Givens said as a citizen of Plano he has three tapes and two books in his car from the Plano library and is an active user of Plano library services. The library staff are friendly and always willing to help and the library is a tremendous environment, he said, and that the Plano Public Library is very appreciated.

Daniel Burgard said he is the Director of Library and Information Services at the UNT Health Science Center, Director of the regional office of the National Library of Medicine, and responsible for library operations at John Peters Smith Health Network and their clinics in Tarrant County. He told the Commission that the TexShare products save his institution money and shared examples of how the databases are used by staff in these institutions. One database, Business Source Complete, is used to help these institutions make better business decisions and improve internal processes such as appointment scheduling. Chairman Waters said he appreciated this information and that the Commission would be voting later in the meeting on renewing databases. Commissioner Wong thanked Mr. Burgard for sharing the information and that as one of the newer commissioners she appreciates hearing from the university level about TexShare usage. Commissioner Holt complimented Mr. Burgard for setting up a structure that places his library staff on the floor.

Commissioner Givens said he appreciated the diversity of the comments presented today and the breadth and depth of TSLAC services. Chairman Waters thanked all for their public comment.

Conflict of interest disclosures. No conflicts were disclosed.

Review of consent agenda: non-substantive corrections in other agenda items such as spelling, numbering, punctuation, grammar, or other revisions. No corrections were noted.

Review State Office of Risk Management On-Site Consultation Report.

Donna Osborne presented On-Site Consultation Reports for the Zavala Building and State Records Center in Austin and the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center in Liberty, by the State Office of Risk Management, and responded to questions from the Commission. Ms. Osborne said SORM recommendations and corrections will be implemented by August 31, 2018. No action required.

Review and approve contracts greater than $100,000, and contract renewals and amendments.

Chairman Waters asked for clarification on funding sources for the 10 TexShare and TexQuest contracts before the Commission totaling about $13.5 million including how much is participation fees received by the agency. Mark Smith said that subscribers pay about $2.5 million in fees with the remaining $11 million being funded by a combination of federal and state funds. He said federal funds make up about 25% of TexShare fees and about $150,000 for TexQuest fees with the remainder funded by state general revenue both of which count toward the agency’s maintenance of effort to obtain the federal funds.

Jennifer Peters commended Danielle Plumer and other agency staff as well as the librarians who served on the Electronic Working Group which evaluated and scored the products and made the contract recommendations.

Ms. Peters requested approval to renew e-resource contracts for TexShare with EBSCO, Cengage Learning (Gale), LearningExpress (an EBSCO company), and ProQuest as follows:

Vice Chair Carr said EBSCO has a superior product but voiced concerns as did Commissioner Givens on the reliability of usage statistics. Danielle Plumer said that staff are continuing to work with all vendors on usage data and meet regularly with vendors to improve reporting. Commissioner Givens said he would like to see usage measured more in time than in hits and expressed concerns about vendors creating devices to record hits. After discussion, Vice Chair Carr moved approval of the contract renewals. Commissioner Givens seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Ms. Peters requested approval to renew online database contracts for the TexQuest and Texshare programs with Gale-Cengage Learning Science in Context and TechingBooks.net as follows:

Ms. Peters requested approval of the online database contract with Encyclopaedia Britannica for the TexQuest program as follows:

Chairman Waters noted the wide usage of the product and Vice Chair Carr said it is an excellent resource. Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the renewal and Commissioner Wong seconded. Commissioner Givens said while he appreciates the huge number of users and how valuable the product is, he wondered if staff had looked into cheaper resources. Ms. Peters said Britannica is a trusted resource in the K-12 community and said staff certainly can look into other resources. Liz Philippi said one of the benefits is that the user is able to switch reading levels from K-5 to middle school to high school on the page which users cannot do on Wikipedia format or other online encyclopedias allowing a variation of usage. Chairman Waters called for a vote. Motion passed unanimously.

Ms. Peters requested approval to renew online database contracts for the TexQuest program with EBSCO E-books, Encyclopaedia Britannica E-STAX, and ProQuest SIRS as follows:

Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the renewal. Commissioner Holt seconded. Commissioner Givens asked if the vendors differentiate between e-Books and i-Books. Danielle Plumer said that vendors are moving toward providing more interactive content in the larger database packages and that staff are monitoring. Commissioner Givens suggested staff keep i-Books in focus as they are great educational tools. Motion passed unanimously.

Ms. Peters requested approval to renew the online database contract for the TexQuest program with Gale-Cengage Learning as follows:

Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the renewal. Commissioner Wong seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Ms. Peters requested approval of a new contract with EBSCO Information Services, Inc. for TexShare core databases that include a set of 48 databases as follows:

Responding to Vice Chair Carr’s direction about data usage reporting from EBSCO, Ms. Peters said the contract terms increase staff and vendor meetings and that contract terms do not include automatic renewals. Mark Smith commended the LDN team particularly Danielle Plumer’s work with the vendors to obtain the most accurate data but there are a lot of variables in gathering usage statistics, he said noting that staff share the Commission’s concern about statistics. Staff know the resources are heavily and widely used, but there are currently procedural and operational issues that make the statistic gathering difficult, he said. The vendors are highly aware of the issue and continue working on it, he said. Vice Chair Carr said she appreciated the work done in improving usage statistics. Commissioner Givens moved to approve the contract. Vice Chair Carr seconded. Commissioner Holt asked if the vendors and in particular EBSCO have user groups that could share information about issues. Ms. Plumer said they do not have user groups but EBSCO has three and a half FTEs devoted to the Texas contract, the second largest in the country, and those EBSCO staff meet regularly with TSLAC as well as conducting training sessions with librarians across the state. Commissioner Holt said this situation is not peculiar to Texas and Ms. Plumer concurred. After additional discussion, Chairman Waters called for a vote. Motion passed unanimously.

Ms. Peters requested approval of new e-resource contracts for TexShare with Cengage Learning, Inc. as follows:

Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the contract. Commissioner Givens seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Jennifer Peters asked for approval of new e-resource contracts for TexShare with EBSCO Learning Express as follows:

Ms. Peters requested approval to renew the Family Place Libraries program contract with Middle Country Public Library in an amount not to exceed $144,000, for a term from 9/1/18 through 8/31/19. Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the contract renewal. Commissioner Wong seconded. Commissioner Holt asked about the possibility of providing the training in-state. Donna Osborne said how the training might be an impediment to that but she and LDN staff will investigate. Commissioner Holt said the program is very impressive and if the training could take place within Texas perhaps more librarians could participate. Commissioner Wong suggested a TLA Conference session on the topic. After further discussion, Chairman Waters called for a vote. Motion passed unanimously.

Status report and discussion of TSLAC agency sunset review.

Chairman Waters welcomed Texas Sunset Advisory Commission staff Tamara Schiff and Abby Pfeiffer to the meeting. Gloria Meraz provided an update on the agency’s Sunset Review Process noting that meetings with the Sunset staff and TSLAC staff began in February and will continue until the end of May. The public may provide comments to the Sunset staff via the TSLAC website, she said. Tamra Schiff informed the commission that Sunset staff began their review of the agency in March and have enjoyed learning about each agency program and working with agency staff.  Ms. Schiff said the Sunset staff report on the agency will be completed in July.  Ms. Meraz said the dates for the agency’s hearing before the Sunset Commission will be August 29 or 30 with the Sunset decision rendered at a hearing on either November 14 or 15. No action required.

At this point in the meeting, Chairman Waters called for a break and recessed the meeting at 10:29 a.m. He reconvened the meeting at 10:45 a.m.

Review draft of Agency Strategic Plan, 2019-2023.

Mark Smith provided a draft of the Agency Strategic Plan that when finalized will be submitted to the Commission for approval at the June 4, 2018 meeting. No action required.

Report of the Director and Librarian.

Mark Smith provided a written report of agency activities and initiatives and an update on federal funding for the agency. He said Congress has finally passed an FY18 budget which included a $9 million increase for the IMLS which will result in about $400,000 additional in federal funds for the agency. He said he is pleased that Congress recognizes the good work that Texas and other states do and reminded the commission that several of the projects mentioned during the meeting are funded by federal dollars as well as projects in Archives and Information Services and the Talking Book Program.

Director Smith also reported that the Talking Book Program’s automation project is a few weeks away from going live and noted that TSLAC has a significant presence at the Texas Library Association’s Annual Conference with himself and many other staff making presentations and participating in programs as well as engaging with attendees in the agency booth.

Commissioner Holt said the federal funding is very encouraging and asked if the library community has any sense of the ongoing support for that particular program.  Director Smith said that in two consecutive budget cycles the President’s budget either eliminated IMLS or greatly reduced funding and Congress restored and increased the funding. He would like to think that the funding is congressional support for the work that libraries and archives do across the nation and is hopeful that support continues as IMLS is currently in process of being reauthorized and bipartisan legislation has been introduced to reauthorize it. He noted that the funds have a high rate of return as only four percent can be used for administrative costs.

No action required.

Discussion of future commission meeting dates.

The Commission discussed future meeting dates, setting the fall Commission meeting for Friday, November 2, 2018 in Austin. Chairman Waters said the Commission will discuss 2019 dates at future meetings.

Discussion of request pertaining to a recording in the Talking Book Program.

Ava Smith said that in 1984 the Talking Book Program’s Volunteer Recording Studio recorded the book, “Big Emma’s Boy,” and that the author, Albert Sample, did the narration on the recording. The recording has been on analog and was used to provide copies for TBP patrons over the years. After Mr. Sample’s death in 2005, his widow requested the recording be turned over to her contending that she owned the recording, Ms. Smith said, and since then periodically repeats the request although the recording is the property of the State of Texas. In September 2017, Audible contacted the agency to use the recording and after several conversations reached a possible agreement with the agency, Ms. Smith said. Mark Smith said that after some discussion and consideration the staff recommend Audible be allowed to use the segment they have requested, provided Audible reference the recording according to TSLAC standards. He said because there is general interest in Mr. Sample’s story, TSLAC will ask Audible that we make the recording available on a walk-in basis but not online. Also, the agency would continue to use the item as permitted for TBP customers and to upload to the BARD system of NLS to be used by other Talking Book patrons across the country. Director Smith asked that the Commission go into Executive Session to discuss with the agency attorney.

Chairman Waters called the commission into Executive Session at 11:06 a.m. and requested that Mark Smith, Gloria Meraz, Ava Smith, and the staff from the Sunset Advisory Commission remain in the room with the Commission and Alice McAfee.

At 11:40 a.m. Chairman Waters called the meeting to order in open session and said no action was taken during the Executive Session. He asked Mark Smith to make staff’s recommendation on the issue discussed in Executive Session. Director Smith recommended that the agency allow Audible to use the text in their request, to frame the recording as they requested, and as there is general interest in the story, to allow TSLAC to make the recording available on a walk-in basis not online and to continue to use the recording in the Talking Book Program. He also recommended the Commission approve the authority for staff to negotiate with the OAG staff to set terms with Audible. Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the staff recommendation. Commissioner Givens seconded. After a roll call vote, the motion passed unanimously.

Report on agency needs for records and archives storage space.

Chairman Waters welcomed Jenny Singer, Records Management Officer of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the Texas Department of State Health Services, who briefed the Commission on how her agency uses records management services and the impact of state contract changes on HHS records storage. She said she is faced with moving 160,000 boxes from Iron Mountain, which lost its contract for records management with the State, to SafeSite, the only other vendor on contract with the capacity to store HHS records. She provided a cost comparison of SafeSite storage fees versus the State Records Center and said that the State Records Center would be considerably cheaper in the longrun and she expressed confidence in the State Records Center records management services.

Mark Smith said staff have been grappling with the growing need for storage at the State Records Center as noted in the Agency Strategic Plan and noted that staff presented escalating crisis in records storage services for state agencies with the loss of the Iron Mountain contract in February. Responding to Chairman Waters direction at the February 13, 2018 meeting to bring sharpened recommendations, staff have researched options, met with staff from the Texas Facilities Commission, Legislative Budget Board, and Governor’s Office. As an immediate relief, Director Smith recommended moving forward with a minimum of 20,000 square feet of rented warehouse space and add 75,000 square feet of space to the Shoal Creek facility either as an expansion or a separate building. Leased space would be approximately $900,000 in the next biennium, he said, and the expansion is estimated at $16.8 million.After discussion, Chairman Waters said he agrees with the recommendation.

Approval of records storage and imaging fee schedules for FY2019.

Craig Kelso requested approval of fee schedules related to records storage and imaging services at the State Records Center for FY2019.Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the schedules. Commissioner Holt seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Authorization to adopt amended rule 13 TAC §7.125(a)(6), regarding local government records retention schedule SD (Records of public school districts).

Craig Kelso requested adoption of amended rule 13 TAC §7.125(a)(6), regarding local government records retention schedule SD, Records of public school districts. Vice Chair Carr moved to approve the adoption. Commissioner Holt seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Report on agency financial information.

Donna Osborne presented a report on agency financial information and responded to questions on the report. No action required.

Executive Session under the Open Meetings Act. The commission may meet in Executive Session on any item listed above if authorized by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code, Chapter 551.   See agenda item 13.

There being no further business to come before the commission, Chairman Waters adjourned the meeting at 12:28 p.m.