Meeting Summary for Sage User Council

March 17, 2026

Recording Link: https://vimeo.com/1174504614

Attendees: Beth Longwell (Sage), Dea Nowell (UCSLD, Chair), Jon Georg (Sage), Perry Stokes (Baker), Rachael Fox (Hood River), Carrie Bushman (Cook Memorial), Kristin Williams (BMCC), Melinda Christensen (BHS), Cheryl Hancock (Harney)

Request for agenda items:

No new items.

Minutes

The minutes for January were ready for approval and were sent out last week. Perry moved to have the minutes accepted and Kristin seconded it.

Committee Reports

The Cataloging Workgroup met in February. They discussed some policies that were happening in the larger community that affected Sage. The Intellectual Freedom Committee and Deschutes Library were discussing stripping out the 521 audience notes from their records as they view it as soft censorship and restricting access to materials based on opinion. Sage’s stance is that, if it is on the material, then it should be included in the record.

They also discussed AI materials, as libraries need to be aware that AI books are coming out, and they will need to create their own policies for how to handle those materials.

Library of Congress is discontinuing the subfield V in subject headings. There is still debate about how we want to handle that. For now, we want catalogers to continue to add them to records when importing records into Sage.

Lastly pirated materials were discussed. This was a subject that came up on one of the listservs, with libraries suggesting that policies needed to be in place to handle those materials so that they are not added to the collection. This mainly seems to involve movies, as they occasionally come through from purchases from what appear to be reputable sites. Example, this has happened when purchasing items from Amazon, although it is rare.

Reports Workgroup

The Reports group met on the fourth Tuesday of February. These sessions are being held to increase staff exposure to reports, and help them be more comfortable in running them. The session included developing a report together, as well as an overview of all the different steps of how to run a report.

Circulation Workgroup
The Circulation Workgroup met on the second Tuesday of March and mainly focused on MessageBee, which is the new interface for text notifications. Additionally, we discussed how the staff site needs more circulation-type reference materials. The idea of having a circulation contact spreadsheet was one of the ideas that staff presented.

An issue that was brought up, was how since Covid, that Libby/Overdrive has not blocked patrons for exceeding max fines. The consensus was that this policy needs reinstated, but that patrons will need to be notified in advance. The patron limit discussed was $100.

Systems Update

Cover Images
LibraryOne has replaced ContentCafe for cover images.

Mentors had asked about one of the newer features in Evergreen that allows staff to upload cover images. Jon had been handling cover image uploads because the files had to be synced between the Application Services, and there were concerns about the files not being backed up daily.

Equinox was able to set up a mirror so that the images are now stored on the Log server and accessed by both Application servers, so mirroring between the two is no longer an issue. They were also able to set it so that those directories are backed up to the NAS nightly.

Jon is still doing a daily backup to another location on the NAS, as we had an issue where the link was temporarily broken and it made it appear like all the files disappeared.

MessageBee

MessageBee is now up. The interface shows the number of messages sent, and the success rate. There is an inbox for handling patron responses, like requests for items to be renewed, etc. We can also see what notifications were sent out to the patron too, as well as search for patrons by email, phone number or library account number.

There are also options for various reports, which includes the ability to use marketing for the various libraries. We’re not currently using that, but once email has been incorporated we can look into adding that. There is also a communications report which displays what individual patron preferences are, so we can assist with opting patrons in or out of services, since some patrons are sending their requests through SageLib directly.

Cheryl had a question about how patrons can opt in or out of MessageBee. They can either send a ticket through SageLib or via text message in response to a MessageBee text, with STOP to stop texts or START to resume notifications.

There was a short discussion about how one of the messages needs to be reworded to remove auto-renewal since not all libraries or materials have that as an option. In the circulation group the current consensus was that when email is added to MessageBee, that all libraries will use the same messaging, at least to start out with.

MessageBee uses one singular phone number for all text messages. We’re currently using short, fairly generic, messages so that we do not burn through the purchased SMS blocks. During testing we found that if there are too many characters in the message it makes it go out as two messages. Email will be a lot more flexible, as it’s just an annual fee rather than a per email charge.

Budget Committee

Perry presented an updated overview of the proposed budget. Projected billing has been dialed down a little bit since there are some adjustments in regard to how members will be billed. The goal is to achieve $280k in collections, plus interest, so that we remain sustainable.

We will be drawing down reserves to accomplish our billing reform goals, so that we have a more equitable per capita rate for our members that is scalable going forward.

There was good news in regard to the courier grant. The LTSA funds are expected to be funded for 2026/2027. Perry worked with the state librarian to continue to advocate for this funding with Oregon legislators. Most of the Oregon legislators agree that this funding needs to continue.
We’re expecting a three percent cost of living increase for staff [Beth and Jon]. No new information regarding health insurance since Beth defers receiving that.

Carryover balance of $223k, with a draw down of $20k, which should be plenty until Sage starts to receive membership fees.

There have been some changes to the fee schedule, which will need to be approved. Hood River High School advocated for a lower rate in line with the public libraries rather than the academic rate. The same applies to Ontario.

The question of why schools are billed per location rather than district wide like public libraries was raised. We believe that is a reasonable adjustment to switch over to enrollment population rather than by location, and the 2026-2027 budget accommodates for that.

Beth and Perry have also been working on a formal billing policy.

Carrie motioned to approve the budget as presented along with the fee adjustment. Cheryl seconded the motion. No one opposed it.

Draft Billing Policy- [attached as Word and PDF]

Bylaws

The recommendations from the bylaws committee were sent out with the minutes, agenda, and notice for this meeting. One piece that needed clarification was how we can have a minimum of 9 council members and a maximum of 13, so we had to clarify how any members over 9 would be selected to avoid over representation of any one group. Additionally, we added under representative responsibilities, that members who know they will not be able to attend can appoint an alternate to attend in their place.
A motion was heard to accept the changes to the bylaws as presented so that they could be formally presented at the annual membership meeting. Cheryl moved to accept them with Carrie giving a second. No one opposed the motion.

Strategic Planning

Dea has had a conversation with Darci Hanning with the Oregon State Library about helping us with this. She will be in attendance at the Annual Membership Meeting to get a better grasp of Sage and then attend our council meeting in September.

Items to stay on the agenda

The ongoing discussion regarding making the Courier self-sustaining will be tabled again and kept on the agenda.

The server replacement conversation is being postponed again.

Annual Membership Meeting

The date needed to be set for the Annual Membership Meeting. The bylaws state it has to be in April or May. The nominating committee also has to be formed to handle replacing council members who are leaving. Kristin Williams has offered space at BMCC in Pendleton if we want to do an in-person/remote hybrid meeting. The group settled on May 29th at 10:00am at BMCC for the meeting time and location.
Nominating Committee
Dea, Carrie and Kristin will be leaving the council at the end of this fiscal year. All three agreed to being on the committee to assist with finding their replacements.

Meeting adjourned at 10:58 am Pacific Time.

Next Meeting will be May 29th