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Innovative Users Group – Annual Meeting General Opening Session Houston, Westin Galleria April 28, 2002 Minutes Jennifer Merrill, Chair, opened the meeting by introducing the Steering Committee and the newly elected Steering Committee members. There are 1,100 attendees registered and they come from 16 countries. Karen Perone, Past Chair, invited everyone to a Gala Reception on Monday at 8:00 pm. It celebrates the tenth meeting of the IUG. At the reception, prizes will be given to five winners of the trivia contest. The Treasurer’s report was given by Kathy O’Gorman. We are in good financial shape. There are currently 822 member libraries, 94 of them from countries outside the United States. Anne Myers, Chair-Elect, gave an overview of the programs for the conference. There will be 131 sessions, 84 of them are user sessions and 47 Innovative staff sessions. Of these, 99 are unique sessions, 62 done by users and 37 done by Innovative staff. The program materials are posted in a permanent archive on the Web, each with a URL. She thanked Betsy Graham, Jennifer Merrill, and the Program Committee members for their efforts in putting together the program. Rich Aldred, Member-at-Large, reported on the Enhancement process. In order to move the end of the enhancements cycle from January to June, there will be two cycles during the next 14 months. The current cycle will end in November, and a second cycle will run from December through June. The aim is to discuss enhancement requests at the next IUG meeting. Jennifer Merrill announced the location of future IUG meetings. The 2003 meeting will run from Friday through Monday, rather than Saturday through Tuesday. [The PowerPoint presentation for the IUG portion of the meeting available at http://innopacusers.org/iug2002/programs/iug10opening.pdf ] This concluded the business meeting and Jennifer Merrill introduced Jerry Kline, head of Innovative Interfaces Inc. throughout its 25 year history. He gave an overview of the state of the company. This year Innovative brought 35-40 staff people to the conference. They learn a great deal from us during the meeting. Kline outlined some corporate highlights for 2001. They sold 157 Millennium systems, a 29% increase over 2000. The total number of Millennium systems is 640. Kline personally reinvested in Innovative Interfaces Inc. The company sold 67 new systems, an 18% increase over 2000. There are now 954 Innovative systems in over 3,000 libraries. Virtually all of the new systems sold were migrations, from systems such as Endeavor, ExLibris, SIRSI, epixtech, DRA and GEAC. They now have systems in thirty countries, intentionally adding about two new countries a year. During 2001 the countries added were Germany and Hungary. Kline spoke about Innovative’s corporate vision. The company is back to being run by management rather than by the Board of Directors, as they were for a few years. Their first vision is to be customer-focused. They control the number of new contracts added annually, keeping it to between 50 and 100. They work to have libraries stay with Innovative and strive to provide excellent service. Their second vision is to have a consistent management philosophy. One indication of this is that three of the Vice Presidents will earn their 20-year coffee cups this year. They reinvest in their people by corporate enticements and profit sharing plans. Their third vision is to have state of the art solutions by enhancing each modules every year, by evolving the architecture, and by developing new products. Their overall aim is to have a thriving successful company. Kline displayed a continuous product evolution chart. It showed that library computing evolved from mainframe centric, to server centric, to desktop centric to Web/network centric. Innovative largely bypassed the third generation and skipped to the fourth. It allows the system to be client platform independent, user-centric, with Web integration throughout, supporting the Open Database Initiative (carve out the database from the system), and wireless. What’s in the works at Innovative? There is Release 2002. There is Millennium Access Plus which provides a library portal. There is wireless technology where data is served up from an XML server to a palm or phone device. There is Metasource Digital Collection Management with Millennium media management, an XML harvester, and Metadata Builder for maintenance and storage of XML and EAD records. There is e-journal management with the ability to go out and get holdings and checkin information and an electronic resource management module to keep track of aggregators. And, finally, there is dynamic resource sharing through INNReach. There are currently 12 INNReach systems with 5 more in the works. Over 1,000 libraries are using INNReach. In its development are multi-type library systems, non-Innovative local systems, distance learning functions, holdings display customization, multiple agency based local sites, requests for non-returnables, and internationalization. Kline concluded by saying that Innovative is about providing choice. They provide a choice of system configuration, choice of service level, choice of hardware servers, choice of desktop devices and choice of databases. Kline awarded the first-ever Be Innovative Awards. He said that the judges, Fred Gertler, Karen Perone, Leslie Strauss, Barbara Cassidy and Betsy Graham had an almost impossible task. The winner of the "Most Innovative Institution Training Program" was University of Nebraska, Lincoln Libraries represented by Scott Childers. The winner of the "Most Innovative Staff Module" was Hong Kong Baptist University Library represented by Kylie Chan. The winner of the "Most Innovative Local Database" was Tulsa City-County Library represented by Lynnette Erhardt. And there were two winners of the "Most Innovative Web OPAC": Fort Collins Public Library represented by Kim Crowley and Frick Art Reference Library represented by Deborah Kempe. The meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Susan Goldner, Secretary |