In this issue:

Serra Gets Serious About Virtual Meetings

Project Videonet Archive Launched

New Kids on the Block

Cheap and Easy Marketing Tactic

Survey Identifies Hot Prospects for Videoconferencing

Archives

The Serra Cooperative Library System has turned to videoconferencing as a means of conducting its administrative council meetings, held every two months. Instead of having council members from Imperial County drive two hours into San Diego, the system now sets up a videoconference link between San Diego and Calexico.

"Now we spend two hours attending a two-hour meeting," says Imperial County Librarian Connie Barrington. "Before, attending a system meeting took a whole day, once you factored in the travel time."

Serra System coordinator Sue Swisher said the change was made to accommodate the needs of the Imperial Valley librarians, who found it increasingly tougher to attend the meetings as their budgets got tighter, schedules fuller, and staffs smaller.

"The council meetings are important, and we need representation from our colleagues in the Valley," says Swisher. "They utilize a lot of system services, but we often found ourselves making decisions about those services without benefit of their input."

The Imperial County contingent enthusiastically supported the idea of using videoconferencing, since several of the county's libraries had had good experiences with the technology as part of several LSTA-funded projects.

"When we tried our first meeting via videoconferencing in July, we said, 'Why haven't we been doing this all along?'" says Swisher. "Some of the folks who had had rough experiences with the technology a few years ago were pretty amazed at how much it has improved and how easy it is to conduct a meeting this way."

The system will hold its second videoconference meeting on September 25, once again between San Diego Public Library and Camarena Memorial Library in Calexico.

For future meetings, Swisher says she'd like to vary the videoconferencing site locations, to spread the telecommunications and tech support costs around, and also explore multipoint videoconferencing, which would mean even less travel for council members. Neither should be challenge. Among the two counties, there are at least seven public libraries, a dozen higher education institutions, and two dozen K-12 schools and county offices of education equipped with interactive videoconferencing.

It's "light's out" for Project Videonet on September 30, when the project's LSTA grant period ends. But dry those tears -- you can still access the project's major work products via a web page hosted by our good friends at Infopeople: http://infopeople.org/partners/vidnet/.

Included are:

• All four issues of Videonet Vibrations
• Results of our nationwide survey of public library videoconferencing use
• Community Use Guidelines for Policy and Pricing
• Community Use Guidelines for Marketing
• Guide to Equipment and Telecommunications (ISDN) Costs
• List of California Public Libraries with Videoconferencing

Remember our first issue, when we published the "family portrait" of California public libraries with videoconferencing? Well, better get a new picture frame, because the family has added six new members since January:

• San Francisco Public Library
• Mono County Library, Mammoth Lakes
• Del Norte County Library, Crescent City
• El Centro Public Library
• Imperial County Library, Holtville branch
• Ventura County Library, Simi Valley branch

If we missed you on the above list, please announce yourself on the Videonet listserv, so we'll know you're out there and ready to videoconference!

In another development, the California State Library's Rural Initiative has named the four libraries who have agreed to participate in its test of IP videoconferencing, which was described in Issue Two of Videonet Vibrations! The four pioneers are the Mammoth Lakes and Bridgeport branches of the Mono County Library, Del Norte County Library, and Santa Maria Public Library. The libraries are being hooked up now, and the trial will run through next June.

If you recall, IP videoconferencing promises to address some of the negatives associated with ISDN use, such as per-minute usage charges and network instability. Stay tuned to the Videonet listserv for further developments.

Project Videonet recently issued guidelines for marketing public library videoconferencing services, but one tactic seems like such a winner that we thought it warranted special mention in Videonet Vibrations!

Registering with the major videoconferencing site brokers is a cheap and easy way to market your videoconferencing facilities when they are not in use for library purposes. Site brokers are companies that will market your videoconferencing facility on your behalf; they represent hundreds or thousands of sites nationally (and often internationally), and are a common resource used by businesses when searching for a videoconferencing site. A site broker books your room on your behalf (after checking availability with you) and bills the user. Most brokers will pay you your usual fee, and then mark up the amount charged to the user.

And to top it off - there is no charge to list with a site broker!

Huntington Beach Public Library, which installed videoconferencing primarily to raise money to help underwrite other library services, reports that listing with site brokers - particularly Affinity Videonet and Proximity - has been by far their most successful marketing tactic. Palm Springs Public Library also has had good success with Affinity Videonet. "Our partnership with [broker] Affinity Videonet has turned out great," says librarian Josette McNary. "The staff is very professional, the scheduling is timely, and there is always a technician on-call to help out with troubleshooting."

Here are some of the major videoconferencing site brokers:

Affinity Videonet: http://www.affinityvnet.com

Proximity: http://www.proximity.com

Connexus: http://www.connexus-evn.com

Project Videonet promised to look at the world of California public library meetings and trainings and make recommendations regarding which ones could be conducted as videoconferences to enable more participation by constituents.

Here are our recommendations, which are based on the results of a recent needs assessment of rural public libraries by the State Library's Rural Initiative. Survey respondents were asked to think back to those place-based classes or meetings in which they had participated during the prior six months, and list those they felt could have been conducted just as successfully via virtual means such as videoconferencing. Although the survey included only rural libraries, it's likely that all libraries are challenged to some degree by the travel, staffing, and expense constraints which virtual events can help overcome.

Some of the meetings or trainings listed below - especially those involving web demonstrations -- might be better candidates for webcasting or webconferencing, rather than videoconferencing. For more information, check out Going Virtual: Tips for Meeting and Training Planners.