2024-01-10 Focus Group Meeting notes

 Date

Jan 10, 2024

 Participants

  • @Adam Murray

  • Carol Satersmoen; Kathryn Lynip; LaDonna Gunn; Melissa Hisel; Shana Wade; Shelley Fratzke; Susan Matthews; Sylvia Rael; Tyler Dunn; Tegan Davis

 Discussion topics

Item

Notes

Item

Notes

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eY2sGi8RrcFMdTa3Z8wiRRBtKsC3IwhzVR-oPbYiBg0/edit?usp=sharing

Expense Structure

  • do the three cost centers of support and innovation, licensing, and infrastructure make sense to you?

  • does the description of what is included in each cost center seem appropriate?

  • Are there any cost centers, or types of expenses that you don’t see reflected in the slide?

  • Are there changes in where any type of expense should be located between the cost centers?

Service Portfolios

  • Does the concept of service portfolios make sense to you?

    • they like spelling out the differences between voting and associate

  • Voting membership has been defined as a set of services, benefits, and memberships that are only available through full Marmot membership. Is there anything in this list that you think doesn’t belong? Anything that should be included but isn’t?

    • like the idea of the voting membership for libraries staggering into

    • spell out where ETS and walk throughs fit

  • Do you have any reservations about the more formal establishment of an Associate Membership fee, or the definition of associate membership as having a la carte access to certain Marmot services?

  • Do you have any thoughts, concerns, revisions to suggest for the service portfolios?

    • Resource sharing

      • we would need to ask how many additional staff sessions libraries might need in order to make sure we have enough

    • IT Services

    • Statistics & assessment services

    • Preservation services

    • Consultations and special projects

    • Computer equipment acquisitions

Data Types discussion

  • https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLzx4rVVX2ahejeeS-kvjaHHPcflG008x8tStb4WEFAoFLHQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ckr9Zbw-pe56tR_f1giHyUS7pO-1ZSx6XZkAPGA8xLw/edit?usp=sharing

  • What stands out to you in the straw poll results?

    • used to using adjusted population because of vendors using it

    • adjusted population is helpful for communities that are growing, but haven’t seen growth yet in users

  • Why did the highest ranked item get selected?

    • materials expenditures per population is a more robust way to gauge the size of an organization

    • separate models for public vs. academic: people might be ok with that

      • Alliance have a base fee plus a formula driven amount

  • Why did the lowest ranked items get ranked that way?

    • hours open, materials expenditures per population count

    • a lot of the other ones have more outside variables

  • Are there other data elements you can think of that might be more appropriate?

  • Are there data elements that might be appropriate only for specific service portfolios? What are they?

  • Tiers preferred

    • tiers provide regularly and can see the change coming in advance

    • talk themselves in and out of both of these. nice to predict tipping into a different tier, but also nice to have gradual changes take place constantly rather than all at once.

    •  

Fee types discussion

  • Is there any benefit to using pricing or sizing tiers?

 

Next steps

  • February: Synthesize focus group data

  • February/Spring: Identify most preferred types of data for sizing; build out more detailed models using this type of data for different types and sizes of library

  • June: Presentation at Council for final round of feedback

  • Summer: Approval by Marmot Executive Board

  • September: Member notifications

  • January 2025: Effective date

 Action items

 Decisions