4/10/2007 BOARD OF LIBRARY TRUSTEES Minutes

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• r flashpee Public Library P.O. Box 657 Jla tepee, Ma 02 Circulation for March 2007 was 10,769 iters. This,month-s circulation exceeded last February's by 1,061 items. Our year-to-date total of 102,668 items continues to run 5% ahead of the same point Inst year. Year to date, we've also circulated 112 of the new E Audio books, for a grand total of 102,800 items circulated. The staff was very appreciative of the time spent at last month's Technology conference. I personally attended sessions on dealing with Summer Patron issues, ways to make the library website more interactive and interesting and heard about 25 Tech Websites. that were of value to librarians. Everyone came together at lunch and to hear the keynote speakers. Teresa Martin, Chief Executive officer of the Cape Cod Technology Council and Llan Gallagher, Executive Director of Information and Technology at Cape Cod Community College, introduced the audience to something called Open Cape the Unwired Village. Many of us are aware of the lack of fast Internet connectivity at a reasonable price on the Cape and Islands. We don't have the population density of metropolitan areas off Cape. That makes the cost of building the infrastructure necessary for fast connectivity unattractive to commercial companies that need to rake a profit for investors. The cost of installing the lines needed for fast mess hasn't been affordable for local groups to install themselves. Open Cape is a recent concept developed by local people . involved with the Tech Council for taking care of our oven technology needs. They have gotten grant funding to begin installing wireless antennas on water towers across the Cape. This will connect emergency services through the Cape and connect towns and schools to the network. The ultimate goal is to have the entire Cape covered by wireless hot pots to form unwired villages through the Cape. Orleans served as a test site last summer and downtown Falmouth will become an unwired village this spring. The libraries and CLAMS will be part of the high speed network. A commercial aspect of the network will be developed to provide high speed access to the public at an affordable cost. Following the conference, I spoke to Mashpee's MIS Director, David DelVecchio, to sae if he was familiar with the open Cape concept. As it turns out, Dan Gallagher had recently spent time with David and they are looking at using the I1 a tepee water tower as one of the access points. This whole project is very exciting to the library community and may help with our network costs. I will let you know hover this develops over time.