Attachment D

National Speleological Society

Operations Vice-President’s Report

August 7, 2006

Table of Contents:

Operations Vice President
Archivist
Audio-Visual Committee (Slides)
Audio-Visual Committee (Video)
Cave Files Committee
Internal Organizations Committee
Information Technology Committee
Discussion Board Subcommittee
Office Automation Committee
Market Analysis Committee
NSS Library Committee
NSS Operations Manager
Photo Archives Committee
Speleo-Museum Committee

Attachment A Office Software Requirements
Attachment B Library Catalog Review Team Report

Operations Vice President:

Tom Rea; 765-653-4423; tomrea@ccrtc.com

The Department of the Operations Vice President consists of 11 committees, plus the NSS Operations Manager and the NSS headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama. The committee and sub-committee chairmen have provided the information in this report, although, being an editor, I have edited it to my liking. I have listed the telephone number and e-mail address of each committee chairman below. Additional addresses and contact information for all people in this report can be found at:

http://www.caves.org/nss-business/bog/table-4d.html

Progress:
Where was a serious mold problem at the Smith House across the street where we store mostly bookstore inventory and the archives. We had the problem investigated by professionals and cleaned up by another professional company. I subsequent inspection revealed that the problem had been eliminated. We have installed a dehumidifier and will monitor its effectiveness. Another will be installed if required. See Stephanie’s report for more information

Problems:
It seems that the Executive Search Committee has not been able to find my replacement. I remind the Board members that I announced my retirement at the Texas meeting and I will not be available for reelection.

Archivist Committee:

J. Reynolds Duncan, Jr; 256-852-4522; reynolds.duncan@worldnet.att.net

Plans:
Continue with the review, sorting, and integration of Archives material.

Progress:
Responded to requests for information, including the survey of the Archives material for Board of Governors Minutes for most of the 1960s.

Problems:
None.

Audio-Visual Committee (Slides):

Timothy C. White; 256-508-1908; kd4goc@bigfoot.com

No report received as of 7/16.

Audio-Visual Committee (Video):

David Socky; 540-989-7693; sockydr@cox.net

Progress:

NSS Video Salon

Alex Sproul and I completed the NSS 2006 Video Salon piece for the Convention’s Photo Salon Thursday night. There were three entries this year, which will be available right after the convention. All of them are DVDs.

On Line Catalog additions

NSS AV Online Library "What’s New" page. There is now a ‘What’s New" section on the home page of the online AV library. It provides links to the actual DVDs, Videos, or Slides. After the convention, I’ll be adding at three more entries for the ‘What’s New’ section.

New videos

A new high definition format documentary featuring caves in national parks has been produced by the National Park Foundation and Discovery Communications. It is called "Caves: The Wonder Beneath". Still need to get this entered into the Video Salon and the Library.

Convert slide programs to CD format

My plan is to work with Jonesy in getting more slide shows converted and into the AV library.
No progress

Produce New educational video

Tray Murphy has expressed interest in helping with an educational video about caving for children.
No progress

Convert more VHS programs to DVD format

DVD is becoming the format of the future. More and more people are requesting programs on DVD.
No progress

PDF Library catalogue

Produce a ‘downloadable’ PDF catalog of the slide and video library.

No progress

Update descriptions in library

Most of the descriptions for the video and slide selections are very terse, and not very helpful. Programs need to be reviewed and better descriptions written.

I have updated a few programs, plus new entries are getting complete descriptions right away.

Problems:
none

Cave Files Committee:

Richard Blenz; 812-825-2345; rblenz@ucs.indiana.edu

Progress:
Things going on as usual.

Total USA count now at 49,061

Plans:
Continue as usual.

Problems:
None at the moment

Internal Organizations Committee:

Keith D Wheeland; 814-238-2057; kwheeland@psualum.com

Progress:
I/O Information on the Web.

The I/O Web site at www.caves.org/committee/i-o/ is kept up to date. The general information for Regions, Sections, and Surveys on the NSS Web site is updated manually by Gary Bush.

I/O - New, Reinstatements, and Inactivations
The following three new grottos were chartered:
Clarksville Underground (454)(TN) - May 2006
New Mexico Tech Student Grotto (453)(NM) - April 2006
Springfield Plateau Grotto (455)(MO) - June 2006 - A breakaway from Ozark Highlands Grotto which still exists.

Consolidation of I/O Files
If I/O files haven't been transferred from Evelyn Bradshaw by late summer, Wheeland will travel to Bradshaw's apartment to make the final transfer.

In April 2006, six boxes were transferred to Huntsville for the NSS archives.

Annual Report Progress
Madison University Student Grotto didn't submit an annual report because of actions taken by the University for some infraction. The grotto is listed in the Members Manual with the notation "No report." The grotto has not been inactivated by the I/O Committee.

Dave Taylor, a long-time I/O Committee member, has decided to resign and will no longer be processing annual reports for Surveys. Surveys have been added to the automated online process used by other I/Os. Survey contacts were notified of this. The ones who responded were happy to use the new system.

Plans:
We plan to add the Affinity Groups to the online reporting process. Historically, information about Affinity Groups has been gathered by the I/O Committee for inclusion in the Members Manual. Since Affinity Groups are not the responsibility of the I/O Committee, please let me know if there is a problem with the I/O Committee doing this.

We will continue to be proactive in making improvements to the chartering procedure, annual report procedure, and resolutions of issues brought to the attention of the I/O Committee. Eric McMaster has continued to make improvements to the online report submittal process.

Problems and Issues:
The computer system that is now used by the I/O Committee to process reports is written in an xBase language and runs under DOS on this volunteer's home computer. I wonder why some of the computer records that are vital to the NSS are allowed to be processed on the home computers of volunteers. I recommend that the I/O records be transferred to the NSS computer, and the I/O Committee be given security access to update the data having to do with the I/Os. This would not add to the workload of the NSS staff.

The records for online processing of annual reports consists of a copy of the I/O records. This processing could continue to be processed external to the NSS.

Committee Members:
Please address any questions or comments to kwheeland@psualum.com.
Chairman: Keith D. Wheeland. Members: Evelyn Bradshaw (Chairman, Emeritus), Gary Bush, Eric McMaster, and Esty Pape.

Information Technology Committee:

IT Team Chairman: Josh Bailey; 510-303-5287; josh@vandervecken.com

* Doug Marchant does not want to continue with administering accounts on our system. I am looking for a backup person to myself to perform this function, though this is not urgent (I get about 1-2 password reset/account admin requests a week which don't take much time).

* A full system backup on DVD will be sent to the NSS office this week to replace the one last done on Jan 23rd. We are continuing doing incremental hourly backups.

* I have continued to research cheaper/more reliable alternatives to ValueWeb in the background. So far the best options still require a lot of rework on our content. However over time as I've had contact with our various webmasters I've cut back on a lot of supported technologies (eg. ASP). This forces webmasters to clean up their areas and make the system overall easier to maintain (and eventually move to another hosted service). For sfkiwis.com (the site I look after for the NZ-American Association of San Francisco), we use hostica. We can have a short-downtime migration period where content is mirrored on both. A problem I'm working still is how to migrate the password files over... don't want to have to reset everyone's passwords if I can avoid it.

NSS Discussion Board Subcommittee:

Wayne Harrison; pinecamguy@gmail.com

Progress:
The NSS Discussion Board continues to grow, with more than 850 registered forum members, making approximately 12,000 posts since Sept. 1. 2005. I continue to add modifications to the forum to make it more user-friendly and to make users visits more enjoyable. One of example is a simple way of adding photographs to posts. In addition, I have made the forum available across several platforms including RSS feeds and Blackberry/Palm Pilots. The RSS feeds were made available to the World Caving Network, which is distributed over caving Web sites around the world. As a result, we've seen in increase in participation from cavers outside the United States. World Caving News promotes the sharing of caving news and information and helps build a friendship between cavers around the globe. I've added two links to World Caving News feeds on the NSS forum as a way to promote the worldwide exchange of caving information.

I've also started a caving-focused search engine that I've incorporated into the discussion forum. Based on the popular "wicki" community-sharing model of the Wickipedia, the "Swicki" caving search engine pulls results from targeted Web sites, including caves.org, to give users a way to search for cave-related info. It also allows users to suggest Web sites for particular searches in the future. It is "portable" and can be incorporated into other caving sites' web pages, should they desire to use add a caving-specific search engine. The search engine contains a prominent link back to the NSS Web site.

To further publicize the NSS forum, I've begun producing graphical ads that have been appearing in the NSS News, to inform NSS members who might not be aware that the forum is online and available. I've also contacted Webmasters of various NSS Grottos to ask that they include a link to the NSS forum on the Grotto Web pages. In addition, I've developed a special section of the NSS forum for use by Grottos that may not have a discussion board on their site where they can moderate and maintain their own grotto-specific discussion. To date, the Huntsville Grotto and Flittermouse Grotto have taken advantage of this offer and have their own discussion section on the NSS forum.

Plans:
I would like to suggest using targeted Google text ads to promote the NSS Web site and the NSS forum. These ads cost just pennies and I am personally aware that they can dramatically increase traffic to a Web site, if they are properly used. The beauty of Google ads is that the NSS can set the monthly advertising budget (I recommend $25 a month) and the keywords that cause the ads to show on sites (for example caving, caves, cave conservation, caving discussion). Once the budget is reached for the month, the ads automatically stop running, so there is no danger of going over budget. Different text ads can be produced at no cost to show when particular keywords show up on a page. It would be a great way to "catch" potential new NSS members who are interested in caving but may not be aware of the NSS. The ads would show on any site in the Google ad network where specific caving keywords are used. The cost is charged per "click" on the ad, so the NSS would not pay for the ads to be shown -- only if they are clicked on.

I plan to continue producing ads for the NSS News to encourage readers to visit the NSS Discussion Board and look for new Internet platforms to promote and grow the forum.

Problems:
Some concern was expressed about having a section for political/religious discussions on the NSS forum and the subsequent discussion among forum members went to 11 pages. After weighing the many comments for and against, I opted to remove the political/religion section from the view of non-registered members. It was felt if we remove the section entirely, those wishing to make political posts would make them in other sections of the forum. I also added an "ignore" button for those who complained about having to read certain forum members' posts.

Office Automation Committee:

Phil Winkler; 302-984-2698; pwink@dca.net

Progress:
Office Software Requirements: In my last report I stated I would be preparing a document describing the software requirements for the NSS Office. Since that time a document has surfaced containing precisely what is needed. This document was prepared by Karen Dennis in 2002 and contains the results of her research and analysis over several years. Karen accompanies her husband, Dave Irving, who is the NSS Chief Accounting Officer, during his visits to the office to close periods or for other reasons.

During these visits she would closely monitor the what, why and how of what Dave and the Office Manager were doing, as well as research the why and how of what our software was doing.

The results of this work are included in the attached, annotated, report prepared by Karen for Paul Stevens in 2002. Not much has changed since that time and our requirements remain much the same. The report is comprehensive and an excellent reference for the NSS as it determines its software requirements for the future.

I thank Karen, as might the NSS Board for a superbly completed project.

Please read Karen’s report (Attachment A) and note I have added comments in bold italics where appropriate. Stephanie may comment on the Accounting sections.

Office Software/Hardware:
The grant from the Dogwood City Grotto provided two additional desktops to the office. We now have a complete state-of-the-art network running Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP desktops.

I researched association management software from www.gomembers.com as well as from www. internet4associations.com. GoMembers is the company that took over the company that sold us NSSTrak. I talked with GoMembers Bob Walker (old business acquaintance of mine) about how his new Access system could accommodate our needs and he said it could be modified to do so by an experienced Access/VB developer.

Internet4associations offers a web-based system with annual fees. Neither are cheap, but provide guidance on how to run a fund raising campaign to afford the purchase.

Plans:
Continue to support our software systems.

Problems:
Nothing out of the ordinary.

Market Analysis Committee:

(This committee has not provided any useful information since its inception. I believe the need for this committee is unproven and ill founded. It should be eliminated.--T. Rea)

NSS Library Committee:

Chuck Lundquist; 256-883-8926; lundquc@email.uah.edu

The NSS Library at the Society Headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama, has performed its traditional functions in the year since the 2005 Convention. New books and periodicals have been acquired, entered into the card catalog and shelved by the Librarian, William Torode. Particularly valuable books are now kept in fire-resistant, water-proof containers of the ‘security safe’ type. The Librarian has also served patrons who request assistance while visiting the Library or who communicate requests for information. These basic library functions, plus routine house keeping, require all the available time of the Librarian, who is a part time volunteer. He continues to provide an admirable service to the Society.

When the Library moved to Huntsville a number of years ago, such basic library functions satisfied the essential needs of the Society. Intervening years have brought an explosion in published material and advances in computer technology and electronic communications which pose new demands on the Library. In the last two years, with the help of the National Speleological Foundation, the Library has acquired a dedicated computer-printer-copier system capable of supporting modern library needs.

The electronic information age requires not only equipment, but also additional personnel time. Since the Library operates as a volunteer service to the Society, the Library Committee Chairman has recruited additional volunteers, initially from the Huntsville Grotto, to help with Library activities. During the past year, this augmentation of personnel got off to a somewhat slow start, due to ‘volunteer burn-out’ following the Huntsville Convention in July 2005. However a first cadre of volunteers is now established and operating.

A two-person team of computer experts (Paul Meyer and Jay Bain) is reviewing the current status of the online offering of the Library. The initial access to the catalog of the Library was implemented some two or three years ago in a useful but somewhat rudimentary way. Clearly there are many possible improvements, but manpower limitations dictate that improvements be added in a priority order. An important first task is an evaluation of the information fields used for each book entered in the online catalog. The question of ‘key words’ describing the book’s content is particularly significant. An improved field list will be identified for use in adding new acquisitions to the catalog. Eventually, the previous entries should be edited correspondingly. The use of search engines is another important topic. Presently, a workable answer recognizes that the bit content of the book catalog is relatively small, and it is quite convenient for a user to download the entire catalog and then use whatever search capabilities reside in his software. In the long-run, this mode may or may not continue to be acceptable. A further task for this team is to work with the NSS Webmaster to define procedures for efficient and frequent updating by Huntsville personnel of the Library online material.

[For more details from the initial thoughts of the Catalog Review Team, see Attachment B.]

A second two-person team (Debbie Clotfelter and Michielle Vaughn) has agreed to add new acquisitions to the online catalog. They will use the subject field list as discussed above. This is largely a translation task, using the card entries made by the Librarian upon acquisition and converting the information to the adopted online format.

A third team (Sabrina Simon and John French; only partially staffed at this time) is preparing back years of the NSS News and the Journal/Bulletin for binding. This is a task that has fallen behind schedule and needs to be caught up. Funding for binding costs will be requested from the National Speleological Foundation.

A very large question, as yet not addressed, is whether and how to make the contents of newsletters from the grottos and other internal organizations somehow accessible online. The collective information content of these publications is large and valuable. However, this question probably has to be addressed individually by each internal organization. Most of these newsletters are now prepared digitally, but the preparing organization may not wish that the total content be available publicly. The total task of bringing grotto newsletters online, particularly back issues, is beyond the Huntsville volunteers. The Library might, at least, be responsible for providing a standard mechanism to embrace whatever online solution each grotto or internal organization adopts. This whole question could be a topic for the Congress of Grottos to discuss.

Another library topic is placing online the total content of selected, important books. This, of course, can be done only with the consent of the copyright holder. Paul Stevens has been a champion of this process, and some examples are now online.

During the past year, the desire has been expressed that the current and past proceedings of the Board of Governors should be available in the Library. A check of Library holdings revealed some missing records. These records are available in the NSS Archives. The Archives Chairman is working with the Librarian to complete the Library collection.

A valuable collection in the Library contains speleological reprints contributed by authors. These are filed alphabetically by author. Papers published in non-speleological journals that would not be in the Library are particularly desirable. Patrons can ask if a particular paper is on file and arrange to get a copy. The Librarian notes that few reprints have been donated recently and would like to encourage members to send copies of their reprints. (Perhaps the editor of the NEWS could pick up and publish this paragraph.)

In summary, the basic status of the NSS Library in the summer of 2006 is good. Progress is being made, but there will always be more that could be done than limited resources will support. Improvements must proceed in a priority order.

Operations Manager:

Stephanie Searles; 256-852-1300; manager@caves.org

Progress:
Accounting: May 15th – 19th: Dave Irving made his annual expedition to the NSS Office for the fiscal year 2006 closing as well as Peri Frantz (the new NSS Secretary-Treasurer). It took us a week to get the books closed, Dave took time out to train Peri and everything went smoothly.

Since Peri is on the database committee, we were able to take some time out so I could show her a few Ledgermaster accounting procedures.

Bookstore:

Annette attended SERA ’06; June 2nd – 4th, at Bucks Pocket State Park in Alabama. SERA Bookstore Sales $737.25.

What are ways we can increase bookstore sales? Tom Rea (OVP) and I are always brainstorming. I received permission from Tom to include the NSS bookstore URL on the Membership dues notice. At the bottom of the front and back pages, it’ll now list Support Your NSS Bookstore. Visit us online 24/7: www.caves.org/service/bookstore/index.htm.

Also, we’re going to include a bookstore "specials" flyer with the Membership dues notices. We haven’t implemented this project this year. In prior years it’s help to increase sales of NSS publications. David McClurg is designing the flyer and we hope to have the flyers in time for this month’s membership dues notice mailings.

The NSS has printed a new publication entitled Big Bone Cave. To order this book online and receive a full description; log onto: www.caves.org/service/bookstore/publications.html. Member price is $22.00 plus $6.00 shipping. If you haven’t ordered your copy, please do so or call 256-852-1300.

Big Bone Cave is listed on Amazon.com’s Web site. We’ve sold 154 copies so far.

We advertised/ran an ad for Dunbar Cave in Outdoor Adventures (Oct/Nov/Dec ’05) issue. Outdoor Adventures is a specialty magazine for outdoor enthusiast and is published in Tennessee.

An ad for On Call is featured in Outdoor Adventures’ Summer 2006 issue.

Memberships:
What are ways we can increase NSS membership base? I thought of an idea of including a Gift Membership Form in the NSS News. With Tom’s approval, the Gift Membership form made its debut in the April NSS News. So, please use the form to sign-up your caving buddy or a family member that isn’t an NSS member and send it in. Annette has been tracking the response/sales on an Excel spreadsheet and so far:

10 Gift Memberships have been sold for a total of $1,157.00. The membership type breakdown:

6 – 1 year Regular memberships
2 – 3 year Regular memberships
1 – 1 year Limited membership
1 – Life membership.

Mailings:
Members should have received their 2006 Members Manual. Hats off to this year’s Membership Manual Committee. If you haven’t received your Manual, please contact the NSS Office.

Also, I made a mistake in the Life Membership data update mailings. I listed Bob Hoke as the Editor of the Membership Manual, when in fact, Meredith Hall Johnson is. Sorry, about that Meredith.

The Life Membership data update mailings included a bookstore flyer with 10% off all NSS publications. The flyer generated $1,102.00 in bookstore sales.

I’ve printed the 25-, 35-, and 50-year commemorative pin letters and Bill Torode is working on mailing the letters along with the pin. Members who have reached a special membership milestone should receive their pins in time to wear them at this year’s convention.

Each employee received his/her employee review on 4/26/06. We have a great NSS office staff.

I completed Level 1 FrontPage class in May; Level 2 class isn’t until September.

The mold at the Smith House has been removed. With approval, I called in a professional Fire & Water – Cleanup and Restoration Company – ServPro. Terrell Technical Services, Inc., performed the Limited Indoor Environmental (Fungal) Assessment, and Remediation Protocol. Once the mold was removed, Terrell Technical Services performed the Post-Remediation Limited Indoor Quality Assessment.

We also purchased a dehumidifier for the Archive Room.

Plans:
Prepare for Convention 2006, Bellingham, Washington; August 7-11.

Problems:
Due to family commitments, Annette might have to reduce her hours to part-time.

Photo Archives Committee:

Karen Kastning; 540-639-4666; karen@skyhopper.net

Plans:
Long-term plans: No change - My major goal is to establish a detailed database for research purposes. Have primarily been working on cleaning of old negatives that were received by the archives in VERY dusty and often mildewed condition. Work is quite slow due to the need to wash each negative/strip one at a time - while taking care not to scratch or further damage the work. This activity will take years to accomplish.

Short-terms plans and activity: Same as last time: to put sleeves on the large-format prints to protect them, sort them into appropriate categories, and file them. I am attempting to get rid of the over-sized boxes with mixed-size prints, that make it hard to locate anything.

Progress:
As mentioned in the plans section, a limited amount of progress has occurred in reconditioning (primarily B&W negatives) and storage activities (large format prints).

I received a request (1) for materials that I had partial success in fulfilling (John Meenehan's prints of the Culverwell Art - for a book by Dave Hughes), although I have not yet exhausted all possibilities for the additional items and (2) for some photos by Russell T. Neville, that apparently are not in the Photo Archives. Or, if they are, they are not labeled as such, so they cannot be located. Meanwhile, Dean Snyder has received a Neville photo with a "trip report" that he has offered to dupe for the Photo Archives.

Purchased a mat cutter for the Photo Archives. This will help me provide protection for the photographs that have been donated without any backing.

Had correspondence regarding the "Van Swearingen" Collection, but have not yet received it.

Problems:
Same as recent years: I have not obtained any new photos directly from any cave photographers this year. There were some donations made through the 2005 Photo Salon.

Also, we have not as yet transferred the scanner from Huntsville to Radford, Virginia. I don't have any idea when I might be able to get to Huntsville.

(The VanSwearingen collection will stay right where it is until we obtain a grant to copy the files to photo CDs. The scanner that was left in Huntsville after the Huntsville Convention has been installed on the system in the office and is no longer available for the committee. In the meantime better scanners continue to appear. T.Rea)

Speleo Museum Committee:

Craig Hindman, 410-792-0742; ctider@us.ibm.com

No report received as of 7/16.

Attachment A

National Speleological Society (NSS) Software Requirements

By Karen Dennis, 2002

(Annotated by Phil Winkler, Office Automation Committee Chairman

on June 23, 2006. Comments in bold italics)

The NSS is a non-profit organization and uses software to record, track, and interface all it’s operations and accounting. We need the capability to store data in a relational database, and search and retrieve the data conveniently. We need to generate reports, both standard and customized, from the stored data and to convert the reports to formats suitable for printing, emailing, or transferring to other programs. We would also like to import batches of data from other programs, such as Microsoft Excel.

Both LedgerMaster (LM) and NSSTrak (Trak) are relational databases built using the DataEase relational database management system (DBMS). Both have many standard reports and customization of them is possible as is the creation of new reports for ad-hoc purposes. Trak already supports generating emailed renewal notices and exports data to LM for accounting purposes so it does not need to be re-entered. LM imports data from Trak and both are capable of importing data from other programs although there has not been a need for this that I recall.

Office Operations:

The NSS maintains an office in Huntsville, AL with a current staff of paid employees and unpaid volunteers. The office has operating costs associated with it, such as payroll, physical plant, utilities, maintenance, etc. The software must be able to handle transactions related to these expenses, some of which may be pre-paid or accounts payable.

In addition to the National organization, the NSS has affiliated Internal Organizations (I/O), such as Grottos and Sections, which are financially independent and managed at the local level. We need the capability to maintain a database of these I/Os and to link them to our members.

LM successfully supported our first financial audit a few years ago and continues to manage all NSS accounting needs. The IO Committee database is directly linked to NSSTrak and periodically updated with new files from the IO Committee.

Membership:

The Society maintains a membership list, with several categories. We need to update the memberships regularly, notifying members when renewals are due and recording receipt of membership applications and renewals.

Trak supports this on a daily basis.

We maintain a database of information about each member, including such things as name, identification number, date member first joined (and/or rejoined), type of membership, address, age, sex, internal organization affiliations, assignment of COG vote, etc.). Member’s data changes frequently, including not only change of address or name, but also things such as the type of membership or current status. Members often renew late and can be dropped and added repeatedly. We maintain data on expired members so we can reinstate them easily, and do not ordinarily recycle membership numbers.

These highly automated processes have been built into Trak as part of the customization for many years. The processes ensure necessary data gets entered properly in numerous data tables minimizing data-entry errors or user forgetfulness.

We would like the capability to record links between members and transactions (such as a book order or a donation) and to be able to search records for past activities. We also need to generate several different types of membership reports, and need the capability to customize such reports.

LM and Trak maintains a members complete purchasing and donation history as well as a complete history of renewals, changes of address, awards, email address, etc. Any new program must have these capabilities or be able to be customized easily to accommodate the features.

Our membership categories and prices change occasionally, and we need the ability to reflect these changes without modifying the software. Different membership categories may have different privileges, such as the right to vote, and some memberships may be affiliated with others (i.e. a family membership). The memberships are maintained as a "product or service" and are "purchased" by the members. Typically a member will pay dues, order a book and make a donation all at the same time and we want the capability to enter these transactions easily without redundancy.

The Trak system does precisely this. The necessary parts of the process were researched back in 1995 and 1996 by myself and Camille Mueller the office manager at the time. The processes have been occasionally modified or enhanced. A Membership Type table contains one record for each Membership Type (Regular, Family, etc.) and all the attributes of each Type may be easily changed by the user.

Bookstore:

Our bookstore operation handles books and other products. We get products both from outside vendors and by producing them internally. The Society publishes books and pamphlets, and pays royalties for some of the books. We produce a catalog of available products, including our Audio/Visual library that can be ordered for renting or lending as opposed to purchasing. We would like to easily extract product data from the database to produce the catalog.

All descriptive data on our Web Bookstore is maintained in our databases.

We would like to maintain data on vendors, as well as authors and other suppliers with which we have transactions. Handled by LM with complete histories available.

When orders are received, we would like to record them as transactions that can be tracked, from receipt of the order through payment, filling and shipping of the order. Orders may be pre-orders (as for books not yet published), reservations for A/V Library program, orders for stock-on-hand, and immediate sales (no shipping). Orders will identify the date, the buyer, the list of purchases, and the shipping method(s); the software will calculate the total cost, including sales tax where applicable.

All are standard inventory/point of sale, accounting practicesand are incorporated into LM.

Inventory:

Along with the bookstore, we maintain an inventory of books and products. We track delivery of new goods, quantity ordered, quantities on hand, storage locations, and cost and pricing information. As products are sold or distributed, we would like the inventory to be updated automatically, with the capability to adjust inventory as necessary, such as when books are remaindered or destroyed, or when we dispose of unsellable products. We would also like to track when A/V library materials are due back, and when product deliveries are expected. We take orders for books prior to publication, and want the capability to enter inventory items before received and to record and track these pre-orders.

All A/V data is maintained in Trak. Everything else about our inventory is in LM.

Accounting: (Comments on these requirements will be made by the Office Manager)

The Society uses our software to do all accounting, tied in with its office operations, membership, bookstore, and inventory. We maintain a Chart of Accounts (COA) with COA numbers assigned to each transaction category. Our current COA system uses a number composed of three parts, a two-digit Division number, a seven-digit General Ledger Account number, and a three-digit Department number. We need the capability to occasionally update the COAs or add new ones.

We have accounts in multiple banks and institutions. We need to be able to track all transactions by institution and to reconcile those accounts with their monthly statements. We need the flexibility to add, modify, and delete banking establishments frequently, such as during our convention we open an account in a local bank just for a short time.

The NSS has income from donations, from membership dues, from investments, from bookstore sales and from other sources. The income is assigned to various funds, depending on its source and its restrictions. Our board of directors oversees all disbursements.

Our expenditures are many and varied. We support speleological research and exploration. We lobby for and execute cave conservation and protection. Some of our cave conservation involves cave ownership and/or management.

We record purchase orders and checks for payment of invoices and reimbursement of expenses. We record donations by members and others, and track member donations for tax purposes. We prepare an annual budget and would like to store and maintain the budget in our integrated software and to periodically compare budget with actuals.

We use the software to support an annual audit by an independent auditor.

Transactions:

The Society transactions are many and varied. We receive membership applications and renewals. We receive donations from members and non-members, which may or may not have restrictions attached to them. Donations consist of both monetary and physical object donations. Some of our donations are periodic credit cards transactions, and we want the capability to schedule these transactions ahead of time and generate reports on which are ‘due’. We accumulate donation information by donor, and generate reports on donations.

We transfer funds between NSS cost centers. We receive orders for bookstore items and for A/V rentals. At the office and at special events, we have a "store" where transactions are done "immediately". We want to record all sales and memberships in real time while the customer is waiting.

We order new products and books. We publish books and reorder them. We ship them to conventions and special events. We donate some of our books to other agencies.

We handle disbursement of funds to volunteers for out-of-pocket expenses. We manage grants from agencies, and supervise disbursements from the grants. We pay for office supplies, equipment, maintenance and operations. We invest life membership monies with our National Speleological Foundation and receive annual disbursements from our endowments. We handle restricted funds. Our transactions mostly include payment of some form and we need to track such income. We track payment amount, type (cash, check, credit card) and reference (NSS check number, our purchase order number, their invoice number), and date.

Special Activities and Properties:

The NSS sponsors several special activities that require financial accounting. Among these are the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC), and the annual conventions along with the Fine Arts Salon and the Junior Speleological Society. The National Speleological Foundation is an affiliated organization that handles investments for the NSS. Accounting for these special activities is kept separately from the NSS operations, but data and funds are shared between them. For our annual fiscal report, accounting data is merged from all the separate activities.

The NSS owns several cave properties, and we need to keep records on them. Some of the properties are managed by local conservancies and we collect funds for the caves and transfer them to the managers. Other properties, including Shelta Cave which is on the same property as the NSS office, need to be accounted for at the office.

Expansion:

In addition to the above, we maintain a library of Speleological literature and a museum of Speleological artifacts. At the current time we do not use our software to track the donation, cost, value, acquisition, storage, or final disposition of library or museum items. We would like the ability to do so in the future.

LM has a Fixed Assets module which we have never used, but it is certainly capable of handling these requirements.

The following list is typical of the reports we currently use.

NSS Office Software Outputs

NSSTRAK:

1. List of members who get periodicals, to produce address labels
2. List of Internal Organizations and membership data - Evelyn’s Monthly Report
3. COG votes by Internal Organization
4. COG Grotto members
5. Count of members by age
6. List of members who have reached 25, 35, and 50 years membership (NSS Pins)
7. BOG Labels - USA
8. BOG Labels - Foreign
9. Daily A/V Library Pick List for shipment
10. Shipping Detail report
11. Order Summary Report
12. Item Usage Report
13. A/V Library Orders by date Report
14. A/V Library Program Return Overdue Report
15. List of members in TAG area (TN, AL, GA)

LEDGERMASTER:

Purchasing Reports:
1. Items to purchase by Vendor
2. Items to Purchase by Shortage
3. Items Purchased by Vendor

Serialized Inventory:
1. Serialized Inventory Report
2. Audit Quantity on Hand
3. Reconcile Quantity on Hand
4. Inventory Items Status Cleanup

Inventory Report:
1. Inventory Status by Bin#
2. Inventory Status by Category
3. Inventory Takeoff Report
4. Inventory Cost by Category
5. Rotating Inventory Bin Tally
6. Inventory by Category/Sub-Category
7. Items to Purchase - Shortage Report
8. Inventory ‘JIT’ Costs
9. Inventory Adjustment Audit
10. Inventory List Cost/Price
11. Inventory COA Report
12. Inventory Web Purchases Listing
13. Alphabetical Inventory Listing
14. Quantity of Inventory Listing
15. EOY Inventory Report
16. Inventory Report by Category

Inventory Transactions:
1. Transactions Report by Date

Bill of Materials:
1. Breadth
2. Depth by Item
3. Where Used by Item
4. Where Used in Groups
5. BOM Assemblies Report

Work Orders:
1. WIP Value Added by Date

Bar Code Menu:
1. Print Selected Bar Codes

Customers:
1. Web Product Customer Due Listing

Invoices:
1. Audit Unposted Invoices
2. Post Unposted Invoices
3. Void Invoices
4. Re-print Invoices by Number
5. Re-print Invoices by Date

Invoice Reports:
1. Invoice Journal by Period
2. Invoice Journal by Date Range
3. Invoice History
4. Daily Sales Report
5. Daily Commissions
6. Monthly Commissions
7. Sales by Volume
8. Sales Inventory Category
9. Sales Projections

Receipts:
1. Audit Unposted Receipts
2. Post Unposted Receipts

Credit Memos and Adjustments:
1. Audit Unposted Credit Memos
2. Post Unposted Credit Memos
3. Re-print Credit Memos

A/R Maintenance:
1. State Sales Tax Report
2. A/R Trial Close--Detail
3. A/R Trial Close--Summary
4. Audit A/R Trial Close

Time & Billing Menu:
1. Review Open Work in Process
2. Log Report by Date
3. Log Report by Invoice
4. Log Report by Customer

Vendors Reports:
1. Vendor List by ID
2. Vendor List by Name
3. Vendor Payments by Date
4. Print Recipient 1099s

Vouchers:
1. Audit Unposted Vouchers
2. Post Unposted Vouchers
3. Re-print Vouchers

Voucher Reports:
1. Voucher Distribution Report
2. Voucher Journal by Current Period
3. Voucher Journal by Date
4. Aged Payables Report -- Detail
5. Cash Requirements Report
6. Check/Voucher Report
7. Aged Payables Report--Summary
8. Cash Requirements by Date Range

Pay Vouchers:
1. Audit, Print and Post Checks
2. Audit and Post Prepaid Vouchers
3. Re-print A/P checks by Check No.

Debit Memos/Adjustments:
1. Audit Unposted Debit Memos
2. Post Unposted Debit Memos
3. Re-print Debit Memos

A/P Maintenance:
1. A/P Trial Close--Summary
2. Audit A/P Trial Close

Chart of Accounts:
1. COA Reports

GJ Reports:
1. GJ Report by GJ#
2. GJ Report by Date
3. GJ Report by Period
4. Closed Period Trial Balance (TB)
5. Current Period TB
6. Future Period TB

General Ledger Reports:
1. Financial Statements
2. Trial Balance for Irving
3. Sales Tax Report by Period

GJ Audit Menu:
1. Audit Unposted G/L Detail Items
2. GL Detail TB (Audit)
3. GL -- GL Detail Integrity Audit
4. Summary Audit by Journal
5. Detail Audit by Journal

GL Detail Reports Menu:
1. Detail Report -- Current Period Audit
2. Detail Report -- Closed Period by Division
3. Detail Report -- User Defined -- Net
4. Detail Report -- User Defined -- Debit/Credit
5. Summary Report -- User Defined--Net

Divisions:
1. List Divisions & COA Defaults
2. List Divisions by Region

Departments:
1. List Departments

Account Types:
1. List Account Types

Categories:
1. List Categories (By Print Order)

Checkbook Reports:
1. Checkbook Register by Date Range
2. Checkbook Register by Period Range
3. Outstanding Checks Report
4. Bank Reconciliation History Report
5. Receipt/Checkbook Deposit Audit

Checkbooks:
1. Monthly ER Report

Fixed Assets:
1. Fixed Assets Report

Payroll Reports:
1. Payroll Journal
2. Payroll Register
3. Payroll Check Register
4. Vacation and Sick Report
5. Paid Payroll Recap
6. Quarterly Tax Summary
7. GL Distribution Report
8. Other Deductions Report

NOTES:

1) The NSS uses a chart of accounts (COA) to track financial activity. The COA number the NSS uses is composed of three parts, a two-digit Division Number, a seven-digit General Ledger (GL) Account number, and a three-digit Department number. However, the NSS actually uses only 5 digits in the GL Account Number and 2 digits n the Department number, because of the limitation in Ledgermaster at the time the COA was designed.

2) The reports are in text and Excel format. They can be imported into MicroSoft applications.

 

Attachment B

Preliminary Remarks from Catalog Review Team

Perhaps three phases would divide the project effectively. Each one represents a deliverable. The third phase may be rolled out in steps including a beta version for testing.

Phase one is to provide a temporary replacement Web page for the current library search engine. That page would be very simple in design. It would have perhaps two, maybe three variations on the current CSV file. A good idea is to provide a PDF version. Another would be tab separated perhaps. The existing CSV could be included as well. Each of the representations of the catalog would be available as a complete download. The current size of the file is small enough to allow a researcher to use a dial-up modem connection for access. A small amount of effort would be in removing internal formatting such as { } when providing as PDF or tab separated representation of the database. There would be a method on the page for the researcher to know the revision date of the downloaded file. This would fit into the Phase two plan to continuously add content to the catalog database. No security is to be provided for this page and the content is available strictly as a read-only download, i.e. the user is not permitted to upload to the site. The NSS may wish a more restrictive access policy.

Phase two and phase three may be overlapping to some extent.

Phase two is to provide a simple data entry scheme that could be used by volunteers adding to the catalog database. This scheme is to be HTML based so the entry person needs only their personal computer with browser. The method of implementation has not been selected but PERL is a likely candidate. Considerations for the development are that the catalogers should be able to review entries and correct as necessary; A report of recent entries is to be available for cross checking prior to roll in as an update to the catalog. A small degree of security should be provided to avoid corruption of the good work of the catalogers. Incorporation of new entries into the catalog will be a manual process initially provided by an individual skilled in merging content using Excel, or equivalent tools.

Phase three is centric to a replacement for the current catalog access software. While the current software does provide a function right now, the user is unable to access the content of the database effectively. The goal is to use available open source software so there is no cost to the NSS for licenses (do we need to explain the concept of open source). Security is to be determined by NSS.

There will be five components to the new software.
1. Backend database to store the catalog.
2. Query engine for the researcher to formulate requests to the catalog
3. Report generator to present results from the catalog. The method for the researcher to receive a report should include on-screen as well as download.
4. Maintenance software that among other tasks would be to allow the update of new catalog entries (phase two).
5. New Web page design that will replace the interim solution. The web page design should provide information on how to construct queries. In considering the elements of this step, we recognize that there may be a need to help the researcher understand some of the content of the database. The extent of this part of the new web page design will be considered as the query engine and report generator portions evolve.

In light of the possibility that we should consider both programming and cataloging as distinct projects, I throw out the following outline for the work.:

Web and database software project
1. Interim availability task
2. Data entry task
3. Permanent software
Beta 1 content
Beta 2 content
Final release
Subscription service

Holdings cataloging project
1. Corrections to current database
2. Assessment of existing holdings vs. database population - statistics
3. Potential upgrading of existing database population to add additional keyword content,
for example:
Entry of existing holdings that are deemed must-haves in the short term
Entry of existing holdings that are deemed important in the mid term
Ongoing entry of existing holdings to complete the catalog.
Ongoing entry of new acquisitions – include update frequency

7/18/06