Meeting Minutes, Chili Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting

July 24, 2007

Board of Trustees:   Ed Schuler (President), Glenda Melville (Vice-President), James Lechner

(Treasurer), Charles Havens, Judith Kharbas, Christina Reece, James Meyers

Library Director: Jeff Baker

Town Liaison:  Michael Slattery

President Schuler convened the meeting at 6:04 PM.  Ms. Melville absent on vacation.

Approved minutes of  June 26, 2007 meeting. 

Approved abstract:  $13,218.58

Approved the meeting agenda.

Communications

Guests/Public:

Mr. Reddick: First wished Mr. Baker well and then hoped for continuing support for the library from the community.  Second, relative to the concerns that have been voiced about the temperature of the server room: a squirrel cage fan would be an economical solution.  Mr. Lechner responded that active cooling has been directed to the room and the server is monitored internally. The issue appears to be resolved based on the data from the recent warm spell. 

Town Board Liaison: 

None. Not present.

Friends Representative:

None. Not present.

Director’s Report

 

General Information:

·        CPL Statistics – Distribution of monthly statistics.  Additionally annual statistics for  holdings, door count, circulation and Town of Chili population since 1998 were provided.  It was noted that the population statistics came from census projections and seemed at odds with recent housing trends – the Town was to be consulted for building permit data to verify the published data.

·        Reference/Desk Staff Meetings (simultaneous) – Friday, August 3^rd  at 9:00

·        Staff Meeting – September 7 Ms. Melville to attend

·        Friends of the CPL Board Meeting – Tuesday, August 14^th at 6:30 pm – Charles Havens to attend.

·        CPL Picnic – There will be a CPL Picnic at Churchville Park – Anderson Shelter on Sunday, September 8, 2007 – starts at 12 noon.  $5 per person – kids under 12 free.  The shelter, meat, rolls, condiments, paper goods and beverages will be provided.  Please bring a dish to pass.

·        Summer Reading – There are 600 children signed up so far.  The children have been averaging 34,000 pages read each week!

·        Aquabrowser - On July 11, MCLS made public the new visual catalog Aquabrowser.  Aquabrowser provides enhanced access to information in the catalog.  It also features a "word cloud" to help patrons find the information and offers a clickable "refine" function which further breaks down a catalog search into categories such as book, DVD, cassette, author and language.  One can subscribe to Aquabrowser's RSS feed that will push new titles to their news reader every day.  There was agreement to have a demonstration of this feature at the next board meeting.

·        Girl Scouts Project – Girl Scout troop 270 met with the director and the Children’s Librarian on June 18.  Its members are looking to acquire a Girl Scout Bronze Award which is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn.  The Girl Scout must show she has made a promise to help others, improve her community and world and become the best she can be.  Each girl must contribute a minimum of 15 hours.  The project decided upon was a stenciling of the ceiling border of the Children’s area using a train theme.  All materials and labor would be provided by the Girl Scouts.  Mr. Baker would like to proceed given no objection from the Board. There was discussion relative to potential liability; general agreement that it was a desirable activity; Mr. Baker referred to  Mr. Stowe, Town Attorney for his comment.

Follow Up Items: 

·        Alesi Recognition:  Senator Alesi’s Office was contacted as to whether he would be able to attend the CPL Friend’s Summer Concert on the Lawn on August 7^th where he would be recognized for securing $10,000 for CPL for the MCLS support services increase.  It looks promising, but the Senator may be called into session at that time.  Alesi’s office will confirm during the week of July 23^rd.

·        Revised Purchasing Policy:  In response to the 2006 audit the purchasing policy has been revised to account for board approval for items exceeding $2500 other than items for the collection.  Rich Stowe, Town Attorney reviewed the revision and does not think the revised policy would stand up to an audit.  We are in the process of surveying other member libraries to see if they have purchasing policies and how they are worded.  The Board’s discussion on the issue concluded the policy would stand until the concerns were better understood and an alternative provided.  

·        Doty Endowment:  Bill Doty was contacted and was told CPL will pay for attorney’s legal fees through the Memorial fund.  He is in the process of having his attorney draw up the papers.

·        Color Printer – The Xerox Phaser 8560N Color printer has been installed and promoted to the public.  It is working successfully. There was discussion on identifying a workable service strategy.

·        Security Cameras – Library staff are continuing with IT migration and are investigating adding two additional security surveillance cameras to the current setup.  We are in the process of getting a quote from Digital Surveillance Solutions (DSI).  Comment: the two additional cameras were recommended by the Sheriff’s review; monitoring the building entrance was deemed particularly important.

·        RPL/MCLS Internet Taskforce Update –At their meeting on Wednesday June 27, 2007, the Rochester Public Library Board of Trustees voted to accept the recommendation of the joint RPL/MCLS Internet Task Force.  The recommendation, first presented to the RPL and MCLS Boards on May 23, 2007, contains the following provisions: web sites identified by the library's filtering product as pornographic will be blocked on all Rochester Public Library computers; users 17 and older may request in writing that a blocked site be reviewed if they believe a site has been blocked in error; and the Library Director or his or her designee will review the site and make a judgment based on the library's collection development policy that will determine whether the site can be accessed in the library.  RPL library administration is currently developing a procedure by which this policy will be implemented and expect to have such a procedure in place by mid-July.  

Action Items: 

·        Requested Approval of the CLP Long Range Plan: The CPL Long Range Plan Committee has met and recommended the CPL Long Range Plan be approved by the Board.  The CPL Long Range Plan document will be distributed at the meeting.  It was commented that the plan did not include an analysis of staff requirements  but it would be acceptable to develop this in the Personnel Committee report.  The plan was unanimously approved as submitted.

State News

·         Nothing new to report – It was noted that the Susan John grant is progressing on schedule.

System News

·        A  MCLS Marketing Team has been created.  They will be rolling out a major library card campaign in fall of 2008.   A draft marketing plan will be presented to Director’s Council at their December meeting. 

·        An Emerging Technology Team has been created.  It is an outgrowth of last year’s MCLS Tech Institute.  The team objective is to provide in the upcoming year 5 half-day Technology Camps for MCLS staff.  There will be an opportunity at each camp for participants to share what they’re doing at their libraries, ask for advice, and generally talk about uses of technology in the library.       

Committee Reports

Budget           

A meeting was held July 18th, the next is scheduled August 8^th at 9:00AM at location to be determined .

Personnel

Meeting is scheduled for August 10th  at 8:00AM at the Library.

Long Range Planning

Activities completed for 2007.

Old Business

HVAC and Building Services

Mr. Lechner reported continuing progress. Monroe Piping. Has completed 90% of the air balancing with noticeable improvement in cooling at the trouble spots – it was found that several of the plenums in those areas were disconnected and nonfunctioning.  The next phase is the variable damper system to divert additional air to the main room starting the week of July 30.  Going forward the system maintenance work may be directed to Monroe Piping.   

Sincere thanks to Mr. Carr, Town Maintenance Supervisor, for helping to solve the issues. 

New Business

None.

Mr. Schuler closed the meeting at 7:15 PM.

Next meeting date/time:  August 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM in the CPL Multi Purpose Room.    

Executive Session

An Executive Session was held for an informational review of the preliminary budget proposal that will be presented  at the next Board meeting August  28th.  No action taken.