Board of
Library Trustees Meeting
October 4, 2011
7:00 p.m.
Attendees:
Trustees:
Carol Brown, Vice-chair
MaryAnn Cabibbo
Ed Duggan (arrived at 7:10, after the routine motions)
Chris Monahan
William Roberts, Secretary
Wendy Rowe, Chair
Citizens:
Margaret Perkins, Acting Director
Motion to approve the agenda: wlr1, mac2, passed unanimously
Motion to approve the minutes of the August 16 meeting with the Selectmen: CB1, WLR2, 3-0-1 (MaryAnn abstained)
Motion to approve the minutes of the September Trustees meeting: CB1, WLR2, 5-0-0
We had a citizen of Syracuse NY praise staff member Paula Belanger for her kindness to the citizen's Medway resident cousin. Said praise came with a $500 donation.
So far the added Monday morning hours have attracted a few more people. This will presumably pick up.
5% of our checkouts have been through the self-checkout. This should also pick up as it's early days. At Holliston, 20% of the checkouts are self serve.
The expanded hours are working OK, except when someone is out, then it's a strain.
Our film projector doesn't do well with bright colors. The Friends found a new one for $1000. The Friends would like a new one to go with their film license. The Trustees think it would be OK if the Friends want to buy one.
We had an Elevator Pretest. During the course of this it was discovered that the secondary fire alarm control panel by the Story Room emergency exit didn't work. There was some discussion of replacing the Simplex fire alarm system (which is proprietary and requires Simplex to do all the maintenance and repairs) with a cheaper more readily serviced system.
Wendy determined that a typical fax page burns through 4 cents worth of toner. The Trustees thought that a publicly available fax was a good thing so:
Motion to move and repurpose the staff fax machine to make it available to the public for a fee. MAC, CB2, passed unanimously
Motion to set the fax fee to $1 per page and restrict the fax to domestic phone calls. MAC1, CM2, passed unanimously
There was a discussion of the value of a publicly available scanner. It was thought to be a good thing and we'd be happy if one fell into our laps for free.
The town's per capita spending on the library is 1/2 of the median for the state.
It would be nice to re-institute the outreach program.
Perhaps have a more comfortable place to read.
It was pointed out that access to downloadable online books is limited by the publishers. Only a limited number of patrons can have a downloaded copy. There is a waiting list for popular titles.
It was suggested that rather than have another special meeting with the Selectmen, we try to combine it with the December meeting. We'll have discussed 2020 more at our November meeting.
The staff present were unanimous in wanting a full time director.
An issue was brought up with the Friends involving the book sale. The Friends were sometimes shelving donated books before Katherine has a chance to look at them to see if the Library would like to add them to its collection. This has since been sorted out and the Friends will let Katherine have a chance to look over the donated books.
The staff would also like access to their Job Descriptions which seem to be in some municipal limbo.
The staff also felt that the Friends should be doing more proselytizing. The Friends are going to do a library card drive.
The staff also remembered how much more used the meeting rooms were when Walter would work till 9 (doing custodial jobs).
Motion to adjourn (9:20PM) MAC1, CM2, passed unanimously
| Account | Acct # | Start Balance | Expen. To Date | End Balance | % Spent |
| Salaries - Full Time | 5110 | $78,624.00 | $18,133.92 | $60,490.08 | 23.06% |
| Salaries - Part Time | 5111 | $66,692.00 | $14,926.28 | $51,765.72 | 22.38% |
| Longevity | 5150 | $850.00 | $850.00 | 0.00% | |
| Electricity | 5211 | $21,500.00 | $4,060.36 | $17,439.64 | 18.89% |
| Heating Fuel | 5212 | $7,900.00 | $143.41 | $7,756.59 | 1.82% |
| Trash | 5232 | $1,683.00 | $1,683.00 | 0.00% | |
| Water & Sewer | 5231 | $863.00 | $863.00 | 0.00% | |
| R & M Miscellaneous | 5240 | $5,784.00 | $1,230.16 | $4,553.84 | 21.27% |
| Telephone | 5341 | $1,500.00 | $322.97 | $1,177.03 | 21.53% |
| Supplies | 5400 | $1,600.00 | $466.00 | $1,134.00 | 29.13% |
| Postage | 5343 | $264.00 | $44.00 | $220.00 | 16.67% |
| OPS - (Minuteman bill) | 5380 | $22,707.00 | $22,851.00 | ($144.00) | 100.63% |
| Media | 5427 | $0.00 | |||
| Books | 5521 | $0.00 | |||
| Travel | 5710 | ||||
| TOTAL - GENERAL FUND | $209,967.00 | $62,178.10 | $147,788.90 | 29.61% | |
| Start Balance | Expen. To Date | Income to Date | Account Bal | ||
| Memorial Donations | 5400 | $23,244.12 | $11,805.66 | $20,290.75 | $31,729.21 |
| Tuchinsky Fund Interest | $39,447.11 | $39,447.11 | |||
| Tuchinsky Fund Principal | $102,869.11 | $102,869.11 | |||
| Library Restitution Fund | 024-610-706-4773 | $13,195.47 | $1,037.14 | $197.57 | $12,355.90 |
| Copier & Printer Rev. Fund | 024-610-722-4840 | $2,399.74 | $244.85 | $2,644.59 | |
| Meeting Room Rev. Fund | 024-610-723-4840 | $1,574.18 | $110.00 | $1,684.18 | |
| Free Public Library* | 2017 | $3,500.63 | $3,199.00 | $301.63 | |
| TOTAL - OTHER FUNDS | $186,230.36 | $16,041.80 | $20,843.17 | $191,031.73 | |
| Emergency Transfer (HVAC) | $18,840.00 | ||||
| Automated Checkout | $4,000.00 |
Medway Public Library
Director’s Report
October 1, 2011
Staff
The expansion of library hours has been going relatively smoothly. When one or more scheduled employees have been out on Monday, I have scheduled another library assistant for an additional two hours, which has been very helpful.
The staff enjoyed meeting informally with the Trustees. Thanks to Wendy and Ed for the delicious refreshments.
Building Maintenance
I attended a meeting
of the Town-wide Facilities Management Committee, which is
recommending that a central authority manage the maintenance (but not
the cleaning) of all town buildings. The library, like most other
town departments, is in favor of that approach. The committee had a
number of questions about the library, and they were very surprised
to hear that the Friends (and State Aid) pay for virtually
all of
our materials, and that 67,000 people came through our doors last
year.
The Town Administrator asked all departments to prioritize their Capital Improvement Requests – the document listing our priorities is at the end of the Director's Report.
On October 11th, I will give a tour of the library to the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. They are touring all departments to get a better idea of each department’s needs.
The Park Supervisor modified the landscaping and drainage around the building to prevent water infiltration, and Jon from DPS cleaned and repaired the gutters. However, Katherine reported that water is still pouring down in one location right above one of the windows in Tech Services.
Programs
The library will be coordinating with the Holliston Library on the launch of a new daytime book group. There are three meetings scheduled at the Holliston Library, with the first on November 7th at 11:00 am. Both Medway and Holliston will order multiple copies of books from other libraries, so they will be available for patrons to pick up at either library.
As requested by Missy Dziczek, we agreed to lead several sessions of a book group at the Senior Center, with Lorie leading the first one.
I am planning to reschedule the program on interviewing skills for new graduates sometime in the next couple of months.
Membership meeting
Minuteman membership voted not to become an early adopter of Sierra, the Minuteman Library Network's Integrated Library System's new product based on an open source database, because there are currently too many unknowns. There was some discussion of the merits and problems with Evergreen, an open source ILS. Membership did vote to subscribe to a text messaging service so patrons will have the option of receiving text messages in addition to emails when their books come in, etc., and AirPAC, a mobile version of the catalog.
Patrons can now download Kindle books through Overdrive.
Other
I am working on the State Aid to Public Libraries report, which is due October 14th.
Approximately 5% of the checkouts last month were done on the self-checkout. It has proven especially popular with children.
The Friends have expressed interest in doing a library card drive to increase the number of residents with library cards.
I will attend the New England Library Association Annual Conference on October 2nd – 4th.
-Margaret Perkins
Library Capital Improvement Priorities
FY2013-2017
Project Funding
Cost
Fiscal Year
FY13
FY13-FY17
Source
Priority
Priority
Replace 2 HVAC RTUs GFD $ 20,000 FY13 2 2
Replace failing HVAC RTU GFD $ 10,000 FY13 1 1
Replace fire alarm panel GFD $ 10,000 FY17 3
Replace photocopier GFD $ 10,000 FY17 6
Refurbish furniture GFD $ 10,000 FY14 10
Replace all computers GFD $ 20,000 FY17 5
Repoint exterior brick & masonry GFD $ 30,000 FY14 4
New roof shingles & gutters GFD $ 60,000 FY16 8
Replace carpet GFD $ 40,000 FY15 7
Replace lower level HVAC unit GFD $ 10,000 FY17 9