ELISHA D. SMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY TRUSTEES
AGENDA
4:30 p.m. Thursday, August 16, 2007
Gegan Room
(If Board Members cannot attend, please notify the Library Office)
CALL TO ORDER & ROLL CALL:
PUBLIC COMMENT:
AUTHORIZATION OF BILLS:
1. Lists of bills for August 2007.
CONSENT BUSINESS (Motion to approve all unless separate consideration requested):
2. Minutes. Minutes of Board meeting July 17, 2007.
INFORMATION ITEMS/DIRECTOR'S REPORT:
3. Statistics.
4. Website Statistics.
5. Summer Reading Program.
6. Children's Room Changes.
7. Staff Meeting.
8. Gegan Room Chairs.
9. Finance Committee Meeting.
10. Investment Committee Meeting.
11. Long Range Planning Meeting.
DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS:
12. Board/Staff Social
13. Appointment of Committee Chairs
14. Fine Limits
15. ADJOURN
UPCOMING MEETINGS & ACTIVITIES
(Including requests for business items for future meetings)
• Library Board Meeting - September 20, 2007.
Menasha aldermen may attend meetings of this body. A quorum of the Common Council, Board of Public Works, Administration Committee, or Personnel Committee may attend this meeting. No official action of any of those bodies will be taken.
ELISHA D. SMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY
DIRECTOR'S REPORT - AUGUST 2007
1. Bills. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of bills as presented for August 2007.
CONSENSUS ACTION ITEMS:
2. Minutes. Minutes of Board meeting July 17, 2007. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval.
INFORMATION ITEMS:
3. Statistics. Our statistics are looking up! We had a 13% increase for the adult collection. Happily, books increased by 16%, periodicals by 10%, books on CD by 5.6% and DVDs by 31%. Our children's department did not fare as well with almost no change over 2006. We have changed things around in the children's department, which we hope will lead people to discovering the wealth of items we have available.
4. Website Statistics. Our website usage will now be reported along with the other monthly statistics on your statistical report. We are using Google Analytics to count usage on our new website. Google purchased Urchin which is the program we used to use and has entirely changed the way that statistics are counted. Because the figures are so different, we can't compare between the old site and the new site, but will be able to compare month to month.
5. Summer Reading Program. In your packet this month, you will find the reports from Marge Loch-Wouters and Barb LaFontaine on our summer reading programs for children, teens and adults. The numbers for our programs are slipping, and we will be looking at how we can try to improve participation for next summer.
6. Children's Room Changes. With the change to a single circulation desk coming in early September, changes were made to the service desk in the Children's Department. Now the desk is lower for ease of use by our youngest patrons. If you enter the department, you will also see how we reused the tall part of the desk as a display unit for the new children's materials. In our first day with the new display, a third of the new items were checked out!
7. Staff Meeting. Our next staff meeting features a guest speaker, Pat Wagner, who focuses on customer service, merchandising and being more responsive. She will be joining the staff on Friday, September 21st for an afternoon of ideas. The library will be closed that day for the inservice.
8. Gegan Room Chairs. Months ago, the Library Board decided to move ahead with the library sign and delay the repair and reupholstering of the chairs in the Gegan Room. Now with the sign not taking up the full Building Fund, we are able to move ahead with redoing the chairs in the Gegan Room. The project was already approved by the Board at up to $3000, but I wanted to make everyone aware that we are moving ahead with it.
9. Finance Committee Meeting. The Finance Committee will need to meet in late August or early September to approve the budget proposal I will present to the Mayor and City Council. This year we were again given a target number by the city which we are to hit. It gives us an increase of $25,651 over 2007. Our county funding (subject to approval by the counties) increased by $23,168. I am hoping to use the county funding increase to fund Sunday hours again, starting in 2008.
10. Investment Committee Meeting. The Investment Committee needs to meet in the next month or so to look at our investments and the Endowment. I am hoping to do a letter campaign this fall to generate some growth of the Endowment.
11. Long Range Planning Meeting. The Long Range Planning Committee will meet on August 29th at 5:00 pm. The committee is made up of library staff, current and previous Board members, and community members. We will be looking at the community itself at this first meeting and deciding what steps we want to take to get community input on the plan.
DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS:
12. Board/Staff Social. The Board and staff are planning a social get-together on Friday, August 24th at 5:30 pm at the Vault. At the meeting we will provide cost information for the event. REQUESTED ACTION: Motion to approve expense for event.
13. Appointment of Committee Chairs. At the last meeting we formed committees, but neglected to appoint a chair for each one. Each committee chair is responsible for running the committee meeting. REQUESTED ACTION: Appoint committee chairs.
14. Fine Limits. Due to our proximity with the Neenah Public Library, we have always tried to keep our fines very close. Last month, the Neenah Public Library decided to raise the fine limit on their library cards. The fine limit is how much money a library card can have on it without being blocked. Our current limit is $5.00. Neenah increased theirs to $10.00. At the same time, Fond du Lac increased theirs to $25.00. Both Neenah and Fond du Lac are doing this to encourage usage of their self-check machines. For us, it will be problematic having a lower limit than Neenah because we would be turning people away who would be able to use their cards in Neenah for both checking out and accessing the Internet. REQUESTED ACTION: Increase fine limit.
