ELISHA D. SMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY TRUSTEES
AGENDA
4:00 p.m. Thursday, January 21, 2010
Gegan Room
(If Board Members cannot attend, please notify the Library Office)
CALL TO ORDER:
PUBLIC COMMENT:
AUTHORIZATION OF BILLS:
- List of bills for December 2009.
- List of bills for January 2010.
CONSENT BUSINESS (Motion to approve all unless separate consideration requested):
3. Minutes. Minutes of Board meeting December 17, 2009.
INFORMATION ITEMS/DIRECTOR’S REPORT:
4. Statistics.
5. Annual Website Statistics.
6. Annual Meeting Room Usage.
7. Endowment.
8. Webinar Opportunity.
9. Staff Meeting Schedule.
10. Materials Budget Lines.
DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS:
- December 31st Lift.
- Director Goals for 2010.
- Staff Appreciation.
- Trustee Essentials #14.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
15. ADJOURN
UPCOMING MEETINGS & ACTIVITIES
(Including requests for business items for future meetings)
· Library Board Meeting – February 18 at 4:00 pm
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 – January 2010
1. Bills. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of bills as presented for December 2009.
2. Bills. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of bills as presented for January 2010.
In the early part of each year, we have two sets of bills. Any items ordered in 2009 are billed to 2009. This usually takes us a few months to catch all of the stragglers.
CONSENSUS ACTION ITEMS:
3. Minutes. Minutes of Board meeting December 17, 2009.
INFORMATION ITEMS:
4. Statistics. December brought our year to a close with a nice increase of 4.3% overall. For the year of 2009, we saw on overall increase of 7.6% which is especially impressive after our record year in 2008.
This marks 2009 as a record year with the highest circulation ever for the library. In 2008, we broke 500,000 circulations for the first time and this year we broke 550,000 with our overall total of 566,660. The staff should be very proud of their hard work which has brought us so much business due to our dynamic mixture of excellent customer service, great collections, and vibrant programming. Well done!
5. Annual Website Statistics. Our website usage is also very successful. Despite issues with our blogs and traffic counts, we still came out with outstanding totals for the year that we know are actually higher than this due to the faulty counts in the spring of the year. Our website saw 877,157 visits and 2,984,381 page views. In Winnefox, only the shared online catalog got more visits in 2009, and we exceeded their number for page views. Our modern and interactive website and blogs are really working.
To make our blog success more tangible, I want to share with you the number of books the library received for free in 2009 from my Kids Lit blog. Because I review books, publishers send me them for free in hopes of having me review them. 2009 saw the highest number of books to date with just over 1200 titles donated. I also receive advanced reader copies that cannot be added to the collection because they are pre-publication. Those copies go into our book sale or are used as reading program prizes. So our online efforts have real budgetary impact.
6. Annual Meeting Room Usage. A third aspect of the library that we are seeing great success in is usage of our meeting rooms. In 2009, our public meeting rooms were used more than any previous year with a total usage of 697 meetings. The children’s area Story Room which is reserved for library programs only, saw the most usage ever this year with 144 programs offered. Our tutoring room near the Reference Desk also saw record usage with 279 uses in 2009.
7. Endowment. In December, we had two generous gifts to the library. One is an anonymous donation of $500 for the general Endowment fund. The second is a bequest from the estate of Isabel R. Brich for $6,500. This is designated as a donation to the Children’s Department and will be placed in that fund within the Endowment. Kathy Beson and I are speaking about ways to use these funds to help our neediest families in our community.
In January, we rolled one of our CDs over. It totaled $11,800.30 and has been renewed until November 2010. It is at 1.55% with an APR of 1.56%.
8. Webinar Opportunity. The ALA (American Library Association) Office of Intellectual Freedom is partnering with the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF) to present three one-hour webinars in February for library trustees on the topic of controversial materials in library collections. The webinar is intended to help trustees understand the basics of intellectual freedom in libraries. The webinars will be offered on February 17th 3-4:00 pm, February 23rd 1-2:00 pm, and February 26th 11-noon.There is a cost of $49 for each person attending, or we can set up a computer for multiple people for $95. The library will pay for this training.
9. Staff Meeting Schedule. I have three of the four annual staff meetings scheduled. Wednesday, February 17th at 7:30 am we will have NAMI come and speak to the staff about how we can best serve people with mental illnesses. Tuesday, April 13th at 7:30 am we will have the Hearing Loss Association of the Fox Valley Region speak to us about serving deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons and new technologies and devices to help. Monday, July 19th at 7:30 am, we will have a staff meeting as well. I have not yet selected a speaker or theme for the meeting.
10. Materials Budget Lines. With our decrease in funding for the collection this year, our budget had to be reduced from the 2009 levels by 9%. I did some adjusting of funds from magazines (where we dropped an expensive review journal that was underused) and reference (where usage of our print reference collection is falling) and moved those funds into DVDs.
DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS:
11. December 31st Lift. The City Council has approved a 1% lift for non-rep employees on December 31st, 2010. Due to the date of the lift, it will affect our 2011 budget. I would ask that the library board match the city lift for our own employees. REQUESTED ACTION: Approve 1% lift for library employees on December 31st, 2010.
12. Director Goals for 2010. From our discussion during my evaluation and the objectives of the Long Range Plan, I have created my list of goals for 2010. Looking at my goals for 2009, they were all achieved. They included reviewing staff job descriptions and revising as needed, completing the new website, providing training to staff on authoring software, and hiring librarians to replace those who retired in 2009. REQUESTED ACTION: Approve director goals for 2010.
13. Staff Appreciation. The library board has done breakfasts in the past to show appreciation for the staff. We have a staff meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 13th which would be an ideal time to have an appreciation breakfast. I’d ask that the Personnel and Policy Committee meet about this and return with a recommendation for the board.
14. Trustee Essentials #14. Rick Carlson will lead us through Trustee Essential #14 on open meetings law. I will need a volunteer to lead the group on Trustee Essential #15 which is on the public records law.
