MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING
ELISHA D. SMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY TRUSTEES
September 18, 2008
Call to order at 4:30 p.m. by vice president Enos
Present: Derouin, Eisen, Enos, Nebel, Stanke, Werley, Wicihowski
Absent: Fuchs
Also present: Director Saecker, M. Loch-Wouters, (Head of Children's Services), K. Seefeldt (Administrative Assistant)
Public Comment
A representative from the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley will attend our October meeting to address questions from the Board on the terms of our investment contracts with their agency. Eisen requested that Director Saecker clarify what authority our Board has over our investments held by the Community Foundation. The Investment Committee, made up of Fuchs, Enos and Director Saecker, will meet prior to the October Board meeting to review our investment plan.
Authorization of Bills
1. Motion to authorize payment of the September list of bills from the 2008 budget by Werley, seconded by Derouin and carried unanimously.
Consent Business
2. Approve minutes from the Library Board meeting of August 21, 2008.
Motion
Motion to approve the minutes from the Library Board meeting of August 21, 2008 by Stanke, seconded by Werley, and carried unanimously.
Director's Report/Information Items
3. Statistics. Statistics for August showed a more moderate increase compared to what we had experienced in recent months. Lending was up 3.2% overall from last year. Children's circulation rose 9.9%.
4. New Board Member. Mayor Don Merkes recently appointed Kathy Wicihowski to replace Susan Eckstein on our Board. Kathy will serve one year to complete Susan's current term.
5. Investments. Kelly Randerson from the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley will join us at our October meeting. Board members were asked to submit their questions for Ms. Randerson to Director Saecker prior to next month's meeting.
6. 2008 Children's Summer Reading Program. Marge Loch-Wouters, Head of Adult Services, reported on the success of the summer reading program. After last year's circulation and program participation decreases, staff created a personalized format for this year's program that allowed families to participate at their own pace. The new format proved to be very successful. 967 preschool through grade 5 children participated, representing a 29% increased over last year.
7. 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. Loch-Wouters reported on the progress of this program over the past 6 months. The project clearly has been a success. The initial goal was to serve 400 families over a two-year period. To date, 365 families have signed up and 199 families are actively participating. Remarkably, 10 families finished the program within the first six months. Eisen recommended that information on this project be made available state-wide and nationally to the library community.
8. WLA Banquet. The Library of the Year awards banquet is scheduled to be held on Thursday, November 6 at 7:00 p.m. Board members were encouraged to attend.
9. Presentations. Director Saecker will be presenting a workshop on Library 2.0 theory to the Milwaukee Federated Library System early in October. She is scheduled to do a Project Play Date in mid-December covering Twitter and FriendFeed. She is also working on an online continuing education workshop through the WI Interlibrary Loan System which will address creating an online persona beyond blogging. This will be held early in 2009.
Discussion/Action Items
10. 2009 Budget. The Finance Committee met recently with the director to review the proposed 2009 budget. Director Saecker presented the budget to the Board for their review. Eisen requested that an additional column for prior year actual be added to the budget spreadsheet.
Motion
Motion to approve the 2009 budget as presented by Nebel, seconded by Werley and carried unanimously.
11. Closing November 6th. Director Saecker proposed that the library close on Thursday, November 6 to give staff the opportunity to attend the WLA conference and Library of the Year awards banquet in Middleton. This closing would be in place of a staff in-service closing routinely scheduled in the fall. Werley stated that the library should close on this date as a means of recognizing employee achievements this past year. She also commended staff for managing increased workloads due to the recent double-digit increases in lending.
Motion
Motion to approve closing the library on November 6th in recognition of staff and Menasha's Library of the Year award by Werley, seconded by Derouin and carried unanimously.
12. Self-Check Machines. Director Saecker requested that we table this item for the October meeting because we have not yet received a price quote that we have been waiting for.
13. Trustee Essentials #3. This item was tabled until the October 16th meeting. Werley will review By-Laws - Organizing the Board for Effective Action. It was requested that the library's by-laws be copied onto colored paper for the library's policy manual.
Adjournment
Motion to adjourn the meeting at 5:28 p.m. by Stanke, seconded by Derouin, and carried unanimously.
Future meeting dates
The next regular board meeting will be held in the Gegan Room on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 4:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Eisen, Secretary
Kris Seefeldt, Recording Secretary
