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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_LAB_11.09.2009Minutes of the Meeting of the Library Advisory Board Of Georgetown, Texas November 9, 2009 MEMBERS IN ATTENDENCE. Glenn Mautner, Shana Nichols, Marisue Miller, Anjeanette Courtin, David Ciambrone and Kathryn Morehouse. ABSENT: Betty Ann Sensabaugh STAFF IN ATTENDENCE. Eric Lashley, Library Director and Leslie Bradley, Library Assistant OTHERS IN ATTENDENCE: Linda Nix (CTLS Lay Representative) MINUTES: The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair Shana Nichols at 6:30 PM. David Ciambrone made the motion to accept the minutes of the September 2009 Library Advisory Board Meeting and Marisue Miller seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. DIRECTOR'S REPORT: Director Lashley reported that circulation was slightly down for the month of October compared to the previous year Eric said this was due to the fact that the library was closed 3 days in October 2008 for an inventory and closed 5 days in October 2009. The two additional days of closure explained the reduced circulation and visitation statistics. Announcements: ® The Art Hop in October was a very successful event at the library. The banners which were produced for the Art Hop will be removed the week of November 16 and replaced with special holiday banners for the library. ■ The Friends of the Library were recognized at the October 13, 2009 City Council meeting with a proclamation for National Friends of the Library week. Glenn Mautner was in attendance and was recognized along with other members of the Friends organization. Council approved the library's request to spend the majority of the library's materials budget in an amount not to exceed $130 000 with Ingram, Inc. ® Retirement of Fran Fitzner. Fran has worked for the library for over 12 years and works in the Technical Service Department. She is the library s bookkeeper and maintains all financial records, payroll information, and contacts for all of our vendors. Fran's last day will be January 22, 2010. The library will schedule a reception in honor of Fran and the staff will have a dinner in her honor • Friends of the Library are having their annual calendar sales. Calendars are on sale for $9.00 • Hill Country Book Festival will be held Saturday, November 14 at the library ■ The library will be closed November 26 & 27 in observance of Thanksgiving. This year the library will be opened the Saturday and Sunday after the holiday. ® Facilities Plan - The City will be considering options for a new facilities plan. Options include renovating the old library for a new police station. A large concentration of vehicles in this part of downtown may help justify the need for additional parking at the MLK and 8th Street location. ■ Sculptures — the Texas Society of Sculptures will begin displaying works of local sculptors at the library on a quarterly basis starting this month. ■ Leslie Bradley — Leslie Bradley has been hired to replace Billy Cryer. Eric then went over the patron comments that were provided in the board packet. CONSIDERATION OF AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON THE FOLLOWING: ■ Introduction of a library staff member — Eric Lashley: Leslie Bradley was recently hired as a Library Assistant. Leslie had worked at the library as a Temp/On-Call. Leslie grew up in New Orleans. She attended college in Houston where she met her husband John. John is the District Attorney for Williamson County. Leslie has three children; a son and two daughters. Leslie is a graduate of the University of North Texas on-line Library School. ® Introduction of a board member — Betty Sensabaugh: Shana asked Linda Nix to introduce herself to the board. Linda grew up in a military family. She met her husband Joe while she attended Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls Linda had wanted to become a librarian, but ended up as a teacher Linda taught all over the country as well as in Pakistan. She retired from teaching at Round Rock ISD. Her husband Joe took a teaching position in Georgetown after retiring from the military Linda and Joe moved to Georgetown in 1995 Linda has served on the Library Advisory Board and currently serves as the CTLS lay representative. Linda volunteers at the library as well as the Caring Place where she serves on the board of directors. ■ Inventory Statistics — Eric Lashley: Eric reported that 1,275 items (1.4%) out of 90,208 were unaccounted for after October's inventory Eric noted that some of these items may be stolen improperly withdrawn, or otherwise missing for unknown reasons. The staff will continue to search for these items and at some point will go ahead and remove these items from our computer system. Two categories that had a higher than average missing rate were the music CDs (3.3%) and DVDs (6.5%). The board discussed ways in which to reduce the theft of these items. ® Georgetown Learns — David Ciambrone: David announced the Georgetown Learns program has gone well and that the advertising for the spring semester should be out soon. ® Playaways for our library? — Eric Lashley: Eric passed out a Playaway digital audio book to the board and demonstrated how the device operated Eric distributed a report of the conversations he had with the Harker Heights, Austin and New Braunfels public libraries, a report of which is attached to these minutes. After some discussion, Eric feels it is best not to deploy the Playaways, but to invest in the downloadable audio books. ■ CTLS news — Linda Nix Linda reported that Eric and she had gone to the City of Hewitt to attend a CTLS regional meeting. At the meeting, the participants discussed the following topics: 1 E-rate grants to pay for basic telephone service for libraries 2. Plinkit project — a program that allows libraries to create websites without knowing HTML or other computer languages. 3. SYNG grant — which would allow libraries to get a computer that would be dedicated to Texas Work Force Commission software and other employment related software. 4. CTLS Membership — allowing CTLS to open membership to school and academic libraries. There was much discussion about having more members and less money to serve the membership. Friends of the Library criminal background checks — Eric Lashley: Eric had placed this item on the agenda based on some e-mails he had exchanged with Glenn Mautner Glenn had remembered that during a previous board meeting, when discussing whether to require library volunteers to have criminal background checks, the issue of Friends' volunteers had never been settled. After some discussion, David Ciambrone made the motion to strongly recommend to the Fnends of the Library to consider criminal background checks for their volunteers to protect the library and the Friends from possible lawsuits and Glenn seconded the motion The motion passed unanimously Eric said he would bring this to the Friends Board's attention at their November 11, 2009 meeting. Vice Chair Shana Nichols adjourned the meeting at 7:50 PM. Respectfully submitted, Anjanette Courtin, Secretary Shana Nichols, Vice Chair Notes from area Playaway libraries Harker Heights Public Library. • Playaways have been popular • When the library began using Playaways, the library provided 2 rechargeable batteries. This became unmanageable and the patrons are now required to provide batteries. • Limited titles Austin Public Library: • Have had mixed results. Some branches really like the Playways and others get little use. Lower income neighborhoods seem to have a higher usage. • Would prefer to have downloadable audio books, but cannot afford the subscription fees • Are considering using Ingram's downloadable product, but are concerned about number of available titles • Playaways have limited titles • Titles are expensive New Braunfels Public Library: • Used a grant to purchase approximately 60 Playaways as a pilot program • Limited titles • Have had a number break • Use rechargeable batteries, not a problem, recharge all batteries once a week • Cases are on the shelf, but players are kept behind the desk • Titles expensive • Will not continue program due to the fact that they want to move to the Ingram downloadable books and not create an additional format Average cost of a Playaway = $60.00 Average cost of books on CD = $40.00 Other concerns: Many books on CD users listen to the CDs in their automobiles. Playways require an input jack to be played in an automobile. Some automobiles, depending on the placement of their radio antennas, cannot use input jacks. DIRECTOR'S MONTHLY REPORT GEORGETOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY October 2009 HIGHLIGHTS • The library sponsored the Art Hop reception on October 2. Although no accurate count of people is available, it is estimated that five hundred people came through to view the art show that evening. • The annual inventory took place October 5-9 and for the first time in several years, we inventoried the entire collection. The process was completely automated with pairs of staff members using barcode scanners and computers individually scan all items. Catalogers checked the collections as they were completed to identify . unexpected and missing items, then staff pulled or looked again for those materials. • On October 13, at the regular City Council meeting, Mayor Garver read a proclamation declaring October 18-24 Friends of the Library Week in Georgetown. This is part of a national campaign to raise awareness of the work of library Friends organizations. During this week the Friends conducted their annual membership drive in the lobby of the library. • A Halloween party for children of all ages was held the evening of October 30. Attendance was very high and a good time was had by all. Activities included a costume contest, build a spooky house contest, arts and crafts, and games. STAFF • Supervisory staff reviewed nearly 300 applications for the open Library Assistant position and interviewed four applicants. Leslie Bradley, who has been a temp on call for more than a year, was offered and accepted the position. • Eric Lashley attended the annual conference of the Texas Municipal League, which was held this year in Fort Worth, October 21-23. VOLUNTEERS • Volunteers were extremely important in making the Halloween party a success. Teens who helped included Olivia, Elliot, Blake, Brian, Kory, Chelsea, and Noreen. PATRON COMMENTS Comment: Great Library. Not enough hours to use computers. Comment: Could you all please install Microsoft silverlight. I was trying to use Bing's visual search but it wouldn't load because it needs silverlight. Comment: How about open more hours. Especially Friday evenings. 0 Comment: Can't find new non-fiction without numbers in sequence! EORGETOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY Comparative Fiscal Year Statistics 2009 Oct Nov Dec Annual Total Patron Visits Current Year 2008-2009 29997 22046 25586 339790 2007-2008 18694 304799 2006-2007 22271 19035 14916 202304 Circulation 2009 Current Year 38681 2008-2009 38909 33986 33923 496603 2007-2008 31074 31938 30642 431294 2006-2007 28923 25337 24141 386948 FY 2009-2010 Statistics Children's Programs Annual Total Attendance 985 985 Programs 3 3 Story Time 19 19 Other (Tour, Movies, 0 0 After School Progran 0 0 Other Services ILL Ordered 38 38 ILL filled 29 29 Lg Print Circuit 200 200 Internet usage (persons} 7242 7242 Volunteer Hours Adult 601.00 601,00 Teen 22.00 22,00 Community Service 130.50 130,50 Total 753,50 0.00 0,00 753.50 Registrations City Residents -new 178 178 GISD Kids` Cards 30 30 Non -residents -new 37 37 Total 245 _0 0 245 Cash Receipts Fines/Misc. Revenue 2973.07 297107 Non-resident fees 2014.50 2014.50 Donations 891 A 5 891,15 Gifts/Memorials 442.30 442,30 Meeting Room Use persons attdg meetings 2644 2640 Library Collection Changes Copies Added 1346 1346 Copies Discarded 922 922 Donations Added 379 379 Notes: a Manual sign-up lists ended 3/28/06, no scats for last 4 days of March. ** Library closed 12127/06 - 1/20/07, Not all public Intemet computers were working as of 1/31/07, No people counting devices Installed until April 20, 2007: GEORGETOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY DONATIONS -- October 2009 'DbNOR Joe Nix Nathan Ratcliff Richard Hoierman Mary Ann Barbour Friends of the Georgetown Library Lester Frazier Shirley Rinn Nelda Burson Dt7NATIbN . f Copy of his book, A Personnel Management Guide and Training Workbook Subscription to Yes! Magazine Copy of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer Copy of The Mosaic Crimes by Giulio Leoni $442 for children's book browser $200 undesignated Six novels from Karen Moning's Highlander series Two copies of her memoir, The Results of the Cotton Patch Romance 11 • .7