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Minutes - 1991 - Eagle Public Library - 09/09/1991 - Regular Eagle Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting September 9, 1991 Call to order : 7p .m. Present : Mike, Linda, Pat , Marsha, Liz , Lynn. Rick from City Council I . Minutes of July meeting approved . Linda/Pat II . Bills and payroll . Discussed bills not yet received in light of BPL contract . Pat presented the bill from Finch Brown for the copier repair . $327.51 . Discussed a service contract from Finch Brown and discovered it would not cover a new drum. Mike proposed that we do not purchase a service contract for the copier . All agreed . Bills approved . Linda/Liz III . Treasurer 's report . No action. IV. Consent items A. July financial reports hand done as Boise is changing bookkeeping systems. Lynn will repair these numbers by the next meeting . B. Looked at statistics and noted obvious errors. Circulation numbers up . EPL has more items for patron use even though we have not purchased many books this year . Patrons at the city budget hearings felt that EPL should not need to spend its money for book purchases because of the BPL contract . Patrons expected contract to provide all those books "hot off the press. " Lynn reported calling several of these patrons to explain the board 's responsibilities (policies, hours, philosophy) and BPL's responsibilities (day to day operation) . Mike added that the board needs a means of keeping in contact with the community. The public needs to know that we still need to build our own collection. Many misconceptions are due to semantics. C. Lynn is pleased with Janice's work and the progress of her training . V. Contract Administrator 's report The cleaning is being done by Bob Bickler . All cards available have been ordered to clean up the cataloging backlog . They should arrive soon. LaserCat has been installed . More training is needed . The catalog is upgraded quarterly . We will need to budget money in the future to subscribe to LaserCat . Marsha mentioned that catalog cards can be made directly from LaserCat . HP has donated Lotus and word processing and it is on the computer . VI . Old Business Liz reported her conversation with Marge Hooper at the State Library. Marge suggested that we create an ideal building plan now before a move has to be made. Lynn took the paperwork . We will plan a Saturday planning session mid-fall when our new board member has been named . Rick said that the grant request is still pending and the city is trying to get a six-month binder on the Loft building . VII . New Business A. The board evaluated and compared the BPL budget proposal with the EPL proposal . The amounts were very similar . We discussed moving funds from various line items into the book budget as soon as we knew we would not need the funds for the original item. The "video" line should read "Audio-visual . " Mike read the expenditures for capital outlay for the past 5 years. We are currently significantly lower and citizens are rightfully concerned because they have come to expect high- quality service. Mike will provide a historical overview of past budget numbers. We felt that the revenues were accurately estimated . Mike proposed that we submit the budget/Linda & Marsha B. Proposal of FY92 operations budget . City Council pays the insurance and the audit . We discussed how billing would be • posted if BPL paid all the bills. The board would then review bills monthly . Mike would like a running account of encumbered funds. Linda and Lynn said that the budget reports to City Council should include only 2 lines: BPL services/expenditures BPL contracted services The individual line items would then be attached to the EPL/BPL contract . This would simplify our audit . Marsha asked how grants are budgeted in. The $15,000 in the current budget is only a place holder and will be adjusted as we receive grants. Linda moved to instruct BPL to spend money from EPL budget and pay all our bills, then provide a monthly report . Marsha seconded . C. Extension agreement . The board reviewed the agreement and will now direct it to the City Council . Mike discussed I , Section V: This section assumes a level of trust between the EPL and the City Council . Lynn will revise and add budgets and the original contract and service request before submitting it to the City Council . Lynn/Liz D. Non-resident fees. Board approved the new non- resident fee and a senior citizen fee. Mike/Linda E. One hour was added to library hours on Saturday. Hours were set for both summer and winter service in the future. Winter hours will commence as soon in September as possible. Linda/Pat (At this point Frank from the Valley News arrived . ) VIII . New officers will be selected in October . So moved : Mike/Linda The City Council told Mike that citizens wanted a central place for meeting notices. Mike proposed the bulletin board near the front door . We may need to limit the size of the notices because of space available. Our policy that only non-commercial announcements are permitted . Rick will have Ann put on the appropriate mailing lists to receive these meeting announcements. Suggested for new board members: Dean or Joyce Graham. IX . No Friends report X . Public Comments from City Council Budget Hearings People are concerned with the number of best sellers available. This is a communication difficulty: these need to be purchased from EPL funds. Ann has stuck to her collection development plan which remains appropriate and effective. The library needs to be open while Ann attends Chamber of Commerce meetings . Lynn will make sure this time is covered . Two days a week Ann had been required to eat her lunch on site. She has been instructed to take her full half hour away from the circulation desk . If patrons come in for help , Ann is to return to the study area and complete her half hour when they leave. This has been adjusted for the fall schedule and BPL will provide additional coverage so Ann may leave the building . We discussed how to make new services public . We need the library to be more visible to the public . Mike asked if we felt that the library is preforming better today than in the past . He mentioned that different patrons have different measurements of this performance. He stated that the board has worked towards consistent hours and services. A big priority in past years has been job quality for Ann. The public perceived the availability of best sellers as an important measurement . Linda suggested that we submit more information to the Valley News . Mike feels the link between the board and the community through Ann has been lost . Therefore, community issues are not coming into board meetings. Building that communication should be a top goal next year . Marsha suggested regular articles in the paper . Lists of good books for Christmas gifts could be displayed in several places in the community. Ann might keep a list of requests as they relate to board policy for the board to discuss. The collection development plan is still relevant . Mike requested a year-end report of what has been added to the collection. The board read the letter from Shari Sharp . It is the board 's job to provide increasingly better service. We can' t take criticism personally . XI . The next board meeting will be October 21 . Frank from Valley News shared a draft of the first part of a 2 part series he is doing on the library. He then asked the board 2 questions: Who runs the library? Mike answered that the board discusses and establishes the policies and philosophy, provides funds, and secures services for the EPL. The EPL has secured the services of the BPL to operate the library on a day to day basis. Lynn Melton is accountable to the board for this service and hires the necessary employees. Is the contract a good deal? Mike responded the last 2 years for the EPL have been lean. As more land was annexed into Eagle, there were less patrons who were classified as Ada County residents needing to pay non- resident fees. Therefore our county revenues went down as did our funds provided by the city. The BPL contract was made to reach the goal of improving hours of operation. Patrons don' t want to pay the 8% contract fee and want to retail complete independence. The contract , however , eliminates exception management and provides consistent hours and service. Our next goal is to deal with the book shortfall and things are getting better . XII . Adjourn 9:54 XIII . Executive Session At 9:54 p .m. on a motion from Mike/Liz , the Board went into Executive Session for discussion of personnel matters in accordance with Idaho Code 67-2345, on the following roll call vote: Mike, yes; Linda, yes; Pat , yes; Marsha, yes; Liz , yes. . . .a few notes from Liz made on Thursday, 9/ 12: I discovered, as I poked through my "file cabinet" of board papers (a box in the trunk of my car ) , another set of the guidelines for library planning . I suspect you each have them, too . Marge said that we need a Plan on file with the State Library in order to qualify for grant money. (And the term "grant money" does have a nice ring . ) Whether you have the papers or not , please begin thinking in terms of 1 . What specific services and attitudes make our library unique and special to Eagle? 2. What services should grow? 3. What will our community need in the future? 4. Are there new services our library could offer to the community in an expanded facility? 5. What "special " things would we LOVE to see in a new facility?