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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLibrary Board - Minutes - 04/14/2003Council Liaison: Marty Tharp Chairperson: Mary Robertson (Phone: 407-70( Staff Liaison: Brenda Cams (Phone 221-6 A regular meeting of the Library Board was held on April 10, 2003 in the Ben Delatour Room of the Main Library at 201 Peterson Street. The following Library Board members were present: Rudy Maes, Donald Oehlerts, Ralph Olson, Mary Robertson, and Joan Scheuerman. Library Board Members Absent: City Staff Members Present: Friends of the Library Liaison: Visitor: Bob Burns, Melissa Pattison Brenda Cams, Marty Heffernan, Lynda Dickson, Crystal Bollman, and Marjorie Teklits Lillys Price Jean Blaylock, League of Women Voters The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. by the Chairperson, Mary Robertson. Joan Scheuerman moved to approve the minutes of the March 13, 2003 meeting; Rudy Maes seconded the motion, and it was unanimously approved. Correspondence: Brenda brought to everyone's attention the March 27a' article which appeared in The Coloradoan about the library being one of three recipients of an Arlene Nededog Merchant Awareness Award for doing an exceptional job of providing racial and ethnic -related products and services. The award was presented at a ceremony at Harmony Library on March 26`s. Reports/Presentations: a. Director - Brenda Cams Starting mid -May, the Library is planning its first adult Summer Reading Program, complete with prizes. It should be a fun program, and Brenda encouraged everyone to participate. The program is fully funded by the Friends of the Library. The City Manager's office has agreed to fund security guard walk-throughs of the Main Library through the remainder of this year. Permanent security guard coverage will be included with 2004/05 budget requests. Poudre School District (PSD) is planning to open 6 libraries this summer. Library staff have offered to assist with prizes and a packet of Summer Reading Program (SRP) information but the School District has not responded to the offer as yet. They will be having a separate reading program which will most likely follow the State SRP theme. The Library Trust is planning a fall author banquet as a fundraising event. Author Tom Noel, who is also a Denver Post columnist, will be the main speaker and some local authors will be invited as well. More information about the event will be shared as details become available. Regional Library Service Systems may be eliminated due to budget cuts. Since they supervise the courier service subsidized by all members who belong to the system, it could affect lnterLibrary Loans and books borrowed through Prospector. If the courier service is eliminated, it could cost between $1.7 to $2.1 million annually for the average library just to mail these items through the postal service. As a result, the cost would have to be passed along to customers borrowing these items or the service would have to be eliminated. The Children's desk at Harmony Library is being remodeled to make it more functional and to assist with noise abatement; it is hoped to complete the project before the Summer Reading Program begins. This is the last year that funds are available from the Poudre Valley Hospital for the HealthAware collection; it is hoped that a potential partnership for a joint library with the Poudre Valley Health System at some point might help to keep this collection current. The Barton Early Childhood Center library will be closing May 30`h as funding for it is no longer available. Don Oehlerts volunteered to represent the Library Board at the April 18`s Harmony Library Advisory Committee Meeting. Ralph Olson represented the Board at last October's meeting. b. Friends of the Library - Lillys Price The Friends had an excellent program on forming book groups at their General meeting. They have scheduled presentations from library department heads for upcoming Board meetings. Future book sales are scheduled for July and October. The Friends Shop at Harmony has new rolling bookcarts which are more attractive and functional. Lastly, Wal-Mart has contacted the Friends to present them with a literacy grant award. C. Public Relations - Joan Scheuerman, Ralph Olson Joan asked if the Board was interested in conducting another survey, similar to the one sent out last May. Ralph attended the Library District Information Workshop in Lovemand and said a survey to help gauge the level of public support for libraries could be helpful in determining the success of a ballot issue for funding of library services. It might help in building a case, forming a strategy and timeline. He learned there is a strong correlation between whether people were registered voters, possess a library card and read the newspaper; that these people are most likely to be library supporters. d. Circulation Department Presentation - Lynda Dickson Circulation Manager Lynda Dickson and Supervisor Crystal Bollman explained what a typical day in the Library's Circulation Department is like. Between the Main and Harmony Libraries, 6.5 FTE (Full -Time -Equivalent) supervisory staff are supported by 57 hourly employees including help from a handful of Work Study students. Circulation also oversees the services of 1 FTE and 1 3/4 FTE hourly employee who take care of the InterLibrary Loan functions. The department relies heavily on the Library's pool of volunteers, some staff from the Larimer County workforce and Poudre School District PACE and ACE students. Daily tasks before the library opens include clearing hold shelves (an average of 50 to 60 holds a day are not picked up by customers), running reports, taking care of paging slips, balancing the cash register, running overdue notices, clearing voice mails, responding to calls, clearing the check -in rooms, preparing and emptying crates of books in transit delivered by the courier, and shelving books. Other daytime tasks include checking out materials, taking fines, preparing for a second bookdrop delivery, checking in new materials processed by Technical Services, processing more paging slips (every 2 hours), pulling Prospector paging slips and processing items, processing holds, dealing with problem media items and damaged books, shelving and shelf reading. In the course of a year, shelves are totally "read" twice to restore their order, and every item is counted once every five years. At closing time, shelvers clear abandoned books, papers and pencils from the entire building, separate and sort picture books, clear voice mail, and turn off computers. Shelvers also help with shifting book collections, provide programming support, do inventory, weed items in bad condition and help with special projects. Some other routine reports handled by the Circulation staff include items claimed returned, change of address reports, collection agency reports, and merging duplicate accounts reports. Lynda said the new self check machines have helped tremendously in freeing up staff time to do some of the above tasks, and customers seem to like using the machines. In February/March 2002, only 24.72% of checkouts were done using the machines; in February/March 2003, 42.38% of customers used the new machines. Soon, one of the machines will have the capability of providing instructions in both English and Spanish. Board members were very impressed with all the statistics Lynda provided and thanked her for the presentation. OLD BUSINESS a. Draft Budget Input - Mary Robertson Mary presented a draft memo from the Board to the Budget Office regarding recommendations for the 2004-2005 budget development. Don Oehlerts moved that the memo be approved and sent; Ralph Olson seconded the motion, and it was unanimously approved. b. Library Funding - Marty Heffernan Marty, Brenda and Ralph attended a session today at the Loveland Public Library to learn about the pros and cons of library districts. Experienced Librarians from the Denver metropolitan area talked about their experiences in forming and operating Library Districts in Arapahoe and Douglas Counties. Basically, they felt the Districts, funded through property taxes, are a great way of providing library services to their communities. Ralph said they learned about some of the advantages and disadvantages of the concept. Operating as a district, the library owns their building, administers their own personnel, and insurance might cost less as library employees are not as likely to be injured as, for instance, utility workers might be. On the other hand, a library in a district does not have access to the services they have when part of a city organization: they have to take care of maintenance services, snow removal, hire their own lawyers, etc. Marty felt that Fort Collins is not currently in a position of moving in the direction of a library district at this time; it is a huge undertaking and simply not viable right now. Brenda said Loveland is very interested in the library district concept as they feel their general fund money could be used for other things; Wellington is also looking for additional funds and would probably be receptive to a library district concept while Berthoud does not seem to want to go in that direction. Brenda also mentioned that Lafayette is considering charging non -city residents for library cards and is eventually planning to present a funding issue to voters as an alternative. Marty said it might still be possible for the initiation of a ballot issue this year for a library funding or taxing district, but next year is more realistic due to the present economic climate and world circumstances. If 1 Mill were approved by voters in the unincorporated area of the County, it would result in $568,785 divided among libraries in the County as follows: Fort Collins $ 312,263 Loveland $ 182,580 Berthoud $ 54,034 Wellington $ 19,910 If 1 Mill were approved Countywide by voters for library services, it would result in $2,795,877 divided as follows: Fort Collins $1,604,402 Loveland 758,648 Estes Valley 254,280 Berthoud 96,023 Red Feather 41,847 Wellington 40,675 Brenda added that as property values increase, the Mil value also increases, resulting in more available funds; however, it can also go the other way. As far as the Fort Collins Public Library, funding needs to build, furnish and stock a southeast branch approximate between $34 million and $1 million for Operation and Maintenance. It is estimated to cost $40 million for a Civic Center Library plus $3.1 million for Operation and Maintenance. In talking about funding districts, Marty said that there is always a possibility that, in difficult times, sales tax money could be taken away as other funding comes in, and this is something to consider. He also mentioned that the concept was similar to legislation introduced today regarding regional authority districts. If the legislation passes, it would have a significant impact on libraries. Ralph said he could prepare a presentation for the Board summarizing provisions of the legislation if it passes and have a discussion on long term strategy if it doesn't. Mary asked what the next steps might be; Marty said we need to get direction from the City Manager and then take it back to the Board. Lil asked if transportation issues might be put on a future ballot; Marty said it possibly could in the form of a maintenance fee. She also asked if Fine Arts are likely to initiate a ballot issue; Mary said if they did it would be for a small amount over a short period of time; they are talking about a Downtown Civic Center with a variety of different components. NEW BUSINESS: a. City Council Policy Agenda Input - Mary Robertson The Board was given copies of the City Manager's March 13`h memo requesting input concerning major policy issues and concerns to be addressed over the coming two-year period. Mary presented a draft response from the Board who made suggestions for clarification. Don Oehlerts moved to submit the memo as revised; Ralph Olson seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved. The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Matj n e Teklits Administrative Secretary