1996-04-22 Board of Library Trustees Minutes

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R L EBoard of Library Trustees 1 ( Minutes of Meeting - April 22, 1996 Conference Room - Reading Public Library - 6:00 p.m. &recent: Ms. Cherrie Dubois, chair; Mr. William Diamond; N 4 6 o4 Fields; Mrs. Elia Marnik; Dr. Christine Redford; Mrs. Maria Silvaggi. Guests: Stephen and Rachel Baumgartner. Ms. Dubois called the meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. Minutes: Dr. Redford moved to accept the minutes of March 18. The motion passed. Mrs. Silvaggi moved to accept the minutes of February 15 as amended. The motion passed. Financial report: Bills for this month include the final installment of the Children's Room desk, close to $8000 in capital funds, and attendance at the Public Library Association conference for two staff members. Statistics: March's circulation is down from last year because of weather, but not by much. Report from the chairman: The fundraising committee will meet tomorrow. Ms. Dubois and Arthur Knapp have been working on printed materials. A note of thanks from Corinne Fisher was read. Director's report: The Director has heard unofficially that the Web page grant will be funded. The Library applied for $16,000 and may be awarded $10,000. Mrs. Hanley spoke about the Internet at the Kennedy School today. son reports: None. Friends report: The Friends have released seed money for the summer reading clubs. Book donations are being collected for the sale on May 18. The house tour is about half sold out. The Friends are sponsoring a lunch with the visiting poet on Wednesday. Other important dates are in the recent newsletter. The Friends received $950 for the centennial celebration. New business: 1) Ms. Hanley and Ms. Dubois will meet with the Superintendent of Schools and the Chair of the School Committee tomorrow. They will discuss a pilot project in which the Coolidge school library joins NOBLE as a branch of the Reading Public Library. There has been some discussion of the high school library joining the pilot also. The superintendent, the principal, and the school librarian know that this is going to cost money. Because public library staff will be responsible for training, this will be an added burden and may require funding of additional staff time. What ultimately might happen, but is not being discussed right now, is that the schools will contract with the public library director to provide managerial services. The project may affect many positions in the public library. There was discussion about lack of resources at the schools making this a needed step, appropriate pay for increased work, reciprocal benefits between the school libraries and the public library, and differences in __'°"nsation between school and public librarians. 1