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Board of Library Trustees
Minutes of Meeting -June 16, 2003 i ` , E Q
E M
Present: Dick Ogden, chair; Suzy Axelson; Steve Conner; Roberta McRa , a Storti; Vicki
Yablonsky; Kimberly Lynn, Director; Elizabeth Dickinson, Assistant Director.
Mr. Ogden called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
The minutes for the May 19 meeting were approved.
Financial Report
Ms. Lynn reviewed with Board members the current financial report and stated that all. accounts are
on target.
Statistical Report
Ms. Lynn reported that circulation of materials is up again this month. Video circulation is
especially high. Ms. Lynn will do a recap at the end of the fiscal year which will show circulation
statistics for each media type. This report will be presented to the Board at their next meeting.
Director's Report
Both the Children's Summer Reading Program and Teen Summer Reading Program began on June
16. This year, for the first time, both programs were advertised in the Reading Municipal Light
Department's newsletter.
Phillips Academy has announced that it will join the NOBLE Network as of January 2004.
Although Phillips Andover will participate in interlibrary loan, they will not be open to the public.
- NOBLE will introduce a new web catalog featuring images of cover art before the end of summer.
The implementation of Millennium Phase II (111) has been frustrating because of excessive
slowness. NOBLE is aware of the problem and is working diligently on improving the situation.
Ms. Lynn is working with directors of other area libraries to come up with a draft policy regarding
the impact of the U.S. Patriot Act on public libraries. The policy will be made available to all
NOBLE libraries for adaptation and use.
Ms. Lynn commended the work of custodian John Davis in completing the renovation of the media
area. John is also scraping, caulking, and repainting the windows on the parking lot side of the,
library. In addition, he is replacing the old Plexiglas with new glass.
A $100,000 grant proposal has been submitted to the Gladys Brooks Foundation by the Friends of
the Reading Public Library for construction of a drive-up service window.
Ms. Lynn reporrted that the Lynn Public Library will close its three branches in FY04. As of July 1,
- the Saugus Library will be closing at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and at noon on
Fridays.
The Friends of the Library's Annual Meeting held on June 10 featured a very successful program:
actress Sally Matson's portrayal of Susan B. Anthony.
In staff news, Ms. Lynn announced that she has been elected to serve a second term on the NOBLE
Executive Board, as well as serving on the NMRLS Supplementary Services Committee. She and
Esme Green recently attended a NMRLS program on leadership featuring Marshall Keys as guest
speaker.
Safe Child Policy
Trustees received a draft of the Sage Child Policy in their packets. Corinne Fisher, Head of
Children's Services, provided input for the Board regarding the appropriate age limits for the Safe
Child Policy which had been under discussion at a previous Board meeting. Ms. Fisher reported
that she had surveyed staff members in her department, as well as researching the policies of a
number of libraries in the area. Many library policies indicated that children under the age of nine
should not be unattended in the library. The range of ages indicated by the other policies varied
from a low of eight to a high of ten-years-old.
Ms. Fisher stated that she and her staff were comfortable with the nine-year-old age limit. In
addition, children ages 9 to 11 would have a two hour time limit in which they could be in the
library unattended. A motion to accept the policy with the age limits proposed by Ms. Fisher was
made by Ms. McRae and seconded by Mr. Conner. The motion passed with all in favor. The Board
thanked Ms. Fisher for her input on the issue and her attendance at the meeting.
Patriot Act
Ms. Lynn passed out a draft policy regarding the effect of the Patriot Act on the confidentiality of
library records. She is currently working with other library directors in the area to come up with a
consensus version. After extensive discussion of the proposed draft, the Board postponed the
motion to approve. Ms. Lynn will redraft the policy and resubmit it. There was also agreement on
the need for training staff both in regard to the law itself, and also in the proper procedures that staff
` should follow if confronted by a request from a law enforcement agent. Assistant Director,
Elizabeth Dickinson, will be in charge of planning and implementing this training. Three sessions
will be held, and all staff members will be required to attend one of the sessions.
Meeting Schedule for FY04
Ms. Lynn passed out a schedule of proposed meeting dates for FY 2004. The following changes
were made to this schedule:
November 17 changed to November 24
February 9 changed to February 24
In addition, the Board decided to schedule an additional meeting on July 21.
As there were no Trustee Items, Mr. Conner moved to adjourn the meeting. Motion was seconded
by Ms. Storti; all voted in favor and the meeting was adjourned at 9:15 p.m.
The next meeting will be July 21, 2003 at 7:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by,
Elizabeth Dickinson
Assistant Director