all right I will call this meeting to order uh this meeting has been advertised in accordance with the New Jersey open public meetings act and is publicly accessible in accordance with law roll call please Kevin here Rocco Dr George here Maddie mayor walk and Frank Weber here okay thank you uh salute to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay we will go right into the minutes so I'll be looking for approval of regular meeting minutes for January 10th um do I have a motion anyone will move to approve the minutes of January 10 Manny moved and and uh Dr George second any discussion okay roll call please Dr George yes Kia yes Maddie yes Frank Weber yes and Kevin yes thank you and now the approve of executive session minutes from January 10th do I have a motion so moved thank you second second thank you any discussion okay roll call please Maria yes Maddie yes Mr Weber yes Dr George yes and Kevin yes thank you okay Personnel oh we want to let Sarah yeah let's wait for them to get in we need a motion no I'm we have another board member joining I'm just giving it a minute okay Sarah can you hear us yeah I can hear you okay we're on Personnel uh accept the res accept the resignation of the library page tyo affective January 13 2024 do I have a motion motion thank you second I'll second thanks any discussion roll call please Maddie yes Mr Weber yes Dr George yes Sarah yes Maria yes and Kevin yes thank you finance um action on the February 14th Bill listing in amount of 209 8256 uh do I have a motion I'll I'll ask Maria wait um Kevin I'm not making a motion because um uh I did not sign the bill sor.com I'd like the board to make that decision I the director told me that the tutor.com only 53 people used it last year and it's $8,000 so does the board want to go forward with this so Kevin we've had a discussion on this in the past yeah the discussion that we had last year was we were going to try it for one year because it was so early attended and the state has a comparable kind of uh program and we were going to then decide whether or not to renew it I uh think that there is a lack of interest in it and it's $8,000 is a significant amount of money the director said she'd like to do it for one more year that's why I'm bringing it up to the board so um we said that later hold on well first should we get a motion to move the bill listing and then continue the discussion you but then I'm going to move it minus the $8,000 Kevin you have moved into Finance so you can have the discussion before you open okay let's finish the discussion then and decide what we want to do so I I did speak to Roco the other day about that um and he agrees that we need to have discussions regarding it and look to see if we feel that there's an issue that we need to better publicize it through the schools I don't think the schools in my opinion have really done any uh publicizing of it I I don't know that they have or not um people have told me that in the past the guidance counselors were promoting it that notices went home to parents none of that's happened since I got here and none of that's in recent memory so the only reason I mean it's a big expense and we have brain fuse and we have Universal class so we do have some things not specifically like tutor got.com Rocco had said that he was partial to it but realist istically it is something more that the schools would use than the regular Library so my only thought had been not to go cutting things until we had a chance to really get the promotions going but I do understand exactly what Dr George just said like last year they said cut it if it doesn't get used but then there was no one really pushing it this year that's true so is there another option for families that need tutoring for their their child but don't have the financial resources for it I know some I'm sorry Frank correct me if I'm wrong but didn't this one of the reasons we considered dropping them previously is for whatever reason uh you know they've they've they've never had great numbers from the beginning and I'm guessing and maybe Maria knows how long is this program been in place five or six years at least yeah and I don't think uh look the bottom line is uh the kids who can afford it uh they get a lot of tutoring done by school teachers who use the library to do it uh now what about the kids who can't afford a tutor right so um I think we're doing better on the other one do we have numbers on the other service now what they've done it's equivalent um brand views we get um through the state sorry uh just so you know I've just taken all of our databases out and I put them into instructional databases materials databases which are books and magazines and music and then um research databases so that we're going to be able to take a closer look at where we're focusing the money that's in that budget um and the only thing that we have um in the instructional is we just got creative bug we have um that we're paying for is tutor.com and I'm just going to double check I believe Universal class or brain fuse one of those comes free from the state which is brain freeze brause brain fuse yeah brain fuse yes and uh I I think that clearly tutor either it's not getting promoted by us properly it's not getting promoted in the schools even though we're hearing it is for whatever reason but uh there's some you know we have 29% of our kids are on free reduced lunch um and it it's just a shame if somebody gets stuck in some issue in math and they they can't even get on and get somebody to help them who may not be if they're an only child they don't have a you know they can't they can't get any assistance and it's a shame we're spending $8,000 on this one with virtually no activity we should be pushing I think brain free they've had seven or eight years to perform and for whatever reason either we've dropped the ball or uh it's not getting where the message needs to be this program is free to library users right yes so is it is it advertised at all in the school district website um I I know it used to be on their parent portal I don't believe it is at this point but I haven't even gotten into um looking at what's being promoted and how it's being promoted that's something that we'd be focusing on for end of school year for this year to see if um we could get that push if we had it um I mean I feel that this would really help students that are aware of it I maybe not yeah just a lot of parents probably aren't aware so Maria is the is the $8,000 an annual payment and it's do and and we're looking to make that payment now is that what it is yes yes so if we if we would pay the 8,000 now if we approve this and we paid it then we have tutor.com for another year but then a whole another year can go on without promoting it and we'll have the same discussion next year right so that was my do we have any idea of what grade levels this encompasses where is it used I think it's supposed to go from lower grades all the way through high school right and has been when it was initiated I don't think it's ever been used I I think the idea of calling in and getting tutoring people are not they don't understand it well one of one of the things that maybe Rocco can bring back to the uh Administration uh or to the board of education is when they do have the open parent night nights and if a little Johnny or Jane is suffering in some area uh that possibly the teacher went if and when the parents are there that they bring this to their attention individually at that time it may be a way of get it because it's it's it's just it's just a shame that especially for kids who can't a families can't afford tutoring that they're missing the benefit of it and tutor.com does not seem to be uh promoted properly and uh you know we don't have any day-to-day contact with the students it's done at the it's done at the schools and it's I I think a big part of the push has to come from them um this is a great I mean if the principes of each school would have it on their whatever weekly information they sent to the parents um that would be great because then that way more parents would know about it something like that you know yeah and that that was my only thought was to you know not present it as an ultimatum but basically to say to the to the school district here's this great resource here's some more training on it but if it's if we don't see the numbers change by December of 2024 then it's not renewed and if it's the board's decision to not renew it this year then we can always mount a campaign because at this point renewing it now I mean we're not going to see the big push we would have an opportunity to push for those are behind for the summer to use it for summer backslide but other than that we're not going to see a really big push again from the district until September so um is the only option to subscribe to tut.com is to is to make one annual payment yes there there all of these databases are annual access and I I haven't seen the contract but is there a termination clause in it if for instance if things were not working out could we bail or is it a year in or year out as I understand that it's a year end and and like we've said we do have Universal class which has um things on it it's not specifically D designed for kids brain fuse has um things on there and brain fuse fuse is is not inexpensive brain fuse is like um almost $6,000 so when you look at what we're spending on instructional databases we're spending almost $25,000 a year on instructional databases that's why I separated those out um so I mean it it is substantial uh I was just going by what uh the direction that I thought that everyone was in uh just as a point of information this contract is scheduled renew now in the middle of the school year is did we get in at that point originally or rather than it should be at least covered the same year of uh study that's certainly not going to be an advantage you know because otherwise we're g to have $4,000 if we I think we lost we l everybody so is this something that could be renewed later on if we decide to we could we could take a look at doing it for September sure yeah because I mean September's not perfect time so are we saying cancel it and then just re honestly I I yeah I don't know I uh somehow I got my lost my uh okay Sor guys for some reason we got kicked offline here okay we didn't see you again okay so uh there's some discussion going on here about cancelling it not not paying it at this time um But continuing the conversation and if we want to reup it you know in a few months and and start a new subscription let's say you know closer to the summertime or something for and and and kind of go in line with the school year that sounds good anybody else have feedback or thoughts on that that would give us more time to you know plan to advertise it to the parents I mean now we we have what four or five months but here's what about the impact of those that are currently using it so how does this website work so so somebody gets paired up with a tutor yes so they're working with that tutor and then all of a sudden next week next month whatever it is they can't connect with that tutor meanwhile maybe they've been making progress or something do we have those numbers do we know who's working with whom no the only thing you know I'm an educator I mean I don't understand that I don't think we even have in our mind what we're aiming for are if you're doing K through 12 you've got to work out how it works I I don't as an educator I wouldn't even know how it works and if you get 50 what did you have 50 something people 56 out of how many thousands of students do we have I think you can find a more effective way and if if I sound impatient about it is we've had this discussion over and over and we come to the same conclusion let's wait a year let's try again we've had that discussion before as Frank and Kevin and Maria probably know so I think we need to make a decision you either give it another year and you try to sell it somewhere or you stop it look around and started as Kevin said later on in the year at a bit of time that's an option well one of the other things you might want to consider I'm sure that the if somebody speaks to uh the vendor and said listen we're seriously considering not renewing the whole contract um would you extend the contract uh through June of this year and uh then we'll you'll we'll make a final decision when we want to go forward starting next year because right now the contract is in the middle of the year so it's some point if you keep remaining in that sacle you're always going to be stuck leaving somebody being being dropped do we have any contact with our fellow Educators do we know know other districts that have used it and have found a way to make it work better or have used it and decided to scrap it do we talk to anybody else about it so so um I think we need to sit down with Roco um and we need to talk about how do we communicate better with the schools so all around Oldbridge for instance you provide a a director's Library director's update update from the library just started doing that started doing that yeah well maybe something similar needs to go to the schools being that the schools don't currently have Librarians right uh information on what's available at your library what's going on at the library um something like that maybe it's not monthly maybe it's quarterly I don't know something like that to like an open house at the beginning of the year you can go and represent the library and BR kind information yeah the problem with old I'm sorry to cut you but the problem with Oldbridge particularly at the elementary level is you have so many elementary schools and the open house is all the same night so you can only be at one unless we we sent 12 Librarians well they don't have 12 schools anymore but uh whatever it is 10 schools 11 schools now whatever there was a time when we were very engaged with the schools and that stopped during Co so we're looking to get back to that again um and one of you know there are a number of things that we need to discuss right now um we had a a staff member from the school say oh you know we heard that the library was going to be buying books for us well what does that mean um you know if they want a class set of 30 books we're not going to do 30 sets of 30 books for the school district without compensation I would think um so yes if it's you know five sets of books for the year we can certainly fit that into our budget so that they have a class kit that can travel around to the schools but we need to have a discussion about those parameters in the same way that if we were to go with tutor what number would mean success for the board clearly 56 is not that number but before we were to go ahead you know is it 5,000 is it 200 you know we'd want to know what that look what number that is before we move ahead I think you also need to have discussion with Educators somewhere along the line because you're all talking about tutors but I don't know it's from a different angle uh and I don't I don't think clear it's not clearly defined as what you mean and when're most of you are not not Educators and I I don't Rocco God bless him but he's high school if this is a K12 thing that you're paying for you got a different world down in K well the other thing is too that there's you know private schools in Oldbridge as well and we want to serve the entire community so you know how do we reach out to them as well I'm sorry Kevin I didn't hear you who are I said I said that there's private schools in Oldbridge as well and if we want to really tutors are your own staff that you're reaching out to the main tutors I believe are teachers who is I think danan said use the library and they do tutoring uh so you're really asking them to try a different approach I don't think there's a problem with that but I think I'd talk to the union find out how they feel about it does it work we've been doing it for ages do we have any kind of data on whether kids who use the tutoring service do better than others I have no idea I it's it's always been kind of gray it's not clear as to how it works what the sign up is and what happens we should also talk to some parents who have used it with their kids and give us a commercial or whatever okay so where where do we stand with this now do we want to continue tutor.com or are we going to if you're doing a straw poll and Frank had said he would vote against it I would also vote against it when you say vote against it vote against toa.com yes I believe Frank just said it I don't want to speak for him but he said it was a no for him is that true Frank I'm sorry I stepped away from it please bring up today taking a straw poll of where we stand with tut.com Frank would you be in support of paying for tuna.com again for another year or would you be support of uh putting it on hold or or where do you stand at this point hang on I'm having a little uh technical problem here let me just plug in my headset all right just do something Kevin well I was just G to say does somebody else want to uh a pine can you hear me now yes all right oh now you're breaking up and you're a little low yeah breaking up my head around Kevin there you go all right we okay now yes yeah my head's too big all right so Frank where do you stand on the tutor.com I think you're throwing good money after bed you had six or seven years of it and we've seen no real effect we have a contact the alternate who is from the uh represents the superintendent and there therefore the school district and if the word's not getting put out in the schools uh then I feel bad for all those children that can't get the advantage of using the service that's we've been paying probably cumul I think we started out at 6,000 so let's say it aage seven Grand youve got 50 Grand into the process with no nothing of any show that says it was successful so I wouldn't throw any more money after it if they're willing to let us go to the end of June so anybody's in the program now and it stays there then you do it and if if you do it that way uh at least you get people through this year but you're going to lose half of the money because you're not are they going to let you quit at the end of June and refund the other four grand I don't think so but to look at it that way good Sarah I totally understand Frank's point and I I agree that if we're not seeing people use it then we're just paying for a service that's for kind of no reason and I don't I don't know this as well as I should but I like the idea of it I think that that's part of the reason that we support the library right is to give these tools especially to kids that you know maybe don't have the money and rely on the library for their resources and I would hate to take something away from them that's actually helpful so have we and sorry that I don't know these answers but like have we done you know any like paid social like dark targeting ads on our social channels to tell people that this is an asset have we done any like paid advertising behind this like I am a board member I didn't even know we had this like what are we doing do we have the opportunity this year to try some new tactics to actually get people in our town to know that this service is offered to them like how do we is or is it just you walk into the library and you figure it out like I my my daughters in elementary school I've never gotten a form that says t.com is something that is available so I guess maybe this is like a larger discussion but I don't even really understand how people know so are we wasting our money because people we we're not educating people the right way because then that's on us do a better job so I I will tell you literally two weeks ago was the first time I got through what do we get free from the state what are we paying for what's not even included on the website that we've already been paying for what are the prices what are the categories so you know it it impacts so many things the way that it's laid out on the website is is not really right now so all these things are tied together but the start was getting the list breaking it down into categories making sure that we have access to all of the statistics and yeah and then seeing that so that's where we're at we're just everything in position so that start and I just uh last week started a asking for um whatever marketing and graphic design proposals for the board so that we're not looking at engaging someone full-time we're looking at having a consultant to help us particular projects I I think that's exactly what you should be doing Don and I kudos to you for even organizing that because I would love I would love to be part of any kind of refresh of the website because that's like what I do for a living obviously is Communications um so with that being said and Dawn kind of getting her hands on it and understanding where all of these pieces are then I say we give it another go and let's actually do this the right way let's put it as one of the main things on the website let's actually use our social channels and leverage it let's use the any Town resources right I think that we it's our job to also push back on the schools or anybody else to say hey did you forget that this exists like this is a tool this is an asset that you can give these kids so if we're paying for it anyway and the school the school is in session right until June so I I don't think that we I think we should give it a real shot I don't think that we have done that before it doesn't really sound like it okay M maybe I'm a little naive uh but I would think that anybody who is a teacher and if they were aware of this program would want to use it for any other students that are troubling or at least offer to them because it's going to make their job potentially easier so I would I would hope so but I mean I'm thinking like even during covid like my daughter's in third grade I had no idea that this is a tool right not that like she's does she I I papay for a private tutor just for my the only the only the only thing the only thing I can think of is maybe the teachers don't know what it is that's what I'm that's what I'm and that's why I'm saying yeah when there are teachers who are earning money as tutors in in the library generally because of the you know the concerns about a teacher with the uh you child um you have to tend to believe you know now some parents might not recognize their child is struggling on one subject if they don't do homework with them but yeah I'd say fine if you go ahead but whatever you put in place remember it's February we only have what five months or four months of school left so I don't know how much of a impact you're going to see get it in place particularly if you don't have 100% cooperation from the school district I talking to some teachers again I don't know does a person call the tutor once do they sign up and tutor for the rest of the year we don't know anything about it at least I don't maybe everybody else does so I don't really even know what you're buying I don't think we've done the homework well shown that you need to know what you're talking about we've doing it this way for five six seven let's let's continue on with the straw poll I'd like to see what zap has to say Z all right Maria Maria I I assume that your opinion because you you raised this is that you feel that we should not be renewing it is that correct I only felt that way because you know 53 people or 56 that I was told have used it I didn't think that was a lot I thought maybe we could get something else but if the board wants to do another year let's do another year because that's what the director has suggested we lose 8,000 but it's not that we don't have the 8,000 we could do it for another year and give it a chance and hopefully we we start to advertise it properly and maybe we can talk to Rocco and maybe the schools can start okay so Maddie um I've never heard of tutor.com actually this is the first time and I was just wondering um what is it does it offer math help is it language arts is it just what is it so the only time I've gone on to look at it is just to put in my library card make sure that we can get in and it says connect with a tutor and that's right so then if if we learn what really what it's really about then we can inform uh the schools the parents and I mean I feel like this is a very important program if it does help them with math language arts um so it's just showing up here on their website the first thing that comes up you could search for a subject but the first few it gives you is math English calculus reading chemistry SAT writing so it has a lot so it has a lot um oh and they have dropped down into the lower elementary grades if you look at the horrific scores after the pandemic throughout the state even though we're one of the top three states for Education we're miserable to the rest of the industrialized World um so if we ever need tutos and you get I mean if you're in a course like calculus or anything and you get you can't get past one issue and there nobody capable to help you but it's also for kids who need help and they have people who are multilingual so if you have immigrants here immigrants children's first generation it's in theory it's a wonderful program yeah fact it doesn't turn out to be that way yeah so zap has her hand up k z hey sorry I I was trying to finish up on dinner um so I think it's a great resource um it will take some time to get traction so I will continue with the service and um maybe up our marketing strategy a little bit I know Sarah had um offered some help so whatever help is needed I can help with that as well um but I think I think the issue is and it has I I don't think it's it's a library issue I think it's a community issue um our Oldbridge Community is not as engaged as they should be not everybody comes to the library you know be it the location or whatever so I feel that if we we were to up the marketing a little bit and go to community centers and have those fliers I know we had talked about it a while back about doing this um some sort of like a traveling marketing committee uh I can offer my services after April where we can go to different events around town and talk about what we're doing as a library and then and then you know give this a few months because this is a great resource I know I have a lot of friends and their kids pay a lot of money to get tutoring um if we could continue offering this this would be an an amazing thing so I I have a lot more questions than I thought I did before this whole discussion started so to Dr George's point I think we need to get more information on it because here's what I'm wondering now as I'm thinking about it my my my understanding of it my thought was that it was something that was a free resource so we subscribe to it and pay for it so that the members of the community can utilize the website for free whereas if I just went to the website I'd have to pay for it correct correct okay and it says on the website that it's a great way to find a tutor so if I needed a tutor for my child I would go to this website and find a tutor much like there's websites where somebody could find a dog walker or something like that those websites are typically fre because the dog walker is paying to join it because they're going to profit when I need a dog walker and I find you know I don't even know what the name rover.com or whatever I can go to rover.com for free but the the dog walker is actually paying something to to be a member on there so that then I'm paying the dog walker once I connect with them I'm working with them that's what this sounds like it's a way to meet a tutor you're you're not paying the tutoring is is included in $8,000 a year so so none of those it's not a matchmaking service so it's not a matchmaking service so if if if I wanted to find a tutor for my child I would find a tutor and that tutor gets paid by Tut to.com to tut to my child yes my questions okay because we just mind you this is one of many databases we have where we're making sure that we're getting in and taking care of things so I don't know how many tutoring sessions you get I don't know whether you can keep the same tutor every time I don't know those things I just or there's an aggre videos because $8,000 if you do have 200 students doing two sessions a week your eight grand is gone right you know in two weeks so and and this is the only thing I mean I've gone in I've looked at it I put in my card and it says match up with the tutor and that's where you go in and you start you can talk about your age level and the topic and all of those things I can't imagine that you can have the same tutor for three months every week but I need to go in and look at it more okay um it's one of those things that I think Dr George spoke to that a librarian recommending tutor.com is not going to be meaningful a teacher an educator recommending tutor.com that's going to be meaningful because they can State what specific benefit your child is going to get from it right so I think that's part of the reason with us recommending it as much as this is a great resource we're Librarians right so it's it's the teachers that need to do this so we can make a commitment to it make sure that people go in or we can take a break from it for a while do you have the expiration date uh I I don't it's um it's in the bills that I believe it's expiring now this month janary expiring February 29th I believe out okay that's just wondering if we have time and so if it expires at the end of this month and there's a student or students that are in process of working with tutors they're going to just quickly be told sorry your subscription ran out and we can't help you right um I don't know how quickly they cut that off I'm gonna go I'm going to assume that they wouldn't let us have it for free until June yeah but I think that they'd certainly give us a couple of weeks the other thing that I need to get down to is does this mean 56 sessions or does this mean 56 unique users because if that's a unique user that's been using it every week those are numbers that I have to so every one of these databases people have been keeping statistics but I don't know what they've been pulling as an example value line is financial they give you unique us users documents downloaded and searches done I don't know what numbers they've been keeping track of because you can't just pick a number it has to be meaningful for what you're doing so I tried getting in this afternoon and I've got to work with Adam because we just got the sheet done and it's on the Google Drive and I don't know where it is so um yes there is more work that needs to be done and then to Sarah's Point Maddy's Point um that they were not aware of this I agree with that because I've come across uh Sarah I said the same thing one time a number of years ago when I first found out about Museum passes uh it wasn't until there was a discussion regarding if we should continue them because there didn't seem to be a great demand that I found out that we had a museum P program so you know a lot of that just continues to emphasize the fact that we we really need to start uh our marketing campaign via social social Mark social media and and other uh other ways through the schools um Community newsletters what whatever it might be so so what we've already started with are just small things the article for allaround Oldbridge this month the article that I just sent them is you know at the library we understand now that some of our busiest users will never meet face to face because we've got so much online and then it just goes into all of those things so then next month we're going to hit something different like probably the Museum passes because we need to but this is where the schedule of what we're promoting and what Outlets we're using needs to be done as an entire project schedule so that we're not kind of flailing around last minute doing stuff another small inexpensive thing we've started doing bookmarks the bookmarks promoted canopy kids canopy and creative bug I've now given those at circulation so people in circulation have an opportunity to help us promote materials and it's going in there so we're I'm trying to get all of those different modalities of communication um onto One schedule I mean really what I love are your Flyers are amazing I was here the other day and you have so many Flyers with all your programs but it they're here we need to get out to community because they're just you know there's a lot going on in the library a lot and if you look at those flyers they're done so well and our staff are doing them and this is why in my opinion we don't need um a person creating this stuff it's easy enough to create it at this point we just need the coordination and to make sure that uh everyone is able to participate without becoming overwhelmed in addition to their other duties okay so uh I tried to take a straw poll but it seems that we're pretty well split on continuing it versus discontinuing it um I I don't want myself I don't want to see uh some students who may be benefiting from it even though it's a very small number um start to lose out because we just decided that we weren't promoting it well enough and we need to cancel it um on the other hand you know $8,000 a year for 56 people to use is kind of uh a big expense as well so um I I guess I I'll I'll suggest that we continue another year but uh I think that we need to definitely take a a takeaway that we need to um decide what um what are we providing at the library what resources are we providing that we feel we're not getting a benefit from uh or the community is not getting a benefit from rather and determine how do we either promote those things or what do we start to eliminate um that being tutor.com that being Museum passes all that type of stuff right that you know if we start to do a big promotional campaign and we see increase in this then we know we we need to continue the campaign if we do that and we still don't see an increase in numbers then we know these are some of the items that maybe we should start to to cut back at and Stu putting our Focus somewhere else yeah I mean if you look at like hoopla we already did an increase there we know people are using that and I don't know if anybody saw in either the mid-mon report or this report I wanted to have the database statistics available for the board for next month's meeting yes I I agree with everything that Ken and da you just said I think that this prompts all I keep thinking is that like I think we desperately need somebody that can run social digital website and to me that seems like a hire that is a musthave if we want to grow with the times because like Maddie said like we are if you walk into the library and I was in it last week too it's amazing every time I walk in there I'm like this is like one of the best libraries I've been in honestly it's it's so organized and clean and happy and like makes people feel comfortable but unless you're in there I feel like you don't know all the amazing things that are happening and we said this before I know I've said it before but you're not going to solve that if you don't hire somebody that can actually optimize your website optimize your social start this marketing like this to me is such a it should be a hire within like the next month or somebody should be trained to start doing at the library this is a very specialized thing but we need to get with the time it's 2024 like this is how people find out information and I just want to let while everyone's together so the website none of this has been sitting on back burners the issue that we have with our website right now is that the company who's been doing updates so we can't even do direct updates on our website right now because we had this company so the issue is that it's a WordPress site that's had so many layers of code put on it that we can't even get back to it anymore so what we need is to have a duplicate built that we can host and Take Over Control of and then we can start making the uh sorry yeah okay yeah well and could I finish what I was saying please I I I didn't know you could nobody you couldn't hear me I'm sorry um go ahead there's two great sources of information for people who own a home they register the house and and it comes up on the tax records so it'll tell you what the address is it'll tell you when they purchased the house now for people who are apartment and don't have that we have almost 8,000 plus apartments not counting condos the other place to go to is is going to be the election the book you know whether you're a registered voter or not that's going to tell people either you you've come of age or you uh you moved into town and between those two places that's an automatic place to a packet gets mailed from the library or some literature um you've got videos you can get without paying for them you got a lot of things all you need is one hook to get them in the building and when they find out come down for a tour do something whatever uh you know we uh I worked in for Montgomery W retail for a long time and I went to hundreds of marketing meetings and they always have a LW lader we want you get you in the store you want to come in and buy a gallon of paint and walk out with $100 of other material so I think the thing is reach out for them when they get here get them in the library once get them hooked on something and you got them for life and and my apologies what I was saying before was I thought that we got cut off in the middle of my saying we did oh I'm sorry I didn't that's okay that's okay so the website we have is a WordPress website that because we had a a separate company taking care of us they put so much proprietary code on top of that that we now can't get through it and it's actually a problem because when we're trying to get through to them when a new plug-in is put in it can mess up the whole website and we're waiting two days for them to get back to us and that's not acceptable for a library so what I have for the it committee once we get to that is I have um two um um estimates right now that um I need to I know I need to get a third but it's an estimate for building a duplicate of what we currently have because once we have control over it I can go in and change all the databases I can go in and start doing the basics and then we get a consultant in for optimizing the website but there are just a number of dependencies that have to get happened first we need to get it built we need to pull it away from the current contractor then we have control and then we can make the improvements that's it okay all right so where do we stand with this toa.com oh is there okay let me let me change the conversation slightly Maria with the exception of the $88,000 for tutor. tutor.com did you have any concerns on the bill listing no everything else is okay okay so is there anyone that would want to make a motion for the full 209 8261 let's start at that way I'll make the motion okay second thank you all right any further discussion well does the number you've mentioned does that include tutor.com that includes t.com yes so we're g roll call on this all right but I would say that you that we have to make a decision by the end of this school year if you don't think it's it's successful because otherwise if you don't have a dates set match up beginning and end of the same school year you're always going to hang somebody dry if you have to cancel in the middle of the contract the middle of the school year rather so I would go with that and say that if you don't see any progress coming you don't see the usage coming that you carry it only through the end of is school year and you you just lose half of it um I also think you do have another competitor so we have to compare their operation to this operation what is it co all the things D mentioned before how many I will tell you right now nobody gets one person for 56 times uh they get usually get kids that are in trouble on some part of whatever their subject is chemistry whatever science and generally they can't get anybody that they know they can't afford a tutor and they don't have anybody they know that's a chemist or is a biology person a lot of this is to help people get through that stumbling block two three lessons that kind of thing that's at least what it was when we first brought it in I I don't know what it's evolved to since then okay so I I I would make a recommendation that we ask the director to do uh a report um on tutor.com getting as much information as you can you know many of the questions that were raised today exactly how does it work um whatever stats if if toa.com can provide us any stats on our usage over the past year or two years or whatever um and you know provide us some sort of report within either I don't know if you need a month or two months for that but you know so I just curious are we suggesting go ahead and renew and do the report well so right now we have a motion to for the entire 209 so we would be renewing so let's see if this motion passes and then we'll have a discussion if it doesn't okay yeah okay all right any other discussion okay roll call Dr George no Sarah yeah Maria yes Z yes Maddie yes Mr Weber uh with the uh exceptions that I would like to see happen uh yes and Kevin yes okay so it passed so D when do you how long do you think you need to get us like a full extensive report um I mean there it's not gonna be that extensive I mean there's a limit to what they give us right but since I'm doing the database statistics for next month anyway I feel like I can give a full report on all the things that we're paying for okay and if that makes sense so two-thirds of the databases we offer are free from the state not even trying to get into that pile yet um but the things that we're specifically paying for that I can have a a special report ready for the next board meeting okay and da I would I would suggest that if you have a conversation with them ask them given who their star districts are in the United States because whatever that district is doing maybe they'll be happy to talk to you and tell you how they got there or or even New Jersey I mean yeah you know and then speak to them and say how do you guys get so much you know activity on here what are you doing how do you get the word out I I can ask the other directors in lmxac is anybody really having success with tutor.com and what are you doing I'll reach out and I'll I'll see what tools they have available for us that we're not availing ourselves up okay thanks all right moving on to uh old business any old business anyone I don't have anything uh new business oh yeah excuse me I have one item for old business D you mentioned that the uh uh last month's meeting that the security system to see if books were walking out of here uh that that wasn't uh do we know how long that system has been down I have no idea how long it's been down um not to make everything seem complicated but it is so what I'm doing right now to give the board a full picture I have to get a price on how much it costs to put the RFID tags on how much the RFID tags cost how much the equipment costs to get security going back and once I have that full picture then I'll be able to give the board all of those options it's just a lot of um proposals to gather from a lot of different companies to put this picture together and is there any way of uh would the Assumption be that the hot books are stolen or technical books or do we know have any idea it honestly it's so hit or miss at this point because the hot current books are an obvious choice but then maybe there are books that are a little more rare we have older books that are out of print things like that people may come in looking for those there's if if you looked at our book sale um when it was really full people come in now and they literally take their cell phone and they sit there scanning the barcodes on all the books to see what's worth something and they'll go through that entire book sale pulling the books that they think that they can make money on so if that's going on for the book sale that we have that much traffic coming in you can imagine how many people are looking at our collection sure well at least we know those and are't stolen which ones the ones on the book sale hopefully I I honestly I wouldn't I wouldn't trust that either but we're not going to RFID them um and there's a whole lot more for RFID but I have reached out to biota and to one other company I've got um everybody's scheduled to come down and take a look at what we're doing we've already started having meetings just a lot of light work to get those proposals ready um when someone's looking for a book and they're they're looking in a Catal catalog and there's a book available but then it's not available because maybe it's missing maybe it's misplaced we don't know any action ever taken because of that or yeah if it's reported if it's reported if it's not somebody might walk in and just look for the book and not see it there and just leave so do so we have an idea of what our losses no no because we can't do inventory okay we have about hundred 50,000 items in our collection so to do an inventory would be going item by item touching every single book and scanning the barcode once we have RFID all you do is literally you have a wand that's like this and you walk down the shelf and it tells you what's missing okay but you've got to make the investment for RFID first okay all right anything else old and new business let's get into directors report anything you want to highlight I do um I'm just going to well I I'll wait with that for I sorry the Lawrence Harper computers okay I don't so okay so um a couple of things before I get to that um the friends have gotten their 51 C3 um they are having a meeting on February 27th um but I'm very excited that they've gotten um everything taken care of and I thank uh SD Spiegel because I think she really um gave them um a lot of Direction in doing that and with um Gary's persistence as well they've done an amazing amazing job um next Lawrence Harbor had its first story time uh on Saturday and there were 26 people there and people posted about it on Facebook so for the first one that's a pretty nice turnout and I really do I think we're going to see an opportunity to start start getting traffic out for some different events like we're not doing a regular story time here on Saturdays we're having special events on Saturdays so if we have a regular story time we'll see how that's going to go and was that inside the Library not in rec center right no you couldn't fit 26 people inside the Library so that's at the rec center so it's another town building really being utilized parks and wck helping us DPW helping us everybody working together um to provide that so that's exciting um I went to a director's meeting we are going to be moving to a new catalog um and the go-to date for that is going to be June so you're going to see a lot of preparation from us with trying to get our records cleaned up before we move to that system so there's a whole timeline I have asked lmxac um as have other directors about working together to produce some internal and external change communication on this because everybody going out to the community talking about the change in the database makes zero sense we've got 39 libraries all moving in lock step on this so there's an opportunity to do the communication in a cohesive way and that's internal as well so we have all of our staff that need to understand all the training that needs to happen and then all the change communication needs to go out to the public so that's a huge project that's coming up um with regard to our data uh I just want you all to know that I just signed up for um it's a national uh program it's all via Zoom but it's three workshops and it's 12 months to better Library data so it's a focus on all things library with regard to numbers so I'm excited for that um um let's see um the other thing that I had um does anybody have any questions about what was in the report well I have a question about something that's not necessarily in the report um I I had been attending the LMX meetings for some eight or ten months cumulatively and uh I got a uh a mail which said on the meeting that was uh you went to yesterday that they were also talking about having a discussion and possibly a vote on how they were going to handle something with the distribution about moving books between libraries what the the sharing of books the agreement that we had was there any discussion on anything like that or was there any vote taken on anything that required vote so it was um it was on the reciprocal borrowing policy so you three different types of borrowing in lmxac one is an inter Library loan which is um when if we borrow from the library in Atlantic City that's an inter Library loan then you have reciprocal borrowing which is borrowing from any of the mural libraries and then third you had what they were also calling reciprocal borrowing which was borrowing between the lmxac libraries those 39 libraries they have decided to create new language to try and create more clarity on that that was the only change to the policy and they're calling it intra Library borrowing rather than inter Library borrowing personally I don't think it adds any Clarity to the situation but that's what they've decided to do is simply change language on the website and there's nothing to do with any any cost if we borrow from Atlantic City or any of that because they were not lmxac yeah inter inter libr loan ites nothing impacts inter Library loan okay uh do we currently have anybody do we ever use anything but the LMX borrowing programs yes um and we borrow from them and then some people borrow from us so I also have those numbers that I thought next month we could do databases and as I said I'm getting the state report done and then we can look at the annual numbers for physical materials borrowing okay thank you yeah um the other question that I had was and Chris has given me some clarification so there's a situation for Lawrence Harbor where um they need we talked about getting them new computers and things um when I first got here but we weren't in a place to do that so now that I'm looking at doing it I have computers so first of all they're using laptops that were purchased in 2007 so we want to give people in Lawrence Harbor an experience of having good fast computers printers all that kind of thing so when we go to purchase one computer and these aren't laptops these are are standing machines it's 1,147 per computer for us to order that's within the director's discretion even two computers are within the director's discretion when I go to purchase four two for staff and two for the public it then exceeds that director's discretion so my question was at what point does it go to Committee in a case like this where we've sort of already talked about it is it possible to do the vote this evening I understand I have other projects for information technology this like I said I just wasn't sure when it becomes something that needs to be voted on well I I'm not entirely sure what the the uh discretion is I you know and I I don't know that I've ever seen a policy on it I know there was a I believe there was a policy number dollar amount in would know better than I somewhere around $2700 in totality but usually for some kind of emergent issue Maria can you help uh that I I'm sorry Frank I can't help you on that one okay I have that document and that's the amount um I don't believe it says anything about emergency on that um it just said that it was for purchases all right well uh could you send me a copy of that please and uh yeah fine I you know it's going to be four computers and it's going to be what $4,500 yeah the so sorry the exact amount is 4589 go ahead and this comes from the uh uh the Dell people that we buy through under what the state pricing is and all that correct all right so the only reason thing I would suggest is uh like anything else that should be a a purchase order that you know covers it and uh yeah that's fine I would support it yeah you would you would have every right to because it's not anything that needs more discussion or any Nuance to it okay we can get a motion from the board now to approve it based if uh there'd be discussion obviously on that if there if anyone has additional questions but you could move forward with that tonight without taking it down to a committee and back up perfect wonderful so do we want to do that if we can um Frank would you be willing to make that motion yeah and just that also that includes that we have the 365 on those four units and all of that all the ancillary costs that may be associated with it we're doing our programs right now we're not using Windows 365 okay uh then next question becomes uh you didn't mention about print I mean you mentioned about pches but there was no price as I recall attached to those for a printer yeah um yeah uh for a printer it's $500 but what does this purchase actually in involved just the four computers that you're looking for for now I mean we could add the printer on if we can do that that's $549 so so you're looking for a motion for four laptops and one printer for Lawrence harer yes which is coming in just to give you a rough under up to $5,200 because and is there a is there a scanner as well that you need um I believe that's with the printer does okay all right all right so so Frank made a motion for four computers and a printer SL scanner for Lawrence Harbor not to exceed $5,200 yes okay I've got 513 and is anybody willing to second that I'll second I'll second it okay thank you any other discussion on that roll call Sarah yeah Maria yes Z yes Maddie yes Mr Weber yes Dr George yes and Kevin yes so uh now my question on that uh being that we're talking technology as well as uh kind of a director's report ongoing stuff where do we stand with um some of this technology stuff that's going on because obviously as we seeing tonight we we're having Wi-Fi issues alone right so I just ran a speed test we're getting 33 megabytes downloading and N9 megabytes uploading which is really pitiful and uh you could see why we dro off a couple of times and so um what we're in is the tower phase right now this is why when I had done that special report a while ago getting the tower replaced we're in the thick of that right now um with getting assistance from the town and support from the company getting that up the wiring the cabling that we approved is also getting done we're not dependent on that for moving forward what has been suggested by the uh San Wilkinson the town it um manager is that we get focus on getting the Tower and the servers done first our servers are doing something called tombstoning which means they could go down at any time getting those upgraded is critical and he's happy to express that to the information technology committee if they would like to better understand that so for the information technology committee coming up from me I've got the server of upgrade I've got the website duplication once those things are done then we're going to get to WiFi so right now we've been going in making adjustments to some of the settings um which actually improved it tremendously but we've still got a problem so it's once that infrastructure is done that we can kind of go ice the cake if that makes sense and attending to our Wi-Fi and then our Hardware those are the steps in the project okay and my last question is uh Google Drive so you and I have spoken quite a bit about that and I think that it would be beneficial if all of the trustees were to get an overview of Google Drive if we can identify who can and cannot access it um how can we put a plan together to do that um either at next month's meeting with Adam or something I don't know so my suggestion because we did a meeting before one of the board meetings once and nobody came so my suggestion is that we schedule a zoom at another time or would people prefer in person so how long do you think it's going to take I would say a half hour kind of long longer than I was thinking uh because I was going to suggest that you know we kind of have Adam as a guest to the meeting and we do it as part of the board meeting meeting um you when you came in it was what 5 or 10 minutes and he was done and he had helped you it's really um I think about doing this individually for people to help them rather than trying to put a whole class together so we can we can do it again we can well no I'm talking about the Google Drive and accessing the Google Drive so just showing everyone how to access the link having everyone may maybe we start by sending out an email step by step and asking everyone to try to access it and whoever can't should respond back to you and then you can speak to Adam and have him address that whether it be because they don't have a Gmail or an old library or whatever it might be maybe they're doing something incorrectly right yeah uh my only concern is that we did that and it wasn't effective like I think one person asked for assistance um we can certainly do it again I think we should try to do it again okay I'll ask just that everyone just uh take a look at the Google Drive uh familiarize yourself with it because she's going to be putting a lot of information up there a lot of the things that we're asking for she's she's got on the Google Drive so um I think it's beneficial to all of us if we can see it yeah absolutely so um everyone was given um an Oldbridge library.org email and Chris if please correct me if I'm wrong part of this is because your Communications you don't really want in your personal email because your personal account could be investigated if there was ever a reason they could become accessible under a claim of violation of the open public meetings act or under an oer request under the open public records act yeah so yeah it it is to your advantage to use an Oldbridge Public Library email or an Oldbridge email for all of your activities under your trustee hat and what where do where do we access that so one one second what I've been doing for the moment is emailing your personal email as well as your Oldbridge library at the same time so that your personal email is giving you a heads up that there's an email going there and it's going to Google with your Oldbridge Library email um and and getting in and Adam's available um I'll I'll I'll have him put together a few times yeah so uh you can install the Outlook app on your phone so that you can get the emails on your phone so it's more for quite a while I was only looking at them on my laptop and then I would get an email regarding something that needed action within that afternoon so I'd be replying through my personal email so I just said let me download the Outlook app I installed that um I did need Adams help because there are some specifics that you need to put in to direct it to the to the domain name properly um so we we you know anyone that wants to do that will will need to reach out and get that set up um but certainly they can provide you the link that you can access it on your laptop as well so what we'll do is I'll just do a couple of times and send that out to the full board that these are times that Adam uh is able to assist you if that makes sense yep okay okay thank you all right uh for committee reports being that I was terrible at getting out committees um I don't suspect that there's much I do know that there was an update for buildings and grounds yes so I've created a tracking document for all the projects we have with um buildings and grounds and um I like doing that for everyone so the move that we're doing between what we were calling the gaming and the AV area um I took Rose and Rocco on a tour of that they're fans of doing that I got one estimate from creative Library Concepts to do that move for us and it was $2500 um that's with us doing none of the work I have also spoken to DPW and we can phase out the project over a couple of days if we move the materials and I think that's what we're going to go with um is working with DPW so that it may take a little bit longer but we can get them to assist us with moving the shelving um the other thing that Roco said that he's comfortable with moving for the board to take a vote on but I kind of feel like everyone would want to see the estimate is the keyless entry system so that this way we have electronic access for staff and for emergency services to get in the entire Municipal complex has been done by the same vendor um um it is a state contract so I don't believe we need to go out to bid um but we um did get that estimate and in total um it's almost $53,000 and that's for the keyless entry for the whole building and the other part um like I said part of it is about being in sync with the police station and the rest of the municipal comp Lex that it's uniform um right now the library is the only building that you have to use a physical key to get in um and the other part of it that they could site better than I um is safety issues that this is where municipalities are moving more and more toward this keyless entry system because it can be programmed um so for instance all of our employees that now come in through the side door where they have to buzz in they would have a fob that they would use to get in and it would keep track of each person who was allowed in who wasn't allowed in and what time they came in so in this way if we had an employee that we got rid of all we do is go in and take them off the list immediately we don't have to worry about getting a key um and the other part is at any time the police could come in but I feel like I could give everyone that for next month sure my one question is does it give you the ability to put time restraints on a person's access I believe it does okay that that you can so somebody that works typically nine to5 and doesn't really have a supervisory role can't show up at two in the morning and come into the library precisely that's that's all part of the permissions so part of this is the there's two estimates that you'll see one is 45,000 and one is6 ,000 and that's because we want to be able to program it here ourselves the town has agreed that we can use their server which is really nice um and then we would want to do all of our programming we don't want to have to go to the town every time a new employee comes in or every time there's a change so we' want to be able to maintain control of that ourselves sure all right um and the other things we were supposed to have an estimate on phase one of the renovation I don't know how they thought that we needed it by the 16th um so that that will be going to um buildings and grounds and I believe that that we're not going to be hurt by waiting four or five weeks to get that started okay the only other one um that might have something uh Maria I don't know that anything has occurred with Finance right but we need to start working on the budget is that correct yes okay um and I don't think any of the other committees have anything so unless anybody had anything want to give a shout um okay with that I will ask if there's any public comments anyone from the public want to speak am I getting anyone from the public today no okay uh last shout out to the trustees then if anyone wants to uh make any statements or anything nothing then I'll look for a motion to adjourn oh I'm sorry thank you Chris I did want to go into executive uh session just for a few moments um just on matters of personnel I guess you classify it under we will not be taking action so the members of the public uh we will not we will only be coming back just to adjourn thank you very much to the members of the public and I need a motion to go into executive session no motion thank you second I second thanks all anyone opposed no everyone approve yes thank you my appologies I'm putting in the waiting room well I know it's over yeah I mean put them in the waiting room but that they might as well just drop okay and then stop recording correct uh well pause it because we should have the adjournment on recording right understood so just pause it yeah okay we are recording again so now I will ask for a motion to adjourn a motion thank you second I'll second it thank you all in favor I I anyone oppose thank you everyone have a good night thank you very much