hi um I'd like to call the meeting of the library Board of Trustees to order um it is 601 and can we say who's here Cindy MCN co-chair Amy Paul trustee Amy Johnson Secretary Larry Balman trustee Nancy OK Conor trustee Katie mcgo Library director you should probably it's the date yes yeah and it's April 24th yeah 2024 April 24 yeah okay thank you4 24 four yeah for I think that means something 42424 yeah that's interesting yeah maybe that's a good number I think it's a good number um first on the agenda is public comments and I don't see any public so I get yes there are no comments then can we have we read the meeting minutes and do you have anybody have any do you have this right here yeah it'll help you we have has everybody read them yes yes okay were there any um any additions or any corrections are we talking about the minutes on the the minutes of March 20th 2024 oh no no I don't I I didn't have any then do I have a motion to accept the minutes so move seconded second thank you minutes are approved thank you Amy very well done with this too next on our agenda we have the director report updates on programming collection Development building needs and professional development okay so I'm going to start with some children's highlights from the children's Department there were um during the month of March 44 programs 768 program attendees uh 297 reference transactions and then for Passive programming in the children's Department there was 198 participants with the scavenger hunt 229 guesses for the guessing jar and the outdoor story had 48 visitors the children's Department offers a wide variety of programming and displays to meet the intellectual educational and cultural needs and input of the community topics of Interest range from monthly celebrations to current events to best sellers examples include craft programs like eclipse and origami caregiver trainings like understanding temperaments story times book clubs from birth through grade five and plus music iCal programs and more displays rotate regularly and are found spread throughout the children's Department as well as in the first four lobby area and also online programming for the children's department is listed on the events page of the library website and registrations are posted several weeks in advance of the program um here you can see that we have some posts to our social media um we shared one of our um kind of thematic displays for March which was about Sports and March Madness and then also there was a program um that was promoted diving into diversity and so information about some of our programs and then registrations are also put up online for folks to find for adult highlights there were 11 programs 188 program attendees 202 reference transactions 2117 hours of study room use and 27 requests went unfulfilled the adult Department also supports literacy and lifelong learning for East long metal Public Library patrons by offering a variety of programming and displays Geared for adults as well as teens and adults displays rotate regularly and are found spread throughout the second floor in the first floor lobby area and online and to highlight uh one of the programs the library recently hosted Jim zabowski from The Aldrich Astronomical Society who gave an excellent presentation about the sky and solar eclipses the program was full and following the presentation staff received many positive comments by attendees including requests for another program and so here I have a little snip in your handout from our event keeper page so on the first page it was from um like our Facebook and social media pages and then on the second page it was from our event keeper which is our online events calendar okay other program offerings include craft programs a monthly book club needle work cookbook Club movies and Nature Health wellness and more program is listening on excuse me programming is listed on the events page of the library website and registrations are posted several weeks in advance of the program and then here we have a couple more highlights there was or organic gardening and then a quab and wildlife photographer presentation um many of the library programs are very generously funded by the friends of East Long meow Public Library for technology programming and highlights we have 357 Constant Contact subscribers uh there was one technology program and three program attendees and then at our last meeting I was telling you about the CW Mars had launched the new Aspen interface so I'm going to kind of talk about that next so the new CW Mars catalog launched on March 4th staff posted flyers in the library um there were social media posts there was updates on the happenings on the website and there was an entry added to the weekly e newsletter for patrons to prepare for this new catalog interface since the launch the scoped catalog has been customized so what that means is there is the CW Mars kind of for the whole network there's a CW Mars page but now with this Aspen each Library that's a member Library can then customize their scope their own page and so we've been working on that so your page would look different from it doesn't necessarily look different but what we have linked is can be different so it's kind of like that same template but the East Long meal Public Library logo is there there are links along the top that bring back to the East Long Meadow public library page that go to hoopla that go to um like the East Long Meadow events so there's certain links that we can customize and add okay um we've also when you're looking at the page and I think I have a snip on the next page so if you turn and look at the next page I have a snip here so these kind of rectangular boxes library of things most requested titles adult fiction adult non-fiction New York Times Best Sellers okay we can customize these they call them they're called browse categories so we're able to customize these browse categories and with the help of CW Mars I've kind of kind of taken a snip of our library of things here um we were able to kind of create our own custom imagery for um like the thumbnail image and then cwrs uploaded that for us you can put on there what you have is this is this a new yes this is the new catalog that's the new one yep some of the other things that we did was um when we got some feedback from patrons that they were having a difficult time locating the actual call number so when they did their search and the results came up up there's a little hyperlink that says where is it and they were having a hard time finding one oh I see cuz it's not right there so we contacted do another step it's it so we contacted CW Mars and they gave us the code and helped kind of walk me through it and we were able to enlarge the size of the font so now it is significantly larger so it stands out more on the page in your results list so it makes it easier to find where is it to get the call number I so we've gotten some really great feedback from patrons and staff you so there's changes and you know sometimes things take a take a couple turns to figure out what's working what's not and so we've gotten some really great information from patrons and staff and have made some of those customized changes which is very good um for tech services updates there were 702 items added and 306 items deleted from the catalog from the collection during the month of March um the tax services and children's Department staff are working together on a Rec cataloging project for the children's picturebook biographies these books will now be grouped together for easier Patron searching and browsing so they're going to kind of get their own biography like picture book biography section and be grouped together which will be great yeah um circulation department updates there were 13,850 items circulated during the month of March this was a decrease of seven from February but an increase of 377 from the year before there were 52 new Patron registrations 132 reference transactions and the door count was 5,235 and the new Patron registrations are they from new people that have come in generally Yep they're new card they're like new card holders okay the circulation department is providing a lot of one-on-one Patron support on the new Aspen Discovery layer for the CW Mar's catalog specifically on searching for items and placing holds um and then I put in a excuse me so is so is that to say that it's not all that intuitive it's just new it's just new it's just different so when um the now they're calling it The Classic catalog with the classic catalog you would get a results list yeah but it wasn't combined I guess is kind of the word I want to use it didn't combine all the different formats into one record okay so you could go through three four five six pages and the title you're looking for on page one you might find the hard cover print but on page three you might find the audiobook on CD and then on page four you might find the playway version you would you know there might the different formats would be on different pages to see if there was anything else so now it's all combined so when you do a title search or an author search or what have you they'll group all of the formats and you can select format you want just from one spot so it it kind of a little easier it's cleaning it up a lot I think it I think once people get used to it it is I think it's more user friendly it just looks different so you have to get used to the new look and once you get us to used to the new look you'll find everything you need right there that's the goal rather than going here and there after to digging through yeah that seems Common Sense yes and and often somebody just wants that title that story right and they don't necessarily it doesn't necessarily matter to them if it's a hard cover or a paperback or an audio book on CD they just want to get the first available format so then they can kind of see and choose that way that's good does it give you that option yeah it also um groups different like second printings into those same groups I found H probably that would be cool that's a great question sometimes it's the same B but it's been cataloged differently because of a different public um like a reprint yeah maybe under different subjects um tripped up by that in the past like there's like a special edition where they added a forward or right lot of the St King books for instance I I know when I search online for books at this you know the library what they do is they tell you what's available and what form they're available in so can do it either audio or you can do it hard cover or whatever you know if you want yeah yeah it's the other feature that I really like is that it's also within that kind of grouping it'll include if there's an electronic version available so if it's available on Libby or so East Long Meadow we um have hoopla which is another um option for folks to stream or kind of access electronic material so ebooks e audio books um magazines shows things like that and it will show up now in the catalog does the hoopla catalog the same books though no it's it some might be the same as what you would find in Libby but not necessarily also you should look in both places yeah I'm going to do that I will show you how okay all right so um I wasn't aware of that yeah I'll show you uh Outreach on March 2nd the library participated in the artsy fartsy artists and authors fair at pleas and view Senior Center and the children's Department hosted a crafting program and then librar staffed an information [Applause] table there's a typo on a page I'm you um and then here's just an um some information about the program and the flyer that the uh Pleasant View senior center created um for professional development um staff attended security awareness training as assigned by the town it Department Aspen training provided by CW Mars and turnover schedule of deposit training provided by the town collector and treasurer for Library updates the 2024 summer reading program will run from June 1st to August 12th this year's theme is read renew repeat and the library will offer a variety of programs special performers displays resources and more through being the online logging platform as well as here in the library uh mark your calendars please uh the kickoff is scheduled for June 11th starting at 4:30 and uh we are encouraging the board of Library trustees to attend this community event and there may be opportunities for some volunteering at the uh kickoff oh really that would be nice yes that's good um there this next piece of information I'm sorry there's a slight typo which we realized after but um starting July 1st the East long metal Public Library will adjust its operating hours um so the this adjustment allows staff to provide additional programming and services the evenings the library will be open to the public so on Mondays we're um transitioning to being open to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. instead of 9:30 a.m. to 8:00 P.M so we're just um reducing hours on Monday evening but somehow in this typo if you can correct it please we put on Saturday that it's open from 9 to 5 we are open 9 to 4 I'm not sure how that typo got in there so if you could please I thought you had Chang that no we did not change that so that's good uh one of the incredible staff caught that error and we were correcting it going forward so my apologies that we did not okay five of us looked at that so this is wrong so s yes correct so Saturdays it's staying 9 to30 to 4 oh 9:30 yep it's 9:30 to 4 did I say 9: to 4 yeah to 4 9:30 to 4: yeah yep those hours are not changing okay um we will be adj um updating the libraries hours on both sets of doors social media the websites any of our Flyers the E newsletter they'll be signed in the building as we get closer by reducing the Monday hours that doesn't affect um the this the amount you have to be open no because we were in excess of the requirement yeah so we are still within compliance comp okay are we keeping the same hour as your ground now yes okay yeah you mean like Saturdays I feel I don't remember exactly what it was but it used to be in the summertime Saturday we were we weren't open but on Saturday yeah yeah and now we're going to keep the same yes we're going to keep the Saturdays open and and are we are we still going to keep still be open Tuesday and Wednesday evenings okay until 8 yep were you were you just open till noon on Saturdays NOP the hours for Saturday on Saturday I was it like Labor Day to Memorial Day or something like that Satur and then during the summer it was closed yes yeah does the Monday change that we don't get many patrons on Monday evenings or was it purely it is it's really more for Staffing so that we can provide programs you need to correct yes so that way we have enough um staff in the building to still provide services and do programming we're spre staff in the evening to and and and if one or two are doing a program correct who's going to be Manning the ship that's correct so we need staff to be at the public service desk as well as in the programs and we can't it's very difficult to do both without yeah so that makes sense yeah that makes sense that's right yeah so um and did you did you find that that um Mondays is when you do more is the slowest how did you well part of that is also there's I think this calendar year there's seven Monday holidays oh so we would be closed those Mondays anyway anyway so oh so they into the decision yes because there's so many Monday holidays that are yes there's several floating holidays throughout the year but there are a lot of justay Mondays yeah yeah right so that way we wouldn't so it didn't one night that week we'd still be open two nights it didn't have that much to do with um with traffic programming occurs the way that the Staffing currently is is that programming typically URS more on Mondays excuse me more on Tuesdays and Wednesdays right now anyway the way the Staffing works so typically Tuesdays and Wednesdays are busier nights okay good yeah any feedback from since you posted the signs none not yet well we think it's good we'll see little feedback um for publicity many staff contribute to the library's publicity ranging from Constant Contact blast to happenings post on the website staff at any public work station are happy to assist patrons connect with us via phone email the website through socials and in person both on site and at community outreach so we are trying to get ourselves out into the community to be of assistance um building updates um on March 1st the emergency lights that needed replacing were replaced on the sixth the elevator inspection and alarm testing was done on the eth we had a new waste recycling station installed at the West entrance that's on the outside of the building to help with some of the trash that was out in the used it I'm so glad you did yeah it was great I really enjoyed it thanks it looks beautiful doesn't it it's really nice that yes that was all the Board of Health and DPW coordinating together to provide us that station and is lovely um on the 13th um we had the second floor switches replaced so that was exciting um so how they work yes it's so much easier um so upcoming at some point I will be bringing back the donation policy and the meeting room policy for review and then on this upcoming Saturday it's the next step in the Strategic plan the Community Focus Group will um is here and I've attached the agenda for you all to review again I think I had already emailed it to you and there are a couple of articles that link there if you're interested in Reading along one of the articles is called five Trends shaping the library experience in 2024 and another article is libraries of 2024 pioneering spaces for digital native and lifelong learner those were provided by Deb hle they say yeah because I I read the five Trend shaping one oh good yeah um so that is going to be happening and then following Saturday's meeting um we'll have another meeting with Deb hoodley to uh um work on the survey that's going to go out to the entire community and the tentative dates for the survey to be shared out is May 1st to May 22nd and that's what I have good okay is there any old business I don't see any I don't have any and new [Applause] business um it was just like this hly Consulting what we're doing right MH okay uh do we have the friends of the library update would you like me to read that sure okay report to the library trustees from April 1st 2024 the friends held its last meeting on Monday April 1st 2024 at 6:30 p.m. in the library's community room Kate brought the friends up to date as to the activities that will take place in the coming months is that Mora y Mora shared the success of a program provided by the Astronomical Society regard regarding the eclipse she mentioned that on April 8th from 2: to 2:30 people could gather in the library at the library or COA Council on Aging to view the eclipse our scholarship finalists this year are Audrey O'Neal and Jack tdran oh that's nice they and their families have been notified and invit invited to attend our next meeting on May 6 for the presentation of their C certificates the friends are hopeful that our QR code will be placed on flyers and provided at community events will help people have easier access to our website where they can learn more about the friends the number of members are 234 a small increase an executive session followed to discuss next year's budget and finances and our next meeting will take place Monday May 6 2024 at 6:30 p.m. it is the friends annual meeting after the presentation of the scholarship Awards the election of officers will take place respectfully submitted Diane [Applause] aago and um I think that is our next meeting will be May 15 2024 at 6:m if anybody would like to attend they're welcome um I hope you all be here and MERS of the public and members of the public and um with that I think we could adjourn the meeting do I have a motion to adjourn uh second or I'm sorry yes motion to adjourn I thought you okay thank you L do I have a second nobody wants to oh good the the meeting is adjourned at at uh 6:25 W well