okay so we're just recording because we're having discussions here that I think are necessary for the public to see right so do you want is it recording it is okay so so couldn't just put this X or do we want to preface where we're so yeah we're going to preface where we're at right so where we're at currently uh we are sitting here in in discussion phase as we do not currently have a quarum uh we are discussing the director's report and this is a matter of finance that came up as far as as a directive to the director from last month to do an evaluation of our current status of interest rates so danan if you can give another quick summary to what you you're at again yes um so what I put in the in the director's report is that I uh started off with a call to Amboy Bank um to let the representative know that the trustees were exploring their opportunities for interest rates and return on our accounts and um I was told to let everyone know that um just not to compare what interest rates are on your personal investment returns to a municipal deposit because that's entirely different thing um and that our accounts would be raised to 2.5% from from what what were they Dr George different levels I want to answer for you but I had .9 so after your call you got us raised to 2.5 which resulted in an additional $5,000 in one month's interest correct okay and uh the other thing that I did um in case the board wanted me to go further was just um to go through all of the banks that ensure New Jersey good PA funds and this is where I understand entirely what Dr George is saying and I agree entirely other than making these phone calls and and doing the research that's that's Max you can do it this and that's why I said in the report if you all want me to pursue it further so just from a simple um assessment of rates what did you see out there that would be available for us I didn't start going through the rates I looked at the banks understood the law okay the increases two to 2.5% but we don't know if we went to another bank what we would get if itre much better than that yes and from what was shared with me there with the re the responsibilities on the municipal like I said the returns aren't going to be with the personal but that's just the initial that's what I was able to do in the last few weeks okay so I think what we need to do is do an assessment of what the interest rates at other Banks could be because I think that was what we were looking for right and bring that back to the finance committee to to make a determination of what we should be doing do we have any parameters on the number of banks the geographic location of the banks so those rates aren't readily available on the Internet or anything I assume you'd have to call them this this is from the New Jersey Center this is I have several hundred that take care of the New Jersey you have the banks but they're not telling you what their rates are for those types of in I have 3 Monon average balance funds and the dates on those things dating back to 2022 this is what was listed on the state of New Jersey's uh website okay yeah a lot of these are Credit Unions um I I just if I could get some more Direction on exactly what that is because this is a very substantial project to go through all of the banks and get rates for everyone yeah I don't know that we want to go to everyone I think we just want to have an understanding is it if there's a possibility of a much greater return on our investments then I'll put that on my list and then we can take that to finance committee and let the finance committee make a determination of should we be going out for a financial advisor to handle this or if we feel that the return that we're getting is what we're going to get we should leave our money where it is or should we continue to explore other Banks yeah and there's a lot of priorities for the finance committee that I'm hoping we can get to soon y do you want to provide direction to the director about number or three other Banks yeah there's no details in there on on recommendations from the state right just that these are the banks yes yeah um Kev can I make a comment sure I think that this is um an unfair task to put on to to Dawn I I think what you're asking to do I I don't understand there how many banks are there is she going to be doing this for for five dozen banks that that that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me plus it's not a lot of banks put their their rates right on their web page all right so you can look them up but they're not talking about about what we're talking about you know a municipal whatever the heck it is as opposed to a personal one this is a complicated task and I just don't think that it's fair to give it to to D I also think that the appoint when I'm asking for a consultant I'm asking for a consultant for myself as a truste who has to vote it's a consultant to the finance committee the finance commit committee is not it it exists as I understand it to work with the board it's a finance committee of the board it's not it's not supposed to be doing the whole job that's right but so there's a couple of pieces here that you you mentioned Dr George right so first of all I I wouldn't take up too much of the director's time on this because I don't think that it yields the benefit that makes it worth time so that's number one but I I would be interested to just see is if there is I if if the rates are much better at other Banks now there could be a number of ways to to determine that um speaking to other directors in finding out how they where they invest their money and what type of returns they're getting or if they have a Financial Consultant if they see any benefit from it because again that's another expense so if we're if if we're going to spend $60,000 a year on a Financial Consultant to earn another $5,000 a month I.E another 60,000 we're just giving that that money away you're talking on more than $4 million that we have invested all right so it's not $20,000 that we're getting a year in interest so whatever the expens it is I don't think that's an issue all I want to do is I want to be a good trustee Boda conscience with some kind of a brain attached to it and I don't understand it I don't think I'm scile um I just want to know what the story is because the question that was raised to me was raised to me by somebody in in the know that knows more than I do about it that said I think you need to look at that all I want is an answer and if I'm not going to get it that's all right I won't get it I just will not vote on things that I can't sign off but I it my aim is not to give Dawn a ton of work that I don't think is in her job description uh and the people before her didn't do it and then when you talk about the finance committee the finance committee right now is Maria okay Frank is in the hospital you're missing a third person I volunteered to fill in I never heard anything so somebody doesn't want me to fill in that's s right you don't have to have it well no I I don't I don't think that's the issue but um you know one way or another we're asking the director to take on a task here right um she could go out and she can investigate a couple of banks a handful to find out what their rates are and come back to us and say I I see banks are giving eight n% I don't think that they're giving that High um just making that up or yeah I think that what we're getting is essentially what we're going to to see it's about 2 and a half per. we could then or we can ask her go out and find a financial advisor consultant in which case she needs to investigate several of those to find the one that's most beneficial at the best cost to to uh our library that provides the services that we're looking for so one way or another we're asking her to take on a task we may eventually ask her to take on both tasks we may ask her to go look at several accounts and uh several Banks come back with some rates and then we may say well we determine that we we need a consultant that may be another task but um I think we should take it one step at a time what do you guys think agree I think H Joan has been is asking for help and I think as trustees I think that's what we we all should be trying to help each other so that we can fully understand everything I I feel like Joan sometimes too I'm a little bit of the fish out of water when it comes to these kind of things so I think us making some kind of effort to find something like that so they can talk to you know not just Joan but maybe anybody else who' be interested I know I would be interested so if we could maybe do something along those lines I don't know who exactly where we would start doing that but I think that would be we could we talk to somebody like within our chain of you know of other libraries that we know do we know anybody or the trust or or through the trustee network of some sort can we do something like that there are resources um the the state of New Jersey has an excellent Resource Center Center for trustees okay um and then um it's one of the um renewals we were looking at tonight is for Survey Monkey and Survey Monkey in addition to helping with Community surveys and staff surveys has been very helpful with director surveys to get something out to them very quickly that it gets done so um what I'll do is I'll look at um reporting back next month with four Banks that would be good all right so I think if you you start with that and I think next month we have a conversation as a full board on do we feel that there is a possibility that we need to uh have someone dedicated to looking at our finances okay all right because we had talked about maybe like quarterly you know and there's different ways to reduce cost for things like that okay and one one of the things I have to just share the interim director Phil Israel when he here is outstanding in this area Okay um I just wanted to ask about protocol with when we make a decision about whether or not we're going to be able to take action what time frame that is if you don't have a quorum and you're waiting for a quorum you can legally wait and open your meeting anytime at or before 9M okay which is not a recommendation on making the you sit for another hour 15 minutes so I will I will try to call Sarah again in a few minutes because she did say she was going to ATT I'm only trying to be I did text her again but she hasn't replied so I'm giving her I'm not trying to rush anything I'm just but you know I certainly don't want to have to reschedule this for next week so understood I appreciate that so I will just charge ahead okay um so there's a discussion of hoopla that is scheduled for Action tonight so I'll leave that um we've started using the um PE card for imprinted merchandise people may remember a few years ago there was a lot of discussion about libraries having credit cards at all um and then gradually everyone realized that we need to have credit cards for certain types of purchases and software so um it's not something we want to use constantly but this bookmark was an example of the imprinted merchandise that we can save about a third of our cost from local printers by going through um online printers and we have a lot of things coming so um I had a discussion with Maria and we moved ahead with that um the cleaning contract that has been negotiated through the municipality is going to be increasing $700 a month for the library um I checked in with uh our head of finance and with the ba when we were at a meeting and I was told that the um other contractors were much higher priced so our option is to either go ahead with the increase and continue to to share this contract with um Oldbridge or it would be to go out to bid on our own to see if there's any way that we could do better so that is a decision for the board um but like I said when I spoke with with um the Director of Finance um she explained that the other companies that submitted bids were much higher than that $700 a month increase I think it's getting quite expensive um but I don't think that we have much of a choice my question to that is who manages the custodial staff here at the library you do yes so um we've been doing a lot with that because it is very um difficult to do that we've had some challenges I've had a lot of uh discussions with the vendor on how we improve Services I think we've made a marked improvement but it's definitely come at the expense of a lot of hours and it's going to continue to who manages that the custodial sta for the township do you know I believe it's Public Works public works so we had a custodian of our own that worked alongside the custodians then it came after that person's departure to the opinion of some that we probably should have a facility manager someone that does some handyman repairs around the library can oversee bigger repairs such as the roof and bathroom Replacements uh and can oversee the custodial staff and potentially work one-on-one with public works I I think that that probably is what we need to look at because if we're going to be paying $700 more for custodial staff I really feel like we need to get the most out of them and I don't think we can get the most out of them no offense to you because you have so many other priorities with you managing that right and managing the rest of the library as well so I think that there needs to be more of a focus on that yeah I mean I will just say I was out on the floor plunger in hand my first week here um because unfortunately for Library directors that's that's the way it goes so we do have a part-time custodian um he's currently doing um a minimal amount of driving as we discussed um at Personnel many months ago we had the custo sorry we have two other in I believe it was July we approved approved two job descriptions one was for a custodian the other one was for a mechanic SL buus driver because we didn't feel we would need a mechanic every day whatever we never did anything with it we passed them but we never did anything with it we did we absolutely did we have the custodian and we've had him since soon after that and the only reason that have a custodian what about the mechanic and that's in the director's report it says the driver's Position will be advertised in as we anticipate restoring delivery services so it was waiting until we had someone to schedule the deliveries because having the driver to only do the bookd drops was not enough that's why we put it with the mechanic absolutely and and when we've had a facilities manager and when you talk about that what's the facilities this building and and Lawrence H but whatever I I really don't care obviously the custodian that we've had and we're going back in the past did not work alongside of a cleaning person because the cleaning people worked in the beginning and at the end and the custodian was in the middle so they weren't all working together had different jobs um I'd like to know how you feel we are in now because I've gotten word on the street that the building is not in tiptop shape that it the restrooms need more cleaning that um at any rate this is garbage on the street but it are you pleased with this setup so so it's not been entirely to my satisfaction and as I said I've been working diligently with the vendor to um get that increase there's a couple of factors there one is it's me policing um and that's going around and checking the water fountains and checking the carpets um that's one issue another issue is that we only have one hour a day of cleaning that's when the public is not in the building and you can't go in and clean all of the rooms while there are people in them so to change the times okay but then that would be someone in the building when there's not a supervisor here so that's and and that's when it normally is done so that's one issue um and then so it's the supervision it's that and then you know we've been making it work but is it ideal no when there is a facility manager if there was one and I'm only giving you examples we've had them um and and I understand the only time I've ever had a building a library that was completely sound and impeccably clean it was when we had a facility manager and I'm just saying that was one time that we did have that and everything was done but that person was diligent in managing out everything the managing the the cleaning contract managing um potential accident issues safety issues in the building all of those things are something that's not entirely being done now um so we actually had when we hired the uh one of the other positions we had someone who was a facility manager of libraries at one of the large universities in New Jersey where is this this is in a prior place where you work no they applied for a position they weren't qualified for here but there's an Oldbridge resident who is a facilities manager at a large University in New Jersey who's interested in the position they applied for something that they weren't qualified for but there are people out there because I know that's always a concern is will we find someone well we've had facilities managers and again I think I'm Roco you know this you've been around here uh they were people who um knew Oldbridge knew the staff they were and they were not successful it wasn't any cleaner and it was just it just didn't work we've also been where we had our own staff be the cleaners where we had um a whatever the heck his name was Tibby or whatever he had I think two people working for him or four I Maria is better at this you know than I my memory is on it but we had our own staff and we didn't seem to have a problem in keeping the building clean Tibby also did minor repairs and whatever we've gone through all of it the mo the least successful was when we had the facilities managers we had two of them one had an office well whatever where Linda was out in the in the pit working with confidential information and the facilities manager who was part-time had the big office across from the uh I don't know where your office is now I think it's your office now but that was his office it just we've tried a lot of different things and uh there's no easy answer out there no there is I just and to me who supervises them well in the past I think Maria did it or I you know Linda you probably know who oversaw the people who came in and worked there I remember Maria making calls and and getting guys removed who not good here you know workers from the vendor got removed I mean they weren't good here I don't know who did it I it wasn't all thrust on the director and and this is where I have to say um that some of this has come into Irene's area and quite honestly her job is really pretty full yeah exactly soet a burden for her it's above the pay grade to give them responsibilities that are not theirs it's just not fair and uh you know I don't know what the answer is I think you start with if you if you are concerned and you know with what's happening you know the building isn't the way it should be you're putting much more time in this than whatever and now they're we pay what $4,000 and now it's going up $700 more a month I think you need to look at it and and thr an easy answer on it okay we want one more $85,000 a year person to fill in that's not the answer unless you've looked at everything else and that's what comes up and I appreciate you know the other thing you talked about surveys and again I'm talking too much but I always do I don't understand why there isn't somewhere through lmic where we can't talk to other directors and we don't have some kind there were 30 people people in there 39 now why can't you find out what's done I had one question I asked what I wanted to know is what are directors paid in middlex County you know what you can't find the answer to that you want to know what school superintendent get made you can look at the whole list it has everybody on there top to low but you can't find out what library direct is get paid in Middle sex count I don't know why so just to let you know Dr George um when we had a question about how facilities were owned what was the relationship between the library and the town maintain right I was a I sent out a survey I got great answers and I got great collaboration from the doors so having that tool that Survey Monkey tool is very it makes it easy for us to get all these types of surveys done I have a lot of questions a lot of directors aren't coming forward with their information I was called when a neighboring Town um was was looking to hire a director I was approached about my salary so this is where everybody's fishing around but with other things I just asked all of the directors if anyone knew um when it comes to the The Atrium outside the garden I I would like to see us and we'll get through this proposal eventually I would like to see us have something um lower maintenance that more people can enjoy perhaps tables a paved area with some umbrellas so that people can go outside kids can have out there so I'm just looking for who knows a contractor who does of things is that survey thing works for you that's great and we should do whatever you need to do but then I also want to know why we're paying $80,000 to LMX or more what we pay them for if we can't even get coming in and I think they've gotten too big all right I think 39 libraries is not what they started out as when they were going to be middle six County no and and Dr George if there's one thing that I can reassure you is that I am vocal at our meetings and then making sure that we get our monies wor and then yeah the thing if you want to do research and this is n boring to death but if you look up the bylaws of LMX anybody can be the the they're all directors there okay and they're not directors they don't live where the directors but anyway anybody could be and that's why we had Frank Weber was our representative for a while it wasn't Nancy okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you there Dr George uh I apologize to all of the public for uh the delay we did have one uh board member that was traveling she has since been able to join the call Sarah you're you're on yep okay great thank you so I am going to officially start the meeting and public stays in for now and public stays in uh so this meeting has been advertised in accordance with the New Jersey open public meetings act and is publicly accessible in accordance with law r call please Kevin here Rocco here David cadino Dr George yes Sarah yes Maria Rosemary zanab Martha here and Frank Weber okay salute to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of which one naice thank you okay so now unfortunately uh we do need to go into executive session for matters of personnel um we should not be too long so I we I will ask the director to put anyone that's on the zoom back into the waiting room I'll ask our public oh I'm Sor make a motion to go in executive session thanks do we have a second I second thank you all in favor I any want to POS okay so if you could just step out I will close the door and you you can wait like over here or you browse around and I will call you in once we come out of executive session and my apologies this is going to take me a second we've got a few people here I I didn't hear you she's just putting uh the public in the waiting room and please pause the recording all in favor I no one's opposed right okay sorry all out of EX oh yes sorry out of EX you're recording and everybody's back in everybody is back in okay everyone's back in thank you everyone for your patience this evening I know it's been challenging but we're getting there we're almost through this so um we are back in uh regular session so we will move on with the uh agenda so I will go to the minutes I need uh a motion for all three items a b and c approval of the regular meeting minutes of May 8 executive session minutes of may8th and special meeting minutes of May 14th I'll make it thank you second I'll second all thanks roll call please uh discussion I'm sorry discussion I'm sorry roll call please shago yes Dr George yes Sarah yes Maddie yes and Kevin yes thank you okay Personnel so let's do uh the first two items together A and B accept the resignation of Staff librarian youth services and approve the appointment of managing Library Youth Services uh do I have a motion I make a motion thank you a second I'll second it thank you any discussion okay roll call please Dr George yes Sarah yes Maddie yes Rao absolutely yes and Kevin yes thank you okay item C approve the appointment of Staff librarian uh Valerie werna for Youth Services um do I have a motion I'll make the motion I'll make it okay so second I'll second it thank you okay any discussion roll call please sure Sarah yes mie yes Raa yes Dr George yes and Kevin yes thank you congrat congatulations okay item D approve uh intermittent FML leave um do I have a motion motion thank you second second thank you uh any discussion roll call please Maddie yes Raa yes Dr George yes Sarah yes and Kevin yes okay I have one item to add this would be item e uh Chris do you have a motion that you can read for me or yes this would be motion to approve the addendum to the library director's May 16 2023 contract to include an increase in salary of 2.8% effective July 1 Place vacation time on a lumpsum availability basis subject to reimbursement in the event of early separation and reimbursement for Library cell phone costs upon submission of invoices thank you uh do I have a motion I'll make motion okay oh okay second I second thank you any discussion roll call please sure Raa yes Dr George yes Sarah yes Maddie yes Kevin yes thank you okay moving on to finance uh action the bill listing in the amount of 223,000 $47.77 now I know Maria is not here who usually um makes this motion um I know that she did have several questions they were emailed to the director they were all answered I believe appropriately no follow-ups correct um she had an additional question um so with regard to Survey Monkey with which is the tool that we're going to be using for Community feedback and um market research um particularly with our new catalog that was going to allow us to identify potential people down to the level of the four-digit edition of a zip code um she had asked why we were renewing it I had said because it's what we're using for surveys i' used it with Community directors and other people um she said she wanted to see the survey sent out to the community and the responses that the library received um I had a little bit of a concern about this so I wanted to address it with the full board so I yeah I apologize I did see the email that she had requested that the some examples be sent to the full board um she requested one for herself and I said I thought it was best to bring them before the board just okay quickly to go over it can I or you go over it sure yeah um the the Lawrence Harbor survey um that we did she wanted an example of a community survey um this is the example of the one that we did for Lawrence Harbor we asked um why people would visit the library we only had about 29 responses but it was also simply posted on our web page it wasn't a properly sent out survey um we also asked what hours people wanted um what services um what their ages were and then we also asked to me what was most important with this was whether they were interested um in receiving future messaging um the reason why this is crucial is because as we move forward with any marketing efforts we need to revive our Constant Contact which has about 15,000 contacts that if no one has reached out to them since probably 2018 or possibly 2019 now that we have have the coordinator of strategy and communication one of the first deliverables that I have is to revive Constant Contact get all of these emails from the surveys back onto the list to grow that list um and then our newsletter which I'm hoping to get that revived again for August 1st um that we would be able to send that out so I thought it was important for the full board to Simply understand the importance of Survey Monkey it's 00 a year we have three seats so only three people at a time can use it um it now has a lot more AI in it and Sarah I know that that's kind of your area but the cost of market research is very expensive so I felt if we could do it with Survey Monkey for $900 a year we'd be in a good shape so could this wait till next month when I don't like fact we're ignoring Maria I didn't ignore no you didn't do one but we don't know I don't know what Maria thinks about what you're saying I mean they didn't get back to us so I don't think we can assume that she approved it if for what it's worth sorry we lost you we kind of lost you there oh no I didn't I stopped because I didn't want to interrupt Joan um oh I'm sure ahead we losing youal so it's the program is really really good it's now can you you're breaking up Sarah can you guys hear me yeah that's better okay um I said for what it's worth we use Survey Monkey at my company and it's extraordinarily easy to use we use it for all of our marketing materials and surveys so I yeah I I agree right I I I there may be something better out there or there may be something better coming out I don't know um but I certainly oh I'm sorry Sarah here um I don't know if that me so you're you're breaking up a little bit but um I wouldn't I wouldn't stop using something unless we have a replacement in mind something that we know we're going to move forward with this expires this month right so I so with that I I would say that we should continue right um the one thing I would say that we probably could do without um maybe eventually but again not yet is Constant Contact because I don't feel that Constant Contact I don't think that reaching out through people via email any longer it has the significance that it used to because there's so many filters to pull things into spam and promotions folders that people don't even see it um but these are people specifically requesting the email it may I would think some of them are people that are that signed up for a library card and we have their email address no we do not do that we absolutely libraries do not do that okay um specifically because our use of people's contact information is very respected these are people who have deliberately said please contact me with Library information but if we're going to do surveys I think you know obviously if we're doing it to people through Constant Contact that are people that are requesting that then obviously they're people that are utilizing the library have positive feedback already on the library but we want to be able to reach a broad a scope those people that aren't coming to the library why not what would bring you in and so there I think that's where I've been saying for quite some time now that we need to get more onto social media and start putting surveys and things on our social media accounts and build our social media account so that's where I really think that the focus over the next several months needs to go okay so a couple of things one of the con big concerns in libraries is social media because you're driving people to third-party for-profit sites that compromise their information so the Reliance on social media social media is a factor has to get done but to to put our eggs in that basket is something that could fall through any day my concern for the constant contact is less the surveys I absolutely agree with you but that's more for the newsletters So eventually we want to have our monthly newsletter and then we also want to have bi-weekly an events blast you could also broadcast that you have a survey on social media and then that way that'll bring them into we are going to have so much fun this year with experiment with all of these things I'm just excited and so to you're absolutely right we may not have Constant Contact next year but to get this like print people in this community still want print newsletters how many are we willing to do yeah yeah so we have a lot of conversation to have in the marketing yep committee yeah okay so with that um I think that we're prepared to make a motion on on the uh Bill listing correct okay so do I have a motion uh to action the bill listing I'll make a motion thank you second I'll second it thank you okay any discussion on it roll call please Dr George no Sarah yes Maddie yes Raa yes and Kevin yes thank you okay moving on to Old business there is nothing unless anybody has any old business they want to bring up okay new business I will kick it off to the director school book kits I would like to make a motion I would like to move that the discussion on the school booket be moved to the next meeting so I can get some answers I got some information from D but it's not enough to answer my questions we so we were going to discuss that first okay so you have a motion unless we're gonna be here till midnight I okay so there is ation there's a motion do I have a second anybody for a second okay so then the the so motion to table fail so you're back in discussion let's go to discussion get ahead to one um this is um the initial um proposal that I came up with um we know that the schools don't have libraries and um teachers are asking us to get um book kits in so that they can have uh uh they can have literacy instruction with students that's involved with particular titles so with the list that I gave everyone we started I did two things emerging literacy kits for preschool and grades one through three um that we would have a non-fiction kit and a fiction kit so there could ALS o be the start of some information literacy instruction um and then in addition to that for grades one through 12 we would do per grade level two um titles of 30 books per title so that an entire class can borrow that now I I absolutely understand there being a lot of questions because this to me is just the trial to get started um I did discuss um some of this with rock go um that we would get this off the ground and then see where we where we move ahead um we've got questions we've got things to figure out um where are the kits being stored are we going to have this to where the teachers can reserve them are we going to have them passed around the district or teachers come in here to pick up the kits which is what we want to drive traffic how is the best way so this was just a proposal that we would agree that this is something we want to move forward with and um and amount and I'm certainly ready for questions all right first of all uh somewhere on whatever is out there we are not the only ones doing this LMX has some people that are involved in this also no W this information out there all right first of all you talk about a bag of 30 books what are you going to do with it so it would be um the bag of 30 books that depends on your grade level for preschool and one through three the emerging literacy kids would have a would have a collection of books that would go out for free reading time what do you mean go out to the class CL the class would borrow the set of 30 books but how many classes are there on a grade level in the school now they and and this is why we're not lending them for the year it's something that the teacher can come and borrow the non-fiction book kit for second grade for two weeks and then someone else could come and borrow it that's one type of book kit when are the books being read at home is this for after school activity to enrich it's during school in the classrooms all right there's another line you said that the lessons would be developed by uh the kit will include activities and suggestions for discussions provided by the library yes but you're not teachers no no I don't need Dev in order to develop book kits the teachers can make up their own lessons and do their own thing for those who don't have the time or aren't able they would simply get some suggestions from us all right these are all details which I would have to discuss later Rocco what happened to the libraries and the elementary schools what happened to the books that were there most of them are dated uh due to budgetary concerns many new books have not been bought most of them are old uh some of them have been you know sent to different places to be sold some of them are just sitting in storage uh but are they still in the building you know some of them some of them are some of them are some of them have been removed uh we also do not have um due to the budgetary constraints we also only have I believe one librarian in the entire District uh the buildings at Sal Jonas Sal school and Carl Samberg middle school and Oldbridge High School uh they have become less libraries and more media centers uh all with 21st Century Technologies uh so books are you know have been kind of uh in terms of being in the libraries themselves uh have been made they've been made more into personal libraries in teachers classrooms but either way any help that we can get uh from another public entity like the library would be greatly appreciated uh I have already had discussions with several teachers at Oldbridge High School and jonasa Middle School uh where we are already coming up with ideas to work in conjunction with the Librarians here uh to come up with a work a plan uh we have some ideas uh but particularly uh creating some kind of a schedule where uh some of these titles would be shared from teacher to teacher at each grade level uh we also have some other ideas of creating free libraries allowing allowing uh with these other set of books of the other 30 having creating some choice for our students to read on their own um I think this is a great opportunity to create those bonds that we have been talking about for years and for the first time we have a director who is actually making the effort to try to reach out to the Oldbridge Township Public Schools to make some kind of connection between this something we have been talking about for a very long time but it has not been done by other directors until now so I fully support this idea okay Morocco with all due respect I don't know one darn thing about Finance but what I do know about is education yes I work in the Oldbridge schools for 40 years I have a doctorate in elementary education stop it already so I know that kind of stuff I know what can happen I also know didn't they just the other night pass the raise in the budget from the 2% cap yes they did on it didn't I don't know what it's going up to I think that when they took the Librarians out of the school that was wrong I I don't understand that but you know then I think they started with the Middle School the librarian went out and they had a middle school with no librarian that's been the longest uh what's concerning me is I don't know how these are going to be used how on a grade level how many second grade classes are they in a grade level I used to know those numbers I don't they're like 25 of them school there's one set for each grade level for each School correct or is it it's per grade level per grade level so we can work out schedules that is just something that particularly my um I I am secondary English language arts but Alexis abalo who is the is the elementary English language arts supervisor in conjunction with Dr Tui the head of curriculum instruction I'm sure we could work something out or we could create something workable this is a it to me this is just a matter of administration sitting down and making and creating some kind of a schedule where this all can be used now the books that are picked out everybody in the second grade isn't on the same reading level so you would have to have different who's going to do that Librarians yes absolutely um and how do they assess reading levels they're not their they get taught by me because I was a school librarian for six years and with regard to in in um information literacy independent inquiry I feel that we can fulfill that so you're absolutely right when it comes to the set of classroom reads let's say for we have the Amelia bilias for second grade and there's a a set of them so teachers would have an opportunity to use one of the two sets to do a read aloud together which is an opportunity they would like and then the others would absolutely be at a range of lexiles so that they can accommodate a larger group but it's really that they're going to be selected to be non-fiction and fiction so they can start looking at it and this is going to be for when kids have free time you go and get a book and look at it for the other kids but the emerging literacy kits that's that's a free option for them to go choose what interests them all right well again I don't really understand the mechanics of it I don't know how much librarian time is going to be spent in making up the books and and doing whatever however they disperse them um you are having uh teachers come to the library to pick up a bag of books is that how they get it or we have to decide yeah that's something to be determined um we're not going to do deliveries to every anybody talked about to the union the teachers union about what this is happening because some of the things that the Librarians are doing we aren't creating lesson plans we're doing the same as so when we do adult book kits we give a list of questions for discussion or activities for our book kids we do that for everyone so this is just one option that teachers would have it's not a lesson plan can I ask a few questions so we're we're providing resources to the schools is essentially what is that correct and yes and and teachers all the time seek out resources outside of what of their area of expertise and as a matter of fact is my job as supervisor I provide those resources so this is one other resource does a teacher have to are they going to be is it going to be a mandatory thing where they have to follow these resources absolutely not right the teachers have their have their freedom of choice in this matter as long as they stick to the curriculum and they are teaching what they're supposed to be teaching correct I have no problems with that but this is just providing a resource another resource for teachers who already taxed for time if they're trying on something new and they're not sure how to go about doing it this is a way to provide them with some guidance okay and also like a lot of the teachers look for Mentor text so maybe this is another you know way that they can do it yes yeah yes ab and and and I have to say a lot of this does just come from when I've been a school media specialist I always take my public library sensibilities with me and I I carry them all across so that's realistically where this comes from is programs I've set up in schools before so you know my opinion is we've been talking quite for quite some time uh this is back almost to Rocco's point about uh the first director in some time to actually be working with these schools so we we've been talking about that for some time getting more involved within the community particularly with the schools especially since I don't know it's been about two years now since we've lost most of our or or all of our Li school librarians so we've been talking about that for some time so I think this is a big step forward so what is the ask at this point uh and I'm so sorry that we didn't put that on the agenda so for the proposal that I have sorry I've got it yeah $1 14,256 68 that includes um two preschool kits uh emerging literacy two kindergarten emerging literacy six grade 1 through3 emerging literacy 24 grade 1- 12 readalong kits which is 30 books per class and it's two per grade level um and then it would be what are going to be the Branded um duffel bags so that we're making this easy because we don't want to be investing a lot of time in seeing what's in the bag or all the books there we're going to have a laminated list for teachers to go through to make sure everything's back in the book kit and this is the same model that we'll use for book kits that we would eventually use for with um borrowing with lmxac it's the same I'm getting that going on another level but this is the model for the book how long does the teacher keep the bag of books we have to decide that my thought is a week for the um for the the same title kits and two weeks for the other kits but that's something that it's basically we're going to be backing it up looking at the number of weeks that are available the number of classes and then that'll dictate to us how long a teacher can borrow them has to bring the bag of books back to you I guess we have to determine that they stay in the library I mean you're finding a place to well that's the thing we are currently trying to see and I think you know these these questions you're asking Joan I think are things that myself as uh English language arts supervisor on the secondary level and the elementary supervisor uh for English language arts I think that is part of our purview as you know supervisors to figure this out uh working with again with Dr Tu the director of Frank instruction I think you're in a couple of different areas Rocco so you may need Chris's input into it um you know you tell a union person that they have to bring it back and forth good luck well the the the the interface is with the school district we're not dealing directly with a labor organization on this they're they're the end users they're not a party to this agreement right if the teachers say I am not going to go pick it up they don't have to that this is an optional program so yeah you're right if if a teacher is choosing not to be participatory and and active like that that would be that teacher's choice you could use and that is true but I I can tell you right now I've kind of straw pulled some at least on the secondary level and ELA teachers are extremely interested okay so these books would be utilized within the classroom yes so there there would that would minimize the concern for books going home and then never coming back correct okay and so they're going to read it in the classroom as part of the class okay okay okay that's another issue that I have what are they taking away from are they not ma when they're doing that or with block scheduling uh at the secondary level um I don't know secondary rco with all respect I I I totally yes and I totally understand because I remember I remember working for you Dr George um but I I think with the block schedule we have now this is providing that uh the resources we need for the reading time that we have if you go into like a classroom now a six particularly in the Middle School uh usually the first part of the classroom is is that free reading time uh where which allows them to spend time actually reading text but also gives the teacher time to work on other things with other students providing some one-on-one instruction and things like that um so having an extra resource to do this uh and to complete like again this is something that is pretty you know I think it would fit it fit very well with what we have going right now on the secondary uh level for English language arts classrooms and when do you need to move with this motion if we're doing this I mean ideally we want to get as much feedback as we can from the teachers and I don't know how much we can get at this point uh we want to be ready for September okay um and for the school year to start um so that's a couple of you know that's that's a bit of work for us because we've got also summer reading club going on and a lot of other transitions so I want to space it out so that it's um digestible for staff in most situations uh knowing the way our curriculum Works um the first month of September is usually spent you know going over some of the basics in our classrooms um you know establishing some other things novel study and reading on this level doesn't really start till until October when teachers are actually Beginning to Look At first novels most of the time they're doing other things things like reading shorter pieces using some of the other resources that we have doing some writing uh diagnostic testing um a whole ly about things that go on in the month of September so it's not really that we're going to need these books right off the bat September uh it's something that can you know we can prolong into October or November so we don't need the action tonight we don't um but the sooner so the thing is actually having the books for the classrooms I could see waiting until October the titles we need to get as soon as possible because teachers over the summer are going to be making their plans for next year Y and if they know that they're going to have access they can look at title lists and think about those things so it's not the physical kits it's the list of titles but could we do that Library will be closing in 15 minutes please bring all items to the front desk thank you have a good night could we do that without physically making a motion on the expense of it tonight I mean to invest the time in in selecting titles but not purchasing them I'm just not sure about I mean we can we can certainly start a conversation about what titles people would want I just hesitate with new staff coming in to assign people a project when we've got when we're not sure that it's GNA we're not going to do it what what your feel I I feel we just get to started as soon as possible um where are the books going to be stored at the library and so we've already started so with us getting the the preschool and the senior deliveries going again in September we've already gone into Technical Services to clear shelf space and that's where we're looking at where they're going to be stored not only for these kits but for the other deliveries we're going to be getting back into and then our adult book kits which we're hoping to start circulating we believe we have enough room in technical services to do that and if you know if if approved tonight I would you know I can start the ball rolling imately I've already made do two aware of this today so but I told them I was waiting for the for this to happen once we have an official word I would be problem okay anybody else you're a teacher aren't you yes I am do you have anything you want to add because would be valuable well listen right now as far as libraries it's throughout the state I mean everything's media based and there's always a need for more books and even I look into working with my local library and I get books through them so I think this is just you know this is the the century this is how we're moving forward you know and it's not just this District it's just throughout New Jersey but thank you I appreciate your opinion okay so if nothing else I'll I'll I'll ask if there's a motion I will make motion okay then I'll ask for a second I second all right any other discussion on this roll call please so do do we need to document exactly what the motion is the motion is just to approve the school book kits project at a library expenditure of 14 256 correct 256 68 68 I had 16 I'll foret it I had at I'll bring it in under all right all right roll call please sure uh Maddie yes Rocco yes Dr George no Sarah yes and Kevin yes thank you okay hoopla hoopla next um I don't think anyone probably remembers but last month in the director's report um I discussed adding $500 a month to hoopla um we've had a real increase um and what's happening so hoopla is a multiformat materials database featuring streaming and downloadable ebooks e audio books music film and magazines so one of the things we haven't looked at yet is we have an increase in our budget this year of um we will be having about $200,000 um the most of the board's not seen that yet because it's only in the draft budget and it's not in the financial reports that you're seeing so one of the things in the draft budget that I chose to invest that money in is all of our ebooks e audio books and streaming materials um it's not stable and we haven't had the amount of staff needed to order enough ebooks to really make an impact on the community our hoopla usage has been steadily growing we got a hundred new uh accounts in the past year and that's with them constantly being told that they can't download anything because you've reached the daily limit so last September we added $500 a month and now that limit's been reached to where that's not sustaining us anymore either what I had proposed in the draft budget was an increase of 26,000 for this year in ebooks to close more closely align with our numbers for circulation for ebooks versus print materials um and what I'd like to request at this time is increasing our investment in hoopla uh $1,000 a month to $32,400 for this year that money rolls over it doesn't get wasted um we have dedicated people who are up waiting until midnight to try and Reserve books because the limits get reached on a daily basis and now the competition is coming in that even the ebooks we can order through overdrive hoopla is competing with overdrive so there are some titles that will exclusively be available on hoopla in addition to that um Rocco also is a fan of hoopla as many people are but we also want to start promoting this to the teachers the schools did have a very specific request requ EST for E audio books and we just gave them a report on that but there's a substantial number of e audio books in hoopla so we're currently spending 1,700 a month and I would like to increase for the next year to 2700 a month and then see how we're doing with ordering the eBooks on our own and getting that number of circulations up to where it accurately reflects the percentage of ebooks as compared to print books so what what is the ask specifically the ask is to increase our hoopla investment uh by ,000 a month um so $122,000 for the year um and we're and that would uh increase us to $32,000 for the year for hoopla um but we should have no foreseeable caps currently um people can take out up to eight items a month um so people registered with accounts are taking out their eight items a month people really like the service so what we would do throughout the year is Monitor continue to monitor our usage um I've also lmxac was serving as our negotiator with the vendor that's over um because the money wasn't being taken care of correctly and with an investment of this much in this resource I feel that we should have a direct relationship with the vendor and they are extremely responsive and willing to um to talk to me about anything how to maximize our investment so I think we have a good relationship it's um popular people are using it and then we will have um considerations in the future let's say we add that thousand a month and after six months we have the same problem we can reduce the number of um checkouts people get per month like currently we have eight we can go down to six we could limit what things they can take out there's a lot of ways that we can do it today alone we had five people called to complain that they were turned away and that's only the people who are calling us there are a lot of people not calling us so I feel it's U an investment in the library that also makes up for some of the staffing issues that we've had and would give us a a catch up for the next year with regard to e materials okay the the only number that I'd be interested in is how many people different people use this service we talked about hotspots we found out you know it wasn't the world using it I'd like to know how many because this is a library function I think it needs to be supported and expanded but I would like to know how many people benefit from it and it's only about 308 that was the last time I checked and that number's a couple of months old so that's not an amazing number what the of course the vendor is going to try and sell me what they pointed out was that our rate of growth to get a hundred new people on in the last year is a tremendous rate of growth and again we don't lose our money if we make the investment and it's not used or we don't see what number do we want to have next year does it need to be up to th people by next year um we are going to carefully chart those numbers and look at this experiment because otherwise we need to have a lot more people ordering ebooks this is a curated collection it takes zero staff time there's nobody who's got to go read old titles out all of that um and they're also negotiating with the Publishers which is something that overdrive can't always do because ebooks are really up in the air it's just a matter of us having knowledge we're spending money what are we spending it for that's what I would like to know but I think that this is a library function getting reading material to people that's what we should be doing so I don't have a problem with putting more money in it and and I won't um subject anybody to it but um the hoopla increase what I just gave them or what they just gave me literally is 20 some pages of looking and the whole board can have this to to show me what time of day people are accessing the books what titles they're accessing what unique titles they're accessing so what they're doing is um investing in their company very heavily okay so any other discussion on this would someone like to make a motion to increase the hoopla I'll make the motion okay second thank you I'll second any other discussion no roll call please so the number is 32 400 correct okay okay Rocka yes Dr George yes Sarah yes Maddie yes and Kevin yes okay so director's report uh we essentially covered that earlier right I believe we have does anybody else have anything on director's report okay I'm gonna move on to committee reports building and grounds Rocco I know you had a meeting yeah we had a meeting last week uh with Don and myself uh we just went over a couple of things just some updates really nothing uh being proposed or anything this evening um first off the we talked about the bathroom renovation uh we're inquiring and we're going to Parks uh to try to get an architect so that has been a bit of a challenge so we're working on that currently uh the F the furniture renovation phase one is moving along long uh we're going to have uh in July a full presentation of furniture and things like that so uh there has been things have been moved we're moving things around things are moving very very well um and uh next is the roof repair uh repairs were conducted by the DPW and apparently no one can attest to that repairs have worked so yes we we we' we've had um where the the front entrance connects to the main building we've still had a little bit of an issue but a very little bit of an issue and the majority of when we needed 22 buckets knock on everything wholly has has been addressed okay so that's good news uh a passport area too all the work that needed to be done there has been repaired that is complete uh and then currently in progress we have uh the HVAC uh we're still working in troubleshooting some of the problems that we're having with that more information forthcoming uh The Atrium um we're looking at renovation options again something to present to the board later on this year and that's basically it for right now all right Finance um Maria is not here but I know do know that we are due for a finance committee meeting as you mentioned there are a number of topics that need to be covered there um so I will uh Chase on that and see if we can get something moving Outreach and marketing Frank is not here tonight um I don't know that we have anything coming up for that there are a number of things we want to talk about Outreach but I think that there's uh other priorities such as technology and stuff that we have to uh cover Personnel negotiations um we did have a meeting recently as we took some action uh tonight accordingly um Sarah is there anything else you want to bring up for personnel I think we've have it all covered yeah no I think we covered it all thank you we will have uh Rank and file unit negotiations starting in or we'll be preliminarily starting in September okay thank you person uh policy nothing right okay and technology I did speak to Frank um we will be getting something within the next week I believe can can I ask that we ensure that the servers be on the next agenda because literally if they go down the entire building is dead in the water okay every staff computer every public computer yeah and the errors are coming in exactly as we said they would since March okay um if nothing else from the board I will open it to public comments would anyone from the public either online or in the room like to speak anyone online no okay I'll say that I think approving more money for ebooks is a very good idea just we use it all the time it's as she'll have an old bridge card card in a moment so but uh well we would I absolutely agree that that's something that deserves investment yeah I thank you all right uh with that I'll ask for a motion to adjourn a motion thank you second second thank you any all in favor iOS thank you everyone and thank you to all the public for your patience tonight I appreciate it