##VIDEO ID:RDZxQIZ5CK8## okay so I'm going to 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 David cadino Dr George here Sarah minino that not yet okay Maria Maria Rosemary I am here Zab yes Maddie here mayor Walker Frank Weber Sarah's here Sarah's here I'm here yeah I know okay salute to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay so before we get into uh well you know what let's do the minutes and then we'll we'll get into the other stuff so I'll just ask for a uh can I hear you now can I hear you now I don't know D well I meeting right here here why are you putting it down okay um so I'll ask for a motion for the approval of the regular meeting minutes for September 11 a motion thank you second I second any discussion roll call Y Kevin yes uh Dr George yes uh Sarah yes SAR made the motion correct yes okay I am a yes I AB no no Maddie yes and you made the second right okay uh Frank yes thank you okay so now we're gonna uh to go off the agenda a little bit pass it to the director because we have a few guests here tonight we do um last month we started talking about uh the possibilities with our collection moving forward with having RFID and it's something that I feel that the board wanted some additional background on to ask questions about some additional perspective so uh we do have Don janazzo am I saying that correctly um and um we also have Jake Jake what is your last name I forgotten young sorry so respectively from envisionware and from biblioteca who are two of the the companies that uh and gentlemen correct me if I'm wrong but two of the companies that don't actually sell the RFID they have partners that they work with to have the RFID put into the collection who they actually work for are the companies that sell the Technologies and the resources to give Advanced Library Services across the country uh once you have RFID so they are obviously advocates for that system and I wasn't sure if um the board how the board how you all want to move forward with this um so I'll just give uh RFID is radio frequency identification their tags that are put on our materials that make them trackable by different Technologies so uh a self checkout machine you can um check out materials more easily than with a barcode there are also Technologies for checking books in where when people put books in a bookd drop it checks them in automatically rather than a person going through there are also things like security for the collection we don't Cur uh currently have security gates or any security um on on book theft there is an option for um please excuse me inventory um where you can e more easily inventory books we haven't had an inventory here since barcodes were installed um I believe in the 9s um the other thing is that when we start to look at um Branch services and expanding throughout Oldbridge um we have a lot more options by using technology than we would by trying to duplicate an exact library in other areas um and the expense that comes with that um and we're not ready to look into those full proposals yet but have you has everybody seen an Amazon Locker so they have that for books so people can just go to their local Amazon Locker and pick up their books using their barcodes their their library cards and things like that um and then there are other things that look like giant vending machines and I know that Rocco was very interested in that because it could be put in the high school um in the schools and things like that there's a lot to be discussed about the possibilities with this technology but where we need to start is with a decision of whether we want to entertain um proposals for installing the RFID in the library um and so we're not here to give specifics about um what that looks like it's whether or not we would want to consider RFID and then in November if we wanted to move forward we could have proposals um from biblioteca and envisionware about um the details of of what their their vision for getting us um there would look like so I'm not sure if the board would prefer to hear from each Advocate hi Roco we're just about to start with our um RFID and I just talked the book lockers and things like that and what could happen for the schools um I'm not sure if it's most helpful to have each Advocate talk a little bit about what RFID looks like in other communities um or if you just want to go into questions I I think it makes sense for them to give a little bit of an overview um and then um let the board ask questions as they will to each one okay yeah yeah and like I said you know we do want to kind of um keep things limited and Don will'll see about turning the screen over to you in a minute Jake I think that you had a a handout which uh isn't going to go to the board so I don't know if you wanna we got the PDF document that we can we can email out to everybody as well that is here physical attendance okay um and and so there's no vote on anything tonight um it's really just about um do we want to do this so does anybody have a preference um Don you can I just share screen yeah with him so that John are You Ready sure and I could start by just kind of providing an overview based on what you've described you before I jump into screen sharing or presenting anything um I I understand there might be varying um levels of understanding of what the technology is and how it works and that kind of thing so I'm happy to kind of just provide a general overview just to get started I understand we don't have a lot of time and thank you Don for kind of outlining um you know where we're at in the process so with that I I'll just kind of as John Don said it's it's radio frequency identification like that's the acronym of RFID what it is basically is um today every item in the library collection has a unique identifier that is the barcode number right so just like we we see at retail and and you know every item that you have see in the grocery store or wherever it is has a barcode number the library has a unique identifier that is um a library specific barcode number right different than the manufacturers called the ISBN different than the manufacturer's barcode number on any given book or dvd what have you so what an RFID tag is basically uh for lack of a better term is a radio barcode right it's the conversion process when the library implements RFID they take the existing items in the collection and there's software and uh that and programmers we provide as part of this um that allow you to uh scan a barcode existing Library barcode number and program that barcode number onto the chip on the RFID tag right there's a chip with memory and that stores data so as I said that allows the item to now be enabled as a is a radio barcode radio barcoded it item right so what that allows for is an efficiency with item processing so today we have um a scenar a workflow for Library staff or self checkout whatever the case may be where each item is is processed one at a time scan the barcode next item depending on where the barcodes are in the items that could be a multi-step process right so imagine if the library specific barcode is on the inside front cover for example Step One open the item step two scan the barcode step three close the item so there potentially could be more than one step for every processing of every one single item when we move to an RFID environment what happens is now the there are readers that can capture these barcodes these radio barcodes right with radio frequency so we don't need to do the library does not need to continue to do single item processing right we can now present batches of items to a reader pad and items can be processed for checkin or check out by Library staff um more than one at a time similarly with a self checkout kiosk batches of items can be presented and processed for checkout so um tremendous efficiency even before we talk about self checkout um to library operations as far as uh how materials are processed for checkin and checkout um I'll pause there does does that make sense is that kind of a a acceptable overview of what it is and how it works and and sorry what I'm what I'm kind of thinking is that I I know that it's a little bit awkward but since we're at the point of introduction and I don't think that J's going to want to do another introduction was there something that you wanted to add to that in in that overview or would you prefer to to wait for questions yeah I mean I at the end of the day you know both Don and I are subject matter experts when it comes to RFID technology compies however I can't hear them at all you wanna you want come come to the table press the sound thank you can you hear me okay now yes better wonderful yeah so as I was saying you know Don are both subject matter experts when it comes to RFID technology so you know the main things that you need to consider whether or not to implement RFID um customer satisfaction staff um productivity um staff well-being those are kind of the three main highlights uh I'm taking the liberty of providing kind of a overview of the technology there's no sense in both of us uh rehashing the same type of information over so this is kind of a take-home it's it's a high level overview of everything that you want to know and more about RFID as you go so this will go out to the remainder of the board in email PDF copy yep so gonna defer back to uh to you Don I mean we can wait for questions but yeah so um Don to jump back to you um do you want to show something are you uh is there did you want to move on to the next Point yeah so um as follow-up to what I described I thought um it might be helpful to just show you a demonstration of of a self checkout how that works right so I described what it is um and basically where the benefits are but I thought it might be a good idea to show you uh what a in a work in terms of a workflow what that would look like does that is that acceptable to everyone sure okay so I am going to attempt to share the screen um you're sharing the file no uh don is gonna share the file oh so he he's got to share his screen oh sorry yes stop share see I have a screen share option here let me S that um share see my lack of Zoom [Music] skills I will do screen I guess share okay let me know if you're seeing my screen y we are okay great so what you're seeing you should be seeing on the screen is a welcome screen for self checkout on the left hand side of the screen it says checkout there's an icon of a shopping cart is everyone seeing that yes okay so this is basically the S I'm obviously on a laptop this is the software of the self checkout kiosk right that we would provide um the kiosk itself would be a touch in a touchcreen operation so I I know you'll be seeing my you know there's my cursor there you're seeing my I'm going to Mouse click through this demo but understand in you know in actuality the um the user the P Library Patron would be uh touching the screen and it's a self um excuse me a touchscreen workflow right so I'm just going to select check out prompted to scan my library card and animation will prompt me to scan my items four items were placed on the RFID pad that's it I just checked out four items have a nice day so that's again the efficiency and the speed with which RFID can allow for item process processing right all I did was select checkout authenticate with my library card follow the animation to present the items to the uh RFID reader pad and four items were checked out uh simultaneously okay is this used anywhere uh so RFID is used everywhere this isn't a minority of Li liaries that have RFID um and what's interesting um and and I know that both of you will have examples of systems that you're already um using but if I could just say when um I spoke with Jake earlier today and he was talking about Bucks County Pennsylvania which has a very robust library system and I thought it was very interesting they are renovating their selfcheck and security system so this isn't knew we are um would be very late in adopting this that other libraries um are you know moving into their systems are 15 20 years old and have been through their lifespans and they're replacing them so um Don and Jake I know that you're going to have examples of the types of libraries that you work with and many libraries here in the Consortium have RFID yeah yeah Within Stella um I the 38 or 40 member libraries are currently there are um 16 biblioteca customers you know that libraries um in your Consortium that are realizing the benefits of the biblioteca solution and have been quite some time so yes as dawn said it's it's not at all a new technology very well established uh very well established here um locally in your Consortium as I mentioned but in within the state of New Jersey uh and glob actually so um the technology is probably the 20y year range you know as far as the earliest adopters were in the early 2000s so one of the benefits obviously is inventory right and it says scan a a shelf of items in a single single scan um but does that inventory just simply tell you what books we have in stock versus what's missing or does it also tell you perhaps what's misplaced placed so if a book from the from the Teen section was placed in the children's section would that you know kick out to the staff to say hey this item is is in the wrong location you know you guys need to to clean that up and move that over yes yeah so what I've and this is we're talking 101 15 years ago the systems that I was using it would actually tell you what was um Miss sheld right when you go down what's in the wrong place what's what should be there that's not there and what's there that shouldn't be there it was it was the the big cleanup um which I've never um the first time I did this was in Wyoming and it was when we were installing the RFID that we took the opportunity to do an inventory we haven't had an inventory here in 20 years so there's a lot that's that's missing um that that it's an opportunity for us to do a big cleanup of our collection yeah in it does tell you what's misfiled right and does it tell you um I checked out a book I was supposed to return it on the 1 of October it's now the 31st of October it's 30 days late um like do you get reports that the library can then start chasing you know uh people for patrons for for late items to say hey by the way you may have forgotten but you need to return this to the library you mean to go do more frequent scans like a weekly scan or something like that or or even not even a scan but if I checked out something and I was supposed to return it on the 1st of October right now the RFID should check the book back in when I return it but I haven't returned it in 30 days so is the library notified to say to the patrons that have not returned their items in 30 days 60 days 90 days whatever it might be hey by the way you may want to chase this person being email or something to say you know we we haven't gotten this this item back right do you still have it could you please return it I feel like that's our circulation system so that's going to be through your your library system itself it's called an ILS um that's going to provide your notifications of something being overdue the RFID technology is the the more productive way to manage your current collection to provide you with the inventory provide faster streamline methods of checking out items checking in items so instead of you know a staff member checking in one item at a time repetitive motions right now you can put a stack of eight nine ten items so so I get that but the whole point of it too is to ensure that items are coming back right that we we we know when things came back you was saying that we can immediately know that it's back in back in place right right so we we have it right so there there's a couple issues there that I would hope that would resolve like number one is um when you do the inventory I might scan and find a book that we didn't get checked in for whatever reason it got missed or something right and then we say oh sorry to the patron no you don't owe this book we we actually have do have it in stock but then on the other hand is you know going after those that maybe late or or so on so the late ones we already have that covered the ones that are returned and are in the wrong place connected now guys sorry about that sorry all we we we went down for a minute we're back I think we're done again do you guys hear us hello me check this again no I didn't all right um do I go this one maybe should I switch Wi-Fi ask for a code no open one yeah all right I'm going to try connecting toing I think sorry everyone okay you there you are you got us back sorry we're having we're having internet issues here okay we were knocked offline so hopefully we've resolved it so what we're back to is our ILS system currently tracks it's 30 days overdue it's 60 days overdue what it doesn't do is locate missing materials currently we have to if somebody says they turn something in and we don't know if they have we've got to physically go look for it so an inventory is going to show us what's missing um if I can just give an example um last week so currently we have these bookd drops and we have um the custodian doing also the pickups from until we get the the regular driver position done so they're getting picked up twice a week so he was there on Tuesday someone turned in their books after he had already picked up and then he was out on Thursday so he there there wasn't a second pickup that week and I wasn't in so I couldn't go do it so on Thursday we had a patron calling saying my book I turned in my books at the bookd drop at at Miller Elementary school on Tuesday but no one has seen them checked in yet so it was the patron calling circulation staff and circulation staff then asking me when were the deliveries done and and all of that so the thing is if we had RFID and we could look at all of these other options there are bookd drops that we can get um and and other Management systems for offsite services that when the person puts that book into the device it checks it in right so that one of the reasons our bookd drops aren't getting very well used right now is because people have no idea people want to see their book their their record people manage their own accounts now and they want to see immediately that that's that book has been checked in they did what they were supposed to do especially since we charge fines there are a lot of libraries that don't charge fines we do so people see that coming up and they want to make sure that that's on there I think that our book drops and our off-site locations that don't necessarily have to have a whole Branch like this um would be much more um much more heavily utilized if we had something like this and that's just in addition to the security system and the self Che and and those kinds of things it's it's the remote location possibilities it's basically adding intelligence yeah to the you now have a computer chip attached to that particular item that has information associated with it able to it any any of the board members on the zoom have any questions um yeah Kevin this is Zena um How much would it cost do we know a ballpark uh range of what that might look like what the numbers might look like yeah so we started and I have some proposals in that I'll go through with the fine tooth comb and make sure that they catch up for next uh month's meeting but we are talking about over $100,000 so it is a substantial investment and then moving forward I'm actually going to defer to you gentlemen I looked online and saw that the average RFID tag for books was 25 cents I thought it was more like 15 okay definitely so more like 15 cents correct yeah you you probably looked at a distributor reseller or um you know one of the library Supply uh cataloges websites that give you kind of an MSRP idea but yeah for the collection size you know we're talking about 15 cents is a good Planning number Don you had also mentioned the um interest in retaining a service to to actually tag the collection for the library right there's a cost for that too so biblioteca and dor Vision where we provide Hardware you know equipment um self-checkout kiosks you know the bookd drops uh don was describing collection management handheld devices and the like the tags of course themselves but then there's another uh component of a tagging service that's being considered that is not something I I don't can't speak for en visioner but that bibla does not provide it would be a third party actually doing that the services for like new materials new books that would be like the 15 cents a book so figure for every 10,000 books we new 10 10,000 new books we got any year it would cost us $1,500 to tag them right and as you get new books who scans those new materials so with with the RFID we can either choose to have the U Baker and Taylor like who we're buying our books from we can pay them as part of our processing or our staff can put a tag on them it's a very simple process yeah but how long would it take to implement by tagging every item in our inventory like are we talking a year two years depends on if you did it yourself or if you had a service come in um then it would be a couple weeks yeah and you wouldn't even know they're here they would right and and that's that's the thing um there I worked in one Library where we tagged the collection it was smaller collection than here but it was a lot of effort and we had um I would say we we had three or four full-time people in Technical Services we don't have that here we have one full-time person in Technical Services um so they physically got to go out and lay a hand on every item in the collection and that's why um being able to do it in a couple of weeks they move essentially behind the scenes um in in libraries and go in but they literally are putting the tag on every book so we're simultaneously getting um that inventory while they're here and there there are different services for that so you know it kind of goes through now and gives us a list of what's on the Shelf but if we wanted to do some enhanced um evaluation of the collection with that it's a good time to do it but it was between like I'd say and 150 but I thought that it best for us to make a decision about whether we want to um take on something like that um before going through combing all the details in the proposals and then the equipment is a different price and that's something that we can do um you know you can build the system we can start with that self checkout machine and then we could move to the book drops and the book lockers or we could start with the security system any piece of it we can get started with and one thing um I know that the Consortium is um trying to look into urging everyone to see what they can do to get everyone to adopt RFID because it it helps within the delivery system to give you an example I've been working with the state of Delaware for the past two years um we started tagging uh public libraries um it was so successful that it's branched off now into the academic division so all of the primary secondary schools as well as higher education uh throughout the state it's been an ongoing project for over two years we tag just under two million items um so you've got Statewide rollouts of this technology that are even happening around you um Free Library Philadelphia has been using RFID for many many years um it really does enhance everything I mentioned earlier the patron experience the staff experience um and it opens you up to those additional technologies that Don mentioned the intelligent returns lockers then y yeah Don you made a good point about um the inventory kind of being part of the conversion process um the question that came up earlier around you know a handheld device to search for an item that's kind of on the collection management side like that comes post conversion right you've enabled the collection with the tech this technology and you could certainly realize those benefits but was what Dawn was mentioning was the idea that every item in the in the library today is going to need to be touched and a a tag is going to be applied and programmed right the bar barcode number I mentioned is is going to be programmed onto that tag so in doing so you know there's data right you could you could then pull log files of every item that was touched and and programmed and thereby have an inventory right so if you go through a process whether it's the library doing it you know over an extended period of time or or a service that comes in and cranks it out in a couple of weeks at the end of the day you CH you know there have been whatever it is 75 880,000 items that were tagged you now have done a an inventory by simply uh converting The Collection right and then the benefits come later as I said colle C management searching for items and that kind of stuff is all an added benefit going forward okay anybody else have any other questions actually I'm just curious what do the tags look like they just they stick on like do they fall off just like just like a sticker like a sticker yeah there's several different types of tags that need to be considered you've got tags that go on DVDs and you know Blu-ray discs you've got book tags you different sizes of dig B tags um traditionally you're either going to use a square Tag 2 by two just a square or you're gonna have a rectangle one I always recommend the rectangle one it's it's better it's got 20% greater re range um but size of a credit card that sticker is placed in the back of the book does that get damaged at all like over time nothing no it's actually lifetime guarantee okay yeah tag here that's the square one like that's roughly two inches by two inch that's the adhesive side and then that's the paper you know plain white paper side sorry you can see yeah I mean can it be vandalized yes um but have I ever heard of them honestly I can say they're out I've never heard of one just falling off so for the book drops that say at Mid of school and stuff how does that register does that that needs to be connected to Wi-Fi in some way yeah it needs to be wired and and right and so how do we connect that to Wi-Fi uh I don't know that it would be on Wi-Fi it might have to be hardwired um so all of these systems it's not like you just plop the machine out there yeah there there is a lot of you know it has to have a data line going to it is that correct for yeah talking to the catalog so basically any piece of equipment that's RFID enabled is going to be uh the recommendation is ethernet connected to to be online and then of course uh talking to the catalog so that it's you know as I said all the only data that's going to be on here is the barcode number like whatever 14 or 13 or 14 numeric characters so for that barcode number to be um identified as an item and has to talk to the catalog right yeah yeah yeah and just for some additional clarification if the internet went down in the library you'd still be able to utilize your self checkouts with the RFID technology there is an offline that You' be a for that offline yeah yeah yeah but but anything that is outside of the library has to communicate with the library in some way and so it's going to do that via the Internet and so somehow we would have to consider if we wanted to do it for bookd drops how do we get that to communicate with the library yeah and and it is I mean uh you want to if you like let's say we wanted to put um a 24-hour library or vending machine type thing in the high school if do you want to put it inside do you want to put it outside so that kids can access it after school so you need to have the cooperation of everyone to get things with electricity and data lines and you know do you want to build uh like a little shed over it you know what I mean so that things are protected these these are all right conversations that you have later so what we'd be starting off with is the selfcheck the security alarms and the inventory right and you can do like a book drop outside Lawrence Harbor Branch because you can connect that via Wi-Fi to the Lawrence Harbor Branch internet right yeah I mean we could talk to the schools at some point I probably wouldn't make it the priority item about like Miller or something now they would they oh they would definitely be interested but I think that I think we need to get it established here like we would have to get yeah that's what I'm saying but eventually we should if you wanted to Branch out further could yeah and and this is why I wanted to do this tonight so I just want to um thank Jake and Don for coming in for this initial conversation is because all of those conversations are are based on whether or not do we want to hear proposals for getting the collection tagged with RFID great thank you thanks guys you very much thank you all look forward to the possibility next steps y okay thank you and and I will be in touch with both of them so I will send out what Jake sent to me um Don if you wanted to me to send something out let me know um and then I will be going over proposals um with them for next month if that's the board's consensus so there's no vote but it's just is this a good use of my time right right great okay sounds good thanks everyone okay thanks all okay all right so then we will move on there's nothing under the personnel and Chris we didn't want to speak in executive session or should we do that at the end about what about negotiations or anything there's actually I can just update everybody i' sent uh email to the negotiations Personnel committee to the best of my recollection membership and um we are awaiting proposals from the union I talked to them as I as I told you on September 11th I talked to them before that meeting because your contract says we start right after the September meeting but the ball is in the Union's Court I have spoken uh repeatedly to Debbie Parks they were meeting by Friday uh 12 days ago now and they were going to have something to me by the end of that day that did not happen so I am waiting for them to get in touch at which point we will do what we did last time last time we actually got their proposals in the middle of October and we got it done by the end of December so we're hoping for the so when you hear from them then you'll reach out to Sarah and myself and we'll set up meeting yes okay thank you all right um so nothing else for personnel we'll move to finance um the bill list in the amount of 23863 342 um Maria was not able to review it so she requested that I review it um I do go through it I don't have any concerns so I will actually make the motion to um to accept the bill listing in the amount of 238 63342 do I have a second I'll second it any discussion hey roll call Kevin yes Rocco yes Dr George yes and I just want to make one comment I want to thank I believe it's Irene or dwn or whoever added the information on interest in the banks to the bottom of the I don't know what we call that form but that's exactly what I was looking for thank you that's Irene Absolutely I'll let or no thank you okay Sarah yes I am a yes Zab sorry yes okay okay Maddie yes and Frank Weber yes thank you okay so the draft budget was sent out to every one to review was you provided it last week um the finance committee had reviewed it themselves uh and wishes to move it forward so um I will ask Kevin yes who's on the who's on the financi committee besides myself and Maria that's it me you and and Maria and you reviewed it I reviewed it yes all right I I've reviewed and I have some questions okay um you want to make should we make a motion and then and then bring them up in discussion yeah okay so I'll ask for a motion to move the budget I'll make a motion to move the budget a second second I'll second all right thank you and so now a discussion go ahead Frank all right um let me see if I I'm using the magnifying glass because the printed so damn small um on the hang on a second excuse me on the p ps the numbers up on that some went from 170 in 23 it went from 173 to uh 165 and what's the cause of that sorry are you talking about the medical insurance or the pur this is the pers one I believe hold on let me see if I can uh what was approved in for purs is um the retirement system so that's uh a formulated calculation there's no um we don't we don't have any um sway on that um so what was approved in 2023 was 118,00 000 what was actually paid out was 153,000 Linda I believe that there had been an error in the pur calculation from the state that had to be paid back is that not correct no okay um what I had done was increase it to um 170,000 for purs because the amount that we actually were charged was well over what had been approved in 2023 and if you were to look at your um at your year-to-date spending which is in your monthly packet we currently have from our spending of the 118 um there is 22,000 left for the remainder of the Year Linda so we'll be a bit over anticipating yes I I don't I I don't know okay all right um so we're we're on our about Target of being perhaps a little bit under with purs but that's um a number that's given to us by the state that we need so I budgeted a d put in the draft for additional funds there to cover because last year was much higher than what was budgeted at the end of the year so I increased it but we're not seeing any um we're not seeing that increase get duplicated in this year okay then the other question I have is the uh total total expenses we we've moved up from 2,976 1969 68 cents to an estimate of 4 million 39 77600 which is a 36% increase and I'm sorry which what category was that the total expens the total expenses is over four million correct y um so what I have done is basically what I'm supposed to do with the draft is that our Municipal uh our our allocation should equal our spending um a balanced budget that's what Maria had instructed me to do the increase if you were to look at the municipal allocation from 2023 to 202 4 that is calculated by the state and it it isn't something that we get to um to to argue or arbitrate there was an increase of $200,000 in the municipal appropriation is it I'm sorry am I looking in the right place yeah but this is too this is over a million dollar increase so it's not over a million dollar increase well it it is it is it it is from what we spent last year from the actual okay from the actual for last year but I I will say this uh so last year for instance Furnishings was budgeted $150,000 and we spent $5,795 so she has budgeted $400,000 for an anticipated renovation um I think the $400,000 is kind of almost two years worth of renovation if you're budgeting $150,000 annually it's a little bit more than double right right so um you know I I think spending $5,800 on Furnishings in a year for a library to size is kind of very low ball well the state for for formal uh amount of M we get is a fixed amount is predicated on what uh you know what the situation in the town with as far as their budget and all that yeah it's based on property taxes and as a matter of fact we just we just got the calculation for 2025 and we're going to be getting another increase of $400,000 next year right and and you know just to be clear we we don't as a library board don't ask for that increase for 400,000 right um that is directed by the state is that correct Chris yes yeah so um you know the other thing that I would say is a large increase in here uh is New Jersey library maker space idea Farm which had nothing budgeted last year and $50,000 this year uh includes the restoration of library of things so I think you know introducing more programs and and activities and stuff in the library is really what we're test with doing Kevin I have two questions you just mentioned one I don't know what the library of things is we spoke about that in the past but go ahead D so in it was in uh it was attached in last month's board packet I can send it out again so library of library of things is where the library lends useful items to the community that they might not be able to purchase on their own um and one of them was like a blood pressure monitor but we never talked about that did we we did last month yeah I don't remember raising uh because I remember seeing the list and you had a lot of things on it there were some questions I had about do we just lend anything do we need somebody to look at stuff we're lending out suppose somebody gets killed using that or whatever and then I didn't know how it was going to be processed where are these things going to be store whatever if you said material about that if you would just send me another copy I'd appreciate it yeah and I just had the list um I'll go over that list with Chris for any waivers that we need to have involved in sending them out and those things would ideally be stored in the idea Farm um because we want to make that the part of the maker space that non-traditional um learning and activities and culture outside of books very long list so uh the storage space would be considerable but whatever I I don't know if everybody saw the list and I'm you know the only one that didn't pay attention to it but anything else you have about that I would appreciate the other question I had was the money for renovation of the garden the garden renovation I don't remember a lengthy discussion on that either and I think I asked you some questions on whether the fire department had said anything about how many people can be in that at one time if we're going to open it up to the public yeah and and again this doesn't I mean this isn't actual approval of of the project and proposals this is just what I'm suggesting that we look into and that I spend my time on and then those actual proposals will go to um the board for for final approval um with regard to the file Marshall coming in unfortunately I missed about two weeks this month um due to illness and vacation so I am a little behind um but there was concern um I don't know if everyone remembers there is an exterior door door there that is it just opens through the the Brick to the outside so it actually so all what I did was go through and that space is larger than the rooms that we're currently using for story times that have more exits so unofficially but I'll absolutely have the fire marshall come in okay and I I do know that in the past uh we did get a number for the large conference room I believe it was 130 people 150 people at time I think that the fire department has those plans and if we're changing the usage of this area I would think they would have to look at it the uh door you're talking about I have no idea where that is uh but there is one to the big conference room and one to the main library but that you know I'm that isn't anything I have any kind of uh ability to determine but I think that the fire department has to tell us that and those were just my two questions about these are two things but we haven't had a plan written we haven't had a discussion I understand you're just putting money in the budget so when we get that part of it done the money will be there to buy whatever we decide we want okay and Jo I I have one further question uh you you mentioned before that one of the things that might be in there is a medical device no a blood pressure monitor well you know know person I I would not lend that out I use one they're impossible the only way they're really good to use is if you take it to your your cardiologist and have it calibrated uh they take use it on that then they take your blood pressure and they fix it up I don't know how youd borrow it but the questions I have about the stuff on that list to borrow I don't know how it's maintained how it's taken out returned is it useful you know is it in good shape that's the plan and that's what I would like to see in R so so we we could talk more about the library of things but for the budget purposes right now are there any other questions well the reason why it's that why I'm talking about it is you're putting in money for it so right but when I when I propose the 2025 budget in December there are going to be a lot of projects in there we can't decide on each one of those projects before the year starts no but I I know those already so I think the consensus of the so going back to the library of things I think the consensus of the board was that the director should start to look into this so therefore money was set aside I don't know da correct me if I'm wrong for misstating anything I don't know if you've made a definitive uh you know a strong decision on what's in that library of things yet or if there's going to be a presentation of that I think that's separate regardless of the fact we we are we we the the board as a whole has uh shown interest in moving towards the library of things so therefore you've set funds aside for it correct right okay anything else ever yeah my War caveat is there if you put it in the budget that's and uh you're Haven approved going ahead with buying it uh then the next thing you're going to hear is roll the money's in a budget so we're just going to go with it don't we have don't we have Capital uh funds that we can authorize the capital funds to be spent for and by the way there's something in this packet about we put something out of capital money and what I can't read my sheet is too small and I don't have my right glasses on uh was there not something in in conversation here about there was a significant amount of money moved from capital and you only place you could move it to be would be operational uh the suggestion of moving funds to the capital fund was done last year um if the board would like to move because we are going to have substantial excess funds this year again um if the board would like to move that in I can make that suggestion next month with regard to the budget um there's no project that's approved because it was approved in the budget those specifics still have to be presented to the board um you know there there are a number of things like Furniture when I suggest in the draft that we spend more money on furniture it's not exact it's not precise and it's not a limit of each piece of furniture we'd like to buy for the next year it's it's a limit of what spending would be and then the board approves those expenditures correct well my observation would be uh we can carry up to $600,000 in the uh operational account in excess before the town can take any from it which is a pretty significant number especially with with it's now going to have a higher number overall but once you put it in capital you can't move it back am I right Chris you can move it only under certain C un limited circumstances it's generally a one-way trip into capital and then you use it only for capital projects so therefore going forward until we're at that threshold where it's going to be taken away and maybe you know it can go back to the township because it's if that's the pleasure because given a $9 million hit that took place because of the uh way the Board of Education handle their money uh if we have such an excess that we have we bu in capital we going to be locked in there as opposed to if you leave in the general fund operational fund you do have some a little that becomes an ethical concern with regard to the charge to trustees which which is one which is that the trustees and the director are supposed to expend the municipal appropriation that it's not a savings plan so any any other questions to the budget discussion well I disagree on the ethical thing but uh I don't have any other questions on everyone's been heard yep okay so roll call please yes Kevin yes Rocco yes Dr George yes Sarah yes I am a yes Zab yes uh Maddie yes Frank yes okay thank you thank you okay uh so moving on to Old business we covered our Fit already uh hoopla hoopla Flex um as you may all recall we increased our uh investment in hoopla hoopla is a database that's extremely popular here in Oldbridge um and it's a materials database so it's not for research it's not for instruction it has ebooks e audio books music magazines and movies and it's extremely popular so we increased our investment in hoopla and that's been working out really well so far we've not had any more problems with our monthly limit um and then hoopla has another product so the hoopla that we have now is the generic one where anyone in the public can go on and look for whatever's available and borrow from there the way that we kept ourselves from hitting the limits um people can take out a certain amount but there's also the limit to what can be spent in a day and we were hitting that and we've made a substantial increase we don't select any of those items hoopla goes out with Publishers and negotiates what's in there what I did was I took the cap from 299 down to 275 so the most expens and that's per circulation so anything that's more than $2.75 per circulation I had pulled so those are obviously going to be the really popular items the reason why I did that was to make sure we didn't have problems with the cap and then if we're going to um be increasing our investment in ebooks and not in the music and movies just the ebooks we'd like to do that through hoopla because it's an interface that people already know so what we would do with this additional I'm sorry did I put six or seven, on there with the six or 7,000 that I had on there is our staff would be going in and selecting specifically the most um popular titles that would increase our access to those so it's not part of the regular hoopla product where you get things immediately 15 people can all go watch the movie at the same time this is like a traditional ebook but they're going in so it would keep um within the increase that I had hoped for uh for books in this year's budget and it it's simply a six to $7,000 increase in our ebooks but these are curated by our Librarians and not by um commercial publishers that's it what are you looking for a motion to approve you whatever your suggestion I think talking about is a function of the library and whatever you think is sensible there I I'm okay I would argue with it so can we make that motion to go with what you're saying and so there's two possibilities there because the budget was just approved and there's an increase to the books which includes ebooks I don't know that a that a motion is necessary but because it's with this one vendor I don't know if the board is more comfortable with approving that specifically because it's all through this one vendor like we don't approve Baker and Taylor orders though they can increase so this is just increasing our ebooks I wasn't sure that the budget would be with the budget in place you don't need a specific motion on this but getting board consensus isn't a bad idea just in yeah yeah just hoop flex and I'm so sorry does anybody see that am 6000 it's 6,000 yeah so if the board can approve 6,000 for who lefts okay so the consensus is move forward is anyone uh not within consensus okay all right next item new business anything the only um the minutes indicated about the Personnel manual the minutes indicated that my my suggestion was it be sent to Chris and it has been Dr George I am about half two-thirds the way through it there's some language that needs to come out for being contradictory uh legal updates to things like the uh Americans with Disabilities Act contradictions or running over the collective bargaining agreements uh some requests that Dawn made on behalf of the administrative team and I believe I will have it to you uh halfway between now and your November meeting for review and hopefully adoption in November apprciate your efforts and that I all I wanted to do was somewhere else here it said that they submitted the suggested changes to you to review and that wasn't my intent was a whole thing which is the whole Personnel manual that's what you're doing yes so fine but there's no pressure for you to do it tomorrow good it's been that how many years and a bit you'll you'll fix it yes okay thank you all right let's move on to director's report okay um we have a lot um so just so I I'm sure my takeaways from what I have so far are to make sure that I go through with the Fire Marshall and to give more information on the library of things I just make sure that I have that okay um so far we have received two rfps for the architectural services um to get the um to get a proposal together for the bathroom renovation and the creation of a server closet for um to get Irene's in the room with the server Tower and uh Dr George you commented on that last month so I think everyone's aware so this is just for the architectural services to make sure that the bathrooms be ADA Compliant and currently it's only for the One Bank of bathrooms and um the Ser the server closet so those are due by Friday so we'll have the requests for proposal from The Architects um and I'm assuming that that goes into vote next month yeah okay so you just to not to interrupt but uh you mentioned the bathrooms right so I know while you were on vacation I got a call about the bathrooms no that's fine that's fine um but we we had to close one of the Men's Rooms and unfortunately it was also on Oldbridge day so I don't know if that had much of an impact for people coming in I'm sure probably did but um did they figure out what the issue was or uh did we get it fixed so um yes uh I believe that the plumber had to come in for that one so what was happening before I got here was the plumber was coming in so a lot of times things are are clogged or there's um we've had a lot of repairs to be done because the pipes are corroded so they're starting to kind of explode the traps the faucets all those sorts of things are we're we have a lot of bathrooms so there's a lot that's breaking down um and we're going through and it's more expensive for us because we're basically replacing piece by piece on an emergency basis in instead of going in and doing the full renovation um and I know the bathrooms were just renovated in other areas of the municipal complex um because that they were also outdated but I these bathrooms are I believe original to the building yeah which puts us in the 90s which puts us at about 30 something years which is appropriate that the bathrooms would need to be renovated with regard to my interpretation and obviously this goes to the board um as I've always understood it as a director the municipal allocation is for the um maintenance of the building um until we have a really big project that we wouldn't be able that's unreasonable for the municipal allocation so that's why I was moving forward with getting those things done and uh collaborating with DPW and you know I'll certainly call Casey and and ask him to take a look at those okay I ever heard that the municipal allocation was for maintenance of the building yeah it's for it's for the whole thing I mean that that's that's the way that as as Library directors we get training for Library directors from the state that's what we're taught is that's your everything that allocation is your building your materials your personnel all of it so that's where the budgeting process that's beyond maintenance what what when you're building up and replacing pipes and everything else seems to me that that's beyond routine maintenance I I don't care about it I think you ought to do it the the more expensive way that takes care of it and gets rid of it the only thing I would like to see is that the municipal government knows that we're doing something above and beyond what we're required to do when we do things like that but take care of it if we have extra money my suggestion for the kind of extra money you're talking about is to give it back to the tax but one way to do it would be to do these Renovations that would have to be done with their other tax money and I think if the library had everything that it needed then certainly it would be reasonable to give money back to the taxpayers but it hasn't so that's become concern it's another discussion for another day did they say that that big amount of money was it wasn't etched and stone yet right the 400,000 wasn't it something else has to be done the memo you sent the only thing that gets done is that there in January there can be adjustments to people's tax bills and that can impact the amount but it's not really to me it's not remarkable it wouldn't change it aren okay okay thanks sorry that's what I sent out to everyone um was just the the state calculation the onethird mil from the State Library just because I think it's important for everyone to have it um the idea Farm as we move forward with library of things and the idea Farm we've gotten we just had a meeting today all staff came together and I've told staff that I would like us to see um by the end of December December our first public introductory session to the idea farm so that people are getting in and actually starting to use things um so there's a lot of planning that goes into that and we want to make sure that we're doing it in a way that um doesn't tax staff what I'm probably going to be um proposing for next month I'm looking at different ways to staff it and some opportunities for our library assistants um because when it comes to using a 3D printer or a Cricut Machine you don't need to be a librarian to do that so it creates some nice opportunities so that will be coming forward the phone system is moving forward um we will be transition in to our direct phone number it means I met with um Stan today from town it and they're trying to reduce the town's um phone tree when you first call in because there are too many options on it people are getting lost and they're all over the place so they would be very happy to remove us from that because they want to make it shorter and but you're still going to be able to dial all the extensions of the town so if I want to go ahead and put in Rosemary's extension I'm still going to get that and the town is still administrating the phone system but when we convert to our own phone line are we still going to have the call Tree in place because many people are not going to know immediately that we've gotten our phone number so they're going to call the township and then if they don't get the librar in list they're going to get frustrated so are they still going to maintain that for a little while today he said no um and I could certainly go back to him and let him know that the board president would like that to be kept there for a while um today Stan said no um that but we were looking at how to start getting that out there that um we would have uh on our on our website and in the newsletter that the library was moving to a direct number yeah um so put it on the cable station I mean this is the new number will we be getting out of their head that way uh I think it's a big Improvement because I think that it has to it has to have a phase out so because people are going to just call on day one and be frustrated that the library is no longer that list so if he says that they can't they can't or they won't and can they put in a message that library's new number is yeah maybe maybe something like that all right I will approach sorry let go through the let him go through the old tree until we get to the library link and that you have the message they saying from now on you can go to the library at this number directly so this is the other problem is that I think we were number three and that doesn't help the town to have such a high priority Place taken by the library I'll approach St and see what Solutions he has find out what options they've been doing you can do a 30-day overlay yeah all right I will find that out um Maddie your question earlier we have been waiting very patiently for the finish for them to finish the um remote entry keyless entry system they are coming in on Friday to install the locks they had um with their vendor they had someone with a very serious health issue so that's how we got delayed um they are installing that this week and then they're saying we should be able to go live in the following week and I've made sure that we're going to have um time for training because we're going to be administrating that system ourself um okay one of the big conversations that I put in the report last month but we never got to discuss the Consortium when they moved to a new catalog system they gave us Auto renew what Auto renew means is that when your library um when your book is is due when it's overdue it automatically if no one else has asked for it it automatically gives you another two to three weeks with the book and that's not something that we ever wanted to do but they just did it and so we were told that we would be able to to stop that and then when I went to ask them when can we stop that they saidoh you can't we made a decision that we want everyone to do this and I explained to them that our Board of Trustees makes those decisions not the Consortium um they had a meeting and they decided that we should have the option so what their complaint is that because we've got 40 some libraries all borrowing from each other if I can borrow from Maddie's library and she Auto renews but I don't if one of her patrons borrows from my library they're going to get confused because they think we have Auto renew but we don't so the really big problem One auto renew I could understand Auto renew is very common these days it does impact our fines but it's it's uh to me it's a nice compromise to do one Auto renew problem is the Consortium has two Auto renews so thank you that's exactly the expression I made um and so right now you can check out a book for nine weeks for some of our older books people are going to forget that they have them we're going to forget that we have it so I spoke to Felicia in great detail about this to me the most important thing was to let the consort know that those decisions do not get made by the Consortium that they get made by our Board of Trustees um whether regardless of whether I agree with them just so you all know I always uphold your right to make those decisions and make sure that that's protected um secondly my suggestion is that we do one Auto renew but not the two and that's just my suggestion well danan when I read your director report and you made the statement that those are things that the board of directors have a say not limix or whatever they now I said Ral good you got it because we went through that before and that's when they had no fines and everybody else had a fines but when you look at the uh that group I don't know who they're called now they're all Librarians that's not what their bylaw says it says it can be any anybody any employee there there's nobody representing board member kind of things it's all the directors of 30 libraries deciding some and you were 100% right I'm glad you stood up for that now I always will compromise and the compromise is doable I would say do whatever Doan suggests but I don't just go Ahad joh finish sorry you there J Frank you come up with a little I don't know who's talking on here but anyway oh I was I said go ahead and finish your your thoughts and then I'll talk no my thought I was finished I just said I'd go with with compromise yeah I would like to say our way but it doesn't matter we don't need to fight to the death over it but they four or five years ago they came down with the wonderful policy decision that we were not going to have any FS anymore and uh uh you know my position then was that was the president and then she said ex the director that you go to the next meeting just tell me next the next person we're going to hear from is our lawyer uh and point towards the four five within two or three months four or five of the biggest libraries of the consortiums I know it was t and a few others it was disaster and they got out of it right away we haven't heard anything since then so I you know I thought they were I thought they were just a group who was primarily trying to save money cooperatively not to make policy decisions for individual libraries and and I do want you to know that the experiment of fine free has actually caught on Nationwide to great effect and there have been a lot of study about how um what a positive thing it is for the community but that's not the question that's being asked right um that I'm sorry to rephrase it that is a question to be asked it's not a decision to be made by a Consortium so um I think at some point we will want to do some community research perhaps a survey to try to find out how important being a part of the Consortium is is to our um residents because you know I we're getting complaints none of the libraries lend out their new books so we need to be making sure that we have our new books the new catalog I have problems with it that I document nearly every day and re re retaining our libraries autonomy and our ability to serve our unique demographic is uh something that I will always preserve okay okay uh sorry I got a little r that's okay no um I'm going to be adding a couple of um library assistant hours per month for training hours um when we have certain part- Tim on our um Digital Services desk they need to be up on the latest technology so to give them one hour a month additional to do that our desks are getting busier um lighting proposal is going to be coming to buildings and grounds um more of our fixtures are going out and going down so that's a project coming up all of our vacuums exploded simultaneously so I had to replace those you'll see that on the next month's bill list um as I said we got two of the rfps um I am going to also be I don't know if the board wants to to vote on this or not when we did the tower and replaced it it's been great but the battery backup was not included in that um our current estimate is $3,200 the unit was manufactured in 2015 and replacement was suggested in 2020 so we have gotten our absolute usage out of that but it's beeping in Irene's office and I'm afraid she may Mutiny if we don't replace that so unless there 's a concern we will be ordering the battery back up um more things coming up for the the policy committee so we've got two things coming up one is going to be our idea Farm policy that'll be coming in the next couple of weeks and then I sent to Chris we had a request for an exception to the meeting room policy we actually had two of those this week one was a small um group of of condo owners in an area who don't have insurance and they wanted to revisit the insurance requirement which also impacts our individual residents if somebody wants to come in and start a you know senior caregiver support group right now they can't do that unless they have insurance so both of those things will be going to the policy committee um phone tree is done um all of our cataloges ations uh have been replaced they were all um from 2014 and they started breaking down that's part of what was on the Amazon bill this month um we replaced them with regular computers rather than Chromebooks because it was half the price so we are just so you know whenever we're looking at these purchases we're making absolutely sure that we're saving money where we can um the the hiring of the temp for a person who is going out on leave their leave we got notice is going to be start uh starting a week earlier than originally anticipated currently we haven't gotten any um applications yet for the temporary position we have some options um after that but we are looking at that vacancy to begin in November and that's full-time reference librarian who is very much at the desk on the regular basis so we are um working on that um with regard to the the driver we had posted um the ad a second time only basically on the Oldbridge website because we prefer um local candidates um we still have not gotten um a pool of candidates that uh meet the qualifications so um we're going to post it a third time um and this time we're going to include um indeed putting it outside of just the town's website obviously we'll we'll go through and see we have we have had you know one person who um applied repeatedly but didn't have the qualifications I can imagine yeah you could always put on theb middle SE County them oh my God one more out Jesus Christ what was that Sarah you're uh you're on your audio is on yeah she's apparently she's watching the okay met went out way okay so we had so many things I'm sorry I know that that is a lot um but I think I think that's everything okay all right so we'll move on to committee reports um marocco uh just go to you for both of yours buildings and grounds policy yes everything you know everything that we've talked about in terms of building grounds has been kind of covered so far in the director's report uh nothing new on policy but uh you know now that Dawn's back and I'm back from vacation and surgery and all that stuff we're good gonna probably meet sometime I would imagine in the next week or two sounds good that goes for both both yes because we do have some policy things we got to look at okay and then Finance I think was covered with the budget tonight so we're okay there uh Frank Outreach marketing yes uh I'd like to uh have D get a call to see if we can convert a second uh right now don't correct me if I'm wrong we only use four numbers in the zip code is that correct when you say we only use four numbers do you mean in the ILS system yes so the new ILS system is supposed to be doing able to do the longer zip codes we just haven't gotten to that point we've been adopting other parts of it but that's supposed to be an option within the new ILS system it's just uh we're we're currently integrating the calendar system system and the room reservation system and once we get past that we'll be able to look at the more advanced features such as using um using the data from the longer zip codes all right because the minute you get that you'll be able to sort out exactly where the where our current books are going uh which part of town exactly it and that will be help us to make a a decision whether there should be something done Southbridge okay and then Personnel negotiations I think we covered right so we'll we'll have something hopefully within the coming weeks all right so nothing else anything from the public the public for any comments not I will ask for motion to adjourn make the motion thanks all favor I anyone thank you thank you