this is a recording of the southw public library Board of Trustees it is April 9th at 7M agenda oh the minutes yep I've got everything here um okay we are recording okay um do have everyone yeah let's do a roll call so L Blair here Michael Cindy Warner Tracy msor okay public comments I don't see any public uh any members of the public here in person unless there's anyone online nope just us okay Mo about Communications okay um so we've had a busy couple of months with events and whatnot um two notable ones we were um the two we worked on with the Agriculture Commission so we had the did you come to the grant writing Workshop tamy um it was very successful we had a large crowd for the grant writing Workshop one evening for Farmers um and then they also did a succession planning workshop which we helped them with here so those were both very successful um we hope to do more of those in the future collaborating with different boards and organizations in town um we have submitted to Grants which we do every year we submitted the shirtliff Children's Services Inc Grant um and the Teen Department put in what was that oh um the teen Department put in a grant um having to do with the Creation Station some updates on that and some updates on things for the teen department and then I worked on the Sarah Gillette services for the elderly Grant um to kind of just have like a stationary cart like the children's room has a nice cart for crafts that's just kind of there and people can come in and do it so I kind of put together one for the adult section that we could just kind of leave out by one of the tables in the back board games craft stuff coloring supplies um anything that people can just kind of drop in and do whenever they want to so hopefully we'll hear back from both of those we usually hear in like the springtime early summer I think so I will let you know when we hear back um April events have been really well attended so far last week we had Dr Andrew lamb talk about um kind of the developments of medicine in World War II um we've got alloted of registrations for our craft program this month and then we're having um Christopher Dy come talk about um the Lincoln assassination unfortunately we couldn't do it on the anniversary because it was Patriots Day so it's the day after April 16th he's coming to talk about the Lincoln assassination and then we're having an author from Huntington who wrote a book um yeah about a man that was kind of mysteriously murdered true story in Huntington um so he's coming at the end of this month to um talk about his book and then in between all that we've got our book sale the friends are organizing details and dates drop off dates and the actual sale dates are all on our website um and then other than that we are working and planning towards Summer Reading I think we'll do the same thing last year it worked really well and just kind of paused the recurring programs for the six weeks of summer reading just so we can focus on summer reading itself um because we've got a lot of events we're also working with a new um software we not using bean stack anymore we're using readed squared we did enjoy using um bean stack but it was funded partially well it was actually fully funded by the board of Library Commissioners and they aren't funding it anymore and the price for us to have it is just too much um so we're going with something called read squared and it seems to kind of work in the same way so I think we'll be fine it's just going to kind of be a little bit of a learning curve this summer it's I think it's like reduce reuse recycle something something along those lines yeah y um so yeah I've got a bunch of adult programs scheduled we have um sourdough Brandon coming to talk about how to do sourdough bread and all that fun stuff we've got a couple craft programs um so yeah we've got some some good things on the on the calendar and that is it for my report moving on to minutes so I sent Tracy and Cindy the minutes and then I did not send you guys the February minutes because there were no minutes there was no meeting all it basically says is the date and no meeting can meeting cancel because of Quorum but I'll need to post that in our minutes as well just so people can see that it was cancelled e e did you want to make a motion for the January and the February meeting cancel quum jmy makes a motion for the acceptance of the January minutes and the February minute statement that there no Forum so the meeting was cancelled I Tracy second all those in favor Michael yes yes Cindy yes czy yes okay so I since we didn't have a couple meetings in a row I've just got and um Tracy and Cindy I can just leave copies of these in your mailbox and you can read them if you're interested our um I've got December I have got January statistics I think we're we February and March too um nothing particularly notable about I mean everything is pretty much you know kind of pretty much the same pretty much what you would expect um I think we've you know we've seen um yes the more yeah you know the new cards are pretty much the same you know door count as like in February it's gone up a little bit um looks pretty standard for the past couple months we did have 33 new cards in March um compared to 25 of March of last year so that's pretty good um yeah yeah any questions NOP okay and then I don't have anything under old business so if we're good we'll continue on to new business um this one was kind of a spillover from from when we didn't meet before the Historical Society wanted to leave their laptop here um that had the canal program on it um but was not yes yep y so we got that all set up I did um just kind of write up a document so the Historical Society so that we have kind of an understanding that you know we can't keep our eyes on it all the time you know there's there's always a risk even if it's for in-house use there's kind of always a risk of something growing legs and disappearing or you know God forbid if somebody drops it or you know a million in one things could happen but just so that they they because I think this was a very um this gentleman had worked on this this program for like 20 or 30 years I think so it's a really nice program um and I think he's donating it to a couple other libraries in the general area um but I just wanted to write something up so that you know we they understand that you know when things are made available to the public sometimes accidents happen you know but I think it's gone really well it was advertised in the paper um we've had people I've seen coming in to use it so seems to be a really good resource um and then the gallery manager volunteer position um Cindy had stepped up to help out which was great um but it turns out just after that we fortunately were able to find somebody to do it um so we have Briana doing it she's a local Patron she used to intered here when she was in high school so she's very familiar with the library um we've already got somebody up for April and then for May um for May she has one of the schools around here one of the they're doing like an art class and they're gonna have their art work up here um they're going to do a reception so it's going to be a really nice thing she's she's very excited about it um so seems to be going good very good um the CPC application for outdoor space um that was approved by the CPC in February so it's um they wrote up a warrant or what do they call it an article for the town meeting warrant um so that will be on the town meeting I do just have one concern that I need to check in with maintenance about because um the project was kind of conditional on David Sutton who's the head of Maintenance is now on leave so leave he is on leave yeah so I need to check in with maintenance to kind of see what's going on with it because the project for the the space he was going to kind of prepare it himself and he said you know I have all the supplies I have everything I can do all the work myself so I need to kind of figure out where that is left off at least that's a couple of months off meeting is in the middle of it is like the third week of May or something yeah yeah so I just need to figure out you know if it's still doable within the kind of time frame we're looking at you know what's what's going on so I'm G I just saw Saturn yeah yeah so I don't I don't know when his when he he's going to be back or so I just need to kind of check in and confirm just to make sure you know that everything is doable um or you know what else I can help with um so yep it's going to be on the May um the Maytown meeting uh warrant to vote upon so that's good um I did send everybody well I sent the people on Zoom a copy I just have the draft um annual survey so I mean yeah I tried to keep it I know I tried to keep yeah no no no you know if if you any additional pages I think you lose more people in filling it out so we wanted to keep it um very simple kind of very targeted to the questions I mean a lot of the questions that we've done before that like we did with our strategic plan we kind of already know the answers to so these were kind of you know just to kind of asked a little bit more specific questions like what parts of the collection would you want to see expanded you know when would you be most likely to attend a program you know morning evenings weekends so kind of targeted questions to just give us a little bit more information and you're doing that the entire month uh I think I put down here April 15 to May 15 um that's going to kind of be tentative um with the book sale and everything coming up I I will run it for a month but just put the 15 oh yeah yeah y yeah I mean I'm not and I'm not entirely like 100% positive that we'll get it out on the 15th I will have it run for a month um and my goal will be to get it out either next week and if that doesn't happen then probably the week after but either way it'll it'll run for a month we'll have copies here um I will do digital copies that's where we get really most of our responses from is you know Facebook email website that type of thing and maybe I mean if I do get it out oh yeah we'll get it out in time for the book sale probably I mean maybe I can people will be too busy shopping but maybe somebody will pick up a survey so yeah that's that's kind of what it is try to keep it short and simple I think if you do much longer you tend to lose people so any questions or comments or suggestions good okay um our budget meeting with the finance committee was a couple weekends ago I think it went well I don't know if Michael has any comments about it um and then we'll just prepare for the town meeting which will be I can't remember the day off the top of my head um in May um 2024 holiday closings I figure this is going to kind of be an odd year because um Christmas falls in the middle of the week so obviously you know we have our standard Patriots Day Memorial Day Independence Day Labor Day those are all pretty standard as well as Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday of that week um Christmas falls on and I am already getting questions from you know staff who want to make plans um so I wanted to just kind of maybe figure out what we're doing now so that we know you know our staff knows for their own planning purposes so Christmas itself falls on a Wednesday yeah I know that's terrible nobody's excited about that so I mean my question is um and I can always what I can always do is put it up to the staff and see what they want to do usually what we do is we get the half day of Christmas Eve and then New Year's Eve starting at noon usually what we do is the staff wants to smash those into one um so we could do that and either be closed Christmas Eve or December 26th the day after Christmas um definitely will be closed the 25th and January 1 if they combine it into one day that means we would be open the 31st and on Tuesday that's a Tuesday Tuesdays were open till 8 it doesn't make sense to me to be open until 800 pm on New Year's Eve nobody will be here so I mean what we could potentially do is I could pull the staff and ask them would you rather have December 24th off would you rather have December 26th off um would you rather do a half day on the 24th or 31st you know I mean yeah and then it's you know and then that way I'll have an idea um and we can go from there because I I think it to be open on the be post sh down by five o'clock and we'll be more after that yeah and then what I can do is I can those staff who normally work in the evening we can kind of reconfigure their schedules to be a little earlier or more spread out through the week so I can pull the staff about what they want to do for the 24th and the 26 um if it turns out that you know maybe we can go kind of like a skeleton crew on either day because I really want to make sure that people have the day off that they get together you know with their family so I mean I can kind of pull the staff see what they say and then we can kind of make the final call are you traveling anywhere or you'll be here I mean we don't I don't have family you know we're not we're not flying Arizona again in December so yeah I mean I but like you know my family gets together on Christmas Eve so I'm like if I work Christmas Eve then I miss a family party you know so but then some people get together the day after so I can kind of pull them and that'll give us kind of a baseline I can recheck in with you guys and as you say let's say you calls on Christmas Eve for some people that may be traveling or something going on in the 26 kind of skeleton yeah well I mean and the danger about a skeleton Grove is it is a skeleton crew so you know if if somebody gets goer bit sick or something then you know I'd really like to have it kind of be one or the other instead of you know having people be kind of bare bones both days because then it you know you you lose one person and you're you're in trouble so yeah so I know it's kind of on the early side but like I said people have been asking me so I just I want to help them figure out their holiday [Music] plans okay so our info materials line um we're working on spending that towards the fiscal year end um I am looking into potentially some um new resources that we could use from that line um so we already have ancestry Library Edition which we use from that and I was kind of thinking about different ones that we could um get for the patrons to use so I'm looking into um there's one that's called American ancestors and they have some um some good resources for genealogy and history research and that's only about the subscriptions about $270 a year and they have a lot of like classes and things like that um so I'm going to look into doing that for our info materials I'm also looking into adding to our ancestry subscription um we really don't have much for um newspapers we get a couple databases through the state but it's you know and so I was looking into adding newspapers.com which you can add to your ancestry subscription um you can get it like the world or you can get it just for the Northeast so I figure we'll start with the northeast or I'll see what the pricing looks like if the pricing is not bad for the world subscription I mean you know because we have people in here looking for like newspaper articles and and things like that so I was going to look into that what's the ball price or that kind of that I don't know that one I'm still waiting i' I've asked a couple times I was hoping to get it into time for tonight but I haven't gotten it yet um and then so adding newspapers.com and also fold three which is um military history you know you can look up military records things like that which is also really helpful for people doing genealogy so I was going to look into seeing to add those two things to our ancestry subscription out of the info materials line and it used to be 10 or 15 years ago the mdlc is paying like for the Boston Globe the business West uh the Springfield republic and Etc but I know within some tight years most of that stuff disappeared yeah I think they still have the Boston Globe off the top of my head um but yeah they there's not there's not too much right so I was hoping to kind of add something so we're look I'm looking into doing that for the info materials line I'm also looking into adding some new Museum passes we've got a couple that were recommended to yeah yeah so we're yeah we're looking into new Museum passes um some that patrons recommended and then others just trying new things like I think I'm I think one of them is like the Mark Twain House you know stuff that's that's on the closer side um yes and that one too um and then somebody recommended um it's the new Salem it's like the museum of art or something out there so that one's a little bit off the beaten path but it was recommended so I figure we'll try it we don't really have many Museum passes like that you know so we'll see how it goes I mean worse comes to worse we we reevaluate them every year take a few off add some on you know some are going to be like the Springfield museums will always be a standby so um any questions or concerns with that plan okay um oh and the community room um the community room meeting I just this is just a copy of the community room policy Tracy or Cindy if you are interested they're they're on our website so you can look them up um I'm just giving you guys a copy of the existing policy as well as um wording I'll suggest for a change so um there was I know Michael mentioned to me a concern um a couple weeks ago when we had a local Reverend book one of the study spaces so I kind of asked around to and there's there's no reason um you know as far as our policies go you just have to be a nonprofit to use a community room um the study spaces don't even say that just because you know we want them open for like tutoring which obviously is for-profit you know but they're great for tutoring things like that so what I did was um I kind of asked other libraries I asked I spoke with one of the Consultants at the Massachusetts library system on what they recommended you know for you know because we want to be make sure that people know that you know obviously the library you know we these groups book the space you know they're not necessarily affiliated with us they're just using the space so um this kind of the wording that I put together from their suggestions um they suggested to have something on our um policies that says that when book when groups book the room like when we send posters to the high school for them to post they have us put on there like this is not a a school affiliated event you know um so I'll just read the wording off to you um except as a designation of location the name and contact information of the library may not be used in any publicity for a meeting uh the following wording should be used on any advertisements or publicity quote the program meeting is not sponsored co-sponsored or endorsed by the south of public library and quote the library does not prepare or issue press releases promotional materials or otherwise promote in any way non- Library sponsored meetings and programs please note that only Library events will be posted on the libraries online calendar groups are welcome to give their flyers for posting on the libraries community bulletin board in accordance with posting policies basically the main point of this is just having if anybody's advertising if it's a nonprofit that's booking our space um that they just put on any promotional materials that this program is essentially not sponsored by the library um so that way people know you know that it's not a library sponsored event that sounds good yeah y so what I what I would ask you to do is just to add the wording that I just read to you to both the study Bas policy and the community room okay what use of the community room yeah it sounded fine to me so let's take a vote on that Michael yes yes Cindy yes Tracy yes so I will add it to both of those policies and then last thing on here was a memo oh your mic sorry copy I don't know if you need another one um but I did not send it out over email so I don't know if you want to talk about it briefly for Tracy and Cindy just kind of a reminder of course um in my little memo I'm talking about the fact that it's important that if if people can that they attend the meetings either in person on Zoom um Maria Gallow resigned she also resigned from some other things she's been involved with the town and we've got Town elections coming up in May and we've got the two normal trustee positions there always two every year for three-year term as well as two years remaining and Maria's um term so at the May elections there'll be three openings one for two years and two for three years and just before the meeting started we do have candidates for the three-year terms and we have one candidate I can't remember her name for the two-year term also um it's important because Lynn puts time and effort into putting materials together for the meetings that we to be here at the meeting to go over the material and um we had the uh the meeting before the CPC Community preservation commission about using CPC funds for the library for outside L did a very nice presentation on that and it was approved by the CPC Commission in minutes many times if you if groups go before CPC it can be multiple meetings oh really I didn't know that yeah that makes me feel little better it went very quick and I had forgotten that one of the members of the CPC is a school teacher I don't know what he teaches in some other town in the area and they said oh that's a such and such oh that's Prett for I talking about which was good but again CPC usually through uh the May annual town meeting what's important that maybe a few of us go to the town meeting as well as the town elections in May and then once the money is approved Lynn can then go out and contact the various vendors to acquire what's needed as well as working with the um maintenance department for some of the preliminary work they have to do also at the end of the month Friends of the southw public library are going to have a book sale for the first time in since uh preco so they'll have the traditional Wednesday night for members only and then Thursday Friday and Saturday from 10: to 1 book sale and then cleanup uh will be on the following Monday so that's all I've got and thank you again for being On The Board of Trustees and uh trying to serve the community okay um so I think that was it the next meeting the second Tuesday of May will be the uh the 14th 14th does that one into town elction I don't remember when the town elections are and yeah you'll probably see if they have anything on the website yet May the May 14th there's there's nothing on May just yet election can't spell anything right I you you get used to like a certain keyboard and then it's like um that's for 2021 2023 2024 Town election and voting information uh it says sample Town ballot May 14th so I'm assuming that's when it's going to be um yeah then we're not really interfering yeah no no no vot prior to 7.m yeah the election is the election is the 14 I know uh Michelle used to not like us meeting on yeah well on um on Election on Town election day we want M down do we wanna um I I can check in with the new with Jessica Menon and then um or we can I guess we can decide if we want well the next the next one the 21st that is the town meeting right oh yeah I didn't know what the DAT are the 21st is polling hours are May 14 7 AM to 8:00 pm and then the town meeting is May 21st and people are voting by mail and people are coming in the week before the vote yeah so let's just go for yeah let me just check with um I'll just send a quick I'll just send a quick phone call over to the town clerk's office just to make sure that that's okay um and then I thought they didn't want us to have meetings like up against the elections yeah I feel like that's that's kind of the been the sentiment so maybe it's best to just I mean we could do well there there's early and in-person voting dates on Tuesday May 7th but it's only 10 to 4 um we could potentially do another um another session in May because that the 28th then you get into like Memorial Day um and then I mean we we could potentially do the seventh um for which whichever would prefer I mean I don't I don't have a preference let me just go check in our calendar real quick that we don't have anything going yeah May is always a challenge so I do have our evening book for May so I could see if they'd be willing to just move out to a table we can actually meet back one of the study areas we could yes there's only five or six of them we could then we'd have to change the the official posting on the agenda and whatnot why don't I check I'll just check and see if the book club is willing to move I'm sure they are and if not then I'll figure it out May 7th okay so we'll we'll plan on May 7th um Regular same time as always um go with that all right then I think Sam's on it all those in favor of Michael yet Cindy yes that was that was a yes from Tracy but she was on mute Tracy yes sorry all right so we are good until May 7th at 7 pm um have a great night everybody okay bye take care everybody