##VIDEO ID:XbsyorDfizc## September 10th at 7:01 pm and in attendance is Lynn Blair we'll do in person first Michael mcma Andre Tammy and on Zoom we have Cindy Warner and Tracy mesir okay and hopefully you can hear us Tracy it keeps freezing um no public comments tonight I don't see anybody else on Zoom um so for communications I just shared with um so our new Town Administrator Nicole is having the department heads um meet once a month to kind of give a month report on what we've been up to and we lost Tracy maybe she'll come back either way there's four of four of you here so I M around um Cindy do you have the email I sent with all of the documents in it okay perfect yes I do let me know oh I'm sorry did I miss somebody nope okay just let me know if you need me to bring it up on the screen Cindy okay so this was our June report um I've got a copy of the July report and the August report um this is it's basically the same thing I provide to all of you in the um in the director's Report with just a little bit more context behind it because it goes to all the department heads so I like to fill them in on what we've been doing a and I can I'll just give a brief synopsis of everything so as far as June went our summer reading kickoff program was great um we were in competition with the Motocross event unfortunately but we did still have a lot of people come which was really good um I thought we were going to have nobody and we still had a lot of people so in the end it worked out we estimated about a hundred people um so that I would say it's pretty good um summer reading program was very busy all of the adult events filled up very quickly um we had Susan Wagner retire at the end of July and if you guys who came in tonight um if you met Tanya you can say hi to her on the way out um she is Susan's replacement she's been here since about the end of July as well and she seems to be doing really well as for July July was a busy month um we ended up having 14 teens 115 children and 77 adults participate in the summer reading program which was really good um some of our biggest events this summer we had a sourdo workshop with 35 adults attended um 25 children attended the final program animal Adventures um we had a busy calendar of events for August um we had a beekeeping program we also have Bigfoot in western Mass I don't know any did you come that Tammy yeah that was a full house which was great um I've been working with the economic development commission um they have a liaison that's been working with us we're kind of hoping to coordinate on future events and programs let's see anything else that I'm not going to talk about just yet um we finished up working on the ays report which Andrea the ays stands for the annual report information survey we have to uh send it to the state every year basically it's just kind of a summary of all of our statistics so how many circulations how many um events how many people attended events how many people came in and out of the doors basically you know how many volunteers worked how many hours basically pretty much any statistic that you can think of um and we report that to the state the next thing we're working on is the financial report again basically all of our financials get reported to the state as well um and we have to fill out these reports in order to qualify for the state aid that we get we just added a new digital service called Help Now um our goals was to kind of assist homeschooled students but it works for any type of student um basically it's live tutoring students can log in work with a live tutor every day from 2m to 11: PM they have a writing lab so students can send in like a writing sample get assistance with it get advice on it um we've kind of started marketing that out to the public I just went to the middle school this afternoon to their faculty meeting to present on it um and every teacher got a pamphlet of information about it I think they're going to put it out for their parents night which is next week so we're hopefully going to get some good use on that service for our August report brief summary again we had the help now on there um I attended the seventh grade open house in August with some information about the library um our children's librarian will be attending I think it's either the middle or Elementary I can't remember which it is um later this month and then see family history month is in October we have a lot of events planned around that um I'll be attending the economic development commission meeting a next we next Wednesday um to discuss our collaboration ideas on events um our Capital project has begun we are installing new phone which is a welcome change our phones are from 2008 and they're not we did this year last year last year we didn't this year we did so we're we're gratefully putting in new phones it's it's G to be a big change um tomorrow our every other month visits to the South of village to restart um so I bring items for people to check out I bring um stuff to sign up for library cards information for our books on the go everything in between um and I'll be there for an hour um usually I usually do it the first week of the month about every other month or so and then let's see what else did touch on no I think everything else I have in here so those are the reports yes I don't understand your collaboration with the economic development commission what um how do you see yourself helping yeah so um I've been working with his name is Jean from the commission so we've been talking about um you know ways we can kind of promote each other's events because we' like to do stuff on like careers and things like that so we were kind of brain brainstorming on on ways that they know a lot of people with a lot of businesses so if there was a way we can find speakers through them you know starting your own business um you know potentially have somebody come speak about a career so we are kind of you know hopefully utilizing their contacts to have people come in and present and do programs and likewise um you know we have we have the space obviously you know if they wanted to do a program we have the space we have the Outreach with our email lists Facebook social media um so that's that's kind of the gist of it wonderful yeah um any other questions about those and then I do have um the minutes from June all the way back in June and Tracy just I emailed those to you but just let me know if you want me to bring them up on the screen or if you've got them already I I got him thank you okay thank you where you do go for any corrections or be done to the minutes I'm sorry mik broke up uh do you have any corrections or um any additions to the minutes or if everybody's in approval we just need to vote or a motion I'll make a motion to approve the minutes I'll second it uh Michael Yes Andy Cindy yes Tracy yes um and then I have I don't if anybody wants copies of these I sent them all to you around I never know how many people are going to show up so I always make enough copies but to use our June statistics so we we have three months worth of Statistics here because we've been on our little summer H these two programs um and I'll send around July July and um July and August have been two fantastic months if you notied in July we've gone over 6,000 circulations compared to last year's circulations and then and what did we do in August yeah we did just over 6,000 in August too which has been really really good and all of our programs I think for for the summer were were pretty good I know the adult programs um I posted them and they filled up almost instantaneously which is amazing um to participate yes you want to waitting I'm so happy to hear yes I and I've noticed that all of our like our adult programs like the craft programs for the fall are already on a wait list so I'm like I'm trying to work ahead and post for December and January but just I've been putting in the description like registration is required registration will open on this date because if I open them in September people are already going to be registering for December and January and we don't know where we're going to be in December and January so I think opening them a bit later will give people a better chance of getting in it's good to see a monthly the do seems to be consistently over 3,000 a month seems to be very good yeah yeah so I was very happy um June June was a good month um you know we were we were a bit under June 2023 but then for whatever reason in July and August the numbers just jumped which which is very very good um our ebook use is is above last year which is good um yeah new new cards in July was very good um all of our program attendance I'm very happy with um the book boxes have been going really well for the adult book boxes I had 21 in which is fantastic and yeah so and like all of our children's the the passive ongoing programs like the dramatic play that they have set up in there you know she had a hundred people they keep a tally list in their office just to kind of keep track of how many people are using it you know she had a hundred in August it's fantastic so I think we're we're very happy with this with the statistic does anybody have any questions or comments on those and one other thing I didn't forget to mention as part of the um the communications was that we were approved the Sarah Gillette services for the elderly Grant um for $400 and we purchase supplies for just like a um a cart of craft supplies that can kind of live in the adult section coloring supplies um you know assort yeah scratch art assorted small stuff that people can kind of do out there that's not too messy and then there's board games and puzzles as well um just with the hope of you know people can come in do something you know quiet in the table in the back and you know we've seen people sitting there and music them really nice um the other thing we we did was we got the battery backups not battery backups they're more like battery charging stations because as we mentioned in previous meetings people were always saying they wish they had somewhere to charge their devices so we've got like they're like small boxes we just sign them out at the desk and people can take them to wherever they want to work and plug their device in and those seem to seem to work pretty good as well so two good changes okay um so then as far as old business um the circulation librarian job posting was posted um obviously you've met Tanya who's out there tonight um started the end of July she's doing a really fantastic job seems to have caught on very fast um and she brings a really Pleasant attitude and she's very excited to be at the library so it's working out really good um our Community preservation project we're working on that um I've I've been the maintenance department put me in touch with Scott from tinic landscaping and he's been very helpful about giving advice about the project and what we what we can do um so I'm going to continue working with him obviously you know Winter's approaching so nothing nothing's probably going to happen this year but if we can kind of get everything in order hopefully we can start to order some of the parts that you're gonna need well the first thing is we want to figure out what we're doing with the area itself um Scott did this really nice drawing because I was like I don't want to make the whole area just a big block of concrete that's not nice looking at all he had this really nice drawing of doing like a cement path that kind of you know how the if you're on that far side of the building there's the path the cement path that runs along um like a cement path that branches off on that and we're getting the three musical instruments so if we have one that goes out and maybe another pth that branches out and another one that branches out and having the three different ones kind of spread out I'm not describing it in the best of way but his his sketch looked really nice so I really like that IDE ex so we're not just having a big block of concrete obviously we'll have to do like a a section if we're doing a picnic table we'll need to put that under concrete but so that's that that for now um I know I'm just thinking from the perspective of the items that you're buying as time goes on they'll go up in price exactly and got fix budget exactly unfortunately if we were to buy them I just don't know where we'd store them you know because if we put them in the basement then we have to haul them out so I'm I'm hoping you know that we can order them next year or sometime I mean it it all depends on on how we figure out how we're going to do the concrete and whatever there in that part of the project and then um as soon as we get that figured out then I'll have a better idea of when we can start ordering stuff but Scott's been very helpful about providing advice and whatnot he the owner of T I think so they're the ones that have the contract cutting the grass around the library and town hall and other places yeah so he's been very very helpful um the other building improvements I'll mention I haven't heard anything about the mulch and the stone outside yet um because for those of you who may not know they determine that it needs to be Stone outside there so I haven't heard as to when that's going to happen um we did get our display shelf in and it's I'm just waiting for somebody from Main is to help me unpack it because there's no way I'm going to be able to unpack it and get it off the pallet myself so um it'll be a very once it's unpacked it'll be a very nice addition to the front of the library and a nice display shelf too to put some stuff on um oh yeah the outlets for the workspaces I mentioned that bookd drops are supposed to be coming in they're supposed to be shipping on the 19th so um I'm hoping that we'll get them close to that date um we went through the process I got different prices from different vendors um and then we we chose one that we liked the bookd drop we ordered came recommended by a bunch of other Librarians because you know there's a bunch of companies out there this was the one that people recommended the most so I went with them um we have one big one on the left side of the door now and two small ones on the right we're just going to do one big one on each side one books one media um and then it's just a matter of I need to have maintenance get rid of those before the new ones come because when they bring the new ones they're dropping them outside they're not going to bring them inside so I need to have the spaces open ready to go for maintenance to just put them right there so there may be a brief period just to be on the safe side like I days just want maintenance to come and take them when they have time because I don't want to end up with like five Ward drops outside um so there may be a brief period when we are without outdoor book drops and we obviously you know we'll let people know we'll post it widely email social media um and we don't charge late fines so you know if people need to hang on other things for a little longer then then that's fine um so we're very happy about that uh we did upgrade our laptops we got two new ones from wle because the ones we have from years ago are really bogging around after after five or six years for Junk they are so we got two new ones we've also got um as of our computer replacement plan there are five new computers in the back we're just waiting for Jim M Milton to come over and um book everything up so we can upgrade at least five of our older computers because there's there's a few that are starting to have trouble they don't they don't make them like they used to they don't last that long anymore so that's good um I did mention under new business our telephone system is being installed they were just here last Wednesday doing all of the wiring um they ran all the wires to the phones because we needed to upgrade that um the phones are on order so as soon as we get the phones they'll come back in hook everything up again there may be a brief period while they're hooking things up that we don't have our phones available but I can't imagine that that would be a very long yeah I would I would think it would be a very brief period of time um what's the advantage of a new student well ours is from 2008 and it is it is a very clunky system it is not reliable um I know the one in my office I always have connection issues this one they're upgrading all the wiring so it'll be better quality newer and then we're getting um so four of I believe we're getting six in total so four of the desks are getting just a standard corded phone and then two of the desks are getting cordless because our staff really want to have something that's portable over to a shelf check something but the cord only go exactly so if we need to like walk and talk with somebody it's a lot easier to just grab it and walk towards the building with it so yeah we're still not GNA be connected to town hall on the Poli fire we weren't asking for that anyway we weren't asking for that I mean it's the same company that's that does theirs that's doing ours but I don't don't think they're I mean I could Town Hall police fire that rep placed there since three or four or five years ago the library yep so we'll we'll be getting some new phones which will be great um yep and I I did Jump Ahead the computer replacement schedule I already um mentioned that so we're updating some of our computers which we do every year I have a chart that I go through and whichever is the oldest we upgrade and or whichever some has something disastrously wrong with it we kind of cycle things in and out and then lastly on here here we have our Action Plan update so as Andre you know you are part of the Strategic plan committee um every year we have to go through um and update the Strategic plan with our action plan to kind of talk about what we've been doing um every year so this is the next one hi Jen the dates are a little the dates are a little wonky because we're always really far ahead that shair is like terribly Choice can you can you can even pull up one the plastic ones next to because I've got that humongous box in the way so this is um it updates all of our actions for the Strategic plan so I will kind of go through it briefly so you guys know that what we have been up to um obviously we created a marketing plan last summer so that's already been done um we've been really good this year about um our Outreach and our PR we use our um email subscription system very frequently we do a monthly email of the library links um the children's room does a monthly email they do uh weekly emails about events I do weekly emails about events as well um any news anything about you know our digital resources anything like that um we do a lot of P are um to all like the local newspapers there's something called Macaroni Kid which is for like parents to find out events and things like that so we send out things on there um and the Teen Department John has also been doing weekly social media posts he does an email newsletter emails about events so we've really been on top of you know our communication because that was one of the things that the group really talked about um we've been working with the schools to try to advertise some of our events like with what I went to today to just advertise our resources and spread the word about what we can do our next one for programming um and I apologize I am losing my voice a little bit so we've the goal was to expand the programming offerings for daytime programs for adults children evening and weekend programs um the children's room is doing a mix it up family program now in the evening which is really good used to be kind of a story time based thing but they found that that wasn't always getting the draw so what she did is she kind of made it into like a family like get together craft night they do different projects and she's got some regular families that attend they really like it um they did a pro wrestling Story Time on a Saturday which is really good they've tried to do a few other things on Saturdays but Saturdays are so hit or miss it's just you know it it all depends on the program um as as far as the adults I've been doing uh morning daytime and evening programs our first like midafternoon programs I have scheduled for like there's one for like three o'clock on a September afternoon which I was like well that's kind of a weird time but we're going to try it um I think it's already full so that kind of speaks for itself um people wanted more social type programming so we've been doing we did a board game session I'll be doing another one in September and then the craft program are always very social and very popular as Andrea knows they fill up like right away so I've I've been trying to offer more but also keeping in mind that you know it is it's also very time consuming so I think my goal has been like once per month maybe every other month if we have a really really busy month um and then our teen librarian and children's Librarians they've been um really reaching out to the schools more to collaborate so they went to an end of year program we've been going to a few things at the beginning of the school year so hopefully we're kind of starting a really good relationship with them where they if they're having an event they go oh let's have the library have a table so that seems to be going really well um for the teen program offerings um John did a career planning program he has a college prep program coming up later this month and a financial literacy program um I said fall 2024 I can't remember if it's like October or November um the teen volunteer program is still going right now he's currently looking to recruit some more volunteers for this semester um collaborating with Town organizations um so children worked with firefly fields to offer a new prize for summer reading and then um me for the adult Department we still continue to work with the board of health nurse um she's got a couple programs coming up this fall um one of about food safety and then she's doing another one about stop the bleed which I think is a really good program like injuries and had a you know first a kind of thing yeah so so that I think that's really different and really nice so I think a couple people have already signed up for that so that's great um we've worked with the agricultural commission for a few events um we did they sponsored the beekeeping program in August with us and I'll probably reach out and see if they want to um posts sponsor or at least events um invite them to the homesteading program we're doing in December because that could be really good they probably know some people who would be interested in that and then like I said um we're hoping to partner with the economic development commission for for future events as well and then as far as Outreach goes I'm still doing the popup library at the South of village and continually looking for other opportunities to do different types of Outreach um the children's department is aiming to attend more after school are more school events in the fall same thing with the teen Department um as well and then the educational services you know obviously we always try to maintain a diverse collection we respond to Patron inquiries as they come in um and one Patron said we have the most upto-date parenting section in Western Massachusetts which was really nice to hear um and then we've really been promoting the genealogy section I created different resource materials for that you know kind of wayfinders for people to find information um October we have two big programs we have a guy who's coming in to talk about um DNA and genealogy research kind of like you know the ancestry DNA type thing um and then he's also going to talk about in another session um interviewing your relatives for information on how to kind of get you know because every every relative has a really good family story to tell their treasure TR secrets so how' it go about that the question questions to ask um we'll also be offering kind of one-on-one help I'll sit down with people if they want help with ancestry and anything like that um and our new resources when Heather was pulling the information for the state reports people have been using uh fold three which is for military records and newspapers.com like really really well I was surprised because I was like I I see a few people using them here in person and I was like so people must really be using them from home which is excellent I'm I'm glad to see that they're so well used um and then we continue to subscribe to job now which is the same company is the health now which is the tutoring service I mentioned except this one they have live job coaches that help people talk about their resumes job searching and then I try to offer regular programs on you know relevant topics for job searching last week we did something on online job searching and then uh services to homeschool students the children's has really been going full force with their home education kits those have been extremely popular they're up to 20 and they're all on different like subjects and they're com in little backpacks with activities and things to do those have been very popular um and then the team department is also trying to figure out different ways that they can reach the homes school students to and our team department is also introducing um more materials to try to supplement the collections of the local schools and their offerings and programs and then lastly you know we're always trying to keep aware of different grant opportunities you know we do the same ones every year the cultural Council Grant the shirtliff children's services and the sah Gillette services for the elderly but we always keep an eye out if there's something else out there that can we can potentially work with it looks like the ndlc budget these fiscal year sub parts of b or higher than even the MB mblc asked for so it look like our state a is g to go up I have no idea about how much yeah yeah so that's that's always a good thing um and then yeah I the last thing is just we we just continue to Market Library services to try to keep people aware of what we offer I always think that there's there's always a certain population that we never that we never reach and they're always so surprised about what we offer um get a hold of everyone we do the best we can in the Westfield news yeah and now you know some reminders some these other papers they're all part of the same company so you may see it in Westfield news and then you'll see the same article a week later yeah in the weekly paper so you're you're trying yeah my daughter in Rhode Island texed me to see are you going to the big program because she subscribes to Mass Live and it was like one of main hits on that was so there you go yeah it was it was very funny we we had somebody that was like how does the Bigfoot program you know fit in with the mission of the library and I'm like well it's Bigfoot in western Mass it's local history you know there's we give the people what they want people I already have somebody booked for next summer for bigfoot you know another Bigfoot guy so it's extremely popular and people are interested and it brings in people that we don't normally see you know people that you know may not come to the library on the regular so they get introduced to us and what we offer so it's it's a really good thing um that's amazing what she saw and do have a question yes so you said that July and August were great and that's awesome and I see like my director my director like you're behind a lot of this stuff do you think that the marketing and all the actions that you're trying to implement have had an impact to Poli like to give you um numbers I hope so I mean I hope so so you know our summers are always really busy but these July and August were just phenomenal months as far as like the circulation statistics went um so hopefully I'm I'm hoping that you know in the past the past six months or so we've really been trying to kind of really hone in on our marketing so hopefully it's been kind of like slowly building up and more and more people have been becoming aware of a combination you had a couple of years under Co or the lior is restricted or you could get stuff at the door or 10 or 15 people could come in but you couldn't have B in this world you know just and people are beginning to come back out bit more yeah yeah I mean we we never really know you know unless somebody clearly says something but but I'm hoping that our marketing efforts have really been um I've what I've been doing what I've been working on with um I have two separate spreadsheets so I have a reference marketing spreadsheet and then I have a non-reference marketing spreadsheet so anything under reference would be like our books on the go our help now our digital databases anything geneology and then me and um our teen librarian who's like teen reference and then Paul who's reference library and we've gone through and we've broken down in basically a chart that kind of looks like this like this is our service say it's ancestry who are the target audiences we want to reach how do we do that and then we've kind of been going through the spreadsheet notating everything that we've been doing I think it's been really helpful to kind of put everything into perspective because we do so much that I was just I don't even know where to begin listed or email blast that people can sign up for and check which ones they want to be on y are really helpful too yeah I know even though sometimes like I wouldn't even get anything I'm like Oh yay new fiction what do we got awesome yeah the one you just sent with our suggest oh yeah that's a fun one but I was like oh what's here awesome yeah so things like that and then I have one for like non-reference stuff so like um our library of things are like our children's home education kits all the kind of stuff they do same thing who's our target audience who are how are we going to reach them this is what I'm doing and it's it's helpful to kind of see what we're doing I also have a running list of like on this day on social media I posted this and this and this so I'm not duplicating things and I'm making sure that we're kind of sharing everything so I I like I like spreadsheets so I've got like multiple ones going at once so [Music] you know like the book that I made all summer was a series on Hulu and it's a true crime story so like everyone wanted to read the book we watched it I was asssist with it another book that was on maybe a month or so ago um one of the I was like oh I sandwich but when I put an un I would like number 3 to read everything and there but like it's good person a lot people coming in to the library to get books my wife likes to read everything on her towel so yeah you can do on right right yeah that's she does absolutely yeah so I think it's a combination of just us getting better organized about what we have and how we're marketing and who we're marketing it to and um yeah we've I've been really making that a big big part of everything and Word of Mouth helps yes if yeah exactly exactly if people talk us up then sharing yeah absolutely I've been really trying to like not share them too much on like the local forums because I don't want to bombard people but I think that's also really helping too no mean like if I oh yeah exactly exactly certainly yeah so I think it's kind of a combination of everything we're just a lot yeah yeah but it's it's enjoyable work yeah and yeah that's that's what I have for the um action plan um I'm going to do kind of one more read through just to make sure I didn't misspell anything and then I will submit it to the board of Library Commissioners and that'll be that for the year and then we'll do the same thing next year with kind of what we've been working on and then yeah that was it for me the last thing I just wanted to ask was um would it be helpful if if for whatever reason I am not able to attend a meeting would it be helpful for to have like one or two of you guys trained on the owl sure and whatnot um just so somebody else knows how to run it if if for whatever reason I'm not able to make it meeting take another long long trip to Arizona oh yeah yeah so um is anybody interested in sure okay Michael perfect anybody else or okay then we'll just um maybe we'll make a plan at some point maybe when you come in to sign um the financial report maybe when you do that we can just take like a few minutes it's really just plugging plugs into the right place and then it really does most of the work for you so so our next meeting would be October October 8th at 7.m I know it's a little early but are you doing the Trump R treating are they doing the Trum I haven't heard anything yet I'm assuming they are so like we've been kind of planning as as if they are that's okay I'll donate candy it's hard for me to go places because I take care of my mother but sure yeah I'll let you know once I hear um I'm assuming they're gonna do it again this year so I'll just let you know um email me and if you email me with the baskets yeah I can't go anywhere but like when I'm at work I can go and I usually get like a movie gift card and then I usually do Captain Jimmy's okay yeah that's perfect I'll let you know you don't mind yeah not at all thank you yep all right that is it for me for this evening I hear a motion to a journ all in favor Michael yes okay all right then we will sign off have a good night Cindy and Cy night everybody