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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLibrary Board Minutes 05.09.20231 MINUTES CITY OF LAUREL Library Board 05/02/2023 06:00 PM Laurel Public Library COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: X Katie Fjelstad X Arthur Vogele, Board Chair – via Zoom X Kate Manley X Lela Schlitz X Nancy Schmidt, Secretary X Mary Nelson Clair Killebrew – Foundation Liaison OTHERS PRESENT: None 1. Public Input Citizens may address the committee regarding any item of city business not on the agenda. The duration for an individual speaking under Public Comment is limited to three minutes. While all comments are welcome, the committee will not take action on any item not on the agenda. a. Addressing the Board – None 2. General Items a. The minutes for March and April 2023 were presented for approval. Lela motioned the minutes be approved as presented, Mary seconded the motion. Minutes were approved. b. Correspondence – we received $25 from The Little Cowboy LLC, $50 from Ray Wells, and $500 to the foundation from Clair Killebrew. c. Circulation Report – (compared to the same time period as last year) Traffic: up 13%; circulation: all items circulated totaled 3,996 (including 571 eBooks), book circulation was up 9.9%, media circulation was down 22.8%, eBook checkouts for this month was 14.1% of total book circulation, we circulated 776 items to partners and 223 items from other libraries; computers: internet use was up 18.6%, children’s use was down 48%, wi-fi use up 72.7%; patron cards: city patrons make up 60.3% of registered users, county 28.7% and out of county users make up 8.9%. There were 49 tech assists in April. 3. New Business a. Nancy applied for a grant from the Town Pump Foundation to use toward the summer reading/Book Buzz program. We received a check for the $1,000 grant two days after the April board meeting. Some of the funds will be used for the pantry and the rest will be used for summer activities and books. b. The Summer Reading Program will kick off June 7th at 10:30 am. Anna Meadows, South and West school librarian, will be working at the library to complete her practicum. Anna will be planning activities for the 3 open dates that the school librarians will not be planning activities. We are expecting a large crowd of children to attend the Book Buzz programs each week. The 2 Billings Symphony would like to offer a musical story time later in the year. The plans will move ahead as fall approaches. c. The license plates are not available yet. The library foundation will be the entity that is sending in the application for the library plates. The plates are supposed to be ready July 1st. The funds will be sent to the foundation and then possibly transferred to the City for disbursement to the library accounts. d. The library board has been meeting on the second Tuesday of each month for years. Nancy asked if there was anyone that may want to change the meeting days and/or times. No one wanted to change the meeting dates or times. 4. Old Business a. Nancy attended the MLA Conference in Billings in early April. She stated that she didn’t attend workshops as much as she spent a lot of time in discussions with other librarians. She specifically reported on the workshop presented by Empower MT. This is going to be a year- long training that will be held virtually. The workshop on using native handcrafts to promote the library was also of particular interest to director. There were a number of discussions held with the State Library Commissioners during the conference. This was all very informational in helping determine where libraries may be going in the future. b. The book sale is in full swing with excellent sales to far. I deposited the funds from the first week into the foundation account. This was in the amount of $1,642.01. The sales from this week will be deposited next week and reported at the June meeting. The book sale is very successful so far. c. The Aunt Flow products purchased by the foundation has been greatly appreciated. We resupply the products every week so no one has to ask for any personal assistance. We’ve had a very positive response from the public about the products. d. The summer lunch program will start Monday, June 5th, at 11:00 am. There will be hot lunches served every day (Monday – Friday) except the few days around the holiday, July 3rd-5th. The school will provide the food and most supplies, we will supply the space. There will only be lunch served and no breakfast this year. The last lunch planned for the summer is August 11 th. e. The Federation meeting was held April 1, 2023 in Harlowton. We are waiting on word from the Federation Task Force on whether we will be needing a chair representative or if we will be working without a Chair. There will be a report on this as more informatio n becomes available. The next Federation meeting will be Saturday, September 30, 2023 in Laurel. Each library will be tentatively receiving $2,125.04 from the state library in funding through the Federation. f. The Laurel Women in Business held its annual Easter Storytime and Egg Hunt on April 5th. We had 75 people attend: 46 children/28 adults/6 presenters. The egg hunt was held on the south lawn because of the snow. There were a lot of happy children in the library that day! 5. Other Items a. A discussion about the food pantry was held concerning where to find the items to purchase for the pantry. The suggestion was made that we try to avoid going to Costco and Walmart because of volume or availability and go to Sam’s Club for our supplies. We will look into this to determine what our best value will be. 3 b. Upcoming Items: Nancy will be attending a workshop in Glendive on STEM training in May. She will be out of the office May 16th-18th for the training. The Fall Workshops are scheduled for September in Great Falls. There is a retreat scheduled in Chico for October. 6. Announcements a. The next regular meeting is June 13, 2023 at 6:00 pm in the library community room. Respectfully submitted, Nancy L Schmidt Nancy L Schmidt Library Director Secretary for the Board NOTE: This meeting is open to the public. This meeting is for information and discussion of listed agenda items.