HomeMy WebLinkAboutLibrary Board Minutes 12.10.2024MINUTES
CITY OF LAUREL
12/10/2024 06:06 PM
Laurel Public Library
Katie Fjelstad X Arthur Vogele
X Kate Manley — Board Chair X Paige Farmer
X Nancy Schmidt, Secretary X Mary Nelson
X Clair Killebrew — Foundation Liaison
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.
Addressing the Board —None
2. General Items
a. The minutes for November 2024 were presented for approval. Arthur motioned the
minutes be approved, Paige seconded the motion. Motion passed.
b. Correspondence — We received a $25 donation from Mary Boyer.
c. Circulation Report — (compared to the same time period as last year) Traffic: down 13.46%;
circulation: all items circulated totaled 4,591(including 588 eBooks), book circulation
was up 13.85%, media circulation was up 90.25%, eBook checkouts for this month was
14.2% of total book circulation, we circulated 917 items to partners and 213 items from
other libraries; computers: internet use was down 6.8%, children's use was down
71.43%, wi-fi use up 3.4%; patron cards: city patrons make up 62.41% of our registered
users, county is 27.7% and state/out of county has 8.86% of our registered users. There
were 19 tech assists in November.
3. Old Business
a. The elves have been very active at the library the past week or so. We are hoping that
they continue to be active without making any significant messes in the library. The
postings on Facebook have been very successful. We have all been surprised at the
popularity of our "Elves on the Shelves" program at the library. Our final program will be
a movie night showing "ELF" with hot chocolate and sleeping bags/blankets. It will be on
Friday, December 20th, 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Even though the library is closed on Friday,
we felt this was the perfect day to host the movie night.
b. Rob Walla from Donahue Roofing stopped by to discuss the timeline for completing the
soffit & fascia repair. We also discussed and decided on a color for the metal fascia
being put on the entrance peaks. We were able to provide Donahue with a can of the
original stain that was used when the soffit was stained at construction. It looks like the
work may be started and completed next week or just after Christmas.
e. There has been further discussion about the Collection Management Development
Policy. After discussion, it was decided that Nancy would email suggestions to board
members about breaking the full 12-Page policy into 3 or 4 smaller policies with input
from library staff. One suggestion was separating out the Freedom To Read and ALA
statements.
d. Christmas and New Year's week schedules will be mixed up a bit this year. The library
will be closing at noon on Christmas Eve and closed Christmas Day. The board members
authorized library staff to take off the day after Christmas and close the library. The
library will close at 2:00 pm on New Year's Eve and closed on New Year's Day but open
regular hours on Thursday, January 2" d, 2025. This will allow library staff to use some of
their excess vacation time.
4. New Business
a. Board members were given links to two videos from the state library to watch for
continuing education credits. These will go toward their 3 hours of trustee training that
is required by Montana State Library for library compliance to excellent service. More
video links will be sent out each month. The learning videos will be added to trustee CE
in ASPeN.
b. Kate Manley received her certification from the Montana State Library. She has put in
over 20 hours of training as a trustee for Laurel Public Library.
c. The library trustees were introduced to the new library Clerk, Brenda Reiland. Her shifts
will vary according to staffing needs but she will be scheduled for late afternoon/early
evenings until trained. Her shifts may change when school is out for the summer.
Brenda has previous experience in library work from Billings Public Library so comes to
us knowing some of our programs and is willing to learn the rest. Most of Brenda's
training is being done by Mike Furman and Eli Ritterpusch with director input as needed
since they will be working with her more than anyone else.
d. Our copy rates need to be slightly increased for color copies. We noticed that the
amount being charged is slightly lower than what those copies are costing us to make
happen. We will make sure that all library staff know to charge more for the color
copies. There was no dissention of this idea.
e. The library has 7 hot spots that are available for checkout to patrons. This program has
been provided by MSL since 2020 without cost to the library. Funding is being provided
until June 30, 2025. Replacements for lost or non -working hot spots aren't being
provided. Library staff have mentioned that we will keep using them as long as the state
library is providing them but we don't feel that this is something that the library should
pay for out of our local budget. The board members feel that this is an excellent idea.
f. Nancy presented the idea of creating a yearly calendar of board meetings. The board
members stated that they don't need a yearly calendar since each month we are given
the date for the next meeting. If we need to make changes to the meeting date, it is
discussed at the end of the current board meeting.
5. Other Items
a. Upcoming Items: None
6. Announcements
a. The next regular meeting is January 14th, 2025 at 6:00 pm in the library community
Meeting adjourned at 7:07 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
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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.
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