Present: Diane Adams, Library Director, Ted Saxton, John Dalton, Darcy Sullivan, Ashley Kostiuk, Paul Nevanen, Dick Peterson
Call to Order: Peterson called the meeting to order at 4:27 pm
Motion was made by Saxton, seconded by Dalton to approve the December minutes. Approved.
Financial Report and Bills: Motion by Saxton, with second by Nevanen to pay the bills. Approved. Kostiuk signed the bills.
Director’s Report – We finished the year with circulation down 3% compared to 2018. We think we are seeing more people use the library, they are just borrowing fewer items. We have now completed our first full year of counting how many patrons we are checking out to each day. We had limited programming in December, just three weeks of storytime with attendance in the 10 – 15 range. I also visited Head Start classes once, River’s Edge Villa and Good Samaritan Assisted Living facility once and St. Thomas students came to the library once.
By the time of the board meeting we will have added Live Chat to our website and will begin promoting that as an additional way to contact us and ask questions.
I looked into switching our phone system to VOIP through Midco. We would not be saving any money but would get a number of additional features and new phones. This will be something to continue to consider as our phones are getting old and not always working properly.
We hired Priscilla Schrock as our scan clerk. We will be receiving training from the manufacturer of the BookEye on Thursday, January 30th at 10am. I will work with Priscilla prior to that to get her up to speed on policies and we will begin evaluating the newspapers in preparation for scanning.
Upcoming programs: Libratory will resume January 8th, storytimes will resume January 9th, class visits will resume January 7th. We will be starting a cookbook club on Tuesday, January 14th at 6:30 pm. A cookbook will be selected for each month and anyone is encouraged to select a recipe to try from the book and bring to the library to share. A cooking technique will be demonstrated and then food shared.
KTI – We received the grant to purchase additional technology for Libratory and the grant to purchase Oculus VR units to process as additional items in the Library of Things.
Donations: Nevanen moved and Kostiuk seconded to accept donation of $300 from the Bond Skrief Fund for Caldecott/Newbery titles.
New Business: This spring we need to complete another long range plan. Discussion was held and decided to try and schedule a Saturday meeting in April or May to brainstorm and hash out a plan. Diane will work with Ballan’s iSpace to see about renting the board room for the day and come to the February meeting with a handful of dates. She will also email out copies of the current long range plan and annual action plan.
Next Friends of the Library sale – Saturday, February 8th, Noon – 2 pm
What are you reading? – John just started Paper Son by S. J. Rozan, Dick finished Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor, Darcy is enjoying Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger and Ted is having fun reading Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, part 2 of the revenge of the ridiculous Robo-Boogers by Dav Pilkey with his son. Paul is reading To Name Those Lost by Rohan Wilson while Ashley finished Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty, Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer and Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris and Diane is reading Synapse by Steven James.
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 12th at 4:30 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm.