Present: Diane Adams, Library Director, Ashley Kostiuk, Paul Nevanen, Ted Saxton, John Dalton
Call to Order: Saxton called the meeting to order at 4:30 pm
Motion was made by Nevanen, seconded by Dalton to approve the February minutes, approved.
Financial Report and Bills: Motion by Nevanen, seconded by Kostiuk to pay the bills. Approved. Dalton signed the bills.
Director’s Report – February circulation continues to be down. However, patron usage of the library is almost identical to February 2019, confirming what we have suspected that people are using the library, just not checking out as many items. Program attendance has been solid for February. Storytime attendance has been healthy with fewer sick families and libratory attendance has been at approximately ten each week. This afternoon as I write this (Wed. 3/4 we had seven individuals reading and doing homework in the comfortable chairs on the north side of the library, 4 using the desk top computers and another 5 individuals using the work tables on the south side of the main floor. But only three of those 16 borrowed anything.
February was a month spent dealing with frustrating technology. We had a hard time getting the OCR software to save the scanned newspapers as searchable PDF’s, we had two public desktop computers fail to update and get stuck restarting over and over and we had a hard time getting the Oculus Go’s (virtual reality) set up for check out. The desktops have been repaired, we had limited success getting the OCR software to work and are hopeful we can figure out a set of parameters to make it work and can make the Oculus Go’s work almost the way planned.
Summer reading preparation is beginning! The 2020 theme is Dig Deeper! We have some really exciting programs planned for the summer and are coordinating with Ifalls Nice for concerts and art activities, with Indivisible for a possible discussion group as well as applying for an ARAC grant to bring in outside artists to provide some community art activities. Grant is due at the end of March and we will learn in late May if approved. If not, we will use library funding to pay for the two artists. We applied for a National Network of Libraries of Medicine Human Genetics Film kit to help adults Dig Deeper into precision medicine. If we are accepted to get a kit we will hold four film discussion nights in June and July about human geneitics and precision medicine as part of summer reading programming. We should find out at the end of March if approved.
Upcoming programs: Libratory meets Wednesday afternoons, 3 – 4:30, storytime Thursday mornings at 10:30, Schlegel Duo to perform Tuesday, March 17 at 6:30pm.
Grants – KTI grant – gear for both youth and Virtual reality grants has arrived, setting it up and learning to use,
Knudson grant – final order placed and received, processing materials and wrote final report
Long range planning – April 4th will work with most board members and Ballans iSpace. Please set aside date for strategic planning retreat, more details to come.
phone – Midco phone transition has begun. I had an initial planning, pre-installation call on Thursday, March 5th to make the installation and setup go smoother. We are looking at transitioning to VoIP with Midco at the end of the month.
New Business:
2020 Knudson Grant – will apply for a grant in June to add additional items to Library of Things – focus on families and elders
Next Friends of the Library sale – April 6th 5 – 7pm
What are you reading? – Dick notified us via email that he was read This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, Paul is reading Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, Ashley is enjoying The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica, John is just starting The Dark Side by Danielle Steel and Ted is enjoying Talking with Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell while Diane just started Incubating Creativity @ Your Library: A Sourcebook for Connecting with Communities by Erinn Batykefer and Laura Damon-Moore.
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 8th at 4:30 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm.