International Falls Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
March 9, 2022
Present: Diane Adams – Library Director, Ashley Kostiuk, Darcy Sullivan, Dick Peterson and Mona Johnson.
Minutes – Sullivan moved and Peterson seconded to approve February 2022 minutes. All approved.
Financial Report – Peterson moved and Johnson seconded to approve March 2022 bills. All approved
Director’s Report – February circulation was not as good as January, but it was cold much of the month, so not surprising. And 20 fewer items circulated this February compared to last February. Storytime attendance has been up and down, with between 10 – 20 attendees. Snowshoes remain popular and we have regularly had about half checked out at a time. We will be offering a small number of seeds to patrons interested in doing a little gardening this summer (and will start publicity for that in the next couple of weeks), but we will not have a garden plot in the community garden.
We continue to catalog new items for the Library of Things including a rice cooker, new dehydrator and some new lawn games which were popular last summer. Molly and I have begun talking about summer programming and think that Wednesday Libratory will be about 40 minutes of STEAM activity followed by a different lawn game each week.
I have also been working on creating a graphic talking about the annual report (see other side of this report) and creating information for our new baby bags to distribute to county health nurses, Northern Options and hopefully both clinics for prenatal visits.
This month will be focused on getting the summer reading brochure ready to go and starting preparation for me to be gone the month of May.
Old Business: In-person programming continues to be limited to storytime each Thursday morning. We provide a dozen families with elementary students a take-home Libratory bag (a STEAM project) each week with instructions provided after the bags are gone and a monthly take-out craft or art project for teens and adults with a shift to those being provided to us from Arrowhead Library System.
We are on-track with annual action plans except for getting back to working through a revision of the policy manual into a policy and procedures manual.
New Business: A discussion was held about whether or not to bring back fines. While several board members expressed hesitation, as did the director the overal consensus of the library world is that they don’t help get material back faster and serve to keep some people out of the library out of fear of fees. So on motion by Peterson with a second by Johnson the board approved abolishing all fines for overdue material. The director will revise the “Lending Policy” to reflect the new policy and bring it to the board in April for approval.
Next Friends of the Library book sale will be Friday, April 8th from 3pm – 5pm. The Friends of the Library will hold a membership drive in April, starting during National Library Week, April 3 – 9, 2022.
What are you reading? – Ashley enjoyed The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms and The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen and continues to read Educating Oppositional and Defiant Children by Nancy D. and Philip S. Hall, Mona is dealing with her mom being hospitalized and a sick pet so hasn’t done much reading. Darcy is reading The Art Forger by B A Shapiro, Dick highly recommends The Greatest Beer Run Ever by John “Chick” Donohue and J T Molloy and continues reading James Grippando’s series about Jack Swytek, currently on Girl in the Glass Box. Diane recommended Between the Lines: stories from the underground for recommended titles, Absurd Words by Tara Lazar for a fun word book and Passport by Sophie Glock for an amazing memoir of a childhood in an unnamed central American country as the child of spies.
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13th, 2022 at 4:30 pm.
Meeting ended at 5:15 pm.