International Falls Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
February 11, 2026
Present: Diane Adams – Library Director, Sasha Moss, Heather Weaver, Katie Winkel, Maggie Horning, Mona Johnson, Cynthia Adams, Will Frank
Meeting was called to order at 4:30 pm by Frank.
Minutes – Weaver moved and Adams seconded to approve the January 2026 minutes. All approved.
| Bills – | |||||||
| Cengage | Books | $ 243.68 | |||||
| Center Point | Books | $ 32.21 | |||||
| Ebsco | Subscriptions | $ 1,671.32 | |||||
| Ingram | Books | $ 2,077.23 | |||||
| iRead | Summer Reading | $ 130.14 | |||||
| Littlefork Times | Subscriptions | $ 45.00 | |||||
| Midco | Communications | $ 379.24 | |||||
| Marco | Equip contract | $ 256.47 | |||||
| Midwest Tape | AV | $ 1,080.53 | |||||
| Subscriptions | $ 1,434.11 | $ 2,514.64 | |||||
| Horn Book | Subscriptions | $ 119.00 | |||||
| Penworthy | Books | $ 185.91 | |||||
| Unique Management | Prof. Services | $ 46.60 | |||||
| TOTAL | $ 7,701.44 | ||||||
Moss moved and Johnson seconded to approve the February 2026 bills. All approved.
Director’s Report – January 2026 was a cold month and we saw an increase in digital usage with both Hoopla and Libby compared to January 2025, but not enough of an increase to make up the the 9% decrease in physical circulation checked out by 115 fewer people than a year ago. Elementary Fun had 16 and crafters’ cafe has been averaging 8. Storytime attendance has been down a bit usually in the 8 – 15 attendee range. Saturday storytime was 7. Unless we see an increase, I’m not sure we can continue next fall. It is really hard on the schedule and we’re just not seeing very many attend this year. We’ll keep it going through the spring and see if we can drum up additional attendance. Olivia is signed up for an online storytime instruction class and it might be possible that we could work out having her do the Saturday storytime the Saturday she works.
I’ve started working on tabulating 2025 statistics for the annual report. We’ve begun summer reading preparation and have scheduled a number of special programs including a regional poet interested in coming up for a reading and a historian with the Minnesota Historical Society who has been researching the end of industrial logging in the upper Midwest.
We have seen a slow but steady increase in Hoopla usage with a significant jump in January. Given we didn’t get as much from the county as requested, I think we need to drop the number each patron can borrow each month from 8 to 6. We will run out of funds otherwise.
We are working on training two new volunteers to cover hard cover books and I think we are working out the Ingram shipping schedule for new books and finally getting many of the titles that fell through the cracks in the transition to a new book distributor.
I have been trained on the new way to process invoices and will start working on bills for the board meeting on Friday. Hopefully, I can get a January financial report run as well from the system. I’ll have to see how it goes when I go in and try to do things on my own. Staff continues to make the transition to using Canva for our publicity and various creative documents (instead of Publisher, which will retire in October and we will discontinue our Microsoft subscription in August). The full-time staff are all having to learn a lot of new things and are feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I’m not sad we’ve been a little slower so far this year.
Old Business: Regular programs include storytime, a monthly Saturday storytime, Elementary Fun and Crafters’ Café. We are getting “Dance for All” as the February legacy program on Thursday, February 19th at 1:00pm.
We have scheduled our second Flight Path grant with Voyageurs Conservancy for Wednesday, April 1 at 2 pm.
New Business: A discussion was had about trying to contain the Hoopla budget as we saw a considerable jump in January after slowly increasing. We will decrease the monthly number of titles that can be borrowed from 8 to 6. The director will provide the board with a monthly map of usage. The director will provide community information in the weekly column about the change and create an infographic for Facebook talking about the differences between Hoopla and Libby and encourage folks to use both apps for digital content.
Winkel moved and Moss seconded for Frank to be chair and Weaver vice-chair for 2026. All approved.
Friends of the Library book sale is Monday, March 9th from 4pm –6pm.
What are you reading? Heather is listening to The Light Ages: the surprising story of medieval science by Seb Falk, Sasha just read The House in the Cerulean Sea by T J Klune, Will is reading Forever and a Day by Anthony Horiwitz, Maggie is reading The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry. Mona just picked up Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Cindy recommended Nighfall by Asimov and Silverberg, The Moon is Down by Steinbeck and highly recommended Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Katie surprised herself by enjoying Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and Diane is enjoying Is a River Alive by Robert McFarlane and not so much enjoying The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis.
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 11th, 4:30 pm
Meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm,