CALL TO ORDER AND APPROVAL OF AGENDA
The regular meeting of the Rochester Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting was called to order by Dick Hall.
Members present: Jerry Balm, Ed Haskell, Tonya Holt, Betty Hutchins, Steve McMaster, Elisabeth Miller, and Chris Colby.
Members absent: Naomi Lipsky and Dave Nelson.
Staff present: Audrey Betcher, Library Director; Tom Dyer, Head of Communications; Jean Jahn, Head of Automation; Carrie Farrow, Head of Circulation Division; Kim Edson, Head of Readers Services; Beth Warfield, Head of Children's Division; Purna Gurung, Office Services Coordinator.
Others present: Al Dollerschell, Friends of the Library.
INTRODUCTION OF NEW BOARD MEMBER
Audrey introduced Tonya Holt, who was appointed to the Library Board at the April 7th City Council meeting, to the Board.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Ed Haskell moved, Jerry Balm second to approve the meeting minutes from March 19, 2003. Motion approved. (Noted that Al Dollerschell, Friends of Library member, was also present at the 3/19/03 Meeting)
APPROVAL OF BILLS
There were no unusual bills for the month.
Ed Haskell moved, Jerry Balm second to approve the bills as submitted. Motion approved.
MONTHLY REPORT
Jerry Balm moved, Chris Colby second to approve the February 2003 reports as submitted. Motion approved.
FOUNDATION REPORT
The Development Committee is meeting regularly to plan a campaign. They are making progress.
The Library Foundation Board recommends the approval of Muhammed Babur's appointment to the Foundation Board.
Ed Haskell moved, Chris Colby second to approve Muhammad Babur's appointment to the Library Foundation Board. Motion approved.
SELCO REPORT
The revised SELCO by-laws will come up for vote at the April 22nd SELCO quarterly board meeting. There is some change in the wording. Audrey indicated that the passing of the revised by-laws will have a positive impact on RPL.
Dick Hall will be unable to attend the April 22nd SELCO Board meeting and asked if any Board member was available to attend in his place. Jerry Balm will represent RPL in Dick's absence at the SELCO Board meeting.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Ad Hoc Budget Committee: The administrative team will present the plus 25% scenario of the targeted cuts for 2004 at the May 21st Board meeting.
Ed Haskell pointed out that an emergency board meeting might need to be convened in the near future to approve the Sirsi contract.
ILS UPDATE
We have received a letter from SELCO indicating that our last day to pull our information from their server is July 31st. Jean and Audrey will meet with SELCO staff again on April 17th. We are also working with Sirsi on the contract. Sirsi will not have the migration completed by July 31st. Their target date is October. This new time line will impact our budget negatively as we had previously assumed that RPL would be on its own system by July 31st.
We are currently working on an interim system which will host our data before the Sirsi migration. We will be running the same software that we are currently running in the interim system. The only thing we think we will not implement for the interim is telephone notices and renewals. We will purge all of SELCO's data except for RPL, so that will simplify the final conversion process to Unicorn. We don't foresee having to close during the transition.
JULY 5TH
July 4th falls on a Friday this year. In the summer, we are on shortened weekend hours (9.30am-1.30pm). The Administrative Team recommends closing on Saturday, July 5th as well as Friday, July 4th. We expect it to be a very slow day and it would save some dollars (part-time staffing and building cooling costs). This is a one-time decision.
Ed Haskell moved, Steve McMaster second to approve that the Library close on July 5th as well as July 4th. Motion approved.
METRICS
Dick Hall went through the Metrics table and charts which show a 7 year trend on key library data.
OUTSTANDING WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
Jean Jahn was recognized by the Olmsted County and City of Rochester Diversity Program Committee as one of the ten recipients of this award on Tuesday, March 25th. The Board congratulated Jean for her achievement.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
Tom Dyer informed the Board that the Advocacy Committee met to work on a letter to send to decision makers in the community to support the Fair Cuts budget bill (Dorman/Langseth bill).
According to the City Administrator's office, this is the most promising bill out there as it spreads the pain more evenly among cities across the state.
Ed felt that the bill would not pass since proportionate cuts across the board is highly unlikely. Chris was concerned about the unilateral nature of stating RPL's case without the City on board. Tom explained that City Administration is solidly behind this bill. Dick asked if the Board, as individuals, would be open to supporting this bill. Dick, Ed and Chris were not willing to support the bill. Ed felt that the Board had done a decent job of governing the organization as opposed to other city agencies. RPL is very fiscally responsible thus there is no real area to cut from. Ed felt that the governor's budget cuts would force other government agencies to get their house in order. Steve felt that the public would be suspicious if it appeared as if there was a lot of lobbying resources from public entities. Kim asked the Board to study the bill more thoroughly before making a decision.
Betty, Jerry, Elizabeth and Steve felt they needed to study the bill more before coming to a decision. Ed said the board needed to discuss if it was appropriate for public employees to advocate for something that benefits them directly. Kim and Tom explained that we are encouraging friends of the library to advocate on our behalf. Dick proposed that support for this bill be on an individual basis.
ROCHESTER READS UPDATE
Carrie Farrow informed the Board that the Rochester Reads program continues to go very well. Barnes and Noble has sold many copies of the book and circulation of the title has been high in the library. Carrie thanked the Friends for donating copies of the book to RPL. There has also been good turnout for the various events especially the author visit. Tom Dyer is working on publicizing the individual events to garner more attendance. Carrie encouraged the Board to attend the book discussions.
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Betty Hutchins
Secretary
The next regular meeting of the Library Board will be Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 4:30 pm in Meeting Room B on the second floor of the library.