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, Betty Hutchins, Ed Haskell, Dick Hall, Tyler Hoecker, Tonya Holt and Naomi Lipsky.
Staff present: Audrey Betcher, Library Director; Tom Dyer, Head of Communications; Kim Edson, Head of Reader Services; Carrie Farrow, Head of Circulation Services; Jean Jahn, Head of Automation Services; Purna Gurung, Office Services Coordinator.
Others present: Al Dollerschell, Friends of RPL and students from Lourdes High School.
CONSENSUS AGENDA
The following agenda items were added under New Business: Gift to Library and Parking Rate Increases.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Strike the sentence "Dick Hall has been talking to the Mayor about the possible impacts of the LGA cuts on the Library" under the Finance Committee report and revise the sentence "Jerry Balm reported that an article in the Post Bulletin listed the Library as the 3rd ranked downtown draw for residents" under Other News.
Jerry Balm moved, Naomi Lipsky second to approve the meeting minutes from April 21, 2004 as amended. Motion approved.
APPROVAL OF BILLS
Jerry Balm moved, Betty Hutchins second to approve the bills as submitted. Motion approved.
MONTHLY REPORT
Audrey reported that we are missing some circulation statistics and may end up revising the monthly reports. Jerry noted that overdue fees have decreased. Audrey replied that patrons are responding well to courtesy notices, which also translates to less staff processing. We have one more issue to resolve before sending records to the Collection Agency. Expenses for the Sirsi conference were charged to CIP since it was a training expense. Kim reported that a couple of bookmobile stops with low circulation were cut. County circulation looks smaller partly due to the changing city boundaries.
Ed Haskell moved, Jerry Balm second to approve the April monthly report as submitted. Motion approved.
METRICS
The Board reviewed and discussed the figures from the metrics table.
FOUNDATION REPORT
Foundation Board members have begun making appointments to solicit funding for the Foundation. The Foundation is reviewing different options for donor recognition, which the Library Board will have to approve. Jerry noted the support of Stone Cold Creamery for the Friends. Tyler noted that Stone Cold Creamery is donating sundaes for the Youth Reading Program.
SELCO REPORT
Dick Hall has agreed to continue on as the Library's representative on SELCO's Executive Board. Dick reported that the SELCO Executive Board meeting scheduled for 5/24/04 has been canceled. Other Planning and Personnel meetings are coming up.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Finance Committee: The Committee will be meeting in the near future.
Planning Committee: None.
Policy Committee: The Policy Committee met on April 27 to discuss the following: Code of Conduct, Trespass Policy, and Duplicate card fees.
The Code of Conduct was modified to limit cell phone use in the library under the "Noise" section. We will have signage made to reflect the new policy.
The Board approved the revision to the Code of Conduct limiting cell phone usage in the building.
Guidelines are recommended to allow staff to bar patrons from the library for longer than 30 days for serious infractions of the Code of Conduct. This will not be a standalone policy, but will be incorporated into our Security Procedures. It was decided that appeals would go to the Board. The Board decided that they would review appeals at the start of regular Board meetings and asked staff to arrange for a police officer to be present during the appeals hearing. The Board also recommended that language be included in the policy that states that any patron misconduct that violates Minnesota criminal conduct laws will warrant criminal charges being filed against them.
The Board approved the Trespass Policy as amended.
When we begin taking photos of patrons and adding them to the patron record, we recommend lowering the cost of a duplicate card from $2 to $1 for a defined period of time. We want an incentive for a patron to replace a lost card.
The Board approved lowering the cost of duplicate card fees from $2 to $1 during the photo registration promotion.
Personnel Committee: None.
Youth Advisory Board: None.
ROCHESTER AREA FOUNDATION GIFT
We received a $1,250 bequest from Bernice Krug through the Rochester Area Foundation. Audrey asked for Board approval to move the funds to the Foundation.
Ed Haskell moved, Jerry Balm second to move the $1,250 bequest to the Foundation. Motion approved.
JULY 3
July 4th falls on a Sunday this year. Consequently, we expect very slow business on Saturday July 3rd. The Library will be closed on Monday, July 5th as the observance of the holiday. AT recommends closing on Saturday, July 3rd. There will be some slight savings in salaries. Staff will advertise the closing.
Jerry Balm moved, Naomi Lipsky second to approve closing the Library on Saturday, July 3rd. Motion approved.
BUDGET
The Administrative Team is at work on the 2005 budget. We are incorporating items from the action plans. We have been exploring ideas to fulfill the goal of Action Plan 2.2.A. (Explore additional material drop-off and pickup locations in Olmsted County.) A concern has been the amount of time and training needed for a hosting site to manage the reserves if the current procedures are in place. One option is a self-serve "Patron Reserve Machine". This machine would mean that staff at the hosting site would have minimal, if any, interaction with the patrons picking up reserves or dropping off material.
The goals of a remote location is longer access time and more convenience for our patrons and improved processing of reserves. The machine is expensive and currently in beta testing. The initial bid came in over $300,000. Audrey asked the Board if staff should continue to pursue this option. The Board agreed that staff should look at the option but that it would be advisable to wait until the beta testing period is over to seriously consider it. We are also looking at having a self-serve reserve pickup location at the Library, though not using this machine.
Jerry warned staff to be prepared for possible budget cuts for 2005. Audrey replied that she hoped the 2005 budget would remain flat. The open positions would most likely remain unfilled in 2005. In the past the cuts have been spread evenly over City departments, and Audrey is hopeful that will remain the same in 2005.
STAFF COMPLETING MLS DEGREES
Both Carrie Farrow and Laura Randolph have graduated from the College of St. Catherine with a Master of Library and Information Science degree. The Board congratulated staff on this achievement.
LIBRARY TRUSTEE TRAINING
There is a training opportunity for interested members on Monday, July 12, 5-7.30PM, at SELCO.
The session is entitled "City & County Funding Environments: What you need to know!" Please call SELCO to register if you are interested.
GRANTS
We are asking for 8 PCs through IBM's Community Grant program. Audrey thanked Dave Nelson for taking the lead on this grant. The PCs will be used for new and replacement Internet PCs for the public. The Letter of Intent for the LSTA grant for creating a library orientation video in Somali has been completed. We are working on a grant to the MLA Foundation for Book Group Discussion Kits.
PARKING RATE INCREASE
Public Works is recommending parking rate increases for parking ramps and surface lots. This increase will affect our patrons. The Board suggested that Audrey draft a letter to John Hunziker from Dave Nelson stating that the parking increase is a negative inducement for our patrons.
MNLINK
We did get a reply back from HESO. Audrey attended the last MnLink Gateway Operations Committee. They continue to say that they will accept new Gateways when the current Gateways are functional (time unknown). They modified and recommended the New Gateway Server Site Criteria. The change softened the wording about existing Gateways being able to comment on how a new Gateway site would be detrimental. Audrey noted that it would be interesting to see how MnLink will administer the rules to the library system breaking up in Northwest Minnesota. Ann Kelley said at the meeting that HESO would only factor in criteria that showed a new Gateway was detrimental to MnLink as a whole, not to an individual Gateway site. The State librarian, Suzanne Miller, is scheduled to visit RPL. She seems very open to talking about issues that RPL is facing.
Respectfully submitted,
Tonya Holt
Secretary
The next regular meeting of the Library Board will be Wednesday, June 16, 2004, at 4:30 pm in Meeting Room B on the second floor of the library.