Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Library Board of Trustees - 03/14/2024 - Board of Trustees Approved Minutes South Burlington Public Library Board of Trustees The South Burlington Public Library Board of Trustees held a regular meeting on Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 5:30 p.m., in the Library Board Room, and by Zoom participation. Members Present: Theresa Eiermann, Kevin Morgenstein Fuerst, Anne Gilson LaLonde, Holly Painter, Rebecca Stazi, Donna Swartwout (Acting Chair), Margery Vagt, Lauren Ballard Hatch Members Absent: Stacey Pape, Ted Lenski, Penelope Tompkins Staff Members & Guests Present: Jennifer Murray, Julia Wagner, John & Nancy Simson 1. The Chair called the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. 2. Library exits were reviewed. The Chair provided instructions on emergency exits from the building. 3. Additions and deletions to the posted agenda 4. Comments and questions from the public not related to items on the agenda 5. Approval of regular board minutes of February 8, 2024 Upon a motion made by Trustee Holly Painter and seconded by Trustee Rebecca Stazi, the Trustees voted unanimously to accept the minutes of the February 8, 2024 Board of Trustees Meeting. 6. Staff Introduction – Julia Wagner, Adult/Teen Assistant Julia was born and raised in South Burlington, and she said that it’s very special for her to be able to work here. Her duties include creating event flyers, making the print calendar, handling room reservations, and running the library’s Instagram feed. Her favorite part of the job is working at the “perch” (the upstairs help desk). She has also revamped the library’s multilingual welcome sign and redone the library’s first aid kits. She asked the Trustees what the Board does, why we all wanted to become Trustees, and what we wanted for the library in the future. 7. Report Outs A. Chair Report Acting Chair Donna spent yesterday with the library staff as part of their day-long retreat. The staff did role-playing with different types of patron experiences and worked on handling their discomfort with certain situations. Donna left feeling very proud of the people who work here and emphasized that it is a very caring group of people. We should all thank and support the great staff and leadership team. B. Friends of the Library Report There was no official report, but the next book sale will begin April 11 at 5:00 p.m., just before the Trustees meeting. C. Committee Reports Communications Committee The committee chair echoed the written report she sent prior to the meeting: The Communications Committee met on February 15, 2024. • We discussed upcoming amplification opportunities including around Black History Month and events in April such as Illuminate VT (4/5 and 4/6), the solar eclipse, National Library Week (4/7- 13) and National Poetry Month (April). We discussed activities for Library Week including distributing more clings, signing up for the newsletter, chalking out front of the library, postering, social posts, etc. • We learned that the SB Police are looking for a comms intern and Jennifer was wondering if we could bundle this resource more broadly across the City and Library too. A Champlain College student is looking to be tapped. • The College of Education and Social Services (CESS) at UVM will be publishing a story about their senior social worker student Evelyn Monje who has been interning at the library (a placement through the Howard Center). This story should be published imminently as March is National Social Work month. Possibly submit it to the Other Paper. A post with photos went up on 2/28 on the UVM CESS page and the library shared it. • Rebecca has been conversing with Hannah Miller who was featured last week in Seven Days’ Stuck in Vermont. I've invited her to our library, hopefully for an upcoming "knitting with the community" monthly event or sometime during National Library Week. Hannah said if we could make a donation to Outright, VT she would make a "Read Local" knitted hat :) Stay tuned. As Vermont's newest library, Hannah said it would be great to visit! Her goal is to read, write, and knit in all of Vermont's public libraries as part of the 251 club. Read more on Hannah's instagram: @handknitbyhannah. Finance Committee The committee did not meet but members noted that the residents of SB passed the city budget. The budget included a new 19-hour position for the library staff. Governance Committee The committee did not meet due to illness. South Burlington Public Library Foundation John Simson, member of the Foundation Board of Directors, discussed the Foundation’s new strategic plan. The plan is aspirational and the Foundation will come back and revisit it next Fall. The Foundation is going to have various committees, including finance, donor recognition and fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and marketing. The Foundation’s emphasis will be on donor recognition and building a constituency of loyal donors. The Foundation is independent of the Trustees, but like the Friends will have an opportunity to report at each Trustee meeting. We discussed possible fundraisers, like a lecture series, and the logistics of renting the auditorium. John and Donna put out a call for volunteers to join the new committees, noting that they do not have to be members of the Foundation board. D. Director’s Report There was a terrific staff retreat yesterday, with the library closed all day. The staff engaged in role- playing uncomfortable situations, and almost all of the staff participated in the role-playing. They also took personality tests. Jennifer had a personal trainer come to the retreat who troubleshooted physical tasks that librarians do to be sure they wouldn’t be injured. They ended with a white elephant gift exchange. They will add one or two role-plays to staff meetings. Thank you so much to Donna for working with the group for the retreat. Today the library received a request to remove a book. Jennifer did not name the book but said that it will be a very difficult conversation. We are following the policy. The patron filled out a form, and now two librarians who didn’t chose the book and one other librarian outside the library will read the book. The city has a surplus because the interest rates have been so high, and the money must be spent before the end of June. Jessie Baker will tell us how much the library can spend. One possibility is to replace the middle school computers, which are primarily used for gaming. They don’t have enough memory and overheat all the time. The library has a staff vacancy for the digital specialist position, which is full-time. We have 5 applications for the position, with a couple of possible internal candidates. Director’s report March 2024 – sent in prior to the meeting: Engaged Community Leader * Mira working with the Housing Committee and the Energy Committee on hosted book groups. Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson will be discussed on Thursday, March 21. She was approached by the Natural Resources Committee for next year. All see themselves reflected *Current affair display of books to support Black History and Futures Month and Women’s History Month. *The VT Reads author, Malinda Lo, will speak in the auditorium on April 9, 7pm. Registration required. * Cookbook Club shared from YaiYai, recipes from Greece. * 3-part series: Classical Composers: Meet the Women with Lois Price * Mira worked with Fletcher Free Library to host the Voices From Ukraine Film Series. Curated digital tools *On hold Eliminate barriers * Evelyn is spending some internship time at the library on Saturdays Highlights from Children’s 1. This week in the Children’s Department we are wrapping up a busy week of school vacation activity. Traffic was high this week, with many, many families taking advantage of the Wiggle Room and the Activity Room. On Monday, 2/26, Jennifer counted over 115 people entering between 9am and 2pm! 2. The UVM Celtic Cats Irish dance troupe entertained over 50 people in the auditorium this Saturday, 3/4. The student-run group was well organized, entertaining, and the audience had a great time clapping along to their lively tunes! 3. On March 16, we will again be hosting teaching artist, Jude Bond for a day-long workshop for early childhood educators and librarians that work with students ages 4 to 8 years old. The workshop is called “Moveable Arts: Read, Play, Make!” and focuses on literature-inspired art activities that incorporate gross motor play. 4. We are officially digging into planning for Summer Reading 2024: “Adventure Begins at your Library!” We are excited about this year’s theme, and are planning to focus on adventures in Vermont, both locally in SB and around the state. Stay tuned! 5. New Children’s Programmer, Valerie Keller started and is observing storytimes. Has lots of experience and is looking forward to doing her own programs next week. Highlights from Circulation and Cataloging 1. February 20th fun #s: CHECK INS 896 and CHECK OUTS 564. Days following holidays tend to be very busy! 2. “Come Back to the Library” campaign gently encourages patrons on the 2023 debt list to clear their accounts and starts this week. 3. Staff Pick suggestions are flying out of the Library 4. Cataloger and Director have been working on an improved system for processing new items. Highlights from Adult and Teen Services 1. Teens and City staff will be discussing Messy Roots, a graphic novel related in themes to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, at two separate events. 2. The Artificial Intelligence program that was popular in the Fall was offered again by Zoom. 3. Seed Swap, Gardening Info & Giveaway It's gardening time! For the Seed Swap, residents brought seeds saved from their garden, or leftover seed company packets to exchange with other gardeners. A Master Gardener & Master Composter from UVM's Extension Master Gardener Program and the Vermont Master Composter Program were present to answer questions and provide a resource table with tons of gardening and composting info, including info. 4. My Vermont Eyes continues with featured artist Dr. Jolivette for a reading and stories about her family's trip to the Ivory Coast cities of Abidjan, Gagnoa, and Daloa, and to Paris, France. This 60-minute Open Studio will focus on the migration of recent immigrants to the U.S., building family within the U.S., and Black American and African immigrants' stories, and on raising children who are bi-cultural. Dr. J has been very well received at the programs that she has offered thus far. 5. The Evans / Asbell Duo presents a program of jazz from the 1940s and 1950s as the third in the FOL Winter Concert series. Their playlist for our hour will include tunes featured in this year's Vermont Reads title, Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. From Jennifer 1. Kelly has designed an excellent training for staff that is empathetic in defining discomfort in some of staff dealings with the public. Evelyn is assisting, and Donna Swartwout will be working with them to create a safe space for role playing. More on the staff training day at the meeting. 2. Union bargaining continues. 3. I will be working with Mira on some collection development; a treat to get into the stacks. 4. I’ve been in further conversation with Nick in IT about the challenges posed by the Auditorium sound system. We conclude that we either need to hire an AV person or we need to replace what we have with something more user friendly. More later. 5. The Librarians were delayed in spending a few hours at each other’s desks for cross training to enhance their confidence in all areas of the library. Hoping to complete this by April. 6. Logan taught themselves how to set up an e-newsletter on the City’s system, saving the library $60 per month. We continue to send out the condensed version with a link to the events calendar. See how you like the format. 7. Citizens approved the FY25 City budget. This means that in addition to the Digital Specialist vacancy, we will have a 19 hour room reservation/admin assistant to fill come July. There is also an unexpected City surplus due to increased interest rates. Jessie is taking suggestions, and I am submitting the quote for all the shades that we still need on both floors, to be accomplished by the end of June. 8. Mike has done a magazine survey and will be researching Flipster, an online magazine resource. 9. I’m working with Rec and a community member to plan a Juneteenth event focusing on Hip Hop. 10. To follow up on an early complaint about Ogden Nash, I emailed the patron that we reviewed the titles and are choosing them to keep them on the shelves, and invited him to contact me if he wanted to take it any further. He has not been in touch. 11. Evelyn worked on a sign that gives contact info for various emergency situations. Jessie has approved, so after some editing we will post in the bathrooms. 12. The substitutes have created a unique email group on which they share items that they have learned on a shift so that other subs will be aware. There are so many procedures that they can’t all be covered in an orientation so this helps. 13. We have a full schedule for Illuminate Fri and Sat nights that includes instrumental jazz, pianos, ukulele, and spoken word. We have volunteers for Fri and Sat showings of space movies TBA. 8. Other Business: None 9. Adjourn Seeing no other business, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 6:29 p.m.