Minutes
North Liberty Community Library
Board of Trustees
February 19, 2007

The meeting was called to order by President Peggy Waters at 7:00 p.m. at the City Council Chambers in North Liberty.

Board members present were Peggy Waters, Anne Daniels, Carol Thompson, Matt Irving, Andrew Freeman and Library Director Dee Crowner. Shawn Selch was absent with prior notice.

Approval of Agenda:
 A motion to approve the agenda was made by Thompson, seconded by Waters and approved unanimously.

Public Comment: Patron, Sally Orear, was upset that her daughter, who is not eighteen years old was allowed to check out the film Stand By Me, which was rated “R” by the Motion Picture Association of America. It was explained to Ms. Orear that the library has a policy of allowing any patron to check out any book or movie, unless a parent has a restriction placed on their child’s library card. This policy is disclosed to all patrons in the patron packet they receive at the time they obtain their library cards. It was discussed that movie ratings are private guide for parents to use. It was further discussed that a more restrictive policy may violate the 1st Amendment. Jennie Garner stated that she did not want others to parent her children and supported the library’s policy, as a mother. Andrew Freeman suggested taking more efforts to make sure parents were aware of the policy. Anne Daniels will form a committee to look into the legalities of our current policy and alternatives.

Approval of Minutes:
The word November was changed to December. A motion to approve the January minutes as amended was made by Thompson, seconded by Waters, and approved unanimously.

Reports:

Budget - Jenny Garner:
The proposed budget for 2007-2008 is expected to be approved at the next city council meeting. The $3200 maintenance fee was due to a filtering problem and the library will be reimbursed, in total, in June.

Youth and Teen Services - Elaine Reitz:
Teen Tech Week is March 5-9 and will include a movie festival, video editing demo and a parent/teen program on understanding what teens are doing online and how to be safe. Melanie has added a Teen MySpace page for the library as well as a blog through blogger.com.

 

Assistant Director - Jennie Garner:
Jennie Garner will speak at a brown bag lunch for the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science about public relations and the library in March. Author Donald Harstad will be at the library July 18. Author, Chris Crutcher, will visit the North Liberty Library on July 18 at 7 p.m.

Director - Dee Crowner:
Janet, Elaine, and Andrew will each write a grant per month. Janet is currently pursuing a cash operated printer for patrons. The final facilities study will be presented to the city council at their next meeting.

Friends of the Library - Carol Thompson:
The Friends membership drive is on. There will be a volunteer lunch April 21 from 3-5 p.m. Friends currently has a CD worth $4,000 and $3,898 in checking. They have agreed to fund the Mad Scientist activity for the summer reading program.

Policy Review:

LongRange Plan
A motion to approve the Long Range Plan as is was made by Waters, seconded by Thompson and approved.

Cell Phone Policy
Waters made a motion to make the policy a procedure, which was seconded by Freeman and approved unanimously.

Old Business:

Plans for Expansion
Most letters of invitation have gone out asking possible committee members to luncheon. A short program at the luncheon will address the space needs assessment and what the next steps will be.

ILTA Membership
The cost to be a member of the Iowa Library Trustees Association is $30.

New Business:
 
Expansion Subcommittee
Irving and Selch will be the Library Board’s expansion subcommittee and liaison to the steering committee.

Communication of Library Policies to Community
The library will look into ways to ensure library patrons know about library policies.

Monthly Meeting Dates
The dates for the board’s monthly meetings through January 2008 were drafted by Irving. Thompson moved that the dates be approved, Daniels seconded, and they were approved unanimously.

Addition of Public Comment to the Agenda
Waters moved that Public Comment be made a permanent section on the board’s agenda, which was seconded by Freeman and approved unanimously.

Other Business:
Dee will review the schedule for reviewing library policies. The Cell Phone Policy should be removed from the schedule and the Collection Development Policy should be added as it does not appear to be on the schedule.

Adjournment:
The motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Thompson, seconded by Waters, and approved unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m., in the North Liberty Library.

Minutes submitted by Anne Daniels on February 26, 2006.