North Liberty Community Library
Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
October 20, 2008, 7:00 p.m.

President Shawn Selch called the meeting to order at 7:03pm at the North Liberty City Council Chambers, 25 W. Cherry St.

Board members present were: Shawn Selch, Peggy Waters, Melissa Murphy, Kashyap Handoo, Shalome Tonelli, Matt Irving and Library Director Dee Crowner.

Approval of Agenda:
The Director's Review was moved to below New Business. There was a motion to approve the agenda as corrected, Waters seconded and approved unanimously

Public Comment: None

Approval of Minutes:
A motion to approve the September minutes as written was made by Tonelli and seconded by Handoo and approved unanimously.

Reports:

Budget – Jenny Garner:
We are on track for the year so far. There are a couple of line items that Dee said that she was going to ask about. The line items in question being Program Materials and Compensation.

Youth and Teen Services – Andrew Frisbie:
For the first time, the programs are now the same in the morning and in the evening.

The next program is on October 23rd, which is the field trip to Barnes and Noble. This is limited to eight kids, and eight aren't registered so there's still room for a few.

On October 31st is the little kids Halloween costume show, Red Carpet Costume Review. Senior dining is having a show at 10am, so we are hoping to have the kids show off their costumes during this program.

Leaf printing on November 7th, November 13th Andrew is giving a presentation on making coasters and on November 20th is another game day.

Andrew and Melanie both went to ILA and had a good time. Andrew brought back stuff to do magic tricks.

Adult Services – Elaine Reitz:
On October 21st, Kash and his daughter will present a program on their trip to India this past summer. It will be at 6:30pm in Room C with a question and answer period after the program.

Sondra Lewis is a local author who has written a book on healthy eating and will be giving a presentation on October 24th at 6:30pm in Room B at the Community Center.

Elaine is starting to set up an outreach with Jefferson Point, the assisted living facility on the north edge of town.

The genealogy class was booked in October so there will be another one in November, which is already booked. They are planning on another one in January so hopefully if you weren't able to get in for the others and wanted to you can in January.

Assistant Director – Jennie Garner:
Jenny and Dee are submitting an application to the "Best Small Library in Iowa" award. This is a $15,000 cash prize plus two free trips to ILA in Portland, OR next year. Janet applied for this a couple years ago. We have a letter of recommendation from Christie Vilsack, the state librarian and our regional library head to submit with the application and it's due by November 21st.

Jenny attended ILA in Dubuque on October 16th and 17th.

Jenny was asked to serve on the Executive Leadership Committee on ILA. This is a three month commitment

Director – Dee Crowner:
Dee reported that last year there was a budget subcommittee that was selected to help set up the budget for the next fiscal year then report back to the whole board. Dee felt this worked well so asked if the board would be interested in doing this again. The committee would meet by the middle of November. A question was asked about what the city is doing for salary increases. The city is doing at least a 5% cost of living increase, plus a 3% step merit increase.

The budget committee selected was: Selch, Waters and Murphy. The date selected to meet was Monday, November 10th.

Dee next reported on a patron project that has been a long time coming. What they started with the patron photos, they are continuing with deleting patrons who have been inactive over three years. This goes along with ILA procedures. They also have gone through and made any patron who has just expired since October 1st back has been made inactive, as long as they didn't have a fine over $25.00. Any expired patron who has a fine of $25.00 or less they are just deleting the fine. This is a long process and they have been working on this for over a month.

Staff evaluations are starting. This is the first year that they will be done online so we'll so how they go. The software is setup through City Hall.

The open source software through the State Library has been put on hold for at least a year do to the focus being on the libraries that were affected by the flooding this past summer.

Janet wrote a grant for $10,000 from Community Foundation of Johnson County to see if we can get funding for other software to use instead of the open source software. We'll know on December 15th if we got it. This software is to replace Follette since we are outgrowing the software capabilities.

The newest Library Page is Michael Vanloon and he is working 20 hours a week

We have been getting a lot of donations for the book sale. They've been coming in by box loads. It's also been mostly books, and not other media.

The Summer Reading Program workshop is going to be held on Friday, October 24th. Andrew and Melanie will attend that. They are doing it a little differently this year. Normally they do the youth session in February with the teen session about a month or so later. But with the weather the way it was this past winter they decided that moving it up was a smart move. They will be having the youth session in the morning then the teen session that afternoon.

Jenny and Janet will start the yearly inventory on October 27th. They will be doing this from about 8pm to 4am. They borrow a scanner from the Fairfax Library and scan every single item in the library.

Team Building will be October 28th and it will last all day. This is a workshop for all the city department heads.

The Waffle Breakfast will be Saturday, November 1st from 8:00am to 12:00pm. There will be a bake sale of any and all items you can make from bananas called, Going Bananas for the North Community Library. This is so some money can be recouped from RAGBRAI. There is also a craft sale during the breakfast and there are 19 crafters signed up.

Peggy sent around the letters that the middle school kids who interned at the library had sent to Dee, and Dee emailed to everyone. She printed them out and wanted to make sure that everyone knew how much they enjoyed the experience and how much they learned from it.

Friends
The Waffle Breakfast will be Saturday, November 1st from 8:00am to 12:00pm. It's an all you can eat breakfast, and kids five and under eat free. Tickets are for sale at the library for $6, and they will cost $7 at the door on the day of the breakfast. There is also a craft sale during the breakfast and there are 19 crafters signed up.

The Friends will also be kicking off their annual poinsettia sale during the Waffle Breakfast, and they will be for sale until November 18th and can be picked up on November 24th.

The Friends agreed to purchase a handheld scanner to check books in and out. The cost is approximately $150.

Policy Review:
Posting Notices Policy – Irving moved that the Posting Notices Policy be approved as written, Murphy seconded and approved unanimously.

Storytime Policy – There was discussion on whether it is necessary to put in a comment on children being videotaped during programs. The board asked Dee to research whether a consent form is necessary or not. Then it was discussed on the fact that since now there are youth programs and teen programs that maybe the policy should be split into Youth Programs Policy and Teen Programs Policy.

Dee said that she would have Andrew and Elaine rewrite the policy for each area and it will be voted on at the next meeting.

Old Business:
Expansion Committee – The City is closer to buying land for a new city hall.

Board Self Evaluations – The Board Self Evaluations were gone over as a board with goals set and suggestions made for another year.

New Business:
Director's Evaluation – Moved by Murphy and seconded by Handoo to go to closed session for the Director's review.

Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 10:00pm after being moved and seconded and approved unanimously.