Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tom Bunger, Steven Higgs, Rita Lichtenberg, Antonia Matthew, Janet Patterson, and Mercy Rodriguez.
President John Walsh called the meeting to order at 5:45 p.m. in Meeting Room 1B.
John asked if there were any corrections.
Penny said in the January 16 minutes she had previously requested a name be changed to “O’Connor”. The correct name is Joe O’Connor.
Steve also requested two corrections needed to the January 16 minutes. On page 2d: “council” it should be “counsel.” On 2e, “poling” should be “polling.”
John requested a correction on 2e, in the last paragraph.
“marks” should be “mark.”
Janice moved the Board accept the Consent Agenda. Fred seconded the motion. There was no other discussion. The Board unanimously approved the motion.
Sara referenced the printed copies of the report she handed out to the Board (see attached report). She indicated she would accept any questions or feedback regarding either the format or the content of her report.
Steve said the director’s report is an excellent idea. It gives the Board and the public a report month by month. His one question is status of filling the HR manager position. Sara responded that three interviews are scheduled.
Sara reported that the Library is in the midst of a community survey and would like to receive at least 600 responses. She urged everyone at the meeting and watching on CATS to complete and return the survey.
Penny asked if people could make suggestions in other ways.
Sara responded that the Library welcomes comments and suggestions. She spent time this week reviewing comments from patrons. Patrons can fill out comment cards in the Library, call, or make a comment via the Library web site. The Library staff take comments seriously. Sara stated she keeps track of the comments because she wants to remain aware of the topics that repeatedly appear. The most frequent complaints move up on the priority list.
Sara said by far the most compliments received are for the Library’s staff and the expertise and courtesy they show to patrons. Sara indicated she will share some of the comment cards at the next meeting.
Penny said she noticed in the report that the Library’s circulation continued to increase in January. She thinks that is awesome.
Sara said the circulation numbers for January this year were the highest for the month of January that the Library has had.
John said he had had concerns that the circulation numbers could possibly drop down due to the switch of systems to Polaris, but he is happy that didn’t happen.
Sara pointed out that the Annual Report to the State Library showed 2006 figures (in italics) as well as 2007 figures. In addition to a circulation increase, the Library had a record-breaking number of 1.3 visitors to the library and 1.7 million visits to its web site. She was interviewed by WGCL yesterday and was asked if there is a concern that the World Wide Web centered world we live in today might cause libraries not to be needed. Based on the 2007 numbers, Sara was able to tell the radio listeners that is not the case here.
Penny was at MCPL yesterday as a patron. She noticed while she was waiting outside for the Library to open, that even on a bitterly cold morning, there were many children and many adults waiting to visit the Library. Penny was surprised to see such a large number of people.
Sara spoke about the Computer Users Focus Groups held recently. She stated there were some very lively discussions among the patrons who participated regarding their use of the Library’s public computers and printers.
John thanked Sara for her report and the Library for another excellent year.
Sara indicated the voting for eligible staff will take place on Tuesday, April 22. She indicated she and her staff picked that date because it is when most of the Library’s staff members are at work. The Library and AFSCME organizing committee are still negotiating the timing of the voting for that day. Sara has collected close to 30 questions about collective bargaining and what it would mean for staff and the Library. She and managers are still researching answers for the questions and scheduling forums.
Randy asked Sara to explain what the current discussion was about voting times.
Sara said the Library has proposed that eligible employees vote from 7:30 – 8:30 a.m.; from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; and from 4.-5 p.m. to provide a convenient time for staff members from all work shifts to vote before or after their scheduled work times. She doesn’t want voting to be disruptive to providing service to patrons.
Randy thought at one time people could vote during their breaks or coming or going from work. With designated hours like those Sara described, he believes it might be restrictive to employees.
Sara responded that the Library had proposed times just before each shift to make it convenient.
John agreed that this would give everyone a chance to vote before working.
Randy reiterated that it would be restrictive to impose the administration’s time schedule upon the Library’s employees. He didn’t see how that would be disruptive to serving patrons.
He asked if the administration of the Library made those rules.
Sara answered that the election rules were negotiated with the organizing committee and that process was ongoing.
John asked Sara the status of the CATS contracts with the City of Bloomington. Sara said the contracts haven’t been returned to the Library yet.
Due to lack of time to discuss it in the work session, this agenda item was postponed until March.
Randy commented that he had read the policy and asked what prompted it.
Sara answered there were statements in our behavioral rules, but not in policy. In the past, the practice was that every person who wanted to take a photo would have to request permission in the Administrative Office. That wasn’t workable, because the office was not open in the evenings and on weekends. Sara said this policy would make it clear that individuals would be responsible for securing permission before taking a picture of anyone in the Library and that the Library reserved the right to take photographs to document its services and programs.
Randy asked if there was an event that triggered this.
Sara responded no. She said there had been a recent instance of a patron taking photos of staff members and other patrons without permission, but that event had nothing to do with bringing forward this policy. Margaret Harter, Community Relations coordinator, had been working on media-related policies for a few months.
Randy asked about press credentials.
Sara said if someone asked an individual for permission to photograph him/her, it would be up to that individual to ask for the person’s credentials.
Chris Jackson gave an update on the Community Outreach Department, where business is booming (see attached report). He spoke about the bookmobile, van service, homebound service, and service to the Monroe County Correctional Facility.
On the bookmobile, some new stops have been added where there is ample parking, as outlined in the Strategic Plan goal of expanding assess. There is now a stop at Meadows Hospital at the Hospital’s request, and that stop is also doing fairly well. The bookmobile stop is a social gathering for the patrons; it is a great community feel; The Bookmobile has been part of the Library’s service since 1929. People appreciate the convenience of time and gas savings. The bookmobile holds 3,000 items and refreshes them on a regular basis.
The van serves specifically senior living facilities with “lobby stops”, where the Library staff take books into the facility on carts. They recently added stops at day-care centers and Head Start facilities; they are doing a story time emphasizing pre-literacy skills in conjunction with the stop at Head Starts this year. Emphasizes pre-literacy skills. The van also goes to St. Paul Catholic Church just after the Spanish-language mass.
Homebound is a personalized service where library staff select items for patrons and staff or volunteers deliver them on a monthly basis to individuals who are home bound.
Fourth area of outreach is jail service three afternoons a week; due to the overcrowding the services are sometimes curtailed. That number of about a 1000 items a month because there is a limit, but they share them with the other inmates in their block.
Chris thanked Outreach staff Art Leach, Ann Segraves, Chris Hosler, and Nicole Jones and acknowledged help from other departments.
To a large extent, Chris concluded, outreach services help put county in the Monroe County Public Library.
Audience member Laura Ruchti asked if the jail has a budget, and if that means the jail actually owns a library. Chris responded that there is a library collection that belongs to the jail, but the Library is able to supplement with items from the Library.
Audience member Rita said she knows that Bloomington’s Boxcar Books is involved in the Midwest Pages for Prisoners Project. She asked if the Library cooperates with them.
Chris responded that MPPP deals mostly with state and federal prisons, not local jails. Outreach staff do communicate with them on a regular basis, but there is no formal partnership.
Related to the Capital Project Fund, John asked Chris whether a new bookmobile might include technology. Chris said awhile ago there was an interest in cybermobiles with Internet access and training. He felt the peak of that service had pask. Some larger bookmobiles do offer fold-down laptops and he would want to look into possibilities like that. He said there are some size constraints for the bookmobile including garage space and the narrow and winding roads it must travel. He would like to include some computing access, but not cut into space for the browsing collection.
Friends President Helena Walsh was ill, so the Friends report was postponed until March.
Randy said he wants to discuss televising work sessions again. He felt things were being covered in work sessions that need to be televised and gave the example of the work session just completed, where he read a lengthy statement. Another matter is the Board wishing to hold an executive session. Randy reminded Board members that he had spoken about this in the last year. He did not know how they could hold an executive session that did not meet an exception to the open door policy. He indicated he had set up a blog. His children are audiotaping work sessions. He spoke about what would be at the site. He hadn’t realized that anyone could request that CATS tape a meeting; if CATS has the staff, it will tape the meeting. He encouraged those listening to fill out a form and indicated he was tempted to fill one out himself. He said he wasn’t going to let this rest.
John reminded those listening that the MCPL website still remains the official site for the Monroe County Public Library and its Board of Trustees.
None.
Rita Lichtenberg approached the podium and said she is a member of the Monroe County community. She stated she was at the work session and was impressed when she heard Sara talking about new ideas for the uses of the Library’s money. Rita said from her observations, it appears ideas are flowing from top to bottom and from bottom to top at the Library; she is happy about that. Rita said it is more positive at the Library now than it has been in the past. Rita asked Sara if the Director’s Report could be made available to the public by placing them in the Indiana Room each month. She felt that libraries are needed now more than ever.
Sara said she would be happy to provide copies of her report to the public.
Steve Higgs from The Bloomington Alternative explained he would be addressing the Board from three different perspectives. First, he has children that grew up near a bookmobile stop. They enjoyed it as a family, so he hope the Library will not discontinue that service anytime soon. Second, as a journalist, he has reviewed the photography policy and found it to be fairly reasonable. His IU journalism students rely on the Indiana Room when doing background work. He was concerned about the requirement that journalists have identification; his students do not. Third, he turned on a tape recorder and identified himself as the editor of The Bloomington Alternative. He asked Sara why he had not received detailed invoices when he made a public information request for information about the Library’s legal expenses over the last five years. He asked again for what reasons the Library had paid attorneys.
She said Monroe County Public Library has paid legal counsel for advice and reiterated that it was the advice of counsel that the details of the invoices was covered by “attorney-client privilege.”
Mr. Higgs replied that his exact question had asked for what advice each sum of money was specifically charged. Mr. Higgs turned toward the audience and asked Tom Bunger to respond
Tom indicated the Library has provided information regarding those amounts.
Mr. Higgs answered he isn’t referring to the amounts but the details about each expense.
Randy asked Sara why the Library’s attorney couldn’t give Mr. Higgs a more specific answer and why the information would be covered under attorney-client privilege.
Mr. Higgs asked again for the information. He asked Tom to provide a legal citation to support of the claim of attorney-client privilege.
Sara responded she would try to get the information for Mr. Higgs.
Laura Ruchti said she was at the Board meeting as a staff member, a patron, and a member of the AFSCME organizing committee. She asked the board what return they expected to get from the $150,000 budgeted for legal expenses in 2008.
Sara replied that the 2008 budget contained $80,000 for legal expenses related to collective bargaining.
John asked for any other public comments. There were none.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:36 p.m.
Contact
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Updated:
May 30, 2008
° http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/board/200802min.html
