MFRL Blog

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

April 17, 2013

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Alison Armstrong

Natalie Cherbaka

Margaret Christle

Ginny Gardner

Anne Page

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Sr. Programs Assistant

Board Members Absent:

Karen Drake

Gene Hyde

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

National Library Week / National Volunteer Week Presentation

Director Paula Alston presented Board members with books that have been added to the collection in their names in honor of National Volunteer and National Library Week. The National Library Week proclamations from both counties were given to the board in their board folders for review.

Call to Order:  Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:05 p.m., on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at the Meadowbrook Public Library.

Roll Call:  Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda:   Trustee Margaret Christle made the motion to approve the agenda; Trustee Ginny Gardner seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously and the agenda was passed.

Approval of Minutes:  The motion was made by Trustee Anne Page, seconded by Trustee Allison Armstrong and the board voted to approve the March 20, 2013 minutes.

Unfinished Business:

Board Self-Evaluation Form

The board discussed the possibility of revising the board self-evaluation form.  The Leadership Committee reviewed a self-evaluation from another library for comparison.  Ms. Gardner said the two documents were similar.  The questions were mostly the same, but with slightly different wording. The decision was made to keep the current self-evaluation and revisit it again next year.  Ms. Alston will get more evaluations to look at from her peer Directors.

New Business:

Accomplishments and Goals

Ms. Alston reviewed the goals with accomplishments that have taken place in FY13.

Trustee Natalie Cherbaka commented that she had concerns with the amount of snow that accumulated on the roof in Blacksburg and how it is situated in a way that ice and snow can fall off of the roof on to the sidewalk on the Clay Street side of the library.

The new phone system will be installed in this order: Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Jessie Peterman and Meadowbrook.  Meadowbrook will mostly likely not be connected to fiber until mid-summer.

The digitizing the Floyd Press was also discussed.  We have been denied permission from the publisher to digitize.  Mrs. Gardner commented that the group that owns the Floyd Press was recently purchased by Warren Buffet’s company and perhaps board members should write to Mr. Buffet.  Ms. Alston said that a State Library employee who leads the newspaper project will research the copyright holdings of the Floyd Press.

Director’s Evaluation Form and Process

Ms. Alston reviewed the director evaluation form and the process for completion.  The board will receive an email copy of the form.  Please fill out and return to Karen Drake by May 1.  Each block needs a score or checkmark; please add comments.

Report of the Director:

Financial

We have finished the 9th month of the FY and should be at 75% of budget.

Montgomery County voted to raise the tax rate to $ .89 and the personal property rate will increase by $ .10.  This will allow the county to set money aside for future school building.

Floyd County has been holding public hearings and work sessions.  Floyd County Board of Supervisor’s liaison to the library board, Lauren Yoder said the Board of Supervisors should be setting the tax rate next week.  They have discussed raising the amount for the library.  He said it may not be as much as requested, but it should go up.

We received a nice surprise in the mail today in the form of a check from the Margot Sebba estate for $2889.99.  Ms. Alston read a bit of the note that came with the donation.  “Margot believed to never doubt that a group of sharing, caring and serving people, as yourselves, can achieve the impossible.  She believed the wise spread their wings and embrace the winds of change.  And the winds of change will blow you away or take you to new heights.  ‘Enough of talking: let’s get on with it!’ ”

We’ve had both vehicles in the garage this last week.  The van had a broken brake line and the Escort had an exhaust leak.  The van is 10 years old and the Escort is 16 so they are not going to last too much longer.

Mary Biggs Montgomery County Board of Supervisor’s liaison to the library board said there was not a budget for replacing the vehicles at this time.

The question was raised about security issues in the libraries.  Ms. Alston stated that the library as an emergency action plan in place and we have recently added an “active shooter” section.  Staff have been trained on the plan and have viewed the “Run, Hide, Fight” video created by the city of Houston.  We had a panic button installed in Blacksburg in February.  Also, Ms. Alston will be meeting with a library interior designer tomorrow in the Blacksburg library to discuss reconfiguring the front desk to enable staff to face the front door so they are better able to make eye contact with patrons entering the building.

Statistics

The board reviewed the statistics.

Programming / Collection

Blacksburg sent staff members to Price’s Fork Elementary School and Head Start for their outreach this month.

Christiansburg celebrated women’s history month with a trivia contest and an activity table.

Meadowbrook’s Prom dress Extravaganza had 46 eager teens to try on donated dresses and win prizes.  Meadowbrook Branch supervisor Cindy Minnick mentioned that they are still helping girls with dresses.  She showed a poster of pictures created Linda Spivey.

In Floyd, the 4-H Cloverbuds gardening program for children met three times with a total of 70 in attendance. It is taught by the Master Gardeners.

Christiansburg donated a box of children’s books to CHIP of the New River Valley for their program.  The folks at CHIP were most grateful.

We have a weeding schedule so that we do not neglect any one section of the collection.  This year we are scheduled to weed the 800s, 900s, biographies, adult fiction, teen fiction and A/V.

Snapshot Virginia will take place tomorrow, April 18.

Facilities and Technology

Christiansburg has had issues with their alarm system and one door in the children’s area.  Weather causes the door to react and trigger an alarm.  They have completely bypassed the door in an effort to prevent Branch Supervisor, Pamela Hale from getting calls at 2:00 a.m.  The building also continues to struggle with roof leaks.  Every new rain storm brings on a new leak.  We have requested that the building be considered for reroofing in the upcoming budget year.

VACORP performed risk control assessments on the three Montgomery County libraries.  In all three libraries, they found two common infractions:  not having every outlet covered with a child safety cap and not having exit signs within the stacks to direct patrons to the nearest exit.  We have ordered a small supply of the caps and are looking for a supplier where we can buy them a couple hundred at a time.  As for the exit signs, the inspector suggested we check with the fire marshal to see what the code states. Ms. Alston is going to contact the fire marshal for the two towns in May.  The inspector was very complementary about the Meadowbrook building, saying the maintenance and housekeeping staffs were doing an “awesome job” on a facility that is as old as the Meadowbrook building.

For the other two libraries, Ms. Alston mentioned the violation and the corrective action.  In Blacksburg: sprinkler clearance in the attic.  Any item placed on top shelves should have between 18-24 inches of clearance between the sprinkler head and the item. We moved the boxes from the top shelves.

Space heaters: we were using unapproved space heaters in small areas.  Those have been removed from the building and replaced with ceramic heaters.

Electrical panel clearance: we had a cardboard box stored in the area of an electrical panel and it has been removed.

Paint storage: we have several gallons of paint in the attic; we are purchasing a paint locker to store them in.

In Christiansburg, we also had an issue with combustible material stored in front of an electrical panel.  The material has been removed.

In the adult area, we have an OPAC at the end of a book range and an extension cord running from the computer to the wall 18 feet away.  This one has not been corrected yet but will be as soon as IT has time on their schedule to move it.  We will push the computer to the wall for the time being.

Staff and Trustees

Staff day was a great success.  Ms. Alston thanked the board again for allowing the libraries to close.   The training sessions were very good.  All the afternoon sessions were conducted by staff members.  The staff appreciated seeing Mr. Meadows and the four library board members who were able to attend.

Our computer technician, Jason Finnigan, started on April 1.  Chris Elledge has already been impressed with his skills and knowledge.  There will be a learning curve as he is indoctrinated into the library world but by all appearances, he is going to be a quick study.

Incidents

There was an incident at the Blacksburg Library with the same patron who has complained about the County maintenance men.  This incident involved the housekeeper at Blacksburg who stepped out of the building to smoke at 6:30 a.m. The patron asked him to smoke elsewhere.  He moved but not far enough.  Words were exchanged.   We discussed with housekeeping supervisor, Jack Raffensburger, that we do not allow patrons to smoke in front of the libraries so even at 6:30 a.m. it is not good for staff to be smoking there.  Housekeeping was not aware of our policy.

In Meadowbrook we had a child attempt to stand on a display shelf and the support underneath broke and he stumbled.  He scratched his arm.  Mrs. Minnick’s husband was able to weld the support piece back together.

At Christiansburg we had a minor hit and run in the parking lot. A pickup backed into another car, then left.  The owner of the car called the police.

Reconsideration

A patron put in a consideration of the DVD Candy.  The patron did not request that the movie be removed from the collection; she simply wanted to give her opinion about having a movie that glorifies illegal drug use. The committee reviewed the reconsideration and recommended that the movie be retained in the collection.

Committee Reports:

Executive Committee – Did not meet.

Development Committee – Did not meet.

Leadership Committee – met via phone and email regarding the Board Self-evaluation form.

Policy Committee – Did not meet.  They are scheduled to meet in May.

Floyd Friends of the Library – Met in January.

Montgomery Friends of the Library – The Barter Theater event was a success. There were 477 in attendance.  The annual meeting of the combined Floyd and Montgomery Friends will be April 20 at the Christiansburg Library.

MFRL Foundation – Met with the Executive Director of the Community Foundation at the March meeting.  They are researching ideas for a signature fundraising event.

Ms. Gardner moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Page seconded the motion.  The meeting was adjourned at 8:17 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

March 20, 2013

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Alison Armstrong

Natalie Cherbaka

Margaret Christle

Karen Drake

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Sr. Programs Assistant

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Call to Order:  Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:09 p.m., on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at the Blacksburg Library.

Roll Call:  Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda:   Trustee Gene Hyde made the motion to approve the agenda; Trustee Ginny Gardner seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously and the agenda was passed.

Approval of Minutes:  The motion was made by Trustee Alison Armstrong, seconded by Trustee Anne Page and the board voted to approve the February 20, 2013 minutes.

Public Address:  None.

Unfinished Business:  None.

New Business:   None.

Report of the Director:

Arts & Entertainment, Sciences & History Activities Calendar

Director Paula Alston directed the Board’s attention to a new 2013 calendar of activities for the arts & entertainment, science & history for the Christiansburg Library.

Financials and Statistics

Director Paula Alston suggested the board look over the financials and statistics for any questions.  No questions or comments were made.

Incidents

A Blacksburg patron complained about the painting that was being done behind the front desk.  He complained that the brush that the painter was using was the wrong size.  This patron has complained before about maintenance workers.

In Christiansburg branch supervisor Pamela Hale reported that she had asked a group of young patrons who were outside the building smoking to move to the sidewalk closest to the parking lot while smoking.  She later drove by the area and the smokers had moved.  She waved to thank them for moving.  Later she noticed that the side of her car was scratched up.

In another incident in Christiansburg, some patrons were putting movies in a backpack and Ms. Hale brought a basket for them to put the movies in and asked them to not use the backpack.  They seemed fine with this.  However, they were complaining as they checked out and she came out and told them she was the branch supervisor.  A while later she realized her hood was scratched up.  She then realized that the patrons she had spoken to before about the movies were the same ones she had spoken to about the smoking some time earlier.  She did communicate with the police and also asked them to become more of a presence at the library.

Trustee Darlene Richardson moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Armstrong seconded the motion.  The meeting was adjourned at 7:16 p.m.

A reception for Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and the Town Councils of Blacksburg and Christiansburg followed in the Community Room of the Blacksburg Library.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

February 20, 2013

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Alison Armstrong

Natalie Cherbaka

Margaret Christle

Karen Drake

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Sr. Programs Assistant

Board Members Absent:

Ginny Gardner

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Call to Order:  Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:05 p.m., on Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at the Christiansburg Library.

Roll Call:  Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda:   Trustee Gene Hyde made the motion to approve the agenda; Trustee Alison Armstrong seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously and the agenda was passed.

Approval of Minutes:  The motion was made by Trustee Darlene Richardson, seconded by Trustee Margaret Christle and the board voted to approve the January 16, 2013 minutes.

Public Address:  None.

Unfinished Business:  None.

New Business:   The board discussed the self-evaluation tool that has been in place for the past six years.  Several of the members had researched other self-evaluations.  Members will email Ruthie the evaluations they have found.  The Leadership Committee will review them and then put together information to create an updated form for the board.

Report of the Director:

Financial Report

We have finished the seventh month of the FY and should be at 58% of the budget.

Ms. Short and Director Paula Alston presented the Floyd budget to the Floyd County Board of Supervisors on January 22.  The budget shows in increase to the telephone line item for costs incurred by the new phone and email system. The personnel line item shows a 3% increase for staff.  The Board was not completely aware of how our budget works so this gave them the opportunity to ask questions.  Ms. Shortt, Trustee Ginny Gardner and BoS liaison Lauren Yoder have been advocating to the other four Board of Supervisors members.

Earlier this month, we heard from the VLA lobbyist who reported that at the state level, both the senate and the house included proposed increases in funding for State Aid to Public Libraries in support of the recommendation from VLA.  VLA had requested $1.25 million in increased State Aid for digital information resources.  The Senate included $1,000,000 in increased funds for State Aid to Local Public Libraries for FY 2014 in its budget amendment recommendations, almost all we asked for.  The House included an increase of $250,000 for State Aid in 2014.

The House and Senate typically compromise near the middle of any differences and, if this is the case this year that would mean an increase over $600,000 in State Aid would be in order. Whether it affects our state amount or it is used just for digital resources remains to be seen.  It’s just that this is the most positive movement we’ve seen out of the General Assembly in years.

The unknown in all of this is how the sequestration will affect Virginia’s budget.  Ms. Alston believes we can assume that with cuts in federal spending in Virginia, there would be some impact on the revenues that the state takes in and thus cuts are likely in the state budget next year — but no way to know where.  It is assumed all state agency budgets would be cut and so State aid is always vulnerable.

The State Library was recently asked by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for the impact of federal sequestration to libraries in Virginia, since it would mean a 5 percent reduction in our Library Services and Technology Act or LSTA allotment, and this is what they reported to them this morning: “Sequestration would mean a reduction for Virginia of $187,000 in LSTA grant funds. We would have to reassess the databases that we license and offer free of charge to every library and public school in our state, most likely reducing the offerings and refocusing on the public library resources since all Virginians can use a public library. Databases would then only be available to students with public library cards. There would no longer be IP authentication within the school buildings. The Library of Virginia also uses LSTA to digitize unique manuscripts and photographs documenting Virginia’s rich history and we would have to reduce the digitization budget accordingly if this cut to LSTA funding goes through.”

Statistics

We will continue to see a decrease in Blacksburg’s door count due to the fact that the church that used the community twice a day on Sundays for the last decade has built its own building and stopped using us in mid-December.

We are including proctoring statistics now.  We are also including our patrons who sign up for OverDrive each month.

Programming / Collection

Christiansburg offered a blood drive with Virginia Blood Services in January.  We had 24 donors.  They were thrilled and are scheduled to come back every other month during 2013.  Ms. Alston suggested that if members were blood donors, they might consider donating at the library.

Members also received an invitation for the reception for Nannie Hairston this Sunday at 2:00 p.m.    It is open to the public but we mailed invitations to the Board of Supervisors and the Town Councils.  We believe Delegate Rush will be here, a representative from Senator Warner’s office and possibly Doug Wilder.  We have a resolution from the Board of Supervisors as well as letters from Senators Kaine and Warner.

An article about CeCe Bell and her book Rabbit and Robot was given to members.  It was named as an ALA Theodor Geisel honor book.  The Geisel award, names for Dr. Seuss, is for outstanding early reader books.

Facilities / Technology

Ms. Alston addressed a document regarding “active shooter” that was given to board members to review.  This is a revision to our Library Emergency Action Plan or LEAP, which was approved by this board in August 2010 and endorsed by the two county administrators. The LEAP is a document to guide staff through most emergency situations.  What it is lacking is a section on how to handle an active shooter.  This write-up was coordinated by Steve Phillips at the County and will be in their emergency plan.

This month Ms. Alston reviewed this plan with management staff and looked at the active shooter part and discussed it.  They also watched a YouTube video put together by the City of Houston that many locations are using as a training video.  Ms. Alston has asked management staff to review the LEAP and to watch the Houston video with their staff members and discuss it.  Management staff should review and discuss the plan annually with staff members as part of their training on how to deal with emergency situations.

Ms. Alston will bring the entire plan back later in the spring to approve the revisions after we see if our phone numbers will change due to our new phone system.  At that point, she will email the plan to board members to read in its entirety before asking for it to be approved again.

Chris Elledge, Linda Spivey, and Yanni Cooper attended training at LVA that was an update to their e-readers and other technology tools ‘petting zoo’ training.  They also picked up new components for the zoo.  Mostly e-readers that they can loan for several weeks to other libraries were included.  Meadowbrook is already taking advantage of this.

Citizens is hoping to have the approval they need to release the fiber to Meadowbrook by early March.  The fiber is connected to the building; it is just not hot at this point. Once the fiber is a go, they will be able to start work on installing our phone system.  They are currently working on obtaining an interconnect agreement with Verizon to port our phone numbers into their system.

Lauren Yoder reported to Ms. Alston that they will be replacing one of the old heat pumps at Jessie Peterman Library now and hope to put the replacement cost of the second one in their 2014 budget.

Staff and Trustees

Blacksburg interviewed for their fulltime Library Service Specialist position in the last few days and has selected a candidate who will start February 26.  Chris Elledge will start his interviews for the fulltime computer specialist next week.

Ms. Alston reported that Mary Biggs has once again been appointed as our liaison with the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.  Ms. Alston is delighted to have Ms. Biggs join us every month and shared appreciation of the relationship we have with Ms. Biggs and the Board.

The March board meeting will be held at the Blacksburg Library.  This is the meeting where we will invite Blacksburg and Christiansburg Town Councils as well as the Board of Supervisors to come for a desert reception in their honor.  Margaret Christle and Anne Page will organize the deserts.  Ms. Alston and Ruthie Bellman will be in charge of decorating and sending invitations out.  Invitations will go out next week.

Incidents

There was an incident at the Blacksburg Library earlier this month that involved a stolen backpack.  The owner of the pack was studying at a table and had it taken basically from under his feet.  It involved several people who had entered the library 15 minutes before and had made a staff member and a member of the Friends of the Library uneasy because of their odd behavior.

One of the people checked out a video game so we had a name, but as it turns out it was a stolen library card belonging to a wife of Pearisburg police officer.  The Blacksburg Police Department is working with the Pearisburg Police Department to solve the issue.  The backpack was valuable to the patron as it contained books in Chinese that he was using to study for the SAT exam.  It did not have any electronics in it.

Reconsiderations

There were no reconsiderations this month.

Committee Reports

Executive Committee – Did not meet.

Development Committee – Did not meet.

Leadership Committee – Did not meet.

Policy Committee – Did not meet.

Floyd Friends of the Library

Floyd Friends are meeting quarterly.

The membership drive has recaptured as many as last year and also there have been many who have signed up with higher dollar amounts.  Memberships are also received throughout the year.  Several who signed up are interested in serving on the board.

Montgomery County Friends of the Library

Ms. Alston will speak with Mary North to inquire about having a member of the Friends attend the Library Board meetings.

The Barter Theater presentation of Miss Nelson is Missing will be held on March 9 at 2:00 p.m. It is first come first serve and seats cannot be saved.

Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library Foundation

The Library Foundation is meeting quarterly. The last meeting did not have many there as the weather was not good and deterred folks from attending.  They had a representative from the Community Foundation there to speak about fundraising and donor recognition.  She has agreed to come to the March 18 meeting.

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Armstrong seconded the motion.  The meeting was adjourned at 7:57 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

January 16, 2013

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Alison Armstrong

Natalie Cherbaka

Margaret Christle

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

June Sayers, Business Manager

Board Members Absent:

Karen Drake

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

Call to Order:  Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:02 p.m., on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at the Christiansburg Library.

Roll Call:  Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda:   Trustee Darlene Richardson made the motion to approve the agenda; Trustee Ginny Gardner seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously and the agenda was passed.

Approval of Minutes:  The motion was made by Ms. Richardson, seconded by Trustee Alison Armstrong and the board voted to approve the December 19, 2012 minutes.

Public Address:  None.

Unfinished Business:

FY 2014 Budget for Floyd County

There is a proposed budget with the increase to the telephone line item and rearranging some of the other line items.  Group insurance is tied to VRS and is the life insurance component.

A separate proposed budget includes a 3% increase for staff, as well as the needed increase for the telephone line item.

The book budget starts at $24,189.  This is a low figure and if that is all the money we had in that line item, it would not adequately cover the material needs of the Jessie Peterman Library.  To be comfortable, this line item should be around $60,000. In the past, we have a little left in our purchase orders and because of cancelled titles and some money we save from other line items, mainly salaries, we can start out the next fiscal year with a decent book budget.  We don’t try to save money for this.  We spend money in the year we were given the money, and plan to end the year spending between 96-98% of the total. Anything we have left, will go into this line item the next year.

Trustee Gene Hyde made the motion to accept the FY14 Floyd County Budget in a two tiered approach, initially requesting the proposed budget that includes the 3% increase for staff and if that is not approved that the FY14 Floyd County Budget that includes an increase in the telephone services line item to accommodate the new phone system be accepted.  Ms. Richardson seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the FY14 Budget was accepted unanimously.

Roll Call Vote:                              Aye                 Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt                X

Alison Armstrong                      X

Natalie Cherbaka                       X

Margaret Christle                       X

Ginny Gardner                           X

Gene Hyde                                 X

Anne Page                                  X

Darlene Richardson                   X

New Business:

Resolution for Judy Dickerson

The Board reviewed a proposed resolution for Judy Dickerson, who will be retiring at the end of January.  Director Paula Alston asked the board to approve the resolution that will be presented to Ms. Dickerson at a small reception in her honor on January 25 at the Meadowbrook Library.  Ms. Richardson moved to approve the resolution, Ms. Armstrong seconded the motion and the board approved the resolution unanimously.

Staff Day

We hold an annual staff training day once a year.  The date selected by the committee for this year’s day is Friday, April 12 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.  It will be held at the Christiansburg Library and will mean closing the four libraries for the day so all staff will be able to attend.  The morning’s session topic will deal with dangerous patrons, presented by Ellen Kruper, who is a business librarian at Virginia Tech.  The schedule for the afternoon session is still being fleshed out.  Ms. Alston should have a finalized schedule for the Board by the February meeting.  Board members are invited to attend the Staff Day.  Ms. Alston asked for approval to close the libraries for a full day on Friday, April 12.   Mr. Hyde motioned to close the libraries on April 12 for Staff Day.  Trustee Margaret Christle seconded and the motion was unanimously approved.

Report of the Director:

Financial Report

We have finished the sixth month of the Fiscal Year and should be at 50% of the budget.

Statistics

Proctoring services are increasing at all libraries.  We will begin reporting these statistics in January.

Programming / Collection

The Blacksburg Library got into the holiday spirit on December 9 with a performance by the Blacksburg Performing Arts Institute. 116 people were entertained by music and ballet.

Christiansburg Library offered a Victorian Christmas on December 2 with 39 participating.  There was more music and dancing.

December was the month for gingerbread houses. There were 29 patrons who created houses in Floyd, 28 in Meadowbrook and 50 each in Christiansburg and Blacksburg.

Meadowbrook also had a festive mailbox where children could deposit their letters to Santa.  There were 20 letters were mailed.

Both Linda Spivey, Program Coordinator and Sarah Pahl, Youth Services Manager are getting ready for the 2013 Summer Reading Program.  They have attended webinars and have ordered supplies.  Something new this year will be to do a majority of the record keeping online with a program provided by the Library of Virginia.  Themes with year are: Dig into Reading for the kids; Beneath the Surface for the teens and Groundbreaking Reads for the adults.

Facilities / Technology

Citizens Telephone Cooperative in Floyd has been selected to do our telephone update to Voice over IP.  We don’t have a timeline yet as Heather Hall, our purchasing officer, is still in contract negotiations with them.  Ms. Alston will keep the board informed as things unfold.

Staff and Trustees

We presented our two full time vacancies to the freeze committee this afternoon.  The committee is recommending that we be allowed to fill.  Their recommendation will now go to Craig Meadows, County Administrator.

Being down a full time position in the IT department for the past two months has put us behind in several projects that are in our goals for this year.  It’ll be late February, at the earliest, before we will have someone to fill the position.

We are also working on a new job description for Yanni Cooper.  He is currently a part-time Library Service Specialist who spends 15 of his 30 hours a week making updates our website but with more things going digital we really need one staff member who can keep track of it all, make sure it is working, train staff on various devices, update the web and make major changes to the website, ensure that our databases are functioning properly, test new databases.  So we have submitted a new job description to HR to consider, changing his title to Digital Services Specialist and we will move him into the IT department and claim all 30 of his hours for all digital projects.

June Sayers, our Business Manager, has been instrumental in nominating Nannie Hairston for the Strong Men and Women of Virginia award.  Nannie will be honored, along with the other 4 living recipients, at a dinner in Richmond on January 30.  June will represent the library.  There is quite a crowd going from this area. The board was presented a copy of the invitation to the dinner to review.

We are planning our own reception to honor Nannie on Sunday, February 24, 2:00 p.m. at the Christiansburg Library.  At that time, we will have the 2013 Strong Men and Women of VA display here. You are all invited to the reception and I’d like to get it on your schedule.  We’ll have an invitation for you by the Feb meeting.

Ms. Alston thanked board members for getting the disclosure forms in.  The county had them all by January 14, a day early.

Board members and liaisons received 2013 membership forms to join the Friends of the Library and were encouraged to join both groups and show strong support for all they do for the library.  Without their help, we could not run a summer reading program or do almost any of the other programming that we do.

Incidents

There was one incident that took place at Blacksburg Library last week.  Building maintenance came in to do a repair in one of the quiet study rooms.  There was a person in the room and staff asked him if he would mind stepping out of the room long enough for the repair.  He said he was downloading something and couldn’t interrupt it.  Staff told him he could leave his device running but by that time he had unplugged it and was packing his stuff.  He sat outside the room and waited.  When maintenance was done, he was told him he could go back into the room as long as he could tolerate the fumes from the glue.  He took exception to the message, and apparently the tone, and asked the maintenance man if he was being a “smart ass”, threatened to lodge a formal complaint with the County then stormed off.  Library staff was able to calm him down and set him up in the community room to finish whatever he was doing.  Staff in the vicinity said they did not hear anything in the maintenance staff’s tone, manner or words that indicated a smart comment of any sort.  Ms. Alston informed both Steve Phillips and Craig Meadows about the incident, but neither have heard from the patron.

Reconsiderations

There have been no reconsiderations since last month.

Committee Reports

Executive Committee

Did not meet.

Development Committee

Did not meet.

Leadership Committee

Did not meet.

Policy Committee

Did not meet, but will be discussing community room use and proctoring in the near future.

Floyd Friends of the Library

The minutes for the October meeting of the Floyd Friends was given to the board for review.

Montgomery Friends of the Library

The Montgomery County Friends met yesterday.  They are gearing up for the membership drive next week.

MFRL Foundation

There will be a special meeting on January 28.  There will be a speaker from the Community Foundation who will lead a discussion about standard endowment fund raising plans and recognition.  There are two new members of the MFRL Foundation Board.  They are Melinda Smith, a retired math teacher, and David Mullins, a lawyer from Christiansburg.

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Armstrong seconded the motion.  The meeting was adjourned at 8:08 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

December 19, 2012

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Alison Armstrong

Natalie Cherbaka

Margaret Christle

Karen Drake

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

Board Members Absent:

Anne Page

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

Call to Order:  Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:04 p.m., on Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at the Christiansburg Library.

Roll Call:  Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda:   Trustee Ginny Gardner made the motion to approve the agenda; Trustee Gene Hyde seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously and the agenda was passed.

Approval of Minutes:  The motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde, seconded by Trustee Ginny Gardner and the board voted to approve the October 17, 2012 minutes.

Public Address: 

Supervisor Mary Biggs presented a resolution honoring the memory of past Library Board member Karen Frederick to her son Rick Frederick and his wife Sherry, along with their children Richard, Carly, and Jason Frederick.  Mr. Frederick thanked everyone and mentioned that being a long time employee and member of the library board was a joy to his mother.

Unfinished Business:

We have purchased two new computers to serve as law computers in the Blacksburg Library.  One is on our normal replacement schedule and the second one will be paid for by the law fund.  The County decided to use Lexis/Nexis.  It was not installed when their trainer came down to do staff training but they were able to connect to Staunton’s account and complete the training.  The connection is now live.

New Business:

State Aid

The Governor released his FY 2014 budget on Monday and good news is that the 4% cut we feared might happen to LVA and state aid did not happen so we should not have a cut in state aid. Our budgeted number for both counties is $227,682.  That is $1200 less then we received this year, but fluctuations like that are normal because it depends on what the rest of the state is doing once state aid is put through the formula.  The board reviewed an updated copy of what lack of full funding means to us.  Also, it showed the money we have lost because right now the formula is funded at 55%; ten years ago it was at 74%.  The difference is over $40,000 a year.

The other good news is that for FY 2014, the mandated cut to localities with state aid is going away.  Ms. Alston reminded the board that this is a biennium cut so FY13 is the fifth straight year we have seen this cut.  This is where the state gives state aid to the localities then asks for a percentage to be returned.  The library’s portion of that amounts to approximately $11,000 for Montgomery County and $1,300 for Floyd.  We can only hope we have seen the last of it.

Ms. Alston thanked everyone who emailed the Governor last week.

Presentation of the FY 2014 Budgets

Ms. Alston presented the board with the FY14 budget for Montgomery County.  After some discussion, Trustee Darlene Richardson motioned to accept the FY14 budget and Trustee Alison Armstrong seconded.  A roll call vote was taken and the budget for Montgomery County was accepted unanimously.

Roll Call Vote:                              Aye                 Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt                X

Alison Armstrong                      X

Natalie Cherbaka                       X

Margaret Christle                       X

Karen Drake                               X

Ginny Gardner                           X

Gene Hyde                                 X

Darlene Richardson                   X

The board also reviewed the Floyd County budget for FY14 and tabled it until January.

Financial Report

We have finished the fifth month of the FY and should be at 41% of budget.

There is an increase in the Group insurance for Floyd.  Group insurance is life insurance that is automatically given to all full time classified employees as part of VRS.  The current rate is 1.19% and is set by VRS.  There was a significant increase this year.  In Floyd, we have to budget for this and last year we budgeted the same rate as the past few years so we were off.

The Friends of the Library request for 2013 request for Montgomery County was approved on November 20.  We thank the Friends for their generosity and dedication to the library system.  Without their donation each year, we would not be able to do the programming that we do.  The majority of their money is used for programs and not for things that are the responsibility of our local governments, like salaries and books. However, programming is very important to our overall business of providing individuals with access to information, experiences and ideas.  Trustee Ginny Gardner suggested we request more for Jessie Peterman Library from the Floyd Friends of the Library.

Statistics

The library board reviewed the statistics for October and November.  One statistic noted by Ms. Alston is that our game circulation was 413 for the system in November and the gaming carts were checked out a total of 18 times.

Programming and Collection

The three Montgomery County libraries are polling sites so November 6 saw increased traffic in the libraries.  There were lines out the door periodically but no long waits and no incidents with parking.

Computer classes continued in November.  This time Linda Spivey taught Word to 23 students and is updating all her classes for the 2010 version of MS office

Beyond Mayberry author, Tom Perry, spoke to a group of 25 at Meadowbrook Public Library about the life of Andy Griffith and the town of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Mr. Perry signed books at the end of the program.

Ms. Spivey and June Sayers represented the library at the fall Community Foundation Grant breakfast at Apple Ridge Farm in Floyd.   Our Sharing America program was awarded $250 to transcribe the oral histories we have into print form.

Christiansburg Library started a new club for fans of Pokémon and Yug-i-oh and several children attended the first meeting.

Christiansburg Library also added two new storytimes due to patron request.  A toddler storytime is now held on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. and a preschool storytime on Thursdays at 12:30 p.m.

The Library purchased the WiiU and several WiiU games to add to Game On!

Tom Angleberger presented a program at the Blacksburg Library to 111 delighted little fans.

The African American Trailblazers display will be at the Christiansburg Library until January 6.  This program will have a name change in 2013 to Strong Men and Women of VA and this is what we nominated Nannie Hairston for.

Floyd’s Club M.O.M. is gaining in popularity. MOM stands for Meeting Other Munchkins and is a play group held on Wednesdays after their storytime.  It is a chance for the wee ones to socialize and the moms too. They had 32 participants in November.

Facilities / Technology

We received 7 Requests for Proposal (RFP) for a new phone system for the library system.  Prices ranged from $14,000 to $28,000.  We narrowed it down to two and have sent additional questions to those two vendors.  Once we evaluate their answers, we will select one.  Price will weigh into the decision, but so will their reputation with us, their service ethic and ultimately, what they will provide for the cost.  We hope to make a decision in the next few weeks and have the service in place in the next quarter. Ms. Alston mentioned this several months ago and reminded the board again what we are looking for in a new system. We want to tie all four buildings together with a phone system instead of having four independent systems and we are also looking a Voiceover IP.  For better customer service, the preference is that the phones will be answered by a person during open hours, rather than an auto attendant where the patron has to determine who or what service he wants then enter an extension We will use $6,500 in FY11 carry forward money and e-rate money to pay for it.

We implemented new e-mail system in early November.  We were with Bevnet and had to use web-2-mail for email when we were not in the buildings.  It was a very clumsy system.  Our email is now located at Rackspace and staff can now easily view/receive/send e-mail from home or elsewhere and it will synch calendar actions that occur at work and elsewhere and most importantly, it is mobile device e-mail supported. We also are providing a mailbox for the Friends of the Library and the Foundation.

The fiber for Meadowbrook should be connected to the building by the first week in January.  We cannot go live with the fiber until the fiber is released to Citizen’s.  They are not sure when that will be but hopefully soon. We are increasing our bandwidth to 20 megabits now and will look to increase it to 25 megs shortly after we add Meadowbrook and the phones.  We also hope to section it so that staff functions do not compete with patron usage.

Staff and Trustees

Last week Ms. Alston sent board members the link for the newly established trustee tutorial series established by the LVA.  Currently there is just one module but others will be added soon. It will take approximately 25 minutes to complete.  This will benefit everyone, whether you are new to the board or have been on for several years.  It will be a good refresher.  Board members will need to register and establish an account so please do so soon.

Employee Judy Dickerson will be retiring at the end of January.  Ms. Dickerson started her career on August 1963 at the Christiansburg Library, when the facility was located on Main Street.  The first position she held was a clerk.  She was the Branch Head at Christiansburg Library for 18 years—which was the position she liked the best. Ms. Dickerson’s experience has been a plus for the Meadowbrook Library.  Her knowledge and dedication contributed greatly to the success of the branch. She will be missed, but she is looking forward to retiring.  She said that if she gets bored, she will volunteer at the Meadowbrook Public Library.

We have a full time position open in IT– Computer Technology Specialist– and will send it to the freeze committee in the next few weeks.  In January, we will have another position open-the full time LSS position at Blacksburg.  It will also have to go to the freeze committee.

Ms. Alston attended the Montgomery County Regional Tourism strategic planning session yesterday.  There were about 60 folks from around the county at the meeting.  It was facilitated by the State Tourism Board to help them with their strategic planning.  It was beneficial to Ms. Alston to be able to network with others who attended.

Along with the library directors from Pulaski and Radford, Ms. Alston visited with our two delegates.  They saw Nick Rush on December 13 and Joseph Yost on December 17.  The purpose of the visits was to ask for their support in helping to maintain state aid and to see if they could assist in doing away with the mandated cut.  Delegate Rush uses the Christiansburg Library with his daughter and Delegate Yost is a reader and library supporter who spends time in the Blacksburg Library.

Ms. Alston mentioned the annual reception that we host to honor our local government leaders is scheduled for March 20, 2013 at the Blacksburg Library.  She suggested we invite Delegates Yost and Rush to this event as well and the board agreed this was a good idea.

Just a reminder we will be closed Monday-Wednesday of next week; and Monday and Tuesday of the following week.  Ms. Alston thanked the board for giving staff the time off.

The board received a copy of the Virginia Library Association legislative agenda in two forms:  a regular piece of paper, then on informative cards as well.  These are the cards that were passed out to Delegates Rush and Yost.

Committee Reports

Executive – Met in November to review the budgets.   Chair Shortt thanked Ms. Alston and Sr. Program Assistant Ruthie Bellman for their good work by giving each of them a gift.

Development – Did not meet.

Leadership – Did not meet.

Policy – Did not meet.

Floyd Friends of the Library – Did not meet.

Montgomery Friends of the Library – Nothing to report.

MFRL Foundation – The Foundation has invited the Community Foundation’s director, Jessica Wirgau to meet with the Foundation Board at their January 28^th meeting to help create a fund raising strategy to help us define what we would like to accomplish and provide us with the tools to be successful.

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Richardson seconded the motion.  The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder