MFRL Blog

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

April 18, 2012

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Margaret Christle

Karen Drake

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

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

Cindy Minnick, Meadowbrook Public Library Branch Supervisor

 

Board Members Absent:

Ginny Gardner

Andy Morikawa

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Mary North, Montgomery Friends of the Library

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friend of the Library

 

Call to Order: Chair Ann-Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:06 p.m., on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at the Meadowbrook Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde and was seconded by Trustee Darlene Richardson, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Ms. Richardson moved, seconded by Trustee Anne Page and the Board voted to approve the March 21, 2012 minutes.

 

Public Address: Ms. Shortt welcomed new board member Margaret Christle, who represents District E. The board also welcomed Cindy Minnick, Branch Supervisor for the Meadowbrook Library.

 

 

 

New Business:

 

Banning Patrons Process

A Patron Behavior policy was created a year ago and signed in March 2011. This policy encompasses the Code of Conduct and mentions that banning is a possible outcome of bad behavior. This document that was created to provide written guidance to staff. Each case will need to be handled independently but having something to refer to will benefit staff. County Attorney Marty McMahon reviewed it two weeks ago. Director Paula Alston requested the board approve this document. Ms. Richardson moved to accept the document. Mr. Hyde seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Joining the Association of Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundation (ALTAFF)

In 2009, Friends of Libraries U.S.A. and the Association for Library Trustees and Advocates joined forces to become an expanded division of ALA known as ALTAFF, the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations. Through this partnership, ALTAFF unites libraries’ voices to speak out on behalf of library services and free public access to information. Membership in the organization will provide the Board of Trustees with access to information and ideas that will prove useful for board members in the governance of the library. It will also provide members with an education through a continuing and comprehensive program to enable them to discharge their responsibilities in a manner best fitted to benefit the public and this library. Mr. Hyde moved to join ALTAFF, Ms. Richardson seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Report of the Director

 

Financial

We have completed month 9 of the fiscal year and should be at 75% of the budget. We are running high in the line item for gas for the van and car. As long as we can cover it from some other line item, we should not have to ask the county for additional funds.

 

We continue to pay the UMS fees out of the professional line item, while they [the fees] are deposited in the fines revenue line, hence, the professional line item is seriously overspent. We will be able to correct this in the FY 13. The County has created a “Collection fees” line item for both revenue and expenses so we will pay the fees out of that line item as well as deposit the fees into the corresponding revenue account.

 

Both Boards of Supervisors have delayed their budget adoption vote until next week to give the General Assembly time to finalize the state budget. The General Assembly is scheduled to vote on it next Tuesday. Assuming that the General Assembly approves the two conference reports, Gov. Bob McDonnell will have 30 days after the special session adjourns to either sign the budget bills into law or to return them to the General Assembly for another reconvened session to consider one or more specific and severable amendments. This means that local governments may have to wait until late May to finally learn the amount of state financial assistance available for state-mandated and other state high-priority services. Some of the positive policy changes include permitting local governments to phase in the higher VRS employer retirement contributions over a five year period. A recommendation to restore $295,000 to the Library of Virginia for state aid, meaning our state aid will not drop by 2% in FY 2013. All of this is subject to change.

 

The public hearing for the Montgomery County budget was held on Thursday, March 29. Mr. Hyde and Ms. Page did a great job with their remarks, as did Paul Smeal, who is on the Parks and Recreation Board and included libraries in his remarks. The Boards haven’t passed the FY 13 budget yet, but Ms. Alston met with the Executive Committee prior to the meeting to start looking at the FY 14 budget. In FY 13, we’ll have four years of flat budgets and many of our costs have gone up so Director Paula Alston wants to start the conversation about how we can address that in the FY 14 budget.

 

Statistics

The board reviewed the statistics. Trustee Karen Drake mentioned the rise in the Adult programs attendance in Blacksburg Library.

 

Ms. Page asked about the outreach to Linden Green being done by Christiansburg Library. Ms. Alston reported that the outreach (an adult book club and a children’s program) was going very well and had been well received.

 

Ms. Drake mentioned the increase in OverDrive and asked if this was true statewide as well. Ms. Alston answered that this is true not only statewide, but nationwide as well.

 

Ms. Page also asked about e-books and if the patrons could donate e-books. Ms. Alston responded that because of the digital rights, donating e-books will not work with OverDrive and we do not have any other platform that can handle e-books.

 

Ms. Alston also mentioned that Best Buy was sending a “geek” to help patrons in the Christiansburg Library this week. They are scheduled to go to the other libraries as well.

 

 

 

Programming / Collection

Snapshot VA – Snapshot Virginia is where the library takes photos of programs and activities that go on in the library system throughout the course of one day. The day we chose for this year was April 17. Ms. Alston brought a poster of activities that took place in the system yesterday.

 

Christiansburg’s program Old Books, New Looks had 22 participants. These wonderful projects that Christiansburg employee Sallye Kennedy crafted out of old books. They were on display

last month.

 

The Employment Eligibility Program in Floyd had 4 sessions with 49 people. This is a grant from the Dept. of Labor to help improve work skills for unemployed or under-employed individuals in Floyd County. The first offering had over 70 applicants for 16 slots. They are working on computer skills like Word, Adobe Photoshop Plus, Outlook and Excel. Because of this grant through the Jacksonville Center, we were the beneficiaries of new MS Office 2010 software for all the lab computers. The program is projected to go into the fall with the possibility of more money at that time. Because our computers were unable to handle the Adobe software, that class was being taught at the Adult Learning Center but that will no longer be possible in the next couple of months. The Jacksonville Center is trying to determine if there is enough money left to purchase at least some new computers for us that will be powerful enough to handle the Adobe software as well as everything else we have and need.

 

Meadowbrook’s program, “Have you seen the starts tonight” held on March 7 in conjunction with Radford University’s Selu Observatory had 58 people. The attendees had the opportunity to look at the night sky through big telescopes.

 

Facilities / Technology

We received a smart TV donated by Best Buy for the Blacksburg Library so this will be the first of our digital signs in the library. The TV will be in a location for easy viewing and will run a PowerPoint on a loop where we advertise our programs, services, the Town Council and Board of Supervisor meetings, maybe other upcoming meetings for other boards and commissions. We will hope to have digital signs in the other libraries soon but we will start with Blacksburg.

 

We received a generous donation to the Meadowbrook Library to replace the children’s computer. It was installed in early March and is in memory of Katrina Howard and James Cates.

Also, at Meadowbrook, maintenance staff installed the Karen Cronin bench and sign so we are just waiting for the bushes to bloom.

 

Staff and Trustees

 

Ms. Alston welcomed new Board member Margaret Christle. Ms. Alston and Ms. Shortt met with Ms. Christle yesterday for orientation. We still have one opening for District G. Mary Biggs mentioned they have at one applicant that had already been interviewed. Hopefully we will have another new member in the next month or so.

 

We had a successful staff day which was held on Friday March 30. Ms. Alston thanked Ms. Shortt and Ms. Drake for attending. The training sessions were good and the staff was able to learn some new skills and reinforce others while having a chance to get to know each other as well. Thanks to Assistant Branch Supervisors Janet Wren, Lori Kaluszka and Cathy Prati for organizing a terrific training day.

 

There is a request from the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors to have some legal software installed in the Montgomery County libraries and have staff trained on how to use it. Supervisor Chris Tuck suggested that perhaps some of the Law Library funds could be used for this purpose so that we could provide patrons access to legal sources. Staff would need to have a basic knowledge of the software. The software he mentioned was Geronimo, which is case finding software on CD-ROM produced by Geronimo Development Corporation. Ms. Alston stated that staff would have to be well versed in the software and how to use it. Staffing and equipment would be issues to be dealt with if the libraries were to take on this task. It was mentioned that possibly this could be installed at the law library at the courthouse. A recommendation is to put the law library under the auspices of the public library and have it staffed by a full time paralegal versed in searching and using law software. The Law Library for Montgomery County is in the Courthouse, under the reins of one of the judges and his secretary.

 

Committee Reports

 

Executive Committee – Met today regarding FY2014 Budget.

 

Development Committee – Did not meet.

 

Leadership Committee – Did not meet.

 

Policy Committee – Four policies were presented for approval in this meeting.

Policy 101, Registration of Patrons was the first to be reviewed. After short discussion Ms. Richardson moved to accept the revisions of Policy 101. Ms. Page seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Policy 201, Collection Development was reviewed. Ms. Page moved to accept the revisions of Policy 201. Ms. Drake seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Policy 203, Request for Reconsideration of Materials/Programs was reviewed. Ms. Page moved the policy’s revisions be accepted. Ms. Richardson seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Policy 401, Friends of the Library was reviewed. Ms. Page moved to accept the revisions of Policy 401. Ms. Drake seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Margaret Christle X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Floyd Friends of the Library – The Floyd Friends Book sale is going very well.

 

Montgomery Friends of the Library – April 28 there will be a fundraiser Rook Tournament at the Meadowbrook Library.

 

The annual joint meeting of the Montgomery and the Floyd Friends was held last Saturday. The program with Jack Allen Powell was a success.

 

MFRL Foundation – The Montgomery County Foundation will be holding a Hunger Games fundraiser.

 

Some donations to the Foundation are coming from patron tax refunds have been filtering in. These are anonymous donations.

 

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Ms. Page seconded the motion.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:38 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

March 21, 2012

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Karen Drake

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Andy Morikawa

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

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friend of the Library

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

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 7:00 p.m., on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at the Jessie Peterman Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde and was seconded by Trustee Andy Morikawa, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Trustee Mr. Morikawa moved, seconded by Trustee Karen Drake and the Board voted to approve the February 15, 2012 minutes.

 

Public Address: Trustee Ann-Margaret Shortt welcomed Lauren Yoder, Floyd County Board of Supervisors’ liaison to the board. Also, Darlene Richardson was welcomed back and introduced her husband, Donnie Richardson who attended the meeting with her. The board also welcomed Cathy Whitten, Branch Supervisor for the Jessie Peterman Library.

 

New Business:

 

Director Evaluation Form

Director Paula Alston explained the Director Evaluation form to the board. The board was asked to complete the form and return it to Ms. Drake at the April 18 meeting.

 

Review of the FY 2012 Library Goals

Ms. Alston updated the board on the progress made towards the FY2012 Library Goals.

 

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Trustee Ginny Gardner seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 7:12 p.m.

 

A reception for the Floyd County Board of Supervisors and Town of Floyd Council followed the Board Meeting.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

 

 

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

February 22, 2012

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Karen Drake

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Andy Morikawa

Anne Page

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

 

Board Members Absent:

Darlene Richardson

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

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 7:04 p.m., on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at the Christiansburg Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Andy Morikawa and was seconded by Trustee Gene Hyde, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Trustee Ginny Gardner moved, seconded by Mr. Hyde and the Board voted to approve the January 18, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

Unfinished business:

 

LVA Standards Review

Director Paula Alston completed a review of the LVA Standards with the board.

 

New Business

 

Policy Review

Ms. Alston reviewed Policies 203 – Request for Reconsideration, 304 – Solicitation, and 401 – Friends of the Library with the board. Upon the review, Policies 203 and 401 were sent to the Policy Committee for review and to be updated.

 

Board Self Evaluation Form

The board reviewed the Board Self-Evaluation form. The group agreed that this form would be slated for re-evaluation next year with changes made to the form as needed. One suggestion for change is to have a section for individual self-evaluation as well as a collective self-evaluation for the board as a whole.

 

Report of the Director

 

Pornography in Libraries – Inside Edition

Ms. Alston sent out a press release via e-mail to the members of the board about Inside Edition doing a segment on crime and pornography in public libraries. We have an acceptable internet use policy (policy 112) and computer users must agree to abide by it. This policy also covers wireless users. Our computers are filtered as required by Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 and the Code of Virginia. No filter is infallible. The pornographers do workarounds as soon as the filter companies create a new filter. Filters work on words, not graphics, which makes it difficult for filters to always catch inappropriate content of what is being viewed. We are able to send messages to people on the public computers so if we are made aware of something, we do that. If the patron doesn’t remove it fast enough, we can shut down their computer. As stated in Policy 112, “Failure to comply with the policy will result in suspension or cancellation of Internet privileges, and/or legal proceedings. The Library reserves the right to terminate any Internet session.”

 

As for other crime, staff members know they can call the police or sheriff if they need to. We have had some petty theft and some stalking over the years. Six or seven years ago, there were two incidents in Blacksburg that caused concern, but there have been no incidents since then.

 

Libraries are public buildings, so with our policies and our code of conduct we do our best to see that patrons are safe when they are in the libraries. This is the perception most people have, but because libraries are public buildings, they are not safe. We do the best we can, but we do not have the staff to monitor things as closely as we would like.

 

Financial

We have completed month 7 of the fiscal year and should be at 58% of our budget. We are running high in the line item for gas for the van and car.

The public hearing for the Montgomery County budget is Thursday, March 29 at 7 p.m. Mr. Hyde and Trustee Anne Page will attend and speak on behalf of the library. Other board members were encouraged to attend the meeting to support them. We will also encourage patrons to attend and tell their library stories. And we will encourage members of the Friends of the Library to attend to say a few words of support.

 

Statistics

The board reviewed the statistics and there were no questions.

 

Programming and Collection

We have signed up for a service through OverDrive called Advantage, where we can purchase titles that only Montgomery and Floyd patrons have access to. We still need to purchase titles for the benefit of the consortium, but this will help our patrons have access to titles without a long waiting line. Ms. Alston will purchase titles that have lots of interest and holds.

 

We had a good turnout for the Corban Addison program in Blacksburg on January 23. Mr. Addison is an author from Charlottesville. His first novel, called Walk Across the Sun was published on January 3, 2012. We had 29 people and all reports said he was an excellent presenter.

 

There were 45 people at the quilting marathon held in Meadowbrook on January 21. The 16 Meadowbrook quilters started at 8:00 a.m. and finished around 10:00 p.m. Patrons had the opportunity to drop by and check out what the quilters were doing. They had their machines, fabric, and ironing board on hand as they all were working on the same quilt pattern, which was a wall hanging called “Crazy House.”

 

The Grandparents raising grandchildren program in Floyd is held in conjunction with New River Community Services. NRCS was the primary sponsor until they realized that some people were afraid to come, so the library joined them and became the primary sponsor. Guest speakers have included an investigator from the NRV Drug Task Force and an attorney talking about the law as it relates to the group. The next meeting is March 1from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. with Marla Martinez from Floyd County Child Protective Services as the guest speaker. A free meal is served (and provided by the NRCS.) It’s been very well received and written up in the Floyd Press and is a tremendous service to the public.

 

There is a large black history month program this Saturday at the Christiansburg Library at 2:00 p.m. There will be readings from the works of Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Laurence Dunbar and Nikki Giovanni. Also, spirituals will be sung by The Family, a step dancing demonstration will be presented and there will be artifacts on display.

 

Upcoming programs at Christiansburg include several on the Titanic for the 100^th anniversary of that tragedy, a program with artist Rebecca Kamen called Celebrating the Art of Science and the Science of Art and a large panel display celebrating Black history in the Commonwealth at the Christiansburg Library in December.

 

 

Facilities / Technology

The steps between the Christiansburg Library parking lot and the rescue squad building have been built. There is not hand railing yet so it is hoped that will be next on the list. Ms. Alston will ask Steve Phillips if there will be a handrail.

 

The maintenance staff has replaced the hot water heaters in all five bathrooms at the Blacksburg Library so we now have hot water in that building. We budgeted $3500 of our carry forward money and have not received the bills yet so we are not sure how we did budget-wise.

 

We also finished the last of the rearranging projects in the Christiansburg Library by removing the magazine rack that was in the middle of the room. Magazines have now been moved to the wall unit, opening up the building.

 

Staff and Trustees

We have our dessert reception for the Floyd County Board of Supervisors and the Floyd Town Council at our March meeting. The meeting will be Wednesday, March 21. We will have an abbreviated meeting at 7:00 p.m. and our guests will arrive around 7:30 p.m. Ms. Gardner and Ms. Shortt will provide the desserts for this meeting.

 

A reminder about the budget hearing on March 29 was given. Members were again reminded to attend and support Mr. Hyde and Ms. Page.

 

Staff Day is scheduled on Friday, March 30. The schedule was presented in the January meeting and is listed in the minutes from that meeting. Board members were invited to join the staff meeting for any portion of the day.

 

We have two spots open on the Board, from district E and G. They have been advertised. We have two applications for District E and none so far for District G. Ms. Alston has sent Matthew Gabriele has been recruiting candidates. Attending board members are encouraged to also recruit. The Leadership Committee is responsible for seeking out and recruiting potential new board members so if you have leads, please give the names to members of the Leadership committee. We will also have an opening in District F, Mr. Morikawa’s district, on July 1 as he is finishing up his second term. We may want to start the search early. We have two other members ending their first term, Karen Drake and Ginny Gardner. Ms. Alston stated she hoped they would like to continue for a second term.

 

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 – Membership drive is ongoing and is off to a good start.

 

Montgomery Friends of the Library – Barter Theater Call of the Wild performance on March 5.

 

MFRL Foundation – The Foundation has two new board members. They are also working on a new fundraiser.

 

Trustee Karen Drake moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Hyde seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 8:29 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

 

 

 

 

 

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

January 18, 2012

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Karen Drake

Matt Gabriele

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

 

Board Members Absent:

Andy Morikawa

Darlene Richardson

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

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 7:05 p.m., on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at the Christiansburg Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde and was seconded by Trustee Ginny Gardner, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Ms. Gardner moved, seconded by Trustee Matt Gabriele and the Board voted to approve the December 13, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

 

 

 

Unfinished Business:

 

Resolution for Diana Pumphrey

Ms. Shortt presented a resolution to Ms. Diana Pumphrey, Assistant Branch Supervisor of the Christiansburg Library in honor of her retirement January 31. Director Paula Alston invited the Board to Ms. Pumphrey’s retirement celebration January 28 at 3:00 p.m.

 

Annual Board of Supervisor’s Reception

Ms. Alston asked the Board to decide which locality they would like to have the reception for 2012. After brief discussion it was decided the reception this year (and all even numbered years) would be in Floyd. This year the reception will be held on Tuesday, March 20. All odd numbered years the reception will be in Montgomery County.

 

New Business:

 

Budget Hearings

There are two meetings of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors where the library should have speakers. The first is February 13 at 7:00 p.m. The School board will be presenting their budget on this date. The second is a public hearing slated for March 29 at 7:00 p.m. Mr. Hyde and Trustee Anne Page volunteered to attend the meeting on March 29. Trustee Karen Drake will check her schedule to see if she can attend the February 13 meeting. Mr. Gabriele suggested the libraries put signs out to let the public know about the hearings and to let them know who their supervisor’s are.

 

LVA Standards Review

Ms. Alston will be reviewing the LVA Standards with the board over the next few board meetings. She also mentioned that these standards are the basis for the library’s Strategic Plan.

The board reviewed the first five standards; governance, funding and administration, public relations, staff and staff development.

 

Policy Review

Policy 108 – Fees for Service

The board reviewed the Fee Schedule that is attached to this policy. After some discussion about the cost of copies, Mr. Gabriele moved to increase the cost of black and white copies and prints from .10 per copy to .20 per copy. Mr. Hyde seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Matt Gabriele X

Ginny Gardner X

Anne Page X

 

 

Mr. Hyde moved to increase the cost of color copies from .25 to .50 per copy. Ms. Page seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Matt Gabriele X

Ginny Gardner X

Anne Page X

 

The board also reviewed policy 204 – Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and policy number 303 – Community Rooms.

 

Report of the Director:

 

Financial

We have completed month 6 of the fiscal year and should be at 50%.

 

The carry forward funds were approved by the Board of Supervisors last week. We have access to $15,115 left over from FY 2011. Our request was to use the funds for an exchange server so that we can handle our own email rather than using BEVNet. The rest of the items that we listed were maintenance projects. We need to replace the inner front doors in Christiansburg and in Blacksburg. The Blacksburg doors are currently not handicapped accessible and we asked that they be made so. We also asked that the water heaters be replaced in all five bathrooms at Blacksburg so we can have hot water. Another request was to have the hand rail repaired at the Blacksburg library. The $15,000 will buy the server, replace the doors and fix three of the bathrooms. We will see if we have extra money towards the end of FY12 to fix the other two bathrooms and the handrail.

 

Part of the carry forward money includes equipping all county buildings with AED’s (Automated External Defibrillators). This will include the Christiansburg and Blacksburg Libraries. The Y has one in their space so we decided not to put one in Meadowbrook.

 

Once we have them in place and see the brand and model the county selected, we will consider purchasing one for the Floyd Library using donation funds.

 

On a national scale, each year Library Journal does a budget survey that we participate in. The current trend shows that libraries serving populations between 50,000 to over 1 million are continuing to see a slight decrease in overall budget and materials budgets. Smaller libraries are faring better with very slight gains. Very large libraries have lost between 20-32% of their full time employees. Of note is that 90% of the libraries feel that they have some political support.

 

Statistics

The board looked over the statistics presented to them and had no questions.

 

Programming and Collection

The December Board reports were emailed to board members prior to the meeting.

 

We are starting a new publicity campaign for our ebooks, featuring local people in local spots using e-books, ipads, and mp-3 players.

 

There are 13 reviewers for our book reviews in The Burgs. Each meeting we will bring the binder with copies of the reviews and other publicity. Please take a look at it.

 

Ms. Alston finished the last visit with the councils and boards on January 10 with a visit to the Blacksburg Town Council.

 

Ms. Alston discussed the protest over the pending SOPA (House bill Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Senate Protect IP Act) legislation. It is being opposed by most internet users and sites like Wikipedia, Google, ebay, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo. ALA supports the blackouts that took place today. The proponents of the bill are the movie and recording companies and the Chamber of Commerce. The House version would allow the U.S. attorney general to seek a court order against the targeted offshore Web site that would, in turn, be served on Internet providers in an effort to make the target virtually disappear. Sort of like an “Internet death penalty.” It’s just something to keep an eye on.

 

 

Facilities / Technology

Ms. Alston heard from Steve Philips yesterday that the Town will start construction on the stairs between the Christiansburg Library parking lot and the rescue squad building. They will need to block off several parking spaces to do the work. We look forward to the project being completed.

 

 

Staff and Trustees

 

We took Diana Pumphrey’s position (Christiansburg Assistant Branch Supervisor) to the freeze committee on Tuesday. The committee recommended we fill the position. It still needs County Administrator Meadows’ approval. We hope to advertize the first part of February and our goal will be to have it filled by March 15. We need to gap the position for 6 weeks to fund her payout. Board members are invited to her reception on January 28 at 3:00 p.m.

 

The board was given applications for both Friends of the Library groups. Both groups operate on a calendar year. Ms. Alston believes it is important that the Director and the Library Board support the Friends of the Library groups by becoming a member. She encouraged the board members to join both groups.

 

At the February meeting, we will review the board self evaluation that members fill out each May. This will be an opportunity to clarify or add to the form. It will be emailed to members separate from the packet in mid-February.

 

Staff Day is scheduled on Friday March 30. A written schedule will be sent out in March but for planning purposes, here is a tentative schedule:

10:00 Welcome

10:15 ADA training

12:15 Craig Meadows and Ann-Margaret Shortt

12:25 Marty McMahon and Sheriff Whitt will talk about guns in the library

12:45 Pot luck lunch

1:45 Director – Service awards for Floyd and non-classified employees

2:15 Update on the 2012 Summer Reading Programs

2:30 Three concurrent sessions

 

Board members are invited to join staff for a portion of the day, or the entire day.

 

Members were given a copy of the VLA legislative agenda and encouraged to use it where they think it will make the most impact.

 

We have two spots open on the Board, from district F and G. They were advertised in Sunday’s The Burgs. If you know of someone, please ask them to submit an application.

 

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 – Did not meet.

 

Montgomery Friends of the Library – There will be a membership drive next week. Volunteers will be in all of the libraries for membership sign up. There is also a business membership that is available for $25.00 per business. Friend’s forms will be placed in each branch near the Book Sale space.

 

March 10 will be the Barter Theatre presentation. This year’s production is The Call of the Wild. It is appropriate for 5^th grade and older.

 

MFRL Foundation – The foundation will meet next Monday at Meadowbrook Public Library. The board has two new members and co-treasurers, Joe and Linda Powers. The board received an anonymous donation of $3,000.00 this week.

 

This will be the last Library Board meeting for Mr. Gabriele as he is now the Supervisor for District G on the Board of Supervisors. He mentioned it has been a pleasure working on the Library Board and invited all to visit the Board of Supervisors.

 

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Gabriele seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

December 13, 2011

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Karen Drake, Vice Chair

Matt Gabriele

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Bill Gardner, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

June Sayers, Library Business Manager

 

Board Members Absent:

Andy Morikawa

Darlene Richardson

 

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 Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at the Blacksburg Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Anne Page and was seconded by Trustee Karen Drake, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Trustee Ginny Gardner moved, seconded by Trustee Matt Gabriele, and the Board voted to approve the October 19, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

Unfinished Business: None.

 

 

 

New Business:

 

Approval of FY13 budgets for Montgomery and Floyd counties

Library Director Paula Alston presented the proposed Montgomery County budget for fiscal year 2013. After discussion, a motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde, seconded by Ms. Gardner and approved with a unanimous roll call vote.

 

Ms. Alston presented the proposed Floyd County budget for fiscal year 2013. After discussion, a motion was made by Ms. Page, seconded by Ms. Drake and approved with a unanimous roll call vote.

 

Resolution for retiring employee

Ms. Alston presented for consideration a resolution in appreciation of retiring employee Diana Pumphrey. Ms. Page made a motion to approve the resolution, seconded by Ms. Drake, and approved unanimously. Ms. Alston will invite Ms. Pumphrey and her supervisor to the January meeting to be presented with the resolution.

 

Policy Review

Each month Ms. Alston reviews policies with the Library Board and the Management Staff. The policies reviewed this month are policy 110 (Proctoring Services) and Policy 308 (Hiring of Family Members.)

 

Report of the Director

 

Financial

We have completed month 5 of the fiscal year and should be at 42%. Under revenues for November, the $17,000 showing in recovered costs is eRate money. Copies of the 2012 request to the Friends of the Library were provided and both FOL boards approved our requests. We are indebted to the Friends because we could not do the successful summer reading programs or do the other programming without their support. They pay our institutional dues to VLA, buy the Book Page subscription that we have available for our patrons and buy other small incidentals.

 

Statistics

October and November statistics were reviewed.

Programming / Collection

 

Apparently $12.1 billion on the Harry Potter movies is not enough for Warner Brothers. They are taking a lesson from Walt Disney and sending all 8 movies into the vault on December 29. They will be unavailable for purchase until they are released from the vault.

 

Ms. Alston is recruiting reviewers for the library’s book review column in The Burgs on the first Sunday of each month. She handed out some guidelines to be shared with anyone Board members think would be interested. Most important point is that the title of whatever book is being reviewed should be found in our collection, and have a current copyright date. Books reviewed can be fiction or general interest non-fiction. We have had three columns so far and Ruthie is compiling them in a binder. Ms. Shortt inquired about reviews of children’s books in the future and of course, that is a possibility.

 

We again made the front cover the Youth Services Notes from the Library of Virginia with Tory’s Star Wars program at the Christiansburg Library.

 

Facilities / Technology

We had another reason to lock down the Blacksburg Library last Thursday, December 8. Kudos to Elizabeth Sensabaugh and the Blacksburg staff for their fast action and ensuring the patrons in the building were safe and informed.

 

The rain of a week ago produced several new leaks at the Christiansburg Library. We installed another public computer in Christiansburg and when someone made a cup of coffee, it blew the circuit breaker. The coffee bar was moved to another outlet, putting the load on a different circuit.

 

The State Library created what they called technology petting zoos and spent most of this year taking them around the state to show to staff. The zoo is made up of many different electronic devices and is intended to give staff the chance to handle and learn more about the devices. They have now deployed one zoo to each VLA region, with 2 going to Region 1 because of the size of Region 1. We were selected as one of the zoo keepers in Region 1, along with Washington County. Our obligation is to have trainers who can take the bin of devices to the other libraries in our region when they ask. We are to plan on at least two trips a quarter. Meantime, the bin is housed here and we are encouraged to have our staff use and learn the devices. Total value is $9100.

 

There was discussion about the mileage cost of having to take the bin to the other libraries. Ms. Alston is under the impression it is a reimbursable cost. [Late note: the cost should be reimbursed by the library asking for the zoo and the trainer.]

 

Chris Elledge has been attending the Blacksburg Broadband Initiative meetings. Today he attended a session called Gigibit 101, where the group learned of the possibilities that open up when ultra high-speed broadband connections (gigabit internet) are made available to residents, businesses, public service providers, and others. The Blacksburg Town council is committed to provide the infrastructure to enable every Blacksburg home, business, and public or private institution the opportunity to access affordable high speed broadband connections to the Internet, and other networks

 

Staff and trustees

Ms. Alston has shared our strategic plan with 3 of the 5 Councils and Boards. She will visit the Floyd Town Council with Ms. Shortt this Thursday and will visit the Blacksburg Town Council on January 10 at 7:30 p.m. If someone would like to attend that meeting with her, please let her know.

 

 

One of our goals for this year is to create a procedure to recognize the years of service for our non-classified and Floyd employees. I’m happy to say that has been completed and we will recognize our first group at our annual staff day in March. We’ll have 11 employees this first year. We will use the same 5 year increments that Montgomery County uses for the classified employees and we have found small tokens of our appreciation to give them. We have written up the procedure and will include it in the Employee Manual we are currently working on.

 

On Dec 6, we hosted a Library of Virginia focus group to evaluate their 5 year plan and demonstrate how LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) funded programs impact the residents of Virginia. LSTA money is used to fund the databases, called FIND IT VA, other technology and digitization projects and unique collections at LVA.

 

Committee Reports

 

Executive Committee – Met to discuss proposed budgets.

 

Development Committee – Did not meet.

 

Leadership Committee – Did not meet.

 

Policy Committee

Three policies were presented for review and approval:

 

Policy 113 Institutional Library Cards – On a motion by Mr. Gabriele, seconded by Ms. Gardner the policy was approved with a unanimous roll call vote.

 

Policy 205 Gifts – The board decided to amend the last paragraph and on a motion by Ms. Drake, seconded by Mr. Gabriele, the policy was approved as amended by a unanimous roll call vote.

 

Policy 307 Community Service – The board made one minor adjustment and on a motion by Ms. Page, seconded by Ms. Drake, the policy was approved as amended by a unanimous roll call vote.

 

Floyd Friends of the Library

The Floyd Friends of the Library has made a $5,000 donation to the Floyd Endowment Fund. They also donated $2,800 to the JPML for programming and other needs for calendar year 2012. The Holiday Tea was December 3, 2011, and was very successful. There will be a membership drive this year, and the applications will be in the upcoming newsletter. Next meeting is April 12, 2012.

 

Montgomery County Friends of the Library

The Montgomery Friends made a donation to the library of $20,299 for programming and other needs for calendar year 2012. They have a new member who is working on the newsletter, which will be mailed in January 2012.

 

MFRL Foundation

At the November 21, 2011 meeting, four new members were approved. Joe and Linda Powers are the new co-treasurers. The MFRL Foundation has established an Endowment Committee to identify potential new donors and recognize past donors. They also plan to use social media in their endowment campaign.

 

Ms. Page moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Hyde seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

June Sayers, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

October 19, 2011

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Matt Gabriele

Ginny Gardner

Gene Hyde

Andy Morikawa

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Bill Gardner, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

 

Board Members Absent:

Karen Drake, Vice Chair

Karen Frederick

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

 

Call to Order: Chair Ann Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:01 p.m., on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at the Meadowbrook Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Ginny Gardener and was seconded by Trustee Andy Morikawa, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Mr. Morikawa moved, seconded by Trustee Darlene Richardson and the Board voted to approve the September 21, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

 

Unfinished Business: None.

 

New Business:

Policy Review

Each month Director Paula Alston is reviewing 3 policies with the Library Board and the Management Staff. The policies reviewed this month are policy 107 (NRPLCoop), Policy 113 (Institutional Library Cards) and Policy 307 (Community Service.)

 

VA Public Library Standards

The board will start looking at the standards in January of 2012. The standards have 14 sections which will be broken down to allow the board to look at several each meeting in the spring.

 

Planning for Excellence, called PLE, is in its third edition and was adopted by the State Library Board in January 2009. It is based on the well known business model of A, AA, AAA. It is considered to be cumulative. To reach level A, all the measures must be reached. Likewise for the other two levels. We considered the standards when we wrote our new strategic plan last spring. It provided a springboard for many areas. Director Paula Alston will notate the copy of the standards that will be reviewed in January to allow board members to see where we stand in meeting any particular standard.

 

Holiday Schedule for 2011

The Governor gave more time around the December holidays last year. The official holiday was Monday, December 26. He has now given state workers December 23 off. Montgomery County follows the Governor’s schedule. The question was posed to the board whether to open or close on December 26. After brief discussion Ms. Richardson moved to close the libraries on December 26. Mr. Morikawa seconded the motion and the board voted unanimously to close the libraries on December 26.

 

Holiday Schedule for 2012

The state schedule for Christmas closings is December 24 and 25. There was no notation about closing early on Dec 31, 2012. The assumption would be that offices will be open until 5 that day. We normally close at 8:00 p.m. Ms. Alston asked if we should close at 5:00. Trustee Matt Gabriele motioned to close the libraries at 5:00 p.m. on December 31, 2012. Mr. Hyde seconded the motion and the board voted unanimously to close the libraries at 5:00 p.m. on December 31, 2012.

 

Report of the Director

 

Financial

 

We have completed month 3 of the fiscal year and should be at 25% of the budget.

 

We are running high in the line items for gas and travel-mileage. The gas line item is the gas for the van we use for the run and Ford Escort, which the IT and Children’s staff uses to get between the libraries. Last year, we also had $3000 in this line item and we used $2939. In fact, for the last few years, we use between $2,700.00 – $2,900 in this line item. The travel-mileage line item is where we reimburse staff members for using their own vehicles to go between the libraries or if they travel out of town for a meeting. We may catch up later on in the year, but we will monitor to ensure we do not go over.

 

In Floyd, the $180 for postage is their annual fee for their Post Office box.

 

We pay the fees for UMS out of the professional services line item, yet when people pay the 12.00 fee we assess them, it gets rolled into fines since they pay it at the same time they pay their fines. We will do an appropriation at some point to move the money from fines to professional services. In September, the number of accounts reported to UMS is high because we sent them old accounts from 2010. For the older accounts, we used $100 as the threshold and had 97 patrons qualify. We sent them a notice from MFRL at the end of July so they had one last chance to contact us. Anyone left was then sent to UMS a month later. In total, this group of patrons owed us over $15,000 in fines, material and their UMS fee. They have been in UMS’ system for 54 days so they have received multiple letters and at least one call. There has been $366 recovered. About two-thirds of that is in cash and the rest in returned material and forgivens. When we do the FY13 budget, we will have the data to figure out what to budget for this line item. We have separated the fees paid to UMS from the patron stats because the fees lag a month behind. August was when we sent the old patron accounts from 2010 to UMS. We are seeing some return on that this month.

 

Programming

Blacksburg held their Books to Barks program where children read to therapy dogs.

 

A Pinkalicious party was held Christiansburg and had 37 participants. In total, there were 8 Civil War programs at the Christiansburg Library with 158 people in attendance. The programs were centered around the display, An American Turning Point: the Civil War in Virginia from the Virginia Historical Society. We estimate that over 5600 visitors saw the display the two weeks it was up. In addition to all the programming, we also held a scanning event on September 16 and 17, sponsored by the Library of Virginia. Nine people had documents scanned for use at the state library. It involved many pages of information. The Civil War 150 HistoryMobile was also at the Christiansburg Library on Monday, October 10. This is the interactive display on wheels that is making its way around the state. We had 416 people through the display during the 9 hours it was here.

 

Tom Angleberger had a book launch at the Meadowbrook Library for his new book Darth Paper Fights back: an Origami Yoda book for 85 fans. Tom’s book is currently ninth on the New York Times Children’s best seller list.

 

Floyd’s martial arts program brought in 28 people on September 17.

 

Collection and Services

Our database and website usage continues to go up. September was Library Card sign up month. We had staff take pictures of their new card holders. We issued over 700 new cards so this is just a small representation.

Floyd has been having people add a leaf to their card tree when they sign up for a library card, then add a smaller leaf for the books they have read or listened to. The tree has 2533 leaves. For October, they are using ghosts.

 

From the publishing world, Warner Home Video has implemented a policy that puts in place a delay and will prevent vendors from sending their movies to libraries and rental places for uses by the street date. The delay is approximately 30 days. This will affect the last Harry Potter. The street date is November 11 and libraries won’t receive the title until December 9. We may go directly to Walmart or Amazon for the titles we want on their street date. Ms. Shortt proposed we place posters in the libraries that suggest to patrons that they could buy two and donate one to the library when they purchase their personal copies.

 

The first of the video game collection has been put into the libraries. Sarah Pahl is going to be purchasing more games to add to the collection in the near future.

 

Facilities

We held the Cronin Garden dedication on Sunday. Thank you to Ms. Richardson and Affiliate Liaison Mary Ann for attending. It was breezy but otherwise a terrific day. Cindy Minnick did a fabulous job with the reception and getting everything in place. We have collected $850 to date for the maintenance fund. It will reside in the Foundation account until we need to have some work done on the garden.

 

The maintenance staff completed the vinyl plank floor and painting at the Blacksburg Library. It really refreshes the room and makes it look cleaner and brighter.

 

They are currently working on the floor in the Christiansburg Library and should be completed by the end of this week. Ms. Shortt inquired if the Christiansburg bathrooms are going to be remodeled. Ms. Alston suggested that be included in the budget requests.

 

The parking lot signs are currently mounted in three of the four libraries. Town of Blacksburg created the signs for us at that library. They look like the old signs but added “No overnight parking.” The signs for the other libraries are smaller, white instead of green, and say “Library parking only during Library hours. No overnight parking. Towing/ticketing enforced.” We have 2 signs up at Christiansburg and one at Meadowbrook. Floyd’s should be up shortly. After we get the sign up at Floyd, we will decide if the lot would benefit from another sign so we can have one at the entrance and one back behind.

 

Technology

The SIRSI upgrade happened last month. There were no problems and change is minimal for what the staff and patron sees. It corrected the indexing issues we were having with our “new at the Library” function.

 

We have purchased 2 net books for in-house use and they should be ready for the public soon. The idea is to give adult patrons a computer they can take into the children’s area and remain with their children. They will check the net book out from the desk for in-house use only.

 

We will soon add some Gale ebooks to our ebook collection. Most titles will be DK and travel.

 

 

Staff and Trustees

Darlene and Anne were thinking about attending the Trustee workshops. The workshops are this week and next.

Mr. Alston is scheduling visits to all the Boards and Councils over the next six weeks to share the strategic plan with them. She would be happy to have board members accompany her.

• FC BoS on Wednesday 11/9 at 10:30
• MC BoS on Wednesday, 11/16 at 7:15 p.m
• Town of Floyd on 11/17 at 6:30 p.m.
• Town of Christiansburg on 11/15 at 7:30 p.m.
• My request is in to the Town of Blacksburg

 

Virginia Library Association holds their annual conference on October 27, 28 in Portsmouth. Ms. Alston will be attending and presenting a program on ebooks with a Librarian from Longwood University. Pamela and Linda will also attend.

 

On Dec 6, we are hosting a Library of Virginia focus group to evaluate their five year plan and demonstrate how LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) funded programs impact the residents of Virginia. LSTA money is used to fund the databases provided by the state, called FIND IT, VA, other technology, digitization projects at State Library and unique collections at LVA.

 

On October 5, Ms. Alston emailed board members a letter from Gov McDonnell where he announced a Governor’s Task Force for Local Government Mandate Review. He wants to reduce the burden placed on localities by the state government. These are the four mandates that relate to public libraries and three of the four are tied to state aid. Ms. Alston suggested that Affiliate Liaison Mary Biggs may want to have this included on any list the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors sends to the State. These mandates, in and of themselves, don’t place a burden on the local government. The burden comes from the state continuously cutting state aid and giving us another cut in the mandated $50 million then $60 million cut in localities that receive state aid. Ms. Alston believes we have one more year (FY13) of the last biennial cut and that’s what they need to eliminate.

 

Ms. Alston sent the VLA agenda to both Montgomery and Floyd counties to have them included in their legislative packages.

 

Committee Reports

 

Executive Committee – Did not meet.

 

Development Committee

The Development Committee met and discussed four projects that would be good for applying for grants.

 

The first is an oral history project. A grant would allow the purchase of a separate server, etc. to make the information available to the public. It would afford the project an intern to help to transcribe the interviews.

 

We are currently working on a large oral history project with Nannie Hairston. There are interviews already scheduled. We are working with a professor at Virginia Tech and also have the county media specialist involved to video the interviews.

 

The second project is scanning Mrs. Hairston’s artifacts to eventually put on the website.

 

Thirdly, a cemetery database project has been placed on the list. This project would compile all cemetery projects in the area and the information would be posted on the website. A grant would be needed to make this happen.

 

The final project would be to digitize the Floyd Press.

 

Floyd Friends of the Library

The Floyd Friends of the Library will be holding their Holiday Tea on December 3, 2011 from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. The fee for the tea is $20.00.

 

Montgomery County Friends of the Library

The Montgomery Friends had their joint meeting Monday, October 17. Author Charles Lytton talked about his book New River Bonnets, Apple Butter, and Moonshine.

 

MFRL Foundation

There was no September meeting. The next scheduled meeting will be November 21, 2011. Joe and Linda Powers have agreed to be the new co-treasurers. Gail Billingsly and Whitney Johnson from the Student ??? and ???? partnership from Virginia Tech would like to join the board.

 

The board will be making preliminary plans for a fundraiser similar to the Antique Road Show.

 

Mr. Hyde moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Gabriele seconded the motion.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:13 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

September 21, 2011

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt,Chair

Karen Drake, Vice Chair

Matt Gabriele

Gene Hyde

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

 

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

 

Board Members Absent:

Karen Frederick

Ginny Gardner

Andy Morikawa

 

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Bill Gardner, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

 

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, September 21, 2011 at the Jessie Peterman Memorial Library.

 

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

 

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Gene Hyde and was seconded by Trustee Anne Page, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Trustee Darlene Richardson moved, seconded by Ms. Page and the Board voted to approve the August 17, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

Unfinished Business: None.

 

New Business:

Policy Review

Each month Director Paula Alston will review 3 policies with the Library Board and the Management Staff. The policies reviewed this month are policy 301 (Library Attorney), Policy 206 (Volunteer Policy) and Policy 101 (Registration of Patrons.)

 

Virginia Library Association Legislative Agenda

The VLA agenda for FY12 is “New Age, New Library.” This is a three year plan to bring Virginia public libraries to full funding with additional appropriations over what was received in FY2010. Ms. Alston encouraged Board members to speak with their legislators and ask them to support the VLA agenda. Also, she will be sure Montgomery County and Floyd County receive copies of the agenda and will ask to get this on the legislative agenda for both boards.

 

Insurance Review

Ms. Alston provided a review of MFRL’s insurance coverage with the board.

 

Montgomery County Capital Improvement Program 2013-2017 Review

MFRL currently has two projects on the unmet needs list. These are the renovation of the Christiansburg Library and a new Blacksburg Library. The cost of the projects has been inflated to $2,674,114.00 for the Christiansburg Library project and $10,500,000.00 for the Blacksburg Library Project. Along with the building and renovation of these libraries is included in these totals the funding for more fulltime staff members, more computers, and additional software.

 

Director Job Description Review

The board received a copy of the director’s job description along with edits and corrections suggested by Ms. Alston to update the document. Ms. Alston requested board approval of the edits before sending the revised description to Human Resources. One addition was suggested. Trustee Gabriele motioned to approve the job description as amended, and Mr. Hyde seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

 

Report of the Director

 

Financial

The board received a revised copy of the second page of the Board roster which now has listed the current committees and their members. We have completed the second month of the fiscal year and should be at 17% of budget.

 

It’s early in the year, but we look to be on track with our spending. Ms. Alston is concerned about our projection for revenue. It was based on our actual collection in FY 2010 and we were below that last year.

 

The effects of the purchase order rollovers can now be seen in the revised appropriations column of the financials in both counties.

 

We held a fund raiser at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in August. We were given flyers to pass out to the community. The diner was to bring the flyer with them to the restaurant and if they did we received 10% of their meal costs. We had staff members on hand to pass out calendars and information. The total donation received from the restaurant was $100.00. Our total take was less than $70, and they rounded it up.

 

We received a $300 donation from the Mount Tabor Ruritan Club to purchase business and citizenship books for the Blacksburg library.

 

The Foundation received a check from the Baldacci Foundation in the amount of $1,000.00. We are planning to write a grant to his foundation in the next year to refresh our collection of theme kits.

 

The Unique Management Services report was included in the board packets.

 

Programming

We had many terrific programs in August. The Summer Reading Program wrapped up in August with Mill Mountain Zoo and Zelnick the Magician.

 

The Huckleberry Edible Weed Walk drew 43 participants. This is the second time we’ve done this program.

 

Christiansburg had their 25^th anniversary in the current building. They held two musical programs, a trivia activity and a memory sharing time.

 

Meadowbrook had another successful water day with 96 people attending.

 

Floyd hosted Wacky Golf for 10 golfers and started a read to a dog program.

 

The Civil War HistoryMobile will be at Christiansburg Library on October 10 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

 

Christiansburg’s children’s program Pinkalicious was featured in the Youth Services Notes.

 

Collection and Services

Blacksburg was on lockdown on August 4 from 9:30-3:00 p.m. due to an incident on the Virginia Tech campus. Staff continued working, we just did not allow unknown patrons into the building.

 

Work continues on the Karen Cronin Butterfly garden at Meadowbrook. We will have a small dedication on October 16 at 2:00 p.m. We will mail invitations to people who donated to her legacy fund, as well as her special friends. We will not mail invitations to the board, but the board is invited and will receive an email invitation.

 

Facilities

The bathroom renovations at Blacksburg Library are complete. General Services is now painting the community room and will lay the new flooring at the end of the month.

 

At the end of October, General Services will replace the carpeting in Christiansburg’s community room with the same vinyl plank flooring. This should allow us to keep the flooring looking nice for a longer time.

 

The County hired an HVAC person so we should see much less of Trane.

 

We have added 5 additional shelving units along the wall at the Christiansburg Library. This will allow us to spread out the large print collection a little bit so it is not so crowded. We are still awaiting the arrival of an additional 4 seat computer carrel.

 

Technology

The SIRSI upgrade is going on right now. There have been no problems so far. Chris Elledge spent the last couple of months cleaning up the database, purging patrons whose cards expired over a year ago and deleting title records where the items have been long lost.

 

There won’t be much change apparent to the patrons and this will fix many of the issues we’ve had with indexing and the services like “new at the Library” available from the catalog. That is also an indexing problem.

 

Staff and Ttrustees

At the last meeting the board approved closing the libraries for a full day in March for the annual Staff Training Day. It is now scheduled for Friday, March 30, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Christiansburg Library. The board is invited to spend any or all of the day with us. We will do introductions and a welcome at 10:00 a.m. This will be a good time for board members to stop in. The day will include a pot luck lunch, which would be another great time for board members to come. Once the schedule is completed, Ms. Alston will send a copy to board members.

 

Katie Haines is the new full time Library Service Specialist at Blacksburg. She started August 1.

 

We had several staff members honored at the Montgomery County Service Awards luncheon on August 30. Cindy Minnick received her 25 year pin; we had two members honored for ten years of service: Cathi Prati and Elizabeth Sensabaugh; and we had two honored for five years of service, Pamela Hale and Donna Beebe.

 

Diana Pumphrey, the assistant branch library supervisor in Christiansburg will retire on January 31, 2012 with 13 years of service.

 

Betty Price will receive her retirement certificate Monday, September 26 at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting at 7:15 p.m. Ms. Alston and Ruthie Bellman will be attending.

 

Ms. Alston will be in Richmond Thursday and Friday for the Library Director’s meeting.

 

Committee Reports

Executive Committee – Did not meet.

 

Development Committee – Did not meet. Will be meeting September 29 at 4:00 p.m. at the Blacksburg Library.

 

Policy Committee

The Policy Committee met today. They reviewed the revisions on policies 102, 103 (from last month’s meeting.) Also they discussed changes to various fee schedules.

 

Policy 102 – Unattended and Disruptive Children

The motion was made by Mr. Gabriele to accept Policy 102 as revised. The motion was seconded by Ms. Richardson. The board voted by roll-call vote and the revisions to Policy 102 were passed.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Matt Gabriele X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Policy 103 – Service for Patrons with Disabilities

The motion was made by Mr. Gabriele to accept Policy 103 as revised. The motion was seconded by Ms. Page. The board voted by roll-call vote and the revisions to Policy 103 were passed.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Matt Gabriele X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Various Fines and Fee Schedules

Games, Nooks and Kindles have been added to the Fine Schedule. The collection fee of $12.00 has been added to the fee schedule.

 

The motion was made by Mr. Gabriele to accept the fines and fee schedules as revised. The motion was seconded by Ms. Page. The board voted by roll-call vote and the revisions of the fines and fee schedules were passed.

 

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Gene Hyde X

Matt Gabriele X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

 

Floyd Friends of the Library

The Treasurer of Floyd Friends has resigned. Kit Haggard is the sole officer. She acknowledged Cathy Whitten for being a great help. They are going to meet in October and are hoping to be able to do the Holiday Tea again this year. They are planning to try to place copies of the cookbook in Floyd stores. Book sales have been good and steady on a monthly basis in the library.

 

Montgomery Friends of the Library

The next meeting of the Friends will be October 7 at the Blacksburg Library. The Garden Tour went well this summer and book sales continue to be strong.

 

MFRL Foundation

There is no meeting in September. They will meet again in November. The foundation received a check in the amount of $1,000.00 from the David Baldacci Foundation.

 

The foundation would like to do another author program and will soon plan the Antique Road Show as a fundraiser.

 

Mr. Gabriele moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Hyde seconded the motion.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m.

 

Approved by the Library Board

Gene Hyde, Secretary

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder

MONTGOMERY-FLOYD REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEM

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

MINUTES

 

August 17, 2011

 

Board Members Present:

Ann-Margaret Shortt,Chair

Karen Drake, Vice Chair

Karen Frederick

Matt Gabriele

Ginny Gardner

Andy Morikawa

Anne Page

Darlene Richardson

County and Affiliate Liaisons Present:

Mary Biggs, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors

Kit Haggard, Floyd Friends of the Library

Staff Members Present:

Paula Alston, Library Director

Ruthie Bellman, Senior Program Assistant

Board Members Absent:

Gene Hyde

County and Affiliate Liaisons Absent:

Bill Gardner, Floyd County Board of Supervisors

Mary North, Montgomery County Friends

MaryAnn Hinshelwood, MFRL Foundation

Call to Order: Chair Ann Margaret Shortt called the monthly meeting of the MFRL Board of Trustees to order at 7:12 p.m., on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at the Christiansburg Library.

Roll Call: Ms. Shortt

Acceptance of Agenda: The motion was made by Trustee Andy Morikawa and was seconded by Trustee Matt Gabriele, and the Board voted to accept the agenda.

 

Approval of Minutes: Mr. Morikawa moved, seconded by Mr. Gabriele and the Board voted to approve the June 15, 2011 minutes.

 

Public Address: None.

 

Unfinished Business: None.

 

New Business:

New Board Member for District C

Ms. Shortt welcomed new Board member, Trustee Darlene Richardson. Ms. Richardson shared a bit about herself, and stated her excitement for having the opportunity to be a member of the board.

Library Goals for FY2012

The library goals for FY12 have been taken directly from the Strategic Plan. We included target dates from when the plan was put together. These dates are important, but we will also put the goals in priority order. We will strive to complete all the goals, but if we are unable then we will finish the first two or three points in each category. Any goals not completed will push into the next fiscal year.

Committee Assignments

Committee assignments were made.

Executive Committee: Ann-Margaret Shortt, Karen Drake, Gene Hyde

Development Committee: Karen Drake, Karen Frederick, Andy Morikawa

Leadership Committee: Ann-Margaret Shortt, Matt Gabriele, Ginny Gardner

Policy Committee: Gene Hyde, Anne Page, Darlene Richardson

Holiday Schedule

The 2011 holiday schedule has been revised. The changes are:

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is listed as “closing at noon” on the Virginia State calendar. Montgomery County normally follows the state holiday schedule.

Director Alston requested that the libraries be closed on Saturday, December 31. This would not be an official holiday, so holiday leave for staff would not be in effect. This would then have the library closed on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Last year the library was also closed for three days over the New Year holiday.

The motion was made by Mr. Gabriele to accept the Holiday Schedule including addition of a half day before Thanksgiving, and Saturday, December 31, 2011. The motion was seconded by Mr. Morikawa. The board voted by roll-call vote and the corrections to the holiday schedule were passed.

Roll Call Vote: Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Karen Frederick X

Matt Gabriele X

Ginny Gardner X

Andy Morikawa X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

Report of the Director

 

Financial

We ended the year by making our projections in revenue and spending nearly all of our O&M money.

We have completed the first month of the fiscal year and should be at 8 percent of the budget.

Our purchase orders have been rolled over, but are not showing in MUNIS yet. Our materials line item will take a jump when the purchase orders are showing.

New to the board packet is the UMS report. When we first started sending fines-only patrons to collections, we used $45 as our threshold. We have dropped that to $25 and the first batch was sent to UMS this week. We have also sent accounts from 2010 to UMS. Here we are using a limit of $100 in material or money. We will analyze the results from 2010 and decide if it is worth it to pursue accounts from 2009 and 2008. We do not have a lot of success pursuing older accounts.

We were very fortunate to receive a gift of $10,000 from the estate of Sara Mackie. Mrs. Mackie was on the library board from 1993-2001 and was a strong Library supporter. She did not leave any further instructions or stipulations in her will. Director Alston and the Executive Committee met yesterday and their decision was to turn the bequest over to the Foundation for our endowment. We need more gifts like this to help the endowment grow. We’d like to use this as an example and encourage others to include the library in their estate planning.

Programming

The library was recognized in several newspaper articles from over the summer that cover some of our many wonderful programs. The News Messenger article talked about Michael Hemphill’s resolution. A copy of the resolution was included in the library board’s meeting folder along with copies of the articles.

Enid Costley, Children’s and Youth Services Consultant at the Library of Virginia sends out an electronic newsletter at least once a month and will include photos and information about library programs. Sarah Pahl has done an excellent job getting our information in her newsletter. The August 1 edition has photos from our Candyland program. This is our second submission and gives us state-wide exposure.

Christiansburg is celebrating their 25^th anniversary Saturday, August 20. There will be several programs to honor this milestone.

September will be Civil War month in Christiansburg. Prominent in the Christiansburg Library building will be the panel display from the Virginia Historical Society. There will be many programs, including Bud Robertson, who is always delightful to hear. We are slated to be on the schedule for the Historymobile, which is a museum on wheels, with a Civil War display. It will be a one day event but no date has been given yet. It will be parked at the Christiansburg Library.

The Summer Reading Program was a very busy time at the libraries. Many thanks to the Friends of the Library for funding all the wonderful programs. We signed up 1838 children and had 831 complete the program. For young adults, we signed up 301 and had 122 complete and for adults, 647 signed up and 181 completed. We signed up more in each age group and had more complete the program than we did in 2010. Noteworthy is the number of adults who completed the program. It is 4 times the number that completed last year.

Collection and Services

We finished FY11 circulating 785,879. This is over 85,000 less than we circulated in FY 10 and equated to a drop in slightly over 10%.

In order to make our staff comfortable using e-books, we have purchased a Kindle for each library that will not circulate but will stay in the staff area so staff members can use it and download to it.

Facilities

General Services is currently working on the public bathrooms at the Blacksburg Library. They stripped the wallpaper and have painted the walls. They will then replace the counters. The next project will be to replace the flooring in the community room in Blacksburg with a laminate plank to match what we have right inside the second set of double doors. They will also paint the community room in late September and replace the stained carpeting with vinyl planking.

Blacksburg staff painted their back workroom area so it looks much cleaner.

At the Christiansburg Library: General services added several outside security lights and repaired several that were in place but not working. This should add much needed light to the dark areas around the building.

The new Large Type shelving is in but not installed yet. All the chairs at the computers and tables had a screw that was poking through the upholstery. They were leaving little holes and staff noticed that, but then we had a patron who complained of being poked. At that point, we pulled all 20 chairs off the floor, had the screw replaced with a shorter one and had them reupholstered. That was an unexpected cost.

New at the Meadowbrook Library: The Karen Cronin Memorial Garden is now being planted between our parking lot and the library sign. Mrs. Cronin died unexpectedly in February and was a tremendous supporter of the library and eastern Montgomery County. She also had a huge butterfly garden in her yard. Once we established this area as the Karen Cronin Garden, her husband volunteered to take care of it for us. He donated many of her plants to the garden, found additional plants from a gentleman in Maryland, donated towards a bench that will go under the big tree and secured a donation of mulch so the area looks very nice. We will have a sign made for the garden and Mr. Cronin would like us to identify the plants with garden signs so we are looking into that.

The additional shelving units were installed last week. This will expand their non-fiction collection and most likely will be the last shelving we can put in that building.

In Floyd the Friends of the Library purchased a gaming cart and television so we have a portable gaming system in that library.

Technology

We will upgrade our SIRSI software on September 21. We are expecting it to start around noon. We will be down for a portion of the day. The upgrade to Envisionware, which is our print management system, will take place at the end of September.

Sometime in the near future the IT staff will replace 8 public computers at Meadowbrook. Once the new computer carrel arrives in Christiansburg, we will add two more public computers.

The IT staff has also been busy doing cleanup in the patron database, deleting patrons whose cards expired a year ago and have no items or money attached to their card. They have also deleted patrons who had materials checked out or who owed us money but had cards expire prior to 2004.

Staff and Trustees

Director Alston again welcomed new Board member, Darlene Richardson.

Katie Haines is the new full time LSS at the Blacksburg Library. She started August 1. We have two new CS’s also at Blacksburg, Jenny Barrowclough and Stacy Kennedy.

We are planning for the annual staff training day in March 2012. It will be on a Friday but the exact date has not been selected yet. Last year we held it from 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and found that was not enough time. In discussions with management staff, it was decided we would like to hold it from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and would like to ask the Board to close the libraries on a Friday in March. Ms. Alston meets with the committee next week and an exact date will be selected soon.

The motion was made by Mr. Morikawa to close the libraries one Friday in March, 2012 (to be determined) for the all staff meeting. The motion was seconded by Trustee Karen Frederick. The board voted by roll-call vote and the motion was passed.

Roll Call Vote:

Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Karen Frederick X

Matt Gabriele X

Ginny Gardner X

Andy Morikawa X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

Committee Reports

 

Executive Committee

The Executive Committee met August 16. The committee decided the board will hold a reception for the County and town officials each year. These will be staggered between Floyd and Montgomery. Both counties and possibly the towns have elections coming up and we will decide which county goes first based on the number of new members on the board/councils.

Several documents will be discussed by the board over the course of the year and includes the LVA Standards for Public Libraries, the board self-evaluation, and the director’s evaluation form.

 

Development Committee

Did not meet.

 

Leadership Committee

Did not meet.

 

Policy Committee

Trustee Anne Page reminded the board that one of the roles of a governing library board is to set library policy and stressed that it is important that board members know and understand the policies that are currently in place. She mentioned that the Executive Committee would like the board to review and discuss the policies over the next year. Ms. Alston will choose 3 policies per month to be discussed at each board meeting. This will allow the board as a body to ask questions of the director and understand the reasoning behind the policies. This also will count toward Library Board training.

Three policies were presented for approval in this meeting.

Policy 102, Unattended and Disruptive Children, was the first to be reviewed. After a lengthy discussion about the appropriate age of a child to be allowed in the library without adult supervision, the board decided to table the revisions to this policy while awaiting clarifications from the County Attorney.

Policy 103, Services for Patrons with Disabilities was discussed and revisions to the policy were tabled. The question of correct reference was posed. The County Attorney will be consulted and the board will wait for his response.

Policy 310, Parking Lots, was discussed and following one grammatical correction Mr. Gabriele moved to approve the parking lot policy as amended. Ms. Page seconded the motion and the parking lot policy was passed unanimously by roll call vote.

Roll Call Vote:

Aye Nay

Ann-Margaret Shortt X

Karen Drake X

Karen Frederick X

Matt Gabriele X

Ginny Gardner X

Andy Morikawa X

Anne Page X

Darlene Richardson X

Strategic Planning Committee

Did not meet.

Floyd Friends of the Library

Affiliate Liaison, Kit Haggard shared that the Floyd Friends had taken a break for the summer and the next meeting will be September 8, 2011, at 3:30 p.m.

Montgomery County Friends

The garden tour on July 9 was a success raising around $7,000.00 after expenses.

The Barter Theatre’s presentation set for a Saturday in March will be Call of the Wild.

 

MFRL Foundation

In Mary Ann Hinshelwood’s absence, Ms. Alston reported that the Foundation is looking for new Board members and will welcome suggestions. To date, the Foundation has not yet received a donation from David Baldacci’s Wish You Well Foundation.

Ms. Frederick moved to adjourn the meeting and Mr. Gabriele seconded the motion.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:33 p.m.

Approved by the Library Board DRAFT

Ann-Margaret Shortt, Chair

Karen Drake, Vice-Chair

Ruthie Bellman, Recorder