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1998-09-22City of Beverly, Massachusetts Public Meeting Minutes Board: Library Trustees Subcommittee: Date: September 22, 1998 8:30 P.M. Place: Beverly Farms Branch Library Board members present: Diane Costa, Edward Brindle, Lindsay Diehl, Katherine Fanning, Margaret Goodwin, Neil Olson, Kevin O'Reilly, Helga Senko, and John Young Board members absent: None Others present: Thomas Scully, Anna Langstaff Recorder: Anna Langstaff Diane Costa presided. Diane Costa introduced staff members Mary Ryan, Kathy Keeler, and Kate Ingalls. Neil Olson made the motion, seconded by Kay Fanning, to accept the Personnel Committee minutes of June 23, 1998 as read. Motion passed. Neil Olson made the motion, seconded by Kay Fanning, to accept the minutes of the regular meeting of June 23, 1998 as read. Motion passed. Public Presentation This meeting was preceded by Jeff Hoover' s presentation of the Farms Library Architectural Feasibility Study. Committee Reports Personnel: No report. Administration: No report. Finance: No report. Long Range Planning: Long Range Plan will soon be sent to a printer. ReOort of Library Director 1) Copies of Library Director' s report (on file with these minutes) were mailed to trustees. 2) Flood Update: Tom Scully reported on meeting held with engineers to solve library' s flooding problem. A back flow preventer and a high pressure pump will be installed. The City will pay for flood repairs and equipment. Neil Olson made a special mention to thank the staff for pitching in to help during the flooding. 3) School Librarians: Tom Scully reported on September 14 meeting held with Beverly public school librarians. Communications 1) School-Public Library Task Force: Copies of task force draft were mailed to trustees. 2) State Aid Increase: Diane Costa received a letter from MBLC notifying libraries of the planning process to request an increase in state aid for libraries. 3) Library Conference: MLTA conference on Saturday, November 7. 4) MLTA Newsletter: Diane Costa shared some ideas from the MLTA newsletter. Tom Scully described library brochure/mailing that is being developed by Larry Berk and Johanna Bohoy. Unfinished Business 1 ) New Member Handbook: Lindsay Diehl reported that handbook is almost complete. New Business None The next meeting of the Board will be Tuesday, October 27 at 7:00 P.M. at the Main Library. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:05 P.M. LIBRARY DIRECTOR'S REPORT September 22, 1998 Staff- Kathleen Keeler, our new Young Adult Librarian began work on July 13th. She is busy getting to know the kids and planning programs. Mary Ryan, our new Assistant Children' s Librarian started work August 18th. Mary will also be working some hours in the Reference Dept. and at the Beverly Farms Branch Beverly Farms Building- The Library staff and some representatives of the Farms Friends have been working throughout the summer with architects from Tappe and Assoc. on building plans for the Farms. Jeff Hoover will present the plans at tonight' s Board meeting. Flooding- The Department of Public Services discovered that the drainage pipe running down Dane Street had collapsed at Dane Street Beach, almost completely blocking the flow of rain water and almost certainly backing up Dane Street to the Library. The pipe was replaced with a new, stronger pipe within a few days. In addition, the City has an engineering firm designing some underground retention tanks to be buried under the parking areas along with a high capacity pump. In the interim, the City has a high capacity portable pump stored in the Library garage and sand bags stored outside the garage. When heavy rains are predicted, Public Services will come down and connect the pump and put sand bags across the driveway entrance. They have been provided with a key to the garage so that they can respond on a 24 hour basis. Unfortunately, we won't know how effective these measures are until there is another storm. We have replaced the wiring in the floor and baseboards on the lower floor, we have repaired the electronic controls for the elevators and the damage control contractor is still drying walls. We have ordered some replacement furniture for furniture damaged during the repeated flooding. Still to be repaired are the boilers, the floor in the Bookmobile office and the book theft detection system in the Children' s Room. Summer Programs- The Library conducted programs and activities throughout the summer. Once again, we distributed books for the High School Summer Reading Programs. The school libraries loaned us their copies of books for the elementary and middle school summer reading programs. The Story Train Trip to Rockport was another success. We again filled an MBTA commuter train for a great day of story telling, and other children' s activities in Rockport. Five hundred sixty-eight people from Noah Shore libraries went on the trip, 120 of those from Beverly. The Children' s Room sponsored four science programs, Rainforest Reptiles, Wingmasters, Zap, and Science Isn't Always Pretty, for the summer with total attendance of 445. Eighty -five people signed up for the Adult Summer Reading Program, 48 of whom read 10 books. Overall, circulation was down in the Children' s Room and Young Adult Dept.from a year ago and up in the Adult Dept., Farms and Bookmobile. The Children' s circulation decline is almost certainly the result of the room being closed so many days because of flooding. The flooding also probably affected the Young Adult circulation as teenagers tend to come or not come to the library with younger siblings. Circulation Increases or Decreases Over Last Summer DeDartment Main Library July Charade August Chan~e Bookmobile 45.5% 27.7% Farms 9.5% 2% Adult 6% 7.5% Children's -20% -5.6% Young Adult -23 % -7.1% Other Matters- The Governor vetoed funding that would have helped NOBLE pay for an upgrade of our computer system. Without the state money the upgrade will not take place as planned in December. Congress continues to play politics with the telecommunications funding. The telephone companies are lobbying hard to kill the whole program which would have placed a small surcharge on each costumers bill to pay for connecting schools and libraries to the Internet. (The fact that the program may die or be delayed hasn't stopped ATT from already assessing their customers the surcharge!) The FCC has delayed and reduced the amount of funding in response. In addition, conservatives in Congress are trying to amend the legislation to require libraries to provide Internet filters for any recipient of grant money. Anna Langstaff has worked long and hard on a grant application for us to upgrade our in-house computers. This may all be in jeopardy.