1952-02-28 City of Beverly, Massachusetts
Public Meeting Minutes
Board: Library Trustees
Subcommittee:
Date: 02/28/1952
Place: Beverly Public Library
Board members present: Thomas F. Delaney, John C. Birmingham, W. Lincoln Boyden, Jr.,
Saul J. Cagan, Louisa V. Conrad, Philip Rowe, and Carl Zeilon
Board members absent: Dorothy Cook, and Lawrence E. Foster
Others present:
Recorder: Marjorie H. Stanton
Beverly, February 28, 1952
The regular Board meeting was held at 7:30 P.M. on Thursday, February 28, with Mr.
Delaney, Mrs. Conrad, and Messrs. Birmingham, Cagan, Boyden, Rowe, and Zeilon in attendance.
The records of the meeting of January 31 were read and approved, but no Finance Committee
report could be given because the budget for the year had not yet been granted by the City
Government.
Mr. Delaney announced that Robert Luther, one of the janitors at the Main Library, had
applied for transfer to the School Department, where the salary would be approximately nine dollars
a week more, and that the four men on the present Civil Service list had declined the Library position
because they were receiving far higher wages in private employment. He hoped it might be possible
to receive permission from the Civil Service to use a man from Beverly Farms who had already
spoken to him about the position.
The Committee on Circulation recommended the purchase of 221 titles and the acceptance
of two gifts. Voted: that this be approved.
The Librarian's report was then presented, showing a large increase in the number of
children's books circulated and a large number of new borrowers registered in both the Children's
and the Adult Departments.
A letter was received from Burton L. Peterson, Secretary of the Social Action Committee of
the Beverly Council of Churches, protesting "a recent display of books and literature of a local
religious group" which had been on exhibit at the Library. At~er a thorough discussion of the subject,
the Trustees authorized Miss Stanton to write Mr. Peterson explaining that the books so displayed
were books owned by the Library and collected on a special table for a period of a week, as was being
done by other libraries in various communities, and that it was only one in a series of "weeks",
including Jewish and Catholic Book Weeks which are observed by libraries throughout the United
States.
The meeting was the adjourned.
Marjorie H. Stanton
Clerk
After the meeting was over, Miss Woodbury, who was retiring on the following day, was
called in and presented with an F.M. radio, as a slight token of the appreciation which the Trustees
feel for her many years of service.