2002-11-19City of Beverly, Massachusetts
Public Meeting Minutes
Board:
Library Trustees
Subcommittee:
Date:
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Place:
Beverly Public Library
Board members present:
Todd Balf, Edward Brindle, Lindsay Diehl, Neil Olson, Joanne
Panunzio, Helga Senko, and John Young
Board members absent:
Joanne Avallon, Kevin O’Reilly
Others present:
Thomas F. Scully
Recorder:
Thomas F. Scully
John Young called the meeting to order.
Motion: By Todd Balf, seconded by Neil Olson to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.
So voted.
John Young reported that the Long Range Planning Committee had voted to defer action on the Long
Range Plan until the December Board meeting.
Tom Scully reported that the police had arrested one of the gang of troublemakers for trespassing and
being disorderly at the end of October and that the gang had disappeared from the Library.
Tom Scully presented a draft copy of a Library Use Policy which listed activities not permitted in the
Library. The Board discussed the Use Policy and expressed the desire that the policy be framed in
a more positive way, listing acceptable activities, rather than a list of activities that are not permitted.
Tom Scully agreed to draft a more positive preamble to Library Use Policy and bring the policy back
to the Board.
Tom Scully presented a cost estimate for hiring a part-time security person or persons to patrol the
library in the afternoons from September through May. For a school year, the cost would $10,562.
Lindsay Diehl left the meeting.
Tom Scully agreed to arrange a meeting with the Mayor to discuss the security issues.
The Board then discussed the issue of managing the demand for access to Internet computers. The
Library instituted a system of issuing time cards to patrons to make sure that they got off the
computers when their time was up. Tom Scully explained that this had largely solved the problem
of patrons staying on past their time, but had created a tremendous burden on the Reference Desk
staff who were averaging handing out a time card every 2 minutes that the Library was open. This
left little time to answer the phone or wait on patrons seeking reference assistance.
Tom Scully showed the Board progress photos on the Farms Library project.
The meeting was adjourned.
Following the meeting Tom Scully showed the Board members who were able to stay the Library’s
collection of historical images of Beverly that had been added to the Library’s on-line catalog.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas F. Scully,
Library Director