##VIDEO ID:dnskQwrD-aQ## [Music] good morning and happy holidays this is the Wednesday December 18 2024 meeting of the Lakeville Library Board of Trustees um it is 8:39 a.m. and we are called to order I am board chair Ruth gross and I'll let the board introduce themselves Jennifer Jones Library director Nancy LEF truste Marshall truste and we are being recorded by David Montero of Lake Camp uh we'll start with the secretary's report as soon as everybody's had a chance to read it I'll ask for a motion to discuss or to wait the I will move the reading up the secretary report and move for approval any discussion question any questions okay all those in favor you didn't get a second oh do I have a second second thank you Nancy okay thanks Patrick um all those in favor I I okay all right we will go on then to the financial report and Gifts report so we are um we still had a big water bill that came in so if you look at that it's a little frightening but it's um it should be the last one that's very high the next one should be kind of middling High 2025 will be better 2025 will be better once we get the well um as for most other things I think we're doing okay we have um as you know the meeting afterwards the department heads meeting to discuss the budget so I'll have more information and we'll be able to um start working on the FY 26 budget for your approval for the next meeting and um some of the lines that I know that we're going to have to look at increases just because of increased cost is the heating oil was over last year I'll see how it's tracking this year the um rubbish is definitely definitely going to be over it's coming in at about 150 a month so we're going to need a little extra in that line and then um we probably will need a little extra when it comes to the r&m office equipment that is where I put the um PC support from sales as well as our copier contracts and those have gone up a little bit so we'll probably need to boost those because of cost and as far as I know we're probably going to be level level level funding with money moved around yeah so then um I haven't gotten a recent report if you look at the second page um we did get our first deposit on state aid and then um we've made several deposits from the turnovers but I haven't yet gotten an updated um deposit for the savis fund so I'll see if I can get that from Michael who is the new accountant he um he's been settling in and learning everything from Todd so I'll talk to him at the first of the year to see if I can get some reports on where we are with these funds and then as far as gifts we had two this uh month we had Christine wiem with a general donation of $100 and Woods Edge condominiums who often schedules their meetings here donated also [Applause] $100 thank you okay all right uh discussion of questions on financial right and we will go on to the director's report so for collections I'm in the process of adding creative bug mango languages and auto repair source so we actually um did change the homepage and have not had a single comment about it so I'm going to take that as a win and uh we added so now you have um a list of digital resources on a separate page that people can go to and these are all listed there and or will be listed once we've gotten everything settled we're looking strategically at our Collections and dis format um so we I've noticed that music does not circulate at rates that you know in previous years from not only from here but other libraries it's just not going out as much and I think streaming has also affected how audio books television series and movies are circulating so we've decided as I talked with the staff and we're going to let the collection start just dwindling down um we're going to take out the ones that don't circulate recycle if we can and then um buy the newest releases and the most requested items we still have our standing order plan for audio books so I'm not going to do anything about that because that'll give us the newest best sellers and then for television series and movies I find it already hard to find new releases and it just they're not coming out at the rate they used to I feel like the demand isn't there yeah even the PBS ones yeah yeah but we also have we have canopy which has a lot of the PBS and I've been getting a lot of donations of DVDs cuz people are cleaning out their own collections so I think we're just seeing we're seeing the end of the disc era yeah and um so we're starting to look at it and how we can maybe utilize that space for the future for Youth Services the Fall Story hours wrapped up last month and Hol holiday story hours began the first week of this month music time wrapped up and will return in February and Teresa is look working on a changeing schedule to it she's going to offer music time for 6 weeks and then follow that up with six weeks of her play group playing on purpose she will continue The Saturdays but her goal with Wednesdays is to draw an audience because the audience is there and then try to keep the programs fresh by switching them up and we had school visits from asaam at elementary this month so the students who needed a library card were able to send in an application with their teachers for their with their permission slips and then they get a new card when they came to the school visit right we had a great audience for Ted reinstein Talk for his new book travels through the heart and soul of New England stories of struggle resilience and Triumph he was extremely thankful he sent us a note the next day and said he's looking forward to his return so so he knows he has an audience here Chronicles yeah we had 55 yeah that's really good so that's a really good crowd so Novelties is on break because of the how the holidays fall this month so they'll discuss the Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang in January Sydney's genealogy help appointments have done well but she's looking at maybe trying to do a switch in format instead of making people sign up which she thinks can be somewhat of a maybe a barrier to people because they have to show up for their appointment she's thinking of doing Drop in hours so I'm going to help her Implement that starting in January and then we have signed up to partner with Massachusetts center for the books 2025 reading challenges we've started new a newsletter through Library Weare and we have materials to hand out to patrons who want to participate in this challenge now was this the challenge with the interesting books that were last year so that was their book awards books this reading challenge they give a suggestion every month and I think January's is to read a book written in or about the year you were born the year we were born yeah some of us have backway or it could be written about that year that's a little harder to find though we may not have anything in in print still from my ear I'm sure we do I might have it at home but that's interesting okay so yeah I'll be handing those out to people who want to sign up for it or participate you do have to sign up on their platform to track everything and you're eligible for I think they have some prizes to give away oh wow um so they they incentives um upcoming programs we have New Year's Eve um December 31st at 11:00 a.m. Teresa went yesterday and secure the pizzas at fat cousins oh good um we have local author step Manchester coming in January an evening with Ana manogue Thursday January 23rd and then I haven't put February programs but we've got lots of programs in the works we've got card making we did get some grants Ana mano's program is sponsored by the Lakeville Arts Council oh Arts Council yeah she's the harpus harpus yes I think Patrick has had yeah we just sat last week yeah so um buildings and grounds burges pest dropped in for another interior visit and everything is fine so far although I did notice we have a lot of stink bugs around again all trying to find a place to hide I know so Advan air continued the work on the installation of the motor and and they came back for routine maintenance yesterday so their routine maintenance is done they have fixed the motor and the actuator is working in the VAV box in J's office they notice the one next to it was acting funny so they had happened to order they said it came down to a plastic part that because of the wear had been brittle and broken because of the way it moves so they had actually ordered a second one and were able to fix the other VAV box while they were here so theoretically this is going to happen in all our VAV boxes so plastic parts instead of metal to metal yeah it's not so they replaced it with a metal part which should be a little more dur them all replaced washing machines are like that this something I have to talk to Paul about um because Frank said it's about $100 each then plus maybe two hours of Labor and how many do we have we have over 20 boxes oh so okay so I know a couple of them there's nothing in my office in terms of VAV box there's one that's over I think in non-fiction that's not currently working but it perhaps it's that part so I'll talk to Paul about it and we'll have to decide if we want to do that um Anthony I cleaned several of the ceiling vents so we'll continue to deep clean as needed so that took care of did you clean this one cuz it looks very clean yeah he cleaned that one over there is clean very clean he saw me crawling up on the desk and he said I'll do girl wearing plastic glasses and mask when you do that so we were all very careful and and then we are stocked with the ice melt and the snow blow is ready in case we get snowy weather well put it out there and maybe it won't snow that's what I'm doing yeah um so uh and other Library users have really enjoyed the snow people we've gotten a lot of great comments on it they think it's us and we say oh no it's you know it's the fundraiser for the animal shelter so I think they had a great crowd on Saturday I wasn't here but I heard reports and it seemed to be very successful fundraiser for them so I'm sure they $6,000 I think it was that's what I heard too um so upcoming closures December 24th and 25th for the Christmas holiday open usual hours on Thursday we're closing early on December 31st and we'll be closed for January 1st um I already mentioned we're supposed to meet today and then um to revisit I didn't put it in here but the aset interactive for our Museum passes I have um contracted with them I've sent in the bill and I've started working on getting our Museum passes migrated over the next step I have to do is integrate it into our website and then it should be done yes and I don't know if you need to take a vote to a prove just let her do it trust me no I don't I don't think I think this is just part of the national process we don't have to vote on so it's it's it's in the works it's it's going I've gotten a several of the Museum passes input and I've had to reach out to some of our museums to get the information to make sure it's all correct and the barcode shows up how they want it and um it's going we'll we'll be done by December 31st when Plymouth rocket is done thank you for your help on this Unexpected Journey it was and I feel bad for all of the rest of the libraries who have to deal with this because we are all we're all kind of blindsided by it and sales had formed a committee to sort of look at Alternatives but it kind of got pushed off in the transition between Lori and Kathy so it didn't get worked on probably as quickly as it could have and then they had no idea that Plymouth rocket was going to yeah spr fall apart and it just it was it was tough and it's you know having demonstrations after you have to make a decision and you're kind of like ultimately I went with as of it too yeah my problem is I just emailed them yesterday think cuz I sent in the paperwork and I around Thanksgiving and they said okay where are we oh we sent you the paperwork December 5th you didn't no you didn't must be in your spam no it's not yeah so I'm I have my seminar tomorrow on how to put things in yeah that was quite an interesting yeah it looks webinar well we don't want that whole element to disappear it's so important to families and people who want to do cultural experiences you know especially not during that time because even college kids home the first couple of weeks of January or whatever I mean it's a time when it might be vacation which I think will'll be okay as long as vent keeper still I mean tix keeper still sort of limping along but probably going to get hit hard with a lot of requests that's a winter activity IND door and then um the doors for the bathroom I'm going to start looking for other I asked around for other companies so I'll start getting quotes for that um and I did pay the bill so okay good um friends postponed their December gathering for the Mediterranean Grill and will likely risk schedule in January the open house went really well and I think the gingerbread house had an even bigger crowd than last year I think she had close to like 200 wow nice coming through during the time so the next me meeting is Monday January 6th at 600 p.m. Jane ean's exhibit comes down this weekend just in time for holiday gift season and then the next exhibit features Cindy Connelly a mixed media artist and I've included tas's report she wrote a good deal about her experience at the leadership conference um so she gave kind of a breakdown of how everything went and I know that that is supposed to continue on monthly they were supposed to have a zoom check-in this month but that has been postponed so they will have a speaker in January and we'll have a session to talk about the particular topic the speaker has present most of the meetings are zoom zoom so I might have to I I think she said they all fall on a day where I don't have to cover her story time or anything so okay and I think she'll wrap it up I think it gets wrapped up next November so it's a yearlong thing all right um any questions or discussion about the director's report thank you okay we go on to the policy review so we have the circulation policy as presented last month do you want to make any changes to the policy or have anything you want clarification on um well it says excluding new on the 28 days for books is there a set time that new books under 14 days new books got it sorry you know it's always hard to word these things because you want to make sure people get new books are yes not the 28 days maybe new book book should be first and then TV series I don't know whatever I can move it seems kind of first hidden in there or you can do see below I can swap that around on the final version when we had time to explore it again uh I will you um there's no uh limit for kids as far as getting as far as like got to be 5 years old or something they don't do that here that was old I think wasn't it yeah I think that changed at some point in time because um it used to be kindergarten was the time when you get a book card a library card but that changed yeah I had asked I sent this around to the staff to look at too and had asked you know is there any anything we need to put in like limit for kids but Teresa said no she doesn't do that she she gives them out to you know Toddlers and okay cool I will make a motion to approve the updated circulation policy and I will second it okay right all those in favor hi okay thank you J thank you okay um now memorative brick [Applause] policy um yeah this is the wording and you'll see that I set yeah with the wording the same wording is on the bottom of that uh application it was separate yeah I was going to ask where we wanted to put it cuz I brought in the yeah it's it's smaller type yeah that one I'll have to work on well it's the same though isn't it so I know this this lives on Christina's computer okay good cuz that's the those were the files that I was having trouble with my computer formatting we took a number of different wordings from other institutions and came up with this and I think it covers it's clear what we need to say Y and I have no problem with um letting people replace it at Cost I don't think they will that often but I think that it it takes off the responsibility right changes and also if anybody has a question all they have to do is call the library and ask or email or you yeah Library brick bricks gmail.com so it's good I make a motion to approve the uh commemorative brick policy second all right all those in favor okay now we are working on that list of bricks to be replaced and um we've got it down to two orders that were placed in 2011 that was the company that we've already replaced another order from them so once we get all those bricks replaced then the rest of the deterioration is just deterioration and we will monitor the Shrubbery too to make sure that things are cut back and sure that doesn't add to it but I think some of those were not related these bricks it didn't make any difference yeah it was just the way that we were manufactured I think it's the brick itself rather than the um engraving but whatever it's it's gone it looks very worn and porous yeah like the rain has done a job on it well and you know we get a lot of sun all the time there there's no shading in any of the brick areas so that also UVA R is and all that so I do not have if you're going to new business old new business I will I do not have I have not been able to locate and I have to explain that the receipt was about this big it has disappeared so we consider that a donation to the library so you may take it off the um okay thank you Nancy it's okay um okay the holiday schedule we all have a copy of that the memo in your packet um so it's based off of the towns agreed upon holidays that were voted at the November 18 ours is a little different because we have the day before ours is a little different um so if you're comfortable with you know the closures as previously done and the also so the newon Year's Eve again closing at 3: um I'm I believe that's the Arts and Music Festival date and I know the friends open house will be on that December um just whether the Arts and Music Festival stays with that right particular date right right right okay so the days that are different from the town schedule of the fact that we are open on Saturdays and on times we allow for Labor Day at for Memorial Day historically to give a longer weekend for our staff so those are the two ASC ones and also we've always given them the day before Thanksgiving because they work the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend so it's this is why we are different than the rest of the um employees for the town of blakeville and July 4th falls on a Friday this year so it would also be shift over so that's nice it's Saturday okay so uh I will entertain a motion to accept second okay all those in favor I Patrick thank you all right okay so Paul sent over from Supreme energy he met with them to talk about replacing the boilers which I believe that was already on track for potentially getting replaced an FY 27 the heating system system um so he got some quotes because they keep telling us the boiler's on its last legs and we're propping it up and it's got to be replaced and there's probably more efficient boilers now yeah and interestingly they have given us a couple options so their suggestion is to remove the boiler and replace it with two smaller high efficiency oil or propane gas boiler so now we don't have a gas line so I'm guessing that we're require getting tanks if we were to do so we already have four oil tanks which would then need to be removed yes so there's the cost of that so estimating the cost for oil would be $125,000 and propane gas would be 115 and this is based on current prices so if it's pushed out an FY 27 project for 2026 yeah this this was a 2026 project so this would be a capital it would be a capital we' have to go before the capital committee and the other thing is that we really need to have someone we have an I think we have a a group that was talking about being the green group that talked about energy and everything like that and maybe we should green communities ask them for comments because that's their area of expertise I think that's Nate darling is the head of that I'm not sure I'm not sure who it is I know they're the ones that you know um advocate for like Windows and stuff like that that anything that would save energy that would be another could we go solar we have we have a clear view we could go solar maybe the next time so if you're talking about doing the roof replacement now would be the time to consider solar I know I think th those are maybe two issues that we should put up for consideration so that we don't do something that we then have to fix afterwards because we've added something but there's a potential for I mean we are such a wide open space really the only shading the only shading is really the back roof we have so much front roof that would so I Andrew when he emailed me said he couldn't make it um this morning but had asked about the roof replacement and I said I believe it was on for FY 26 the other thing would be to contact somebody at Mass histo Mass Board of Library Commissioners find out if anybody has gone solar in Massachusetts any libraries and what their experiences were what we shouldn't do if we were considering it but just to have that other angle too because any way we can cut our utility bills down including our water bill um and make us renewable have renewable energy that would be a really smart savings for us yeah and and I'm looking for to the next future the next 20 years you know yeah yeah there's a lot of systems that need to be looked at in terms of their age the age of the building nobody believes it's 20 years old because it looks new it does and it's we've always worked very hard to maintain everything and we TR went with neutral colors so we're not stuck in the Cranberry right Autumn green stuff like that so we went sort of with neutral colors to later colors I know um Frank mentioned that the person he works with at Johnson Controls who knows our system no has retired as of Monday so we really need to look at the controls too that's a that's a big thing he's retiring this coming Monday no he retired this past Monday past Monday oh my gosh does he do um Consulting Consulting I don't know so with Frank said yeah he just retired the control system wouldn't be notbook about no it would be separate which I think the quote was around $32,000 but I'm not sure it included new thermostats I think it was just the main guts of control just the main functioning things that were interesting over the years okay so we're going to this is something that we're looking at informational and what I what I would like to do and I know we' talked about is inviting Paul and Andrew to come to a meeting to talk about the capital projects so they're going to be busy right now with the budget so I'm thinking maybe January or February do you want to try to get them in sure okay would um now is is the roof definitely on next year's nobody has approached me about it they've asked me general questions but not said Do you have a proposal do you have this so I think it's been in Paul's hands as far as I know but I will inquire about that facility manager definitely need to connect with with him at least and I know um we did get a little flyer from who's the main Roofing Waterman dropped off their card and their flyer everybody's looking at our roof now I just handed that off to Paul and I think the town has a contract with another company that they have for repairs because um I believe they were the people that did the townhouse room which was a special room because of the material use but um so they may already have something in place but I'm sure that if they're going to do something this large that they would have to have other bids too so yeah and we they're probably going to tell us like I'm not sure if um the flat part of the roof has fall protection or if the Skylight has fall protection but that's going to come up if it doesn't oh fall meaning things falling from the sky um people falling in and oh because of work of work done oh well then they'd have to Stage it out I mean prend it has to be permanent I think we because if it's an updated grade you're experience at Plymouth is that where your coming so when we were doing the roof at Plymouth they had to put in on a flat area of the roof where people were walking there had to be a permanent structure so that when people were up on the roof doing work and they weren't damaging the roof and they were also weren't not taking D they have to be harnessed so that might be an upgrade that was not come up as a cost to to probably not required 20 years ago but they probably had enough accidents that it's a safety issue and especially Skylight fall protection want have cages over it okay or something around it so that people don't fall through it while they're working on the roof all you have to do is step back and not pay attention you know yeah so that'll I'm sure that'll come up we all talk okay so one more thing for us to be aware of thank you for enlightening us all right um so now we're going on to discussion of goals and year end review okay so and we must also add that the um director has been with us a year a whole year oh exciting happy anniversary thank you very happy to be here I'm glad um I did include some stats if you want to take a look at uh the stats and I did add a bit at the bottom you'll see next to meeting room use is study room use study room use is very high lately very very high so it's in use practically every day at least once maybe two to three times a day so is this for individual study more or for tutoring it's a lot of tutoring but it's a lot of individual study as well people coming test and things like that tests maybe meeting with somebody needing to use a private room for a zoom call for legal or appoint medical appointments so it's been heavily used so I wanted to start capturing that on on the stats so you can see how it's being used and if we ever decide to rearrange revamp some areas and think about adding more study areas we can see if that use warrants it I like the idea that we loan more items than we borrowed yeah always makes me happy that's that's the second time that's happened this year um and then goals I started working on I found a document on the computer that that had been FY year end but I just wanted to you know because I'll have to do the annual report soon hit some you know annual things that have happened so my highlights on my notes for my annual report include just a lot of programming um but we did add a lot in terms of online resources this year Miss humblebee's canopy um we also added mango creative bugin mall and um Auto Repair Source um we revamped the homepage we changed our calendar service nobody has said a word about either of those which is amazing to me nobody was like oh you changed nothing it's amazing so it means it's working I hope work negatively yeah that was fun I noticed it but I know I knew it was going to happen funny not a single user has come in and been like oh you changed your homepage oh you changed your calendar no um one of the great things I think we did was expand the large print area this year too um to make sure that we're providing enough large print for the town and then um you know just looking at some of the programs we did um and also offering blood drives for the community and early voting so I think we we've accomplished a lot this year but i' still there's some things that I still have on my list um the Wi-Fi upgrade so Bob MCN is coming to put in the new access points hopefully this week and he's going to schedule Verizon to come in so we'll have the upgraded Wi-Fi which will be great and then does this mean everything's faster once Verizon comes in yeah we're going to have a gig of speed rather than 35 megabit per second yeah so it means that Teresa can look at doing some programs with kids in y for like the VR programming which requires a lot of bandwidth and you know we can not worry about losing connections when there's too many people in here and on it so and then the audio system in the gallery still in the works as far as goals go my thoughts that's where you know we're still ongoing goals include the policy review long range planning is still on my radar and we'll hopefully be able to get to start that soon we need to look at a website platform migration because our product with GoDaddy is not supported anymore so I did get a quote from them for about $4,000 to change over to if that would be them doing all the work to change over to their newer product um and then having us Continue to update the website with their newer website builder product um and then you know is that a good option or should we go with a different platform like WordPress website or something so have people made the switch already you know so of other libraries maybe switch so a lot of other libraries contract with a company and it can cost anywhere from I've heard as low as about $4,000 up to $20,000 for website building and doing all the work to create a website branding things like that um do we have anyone of the skills here in house um not I can maintain it and Christina can maintain it but I'm not it's been years since I've built a website and I don't know all the tricks and just just curious yeah I I think we could maintain it but having somebody or looking at GoDaddy doing the the work to move it over to the new platform might be good because then we can just maintain it um I think we have the skills to definitely do that but I do not have website building skills um and then ensuring that capital projects are added to the list um so the hbac controls carpeting I'd like to look at and then of course the lighting upgrades and my plan is to put in a work request to Paul to look at getting an electrician here to at least change some of the cut the Transformers so we could swap to LED bulbs on some of our current lighting and seeing what other ways we could improve the lighting because some of the areas in here are very dark and I don't think it's conducive to reading or getting work done so I'd like to see it certain areas yeah certain areas children's has is especially difficult non-fiction isn't particularly good for the lighting so and hopefully be able to enhance the accessibility of the bathrooms with the entry system and then work on potential services like homebound starting a graphic novel collection for adults and library of things so if you have any other goals you'd like to see please let me know sounds pretty busy to me yeah sounds very ambitious and ambitious yes good luck with it just keep me in coffee and yeah there you go put it on the next uh budget okay all right great it sounds great okay moving forward here let's figure out our next meeting unless there is any other business to discuss okay I don't have anything moving on to January 2025 wow we still doing third Wednesday is that what we doing I think we were doing the fourth and we moved it up fourth Wednesday the 22nd oh I can't are you away no I have a dentist appointment at 10:00 what works for you Patrick um do you have any morning meetings well 22nd would work uh I mean there's sales membership on the 18th at 10:00 and I don't know where that one is 15th a question 15 I mean yeah it's in a c with the 15th there is there is a fifth Wednesday in January the 29 I'll be coming back from Arizona that's you're flying back you'll be flying back so we need you do before the you can zoom from the plane don't um whichever works best for the two of you is okay with me is the 15th okay with everybody is that too soon we do like at 8:30 yeah cuz we have to get to a Cushing it for 10 do you want me to oh let me see if I can change my dentist appointment then I mean if it's a different day of the week that's fine well what other day do you have available we just have to make it we do Monday the 13th in the morning we going do the 13th we might as well do the oh no but you have to be in a cush do you want to do the 13th and I think we have to look at when I have to submit the budget too so that that might actually work that might work yeah the 13 Monday the 13th 9:00 a.m. yeah sure that does say good point okay so our next meeting will be Monday January 13th at 900 a.m. yeah I'll let you know what the schedule looks like for the budget submitting and things okay so you might have that the end of the day yeah I should okay all right do I hear a second moved second all right all this in favor okay thank you very much at 920 a.m.