##VIDEO ID:LPmTInRTGxE## all right hello everyone welcome to the December 12th 2024 rib Library trustees meeting um Sam is there any correspondents no okay public comment Andy would you like to speak I'm Andy Cur um and uh um I'm currently I used to work at the library and I'm currently uh president of the historical society and I've noticed something which is that um uh we have AP US History kids come in every year and um do reports on um an aect of littleton's history and um in order to do that we have a lot of stuff at the Historical Society but a lot of stuff is here especially old you know the Littleton Independence back issues and the kids um um my understanding of the historical here is that um people can use it to do um you know research and stuff and so the kids would need to come in I say to them all the time just because we don't have the newspapers at the Historical Society I said go to the library anytime they're open you can go in there and you ask for the papers you spread them onto the table and find what you want and and I mean there's other stuff too but primarily that and then I started noticing that there were always PE not always but a lot lot of times there were people in there and I understand using the room as overflow for uh if there wasn't you know if if somebody got misscheduled or something but I see like Knitters in there and um some something Anonymous in there and it's just like no one can go in no one else I mean it's not like a kid could like an 11th grade boy is is not going to go in there if there are a bunch of women knitting he's not going to go in and look at newspapers you know and then you know how kids are they'll be like oh and then they won't go in again um and it happened to me the other day because I was picking up I deliver I deliver books to people who can't get out and I thought oh before I before I do my delivery I'm going to grab this thing in the historical room that I needed to show somebody with the Historical Society I go in and it's full of people and I can't go in there and so I thought it's happening to me now too and I just it's not a meeting role it's not a meeting role it's part of the library just like the science fiction section is so you wouldn't have a meeting in the science fiction section or if you did it might be about science fiction and then that would be okay um anyway so I know that part of the problem is that there aren't enough meeting rooms however that room the what is it the starts room is actually two room rooms A and B and we don't usually divide it um and I talked to Sam about it a while ago and he indicated that he thought it was a difficult thing to divide it however then I discovered that Jennifer has happily been dividing it all along as has um she does it for story time and James divides it for uh Rowdy um ya Dungeons and Dragons people or something it it can be done can be done quite easily so I would like to propose that that that be open as two rooms um and um and then maybe people wouldn't and and the people not be scheduled I I understand that there's not enough meeting rooms in this town and I'm hoping that when the Center opens there will be but I asked Jean s who was on that committee and she said that they she said don't count on it that they haven't you know they haven't said definitely the way that they they would and obviously they should but I understand it's a problem in town but I I would like the historical room to be a part of the library historical room not a meeting room and also on the subject of people meeting down here there's a um it Le there's some dance group that meets um on on Sundays and when I was working at the book sale uh on Sunday on the Sunday of the sale um um there was women in here practicing their dance because they normally meet in that room but they couldn't because um the book sale was in there and there's a um some men and a bunch of boys running around out there and they were playing soccer the boys were kicking balls and they were bouncing all over the walls and there's artwork and and I finally went over to the boys and I said um excuse me you should be taking the ball outside because that's where you play soccer and and I said um if you damage one of these pieces of art I said your fathers are going to have to pay for it and then the fathers sort of you know paid attention and told the boys to settle down but it's like we happen to be here if we weren't here I don't know this is like not the same thing but it is something that happens anyway I just wanted to people to be aware that this happens when we're not here thank you Andy um the way this works is that we can't respond to you right now we can't respond to right um do you have any questions or it feels like a good problem are you allowed to do that ask questions yeah oh yeah I think yeah yeah we can can open a discussion and I I mean Sam I know you guys have a chat so you have a perspective on this but um I was thinking about so I met with Andy or something and to talk about this issue and then I was starting to try to figure out what in our meeting packets and the information we have available to try to get my hands around um the frequency with which the room is being used for the historical room is being used for meetings that are not I appreciate your position and the understanding of the historical room being a section of the library it just happens to be behind closed doors to protect the material that's in it right um so I had that was actually a really important section of this then I went to our policy and it actually says in our policy that it's the room is supposed to be open to the public during regular Library hours which means if a group is in there using Library it can't be used for that purpose so it's we are using it as overflow meeting space and it doesn't we've said it one way in the meeting room policy in another way and that hisorical room policy and so I do think we as a group should and then I go to the um meeting room report and we have when the groups are using the room but I don't know how big those groups are so I can't see how they're pretty big um some of the groups are big and some of them aren't and like it's in the mixture as it is likely to be I can totally understand that there are groups that so all of this I see cannot be resolved at this one meeting I'm not asking it to be resolved and I do think getting our handle around the impact here in the library and the meetings pressure for meetings here in the library will inform a conversation wider with the town and other departments for use of meeting rooms space in town generally yeah especially as the senior center is getting so I think I can I think I'm allowed to um so as for going backwards the kids that's already been addressed so the kids that were playing football and messing around that's already been addressed okay as far as the room being divided um the first of all that's two Library staff doing it that's not Jennifer does it herself yeah that's what I'm saying two Library staff are taking it on themselves to room on their own because Jennifer doesn't want the kids to wander around so she needs to little smaller same thing with James basically he's making the room smaller and he's trying to limit M the waste um scheduling the rooms and and aset it's much harder to do that for the general public to to if they do it from home right right it's that's a harder thing to do we're we're trying to address it but it's just a harder thing to do has it um because if the system recog if you book it as like room starch room a then the thinks searching A and B are also booked not bed so someone can go in three options not right it's three options so someone can go in and book it as a but then they'll also book AB so they only have two people booking it so that's is there anything you can put a note in it that says that's as okay so there's yeah they absolutely see the cirles from the liary stat side on this piece and then as far as the the history room being used um we we just have a lot of people who need the room and um I understand that I think from your perspective that patrons are not being allowed to use it but I don't I've never heard of a Paton yeah other than what you than you you know it's and um you know I I I don't know how else to address it I mean WS are it's unnecessary it does seem like a sorry it does seem like an issue of kids who are not able to get in there to do their projects and it makes sense to me possibly that for genealogy or or genealogy it does make sense to me that the Historical Society might hear about that more um than you would um well I I would think they would come to the desk and and ask an 11th grade boy yeah y okay thing Yes actually so I do I can see from your room use report that that room is reserved fewer times than the other rooms so I know you're not using it right we we're not using it as a priority room yeah you're doing what we hoped is it's a it's a last resort not a first choice so that's in line with what we've asked is it on aspet I can't remember yes what if we took it off of aset think people have to call it reserve it it's not listed as a stud room in the meeting room policy because it's not a meeting and then in the in the historical room policy it says all patrons are encouraged to visit the Holton historical room to perform historical and geneological research it does say the room is open to the public patrons wanting to use the room must check in with a librarian to be granted access and then um yeah sry not listing it as a meeting room but using it as and if somebody just use it to study say some kid is doing bath in there or something that leaves the whole rest of the table for someone else to use it's the it's the specific in that case it's like using a table in the middle of a section I mean it's it's specifically that I'm thinking that people are meeting there and they're sitting in all the chairs and in fact there's like four extra chairs in there now so that indicates that in addition to the chairs that there are more people actually going there too I mean probably that was me who put in those chairs the other day because we had friends again we needed to use the exra chair and it's not not I me right so already we're not us we're not listing it as a meeting room so we're taking away as a service I mean are we taking away as a service as a Tak away Service as a me I do want to say I don't think we should make a decision right now I'm not saying decision I'm just saying that it's I I would propose that we like maybe walk through investigating the staff side the service side the like and we go through the policy again and just make sure we're being being consistent um and then stepping back from that and looking at a broader picture of this ruling is so widely used for meetings um to a point where we can't serve the Town Way alone and we need their departments in town to be aware that there is still a need for meeting rooms beyond what the library provide um and that's a townwide discussion that's not just this board discussion um so finding the data that we need in order to have that discussion might be useful yeah I mean I think the library is better than any other far as off meeting space I mean um it's this in the fire station or frequently used fire station is to yeah all right so we can talk about this as a we can't make any decisions now and we shouldn't because we don't have all the information um from our to look at our policies and usage and everything like that um so thank you thank you for listening yeah and we will move on and we will put it as an agenda item for another meeting um and talk about it and do some research so okay all right thanks Andy thanks Sandy thanks Sandy okay let go to minutes of Prior meetings um has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes from the November 21st 2024 a any questions comments um Sarah's going to move and Stephanie's I moved to approve the minutes from the PRI from it was from November 21st November 21st and the policy committee meeting on November 19th 2024 26 November 26 it says 26 on the agenda is that not right okay well she wrote she wrote 19th so so she didn't 26 do I need to resay it oh uh I didn't ask because I never have a chance to look at the the policy committee minutes does anyone have any questions or thoughts about no okay now you can go ahead yes please say there say that I move the we approved the minutes from the November 21st 2024 and the policy committee meeting U minutes from November 26 2024 I second all in favor all right okay all right treasure report all right mmdt is $1 19,32 14 state aid is $ 32,44 17 building gift is 29757 and8 um gift is $ 3178659663 ending balance of 1,724 19384 we have um $686,000 [Music] that's why I went where does that go into what did that go into is that into the trust or into the gift gift gift do that go up and down based on the stock price the gift the the bark does the bar do the gift I was thinking of a different thing the gift is like the savings account basically gift account yeah like a balance line later um okay friend report uh the holiday holiday bizaar this past weekend was a success they sold crafts ornaments used books and Sarah said the total was approximately a th000 she didn't have the exact number yet but around that ballpark so everybody was pleased with that um and then there's been an email discussion of what to do with old and rare books that they get donated that do not have ISBN numbers the ones with ISBN numbers they have somebody who will sell those online but um Susan Harvey was going to she looked them up and thought that one of them might be worth something a little bit and then Wayne was discussing creating a display in a future month because he does a theme each month in the book room and so having an old or rare book could be a theme for an upcoming month and since their meeting last month was before ours there's nothing else to report all right thank you any questions about the friends report there were two books I thought about buying and one of them was gone an hour later yeah they did say they sold it there were a lot that we packed up but they said they were a lot more at the beginning so they did sell quite a few that's good they were hard pushing you know they were down four for a Dollar by the they by the end so I like that they were try that they were wrapping books for people I think it was BL yeah like they they were doing those were all gone too by the time I got there so they were going to do more yeah they said next year and there was some giraffe the giraffe thing those were all gone by the time I got there too so there were totally rest of the DRS got one see if you want to see because I I said it said that if you want to try it you should ask somebody I like I don't want to know that badly but then Tracy got one I was like what does it do so yeah all right building updates um so last time I I mentioned that we wanted to remove the doors the sliding doors in the stch room so I spoke to Eric and George and they said they could probably do it they're going to have to because doors are so heavy they're going to need help so he's going to talk to the highway department see if they can help them take take doors down and figure out place going go to um so Eric is working on it but uh he just he's busy a lot of other things right now and I told him it wasn't a huge priority at the moment so work um other than that do thing really okay uh Mike your Tor um I attended a NC tech services User Group this morning attend on Zoom so that was fun uh and then I had mentioned last time that we finished the biography and I moved on to um fixing up the audiobook section um and that's sort of our probably would be our project for the next for future that's it any questions for you real quick when you say you're fixing up the Audi book section what that mean um so it's messy there's uh I don't know if they used to be separated out by subjects like mystery and Science Fiction and Fantasy and stuff but they're all intermixed and labeled improperly and we have a all the ya audio books are mixed in adult audio books uh Megan doesn't want them back so we're going to relable all of them to match the adults rather than you know saying ya out are you gonna have separate section for ya are you planning on no they're all going to be um where they are now just label properly and lab consistently basically okay s um Julie Mike and I also interviewed for the vacant library assistant position um we interviewed six candidates and we did choose somebody uh today she accepted um Carlo Wier um she in milon she do in stre yeah she's um accepted and so I sub the paperwork to HR and um hopefully mid January should start so yeah we had a lot of great candidates and um we B out the F does that mean you're Fly staff the bullet yes is that car with the K yeah k a r l um libr is close for Veterans Day Clos that four on November 27th and Clos November 28th and 29th with Thanksgiving um all benefited staff received a bonus holiday is to also Clos night um the new library assistant Abby keian um started on November 25th and the town staff engagement committee had a Thanksgiving dra decoration contest so um uh Tracy decorated the upstairs you may have seen the turkey the different things and then um they basically Megan and Diane and Jennifer all decorated the children's sh fortunately we did not win but um who won I think it was there were a few different winners there are different categories um I see one one um because they did like this whole 3D thing that was how like Electronics did they electronic it was like it um so they put the pictures of all the doors anywhere S I think it's in the newsletter all right we did get it I just haven't read it yet skipped it right well I'm gonna go look at pretty sure it's that um and then just update on my goals um as you know I completed the Emergency Management plan it's been distributed to a staff I plan to go over in more depth at the next meeting but all looked at it I've already heard about um grammar errors me I set a monthly schedule for with Mark um that I've been doing for the past few months and the Google doc has been updated um I presented my annual budget for professional de development to all of you um and so far we have you the staff funds for the some of the fund for staff lunch Jeff went to a conference of mean a couple months ago and I'm going to the conference in Phoenix in January um is that ala uh it's one of the alas it's a AA live learn X so it's more of a learning conference than a confence conference so there's like everybody's can be divide into groups and depending on which area you go to so um I can't remember now which there are a lot of different topics there like a lot of different ch um so I haven't decided which on yet but yeah there's pretty much one every day will you come back and tell us when we sure did before did Jeff share with you what he learned with his C he did and he sent it to me and I thought so I I'll let you guys know this okay thank you um uh We've added for du databases so you already know about Comics plus um I also just got the one today for another database called educate station which is a a database for um primarily for at home parents it has lesson plans and like activities uh that you can go and basically download for I think grades K have what's it called educate station yeah um I haven't put the link up yet I just got it today um we also got uh I'm waiting for the links for F3 and newspapers.com F3 is uh sort of like ancestry but it has monitary records so you can go in there and get military records for going by pretty much the beginning and what's the beginning beginning the US okay and um newspapers.com also has uh um access to hundreds of newspapers across the country so um Patriots can use that to access um not only previous newspaper articles but orbituary so that sort of thing so genealogy groups that would be big for them um and I thought educated station would be big for the state at home do homeschooling families homeschooling families Y and um I already had uh anticipated getting new databases so that money is going to come out of um the Town Money F which TW use for other databases as well and um I'm working on making a marketing for survey for patrons you have the links for these databases how do you plan to let patrons know they exist oh um the normal way I would do it would be Facebook and um putting on the website putting on TV screens put on the newsletter putting it and sending it out to Els TV um and is there a way to specifically let groups like you knowy group um every month so I I can let them know and um Diane or S said once it goes back goes up she knows all the home school parents great wonderful um um can you for the marketing survey um when you have it kind of ready to go can we take a take a look at it sure um and we'll probably want to talk about how you want to get that up to the people also yeah okay uh any it looks like budget wise You're On Target no for this time year any more I'm guessing no but nothing yet from the select board or um Finance departments about those additional positions we were looking for um no so Ryan's supposed to be working on a budget to that he'll send out yeah um I did notice in m so this is payroll for staff they I didn't add this they added this so they added a new um this is supposed to be the new senior Library position I asked for they add that this the new team Library position they added that this is the extra hours for Diana asword they added that yeah and then these two for I think I mentioned a few months ago that there's going to be a ghost step so Susan and Diane are greater so that would be their ghost step so they added this all in this is the vacant Library System that's why yeah but so they added it in okay so we can be wonder if they're using it as they try to budget and play all the cards across all the department yeah so at first this was the only thing that was in there and then I know they finished talking to all the department heads and after the day after they finished that's when they had press I mean I love that it's in there because that means they at least going to consider it at least consider it is there anything we can do to support and help The Bu just advocate for um can really um I already spoke to um Brian as I said in the somewhere um they're going to have two meetings January 21st and 28th um keep put on the 21st meeting um I'm probably going be first usually I'm first it's here in the library and so they figure um so it's at 6:30 um so I spoke to Ryan and he said that heend 21st because the 28th is night I come back I'll be back at 8 so I don't R here I'm sure the meeting will still be going on well in case of snow or whatever it doesn't make sense for yeah I'm planning on being there for my calendar so um yeah so I I'll present um I'll talk about what I sent you guys in my report um and that you had already written up the WR up the thing why this is important to thebr so having that will they have you do a presentation on them yeah they'll have a PowerPoint presentation that Ry sent out um they have a specific format so it's the one I've used go last two years um but I think most of the just and this is finance and select we just listening and asking questions right now and when is that January 1st 6:30 I see you at an ebook audio circulation thank you to the yeah they're already in there they were there yeah were I yeah we just find more obvious yeah I think it definitely I see them now you see them so it's there okay um any other questions for Sam thank you that was a really helpful um update okay moving on to Old business Sam we asked you to check with other libraries and see how they may have Ed their lead money do you have any feedback um other than solar panels and down the dead that's pretty much what they all do um I tried contacting but I think I've told you all this before a lot of Library directors kind of B out they do their projects so a lot of I contact another Library that's been through this they used direct how but the ones I I contact bolon and um basically they said they used to pay down the Deb um yeah the other libraries I contacted they all said they either PID down debt or got solar panels or something I also contacted mlc asked them if they knew what the librar suit and they said the same thing so out 10 don't you wish there were more creative options options I mean if you're really it's actually really limiting what they all you to do so I can abolutely understand why that was left okay as the two options that most libraries end up doing yeah so I think we talked about these at our last meeting um those the two things we came up with as well um I know you were you here for that do you have any thoughts on I mean I'm assuming based on all of the work we had to do for the original solar panels that it becomes a RFP process that we so even to start it we have to use some of that money to do that and then it comes down to how many panels can we actually add I think or inverters or whatever they are in there are maxed out if I remember correctly Brian might be able to tell us if there's room for more panels on it or not um I ask I mean it's one of those questions like if we have room in our current setup we could tigate how much adding a few more panels but I think we're at the point where we're not going to get that much many more panels yeah so is the benefit there yeah um when do we need to vote on this use the 6y I mean I know they would like us to have a decision so they know where to put it especially as they're finalizing budg chair my assumption yeah um so we should have we are also asking for Budget positions so should we try do a little straw poll here about how people feel about using it to bring the debt down I'm good with it I mean I think we've we've spent x amount of money for the town to say here's yeah we got some back and we're goinging it back to take more debt off yeah especially in balancing we're saying we'd like another position so like I know it's not apples and apples here but like yeah there's some good blood and hopefully some return on the Staffing side of things if we can continue some goodwi all right are we comfortable with voting on that tonight then um yeah and if so uh I don't know exactly how to say it vote to transfer the to you just to use the 175 blah blah blah um to pay down the debt it's 116 8.95 what do we say for the what did they say for the 600 something it's the same thing but I don't know what that much yeah when was that how about we try and if you get it wrong we okay redo it and I had the email up and who would like to make that motion did Chris projection she did not was not part of her move we transfer the lead money the $6,890 say that again yes please 116 895 um for what's the debt reduction like to the town to the transfer it to the town for the purposes of L building debt reduction I mean the already had it they already have right we approve the use of the lead money for debt reduction on the library that okay do you have you can say it you can read back my motion and I'll say it again if it's helpful wait to all right Miss Hagberg moved to use $6,890 in lead money for the purposes of debt reduction approve the use approve the use so so moved as R and say it one more time I second all in favor great thank you library libr because there are other projects that we cannot apply it to any other project in it has to be F life so the town has like $800,000 for debt reduction now the additional mblc Grant payment and F money good which given we know these are tough years coming right now good okay um we talked at the last meeting about having a library board retreat um Sam did was there feedback on days is there like a so people have been slowly okay giving the dates but I don't think I got okay not I am abstaining yes I can just did it remember email thing yeah so defitely submitted s Katrina nothing from Chris do you know Chris is coming to I think we can I think we can do it based on the four of us and then hopefully she can make it um also she doesn't I don't know if she's like whenever I email her anything I send to her Gmail and yeah yeah that might have so I mean for it to her Gmail just in case but let's look us so so far let me just put it up let's narrow it down at least we can give her more specific so is there anything at all looks like March 1 so far maybe we offer Chris those two dates I would narrow down we mentioned to Kristen maybe come back report that any you can choose by like March all right I'll that's okay do we have a sense of time um if it's the first I have to be in Boston by five so I'm thinking morning into early afternoon okay yeah yeah I put 9 to one on the on the what works for I just want to look on my calendar so book something else okay I appreciate not choosing Min weend I don't even know that's that's the next one that's right copy that to that okay um so next I know we talked about this a little bit last time as well but just kind of to um get a better sense of uh if we have a retreat than what the topics uh could should be that we talk about um we had talked about kind of starting to brainstorm about the Strategic plan um there's also trust trusty recruitment um mention two things today when we testing one of them was about the truste about the governance group that's that's coming together in the town to decide the whether or not trustees across the board should be elected or appointed so that's something else we can talk about because they're probably going to come to us at some point we should come proc like research and pull together yeah sooner I think sooner than that but that maybe a discussion at a retreat yeah yeah um yeah our strategic okay and um does anyone else have any kind of thoughts since this kind of an opportunity to have some big conversations about things that we don't get to talk about um at these meetings any other kind of things that are percolating so I know the last time we did it we talked we was we took a step back because there's so many new people newer people on the board we talking more about um what skill sets we have on the board what where we are lacking confidence skills um Y and that might actually inform the conversation about how to recruit agree I have a lot of from our from the the thing that we went to about what to look for for trustees yeah what skills we might benefit from having yeah on the board yeah um I mean with an elected position you end up with who elected so but just broadening our net to make sure that we're looking for yeah interest uh Patron or people who would want to sit on this board we have skills that we could fill a need for super umbrella on the campaign Trail the only questions that came up that were asked to me had to do with AI and like censorship and these are just I don't have a more specific way to suggest them but that's like it either people were genuinely interested and they had come to candidates night and were asking or as I was getting my signatures that's all they came up with just those I can't think of anything else that said and that could have just been like this is one thing I know I'm making polite conversation but a lot the questions Ai and both of those are very hot topics right now so it makes sense that they they bring it back I'm not sure how in censorship clearly we have a role in our policies have been designed to yeah I think those are pretty good um to support the librarian's position on developing our collection and maintaining our collection and meeting room space and all the other things um I'm not sure how how are are our trustey policymaking position do we need to take a stance on AI I don't think so but I'm wondering what they were wondering about yeah so it was like how do you feel about it I guess yeah if you feel about it okay yeah or like will there still be libraries so I question like why is the library important do you think this will still be a thing and we all do think it will slly thing but anyway those are just my words okay that's interesting yeah um we did talk a little bit about at the um I I have to go back to find out on a conference we went to about really understanding who your community is and trying to identify like who they are and how you can what they need um which I know is with the Librarians we doing every single day um but our is too that's something that we could have a conversation about um if there's any points that we're not hitting um for the community especially as we're going into the Strategic plan piece making sure that we are actively getting information from groups we're not typically yeah see or talking to Librarians will had a th on that but there are probably even grps who don't engage but might benefit ignore yeah Library yeah um yeah I mean they had such great ideas and not all would apply to us but in terms of what they were offering to very specific groups of people um and the other another thing that I could that I thought about when we were about this after the meeting conference was um like our how why the library is important to us in forms how we can talk about the library to other people and that might be different for all of us but it be kind of like a good conversation have to talk that up I mean I think that's a perfect thing for I mean there's the retreat and then we can also bring it to public meeting I don't think it should only live in a retreat situation yeah okay um so the last time there was a um Retreat Wendy was here and she and I think I don't know if it's just it's both of you yeah um but there were there were all sorts of really good kind of Hands-On activities that that facilitated the conversations um that's not my that's not my skill set does anyone feel like they're like hey I've LED meetings before and I've LED conversations like this before and I know how to make this you know interesting for people anyone feel like that's in their skill set I guess my question is before someone says that which which things here I think it's this is too much of a list as take off strategic plan because that's we do that later okay but we can talk about things that will get get us to that eventually so I had trustee recruitment the governance Community does that sound like too much I get through we we barely got through what we had before four hours so um but I do think these kind of overlap so yeah um okay well it's not till March so we can figure out details of that later but I do think by January we need to have a plan is yeah okay great okay because it it took londy and I time to create it yeah and February is a short oh where is it at the library the library yeah yeah yeah I mean we're going to end up having to do these discussions about the Strategic plan separately anyway part of and we'll bring in someone for that because that seems overwhelming I'm not even overwhelming I think in terms of it feels overwhelming because none of us have walked through Tes it just a it's not really up to to do it up to it's up to S so don't feel all okay do you know that NLC has has has a person who volunteer help with all that okay great done this twice oh yeah that's right but how ouri are on it if you're like your job because we have to sign up on it I mean my name is on it before I get elected so someone explain that maybe um I am happy to help plan not be a to come up the ideas of the creative ways to look to talk about these things like well I think I think s makes a good point like in it should be director lead and then we me narrow down the topics then it would be easier to say oh I can we're right now we're pretty broad yeah yeah Sam is there anything you see from your position that it would be helpful for us to discuss in a retreat setting no I mean it's um the trusty retrieve whatever you guys want I'm good okay so we can all maybe brainstorm under these topics a little bit to be more specific before meing you could email the out for okay um moving on FY 26 budget update just that was yeah okay um new business Library policies so we drafted a trustees code of conduct um and we took this we took this from mblc right Stephanie where this that was the or the Ala was the Ala I think this one was Al yes and we looked for overlock yeah wait the trustee ethics statement came from Ala yes and is this the one that the town yes requested that each board yes draft their own ethic statement yes does this ethic statement align with what they had were they shared theirs as an example did we go they shed their Bo of select the select board and it was very I mean selectboard is such a different group than we are so that's why we looked at ala because this is more in keeping with what we do in select board is so so um no this one felt more tailored right to the library setting specifically right and the board responsib ities so I think in spirit is in line with what we saw from the selectboard but there wasn't enough that we follow from that or try to my only question is the very last bullet not question or lady um and my only concern about this is if in our current environment in the world and knowing that some of our other policies are really trying to align with the um ala's Library Bill of Rights freedom to view freedom to read and are very careful about not trying to take partisan makes partisan statements to avoid uh Viewpoint um discrimination like this is the only one that I'm wondering if we're if we could reward it to be affirmative of our our library Bill of Rights our support of the library Bill of Rights freedom to view and freedom to read and our staff's efforts to acquire and manage our collections under those policies so what I I kind of took a stab at writing it on my own here but so I um in my head as I was thinking through it I I wrote down and we can discuss how to do it but trusty affirm the ala's Library Bill of Rights freedom to view and freedom to read policy statements um which I pulled from our collection development that came right from our other policy and support the efforts of librarians to acquire and manage the libraries collections in line with Library policies that's good can you typ he wants to type type it is I can typ your name's different my keyboard maybe actually did anyone else have any comments well she's Tak than the one that Sam had on Pat right Sam did review these before this meting to so you sent it to Sam before we sent it to the group thank you for doing us something like that anyone SPS just throw shall shallow from or take it I think I had it in my notes but didn't type it I did for and Al is probably should be spelled out now that I watch yes or no it's is it there is it is it theirs look it up I could say is it the American ala's ala's policy statements or just the Ala policy statements no they are firming so it's not theirs you say what we don't have to say la but they have the statements which are oh I see the word Library good um Sam do you know if the What's the title for the person that runs the town yeah thank you does the Town Administrator want to review this before we approve it or the select board want it it's all internal when you get to do it we get to control our board's policies yeah yeah I haven't even heard May in May there's a thing oh okay um all right well good then um is there a motion to approve this I move to approve the public library trustee ethic statement and code of conduct before we should it be the public library trustee or the Ruben Library Ruben Library sign individually have to sign it I think it I think we I think individually had to sign it when I was on the boards it did all to do it yeah yeah then we be that's why it's shall and not yeah it's just a funny thing I just wonder whether or not like are we supposed to turn it into them I think we we I think if I recall that conversation correctly we just have to notify them that we have adopted our own andage chair they our poofy with them and then who gets to keep the side s does in our this will also become a um a a part of the trustee orientation what do every every new trustee will be to sign however I believe that if I understand with the Sor the second time they've done it they they review and revise it each time for the board sitting there so I think it's technically every year we have to like just confirm we don't need to amend it and then can sign that all right I should put that on the calendar it's a new task case yeah well I can add confirm that with the Town Administrator but yeah um I can I can put that in the notes here you know under the policy notes yeah to do it I on the stretching yeah okay are be ready to on okay I move to approve the Ruben wh Library trustee ethics statement and code of conduct I second all in favor I okay um and then we were going to look at the patron we created a patron code of conduct um and Sam did have some PS I think I left the comment I think we decided to leave the comment so people could see them right you should do it to clean it up it was mostly like yes right I agree we have a gun this C it out so that reserving the right to inspect all the bags and purses my other concern with this um it came up because the Firearms one I can't remember if that's still here or not it was um I was talking to Mark because I was wondering like is this a town does the town have a BW against like a BW against bringing weapons it turns out no for what it's worth he called the police chief and let us know I don't what I don't want to do is get us into ourselves into legal trouble by um forbidding or allowing things that are not consistent with the rest of the Town Town yeah yeah that's F and also as covered under patient should not bring personal com considers to be hazardous I'm not sure whether or not we are allowed to determine that for the library if like without the town determinate maybe you guys talked about this at the last meeting so I'm coming in at a different spot in conversation about this um but this is a new policy correct um so what I would love to hear from the policy committee is why or Sam whomever brought this up is why do we did we feel like we needed this new policy and I know that we have an existing Library uses policy because we just approved it so and the number of these items overlap so is this meant to replace or there was an accident it was my confusion Kimberly months ago said we needed a code of conduct policy I thought it was the patron so we researched we looked at the policy committee each looked at several area libraries and pulled together this and then when I presented to Kimberly she's like oh no no we needed the truste policy so we don't we might not even need this and that's okay but that's where this came from it was my confusion okay so the the fact that we have an existing policy that covers some of these things but not all of these things to this extent isn't this understand I understand this thing okay that's helpful I I kind don't think we don't need it okay um but I feel badly because you did all we honestly we pulled from other libraries like this is most like most area libraries have it so we just we didn't like free this from scch we pulled from other so I am not offended if you say we don't need this I guess my question is is there anything in here that we don't cover in our other policies that the next time we review those we might want to grab or can we open I feel like this welcome to the library thing was us and then the actual bullet points we fully took and it was the same exactly as you say that we we had it so we were like why not share it but it it can be it existed so we can review this and see if that we feel that there if there are any bullet points here that are not in the other policy we could merge them but I think we table Sam do you feel like there are things in this policy that would be useful to have whether whichever the library users policy or this one like I don't think we need two because we're going to have to manage two of them cover other other policies um not just out of quite like any policy that's coming in are only you reviewing it or are you sharing it with staff members to have also review I hav I sure you mean when you guys asked me like if if this policy was potentially on the docket to be approved would you share this with the other staffers um it would depend on what it is if it's some of them you mean before we you guys before we get it depends on what it is I think some of the policies that had to do along with the children who I shared with that okay this not sure yeah my my one of my concerns when reading this and how some of these are phrased so as we're just if we end up using any of this I just want to State some of my concerns is um I know when we were doing a lot of the censorship and the U meeting room access and all those uh trainings that we've been doing in light of the current state of the world here um is that I think and quote me correct me if I'm wrong but I think if a policy can't be enforced or cannot be consistently enforced then we're opening Library up to potential lawsuits um especially when it could be interpreted as a Viewpoint discrimination situation and some of these things I think get walk in a line of um I understand why they're there but I also think there could be a the other side of the coin is that someone would feel disenfranchised and want to potentially um come after the library for that as an example of as an example I had another thought on top of that but uh inspecting backs purses Etc if that becomes something that happens only to people certain something but yeah um I see that another part about asking at least Julie maybe a couple other people to look at these things is whether or not especially with something like this maybe there are things on here that they're like yeah that's a real problem and you didn't think about making that into the policy you know maybe he will just kind of run that yeah I would love to know if there's anything on here that they feel that the current policy doesn't cover and that they would like to see added um but I do feel like most of this is covered in other policies um for what it's worth for each Belmont do you remember the libraries that we used as was water town and I looked at St I we looked at not just like us but like so yeah but again we can we can review our usage policy and see if there's anything from this Patron policy that we need to pull in and then we can review it again and then yeah I would love to hear staff feedback if if they think they can enforce consistently I thought you staff's feedback sorry staff the staff have to like enforce it so if the staff feel that they can um then we need to understand why and then also is it worth like the other part of it if they were inconsistently right enforcing policy then that actually opens up so on its own and I do think there are there's not a town Bogue of firearms and is there one about smoking vaping I don't think so is one about alcohol so yeah there is one about and including vaping about smoking I know when we were build in the library construction before smoking and anth was um interesting didn't mean to suggest that we're attached to any of them beyond the fact that at least these six libraries near us all said I think we we did like sort of a v diagram and these were all there but it doesn't be here or that it isn't already here yeah I'd really like they not to be how much of our library materials are being stolen not okay and it could yeah I mean some of this might not be relevant to our thank you like like it was really interesting to read this it is yeah I have no doubt that there are libraries having to deal with this in regular basis yeah okay so it sounds like we're not gonna we we're not going to make got vot on this today yes um okay thank you um Sam early closing on yours yes um so I forgot to ask time course at te for Christmas to mention the Year's Eve um in the past um that's a Wednesday so we at eight five on in New Y any concerns about that what's the town doing I don't know I I've also asked the town uh um Jim about I asked Jim to about whether or not the town hall was going to close and he said if you want to talk to a selectboard um normally he makes the the announcement at at department head meetings our next one is Monday so hopefully Monday he'll let me know one way or another but he hasn't said whether or not they're closing okay and have we closed have we done this before in New Year Eve yes yeah okay all right does anyone have any concerns about that so weone move to CL library at 5:00 pm on New Year's Eve all in favor good um other business anyone have any other business okay uh trusty updates anyone have anything to share oh IES just here the library um uh Chris and Steph and I are going to meet um as the youly appointed Ray Grande uh scholarship Committee in early January and We R R thank you my God words rub um weot uh holiday cards you guys ask about that so thought itday I'm glad remembered would anyone want to T take F on that I could do that do we have cardss we usually which one should just get card okay how many St do we have now 60 16 16 but 15 because uh car start so could you send us a list of the current stuff uh there's a on the website on St nice love it to dat great who's on the scholarship committee again Kimberly Chris yeah and I have one other item um micr Scout Troop has been organizing this nice trees for the library of the auction um they took it over actually from a troop who had died before but I think this is year 14 but it's been run um so these trees decorated in a theme of a book a picture book a children's book usually and um the proceeds from the auction go to the children's room can help us um advertise it but it looks like there's a at least one bit on every tree right now have you ever seen art and blue done related but at the MFA other places so I know the original tro who came up with this idea was at the conquer is it the museum there there a great one yeah so they they wanted to do their own Tre for that one but they were not allowed to um so they worked with Diane years ago to like start it for the old children's room and it's continued here so they graduated and my tro took it on so they will give it away to somebody else later um but it's continued yeah 14 years of grout's leaving us so most of them Chris felner has a couple special Creations out there but the rest of them I think are Girl Scout Troops if I remember correctly I I shopped at the friends table at the Holiday Bazar you get a d yeah no dra no but I was talking to Mrs Harvey and there was a book and she said oh that's on my list I hope someone will give it to me for Christmas so I bought it in the Ed and then he went back that was at the beginning of the bizar and then we went back at the end of the isar because I had to take my daughter well I had I was the money but I got a great um children's book for a friends that's great so they were really nice book selection there's some really beautiful handmade things there too yes this year like some rapid like embroidered bags and things like that they're really cool do you know Mrs har used to be a history teacher did you me no no no here here oh then she was but I had a history teacher Susan Harvey but not yeah she's here maybe she was back maybe like the 90s oh I don't think so she had a different career first oh right that's right um all right um Mo to adjourn a motion to adjourn a second all in favor