recording in progress. >> Uh, calling to Can you guys hear me? >> Calling to order the um January 12th, 2026 board of Library Trustees meeting. Um, do we have anybody online or in
email for public comment? >> Okay. Did we get any >> uh nothing in the mail except for >> a >> I'll just say to the uh for trustees there is an email about a trustee orientation session. Um, I don't know if
anyone has done that or is interested, but they are coming up. Uh, oh, it's a four-week course. Uh, wow. This is a volunteer position. If anyone's interested in a four-week course, >> I think it's just four. Yeah, four sessions. Four sessions.
>> No, it's a four-week course. >> No, but I'm saying it's one hour or whatever. I don't It's not like four. It's not five days a week. Four. Yeah. >> Three hours Saturday. But otherwise that is um sounds like these are quiet tonight.
You guys hear me? All right. Doesn't sound like it's amplified. >> I I did lower the amplification. >> Perfect. Just so I know. It just I'm used to hearing boom. >> I know. Actually, I guess we Oh, there's my net. It's okay. I do I do notice that Joe Mcdana is online and
maybe if he could give a thumbs up or tell us whether he can actually hear us. >> Hello. >> Yes. Yeah, I I can hear you well. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much, Joe. >> Thanks, Amy. >> We're chosen. >> Um, next item on the agenda is the
community outreach and engagement update. That's me. And you're right. I feel like I can't I have to hold it really close like that. All right. So, I Yeah, I agree. I feel like I'm not I have to hold it really
close to my face. Okay. Uh so, yeah, it doesn't Okay. Anyway. All right. So, um this is about our outreach and communication um and engagement. And um here you can see what outreach means
and what community engagement means. They're a little both a little bit different. Um and so there's just the definition. So this past year, the library continued to turn outward to serve the community's needs through extensive outreach and engagement. Um, a
goal moving for forward is to reach those who don't know about our services and programs. Uh, library staff are creating surveys and focus groups that target those community members. Staff members visited Frank Tanner and other elder housing um for librarians and
lemonade listening sessions. Um, at those sessions they discussed the services the library provides and receive feedback from residents. Uh, so they went a couple times for that. Um, with the departure of three of our public services staff members, uh, we
have had to regroup and we're going to continue focusing on our action plan, which includes engaging with the community as co-creators in library programs, services, and design and providing access to the community members where they are. So, what does
that mean? Um, it means basically when when we get together with these groups, we're going to be asking them what they need, not just deciding for them what we think they need. Um, sorry, I'm reading from my thing and now
I went off script, but now go back on script. Uh the library participated in town events throughout the year such as the fall street fair, friends and family day, school events such as the artfest, uh the downtown trick or treat and the reading garden club. Um we are visited
at these events by both those familiar with the library and those new to it. The fall street fair in particular brings new residents to our booth. Um but at the most recent fair, even with the rainy weather, we had over 180 visitors. And at the friends and family
day in June, we had over 245 visitors. The library and staff, the library and library staff serve as liaison to local organizations, including the Coalition, Reading Lions Club, the Health Department, the Reading Garden Club, KO,
the Reading and North Reading Chamber of Commerce, HRAC, uh the North Suburban Child and Family Resource Network, Northeast Ark, and the Children's Cabinet. Through the through these liaison, we've brought the library out to the community and hosted events here
at the library such as the multi- um lingual multil- language summer sessions um where in August we have um students from the schools and their teachers come here um several on Tuesday and Wednesday
mornings and they just they have uh lunch here and they get together with their classmates and they um they learn and then they also get used to the library. Uh so they often will go upstairs to the children's room and it
just makes it much more of a um familiar place for them to go and to visit. Um we also hosted the Northeast Arc adults with autism resource fair, uh flu shot clinics, tax help for older adults, uh and Mandarin story times.
In the coming year, we're going to be hosting the ACE game changer series. Um and so that the ACE as you might know um they are the um ad hoc commission or committee that is working um on Bill Russell's
history and legacy in um reading. Um and so they'll be doing um book discussions and showing movies. Um and we are going to be providing the um resources for them and the space. Um, we've also going to be providing CPR training through the
health department and there will be Portuguese story times through the multilanguage learners. Um, and that will be starting in March. And I just received an email from Northeast Ark about also um doing
another art fair. Um you can there's pictures. Um as we could I'm sorry. Uh so yeah you could you could go to the next slide. All right here. Okay. So here we had our Oh go if you go back
one. So we had eight community events. We had two lemonade librarians and listening sessions. Six uh multi- um lingual summer sessions here at the library. uh and five deposit
collections. Uh we also did uh several of our uh book bike visits to the um memorial park um for the Wednesday morning's Reading Wreck um programs and I do have a little bit of a feedback from that. At one of the visits uh to
the Reading Recreation Memorial Park concerts, uh the performer Matt Heaton gave a shout out to the library book, dedicated a song about um about the library. um and changed the lyrics of a song to reference a canary at the
Reading Public Library. Most kids were dancing engaged throughout the concert, and it seemed grown-ups had a good time, too. And um Matt Heaton is going to be performing here at the library, so there was a connection that way as well. Um library staff is going to be working
with the town community services as they plan recal. Uh when the recal project is complete, the library will be looking for ways to engage and support older adults um and the elder services division. We're looking forward to that. And let me see what else did I is there
anything else? We also because we're doing th this role, we have developed um an internal program partnership procedures and best practices including a checklist for us and also something that we can provide to those who want to work with us so
that we're all on the same page about what we can offer um and what just the best way for us to um work together. And that's that's it. Does anyone have any questions?
Thank you very much. It was lovely. >> You do a lot. >> Yeah, you guys do. >> Yeah. We'll forget that it's not just what happens in this building every time you do one of those. >> Yeah. Yeah, we do a lot. We do a lot out outside the building.
>> Thank you. >> Next item on the agenda is the financial I I should just group these I know. I know. They're always together. >> Financial directors. >> Um there's there's really nothing to report
on the general municipal FY26 budget. I will just say too that um I'll just go a very brief overview over the FY 26 supplemental spending midyear update. Basically, we're doing great. Um we are, you know, below below where we expected
to be, which is good. Although, it's always in the second half of the year that we have a lot more professional development. It's when our municipal budget starts getting a little tighter, so we might buy more materials. Um we will definitely be spending more on equipment and furnishings. We have a lot
of plans to um add more seating outside. Um some Polywood picnic table and maybe some extra chairs uh maybe a new cafe seating or something area for the new patio area that's out there. So um we fully expect to be using most of the money that we had set aside um from the
three categories of state aid um gifts and trusts. Um, the only thing I'll just remind you of is that when it comes to trust spending, um, our trusts have been earning interest. Um,
so, sorry, this is very hard to navigate. So, our trusts do earn interest, which is nice because when we leave money in our gift account or um, in the state aid account, it doesn't doesn't actually gain interest. So there's always an incentive for us to use the state aid
and the gifts before we get down to the trust. And the flip side to that is that we want to spend the money, the trust money because people gave the money for these purposes. So we just try to balance that. Um but a decent portion of that uh trust money was spent that's actually from gifts was spent on the um
planning and development for the um library terrace. That's probably the biggest thing that we spent money on. Are there any questions about our supplemental spending? Again, we're trying to be very judicious. We do need to spend a certain
amount for the auditors. Um, but we also don't want to, you know, we want to be, just as we do with our municipal funds, we want to be wise in our spending. We do expect to have more professional development costs. We have a tuition
reimbursement for people working on um usually their library degrees or related degrees and um we do have several library students. So we just had in one of the most recent warrants I believe we had a a tuition reimbursement for one library um person who finished their library degree which was very exciting.
Um and we have a couple more that are one that's looking into starting a program and um we may even have one more on tap. So, we expect to have those tuition reimbursements coming through and that's often where we where we get use when we use our supplemental spending for that.
>> Amy, >> yes, >> I know that um if you go back a slide >> when you use um gift or trust money >> recording stopped. >> Oops. >> Okay. Do you want to try again?
recording in progress. >> Here we go. Okay. Sorry about that. >> I was just going to say I know that like when we use gift or trust money for equipment or materials, you put something in there that says, you know, thanks to a generous donation from this
trust or this organization. Yeah. But when it's used for, if you scroll down a little bit, there was something there that said miscellaneous. Like, how do you acknowledge that? Because I think it's important to acknowledge >> um Oh, >> miscellaneous. >> Yeah. I mean, both as a thank you, whoever did it, but I think it's also for any future donors. >> Yeah.
>> It's important for them to see how appreciated the gifts are and that the gifts are being used. It encourages future giving for >> to to understand that we do use the money well. >> Yeah. Miscellaneous is often things like supplies or
I need to come up with a better word, but it is also things like taking care of our gerbal and our tortoise and and things like that. And I I appreciate your point which is how do we how do we recognize that we're not spending tax day payer dollars to buy to buy the tortoise their food but at the same time
we you know we really appreciate so we're being mindful of our municipal spending but we are very and we are and we are very appreciative of donors who leave the dollar in the basket or the you know give us a little donation in memory of you know someone's service that we use those donations to to really
flesh out um beyond the books and beyond the the reference questions. So, I don't know how to do that, but it's a it's a good question to ponder. So, I welcome ideas. >> It might be it also might just be a maybe at the year end when I do the year- end wrap-up
in addition to doing, you know, the close of the fiscal year to say just a really high 10,000 foot overview of here are a few things that our supplemental spending went to. um tuition reimbursement for someone who finished their library degree, you know, taking
care of our library pets, purchasing picnic tables for outside, you know, so something that doesn't itemize the the pencils, but that that can really kind of get back to the here are the materials or we were able to get to try this new database for a year because we
had extra money in our um and that's often what we do at the end of the year is we're trying new databases and you know those can be a th000 to $3,000 a pop And you know, so it might be able to nice a nice sort of wrap up at the end of the year to do the the fiscal year
close for the municipal spending, which is fairly, you know, 81% salaries. Um, and then something to do with the supplemental spending. So that might be a nice to put into an annual report or something like that. >> Yeah. Okay. Like that idea. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Great question.
>> Anything else on the financial or the director's report? Any questions, concerns, thoughts? >> Oh, seriously? >> Okay. Well, the next Oh, no. But do you want to just um for people who didn't watch the
>> Bencom and or select board? >> No question. >> Yes. She did wonderful. >> Thank you. For those who didn't view it, the PowerPoint got a specific shout out by the co-chair of the select board >> who commented on it was the best PowerPoint >> he has seen uh
>> in a while >> in both town work as well as his private >> Yes. And everyone in else in the room I assume just slunk down in >> No, I did. I did. I did as well. Um no, it was it was good. And I will say um
this is just an incredible team to work with across the town department. Sharon Angstrom, our town accountant, is absolutely amazing. Um, this is a really, really, really tight year. We're, you know, I I sometimes will say like, oh, we're only 1.6% of the budget
and whatever, taking taking X amount of money, you know, taking this small amount of money and $150 million budget's not going to make that much of a difference. But it does because if I can find a way to save $5,000 or cut something overall cut, then you know that might be something small in DBW or
accounting or in finance or in public services that they can do that might be professional development. It might be other things. So Sharon goes through and there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the background to try and balance these budgets. And I can imagine a situation where it's much more adversarial, but
the departments really really do work together um down to the fact that the schools are also working with the town department and and they kind of we kind of work out these little deals. The Sharon works out these little de deals. So it it was very tight. There were some
standard questions, one of which was um overtime. Every department was asked about their overtime budget. um our overtime budget is a little bit different in that it's really it is used for true overtime which is sort of when we ask someone to come out on a Saturday after they've worked five days in a row
and now they're working the the friends and family day or something like that. Um but it is also used for a sun Sundays and it's used not so much as overtime in that context but as a premium pay differential um which is which is why we're able to staff our Sundays. So, you
know, we answer, you know, I answered that as best as we could, which is we want to be open Sundays. This is not on a regular, you know, it's outside everybody's regular hours for anyone who works full-time. It would it would naturally be, but um overtime, but it also allows us to get substitutes at
that premium pay differential. So, they might be working 5 days, but they can get time and a half if they work here extra on a Sunday. So, it actually is very important for us to to do that. Um there were questions about if we you
know I can't it's very there were some questions that were would were too complex to answer um which is you know well could we just be closed on Wednesday evenings and then open Sundays would that save any time and that's a really it sounds like a very simple
question but it's very complex because it doesn't necessarily change other people what they're essentially saying is there any way you can reduce the salaries And any way we go to reduce the salaries is um
not good for our employee retention. It doesn't um the savings would be actually minimal compared to the losses that we would have. So there were a lot of questions about that. It wasn't just the library. Those questions were asked of every department. Have you gone down as
far as on your expenses as you can? Um, we have a couple expenses coming in the next fiscal year that are they're contracts that come up every three years. So, every three years we have to bump up like our our licensing. We have a couple a couple licenses that renew every three years.
So, um, it was very much focused on that. Um, but it it went through and, um, I think we just now have to wait for the I think it's March 4th and 11th or something like that. Um those first two Wednesdays in March will be the fincom
um presentation. Um there will not be any powerpoints. It will just be the the narrative um of the of the budget and they will vote on it and that's what will go to town meeting. So um and it is you know it's a very very tight budget
and there's a lot of other things on the town meeting docket so agenda. So it'll be it'll be interesting. Well, thank you very much for doing it because I'm sure it was not easy. >> Yeah, we are taking we are having
and I never know whether they call it level funded means you're level funded means you're not changing the funding. Level services means you're only raising the funds enough to give that basic service. I think we're barely at level services
with the cuts that we've made. Um we are fortunate because we can use state aid and we have a couple of things like trust to dig into but the the things that are really impacted ultimately are things like salaries which is such a big portion of the budget. So that's what'll
be impacted need to be changed if and when there's an override that that will ensure that we're able to continue to give people um cost of living raises or whatnot. And we're not the only group. A lot of a lot of towns, a lot of
businesses are dealing with this. Health insurance is still continuing to go up in the double digits. They get those numbers in the next few weeks. They budgeted for I think 13 or 14%. It's possible it could come in more than that. So um we're I'll just have our fingers crossed that we can keep those
costs um within reason. Going on to the director's report. Um, December was a great month. Um, we have had a lot of transitions. Um, as Michelle mentioned, um, but I just want to give a shout out to the to the staff.
At the top of that is the public services staff who have filled in with our substitutes, but also people taking on extra shifts to cover for basically three people um that have left. Um, now four total four actually. We So, we
still have two positions open that we're hiring for. Um although we have one hire starting next week, >> one hire starting next week, we still will have two librarian positions open. We've been able to promote with with from within which we're very excited. Um
the whole succession planning is seems to actually be be working, which we're very excited about. Um and it's all been some great internal movement. public services staff stepped up, but people from including um people like Megan and
Michelle and myself have found ourselves on the desk and covering for people and answering the phone. Um I'm usually at the bottom of the barrel there because there no one's ever sure I know how to transfer a phone call, but um it's the staff has just done an incredible job
and in some ways it's uh in all ways it's amazing. In some ways, I feel like people don't get to It's like the swan on the or the duck on the the surface of the water seems like everything's going
along just fine. And what you don't see is the back room where people are like, wait, who's covering that shift? And you know, did you did you get that question? And nobody did that thing and um but then they come out and they perform very well and I don't think it's very
noticeable at the front end. Um but there's a lot a lot of hard work and um especially during the holidays it was very challenging to make sure that we could get people in here like any other we had illnesses. So um I'm just really
proud and amazed that the staff are able to cover during those times and just passing that along to you all. Um coming up uh next Monday is the um MLK day se celebration over at the performing arts center. Encourage you to
go with that. It's very exciting. It's kind of been growing and growing each year. Um, that's been going on for many years and after the advisory human relations advisory committee sort of sunseted and the office of equity took it over. It's a co- it's it's the
schools. It's the office of equity and just the town in general. Um, it still has a breakfast, so there's some some free food in it for you. And it's really just one of the more collaborative Well, it's one of several really collaborative events that we see in the town, and it's
really nice. So, I'd encourage you to come. Um, also, we did select our staff development day for this year. Um, we will all be going to um we will be closed on Tuesday, May 19th. Uh, and
staff will be attending the Massachusetts Library Association. It's in Danvers this year. So, we can afford to send everybody there and um, everyone that way everyone can take the little the sessions that they want and go to the workshops and then we'll all have lunch together and it'll be a nice staff development day. It is a little unusual
because we usually try and close on a on a um, Thursday or Friday when we're only closed for eight hours, but it will be a we'll be closed for the whole day Tuesday. So, but I I'm sure everybody will survive. Um, that's about it. Do you have any other
questions about what happened in December? It's kind of a blur to me actually and the first week in January, week and a half in January have already been so packed that I can't remember what happened at all in 2025. Um, I am putting together the annual report,
Cappy. I'll have a draft for you probably in the next week or so to write out a cover letter for that and that goes into the um town somewhere in early to midFebruary and that's for usually the calendar year 2025. So that's actually a great
exercise to go through. I'm like, "Oh, did you know we did this and we did this and we did this and and you add it all up. We did quite a bit in uh 2025. I know, you know, it's I have to say that um yes, the programming has been really
interesting and I'm I'm sure you got this sense from Andrea and now from Olivia is that you know what excites people about programming is changing. It changes period. It just always changes. And so we are we're constantly revising and a lot of these
um sort of more interactive, you know, it's not so much lectures or author. It used to be like if you had a good author here, you'd have a packed room or if you had a sports speaker, you'd have a packed room, you know, you could, you know, you could nail down what people would come for. And um that I think it was one of these things where they're like, well, you know, let's give
it a try. And it was just a stellar success. And so yeah, so people really like the things where they walk away with something and they learn something and it's really interactive and it's a little bit of an experience. So um and those types of programs are we're doing more and more of those. They did the
they did something similar with the cookie jars and that was really popular. I think Susan ran out of sugar and flour um but they could make takeaway mason jars of cookie and um so but yeah, they had a busy busy month with lots of
programs as usual. Wonderful. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? >> Have a quick one under personnel. I see that um >> Cheyenne >> is joining us on January 20th as a meeting room coordinator. Have we always
had someone fulltime just to do >> she's she's not full-time. It's 25. It's the senior library associate position. Um so um we have we have associates, senior associates, librarians and senior librarians. So this is a more senior position. It requires more technology
and more um interaction with the public. And this is for Louise Heatherington um had that position and she retired on December 31st. >> Okay. Um the reason we specify meeting room coordinator is because in addition to covering the borrower services desk and the ground ground floor desk, she um
very specifically is the person that's going to be handling the meeting room. And we're actually very excited because she's very technologically savvy. So we're hoping she can help Michelle a little bit more with troubleshooting things and getting things set up. Um and she's also going to be helping with
managing our library of things. um processing bring in taking our library of things is a lot more complex than bringing in a book because a book comes with a dewy classification library of congress mark record. Um when you're trying to put a telescope or a a
virtual reality headset into our catalog it takes a lot more processing and you got to find a box for it and you got to put the labels on the box and so um that's one of the things that Cheyenne will be doing. So Louise, it's a 25 hour a week position. Yeah, that's a great question. So, right
now we're in a process of hiring for a um new Good job, Pat. Oh, Pat asked if anyone is focusing on the health aspect of the health nook and andor the health librarian. It's just the gap that Susan left. Um, one of the
things we're changing a little bit in the public services department is um, we've we're kind of going more generalist. So, what we are looking for someone with health who's interested in health. That would be a plus. It doesn't mean that the person if the
person doesn't have that experience, they will most likely be in charge at least of that collection and and doing something like that. But we are trying to be more generalist so that we don't get in a pickle when somebody leaves so that everybody can do everybody's familiar with some of the health programming. Everybody's familiar
with programming for older adults. Um and then older older adults because some of us in this room are older adults. Um, so instead of having an elder services librarian, we're having adult services librarians and they're trying to do more. And in fact, our
reference department includes our teen services. And the idea is so that yes, we have a teen services librarian. That might be what she does most of. She also needs to know how to program for adults and our adult programming people need to understand the developmental needs and
the literacy needs of teens. So, we're actually trying to get away from pigeon holing our librarians. It worked well for a long time, but we're finding now with turnover and the change of pace because it could be healthcare now, but next next year or in the next five
years, it could be have something to do with sustainability or it could be that we have another type of need. Um, so we're just finding we need to help our staff be more flexible and resilient and saying like this is the
direction we're going to go now and if it pivots in a little bit, yay for us. So, but it's a it's a good question and something we really struggle over because it's a big difference between going out and saying we want a librarian that has a background in health services
and we'd like to find someone who's been working in customer service or or libraries and public service. Sorry, not customer public service. If you happen to have a background in health services, it's it would be really nice. So >> bringing in a person from the town to do
>> correct >> screenings or right >> pressure right you do you can draw on external >> absolutely yeah and really relying on our internal and I would say also too the the amount of work we do cross- departmentally within the town working with the coalition working with public
safety working with the health department working with elder services veteran services recreation I mean all of that is now much stronger than it had been in the past so So we kind of almost don't need that expertise. We need to be more generalist to support the broader
goals. That's it. >> Thank you. Any other questions related to the director's report? Nope. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the December 8th, 2025
meeting minutes. Do we have any questions, changes, thoughts, concerns there? Not a motion. We have a quorum. He's not Andrew's not online, is he? Um, all those in favor?
The next item on the agenda is uh future agenda items techn Okay, please. Yeah. So, next next month we'll have um uh two reports, one technology, patron self-service, which is a report on
lockers and our selfch checkckouts, etc., etc. Um Michelle's going to talk to you a little bit about um a contest that we plan to run in the springtime or in the summertime. >> Springtime. >> Springtime. Um and the other thing is um
we do have this is a national this is a on the national registry of historic places and so we do have a plaque that has not been put up. Um and part of the reason was we started discussing this and I think it was in 2021 when we first produced our first land acknowledgement and we talked about having something
physically put up in the building. So I've been working with Desiree and we've talking been talking about different ways to places and locations and ways to incorporate not incorporate but this National Registry of Historic Places plaque. Where can that go on the
building? And then what's an appropriate way for us to also have an actual land acknowledgement? >> A land acknowledgement acknowledges that this was the ancestral homes of the Massachusett tribe. And so that was
something that um one of the statements proclamations that the trustees did in 2021. And so it's something that I believe it's something they've actually put up at the um there is something a statement up at the mater
community gardens. And I think it's something that we would like to do here. Um, we've done so much work with the Massachusetts tribe and our beating project and the nation's maps and everything that you if you I don't know if you've seen them in the library. So, it's something we feel very strongly about and we would want to talk to the
trustees about whether you feel that's an appropriate space, but that's what we want to talk about with you in February. >> March the spring. >> This is spring. Yeah. Does anyone else have any questions or
any other items of business? Not get a motion to a second, please. All those in favor? Motion carries 5. We are adjourned as of 7:30.