2007-04-25
* *OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES
APPROVED BY MEMBERS OF THE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD
I SOUTHAKE PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD MEETING
2 Southlake Public Library
3 1400 Main Street, Suite 130
4 Southlake, Texas 76092
5
6 April 25, 2007
7
8 MINUTES
9
10 Library Board Members Present - Lori Burr, Chair; Barbara Jeppe, June Koelker, Kim
11 Roberts, Vice Chair; Wanda Schafer.
12
13 Library Board Members Absent - Brenda Flores, Cheri Lacy.
14
15 Staff Members Present -Kerry McGeath, City Librarian; Jesse Ephraim, Adult Services
16 Librarian; Nancy Roper, Administrative Secretary.
17
18 REGULAR SESSION:
19
20 Agenda Item No. 1, Call to Order - Chair,.Lori Burr, called the meeting to order at 7:09 p.m.
21
22 REPORTS:
23
24 Agenda Item No. 2 A - Librarian's Report
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25
26 1. Librarian's Report -
27 a. Mr. McGeath gave a brief report on the Texas Library Association annual conference
28 which was held in San Antonio April 9-13, 2007. Mr. Ephraim also attended, but this year in the
29 capacity of Children's Librarian. He was entranced by all the different activities and workshops
30 geared towards children. Mr. Ephraim participated on stage as a werewolf and a monkey and
31 made quite an impression on other conference attendees. He also is our representative for
32 Librarian Idol and we can vote for him on the web. Mr. McGeath made a presentation for a
33 workshop called "If libraries are so loved, why are we so irrelevant?" There were approximately
34 150-200 attendees to this workshop, which was one of the best attended at the conference. Dana
35 Rooks, Dean of the University of Houston Libraries, Carrie Kinsel, former CISD school librarian
36 and now coordinator for all the school libraries in Irving ISD, and Mike Baldwin, Director of the
37 Benbrook Library, were the other presenters. Elected politicians always say they love libraries,
38 but never fund libraries at a reasonable level. If libraries need more money, then they need to be
39 more relevant to the community. Ms. Koelker would like to send a Board member to the next
40 conference which is in Dallas.
41
42 Mr. McGeath made some comments about our funding and our situation. Our Library has
43 elected to provide materials that are geared towards what this community wants. We are
44 succeeding based on the circulation statistics. Although the collection is small, materials are
45 turning over regularly.
46
Southlake Library Board Meeting Minutes - April 25, 2007 Page 1 of 4
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APPROVED BY MEMBERS OF THE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD
1 b. SABRE virtual branch has taken off with about 400 employees signed up for the
2 service. It has been promoted through SABRE. We have had to make a minimal effort to
3 provide this service. We pull the materials in the morning and then make the deliveries on
4 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Amanda Troum is the new Senior Center Coordinator. Once
5 she has addressed other issues, she will be promoting the virtual branch. Jennifer Tucker, one of
6 our Library employees, will be giving book talks starting in June, which should showcase our
7 services and encourage use.
8
9 Friends of the Southlake Library (FOSL) and Mr. McGeath are working to provide book
10 drops at Robb and Stuckey and DPS West. FOSL are in a reorganization mode. 8 or 9 new
11 members are being added and voting will be held soon to elect the new officers. A couple of our
12 ex-employees are involved and a former Board member, Charlene Wiersum, has recently retired
13 and now has more time to devote to volunteerism. FOSL has applied to be a Chamber of
14 Commerce member to help promote the Library.
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16 Mrs. Roberts had a comment about a Library iPAC problem which Mr. Ephraim
17 addressed.
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19 2. Library Statistics -
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21 Mr. McGeath reviewed the statistics. Monday, April 23, 2007 was our busiest day this
22 year outside of Summer Reading Club. We had 497 people stop by. March statistics show a
23 23% gain in circulation statistics. We will be well over 200,000 circulations for the year. Mr.
24 McGeath asked the State Library to send him some statistics for libraries that are supporting
25 communities of between twenty and thirty thousand citizens. Excepting libraries that serve
26 similar size cities and have a larger size service area, e.g., a city library also serving an
27 unincorporated area, libraries serving cities our size number fifty-five. Of those fifty-five, we
28 have the best circulation rate. We are second or third in programming. Mr. Ephraim mentioned
29 that there were 82 in the toddler story time that morning. Mr. McGeath said that we compare
30 very well with those libraries. The purpose of this comparison is to justify a request for
31 additional staff for the coming fiscal year. As we add additional staff, we will be able to add
32 additional hours. After Mr. McGeath's analysis of all libraries outputs, he found that our staff is
33 the most productive in the metroplex performing on average a different task every 3 minutes.
34 This is another justification for the request for additional staff. Although business drops off after
35 5, it can still remain busy and spike right before closing.
36 Story time attendance numbers are up after a few months of being down. We changed
37 days from Thursday to Wednesday and are starting to see attendance smooth out after an
38 adjustment to the change. We are no longer taking story time breaks during school holidays.
39 We are busier when the children are not in school. We will continue to break during
40 Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.
41 When possible, we notify requesters when new materials arrive. If someone wants us to
42 hold the material for them, we will and notify them. Because of limited funding, we are not able
43 to purchase materials for every request. Customers are also advised about the ILL process.
44 When Mr. Ephraim sees an interesting children's material ILL, he will order it for the collection.
45 There was a comment from a customer that concerned unrated uncut DVDs added to the
46 collection. There is a new FOSL member buying materials for the collection so the nature of the
Southlake Library Board Meeting Minutes - April 25, 2007 Page 2 of 4
* *OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES
APPROVED BY MEMBERS OF THE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD
I DVDs that are bought is changing. Ms. Campbell is reviewing the collection for items with
2 numerous holds, items that are lost or extremely popular and augmenting what is in the
3 collection. Only adult customers are allowed to check out movies, so that we bypass having
4 minors check out inappropriate materials. Mr. McGeath and staff did review some of the
5 questioned materials and a few items were pulled.
6
7 CONSENT AGENDA:
8
9 Agenda Item No 3 - Approval on Minutes from February and March 2007 Library Board
10 Meetings-
11
12 Mr. McGeath would like to have the Board show a presence at various community meetings and
13 events to promote the Library. Mr. McGeath will get a list of all the available meetings and
14 events. If any of the Board members are in a group or have a connection, then the Board member
15 could make a connection from the Library to the group.
16
17 The FOSL annual book sale was not held because of a dearth of FOSL volunteers. Library staff
18 was not able to augment the FOSL volunteers this year. The Library will be open l Oam-6pm on
19 Saturday and 12N-4pm on Sunday during Art in the Square. We will have a few more books
20 than usual in the Library available for sale.
21
22 Mrs. Roberts made a motion to approve the minutes from the February and March 2007 meetings
23 and Mrs. Jeppe seconded it. The motion was unanimously approved.
24
25 REGULAR AGENDA:
26
27 Agenda Item No. 4, Public Forum -
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29 Chair Burr opened the public forum at 7:45 p.m. As there were no requests to speak, Chair Burr
30 closed the public forum at 7:46 p.m.
31
32 Agenda Item No 5A Consider - Library Board received a proclamation at the City Council
33 meeting on April 3, 2007-
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35 Mr. McGeath, Mrs. Roberts, and Mrs. Flores were at the City Council meeting to accept the
36 proclamation stating that National Library Week is April 15-21, 2007. It will be hung behind the
37 Circulation Desk
38
39 Agenda Item No 5B Consider - Library Board to review advocacy and grant opportunities -
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41 Mr. McGeath will provide a list so that Board members may pick events to attend. Some of
42 these community events are activities that the Board members would be attending anyway. Mr.
43 McGeath would like for the Board members to come up with a list of due dates for the grants.
44 Many of the neighborhoods have book clubs. We need to find a way to connect. It was
45 suggested that we put something on the web site to ask that the book clubs let the Library know
46 about themselves so we could visit them. It was also suggested that we contact the newspapers.
Southlake Library Board Meeting Minutes -April 25, 2007 Page 3 of 4
* *OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES
APPROVED BY MEMBERS OF THE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD
1 We will have a wish list at the Barnes and Noble (B&N) book sale May 12-13, 2007. We will be
2 distributing vouchers for customers to take to B&N. When presented, the voucher will allow
3 B&N to give 10% of the sales to the Library. The Board will distribute flyers announcing the
4 sale.
5
6
7 Agenda Item No. 6, Discussion -
8
9 A. Additional Library Bookdrops (auto drop off) - The money is ready, but we have to wait until
10 the space is available. We are looking at placing another one at DPS West. The spot is picked
11 out, but funding is not in place yet.
12
13 B. Friends of the Southlake Library Update - There is nothing to report at this time.
14
15 C. North Texas Regional Library System Update - There is nothing to report at this time.
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17 Agenda Item No. 7 - Adjournment -
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19 Ms. Burr adjourned the meeting at 8:02 pm.
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Southlake Library Board Meeting Minutes - April 25, 2007 Page 4 of 4