Loading...
2025-04-23 LB MeetingCITY OF SOUTHLAKE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD REGULAR MEETING Wednesday, April 23, 2025 Location: Southlake Training Center 307 Parkwood Dr. Southlake, Texas Time: 6:30 p.m. Agenda: 1. Call to Order 2. Consent A. Approval of the Library Board minutes from the March 26, 2025, meeting 3. Discussion A. Library Volunteer Program B. Library Notary Service C. Non-resident Cardholders D. Budget Discussion 4. Librarian's Report 5. Library Foundation of Southlake Update 6. New Business 7. Public Forum (This is the public's opportunity to address the Board about non -agenda items. During this proceeding, the Board will not discuss, consider or take action on any item presented. We respectfully ask that anyone stepping forward to speak during Public Forum to please limit remarks to three minutes or less.) 8. Adjournment A quorum of the City Council or any board, commission, or commitee may be present at this meeting. CERTIFICATE I hereby certify that the above agenda was posted on the official bulletin boards at Town Hall, 1400 Main Street, Southlake, Texas, on Thursday, April 17, 2025, by 6.00 p.m. pursuant to Chapter 51 of t�q,Tewaso9overnment Code. Veronica Lomas, TRI IC Deputy City Secretary.. ?r-T7 If you plan to attend this pub1115 etinj an`&have a disability that requires special needs, please advise the City Secretary 48 hours�P9n advance at 817.748.8016. Reasonable accommodations will Os'.aq be made to assist you. CITY OF © SOUTHLAKE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD MEETING: April 23,202 LOCATION: 307 Parkwood, Southlake, Texas Southlake Training Center TIME: 6:30 p.m. SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD PRESENT: Lori Burr, Cicely Nelson, Lauren Green, Janet Theaker, and David Treichler. SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD ABSENT: Will Doby STAFF PRESENT: Cynthia Pfledderer, Deputy Director of Library Services, Rebecca Conkle, Circulation and Volunteer Coordinator. OTHERS PRESENT: None. 1. CALL TO ORDER Lori Burr called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. 2. CONSENT A. APPROVE MINUTES FROM THE REGULAR SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD MEETING HELD March 26, 2025 APPROVED, with grammatical corrections Motion: Nelson Second: Green Ayes: Treichler, Theaker, Burr Nays: None Abstain: None Vote: 5-0 Motion Carried. City of Southlake Values: Integrity ♦ Innovation ♦ Accountability ♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the April 23, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 2 of 5 3. DISCUSSION A. Library Volunteer Program Library Volunteer Coordinator Rebecca Conkle presented to the Library Board an overview of the volunteer program at the library. Library volunteers are critical to the success of the department, and they allow library staff and librarians to devote more time to providing excellent customer service. Volunteers at the library assist with shelving, some processing of library materials, putting together marketing handouts, general housekeeping, and the summer reading program. Strong focus is put towards training for the program to be successful. This includes not only training the volunteer, but the staff in how to properly train and guide the volunteers to be successful in the tasks assigned to them. All library staff are also trained in how to guide them through the scheduling system and what the library's expectations are. One of the biggest projects that volunteers assist with is the Summer Reading Program where volunteers that have shown reliability and good communication skills are asked to serve as ambassadors to the program. These volunteers are the ones that work the closest with our summer reading families and log their participation. The overall goal with the program is to provide an opportunity for community members to give back, and for local high schoolers to earn school credit and learn responsibility. B. Library Notary Service City Librarian Pfledderer addressed to the Board the topic of notary services offered by the library, as well as the city, as a response to their questions last month. The library does between one hundred fifty and two hundred notarial acts annually. The City Secretary's office had already proposed charging notarial fees at $10 per document. If that is approved, the library will also go that route, and if the same numbers are maintained, would generate roughly $1,500 - $2,000 annually. Lori Burr inquired if Board members for the city would need to pay for those services when signing their Board paperwork for their position. Pfledderer assured her that Board members would more than likely not pay to have their official paperwork notarized for their position, as it is city business. C. Non -Resident Cardholders During the previous month's Board meeting, the topic of non-resident library cards came up. The rate went up from $25 to $40 to more correctly reflect the cost per capita for residents. This is higher cost than many libraries in the area, with many not charging at all with proof of Texas residency. Since it has been implemented, the rate of non-resident cards issued is down 63% in volume, and City of Southlake Values: Integrity ♦ Innovation ♦ Accountability ♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the April 23, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 3 of 5 revenue is down 40%. There are a little over 16,003 card holders in the system now. A total of 7% of those are paid non-resident card holders and 5% of cardholders are TexShare card holders that must renew their cards annually at their home library. For TexShare borrowers, if they lose materials and do not pay the lost fees or return the items, the library is able to ask for restitution from the cardholders home library. Overall, we have about 1,800 non-resident cardholders out of 16,000. In looking at the data for the past year, there are 760 active users for non-residents. 50% of those cardholders are non-resident, and the other 50% are TexShare. CISD staff, students, and families, take up 2%. The library offers free library cards to all CISD faculty, staff, and students. City of Southlake staff make up 1.5%. Board asked if we will stick to this price increase. Pfledderer replied it is unlikely the city will be changing this price. Library leadership is working on how this price increase is presented by staff to make it sound like a good investment. D. Budget Discussion There were questions regarding how the library is funded through the city funds. City Librarian Pfledderer presented to the Board where funding comes from for the library, and how the general fund is funded. Southlake property taxes fund approximately half of the City's general fund. In FY2024/25, the general fund totals were $54.4 million, which was 41.6% of the overall operating budget. The city received $0.02 for every dollar spent from the 8.25% sales tax rate for the city, and $0.01 of every dollar spent goes to the city's general fund. She has been tasked with looking at ways to charge fees. She has recommended city leadership to not charge for materials fees for programs, as she believes that it would be better for the library to instead appeal to the community for fundraising for programming. This would allow the community to give joyfully, rather than charging $5 at programs for materials fees. All money received, would go towards the next year's programming budget. The Board asked if the library could utilize QR codes to direct link to fundraising for programming. Cynthia let them know that the city has very specific policies regarding the use of QR codes, and we have not explored the use at this time. The library has also never openly asked the community for funding. She then talked about how other cities utilize a funding technique attached to their utility payments where residents can choose to donate a small amount per month to community initiatives like libraries. That allows citizens to feel that they have a direct impact on their community. Another possibility is to utilize an Amazon wish list for the library. The Board then asked about the possibility of selling tote bags or merchandize as revenue generation. She indicated that the city is likely not interested in going that route. The Friends of the Southlake Library attempted to sell tote bags to raise money, but it was not successful. The Board then asked to the possibility of partnering with Barnes and Noble for a giving day or fundraising. She let them know that the library has City of Southlake Values: Integrity ♦ Innovation ♦ Accountability ♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the April 23, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 4 of 5 partnered with them in the past on book fair initiatives through the company, but that only raised about $130. They also asked if the library could charge for e- audiobooks not owned, but that would violate the accreditation requirements. The library is run on a budget of $255,000, so any significant cuts would have to come from programming budget in order to prevent a reduction for the materials budget. 4. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT City Librarian Pfledderer presented to the Board the statistics for the month of March. Print circulation is still down, but less than February at 8%. Print circulation is at minus 7% for the year, which she does not believe those 10,000 cires will be recovered. Digital circulation is doing well at an increase of 13% for month, 10% for year. The new Aspen catalog is expected to increase that further. Total circulation balances out at minus 3% for year. Library cards issued are up 15% for March, but down 7% for year. Library traffic started out ahead at the start of March but ended 22% down at end of month. Digital traffic is up 31 %. cloudLibrary is up 5% for year. Libby is at an 85% increase for year so far. NewsStand has had a good year so far, but still sluggish. Computer use is down 2%. Staff and IT are discussing the idea of reducing the number of public computers to be more efficient with space and equipment. Study room usage continues to be extremely popular. The integration of the new LibCal system has driven usage. The demand for study space has grown significantly over the last few years. Adult programming is down 4%. Youth down 20%. Story times had good month at 7% increase, but down 7% for the year. Volunteer hours continue to trend up, as well as interlibrary loan. She then brought the Board up to speed about what has been happening with the Institute of Library and Museum Services, and that all staff with that department are on administrative leave at this time. The Texas State Library are funded through IMLS, and if they close, it will affect the resources the library receives through that program. This will affect the ILL program, and library leadership is looking towards other options should that program go away. Lastly, Cynthia and Rebecca gave an update on the increased interest in volunteers aged twelve to thirteen. At this time, the library is not considering lowering minimum volunteer age to twelve due to the critical thinking skills required of volunteers to undertake projects and tasks in the library. 5. LIBRARY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHLAKE UPDATE Board member Burr shared with the Board updates on its involvement with Library Giving Day and thanked each member for displaying yard signs at their homes for the event. The Southlake Foundation raised $6,700, which was more than Dallas, Fort Worth, Denton, etc. The Foundation will do writing camps for the summer like last year but will add a writing camp for adults for the first time. City of Southlake Values: Integrity ♦ Innovation ♦ Accountability ♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the April 23, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 5 of 5 Also encouraged everyone to visit Art in the Square, as the Library Foundation was one of the recipients for the year's event. The Foundation is also bringing in visiting author Alyson Gerber for the summer for three workshops. She is the author of Liars Society. 6. NEW BUSINESS City Librarian Pfledderer asked after any new business. The next meeting will be on June 4th, which is a change from originally scheduled date. She asked Board members to help promote Summer Reading with yard signs and noted the library is still looking for sponsors for the program. Board asked how the library advertised for that. Traditionally, library leadership reaches out to local groups and businesses and then displays sponsor names in marketing. Frost Bank and Smart Quest Academy each donated $1000. _all _R10J &I-.TI7 51 The public forum was opened at 7:45 p.m., and being no public present, it was closed at 7:45 p.m. 8. ADJOURNMENT The next meeting is scheduled for June 4th, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. at the Parkwood Training Center. The meeting was adjourned at 7:46 p.m. Will Doby; Ch� r Cyrbia Pfledderer, City Librarian i City of Southlake Values: Integrity ♦ Innovation ♦ Accountability ♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork