Loading...
2025-06-04 LB MeetingCITY OF SOUTHLAKE SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD REGULAR MEETING Wednesday, June 4, 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 April 23, 2025, meeting 3. Discussion A. Library Summer Reading Program B. Texas State Library and Archives Commission Funding Future 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,eb YWaWnda was posted on the official bulletin boards at Town Hall, 1400 Main Stre, _ .ut 7ilA*,IrVas, on Friday, May 30, 2025, by 6:00 p.m. pursuant to Chapter 51 of thC- Texxas Governp*t Code. A y hell RNF� City Secretary If you plan to attend this flwir. awding and have a disability that requires special needs, please advise the City Secretary 48 hours in advance at 817.748.8016. Reasonable accommodations will be made to assist you. CITY OF SOUTHLAK.-E SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD MEETING: June 04, 2025 LOCATION: 307 Parkwood, Southlake, Texas Southlake Training Center TIME: 6:30 p.m. SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD PRESENT: Will Doby, Lori Burr, Cicely Nelson, Lauren Green, Janet Theaker, and David Treichler. SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Cynthia Pfledderer, Deputy Director of Library Services, and Stacy Wells, Youth Librarian. OTHERS PRESENT: None. 7. CALL TO ORDER Will Doby called the meeting to order at 6:31 p.m. 2. CONSENT A. APPROVE MINUTES FROM THE REGULAR SOUTHLAKE LIBRARY BOARD MEETING HELD April 23, 2025 APPROVED Motion: Doby Second: Burr Ayes: Green, Nelson, Treichler, and Theaker Nays: None Abstain: None Vote: 6-0 Motion Carried. City of Southlake Values: Integrity♦ Innovation ♦Accountability♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the,tune 04, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 2 of 5 3. DISCUSSION A. Library Summer Reading Program Youth Librarian Stacy Wells presented to the Board an overview of the 2025 Library Summer Reading Program. She opened the presentation by touching on the why's of a reading program by noting the issue of the 'summer slide' experienced by school aged children during the school summer break. She utilizes crrated and targeted book displays to appeal to youth readers. This includes popular books, historical fiction books, and books that have been made into movies. The program also includes experiences. This year, the library invited Liars Society author Alyson Gerber to come do writing workshops for kids, which was available through donations by the Library Foundation of Southlake. To help kids discover new areas of the library, the library staff created Find Elmer the Elephant in the library. He will be hidden in a different area of the youth department each day and kids who find him earn a small treat. Weekly fun scavenger hunts and challenges allow kids to win extra drawing slips for the summer reading prizes. The Library Foundation also generously sponsored a youth writing camp. Family programs will be offered, including Harry Potter Trivia, Family Bingo, Family Science Night, and a Family Magic Show. New this year there are more teen and tween workshops, to better suit the changing population dynamics of Southlake. Wells then presented how the library team works to plan for summer reading. The library also relies on the assistance of summer reading volunteers, who put in the time to engage with library customers and build that peer-to-peer relationships with the library youth. The Summer Reading sponsors are Frost, Smart Quest Academy,'and the Windsor Creek Book Club, and the partners this year are Friends of the Southlake Library and the Library Foundation of Southlake. Donations for the program exceed $13,000, which supports the many activities for youth. Registration for Summer Reading topped 1,300 at ten days into the program. Lori Burr asked if they had an estimate on how many signups they expect for the summer. Wells and Pfledderer noted that past-covid they usually expect around 2100-2300 signups for the summer. The Board also asked if the teens and tweens programming this year is new, and it is. Wells noted that that age range is a difficult population to get to come to programs. They asked about registration for the general assembly programs, but the librarians noted that a high registration no-show rate can be a problem in the registration process, causing people to be turned away who could have attended. Wells also let the Board know that as part of her initiative to really engage with the community, two City of Southlake Values: Integrity♦ Innovation♦Accountability♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the June 04, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 3 of 5 CISD student groups will be coming this summer to provide art and STEM programs on Saturday mornings. B. Texas State Library and Archives Commission Funding Future City Librarian Pfledderer addressed to the Board the future of TexShare which is funded through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, which has lost a lot of funding due to the closing of the Institute of Library and Museum Services. TSLAC has reported they will maintain Udemy and Job and Career Accelerator, but the legal forms database will go away. They'll focus on the highest demanded Gale Resources, which includes Udemy. The library will continue to provide EBSCOhost databases on its own. The bigger impact will likely be to the Interlibrary Loan program, but it is not known yet what that will look like. Pfledderer is looking at the possibility subscribing to the OCLC for that service, which ranges between $1200-$1500 to annually. The other impact will be the grants, which may be going away. The library has used the TSLAC grants in the past for new initiatives such as the lockers at Champions Club. 4. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT City Librarian Pfledderer presented to the Board the statistics for the month of April. She noted the 26% increase in circulation compared to last year, but this is due to a failure of the automatic renewal process for the library that happened in April of 2024. Unfortunately, print circulation is still on the decline. Digital is still on the increase at 10% for the month, as well as for the year, which balances the print decline for a flat percentage change in circulation for the year. The librarians are using this data, especially that of the changing population demographics of Southlake, to plan for the next year. This might mean a switch to more hands-on workshops, with the caveat that less people will be able to attend and will cost more. They are also looking at reducing the amount of picture books purchased, and more middle grade and teen books selected instead to better match the community demographic. She noted that this situation is not unique to Southlake. Library cards are down 7%. Library traffic data is an estimate, due to an interruption in data collection for the library people counter. Digital traffic is increasing 27%, which is consistent with growth of cloudLibrary and Libby. cloudLibrary is up 2% for the month and for 4% the year. Libby is growing in population, and the library is meeting with that consortium, as Southlake is one of the largest consumers for the digital collections for both consortiums. There will be a rise in consortium costs to meet the increased demand. NewsStand is up for the month, but down 14% for the year. Other digital services are down 5%. City of Southlake Values: Integrity♦ Innovation ♦Accountability♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the June 04, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 4 of 5 Computer use was down for the year, but there is a large amount of people using the library for the workspaces, as well as the study rooms. Programming is down 16% across the board. The library has had to decrease promotion for the online speaker series due to complaints received on a few controversial speakers. This dramatically dropped the participation in this program. With that in mind, the goal is to select the most popular authors to highlight to the community. Volunteer hours are up 1%. Interlibrary loans are up 12%, even with ILL librarian Laura Byars buying many of the titles requested for the library. Board member Burr totaled up the costs of the interlibrary loan program and asked if it is financially worth it to the library to stay in the program. Pfledderer let her know that the interlibrary loan program saves the library an estimated $4,000 per year. Doby asked how many communities participate in the program. She replied that because the interlibrary loan program is through the Texas State Library and it is part of the public library accreditation, likely everyone uses it. Burr asked about other digital usage and what that entails. Pfledderer let her know it is anything that is not the digital libraries. 5. LIBRARY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHLAKE UPDATE Board member Burr shared with the Board updates about the care packages that they put together for local teens going through finals. The junior writing camps are happening that week, and.they are full, and the kids seem to be really enjoying them. The Foundation was a recipient of funds raised by the Southlake Women's Club Art in the Square and received $5,000. Alyson Gerber is coming to the library to put on workshops for community youth. 6. NEW BUSINESS City Librarian Pfledderer asked after any new business. Janet Theaker asked that the Board recognize and make a motion that the Board congratulate Library Communication Coordinator Andrew Burnett for getting the Spirit of Southlake Award during employee recognition week. Andrew had received multiple nominations throughout several City departments for his dedication to the City. Pfledderer noted all the tremendous work that he has done for the library during the summer season, and the excellent communication style he has. Doby motioned to approve, and Treichler seconded the motion. Lauren asked about the SPIN program from the City, and how it would bring in speakers to the community. Pfledderer let her know that program brought speakers about city news and initiatives. Green was more hoping that there could be a program more like a community forum to come together to workshop on community needs that the library, or the City, could provide. Green also asked about the demographic of older adults in Southlake, and if the library would be going the direction of adult programs, and older adult programs. The adult programs are always at City of Southlake Values: integrity♦ Innovation ♦Accountability♦ Commitment to Excellence ♦ Teamwork Minutes of the June 04, 2025, Southlake Library Board Meeting Page 5 of 5 capacity. She brought up the Silver Frogs program at TCU, where senior participants are allowed to act as adjuncts to teach short classes on their specialties. She then suggested that senior Southlake residents could volunteer at the library to be community instructors. Green also asked if we would ever do digital programs where a presenter could present a class via zoom. Pfledderer let her know that the library has tried it and historically had low attendance with that format. Lastly, she asked if the library would be interested in delivering books to seniors like Grapevine Library does via volunteers. Pfledderer let her know that the library does have a relationship with two senior living facilities, where books are set aside for them each week for a volunteer from their facility to come pick up for the residents. 7. PUBLIC FORUM The public forum was opened at 7.36 p.m., and being no public present, it was closed at 7:36 p.m. 8. ADJOURNMENT The next meeting is scheduled for August 27th, 2025, at 6.30 p.m. at the Parkwood Training Center. The meeting was adjourned at 7:39 p.m. ll y,Vr - WW Cyn is Pfledderer, City Librarian City of Southlake Values: Integrity Innovation ♦Accountability♦ Commitment to Excellence♦ Teamwork