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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-04-14 MinutesBOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING, Fayetteville Public Library April 14, 1997 Present: Board members: Michael Thomas, Mark Burdette, Maury Roberts, Steve Singleton, Library personnel: Linda Harrison, June Jefferson, David Johnson, Lolly Maxey, Mary Jo Godfrey, Lynaire Hartsell, Melanie Stockdell, ORL Director Karen Duree, and City Administrator Steve Davis. I. Call To Order: Thomas called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm in the meeting room of the Fayetteville Public Library. II. Approval of minutes: Burdette moved to approve the minutes of both meetings in March. Singleton seconded. Roberts asked if there was a policy of criteria of what can go into the display case? Jefferson said, to this point, there has never been a group who wanted to display anything objectionable. Just as with the meeting room, we would not be able to deny any group, but our best recourse is that it is booked up. Johnson said Jefferson has been really good about booking repeat displays year after year. Harrison said if you try to set parameters for the displays, you can be accused of censorship in a public building. So it was decided the policy should remain as it is. Burdette requested that on the last page of the March 24 meeting Trustee's Reports - paragraph A - the last line be changed to a "rate of return" instead of "interest rate". Harrison said the Chaney name did not have an "i" in it and requested that be changed. All voted AYE to approve the minutes of both meetings with the changes discussed. III. Correspondence/clippings: Thomas reminded everyone that the Washington County Library Board meeting has been changed from the ORL office to Springdale at the same time on April 16. Thomas pointed out the memo from Duree dated April 8 in which she showed the many factors which can be taken into consideration for allotment funding of the libraries in the ORL system. Thomas said he felt that we should attend this county meeting. Duree stated that the clipping from the Morning News about the Springdale Board wanting to hire a consultant erroneously suggested she was at the meeting. She said she was not at the meeting, and didn't know anything about hiring a consultant. Harrison noted the article about the roof repairs. She said it has been funded, and is a combined bid with the police department roof. She said the police department would be repaired first, because they are losing computers from leaks in the roof. Johnson asked about the 70 foot gash in the membrane of the library roof mentioned in the article. Davis said that had been fixed. The Board congratulated Jefferson on her presentation at Barnes and Noble. IV. Librarian's Reports A. Statistical and Financial reports: Harrison presented the statistical report. Burdette noted the volunteer hours were down. Jefferson said that was what was reported to her, and there may be people who don't turn in the hours they work. In the financial report, Thomas asked about the utilities. Jefferson and Harrison said that was for two months utilities. Thomas asked what item 4308 Professional Services was. Harrison said it was a Bond that Thomas had bought the year before for the Treasurer. B. Automation: Johnson reported that the bar-coding has begun with the materials that have come back in the drop box. K.T. McCann is teaching the staff how to do this. The ITTC computer training will be wraping up the first week of May. We purchased the Anzio Lite software which will allow our machines to print through ORL's data base. This cost $25.00 a piece and we had to buy 30 copies which came to a total of $750.00. Johnson said he is trying to get a price on a piece of software called Windows NT Back Office which he had thought came with the Windows NT operating system we had purchased. We are running a 90 day free copy to see if we really need this. The ommission of both these pieces of software in the system we bought was a surprise to everyone. Johnson said the largest costs we will see in the future will be materials and supplies such as paper, new patron cards, and overdue slips. Johnson said, at this point, we plan to give a patron 3 free copies from the computer; and $0.10 a page after that. He said the average resume or high school paper is not more than 3 pages, and we don't want to deny access to people because of prohibitive costs. He said he will encourage people to use scrap paper and pencil if just looking up a call number rather than printing out that information. Harrison said we are not in this to make money, however, if we find we are losing a lot of money, we can increase the price of copies. C. Retirement: Jefferson reported she has contacted three groups about anew retirement plan which are (1) Don Bailey, the City Personnel officer, about the plan the City currently has, (2) TIAA-CREF, and (3) Fayetteville Merrill - Lynch. There will be several phases to this project. First, we need to review our plan, and decide if we want to revise it to a more employee -directed plan, and if we want to offer choices of tax-deferred or retirement savings. At present we have a retirement savings or "after-tax" plan. We will have to make these decisions, and draw up a plan. We must then submit this for legal review for both compliance and clarity to Craig Westbrook, the attorney who has worked with both us and the City in the past. We then need to formally request proposals, review them, and then decide on one. We then may have to submit additional papers to the IRS. Jefferson passed out a copy of the plan the City has now for review. Don Bailey has agreed to come and speak to the Board about how the City went about this process, and how the City employees feel about this plan. Jefferson said if anyone has any questions they can call her, and she will complile the questions for Bailey, or just bring them to the meeting. The City's plan is more employee directed, which gives more employee satisfaction. The Board all agreed that the employees should be the ones to decide on the plan. Thomas also said he felt the meeting with Bailey should be a special meeting so as not to be rushed. Jefferson said a hold-up with TIAA-CREF is our status as an exempt or non-exempt organization, part of the City -not part of the City, etc. V. Trustee's/Committee Reports: A. Treasurers Reports: Parsons was ill, so there was no Treasurer's Report. B. Alternative Funding: Maxey reported that the Children's Library has received a grant form the Junior Civic League of $1522.03 for purchasing software to be used in the Children's Multi -Media Room as described in the proposal faxed from Singleton to Maxey. We are going to recognize them with a plaque by the computer. We plan to host a reception with the media present for presentation of all the Junior Civic League grants, including ours. Exhibits Plus has donated a recognition plaque to go on our diaper -changing table. We have gotten an agreement from Stewart Bowles, who is the manager of Charles Schwab, to sponsor the Morning Star Mutual Fund Survey which costs $425.00. AG Edwards is deciding on renewal of Value Line Investment Survey. Hartsell showed a copy of the new logo. Godfrey asked if anything had been done about putting a plaque recognizing the A & P Commission by the cabinets of new census microfilm. Singleton said this had not been done, and needed to be taken care of. He suggested getting together with Godfrey and getting something made for this recognition. C. Long term planning: Roberts said that since his term was just about up, he didn't feel comfortable giving a report on long range planning. D. Volunteers: Burdette reported that the recognition party will be on the 20th. He reported on a meeting with the department heads about the number of volunteer hours not being very consistent. A reason for this may be volunteers not turning in the hours they work. He said there has been some attrition over the years, and we need to work on getting some of these people back. Roberts asked if the library recognized volunteers after a certain amount of time with a pin or something. He said at the VA the volunteers are really conscientious about turning in their hours to get the recognition pin. All agreed this might be a goal to work toward with the volunteers. Jefferson said, at this point, we don't have enough consistency in record keeping to know exactly who has how many hours. VI. Other Business: Steve Davis reported that the exterior renovation is scheduled for bid May 1. VII. Adjournment: Burdette moved to adjourn, Roberts seconded, and all voted AYE. The meeting was adjourned at 5:30. Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Diemente.