DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF
LIBRARIES
LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING
1.
ATTENDANCE:
In attendance were: MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT, Chairperson;
MRS. NANCY ZAKAR, Vice-Chairperson; MR. ROBERT TAUB, MR. DAVE SCHLAFF,
MR. MARCEL PULTORAK, MR. RONALD WATTERS, Commissioners;
MS. TARA GNAU and MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Administrative
Librarians; MRS.CARLA EGGERT, Recording Secretary; MS. OPAL ZIEMER, AAUW.
Excused: DR.
PATRICK COADY, City Librarian, MS. LILA AMEN,
MS. SYLVIA PRESSMAN, Commissioners. Absent: DR. ALEX SHAMI,
Secretary-Treasurer.
2.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
The minutes for the June, September and October
meetings were submitted as approved.
3. CONTRACTORS
WORKING IN HFCL:
MRS. BARTLES gave a summary
and update of the work being done at HFCL.
The parking lot is completed. The
only work left to be done is the fencing in of the Police Department parking
lot next door. There are also still some
problems with the lights in the parking lot and MTI Lighting is working on
that. The fire alarm work is
continuing at HFCL. Their work should be
completed sometime in early December. As
far as the elevator renovations at HFCL go one car has been completed and they
are working on the second car now. The
elevator company is projecting that they should be done with the second car
sometime in January. The contractor
doing the work on the wiring II project at HFCL has begun working in the
building. They are adding electrical
lines, data lines and plugs. They will
also be adding conduit for lighting the reflecting pool in the rotunda area at
HFCL and the
Mr. Pultorak asked if there
was any progress on repair of the canopy at the rear entrance to Henry Ford
Centennial Library. Mrs. Bartles stated
that the work will be done by City employees not outside contractors. Mrs. Bartles
understood that once the Department of Public Works finishes the work involved
in removing a concrete bridge from City Hall they will begin work on the
canopy. The canopy will be cut back to
the edge of the sidewalk.
4. ENVISIONWARE
AND ITS OPTIONS:
Mrs. Bartles stated that
Dr. Coady had gone over Envisonware briefly at the last meeting. Right now we have a contract with a company
for our network printing and our public copiers. It is a lease type of contract. They provide service and supplies and handle
counting and depositing money. We have
to pay the company for service and because we do not have a high enough volume
of copying it ends up being expensive for us to offer public copier
service. We have been investigating
different options in order to find a plan that will at least pay for itself
when this contract expires. The public
Internet computers require management in order to be used effectively. What we are currently using was developed in
house by Steve Smith. It worked really well
when we had fewer computers but now that we have added computers it is not as
effective. Dynix has software will both
manage our network printing and it will manage time on the Internet
computers. Patrons would use their
library cards to log on to the computer and the software would track their
time. Mr. Pultorak asked what the cost
of the software was. Mrs. Bartles stated
that it is approximately $35,000. What
is important about this software is that it interfaces with Dynix and ties into
the patron database. It easily ties into
the patron records that currently exist for library cardholders. The problem occurs for those Internet users
who are not library card holders. The
software requires that each person sign on using their library card number in
order to use the Internet computers.
Mrs. Bartles has developed an Internet User card for this reason.
We want to recover the cost
of this card and the time to enter the information into the database. We feel that a good cost for the non-resident
Internet card would be $1. This would be
a policy change for us. This will be a
multi-step process and Mrs. Bartles would like authorization for the Commission
to go forward. Mr. Pultorak asked if the
$35,000 also includes the necessary funds for the bar code readers that will be
attached to the Internet stations to read the Internet cards. Mrs. Bartles stated that the $35,000 is the
cost of the software only. Mrs. Bartles
is currently putting together a package for Finance which will detail all the costs
including paper, the bar code readers, the change machines and maintenance. The
projections that Mrs. Bartles has done show a break even point of five
years. There are a lot of up front
costs. Mr. Pultorak asked if Mrs.
Bartles knew what the volume of copies is.
Mrs. Bartles stated approximately 80,000 to 90,000 copies per year. He is curious because if the volume is low
maybe we need to look at other options.
Mr. Watters asked if we were planning to purchase all of the necessary
hardware. Mrs. Bartles stated that we
are proposing purchasing all of the necessary hardware. Mr. Pultorak made a motion to go forward with
pricing out the proposal and studying it but he would like to see what the
whole thing looks like before giving full approval. Mrs. Bartels stated that the reason she is
proposing the Internet card now is that she does not want to have every non
resident Internet user to show up for a card on the day the new system goes
live. She would rather start that
process a least a month in advance in order to make it easier on staff.
Mr. Pultorak stated that he
does not think that we will be able to implement the new system by January
given the need for everything to go through the cities procurement
process. He also asked what the expiration
would be on the Internet cards. Mrs.
Bartles stated a year just like the regular library cards. Mr. Pultorak stated he is not sure if we
should go with a year because we will be facing even more budget constraints
going forward especially since the amendment to the City charter regarding
police staffing passed and the City will be required to hire 24 more police
officers which will cost the City a lot more money without additional
revenue. There is also the concern if
the computers end up being tied up by non residents. Mrs. Bartles stated that this is what the
software will prevent from happening as it can manage the time each user has
spent on the computer and when we have people waiting it will determine who has
been on the longest with little staff intervention. Mr. Schlaff asked if the current vendor would
be likely to agree to a month to month contract if we do not have the new
system implemented when the old contract expires. Mrs. Bartles stated that the current vendor
has been very easy to work with and she feels he would be willing to work with
us until we make the change. Mr. Schlaff
made a motion to support the issuing of the non resident Internet users card,
seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.
5. ALIGNING
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY HOURS:
Mrs. Schaefer explained that in the past we would start our Saturday
hours after Labor Day weekend. A few
weeks would go by and then in October we would add our Sunday hours. At the beginning of the summer we would end
our Sunday hours the weekend before Memorial Day and then end our Saturday
hours the next weekend. This was
confusing to patrons. We decided it
would be much clearer to start and end our weekend hours at the same time which
is what we did this year. The weekend
before Memorial weekend we will end our weekend hours. We feel this will be easier to explain to the
public and to include on our publicity materials. Mrs. Abbatt asked how this would effect
weekend hours overall. Mrs. Bartles
stated that the only day that will be affected is the Saturday of Memorial
weekend. Under this new proposal we will
not be open that Saturday. Mr. Taub
motioned to approve the realignment of weekend hours, seconded by Mr. Pultorak,
all approved.
6. ELECTION
OF OFFICERS:
Mr. Taub stated the he and Mrs. Pressman, as the
Nominating Committee, have discussed the election of new officers. They feel it is important to continue to
support the development of the foundation to support the library and Mrs. Zakar
has been involved with that from the beginning.
Also, Mr. Pultorak has been very involved in meeting with the City and
in working through our budget reductions.
Mr. Taub motioned to nominate Mrs. Zakar as Chairperson, Mr. Pultorak as
Vice-Chairperson and Dr. Shami as Secretary-Treasurer, seconded by Mr. Schlaff,
all approved. Mrs. Zakar thanked Mrs.
Abbatt for her all her work as Chairperson.
7. JOB
TITLES CHANGES:
Dr. Coady would like to change the job titles of City
Librarian and Assistant City Librarian to Library Director and Deputy Library Director. Mrs. Bartles stated that Dr. Coady is
requesting the change in job titles in order to be in line with what other
libraries are doing and to make the job titles clearer. This is a multi-step process involving
approval by the Library Commission, Civil Service Commission, Mayor and City
Council. Mr. Pultorak
moved to accept the job title changes, seconded by Mr. Watters, all
approved.
8. NEW
BUSINESS:
Opal Ziemer reported that
the Friends of the Library Used Book Sale generated approximately $2200 last
month.
Ms. Sandy Weiss spoke to the Library Commission. She stated that she is a volunteer at
Bryant. The program is working
well. The volunteers are showing up on a
regular basis. She feels that the
program has proved itself to be a good idea.
The volunteers are looking forward to the December meetings to discuss
the program. She thanks the Commission
for agreeing to give the volunteer program a shot.
Mrs. Gnau stated that the meetings with the Bryant
volunteers are scheduled for Dec. 2 and Dec. 4 at the Bryant Branch.
The meeting was adjourned at