DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

02-10-06

1. ATTENDANCE:

In attendance were: MRS. NANCY ZAKAR, Chairperson, MR. MARCEL PULTORAK, Vice-Chairperson; DR. ALEX SHAMI, Secretary-Treasurer; MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT,

MR. ROBERT TAUB, MRS. DIANE PEPPER, MR. DAVID SCHLAFF, Commissioners;

DR. PATRICK COADY, Library Director, MARYANNE BARTLES, Assistant Library Director, MS. TARA GNAU, MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Administrative Librarians.

EXCUSED: MR. RONALD WATTERS, Commissioner;

ABSENT. MRS. SYLVIA PRESSMAN, Commissioner.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

The minutes from the January Commission meeting were approved as submitted.

3. BUDGET UPDATE-CAPITAL AND OPERATING:

Dr. Coady reported that the library has submitted its budget. It will be some time before we will know how the budget will fare. Dr. Coady discussed the handout given to the Commission which shows the increase in personnel costs the library is facing even though we have had reductions in staff. All of the increase in costs comes from increases in employee benefit costs particularly health care costs and pension costs. Mr. Pultorak, who used to serve on the Pension Board for the City, discussed increases in pension funding and health care costs. Mrs. Zakar asked if further library staff positions will be reduced. Dr. Coady stated that he expects to have to do further staff reductions. The City is looking for a reduction of 70 staff members and although the City is hoping that the majority of eliminations would come from retirements that may not be possible. Public safety will not be reducing their staff at all due to recent charter amendments and their staff costs amount to fifty percent of the budget so the cuts will have to come from other departments entirely. Mr. Pultorak asked if any library staff who are eligible for early retirements will take them. Dr. Coady stated that he was asked to poll the staff and no one said they were planning to take the early retirement. Dr. Coady stated that he called the majority of Commissioners that he could reach when he was asked to submit a proposal of reduction to City Administration. He would like to thank the Commissioners for their suggestions. The proposal that was submitted was to maintain branch hours as they are now but to change all branch locations to entirely part time staff and a branch manager who would be the supervisor of the part time staff. The Internet would be available as self service. He felt this was the best way to maintain branch service. Any further reduction in branch hours will cause the public to avoid the branches because they can not be sure when they will be open. If the submitted proposal were done it would mean a reduction of nine full time positions. He has not heard anything back from City Administration regarding this proposal. Over time he has had to give the City two complete close down scenarios so he does not know what will happen. Mrs. Abbatt asked Dr. Coady when he would know if the City plans to make these library reductions. Dr. Coady stated he believes they are hoping to have the budget process complete by the end of April. He expects to be called by the City Council and any Commissioners who wish to attend may do so. He will advise the Commissioners if that happens. Dr. Coady will be gone on vacation from March 3^rd to the 13^th.

Dr. Coady also stated that the capital projects sheet from the last meeting was reordered in date order as the Commission requested.

4. VOLUNTEER UPDATE:

Mrs. Zakar stated she asked for this to be put on the agenda because she wanted to be advised of how things were going with the volunteer program and with the volunteer group at Bryant. Tara Gnau handed out a report about the volunteer program. Ms. Gnau stated that the Bryant volunteer program is still active and going well. The Bryant volunteers are wonderful; they do shelving of materials and processing new paperbacks. They processed 484 paperbacks in December and 438 in January. They can not replace full or part time staff as they do not have access to patron records. There were 103 volunteer slots open at Bryant and 83 were filled. Ms. Gnau discussed community service volunteers, whether court ordered or students, and the tremendous amount of requests we get for these types of volunteer positions. We are not able to accommodate all of these requests. Mrs. Zakar asked who was coordinating the program. Ms. Gnau stated that Toni Tront is still coordinating the program. Toni Tront organized an enrichment field trip to the Arab American Museum in October of 2005. Mrs. Abbatt asked if we could use students requesting community service to fill the open positions at Bryant. Ms. Gnau stated that students usually request nights and weekends and with the branches only open two nights a week it does not work out very well. Also, the time slots open at Bryant are mostly during the day. Currently, there are about 20 volunteers at Bryant, 5 at HFCL and 3 at Snow. Esper is not currently using any volunteers. Mrs. Abbatt asked how the number of current volunteers compares to last year. Ms. Gnau stated that it is just about the same as last year. Mrs. Abbatt asked if we have gotten any feedback from the volunteers. Ms. Gnau stated that we have not done a formal survey but could certainly do so. Dr. Coady stated we would do a volunteer survey and asked Mrs. Abbatt if there were any particular questions she would like us to ask them. Mrs. Abbatt stated she would just like to get their input. They are doing a wonderful service and we certainly want to keep them happy so we should get some feedback from them. Dr. Coady stated we are currently looking at ways of recognizing volunteers. We will do a survey but we are currently very busy with the change over to Horizon. We will try to get survey results to the Commission by the April meeting. Dr. Shami stated that at Wayne County Community College there are a large number of work study students available. He asked Dr. Coady to check with Henry Ford Community College to see if we may be able to use their work study students. Dr. Coady stated he would call and check on this.

5. GUIDANCE FOR ADMINISTRATION DOCUMENT:

Mrs. Zakar stated that this relates to our strategic planning pyramid document. When that document was originally presented there was a lot of discussion regarding level four which related to longer term goals. Dr. Coady has renamed this area of the pyramid document as “Guidelines for Administration” and would like to get feedback from the Commission on this portion of the document. Mrs. Abbatt motioned to approve the changes to the document, seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.

6. RECOMMEND CHANGING PATRON CARD REGISTRATION FROM 2 YEAR TO 3 YEAR BASED ON STATE REPORT DEFINITION:

Mrs. Bartles stated that in completing the state aid report that they must do every year she noticed that the state has moved to a three year patron card registration and is recommending that time frame as the standard. A card that has been used with in a three year period is considered an active card. Mr. Pultorak stated that he felt that two years is a better standard to use. Mrs. Bartles stated that she agrees but when compared to other libraries using a three year standard we look bad. Using a two year standard we have close to 30,000 active borrowers and changing to a three year standard would bring us closer to 40,000. Mr. Taub motioned to change to a three year standard, seconded by Dr. Shami, all approved.

7. LEGAL OPINION ON TRANSER OF “J” FUNDS TO LIBRARY FOUNDATION:

Dr. Coady stated that he had asked the Legal Department to look at the transfer of funds to the Foundation and they advised that we are not able to move the funds to the Foundation according to state law. Dr. Coady is not sure yet how the foundation will want to proceed. The next foundation meeting is March 20, 2006 and Dr. Coady will advise them then on the Legal Department advice and what their options are. They may choose to set up a service agreement with the City or they may not. About $85,000 of the funds is broadly labeled for use on public education. We now have a pro bono accountant working with the Foundation. All donations of funds or goods given directly to the foundation must be recorded and tracked.

8. MEETING ATTENDANCE:

Mrs. Zakar stated that this item was on the agenda a few meetings ago but we did not have a quorum at that meeting so we never got to discuss it with the majority of the Commission present. We have been having a problem getting a quorum at meetings and some Commissioners felt that the meeting time might be the problem. The Commission discussed whether the current meeting time of the second Friday of the month at 4pm was the best time for everyone or if there was a better day. Dr. Coady stated that when we were having a problem with a quorum many of the Commissioners were out of town. Mr. Schlaff stated that a morning meeting was better for him. However, other Commissioners could not meet in the morning. It was decided to table this item for now and to continue to monitor the situation of Commissioner attendance.

9. NEW BUSINESS:

Mrs. Abbatt stated that we have not talked about fines in a long time and she felt that it may be time to revisit it again. Dr. Coady stated that we could do a survey and see if we are lagging behind in fines compared to other libraries. We try to stay in the middle of pack as far as the fines we charge. Mrs. Bartles stated that we have done a survey on fines fairly recently. Mrs. Schaefer stated that a survey was done of other libraries when we considered the change to the number of items that may be checked out and the number of times an item may be renewed and fines were also included in that survey. Mrs. Abbatt requested to see the survey on fines. Mrs. Abbatt stated that she is not sure how many Commissioners realize that fines collected do not go directly to the library but go to the City. Dr. Coady stated that the Finance Department would explain it as your revenue goes against next years budget.

Library patron Mary Sandra Weiss addressed the Commission. She asked if the Charter Commission would approach Commissions such as the Library Commission to request information or have they been asked for any input. Dr. Coady stated that the Library Commission exists based on the City Charter. It is his understanding that the Charter Commission is reviewing the charter line by line so they will have to address the Library and the Library Commission as it relates to the charter at some point but have not done so yet.

The other question that is posed by this is whether there is anything that the Library Commission would like to see changed as it relates to the library within the charter. Mr. Pultorak stated that at the current time the library is a charter department rather than an ordinance department. You are more likely to continue to exist as a department mandated by the charter than as one that exists due to an ordinance as the City Council can repeal an ordinance when they see fit to do so.

Library patron Glen Okray spoke to the Commission. He encouraged the Commissioners to allow the Bryant Library to be used as a welcome center. He felt that having the welcome center there during the Superbowl was very positive for the Bryant Library. He also asked for a description of the process for replacing Dr. Coady when he retires if that has been established. Mrs. Zakar stated that we do have a committee of the Commission formed for the search but have not established the process yet. Mr. Okray stated that he thought that the City Charter revisions were very important for citizens to pay attention to particularly the public safety funding comprising 50% of the budget.

Mrs. Schaefer announced that this coming Sunday, Feb. 12 at 3pm in the rotunda area at HFCL there will be the first annual bookmark reception and award ceremony. Every year we have a bookmark design contest and we have for over 25 years. We print up the winning bookmarks and hand them out at the libraries. This year the children’s librarians redesigned the contest. We will have 10 winners and we will have an award ceremony which we did not do in the past. We have refreshments donated by Iverson’s Bakery. We will display all of the entries in the rotunda area at HFCL through the end of February.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:25PM.