DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

JANUARY 12, 2007

1. ATTENDANCE

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

MR. ROBERT TAUB, MR. DAVID SCHLAFF, MR. RONALD WATTERS, Commissioners; MRS. MARYANNE BARTLES, Library Director;

MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Deputy Library Director; MS. TARA GNAU, MR. STEVE SMITH, Administrative Librarians; MRS. MARGE ECKERT, AAUW.

EXCUSED: MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT, MRS. DIANE PEPPER; Commissioners.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the December Commission meeting were approved as submitted.

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

Mrs. Zakar stated that the Foundation discussed hiring a part time Library Foundation director rather than a part time office person. The Library Foundation decided to go ahead with $25,000 in bond coverage for foundation board members, employees and volunteers. A board member presented a draft of the Library Foundation gift acceptance policy. The City of Dearborn Finance Department clarified that the Foundation does not have to go through the City procurement process and would not have to give funds back to the City in order to fund the HFCL Children’s upgrade. Mrs. Bartles presented the foundation a list of potential projects and some potential criteria that might disqualify a project. Mr. Schlaff asked if all the Library Commissioners received a copy of the Library Foundation minutes. Mrs. Bryer added him to the list and sent him all the back copies and he found them to be very informative. He thinks the entire Commission should receive a copy. Mrs. Bartles will ask Marge Bryer to add the remaining Library Commissioners who do not currently receive the minutes to her email list.

4. BUDGET AND STAFFING UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that the Librarian II position has been filled and the new supervisor in Adult Services at HFCL is Jim Knapp. He started the new position as of Dec. 26, 2006. He is very customer service oriented. All of our candidates for this position were good so it was hard to make a decision. Jim Knapp’s Librarian I position is now vacant. We did have an existing list of candidates for that position. Bob Rea, who is currently an Assistant Librarian at Bryant Branch but has had his MLS degree for a long time will be promoted to the Librarian I position effective next Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2006. That will leave an Assistant Librarian position at Bryant vacant. This full time position has been eliminated from our budget. To keep Bryant as fully staffed as we are able, we will hire two part time Department Specialist.

Mrs. Bartles reported that the department heads are still presenting their budget reductions at CDI. The Police Department presented at today’s meeting. Housing and the MIS Department will present next week.

5. OLD BUSINESS

1. BY-LAWS REVIEW COMMITTEE-The committee is looking at by laws from other commissions and boards. They will continue to work on this.

2. COFFEE SHOP- Mrs. Bartles reported that she has sent information to the buyer in the Purchasing Department who handles vending machines but she has not heard anything back from her as of yet. Mr. Schlaff asked if the City collected any shared revenue from its current vending machine contract. Mrs. Bartles stated that she would investigate it. Mr. Pultorak discussed partnering with another area library that is also looking to introduce beverage vending service.

3. WORD PROCESSING-Steve Smith reported that we are hoping to launch our word processing service sometime in early February. The memory cards that we will have available to sell to the public are currently on order. He is almost done setting up the computer that we will use to copy the profile to all the other computers.

4. COMPUTER CLASSES- Mrs. Bartles distributed an article from the Dearborn newspaper about the computer classes that the library will be offering. The introduction to the Internet and introduction to email and basic computer classes will be offered for free. We are offering a Microsoft Word class for $10. We have a library page at Snow branch that is a computer science major who speaks Arabic fluently. She has taught computer classes in the past and offered to help with our computer classes. She will teach two computer classes in Arabic.

5. NEW COMMISSIONER- Mrs. Bartles explained that the digital recording device that we use to record the Library Commission meetings was stolen from Carla’s desk. We could not remember what the Commission decided on submitting names for a new Library Commissioner. We also did not have a Mayor Pro Tem until this past Tuesday. We also received an additional name of a potential Commissioner from the staff at Snow Branch. Mrs. Bartles has not pursued that because of the other two names but will if the Commissioners would like her too. We decided to wait till this meeting to reconfirm with the Commission what they would like to do. The Commissioners agreed that they would like to submit both of the current names that we have as potential Library Commissioners to the Mayor Pro Tem and let him decide, though they feel Mr. Kirk is the stronger candidate. Mrs. Bartles stated that we will submit both names and recommend Mr. Kirk.

6. NEW BUSINESS-

1. CAPITAL PROJECT-FIRE STAIR ENCLOSURE –Mrs. Bartles reported that the two fire staircases on the mezzanine level are currently not enclosed, but are open staircases. We will have the stairs enclosed to be fire rated for 1 hour. A phone that will ring direct to fire dispatch will also be but in the room. If a person in a wheelchair was on the mezzanine during a fire they could not use the central stairs or the elevators. This would allow the person to wait in the stair enclosure for the fire department for up to one hour. The contractor hopes to start the work in February.

2. TERRAZZO FLOOR-ROTUNDA – Mrs. Bartles stated that we had the terrazzo floors in the rotunda area cleaned and they came out very nicely. We held off on having the stairs cleaned to see how the floor in the rotunda turned out and it turned out so nicely we will now also have the stairs done as well.

3. MISC. - Mrs. Zakar asked the Library Administration staff to give a volunteer update for the February meeting. Mrs. Gnau stated we have had more interest lately so we will have another volunteer orientation soon. She will give an update at the February meeting.

Mrs. Zakar asked if the library was still putting out a monthly newsletter. Mrs. Bartles stated that we are not. We did a survey of library patrons and most patrons did not know about the newsletter. We also do not have the budget for a newsletter now. Ms. Gnau stated that with CDTV now in the same building we are hoping to do more library segments with them. Mr. Schlaff and Mrs. Zakar feel we should have a regular column about the library in the Dearborn newspapers where we can also solicit for volunteers. Can we talk to the newspapers about this? Mrs. Bartles stated that it would be handled by the City’s Department of Public Information and she will talk to them about it. Mrs. Bartles stated that we need to make sure we can handle the volunteers before advertising. Julie Schaefer reported that we do add articles to the City’s newsletter, The Back Fence.

Mrs. Bartles showed the Commissioners the framed copy of the QSAC certificate.

Julie Schaefer announced the second annual bookmark reception will be held on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007 at 3pm.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:10pm.