DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

MAY 11, 2007

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: MRS. NANCY ZAKAR, Chairperson, MR. MARCEL PULTORAK, Vice-Chairperson; MRS. DIANE PEPPER, Commissioner.  MRS. MARYANNE BARTLES, Library Director; MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Deputy Library Director;

MS. TARA GNAU, MR. STEVE SMITH, Administrative Librarians; MS. MARGE ECKERT, AAUW. Participating by phone: MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT, Commissioner.

EXCUSED: DR. ALEX SHAMI, Secretary-Treasurer; MR. ROBERT TAUB, MR. DAVID SCHLAFF; Commissioners.

 

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

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

 

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that the next Library Foundation meeting is a couple of weeks away on May 22nd at 7pm.  Mrs. Bartles will meet with Steve Roberts next week.  He would like an update from the new design group that the have hired for the Children’s project.  We hope the company will be able to give a presentation to the Foundation Board at the June meeting with some of their design elements so the foundation will be able to get a visual idea of the project. Mrs. Bartles has to attend a budget adoption meeting that day so Julie Schaefer will attend the foundation meeting in her place. 

 

4. BUDGET UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that several City departments have been called to speak to the City Council on various line items in their budgets.  We were not called to speak to the Council.  The City Council did send us some questions on Sunday usage of the library which is a very heavy day for library usage.  They also had questions about the components of our reference collection and how it differs between HFCL and the branches.  The also asked about DVD’s and books on audio tape and whether those collections could be reduced.  Mrs. Bartles explained that we base our purchasing on our circulation statistics.  Mrs. Bartles asked the City Council secretary to advise her if the Council had any further questions or concerns. 

 

5. OLD BUSINESS

  1. By-Laws – Mrs. Zakar advised that the Commissioners have a copy of the newly revised by-laws in their folders.  The by-laws revisions were approved at the last meeting. 
  2. Vending Machines-Mrs. Bartles advised that some progress was made.  The City has an existing contract with a vending machine company.  That company also provides coffee vending machines for the City of Troy.  Mr. Pultorak was kind enough to contact the Assistant City Manager for the City of Troy who put Mr. Pultorak in touch with their purchasing agent who said they are very pleased with the service.  They had the a coffee machine from this company in the Troy City Hall and they just recently added the coffee vending machines to their community center.  They are happy with the service as well as the quality of the product.  Mrs. Bartles reported that she originally thought that we could go with a machine that has its own water supply but that is not going to work.  She spoke with Tom Delage from the Department of Public Works and sent him the specifications on the machine. He says that we will be able to get both water and power to the machine.  Mrs. Bartles plans to compare the RFP that she wrote for coffee vending service to the RFP for the contract the City has with Austin to see if there is anything missing that we want to be in there.  She will then meet with Austin to see if we can piggyback onto the City’s contract.  Mr. Pultorak stated that servicing of the machines is crucial and if they are already in the area to service other machines you have a better chance of good service. 
  3. Word Processing- Steve Smith reported that everything seems to be going well with word processing.  Patrons are using it. We need to make some changes to give patrons more security. We will have the computers reboot after each user. Once we get that worked out we will roll out word processing to the branches. Mr. Pultorak stated we need to change our Internet user policy which states that you can not attach anything to our machines or download from a disk.  Mrs. Bartles stated that we will have this revision for the next Library Commission meeting in June. 
  4. New Commissioners- Mrs. Zakar reported that the Mayor has not yet had time to work on appointing new Commissioners.  Mr. Pultorak stated that he would write a letter to the Mayor and explain that we need to elect officers in June and we can not do that if we do not know who will be on the Commission.
  5. Capital Project Update-Fire Stair Enclosure- Mrs. Bartles reported that the project is completed.  They do need to work on the signage which should be done next week.  We need signs inside the structure so people know what to do.  There is some money left in the project so Mrs. Bartles would like to get some of those “you are here” board’s as well so people can see what the fire route is.  We need to clean out the area of the mezzanine that we have used for storage in the past as well. 
  6. Library Column- Ms. Gnau reported that the first library column is still in the process of being edited and finalized.  We decided to go with Mr. Pultorak's suggestion of “Your Dearborn Library Matters” as the title of the column.
  7. Officers for 2007-2008- Mrs. Bartles reported that at the last meeting Mr. Pultorak was nominated as Chairperson and it was decided to allow him to pick his fellow officers.  In the past former chairpersons would meet as the Executive Committee to nominate the next slate of officers.  Mr. Pultorak stated he would like to seek the guidance and counsel in picking the new slate of officers.  He would like to have a meeting or teleconference before the next meeting with the Executive Committee to discuss this and get their input.  Mrs. Zakar and Mr. Schlaff’s terms are up at the next meeting and they need to be reappointed by the Mayor.  We currently have two vacancies which also need to be filled.  Mr. Pultorak stated that he would write a formal letter to the Mayor regarding this and try to convey a sense of urgency to him.  Mrs. Abbatt stated she would also try to contact the Mayor regarding this and asked the other Commissioners to do this as well if they could.  Mr. Pultorak stated that with the vacancies on the Commission it may be difficult to fill the open officer vacancies.  Mrs. Abbatt suggested we might have an interim vice chairperson until the vacancies are filled. 
  8. Volunteer Luncheon- Ms. Gnau reported that the volunteer luncheon will be held on June 15, 2007 at 12noon at the Dearborn Hills Golf Course.  The young lady who was taking pictures of the meeting earlier is a page at Bryant Branch.  She is a photography student and she has agreed to take the photos that we will use to in the PowerPoint presentation we will show at the luncheon. 

 

6. NEW BUSINESS-

  1. Exterior Marble Cleaning at HFCL- Mrs. Bartles reported that this is the last capital project that Pat Coady got approved before his retirement.  The building is marble and it has yellowed over the years.  The company who will do the work did a test on one marble panel on the southwest corner of the building and you can tell the difference.  Mrs. Bartles invited the Commissioners to take a look at it on their way out. 
  2. Downloadable Audio Books- Mrs. Bartles advised that we have been discussing downloadable audio books for a while.  You can not buy the books but have to go with a company providing the service. The information in the Commissioners packet relates to a program through the Michigan Library Consortium.  It costs $4600 for the first year.  There are currently 17 libraries participating in the program.  The price is based on usage and the number of libraries participating so it should go down over time.  They only allow libraries to join the program once a year.  Downloadable books do not work with IPod’s because of copyright issues. Mrs. Bartles stated she has some money left in the budget this year that she hopes to use for this and this service seems to be an easy way to try out downloadable books and see how they do.  Mrs. Bartles is still gathering information and she hopes to have an entire packet to present to the Commission at the next meeting.  Mr. Pultorak discussed the books available for viewing on the Library of Michigan website.  Mrs. Bartles stated these are public domain books which we have available on our website via the Net Library.  This service is different in that it includes books that are not public domain books and can be downloaded. 
  3. Miscellaneous-

·         Mrs. Bartles reported that we normally get between 70 and 80 thousand dollars in state aid distributed in two checks.  We received one check this year for approximately $38,000 and Mrs. Bartles received an email today stating that we will not be receiving another check until the states budget crisis is resolved.  In the past we used these funds as project money but the Finance Department will be folding this money into our operating budget this year.  

·         Mrs. Bartles reported that WDIV did a Rescue Four spot on libraries about two weeks ago and we were mentioned in the piece.  Mrs. Bartles received a call from a reporter stating that they had observed a young man in a study room at HFCL behaving inappropriately.  They wanted Mrs. Bartles to check our security cameras for the incident.  They ended up having some footage from their own cameras of this incident and they used it in their report.  You can not see anything happening in the footage other than someone in a study room using a laptop. There is no Internet access in the study rooms. Mrs. Abbatt asked if we had heard from City Council or any patrons about the report.  Mrs. Bartles advised that we had not. 

·         Mrs. Bartles advised the Commission that the City has been talking about implementing a dress code for some time now and they have now approved an official dress code.  We are working on incorporating that into our operations.  We are more relaxed than City Hall but we will be implementing some changes such as minimizing blue jeans except for special projects.  We will also prohibit some logo t-shirts. We will allow staff to wear tennis shoes because they are on their feet a lot.  It may take some time to implement this. The Commission felt the changes were not unreasonable requests, staff should not have a problem with these changes and that it presents a better image to the public. 

·         Mrs. Pepper advised the Commission that her husband has accepted a new position in New York and they will be moving out of state.  She will have to resign from the Library Commission.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:10pm.