DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

Nov. 9, 2007  

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: MR. MARCEL PULTORAK, Chairperson; Dr. Alex Shami,

Vice-Chair, MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT, MR. DAVID SCHLAFF and

MR. ROBERT TAUB, Commissioners. MRS. MARYANNE BARTLES, Library Director;

MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Deputy Library Director; MR. STEVE SMITH, Administrative Librarian.

EXCUSED:  MRS. NANCY ZAKAR, Secretary-Treasurer.

 

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the October Library Commission meeting were approved as submitted.

 

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that the last Library Foundation meeting was October 23rd. Chris DeBear of Library Design came back to talk to the Library Foundation and a decision was reached to go forward with the children’s renovations using the design from Chris DeBear.  With the project given approval Mrs. Bartles met with Chris DeBear, and the Fire Marshall and the Chief Building Inspector for the City about the project.  The biggest concern that they have is that the strobe lights for the fire alarm will be able to be seen from the tree house and we will try to come up with a solution.  Bringing a strobe light into the structure itself would be difficult. The Fire Marshall would also like to the tree house structure to be built with fire rated material so that may raise the cost. Schlaff asked the cost of the project and Mrs. Bartles advised that it would be between $175,000 and $200,000 which is a good portion of the project.  Portions of the project that will be done are the entry portal, the baby corner, the tree house, the design elements on the pillars and on the backside of the entrance to children’s as well as the children’s reference desk.  We will have another meeting with Chris DeBear and the children’s staff on November 20th. 

 

4. BUDGET UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that the personnel portion of next years budget has been received and she is working on that now.  We will request keeping our full and part time staff the same.  However, the City, prior to the election, was looking at reducing staff, so we may be impacted by those reductions.

 

5. INFORMATION ITEMS       

1.   Word Processing-Steve Smith reported that we have added word processing at Bryant.  Our Systems Manager, Mark Hancock, will be gone to a conference in Pittsburg next week.  When he returns he hopes to roll out a new image for the computers and add word processing at Esper. 

2.   New Commissioners-Mrs. Bartles reported that she has not heard anything further.  She will speak to the Mayor again.  Mr. Pultorak stated that he would also speak to the Mayor. 

3.   Thank You letters to Parks and Garden Club-Mr. Pultorak advised the Commissioners that copies of the letters that Dr. Shami asked us to send to the Garden Club and the Parks division of the Department of Public Works are in their meeting packet. 

4.   Passing of Helene Pierce-Mr. Pultorak advised the Commissioners that a copy of the obituary or Helene Pierce was in their meeting packet.  Mrs. Pierce was very active in the community and had been a past President of Friends of the Library-Dearborn for several years. There will be a memorial for her at the Ford Performing Arts Center on November 24th.

 

6. ACTION ITEMS

1.   Non-Resident Usage of Internet-Mrs. Bartles distributed a chart showing the percentage of users of the Internet who are residents and non-residents of Dearborn.  Mrs. Bartles explained that the numbers show that the majority of our Internet users are Dearborn residents. Across the entire system seventy two percent of our Internet log-ins have been by Dearborn residents.  Nineteen percent of Internet log-ins are by non-Dearborn residents which mean that they have an address not in Dearborn though they may have a Dearborn library card through working or going to school in Dearborn.  Mrs. Bartles stated that we project generating about $18,000 this year from the Internet passes that sell for a dollar a day or ten dollars a year.  This revenue pays for our T1 lines from the branches to HFCL and the two T1 lines from HFCL out to the Internet.  We received a letter from a Dearborn resident addressing several concerns, one being the high amount of non-resident Internet usage.  We do have a lot of non-resident usage but it is not as high as people perceive it to be.  Mr. Pultorak asked if Mrs. Bartles could add the number of public access computers at each location to the chart she distributed for our next meeting.  Mrs. Abbatt asked if we were comparable in our fees with other library systems.  Mrs. Bartles stated that most other libraries do not charge for Internet usage but they don’t have the demand that we have. 

 

6. COMMENTS

Library patron John Herman spoke to the Library Commission regarding MEL-CAT and the Library Network.  He asked the Library Commission to reconsider participating in MEL-CAT.  He would like to have the borrowing privileges that MEL-CAT participation would allow.  Mrs. Bartles reported that she recently went to a seminar on MEL-CAT at the MLA conference.  Mrs. Bartles is hesitant to do anything with MEL-CAT until she is certain what our staffing will be next year.  Mrs. Bartles spoke to the Ann Arbor library director in the past about their participation in the program and at the time they were devoting two FTE’s or 80 hours a week to MEL-CAT.  She would also like to talk to some of the libraries currently participating in the program to see what kind of staff time and delivery and data load expense it now requires.  Currently, there are 177 Michigan libraries participating in MEL-CAT, 84 who are beginning soon, 40 who will go into training January through March of 2008 and another 40 libraries that will begin training in the summer of 2008. Mrs. Bartles stated that she would like to continue to research the MEL-CAT service.  Mr. Pultorak stated researching MEL-CAT is fine. However, with the revenue sharing from the state to the City reduced and library aid cut we need to be mindful of costs.  The library is funded by the City of Dearborn and the City is asking for reductions in staff and expenditures.   

Mrs. Bartles distributed a document from the Minneapolis Public Library that is a good example of strategic planning.  Once we get new Commissioners appointed we need to begin working on strategic planning.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 4:30pm.