DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

September 14, 2007      

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: MR. MARCEL PULTORAK, Chairperson;

MRS. CANDYCE ABBATT, DR. ALEX SHAMI, MRS. NANCY ZAKAR,

MR. ROBERT TAUB, MR. DAVID SCHLAFF, Commissioners.

MRS. MARYANNE BARTLES, Library Director; MRS. JULIE SCHAEFER, Deputy Library Director; MS. TARA GNAU, MR. STEVE SMITH, Administrative Librarians.

 

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

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

 

3. ELECTION OF OFFICERS

Mr. Pultork stated that this was a deferred item at the June meeting. At the June meeting Mr. Pultorak proposed Dr. Shami as Vice-Chairperson and there was discussion relating to Mrs. Zakar serving temporarily as Secretary Treasurer at least until the time that we have a full Commission appointed.  Dr. Shami and Mrs. Zakar agreed to this.  Mr. Pultorak motioned to nominate Dr. Shami as Vice Chair and Nancy Zakar as temporary Secretary Treasurer, seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.

 

4. INTERNET USE POLICY REVISION

Mr. Pultorak stated that this was also a deferred item from June.  Mr. Pultorak asked if there were any additional comments or concerns from staff and Mrs. Bartles stated there were not. Dr. Shami motioned to accept the Internet Use Policy as revised, seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.   

 

5. ELIMINATION OF PICTURE/PAMPHLET FILE

Mrs. Bartles stated that the Commissioners have a memo in their meeting packet detailing the reasons for eliminating the children’s picture/pamphlet file.  Mr. Pultorak stated that most of that type of thing is available on the Internet now.  Mrs. Schaefer passed around some examples of the type of items in the picture/pamphlet file.  There is a lot of staff time involved in maintaining this file and there is not a lot of circulation.  Mr. Taub motioned to eliminate the children’s picture/pamphlet file, seconded by Mr. Pultorak, all approved. 

 

6. LOAN PERIOD AND LIMIT ON CD-ROMS-

Mrs. Schaefer stated we have decided to purchase more children’s educational

CD-ROMs. In the past we did not have many in our collection. We have a lot of patron requests for this type of material.  At the end of last fiscal year we were able to purchase more CD-ROMs.  In checking the current loan policy we found that

CD-ROMs currently circulate for 28 days and there is no limit on the amount of CD-ROMs that can be checked out.    We are recommending limiting the check out period to 14 days and limiting the number of CD-ROMs that may be checked out at one time to five.  Music CD’s currently circulate for 14 days and these items are a similar format.  The limit of five is similar to the limits we have on other material.  A motion was made by Dr. Shami to limit the check out of CD-ROMs to 14 days and to limit the number of CD-ROMs that may be checked out to five, seconded by Mrs. Zakar, all approved. 

7. FEE FOR BOUNCED CHECKS-

Mrs. Bartles stated that we have never charged a fee for bounced checks.  According to the City Treasurer, other departments charge a fee of $30.  We have been having an increase in the number of bounced checks. A motion was made by Dr. Shami to change our bounced check policy to be in line with what the City Treasurer’s office is charging, seconded by Mrs. Abbatt, all approved. 

 

8. SUGGESTION PORTAL-

Mrs. Bartles stated that we have a suggestion portal on our web site that gives patrons an opportunity to suggest items for us to purchase.  However, the portal was being spammed, publishers were adding things to the portal and the portal was anonymous.  It was becoming too much for staff to manage so a committee made the suggestion to limit the portal to our patrons only by requiring a library card number and PIN in order to enter information into the portal.  We also limited patrons to 20 suggestions every 30 days because we were getting patrons who were making the same requests over and over every day.  This gives staff much better control over it.  A motion was made by Dr. Shami to accept the changes to the suggestion portal including requiring a library card number and PIN as well as limiting the number of suggestions to 20 every 30 days, seconded by Mrs. Zakar, all approved. 

 

9. FOUNDATION UPDATE-

Steve Roberts, the Library Foundation Chair, Mrs. Bartles and Julie Schaefer met with Chris de Bear from Library Design Associates.  He brought in some projected costing on the children’s renovation project at HFCL for us.  The idea is to pick one of the integral items from the design as the portion funded by the Library Foundation.  That can then be used as a tool for fundraising. It is a very intensive use of the space and in order to get some of the more dynamic pieces in place some shelving in the children’s area will be reconfigured so we may have to get the new shelving in place first.  They want to focus on the young child area at the entrance to children’s as the first part of the project. Mrs. Bartles believes that the entire project can be done in phases. The proposal will be presented to the board at the next meeting which is Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007 at 7pm.

 

10. BUDGET-

Mrs. Bartles stated that there is not much going on with the budget right now.  We have not been given the directive to begin work on next years budget as of yet but we know that it is coming soon. We do need to submit our five year technology plan to the CDI Technology Committee which will list the general technology initiatives we are looking at over the next five years.  The first year of the plan is basically items that we already have going, not new items that need to be funded.

 

11. VENDING MACHINES-

The coffee and cold beverage machines have been installed on the mezzanine level at HFCL.   The coffee machine dispenses coffee, hot chocolate, latte and chicken soup.  The cold beverage machine has soda, energy drinks and juices.  The cold beverage machine was broken for a while and was replaced today.  The coffee items are 75 cents and the soda is $1.25.  The energy drinks are more expensive. 

 

 

 

12. WORD PROCESSING REBOOT-

Steve Smith reported that the reboot of computers after each user logs off is going fine.  The next stage is to get word processing installed at the branch libraries.  Mr. Smith hopes to have this done by early October but it will need to go through a testing phase. 

 

13. NEW COMMISSIONERS-

Mrs. Bartles told the Commission that she has submitted two additional names to the Mayor for the Commission vacancies.  He now has four names for the three openings.  All the candidates are excellent candidates.  Mrs. Bartles met with the Mayor and explained why it was important for us to have the Library Commission fully staffed.  He understands and will be reviewing each of the candidates. 

 

14. CLEANING UPDATE-

Mrs. Bartles showed the Library Commissioners before and after pictures of the marble cleaning progress at HFCL.  Mr. Pultorak asked if they were able to clean the penthouse panels.  Mrs. Bartles said that they are about half way done cleaning the panels.  The question Mrs. Bartles is dealing with is whether or not to have sealant applied.  She is worried about what the sealant may do to the coloring of the marble.  We may have them seal one end of the building and see how it looks.  The project manager says that the manufacturer of the sealant has said that there is a slight chance that it may change the color of the building. 

 

15. DOWNLOADABLE AUDIO BOOKS-

Mrs. Bartles explained that we launched this service without a lot of publicity on 09/04/07.  Patrons are able to download audio books, e-books and videos. Some of the material is always available, such as video titles, and some require a hold to be placed.  The good thing is there will not be a huge waiting list for anything because when there are more than four people waiting for a title, they will purchase another copy.  So far we have had 70 checkouts and 33 patrons waiting for titles. Patrons who are waiting for a title will receive an email with a link to click on when the item is available to check out. There are no fines for overdue materials and there is nothing for patrons to keep track of. Some items can be burned to a CD depending on the copyright while other titles are just deleted from the media player or computer when the check out period is over. The service is compatible with MP3 players but not Ipods due to licensing issues. We will start to publicize the service as we have not received complaints so it seems patrons are not having trouble using it. 

 

16. LIBRARY COLUMN-

Mrs. Bartles reported that we have had three columns published so far in the Dearborn papers.  Copies of the columns are included in the Commissioners meeting packets.  The columns have been about our ADA accessibility, the Bookletters service and with students going back to school our most recent column was about student resources available at the libraries.

 

17. HENRY FORD STATUE REDEDICATION-

This has been scheduled for Tuesday, October 9th at 3pm.  Mrs. Bartles passed out invitations to the Commissioners.  Weather permitting it will be held outside near the statue.  The Mayor and Edsel Ford have agreed to be at the rededication however, the Republican debate is scheduled for that same day at the Ford Performing Arts Center.  So far we are going forward with the date.  Mrs. Bartles passed around before and after pictures of the statue work for the Commissioners to see.  You literally could not read the lettering on the back of the statue before it was regilded.  The marble was also pretty beat up and they did a decent job of putting it back together.  There was never a plaque on the statue.  We would like to add one now with the rededication.  The wording of the plaque was discussed.  It was decided to say “Made possible through donations from the citizens of Dearborn, MI, Henry Ford’s hometown. Restored through a grant from the Henry Ford II Foundaton.Rededicated Oct. 9, 2007.  The plaque will be put on a post off to the side of the statue. 

 

18. BANDWIDTH ISSUES-

Mrs. Bartles reported that this issue is going to be problematic for us.  We have limited the number of Internet stations that we have available but because of the type of content our patrons are using the Internet for (i.e. games, streaming video and other types of media) there is a great demand on the bandwidth.  We currently have two T1 lines running from this building.  In March we put monitoring equipment on the lines and at peak times we were exceeding those two T1 lines.  The City proposes throttling back the bandwidth and limiting the bandwidth to certain types of applications such as games.  This will likely cause issues with patrons.  Mr. Pultorak stated that at home you pay a higher fee to have faster Internet service such as cable.  We do not have unlimited resources to provide to the public.  Mr. Pultorak asked if it would be feasible to have a subscription type service available to the patrons who are willing to pay extra for a faster connection.  Mr. Pultorak stated Mrs. Bartles should also talk to other libraries about this because they are likely experiencing similar issues.  Mrs. Bartles stated she was going to a meeting next week with several other library directors and she would try to touch base with them on this issue.  Some of the more affluent suburbs do not have this issue because more of their patrons can afford home computers.  Mr. Pultorak stated that he felt we should continue to provide a level of free Internet service but a limit on high bandwidth applications is reasonable.  

 

19. ANNUAL REPORT-

A copy of the annual report was given to the Commissioners in their meeting packets. 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:15pm.