DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

March 14, 2008     

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: Mr. Marcel Pultorak, Chairperson, Mrs. Nancy Zakar, Secretary-Treasurer, Mrs. Candyce Abbatt, Commissioner. Mrs. Maryanne Bartles, Library Director; Mrs. Julie Schaefer, Deputy Library Director; Ms. Tara Gnau and

Mr. Steve Smith, Administrative Librarians. EXCUSED: Mr. Robert Taub and Mr. David Schlaff, Commissioners. ABSENT:  Dr. Alex Shami, Vice-Chairperson

 

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the February Library Commission meeting were not approved due to lack of a quorum.

 

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

Mr. Pultorak stated that the Commissioners received an updated Library Foundation contact list, a copy of the January 2008 minutes of the Library Foundation and a Foundation financial reconciliation as of January 31, 2008, before they received their second payment from the Owen Trust.  Mrs. Bartles reported that we have displayed a poster of the children’s upgrade project in the rotunda at HFCL.  Hopefully, that may bring in some donations for the Foundation even though their website is not up and running yet.  Mrs. Bartles encouraged Carolyn Hook to work with the Foundation as a volunteer to help them with their website.  Mrs. Bartles met with Ms. Hook yesterday.  Mrs. Bartles gave the Commissioners the link to the Foundation’s website, but the site still needs work.  Mrs. Abbatt stated that Steve Roberts emailed her and Mrs. Zakar for assistance in finding new Library Foundation Board members. The next Library Foundation meeting is April 1st at 6pm. 

 

4. BUDGET UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that we have been asked on three occasions to make cuts to the budget that we submitted last fall.  Mrs. Bartles has cut about $40,000 from our originally submitted $413,000 operating budget. The library materials budget is separate from this amount as it is capital.  We cut out the planned renovation of the computer training room, cut some of the funds allocated to staff training and changed our plans to replace some shelving with tilt out shelves to reduce the operating budget. The budget will be submitted to City Council on April 15th. 

 

5. INFORMATION ITEMS       

1.   Monthly Statistics-Review:  Mrs. Bartles explained that she wanted to provide the Commission with statistics that show a snapshot of all the services that we provide.  The monthly circulation statistics that the Commission normally receives are only one component of what we do.  The statistics on the Internet Logons shows that there were a total of 13,687 public Internet log on's in February 2008. HFCL and Esper have the heaviest public computer usage.  The web page statistics show that our web content is heavily used as well.  The number of visiting/outside users to our web page in January 2008 was 38,618. There was discussion relating to our online reference sources, the different types of databases available, and their usage statistics.  Some databases we pay for and some are provided to us by the Library of Michigan.  The State negotiates these contracts every three years which means the databases do not always stay the same.  Mr. Pultorak stated that he did not think a lot of people were aware of the online resources available through our web page.  Mrs. Schaefer stated that the Reference Committee has some plans to publicize the databases available.  Mrs. Bartles also went over the age/gender report.  The first page of the report is the age and gender of active library card holders.  The second page is the age and gender of active borrowers.  Women outnumber men in both categories.  The numbers in this report change very little.  Mrs. Bartles handed out a report on circulation by collection, borrower type and subject for a three month period to the Commissioners.  She stated that she would be happy to present this data to the Commission annually but the amount of work involved in preparing this report from over 150 pages of data is immense. These numbers also don’t fluctuate very much on a monthly basis.  Mrs. Abbatt stated that this report would be very good as orientation information for new Library Commissioners.   Mr. Pultorak asked if the Commissioners who did not attend today’s meeting could be mailed a packet of the statistics presented.

2.   Children’s Upgrade-April 2008: Julie Schaefer reported that we a very close to beginning the children’s upgrade project at HFCL. The plan is to empty all the shelves of the children’s material in mid-April.  We are planning to empty the shelves on Friday, April 11th in preparation for Monday, April 14th when the shelves will be dismantled. Materials for the work will then begin arriving over a two to three week period during which we will probably have to close off the children’s area to the public entirely. We will be using fire treated board for some of the features being installed. CDTV will do three segments on the children’s renovation.  We will also take some before and after pictures to post on our web page. There was discussion relating to an open house for the public when the project is completed.   

3.   Claims Returned clean up:  Mrs. Bartles explained that we are investigating the rules for claimed returned material and we may be coming to the Commission with changes to the policy.  We currently allow borrowers to have three claims returned on their record.  However, the bibliographic file stays in our catalog and people searching the catalog can see these items even though they may not be available.  In our old computer system, Dynix, we could delete claims returned items from the catalog and it would still show up on the patron record.  However, in our current system Horizon, if you delete the bibliographic file from the catalog it deletes the item from the patron record.  We are trying to alleviate this problem using the hide function in Horizon but we are not sure that it works correctly.  If it does not work correctly we may come back to the Library Commission to look for another solution. 

4.   Interconnections-IMLS National Study of the use of Libraries:  Mrs. Bartles shared this summary report with the Commission. It shows that Internet use correlates positively in increased visits to libraries. 

 

6. ACTION ITEMS

There were no action items.

 

 7. COMMENTS

Mrs. Bartles gave the Commissioners a copy of the letter that she received from the Dearborn Heights library director regarding the possibility of combining services.  Mrs. Bartles stated that the Mayor and City Council would have to be involved in a decision such as this one.  Mrs. Bartles stated she asked the Dearborn Heights library director the size of their collection and it is about 150,000 items.  Our collection is over 300,000. Our active borrowers are about 40,000 and their active borrowers are about 19,000.  They do have books in their collection that we do not have.  Mrs. Bartles believes that their budget comes from a dedicated millage. They have two library locations.  Mr. Pultorak stated that we should look at this longer term. At this time we should take their proposal under consideration and investigate how one system would complement the other.

 

Mrs. Bartles advised the Commission of the Welcome Home Dearborn kick off breakfast that took place at the Performing Arts Center and the posters that we have in the library.  The website is www.welcome homedearborn.com if the Commissioners would like to check it out.  

 

There will be a four county open house event called the Big Open House on Sunday, April 27th.  The Dearborn Board of Realtors wants to have 300 open houses on that day.  There will be an open house from 10am-5pm* at the Performing Arts Center that day as well to let prospective buyers know about Dearborn and we have been asked to have a booth there, letting people know about our services.  (*Time has been changed to 12 to 5pm).

 

Mrs. Bartles reported that Tara Gnau contacted the Arab American News and they have agreed to publish our events in their community calendar. 

 

Mrs. Bartles also showed the Commission the coffee talk newspaper featuring Library Commission chairperson Marcel Pultorak’s picture and the article about the computer classes we are offering. 

 

Mrs. Bartles stated that we are planning to make some upgrades to our auditorium including the speakers and sound system, projection booth and widening the stage. 

 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 5:20pm