DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: Mr. Marcel Pultorak, Chairperson; Dr. Alex Shami, Vice-Chairperson;

Mrs. Nancy Zakar, Secretary-Treasurer; Mr. Robert Taub, Mrs. Candyce Abbatt and

Mrs. Jihan Jawad, Commissioners; Mrs. Maryanne Bartles, Library Director;

Mrs. Julie Schaefer, Deputy Library Director; Mr. Steve Smith, Administrative Librarian. Excused: Mr. David Schlaff, Commissioner.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the June 2008 Library Commission meeting were approved as submitted.

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that the Foundation is beginning to create some publicity brochures that can be mailed or handed out to people. Also, their website is completely up and running and they are continuing to get new members. Pam Lovell, Anina Bachrach, and

Maggie O’Sullivan, have joined the board and they will be getting another new member, who sent the Foundation a letter responding to their website request asking for volunteers. The person has a marketing background and has experience working with nonprofit organizations and is looking for volunteer work. The Foundation will be asking her to join the board. One of the new members, Anina Bachrach, is a longtime Dearborn resident and has a lot of experience in fundraising. Their next meeting will be September 23, 2008, at 6:00 PM.

4. BUDGET UPDATE

Mrs. Bartles reported that in the next few weeks she will be telling staff to beginning working on their 2009-2010 budget requests. Finance has told us we will be using the same format we have used in the previous year and we should begin working on it.

5. INFORMATION ITEMS

A. Wireless Connectivity: Mrs. Bartles reported that we are finishing up the wireless connectivity contract. We could only determine one company that could provide us with wireless access that would interface with our patron database.

Mark Hancock is getting together the last bit of numbers and is managing the contract for us. Bryant currently has wireless through the West Dearborn Downtown Development Authority because they are within that location. We hope to have HFCL, Esper and Snot w/wireless by Thanksgiving.

B. Librarian II position: Mrs. Bartles stated that with Tara Gnau’s retirement she had to decide whether to replace Tara’s position with an Administrator or create more jobs to service the public. So she decided to trade the Administrator position for a Librarian II position. The Children’s agency did not have a Supervisor position for a while, so that is where we put the position. This will take a lot of the responsibility off of Julie Schaefer who was acting as Supervisor of Children’s and Deputy Director. Rebecca Hermen, who was a Librarian I in Children’s, has been promoted to the Librarian II position. This creates a Librarian I position which will be filled by a promotion.

Tara had a lot of committees that she oversaw. She was also the Administrator for the Branch Libraries and Processing. Mrs. Bartles reported that Steve Smith has taken over the Branches and she has taken over Processing and the Marketing and Video Committees. Patty Podzikowski, who is a Children’s Librarian at Esper, is very comfortable in front of the camera and has expressed interest in taking over the duty of spokesperson on the CDTV spots. While Patty may take over a good share of the duty other staff is willing to do some of it. We also want to continue the articles for the newspapers.

Mrs. Bartles showed Commissioners a copy of our second newsletter that is only available on-line. Many times we will take one of the articles from this newsletter and submitted it to the papers or even create a CDTV spot so we are not constantly rewriting things. This is also why we are combining the Marketing, Video, and Newsletter Committees. We will not have this newsletter mailed to patrons, but will have some printed copies available for handout.

C. Tapestry Project: Mrs. Bartles reported that after many years of trying, we were able to get the tapestry taken down, cleaned, repaired and re-hung on a mounting bracket. This has made the colors show up more vibrant. This was done by a gentleman who is a tapestry conserver and was very interested in the project. The project is complete.

D. Orientation Package: Mr. Pultorak reported that Maryanne has been working on an orientation package for new Commissioners. One copy was given to Jihan and there is an extra copy in case any Commissioners would like to look at it. Maryanne has it available in a PDF file is any Commissioners what it.

E. Books on Audiocassette and Videos: Mrs. Schaefer reported that this summer she attended the Overdrive Digital Media Conference in Ohio. Overdrive is the company that we work with through MLC (Michigan Library Consortium) that provide us with our downloadable media. We have been offering these downloadables for a year and it continues to grow. The conference was very informative and got us thinking about our collection. Mrs. Schaefer showed samples of the different formats of media that we circulate and felt that we need to think about our collection and the formats that we continue to purchase. For example, audio cassettes are being phased out by the publishers and many companies have stopped providing them. Currently our collection policy states that as a guideline we purchase one cassette for every two CD sets of a title for both adult and juvenile, fiction and non-fiction. Mrs. Schaefer reported that the proposed change for this collection is to discontinue purchasing audiocassettes. We will not expand the collection. Mrs. Bartles reported that we are phasing out our video collection because companies have stopped providing them so we are unable to purchase them.

Mr. Taub moved that we discontinue the purchase of new audiocassettes and go to purchasing CD and digital formats, second by Dr. Shami, all approved.

F. Policy Review: Mrs. Bartles asked the Commission for clarification on when and how they want to proceed with policy review. Our biggest policy review would be our circulation policy. Mrs. Zakar suggested compiling all of our policies together and creating a timeline of when each will be brought to the table for review.

Mr. Pultorak agreed and suggested having them in a uniform format in Word and a PDF file with the last edition date and then at a future meeting the Commission can determine which policies they need to look at and come up with a plan to review them as necessary. Maryanne reported that she will create a binder of our policies by topic. It may not be ready for the October meeting, but Mrs. Bartles will give an update on it at the next meeting and get in on the agenda for a future meeting.

6. ACTION ITEMS

A. Banning Notification: At the last Commission Meeting the Commission approved the use of a banning notification form with the stipulation that we review the banning policy that the Recreation Department has in place. Mrs. Schaefer reported that they did review Recreation’s policy and found it to be very similar to ours regarding conduct and inappropriate behavior. The only thing different was they had a length of expulsion that lasted five years. Our longest would be one year. There was a Security Meeting this summer and they decided that they would mail a copy of the banning form to the parents of minors. We feel that our policy was parallel to what Recreation is doing.

B. Fine Threshold for borrowing: Mrs. Schaefer resubmitted the request to raise the fine threshold. The Circulation Committee checked area libraries to see what their threshold was. Dearborn Heights allows $15 in fines before checkout activity is stopped. The majority are between $10 and $25. There was one at $50 and three area libraries still have $5 as their threshold. Currently 4,700 patrons owe us between $5 and $10 and are getting stopped at checkout. Raising the threshold to $10 may result in the increase of circulation. The current threshold was set about 20 years ago when fines were at $.05, so it would take a long time to reach $5. We charge fines in order to encourage the return of library materials in a timely manner and to get patrons to return material so it can be shared and checked out by others. Mrs. Schaefer reported that ideally we would want patrons to check out new material each month. When a patron reaches the threshold they cannot renew their card which is done yearly, unless the patron pays off all of their fines. The Circulation Committee felt that raising the threshold to $10 was a reasonable amount. Mr. Taub made the motion to raise the fine threshold from $5 to $10 so patrons can continue checkout and other activity including internet access, seconded by Mrs. Zakar, all approved.

C. Library Commission By-Laws: Mrs. Bartles reported that the Commission by-laws state that “the name of this organization is Library Commission, City of Dearborn, Public Library System, formed under section 10.26 of Chapter 10 of the charter of the City of Dearborn.” This is incorrect. It should read “formed under section 10.20 of Chapter 10 of the charter of the City of Dearborn.” Commissioners suggested adding the date the Charter was adopted which was in 2007. Mrs. Bartles will get the exact date. Mrs. Abbatt made the motion to make these changes to the Commission by-laws to conform to the City Charter, seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.

D. Library Hours: Mrs. Bartles reported that back in 2004 the Library Commission voted to realign Saturday and Sunday hours to start and stop simultaneously Memorial Day and Labor Day. While that worked out for 2005, 2006 and 2007, it became problematic in 2008 because Memorial Day was so early. We were already closed on Saturdays for our summer hours yet school was still in session and

Mrs. Bartles reported that she did get some phone calls from patrons about that. Before this was brought to the Commission, Mrs. Bartles met with the MWD and STP Unions and our Legal Department to discuss changing the start of summer hours. Mrs. Bartles distributed a copy of the letter received from the Union. Mrs. Bartles also distributed a draft of library hours that she suggests changing to. The concept suggested is beginning our summer hours on June 1, and ending them after the Labor Day weekend. Nora Smith, representing the MWD union, was at the Commission meeting to discuss this.

Nora Smith, representing the MWD Union introduced herself. She is an employee of the Police Department and understands the need for customer services and finding the best way to serve the public with current staffing. Mrs. Smith reported that they have been trying to seek a balance between staffing and hours of operation everywhere in the City. It remains a priority to serve the public with less people. Our branch libraries are not as well staffed as they use to be and if you are going to extend hours as suggested you will have problems with scheduling. If you plan to open Memorial Day weekend, only one employee of a branch group will be able to go away that weekend. Mrs. Zakar asked if it would impact a lot of people if you just switched for that one weekend and had the Branches open on Friday and closed on Saturday. Mrs. Bartles felt it would be hard to publicize it. Mrs. Smith reported that the holidays that the Libraries are closed are listed in the contract. Mrs. Bartles reported that the Saturday before Memorial is not listed as a closed day.

Mr. Pultorak added that the Commission will take this under advisement and consult with their legal consultant and bring it back at the next meeting, but management has the right to set the hours of business. Mrs. Smith added that an alternative was to keep HFCL open the Saturday before Memorial Day and have the Branches closed. Mrs. Bartles reported that you would have HFCL staff upset because they also wanted the weekend off. The Commission will review and revisit this issue at another meeting.

7. COMMENTS

A. Commission Room: Mr. Pultorak reported that he would like the Commission to designate this meeting room as the official meeting space for the Library Commission. The former Commission Room which is adjacent to the Directors Office is too small to accommodate any public attendance. Mrs. Zakar made the motion to designate this room as the official Commission Room, seconded by

Mr. Taub, all approved.

B. Carla Eggert: Mr. Pultorak informed Commissioners that their recording secretary, Carla Eggert, is recovering from surgery. Mrs. Bartles will provide her address.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 PM.