DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

06/12/09

1.  ATTENDANCE

In attendance were:  Mr. Marcel Pultorak, Chairperson; Mr. Robert Taub, Mrs. Jihan Jawad,

Mrs. Toni Straley and Mrs. Candyce Abbatt, Commissioners; Mrs. Maryanne Bartles, Library Director; Ms. Julie Schaefer, Deputy Library Director; Mr. Steve Smith, Administrative Librarian.

Excused:  Mrs. Nancy Zakar, Secretary-Treasurer, Mr. David Schlaff, Commissioner.

Absent: Dr. Alex Shami, Vice-Chairperson.

 

2.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the May 2009 Library Commission Meeting were approved as submitted.

 

3.  FOUNDATION UPDATE- Mrs. Bartles reported that the Library Foundation’s total contributions to date are $3271.50.  They had a board of directors fundraising campaign, the tri-fold brochure solicitation campaign and contributions are accepted on their website.  There will be three new members coming on board at the next meeting.  Five current members are resigning.  The next meeting is June 23, 2009 at 6pm.  Mrs. Abbatt asked Mrs. Bartles to email her a list of the new members. 

 

4.  BUDGET UPDATE- Mrs. Bartles reported that she received the approved capital budget projects on May 18th.  We received additional funds to correct the dead spots in our fire alarm system at HFCL, to renovate our one person study rooms at HFCL and to replace the door handles at Snow and Bryant with ADA compliant handles.  We had asked for funding to have the parking lot at Bryant repaved but it will be done in house by the Highways division of the Department of Public Works. Tom Delage, supervisor of Building Services at the Dept. of Public Works, advised Maryanne that if we wanted to renovate the restrooms at Bryant it had to be done before the ductwork was installed in the lower level of Bryant.  The Building Services staff scrambled to get the structural work done in three days and we were able to add two ADA compliant bathrooms on the second floor at Bryant.

 

5.  INFORMATION ITEMS-

A.     Volunteer Luncheon-Friday, June 26, 2009, Noon to 2pm- The event will take place at Park Place banquet hall. 

B.     Commission Re-appointment- Library Commissioners Candyce Abbatt and Robert Taub were reappointed to the Commission. 

C.    New Commissioner-Antonia Straley- The Library Commission welcomed new Commissioner Toni Straley. 

D.    Meeting with the Mayor-Marcel- Mr. Pultorak met with the Mayor and they discussed several things.  Mr. Pultorak stated that the Library Commission needs to be planning for the future and he expressed to the Mayor that the Commission needs to know what it can expect from the City.  The Mayor stated he would like to see someone from the colleges in the community and someone from the public schools as Library Commissioners to act as a liaison between those various institutions.  They discussed some of the upcoming financial challenges facing the City.  Mrs. Abbatt thanked Mr. Pultorak for taking the time to meet with the Mayor. 

E.     Output Measures (Fall 2008; Spring 2009)- Mrs. Bartles explained that output measures are a formula put together many years ago by the Public Library Association as a way to have numbers that can be compared with other libraries so that you can benchmark.  Mrs. Bartles distributed a summary sheet of the output measures done in Spring 2009 and how they were calculated.  The numbers are based on the population of Dearborn and of course we do serve patrons who are not Dearborn residents.  When we repeat the output measures process again next year we can compare those measurements to this data.  We have not done output measures like these since 1992.  Mrs. Bartles was going to give the Library Commission the data from 1992 to compare but it was a totally different world so the comparison is skewed.  We were open many more hours in 1992 and we had double the amount of staff than we have now. 

F.     Annual Report-Mrs. Bartles stated that we will begin working on the annual report soon.  We have a highlights database portal that Steve Smith developed in which staff can enter events throughout the year which makes writing the annual report easier. 

G.    Library Matters Summer newsletter-Mrs. Bartles gave the Library Commissioners copies of the summer newsletter.  She asked the Commissioners who have not already signed up to receive a copy of the newsletter in their inbox to do so.  Jeff Lelek who puts the newsletter together tries to put out one quarterly.  Mrs. Bartles encouraged the Commissioners to submit articles about items they have read to Jeff to include in the newsletter.  The Commission complimented Jeff Lelek on the newsletter, saying it is very well done.  Mrs. Abbatt suggested having a sign in sheet at the Volunteer Luncheon which asks for email so we can sign our volunteers up for this newsletter.  Mrs. Abbatt also suggested asking patron’s, as they check out, if they would like to sign up for the newsletter via email. Mr. Pultorak suggested giving away a free canvas book bag for signing up for the newsletter via email and he suggested again that the title of the newsletter be “Your Library Matters”.

6. ACTION ITEMS-

A.     Election of Officers- Commissioner Abbatt motioned to elect Marcel Pultorak as Chairperson, Nancy Zakar as Vice-Chairperson and Jihan Jawad as Secretary-Treasurer, seconded by Commissioner Taub, all approved.

B.     Location of September 11, 2009 Commission meeting?-It was decided that the September 11,2009 meeting will be held at HFCL as usual and that an item would be placed on the September agenda regarding having subsequent meetings at the branch locations.  

7.     Comments-

A.     General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Dearborn-Sept. 21, 2009-Mrs. Bartles reported that she was contacted by Mary Hodak from this organization and will speak at their September meeting.                        

B.     Kiwanis- Mrs. Bartles was also contacted by the Kiwanis Club and she will speak at their meeting as well.

C.    Library Patron Comments-Mrs. Judy Patrick spoke to the Library Commission. She is a former Library Foundation Board member and is a current volunteer at Bryant.  She asked a question regarding next year’s library budget reductions.  She stated that the library web page is much improved over past years and complimented the webmaster, Mark Hancock, on his work on it and asked for Mark’s email so she could email him. She also complimented the fact that we have been posting how donations to the library are being used.  She complimented staff member Henry Fisher and the program Classics Revisited.  Mrs. Patrick asked the library to become involved in the new Farmer’s market around the Bryant Branch.  Mrs. Bartles stated that Nancy at Bryant will be there on the first Friday of the month.

D.    Miscellaneous-Julie Schaefer reported that the company we work with for our downloadable materials is sponsoring a touring display in a renovated truck that will give information to patrons about downloadable materials and how the process works. We are trying to get them to stop here and we are waiting to get confirmation on the date.

 

Mrs. Bartles reported that she met with two women from Border’s today who she was put in touch with by Susan Moore, from the DCAC, who is in charge of Art Fest in October.  We are working on having an appreciation event at Border’s in which anyone who purchases something will get a discount and we will get a portion of the proceeds.  We will have information at the event about our library services including downloadable materials and our online databases. 

 

There was discussion about the online databases and how to market them as well as how to work with the Dearborn schools and area colleges to get information about our online databases out to the schools. 

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The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 PM.