The Town of Lincoln, MA - Library Trustees

Financial report: found in good shape – with total expenditures at 63% (at 67% of the year). It was noted that Expenses (at 70%) tend to be a little ahead at this time, but will generally meet budget targets by the end of the financial year.

Library Lane parking: at this time more negative than positive comments are being received (chiefly, because many of the patrons who favor the current design do not comment any longer because they think it is a done deal). We need to encourage people to continue to comment as the process is not over as yet!

It was suggested that we may wish to acquire software (similar to that being used at Wellesley), which has a screen at the front desk which constantly shows what is going on at the Library and thus provides a point of interest to the patrons (this screen would be a good place to post notices at times – such as that concerned with the patron survey on parking!)

Library Lane – new light: we agreed that the currently connected light pole either has a wiring fault or a faulty lamp. We will be requesting to have on hand at least three lamps of varying wattage, so that we may effectively test which one would be best for the intended purpose (this may go beyond the Campus Committee’s intent on settling on a 50 watt bulb).

Building repairs and managing the process: it was agreed that we should invite a minimum of three engineering/ architectural firms (including SGH) to prepare the required documentation for the construction – the latter would best be carried out under the supervision of a single General Contractor and will include all of the intended work budgeted and authorized at $179,000. We discussed some of the aspects in a preliminary way and will more fully discuss this at the meeting of the building/maintenance subcommittee (Al Kraft, Marshall Clemens, Peter Sugar). Peter Sugar will prepare a draft of an RFP for inviting consultants to put forth proposals. (Note that the work will have to be carefully scheduled to interfere as little as possible with the Library operations).

Front terrace: this is scheduled as part of the work – but we need to take care not to carry out the work in such a manner that it may have to be torn out and re-done, once the final design for the Library Lane parking is known.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) sent the library confirmation on March 23 that we have a contract for the Urban Forestry grant. Time and materials spent on this project qualify for up to $3,678 in matching funds from the DCR.

On March 5 the Lincoln Public Library hosted the 6^th Annual Metrowest Massachusetts Libraries Legislative Breakfast. Approximately 70 people attended this event including 10 representatives and senators. Two Lincoln patrons, Jane Langton and Paul Svetz, spoke eloquently about how they benefit from the valuable services that they receive at the Lincoln Public Library. Bella Wheeler also told us how much she loves the library.

The purpose of this event was to convince the legislators to support state funding for library related line items in the state budget. Since FY 2001 total state spending has been reduced by approximately 27% from $34,622,515 to $25,158,714. The services supported with state aid include the delivery system, interlibrary loans, and library connections to the Internet. When the state cuts its budget, there are only two alternatives: either the local libraries pay for the services themselves or services are cut or reduced. Both of these alternatives have already happened. Fewer online databases are available to our patrons and our payments to the Minuteman Library Network have increased.

Comments written in the Library Lane Comment Book between February 20 and March 19 are 12.5% positive and 87.5% negative. For the entire period since the parking arrangement was changed from parallel to diagonal, the comments are 48.2% positive and 51.8% negative. People are getting more frustrated when they come to the library and cannot find a space to park on Library Lane. One comment pleaded, “Go back to parallel parking please!” While one person complained about the new signs requesting SUVs not to park on the top half of Library Lane, which connects to Bedford Road, another person complained about the difficulty of pulling out of the handicapped parking space when large cars are parked across from the handicapped spaces.

The Historic Center Coordinating Committee (formerly the Campus Committee) met on March 6 to discuss future modifications to parking areas at the library. A plan was presented by the Design Team for a cutout along Bedford Road between the library and the white church which will accommodate eight cars. This plan will reduce the number of cars that can park on this stretch of Bedford Road by two cars or 20% in order to incorporate the following two safety features. At the five way intersection with the flower pot, the road will be narrowed to guide traffic away from the parked cars. The second safety feature is a crosswalk between the library and the church near the intersection of Bedford Road and Library Lane.

Of course there is a consensus that safety is a priority and should be incorporated into designs for parking at the library. Aesthetics can also be factored into the designs. However, when functionality is treated as an afterthought, problems arise. Last year 30 cars could park on Library Lane and 10 could park on Bedford Road for a total of 40 cars. After the new design is implemented, only 30 cars will be able to park on these roads, which is a reduction of 25% of the nearest parking spaces. Patrons are complaining about not being able to park on Library Lane and the people who live on Bedford Road and Old Lexington Road are complaining about the number of cars parking in front of their houses. We need to increase the importance of functionality and make a plan for adding more parking spaces on Library Lane. This is the request that the library Trustees made at the March 6 Historic Center Coordinating Committee meeting.

The new streetlight, which was installed on February 12 at the lower end of Library Lane, was removed on March 8. Tim Higgins told me that all five of the black streetlights will be exchanged for dark bronze streetlights of the same design.

Heddie Kent was the speaker for the Friends’ Wednesday Morning Series on March 10. The Children’s Room originally opened in the late 1950s and Heddie was its first librarian. She reminisced about her 25 years serving Lincoln’s youth and shared pictures of plays she produced that were performed at Bemis Hall.

The Friday morning book group met twice in March. Barbara led the discussion of Thomas Hardy’s “Two on a Tower” and Ellen led the discussion of Andrea Barrett’s “Servants of the Map.” Ellen selects challenging books for her group and the group members take a scholarly approach to their discussions. Some people even read an extra book to learn more about the author or the book’s topic! For the next discussion group, Ellen has assigned two books!

Stacy’s new book group for 4^th and 5^th graders now has 14 participants! Jane, Amy and Stacy continued to run storytimes at Magic Garden, LEAP, and “in-house” at the library. Amy ran a special storytime at the Hanscom Integrated Preschool. Jane and Stacy attended Minuteman meetings for children’s and young adult librarians. Stacy also attended two book review committee meetings of area librarians.

The Children’s staff is planning programs and events for April vacation week and summer 2004. New shelving has been ordered for the growing DVD collection. Stacy created a display highlighting new young adult books to draw more readers into the young adult room.

Spending on audio-visual materials has increased because the Friends donated $5,000 for new DVDs and $5,000 for new books on CD. As we enter the last quarter of the fiscal year, we need to make sure all of the monies budgeted for materials are spent by the end of the fiscal year. We also need to make sure we meet the state’s certification requirement that we spend 15% of the actual budget on materials. The FY04 budget allocated 13.7% for materials but the recent gift from the Friends will bring the materials spending up to the 15% requirement.

Jeanne was on vacation for two weeks during February. Staff at the reference desk answered 324 documented reference questions. Four patrons attended a Monday evening computer training class and learned how to search the online catalog and the Internet. Jeanne attended a reference committee meeting and a program about problem patrons.

Patron visits from July 2003 through February 2004 increased by 3.2% from 43,742 to 45,138 visits. During the same time period, circulation (checkouts and renewals) decreased by 2.4% from 105,735 to 103,231 items. While circulation of materials in the adult collection increased by 2.9% from 51,074 to 52,551, circulation of material in the children’s and young adult collections decreased by 5.4%. It should be noted, however, that there were 52,191 circulations of children’s and young adult material between July 2001 and February 2002 which is only 1% more than the number of circulations during the current fiscal year.

The new Innovative Interfaces Inc. (III) library software that was installed during June 2003 can create statistics for transactions made over the Internet by patrons using Minuteman’s online catalog. Each month we have dozens of people renewing items from PCs located within the library and hundreds of people renewing items from their home PCs. In February over 1,000 renewals were made from home PCs. The old library software could not break out Internet activity for each library the way the new software can. It seems likely, however, that Internet activity is increasing.

Snow rails were installed above the library entrance on March 8. New ceiling lights for the first and second floor turret rooms were purchased with money donated by the Friends of the Library and were installed on March 23. With these new lights it will be possible for patrons to read in the turret rooms after dark.

The flag pole was repaired on March 24. The flag was torn and the flag pole’s halyard was broken. Chief Burke allowed the use of the town’s new ladder truck to assist in repairing the halyard. A fireman climbed the ladder to reach the top of the 50 foot flag pole and fed a rope down the inside of the flag pole. Peter Whalen from Framingham Flag made the halyard operational and raised the new flag.

Our senior tax write off volunteers, Fui Mei Huang and Peg Marsh, completed their 122 hours of service this month. Fui Mei input obituaries from the “Lincoln Journal” into an Access database and encapsulated archival documents in mylar for the Vault Project. Peg repaired many broken books on tape by putting them in new cases, typing new spine labels, and making new covers.

The Thursday evening staff (Bob Bottino and Dana Weigent) and the Friday morning staff (Bob Lager, Jeanne Bracken, Jennifer Donaldson, Jane Flanders, Stacy Howard, and Nadine Rebovich) worked together to make the legislative breakfast a success. We set up for the event, cleaned up after the event, and reconfigured the furniture in time for the 9:45 a.m. book group. Many thanks to everyone for making the event a success! The representative from the Metrowest Massachusetts Regional Library System (Barbara Andrews) and the director of the Goodnow Library in Sudbury (Bill Talantino) told me that our breakfast was the best ever!