Trustees of Lincoln Public Library
Meeting Minutes, December 13th, 2004
Present: Jack Pugh, Chair, Jenifer Burckett-Picker, Al Kraft, Marshall Clemens, Peter Sugar, Diana Abrashkin, Trustees; Barbara Myles, Library Director, Dana Weigent, Staff.
Minutes
It was noted that while the board had voted to close for two weeks in the level funding budget, we did not decide exactly when to close but left the discussion of when to close for a future date, if necessary.
The board voted to accept minutes as corrected.
Budget
The Library received $12,244 in state aid – about $1000 more than last year due to increases in our inter-library loans.
We reviewed the October and November (without town verification) budgets.
The R&M Buildings and Grounds is at %82 expenditure due to several expensive repairs including the HVAC condenser. If we have more significant maintenance items we’ll be looking at requesting a reserve fund transfer.
Oil expenditures are currently at %0 for an unknown reason – perhaps we had a full tank and a late delivery that hasn’t been billed yet.
We should be receiving the maintenance plan from GRA shortly. The maintenance plan will help us keep on top of ongoing building maintenance and help us build the case our requested annual maintenance budget.
High on the list of maintenance items is the replacement of the carpets in the Farrar room and the children’s library. These carpets are not only worn, but have separations and wrinkles that present a potential tripping hazard. We discussed briefly the relative merits of loop vs. cut-pile carpets as there may be advantages of one over the other in wear and cleanability.
Jack and Barbara will be at the Wednesday Finance Committee meeting to present our case for maintenance budget.
Jack has distributed to the trustee’s mailboxes printouts of the slides from his Dec. 1st budget meeting presentation. The slides show the steps from the preferred budget to the level funding budget, showing the dollar savings at each step –~for closing Sunday, for closing for 10 days – that allow us to close the budget gap.
Librarian’s Report
Vault: Jenifer asked what policy we have for accessioning and de-accessioning materials in the vault. It does not seem that we have a formal policy on what to accept and/or what to discard from the vault. It was also suggested that if we continue to accept materials from other organizations, we should ask for some money to support the cost of storing and cataloging those materials. The Lincoln Historical Society has someone on the vault committee and they have been a source of funds in the past and perhaps the Society could be a source of
funds and/or volunteer support for the vault. We currently have someone available to work the vault one Saturday per month.
Al asked one of his patients –~the head of the map collection and Harvard – about the possibility of getting a climate-controlled cabinet to hold the maps that are currently in the vault. Unfortunately, Al’s patient had never seen such a stand-alone climate-controlled cabinet.
Although we don’t keep records for vault use, Barbara indicated that 12 users a month would be busy month for the vault.
Staff Concerns
Farrar room carpet is 15 years old and well past its useable life.
The children’s room carpet –~the original carpet from the building construction – has a number of splitting seams repaired with duct tape especially near the display cases at the entrance. This carpet is also well past its reasonable life time.
Building Committee
Peter suggested that having volunteers, such as Rob Jevon, working on the library building is not a good idea as, one, they don’t have insurance, and two, their work is not likely to be of professional caliber and we have no recourse for fixing bad work. There was some discussion about the disadvantages of volunteer help vs. the advantages of volunteer community involvement and how to best balance the two. Peter volunteered to write up some guidelines to be reviewed at the next meeting. We voted to table the discussion of this issue until the next regular meeting.
One window has been taken out the Preston building for repair. The contractor will present that window for our review. Then, pending our approval, the contractor will perform the same treatment on the rest of the Preston windows. Next window review meeting will be Thursday 12/16, 7:30 am.
Kudos: Craig Elliot provided us with stained glass to match the original orange color for the panes in the DeNormandie room.
We discussed the possibility of replacing the stained glass windows that were stolen from the old front entrance. It was agreed that this location isn’t very visible and we wouldn’t get much aesthetic value from refurbishing that location.
Budget Committee
Barbara and Jack presented the library budgets at the Dec. 1st Fincom meeting. We are assured a % 7/10 budget increase. Anything above that will be dependent on an override budget passing.
The Capital Planning committee reviewed the library request for community preservation funds for the Gund roof. The full cost of this project is being submitted for CP funding and the committee suggested that, due to the size of the project, the funding could spread out over several years or taken as a loan against future CP income. To move forward however, the Fincom wanted a more solid estimate for the project – a difficult number to fix as construction costs continue to rise and good estimates are hard to come by short of a formal bidding
process. Jim McKenna is preparing an estimate for us, and a roofer Al knows may provide us with as estimate for the roofing portion of the job.
It was suggested that the more Library Trustees that show up for the Capital Planning/Community Preservation Fund meetings the better.
Other Business
Al suggested that we keep a list of action items from our meetings – in order to remind ourselves of tasks to be completed before the next meeting.
New Business
None
Meeting Schedule
On Tuesday, January 11, 2005, there will be a special meeting to discuss new projects and to help reinvigorate the sub committee work.
The next regular board meeting –~originally scheduled for January 18th – has been moved to January 19th.
Respectfully submitted,
Marshall Clemens
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LIBRARIAN’S REPORT
December 13, 2004
TO: Trustees, Lincoln Public Library
FROM: Barbara Myles, Librarian
Adult Department
Ellen Sisco lined up two very interesting speakers since our last Trustees meeting. On November 17 Jeffrey S. Cramer, Curator of Collections at the Thoreau Institute, spoke about how ideas and remedies offered 150 years ago by a provincial man are relevant in today’s global environment. Mr. Cramer is the editor of Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition, published by Yale University Press. The part of Jeff’s speech that I found particularly meaningful was when he spoke about how one person’s decision not to pay taxes or not to eat meat makes us realize that we have more choices than we realize.
Fred Tingley spoke about the Lincoln Cemetery Project on December 1. All of the pre-twentieth century graves in Lincoln cemeteries were photographed and documented. These images will be available to researchers as they are scheduled to be put online soon.
Children’s Department
Programs in the Children’s Department were in full swing during November. Amy, Jane and Stacy led storytimes for children ages 1 through 11 at the library and at the Lincoln Nursery School, Magic Garden, and the LEAP after school program. Amy was named “Queen for a Day” at the Lincoln Nursery School on December 1. The children presented her with a magic wand! Dana designed the crafts for the December 20-23 drop-in crafts program. Ed Morgan’s monthly toddler sing along was a favorite with the young children. Approximately 60 people attended his concert on December 3.
Budget – Operating Budget
On December 1, 2004 all Town departments gave presentations consisting of two versions of their FY 2006 operating budget to the Selectmen and Finance Committee. The first version was a level budget with a 0.7% increase over FY 2005 and the second version was a level service budget. The Trustees and staff agree that the only way to meet the level budget involves cutting library hours and this is what we presented to the Selectmen and Finance Committee. To explain our position I explained that many of the costs of running the library, which the library cannot control, are increasing by more than 0.7%. The cost of a gallon of heating oil, for example, rose 28% over FY 2004. (The price of heating oil is negotiated by the state and we get a better price than residential heating oil but 28% is still a
huge price increase!) Salary increases for FY 2006 are expected to increase by approximately 3%. The library is also limited as to what can be cut. To maintain its state certification, for example, the library must spend 15% of its budget on books so a massive cut in the book budget is not an option. The largest portion of the library’s budget is for salaries and unfortunately, this where the library has to reduce costs. In short, if the library only receives a 0.7% increase over FY 2004, the library will close on Sundays and ten other days during the year.
Our level service budget calls for a 6% increase over FY 2004. This seems like a large increase but both the Lincoln School and Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School requested 8% increases for their level service budgets.
Budget – Maintenance Budget
The library hired Gorman Richardson Architects to write a maintenance manual for the library building. This manual will describe what needs to be done to keep each component of the library in good working order, how long it takes to perform the necessary maintenance tasks, how much it will cost to perform the necessary maintenance tasks, and what type of technician (either a serviceman or a library custodian) can perform the tasks. When this manual is completed, it will also help us develop our maintenance budget.
I am getting price quotes from contractors for the following items to add to the town-wide maintenance budget: new carpets for the Farrar Room and Reference Room, repairs to the HVAC system, and hand dryers for the second floor bathrooms.
Budget – Capital Plan Budget
On December 6 Peter Sugar and I attended the Community Preservation Committee’s meeting to explain why the Gund building needs a new roof, why the Trustees voted to request funding for a real slate roof, and how much this new roof will cost. The CPC agreed with the Trustees about the need for a real slate roof but balked at the architect’s cost estimate of nearly $580,000 and instructed us to get price quotes from roofing contractors.
Kurzweil Training at Lincoln School
On December 1 I attended a training session at the Lincoln School for Kurzweil software that is used at the school for special education students. There are some parents of SPED students who would like this software to be available at the library for their children when school is closed. This software is expensive so we are not able to purchase it this year. However, the SPED students are our patrons and I believe we should learn more about how we can better serve these students.
Building Repairs
To make it easier for us to track building repair work, I am building a “use file” based on the Construction Specification Institute’s MasterFormat classification system. At this point I am not performing a complete overhaul of the building files. Instead, I am tracking current work and information needed for our FY 2006 budgets. By using the MasterFormat classification system, anyone in the construction industry will be able to find information about the building. I am also keeping an index of the classification numbers used so library staff and Trustees can easily retrieve information from these files.
Electrical – On November 23 an electrician came to the library to make price quotes for the electrical work that was approved at the 2004 Town Meeting for the library’s capital plan budget.
Preston building wood window restoration project – Contracting Specialists, Inc. (CSI) agreed to begin work under the letter of intent that the Building Committee directed me to send to CSI while we iron out the contract. CSI submitted the low bid for this project of $87,125. What we are working on is making sure that all of the necessary documents are included in the contract, getting the contract signed by CSI, Town Counsel, the Town’s Finance Director, and the Chairman of the Trustees, Jack Pugh.
On December 3 CSI removed a window from the DeNormandie Room to restore as the test window. The Building Committee and Historic District Commission will approve of the restoration of this test window so that it can be used as the standard for restoring the other windows.
Elevator – On December 2 the elevator began to malfunction. The elevator cab does not level with the floor when the elevator doors open. This is a trip hazard and our elevator inspection is scheduled for January 14. I called the elevator company so they could send a technician to make what I thought was a minor adjustment to the elevator.
Unfortunately, the cause of the malfunction is a larger problem and is related to the piece of plexiglass that was removed from the top of the elevator shaft last winter. Now frigid outside air is allowed to enter the elevator shaft, which makes the elevator very cold. The library has a hydraulic elevator that uses oil for power and this oil gets viscous when the elevator shaft gets cold and causes the elevator to malfunction. The elevator technician warned me that someone may get stuck in the elevator due to this problem. He sent me a price quote for $700 to install a heater into the elevator’s oil tank. The temperature in the elevator was 45 degrees on December 2, which is very uncomfortable, so I am also getting price quotes to
install a damper in the vent that will open if there is a fire at the library or if it gets too hot in the elevator shaft.
Kudos
Congratulations to Amy Gavalis, who was “Queen for a Day” at the Lincoln Nursery School! This award and celebration at the LNS show how much these children love Amy and her storytimes.
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