The Town of Lincoln, MA - Library Trustees

Present: Jack Pugh, Jenifer Burckett-Picker. Al Kraft, Marshall Clemens, Diana Abrashkin, Peter Sugar, Trustees; Barbara Myles, Library Director; Staff: nobody as they came to Jan. 11^th mtg.; Al Schmertzler, FinCom

Windows in Preston Bldg. Contract in final stages of approval; meanwhile workman is proceeding with letter of intent to restore the windows. Amy Gavalis was named “Queen for a Day” at the Lincoln Nursery School to honor her for her great storytelling skills.

Elevator problem because plexiglass vent on elevator shaft was removed as per SGH report last year and now cold air comes in and makes oil in elevator too viscous to operate elevator so that it goes to the proper level. Peter suggested an automatic damper be installed that opens when fire alarm system is activated.

Library Maintenance Warrant for Town Mtg.: We discussed items to be put on Library’s warrant article for town mtg. That means Library will no longer depend on Town’s warrant article for all of its regular maintenance needs. We will include for FY’06 things such as new carpet for reference and Farrar rooms, service for HVAC and electrical systems, replacement of #3 AC unit, hand dryers for 3^rd floor bathrooms. Total was $17,920. With a few other items that may come up we’ll ask for $20,000 in warrant. Jack wrote up language for warrant article.

ACTION ITEM: Barbara will look over SGH report and make a list of routine maintenance items that we should include in future maintenance warrant articles. She will also deliver this warrant article to Town Hall.

Peter related our requests to CPC for $461,750 for slate roof (and related costs) for Gund Bldg for FY’06 (originally submitted to Capital Planning Com., but then shifted to CPC) as well as request for engineering study for vault-historical room area climate control (which would also give us construction documents for bidding process)for $16, 500. We all agreed that we need to make a good case for both of these items to support our requests and be able to answer questions from townspeople at Town Mtg.

Fundraising/Volunteers on subcommittees: Brief discussion on whether Friends should be brought into Trustees’ fundraising (decided not now). Importance of supporting Friends of Library by becoming one (some trustees are, some aren’t). Diana also started to indicate names of people she thought would be good on fundraising committee. We decided to table this until that subcommittee met with its trustee members. Also a general discussion of how to arrange for volunteers on subcommittees (bring names to trustees meeting and get thoughts from other trustees and then ask the volunteer if they’d be interested in joining).

Capital Planning Committee request schedule: We discussed what items should be put forward and when and agreed as follows (to send to CPC as requested on 1-18-05):

ACTION ITEM: Barbara will do budget estimate for Gund windows after Bldg. Com. decides what kind of wood to use. She’ll also get figures (as best she can) for FY’08-’10 items, taking into account rising costs as every year goes by (if based on 2003 SGH estimates).

Ellen’s book group read two “books about books” since we last met, Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie and God’s Secretaries by Adam Nicholson. The Classic Jazz group’s January program, “Jazz – New York Style 1922-1933” was presented by Joe Brown. This was the 261^st meeting of the Classic Jazz group!

Approximately 200 children made winter crafts at the library that were designed by Dana Weigent. This program was so popular that some patrons wanted it to continue for another week! The Children’s Department also hosted the Book Review Committee, which is comprised of children’s librarians from surrounding libraries. Publishers of children’s books value this committee and give each participating library free books. For example, the library receives a free copy of every children’s book published by Houghton Mifflin.

The Finance Committee has not yet made a recommendation to the Selectmen about an override budget. This year Town Meeting will take place after Town elections, which will make an override budget difficult to sell to Lincoln residents. We need to advocate for our budget to maintain level services.

I attended the December 15 Finance Committee meeting to explain the library’s need for a larger maintenance budget. I showed the committee members the first draft of the maintenance manual GRA was preparing for us in an effort to prove to them that we are doing the necessary research to support our request for increased building maintenance funds. During this meeting, the Finance Committee suggested that the library should not manage its building maintenance. Instead, the Town should be responsible for maintaining the library building.

Al Schmertzler, the Finance Committee’s liaison to the library, came to the January 11 Trustees meeting to propose that the Town begin managing building maintenance for the library. The Trustees declined this offer and stated that they would submit separate library warrant articles for building maintenance instead of including them in the town-wide maintenance article.

On January 18 Jack Pugh, Peter Sugar, Jenifer Burckett-Picker and I attended the Community Preservation Committee’s meeting to present the cost estimates we received from contractors. The contractor’s estimate for the roof was $462,000, which was almost $120,000 less than the estimate prepared by the architect. The difference in cost was that the architect budgeted for the worst case scenario that all of the copper on the roof would need to be replaced while the roofing contractor was more optimistic about the amount of copper that could be reused for the new roof.

We also gave contractor estimates for designer services for upgrading the HVAC equipment for the basement of the Preston building. Instead of upgrading only the small vault area we have now, the CPC urged us at their December meeting to get price quotes for the entire basement area so we can achieve economies of scale for the HVAC system and the flexibility to use the entire basement area for archival materials.

The ALA’s mid-winter conference was in Boston during the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. Several library staff went to the conference on their own time to see the latest library products, talk with publishers and vendors, attend lectures, and even go to a movie premiere! Thanks to the Friends of the Lincoln Library for paying the conference fees for most of the staff who attended this conference!

Five new PCs were installed at the library on December 28. These PCs replaced Windows 95, and Windows 98 PCs, as well as the nearly ten-year-old Apple computer. These PCs were purchased with capital planning funds from the Information Systems department’s budget and were installed by a consultant paid for by the IS department.

I attended a grant workshop about the Massachusetts Documentary Heritage grant program at the Acton Public Library on December 16. The state will award small grants to several libraries this spring for projects that promote and result in the documentation, preservation, and use of historical records in Massachusetts. This grant program does not fund new equipment or construction related expenses.

The library has had an unusual amount of building repairs this fiscal year and we have spent all but about $600 of our repair and maintenance budget line item. During the summer the condenser of the air conditioning system for the second floor of the Preston building broke, in the fall the boiler would not turn on correctly, now it is winter and the HVAC unit for the Gund building needed an emergency repair. To make further building repairs will need to request reserve fund transfers from the Finance Committee.

On December 14 I interviewed four HVAC companies with Scott LeClair, an engineer with Fitzemeyer & Tocci, for the study of the pneumatic controls that was approved at Town Meeting for the library’s capital plan. This study includes: recalibrating the variable air volume terminals, supply fan, cleaning the coils, and performing an engineering evaluation of the HVAC system.

The pneumatic system is not functioning properly. It is supposed to detect when more heat or air conditioning is needed in various parts of the library and communicate this to the heating or air conditioning equipment. The problem we are experiencing now is that some of the areas of the library are too hot and others are too cold. We expect to receive energy cost savings by repairing the pneumatic system.

When Bob Bottino arrived for work on December 18 the building was cold and the heat was off. He went to the sub-basement and found the air damper in the air handler stuck in the open position and the air blower, that circulates warm air throughout the Gund building, was off. Bob was able to get the blower turned back on but when the warm water reached the coils, one of the coils burst because it had frozen. Bob quickly turned off the water supply to the HVAC unit and called our HVAC serviceman. Luckily, our serviceman was able to get to the library and repair the problem so the library could open on time. He sealed the hole in the coil and closed the damper to the outside air vent.

Preston building wood window restoration project – Contracting Specialists, Inc. (CSI) signed the contract and Town Counsel signed the contract to approve of the form of the contract. Now Veronica Phillips, Acting Finance Director, is reviewing the contract. Her signature is needed to prove that we really have the money to pay for the work described in the contract. After Veronica signs the contract, Jack will review and sign the contract. I expect that CSI will send us an invoice soon after they receive their copy of the contract.

The test window was returned to the library on January 5. Al Kraft and I met on January 6 to examine the window. The workmanship of the restoration is very good but the stain color does not match the existing window surrounds perfectly. Getting a perfect match will be impossible, however. When looking carefully at the various parts of the window, one sees a variety of colors. Furthermore, the colors look different on sunny days, cloudy days, and at night.

CSI removed the window on January 7 to repair a broken piece of art glass. The window was returned on January 12. At the January 13 construction meeting, it was agreed that CSI would prepare several stain samples for us to examine so we could participate in the color selection process. The samples arrived on January 14. I met with Peter Sugar on January 15 and Peter met with Al Kraft on January 16. I forwarded Peter’s email message, containing his and Al’s suggestion for changes to the stain color, to Neil Rouleau, our architect from Gorman Richardson Architects, and discussed these changes with him on January 18. Neil will work with CSI to change the stain color.

Elevator – Our elevator inspection was scheduled for January 14 but the elevator inspector was sick so our inspection was cancelled. We have not repaired the elevator and we are having sub-zero temperatures, which exacerbates the problem of the oil getting too cold and viscous and causing the elevator cab to stop before it has leveled with the floor.

Once again the library’s annual report was a group effort. This report is built from departmental monthly reports and a variety of statistics that are only compiled once or twice each year. Amy, Ellen, Jane, and I wrote sections of this report. Amy, Ellen, Jane, Jeanne, Kathy Rushby, Nadine, and I compiled statistics for the report. The list of donors was compiled by Kathy and the list of volunteers was compiled by Amy, Ellen, Jane and I. Our annual report will not make the bestseller list but we give an accurate account of the year’s activities and acknowledge our donors and volunteers who are so important to the library’s success.