The Town of Lincoln, MA - Meeting Minutes

Present: Jack Pugh, Chair, Jenifer Burckett-Picker, Al Kraft, Marshall Clemens, Peter Sugar, Diana Abrashkin, Trustees; Barbara Myles, Library Director, Nadine Rebovich, Staff

3. Unfortunately, Jenifer Burckett-Picker is resigning after 2 exceptionally productive terms as a Trustee. The Selectmen will have to appoint a new Trustee to replace her.

4. Financial Report: Finances are pretty much where they should be at this time of year, except that Buildings & Grounds is at 122% instead of the targeted 66%. Barbara Myles has written a letter in an attempt to recover approximately $5300 from the furnace serviceman who installed a critical part backward, which contributed to all the Library's heating woes. Just in case, the Library still has grants and warrant articles to fall back on, e.g., what's left of the $104K "Library Improvements" money voted on at last year's Town Meeting.

The Library Lights on the low end do not work. We only have $760 left of the money for LL lighting.~ It was suggested that Barbara should report this to the DPW for repairs/corrective action.

5. Librarian's Report: Repairs to the VAV unit and electrical system are ongoing. The elevator passed inspection. (The smoke vent in the elevator shaft will keep the hydraulic fluid warm without a heater; it is a damper that only opens if there is a fire.)

Artificial slate roofing failure is not the fault of the architect (Gund); we need to see the warranty on that "slate" (Mfr. = Eternit) and the company may not exist anymore.

Several staff members (who were formerly covered by other health insurance plans) now want Town insurance. They have been here a long time but feel they are being charged new-employee rates. Jenifer explained that the Town pays 60% of an employee's premium, but that if an employee opts for an HMO, it's cheaper than the Indemnity plan. And since the Town pays 60% of the Indemnity premium, it may seem like those on HMO's are getting 83%! Jenifer will ask Beth Reis of the Town Personnel Committee to come to the Staff Meeting on April 12 and explain in detail.~ (Update: Jenifer has since discovered that pre-1990 employees do indeed receive 83% from the Town for health premiums on non-indemnity plans.)

7. Town Meeting Preparation: We are asking the Town to appropriate $27K for repairs & maintenance of the Libe. A chart showing this was shown and Peter asked that the $10K be broken down further; all agreed. John Koenig of the Community Preservation Committee suggested that someone be prepared to answer at TM if the Library gets a question about use of CPA funds; Jack volunteered to discuss the vault and Peter, the roof. The CPA funds the roof repair ($461,750) and the vault HVAC ($24K).

Al asked if we could use the current maintenance budget broken down or Gorman Richardson's figures. We've already spent $10K this fiscal year and still have several months to go. The building has an assessed value of $6,121,000 (it's an important Town asset) so the so-called replacement value of $5,216,000 seems low.

8. Fund-raising Committee Report: Al and Diana tried and failed to set a meeting with Emily Althausen, our former Chair and mega-fund-raiser. The Committee still lacks a special goal to raise funds for, and expects the Trustees to call on it when a major need arises.

9. Building Committee Report: The repair of interior window sills in the Prescott building will be done by Contracting Specialists, Inc., the same firm that replaced the Prescott windows.

11. Capital Planning Committee: Jenifer said it will borrow from future CPA grants for our needs. Al Schmertzler, who was a great advocate for the Library, will be retiring from the FinComm.

The Community Preservation Committee has a warrant article for Town Meeting on April 2 that includes two library projects: a new roof for the Gund building and a design study of the vault area for expanding the air conditioning system to include dehumidification for the areas where archival materials are stored.

Simpson, Gumpertz, and Heger reported in their January 2004 site survey that the artificial slate tiles are failing prematurely. Replacing the roof is an expensive project and I am pursuing avenues for some sort of recompense. A warranty for the failed tiles could get the library a rebate for the shortened lifespan of the product. Neil Rouleau (Gorman Richardson Architects) advised me that the warranty would be with the submittals from the Gund building addition project. I could not find them at the library and I have asked the Gund Partnership if they can provide us with the submittals. So far I have not received any submittals.

I am also pursuing legal avenues for getting recompense. I sent the specification for the Gund building as well as the contracts between the library and the architect (Gund Partnership) and the library and the contractor (P&H General Contractors) for Town Counsel to review for possible legal action.

The override budget passed at the Town election on March 28. If the override budget passes again at Town Meeting, we will be able to operate on a level service basis during FY 2006.

March saw the first fruits of the One Book One Lincoln programs. Students and teachers from Lincoln/Sudbury Regional High School led an interactive panel discussion on Haiti, Mountains Beyond Mountains, and The Second Urban Walk for Haiti. They fielded questions from the small but active audience, and tried out several areas of discussion with us.

The library’s prior HVAC serviceman has not sent the library money to pay for the repairs. Our next step is to have Town Counsel send him a collection letter. I have notified the Town’s Finance Committee that I will need to request a reserve fund transfer soon if we do not receive payment from the serviceman.

An access point was installed at the library, which allows computers with wireless network interface cards to connect to the Internet. We need to create a flyer to give patrons that provides instructions for connecting to the Internet and includes a warning advising them that the library is not responsible for anything that happens to their computers at the library.

The Friday morning book group read Ex-Libris by Ross King, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, and The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester since our last Trustees meeting.

We hosted an interesting exhibit about the Bay Circuit, a 210-mile trail around Boston, between Routes 495 and 128/95 that goes through Lincoln. A group called the Bay Circuit Alliance maintains the trails. For more information see their web site: www.baycircuit.org.

Weeding continues to be a priority (large print and travel especially). The attic storage of magazines is going much slower than anticipated. Weeding is a time consuming process and recently much of Ellen’s time has been spent covering public service desks while Lisa Bracken was recovering from her successful kidney transplant operation. Our operating budget has no money for emergency staffing so we could not give additional hours to other library staff. With Ellen diverted from her regular duties, she cannot keep up with weeding the collection. The result is that some sections of shelving are full and there is no place to shelve new books.

“Get a Clue” was the theme of the February school vacation week programs during the week of February 21. On Tuesday children ages 5 and up attended a “Catch a Crook” program where they learned detective tricks such as fingerprinting and invisible writing. “Stories and crafts for Little Snoops” was Wednesday’s program, which was for 3 to 5 year olds. There was also a program for 8 to 12 year olds called, “My Grandma’s Gonna Kill Me!” Eleven year old Wanda is missing a valuable gift from her Grandmother. What is she missing? Was it stolen or did she misplace it? The DeNormandie Room, Tarbell Room and Young Adult Room were turned into mystery sets containing clues. With the information from the story read by Amy and Jane, and the clues in the mystery rooms, the children were to solve the mystery before Wanda’s Grandma found out!

The two printers that were each shared by two PCs near the new book section were not operating reliably. Patrons would send documents to the printers but the printers were not always printing the documents. This new unpredictability may have begun when the library’s hub was replaced by a switch. Perhaps the PCs were not able to locate the printers reliably using the NetBEUI protocol. Chuck Miller, Lincoln’s IT Director, decided to resolve this problem by purchasing a new network printer, which has its own IP address. This allows the PCs to send documents directly to the printer instead of searching the library’s network for the location of the PC that is physically connected to the printer.

The uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in the picture book section of the Children’s Room was making noises signaling that it was getting overloaded. It had two new gaming PCs attached to it. Chuck agreed that a new UPS was necessary. He purchased another UPS so that each PC would have its own UPS. The noise is gone and both PCs are working.

With the resignation of the truck driver who delivered books from other libraries to our library, the delivery company, CD&L, has divided his route into two routes. We now receive our deliveries by one o’clock instead of four o’clock.

Work is progressing on Dr. England’s music scores but slower than Dr. England would like. Processing these materials is a time consuming process and staff are busy performing their regular duties. I explained this to Dr. England and he agreed that some of his donation can be spent on staff time to process the music scores. Kathie Brobeck and Kathy Rushby will both work some additional hours to process Dr. England’s music score collection. Jim Meadors is also working on this project as a volunteer.

During March reference staff answered 402 documented reference questions. Jeanne gave a Monday night training session about basic computer skills including accessing the Internet. She is planning a new cycle of Monday evening training sessions dedicated to specific databases and Internet resources.

Jeanne is also planning training sessions for accessing vault materials for staff and volunteers from the Lincoln Historical Society. Once this training is completed, the volunteers will help patrons use vault materials on Saturday mornings. This new service will make it more convenient for patrons to use the vault materials.

The Friends of the Lincoln Library cancelled their March meeting due to a snowstorm that delayed school opening. At the Friends’ April meeting, we will find out what additional projects the Friends have decided to fund.

The repair work, which was identified in Taunton Control’s January 25, 2005 survey of the library’s pneumatic control system, has begun. Once this work is completed, another company will balance the HVAC air and water systems. I am in the process of getting price quotes for the balancing work.

The interior work on the wood windows is completed and the exterior work has begun. The work on the stained glass will begin soon. Twelve bullet glass panes were made for the Tarbell Room to replace broken panes. All twelve new panes were installed in the center window, alternating with old panes, so the new panes would not be as noticeable as they would have been if a few new panes were installed in each of the three windows with bullet glass.

This work has begun. The electrical outlet in the floor of the Tarbell Room was replaced. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling of the Tarbell Room above the stained glass were removed and new ones, that will work when the attic temperature falls during the winter, will be installed soon.

The graffiti needs to be cleaned off the door. Additional work is needed to repair the loose pieces of wood and refinish the door. I have asked Contracting Specialists Inc., the company that is performing the Preston building wood window restoration project, for a price quote. Perhaps we can ask for a Community Preservation Act grant for FY 2007 to get the front door repaired and refinished.

A preservation consultant from the New England Document Conservation Center came to the library on March 3 to assess the library’s vault project. The consultant reviewed the library’s preservation activities and will write a report giving us an assessment of what the library has done and what needs to be done in the future.

Jack MacLean, Jeanne and I updated the Lincoln Archives Committee (LAC) about this grant proposal. We learned that the work Jack has done is being duplicated in part by LAC volunteers and we agreed to coordinate our efforts better with the other historical groups in town.