LINCOLN LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Minutes of the Meeting of April 24, 2007
Present: Jacquelin Apsler, chair; Diana Abrashkin, Marshall Clemens, Al Kraft, Peter Sugar, Susan Taylor, trustees; Barbara Myles, Library Director.
Approval of Minutes: March 30, 2007 meeting minutes were approved as amended.
Announcements:
Cost of framing Jack Pugh’s photo collage was $145, more than the Friends had expected when they agreed to cover the expense. Jacquelin Apsler will talk to Friends Chair Patty Levy about how best to share the expense.
Unplugged Week started with success. Our Librarians have been wonderful in organizing and assisting with the events.
Financial Report:
Electric rates have increased so much this year that we have already exceeded budget for FY07. At the same time, oil costs were much lower than expected. Barbara Myles will look at energy-saving light bulbs.
An error in the subtraction of payments from the Gund Window accounts will be corrected by Kathy Rushby.
Treasurer’s report was accepted with revisions noted.
Librarian’s report:
Unplugged Week events have kept the Library active and the staff very busy.
School vacation week activities focused on sports. Khano Smith of the Revolution soccer team read stories and a Frisbee champion led tossing activities on the lawn.
Barbara Myles, Jeanne Bracken and Susan Taylor met with Lincoln Police Det. Jon Wentworth and Officer Dave Regan to begin work on a Crisis Response Plan similar to the one developed for the schools. The police asked that the Trustees not be involved in the plan’s development in order to keep security information to as few people as possible.
Comprehensive Long Range Planning Committee (CLRPC) report:
The four subcommittees are gathering information. Peter Sugar is on the Culture and Governance subcommittee which meets once a week. Jaki Apsler is on the Built Environment subcommittee which meets every other week. Barbara Myles will attend the next meeting in Jaki’s place while she is out of town.
The subcommittees plan to meld their reports early next fall for presentation at the State of the Town meeting in late October or early November.
Open Meeting Law:
Town Clerk Susan Brooks organized a swearing-in and orientation for newly elected and appointed town officers to acquaint them with laws governing Public Meetings, Public Records and Conflict of Interest. Newly sworn-in Trustee Susan Taylor distributed the information to the board.
Building Committee Report:
Vault design specifications are almost done. Peter Sugar found 30-40 mistakes in the report prepared by Karle Packard. When corrected, the plans will be ready for bids.
Carpet is complete in the reference room and the periodical room. Packard hasn’t yet finished the specifications for the children’s wing carpet.
Window bids were due last week, but the deadline has been postponed until May 1 because several potential bidders didn’t have time to assess the existing windows. 20 contractors took out bids, so we may have competitive bids returned.
Coping: Barbara Myles will check on completion of the repairs. There were no leaks during all the rain in April.
Paving front entrance will be designed to include lighting for the outdoor book drop. Peter Sugar will consult with electrician Bob Morton to determine whether we need to hire an electrical engineer to design the lighting plan. If all goes well, Peter expects to have the specifications drawn before our May 22 meeting. He said the terrace no longer presents a hazard since the frost is gone and the stones have settled back.
Sump pump system was inadequate during the April rainstorms. Board voted to authorize up to $300 from the maintenance account to hire an engineer to determine the best way to increase capacity of the discharge pipes. Al Kraft asked that the engineer also look at the capacity of the town storm drain where the pipes empty out.
Energy audit: Barbara Myles will continue to solicit an alternate bid for comparison to the one made by Christopher Field and Albert Smegal before the Board grants a contract.
Alarm System call list has been updated. The Board agreed to the following order for emergency calls: Marshall Clemens, Al Kraft, Jaki Apsler, Peter Sugar, Diana Abrashkin, Susan Taylor, and Barbara Myles. Trustees received a list of the 9 alarm triggers. Board members asked for a practice session to learn how to turn off alarms.
CO detectors – off the shelf variety -- will be plugged in outside the sub basement and near the reference desk, although it isn’t clear where there is a source of CO.
Old Business
Building Tour with custodian Bob Bottino will be postponed to a night separate from a regular meeting. The date of the tour will be posted at Town Offices.
FY05 Capital Funds haven’t been completely expensed yet. Some of the $28,000 (remaining from an initial warrant article of $104 M) is still earmarked for repairs to the front entrance terrace, but the remainder is left over from projects that came in under budget or weren’t undertaken. If the money isn’t used for building repairs, it will revert to Free Cash. The Building Committee will analyze our outstanding repair needs and prepare a list for the May 22 meeting. The Trustees then will discuss how to proceed with our Finance Committee Liaison Stuart Haber.
New Business
Trustee Standing Subcommittees and Liaisons: Susan Taylor requested a review of the charges to the 6 standing committees and the list of liaison assignments. Barbara Myles circulated a document outlining the mission statements of each of the subcommittees. Since there are only two Trustees now acting as liaisons -- Jaki Apsler to the Capital Planning Committee, the CLRPC, and the Friends, and Peter Sugar to CLRPC – Taylor will circulate a proposal for discussion at the May 22 meeting for how the Trustees might best keep in communication with other town boards that concern the Library.
Technology Subcommittee: The Trustees agreed to proceed with plans to create a subcommittee to assess and propose changes in Library services, facilities and staff needed to accommodate advances in information and entertainment technology. Susan Taylor and Barbara Myles will draft a charge for such a subcommittee for discussion at the May 22 meeting.
Parking crunch: Peter Sugar raised the issue of limited Library parking because of an incident Sunday April 22 when guests at a private party filled Library Lane parking before the Library opened. Peter called police to ask the guests to move, but none did, he said.
Barbara Myles said Library Lane is a public street and not dedicated to library parking. Susan Taylor volunteered to contact Town Admin Tim Higgins to see if we can work with police to develop a protocol for situations when library parking is taken for other purposes.
The Groves, developers of the assisted living complex planned for west Lincoln, have asked to “partner” with the library in order to promote sales. Barbara Myles will find out more.
Friends of the Lincoln Library: Co-chairs Patty Levy and Sara Brown and Treasurer Barbara Low will be invited to make a presentation at the June Regular Board Meeting.
Future Meetings
May 2 WED 7:30 P Building Committee to meet with Max Ferro about windows
May 22 TUE 7:30 P Regular Board Meeting
June 26 TUE 7:30 P Regular Board Meeting Presentation by the Friends
July – date TBA Discussion of Capital Plan proposal and budget assumptions
TBA Building Tour
TBA Alarm System practice session
LIBRARIAN'S REPORT
April 24, 2007
TO: Trustees, Lincoln Public Library
FROM: Barbara Myles, Librarian
Unplugged Week
Adult and Children’s Services staff have worked closely with the Friends, planning, preparing, and promoting Lincoln’s “Unplugged Week.” This is an ambitious undertaking for the Library and we are looking forward to a successful week of events. A flyer of the unplugged events sponsored by the Friends was sent to all Lincoln households. Volunteers from the Friends and staff are ready to help with each activity. Unplugged week is this week, Monday April 23 through Sunday April 29! Five of the events take place at the library, including three author talks (Katherine Hall Page, Bill Littlefield and Peter Abrahams), a Mah Jong class, a concert, and a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The events are sponsored by the Friends, the Lincoln School Foundation, and the Lincoln PTA. This week would not have
happened without their support!
Friends
Plans for moving thousands of books for the Friends’ book sales from the Hartwell Multi-Purpose Room to Pod B, (located across the parking lot) were discussed at the April Friends meeting. The Multi-Purpose Room will be converted into three permanent offices and the Lincoln Schools want to begin construction during April vacation week, which was less than two weeks away. Jeanne mobilized her Write Stuff group and they helped the Friends make the move on Saturday morning April 14.
After the move, the custodian’s office in the Hartwell Building will continue as the location for donation drop offs. Moving books from the custodian’s office to Pod B will be a more difficult task than moving them to the Multi-Purpose Room. The Friends are looking for strong volunteers to help make these moves.
Adult Department
The second semester of “From Other to Us,” a survey of world faith traditions has finished discussing Judaism and Christianity and is now moving to Islam. Ellen leads a book discussion every third meeting for this group in addition to her Friday Morning Book Group. The Friday Morning Book Group read Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler and Digging to America by Anne Tyler. The Classic Jazz program for April, “Classic Jazz 1918 – 2004” was lead by Joe Brown. The Lincoln Schools exhibited their artwork in the gallery during April. Jeanne’s Write Stuff group changed one of its scheduled meeting dates in April so they could attend all of the author talks at the Library during unplugged week!
Children's Department
The Children’s Room was a busy place during April vacation week! The theme for the week was, “Play it Again” and the events were sports related. On Tuesday April 17, New England Revolution soccer player, Khano Smith, read a story, answered questions, signed autographs, and posed for pictures with children who came to the event. Children, who were participating in the Recreation Department’s soccer week, were bused over for this event! It was great to see them in their soccer outfits! Wally the Green Monster visited the library on Wednesday. Even though Wally does not talk, he had a lot of fun joking around with the kids and signing autographs. He gave lots of hugs too! On Thursday, Todd Brodeur, a two-time Frisbee Freestyle World Champion, gave a demonstration of tricks
then led the audience in a hands-on clinic! It had been raining all week so we were lucky that the sun returned on Thursday morning for this event.
Reference Department
Reference staff answered 327 documented questions during March. Jeanne was the speaker the Lincoln Historical Society’s annual meeting on April 19. She spoke about women who helped the Minute Men on April 19, 1775. Jeanne has collected a lot of interesting and valuable information and plans to organize this information and write a book.
Emergency Plan
Susan Taylor, Jeanne Bracken and I met with Detective Wentworth and Officer Regan of the Lincoln Police Department on April 6 to discuss emergency planning. The Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School put their emergency plan into action when a student was killed on campus earlier this year. The Lincoln Police Department has offered to work with library staff to create an emergency plan for the library. We will move ahead with this planning.
Building Repairs
1. Vault Renovation Project
The Building Committee asked Karle Packard of Red Hawk Studio Architects to revise the construction documents for the vault renovation project. Karle is working on these revisions.
2. Window Replacement Project
Bids from general contractors for the window replacement project are due on May 1st.at 2 p.m. Approximately twenty companies have picked up the construction documents.
3. Carpets
The carpets for the Farrar Room and Reference Room are installed. Now we are waiting for Karle Packard to finish bidding documents for the Children’s Room and Staff Work Room.
4. Carbon Monoxide Detector
At times bad odors emanate from the sub-basement. There is concern that carbon monoxide could also be escaping from the sub-basement. The Trustees have two options, installing a carbon monoxide detector that is integrated into the library’s building alarm system or purchasing carbon monoxide detectors that plug into electrical outlets.
The building alarm company estimates it will cost approximately $1,600 to install a carbon monoxide detector in the sub-basement and connect it to the building alarm system. A wire from the alarm panel on the first floor to the carbon monoxide detector in the sub-basement must be added, which is why this cost is so high.
5. Sump Pumps
On Monday morning April 16, the building alarm company notified me that the sump pump alarm went off. The two permanently installed sump pumps were not keeping up with the water flowing into the water pit. We had heavy rains for days and more rain expected for the next few days. Bob Bottino and I went to the library and put two portable sump pumps (one belonging to Bob) into the water pit. At this point, four sump pumps were running at the same time.
There was no flooding in the basement but the water rose pretty high in the water pit. The alarm goes off when the water rises to within one foot of the top of the water pit. All four sump pumps continued running through Saturday April 21.
Kudos
Thanks to Stacy Harris for getting New England Revolution soccer player, Khano Smith, and Red Sox mascot, Wally, to come to the library for April school vacation week! The kids loved seeing these celebrities! Bob Bottino put in a big effort to get the carpet in the Farrar Room installed. The installation began at 6PM on March 30 and he stayed with the crew until the job was finished at 3AM on April 1st. Jeanne mobilized her “Write Stuff” group to help the Friends move all of the books for the book sale from the Hartwell Building to Pod B. They moved thousands of books on Saturday morning April 14!
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