MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF
LINCOLN LIBRARY TRUSTEES
May 22, 2007
Present: Jacquelin Apsler, Chair; Barbara Myles, Library Director, Dana Weigent, Staff; Peter Sugar, Marshall Clemens, Diana Abrashkin, Trustees
I. Minutes of the April 24, 2007 were approved.
II. There were no announcements.
III. The Financial Report was discussed. We are low on spending for books. (Ellen Sisco selects Adult books, Jeanne Bracken does the Reference books, and the entire Children's staff picks the Children's books.) Heating expense was somewhat low, but the difference will be made up in spending on air-conditioning.
IV. A highlight of the comprehensive Librarian's Report was the success of Unplugged Week, especially because it represented a collaboration between the Library, the Friends, the PTA and the Lincoln School Foundation. It may be scheduled for a different week next year so as not to fall right after school vacation week.
V. Staff Concerns: Everyone is happy that the new carpets have been installed.
VI. Master Planning Committee: Apsler reported that only subcommittees have been meeting, but there will be a town-wide meeting on June 19.
VII. Building Committee
A. Vault: Sugar has gone over Karle Packard's construction documents and made corrections.
B. Window Replacement: K & S has been chosen as the contractor. The consultant Max Ferro recommended the Marvin (aluminum-clad, wood) windows over the Jeld-Wen's. The approved budget was $420K including the consultant, and $259,900 was bid plus $25K for our consultant, so we are in good shape. The Historic District Commission approves as well.
C. The Carpet spec. for the Children's and staff areas was written by Karle Packard and corrected by Peter Sugar.
D. CO detectors: We are using plug-ins, not hard-wired detectors.
E. Sump pump: Syska-Hennessey says our pumps are too weak, only 4 gallons per minute! They were installed erroneously by the service company, which must correct the error and make a new proposal. We need pumps which can evacuate 40 gpm.
F. Energy conservation: The effort is ongoing, and NStar will make a report.
G. Fire Suppression system: Rand Refrigeri has been authorized to go ahead with the phased plan.
H. Parapets: Water tests have been conducted. Sugar is concerned about the hair-line cracks which are too small for epoxy injections. We are using Chapman Waterproofing of Boston and are waiting for their proposal following the water tests.
I. Entry Terrace: Sugar did 2 drawings, one showing the existing conditions and the second, the proposed, which will also improve the definition of the terrace edge near the turret. Stone will be reused where possible. The lighting and sensors were also discussed. The electric must be bid separately but the paving contractor must coordinate with the E.C., who is Bob Norton, an electrician who often works in the town. It was suggested to add some light onto the Handicap parking area.
Clemens proposed that 1" river rock should be used in the drainage area next to the turret.
The work should be bid by the end of June. During construction, the entrance -- especially for the handicapped -- will be inaccessible. It is hoped construction will take only 3 days to a week. Weigent suggested sending postcards to our handicapped patrons, offering to deliver their books. (One more proof of how dedicated our staff is.)
J. Automatic Door: It works well, but people persist in trying to pull it shut!
VIII. Old Business
A. FY05 Capital Plan included the terrace.
B. The Groves, the new retirement community in Lincoln, wants to have a relationship with the Library, perhaps by sponsoring events.
C. Parking: Susan Taylor spoke to the Police and to Tim Higgins, Town Administrator, and proposed coordination between the church and the library, including perhaps using "Library Parking Only" signs during special events. This was not popular with the Trustees in attendance. It was suggested that Myles write a letter to the Lincoln Journal requesting the cooperation of the public, especially so that the elderly and the handicapped will be able to find parking close to the library. The police will help when there are multiple events. Myles was asked to get a price on an actual police detail, in case we ever need one.
D. Committee Liaisons: tabled.
E. Budget Changes: We should state all our needs in full from now on. The Friends may not always be there to help us out. For instance, have we really asked for funds for staff improvement and programming, or for technology?
F. We need people to cover the Library for the Memorial Day celebration.
IX. New Business:
A. The Town Archives Committee (Jeanne Bracken, Barbara Myles, Susan Brooks, and Jacquelin Apsler) wants to develop a plan to "market" the Vault. The Friends will host a "Save Our Stuff" brunch at the Library on October 22 and use it as the 4th of July float theme, both of which will contribute to town awareness of the vault.
B. Technology Committee: tabled.
C. Policy Review: tabled, but it was acknowledged that we need the confidentiality process updated.
X. The next Trustees' meeting will be June 26. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45PM.
LIBRARIAN'S REPORT
May 22, 2007
TO: Trustees, Lincoln Public Library
FROM: Barbara Myles, Librarian
Unplugged Week
After months of planning, it was finally time for “Unplugged Week!” The events were sponsored by the Friends, the Lincoln School Foundation, and the Lincoln PTA but most of the funding came from the Friends. The Adult and Children’s Services staff and Friends did a great job enthusiastically staffing the events nearly every night during the week of April 23 to April 28. Five of the events took place at the library, including three author talks (Katherine Hall Page, Bill Littlefield and Peter Abrahams), a Mah Jong class, a concert with Chris O’Brien, and a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Katherine Hall Page spoke at the Lincoln School and Peter Abrahams spoke at the Hanscom School. Steve Wronker’s Comedy Hypnosis Show was held at the Lincoln School to accommodate a large audience.
The Unplugged Committee met on May 2 to discuss what happened during Unplugged Week and whether we should try this again next year. Attendance at the author talks was not as high as we had hoped. Perhaps having three authors in the same week was too much. The Dungeons & Dragons campaign was a success with middle school students and it may become an ongoing program. The hypnosis show was entertaining and very well attended. We were surprised that Chris O’Brien did not draw a bigger crowd since he had just been on the “Prairie Home Companion” radio show and is a regular performer at Club Passim. Brent Clark booked Chris O’Brien for the performance and provided the amplification equipment. With Brent’s help, music
programs will be added to next year’s program activities!
Friends
The Friends’ Annual Meeting was held on May 8 just before their appreciation lunch for staff and volunteers. A slate of new officers was elected for FY2008: Patty Levy and Sara Brown Co-Chairs; Rayna Caplan, Vice Chair; Kate Dahmen, Secretary; Barbara Low, Treasurer; Pam Caswell and Esther Shapiro, Membership; Brent Clark, Music Programs; Chris Dugan, Newsletter; Elizabeth Cherniack, Rayna Caplan, Haskel Straus, Book Sale; Deborah French, Avram Kalisky, Jack Pugh, Henry Haroian, Susan Taylor, At Large, Jacquelin Apsler, Trustee Liaison.
Planning is underway for the October 21st Vault Brunch! The activities, food, and location of events within the library are set. People can have small antiques appraised. The Children’s librarians will have a storytime and a craft for children. The Pierce House will provide the food. Musicians from the Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School will play for us! There will be signs for people to look at to understand the problems with the current vault and learn about the materials stored inside the vault that we want to save.
New Staff
Ruth Dietmeier’s retired and her twenty hours of shelving per week were redistributed to four people: Lisa Bracken, J. B. Finnerty, Mary Lou Gauvin, and Hannah Gavalis. All of them were either already on staff at the library or were working as volunteers.
Adult Department
The second semester of “From Other to Us,” a survey of world faith traditions is over. Last week Ellen led the group discussion about two Islamic stories by Tayeb Salih, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid” and “The Wedding of Zein.” The “From Other to Us” course was very successful and we are grateful to Irene Weigel for donating her time and expertise to the library. The Friday Morning Book Group read their last book, World’s End by Coraghessan Boyle. A week after their last book discussion group, they met again to wrap up the year’s discussions and talk about the theme for next year’s books. The Classic Jazz program for May, “Great Stuff – Jazz gems from local musicians” was lead by Ed Williams. Gail Fitzpatrick exhibited her artwork
in the gallery during May. Jeanne’s Write Stuff group met twice in May. The Photo Share group had spring pictures to share with each other at their May meeting. They are planning a trip to the Butterfly Place in Westford.
Children's Department
The spring programming season for the Children’s Department ended this month. Staff finalized their summer programming schedule and Stacy made the brochure for all of the summer programs. There are so many programs this summer, that Stacy is designing a new format for the brochure on larger paper. The library will be a busy place this summer!
Reference Department
Reference staff answered 321 documented questions during April. Jeanne has been honing her Google skills. On May 19 she gave the presentation, “Using Google Effectively” to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.” This program was well received and Jeanne will make this presentation at one of her Monday night computer training classes.
Technical Services Department
On May 16 Ellen Sisco, Lisa Rothenberg and I saw a demonstration of MyLibrarydv, which is a download video service sold by Recorded Books. This service is similar to cable TV service. The basic option costs $1,100 per year and includes food, travel, health, how to, literature, 32 classic films, 20 foreign films, and documentaries. The library could also upload its own programs. The extended service costs an additional $4,000 per year and has Hollywood favorites, TV shows, and British TV shows. The top service, Hollywood Hits, costs an additional $3,000 per year and offers newly released DVDs for download. If the library subscribed to all three services, it would cost $8,100 per year. The service was very easy to use, much easier than their downloadable audio books product.
It is important for us to know about the new services available to libraries but we agreed that this was not a product for Lincoln to purchase at this time. Most Lincoln residents have good cable service at their homes.
Web Site Upgrade
Stacy is working hard on the design for the library’s new web site. So far it looks really sharp! Jack Pugh is advising Stacy about Dreamweaver software. She convened a web committee meeting on May 17 to work on the links among the web pages.
2007 Annual MAPPO Spring Conference
On April 26 I attended the Massachusetts Association of Public Procurement Officials conference in Taunton. There were four speakers who spoke on the following topics: construction management, sale and lease of real property, procurement fraud, and ethics. The most interesting speaker was Frank Rudewicz, who spoke about procurement fraud. He told us about some of the procurement schemes he has run across during his career and how he solved the cases. The question and answer session for Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30B (procuring goods and services) was also interesting. We submitted questions in advance and attorneys from the Inspector General’s office answered our questions.
Strategic Plan
Susan Taylor and I worked together to revise the strategic plan according to the suggestions made by Sunny Vandermark, Administrator of the Metrowest Massachusetts Regional Library System. I emailed the latest version to Sunny for additional comments. After making revisions, we need to reconvene the Strategic Planning Committee for their comments.
Town Archives Committee
Susan Brooks, Jacquelin Apsler, Jeanne Bracken and I met on May 17 to discuss a new Town Archives Committee that will include representatives from the community. There are town records at both Town Offices and the Library so it makes sense for us to work together on a coherent plan for town records. Our next step is to have a meeting of people who use the vault and/or have material stored in the vault. We know that both the Library’s vault and the Town’s vault have problems and we will ask for their suggestions for addressing these problems.
Building Repairs
1. Vault Renovation Project
Karle Packard of Red Hawk Studio Architects submitted his final version of the construction documents for the vault renovation project. Now we need to raise the funds to renovate the vault.
2. Window Replacement Project
Bids from general contractors for the window replacement project were opened on May 8th at 2 p.m. Seven contractors bid on the aluminum clad wood windows and their bids ranged from $259,900 to $416,000. Five contractors bid on the solid aluminum windows and their bids ranged from $319,000 to $442,000. The Trustees will discuss this project at their May 22 meeting and decide whether to select the aluminum clad wood windows or the solid aluminum windows.
3. Carpets
Karle Packard has nearly finished the bidding documents for the Children’s Room and Staff Work Room. This project should go out bid in early June.
4. Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Four plug in carbon monoxide detectors (one for each floor of the library) were purchased for the library. The alarms on these detectors will be heard when the building is occupied. They are not connected to the building alarm system.
5. Sump Pumps
An engineer from Syska Hennessy came to the library to analyze the library’s sump pumps and discharge pipes. His report stated that the sump pumps are the problem, not the discharge pipes. The library needs more powerful sump pumps than we have now.
6. Energy Conservation
A representative from NStar came to the library on May 21 to see what draws electricity at the library. He will send us a report with energy conservation suggestions that will reduce our electricity bill.
7. Fire Suppression
The Building Committee met with Rand Refrigeri on May 14 to discuss the design of the fire suppression project. The Community Preservation Committee funded part of the construction (additional sprinklers in the sub-basement, sprinklers for the basement, and improved fire detectors for the attic of the Preston building.
8. Water Test of Parapet above Handicapped Parking Area
On May 17 Chapman Waterproofing Company performed a water test on the parapet above the handicapped parking area to find the source of the leak at the triangle window in the Children’s Room. Mark was the technician performing the water test and John Pagnotta watched for water from the inside. They found one leak on the left most side of the step flashing at the triangle window that can be easily repaired. The water test was supposed to continue on May 18 but it was delayed due to rain.
Kudos
Thanks to the Friends for the appreciation lunch they gave for library staff and volunteers! The food was very good, as it always is, and it was fun to spend some quality time with the Friends. I hope the Friends know how important these appreciation lunches are to us. They are big morale boosters! Thanks to the staff for the great job they did during unplugged week. They set the library record for most programs given during a single week! Thanks to Irene Weigel for donating her time to give the “From Other to Us” religion survey course at the library. This course had met approximately 20 meetings lasting two hours!
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