MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF
LINCOLN LIBRARY TRUSTEES
July 31, 2007
Present: Jacquelin Apsler, Chair, Marshall Clemens, Susan Taylor, Peter Sugar, Trustees; Barbara Myles, Library Director; Jeannie Bracken, Staff; Susan Brooks, Town Clerk (at beginning of meeting)
Prior to starting the actual meeting, we walked Susan Brooks through the plans for the vault. Susan then showed a PowerPoint entitled ‘Archival Revival‘, which is a presentation intended to promote interest for the construction of the vault to house the Town’s historical records. It was followed by a short discussion covering such points as:
• The type of records to be maintained (first and second tier documents as mandated)
• The ongoing work of the Archival Advisory Committee
• The objectives:
o to ensure the safety of the records
o to index them appropriately
o to make them retrievable and accessible for research
• Point to keep in mind: the Archive costs are not just about the records but also about the appropriate environment – which therefore includes the vault as its bricks-and-mortar component!
• The need for us to handle the costs of the vault and subsequent other related expenditures as a separate line item in the town’s budget (to show that it is really a joint/shared effort and not just exclusively a Library project) – there will be further discussion of this with the FinCom ( and the Selectmen as a courtesy) though no serious impediments are expected
The Library meeting then returned to its own agenda:
1. The minutes of the 7/18/07 meeting were approved as corrected. (Comments were made that we need to have all our minutes posted on the Town website – apparently a number of them have not appeared: Barbara Myles will contact Chuck Miler to correct this oversight. Our Calendar also needs to be updated.)
2. Staff concerns: there were no official ones: however, the staff is very busy and much more so than was the case many years ago when the summer months could be counted on as a fairly slack period. The extra work is primarily centered around the delivery system for network transfers – with unpacking and packaging of incoming and outgoing materials, the heaviest demand being on Mondays. Help would be very welcome and may possibly be provided by some volunteers on an ad hoc basis. Barbara will look into this
3. Strategic Plan: it was accepted by a unanimous vote, with some comments as follows:
o Some wordsmithing (Lincoln is an affluent suburb, the Groves is a new retirement community, Lincoln residents are highly educated, etc.)
o Add Mass Audubon to the organizations in Lincoln
o Describe Lincoln’s Library as an excellent resource commensurate with its size and providing benefits to the network through the quality of its collections
o Obtain funding for on-going preservation without reference to its operating budget
o Discuss the Library’s space needs without reference to any furniture shortcomings
o We also discussed the budgetary implications of the Strategic Plan, with the intent to prioritize what are base budget items and what could be considered grant and fund-raising issues. There is a need to prepare a 5-year plan, together with identifying a first year action plan – note: the deadline for applying for grants is 1 December!
o Barbara will figure out the details. The focus is clearly the vault, with technology and space planning following
4. Technology: the Committee’s objectives will be the ones as detailed in the Strategic Plan – page 15. The Committee will investigate ways advanced information technologies can be used to provide library services and, using the Mass Board of Library Commissioners’ guidance, will suggest how to create a development plan for Lincoln. This plan may include topics such as using interactive capabilities of existing technologies, hardware and software purchases, space requirements, staff training and hiring, privacy and access issues, and others.
As part of this process, the Committee will present to the Trustees a status report on:
o What the Lincoln Library uses now, what works, what doesn’t work, what plans are pending, what town, school, and library association resources are available.
o How our peer libraries use advanced information technology, what the regional and state library associations recommend, what area schools are doing, what “state of the art” might look like.
Implementation of the objectives could follow the methodology as developed by the Schools (Susan has obtained a copy of the School’s document). The committee’s membership will be comprised of staff and community members and will come from among the following individuals (in no particular order): Susan Taylor, Al Kraft, Marshall Clemons, Barbara Low, Stacy Harris, Lisa Rothenberg, Stu Haber, Alice Sajera, Steve Brown, Chuck Miller (if available) – Barbara and Susan will follow-up.
5. Fundraising - Donor Party: there was lengthy discussion as to the format of the party and who would be invited. It was agreed that all invitees will include their spouses. We may be looking at one-hundred-plus people but believe that only 50-75 are likely to attend. The purpose of the party is to acknowledge the donors - generally the ones who have contributed $500 or more. The date: 27 September. The costs: $2,500 maximum. We will try to find some sponsors to reduce the costs, with any unfunded amounts to come from ‘unrestricted gifts’.
6. We received a tentative calendar from Barbara. The Trustee meetings will be held on the fourth Tuesday of each month and there will be no deviations (this is a change from our past practices, where we set dates to ensure that all Trustees could attend the meetings). We will confirm the dates at our next meeting on 13 September.
7. Finance report: FY’07 ended with the Library spending all budgeted monies. (The latest copy of the finance report will have to be re-issued due to some minor errors.)
8. Librarian’s report: highlights:
o There has been good attendance so far at the Summer programs
o We are researching where we may deposit our archives during the building operation of the vault: one location (partial): the Thoreau Institute; we are also going to approach DeCordova. In addition, Barbara is checking prices of professional storage companies.
o Barbara also reported on the meetings of the Archive Working Group - see above
9. Master Planning: Consultants’ bids are expected on 6 August
10. Building Committee: ongoing projects:
o Terrace: we met with the contractor: work is scheduled to take place sometime in September. He is in the process of obtaining a performance bond
o Parapet; we are waiting on the contractor’s payment bond
o Carpet: out to advertisement for bids
o Windows: in progress
o Vault: documents are in final preparation; bids will not be taken until later in the year to obtain the best pricing
o Fire suppression: we had a meeting with RDK on 7/25: the documents are near completion and are being reviewed by us; we shall bid the project nearer the end of the year – to obtain the best prices
11. Garden Club project for the war memorial – in progress
12. Policy review: in progress: report will be made available for our discussion in January
13. Upcoming Meetings:
o Budget Subcommittee: 8/1 at 7:30 PM
o Trustees: 9/13 at 7:30 PM – to be preceded by a tour of the building to be conducted by the custodians – at 6:00 PM: we will have some snacks provided as a substitute for supper
The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 PM
Respectfully submitted by:
Peter C. Sugar
LIBRARIAN'S REPORT
July 31, 2007
TO: Trustees, Lincoln Public Library
FROM: Barbara Myles, Librarian
Adult Department
Ellen and Barbara Low, Treasurer of the Friends, went shopping at the store closing sale at Video Revolution. They selected approximately 50 DVDs for approximately $250. The Friends of the Library bought these films for the library. The Write Stuff met on July 25. Members of this group share the goal of getting published. Jeanne told me that some people have published their work since joining the group. Some had articles published in the “Lincoln Journal” and/or “Lincoln Review. Another person is preparing an article for a financial magazine and writing a thriller novel. This is very impressive! The “Sherlock Summer” continues for the Monday Mystery Group. At their July 30 meeting, they read a selection of short stories including: “Copper Beeches”
and “Speckled Band.” The new carousel for shelving DVDs is on order and the Friends will purchase it for the library.
Children's Department
Every Monday afternoon during the Summer Reading Program, the children’s librarians had programs for Project JumpStart. Attending these programs were METCO students entering kindergarten through second grade. The programs included storytelling and crafts.
“Fantastic Fable Maker,” a musical play of Aesop’s fables, was presented on July 19 by the Central Massachusetts Repertory Theatre. During the morning of July 25 children enjoyed “Caribbean for Kids,” a participatory show of island sing-along songs, steel drums and limbo dancing. The evening of that same day the children’s librarians brought a new type of program, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), to the library. This program was targeted at teenage patrons. DDR is an interactive video game where each player dances on top of a sensor pad, following on-screen visual cues to the beat of popular songs. The object of the game is to match movements with the cues on the screen. Beth Galloway, a librarian and DDR expert, led the program.
Reference Department
Jeanne and I worked with Minuteman Library Network staff to add hyperlinks to Lincoln’s new database subscriptions onto Minuteman’s web site with Lincoln’s other databases and delete the hyperlinks to subscription that the library did not renew because of low patron usage. Jeanne weeded the Reference Collection. Andrew Loof helped Jeanne shift books to make room for the new reference books.
Technical Services Department
Lisa Rothenberg attended a workshop about library 2.0 at Holy Cross on July 25. She was very impressed by the new technology she saw such as Google researcher. She reported that libraries were discussing their patrons’ increasing use of online databases while use of reference books is decreasing. The library has responded by purchasing more databases and fewer reference books.
Web Site Upgrade
InfoSciTex staff is in the process of upgrading the library’s web site.
Strategic Plan
The Trustees approved the Long Range Plan for 2008 – 2012 on July 31. Our next steps are to create action plans for each of the five years covered by the plan and assign the work to staff so we reach our goals.
Town Archives Committee
The Town Archives Working Group (Jacquelin Apsler, Susan Brooks, Jeanne and I) met on July 20 to discuss the charge of the Town Archives Management Advisory Committee that would help the Town Clerk and Library Archives staff to develop a collection development policy, an access policy, and set priorities for digitization and preservation. I met with Jeff Cramer, Curator of the Thoreau Institute, on July 26 and learned that volunteers scan archival material for their web. On July 31 I met with Leslie Wilson, Curator of Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library. Leslie told me that archival material is shipped to India for scanning.
Budget Committee
The Budget Committee and I met with Stu Haber, the Finance Committee’s liaison to the library, on July 31. We discussed the importance of including funds for core services in the library’s base budget. As things stand now, there are some core services, for example children’s programs, which are only funded by the Friends of the Lincoln Library. Stu agreed that this is an important way to build the budget and will support the library through this year’s budgeting process. We also told Stu about our collaboration on the Town Archives project with the Town Clerk, Susan Brooks.
Building Repairs
1. Window Replacement Project.
The windows are in the fabrication stage.
2. Carpets
The carpet project was advertised in the Central Register and has gone out for public bidding. Bids are due September 6. So far three companies have requested the documents and I mailed documents to three other companies.
3. Fire Suppression
Rand Refrigeri (RDK Engineers) sent the 95% complete contract documents to the Building Committee members on July 27. Peter and Barbara made a list of corrections for Rand to make to the contract documents. On July 30 Peter met with Rand to go over the list of corrections. We have not received a corrected version of the construction documents.
4. Water Test of Parapet above Handicapped Parking Area
The Waterproofing Company has signed the contract and provided a payment bond for this project. We still need the Waterproofing Company to provide general liability insurance and to set a date for this project.
5. Terrace Repair Project
Kenney Masonry has signed the contract but has not provided general liability insurance, a payment bond, and a performance bond. We need these documents before Kenney Masonry can begin work.
6. Pest Control
Four pest control companies have come to the library to inspect the building for pests. All agree that the library has ants and mice. We have received three proposals and are waiting for the fourth proposal.
Kudos
Congratulations to the Children’s Department staff: Amy, Jane, Stacy, and Dana for putting on another terrific and successful Summer Reading Program! They make it look easy but it takes a lot of work to create programs that children will want to attend and hire a few performers to make the season extra special.
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