The Town of Lincoln, MA - Library Trustees

1. Building security. It is mostly construction workers that have set off the burglar alarm. This has been happening more since the custodians have been starting their work earlier, as early as 3 AM. They have been turning the alarm back on when they leave, then when the construction workers come, the alarm is triggered. Marshall reported getting false alarms every 1-2 months. Barbara is going to come up with a protocol for locking the building and actuating the security system, specifically when construction is ongoing at the Library.

2. Donor appreciation plaque. Discussion about various items for the bronze plaques. Diana presented several options about design and color for the castings. There will be two plaques. One will list individual donors, and the other lists groups, organizations and foundations.

4. Books and Collections Policy. Diana will be talking with Ellen and the donor who is donating a collection. Diana will be donating 15 books about Buddhism. They will begin discussing the policy for accepting collections that has been in place since 1992. One thing that the policy will need to address is who is doing the selection and who has the final say. One suggestion was that once per year the Director could issue a report about the collection. Barbara reports about 5,000 books per year are added and deaquisitioned each year.

5. Catalpa tree. Lowden Tree came to see the tree. They are willing to take care of it for no charge if we put up a plaque that gives them a “plug” for taking care of it. The size of the plaque would need to be modest, to keep the signage discreet. They feel the tree is in very good health . It might live for another 50 years with the proper care. We want a written proposal from Lowden stating exactly what their proposed care would consist of. We might have the newspaper do a story about the tree as a way of getting them some publicity.

6. Librarian Director Review. Marshall presented the committees work. The review would consist of 2 board members meeting with the Librarian to go over goals, then there will be a follow-up with the full Board of Trustees. ( See Librarian Director Evaluation worksheet)

8. Building Committee report. Punch list mostly done for the vault project. Ice dam. Earl Midgely may have a solution. Cleaning of the Library will be done soon. $ will come from window project funds. To be done when Library is closed, cost about $3.000.00. Generator did not kick in when power went off recently. The “noisy” condenser on the roof seems to be getting worse. A decision was made to put the “Kent” bench under the birch tree on the Bedford Road side. The Board wants to see the “specs” for the bench before it is ordered. The Friends have some $ to spend on other projects and may be interested in enhancing the AV equipment in the Tarbell room. Kitchen renovation. FOL needed a $ amount for the cabinetry. The price for high end cabinets came in at about $25,000. We will try to get some other bids to lower the price.

The Friends’ Executive Committee (Sara Brown, Patty Levy and Barbara Low), met with Jacquelin and Barbara on July 9 to discuss the kitchen renovation project. Three price quotes were obtained by the Friends for this project. The lowest bid was $13,500. With donations down and programming expenses up, the Friends told us that they cannot afford to pay for the full project. They did offer to purchase new furniture and lighting for the kitchen, which is welcome news.

Ellen is busy weeding the collection after making so many purchases this spring. The Write Stuff met on June 24 and July 8. The theme of the book display is “Literary Boston,” which was the topic of an article in the July 5 edition of the Boston Globe. Jeanne hosted a party for the Mystery Mondays book group on July 13. They ate Chinese food and watched Colin Dexter’s “Last Bus to Woodstock.” The Photoshare Group met on July 1. Edward Arees displayed his photographs in the main gallery and Adrian Smith displayed his stone carvings in the Stay Put Coffee Spot and in the glass case.

The Children’s Department is very busy with its summer programs. This summer’s theme is, “Starship Adventure @ Your Library.” The Children’s Department’s kickoff party was on Friday June 26 and was a big success! Wednesdays in July a special “starship” performer comes to the library. On July 1 Robo (Gary Pozzato) the Friendly Robot, taught children about living in space orbits, microgravity, and rockets. The Museum of Science’s traveling planetarium came to the library on July 8. Comic mime Robert Rivest inspired kids to see science in a new light on July 15. Sleepytime Storytime, stories for ages 2-5 read by Jane Flanders, resumed on Monday nights in July. A Game night for ages 11 and up was held on July 8 and was very successful. About twelve kids signed up for this event and they played Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band. On Tuesday mornings there are stories and crafts for ages 3-5. Ed Morgan led a sing-along at the library on July 17.

Reference Department staff answered at least 406 questions versus 299 last June. Jeanne continued setting up the local history area. The display of new reference books on the windowsill is attracting attention. We have lots of new users of the Mango language database with a poster and bookmarks to promote it. Our subscription to Mango began on April 28 and we have 30 registered users so far. There have been 77 user sessions averaging 19 minutes in length. We cancelled the Oxford English Dictionary for this fiscal year because it wasn’t getting enough use to justify the cost. Jeanne will reconvene the Database Push group (Jeanne, Ellen, Jane, and Amy) to work on ways to promote our database subscriptions. Her next Bookie article for the Lincoln Review will be about Lincoln’s living room, the Tarbell Room. Jeanne is sharing her knowledge of retirement planning with staff by giving two talks about it.

Lisa Rothenberg is busy processing the books ordered during the year end ordering push. She continues to update the library’s web site, Facebook and MySpace pages with upcoming library events. Occasionally she will send out a tweet through Twitter. On July 15 Lisa met with the eGov consultant, Jacquelin, Susan and me to discuss the Town’s information technology strategic plan from the library’s perspective.

The AWG (Jacquelin Apsler, Susan Brooks, Jeanne Bracken, Marie Wasnock and I) met on July 8. First, we worked on our plan for a grand opening of the vault, which is scheduled for Sunday November 1 from 3 to 5 PM. Our speaker is Elise Lemire, who wrote Black Walden, which is about the lives of pre- and post-slavery era black Concordians. The Library will sponsor a town-wide Black Walden reading campaign in the run up to this event. Margie Hilton, a volunteer, will make an exhibit for the event. We would also like to invite Emily Althausen to the event since she did so much to raise money for the vault project. Susan and I will make a budget for this event and present it to the Trustees on July 21.

Next, we discussed shelving needs for the Lincoln Historical Room and agreed that two walls of shelving should be enough to store the Lincoln authors collection and the local history books. We also discussed Marie’s draft of “Rules and Guidelines for the Use of Archives and Special Collections.” In the past, rules were only loosely followed. Now we need to be more strict to take better care of the collections.

eGov has begun working on the IT strategic plan for Lincoln. During the week of July 13 eGov interviewed the representatives of the Town departments. Some basic themes came out of these meetings. First, Lincoln’s one man IT department is not able to keep up with the demands placed on him to keep everything running. Second, the PCs in use by the department are getting older and are going off of warranty so they will be more expensive to maintain and more likely to break. Third, because Chuck is so busy just putting out fires, he has little time to plan for the future or work with users on the applications that they want to have in place in their offices. These problems can be resolved with money but this is a difficult economy to be requesting more money.

The Technology Committee met on July 9. First Chuck Miller, the Town’s IT Director, gave us an update about the wireless network upgrade that is underway. A new 20MB Verizon FIOS connection was installed on July 6. The server, that will make the splash page with a welcome statement as well as terms and conditions for the use of the library’s Internet connection, is almost ready for installation. Chuck’s next step is to connect new wireless networking hardware to the network.

Next, there was a discussion about various ways to upgrade the audio visual equipment in the Tarbell Room. Hal McAleer gave suggestions based on his experiences with Classic Jazz and Photoshare groups. Brent Clark shared his expertise about audio equipment and his experience with the singers who have performed at the library. Brent and Hal will prepare a suggestion for purchase that the Friends may fund.

The Building Committee met on July 8 and discussed the noise coming from the roof top condensers. One option they considered was purchasing a new, quieter condenser. The second option considered was hiring an acoustical engineer to measure how loud the condensers are. It was agreed to bring these two choices to the full Trustees meeting on July 21.

Kudos to Dana Weigent! On June 23, a three-year-old girl named Lucy fell and cut her forehead on the corner of a bookshelf in the Children’s Room. Dana was very patient and comforting to Lucy while her babysitter tried to reach Lucy’s parents by phone. After several unsuccessful attempts to the parents’ home, work and cell phone numbers, library staff decided to call the Lincoln EMTs. Once the EMTs arrived, they evaluated Lucy’s injury and decided that she might need stitches. Dana volunteered to accompany Lucy to the hospital and wait there until one of her parents arrived.