Minutes for March 9, 2015

Present: Cindy Binzen, Rachel Kurland, Miriam Newman, Carol Wilson, Cindy Stableford (for the Friends), Curt Albee, Marty Frank, Rebecca Seibel

Organizational business: Cindy Binzen was retained as president; Rachel Kurland was elected treasurer, and Marty Frank became secretary. The board decided to continue meeting the second Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the library.

Minutes for the February meeting were accepted.

Librarian’s Report: Rachel purchased a refurbished Miele vacuum for $400 that still has three years left on the warranty. Carol is working on the bookplates to celebrate the arrival of new babies. Rebecca has contacted Mike Tisdale about updating the computers with software upgrades, which requires disabling the Deep Freeze program. She also plans to consult him about replacing the bar-code scanners, which aren’t working as well as they used to. Rebecca also plans to try a computer with a touch screen to see if that might be less cumbersome for handling Library World than the current laptop. Kerry was given the information he needs for preparing the 990.

In news about library programs, the after-school program continues to be well attended. Emily is running Storytime at the preschool and thinks that is going well. David Grant will be reading from his new book on March 10, and the community access television station is hoping to videotape it. The second in the the series of Humanities Council-sponsored discussions of short story authors, this one about Flannery O’Connor, will take place March 17. Rebecca will be attending a LUV Coop meeting March 16 involving a roundtable discussion sponsored by the N.H. Department of Libraries on “the community-driven library.”

A copy of Louise Swan’s will has been found that sheds light on questions that have been raised by state officials about which items from the estate of Justin Morrill belong to the library and which to the homestead. Among the possessions that were given to the library include a cabinet, a secretary, medals and two photos that were given to the homestead last summer after the basement was cleaned out. Rachel will furnish a copy of the will to state officials from the state Office of Historic Preservation.

Rebecca has retrieved the paperwork associated with the $1,000 bequest made to the library in the 1960s that was recently discovered by Betsy Ruml. The document appears to indicate that only the income, not the principal, will be made available to the library. If that’s the case, the money probably should be moved into the endowment where it will be more actively managed.

Rebecca reported that she missed the Feb. 1 deadline for the next round of funding from the Turrell Foundation. She plans to apply for the second cycle of funding at the beginning of August. Rebecca believes we have enough unspent Turrell money to get us to the end of June and we’ll need a little more than $1,000 to get us to the end of the year, when we hope to have a new grant available. Among the possible sources of money to provide that bridge: surplus from last year; Mascoma Bank’s monthly grants; the Lions Club; the Woodbury Foundation. Curt noted that our checking account is still quite healthy and we shouldn’t be worried about covering the program’s cost.

Rebecca urged the trustees to think about where we want to place the dropbox we acquired from the Norwich Public Library. The snowbanks that have accumulated this winter indicate that a spot down near the road will be problematic.

Friends Report: Cindy Stableford said there was little to report from the Friends organization; their next meeting is in April.

Treasurer’s Report: Rachel distributed the February profit-and-loss statement.

Other Business: Curt looked into LED light fixtures at Home Depot for possible use in the loft. They are considerably cheaper than the price quoted by Tom Root, but Curt’s not sure how they compare with the ones that Tom priced. He will consult Tom.

The Personnel Committee, Cindy B. and Curt, will meet with Rebecca on March 11.

Marty said he had held off on retyping the amended bylaws to make sure there aren’t other changes we might want to make. The trustees will review the bylaws before the next meeting and discuss possible changes in April. Also planned for the April meeting is a discussion of what will be done this year to thank our volunteers.

That meeting will be April 13.

Submitted by Marty Frank