Minutes for May 8 2023 Trustees Meeting

The meeting convened at the library at 7 p.m. Present were Cindy Binzen, Carol Wilson, Miriam Newman, Marty Frank, Kevin Lynch, Rachel Kurland, and Melissa Strayton (librarian). 

Minutes of the April meeting were accepted.

Librarian’s Report: Melissa noted that the Friends organization had a meeting last week. The summer book sale is definitely going to happen this year, although the two people who have led the effort in the recent past won’t be around during the week of the sale. A sign-up sheet for volunteers will be distributed in June. Discover Books is already scheduled to come by and pick up unsold books. Melissa submitted her requests for funding at the Friends meeting. Among the changes that were approved: an increase for Kanopy and Green Mountain Library Consortium, less money for LUV (we’re borrowing fewer materials) and underwriting of the ILL courier service.

After-school programming is chugging along. The Summer Reading Program will start on June 27 — a little later than normal because school is staying in session longer this year. The Fire Truck Night is scheduled for July. Melissa plans to get a schedule of the programs to the school for distribution to parents. Melissa also reported that Kevin has upgraded the security software on the laptop used by volunteers for circulation. The same software will be loaded on her desktop computer. 

Melissa asked whether trustees wish to continue to grant her broad authority to monitor conduct in the library that is part of the Operations Policy we recently readopted. Trustees said they were comfortable with the policy as written. She also pointed out that our policy on privacy — and state law — calls for her to provide information to parents about what materials their under-16-years-old children have checked out but that our circulation software does not track individual accounts. The trustees believe that the information would have to be shared if it were available, but that state law and our policy don’t require us to gather that information in the first place. Trustees also affirmed their willingness to allow authors who conduct readings at the library to sell copies of their books, although we generally prohibit commercial sales in the library.

Orders for DVDs, vacuum cleaner bags and kids masks have been placed. The transition to the Libby app for downloading ebooks and audiobooks has occurred with no problems. The Palace app offered through the state is ready to go, although Melissa has discovered that it can complicated to sign up for online and works, at least for now, only on phones.

Treasurer’s Report: Rachel distributed a Profit and Loss statement before the meeting, noting that nothing jumped out meriting our attention. The Library Investment Committee will be meeting in June. Our 990 is being worked on.

Other Business: 

Carol reported that the Website Improvement Committee met with Molly Faccio and asked her to design a new logo. Carol distributed Molly’s initial logo drafts and received feedback from trustees.

Cindy noted that attempts to restart preschool storytime have not borne fruit and nothing is likely to happen until the summer. Trustees suggested switching the focus away from the person we’ve been trying to recruit to run it and making it an all-volunteer effort. Miriam will talk with the woman who runs the preschool program to get her ideas about which kids might be interested in participating and which parents might help out. Spencer Hardy is booked for a June 6 presentation on bees. Marty will contact Laura Ogden to explore the possibility of a program based on her recent anthropological research in Patagonia. Other adult program possibilities include a poetry night or a reading by Herbert Goertz of Tunbridge of his memoir about growing up in Nazi Germany.

After Marty moved to reconsider the decision we made last meeting about putting in a native garden, the trustees decided to revisit the matter in July.

Our next meeting will take place at the library on Monday, June 12, at 7 p.m.

Submitted by Marty Frank