The Ainsworth Library Board held its regular monthly meeting on September 4, 2014. This meeting was advertised in the newspaper, over the radio, and posted on the library website and on the bulletin board. In the absence of the Board President, Mark Kovar presided over the meeting. The meeting was called to order at 5:30 p.m. Notice was given on the posting of the open meeting laws. Roll called showed three members present. They included Amanda Evans, Mark Kovar, and Phyllis Leach. Members Todd Flynn and Kara Welch were absent. Library Director, Gail Irwin, was also present for the meeting.
Amanda Evans moved to approve minutes. Phyllis Leach seconded this motion with all members voting in favor of. Amanda Evans made the motion to approve the claims for payment. Mark Kovar seconded this with all members voting in favor of. The Board spent some time doing a budget spending review. The Monthly Library Report for August was shared as well as the List of Titles Purchased. The Library Director reported that a patron had asked if the library would do the “1,000 Books before Kindergarten” program. The Board will consider this after they hear back on their budget for the upcoming year. The Board opened up a sealed bid for the card catalog unit that was received earlier in the day. Amanda Evans made the motion to not accept the $75 bid for the unit. Phyllis Leach seconded this with all members voting in favor of.
An update was given on the Phase Two of Library Improvements projects. The Teen Area is just about complete. Still need to get some lettering finished. Once that is done, the Brown County Foundation Grant form will be completed so we can get reimbursed. The Library Foundation has paid for the seating by the fireplace. We are now working on the flooring project. If we are awarded the $15,000 in the proposed budget, we can apply for the Kreutz Bennett Grant for small town libraries. This grant is a 3-1 match. Application dead line is October 1st.
The Smart Investing @ Your Library Grant was discussed. It was noted that staff will be attending the General Customer Training Information for Libraries participating in the Smart Investing project on 9-9-14 and the Market Planning Webinar on 9-11-14. After attending these workshops a meeting will be held with our local training, Pat Jones, and dates will be decided on when to hold the public financial training.
Our library is due for re-accreditation in September of 2015. Board was notified of an Accreditation/Strategic Planning Workshop in Lexington on Nov. 17th. The 12 minimum qualifications for a Nebraska Public Library were reviewed. Our library is meeting all of these. Next the Board did a review of the new guidelines that we will need to meet. It is hoped that we have enough points to be certified at the Gold level. Board will start to work on the ones that we are not meeting. Part of the guidelines is to have a strategic plan for the library. A copy of the Ainsworth/Brown County Strategic Plan was shared with the Board. We will see if we can use some of their goals and objectives in our library plan. We will continue working on the plan when we meet. Board will also start to review the policies of the library at each meeting to update them. A survey for the public will also need to done on hours that the library is open and other issues.
It was noted that Northeast Community College will be holding nine classes in the BKR tri-county area this fall. The Digital Photography class will be held at our library on September 18th and 25th from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. A Windows 8 class will be held at our library on November 18th.
The proposed budget for 2014-2015 was discussed. It was noted that the County is still working on their budget and no word has been heard from them yet. The Library Director attended the City Budget Workshop on August 26th. The flooring project was explained to the council. It was felt that they would approve our budget as requested but will have to wait until the budget hearing on September 10th to know for sure.
To maintain security, the NebraskAccess password assigned to our library is changed twice a year. The new password will start on October 1st. Business cards with the new password are available for the public to take. The Board members were all given one at the meeting.
September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month. Director has been taking about library cards and its importance during the weekly radio visit. In August we did 13 new cards and have done a good number so far in September.
Banned Books Week will be celebrated from Sept. 21-27th. We will use the theme of Books Under Fire. We will do a book display in the library and have articles on the library website as well as the newspaper. Director will also talk about on this subject on the radio.
Mark Kovar gave the highlights of the Library Foundation Board meeting held on August 21st. Discuss was held on the Garden Walk and how people seemed to like it being in the evening instead of on a Saturday morning. Two board member terms expired (Richard Albrecht and Navonne Haake). We need to fill these two places with new people. The requirements are that they must live in Brown County and have an interest in the Library. The Foundation Board would like to hold the Book Basket Auction again this fall. They are working on finding a date. They will have a committee meeting to finalize the plans.
A review of workshops/meetings was done. It was noted that for Romance Month, all of the library staff attended the NCompass Live: Harlequin Take Me Away on August 13th. Library Staff will be attending the Technology 101 at the Atkinson Public Library on Sept. 24th, Oct. 22nd, and Nov. 19th. The Broadband grant will pay for the mileage. It was noted that if any of the board members or library staff attended the Digital citizenship: Exploring Cyberbullying, Social Media, & Internet Safety by Karen Haase at the School they could use this for continuing education hours. Staff is also planning on attending the eBooks and eReaders Class on Oct. 1st in Gothenburg. This class is also funded by a grant and mileage will be paid with it. The two ladies from Rock County Library will be traveling with us. Several other workshops were discussed (Staying Connected with Broadband and Responding to the Digital Era-Helping Ourselves Help Small Business Owners) but staff may not be able to attend these.
Under correspondence we shared items of interest from library newsletters and journals.
The next meeting date was set for October 2nd at 5 p.m. Since there was no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 6:29 p.m.
