Library Board Meeting

Scottsbluff Public Library

Board

Regular Meeting – 2:00 p.m.

January 15, 2008

Minutes

Roll Call

President Teresa Clark called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m. in the meeting room of the Scottsbluff Public Library, 1809 3^rd Ave., Scottsbluff, NE 69361.

A notice of the meeting had been published on January 11, 2008, in the Star Herald, a newspaper published and of general circulation in the city. The notice stated the date, hour and place of the meeting, that the meeting would be open to the public. Anyone with a disability desiring reasonable accommodation to attend the council meeting should contact the Library Director’s office. An agenda of the meeting, kept continuously current, was available for public inspection at the office of the Library Director. The Library Board could modify the agenda at the meeting if it is determined that an emergency so required. A similar notice, together with a copy of the agenda, also had been delivered to each Library Board member.

Roll was called. Those present were Teresa Clark, Sue Waite, Kristin Wiebe, Library Director Bev Russell, and Librarian Jana Kehn, who took notes. Absent were Carol Holyoke and Rita Brown.

For public information, a copy of the Nebraska Open Meetings Act is posted by the doors on the north side of the library meeting room.

Teresa announced that a copy of the Open Meetings Act was posted by the doors to the meeting room.

Notice of changes in the agenda. (Additions may not be made to this agenda less than 24 hours before the beginning of the meeting unless added under item 3 of this agenda.)

There were no changes in the agenda.

Citizens with business not scheduled on the agenda. (As required by state law, no matter may be considered under this item unless the board determines that the matter requires emergency action.)

There were none.

Approve Special Library Board meeting minutes of December 11, 2007.

Kristin and Sue noted a couple of misspellings of their names. Kristin moved the approval of the minutes with the misspellings corrected. Sue seconded.

Yes – Waite, Clark, Wiebe

No – None

The minutes were approved.

Citizens with business scheduled on the agenda

Linda Peterson to request that the Library Board reconsider age limits in the Library Internet Policy.

Linda Peterson was not present; however, the Board discussed the age limits in the Library Internet Policy at length.

Bev gave background information on how the age limits were selected. When she was hired as Library Director, there were eight unfiltered public computers for adults. There were no Internet computers available in the children’s area or the teen area. The age limit was set at 12 for use of public Internet computers in order to allow Middle School children use of the computers for homework. A few years later, two computers were added in the children’s library and were filtered. The Library Board discussed the age limit for using unfiltered computers at that time. The Board decided to change the age limit to 16. Then high school students would be able to do reports, such as those on breast cancer, AIDS, and abortion, which might use words that a filter would block. Furthermore, congestion on the filtered computers would be lessened. When one computer was added to the teen area, the age limit was left at 16. If parents chose, the library does allow parents to fill out a form denying their children Internet privileges.

If the age limit is raised, staff feel that more computers will have to be made available to children and teens only, and fewer computers will be available for adult’s to use.

Since the library did not use E-Rate funding to purchase their public computers or Internet access, then it is not under a federal mandate to filter its public computers.

Librarians also monitor computer use.

After discussion, the Library Board felt there was no need to raise the age limit at this time.

Reports and recommendations from the Library Director and/or Library Staff:

Bev noted that library statistics were down somewhat in December from the previous year probably because of the poor weather conditions all month. The statistical report and activity report are attached to the minutes.

Library Statistical Report: December 2007 (see Board packet)

b. Library activities for December 2007 (See Board Packet)

Capital Campaign reports:

Community Campaign Leadership Committee:

Culver’s Fundraiser will be January 18, 2008 instead of the 23^rd as previously reported. Culver’s Manager Jason Brown felt this would be a much busier business day and would make more money for the library.
Read-a-thon – Anne Radford of the Friends of the Library is working on this with Deb Carlson. The Read-a-thon will involve all age groups from children through adults. The details are still being decided.
Longfellow School – Longfellow is the city’s Adopt-a-school this year. Three students from the student advisory group were at the library today, planning fundraising activities. More information will be forthcoming.

Grant writing process report – Bev Russell

Bev called the Kiewit Foundation about the process of submitting a grant. The deadline for the first round of grant applications is January 15^th. Bev asked if it was important to meet this first deadline. The Kiewit representative assured her that it was more important to include as much information as possible in the grant application that would sell the project to the directors. A well-written grant was the key. Bev decided to wait to submit the grant until the April 15^th deadline and take her time to carefully write the grant. Also, by April she should have a much clearer idea of the amount needed because most of the local fundraising will be done.

She also asked the Kiewit representative about appropriate amounts to request. She was told that usually the Foundation considers a library project to be government project even if a 501c3 Foundation is making the application. Therefore, the library could request up to 25% of the total project cost for funding. Since the estimated cost of the project is $4.1 million, as much as $1 million could be requested.

Once the Kiewit Grant application has been finished, then Bev will look at other possible grants.

Direct mail and Newspaper Ad report – Bev Russell

To date the direct mail campaign has raised $6,195. The newspaper ad raised over $1,000.

Other fundraising events:

There were no other fundraising events to be reported at this time.

ONELibrary Conversion – February 4-8 – closing Noon to Noon Feb. 7-8.

Bev reported that the conversion to the ONELibrary automation system would take place February 4-8. The Scottsbluff Library will then be part of the ten library consortium and share its holdings with the other consortium libraries. The City Manager gave Bev permission to close the library from Noon to Noon on February 7 & 8 to check out the "bells and whistles" on the new automation system before going live with the public.

Action Items:

Closing the library on February 7 at noon and reopening on February 8 at noon.

Since the City Manager had already granted permission to close the library on Feb. 7 & 8, the Library Board took no action on this.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 p.m. Next meeting is February 12, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. in the library.