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HomeMy WebLinkAbout~Master - Ames Public Library Board of Trustees Minutes of the Regular Meeting 05/17/2012Ames Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes May 17, 2012 The Ames Public Library (APL) Board of Trustees met in regular session on Thursday, May 17, 2012, in the City Council Chambers, 515 Clark Avenue, with Bradley, Budd, Campbell, Luckett, Manus, Meier, Rawlins, and Stow in attendance. Schill arrived a few minutes later. Library Director Art Weeks and Assistant Director Lynne Carey were also present. Bradley and Manus were excused. Call to Order: Board President Luckett called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Adoption of Agenda: Luckett noted that the Library Renewal Project Design presentation would be delayed because the architect was unable to be present. He said the item under new business pertaining to the LEED Commissioning Agent would also be addressed at a later meeting. Moved by Stow, seconded by Rawlins, to approve the agenda as amended. Vote on Motion: 5-0. Motion approved unanimously. Approval of Minutes: Moved by Budd, seconded by Campbell, to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of April 19, 2012, and the special meeting of May 9, 2012. Vote on Motion: 5-0. Motion approved unanimously. Public Forum: None Consent Agenda: Moved by Meier, seconded by Stow, to adopt a resolution approving the consent agenda, with the exception of Financial Reports, which she wished to discuss: 1) Donations a) From Worldly Goods (Project Smyles fundraiser) ................................. 397.43 2) Claims Report 4/1/2012 – 4/30/2012 3) Financial Reports Vote on Motion: 5-0. Motion approved unanimously. Resolution adopted. Financial Reports: Trustee Meier directed attention to the financial report on the Library Renovation Project, noting that some of the pages prepared by the Finance Department showed expenses going back as far as 2006. Although the city is keeping track of the cost of the entire project, she wondered if the board cared to see all of the prior years’ expenses every month. There was consensus that the trustees only needed to see the current year’s expenses and running totals. Campbell stated, however, that he would like to see deductions from the $20,000,000 project cost (consisting of $18 million from bonds, $1 million from bequests, and $1 million from the APL Friends Foundation) as a separate sheet. Weeks said staff would work on preparing a report formatted that way. Moved by Meier, seconded by Campbell to approve the Financial Reports. Vote on Motion: 5-0. Motion approved unanimously. Trustee Schill arrived at 7:15 p.m. Administrative Staff Report: Library Director Weeks said the Iowa legislature had restored $500,000 to the Enrich Iowa Funds for Fiscal Year 2013, a move that will bring library funding back to the 2010 level. The Ames City Council also formally adopted a new ordinance, effective July 1, changing the terms of library trustees so that they begin and end on April 1. Weeks reported that the library has two key employee positions open now: the Library Collection Supervisor and the Circulation Supervisor. The Collections position is being revised, as the library is looking for someone quite adept at working with electronic resources. The Circulation Supervisor has decided to retire as of June 30, and her position will be filled after a classification study and advertising. It is hoped that both positions can be filled by August 1. Carey said she attended the Story County Youth Volunteer Awards event with Youth Services Supervisor Jerri Heid, in support of Kiki and Gretchen Kramer. The sisters were nominated by the Library and won individual awards. Carey also reported that Jerri recently graduated from Leadership Ames. Ames Public Library Friends Foundation (APLFF) Report: Trustee Campbell said the APLFF committees were working on developing strategic plans. In anticipation of two openings on the Board of Directors, the nominating committee will work to bring forth candidates. The APLFF scholarship fund for library employees is up and running. Campbell reported that the library, including Teen Advisory Group (TAG) members and Smyles, participated in the VEISHEA parade. The spring book sale generated $11,700. In terms of fundraising for the building expansion, the APLFF is about $250,000 short of its $1 million goal. Trustee Stow added that there will be two special book sales in July, and the last large sale will be held September 21-22, the same weekend as the Octagon Art Festival, Ultimate Ames, and FACES. Stow commended Trustee Laura Rawlins and library employees Mary Logsdon, Karen Thompson, and Art Weeks, who worked to submit a nearly 100-page application to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which the library hopes will result in a $250,000 challenge grant. Stow said the APLFF’s accountant is planning to visit with the directors in June. Lastly, the annual campaign solicitation was sent out to 12,000 households. Library Building Project Update: Weeks said that he will be organizing an Art Committee for the Library Renewal Project. Three library staff members who currently comprise a Design Committee will serve as its core. Weeks plans to attend a meeting of the Public Art Commission on June 6 to see if any commissioners would like to participate. He said he would also like to invite a member of the community member at large and welcomed Library Board representation. Stow indicated that he would participate. Weeks said that the Art Committee is currently updating the library’s existing inventory and certain items definitely need to stay. It still remains to be seen how much wall space will be available in the future building. Luckett suggested that works of art could possibly be rotated. Weeks said the ideal location for temporary space still hasn’t been found, but the construction advisor is looking to put down an offer on one likely spot. Weeks said he was encouraging a decision by June 30. During the Design Development phase of the project, a Commissioning Agent for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification needs to be brought into the process to ensure that the design and contract documents conform to the appropriate standards. There was a question about the LEED certification the library was aspiring towards. Weeks said there were four LEED levels: Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The library opted for Silver because that rating conforms to a good balance of upfront costs and future savings. The commissioning agent is someone who would review the plans and test equipment to make sure the standard is achieved for energy efficiency of the various mechanical systems. Weeks stated that he had hoped to bring a recommendation forward at this meeting, but because the architect had not been able to complete his evaluations, the library’s Construction Advisor is being asked to review the top three candidates. Weeks said the contract could be awarded at an upcoming special meeting of the library board or, if necessary, by the City Council at its meeting on June 12. Weeks passed out memos from City Manager Steve Schainker and library architect Jeff Scherer and explained that a special Library Board meeting will be taking place next Thursday to discuss cash flow and project funding. Policy Review: Changes to the Personnel Policy Moved by Rawlins, seconded by Budd, to adopt a resolution approving changes to the Personnel Policy as presented/amended. Budd proposed that the charts showing vacation hours accrued by exempt and non-exempt employees appear in the same order as the classifications do in the preceding paragraph. Stow asked if family sick leave ran concurrently with FMLA. Carey said that the city policy covers FMLA, and the library ascribes to that section as it stands, but the library addresses family leave differently than the city does. Stow said he wants to make sure that employees know about FMLA. Carey explained that they do, and said all the leaves could be taken in conjunction with FMLA. Campbell inquired about how the policies were explained to new employees, and Carey said they each receive an employee booklet plus information about the library’s differences. Much of the information is covered by the City in its four-day-long new employee orientation sessions. Meier said she did not like to see unlimited family sick leave. While she sympathizes with staff whose family members are ill, she believes sick leave is for the employee. She said it was conceivable that a person could use all his sick leave for the family and then not have any if he got ill himself. Stow said it was something that would need to be monitored carefully. ISU allows 40 hours in the first year and then 80 hours per year for family sick leave after that. Carey offered some history of the APL policy, stating that prior to 2009, there was no restriction or limit on the use of sick leave for one’s family. At that time, when adopting the bulk of the rest of the City’s personnel policy, the library tried to more closely match the City’s policy by limiting family sick leave to three days per occurrence. Since then, the library has found it very difficult to define “occurrence.” Furthermore, Carey said that APL is not at variance with the City’s overall sick leave usage; in fact, the library performs better than many of the other city departments. So, rather than anguish over the definition, the committee felt it was better to just eliminate the distinction. She said that the City sends frequent reports on sick leave usage, and anything that appears to be possible abuse is addressed as a performance issue. Weeks added that said the policy sometimes got in the way when a person had a legitimate reason for needing to stay home. He feels APL staff has a lot of cohesion and is not inclined to abuse the benefit. Meier said she personally couldn’t support unlimited sick leave for family. Staff was asked why the library’s accrual rates varied from the city’s and Weeks replied that all city employees, other than those who have negotiated a contract, get two weeks vacation for the first seven years. However, the standard leave for professional librarians is four weeks per year, so the library’s policy is written to provide those professionals with three weeks after completing the first year. Carey mentioned that a sentence clarifying lunch break expectations for employees working 30 hours per week was also added in Section 11.6. During discussion, some additional changes were proposed: Substitution of the word “usurps” with “replaces” (first paragraph under Variations from COA Policy); Changing the phrase “exceptions to the Library policy” to “variations from the COA policy” (section 1.4); Clarifying employees as being exempt “from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act” (section 10.4); Replacing the words “per year” with “during” and correcting the number of months in the first year of service (under Annual Vacation Leave); and Correction to the spelling of the word “through” in Chart 10.4(1). Vote on Resolution as presented, with the additional textual and formatting changes discussed: 5-1. (Budd, Campbell, Meier, Rawlins, Schill voting aye; Meier voting no). Motion approved. Resolution declared adopted. New Business: Approval of Fiscal Year 2012/13 Subscription Renewal with OCLC Moved by Stow, seconded by Meier, to adopt a resolution approving renewal of subscriptions for OCLC Cataloging, WorldCat Resource Sharing, and Access services for fiscal year 2012/13 an amount not to exceed $29,889.97, subject to compliance with the City of Ames’ Affirmative Action requirements. Luckett said the City Manager’s office had approved OCLC’s Affirmative Action compliance since the board packet was prepared. Weeks said the expenditure requires board approval because it exceeds $25,000. He explained the deposit program, under which the library pays a lump sum early in the year and subsequent invoices are drawn down and credits applied. Stow asked how credit was obtained by APL employees. Weeks explained that library staff could catalog and create a new machine-readable cataloging (MARC) record for a locally- produced book, for example, and OCLC would apply credit for that contribution to the database. In response to a question from Campbell, Weeks said the arrangement with OCLC would not change as a result of being in the new building. Rawlins asked if the items APL receives electronically are already cataloged by OCLC, and Weeks stated that most of them probably are. Rawlins said she was confused, then, about what he meant when he spoke about the need to have an employee that could manage the electronic collections. Weeks said that as we migrate to the world where more and more cataloging is handled electronically, the library needs someone who is very current with the latest trends. Rawlins still wondered how Weeks was using the term “cataloging resources,” because that meant to her that OCLC didn’t have a record yet. Carey said she did not think e-book cataloging was the most significant change in the Collection Supervisor’s job; rather, there will be more emphasis on administration of the Integrated Library System (ILS), in order to relieve Mark Harris from doing both hardware and software administration. The new supervisor will take the lead on software administration, including cataloging, and some of the collection development responsibilities that Marianne had will be transferred to the information services librarians. The Collection Supervisor will also be more involved with web presentation and how the library acquires e-books in the future. Rawlins said she understood, then, that the library was looking for a point person who could stay abreast of the best trends and options, not necessarily someone making entries into OCLC. Campbell said he liked the way staff was looking at this position and wondered if there would be thinking along the same lines with respect to the Circulation Supervisor’s position. Weeks said that the individual had only announced her retirement the day before, but he did not believe her position lent itself to as much revamping as the collections position. Vote on Resolution as presented: 6-0. Motion approved unanimously. Resolution adopted. Approval of SirsiDynix annual Moved by Schill, seconded by Budd, to adopt a resolution approving renewal of SirsiDynix Annual Maintenance Agreements for fiscal year 2012/13 in an amount not to exceed $27,846.34. Weeks said SirsiDynix provides the system that tracks patron records, acquisitions, stores information on the APL catalog, and more. Carey pointed out that this is the system that the new Collection Development Supervisor will be administering in the future. The trustees said they would like to know about the difference in price from this year to last. Moved by Stow, seconded by Meier, to delay voting on the motion until the next meeting, when the Board could get information on the percentage and amount of this year’s increase. Vote on motion: 6-0. Motion carried unanimously. Approval of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Commissioning Agent (Postponed) Executive Committee Approval of Environmental Survey Stow said that, at the library director’s request, the Executive Committee met to look at the proposal to award a contract to Terracon Consultants to conduct the preliminary site assessment. The committee approved the contract. When asked for information on the work being done, Weeks said representatives of the firm were looking for asbestos, lead paint, and other toxins that may require remediation in connection with the building renovation and expansion. The crew is taking readings and samples, some of which will be sent in to a lab. The report will most likely be back in 60 days. Weeks confirmed that any problems found could result in costs above and beyond the existing project budget. Report of the Nominating Committee On behalf of the committee, Sherry Meier presented the slate of officers as follows: Stow for President; Al Campbell for Vice President; and Laura Rawlins for Secretary. Luckett added that nominations from the floor could be made now or any time prior to next meeting. Trustee Comments: Campbell said he would like the Director and Assistant Director to consider inviting staff who have responsibilities for certain areas or specific fields of expertise to the board meetings so they could address questions that came up from the trustees. Stow asked for an update on the RFID project. Carey said the library was quite far ahead of schedule because temporary staff had been hired to start tagging before the programming equipment arrived. They have done very well and are working rapidly. There will be a concentrated effort to tag and program the entire youth collection next weekend. After hours activities are less disruptive to customers, but also can be fun and team-building. It appears as if the project will be finished by the end of June. Adjournment: Moved by Stow, seconded by Rawlins, to adjourn at 8:21 p.m. Vote on Motion: 6-0. Motion carried unanimously. The next regular meeting will be on Thursday, June 21, 2012, at 7:00 p.m., in the City Council Chambers, 515 Clark Avenue.