October 2009 - Board Minutes

Owatonna Public Library Board Minutes of October 20, 2009

The regular monthly meeting of the Owatonna Public Library Board of Trustees was called to order at 4:30 by President Russ Dunn-Foster. Also present were Jill Holmes, Don Overlie, Angela Sager, Renée Lowery, Mary Kay Feltes and Gail Plathe. Ross Leuning was absent.

The September minutes were approved on a motion by Jill, seconded by Angela.  All board members present voting aye, the motion was passed.

The September financial report was reviewed. On November 4th Mary Kay, Renée and Ryan, assistant technology coordinator will meet with the city during budget study sessions. Board members are invited as well. The library’s mission will be restated. Goals and accomplishments will be outlined. Program cuts were made. The library website is updated on a daily basis. Books are ordered “shelf-ready” with jackets and spine labels. Some cataloging is outsourced.

City Council and school board election will be held Tuesday, November 3rd.

Renée presented the Children’s Services’ report on September activities.  The thrice weekly story time began mid-month. Ninety children and adults attended the first session of “Animals with Tails”. September’s Family Fun Night “Down on the Farm”, hosted in cooperation with Early Family Childhood Education (ECFE) was attended by 90 children and adults. Visitors in September included 76 seventh and eighth-graders from St. Mary’s Elementary School and 33 children and adults from Migrant Head Start. Lincoln School provided breakfast in honor of the students who achieved their reading goal of 20 minutes a day for 60 days. Darla, Patty, and Joan were invited to join them. Patty, Joan, and Darla oversaw the library booth at CulturFest. A total of 404 people were treated to stories and temporary tattoos. Late in September Darla and Nancy read stories at the Lullaby Concert. One hundred fifty people attended.

Library Card Sign-Up Month celebrated on the web. A new tip was posted each day with an idea for using library cards. Free book bags were given with each new library card. The library now has 144 FaceBook fans and is connected to 30 other twitter users.

Library use reports: People numbers were down about 5% at Owatonna Public Library over the same month in 2008. At Blooming Prairie Branch Library people count was up and check-outs decreased slightly. Owatonna Public Library added 196 new borrowers in September, which is up 10% over last year. Almost 3000 people used their library cards at Owatonna Public Library in September and 400 at Blooming Prairie Branch Library. In spite of the slight decrease in check-outs for the last couple months, overall check-outs have increased when compared with the same time frame in 2008.

Other Business

Mary Kay noted she has had discussions with storm water manager Matt Durand.  Matt has ideas for resolving the flooding issue in the alley behind the library building. Library board members discussed this at length. No decisions were made.

Aquabrowser, the skin on top of the catalog we already have, was discussed. This program has features on the customer side that are fun to use and add to the experience. Each library in the SELCO system will have its own branded page. One of the challenges of installing Aquabrowser is that the manufacturer is in Amsterdam. Other hurdles have hindered the timely release of this product. It is very close to release at this time.

E-commerce will be available in November 2009. Overdue charges can be paid online with credit and debit cards. This will be available at all SELCO libraries. Promotional materials will be coming from SELCO soon.

With no further business to discuss the meeting was adjourned at 5:25PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Gail Plathe