International Falls Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
August 12, 2020
Present: at library Diane Adams, Library Director, Paul Nevanen, Dick Peterson, MaryJo Winkel, Mona Johnson and guest Heather Weaver, present via Zoom: Darcy Sullivan and Ashley Kostiuk
Call to Order: Peterson called the meeting to order at 4:30 pm
Motion was made by Nevanen, seconded by Johnson to approve the July minutes, approved unanimously via roll call vote.
Financial Report and Bills: Motion by Winkel, seconded by Kostiuk to pay the bills. Approved unanimously via roll call vote. Winkel signed the bills.
Director’s Report – July circulation was up almost 300 compared to June 2020 with about 200 of that in physical materials. It is good to see people continuing to return to the library. We are having a good response to our August adult and teen take home crafts. Almost half the packages have been given out the first week of the month. Moving and cleaning is tiring. everything is handled at least twice more than pre-pandemic. We used to just keep up with checking in and shelving and it now goes in waves. Each day everything returned the previous day is moved to shelves (or floor, depending on the quantity) to wait at least 72 hours until it can be cleaned. Then everything moved to cleaning space, cleaned and moved to carts to be shelved. Volume is getting to be an issue, where do we put all the items being returned so they can remain separate and not contaminate other items and not be in the way of staff and potentially infect them.
Old Business:
Upcoming programs – Arrowhead Library System is reworking all the past scheduled Legacy programs that didn’t happen. Some will be virtual and we’ll be given links, some will have a virtual ‘teaser’ this fall and be rescheduled for next spring or summer. They are also looking at putting together some make and take packs that we could request. Details are all still being worked out.
Current storytime plan is to hold it in-person in the meeting room. We’ll shift the orientation of the room and spread blankets out on the floor, with each family taking a blanket to sit on for storytime. Beth will do lots of rhymes and manipulative stories that can be done bigger than just reading a book. We will also purchase multiple copies of one book that will be read with families together that each family can take home and share again.
Budget 2021: City hall wanted budget requests by the end of July. No substantial changes made to budget as presented at July meeting. I spoke with Ken Anderson on July 28th. I presented to the budget committee on Monday, August 10th. They had a couple of questions about the junior room carpet, but otherwise no comments. I was the first to present so they didn’t have any ideas about the state of the budget yet.
New Business: Ted Saxton resigned his board position, effective immediately, so there is an opening. I reached out to Tim and Heather Weaver to see if one of them was interested in serving. Heather is here today to see if she wants to serve.
Next Friends of the Library sale – Will try again in August.
What are you reading? – Mona was just appointed to the cemetery board so is reading A Cemetery Should Be Forever and then Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly, Ashley is reading Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein, MaryJo just finished Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald, Darcy is reading Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger, Paul continues his cabin reading with Byline by Ernest Hemingway, Dick is reading The Pencil by Henry Petroski, Heather is reading Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd along with something else that I didn’t write down and now can’t remember and Diane is reading the light-hearted The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson and just started The Brave by James Bird, about a native kid just meeting his mom an Ojibwe and moving to Minnesota.
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 9th at 4:30 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm.