alameda_minutes
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LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 1 | TERNA Minutes of the ALAMEDA FREE LIBRARY BOARD AUGUST 9, 2006 The regular meeting of the Alameda Free Library Board was called to order at 7:00 p.m. ROLL CALL Present: Leslie Krongold, President Ruth Belikove, Vice President Karen Butter, Board Member Alan Mitchell, Board Member Mark Schoenrock, Board Member Absent: None Staff: Jane Chisaki, Library Director Marsha Merrick, Recording Secretary CONSENT CALENDAR An asterisk indicates items so enacted and adopted on the Consent Calendar. A. *Report from Library Director highlighting Library Department activities for the month of August 2006. Accepted. B. *Draft Minutes of the Regular Library Board meeting of July 12, 2006. Approved. C. *Library Services Report for the month of June 2006. Accepted. D. *Report from Finance Department reflecting FY 2005-06 Library expenditures (by fund) through July 2006. Accepted. E. *Bills for ratification. Approved. Board Member Butter inquired about inflation of circulation numbers as mentioned in the Library Director's report. Director Chisaki indicated that she had checked back three years and verified that, for some unknown reason, her predecessor had been routinely inflating numbers anywhere between 5-7%. When looking at statistics, there has actually been a slight increase in year-to-date numbers. Chisaki plans to do a little more investigating, and will report back to the Board at a future meeting. President Krongold asked for a motion to approve the Consent Calendar as presented. Board Member Butter so moved; Board Member Mitchell seconded the motion which carried by a 5-0 unanimous vote. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |
LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 2 | Page 2 of 6 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting August 9, 2006 UNFINISHED BUSINESS A. Materials Security and Inventory System - Update (J. Chisaki) Director Chisaki stated there was nothing much new to report at this time, as Supervising Librarian David Hall, who heads up the project, had been on vacation for a couple of weeks. Board Member Butter asked if there was a plan in place to ensure that the RFID equipment would function properly. Chisaki indicated that testing will start at both the Main and the branches in mid-October, and technicians will be on hand to monitor and adjust the equipment. However, testing the system when the building is empty is a whole different thing than when you have people coming and going with electronic devices such as cell phones, pagers, laptops, etc. The system will need further adjustment to accommodate these interferences, so a technician will be on site in the peak hours to tweak the system as needed. The RFID system is much more sensitive then the magnetic strips that are currently in place. Board Member Schoenrock quoted from the Director's report that 158,038 items have been tagged, but that doesn't give a sense of what the entire collection would be. Director Chisaki responded that the collection sits at about 250,000, and the next big chunk to be tagged are paperbacks. A lot of the periodicals currently in the system will not be going with us, and will not need tagging, but they are still part of the total system count at this time. B. Meeting Room Use in New Main Library (J. Chisaki) President Krongold stated she had several questions on the Meeting Room Use document that was distributed with the Board packet. A decision was made to go through each item in order and each member could ask the questions they had, if any. In the end, there were several revisions and language enhancements suggested, and Director Chisaki promised to re-work the document and bring it back to the Board at the September 2006 meeting. NEW BUSINESS A. Election of Library Board Officers (J. Chisaki) Board President Krongold asked for nominations for President. Board Member Schoenrock responded by nominating Board Member Butter; the nomination was seconded by Board Member Mitchell. Butter accepted the nomination, and as there were no other nominations forthcoming, a vote was taken and Butter was elected to President in a 5-0 vote. Outgoing President Krongold asked for nominations for Vice President. The Board as a whole asked current Vice President Belikove if she would be interested in continuing her role. Belikove accepted, and was re-elected by a 5-0 vote. At this point, outgoing President Krongold handed the meeting lead over to incoming President Butter. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |
LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 3 | Page 3 of 6 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting August 9, 2006 B. Clarification of Library Construction Funds (J. Chisaki) Director Chisaki spoke to clarify a statement made by Development Services Director, Leslie Little, that had appeared in a newspaper article concerning redevelopment fund use. The article was a bit misleading, in that it appeared some funds earmarked for library branch renovations would be taken and used towards the theater project. In reality, the pool of funds Little was referring to were straight redevelopment monies. The Library Construction Project took $2 million from redevelopment funds. These funds can only be spent in designated redevelopment districts, and the new Main Library falls into such a district. Unfortunately, neither of the branch libraries fall into one of these districts. Of the $2 million that was allocated from redevelopment funds, $1 million went directly into construction costs, and has already been spent. The other $1 million was put aside for contingency funding. However, because we have not spent the remaining $670,000 in Measure O funds, the $1 million set aside for contingency funding will revert back to redevelopment funds for use on other projects. At this point, we are well enough under budget, that we will be able to give more of the Measure O funds back towards the branch renovations. After all is said and done, we will still have around $2 million to spend on the branches. Audience member Li Volin was in attendance to express her concern over the possible loss of branch renovation funding. She read a letter she had written to address the current funding situation. Ms. Volin was assured by Director Chisaki and the Library Board that all branch monies were preserved, and plans for renovations would proceed, starting with community meetings to get a feel for what the public would like to see happen. Chisaki further assured Ms. Volin that the new Main Library the public is getting is going to be a terrific building. Board President Butter stepped in at this point, and suggested that the branch renovation discussion be continued later in the meeting when other items related to the topic were being brought up. Butter also assured Ms. Volin that the new Main would be an absolutely fantastic building, even if it was not exactly what the Building Team had envisioned. A decision was made to not have further clarification of the funding through the newspaper, but answer any individual inquiries that come up. C. Alameda Free Library Foundation (A. Mitchell) Board Member Mitchell indicated that he went to the meeting, however, the door was locked so he returned home. Director Chisaki was able to provide some highlights: A memorial fund was set-up in memory of Ann Muir, who had helped select art for the new building. Plans for the Gala are moving forward and the Foundation is selling tickets through the website. The brochure that promotes the Foundation and donations for the new Library has not been released yet. Upcoming community events will be utilized to get the word out on Foundation activities. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |
LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 4 | Page 4 of 6 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting August 9, 2006 D. Friends of the Alameda Free Library (M. Skeen) Friends President Skeen said that they continue planning for the new Café. At the second chance book sale, the Friends moved several hundred boxes of books; sales figures were not yet available. E. Library Building Watch (M. Merrick) Recording Secretary Merrick was pleased with the recent issue as it had highlighted all the upcoming grand opening events. There will be little reminders of these events in each issue that comes out prior to the new Main's opening. Merrick cited issues that arose when printing off the newsletter from its e-mail format, and Member Krongold advised her to speak with Vertical Response's technical support team if the problems persist. Board President Butter inquired if we had thought about what we would do once the new building opens - will it still be called the "Library Building Watch"? Director Chisaki suggested the possibility of having a contest to re-name the publication. F. Patron suggestions/comments (Speak-Outs) and Library Director's response. One patron suggested that senior citizens might get a little more time to keep borrowed movies. Staff conferred, and the loan period for videocassettes will be extended from one to three weeks, with the same period applying to music CD's beginning September 1. A patron request was made to increase the DVD collection for kids. Active selection of children's DVDs has been going on this past year, however, due to their popularity, the collection saw much damage and loss over the first month. The collection has now been increased to about 200 titles at the Main and each branch will receive about 100 new titles to coincide with the grand opening of the new building. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS, NON-AGENDA (Public Comment) Audience member Marc Lambert asked what was happening on the appointment of the new SAB representative to BALIS. Director Chisaki explained the situation that occurred with the Council and indicated that a decision on how to proceed with the appointment was now awaiting the City Attorney's office direction. BALIS will not meet again until September, and Chisaki plans to meet with prospective SAB representative Rebecca Kozak after returning from vacation. Audience member Li Volin asked why the Library Board Meeting Agendas were not being posted on the website. Recording Secretary Merrick explained that since she had started in February 2006, she had been actively taking the steps to post the agendas, although there had been a bit of a problem with the Web Administrator, Infolane, following through on their end. Merrick has great hopes that this problem has been resolved, and that the agendas will appear on a regular and timely basis. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |
LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 5 | Page 5 of 6 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting August 9, 2006 Board Member Schoenrock inquired if there was a goal to post the meeting minutes to the website as well. Merrick responded that it hadn't been discussed previously, but there should be no problem in doing SO. Board President Butter asked Recording Secretary Merrick to begin posting the minutes once they had received the Board's approval. Merrick promised to start this practice immediately. LIBRARY BOARD COMMUNICATIONS None. DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS Director Chisaki passed around pictures she had taken on a recent tour of the new facility. A request was made to put some of the pictures up on the website. Chisaki indicated that she was going to do that but the software she had to use to make thumbnails was on her home computer, and she had trouble accessing the program. Chisaki indicated that Recording Secretary Merrick was evaluating some photo-editing software she had purchased for her home computer, and would offer her opinion on ease of use, functionality, etc. The date for installation of the exterior medallions, Cadence of the Water, is set for August 18-22. The interior mural, Oracle of the Tree, will start installation August 23, and take 5 days to complete. When we move our telephone and servers over to the new Main on September 25, telephone and internet access at all three location will go down. We don't know how long it will take AT&T to bring our servers back up, so we have put a message on the webpage and started doing handouts to the public announcing this temporary interruption of service. During this process, we will be installing wireless access at both the branches, so during the month of October when the Main is closed, patrons will have full service at the branch locations. Director Chisaki said that discussions should start on getting the public's input for making branch improvements, and she cited several items on branch Supervisor Arta Benzie-Youssef's "wish list". Further discussion was tabled by Board President Butter, as she requested that the topic be put on the next meeting's agenda. Chisaki will be on vacation through August 20, returning on Monday, August 21. Board President Butter congratulated Chisaki on her appointment to Library Director, and expressed her pleasure at continuing to work with her for years to come. Chisaki stated that she had promised City Manager Debra Kurita that she would stay on as Director for the next 7-10 years. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |
LibraryBoard | 2006-08-09 | 6 | Page 6 of 6 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting August 9, 2006 ADJOURNMENT Board President Butter called for a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:52 p.m. Board Member Mitchell so moved, Vice President Belikove seconded the motion, and it was carried by a 5-0 vote. Respectfully submitted, Jane Chisaki Library Director and Secretary to the Library Board This meeting's agenda was posted 72 hours in advance in accordance with the Brown Act. | LibraryBoard/2006-08-09.pdf |