Library Board

MORGANTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY Approved 2023.09.07 Minutes of the Regular Meeting August 3, 2023 Present: Absent: Also Present: Others Present: Sue Carpenter Alexandria Svolos Sarah Palfrey Linda Durfee Kelly Funkhouser Meredith Hartery James Spears, V Amy Loomis Call to order The regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Morgantown Public Library convened on August 3, 2023. The meeting convened at 9:02 am, Sue Carpenter, President presiding, Kelly Funkhouser, secretary. Approval of the Minutes • Regular Meeting June 1, 2023 - The minutes were approved as corrected. Linda Durfee moved. The motion passed. PUBLIC FORUM – None CORRESPONDENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS - None REPORTS • President – None • Director – See Director’s Reports for July 23 & August 23 • Treasurer – o Financial Statements – The financial statements were reviewed. Additional excess levy funds can be used to cover overages in the year that the excess levy funds are received. The financial statements are filed for audit. ○ Approval of Checks – Amy Loomis moved to approve checks as presented. The motion passed. REPORTS OF COMMITTEES A. Investment Committee – None B. Facilities Committee – Sarah Palfrey requests that the committee meets before the Strategic Plan Retreat on August 25. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • Bylaws review, proposed amendments, and additions – Sarah Palfrey emailed two documents before this meeting. The documents are to be reviewed and are scheduled to be discussed and voted on during the September 7, 2023 meeting. NEW BUSINESS - None EXECUTIVE SESSION – Property - The Board of Trustees entered into an Executive Session at 9:29 am and reconvened the regular meeting at 10:03am. BOARD COMMENTS – None ADJOURNMENT – Amy Loomis moved to adjourn. The motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 10:04am. NEXT MEETING – September 7, 2023 9:00am AUGUST 2023 BOARD MEETING DIRECTOR'S REPORT Sarah Palfrey AUGUST 2023 BOARD MEETING JULY 2023 HIGHLIGHTS J u ly = S u mme r R e adi ng P r og r am O ur pr o gr a ms , bo o k r e t ur n s , a n d h e a r t s h a ve be e n s o full t h i s mo n t h ! B r a n c h Supe r vi s o r s r e po r t a n o t i c e a ble i n c r e a s e i n fa mi li e s bo r r o w i n g bo o ks a n d a t t e n d i n g pr o gr a ms . W e h a d 424 c h i ld r e n , 26 T e e n s , a n d 1 47 Ad ult s c o mple t e t h e r e a d i n g c h a lle n ge . C h i ld r e n ' s pr i z e s i n c lud e a Plus Plus bui ld i n g s e t a n d gi ft c e r t i fi c a t e s t o lo c a l bus i n e s s e s . T e e n pr i z e s a r e le go s e t s , a n d Ad ult s w h o r e gi s t e r e d a n d lo gge d t h r e e bo o ks w i ll r e c e i ve a MPLS umbr e lla ! End of Y e ar C i r c u lat i on S t at i st i c s: W e s a w a lo t o f po s i t i ve gr o w t h fr o m la s t ye a r , but a r e s t i ll n o t q ui t e ba c k t o w h e r e w e w e r e pr e - pa n d e mi c . T h e c h a r t s be lo w s h o w 20 1 9, 20 22, a n d 20 23 fo r c o mpa r i s o n s . 20 1 9 w a s a 4,000 60,000 pa r t i c ula r ly go o d ye a r fo r 3,000 ma n y o f t h e c a t e go r i e s t h a t w e 40,000 t r a c k. I o mi t t e d 20 20 a n d 2,000 20 21 be c a us e t h e y a r e s uc h 1,000 20,000 a n o ma li e s . 0 0 APL CAPL 8,000 12,500 150,000 10,000 6,000 100,000 7,500 4,000 5,000 50,000 2,000 2,500 0 0 0 CBPL CDPL MPL  AUGUST2023 BOARD MEETING JULY 2023 ADMINISTRATION I a t t e n d e d t h e s e c o n d Ma i n s t r e e t I w a s o n va c a t i o n t h e fi r s t w e e k o f Mo r ga n t o w n , Do w n t o w n J uly. Muc h o f t h e r e s t o f t h e mo n t h Di s t r i c t i n g St a ke h o ld e r s me e t i n g. h a s be e n s pe n t r e vi e w i n g a n d T h e r e w a s mo r e d i s c us s i o n a bo ut d o uble -c h e c ki n g s t a t i s t i c s fo r t h e w h a t r o le a fut ur e Mo r ga n t o w n r e q ui r e d a n n ua l r e po r t . N e w fo r ms Publi c Li br a r y c o uld pla y i n a a r t s w e r e c r e a t e d fo r mo n t h ly a n d a n d c ult ur e d i s t r i c t . pr o gr a m s t a t i s t i c r e po r t i n g. C o n ve r s a t i o n s h a ve be e n i n t e r e s t i n g a n d i t ' s gr e a t t o h e a r I n J un e I a ppli e d fo r t h e s e c o n d pe o ple t h i n ki n g a bo ut MPL i s s uc h r o un d o f t h e Publi c Li br a r y po s i t i ve w a ys . As s o c i a t i o n ' s Di gi t a l Li t e r a c y W o r ks h o p I n i t i a t i ve . W e w e r e S e r v i c e C e nt e r : a w a r d e d $6 , 0 0 0 t o o ffe r d i gi t a l t h e r e gula r q ua r t e r ly me e t i n g w i ll li t e r a c y w o r ks h o ps t h i s fa ll. T h e t a ke pla c e i n e a r ly Augus t t o fun d s c a n be us e d fo r s t a ff w a ge s , a s s i s t a ffi li a t e s w i t h t h e r e q ui r e d ma r ke t i n g, a n d pr o mo t i o n a l i t e ms . B i bli o s t a t r e po r t fo r t h e W e s t PLA s uppli e s a c ur r i c ulum t h r o ugh a Vi r gi n i a Li br a r y C o mmi s s i o n . pa r t n e r s h i p w i t h AT & T c a lle d Di gi t a l Le a r n . Mo n t h ly z o o m c h e c k i n s a r e Hu man R e sou r c e s C ont r ac t- Ke lly r e q ui r e d a s pa r t o f t h e gr a n t Sa r a h , a n d J a me s a r e me e t i n g w i t h a gr e e me n t . Ali gn HR r e gula r ly. W o r k o n r e vi s i n g t h e e mplo ye e h a n d bo o k W o w br a r y! A d i gi t a l n e w s le t t e r h a s h a s be gun . be e n a d d e d t o o ur c o lle c t i o n pr o mo t i o n t o o lki t . W e pla n t o P ER S ONNEL pr o mo t e i t t o t h e publi c s t a r t i n g i n Summe r Kr a n t z PT MPL - r e s i gn e d Augus t . T h e n e w s le t t e r pulls d i r e c t ly fr o m o ur c a t a lo g s o t h e r e i s Po s i t i o n h a s be e n po s t e d . li t t le t o n o s t a ff e ffo r t t o ke e p i t go i n g, but ple n t y o f o ppo r t un i t y t o J u ne B r anc h R e p or t s follow t he enhance it when needed. D i r e c t or ' s R e p or t . Morgantown Public Library System June Visits 2023 12,203 19,299 ITEMS BORROWED 53 PROGRAM ATTENDANCE PROGRAMS 1,102 COMPUTER SESSIONS NEW CARDS 705 336 857 16,566 ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTION DIGITAL 1,548 WITHDRAWN BORROWS Arnettsville Public Library June 2023 Branch Report Buckle Up and prepare for all that the month of June brings to the library. School is out and the summer reading program begins and brings more children and their families into the library, Folks have been stopping by to get library cards including the former kindergarten teacher that taught in the room across from the library. She is now retired and says she has time to read now and hopes to visit the library as often as she can. We are wrapping up this year and heading into the new fiscal year. June brings the addition of Summer Reading Programs for elementary age children. We had two in attendance for the first one, zero for the second one and eight for the third program in June. The third program was led by WVU Extension employee and 4-H representative Heather Tanton(former APL library) where she taught us how to make oobleck, play dough and paper loopy planes. The kids and their parents had a great time. June Senior Lunch and Learn had 15 adults and 2 children in attendance. We tested our knowledge of West Virginia trivia in celebration of West Virginia’s birthday and we shared memories of our Dad’s in time for Father’s Day June Craft Night was an earring making class taught by guest presenters which were mother and daughter (10 years old). We all learned that making earrings is really hard and we will probably just pay for others to make earrings for us from now on. There were six adults in attendance and one child. One grandmother brought her seven year old grandson and he made earrings for his mother. He may have a future in earring making. Me, not so much! Movie Night for June fell on the Friday before the 4th of July holiday weekend and might have hurt us because we only had four movie goers that night. We showed the movie Jesus Revolution which all that attended seemed to enjoy. We now have a library mascot Toby the Tree Frog who stays on the book drop on a sign between the book drop and the brick building. He is little but has a mighty voice. We usually hear him before we see him. We have been weeding and busy cleaning up the used book sale area in the hallway. We have about a dozen Better World Book boxes ready to be picked up by Darrin this week and hope to get ready to box up more in the near future. Goals: -Getting Copier/Fax Machine/Scanner hooked up and ready for the public to use -Do a deep shelf read and clean the shelves of the books and DVD in both rooms. -Plan fall and winter programs and get prepared for them. -Straighten up craft supplies and weed out unneeded supplies. To Cc Bcc Subject Manager’s Report June 2023 June was an incredibly busy month at Cheat! After we reopened during the first week of June, we have been non-stop busy with signing up kids for summer reading, holding our first set of summer reading events, and adapting and working with our new space! Everyone at Cheat has been super excited to watch patrons see and use our new space. Families have been delighted with the new children’s area! I’ve really enjoyed seeing kids having fun and having space to read books and play with toys, especially our new LEGO wall! It would be an understatement to say that the renovations have changed the entire feel of our library! As for summer reading events, I have been really happy with how all of the June events went! We had pretty big turnouts for the events, including over 150 attendees for our fire truck event! That event actually has an excellent story to it, as well! Right before it was time for the fire truck to arrive, our contact person from fire department received a call saying there was a structure fire, and the truck was not going to make it. At that point, there were many people, both inside and outside, waiting for the truck. Briefly, we thought the event wasn’t going to take place. I was extremely impressed with how our staff handled that news, in the moment. Michelle was overseeing a large storytime audience and kept them entertained with stories and crafts while we were working to figure out our next step. Abby immediately began making phone calls to other contacts to see if there was anything we could do to replace the fire truck. Hayley was facing a line at the desk but kept calm and cool while a little bit of chaos was unfolding with so many people in the building. About 10 minutes later, the truck actually did arrive, as they ended up not having to go to the fire. It ended up being an incredible event that I was proud of in its own right, but I was almost prouder of what happened when things were going a little bit wrong. Everyone stepped up to keep the situation calm, find a solution, and did not panic under pressure. I think that paints an excellent picture of the type of things that happen at our library. We are always striving to provide excellent service and memorable events, even when we might be a little overwhelmed. The fact that everyone is capable of handling potentially stressful situations with a calm, patient attitude is huge asset to our library! In general, I am so happy with how many patrons we have had in the building over this last month. It has felt like every patron has left happy, and that our staff has ended each day being proud of what they’ve accomplished. Whether it be holding an event, weeding materials, processing books, shelving, helping patrons, or anything else I ask of them, my staff always rises to the occasion. As usual, I want to thank Abby, Michelle, Jessika, and Hayley for everything that they do to make this library function and be a great place for our community. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings! General Administration - Michelle has still been doing an incredible job with story time and play group. Our story time audience has been very consistent, with a bit of growth for the summer, so far! Michelle is always thinking up fun crafts and making excellent book choices each week! Michelle also always sets everything up for play group on Fridays, by arranging toys,  setting up tables, and laying out new crafts or coloring sheets for our attendees. These weekly events mean a lot to our library and the families that use our library, and Michelle deserves a ton of credit for it! Thank you Michelle! - Abby has done an amazing job setting up our summer reading events! I have been able to be in attendance for two out of the three June events, and even assist with two of them. I was glad to see firsthand how well her events go over with our families. Abby does a great job of controlling the room (or as the was the case with the fire truck, the crowd) and adapting her ideas to fit the audiences. Seeing her ideas come to fruition is always awesome. Thank you Abby! - Wednesday mornings get a little chaotic with story time audience numbers, and Jessika and Hayley have handled our patron increase with ease. Both of them constantly demonstrate excellent demeanor and helpfulness, even when there is a line or there when there are just a lot of things happening. I am so proud of how both of them are doing, with this being Jessika’s first summer and Hayley’s second summer! - Thank you to Darrin for putting up our last set of shelves in the children’s area! I want to thank Darrin again for all his help with our renovations and the tasks that have come up afterwards, too! Community and Professional Development - Abby has once again partnered with Umbrella Arts! She provided a great story time and craft for students at Umbrella Arts, and we hope to keep collaborating with them in the future. I love how Abby has created yet another community contact! - Jessika, Abby, and I have interest in attending the fall WVLA conference, and LibLearn X in January. I was glad to find out that they both had interest in going while I was looking at the information for different conferences. I’m happy that they want to keep learning more and more about our profession! Goals 1. Continue to develop displays and adapt to our new space! We are having a great time brainstorming about where we can put things with all of our extra space! 2. Make a shelving list for beginner chapter books. We have moved some beginner chapter books into our children’s area to test interest and hope to see increased checkouts with their new location. Shelving lists need to be made so we know what we are putting back there! 3. Finish weeding audiobooks! We still have some audiobooks that need deleted from when we moved them during the renovation process. I hope to have this done as soon as possible! CDPL Monthly Report June 2023 Manager’s Report ● Anecdotes from May: ○ A patron noted, “It’s so nice to hear people talking and laughing!” It was Cynthia and Janet. ● To date we have 51 children sign up for the 2023 Summer Reading Program. ● To date we have given out 24 BFBC books, and just added 1 more, who was on the waitlist. ● Summer Reading Programming ○ Our first in-person program was making morse code friendship bracelets, we had one SRP participant and one parent. Audrey made 2 bracelets. We then made another 60 kits to hand out, with 10 of those going to Clay Battelle. ○ Our second in-person program was making dog toys and we had 6 SRP participants and 5 adults. A LOT of dog toys were made and we handed out all 30 of the kits we made up. We even had to request an additional kit (thank you Clay Battelle) for a patron who wanted to do one for her dog. ○ The third week of SRP we encouraged our patrons to attend the MARS Brush Bot program. CDPL donated a VEX Drone and ONE of our patrons, Ava, won it!!! We had one of the children attending draw the name so we can’t be accused of cheating!!! ○ ● Library Lattes and Laughs ○ We read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline which was donated to us from Fairmont Public Library. At first, many of our members found the book difficult to understand - having never played video games, but by the time they finished the book it was widely enjoyed by all. At book club we watched the first 20 minutes and the last 10, to get a better understanding of the two worlds - virtual and reality. We enjoyed coffee, tea and homemade Tres Leches cake. ● All five of our Tween/Teen bracelet kits sent to us via downtown were handed out. ● We continue to hand out and get GREAT responses for the take home kits put together by downtown (THANK YOU EMILY!). General Administration ● New to our Collections ○ Adult Fiction 32 ○ Adult Non-Fiction 4 ○ YA 0 ○ Graphic Novels 2 ○ Childrens 4 ○ Children Non-Fiction 1 ○ ER 4 ○ E6 ○ Boardbooks 1 ○ VOX Books 15 ○ DVDs 10 Planning, Organizing, Processes, and Evaluation ● Janet continues to encourage both Angela and Caleb to create programming which appeals to them, hopefully new ideas will be forthcoming ● We received cork tiles to put on our wall and door for better community information to be displayed and to create a new 1KBBK display - this has been an on-going project, but put on the back burner for SRP. ● We will be doing a Book Trail and Stern’s Berry farm in July - Cathy is finalizing the book trail and we will get it up at the beginning of July - as of July 5, blueberry picking hasn’t started. Personnel: Community and Professional Development (3 CEs required yearly for all staff working more than 20 hours a week) ● Janet has requested participation in the following courses: ○ Developing Staff Training, one hour course ○ Managing Difficult Conversations with Colleagues and Staff, 2 hour course Top Three Goals for July: 1. Finalize SRP 2023 a. Create handouts for our in person programming - Janet has created a handout for week 1 and asked if either Caleb or Angela would also like to create handouts. Janet has been creating handouts for each week. 2. Finalize books for Library, Lattes, and Laughs 2023 - Angela submitted her two and Caleb is finalizing his decision to have books chosen until December of this year 3. Begin adult fiction deleting to shift shelves to allow space for new books. 4. Finalize Pre-School Storytime. Angela has submitted books and crafts for September through December Morgantown Public Library Monthly report, June 2023 Door Count ● Total visits: 8590 ● Daily average: 344 ● Weekday average visits ○ Monday: 393 ○ Tuesday: 406 ○ Wednesday: 357 ○ Thursday: 378 ○ Friday: 236 ○ Saturday: 322 ● Most active day: Thursday June 1 & Tuesday June 13: 410 visitors ● Least active day: Friday June 23: 210 visitors Reference ● Total transactions: 155 ● Circulation: 122 ● Reference: 13 ● Children’s: 20 ILL ● Requests sent: 61 ● Request received: 29 Computer Usage ● Total usage: 33729 minutes ● Sessions: 639 ● Average session length: 49 minutes Notarial Services ● 53 documents Weeding ● Total deleted items: 330 ● Adult items: 329 ● Children’s items: 0 ● Media Items: 1 Morgantown Public Library Manager’s Report, June 2023 Overall, June proved to be a busy month for Public Services. Upticks in the number of visitors and circulation combined with the beginning of the Summer Reading Program meant that staff keenly felt this change in activity in the building. Additionally, as staff members took their well earned vacations and we were in the process of filling our vacant library assistant position, we often found ourselves short staffed throughout the month. I greatly appreciate the flexibility of all Public Services staff regarding the schedule this month. Despite the increased level of business and staffing challenges, we are able to make continued progress in a number of areas this month. New staff member This month we were happy to welcome to our team new library assistant Ashley R. Ashley has filled the open library assistant position which has been available since mid-May. Evening Supervisor Shelby D. agreed to serve on the hiring committee with myself. Ashley began late this month and is so far settling in well into her new position and appears to be a good fit with the rest of the Public Services staff. SRP and programming success The Summer Reading Program (SRP) and Big Family Book Club (BFBC) took up the bulk of staff energy this month. A large number of families and children visited the library early in the month to register for the programs and pick up supplies for the book club and craft kits. A new addition to our SRP registration efforts this year included a self-service registration station that patrons could use in the building to register for all three SRP reading challenges, log their reading on Beanstack, and register for the BFBC. Staff appreciated this addition because it allowed them to quickly answer patron questions while also managing the increased number of patron checkouts, check ins, and general questions. Additionally, we noticed patron appreciation of the registration station because those patrons who preferred to complete the registration independently now had a readily available option to do so in the building. Often staff were able to encourage patron participation in the SRP and BFBC just by highlighting the presence of the registration station. Staff enjoyed working with the families and children that visited the library to pick up books and craft kits. I noticed several times this month, staff taking extra time to walk parents through registration kits, listening to children about their acts of kindness and books they’ve read, and to very enthusiastically award children their earned brag tags. Patrons have also taken advantage of the numerous SRP programming events that Public Services programmers had presented. Children’s Librarian Ruth G. presented 11 programs this month including a Friendship Trail Mix Cooking class, Krepps Kritters, and Theatre Thursday events that all had a large turnout of children and their parents. Youth Services Specialist Jenean S. had a wonderful turnout of tween and parents at Community Service Night last month. At this event, tweens and families worked with Scott’s Run Settlement House to pack backpacks of school supplies for local students in need. Jenean noted that several parents expressed appreciation for the event because their tween was interested in volunteering in the community but they did not know what organizations needed volunteer help. I think this shows very clearly one of the library’s strengths as a connector between community members and community resources and organizations. Jenean also provided participants with the opportunity to write a thank you note to several local services. At the end of the event, participants had written thank you notes to several local services including Monongalia County EMS, Morgantown Fire Department, and local sanitation workers. Jenean has been able to deliver these thank you notes to their respective services with much appreciation from their recipients. Staff Training This month we were able to deliver staff training on a couple of topics and new services. First, all Public Services staff were trained in how to use a new digital reference collection system that we have developed in-house. This is an online system that staff can use to report their reference interactions with patrons and for reporting staff to view and generate reports. This system will help us more effectively and accurately record and report reference statistics. Staff reception of the new system has been mostly positive and use of the new system will begin in July. Also this month, we were able to train several staff to prepare for the launch of a live chat reference service. This is a service that would allow patrons to chat with staff to ask questions and receive help in real time via a chat widget on our website. Staff were trained in the basics of providing virtual reference services and the specific live chat service we will be using. Staff reception of this project has been positive and we are excited to offer this service to patron in the near future. The next phase of this project involves practical training for staff to practice before adding this service publicly. Staff contributions: Displays, decorations, and projects Staff contributed in several ways throughout the month to decorations, displays, and various projects. Evening Supervisor Shelby D. and Outreach Coordinator Emily S. created and installed decorations around the circulation desk for Summer Reading. Both did a wonderful job planning the decorations and they give the space a fun summer feel that is right in line with the SRP theme this year. Library Assistant La’Shelia W. continues to maintain a display on the second floor bullitetn. She puts of thoughts into her displays and staff note that they add a lot of color and brightness to the floor. This month. La’Shelia used her display to share resources about Juenteneth, Father’s Day, and Men's Health Awareness month with patrons. Library Assistant Summer K., Children’s Librian Ruth G., and Evening Supervisor Shelby D. all created Pride displays in honor of Pride month in areas of the library. Library Assistant Rob M. continues to maintain his fun Summer Blockbusters display and displays blockbusters from different summer each week. Lastly, inspired in part by a similar display at Cheat Area Public Library, Shelby D. has created a Staff Picks display using a new display wall that we added to the first floor recently. Shelby has enlisted to help of several staff members to share their picks with her and has labeled each pick with a wonderful card and avatar representing each staff member. ILL Coordinator Crystal L. continues to make progress weeding the Adult Nonfiction. She has reported that this month she began the monumental task of weeding in the cookbooks. She reported removing a significant number of items from the shelves but needing to work closely with Technical Services to weed many of these items. Goals New Goals ● Implement Live Chat virtual reference service - in progress ○ Basic training has been completed and we are ready to move on to more practical training. ○ The goal is to have this service implemented at the end of the Summer but is highly dependent on library staffing over the remainder of the summer. Continuing Goals ● Continue weeding in adult fiction to produce more free space. - in progress ○ Shelby continues to make steady progress in this project while also making thoughtful decisions about which items to remove and which to keep. ○ This project has slowed due to library staffing over the summer months but Shelby’s goal is to complete weeding in Adult sometime in August. ● Coordinate with Ruth Godfrey to reorganize the children’s area into a more distinct and open area within the library. - in progress ○ Ruth continues weeding in the Easy Books to create new space and identify any items that should be reordered. ○ This goal is still dependent on our ability to create space by moving our paperback collection from its current location. ● Rethink our virtual Adult book club to increase patron engagement. - in progress ○ Preparation continues for this new book club. Libby appears to have a good idea of what she wants the program to be and continues to ask questions along the way.