Library Board

MORGANTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY Approved June 13, 2024 Minutes of the Annual Meeting May 9, 2024 Present: Absent: Also Present: Others Present: Sue Carpenter Amy Loomis Sarah Palfrey Linda Durfee Kelly Funkhouser Meredith Hartery James Spears, V Alexandria Svolos Call to order The annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Morgantown Public Library convened on May 9, 2024 at 9:02am. Sue Carpenter, President presiding, Kelly Funkhouser, secretary. Approval of the Minutes  Regular Meeting April 11, 2024 - Alexandria Svolos moved to accept the minutes as changed. The motion passed unanimously. PUBLIC FORUM – None CORRESPONDENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS – An email was received yesterday regarding a raffle held at a children’s program. Discussion followed. REPORTS  President – None  Director – See Director’s Report – Additional information – Comments from downtown merchants included that StoryFest showed a noticeable increase in foot traffic.  Treasurer – o Financial Statements – The financial statements were reviewed. The financial statements are filed for audit. The motion passed. ○ Approval of Checks – Meredith Hartery moved to approve checks as listed. The motion passed. REPORTS OF COMMITTEES A. Investment Committee – None B. Facilities Committee – See Director’s report. UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS –  Election of Officers – The slate was discussed and vote was deferred to June meeting.  FY2025 Budget – Sarah Palfrey presented a system-wide proposed budget for FY 2025. Discussion followed. Linda Durfee moved to accept the budget as presented. The motion passed. BOARD COMMENTS – None EXECUTIVE SESSION – Alexandria Svolos moved to enter an executive session to discuss personnel issues at 9:42am. The board reconvened the annual meeting at 9:56am. No action was taken. Board Minutes – May 9, 2024 – Page 2 ADJOURNMENT – Linda Durfee moved to adjourn. The motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 9:58am. NEXT MEETING – June 13, 2024 9am MAY 2024 BOARD MEETING DIRECTOR'S REPORT Sarah Palfrey  MAY 2024 BOARD MEETING APRIL 2024 HIGHLIGHTS StoryFest 2024 was an absolute success! This has been a dream of mine for years and with the hard work of Abby Cyphert leading the team we made it happen! There were so many people that contributed to the success of this event. I want to acknowledge the sharing of expertise and resources among the staff members was exemplary. It was a true teamwork moment and I couldn’t be prouder. Estimates put the attendance around 800 people. This spring semester Cheat worked with two students from the Occupational Therapy school to create a sensory space. The project was completed in April. It is a wonderful addition to their children’s area. A full report is attached after the branch reports. Reading Dragons concluded it’s pilot season. We had a great time and registered 332 readers! A participant and staff survey are now accepting responses and after they close there will be a discussion about how to offer the program again. The staff time was intense for the setup, but minimal after that. There is a strong staff desire to outsource the production stage.  MAY 2024 BOARD MEETING APRIL 2024 ADMINISTRATION Bonnie, Jenean, and I attended the I attended the West Virginia Library Public Library Association Commission, commissioners meeting conference in Columbus, OH. We in Wheeling to thank WVLC for all had a wonderful time and as participating in StoryFest and be always learned so much! I attended available for questions for the WVLA one vendor lunch hosted by legislative committee. SpringShare. We purchase our event calendar system from I have been asked to chair the WVLN SpringShare. committee to research and invite proposal for a new Integrated I was invited to speak at Library System. This will take place Brookhaven PTO, the Morgantown over most of the FY25 year. Citizen’s Academy, and the Morgantown (North) Rotary Work continues with Align HR on the meetings in April. Presentations salary schedule and updating focused on the wide variety of personnel polices. James has been programs and services that MPLS working on standardizing staff offers and the role that the levy evaluations and goal setting. We plays in our overall funding. hope to implement the new process soon. Janet a n d R u t h are leading conve r s a t i o n s w ith the organiza tion Mon C o u n t y R e ad Aloud to expand PERSONNEL - t heir o f f e r i n g s f or the next school Kate M. - resigned PT MPL year. I a m v e r y e xcited to see this (graduated) t hrou g h . Facility Updates - The Facilities Sarah S . h a s b e en providing Improvement Grant request was catal o g i n g t r a i n i ng to affiliate approved! We will be renovating the l i b rar i e s i n c l u d i ng an in-person two public restrooms on the ground t ra ini n g a t T a y l o r County PL. floor. If funds allow we may include the third ground floor restroom. April 2024 APL Branch Report April was a busy and crazy month at the Arnettsville Public Library. We had several power outages at the library. Some lasted longer than others, but always enough to complicate things. There were several rainy and windy days which probably caused the power outages.Lost electricity on Friday, April 5 and Monday, April 8. Now that the phones are connected to the computers so when we lose electricity, we now lose phone service and it makes one feel very isolated especially at the more rural area libraries. When I worked at Clay Battelle one day this month, they had lost power and with no phone I felt very isolated. We also had a giant dump truck with a blown out tire smack dab in the middle of our parking lot one day but he was very quick in getting his tire repaired and moved his vehicle as soon as he could. Senior Lunch and Learn on Wednesday, April 3 had 17 folks. We had a few politicians that came to the lunch. We had one running for judge who brought his wife and baby and another running for magistrate, Nice to see new faces and learn a little about some of the candidates. APL Craft Class had 12 attendees and we made a variety of garden crafts. We made three different items. We painted rocks to use a plant identification for the garden. We also decorated plastic spoons to use as plant markers for the garden. We also tried our hand at decoupaging planters with colorful, decorative napkins with modge podge. Lots of fun!!! We had visitors to the Arnettsville Public Library on Tuesday, April 16. We welcomed the children and parents and teachers from the Starting Points Happy School at the Shack Neighborhood House. Everyone gathered in the gym to begin our day. We first began with a tour of the library for everyone and then went back to the gym for a special story time with me as their guest reader. The teachers kept the children in the gym for class while the parents went on a tour of the entire building. The children visited the playground and had their snack before they left. There were 6 children and 10 adults. I visited the pre-school classes at Mylan Park on Wednesday, April 17 and read a story to the three classrooms and gave each child a free book to take home and keep. There are over 40 children in the pre-k classrooms and two adults in each classroom. It is so much fun to see how much the children have grown since the beginning of the school year. APL hosted a Seed Swap this month. We had the folks from WVU Extension there to man a table or two plus had a few vendors from our summer Farmer’s Market for a sneak preview. There were probably about a dozen folks who attended the event. Weeding continues. Children’s area is almost completed and then on to adult fiction and non-fiction. Goals: *Get ready for Summer Reading Programs *Complete Weeding for this budget year *Spray weeds in parking lot and bench area *Get flowers planted in book drop area CAPL Manager’s Report April 2024 April was another excellent and eventful month at Cheat! We all had a fantastic time helping out with Abby’s StoryFest, and we finished the sensory space! In addition to those projects, we also held a Reading Dragons tournament, and worked on organizing, weeding, and deleting to prepare for the summer! StoryFest was an incredible way to begin the month! All of us at Cheat watched Abby work extremely hard to make StoryFest happen and were glad to assist with anything she needed. Ultimately, it was a fun-filled day with many Cheat patrons making the trip downtown to be a part of the event! I was so proud of Jessika’s art contributions to StoryFest and Michelle and Hayley’s hard work to make sure the craft and tattoo tables were staffed, and the tea party was taken care of. It was a great experience that helped all of us at Cheat feel acknowledged for what we (and the library system as a whole do) every day to bring excitement to our community. Congratulations to Abby and everyone who made StoryFest possible! The sensory space at Cheat is finally finished! The week after StoryFest, we installed the curtains to separate the space from the rest of the room and got all of the items up on shelves! The WVU OT students, Ayric and Lauren, wrote out explanations of the items in the space for both children and parents, and those are hung up in the space on the shelves where the items are! Patrons have been delighted with the space thus far, and I’ve heard positive comments from both children and parents about how happy they are that we have that kind of space. As I’ve said previously, I could not say enough about how much Ayric and Lauren did to assess our needs and meet them to the best of their abilities. While I’m glad that the project is finished and people are using the space, I am also sad to not be able to learn from Ayric and Lauren and discuss their work each week. I want to congratulate them on a very successful project, and also say thank you again to Emily for telling them about CAPL, and Jessika for bringing this need to my attention! I can’t wait to see how the sensory space evolves and for more patrons to use it! In preparation for the summer, we are working on organizing at CAPL! We’ve begun to shift, rethink areas (as we are always doing), weeding and deleting to help with space and general organization. It’s very important for us to be totally prepared for what will more than likely be our busiest summer yet! We’re very excited, but still hard at work to make sure everything is nice, orderly, and fun for our patrons! We can’t wait for May, and for the summer to begin in earnest! General Administration - Jessika worked on some great recipes to help celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! I am continually proud of Jessika’s participation in representing different cultures to our community, as well as her participation in the MPLS diversity committee! Goals 1. Continue to organize for the summer and plan summer displays! 2. Take stock of summer reading materials that have been delivered, as well as what craft supplies we already have. 3. Prepare for elementary school visits!  Target audience: children, but Cheat Area Public Library can apply to anyone with extra sensory needs. Sensory Space: Idea, Cost, Implementation, and Main goals: To ensure that children in the library have a Replicability Report space to relax or cool down when they are by Ryne Faber overstimulated/overwhelmed. Idea/Needs Assessment In October 2023, Jessika attended a talk at the WVLA Conference concerning using and implementing sensory spaces in the library. Feeling passionate about the idea, Jessika introduced the idea to me. At first, I did not feel like it would be possible to implement at Cheat. When presented with the opportunity to work with two occupational therapy students from West Virginia University in January 2024, I was open to having my mind changed through a needs assessment conducted by the students. The needs assessment was expertly conducted by Ayric and Lauren, the OT students. They made sure to identify possible areas for a space, landing on the idea of using space that was reserved for our book sale. Upon further assessment, it became clear that this was the prime area to implement what we envisioned. Once we realized we did have an area in which to put a sensory space, myself, Jessika, Abby, Ayric, and Lauren began to work on a list of items to purchase for the space. Cost While working on a list of items, I found that we had funds to use through the early literacy grant we are generously given each year. My goal was to use around $1,000-$1,500 of that money to put towards the sensory space. All together, we ended up spending $1,200 on curtains, a comfortable rug, all of the accessory items for the space, and extra bins and batteries for the space. The most expensive items were the curtains and the rug, which made up a good chunk of the cost. The other items varied in cost, but could be removed or downgraded to lower cost if replicated elsewhere. As the OT students pointed out, there are also grants that can be applied for to help fund any sensory materials. Implementation/Replication Once everything was planned, the book sale was shifted, the ordering list was made and ordered, and everything was delivered, we were ready to actually put it together. This process took around 3 months total, with extra time added on for waiting for deliveries, OT students to have necessary time to work on other classes and to have a spring break and getting the materials to hang the curtains. It took one evening block of around 3 hours to put everything together, including hanging the curtains, putting in batteries, arranging items, and hanging up cards that explain each item in the space for caregivers and kids. Ultimately, I think it would be worth it for each library branch to consider how they can implement some sensory aspects to their various spaces or attempt to replicate what CAPL did. While I understand that each branch may not have extra grant funds or the space to put a full, blocked off sensory area, that shouldn’t be a barrier to trying something! As noted, I didn’t think it would be possible at first, but when presented with a plan, I had my mind completely changed! There are multiple different things that can be done to circumvent cost and space to help replicate what we did! For example, some items that we put in the space can have less expensive versions, and all of the same items don’t have to be used. If there is no space to do a sensory area, you can still have sensory bins, a sensory wall, or even just headphones to help with overstimulation. It was personally surprising to me that so many helpful sensory concepts can be realized through just a couple bins or one wall, and it is very easy to offer over-the- ear headphones! Should anyone want help, CAPL would be willing to offer any and all information that we gleaned from the process and provide lists of items that we used for our space! Clay-Battelle Public Library Monthly Report April 2024 I (Kelly) have been asked to help with the Memorial Day Parade planning. Lisa Raber (Owner of Weezer’s Hot Dog Shop) & I worked very hard with the previous parade that the town appreciates all of our help trying to make this event a success as well. I hope that my ongoing community partnerships help solidify what an asset the library is to our community! Sam has done an amazing job painting the bathroom. The new lighter color makes the small space appear larger and more inviting! Molly will be graduating from college next month so we are looking forward to having her back on a more regular schedule for the summer. I (Kelly) would like to send a huge Thank You to Sarah Scharf, Cathy McMaster, & Crystal Lang for helping cover the library while I was in Florida with my daughter’s cheer team. Facilities Update  Bathroom has been painted and we are waiting on new floor to be installed. Planning and Organizing  Closet and Storage Area  Summer Reading  Blacksville Memorial Day Parade Goals  Continuing to weed and grow our collection Patron Comments  The bathroom looks amazing! -Kate Fickey  I’m so thankful for my library! –James Fabor CDPL Monthly Report April 2024 Manager’s Report ● Pre-School Storytime - Hello Rain by Kyo Maclear, we read a story and made rain sticks. Angela made take home kits with the extra materials and all of those have been handed out. The best part of this craft was when one of our pre-schoolers took his apart at home to see what was making the noise, it took him three days. ○ We had 5 kids, 5 adults and 2 staff ● To celebrate National Library Week WVU’s Occupational Therapy students visited us and had a pre-school storytime themed “Belonging”. One of the students read The Sandwich Swap by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and Kelly Dupichio. The kids then made coffee filter flowers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pita with hummus. I was incredibly impressed with the work the OT students put into this program. ○ We had 3 children, 3 adults and 5 staff (CDPL, OT and Read Aloud) ○ ● Library Lattes and Laughs ○ This month's book was Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. Janet led the discussion and overall this was a book we enjoyed but found some of the characters difficult to like. ○ Janet made blackberry french toast cupcakes with whipped blackberry cream frosting, the frosting was the best part! ○ We had 9 adults and 3 staff. ● In conjunction with the Ridgedale CEO’s we put up a book trail at the Community United Methodist Church on Grafton Road. The Ridgedale CEO’s donated 20 packets of flower seeds, with the last page of the trail encouraging those who had read it to come to CDPL for a packet of seeds. We had one patron pickup a packet of seeds. As well, the grass mowers at the church find the book trail very annoying and take it completely down when mowing - the first time it also had 3 pages missing (probably from weather) but we added those pages back in and put it back up. The second time it was taken down was at the end of April, so we just picked the trail up to return to downtown. However, Lawrence  Rebelo the minister at the church and the Ridgedale CEO’s are huge supporters of CDPL so we will continue to look for opportunities to partner with both organizations. ○ ● Caleb and Janet recorded for Dial A Story to give Lynda extra stories for the summer ● April 25th, Janet met with Ruth Godfrey (MPLS Children’s Librarian) and Diana Claydon (volunteer for Read Aloud) to discuss potential partnering opportunities between MPLS and Read Aloud. 4 main areas are to be considered with approval from Sarah Palfrey (an email will be sent to discuss these 4 areas) ○ How can MPLS use and/or help distribute the Read Aloud author kits? ○ Potential in person programming with Read Aloud author visit grants specifically with WV children’s authors? Can these programs be recorded and posted online? ○ In the past Read Aloud had reading coordinators at each elementary school in Monongalia County, these positions have not been filled since Covid. Could library staff (from branches and downtown) fill these roles? ○ Create a network with home school organizations to share Read Aloud and MPLS resources, specifically the author kits. General Administration ● New to our Collections  ○ Adult Fiction 33 ○ Adult Non-Fiction 6 ○ YA 3 ○ Graphic Novels 1 ○ Childrens 14 ○ Children Non-Fiction ○ ER 1 ○ E7 ○ Boardbooks 1 ○ VOX Books ○ DVDs 4 ○ Audiobooks 6 Planning, Organizing, Processes, and Evaluation ● CDPL has a working, still being developed, social media spreadsheet ● Reorganize the front corner of our building to better highlight our new shelves ● Angela is in the final stages of having the artwork printed and then she will frame and complete the wall. ● Caleb has begun redesigning 1KBBK and we have set an April 30th deadline for completion. We have received positive feedback from Sarah Palfrey and am moving in the right direction toward completion of this project. ● April displays: ○ Personnel: Community and Professional Development (3 CEs required yearly for all staff working more than 20 hours a week) Top Three Goals for May 1. Increase communication to get more input for programming, internal displays, and social media postings  a. Angela recommended AAPI books for May with signage for the Beanstack challenge to be displayed in front of the desk. GREAT SUGGESTION! Follow up to complete the display. 2. Look at VOX books to be deleted and delete them 3. Finalize CDPL SRP display and handouts Morgantown Public Library Monthly Report April 2024 April proved to be a deceivingly busy month in Public Services. We were all surprised to see a total attendance of around 9,300 patrons this month. Storyfest, earlier in the month, did bring in a considerable number of patrons, but even aside from this event, the overall attendance proved to have increased from the previous month and earlier this year. This is just another reminder to everyone in Public Services that we are heading fast into the busy summer months. Staff Changes This month Library Assistant Kate M. resigned from her position in Public Services. Kate had become a valuable member of the Public Services team in the time she was at MPL and we were all very saddened to see her leave. Evening Supervisor Shelby D. agreed to serve on the hiring committee along with Assistant Director James S. We completed interviews in late April and hope to have filled the now vacant position soon. Several other partnerships have come to an end this month. We have been working with the WVU School of Social Work to host a social work student placement this spring semester. Our student, Emily, worked on several projects and ended her placement with MPL this month. Emily presented a summary presentation to Director Sarah P., Outreach Coordinator Emily S., and Assistant Director James S. this month to share her experience and new knowledge with the library. Emily did a wonderful job this semester and provided us with a good foundation to host similar social work placements in the future. Additionally, both our work-study students' placements came to a close at the end of WVU’s semester. Our students, Sam and Hannah, were a joy to work with and were a huge help to the staff in managing our shelving responsibilities. Thankfully both students have requested to return to MPL in the fall and the community partner agreement remains unchanged. I am very excited for MPL to be a part of the work-study program in the fall. Staff Contributions and Projects A couple of staff members experimented with new programs this month. Evening Supervisor Shelby D. presented a budgeting workshop in coordination with Huntington Bank. This program was geared toward adult patrons. Shelby has felt very strongly for a while now that there is a community need for a variety of educational programming and workshops and that these programs are another way to fulfill the library’s mission. The engagement at her budgeting class was less than hoped but Shelby has noted that she learned some valuable lessons from the program and is hopeful to plan and present more educational programming in the future. Children’s Librarian Ruth G. presented two sessions of a program she called “Build With Blocks”. This was a free play program for preschool children and was intended as a program to fill her storytime programming slot in between blocks of storytime programming. Ruth was very happy with the patron engagement and is planning to offer this type of programming again. I am excited to see this program continue as it further diversifies our programming schedule and is also a confirmation that for this age of patron in particular it is important to offer a variety of programming at consistent times. We have fully returned to weeding in all areas including adult fiction, children’s, young adult, and nonfiction. Getting back to this point presented more of a challenge than anticipated but I am excited to see staff once again working in the area. Evening Supervisor Shelby D. has noted that weeding in adult fiction has started off strong and she was able to make notable progress this month. Evening Supervisor Sheby D. and Youth Services Specialist Jenean S. collaborated this month to put together Taylor Swift themed grab bags to celebrate the release of Taylor Swift’s newest album. The bags (targeted for ages 8 and up) contained Swiftie themed Mad Libs sheets, stickers, MPLS headphones, and other goodies that patrons could use or complete while listening to the album. The bags proved to be pretty popular with patrons once they were moved into a visible location. Other Updates Starting in April we began playing host WV River’s Clean Water For All community mural. This is a mural to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Elk River chemical spill and help raise community awareness of the importance of clean water. The mural will be on view at MPL through May 10th and several patrons have noted to staff that they are glad to be able to view the mural and completed comment cards left by WV Rivers. This month, along with some help from my full-time staff, I completed the MPL Addition to the Public Services Handbook. The Addition is a document that contains relevant MPL specific information for staff in Public Services. This document was published and made available to staff late in April. The goal of creating this addition is to the Public Services Handbook to provide staff with a ready reference document of information. The idea is that between the Public Services Handbook and the MPL Addition staff should be able to find instructions and information about Public Services duties and responsibilities. Both of these documents are available to staff physically and electronically. Goals ● Continue weeding in adult fiction to produce more free space and move the paperback collection. - in progress ○ Shelby is continuing to weed in adult fiction at a notable pace. We are hopeful that the weeding portion of this project will be completed in a reasonable time. ● Coordinate with Ruth Godfrey to reorganize the children’s area into a more distinct and open area within the library. - in progress ○ Ruth is continuing weeding in the easy books to make it easier to move shelving when that point arrives. ● Replace existing public computer furniture on the 2nd floor and better organize PACs - in progress ○ I reviewed a quote from J.P. Jay & Associates with Sarah P. this month. A revised quote including chairs was requested and received. This was shared with Sarah P. for review and discussion. Morgantown Public Library System Visits April 2024 11,930 14,745 ITEMS BORROWED 48 PROGRAM ATTENDANCE PROGRAMS 1,738 COMPUTER SESSIONS NEW CARDS 895 305 740 16,886 ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTION DIGITAL 651 WITHDRAWN BORROWS