Winooski Memorial Library Committee

2/4/2021 - Minutes I. Call to Order Members Present: Prudence Doherty, Aurora Hurd, Jess Wignall City Staff Present: Ray Coffey, Nate Eddy, Josh Neilson Guests Present: Steven Berbeco, Samuel Myers Call to Order by: Nate Eddy Meeting Start Time: 6:40 Minutes Recorded by: Jess Wignall II. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Decision: Approved Motion by: P. Doherty Second: J. Wignall III. Public Comment Sam Myers introduced himself as a candidate for Winooski City Council. IV. Committee Member Updates No committee member updates. V. Library Updates Vermont Community Foundation Symba Fund grant l The library received a $1000 grant which is unrestricted moneys for general support. It is being saved for a future use. February programs l A virtual cooking demo is launching in partnership with city market. It will be a 1.5 hr event and 9 people are registered. The library is putting together a few meal kits to give away to participants. l There are 6 people registered for the book club later in the month, which is reading Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. This coincides with black history month. l A. Hurd is hosting a virtual writing workshop for adults on Feb 25, which will be announced soon. Monthly stats - March 2021 Monthly stats - March 2021  Also of note: l 28 ILLs received/15 provided l 9 virtual youth programs with 39 in attendance l 36 volunteer hours completed 44 new card registrations l Digital use went up, largely due to Kanopy which had 990 visits and 171 plays. Each play counts as one “circulation” and adult and kid content is counted the same. l There was not much change in the curbside pick up or appointment counts from December. The new senior/immunocompromised Tues appointments were used once. l Digital counts went down as they no longer include RBDigital usage counts. Josh Neilson, Youth Services Coordinator l J. Neilson reported out on youth programs. The Dungeons and Dragons program, which was started in Nov 2019, is still underway for middle schoolers and an elementary- aged group was added recently. A core group of 9 – 10 children participate weekly. l There has been little attendance at the after-school academic and career support program since the library has been virtual, but J. Neilson is collaborating with Winooski teachers to reach out to students. Students from UVM will start helping next week. Last semester the students helped prepare lesson plans that will be tested and refined this semester. l J. Neilson has continued to record book readings for the library YouTube channel. The committee appreciated the updates and acknowledged that the library’s programming has been impressive in light of a pandemic. VI. Library Card and Lending Policy Decision: Policy approved for use. Motion by: P. Doherty Second: A. Hurd l The committee members reviewed the library card lending policy, which had been  Motion by: P. Doherty Second: A. Hurd l The committee members reviewed the library card lending policy, which had been updated based on feedback from previous meetings. During this meeting, minor edits were made to the document. l In order to formally adopt the policy, state statue dictates that policy needs to be approved by the Committee while Winooski’s Policy on Written Directives affirms that department-level policy needs to be approved by the City Manager. P. Doherty stated that procedures should allow for the Committee to provide a recommendation but final approval needs to come from the city. R. Coffey will meet with Jessie Baker on Feb 5 to confirm that she approves the policy and that there are no other steps needed to approve it. l P. Doherty moved to approve the policy. A. Hurd seconded the motion. The motion was passed unanimously by the committee. VII. Review of Other Existing Policies The Committee discussed the child safety policy and the building use policy at a high level. All three policies are current policy and are in use today. The library would like to review and update them as needed. Child Safety l P. Doherty shared that the child safety policy was written in response to concerns around child safety that had arisen previously, but the Committee agreed that updates would be warranted. l J. Neilson pointed out that some of the policy is outdated and does not reflect current practice. l The group discussed and agreed with removing specific reference to the Police Department. While the PD might be required in certain situations, the recommendation was to remove the specific reference in the Child Safety policy. The Howard Center includes staff that can be available to respond to altercations, but the staff is limited and sometimes unavailable. The Committee agreed that the city should provide input as to appropriate authorities and resources the library should access in the case of a safety concern, to minimize the potential for trauma to library patrons and Winooski residents. l The group discussed developing and adopting a code of conduct that could be referenced in any safety policy, as a way to outline appropriate behavior across all library patrons. N. Eddy agreed to draft a code of conduct for review. l S. Berbeco suggested starting over with the Child Safety policy, instead of updating the current one. Alternatively, with the development of a code of conduct, it is possible that a specific Child Safety policy would no longer be needed. l The Committee discussed the age thresholds for an unaccompanied minor and caregiver, and agreed to keep them as-is for now (10 and 16, respectively). The caregiver age for the pool will be 16 as well. l J. Neilson pointed out the importance of being able to contact a caregiver for an unaccompanied minor in case of injury or other safety concern. S. Berbeco commented that if the community needs to use the library to help with after school care, that the library could consider if there are ways to expand into that need. l In non-covid usage, specific patrons and ages are not tracked, just counts of patrons. Building Use l The group briefly discussed the Building Use policy and suggested referring to the code of conduct once it is complete. N. Eddy suggested reviewing Fletcher Free’s building use policy to see if any of the language would be appropriate to adopt. l The Committee suggested reconsidering the deposit fee for the key, as it likely would  Building Use l The group briefly discussed the Building Use policy and suggested referring to the code of conduct once it is complete. N. Eddy suggested reviewing Fletcher Free’s building use policy to see if any of the language would be appropriate to adopt. l The Committee suggested reconsidering the deposit fee for the key, as it likely would not cover the cost of changing locks and is burdensome to track and process. Materials Selection Policy l The Committee agreed to revisit this policy in a future meeting. P. Doherty suggested including a statement around what the library’s goals are for the collection in terms of what is and is not collected for fiction and non-fiction. l N. Eddy agreed that in a future conversation he would present information around what is and is not being purchased, what trends are visible, and principles around building the collection. VIII. Diverse BookFinder Reporting This topic was tabled for next month. IX. Other Business The group agreed that it was helpful to have J. Neilson, the Youth Services Coordinator, participate. X. Adjourn 8:12 PM