Winooski Memorial Library Committee

6/1/2023 - Minutes I. Call to Order Members Present: Prudence Doherty, Jessica Wignall, Collette Khajehali, Colleen Moore, and Lauren Read City Staff Present: Nate Eddy Guests Present: None Call to Order by: Jessica Meeting Start Time: 6:35 PM Minutes Recorded by: Collette II. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Decision: Approved Motion by: Jessica Second: Colleen III. Public Comment None IV. Committee Member Updates No major updates from the members. Ray and CEO of Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) attended Winooski City Council meeting last month and Jessica attended and provided public comment on behalf of the Library. Public has questions on the floor plans for the Library and the entire building. There was broad support. Collette may not attend the July meeting. V. Library Updates Programming is ongoing and doing well – all youth programming continue and it’s great. Partnering with Four Winds Nature Group to do outdoor story time. Ex. Mud experience. Good turnout. Story walk in rotary for Juneteenth. Hosting a zein making session this weekend. Urban plant walk later in the month. Lake Monster tickets to give away. Kickoff is on June 23 rd for Birds of Prey. Adulting programming: Intervale starts next week for weekly free produce. ESL continues. Pride month starts and looking for book review this month. Stats – up from previous month. New card registration is the same. Staffing and hours: hours starting June 19 th we will be shifting losing two hours - T-W closing at 6pm and the other days closing at 5pm. Staffing – hired teen employee that will help through school year (via STEP Student Temp Employee Program for 8 hours a week). Grants – awarded $500 from VT Public Library (toward presenter fees for us). Currently  Stats – up from previous month. New card registration is the same. Staffing and hours: hours starting June 19 th we will be shifting losing two hours - T-W closing at 6pm and the other days closing at 5pm. Staffing – hired teen employee that will help through school year (via STEP Student Temp Employee Program for 8 hours a week). Grants – awarded $500 from VT Public Library (toward presenter fees for us). Currently conducting an inventory of all library items right now (scanning every barcode here) to account for all items and identify any missing items, etc. Inactive patrons – inactive longer than 5 years will be purged. 1,789 card holders last year. And this year 257 card holders. Currently: 3,434 total card holders. Last year, 3,267 after purge. VI. Building Updates Meeting last month with CHT about building plan going forward. CHT asks architect for a new rendering (hand-out provided to Library committee). Gym is off the table. Meeting with YMCA and about their interest in a gym in Winooski. YMCA said they are more interested in programming out of a small space rather than a larger one that tends to go unused. Spaces labeled Community partner designations – these are TBD. CHT has no worry about being able to fill these vacancies in the building. Currently library space is 1,800 sq ft. Proposed 5,500 sq ft. Second floor is no longer in the plan. Meeting with CHT every two weeks – a standing meeting. CHT is super supportive of the project. Library Committee voiced their concerns about spacing and planning for the future. A medium square footage for libraries of towns/cities of Winooski’s size is about 12,000 sq ft. Once everyone is agreement with the floor plan, next step is to bring in the community in to get their feedback on the space. VII. ILS Migration: Verso to Koha Current library website needs assistance. Not very user friendly. 20 libraries in the state using Verso (to include Winooski Memorial Library). Received email from mentioning KOHA – another system that various libraries use (90 libraries). ByWater Solutions runs KOHA. Person asked if we were interested in migrating to KOHA. Nate requested pricing… the numbers are vague. The annual costs are comparable. $2,200 onetime fee to get us over there (which is in the library budget). The migration takes 6 months. Might be switching catalogs. Pros: better user experience, KOHA catalog searches will show where the books are in local libraries. One stop shopping. Another benefit we would be able to welcome patrons from other libraries more easily. Next step: waiting on pricing. More to come. Vokal is the consortium. Need clarity on annual membership fee. They will waive the joining fee. VIII. Other Business None IX. Library Wayfinding It was one of our goals for FY. No updates on this. Push for something easy. Sign by the mill is still up. A sign on Mallets Bay is ineffective. Next steps: Nate to have conversations with Ray and Jon. X. Adjourn Motion to Adjourn: Lauren, Second by Collette.