Library Board of Trustees

The Woodstock Public Library Board of Trustees met on Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Robert Laurie called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Robert Laurie (President), Christy Johanson (Vice President), Jim Hurley (Treasurer), Mary Beth Urbin (Secretary), Mary Ann Lenzen, Sarah Parisi, Susan Gullotto. OTHERS PRESENT: Paul Christensen (Deputy City Manager), Nick Weber (Library Director), Tiara Thayer (Library Assistant II). ABSENT: Teresa Flores. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Discussion and Vote on approving the Regular Minutes from the January 11, 2024 meeting as presented or corrected. Mary Beth Urbin moved to approve the minutes of the January 11, 2024 regular meeting as presented, Mary Ann Lenzen seconded, and the motion passed with unanimous ayes. PUBLIC COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS: None. COMMUNICATIONS: None. LIBRARY EXPENDITURES Discussion and Vote on the January 2024 Building Fund and Operating Fund Expenditures. Jim Hurley moved to approve the January 2024 combined Warrant of operating and building expenditures, as presented, Susan Gullotto seconded, and the motion carried with the following roll call: Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Jim Hurley Mary Beth Urbin Susan Gullotto Christy Johanson Mary Ann Lenzen Aye Aye Absent Sarah Parisi Robert Laurie Teresa Flores LIBRARIAN’S REPORT Nick Weber presented the librarian’s report, a copy of which is attached. Highlights include: • Groundhog Day was very busy; visitors from as far away as Scotland and Argentina came to view the library’s Groundhog Day movie memorabilia. • The first quadrant of the 18,000-piece community puzzle is nearly completed. • The library’s Book Hospital program was well attended by patrons. 1  • Lisa Rossi attended the People in Need convention at McHenry County College. The convention provides information on the multiple social services and resources available throughout McHenry County. • Upcoming Events o The library will be hosting a cookie decorating program with local author Morgan Beck on Saturday, February 10th. o The library will be hosting a blood drive on February 26th. NEW BUSINESS • Discussion of FY24/25 Budget: o The library’s budget is mostly set and no major changes are anticipated. o The largest portion of the budget goes towards staff salaries. o The materials budget was increased slightly. This budget includes digital materials as well as physical materials. o Due to an increase in revenue, via donations and higher interest rates, and the lack of a children’s librarian, the library is anticipated to end FY23/24 with a surplus. • Discussion of possible elimination of RWPLD two-tiered card system. o Nick briefly explained the founding of the Rural Library District and the subsequent differences between the three main card options available at WPL: City, Rural Basic, and Rural Fee. The patron’s residence determines which card type and level of services they are eligible to receive. This tiered system has led to some confusion and frustration on the patron’s end, and staff end up spending additional time explaining the card options and completing extra paperwork. o Nick asked the board for their thoughts on drafting a new contract with the rural district that would issue full service cards to all Woodstock residents, regardless if they reside in the city or rural district. ▪ Considerations and Questions • The sale of rural fee cards brings in roughly $8,000 in revenue each year. • How might this affect public perception and opinion of the library? • How will the library issue library cards to the temporarily-housed population (full service vs 5-item limit)? o The board voiced a general interest in eliminating the tiered-card system. • Statement of Economic Interest reminder o The board confirmed that they received the Statement of Economic Interest email. These must be completed by each board member and are due by May 1, 2024. o Robert Laurie requested that each agenda leading up to May include this reminder. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • Building Update o Office and bathroom remodeling projects: ▪ The office construction is complete. Staff are still in the process of moving into their new spaces. ▪ Once the bathroom partitions arrive and are installed, then the basement bathroom renovations will be completed. o Bayton Space/Landscaping: ▪ Nick will be speaking with the engineering team at the City to determine the next steps in this project. ▪ Construction may start as early as late 2024 or early 2025.  • Staffing Update o The new children’s librarian has resigned from her position at WPL due to personal reasons. o Nick and Kate are in the process of interviewing a new pool of applicants. ▪ This applicant pool includes multiple strong candidates, and Nick is hopeful the position will be filled soon. • FoWL Update o The Friends’ annual meeting in January was well attended. ▪ Over the last year, the Friends have raised roughly $30,000 through their fundraising events. ▪ Robert Laurie suggested that the board write a public letter to thank the Friends for their continued support and contributions. o Planning for the Annual Mini Links event is underway. • City Projects Update o Logo/Website ▪ The new logo and website both go live on Monday, February 12, 2024. ▪ The new logo for the city and its departments will unify features while still remaining distinct to each department. o Nixle and Others ▪ The city and fire district have subscribed to Nixle. ▪ One of the WPD Sergeants is learning the nuances of the system, and will then train the rest of the city department heads. ADJOURNMENT Christy Johanson moved that the meeting be adjourned at 8:47 p.m., Robert Laurie seconded, and the motion passed with unanimous ayes. All meetings of the Library Board are open to the public. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they are fully accessible, and if any further accommodations are needed, please contact the Library Director 48 hours prior to the meeting.  Woodstock Public Library Administrative & Staff Reports – January 2024 DIRECTOR’S REPORT It’s 2024—the start of my twelfth year at Woodstock Public Library. While not complete, we are looking forward to a new website and a new logo in 2024, as part of the city’s larger rebranding process. The library continued to see strong daily use and good attendance at our events, as well as those sponsored by others and held at the library. Our visitation and check-out numbers for 2023 were all well above 2022 and very close to 2019 totals. There was no First Friday staff meeting in February, as it fell on Groundhog Day, but the staff continues to work toward strategic plan goals and to attend virtual and in-person training opportunities. Construction on the main floor of the building is complete, and the remodeling of the downstairs bathrooms is nearing completion. Staffing was better in January, though we were still short-handed in Youth Services as our new Children’s Librarian resigned after only one week for personal reasons. The rest of the Youth Services staff, and the library staff as a whole, did a great job of filling the holes in our schedule for events and desk staffing. Our in-person and virtual events continue to be well attended. Despite the absence of a children’s librarian for over two months, the Youth Services staff continue to do a lot of school outreach, and activities. The library’s participation in the city’s annual Groundhog Day festivities was significant, with a Groundhog Day story time on February 1, and a photo display and archival open house on February 2. The library’s Year of the Book initiative got off to a great start in January with an Accordion Keepsake Book program and a Book Hospital program taking place. The remodeling of our staff space is nearly complete, with all but the downstairs bathroom finished and ready for use. Staff began moving into their new spaces at the end of January, and overall, the transition has been fairly smooth. Work on the downstairs bathrooms is ongoing, with most of the work done, but the new bathroom stall partitions are holding up the end of the project, as they are running behind schedule. The city’s web page conversion is nearing completion. Martha Hansen has been working feverishly with the city’s Marketing Department and other library staff to get our pages transferred to the new site and looking good. We should be ready for the city’s “go live” target date of February 12. The library has also been working with the city at rebranding with the new logo, which can be seen above. All of the new logos are also set to launch on February 12. CIRCULATION & PROGRAMMING January 2024 Circulation was up in January compared to 2023, but in-person use of the building was down slightly from last year. We had 21,274 items, both physical and digital, checked-out, a 2% increase from 20,762 in 2023. 9,582 people came to the library in January, down 5% from 10,114 in 2023. This number does include several days in January when the library was closed, or opened late, due to weather and/or construction, so our actual attendance per day was almost certainly as good, if not better, then January 2023. FINANCIALS Spending out of the new fiscal budget is three-quarters complete, and things are tracking well. Salary costs are lower than anticipated because of several positions being vacant during recruiting, and our income is trending slightly higher than budgeted because of larger donations than expected. Work on next year’s budget is well underway, and so far, the numbers look good. MEETING/ORGANIZATION SUMMARIES City Meetings/City News The City Council meetings in January and early February were mostly routine. The City Council’s February 6 regular meeting congratulated the Groundhog Committee and City Staff for a fantastic Groundhog Day Celebration this year. Community Outreach During the month, the library staff engaged in several outreach and community support activities, including several visits to D200 schools. January saw the kick-off of the library’s Community Puzzle Initiative—and the first quarter of that puzzle is approaching completion. The library’s annual Groundhog Day Story Time, and its annual photo display and archive open house, were both a huge success. The library had visitors from all across the U.S. as well as Argentina and Scotland. CIRCULATION SERVICES 2024 kicks off The Year of the Book at Woodstock Public Library. How is focusing on books at a library unique, and why does it relate to the Circulation Department? Katie Bradley and Carrie Zamorano were excited about the latest book from a local author, and the idea was born to offer a yearlong celebration of books by highlighting local and regional authors. January’s two programs were created in-house; the first featured Lisa Rossi leading attendees in making accordion keepsake books that could be used as a photo album, memory book, or journal. Lora covered the Book Hospital in her Tech Services report, but Katie and Carrie facilitated the program showcasing the mending skills of Valeria Cereda and Allison Griffin, as they demonstrated how we preserve and repair our materials. We are looking forward to the other exciting programs we have planned for the rest of the year, including the Local Author Showcase on Saturday, March 16. Carrie, Katie, and Bailey reviewed Circulation Desk policies with the entire staff via a PowerPoint presentation at January’s First Friday meeting. At the Circulation Department meeting that followed, staff discussed the newly passed Paid Leave for All Workers Act (PLAWA) and the City’s ordinance that opts them out of the legislation while providing accruing sick time for limited part-time and seasonal part-time workers. Carrie attended a webinar about human trafficking and how libraries can help. While the webinar gave lots of statistics and definitions, one of the key takeaways was that libraries help trafficking victims by being a safe space and removing barriers to access. While there are always ways to improve, Woodstock Public Library already does a really good job at both! Lastly, January saw the completion of the long-awaited offices. Carrie has moved into the Circulation Manager’s office just off of the front desk. Katie will be moving into space behind the manager’s office and they are looking forward to the closer proximity facilitating more collaboration as they work on a Circulation Manual and other projects. YOUTH SERVICES January was a slow month for youth services. There were no story times, but Sarah Jane and Lauren had their monthly programs for 1st-2nd graders and 3rd-5th graders, respectively. Kate’s YA programs got canceled due to weather and low registration. Kate spent a week training the new children’s librarian before she resigned with no notice. The rest of the youth services team took the time to focus on weeding the Christmas books and DVDs. After Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day, we’ll focus on weeding those books and DVDs. One major program we did have in January was our yearly Preschool Fair. We had to change locations from the meeting room to the Children’s department due to the downstairs construction, but youth services staff think it worked better in the children’s department and will continue to host it there. We had 7 preschools take part with 46 people attending. Lisa, as our school liaison, made some connections with the preschools at the fair and has been busy making contacts at other Woodstock schools to make sure these schools know what resources are available to them. As a result of her efforts, she and Circulation supervisor, Kate Bradley have been to numerous schools, connecting with families, and even signing up family members for library cards. February is off to a busy start with the kickoff of the 3rd annual McHenry County Library Lovers Expedition as well as Groundhog Day. The first day of #LLE24 had over 200 people register county-wide. About 20 of those were Woodstock patrons. Lisa had the Groundhog Day story time at Makity Make in the Old Courthouse and had about 30 people. TECHNICAL SERVICES January was a busy month, although some of that had nothing to do with cataloging. We added 630 items, and withdrew 873 items. Once again, the largest part of the withdrawing is a big cleanup of the music CDs in preparation for reorganizing that area of the building. Most of the rest of the Technical Services department has been plugging along with their usual individual chores, but I want to highlight the Book Hospital Program Valeria and Ally presented earlier this week (January 30) that highlighted our awesome mending skills and some of the tools we use. It was well-attended and several area librarians from other public institutions and a couple of schools were able to get some pointers. They are considering “taking it on the road” for the PrairieCat User Group meetup in the fall. We should be proud that our staff takes such good care of our materials so that they can continue being used for a little bit longer. I have started moving into my newly-built digs so we’re adjusting to that and checking to see how the workflow is going to change. This is still very much in progress as other offices are emptied and re-occupied by different people. Thank goodness the groundhog didn’t see his shadow. Let’s hear it for an early spring! ADULT SERVICES Focus this past month was on preparing for the rearranging of offices and spaces with the construction completed. This includes moving the pantry storeroom into one of the new spaces in reference and shifting the former pantry storage space to make an office for Bailey, which she'll share with the Library of Things overflow. Katie will be moving out of her upper level office to the staff work area and Lisa, as volunteer coordinator, will be moving into Katie's old office. In non-fiction, with the move of the travel books completed, we will be shifting the entire collection and in doing so will be integrating the non-fiction books on CD with the print collection. The 18,000 Community Jigsaw Puzzle Challenge kicked off in January on the upper level. Austin Nord has arranged the promotions of the challenge and we've gotten a strong response with lots of puzzlers coming out to work on the puzzle in the past four weeks. The challenge was also featured in The Woodstock Independent. At their January annual meeting the Friends of WPL approved $500 to be spent on memory kits for older adults that will include multi-media items on various 'nostalgia' subjects to help families have conversations with family members with memory loss. Bailey Rewoldt and Martha Hansen will be working on putting together these kits and they'll be displayed in the Older Adult Area. With the marked decrease in circulation of the music CDs, Kirk Dawdy is in the process of weeding the collection and it will be moved to a new location under the fiction area windows. The Friends also approved the purchase of a record listening station that will be used to showcase the (re)addition of vinyl records into the collection. The listening station will be in the alcove in Fiction. Lisa Rossi attended the People in Need Forum at MCC and made many connections with community service organizations that we'd like to work with in the coming year. The city's new website will go live in mid-February and Martha Hansen has been working on the library's portion of the website. January Adult Programming Statistics: Technology Assistance Appointments • 1-on-1 Appointments Requested: 15 • Resolutions: 13 • Cancellations: 2 • Most Common Consultation Subject: Computer • Average Number of Days for Resolution: 6 Programming • Total # of Adult Programs: 10 o 9- in-person o 1- virtual o Note: Because of the inclement weather and frequent closures, 4 adult programs cancelled this month. Had these programs commenced as planned, there likely would have been an extra ~30-35 people in the building. • Total Programming Attendance: 121 o 52% month-over-month decrease from December 2023 o 95% increase from January 2023 • Top-Performing Programs by Attendance: o Preschool Fair- 46 o Senior Services Associates Outreach Table - 14 o Speculating our A.I. Future Discussion Panel - 13 Annual Stats The following stats have been accumulated over the last nine months: • Average Number of Adult Programs Per Month: 11 • Average Number of Adult Attendees (all Adult programs): 132 • Average Number of Adult Attendees (in-person): 115 • Average Number of Adult Attendees (virtual): 17 • Average Month-over-Month Growth in Adult Attendance: 35% CALENDAR (https://il.evanced.info/woodstock/lib/eventcalendar.asp) Upcoming Events & Dates of Importance: • January-March: Community Puzzle Challenge—help complete an 18,000- piece puzzle at the library! • Tuesdays & Fridays,10:30 am-5:00 pm: AARP Tax Appointments • Friday, Feb. 9, 10:00 am-12:30 pm: Hollow Tree Spinners • Saturday, Feb. 10, 2:00-3:00 pm: Author Event—Morgan Beck • Tuesday, Feb. 13, 6:30-8:00 pm: Button Art Tree Canvas • Wednesday, Feb. 14, 6:00-7:00 pm: 50 Things to Do Before You’re 11 3/4 • Thursday, Feb. 15, 6:00-7:00 pm: Artistic Expressions • Tuesday, Feb. 20, 6:00-7:30 pm: Crafting for a Cause • Monday, Feb. 26, 1:30-6:00 pm: Versiti Blood Drive • Tuesday, Feb. 27, 6:30-7:30 pm: MCC FAFSA & Scholarship Info Session • Friday, March. 1, 3:00-5:00 pm: Groundhog Day Archives Open House • Friday, March 1, 5:30-6:00 pm: Groundhog Day Storytime @ Makity Make • Tuesday, March 5, 6:00-7:30 pm: Young Adult Study Night