- Hooksett Public
Library
- Library Trustee
Meeting
- September 11,
2006
Present: Mac Broderick, Barbara Davis (Treasurer), Mary
Farwell (Chair), Tammy Hooker, Heather Shumway (Library
Director).
Secretary's Report: Accepted and signed.
Treasurer's Report: Submitted and reviewed.
Library Director's Report: Reviewed and discussed.
Unfinished Business:
- Discussion on HVAC bids
- Doug St.Pierre & John Karpinski joined the trustee
meeting to discuss HVAC bids at 6:10 & 6:15
respectively.
- Central Aire is the middle bid for the base work. Central
Aire is the only complete bid submitted.
- Mary raised the following questions:
- Is it possible to ask for a credit for Freon, if any is
found in the system? Answer: There is not a strong call
for it at this time.
- Air compressor and dryers to highway department?
Answer: Dale will happily take them to put to use at the
highway department.
- Salvage 35 ton compressor, make available for sale?
Answer: Item of discussion for contractor. Mary Farwell
will ask Delta if they would like to purchase the
compressor.
- All maintenance of the current HVAC system will be under a
warranty contract with the chosen company, in addition to the
new system. The maintenance will be provided by the new
contractor for the duration of one year from the time of
completed installation.
- The boiler needs to be cleaned and prepped for the winter
season. Delta Mechanical will be contacted to conduct a boiler
inspection and cleaning.
- Mary Farwell made the motion to select Central Aire as the
vendor, being that Central Aire was the one vendor with a
complete bid. Barbara seconded. Unanimous vote in favor. The
contract will include alternative additions in addition to the
base bid.
- Available members of the trustee board will attend the
council meeting to inform the council of our standing in the
process.
- John Karpinski & Doug St. Pierre left at the conclusion
of the discussion of the HVAC bids.
- Audit
- Materials are with Diane for review.
- Status of shelving order
- Heather has one bid from Tucker Interiors and is working to
create a second bid with Franklin Fixtures out of
Massachusetts.
- Greenough grant
- Heather and the staff will continue to think through
possibilities for the use of the Greenough grant.
- CIP
- Computer fund: The current specs and years of the
library's computer inventory were reviewed. It was decided at
this time to continue with our computer upgrades as part of our
annual budget and to postpone a decision on the Gates computer
lab until a later time.
- Building: It was decided not to pursue a building
maintenance CIP as there are not any large projects which need
to be addressed at this time. It was the opinion of our
electrician, John Gimas, that we should not pursue rewiring the
downstairs lighting.
- The board was in agreement that we do not wish to ask the
town to support us in a CIP project this year as we have
requested money for the last three years for our HVAC
installation.
- Wal-Mart grant
- Mac will edit the grant application a bit further and
Heather will submit it to her contact at the Hooksett
Wal-Mart.
- Zoning Board meeting
- Access to the library is a strong point of concern as
Brady-Sullivan continues to proceed with a request for the
variance from the Hooksett Board of Adjustment for a 72-unit
complex behind Mt. St. Mary's apartments. The members of the
trustee board who are available and Heather will attend the
September 12th zoning board meeting at the library.
- PTA Contact & Newsletter Distribution
- Mary has been in touch with Claudette Knieriem, the new
publicity chairman for the PTA. The PTA will incorporate our
half-sheet flyer advertising the book sale and will include it
in their weekly Wednesday packets. The flyer has been approved
by the SAU. Mary will take this month's newsletter to be
approved by the SAU.
- Library Fence
- Mike Sorel kindly purchased and installed the lumber to fix
our fence. The board recognized that there was already a
decision and motion to remove the fence. At this time, we will
keep the fence as it is, but will consider removing it at a
later time if it continues to break-down.
New Business:
- Donations for 2006
- WebJunction presentation
- Heather will show the trustees how to utilize WebJunction
when the board meets for the zoning board meeting.
- Purchasing Policy
- Heather sent an email request to the nhais-l listserve and
has begun to receive responses. Responses will be gathered and
distributed at the next board meeting.
- Heather's six month goals:
- Heather distributed an updated copy of her goals for the
next six months. A tentative date of September 25th was set
for Heather's performance review.
- Community Calendar
- Mary and Tammy will work on tracking down local community
groups and encouraging their usage of the community calendar.
- Meeting adjourned at 8:37pm.
- The next board meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 25th
at 6:00pm.
- Hooksett Public Library
- Director's Report
- September 11, 2006
Building Maintenance
Gimas Electric has been to visit us again to repair our downstairs
lighting. I spoke to John about getting an estimate for rewiring the
downstairs and he told me that it was too large of a job for us to
consider based on the problems we are experiencing. In his opinion,
we are not in any danger of losing a supplier of the relay lighting
that we have the fixtures for.
Children's Department
- Vickie is taking a course on WebJunction to learn how to work
with teens in the library. She is also reading a guide to
creating a teen advisory board for the library. She is planning
to send invitations to a number of teens in the community to join
her in starting a teen advisory board.
- Vickie's Mother-Daughter reading group will now meet on the
third Tuesday of each month. We are making an effort to create
regular schedules for our programs, thus making it easier for
folks to attend.
Circulation
- VHS videos are now circulating for two weeks at a time, rather
than one week and the fine per day has been reduced to 10 cents a
day rather than $1.00 per day.
- In-house hold requests have been increasing as patrons learn
that we offer this service and are requesting materials from home
more frequently. I have seen a large number of requests on books
that are out, that are not the usual bestsellers which means that
patrons are self-initiating using the hold request option on the
OPAC, which is a great sign!
- LeeAnn has made an outstanding Banned Books week display which
we will be displaying for the month of September. We will be
submitting an article to the banner.
- We have begun circulating puzzles in the children's room, be
sure to check our DIY shelving apparatus that we created. It is
rather nifty, if I do say so myself. Puzzles for older children
and adults will be added to our wishlist.
- LeeAnn and I are contemplating better display options for a
library wishlist, in particular DVD titles we would like and items
for the storytime room.
Collection Development & Acquisitions
- We have added a number of new magazine titles, including three
for the children's room, Babybug, Ladybug & Wild Animal
Babies. All three come in a reinforced format for little ones to
explore without damaging, too much.
- Additional titles to the adult collection have been, Taste of
Home for Two, Creative Knitting, New Yorker, Quick& Easy
Crochet, Rolling Stone, Cook's Illustrated & Vogue Knitting.
We were able to make these additions to the collection as a result
of the savings we created by using alternative vendors for
magazines. It is my hope that when Jeff and I review our renewal
plan, we can switch more titles away from Ebsco and to the
alternative vendors with lower prices, and we can make a few more
title increases.
Correspondence
We received a lovely note from an attendee at our Learn About Life
in Afghanistan program. She says,
- "I want to thank the Hooksett Public Library for
sponsoring the wonderful evening with Hafiza Malikbaba and
Rachel Lehr. I enjoyed every minute of it!
- I've read several books about Afghanistan, and about
the Afghan women. It's heartwarming to hear about Rubia and
the good work it's doing.
- Keep up the good programs! Thank you!
- Jean Cummings"
Donations
There are no donations to report at this time.
Finances
Our audit materials have been submitted to Diane who will review
them to make sure we are all set for the audit the week of September
18.
Friends of the Library
The Friends of the Library will be holding a tent at the Hooksett
Old Home Day and selling fudge for a fundraiser.
Marketing
- Our newsletter has now been published two months consecutively
for August & September and I believe it is here to stay! As a
result of our printing concerns, we have opted for a new format
which retains it's professional polish while being printed with
only black ink. As a result, it is not as appealing to the eye
for our website. It is my thought that we will use the blocks of
text to send to the Banner and distribute on our email listserve
each week. Our current count for our email listserve is 253!
- Mark Glisson has a niece who has offered to help write
articles for the library, she is studying journalism a the college
level. I am hoping to enlist her for her first article about
Banned Books.
Personnel
Heather will be taking the week between Christmas and New Year's
for her vacation this year. Vickie has also requested vacation that
week and that will be the limit for staff on vacation for one week.
Staff News
- The staff had a recent just-for-fun evening outing. Jeff,
Vickie & Sue and families accompanied Heather to a Fishercats
baseball game. A good time was had by all.
- LeeAnn is leading us all in a LGC Healthtrust sponsored
program to increase our fruit and vegetable intake each day. We
have now completed the first six week segment and are now working
to increase our mobility and tracking the number of steps we take
each day.
- In view of better customer service, the staff have decided to
begin wearing name tags. The question was raised by LeeAnn and
agreed to by the entire staff. The name tag will say Hooksett
Public Library and/or a library emblem and their first name. My
name tag will state my full name and library director. I must
note how pleased I am with the staff that they have agreed to
begin this.
Technology
Jeff and I participated in a webconference this week on a new
product for online scheduling of meeting rooms. EK Rooms is created
by the same company as our museum passes. Jeff and I were both
pleased with their product and their pricing. Staff evaluation of
the Tixkeeper program for our museum passes has been positive, so we
will move ahead with this program for booking our meeting rooms.
Initially we will use it only inhouse for staff to book rooms, but
the expectation is that it will eventually become a tool for patrons
to request room bookings from home. A patron will place a request
which will then be approved or denied with reason by library
staff.
Month Ahead/ Goals & Projects:
- Staff evaluations
- Plan an adult program for October
- Upcoming Events
- Book Sale: October 14th
- Holiday Party: Saturday, December 9