Oct 07, 2020 Library Board on 2020-10-07 1:00 PM

welcome everyone I'd like to welcome everybody back this is our first meeting in quite a long while and I'd like to call the meeting to order the first item on the agenda is a present is if there are presentations from any members of the public do we have any presentations no we have no callers queued up for this meeting and there are also no online comment okay thank you very much then we'll move on to the second item on the agenda which is to consider approval of the minutes of March 9th 2020 Cindy sent us those to remind us of what happens so very long ago and I assume you've read them so may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the March 9th meeting may I see a hand Laura approves them second from Katie all in favor raise your hand please the minutes are considered approved all right the next item is to receive an informational report and hold a discussion regarding the Friends of the Denton Public Libraries Jennifer will you present that report for us yes so the Friends unfortunately due to COVID have had to cancel so many activities their regular quarterly meetings for 2020 have been canceled they are trying to conduct a virtual meeting to make plans for 2021 sometime later this month their book sales were also canceled from the spring through the rest of the year for safety concerns they did give us in 2020 they gave us $20,000 for 10,000 was for summer reading challenge prize books which we purchased and now that the libraries are starting to reopen patrons who participate it can pick up their prizes and another 10,000 went to other facility enhancements such as there was furniture in the teen room and a large bed scanner in for Emily Fowler Central Library those items have come in in preparing for 2021 because there weren't book sales at this time they are thinking that they should be able to provide the library with $10,000 so we are trying to see what our needs might be for 2021 we know we did have less participation for summer reading challenge so we may have some books left over so we know that that will be covered no matter what but we're trying to see if there will be any additional that we could apply for any branch needs anyone have any questions for Jennifer all right then let's move on the next item is receive an informational report and hold a discussion about the Emily Fowler Library Foundation so the foundation there's not much change there they provided fifteen thousand dollars to go towards the nook park project at Emily Fowler Central Library and that park project is coming to a close it looks stunning I highly recommend if anybody wants to take a nice walk in this beautiful weather walk past there and enjoy sitting down in that nature area and the plaques for recognition are being put together I think that they are hoping to have those done before the end of the month but I will have more information on that later but it is moving along and that's the only activity that they've had so far wonderful again any questions or for Jennifer or any comments about it Katie um what plaques it's for a Rotary Club and the foundation of it is there anybody else there were some individual donors and they had different donation levels but there were some individual donors who gave a thousand or more and they'll they'll be on that plaque also anyone else all right let's move to the next item receive a report and hold a discussion regarding the delay of the election of a president vice president and secretary of the library board so per the library board bylaws traditionally in September nominations for the executive positions are made and then the voting is happens in October but because the council elections that would have happened in May were delayed until November appointments can't be completed so we are delaying the election until we get all the official appointments so it would be early 2021 before we have our final appointments and we'll be able to do elections for the board that makes good sense because we just don't know who's going to be on the board at that point right all right any questions or comments about that topic seeing none receive a report and hold a discussion regarding library phased reopening plans during the COVID-19 pandemic so I've got exciting news we are slowly reopening so we are moving branches into what we are calling phase three which is 30 minute grab-and-go walk you just walk in you can spend a little bit of time browsing use the self checks to check out materials it's first come first serve for computer access we do have some tables available for people who need internet access if they're bringing their own devices and so that's kind of our first tier of our reopening north branch just moved to phase three on Monday so far it's been really successful a lot of people using those computers and printers and a lot of people walking in to update their cards because it's been a little while and so that is exciting to see in South Branch will move to phase three on October 19th and then Emily Fowler we're looking at early November but that exact date is still being figured out because of the moving project that's happening right now so once all three branches are in phase three at that point we're going to start looking at banding hours because temporary hours for phase three are just Monday through Saturday 10 to 5 that matches the current curbside service north branch always has had a drive-up service window so that drive-up service window will continue matching that 10 to 5 hours but as the other branches come up their curbside service will cease just because they don't already have that staffing to accommodate the additional pieces with that service interlibrary loan services have been up for a while 3d printer requests and pickup would be available and once any branches in phase three patrons can come and browse those summer reading challenge prize book carts and pick their prize but prize books also and we'll start adding hours and services back once all three branches are up looking at adding our evenings of course the Sundays and eventually that 9 to 10 a.m. back and services such as study rooms right now those are closed bringing back the meeting rooms probably in January things like that any questions for Jennifer about that topic or a comment you want to make I would like to just impose a little bit here that that I think your curbside service has been wonderful I have had personally no slacking off of all the many books that I need to read and I just think everybody's been cheerful about it they have worked wonderfully well and I want to applaud you and all the your team for may still continuing to make books and materials and information available to us the public thank you the team I see thumbs up there yes yes I keep we keep joking that they need to make sure that they're wearing their fit bits because they're getting a lot of steps in that normally they don't have to do so and and like I mentioned it for any patrons who want to continue with a curbside service north branch has the drive-up window and that will all that will always be available okay as I also gave for those of you who read the newspaper gave a hug you know on Saturdays they do hugs and shrugs in the paper and I gave a hug to Jennifer and her entire fantastic team for what they have done to keep us informed in the public so I'll praise goes to them they're amazing okay the next item on the agenda is receive a report hold a discussion and consider recommending approval of the following Denton Public Library policy updates the circulation policy so the circulation policy is a policy that you all had already done and an update approval in February but this summer we did Institute the books to go account type for Denton ISD students and we needed to add that in there so that's the that change and then we did find a an error that we had correct in one place but incorrect in another place so we fixed that but those were the only changes and it's just for your review and approval so we need to vote an approval of the change yes please all right may I have a motion to approve the changes okay Laura may I have a second and then we'll have a discussion dr. Jang seconded all right is there any discussion of the motion hearing none all in favor please raise your hand all right this is approved receive a report and hold a discussion regarding the library departmental reorganization all right so COVID has been horrible across the board but it has made us review some of our existing procedures and efficiencies and what we can do better and one of the things we looked at as part of the COVID as we were looking at everything all of our services as we looked at doing a reorganization within the department to improve services improve communication and efficiency within the department and so we've made some changes I attached our new org chart in the agenda but we are bringing back one manager per library branch and so Jess Turner is our new North branch manager Kimberly Wells continues to be our Emily Fowler central library manager and Stacey Sizemore is South branch manager and then we still have our technical services manager Jennifer Reeves and within that reorg we also kind of rearrange some of the processes we had circulation team leaders who did the day-to-day operations of our circulation departments at each branch and so we officially made them the supervisors they were already doing that work and so now they are officially supervising their search teams we also rearrange Carrie Montz the assistant branch manager at North branch is going to oversee system-wide circulation to kind of work with the programming librarians and make sure we are addressing topics and programming needs across the system evenly she's also going to oversee the forge maker space and we have some big projects coming up with that and she's gonna help get those settled make sure it's running smoothly and she's also going to help us as we are doing more and more grant writing we need a department liaison to work with the city and the finance department make sure we are following the city's grant policy and just making sure our grant management is top-notch so she's gonna take that on for us also so some exciting changes it's gonna improve like I said it's realigning us to improve services and and make us more efficient good any questions for Jennifer or any comments on her topic all right then let's move to the next one the one desk service model so this and the reorg go hand-in-hand part of that is we also moved up our library assistant one positions to be library assistant two positions traditionally the difference was LA ones were circulation frontline and LA twos worked at reference and assisted with programs and so what we found though is we have been sending people kind of like ping-pong balls to desk to desk to desk and we wanted to improve that service and to do that we needed to cross train everyone so we needed everyone at a certain level so we moved all of the LA ones we promoted them to LA twos we are coming up with a cross training program that we're going to be doing this fall and winter so we are identifying some core services that every single staff member in the library can help with if somebody walks up to anybody any of us can look up a book we can check your account we can make edits to an account so some basic things that previously we would have said oh go to that desk come to this desk and we are combining forces into one service area to also eliminate that back and forth physically right now we have we have removed the north branch reference desk and the staff is working out of that gigantic circulation desk so they the desk is enormous it can accommodate many people many people so right now we're doing that as we get settled and as we are able to find some funding we will get more specific service desk that will be able to replace to better fit this model but for right now we're going to use what we have and stuff is going to be able to really help anyone and worst case scenario if it's a very specific question or issue then they can go oh my friend right here can help you and it's just one step away so better service better communication more efficient it's going to help also with staffing levels instead of having two people staffed at reference and two people at Cirque we should be able to eventually just have two people at one service desk with other people on call if things get busy but we think it's going to lend us a lot of efficiency with that any questions or comments yes Katie you're on mute okay I'm just curious was maybe you maybe you didn't even need it maybe everybody already had it but did you also do make sure everyone's sort of equal in their technology especially things that patrons ask about downloadables things like that is that something that was across the board so that's something it's gonna be in our training plan so everybody's gonna need to know how to help someone print something off log into a computer and the basics of what our electronic resources are so one example where there might be a handoff would be I'm having trouble with hoopla and there may be you know stuff may be able to give an overview but if it becomes too complex and if it's a traditional Cirque staff member that's where they may do the transition to actually she's gonna have a little bit more expertise on that topic and can help you same thing the Cirque staff is going to handle the cash registers and so reference staff won't be having to be trained or constantly have the void receipts as that training process goes on so that's librarians with money you don't want to do that any other questions or comments just raise your hand okay seeing none thank you we will move on to the next reading nook Park at Emily Fowler Central Library so it is almost done it is exciting I talked a little bit about that with the foundation report I really recommend that anybody take a walk this weekend through Quaker town and stop behind there we have seen people as they are walking stop and enjoy the area it is planted out there's irrigation there's lights it will it has a power spot so if we have a program or an event needs power there there is an outlet there it's locked down normally but would be open there and our favorite part is we heard word from facilities that they were able to work with the historical Commission and come up with a plan for we have an exit door at Emily Fowler that is very narrow it's an emergency exit only that they are gonna be able to update and then provide an ADA compatible access out there as opposed to going around the facility we don't have a date on when that part is gonna happen I'm not quite sure but we did hear that the plan for it has been approved and they're they're working on it so that's just the icing on the cake for us that's fantastic being someone who has trouble going all the way around wonderful wonderful thing you're doing there all right any questions or comments about that for Jennifer right then let's move to the next the fiscal year 2021 library department budget so great news we haven't had any budget cuts which is wonderful we basically are operating budget from 1920 has been rolled over we did get an increase of $5,000 at Fowler for archival supplies and those are not cheap and that was not funded prior and so we were able to get that that's an ongoing increase in the budget and we were able to find some one-time cost items that we we are in the process with we're updating the RFID technology the self-check machine's smart smart shoot returns and security gates the RFP process is coming to a close on that so we will be getting new technology for that we did lose and it was a little bit of the reorg and this two FTEs one full-time librarian from South one part-time la2 for technical services and one part-time la2 for Fowler because of kovat and our reduced programming and there's just a lot of reduction in service at this time things are in transition and then we're also moving to that one desk service model we're very confident this fiscal year will be fine and then we're going to readdress in the budget process for 21 22 and what we need to add back and request back for that questions and comments library grant awards so great news we've been asking for a lot of money and we're getting some so we've received a Texas Book Festival grant for $1,000 to replace board books at North Branch to replace what kind of books please board books okay baby books they needed some upgrading so they're gonna get that at Emily Fowler they're gonna get $2,500 from the Texas Book Festival grant to replace worn youth teen and adult titles special collections applied for and was awarded $24,820 from the TSLAC text treasures grant to digitize issues of the Denton Record Chronicle they won that same amount last year and they started from the beginning it was the early 1900s they got through 1938 so this session is 1939 to 1954 and you tell me that dollar amount again $24,820 okay and another question that's wonderful I've got one more to you oh that's not all we also were awarded a TSLAC special project grant for $54,058 to move and expand the forge maker space it's moving from its current room at North Branch to a larger room it was the reference room at North Branch we're just flip-flopping the two so it's gonna expand its size and that funding is for new equipment and furniture for that room so we're gonna have some awesome stuff in there can you be specific about some of the new materials that will be in there not the furniture but yes we're getting a it's an engraving machine and that's that's not cheap at all it's about $24,000 so it engraves everything from wood glass to plexiglass all sorts of things it has a direct ventilation outside for it as tabletop enclosed CNC carver a dual extruder 3d printer and what that means is it can print two colors as well as a small 3d scanner and we're getting new clear front so glass front storage cabinets so all of the current things that we have that nobody knows about connect people can see while they're still secured and so we hope that that will help a mobile service desk because we when staffing is in there currently there's no staff area and I think people come in and think the staff person is a patron so we're getting one of those new collaboration tables new computer tables and reservation software to make reservations to use the equipment and that's for the grant and then on top of that things that we have on hand are our current two 3d printers the computers will move in there that are in the forge but we're also we've also gotten a t-shirt press that we got from the the city had an in-house printing and graphics group and now it's outsourced and they had that equipment so we we claimed it things like a button maker a cricket vinyl cutting machine a large-scale laminator a large format cutter we have a lot of requests from people who need to cut poster board size things so some of those things we have on hand that we're just gonna put out and some of them we're gonna add oh we're gonna move our dye cuts at North Branch out there we use them but the public can too once they're in the makerspace so it's gonna be from I've never used equipment or like you you can be a straight-up beginner to an advanced technology person so it's gonna have something for everyone that sounds wonderful yes wonderful any questions for Jennifer or comments okay yay the DISD student books to go accounts yes so we have been talking about this for a long time and it came to fruition this summer it's a collaboration between Denton Public Library and Denton ISD as parents or guardians registered their student through the online registration process they could opt in to participate with this which would give their student basically our youth courtesy card it would allow students to check out up to three items at a time place three holds at a time use the computers and access all of the online resources so they can download books they can do research they can use Linda calm all of that and so parents who opted in and a huge amount of people opted in we're gonna work on a little bit of our wording to clarify what it was what they're opting into next year we think some may have been confused that they were opting into Denton ISD library access so what we did was we added a second level to activate the account and as of September 25th we had 181 books to go accounts that were activated we have had a lot of families fill out the form to activate and then we got to notify them guess what you already had a card you just forgot here's the number and so there's quite a few of those which that's great news too and so each week we get in you know anywhere from 10 to 40 of those activation requests they seem to come in clumps as teachers remind the students don't forget to activate your card and then we'll see several from the same school coming through so it is it is doing well we're gonna do another marketing push to remind community members that if you opted in don't forget to activate if you'd like that but it has been really helpful the majority have been from the south area kind of bordering the Corinth and so it's really helped out those families who are non-residents but they wanted their students to have access to library materials questions or comments then the last item on the agenda the Emily Fowler central library moving project this is so exciting and I can't wait for us to open so you all can come in and see it we are completely revamping how Emily Fowler looks on the inside not paint there's no hammers or nails happening but when you come in to Emily Fowler of course there's first the circulation desk and to the left is AV audio visual materials those remain towards the right which was special collections all of that has moved upstairs and that is where the computers will be going and eventually timeline to be determined sometime in the next 24 months we're hoping soon but we aren't quite sure we will also have conference room and possibly study rooms down there also but definitely that's where the computers will be going and so when you go up the stairs at Emily Fowler as you walk up the stairs immediately you'll see the new teen area and just to the right of that is youth services and youth services has a relaxing play interactive play area towards the back of that which is very convenient it's right next to this the program room so as we have story times families can play and go straight into the story time room it's right there and then as you move further back upstairs it gets quieter and quieter so we have study tables and then it moves into genealogy and where the youth services shelving was before is adult fiction and nonfiction so the theory was you're gonna see the most activity as you walk up the stairs but as you move back it's going to be quieter and as we pull all those computers together in a computer lab type formation those are downstairs so they're quick and easy access they're right by the restrooms so for those in and out customers it's not interrupting anybody who's studying upstairs and so we think the layout is gonna help a lot it's also moved all of those rare and precious historical items out of the floodplain area which Emily Fowler is technically in a floodplain and we did not like having those items on the bottom floor they are higher up now and much safer we don't have to do the frantic moving everything off the bottom shelf every time it rains so that's going to help a lot with that also all right questions and comments well we certainly are going to get us out of here much earlier than your time limitation thank you everyone keep safe and Jennifer will tell us when we need the next zoom meeting together thanks again oh I need a motion no you're we are adjourned I don't need a motion for that we are adjourned