City of Urbana Free Library Board met Oct. 10.
Here is the minutes provided by the Board:
CALL TO ORDER
The Urbana Free Library Board of Trustees met in the Lewis Auditorium of The Urbana Free Library on October 10, 2017. The meeting was called to order by the president, Chris Scherer, at 7:00 p.m.
ATTENDANCE
Present: Geoff Bant, Barbara Jones, Jared Miller, Mark Netter, Chris Scherer, Michael Weissman, and Jane Williams
Absent: Anna Merritt and Beth Scheid
Staff present: Becky Brown, Celeste Choate, Rachel Fuller, Carol Inskeep, Mary Towner, and Anke Voss
Also present: Shauri Gonzalez, Simon Rosenzweig, and Bob Towner
ADDITIONS, CORRECTIONS, MODIFICATIONS OF THE AGENDA
None.
APPROVE THE AGENDA
It was moved by Jared Miller, seconded by Barbara Jones, and passed unanimously to approve the agenda as presented.
CALL FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION
There was no call for an executive session.
PUBLIC COMMENT
None.
PRESENTATIONS
Carol Inskeep gave a presentation on the Library's service to immigrants. She told the Board that this is her passion, and she appreciates Administration's support in reaching out to the international community. Urbana is a diverse community, with people coming here for many different reasons and many different needs. The Library offers a variety of services to help immigrants. Bilingual storytimes are popular with the kids and the parents. The English Conversation Classes met eight times this summer and had 154 total attendees from twelve different countries. The Teen Lab staff set up a tour for ESL high school students, so that they would have a chance to see what is offered. The Library has materials in a variety of languages, and the Friends of the Library donated $2000 to strengthen the collection. The Library has also reached out to partner with others who serve the immigrant population, including La Linea and ESL teachers from Urbana Adult Education. Barbara Jones commented that based on comments that she has heard at meetings she attended this summer, the Library is doing an extraordinary job.
Anke Voss reported to the Board that the Library has been selected, along with 28 other public libraries, to participate in the Internet Archive's Community Webs program, an initiative funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Internet Archive is a non-profit library, whose mission is to provide Universal Access to Knowledge by archiving the Internet itself, collecting published works and making them available in digital formats. Like newspapers, the content published on the web is ephemeral, with an average lifespan of only ninety days, but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Archive-It was built at the Internet Archive in 2006, and is the leading web archiving service for collecting and accessing cultural heritage on the web. Archive-It helps organizations to harvest, build, and preserve collections of digital content. The ability to preserve local records from websites, online news, local blogs, Social media, and other platforms is an increasingly important skill for archivists and librarians Seeking to fulfill their role as information custodians and community anchors in the age of the web. Through the Internet Archive's grant, each selected library will receive the equivalent of $25,000 in Web archiving services, equaling a 0.50 TB archival data budget per year for five years (extending beyond the two years of this project) to build local history web archive collections. This includes access to and training on the Archive-It web application. Anke's first extended project leader training will take place at the Internet Archive in November. She is very excited to get started and looks forward to reporting back to the Board with updates about this exceptional opportunity for the Library.
ACTION ITEMS (CONSENT AGENDA)
It was moved by Jared Miller, seconded by Michael Weissman, and passed unanimously to approve the consent agenda as presented.
ACTION ITEMS (INDIVIDUAL)
It was moved by Michael Weissman, seconded by Mark Netter, and passed unanimously to approve the FY18 budget amendments. These included moving money from the building capital expense line to the building maintenance and repair line and the hr/legal/professional services line to cover the Alpha Controls system upgrade. The budget amendment also included changing the IT Assistant part-time position to an IT Assistant full-time position.
It was moved by Jared Miller, seconded by Barbara Jones, and passed unanimously to accept Resolution 2017-11 thanking Mary Wilkes Towner for 42 years of service with The Urbana Free Library.
DISCUSSION ITEMS
The Board discussed Library Collection Management Policies: II-A, II-B, II-C, and II-D. It has been recommended by staff that policies II-B and II-C be retired. Policy II-A is the overarching broad policy that covers collection management. Polices II-B and II-C are more procedure than policy, covering the day to day operations. Barbara Jones expressed her appreciation that the American Library Association statements about selection and Freedom to Read were included as a part of the policy.
REPORTS OF LIAISON OFFICERS
Friends of the Library The November book sale set-up dates coincide with the November Board of Trustees meeting, so the November meeting will be held in the Archives.
The urbana Free Library Foundation The Foundation is gearing up for the annual fall campaign.
Illinois Heartland Library System Geoff Bant reported that IHLS had another training session with Laura Huth, which went well. The IHLS budget was approved at $4.3 million. Geoff is on the personnel committee, which is talking about hiring.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS
Celeste reported that ESCA had finished the porch repair evaluation, but the Library has not received an estimate as to the cost of repair. She will inform the Board of the projected cost, when it is received. The next steps will involve going out to bid for the work. The Foundation is making the porch the focal point of the fall campaign.
Administration has been discussing how to fill the gap with Kathy leaving in January. All staff have been asked to communicate with Administration about their ideas.
Celeste reported that the new boilers are installed and working. The chiller failed and has been fixed. It is on the list to be replaced between now and spring.
BOARD PRESIDENT REPORT
Chris Scherer reported that he received a newsletter from an organization that was soliciting funds by listing sponsorship projects. He suggested that the Library considered running something similar in the newsletter.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
None.
NEW BUSINESS
None.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.
https://www.urbanaillinois.us/sites/default/files/attachments/10-10-17_Minutes.pdf
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