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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMin - Library Board - 2020 - 02/04 - Regular ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 4,2020 Board Members Present: Maroba Zoeller, Vice Chair Michelle Perry, Secretary Laura Wooten Scott Phillips Kimberly Hinton Jack Bick, Chair Rekha Mathai City Staff/Officials Present: Jeff Timbs, Library Director Joanna Stone, Adult Services Manager Lauren Doherty, City Council Liaison 1. Call to Order and Announce a Quorum is Present With a quorum present, the Regular Meeting of the Allen Public Library Board was called to order by Board Chair Jack Bick at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 4, 2020, in the Allen Public Library Board Room, 300 North Allen Drive, Allen, Texas. 2. Approve Minutes of the November 5,2019 Regular Meeting. MOTION: Upon a motion made by Maroba Zoeller and seconded by Scott Phillips,the Board voted to approve the November 5, 2019 minutes. 3. Consider Opportunities for Board Members to Represent and Advocate for the Library. The board discussed ways to advocate for the Library within the community. Board members said that they could represent the Library at City events, such as the Eggcellent Family Adventure in April, and the Allen USA celebration in July. Each Board member also voiced his or her specific area of interest within the library, such as teen books and programming, or children's books and programming,and discussed how to increase community interest in those areas. ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY Page 2 REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 4,2020 4. Discuss Scheduling and Content for the Annual Board Report to the City Council. Library Director Jeff Timbs and Adult Services Manager Joanna Stone requested feedback from the Board regarding the annual Board report to City Council. The Board report is usually presented to the Council in July. The Board discussed the following pieces of information that could possibly be included in the report: • Services provided to the community • Programming highlights • Increase/growth in usage of the library, including digital use • Touchpoints of usage in the library • Interviews with patrons • Video that shows a behind the scenes look at the library • Video that documents a day in the life of the library Director Timbs also said that for the sixth consecutive year, the Texas Municipal Library Director's Association has recognized Allen Public Library with its Achievement of Library Excellence award. 5. Review and Discuss Library Services and Expansion. Director Timbs gave the board an update on library services, and the proposed library expansion. Last month, APL began ticketing story time sessions. With ticketing, 60 individuals are allowed to attend each story time session. Before ticketing, story time sessions were overcrowded, with up to 100 individuals in attendance. Family Place workshop sessions are currently being offered, with more sessions available in the fall. The Lion Dance event to celebrate Chinese New Year was successful, with 450 individuals in attendance. Chinese American (bilingual) storytelling sessions will be offered in April, August, October, and December. The Holi festival of colors will be celebrated in March. A Ramadan program will take place in April. In May, the summer reading program will begin, and run through the beginning of August. Director Timbs said that there will not be a significant increase in Library staff with the Library expansion. He said he hoped one of the future Library Board meetings would focus primarily on expansion, and that considering what citizens want and need is most important in the process of expanding the library. City Council member Lauren Doherty said that it ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY Page 3 REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 4,2020 would be a good idea to have patrons who are regulars at the Library sit on any potential steering committee on expansion that is created by the Mayor. 6. Status Report on Digital Collections. With APL's participation in the CloudLibrary consortium,patrons have access to 160,000 items, with a value of$6.5 million in books and other items. Audiobooks are the library's fastest growing resource. The RB digital collection has expanded as well, growing from 82 titles to 3,900 titles. 7. Review and Discuss October,November, and December 2019 Library Statistics. In October, digital checkouts were up 28% and total checkouts up 27%with digital checkouts representing slightly more than 5% of total circulation. Visitors were up 3%, program attendance and holds were each up 7%. In November, digital checkouts were up 38% and total checkouts up 6%. Total circulation reflects than autorenewals had fully taken effect by November 2018 and likely to increase no more than single digits. Visitors were comparable to the previous year. Program attendance was up 62% and holds up 8%. In December, digital checkouts were up 67% although total checkouts were nearly identical to 2018. Nevertheless, this represented very healthy circulation for December. Digital checkouts were 6% of total checkouts, the highest percentage seen thus far. Visitors were up 7%,program attendance up 22%, and holds up 5%. 8. Recap Friends of the Library,Allen Library Endowment Fund, and ALLen Reads Activities. In conjunction with the Friends of the Library,APL created four book club boxes. With a book club box, a patron can check out a box of popular book club titles. One of them has the 2020 ALLen Reads book. The Allen Library Endowment Fund fund-raising event will take place in the fall, but no specific details are available yet. The ALLen Reads books for the coming year are The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, for adult readers; Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, by Kathi Appelt, for middle grade readers; and That Book Woman, ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY Page 4 REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 4,2020 by Heather Henson, for younger readers. Richardson and Appelt will be here in the fall for separate ALLen Reads events. 9. Discuss Items for Future Board Meeting Agendas. The Board expressed interest in continuing to discuss expansion plans for the Library, as well as fines for overdue items. 10. Items of Interest.[Board announcements regarding local civic and charitable events, meetings, and awards.] i. March 7—Allen Philharmonic Orchestra's Concert for Young Audiences at 3 p.m.in the Auditorium. -Family for baby grand—story of baby grand who leaves home to join an orchestra ii. March 14 -Celtic Night with Skeleton McGee (band) at 7:30 p.m. in the Auditorium. iii. April 17—Jazz Night with Bobby Falk—Friday, April 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Auditorium. iv. May 1 —Library Closed for Staff In-Service. v. May 5—Next Scheduled Library Advisory Board Meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the Library Board Room: vi. May 22—August 2—Summer Reading Club vii. Other Calendar Items. 11. Adjourn. MOTION: Upon a motion made by Maroba Zoeller and seconded by Laura Wooten, the Board voted to adjourn the board meeting at 7:46 p.m. These minutes approved on the 4th day of August 2020. APPROVED: ATTEST: CHAIRPERSON � . SEC TARY