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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBoard of Library Trustees 2018-08-14 AgendaAGENDA SAN RAFAEL LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES REGULAR MEETING, AUGUST 14, 2018 DOWNTOWN SAN RAFAEL PUBLIC LIBRARY MEETING ROOM, 1100 E Street, SAN RAFAEL 6:00 PM MELANIE LEAVITT CANTARUTTI, BOARD CHAIR, PRESIDING APPROVAL OF AGENDA APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF MEETING OF JULY 10, 2018 PUBLIC COMMENT This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons desiring to address the Board on all items, agendized or not. Presentations are generally limited to two minutes. STAFF PRESENTATION • Jill Harris, Supervising Librarian, Youth Services CORRESPONDENCE REPORT FROM INTERIM LIBRARY DIRECTOR (Henry Bankhead) REPORTS FROM LIBRARY SUPPORT GROUPS • Friends of the Library (Henry Bankhead) • Library Foundation (Henry Bankhead) • Special Library Parcel Tax Committee (Henry Bankhead) OLD BUSINESS • None NEW BUSINESS • New Library Facilities Project update ADJOURNMENT American sign language interpreters and assistive listening devices may be requested by calling 415-485-3064 (voice) at least 72 hours in advance. Copies of documents are available in accessible formats upon request. To allow individuals with environmental illness or multiple chemical sensitivity to attend the meeting, individuals are requested to refrain from wearing scented products. MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE SAN RAFAEL LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2018 DOWNTOWN LIBRARY MEETING ROOM 6:00 P.M. MELANIE LEAVITT CANTARUTTI, CHAIR, PRESIDING MEMBERS PRESENT: MELANIE LEAVITT CANTARUTTI JAIMI CORTES JOSH LIBRESCO ROBERT ROSS DOUG VAN GESSEL MEMBERS ABSENT: SCOTT HARRUP (ALTERNATE) OTHERS PRESENT: SARAH HOUGHTON, LIBRARY DIRECTOR HENRY BANKHEAD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LEA ASCHKENAS, PICKLEWEED BRANCH CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN APPROVAL OF AGENDA The agenda was unanimously approved on a motion by Libresco and a second by Ross. APPROVAL OF MINUTES April minutes were approved 5-0 on a motion by Cantarutti and a second by Libresco. June minutes were approved 4-0 (with Cantarutti abstaining) on a motion by Libresco and a second by Ross. PUBLIC COMMENT None. STAFF PRESENTATION Lea Aschkenas talked about her background as a poet and traveler, including her book Es Cuba. She talked about three programs she’s run at the Pickleweed Library Branch: Books without Borders, author visits, including one by former resident, Javier Zamora, and monthly crafts programs with local artists. CORRESPONDENCE None. REPORT FROM LIBRARY DIRECTOR Farewell This is Houghton’s last meeting as the Library Director. Bankhead has been appointed Interim Director while a recruitment for Director takes place. Learn Mahjong at the Library The Downtown Library’s Sunday Mahjong classes have been incredibly popular with both experienced players and newcomers. These programs are facilitated by the Marin Chinese Cultural Association. Three More Farmers Markets The Library will have a booth at the market on July 19, August 2, and August 16. REPORTS FROM LIBRARY SUPPORT GROUPS AND OTHER RELATED GROUPS Friends of the Library: The Friends of the Library held their annual lawn sale on Saturday, June 16th and raised approximately $3,500. SRPL Foundation: Concerns at the last Foundation meeting were raised about discussing an option for a branch in Terra Linda. The Foundation continues to work on its annual meeting planning as well as the annual fundraising letter. Special Library Parcel Tax Committee: The Committee has not met. OLD BUSINESS None NEW BUSINESS New Library Facilities Project Update Bankhead reported that the first of three sets of outreach meetings to the community have been completed with a total of just over 50 attendees. The next set of meetings should occur in late summer or early autumn. Bankhead reviewed the slides from Noll & Tam Architects with the Board, showing the various options for Downtown, Picklweed, and Terra Linda. While the Board was pleased with the community outreach to date, several Board members expressed the hope that a broader community outreach will be attempted in the future, to make sure that more residents can share their views. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 7:14pm. Respectfully submitted by Sarah Houghton August 2018 TO: San Rafael Public Library Board of Trustees FR: Henry Bankhead, Interim Library Director RE: Monthly Report to the Board Facility Updates We are currently working with Noll and Tam on planning the second phase of Public Meetings as part of the public outreach phase of the New Library Facilities Planning Process. Tentative dates for the next round of meetings are October 16, 18 and 20. Interim Library Director Henry Bankhead addressed the Parks and Recreation Committee on Thursday July 19th to update the commission on potential impacts of the project on parks within the city of San Rafael. Recent Library User Comments • I think this new-ish online library system is wonderful. • Thanks for choosing such an easy to use and reliable program. • I really wish you would make a place to share old magazines. Library Activities Summer Reading Libraries are the place to be all year, but especially in summer time. Both libraries have first rate enrichment programming due to great support from the Friends of the Library. The Pickleweed Library has had great attendance all summer for weekly craft events and big performers, in addition to regular programming. The library collaborates with Community Services to use space in the Al Boro Center to accommodate all these activities. Jeremy the Juggler performed in the Multi-Purpose Room for a crowd of 175. At one point, Jeremy juggled eight balls while riding a double unicycle! Updates to Children's Collection By Jill Harris It can be hard to keep track of our constantly changing collections, even for folks who work in the Children's Room every day. Here is a review of recent changes: Monthly Librarian’s Report to the Library Board of Trustees, p. 2 Picture Book Categorization AKA Glading About a third of the picture book collection is now organized by frequently requested subjects. This makes the collection easier to browse for both adults and children. This method is responsive to the way patrons use the picture book collection and the kinds of books they are most often looking for. Each category or "glade" is color coded with a translucent spine label. Soon we will be adding more signs for each section as well as a poster explaining what kinds of books can be found in each section. Adventure Kits This collection lives not just in Children's but also in Adult and at Pickleweed. Our first two Adventure Kits, learn to play ukulele and a hiking backpack with free parking passes for Marin County parks, are available for checkout now. Starlings Starlings are like FitBits but for early literacy. Parents and caregivers can check out a Starling and clip it to a young child's clothing. The device uses voice recognition technology to count the number of words the child hears throughout the day. It delivers this data via an app, letting the parent or caregiver know the total word count, which times of day the child heard the most words, etc. The app also gives caregivers a daily goal, as well as tips to integrate more interaction with your child every day. We have packaged our Starlings like a kit – each Starling comes with instructions, a survey, and two picture books for the family to keep. The Starling kit is intended to motivate parents and caregivers to interact with their young children more than they currently do. Starlings are available for checkout at the downtown Children's Room and Pickleweed. J Magazines Due to very low use, the downtown Children's team has decided to drastically cut the number of magazine subscriptions we are maintaining. We have cancelled all but the top five most circulating subscriptions. Current and back issues of cancelled titles have already been removed, and we will soon give away the large storage shelf they currently live on. Cancelled titles include Plays, which has been stored in the J Nonfiction collection, and most of the magazines that have been shelves in the picture Monthly Librarian’s Report to the Library Board of Trustees, p. 3 book area. For the five titles we are keeping, we will store them all together in one location, most likely in a wall-mounted magazine display unit near the J Holiday books. Playaway Tablets We will be circulating Playaway Launchpads, which are tablets preloaded with apps intended to support reading and math skills at various grade levels. Depending on how well these items circulate and feedback from the public, we will continue to build this collection. The tablets are packaged in an orange case, like the Playaway audiobooks, and will be shelved in the Children's Room a/v section. Curriculum Resources is now Parent and Teacher Collection This is a small change, but we have renamed the somewhat cumbersomely titled Curriculum Resources Collection to the Parent and Teacher Collection. From now on, new titles added to this collection will have "P & T" at the beginning of their call numbers and will no longer receive a neon yellow label. Older titles will retain the neon yellow label for now. At some point we may remove this label and redo the spine labels. Intercambio Marin Intercambio Marin began in May and continues to grow each week! This community building and language exchange program started by Pickleweed Library takes place every Thursday evening from 6-7:30pm, at the Wellness Campus at 3240 Kerner Blvd. During Intercambio Marin, native English speakers are paired with native Spanish speakers for informal conversation. Pairs will speak in Spanish for 45 minutes and then switch to English for 45 minutes. Already new friendships are developing, and participants are very excited to get the chance to practice speaking another language in a fun and supportive environment. National Night Out National Night Out, this year was on Tuesday, August 7th from 5-7:30pm, is celebrated very year on the first Tuesday of August to promote partnerships between community groups, city agencies and law enforcement with the goal of making neighborhoods safer and fostering a true sense of community. This is the third year in a row that staff from the Pickleweed Library will attend the NNO festivities held outside the offices of Monthly Librarian’s Report to the Library Board of Trustees, p. 4 Parent Services Project at 79 Belvedere St. This event always has great food and activities. This year, we will be doing fun outreach and a book giveaway of very high- quality books received from a Book Rich Environment Grant from the National Book Foundation.! Memory Lab Under Construction The downtown library is gearing up to provide a new service to its patrons - a Memory Lab where San Rafael's residents will be able to preserve their important family memories. Thanks go to a generous bequest in honor of Randy Coleman the library has purchased a high-quality scanner that is able to digitize large documents, photographs, slides, and even negatives. These often-fragile materials can be easily damaged by a variety of environmental factors, but by creating digital copies, library patrons will be able to preserve them for future generations and share them more easily among friends and family. The Memory Lab will be rolled out to the public with a series of classes on the importance of digitally preserving important family documents and images. Class participants will gain first-hand experience using the new lab with a variety of materials and leave with the confidence they need to begin their own projects. The Memory Lab will also provide library staff with an opportunity to preserve photographs and documents in the library's collection, at the same time making them more readily available to the public. We hope to begin offering classes and making the Memory Lab available for the public to 'check out' this coming November. August Library Director Activities • August 15—Connect to Collaborate Meeting #2 • August 16— MARINet Board Meeting • August 23 — Library All Staff Meeting Upcoming Special Events Monthly Librarian’s Report to the Library Board of Trustees, p. 5 BIG SUMMER BOOK SALE ON THE LIBRARY LAWN August 25, 2018 @ 9:00 am – 3:30 pm This is Marin’s favorite book event of the year so bring your friends and family to spot some great deals on your favorite books…Over 35 categories of books will be offered, most of which have not made it into our shop or our other sales; you will be browsing over 9,000 engaging titles. This is a Clear the Decks Sale, so everything will be Half Price from 9:00 to 3:30, with the last hour being a dollar a book from 2:30 to 3:30. Exceptions will be some art books and some children’s books. Come early for the best selection, come at 11:00 when we refresh the tables or come at 2:30 for a dollar a book prices! Our largest and most popular categories are art, cooking, history and oldies; there will be plenty for everyone in the family to enjoy. Watercolors on the Library Lawn August 26, 2018 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm First time painters and experts are invited to join us for a free watercolor painting class on the library lawn. Watercolor artists Ann, Yvonne and Virginia will be on hand to give a demonstration and tips. We’ll provide everything you need including a still life for inspiration. Drop in with your whole family and give it a try.