Jacksonville Public Library Board of Trustees met April 12.
Here is the minutes provided by the Board:
The regular meeting of the Jacksonville Public Library Board of Directors was held April 12, 2018 in the library’s conference room. Present were President Mary Fergurson, Craig Albers, Katie Weeks, Forrest Keaton, Elizabeth Kennedy, Ted Roth, Robert Underbrink, Library Director Chris Ashmore, Adult Services Librarian Hillary Peppers and Circulation Supervisor Sarah Snyder. Absent were Noel Beard and Kevin Eckhoff.
President Fergurson called the meeting to order at 4:30 pm.
It was moved by Albers and seconded by Weeks that the minutes of the March board meeting be accepted as submitted. Motion carried.
It was moved by Roth and seconded by Albers that all financial reports for April be approved and that all properly approved bills for April in the amount of $59,918.56 be paid out of general funds as funds are available. Motion carried.
Keaton reported the balance from the latest Endowment Report.
Director’s Report-
March was another busy month at the Jacksonville Public Library. Social Work Intern Darin Michel continued to do a great job with a steady stream of clients. He has had over 70 sessions with over 40 different people. Darin also started a support group for troubled teens that meets on Saturday afternoons. The have met four times now and he has four regular attendees, which is very good for a teen event. It is going so well that the teens asked if the group could be extended two extra weeks until Darin’s internship is finished. Also in March, Darin brought in a speaker to the library from the Crisis Center Foundation to speak about the services they provide. A nice audience turned out for this daytime talk. Hillary and I completed Darin’s mid-term evaluation and met with MacMurray Social Work Field Director Jodi Pupillo to discuss the evaluation. We will give a final evaluation at the end of the internship that will go towards determining his grade.
Kaleigh Moore gave two career workshops in March – a repeat of her resume workshop and a new interviewing workshop. Both programs were well attended and well received. The library again partnered with the Jacksonville Symphony Society to show a film that tied in with their performance. Before the Symphony concert featuring chamber music, the library screened the film A Late Quartet, starring Christopher Walken and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The film centers on a string quartet and the music plays a big part in the film. Robert Seufert of the Symphony Society led a discussion after the screening.
On March 28, I gave a presentation to the local Ambucs group at their noon meeting. The presentation was about many of the things they library provides of which people may not be aware. The program went very well and I know of at least one Ambucs member who came in to get a library card the next day. I have also been invited by Mary Jane Million to speak at a noon Rotary meeting in July or August. Also on March 28, I assisted Greg Olson with a presentation he gave at the library on Ulysses Grant’s first command where he led a march from Springfield, through Jacksonville, to the Illinois River. Over 45 people filled the library’s meeting room for this program. Other regular programming in March included Book Club, Poetry Group and weekly English Conversation Group.
I continued to work with Professor Emily Adams on getting Colson Whitehead, author of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Underground Railroad, to visit Jacksonville. After negotiating his fee down quite a bit, he has agreed to come on September 12 of this year. The event is co-sponsored by Illinois College and the Jacksonville Public Library, with Illinois College covering two-thirds of the cost. The library will host a meet and greet/reception for Whitehead from 5:00-6:30 PM and he will speak at Rammelkamp Chapel at 7:00 PM. All incoming freshman at Illinois College (fall 18) will be required to read The Underground Railroad. The library will be starting a campaign to get people in the community to read the book. We have plans to hold some discussions on the book and the topic of slavery this summer and other ideas are being bandied about. Having the reigning Pulitzer Prize winning author come to the library is really a huge coup and we are thrilled about it.
The library began circulation of Wi-Fi hotspots in March. I spoke about this service on WLDS and the Jacksonville Journal-Courier wrote an article on the hotspots after interviewing Sarah. Many people have asked about this new service, several hotspots have checked out and we expect more to be checked out as we continue to promote the new service.
Other tasks keeping me busy in March included working on library programming, compiling our weekly Shelf Life column for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, appearing twice on WLDS, collection development and website and Facebook maintenance. April looks to be an even busier month at the library. Good things are happening.
Adult Services-
Hillary worked with Kanopy, a provider of a wide variety of streamable media, and she hopes to have the database available soon to library patrons. In addition to hosting Kaleigh Moore’s two career education workshops, she worked to organize and design promotional materials for the heavy programming load in April. Hillary continued weeding the magazines in March, removing back issues and reorganizing to accommodate the upcoming 2018 publications.
Hillary wrote and submitted two grants in hopes of securing additional outside funding for Books on Wheels, the children’s outreach project. She also met with the proprietors of Serious Lip Balm, a local business, who will be sponsoring Books on Wheels this summer. Their involvement will promote both the program and the library through a print, video and social media campaign.
March was a busy month for local history and genealogy requests. An out-of-town genealogist came through and required a great deal of one-on-one service and research. Hillary also completed several requests via email and USPS. She maintained the library’s website, advised patrons on internet tasks and continued to work closely with Chris regarding the library’s MacMurray social work intern, Darin Michael. She contributed to the weekly Shelf Life newspaper column, created the April newsletter and e-newsletter and worked to promote library programs and services through print and social media.
Interlibrary Loan/Holds-
In March, there were 985 items borrowed from other libraries; 920 items lent to other libraries; and 526 reciprocal circulations.
Circulation Services-
Circulation staff continued to provide excellent customer service to every patron that entered the library. March was relatively busy while a number of projects were completed and some continued to be worked on. Circulation staff continued to weed adult fiction and large print non-fiction to ensure that the collection remains relevant and interesting to patrons. Sarah transferred books from the ‘new’ section to the regular shelves to create room for the newest additions. She continued to work on the blog as time permitted. She also continued to delete expired users that had not used or renewed their card in over 2 years.
Sarah attended the Career Fair at Illinois College where students from nearby high schools could learn about potential future careers. Overall, the students were positive and interested in what the library had to offer. She attended a meeting with a staff member from RSA to install and learn how to use Workflows remotely on the library’s laptop. This will allow staff members to remotely sign patrons up for library cards as well as check items out to patrons. Sarah also investigated a solution for patrons to be able to charge multiple devices including their laptops while in the library.
Sarah scheduled the next round of computer classes for May, updated the Book Pak on the library’s website, had the pages work on a ‘dusting project’ to clean up the area where the audiobooks are shelved and had one technology session with a patron. Last but not least, she created new guest passes, as the public computers were very busy in March.
Extension Services-
March deliveries moved along at a steady pace -- no snow to hamper progress. Residents at Heritage Health enjoyed visiting with Diane's son Billy, who assisted with deliveries on March 15 while volunteer Lloyd Bryant went to St. Louis with a group from his apartment building.
Diane attended the Morgan County Professionals for Senior Wellness meeting at Heritage Health on March 1 and received information on booth space for a couple of senior events coming up later in the year.
The Knollwood Book Club met on March 9 and the Jacksonville Senior Center Book Club on March 27 to discuss "Eleanor Roosevelt & Amelia Earhart" for Women's History Month.
Forty-Two books were withdrawn from the nonfiction section of the Large Print Collection. With that completed, weeding out some of the fiction books to make room on the shelves will begin in April.
Youth Services-
March came in like a lion and out like another lion for Youth Services. Cindy kept busy with three S.T.E.A.M. programs -- Little Learners, Geeky Girls and Full STEAM Ahead. The Little Learners group learned about coding with cards, which made the kids think through every step of the process of ‘coding’ to find the way through a maze to a robot. Cindy placed a hold for some STEAM kits that the State Library owns and through Amber’s persistence, she was finally able to get a set of Makey Makeys to use for both Geeky Girls and Full STEAM Ahead. Makey Makey is a system that allows kids to use celery or Playdough or just about anything that you can think of in place of a keyboard. This caused the kids to think about what makes a good conductor, what does not and used lots of problem solving skills.
Of course, in addition to S.T.E.A.M. programs, Cindy held regular Story Time sessions, Lap Sit and Lego Club. Cindy also attended a meeting for the Prevention Initiative, a multi- agency effort to identify kids in need and help families to connect to resources in town.
Cindy will be promoting the Summer Reading Program and the Library through this initiative.
Technical Services-
Lauren continued to excel in her role as cataloger. With Linda’s cataloging assistance and Heidi’s and Kim’s efficient processing of materials, things ran very smoothly in Technical Services.
Committee Reports:
Automation/Technology-
None
Building and Grounds-
None
Finance-
None
Personnel-
None
Public Relations-
Ashmore reported on new PR opportunities, including having a table at the Lincoln Square Farmer’s Market, participating in other annual events and possible partnering with Jacksonville Main Street on a number of ideas.
Friends Of The Library:
None
Rails/RSA
None
Old Business
None
New Business:
The board discussed the idea of beginning a long-range planning process that would be broader than the library’s current three-year strategic-plans. Many questions arose, but the first question that needed answering was whether to hire a consultant to lead the long-range planning process. Ashmore brought up the name of consultant Sarah Keister Armstrong, who was highly recommended by other libraries.
The board asked Ashmore to contact Ms. Armstrong to see if she could come to Jacksonville to meet with the board. After hearing what she has to say, the board can then decide whether to use her as a consultant in the process on to go through the process alone.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:28 pm. on a motion by Underbrink, seconded by Albers.
https://www.jaxpl.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Minutes%20of%20April%20Board%20Meeting(2).pdf
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