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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-10-11 Library MinutesCITY OF APACHE JUNCTION LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES 1177 N. Idaho Road Regular Meeting October 11, 2001 A regular meeting of The Board of Trustees of Apache Junction Public Library was held October 11, 2001 at 6:04 p.m. at the Apache Junction Library pursuant to notice as prescribed by law. Roll Call Present Absent Barbara Gardner Stephen Flynn Virginia Foat Beverly Kimball -Wright Barbara Mueting Theresa Nesser Staff: Pamela Loui, Library Director and Spencer Paden, Library Manager; George Hoffman, Assistant City Manager was present for item 6a. 1.Acceptance of Agenda: 2.Acceptance of minutes for September 13, 2001 regular Meeting: Motion was made by Barbara Gardner to accept the agenda after switching items 6a and 6b. The agenda was accepted unanimously with the correction. The question of accepting the minutes for the September 13,2001 regular Meeting was placed before the Board and was accepted by general consent. 3.Call to the Public:No response. 4.Correspondence and Communications:Theresa Nesser received a letter from the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, dated September 20, 2001.The Arizona Library Friends and Arizona State Library are sponsoring a training event for City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 2 5.Librarian's Report: Library Friends and Library Trustees. Barbara Gardner and Pam Loui also received copies of the letter.Pam stated that the training offered is very good but distance may be a factor in attending the event, which will take place in Sierra Vista. Pam reported that statistics for this past month were very impressive.The books circulation in addition to audio tapes increased from a year ago. Videos show a very large increase.In-house computer use shows a strong decline.It is possible that due to the September 11th tragedy people are not using the computers as frequently as they previously had.They may now realize that any correspondence being conducted over the computer is not as private as they may have believed in the past.It also may be that due to the reduction in the price of computers people have bought their own computers.It is also possible that not as many winter visitors have come back as normally do this time of year.Pam talked to the supervisor of the lab to get her thoughts.Ms. Walker reported that she had compared the statistics of a year ago with the statistics of this month and found that 75 to 95 computer users a day had been common.This year during this month 75 users was a very high day. Barbara Gardner was wondering if the Mesa Library on Power Rd. having their computers up and running may have also caused an impact. Patron visits have increased from last year. Books have been added to the collection along with books on cassette, books on cd, video cassettes and dvd's.Volunteer hours have decreased.Regular storytimes are going again.Offsite storytimes were held in conjunction with the Start Smart collection.Babytime continues to be popular and we have already had one school visit with 29 in attendance.Three tours were held with 61 people in City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 3 6.Old Business: a.Update on the building expansion Report and discussion (Postponed From the September 13, 2001 regular Meeting). attendance.A workshop on using the Gates computers was designed and targeted to Home Schoolers and had 10 in attendance. We held a TAB meeting.There were 7 computer classes with 72 in attendance averaging approximately 10 per class. We increased the number of computers in the computer lab to accommodate 12 individuals at a time.Four PIT (Personal Internet Training) Stops were conducted. Four Writers Club meetings were conducted. A "Mystery" book discussion and a "Potpourri" discussion group were held.There was one Neighborhood Association meeting with 10 in attendance and the Dowser program had 13.For the literacy software there were 17 student visits with 28 hours. George Hoffman spoke about the building expansion.George stated that he and Pam were looking at proceeding with retention of an architect at the time a major fund- raising drive was taking place.At that time, conceptual drawings were needed to present to any major funding source to encourage them to further their funding efforts with us.That major fundraising effort is not being pursued.The original schedule for the expansion of the library was in the second phase of the Capital Facilities Plan.The first phase was building of the skate park, the swim center and Southside Park.Two of those are currently under construction.The next project to start on is the multigenerational facility.George anticipates that when construction on the multigenerational facility begins efforts will be made to start City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 4 the process for the library.There is currently $500,000 for the library.The current scope of the project is to move into the space where the senior center is now. George believes that we should revisit the scope at the time we prepare to seek an architect to see if the City Manager and the Council are interested in expanding the library project beyond what could be accomplished with $500,000, possibly using additional development fee money that is specifically dedicated for library capital improvement. Currently, a request for qualifications has been made for project management services for the Multigenerational facility and City Hall.The hope is to have a Project Manager on board by the end of this year or at the beginning of next year.At this time it is not known how long the design phase will take.It is estimated between 9 months to one year.Once this project is underway and a target date is received an architect will be retained for the Library.The dedicated source of funding for the Library expansion is the development fee money. George stated that revenues could be an issue because of the way the overall economy is going.This will not have an effect on the money that has been put aside in development fees.Development fee money cannot be spent on anything else other than capital related items.It cannot be used for staffing, city hall or the multigenerational building.It is a fee intended to recover a portion of the marginal costs associated with library capital brought about by new growth.This funding is very secure. What is not as secure is the operating costs associated with that expansion given the current economy as there will be a need for more money for electricity, staffing, janitorial due to the expansion.Due to the delay of the library City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 5 b.Review discussion, and possible vote on recommended changes to Library Policies expansion it was recommended to table this discussion for 6 months. Pam stated that Joel Stern the City Attorney had left a message for Sancie that stated he had gone through the changes to the policy and he does not have any problems with any of them. He does not have any changes and it looks good.Mr. Stern will have a second opportunity to review the revisions after the Board votes, since revisions to the policies require an Ordinance and Resolution of the Council. Mr. Stern will have to sign off on the Ordinance and Resolution. Barbara Gardner discussed her concern regarding the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy).She stated that if no monitoring will be done for children on computers that she would like to see some sort of sign off such as the video sign off. It would say a copy of the AUP was received and understood.Something that tells the parent that it is their responsibility to supervise his/her child.Spencer said that doing this would be a difficult proposition. Throughout the library all computers will have access to the internet and there is no way to monitor a child using the catalogs and getting access that way.If parents are signing off on something that is implying that the Library is doing some kind of restrictive monitoring then we cannot do that.Barbara said that a disclaimer could say that all computers are internet accessible and would also notify the parent that they are completely responsible.Pam stated that this would raise an issue if the person does not sign the disclaimer.How would you be able to monitor if you have City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 6 already provided notice that you do not monitor?Spencer stated that we do not foresee a way that a person walking in off the street would not be able to go to a computer without a library card and look at what we have on the computer.There is no way that we would be able to monitor that type of access.Theresa Nesser suggested that we mail something to the parent that says children will not be monitored. Spencer related this issue in the same way that books are handled.There is an adult area and a children's area.Parents are not told to keep their children out of the adult area.However, there are things in the adult area that are not for children.As a Library we have to trust that parents will monitor their child's activity.Spencer believes it would be a mistake to try to do this in the computer area when we do not do it anywhere else in the library.Barbara Gardner stated that in the case of books there is a screening process.Spencer said that interne access has also been screened through our filtering process.Just as we have no way to guarantee that at some point a child may not find in a book something very inappropriate for a child,we do not have any way of determining that some website has something inappropriate for a child.The Library depends on the parents taking responsibility for their child just like we would anywhere else in the world. Further, it is in our best interest not to give the impression that we are doing that. Telling them to sign on the dotted line with the thought that everything will be ok is a real disservice to parents because we are telling them we are doing something that we cannot do.Other libraries throughout the state do not do the kind of monitoring that we currently do.Theresa asked if we could put a sign on the front door that says we do not monitor.Barbara added to make the statement a positive by adding text that City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 7 7.New Business: a.Board member recruitment would say "Parents you are responsible for your child's use of the internet." Spencer stated that we would want to add something that wouldn't discourage people from using the library but something that would establish a correct understanding of what our limitations are.Pam stated that if there are concerns among the Board members, we can put the policy aside for another month.Pam also read the portion of the internet policy, conditions of use that refers to internet usage.Pam told the group that by the time the computer is touched the "acceptable use" statement is posted on the computer and will be posted at all computers.Spencer stated that the "acceptable use" statement is currently on the computer screens but there is no way of making sure that it will always be able to be on every screen or that everyone reads the screen.Any patron visiting the Library is under the policies of the Library whether they read them or not.Motion was made by Barbara Gardner to continue the discussion on the policy revisions vote. Motion was seconded by Virginia Foat.All members present were in favor. Barbara Gardner said that she knows someone who is interested in being a member of the Library Board.Pam stated that she had not heard anymore from the City Clerk's office about a replacement for the person who was recently appointed but decided not to accept.Pam said that we can pursue trying to get the Council to look at the applicants in the pool. Theresa asked if it would be possible to review the talent bank applications as a Board and make recommendations to the Council.Pam said that in past years when we would get 2 or City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 8 b.Upcoming AzLA/MPLA Conference, December 2001 3 applicants we did this.The Board had a set of questions they could choose from to ask the prospective candidate and then the Board would vote on a recommendation to send to the Council.The Council changed the direction and decided they wanted the first opportunity to speak to people. Theresa asked if the City Council prefers that the individual Boards don't interview people at all.Pam stated that there must have been a time they felt that way because they set the procedure.Pam's understanding from reading the Council minutes is that there has been some more discussions by Council members about how Board and Commissions should be handled and appointed.If they are changing, Pam will notify the Board as soon as she gets the directive to make the change.Pam also suggested that this is definitely something that could be brought up to the members of the Council as an interest that Board members would like to see come to the Board first.Whatever concern the Council had did not have anything to do with the Library Board it just happened to be that when things changed all Boards were treated the same.Pam stated that she believed that it was very beneficial to interview the applicants because they were able to see how a meeting is run before giving the final acceptance of a Board position.Pam suggested that those Board members who have people interested in being on the Board should make sure that they get their talent bank applications inbefore the 1st meeting on November 6 th. Pam discussed the upcoming AzLA/MPLAConference to be held on December 6 th and 7th in Phoenix. This conference should be very interesting especially this time since the Mountain Plains Library Association City of Apache Junction Library Board of Trustees Regular Meeting Page 9 8.Requests for future agenda items 9. Adjournment: joins the Arizona Library Association. Pam has a book listing programs and workshops that are scheduled.There is a charge for trustees if anyone is interested in attending.AzLA is the Arizona Library Association.There are divisions for academics, public libraries and school libraries.They have round tables for library technicians, library automation, and collection development and acquisitions. We have several members of our staff who are members and receive reduced rates for conferences.Benefits of attending these conferences would be to get to know what issues libraries are facing on a daily basis. If you are interested you need to notify Pam by October 25 th.One day registration is $110 for a non-member.If you go for the entire conference the cost is $125. Old Business. Review, discussion, and possible vote on recommended changes to Library policies. Board vacancy update New Business. Parental responsibility disclaimer Report on events with the FOL Meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m.