Minutes for July 12, 2107 Library Trustees Meeting

Meeting began at 7:00pm

Present:  Cindy Binzen, Curt Albee, Miriam Newman, Carol Wilson, Rebecca Seibel, Martin Frank (arrived at 7:15pm)

Minutes from the June 19^th meeting were accepted.

Librarian’s Report:  The first event of the summer children’s program went well, with a great presenter and 9 children and 2 adults attending.  The next event is Dinoman on Monday, July 17^th.  

Rebecca is working on the grant application to the Byrne Foundation for the children’s programs.

Taxes are still to be done; they are due August 15^th.  Rebecca will check in with Kerry.

Curt will send a thank you to the Smith’s for their July 7^th concert benefitting the library.

Our current email address (strafford@vals.state.vt.us) will no longer be available after August 8^th because the State is switching systems.  We will change our address, probably to a gmail account, and when Rebecca has finalized this change, she will notify people in town on the list serve as well as the library and town websites of the library’s new email address.  This hopes to be done by August 1^st.

Our contract with Library World ends September 30^th.  Rebecca recommends extending the contract for 6 more months to give us more time to switch into the new system, VERSO, that the Department of Libraries is moving to. The cost is $220, and the trustees agreed to extend the contract.    The State is giving libraries grant money to cover the 1st year fees for VERSO ($650) and to cover migrating costs ($2400).

Friends Report:  Despite the heavy rain, the July 1st book sale made $2,893.75 which was just $43 less than last year.  On Wednesday, July 12^th, over 150 boxes of leftover books were loaded up to send to Better World Books, with huge thanks to Jim Schley, Jon Stableford, Curt Albee, and Cindy Binzen.  And the use of Curt’s tent for the sale was much appreciated.

Other Business:  Curt and Dave Taplin have arranged for a mason to do the repairs to the brick, for which the trustees have allocated $2200.  This work will happen in September.  We will also get an estimate for repairing the front steps.  Eli Mintz will do tree removal around the building, and particularly in the back, at a cost of $2800.  It was moved and seconded to spend money from our endowment fund to cover this cost.  Curt will also ask Eli for an estimate to remove the lilacs in front.

We have yet to get information regarding our fuel oil contract for this year.

We will be forming a hiring committee as we look to find a new librarian.  Marty and Miriam offered to be part of the committee.  At our next meeting we will update the librarian’s job description and develop a timeline.

Next meeting:  August 21, 2017 

Respectfully submitted,

Carol Wilson