The Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Bucks County Free Library was held at the Bensalem branch. The meeting was called to order at 5:34 p.m. Present were:  Joan Bowman, President; Det Ansinn, Vice President; Roberta Foerst, Secretary; Jerry Balchis, Treasurer; Bill Draper, Mary Ann Beltz, and Steven Dilliplane, Board Trustees; Martina Kominiarek, Executive Director; Sue Ziegler, Public Services Director; David Bauer, Business Manager; and Pam Riley, Executive Assistant. Also in attendance was Lisa Kern, Branch Manager of the Bensalem branch.

A MOTION to APPROVE the minutes of the Regular Meeting of March 18, 2008 was made by Ansinn, SECONDED by Dilliplane and unanimously APPROVED.

 

STAFF REPORTS

Report of Branch Manager/Bensalem Branch

Bensalem Branch Manger Lisa Kern thanked the board for the lunch their staff members had received that day in celebration of National Library Workers Day.

In her overview of the past year, she stated that the self-checkout has become increasingly popular and utilized by library customers. The Youth Services staff members have been busy contacting and visiting the many schools nearby and providing tours for students. The weeding project is commencing at Bensalem, and staff members are looking forward to the facelift that weeding and implementing strategic planning goals and objectives will provide. A dedicated passport office is almost completed, which will allow passport clerks to work with customers in a more private setting. The parking lot project funded through Keystone Grant funds will probably begin late August through mid October, with the library closing for approximately three weeks. It is a time-consuming project, as the parking lot has sunken and needs to be completely removed and reinstalled. Youth Services staff are prepared to travel to schools during the library closure. She is confident that when the next board meeting is held at Bensalem next year a vast improvement will be noticeable by all.

Report of Executive Director: 

Executive Director Martina Kominiarek announced to the board that Business Manager David Bauer had submitted notice that he would be retiring on May 30, 2008 after twenty years with BCFL. She noted that he contributed much to the organization, especially dealing with the financial crisis and rebuilding of our system. An Open House will be held in his honor on Thursday, May 8 from 4-6 p.m. All board members are welcome to attend. The Board thanked him for his many years of service.

The Legislative Breakfast scheduled for April 18, 2008 was cancelled due to a lack of state legislators able to attend. For future events we need to determine how we can create a more attractive event that garners more attendance. Martina noted that she is working with board secretary Roberta Foerst and others on ways to ensure better turnouts.

On Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. a reception will be held for the Community Planning Committee members in the Pearl Buck Room at Doylestown where they will be presented a draft of the final strategic plan service priorities.

On Wednesday, May 7, 2008 the Bucks County Commissioners meeting will be held at the Pennwood branch in Langhorne. Martina will present the commissioners and all in attendance with copies of the strategic plan draft and will showcase the renovations that have occurred at the Pennwood library.

Strategic planning surveys were distributed to be completed by board members for those items that are pertinent to their experience with the various trainings presented during the strategic planning process. The surveys are necessary as part of the LSTA grant report.

More statistics from the IT department will be distributed monthly to board members. These include:  Early Learning Station (ELS) usage reports; PC usage reports; and online statistics (use of databases). The online statistics reports will allow us to determine the feasibility of continuing various databases by comparing the cost to the number of hits for each. The Commonwealth Libraries provide us with Power Library, which has many popular databases in its system, and since it is free from the State, we need to see how thoroughly it satisfies our customers’ needs.

 

 

Report of Public Services Director (submitted in writing)

Public Services Director Sue Ziegler announced the resignation of the Quakertown Branch Librarian, Diane Davis, who has taken a position with the Bethlehem Public Library.

 

Report of Business Manager

MOTION to APPROVE the payment of bills for March in the amount of $426,389.02 was made by Ansinn, SECONDED by Beltz and APPROVED unanimously.

MOTION to APPROVE the March financial statements (subject to audit) was made by Foerst, SECONDED by Draper, and APPROVED unanimously.

Business Manager David Bauer announced that BCFL will be following the county’s lead and increasing mileage reimbursement from .485 cents to .505 cents as per the IRS guidelines.

 

Board Committee Reports:

President’s Report – Board President Joan Bowman reported on her attendance at the Author Luncheon sponsored by the Friends of the Doylestown Library featuring Elizabeth Berg. It was a well-attended and delightful event. She also commented on the wonderful renovations that she saw firsthand at the Langhorne library. She reminded all board members of the Trustee Institute that was being held the following weekend, and she said that the Lower Southampton Township Library in Feasterville would be sponsoring another trip to DC for the National BookFest on September 27, 2008.

 

Correspondence

 

Public Comment – No public commented.

 

 

Unfinished business – 

By-Laws – The proposed by-laws revision was discussed. Board members were e-mailed the by-law changes prior to the meeting so that they could review them. Because one of the by-laws states that an amendment to the
by-laws cannot be made unless the proposed change is mailed one week prior to the vote, it was decided that the final version of the by-laws would be mailed to the board members and voted on at the May BCFL board meeting.

 

Strategic Plan – Martina asked that the board review the draft of the cumulative values statement ideas and let her know if anyone had any changes. The strategic planning final draft will be open to public comment at the
May 21, 2008 board meeting; it will be on the agenda to be voted on for approval at the June 17, 2008 board meeting.

 

New Business – Board vice president Det Ansinn said that security cameras were being installed throughout Doylestown borough, with wiring progressing toward the nearby Mercer Museum. He suggested we contact Chief Donnelly to see if the library could participate and piggyback off of the Mercer’s installation.  Martina said that she would have one of the administrative staff members look into this.

The meeting broke for an Executive Session at 6:54 p.m.

The meeting adjourned following the Executive Session.

        

Respectfully submitted,

                                                                            Pamela J. Riley

Executive Assistant

 

APPROVED BY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MAY 21, 2008