Board of Library Trustees - Grafton Public Library - Regular Meeting

Do you have a scribe? Uh, nope. Um, first order of business is anyone want to volunteer to be scribed? Um, I'd prefer someone else do it this time around. Um, it was a lot of work. So, we do value having our own board scribe. Yep. Carrie, any chance you would do it? Sure. Okay. I mean, you can take them live or you can just watch it and I can help you. Yeah. Um, well, it having the recording definitely will be helpful. So, yes.

Okay. Great. Um, so we are um u sorry. Well, welcome to the December board of library trustee meeting. Um, our last one of the year. So exciting to be what 12 meetings into the year. Um, Prau and Chris are not going to make it. Um but we still have a quorum. Um anybody else have any welcome comments? Nope. If not, um we will proceed to the agenda. Um first is a review and approving of the minutes from the uh November meeting. So I will entertain a motion.

I make a motion to approve the minutes from November 19th, 2025. All right. Motion made. I'll seconded and seconded by Carrie. Um, any questions on the November minutes? I Yes, I have one comment. It's a um it's just a a a grammatical correction on the final page be uh on section 8 right before the budget and finance bold and underline section. Uh, it's Renard. Um, it says Renault, but it's Rena Aud. Got it. Y,

thank you. And Aaron, thank you so much for um transcribing these minutes. Yes, that's huge. You're welcome. Any other edits, comments on meeting minutes? I'm impressed that you saw that. It's like one of those, you know, those tests you get where it makes no sense, but you read it what it means and then you look at [laughter] the letters and it's like, wait, no, those letters are here. Amazing you could see that. Um, great. Um, if there are no other ones, um, all those in favor of approving the minutes from November, I I guess no. All those in favor? I

I opposed. I declare the motion carried. And we don't have anyone on the Zoom. No. Okay, great. All right. Well, thank you for that. And yes, thank you, Aaron, for doing the minutes. You're welcome. We realize it is a lot of work and we are looking forward to having a scribe and we're excited for that update later. [laughter] Yeah. Okay. Next up are the warrants. We have four warrants. Warrants 22, 23, 24, 25. Um, all right. I entertain a motion to

uh Mr. Chair, I make first a procedural motion to approve uh uh the A, B, C, and D warrants as a single consent agenda. Second. Uh motion made and seconded. Um any discussion on that? Uh hearing none. All those in favor? I opposed. I declare the motion carry.

Right. Mr. Chair, I I move that we approve uh the following warrants in the amounts I will state and contained. uh the sources of revenue contained in the U meeting packet. Warrant number 22 in the amount of $2,899.71. Warrant number 23 in the amount of $7,116.30. Warrant 24 in the amount of $3,6180 and warrant number 25 in the amount of $7,391.33. Second. All right. Motion made and seconded. any discussion on any of the specific warrants?

Uh, yes, I had one um and it had to do I guess this could kind of come um at any point in the meeting, but um looking at let's say number item number 23, warrant 23. Warrant 23. The second to on page two, the second to last item, which is Renad HVAC

um 5250. I noticed that so I have no issue with the number so I'm not going to amend anything or you know it has to do with the supporting pages uh page 304 for instance that $5250 bill uh is listed under two ledgers. One is a 300 account new library building services and another one is 100 a 100 account library repair and maintenance. But looking at that um and then looking at uh the warrant number 24 there was uh Renard also carries with it um no actually pardon 25. There was another account [snorts] that that uses it was a um 100 100 series account but a different account number for library energy. So I guess at some point either now or when we talk about other matters of repair. How do we decide where those fall and and what budgets or subbudgets those come from? because I I hope that when some of those HVAC issues are addressed, they'll kind of tail off and really won't be, I guess, budgeted for as much.

That's definitely my hope, too. Um, so the 52 52 2801 5250. Yeah, the 5250. um without the bill being in front of me, I think that we were able to break it up and use the rest of um the rest of the funds in one of those accounts. And so that account is expended in full. Okay? And then we in order to pay the rest of the bill, we had to take it out of um our appropriated library repair and maintenance funds.

Okay. Um it's been a challenge to figure out how we're going to pay for some of these um required things and that was that's definitely in my director's report. It's something that I wanted to Yeah. And I saw it and so I didn't know if I was kind of jumping ahead, but I figured since it was on there and the three different funding sources were between the two warrant the warrants that I figured I' I'd touch upon it. Um, so ju just something that uh would be nice to discuss as as as we budget the rest of the year and then as we talk about FY27. So that's all definitely. Thank you.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm sure that's the case with that first bill as you mentioned because yeah, we've been expending the leads reertification monies and been using that to pay a lot of those ren costs because it was directly related to the project. But is that account that account isn't the leads account? It is the leads account. Is it? It's the well actually new library building services. I'm not quite sure. I'm just assuming it is because the lead's monies went back into the building account account like from the renovation project. So, does that mean the lead's account is depleted or Oh, okay. That's what I'm guessing. Okay.

But I think that's something we can follow up with um with Mary and town administrator. Okay. Thank you. Any other um any other questions, comments on uh any of the four warrants? Okay, hearing none. All those in favor? I I opposed. I declare the motion carried. All right. So, just one one question. Did you um the consent agenda? Did you second the consent agenda? Yes. Yeah. Thanks. [snorts] And then you also seconded the detailed ones. Yeah.

Thank you. Um ongoing business. Uh any update from the friends, Carrie? Yeah. So um so the friends um so unfortunately I wasn't feeling well um last Sunday, so I wasn't able to attend Grafton celebrate the holidays. However, they had a fantastic time from the report from the um the friends um board meeting. Um so um so wonderful. So thank you very much. Um we did have uh Rachel joined in which was great. So that was last week, right? Last Tuesday. Yep.

So um yeah, so they um they sold their um wonderful book bundles um which did extremely well. So they were able to raise money for the library which is which is fantastic. So um so that was that was uh wonderful. Uh the next meeting um will be on January 13th at 7:30. Um they are um they are looking at having a a used book sale in February. Um it won't be as large as like the September one, but it'll still be, you know, a a good opportunity to stock up on really good deals for books. Um so yeah, and then of course after that it'll be the spring egg hunt. So yeah,

thank you Carrie for your ongoing work with the friends. Oh yeah, they're wonderful. sort of like all this hard work behind the scenes that needs to be recognized. So, they're just so happy doing it too, which is great. You know, they all like really love, you know, working. So, so I did have a question, Carrie, regarding the friends, and it it happened. It arose out of the last used book sale where there seems to be some secondary market of people who who uh swarm in and and barcode all that which might be uh monetized

by these outside groups. And um I don't know was it I don't know if it was a one-off conversation or we just discussed it here about having just graft the residents for the first hour or something was does that sound familiar?

So I mean there have been conversations and and there's definitely challenges because you're right like there's different um populations that are interested in the book sales especially when we have the larger book sales in September. um you do have um you know book resellers who who come in um and um I think what we have to make sure is that everybody is respectful of each other's space. So um trying to think how to how to put it. It's it's tough because you don't want like you you know it is open to the public you know so you know so it's kind of challenging to you know just restrict it to to grafted um residents but um but maybe um like maybe at the next uh friends board meeting if you're available or you after that like on the 13th that would be really great to kind of talk it through because it's not

something you like I think it's really they need to decide [clears throat] how to do it and then we can support as trustees and as you know the library staff and director and and I don't think it it it's really a big deal. It's just it's more that if there's a number of people in there sort of pushing their way around that irrespectful of people's space. We definitely talked about like there's people that kind of like put a big stash of books aside and try to like hoard it, you know. Um so the there will be clarification about like okay what you can and can't do, you know, on that. But yeah, in the end Yeah. Hey, let them buy up a bunch of books. Money is money, right?

Well, that's the thing is, you know, it it is making money. So, so yes, so you know, we love it when people from the community get a good deal, especially like the school teachers, you know, going back, you know, for back to school, but uh at the end of the day, you know, people can do whatever they want with the books and it's raising money for the for the library. So, there's no difference in price, so to speak, right? It's all about volume. So, if you got somebody who's buying all the teachers do the back to school, teachers do get a discount. Okay. Yeah. But what I'm saying, so they're paying more actually for Yeah. Right. For for the back to school, just volume, right? Yeah. As long as everyone those those sort of resellers are respectful, you know, of everyone's space. Yeah. It's neither here nor there, I guess.

Yeah. I mean and it it's certainly helpful like you know that's one of the things you know [snorts] like help like like last September like you you're trying to walk a fine line and you're trying to you know again make sure everybody has space and you know it's um it's controlled but thanks again but it is a it's definitely a challenge it's a you know it's a balancing act for sure I just have one question um so you mentioned the book sales generally for fundraising and then the egg hunt Um, is there talk of any other type of fundraisers or they're just, you know, keep on doing what works, right?

Well, the the book sales are the biggest. The ongoing book sale, which, you know, throughout the year there's the the Friends Corner, there's ongoing sales, and the big sales, those are absolutely the biggest money makers because there's donations of the book, so it's, you know, it's a it's a good profit. Um, and again, they're going to do um the book sale in February and the spring egg hunt. Um, they're always open to other suggestions and things like, you know, like the catty stacks and and that. I was going to mention I love catty stacks. I hope they bring it back. Is fun. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll give that feedback that especially in the winter time where people want to be inside. Yeah, that would be and now that we have all the space. Katrina's okay with Is it mini golf in the library? Oh, yeah. I love that. Yeah. [laughter]

It's nice to have your space back though, right? Right. Yeah. And and that catty sex takes up quite a bit of space. So, that's Yeah. So yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I I also want to thank the friends, too. The um book bundles um obviously um took a lot of work because they were all arranged by either theme or by series. They're well curated, right? Absolutely. It takes a it's months of work. So when the donations come in, especially Erin and the and the team, like, oh, like we just need one more of these to make it, you know, a Judy Bloom collection or whatever, you know, whatever it is. So yeah, they do. Yeah, it's nice. So, great.

So, thank you. Yeah, we'll pass that on. Thank you. Um, next up is the library director goals by Rachel. So, we did distribute those um albeit just was that last night or this morning? That was last night, I guess. Um, but yeah, Rachel.

Yeah, and thank you to Carrie because Carrie also we met to to review these. So, we leveraged what we had for the last set of goals. Um, and then just kind of put a little like kind of group them differently and then Katrina's already had a chance to look at them and and give feedback, too. So, um, as a quick reminder, these goals are from January to June. Um, and we tried to make them achievable because there's anything we've I've learned the last six months is a lot of stuff comes up at the library, right? So, as she's trying to to get oriented, you'll see a lot of the stuff around staff development is really about supporting, mentoring, building the relationships. Um, the operational stuff is still building those relationships and those networks. Um there is a piece in there when we start talking about the increase the patron usage around the newsletter which I know she's already been in process of um but also around the community room and so what we tried to do to to balance it um is we have develop a plan to open the community room in FY27 with core operation plan completed in 26. I know I got a few questions around should we be doing more sooner rather than later? Is it something we can actually get open in 26? Um so we can we can talk about if we're we want to adjust it. I think the initial thought is there's a lot of stuff outside of Katrina's control around it. And I will say um even stopping by the library for um the the staff holiday party and to set up just hot water um the sinks you actually can't use them with any pot because they're too tiny and stuff like that too. So I think if we are trying to open up for the community, right? I wouldn't think that would hold it up, but I think

there's a lot of moving pieces that Katrina would have to figure out and even to like have it in a spot. I think also Katrina's mentioned in the past like the stove is not quite sure how to operate it and so there's a lot of tiny pieces around it outside of just the policy of the building and the security. Um so so this is necessarily after hours.

Yeah. So this it's all the after hours stuff. Um and so there's just a [clears throat] lot of pieces around it, right? because I think you you want to make sure it's in a good and easy to use spot because otherwise people are going to be asking a lot of questions after hours and it will be disruptive. So again very open to changing any of the language in that or specifically that one if we want to look to have any like subsets of it delivered this year but but that was kind of the the logic behind it. Um so I'll pause. Is there any adjustments feedback? Yeah, I had a few comments first. Just one one quick question. Are we looking to approve this tonight? I assume so. Yeah.

Yeah. Because then So, if we approve it tonight, then she has January through June, the end of June, which is a half year, which feels feels like the right time. I'm sorry. Does somebody know uh can point me to where this is? I'm not seeing it. It's attached to Doug said and Rachel said, "Yeah, I mean, I can pop it up here, but just the one page, right?"

Yeah, just the one page. [clears throat] So, I had um a few comments. Um and I'm not necessarily thinking we have to dig in and change this or amend this because we know historically that those discussions can really get deep and tedious and sometimes unnecessarily. But, uh first, thank you for meeting and doing this. I knowing in reading this I I can only say that I'm sure a lot of time and effort went into this document and it's I think it's a really good working document and and thank you to Carrie because Carrie's been in the background more than me. So

yeah, but you had a great first draft. So it was a really productive session. So, um, so on, um, and this doesn't need to be necessarily memorialized in item three, but since we're operations item three,

operations item three. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, operations in the middle. Evaluate the FY27 budget, propose any adjustments, and support the finalization. [snorts] Um at some point when the town administrator and the select board uh come closer to um you know finalizing budget numbers in proceeding toward whether or not they'll put an override on the ballot uh prop two and a half override. U I know that in the past different department heads have had to have a contingent budget ready. So I I think that may enter into discussions um with the various department heads to say okay here's your ask and um you know please have a contingent budget of x reduction ready

um and then uh so I I think that will sort of u become clearer in in the next few weeks. Well, so I just uploaded it then. So it says, "Evaluate the FY27 budget, propose any adjustments, and support the finalization inclusive of a contingent budget if necessary." Yes. Yeah. Sorry to

Thank you. Um and then um under under operations number four regarding HVAC that that's fine as uh as it is. Again, just mindful in the general discussions we've been having. I would love for some of this to just be, you know, fixed, but we continue to have different type of HVAC issues that are not the poltergeist issues that we've had in the past and and um I throw that word out there, you know, tongue and cheek. Um that seems accurate.

Yeah. But the the funky noises, but um you know, keeping an eye on that. Um under operations item 8, complete all required reports, submissions and activities to keep us in compliance with MBLC. Um and I don't know whether in CW Mars and other entities um how um how expansive we want to make operations item number eight. So I just added the end after MBLC and other relevant entities. Yes. Yeah, that would be cool. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Um

because Yeah. I guess also too like we're relying on Katrina to make sure that anything that is due. So we don't want to say like do this, this, and this and that's all you need to do. It's like you need to make sure anything that is required needs to be submitted. Yep. And then um under uh I mean my only comment on that is that's um it's that's I mean it is partly a goal but it's your responsibility, right? So that's part of your job role. But um it is something that I guess we can we can um um not what is the right word grade, you know, we can we can look at and see if they were all completed in a timely manner as far as your review goes.

Yeah. And I I think Doug, as we think about next year's goal with the full year, I think that's something that we could take a couple months to kind of craft. I think the last one we have probably wasn't very comprehensive on what we want. And I I think as we get into next year's goal, it's going to be a lot on the strategic plan and some of that stuff. And once we have the strategic plan, I will feel like your goals will be set. It will be a much more goal oriented versus core responsibilities. And so I think that's a great call out. This is kind of a straddling the both until we we have that vision and that strategic plan we have to execute on.

Great. And then um on the bottom section, increase patient usage. U oh number one, continue to deliver the director's newsletter or report. Um that's probably an interchangeable term. I I would probably use the word report. That's not for this. This is the one that goes out from the Grafton public. So that's the newsletter. Yeah. That's like the community outreach. Okay. All right. So, you meant to say news. All right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. My bad. Enjoy the newsletter, so I'd like to keep going. [laughter]

All right. All right. And then, um, on, uh, that same section number three, um, build effective relationships with local community groups, um, including friends, school libraries, and others. I don't know because in the same way that we use friends, and I would request that that be a capital F under friends. Yeah. um update

that uh Cap the Grafton Public Library Capital Plan or Capital Campaign, Inc., the nonprofit would sort of be included in that. Not that it necessarily needs to be named. Um, but you know, local community groups including since we're including friends, do we include the Grafton Public Library Capital Campaign, Inc. in that? Do we need to get that? I'm not sure who they are. So, I would Doug. Is it just Doug? Two two of us. Yeah, I think they're incorporated, but it is a it is a an incorporated 501c3. Okay. Entity. So build

with a board with local community groups including what's the official name of uh Grafton Public Library Capital Campaign Inc. Yeah. Library. I agree. I mean if we're going to include the friends which is another 501c3 we should include the capital campaign. Yeah. And it is a valuable resource for um the library and for Katrina's. So yeah. So, um, Doug and and Carrie are two of the three officers of that and that was created, you know, with the expansion. So, and and so that's been also used as a funding source. So,

yeah. All right. So, I just adjusted it to say after including friends with the capital app, the library capital campaign, Inc., Grafton school libraries and other local groups. Again, it's not meant to be exclusive. Right. Right. and and and and I I I don't want to come across as sounding critical, but it was just sort of making the comments of of you know, questions and everything and that that's all I have, but I I think it's a great working document. Awesome. Doug or Aaron, did you

Rachel? Yeah, please. So, I guess this is for Rachel or Carrie, who whoever uh wants to comment. Um, so, you know, there's a lot here for six months, right? And I see the word um effective used a used a lot, right? So how do you measure an effective relationship with the MBLC, local community groups, friends, school, libraries, right? So we're you know when you think of like smart goals, right? Has to be measurable is one of the criteria. Um so how do you measure an effective relationship and who's going to measure that, right? So um generally I I think this looks looks great even though there there's a lot here. Um I just want to make sure that it's achievable. like you said, a lot of things can come up.

Yeah. In six months. Um, so does it make sense to say like so even like effective scheduling of library staff? Well, what's effective scheduling, right? Well, and I think this gets back to Doug Doug's comment earlier about how a lot of this is just like your responsibilities, right? And so I don't know if we and I would love to pair it down if there's things that are part of her job description or if there are real, you know, meaty goals that we can she can really focus on rather than trying to meet 20 different goals in six months.

Yeah, I I'm I'm definitely open to it. I think the thought was this kind of outlines our expectation as she's getting off the ground like these are the core things like we need in the first six months to make sure running successfully. Um if we want to get down to only three goals because we kind of the three goals are staff management operations and increased patron usage. So these are almost like I think of like sub goals within those groups.

I see. Okay. um and like different ways you're measuring that you're d maybe like driving operations or executing on operations is probably better for that statement right but those would be the different like tasks that if you're doing it you're you're kind of moving forward I don't know car your thoughts for

yeah I mean I guess like you know typically like I've seen like you know you have um you have like kind of very specific kind of goals like if there's big projects but like the core execution like you know the you know effective execution of your job responsibilities oftentimes are kind of stated as a goal like how effectively are you executing your job you know responsibilities too and I think with this one in particular we really were trying to like help give suggestions and guidance as far as like you know you to for Katrina to get her you know to to jump in and get her feet wet. So I think that's really okay. The approach. I agree that you like you [clears throat] really want to have some kind of measure because at the end you want to say like how how did you succeed at this goal?

So so I would almost look at it this way then. So let me see if this makes sense in this current I'm not saying we make any changes. I think this is really well done. Um but [snorts] let's say so build effective relationships with local community groups including friends, school libraries, right? So in six months um when we meet with Katrina uh we'll say how have you built effective relationships with these groups right [snorts]

and you know then I guess that's the evaluation either we accept it as oh okay that is effective or really maybe you know you haven't been going to friends meetings or whatever we see something and and that would be kind of how we evaluate that. So is that kind of the thought behind it? That's absolutely my thought is like you know give some structure but then like you know let you know allow Katrina to explain like how she did or didn't like focus on this and there might be you know at the end of the day like there might be something completely out of left field that takes her away from achieving these goals and then she you would have to explain that as well. So, um, but that's a good example where a measurable goal would be, you know, attend at least one meeting with each of these groups,

right? So, she goes to a friend's meeting, she meets the board there, and checks off that goal. Yeah. Measurable. So, I'm okay with the wording it is now because I think that's essentially what we mean by building an effective relationship in the first six months. She's not gonna have time to do a lot with each of these groups, but she should at least schedule a meeting, meet them,

get to know them, and have that kind of open line of communications. And one of the reasons like Carrie and I kind of talked about should we put numbers or not like that like the number of meetings is at the end of the day Katrina this is your organization to run and we need to empower you to give you the freedom to do that because you might say I actually haven't attended any friends meetings but instead what I do is when people come in for like to do stuff with friends

I stop by and say hi right so I I think giving the like autonomy to figure out like what does that relationship looks like and how do I want to build with the community. We That was kind of the conversation we had like because I think the last goals had some statements like that and it felt like it wasn't given the freedom to really build how you want. Yeah. And I guess for me I would rather see like if she if Katrina like builds really effective working relationships with the friends like not just like oh I attended a meeting. Well you could attend a meeting and not do anything [laughter] you know. So I guess

I had one one question. Um, since Katrina is here through you, Mr. Chat, I would want to hear Katrina's uh, feedback as director on um, the the scope and wording of this document. Do you have any feedback? Is it too duplicative? Is it too much? Um, are you cool with the wording or what? I were you able to review the document in advance? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we've reviewed it last Thursday. That's what I thought.

So, I I'd like to hear her thoughts. Sure. Uh, so I think it is very doable. I do appreciate the um the expansiveness of it. Um, I I'm delighted because I could actually check off several of these already, [laughter] which makes it really easy for me. Um, but I yeah, I appreciate um I appreciate the the structure of it so that I have goals that I can focus on and like Rachel said, sort of decide how I'm going to do that and then how I'm going to defend it in June when ask me about it. Okay. Yeah. [snorts]

So, and I I think Doug, because I haven't been through this process, traditionally it would just be a side meeting, right? It's not like you come in front of like like goals [clears throat and cough] like how does that piece work? Correct. Well, it's been relatively I think um Carrie and Erin, you guys have been here a while too. It's um been bouncing between the board just providing commentary to the town administrator. Um so we would we would be meeting with the director and um you know honestly we didn't always have a a document of their goals and stuff but we would meet them and then we would provide um feedback to the town administrator. So I think this is a great process though to to start off with Katrina

and and also it it's looking at these items. These are items that are contained in your your regular director's report and on various monthly agendas anyway. So I think it will be a pretty seamless and transparent process because um the this is stuff we touch upon all the time. So including the objective stuff, foot traffic and and new library card um you know holders and such. So,

and it does it does give us an opportunity, you know, at the monthly meetings if there's, you know, a particular item that um, you know, she's been doing great on, recognize that. If there's a a place that's been lagging a little bit and the board thinks that she should rep prioritize and do that, then we can have that discussion at a future meeting. Yeah. Any other I guess we went right into discussion. Sorry, we're supposed to do it the other way, but any other thoughts or feedback [clears throat] on this

before Um, I know I was one of the ones that commented about opening up the community room to after hours. Um, I'm fine with um sticking with FY27 with some operational plan completed in FY26 because there's nothing that stops us from completing a goal early, right? If everything gets done in FY26, that's great. So, are you ready to receive a motion? Yep. All right. I move that uh the board uh approve the wording of the library director's goals for the period of January through June 2026 um as amended through our discussion. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Any further discussion? Great hearing? None. Um all those in favor I I opposed. I declare the motion carried. Thank you to everyone for the discussion and for putting the goals together in advance. Rachel and Carrie and I'll just send out the updated version to everyone with a little few word and changes now. Thank you so much.

Sounds good. It might be something that you think we need to have like a a sign off on it like should I as chair and Katrina sign off on them? You think that's necessary or not? You mean they're memorialized in the meeting minutes, right? Like would they Do you mean like print them and sign them? Yeah. Sign up like these are the goals that the board had put forth and Katrina agrees to them by signing off on them. I'll do whatever you want. No, I think that was a great point. Like the board approved it. It's part of the Yeah. Okay. No problem then. Y we can do the handshake. Go retro, right? [laughter] Thumbs up. I love it.

And I'm just going to um CC William on it, too. Does that make sense? Yep. Great. All right. Um, great. So, moving on the agenda, we have the policy committee update. Um, the agenda was amended. Um, so we have the volunteer policy and the library displays policy updates.

And I will just uh, Mr. chair, if I could just make a comment procedurally that um I had noticed that the amended copy on the town website wasn't stamped in and uh so the clerk um town clerk's office uh stamped that in four minutes before deadline. Um um you know I don't I mean it was posted but even amendments even the amended agendas are supposed to be posted on their end and so the one so the one that previously existed up until 426 was not stamped and so this was today.

Yeah. In other words you'll notice that it was even though it was up online yesterday it was the version that was not they overlook stamping it in. Oh, and so it doesn't have the stamp and and that was done. I called like, you know, like at 4:15 this afternoon. I said, "What, you know, what's going on?" And so it was just an oversight on their part. I just want to clarify that they do an awesome job. Um it's just that piece was uh you know, something that didn't uh exist until today. Okay. I don't think anyone would have had the beef of us discussing it, but tech if if someone did, they might have had a leg to stand on.

So, you're saying like this like it has the seal, but it doesn't have like a the there's a lot like it it gets it's an electronic stamp when they receive it. So, interesting. Um, are we going to be approving these policies tonight or is it just an update? I would love to talk to you guys about this. Okay. and then I'll let you know what. All right. So, we'll let um Aaron go then. Um so, generally, if there's a a policy that the board uh is going to be voting on, um I'll usually uh send it to the board. We don't really have to list the the policies uh on the agenda. So, we really didn't need to amend it. Okay.

Um it's really just going to be a policy update. If we are going to be voting on policy, then I think we would be um writing it, you know, putting it into the agenda that we're going to discuss it at the meeting. But in this case, um you know, I'm just providing updates. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, great great catch, Doug, for just pointing out, hey, can you send that policy ahead of time so we have time to review it? But you'll you'll notice that previous agendas when we don't have anything to vote on, we'll just say a policy committee update. Yeah. Um, but this is precisely what we worked on during our policy committee meeting on December 2nd. Um, Prau couldn't join us. So, Katrina, November 2nd. Uh, no, December 2nd. Okay. Sorry. December 2nd.

December 2nd. And, uh, Katrina and I met over Zoom. It was a snowstorm outside. Um, so it was perfect. I think we'll continue to meet via Zoom at least during the snowy months. That's what we did last year. Um, and it does allow for uh, Prau. I think it was also a library staff member to join us remotely. So, we're going to have um two members uh from the board of trustees and and two staff members again and potentially the scribe um if they can join us because Kim had joined us in the past. So, okay. So, potential. So, on the second it was yourself, Katrina and that was it. Okay. Yeah. Probably couldn't um Okay. join us.

In in the future it'll be another staff member. It will it be a rotating staff member or will it be a permanent? It should just be one permanent staff member.

Okay. Yep. So, um we had gone through uh two two policies. Um we're working from the um the comments uh that legal had made and it had gone to the um gone to the um union as well. um because we want to really make sure that we're incorporating legal's feedback because it was voluminous. Um and also because uh Katrina um is now putting her blessing uh on on these policies as well um even though she wasn't here to write write most of them. So we're spending a little extra time. Um so the volunteer policy um we just had a few quick corrections on. Um, it is a challenge working off of like this this PDF. I think I need to now go back to the original copies and then incorporate, you know, either what we're going to incorporate from legal and and the commentary that that we had done as well. Um, we came upon kind of um I don't want to say it's a showstopper, but it was something that gave us pause um which uh again this is a volunteer policy um about home delivery to housebound patrons. Um, one of the comments from legal is that there may be some um legal risks here uh by sending a volunteer to someone's home, right, to deliver books. Um, so Katrina is going to take that offline and bring to the next policy committee meeting, but um, you know, barring anything else tripping us up, uh, we should have the volunteer policy, uh, ready to go at the next trustee meeting.

Um, I guess just A side note on that, like would there be a concern to have staff do home delivery or were they just was it specifically because it was volunteer? Because it was volunteer. It's a volunteer policy. So we say volunteer tasks, home delivery to housebound patrons, shelving, you know, uh shelf reading displays. So a lot of stuff in library, but also home delivery to housebound patrons. And Katrina mentioned a lot of libraries do use volunteers for this [clears throat] purpose. So that's what we need to kind of take a look at and and see how other libraries do it. We've been doing it in the past too, but it was just something that they had picked up on.

And and I I would comment that that in lie of of you know that potential liability, however we want to advertise uh or put a bug in people's ear that, you know, the library is here. We understand that you may have friends or family that are unable to physically get to the library. you know, have that discussion with those people and maybe those family members could actually physically go to the library to pick things up, you know.

Well, and I I guess just to comment on that, I would say just because the legal team comes back and says, "We don't know if this belongs in a volunteer policy." I'm really interested, Katrina, what like MBLC has in their policies, which I'm sure is like where you're going next with it because it is a a pretty common service that libraries provide. And so I think it's good to have the feedback and the conversation with legal, but I think understanding like what's what they're really asked to do with it, right? Like like you're delivering a book, it's not like we're delivering lumber or something heavy, right? So, like it's a little different. I would just be interested to hear what happens when it comes back if we're providing a service that other libraries have.

Like I think we should be in line with what other libraries are.

And and I I would I would comment that I I I agree that that if if I understand what you're saying is that these recommendations aren't necessarily edicts. Um, if if there are any strong opinions in these in this regard, I I would certainly want to see the legal opinion in writing. I, you know, I'm not that I don't trust this, but sometimes things get lost in the, you know, the details and the back and forth that he said, she said, and I would be one to um request that in writing um to see what the issues are because a delivery service, the difference here is that um if they're unable to get to the library that there may be other limitations which require the delivery person to actually physically go inside the person's residence. And I think that's the the line of demarcation that may be of concern

uh versus just dropping it off at someone's door. But maybe that person has limitations that they would need that person to enter the residence. So I have all the legal commentary. I'm happy to say. Okay. Awesome. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I don't think we need to go through that. No. No. But but I think that um but you're absolutely right. That's what they mentioned. So yeah, and then and there may be a workaround. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to to diss that idea, but maybe there's a way we could word things or have an overview and training to sort of mitigate that concern.

So, um so uh the again the volunteer policy is is nearing completion uh barring that piece. Um the library displays policy um is uh a very short policy um and it really just talks about um curating the displays that uh librarians will put up uh celebrating different um parts of the season or certain holidays uh things of that nature. It didn't really warrant uh its own policy and should really be part of the material selection policy. That said, the material selection policy is quite voluminous. Um, and so we really want um Katrina to uh get behind it and make sure that she understands it and um so this one we're going to be workshopping for a little while.

Um so maybe in the future it might collapse into that other policy, but for now may as well go go forward with it. Is that the No. No. Okay. Um I think both both of those policies going to put it together will be put together. Yes.

Yeah. And and I'll add Aaron and to the board that under the material selection policy and I'd spoken with Katrina about this is the uh the freedom to read statement the three-page freedom to read statement or maybe goes on to a fourth page that um pretty much mirrors the American Library Association ALA's uh freedom to read statement. And so just to uh as a reminder to the board that of all these documents that are and policies that are in there, it's a great refresher of what we're about because freedom of speech is under in freedom of expression, they're under attack. So that's that's a very strongly worded um document that is like a must readad. Like honestly, I would I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that that should be everyone's next book club. Like seriously, that four-page document with everything [snorts] going on in uh nationally and and in the world regarding, you know, first amendment stuff um is a great read. So,

Doug, can I ask a a quick question related to those two policies? I Erin, I believe a previous meeting you had mentioned that um we have a lot of policies and maybe more than the average library. I was just I was just curious how that evaluation was going if that's just starting to say like what's really a procedure or a standard and I guess when I hear about the library displays policy like to me that jumps out like is that just a procedure or a best practice that Katrina can have a one pager on and like it doesn't have to be a policy. So um I was just curious where you are with that.

Yeah. So it's first time we met, right? So it's that whole um team team building, right? The forming, storming, norming, and performing kind of thing. So and we really just meet for an hour. Um so I think if we were to do that sort of activity, um it would require us to really just only do that and not um really review any any pol new policy to bring to the board. So I think um I'm certainly happy to talk about it here with the board now or or we can you know talk about it at a later date on um how you see the activities of the policy committee um for the next you know six months right if it's just a kind of doing what we're doing or just reviewing old policy or current policies on our plate um happy to hear some direction from the board as well. I I had a question in that respect if Go ahead. I'll wait to be recognized.

Okay. Thank you. Um and and I guess first of all, historically, you've been like the the go-to and you know, the nuts and bolts of the policy subcommittee and [snorts] other members, you know, too, but you you've been the person

and and um I'm you've done a ton of work in organizing all of this stuff. And I'm wondering if you could share whether or not um in the context of our discussions we've had with all these policies and there's this online offline online offline and and we seem to be you know when there's some policies that are in place that sort of remained in place and it seems like there's so many things that continue to be in flux. Is that a sense of frustration that that possibly a lot of this stuff we're seemingly back at square one in spite of all the work? Do you do you feel that that that I mean for all of your time and efforts it's like

you know Yeah. I mean it's one one hour a month isn't enough to do what we need to do, right? And it's and if we continue to operate that way, um you know, it's we're going to be spinning our wheels for a long time. Um and the first the the biggest issue was you know when uh the previous director um and you know another uh committee member uh saw a bunch of policies and said we're going to take these down, right? So that sparked a whole different avenue of discussion which we weren't ready for. How about jurisdiction

or just being a two or three member, you know, uh, committee and then having those people leave, right? So, that really stalled a lot of our operations for for quite a long time. So like [clears throat] you said, yeah, I would love to focus our efforts on pairing down our policies and you know, I think that's the challenge that Katrina and I have ahead of us and you know um the other um librarian who's going to be joining us as well in Prau um that I think we just need to make that our mission, right?

Rather than trying to crank out um you know new policy or or update policy, it really has to be um really being concise. And we have been uh when I was working with the previous director uh our main focus was pulling out procedure pulling out procedure. There was tons of procedure in in all these policies. And so that's kind of when we bring somebody to the board we've really paired it down to take all that procedural stuff out so that it's really just policy. Um so that's kind of it's been the challenge. But is it a is it a natural so the question around you know too many and trying to pair down the num just the number of policies y

is that a natural process when you review one of these that's been pulled off like the the committee reviews that policy but they do it in light of other policies to see if they can be condensed or merged. I mean is that part of that process or yeah is there just not enough time for that? Um I think I think so. I now that we have a focus on removing procedure. Yeah. and two like understanding that other libraries again I keep going back to you know Worcester public library they have 12

right and they're a big city right and so I've spoken to Katrina about that a couple of times and and in her experience um we do have a lot right and so that is going to be our focus and the way that we work y um and you know the minimum minimum staffing policy that was a very um difficult uh policy for us to develop and actually we decided that in the end as a board we voted on this that um it wasn't something that you know it was important and other libraries do have this um but in the current form it just wasn't right for us um so it may come back you know

and didn't that stop before this uh you know collective bargaining agreement the CBA that that doesn't that now cover some of that and now it would have been duplicative sure y sure so

I guess back to your earlier comment Eron like when I think about the volume policies you have, right? Like going through them one at a time and taking out the procedure. It's not always that simple, right? Because sometimes you have to you've just updated a policy that you'd want that piece to be in, right? So now you're taking stuff out and have two policies that one day you want to merge. Like I do almost wonder if it's it would be helpful for you guys to just go through the mapping organization. Like what's everything you want to take out? What policies do you combine and which ones you want to remove? and then like start tackling them that way. I don't know the rest of the board's thoughts, but I could definitely see like especially because we have to go back and forth with legal so much, right? If you're saying, "Well, this one I eventually want to merge over here, but we just went through the whole approval process, right? Now you're touching the same policies over and over again." So, I don't know if you guys have talked about that in the committee or if that hasn't really come in as a tradeoff yet. Do you mean um just look at them holistically and and figure out where we are now, where we want to be, and then making,

you know, our policies kind of fit that vision? No, we haven't spent that time, but again, we're just, you know, learning how to work together. So, it's a good a good way to go about it, I think. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what about I mean, it's a similar approach, but just identifying like the top 10 or top 12 or whatever, the top 10 policies, focus on those, making sure they cover what we need to be written in those policies, and then eventually close out all the other ones. I think it's interesting that you said Worester has 12. Like, have you compared the like titles of their policies to our policies and see like Not yet.

Yeah. So, what either what direction or what help do you need from the board tonight? I mean, do you need anything at tonight or do we feel like we're still in an early stage with Katrina that maybe we should revisit this in a month or two? No, I think certainly um we probably need to figure out where we want to be. And I think um I haven't heard anything different that we have too many policies uh and we have too much procedure or maybe we do have procedure in there. We want to pair that down. So that'll continue to be um the task at hand. Now how do we do that? That's what we need to decide as a committee. Again, it's me and three new people,

right? I mean, Prau's been to one meeting. Um so it's uh it's going to be a process ramping that energy up and getting everybody ready to work together. So yeah, but happy to hear any feedback. if you think of something after this meeting uh and just want to shoot me an email, um I'd love you guys to kind of mull around with that a little bit. And and I'll just add has MBLC I don't recall whether we've talked about this in in our meetings

whether MBLC has um weighed in on or whether we've approached MBLC to [clears throat] give us feedback on the scope of of what is generally um you know how voluminous these policies are. Um, no, this was just coming from um, uh, one of the librarians who was a previous library director. Okay. Uh, she had mentioned that 32 is too many, right? You know, that's when they started to get pulled down, right? I think Jean had feedback too, right? Like um, well, yes, because we had approached her for her her opinion on that.

Um, I want to just say that this is not something that the policy committee has ever done before, right? policy committee was formed to um look at our log of policies and you know bring them back update them bring them back to the board for approvals right that was the process now we're being asked to do something that's a little different right um and I'm okay with that I think it's necessary um but historically uh that's is not how the policy committee has operated

do you have the right resources and people to be successful around that. Is there anything else like you would do to like I definitely need another trustee on the on the board. Um, I don't know uh if if Prabu's schedule just isn't conducive to um the board meetings or or the policy subcommittee meetings, but if if Prau can't make the meeting, then I mean it was just Katrina and I and we did our best, you know, um because I think the library staff member couldn't make it because of schedule previous scheduling, right? So, we really do need to have another trustee on that board. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So then I'll just open that up to the board. Um if you're interested, reach out to Aaron, but let's try to see if we can get another person on that committee.

Yeah, I'll certainly talk to Prau first because he his um feedback was really fantastic and in the meeting that we had with him. Um he he came in person uh to our I think October meeting and we uh really had some great discussion and uh made got a lot done in just a short time. So, um I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and and talk to him first. Um but certainly if he can't make it in certain meetings, I'd love to somebody to fill this place as long as we have somebody even a rotating person would be fantastic. Um it just can't be Katrina and I. Yep. Okay. And it can be. It is. So

um and is the best resource or um place for the trustees to look for a list of policies is on the website. Is that that's pretty up to date? That's still accurate. Yeah. Um, anything that's being developed, I don't I don't have access to any of that. Um, except what's been kind of emailed to me in the past. Yep. So, that could be something that is on the library repository. Um, you know, a list of policies being developed. But in the same token, um, I don't know if that helps you any, right? Because if you want to develop a policy in something, is it help to start with what somebody's written before

or look at other examples of other libraries? Maybe that's what we do is because a lot of the policy that we're approving or editing were written by, you know, directors previous. Yep. Or Yeah. So some of some of our policies have been approved five times, you know, so who who knows who wrote it initially. Yeah. So thank you. Good discussion. [snorts] Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for the work of you and the committee.

Um any other questions for Aaron on the um policies? All right. Um moving on to Katrina and the director's report. Great. Uh, I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the hot chocolate bar for our staff uh, holiday party. It was very wellreceived and continues to be the the gift that keeps on giving because it's upstairs and people are still enjoying it. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall uh during your party though. That sound like so much fun. [laughter] Yeah, the karaoke. Yes, I think it I I think Cindy was singing actually. [laughter]

It was pretty great. [snorts] Um, all right. So, personnel and staffing updates, an update on the administrative assistant position. We wrapped up interviewing uh yesterday and are going to make an official offer to somebody tomorrow. Excellent.

Y um yes, we're very excited. So, fingers crossed that they say yes. I don't want to reveal any information until that is um in the bag, but I'll keep you posted. Um, of course we had the staff professional development day the day after our last trustee meeting. I think it was a great success. We had a really productive staff meeting. Um, we had I think they were called glad. Um, it was the Narcan training. So, all of the staff are trained in the administration of Narcan and the Narcan uh box was installed by maintenance uh last week. So, that's available. um in the library for folks as well.

Where is it? So that is in the upstairs hallway where the bathrooms are across the desk in the back. Okay. And um staff went around and put other boxes in all of the AE AED um boxes as well. So So Grafton Board of Health or like who oversaw that? Is it Grafton board of health or the health agent? I know we we've regionalized someone from Worcester. Um, you mean who did the training? Yeah. Well, who who did the training and who's overseeing because we're talking needles, right? Uh, no. No. Oh, Narcan train. Oh, okay. So, it's like is it you're administering if somebody's overdosed, right? The Nan I think it's like an

It's an aerosol. Oh, it's an aerosol. Okay. All right. So, there's no No. No. All right. Because I was like, oh, no policy. No, [laughter] it's a So, it's Oh, I Okay. I didn't I didn't know they had aerosols now that were in general use. Okay. Yeah. Yes. So, it's much easier. And this is something that um the town hall has already gone through training and so we just extended it to library staff. Awesome. Yeah. So, that was it was good. And then all of the departments got to have their own individual meetings at the staff development day and get done what they needed to get done.

It was very productive. Um, I've already began having regular week weekly check-ins with all of the department heads. I've already met with all of the staff individually. Um, and in terms of the I was I was telling or talking about the checking the box off the checking the box off um started doing a weekly update email to all of the staff on Fridays. So, the communication is is rolling. Um, for programs and events, uh, I just wanted to mention that Grafton won the cribage trophy back. There's eight different towns now that participate in this. And so, um, Mary uh, in borrower services has been kind of the point person for going to all of these individual libraries and getting them set up and teaching them how to do it. And we've got a regular crew of people every single month that

That's great. comes and participates. It's been That is That is a great game about privilege. Yeah. So, we'll we'll keep it going. I think she's got every month booked through um the end of 2026 now. So, is it like a trophy on display? It is a trophy on display. Yeah. I mean, it's a little trophy, but that's awesome. [laughter] Um Grafton Celebrates was a success. It was very busy. Um, we were very lucky to have a number of staff volunteer to staff the um, library for that day. So, we were able to open the upstairs. Wow.

As well as the community room. We did keep the teen and the children's rooms closed due to staffing shortages. Um, and of course, we did have to scale back on some of the programming, but we had our storyteller and we had our henna performer. And then the friends, like Carrie's mentioned, at their book sale, both downstairs and upstairs. Um, so we were able to manage the flow of people. I think we had about 340 people in the building that day. That's awesome. So, it was a significant number. So, how many people did you 340? Wow. That's great. Was good stuff. Um, I didn't realize that this was a thing until recently, but apparently the town has a podcast called Municipals, which I thought was adorable.

[laughter] and I went to the um studio today and recorded a session with William and Evan. So, [laughter] I'll be internet famous if you want to listen to our our podcast. I think there's a whopping uh 12 listeners. [laughter] It's called the studio of today. Is that something that Bob Dma put together? What is the studio of today? So, you're saying this is GCTV? Yeah, GCTV. I went to the stu the I thought you said that studio. It sounded cool. I went to the studio. went to this studio of today. [laughter] I was late. So cool. [laughter] I was so excited. It's on Apple. It's on It's on Apple podcast. Yeah. We can listen to it.

Hey, there you go. [laughter] Municipals. It sounds like It sounds like a like a stuffed animal. Like it does. You could do the like the cartoon like the Teletubbies, you know? Municipals, you know. It was They told me there were t-shirts, so I told them. So, Evan and William kind of introduced you to the town. Yeah, exactly. They had some prepared questions. I guess they bring in different um department heads every so often. So, did Bob do the interviewing? Bob did not. It was Evan and William who did the interview. Okay. And then was it is it Bill who was recording? Yeah, Bill. I did get to meet Bob. He gave me a tour of the station. That used to be the old police station. Yeah, that's what he was saying. But it's a great space. Yeah, it is.

It is. It's perfect for their and and it's accessible. So, yeah, important stuff. So, so that was fun. Um the building and grounds, I just have some updates for you and um just to let you know what's happening. So, a couple weeks ago, um the water heater started smelling like gas. We had the fire department in.

Yeah. The gas valve was broken. So that was replaced by the plumber. Um he ended up having to open up the entire water heater and clear out the sediment, replace bunch of the parts and um said that because the quality of the water engraftton is poor, it is damaging prematurely um the internal components of the water heater which caused it to break. So, he was able to, like I said, clear everything out, replace everything. The gas is it's not smelling anymore. It's uh the water is actually heating properly and the water pressure problem was fixed with this, which is great. So, now we know that that was the issue. However,

it's going to happen again because of the quality of the water. It's going to continue to erode the piece. So, we're working with the town to figure out a solution. He recommends installing a filter. Um, we need to figure out what the quote is on that, how it's going to be paid for. This is something that I'm talking with the town about. And

I think that's a great example of the MOA [snorts] we have in place, right? Because I think things like filters getting replaced, things like that, like there they have a something in place for the entire town. So I think this will be great as you're working with them to hear what they recommend and following that same blueprint everyone else does [snorts] so we don't have to like solve that for you. So yeah that that yeah the MOA we love acronyms a memorandum of agreement that I think that was an overdue looking back I think that was an overdue document. This is one of the outliers where I think it's the strong fire chief and then library director report to the respective executive boards. Um,

and uh, but that doesn't always work. I mean, an executive board isn't equipped to do day-to-day stuff. Um, I will add on the water heater. Um, just to infuse into the discussion how effective a filtration system would be. I know that, um, you know, I have well water, okay? And, uh, just the natural stuff that comes up, you know, every few months that filter gets clogged up. And it's my understanding from just online chatter that even the most robust filtration systems have just gotten very quickly overloaded with some of the sediment issues. And that the question would be

or questions would be all right,

could you give me an example of how effect or give me an estimate of how effective a filtration system would be? I mean, money aside, um I've known people to have filtration systems where uh be needing in need of replacement. Um you know, they're going onetenth into their life cycle, you know, where where things should be able to go months. And I'm just talking about a a single family home. things should be able to go months and within a week they're all clogged up because there's so much sediment that's coming in and it's been a I mean we see it online where people have are showing the color of the water in their sinks and so I I

yeah I think and I think this is where the town can really help right because they've been doing this with buildings across the city I will say I gave Katrina a little bit background of our [snorts] water quality during our weekly touch base so she's all caught up but it depends on where you are in town and So, I really do think like William and Evan will be able to help direct us the best that does it make sense for this building with the water line it's on and and all of that. So, I mean at the end of the day, what they recommend to keep all the buildings safe based on where they are, I think is is probably going to be great insights and answer a lot of those

question. I think regardless, this board, we don't have the expertise in that, too. So we'll rely on on the plumber and the town and then once you get a quote, you know, you would come back to this board for figuring out how to So this is probably years worth of stuff. So we probably haven't, excuse [clears throat] me, had any visible water quality issues, right? Not that I know of. Right. Yeah. So and being a new building, you know, I wonder how much of that was in the pipes as part of the building process. Absolutely. You know, so maybe once it's been cleaned, it's going to be, you know, longer life than the original. I don't know. But we'll wait and see. Okay. Hope so. Sounds great. [laughter]

Did they give any hint though that it was in need of replacement anytime soon or that they noticed where unusual accelerated wear and tear? He said both um that the water heater is going prematurely because of the damage that it's done. And one of the things I will say, I know very lightly about water quality, but if we're about [clears throat] to replace things, like you want the new filter in before, so that way you get like the maximum life cycle. So I think it'll be interesting to know before we replace it if that should be in place and just think about how we right

agreed. Um, okay, moving on. uh Reno Renard came in and was able to diagnose a leak in the pipes in the historical reading room, which is why it continues to be um hovering at about 60° F.

Um I am working with them to bring them back in to um figure out exactly where the leak is so that they can repair it. But again, this seems to be an ongoing issue and it's only part of a larger heating issue where the two units that exist in the room are not big enough um and don't have enough oomph behind them to heat the space. Um so I'm trying to dig into what's been done before because as I understand it, Tom was on this. They had brought LG reps in um along with Renad. There was a walkthrough, there were quotes, and I'm still trying to piece together all of that.

So, um, and figure out what the best practice is. I had a meeting with William and Evan today after our podcast and, um, they're going to come over next week and, um, do a walk through specifically for that, but also with all of the other issues so that we can I'm gathering quotes for all of this so that we can come up with a plan moving forward. And I think you had an open question last week that we weren't able to solve. Does anyone have was anyone at that meeting when LG came and have like the quote that was provided? I messaged Chris because I know he would have with facilities. He said he he wasn't there.

I can look through I have I wasn't at that meeting but I do have some notes that the previous dire or the previous director had provided from those meetings. So, I don't know if you have a copy of those, but I don't. I mean, I have what's on the um punch list document, but um I have not been able to find any quotes. And I did try to to get access to um previous directors and interim directors and administrative assistants emails. Unfortunately, they're gone. Do you have a copy? So, we're not put together like a four or five page kind of like a history. Okay. Timeline. Do you have a copy of that? I do not.

Okay. So, I'm sorry. You don't have any access to any emails for any of Tom's emails? Any No, nobody is that. I spoke with William about it already and he was confused too, but I spoke with our uh technology um folks today and they could not verify that those accounts existed anymore for me to have access to. Yeah, that makes that makes no sense. But I maybe it's a privacy issue. I don't know. Well, hopefully Tom would have You would have hoped that Tom would have placed the documents into a network share that you could then access even if you couldn't access the email. You would hope, but I've been searching for them [laughter] for

Well, why don't we can meet or next time we meet um I can go through my emails to see what I have that Tom might have shared with me. That would be great. But even Kim like you don't have or Jean? Nope. Nothing. Surprising. Yeah, it's not too long. They're But you have access to the shares like the network shares that they would have put some documents if they did. They have um they do not have any of the quotes. They've got some emails in there about like dialogue, but it doesn't really give me the I don't I don't remember any quotes from LG. I remember LG came through and made an assessment. I don't think they actually got quotes. I think it was more of an opinion and yeah, diagnosis.

So, the way that that um we would never be able to meet with LG directly, right? So, Renault resells the LG um equipment. So if ever we have a problem that Renault can't um answer, they go to LG and so they meet with LG directly. So I don't think anything like that would exist that we would be consumers of. Everything that I seen in my email just now, it's all, you know, from Renault. Um I don't know if you have any of that, but um these are all been emailed to us during board meetings, different quotes. Um, probably helpful just to send them over to and Katrina. You can see what you do and don't have. Yes, that would be great. I'll do that

because I did reach out to Renard to get any anything that they had sent out to us in the last few months. [laughter] So, I'm waiting for them to get back to me. Okay. But I guess I'm still just surprised about the emails. Like I guess that's a take that way because I think there's a couple like things around. would think that there should be like a back. I think you should I think you should approach that with the town administrator and see if they can provide any insights on how in my meeting with William. he made a note about it and was going to follow up and and not and not withstanding the memorandum of agreement, I I think that the fact that the library has its own external website

that we would certainly have some control o as a board over that asset to be able to not have someone else say, "Oh, too bad. That's it's not available anymore." Right. It's like, well, you know, how did how does what's how does this happen? I'm not sure. Are you talking about email? Yeah, I think they're talking about [snorts] the emails and the accounts like we should just find out from the town. My guess is this isn't what the town normally does either because I know there's like retention policies and stuff. So, it sounds like everyone's surprised. So I don't think there's I think we should just let the town administrative figure out before we

I would hate for information to be lost because a lot of that but then again to your point that yeah a lot of this stuff we were on the receiving end of as attachments and we could always look back. So yep and but I had a lot to say on the topic because I know exactly what's going on but I'm holding my tongue because it's not for us to decide. It's right. That's the thing. It's not really for the board to decide. It's good. I know exactly what's going on. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, you were gonna say Doug. Nope. I was going to agree with you and um Yes.

Okay. Um just a quick update on the EV chargers. Uh I had spoken with uh Will and Evan about them. They right before I brought up the topic, an EV charger rep was in the office. Um, so I think we're going to wait until the um contract expires and then um look into getting new ones. This company that came in will take away the old ones. They'll replace the new ones for like cheap or free. That's just a better deal, a better company. They'll do on-site. Um Yeah.

And what was the decision with the current one? Because I I thought one of them was not working. One of one of them is working. Yeah. So, we're just going to leave them be. I see. Wait, only one of the four is one of the four is working. And when is the agreement up? I believe it's August. Yes, it's a summer time. Were you able to find like what happens if we break the contract early? No. Um will William and Evan have the contract? And I have not seen that, but I will follow up with them on that.

So, let me ask you. I know um you know prior to your tenure Katrina we had had discussions as a board about I guess I'm not familiar with this because I have a I don't have an electron electric vehicle but there's an app that allows you to see whether a particular EV st charging station is online the fact that one is we have two right so one is offline was four two units each have two

char okay all right so so three are offline are the apps accurately representing that those three are offline and one is online. Do you know because that was an issue where where some people had, you know, had uh given feedback that, you know, they what was actually what was operational as far as the EV stations weren't accurately being represented on the apps that allow you to see where various charging stations are and and which ones are online. Does anyone remember that discussion? I I would only assume that the app if it's offline on the physical space, it's going to be offline on the app,

right? And and that's my question whether those two are in harmony with each other. I don't know. I would only assume so. All right. And I guess my thought is even if it's not like there's nothing we can do about it can do about it. Library things. No, we want to get you out of the EV charge. No, I know. I that was just that was all part of the lead stuff. You know what I mean? But we kind of got stuck being in the EV charging station business. No, we we want to be in the EV business, but we don't want her to manage it. And so this new vendor, the person stopped by, the town's already using that vendor.

No, it's a separate vendor is my understanding. Yeah. If it is something we're moving forward with, it would be great. I don't know if it's something like Evan and William would want to come and explain like the strategy for Eevee across the town and like where the library I don't we don't want to be the pilot [laughter] or at least know that we have like the support and like the Yeah, makes sense to me. I feel like we're at a point we can move on. Okay. [snorts] Um just a quick note that Encore Fire Protection is going to be on site on January 2nd to repair the cracked pipe. um as outlined in our failed fire inspection report. Who who's coming? I'm sorry.

Uh Encore Fire Protection. And then I had already spoken um about the heaters.

Um so yeah, and just to reiterate, uh I spoke with Will today. I'm going to be gathering all of the quotes uh and everything building wise that needs to be done so that we have a number on everything and working with William and Evan to uh figure out a plan forward in terms of what absolutely needs to be done, how it's going to be paid for um and that kind of thing. So, I'll keep you posted on that. under technology. Um, I've been working with our new tech company, Entree, on an inventory and a tech replacement plan. So, I actually got the quote today. Um, unfortunately, as you might know, Windows 10 is no longer supported. So, um, all of our computers are running Windows 10 and have not been updated, which is security risk. Um, I'm hoping and I don't know what the procedure is for this, but um I'm hoping that the board would approve a certain amount of money so that uh Andre can come in and update the licenses on 12 of the computers [clears throat] um that are still under warranty plus the purchase of a new computer because the uh borrower services. Um,

may I take a look?

Yes, please. It's the It's these first two pages. I highlighted what what it is. Um, sounds like an airplane right now. The apparently the fan is going, so it's very distracting. Uh, when staff are trying to help patrons, they can't actually hear them. Um, they've been told that the, like I said, the fan is going um on the motor in the computer. So, I have a quote for replacement for that one computer at $1,325. And then to upgrade the 12 computers that are still under warranty with Windows 11 is going to be $1,800. And so that would be

that's total or each that total. Yeah, I assume so. Yeah. Oh, thank goodness. [laughter] So, what is the current version of Windows right now? the most updated 11. So, all right. So, 11 isn't all right. So, yep. So, unfortunately in October, um Microsoft stopped pushing out updates for Windows 10. So, there are no more security patches. So, any new viruses, Trojans, whatever um that come up, they're not supporting Windows 10. And I know in the fall and I this uh next October, they're no longer supporting Publisher. Yeah, publishers go by the wayside and a lot of companies

use the use Publisher for the desktop publishing stuff for for the um [clears throat] do you know the the age of those 12 13 computers? They're they're the newer ones, right? So these are the ones that we would hang on to for a while. Is that the model? This is this is the model that we have now. Correct. This is what we would replace it with because this doesn't exist anymore. So the this is the single computer you're asking for. This is the but that single computer was also new with the renovation. That one like is it more it it was new? It looks like it was relatively new. I is it better just to replace the fan as opposed to replace the whole computer? I mean it's just the power supply.

It is. It just it just matters. So I is Entree Technologies. Is this the the group that the town uses? Yes. Okay. So, they may not have the skill to replace [snorts] a part like that. Okay. Um, you know, I can't speak for them. Um, it's kind of a specialized thing that they These are desktops or laptops? It's a desktop. This is a desktop. It's an all-in-one unit. So, there's no actual CPU. The CPU is built into the stand of the monitor. Yeah. Which is where the skill piece comes in because sometimes you have to take, [clears throat] especially when you're working on a Mac, you have to take this the [snorts] screen out. Yep. um because you can't even get out the components in the back. Um but again, like

if it's if it's under warranty, the Dell, which it may not be, Dell would just replace the fan. Um and I wonder if it even makes sense to just ask Dell to do it at cost rather than buying a new computer because the fan is a a replaceable component. Yeah. I mean, that's that's my initial thought without seeing the details because if it's if it's only three years old, it's going to be I think it'd be better just to replace the fan. Well, it's so I'm sorry, I misread. So, this is one of the computers that it was recommended to replace because the warranty was up in 2024. So, that the total quote is uh for $41,000 and change.

Oh, 41,000. the total quote for what? The total quote to replace all of the computers that need to be replaced and upgrade all of the computers that are still under warranty um to Windows 11 for security purposes.

So, how many computer Okay, so there's 12 there's 12 computers that just need window upgraded from Windows 11 Windows 10 to Windows 11 and that's like $1,000. There's actually 22, but uh 12 is the ones are the ones that we use every day that really need it. Um the other 10 are um patron laptops that don't get used often and so I would uh rather save the money. And would you say patron laptops? Not the stand the the ones that are like sitting out or the the

No, these are ones that um we have in the borrower services office for patron use in case they're needed, but um in speaking with the staff today, they do not get used very often. So, I wouldn't want to spend the money on them yet. It's not a priority basically. So, [snorts] do we know if the I mean, yes, they're no longer in warranty, but that doesn't mean they're not good functioning units. So, is there value to just having the out of warranty running Windows 11 get upgraded and then we don't have to replace the computers until they actually are closer to the end of life.

They all had basic support on them which [snorts] was doesn't last very long anyways for a warranty. Yeah. I mean, typically it's only a year or two. I mean, maybe three years. Yeah. It said ended May 15th, 2024. So, there's an option to extend them with Dell. Yeah. So, the cost of extending warranty so that Dell would actually replace things like a fan. Um, you know, could could be a few thousand, you know, for 22 some odd machines. Well, and that's not every machine that we have. That's just the ones that were still under warranty. Um, my apologies for not having an exact number, but I'm thinking we have something more like 35 missions. Yeah, that's Yeah.

Can we I mean, I don't know if if how urgent this is. Is this something that, you know, maybe a couple of the board members I I'd be glad to help. I don't know if Aaron can, but like if we could help you look through everything and then come up with a a plan that we can then come back to the board with actually funding specific pieces. I mean, frankly, they said, um, I'm kind of surprised at the way they presented this to the library. It's like, well, you need Windows 11, so here's $22,000 to replace all the computers. [laughter] I mean, right. I don't know. And I'm assuming most of the computers are being used for web surfing. And it's all these all these computers support Windows 11. Yeah, I would imagine they do if they're only three or four years old.

Yeah. I was wondering because there was a a comment a couple months back about how we need to get our technology on a replacement schedule. So I I think I don't know if maybe that's where the request started and if that's why there's confusion, but I don't think we want to get into habit of replacing all of them at once because that's a big budgetary item. So yeah, it be good to hear what comes out of it. Well, that and that's why I reached out to them is to get uh on a plan. So my intention is let's take care of the emergency items

and then work with the town to build it into our allocated budget so that every year we've got a chunk of money that we can put towards replacing the most needed technology over time. You know what I mean? So the 41,000 is not what I'm looking for to replace right now. That's that's what it would cost today to replace everything in the library. Um, but like I said, uh, the rep made suggestions on what is priority, um, security priority, what items are very very old and do need to be replaced. And I didn't I didn't even bring those to you because that can wait a little bit. But the um the the computer that is causing the really loud noise upstairs is it it it does need to be fixed as soon as possible. [laughter] [snorts] So the security issues can probably wait a month um

for us to figure that out. But and and I'll add that [clears throat] there's certain type of expenses whether um in constellation they have a certain price tag. Number one, I don't know if it's 30,000, but as far as the threshold where you need to go up the bid, number one. And [snorts] then number two, whether a certain item [clears throat] based on uh aside from the the total cost, the lifespan, whether it would reasonably fall under the town's capital budget versus the operational budget. M

I I I think that's something uh worth looking into because we're going to be having we're already starting budget discussions in town and operational budgets uh are being more scrutinized this this budget cycle FY27.

So I can't imagine like you know all of the capital items of of various departments fall under their operational budget. So, um I think I don't know off the top of my head what that threshold is as far as cost and lifespan, but perhaps if these are being looked at as one lumpsum expense that we see whether that could be extracted from the operational budget and moved into the town's annual budget um annual uh capital budget. So,

so I would treat this as a priority um for for the board. I'm happy to take it offline with you and Doug if you'd like. Um it looks like we can get all of them up to Windows 11 probably at no cost is one is one thing. It's kind of a free update, but you know, the three of us aren't going to do that. So, if we need to hire someone to do that, that's fine. Just for the labor. um you voted for it. That's exactly what So, I would almost um authorize that tonight if we had I totally That's exactly my thought. Like the those you if it's under warranty, it's a security risk. We should It's only $1,800. We should proceed with that.

The loud fan piece. Um which who uses this computer? It's so it's borrower services. So, it's the upstairs desk on like the staff computer. It's the staff computer. So patrons are coming up to them and asking them reference questions or logistical questions and they can't hear over the fan. Could we use one [laughter] of the laptops that we're not using instead? We could um in the meantime

we so all of their um like programs and documentation is all downloaded on this computer and um porting all of that over is going to pose a challenge. So, I would suggest perhaps uh we treat this computer as a one-off and we can maybe do an extended warranty uh through Dell and you know um figure out what that costs and come to the board. But, um I don't want to say power through it at the moment. Even if we authorize payment to buy a new computer, that still takes a long time. And like you said, migrating things over to a laptop [snorts] or to a new computer is going to take time. Um so, I think we can treat this as a one-off, but

but isn't that a line item? Do we have that as a line item in the annual budget? Like you're talking about $1,800. Like what would uh office not office proposed to take the the $1,800 to upgrade the windows of the 12 computers? Where would you take that from? State aid. Yeah. Yeah. Um at this point there is no there is no technology replacement line item. That was zeroed out. Okay. and um any kind of building maintenance repair which you might make an argument falls under um is going to be expended by actual building maintenance and repairs. So

So I guess through you Mr. Chair and maybe Aaron could uh would be the one to make a motion. Are you prepared to receive a motion for a dollar amount a scope of service and a funding source for the $1,800 for the upgrade of the 12 computers? Is it 1,800 or a,000? I thought you said a,000. 1,800. 1,800. Okay. And that's And that'll do the 12 computers under warranty. Correct. Okay. And does that include the one with the broken fan or That does not include the one with fan. They should upgrade it in the process even though it has a a loud fan.

I guess I'll defer to Aaron to to to put a motion together if you're ready, Mr. Chair. So if if if you if it's 13, does the price go up from 1,800 or can they just do that one at the same time? They want to replace the hardware [clears throat] for $1,300. I'm a little reluctant because that seems like a a huge expense if it's just a fan that can be replaced for $200. That's fair. Personally, I mean, that's my opinion. Or less. Or less. Yeah. I mean, it's probably a $50 component and $100 of labor or something. Okay. Um Yeah. But I from my perspective, it seems like if if it's important to upgrade those 12 workstations to from 10 to Windows 11 for $1,800, we should put a motion on the floor.

But the question is, is it 13? Because yeah, the broken fan computer may have Windows 10 on it. It does. All of our computers are running Windows 10. All of them. 13 or 22 x. So how many computers in the in the building? That's what we need to know. That's the priority. Not not these 12. Uh like 35ish. So um I mean if we authorize 12, we're going to have to come back to us to authorize the rest of them. Correct. The computer that's making the noise, that's not one of the 12 that you want to upgrade to Windows. Correct. 11. So can we just upgrade those 13 computers? The 12 plus one. Sure. But what Aaron's saying is he's going to come back.

Not Windows 10 anymore. This should have been done six months ago. That's what I'm saying. So those 13 computers upgrade from 10. Oh, every computer at the library is running Windows 10. But 10 of the I heard 10 of the patron laptops aren't even being used, right? So that to me that's should we should make a decision on what to do with those. But are those permanently off service? And I I stress the term permanently. They're they're not permanently. So they are available for patron use as needed. They just don't functionally get used. So, I would I would not want those to be overlooked in because there's a possibility even if it's rarely that they use because they're technically online. I wouldn't want to see any of the computers have outdated software

and security, right? because somebody could somebody could borrow it. And so I I guess if we are open for a motion, the motion I would make is with the board having the feeling that having any computers on Windows 10, it probably isn't acceptable, but knowing we have a little more discussion needed. I would make a motion that we authorize Doug for the final sign off in the right number of computers to upgrade after conversation between him, Aaron, and Katrina to figure out how to best approach it.

And are you coming up with So when you make a motion, are you coming up with an up to a maximum funding uh amount and source presumably state aid? So we can do the what's the 1,800? I mean, for those 12 workstations at 1,800, that's $150 a workstation to upgrade to Windows 11. Yep. So, I'd say with up to $175 per workstation to upgrade. Give you a little wiggle room in case our math is And how many how many But we don't know how many workstations. I I count 23. Honestly, this all makes me very very uneasy because when you say $150 per workstation, that makes me think that they're charging you for a license that you don't even need. Right.

So, I don't almost want to understand what the $1,800 is getting us if it's just labor. I mean, yeah, $100 an hour. You're right. And you must see 18 hours worth of work underutilized. So, where's it coming? There's a cost for them to come to the building. So, if they're they're doing 10 or 15 like it shouldn't it is just a you push a button and you wait an hour or two, right? So, you could have them all. It's not a lot. if it's 18 hours worth of work, you know, or 10 hours if they charge $150 an hour. I'd be open for like an ad hoc meeting to approve stuff once you guys have better like I don't know if that's the best way to approach it. So there there are 47 computers in the building.

Yeah. Um, the reason why she quoted the um upgrades to the software only on the computers that were still under warranty is because they're new enough to not warrant needing replacement. if we spend the money to upgrade. The reason why she didn't say let's also upgrade the ones that are out of warranty was because they were re recommending replacing and so the replacements would come with Windows 11 because they would be new computers. So I guess the consideration is do we just upgrade everything like figure out which computers need upgrading like absolutely imperative because the hardware is so old that they're dinosaurs and they're no longer like worthy of keeping. and then which ones we can stretch a little longer than their recommendation and upgrade those as well until such time as we're ready to roll them into the replacement plan. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean that's my biggest concern is we want to integrate the replacement plan as part of this whole thing. We don't want to just Yeah. We don't have new computers in the budget, right? And they were all purchased at the same time. Correct. So, so they're all not that I want to push this down, but push this down the road, but how about we meet with maybe it's Aaron and I, we get more information from Katrina to look at the whole picture. If you want to do a conference call, happy to get on a jump total number of 47 computers, when they were purchased, what version of the OS they have, look at that whole sheet. Yeah. And if we need to make a decision before our next monthly meeting, we'll have an ad hoc meeting to approve the budget. Yeah.

Great. And it might be because um Andre is in every like twice a week, I can maybe ask them to port over whatever information is on that computer to a laptop or something so that the fan issue is at least taken care of. I need to do more information on Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see if it can go out of come out of service. I wouldn't say shut it down because then you're down a computer, but if it can come out of service, rotate it through. Yeah. Maybe we've discussed this enough. Of the 47 computers in the library, are those all new with the renovation? Do we know that?

Most of them, yes. Um, some of them are older, so they're three to four years old. Okay. Yeah. Does that sound like a okay plan for you? Sounds like a plan to me. Yeah, I I I'm all for saving us money where we can. Yep. But thank you for being willing to to work with me on that. No, I mean, I know the workstations are obviously security is key and those workstations, at least the ones I've seen on the on the adult [snorts] um area, are heavily used. So, they're important resource for the community. You probably should have brought this up a while ago. Yeah. Now they think about it. Yeah. So, but thank you for bringing to our attention. Yeah, we'll work to get a plan in place.

Okay. Um, budget and finance. So, I met with Mary at town hall for um radar training. She was very illuminate illuminative. What what training? Uh, so Vadar is the software that the town uses for accounting. Okay.

Um, so I was able to log into the software, learn about running reports, um, figure out where the information that I needed. She encouraged me to look again at the budget, although it was um submitted and approvedish by the finance committee. So, it's already on to the next, I think, but um Evan is going to give his presentation to um the select board tomorrow. Um there's still wiggle room for me to make some edits as needed. So, I am going to look at that and submit that probably tomorrow. But the finance committee reviewed it and they were okay. It's kind It's kind of like in pre pre-review, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Um and so I did put uh for budget and finance I added the um up to-date expenditures on the back. I'm not sure if you saw that.

Yeah. So we're um you know bottom line we're about where we need to be because we're about halfway through the fiscal year. Um, I did want to draw attention to the repair and maintenance line. So, we've already, like I said, expended 82% of our repair and maintenance, and we only have $4,25612 in that line. Um, I've got an $8,500 bill coming up that we're going to have to figure out how to pay. That's for the repairs of the um sprinkler room cracked pipe that we absolutely need to fix. otherwise the fire department shuts us down. [laughter]

And I had highlighted those three lines and I I didn't know which of the and then the two below it. Um and others that were 80 in the 80 percentage. I know that sometimes there's payments that are front-end loaded. Yes. Whether it's CW Mars or other subscriptions or li you know uh obligations. So those high numbers, those high percentages didn't concern me. But that repair and maintenance did stick out. Yes. And that we really do only have 4,200 out of a budgeted 23,000 left. Yes. So

So yeah, the contracted um services and the rentals and leases. Yeah, that's exactly it. So um our CWMRS bill was paid, our bibliotecha bill was paid. Those all come out of the contracted and and rentals and leases. Um so that's that is not concerning me at all. But the repair and maintenance line is definitely a concern. Um, so moving forward, I'm again I'm working with Will and Evan to figure out how to pay for the upcoming repairs that we have scheduled. Not to mention anything that comes up in the next six months prior to the new fiscal year. Um, I'm sure we'll have more conversations about it in the future. I I did have one question um as a followup to um the the door weight and the building inspector.

Um it just seemed like that item regarding the weight was uh there was a dispute there and that would have seemed to be an objective um type of thing [snorts] and so where are we with that and is it subject to interpretation? I am being ignored by the door manufacturer. So, I've reached out to them a couple of times. Oh. Um to follow up and they've my understanding is they've already received um Tracy Shy's reports, the building inspector's report. Okay.

And documentation and I cannot get a hold of this person to um get any more information. So, is it is it close? Is it is it a stark contrast in their estimates? I don't know what numbers each of them were coming up with. So, I think the I don't know if the numbers were different or if it was just a difference in opinion on what is acceptable, what is an acceptable level. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, we're kind of in a holding pattern until you get a response. Okay. Yeah. I'll keep bugging him. I had a quick question on like expenditures.

So, I know there's like a certain amount we have to spend on like books and and things like that. When I'm looking at those numbers, they all seem below 50% and I believe there's been some challenges in the past where we almost have to like order ahead. So, are you expecting those numbers to jump by January up substantially or not by January? We have till June, right? Yeah. Yeah. There was some delays last year because I think the number of distributors had decreased and so if you don't get your orders in early enough then we won't hit it and so I guess just thinking about that like just making sure we're on track to see a spike so we're not going month by month up to

Yeah. So um so this is there's a few things happening here. First, uh, with the teen librarian's absence, um, she's not been able to get in ordering monthly, um, the way that she would have. So, that is affecting some of that. Some of the low numbers um, are like, for instance, the children's and twins CDs and the adult CDs and um, audio books. we just aren't like we we built that into the the bottom line budget, but we decided to move the funds and use them elsewhere because people aren't borrowing CDs and audio book CDs the way that they have in the past. So, those collections are increasing and we're redirecting funding elsewhere.

So, will we see that be like a low eight 2% through the year but then see another bucket be over budget? Yes. Yes. I know in a prior fiscal year we were $8,000 over budget and and there's a it may have had to do with each of the areas each of the departments not necessarily knowing what the others were uh ordering and allocated. So in its timing too because of the ordering and you know u making sure we knew what the accounts receivable was. So,

um, we also, conversely, we don't want to be too high. And and my my main concern too is that as we're approaching budget season

and we're talking about how much things cost, if there's any efficiencies that we can realize in ordering, we're almost penalized for being efficient because we could possibly order as much if not more stuff if if we get the right, you know, business relationships. um or more efficient business relationships regarding ordering. But then we're forced to to it's based only on money versus um trying to justify that we have a sort of level service regarding the materials that we're making available to the public.

But then MBLC and state aid is is basing it on dollars spent. So you could you could be hypothetically overcharged and then the state will say, "Oh, good. That's a good thing." And it and it and it's really not a good measure. So, but ultimately your department heads know [snorts] their budgets. Yes. And should be expending within their budget. So there's no reason why the material budget should go over. Well, it might be there there is a little bit of a timing issue sometimes because [clears throat] sometimes they place an order and it doesn't get filled. So,

sure. But I think I think Rachel's point was that the department heads should be ahead of that game so that it's not May and June and they're trying to spend money and some of those don't get used. So, they should be well aware of the budget and the timelines and and you should and they should bring it to your attention that it isn't a surprise on June 15th, right? Oh my gosh. that this is that this is happening and it seemed to be the case where and I feel like this is like I just wanted to make sure that there was a plan. It sounds like there's a plan and that that that's on track. So that perfect I mean 51% you're right on schedule for halfway through the fiscal

year. The the other issue is because one of the main book jobs has gone under even though we were already using um Ingram primarily because everybody who was with Baker and Taylor had to go to Ingram it's causing supply chain issues and so even though we're placing orders we're not receiving them. Yeah. Okay. So it's these are lower but way behind the percent placed is a lot higher. So like if we were to see and and that's just what I was trying to get to. So that this if everything came in that's already placed, you would be substantially% better. Perfect. Okay. Okay. So we we only pay for it after it's upon delivery.

We only get invoiced after it's shipped. Oh wow. Yep. And that's because it's a physical good, right? Um do you have a do you feel like you have a really good handle on all the orders placed and they're outstanding? because I know that was a challenge in the past that Allison has that. Allison does all of the ordering. Um and she gets the carts from the department heads I believe. Um so I think that's the Okay. So Al so Allison Kusher is she has a very good handle on it and is way on top of reminding all the department heads and keeping track of all the numbers and doing all

and she can see everything that's been placed. But that's really good. Well, thank you for putting this in because I do think this is extremely valuable to have on a monthly monthly report. Can I ask one other question? Um, any other question? What? Oh, I do. I have one more question. Y um do you have um and we can send out after, but I was just looking for like where all our account balances are. Oh, just like how much money is left in each account, like state aid and all that. That would be helpful. I can definitely get that to you. This was great. And do you want that in like a regular monthly report as well? Yeah, that would be awesome

because especially like it's in your interest because if you ask us for money then we'll then we exactly what's in there. And the other thing too is that uh uh piggybacking off of uh what Rachel mentioned and um is trust accounts and also whether or not we've absolutely closed the door on whether there is any issue that is outstanding on whether we accessed or spent trust monies that shouldn't have spent and and and I I don't know. I think that's a town administrative question.

Are you talking about the trusts that the board has control over? Yeah. Yeah. That we haven't I mean I don't think we've spent trusts that I mean we had a couple expenses that we approved during the renovation process. Are those are those all zeroed out? I [snorts] know that we zeroed out some, didn't we? No, I don't think so. I think we spent a lot of a couple big chunks of the Wheeler trust. Okay. Okay. But I believe there's monies and all of that and we're we're sure that all of the Wheeler stuff and the wording of that trust document leaves no question as to for previous expenses or well moving forward I guess. Yeah, I think so. Okay.

Yeah. I mean the wheel there's two the two big ones are Wheeler and um can't remember the other one. Um not Wheeler um [snorts] Nelson. No. Nelson and Jerome Wheelock. All right. Right. Yeah. Wheelock and Nelson. So, do we have Do we have jurisdiction over Nelson? We do. We do. It's not the Nelson that actually I'm not 100% sure it's Nelson. But the two big accounts we have complete jurisdiction over and it's not the Nelson library stuff. It's separate. Okay. All right. Okay. And the two main ones are primarily around permanent structures like permanent pieces of the library. furniture, fixture, stuff like that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. But I I will work with Katrina because I do think that would be great to have that as a report as well. That'd be really helpful. And if there's a little cheat sheet on the types of things for each just as a like cooking oriented, that would be very helpful. No, that's me too, right? [laughter] We'll get there. Most of them don't have a lot of money in them. I mean, they have thousands, but not tens of thousands or more. Yeah, I did. I was able to see that with Mary Chief

and and I will I will [snorts] just add to my the colleagues to my left, the two colleagues to my left, Carrie and Doug, as to at some point um and an an agenda item soon um whether or not there's any um affirmative plan or or active discussions within your respective uh Capital Campaign, Inc. and the friends with whatever uh um monies and balances there are there whether or not there's certain plans for specific items um you know uh

I mean the friends I think you the friends decide each year what they're going to do but they have traditionally given like $10,000 a year okay like that's what they traditionally do I don't think there's any plans to give any more right than than that but that's what they traditionally so it's more a monetary amount just uh almost like a blank check or is it is it saying all right it's 10,000 is because we expect that x y and z uh services or or items will be needed

so it used to be with the friends that um there were ongoing requests so the um the library director would make periodic requests to the friends and um a number of years ago back when Beth was still um director um a decision was made that that really wasn't like the best use of everybody's time

and that we should have some you know you you trust over the process um so um so the friends decided to give two kind of lumpsum amounts you traditionally recently it's been like 5,000 two two uh portions during the year and the expectation is that that money would be used for primarily for um funding like museum passes and programs and would fund you know those types of things you know but um but it's not

so Jean actually had brought up a question about this as far as like kind of like how funding is kind of allocated. We did have one year where Beth provided um a listing of everything that the friends money was kind of spent on but it's it's [clears throat] more it's a funding source like it's not because we as a board don't have jurisdiction over it. It's semi-restricted then semi but um but Jean had actually um had made a point that we might get more bang for our buck if we didn't use it for um for uh funding the passes but that's traditionally what we've used. So,

so I think that's something that we need to review. But just in general, like it's, you know, the friends, you know, it's also dependent on fundraising ability, but like but that's traditionally what they've they've done in the past and it it could change in the future, but that's traditionally and and then the same with the capital campaign. Capital campaign is really different um because it's you money that was you raised by specific um donors. So some of the donors had restrictions on their funds. So the majority of the capital campaign and it was you know it's like you know a million dollars um was was given to the library. So there's not a lot of money left. My understanding I looked up the 990 easy because you're not over 50,000 in revenues.

The online submission from capital campaign is is the 990 easy. It was like 90,000. Does that sound right? $90,000 balance. It's about 70,000. [snorts] Oh it's down to 70. Okay. Um, so that was a pri the most recent filing of I think it was 23. Um, but the capital campaign is is basically request driven. I mean there are some based on the donors but it's a request driven. So work with the library director and yeah the staff if they come up with ideas

so so for example the capital campaign um funded the replacement table for the friends corner. So so if there is something that comes up that is like a capital in nature it's something that could certainly be considered to be covered. So, is it not something that we plan in advance for? It's usually oneoff. Oops, something broke and we need or it I mean it could be it could be in advance, but right now

it's just something I that is I would want in the back of our head. So, even though as a board as a whole, we don't have jurisdiction over that. But, oddly enough, the two of you and then before a third member of the board were the directors of the very funds. So like you we'd be the requesters but you two would also be the requesters and the decision makers. So I just even though we don't have it freely as a board as a funding source I think with you know budget times being tight um or anticipated being tight for FY27 that we have a more robust discussion as to what's on the table and what's off the table regarding the items that could you know those funds could be spent on and how we go about um deciding how far in advance um to request that that be a funding source.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's another funding source that we have besides the friends, the trusts, and the um the lead. Yeah. Yeah. But knowing what those balances are so that we're not unreasonably depleting those funds. Yep. Too quickly. So, you were right, Doug. It's the um Jerome Wheelock and the Nelson. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. Um any other Thank you for that um director's report. Um I do I do have a request um in for future reports if um I know we've asked for bullet

generally like to start off with bullets, but I think it'd be valuable to have a little bit more commentary on each of these items. Oh, sure. so that we're not like you're not explaining the whole situation to us at this time, but if we have it in advance, we'll be able to understand that and we can just ask like questions, you can hit key points.

And I would also um in the same way that um some other committees, including I'll use select board as an example, their meeting packet is published on the by Friday, typically Friday at noon um in advance of their Tuesday meeting. I' I'd love to be able to have that weekend to digest the director's report. So, I I would like to see that um you know, by that the Friday prior to a meeting. I don't know what everyone else thinks, but I was going to bring that up. I think when we have the new admin

um you know, it's important to get the agenda, you know, um locked in as soon as possible. It's important to have this board's input on the agenda. We typically do not get any input from the um I mean except for like the policy committee but and and the goals but the general committee is not responding to the agenda requests. Um but I think that admin can manage that like you know two weeks before a meeting they send out the the draft agenda and then within that that Friday when that agenda needs to get posted that's when the meeting packet would be ready and distributed. Right. And then everyone would have the weekend to review it. Yeah. I think we could aim for that for the February meeting. January will still be transition, right? Sounds good.

I'm I'm gonna root for the January one. [laughter] Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um I know you posted the um um material the what do you call the stats uh year-over-year from November 25 to 24. I mean, it's encouraging to see most of them going up. Mhm. Um I kind of always think like it's going to plateau. Um but it keeps going up, so that's good. Sure does. 98 programs. That's very well done. Yeah. Yeah. And the attendance, 1600 people attending. We're doing a great job. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you for that. Any other questions for Katrina on the director's report? All right. Um hearing none. Um, we're going to since Chris couldn't make it, I'm not sure if he did the walkabout, but um, we will move that pass over that and um, revisit it next month. Uh, new business. Is this yours, Katrina? It is mine. Okay.

So, um, I apologize for not bringing this to you sooner. Apparently, the town has their annual holiday party the Friday before um, the Christmas vacation days. We were the library staff was invited and I guess it's past practice for the library to close for that hour with 15 minute buffer time around that so that staff can attend the town um staff meeting. So I would like to request that the trustees allow us to close the building from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. to allow the staff to attend the town holiday party. Is that right? At the municipal center. It's at the municipal center.

Yeah. And I know we've done that in the past. Okay. So, I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a m motion for the library to be closed on Friday, December 19th from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. to allow the staff and director to attend the Gra town of Grafton's annual town holiday party in staff a meeting at [laughter] the municipal setting. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any other questions or discussion? All right. Yeah. Hearing none. All those in favor? I I opposed. I declare the motion carried. Have fun at the holiday party. Thank you. Yeah. Enjoy. Appreciate it.

Um we've we've we had some discussion already on the capital campaign. I don't know. Karen, do you have any other updates? I don't really have any other updates and I know we're running late now. So, any any uh questions from the board on the any additional questions from the board on on new business? No. On capital campaign? No. Okay. No. All right. um additional relevant topics that came up after posting the agenda. Um you have any additional

Yeah, I would just say that as a reminder, I don't know if we'd call it old business or new business, but the 2025 town report was that typically the chair I think we spoke about it at a recent meeting, right? for the town report. Um, you'll get a message from the town administrative select board's office that typically that's due by the end of January. Yeah, I have not seen anything on that. Have you seen anything about the annual report? There's typically two. There's a an annual report for the library that the director is responsible for and then there's an annual report from the board of library trustees. I have not. That's not till much later when when we have the annual town meeting. It's not an end of year thing. It's like a That's for the May meeting. May.

Yeah. Okay. No, but the deadline to put it together um it's it's typically the end of January. It used to be much later, but I I think that um All right. It's a 300page document, so they need a lot of lead time to put that together and format it. And they actually proofread it now. I I at some point I don't think they did, but now they proofread it and come back to the various committees and say there's a misspelling here or this is not accurate or this doesn't seem right. William would know about I would just say that Katrina and I will keep an eye out for it. D's done it before. I've done it before. I know Roger and Aaron probably done it before. Yeah. You did it last year, didn't you? I did do it last year.

Yeah. Um, but I know either Cindy or Amber in the town administrator's office typically are the communicators of the dead that deadline and it's generally been the end of January. Yeah. And you should be able to go through the library somewhere and see the old annual reports and kind of see the kind of cont. [laughter] But the library is, you know, it's going to be a [clears throat] little difficult for you since you're only been here for a couple months, but um, we can I can help you with that. So, um, some of the staff can help you with that.

Yeah. And then one other item that we're going to be facing as a committee and it's it's partly because we also have an extracted website from the Grafton ma.gov um title two of the Americans with Disability Act, the ADA um web content accessibility guidelines WCAG2.2 to the municipal deadlines, a federal deadline is April 26 of 27 U for websites, municipal websites to be of the federal WCAG 2.2 guidelines. And so, um, I know that the town uses Civic Plus. It came before my other committee, accessibility advisory commission. Um but that was as in harmony working in harmony with uh civic plus providing the uh web support for the grafton ma.gov made

can I use for a second? So if you want me to put this in the meeting minutes, can you send this information? [laughter] I I can't I would just No, no, just put No, just putility was discussed website. Yeah. In other words, um I think a lot of times we sometimes think we need to transcribe when it's uh website accessibility ADA 426 of 27 uh deadline for upgrades. And Katrina, I know you've been chatting a little bit about the side about like stuff with the website. So sounds like April 2027 is plenty of time for everything you're thinking about. So it sounds like you have that

April 26 27 deadline. And and to to note, we do not use Civic Plus, right?

Um so uh we use a WordPress site. So a lot of the issues with Civic Plus are not present in ours. However, our website is um old and needs to be redone and that is very much um on my list of things. And and I I'll mention that um I thought that April 27 sounded like a faraway date and I I I don't want this to be a distracting [snorts] focus as you've started your tenure here, but I originally thought that that sound that sounded to me like a far away date and with respect to the task at hand, it actually isn't.

And so it's not too early to be having um these discussions. That's all. Yep. Just one thing with regards to the website. So when you look into options for the new website, please keep in mind the friends as well because they need it. It it um right now there's kind of like a feed, but the website that was developed for the friends is in a language that nobody other than um Aaron Kusher um Schwarz not Schwarz um Dan Kusher Dan Kusher um is the only one that knows it. So we so we want to make sure like even if the friends have to pay for it that it's done in concert with the friends.

Okay, great. Good. And just uh whenever at your leisure um Northampton has an amazing website. Go to Northampton's website and um you'll see this um sort of lime green I think it's a wheelchair icon that um there's a different menu of accessibility type um features that it'll library page. Is it their library? No, it's a No, it's it's a municipal page. But I'm saying that um it's it's a it's something to look at to see the types of features um that make things accessible. That's all. But I I don't I don't know what other libraries are doing though. What town was it? Roger.

Northampton. Northampton. Northampton. Yeah. [snorts] as an example of one of many, I'm sure, that are robust, but um they seem to have done a good job at at uh their recent updates. That's good. So, and if you need any involvement from the board on this website redesign or monies to fund some help with the development, you know, be sure to account for that. A lot of these are unfunded. First and foremost, [snorts] it sounds like this is a municipal requirement, right? And we need to know if the library website is under purview of redevelopment of the municipal website. We're told it's not. We discussed this in in accessibility advisory commission that

it's only the town is only been um doing the Grafton ma.gov website and the uh police, the school district and uh library have extracted websites that don't fall under this whole civic plus municipal stuff. So it looks like we have some time. Yeah. No, we have time. It's just it's something that that it's not too early to at least call it to the board's attention. And so are we not tied to that April 2027 deadline?

No, we are tied to it. What I'm saying is is that it's not too early to be bringing this discussion up because the amount of work that's needed to bring websites up to snuff is is significant. No, I know Rachel's point is just because we're not the town website, we're still under that guidance. Oh, yeah. Has any work been done to say like if it is out of compliance or you just are we assuming it's out of I'm assuming it's out of compliance. So, I think we just need to understand if it is and how and change. So, there's actually um an online tool and the name is escaping me where you can filter your website through this tool and it'll tell you every single

40%. Yeah. If it's a WordPress site of of where where the accessibility issues are, right? I'll run that report and follow up with you at our meeting. And it may also be worth checking in with um with William on it too because if there's specific like just because that site says you're not compliant, it might not be what we minimum requirements are based on on that April 2027, but it it's uh it's title two of ADA is state and uh local governments. So, we fall under that, you know, municipal municipal um, you know, deadline.

Okay. I'd like you to take that offline and kind of see what other libraries are doing because Absolutely. I mean, if [snorts] if we're not required I mean, no, we are required. Well, I don't know that we are. Well, we're we're a municipality and and we're a division of a municipality. Okay. We're a division of a municipality, right? And that's what I want to understand. Like, okay. I just need to know if it's [snorts] yes, you have to do this or no, but you should do this. I'd rather the second one than the first one. All right. Yeah, I'll absolutely find that out. Well, I think it's for a director. All right. Yeah. Okay. If you'd like to, then you find that out. Okay.

And and I I think, you know, I I'll have to step back a second, Aaron. I keep on um sometimes inadvertently putting my other committee hat on. Sure. Sure. because we've been robustly discussing this in our in the other committee and it was it wasn't in question that the other websites of those departments needed to be in compliance. That's all. Yeah. But that's why we have a diverse board of different expertise. So yeah, that that's Yeah, that's your task and but I I I'm pretty sure you'll find the answer is yes. Sure. That's all. Yeah, sounds good. Okay. All right. Um any public input? Nope. Not that nobody on Zoom.

No. Um okay. So given that our next let's see next meetings of friends is January 13th at 7:30. That's a Zoom meeting. Um the policy subcommittee is still scheduled for January 6th and um Aaron will reach out if Prau can't make it so that we can look for volunteers for another trustee to go. Yep. And then our next meeting is January 28th. Um, you know, if anyone realizes they cannot make uh one of our board meetings, it's great to let us know as soon as possible. I mean, I know there's always short-term stuff that comes up, but if if there's enough of us that can't make it, you know, then and we have enough notice, we can consider re rescheduling.

I think that's a great point. I'm glad you brought brought it up because, you know, as um elected officials, right, we all have personal lives and schedules, right? So, we commit to certain meeting dates and, you know, um duties for the board. Um we should reasonably know if we can't make a meeting not an hour beforehand, right? Um unless it's an emergency or extenduating circumstances. So, um this is just a reminder for all of us that the proper way to go about this is to um ask to be excused from the meeting and and have it be um um and communicate that through the through the through the chair,

right? Because we've had issues in the past where people can't make meetings and they can't make meetings and can't make meetings and then uh the the bylaws say four meetings and consecutive, right? four consecutive missed meetings are up for discussion of the board being um removed from the board. Right? That's within our purview to do so. So, I know there's others who aren't here that can hear this, but I think Doug can certainly um you know, communicate that or they can look at the meeting minutes, but um we have had to have discussions with board members who uh consistently just don't show up. And I'll say that there's a there's a tech there's a technicality where someone could miss three meetings, make one, miss three, make and and they haven't missed

that happen too. Yeah. And and maybe it should be maybe it should be, you know, four in a row or the lesser of four in a row or so many within any 12-month period. Yeah. Because there's a loophole on that where they could be missing 75% of the meetings but never have missed four in a row. Yeah. But then that's up to the chair to have discussions and say, "Hey, you really need to be coming." Yeah. And if it continues, then oh well, maybe they won't run next time. Right. Right. Or step down early. Yeah. Or like I said, if we know in advance, enough in advance, and there's more than one person that can't make it, we can consider rescheduling. Right. Yeah. That's Yeah. Okay. I move to adjourn and let if you are you ready to accept? I am ready to accept. Motion to adjurnn. I move to adjurnn.

Seconded. Motion made and seconded. All in favor? I uh opposed. I declare the motion carried. And so we are adjourned at 9:24. So hope everyone has a happy holiday. All right. You too.