DEARBORN DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARIES

LIBRARY COMMISSION MEETING

June 13, 2008

1. ATTENDANCE

In attendance were: Mr. Marcel Pultorak, Chairperson, Mrs. Nancy Zakar, Secretary-Treasurer. Mr. Robert Taub, Mrs. Candyce Abbatt and Mr. David Schlaff, Commissioners. Mrs. Maryanne Bartles, Library Director; Mrs. Julie Schaefer, Deputy Library Director; Mr. Steve Smith, Administrative Librarian.

Excused: Dr. Alex Shami, Vice-Chairperson

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the May Library Commission meeting were approved as submitted.

3. FOUNDATION UPDATE

1. Reception-Friday, May 30, 2008 6-8pm- Mrs. Bartles stated that the Foundation sent out about 400 invitations. About 60 people attended the event. The event went well and there were no problems. We are getting rave reviews from the public on the newly renovated children’s area. Julie Schaefer reported that we are going to have a public open house for the new children’s area on Thursday, June 19, 2008 from 3-5pm. The next Library Foundation meeting is June 17 at 6pm.

4. BUDGET UPDATE- Mrs. Bartles reported that the budget was passed. Our operating budget has stayed pretty stable. The removal, repair and rehang of the tapestry in the rotunda at HFCL was approved as maintenance rather than as a capital project. The work will be done by a tapestry conservator. We have already upgraded the security gates at HFCL and Esper. Upgrading the security gates at Snow Branch was approved as part of this operating budget. Mrs. Bartles passed out a handout listing the current capital projects from a database she created. There was discussion regarding which capital projects were funded for next year including the cornices at Bryant Branch, damaged ceiling tiles, emergency lighting, new carpeting and roof repair at Esper Branch, Snow Branch exterior wall repair on the loading dock, correcting issues with the fire alarm at HFCL, upgrading the sound and technical equipment in the auditorium at HFCL, wallpaper replacement at HFCL, complete relamping of the library buildings and the mezzanine renovation at HFCL. The City has three preferred architectural companies and Mrs. Bartles will work with them on the mezzanine renovations. Mr. Schlaff asked Mrs. Bartles if she could email him the name of the three preferred architectural vendors that the City uses. Mrs. Jawad also asked for this information. The plan for the mezzanine renovations will include adding meeting rooms, a men’s and women’s restroom and a café while maintaining some storage space and a workroom for Processing. There was discussion relating to the penthouse panels at HFCL. Mrs. Bartles is having another assessment of the penthouse panels done as the two assessments done in the past were very different.

5. INFORMATION ITEMS

A. Library Commission Appointment-Jihan Jawad-Mr. Pultorak welcomed new Library Commissioner Jihan Jawad to the Commission. Mrs. Jawad is an architect.

B. Wireless connectivity- Mrs. Bartles stated we are getting ready to go out for quote on wireless Internet at HFCL, Esper and Snow. As Mrs. Bartles mentioned at the last meeting, Bryant Branch, has wireless access under the “Open Dearborn” wireless cloud established in west Dearborn by the West Dearborn Downtown Development Authority. We could put our wireless access in at Bryant but it would not be free, while the connection offered by the Open Dearborn access is free. Mrs. Bartles stated that the proposal to add wireless access at HFCL, Esper and Snow will have to go before the City Council for approval and they may question why establishing wireless at the libraries is going to cost more than the Open Dearborn service did. The Open Dearborn service is not filtered, has no logging and does not require authentication. We will need to purchase hardware and software to enable wireless users to authenticate and for those who do not have a library card, to pay to use the service. Mr. Pultorak stated that if we do not require authentication it is possible that we will have so many people using the wireless service it will use up all of our bandwidth. Mr. Pultorak stated that the DDA’s service not being filtered also allows for the possibility of children seeing something unseemly on someone’s laptop at the Bryant Branch Library which will require the staff to police the patrons using wireless. Mrs. Bartles stated that because the Bryant Branch is small the staff can keep an eye on the situation but it would impossible to do that at any of the other library locations, hence the need for filters. So far the supervisor at Bryant Branch says that he has not had any problems with patrons using the wireless access provided by the DDA. Mrs. Bartles stated that patrons at all library locations are requesting wireless Internet access quite often.

C. Librarian II position- Mrs. Bartles stated that with Tara Gnau’s retirement we are not going to fill her Administrative Librarian position. We need more staff on the floor helping the public so we are going to create a Librarian II position that will most likely be placed in children’s at HFCL and we will promote someone to fill that position. Julie Schaefer has been serving as both the Deputy Library Director as well as the supervisor for children’s at HFCL which has been difficult. We do need to test applicants for the Librarian II position as it is a supervisory position and we do not want to use the same test that has been used several times in the past. The Human Resources Department is looking for a new test we can use.

6. ACTION ITEMS-

A. Banning Notification- Mrs. Schaefer reported that the Security Committee developed a form quite a while ago that could be given to a patron being banned to explain the procedure but a decision had not been made by the Security Committee about using it. However, a situation came up recently in which it would have helped to have something to hand to the patron. We decided that we wanted to get Library Commission approval, before using it with our patrons. We would only use the form for more extensive bans, rather than for when we ask someone to leave for the day or for a week. Mr. Taub asked who makes the decision to ban a patron. Mrs. Bartles stated that the person in charge or the supervisor makes the decision, usually with input from the security guard, in the library buildings that have security. Mrs. Bartles stated that we follow a program of progressive discipline. Before banning someone for an extensive period of time there has usually been a pattern of behavior and previous shorter bans. Mrs. Bartles stated that the banning notification was shown to the Legal Department. Mr. Pultorak stated that the Recreation Department probably has similar policies. Mrs. Abbatt stated it would be helpful to review the policies that the Recreation Department has in place for the Ford Performing Arts Center so we can have consistency between City departments. Mr. Pultorak asked that Administration review the Recreation Departments policies and report back to the Library Commission at the September meeting. Mr. Schlaff asked how often the need to ban a patron comes up. Mrs. Schaefer stated that banning for extensive periods does not happen that often but enough that we have a need to document the situations. If it were an instance where the police were involved they will often tell the patron that they are banned from the library. Mrs. Bartles stated that there are basic types of problem patrons that could involve banning for longer periods of time than a day or a week. They are very unruly teenagers, mentally unstable patrons, volatile patrons and patrons looking at inappropriate things on the computer who have been warned about doing so. Mrs. Abbatt stated that if the patrons being banned are minors we should mail the form to the parents rather than hand the form to the child as it will probably not make it home. Mrs. Abbatt moved to adopt the notification of banning with the changes mentioned, seconded by Mr. Taub, all approved.

B. Claims Returned- Mrs. Bartles stated that claims returned is when a patron claims to have returned an item but we do not have it. We give patrons the benefit of the doubt in these situations up to three times. When someone claims to have returned something it stays in the catalog because Horizon will not let us purge the item from the system without removing the patron record information. We were going to ask the Commission to allow us to remove those items from the catalog when they are five years old. However, we found that in the switch over from Dynix to Horizon we lost the dates from the old system. So we decided that we are going to have Horizon to create a program for us that will allow us to remove the items from the catalog and not lose the patron record information.

C. Checkout Threshold- Mrs. Schaefer stated that we have a limit on Horizon whereupon patrons are stopped from checking out if they owe $5 or more in fines. The limit has been $5 for at least twenty years. Now that we have the ability for patrons to renew materials from home on the computer and patrons come in to use the Internet the $5 limit is causing problems. Patrons are not able to sign on to the Internet at the library or renew materials. Mr. Pultorak asked if there was a way to tell how long a patron owed the fines. Mrs. Bartles stated that all fines have to be paid off every year or patrons cannot renew their library card. The Circulation Committee has recommended raising the threshold amount to $10. This will not change the amount of fines at which a patron is sent to collections. Mrs. Abbatt asked if a patron can bypass this current $5 limit to log on the Internet. Mrs. Schaefer stated only by purchasing an Internet day passes for $1. Mrs. Abbatt stated that in that way the library is collecting more money. Mrs. Jawad stated she thought it benefited the library to keep the threshold at $5 as it requires patrons to pay their fines sooner and raising it allows patrons to continue to check out materials when they owe fines. Mrs. Zakar stated we have raised our fines so a patron is going to reach the threshold amount sooner than in the past and without making this change many patrons fines will continue to grow before they can get to the library if they are not able to renew online. Mrs. Abbatt stated that the $5 limit is an incentive for patrons to return materials in a timely manner and she was not sure that doubling the threshold amount was the answer with our budget going backwards. Mr. Pultorak stated a certain amount of discipline for people is not a bad thing. He asked if we knew how much material we were losing because patrons are not returning it, particularly DVD’s and CD’s. Mrs. Schaefer stated that we get a report from our collection agency that shows how many patrons were sent to collections as well as the amount of fines and materials recovered by the collection agency. Mr. Pultorak stated that they would table this item until the September meeting. Mrs. Bartles stated that they would give the Commission some statistics in September.

7. COMMENTS

Mr. Pultorak stated that if any of the Commissioners are interested in seeing a presentation given by the Oakland County Deputy County Executive on the state of the Michigan’s budget problems. It is about an hour and half long and Mr. Pultorak will email the link to the Commissioners.

Mrs. Bartles stated that we are adding some new online databases. We are getting a small engine repair database, a home improvement database and a literary criticisms database.

Mrs. Abbatt asked who was in charge of the volunteers at Bryant now that Tara Gnau has retired. Mrs. Bartles stated that we are having a meeting with the Volunteer Committee next week regarding this issue. We are trying to divide up Tara’s tasks but there are only three Administrators now. Tara had three major committee tasks, the Marketing Committee, Volunteer Committee and the Video Committee. We are still working out how we will handle the volunteer and video aspects of Tara’s tasks. The ideal situation would be to have a volunteer in charge of coordinating the volunteer program but we have not gotten to that point yet. There is an orientation process that we want volunteers to go through before they volunteer at a library so that they will have a good understanding of the types of jobs volunteers do for us. Tara had two or three volunteer orientations before she left. We now need someone to coordinate the orientation process as well. Mrs. Abbatt asked if Tara Gnau was interested in volunteering to coordinate the volunteer program. Mrs. Bartles stated that, as of now, she is not. Mrs. Abbatt stated she suggested to Mrs. Bartles that the Library Commissioners tape some of the video segments that Tara used to do about the library for CDTV. Mrs. Bartles stated that Tara taped enough segments to get through the summer so we have a little bit of time to work out how we will proceed in the future.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:20pm.