Minutes: Joint Board Meeting October 17 2017

[Rev. Elizabeth]

Fairfax Community Library
Joint Board Meeting
October 12, 2017

The Joint Board met October 12 in the Conference Room.  Present were, librarians Debbie Landauer, and Joy Mercer, principal John Tague, school board member, Kathy Muehl, and trustees Pat Gallant and Liz Griffin.  The meeting was called to order at 6:32.

There was neither public input nor correspondence. 

With one correction to a date, mis-stated as BFA-Fairfax renovations last done 1948 instead of 1984, the minutes of the April Joint Board meeting were accepted after a motion to accept made by Kathy.

Joy Mercer, the school library director presented highlights from her quarterly reports.
Gigi Preibe, a new author, made an excellent presentation about her book,” Adventures of Henry Whiskers,” to the 2nd graders. 

Currently Joy has 35 scheduled classes.  A record number of students, primarily middle school and high school students, use the library during the day.  This increase may be attributed to the change in the school schedule.

There have been many compliments made about the new library furniture and display racks.

The after school sewing class, now held in the Fairfax Room, has taken advantage of the new, sectioned table of moveable parts, so that each student has his/her own table to work at and own sewing machine.

Joy discussed Challenged Books with 5th graders during Banned Book Week.

Debbie Landauer the publiclibrary director shared 2nd and 3rd quarter highlights.

The library hosted a post Egg Hunt event with hot chocolate and refreshments. 200+ people.

The library, through a $1500 grant through RiseVT will create a story work on the Recreation path from  May through October 2018. Each month a different book will be displayed along the walk.
A donation was made in memory of a local scientist, John Townsend. Debbie plans to purchase a microscope that will be available for patrons to sign out.
A donation of $1000 for programs given by Barbara Murphy will allow the library to purchase a telescope from the Vermont Astronomical Society for $350. Said telescope can be checked out by patrons.

The BackPack Theatre was featured at the opening event for the Summer Reading Program.
The Summer Reading Program had online registration which was well received, and thus will be continued.  This year students recorded minutes read rather than books read.  This too, was well received and will be continued.
Enrollment in the Summer Reading Program was 245 youth (a record number), and collectively they read for 113,880 minutes.

The library participated in Vermont Reads.  The book, “Brown Girls Dreaming” was discussed; the movie “Selma” was shown, and a speaker addressed Black Lives Matter, among other programing around the book.
Both the Art Bop program featuring local artists, and The Renaissance Faire featuring Renaissance related activities for all ages were popular programs.
The Eclipse Party, too, was very popular. 130 people attended.

After school programs have commenced.

The library staff was evaluated in September.

There is a new interlibrary loan process called Clover, and all the staff have been trained in its use.

As they have in the past, the library is collection donations of Halloween candy to be distributed to residents of Main Street and environs who are inundated with trick or treaters.

The library also gives out treats, but those are self-funded.

New Business

The facilities committee will address how to move forward after the defeat of the bond issue. In response to a query from Pat, John Tague said that the $200,000 sum targeting library renovations was an estimate derived from the architects work.

The next Joint Board meeting will be held in April 12, 2018.

Kathy made a motion to adjourn, and we adjourned at 7 PM.

Respectfully submitted

Rev. Elizabeth Griffin, secretary.