Attending: Dee Magnoni, President; Tom Jewell, Vice President/President Elect; Leslie Schoenherr, Past President; Cathy Lee, Treasurer; Bobbie Myles, Clerl, Jeff Cramer, Cynthia English; Jeannette Hudson, Linda Stetson; Paul Kissman, MBLC; Sunny Vandermark, MMRLS
Meeting called to order at 2:35 pm.
Consent agenda
Approved: Hudson/Stetson
Introductions: Question how long on the Metrowest Board?
Dee gave a brief overview of Metrowest Committees, including two new committees PR/Marketing (Dee Magnoni, Jeff Cramer, and Bobbie Myles have volunteered for the PR Committee) and a Task Force to review By Laws (Hope Tillman from Babson has volunteered to work on By Laws). Other Metrowest Committees need volunteers, especially the budget committee.
Sunny gave a brief overview of the Institute.
Executive Board members and all members are encouraged to attend the legislative breakfasts. Sunny announced that there is a small committee working on the planning this year. Invitations will be mailed to legislators and Metrowest members.
Beth Gallaway is going to a four day week beginning in February. Deval Patrick / Tim Murray Transition Team’s report from the Civic Engagement Working Group includes suggestions for libraries. One suggestion was to get broadband Internet access. Problem in places in Western Mass. especially where there is no infrastructure. Goal is to make libraries the first place that gets Internet access in a town. MBLC is doing research about this for the new administration so the plan can move ahead.
9506 line item increased. Construction bond bill - MBLC trying to increase to $100 million. State aid round is about wrapped up. Medway made an appeal for a waiver. These libraries had more than a 5% disproportionate (Ashland, Lenox, Medway) cut in their budget. Regional library services continue as Medway residents pay Mass. taxes. 9C cuts were restored by Governor Deval Patrick. Database procurement finalists will be interviewed soon and a decision will be made in March, effective July 1, 2007. MBLC completed a needs assessment (from the authentication task force). There are barriers to usage and one way to increase usage is a federated search. Proposals from this task force are due around June. Irving H. Zangwill has been appointed Commissioner. John Arnold is off the MBLC.
Meeting adjourned at 4PM.
Submitted,
Bobbie Myles, Clerk
Our FY2008 Plan of Service and Budget was approved at the January 4th MBLC Executive Board meeting. At the same meeting there was a detailed presentation on the survey and focus group results from the MBLC Authentication Task Force. Three communities presented a case for why each of the public libraries should get a waiver on meeting the standards. The MBLC will vote on the petitions at their February Board meeting.
Planning for the Library Leadership Institute 2007 is progressing. Metrowest will be the coordinator and fiscal agent. There is a contract in place between Metrowest and the MBLC. The selection process for the Institute has occurred and Judy sent out the notification information today. We have an excellent pool of candidates.
We have scheduled a second Gates funded Sustainability workshop at Minuteman on February 6th. It was disappointing that more of our public library members did not attend the November workshop as sustainability is an issue for everyone. We are hopeful that more people will attend at MLN.
With the holidays and staff vacations things have been pretty quiet at Metrowest. Beth and I are attending ALA in Seattle.
See you on the 10th at 2:30—unless you are a new board member, in which case I’ll see you at 1:30 pm!