Minutes of Scheduled Board of Trustees Meeting

March 21, 2001

Call to Order

The regular monthly meeting of the Library Board of Trustees was called to order at 7:06 p.m. In attendance were Board President Hope Furth, Trustees Toni Cox-Burns, Janet Elmiger, Campbell Geeslin, P. Lynn Oliva, Library Director Sandra Miranda, and Assistant Library Director Charlotte Szabo. Absent with notice were Trustees DeSoye, Simmons, Smith and Yanofsky. On a motion by Trustee Cox-Burns, seconded by Trustee Geeslin, Trustee Elmiger was appointed as Secretary Pro-Tem.

Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Library Board of Trustees

The minutes of the annual and regular meetings of February 21, 2001 were approved on a motion by Trustee Geeslin, seconded by Trustee Elmiger.

City Expenditure & Revenue Budget Reports

City Expenditure & Revenue Budget Reports as of 2/28/01 were reviewed by the Board.

Bills: 2000/01 Budget: #15 & #16

The payment of bill vouchers #15 and #16 were approved on a motion by Trustee Elmiger seconded by Trustee Cox-Burns.

Report of Library Administration

Department reports for February 2001 and Budget Calendar for FY 2001-02 were reviewed by the Board. Library Director Miranda reported on meetings with our staff, WLS, and PLDA regarding proposed new online procedures to facilitate resource sharing between White Plains and the WLS libraries. These procedures will hopefully be approved at the April PLDA meeting and an implementation date chosen. Regarding staff report on online holds, Trustee Furth asked about new internal inventory controls, and Library Director Miranda reported that these were now in place and that staff awareness had been raised about responsibility for materials in-process and check-out of all items in use. Relative to the Director’s monthly report, Trustee Furth suggested that the upcoming exhibit by noted artist Jerry Pinkney would present an important opportunity for special outreach to Foundation donors and prospects, and all agreed that events planning should take this into consideration.

WLS

Board President Furth reported that a draft of the Strategic Long-Range Plan was expected soon, and that catalog enhancements demonstrated at a previous WLS meeting would not be implemented.

Friends

Trustee Elmiger was pleased to report the Friends were successful in getting a prominent author, James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers, to speak at their annual meeting on May 19. Trustee Elmiger encouraged the Board to attend the Volunteer Tea honoring Rae Faith Robinson, President of Friends, on April 2 at 2:30 p.m.

Foundation

Mrs. Miranda reported: the Foundation celebration event on March 7, 2001 was a wonderful success; there was no Foundation meeting in March; the Foundation Executive Committee will meet March 26 to discuss budget, staffing, and nomination of new board member; the next Foundation Board meeting is April 4.

Advocacy

Library Director Miranda reported that, per materials distributed to Board, letters, calls and visits to our State representatives are needed now in support of Senate bill #3714, Assembly bill #7296 to increase funding for libraries.

Library Board

The Board was pleased to receive notification of the Common Council’s March appointment of new Library Trustee, Nancy Smith, who will begin her orientation next week.

Trustee Cox-Burns was pleased to report she was selected to receive the YWCA Outstanding Achievement award. This will be presented at a luncheon on Friday, June 8 at the Westchester Marriott. Mrs. Cox-Burns thanked Trustee Geeslin for suggesting that she be nominated and Assistant Library Director Szabó for the superb job she did in writing the nomination. Mrs. Cox-Burns said that when she received the call, she was told the competition was stiff with over 400 nominees.

Outreach

Trustee Oliva reported the next meeting of the CNA will be at the Library on April 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Library Garage

The Board reviewed and discussed recent correspondence relative to requests made of the Parking Authority regarding staff and patron use of the Library Garage. Mrs. Miranda reported that her suggestion to issue night/weekend permits to part-time staff was approved, and that this would better control the number of daytime permits issued. She stated that her priority was to preserve daytime parking privileges for staff and volunteers who needed them. Other responses were not as positive, and the Board further discussed these requests. On a motion by Trustee Geeslin, seconded by Trustee Elmiger, the Board agreed that Board President Hope Furth would send a letter to the Parking Authority Board inviting them or a representative of their Parking Authority Board to attend an upcoming Library Board meeting to discuss mutual interest in improving parking availability for Library patrons, and that the Library would conduct a simple in-house survey to assess patron experiences with parking in the Library Garage.

Personnel

Mrs. Miranda shared her memo to staff, ably written by Ms. Szabó, announcing the retirement of Joyce Bush after 34 years of dedicated service, and asked the Board to join her and the Library staff on April 10 at 2:30 p.m. a farewell tea. Library Director Miranda reported the Law Department was provided with all information requested in relation to vacation allocation and was in the process of reviewing. Mrs. Miranda gave the Board a revised listing of full-time personnel. On a motion by Trustee Oliva, seconded by Trustee Geeslin, the Board went into Executive Session to discuss personnel matters leading to the employment, promotion and discipline of various persons. On a motion by Trustee Cox-Burns, seconded by Trustee Elmiger, the Executive Session was ended. On a motion by Trustee Oliva, seconded by Trustee Geeslin, the Board agreed that over the next six months, actions should be taken to fill two Librarian vacancies with candidates that have been identified, recruit two additional candidates for librarian vacancies (1 Children’s, 1 Adult), seek promotions for four librarians and a library clerk that have taken on substantive additional responsibilities, seek reclassification of the Clerk position in Business Office, pursue reclassification of all extant Library Clerk positions to Office Assistant I, and fill a clerical vacancy and assign to Business Office.

Code of Conduct - Amendments

On a motion by Trustee Cox-Burns, seconded by Trustee Geeslin, the Board approved the Code of Conduct Amendments as presented.

Library Trends

The Board briefly discussed article on library trends, "How the Year’s Top Stories will impact you in 2001," from the December 2000 issue of Library Journal.

Adjournment

There being no more business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 9:03 p.m. on a motion by Trustee Geeslin, seconded by Trustee Elmiger.

Janet Elmiger, Secretary Pro-Tem

Library Board of Trustees