HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 03 19 2015 LABMinutes 03 19 2015 LAB Page 1
Library Advisory Board
March 19, 2015
Assembly:
The Library Advisory Board met in Regular Session on Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 2:00 p.m.
in the Board Room of the New Hanover County Public Library, 201 Chestnut Street,
Wilmington, NC.
Members Present: Denise Chadurjian, Amy Damutz, John Gardner, Harriet Smith,
Paul Smith, Elizabeth Stanfield, Emilie Swearingen, Virginia
Teachey
Members Excused: Gwendolyn Brown, John Osinski, Bradford Walker
Members Absent:
Library Staff Members: Harry Tuchmayer, Paige Owens, Krista Dean, Raquel Fava
FOL Rep: Patti Bonner
Foundation Rep: Ronna Zimmer (Excused)
The meeting was called to order by Chair, Virginia Teachey at 2:00 p.m.
New Member Introductions
Chair, Virginia Teachey introduced new member Amy Damutz. Ms. Damutz took a moment to
share her background and interests with the board.
Public Comment and Agenda Review
No members of the public were present.
Chair, Virginia Teachey asked if any members of the board would like to remove or add any
item(s) from the Agenda. Mr. Tuchmayer requested to add Book Sale to New Business.
With that addition, the Agenda was approved.
Approval of Minutes of Previous Meeting
The minutes from the last board meeting on February 19, 2015 were sent to the board prior to the
meeting for review. The minutes were approved as written.
Motion: Harriet Smith MOVED, SECONDED Paul Smith, to approve the February 19, 2015
minutes as written. Upon vote, the MOTION WAS CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
Correspondence
Harry Tuchmayer shared copies of the recent Star News articles on the recent Teen Fashion
event and the upcoming book sale.
Minutes 03 19 2015 LAB Page 2
The SE Area Friends of NC Public Libraries workshop on Social Media was held on March 7 at
Main Library. We received a thank you note from the organization for allowing them to use our
facility.
We received a grievance letter from a patron regarding an incident with our Security Guard.
This matter has been resolved.
Friends of the Library Report
Patti Bonner reported the following:
Four new photo galleries from recent events have been added to the website.
We hosted the SE Area Friends of NC Public Libraries workshop on Social Media on
March 7 at Main Library.
The Spring Book Sale starts this Friday and will be held on two weekends.
The Spring Round 2 of our mini grants program is launched and staff will be sending us
proposals before the end of the month.
We have an Edible Book Contest coming up.
We have added four new board members.
Library Foundation Report
The 1st Annual Foundation Luncheon Fundraiser was held Feb. 26th from 11:30 – 1:00 at the NE
branch. Shane Fernando with CFCC was the speaker for the event and we learned so much
about the new facility. We are thrilled that over $5,000 was raised from the luncheon.
Director’s Report
Harry Tuchmayer distributed the Director’s monthly reports to the board prior to the meeting.
In addition to the items covered in the reports, he reported on the following:
Children’s staff is working hard to prepare for the Summer Reading Club. This year’s
theme will be Super Heroes.
The requested budget has been reviewed and we have been asked to cut $17,000 from the
budget.
It’s survey time! The library will be holding customer service survey’s online and in
person at all branches. There will also be a US Impact survey for use of technology in
the library that will be on our public access computers.
We are constantly looking at new software programs that we can make available to our
patrons. Coming soon, the library will make two new products available to our patrons.
The first is Self-E, an ebook publishing service running on NC Live’s biblioboard
platform. And BiblioBoard Creator, a tool that makes it easy for libraries to feature their
own digital special collections in a multi-media environment.
New Business
Book Sales
Paige Owens reported the following:
Board member, Denise Chadurjian created an analysis of the book sales operations to
find ways to streamline our process.
Minutes 03 19 2015 LAB Page 3
Staff member, Trish Hatcher, has been instrumental in getting the word out about the
library and our book sales. In addition she is always looking for new and creative ways
to sell our books outside of the FOL book sales such as:
o George the Library Duck books are now being sold at The Ivy Cottage. They
have already sold 6 books and we have gotten our first check.
o Our book sale at the airport has been very successful and we continue to get
requests for books and we just received another check from them.
o Magazines from NE slated to be discarded along with paperback books are being
delivered to the NHC Jail.
The spring book sale starts tomorrow. It will run for 2 weekends. We have already
gotten a lot of calls from the article that ran in the Star News.
The Volunteer Spot program were book sale volunteers can sign up was shown to the
board along with the online training and tutorial links.
Old Business
Carolina Courtyard
Harry Tuchmayer stated that we do not have a signed contract at this time but hopes to be able to
present it at the next meeting.
Staff Reports
Reach Out & Read
Staff members, Krista Dean & Raquel Fava, presented the Reach Out & Read program to the
board. The program ensures that all NHC children are ready to succeed in Kindergarten as
identified the County’s Strategic Plan. They have developed Math & Science kits for use in
preschool classrooms. The kits stay in the classrooms for one month and are then rotated. They
provide teachers with the tools and information needed to teach topics such as Insects,
Dinosaurs, Shapes, Patterns, Counting, Building, Magnification, Sorting, Planting and many
more. In addition they provide books, demo story times and classroom visits. This program
reaches over 1,000 a month.
Adjournment
There being no further business, Chair Teachey adjourned the meeting at 3:45 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Gwendolyn Brown
New Hanover County Library Advisory Board
Yvette Mays
NHCPL Administrative Support Specialist
Please note that the above minutes are not a verbatim record of the Library Advisory Board
meeting.