The Chairperson, Nancy Eggenberger, called the meeting to order at 7:31 PM.

Present: N. Eggenberger, M. Farell, S. Foster, D. Turner

Absent: J. Fausone, T. Hartnett

Also Present: E. Davis, K. Gladden

Call To Audience

(L. Golden, R. Havenstein-Coughlin, M. Nicholson, L. Papa, D. Skopczynski, N. Szczepanski) – None

Approval Of Agenda

The agenda was approved as amended by unanimous consent.

Approval Of General Meeting Minutes

The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.

Communications

E. Davis acknowledged a thank you note received from Secretary/Treasurer M. Farell for flowers sent by the board to her grandmother’s funeral.

Director's Report

2014 invoices are still coming in. The financial reports will officially be adjusted and closed out after the auditors come at the end of February; Davis expects that the library will end the year with around $200,000 to be added to the Fund Balance. She also explained that deferred income listed on the balance sheet summary was actually 2015 tax revenue that had been received in 2014.

Davis will contact Jerry Grady, chair of the Canton Community Foundation board, and arrange for him and the foundation’s interim leader Greg Schupra to meet with the board about transferring the endowment to the Foundation.

Davis and accountant D. McHugh met with Canton Township Finance Director Wendy Trumbull and Accounting Manager Sarah Clay to further discuss the possibility of pre-payment of the building bond. According to the bond financing company, multiple options are available which would not negatively impact the township. A decision by the library board and the township board is required by July if a prepayment is to be made in October 2016, the earliest date when prepayment is allowed.

Federal e-rate discounts for telecommunications are being phased out and current recipients are being encouraged to apply for Internet e-rate discounts instead. Accepting federal dollars for Internet would require full compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act and would preclude having any unfiltered computers in the library, likely requiring additional filtering software for wireless access. Preliminary research by L. Papa indicates that the library would obtain discounts totaling approximately $3000/year for five years if application is made for the Internet e-rate. This will be on the February agenda for discussion by the full board.

Demolition in the lobby area for the renovation has begun, and work is on schedule.

The migration of the library’s automation software, from Innovative Interfaces’ Millennium system to their new Sierra system, is scheduled for Tuesday January 20; most automated services (check-in, check-out, placing holds, renewing, catalog) will be unavailable throughout the day.

Trustee Comments

Vice-Chair S. Foster asked if any feedback from patrons had been received re: the closing of Jungle Java. Davis said that there have been comments posted on the Contact Us section of our web site and some in-person queries had been made. Patrons were generally agreeable once they were acquainted with the facts.

Committee Reports

- None

Unfinished Business and General Orders

- None

New Business

Nomination and Election of Board Officers - D. Turner moved and M. Farell supported a motion to nominate the current board officers for the 2015 term.

D. Turner moved and M. Farell supported a motion to nominate the current board officers for the 2015 term.

The motion passed unanimously 15/1-15-1.

Re-schedule July 2015 Board Meeting - Davis requested that the board choose another date for the July meeting, as personal obligations will find her out of town on that date (July 16).

S. Foster moved and M. Farell supported a motion to move the library board meeting to Thursday, July 23, 2015.

The motion passed unanimously 15/1-15-2.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest - Davis elaborated on the letter that had been included in the board packet, concerning a research project for which the library is utilizing the services of iLabs (the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Center for Innovation Research.) In the spirit of transparency, she disclosed that her spouse is the director of iLabs but explained that neither she nor Timothy Davis will unduly influence the project analyses, nor will the Davis household be financially enriched through the project.

Statistic of the Month - Community Relations Department Head L. Golden related plans to overhaul the information supplied to the board in the monthly meeting packets. Instead of reams of charts and numbers, the goal will be to tell to the board, in a meaningful way, what is going on in the library. She asked the trustees to advise the administration of what (if any) of the current documents they would like to continue seeing and how often.

Consensus of the board was that they would like a single-page dashboard or storyboard with key metrics, and deeper dives when needed. Information they would like to have included: how often the meeting and group study rooms are occupied, and how the weekend door count compares to the weekday door count.

Call To Audience

None

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at 8:31 PM.