Vice President Dan D'Allaird called the meeting of the Duluth Public Library Board to order at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, and reviewed the agenda.

Present: E. Bogue, J. Brissett, D. D'Allaird, P. Markert, A. Slade, P. Spooner, M. Watson, C. Powers, J. Sheriff
Excused: V. Katz
Absent: L. Benson Johnson

Approval of Minutes
The Library Board minutes of the April 28, 2009, meeting were approved as distributed.

Communications

• Manager's Report: Library News from April 2009
• Unique Management Systems: Info for Staff
• Draft of Library Business Plan for 2010-2014 as sent to Lisa Potswald
• Copy of Library Organizational Chart
• Draft: Meeting Dates for 2009-2010
• Handout: Wireless Instructions
• BookPage for June 2009
  

Communications were reviewed and discussed.

Reports
A. Friends of the Duluth Public Library - Markert
Membership information was distributed, and board members were encouraged to join the Friends. The annual meeting took place on May 19, and the Friends wrote a check for $8,000 to the library to be used in whatever way the library staff feels is appropriate. The Friends will participate in Sidewalk Days downtown July 8 through 10. They will rent a tent for $100, and spend the three days selling books and book bags. The sidewalk sale is meant as a preview of the large book sale in August.

B. Manager's Report - Powers, Sheriff

• Manager, Library Services update: Carla Powers began work as Library Manager on May 18, 2009.
• ALS Governing Board: The ALS Board has vacancies for up to three Duluth Library Board representatives. The ALS Board meets the second Thursday of the month at 10:00 a.m. in Mountain Iron. These vacancies will be discussed later in the agenda.
• Business Plan 2010 - 2014: Drawing on ideas from the brainstorming sessions held in October 2008, Librarian IIIs met several times in May to draft a business plan for 2010 - 2014, using the format requested by City Administration. The Manager and IIIs discussed this plan on May 20, and the draft has been submitted to Lisa Potswald. Any final changes must be made by mid-June. This document guides the Library's specific budget requests for 2010 and 2011, which must be finalized no later than June 30. We were asked to establish a "new baseline" for what is needed to run the library. There is no guarantee, of course, that our requests will be funded.
• Legislative session: The Legislative session closed without budget agreement between the Legislature and the Governor. The Governor intends to balance the budget by a combination of line item vetoes and unallotments. More cuts to Local Government Aid are expected. City Administration is in the process of assessing the governor's cuts and preparing a plan to balance the city's budget. The plan will be presented to the council and the public in the near future. Rep. Roger Reinert has been shown in the media as saying that Duluth libraries would close. No such decision has been made.
• Gates grant - yet another good news update: After Council approved our participation in the Gates hardware grant (40 public access computers), a representative called us from the State Library asking us if we could use an additional 10 computers. We accepted. We have yet to hear whether or not the Gates Foundation approved this as part of the State Library's grant application.
• City Supervisory change: Because CAO Michael Ashcraft is so new in his position, Lisa Potswald has temporarily resumed supervision of the Library and Parks divisions. Lisa's primary responsibility is the supervision of the Administrative division of the City. She is very supportive of the Library.
• Y.E.S. Duluth summer youth workers: The Library is requesting up to 11 workers (income qualified, ages 16-24) to work 8 weeks during the summer. These workers would assist at programs, sort and shelve materials, clean computers, do database entry, etc. Federal stimulus money will fund these positions.
• One Book One Community: By all accounts heard, the activities for Population 485 were well received in the community. The Duluth Library Foundation provided the financial support. Many thanks are due to that organization, to Anita Zager at Northern Lights Books and Gifts for leading the 2009 committee, to Bridget Reistad at Lake Superior College for hosting the main event on May 1, and to Nancy Eaton (DPL) and Rita Grierson (ALS) for designing the brochure.
• Kaleidoscope support: Judy Sheriff spoke at the Port of Duluth Kiwanis meeting on Friday May 1, following in the tradition established by Karen Richgruber. The group presented another check for $1500 for Kaleidoscope support and assured Judy that they would again volunteer at Kaleidoscope programs.

Old Business
There was no old business.

New Business
Meeting Dates for 2009-2010
The board voted to continue meeting the fourth Tuesday of each month with the exceptions of July and December, when there will be no meetings.

ALS Governing Board Representative
There was some discussion of the details of appointing a DPL Board representative to the board of trustees for the Arrowhead Library System. Up to three DPL board members can sit on the ALS board. The suggestion from Jim Weikum is to have one member begin a three-year term this July and to stagger terms for any additional members who want to join. There was some discussion and questions. Powers will get answers to the questions, and an appointment will be made at the June meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 4:30 p.m. in the Library's Conference Room.

6/24/09