Minutes of the Meeting of the Columbus Public Library Board
July 8, 2010

The regularly scheduled meeting of the Columbus Public Library Board was called to order by Carol Keller who read aloud and signed the “Certification of Compliance,” regarding the “Open Meeting” law. Other library board members in attendance included Joie Taylor, Sharon Raimondo, Jim Schaefer, and Craig Neid. Jill Owens, Library Director, and Brad Hruska, Children’s Librarian were also present. Joe Mangiamelli, City Administrator was present for the Quality of Life discussion. Rachelle McPhillips was present for her portion of the agenda. Notice of this meeting was published in advance. All proceedings hereafter shown were taken while the meeting was open to the public.

Jim moved to go out of agenda order to accommodate Rachelle McPhillips, and Craig seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Rachelle spoke about her responsibilities in the library and about the first year of the Young Adult (YA) Summer Reading Program and other YA activities she’s started since being hired last year. She also told how she was a bookmobile user throughout her youth. The board thanked her for her work and for coming to the meeting.

Craig moved to return to the regular order of the agenda, and Joie seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

The minutes of the June meeting were reviewed. Carol had reservations about one sentence which was removed. Craig moved to accept the minutes with the deletion. Joie seconded, and the motion passed unanimously.

Jill presented the voucher list. She noted that the meeting landed early this month and there were many bills that weren’t in yet. She will provide a full list at the end of the city claims cycle. Craig moved to accept the financial report, and Joie seconded. Roll call vote approval as follows: Keller, aye; Schaefer, aye; Neid, aye; Raimondo, aye; Taylor, aye.

Talk briefly returned to the Summer Reading Programs. The board commended Brad for a record-breaking year. They noted the hard work Brad, Rachelle, and Karen were doing.

When discussing staffing issues during the director’s report, the board expressed disappointment that the seasonal worker position was removed two years ago. That position helped with the extra load caused by the exceptional participation in the Summer Reading Program when circulation goes up by the thousands and library traffic increases due to the youth programming.

During the committee reports section of the agenda, stationary was discussed. Carol asked the board why we couldn’t just use the same design for Foundation stationary that was used for the Library stationary. No one had an objection. She also suggested this be priced out. Carol also noted that she and Joie had been in touch about Jill’s annual performance evaluation.

During the correspondence section of the agenda, the Quality of Life responses Sharon put together were discussed. The marketers wanted some information from the Library Board for marketing the Quality of Life initiative, and Sharon worked up the document. Everyone was given a copy of the questions and responses.

The topic of the meeting then turned to the status of the Quality of Life Initiative. The board members and City Administrator Mangiamelli discussed the status of the project and varying parties’ expectations of one another.

Jim Schaefer had to excuse himself at 5:30.

At the end of the Quality of Life discussion, Carol adjourned the meeting.