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Minutes of the Quarterly
Meeting of the
Columbus Library Board
And the
Platte County Library Advisory Board
March 10, 2005
The regularly scheduled quarterly meeting of the Columbus Library Board and
the Platte County Library Advisory Board was called to order by the
Vice-President, Craig Neid, at 4:30 PM on Thursday, March 10, 2005. Other
members of the Library Board present were Jolaine Nielsen and Jim Schaefer.
Members of the Platte County Library Advisory Board present were Carol
Rosendahl, and Carolyn Rohde. Robert Trautwein, Library Director, was also
present. Jerry Jirka and Clayton Brunt had called earlier to ask to be
excused.
Notice of this meeting was given in advance with a copy of the agenda posted
at City Hall, the County Court House and in the Public Library. All
proceedings hereafter shown were taken while the convened meeting was open to
the public.
The minutes of the February Board meeting were reviewed and allowed to stand
as presented with a motion from Jim Schaefer and a second from Jolaine
Nielsen. The motion passed by voice vote.
The Library Director distributed the March financial reports for the City
Library, and the Columbus Library Foundation. Trautwein noted that it is sixth
month of the city’s fiscal year. It was noted that a bill from Ammie Uhlrich
for learning toys for the Children’s Room should be a Foundation bill. This
bill was pulled from the listing of bills to be paid by the city. A motion was
made by Jim Schaefer and seconded by Jolaine Nielsen to accept the City
Library’s financial report. This motion passed by roll call vote: Neid-aye,
Nielsen-aye, and Schaefer-aye. Following the presentation of the financial
report for the Platte County Library, a motion was made by Carol Rosendahl to
accept that report. This motion was seconded by Jim Schaefer and the motion
passed by roll call vote: Neid-aye, Rosendahl-aye, Neilsen-aye, Rohde-aye, and
Schaefer-aye.
The Director reviewed his reports for March..
There were no committee reports.
Under Correspondence, Karen Hake, the Bookmobile Librarian, was not able to
attend the meeting due to a family medical emergency. Trautwein explained that
Mrs. Hake would have talked about the preparations the city library and the
bookmobile are making for this year’s “Summer Reading” program. On Wednesday,
March 9th, she, Brad Hruska, and Sally Hansen attended an all-day workshop on
possible summer activities. This program was sponsored by the Nebraska Library
Commission. At this meeting, the three wore their new shirts that have the
dragon badge sewn on it.
Under Old Business, Trautwein reported that Larry Nagorski, the bookmobile
driver, is planning to retire at the end of the school year, around May 30th.
He would like to continue driving on a part-time—20-hour-a-week basis.
Trautwein said that around the middle of April, he will begin working with the
city’s “Human Resource Director” to hire a second part-time driver.
Regarding the revenues from a Library Foundation-funded coffee machine,
Trautwein said that he had requested clarification from the City Attorney and
he shared with the Board the attorney’s response. According to the attorney,
if the Foundation is supplying the machine and the ingredients, the Foundation
is entitled to receive the revenue. Trautwein said that he had not visited
with other vending-machine companies as he had been waiting for a response
back from the City Attorney. Now that he has that response, he will visit with
the vendors and determine which machine to lease.
Under New Business, Trautwein distributed a memo to members of the Board
regarding the developing problem of long-overdue library materials. He
explained that as soon as a patron has an overdue, the staff begins phoning
the patron. After 3 or 4 telephone calls, and a month has lapse since the
items were due, a bill is sent. Sometimes a second bill is sent. For the past
year, around $7,000 in library materials have been checked out but not
returned.
One avenue to retrieving some of these long-overdue materials is to contract
with a collections company. The local company is ARL Credit Services.
Trautwein said that he has visited with the owner of this company, Richard
Jablonski, and learned that the city is already using the company to collect
overdue water bills and ambulance bills.
Following a discussion of the pros and cons of resorting to a collections
agency, a motion was made by Jim Schaefer to direct the Library Director enter
into a contract with ARL Credit Services to assist in the recover of the
Library’s long overdue materials. This motion was seconded by Jolaine Nielsen
and passed by a voice vote: Neid-aye, Nielsen-aye and Schaefer-aye.
Regarding the question of patrons who want to continue to check out materials
after the Library has had to pay the ARL fees to recover the materials or the
cost of the materials, Trautwein said that he would draft a policy for the
Library Board to consider at the next meeting. This policy would stipulate
that those patrons, who have had long outstanding bills that were collected
only after a collection agency became involved , would have a one-year period
when the could use the library but not check out any materials.
There being no further business, the president called the meeting adjourned..
Respectfully submitted,
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