Olivia called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm. In attendance were: Miriam Gileadi, Taylor Powelson, Jen Buttrick, Ashley Vincent, Olivia Dudding, Ruth Lee and Diana Grant. The minutes from the last meeting were approved.
We started with board training from Melanie Boyd from the Utah State Library. The Library Board State Manual is online with the State Library Web Site. Three of the goals of the library board are information, knowledge and community. We abide by a code of ethics. The city government, director, community and library should all have one message. There is a trustee and board self-evaluation survey on the library web site, as well. Library bylaws are the rules. The board should have effective meetings. Money coming from the state includes various grants and CLEF funds. Every library goes through recertification every year. The federal government states all libraries should have standards. We need vision and planning; know what our mission is. Libraries can be anything but they are not everything. Tasks of the library board are policy making, budget and finances, awareness, public relations and building relationships. The board will preserve, strengthen and promote the library.
Melanie also told Olivia that Shannon from Minersville would be a good person to reach out to for ideas they do as they are a similar community to Helper. The state is also putting together a directory of library board members. She also told Olivia to utilize the board. We also need to be recording our meetings. Ruth is going to speak with Cole about getting us a recorder.
Director’s Report – We showed Where the Wild Things Are on March 6th. There were 20 people in attendance and we served 30 hotdogs. The kids really liked the movie and sat through the whole thing. Someone brought a veggie tray and 4 other people brought desserts to add to our hotdogs and popcorn. Our next Book and a Movie will be May 15th in the auditorium and will be Stuart Little.
The summer reading program this year will be Unearth a Story. Diana got posters, stickers and bookmarks free from the state library. Last year, 25 kids signed up for the program. We will have a sign-up list available as we get closer to summer. We will offer 9 weeks (once a week) of stories and activities from June 2nd through July 28th.
Taylor said the kids enjoyed the seed planting project that she did before book and a movie.
After discussion about story time, which people have quit coming to after years of good attendance, the board decided to change the time to 11:00 am and serve coffee and snacks. See if we can entice people to come back as it’s always been successful. We will begin this on April 7th and Taylor will make a poster and post it online.
We are working on getting Friends of the Library going again. The board believes that members of Friend should help in getting volunteers for activities.
Diana will speak to the State web site person about putting a simple application on our site for Friends and for Volunteers. We also talked about publishing a monthly email for patrons about new activities.
Jen spoke about the silent book club that she has organized. She has had quite a few people and would like to continue with it. The meetings for April and May are: April 8th and 22nd at 11:00 am in the library, also Helper City Park April 17th at 6:00 pm. May 6th at 11:00 am and the 22nd at 6:00 pm. These will be in the auditorium.
We decided to have another director’s meeting on Thursday, April 16th at 6:00 pm.
Taylor is also looking into merch for the library and board so we will see what she comes up with!
We then proceeded to have an informal discussion about the board training and general topics of interest for future ideas for the library including being open on Saturdays. Olivia called for adjournment at 8:30 pm.