- I'd like to call to order the Monroe County Public Library Board of Trustees meeting for August 19,
- 2026. If you'd like to go around, let's introduce ourselves. And if you want to share what you're reading,
- you may. I'm Nancy Van Allen, and I'm reading the Promise Boys YA book. I'm Chris Hall, and my book
- club just finished The Pages by Hugo Hamilton.
- I'm Amy O'Shaughnessy, and I'm reading Land by Maggie O'Farrill. I'm Greer Carson. I'm reading Denial
- of Death by Ernest Becker, and we are playing Neo 3 on the PS5. Jamie Burkhart. I have not started yet,
- but checked out Wintering by Katherine May. Whitney Eads. And I am reading The Shell Seekers.
- I'm Jennifer Whitley, and I will translate what I'm reading, how to talk so that children will listen
- and how to listen so that children will talk. I'm Becky Hill, and I'm reading Biological War by Annie
- Jacobson, which happens to be the scariest book I've ever read in my life. Yeah, it's nonfiction. It's
- really scary. At this time, we'll see if there's anybody available
- would like to have a public comment? Nobody online? No? OK. Can I get a motion to approve the consent
- agenda from the minutes from July 15, monthly financial report, monthly bill for payment, personnel
- report, and the board meeting calendar? So moved. Second. All in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Those
- against, say nay. Ayes have it. Motion approved. Now we're going to hear from Greer for our director's
- monthly report.
- OK, July was another very strong month for overall circulation. Our monthly featured e-resource last
- month was Comics Plus, which saw an increase in digital checkouts over the previous month. That's usually
- what happens with our featured e-resource. Our collection development team also met with OCLC reps and
- learned that we are now one of their featured public libraries in WorldCat. So for those who may not
- know what it is, OCLC stands for Online Computer Library Center. It was started in the late 60s.
- under a different name, and they have been helping libraries share technology and data and other resources
- for well over 50 years. Among other services, they provide the largest online library catalog in the
- world, known as WorldCat. We and tens of thousands of other libraries get all or part of our MARC records
- from WorldCat or some service from OCLC. They also own and maintain the Dewey Decimal Classification
- System, believe it or not.
- And I think they were the ones responsible for printing those universal library checkout cards from
- way back in the day that always looked the same. OCLC are the ones who manufactured that. They stopped
- doing that in like the late last decade, I think. So being a featured public library on OCLC, WorldCat
- means that many more libraries will see our records and have more direct access to our collections online.
- So it's good for us.
- We haven't yet finalized our summer reading program numbers, but preliminary data suggests we may have
- another record-breaking year of participation on our hands. There are several program highlights in
- this month's report, including a very successful children's cave painting program, a dinosaur excavation
- program at Ellisville, and a successful reprise of Dirt Fest with 165 attendees.
- There are also a few corrections to point out regarding children's program stats in the report. Some
- of you have maybe already done the math to see that the 48 programs that we held in July in children's
- are broken down like this. Twenty-one programs from birth to six, the report says one. Twenty-three
- programs from tween, the report says 11. And the all ages programs we did four, the report says one.
- So one 11 and one do not equal 48.
- But 21, 23, and four do. So that's the correction. All three MCPL branch locations serve as cooling
- stations during the hottest days of the year. This means that citizens who don't have reliable
- air conditioning or cooling options on those days will know that MCPL is an option, along with several
- other community organizations. We do the same thing on the other end of the temperature spectrum.
- By serving as a warming station during the coldest winter days and this service and its community messaging
- is coordinated by the Monroe County Emergency Management Team They reach out to us gonna ask if we're
- willing to do it. We always say yes There is a new Bloomington Transit stop right outside of southwest
- It's the seven bus which runs south on Walnut all the way to Gordon Pike
- We understand that the addition of this new stop, which was maybe a couple of months ago, was in part
- at least a result of some MCPL patrons contacting Bloomington Transit and requesting something like
- this. So we're very, very glad to see this because casting our minds back to the public
- input we received on what we wanted to do with our Southwest branch and specifically where should it
- be located. One of the criteria that were listed from the public was be as close to a bus line as possible.
- We weren't able to meet that even though we checked off most of the other boxes with our Southwest site.
- And so now we can check that box off as well. So that's really great.
- We are in the final stages of building the new bookmobile with a handful of expected wrinkles to iron
- out in terms of our original specifications, the products available and all of those things. We're getting
- about biweekly updates at this point from the vendor and we expect the vehicle to be ready close to
- the stated deadline of late September to be safe. We might say it will be early October, but we're getting
- pretty close.
- On a similar note, our request for proposals for the downtown elevator upgrades has been out there since
- early to mid-July. We have received bids from a few vendors and we're going to close the bidding process
- at 5 p.m. on September 4th, which we had stated when we put the RFPs out. At that time, we will then
- schedule a brief meeting for us as a board to open those bids publicly and read them aloud, which is
- what we are required to do.
- And finally, Staff Day is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15th, which is the day before our September
- board meeting, which is out at Southwest. A reminder to everyone that we do close all MCPL locations
- for Staff Day so we can devote an entire day to professional development, team building work, and making
- connections across library departments and individual staff. We'll send out more information to you
- all soon as we typically invite our board to attend part or all of Staff Day.
- Happy to answer any questions you have about the director's report. Just a question about now that we
- have the best service out there by Southwest, is the bookmobile still going to be in that same area
- as often or at the same locations? We don't have any plans to change the bookmobile schedule of stops
- at this time. Yeah. So no change is expected right now, except when the bookmobile doesn't make it out
- because it's in the shop or the weather. Yeah. Any other questions?
- Comments? OK. Now we're going to hear from Gary about the 2027 budget review process. So I left a couple
- of handouts at your desk, the Form 3 public advertisement for the budget, and then just some information
- that we have now that we know what the assessed value is for the county. So last month,
- We went over the first draft of the 2027 budget. The growth quotient for 2027 is 6%. Total estimated
- operating revenue for 2027 is about $12.7 million. And revenue in the debt fund to cover bond payments
- will be about $640,000.
- So total spending budget, including the operating fund, the bond payments in the debt fund, and the
- rainy day fund, is about $14.6 million. After last month's board meeting, I met with our Department
- of Local Government Finance representative to go over all the numbers that have been entered into the
- new gateway budget system.
- She confirmed that everything is OK so far in the budget system. And then this morning, as I was going
- through this stuff, I circled it on the Form 3. But for the debt fund budget, there's nothing there.
- And I entered $640,000 on Form 1, which is where the data entry happened. Anyway, they're fixing it.
- So the next big step will be the county budget sessions, which begin on September 2. They do these over
- a series of meetings. The binding budget reviews take place on our binding budget review takes place
- on the last day of the budget sessions, which is September 16.
- Same day as our September board meeting. So Greer can't be in two places at once. So he'll be at the
- MCPL board meeting, and I'll go to the county budget session. And that board meeting, that MCPL meeting,
- will be at Southwest in September. So now I'm going to focus on the form three, the notice to taxpayers.
- And depending on how the county budget hearings go on September 16, the numbers on this budget notice
- could possibly change. Right now, there's a programming issue, as I mentioned, with the debt fund budget.
- And so once that's fixed,
- And once we get past the public hearings or the county budget hearings, then the county will submit
- the public notice in Gateway. And it has to be submitted at least 10 days before the public hearing.
- So the public hearing is going to be on October 6,
- So between September 16 and October 6, this will have to be submitted. And I'll be checking in with
- them frequently to make sure it does. So let's talk about what's on this form. So just kind of reading
- it, notice is hereby given to taxpayers of Monroe County Public Library, Monroe County, Indiana.
- that the proper officers of Monroe County will conduct a public hearing on the year 2027 budget. Following
- this meeting, any 10 or more taxpayers may object to a budget tax rate or tax levy by filing an objection
- petition with the proper officers of Monroe County, not more than seven days after the hearing.
- The objection petition must identify the provisions of the budget, tax rate, or tax levy to which taxpayers
- object. If petition is filed, Monroe County shall adopt with the budget a finding concerning the objections
- in the petition and testimony presented. Following the aforementioned hearing, the proper officers of
- Monroe County will meet to adopt
- following budget. So the public hearing date is Tuesday, October 6, at 5 PM at the Monroe County Courthouse,
- third floor. The adoption meeting is two weeks later at 5 PM at the courthouse on the third floor.
- Shifting down to the numbers, the first column number two there, the rainy day budget, $730,000. The
- general fund budget, $13,248,497. And the debt service budget is $640,713. And the next column over.
- is the revenue, not all the revenue. On the general line, it shows $8,781,346. That's just the property
- tax levy, so it doesn't include local income tax and other stuff. So we have the general fund.
- levy and then the debt service levy of 639,713. We don't have any excess levy appeals. So this year,
- it's showing this year's levy, 8,284,289, and the debt levy. So you can see that the increase in the
- general fund levy is
- is 6% and 6.82 for debt service. So the other data that I gave you, I'll kind of talk about it now.
- In early August, we got the assessed value figure. So in 2027.
- The assessed value is $11,068,322,579. And so to calculate the tax rate, it would be the operating levy
- divided by the assessed value of $100
- it's the assessed value divided by $100. And that's the figure that we divide the operating levy into
- to get the 7.93% operating fund tax rate and the 0.58% debt fund tax rate. So a total tax rate of 8.51% for 2027.
- Comparing that to the current year, 2026, the assessed value went down by about $21 million. So in 2026,
- the assessed value dropped from the previous year by close to $100,000. But when you look at 2025,
- the assessed value in 2025 increased by more than a billion dollars. So a huge increase there. And then
- on the reverse side of that page, it kind of gives you the long range look at what's happened to assessed
- value over the years and what's happened to the tax rate.
- So we can see that from about 2013 to 2022, nine years, we were over 9%. And then in 2023, assessed
- value went up by 17, by about 18%, which is a lot, went up
- So the tax rate dropped to 7.85%. From 9.25, it dropped down to 7.85%. And then we can see from there
- that it went up a couple of years. And now it's as if there are some corrections going on. And we may
- be in this mode for a while.
- So that's where we're at. And are there any questions? I guess it's just about some of this, but this
- is based on property taxes for the community. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So when you get your property tax statement,
- you'll see the library listed on there with their portion. Can you remind us what?
- how the library tax rate is set. How the library tax rate is set. How does it get adjusted? How is that
- set? There are basically two numbers that determine that. It's the growth quotient. When we take last
- year's tax levy and apply the growth quotient,
- that's the tax dollars we're gonna get. And when we know that, and we know what the assessed value is,
- that it's just a calculation of those tax dollars, their percentage of the assessed value, and that's
- the library rate. It's really the growth quotient that is set by the state
- That is the real determining factor along with total assessed value. That's just a matter of what happens
- from year to year in terms of building and so on.
- Next up, we're going to hear from Becky about the 2027 Health Insurance Review and Renewal Process.
- Give me just a second.
- So we'll just go through these slides. I just wanted to have something for you guys to look at as we
- talk through everything. There's nothing that we need to do at this point. We thought it would be helpful
- just to go over an overview of the benefits and provide a general refresher for what we offer and what
- will be part of our open enrollment and what you all can expect in the next coming months.
- So we work with J.A. Benefits, which has been our broker for years. We're really fortunate to work with
- them. They will come and present a little bit later this fall before we hit open enrollment to talk
- through some things with just the health insurance industry in general and then some trends and things
- that they're seeing and specifics on our plans. They really are fantastic partners for us. They do a
- really good job not only negotiating really good rates for us and helping us with strategy and
- structure for our benefits but they also offer a lot of help for our staff.
- So if folks have issues with filling or trouble navigating their health insurance or any of the benefits
- that we offer, JA has specific folks who do help with those things and we can connect folks with those
- specialists at JA and they help them confidentially navigate those things. So I can speak from my own
- experience that they're really great at doing that and helping answer questions, but I know that a lot
- of our staff really appreciate that too. So one of those things that nobody ever sees, but we do really
- appreciate.
- So I will go over just a quick overview of our benefits that we offer. I'm happy to answer questions
- if you have any as we go through everything. And then I'll just give you a preview of what to expect
- for our renewal from a timeline, not from rates or anything. So the benefits that we offer, this is
- the same thing that we showed last year. So it should look familiar to most of you. It does have, there's four.
- I guess, columns across that show the different hour statuses. So we have staff who are 37 and a half
- hours a week. That's considered full time. And then we have 25 hours, 20 hours, and 15 to 18 hours per
- week. Those different classes give folks flexibility kind of based on their own needs and then give
- us the ability to staff the way that we need to staff within the library. So some of the benefits are
- different based on what hour status folks fall into.
- So when you talk about benefits, the big ones folks think about are health insurance, dental and vision.
- Our health insurance is through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. We do offer three plans. So we have a
- PPO plan that has a $500 deductible, and then we have two high deductible health plans that we offer
- to give our full-time folks options to pick what works best for them and their families.
- The library pays 100 percent of the premium for employee only coverage and then we pay 80 percent if
- someone is covering themselves plus a spouse a child or family. And that is only offered to full time
- staff that is an ACA requirement and so we can't change that.
- Our dental and our vision insurance are both offered through HRI. So our dental is HRI paramount. That
- is a cost share between the employee and the employer. And that is offered for staff all the way down
- to 20 hours per week. And then our vision insurance is through IMED. And the employee pays 100% of that
- premium. But it is a benefit that folks can enroll in. Vision insurance is like $3 a paycheck for employee
- only. So it's not a huge cost.
- on the employees' part for those benefits. Can I ask a question real fast? Yeah. So when you are doing
- some of these, is family considered spouse and children? Because sometimes it's different places separated.
- If you add the spouse, then it's going to be more and all that. So are you guys just all family? Is
- everybody that lives in the household that are parent, children?
- Yes, that's a great question. We do offer different levels. So we have employee only, employee plus
- spouse, employee plus child or children, and then employee plus family, which would be a spouse and
- child or children. And we do offer that on all of our benefits. They are split up that way. So there's
- an opportunity and some cost savings that way, depending on who folks want to cover. The next page here
- is our group term.
- disability products. These are all through Guardian. So the library provides group term life in AD&D,
- which is two times someone's annual salary up to $160,000. That's just provided by the library for any
- full time staff. And we also provide long term disability for our full time staff. Short term disability
- is offered for folks who work 25 hours a week and more. The library does cover the first $150 on the
- premium for that benefit.
- Are you all familiar with short-term disability and long-term disability? OK. Then I won't go over that
- in detail. And then we also have voluntary life in AD&D. So folks can add an additional policy if they
- would like. That's for themselves. And then they can add a spouse and or child or children. And those
- are employee paid premiums. But it is nice to be able to add that on as part of the employer benefit. And then.
- We have our health savings account, which is tied to the high deductible health plans that we offer.
- So the library contributes to someone's health savings account if they elect a high deductible health
- plan. And then the employee is able to contribute money as well if they'd like to save some extra money
- and put it in those accounts. That is offered through German American. And again, it's only available
- if you enroll in the high deductible health plan.
- And then we do offer a flexible spending account and dependent care FSA. So those are offered for folks
- who work 20 hours a week and more. They can put money in pre-tax and use that to cover those qualified
- expenses during the calendar year. If you don't use the money during the year, it doesn't all carry
- over. And so there's some rules around how folks need to make sure they're using those funds during
- the calendar year, but does offer some tax savings. Another question? Yeah. Sorry. The HSA.
- Do they, at the end of the year, use it if they haven't? Do they roll it over for the next year? How
- does that? Great question. So the HSA is an account that's a health savings account. So that is folks'
- money that they can basically use like a savings account. It continues to carry over. Oh, so it rolls
- over for the next year. Yep. Yeah. And if someone leaves the library for any reason, they do take their
- HSA funds with them. The FSA funds are tied to employment at the library, and they do go away if somebody leaves.
- Other questions? No, I'm happy to answer questions. And then the last one on here is the Marathon Health
- Clinic. So this is a benefit that we offer to all of our staff. So you'll see that goes all the way
- down to the 15 to 18 hour folks. Marathon is a local clinic. It's a national brand, but there's three
- locations here in the area that our folks have access to.
- There's one on Second Street across from the old hospital, one in Bedford, and one in Bloomington. Folks
- have access to a doctor and a couple of nurse practitioners within the practice. They can be seen in
- person or virtually. And then they do anything from preventative care to acute care to prescriptions refilled.
- Any care done within the four walls of the clinic is no cost for staff. And so while we can't offer
- health insurance to our part-time folks, this is a really nice opportunity to give everyone access to
- a medical professional. Especially in Bloomington, it can be challenging to get in to see somebody.
- So that is a benefit that our folks really appreciate and a lot of our folks do use. And this is for
- their families as well? Yes. Yep. Yep. So employee, spouse, and child or children are all eligible to
- enroll. The employee does have to enroll to have
- access for their family. And then the other notable benefits that I thought were worth at least highlighting
- while we're here, PERF is our public employee retirement fund that is offered for full-time staff. And
- the library covers the 11.2% which is the employer cost plus the 3%, which is the employee cost. So
- we contribute all of that money
- into those accounts for our full-time folks. And then Hoosier Start is the one that we just added earlier
- this year. That is the 457. So there's a pre-tax and a Roth option for that. That is offered to all
- of our staff. And they're able to enroll and put money in either pre-tax or post-tax for retirement savings.
- Our employee assistance program is offered through guardian so that is kind of tied to our open enrollment,
- but it is offered for all staff and nobody has to enroll in that. It offers like mental health sessions
- so there's three free sessions for up to three different topics which folks have really appreciated
- having access to just a mental health professional you can meet with virtually or in person.
- There's also legal documents, so if somebody wants to create a will or update a trust, there's options
- to do that within the system as well. And then there's tax help and some different things as well, just
- to give folks experts at no cost. So a lot of really great resources in there. I know a lot of folks
- use it and appreciate having it. It is all confidential, so we don't see how many people are using it
- or what they're using it for. But it is a meaningful benefit.
- We also just finished up our parking renewal. So we do offer parking options for folks who work downtown.
- We have zone for parking garages and surface lot that folks have access to. There's different options
- for different levels of staff. And then like our surface lot does have a wait list because it is kind
- of a coveted space. But we do have parking options available for all of our staff who work downtown.
- And then we also have a bus pass option if folks want to ride the bus to get to work. We work
- with Bloomington Transit to provide swipe cards for folks to use that the library pays for. And then
- we also have indoor bike storage. So for our folks who bike to work, it gives them an indoor space to
- park their bike that's out of the elements and just kind of in a staff area. We also obviously offer
- holidays, personal leave, sick leave.
- Contagious illness is one that we added a couple of years ago for our 15 to 18 hour staff. If they do
- fall ill with something, they can take some paid time off to get to be home and recover. And then we've
- also added paid parental leave. So that's six weeks of leave for new parents. And remote work is another
- benefit that we've added here in the last couple of years. So I feel like those are all notable things
- that are worth just kind of talking about any time that we talk about benefits.
- And as far as the renewal timeline, so August and September began planning with JA Benefits. So we are
- meeting with them kind of on an ongoing basis throughout the year. But we really start meeting to talk
- about planning and what they're expecting for us to see. October is when our renewal process begins.
- So we start to get quotes back from the carriers on the plans that we'll have available and rates and
- everything.
- November is when the board will vote on our new benefits. And then December at the beginning is when
- we start open enrollment. And then January is when our new benefits begin. So a little bit of hurry
- up and wait, but there is kind of a tight timeline in there between that November board meeting and
- when everything is actually due to the carriers to make sure folks have access to their plans. And our
- renewal just includes the Anthem Health Insurance,
- our dental and vision, our life and disability products, and then the Marathon Health Clinic and HSA,
- FSA, DCFSA are all part of that as well. So a lot of the other benefits I went over aren't part of open
- enrollment, but again, I felt like those are notable. That was all I had, but if you all have any questions
- or anything that you'd like to see more as we're gearing up for open enrollment, I'm happy to make sure
- to show that to you. I have a question that I don't think that you will have a definitive answer for.
- But rumblings or rumors, perhaps. Last time we went through this process, I know we got a really good
- deal. But we were warned that things could change. Are you aware of changes coming that would be significant?
- So I'm not aware of anything. We don't get our renewal stuff back until the beginning of October. I
- just didn't know if any conversations were happening.
- brace you and us. Yeah. I know industry-wide, kind of what we're seeing and hearing is that 20-ish percent
- is what folks are anticipating for premiums to increase. That's not specific to us. That's just like
- when you look industry-wide. So typically, we plan for about 14%. So 20% is a little bit higher than
- what we usually expect to see. But a lot of that has to do with,
- things that are going on in the wider world. I don't know what JA is expecting us. But that may answer
- the question. That was good information. Thank you. Thank you. And then we also will meet with JA benefits
- next week to start looking at what they're seeing for their mid-year renewals. And so we may have a
- better idea at that point in time. And also some of it is dependent on our claims and how we're using
- the plan and the benefits that we have. So we have started talking through.
- some strategy and some things that we can think about sort of proactively, so that when we get the numbers,
- we know what our options might be. Thank you. So answer without a question. Just to quickly follow up,
- what we do, as Becky said, is we work with JA pretty early in the season to anticipate what may be coming
- and then develop some strategies for either absorbing or deferring and passing on or whatever we have
- to do. So we can bring all those options to you all in November.
- Depending on what JA brings to us in the next couple of months, we may want to schedule a work session
- in November. If those numbers are bigger than we want them to be, we'll probably want to take some extra
- time to talk through what our options are. And that's when we would schedule sort of a work session
- a week before our actual board meeting, where you all would vote on it. Because once you vote on it
- in November, we got to move and do the open roll pretty quickly. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions
- or comments, Rebecca?
- Of course. Thank you. Next up, we're going to hear from Stephanie Meyer for circulation services. Hi,
- everyone. Thanks. I'm Steph.
- circulation services manager. Thanks for the invitation to share my department update today. I'll start
- by introducing circulation services. So in short, we're responsible for the check-in, organization,
- and shelving of all the physical items at the downtown library. We ensure that everything returned to
- the downtown library gets to its intended location. Cirque services also supports MCPL's pest management
- through regular training of staff, inspection of every single returned item,
- as well as the oversight when anything with signs of pests does arise. It takes a fair amount of people
- to do this. I have 27 employees of which six are full-time, seven are part-time at 25 hours weekly,
- and 14 are part-time at 15 hours weekly. There are three distinct positions within circulation services.
- There are two circulation technicians, six circulation leads, and 19 materials handlers. And I'll break
- down kind of what each of those positions do within CERC.
- So the role of the circulation technicians involves managing the overall maintenance of the collections
- via item evaluation, which is handling all problem items for all locations, such as items returned with
- missing parts, cleaning and repairing things, charging patrons for damaged or lost items, and
- then withdrawing items as needed. They check over and check in our library of things items and inventory
- collections to ensure that what we actually have matches what we say we have.
- They maintain our new arrivals collection, move older titles to their general collections as needed
- to keep those A-frames fresh and new. They also process all the incoming and outgoing interlibrary loan
- requests. Their work never stops because there's always something coming through that needs their attention.
- The role of the circulation leads involves maintaining the flow of the department and the flow of items
- in and around the library. They keep an eye on priorities and maintain a holistic view of each day's
- responsibilities. Their daily, weekly, and monthly tasks revolve around keeping order within all the
- moving parts of circulation, such as leading our daily shift meetings, printing daily pull lists and
- reports, and ensuring they're completed, monitoring the collections and on-shelf displays, and cleaning
- our automated sorting machine.
- They're also responsible for the same work as materials handlers and do their fair share of shelving,
- shelf reading, and maintaining items in the stacks. It's hard to succinctly describe the variety of
- work that circulation leads to because they do so much for both the department and for the library.
- The role of materials handlers is to manage all returned and transferred items via item check-in and
- shelving, to ensure that our spaces are tidy with regular library pickup and shelf reading,
- and then checking in returns. Oh wait, I skipped something. And ensure that our spaces are tidy with
- regular library pickup and shelf reading. Checking in returns may sound like an easy task, but it involves
- checking each and every item for issues, damage, and signs of pests, like I mentioned. Materials handlers
- are our frontline staff for ensuring the integrity of our collection. We may not always be happy about
- it, but I'm very proud of the number of issues that we've caught before items are shelved. Because if
- they miss a problem, whether it's an incorrect label,
- or a bug in a book, and it gets to the stacks, then it's inevitably a bigger issue. Their work depends
- on a very high attention to detail, time management skills, and an ability to stay motivated. So I've
- mentioned evaluation of materials a few times, and it's a big part of what we do. But it's quite a varied
- task. So we've developed processes and training for how to handle things like annotations made in library
- books to when we find a slice of cheese stuck in the pages. We don't appreciate finding the latter.
- Where my circulation technicians fix broken cases, torn pages, and detached spines. And sometimes we
- have to determine that an item is too damaged or moldy to keep and route it to be withdrawn. So in June
- and July of this year, my two circulation technicians handled 2,529 items through our eval process.
- Of those items, they were able to keep 1,449 going. That's a 57% success rate.
- The balance of spending time fixing versus spending time replacing is tough, but I think that we do
- a great job. Another important aspect of our eval processes is being able to identify the variety of
- creatures that find themselves inside books. In late 2022, we recognized a need to refine our pest control
- procedures for those specific situations. Books contain all kinds of great things. Sometimes they contain
- a bed bug.
- We spent a little time freaking out, but then we, alongside a few other departments, developed really
- robust processes to ensure that the bugs stop at circulation. All my staff are trained in the identification
- of bed bugs and the telling signs of their presence, and the circulation leads have systematically trained
- all other staff who handle materials as well. Circulation leads then take point in reacting if a bug
- is found and ensure that we have transparent communication with the rest of the library regarding any
- next steps.
- So I share this not to scare anyone from using our materials, rather to share that the items that make
- it to the shelves are completely safe. We take great measures and great caution when dealing with bugs
- to ensure that affected items are cleaned and bug free before they're put back on the shelf. In fact,
- we feel so strongly that our processes are sound that a few circulation leads and I shared our knowledge
- and those processes with other libraries at the Indiana Library Federation Conference last November.
- And these processes also help pave the way for our current pest control policy. But thankfully, dealing
- with bugs is not the whole of what we do. So we've also been happily spending our time in the collections,
- thinking of ways to keep our stacks in an inviting space. The circulation leads are charged with overseeing
- shelf maintenance teams, which serve as a way to coordinate projects in the stacks and encourage ownership
- of our collections. Materials handlers are assigned to a team and support those projects in addition
- to their regular daily tasks.
- Projects range from adding displays and making space for new collections to shifting items when their
- shelves are getting squeezed. Most recently, they worked to shift the books in our adult nonfiction
- collection from both ends to make more space in the middle, specifically cookbooks, because we have
- a ton of those, to ensure that browsing and shelving remains a pleasant experience.
- The circulation technicians also get to spend time in the stacks to search for items that have gone
- missing, and also when searching for items requested to send to other libraries via interlibrary loan.
- Our two circulation technicians handle all items requested to be loaned to other institutions, as well
- as those requested to be borrowed by our patrons.
- From January to June so far this year, they processed 1,210 items that were requested by other institutions
- and received 215 items are requested by our patrons from other libraries. We're happy to be a top lender
- and our response time in OCLC, which I'm glad that we talked about earlier, receives high marks in the
- interlibrary loan world.
- So then finally, a nod to the end of summer reading, always a bustling time at MCPL. I'm pleased to
- share that we found a balance in CERC with staffing, with maintaining an appropriate cart turnaround
- time, and also an appropriate returns check-in time. We're able to continue some ongoing tasks like
- shelf reading. And I think that the balance was mostly supported by the circulation staff now being
- pretty veteran. Most of them have been here for more than a year.
- And knowing what to expect in the summer really helps to keep that pressure down. And that's my update.
- Any questions, comments? Thank you. Any questions, comments? It's a lot. It's a lot up there.
- Thank you. Thank you. Any board comments before we adjourn? OK. All in favor of adjourning?
- Say aye.