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.