Minutes

Citizen’s Library Advisory Ad Hoc Committee

February 14, 2008

Gresham Room, Ashland Public Library

4:00-6:00 pm

Attendance:

Ashworth, Churchman, Gibb, Battistella, Keil, Mayor Morrison, Seltzer (city staff liaison)

Absent:

Brown, Vavra, Burkholder,

Guests:

None

Call to Order:

The meeting was called to order at 4:50 pm when Batistella arrived and a quorum was reached.

Citizen Issues:

None

Discussion prior to quorum re: recent report to Council.

Gibb invited Mayor Morrison to comment on the CLAC recent presentation to the Council re: placing a levy on the November ballot for extending the library funding.  Mayor indicated individual councilors were receptive to the levy but do not want the levy to be higher than 25 cents and councilors indicated that want the CLAC to continue to work with the County on a permanent funding solutions.  The Mayor suggested the CLAC make a presentation to the council in early May recommending the levy amount.  A May presentation will give both council and staff time to prepare and review necessary paperwork required by the County Clerk.

Discussion prior to quorum re: how to evaluate library services.

Keil wonders if CLAC should have a public forum on library governance and if the topic should be added to the funding public forum.  Comments were also made questioning why public forums on library governance and library services need to occur so soon and perhaps it would be better if those two topics occurred later in the year after the public has had more time to experience current library services.

It was suggested that the focus be on a public forum asking for public comment on the proposed levy and levy amount.

Batistella arrived at the meeting at 4:50.

Gibb recapped the previous discussion.  Batistella reported on her work designing the public forums.  She feels that people might not be interested in focusing on a single topic and that it might be better to give people the opportunity to comment on any topic related to the library.  Is it better to have multiple days of public input or a single long day of public input?

Much discussion on format of the public forum.  Gibb asked what the CLAC needed to decide at this meeting.

M/S Ashworth/Churchman to postpone 3 public forums until after November.

M/S Keil/Ashworth to conduct a public forum on April 23, to include general input from the community on the proposed extension to the library levy and the proposed levy amount and a “report to the community” on the recommendation CLAC will bring to the council.  It was suggested that the “report to the community” could occur with the Mayor on Town Hall, May 7.

1) Churchman will develop a list of questions to pose to public forum attendees.  Questions will be circulated to all CLAC members for comment.

2) Ashworth/Keil will work on the “design” of the public format.

3) Batistella will identify outreach and marketing tools to promote the public forum.

New discussion on how best to “evaluate library services” and how to assign tasks.

Keil suggested breaking it into pieces: hours of operation, collection, professional staff, computers, LSSI  and by audience: seniors, teens, children etc.

Ashworth commented on ALA standards as a means to evaluate. 

Keil wonders how to quantify the adequacy of services and how to define adequate?

Gibb proposed the next step is to ask the three committee librarians to meet and draft a list of questions regarding reviewing services and try to get a sense of How to review services, the standard of measurement and how to merge the results.

Next meeting date: Thursday February 28.

Meeting adjourned: 6:00 p.m.