Library Advisory Board to Discuss Grand Jury Report on Wednesday: Be there if you can!

MENDOCINO COUNTY LIBRARY ADVISORY BOARD

AGENDA

18 June 2014 — 1:00 p.m.

Conf Rm B – Low Gap, Ukiah

Please review note below regarding Public Expression:

1. Call to Order

2. Approval of the Agenda

3. Approval of the Minutes from 21 May 2014 meeting.

4. Public Expression

5. Interim County Library Director Report – Wally Clark

6. Correspondence

7. Reports from Sub-Committees

       A. Community Meetings Committee

       B. Advocacy Committee – Status of planned meeting w/ BOS

8. Unfinished Business

       A. Bookmobile MiFi, E-Rate, CENIC

       B. Branch Status for Bookmobile

9. New Business

       A. Response to Grand Jury Report

10. Next Meeting – 16 July 2014 1:00 p.m., Fort Bragg Library

11. Announcements and Comments

12. Adjournment

Note on the public expression:  The Library Advisory Board welcomes public and government participation at its meeting. Items can be added to the official agenda up to 72 hours in advance of the meeting date and time. For items not on the Agenda, comments within the jurisdiction of the Board shall be limited to three minutes per person so that everyone may be heard.  No more than ten minutes will be devoted to any non-agenda subject.  No official action on non-agenda items will be taken by the LAB at the meeting where presented. Individuals wishing to address the Board under Public Expression are welcome to do so throughout the meeting at the appropriate points in the approved Agenda.

The Grand Jury's Report on Mendocino County Libraries

Summary: While researching Measure A issues The Grand Jury discovered that historically the General Fund has not paid the County Librarians salaries and benefits as required by law. The salary is $1,280,000.00 for the period of 1998 through 2013. Instead the Librarians salary was paid through the Library's budget. READ THE WHOLE REPORT HERE!!!

Report from Judith Keyser: Children's Librarian at the Ukiah Library

Hello All~ May was filled with wishes granted, new books arriving, and lots of class visits before school was out!. Attached are some sample rug photos of items purchased by the Friends:  one a multicolored circles for the story time area , another muted colors of seed circles for the Seed Library area. At this writing we've just received the Early Literacy Station from AWE and will get it out of the box and have it up and running soonest!:

The Summer Reading Program is attached and is being distributed and announce via our "publicity" channels.  Two of our "new" means of publicity are Michael Kisslinger on radio station KZYX. Michael will be announcing each week's programming for the library. The second new find is the beautiful display case in the County Court House building.  Our display has some samples of items/books/media that relate to the Summer Reading Program and has copies of the schedule available.  We're told that between 700/800 people go through the building each day!  Thank you Friends for finding this new spot where we can publicize to a new audience what we do!

We've received new books from Measure A monies as well as grant monies from Califa and the timing couldn't be better.  Our Summer Reading Program is designed to

alleviate the "summer slide" that so many children experience. Experts agree that children who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not often slide backward. According to the authors of a report from the National Summer Learning Association: "A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22 percent of the school year.... It's common for teachers to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills." We have lots of fun, dancing, creating, listening, and reading and all of this is the "business" of children reading and moving forward in their learning and enjoying the process.  Children's Librarians take the Summer Reading Programs very seriously as it promotes our mission to make sure kids are being read to and reading throughout the summer.  They receive a certificate and get invited to the finale of the Summer Reading Program by recording a minimum of 5 books they've listened to or read!  Having so many new books on the shelf makes this goal easy to meet! 

Many thanks to all the Friends for all you do!

Judith Kayser
Children's Librarian

Ukiah Library