Carbondale Reporter

Herrin City Library Board of Trustees met Nov. 12.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

Present Jones, Maloney, Priest, Frost, McKeown, Watson

Also Present: Library Director Susan Mullen

Absent: Hickman, Guebert, Sarver

The meeting was called to order at 6:29 PM by President Jones.

Visitor(s): None

Correspondence: None

Secretary’s Report: Frost moved to approve the minutes from October 2024. Watson seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report:

Bills to be Paid: Priest moved to approve the payment of $1,113.10 for expenses incurred from October 9 – October 31, and $3,347.13 for expenses incurred from November 1 – November 12, 2024. Maloney seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

City Budget Report: Last month’s report shows that 52.9% of the budget has been spent, with 50% of the fiscal year completed, leaving a checking account balance of $167,820.23. McKeown moved to approve the report. Frost seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

Financial Balance Statement: Watson moved to approve the Library balance report from the previous month. Priest seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

Librarian’s Report:

October 2024 had a 3% increase in circulation compared to October 2023. A total of 362 unique Borrowers Cards were used. Patrons placed a total of 411 Hold Requests. A total of 443 Hold Requests were filled (borrowed.) We loaned 456 titles to other libraries and borrowed 810 titles from the other Heartland SHARE Libraries. We registered a total of 26 new borrowers, bringing us to 5,756 registered borrowers. A total of 111 new titles were added to the collection, making a total of 42,385 volumes in the collection. The Library Director attended the IHLS Director’s Chat on October 3, 24, & 31, the Members Matter meeting on the 2nd and 17th, and the Overdrive Marketplace: Intro to Advantage training on the 23rd. HCL has hosted four sessions of Lawyer in the Library and they have all been well attended. A Christmas Murder, presented by Lisa Carnaghi was the HHR program on the 18th and was another packed house. The next HHR program will be November 15th and is The Egyptian Combo presented by Rick Litton. We had 90 crawlers for the IHLS Library Crawl. The mini grant program form the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center for the Journey Back Mobile Virtual Reality Traveling Trunk was well received. Director Mullin and Lisa Carnaghi are members of the City of Herrin 125th Anniversary Committee and attended meetings on October 1st, 15th, and 29th. We received our first distribution of tax money on October 25. We need to review and approve the Library Property Tax Levy. We will continue our PerCapita Grant requirements by discussing Chapters 6/10 of Serving Our Public 4.0.

Children’s Librarian’s Report: Two story hours hosted in October: Room on the Broom Story Hour on October 3 (10 children, 8 parents), and Halloween Story Hour on October 17th (18 children, 9 parents).

Committee Reports:

Friends Liaison (Maloney): The Friends approved to pay the $414.48 from Susan’s Wishlist. Next book sale will be December 7th and 9th. Newsletter was completed and mailed.

History Room (Hickman, McKeown): Report submitted by Lisa Carnaghi. Researched ten patron requests and assisted walk-in patrons. Researched and gave a presentation about the 1959 Christmas murder. The 125th anniversary calendars are doing well. Two of the Foundations through the Bank of Herrin granted a request for funds to send off the entire microfilm collection for digitizing. The collection will be housed on external drives for viewing and will be word searchable.

Building and Grounds (Priest, Jones): none

Community Enrichment (Guebert & Sarver & Watson): none

Library Development and Technology (Watson): none

Special Gifts Committee (Frost): none

Old Business:

None

New Business:

Review & approve: Library Property Tax Levy

Priest moved to approve the Library Property Tax Levy. Watson seconded. The motion carried unanimously.

Review Chapters 6-10 of Serving Our Public 4.0: Standards for Illinois Public Libraries for PerCapita Grant requirements

Review and Approve Holiday List 2025

Veterans Day falls on a Tuesday in 2025 that coincides with a Board Meeting. One version of the Holiday List showed closing the library on Tuesday, November 11th and moving the Board meeting, and the other version showed taking the holiday as observed on Monday, the 10th, and remaining open on Veterans Day. The possibility of offering Veterans programming on actual Veterans Day when many people are off was discussed.

Priest moved to approve version A, with Veterans Day being observed on Monday, November 10th, and the Board Meeting being on Tuesday, November 11. McKeown seconded. The motion carried unanimously.

The Board discussed moving the December meeting/Christmas Party moved to Dec 17th due to absences.

Maloney moved to change the meeting to the 17th. Priest seconded. The motion carried unanimously.

Adjournment: Maloney moved to adjourn at 7:11 PM.

https://herrincitylibrary.org/about-us/board-of-trustees/meeting-minutes/november-2024/