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Minutes 10-26-22 Minutes of the Library Board Meeting Held on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, at 6:00 PM at City Hall Commission Chambers, 100 E. Ocean Avenue Boynton Beach, Florida Present: George Feldman, Chair Craig Clark, Library Director Ace Tilton Ratcliff, Vice Chair Jeannie Taylor, Assistant Director Lindsay Karten Nicole Prado Marcia Levine Thomas Devlin Margaret Newton (Arrived 6:05 p.m.) I. Call to Order— George Feldman, Board Chair Chair Feldman called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Self-introductions were made. Introduce Margaret Newton, New Library Advisory Board Member Ms. Newton introduced herself explaining that she has lived in Boynton for 40 years and her children attended school here. She has served on a few Boards and she applied to the Board because she did work with the Library in a creative way and she wants to keep it up. The members welcomed and introduced themselves to Ms. Newton. II. Approval of Minutes —July 27, 2022 Motion Ms. Levine moved to approve the minutes. Mr. Devlin seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. III. Correspondence and Communications Mr. Devlin stated he was a volunteer with the Civil Air Patrol. They have a program for the Board to consider, which will be discussed next month. IV. Public Audience (Individual Speakers Will Be Limited to 3 Minute Presentations) None. V. Chair's Report— George Feldman, Board Chair. Mr. Clark stated the Board voted to merge the November and December meetings due to Thanksgiving and date was set for December 7t". Mr. Clark commented that he will be Meeting Minutes Library Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 26, 2022 in Tallahassee. He is requested moving the meeting date to December 14th Motion Ms. Levine moved to change the meeting date to December 14th. Mx. Ratcliff seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Vt. New Business (Heard out of order.) Christina Graves stated she runs the Creative Studio Makers Space in the Library and oversees crafty public programs the Library holds. Ms. Graves explained that Creative Bug is a new data base of professionally done art and craft videos taught by experts. Creative Bug is in the digital library under Online Learning under crafting and creativity online classes. Users must have a Library card, create a user name and password, and the programs allows videos to be saved to be viewed at a later time. Instructional videos can be played in craft classes on smart boards. Most videos are six to 10 minutes, but some are more detailed and 25 minutes. This has been online for three months and there are usage statistics in the report. Staff evaluates the videos in a year to see if the return on investment is worth it. They also have children's classes in STEAM. Non-Boynton residents can register with the Library and have access. Anyone in Delray/Boca can get a free Library card in Boynton and Boca residents in some areas of Boca can pay $30 and get a card. It was explained Boynton has reciprocal agreements with other libraries, but Boca does not reciprocate so they would have to pay. Mx. Ratcliff stated the Creative Edge Studio is incredible and she urged the members to check it out. VII. Unfinished Business: ARPA Grant Update — Craig Clark Mr. Clark stated he submitted the Library's final report and they are finished with the $93,084 grant. It was an amazing, one-time grant through which they hired the Public Technology Trainer full-time to create a curriculum and teach the public. The traininer has taught more than 90 classes with 265 participants. Mr. Clark was able to talk about the success of the program and City Commission allowed the position to become full-time permanent and Brianna Tabil is now full time and doing an excellent job. Mr. Clark added that he has been receiving excellent feedback from the public. FY22/23 Budget Update — Craig Clark Mr. Clark had provided a copy of the final approved budget, which included Ms. Tabil as a full-time employee, but they gave up two part-time positions to accommodate Ms. Tabil. 2 Meeting Minutes Library Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 26, 2022 Part of the grant that was received paid for Ms. Tabil to be hired in February and purchase 25 laptops, 16 iPads, a $5K Smart Board, a printer and office furniture. Ms. Tabil conducted 90 one-on-on individual sessions and some of the people she assisted with resumes got the job, which is life changing. The Library's total budget had a 1.91% increase from last year. It was noted the City supports the Schoolhouse Children's Museum, which is part of the Library's budget. Staffing Update — Craig Clark Mr. Clark announced that they had three vacancies, with two of them vacant for quite a while. Staff just hired the Supervisor of Customer Services/Relations who will start mid- November. Staff also offered a candidate the Research Librarian position and hoped she will start in December. Staff also made a contingent offer to someone for the Marketing and Outreach position vacated by Madison Kjosa. Mr. Clark advised the candidate has a lot of experience in a large library system and he hoped all three will be onboarded in November and December. Career Online High School Program Update— Jeannie Taylor Ms. Taylor stated that they had two more graduates receive their diploma, having a total of 14 people whose lives were changed by helping them to get a high school diploma. There are 11 students in the scholarship program and two of them are over 90% complete. There is one person in the prerequisite program. Mr. Clark clarified this program was funded by the State Department of Education and is run by the State Library system. The Governor vetoed the program this past year so they do not have funding to continue the program into next year, but staff will consider purchasing some scholarships for Boynton residents and hopefully, the State will fund it again next year. AmeriCorps Program Update —Jeannie Taylor M. Taylor commented that detailed reports about the AmeriCorp program were included in the backup. The program was doing very well. The volunteer handling afterschool help has a lot of regular students. They already built a bond of trust and the students come regularly. The volunteer has help from other AmeriCorp volunteers that come afterschool to the Library for additional hours as it helps to have more students tutored. She has used teen volunteers to schedule and register students so she can keep things organized, otherwise kids want to come for tutoring all at once. The City also has an ESL AmeriCorp beginner class that is about three quarters of the way through the workbook, so next month they can move to the intermediate class and then they will start a new beginner class. There is already a lot of interest and word travels by word of mouth. The volunteer also has individual appointments and one person comes just to work on pronunciation. She has diverse cultures of students. 3 Meeting Minutes Library Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 26, 2022 IV. New Business Creative Bug — Introduce New Database — Christina Graves, Librarian — Creative Edge Studio This item was heard earlier in the meeting. Palm Beach County Bar Association Meeting RE: Banned Books— Lindsay Karten, Board Member Ms. Karten explained she received an email letter from the Palm Beach County Bar Association inviting her to attend an educational class regarding banned books. She signed up to attend and Mr. Clark attended as well. She thought it would be more legally based, but she learned a lot. She announced that the top three reasons why people are challenging books in libraries and school are: critical race theories/racism, sexuality, and gender identity. The Legislature now has reporting requirements, so at the end of the year, all challenges and their outcomes have to be reported to the State. So far this year in Palm Beach County, there were zero challenges to the county library. The Palm Beach County schools had two challenges in elementary schools and the challenges were both abandoned. One speaker at the class was an attorney for the school board and the other worked for the Palm Beach County Library who was in charge of collection development and intellectual freedom. It seemed like with school challenges, they would move things by age appropriateness. The American Library Association has a Bill of Rights, with the main point being public libraries should have material on all ideologies so patrons can all become knowledgeable and make their own choices. Ms. Karten explained libraries are pretty emphatic, they will not allow pornography or books teaching people how to commit a crime. They did not really discuss school, only that school materials be age appropriate. Mr. Clark explained that school districts have committees that evaluate books used in classrooms. Mr. Clark stated that during his 18 years with the City, he was approached about concerns, but nothing formal.A library provides information and people disseminate it as they see fit. He recalled this occurred a long time ago, but the patron never submitted form Another incident was about song lyrics. Mr. Clark stated that he purchases the music unedited. Mr. Clark explained that they use professional reviewing sources and many pop titles are professionally and peer reviewed and not all books get a good review. Ms. Taylor purchases fiction and Mr. Clark purchases non-fiction and together they purchase 80% of collection, excluding youth and teens as other librarians make those selections. That is their main source of reading review, and nearly everything is reviewed. Mr. Clark responded locally, statewide and nationally, they talk about materials that are challenged. 4 Meeting Minutes Library Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 26, 2022 Mr. Clark commented that Citrus County Florida had a gay pride display and it was challenged, so it is displays, as well as materials that are being challenged. There is a big backlash from people who do not agree with some ideologies and are trying to stand in its way. There are also a lot more challenges on LGBTQ library materials. Mr. Clark explained that staff tries to purchase materials to accommodate everyone in Boynton Beach. Discussion followed about areas having less challenges and that it may be political ideology versus core beliefs, but there is a correlation. Ms. Karten pointed out that there was a clarification between banning and challenging books. Ms. Taylor pointed out staff had previously brought to the Board the updated collection policy, which the Board approved and the Library Bill of Rights. It was pointed out the Library staff does not censor. Mr. Clark stated that he would never select books that would be detrimental to one's person. November/December Library Advisory Board Date of 12/7/22 — Staff Requests to change to 12/14/22 This item was previously addressed. VIII. Library Director's Report/Statistics July, August & September 2022 Monthly Reports IX. Announcements Next Library Board Meeting —TBD X. Adjournment Motion There being no further business to discuss, Mx. Ratcliff moved to adjourn. Ms. Karten seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 p.m. atujz� aL"+ Catherine Cherry Minutes Specialist 5