Macon Reporter

South Macon Public Library District Board met Oct. 8.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

Meeting was called to order at 3:47 p.m. by President Debbie Herbert. Trustees in attendance were Donna Hayes, Debbie Herbert, Anna Jesse, Tami Long, Salli Pritts, Susan Strahle, and Linda Wiles. Also in attendance were director Vicki Carr, assistant Lori Nixon, Joanne Glacken and Mindy Yonker.

Agenda, Minutes and Financial Report: October agenda, minutes and financial report were read and approved.

Librarian’s Report: Circulation for October was 296, computer use 45 and patrons assisted was 443.

Trustee/Committee Reports:

The upcoming election for Trustees will require petitions to be circulated and returned to Vicki between November 12-18. Anna Jesse and Tami Long will run again. Cathy Murray and Mindy Yonker are planning on submitting petitions to run to fill vacancies at the end of Donna Hayes and Linda Wiles current term.

The library was awarded the ALA Grant - Libraries Transforming Communities Round 2 in the amount of $10,000. Vicki Carr is currently working on the Round 3 grant application. The grant application for round 3 will focus on meeting the needs of the autistic population of our district, as well as, maintaining and expanding our large print and audio book collections. The application for the Illinois Humanities $10,000 Grant to continue to support a Community Engagement Coordinator.

The current copier is in decline. Discussion to replace indicated the need for a larger, commercial grade copier. Our increase in patronage and programming are taxing the current, small capacity copier. Jason Reed recommends a RICOH IMC2510 Color Copier, to be purchased through Bid Tap Business Services of Pana. This would be through a proposed deal with other small libraries purchasing to increase the savings. The machine would cost $4845 and belong to the library. A monthly service agreement is available for and additional $35 a month and would include service and ink for 2900 black and white copies and 200 color copies each month. A second option is a Sharp BP50C36 from GFI Digital. A representative paid a sales call to the library. This machine would cost $4755.16 which includes maintenance but each copy is charged individually at $0.008 for black and white copies and $0.0575 for color copies. No decision was made.

Employee, Joann Glacken, gave a proposal for an archives undertaking project. The South Macon Library has many historical documents, newspapers, photographs, yearbooks, and memorabilia. Joann has begun working with the Macon County Genealogy Society to get items digitized. A collection of Macon Newspapers have been turned over to the Genealogy Society to be included in Newspapers.com. Vicki Carr and Joann are looking into the Illinois State Digitization Grant. Suggestions for how to display memorabilia and other items were briefly discussed as well as how to link access through the library website to make these items more accessible to our patrons.

The initial Lego Night was a success. More Legos will need to be acquired. The October Lego Night was rescheduled as not to interfere with Halloween activities.

The garage, crafts, used book sale and food prepared by Lori Nixon brought in $309. This money will be used for our continued expansion of programming.

Many other activities are planned for the coming month, including the Library Crawl, Medicare Enrollment class, exercise classes, Zombie Apocalypse program, book club, exercise classes and meal planning, women’s and kids craft nights, and Bluey appearance for Christmas.

Meeting was adjourned at 4:48 pm with a motion by Susan Strahle and a second by Linda Wiles.

https://www.southmaconlibrary.org/post/south-macon-public-library-district-board-meetingtuesday-october-8-2024