It is my understanding that if you want to listen in on the meeting, you can go to the TRL service center in Tumwater.

The issue the auditor’s found is pretty straight forward. We’ve (as in “we,” the board of trustee in this case) have been spending far too much money on our independent library foundation.

The ironic part of this finding is that the board of trustees realized this years ago and have been taking serious steps to stop subsidizing the foundation. I can’t stress this enough, and other trustees have worked hard on this issue well before I was appointed in spring 2010, but the auditor’s office is giving the district a finding for something we’re already working on fixing. I noted the board’s “defunding” of the foundation last year.

These highlights from district staff’s response to the auditor’s finding summarize our response to this issue starting about six years ago:

• In March, 2005, TRL’s Board of Trustees approved an amendment to the 1998 Agreement between TRL and the Foundation. The amendment included the following: A ceiling on expenditures of $250,000; A mandate that the Library Development office prepare a budget showing all anticipated transactions and services for the upcoming year; and A review of post-closing summary transactions between the two parties.
• In May, 2009, TRL’s Board of Trustees discussed the matter of the open Foundation Director position. Included in part of the discussion, “… the TRLF (Foundation) Director position (shall) remain vacant until TRLF (the Foundation) submits a plan to the TRL Board for approval which includes a plan for sustainability.”
• In September, 2010, a plan was introduced by the Foundation for a new agreement with TRL’s Board of Trustees. That plan was described at the next TRL Board meeting, “…funding the Foundation at the level requested is not justifiable…” The position of Foundation Director was not funded for 2011, and the level of funding for the Foundation was provided only at basic levels…The decision moving  forward is to continue funding the Foundation at basic levels only through June, 2012; afterwards TRL will no longer provide funding for the Foundation.

Please read the entire audit report (only three pages) and the staff responses.

Agenda (December 28 meeting)

Financial statements for November 2011

Director’s Report, December 2011

Department Report, December 2011

Several important updates in this report, including a description of a survey going out to TRL patrons soon:

TRL’s public will be invited to take a general satisfaction survey by January 2012.  The survey includes a short (2-3 minutes), regular (7 minutes) and in-depth (15  minutes) versions. Staff have taken the survey and provided input regarding minor  changes that more closely match TRL’s services and resources. TRL’s website  homepage will include a large graphic promoting the survey to garner what we hope  will be thousands of responses during the two-month timeframe the survey is available.

Service Stories

This one is always full of great stuff, especially this one this month:

A woman came to the Library asking how she could get a library card. She recently moved to Randle from a much bigger area out of state. She was so happy to discover that Randle had a library. After explaining to her all of the services and information TRL has to offer she could not believe that our library had so many more services available to her. She explained that her previous Library was three times bigger than our Library and it did not even begin to have as much as TRL. She left with a big smile on her face stating the staff will be seeing her quite often as she planned to use the Library at least two times a week.
Submitted by Nancy Sawyer, Library Manager

These kinds of stories really remind me of what a great institution TRL really is. We often forget what kind of libraries communities like Randle would have if not for Timberland. By being able to leverage the support of five counties, every one of our communities really does benefit.

Surplus list, December 2011

Board meeting recordings local television report

In January we’ll start recording and posting on the web our trustee meetings. This report explores the possibility of also distributing them through local public access television.

Facilities Report 2011

Well, Gluejar for example (via Free Range Libarian). Its not breaking down the walls of the publishing industry or creating new software to replace Overdrive. Gluejar is just dealing with the elegant problem posed by licensing.

Next step, talk to local hackers so they advocate for such a thing.

Yet it is unusual among the “big six” publishers in that it allows e-books to be borrowed through libraries at all. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster do not distribute any e-books (new or old) to libraries. Hachette Book Group does not allow new titles to be lent as e-books, and HarperCollins allows new e-books to be borrowed only 26 times before the library has to buy a new copy. This leaves Random House as the only big six publisher currently allowing unfettered access to its e-books through libraries.

Last night I was poking around TRL’s downloads for a new ebook to read and came up short. I ended up going over to Smashword and then Feedbooks and found something in their free downloads to read. I thought at the time our selection seemed thin, but didn’t put too much to it. But, knowing that three of the six large publishers don’t allow us to stock their content at all makes it very clear why it seemed that way.

1. Making the Case for Support of Libraries

And you must share not just with people that are using your services, but especially with those who don’t ever visit the library: the elected officials, the high income voters, the leaders in your communities, and the potential private funders. Contact the media, speak at local community meetings (neighborhood associations, rotary, PTA), have a booth at the farmer’s market or grocery store one week, set up meetings with local leaders, do whatever it takes to be visible.

This point is the most important, getting the word out to civic center of your community the good work the library does. OCLC calls these folks the “greater good.”

2. Amazon May Soon Launch a “Netflix for Books”

Mix together one part rebranding fines as “extended use fees” or just a Netflix program and one part mailing books to patrons, and you have Netflix for Books.

3. Information Outlook: Advocating for Librarians – Versus Libraries

Libraries are buildings, librarians are the service.

4. Library Future.0

5. Revolutionising Libraries with Social Media

The director’s and departmentalreports are always worth a read. And, take a look at how our staff are always working to expand services to unserved areas around the district (working with the independent Ocean Shores in the departmental report and unserved Lewis County communities in the director’s report).

We don’t use vendors to aggregate and distribute our physical collection.  Now, libraries use Overdrive to do that with ebooks because between licensing the content from the copyright holders and finding a way to distribute them to patrons, its easier to use Overdrive.

But, I doubt it will always be that way. I’ve heard that the bad service experienced by patrons from our online catalog vendor and Overdrive are because vendors that deal with libraries just aren’t that advanced. Simply put, there isn’t much money in providing services to libraries (which are always trying to drive down costs and have limited budgets to begin with).

So, in the long run distributing econtent to patrons is something that should be totally be brought in house, in the interest of our patrons (as outlined above) and because that’s just what we should be capable of doing on our own.