Board Meeting 6/17/08--STAFF MTG TOMORROW!!

First of all, if you haven't heard there will be an all staff meeting tomorrow at 2pm at the former Famous Footwear location at Westdale Mall. Also tetatnus shots will be available from the city at Westdale starting at 7am. They will also be offered at 1pm at a different location. I didn't catch where, maybe Water Dept at Shaver Rd?? All city staff members will be paid through the end of this week. Starting next Monday, you must working somewhere in order to be paid. We will be sending staff to MPL and HPL in addition to some working at the new West location. If we can send everyone to library locations, there are places in the city where we can help. Also there is Emergency Disaster Leave available for employees who have to deal with flood problems. So if you have been displaced and have flood matters to deal with, please contact your supervisor regarding this.

First info on the building. As you know Tam, Roger, Jeff and Nick entered the building today. Tam said it was not nearly as bad as she expected, but she also said that depends on how bad you were expecting. She said it looks like the water came about 5 ft up the walls on the main floor and many materials will be salvagable. We may have some professional help in this matter. All of the shelving was standing, also a good thing. The building has not been cleared for general staff to go in. I believe it has passed the structural inspection, but failed the health department inspection due to air quality and contamination issues. Currently a professional Recovery team, hired by the city is working in the building. The Unicorn server has been removed to Marion Public Library and Rogher and Nick hope to have at least MPL up on the regular system by tonight. One of the first things they are doing is installing large dehumidifiers in order to preserve the children's collection and other materials located on the first floor. The prime pieces of the Zerzanek collection were removed from the building, the remainder are in the closet in the ISAIC area and still safe for now. They hope to remove them tomorrow. The collection will be inspected by a professional conservationist from UofI. They are working for Brucemore to salvage and preserve endangered items from all the local cultural organizations. The Recovery team will most like be followed by a professional Cleaning and Sanitizing team also hired by the city. The library will of course have to pay for their share of these services. Due to the fact that all of our electrical connections are interior and owned by the library, Alliant reported that they would be unable to hook us up to the recently arrived mega-generator. The city has arranged for electricians to inspect and clean our electrical works and is flying in a generator for the library. Hiawatha Public Library will be taking over the Jewish Literature series for us. Marion Public Library has made room for the server and turned all their meeting rooms over to us. Staff members will soon be assigned to both locations to provide them with assistance. Some of the Childrens programming has already been rescheduled for Center Court at Westdale Mall, including Tom Pease.

Tam who has been attending daily 7am city managers meetings (in addition to an endless number of other meetings) said the city has been very concerned, helpful and inclusive.

Carol Hoke was responsible for getting the additional space at Westdale Mall. She reported that mall management suggested that Von Maur who is still paying rental on their old space, might be interested in making that available to us for a larger scale temp locaation. The old Kenwood House building was also suggested as was perhaps a limited services trailer located closer to downtown. Carol Hoke will investigate the potential locations and the board will be considering what the needs for temp location(s) might be. She also attended a meeting today which provided information from various sources. Human Resources reported that all city employees will be paid through the end of this week regardless of work status. As of Monday all employees need to on the job, a job, somewhere to get paid. Or on some type of leave. There is Emergency Leave available for those who are dealing with flood damage. FEMA was represented and emphasized the need to document and save all receipts. FEMA will pay 75% of flood loss/recovery, the state 10% and the we will realize the remaining 15%. EAP is available both for individuals and willing and able to set up meetings for entire departments.

The director seach has been postponed for an undeterminded period of time. We need to have an intact library to attract quality candidates.

The whole tenor of the board meeting was one of hope and positiveness. To coin a trite but applicable phrase. When you get lemons, make lemonade. The board is very much in favor of proceeding with and accelerating the building program. Rather than restore to the previous level for a couple of years and then proceed with it, they hope to move ahead and make the library better and brighter. Some aspects will have to be revamped and bumped up, such as the architectural plans take on a whole new aspect now. Susan Corrigan said that this situation has brought on new opportunities. Opportunities to bring all those associated with the library, staff, board, friends, foundation closer together and a more unified base of support for the library. It also brings the opportunity to create a better library with a brighter future. They are hard at work to figure out what is the best approach to do this. They will meet again next week again at MPL.

I think those are the highlights. If you have questions or I've missed something obvious, let me know I'll try to address it. In the meantime, I think we are very fortunate to have a caring, active Board of Trustees and a dedicated and intrepid acting director.