July 8 2020 Library Board Meeting Minutes

Prince Rupert Public Library
Library Board Meeting

July 08, 2020

Present: Nick Adey (NA), Chelsea Keays (CK), Stephanie Lysyk (SL), Dale White (DW), Andrea Wilmot (AW), Joe Zelwietro (JZ-Chief Librarian)

Regrets: Glenn Groulx (GG)

Virtual Meeting (through Zoom/computer) commenced at 7:05 pm

• Motion to accept consent agenda by CK, seconded NA, passed
• Board moved onto the discussion agenda
• SL informed us that the BC government is working on legislation which will provide liability protection for some entities to litigation due to COVID-19 infection. It is hoped that libraries will be one of these entities.
• An update on the status of PR Public Library:
  • The Library staff formed a Re-Opening working group in April 2020 to begin planning for the eventual re-opening of the Library. It consisted of the the Chief and Deputy Librarians, Union steward and our Health and Safety representative. A trustee asked whether the working group would wish a trustee to sit on the working group, JZ thought it was a good idea and would bring it up at the next group meeting (July 9, 2020). The committee has continually been working on a Phased Re-opening plan (mirroring the province’s phases) as well as a WorkSafeBC COVID-19 Safety plan.
  • JZ informed the Board as to what services were being provided by the Library:
    • The Library began home delivery of items to patrons in Phase 1 on April 27, 2020
    • The Library began adding digital resources to our website and social media in early April. This includes improved access to digital books, audio books, digital book cover browsing, a public zoom author event, and virtual book club meetings. We added new Children-oriented website links and A well-used digital database, Ancestry.ca gave us a free subscription for COVID-19 time.
    • We set up reference question help for patrons, through online and telephone.
    • With most staff working at home, library staff used free and for-fee software to manage communication (MatterMost file and chat services, VPN for access to Library computer network, Zoom software for staff meetings, Facebook for messaging and video.
    • The Library increased our services in Phase 2 of reopening on June 1, 2020. The above services continued and we added the following:
      • Curbside pickup (patrons give us requests, we fulfilled the requests and patrons would come to the door to pick them up)
      • We resumed accepting returns to the library from both our local patrons and from other libraries through postal mail and our book bin,
      • We started a print-on-demand service through email and curbside pickup.
      • We promoted children’s ‘grab-bag’ of books service.
      • We hired a new Summer Reading Club coordinator to run our Summer Reading program, which will be primarily virtual.
      • We started a new way of registering patrons while observing social-distancing.
      All these services are continuing and we hope to enter our re-opening phase 3 later in July. The Re-opening working group will make this decision shortly and then the Board will approve it or not. As well the working group will be publicizing our Phased Re-opening shortly (hopefully before July 20)
• Discussion comments about re-opening:
  • Trustees have received questions from the public regarding ‘when the Library is opening’. For many people, open means allowing the public into the Public Library. Trustees understand this desire and wish to move towards a greater re-opening in a safe way for staff and public.
  • Browsing is important for a lot of our patrons and we are working on different ways to allow this in one of the next phases. Our next phase will include letting limited amount of the public in restricted ways.
Meeting Adjourned at 8:50 pm. Next Meeting at 7pm (August 12, 2020).

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LibraryBoardMtg-modified-July-8-2020.pdf	31.86 KB