4/18/2006 BOARD OF LIBRARY TRUSTEES Minutes

Home Browse Search

r . Mashpee Public Library P.O. Box 657 Mashpee, Ma 02649 Circulation for March 2006 totaled 9,708 items, compared to 10,163 items last March. This is the first month this year where last year's total exceed the FY 2006 total. Year-to-date, circulation is still running ahead of last year .Thus far, 97,459 items went out compared to 91,472 by March of last year. To date, circulation is running 9% higher than last year. I have completed weeding the Fiction collection and have moved on to the Mysteries. We picked up enough space in the Fiction stacks to expand the Audio CDs which were quite cramped. We relocated the CDs to the beginning of the fiction stacks so we could have a less confusing arrangement of the Fiction titles. We were able to leave the top and bottom shelves empty in the CD shelves, allowing enough space to add to this collection while we remain in this building. On a related topic, the Clams libraries voted to purchase a subscription of downloadable audio books from Recorded Books. Buying the subscription as a network considerably lower the price we could obtain as individual libraries. Mashpee's share is about $2,200. We will have access to more than 1,200 adult titles and 250 Young Adult/Children's titles. Patrons will download the books to their MP3 players. There is no limit on simultaneous uses, so many patrons can download the same title rather than waiting for the first person to return it. We don't have to set aside shelf space for this collection because the items are not physically in the library. A number of patrons have been asking for this type of product and those libraries that have added it report a big jump in usage particularly from non-traditional users. The subscription will begin in July 2006. 1 attended the Public Library Association Conference in Boston. This was the first time the biennial conference had been held in Massachusetts. 1 attended an interesting session on a Design Built library in Greenville, South Carolina. With this process, the library hired the general contractor and he hired the architect. The main reason for using this process was that the project could be completed more quickly which saved money. Once the architect determined the size of the footprint, construction of the foundation began. At the same time, the architect began designing the interior of the building. It was interesting to note that the library was 120,000 square feet and but was smaller than the 170,000 they felt they needed. As a tradeoff, they built a stronger foundation to allow adding a third floor in the future of funding became available. I'm happy to report that Janet Burke's position is on the Town Meeting warrant. Joyce has asked department heads whose departments have items on the warrant to attend a public forum on April 25th, to answer questions voter may have on the articles. The forum is at 6:30 p.m.