Director's Report February, 2025

 Report to the Board of Sherman Free Library

 February, 2025 

 Prepared by Kris Jarrett, Library Director 

 Events & Programs 

 Rummage & Book Sale:  Date: TBD

 Basket Raffle:  Date: TBD

 Champ Day:  Date: TBD

 Spring Plant and Seed Swap:  Date: TBD:  Bring your  extra seedlings or seeds and trade with your

 neighbors!  This event will bring together those in  our community with a surplus of seeds or plants with

 those who wish to expand or begin their gardens. Need to purchase: bin to keep extras (mouseproof),

 plastic zip top bags for take home packs, sorting trays. 

 Home Energy Opportunities Talk:  March 6th, 4 pm: Kayla  M. Gutheil  kmg325@cornell.edu  , Cornell

 Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County:  which partners  with other organizations to form the North

 Country Clean Energy Hub. The goal of the Hub is to provide information to community stakeholders

 about energy efficiency and ways to reduce their energy use and costs. 

 Aging Wisely Senior Course :  May 28th, 30th, June 4th,  6th, 11th, 13th 2025 with Ronwyn Kneller

 Prevention Educator,  www.preventionteam.org  , and Joi  Larucci.  Aging Wisely is an evidence-based

 program sponsored by OASAS for older adults within Essex County. It is a free program presented once a

 week for about 1.5-2 hours over 6 weeks. We offer an incentive to attendees if they attend 4 of the

 6-week sessions. We provide a light breakfast or lunch every week depending on the time that we meet.

 The program is for anyone ages 55 and older. We have presented the program in 12 towns across the

 county and 14 different locations. 

 Fraud  Prevention Talk:  October 10, 1 pm with Kim Maercklein,  Consumer Education Community Liaison,

 NYS Division of Consumer Protection:  It’s not all  in your head. Fraud has increased exponentially over the

 past few years. Fraudsters are getting better at their jobs, have better technology, and are taking more

 money than ever. Join the NYS Division of Consumer Protection to learn how to detect the signs of fraud,

 what the latest trends are, and how best to avoid becoming a victim of fraud. 

 Halloween:  We are becoming a destination for Halloween,  along with a few other Main Street

 businesses and the firehouse. I could use a few extra hands this year for crafts. I am considering adding a

 food drive element this year, something along the lines of “trade veggies for candy”... 

 Upcoming TBD:  Author talk and book signing by Jason  Barney,  Hidden History of Lake Champlain 

 Upcoming TBD:  Talk and Movie Night:  History of Moving  Pictures in Port Henry & Moriah 

 Upcoming TBD:  Launch event, talk, signing of new edition  Arcadia book  Port Henry and Moriah? 

 Chess Club:  Chess Club continues on Tuesday afternoons at 3. Attendance has waned a bit this year,

 but games carry on. 

 RPG at the Library : Tom Larson and Samantha Williams, friends, colleagues, and local folks, have

 inquired about running a tabletop roleplaying game, free and open to the public, once a week at the

 library. I suggested Saturday afternoon as that is generally a quiet time when families are free. The game

 they wish to run is all ages and family friendly, and has been run by Tom as a corporate team building

 exercise, which speaks to its broad appeal and appropriateness. 

 The game is called  Mausritter: “This system is extremely easy to pick up, with minimal math required.

 Character creation is easy, both to understand and complete. The setting is flexible, with many

 assumptions being easy to grasp. Everyone knows how big a mouse is. Everyone is familiar with how

 cats and mice behave together. Having the players inhabit the characters of anthropomorphic mice also

 provides a layer of separation between the actions in the game compared to how a situation could

 happen in a real life experience. Progression is also simple, with a mechanic promoting investment in the

 community that the player characters are based in. A stronger community means greater success." 

 Facilities: 

 Electrical Work Done:  Thanks Tom! Outlets, switches,  and generator circuit swapping work done. We

 will now maintain wifi service during a power outage, assuming the fiber service remains intact. We no

 longer have flickering lights. 

 Printer:  Oh, the printer. In early February the scanning head died, leaving us able to print but not copy or

 scan. It is out of warranty and repair would quickly exceed the value of the machine, even only a few

 years old. At that same time the library in Chateaugay offered their ‘old’ copier as they are upgrading. I

 quickly accepted that offer, and now we need to have it moved from there to here. I say ‘have it moved’

 because this is a real office style printer/copier that should be stabilized on that end, transported carefully,

 and set up on our end. SymQuest has had this machine under contract and I would like them to make this

 move, as expensive as it is. The machine has a used value of ~$2500 in my quick research, so it certainly

 seems worthwhile.  SymQuest Quote: Truck $175, Mileage $4 per Mile (51 miles) $204, Connectivity

 $165 TOTAL: $544 

 Water/Sewer:  We have received a letter from the Town stating that we were not paying our full share for

 water and sewer and will now be billed a full share. I have to assume that when the switch was made

 from metered to flat rate a deal was struck since we use so little water, but I have no proof of that. We

 should look into any past records or recollections but also this would likely have happened when the new

 restroom was installed anyway. 

 Collections:  Nicky Bryant and I have been looking  at what we have for space in the library and rethinking

 where some sections live. I have noticed that YA is never utilized, partly due to a lack of patrons in that

 age bracket, but I also think it could be due to the location away from general fiction. I believe that more

 readers would find useful material in that section if they looked through it. We are planning to move YA to

 the back of the house with regular fiction. 

 As part of this rearrangement we will have more space for youth nonfiction and fiction, allowing for topics 

 to be separated and lower shelves emptied as they are nearly inaccessible to anyone over 3 feet tall. 

 One of the ways I would like to open the space up a bit is to remove all but a few of the old, unused, but

 decorative, radiators. I will look into the documentation and storage requirements as a historic building, 

 but I don’t see that as a real challenge. I propose removing five units; one ‘backstage’ which will need to

 go for the bathroom anyway, one at the very back of the building which impedes patron access, one near

 the mapcase, and two on the front wall of the building which will open space for small bookcases. A

 contractor will need to be hired for the removal and repair of the floors in those areas. 

 We have also been culling the stacks to remove out of date and damaged items making space for 2025

 acquisitions. I would like to explore a board committee to provide me with  acquisition recommendations;

 the wider field of people with differing interests we can have involved in this process the better the

 collection will be. As we discussed at the Oct 2024 meeting I will be developing a survey and/or

 comment/title suggestion box/form for patrons to recommend titles for acquisition. 

 A generous patron donation of two DSLR camera kits opens a few opportunities; we can loan the kits out

 to patrons, and we could offer photography classes if there is community interest. 

 State Report:  State Report 2024 is well in progress and will be submitted for review by CEF on February

 21. Melissa and I have been working on the financial questions in the report, both of us for the first year

 without direct support, so there is learning being done, but we should have a good first pass ready for

 CEF by the deadline. I believe all non-financial questions have been completed at this time. They will

 certainly let me know if not. 

 Financial:  In addition to the report financial section we have been working to match the budget

 spreadsheet to the report questions to QuickBooks. This is an ongoing process that, once done, will bring

 all of our financial systems into alignment making future year’s accounting much simpler. Also on our

 docket for this spring will be the library’s first full 990 IRS filing. 

 We will be looking for board approval to move any surplus of funds in the 2024 budget to a new bank

 account to be held for emergency needs and to approve surpluses in subsequent years to also be

 included in this account unless otherwise directed by the board. 

 We have received our contract from the Town of Moriah and our check from the school district. 

 Community Report:  Once the State Report has been buttoned  up I will again use the data collected for

 that to generate our two-page Community Report and have that ready for distribution via our email list and

 in person as we begin the spring season. 

 General Policy Document:  I have picked back up the  project of editing and updating our General Policy.

 There isn’t a lot to change, but some sections have been pulled out and expanded into their own

 documents over the years and some basic updates need to be done. I plan to have edits ready for review

 ahead of, and then a vote to reapprove the document ready for our, Q2 meeting. 

 Staffing: redacted

 Board Members:  It’s that time of year again when I  remind all trustees that  “each member, elected or

 appointed, of a board of trustees shall be required to complete a minimum of two hours of trustee

 education annually. (Education Law §260-d).” 

 Applicable classes may be found at the link below. After watching a video, please complete a Self

 Declaration Form which I can provide via email. 

 https://cefls.org/stafftrustees/continuing-education-2/cefls-webinar-archive/ 

 In addition, each trustee, volunteer, and staff member must complete annual  Sexual Harassment

 Prevention Training  , avalable as a ~40 minute online  class. Please email me the certificate from this

 course or a certificate from any other state approved  Sexual Harassment Prevention Training  you may

 have compleated this calendar year for another organization. This training does NOT count towards board

 member’s required annual training. To make this process more “fun” I will once again plan a group

 training at the library. 

 https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/sexual-harassment-training.page