Library Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes

Prepaid Checks #74564 - 74568

Warrant Checks #74570 - 74653

Income Report

Data and Relevant Calculations

Notes

Disbursements as of April 20, 2026: $157,464.64

Bank Balances:

• Money Market: $4,748,379.59
• Checking: $215,839.99
• Total: $4,806,754.94

Transaction Notes:

• 3/4: Friends - Check # 900752 - $1,500 - Donation for Saratoga Reads
• 3/9: Friends - Check # 900754 - $750.00 - Rent
• 3/12 - W.R.L.I.S. - Check # 11522 - $59.99 - Farm2Library reimbursement for shelves
• 3/23 - Stewart’s - Check # 35270 - $1,250.00 - Holiday Match for Saratoga Reads
• 3/26 - Friends - Check # 900761 - $40,000 - Donation for memorial
• 3/26 - Friends - Check # 900762 - $5,000 - Donation for Saratoga Reads

Budget Expense Report

Director’s Written Report

Building Improvements

We have received notification from the State Education Department that the construction grant for the elevator project has received its final approval, with an anticipated initial disbursement of $417,757 in fairly short order.

SaratogaREADS!

I was happy to attend the capstone event of this year’s SaratogaREADS! season, and introduce Sy Montgomery for her engaging, entertaining, and informative talk about Soul of an Octopus. She was very generous with her time during the book signing following her presentation. Special thanks for the success of the event are due to Jamie Chabot, who did the lion’s share of the organization, and to the Friends of the Saratoga Springs Public Library, who organized the bookselling and offered financial support.

Public Library Association Conference

I was delighted to attend the Public Library Association Conference in Minneapolis, where the mood among the attendees was energetic and determined to provide library services in the face of many challenges. I was able to attend sessions about preparing for capital projects, and multiple sessions about inclusion in institutional messaging and programming. The highlights of the conference for me included multiple author and keynote sessions, including a conversation between Ann Patchett and Kate DiCamillo about their friendship, a luncheon event featuring Colson Whitehead discussing his life and writing career, an eye-opening presentation by Dr. Ruha Benjamin about the notions of inclusion and AI, a talk by chef and restauranteur Sean Sherman about indigenous foodways and opportunities for Native Americans, and an opening session featuring Bryan Stevenson, who is a person whose work and ideas I’ve admired for years, about his ongoing work with the Equal Justice Initiative.

Many of the program sessions were standing room only, and all were engaging and informative. Special congratulations to Jen Ferriss on her part in presenting a packed session about library sustainability initiatives!

Memorial Gifts

At 3pm on May 9, a small reception will be held in the New and Popular area to unveil a plaque to honor a gift to the library made in memory of Judy Schmelter. The $40,000 donation in Ms. Schmelter’s name came via the Friends, and will support the New & Popular Collection and Outreach Services.

SALS Annual Meeting

The SALS Annual Meeting will be held on Monday, May 18, at the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls, and will feature the Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate, Jay Rogoff. If you would like to attend, please let me know (along with your dinner preference) and I will RSVP for the library. RSVPs are due to SALS by May 8.

Positive Peace Conversation Facilitation

You may recall that I have recently participated in training by Mediators Beyond Borders, International, sponsored by Rotary International, to facilitate Positive Peace Conversations, which are structured, constructive dialogues aimed at building community, fostering understanding, and strengthening peacebuilding efforts, and meant to equip leaders to facilitate respectful discussions on challenging subjects. To date our cohort has helped to facilitate conversations among Rotarians, centered around the eight pillars of positive peace outlined by the Institute for Economics and Peace. We’ve added a community-oriented session about “The Free Flow of Information” as a library program on September 22, to coincide with Saratoga Peace Week activities.

Outreach and Impact

On a recent weekend, as I was returning from a Rotary District Conference in Syracuse, where I helped to facilitate a Positive Peace Conversation about “High Levels of Human Capital” with participants that included young people from around the world, I was struck by the impact of the work we as an institution have undertaken to expand our reach into the community and beyond, measured by our presence and participation in such events. In addition to the astounding array of outreach work performed by the Access and Outreach Department, that weekend, Jen Ferriss was in Charlotte, Vermont, helping to celebrate the Charlotte Library’s achievement of attaining sustainability certification, Gina Michelin was representing the Library at Skidmore College at the Sustainability Fair, and Adult Services Librarian Katie Ranno and Youth Services Librarians Kate Lambert and Laura Clark were representing the Library at the Autism Fair at Saratoga City Center.

Social Media Report

The report compares data to the previous month.

Definitions used in the report:

• Fans/Followers: Total audience. The number of people who have chosen to follow us on any particular social media platform.
• Engagement: Number of fan interactions (reactions, comments, shares, clicks, and private messages) with social media platform for the month.
• Impressions: Number of times the page’s content has been viewed during the month.
• Brand Awareness/Mentions: Number of page mentions and shares of our content for the month.
• Posts Published: Number of posts we published.
• Total Reach: Number of people who saw the post.
• Engaged: Users People who clicked on the content.
• Unique Viewers: Estimated number of people that watched our content.

Assistant Director Report to the Board

Staff Development Day - May 15, 2026

Our half day is May 16 from 9-noon, doors open to the public at 1 pm. This meeting covers mandatory training and emergency procedures. This year we plan to focus on neurodiversity training lead by Lauren Lestremau Allen from SUNY Empire CAARES (Center for Autism Advocacy, Research, Education and Supports).

The New York State Annual Report

The NYS Annual Report was sent to SALS for review on Monday April 13th.

Space Usage Study

We conducted our 2nd month of data collection.

Sustainability - Earth Month Print Challenge

Currently staff print around 13,000 pages each month and that is without copies and personal printers. We are trying to see if we can reduce staff printing by 1,000 in the month of April.

Of note, last month we printed 9,000 pages and we were on trend to print 6,616 if we continued to print at our current rate. This was made more challenging because we are printing our own voter signature sheets this year.

For those who want to know our environmental impact of 2 weeks’ worth of printing: We have used 33.5% of 1 tree, produced 35.5 KG of CO2 (which is equivalent to driving a truck roundtrip to Albany) and kept one lightbulb on for 2,222 hours.

Continuing Education

Thank you for the opportunity to attend Public Library Association (PLA) Conference in Minneapolis as a speaker and attendee. I was able to connect with public library workers throughout the U.S. to have discussion about innovation, equity, technology, leadership and sustainability.

I attended the thought provoking opening and closing Sessions (Bryan Stevenson and Sean Sherman), a Big Ideas keynote with Dr. Ruha Benjamin, and several targeted professional development sessions including Generation-Z engagement trends, ethical and human-centered uses of artificial intelligence, and strategies for establishing a public library foundation to support fundraising and longterm sustainability. I was also able to walk around the Exhibition Hall and get a tour of the award winning MSR Design office space. I behaved and picked up only one book, The Children by Melissa Albert which will be available in June. If you like fantasy, horror, thrillers with a mystery, I can lend you my copy.

Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Ferriss

IT Group Update

Library Door Count - 25,235

Print Challenge

As sustainability is focus for our organization we have invested in a software program replacing the, free-no longer supported, version(sustainable) but not the full management package, which allows us to monitor the number of prints and organize them into actionable data.

We will be using the data to find oddball items we can fix utilizing better process rather than any punitive printing limits. We have a good baseline for what staff are doing and the resources they need to provide those services and have no plans for changing those processes.

If you care to participate in our Printing Challenge, below are a few basic tips:

• Double- and triple-check your settings.
• To preview what will actually print, choose Microsoft Print to PDF first.
• Can you fit multiple pages per sheet? Do you need full size?
• Only print the specific pages or sections you need.
• Turn off web page headers and footers to save ink and paper.

Investigating

Credit cards for our public printing and copying. Without citing statistics here the trend is ebbing toward cashless but at the same time the population we serve for printing is a larger sample of people more likely to use cash for daily transactions. Plus we get the question a lot.

To that end, we have done some investigation into a couple of options for taking electronic or credit card transactions. Since we can’t stop taking cash (seemingly) we will need to support both methods and those devices purchase and support are costly. We will continue to look for options hopefully landing in a sweet-spot of lower cost and increased utility for our patrons.

Updates to security doors and fire systems are other item(s) on our investigation list. Maintenance will require an upgrade to our fire management consol to retain the ability to maintenance and upgrade our sensor and suppression infrastructure, and IT needs the same for our security door access system.

We are currently using two separate vendors for those systems, and we found an opportunity where we may be able to unify that to a single vendor and possibly streamline a few processes.

We have quotes and are weighing our options because of course the convenience of streamlining will cost more than keeping them separate, and now we must decide if the cost is worth the benefit.

Why can’t things be simple!?! I’m only kidding, luckily, we get our fair share of square peg, square hole opportunities too!

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

I hadn’t had an AI update in a while, so i asked one of the AI’s - what would AI say about libraries. The answer was larger, but I thought this excerpt was shareable.

Respectfully,
Don and Brendon

Access and Outreach Services Monthly Report

Circulation and Technical Services

In March 2026, Circulation and Technical Services:

• Processed 230 library card applications.
• Issued 142 parking permits.
• Received and processed 2666 items from other libraries to fill holds.
• Pulled and transferred 2353 items to fill holds at other libraries.
• Filled 4431 total holds.
• Processed 751 withdrawn items.
• Received and added 1138 physical items to library collections.

Our Library Cards are Being Redesigned

The image above is the art proof provided by the vendor, Wingfoot Plastic Cards, with whom we are partnering to produce the library’s new cards. The featured artwork, created by late Trustee and author Bruce Hiscock, is drawn from the mural he painted outside the Crawshaw Story Room.

The new cards will be produced from durable, flexible plastic similar to our current cards, and are designed for long-term use. In addition to their durability, the updated design reduces plastic waste. Unlike the current cards, which include a separate frame that must be discarded, the new key tag will be attached directly to the wallet card, eliminating excess throwaway plastic. Better yet, these cards are considerably less expensive: $.198 each vs. $.48 each.

If you look very closely at the card art, or better yet, at the mural outside the Crawshaw Room, you’ll see a brightly lit building off in the distance. That, my friends, is the Saratoga Springs Public Library!

Outreach Services

Senior Services, Persons-at-Home (Sarah Derven)

• Visited 13 outreach sites.
• Led 7 memory care writing groups.
• Introduced a new board game to residents at Good Shepherd.
• Delivered materials to 14 individual patrons.
• Served 285 patrons.
• Loaned 677 items.
• Made 86 phone calls.
• Placed 254 items on hold.
• Renewed 215 items.

This month, Sarah visited Good Shepherd on Church Street and introduced residents to the board game Qwirkle. Three games were played simultaneously, and the activity was well received, with strong participation and engagement from residents.

Another monthly highlight: Sarah signed an outreach patron up for a library card…and the gentleman is 106 years old!

Community Events, Partnerships, Mobile Library (Jennifer Ogrodowski)

Jennifer and Kristine attended the school’s Literacy Night, where they engaged with teachers and families, promoted library services, registered new library cards, and facilitated a craft activity. The event was well attended, and many families visited the library table to learn more about available resources.

We extend our thanks to Twin Leaf Farms in Greenfield for hosting this engaging program. Adults and children learned about the maple sugaring process, from tree tapping to syrup production. The experience included a tractor ride through the farm and an opportunity to interact with two Highland cows.

Photo Gallery

Photos: April 20, 2026 - Regular Meeting

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Hayride Tractor

Sugar Shack

The Boys

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• Attendance: 218
• Items Loaned: 83
• Library Cards Issued/Renewed: 11
• Items Returned: 105
• Reference Questions Answered: 12

• Big Truck Day with the Children’s Museum.
• National Library Week celebration at the Children’s Museum.

Adult Literacy and English Language Learning (Mary Ann Rockwell)

Adult Basic Education (ABE)

One new ABE student enrolled in March. Two sessions have been held with an adult learner in his mid-30s who identified as having dyslexia. He has demonstrated strong commitment, and instruction will continue using early literacy workbooks and tailored teaching strategies.

English Language Learning (ELL)

• Classes held: 26
• Total attendance: 126

Tutoring

• Individual sessions conducted: 35
• Total volunteer hours: 141

Tutors were consulted regarding use of the ELLII digital platform. One tutor noted that access would be improved with a dedicated laptop for Literacy Services.

Currently, two of the five weekly ELL classes are being taught by staff.

Three new tutors are being onboarded:

• Mike Long, an intermediate Spanish speaker with connections to the local Latinx community.
• Laura Rappaport, fluent in Spanish, will begin by working one-on-one with a Spanish-speaking learner.
• Connor Mansfield, a Skidmore student with prior experience teaching English in Europe.

Poetry Programming

• Saratoga Poet Laureate Jay Rogoff led four poetry workshops in March, with a total attendance of 64.
• He has expressed interest in offering a similar program in October and has been provided with a proposal and scheduling guidance.
• A “Favorite Poem Reading,” modeled on former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s initiative, is scheduled for April 9.

Poetry Café

Three participants met to discuss works by Irish poets Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney. In recognition of Earth Month (April), the group will next read from Ada Limón’s anthology You Are Here, for which additional copies have been ordered.

Professional Development

• Mary Ann Rockwell: TESOL International Convention – Salt Lake City (March 23–27, 2026)

Attendance at this international conference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages provided valuable insight into current issues and best practices in the field. Topics included ethical uses of AI in education, immigration and citizenship, pronunciation and grammar instruction, flipped classrooms, and task-based learning.

A keynote address emphasized that we are now teaching in a “post-digital” world, where technology is fully integrated into communication, while also highlighting the ongoing challenges of the digital divide. This experience reinforced the continued global importance of English language instruction as a lingua franca and informed future approaches to Literacy Services programming.

Respectfully submitted by:
Trevor Oakley, Head of Access and Outreach Services

Youth Services

Programming and Outreach

• Teen programs: 10
• Teen attendance: 98
• Teen room attendance: 279
• Teen Volunteer hours: 45
• Children’s programs: 64
• Children’s Attendance: 1487

Story time in March was baby central! All the babies have come out for some fun. Other story times see lots of families, but babies are definitely the big crowd this month. Spring story time will conclude in May to make room for upcoming summer reading school visits.

The cold weather was keeping folks at the library for sure- and programming was a hit. The usual after school programming was well attended and fun. Kristine hosted Lepa, from the local police department and had a great turnout for bookmark bunch.

Alex is trying out some new afterschool and evening programming aimed at readers. Its off to a slow start, but innovation requires time and investment. Kate and Katie are trying out a story time program for adults. The first session didn’t garner much interest, but they plan to keep trying. Kate is also continuing to offer her Sensory Play in an afterschool slot.

Laura brought in local Leah Ferrone of the Brave Lion Mindfulness Movement to talk about Creating Intentional Screen Time for the Family and it was very well attended for a parenting program. She also hosted Jeannine Laverty for a multi-session storytelling workshop for adults.

Kristine joined Jen O. on a trip to the Greenfield Literacy Night event at the school where she was able to make some great connections. She took Library goes to Town to the Firehouse in Greenfield and had a great time.

Technically Spring break was in April, so it’ll be discussed in the April report, but it was a busy week!

Updates and Projects

The updates for the WACG new guidelines have been consuming quite a bit of time for several of the librarians and AnnaRae in particular. She took the lead on working on the majority of the department’s guides and has done a fantastic job assessing the materials and making the needed updates. Brendon’s hard work and feedback has been essential to getting everyone up to speed to get the project done.

Stewart’s Awarded us with $1250 from their Holiday Match grant to be used towards our summer reading program. They mentioned that the award fluctuates based on how much money is donated and how many requests they receive. The librarians have plans to put it to good use.

AnnaRae continues to work with 2-3 interns from BOCES each week. She provides different projects for them to work on and ensures they have a positive experience.

AnnaRae also mentioned that we have a full roster of volunteers this Spring. She’s had a lot of requests from seniors who need to finish their service requirements and we do not have enough work to accommodate them. It has been a good time to mention our Teen LibGuide for community service though.

Collections and Display

Teen book displays were “Luck of the Reads,” “Monochrome March” and the Teen advisory board display “Center Stage Stories.”

Kids book displays included St Patrick’s Day, Women’s History, Ramadan, Bears, Sun and Sand, Historical Fiction. There were author spotlights on Leo Lionni, Dr Seuss, and David Shannon.

Continuing Education

• Alex attended webinars on weeding and the NY talking book and Braille library as well as the Dinosaurs 101.
• Kristine reviewed the ICE Operations webinar and attended ECR2R 2011Workshop.

What We’re Reading

• Alex is reading Mystery at the Manor (Montgomery Bonbon #3) by Alasdair Beckett-King.
• Kristine is reading The Experiment by Rebecca Stead.

Respectfully submitted by Catherine Brenner, Head of Youth Services

Human Resources Summary

Staffing Updates

• Resignation
  • Rafael Serrano, Building Maintenance Worker, Operations (P/T),
    February 9, 2026.
• Hiring
  • Cleaner, Operations (P/T) – currently collection applications.
  • Building Maintenance Worker, Operations (P/T) – currently collection applications.

Employee Assistance Program (EAP) Awareness Campaign

Over the next 4–6 weeks, we will be partnering with our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider to run an employee awareness campaign focused on helping staff better understand and take advantage of the services available to them. The goal is to make sure employees and their household members are aware of the wide range of confidential support options they can access when needed.

Each week, employees will receive a short email from me highlighting a different EAP resource. Topics will include lesser-known EAP tools, counseling services, financial support, lifestyle savings, self-help resources, and one-on-one personal and professional coaching. The emails are designed to be quick and practical, so employees can easily connect with services that may be helpful to them. Supporting employee well-being in this way can have a positive impact on day-to-day work, attendance, and overall workplace morale.

We are already seeing encouraging engagement with the EAP. Year-to-date utilization is at 68%, up from 43% at the same time last year. This increase suggests that employees are becoming more aware of and comfortable using these services. The upcoming campaign is intended to build on that progress and highlight additional resources that may not be as widely known.

I will continue to monitor participation and utilization trends throughout and after the campaign to better understand its impact and help guide future employee wellness efforts.

Respectfully submitted by:
Kelly McCombs, Human Resources Manager

Adult Services

Service Statistics

• Lib Guide Total: 162
• Lib Guide Views: 3,879

Offered Programs

• Total Adult Programs: 62
• Total Adult Attendance: 708

Interesting Additions

• Farm2Library – F2L launched at the beginning of the month and has been doing well. The food has been going very fast.
• Seed Library – Also launched this month and has been incredibly popular. We had about 550 packets of seeds to start and they were gone within 4 days. We have gone through all the leftovers from last year plus two refills from Cornell Cooperative Extension.
• Saratoga Room – The Saratoga Room participated in our first “Repair Café” and was able to help patrons with their questions on storage and housing of family records and letters. As a service to the community we provided instruction sheets, archival boxes, and photograph storage instructions during the Repair Café. It was very well received, and we will be attending the next two scheduled events.
• Brown Bag Lunch – season has begun. We had 70 people and 5 online attending the Women in Politics presentation. Next month is Katrina Trask and Yaddo.
• Notary Publics – Katie and Rebecca both took their Notary Public exam in March and just heard that they passed!

What We’re Reading

• Emily: The Tragedy of True Crime
  A first-person journalistic account of the lives of four men who have killed, written by a man who has killed.
• Jamie: Funny Story
  I finally put down the hockey romance and picked up this book, recommended to me by a coworker. I really enjoyed the banter between the main characters!
• Caitlin: A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting
  A good light, happy-ending book for those who enjoy Jane Austen read-alike, though I don’t know that I personally will be seeking out this author’s other books.
• Katie: When Women Were Dragons
  The Mass Dragoning of 1955 finds women sprouting wings and taking to the skies, and it all informs the world view of Alex Green, a young girl whose life changes drastically as this sudden event effects the
  structure of her entire family.
• Kali: Heartwood
  Told from the perspectives of several characters, a missing Appalachian Trail hiker known as Sparrow summons an insurmountable search for her in the Maine wilderness, terrain known for its inhospitable conditions.
• Rebecca: The Names
  The story follows three alternate timelines, in each a mother names her son a different name. The choice impacts his life and ripples out through the family as well.

Operations Report

We have completed the repairs on the failed communications module for boiler unit #1. Stark Tech service provided exceptional response times as we were experiencing a very extended period of extreme cold. After the module replacement upgrade, it was determined to have an inline pump failure; we have previously replaced one on another boiler. Due to supply line challenges, we ordered complete unit (4-6 weeks at approximately $9,000). In addition, I requested a quote (10-12 weeks delivery at just under $3,000) and ordered the electronic control portion of this inline pump so when it is repaired, we will have a spare onsite.

Work was completed the 2 major HVAC units from the July 2025 electrical outage claim. After the insurance directed repairs, some additional damage was detected to the electrical overload control components. Parts were ordered and installed. The addition parts and labor invoice will be submitted to the insurance company for $4,662.65. The units have been running for approximately 7+ weeks with no other problems. At this point in time Utica National has not been responsive to our insurance broker or SSPL by phone or email.

The Cooling tower has been started back up in full operation mode (water and air). We are working with B&L Control for all of the New York State required testing and operation certifications for Bacteriological and Legionella treatments. We experience some minor operating controls issues for full auto programming. We are working to resolve this concern.

In-between work events, we are also transitioning winter equipment and performing maintenance on the incoming spring/ summer equipment. Time to start cleaning and repairing concrete, painting safety lines, sprucing up flower beds while enjoying some much-needed sunshine and warmth!

Overall, we continue to strive and provide the best customer experience possible here at the library. Teamwork and good communication are the essential keys for providing this positive work environment.

Respectfully Submitted,
Richard “Ric” Taras - Operations Supervisor