ORDER-2021-87 : Re-Appointment of Cathryn M. Mercier, 466 Pleasant St., to the Melrose Public Library Board of Trustees for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February, 2023

Transcript (~10 min @ 15:12)

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▶ 15:08 Speaker 1: Yes President Sunilla. Yes

▶ 15:20 Maya Jamaleddine: Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you counselors. Okay, next we have order 2021-87, the appointment of Catherine M. Mercy for 66 Pleasant Street to the Melrose Public Library Board of Trustees for a three years term, set term to end on the last day of February 2023.

▶ 15:45 Paul Brodeur: Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, I want to thank you for your consideration. I know it's a little bit unusual that we have a reappointment coming before you for your consideration, but it struck me, given the central place of the library within the community and the fact that Dr. Mercier was appointed before, I think anyone that's on the screen right now was a member of the council, It would be a terrific opportunity for her to reintroduce herself to you to talk a little bit more about as an experienced trustee. I'm like, Mr. To the extent you're interested how the library is doing a little bit of perspective on where it's been and where it might be going. And I also would commend you to take a good look at her resume as well because. It is jaw dropping in terms of the experience and the, you know, the depth of experience and the quite frankly, the, the marriage of job to this. This particular opportunity is really a match made in heaven. So with that, I again, I thank you for your consideration and I look forward to.

▶ 17:02 Speaker 5: Hearing from Dr. Mercier. That requires I learn how to use Webex instead of Zoom. So I will do that. My name is Kathy Mercier. I'm delighted to be asked to be if I was open for reappointment. I'm delighted to come and talk with you today. I started my service on the Board of Trustees in April of 2015, I think, either 2015 or 2016. And yes, it's a thrill to be back. enjoyed this work as part of the work i worked as co-chair of the most recent strategic plan for the library that was an important piece for us to do and i was asked to be co-chair because at simmons university where i am a full professor and have been working for the past 35 years at simmons i was a co-lead on our university-wide strategic plan and so that it was simply a skill that i was i was building and i will tell you running the strategic plan process with the community with the staff at the library with people who came in across the transom to borrow books with business leaders and with civic leaders in the city was one of the best ways to get to know both the reach of the library but also to get to know how it served our community so that was that was a real pleasure and we were delighted when the board accepted that proposal. What else can I tell you? Of the 35,000, 37,000 I think our last round was 37,000 electronic circulation on overdrive in February 2020 alone through the library, I was probably 30,000 of those books that were circulated. I am a frequent library user. I believe in the mission of the library. I believe in the work of the library. My work at Simmons is largely as the director of the graduate degree programs in children's literature and the Center for the Study of Children's Literature. Many of our students will go into some kind of book industry work, writers, illustrators, publishers, but also teachers and librarians. And I do a lot of work with students who will go into library practice. And I think I shared this with the mayor when I talked with him earlier. You know, as an academic in this field, I make great use of picture book collections and young adult collections. In the city of Melrose, our collections are also serving a wide range of school children. We do not have school and media specialists in all of our schools, especially our elementary schools. And the absence of that on a curriculum and on a curriculum use and collection development platform means that there's additional demand for those services and for those books through our public library we have been very very lucky i think at the melrose public library that they have been able to fulfill that need for both our public schools our parochial schools and their charter schools that that operate within the city or send us send us their students that is an unusual arena to tap for a public library usually if you have you know if you are in In Burlington or Lexington, you have the citywide per capita income funding to support school library media specialists in your school. If you're in Everett, there's a low enough per capita income that you qualify for other kinds of funding to support those staff positions in your school. Melrose is in that ugly sweet spot in between where we have a decent and a healthy per capita income but we we don't have exactly um what it would take to be able to fully fund those positions in our schools so for me the library being able to fulfill that need for the children of this community matters matters a great deal um i think that's i'm happy to answer any questions that you have um today has been a high day for me i was quoted in the new york times this morning and in a way that gave me a last word which is something i really really like so so that was i've been on um i started getting questions about the quotation at like nine o'clock this morning when i was trying to do my job and teach my class so it's been a long day but i'm really happy to

▶ 21:15 Maya Jamaleddine: end it with you here today thank you um dr mercier and um we have uh counselor echoes

▶ 21:24 Jack Eccles: would like to ask questions thank you i really appreciate um the opportunity to talk with you especially um someone who's a reappointment i guess um it would be helpful for me to Kind of understand it, because I don't think we get this opportunity often. What is the meeting of the board of library trustees look like? And like, what's what's the normal business on the agenda?

▶ 21:45 Speaker 5: Oh, the normal business and the normal business and the meetings, the way they look, you know, we all sit around a table. Now, we're sitting around in zoom. The director provides an agenda where we have updates on all facets of the library from the services and the programmings that were offered to. Circulation statistics to finances and updates on on budget and budget expenses. Extraordinary demands. We hear of the of some of the more exceptional pieces of correspondence. That might come to to the director that might need advice or or be sort of a little out of the ordinary. Um, and we really review with the library director, the policies, um, that that come, you know, for example, policies around so many of them are about in face to face service, which of course, we're not we're not doing right now, but policies around library hours. When will the library be open online weekends or not online on weekends during holiday weekends policies around whether or not there can be on it. whether or not adults unattended by children, I think that's a fair way to put it, can be in the children's room. And while that does not seem like a very big issue, if you have the wrong adult who's unattended by a child, that could be, we don't want a whole lot of adults without kids hanging out in our children's room, right? For reasons that I think make a lot of sense for the safety of the children in that room. Doesn't mean adults can't go in to the children's room. I'm an unattended, I'm not attended by children. I go into the children's room all the time, but I would expect to be asked a question if I was just kind of hanging out, doing my own thing and going to what Mr. Fahey said earlier, we don't have a lot of space in the current library. And so there's not the children's room space is really, really, really tapped and stretched by children's programming right now. So, it's also, you know, how are we best going to use that space? We are not setting, working with the director of the library or the library staff to determine how that space will be used on a day-to-day basis. But we are very much consulted when there are issues around or collisions around the use of that space. So, I'm happy to give you a sense of our answers of our business.

▶ 24:13 Speaker 4: For sure. Yeah, thanks. That was really helpful. You're welcome.

▶ 24:20 Maya Jamaleddine: Any other counselor would like to ask any question.

▶ 24:29 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay, I would like to thank you and I, um, all the information that you provided are very helpful and, um. Benefits for us to know and learn more about the library and the board and the role of the board of trustees. Um, what is the will of the committee?

▶ 24:48 Robb Stewart: I'm sure I'd like to make a motion to recommend this documents here for a reappointment.

▶ 24:56 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay, we have a motion made by counselor, seconded by president. Can you call it on.

▶ 25:05 Speaker 1: Yes, vice chair. Yes, counselor. Yes, counselor Stewart. Yes. Counselor Thomas yes. Yes. President.

▶ 25:23 Speaker 5: Yes, success. Thank you. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I look forward to serving this community for as long as you'll have me and we are very excited about the prospect of the building renovation project. We are number 3 on the list just to let, you know, we've moved from 10 to 3 and 4 years. So, we're excited to move forward with this and looking forward to welcoming them able to afford me to talk about our next steps. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Thank you all. Madam chair at this time. I'll make a motion to adjourn.