OZARK-DALE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees

February 17, 2016
Members Present: Earl Hyers, Chairman
Imogene Mixson
Marian Jenkins
Also Present: Sandra Holmes, Library Director
Elaine Land, Administrative Assistant
Mr. Hyers called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.m.
Remarks by Chairman. On behalf of the Board, Earl passed on condolences to Marian on the
passing of her father, Henry Jenkins. He was an important part of Ozarks History. Maries
husband, Randy, is not doing well and that might be the reason Marie is absent today. Beverly
and Sonny are is Mobile. Kevin Raley, their son, was honored by having the baseball stadium in
Robertsdale name for him. Beverly was not able to get back for our meeting. Much has
happened since our last meeting. The Smart Start meeting went exceedingly well. Monday, the
first Focus Group composed of the Library Staff, met with the consultants. On the same day,
meetings were held with the Mayor, Deputy Director and Economic Development Director.
Consultants also met with the County Commission Chairman. All of us must come up with
names for focus group members. We need people who will participate, and who come from all
parts of the county. We need a broad spectrum of community input. Some meetings will be held
during the day and others will have to be held in the evening. Will try to get all Focus Groups
done in one week. Talk to participants and send letter of invitation to each. Some club members
will be asked. Sometimes, you can learn a lot from the negative comments. One-half of our
library card holders might live outside the City limits. The Smart Start Committee will help get a
list of names. Our consultants are very good at what they do.
Minutes. A motion was made by Imogene to approve the minutes; it was seconded by Marian
and approved by the Board. It was mentioned that one incubator business deals with drug
testing.
Circulation/Financial Reports. The Library is still full but patrons are using different services
since circulation is down. E-books have increased to 603. Michael went to a workshop on
Overdriveone site for E-books. There is an APP for Overdrive. You can go to the APP store
for your phone or the Google Store, then Play Shop. The APP has a 4.5 rating. Library
attendance for the month was 9,000.
Financially, we are doing well. Sandra picked up the check from the City. We received $80,050
which is level funding. On the Profit & Loss Budget, our income is at 50.28%. Four months
have passed so budget should be at 33.3%. Electricity was 28.84%. Computer Software (Code
227) is 69.64% and purchases should be finished. Quickbooks is very expensive and must be
updated every year. Payroll is at 39%, which is ok. Paper (Code 329) has been separated from

Office Supplies and given its own code. Building Improvement Fund (Code 014) shows the
total given this year--$893.
Library Update.
WWI Centennial Workshop. This is important to our community. It will be held at
Auburn University in June. Sandra selected Donna Snell, a genealogist interested in WWI, and
Berta Blackwell, who is very interested in WWI and has been researching relatives from that
period of time. After attending the event, they will return to offer programs on the topic at the
Library. This workshop is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and most
expenses will be covered by them.
Summer Reading Program. The kick-off for the Summer Reading Program was held in
Montgomery. Sandra and Ruth attended. It was wonderful and they saw many new ideas. Ruth
is now making plans for the Childrens Spring Break programs. This will take place the last
week in March. Plans must be made in advance. Last Thursday, the therapy dogs visited both
Story Times. The 5 dogs were so well behaved and the children had a great time reading to the
dogs. Last Saturday, our childrens librarian Ruth, began art lessons for children. Lessons
started at 10 and 15 children attended. These classes will be held twice a month. Programs for
children are so important. Several years ago, many families from Dothan would drive to Ozark
to attend the children programs. Since Dothan now has the new libraries, we dont get so many.
Vanguard. It has dropped but not nearly as low as the rest of the market. Vanguard has a
good balance of stocks and bonds.
Next Friday, the United Way Allocation Committee will meet at our Library.
Statistics Ruth Found. The statistics show how many people visit the Library Facebook site. It
also shows where they live. It is amazing how wide an area we cover. Marian said our library
page is now linked to the Citys website. Earl had called Denise to say that the Library was not
mentioned on the Citys webpage; Denise had it linked by that afternoon. Veronica, the new
Economic Development Director, and these other women are Internet savvy. Rosemary
Williams at the Chamber was pulling up a page; previously, the Chamber wasnt using social
media platformsMy Space, Facebook, so on. Marion hopes we will compliment these women
to other people. Our Facebook page reached 625 in Ozark, 225 in Dothan, 78 in Enterprise,
adding up to 2,355 hits in the past 28 days. Sandra said we are really pleased with the statistics
and she will try to do this every month. Marian manages our Facebook page. Denise started
the website, Everything Ozark. By the end of the year she had 3,000 uses. She hopes to get
10,000 hits this year. A long standing weakness was that nobody knew what anyone else in
Ozark was doing. The County Commission knew this. Denise just posted a community
calendar. The Chamber has started bringing in our politicians from Montgomery for meetings.
The next meeting will be held at the Chamber of Commerce on March 14th at 9 a.m.
IT people need to be here all day long to help with any technical problems. Sandra now has two
ITs who work part-time to cover all the hours.
Darnell still teaches computer classes every Saturday morning. He usually has 2-12 students.
Our library needs to give assistance on how to use a cell phone and what a phone can do.

To save a document, go to .rtf. This enables most people to open the document no matter what
system they have. This only works for documents, not Excel. It should cover all people if you
save a document on both .rtf and pdf files. Each person should be able to open one or the other.
Chamber of Commerce. In May, it will be the 25th Anniversary of Army Aviation. Major
General Bill Gaynor will be the new Commanding General.
Tomorrow evening from 6:30-8:30, a fund-raising gala will be held at the Holman House. The
DVD, Honoring and Preserving the Heritage: Ozarks Architectural History 1824-1957, will be
shown. It will be announced that the DVD is on sale at the Library. Sandra will send
information to Denise about the DVD and its cost.
Each Board Member was handed a copy of the Handbook for Best Practices for Alabama Public
Libraries.
The meeting adjourned at 10.00. The next regular Board Meeting will be held March 16th at
9:00.
Respectfully submitted by _________________________
Approved by Secretary ____________________________