November 4, 2019

Next Board Meeting
The November Executive Board meeting will be held in the LibraryLinkNJ office on Thursday, November 21, starting at 2:30 PM. Here’s information on how to participate in a LibraryLinkNJ Executive Board meeting.

Online Town Hall Meeting
Hold this date for an Online Town Hall meeting, Wednesday, December 18, 11 AM - 12 PM. Executive Board President, Chris Carbone, will give an update of Board activity and planning, date, bid farewell to Kathy Schalk-Greene as Executive Director, and introduce our new Interim Director. Registration will open Monday, November 18, and more information will be announced. [Update: This meeting has been rescheduled to January 15, 2020.]

Interim Executive Director Search
The Executive Board will hire an Interim Executive Director for up to 28 hours per week to start approximately on December 10, 2019 for a period of up to at least six months at a rate of $65 per hour. Kathy Schalk-Greene, LibraryLinkNJ’s current Executive Director, is retiring on December 31.

Permanent Executive Director Search
The Board will be working with consultant Abby Straus, of Maverick & Boutique, to help the Board explore the future vision and services of LibraryLinkNJ by strategic planning that will involve the library community of New Jersey. The consultant will also assist in drafting a job posting for the permanent Executive Director. It’s anticipated that advertising for new Executive Director will be posted starting in January 2020.

Bylaws
The Executive Board’ Bylaws Committee is reviewing LibraryLinkNJ’s Bylaws and discussing such issues as voting rights, notice before Membership Meetings, and finances.

Delivery Task Force
The Delivery Task Force issued a Request for Quotation for a Delivery Study on October 22. Quotations are due December 9. A Request for Proposal will be developed to re-bid the Statewide Delivery System. The tentative release date for the RFQ is June 15, 2020 with a response date of August 1.

Delivery Cost-Share
For libraries planning purposes, the Delivery Cost Share pricing for FY21 shows a 2% increase over FY20, as per the bylaws amendment passed by the LLNJ membership in June 2019.

The Spring 2020 Series of Super Library Supervisor will be held at the Monroe Public Library (Middlesex County) on the following dates:

• March 25, 2020 - What it Means to be a Supervisor
• April 8, 2020 - Personnel Documentation & Evaluation
• April 22, 2020 - Running Successful Meetings AND Human Resources Basics That Every Supervisor Should Know
• April 29, 2020 - Communications and Resolving Staff Conflict

Target Audience:

• Library staff who are currently supervisors and have less than five years of supervisory experience.
• Participants MUST be actively working as a supervisor at the time the series begins.
• More experienced supervisors are welcome, if this is their first supervisory training.

Registration is a commitment to attend all 4 workshops.

More information will be announced soon.

Technology Meet-ups: Register now for the upcoming MentorNJ Technology Meet-ups! These particular meetups focus on technology in libraries, so from ILS systems, to social media, to IT issues, to makerspaces, to workshops and tech sessions, and much more, any topic related to technology and libraries is fair game. These meetups are for staff at any library type, and any staff level working with or interested in technology and particularly technology in libraries. Site hosts at each location work with dbaldwin [at] piscatawaylibrary.org (Doug Baldwin), Head of Technology at the Piscataway Public Library, to moderate discussions at each event:

• Friday, December 20, 2019, 10am-12pm
  • @ Hunterdon County Library - North County Branch (65 Halstead St, Clinton, NJ 08809)
  • sjanosik [at] hclibrary.us (Sandy Janosik), Adult Services Librarian
• Friday, February 7, 2020, 10am-12pm
  • @ Burlington County Library - Main Branch (5 Pioneer Blvd, Westhampton, NJ 08060)
  • cnemphos [at] bcls.lib.nj.us (Christina Nemphos), Youth Services coordinator
• Friday, April 3, 2020, 10am-12pm
  • @ Livingston Public Library (10 Robert H Harp Dr, Livingston, NJ 07039)
  • joseph.emery [at] livingston.bccls.org (Joseph Emery), Adult Services Librarian

Please use the registration form to attend.

If you have missed our past meet-ups, all meeting notes are documented in real time and shared with attendees, as well as made publicly available on the past meetups list (where you can find archived notes from the past meetings).

Other Upcoming Meet-ups: 

LGBT Meet-up

• Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 10am-12pm @ Monroe Township Public Library, Conference Room
  Hosted by Allan M. Kleiman, Library Director, Montville Township Public Library

Going Fine Free Meet-up

• Date & Location: TBA
• More libraries are going fine free throughout the country, and are you (or is your library) interested in joining the movement? Ralph Bingham, MentorNJ TF & Director of the Gloucester County Library System, hosted a meet-up to talk about 'Going Fine Free' at his library on October 23, 2019. Linda Devlin, Director, and David Lisa, Associate Director, from the Camden County Library System joined the meet-up as guest experts. The Camden County Library System eliminated fines for all overdue items as of July 1.
• Ralph will host another meet-up north on the same topic with Linda and David, so that more libraries can join this timely conversation! The date and location info will be announced soon!

What is MentorNJ Small Meet-up?

This is an opportunity for local librarians and library staff to get together in an informal way and discuss issues and topics related to our daily work. MentorNJ encourages library staff to host or attend a NJ Library Meetup(s) so you can do more of what matters to you and meet colleagues near you who share your interests. Learn from others, and share your insights on targeted topics.

Anyone can host a meet-up and promote it online on the MentorNJ Meet-Up page. Everyone is invited to any meet-up with topics that are of their interest. Please find more about how you can promote your hosting meetup on the MentorNJ meetup page.

If you have any questions about MentorNJ meetups, please contact our meetup coordinators:

• Doug Baldwin, Head of Technology, Piscataway Public Library
• Ralph Bingham, Director, Gloucester County Library System