ROCKINGHAM FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS COMMITTEE SPECIAL MEETING
Monday, December 8, 2014
at The Rockingham Free Public Library, Youth Department Meeting Room
9:00am to 10:00am
Draft Minutes
Click here to download a pdf of these Draft Meeting Minutes HCC–12_8_14
In attendance: Carolyn Frisa, Celina Houlne, Emily Zervas, Pat Fowler, Duane Whitehead, and Karin Fischer.
- Call to order—meeting called to order at 9:12AM
- Additions or changes to agenda. Adoption of agenda.—None.
- Approval of last meeting’s minutes—minutes accepted with one change—name of bridge.
- Public comment (3 minutes in person)—none.
- Plan for moving collection back to library
- Update on progress—Emily gave an update on the moving of collections that happened after the last meeting. The volunteers and highway department did a great job and made a significant dent in the items in the basement of the bookstore. All framed items were brought over and so were most of the cataloged photograph collection. Many “A” boxes were also unearthed and brought back to the library. Emily was able to reassemble one of the archival shelving units in the upstairs storage area and begin recording which boxes are stored on it in the Collections Management Database.
- Discuss plans for moving the rest of the Historical Collection—Emily will be meeting with the highway department today after the meeting to move another batch of items and disassemble and move another shelf. She thinks that the work can proceed in this manner until all the items that are coming back to the library have been moved.
- Display and Exhibit Planning – Updates if Necessary—Emily gave an update on the new art collection labels, wintertime photo display, and Enoch Hale toll bridge hanging. Raven Muller from Works on Paper came and added hanging mounts to the bridge sign and two members of the highway department hung it. It looks great!
- Identify storage, housing and other supply needs for Historical Collection – Updates if Necessary—Emily re-iterated a need for storage for framed items after it is determined which framed items are staying. This discussion led to the next item.
- Update on grant applications—the library received the good news (via phone call from Bernie Sanders himself!) that our grant application for rehousing the glass plate negatives and large format photos was successful! The $6000 NEH Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions will be accepted and Emily will place the orders for the storage and rehousing materials. She will also attempt to find an intern to assist with the rehousing work. Carolyn will train Emily and the intern and, perhaps, eventually the person who replaces Emily.
- Discuss Emily Zervas’ future work on the Historical Collections—Emily has accepted a position as the director of Putney Public Library and will be ending her fulltime employment on Dec 19th. She will continue in a part time capacity starting again February, when she will work approx. 5 hours a week on Mondays. This will allow her to work on the NEH grant activities and moving the historical collections back into the building, while also cataloging and organizing them.
- New Business—Duane asked if Emily could prepare a priorities list and plan for the collections. It was also suggested that at this juncture the committee review its Collections Management Policy. Emily will send the Collections Management Policy and NEH grant to the group and have the other document ready to present at the next meeting.
- Review agenda items for next meeting if applicable—Next meeting will be at 12/15 at 9am at the library. Agenda items include: Reviewing the Collections Management Policy, the priority list and receive an update on additional moving.
- Adjourn—10:10am