Congratulations to Garden City residents, and to all Garden City Public Library cardholders, on the July 18 reopening of the Garden City Public Library.

The Garden City Public Library has announced that they will be open for thirty hours, five days per week, from July 18 through at least the November millage election. Unfortunately, these hours will not meet the minimum requirements for state certification. As a result, the Canton Public Library will not resume reciprocity with Garden City Public Library at this time.

Girl Scouts Maha Zahid and Christina Christianson need your help to restock Detroit's Bennet Elementary School library, which was destroyed by fire. Bring in your new or gently-used books (for ages preschool through grade 5) to the Canton Public Library through this Sunday (July 17). Chapter books, accelerated reader books and reference books (dictionaries, thesauruses and encyclopedias) are needed the most. The pair organized the book drive as a community project to demonstrate the leadership skills necessary to achieve the Girl Scout Cadette's Silver Award.

Most people associate February with Valentine's Day, but did you know that February is also Library Lovers' Month? Check out this website to print some great bookmarks, send some online postcards, get library-inspired ideas for things to do with kids, and even see a list of movies involving librarians. Then come visit the library to check them out!

A scrapbook, [in searchable page-by-page pdf format] compiled by the Friends of the Canton Public Library, with staff information, events, press clippings, photos, and more. Also available as full-quality originals.

The Chairperson, Colleen Van Auken, called the meeting to order at 7:33PM
Present: K. Schulz, M. Siegrist, C. Van Auken, J. Fausone, G. Snow, D. Turner
Also Present: E. Davis, K. Gladden, G. Bell, A. Davis, M. Swartz

Call to Audience

No comments (R. Havenstein-Coughlin, A. Heidemann, L. Papa, S. Rzetelny)

Approval of Agenda

The agenda was approved as amended

Approval of Minutes

Minutes of the March 18 meeting were approved as presented

Communications

E. Davis shared with the Board an invitation from the new Belleville District Library to attend a reception and swearing-in ceremony of the new District Board on April 24th.

Included in the April PR packet were materials relating to the 2009 Annual Report that were mailed to donors and a placard that was sent to community partners.

I am pleased to announce that one of our librarians has been named a top librarian in Michigan! Anna Slaughter is the 2010 recipient of the Michigan Library Association's Frances H. Pletz Award for excellence in service to teens. I, along with her colleagues from the Children's, Tween, and Teen department and several members of her family, were on hand last night when the award was announced at the MLA conference in Kalamazoo.

CPL has been blessed with supportive patrons and an excellent staff. We are proud to have one of our own singled out for the wonderful work she does with teenagers in our community. Please join me in congratulating Anna on this accomplishment!

You might be able to help us save some of your tax dollars by allowing us to put your email address in your patron record. We won’t send you anything except circulation notices — the item you put on hold is ready to be picked up, the library materials you have out will be due back in two days, reminders of materials you haven’t returned yet — that we would otherwise have to send by printed notices or telephone message. In fact, our “courtesy notices”, those messages we send two days before your items are due back to the library, can only be sent by email — and you’re missing out (and possibly paying overdue fines) if we don’t have your email address. Using email to contact you is also GREEN! We won’t be using paper or postage if we can contact you by email. Just stop at the Checkout Desk and give a staff member your email address, and if you don’t have an email address, ask a librarian at the Reference Desk how you can get started.

A special meeting of the Canton Public Library Board of Trustees has been scheduled for Thursday, September 3 at 7:30 p.m., at which time the board will study the proposed 2010 budget. Members of the public are encouraged to attend.

The library is SO busy, and you're checking out and returning SO many books on CD, DVDs, and of course books that we are having a hard time getting them back on the shelf.  If you can volunteer to help us on a regular basis we'd be SO grateful!   To volunteer, just fill out this short form and return it to Kathie Gladden at the library.  And thank you!

Each year the library checks out its one millionth item a little earlier. In 2008 it was Wednesday, July 23, that our circulation for the year reached 1,000,000. This year it was this past Wednesday, July 1, that the one millionth item was checked out. Thank you for supporting our efforts!

The 2010 library budget process has begun, and the economic news continues to worsen. The library board of trustees, library administration, and library staff have so far focused on making cuts that have the least impact on our service to you, but as the recession deepens, the sad truth is that you will begin to see an erosion in library services.

In 2009, we reduced the library budget by 10%--a combination of falling property values and the vote by the board of trustees in August 2008 to voluntarily lower the library millage rate to reduce the burden on our economically-stressed taxpayers. In 2010, we are facing an additional cut of 6% to 10%. The total cuts over these two years will total more than $1 million from the library's 2008 budget of $6.4 million. We can no longer avoid making cuts that will affect your experience at the library.

MeL, the Michigan Electronic Library, will be down all day Wednesday for system maintenance. As a result,

• No one will be able to search MeLCat or place MeLCat requests
• No one will be able to renew MeLCat items

Stop at or call the Reference Desk for MeL assistance during this time.

The library's online catalog has matured and provides users with a lot more information than it used to.  Remember the blue background screens and text-based options of author, title, subject, words?  Well, look at the catalog now!  You get the cover image, a tag cloud (keywords based on the item's content), the option to save the record and rate it, the ability to limit your search, hyperlinks to other it

CPL is governed by a six-member Library Board of Trustees of community members elected quadrennially on a nonpartisan ballot. The Board meets at 7:30 PM on the third Thursday of each month. You are invited to attend.

Library Director

Eva Davis grew up in Canton and is a proud graduate of Canton High School. With a background in customer service, research, and publishing, she became a librarian in 1998, and has held her dream job here since 2008. Having experienced Canton both without a library (pre-1980) and with a library (1980-present), she thinks that the community is definitely better off now, and is committed to continuing CPL's award-winning excellence.

The Canton Public Library connects your community.

Canton Public Library serves more than 90,000 residents of Canton Township in western Wayne County, Michigan. We are a member of TLN and Metro Net. Our director is Eva Davis.

CPL is the busiest single-branch library in the state, circulating 300,000+ items over 1.8 million times [in 2011]. Our 53,500 square foot facility provides space for our 71%-resident patron population of more than 47,500 active cardholders.