MISSION STATEMENT

The Somerset County Library System promotes learning by providing materials, services,

and access to information that enrich our community and excite the imagination.

The Heart of the Community

BOARD OF SOMERSET COUNTY LIBRARY TRUSTEES

REGULAR MEETING MINUTES

Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 4:00pm

Princess Anne Library

Present: Beth Holmes-Mayson, Vice President; Tim Spillane, Treasurer; Board Members: Lynn Lang, Karen Riggin, Janet Smith, Jennifer Timmons; Ed Goyda, Library Director; Jaime Bradshaw, Assistant Director; Ashley Gilson, Crisfield Library Services Manager; Danielle Craige, Princess Anne Library Services Manager; Adrianna Warfield, Children's Services Coordinator; Nora Hoffman, Bookkeeper/Admin. Assistant

Absent: Ann Smith, President

CALL MEETING TO ORDER

Vice President Beth Holmes-Mayson called the meeting to order at 3:59pm.

CONSENT AGENDA

Approve minutes from the regular meeting of December 10, 2025
Approve financial report for the period from July 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025
Approve financial report for the period from July 1, 2025 - January 31, 2026

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion was made by Tim Spillane, seconded by Janet Smith and unanimously approved.

BRANCH HIGHLIGHTS

Crisfield: Presented by Ashley Gilson, Library Services Manager

Branch Highlights: By the beginning of December, staff were excited to start decorating the library for the holiday season. Our first community event we participated in was the annual Crisfield Christmas Parade. We also participated in Staff Spirit Week where we spread holiday cheer with our Christmas accessories, ugly sweaters, and cozy pajamas. This was photographed daily and posted on the Library’s Facebook page. In January, we started the annual weeding process and shipped 46 boxes to Better World Books. Throughout the library we had various decorations and displays for Christmas, Winter Vibes, New Year’s Day, and MLK Day.

Staff Development: In December & January, staff participated in various training courses on topics such as Techniques for Uncomfortable Conversations, Community Partnerships, and Challenging Behaviors of Customers. We also had a few staff attend Tech Connect. The theme this year was “Technology as a Community Building Tool.” The event explored the intersection of libraries and technology in building strong communities, in person and online.

Community Partnerships: In December, Santa and his elves visited the Developmental Center and Tawes Nursing Home where they made a craft and took photos. Social Services still visited weekly to assist the public with any government aid they may require. The GED program had also started again.

Future Happenings: AARP Free Tax Aide services began February 11th. Staff were excited to attend SLRC at the end of February. We were already looking forward to all things spring and Summer Reading 2026.

Princess Anne: Presented by Danielle Craige, Library Services Manager

Branch Highlights: In December, staff enjoyed participating in an extended Spirit Week! We had pajama days, a character day, and a glam day! Staff participated in the annual Princess Anne Christmas Parade; it was a very chilly but fun evening. We featured book displays on creativity and Marting Luther King Jr. The library held a Noon Years Eve party on New Years Eve with snacks, crafts, and a balloon drop at noon. Many families in our community attended and had a wonderful time. We began our annual weeding process in January and had been making good progress. Staff continued to do well with their shelf-reads and daily/weekly tasks. Our newest member of staff, Kristin, continued to do well and grow in her role. We continued to regularly use our Maryland Room as a secondary meeting space.

Community Partnerships: The Somerset County Arts Council continued to hold an art gallery in our meeting room. The gallery featured artwork from students in the Somerset County School system. Our community food pantry had been well used and frequently receives donations from members of the community.

Future Happenings: Staff were excited for upcoming staff development opportunities such as the Circulation Conference at the State Library Resource Center and the annual MLA Conference. Staff would be participating in an upcoming spirit week beginning February 6th!

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Presented by: Ed Goyda, Jaime Bradshaw, and Adriana Warfield

Collections

Collection Purchases: We were set up on item processing (mylar jackets only) with Ingram.

Hoopla: ESRL had finalized a plan to switch over from Hoopla’s pay-per-use model to flat-fee subscription services at the end of the fiscal year, with the caveat that Hoopla would terminate May 31 and new services would begin July 1. We were standing by for an official announcement.

Marina ShareIT: Setup documents for the new statewide interlibrary loan system had been completed.

Newspapers Database: We had only 6 years of the Crisfield Times (2004-2009) and slightly more than a decade of the Somerset Herald remaining.

Website Accessibility: We were underway on compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG) mandated by the federal government. Most of the main site had been brought in line with the new requirements. The database front-ends for the newspaper and Jennings Evans collections needed to be reviewed, and all PDFs would need to be remediated by April 1.

Programs

Charity Sew: Charity Sew had reconvened in Princess Anne. They were booked for the year, excluding summer months. This group met to sew items to donate to Somerset County Social Services.

Mahjong Club: Jo had started Mahjong Club at the Crisfield branch and so far, there were 6 regular attendees. We were currently offering it twice a month on different days and times to see which timeframe worked best for patrons.

Zumba: We booked additional Zumba classes to coincide with our “New Year, Best Me” theme for the new year.

Community Outreach

Lower Shore Health Insurance Assistance Program: While LSHIAP could not conduct Open Enrollment events this year due to budgetary constraints, Chesapeake Health was able to at both branches, Crisfield in December & Princess Anne in January. They had great turnouts at both branches, and we were happy to host them.

Maryland Food Bank: The Maryland Food Bank had continued to bring their food truck to the Crisfield branch, and it was always well received by the community. We hosted two visits in December as they received extra funding. The January date was cancelled due to snow, but a new date would be added.

Older Adults Study: In December, a student from Washington College, majoring in Sociology and Human Development, reached out asking if we would participate in an interview for a research project she was leading titled “Older Adults (60+) Considerations in Public Libraries”. In her study, she was attempting to learn more about how public libraries specifically consider the needs of older adults (60+) in their programming, services, and outreach. To that end, she asked me some questions about our library, its practices, and some ways in which our practices were affected by community/contextual factors and any kind of barriers.

Outreach Visits: Our outreach visits in December were a huge hit as we took Santa with us to the Center, Manokin Manor, and Tawes Nursing Home with 74 in attendance.

Shore Legal Access: Shore Legal Access, a nonprofit that provides free civil legal support to low-income residents on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, was currently working under a grant to assist families with heirs property, which occurs when a loved one passes away without a will and the home or land was left jointly to multiple family members. The library would be hosting them this spring as they would be offering informational classes to the public.

Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit: SPARK!: Our STEAM & tech classes were fully advertised on the Beach to Bay website. The opening ceremony event was on Thursday, February 5th. Gabe and Jaime attended. The exhibit was located in the basement of the UMES library and had been extended past March 1^st due to inclement weather.

Children’s Services

Current Programs: Mother Goose, STEAM, Family Paint Night, and Toddler Art were doing well with attendance. Lego Club had little to no attendance. Holiday themed crafts were put out in the children’s room during the holiday break in December and were enjoyed by the children.

Ewell: The programs were going well on Ewell. A few days had to be cancelled due to the weather.

Noon Years: We had a great time at our Noon Years parties at both branches on December 31st. Cumulatively, we had 62 kids and 49 adults attend them, an increase from last year. Everyone was excited to take part in our activities: coloring, scavenger hunt, and a balloon drop.

Outreach: We had one outreach event over the winter months, SIS Winter Event, that Laurie attended. She handed out library swag and information to 83 kids and 61 adults

Spring Events: During STEAM in March, we would be growing butterflies in a habitat. Those who attend the programs would participate in different butterfly themed learning activities and watch the butterflies go through their life cycle before being released outside.

Summer Reading: Planning was underway for Summer Reading, with “Unearth a Story” (dinosaurs) as the theme. Performer bookings and promotional material orders had begun.

Facilities

Princess Anne HVAC: Princess Anne HVAC issues had been resolved, with new units in the Children’s Room and the working unit from the Children’s Room moved to the office.

Financial

Retirement Agency: We had been randomly selected for audit by the Maryland State Retirement Agency.

Staffing

SLRC Public Services Conference: (Almost) all staff were signed up, and carpools had been arranged for SLRC’s Public Services Conference on Wednesday, February 25, 2026.

MLA/DLA Annual Conference: The schedule for the MLA/DLA Conference in Cambridge on May 6 - 8 had been released. The early bird signup date was March 23; we were holding off on a staff announcement until after SLRC, although several staff members had the information directly from MLA.

Professional Development: A list of professional development was provided.

Technology

Crisfield Meeting Room: The receiver for the wireless microphones had failed. A replacement was on the way, and we would be up and running the following week.

Ewell Internet: Ewell’s Internet was offline, following the storm on the weekend of January 24 & 25. (Although we didn’t lose communication with Starlink until January 26 at 7:30 p.m.) Jim Gifford from ESRL had remotely identified one problem with the internal network equipment. We were also concerned about the satellite receiver or the connection to it, but access to the island had been limited. We were standing by until we could get over to the island to investigate.

Self Checks: ESRL would be using us as a test location for new software for the self-checkout stations.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to accept the Administrative Report. Motion was made by Jennifer Timmons, seconded by Lynn Lang, and unanimously approved.

Governance

Advisory - Legislative: Bills relevant to libraries in the current session include:

HB 586 / SB 535 - County Boards of Library Trustees – Membership – Student Member: This bill would allow Library Boards to appoint a student member to vote on policy matters, with an additional option to vote on other matters. (The original version of the bill was a required position voting on all matters, but feedback was submitted regarding minors’ inability to sign contracts and how this would affect a vote on financial matters.)
HB 660 / SB 410 - Public Libraries – State Library Resource Center – Funding: This bill would resume 5% annual increases for the State Library Resource Center, which had been flat funded since FY 2025.
SB 378 - Education – Regional Resource Centers and County Libraries – Funding: This bill would extend the 3% annual increases in funding per capita for both the county libraries and regional resource centers through FY 2032. (This coming fiscal year was the currently the final year with a mandated increase.) We were awaiting a cross-file in the House.

Advisory - State Reports: The Internet Policy Review and Free Public Library Services Survey had been submitted to the State Library.

Collection Development Policy: The Attorney General’s office has reviewed all the systems’ Collection Development policies, in light of the Freedom to Read Act, and requested that the language from the bill be included directly in the policies. A minor revision was attached to include the three core bullet points directly from the bill, tweak a sentence to directly reflect language from the bill, and add an additional citation to Maryland Regulations.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to accept the Collection Development Policy revision. Motion was made by Janet Smith, seconded by Karen Riggin, and unanimously approved

Operating Hours: Jaime raised that evening staff were reporting very low activity during the final hour (6:00 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.) of the day and the possibility of shifting from 10 a.m. - 6:45 p.m. to 9 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. Upon review:

We were seeing low, and often zero, usage in the final hour of the day. This data was gathered before the recent run of snow and sub-freezing temperatures, albeit it was still winter usage. We also had May, June, and July sampling from the strategic plan in 2023. In both cases, roughly 2% of Monday - Wednesday patrons were visiting the library in that final hour.
Even that number was buoyed by program attendance, and program scheduling wouldn’t be affected.
In terms of traffic, aside from a 3:00 p.m. bump when the teens get out of school, we were busiest at 10:00 a.m. and hourly usage decreases as the day goes on. In terms of the number of patrons in the building at one time, we were busiest at noon.
Based on camera observation, the usage that we were getting after 6:00 p.m. tends to be in the 6:01 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. range.

Shifting back to a 9:00 a.m. opening and a 5:45 p.m. close was proposed to:

Add three hours to our open hours, as we’d be opening earlier six days per week and closing earlier three days per week.
Likely end up serving more patrons - observationally, pulls on the door during the current 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. setup hour were fairly common.
Be minimally disruptive to staff - we’d only need one person in at 8:30 a.m. to get things up and running.
Have no effect on programs.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to accept the Operating Hours adjustment. Motion was made by Tim Spillane, seconded by Lynn Lang, and unanimously approved

Executive Session

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to enter executive session at 4:26pm. Motion was made by Janet Smith, seconded by Karen Riggin, unanimously approved, and roll call was taken.

Appointment of Elley Linton-Laird, Library Assistant: We had appointed Elley Linton-Laird to a part-time library assistant position in Ewell.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to accept the appointment of Elley Linton-Laird. Motion was made by Lynn Lang, seconded by Karen Riggin, and unanimously approved.

Board Opening: On behalf of President Smith and Janet Smith, Ed Goyda presented the recommendation of Kristen Corbin (Tylerton/Crisfield) to fill the upcoming Board vacancy and the addition of Marie Billie (Princess Anne) and Erin Owens (Crisfield) as Associate Members.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to accept the nominations. Motion was made by Tim Spillane, seconded by Jennifer Timmons, and unanimously approved

Board Evaluation: Lynn Lang presented the Board 360 Evaluation.

Director’s Evaluation: Lynn Lang presented the Director’s 360 Evaluation.

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to exit executive session at 4:39pm. Motion was made by Lynn Lang, seconded by Tim Spillane, unanimously approved, and roll call was taken.

Adjournment

Vice President Holmes-Mayson asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion was made by Karen Riggin, seconded by Janet Smith, and unanimously approved. The meeting adjourned at 4:40pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Nora Hoffman

Somerset County Library

Bookkeeper/Admin. Assistant