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TO: PARMLY BILLINGS LIBRARY BOARD FROM: BILL COCHRAN, DIRECTOR DEE ANN REDMAN, SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR RE: ANNUAL POLICY CHANGES MEETING DATE: MARCH 12, 2009 The Library Board is charged with annually reviewing and approving proposed policy changes. In FY 2007-2008, the Board closely examined and revised the entire policy document in accordance with Sandra Nelson’s Creating Policies for Results published by the American Library Association. Since this was done quite recently, few changes are proposed for this year. Of those that are proposed, the majority are to clarify the language used, or to reflect procedures already in place. A full listing of changes will be provided at the meeting. There are two substantive changes being proposed this year: • Collection Management Policy The Collection Management Policy was comprehensively revised last year in order to simplify the policy. The intent was to make it easier to understand, and to permit it to be included in our general policy manual that is made available to borrowers. The policy was approved by the Montana State Library as meeting the public library standards, although it did not have the detailed community and collection analyses that the State Library recommended. This year, we are asking for eligibility for state funding to join the Montana Shared Catalog. In order to qualify for that funding, our Collection Management Policy must include the analysis data. Staff is asking for action on this policy to add those elements as an appendix. We do not anticipate including this in the policy brochure. • Cell Phone Usage People use cell phones in public places everywhere, with varying levels of courtesy. The Library policy currently prohibits conversational use of cell phones while allowing text messaging. The actual issue is that of loud ringtones and conversations rather than merely using a phone, as borrowers and staff conduct other conversations at moderate volume all the time. Staff would like to strike a balance to permit cell phone usage as long as it doesn’t create a disturbance for other library users.