The Board of Trustees and the staff of the John Jermain Memorial Library invite the public to a series of presentations with the four architectural firms currently under consideration for the One Library/Two Building plan. These events will take place in the library’s third floor rotunda and are scheduled as follows:

• Saturday, May 3rd, 10:00 a.m. : Croxton Collaborative
• Saturday, May 3rd, 1:00 p.m. : Farewell Mills Gatsch (FMG)
• Monday, May 5th, 2:00 p.m. : Herbert S. Newman and Partners
• Monday, May 5th, 5:00 p.m. : Drummey Rosane Anderson (DRA)

Each session will consist of a presentation by the firm, and an open question-and-answer session with the public, followed by a period for the Board to question the firms. The public portions of these events will run approximately an hour and a half and will be videotaped and made available for anyone not able to attend. Proposals from each of these firms are available in the Library Director’s office. Please stop by to view them, and please share your thoughts and dreams for the future of your library. For additional information  call Catherine Creedon at 631 725.0049 extension 23.

We have been a bit quiet lately — hard at work on a wide range of high-priority tasks — but now we have much to report. First we would like to thank everyone who has pitched in to help with the building project, fund raising and other Library endeavors. We remain grateful to all of you for your support and dedication, and place great value on the investment you have already made to our library and its future.

As you know, Allison Gray, the Library’s Director for the last three plus years has moved on to other opportunities. The search for a new director is well underway. We are pleased and optimistic about the candidate pool for the Director position. Expect to hear news on this front shortly. Meanwhile, day-to-day activities at the library are being handled in exemplary fashion by the team of Pat Brandt and Eric Cohen.

The Board has made a focused commitment to its own training and internal functioning. We held a retreat with Suffolk County Library System Director Kevin Verbesey in early June, and, since then, various Trustees have attended additional training sessions on a variety of topics. As a group, we are much more knowledgeable about our responsibilities to the library and to the community, and are committed to adhering to the highest level of performance standards and record-keeping.

The fund raising and grants teams have been very busy. Soon, we will make an official announcement about the receipt of a large donation to be used for the repair of the roof at 201 Main Street. That, coupled with the money raised last year by the One for the Books dinners which was focused specifically on raising funds for the current building, gives us a good leg up on the funds we will need to repair the roof. Some other good fund raising news will also be made public soon.

Speaking of One for the Books, please keep an eye out for your invitation to this year’s One for the Books events! We have a great roster of 35 hosts giving dinners on two Saturday nights in October, the 13^th and the 20^th. You can purchase tickets on line through the library’s website, and get information about the books there as well. If have a specific question, please call (631) 725-0049, extension 44, and leave a message. Someone will get back to you right away. Gail Slevin has proven herself a remarkably energetic and detail-oriented One for the Books coordinator, and we are very grateful to her.

We have gone live with a donations page, accessible through the library’s website, thanks to the hard work of Eric Cohen. Check it out at http://sagharbor.suffolk.lib.ny.us/donate.html (Eric says that you can help him test the system by making a small donation

We have decided to invest in repairing and renting the property adjacent to Mashashimuet Park, after some consideration about this course. At the moment, bids are being solicited for needed repair work. We hope to have the house back on the rental market for the fall season.

Our annual budget vote and Trustee election is scheduled for September 25^th, at the library, from 9 am until 8 pm. If you are interested in running for one of the Trustee positions, you can pick up a petition at the School District Clerk’s office on or after August 2^nd. The petitions require 25 signatures, and must be returned to the District office by August 22^nd at 4 in the afternoon.

After much consideration, the Board has invited a small group of Library Development Committee (LDC) members to work with us in a focused manner to prepare the revised Request for Proposal (RFP) for a single architect for the two-building architectural program. We hope to have this RFP in the mail by the end of September, and to have selected an architectural firm before the end of the year. The choice to keep this committee small with no duplication of areas of expertise was made by the Board to maximize the efficiency of the process, and to shorten lines of communication. To this end two Board members will serve on the committee and the entire Board will deepen its oversight of this critical project. The Community Library Committee (CLC) and LDC have created a strong foundation, and we are grateful to everyone who has participated, but now we see a compelling need for a streamlined team with strong coherent leadership to move the project ahead as expeditiously as possible.

We encourage everyone to come to our Board meetings, to pepper us with questions, to make your doubts and your worries known. We do hear you, and we want what you want: the best possible library, housed in the best possible manner, for the future of all of us, the residents of the Sag Harbor school district.

With all best wishes,
Christiane Neuville
Diane Gaites
Donna Milazzo
Tippy Ameres
Susie Merrell
Chris Leonard
Nancy Hallock
Carl Peterson

If you see me wandering around the building looking completely spaced out, it is due to the fact that I have been doing little else but writing grant proposals and letters of inquiry to a plethora of foundations and grantmaking organizations.  All of these grants are written to raise funds for the current building and its restoration.  Hopefully the hard work of the Grants Committee (Chairperson Gloria Primm Brown, Diane Gaites, Tippy Ameres, and myself).  We hope to receive grant money for the restoration of the stained glass panel in the rotunda, the dome, the exterior roof, the windows, and all of the masonry which desperately needs re-pointing.  Additionally, we want to restore the furniture that is original to the 1910 library.

If you have any connections with grantmakers or foundations, they’d sure be appreciated! And now I’m off to wander around vacantly for a minute or so before getting back to my grants

You may expect to pick up one of these FAQ’s sometime this month.  We will also post them on the web.  When you read the FAQ, you will discover answers to questions that we frequently receive, like:  why can’t we just expand the current building?; what will the current building be used for when we have a 2-building library?;  What properties did the CLC look into as possibilities for sites for the new building?

Also, please remember that the next public forum is at the end of January.  You can give input there.  We also welcome responses on the blog.

Happy New Year to All,                       Allison Gray, Director

With the help of our hard-working Grantsmanship and Corporate Fundraising Committee members, I have identified a number of foundations that support library restoration projects.  Some grantors only give out small amounts of money, others give tens of thousands.  We are carefully matching building restoration projects and their estimated costs with the most compatible grantmaking organization.  The largest grants are from the government but we won’t be able to apply for most of those until the end of next year.

We are writing proposals for work that can be done to the current building during our regular operating hours so that there is no disruption of service to you.

If you know of any restoration experts (furniture, lamps, grandfather clocks, paintings) who might donate some time repairing original materials, I would love to hear from them.

 Thanks and I hope everyone has a wonderful 2007.                     Allison 

Please feel free to attend this 9:00 am meeting.  We will be focusing on Needs and Areas of and for the library service program.  The Trustees and the LDC members were very glad to see so many people in attendance at the last Forum.  We have a whole series of Forums (especially architectural design ones) in the works.  I will post a schedule as soon as we know the exact dates.  As always, we welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. 

On October 25, the Library Development Committee held a standing-room-only meeting to discuss the findings of the Community Library Committee, its recommendations to the Library Board of Trustees, and the work to date of the Library Development Committee.  Audience members were given the opportunity to ask questions. 

A number of common questions were asked and answered.  For example, the audience wanted to know why the library cannot expand on site with or without the purchase of property behind it.  Fred Stelle, Chairman of the CLC, noted that the committee decided that the main reason was the negative impact a large library would have on the historic neighborhood.  It would not just be during the long construction phase when roads would be closed for months and so on, but rather the fact that if the library expands it can expect at least double its current usage.  This would create even more traffic, parking issues, and safety issues.  Ultimately, the CLC felt that the best option was spreading the increased use between two buildings.

Fred Stelle brought two large charts with suggestions that committees have made for uses of each of the 2 library buildings.  You may see them outside the Director’s office.  You are also welcome to come take a copy of the CLC Recommendation to the Board, a 90+ page book explaining every process and train of thought that brought the committee of members representing all parts of the Sag Harbor School District to the consensus they ultimately reached.

If you have any questions or would like further information, please call me at 725-0049 x 23.  This is my direct line.  Also, bear in mind that in November we will hold a meeting concerning square footage needs and possible costs. 

This has been and continues to be a completely open process;  we welcome the opportunity to clear up any misinformation out there and to hear your suggestions and thoughts on where we are now.

We are refining some formatting problems with the report but will be sending it to the bindery next week.  The full report and appendices will be on our webpage but not until mid-July.  Eric Cohen, our webmaster and all around computer genius is going on vacation so we must await his return before loading the document.  Once the physical copies are available, you can come to the library and ask to see it.  We will have one available at the Circulation Desks.  In my office will be the report, appendices and miscellanea.  Please feel free to come ask to see it.  We project that it will be available to you in paper and web format by July 10.

At the very last CLC meeting June 12, the final report/recommendation was handed to our Board President, Gregory Ferraris.  The report, compiled by an unbelievably dedicated set of volunteers from all around the school district, is a comprehensive study of options for providing the best possible public library service to our community.  Once the Board reviews the document, and adopts recommendations, we will post the report on our webpage.   As the person responsible for taking the meeting summaries for the past 12 months of the CLC's intense work, I can say with certainty and admiration that they did a phenomenally thorough job.  The report is so comprehensive that it will take us a while to get it online, so please be patient.  We will eventually have a copy available at the library for anyone to read.  If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to call me at 725-0049, ext. 23.   Allison

We were all upset to discover a huge puddle in the basement by the new fiction area. In trying to find and fix the leak there, we have employed the services of several plumbers, roofers and contractors. Unfortunately, the fact that it is still leaking so badly there means that we cannot fix the problem without breaking through walls, which means major construction disruption. We'll keep you posted on our progress. In the meantime, please be careful walking in our basement on a rainy day - you never know when you might walk into a puddle!