Minutes May 12th, 2010

Building Committee Meeting Minutes
May 12, 2010
Hatfield Public Library

The meeting commenced at 6:37PM. Present were Dodie Gaudet, Susan Gaughan, Mary Williams, Ed Lesko, Bryan Nicholas, and Eliza Langhans (Library and Recording Secretary). Jim Phaneuf was present as a new member who has not yet been appointed and sworn in.

1. Member status. We started the meeting by discussing Jim and Bryan's membership status. Bryan has been appointed by the Board of Selectman and sworn in at the Town Hall. Eliza has received confirmation of his status. Jim needs to be approved by the Selectman before he can be sworn in. Ed will propose his membership at the next Selectman meeting.

2. Historical Society Meeting. Dodie will attend the Historical Society Meeting on 5/20/2010 at 7PM to give the Society a brief update of the Building Committee's progress.

3. Video Project. Eliza updates the Committee about the video project. She has borrowed and been trained on the Town of Hatfield's video camera and editing equipment and she and other video project sub-committee members are just waiting for a sunny day to begin interviews. The sub-committee is looking for old pictures of the library and the town to include in the video. Dodie mentions Digital Treasures, an online digital repository funded by the regional systems. Dodie volunteers to put the photographs we find on Digital Treasures so townspeople will have access to them at any time.

4. Library Intern. Eliza has recruited a library intern, Emi Estelle, to help us with the library building project. Emi is a double-major in political science and English and is looking for grant-writing experience. She will be able to help us over the summer with both research and writing for our various grant applications. She may need to work with Committee members directly on some of the grants.

5. Library Visits. As part of her trip to Cape Cod for the Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference, Eliza visited four of Stephen Hale's libraries and was very impressed. Check out the photos she took and some of her comments.

6. Stephen Hale Architect. Ed asked if Stephen has completed all the project work previously asked about him. The Committee confirmed that he has, though we have additional money in the account if we are looking for additional services. The subject of a rendering or model was brought up and Eliza agreed to contact Stephen to see if he can give us a cost estimate. Eliza will also contact the architecture program at University of Massachusetts to see if any recent graduates might be interested in taking the job.

7. Timeline. Once we have more complete information from the MBLC we will be able to fill in a more definite timeline.

8. Open meeting law. We discussed the fact that once new regulations are passed we may not be able to use email between meetings. The use of a wiki was suggested and agreed upon as a possible alternative.

The Committee voted to adjourn at 7:34PM