[Michlib-l] Committee information

[Jaclyn Miller]

Thank you so much to all of you who responded to my request for information about committees at your libraries.  The answers I received are listed below.
Jaclyn




We have a similar committee structure created by the Board of Trustees. Our committees include; Personnel, Budget and Finance, Fund Development, Facilities, and currently as we are renovating our space a Library Improvement committee. We do not though have any members of the public on our committees although I have encouraged that. The President of the Board, who is a very strong presence feels that the BoT members are the most familiar with the library and as elected officials, have been entrusted to carry out the work of the library not the public. However, the City includes public members on all of their committees from zoning to parks to economic development include members of the public of which both myself and the President of the Board serve on (making it a tad ironic that he is unwilling to offer the same opportunity).
The library will be engaging in the development of our next strategic plan in 2019 and there is for this process a strong feeling that the public should be involved in both focus groups and on the committee. The public was also highly involved in focus groups and town hall style meetings in planning on the renovation of the library in 2016.
As far as the focus of the committees, their names are fairly prescriptive of their activities although all are primarily supposed to be long term visioning and less current operations focused. All of the committee are supposed to meet monthly although I would say that about 25% of the meetings get canceled due to lack of business. However, the Library Improvement committee has been meeting weekly since the start of the project and will continue to do so until it is complete in April.





{Current Library} we have a Personnel, Budget and Policy Committee.  For the most part, we tend to discuss library matters at board meetings and the three committees listed only meet once a year (unless some major issue comes up).  All three committees are board members only.
{Previous library}we had many more committees meeting at different intervals: Advocacy/Fundraising (quarterly), Budget (monthly), Facilities (as needed), Long-Range Planning (quarterly), Policy (quarterly), and Professional Development (quarterly).  We did have a Friends of the Library board member on the Advocacy, Facilities and Long-Range Planning committee.  As well as some additional volunteers on the advocacy/fundraising committee.  The rest were only board members.
That's the extent of my experience with this but I was curious about standard practices and stumbled across this article: https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2015/december/the-basics-of-board-committee-structure
With this in mind it seems like the strategic planning committee could be well served by having outside members but standing committees, such as personnel and finance, would not.





Our Board only has one established committee with citizen members.  It is a joint Library Board/Friends Board committee for fundraising.  We usually have 3-4 people from the staff, 2-3 Board members, 1-2 Friends members, and 3-4 citizens (some of these have been former Board members in the past).
When we were working on our strategic plan we also had a steering committee for that project which was made up of 5 community members.  It was not a Board committee per se.





Our board has 5 committees, with each member serving on at least one.  Since there are only two or three members on each committee, they do not advertise their meetings to the public.  They function more or less as work groups, bringing their recommendations to the full board at an open meeting.  The committees are very similar to the ones you named:

Board Development

Finance

Personnel and Policies

Strategic Planning

Government Liaison  (this is just one person, tasked with tracking legislation that affects libraries)

I've only been in this director job for a week, but I've been a staff member attending board meetings for several years.  The committee system seems to work well for us, making it easier to get things done with a minimum of fuss and bother.  The director can sit down with the committee chair when policies need changing or whatever, and the committee can present a recommendation to the board.  Saves a lot of time.

Each committee is given a place on the monthly agenda to give a "report".

These two or three minute oral summaries of what's going on in each area help make all our busy, volunteer board members feel like they are on top of things without requiring them to spend a lot of time in the details.

Not sure how I would feel about having non-appointed members of the public sitting on the committees.  They would have a voice, but not a vote?  I'm not sure how that would work.  I can certainly see inviting them to attend and provide "public comment", though.




My board has several. But they are made up of board members, and I typically attend committee meetings as well. Ideas are discussed with recommendations from the committee back to the full board for any action. NO community members sit on committees, but the meetings are open to their attendance, as they are posted and such like all board meetings. Our standing committees are policy, strategic planning (which includes marketing/PR), finance, building, board development, and fund development. They create ad-hoc committees at times too, including HR, Director Evaluation, Advocacy, designated gift, and succession.
We get community feedback in many ways - surveys, strategic planning process, informal discussions, open meetings, etc.





Board has 4 standing committees: Personnel, Finance, Planning & Evaluation; Community Relations.

All of the committees are comprised of 3 trustees, the director, and can have one staff member and at least one citizen.

Three committees have non-Trustee members now. Personnel has the Admin Asst from staff. I have discouraged a citizen on this one. Planning has a citizen, no staff. Community Relations has a citizen and a staff member, the Community Relations Manager.

All the committees must meet quarterly, can meet monthly, and usually do meet monthly. With 7 elected trustees it is a significant commitment on their part-often 2 committees plus the regular monthly board meeting every month.

They can and do also create task committees. There was one each for Director hire, Building, strategic Planning.


From: Jaclyn Miller
Sent: Friday, January 4, 2019 5:15 PM
To: 'michlib-l at mcls.org' <michlib-l at mcls.org>
Subject: Committee information

Hi everyone,
I am hoping you're willing to share some information about committees you have within your organizations, specifically those which may have been created by your governing boards.  Recently our BoT created 5 Board Committees - Personnel, Finance, Facilities, Strategic Planning, and Community Liaison - and are now discussing the possibility of inviting interested members of the public to sit on those. Wondering:

-          How many of you have committees like this, which offer seats to community members?

-          About the focus of the committee(s)?

-          What other ways you invite public feedback on initiatives and projects?

-          If you are aware of other public boards in your service area who also have committees like this?

Please reply to me off list.  I will compile all responses and share, if there is interest.

Many thanks!

Jaclyn Miller
Branch Head, Main Library
Farmington Community Library
Jaclyn.Miller at farmlib.org<mailto:Jaclyn.Miller at farmlib.org>
248-848-4307

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