Report to the Board of Sherman Free Library
April, 2025
Prepared by Kris Jarrett, Library Director
Social Numbers Snapshot
Facebook Reach, Last 28 days:
Views: 18,881 (The number of times your content was played or displayed. Content includes videos, posts, stories and ads.)
Content Interactions: 438 (The number of likes or reactions, saves, comments, shares and replies on your content, including ads. Content can include formats such as posts, stories, reels, videos and more.)
Total Followers: 540
New Page Followers: 18
Followers by Age and Sex:
Purple: Men 26.50%
Green: Women 73.50%
Events & Programs
Spring Plant and Seed Swap: Saturday, April 12, 2025 Bring your extra seedlings or seeds and trade with your neighbors! This event will bring together those in our community with a surplus of seeds or plants with those who wish to expand or begin their gardens.
Rummage & Book Sale: May 29 - June 1
We will be holding our Rummage & Book Sale again this year on Saturday, May 31st.
Donations of items for the Rummage Sale may be dropped off on Thursday, May 29th, between noon and seven, or Friday, May 30th, between noon and five.
Donations of books may be dropped off whenever the library is open.
All proceeds benefit library programs and acquisitions. Thank you for your support!
Basket Raffle: August 28-August 31
Sherman Free Library Labor Day Basket Raffle & Book Sale
Celebrate Labor Day, win great prizes, and help support our library!
BASKET RAFFLE
Buy tickets at the Library:
Thursday, August 28, 1-7pm
Friday, August 29, Noon – 5pm
Saturday, August, 30, 10am – 2pm
Sunday, August 31, Noon– 3pm
Tickets are only $10 for a sheet of 25!
Drawings will be held at 3pm on Sunday.
Baskets contain gift cards and items generously donated by local businesses and community members.
Please email shermanfree@yahoo.com if you would like to donate a basket or items for a basket.
BOOK SALE
Saturday, August 30, 10 AM – 2 PM
If you have books you would like to donate, please first check our donations page for items we are able to accept: https://www.shermanfreelibrary.com/donations and then drop your books off during normal library hours.
Champ Day: pending
Canceled due to funding cuts:
Aging Wisely Senior Course: May 28th, 30th, June 4th, 6th, 11th, 13th 2025 with Ronwyn Kneller Prevention Educator, www.preventionteam.org, and Joi Larucci. Aging Wisely is an evidence-based program sponsored by OASAS for older adults within Essex County. It is a free program presented once a week for about 1.5-2 hours over 6 weeks. We offer an incentive to attendees if they attend 4 of the 6-week sessions. We provide a light breakfast or lunch every week depending on the time that we meet. The program is for anyone ages 55 and older. We have presented the program in 12 towns across the county and 14 different locations.
Fraud Prevention Talk: October 10, 1 pm with Kim Maercklein, Consumer Education Community Liaison, NYS Division of Consumer Protection: It’s not all in your head. Fraud has increased exponentially over the past few years. Fraudsters are getting better at their jobs, have better technology, and are taking more money than ever. Join the NYS Division of Consumer Protection to learn how to detect the signs of fraud, what the latest trends are, and how best to avoid becoming a victim of fraud.
Halloween: We are becoming a destination for Halloween, along with a few other Main Street businesses and the firehouse. I could use a few extra hands this year for crafts. I am considering adding a food drive element this year, something along the lines of “trade veggies for candy”...
Upcoming TBD: Author talk and book signing by Jason Barney, Hidden History of Lake Champlain
Upcoming TBD: Talk and Movie Night: History of Moving Pictures in Port Henry & Moriah
Upcoming TBD: Launch event, talk, signing of new edition Arcadia book Port Henry and Moriah?
RPG at the Library: Tom Larson and Samantha Willams have now run two sessions of Mausritter on Saturday afternoons. Although so far it has been just people we know attending, it has been nice to have some life in the building on Saturday and perhaps it will grow. They are taking a few weeks off for other obligations, but plan to bring the game back soon.
The game is called Mausritter: “This system is extremely easy to pick up, with minimal math required. Character creation is easy, both to understand and complete. The setting is flexible, with many assumptions being easy to grasp. Everyone knows how big a mouse is. Everyone is familiar with how cats and mice behave together. Having the players inhabit the characters of anthropomorphic mice also provides a layer of separation between the actions in the game compared to how a situation could happen in a real life experience. Progression is also simple, with a mechanic promoting investment in the community that the player characters are based in. A stronger community means greater success."
Facilities
Fire Alarms: Inspection done for the year, all working, but we discussed again the need to replace the system eventually. Our system is no longer in production and parts are running out quickly. I recommend we get on the schedule for replacement this year. Fire extinguisher inspections have also been completed for the year.
Printer: New printer! We still have some network work to be done (if we elect to make further changes, check with me if you would like the technical details), but we can print, scan, and fax. We now have a much larger scanning bed which has been very helpful in digitizing collection pieces that would not fit on the old machine.
Collections: Young Adult has been moved into its own case in the general fiction area with hopes of spurring more loans from this section. YA is a difficult category with many books in there being valuable to general adult readers as well but being placed in the children's section they were never seen. This move has allowed for kid’s books to be better displayed, organized from youngest to oldest, as well as provided room for games and puzzles to have their own shelves.
I have pulled out a small stack of older books in disrepair or simply not relevant to our collection. If board members would like to review these before they are deaccessioned and offered first to other libraries and then to the public, please do so tonight. If anyone knows of a special reason that any of these should stay, such as a local connection I am unaware of, please let me know.
I have also weeded large print and the collection in general to make space for subject shifts and new material. Other libraries have been happy to have our castoffs.
While looking through the map case for something else I found two cassette tapes in the back of a drawer that had escaped our notice when indexing the case. One is a copy of the already digitized interview with Eleanor Hall (the quality is very bad, but understandable if you concentrate) while the second is new to me; an interview with Zana Flemings recorded in the 1980s, on her 100th birthday, about life in Moriah. This tape has now been digitized and I plan to share it on our YouTube channel this season.
Financial
In addition to the report financial section we have been working to match the budget spreadsheet to the report questions to QuickBooks. This is an ongoing process that, once done, will bring all of our financial systems into alignment making future year’s accounting much simpler.
Our 2025 budget is ready for a vote. We know how much to move from the checking account to balance 2024, with that money going into a to-be-opened contingency fund. Even with optimistic spending and hesitant income projections from investments we are still well in the black.
Melissa has also suggested a further purchase of a CD; I would like to table that discussion for now and have her make that motion at a following meeting.
990EZ: I have made a first pass of this form, it’s about 6 pages, and have just a few questions primarily around whether certain undefined questions apply to us. I have the name of a CPA to check with in a few days once tax season has well and truly passed to see if we can hire them to sit with me for an hour and answer those questions. Once we do one year with notes I suspect following years to be simple. The good news is that there exists a further income breakdown and we fall into the middle level which means we can use the EZ form rather than the full full form.
Staffing
redacted
Miscellanea
Community Report: See attached. I have reformatted this same copy to be included in the school spring newsletter and after board review will print to be handed out in the library and sent to our enews list.
State Report 2024 is done and has been accepted by the State! We shall not think of it for another year.
Horizon has been updated. Not much has changed on the front end.
All three of our computers have been successfully updated to Windows 11! We are ready for the end of Windows 10 support in October of this year. So far the machines seem to be taking to their new OS well.
We have plenty of COVID tests to give away.
Community Cares items continue to go out slowly, we are pretty well stocked including a small supply of diapers.
Board Members: It’s that time of year again when I remind all trustees that “each member, elected or appointed, of a board of trustees shall be required to complete a minimum of two hours of trustee education annually. (Education Law §260-d).”
Applicable classes may be found at the link below. After watching a video, please complete a Self Declaration Form which I can provide via email
https://cefls.org/stafftrustees/continuing-education-2/cefls-webinar-archive/
In addition, each trustee, volunteer, and staff member must complete annual Sexual Harassment Prevention Training, avalable as a ~40 minute online class. Please email me the certificate from this course or a certificate from any other state approved Sexual Harassment Prevention Training you may have compleated this calendar year for another organization. This training does NOT count towards board member’s required annual training. To make this process more “fun” I will once again plan a group training at the library.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/sexual-harassment-training.page