Annual Town Meeting

Upton's Annual Town Meeting was held on May 8th.

Voters approved the creation of a Town Manager position to be funded at some future date, and established Enterprise funds for Water and Wastewater.

They also approved a Proposition 2 1/2 Override in the amount of $486,000. These additional tax revenues will be needed to maintain Municipal services for next fiscal year. The override is not final until it is approved at a ballot vote, which will be held on June 9th at Nipmuc High School.

All the monetary appropriations have been delayed until another Town Meeting on June 12th at 7:30pm, so that voters will know the results of the override before they discuss spending any money.

The library has copies of all the informational handouts that were presented at the meeting, available for review on the Reference Shelf.

New Movies for May and June

Here are the new release DVDs the library will be purchasing in May and June. Stop by the library and ask for the 'movie binder' to see the descriptions and add your name to the reserve list.

National Treasure 2 20-May PG
The Flock 20-May R
Rambo 27-May R
Grace is Gone 27-May PG-13
The Air I Breathe 27-May R
Control 3-Jun R
The Eye 3-Jun PG-13
Semi-Pro 3-Jun R
Jumper 10-Jun PG-13
The Bucket List 10-Jun PG-13
Witless Protection 10-Jun PG-13
The Other Boleyn Girl 10-Jun PG-13
Be Kind, Rewind 17-Jun PG-13
In Bruges 24-Jun R
10,000 B.C. 24-Jun PG-13
Spiderwick Chronicles 24-Jun PG
Definitely, Maybe 24-Jun PG-13

If you have suggestions for upcoming movie releases that would be a good addition to the Upton Library collection, let us know by posting a comment, or writing on the suggestion page in the movie binder.

Report of the Library Director for April 2008

Circulation
Circulation for April was 4,285, a decrease of 9.4% from last month, but slightly (2.7%) higher than April of 2007.


Collection Development
We added 87 items to the collection in April.
Our non-fiction order from Sebco Books has arrived, but has not yet been cataloged.

I would like to reconsider our decision to maintain an updated full copy of the M.G.L. This set is used extremely rarely (1-2 times per year), and is available to our patrons through other CWMARS libraries. Including the invoice we just received for the spring updates, we have spent $2,037.50 on M.G.L. this fiscal year.


Programs
Library book group: met on April 30th.
Senior book group: 6 people met on April 1st.
Teen book group: meeting on April 25th had no participants. Lisa has tried several times to build attendance at a teen book group, with limited success. We will not be holding this bookgroup over the summer, and will try again in the fall.


Music and Movement averaged 58 participants per session for 3 sessions.
Thursday storytime averaged 7 children per session.
TinyTots lapsit averaged 11 participants.
Teen Tuesday was attended by 12 young adults.
Library Table: 5 visits, averaged 4 patrons and 8 items.


Special Events
Lisa visited all the students at United Parish preschool, and got them excited about the summer reading program and our upcoming visit by Curious George.


Volunteers
2 items were delivered to 1 patron on April 2nd, and 14 items were delivered to 3 patrons on April 23rd.


Upcoming Events in May and June
A local author, Ann Davidson will be holding an author signing and presentation sponsored by the library, and held in the Senior Center on June 10th.

The Library is hosting another session of the Red Cross Babysitter Training class on June 19th and 20th.

June is the beginning of our Summer Reading Program events. Don’t miss our Kickoff theatre event “The Ugly Duckling” Wed, June 18th 6:30pm at Nipmuc HS courtyard.



Staff
Matthew attended a workshop on the social bookmarking site “del.icio.us”. There is one more workshop in this series on library applications of new web-based tools and sites. The information has been helpful, but aside from the new blog (uptonlibrary.blogspot.com – go subscribe), most of the tools have limited usefulness for a library of Upton’s size.


New Staff Computer
I have received a quote from Worldband communications with a price of $1,000 for a new staff computer. This price is slightly higher than I was expecting, since our last two replacement computers were $700. However, the system has the latest version of Windows, and staff computers require faster processors than our public access computers, because of the cataloging and circulation software we use. I have instructed Worldband to place the order.


Music and Movement
Deborah Hudgins, who has presented the highly successful “Music and Movement” program, sponsored by the Library for the last six years, has accepted a full time position, and will no longer be able to come to Upton on Wednesday afternoons. The last session of Music and Movement will be May 14th.
In the fall, after the end of the Summer Program, Lisa and I will discuss our options for replacing this program. Deb Hudgins might be able to come on a different date, we could look for a similar performer, or we may decide that the library should put those resources towards other services.



Plans for Next Month


1) Advocate for the Library at upcoming Town Meetings, and finalize our FY09 budget, based on the results of town votes.

2) Publicize the Summer event schedule. Our big summer programs start in June.

3) Review our Magazine subscriptions and place our order for next year.

Public Hearing on the FY09 Town Budget

To all Upton Residents:

The Upton Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, April 30^th, at 7:30pm in the Fire Station.

The FinCom and Town Department heads will present information about next year’s town budget, and its effects on our tax rate and public services.

If you can attend, this hearing is an excellent opportunity to ask questions and become aware of the issues that will be decided at the upcoming Town Meetings on May 8^th and June 9^th.

For more information about public hearings and Town Meetings, contact the Upton Town Library (529-6272), or visit the Town of Upton webpage at http://www.upton.ma.us/pages/town-clerk.php

Closing early for Annual Town Meeting

The library will close early on Thursday, May 8th for the annual Town Meeting.

Our hours on May 8th will be 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.