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News and information relevant to public library trustees, sent monthly on the second Tuesday
In this Issue
- Board Best Practices
- CE Spotlight
- Resource Spotlight
- Looking Back
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Good Meetings Don’t Happen by Accident
The board chair has a lot of responsibility when it comes to working with the library director to plan meetings that provide access to the public and follow the procedural rules adopted in board bylaws.
All board members can support good planning and good meetings by practicing the following actions.
- Review the agenda and meeting materials as soon as they are posted
- Show up on time
- Learn to read your library’s budget and financial reports
- Pull your weight and share the load; when asked to lead, please do so
- Listen more than you talk, stay focused on what’s being discussed
- Ask honest questions
- Let everyone participate, don’t monopolize the conversations
- Listen to understand before you speak to be understood
- Avoid acronyms and jargon, and when you don’t understand something, remember to ask questions
- Disagree (when appropriate) but do so respectfully. Another way to think of this is: attack the problem, not the person.
- Stay on point and on time
- Make decisions based on desired patron and community outcomes
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Leadership Training
Trustees are called to lead when they accept an appointment or seek election to a library board. The Montana State University Extension Service has a great collection called Big Sky, Big Leadership to Go:
virtual 20-minute leadership trainings … designed to spark new ideas and give practical skills that can be put to use immediately.
As you plan for learning in 2025, these videos might be just the right thing to address challenges or areas of improvement for your board.
New MSL Learn Course – Next Level Montana Library Law
Participants will
- Increase understanding of board and local government authority in the following areas
- Personnel – management, salaries, and hiring/termination
- Property – ownership, remodeling, maintenance, and contracts
- Budget – setting, spending money, management
- Board – appointments and removals
- Raise awareness of attorney general opinions and case law and their impact on board authority.
Estimated course length: 1-hour
Continuing Education Units: 1 credit in Library Administration
Public Libraries Survey Dashboard
The State Library provides a lot of data you can use to understand what your library does and how it compares to other libraries.
Tracy Cook, Lead Consulting and Learning Librarian, recorded a new video -- Written Plans: Public Libraries Survey Dashboard -- to demonstrate how to access data from this dashboard and ways to use it.
 Montana Libraries - January 1949
 Big Sky Libraries - January/February/March 1999
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Read past issues of the Trustee Newsletter and important announcements from MSL.
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Visit this webpage for handbooks and resources just for trustees.
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Statewide Consulting Librarians are assigned to individual public libraries within specified consulting territories. These territories are based on the six Library Federations.
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The consulting program is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Montana State Library. |
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