TCPL Board of Trustees Meeting: Nov. 20, 2025
A Quincy Votes! member attended this meeting. While care has been taken in their creation, these notes are not official meeting minutes and may contain errors or omissions.
November Meeting
Call to Order
Welcome new Trustees: Julia Wu and Patrick Walsh
Patrick Walsh attended; Julia Wu will be at the December meeting due to a long-standing commitment that conflicts with this meeting date.
Liberty Schaaf chaired the meeting. She welcomed Patrick Walsh.
Director Slyman has met with both new Trustees, and they have been onboarded.
Approval of October 2025 Meeting Minutes: approved
Executive Director’s Report
Jackie Linskey has started in North Quincy (she previously worked in Weymouth)
Elena O'Malley started has been a librarian for 20 years; she is the new Reference Coordinator
Promoted Tammy Van as assistance Reference coordinator.
Dustin Baker was promoted to Main Library from North Quincy
Erica Ruscio will be the new Programming and Outreach Coordinator in the Reference Dept.
Vacancies in reference, Wollaston, and North. Has three open positions.
Discussion:
Looking at adjusting hours. Wollaston is very underutilized at night; and want to open Adam Shore and North Quincy on Friday afternoon.
Facilities: had an electrical system upgrade. Paid for by Public buildings. Installed LED lighting which will provide significant savings.
Network infrastructure upgrade, which has been over a year in the planning, has been completed. This included the replacement of switches and servers that had reached end of life.
After hours: more than 250 attended. People had a blast. Got good publicity. (What is After Hours? Twice a year, we open the Library after hours. Have a theme. October's theme was "Gothic Gala" and invited people to come in costume. The other one last year was summer solstice and we had lawn games. Friends sponsor it and sell merchandise and solicit membership. Tips to bartenders go to Friends. )
Quincy Collaborative: still thriving. Good to hear what is out there. Entire staff has NARCAN training. Had a medical incident recently, needed to use AED.
Book Jobbers: libraries get 40 to 50% discount on books. Our major vendor shut its doors. We have switched to Ingram as our book provider. Small libraries who never had an account with Ingram may be blocked out and have to pay full price on Amazon for books. Disk media comes from a different vendor. Another library vendor is closing as well.
Negotiations with union are going slowly. Quincy Library Staff Association is aided by American Federation of Teachers. AFT is the spokesperson for the members. All but four admin staff are eligible to be in the union (and only a few have opted out). Contract expired June 30th. Previous contract is considered "live". When ratified, the union will get the back pay.
MLA: Director Slyman (in her role as President of MLA) will be doing a listening tour of the state. Need to hear what barriers are to becoming a member. Membership is low (688 members) and there are 322 libraries in the state. MLA is entirely volunteer led. New England LA is in significant trouble. Do we want to have seven conferences (all six New England States, plus NE) or one big one?
Friends: cancelled this month's meeting. Made money at After Hours Event (from serving drinks at the bar. We sell drinks (21+) Had magician and tarot cards. Friends pay for the bartender.
Friends pay for all programs in the library (speakers, events, etc.).
Treasurer's Report:
Citizen bank account stable.
Schwab account has dropped about 16% as a result of market volatility.
All in all: in good shape.
Donor Recognition Policy:
Any questions? No. Policy Approved.
New Business:
Staff appreciation party: will start planning this now and will have a report next month. January 30th for the party.
Friday Dec 5th: Citywide Library Christmas Party (Trustees are invited) 5:00 to 7:00 pm.
Richardson is decorated. Nooks are set up to have a “photo op” space.
Open Forum: None.
Next meeting Dec. 18th; 8:30 AM