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<br /> <br />CITY OF UNIVERSITY CITY <br />COUNCIL STUDY SESSION <br />March 28, 2011 <br /> <br />The Council Budget Study Session was held on the fifth floor of City Hall, on Monday, March 28, <br />2011. Mayor Welsch called the meeting to order at 5:36 p.m. and turned the meeting over to Mr. <br />Walker. In addition to the Mayor the following members of the Council were present: <br /> <br />Mr. Stephen Kraft <br />Mr. Terry Crow <br /> Mr. Michael Glickert <br /> Mr. Arthur Sharpe, Jr. <br /> Ms. Lynn Ricci (arrived at 5:40 p.m.) <br /> Mr. Byron Price (arrived at 5:45 p.m.) <br /> <br />Also present were the City Manager Lehman Walker, the Finance Director/Deputy City Manager <br />Janet Watson, and the Director of University City Public Library Patrick Wall along with the <br />President of the Library Board, David Stokes. <br /> <br />Mr. Walker introduced Library Director Patrick Wall and turned the meeting over to him for the <br />Library’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget presentation. <br /> <br />Mr. Wall gave a brief overview of the public library. The mission statement of the library is “The <br />University City Public Library is dedicated to examining and defining the vision of a library as a quiet <br />and sheltering space dedicated to enriching the present and the future with the legacies of our literary <br />and learned past; helping to educate individual citizens, and shaping our collective national memory. <br />We seek to do this for a notably diverse community whose citizens span a wide range of economic, <br />educational and ethnic backgrounds. This very diversity requires the library to play several roles. <br />While maintaining its historic ties to print culture, it must also, within its means, incorporate <br />innovations in the rapidly evolving field of electronic communications. Its collections in several media <br />are selected and administered by a regularly evaluated professional staff that is encouraged to keep <br />abreast of new developments in library science and information technology. In addition to its <br />responsibility for maintenance and improvement of the library’s physical plant, the staff and the <br />director seek to create an environment that will attract patrons of all ages from all neighborhoods of <br />our city.” Mr. Wall said the library is about providing resources for the residents of U City in terms of <br />books for recreational reading, for education, DVDs, reading programs, book discussions, children’s <br />summer reading program, computer classes for adults, and job search classes. He said the <br />University City Library has a unique flavor as it is larger than many of the branches of the St. Louis <br />County and other larger systems, circulating almost 500,000, items a year. They have 66,000 <br />sessions recorded on their public computer system and their wireless access is in almost constant <br />use. In the library’s summer program last year they had 750 children participate with 114 volunteers. <br />The library provides e-books and down-loadable audio books. Mr. Wall said the library just received a <br />grant to upgrade its computer lab and equipment. He said they have received several other grants <br />such as the Scholar Lead Book Discussion Grant. Mr. Wall said they are working on a joint task force <br />with other members of the Municipal Library Consortium that would cut the library’s cost of the catalog <br />system and would increase resource sharing among the libraries giving U City residents access to <br />items held by libraries throughout the state. This process would be aided by a federal grant. He said <br />there is a possibility that the library may lost some state funding this year as library funding is based <br />on the census figures and the population of University City declined. Mr. Wall said the library receives <br />annual support through the Memorial Day Run and funds from the Friends of the Library memberships <br />along with a trivia night event. Other events of the library are story time for children and adults and <br />exhibits in the gallery. <br /> <br /> <br />