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445 <br />Mayor Fendley called for Betty Landon, Director of the Paris Public Library, to <br />give a staff report. Ms. Landon called the attention of the Council to the <br />literature the library hands out in their packet. She stated that the local library <br />belongs to the Northeast Texas Library System, one of 10 such systems in the <br />state. Ms. Landon said they do what they need to do to qualify to belong to the <br />system so they can also qualify for state money. <br />For fiscal activity, Ms. Landon cited that 337,947 items that were checked out, <br />which equals 25,000 items per staff person. She stated 54% of those items were <br />print items, which means people are still reading in Paris. She also mentioned <br />that the Library added 8,610 items to its collection. <br />The Library has 17 regular volunteers, who worked 2,981 hours, checking in <br />and shelving books. Ms. Landon indicated if it were not for the volunteers, they <br />would need more staff. She reminded the Council that she started opening the <br />library 6 days a week when she came here 2 years ago; so, the library was open <br />for 297 days. Ms. Landon noted that they saw almost 130,000 people at the <br />library this past year. <br />The library added new shelving this year and moved shelving to meet ADA <br />requirements. She said they also consolidated the adult and video section into <br />one area and the large print books into one area. Ms. Landon implemented <br />procedures to clean and weed videos on a regular schedule and started a DVD <br />collection with state funds. Also, she stated that state funds- were used to buy <br />3 new computers, 2 printers, a scanner and software. <br />For future plans, Ms. Landon said they would continue weeding, which every <br />library should do. She said they also plan to purge patron records, which has not <br />been done since 1994. She will be implementing some staff training and more <br />measures to get books returned. She stated their number one priority and long <br />range goal was to work with the Library Board to find more space because of <br />crowding. <br />Kent Klinkerman, EMS Administrator, came forward and presented the report <br />