2026

LUV meeting minutes 9.21.2026

DRAFT

Meeting took place over Zoom, beginning 10:05 a.m.

Attendees: Judy Russell, Lyme; Amy Thurber, Canaan; Dawn Huston, Grantham; Glynis Hart, Wilmot; Brook Lewis, Fairlee VT; Richard Tutwiler, New London; Deanna Fitch, Cornish; Sally Bernier, Newbury; Jeff Cabral, Sunapee; Deb Baker, NH State Library.

Minutes of 6.2026 were approved.

Treasurer’s report approved: Balance of $6,672.34

News from LUV libraries:

Glynis H reported Wilmot joined the Sustainable Libraries Initiative. Judy advised contacting the relevant subcommittee of NHLA for help with the project.

Amy T. reported Canaan had decent turnout for Summer Reading but not many people for programs. In November Canaan will offer a “Pass the Book” get-together. Participants take turns reading aloud a short story chosen by the librarian. People remembered this event from 2015 and requested it.

Dawn H. We move from Destiny to Biblionix tomorrow… only 17 people came for Simon Brooks storytelling event.

Judy R. pointed out that marketing has become really diffuse – it’s hard to get the word out about events.

Richard T. – Our SRP has gone pretty well, consistent with last year. One new thing we’ve done is bring in a tool library, which is housed on the second floor. It’s bringing in a lot of people who don’t normally use the library. I spent a lot of time going over terms with Primex, our insurance company, to come up with appropriate user agreements for the tools. We have had quite a few community members offer to donate tools, but we are accepting only new or like-new tools.

Jeff C. – We moved to Dreamhost from BlueHost and it’s much easier. BlueHost piled on a bunch of silly things we didn’t need… Also, we changed our foot counter. Turns out, as I suspected, we were drastically undercounting foot traffic. We had 10,385 of visitors in three months. 77 kids signed up for Summer Reading.

Sally B. Great summer. SRP numbers blew our previous numbers out of the water. 200 signups for SRP, of which 33 were teenagers. Fundraiser (Library Days?) made the most we’ve ever made. We’re looking forward to presenting the Hale award to Howard Mansfield on Oct. 17th.

Deanna F. Cornish had a lot of participation from adults and children alike. We had Buddy Readers: kids who signed up for SRP were invited to read to the little kids at StoryTime. The new library is being built, and should open in January.

Brook L. said Fairlee just joined VT Humanities VELI Libraries (Vermont Early Literacy Initiative). SRP was almost double last year’s numbers.

Judy R. said storytimes were struggling to get enough people but SRP was fairly average. They did a raffle for the kids; every time the kids came in the library they got to put a ticket in the bucket.

Judy R. said Bay State Books picked up all of their deaccessioned books. They were easy to deal with! You don’t get anything back but there’s no fee, either. They go to Listen (thrift) regularly and have just started serving the Upper Valley. They require a minimum of 300 books/ten boxes to pick up.

Amy T. shared that she uses SebCo Books for nonfiction (to buy, not to discard).

Deb Baker of the NH State Library mentioned a workshop on the AI and Information Landscape coming up this Friday. Deb is new on the job and sharing an office with Bobbi Slossar. Please reach out to her if you have requests for trainings or libguides.

RE: Rotating Collections. Amy suggested being clearer about the dates (not just the month) the collections are due to rotate.

Dawn asked how we could get six video game collections; we now have four. Glynis can buy more collections once she has a budget – Dawn is working on a budget for each collection.

Judy R asked for a headcount of who will attend the annual luncheon at Carpenter & Main; we need at least 15 to commit.

Amy would like to have an executive council meeting before November to decide which positions are open. During the November meeting she will ask members to approve the new bylaws.

Old business – Quechee has dropped out of the audio rotation as well as video rotation, which has caused Grantham and Norwich, who are downstream, to be missing collections that were held up in Quechee. Dawn will track them down.

Meeting adjourned at 11:19 a.m.

• 
  Secretary Glynis Hart

LUV meeting minutes 6.15.2026

 Approved at 9.21.2026 meeting. 

The meeting was held via Zoom link. It began at 10:15 a.m.

Attendees: Judy Russell, Lyme; Glynis Hart, Wilmot; Amy Thurber, Canaan; Dawn Huston, Grantham; Sally Bernier, Newport; Anne ? at Orford Free Library, Brook Lewis at Fairlee Vt., Jeff Cabral of Abbott Library in Sunapee. Speaker: Mark Glisson of Hooksett Library

Minutes from the February meeting were accepted.

The treasurer’s report was accepted. The current balance is $6,672.43. We spent $1,529.28 on a new Switch and games for the video games collection.

Video games. Dawn said we are changing the video game rotation to make sure everyone has a collection; we have four collections and six participating libraries. Glynis said she fed the problem into AI and it produced a reasonably fair rotation, with the games moving every 2 months (like DVDs). Dawn said we don’t need four Switches, three will do.

Judy said this sounded like a subcommittee discussion and we could continue talking after the speaker.

DVDs. Judy mentioned that Quechee dropped out of LUV even though they’ve already paid for the year. Dawn said she would get the bag from Quechee; Judy said she would like to fold those DVDs into the other bags.

RE: Audio collections. Amy said everything is going well.

Judy asked the assemblage if we should have a July meeting or just skip it? The consensus was to meet next in September.

Speaker: Mark Glisson of Hooksett Library. “Smarter not Harder: Upgrade your library workflows with the power of AI.”

“The folks that are AI for profit will run us over if we don’t stay involved,” Glisson said. “Libraries that disengage do not avoid AI’s impact, they cede control over it.”

1.       AI is unavoidable. We have AI-enhanced library catalogs and discovery tools already in use; AI-powered metadata generation; AI transcription for accessibility and archives; AI reading recommendations

2.       The current landscape. Public libraries are lagging behind adaptation to AI. Tools for libraries are being adopted without going through the policy frameworks that protect patron privacy and institutional credibility.

3.       Useful sites and tools: Consensus.app allows you to do research and data discovery with controlled input. It does not search the web. The user inputs the papers/ sources/ data and its AI draws conclusions from only those sources. Google Notebook LM also works very well, Glisson recommends it.

Example: Using LM to come up with usage data for the library. Glisson fed it the annual survey data, and Hooksett’s demographic data from the census bureau, to predict which collections are growing rapidly and therefore allocate resources to them.

Amy T. asked, “How much time are you spending to build your notebook?”

“Five minutes,” said Glisson. Most of the time is inputting the documents. “Just play with LM. It’s not a gimmick; this is very practical-use stuff.”

Glisson said when he asks it to write something, he puts it through several drafts. He will even ask another chatbot like Claude to critique it.

He showed a promo he created for Hooksett’s library of things.

Judy said, “This is where I have difficulty. What happens to my creativity if AI is doing the promotions?”

Glisson said he’s still creative, he makes changes to the ads before they go out. Also, Canva is free for libraries; Canva is very useful for making posters and ads.

Glisson finished, saying, “We must lead in AI literacy.”

Everyone thanked him for the talk and the meeting was adjourned.

The next meeting will be September 21st, also at 10 a.m. and via Zoom.

LUV meeting minutes

Approved at June 15 meeting. 

2.02.2026

The meeting was held online. Judy Russell chaired.

Attendees: Sally Bernier, Newport; Brook Lewis, Fairlee, Vt.; Lucinda Walker, Norwich; Deanna Fitch, Cornish; Richard Tutweiler, New London; Michaela Lavelle, Quechee and Wilder, Dawn Huston, Grantham; Cory Smith, Sunapee; Glynis Hart, Wilmot; Deborah Dutcher (NHSL).

Previous meeting’s minutes (November 2025) reviewed and accepted.

Treasurer’s Report

The treasurer’s report was reviewed and accepted.

Roundtable

Judy R. said with Canaan and one other library they co-sponsor Art History programs that are quite popular.  Sally B.’s library is hosting Olympic watch parties. Brook said Fairlee library will be doing a float in the local 4th of July parade.

Speaker

Kathy Harvard was the speaker. She spoke about the Alzheimer’s Associaton and shared a Power Point presentation on dementia in our communities. Kathy’s husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his 50s; Kathy said the Association was a lifeline and she now does what she can to share the information that was shared with her. She has become an advocate for policy change since her husband’s passing.

“This is a public health crisis in every community,” she said. “It has a tremendous impact on caregivers as well.” There are economic, emotional and physical effects on families of people with this disease.

In New Hampshire and Vermont there are around 50,000 people with Alzheimer’s. Higher risk groups are:

1.       Women, who are 2/3rds of all Alzheimer’s patients

2.       African-American, who are twice as likely as whites to get Alzheimer’s

3.       Latinx people, 1.5x as likely

Dementia is an umbrella term that includes: Alzheimer’s, Vascular dementia, Lewy body, frontotemporal, and Other/Huntington’s. There is mixed dementia, with more than one cause.

Dementia affects memory, thinking, and behavior. There is no cure. However, in the last three years treatments have been developed that effectively slow the progress of the disease.

“If you see changes, take action,” said Kathy. Early diagnoses and treatment “can delay progression for quite a long time.”

Also, “People need to be willing to talk about their brain health,” she said. The Alzheimer’s Association website has handouts that advise you how to keep your brain healthy. You can reduce your risk by up to 40% by keeping healthy habits – exercise, good diet, brain stimulating activities. Also, it’s important for older folks to keep their balance. Bumps to the head are bad for your brain!

Alzheimer’s Association can also match you with clinical trials and research.

There is an annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s which helps to publicize this disease and help people connect to helpful resources.

Finally, the National Library Services for the Blind and Print-disabled can also be helpful for people with dementia. In New Hampshire, Deborah Dutcher is coordinator of the Talking Books for the Blind program.

Kathy encourages libraries to host Watch Parties of the Alzheimer’s Association videos. If you participate in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s they will provide free materials.

Lucinda W. said Norwich Library started a Memory Café four months ago. “We’ve realized we needed to stay responsive,” she said. “The caregivers enjoy getting together. Our participants are mostly in early stages of dementia.”

Glynis H. shared that library volunteers with cognitive decline has been a challenge at Wilmot library. Wilmot also has a Memory Café once a month, focused on music and singing.

Judy R. said that Lyme has a Memory Café program. “We went into it assuming what others offer would work. Almost immediately we understood that music is always a hit. But, the folks that were coming were highly educated. They never did crafts in their life and they were not going to start now. We had to pivot from our original plan to music and chatting and having a snack, giving caregivers opportunity to chat with each other.”

Lucinda W. noted that trying to help patrons with dementia is fraught with privacy issues. Libraries protect the confidentiality of their patrons, so if there’s concern with a patron showing signs of disease a third party would be more appropriate to intervene.

Kathy offered to help anyone who reaches out to her. “It’s important to get the conversations going.”

Old Business

Judy R. and Amy T. introduced new policies for the collections and posted them on the website. These clarify how much it costs to buy in, what are yearly fees, and what happens when a library drops out of a rotation. Buy-in fees for all collections were set at $350 and approved by unanimous vote.

New Business

Glynis H. said she would update the game collection rotation when she got the word from Dawn on which libraries paid for 2026. Judy said Sunapee/Abbott joined.  Tracy Library and Cornish Library dropped out. Glynis asked for a budget from Dawn and said we need another Switch so every collection has one.

Adjourned. Next meeting: March 16, online.