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Ken Grant, President, call the meeting to order at 2:02 p.m.

Other Trustees present - Herbert Trenchard, Vice President; Peter Martin, Treasurer; Roger Schnell, Secretary; W. Danforth Walker, Ken Lawrence, David Straight, Charles Peterson, Roger Brody.

Others in Attendance - Virginia Horn, APRL Librarian; Peter Mastrangelo, APS Executive Director; Ken Martin, APS Deputy Executive Director; Janet Klug, APS President; Nick Carter, APS treasurer; Ross Towle, and Hugh J. McMackin.

I. President’s Welcome.

II. Moved by David Straight and seconded by Dan Walker to approve the corrected Minutes of the July 2005, and March 2006 meeting of the APRL. Passed unanimously.

III. Reports

A. Administrator, Peter Mastrangelo

Will be discussing the budget later in meeting as well as website upgrade, membership categories, PLR subscription rate, American Banknote Archives and 2007 Postal History Symposium.

At our joint meeting with the APS Board we will cover additional topics including our annual audit, a fund raising and building report and an open discussion of matters of mutual interest.

First, let me state that I am very pleased to attend my first, in-person meeting of the APRL Board. At this stage, I would like to simply express my gratitude to each of you for the support you have provided to me thus far. There are also a few items I would like to re-cap for you.

As you are aware, we have had a staff re-organization in Bellefonte. Within that reorganization, Library reporting relationships remain the same, with Gini Horn reporting directly to me as APRL Administrator. I must also say that I am every impressed with the professionalism and customer service that our staff provide Library patrons. I have even asked for items that have peaked my research interests and have been impressed with their prompt and detailed response.

During the course of the past few months I have had the pleasure of meeting with APRL Board members on an individual basis and at various meetings. Our Finance meeting earlier this summer comes to mind. Additionally, Ken Grant and Charlie Peterson are participants in our weekly campaign meetings.

During the course of the show and at some of our other meetings you may have seen the promotional material regarding the Headsville Post Office Project and the Campaign for Philately. Brochures and pamphlets are available at the APS booth. Presently I am having continuous dialogue with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. They have been provided technical information on the project, architectural renderings and other information regarding the APC. I am awaiting their review of that material so that we can determine if any additional information is required of us prior to executing a loan agreement for the exhibit.

  A brief comment about the remainder of the building project at the APC is also in order. While I will be giving a full briefing at our joint meeting with the APS Board, I would like to share my thoughts on how the Headsville Project fits very well into the vision of the entire project. As have been briefed, a new structure will be erected and integrated into building 13 and the patio. In essence this is the APC postal station with Headsville as the center piece. Picture the APC, if you will, as you drive up the main drive. Envision a front entrance to the tenant space in Building 10, picture a walkway along the mill race, up to the patio and entrance to the new APC postal station. This makes quite an impact. This is the area that will be frequented by the public the most. As we address our future phases, the somewhat unpleasant structure that you see now, will be the newest attraction in Bellefonte, PA.

B. Librarian, Gini Horn
Since our annual meeting in Grand Rapids operations at Bellefonte have been very different than in an average year. The International show in Washington, D.C. was just one area where we saw some challenges.

At our Grand Rapids meeting the fee structure for providing services was significantly changed. The new fee structure took effect for any request received after November 1, 2005. Immediately we saw a drop in the number of requests we received. By the end of February of this year our circulation numbers were approximately 66% of the requests received by the end of February 2005. During the spring we saw requests start to climb, but only occasionally did we see a week when there were more requests than the same week in 2005. By the end of July our circulation number had climbed to 80% of the equivalent time period in 2005.

The results – our circulation is down. Because of the fee increase our income is up and our expenses are down because fewer materials have been shipped. The staff has been able to address other tasks such as bringing some databases up to date, and working with the collection re-organization project.

The collection re-organization has progressed well. We currently have approximately 30% of the cataloged titles labeled and reshelved. Most of the physical work on this project has been done by our volunteer Richard Nackles. The classification assignments have been done by Martha Micuda, an APRL staff person since 1981.

Washington 2006 provided a large variety of literature for the library’s collection. Many of these materials were from overseas publishers who do not routinely send the APRL copies of their publications.

Later this year the APS/APRL and the National Postal Museum will jointly sponsor the Winton Blount Symposium on Postal History. Our focus is to have traditional academic historians meet with philatelic postal historians. This will occur in Washington, D.C. the first weekend in November.

Moved by Herbert Trenchard and seconded by Dan Walker to accept reports. Passed unanimously.

IV. Old Business

1. Guidelines for Fulfilling Loan Requests - Gini Horn. (see Attachment). Guidelines accepted.

V. New Business

1. Budget
Moved by Dan Walker and seconded by Peter Martin to defer action on the 2007 budget to October,2006. Passed unanimously.

2. Web page Upgrade
Presentation by Peter Mastrangelo (see attachment)
Moved by Ken Lawrence and seconded by Roger Schnell that the APRL spend up to $20,000 from the Cyer fund for upgrade of the Web page.
Passed unanimously.

3. Review of Membership Categories (see attachment)
Moved by Dan Walker and seconded by Charlie Peterson that the recommendations of the Librarian be accepted. Passed unanimously.

4. Reinvigorating PLR Subscription Rate
Discussion was opened by President Ken Grant. It was suggested that we might want to consider ways increase the  PLR circulation. There was discussion as to which readership to direct the publication. It basically has been a library publication, and as such has a specific readership. It was suggested that perhaps the Table of Contents of the PLR could be placed in the “AP”. This might increase interest.
No action was taken.

5. American Bank Note Archives. Gini Horn reported that the committee had reviewed the Archives. Of the 7,100 files, it was the felt that perhaps 707 files would be of value. It was recommended that an inquiry be made as to the price of those files that might be of value to the APRL.

6. 2007 Postal History Symposium
David Straight led a discussion of the Postal History Symposium scheduled for National Postal Museum, Washington, D. C., November 2006.

The APRL Board Meeting was adjourned 3:55 PM.