Library Advisory Board Meeting – June 2023

Video Description:
Library Advisory Board Meeting – June 2023

Read along below:

Speaker 1 0:01
So as I slowly pull up our agenda. So I believe without looking our first order will be to get people to agenda approval of the May 8 minutes. So does anyone have any corrections to make? further edits? Hey, anyone want to move to accept them? Thanks, Mark, do you have a second?

Unknown Speaker 0:34
Second? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 0:39
You got to do it all.

Unknown Speaker 0:42
All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Switch over this to me, I’ll just say this to you for Tracy to sign. Members of the public interested in being heard?

Speaker 1 1:04
Right, moving on, we have our library staff presentation. And Jason

Unknown Speaker 1:09
had just gotten out of here, I don’t know what for.

Speaker 1 1:12
So I’m just skipped to the next item. And then we’ll go right back. This is an item thanks to Jamie, I believe that I’d like to add as a standing agenda item at least for the next few months, which is to do a monthly icebreaker now that we have a number of new members, just a way to get to know each other a little better. I’d be happy to switch off every month, I have a number of icebreakers over the years that I’ve gathered as well. But I thought for this month, we could just do something a little library related. So I’d love to hear and hopefully, you know, do this pretty quickly. But a favorite library memory doesn’t have to be the favorite, but favorite library memory at any point in your life. So I’ll start and I can’t believe I’m going to share this one. This has been recorded. But I would be very upset. I think if any of our students do this now, but when I was in college, I hid out in the library overnight with a group of friends. Oh, and then like 2am We came out and play hide and seek and random around the library. And that is not the best librarian or board members memory, but it is one of my favorites. Wow.

Speaker 2 2:35
So I’m immediately thinking like, Where was security? Oh, we

Speaker 1 2:39
got caught. Oh, you did? Like three now I’m sure he rested. So yeah, you know, that’s a little bit there is a gap there security. So Jason, we’re just briefly skipped it in the next and then all the stuff back to you. But I’d love to hear from anyone else you would love to share a favorite library memory.

Speaker 3 3:08
Well, I wish I thought of that, because that’s a great idea, I guess is to use a library as a place to hang out. So whether it was no other place in town, just go there and cause trouble and try not to get kicked out easily at nine o’clock thing through Assad kept us off the street till then that’s that was our social space. Not as good insurance stuff.

Unknown Speaker 3:40
I knew this question was coming.

Speaker 2 3:44
I have to that immediately popped to mind. And they are from my time working in library in services. One is they’re both very similar. You’ll know what one is this tiny, tiny, tiny little person running full speed. They’re probably in college now. Full speed into the children’s room. I’m sitting at the desk. They don’t care who all’s around they’re just looking at me in the name is Jamie was Jamie. Like really lovely. And I’m just like awesome. And just like the fact that they couldn’t wait to share that information with me of all people and didn’t care who heard it. I felt I wrote on that guy for like weeks. And then another was we were doing a storytime Thanksgiving storytime and craft. And the Ask was you know, make a big beautiful picture about something that you’re thankful for. And I’m walking around like oh, what do you what do you have all your family and food and all that I get to this one little point is very, very focused and hard at work. And he goes, it says I am thanks For four snakes, and this beautiful picture of a snake, and I was just like, oh my gosh, yes. So earnest and serious about it. So those have stuck with me for probably about 15 years. Beyond that, honest, do you have anything on this one? Yeah. So

Speaker 4 5:24
um, if it’s picking up any background noise, just let me know, with the memory. There was a library near where I grew up. That was brand new bill, John, it’s the Cerritos library, if you recognize the name that they have, like a sculpture garden that people would like go take like professional photographs, dad, and they had a giant a quote, an entire wall was just like an aquarium that had like fish and eels. And so it was like a really beautiful library. And so like, it was more just like being there and walking around. It’s almost like, yeah, just the structure itself was really impressive. And they have like fountains outside and it was just a really gorgeous library. So going, there was always like, a good memory for me.

Speaker 5 6:05
That’s awesome. I’ve got so many. But one is way back when I worked in, you made me think is because academia, it was when I worked in an academic library. And it’s, it’s like a story of just surprising the I don’t know what people are thinking or not thinking. So we had group study rooms in this library, just like many too, and this is for students, of course, and I worked at Cal Berkeley and have a very well respected MBA program. So you know, I kind of worked out on the assumption that most of these students were pretty smart. There was a whole group of of students a bunch of them first of all, overcrowding, a study room, not to study they were celebrating a friend’s birthday. That’s fine. Except that they had a birthday cake with lit candles. And we’re like, do not see an issue with us. Anyway, we laughing a little bit. We well, then they were up the candles and first of all, you’re not even using those people that actually need to study. But I was just amazed that there was no thought that fire in a building with that’s basically Kindle with all the books and everything around like that didn’t occur to anybody that it was a fire hazard. Probably MBA students at Cal Berkeley.

Unknown Speaker 7:43
That’s why you’re probably running into

Unknown Speaker 7:49
maybe our anyway, we can see.

Speaker 1 7:56
JC I know you can’t hear or you can’t speak. But if you have one module in the chat, please feel free. Jason. I know. You’re inherited share with us. But if you agree that came to mind and you’d like to share, please feel free.

Speaker 6 8:12
Well, I grew up with my best friend was his mom was librarian. So we ended up spending quite a bit of time after school. Just hanging around the library reading

Unknown Speaker 8:27
comic books. Those are good stories, not cynical stories.

Speaker 1 8:46
I just heard from Katherine. Unfortunately, she won’t be able to teach Okay, tonight. All right. So would anyone want to do this before we move on to you, Jason, when you might want to volunteer to do the icebreaker next month? If not, I’m happy to all do it. No, I like it. All right. Now, back to staff presentation. Well,

Speaker 5 9:14
I’ve first of all, sorry that I think a lot of you know Jason because he was acting director until I got here. But just in case, this is Jason Merrill and his while he did an outstanding job, his real roll is department head for technical services in our computer lab. And so that’s what he’s actually here to

Speaker 6 9:37
talk about. So my team actually covers multiple different areas. I’ve got going to start off just basically walking through the process of what happens in the back and then we’ll talk a little bit about the computer lab. First, the purchasing team acquisitions falls underneath Technical Services. We A free individuals who receive, purchase invoice and make sure that all the vendors are properly taken care of for purchasing books. If there are problems with a book, they get back to the vendor and make sure that things are taken care of correctly. So they receive the books, I receive any kind of item that we would get once they receive it. And then it goes on to our cataloging team, we have a team of four for actual catalogers. That’s their official title, we did have two that are helping right now with that process. Total team right now is 11, who helped with cataloging and making sure that information is in the computer, right, here’s a sample, I pulled up something new that we just got in the library, show a little bit of the record, all this information has to be put in, it’s not just something that we can go out and grab from one place. But there are several pieces that we have to go in and type in and make sure that that is in there correctly so that people can find it. My favorite part of the record is actually as we get down here to the subjects 650s lines and specifically say, here’s what I have a little bit about, about what the book is, what’s inside. So after the catalogers, get all that information in book then has to broker item goes into our jacking and processing area, they basically take the book and recover on it, but tagging it, that’s an RFID. So all our machines are out here in the building can read up the barcode and make sure that it’s completely ready for the shelf. Once they’re done with it, and they’re handed off and on the shelf. Any problems along the way, goes back to the team that can fix the issue with a booker item. So that’s a little bit of the backside of the house with things. But the big part of my team right now is actually like computer lab, we have two brand new computer lab members who are really, really great right now we’ve been working hard to make sure that all of our machines are up and running as much as possible in numbers have been able to provide the service and the computer lab so that the technical support can actually work on our total computer lab team consists of our catalogers, our jacketing team, which normally if they work in the back, not very often do they actually work at a computer lab desk, but our team does here which is unique and very special. I really enjoy people that work there because they aren’t scared to try things. They have a lot of questions that come in people who don’t use computers don’t know technology. And that’s the first place that they get help. Our computer lab team, we have a coordinator who coordinates the schedule. And everybody spends at least two or three hours a week. And we do have a few of spend up to 12. So they get to know the people who come and go. Are there any questions?

Speaker 1 14:09
So I guess going back to the record, we’d love to hear that you have to but I’m curious because I remember when during our budget conversation, we’re talking about pre processing. So what would that change for your team that goes through

Speaker 6 14:23
pre processing, actually, we’ve been doing quite that helpful. It cuts down the amount of time that an item has to be touched. So acquisitions purchases that gets in rather than going to cataloging it can then jump a step and then just be reviewed, make sure all the tags, the covers and everything are on correctly. Companies are actually putting tags, the barcodes and things on for us so it’s just basically being checked out So it is a process of processing cuts down the amount of time it has to sit on a shelf, or somebody will look at it, get the information in and get her on.

Speaker 5 15:11
So we’ve been introducing this, since I’ve been well, little bit before I was here first with children. So they are all All Children’s materials are fully pre processed now. And before that, we could have materials sitting back here waiting for cataloging and jacketing. And all this physical handling for some, sometimes up to six months, which is unreasonable for the because it’s for the public. So we can’t have stuff sitting back here. So now with pre processing, children’s materials, pretty much don’t sit here at all. And there’s a rare occasion where there’s something where there’s an error, and it has to sit back until they fix it. But most things go pretty much unpacked when they’re delivered. And on the shelf within a day or two.

Speaker 6 16:00
It’s a special items that you have to spend time working

Speaker 5 16:03
on. Yeah. And then the adult collection fiction collection has been the next one that we’ve just started doing, which is a huge collection as well. So we’ll reduce the backlogs in there as well. And then we’ll gradually introduce pretty much everything else in our system. Most libraries to this

Speaker 6 16:27
doesn’t mean that necessarily, we will have no work for the people as more than they can focus on these special items.

Speaker 5 16:36
Or spend more time in the lab, we’re going to be introducing computer classes for the public, which we haven’t done. So with with new staff that Jason has hired this year, that was budgeted for last year, they’re on board already and working. And then the existing staff

Speaker 5 17:03
would logically started making choices and would logically have capacity to work more and help with classes there as well. So there’s a lot there. And even beyond that, a lot of already do it. But they could volunteer, volunteer meaning as long as their workload is okay, they can help with outreach events. So there’s, there’s, you know, there’s plenty of opportunity for everyone,

Speaker 6 17:26
how’s the team currently does. You have several though, go out and spend time with Lilian at different events.

Unknown Speaker 17:38
That’s great that everyone works. I mean, hopefully,

Speaker 5 17:42
it’s good in general, I think because a lot of traditionally libraries, people that work in technical services and do cataloging and things tend to stay in the back. So I think the public interaction is good, because you know, what people are asking you and working with the public gives you a different perspective than not. So I think it helps everybody with the customer experience, something that was already created here. I didn’t predict that but I think that’s something that would stand by for long term.

Speaker 6 18:12
It’s been of great benefit for not just staff but the public. Many times are able to give us the feedback that we need for stuff that’s going on back here because in a place where the same talk province or team I have a team 1414

Speaker 5 18:43
total staff Yeah, total stuff. So

Unknown Speaker 18:53
the questions

Speaker 5 19:00
give you an excellent to computer classes. Oh yeah, they’re coming next month coming up. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Jason. We’re coming. I know you’re a familiar face here.

Unknown Speaker 19:16
It’s great to hear and then it’s good to see

Speaker 6 19:21
all that information that’s in the record. You don’t see it on the public side. You just see the book that you’re looking

Unknown Speaker 19:31
at? How’s the baby doing? Doing very well? Good

Speaker 5 19:41
All right, awesome. Well, I mean, feel free to stick around if you want or go but I’m gonna jump out

Unknown Speaker 19:55
I’m flip back at the chat. I look to see what Tracy Oh,

Unknown Speaker 19:59
it’s right here.

Unknown Speaker 20:02
Let me get rid of

Unknown Speaker 20:11
the Pennsylvania

Speaker 1 20:18
thanks for sharing. Um, also, please feel free to to have a year or so. And please feel free. Great. So move on.

Speaker 2 20:32
Can I just take some home? Yes. Oh, good,

Unknown Speaker 20:38
will hook you up with something.

Speaker 1 20:41
So I asked John about possibilities of a shared drive. That’s our next agenda item, especially because we have so many digital items. Now, if there’s a central location that you can all have access to. I know Jeff can’t be here. So I’m not sure if you have any updates on that.

Speaker 5 21:01
I asked Jeff about that. He said there’s essentially for four reason with the way boards and commissions run that there is not a digital housing place because everything’s supposed to be here. Okay. So it doesn’t mean you can’t communicate that way. But there’s not a like repository, or any kind of drive in order to share documents. Basically, I think the the logic is, if you’re doing that, that that has to be publicly available.

Unknown Speaker 21:32
Okay, that makes sense. That’s good to know,

Speaker 2 21:36
is that a conversation stopper, and then if it needs to be subject to like Cora requests,

Unknown Speaker 21:47
pretty much.

Speaker 3 21:50
Couple years ago, we were involved with an outside group, and they were posting their documents to slack. And those the board had access was given access to slack. And the city indicated that that was a violation of open records, he could you could in essence, conduct the meeting without letting the city or the or the citizens. So that’s, we ended up having to sever those relationships, just so we literally okay.

Speaker 5 22:26
It’s kind of under the presumption that all poor work is done at the meeting. So anything outside the public would have to know or included, I guess that’s where it’s coming from.

Unknown Speaker 22:37
Okay. So we don’t have access to the minutes. But beyond that.

Speaker 5 22:47
Yeah, I think like Cynthia brought up in the sense where, like, I think logically makes sense to have, you know, as some documents, like even last month, or the one before where the board was basically working through a statement to go to council through a Google Drive, but we were in a meeting, it was fine. But if that had done been done offline, the public would have to be included. I guess I’m saying something, you know, but I just that’s, that’s how it was explained.

Speaker 1 23:21
I understand the logic behind that. And Chasey. I think that just means we’ll have to continue to ask you to email things like the bylaws and really depend on that. I hope that changes, but I understand that that is how it is.

Speaker 2 23:40
I guess I wanted to understand again, like What the What is the need that is not being slowly met by the status quo. For me,

Speaker 1 23:50
it would be convenient to have an easy place really. It came time seeing that again, we were having a hard time looking at finding the most shared emson procedures that we worked on finding the bylaws. So those sorts of documents that pertain to board business, I thought it’d be nice to live in a easily accessible digital digital place. But I don’t think that’s too much of a barrier. I just think we’ll have to see Tracy for interviews and

Speaker 3 24:23
other ways to skin. Yeah. library just search or something you store

Unknown Speaker 24:35
I know that. We can do the already All

Speaker 1 24:42
right. Well, let’s move on to that one. And it’s fine this quick membership update. First really want to just to thank Mark for the service to the board. I’ve taken on so much for the last couple of years and I think really got this board to have momentum on So it’s much appreciated.

Unknown Speaker 25:02
Time on the table.

Speaker 1 25:07
You will be missed. We beautiful, you losing a lot of a lot of knowledge next month when you leave. So thank you Mark wanted to make sure that was on record. And then just to give everyone else here an update, John Jamie and I met with the two candidates for new board positions. And we passed both names on the council. And so hopefully we will be hearing back from them soon.

Speaker 5 25:40
When did they do this? Well. Tracy, do you remember? I think we asked that question. I know you’ll have to check to

Speaker 1 25:55
make memories is Gerren. Because they needed the memo by May 30. I don’t know if we have any more clarification from that. Make sure I hope so. Because I know you will be here starting next month, June

Speaker 5 26:11
20. Should be on council makes a decision and then we should find out what decision are they after? So by the next board meeting will now be here.

Speaker 1 26:26
Alright. Yeah. Thanks, JC. Any comments on that jet lag on before we move on?

Speaker 1 26:38
Let’s continue on to old business then. So I have an I’m sorry that I’m not able to pass this to you. This is the updates I made to the board. Bye by laws. That random A is because the PDF formatting is very odd on this document, so I couldn’t get rid of it. But really what I did was took out the section about the Secretary, this is based on our conversation last time and changed what I call was all mentions of the chair, chairman to Chair, Vice Chairman and vice chair, but I just wanted to see if there were other corrections that anyone sees. No, no, no, no, tell me.

Speaker 2 27:25
This as there is no Section, Article two, section

Unknown Speaker 27:32
three, the number nine is an

Unknown Speaker 27:33
inadvertent deletion.

Unknown Speaker 27:39
So that will have to be changed thanks.

Speaker 1 27:53
They’re just taking out the Secretary and changing the name of Chairman vice chairman.

Speaker 3 28:11
So underneath officers are you intending to say that the Secretary is an officer?

Speaker 1 28:22
Nope, that needs to be pressed up. Thank you. So he’s read the officers shopping system and chair and vice chair. Right now we do have a liaison for friends of the library. And we tried without it, which did not worse. But I didn’t want to add any I don’t want to lock this in anything. So I thought it would be better to not add that to the violence. Especially if the nature of that group changes or or membership changes.

Speaker 1 29:02
Annual Meeting? Yes. Which is the meeting. Right the second meeting of the board after City Council’s annual appointment of new members. So he designated as the annual meeting. So it is the one we had when it was after you all both joined when we voted on officers was officially here. And my understanding is because these two new Well, this possibly two new members coming in our replacements that that will not be the annual meeting. But I guess this is something I should clarify.

Unknown Speaker 29:48
Do you Tracy, you might know this actually, my understanding was that

Speaker 1 29:55
for Jamie periana joined that was the annual meeting and this is just replacing two members that have left. So we will have an annual meeting in approximately a year, not in the fall. Hopefully that makes sense.

Unknown Speaker 30:28
Alright, so I believe then

Speaker 5 30:31
she said, Yes. I can’t remember the timing. My Leave September would be like next

Unknown Speaker 30:37
year around November. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Great. Great.

Speaker 3 30:45
I have a question. Here. So because the Secretary is citing the minutes, is there an obligation from the city in terms of the secretary being a member of the committee? Or does that not count? I mean, it’s they’re all up searching for areas deserve some statutory requirement that says, because the secretary signs minutes? Here’s some legal requirements and legal in that they have to be a member of the committee or it doesn’t matter. I don’t, I don’t have an opinion.

Speaker 5 31:34
I’m just asking, I am pretty competent. That’s not a requirement. Because most sports commissions, the Secretary is actually a staff member. Okay. Not an actual member of the commission or board.

Speaker 1 31:49
Yeah, I do believe that. I’m trying to remember the processor or trying to find where I read it. And I might actually have to go back and look in the minutes. But I believe this now goes to legal as well. Updated bylaws,

Speaker 5 32:06
yes. Even if you just add a period any change has to go through?

Speaker 1 32:14
How did you know how to do like, assuming that that would be something considered that or at least it will have gone through that review? And answer,

Speaker 3 32:25
you would assume they would catch it if it was an issue? Maybe you can send it on with that question, saying it says that we treat the roles and responsibilities of the secretary correctly in this regard. Significant said, say they’ll get back to you in a year and a half, and we’ll deal with it.

Speaker 1 32:51
So I will, I will correct the way Jamie and Mark pointed out I’ll take off secretary under Article Two officers all reorder the numbering and then John, you know how to do this and how to actually set how this gets to legal for me three, Tracy. Alright, so I’ll send them to you, I would

Speaker 5 33:10
send them to us, and maybe point out what was changed.

Unknown Speaker 33:28
And then I’m going to also add minute by Library Board. On today’s date, sixth grade, my understanding is that we will want to vote on this now that we’ve discussed it.

Speaker 1 33:48
So I moved to for the following corrections to be added to the bylaws to remove the role of Secretary and to change the titles of Chairman and vice chairman to chair and vice chair. Is there a second?

Unknown Speaker 34:17
Hey, everyone, and favorite

Speaker 2 34:19
clarifying point record, we’re not moving to the role of

Speaker 1 34:25
Secretary or the minutes by Thank you. JC we’re moving. The motion should read as we’re moving to amend the bylaws by removing their old secretary and changing the names of chair men and vice chairman.

Speaker 2 34:39
We’re recommending to remove Secretary as an elected officer. We still have a role of Secretary it’s just shifting to Tracy.

Speaker 1 34:49
Okay, so the Yes, so the update so that version should read sorry, Tracy. We are electing to remove the role of Secretary from the board officer Okay,

Unknown Speaker 35:00
there we go.

Unknown Speaker 35:06
Alright, yeah, committee members and committee members

Unknown Speaker 35:08
didn’t get to see were able to get that. Right there. Thank you. Yes. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 35:27
All in favor?

Unknown Speaker 35:32
Motion passes. Okay, so now, next follow up city’s culture and recreation initiative. This is just in case there are any updates.

Speaker 5 35:48
There’s there’s not much except for and in reality, we’ll have this, but I passed out. This, but under your agenda, there’s a handout of basically what a legal roadmap is sort of a simplified version of the question that has come up more than once here and in every other court in Michigan, which is, what can they do? What can we do or not do when it comes to a ballot initiative and campaigning? And so this one page document is what legal roadmap and communications is gonna, you know, make this a little bit cleaner and presentable, I guess, in some way, but last week, anyway. So that’s what I I passed out the long and short of it is really, until there actually is something on a ballot and ballots out there as a board, you can campaign and do whatever you want. As Kanye. Once it’s on the ballot, that you can’t campaign as a board member. Oh, and you can do it as you’re on your own time as a president a lot more. But you can’t go out there and say, Hey, as a board member, I think you should vote yes on whatever. But you can say as a resident of Longmont, you should vote yes. That’s why I’ve been

Speaker 2 37:17
that part I’ve, I’ve known it’s the part prior that before it lands on it

Unknown Speaker 37:23
before there doesn’t seem to be any real use. So you could go

Speaker 2 37:29
on the board. And here’s this thing we’re trying to get off the ground in might you might see it pop up against November.

Speaker 5 37:36
That’s the way I understand the needs. Or at least the gist of it. And the question also came up in one of these meetings of whether someone from legal could actually come visit meetings. And I think that they’re still planning to do that. In fact, I think there was one of the other ones tonight. And so that’s great. Hopefully, in a future meeting, they can come in, we can still make sure we know. I mean, obviously, they come too late, it’s not going to matter. So I’m hoping in July or August, you know someone can come in and really make sure or, or if this isn’t clear enough on this document to make it more clear somehow.

Speaker 3 38:18
I think there is an important sentence in here. In the lower part in item number one, and it’s the last sentence, it says however, boards and commissions may take formal action to express an opinion on an issue such as passing a resolution. So the board can make its feelings known publicly, but it seems like it has to make it known as a group

Speaker 5 38:48
of individuals. So I mean,

Unknown Speaker 38:52
that’s just Yeah, interpretation. Right. Right. So

Speaker 5 38:54
that’s the interpret if that’s correct. And as a board, something can be published or stated as a library board, I guess. And these are still things to maybe get some clarity on, I guess, but you know, before we went out of time but that’s there’s there’s not many, there’s not really any other updates to the tax initiative. Other than that, I think they had draft language. I heard about some draft ballot language. Oh, it’s a library. Yeah. So you know, I, I believe the intent for sure, at least as the library is concerned is it will be on the ballot. There’s other pending issues with recreation and and other things that are going on that seem to be a moving target, but the library doesn’t appear to be a moving target.

Speaker 2 39:47
Here’s something I highlight number two that we can distribute without the distributive factual summary as long as you are not. Yep, Over you taking a stance? Yeah.

Speaker 5 40:01
And that’s something as a library director, I can do to I mean, I could go around and do all kinds of informational sessions on what it means.

Speaker 2 40:10
Yeah, basically, I mean, it’s not I’m just not even just this initiative, but other potential future items where the public is really going to need some education. Yep. Before we can expect.

Speaker 3 40:29
Yeah, that isn’t interesting. What. So I wonder if it doesn’t make it feel valid. And it’s language that the board could support? If somehow you could summarize the feasibility study? Since since it’s an independent study, it’s not drawing conclusions and get that out.

Speaker 5 40:54
I mean, me not being the lawyer aside, I would say the feasibility study was already presented to the city and to council and council accepted for whatever that means. So I feel like it’s officially been accepted by the city. So it should be able to be presented as it gets public record. It’s awesome.

Speaker 2 41:16
Yeah, it was profile. It was presented at a public meeting.

Speaker 3 41:20
Yeah. But it’s not taking, as I recall, slot, taking a position on funding, which to say, the library is not doing well,

Speaker 5 41:32
right here the year it’s actually doing well, yeah, it’s abstract. It’s it’s preparing to other libraries, all that stuff. It’s saying, this is where you should probably be funded for a library of this size for a community size. These are the services you have, that’s where they came to the preferred level of service. That might be where there’s more opinion. Because you can argue one could argue, I guess, like, you know, probably one

Speaker 3 41:59
liberal opinion. Yeah. But it seems that it’s, it’s it’s saying there’s a statement of underfunding. But it’s not saying how much funding is the voters should fund?

Speaker 5 42:15
Correct? Right. It’s not it’s not

Speaker 3 42:19
on an initiative or whatever? No. So if it hurt, Yeah, correct. So if if the opportunity arose or might consider how to get into for the city. Right, right.

Speaker 1 42:39
Well, I am writing questions as we talk for legal or when they aren’t able to make it to this meeting. Okay, which is really two so far.

Speaker 1 42:57
Thanks, John. Yeah, this is helpful. And this is really great to know that prior to having the title fix that FCPA does not apply. Other discussion points or questions on that?

Speaker 5 43:16
I just I do want to acknowledge and thank Mark for coming to the open forum. Yes. And, and while in that support, and also recognizing there were a couple of friends that came and spoke right. Volunteers, which I thought it was worthwhile. Wellness certainly was it actually even made the paper they had like that was storing really meters? More women? Yes.

Speaker 3 43:49
I mean, it all was she I think it carried more weight than anything I said, because they were new voices in New York myth and, you know, they came in and they, you know, have a history of of trying to influence or for the council righteous. Yeah. And a lot of us exchange of thoughts. Did you motivate them to come?

Speaker 2 44:17
Well, we talked about it at the last meeting.

Unknown Speaker 44:23
I think that’s great.

Speaker 3 44:28
They came, they came, they showed up. They didn’t announce themselves. I just signed up and

Speaker 2 44:34
they came to an earlier, you know, when we were all there, I guess maybe a month or so ago, and I said no, it would have been lovely.

Speaker 7 44:45
So maybe people say, Well, if you run and go my flight, they did a great job.

Speaker 3 44:51
Sharon, it was Carla. Harlan. Linda isn’t Linda’s Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 44:57
and they’d be great for Carlos speak

Speaker 2 44:59
up and was very good. I was commenting, because the media coverage that I read about, you know, I mentioned the library like this, and then everything was else was about other stuff that took out the time that you think right, which had nothing to do with the library. Alright. So it was one I was curious, like, how much was actually we actually able to speak?

Unknown Speaker 45:27
Well, thank you, my friends. Yeah. Cool.

Speaker 3 45:32
Okay, the cow, it was a an open forum. Right. So Council could ask questions as well as received. Counsel. You know, had already heard my pitch before. So there weren’t any questions, but they were question asking questions of the couple, which I thought was great. That should have level of engagement.

Unknown Speaker 45:55
Questions, and I’m not going to go back into this. You know, I

Speaker 3 46:01
think they’re, I think their perspective was, as I recall, it was from North Shore doing justice was to indicate to council how important libraries were in their lives, throughout their lives, and that they wanted to make sure that counsel was aware that the library sort of appreciated the content. That’s that’s. You listen to the listen.

Speaker 5 46:37
I did. Yeah, I watched the whole thing online.

Unknown Speaker 46:41
But that was painful.

Speaker 1 46:52
Do you want to do? Well, we think just thinking wonder if this is just a thought tool for later, you know, if we ever do decide to express an opinion on an issue, such as passing resolution, and really to measure as a board. I mean, that was a theme that came up in almost all of our favorite memories of libraries. And those two people who shared Well, I resubmit over the lifetime. So I think that is something to, to keep in mind. As part of a possible future statement.

Speaker 5 47:23
That also still matters. I mean, I know it’s come up, because there’s been specific reasons, you know, to get in front of Council recently. But it doesn’t just stop there. I think the more Council and the public here for that advocacy, the better. Particularly, you know, if this is to move forward on the ballot, I think, you know, that’s gold.

Speaker 2 47:45
Right there, I know that there will be a time in the future when it will be will want to make more space for having a strategic conversation. But from what I heard. At the meetings that I did attend, I doubt that the largest opposition or just lack of engagement will be around whether the library’s important deserves to be funded adequately anticipate that what we’re going to want to reach someone’s gonna want to proactively address is, is this the way to do it? Is it through taxes? Is it through this specific proposal? And is it coming at the expense of something else? In other words, if I go for to support the library, is it a vote against? Right, so, you know, any kind of educating that we wind up doing in the community want to address those two points?

Speaker 1 48:50
I also think that other things that can happen is, in a personal see what happens with this measure, like what is fix to the ballot, because there’s so many things that are being done, well hear from the staff. And so, you know, if people are not familiar other library systems, they might not see a problem. Kind of the perpetual issue is right, like things seem that right? Why not more, right. All right, any other comments or updates surrounding this initiative? I refined virgin and then I

Speaker 2 49:30
asked what happens next? Like what’s the next piece of this?

Speaker 1 49:36
For us as board? I think we’re just waiting. I mean, I think we actively Wait, let me find out.

Speaker 5 49:42
They would be they would be nice. And I don’t know, you know, when an actual valid language is written, to be able to sort of have some eyes on it, but I don’t really know how that works. You know, just just to have fun. But I think the, as far as outside of that, yeah, there’s not, you know, except just wait and see that it’s on there. And then when it is, certainly what are we know what’s going to be for sure?

Speaker 3 50:17
Yeah, I have no experience with that. I don’t know if if it comes to, I would assume the city staff presents it to council, and council says, Okay, I like this. And that’s the Tada moment. This is gonna go on the ballot. Or if there’s one more look in that process, where they entertain comments from the public. And then it’s good. I don’t know, I just don’t

Speaker 1 50:53
know, hopefully, in our next meeting will be a little over a month of you stay on schedule. And so if we have a regular meeting with John and Jeff here, hopefully we can find out a little bit more on that time.

Speaker 5 51:05
Yeah, I hope by that time in July, there’s more information on what’s going to happen. Just I mean, there’s deadlines. Yeah. Just as they have to know what’s on the ballot. They’re just for sure. So

Speaker 3 51:19
yeah, I would encourage the board to weigh in at that point. And I don’t know what kind of notice will come down for you or through this to hate tonight’s the night kind of thing. But

Unknown Speaker 51:35
yeah, I mean, but I will,

Unknown Speaker 51:37
I would encourage you.

Speaker 1 51:43
Yeah, I mean, especially seeing that this that the word to take formal auction? I mean, I think there’s doesn’t, I think there would be a number of ways to do that, or at least a couple of ways to do that. So that would be, I think, another discussion for this group to have if we decide to

Unknown Speaker 52:07
drop it in and out. So.

Unknown Speaker 52:11
Other comments or questions on this one?

Speaker 1 52:19
Let’s move on for now. Can I see it back with me to business, our next item is Epson adventure funds. And generally you’re going to let us know how much I

Speaker 5 52:32
did. So I looked into that. So the most are fun. And that was set up as a trust that we can spend all the interest earned only. And currently, what that amount is about 580,000 that we are eligible to spend. So that’s the balance in that sense, the actual balance of that whole Fund is a million. But that’s the spindle now. So that’s Moser. M Sen, which I believe has been designated for some specific library related materials or services. Research, I think it’s research, but that’s about 100, some 1000 125. Then there’s a much smaller fun. Stick. What’s that? You know, it’s about 5000. And that’s that, that has really no parameters, and how it can be scattered around. And then, of course, there’s the the library in general fund, which is basically the funds. That’s what that is so and that’s 100, some 1000. But that that varies, because basically, the friends have their money, but we when we put in requests, and they basically pay into that five and then we spend from it. Well, we had discussed,

Speaker 1 54:07
I know we had worked on procedures as a group, we had discussed not pursuing that actively right now. But I’d like to keep this returning to this. Maybe not every meeting but but fairly regularly. And then when time is appropriate, maybe go back to those procedures and try to send them off once more, or to remind people that we have some film. But for right now for tonight, any other comments or questions on these,

Speaker 2 54:38
the most your trust this? That’s a restricted fund or so instructions on spending?

Speaker 5 54:47
There’s Yeah, while the there’s kind of I mean, as far as what we spend it on? Yes. It’s generic enough to say library programming, but they also they have a kind of a clause in there that says, you know, particularly that would benefit those who are blind or deaf. But it’s also it’s a pretty broad statement. So you know, show them, I think they just have some interest in that. So the the only thing to date that I intend to spend that from is our next year will drop. And that does provide that specifically to that group, if you think about it, because if you’re on that side, and there’s no book drop, then you have to know where to go. So it does provide an ETA kind of broadly, yes, accessibility. Yeah, it’s an accessibility issue, that workbook dropped there. So that’s how I was able to get that appropriated or will be.

Speaker 3 55:54
There was something that oh, so some of the history on that is because of the specific designation for the funds. Somewhere along the line, we went back to the seat, the board, went back to the city and asked if there was still a trustee of the fund up there, that we could lobby to get the usage, right. To make it easier to apply the model. And I think I think the message came back at that time was that there’s no accurate trustee involved with the funds that was established so long ago that the IRS that established it, any of their managers or trustees or people that live watch over the phone, they’re gone. So right. So then then we were told that you had more latitude with the money. Specifically, those two designations?

Speaker 5 57:13
Yeah, I think, I don’t know. No one who trust Him, who gave him to the libraries around? I don’t know how that, you know? Well, I think that it’s up to somebody’s interpretation, right. I mean,

Speaker 3 57:29
we get, I get the time, I think you’re just concerned that if you spend it, somebody’s gonna come back and say, No, you can’t spend it on that. You’ve got to give it back. And that, of course, that’s that’s not a great situation, right,

Speaker 5 57:43
I think was trying to get some guy in, at least in simpler terms, where, you know, because it says on library programming. I do know, it means I can’t use that to fund a new position. Yeah, right. Like I can’t, we’re probably capitalists. Probably, you know, we’re a capital well, except that the book drop is

Speaker 3 58:06
seemed like was more one time expenses. Yeah.

Speaker 5 58:12
It’s, it’s, yeah, exactly. If it gets one time, so it’s, but it’s, there’s not much. So it’s, you know, it’d be nice to have it, in some ways, clarified to be more broad than, or somehow you who decides on if I propose to spend from someone who’s telling me whether I can or can’t?

Speaker 3 58:37
Well, actually, I think the guy that will tell you that he’s given golden because the board can make a recommendation. And then that has to go to the city to write the tiny premiere so check or something. So somebody you have to see the appropriation somebody of the city has to bless the expense that’s true. So to me that’s where the city’s legal department has a chance you’re offline and so

Unknown Speaker 59:06
we’re not writing a check. Yeah

Speaker 1 59:15
right. So their comments or questions before moving on. It will look return to this periodically that but for now, let’s go ahead and move on to reports and information items. And we have library director report at first. So we’ll

Unknown Speaker 59:37
go through highlights for this month. Or sorry, may figure that out. We don’t have to screen showing over there. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I can see all right. So students actually presentation so it may actually

Speaker 5 1:00:21
so children’s in May, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage and last we did some programming there which was pretty successful. We got some good patron feedback on that as well, as far as writing their appreciation through some comments about doing programming, specifically to that month are tween tween club that some of this is ongoing, but that we do every month, but just just some highlights from there. Summer revealed were you at the kickoff party, the almost didn’t happen kickoff party. So I was there and I gave up.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:06
I went home came back.

Speaker 5 1:01:09
So our summer reading kickoff party was at sunset pool and it was raining a little bit more. So it was lightning. And every time there was a lightning strike, we had to wait 20 minutes didn’t come back. You know, there was all this timing. And anyway, they all got in it was supposed to be from 530 to 730. They got in around 630. So kids and everybody got about an hour or so time and stuff to kick off the party. So we’re in full swing. Now the last time I checked with Claire, who you met last time, she said we already had about 1500 residents registrations for kids summer meeting, we’re doing adult summer reading this year as well, by the way, which you can do yourself if you want. It’s kind of fun. It’s a contextual pursuit. So if you like trivia, you can check out things. I don’t know if that’s indicated in the adult area or not. But so we’re full swing summer reading. Some other programs that we did here that were already represented Schofer unveiling one of the big things I don’t know if you know is our Lego club, that’s once a month a lot of turnout there for that. Every month we do it after hours. I think at some point, my children’s librarian would like to change that just for ease of delivering the program, but But it’s usually successful. So children’s is usually as usual is doing a lot. One thing just to let you know this, because this is really programming highlights, but I want to let you know, we had two staff getting new job opportunities, which is great for them within children’s. So we’re recruiting, one of them was part time, like 1214 hours. So staff recovering that mostly on the floor shifts, but the other one was almost full time for the quarter time. So we’re recruiting for that now. Good for them, but a little bit poor timing for us. And when we just started reading, they have to be shorter and stuff, but they’re hanging in there. So moving on. So adult we had a really good program on a holocaust presentation that was done really good turnout. It was actually the same night as the Friends Meeting, I remember because I also wanted to see this medicine. But they had 61 attendees for it. The other adult program is pretty good actually just for you know, they don’t do a lot of big programs. So when we do when we get that kind of turnout, it’s good and artistic presentation on Holocaust interpretation through music or literature. I think it’s very well received. And then we did an art program with some adults. I think it’s still displayed upstairs. You can see there’s about a half dozen or so artwork that was crafted based off this Diego Rivera

Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
program.

Speaker 1 1:04:19
It starts with America’s going race. Yep, that’s great. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:04:26
So that went really well. And I think they did another one or they are doing another one with teams came up that happened or is happening is the same thing, but just teams. This one was for adults. And then our gaming. Spanish speaking group, our two book club book clubs are doing very well. Tonight, that’s why we’re in here. And then work game exchange so people can trade off boards. We’ve had good board game programming already, kind of what we call passive programming. There’s really no library style. involved, it’s just games around people can play, do whatever they want to do. And then just some numbers for adults, you can see the number of programming we did 15 I think 15 different programs or so and total attendance of about 246. Outreach, this is usual secretive. I of course, was the biggest thing. I don’t know if you went to seek it while I was there all the data that we when we say for her, when Lillian writes, and she’ll come to one of these four and 25 stats, she means interactions with people. So it’s, you know, as long as we talked to somebody about the library, we counted, whether it’s a longer question or just what are your hours, but it’s an interaction. So that was a good fun and very busy day. Moving on, so our center is a newer outreach program and that Williams is doing 65 people there, which is good. The youth summit, she was there and Heidi are our marketing and communications person for the library also was there for that was smaller, smaller turnout but effective. On the right, upper right hand corner. Oh at the back. Yeah. Yeah. With the teacher

Unknown Speaker 1:06:40
will see your daughter was there.

Speaker 2 1:06:43
It was during the book, the friends sale. Okay, so we had some volunteers. Energetic. Yeah. Show up. They were looking for that. Oh, they were signed up to volunteer at the Youth Summit.

Speaker 5 1:07:00
It was it was already set up Senator Monterey call it right like inside there. But didn’t see Lillian Yeah, yeah. And she was all dressed up. Yeah. Lots to carry. I’ve never seen her not trust her. She’s always ready to talk about the library. Oh, yeah. She’s She a great job this Saturday. at Hyde Park, that colorize program. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And she’s going to be we just signed up to be this weekend as the Juneteenth Celebration for the city. She’ll be there as well. We just got signed up for that she figured out how to work are scheduled to do it. So intercambios she’s been working with them for a while. They came she just probably outreach with them. And then she brought him in all for a tour and took him grantor the library so and I happen to be just walking out. And I got to meet everybody. So that was really fun. For them, I think I just wanted to go get a cup of coffee. No, it was delightful. autograph. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. And then outreach numbers, which are always usually pretty big, although secret of my hopes in this month, but you know, 1000 1000 touches of conversation with somebody that’s separate just from the parks that we do. So she kind of recorded that separately this month. You know, with some of the rain you can see a couple had to get canceled sometimes one of the times we tried to just switch it and have it be here inside but it’s just so hard because people show up there and you know, it’s when you don’t know what the weather is going to be. But that’s just like go through that range. I mean, it happens in the winter too. If there’s an outdoor event and then some more numbers there. This just puts it in a different format and then coming in June this is some bigger June outreach coming up June Oh, no, she doesn’t. So she updated this so that’s good. So those are the highlights. For me.

Speaker 1 1:09:28
Do you mind going back to this and are reading the full slide picture that upper left corner are those is that the cool after people had already waited an hour? Yeah. Wow. That’s impressive.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:42
Oh, those they waited care that they waited an hour place was full.

Speaker 5 1:09:46
Yeah, they waited. So So I went there. I wanted to be there at least for a little bit. So I got there around 530 And I waited for probably 45 minutes or so. But I also like I took the opportunity to go for a run because I live where I can run there. So I ran. And then it was looking really bad. Like, I’m gonna go home. Like if you guys get in, and that’s great, but I’m not getting hailed on so I went home. But yeah, they all there. When I was there, everyone was waiting like kids were playing just, you know,

Speaker 2 1:10:27
I gotta say something that was really cool. We live right behind there. So we were there on time, and there was a huge line to get. We stood on that line. I don’t it felt like a long time until someone finally came out said, we just have to hit pause on this. You can go you can stay but like you can’t stay here because of the threat of the lightning. Yeah. So that whole line had to disperse and took my daughter home, she was very disappointed. We waited and it was about an hour maybe. Or just under and we came back. And they were letting people in. And I mean, like, I don’t know, if you’ve had this experience, especially as a parent, like, you’re, you’re going to go do the thing in the evening, and you get there. And if something goes wrong, and you have to step away from the thing, you’re done, like you’re not going back and the fact that so many people left and came back, that’s how committed they were to follow him through the event. And then the super cool thing was the table was set up those smiling. What is the name of that? individual who’s smiling laughing at the camera on the left hand side? Here? No, you around the right photo? person on the left?

Speaker 5 1:11:50
Yeah. Oh, that’s Stephanie, one of our children’s librarians. So Carly works for us, too. She’s a library technician part

Speaker 2 1:11:57
time. And Claire was there. Oliver was there. Yep. All of us here. And these kids, they knew them. They walked up to them and talk to them. Yeah, the library staff knew who they were recognized. So they were like these genuine conversations happening. That was just super cool, because it was busy. And then a little tiny bit chaotic for a bit. But like those, those interactions hammered home to me how ingrained the library staff are in the community. This is a success. Yeah. It’s a success. kickoff.

Speaker 5 1:12:45
Yeah, it wasn’t the end. And you’re right there. It’s a good group. They know everybody.

Speaker 1 1:12:52
Appreciate you sharing, and delegating 20 teams for Team firms. It’s really good. Yeah. Yeah, like, that doesn’t happen unless I think I have this relationship, for sure.

Speaker 5 1:13:09
So that’s that update. And then I have still yet to kind of get this dashboard. I’m playing around with old things. But I wanted to give you just a couple of updates on our action plan that we talked about. So in the area of security, the only thing we’re we’re actually waiting on here to securing access to staff areas. We’re just where we are, this would be backdoors. We all have and some waiting to hear back on that. But the lighting is done. That got finished last month. In the atrium, it’s super nice. And right now you can actually see we we hired our full time camera security attendant. Just three, three weeks ago or so. So this person works. Part of that deal was they work mostly over the memorial building and Roosevelt park but Sunday’s are here. And we didn’t have a security presence here on Sundays. So his name is John. He’s doing a great job. He came from a security background. So that that we have and the security cameras new and updated cameras started to get installed last week, I think they might still be working on some of them. So we’re getting some work done on this patron and staff security. I’m not going to go through every single thing here. I just want to point out some things that we’re moving along or even completed in some way. I’ll move through a couple of these things here but like our brochure is done, but we actually just translate that into Spanish as well now so now it’s really done done lucky in that sense. Of course disorder has been done for While that was on here. And let’s see, I think those are the things I wanted to just touch on mostly security. So I’m still working on games in a format where it’s not in this document, you kind of have a visual of where things are. And I can find some notes on where they are as well. You know, it’s like the progress or wire if it’s halted to what, you know, almost like a project management type of board type of thing. And so So hopefully, maybe by next month, I’ll have that. But it’s not that we’re not paying attention to this and still have it delivered viewable format. So director, word I think that’s about well, one other thing, I just want to let you know, because it’s, the friends group is aware of this, because they were written to as well. But I wanted the board to know, with that being Pride Month, it always brings out some people that have issues with that. So I received in an email communication from somebody objecting to our upcoming rainbow storytime that we’ve done every year since 2015. And I wrote back and thanked them for writing and everything and gave them our program policy. And if they wanted to object, they had to fill out a formal request for reconsideration form, it’s the same one we use for our collections. If someone wants something removed, I have yet to see that come in from this person. So I only respond to the ones to basically to let them know that but I think unless I get that I don’t have any intention of responding to that, particularly given what they wrote to me the second time. And then another group of people, I don’t really know where it’s coming from some group who put together a letter, again, about the rainbow storytime, this basically just states their objection to it, they got a bunch of signatures to say they object to it. They’re not actually asking me to cancel it, they’re just saying they object to it. And in that case, just because they got signatures and, you know, kind of made it a little bit more formal, a sense that was mailed to both myself and the friends group and via certified mail. So I did reach out to city departments legal and communications, and just wanted some thoughts on whether I should do anything or not. And the advice was, if they didn’t come in to fill out a request for reconsideration, there’s really nothing I need to say. And I’m fine with that. And should they do that I prepared to respond to that. But yeah, they’re also running out of time, but coming up next week, or the week after. So like once a week, just to know that that kind of stuff does go on. Today, I was I did receive a formal request for reconsideration on two books that were on display. In our children, not in the children’s but as you enter it, we, we always have new book displays there, if they were appropriately on the team display, they were teen appropriate books, a parent of a seven year old and like those being on display. So I just got that today, and I’m working with my children’s librarian, and my teen librarian will will respond to that accordingly, and I have no problem saying I have no intention of taking those off of the display there on a team display was meant for teens, we have a lot of things that are on display, and not everyone’s going to like them. And plenty of people do. And in fact, the person that wrote to me made somewhat of a scene about it in person to my staff. And so yeah, you know, it finally resolved in the sense that they laughed, but, you know, there’s, there’s kind of no need for that kind of thing. But, you know, it’s just, it’s always hard when you’re, you’re kind of feeling attacked in a way. But so I just wanted the board to know that those things are kind of going on. I think I obviously wasn’t here last year in June. But I will say at least from from John’s opinion that the political climate around LGBTQ issues this year was a little more heightened than maybe it has been in previous years, although there’s always people that have an issue with it. And I think there’s always somebody that has something to say, and we always respond accordingly. Professionally, and I will do that.

Speaker 1 1:19:44
Well, thank you so much for sharing with us on that. I am so pleased that there is a program policy as well as a collections policy. And I would really look for the board to support your efforts. I just, I think it’s just so important now and moving forward. So if there doesn’t sound like there is anything tangible that we could do at this point, but that changes, I would really love to hear what it is. So we can, you know, of course, we’d have to be in agreement as a board, but from my perspective, we want to support.

Speaker 5 1:20:22
Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing for me is to know, first of all, the board is aware of that. So that should somebody come to you as a board, you know, that this was sent to me, you know, as a library director, and as the library, we stand behind the programs and collections that we have. And, you know, we’ve we’ve talked about here before, and another, well, at least here, you know, various public library, things like intellectual freedom, and the Bill of Rights and everything that informs what we do. So, you know, as long as there’s no, if the board can support that as the you already have, then there’s really nothing to do. I’m always happy. Especially when I do get a formal request that I have to respond to, I’m always happy to share that before. Just so you know, how I’m responding. So I will do that with this. That’d be

Unknown Speaker 1:21:17
great. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:21:19
There’s somewhere on the website that does detail what that policy is, or what the procedure is for the staff then evaluating that request, I’d love to be able to hold that. It comes up in conversation with community.

Speaker 5 1:21:37
Yeah. So as far as both the collection develop, because we call it elder management anyway, collection policy, and then the programming and display policy are one of the it’s one of the same, it’s called the display print, and they’re both on the website. And they both indicate the request for reconsideration and the format, and what and what how you have to go about it. Should someone want to do that they have to obtain the form in the library in person, they can, they can send it back differently, like this person scanned it to email, send it back, but they have to fill up that particular form. It states in any of those policies that if something is challenged, that a committee will be formed. We don’t define purposely in that what the committee is because it depends on what’s being challenged. In this case, when it comes to children and teen materials, my children and teen librarian are going to be involved in my committee, because that’s, that makes sense. For those materials, I’m not going to bring in somebody that doesn’t know that collection side. So the only other challenge I’ve received since I’ve been here was a couple of months ago for a film. I don’t even remember if I brought it up here because it was, to me fairly, fairly basic, someone checked out an R rated DVD and as you know, DVDs on the case is printed with the rating, and why it’s weighted that way. And so that one, I did basically speak with my adult services librarian in our library that does selection for all our adult DVDs. And we discussed it, and then I wrote up a draft and we collaborated on it until it was good to go. But basically, in that case, I think the person that was objecting, was just surprised that they were seeing a movie that had content in there. And but if it’s in the case of a film, it’s it’s stated, in fact, the very things they objected to, were actually in the description on the case. So it was a little bit easier to respond to in that sense. You know, I understand from a public point of view that, you know, you can pick up a book, and you don’t really know the content in there until you look at it or read it. In the case of a film, it’s there for you. It says what the rating is, and it tells you why it’s rated. So that one was a little more of a no brainer to me. But this one’s a little bit different. And that says Enter. And by the way, this person is not saying that they think that these books should be removed from our collection, they just subjected to them being on display. So I’ll I’ll share my response with you once I have something.

Speaker 1 1:24:26
And yeah, if there is. No, a lot of that is specific to June, but is there other challenges that come up if you don’t mind sharing them?

Speaker 5 1:24:38
Yeah. You know, and hopefully they’re few and far between. You know, it comes up and it’s sometimes seasonal or depends on there’s some controversy over the new book that everyone gets up in arms and then people start coming out about that and then it goes quiet for a long time. That’s what A director have

Speaker 1 1:25:03
any other questions for John before we move on to the friends update? Right.

Speaker 2 1:25:15
So I attended the last Friends Meeting and we went over the proceeds from the sale. It’s also the end of the friends yearly cycle their fiscal year. So we did look at really some high level with expenses, income, different sources.

Speaker 2 1:25:49
We did touch on the coming initiative, the last meeting where a couple of board members attended, there’s still kind of just like that continued conversation about like, what, what’s next and what’s the update, and I believe John spoke the, the opportunity to come out to the open forum. We talked about the shop how one of the things that I didn’t know, that I was kind of amazed to learn is that the majority of the money that the friends take in does not come from the book sales, it comes from the bookshop. And it is, it is a pretty penny. And I know that Carla and that team work really hard all the time to keep things moving. And just the sheer volume of donations that get taken in is quite impressive. What else we talked about these maps, that

Unknown Speaker 1:27:02
topographic maps to your collection,

Speaker 2 1:27:07
put at the friends may want to explore opportunities to sell those to benefit the library and we I think I brought up the idea of like, maybe doing an auction and building something of a just like a little fundraiser around it. And the earmarking those proceeds for a specific use. But that was just we were just kind of talking at that point. So nothing decided yet. We approve the friends approve, I don’t vote. We but they they approved funding send requests from the library for additional purchases iPads.

Speaker 5 1:27:58
Yeah, we requested, not the iPads, the cases

Unknown Speaker 1:28:01
and the accoutrements are good. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 1:28:05
It was two iPads for the certain one for the circulation just to replace one that’s been wonky. And these are used for friends books out purchases only. And then the other one was to add one at our info desk, the smaller desk on the other side is coming from the US side on your right. So that they can also sell things at that desk. So they approve that. And I think that was the one request for that month.

Speaker 2 1:28:34
They discuss they review their annual meeting that they held in a space here in the library. They seemed fine with how that went. There were 17 people at that meeting. They have more than 300 members, active members. So you know, if they just wanted to have a little meeting, then then they accomplish that but I thought maybe missed an opportunity there. I’ll bring that back around. The last thing was, oh, they were also discussing what their limitations might be as a body in advocating for policy lobbying campaigning. And so the treasurer or or somebody on the board is going to check with their legal representative and confirm what their bylaws and nonprofit status allow them to do. But very clearly interested in champion, whatever the library is

Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
Thanks, Jamie.

Speaker 3 1:30:01
I have a lot of money in their cash reserves today, because they were poor.

Speaker 2 1:30:09
And he did, but it wasn’t I could be misremembering, but the what was presented wasn’t like 100% updated yet because of something else that hadn’t hit, but they were projecting it to be, yeah, it’s healthy. It’s healthy.

Speaker 3 1:30:31
So thinks they’re working through whatever difficulties there are,

Unknown Speaker 1:30:35
they’re still.

Speaker 2 1:30:37
Okay, making money. I mean, we didn’t make as much this past sale as we did the one before. I think, you know, one of the things with having such a large chunk of programming depend on a group, like the friends is that it’s not as predictable, you don’t know how great the sales is going to do or not to, you know, one of the things that comes up a lot is legacy planning, although they’re not using that term, but like, writing stuff down and making sure that you know, more than one person knows where things are and how things are done. Because like, if somebody their language, not mine, if somebody takes a fall, then who’s gonna run the bookshop, who’s gonna run, you know, this thing or that thing?

Speaker 3 1:31:32
Yeah, they get a woman or I don’t know whether she’s still there, she get everything.

Speaker 2 1:31:36
Well, they just lost the person who did their online sales for, like the valuable books that wind up getting donated, somebody would pull those out and sell them on eBay, knew how to navigate all of that. And that person is no longer wanting to to fill that role. So there’s a there’s a bit of a gap there. So yeah, and I, there was a very lively conversation on email about the water that has gotten into the parking garage from the recent rains. And it seems like books for now are safe, they’re elevated on pallets. But, you know, could this be a situation where someone gets sick because of mold growth, or if the books become damaged, because of just the humidity down there? What can be done about it, that sort of thing. So

Speaker 1 1:32:43
I think that very happy that to see the budget request for this year include programming, so not to my friends, and I did send it up to council as well as the key city staff are the support of the library’s budget and called out a few items, including that one. But I think if that does not go through this year, that as a board as an advisory board, we really need to continue to let Council know that this is

Unknown Speaker 1:33:16
there’s some major

Unknown Speaker 1:33:18
problems with depending on it like this for funding.

Speaker 2 1:33:24
Right, because, for example, there may be some programs, innovative programs, not even programs that are happening now. But say staff or John wants to introduce something next year to be able to work towards something, it’s going to be harder to earmark funds to launch something new, because you don’t have a guarantee that they’re going to be there. So again, it’s just kind of like to me it’s like treading water like are we really going to be use the library really going to be able to grow in the programming direction setting might want to grow in? Yeah, you get it. I don’t have anything else. Thank you. Any other

Speaker 1 1:34:16
questions regarding the friends update? Okay, so I want to move on to our last agenda item. Well, our last item under Reports information, I’d like to add this one is a standing item. I didn’t have a better name for it. But I think this i My hope is that this will be open to anyone on the board to share just information relevant to the profession of librarianship to libraries within the area, and so on. I know I keep up a lot even though I keep up more on the academic side. I think a number of us do. But for this one I actually asked John if you wouldn’t mind sharing a little bit about the new library that opened in Greeley.

Speaker 5 1:35:03
That’s right. Yeah. So I have the opportunity to the new, it’s part of Weld County Library System, but their branch in Greeley, which they named link lamc, which stands for Library Innovation Center. And it’s pretty fascinating. As a library, the basically part of it was a library and part of it was the Greeley Tribune. And then, so they basically gutted stuff and renovated the whole thing. But what’s what’s interesting about it is probably half or more than half of it is creative spaces. And less of it is books. I mean, there’s certainly a number of narratives, it’s all there. And other things, study rooms, everything you can think about as a traditional library. But creative spaces is pretty significant. There’s a couple of different computer labs, there’s two different maker spaces. One is the quote, unquote, wet makerspace, and the other ones dry. So the wet one can involve things involving painting or things like that. And it’s built in a way that has a drain in the middle of the floor, and they can dispose things out, you know, whatever. So it makes it easy. The other one is what’s commonly called the dry one, which they have they got donated. I don’t know what they’re gonna do with this, but what are the rooms for meetings? With? Yeah, anyway, UNC donated more than anyone could ever want. I think they’re, like, stacked, it was kind of amazing. But that room does more than that. It’s also woodworking, you know, sort of just like all kinds of things to cut wood with, you know, circular saws and things like that, if you’re a woodworker, and you know, so it’s just pretty interesting. And then they have a whole studio Center, where you can record or do with green screen also, but also a Studio Lab where you can do podcasts or things as appropriate sound, quality, and things like that. And then they have upstairs, which is practically a museum, it’s practically a technology museum. And in fact, they worked with the person that did Denver children’s museum to create some of that space. So if you’ve ever been to meow Wolf, in Denver, or Santa Fe, for that matter where it started, it’s an interactive museum. It’s kind of like that. So you can crawl around, you can climb from the first floor to the second floor. On the subnetting. There’s, there’s no shortage of stuff to play with. Of course, those of us that were there was a big statewide directors meeting. So our first questions were all on liability. And what if a kid gets hurt, but we, ourselves? We take the fun out of it right away. But it’s anyway, it’s pretty fascinating. If for some reason you find yourself in Greeley or you just want to make a trip, I would check it out. Just to see what you know, a different concept. They did this in Colorado Springs years ago, if you ever went down there for some reason called 21. C. And they took an old MCI building from MCI are old enough like I am but telecommunications company anyway, they had this building thinking forever, and they basically have even less books than Luke has. There’s like, a very small section as books in the rest of it’s all creative spaces. Some of its for adults, some of its routines. It’s it’s really that’s what it’s for. And so that’s kind of what link is to in a way, although I would say there’s more collections there because it does serve as a central library ish as well. Anyway, it’s better to see that happening, describe it to you. So you know, really is not too far. I think it’s worth a peek, particularly thinking of, you know, potential if Walmart were to get a library, you know, how crazy would we want to go in thinking of different spaces and that are outside of our traditional model? I think they offer some interesting things. That was quite

Speaker 3 1:39:36
a big community commitment to that question. Well, 30

Speaker 5 1:39:42
It was 30. About 30. Some million. Yeah. Which they were able to pay for. There. There was no because there they had a lot of reserves of money in their district. As the library district they had reserves. Have a they had the money to do it?

Unknown Speaker 1:40:01
So they are district?

Speaker 5 1:40:04
High Plains is the district? Oh, okay, High Plains, it’s yeah, they’re part of high plains. So Greeley is within there, obviously that used to be Weld County before they became a district and then they took on some other

Speaker 3 1:40:18
that was the grand vision that or something like that I just haven’t been able to get there.

Speaker 2 1:40:26
I’m wondering how it’s different from the space that older buildings 61.

Speaker 5 1:40:33
Well, they like because there’s the woodworking shop in Boulder. Public

Speaker 2 1:40:39
Makerspace sewing machines? Yeah. It’s 3d printer. Yeah, I

Speaker 5 1:40:45
think this is similar in a sense, but it’s more spread out. Put them in different rooms. And there’s a whole bunch of wild technology, like when I talked about this museum aspect, like one of them one of the things you can do, it’s like a whole, like aerodynamics, to learn about aerodynamics. And so you basically, they have on where you can make a paper airplane. And then it goes into this device into like a cycle with like a case. Yeah. And you launch it. hit a button, and it launches, and then you can see where it flies on about aerodynamics that way. So just like so. Yes. Jamie, there’s there’s all that similar stuff. So we you know, stuff that you think about when now that we have makerspaces everywhere. I mean, in this case, like that whole dry makerspace. And all the woodworking materials is extensive. And they hired somebody that knows all that equipment. Like their expertise is in woodworking, and they know how to use all the equipment. Of course, again, we were asking like, well, can anyone just come in? Like, I want to use the circular side of it? It’s like, well, no, you have to be trained. You can’t use it alone until you’ve been trained. You know, there’s all kinds of parameters around it, which makes sense. But yeah, so I think there’s probably some similarities, but

Speaker 2 1:42:09
and then I just found out about these anything. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:42:13
Libraries here. Down. Okay. So they’ve agreed on a collection. They are having a hard time wrapping my mind. Where are they? They’re like Southeast County. I

Unknown Speaker 1:42:27
don’t know. They were, like 15 years

Speaker 2 1:42:29
old. So it’s only Adams County, Colorado warehouse.

Speaker 1 1:42:33
Yeah, it’s a rebranding. It was a rebranding.

Speaker 5 1:42:38
So it was Adams County Library. Okay. And then they formed as a district, I would say at least 15 I think is getting more. And they rebranded themselves completely. So Adams County is a lot of its industrial. But it’s grown a lot, right? It includes Florida, and North Platte. So it’s not all industrial. But then you also get into some remote farming areas. Since it’s a it’s a really interesting County. And they had no library support as Adams County Library at the time. And they they rebranded the director at the time came up, I don’t know how they came up with anything. But that’s, that’s what they’re known as. And so they do a lot of creative stuff. And in fact, at this meeting I was talking about I was talking with their new director, because there are in currently planning or it’s already done, I don’t know when it’ll be built, but they are doing a library and Rec Center complex, which is in partnership with the city for because their district, so they’re not they’re not for the city. So it’s some kind of partnership there. But the idea of that complex, which we’ve talked about here a little bit, which could be on the ballot. So there’s so they’re doing some stuff there and they have a more will have a new nature library, which is really fascinating. It’s I think it’s partially outdoor. But they they’ve been no one ever since then to be. They do a lot of creative things, even when they’re programming they do like beer festivals. digibook music festivals, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:18
It’s not like a third

Speaker 5 1:44:19
party like corporate Nope, it’s, they’re just there. They’re out of there. And it’s, it’s at it’s basically Adams County Library District, but they’re branded as anything compact.

Speaker 1 1:44:29
The language they use is always interesting to me. Yeah. Because they will use term and forget, but they are building customers. Like very, like

Unknown Speaker 1:44:39
different language titles. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:44:41
And so I think that made me suspicious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:44:45
Yeah. So rather than read, look it up myself. I see all these different imaginations of what libraries could be And now.

Speaker 1 1:45:04
Thank you. So my hope is that we can keep looking at other examples. As big, especially as this group, you know, supports or doesn’t support hopefully supports any initiatives. Alright, um, let’s move on, then you’re almost at nine, me comments from the library board.

Speaker 4 1:45:31
So just open in general. Yeah. I was thinking from the shared drive conversation, I get why. Yeah, I guess the explanation for why we might not be able to do that. But I do support the idea and the thought behind it, but it kind of made me think of something else, like similar vein, different topics. On my, the other city board that I previously served on, I think they just gave it to all board members that we have city emails for board, communications, so like, they would send them meeting minutes. And if someone wanted to, like, have us on a radio show to talk about the Parks and Rec board, or like, wanted to interview us, or ask if we wanted, kind of like, ask to be extending the event information and being like, can anyone come attend us and speak or like any of those communications and be like, on the city email, and it would have a, the only thing we would have assumed before like giving us the email account was like, I think we have to do like, one hour all in like, like, just like, hears about open public records and what that looks like. So we did like a little online training before we got the email account. But I just wanted to throw that out there. I don’t know if that’s like something we could do is just a board or if that’s something a whole city, like all the boards would have to do, but and also I know like some people in that model, they would either like sometimes they didn’t like checking another separate account specifically just for their volunteer City Board. And so they would like forward messages or so I don’t know if that’s something that people would even be interested in in the first place. But I just wanted to throw it out there as an idea or possibility.

Speaker 1 1:47:12
Thank you. I think that’s an interesting idea. I’m wondering if that’s something that we want to I don’t know, it might be we’re sharing with our city council liaison in a future meeting, because I don’t know if there’s much we could do as a singular board. But I think we could pass that feedback to the city as a whole. Right, that makes sense. Yeah. Unless others have thoughts on that as well. Thanks. Are there comments from the library board members? Well, I

Speaker 3 1:47:50
want to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to work with you all. I think it’s been a great run for me and I feel very confident that the library to look forward to seeing the progress as it just happened when it happened,

Speaker 5 1:48:13
well, we will look forward to your continued support as a citizen but let’s say really thank you I mean, you know also just for as I’ve come on board, you know making me feel welcome and a part of this and being supportive in that way. I do appreciate that. And and your knowledge just you know, you’ve known you know a lot so it always helps. Right but well but sometimes you you know that you ask the right questions and maybe somebody didn’t think of because of that I think so. Anyway, I do appreciate that and I don’t be a stranger that

Unknown Speaker 1:48:53
started my live recording

Unknown Speaker 1:48:55
you’re always welcome to be a member of the public

Unknown Speaker 1:49:04
public invited to be hertz limited to five

Unknown Speaker 1:49:16
hoping to get

Speaker 1 1:49:16
part, you really only miss. Um, before we adjourn, let’s go ahead and make sure we have the next meeting date set. I don’t believe there any holiday overlaps with the third Monday July which would be the 17th Is there anything I’m missing?

Speaker 5 1:49:42
Because yeah, there’s no holiday or anything to interfere with our normal day.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:49
JCK can let’s put make sure that it’s on the minutes and be 17

Unknown Speaker 1:50:00
All right well at this point I move to adjourn well I don’t move because we don’t do that this evening you will adjourn at 851 Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai