Dell Rapids Carnegie Library - Regular Meeting

So I will acknowledge everybody is hearing. We are ready to start the meeting. So I call this meeting to order. I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda as it is written.

So moved.

Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Agenda is approved. Hope everybody has had a chance to read the August 13th minutes. Entertain a motion to approve those minutes.

So moved.

Second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, same sign. And the minutes of August 13th have been approved. Visitors to be heard? None. Moving on to our finance report.

Oh my gosh, I was supposed to be clicking.

Forgot about that too.

Okay, first apologies on the late email out. I had posted everything on Monday morning and then I completely spaced sending out the email with the... link to the agenda. So that's my bad. I'm sorry about that. Um, so hopefully you all found it and or had time to look over, over everything. Um, but yeah, everything financially is looking really good. We're getting to the last like quarter of the year. Um, so everything is sitting really, really good. Everything that's in our control. Um, There will be one expense that's coming that will, I think, make us go over in one area, but as long as it all evens out at the end, that'll be fine. We had an outside spigot, kind of like a water faucet. It broke, and so we had to not only replace the fixture part of it, but they needed to replace a little bit more of it. Um, and then they turned, they created a water shutoff valve because there was no water shutoff valve. So it was like just drip, like more than a drip and not like pouring out of it. So they created its own water shutoff valve because the way that it was set up originally, we would have to turn off water to the whole building in order to turn that one spigot off. So they added, um, a water shutoff valve just for that one spot. So then if something... like this were to happen again, or if it were to get damaged because it does stick out a little bit from the wall, that we would be able to just turn off the water there. So it was about $900 for all of the parts and the labor. But they Adam Jones Plumbing came and took care of that. They were amazing to work with. They were there super fast. They were great. Got in and out very quickly and everything's been working fine.

So gave us a new key to make it work because it has a key instead of just like a nozzle.

So you have to have a special key to turn it on and off. So gave us a new key that actually fit it. And so that expense will be coming soon. But other than that, we're looking really, really good for this last little part of the year. So plumbing leaks are not part of city maintenance. That's something. This was beyond what the city guys could do. Yeah, because it needed a special part. And they had to drill into the wall and that kind of stuff. So yeah, this was just a little outside of... of that so but otherwise normal stuff like that yeah the city guys like if it's something more minor they always come and they help us with all that kind of stuff so yeah we only ask for outside help when they're like yeah we can't do this so yeah this was a little bit outside of outside of them so um but yeah otherwise everything is going really well we um also had some i think it showed up in this one we had some um It's either in this one or it's in the next one that will be next month. Out of, like, fines and fees, donations and stuff, we bought some totems, and I'm going to talk about that later. So that is just coming out of, like, our fines and fees and replacements of, like, some board games that have gotten damaged and stuff. You know, the high-ticket items that go out all the time, some replacement stuff like that. So... Yeah, so lots of fun stuff, but everything is sitting exactly where it should be. We're doing really, really well. And yeah, even if we, like I said, even if we go over in one,

one little spot it all if we're you know sitting fine in another it all evens out so we're sitting really good so lovely and because it's a report we don't need to you or we do you do yes because you have the actual finance reports yes i always think we don't have to all right i just made a motion that to approve the august 2026 finance report so moved second All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. And the finance report is approved. On to old business library card policy. And I believe we talked about the old businesses one last month. Yes. And then with our input. you put them red. Correct. And specifically the library card policy. Correct. Where we have added the legally emancipated minor. Correct. And then any, I think that was, oh, and then the education cards.

Yes. Yes. Yeah, so this was brought at the last meeting. It was requested that we add the legally emancipated minor to this. So I added that in the three sections that it needed to be added. And then we also discussed adding that the education cards are for use at a public or private school or at a registered education facility because there is that new homeschool co-op in town. So then they will also be able to have an education account or an education card. So those were the only changes that were requested for this one. So just bringing that one back for approval.

Yes. Any other discussion on the updated library card policy? We all good? Wonderful. Then I entertain a motion to approve the library card policy.

So moved.

those in favor say aye aye i'll oppose same sign and library card policy has been approved putting the date for september 17th 2026. uh moving on to our library staff evaluation policy

Okay, so this one is back. There was, sorry, I thought it was still in red. It's not. There was a couple spots where under, like on page two, evaluation of the library director, under the points, we changed the wording. So it says like consistently exceeds. Instead, I think it was like always exceeds. We just changed it to consistently and frequently. So those were changed on all of points. all of the forms. Otherwise, everything is the same as last time.

And then I will be sending out then the, what is it? Page two, three, four, five of that PDF for Brittany's evaluation because we have to do that in October. So after this meeting, depending on how late it is, I will download those specific pages and then email them out to you guys and just get them to me soon so I can compile and meet with Brittany for that evaluation.

Usually you put a due and the email usually put a due date. that you want them backed by just so. Okay. For anyone who works by it. I'm good at due dates.

So I can do that. So we just have to approve then the policy of the library staff evaluation form. Correct. Okay. Any discussion, further discussion on this since we did this in addition to last month? Okay. Motion to approve. So moved.

Second.

Those in favor say aye. All opposed, same sign. And library staff evaluation policy has been approved and seconded by so many people. All right. Moving on to new business open meeting law review. It is recommended that we don't have to, like, make a motion or anything. We just have to have in our minutes that we have discussed and went over the brochure that is attached at the bottom of Brittany's PDF.

Correct. Yep. We just have to acknowledge that you have received this, that you have looked it over, and we just have to make sure that that is recorded in our minutes, which is what we're doing now. So that is the only thing.

We have to do this annually for anyone who is newer to the board. So every single year towards the end of the year, this will come back for us to just do the same thing.

So we don't have to take any action on that one.

I remember reading this for the first time and I thought it was really interesting. And then every time after I find something like, Oh, okay. That's good that we do that. And like, we already do it all anyway. So that's very by the book. So that's lovely. It's fun. Um, okay. This is the first reading then of the rules of conduct context policy.

Okay. So these next two follow the next three things are brand new. And so there was, um, Erin and Brandy and I sat and met to go over these to make some updates. And so these are the updated ones that came out of our meeting for you guys to review and then decide if you kind of like the other ones. If there's any changes that you want us to make, you can let me know and I can bring them back next month with those changes. Or if you feel like everything in here looks good, then you can approve it tonight.

I did have a couple of questions. One of them is the inappropriate attire, failing to wear shoes. My children love to take their shoes off, especially in the wintertime when they come in snow boots. Yeah. Will my children be...

asked to leave the library if they take their boots off no the door okay no um i just didn't know if we wanted to put something usually usually with children we don't because we do encourage them like if your shoes are muddy like if it's been raining if your shoes are muddy we're like oh you can leave them in the front entryway or like snow you can leave them in the front entryway really it's just like adults yeah we've had a couple adults come in and we're like oh It sounds weird. It should be kind of like everybody, but kids we encourage because they're not always that great at wiping their shoes off and still tracking mud and stuff. So those little kids, especially we're like, Oh yeah, you can take your boots off. That's fine. But it's really mostly just adults that, and we don't really have any adults that don't come in with shoes. This is just pretty standard. When I was doing research on other ones, it's pretty standard. I can take it out.

If you guys know, I don't think so. I just, I mean, just cause like it's in here, but we kind of use it as like, It's kind of like under our discretion.

Yeah. A little bit.

So I think that's fine.

And it does the appropriate clothing. So I think that's where the little gray area will fall in.

Yeah. It's appropriate for kids to walk around. Right.

It's not appropriate for them to walk around with muddy boots.

Right. Yeah. And my only other question was the solicitation one with selling tickets. Because I know Friends of the Library does that.

They're nonprofits. Okay.

So that, so it does exclude like a nonprofit. Okay.

Yeah. So this would be like, I'm selling tickets so I can earn money for myself. Perfect. Like that can't. So like a nonprofit or things that are considered like free.

So do we need to specify that then?

Or is that under the definition of solicitation? I guess I don't know.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I would have to look that up. Okay. Would you like me to look that up and we can bring this one back? Oh, yeah. I think that would be good just because maybe I just don't know the definition of solicitation. Maybe I just don't know. No, it's a good question to ask. Let's get clarification on how we want that one written. And we, Friends of the Library, very much does rely on patrons seeing like the raffle baskets and tickets and things. And so I want to be able to still allow them to do that. So. Those are my thoughts.

Or we could even put it outside of or have some type of wording saying unauthorized or unapproved.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

No.

We don't want to create an approval process to say this person and not this person. Okay. We want to tiptoe to there. I think if we just say... Nonprofits. Well, and not even just nonprofits. Maybe we want to go a little bit further and say something along the lines of that does not support... the library's function or the library's role because if you just blanket non-profits then that means anybody can come in as a non-profit I think we want to just target this to say we're carving out an exception for the library the Friends of the Library group who supports the functions of the library I fully support that I can't think of any other non-profit that would you never know

It's true. I think that's good. I can't think of one where it would be necessary or appropriate either for them to use the library facilities. On enforcement and penalties. Mm-hmm. Will be conducted in a fair and uniform manner by library staff. Kind of seems to contradict the uniform. Kind of seems to contradict what we said earlier about the shoes. So, you want to just remove uniform and just say in a fair manner? I think maybe, just because... It's not uniform. We just, we already said it's at the library's discretion. And then I also, I'm not saying that there's a problem here. I think this is probably correct, but just failure to comply with instructions. I like that it says may result. I think a may is a very powerful tool, but just making sure that's the language that you wanted to have in there.

Because believe it or not, in my entire time at the library, this has happened. We have had to do this at least three times.

So, yes. I 100% believe it.

Do we want to remove the word uniform?

Well, I was thinking that maybe it's all librarians are in agreement. Like they have a uniform decision, not based on what is worn, but that they have a... It's a unanimous... They've talked about it. Yes, it's a unanimous decision of kids can take their shoes off if they're muddy, but adults can't.

Isn't it interesting that you can have so many different perspectives about...

Yeah, and that to me, yes, it's uniform no matter who's enforcing it is totally fair. But uniform, I was thinking uniform according to who the... who's committing the infraction yeah and it's not a uniform policy but i i like your interpretation well there you go you just say no no no it's uniform according to his enforcing yeah okay we wanted to address the fair word because allison brought that one up you could say equitable Yeah.

Okay.

Because that says we're not going to be the same, but you're going to be granted the same type of accommodation or service underneath this that you need. Okay.

I think that would address my entire concern. If we said equitable and uniform with the thought that equitable refers to who's doing it and uniform refers to who's enforcing. Okay.

I can make those changes and I will work on doing a little bit of research and changing some of the wording under solicitation. Does anyone else have any areas back?

And then instead of police, just law enforcement. Which one?

Where's that at?

Since we don't refer to police because we contract through law enforcement. Okay. Okay.

See you in a month. Rules and conduct. Okay.

I will make those changes and I will do some research and I will bring back an amended version for you guys to look at in October.

But great job, Policies Committee, because that was a lot of fun. You guys are doing a great job.

Thank you.

I do like the different perspectives and interpretations.

I think that's the value of bringing it to the group before it's finalized. Absolutely.

I noticed how that committee had no comments.

Yeah, I know. We've already given our comments, right? Like, our comments are in there. We already sat there and did this. It meets everyone else's comments.

It was great. Yeah. You guys crushed it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two verbiage changes.

That's why we do it.

Well informed. That's why we do it. Okay, so then everyone feels comfortable moving to the emergency policy and disaster plan. Yep. Lovely.

I hope everybody had a chance to review that one. So this, just a little background because we have a lot of new people. This policy and or plan was created several years ago because there were a few incidents that had happened that greatly impacted the library and how it functions and our ability to serve the community. And so we put this together. Just to help us know, because previous administration was like, I don't know, ask your board. That's what they're there for. Like, that's what you have. And when the board was like, I don't know, what is the city telling you to do? And so. My board at the time and previous administration worked together to help kind of put this together to talk about some different situations. So the only thing that's been updated in here is some of the emergency numbers to reflect the current companies that we are working with. And then under inclement weather, that is what it states in the city personnel manual under inclement weather. And so that has what we had in there was changed and that was put in there. outside of what are normal city hall working hours. So Monday through Thursday, 5 to 7, after 12 on Friday, and then on Saturday, it was decided that that jurisdiction lied with the director. And so I left that the same. But the inclement weather in the old policy just said that, like, there wasn't one in the previous personnel manual. And then when they updated it, then we updated this to reflect that because it was different. So those are the only changes. Otherwise, everything else is pretty much the same.

You went through Adam Jones Plumbing, correct? For this one, we did. That's what you consistently go through?

Normally we, usually we reach out to Dell's plumbing. His wife just happened to be in the library the day the situation was happening. And I was like, Hey, is he available quickly? And that's just kind of how that came.

Yeah.

I can, I can always add that would actually probably be a good possibility because we do have two in town. So I probably could add. Yes.

I was just going to ask if that's consistent with what the city has as their kind of emergency contacts.

My understanding is yes.

Okay. So we'd probably want to keep those two in a line once we're not creating separation. So I don't know if it's necessary to put them in there because it wasn't an emergency mess.

Yeah.

I mean, it needed to be addressed, but it wasn't like. The building wasn't flooding. No. Correct. Water was pouring out the back. of the library, but it wasn't coming into the building. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, I think as long as there's one number we can call in an emergency, it doesn't necessarily have to be our go-to for every situation, just a contact reference number. So I don't think we necessarily need another one in there unless you guys do.

The only question I had is under emergency procedures, how it says fresh batteries. Oh, just got that. from the VR. Oh, and emergency kit. So the kit is singular. It's okay. Anyway, uh, located, uh, bottom right covered behind the main desk. Is that the upstairs desk? Yes. Okay. As long as like librarians know that that's references to my desk.

I didn't see anything else in this. Yeah. We always call the main desk. That's the, if we ever say main desk, that's, that's what it is. Yeah. So we all see this. Like we all know that, but nobody else knows.

So, and I don't plan on. Typical patron's reading here, guys, is emergency policy. And then there's just an alignment issue with one and two under active shooter that irritated me. So just a little tabby in there on number two, and then we're good. Why did you have to point that out? I did. And then I even lined up my number three to make sure that three also wasn't... I'm just a crazy person.

Okay, I can make that change without having to bring it back. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay, I can make the alignment change without having to bring it back.

I do think under tornado that we should add to pull the blinds if we're in a tornado warning. Say that one more time. To pull the blinds down. I know a lot of facilities require that if there's blinds in the building, you pull them down. Oh, to like stop glass. Yeah, so that way if the glass blinds in.

Oh, our blinds are always down. They're, do you mean like, so they're like, they're all the way down, but they're open a little bit to let sunshine in. Right, so we need to like close them if there's a tornado warning.

That's just kind of a lot of lines or at least the ones that are like people are in near the area. Cause like if you have a school library, no, I'm fine. It's fine. I will add that. Yeah. I just know a lot of facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, that their policy is if that warning goes into, actually they usually do it when there's a watch, but when the warning goes into play, they make sure all the blinds are shut. So if the glass were to burst in.

So would you like me to add that as a numbered thing to close all blinds?

That's where it seems the most fitting to me, but if someone else has one else, that's just a policy. But I don't have to be the deciding factor on that.

I have literally never heard that, so I'm really glad that you mentioned that.

I don't think it's a bad idea. I mean, if somebody kind of gets caught unaware in there, we don't want them to get hurt. And if we can mitigate that risk, it's probably a good thing.

Yeah. Especially because you're not forcing anybody into your area. You're just in charge of notifying patrons. A tornado warning is in effect. This means a tornado has been sighted. Please move to the restrooms. You're not, like, forcing people to. Yeah, I can't barricade them in the library. Right. So, like, I'm saying, like, if someone chooses to try and leave them the library, then that's out of my hands.

Right, right. So it's just kind of like, let her shut the blinds. Goodbye, Dorothy.

Bye, Dorothy. Bye, Toto.

I have a very strange question, and it probably comes from working for the state. Why assume the bond threat is coming in by call? And it may be because we've had people threaten us in person with bombs.

It may or may not be because we have been threatened.

Yeah, we did have somebody come to the Department of Social Services once and tell us.

Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if the bomb threat thing was from the city.

Nope. Okay. So part of this policy was also at the State Library Conference around the time that we did that, we had someone come in that would want to be... breakout sessions or whatever it was like active shooters and bomb threats and like that kind of stuff so we just took that and kind of put put that in here as well because we're like well there's literally nothing about it anywhere so we just incorporated into this so how else are we receiving these threats most of i will say that

All of our bomb threats. Well, yeah, we did have an email bomb once. All of our bomb threats have been phone calls except for one email and then one in person.

Okay, so social media has had... So...

But I think the point, would you like me to list all of the ways that we can receive these threats?

No, I think it just means to be, maybe number one shouldn't be a threat received by call. It should just be threat received. Because you're still going to write down any information obtained from the sender, the threatener, the criminal.

Because I'm pretty sure it's a threatening. Should we just say from the individual? From the individual.

From the individual. Yeah, it was individual with an S in parentheses after. What?

From the suspect.

From individual with like an S in parentheses after because.

Because they may or may not be working alone. This has never happened to me.

This is some really light conversation. Let's hope it's chat. Real light chat. If it happens, guys, we're so prepared.

We're going to joke our way through it.

I did have one more. Perfect. I'm under fire. Do you guys have a system of making sure everybody who's in the building is out? Like counting, staff count, who's in the room when they call it, just so you can clarify who's getting out?

We also have to create an escape. Not like an escape, but, you know, there's those, like, maps or whatever that are supposed to depict.

Yep.

So we still need to make one of those.

Yep.

We don't have one yet.

You should have a designated individual who knows who is all working so they know they're all out and have this designated meet-up point, which I know you kind of indicated here, but... Yeah. And do a count of your staff. Do a count of your patrons and their two or three patrons, if you know... Like if there's a children's group going on and whoever says, hey, there's a fire, we need to leave, they should quickly see how many kids are in that room and get them out if there's an activity.

So you would like me to add the verbiage to do a count of all staff and patrons?

All staff for sure and patrons to the best of their ability.

And I think we're mostly focused on like the middle schoolers who are coming there unaccompanied or the high schoolers who are not maybe an adult. And you want to make sure that we're keeping tabs on how many were at that activity at the time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do that already. Like you tally how many kids are in your school.

we do agree on total tally yeah yeah so but i'm saying like when she does like her pizza mafia next thursday you guys tally how many kids are there correct okay so i would say then let your staff know or have this in the policy that if there is a fire to bring it's readily available to bring that tally with you so you can account for the patrons that were documented in the facility at the time And then have one staff member designated to do a count of the staff that were working at the time. Because if there's only one of you, that's fine. But sometimes, you know, all of you guys are there.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. Okay.

And that's just kind of a standard at most facilities.

Like your department is required to gather at this location.

Yeah, your department has one set location and then they do a head count.

They do an actual check off.

Yeah. Yeah, everywhere I've worked has had that, so I think that would be a good thing to have in the library.

Maybe just see how it's worded in other libraries because most jobs don't have people coming in and out for 15 minutes every day all day long. So maybe just see if they count or how they count.

But like if there's a school, you know, they're counting their students when they go out. If it's a nursing home, they're taking account of all the patients.

Yep.

If it's an office like this, all the staff are meeting in one location and they're getting a count.

Yep.

And I think we need to follow suit with that.

Okay. Can we back up to the bond threat? Yes. Sorry. Number three. Evacuate the building. Employees and library patrons should gather at City Hall. Do we think that the adult patrons who can leave on their own should have to come to City Hall? Probably not. Well, aren't they... I'm sorry.

It's way too many crime shows. Would they then not be considered a suspect? Like, there's a chance that someone... You know what I'm saying? Like, they aren't like... No, but they're not like, oh yeah, sure, go ahead, everyone left. No, they're going to want to know who was there when it happened.

Or maybe they would be, like, a witness.

Like, would they be, like, a witness? Yeah. Like, they were there. They would need to give a statement. Just be like, did you see anything? Did you notice anything? Was there anything suspicious?

But I don't think we can tell them to do that. Because, like, I know we've had bond threats that clients could leave. Like, we evacuated them from the building.

Library patrons to gather at City Hall.

Or what if you just said, like, evacuate so we could... lock and evacuate the building or like evacuate and lock the building however you want to phrase that and then staff could still come here yeah patrons are free to i would say staff and unaccompanied minors come to city hall yes

Well, I suppose in that situation, it would be legal and then cameras could be accessed. So, I guess that's really .

Yeah, they would be reviewing the cameras no matter what. You know the drill. Yeah, you got it. Let's hear it.

Brittany, do you have a key to get into City Hall when it's closed?

Yes, I do.

Perfect. I was just going to say, you could have a bond throughout the City Halls closed, but the library is open. So, we need to make everybody clear and then you can't get in the building. So, okay.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yep.

And that key is available to your staff on the weekends? I can make it available to them. I think that might be a good part of our emergency evacuation plan. Yeah. You grab your go kit. Yep. And that key is part of it so that if you do have minors, that...

So what we have in my facility, we have a designated emergency backpack. And it's got the flashlight in it. It's got the list of staff. It's got the procedure and the meetup location. And it would have a key actually in it too.

I don't think that's addressed in the evacuation.

Emergency procedures, the emergency kit. So we just add this into the kit. So just add it into the kit.

And then... Throughout the entire document, can we just reference law enforcement, not police? Yes.

If we're going to have unaccompanied minors then come to City Hall, then are we going to allow them to contact their parents with City Hall devices or staff devices? Being in a school, not as many kids have a cell phone as you think, and none of them have their parents' cell phones memorized. No, but I'm saying that kids don't have their parents' phone numbers memorized. They do not. they don't even have their own phone numbers on the rest. So I'm just saying like having the unaccompanied minors come to City Hall, and if that was my kid and no one contacted me, I would, I'm just saying that's something that we need to consider or figure out or have a plan because they don't all have cell phones.

They do not memorize things. Even though it's not in the policy, I could probably almost guarantee you that my staff and I would know how to contact pretty much any parent of any child who comes to the library and probably would just use our own device to contact. Those parents.

I feel like if we were in that type of situation, the city would have to let out a notice either way. And they would have to help us reach out to where we could reach out to the schools and figure out a number if we did not readily have.

But schools can't hand out that information.

Yeah, perfect. Can you still access your library system here? Yeah.

If I have my laptop and log into, yeah. If I have my laptop, then I can connect, yeah. But without it, I can't. I can't connect to our library system unless I have my laptop. Okay.

In the go back, can there be a note of some kind you smack on the door on the way out? You know, you lock the door, you slap it. It's already in the go back. You slap the notice on the door.

I mean, police would be there and police would probably tell parents to come back. This is a small town. People are going to figure out what's going on. Well, and that's kind of why I said, like, yeah, I totally understand. You'd be able to access the door. I mean, realistically, if we know who these kids are and if they are open, someone here has access to, like, we know these kids. They occupy a residence here that would have to have a phone number attached to it. So we would, if we came here with unaccompanied minors and city hall was open, we would be able to access that. But again, realistically, because we are such a small town and we know our library patrons so well, realistically, what would probably end up happening is my staff and I would be like either texting, calling or Facebook messaging every single parent. that or like person that we knew was in relation to this child to get them. Notified. It's realistically more like what is going to happen.

It is a good thought. Are there in-city calls that I'm exposed to? Are there other staff members that I'm accessing as a library computer? No. 100%.

Right. But I'm just saying.

Like if she logged into a city laptop, would you be able to?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Because it's specific software.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, no matter what, we're going to have to see this one. Not like you have the verbiage that we are going to adjust with the tornado and the blinds.

Did we say fire? I have changing police to law enforcement. Close all the blinds. Under fire, adding some verbiage of doing count of all staff and patrons, designate a place and staff person to do the headcount. We have under bomb threat, just changing it to threat received. The callers change to individuals. um evacuate and lock the building staff and unaccompanied minors gather at city hall kyle calling and then that one stays the same and that is the changes that i had that you guys discussed was there anything else that i missed this is just a preference but underneath the fire the last two sentences say every year we change that to annually

On to mission statement, educate, empower, enrich.

Any thoughts on those? So the committee decided that this should be brought to the board as a whole. forward discussion if they wanted to leave it this way, if you guys wanted to change it, if you wanted to expand it. Our previous one to this was like a whole paragraph. It was like five sentences and probably eight-ish, between six and eight years ago, the board changed it to this. And then that's just what it's been. ever since so it's perfectly fine if you guys want to leave it if you guys want to expand on it but the committee thought that it was best to bring it forward as a discussion for the whole board to decide what they wanted to do no one had super strong feelings about it so it was a

Does any of the rest of the board have some feelings about it that might have strong feelings? I know. I was here in 2023, and I had no problem with it. I liked that it was short. I liked that you can memorize it. I liked that it was to the point there were no questions. We didn't have to worry about verbage or words or how it would come off. I like how this, we educate, we empower, we enrich. That's what libraries do. Those were my thoughts in 2023, and they're my thoughts now. Sometimes less is not more.

No, less is more.

Sometimes less is more. Less is more. And I like this mission statement.

It does leave a lot of leeway on how that mission is accomplished. And I do like that about it.

Someone wants to be more specific. I tend not to have strong feelings about mission statements in general.

But I do think that's bomb threat policies.

Once you've been through, like, your fourth one, you do start to have, like, opinions. Opinions.

Like, this is how we should do this. Here we go again.

No, but I do, I think it is important that there's not, You know, you never want to give anybody, I was going to say give them ammunition, but that seems inappropriate.

Oh no, oh no, that's a good, that's a good way to put it.

But like, you know, there's, how can you argue with this mission statement? How can you be offended by a simple, clean mission statement? I like that about it. Wow. That's cool. That was not a confident yeah. The word empower, I'm like,

but it's an E word.

Alliteration.

We're empowering them with knowledge and new skills that they learn at the library. I'm not going to elaborate. Is that a better E word?

I'm just poking fun. Empower is myth. I'm fine with it.

Okay, let's just move on quickly. I think we've landed on maintaining.

We've landed on maintaining and keeping. We don't need to do anything with that, correct? Do we need to vote on that? Are we good? No.

Since we're not making a change, I don't believe we need to vote on it.

Wait, did we? Hold on. Did we make changes to the rules of conduct policy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I underlined it for CNX month. Yeah. We changed the words. Okay. So all of them, all of them are going to come back. Okay. No, not the first one is not. Well, not the open meeting. Oh yeah. We just had to write. Yeah. Yep. The two, but the rules. Okay.

Perfect. Mission statement. Do we?

If we're not changing it.

We're not changing it.

But you still have to approve that you've looked at it and that you have agreed that we're not going to change it. Because I have to, at the bottom of the thing, I have to put that you reviewed it and approved it on this date.

I entertain a motion to maintain the mission statement.

So moved.

Seconded. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

On the posting sign. Statement is approved. Moving on to library logos, one, two, and three.

The library logo saga is back. Thank you. For those of you who were around a few years ago, I gave up. Because after like four months of bringing forth library logos and everyone hating everything and not being able to agree, I took a break for like a year. year and a half, and I decided to tackle it again. So I have brought forth three new logos for you to decide if you like any of them or hate them or like them better than the last ones. Thank you for that positive phrase.

These are really cool. I really like these. Okay. I really don't think you can go wrong with that.

I know that they're all very similar. I do have one that I tend to be drawn to more than the others. Same.

Yes!

It's this one? Yeah!

Is it the third one?

No, it's the window one.

Number one.

It ties the windows in. It ties the architecture of the library in. You can't pick number two because the R in Carnegie is driving me crazy. I hate that R in that font.

I don't like the book and the book.

And the third one looks urban. I know they're supposed to be stacks of books, but they look like towers. I thought they looked like skyscrapers. Yeah, they look like skyscrapers. Whereas the first one makes me think of the beautiful architecture.

That's why I liked it too. And then I was like, oh, books are a window to a new world. There's a little bit of that in there too. Erin's like, I didn't get any of that. um but of the three this the first one here was definitely my preference i like i do enjoy all of them but this is the one that i personally liked the most but it is ultimately your guys's choice so But then what we can do is when we start, like, when we order new stamps and when we start printing things, like, we can put just this. Like, we don't always have to use the whole thing. We can start using, like, just this. And then eventually people in town will be like, oh, that's the library. Like, they'll see, you know, they see the Nike switch and they're like, oh, that's Nike. Like, we're going to be like Nike guys and they're going to see this. And everyone's just going to know that we're the coolest library in the world. Yes, the Dell's Nike.

so do you want us to vote you have to make a motion no I'm saying like this month or do we want to keep take another month or do we just want do we just like want to vote please don't make me do this again yeah I understand have you scaled them like into really small images and bigger and do they kind of like does it

created a weird so I did make them a little bit small I blew them up obviously so you guys would see them better I did make them all a little bit smaller I thought that they still looked okay but I I might be biased because I make them and I like them I mean I don't know what else a window in a book could look like but I didn't think it got too weird but

It looks a little bit like corn across your eyes. It does.

It looks like what?

An ear of corn.

An ear of corn.

Mm-hmm. That's all right.

There's a lot of corn around here, too, guys. It's fine. There's a lot of corn around here.

Make sure it doesn't look like anything like that. Yeah, that's what I was like. Anything weird come out, if you scale it down a little smaller.

You know, I wasn't looking for weird things like that. I don't hate two.

I just was making sure it wasn't blurry. I don't hate two. I just don't like the font of the Carnegie. The only reason I don't like three is because it's too colorful and they look like towers. And that's just why I don't like threes, because they look like towers.

Yeah, but your knowledge grows like a tower. Towers will grow. They build. You build it. You build windows. It's too modern.

Do you see what I dealt with last time?

I like this, Erin.

Four months. Four months. And then she gave up. And then I gave up because I brought back like three to six new ones every single month. And it was like, I don't like these colors. I don't like this font. I don't like that.

I love the colors.

They hated everything.

I like one and two. I think one and two both fit the historic architecture of the library. I just really don't like the font of number two's Carnegie. That's it. That's my only qualm with... Number two. That's an easy fix. I love one and I love two. So that's mine. And I'm going to stop.

So we're all agreeing like three is out.

I think that's what three is out.

I don't have a huge crafting experience.

I like all of them. Please forgive me, but if you want to talk about scaling as somebody from a town that has a really unfortunately shaped monument, it is good to have shorter than longer. The image on two is shorter. Excuse me, is longer than the image on...

number one so one is preferable for me for that reason as well to remove the words on two you you have to keep the circle which i think would look funky if you remove the words but then it's just half a circle No, I'm saying the bottom. If you take away the words from two, you still have a large gap and then a book and a border. Well, we can scoot it up. Then you would have to scoot it up every single time. So we prefer one. So I prefer one because if you get rid of the words, then you literally have this. Which, like, I don't think is bad. But, like, if you remove the words here, I don't think it's bad, but you have to keep... Do you know what I'm saying? Which then I think it gets weird.

I think you have to cut off everything below the book.

Yeah. So then it's essentially what window do you like better?

Yeah.

I vote one. And I can't make a motion because I'm the president. So someone else take over. Okay.

I motion that we adopt logo one as the logo for our library.

I'll second it. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Did we go too fast? Oh, she pulled up pictures of the library. She's comparing the architecture.

I could tell she was staring a little intently. That made me nervous. We don't have arched windows, but that was as close to... Square windows looked weird. I'm not going to lie. A square window looked really weird coming out of it. One. Yeah.

Okay.

I'll go to the same side. This is a gavel moment after years of fighting over a logo for the library. One is the official logo. Brittany's like, finally. Yeah, but the ones from a few years ago, they were really colorful. Colors were really in.

That was the style.

I very specifically remember that you were the hold up for a lot of these color choices. Yeah, because I was like, no, no, no. Very colorful and very big.

Okay. Here we go. Number one. Short takes for trustees. We're doing one or two.

I was hopeful that we could do two because they are both between seven and eight minutes. But if you would only like to do one, we can also do that. How many more videos do we get to watch? There's two left after this one. I'm unsure of the time limits on those. There's four videos total. Yes.

Let me think.

Knock them out.

Let's get two done. It is before set. My goal was to get to short takes for trustees before 730. I love achieving my goals.

Hi, I'm Nicole Davies and I'm here with my good friend Kent Oliver. We're going to be talking today about working with friends and foundations. So Kent, what are the different roles of library friends and foundations versus library trustees?

well we're talking about kind of a division of emphasis there so we get the maximum uh support from our volunteers uh but i mean traditionally and and through my experience the foundations are really focused on general fundraising for the library and they have the ability to perhaps be raising bigger dollars to support specific Services and programs or capital items, depending upon the focus. The friends I've always found are really effective in being those liaisons in the community to really promote the library. I think they have a special role that they can play in advocacy for the library because they really have their feet on the ground and such great potential there. And then, of course, the board is typically your policy decision-making group, hopefully the group that hires and maybe not fires the director. But they're the ones that should really have the oversight of the library operations.

When it comes to advocacy and fundraising campaigns, why is it important for friends and foundations and trustees to be on the same page?

Well, we've been doing a little bit of this at our library, but You want to make sure you have a common issue identified that everybody is advocating for. I mean, I think that's really critical, and especially in a budget situation where you may have several budget priorities and you don't want to have one group saying operations support is more important than capital support, whereas another group may be saying the opposite. But you want to bring a common unifying message to the advocacy piece so that when you're talking to a council person or a mayor or whatever, you have the roles all together and the message is unified.

How can library friends and foundations and library trustees ensure an effective relationship?

It's just like your day-to-day operation in your library. It's communication. It is how you have people talking with each other, either through formal communication structures or informal communication structures. Everybody understanding that role and staying in their lane, I think is really critical.

So if you had one piece of advice for trustees with regard to their role and maybe working with friends or foundations, what would that piece of advice be?

Trustees need to respect the value of the foundation and the friends and what they bring to the table and be willing to work with them. We've talked about some other pieces of that, but there needs to be a real understanding that everybody's valued and everybody can contribute. And I think that's really critical. I think you don't want one group to feel left out or overlooked. And that's important as well. And library boards have a special relationship with the library staff and the director. And that's their piece to play. But they need to let everybody in on the game.

So Kent, one of the things that we're seeing and we're getting a lot of questions about are friends and foundations and maybe merging the two or having multiple friends groups and trying to bring that down to one. Can you talk a little bit about your experience with friends and foundations?

Sure. We did that at Nashville. We actually merged the friends underneath our foundation organizational role. And it kind of goes back to some of the other things we've talked about where there was a public presentation piece where it was confusing as to who was doing what. And if you made a donation to the library, did you make it to the foundation or did you make it to the friends? And so we went through actually a multiple year process where we merged our friends underneath the foundation. We did not eliminate the friends, but they became part of the foundation structure because we think they still play a critical role when it comes to raising smaller amounts of money, for branches or smaller projects. And at the same time, the foundation is really going after the larger dollars. But you still need to have that communication and coordination about who's asking who for what money. In my particular case, I have quite a few corporations in town, and you would think the foundation would always be the one approaching those. But you're never quite sure, because if you have those friends groups not coordinating and communicating with the foundation you don't know for sure. And I think it's important to maintain that identity that's so critical for a lot of Friends groups around branches and buildings and neighborhoods. And I know United for Libraries has worked with this issue from their offices. When we started our discussion years ago to go through this process, United for Libraries was the first group we talked to.

Excellent. So a little bit of a follow-up from that. We're talking about 501c3s. We're talking about fundraise dollars. Who owns that money? When we do the fundraising, who does that money belong to?

It belongs to those 501c3s. You know, the friends have their own pot of money. foundation has their own, you know, their pot of money. And again, I'm kind of referring back to what my experience has been at a couple of different places, but I go through a budgeting process with my foundation group, my foundation, just like I do with my governmental group. And it is a formative process where We have a whole budget with our needs and what our asks are of the foundation, and their foundation board approves that. It was never quite that formal with the friends, but we would make specific asks of the friends. I think maybe one of the things you see sometimes is that The friends groups are reluctant to part with their hard-earned dollars, and I think there's a message there in that there needs to be some type of understanding that that money is not there just to sit in the bank, but there needs to be a targeted fundraising effort in those groups.

Well stated. Thanks for joining us talking about friends and foundations with Kent Oliver and Nicole Davies.

Any thoughts or discussion that you want to have on that one? No? We do have a Friends of the Library group for anyone who does not know. They have been active for three, four years, three and a half, maybe to four. I think this might be their fourth. raffle basket here. So I think we're on year four with them. They are an amazing group of people. They do two fundraisers a year. They do the raffle baskets in the wintertime. They start the week of Christmas in the Dells. They always have them up for Christmas in the Dells. So they're up for a couple of weeks and then they do a family bingo event in the spring, either that like March or April timeframe. And then they do, they sponsor one program for kids teens and adults every year. They always do stuff during National Library Week for the community, like they purchase a bunch of donuts and they do like flyboy donuts and different things like that. usually get stuck a little something during that week as well. And then, um, for Christmas in the Dells, they get us cinnamon rolls and coffee from the coffee shop. Um, just like as a little, little treat before the chaos of Christmas in the Dells ensues. So, um, and then they have done some other wonderful things. Like they are the ones who purchased the light bright. Um, they have done, um, done other things like that like smaller projects with their ultimate goal for anyone who doesn't know their ultimate goal is to turn the empty lot south of the library into like a parklet type thing so it would be split into thirds so one third would just be like open grass the middle would be like a pavilion type thing and then like a little mini parklet on the end with not like equipment like when you go to the park not like equipment like that but a much smaller scale more natural type thing type feel to it um and then because that's on a corner there would be like a two foot fence that would enclose that just to keep like littles from or if they have a ball running onto the street and that kind of stuff so um we have a very amazing friends group they are wonderful um so if you ever want more information on that just let me know and i can connect you

We have one more.

Would you like to do evaluating the library director since that is what you guys will be doing? Yes, please. Okay.

Welcome to Short Takes for Trustees. I'm Beth Novolinski, the Director of Marketing and Communications for United for Libraries. We are the division of the American Library Association for Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations. I'm here today speaking with our Executive Director, Sally Gardner-Reed, and we're talking about evaluating the library director. Sally, governing boards have the responsibility of evaluating the library director, right? Yes, they do.

And in fact, in some cities and counties, advisory boards are also asked to help in the evaluation of the library director. But you know, I'm actually surprised at how many directors I hear from who never receive an evaluation from their boards.

Really? That surprises me. Why do you think that is?

Well, to be honest with you, I don't think it's because they're unhappy with how their library directors are performing. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say it's probably because they're happy with the way things are going and they've just grown complacent.

Well, if they're really fine with the way things are going, is there any reason to start suddenly giving evaluations?

Well, I think it's only fair to the library director. If you're happy with the way things are going, then I think the director deserves to have that commendation in writing. It can be a real morale booster to hear that praise and to have it in writing and to know that your board is really happy with the way things are going. And it's also an opportunity for some constructive criticism if it's out there for the library director to have that opportunity to grow. And, you know, sometimes there may be just this little thing that over time can grow into a major problem. And if it's addressed in the evaluation, it's some kind of a minor thing. and the director can address it through that process, then it's an opportunity for a little thing not to ever become a big thing.

Is there a perfect way to conduct an evaluation or a standard form that trustees can use?

Well, there are many, many ways to do the evaluation and many forms that are out there. And in fact, we have several of those available in our handouts that you'll be talking about at the end of this interview. And I think most, if not all of them, have that numeric system where five is excellent and one is poor. And I think those are probably the most popular, but I have to say I like a negotiated interview much better where different topics and areas are used. For example, there may be some benchmarks taken out of the strategic plan, and those can be used for the director to talk about how far he or she has come in the achievement of those areas. and also some general topics like leadership, community engagement, staff development, technology development, financial oversight and management, those sorts of general areas. And then the library director has a chance to do self-evaluation and write up how he or she feels she has done in those general areas, how far he or she feels she's advanced these areas in the strategic plan, for example. After that's done, the trustees read those areas and come together with the director to talk about those areas and opportunities lost or opportunities captured and discuss how close together they feel they are with that. After those discussions, the board can write up their assessment about how well they feel their director has done during the course of the year.

What happens if there's a big discrepancy between how the library director sees his or her performance and how the board sees that performance?

Well, realistically, that should never happen. Because if there are issues that come up throughout the year, the trustee should never hold those until the end of the year evaluation. So just for an example, suppose there's little growth or burgeoning amount of patron complaints about something in library services, for example. As soon as those start coming in, the trustees should pull the director into an executive session and they should discuss that or discuss any issues about which they are unhappy. And the director should have an opportunity to remediate that issue. That should be monitored. They should come together again in an executive session to see if those have been resolved and they should be resolved. And maybe an issue that they work on throughout the year or issues that they work throughout the year. And as they're in meetings and talking about the strategic plan, they should ensure that they're all on the same page and that the direction that the trustees have set are the direction that they're staying on. And if it isn't the right direction, throughout the year they should be looking at why that isn't the case. Has the environment changed? If not, they need to modify that. But nothing should be saved up as a big surprise for the end of the year. Those are issues that need to be addressed constantly throughout the year.

I've heard that some boards allow staff members to evaluate the library director. Is that a good way for the board to get some feedback about the director's management style?

I think it's a good way to sow dysfunction among the staff, actually. I know that there will be trustees viewing this who come from the business community and will be lauding the virtues of 360 degree evaluation process. And that's a process whereby peers and staff members get to evaluate their supervisors. And I'm just not behind it at all. I do not see the value in that. I believe that directors should be evaluated by outcomes. I believe that when you allow staff to evaluate the director, you allow an opportunity for malcontents to vent. And I also believe that if you're going to act on any negative information that you get from staff evaluations, you better have your lawyer handy. Because if you can't back that up with facts, then you're going to set yourself up for a lawsuit by the director on terms of liability and defamation of character. So I think that's a very dangerous road in addition to being a very dysfunctional and insubordinate road. If you're evaluating your library director on outcomes, you're going to be safe and you're going to be on very firm ground. If you have wonderful patron comments, if you have lots of good articles about the library and the press, if you have wonderful customer service, If your friends group is thriving and your foundation is on just going gangbusters, if your library is constantly providing great programs and services, you've got a great library director. Your library services are only as good as the person at the helm, and that's really true. So outcomes will tell the truth about how well your library director is doing. The staff malcontents are not the ones. to tell that story.

Do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share with us about evaluating the library director?

Yes, I can say that if the relationship between the board and the director is open and trusting, transparent, and strong, the evaluation will be too, and the library will be better off for it.

Thank you, Sally, for that great conversation about evaluating the library director with some really helpful tips for our viewers. And for our viewers, as Sally mentioned earlier, we have compiled a list of resources with some sample evaluations and other information to help you do this very important process in your own library. This list of resources will be provided to you by your library director, and we invite you to explore those resources, make use of them, and if you have any questions, discuss those with your library director. Thank you.

Any thoughts, comments, concerns, questions?

So I had asked Margo if we had a form for you to do on your own. Like a self-evaluation?

I have been asked to self-evaluate myself in the past. They just had me use the exact same form that you get.

Yes.

So if that is something that you want me to do, I will do that.

I think that's just good to do. I don't know, maybe like annually, but like I know teachers get like a formal eval and they do a self eval. And it's like, it's not every single year that they do a self eval. I think that's something that the board can decide maybe every other year or every three years that you do a self eval.

I think it's been about three. I think this would be like the third year because I didn't do one last year. And I don't think I did one the year before.

So I think this would be, like, year three, unless you would rather just have her do it annually or upon request.

I think it'd be nice if we can establish a practice of, like, if we do a self-evaluation and we say, like, here's how frequently we want it to occur. Okay. Because what I'm hearing is, depending on the board. Yeah. Like, there hasn't been consistency. It'd be nice if there was consistency. I'm not saying it has to be done annually, but... because the board evaluates me every year but three years ago was the first and that was the first time ever that I had been asked to do that so I like the idea that so do you like self evaluations or are you just like I always think it's good to reflect on your own growth I wouldn't say that every year would be necessary. Because as much as we love Brittany, she might not always be the one in that spot. And so it just makes a precedence for whoever is there, what we're looking for.

So I guess I don't know the pros and cons of like, every two years or every three years. I don't think it should be beyond every three. I think three would be the longest. What's the most effective way? I don't know about every other year. Thoughts? I don't even know if it's business world when they sell eval. Like teachers every three years. It's like goal setting, formal eval, and then self-evaluation. So teachers every three years.

So do we follow that?

I don't, I mean, I just don't know. Does someone want it to be more frequent than that? I like the three. But that's just what I'm used to. That doesn't mean it's the right way.

Maybe in every other year would be fine. I sometimes think they're good tools to find out. Does the person being evaluated see themselves in the same way that the evaluator or evaluators see them? And how much discrepancy is there in particular areas? And I think it's a really good tool to just sort of reflect on, like, what did we accomplish this entire year? When you sit back and think about everything, if you ever got into a situation where, you know, there was some conflict between the board and the director. Not now, but, I mean, in the future, because it has occurred in the past with previous people, then that also becomes a really good tool for evaluation, you know, that reflection and self-evaluation.

Yeah. And I mean, to your point, like, we love Brittany, but, like, she's not going to be a librarian for 100 years.

Until I die or retire, whatever comes first. There you go.

I like the, okay, so every other year.

Do we have to like, do we just say that? That was my question. Do you want to make a motion to amend the library staff evaluation policy to add in that the library director will do a self-evaluation every other year? And then who would that be submitted to? Would I submit that to the board as a whole? Would I submit that to just the library board president? Because that is who I do my one-on-one little, I mean, we all still sit, like we all still go into executive session and we still do that even after the president and I have sat down and had a discussion. So do you want to put that in the policy that the director would self-evaluate every other year and then specify who that self-evaluation goes to?

I would have it go to the president just to review during their one-on-one.

Okay. I agree. Okay. Do you want that? Yeah. Do you want that written in the policy?

Yeah. And probably to carve it out, you don't ask your staff to do that, correct?

Self evaluations? Yeah. Or to evaluate me? Self evaluations. No, I do not.

Okay. So then when we write that, just clarify that the library director will do a self evaluation every two years. Okay. And not all library staff. Yeah.

Because in the policy, there is the library director section and then there's the library staff. So I'll just add it into here.

I just think it's a good communication tool.

Yeah. I think it forces just the leader to be a bit more introspective and then hopefully they have good introspective skills where, you know, they are typically we are a wish critic. And then I think, but then I think that'll be really telling on saying like, well, I the board squirted really high here, but I really feel like I could have done more. I think that's more like, I think that's more like, if I think that the more motivating, I think to improve is to hear like, well, I feel like I did this. Yeah. And I know that I could have done better. I think that's a little bit more motivating than just hearing a bunch of people say, you did great, you did great, you did great, you did great. Because you did do great. But I think it's just when you feel like you can do better, you think that's just a little bit more effective in an evaluation process.

Were you going to say something here? Are we thinking that that would start this year? Sure.

However, it's not going to be approved in our policy until next month.

That's why I'm asking.

Even though it's not in the policy, you can still ask me to do that for this year. And I can still do it. And the policy just sets it in motion. It just sets the standard going forward.

So I can still do it.

Correct. So I can still do it this year if you guys would like me to. And then the policy will come back next month. And then that just sets... what it will be like moving forward. Like, just set it in stone.

I'm also thinking out loud here, so feel free to poke holes in this. Okay. So that other boards have clarity on when this should be done. would it make sense to write into the policy like this has done on odd years or even years?

Well, what if Brittany, whatever, I'm just using it as an example. Let's say you quit and then we get a new library director that shifts the year because I think that they should self-eval the first year.

Sure.

So I don't know if that's the best language to use. You could just say every other year based off their hiring.

Based off hiring.

Based off hire year.

You could just say by annually from hire date. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right. Moving forward, we're like setting that precedent now because I don't know when your hire date was and we might not be in that. We might not be in that. Biannually?

Yeah. Not muddy at the waters with the sun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Biannually? Yeah. Biannually from hire date or just biannually?

Just biannually.

Because then if there is a different scenario and someone different, we don't have to go. Okay. I move that we don't use biannually, though, because it is...

It has two meanings.

So every other year?

Oh, biannually. Oh, I get it. I got what you were saying, but I get what you're saying. You're right.

So every other year.

Okay. Do we need to vote on that before amending that policy?

I will just bring it back. Oh, okay. Yeah, I will, because you're going to want to review the changes. So if you amend it now, you would amend it without seeing how that all turns out looking. So I will, you approved what's in there now. And then, so that's good.

So send the email out. We're good.

Yeah, that's good. Perfect. I'll bring this back next month. the amended version and then that will be what it is moving forward so it's just adding that little piece into it um would you like me to add in there like if i if i'm self-evaluating Do you guys want me to ask my staff to do that every other year as well or not? Okay. I just wanted to clarify that one more time before, because I thought I'm pretty sure that's what you said, but there's a lot going on up here. So I wanted to clarify that. Okay. Perfect.

So we'll see that then in October.

Correct. Okay.

Good with new business, right? Okay. Moving on to programming update. That was the attached September calendar. Okay.

Yes, so I have attached our September calendar. So September is the month that all of our main programming comes back because we also take a huge step back. May and August are two huge step backs as we prepare and then wind down from summer reading. So September is really when everything comes back. So we had our first 10 plus tech Tuesday. So we had the 3D printer and they got to make, they made whistles. So those were really fun. So they were really fun. And then I ended up with three of them at my house. Yeah, that was fun. It was a really poor choice. But the children loved them. The children loved them. So they made whistles. They played with VR headsets. They had the Nintendo Switch. They played with the coding Sphero robots. Yeah. It is dropping from 3.30 to 6. I would say out of all of the kids, only one of them actually dropped in. Like the other 15 kids came at 3.30 and they stayed until 6. Like they stayed the whole time. Which is totally fine. Hello. Library board meeting. You're welcome to sit and join us if you want, or you can...

It's a rough group.

It's a rough group. Something was wrong with my car.

Yeah, so it was really great.

They got to eat a lot of candy. They got to... learn how to do the 3d printer so the 3d printer i'll talk about that a little bit too so the 3d printer was donated to us by raz tech um yes so super super nice so they came and so they they donated that they came they got it all set up for us they showed us how to use it it was so much fun um and then we learned oh you can also so you have to have like a main computer that the kids are going to use to do this. And we're like, okay, there's nothing close to it. So we did purchase an iPad, which our iPad that we had was not able to be updated anymore. It was not functioning well at all. So we did update that. And the whole program is on the iPad. So the kids can, and it's in a case that's got like a holder. And so the kids use the iPad and they can pull up the whole program. They can customize stuff on there. So they're actually learning how to use the program too, instead of like, it's all just us. doing it so they're actually learning how to upload everything how to change the colors of things how to change the scale all of that kind of stuff um to print the stuff so that's really they thought that that was just like really really cool um so for our first time ever having that it was really fun the kids just had a blast they were just laughing and it was so good um so that was really great story time came back So this week was our first story time. So story time will happen every Monday and Tuesday at 9 and go through the month of October. Makerspace is also back just for the month of September and then she'll have a couple pop-ups in between its next regular sessions. Our adult program was really great. I think we had the full maps of 15 people were there doing kinoseiga, which was very, I wasn't there for it, but it was very interesting. They really seemed to enjoy it a lot. And then on the 24th, our tween groups will be back middle school mayhem so that is the program that the friends of the library sponsors they buy pizza ranch pizza for all of the kids and they buy like a bunch of candy and stuff and they literally just hang out and eat pizza they play mafia which is like their absolute favorite thing to play in the entire world um so it's every year we have like 40 ish kids that come to that so it's really really great um So programming-wise, that is what's going on. October looks very similar to that because those – Um, most of those programs do continue like 10 plus tech Tuesday, the adult program, middle school mayhem. Those are recurring monthly programs. Storytime will continue, um, into October. There'll be a pop-up Halloween maker space. So a lot of that continues. There is, um, we'll be showing a movie because day for conferences. So we show a movie on early release days for school. Um, there's two no school days on Fridays. And so we always have, um,

games and activities and crafts and all that kind of stuff out for kids who pop in on those days yes there is an early out that was um approved by the school board heard about that today yes so um kids get dismissed at noon i think so i don't know but i'm not sure I don't know. I just know that I have to be there till the end of the day because we have a training as well about AI that the kids are, whatever. So I didn't know, just giving you a heads up, you might get an influx of kids if you have something already on that day. Awesome. But if not, I don't know, just giving you a heads up.

Perfect. Because that's kind of a last minute thing. We sat down today to talk about all of our future programming and Kinsey had received an email because St. Mary's is not having busing. and that's why so because they're still in school so we did learn about them today they'll probably have the downtown trick-or-treat that day too though so i don't know that is october 30th that is friday october 30th yeah the early release is the day before thursday and then there's no school friday yeah there's oh so they're getting out early on thursday the 29th yes you are correct yep Yeah. And then there's an old school. It's a teacher in service day on October 30th. Yes, I believe. And that is the night of downtown trick or treat night in which Kinsey is going to. So the library will be back at downtown trick or treat night this year. I think she's going to encourage her twins who need community service hours through St. Mary's to dress up in our dinosaur inflatable dinosaur costumes and hang out with her down there and just have some fun. So I do have one question.

With the printer, where are we budgeting the filament cost for that?

So filament costs will come out of the fines and fees fund.

Okay. Do we have like kind of a set limit on what you guys are going to cap that at? Because if the kids are super into it, I mean, that can add up quick.

So it can. So there are restrictions. So like they only, it's not open to like be used anytime. They can only use it during the program. Okay. And they can only make one thing at the program. So it's not like they can just go crazy. It's not a free-for-all. They turned off, like, the Bluetooth of it. So, like, people can't just connect and start randomly printing, like, whenever they want. So, yeah. He, one of them, because it was James and Chad, James was like, you need to charge them to be making these things. And I was like, no, everything at the library is free. Like, it's not going to be a free-for-all. It's going to be a very... So there is an initial cost because we did buy some more of the filament, but it will last quite a while because it's, the projects that they're making are so small. They're like, they're like this big. Like, it's not... these big huge things so um but it'll come out of that finds and fees perfect finds and fees fund so we did order some more colors of that um and we did order like a little stand to put them in because the 3d printer can only hold four at a time i will tell you you can print those

And you can print all the stuff you need to like scrape them off. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Only because my husband has one. So I won't let him buy the stuff for it. He just prints it off.

You can make literally anything. If you ever get in a pickle, I think with purchasing the filament, maybe mentioning it to friends at the library to maybe not purchase it, but reach out to engineering companies. Yeah, we could also do that too.

Yeah, only because I know that could be an easily, it could add up.

And the filament is not as expensive as I thought it was. It's anywhere between like $15 and $18 a roll. And it does, again, if you're only doing like these smaller things, it does last longer. quite a bit so I think but yeah just one of those learning curves that we'll have to see kind of when we get into it but yeah for now the the projects all have to be pretty small because when there's so many kids we can't have each of them doing like a 30-minute project otherwise Most of them probably would be fine leaving and coming back and getting it because they would really want the thing. But right now we're just choosing things that only take anywhere between like eight and 12 minutes so they can make it and then everybody can still leave with it.

So, and usually they can make multiple at a time too of the same one. Yes. If all the kids are wanting the same one.

Yeah. Yeah. You learned how you can copy and you can make multiple at a time. Yeah. It's been really, really fun.

It's been really fun.

My kids adore us.

Um, Were you done with the program update? Do you want me to be? Yes. No.

No, I just didn't know if you had more, because then we started talking about the 3D printer, and you said we were going to talk about that for library updates. So I just didn't know if you had already moved on.

Yes, technically I am done with programming updates. Oh, I just didn't know if you moved on to library updates.

I have not yet. Okay.

But I can.

Okay.

Because that was all for programming. But yeah, I was going to talk about the 3D printer. Okay. And so, yeah, we did kind of segue right into that. So perfect.

Yep. So 3D printer, it's been super, super fun.

One of the other newer things, if you saw on Facebook at all, we got Tony boxes. So there has been several other libraries in our area who have started purchasing Tony boxes and Tonys and all of that kind of stuff for their patrons to check out. It falls under the Tony boxes and the Tonys fall under the audio visual line item of our budget, which since we have stopped purchasing audio books, and are moving like we still purchase movies and we still do like playaways and stuff like that we have a lot more leeway in that budget and so we purchased two tony boxes and 31 Tonys. I had a next, I had a duplicate at my house that was never opened. And so I just gave that to the library because we're not using it. So each, so there's a red one and a blue one. So the Tony boxes and the Tonys came out of the audio visual part of the budget, the cases, and then like they have a carrying case and then like the headphones and that kind of stuff that came out of like finds and fees. And that, cause that doesn't fit in the, in that part of it. But yeah, so they got set up, they got cataloged, they have been programmed and they have since been checked out. Like literally the day we posted it, they were both gone. So they are one week. Checkout is one week. Yep. They are considered like an adventure kit. So they are with the backpacks. So they have a one week checkout. So yeah, people are very excited about it. And they've been very fun. So if you don't have a Tony box and you want to try one, you should come check it out because they're actually, they're like really, really cool.

I just want to say that I think it's really amazing that the library has, in like a world that think like books are obsolete, I think that the library's doing a really good job at staying relevant. And like with a 3D printer, kind of pushing kids to think more of like an engineering mind, I think is really cool. And then also having the Tony and we don't have audio books because they're kind of obsolete and everything is like on an iPhone or an iPad. I think the Tony idea is like really great. So I think you're doing a really good job at that. It's awesome.

Thank you. Some of the other stuff that I just wanted to mention is a lot of the staff is working on some continuing ed things. There are a lot of webinars that have come out either through the State Library or through the American Library Association or like United for Libraries and stuff like that that are free. So we've all kind of been working on various things to continue working on continuing education stuff. And along with continuing education, Cassie and I will be leaving for the South Dakota State Library Conference on Wednesday, September 30th. And it is in Pierre and we will be back on Friday. So it goes, starts Wednesday and then goes through like Friday at noon and then we're done. So then we'll come back. So both Cassie and I get to go, which is great because we are both state certified librarians. And so we are required by the state to do continuing education credits. And so we can earn a lot just in this one conference. And so like for Cassie, it will fulfill her whole requirement. This one conference will, for me, it'll get me about like half. um so very excited about that it's always a really really good time so we will be attending that otherwise we've just been doing kind of in the downtime the downtime between programming um we have fully cleaned and organized two of our three closets downstairs it took us four days and like 15 garbage bags and two helpful trips from the city guys to remove all of the things but it looks so good it looks so good um so cleaning and organizing it's definitely um helped us just kind of re-look at everything that we have and it's like oh yeah we did have these we don't need to purchase them so we don't need to it's reminded us kind of what's in there um because it was just yeah it just needed to be done so we've done a lot of cleaning and organizing we've started our weeding project so every single year for some of our newer people, every single year we physically touch every single item in the library. We look at it for the weeding criteria, but then we also check its condition. So things that can be repaired will get repaired. Things that are no longer good, they get discarded. So we have started that.

We have made it through three sections of the library, maybe four, four sections of the library. And we have a lot left.

We still have a picture book and I can read all of Upstairs and all nonfiction. And that one takes long. So the goal is that it will be done by Christmas. So it usually takes us total... About three, three and a half months to do that.

Just because you mentioned Christmas, my kids asked me if we're doing a winter reading challenge again. Yes. Okay. Yes. Adeline asked me, she's like, when is it summer reading? I was like, I'm sure a long time. She's like, what about the one when it's cold outside? I was like, okay, I don't know, but I have a meeting.

Yes. Yes. Winter reading challenge registration will start in November. And then that is all of December and all of January. Okay.

So I'll let her know.

And then outside of that, I don't know if you remember, we had talked about the library, the interior of the library getting painted. All of the wall repair and the painting will be done. in October. So Jason has reached out and said that he will be painting in October. We will not need to close. He is going to work around our schedule. There will be times where he will be able to paint while we are open in some less traffic areas. But otherwise he will come in like the evenings and after we close in on weekends.

That's amazing.

Yeah. So, so he will be doing all of the wall repair as well. So it's, gonna look really nice so we did go and pick out new colors they are very similar to what is already there maybe just a little bit i don't want to say darker because that makes it sound like but maybe just a little bit richer a little bit warmer so but still very similar it's just like maybe like one step down like a pink of greatness so yes yes so um but he will be starting that in October so I don't have an exact start date because I don't he has an exact start date but I just know that he's coming in October so um and that is all that I have for site update unless anyone has any questions or comments on anything

No other reports or updates? Unless Denise has anything to tell us about from city council.

Probably nothing that's relevant to the library specifically.

I'm sure there's loads, but.

No, we had a first reading of our budget. So there were no additional changes. So next meeting we'll do our second reading and hopefully budgets get approved. So that's the only thing that really impacts the library.

Library budget's good then. Yeah, if you make it through that first one, you're usually pretty safe that they're not going to come back and touch it.

Yeah.

Lovely.

And no executive session, so it looks like I entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. And meeting adjourned.