Library Commission - Regular Meeting

3PM.

Willing, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The

United States Of America and to the republic for which it says, one nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.

Miss Kim, are there any public comments? No.

Councilmember Rowell, can you please hold the door behind?

I'll get it. Thank you.

Hopefully, you all have had

a chance to review the minutes.

Do I have

a motion? Commissioner Purcell moves to approve the minutes. Do I have a second? I second. Thank you. Is there any discussion on the minutes? Hearing none, I call the question. All those who to all those who approve to all those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye. Aye.

All those opposed, please say nay.

And both the minutes have passed, and we have a chance. I'll turn it over to director Alvin for new business.

Right. I'm so happy to introduce Kat, Paul. Kat is the librarian too for marketing and ad marketing and outreach division, so which includes both of you, just so you know. They previously worked as a team librarian and adult librarian in multiple library systems in the Bay Area with marketing as a core part of their work. And I think all of you know Pat has taken our social media to new homes. Right? You put us on the world map. So Welcome, Kat. Welcome. Nice meeting you all. So you and I'm fine. And then I think I have 50. But I'm just gonna try

to go through these really quick because

there's a lot to cover. I wanna be respectful of everyone's time. So we're gonna start off with Kirby. As you all know, Kirby is our and we're gonna send the book here. Kirby is our library bookmobile, and this is a map. I'm not sure if you can really see it, but the green x's mark our community sites, and those happen throughout calendar year round. And pink x's mark all of our school sites. The orange x, which is on the top middle, indicates where the downtown library is located. So our school sites, it's really dependent upon the, I guess, the fall and the spring calendar. And so we try to keep things consistent.

On Tuesdays, we visit our preschools in Hayward, and then Tuesday afternoons, we're always at Mia's playground every Tuesday. On Wednesday mornings, we are at the elementary schools. On Thursdays, we go to the middle and high schools in Hayward, and then Fridays are senior community stops, but they are open to the public. With our school sites, they are specifically for the schools and the students. It's gonna look a little bit different come fall only because we're kinda moving away from Kirby's pilot.

Kirby's, like, it's a pilot year when we did a lot of story times, a lot of I think story time is really, like, the gist of all of our school outreach. And now that we have a lot more folks, we wanna increase access for our students in the school and bring in more classes to check out books on Kirby. So that's a work in progress. I'm working with Raina on that. What our summer summers are also gonna look a little different. So in the summer, we are reaching out right now. Kirby needs to get a permit with HART, but we do have our park wish list, and they're gonna be spread throughout Hayward. We're just trying to see right now which permits we're able to get to, get approved and which parks are we able to park Kirby at throughout the week. Going to the next one.

I don't know if you can see this, but this

is the Kirby team. So I highlighted Reyna, as you all know, is the face of Kirby, and Reyna has been spearheading Kirby. And now that we've kind of assembled a team, main team dedicated to Kirby is me, our new program assistant, Sandy, and Reyna. So we have Molly and Lizette who are we are very thankful to have their time, assigned to Kirby, but they do have their tasks at the library. So, Molly, right now, we worked on a work out of class. So Molly is a trainee for driving Kirby. So we're gonna have a backup to the backup to the backup. Sandy is our new program assistant. We're super excited to have her onboard. She's bilingual in Spanish. So now we've we've been kind of working through the process.

She was hired,

I think, last barely last month.

So fairly new. Trying to get her on board to translating a lot of the stuff, expanding our outreach, especially to our communities in Spanish. And tomorrow, we're gonna be going out to the William P. Burke where they're gonna be doing a presentation for the parenting and pregnant teens for library access and digital resources is a big one. So we're making a lot of library cards. I think it's about 35 library cards just for that school for them

and their children. Just I just want to add to that. Yeah. So morning is bilingual ASL. Yes.

So one other thing too, Sandy, is also gonna be helping us a lot with social media. So you're gonna start seeing a lot more posts translated, and then eventually once we get them kinda close to translating a lot of their posts in Spanish, then start looking at adding Chinese as well.

The small steps. And that's so going

on to slide three. Next one. So this is all our Kirby sets. So this is Kirby sets from the last ten months. Kirby serviced a total of 10,352 people with children being ranked as the first, the next being adults, and then teens being the last. Materials checked out is 2,418, and we created a 130 library cards within that ten month span. We have over 20 confirmed Kirby events. So you're gonna see us out and about starting this week and onwards. So Kirby is busy, booked all weekend in May. And then, this is just a little collection, show a little insight of what we've done and what we do.

Burbank Elementary School, they're super huge on their social media, so they're always agonists every time their students check stuff out. Fearless Path Trunk Retreat, that was something that we did, where we brought Kirby out there for neurodivergent children. We had, I think, 600 a little more than 600 attendees. So making library cards, connecting them with our resources, and also telling people what Purdy is, is a huge thing. And then right there, Winston Middle School is our regular stop, and so we're there every first Thursday of the month. You have a bunch of teens there. So for National Library Week, we had a lot of them work on activities. I don't know if it's still up there in the team room, but they drew their favorite thing about the library. Super cute. If it's still up there, take a peek.

And I'll go to the next one. So this one is outreach stats without Kirby. So we do this one's from last year. So in addition to a lot of our staff, staffing our Kirby outreaches, we do have the side outreaches that do not include Kirby. So we did service 13,488 people.

That's a skewed number because of trunk or treat with 12,000, but, it's still over a thousand, folks with children again in the top 367. Well, actually, it's adults at the top, 951, then children at three sixty seven, teens at one seventy. So with our class visits, we do this does not include class visits that we have in library, which we do a lot of. These are off-site class visits. Our youth librarians or our children librarians, they often visit the school sites twice per month, servicing about 30 children per visit.

And then, oh, if you can go back real quick. If you can see there, job resource fair, that's a lot of the stuff that we do. Hector is our librarian, spearheading a lot of our job and resource and our veterans affair. And then right down there is our pilot program for the Southland Mall story time. So Southland Mall is a big one only because we're kinda we're testing it out. It's a pilot program. So once we get a bit more consistency and once folks kinda get used to us being in the food court every first Monday of the month, I'm hoping to see more people in the summer. But in exchange for us doing that, we have access to their marketing spaces. So the billboard that faces eight eighty, and including the posters that are inside. So, hopefully, excuse me.

So hope hoping that we can use that for my summer reading, start promoting our library services, tap into that stuff. And then and then this is an a little overview of all of the regular outreach without Kirby. So big ones that we went to, SF GRIMS library day. SF Giants collaborated with SFPL, invited over 17 library systems to create library cards before the game. I think that happened in April 7 on Monday. Then we had the last Positas library card drive where we went out to Livermore. They also had a library. Yeah. A library. They've invited about, I think, 10 libraries.

We made 92 library cards. It was a lot. But we also tapped into a lot of Castro Valley community members that have not been to Hayward and did not know the resources we offered in. So super excited to connect with that community. And then you have your veterans outreach and then our trunk retreat. So marketing. Marketing stats. So over here, it's a little picture of the of the I guess it's the billboard of the pylon screen pylon screen that's facing the eight eighty, and that's what it looks like. We've been kind of testing out how things look like. So it's like a lot of driving by.

Okay. We gotta adjust this, or we we're gonna add more. So right now, the current one that should be showing is it shows our library website. It shows our library tags for our handles for social media. And so this is I do quarterly reports. This is from the last quarter because this quarter is currently a work in progress. But the last quarter, as you know, if you are familiar, we did have a video go viral with the friends of the library. And so because that video has gone viral, it has skewed our data. So this looks really great. But as we're growing into, like, the future quarters, everything just tanks because, I mean, the video got us more than 4,000,000 of right now, it's at almost 10,000,000 views.

We had, right, I was like, what? What? It was the video that I did not think would just be you know? But it engaged more than 700,000 people. And what that means, people starts commenting. They're sharing. They're liking. They're share sharing the stories is a big thing. And it reached more than 4,000,000 people, and that means people who saw it. And it showed up on their Discover page or showed up while they're scrolling.

Same thing for Facebook as we're kinda testing the waters of, like, what is our audience? Like, how do people receive information? We gained a 168 new followers, reached 200,000 more people, and engaged 11,000 more people. A cool thing well, not so cool thing. But with X, we have not abandoned it completely, but we have lessened our post due to very, very, very low engagement.

And so right now, we're using X to post any closures, any announcements, things like that. We've recently created a blue sky last month, so we're testing it out. I've been closely analyzing all of the public library system, especially the Bay Area Library System and seeing how people are reacting to it. So if you're running it like Facebook or you're running it like x, the engagement tanks. And so right now, we're just kinda slowly feeding things out, but it looks like it's more of a space for the community to interact with the library on a more casual level. So more text, less pictures.

Now go to the next one.

So I wanted to share the highlights for Instagram and Facebook. So the Instagram is our multimedia posting platform. And so the top one is our video, the one that I had referred to where we had over 9,000,000 views. We had 600 over 600,000. And so interesting thing about this, the three fandoms that contributed to its fame, the audio we had used was a snippet from an animated cartoon called Gravity Falls, and a lot of folks really enjoyed that for some reason. And then the second one, at the top of the book pile, was Artita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery by P. Mantella. And their whole fandom was like, oh my gosh. The book. It's the book.

And then after that, there was just a bunch of people who loved older adults. And so with those three fandoms Mhmm. Just shot it right up into, a viral reel. Second one is our post. And so that one got really popular because during that time, the Wicked, the drop of the Wicked movie.

And so Ari had put a very clever holding space for defying gravity display in the chill in the teens room. Everyone's super excited about that. So one thing to note in our Instagram, our top audiences, our Gen Z and millennial users. So what that means is more videos, more photos, and more tapping into kind of trends and things that you're seeing often on Discover page. And our top followers over there is Hayward, Oakland, Castro Valley, San Francisco, San Leandro. So good. We're staying local. We're in the Bay Area. And then Facebook is slightly the same, only different because instead of SF, it's Fremont. So it's very interesting to see kind of where our users are.

Our top audiences in on Facebook are millennials and Gen X, so kind of in the later half. And they really love photos of things that people drop in the library or things that people leave at the library. So this one reads, I love the library more than roast beef. That got us almost two k likes.

Right? So that's kind of,

like, the things that I look at and just kinda pay attention to. Okay. We got something here. We're just gonna rededicate and categorize it to the spaces that we feel would get the engagement and then loop in the library links from there. Thanks. And then finally, there are newsletter stats. So this is, again, newsletter stats from the last ten months. Right now, we're looking at our total opens double the amount of the addresses that are on there that we send out. So it's a pretty good engagement. With the unique link clicks, pretty much what that means is people are they wanna learn more.

They're clicking to register and all of that stuff. And okay. The questions? I know I went through this really, really fast, but I I wanna make sure I'm just pulling everyone's time.

Push for board. Yes.

Has the new Curvy been launched yet? The new Curvy four will be

Oh, yeah. Is it functioning at So So is

that the Mobi's? Yeah. So I I the step in. So that's Mobi. Mobi just arrived last week. And so it's not yet ready because the whole inside has to be done. We've got the vehicle now. And so it's gonna be a little while, though, before we can get it up and running, but it is here. Yes. I noticed you made stops at a

lot of schools. That because none of those schools have their own libraries, or you're just supplementing the books available to the students?

Yeah. So it's a mix. Some of the schools don't have libraries, and some of the schools need supplement. For example, Tennyson High School is one of our main schools we stop at. They do have a librarian, but they do not have a Spanish collection. And that is, a huge, a huge population of their student, speak Spanish, monolingual in Spanish. And so we come there,

and we bring a lot

of our Spanish collection in You. And so a lot of these school stops look like that. They have librarians. They just don't have up to date, an up to date collection, or there are specific things. And when they do request for us to visit, they do list out the things that they would like us to bring. So we usually try to keep we do our best with what we have, and we'll cater to that.

Okay. There's commissions in that. Kat, I had

a question. You know, for the Facebook and the Instagram engagement

Yeah.

You know, what what is the, you know, what's the outcome you want out of that? Right? I mean, you know, you have you know, your your people like it and they engage Yeah. And they go away. But is there some outcome you, you know, you look for? And then do you measure whether you're getting their outcome or not, like, visits to the library or something

like

that?

Yeah. Yeah. So if any of you are chronically online like I am or not, you probably see Milwaukee Library, and Milwaukee is halfway across the country. So our goal here is pretty much like the way that Milwaukee is showing up all the time. I want Hayward to be the library in the Bay Area to show up all the time.

And when people for example, when we put up that's the thing I wish I could I could measure is that we've been getting an influx of library card applications. So we've had in the past, like, I think, two weeks, 200 plus library card applications. And I think I wanna say it's related to us promoting a lot in our reels for digital resources because that's a huge thing that people ask for and a huge thing that people aren't aware that they have access to without having to physically come to the library. So that's one of the things where, at some point, I do wanna add it into programs and and into when they do sign up for library cards. Where did you hear about us?

And just to kinda have something else to measure and compare. But visibility is a huge thing for our social media. And when you're visible and people are interacting with you, then they'll get, like, the most recent updates. And when you promote programs and they share it, then that reaches out to other folks who are following them and so forth.

And one of the things also, we do see it a lot a lot of our programs, and we ask, how did you hear about us? This is anecdotal. We don't keep very good statistics as yet, but a lot of it is. I saw it on social media. I saw you know? So that's again, I think the goal is really to get the word out that people aren't even aware of the type of programs we offer. And so it is social media is huge in terms of creating awareness for us. What's your question? Yeah. I'm just

gonna piggyback off of that because I just went to a librarian conference, and social media is, the hottest topic. So what you guys are doing here, like, kudos to you. My question is how I mean, is it a space where you could see, like, an intern coming in and helping with some social media posting? Maybe there's a student, Cal State East Bay, Shabot. I mean, how do you how can you, like, start to manage that where it's just not overwhelming for one or two people? Or do you see that

my screen. Yeah. I see the pictures. Yeah. Oh, okay. So this is something we've talked about also. And I will tell you before we got Kat on board and also to some extent, Kaye, from our technology library, We were doing a lot, but it was a lot of just floundering around in the dark. And so one of the things Kat has done very successfully for us is she's setting guidelines on how we should so we really want to do, like, best practices. Mhmm. So even bringing an intern in, we want someone who either is has a proven track record or is able to follow, you know, what we know.

And so some of it is still in the early stages. We're really making sure we set up best practices and set up guidelines. So it really creating that path where if we get an intern or a volunteer or someone can see the work, they can continue to work and just keep this going the way that hasn't gone so well. I agree.

Yeah. A lot of it is a new process structure, getting a way to have staff streamline requests for promoting their events through social media. And so I feel like once we get over that, it's gonna be a lot easier. And with our new program assistant who's also gonna be helping out with a lot of it, but they're currently training right now.

So a bit we're getting there. We're getting there.

Which 1%? Just

thinking about

what how people find out. I do one of

the Zoom conversation circles, and I always ask every single new person how did you find out? Almost 99.9% of

the answers are a friend told me.

Mhmm. But I'm wondering if there's some way I don't know how you get basically low English speakers on social media. But these guys are managing Zoom, so I don't know. I mean, you know, we and I we we kinda go through ways where we have the same people, and then we get people coming in, and I'm not sure why. Yeah. I always ask when I see new people.

The equivalent to that, I would say, is the friend told me by them tagging their friends on Facebook. Oh.

And we

get that a lot, especially for the diaper distribution. And now that we have someone who's able to translate a lot of our posts in Spanish, especially for programs where we do see a huge attendance with people who do speak who speak Spanish. Having those two, they do share it a lot, and we do see that. But, of course, that doesn't be physical outreach. And so that's one of the things we use to supplement what we can't reach through digital, the digital, I guess, world.

As we go out to outreach, we partner with a lot of our organizations in Hayward, like, Yovasquez is one of the big ones, and they table with us at Muse Playground. So just trying to find ways to, spread the word, but also to connect folks who can connect with other folks who may not particularly, you know, be an avid patron of the library.

So you you raise a really good point because depending on the nature of the program, how we reach them, it's different. You know? And and you literacy, one of the single biggest things we've seen is word-of-mouth. Yes. We do so much, but word-of-mouth is the single best way for literacy for learners. Yes. Important. One more question. I've been looking

at the Kirby monthly calendar that goes out, and it appears

to me that Kirby just goes out two or three days a week. So you're doing all these visits with just two or three days a week, or is that not necessarily the case?

So Kirby does run from Tuesday to Friday with the exception of special events on Saturday. And so on Tuesday to Fridays, we run two stops. For each stop that we visit is two hour visit. So pretty much Reyna, or whoever is leading Kirby is spending their whole entire workday bringing Kirby out to these schools because we do have to take into consideration travel time as well as setup time and our staff capacity. It does seem like that only because for our school visits, we do not make that known to the public.

We don't wanna set that precedent for people to show up for the schools. So the school calendars stay solely within the schools. And so what we're looking for for the fall is to kind of include a bit more, community stops throughout the week, but that that's if we have the staff for it is is a huge part of it. Because Kirby is a lot of a mix of manual labor, especially for setting up. Because every time we go out there, we set up a 10 by 10 canopy.

We put it down, and we do that four times a day. So that takes about, I would say, three to four people comfortably, but we usually only run with two people. So it's a lot of work, and that's one thing I would love to invite everyone. You're always welcome to hang out with us at any of the curvy stops just to see how it works, just to see how we set up. And it's definitely something we'd be more than happy to do. I don't know if we can do a ride along.

But Well, meet us over there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can definitely meet us over there and just kinda see, like, how we set up or meet us during the last hour and see, like, what it looks like when we start taking things down and putting things away. But you're more than welcome to join us. Just let me know.

Yeah. And one of the things Kat mentioned is they do, like, customize the you know, what's on the on Kirby for each stop. Right. So there really is a lot going on behind the scenes for a two hour or three hour stop. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. One sec. But I

I so I think the answer to my question

is the reason when I see

the Kirby calendar for the week, it shows you're

going to two or three days

a week, Kirby's going out. Those other days, you're going

to school. Yes. We're going to school. Necessarily out of that. So And that was the one thing that we were talking about as we're moving away from Kirby's, like, pilot year. Just trying to think of ways that we can reach the community more throughout the week, but also taking consideration our staff capacity. Because for the school visits, it's a lot of collaboration with our different departments, especially with our librarians to go out alongside with the library assistants. So we're making sure that, the school visits are provided with a librarian who can help you check out and then provide a program.

Let's thank your librarian for their. Okay. Isn't that great? And she So these are exclusive to. Thanks for everyone.

Thank you, director Almond. You are a mess with our unattended children. The library We just put them unattended children.

We'll be getting cookies. No? Yeah. We'll be getting free cookies. Yes. Yeah. Cookies. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So just wanted you know, one of the things we're trying to do is make sure we get you know, we're trying to make sure all our policies are up to date and make sure you have seen all our policies and you are aware of the things and just have any questions or concerns about it. But one of the things we did change in, previously, our unattended children policy, it said children under six. Well, it was under seven. So it was basically it it was a lot younger, and so we've raised it to seven and under. Cannot be included seven in that age group.

So we made a slight adjustment in the ages. But, otherwise, it pretty much looks like what it always has looked like. We do remind caregivers that if we are not there, that five minutes before closing, we do call the police and and turn the child over to the police because staff cannot stay. And staff also cannot stay alone with the child. So really making sure parents understand that that they have to pick up their children on time.

And, you know, and it is we also added the added that the child must be able to function independently because that's the other thing when you have a child who or an adult or even a young adult there who is not able to function independently. They should not be left alone. So we really wanted to make sure that's very clear. So if you have any questions about this, I'm happy to answer them. But this is a problem at all. I recently said this is not unique to us, but, you know, having children, one less than ten year.

Yes. Council member Roach. Thanks. Yeah.

I mean, so so people will just leave them here all

day, I guess, right, to. Yeah. All day. Or, you know, after school, they just come straight, which I get it. You know, parents are working. The child walks over, but or has the school bus drop them here. And then if they're not here on time to pick the child up, then it is a problem. I will turn it to the,

letter writing committee that quickly coalesced to draft, letters to elected officials. You hear that? We we just put the letter together from your recommended. People to stop funding. Okay. Stop funding. Defunding of basically everything including library. Mhmm. So you have the letter that we can send. My my take was just to keep

it short and sweet because they're probably getting 5,000,000 letters about a week. Yeah. So

I think even though it's late, I

think in terms of since that action statement of March 14, the more they hear,

Thank you to the letter writing committee for and for and Commissioner Dilder for for, crafting those letters. They will be sent to each of you, to send to your your respective, elected officials. They have really taken some time to put into those. I don't think they went out with the actual packet.

They did. Oh, I did send out.

Yeah. Does it go out? Yeah. I took

the weapon. It went out. It went went then he went out again today also. Okay. Excellent. He went out.

So We had drafted it

for your signature, so I'm done.

But I have to decide it, but we have to vote on it for me to sign it. Yes. So I can pull that up on my computer machine. Uh-huh. Sorry. I didn't see the packet, so I'm tired. So please forgive me. Oh, yes. There we are. Thank you, Ms. Kim, for resending today. So the letter, I'm just gonna read it quickly because they're pretty sure. They're they're gonna say yes. They're all the same.

They're all fine.

So just gonna address it. Amer Library Commission would like to express our deep concern regarding President Trump's executive order on March 14 to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Know, the IMLS

form sorry. The bill is

the foremost national organization providing resources to inspire and support library and information professionals across the country. Its contributions are vital to the education and economic well-being of our communities. In 2024, the IMLS granted 2,295,000,000, less than point 3% federal budget to support libraries, museums, and cultural institutions in all 50 states and in US territories. The long reaching impact of this investment is immeasurable and supports programs and services that generate billions and economic impact on health marketing. Public libraries like the Hayward Public Library depend on these funds and essential community programs.

With IMLS support, Hayward Public Library is able to provide outreach and assistance in many avenues, including early learning programs to promote literacy preparedness, bookmobile services to underserved areas, homework support centers, and computers, adult literacy programs, digital tools, software, and courses to bridge the digital divide for all community, all members of our community. Please protect our public libraries that publicly oppose the reduction and or elimination of the. Please stand with library staff and patrons and oppose the executive order, and you need to to cut funding to the. And so this has it would have my name, but it will actually come from the commission. And I will sign as chair, but it will come from the entire commission if this was passed.

I think it's an excellent letter, but

but I need a motion on the floor. Oh, yes. Commissioner McGill.

Sorry. Just for time's sake, I wasn't too sure of when the the budget hearing has happened because I remember when I was in Sacramento, we were lobbying for something, and they told us that it was too late to, like, ask for or give them a recommendation. So was curious if anyone, like, on the committee knew when that date was.

We're separate for California's budget hearing, but this is ongoing federal law.

Yeah. That was just the clarification. And then the other can I ask one question? In terms of approving the letter, would we amend it now? And then we're gonna approve it at this meeting, or do we have to wait until next meeting?

No. We put it on the agenda for this meeting so that we can vote at this

meeting. Okay.

So I just need a motion on the floor.

I'll make a motion. Just a vote. Thank you, Commissioner Porter. Do I have a second? Commissioner D. Miguel. You have

to say it out loud.

Yes, sir. Thank you. We have

a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion?

Yes. It's

The US. Right That you guys put it together in a

high school. It's affecting everyone across the country, and it's nice to know that we got commissioners that

are willing to craft this letter

and give that to you.

I agree. I just ask for a friendly amendment that this comes from the commission and not me specifically. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. I thought you were

just putting your name on it, or I don't

know, or you put her name

on it. I'll put

her name on it.

I will sign it as the chair. It will come from Yeah.

You can get that part of the. Yeah. They would like to. Yeah. I

just wanna put it on the record out loud, I think. Yeah. Is there any further discussion? I will also note that, in sending this to the various, elected officials, I would like to send a copy to our our city council that we are doing this. Yeah.

And I think it could

be used to send to any other representative that we want and just change the addressee and the address. You know? I I just picked these federal representatives. But

Well, yeah. Ideally, everybody in the house and the senate would have raised. And

and individual commissioners may adapt it as they think it Right. For themselves with. Mhmm. Alright. I'm gonna call the question. All those in favor of sending this on behalf of the commission, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. If the vote passes, I will get this out.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank Thank you. Speaking

of which, next step is director Alamo with an eye this IMLS and a state library update.

Yeah. So, you know, you have already seen that, so there's not a lot more to add, but there is still time. And even for the state, the budget is very soon, but there is still time. And IMLS, one of the things also that it does the executive order that was written actually says that continue congressionally mandated things. And so IMLS is actually congressionally mandated.

So I know that's one of the things this commission mean, this government is It's not. Well, they're not doing even though what they are, what is legally required. So even though the executive order itself says one thing, they just closed it. So I just want to say that's one of the things that's very concerning. And, like, you know, the IMLS is supposed to give out the the national manual.

Those are all written into law, but it's all so what can we say? That's where we are, and you you really have covered everything. I do want to say that the librarians in this area or the library directors, we are meeting with all of our various elected officials. I actually met with senator Waham's office last Friday. Gonna be meeting with Liz Ortega.

We've got all of us are doing our own due diligence. We've sent letters from the city, and we have an obvious, you know, from the city who's also helping us. So we've done all our letters to shift, but, yeah, and and Swarwell also from officially as well as individually. So just want to say that they are doing it. And the California State Library Services Act, again, is a big is just a big thing also that could be really impacted.

And I I sent you all the information very quickly what the state has done. There is something called the California Library Services Act, which, you know, twenty five years ago was getting 25,000,000, and it was used to fund libraries locally. It was down to zero, then it went back up to 3,800,000.0. This budget, they're trying to cut it down to 1 point no. It went up to 3,600,000.0. They're trying to cut it down to 1.8 this time, 50%. And I just want to say that is for every single library in the state. Mhmm. So that's, you know, a lot of systems and about over a thousand libraries that I think serve. So it's not a lot of money.

We did talk, and I get it. The budget is tight, but the impact of a small amount of money is good. So we really did. We made a strong case to to Doctor. Wahab, Senator Wahab's office, and hopefully make a good case to also use Ortega's assembly member, use Ortega's office. But we are doing our part also. I just wanted to tell you that. And they did tell us not a lot of time, but it is still fine. So state. Yeah.

Which report? Is there any indication that the Trump administration is reconsidering or

thinking about backing down in the slightest?

I have not seen it on the news,

but I thought you might be more knowledgeable. We haven't heard anything. What we do know is the outcry for life besides MLS is probably greater than any other, you know, any other institution. So that is huge. But I also want to say it's not just IMLS. We are impacted by, say, for example, the NEA, which is the National Endowment for the Arts, by the, you know, Institute of Health. All of these, we do get grants and opportunities from many of them. So it's like not just that IMLS is IMLS is drying up. It's that everything is drying up. And then so just it's becoming really hard that IMLS was at least a dedicated thing.

And I was gonna do IMLS. Only 16,000,000 comes to California. 50,000,000 for the entire country offered 16,000,000. That's just such a small amount, but the impact of these small rats is huge.

Any other questions for drug drugs? And

thank you again for your support. I really, really appreciate it. Makes a huge difference. Thank you to the letter writing committee for putting together putting that together so. Speaking of old business is the letter writing committee. Do you have any further business? Not that I know. Not not here.

We should be writing a lot of letters.

But

Thank you for your work.

I'll report from the welcome committee. Any business as well?

We're still waiting for the city to tell us. Oh, you've you've already sent the Yeah.

So we finalized everything. So, really, it's now in the clerk's hands to to to spread that part, to get it out back out to all the committees. So, yeah, so I'll I'll find actually, I haven't got an update.

I'm just gonna get because

our work in that happening is done now. So there

it is coming. Thank you. Report from the CSU East Patient Growth Partnership Committee. I do have

an update. I confirmed with, director Adam via email just to, see where that work was, and, she has set a meeting with the respective campuses, to talk about where how we can potentially partner on that Sunday service for, the research librarian. So we have we have lift off on a meeting.

Report from the budget support committee. That'd be your report. Thank you, Commissioner Demiguel. Report from the community outreach committee. I would be on half of it. Really kind of been out out

of this last month, but where we left off, myself and my co was we would put outreach to the sites in, Hayward to let them know about the services and leverage, but and encourage them to apply for both mobile services. So my co commission committee member was planning to go out to actually individual sites as we've written a letter, and she's gonna go out to individual sites and bring them information about the library. So it's not only is she sending it to resending it to management, but also going to the individual sites in Hayward. So that's where what we're working on at this point. Hopefully, We'll book more available preschool.

We encourage all these preschool sites to apply, and some of them will be able to get at least some kind

of rotating services, some kind of

access delivery services. That's what we're working on right now.

Thank you.

Do the commissioners have recommendations at this time?

Now we will move to the director report. Thank you. And I do want to say we are real, real, real, real frequencies. So thank you. So we just have a lot happening in the library, and I want you know, I spoke about the San Francisco Opera partnership last time. It just continues to grow. They keep bringing us more ideas, more programs. We had the Innocence Project. We had the ARPED, and then we had the panel discussions with huge success. And Dave was so thrilled that they immediately sent us all these other programs they want to partner with us on.

So that's been wonderful. We have I just want to let you know the Hearts of Hayward Award is on award through this Thursday, April 24. And there are so many people who are getting awards that are linked with the library. We have Robert Sakai who's getting the Gail Steele Lifetime Achievement Award, Huge longtime supporter of the library. The is getting the John and Partners Humanitarian Award on our library literacy council.

Again, huge supporter. We have Robert Downey who was nominated by us. He's our longtime volunteer for the lawyer in the library program, which has unfortunately closed as of this year. But he was I I think for twenty years, he's been a volunteer for the past year. So he's the person there to get we have nominated. We have Mark Sakai also is getting an award, and she was nominated by the Friends of the Haywood library. We have, let me see. Oh, Jay Singh, who's also from the Literacy Plus Council. I I just so many people. I don't even know what to say.

It just goes on and on, but I'm really proud to say that Hayward Library volunteers are really well recognized this this year. So in case that you were one of our winners. And so yeah. So, like, ribbon cutting went really well for Zofalo Cafe, and commissioner Navarro did come. So I was really glad of that. Our staff day, which I told you, we had our staff training, went absolutely amazingly. We did active shooter training. We did how to manage bleeding after active which was actually a huge thing. The staff was so grateful, the one who thinks of that, you know, that immediate aftermath. So that was a big thing for us.

And, yeah, anyways, a lot of emergency type of training coming up. I told you Mobi has arrived, but so that's been really exciting. Bring your child to work day in St. Thursday. This is a crazy week for us. And so we expect over over a 170 parents and children, and we have and so this is from the city. We're actually closing the library to the public that day. It's such a big group, and we go around to different departments in the city. But really excited, and our theme within the library is gonna be choose your own adventure. Any of you read those?

And so we actually on your way out, you can talk. We just started. They have this display of original art from the choose your own adventure book, so that's going to because of that that and the new. So that's really I think Gina is in charge of that display doing an amazing job. Yeah. And then I told you I met with. Those of you know the is going to be on April 26 from treatment. It starts over here in the in Heritage Plaza, and then it goes all all around downtown. So that's commissioner. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, and commissioner Gorange is also getting up. Yes. Someone. I'm telling you, almost everyone is linked to the library somewhere.

Yeah. There you go. And so you're recommended to get us date stamp for our bulletin board announcements. We now have a date stamp for all the fire announcements in the bulletin board. So that was an easy one to do. We did it right away. Our community hub, I think I've mentioned to you that is coming up, and that's gonna be on the 2nd Floor, and that the ribbon cutting for that will be on June 6. So those I don't know. Does anyone know the community hub? The community hub is basically this room we've taken over because we partner so much with different social services groups.

So we're actually going to give them a dedicated space where they could do just like the bookmobile, assign dates and times when they'll be here. And we have teams like, say, job seekers, housing security, food security, things like that. So things that were very and it's we've got a waiting list for groups that want to be partnered with us. So that's really exciting. What time is that ribbon I'm sorry? What time is that ribbon cutting? Cutting? I will send you an invitation. Yeah. It will be sometime around eleven.

Someone sent you an invitation. I'll send everyone an invitation. And then just as you know, things are changing in the city. We all staff are returning from you know, library, a few of the staff, but there was the option of people who work from home three two, and we are coming back to four one or eighty twenty as of July 1. So that's, you know, something of a change.

We'll see. Weeks branch is on track. It's work is progressing really nicely, but we've moved the opening probably to the May or mid June. We've had some delays. And apart from that, the Alka Joshi program, which I had sent out to all of you, and I hope you got her message. So we did change it a bit. We were partnering with the partnering with the brands. We were going to use alcohol at the pores and pastels part of it. We're not going to do that. We may do it completely nonalcohol. Okay. Dry. Okay. Dry. Okay.

Dry. This does not sound good. You sound like mocktails. Yeah. So we did. And so it really if y'all can really help us get the word out, we'd really like to get a good turnout for it. She's an amazing speaker. We also have an amazing program plan, which links the book to the program really nicely. So yeah. And I think oh, and really importantly, Chabot College on Thursday no.

Wednesday this week is Chabot College library is gonna be renamed to the Edward and Donna Martins Library. Ah. Has donated $5,000,000. $100. And so, anyway, so he is going to do that. They are going to email me. And so I will be at that event. So just yeah. That's what's happening. Thank you, director Allen. We have questions for director Allen.

I was just gonna I did sign up for that event, and I thought, well, just the mariachi festival is the same day so people can go out and get a drink after.

That's there you go. That's what we'll tell there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. Thank you, Director. Councilmember Roach.

Thank you. Yeah. I I mean, I don't know as much because I feel like we've been doing all this sort of planning work. Like, we've had two of our meetings that have been taken up by our strategic planning, which has, you know, become really complicated because potential budget cuts.

You know? It's it's so a

lot of what we don't like to do, we're we're realizing we probably can't do. And then just a concern about what we might lose in federal funding. Think I it's been said that we lose there's about continuing that we worry about every from federal you know, trickle down from federal grants. And so we're trying to sort of kinda bat down the hatches and decide what we can really afford to move forward with until we know for sure. Even our we did our community agency funding through the Community Services Commission, and every year, that's sort of dependent on the CDBG grant.

So we don't even know. I unless there's been an update, but they were, like, fifteen days past when we should have received those funds. Last time I heard, I haven't heard an update. So that that's a really big concern because, you know, the community services goes through this whole process to allocate that money plus the, you know, not so so much money from the city, but it's already not enough to meet all of the need. And if we don't get that federal grant money out, we're gonna have to have a different discussion on what to do.

It's it's really depressing. And and then, you know, and then just concerns about, you know, if if there'll be a recession. So I think there's a lot of just trying to, like, hold the line and and cut really, and we don't wanna, of course, do any sort of cutting on the labor front. So you know, on staffing or anything like that. So it's it's kind of daunting really to plan when you don't know for sure what's really gonna happen. So so we're just trying to be really careful on that front. And then, yes, the transition in person work is is if anybody watched the meeting last week has sort of spilled out into the open, and that's been it's a it's a difficult transition. So that is ongoing, really. And, yeah, I think that's hard everywhere. So there's a lot of it.

Yes. So that's been difficult. But, really, I mean, that's really like, it it feels like a lot of kinda angsting and planning stuff that's been going on. Hopefully, we'll get to move on to some other stuff that'll be more interesting in the next couple of meetings. So yeah. But if you have any specific questions.

I have a question on. Yes.

Yeah. Does. And there's really good summaries. Yeah. I was really interested to read, like, one of the big things for.

Yeah. Which we need. Yeah.

So you might actually consider the whole city center.

Yeah. Well, you know, honestly, you know, that was sort of thrown out. Like, we have not had a discussion about the city center. So I think it was a suggestion that was put out there.

I I don't know.

So I don't I'm not sure how realistic that site is. They're still looking at the old, you know, the the National Guard site, you know, I was in which at the at the airport. By by the airport. Yeah. You know where the Yeah. Go. Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. But there's we just allocated some money to do a site sort of plan. So so I don't know yet. Yeah. Not sure how realistic that was. No.

The reason why that's the idea, it's got parking, and you can build it right back up. Mhmm.

Yeah. I mean and that's why it's being considered because we own that parcel. Right? We're trying to figure out what

what we own and what

we can afford. So there is no definitive answer on that, to answer your question.

I encourage both commissioners to write there to the city council members. Yeah. In your district. Believe me, we all want

an answer on the site because we're gonna move on with this. You know, the longer we go, more expensive this gets. So

Any other questions for the council member?

Thank you. Friends of the Hayward Public Library, we did not meet this week. We are mostly, at this point also reviewing our finances and our bylaws regarding, elections and finance. Library commissioner reports.

What's painting that yes. I love

the the books that that I mean, that's I don't know if that's really reported, but I enjoyed seeing it. I was going to the post office. I ducked apart. Yeah. And I jumped out. You know, it was just great to see. Once again, I'm an advocate of the library. This is what I do. It's my passion. But so to see that this is, like that the library is celebrated in this way, in this city, it makes me proud to be a Hayward resident and to serve on commitment. Let me know if you got tired.

Okay. Now

I love it too. Think it's like

They kinda let things go. Yeah. It's a.

It's a great statement. It is.

I think it's. So I miss library. We've missed library week, but we are still doing our work

to celebrate our library. So my report is that Commissioner Dozier has sent out the card for each of you to sign. So please, if you have not done that, please do so. Commissioner B. Miguel, your email address is bouncing back for us. So if you could

get an updated one to us,

that would be great.

We we did get an approval for the proclamation from the city for the library. So there's

some news to director Adelman and Ms. Kim.

We just need to coordinate with you all.

We couldn't get it during the city council members because as council member said, they have a lot of business, but they will do a photo op. Yeah. So we just need to set up a a day and time. And if those of you who are available, those are the commissioners who are available. We're gonna set up a time that works for your library staff. And, we we can take a picture, and then we will have your proclamation this month. And so we are happy to celebrate you all during your month, and we just we we are we are just grateful for the library, and we just wanna celebrate you. So

Thank you. I love you. Yeah. Absolutely. So it'll

be open to the whole all of you. We'll send we'll we'll send out well, maybe we'll get some dates and times from Jonte, and then whenever, it will to find one that the majority of you are. Oh, I think of them. Yeah. It's good. So, yeah, I'm I sorry. I didn't have time to run it by you all. I wrote some things. No. Sure.

Sure. You guys should

do, like, a beetle walking across that and done the with the zipper. One

of us in therapy. Oh, it's all flat. Absolutely not. I'll do the bare feet.

Okay. We're moving to agenda building. Fourth May. Perfect. Can't even get to this. We have homework support center report, summer slide, pre K presentation, and a presentation on team program. We're gonna be busy. June, we have a library report, a friend's report. We need to

I'll send that. We need

to let Peter know now. Literacy literacy plus council report and adult literacy and ESL services report. End End of the year tends to be pretty end of the fiscal year tends to be pretty heavy. And then we have our special meeting, which is

a short meeting and commission year end commission dinner. Is there anything

we are missing at the end of

the year? Yes. Counselor. I don't if I was supposed to put on, and maybe this isn't quite library related. But, you know, I I don't if you all know, but I do, like, senior legal aid once a month. And one thing that's getting worse and worse is the fraud that seniors are up against. I mean, thousands and thousands of dollars. And, like, every time a new client comes in, I think that clearly, they didn't get the piece of information. I know that a lot of different organizations come in and do that kind of work in the library.

We have regular senior programs that are not focused on fraud. It's just

it's and it's amazing and crazy, like, how easy it is for them to sort of get that. So just a continual, like, reminder about that. But, yeah, if you're if you're doing it all the time, then no one needs to add it to the agenda. But it is a lot, and it's getting worse because people are desperate and looking for you know? I

have a question in that context. Debbie, do you see that happening in the computers? Like, do seniors come to library, and do they get phished in the library computers? No?

I don't think so. We I would say we have a lot of seniors using our computers here, not necessarily. But we our senior programs are really well attended because people now we do the monthly series. They've really become more aware of them, so they come back every month. But we do change. It's not just fraud. You know? Like, we do safe driving, all of the different things. But we also have what we call our tabling from different organizations down on the 1st Floor, and we do get a lot of foot traffic there. But as far as using the computers, not in our library. We don't really see it.

The reason

I was asking is because now we've got you know, there's a notion of a secure browser that will have some, you know, anti fraud, phishing detection type stuff.

Yeah.

That would be worth considering, you know, if that was an option.

The the one that that was that I I think the reason why I thought of it is this one, our lady, you know, she would she met she called him a prophet at the Atherton Library. Yeah. You said Atherton? Atherton Library. Yeah. And, yeah, I

mean, we're thousands of dollars. Yeah.

We consider that for unscheduled items to potentially go on our September agenda.

Yeah. I mean, I I guess it would be up to you because I'm not supposed to add things to the agenda, but it's just the thing that I'm realizing is getting worse.

Yeah. So that

maybe something

And with all the education out there,

you would think that people would know. But Well, you know, fact sorry. Yeah. Just yeah. Because one of the things is that, you know, scammers get more sophisticated also. One of the latest ones we're hearing about is and I know many of us just thought that this is you put in a search for a legitimate thing, and the sponsored you know, usually on Google and all that not one is sponsored, and now they're finding a lot of those ads are actually sponsored phishing. They're scams. Yeah. So you click and a lot of people say, oh, that's, you know, whatever, you know, Amazon. They click on it, and it turns out it's really not Amazon.

It's something else. And and people say, oh, just click here to continue, and people do that. So, you know, it's there's they constantly all they're doing is playing catch up with the scammers. So Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe, you know, I'll talk to you about possibly doing a program on safety and things. Yes. That'd great.

I do need don't think we need to put on our, agenda for our special meeting in July since our May and June are very packed Banned Books Week. Because when we come back from resource, Banned Book Week Banned Books Week is in Septim it's something we need to think about. So we need to vote on in September because the Banned Books Week is in October. So we can't wait until we come back for recess. So I do think we need to put that in July. And, normally, it's a short it's a short meeting, but if we wait until September, we're gonna be behind the eight ball.

Think it might be April. We're just gonna approach it before July because don't we wanna get some ideas about what

We do. We've got those three we've got six presentations in between May and June. So I wanna encourage everybody to put their thinking caps on and then try to come up

with some some thoughts for July.

I can also send out a link with Diabin. I do my follow-up for the meeting, a link to the PanPlex week site so y'all can look at it and get a sense. And maybe give you some of the things you normally do for PanPlex. Thank you. Okay. Anything

else? Nothing else. This meeting is they're I'm banning there any more words that we are in charge at that point of time.

Thanks,