Library Commission - Regular Meeting

If you're able to stay in the. Gina, are there any notifications or concerns? No.

There are. So we'll do our roll call. Commissioner D. Miguel?

Here.

Commissioner McLaurin? Here. Commissioner Porter? Here. Commissioner Toussaint? Here. And council member. Yes.

Are there any public comments?

No. There are not. So

next on our agenda will be the approval of the minutes. Did everyone have a chance to review the minutes? Are there any changes or updates to the minute?

A motion to approve? Yes. A motion to approve the minute. What is that? So we have a motion to approve the minute. Oh, that's And we have a second

to approve the minute.

All in favor?

Aye. Any of those?

Okay. Minutes are approved. Thank you so much. And so the first item Yes.

Under personal reasons, our presenter could not be for so we'd have to postpone it to another meeting. Can you speak up again? Sorry. Due to personal reasons, other presenter couldn't be here, so we'd have to reschedule for another time. Mhmm. Okay.

So going with that, we'll go with our next presentation, and that will be on pre K children teen programs for summer for spring

and summer. That's neat. Welcome. Alright. Hey. You can barely go ahead and do my introduction. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Cleo Hathaway. Cleo has been a supervising librarian at HPM for fifteen years.

She oversees youth and adult services and library collections and works closely with the other managers, the marketing outreach librarian too, the technology librarian too to oversee marketing and technology, including the Makerspace and Digital Learning Center. She has served on multiple state and national committees, including the John and Patricia Whitty Award Committee, which honors the authors of English books for children and young adults that best promote an awareness of California. Neil, halfway. Yes. Thanks, everybody. Okay.

I so I'm going to just give you a brief overview, of some of the things that we've done over the course of this year for youth programming, for teens and children as well as talk a little bit about our summer reading challenge. So, Gina, if you can, thank you. So what do we do? We serve children, teens, their parents, caregivers, and teachers. We have programs, collections, and activities that nurture a love of reading and learning and dedicated spaces that are designed for kids, teens, and parents.

I think anyone who's visited our lovely children room will know that it is very much designed specifically for children. And I probably shouldn't be quite as prejudiced as I am, but I do think it is the coolest place in this building. Thank you. The big thing that we do is early childhood. Storytime is sort of our bread and butter.

Storytime are early literacy programs that introduce children to books, lines, music, and build a foundation of preliteracy skills. So there's actually a pretty significant amount of research that's stating that children who attend library storytimes, have better outcomes in kindergarten than children who do not. So it's a very handy thing. The we do six storytime six days a week. We have over 600 participants every week during storytime, and we offer them in English, Spanish, Chinese, and American sign language. So we try

to get a little bit of

everything for everyone. Our second big thing for early childhood is our thousand books before kindergarten program, which is exactly what it sounds like. We encourage families to read nightly with your children before bed. For every 100 books that, you read, you win a free book. And at the end of reading a thousand books, then they get a backpack filled with all sorts of really cool stuff, and that nifty certificate. And I believe that I didn't have a picture of, one of the kids getting a handshake from Genti, but they do also get sometimes a handshake for a driver, which is very exciting. It's very exciting for some of the younger the young kids. And a thousand books sounds like a lot, but it's actually if you start when a child is born and you read one

book at night, then you

will have achieved that in about three and a half years. So it's actually not that that long. And if for anyone who's had young children, I think know that often you will read two, three, four picture books before you get them to sleep. So you can do it pretty quickly, actually. Thank you. For school age and family children, we have a lot of special events and performers. One of our most popular thing is we have a monthly interactive contest and programs. We do a scavenger hunt that is connected to heritage months. So right now, we have a scavenger hunt. No. We don't

have one right now. Never mind if don't. No. We do. We have AAPI. We have

the AAPI scavenger hunt. Yes. And so kids get to go and learn little pieces about, different AAPI figures as well as, get more familiar with library collections. So that's a lot of fun. We also do class visits to the library or in the classroom.

We work with, Ed Services and HUSD to do library card drives with daily homework help both in the children's room and also in the teen room many times. And we have a really cool app called Sora, which allows, HUSD students to check out library ebooks, without an HPL library card. Hopefully, every h student does an HPL library card. But if they don't, they still have access to some of our collections, so that's a really nice addition as well. For teens, we again have a monthly contest.

We have a lot of readers advisory. Our teen librarian is absolutely amazing. She knows basically every teen book written ever as far as I can tell, and she has a massive number of reading lists and, book suggestions. She does this great volunteer program called, a book reviewer program so kids can receive an hour of volunteer time for every book book review that they write. So that's really handy for teens who aren't able to come into the library but still need volunteer hours.

We also have children's room helpers. They come in. They help the librarians, like, pass stuff out and stuffing time, and they help cut stuff out. And our summer reading helpers assist getting everyone signed up for summer reading. We also have monthly arts and crafts programs and a whole bunch of other really fun stuff.

One thing that I'll talk a little bit more about this summer is we're going to be doing a really cool DJ program, which is very exciting. For other things, we also do a print and online book, movie, and media collections in multiple languages. I mentioned readers advisory and recommended reading lists. We have a program, a service called Book Bundles, which is just a set of three books that are on a specific topic. So when parents come in and they say, my child desperately wants a book on trains, then we can hand you here some bundle of train books, which is really, really nice for people.

And, of course, we have a ton of online resources, for homework and recreational reading. I don't know if any of you I did a presentation earlier this year, on some of those resources. I think some you probably saw that. Next up. Some quick stats.

We are very, very busy people, as you can see. In fiscal year, '24, the most recent one, we had nearly 50,000 program participants. We answered, almost we have answered over 11,000 reference questions, and nearly half a million items checked out. Those are dropping a little bit in 2025 because the Weeks branch has been closed for six months. So, we anticipate that I think we'll probably be down about 20% be because Weeks is closed, but we are still moving along.

We still have, obviously, tons of people coming in, but one of our branches being closed for 50% of the fiscal year will obviously reduce the number of homes that we have. Next time. Summer reading. This is a big one that I'm gonna talk about. So summer reading. What is it? Why do we do it? And what's the point? So summer reading is super easy. It is a fun way to encourage kids and adults to keep reading over the summer. All ages can register. You'd sign up using an app called the Beanstack app. You can also sign up in the children's library. And every seven days that we made is super simple. So every day that children read or teens read, you just mark down that you've read.

And then for every seven days of reading, you win a free book. And so at the end, summer reading lasts for, eight weeks, and you get a book for signing up as well as one for finishing. So if you read every day during those eight weeks, then at the end of that summer reading, people will have 10 free books to take home. And so that's a really nice way to help them build their home libraries. Next up.

So why do we do it? Couple of different reasons. We wanna advance literacy and academic performance, foster a love of reading through public libraries and programs and services, increase successful reading experiences, through self selected voluntary reading, which is one of the best ways to get kids to love to read is to let them read whatever they want to read. We'll make them, become willing and happy and joyful readers Yeah. And to avoid the summer slide, which is on our next slide here.

Summer slide or summer learning loss. There's a pretty significant amount of research that, states that, children can lose somewhere between one and three months of learning during extended breaks from school, and, low income and minority students are disproportionately, affected by that, which is, of course, of the majority of our Hayward population here. Long term effects is cumulative. So, long term effects can include lower graduation rates, reduced workforce readiness, impacts, you know, economic growth and, engagement in summer learning programs. There is research that shows, that engagement in summer learning programs can include promising results with participants showing gains in reading skills, equivalent to an additional month in school.

So it's one of the things one of

the ways that, we can keep people keep people engaged and keep

people reading over the summer, which is both fun for them and also, of course, long term. Very helpful.

Mhmm. As a few other things that we have, and I'm

not going to go into everything in great detail. But some of the things that we're doing this summer are we have a bunch of special events planned. Most of our special actually, all of our special events are connected, to heritage programming in some in some cases. And we also have let see. What do we have? We have, like, three major events that I cannot remember off the

top of my head, and I should have written a. Trunk

Trunk or treat in October. Yes. I do. Yes. We do have trunk or treat in October. And you know what? We will actually start planning that probably in about July.

And that's Yeah.

North Country is a good time.

It's really more fun than trying to read.

So big special events. We continue our story times and our early literacy programming. Summer learning camp is a really cool program. Ivan, who's not here tonight, who runs our homework support center, oversees that. And it's a three day three day weekly camps, where kids can come in, and they have, I think we have, HARV coming in, and we have the Lawrence Hall of Science, and then we have, Hayward Arts Council, coming in.

And so the kids, one day, they'll get to do science. One day, they'll get to do literature, and art with the Arts Council, And one day, they're doing something active. And so that is a huge amount of fun. One thing that has been a consistent wonderful problem is that summer learning camp is extraordinarily popular. And so this year, we're doing it a little bit differently. Instead of doing a first come, first serve, registration, we're doing a lottery system. So we've opened the registration. I think I think registration may have opened today,

and it is it will be

on our website. And so I think everyone will get to, enter, and then we're gonna draw names so there'll be a lottery. So, hopefully, more kids will have the opportunity to participate. And it won't just be if you happen to be able to be here at 10:00 in the morning on the day it opens you can get in. We're also

gonna continue doing our arts and

crafts programs. We have a hugely popular ukulele program, which started, I think, three years ago through a grant, and we offer those lessons for kids, teens, and adults. And we also have a bunch of volunteer opportunities for teens, as I mentioned earlier, with our summer reading helpers. Next. And the one I wanted to kind of call out a little bit is with the library program.

This is a program that is funded through the California State Library, and we are going for four weeks in the summer, and we offer free healthy lunches as well as learning activities. So kids can come in and get their lunch, as well as enjoy programming. Like, I think we have a beekeeper coming, and we have a bunch of different types of educational programming. And because, you know, can't can't escape the library without getting at least free books. So every time you attend, kids will get at least one book every day to help build their own libraries.

So that's another program that is, really helpful. As we know, Hayward has a huge percentage of, families that are eligible for free and reduced lunch, and a pretty significant number that are being paid secure. And so this is one of the ways that we can help, sort of bridge that gap. Summer learning camp, as I as I mentioned, this is the one that's, skirt entering second to eighth grade. We got a bunch of hands on workshops. This also includes a free lunch,

and I believe it also includes a free book.

So, if kids participate in summer reading and lunch at the library and summer learning camp, they can take home a bounty of free items over the course of the summer, which is fantastic. This is what we did last year. Bear in mind that summer reading lasted for a total of eight weeks. In that eight weeks, we had over 10,000 program participants coming into the library. Teens did over six hundred hours of volunteer work.

We had over 200 programs, distributed almost 9,000 books, as well as a thousand meals last year. And we had, four four thousand participants in our summer reading challenge. So it is a very, very busy time, obviously. It's a whole lot of fun. So if you have not come into the children's room during summer reading, I'm gonna highly recommend it because it was a lot of fun to do.

Oh, actually, and that was it. I did just do

a quick overview. So questions, comments, concerns. I will warn you. I will talk about children's programming all day and all night, so

please ask me questions. Oh, a lot of comment. This was excellent. You know, I'm the librarian from the academic background, and this is what I miss about public library. It's been fun. It's just so fun.

And you guys are doing, like, an amazing job with the amount of staff, and then

with the closure of weeks. Excellent job. Yeah. Commissioner. I had a question. On summer reading programs, is there an attempt to coordinate or at least provide notice through the public school system that the program exists Yes. Or to work with the teachers and distribute information and getting feedback?

Yes. We distribute, information about, summer reading with, all through all of the schools. We do it through,

the

program, which goes out to all of the all of the families. We also, do it directly with student the teachers as well, and, that's a big portion. A lot of what the librarians are doing in the month of May is doing a huge number of school visits to go out and promote it in that promote it in the schools as well as, online and through PHDAR and through just talking to the the individual teacher. So yep. Definitely.

And we do have a couple of schools that have requested that we provide them with the information on their students that participate. I think Burbank, I believe, is one that they, I think, give their participants, a pizza party in the beginning of

the school year. So How about

preschools Preschools have sites. Do you offer provide that information? We do not not to

the level. Yeah. Not to the same extent just because of staffing needs, but we do try to promote as well. And we also promote through Kirby. And so everything that Kirby goes out all of these sites that Kirby goes out to also take this as well. Yes. Go for it.

Yeah. I was in

the summer breeding program, and I signed up with my grandkids. Mhmm. And

my feeling about it was that there was no coordination between the books I checked out and me checking the box.

It has been considered, at least for the children, the points you get for the summer reading from are based on the books we checked out.

It doesn't assure that they read them. But a kid can come in the library and sign up and say, just go out and check every box and

end up with possible. So I know you don't wanna do Google reports or anything, but it has no coordination between did you actually come to this library and check out a

single book? There's not really a good way to do that. The summer reading program is it's a completely separate app, and so there's not really a way to say, oh, you checked out this book, and therefore, you

can Okay. Connect. Right.

Can, like, write down. There there is an option when people are signing up. You can include a title of the book. We don't make that required, just because for a lot of people, like, for adults, you're probably reading the same book for multiple days or better, and so that's not one that we, require. And so and, also, we we don't necessarily, want kids to feel like they're limited to only reading books that they got at the library. Should see them read or listen to a lot of books.

You can do things. It's a joke. It's

a. Yep. And the having it since it is by the day, they're really even before we moved it to the day, there wasn't a huge amount of, like, cheating or people saying that they read that they didn't or anything. But at this point, it you know, sort of the the max that anyone can get is you say you bet every day. Just

tricking them into getting three books.

Exactly. It's kind of a win.

But Yeah. These there's there is no downside.

To the library to check the boxes. Go on the side. You might see something interesting in the past.

But I think that's, like, a reoccurring thing at

most public. Because when I

worked at Sally Anne Road, we thought the same thing internally. Like, what can we do to make sure these kids are reading the books? That's like

an almond system. And Yeah. You know?

I think it's also the hard lab thing.

Summer reading programs when I was a kid. And I don't think I just checked the box when I read the book. I think I actually like to go in the library and check how to book, but it's just a new thing. We've done, yeah, we've done

it a couple couple of different ways. We've done it with, counting the minutes before. We've done counting the books before, and then we sort of decided we're just From the honors. Yeah. Yeah. We've done a couple of different ways. But and and the worst case scenario is, as you say, if someone does cheap, has an extra buck. So I'm I'm pretty okay with that.

Oh, I'm just looking at it from a perspective. If you're coordinated with the public schools and the

children are getting extra credit of some type for being in the summer program, Where's the assessment as to whether you actually

picked up a problem? But I understand. You can bet you can. But I was like, you're back from Boston. We had kids really almost

impossible to do it anyway. So all good.

Any other questions, Mhmm. Can I just add first of all, But but, yeah, I mean, for me, it was got me to get the kids to the library? Like, that was, like, the minimum. Right? I got

them to the library. And and so, yeah, that was, like,

its own sort of, like

Yeah. Achievement. I wanted to ask about the the the camp. So you said you're doing it on

the lottery system? Yes. It is on

the lottery system. Yeah. That's great. And if I have like, what is the ratio? Like, you so five feet literally. How many kids get in versus any idea?

I don't know how many attempts to register. I believe that we're doing four sessions of 30 kids each. I think we've got a 120 Okay. Students total were in. But the lottery hasn't opened there or is it? I believe it opens today. Okay. And that is it should be up on the fronts our front web page, the bottom of our website, but I

should get a link. It's in? Mhmm. It's pretty cool. Any other questions or plans? Thank you so much for your breathing. Very welcome. And we we look forward

to participating in summary. And

and for the commission notes, we will check.

I can provide to an EDD program.

Oh, I have no time to read anything. Time to read?

That's The article that I'm reading.

I'm reading a lot. I see what was special. Absolutely. Articles count. Audiobooks count. Yeah. Put it on in the car. Absolutely. Any time the physical counts. Reiterate counts. Absolutely. We have a lot of families who, you know, their parents read to their children, and then they both count that because they count both of them. So and definitely do that.

I didn't mention that we do One moment.

One thing I forgot to mention is we do also do, weekly prize drawings, so for people to read. And this year, we have some really cool prizes. Our staff has done a fantastic job. So we have, I think, a free family pass to the Oakland Zoo. We have Oh, super. Our final prize is a Kindle Paperwhite. We also have tickets to the Oakland Ballrooms. Baseball team. And I think the Oakland Roots have given us tickets. Eric's Deli was incredibly generous and has given us a bunch of stuff.

So we also have those as as well. I forget to pitch those because, honestly, I'm more excited about the last But other people might be more excited about this. Can definitely We

appreciate you. Thank you so much for signing back. We will be moving on to old business. Any

updates from the

letter and writing committee? No. From the welcome committee?

I I read the notes, and I saw that there was an update, but I did not watch video. Says that you guys landed on some best practices. Oh, they did send you that.

Oh, sent out. I did not read They sent that. Yeah. That was.

Yeah. I don't have that big. There is I don't think he

has that yet. No. They she sent out the updated the binder. Oh, okay. Yeah. I haven't read it yet. So No update. Very relevant again.

From the CSU East Bay partnership, we're

just waiting on this meeting. Oh, we have for the CSU East Bay and Chabot partnership, we have an update on Yeah. So I did meet with the dean of libraries from CSU as well as the coordinator of therapy services from Chabot, and we I'm I'm gonna be meeting regularly. And, you know, we've talked about some of the things that the idea of Sundays are. This both Chabot and CSU have a lot of committees, so anything they want to commit to has to go through multiple layers.

But we thought one of the things we would at least start with doing is that each of us would say other libraries in the area. So when we are closed, you know, CDs. So sort of really trying to link with each other. But if you came up, we've been talking about a lot of exciting ideas, and I think we will be really able to do quite a bit. And and we are gonna be able do business opportunities. Thank you so much for that. Any questions for around the

meetings, right at the meeting?

You don't wanna give us any idea. Something's exciting.

It was. As I said As I said As As an idea. It's you know, they have to go through so many things. Okay. So just and with

the An example. An example. Yeah.

So for example, like, maybe having some materials booked. Like, we have a very small budget, and so CSU would use some of their materials budget to place a CSU collection in our library. Right. So we really talked about a lot of different things about possibly us helping them with doing displays in their libraries, doing shared programming. So if it brings, say, for example, speaker, and we say, would you give us a discounted rate if we have three sites? So things like that. So we really talked about how could these pool our resources and really serve the community well.

It could be a great way to increase their enrollment if they started to see maybe a section somewhere. That's like Cal State East Bay materials and resources. For a person that is deciding if they should, we can go to go to college or maybe they wanna transfer.

So we actually already do classes at Shavu. So, you know, we do they are like, so someone wants to know what a college level class might be. Right? So we do some classes which are noncredit classes, but they go through the process. And so we've done we've actually been doing that for a while now. What do you mean? Where do we do these classes? Well, most of the In the library. In the library. Yeah. So we, yeah, we definitely do. We have a lot, and we do a lot. And the staff here are incredible. So we definitely do a lot, and we've been partnering with and CSU for a long time. Thank you so much for that update. And I

know Shanda would also be very happy to hear that. And

so next will be the budget support committee.

Nothing's required. Okay. So we will be moving on. Sorry. We got to to to the picture.

I I saw that. I I was here. Yeah. It was just quick. So next would be any recommendations from our commissioners?

I think that was on our agenda bill one. Oh, okay. That will get through. But I will get the other two.

Any other questions or comments? Sorry. I mean, I'm sorry. Recommendation?

Okay. We'll be moving on to the report from the library director. Okay. Thank you so much. So it's been an exciting month, a lot going on. And so, actually, before I I just want to say there are three commissioners whose terms would be ending in ending this year. You probably got notices from our city clerk's office, and they are Commissioner Miguel, Samgaya, and Fredericks. And so you've probably heard from our city clerk. So please do respond by May 30. I hope all of them will be up. Mhmm. But, you know

Even if you don't respond, they'll reupt you. Okay. So because I forgot to respond, or they just reupt me. You know? Oh.

Yeah. And so well, but please do. Yeah.

Oh, commissioner.

I never received an email or a letter from the city, I already knew about mine.

Oh, you okay. So I can check why you didn't receive it, but they'd like to hear from you by May 30 that, you know, if you're interested in continuing. I will follow-up definitely on that. Okay. And then also another piece of news is Commissioner Kelch has resigned.

Uh-huh. And so Mariah Kelch. And so officially and that's one of the reasons why we had to have five today is because her resignation won't be approved until tomorrow at the city council meeting, so she's officially at least to be member as of today. So as I said, lots of lots have been happening, but one of the biggest things is thank you, 49ers Foundation, Ivan Padilla, who's our oversees our summer camps, our homework center, won the 49ers following of this award That's wonderful. Which is really, really exciting.

That's a huge, huge honor, and there was a beautiful ceremony. He was unfortunately in Europe. Most of us. But but the library also got $2,000 from the foundation to buy materials and things. So that was a huge honor. We're really thrilled. Yeah. Among the other things, you know, partnership with San Francisco continues to grow. I think I mentioned we have the offer coming, And please, please put it on the calendars. I really hope to see you on the twenty eighth and June 29 in the afternoon.

So Oh, wow. If you can, so from 02:00, it'll be then it's about an about a seventy minute program. And from 01:30 to 02:30 children's program, introducing children to opera and things like that. So we're really excited about that. Things that we've recently done is the bring your child to work day and get off. They were really a success. Went really well. We had done the program with Alka Joshi, the New York Times best selling author to tie into Latino Asian American, native Hawaiian, and Pacific Island, the Heritage Month. Thank you. Yeah. Councilmember Roche was there. It was a fantastic program. I hate it. Yeah. True.

Color. Yeah. Color. Yeah. It was an excellent program. And then and, you know, the other thing, they're also continuing to do a lot of advocacy. We've met, you know, with all of our very most elected officials office. I don't think it's made much impact, but they're still continuing to do it. I want you know, Cleo mentioned the ukulele program, which is three years old, and that was a $17,000 brand from which came to us, which originated with IMLS. And the thing about IMLS is we get these brands 17,000 of Northwell, but three years later, we're still going strong.

The impact was huge. So, you know, we're gonna be sad about what's going on, but we're continuing to fight the good fight. Community hub is on track, so that is also something I hope you put on your calendars. June 6, they said we hope they're having. And it is the daytime.

I know it's not perfect, but it is there. And just come by and see it even after that. So I know you'll have the idea of having some a band book, some some plans. I just want to let you all know what we are doing because I'd like to suggest that we not have overlap, that maybe y'all can focus on what the commissioners can do because so we do a children's area book display and scavenger hunt. We do a team scavenger hunt.

We do book displays in both areas, and then we have online sort of online reading lists as well as our own reading list. And then we do a poster board. We do a lot of just things around the library. So we do really mark mark band books. You'll often have things like have a date with a you know, blank date with a band book or things like that.

So we do a lot of things, but band books is something we do really mark. And so I just want to encourage you all to think about what you all can do when you're planning. And then, you know, Weeks Branch is on track. I think I mentioned last time the the open date is more to mid July. We are still looking for an artist to fix the lion's face. So pain.

No for you if you want.

No. It's not pain. It was a sculpture. Oh, the sculpture? Yeah. So it has really it's cement. It's cement. Yeah. Concrete. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Can talk to you. Yeah. She doesn't find it. Yeah. It would be really great. Get someone. Yeah. And then that's that's pretty much what I have. And I know health care commissioner is not here, but even the friends of the library who's on this cancer. So just the book sales, I'm going on. I'm thinking not much in there. Thank you. Any questions? Oh, Commissioner Navarra.

I have one question and then one comment. So I know Ivan wouldn't join us for the ceremony, but he'll also be honored at a pregame on the field, so he'll get to come Nice. And get at least that recognition. So you have to make sure to tell him to be in the country. He is very excited. Okay. And I just wanted to share that with the commission too. So

for I don't know. For those of you

who don't know, Doctor. Edwards has bone cancer, and he was in his terminal. So he actually came late to that ceremony, but he Nick, can can I share his text message? Of course. So

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. That's

the mission. We're hard to hear you.

It was read during the ceremony. A peep Waukee was there. He informed me that he was sick and if he could come later. And my executive director tried to convince him not to come just because of his germs and just his his immunities and all of the

things that he's been going through, and

he was also honored in the Bay Area Hall of Fame that Thursday. So we just wanted him to be healthy for to receive that honor. After we told him not to come, he said I'm not sure that I have oh, it's on a different thread. Excuse me. He said, Justin, Sophie, I'm already up and committed, all caps, to being there tonight.

I'd rather miss the bash off event than miss the event honoring our educators. I'll be there, the back gate at 05:30, and drive up. See you tonight even if it's not in everybody's interest that I stick around. I hope this is workable, All caps, please. So that he is super committed to education and honoring those at the front lines in that work. So just wanted to share that since it was very heartwarming and, obviously, even risking his own condition to be there with his remarks. So Thank you, Christina. Yeah. So we have Ivan. Hopefully, he's able

to make that too. So Ivan will at least get But I know two of us accompany him. Because I couldn't make it that day.

Actually, next, he went. He gets a plus one, and then I'll depending on what get him, I'll

see if I can get action tickets. Okay. That sounds amazing. I'll see you.

But Dominic might just just shitting your phones now.

So I'll I'll see what I can

do on the ticket front. And then, on the banned books, are you all planning to post the list of books or something on your social media? Because for me, that's the easiest ways the way to share, like, the list. And, like, obviously, you guys have been doing great on social media. I also saw it end up that you guys have plans and things going on. But Yeah. Types of things are super easy through social media to share.

I I recommend it. Definitely. I think you're gonna do it.

But I wanted to make that call out because that to me is the easy one not only to share with those who are interested, but for awareness Yeah. And even just messaging around.

Yeah. That's why people to read the books. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So That's true. That's true. That's and in fact, on Thursday this week, there's three of us. There's one of the managers from Alameda County, myself, and then our consortium, we're actually doing a presentation for library staff on intellectual freedom and read books. So that's happening in our library. Yeah. Any other questions for you? I just had

I had a question with Marta resigning. Do we still have the No. No. So they're it

will be date. And since it's so late in the year Mhmm. We just have to wait till September to get a new condition. I didn't understand your answer. I can't get to her Sophie's question about whether you intend to post the list of banned books on the library website and invite people to read them for themselves? So we do have lists. We don't post them, actually. We post recommended books and lists on the library website, and then we will also do it on social media as yeah. So we suggest

Any other questions?

K? Yeah. I know. I was gonna say, if you if you guys have people because how many slides are we gonna need to fill this time? Just the one? One. Yeah. There are three people that Okay. But one's vacant. Yeah. Because it

is important. You know? So often, people check up library and say this as, like, their sort of potential, like, second and third choice. But, you know, if you know people that from the community that are really interested in the library, try to get them in there because it's so much more exciting if you have somebody that's truly there from the library, which I think should be. And, you know, I remember last year, you gave us a great question or the questioning. You asked them if they

have library cards. Like, that was a really telling question, I think. What no. Maybe. Yeah. It does. I never visited library. And so, you know, so it

was really helpful. So if you find people that are interested in and, you know, it's really helpful for us that people are.

Oh, and I just

wanna share. This is the picture that I think that the author as well.

It was really cool. I'm really

excited with with Bridgette who's former commissioner. Oh. But it was such a fun thing because they did the sip whatever. What was

it called again? Something in sip and paste. Yeah. Yeah. Tip boards and fast out.

Or some hustles. It was so much fun. It was really cool. Like, I'm not artistic at all, they but gave us all sorts of guidance and, you know, everything. So, anyway, that was very thank you. It was really great about yeah. Well, as far as my report, you know, what you know, we this is budget season, so we've been working on the budget, which is dismal. You know, we're at we're at a stated $12,000,000 deficit, which we're working on. And right. So so it took, like, you know, for, you know, commissioner to Miguel's, you know, like, work.

There's very little to do this year because I think every department is having to look at cuts rather than than ask. So there there isn't much work to do there. And we so that's so we had a work session last week, and then we'll adopt the budget at the June. That's that's the idea. So it's a it's a bummer. And then there's this whole sort of, like, pending worry about our, you know, potential exposure with

the federal federal dollars. But we did get the funds for the cycle.

So that was good because we were worried with our

New York City status that maybe some of the

stuff that you held back in it wasn't right for the cycle. So so that was something.

And then, yeah, then I you know, I don't even

know what we're doing this next week. It's already you

know, some of you have probably seen in public comment our public comments that there has been some real unrest with the staff and our current city manager,

so that's been public. Yeah. That's yeah.

I mean, I just wanted to acknowledge that it's happened in the public, and

people are talking about it. So that's been really distracting and really challenging, and so that's something we're,

you know, discussing and working on as well. So I

just wanted to put it out there since I'm sure you all heard. Yeah.

So exciting times. Thank you so much. If has any questions about what's going on in college? Just one question. Are you looking at staffing cuts? No. Or is that not available at this point? It's not.

Yeah. We we we did it, like,

a short term hiring freeze, but there

is no right now, there's no Okay. I'm saying we You like the library, you've gotten the staffing pretty well up before all this happened anyway. So that's Yeah.

I mean, know, part of the

thing was, you know, we sort of made it evaluate to pay people, you know, get people to market rate. And so that was something I think is considered sort of value doing that, but that, of course, you know, makes the question more difficult going forward. And, yeah, I mean, some departments, like, I think you're fully are you fully staffed

with this? One vacancy. One halftime vacancy.

And, like, I believe, like, the fire department is fully staffed. And, you know, we had just added in the last, like, few years, nine is that, like,

whole new company, I guess.

New staffers. And they'll you've gotten a lot of new police workers. Yeah. They're not fully staffed, but they're better than they were. So right now, no, we're not looking we're not looking. I mean, that that, of course, you know, looking into the future, like, that's the concern. Right. So we're trying to we're trying to

sort of, you know, hope yeah. And then

see where the rest of it kinda

is gonna go going forward. Any other questions?

Thank you so much. For friends at

the library, we do not have a update,

now. Are there any reports from our commissioner?

Yeah.

It's it's not a report for myself, but just wanted to, like, echo commissioner, you know, the photo of the mayor's tomorrow if anybody does. So Oh, good.

Oh, I guess I can

At 01:40. 01:45. I'm so

sorry that I I because I it was I had something else scheduled for that, but

the mayor the mayor's gonna

be there. So I apologize that I the labor commissioner is gonna be there, so I apologize. I might be able to wait to see where it was.

At the the Mayor's Office. Yeah. So 4th Floor in City Hall. Okay.

If you're able to attend.

Yeah. No. It's during the day. It's hard. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Any questions

for commissioner? Yeah. You did. Okay.

We'll move on to agenda building. I know that we just have the homework student center report postponed. We probably are not gonna get to that. But, you know, and I actually want to recommend going forward. Some of these things we can do every other also because it seems like you've just heard it, and then we'll hear it again, and there's not a lot.

So if there's some major change, I can bring it back. But, otherwise, some of these things really do them every other year. They're wait to do it. Mhmm.

Did anyone I know mentioned BanBooSweet, but

we have that for July. Was there anything else pressing that anyone wanted to bring up?

Yeah. I don't think this is

the right time for the part of it's not for agenda building, but, or maybe it can can be. But similar to what we did for, in recognition of library, library workers, if we can at least come up with a list of, like, we we're talking about Banned Book Week now, this, and then I think September is national sign up for library card month. Like, things things like that where the commission can support. Okay. So I

can bring do you want me to make a list like that? Yeah. I can do that.

So that way we can be a little bit more with more time and thoughtfulness. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So but they basically be library and reading relative text?

Yeah. Anything anything that we could come and Yes. So that would be helpful. Fires, email. Okay. Social media. Exactly.

Not to duplicate efforts, but to support. Mhmm. Yeah. Or even just be vocal about.

Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So anything else from anyone? Thank you, Commissioner Dubois. You did okay. Yeah. Any other comments? Okay. I'm trying to get to me at

07:17. Thank you so much for the chair. Wait. That's okay. Shut.