Arts in Public Places Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Okay.

So we'll call the meeting to order at 05:32. We have a quorum with myself, Beth Stell, and Maureen Parker in the room and Michelle online. First item is public comment. I don't think we have anyone online.

Nobody online.

Andy's gonna chat with us a bit later on. So the first item is our minutes from the December 1 Library Board meeting. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes?

Chairperson, I make a motion to approve the minutes.

Do we

have someone to second that?

I'll second.

All in favor? Second it. Thank you, Michelle. All in favor? Aye. Great. Thank you. Next item is the library board work plan. So the work plan that was attached with the agenda Thank you to Gwen for helping to overcome some of the formatting challenges with the with the particular file that we received. So this is in the 2026 format. And

one of the

things that we do need to update is our council liaison since we have a new councilor Rigor is our new liaison, so we will update that. But does anyone have any questions or comments about the work plan? Any discussion that needs to take place, or would anyone like to make a motion on that?

Well, the only thing I noticed when I was reading it, and I don't know how appropriate these are, but one of the collaborations is with the Friends of Los Alamos County Library. And so I just thought that that might be something that could be added to a collaboration. I thought giving input on the sound study, and I don't know much about the bike station. Is it is it a bike station repair? It is.

Is it a repair station? It is. Station in Correct. I'm sort of in Flagstaff, and I noticed one of them here. And so I thought about the library. Where is it located exactly?

So at Mesa Public Library, it's under their portal. So kind of it's across from the book drop, the outdoor book drop. And in White Rock, it's located to the left of their entrance.

So Michelle

for the

Yeah. So for the friends

at the live I know. Sorry.

We We're

trying to keep it broad. So, yeah, I just thought I'd throw that out there. I don't really have any strong opinions.

Yeah. I I think it it could make sense to include the friends of the library liaison position since that's something that we regularly have someone go to. And so in the collaboration section. So the section on collaborations, Interfaces with county departments. So it's not a county department or a board or commission.

Is it still appropriate to include something Okay. Like this So I can add that in as item 3.3, The role of liaison to friends at the library.

You said 3.3?

I was

looking for it. Yeah. Okay.

For feedback on the sounds.

Really? I know. Yeah. Feedback on the sound. I mean, because that's if anything is done, that could be a very big project.

So we could add that into section 2.2. Will there be so we had the initial presentation on the sound study. Will there be future presentations to the board when there are proposals for next steps? Is that how we would likely will there be opportunities, really, for us to give feedback?

There could be. Could be. We don't necessarily have a path forward just yet. Okay.

Correct me if I'm wrong. If I remember correctly, we would get that quote from them and then we would discuss it and be like, discuss amongst ourselves and then present our findings to the council, correct?

No. It's more on the side of operations.

Okay. So something like this. So it would be sort

of handled internally, it would be informational to the board. If we needed additional budget, then that would go to council.

Having

the board support for that would mean

So when the adult classroom design, for example, was presented, that was work that Gwen and her staff had been putting together. And they presented to us, and we voted on whether to support that. It was presented to counselors. I think it would be something similar. Yeah. But we could add something in section 2.2 and just sort of sort of couch it as, if needed, input or feedback on sound study next steps.

Is that is that Well,

I was wondering about this 1.1 because you talk about input on the step up gallery events and the new website.

But I guess 1.1 was for the previous year. So I think for the No. I think. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. No worries. I got There's a lot of different sections.

So I think 2.2 Yeah.

Is when we're looking at projects for the coming calendar year. So I could add an item there about providing feedback or Mhmm. Speed of the sound study. And then with the Yeah.

I think that

with the bike repair stations, I don't know that there's a role moving this year for the board in that. Is there, Gwen? Or any updates to that?

No. I think it's a project that's been finished, it's in use now. So I don't have to, at this point, a role for the board.

So I was just curious who funded it. County funding?

Yes. Yes, it was county funding. Okay.

Okay. So we have two items sorry, three revisions that would need to be made. One is updating our council liaison and then adding in an item in section 2.2 on being available to provide feedback on the sound study if needed this coming year and in section 3.3 on interfacing with friends at the library. Any other Great. Thanks, Michelle, those additions. Anything else that anyone wanted to raise?

I'm good.

Okay. Is there a motion to approve the work plan with those additions?

I move that we approve the work plan with the revisions as noted in Beth's computer.

Second.

Thank you. All in favor?

Aye. Thank you.

The next item is a strategic plan update from Gwen. Michelle, can you see the presentation?

No. Not by you. Think you bring it up on my packet.

Recording stopped.

Recording in progress.

Yes. How about now, Michelle? Can you see it? Yes. Alright. Great.

I mean,

I see the whole there you go.

Okay. Excellent. I assume, counselor Rieger, that you can as well.

Yes. I I had it up both ways, I can see it in back.

Great. Thank you.

Now I see it in the presentation.

Alright. Perfect.

Into the Zoom link.

So this presentation may look familiar to Beth, I guess, and maybe Michelle from last year. But this is a presentation I try to do annually for the board. And it just talks about our progress with the strategic plan. We are currently at the tail end of our 2024 to 2026 strategic plan. And I think you'll see that in some of the later slides.

I did something a little different this year. And I included some data from our annual report. So the annual report, if you recall, is something that we submit to the state library. It gets fed into a national database and allows us to compare services across the country. So I incorporated some of those statistics in here as well.

In terms of the strategic plan, our model, if you will, for the strategic plan is very much based on the community services strategic plan or sorry, the integrated master plan that was done in 2022, 2023. And as part of that plan, there were three major goals identified for all of community services to work on. That was to improve the organizational reach and impact, to improve programs and service delivery, and to maintain and improve facilities and amenities. So you'll see all of our objectives and activities will stem from these three major goals. So the first one, to improve organizational reach and impact, these are the five objectives under that goal.

And these also came from the community services master plan. And so our task when we were developing the strategic plan was to find the activities that could help the library and community services meet these community goals. We've had some success with that. I'm not going to read all of those, because I think you all can read.

But I will go over some

of the highlights from this past year that we were able to accomplish that helped support those goals. So we launched a new website, and the board was very instrumental in giving us feedback on that new website. We very much appreciated that. And this brings us in line with the county's website. We also created videos for the community resources section of the website.

So this is a new section on our website, which is not live yet, but it will be soon. And this particular series of videos is on business and entrepreneurship. So we've been partnering with a lot of the players in town and creating resources for folks wanting to start a new business. These may be on our website along with other supporting resources. So our plan under this community resources section is to have information on business, information on social services that are available in the county, and then also tourism and history. So those are the three primary areas we're starting with initially.

So this community resources video section will be ever evolving?

Yes. And

are these created in house, or are they sourced from other places and curated?

They are created in house with the help of PAC-eight. So yeah, so it's really quite and the form that it's taken is interviews with the Chamber of Commerce with the CDC director here in town. So we've also continued to partner with many local organizations, including social services, the courts, JJB, the Seed Stewards, and a variety of events and services. Continue to expand our library of things, including new cabinets to house these items. We've recently purchased meeting owls for checkout as well.

They're not quite available yet, but they will be soon. We've also greatly expanded our social media presence for the library. And it can be quite time consuming. And so we've also developed a process or set an expectation that all staff contribute to that effort as well. Made a pretty good product.

I just wanted to say that it's great how active you guys are on social media and all the great things that are showing on there. I really enjoy

it. Great.

Well, thanks for that feedback. I will I will be sure to pass it on. So this is where I'll talk about our program, number of programs that we've held in FY twenty five, as well as the attendance. And again, these are some statistics that we report to the state library and to the national database. You can see we've actually offered fewer programs last year, but the attendance was actually higher in the adult programs.

And so that was something that we had identified as what we needed to work on is programs for adults as well as programs for teens. And you can tell from this column that both of those, the attendance for those programs has increased. It dipped slightly, and we're attributing that to the fact that on Wednesday afternoons, school does not get out early for the elementary school anymore. And so that took a hit with our program attendance, for not having that time to offer kids.

It looks minimal, correct?

Yeah. Yeah, it is. So what we're working on is we're still continuing to improve our website. And of course, the big one is meeting the WCAG standards for accessibility. That's a big one. It's a requirement for government websites to make them accessible. With our community, the deadline is April 2027. So we've got some time, but we want to make sure that we're making progress. We're also launching our volunteer program. And we're doing that with the Volunteer Los Alamos site.

So that's the one that's run by Gene Reddy. And we're using that as a way to recruit volunteers to help

with a

variety of tasks in the library. We're also partnering with social services on a teen summit that is on March 6. It is after hours at the library. And it will be an opportunity for teens to come in and be together and learn. I think they have eight stations that they're looking at setting up for the teens.

Have we done anything like this before?

We have not. This is the second year, I believe, that there has been a teen summit in town. I think last year it was at Sala. And then this year it's

going to be at Sala.

And what was cool is this was actually at the request of teens who wanted to come to the library for such an event.

We're also working on the library as a one stop

shop for information about the community. And again, that's highlighting that community resources section on our website that I was talking about a bit ago. And then we're going to be doing a community assessment in the next few months. And I'm hoping that the next board meeting will bring a draft survey for your as well. And this community assessment will be work will help us prepare for our next strategic.

The next major goal is about improving programs and service deliveries. Major seven objectives with that particular goal. And some of our highlights include programming schedule continued for FY 'twenty five. It was the fourth annual Atomic Con and the White Rock anniversary celebration. And we had an appearance by Hampton Sides, who was the author that spoke at the opening of the new White Rock library.

So that was a nice full circle moment. We've also hired two new librarians. And they are rapidly coming up to speed and becoming real additions to the team. We've also added some funding for our digital collections, also added a few new databases. Craft and hobby is one, and database setup is another one.

We've done some team building and professional development for staff.

We had

our second annual staff development day in November. And we've been able to send a record number of staff to conferences this year. We were fortunate enough to New Mexico was fortunate enough to host the Association for Rural and Small Libraries in Albuquerque back in the fall. And we were able to send more staff to that. We are developing a tech help service. Help more than what staff can provide while they're staffing the service desk.

Can I ask? I was sort of

curious about that. Yeah. So

is it for people having difficulty, like, using the library type resources? Or can someone come in with a computer problem?

It is primarily for help assistance using library resources. But oftentimes, it expands into more. And that's Okay. We certainly help to the best of our ability. Also work closely with the senior center at Mesa, which, of course, is right next door. And they have a computer group. And they have people who will also help and work one on one with those. So

we were previously with them. It's just a little related to I remember when John was still on the board. And I think maybe he was helping to coordinate some volunteers to help with is this separate or related to that?

It is somewhat related to that. We have maybe only one volunteers or who have continued on with the program. So we really had to supplement with staff as well.

This something going back to the previous slide, you know, where we can

use Danny, fuel StamFil.

Is this where we could potentially use, like, a volunteer type service?

Yes. Okay.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's it. That is the

the intent.

So, again, some more more statistics here. So this just this shows our revenue. You can see the the the green is the total. The blue is the The darker blue is the county. And the other places we get funding, Friends of the Library aid from the state, including bond funds.

By a large margin, most of our revenue comes from the county. We do get supplemental funds from others. And here are our expenditures.

And

So the yellow is our total expenditures. Blue is staff, orange is collections, and the gray is other, like, processing supplies, office supplies, that sort of thing. So let's see. Our biggest line item is our staff salaries.

Does the orange include the cost of the OOPLA and Libby and all the

Yes. It does. Yep.

So Okay.

So what we're working on is we are working on developing additional programming at the White Rock branch. We have an exciting new series planned called Discover. And the first session will be in February. And it's going to be actually from the county coming in and showing folks how to take good photos on a cell phone. And so there'll be a hands on kind of workshop. And that, again, is in February. And we're planning on DIY hands on type of classes coming up in the spring

as well.

As a side note, would you send me information on when that is? That way we can

Yeah. Absolutely.

As a board member, I'd like to show up, but also as a Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, I'm planning on being there too because I cannot take

a picture to save my head. We're also planning to survey the public on technology needs. This may

be a part of our community assessment as well. We'll have to see if we can fit that in with that particular survey. Also, improving technology literacy for staff and patrons is something on our strategic plan that we haven't devoted a lot of effort to. And so it's time to start looking at that. And I mentioned the community resources section on our website.

And then lastly, we're also updating our collection development guidelines. So Rivera is doing that, and she'll come and do a presentation for you on that topic. The third and final goal is to maintain and improve facilities and amenities. And these are the four objectives that are part of that goal. Highlights include the sound study at Mesa, which you're all well familiar with, the new websites.

We added Get Set Up, which offers online classes in a variety of topics. This is actually something that the New Mexico State Library pays for on behalf of all libraries in the state. Anyone can access this particular database, but it's really got a variety of classes on

both topics.

We've also installed panic buttons at all service desks. And so if staff are feeling unsafe or in an emergency situation, they can press that panic button. Police.

Is that motivated by any particular concern a general best practice for libraries?

A little bit of both. We have had some occasions in the last couple of years where we've had some uncomfortable interactions. To get staff that level of security.

We can always help should they

need it. You can't always step away when you're in the middle of handling an upset patron.

I assume those are discrete.

They are.

Yeah. They're kind of under the under the desk. And we've also secured additional funding for Libby and Hoopla. So this is just a a graph of our library visitors over the last seven years.

And so while we are

not

back

to entirely to pre COVID levels, we're pretty darn close. And so

nice that it's turning upwards. Does this count people who just walk through the door? It does. Does it include I'm thinking of programming. Some programming people attend via Zoom. It could be thought of as a library visitor. Do we capture that

in any

way? We capture that in our program attendance. Yeah. So these are strictly people coming through the door.

Quick sorry. Quick follow-up on to Beth's point. Mhmm. Is that the main front door or the door to the is that, like, the lobby, or is that, like, the door to the actual because you could go in and look for a book in the Friends of the Library section and then just walk straight back Yeah.

No, that is the secondary door moving into the library.

Into the atrium. Yeah. Thank you.

This is our circulation statistics. And so again, the gray is the total.

And print is going slightly down, but Not

quite a lot. I think that says a lot for the community.

Is this a similar pattern at most libraries? No. Oh, really?

No. Print circulation is going down at libraries.

So ours is holding much steady at the you see national nationally.

I've noticed a lot fewer magazines on the grocery store shelves.

Yes. That's a self weeding collection. So many of them are ceasing publication, though. Just can't do much about it. Lastly, these are our reference questions. And so these are sort of more substantive questions that patrons are asking staff at the service desk. So it's not, do you have a pencil? Can I borrow this? Can I borrow that? Where's the restroom? It's more assistance that's needed in finding something, looking something up, that sort of thing.

And do we track this through a tick mark system or type thing?

We do. Yep. It's through tick marks. Which is if you get really busy, that's going to be the first thing that you forget to do is

capture that tick. So it's

maybe more useful for trends. Is also something that is going down

There's a pretty big jump. Much of the categories.

We don't capture the categories. I suspect it's related to the fact that we've got almost brand new staff in FY24. And so as staff are getting more trained, more familiar with the resources the library has, you're often able to translate a question into highlighting resources that can actually help.

Like you can dig deeper.

Yeah, exactly. What we're working on

in this particular goal, we are finalizing the design and construction documents for the outdoor classroom. We are working on a hold locker for the White Rock Library, similar to the one that's at Mesa. We are developing a plan to implement our sound study recommendations. If you recall, there are some that we would be able to do on our own. The others are going to require project budgets. We are continuously marketing and training the public on our online services.

I have a question, but it's back a couple of slides. How does the digital collection compare to the physical collection in terms of quantity?

Quantity? That is an interesting question. It's difficult to answer because with our two primary digital vendors, one is Libby. And those are titles we actually select and subscribe to. So that is probably less than a tenth of the overall collection. However, with Hoopla, it's different because we have access to the entire Hoopla catalog. We just pay each time something is So how do you measure those titles? That's kind of a hard one. It's in hundreds of thousands.

Yeah. I didn't know if anecdotally you're you knew if physical collection was multiple times bigger, therefore, that explains the the the gap.

Right. Right. Yeah.

Like, I guess, in a per capita user.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be a good statistic.

I'm happy to answer any questions. I

was gonna just comment that I really think the marketing of well, almost all services, not just online. I just don't think the general public really has a clue on how much you offer. It's just it's such a rich resource library. Mhmm. And I don't know how to improve that, but I guess it's part of that marketing plan.

Yeah. So it is something that we have recognized too is that need to market. And I think we've made some really great strides in that direction, but it requires, I think, a full time person just for marketing. Counselor Rigor, you had a question?

Yes. What is this new adult program? Just speaking of the last question, the marketing, I'm not familiar with it. Can you have some examples of events or something? What is the new adult program?

Sure. So I think you're referencing the new adult programming that we're doing in White Rock.

Well, it was on the screen. It was on your attendance numbers. I know all these kid programs, programs for the kids at the library. But I was curious about the adult one. That was interesting. Is that only at the White Rock Library?

No. So we, over the last couple of years, I would say, have made an effort to offer adult programs regularly. And we've tried a variety of topics in a variety of locations, including Mesa and White Rock. And so we have a commitment to allow for at least two adult programs a month. Oftentimes, it's more than that. We've expanded our regular program.

We have our silent book club nights. We've got our

weekly chess club meetings. We have a writing group as well.

What was that? Was book club night?

Did you

say book club night?

Yeah, it's a silent book club.

And

so people come together and are reading or working on something and then come together at the end and talk about what they're doing or reading. Yeah. It's quite it's quite it's quite popular.

Yeah. Yeah. Advertisements are you you find them if you go to the library. Do you see them anywhere else?

Yes.

On the

county website?

Yep. They are on the county website. I would recommend signing up for our monthly newsletter as well. That's available from our website.

Is Mhmm.

Quite a a good resource for finding out what's happening.

Okay. Well, thank you.

You're welcome.

And I

think the library has been offering more presentations. I've certainly noticed Yes. Which are really wonderful.

Good. Yes. Yes. We have been trying to bring in variety of authors to speak with them into author workshops.

Any other questions for Glenn?

I don't have a question. I have a comment,

if that's

appropriate. Speaking of of advertising, there was the event just yesterday with the creative nonfiction writing workshop. I noticed personally, I was told about it at first from a librarian in person. When I tried to find it online on the library's website later, I couldn't. Now and I made my way back to the library, scanned the QR code. I don't know if that was a could have been a me technology issue, could have been a this is a wait list. It was already wait listed by the time I had signed up. So who knows if it was taken down. I just wanna make that aware that I couldn't find it when I I knew about it and was searching for it.

Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah. I will follow-up on that.

I think next week is we listed as well for there's a follow on session.

Yeah. It was it was full program. Yeah.

I have a question.

Go for

it, Michelle.

I was just curious if you could tell us a little more about the volunteer program or what you hope or you aspire to. Yeah.

So it represents a bit of a shift on how we're handling volunteers. It used to be

that anybody who wanted to volunteer could come into

the library and we would find things for you to do. That problematic in that it was difficult sometimes to find things for people to do. And so we're approaching it differently with this Volunteer Los Alamos site. And the way that works is you post volunteer opportunities or tasks. So you have something that you're looking for a volunteer to

help with, you could post it to the portal and then people can

sign up for that particular task. So that is the piece that we're in the process of launching.

So sort of like a job posting of sorts? Yeah.

Exactly.

I didn't quite understand where it's posted. What's the name of it?

Volunteer Los Alamos.

Oh, okay.

Do you happen to know who manages that account? Does the county manage that volunteer?

It does not. It is managed by I think it's Bernadette Lourdesen as part of the Schools Foundation.

That that would have thought Community Foundation, but I believe you had these schools.

And this is a pie in the sky idea, but I do know their federal government has volunteer.gov, which is more, but we do have a lot of federal land, a lot of federal opportunities. I don't know if that could ever be tied in or it's already tied in through the community foundation, but if you ever were looking for more Okay. I know that Manhattan Project National Historic Site is always looking for volunteers, and I don't know if it necessarily would be on that portal.

Portal. Okay.

Things like that. Like, you type in a certain zip code or something Yeah. Opportunities for the library come up as well as things around

Yeah. And I'm sure the easier way would probably just be, hey, let's go on volunteer dot gov, find all the things, get the people involved to just put it into the portal correctly so that you're not meshing systems. But I can just imagine now knowing Manhattan Project's desire for volunteers and the historical society's volunteers, one of those is local locally managed. One of those is federally managed. So I I would imagine that there's a disconnect there.

Get to that.

Other questions or questions? We have an exciting year ahead. Hey. We're on to the chair and board member reports. So for the chair's report, I wanted to start by offering up a thanks to Brian, who is not here, but he has ended his term early on the board. He had some scheduling complex, couldn't commit to coming. But we appreciate his contributions to the board while he was here. The county manager's office will add the library board to their list

of boards with vacancies.

But it would also be great if you could share the vacancy with anyone you know who may be interested in becoming a member. And so now I want to talk about something exciting, which is why Andy has been patiently waiting here. We had mentioned this at another board meeting, a project that the arts and public places board is working on. Sorry. So this is the semi quintessential public art contest and exhibit.

Quite a mouthful. June 19 to July 23. We have some great material. But maybe, Andy, could you give us a quick overview of what you've got going on? And then maybe we can talk about how the library board could support

your efforts.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, everyone, for inviting me. And Tim Foley, who's the other member of the working group, is not able to be here tonight. But yeah, essentially, the semi quincentennial public art project. We're working on shortening that at some point.

Did you

know Chelsea call it the semi Q?

I think the semi Q. I thought

it was good. Yeah.

It's tough. And then is there a hyphen?

Is there

a hyphen or half

of 500?

But so essentially, is for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of American Corporation as a nation. It's essentially a public art contest in the Step Up Gallery. We are right on the brink of releasing the call, but essentially, it is inviting pretty much all members of our community as well as the community at large here in New Mexico. It is an open call, so anyone can apply to it to this art contest in the Step Up Gallery, mainly, like, reflecting on the two hundredth anniversary of the nation. I think that's that's mainly what the gist of it is.

There is a secondary component of it where the Arts and Public Places board could choose to acquire a piece from the exhibit up to two pieces up to a certain value. It's a little bit too much nuts and bolts. Maybe, but essentially, I view a successful outcome as a reflection and commemoration of the anniversary in a public space in a step up gallery.

And so one of the things so I attended the board meeting on January 22. And one of the things that Andy and Tim talked about is you know, the call is about to go out soon. But at this stage, no real idea if there'll be a small handful of people who submit or a a really large pool. If it is a larger number that comes through, that could potentially be something that library board members could help with doing some sort of judging and sorting to sort of determine what can fit into the space.

Yeah. Exactly. I think the we're not looking to turn too many folks away.

It's like dimensions of artwork and what you can get in there, right?

Dimensions and things that might not be suitable for display in a public place. Yeah, no, we're really hoping to get that call out. We were hoping to get it out at the beginning of last week, but it sounds like there's some language that legal wants to review first. So when that call goes out, even if you all, as people want to help signal boost it too, we could really use that.

Absolutely. I think this would be really great to share with your own communities. Another thing that came up in that meeting was maybe in the lobby, I know the library often has displays for different Black History Month and things like that. Perhaps we could work with staff to think about whether it would be possible to have a small display that would complement the art competition going on.

Yes. And

if that's something that would be helpful to have board members help to curate pieces or anything like that, then that could also be helpful to support the space.

Yeah. Absolutely. And things like that to help supplement the idea of the show and recognizing that we're a volunteer board and y'all are volunteer boards. So whatever else we can do to help raise the show up.

Any other things that you wanted to make sure you were aware of or ideas?

There will be a reception as well if you all are interested in coming to that, either as board members or just members of the public. Don't remember the date off the top of my head. It is in that. Shortly after the June 19 day, though. They were set in June 20. June 20.

In the afternoon.

Yes. I've got here. 11:55. Yes. Yeah.

But yeah, I know these especially 2025, 2026, it's hard getting artists in a room, especially if you have low turnout at an art opening, it can be not as fun for the artists. So it's always fun to get folks in the room who can speak to their work.

Absolutely. I think this is really fun. I am hopeful that we can all help out with that. And so I think it sounds like from here, I can certainly just check-in with your board to see how things are going. Chelsea and Stephanie, who is the chair of that board, I have emailed with them a couple times. And so they can feel free to contact me to say, hey, it would be helpful for you to come to this next meeting so that we can sign you up for volunteer duties. Any of the library board members, do you have any comments or questions or suggestions?

Just a quick question on obviously, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary doesn't happen often. Have previous events occurred? And based on previous events in the past, has there been a good turnout? Or it just depends on Do you mean, like,

for, like, reception set step

up? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. No. I think it's generally I mean, we even I'm also my other hat. I'm over at the Fuller Large Arts Center. Okay. So I think receptions can kind of vary a lot of the times. Is I've seen receptions where, like, five people show up, and it would just be better to have more than five. I've also seen receptions where, like, a 100 people show up. So it's very

Well, it's almost public schools. I think it's this coming month. That's always really well attended at the reception.

Show and public employee show.

It's all over. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

And so think that variety of artists also helps to boost attendance at receptions. If you have a show that has multiple artists, Any

other questions, suggestions? Well, I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

We will

keep in communication. And I think the board would be happy to help out in whatever way we can to make it a success, because I

think it's going

be a fun event at the library.

And I can send you the or Chelsea will send you the when the call goes live, we'll let you know.

Yeah. And then I can distribute it to the board, and then it would be great to sort of share with your communities.

At this point, it's gonna be like a, you know, three month, four month turnaround between the call going live and the call closing. I'm gonna Great. Fasten out flyers myself.

Yeah. It looks like the application deadline is is it May 6 still?

I think May 6 is

what we're looking at.

Yeah. Great.

Well, thanks so much, Andy. I appreciate you coming to talk to us. And we'll keep in touch with the Absolutely.

Yeah. Thanks for inviting me here.

Great. Absolutely. So the other thing that I wanted to just make a note of in the chair's report is that we don't have any outreach events scheduled for this month. So I just wanted to throw out there, if anyone does want to in the past, one thing that we've done is to sign up to spend an hour in the lobby at the library. And I won't say accost patrons, but engage anyone who wants to chat about the library and give feedback. The board members are always welcome to do that at any time. Gwen usually has some library board library board I just know I have one

at home. I don't know if that's escape one to Ryan. Have one

for you.

Great. So you can have a badge so people can identify you as a member of the library board. It can be as simple as sort of saying, hi. I would love to chat to you about the board, and they might say, I'm just returning my books and leaving. And that's fine pointing people to where the comment cards are. They're usually prominently displayed. And just sometimes I've just sort of let people know, there's a library board. We take feedback from the community about what they would like to see in the library. And we if you ever have any ideas, feel free to reach out to us or fill out a comment card. But that is always an option.

If you would like to do that, Gwen, you can usually just let Gwen know, thinking of coming this time, and so she can give staff a heads up that there'll be a library board.

Do we get to keep a ticker like the reference folks?

Yes, actually. Could. Speaking to Comment. Comment. I'll also add if you that we have our tabletop game days. Monthly, second or mostly most of the time, it's the second Saturday of the month, and that's a great opportunity to come and get feedback. It can be in a more casual way. You can sit and play a game with somebody, and that's one thing. And you feedback that way. So that is always an option to keep any board members. And I

think that those events tend to be a little easier to have those conversations because my experience, at least, of stationing myself in the lobby is that people are coming in to do a thing that they want to do, and then they want to leave. They don't always have time necessarily or the inclination to chat. But if they've come to the tabletop game day or some other events where they're expecting to sort of linger and chat at the library,

then that's often easier.

So you can always take a bit of events page on the library website, lists all of those upcoming days. And if there's one that you think would be good, it would be good, especially for the events, to let me and Gwen know so that we can let the board know so we don't end up having a quorum turn up to one of these events.

Just add one one more thing. Yeah. We are finalizing our list of outreach activities we'll do in the community this coming up year. Sounds great. Excellent.

So that's Can I have a Yeah? Go for it, Michelle. I

was wondering if you know that a board member is coming to something, it would be really nice if the staff member who's hosting the event would introduce the board member, you know, and just say, you know, if you have anything, any feedback or anything, we have our board member here. Otherwise, it feels really strange to be in an event and trying to go up to people and, you know, talk to them. It would just be a good icebreaker for any board member who goes to one of those.

To that point, it's going to sound silly, but do most of the staff know who we are? I mean, do I need a little headshot and be like, this is

No. I think if you have your name tag, that'll be kind of the clue as well. But yes, if you do want to let me know, I'll make sure that the person hosting the event knows that there will be a library board member in attendance. And you know what I would also say is do feel free to go up and introduce yourself to the person who has to do that. Most of the time it's going to be Emme Brown and or And

the library staff do know that there is a library board. So I usually if it's not a staff member, I I have met before. I I just say, I'm one of the library board members, and they say, okay. And and that's fine. They will help you with whatever you need.

That's a great suggestion, Michelle. I will ask them to do that.

Thank you.

Okay. So I think that's it for the chair's report. Boards, commissions, committee luncheons, there hasn't been one since our last meeting, so no updates there. Do we have an update on Friends of the Library?

Okay. They've been working really hard on a fiftieth anniversary video. I'm not quite sure where it is up in the process, but it was, like, over three and a half minutes originally. So I know they were gonna try and tighten it up, and that'll be exciting. Very excited about it.

They haven't really done their books yet for here, but they think they had an increase in sales over 2024 sales. So they think that they might be able to increase the block grant to the county library next spring. And, they have no issues with funding the $2,500 scholarships that they give to for seniors. So it seems like they're very successful.

That's great. Thanks for that update, Michelle. Any questions for Michelle on the library? Okay. So I will hand it over to Gwen for the manager's report. Alright. So for the month of January, our print circulation was 20,640. Digital was 9,897, which was 32% of the total.

And we took a programming hiatus in January to do some planning for the upcoming year.

And so for December, our total number

of programs were 58 with an attendance

of 1,100. And our most popular programs were the Winterfest Crafternoon and New Year's Eve. I did attend one of those, and there was a lot of glitter and glue. And it was very fun. Yes. There is something magical about balloons

going down over there. I wanted to bridge it to the redundant.

So for in terms of upcoming programs, I mentioned, the new program adult program in White Rock called Discover DIY. And so that'll be,

as I mentioned, a series of hands on programs.

Cell phone photography will be

the first one. And we're still brainstorming some of the others upcoming this spring. The seed library birthday is the first weekend in March.

And we'll celebrate that with programs panels with some of our gardening experts. In terms of projects, we are still waiting for an updated design on

the outdoor classroom. We're supposed to have it by the end of this week. It's an amended design because of the discovery of utility lines where we structure. So I'm hoping that Boyd and Associates have come up with a firewall alternative.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But it a minimal change, potentially.

That's what

we thought initially. But turns out it's a little bit more than we thought. I just really couldn't even hazard a guess at this point on what the final design they come up with would look like.

If it is significant, we will give

it back to the public, but we'll see. We have started contract

negotiations to

for library software, library software, and we're hoping to bring that to council for their approval in February.

Is this still a catalog? Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Exciting.

Turn around because I think we talked about, what, November?

Yeah. So, yeah, so we're hoping sooner rather than later.

I think.

Budget preparation for FY '27 has started, and we're being asked to provide

a a budget that's 10% less terms of the operational expenses. Staffing is not affected at this point. Will items mainly. I'm hoping that we will be able to maintain our collection development budget. Remains to be seen. For staffing, we're actually in a

good place, knock on wood. We're hiring right now for casual, so those are our substitute.

They work in all areas of the library. And so let's see.

I have some comments from the

public here. Quite a few. This is from a staff member. As I was putting out new picture books, the teacher patron commented, wow, I love how many cultures you have books about. We are talking about different cultures and value systems in our classrooms, so you will definitely check out lots of these. Thank you so much for having them. A patron came up to the desk and simply thanked us for providing such a welcoming safe space for children. He's a grandparent with a four to five year old grandson. He said the number of happy, well behaved children in our space shows how warmly we treat them. Patron said that the New Year's Eve event looks like a great time for kids, and that he was glad we were bringing kids to the library with events like this.

Patron is graduating from a post grad program and wants us to know that she would not have made it through school without the staff and services at this library. She said everyone who works the desk is amazing and so helpful. Patron said he and his wife are library geeks, and when they travel, they always visit libraries. He said NPL was in the top five libraries in the country. A teacher looking at our new adult titles said, you always have such a great selection of books.

We had a comment card submitted saying that most people use Blu ray discs now, so it would make more sense to buy these instead of DVDs. Here are what the board thinks on that as well. And lastly, I will mention we have a request from a patron who wants us to circulate puzzles. Unfortunately, we did look at this as an option. And we really can't add a whole new collection like puzzles based on one person's request.

It is quite resource intensive to add a completely new collection to the library. And it's difficult to manage, especially with something that could potentially have thousands of pieces. And so unfortunately, we had to I

hate to see the check-in

process. Exactly. And so unfortunately, we're not able to let her know that we weren't able to do it at this time.

We have puzzle Puzzling days, right? So we have a collection of them for those events. And as part of researching this request, I learned that the friends of

the library actually have a puzzle shelf in the bookstore. It's less than $5 Not quite what she was asking for, but it was one way we were able. I'd love to hear if the board has any feelings on Blu rays rather than DVDs.

Before we get to Blu rays, I actually obviously, it's we've already discussed you already discussed this. I actually really like the idea of puzzles Mhmm. As as a collection, if it ever does become possible in the future, just because it's one of those items, like a lot of books, where the information is passed once. And then I know personally my personal bookshelf is very small because I'm much more likely to go to the library. And I imagine puzzles are the same thing where not unless you have a really good puzzle, like a really good book, you're gonna do it once and then wanna exchange it.

And my only thought with that is with thousands of pieces, I don't know, maybe weighing milligrams or something tiny and just say, yeah. But I understand it's not feasible. I would say on Blu rays, I'd be very interested because I'm sure there's market share statistics out there for what kinds of things. I'll say I have two players in my own house. Both can't play Blu ray.

They only can play DVD. So I Blu rays would be useless to me. And honestly, it feels like a lost middle technology because DVDs were so large that like my Xbox three sixty can play it and my computer can play it. But then Blu ray was so short before streaming took over that there's not a I mean, maybe the PS five or other more modern gaming consoles might be able to handle that, but I'm sure there's numbers out there to support one way or the other that claim.

Yeah. My

my thing on it is, you know, if I don't really have an opinion one way or another, but if you go to a store like Best Buy or Target or wherever, you see their physical media collection is diminishing. I mean, obviously, we wanna offer something that, you know, they're not. But, you know, talking budget, you know, do we really wanna make that big of an investment? Because Blu rays are still significantly more in cost than DVD. Is that you know, I I guess we could put out a comment card or something that says, would you be interested in Blu rays? Because, I mean, I don't have a Blu ray player or a DVD player at the house anymore. So for me, I mean,

Theoretically, you should be able to see that in a collections input, right? If someone's asking for a movie, is there an option to say what form it's in?

No. We, as a matter of procedure, only buy DVDs. We will add Blu rays to the collection. Oftentimes they come packaged together. In that case,

we will add Blu ray.

I I would say never because sometimes that's the only way you can get something is is right now. But

So maybe maybe you can go in the community assessment survey.

Mhmm. Yeah. Yep.

I don't know if it's that specific, but but I like the idea of getting we could at least look at national data or something. Sure. Yeah.

Any other questions or comments? We will move on to questions and answers with our new council liaison, counselor Rigaud. We're glad that you could join us tonight. Thank you.

Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, Okay. So yeah, I just had sort of one question, which was about the space between the library and the senior center. There's a space, the new performance space. Is that going to be run by the library? Or is that part of the senior center?

Our doing the program. Yeah. So our vision is that it it would be the library who manages it and coordinates it, but it would

be a space that the senior center could use as well. It would be, you know, main

Are you you didn't mention it much in your report. Is that when when is it supposed to be done? Is is it you have a plan?

We are currently waiting on amended designs from Lloyd and Associates Architectural Company because we discovered quite far into the process that there were actually utility lines under a large portion of that area. And so they have gone back to design the space and see what we can fit and still leave the required clearance for those utility lines. Yeah. I'm hoping to help you

really have any plans yet for the the the programming yet. That's all for the future.

Right. Correct.

You're not talking about that yet. Okay. And then when I was asking about the adult program, mean, it that's when you invite authors in to talk about their work mostly? Is that most of it?

That is some of it. We have had some local and regional authors in to give workshops. For example, we had a poet come in and talk about his work. He then led a poetry writing workshop last year. Have had some authors who are publishing their works with UNM Press in to talk about their works as well. Yeah. It's a lot of that. Had some Chautauqua performances in as well.

Yeah. So the the when you say new program, think you were talking just then about White Rock. Is that it?

Yeah. We're just making, more of

an effort to get some adult programming in White Rock as well.

Yeah. Okay. Do you have an example, or is that just getting started?

It is getting started. Our first one will be in February towards the end of the month. I can't remember the date off the top of my head, but that is the one that's on

cell phone photography, and that's being given by Leslie Buckland, who's the assistant public information officer for the county.

Oh, really? Oh, Leslie Buckland, you said? Oh, okay. Well, I look forward to I'll I'll try to go.

Sounds interesting. Great.

And, anyway, just wanna say hello to everyone. And if you have any any anybody have any questions for the council?

Any questions?

Not that I know anything. I can just ask

someone else who does. When I

counselor Reger's question made me think of something like, when you walk into the library, there is something that has upcoming events. Right? Like a list or a chalkboard or something?

So there is a TV monitor that scrolls through events that are happening at the library. And

we have various flyers throughout the library as well. It is on our website, on our calendar. And again, of course, our newsletter. I would highly recommend, if you haven't signed up for that.

It's really good. I think Emma did a wonderful job when she sort of overhauled it and has it coming out. It's great. Yeah.

We agree.

I don't think there's any more questions for Counselor Rigo, but we're excited to have you joining us on the library board. So thank you. So informational items, I will just make a note that our next meeting will be March 2. It will be here in the municipal bill building as well as with a Zoom. And I think that brings us to the end. We can adjourn at 06:46. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a good

night. Thanks.