Arts & Culture Commission - Regular Meeting

Call this meeting to order at 06:05PM on May 14. Would you like to do a roll call?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay.

So when I call your name, if you're here, please say here. And if you're not You won't say anything? Chair Carlson? Here. Commissioner Hargis? Here. Commissioner Mooney?

Here.

Commissioner Randall? Here. Commissioner Runestead? Commissioner Schotzko?

Here.

Commissioner Flaherty? Flann Flannery?

Here.

Commissioner Cusack? Here. Commissioner Alaniz?

Here.

Hold up. Thank you.

Okay. Did everybody get a chance to look at the agenda?

Yes. And

may I have any motions?

Motion to approve the minutes.

No agenda. We're on agenda first. Agenda. Seconded. All in favor of approving, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Okay. Approval of the agenda. Sorry. I'm going without my important notes, so bear with me if I do this in the wrong order. Approval of minutes. The minutes came separately.

So moved.

I have to move. Okay. Great. Oh, thank you. Is there a second?

Second. Great.

All in favor of approving the minutes say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. We are at the approval of the minutes then. That brings us to the consent agenda. Natalie, would you like to say a few words about this?

This is not the first time that we have done it this way. So

for to refresh folks memory, when we put things

on the consent agenda after they've been discussed in the subcommittee meetings, typically unless somebody has asked that they be pulled off for further discussion, isn't any further discussion on the items and the board approves the the consent agenda unless

And the package. Mhmm.

Mhmm. Yep. Oh, but they are the policies that Chair Carlson and myself and Francisco worked through last month after staff have had a chance to review that and our finance director had a chance to weigh in as well. So all of the clean copies were first and then the red lines, so you can see all of the changes were second. And I did not get anything from anybody about removing it, so Okay.

Okay. Thank you. So we will now Do we need a motion to approve the consent agenda then? Is there a motion?

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. Oh.

Thank you. All in favor of approving the consent agenda?

Aye. Aye. All

opposed? Excellent. So we have some policies in place now. Congratulations. We are now at our regular agenda, which Natalie I'd like to ask you to take that one too.

Happy to do so and really happy to get through all those policies because we don't have to touch our policy manual again for a while.

Yay.

So, the first up here is the CELCO membership agreement. I actually have it printed out to get the chair's signature. We can handle that after the meeting, but don't run off yet. The basically, this we do this every is it I can't remember how many years, but we haven't done one since I've been here, so it must be five years. So this is the first one that I dealt with.

But we there's a summary or the agreement is attached. The summary in the packet about the relationship we have with Cellco and what we get out of the membership is made clear, but I think most of us, especially Commissioner Schatzko, know how much our membership in CELCO benefits our community and the wider CELCO region for our participation, right? Because that is the reciprocity that we share in the region. We are a net borrower in CELCO, which means we pull in much more for Northfield than we lend out. That's not to say we don't lend anything out, but we do borrow a lot from our member libraries.

So that's a tremendous value to the community both in terms of access, but also in the space that we don't have to dedicate to having like lots of redundant collections. There are lot of other benefits. I mean, delivery service alone is remarkable since they deliver about 3,500 items daily. A lot of stuff that they move around the region. So our membership in Silco also gets us a joint or a part of that ILS that we've been talking about.

So the migration was just completed, moving to the new system to Evergreen. And that is something that I am so grateful. I don't have to staff and manage at our small level because I don't know how we we wouldn't be able to do all of the things that we do for the community if we were having to manage these sorts of things. So like the membership in CELCO, I could go on all day, but most of us know here how important that is to the community. And that's not to mention just the professional development that we get from them and the access to legacy funded programs and grants that we get through CELCO as well.

So that is attached and so it would just require motion from the board to approve that and then we will make sure to get chair Carlson's signature after the meeting.

So move.

Second. Excellent. All

in favor of the CELCO membership agreement?

Aye.

All opposed? Okay. Then we agree to the CELCO membership. Agenda item number three is the resolution affirming support of the Minitex Library Services, and that's been in the news a lot.

Indeed it has.

That's the thing that you were lobbying our representatives at the National Library Association to support. Right?

Mhmm. We've been talking about it to a lot of people, but yes, we went up to the Capitol to meet with our legislators, to talk about how important Minutex support is. This is mostly the the point of the revolution is to get one more awareness among our boards of what how important that service is, but also just a show of support for a small organization that does so much that a lot of folks take for granted. The so Minutex, one of the one of the main services that we hear access from Minutex is MinLink, which is that statewide interlibrary loan. And again, similar to the relationship with Selco, that we are able to provide as much as we do through MinLinc at no cost to us.

They're mostly state funded but they do get a lot of funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services which I have more information on where that stands right now. But MinLINK, we bring in about two to 300 items a month through MinLINK. That doesn't cost patrons anything. When we bring in ILL from out of the state, we usually pass that cost along to the patrons. So if we were to lose the MinLink access and we had to pay for that, that would be an enormous cost burden on our patrons who are able to access a wealth of information around the state through that service.

So this was something that came from the CELCO CELs board. They asked us they passed a resolution of subordinate checks and asked if the member libraries and counties would like to also pass one. So I'm putting that forward for the board to consider passing the resolution of support and that would be something else that we get signatures on. I realized I forgot to print that off so I might print it before the meeting is done and have folks sign that or I could just get it signed later.

So do we have any in favor of supporting the Minutex Library Services and recognizing the critical role they play as our partner. A motion to Motion to pass. Thank you. A second? Second. Excellent. All in favor?

Aye. All

opposed? Okay. Then we support.

Why won't we

Just a quick question.

Yeah.

Nelly, are there ways you I'm not You or we can leverage the the resolution or maybe it's a touch point with legislators at some point or

Absolutely. You know, I I think that the language in there can be used. I think if you wanna share that as a board member that this is something that the board has passed together. It shows that united support of this resource. The I can kind of share a little bit about the IMLS status.

Well, can say that for the end too, but the, the, what was it, on the first, the courts granted a temporary restraining order blocking the current federal administration's dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. And after that, actually current currently, I believe what stands is the courts have ordered that the IMLS cannot be eliminated and the grants are supposed to be paid. But will it it happen? We will see. We will see. The courts have decided that it it should exist, so

What all is our library getting from file?

Mostly indirectly. We have been a beneficiary of grants that are IMLS grants. There was a LSTA funds that we got through the state. Lots of acronyms today through MDE. The internship program that we had last year was funded through IMLS grants.

But again, that Minutex is heavily supported by IMLS. One thing that states are required to have services for print disabled people, right? So your braille and talking book libraries nationwide are mostly funded entirely through IMLS. So that's one thing that's Minutex offers that is funded from IMLS and that MinLink is largely dependent on state funds, but also heavily dependent on federal funds from IMLS.

And that grant that our library is getting from leftover COVID money to fill need gaps, is that also IMLS or is that unrelated?

That was not IMLS. That was I can't remember what that was. It was also through MDE, but it was the community facilities grants. I yeah. But it was not IMLS. We also didn't get that.

What's the worst case scenario? Suppose the funding does not come through, then if nothing is done, what happens? What can be done to ameliorate whatever the consequences might be?

Well, I've been kind of trying to work through some scenarios for us on just what the budgetary impact would be for us if we lost access to MinLink. So as I mentioned with interlibrary loan that we were filling requests from that we can't filter MinLink, like if we can't get it through Celco, we go to MinLink, we can't get it through MinLink, we have to go outside. And there's a there's cost associated with that and it's usually issued by whatever the lending library is. So typically we have passed that along to the patrons. We only do a couple of these a month because we're able to get so much through both Silco and MinLink.

So in MinLink we're suddenly defunded and couldn't be, then that volume of material that we're bringing in we would be paying with the cost issued by the library, right, the lending libraries. So we'd have to make a decision then, this is something we have been providing, we've been able to provide for free because it is funded at the state and federal level. Do we continue to pass that cost along to the patron? Do we absorb the cost on our end and let go of something else? We'd have to let go of a lot.

That's a lot of money. So two to 300 items a month from I mean, like, a lot money. I'm not sure exactly how much that is but it's more than a dollar. So it's a lot of money. Also the processing time of that is not nothing.

So staffing would either have to be added which is unlikely. So we would probably have to reduce the amount of staff time we spend on other activities like programming and pull that away and focus on satisfying interlibrary loan requests that we have to go. And it's very labor intensive without the MinLink request system, which you can go online and place these requests. It's very simple and easy and it comes to us and how quickly do they typically come? Yeah.

Which is remarkable. If we're going out and we're sourcing these two to 300 items a month, externally that's a lot of labor going through OCLC to find who has it, the nearest libraries where they're willing to lend it through ILL. Going through that process, it's very it's manual and it's labor intensive. So that would be a whole staff person coming off of what they're working on and shifting over to handling that solely. So I the if that's a very grim picture for me to paint but I can't think of another like in other options, right?

So I think the the best thing that we can do here is to just advocate and just keep letting our legislators know how important this is to us because it would be a real shame to have to stop doing. I mean, another option too would be building a bigger library to house the materials and just doubling our collection budget. But that's not actually very practical either, I think. The largesse of the local taxpayer will only go so far, I think, to the making up for what we've been able to get. And so I've I've been saying it like it's it's really easy to take something for granted when it works really, really well.

And then, like, it's seamless. It's remarkable how how many people have no idea that that's where their books are coming from too. So that that would be my they they ask for any kind of support would be letting your legislators know how important it is at the state and federal level because both pots of money are essential.

Okay. Any other questions or discussion? The library's strategic plan report, does that require a vote as well or that's just your report, correct? I wanted to make sure. Okay. So we have done all voting. All approvals Yes. For the meeting. Okay. Then let's move to agenda item number four, library strategic plan report. So

I put as attachments on here in addition to the regular strategic plan update with the reports from staff who are working on so much. So so much. After going through all of the training and everything that we've done for this ILS migration, which was a huge project, they're also creating a lot of really great programs and going out on outreach and continuing to do all the wonderful things that they do. So I hope everybody had a chance to read through their report. It's everybody's their own words that you shared.

I want to really celebrate the success of the the Celebrate Asia Pacifica event on it was May 3. We had about five fifty people come for that. It was hugely successful. It was really fun. We got to try out the city's new fancy stage and the great big fancy banner that we got for the stage.

So I I don't if folks had a chance to go, I hope you had a good time if you wanna share anything about that. But then I also attached to this the again, this was this was in the packet in March, but I think a lot of folks didn't have a chance to look it over. So I just put it back in and I didn't make any changes since the last time we met or talked. I didn't get any input yet, but if folks have suggestions, thoughts, feelings, reactions to it, I'm I'm happy to just kind of hand that over for this for discussion. We will it doesn't require any action, it's more just a this is sort of a guiding document that's I think it's a living document too and we can always make changes to that.

But what I was hoping to do is kind of keep working under the same plan for now. It's one of those things where we built this after the it has after the pandemic. That's not really a great marker in time, but we built it kind of after about a year where things were starting to get back to something that looked like normal, right? In terms of traffic patterns and reducing, you know, limiting restrictions on gatherings and things like getting back to in person programming. And we did a lot of engagement at that point throughout 2021 to see where people were to kind of take the pulse of the community.

And I was new here too at that time, so it was a good time to do that. But things are always changing, but I don't think there isn't like this kind of seismic catalyzing event. I think we'll probably see that again and need to go back out and do that engagement, but I wanted to live with this plan for now while it seems to be working well and it didn't seem like we needed to go back out to do the engagement to build another one. So we kind of refreshed it, added some short long term goals. And the new introduction was the red text, just kind of describing our thinking behind that.

So I'm happy to take any thoughts, reactions, objections to that. And then I attach the Youth Services Framework as an example of how we then build like an action plan or a work plan within this strategic plan so that we're not forgetting to go back to that. Like we have these work plans for our departments that help guide us as we work through the plan.

I did have one question. I wondered about your annual report. I think it gets approved in March.

Yes. That

one. Is there a space near that where you could report on the strategic plan measures? It might feed that report anyway.

The annual report? The one

that you have to do that's so in-depth.

That'll be an interesting conversation to see what Those are Those questions are mostly set by the federal agency that may or may not exist.

So I was imagining there could be two documents like the one you already do, the one you have to do. And then that could be the same time period where you might report on your strategic plan and some of the measures that you have in here about you see them in your monthly, what you guys all submit.

Yep.

It's in the text of it. But it might be a one pager describes, here's our things and here's a couple key measures. Look this one up, look this one down. Something very community

friendly. Something to connect the annual report to the strategic for your view? Okay.

Yeah. And maybe not us as much as your community members who

Oh, write so this is more like an external. This is something that we have been wanting to put together. It's it's a bit more especially when you're putting together the annual report, is very time consuming. It's of like we just haven't quite. Yeah. But yes, that's been a plan of ours for a while.

Something like a newsletter? Just like a one Just

like a a couple of bullet points on each thing that might be a visual that people could use because I think you've surveyed people a lot around the outdoor space as well. Mhmm. And so that survey fatigue might get Yeah. You know, real. And so they've said a lot of things so this will be an opportunity at some point to push back and or to respond and say, this is where we've landed.

Everyone loves the library so we know that. But it's just a way to say, we asked you real specific questions and we're measuring in response to that and here's a little quickie update. But I wondered if you'd be pulling data at the same time and pointing like it's you. You guys would be pulling all your data together for that bigger report, so it might be a perfect time to deliver those data points to someone who's got those skills to make it visually appealing and but just but I love your measures and I love the updates. Think

it's great

and I support not redoing anything right now. Okay. So thank you for all the

work that goes into it.

Also think that this doesn't need to updated or redone. I did have a question. There are a number of initiatives in here that obviously we plan to try to fund with grants that don't exist or didn't come through. And so I'm just curious, is there anything that the library board can do to help explore other avenues for keeping these initiatives on track?

That's a good question. I mean some things might just pause or we extend the timeline on it. We, you know, for something like the work that we hope to do once we have the vision plan for the grounds completed, I think it's gonna be a combination of approaches to get the funds for that beyond just another capital campaign because I I feel like there there are other options that we can explore. There are some certainly some state grants available for different aspects of that that should be because it's state funding. I mean, that's obviously always, you know, but I think we're a little bit more steady about that than the federal grants.

So the Minnesota Pollution Control option for a portion of that, because some of it is a storm water management project essentially, with the erosion control, that that's one option and it's a fairly substantial grant with a match requirement. I think you can request up to a million dollars for that one. We can request up to 450,000 for accessibility grants for library projects and I think that there was a request to increase that. I haven't seen what the status of that is. It was with the bonding bill for the state to increase the funds for library remodels.

So if it stayed the same or if it went went up, that's certainly an option too since a portion of the if there's a lot that the vision plan is trying to accomplish. So there's a few levers that we can pull. I think we just have to probably get more creative about that. And it gets more competitive because I think there's a sort of like a squeeze on it. So some things just your timeline might shift realistically. But yeah, the the goal this year was to start nominating the library until we get it for an IMLS medal.

So

I don't know that that medal will be we'll see what happens with that. That's actually really sad to think about because it's big honor when libraries get the medal for library service and it was meant on our work plan to start that process. There are other awards that certainly still exist that we can nominate ourselves for. The Jerry Klein Community Impact Prize has a, like, unrestricted unrestricted $250,000 gift with it. And we've submitted a nomination in the past and didn't get it, but I I feel like we've kind of been dominating Library Journal lately and that's a Library Journal actually prize.

So like, why not go for it? So I think taking the same subcommittee that was going to work on an IMLS medal nomination, it's a very similar set of questions shifting over to do the Jerry Klein Community Impact Award, that's around the same time of year too. So we'll just kind of get start looking around and and, you know, the goals are still the same and what we're trying to achieve, but, you know, the awards, the money is nice. Obviously, $250,000 would be pretty transformative, but the recognition that we get from that huge. And that helps us do other things.

Thank you. That was a good question. So I just want to clarify with financial uncertainty within our nation and state and all that, there isn't any major things on your radar that you're concerned about that you want the board to be aware of even if you don't have a solution yet. Is there something that you think should be on our radar?

I mean, would say still going back to the mid link thing, that would be that would be pretty detrimental for us in a lot of ways. It would fundamentally change the way that we serve the community. So, like, that's the first thing in my mind. I think locally, we are fine. Don't wanna knock on wood, but no.

This community supports their library and they've shown us that time and time again. So I think Northfield, I I'm I think that might be like a maybe a next year concern or where we are with that. I don't know what the budget process will be like with the county this year, but I haven't gotten any, like, alarms from anybody on that. They always send us the same letter when they invite us to submit our budget request, which is please limit your your request. I'm like, oh, okay.

So we always ask for an inflationary increase. I think it's 4%. So yeah. I think it's 4%. And we've kind of just like I get together with the the directors of the Buncombe Memorial Library and Faribault and we usually strategize a bit.

But that is another opportunity for the board to just to come with us to the to the budget meeting. That presentation almost kind of works like that visual annual report that I give for them. I've been tempted to just publish that because it's usually kind of a it's a high level summary of the year of all our accomplishments and what we're telling them. So when we go present in usually late July, early August, we'll present at the building in Faribault. And so we always make a point to invite the board members and welcome as many of you.

And the the more bring a friend, the more faces they see, the more impactful that is. If it's just me standing up there, I don't bring any constituents with them, they're like, Oh, well, a lot of people don't support this, so why do I? So that's really helpful to have lots of folks coming from the friends on the board. I think those are kind of the biggest things. So I'm thinking with the board's work plan where we sit is next month is going to be both talking about that budget presentation because I will get the letter from them soon, usually the June.

So June when our so that that was a question that I'll have part of as part of this portion of the meeting is who wants to be on that subcommittee? The Rice County budget presentation slash moving into that Jerry Klein Community Impact Prize nomination committee because there are some pieces that would probably make sense for both. How

many people do you like for this?

Well, can't get a quorum. So three. And if any youth members are available in June. I know you're not. That's okay. I

I can be at the June meeting. Okay. It's on the eleventh maybe?

Fabulous question. Pick that out

on the top of my head, it might be very Yes.

Yes. You are correct.

Okay. Do we have any other members that could be there?

I can also do June.

When is it when is it? June 11.

Or eleventh. June? K. I can go. Okay. I I lost track now. So how many do you want? Three. Three. So It's those three and

Eight and Sherry. If

they did first, they get it.

Oh, okay then. You And. Yes. And And I'm

Sherry. Laura. Okay. Thank you. I can be a backup.

I was just gonna say, I would love to have a backup for these too, just in case summer gets busy. And if maybe you, twenty four hours notice? Okay. Thank you. Is there more or I mean, staff updates is that's you as well, Natalie. Oh. I don't know if we're done with agenda That item number four, should

have been under staff update. It's okay. Yeah. The thing I was just doing was the staff update.

Okay.

Is there anything you need from this group around the youth framework?

That's more just there for folks information that that was one way that we were applying the strategic plan to like a working document. So that's I like I like the way that Amy framed it. Amy is our youth services manager and she's just she's so organized and fantastic. So she took the strategic plan and developed this framework for it. It's more of an work plan for the year for youth services.

So and that that was in there kind of as an example of how I'd like to do that by departments. Probably not exactly the same format because youth services are very unique. I just sent you an invite. So the but if if you have thoughts on it, I'd love to hear it. I didn't mean to say that I don't. I don't need your input, but I do definitely. But that that was more just there for information.

I just wanted to praise the folks who were doing the presentations about how to engage youth and work with other community groups. I was reading about that and I thought that was fantastic. Oh, yes.

With Kat Martha Lundin, that was really neat that they were able to go and do that.

I bet their presentation's fantastic.

Yeah, I love the way that they built it around the Yeah, because that was neat. So, yeah. And we'll be, I think, presenting at a couple of conferences. I know that, I'm sure if it made it into the report now, I can't remember. But Angelica and Nadine are going to be at the Reforma Conference, which is a division of the American Library Association that is focused on services to Latino and Spanish speaking folks. It is in Huntington Beach, California. And they're gonna be presenting on our internship program without me, which is fine. I didn't feel like going to California. It's hard to send so many people out of state at the same time too. So they are gonna go on their own and present on that and I'm very proud.

I think it's wonderful. And Nadine was one of the interns and she works with us still, so that'll be a really neat experience for them. And I haven't heard if M's session has been accepted or not, but I'm sure it will be that M is going to present she submitted a has submitted a presentation to the Association of Rural and Small Libraries Conference that'll be in the fall in Albuquerque to present on the tele program that was funded by the Friends and that has been really successful getting the well you help work on that with us too. But so just proposed a session for that. The Rowland Small Libraries conference is wonderful.

Cat and I went and presented and we took Nadine with us. We presented on the library of things, sort of the mobile makerspace checkouts that we have, the sewing machines and things like that. We had a grant for that. And I think this is the only ones we're actually presenting at unless Alexis and and Helica and me have put in a session for MLA too, I believe. So minute.

Did they and Tyler. The cookbook? Oh, right on. Okay. So Ann Tyler, thank you, submitted a session to Minnesota Library Association which I'm certain they will accept that's fabulous, on the Latino Casino Cookbook project that they're working on that we had a grant for that too.

It's always good practice when you have a grant to go out on the road and report on that to your colleagues. Funders like that. So and we have submitted a proposal for a chapter in an upcoming for its forthcoming publication from Roman and Littlefield. It's an imprint that puts out a lot of technical library books. I've actually published a chapter with them before years and years and years ago.

It's probably completely irrelevant at this point and out of date considering what it was on. But we'll see, that will be on the internship program as well. The book itself is about pathways into the profession for more diverse staff. So we were going to write a chapter on the internship program as well, which was grant funded. So

Can I just interrupt to, like, put it officially? Congratulations to you and Angelica for your Movers and Shakers Award. Like, that it's amazing, and you definitely deserve it. And I just think all of our staff, like, every every time I read this, I'm just amazed at how all of the staff is just committed and engaged to making this an amazing community. So thank you very much and congratulations. Well deserved. Thank

you. Yeah. I nominated Angelica. But I was surprised to find out that I had also been nominated. When both of us got the email on the same day, was like, I was like, was this actually to me or was this for, I couldn't tell if it was it was real. So I had sort of, yeah. So that was that's definitely fun. We've also known about it since January. So a few people have now kindly congratulated me. I've kind of been like, what?

Oh, right. You just found out about that. So but, yeah, that's that's pretty neat. We're we're gonna have an open house for the public, which you all are invited on the twenty seventh at 09:30 in the morning. So more of a coffee open house at the library if you can make it, just in the atrium. So we'll we'll have fun with that. But and then I don't know what else we're gonna do with it. Talk about it.

Yeah. We'll brag about you.

Brag about it? Thank you.

I'd also love to hear how the you said we wouldn't know of any difference with the new system. The only difference I've seen so far is that my library books that are overdue come written in a different format on the But that's all I've noticed. But how have you all done?

I'm I'm gonna turn that over to my Yeah. My team here and ask what you think about how it's how it is, how it's gone.

How was May 1?

It went well. But there's definitely a few hiccups, a few bugs

Yeah. Of course.

In the system. Of course, is it anything new? Like, know the biggest one right now is like getting a message through your phone, like text.

Oh,

yeah. That's not been working. So everyone's been getting it through email. Mhmm. So at least you still get it. I mean, it's been going alright.

Yes. Right? Yep.

And I

think minimal disruption.

Mhmm. It's part

is we have a new public catalog too, so make sure that you log out of your saved bookmark. Otherwise, you can't get into

the public catalog the way you did.

Oh, yeah. People that save like a bookmark or something, that Yeah. Link doesn't work anymore, so update it to the new ones.

It's manageable on your end as staff? Okay. Great. Well, thank you. Any other staff updates or questions for our remarkable staff?

I I just wanna also, thank Natalie for the article that's in the newspaper. Local newspaper just came today, and I'm glad you put everything in there that you put, including the main librarian bead just put out. And thank you for doing that.

Thank you. Did you

all see the paper today? Her article is really very good, talking about lots of things, but also, you know, that are important to us. So thank you, Natalie. Good article.

Thank you. I don't know why they titled it what they did, Best Small Library in America Award. I was like, that was last year. We mentioned it in it's it's my monthly op ed. The they they still let me write, which is wonderful.

I appreciate the Northfield News for the space to be vocal about things. We've been vocal about a lot of the changes that could potentially impact libraries coming from the federal level. So in addition to the op ed that Commissioner Schatzko mentioned, the podcast that I mentioned in the report, I don't know if anybody Anybody listen? Okay. That's okay. No. It's totally fine. No pressure. It's a podcast. Can listen whenever you want.

But we I go into a really in-depth conversation with Rich Larson on the radio about Cindy about Carly Hayden's very abrupt and bizarre firing. Some of the the aftermath has been interesting too. They they escorted out the attempt to replace her with the police, which I thought was interesting.

For those who don't read as much news, who was that?

Sorry. Carly Carly Hayton is a remarkable librarian, exemplary. She is the librarian of congress.

Did see that. I forgot about that.

Yeah. She was fired abruptly and without reason a couple of weeks ago, a week or so ago. Time is weird. But she was one year away from the end of her ten year term. Librarian of Congress is not usually it is appointed, they are appointed by the president, but it is not typically a political appointment, you know.

She happened to be the first woman and first woman of color to be a librarian, a person of color to be a librarian of Congress. I believe she's actually the first like credentialed librarian as well, the first MLS holder who had been a library director in the public libraries too. So she had just an amazing career serving communities in Chicago to being the director of the Chicago Library System to being the director of the very transformative director of the Baltimore Public Library System. She really turned it around. And And she's just a lovely human being.

She even, she I think did her job extremely well, making history and the Library of Congress really kind of exciting and relevant to people. She brought in, if you remember this, she invited Lizzo to come and play some of James Madison's flute collection because the Library of Congress is like the world's largest flute collection. And Lizzo herself is a classically trained flautist and got to go to the Library of Congress and play James Madison's flute. And it's just a really neat, really neat way to make bring history kind of into contemporary zeitgeist. And so anyway, she was fired for absolutely no reason.

And then there were some comments made at a press conference by the White House press secretary about how she did something about dangerous DEI and then putting books in the hands of children that which the Library of Congress doesn't check books out to children. It's I don't think they really know what the Library of Congress does or care, but the Library of Congress gets a copy of every single book published in The United States and it's not a circulating library. So I'm, it was this kind of like culture ward nonsense. So anyway, so I've been maybe probably, I've been vocal about these things because this is kind of getting, it's getting a little bizarre. But, so if you want to hear more about that and what I talked to Rich about, you'll listen to the podcast or read the column.

It's all out there for the world to hear.

Well, thank you for doing it. Thank you.

You're welcome. I just hope that we will continue to be able to do what we're doing here. Yeah. And I think we will because I don't think people are gonna put up with this. But I thought Cindy Hall's comments at the end of this, I'm just gonna share. Cindy Hall is our current ALA president. There's always quite a bit of overlap between like outgoing, current, and incoming ALA presidents. This can be a little challenging to keep track of who's who, but Cindy Hall's wonderful. She gave the keynote at Minnesota Library Association last year, But she said, We, meaning librarians, will stand up for every American's constitutional rights. We will stand up for the First Amendment.

We will stand up to make sure that libraries are not shuttered because the day that libraries are shuttered in America is the day that democracy dies. And I do not think that is hyperbole. So Yeah. I I do and also again like I listen to the podcast but there I I recommended 381 books. I didn't list all the titles, but the Naval Academy Library posted the list of the three eighty one books that were banned from the Nimitz Library.

And they are they are all books on race and gender. So just if you wonder what But they they managed to keep two copies of Mein Kampf in the collection. Just Thank

you for continuing to be vocal

Mhmm.

Here on Kim in the newspaper and taking the time.

I'm wondering if it I I think I would like to move that the board have it on the record that the board approves this. I would like to have some sort of official vote saying that we as a board support the work that our librarian that she is doing. And I would move that.

Second. I like this. Okay. I need to we have a move to support our librarian in her efforts to

Educate the public about the library important library things going on in the world. There's a better way to say that but I couldn't Yeah. To Library issues.

Access to literature, library issues. Yes. How's that? Are we good? Okay.

Can you can

Yep. Tell me.

Say it one more time. Do you need that again or did you get the did you get the motion?

Let's the

status.

Yeah, yeah, and the importance and status of libraries in our communities, in our nation. I think I'm supposed to ask if there's any discussion before I ask for any discussion. Okay, Then on an all in favor of our support for our library director?

Aye.

All opposed? That seems to be that we are all in favor of support. Thank you. Good job. Okay.

Are there any other staff updates or would you like to move to like our board and commission updates and maybe a report from the Friends of the Library?

I think that sounds like a great time to move over to the Friends and Selco and anybody else who wants to share a report. Excellent.

So Bill North? In disguise?

Fill in for funding

Can't hear you.

Thank you. Where funding changed the summer music summer concert program. That funding could not be available on in time to plan adequately for the summer. And so Natalie came to the Friends and Foundation. We approved $5,000 to cover. Is that most of the cost? I don't know if was the entire cost of these, is it seven concerts?

That's that's most of it. Yes. Thank We

are able to do that. We have I should thought I should let you know where we stand financially. And we have, in our accounts, slightly over $270,000. About 45% of that is in Northfield shares. And we have, certificates, and we have checking account savings, and so we have funds that are available for situations like this that come up in that range.

But we recognize that in the current environment, you can't really count on much of anything, it seems like. If you have major organizations, agencies that are not funded. So we feel it's important for us to increase our resources and that includes increasing membership, increasing business sponsorship. So for example, summer concerts, we talked at the last meeting just on this past Monday about having businesses approach businesses for sponsorships for some of the summer conferences. And they would be recognized, of course.

And we think that there are a number of businesses in and close to Northfield that would be very interested in doing this. In the library itself, we need to improve our visibility so that patrons of the library come in and they recognize, first of all, that there is such a thing as the Friends and Foundation Library. So we need to post our information more visibly and have information that's relevant so they know what the Friends do and also how to donate. The website. Steve Malice has been very helpful in looking at websites of other libraries, and, in many cases, the websites are highlighting ways to join or contribute.

And so our Web site, we have two people right now working on improving our Web site, and there are three people working on the matter of visibility, updating our brochures, making it clear to patrons, obvious to patrons, here's something called the Friends and Foundation, or the public library, try to increase interest so we can build our membership. And then later, we'll be approaching businesses without getting our support too. And we're trying to respond before we have a disaster if something major is lost, something happens to funding, that we can better be able to respond to that. And that's been our primary emphasis, as well as enjoying some of the summer concerts this summer. So that's pretty much what we're doing right now.

You to the Glad

to address any questions you might have.

Friends are amazing and we're really appreciative of them.

Oh, can I can I add to your friends update? Because I just realized we just got notification on the grant that we put in with

email today.

Yeah. So that, I mean, that is we actually applied for that under the under the friend. So technically it's your grant.

It's part of

the heritage. Yeah. And

we're also supporting the celebration of Understood. This movers and shakers of mine.

So anyway

that we can support the basically, the mission of the Friendship Foundation is to support the library in whatever way is reasonable and feasible. And we're always open to ideas. And so any of those ideas, you can just send them my way. I'm very impressed with this group tonight. Very impressed. Think we're all on the same side.

We love the front of the library and all the just the way that you support the library, it's very clear at all of our meetings. And then the fun things you offer for our community. I think the last we were here, you were getting ready for the puzzle. Playoff. Yes. How did that go?

As far as I know and find out, you have to realize Bill North surreptitiously makes arrangements for lots of these events.

I don't

know exactly what he does, but they work. Puzzle playoff, they've got the trivia bee.

Yep. Yep.

And there have been others, who knows what he's going to dream up while he's in Italy.

Excellent. We just all have to go to Italy for the good ideas. You know, this is maybe a silly thing, but I first learned about you when I moved to this community because of the bag that you sold. It like, it's behind the desk. Right? And I was attracted to the bag, then I was like, oh, what are the friends of the library? My father recently told me that for the next four years, he's only wearing positive t shirts. And so maybe like we could have like a support library t shirt or something that could be a fundraiser for you. But we could sell them at our library because we have lots of people.

Don't

You know. Could put the mission vision and values on the back of it.

I don't know. Just wait. You're not gone yet. You

For Grover, I don't I don't know what it would be. Something clever and fun. But I I'd definitely buy a t shirt or two

Okay.

For Father's Day, you know? Six.

That'll be on the agenda.

Okay. Thank you. Any other what about our youth? Our amazing youth.

I can give a little update about what the youths of Northfield are doing. At our last all boards and commissions meeting, the city board members from the youth toured the library with Natalie. And it was very fun and we learned about the library. Other than that, in the world of students, the reimagined plan has been presented to the library board and it has passed. It is not in its final state. Yes. What did I say?

You said library board, but I would have passed it

It was the school board, not us. Currently user groups are going through, which is basically all of the staff of the high school that work at a given space go meet with the architects and say here's what we need and here's what we want to do. So there'll be a couple rounds of that. So the plan that was presented to the school board is not actually exactly what is being built, but it's pretty close to it.

Excellent. Yeah.

Do you

have any

other youth member things? The youth data summit happened last week.

Let me share on that.

Yeah. Share on that one.

Pass it to my fellow commissioner, Tara.

Okay. Both Will and I went to that, so I can share about that. It was a bunch it was, like, three different schools. It was oh, four. It was WEM, TCU, Fair Bow, and then Northfield. And we basically talked about, like, the first half of the day, we were all mixing, like, together. And then we talked about which was best for students, like PSEO, dual enrollment, and then, like, just regular in person classes. And then after we broke off into our schools and we talked about, like, electronic policies, and our group was did not like the iPads. That was, like, our conclusion is we wanted Chromebooks instead.

So

The district got a new cell phone policy this year. Mhmm. And Yeah. We've done some research. There have been some surveys

sent out to the students.

I actually happen to work on one of the surveys, about how the cell phone policy has has affected grades and device usage and Yeah. Discipline referrals at the high school, and we looked at those numbers a little bit.

What did you find?

It's that it's the general consensus was is pretty good.

Except for the sophomores. Their grades were still bad, apparently.

The juniors that were Oh.

It was the juniors?

Uh-oh. It

was an interesting data. Fun fact. The juniors have the most have the lowest grades, but the sophomores have the most disciplinary referrals and also the highest grades.

Junior sophomore. Correct? Yes. Yeah. Represents your grades. Tell us more.

Oh, have nothing to say. They're all terrible. So anyway disciplinary referral for a reason.

Yeah. Keep keep your phone keep the phones away from the kids

Keep the phones

as you can.

I think

general consensus was that the cell phone policy has worked as effectively as any cell phone policy can work. Interesting. Because whoever people are gonna that are gonna use the phones are gonna use the phones no matter the rules, but

it's

pretty good standard that the district has set for teachers to enforce the rules, and then it's kinda in their ballpark. So pretty good overall.

Yeah. And a lot of the students were in favor of the, phone plan, like how we have it set up compared to other schools where they're just not allowed phones at all.

Yeah. We don't wanna have the phone bag

things. And

the district doesn't have much money. Yeah. So we like not doing that.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Cedric, do you have anything to Not to put you on the spot, kiddo.

Also, a bit of a plug, but then Northfield High School Honors Art student gallery show is on Friday from six to eight at the guild. So come stop on by and see some cool art.

Yeah. Then here with information. Friends, did you give scholarships out?

I

heard a rumor.

Yeah. I did receive one of those scholarships.

Excellent.

I was very grateful

for it. Excellent.

Due to the thank you. That's a good question. How many is it two? Three. Three. So thank you to the friends of the library for funding my education.

Yeah. Another great. Yes. Any other? The CELCO, I'll be honest, I have not been the best attendee lately but I do read the emails in minutes. And the biggest thing is the state library services have received 50% of its 2025 library Services and Technology Act grants to states funding. So there it remains uncertain as the last thing she said, but that was May 9. So maybe it's May 14 and Natalie knows more.

I think the status of the funds being distributed is the same, but I think that the recent court ruling said that they were supposed to give them the money because it was already allocated by congress. Yes. So we'll see

So there's just some bunch

of checks coming out. I don't know. Yeah.

And then the other thing is once again for supporting IMLS, Senator Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar have both signed on. But Brad Feinstead, who represents most of the Selco region has not signed as of May 9. But that's that's all I have for my updates

for He's summer. Our state senator?

Tina Smith and Klobuchar are are yes. But it's House representative Brad Fincas.

As a point of interest, I'm now available on the night that Celco meets. So if you would like to hand that off, that would be fine.

I officially I officially hand it off to you. That's very exciting and they'll be so lucky to have you. They really will. They'll be so lucky.

Do you wanna appoint?

I will appoint you. Sorry.

I probably need to are you ready?

Do you really

It'll it'll require a motion. Okay.

Excellent. I'm ready now. Excellent.

If you if you plan to attend the meeting before we meet next, we would need a just a motion from the board to

Motion to approve Sherry Mooney as the new attendee for Selco.

Second.

Okay. All in favor?

Aye. All

against? Thank you. You will make an excellent so it is very important that we have a representative of Selco. I realize that and I really appreciate you taking this leadership opportunity on. I'm good to do it. You'll be one of like 53 board members.

Awesome. Yeah.

That's great.

And you can attend by Zoom.

That is also great.

Awesome. Okay. Great. This is a great meeting. Anybody else?

Before we adjourn.

Yes.

May I make a motion for the board to officially recognize for years of exceptional commitment to the library and library board, constant value generation, and amazing professionalism that we recognize mister Will Flannery? Aw.

I really love it. A second?

Second.

Any any discussion except it's not allowed, actually. I won't allow it. We all agree. Just kidding. Will, we need a discussion from you. Speech.

Okay. I have thoroughly enjoyed being on the library board. I've I hear I talked to my other friends who are on the youth on boards program about their experience with boards and they often come with like complaints like oh it's terrible. People are annoying. We're doing anything important. I've never felt that way about the library even for a moment. I've loved all of my time on the board and I will be sad to leave, but I'm sure that there will be another good upstanding youth coming in to take my place alongside Cedric Cantera. Thank you everybody. Yeah.

Awesome. If it needs to be official, all in favor. All against. Alright. Will, we deem you amazing Thank you. Officially. No. Yeah. Thank you. Good job. You all are representing some great new motions, so thank you.

I can't

wait to see these minutes.

Do we have anything else? Any more love to share? Love to share?

I would like to make a motion to thank Francisco.

Yes! Let's make motions for everybody. We have time. We have time. Yes, thank you everybody. I'm looking at you. I feel like you usually end our meetings. A motion?

I'd like to make a motion. I would like to make a motion to adjourn.

And you said that at a nice slow pace too. Okay. Seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All opposed? Okay.

And the

meeting adjourns at 07:09PM.