Arts & Culture Commission - Regular Meeting

Present.

Commissioner Randall. Present. Commissioner Schatzko. Present. Commissioner Runestud. And do I do Gary? No. No. Okay.

Awesome. Okay. And that will. Bummer.

Alright. Well, we need a motion to approve the agenda. Has everyone had a chance to peek at that packet? Thanks for sending that out, Francisco.

I have motion to approve.

Second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Alright, agenda is approved and then we get to approve the minutes. So those were a link in your packet from May 14. I need a motion to approve. Is there any discussion of the minutes from last time?

No. I saw no issue with them. I move to approve.

Alright. All in favor of the approval of May 14 minutes?

Aye. All

opposed? Okay those are set. And then it looks like Hannah is next. Hi Hannah. Yeah. Library intern. Oh,

well, my name is Hannah. I am currently interning at the public library. I am going to I'm currently in Riverland. I the community college. I'm going through the Northfield Community College Collective, and it's my last next semester will be my last semester before I graduate with my associates, and then I'll go in for my bachelor's. And then I'm hoping to get a library sciences degree at the end of it. And yeah. And I yeah. I intern at the library. I work a second job while taking my classes and

yeah. Wow. Oh, what

I've been doing at the library. Right. I've been kind of almost watching everywhere and of dipping my toes in everywhere with a main more focus in the youth services. But yeah, I've been doing some outreach. I've been on the bookmobile using BookBike, helping patrons doing programs, helping set up programs, helping with like the teens, the pages, and yeah. And like a lot of like other like small like maintenance y things.

So good to learn all the parts. Do you have a favorite thing that you're doing?

I love working in the youth youth services area and like the like teen programs and like the youth programs. That's my favorite part for sure.

Mhmm. So cool. Does anyone have questions for Hannah? Okay well congratulations to you. That's a big deal. We're so glad to have you at the library. Great to be here. Awesome, wonderful. Let's see we don't have anybody for public comment. It looks like I'm running in and no consent agenda items. So next up is just a regular agenda and we have first up a subcommittee report about awards and applications. Yeah.

So last month our board subcommittee Chair Carlson, who is not able to be here tonight, and Commissioner Mooney, and Francisco, and myself met to discuss kind of a strategy for self nomination. So just as background on this, the library and the board agreed in the work plan that it would be a priority for us to do these nominations. And it's something that I have found, in addition to grants, to be good for libraries, especially when we're going to ask for funds, is having the recognition for the work that we're doing. If you don't and the key to awards is that if you don't nominate yourself, nobody nominates. Right?

That's how people get recognized is you have to recognize your own work. So kind of like doing your self evaluation, if anybody has to do that for their boss, you look for the things that you're doing well, and look for words that match that, and then go for it. So we have been recognized recently in a few different ways. We were honorable mention for Bessemer Library, as you know. And we have Two Movers and Shakers in our midst.

These are both library journal recognitions. So the Jerry Klein Community Impact Award, we were going to go for the IMLS award, which will the IMLS exist going forward? We don't know. So that award process is probably normally would open about now, and I haven't seen anything about it. So I'm pretty sure that they're just kind of managing whatever they can with the people they have who haven't been fired.

Anyhow, that's a whole other conversation. But we wanted to continue this priority with working on award nominations. And this prize comes with a fairly substantial, unfettered prize. Well, that's an extra incentive. We have nominated ourselves before, before any of the other recognitions that we got recently.

So decided to, since the work has kind of already been done, to go for it again. One thing that the Klein Prize seems to weight heavily is if you've already been recognized for things. So having two prior recognitions by library journal, it feels like a good time to go ahead and try for this one again. I do think we have a pretty good shot at it. So the committee basically, that was a long way to start this conversation.

But the committee discussed how we would strategize this and what we would be emphasizing. Francesco took some really good notes. I have some kind of terrible notes. But anything that folks want to share, if they've had a chance to look at the award, if you have any thoughts on that, I'm happy to discuss that. I mostly just put this in as an item. If any of the other folks, like if Commissioner Mitti wanted to share anything from that conversation to to this?

I mean, think my big takeaway was we were thinking about activities that the library has been up to that would be worth calling out for the different categories. And my big takeaway was just that we were so spoiled for choice. I mean, the library is doing so many things and we were just throwing out programs and throwing out initiatives and collaborations and so I won't list them all but I feel like we're in a really good position to be applying for this.

Yeah. Do you need thoughts about who your letters of support come from or do you have some ideas already?

We have a list going but it doesn't hurt. They have a minimum but they do not have a maximum. And I think last time we nominated ourselves we had quite a few. They do have a requirement. They really emphasize elected officials. So we have a few electeds who we're going to invite asked to to write letters. So I think we'll be more than happy to. But I happen I don't wanna call them out because I haven't actually asked them yet. So if they do watch the board meeting and be like, hey, wait a minute. I'm sure they'll be happy to write a letter for us.

But yeah, any any other suggestions? And one way that I think that like the and if if you are wondering as board members, how can I help? You could write a letter or invite somebody to write a letter. As I mentioned, like there isn't really a limit. This prize really emphasizes community impact, comes a lot through partnerships, comes a lot through recognition.

So if you can think of somebody who you maybe have a relationship with who would write a particularly impactful letter, this isn't the time when like, can you write the letter for me? It's not gonna work. Like those letters are immediately, they're very obvious that you wrote those letter for somebody. Last time I did with one of the electeds who we asked, did request that we write it. And so I did draft the letter for them. But in general, I think they respond a lot better to letters that come from more personal connection or a relationship. But if I have to, I can write that letter.

And I saw the deadline for the whole packet is September. So getting the letters in by the end of summer would be smart.

Yeah. We should probably get those invites out now just to give people plenty of time. So any thoughts on that Okay. In the next few days would be awesome. And then I'll start sending out those invitations. Meanwhile, while we're writing this, which is a lot of writing because I've heard you written one. It's like a dissertation. A lot of questions. And a long responses are like 800 word responses. But I'm also writing a chapter about the internship program currently for publication. So, I'm gonna be doing a letter writing this summer and it's kind of sneak out upon me. If anybody wants to actually help with any of the writing part too, let me know.

Okay. You have been invited board members.

If you

think of somebody, the ones that came to my mind was the parents of the pages.

Oh, for sure.

Might be a great, just accompanying voice with the most elected folks. Any other questions about that you guys? That was our subcommittee. So now we do subcommittees every other. This was what you might have, if you committee that's what you would have got to experience. Thank you for those who went. Okay. So next up it looks like we have the library board needs to appoint a CELCO board rep. And Natalie you're going to introduce that.

Well, we are very grateful for the generous, the brief service of commissioner Boone. When was that May that you were appointed?

Yes. Okay.

So, we are here once again asking you if anybody would be willing to step in as a Selka rep if if you wouldn't mind sharing anything about your experience. Have you been to a? I have. Yeah. Okay.

I got one meeting and one training.

Okay.

And then I'll be able to do August. Okay. The next person would have to start in October. Yeah. Would be the first one.

So it may be something where somebody were interested, willing or just tolerating us at this point. If you wanted to attend like maybe with Sherry and August to get a sense of that, I don't know if that would be

Yeah. Can you remind us when the meetings are? Yes. They are on Tuesday nights and I think it's at 06:30 but I would have to double check. I only did the one. So but it's it's a really good time. I think later in the meeting I'll be giving the update on what we discussed. But it it was a really wonderful insight into the larger regional concerns and the way that they impact our specific libraries. Everyone's very, very engaged. There are a lot more subcommittees there that meet more regularly.

So depending on what you're interested in, you have the opportunity to dig deeper into some of the specific issues that are open in the region.

And, yeah.

Everyone was very kind. You can attend virtually or in person which also helps so you don't have to drive out there every time.

Wonderful. So if we have anyone who's interested tonight, feel free to make that known. Otherwise we'll think about reaching out to other people. I think we can have it be not a board member is what I understood but it's Yeah. If it is a board member.

I think one of the reasons that it makes sense for it to be a board member is because then that person is invited to also attend the board meetings to report on those. So it's it's I mean actually Judy did this for us for years. It's an extra meeting. So if you're the sort of person who maybe has the time or the desire to serve in that way, then then it can work. But Judy was not a board member at the time. Commissioner Schatzko was not an official, was representing us for CELCO and then attending all of the board meetings. So it becomes two meetings for that person. So it's just with us going to a bimonthly schedule that can theoretically free up that extra month for a board member that then could be used to do that.

Sure. Yeah.

So I think is it opposite months or is it the same month?

Yeah. So August, October.

Right. So it it alternates with

This one. Yes.

This one.

Yeah. But it did work pretty good.

You know what? I didn't mind going to the extra meeting even though, you know, I wasn't on the board, but every meeting I went, and then you were able to share things. So it worked. So we could seek somebody else, yeah.

Where are the meetings held?

In Rochester. They're virtual.

They are.

You don't

have to physically go to Rochester.

Yeah. They'll want you to come in person once,

not for

the meeting but to do a training.

Yeah.

You get a binder. Actually, I could just give somebody my guide. But but yeah, otherwise you can just zoom in. Yeah.

I may be interested but I my board

time is up I think the end of this year. So that would be a very short

Would you not reapply? I didn't know how that worked. Oh yeah. Every you haven't termed out. It's just when your term ends. Just have to go through when when the city should reach out and let you know that it's time to reapply then you would just I mean if

you I don't want to put you

on the spot. Yeah.

Yeah.

Three terms on top of the term. Lucky Yeah. Anne. Oh dear.

Well

considerate. We appreciate

all of

your service.

Yeah I

will consider it.

There's no rush. So we'll table that until we have a name and vote on it next time. We how do you want to handle that?

That would be yes, actually that would be fine. Just I need to remember to put it on for the September agenda. So if you you wanna sit in on that meeting in in August, then you would know better, I guess, if you actually wanted to make that commitment come September. Does that make sense?

Yeah. That would be

I would be Okay.

If I can. Great. So

we will thank you. I will bring this back up in in October. Wait. September. I'm sorry. Goodness.

Yep. I know it's a lot. So the August, if you want to attend that meeting and think about it and then September we'll put it on the agenda again Francisco and we'll vote. Okay so our next topic is the library strategic plan report and any other staffing reports that you wanted to

We are just blasting through this agenda tonight. Fortunately my report is super long and I have tons of stuff to share in addition to what's on So, sorry. It's not actually that long. In addition to all the stuff that was in the packet, I wanted to share a few updates. I without rereading the whole thing, I can't remember if I sent this before we have the state parks passes.

So we are finally able to lend state parks passes at the library. Isn't that wonderful? Every year I get asked and every year I double check with the DNR and every year they're like, Nope, you still don't qualify. So, finally they opened up the program this well, it was like late last year I think they were pursuing a big push to expand this program. And if you're not familiar with this, lots of libraries around the state mostly in areas with way more low income folks than we have here.

They were basing it on free and reduced lunch. So that was something that now we don't use that measure because everybody gets lunch, which is great. So they had to find a different way to do that. But I think when it was a chance for them to reevaluate how they were deciding who got the passes, they also wanted to expand the program. So it was a chance for them to go in and tweak it.

So this is the first year where they've opened up to other communities who previously have not qualified. So when I filled out the application, they asked a lot of questions throughout the application of like, Just to remind you that this program is really, really intended to reach people who would otherwise find this to be prohibitive for some reason. And so I did emphasize our fairly robust outreach to Spanish speakers and that we would do our very best to promote state parks heavily. State park passes heavily outreach through outreach. So we have one that lives in the Bookmobile and we have four that live in the library.

They must be checked out in person. But I looked blocked by it today and it looks like there's only one pass available. So they're good for one week. There's a little bit of, I think it's a little fairly staff intensive on the kind of checking and making sure that we're just expiring passes after a week so that they can be checked out again. So it's like, it's a little funky process but nobody returns them.

They just are no good anymore after a week. So we date them for one week and then we have to remember to put them back after a week. That's basically how that works. But we're really excited to have it and it's something like I said, people ask me for this every single year and I'm always like, yeah, well we tried. But it's nice to have them available for the community.

And I know that to their concerns about access to the parks that something that happens, and what happens really, we see it a lot in Minnesota. There's sort of high aggregate outcomes down to mask a lot of disparity. And so if you have an area where you have a lot of folks who are doing especially well, you might have something where your programs are not available to the folks in the community who are not doing especially well. And so this is a way to kind of in Northfield hopefully fill some of that gap. At least there's access to our beautiful state parks.

Well, thank you for taking the time to fill it out. That's wonderful. Thank you.

Excited to receive that grant, that one is a grant. I have, I don't, I think I've shared it with individual folks in the group but, and I might have mentioned it in my report, but we did get that capital grant.

I saw the plastic up and I assumed something positive happened.

Well that was, yeah. We were gonna do anyway. We were kind of moving some stuff around the budget just to make it, make that still work but there were other things part of the grant that we weren't able to do. So we, I think somebody was maybe not eligible who they'd awarded it to because they'd awarded all the money for our region. They broke down the funding that they had by all these. Like we were in like a 13 county region, I think. And they'd given it all away and we didn't make the cut. And then they circled back and we're like, well, actually, you want we're gonna award you the full amount anyway. So I was like, woah, that's really exciting. We're in a little bit of a compressed timeline with it.

It's a little stressful. It's like, here, spend a lot of money. But that's a good problem to have. So we're really excited to be able to do some of the things. We're kicking things off with our landscape architects to get the planning work done so that the grounds can accommodate this twenty first century workforce also deal with some of the erosion challenges and just kind of meeting the community needs out there. We've lost another tree. The little crabapple, we actually provided quite a lot of shade and really changed the look of the entry on from Division Street. A little crabapple fell over and not a particularly terrible storm. So it was just kind of rotten on the inside. Was really sad.

Natalie, can you say for everybody what the capital funds will pay for specifically? I think it's kind

of A

whole bunch of stuff. Oh, a lot of Okay.

So it's shelving replacements in children's that will allow us to have programming in children. So what it is is replacing our current wooden fixed shelving with shelving that is on casters. But we're also gonna increase our collection space and increase our programming space. One, I like stuff that does two things. That's kind of always been my like living in very small apartments, everything needed to serve two purposes so it's kind of the same like it's stored.

We've, the library will not really get much bigger so we have to figure out how to be able to continue serving a community that is growing within those spaces. So, being able to get more out of our public spaces by replacing the shelving. We have some shelving that it's like the old radio ads from the 70s, 80s, 90s and today and that's just as long as you want it to be. It's really from like 1910 to today. So we're looking at doing a shelving plan but with the grant we'll be able to replace the shelving in children's.

We'll also be able to make some adjustments upstairs. This is one thing I've noticed since we build the teen space, we've kind of outgrown the teen space. We also really need meeting room space. So we're looking at how we can accommodate a larger teen space and where we have our DVDs if we can rehouse the DVDs. So it's moving those onto more efficient shelving outside of that space, moving the teen collection in there, possibly.

Looking at some different plans with this, but this makes the most sense. So that could bring the pie room back online for public meeting space, which really the grant is meant to serve workforce. So it's like how can we kind of squish within the space to serve those workforce needs that have really gotten kind of crowded out by all the other things that we're doing too. A lot of people come to the library looking for a small meeting space to have a Zoom, to have a court appointment, to have a smaller meeting. We have one sixty five person meeting room and then we have a lot of study tables.

So I have like routinely I have two people in the Sunday room having a meeting which is not comfortable or it's a little awkward. It's not set up for that. I have like a big table and two chairs in a giant room. So having like a few small spaces around the library. So we found these beautiful study pods. I got to test them out at the conference I was just at and I got some quotes on them. So that's part of the grant would be these study pods where people can go in and just have like a one person call and they're totally soundproof. They're awesome. But they look really nice and sleek and kind of really unobtrusive. So folks who just need to come in and have like a telehealth appointment, that was the other part of the grant was like education, health monitoring and workforce.

And so it was, in a sense, it's capital. It's how does your space meeting those needs. The changes to the passport office that can also be outfitted to be a meeting room. My office is actually much better, more conducive to my flow now being half the size that it was. It's like my office was like a big meeting room, I just kind of felt like I was in somebody else's space.

So it works a lot better. And then we have a nice private space for passport services because that's something that has really grown. So those those were the kind of the biggest pieces. One of the other pieces that's in there that is probably less like showy is a backup generator. But power goes out, people still have to live their lives, they still need to get their work done.

So having a generator means that we can stay online and we can remain a cooling shelter, which we are one of Rice County's cooling shelters in the summer and warming in the winter actually. So that helps us keep functioning at that time too. So like I said, sensibly all workforce supports and how we kind of are able to flex within the space so we can kind of meet basically meet everybody's needs simultaneously by getting really flexible shelving and some better study spaces. So that's excellent news. That grant is $347,000 so I can do a lot of good stuff with that because we're pretty efficient.

We also got a pretty generous donation of I think Do we have nine? I think we have nine sets of Nordic walking poles that people can now borrow with their library card and try out Nordic walking.

In the state?

Yeah, right. Yeah. They're they're it's pretty neat. I went to attended a program that community community ed and Age Friendly Northfield and we partnered to bring the Nordic walking queen to Northfield. It was very popular. A lot of folks in the Bundy Room. Great demos. Lots of people are really into Nordic walking now. But it's a different kind of walking with poles. They're not for stability.

They're actually to engage your upper body and your core. So it really is a full body workout with a walk. It's pretty neat. And so now Community Ed is coordinating this really where sort of the location for people to meet. There's folks who might be interested in trying normative walking can meet at the library Tuesday mornings and hopefully if other folks are there, they can go on a walk together or they can borrow a set of poles and But go off on their so that I don't know. I don't think that ended up in the report. Sorry if I'm repeating stuff that's in there. But Angelica the Linder, our outreach manager, was on vacation, a much deserved long vacation in Spain. So when she came back, she was like, I didn't get you my report. I'm like, that's okay.

I can deliver it verbally. So she did send a report that isn't in the packet, But I just wanted to highlight a few things from this because she reminded me too that the two of us were invited by our friends at community ed, again, to give tours of the oasis to visiting groups. Interest in, they were interested in community schools and families. One was the National Center for Community School and Family Engagement Conference site visit. She's really folks from all over the country.

Came to Northfield, a huge group, was really fun to talk to them about interesting community school models. So they wanted to see how a library had kind of fit itself into this space at the NCRC. So we gave a tour to them and then we gave a tour the same week to the Hawaii Ohana Support Network. So it was another group visiting from out of town same week but coming from Hawaii to see our space. So it was neat to share the Oasis with two national audiences.

It's the first time we've really had a chance to take it to that level. It'll be exciting to start presenting on that at conferences too in the future. So and that was something Angelica and I did together. She also mentioned there are computer class graduates recently finished their, so we do Spanish language computer classes and that is largely with the support of our student workers from Carleton. And they get a graduation ceremony when they finish the class. They get a signed certificate with my I signed these certificates. So it's a neat moment to acknowledge the work that they've done at the library. But I wanted to highlight that because I think that's one of those special things that

we do that we don't

really share much. We don't talk about that much. And Karen has really been doing a lot with our older adult visits. So one of her facilities that she goes to created their own summer reading challenge that was specific to them living in the facility that they're in, which I thought was a really neat way to customize something that we want to make as inclusive as we can. And there are some folks who might be in assisted living that it doesn't work for us, she tweaked it to their needs and I think that's really neat.

Let's see. Oh, and one of our other interns who's not here tonight, but Ben is one of our summer fellows from Carleton. He got to play sparkles at the Dundas Dukes game and threw out the first pitch. Every year we sponsor reading day at the ballpark at the Memorial Park in Dundas and we have the sparkles unicorn throughout the first pitch. So me tell you, if you haven't seen this, you are missing out.

This is hilarious. Oh, that's wonderful. The first year we did it, my partner actually was the unicorn for that one and and was like took it very seriously. So we've been like practicing the pitch in the yard beforehand because he wanted it to be like a really good pitch. And I'm like, unless you're practicing this wearing an inflatable unicorn, don't think it's gonna feel the same. But he got that ball over the plate. I mean, was pretty good. But I don't think that the players were quite ready for this. So they see this pink unicorn on the mound and they sort of lost it. It was very but it's a great way to kind of take it, go to people with our reading program, so it's something to encourage.

Summer reading sign ups, the ballpark. It was very hot. Very hot that day. How hot was it?

Yeah. I'll say. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm gonna ask him about that next time I see him.

Okay. Better. We've added a radio appearance. I might have mentioned that to some of you, but you get a chance to listen wherever you find a podcast. It's usually a bit after it airs on KY Men's second Wednesdays. But this month, I just wanna give a huge shout out to our friends. Bill North, super friend, was my guest, one of my special guests this month. And Pam O'Hara from Cell Code, she does beautiful bookbinding. And Alexis came on with us too representing the history center this time. So we did a whole dive into old books and just kind of the love of the book as an object and talked about the history of books and how they came how they came to be and when they came to be.

And Bill is very knowledgeable about that particular topic, so it was really cool to have him on and talk and talk old old old books like first century CE. So there it was me. And we did a little book smelling, I did like a book sommelier. I like the wine sommelier. Like, you can take notes of vanilla. It's been fun. But it's a good kind of chance for us to do a longer form conversation with the media about mostly issues in libraries. It's a little bigger than just like what programs we have coming up this month. So whatever I can squeeze into that First Friday appearance. So we spend time on kind of, yeah, geekier topics maybe like the history of books.

And we've talked a lot about some of the federal changes and how that might impact libraries. So it was nice to take a little bit of a step back from that this this month and just kind of have some fun. Another thing I wanted to mention was a few just I always like to share kind of a shout out for staff. But Alexis has a really popular book club that meets at Imminent. It's a great partnership and books at Books and Breweries is kind of becoming a thing.

I'll say a lot of places are trying this and it's been pretty successful especially in that sort of like missing middle programming, the age group that we tend to see and folks who feel like there isn't a lot for them at the library. This is a great way to kind of introduce library to folks. But somebody sent, and she did give us permission to share her remarks, so wasn't gonna share her name though. But one of the folks who comes to Book Club and this is sort of like, this is like why we do this and especially in this moment that we're in. But she said, I just wanted to thank you for the glass half full book club tonight.

I've been immersed in the politics of the moment and feeling quite defeated. Book club allowed me to leave that behind and connect with others on something completely different. It lifted my spirits and changed my perspective for a while. Very much appreciated. And I just thought that was a really neat way to connect like thinking a lot about loneliness and how that does tend to probably go hand in hand with a lot of the divisiveness and that having this opportunity to connect with other people and transcend this moment with your community in person without your doomscroll.

I think that's a good endorsement for book clubs and library programs in general. So I wanted to share that. And that Alexis is also because of that book club was invited to, I think participate in a story that folks who used to write City Pages or former editors of City Pages, remember that went away a number of years ago but it was one of those good kind of indie news, news magazines that came out of the cities. But they have another publication that's online, but they were doing a whole Books and Brews feature. And they reached out to Alexis to profile the club.

That's more like statewide coverage, that's exciting. We're happy to get in the news because it's good when people know what you're working on. The will get to the social story eventually. I'm working my way there but there was, if you watch the council meetings like I do, I'm sure you don't because most people don't, but there was vocal support from the mayor for a potential if if it becomes an opportunity for the city which it looks like it might, that cities could go out for local option sales tax. That the library's grounds kind of reimagining of that site would be her choice for all this is in the council meeting so I can say it but it would be her choice for local option sales tax or would be one of the top projects to fund that way.

So that would be one way that I could see that happening sooner rather than later possibly even in 2026. So we're excited that the grant came in to be able to give us the ability to do the more robust planning on the grounds because then that makes us much more positioned for to go out to the voter which is what local option sales tax would have to go to the voter. So it would be an opportunity for people to see. This does actually meet a lot of community needs and it solves some pretty serious problems in the site that I got a lot of detail on, that West Hill Slope is looking good. Keep losing trees.

So looking at solving some problems without just doing the same thing over and over again, but actually solving problems in a way that creates active community space. We can create some maybe education around storm water management how to be more responsible with that. We can kind of mitigate our heat island effect with some ex with all the extra paved surfaces and make the site more accessible to folks so they can actually get to those workspaces that we create and shade and make very nice for people and we want people in wheelchairs, walkers, strollers to be able to get to those spaces as well. So something that we're hoping is gonna do do a lot and also have some art. Of course it is.

What else do I wanna say here before I'm gonna move on to the social story? Because I wanna bring Hannah into this conversation a little bit. But we have been working with the Yarmakov family. If you're familiar with Tonya Yarmakov and what happened with her when she went missing last year. That it was last September, yes.

So we're looking at a year since she, yeah. And it's, so the family wanted to honor her spirit and how much she loved the library by working with us to do something there. And so we've worked with them on some different collections. We have some sensory kits now that folks can borrow at the library. Something that Amy put together was some funding from Zelko actually to do these sensory kits.

Was that Zelko or was that money from the I think that was from, I can't remember how those were funded. That might have been Selco, might have been the Aramco family, so forgive me. But one thing that the Aramco family are supporting with donations that they directed to the library is a social story, if you're familiar with social stories and what they do. But it's they're valuable to a lot of folks and caregivers and companions but for navigating unfamiliar environments basically. If you might have sensory differences or challenges that might make a library, especially our library which like maybe under construction, there may be a concert happening in the atrium, there may be a story time, there may be poetry, it may be really quiet.

It's kind of fluid. The art changes around, right? So it's a way to help people navigate unfamiliar environment that might have unfamiliar rules and an unfamiliar sensory experience. So it's a story that walks you through that. Well, comes you to the library before you get there so you kind of know what to expect.

There's some really good examples of this that we pulled first. So Ben, Alice and Hannah are working on that together along with Pat who's doing the photography. But we're going to capture the experience of visiting the library for all ages through photography. And then there's text that accompanies this that walks people through in a very direct way just to make that experience of coming to the library more welcoming and just a better experience, Right? Because you just know what to expect. So I don't know if you wanna share anything about that? About your Where are we on that project? Hannah?

We're getting there. We have like a sort of, like, skeleton, like, of kind of, like, how the format's gonna be and how the wording's gonna be. We also have, like, a very long checklist of pictures. That's very thorough. Uh-huh.

Because I I wanna make sure, me and Ben, we really wanna make sure that, like, we get everything, especially since there is a lot that goes on at the Northfield Library and, like, so much changes and, like, it's just so I wanna make it as helpful as possible. And so I wanna put in as much information as we can. It's also gonna be I believe we're doing it paper and online. Mhmm. And it's gonna be kind of like a kind of like a choose your own adventure kinda thing.

And so, like, there'll be page numbers and, like, specific, like, pages or links that you can go to if you're really interested in, like, only one specific area, like, the children's area. So that will be a fun component about it. And, yeah. So we are getting pretty good. We just really need photos and to frame the rest of it. But, yeah, that's where we are.

So one other thing that we did was work with Rocky Casias who did the mural in our children's department to do a little kind of illustrated a little avatar of Tonya that she will navigate that or help you navigate that choose your own adventure. I shouldn't say it because it's actually trademarked. It's select an adventure that suits you. And they're very careful about their IP. Yes.

We'll have an illustrated version of Tonya that her family has approved that she will help you navigate that. So the pictures are meant to be very literal. It's a literal depiction. Good well photographed spaces with some people in them navigating the space as well. We wanted there to be a little bit of whimsy with that aspect where you can kind of customize the experience of visiting the library. If you come in, you're probably, you might only wanna go to the photocopier. I don't know. But you don't you don't Every experience doesn't involve every single part of the library. So it might really overwhelm somebody on your first visit to walk them through the whole thing. It might be 80 slides because it will be a slideshow first before we have it done in print.

So that gives you a chance to say like, if you wanna continue your adventure in the children's library or in the children's department, go to page 10. And so you can kind of skip maybe the stuff about, I don't know, getting a library card. Maybe that maybe that you don't need that part. So you can kind of jump around and move through the book and you can eventually get through the whole adventure if needed, but you don't necessarily if you're not going upstairs, you're not going upstairs and maybe you don't need your adventure doesn't need to go upstairs or you're not going to Children's Fell and you want to go straight up to the DVDs. So you can do that in the book.

So we'll figure out what those spots are where you need to be directed and that's kind of the fun of putting all this together. But Hannah, Ben and Pat and then we have some volunteers who are going to star in the photos to represent the community. So kind of a picture of somebody activating the wheelchair access button on the ADA accessible entrance and entering through that door and then coming into the atrium when it's quiet and when it's in full swing. So showing both. So it should be.

It's a neat project. It's definitely the more we got into it, the more labor intensive we realized it was. And so it became like, this is a great job for summer interns. So we're really grateful for your efforts and for how much like, I would say for how much interest they have shown in the project. Thanks, Yana. It has been like awesome to see people like, okay, here's this kind of really big idea. Like now, you don't know anything about this. Now get excited about it. And they have to both of them actually take it really seriously and get excited about it is really neat. So power of interns, Rob.

But also to mention that if you don't know or if you've forgotten that the Friends of the Library generously support the internship. So this is a paid opportunity for students at the Community College Collaborative and it's open to Torch students Norsville High School as well. And this is a chance to introduce careers in libraries to people who might not have had access to an internship. They're often not paid in libraries, mine wasn't. So like unless you can afford to take an unpaid internship and to kind of devote your semester to that or summer, that's you know that definitely puts that.

But it it's one of those opportunities that I think does prepare you really well for careers in libraries. So we wanted to make sure that in addition to having great relationships with our colleges that we're also opening up that opportunity to the community college as well. So anyway, thanks friends. And Anna is our friends funded intern for the summer.

Thanks Hannah for doing that.

I think I'll definitely stop see talking now. Can't wait

it. Are there any questions about Natalie's report or any of the updates you heard? I'm so proud of you guys. You do such great work.

Building I have have we met since the Pride in the Park event?

I don't know, I don't know.

I was very impressed with that. I really thank our participation in it and it has improved so, I mean it's grown so much when I was here several years ago. It was just exciting to see that. Oh, it was huge. It was, it was huge and so many people dared go through that gauntlet, if any of you were there. The people who are, well, they were, we were tell, I was walking through a gauntlet of many men telling me I was going to hell because I was going to walk into there.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And so that was the only thing, but people went. I mean, people walked through that to get in there. So it's a, it was a big positive, you know, you can't stop us type of thing. So that was very good.

I'm glad.

Very good. Thank you for

that. It

was a wonderful event. I'm grateful to the who have taken on organizing it now because they've just done a really wonderful job with it. I think it far exceeds what we would have been able to do as a library. It's neat to see where that's grown into its own nonprofit. And that's much bigger than just the one day, two with the scholarship than they do other programs throughout the year, so it's pretty neat.

And it also was, I even wrote a letter to the city administrator. I complimented it on the police participation there. They were very, pleasant. They were very efficient. And if there it was only a couple of things that happened, but they were right there quietly and then resolved it. So the the whole city participated in that, which was great.

Your phone is good. I

think our next step is some board and commissioner reports. Mhmm. And we have someone who's here for Bill North, I think, from the Friends of the Library. You'd If like to give any announcements or updates.

Is this on? Yeah. Okay. It is good. The main focus recently and in the months ahead is going to be to work on finding new members of the board to to join the board because we're down to eight.

Lois Strathmo, and some of you probably know, finally stepped down. She and her husband, Noel, had been in declining health, and so they I don't know how many years that Lois was on with the Friends, but she finally stepped down. So we're down to eight members of the board, and the ideal is probably more like 12. And so everybody, it seems, has other things going on and doesn't have free time. Occasionally, is interested or willing to consider joining the board.

We've had a couple of really good additions recently. But also, we need to give attention to greater publicity for the Friends Foundation. And so we've been talking about spreading the word about what it is on the website, on various at various events. For example, we're supporting seven summer concerts and to have banners there or other indications that we're sponsoring these events. And also to recruit business support, business memberships.

And there have been a few. I think there are nine business members of the Friendsen Foundation. But a lot of the businesses or colleges that could really step out and support, they have been unresponsive, so we're not sure about that. Speak one of those is St. Olaf College where I taught for thirty nine years.

But we're hoping to reach out and try again. I think that there's universal or almost universal appreciation for the role that libraries play especially in these times. And so the broader the support we can get throughout the community, the better off everybody is going to be. So our current financial situation is very good. Total resources is about $268,000 About 46% is in a Northfield shares endowment.

And so financially, we're doing fine. There are some individuals that contribute $1,000 $2,000 $5,000 a year. And so that goes a long way for giving us financial resources to support things like the internships. We have supported the pride events, Hispanic heritage down through the years, and a lot of other events, and, all of these made a difference. I'm always I don't know if I mentioned the last time I was here, but my mother worked for the Walter Library at the University of Minnesota starting about ninety years ago.

Mhmm. And so she got me interested in libraries at the start when I was very young. Then the role of libraries is, of course, as everybody knows here in this room, it's evolved dramatically in all those times where it's a broad community resource, it's a key resource, great value for the cost, for the investment, and so we need to get the word out. That's gonna be one of our main objectives in the upcoming months.

Wonderful. Well, we appreciate the Friends of the Library in many ways, but we will definitely commit to helping get the word out. It sounds like I heard board members and then members and general awareness. Right. The three pieces.

Right. We need three or four people that are good candidates for the board, interested with the ability to do a variety of things. Social media is something that's way beyond my realm. My my idea of social media is an old dial telephone. So people that have special abilities that can contribute to marketing or who are interested in developing special programs, Some of us are involved in the discussions about the planning for the exterior spaces in the library area.

And so if you know of people that have talents, whatever ways would be helpful, please encourage them. Get in touch with us. We don't, we don't turn anybody down.

If someone were interested, would they go to your website and email into the website?

Yes. In fact, we have a meeting next Monday evening. Okay. And that's one of the sorts of things we're going to be discussing about the website. Wonderful.

They can also reach the library and we can put them in touch.

Yeah. Yeah. And

we'll start thinking about who those

five Yeah, people library's website has a link to the friends. Wonderful. And in the last month, there have been some developments there, improvements there. This is an active project.

And if I understand correctly, it's not a contradiction to be on this board and that board?

No. No. So if any of you have the urge, the interest, and the time, just let us know.

Well, thank you so much. I'm wondering if Selco update. Did you have something

to Yes. Tell us

about? Okay.

So the changes that are most relevant for us, Cellco is discussing future changes in their delivery sorting mechanism. They're hoping to introduce an automated system, which involves a lot of technical details and a lot of relocating barcodes and potentially some RFID things on some of the books. But for our purposes, it will hopefully make it much easier and faster and cheaper for them to sort books. And so when we get all of the materials that we so frequently get from CELCO, it will hopefully make that process a little smoother which is lovely. And then we did discuss updates on state and federal library funding issues.

Nothing that we haven't already discussed in the context of the Northfield Public Library specifically, but we talked about the impacts to CELCO.

I'm glad you mentioned that about the AMH sorter that they're getting. We are do they call you out in those meetings as much as they call me out? No. It's always like, well Northfield is the heaviest. Are. I think we pulled in, was it 36,000 items last year? So we're like the biggest ILL borrower in the region by a lot too. So whenever it comes to say yes to something like that, it's always like, yep, we're on board because we're the ones who are probably pulling the most in. So as barcoding our collection properly is high priority. So we we right away, we we we stuck those barcodes on the on the front instead.

So if you're wondering why your part of your title or author's name is covered up, it's because we had to move the barcodes to the front. It's fine. We'll load.

36,000. That's okay.

That's a lot of stuff that's coming through the So yeah. We we can do our part if that helps out. But I think it's it's pretty neat. If you ever get a chance to go and look at one in action, Dakota County's libraries have them. And and they're pretty cool because usually they build them in a way so that there's like a window. So kid because kids love to see their books go into the Sure. Things of the book feed

the book Yeah.

Yeah. Robot, book eating robot that takes them on the little conveyor belt and sorts them to the right bins. So they're pretty cool. But that should hopefully save them a lot of staff time because that is definitely something that they're hand sorting a ton. Okay.

Yeah. Well, thank you for taking the training and for taking on the meeting and we'll try to get somebody to join you in August. And if it's not you, Anna, that's okay, but we'll find somebody. Good.

Thanks. Thank I loved doing it. I've loved being a part of this. I'm sorry I

can't continue. Know. I won't miss you.

I think do we have any other boards and commissions you wanted to

talk

don't think

through?

Unless somebody else has something you want to share but I did forget to mention the Rice County commissioner.

That's what I was gonna say.

Okay. Thank you. One of us would get there eventually but yeah, August 5

at forgot the time. Usually eight in the

morning. Happy to carpool if anybody wants to. This is like the one time I get my car right. Drive to Faribault. We go to the Rice County Board of Commissioners. I think Hannah's gonna come in. I'm show her off. We go to present our budget request. Our ask is a 4% inflationary increase to account for just the rising costs of literally everything. Yeah. You

can go. You can go watch as

the head of You can come. The best thing that we can bring with us are constituents. So anybody who wants to come with to show how much support there is for this library, we fill the room. Because otherwise it's a pretty empty room. It's just a lot of directors of the the this is the day that they do the other what do they call it? Outside agencies, I think, presentations. So we're the groups that get usually a fairly small, relatively small amount of county funding and we go and make that request every year. And they usually keep it fairly flat although last year they did grant our request for the inflationary increase. So I'm grateful to them and

The August 5? Center. Yep. Female Oh, if that's interesting to you. If you want to come, if you want to wear your library board button, you don't have to speak. You can just stand. No.

But if you want to give public comment, is part of the meeting and you are more

than welcome to do that. It could be as little as I sure love my library and it could be as much as two minutes probably so.

Yep. And if you actually have like anything like testimonial wise that you do want to share and you don't want to get up, I can include that in my presentation. Like you can always just give that to me and I can share it. So I usually incorporate like that feedback we got about the book club. That's going in there because that is that is good. Right? So like that, I'm happy to take to the commission but we'll be presenting that. Yep. August 5. I gotta put that presentation together.

Well, is there anything else that people need to cover tonight?

Motion to recognize board member Mooney for her time of service. It

has been such a privilege.

Thank you for joining us.

Wonderful. Well, think we'll do a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. And

we don't need a motion for this. Right? Are we good?

I think we do.

We do?

Somebody's got

a second.

Mooney, do it.

Seconded. Nice. Here.

You do this for your last meeting. Get a little there it is.