Library Board - Regular Meeting

all this meeting to order we will do the call first let's see here skip over all my names R Sarah yes our library director jennif our andoun and I am as well so first up is is changes to the agenda do we have any this week and can we get a motion to approve last month's minutes make motion to approve last month minutes Andes our on to community engagement does anyone have any reports over last month Jennifer have you heard any going about in the community um something I did talk to a person who um I had mentioned the cone of silence and uh she said that she loved it that it was something that came in handy for her and that she was very grateful that it had been aaable yeah all right on report rep and we have assistant director Josh Mor's report in our pocket yeah so I can kind of briefly go over that um as you know usually gives a summary the highlights from February or um the programs for adults we're still getting pretty kind a standard um middle of the road for adult programming

something I this feel needs to be shared is that getting numbers at adult programs is like really hard to do universally um unless it's you know RG marks since they you know some some big um big draw um to be able to get kind of right about this 9 to 11 number is pretty good I would say for adult programing I mean we always love to see 35 and 40 um but but we keep chipping away and my feeling of always is and this is something I chatted with Josh about um you know the five people in the room that was a really important event and that's what we're here for those opportunities for books you one the thing people show up to programming we do certainly we have some regulars at the board game night um and then um for the for the mood screening was beginning to to grow I will share that uh we had Benjamin's attend glory on the 22nd and they raved about it they absolutely loved the um interactive piece with Mike Cil he's a film historian um and just felt that it really added to the experience of the movie and the of the or of some sort um I don't know details was information but yes Ben is a vet not um Ben is a vet and had never seen glory and was just um I know surprising yeah um so they they really enjoyed it I something

and part of it was that you know follow on thing is and that's St the presentation is yeah and that's something that you know when we look back at the numbers for 24 um we were planning two movies a month which seemed um aggressive so we've kind of scaled back to um generally once a month and and then have trying to maybe even less frequently but being able to have the um the addition of the film story participate because it really does add something extra to um so again you can see from the packet we've got a bunch of things coming up for March we have Spring Break um and and mentioned in the annual report we are H and PR did I share that at the last our last board meeting the numbers um 2024 we had uh close to 5,000 programs no 5,000 attendees at 234 programs so uh is hopping sometimes forget it you know we're able to get a parking spot but it's something will French Story Time be in French or about French maybe [Music] we so yeah try to do a couple of um think we had a Chinese Story Time one here one time Spanish Story Time yes so they're learning some French

French books and songs yes will be French and we do have this um this tax uh tax filing assistance program um as you know that each year a ARP um offers tax prep for uh senior citizens and you have to sign up and I think there was a a blip in the Seaside area or you know class uh County um so a lot of folks were going down to T to have their taxes done because that's where they were ARP had been set up so we've been trying to get it set up here I think we're doing something over the bism but again it fills up really quickly so we're looking at some other assistance you know we're not able to necessarily I think what people really want is they want to show up with all their stuff and have someone do the tests that's really what folks are looking for yeah um the the program that we have running in the next couple weeks at Thursday and Friday um there's an Oregon Department of Revenue tax there's an assistance program so someone who can help navigate through the online filing but not necessarily provide giving all yourself fing best friend from p this time of year he does that program no I think I think it has something to do with ar or might be something different um but he said if we I think the main thing is you got to find somebody that's willing to take it on here yes and if that's the

library yeah I can put you contact he he was actually coming to history hops said he's busy helping people so yeah when we first started looking into this uh yeah the thing that really keeps it running is to have a basically a site coordinator um and by site coordinator is kind of like a county coordinator who's then organizing all the um volunteers and this this your friend is a volunteer I'm sure and yes a special sliver of people who want to spend their time helping people do their taxes and thank you offer that like once um I think centr or um do they do it for Hispanic folks um I was listening to op this morning just want you to know I'm attempting to participate in and take my um I was listening yeah to the radio this morning and they were talking about a program and I was I GNA try to look at it and it was like cash something um but they are currently searching for volunteers to help and I think that's kind of what the story was about but it sounded incredible and they work all over and there are volunteers helping to do text texes and it was so impressive I mean they were talking about like the five maybe was it cash organ or something it's called Cash Das org or there are three programs the ARP something called f via and one called Cash dor yes and so

he was saying that um he had like 6,000 people that they helped last year and they sort of recouped $2 million for these people and some people would even come in with like three four five years worth of back taxes and they would help them through it and they it was really inspiring actually I was like maybe I could do that but but it might be something to look into and they do the coord anything about taxes know what their is people in place yeah yeah so this was the we did um we kind of we got a late start to it last year when Josh and I first started talking about offering something like this so we had a a jump start this here and we we talked with someone from VA we talked with folks from a couple of different spots and trying to figure out could we find someone who could be an ARP representative or you know coordinator for the tax prep here in classic so we keep chipping away at that so we'll see of course post here over theism any other question about the assistant director report T would you please join us for the friends of foundation report yes I'll be happy to um but you know that since the last Seaside Library board meeting the Seaside Library friends and Foundation has met twice with our next meeting being on Friday we've produced magnets and stickers with our logo this

is sticker one computer yes and um we've decided on membership levels with benefits and those benefits will include coupons for free books from the bookstore the levels of of membership individual is $110 a year Family or household is $25 a year for a nonprofit it would be $40 a year business is $75 a year and lifetime is $1,000 a year and each one of those levels comes with um with uh goodies and uh benefits so there'll be uh goodies such as um bookstore uh books from the bookstore for free accounts to events um public recognition and we are in the process of creating merchandise that we can sell as well as giveaway and so merch will also be one of the benefits of being a member um we've uh updated the our bank account at US Bank in fact Leah and I did that this morning so the new name and new signers and I just signed my first uh check for slip to go to the library to fund the next program at the library um and we started working on policies we've provided the funding for the free books that are being provided by the library for one Seaside one book uh Community reading we expect to have our name change official with the state of Oregon within a week uh we expect to adopt updated bylaws um on Friday to start marketing our membership in April start marketing for volunteers in the bookstore in May and hold a general membership meeting and elect a new board in

July and we will be hosting the chambers good morning Seaside on May 7th at 8 a.m. in this room so that's the report will the stickers and magnets be available in the bookstore uh they will they will we'll be selling merch and we'll be giving stuff away too any questions on the friends and Foundation report like you guys have been very busy we have all right jennif can please sh your library Report with us yes that put in there but um so for the library facilities I did uh present the budget request to City the council last week um I had three priorities and H was one of them um and basically an evaluation and potential uh future replacement of of the systems again as as I reported at the that city council meeting it's it's not dire but it's sending us little signals that it's um on its way out um and better to be ready with a plan and then be able to um to be able to do that replacement uh when the time comes and it I think what Spencer had had mentioned in discussion about it is that it wouldn't necessarily be um a one for one replacement because the systems that we have right now are um I believe they are uh eight residential systems for eight different zones that are in constant competition sometimes it's wor cold in here sometimes it's and yeah it would need to be kind of a full reall um but the other

thing that we were looking at uh again something that I think it might not be this year but something that we would like to be thinking about for the future is a Furniture refresh so I believe the Furnishings these tables are new um which has been great because they're much easier to collapse and store and move around um but the library furnishings and the cells uh are pretty fixed right they're I've said in the report they're sort of one one siiz fits all or none depending on you know you sat in those chairs and out of um I think they're beautiful it's beautiful furnishings and I I would love to be able to kind of keep some sense of that uh for the space but I think the needs of the community are showing us that folks want to be able to kind of customize their spaces a little bit more and have maybe it's maybe it's a cubby situation or tables that are easier to move together and if we were to have a special meeting their hours and pull everybody together by the fireplace or um right now it's pretty challenging we're looking at that um the other priority that uh was the request for the the youth services assistant position be converted from a 20 hour 29h hour position which puts it just below being benefited uh to the the 40h hour fully benefited position um and again we saw we saw the benefit of that position being full-time when we vied it and the ability of our services librarian to be away from this facility and connecting with the community on St school and

Child Care Centers um and then other other areas around the city um while we have a dedicated staff member here who's connecting with the families who are here um connect kids with books things like that so we do we would love to see that program grow and see those numbers grow of just program offerings um we'd be able to probably add another story time that focus on babies and toddlers and just to be clear when when we have the story time it's not we don't card the kids and say must be between five you know and obviously some people have more than one children one child and they're not going to just leave them in the car which is ilal so that's a good thing bring them all in so we have you know babies to sometimes School AG kids depending on patient so we are providing a story time to all of those ages but it would be great to be able to add another story time that was really focused on babies and Cs and babies specific would you look at a different day or would you look at a different space Toddlers and blah Blas over here and babies and blah Blas over here and have it going on at the same time but not close enough to I think we've run into um caregivers splits you know if we have one one caregiver and two children and you can't just drop your baby off in child boundar is pretty clear um I think probably another day during the week it's when we would offer it um a

slightly different time things in the afternoon are hard for for Littles because thankfully they still might take a nap or um but we do have we have the K through five group of kids who have I believe they have that same early release on Wednesdays and have the team programming so we have we've captured that but we really don't have anything are you looking at some particular Point having a Spanish language storytelling time I would love that I would love that that was actually one of the questions uh that came up when we were talking about um the community engagement and having this expanded Spanish collection and yeah I would love um the next time I have an opening um I'm gonna ask for bilingual and Spanish if possible um that's really it's that's something we're absolutely missing and I do know that the atoria library with their classic Works intern one year they they brought in a team who was bilingual and their summer intern person basically led a bilingual Story Time throughout the Summer soers cross for this year we'll see who great what applicants we get for uh so in statistics I just I did I already told you what what I was going to say earlier about the um almost 5,000 attendees at 234 programs um and I included um an image of the heat map that I shared uh at the at the my annual

report and it's such a cool program that we're able to see um were're able to see the the foot traffic in the library more granular whole now um and I think it'll really help as we start to um you think about Staffing and think about you know where are are we deploying folks in the right spots and you need to think about oh maybe we need to stay open this other day or maybe this day maybe we need to open earlier on Sundays because that big bump right there at 1:00 um but that would some it's helpful in planning um and also just for us data data um and I am happy to report that we applied for a team internship Grant through the Oregon State library and that's funded through the imls um so the Institute of Museum and Library Services Federal program and we did receive that um did receive the grant for the summer so this will help pay for our class at Works intern we were planning on having anyway and I'm hopeful that in looking at the budget we actually might be able to swing having two classet Works in turn so one would be paid for at the sprant and the other the other would be paid about half of it out of this budget year and half out of the next budget bring to because it is so helpful to have just an energetic person waiting at the desk when you remember what it's like coming in when you're handing in your your

forms during summer reading and folks are busy at the desk and this way we have you don't feel like you're bothering the Librarians help people all right yeah was nice pushing the books and signing up more folks um we're super excited about that and then uh officially the one book one Seaside promotion has um kicked off with um it's kind of like a slow slow kickoff but the books have been on display and folks are taking them which is great thank you to the friends and foundation for purchasing those for us and now that my presentation to the council and budget meeting is behind me I can start working on my um plan for those book talks that am giving in April um so I just finished listening to the adventures puckleberry fin on audio in my car uh and that was challenging I have to say it's a little different to hear the language over and over again that it is to read it and maybe be able to skim a little bit um I was really I actually didn't listen to the last disc and just read the rest of the book because I was ready for I was ready to stop hearing that word over over again so yeah it's very interesting th and I are about halfway through the book and really enjoying it concept is quite miraculous to me he's following the story very judiciously but giving so much more yeah it's pretty it's pretty [Music]

interesting any questions for Jennifer on to unfinish business the library website read yes and if I can figure out which thing I want to bring up um we'll just stay there so we're waiting on while I'm while I fumble through this uh we are waiting to have the uh the host moved from City Hall so city hall right now is manages our hosting and the domain hosting of the of the website and John helped me create a GoDaddy account so now I have a GoDaddy account for the library so the library will then become the domain host of the library website that'll give us a little more um nimbleness maybe in um getting things uploaded and changed all right so we created it in Wicks now the question is get to it all

we've been working on um creating a new page something that's a little more and to type a password talk at the same time probably familiar our current website um has a lot going on it's a lot of um colors and uh options like these don't even really work anymore because the system that created this website has is going away and so we can't really update it anymore so if you click on this it just says oh you can't do that so you have to do that so that's pretty exactly um so we took we stripped it all the way down um Alice and I worked on you know what what are the most important pieces we wanted where did we want them obviously being able to navigate to the catalog uh right away was important um having access to this calendar uh is important too so we played around with um the framework of it and the nice thing is that we and can see it um um we're still building out some of the pages now I know why they pay people a lot of

money to do this but we've had fun um I know this that is not our website that it's just something to watch while it's struggling to load and so the hope is um you know once we get it to a place where we're able to publish it um as your navigating it or you're in your community engagement conversations um love feedback would love to have a sense of is it is it user friendly um I know sometimes we've changed things in the past and you've had people who are Avid users let us know that things went away or weren't working so it's very it's great to be able to have that so it's a little hard to see um but this is sort of the this is now the main page and again it's not live so it's you're not seeing it um as it shows up but the the main page has these basic important things right you've got you can search the catalog right here you can just jump to the catalog or log into your account this IM here is for liy so access to the ebooks and audio books doesn't work on Tuesday so this is me attempting to because I'm not sure um yeah I'm in I'll just click buttons until I ruin

something or um but I wanted to be able to show you is that these are what the drop downs look like um it's still loading or not um so qual for that we did decide to keep this very busy calendar right on the front page um we have heard positive things about it it is busy as heck um and it hurts my brain a little bit but um what we gra your attention to see more it sure does and you can you can change it for yourself here it's it's not really clear um but right now it's as a pinboard you can see it as a monthly um okay so there's a couple and I think it saves that for you I'm not sure if it does but it you can you can also just go into a straight list of things too um so up here I'm not sure why it's not showing the pull down menu but um we had these three big buckets so like so about us and again I don't know if it's going to take us there we might actually to continue this on our unfinished business figure out how to navigate it um so that you can see the different the different pieces but it's the same basic architecture of you know we have um we'll have policies friends and Foundation um contact us things like that youth services is again another sort of where we're going to have reading lists and much more robust

experience there and then this one Services sort of replace this more from your library so um and we've kind of changed the order of things and what's available under me that more from your library so we looked a lot of different websites and it's pretty mindboggling when you start looking at all all the different options and then stuff starts sticking out to you like oh I did that I so unfortunately able show you um and I thought that we would have it live but again we're waiting on that domain transfer s PR it's a little we tried to keep the color scheme pretty basic so you know that's our logo with that this the sand and the the sea or the sky um trying to keep it with those those colors and you do still have toxic GRE do have trees up in the hill anyway so reasoning behind some of it um but once I'm able to send you I could potentially send you a like a live link of the of the site and then uh you can explore it at your Fe so what your thoughts are this is going to be something strictly on the library it's up to you that I'm updated up to date all that andary somebody in city and and we we do actually control um the content on our current website uh

the architecture of it um was built for us and so we're stuck within that archit Ure framework so moving to Wix was the ability for us to be able to create a website from scratch and create that architecture and then make changes as we goild um you know we're we're kind of small potatoes so I don't feel like we need you know we're without the tourism you know Bureau but we we want it to serve the needs of the community and answer questions folks are to site looking will it be mobile friendly um it is it is pretty mobile friendly a little better than our okay then our new business this week is community engagement about new EST yes um yes I decided to do some Show and Tell um we so a lot of our books from uh the festival have started to arrive the top shelf were children's books and it used to be full but Josh is working on cataloging those right now and then uh the second level is more of our um teen and adult primarily um a non-fiction So the plan for Community engagement around this again since we got these books through a grant through the lios for Oregon um group they had applied for a grant um and part of that is to have pretty targeted Community engagement around it so I've been working with um Norma at K ho um I need to ret talk to El Centro and talk about you know what would be is there a

way that I could bring these out to an event happening in the community um we are also as you mentioned right we went into the room that used to be the Multicultural room um soon that will be our archives room and so we move the Spanish materials out of that space to make room uh for the archives and the plan is to move the Spanish collections right next to the English collections so that you're looking at English fiction you turn around there's there Spanish fiction so you're not going into a special room next to the coin of Silence um and then we can continue to to grow grow The Collection so thinking about connecting with the school and talking about you know these the the stuff that we have been able to add um and then just sort of oneoff so if I if I have a family that comes in and it's it's obvious that their Spanish speaking family I will do my best to engage with them in conversation um in my very broen Spanish to say hey we have these cool new books can I show them to you and tell me what you think and you know I I've had some um I had a dad actually take a look at the the um the adult non-fiction and he kind of got excited about you know a couple of the types of things that are available so a lot of it is sort of um there's some you know how to David mcau book the um like it's the body yeah the functions of the body what the body does um here's mushrooms in Span um you have cookbooks we do have U

here's the yes this one is um fermented fermented vegetable uh cookbook so all things um Meed how to how to live without pain um medicinal plants so just some I I had been looking for um specifically emergency preparedness materials in Spanish because I was finding that that was not read available and even down at that Festival I everyone I asked they like oh that would be a really good idea yep so maybe we should all write a book or several about emergency preparedness this the art of fermentation anyway just some interesting things to add to the collection um these are really beautiful I just I had to get them even though they're probably the most Rous things but uh because one they don't fit on a shelf very easily um people who publish books I think sometimes don't but this is more almost like a gift book in which um there are these images here and then so we're not quite sure how we're going to use this book if it's going to go into the collection or it'll be you know maybe a prize book or something the children's books um have you connected with Head

Start um I believe yes I believe Services librarian connection and yes there was a table at the um they had a table at thean thing I believe but um there's a I think a a fair percentage of children at headstar I think we connected what was the was it the the homeless connect that event that happened head folks there too any public comment this week this public will say also the con of Silence came in helpful for me I used it and I really liked being able to use it I didn't have to go out in the poll to talk on my phone and do a a a video any more comments um I just I should have probably mentioned this under Community engagement but um I was talking talking to some women who um volunteer spend a lot of time with bism center and we were talking about books and how the collections are being sort of refreshed and there are there's a surplus at books and they have a table every year at the farmers market where they sell pottery um to earn money sort of for the Pottery Studio and someone suggested kind of holding on to at least some of those books that don't sell or something at the FRS of the library and just giving them for free and even having like half a bouches of

watering I know like space is an issue bought Pottery last sum at least you know collecting it during the summer and then each week is there particular should to um Linda was the one who suggested okay well if there are yes um I enjoyed the uh tour that was given um and toally surprised to face in the back there um but one of the things that Jenner said what would you like something and I mentioned a kind of foot PATH map um because I never knew that there was a seat Library um and since things are being mov around I felt like if there was like a a one sheet uh here's what's in the library and you know from a drone um that it could be not only helpful for me but for people coming into town maybe something that you give them when they apply for a live when they get a library card so that they're they feel a little more comfortable um walking around the library because they know where I think it's a great idea honestly before I had my tour when I joined the board I also didn't know about a lot of services we offer okay well our next meeting

then will be Tuesday April 1 that's 4M and aink well we need a birthday cake because it's I won be crating to