Library Board - Regular Meeting

I call this meeting to order. We'll take some attendance. Jennifer, library director. Hoffman, our state council leazison present. Kathy Ryan, present. Sarah Miller, present. Steve Marks, present. And we have no seaside friends of the foundation representative today. Are there any changes to the agenda before starts? I think the only thing I would include was that we wouldn't have a report from them officially today. Got it. And the only thing we wish to approve the May second. Second. Minutes are approved. On to community engagement. Anybody have anything this month? I try to talk about the library when I'm in your heart as much as possible. I'm not going to say what kind of responses they all get, but I try to keep them remembering. There used to be more people, senior citizens from Ghart that used to be volunteers, but I somehow that they aged out. Nobody seemed to replace them. So, I'm actually trying to figure out how to render that. Yeah, we can talk about maybe doing that. I think how about the son and maybe for coffee one morning something in rel. Okay. Caroline meets me sometimes and I always say loudly to everybody, we serve on the library board. the word of the library. Okay. Um yes, I was going to talk about your

uh reptiles. you had a reptile day and um my grandkids are homeschooled and they are homeschooled like with a association down in Torilla but they have connected with other homeschooled kids here and they all got together to come and see the reptiles and they were thrilled. It was very well I think we had to turn people away at that immediately. Yeah. Because we according to that sign up on the wall, we have a capacity. We were there. My son and I were there and there were people like crowding the doorway. I was like trying to up their heads and that's crazy. Is she a local woman? I think they are. Or maybe Portland or Pacific Morocco maybe. Um, and so it was well loved. That was thrilling. That tarantula, even though they couldn't touch it, but they could touch the python and that was that face. Thank you. Yeah, I've heard people talking about how great the art shows are always here. Um, someone was shopping for a book illustrator and they were like, "Oh, you should just peruse the art shows to the library till you find a style you like. That's that's amazing to hear because we are trying to build out the web page, you know, now with the new web page. U we have a page that's the art committee. So we have the posters from all previous art shows. So we could any other community engagement. Okay. On to our assistant director report. I think I was it.

Um, again, we're looking at a a slightly revamped. I won't read everything um to you, but he did highlight uh May and June program statistics. Um, and then also our summer reading uh which is underway. and I don't know if we have this to say on the back he has a bullet the last bullet first time um so last year we had the summer reading program for adults that was the first time that has done that may happen in that but um so now we're trying to get some more engagement with uh the adults for that and we have good registration and lots of folks are participating in the submitting of book reviews was some of us. So, some folks are more verbose than others. So, um which I think is great. Um and I think there's there's some other I think there's a lot of room for um enhancement with some of those programs. What do you do with the reviews or are they just sort of for funding them? I think we've talked about um maybe highlighting them, you know, print having them available somewhere or um further than what we might do with it, but you know, have we might like or feature something. Um, so today, and we were sort of frantically getting this room ready, which is why it looks so undone because one, Josh is on vacation, but also, um, we had a Pokemon scavenger hunt today with the summer reading kids, and it was madness. It was just a delight. And of course, the the thing that we often forget is,

okay, sure, we've planned a program. Um, Miriam starts to plan it with the interns and actually a lot of it was done by one of our interns, Stella, who I hope she could come today, but she'll probably come next time. Um, and more on that about her. Um, and so she put together this amazing scavenger hunt and it was really, really well planned out. But what happens is, as you know, as a parent of a small child, you come to the library. Oh, I think I'll bring all the books I was going to drop off and I'm gonna bring my summer reading things to get my prizes and you know, so there's all of this other business that's happening at the same time as the program. So Susan and I love our steps often. So always fun. So that was today. Um, yeah. So just some other highlights that I think you've probably talked about before. The concerts always bring in a a great great crowd. Um, and again this beautiful uh this beautiful artwork that we are surrounded by for the rest of the summer which was just lovely. Uh this is Lindo Reese and she does uh this is pastel and I wish I could my office. Any questions about sort of the statistics? I know we're I just got all of my reports yesterday from June. So, what I'm going to report on will be an idea of what's going on in that reptile program. I guess that falls under youth outreach that we had 665 attendees. No. Um that actually um so in May is when Marian and usually I would go up

with her but I was America uh we go up to school and we do a summer reading presentation to all of the grades. So we talk to like every kid K5 um which is pretty cool. So that was a combination of either um visiting classrooms or doing um her outreach story times. So that's a comfort skip over the slip report. So on to yours. Okay. Um, so again, I was gone for almost three weeks. It was wild, but more than seven seconds of vacation left off the bat. Um, but just recently, actually, I went up. I don't know if you've seen on social media. So, the Jewel uh Jewel School has a library. Never seen it. I've never seen it. If you get a chance, visit, if you can visit the school, just see the library. It's a beautiful space. And the gymnasium is an amazing I wish I had taken a picture of it. The woodwork, it's sort of this domed um space. It's just magical. Uh so I went up with um Jess, our rock coordinator, uh to to meet the librarian who's up there. And so they've started doing so Wednesday program they have just for a handful of kids and they actually bust them in. Um and then on Saturday they're trying out this community library idea. So from 10 to 1 in Juel they're having library stuff. So there might be an activity um you know an art portion of it. The

librarian is very artistic. Uh, so just trying to draw the community into into the library space. They don't have obviously a public library space, but they do have that school library. So that was pretty it was fun to just be able to get up there, but goodness gracious to drive, bring a snack far. Um, and then the um, we have the three classic works interns, um, Stella, Setana, and Corbin. And um hopefully for the next for the August meeting um we'll be able to have them come present to us. But they'll be I think two of the three Corbin and Stella are coming with me Thursday morning uh to STDNA. So Suicide Downtown Development Association at Pancake Promise and Breakfast. So they will show up. Um did we just have one last year? We just said one and now we've got three. We have three. So and the reason we were able to do that is uh we applied for a grant through the state um that would fund a team intern and we were awarded that for $4,125. So that automatically paid for one of our interns. So that was great. So, we're sort of calling that stub and then we had money for we had earmarked money for another intern and and we wanted to hire both of them and just decided let's hire both of them but at halfime. So instead of 25 hours, they would each get whatever oils. And um so we offered it to each of them and they were open to that. And then I found out through Classic Works, they uh have some funding available to nonprofits or businesses

that maybe aren't able to fund their own intern. And Misty let me know that she still had this money and I said, I'll write up a little request. And so she um yeah we got awarded that money too. So that's great. Yes. So you increased their hours from the 12 and a half to they have the opportunity to increase their hours if they wanted to. Great. Sure. So, that's working out well. And we had a check-in meeting today about the grant this morning and, you know, meeting with libraries from all around the state who have teams working for them that are we paid for through this state grant and it's we're in a very good position. Um, some organizations they were sort of scrambling to get the job posted. Um, you know, there needs to be a lot of coordination with the city or with that with whoever your HR is. and we really have it dialed in here. Um, working with the city and having everything just sort of flow and works really well and having interns means extra work, right? So, it's not you have to make work for them. So, there's some some processes that they're always reminded like, "Oh, yeah, that's right. We need to get that in place." But, it always seems to happen so quickly and now we're halfway through the summer. So, And not halfway through. How long do you have inference? Till like mid August. Is having three more? Yeah. Well, do you think you're going to try for it again next year? I think it's great because we have, you know, Stella who volunteered previously and so now she's a paid intern. She really kind of knew the library and so she's learning more but is also able to act as kind of a guide for the other two.

Um, and we've also we have Corbin coming in on Sunday, which is great. So, he works out for his schedule and so he's learning from Alex and Susan and Barbara on Sunday shift. He's really helping out with shelving on that day on Sunday. So, he's we were standing up at the desk and it got really busy and he just walked right up to the computer and said, "I can check out the next person." Wow. I know. It's amaz They've got energy and learn fast and they learn fast and yeah it's it's um it's very what what I shared this morning at the the grant meeting was it's as you get to this position in the library you sort of move away from all the fun stuff that happens right so you're not doing story time you're not buying the books and you're approving their purchase and you're and you're talking to the people who need to get in trouble. So, it's really fun and energizing to be around these these teens who are they're they are our future. So, that's it's invigorating. So, yes. Um so, let's see statistics. Um the numbers are up and actually I just um entered the numbers for so we had about 38 3,900 people through the door in May which was up from June. Um, um, we had 4,200 people through the door in June. So, it's going up, going up and up. And of course, you have those big programs

and so that generates a lot of a lot of attendance. Something of note and this is you may have come across this in your discussions in the community but um when we transferred over to our new um library management system May 31st of 2022 all library card accounts got reset to they were like brand new of that date regardless of how when they were supposed to expire. So three years from that date was this past May 31st. So many cards are expired and all at the same time which means if you're getting on Libby it's you're not able to get authenticated. So we've been renewing a lot of cards but it's a good way to sort of keep the the database fresh. How? How come I haven't? You might have already. You might have gotten react automatically because I did not do it myself. I have an urge to check. I mean, I've been checking out books. So, I got Did you have to do anything? I had to stand there while they removed me and proved that you still are checking out. It wasn't a process, you know. It was just I went to check out a book and they said, "Oh, really? Your library card expired." I said, "Okay, what do I do?" They said, "Well, what do we do?" I said, "Go for it." The standard seaside ones are every three years. Um, obviously the ones that are paid cards, they just expire at the end of their term. So, for example, I took a call from a woman today in Gearhart who um is trying to get on Libby and I said, "Well, you have a 12-month card been expired." Um and we were able to renew it over the phone with that new credit card system that we have.

Um so, that worked. That's good. And then she That was handy. And she paid and she paid. She did pay. Um, let's see what else. Oh, yeah, the building. Um, $8,500 to treat and clean and treat the roof, which I don't think has ever been done before. Is it flat? No, it's slanted. And treating it for what? The loss. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, we're going to investigate some other possibilities because that's a big chunk. Um, and I did have uh this individual Clay Popper from Oregon Corrections Enterprises come out and talk about furnishings. And turns out many of our furnishings, not these tables, those are newer, but a lot of the furnishings that we have in the main part of the library actually came from his organization. Is it corrections like in the correction system? So, it's prison furniture. Prison. Well, it's not prison, is it? I mean, is it a hand down from No, no, no. It's built by them. By them. Okay. By those who are incarcerated. Yes. Yeah. And he um he pointed he shared some fabrics with me because we were talking about, you know, the giant chair, the one size fits no one. Um he said when those when we first got those they probably cost about 200 or 250 I think they're probably now about $1,000. That's all to say we will not be getting rid of them. We will be recovering them. U so we'll get some new cushions on those. So we did share one of the fabric samples that he shared with him. He said

that's the fabric we use in the prison. Like that's the fabric we want. Yes. Yeah. So, we'll be looking at that. Um, and this is a stupid question, but I'm sure you like a lumbar pillow or something that would put me where I could actually touch the floor. I don't know if we can go that far, but we absolutely get on our pill. Yes, we talked because he saw the pillow that we had just maybe they were picked up at Kohl's or something. So, um we're we're gonna they would be in the same fabric straight. Okay, thank you. That would be that's what what's flexible for. So, I think of like these tables that flip up and roll and different things. They perform. They they perform. I So, for example, we have that oval display. We have two of them. Um where the new books are on display and then toward the back, we have sort of a monthly changing display. If that were on wheels, it would be so much nicer to be able to So, casters, casters are a pos the thing weighs a trillion tons. That is our first assh. They do. They do. But I've also thought there's some other cool kind of designs that are a little more curvy and like more. I don't know. We'll see. I'm a big fan of everything. I can have everything. So, we're going to look into, you know, maybe change out some of the furnishings. I'm thinking in certainly in in the main atrium space, you know, if if everything were on casters, right? How easy would it be to

just sort of wipe it clean, push everything to the side, and have a big fun event? Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Right. That's the idea of having that anybody can roll with the room. Yeah. When we were redoing one uh school library, we talked about everything that was not against the wall, if it wasn't built into the wall, it would be on wheels. And so we could just move everything away and then have them space. So that's the plan. And actually the library I used to be associated with in New York did have this age limit area that they could maneuver in that once a year they sponsored an event with wine which was very popular and brought a lot of donation money into the library. Yeah. I mean our our little foundation event that we know that was I think folks would like to see more of that. So there is the plan for that once once Sliff is kind of fully formed and operational and then we'll get then we'll get into the party throwing business. Which foundation event were you talking about? When we did the caper at the co Okay. Yeah. Okay. Something something. Yes. Along those lines an event to bring folks in something. Uh and then staffing. Um I'm happy to say that our newly appointed 40hour um youth assistant um she was the 29hour youth assistant. She now has 40 hours and today was officially the first day of that schedule. Okay. So we're super excited. We we had our first meeting just schedule wise um because planning anything during summer reading is just you can't do it. It's there's too much going on. So, we're going to be sort of talking to the community as these events are going on

and talking to families about what they would like to see. So, we're going to spend probably the next two to three months doing that sort of community engagement. Find out what people are hoping to have added in terms of programming for for youth. Um, and then start figuring out how to offer that. You know, maybe it's a a late afternoon, early evening story time. Maybe it's a a book club on a different day that we have the team book club or um yeah, so there's any number of different things to explore. So, we're excited about that. That was uh I probably should have mentioned this earlier community engagement, but I was having a conversation with a friend about how um so many of the things in the community for children are children specific um rather so there are like adult events and children's events and I know that you do like family bingo and things but which was a huge let me come I'll come back to that. Yes. Yeah, but like our society is sort of set up where children aren't really a part of like everyday adult activities and events. It would be nice if we could do like where everyone said like family concerts or um bingo. Yeah. Family cooking day. Some of those teen activities we could probably be expanded to together. [Music]

I've had that happen. I had a wasn't but family bingo was bingo was a huge success. So that was the night of the highway 101 closure alone. Um and we had a lot of folks in the space, you know, somewhat stranded, temporarily stranded. Um asking for restaurant recommendations. Um uh can I charge my phone? what you know things like that. So um so that night we had bingo and uh yeah it was very well intended. We actually had pizza left over. The pizzas were donated completely by Domino's which was amazing. So I think we got 12 15 pizzas. One and it was really they had a really good time. So it was uh we might do something like that in the future. Yeah. I live integrating it. I love that. Yeah. You said there was pizza left over. What did you do with that pizza? The pizza goes into our fridge and then we fight over it. Yes. You know, sometimes we we go through the grocery store just lovely. We look at all the food that's in the deli and what do they do with that food? Do they throw it out? Do they couldn't they contribute it in some way? So there's just so much waste. I can assure you that none of that pizza. Glad to know. Yeah, one one pizza was left over which I was surprised. I thought, you know, with with the road closure and so many

people here, I thought for sure it perfect amount. And they came to the library when they were stuck. That's that's a wonderful thing. And they often have that, right? is I've never been to this library, but now I'm stuck and so I go to the library. So, it'll be interesting to see if I can run the numbers um you know what it looked like on that day specifically, but always interesting to see what that foot traffic looks like. Does the library have any uh presence at the farmers market? I was going to ask the same thing. So, we have um talked to to the parks and wreck about um having maybe not a a table every day, every week um because that's a huge staffing commitment for us um and during the summer. So, you could alternate with some of the other tables. I what we are going to do is put together some flyers and they'll go like at the general um area. Um And yeah, I would I would love that if we had a presence there. Um, but it's I think it's six hours. That's a long market. The larger display. Yeah. One to six 12 is the booth then it's so it's it's a substantial. Yeah. So primarily it's a staffing issue. Um you know maybe we looking ahead to next year maybe it's something that Sliff could staff um with us kind of popping in periodically to talk about library programs or something like that.

You know, the um the pottery studio has the table there, but they also only do it like you two a month or something. They don't have one commitment, but they are selling, you know, donated pieces for really inexpensive. I have purchased those. You could I have glazed some of those. Yeah, they made you $500 studio. Wow. Really nice though. And the price is great. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it's it's a stacking thing. Um, but you got all these interns. If you put it into the Wednesdays tend to be um we keep like team program going and yeah summer you know stay for the entire stipulations and and if you pack up at 5:45 Every week the the farmers market would close a little bit if people were like questions about that. Um we didn't go to uh rean with the staff. I'm just curious have job duties changed? Have you flip-floped

some things? Uh reasons for or or the job descriptions just ancient? Uh three. Yes. Primarily? Um so newer positions that have had turnover in the past three to five years are a little more fully um formed. um older job descriptions, there's not a lot of alignment. Um I have one staff member whose entirety of like HR paperwork consists of a letter from Mark Winstanley from like management. So um there's no formal like this is what you're being evaluated on. Um this is um and I I think it as there was turnover those were addressed and so I decided to take this opportunity to kind of get all of them to a baseline um where you know looking at other job descriptions in other uh other organizations other libraries there's usually a a a basic framework of like we all do these things, right? And then someone does something else, someone does something. So we sort of branch off from that, but so that we have some common language about what does it mean to work at the circ desk. So I've been working on those and working with staff to um to make sure that they are in fact doing the things that they think they're supposed to be doing. And um it's been a really interesting process. I've been able to use the whiteboard in my office which I'm very excited about. Um because now we we've branched into kind of doing buckets, right? So how much of your time do you spend doing programming? How much

time do you spend doing collection development? So not just a getting the job descriptions up to a place where they sort of they make sense. Um but also at the same time doing a task sort and having an understanding of what are all the things that is what are all the things that are getting done in the library and are the right people doing them? Are there multiple people doing the same thing different ways? You know so sort of this looking at it in this big picture and putting things into order. That's great. So then it gives both you and the staff member clarity or evaluation time. Correct. Um yeah, and also just to know like am I am I doing what you want me to do kind of feeling and I didn't realize that folks were feeling that way. Um because the way things have evolved for a lot of the physicians is like oh we need to have someone needs to do this thing you know how to do that thing. Yeah. So it's never been super formal formalized. Um and that's how many small libraries probably even medium libraries continue to grow right. So needs change, technology changes. um you want to add programs or services who who can do that. Okay, you know how to do that, you know, as opposed to and then Eve leaves and she was the one who um watered the plants and ordered books and you know check the bags and collect whatever it was. Um, and then how do I find a person who does those things or do I

fresh start fresh? And I guess this is a I don't know this. Do you actually give semianual or annual performance reviews? I should be. Yes. Um, yes. They would be annual reviews. um the the older versions again that we sort of follow what the city does um and the the forms were you know it's for all city employees. So trying to find a way to evaluate staff on the very specific work that they're doing and they're the only ones you know just as the guys at the the waste treat water treatment plant like they're the only ones in the city doing those things. you know, we're not all being evaluated on that. Yes. Good news. So, but what are some buckets that we can evaluate? So, professionalism or some of those those bigger pieces, but also um Yeah. Well, it be valuable also to somebody who was considering getting into the business. Yeah. The next time you need to run that Yeah. job opening. Exactly. But it's nice when it comes time bunch of time saved. Look at all the stuff that all my people do and this is why somebody else. Thank you for bringing that up because I I think it's really hard to explain what we do here. Um because people just think, oh, it's a library. Yeah. You go in, you get a book, and you leave. What do you mean all these people? They don't. And so this this is a a much clearer way to illustrate this is all the stuff that goes into making the library run. And here's our vision for the next thing we would like the library to be doing. And how are we going to get there with the staffing? Because unfortunately, you're competing

against every other department in the city and the best presentation of this is exactly why we need this. How they had make it very tangible, you know, show value. Yeah. And I guess we did that in case of Okay, then um unfinished business or library policy. There we go again. I'm going to say we'll just come back to that because I feel like I know that that is absolutely something else that we need to work on. And I believe the plan was that I was going to take a section and maybe again kind of chunk it out into what are the big buckets that we need and like choose a bucket and start on the bucket and then share it out with you all to see what sort of input has great but I've been kind of take been doing this job description thing for a while of Oregon cities because I was hoping model policies No, everything is slightly different. And and it's one of those things like I just seem to say well the easiest thing to do is steal one from another library that's already got through all of this. That is Yeah. Um because I feel like what has happened in the past, right, we've sort of gone line by line and updated things. Wholesale it um and start with okay we have this bucket this bucket this bucket start I concur with yeah when when broke away from the

Pierce County Sheriff we started brand new police department with 140ome people we didn't want to write our policies and procedures from scratch so we called it federal way we've done the whole thing a couple years prior to us and said can you send it to us oh yeah they sent us theirs You just change the names and tweaked a little bit and boom, you're done, right? Trust me, don't don't Oh, yeah. the wheel. I'm I'm definitely not going to spend as much time as I feel like I am with the job descriptions because that feels like a very important thing for me to be working on. Um, I had a very, you know, Rosen pay extended attention. Absolutely. So, uh, since we weren't going to have a a meeting in June, I said, "Well, I'm just going to go through the policy and, you know, start making little notes for myself." I didn't get that. I didn't get that far because I thought there's got to be an easier way. What about AI? Yeah, but I thought we talked about that run it through the AI can I think it might be nice to have a couple examples of already written policies from other libraries and compare it to ours and see what we're missing or and part of it too is um we got the email so I know we're sort of jumping into new business but I feel like they're sort of related um so let's open up new business as Yes. So, in new business, um I think it was just Heidi, Megan, and I um and and I was CC because I think it's kind of sort of new. Um the email, we received an email from um city manager remember to look for

um this is back in May. So at the city council level, they are in the process of um doing a comprehensive review of each committee's purpose, hours, and duties. And uh and as you probably know, the seaside has boards, commissions, and committees. So, and we are a board because I believe it is dictated by the state Oregon state legislature and apparently we've never like officially been stated as in No, all the other ones are in there, but library had nothing. Yeah. Would be our first real entry officially. Officially. Yeah, we're on the budget also. Okay, I was surprised to see that. We just haven't had like the ordinance I guess. That's excellence an omission. Yeah. Um side note, um I've been tasking Stella, what one of our interns with uh scanning all of our previous board um minutes and making them electronic so we can get rid of the notebooks. But we came upon um some things. Well, first of all, everyone remember what these look like? Yeah. And sure, we don't have a way to access whatever whatever gems live on those. Um but here I have the uh this stack is um the minutes of the board. This one is

dated July 23rd, 1956 and it goes on just a a page and then there's an August 28th. Wow. Who's the secretary? Um I Schaefer. was she chosen from her handwrit. Yes. So I was like I don't know if I can read that and and then I would read the sentence like how did you get that word out of that? Anyway, so we've had fun with this. Stella has had great fun actually because she's reading through everything that's getting um scanned. and she's going through and highlighting things of interest and then bringing them to me. Uh, and I look forward to when she sort of captures it all and we she's like, "Did you know that one time there were, you know, she talks about stuff as brought up in the board." So, I think she was actually very interested in coming to the board meeting. Um I don't think it's going to be as exciting as some of those minutes but um so what I believe we have been um asked to do is um come together and process and evaluate the board using various considerations uh and then make a recommendation back to city council. So the there are nine steps on this. Um for the end here I do want to point out that we are not being rushed or extend this. The process won't be extended unnecessarily. Um so so we didn't really get a deadline on it. Um,

but it does look like so Kim researched old ordinances, discovered that the library board was established by city council over 100 years ago, though the ordinance was never codified and the city does not have a copy. Um so formally we establish the library board by ordinance like other city committees. Please make a recommendation on the essentials of the ordinance um purpose, powers and duties, membership, etc. And then they will format it into an ordinance. So um once again, isn't this something that we could go to another library and grab and see what they have to say? I think so. or to another city council's web page. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know the we were talking about our our uh our we had that brainstorming session retreat. Yeah. Where we're talking about what is our mission and stuff like that here. Um, I have did you know that this thing exists? I'm going to show you that the handbook for Yes. Yeah. Um, I was stud. So um again he he gave some guidance um to guide your review. Please consider the following questions. Uh you know why why was this committee originally created? Does that purpose still reflect a current need in the community? Um what community issues or goals is this committee best positioned to address today? So like our foundational purpose Yeah.

is which is exactly what we were talking about last time. [Music] I know we're getting close to what we generally like to do. We want to do another special meeting to talk about this or do we want to just put it on the agenda for a future regular meeting? I don't know. It seems like maybe we had a special meeting. As much as I don't want to say, I agree with you. Um just from uh the experience of the uh review for the policy, it's how many months have it been on there and we just that I guess we need to dig a little deeper in a special meeting or we could dedicate a regular meeting for that. We could do that because I mean we could go through that agenda pretty quickly and just dedicate the rest of the issue. But I like them. The Atoria library board is defined in two paragraphs. Excellent. I say I am taking a picture and sending it to you. The Atoria public library advisory board is comprised of five members appointed by the mayor who meet with the library diretory at library director every other month. The library board advises staff and makes recommendations on general library policy. The board also assists with strategic planning and significant projects. members serve before your terms. The board meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month. Da da da da da. Then there's comments at a story library.org if you want to. And then it lists all the board members with

their phone numbers and then it has a link to agendas and minutes. So that's that's the whole description. That sounds good. There we go. Because we have something very similar that you gave out, right? Um, you know, the library consists of library consists of blah blah blah blah blah. So, yeah, I think we could probably do it in August. Get it done. Okay. I like that. just educator regular August meeting to do this. I just sent you that. Okay. Thank you. Let's just Yeah, we'll forward this to everybody so that you can see. Well, I knew our homework was to look at the policies. Well, today fresh in your mind, very fresh in my mind. And I know this is an advisory committee, but even that sort of sounded a little bit more than just an advisory committee. And I've never been on a board that like really has sort of such little involvement. And even reading through the policy, it like really directs all the work to the director. and I don't want to put additional work or time on anyone else's plate. Um, and maybe it could be something like, you know, for the future for future board members or whoever it belongs to right now. But I would like to be more involved. Um, you know, during the month, special activities or fundraising events or, you know, whatever it may be, like taking that policy and instead you doing it for you to us, we do it to you. Not necessarily policy, but I think just

in general, I feel that the board but that's changing it from an advisory board to I think that Yeah. Yeah. Is there a place where we could become a different style of board? Is that what you're saying? Like I don't know because that sounded it says advises staff and makes recommendations on general library policy. just says strategic planning and significant projects. So it's giving you room for your board to get more into the pizza. Is it mandated by the state that this is an advisory board? Um it's mandated by the state that we have to have a library board and it has to be defined by but we don't know if they if they actually use the word advisory board. I think they do. Okay. Well, I I think because we don't want to interfere with her. No, we're here for her, right? But what I'm saying, I think, is what you're saying is we can be more help and do unless we're like interns and make more work. And am I suggesting like more work on newer places? Maybe I'm just offering Maybe maybe it's something like uh volunteering to be at the uh market, right? We're not using a staffing person, but you know, I can do it for two hours, you can do it for two hours. Isn't that sort of the friends? Isn't that what the friends do? Yeah. And essentially part of the thing is like there's so much support for our library and like has a defined rule is do those things already exist. I don't know. We can talk about

I'm gonna forward this um to all. Um yeah, I think in terms of I mean there are library boards that are governing boards, right? So that they in in that case they would be the ones approving my budget, hiring and firing me. No, we don't. So, and I don't I don't know if you know that the city could potentially make that determination, right, to change that that interferes with you. You know, that's your job. I think a lot of it depends on us as board members. How much do we want to get involved? I don't think that that means that as a group we turn into a governing board, but we could individually say individual individually. Individually. Yeah. Jennifer, how can I help? Not as a board. Yeah. And you've you've been to other libraries. Does this board feel the same amount of involvement that your other boards have been? Um I've I mean my previous edition, the the board was a governing board. Also the the executive director reported to to the board. It was a county library. So it was taken psychically. Um because you get a bunch of people that don't know anything and they just think that they know everything and they're telling you what to do. Sorry. I was not suggesting. No, I No, I'm not saying you But it does open the I agree with you. It does open the door to that and then it sets up a whole different situation that I would feel like we were reporting to us because we were in charge of.

I I don't I don't want that rule. I see very strongly that our major rule is to listen to what you have to say, ask them questions if we have questions and let you do your job and our job is to support you. That's you want more support then yeah we are here for that as well. I mean, even just kind of to your point, we were I realized I like inherited the format of how we've done this and and I Megan showed up a little bit earlier and I said, I almost maybe we should be coming up with this agenda together, you know, and um I think um and it also does say here that I would be the secretary to I think you could be a good but um and that's probably you know what happened in I'm gonna go back to this but um so I think I think there there's potentially some more collaboration of the work that we will be doing together moving forward. And unfortunately some of that work is going to be annoying because it's going to be policy related. But um but maybe it could be um you know maybe we do like a mini work session on um go in your in your adventures in the community. um very deliberately like what are programs you want that people are telling you you would like to have at the library sort of get because I I get people telling me certain things you

all might be getting people telling me different things so having um a very deliberate kind of info gathering or I don't know not saying it very clearly the cine was run out but um the idea of of having us come together and maybe develop something. Yeah. You know, programmatically that would change or something else. Sure. Space throwing it out there. And this is sort of the wild card, but we know that this building is slated to demolish the church. Oh, how did that happen? I think it was in the budget. The budget was approved for dem of the building and the city owns that, right? Correct. Yeah. and got land. Um I I have talked about the idea of maybe redoing our parking lot um with a like a oneway in one way out possible drive-thru book drop um just a safer environ. I've seen people come into this parking lot on two wheels to like whip a UI and get back out again. And really, you know, and I I don't care that other people like people park here all during market and you know, if they go swimming, it's a public parking lot, so we're not policing that, but the the use of it. Are there any plans to put up another building to be an extension of the library? Um I mean we could talk about that too. you know, thinking about that that enormous um when we have programs and we max out the space or, you know, could we do an added room and have a divider and

then we could have a giant space or but you're also going to be fighting with the rest of the city that also has their space. Okay. Storage, too. You know, you get more. Yeah. I haven't heard of any plans for that. Yeah. What could you have? I think it was a big deal just to plant the M. It's amazing how much it cost to demolish it. It is just to analyze it should be salvaged. Well, we've got so many different buildings and different pieces of infrastructure that need attention and money that it's it's really like, you know, plugging holes, you know, and you know what's more important? Do you want your sewer or do you want taken down? Yeah. So, I would absolutely vote for the sewer. Yes, that's a big I will officially go on record. of England. All kinds of things like that. All right. Well, there is no publicity comments today. Uh any board comments? Am I not? We're not really considered part of the board, right? I'm a leazison public again. You can comment public again. Okay. Um, I was very impressed with the turnout at the at the No Kings protests. Um, I was going to ask if maybe one of the programs for the kids during the summer can cover democracy and how we got it and how easy it is to lose it. I would like I also noticed at the kings quite a few uh families with young children were in cars

and I heard at I was middle so it was about life. I heard a mother say to her children, "This is what democracy looks like." And I thought, "Yes, this year." My mother is going to be 93 next week. She never been to a protest in Hawaii. And I took her to that one. She had a ball. You know, it was a good It was a good It was not negative. And there were people of all ages there. Maybe this could be difficult in China. Now you're the reason that I am. Yeah. Well, Deb asked sent me in not the other day about um that you know Facebook and some other social media were unsafe to be sharing information about events which I was a lot say but she you know she's hooked up to some big organ democratic organizations. I I guess there's a new thing pods, you know, where this is how information about upcoming protests, events, you know, how to contact, you know, your legislators. Uh the pod idea. So, she threw out me with my book group want to be a pod and other people in the book group like that. No, it's not us. Yes. So there was a lot of negativity. I just want to talk to some people. So see it never even got to it got shut down before it even got to maybe the board could start thinking about how we could do something. I like the idea of

introducing children to demar. Well and and it made me think back when I was a young couple they put me in charge of the explorer scouts and the explore scouts were all about arresting people. And I'm like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Where do we get the power to do that?" And these were high school kids and they knew nothing, nothing about So we started in the 1700s and talked about, you know, I'm sure they were all bored out of their mind, but I'm like, I'm not putting you on a patrol car if you don't even know where the power comes from. Well, I do know the ninth grade learns that they they're in they have civi civics classes up at the high school and I've participated in those with them. Um, so it is it's happening at least in the nth grade. But you get a civics teacher to volunteer for an hourong educational session that children. Yeah. A lot of adults don't really know what the civil war story look I mean we used to have schoolhouse rock the kids don't have anything like schoolhouse rock now so it won't happen in the summer I'm just glad because before this gets worse and I think it's going to get worse. No, I um a little public education on where these freedoms come from because we're already seeing now cit citizens being threatened with having their citizenship taken away if they say things that a certain person doesn't like. And that's not the foundation that our first amendment. So, um, and and we've seen kids trying to protect their mothers from ice.

So, this is affecting little kids, big kids, adults, grandpas. It's affecting all kinds of people. Um, I brought it up at the city council meeting. Everybody looked at me like I had three heads. But but you know our country is take a look that think about things a little bitly as a governor's body or board these days than we used to. Yeah, that's it. Maybe, you know, in talking about our roles and things, maybe that is something we can discuss in August, but maybe our roles aren't changing a little bit to meet the challenges of I just only whistle through the graveyard or rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. Yeah. Because if a whole bunch of privileged people don't start speaking out right away, it won't be long until our privilege doesn't protect us in Right. because they're not going to stop. No. All right. Any other work on it? Well, then this meeting is adjourned and our next meeting will be the word. Oh, I already on the second year