AADL Board - Public Interviews with Board of Trustees - March 16

Wed, 03/16/2022 - 1:57pm

When: March 16, 2022 at Downtown Library: 4th Floor Meeting Room

Watch the March 16, 2022 Special Meeting of the AADL Board of Trustees. Select an agenda item below to jump to that point in the transcript. For more information, please see the Board Meeting Packet.

22-052 I. CALL TO ORDER Jim Leija, President
22-053 II. ATTENDANCE
22-054 III. CITIZENS’ COMMENTS
22-055 IV. BRADBURY MILLER ASSOCIATES Karen Miller, Brian Hare
22-056 V. DIRECTOR CANDIDATE INTERVIEW-AARON MASON
22-057 VI. DIRECTOR CANDIDATE INTERVIEW-ELI NEIBURGER
22-058 VII. DIRECTOR CANDIDATE INTERVIEW-KRISTIN SHELLEY
22-059 VIII. RECESS FOR LUNCH
22-060 IX. RECONVENE TO SPECIAL MEETING
22-061 X. DIRECTOR CANDIDATE INTERVIEW-SCOTT DUIMSTRA
22-062 XI. DISCUSSION OF CANDIDATES AND NEXT STEPS
22-063 XII. ADJOURNMENT

Transcript

[00:00:00] JIM LEIJA: [MUSIC] I don't want us to get too far behind schedule. We're already running a little bit late, but that's okay. Thank you all. We are officially called to order. We will have a little bit too breaks throughout the morning and then lunch eventually. Welcome. Have we taken attendance, Karen?
[00:09:53] KAREN WILSON: Yeah
[00:09:54] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. Do we have any citizens comments?
[00:09:59] KAREN WILSON: I have nothing.
[00:09:59] JIM LEIJA: Anything online, I think so far? Okay, great.
[00:10:06] JIM LEIJA: There's this movie called Waiting for Guffman about a community theater that has an agent that curbs and there's this famous line in the movie that goes, "it's the day of the show y'all". [LAUGHTER] That was in my mind this morning. It's the day of the show you all. It's a big day. One where we have both the privilege to represent our whole community and obligation to represent our whole community and making one of the big decisions for the whole community, which is to choose a director for our library system. Thank you all for all the time that you've given thus far. This process really started in earnest back in August when Josie told us she had planned to retire, I can hardly believe it's been six months and we engaged with Bradbury Miller on the search. We received applications, I think from about 30 people. We narrowed down to eight semi-finalists which were screened and interviewed by the search committee. Then we made a recommendation to this board of four finalists, which we began interviewing on Monday night. Today we will see each of those four finalists again for conversational interview. Karen will help us get ready for that in just a moment. But I just take a lot of pride and also seriousness and this responsibility that we have. I know that all of you do too. For some of us, this will be the most important thing we do as a board member in our tenure and it is such a pleasure to be able to do that with all of you. So Karen, with that, I'm going to turn it over to you to get us started this morning.
[00:11:59] KAREN MILLER: No problem. Thank you all for being here. For me that's the whole idea, but I'm glad to see you anyway. I'm Karen Miller if you don't already know that. What I wanted to do this morning before we get started with your first interview, we're just going to run through what it's going to look like and then tell you a little bit about what it's going to look like afterwards. But I want to focus primarily on what's going to happen in the next few minutes since that's what's coming first. Let me talk you through the process. We're going to bring in each of you finalists to have time with you. We've reserved about an hour for each one but we have as set of nine questions, which is plenty of time for you to ask those nine questions. But the reason we did it that way was so they had plenty of opportunity for follow-up questions, additional questions, anything that comes to mind. This is intended to be a very thorough conversation with each of your finalists to help you determine for sure who's the right fit for this position from your perspective. What I would like to do first is just ask you if we could assign questions so that you could ask the same questions each time around. Now, if you have follow-up questions or any kind of additional question beyond what's on this list. Totally fine. As long as they're legal and you'll notice in your packet there's some information about what's legal and what's not, and there's also some anti-bias information in there as well that we think is very helpful to you. I hope you've had a chance to look at that already. But we'd like for you to just take turns asking these questions. But just like I said, you're always welcome to jump in with follow-ups and things like that during the conversation aside from these. I think Jim, if it's okay with you, could you take the first one?
[00:13:59] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. Sure thing. Happy to do that.
[00:14:02] KAREN MILLER: Okay. Would anyone like Number 2, it's about the status quo.
[00:14:07] DHARMA AKMON: I would.
[00:14:08] KAREN MILLER: Okay. Dharma. Who would like the one question Number 3, which is about operational change in financial savings? That's fine, Scott, do you guys want to do it that way? It be simpler, so 1, 2, 3. Scott gets three. Kerene, do you want four?
[00:14:28] KERENE MOORE: Yep.
[00:14:30] KAREN MILLER: Molly, you'd have five. Onna you have six and then Jamie, you'd have seven. Then it would come back around again to Jim, I assume.
[00:14:41] JIM LEIJA: Sorry, that's eight.
[00:14:42] KAREN MILLER: Yeah. Then Dharma, you'd have the last one.
[00:14:46] DHARMA AKMON: Nine. Okay.
[00:14:47] KAREN MILLER: Does that sound reasonable to everyone?
[00:14:51] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah. Then should I be the one that leads into, do you have any questions for us?
[00:14:54] KAREN MILLER: I think that would make the most sense. Yes. So that was like the harder part but everything else should be pretty smooth. So when I bring your candidate in, I'm going to have them sit here, but I'm not going to do deeply direct them, if they want to go around and shake your hand or say hello or elbow bump or whatever they want to do. Is there a preference that you all have in terms of any kind of physical greetings if there is anyone who wants to go around shake hands or anything like that? Do you want the elbow bump or just a wave. Because I can instruct them. [OVERLAPPING] Pardon?
[00:15:27] DHARMA AKMON: I'm happy to shake hands.
[00:15:28] KAREN MILLER: Okay.
[00:15:29] JIM LEIJA: Same with me.
[00:15:30] KAREN MILLER: No?
[00:15:32] KERENE MOORE: I'd appreciate it if they didn't touch me.
[00:15:34] KAREN MILLER: Got it. [LAUGHTER] It's all I'm saying like I want to make sure, it's new times. It used to be people would be like go around the table and shake hands.
[00:15:42] JIM LEIJA: How about we just do elbow bumps all around then?
[00:15:45] KAREN MILLER: If they wish to, they may not want to also.
[00:15:47] JIM LEIJA: They might not want to touch on us either. [LAUGHTER].
[00:15:49] KAREN MILLER: But I'll just let them know. I just wanted to have that information up front just to prepare since it can be very tricky situation these days.
[00:15:57] JIM LEIJA: Do you want us to introduce ourselves around the table before we start or as we're doing questions?
[00:16:02] KAREN MILLER: It's exactly where we're going to go next. When we've done those timed interviews, I like to have you introduce yourselves just as you're asking your question, but in this instance, I think it would be more welcoming and just feel better if we could just go around the room and introduce ourselves first before diving into questions. Does that sound acceptable? Don't worry, I'm going to be here through all of this so you'll know exactly what to expect. If we get off track or anyone looks at me questioning, I will have to helpfully jump in and let you know what to do.
[00:16:32] JIM LEIJA: I would suggest name and years of service and if you're holding an office right now.
[00:16:40] KAREN MILLER: It wouldn't hurt to go into like what you do for your life.
[00:16:43] JIM LEIJA: Why not? [LAUGHTER]
[00:16:45] KAREN MILLER: Because we have plenty of time that's important. The other thing I want you to understand is even if you go over an hour, I'm not cutting anybody off. I want to make sure you have as much time as you need to dig into whatever interview questions or whatever questions you may have, this is your big opportunity to have in-depth conversation with these individuals and I want to make sure you have every bit of conversation that you need to have to help you make your decision. Does that make sense? Don't be shy. I'll watch time and I'll monitor time. But mostly because we want to make sure that your candidates, when they come in, they know where to go and how much time we're looking on, what kind of weight they're looking at, that kind of thing. If things get really off track, we can always let the later candidate know and call them so they don't show up at a different hour or something like that. Yes.
[00:17:33] DHARMA AKMON: Can we agree on how we're going to handle just follow-up questions on things that are off scripts just so we're not talking over each other and stuff.
[00:17:40] KAREN MILLER: Absolutely. How would you like to handle that?
[00:17:44] JIM LEIJA: Well, one thing in general is that first of all, when just when asking, I think it's just helpful to make the hand gesture. I think we learned that when we come back in January that it's very difficult to if you're not like just by like audibly to pick out who is speaking without mouth. If you can just kind of gesture when you're speaking. I don't know if we need to raise our hands for follow-up questions, but we can do that if you think that'll be a more smooth process. What do you suggest?
[00:18:25] KAREN MILLER: What I think you might want to do is, let's say you ask the first question, Jim. Right before you move into the second question, you can tell if there's a pause. Leave a longer pause than maybe you normally would. Just to smaller pause just in case someone wants to just oh, by the way, I have a follow-up. It'll give it a little bit of space for that and that usually does the trick.
[00:18:45] JIM LEIJA: We could also just invite if you have the question and you feel like we've passed through at least the initial part of the answer. You can invite others to.
[00:18:52] KAREN MILLER: That could be your ending of that. Let's say you ask the question, Jim, there's a response, and you can say, okay, thanks so much for your response, any follow-ups, and then move on to the next one. Would that make it feel more comfortable?
[00:19:06] JIM LEIJA: Again, gestures help. But I also don't want to get too rigid in terms of like people are having to raise their hands to feel like they can speak. Jump it. I really do hope that we achieve some flow today where we can actually just ask the questions and keep the conversation rolling.
[00:19:28] KAREN MILLER: I have every confidence that you will do.
[00:19:31] JIM LEIJA: I hope so. [LAUGHTER]
[00:19:33] KAREN MILLER: We've identified the questions that we know we're asking today and everyone has their assignments.
[00:19:43] KAREN MILLER: The only other thing I would say is we want to make sure there's time for their questions to you as well. I want you to be aware that there's likely to be questions, but on the other hand, I also want you to be aware these people have been asked questions over and over again in the past three days. If they don't have a question for you, I mean, I would love it if they did, but at the same time, I wouldn't judge them too harshly if they just can't think of anything else to ask you because they've been asking the leadership team, they've asked the staff group that they spoke with yesterday. They've had an opportunity to meet with you already once and they've met with the executive team or the executive committee already once. Sometimes people just get tired and they don't know what else to ask you. I would just throw that caveat out there not to worry too much about it if it happens. Do you all have any questions for me at this time? I want to tell you a little bit about what will happen afterward so that you know. Once we've had all four interviews, we will come back together for deliberation discussion, of course, in public session as we are now. One of the things that we would like to do and I've definitely talked it over with several individuals already to take the pulse on this. We have given you each a set of post-it notes. When the time comes before we start discussing the candidates and your decision-making process, we'd like to do a ranking of the four candidates from your perspective. I want you to put your name on the top of the post-it, so we know whose decision is what. Although keep in mind this is not a secret ballot, this is not a decision making vote. This is just gathering information for us to start conversation about the finalists. Let's just say I'm one of your finalists and I am at the bottom of every one of your lists, and maybe one person is really strong at the top of the list based on what we accumulate from you from those post-its. We're going to present it to you, you'll see the rankings. We're going to save those post-its in case anybody needs to see them for any public record reasons, and they'll have your names on them. I feel pretty comfortable that it should meet any requirement in terms of meeting your open meeting obligations in case anybody wants to see those, but we'll do a summary, something either on paper or on the screen, however, works best to use for your discussion. It doesn't mean anyone's off the table, it doesn't mean anyone's on the table, it's just a starting point for conversation. Does anybody have any concerns or questions about that?
[00:22:33] MOLLY KLEINMAN: No, I like that idea.
[00:22:34] KAREN MILLER: I think it'll help you see where your initial gut feeling is. Is not a decision because quite often you can start in one area, you could all put the same name at the very top of your list and end up deciding to make an offer to someone else, so just bear that in mind. This is just getting your gut reaction first. We'll also have other feedback, you know you've already had referenced report sent to you, so the references have been shared so there's additional information there. You're really looking at me funny.
[00:23:09] JIM LEIJA: Oh yes, I think I reminded everyone to read the reference reports like 17 times, sorry. [LAUGHTER]
[00:23:15] KAREN MILLER: That's okay, that's great. We want you to read them.
[00:23:18] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[00:23:19] KAREN MILLER: The references you'll have that information that you've already had. We will have a summary of the feedback from the participants on Monday night and the staff interactions yesterday. Those surveys close today at 10 and then we'll put that into a report for you so that you can review that as well. We'll give you that information after you've had a chance to have some initial discussion and then we also do exit interviews with each of your finalists and we'll have that information for you at the very end too.
[00:23:52] JIM LEIJA: I have one paper copy of the reference reports on my desk here and I'm happy to share that during lunch as people want to look at it. I also wanted to ask the question if it is okay in follow up in these conversational interviews to reference those reference reports and ask questions about them.
[00:24:13] KAREN MILLER: I think to a degree yes, but I do think that the caveat here is typically speaking. When we talk to references, they'll say, who else is going to read this sometimes and I'll say they are just going to the board.
[00:24:26] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[00:24:27] KAREN MILLER: I would be circumspect is what I would just say, but it's fair game.
[00:24:32] JIM LEIJA: Great. Thank you.
[00:24:34] DHARMA AKMON: Can I ask a question? One thing that I'm interested in knowing is their impressions from yesterday was a very full day. Is that going to come out on the exit interview or is that something that?
[00:24:46] KAREN MILLER: I'll tell you what's in the exit interview. We asked them a, if they're still interested in the position. The second question we will ask them is, here's the range the position was posted at and based on that information that you've had from the beginning, if you could choose in that range, what would be your preferred salary? Please tell us what that would be because that's the first lab over the bow of your negotiation process and we'll ask them if there's anything that would prevent them from accepting if they were offered the position just to get a sense if there's anything holding them back or any other information they need and then we will ask them what their preferred start date would be if they could choose and all the details that go with that. What are the things like what is your requirement for leaving your current position? Do you need a month's notice? Typically speaking, we see a lot of people need a month's notice, and then depending on who it could be, they might need some relocation time as well. There's one other thing I want to tell you, and I have the set of the prepared questions here on this table for the candidate to follow along just in case they can't quite hear. I mean, the sound quality is great here, but just in case we want to make sure that they can also see the questions and hear them. If somebody tends to follow along by looking at the questions, I'm trying to over-interpret. A lot of times people read into body language or read into, well, they're not making eye contact when I'm talking to them, but they're following along with the questions. Just be aware that that could be a thing.
[00:26:18] JIM LEIJA: Karen, do you ever jump in with follow-up questions at this point?
[00:26:22] KAREN MILLER: I usually stay out of it. This is your decision at this point.
[00:26:25] JIM LEIJA: Okay.
[00:26:25] KAREN MILLER: I'm going to lead conversation for you later and if you ask me my opinion, I'll share it, but my opinion is not that important one at this point. All four of your finalists are well equipped for a job like this and have excellent qualities. I would easily hire any of the four if it were me in my library system. My opinion is moved at this point. [LAUGHTER]
[00:26:53] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[00:26:56] KAREN MILLER: Any other questions? I'm sorry, I keep looking over here, it's a habit. [LAUGHTER] There you go. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:27:02] JIM LEIJA: There's a strange thing about this setup, yes.
[00:27:05] KAREN MILLER: I know. Is there anything else that you need from me or shall I bring your first candidate to you? You need to dig in? Ready for the long day, the marathon? You guys are going to be great. Got lots of coffee.
[00:27:20] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes, thank you, Karen, for all your work.
[00:27:23] KAREN MILLER: No problem at all. It's fun for me. I'll be back in a minute. [NOISE]
[00:28:19] JIM LEIJA: That's my notes from yesterday [LAUGHTER] that I printed from my tablet.
[00:28:23] DHARMA AKMON: I love it. [LAUGHTER]
[00:28:28] JIM LEIJA: Actually, I like that.
[00:30:59] DHARMA AKMON: I'm definitely going to get one.
[00:30:59] JIM LEIJA: [BACKGROUND] .
[00:30:59] DHARMA AKMON: I know.
[00:30:59] JIM LEIJA: So many COVID [inaudible 00:30:59]
[00:31:01] JIM LEIJA: Apparently [OVERLAPPING] -- coming down in a couple of weeks, I guess. [LAUGHTER]
[00:31:24] AARON MASON: Good morning.
[00:31:24] JIM LEIJA: Good morning. [OVERLAPPING]
[00:31:30] AARON MASON: Do you mind if I?
[00:31:31] JIM LEIJA: You may.
[00:31:32] AARON MASON: Okay. All right.
[00:31:32] KAREN MILLER: Aaron, wait a minute, I'd like for you to speak briefly because I know you're probably tired of doing it at this point, if that's okay. [LAUGHTER] Just a reminder just so everybody remembers who you are, and then they're going to take turns introducing themselves as well, and then we're going to dive into some questions. I'm going to make sure there's time for questions from you as well. It'll be great. [LAUGHTER]
[00:31:52] AARON MASON: I wonder if you guys got a fat check, to see if my story stays the same.
[00:32:00] JIM LEIJA: We'll Google you after.
[00:32:02] AARON MASON: Aaron Mason. First, good morning and thanks to everybody for getting up at this hour and coming in to spend some time here talking to me. As you know, my name is Aaron Mason. I was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland. I graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy, got a bachelor's at Indiana University and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures. Got a master's in library science, worked for an energy company in the Middle East for a stretch, came back, and eventually landed in libraries and my library career is very diverse. I started off at the Luncheonette Library as a computer aid, teaching people about the basics of computers, this was in 2003. First professional job was as a cataloger in the technical services department, moved on as a subject department librarian, eventually went on to manage that subject department as a part of our research collection. Then with the arrival of our director Felton Thomas, I was tapped to set up the outreach and programming department. It's grown since then, I've been doing that type of work, programming and engagement, and other things for the better part of a decade. Here I am today to have a conversation with you. Thanks for having me.
[00:33:28] JIM LEIJA: Thanks so much, Aaron.
[00:33:29] AARON MASON: You're welcome.
[00:33:29] JIM LEIJA: It's great to see you again. Some introductions from us, I'm Jim Leija, President of the Board of Trustees of AADL. I have been on the board almost eight years, two terms, so I'm coming to the end of my second term this year. Yes, that's right. I have been in Ann Arbor a long time. I went to undergrad here and then grad school and I never left. I grew up in Metro Detroit. I went to Interlochen Arts Academy for the Allstate program, which back in that day we were called budget campers because it was a two-week program instead of a six week program. [LAUGHTER] But I had a career at a Performing Arts presenter here in Ann Arbor called the University Musical Society, where I worked as the Director of Education and Community Engagement and now I am at the U of M Museum of Art where I serve as the Deputy Director for public experience and learning.
[00:34:23] AARON MASON: Great.
[00:34:24] DHARMA AKMON: Hi there. I'm Dharma Akmon. I'm the Vice President of the Board, I'm in my fourth year of my first term. I served as a treasurer for a couple of years on this board. I'm from Northern Michigan, Leelanau County. I know Interlochen better than a ton there [OVERLAPPING] definitely. I know a lot of people that have been there. I got my PhD and my masters from the U of M School of Information. I've never worked as a librarian, however. Right now I work as a research scientist and the Director of Project Management and user support at the University of Michigan, ICPSR, which is a big social science data archive.
[00:35:05] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I'm [NOISE] Scott Trudeau. I am in the first year of my first term on the board. I'm currently the treasurer. Let's see. I grew up in Michigan, graduated from university, lived here for a while, worked for a bunch of non-profits doing tech work. Moved to New York City, worked for government and startups doing tech work, came back to Ann Arbor a few years ago and still work for a small tech company based out of New York City. I'm a Chief Technology Officer, I do a lot of software engineering. That's it for me.
[00:35:48] AARON MASON: Good. Thank you.
[00:35:50] KERENE MOORE: We've met. Again, I'm Kerene Moore. I am the current Secretary of the Board, former vice-chair. I'm coming to the end of my first term on the board. I'm a social justice attorney, I wear many hats, currently a judicial attorney in the 22nd Circuit Court. Prior to that, an attorney for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, prior to that, an attorney [LAUGHTER] for legal services of South Central Michigan. Interlochen is expensive, [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING] but my kid does spend time, what is it, Blue Lake, that one's cheaper and [LAUGHTER] I told him that he's got me to try out to get a scholarship to Interlochen because wow, that is pricey [LAUGHTER] and my sister is the Director of Bands at Cast Tech, so on fact. [OVERLAPPING] What else music? No, I'm just kidding. [LAUGHTER] But other than that lots of attorney stuff, former Human Rights Commissioner, former executive committee member at the Jim Toy Community Center as well.
[00:36:52] AARON MASON: Great.
[00:36:54] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Hi. I'm Molly Kleinman. I guess I've been just now at two years on the board. I was appointed to a vacancy at the start of the pandemic and then was elected to a full term in 2020. I think you're in your second year.
[00:37:07] AARON MASON: I'm a second year already? [OVERLAPPING] What is time really? [LAUGHTER]
[00:37:14] MOLLY KLEINMAN: My career path is very winding. I'm originally from the East Coast, I came to Ann Arbor for master's in Information Science from the School of Information at U of M. I worked as an academic librarian at the University for a few years, went back to grad school for a PhD in education policy and now I work at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I'm the Managing Director of the Research Center there called the Science, Technology and Public Policy program. In terms of other Ann Arbory things, I am on the Ann Arbor Transportation Commission so I have interest in other transportationing things and I'm on the finance committee here on the board.
[00:37:50] AARON MASON: Nice to meet you Molly.
[00:37:51] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Thanks. Nice to meet you.
[00:37:53] ONNA SOLOMON: Hi. I'll take my mask off for a second. My name is Onna Solomon and Scott, I was going to say this is my first year on the board too, [LAUGHTER] but it's actually my second now that I think about it because of the pandemic. Scott and I are the newest ones. This is exciting in my first term this is happening. I've been living in Ann Arbor for a long time, I'm a social worker with a private practice. I specialize in autism and kids with learning differences and I ran for the library board because I just love books, I love libraries, I think libraries are an incredibly radical, wonderful thing that exists in our community. We're really excited to have you here.
[00:38:40] AARON MASON: Great. Thank you.
[00:38:44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Hi. I'm Jamie Vander Broek. I am the second longest-serving person on the board. I was appointed when Jim was first starting out [OVERLAPPING] and then I ran for two terms now. I'm a librarian by training as well. I went to the School of Information but my undergrad experience was on the East Coast, so I went out there for a little bit and then came back here and like most of the people here, I just stayed and stayed and never left Ann Arbor. I'm a librarian for Art and Design in my day job and in the past I've filled different roles on the board, including I was the president for a little while and I'm excited to hear what you have to say.
[00:39:29] AARON MASON: Great. I have to first apologize to this side of the room. In our last conversation, the questions were being asked over here and I re-watched the video of myself and my back is turned to you the whole time. Today I'm going to try to scan the whole room. [LAUGHTER]
[00:39:45] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's okay. I've also noticed that we're very rarely in the recording in the setups.
[00:39:50] JIM LEIJA: But you like that more actually. [LAUGHTER] We're going to fail your plan because I have the first question for you, on the questionnaire and then we're going to go this way and you're a brave man for watching yourself back on video. Good for you.
[00:40:05] AARON MASON: You got to do it. [LAUGHTER]
[00:40:07] JIM LEIJA: Welcome. Thanks everyone. Our first question for you, related to your introduction actually is take two, three minutes and share with us what attracted you to apply for the position here at the Ann Arbor District Library and how your career and professional development have prepared you to be our next leader.
[00:40:29] AARON MASON: Okay.
[00:40:34] AARON MASON: There's three reasons why I thought this would be a good opportunity for me. First and foremost is the staff. It's evident that there's a very intelligent and creative staff, and a culture has evolved over the years that nurtures that creativity in them. To me it seems like the greatest reason to come, because you can do great things. You have this wonderful foundation that's built. The second is the community, its proximity to a university. Little bit of a different demographic than I currently work with, but nonetheless, I think it's a great opportunity to build bridges between people who maybe use the library quite a bit and those who don't. We can leverage our relationships with our partners and members of the community to the benefit of the people we serve. Third, it's the size. I was telling an employee yesterday in one of the branches, that in Cleveland our size is one of our greatest assets. We have a huge footprint. But also it's a weakness in some regards because it requires you to operate at a scale that can be challenging at times. Challenging in the sense that it's difficult to tailor every service to the individual needs of a neighborhood, and our neighborhoods are quite different and diverse. Now you want to know what about my career has prepared me. As you know, I have a diverse background in libraries. Unlike probably most people, I think it's hard to find a person who worked in a cataloging department who went on to thrive in programming and engagement. But as I told, I think, your leadership team the other day, it was a plan that I had or a plot so to speak. When I was in library school, I always heard that the least desirable position to have was a cataloging job, and I work in a unionized environment so I figured, well, I would train myself in the skill that nobody wanted. Hopefully, there's an opening and I can get a job, and it worked. Most of my other plots don't work, but that one did. [LAUGHTER] I got in, but it gave me a great understanding of really the back of house operations of a library, and I learned a lot about everything to do with how we organize information. Working in programming and engagement, it was the right place at the right time. Libraries are evolving. How the community wants to interact with our space has changed. It's less transactional in Cleveland, and there's more of an emphasis on engagement and using the space in a way that the end-user decides ultimately. I think this experience is very applicable here. There's a few more things about Cleveland that I need to put into context so you understand the scale of the work that we do. It is an office that for the most part is responsible for system-wide programming and services. What this means is that the systems' budget for programming is managed through one office. All of the vendors and partner organizations that we work with on a day-to-day basis, which could be 40 or 50, those services are coordinated by our team, and annual planning and even planning out two years. That includes everything from major events down to our therapy. As I said in my presentation, in the early days I thought that this was a very efficient way of delivering services, but soon realized that not many humans can sustain that type of centralized planning and the demands it has on you over a long period of time. So I would say in the last five years we've gone to a more decentralized model where more urgency is given to branches or districts, which ours are clustered into, and resources are disbursed more equitably across the system. So this evolution of my job, I think, prepares me very well for a position like director to run Ann Arbor. As you can see I evolve professionally, and I am gifted and cursed with this ability to be introspective [LAUGHTER] and constantly evaluate myself and watch videos of me presenting. But I'm open to learning, and I have learned in my time. Working at the scale, working with a budget, managing staff, and partnering with internal stakeholders are key to my position. Then lastly, the job requires of me and of everyone else that works under my direction that we cultivate relationships with partner organizations to get the work done. Yes, a lot of it is contractual and we pay for services, but there's even a larger portion that there's no money in exchanging hands, and that partnership relationship is just based solely on the impression people have of my office, but most importantly, the library is all.
[00:46:35] JIM LEIJA: Follow-up question for you for the benefit of those of us didn't get to meet you in the first round, can you give us just by the numbers, the scale and number of folks you work with, what the structure looks like around you, budget you're working with and so forth?
[00:46:52] AARON MASON: Scale. Well, 27 locations pre-construction. Now I think there's 20 that are open, 20 including our library and our city hall. In our department, there's 14 people. They don't all directly report to me. Our department is divided up into three areas; there's engagement, there's education, and there's diversity and inclusion. Three buckets that all work very close together to get the work done. We've also taken on a role of leadership development, which is not under my direction, but it is something that's done in close proximity to me, so there's an inward facing element of our office that didn't exist prior to maybe two or three years ago. Did I answer it?
[00:47:58] JIM LEIJA: What's your departmental budget?
[00:48:02] AARON MASON: It depends on how you cut it. Including staff? First, budget at our disposal which would include everything for furniture, equipment, professional services, supplies, travel, I think it exceeds a million, but it's cut up into different pieces. I think the overall professional services budget which we use to pay for services and events is in the 600,000 category. Staffing puts that number much higher.
[00:48:43] JIM LEIJA: Of course. Other follow-up questions? All right, let's go on.
[00:48:48] DHARMA AKMON: Okay, next question is mine. Can you please give an example of a time when you have challenged the status quo in your professional life. Why and how did you do it, and what were the results?
[00:49:02] AARON MASON: Challenged the status quo. There's quite a few related to programming. I keep telling the story, but when I inherited the department, much of the programming content that we did for larger events appealed to people technically within our service area, but did not live inside the city of Cleveland. In my mind I thought that a change needed to be made, that we need to speak directly to the community that we serve on a daily basis. I was fortunate or I am fortunate to have a director that was very receptive to that idea and understood the significance of doing it. However, we're a large organization of 600 employees and many of them did not accept that transition easily. In hindsight, thinking about how it was described, the move to actually programming around popular interests and desires was described as dumbing down, which was extremely hurtful, I think, to the community that we serve and slightly offensive to me, but I didn't let it show and I move forward. But the result was you could see a difference in who was coming, and we could tell by collecting ZIP codes, and we could tell by the feedback we were getting from the community. But it's city residents that pay levies, and it's my job to serve their needs or pay property taxes, excuse me; but who pass levies and pay property taxes. Another focus was that there was an imbalance in the amount of money we spent on children versus adults. This was unintentional, but nonetheless, just by evaluating the budget there was some changes made there that accurately reflected the amount of work we do. In the early years, I think you would see a 60, 40 split for adults whereas now, 80 percent of the work we do serves families and children and the budget is pretty much to a T reflects that division.
[00:51:32] DHARMA AKMON: Could you say a little bit more about the kind of programming that you implemented that would speak better to the community?
[00:51:37] AARON MASON: Sure.
[00:51:40] AARON MASON: Let me see. I brought up with your staff yesterday. We invited Dan Savage under the umbrella of the Gay Games and the year escapes me, but if you had done some research, maybe Dan Savage could be considered a little racy [LAUGHTER] but I had great conversations with him about how to structure a conversation in our environment. This is when he's weird balancing acts because we have a very diverse community but maybe some parts of it are culturally conservative and less open to this idea, but through conversation with them and with Dan about how we would have that conversation, and then I was fortunate to be under the umbrella of the Gay Games, but it was well received but that would be one. Then there's others. I think I mentioned John McWhorter. I could check off a list of semi-controversial people that we brought. My theory is always with, I never want to bring anyone who's going to be mean. To be honest with you, it's a struggle sometimes in this day and age to find someone who can take an opposing viewpoint without being mean but we've done a good job of it. There's another area that I want to touch on. Providing educational services in the library, still is a struggle to this day, because librarians will tell you, we are not educators and I hear them but in my community, there's a need for educational support, particularly in the area of kindergarten preparedness and school age children. We've had to push for years to get buy-in from staff and re-frame what it means to be a librarian in our city and I'm happy to report that we're very successful. There's been new hires that have made the job much easier with closer connections to the schools but I think now in history we're doing much better than we ever have in moving the needle when it comes to preparing young people for the future ahead.
[00:54:21] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[00:54:22] AARON MASON: Yeah.
[00:54:23] DHARMA AKMON: Anybody else have follow up?
[00:54:25] JIM LEIJA: I have one more, which is this circle back around to something you said in your presentation last night, and it had to do with this beehive idea and the idea of turning over authorship to the community. You said yes, is a stable and consistent policy. I wondered, because we're all talking about that in engagement plan and community work is like how do you turn over resources to communities? I want to know what have been the challenges in that? When is yes gotten you in trouble and how did you deal with it? What have been the great joys of it?
[00:55:06] AARON MASON: Well, let me explain what exactly I mean. Yes, in terms of content or interest. If an adult or a child has an interest in a certain area, we step back, even if they're proposing an idea that we think probably won't work out in the end. Of course, patrons have to follow our policies and guidelines. We're probably not going to do gun-smithing at the library but for the most part, we step back from content and this reflects what I've had to do in my career. I always joke with people that if I were to program around my interests, we would have empty rooms at the library. If I were even to collect resources around my interests, it would be the same way. My job is to step back and keep an open mind and really internalize this idea that it's the community that made my job possible and then I'm here to serve them. Yes, in terms of content, but where we step in and where I think library professionals can step in is the process. How do you get to where you want to be? How do you prepare a person for the roadblocks that they will experience along the way in achieving their goals? If we could put just a little pin in this one, I have other thoughts on what the role of the librarian should be, especially in a community like this. The beehive, yes, it's a great idea. Again, it was a snapshot. I would need more time. I see a place where that could fit in, but I'm not here to tell you that it fits at every location. Forgive me, my brain is fuzzy, but going to the one that's in the shopping mall [OVERLAPPING] Westgate branch. [LAUGHTER] They were all just magnificent experiences but going there and watching how people engage really just changed my mind on a lot of things some of them, you have a wonderful staff but I thought about things that could work in a place like that. Other thoughts that we'll touch on later, but did I answer your question?
[00:57:36] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[00:57:36] AARON MASON: Okay.
[00:57:36] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[00:57:38] AARON MASON: You're welcome.
[00:57:41] SCOTT TRUDEAU: The next one is mine. Please share an example of an operational change you made that resulted in financial savings for your library.
[00:57:58] AARON MASON: An operational change. I'm going to tell you one that isn't an operational change, but I'm just going to bring it up because I'm so proud of it even to this day. [LAUGHTER] When I got into my job, there was this bill that showed up for movie licensing and I will not name names but it appeared as though it had been paid for a number of years and it was an exorbitant amount of money. I'll give you the number. It was like $20,000. Large organization and maybe people weren't paying attention. I started doing the math like how many movies are we streaming and what's the cost per participant? It was like to watch like a B level movie in the library cost a patron or cost the organization $500, it's something crazy like that. I called the company and I said, we're not doing this. It's just not cost-effective and the company was like, okay, you can pay us $2,000 [LAUGHTER] It's crazy, but when I was talking about how we spend money responsibly and what it takes to administer funds, you have to have eyes on them, and if you don't and you want to move forward quickly, things like this can be overlooked and that's one. Another operations. Well, this one's bittersweet. We had a department that included mobile services, senior services, and outreach to schools. It was called On the Road to Reading. It was a mobile service where we would go out and program directly inside schools. The vocal bill was at the end of its life and we were thinking about what it meant to conduct outreach and what it would take to replace the book mobile and we had to make some tough choices and discontinue that service. That one wasn't well-received. There were some very vocal members of the community that definitely had some things to say. I believe it was the right decision to make and it did save the organization money in the long run. But on that note and again, I was talking to your staff yesterday, asking them if they could tell me about something that had been discontinued, they struggled a little bit with the question. They said things are more evolved than are actually discontinued but what I learned from our experience with the book mobile is that if you're going to discontinue a service, you have to explain how you're going to make up for that shortfall or why the service is no longer relevant. I'm happy to say that we did. [LAUGHTER] This is very close to COVID, then COVID came and there was no outreach specifically for the senior population, which is unfortunate but we've made pivots and I think we're very effective, more effective than we were in the past. We never replaced the book mobile.
[01:01:25] DHARMA AKMON: Could you say more about what the rationale was for discontinuing it? You said you had two, but I'm just curious what the impetus was.
[01:01:33] AARON MASON: Well, one, the vehicle itself needed to be replaced, but two, looking at the number of sites, the amount of time it took in term of staff hours, the number of items that were circulated, and then thinking more about what was happening, I think I might've mentioned this to you guys about tutoring. If you look at tutoring up close, there's like 10 or 20 percent homework help and then the rest is engagement. Services to seniors was much the same way. Yes, they did appreciate that we brought books, very labor-intensive, but what they really wanted was that engagement with our staff. We do some instruction and some programming activities but the engagement was the most important. Removing the materials from the equation, I think we got over it, right? But it's that engagement that needed to continue and that's where we're investing now.
[01:02:31] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[01:02:34] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I don't have any other follow-ups, does anybody else have?
[01:02:38] KERENE MOORE: All right. It has been said that a challenge is an opportunity we did not ask for. Based on what you know today, what are the biggest challenges facing AADL and what opportunities do you see that may not have been previously explored?
[01:02:59] AARON MASON: Well, I actually been thinking a little bit about this after yesterday. I think one of the challenges for this organization is really in defining what it means to be a library. Not a librarian as a profession, but what it means to be a library. I went to sleep yesterday thinking that maybe the definition is different in different communities. But in looking at the way people interact with your space, yes, there is that transactional element, but it does appear to be a place of respite or a quiet place where you go to take care of business or read something or just relax. But we think about how we have this conversation at the local and state level, defining what it is we do and why we're in the valuable resources, together, we really need to think about how we frame that description. I don't really have a good sound bite for you today but the one thing that I recognize is that it's different here. I've talked a lot about programming and from what I see, it doesn't seem like programming at the level that we do it at Cleveland Public Library as something that every community wants, that you serve. But again, I will open, and this is just a snapshot glance of things. Where I do think there's a great challenge, again, is in your digital strategy. You walk into your branches and you see some items which we know probably will be obsolete in five to ten years, namely DVDs, CDs, that sort of thing. You have populations that will be born and raised probably preferring reading books in a digital format. But I don't think hard copy books will ever go out of existence just because of the way our eyes and brains have evolved. But you need to think about your digital strategy here. Does the website that you currently have and the way you feed content to the community, is it sustainable right now and will it be able to absorb this increased use over a period of time? Now from everybody I talked to, I've learned that you have a dedicated in-house IT staff that are very creative and have done an admirable job with the task that they've been given. But the question I ask is, do they have the resources to grow and to be creative and evolve over a period of time? If the IT department's listening, I'm not suggesting that there's a turnkey solution in terms of a vendor or something like that. I think as an organization, as a board, we need to really think about how much of an investment needs to be made in that if we want to continue on doing this in-house, which I advocate for. I think for a community like this, it makes a lot of sense. But one comment was made to me about one of your members, I don't know when he sleeps. To me that says that you're bursting at the seams. It means whoever it is, I don't know the gender, is very passionate and driven. But people said the same thing about me in the early days, "I don't know when he sleeps." I was working on Saturdays and all that, and I'm here to tell you that it's just not sustainable. In terms of succession planning, it leaves you very vulnerable if one day you're missing these people that play such a pivotal role in an organization. But kudos to them. I understand the philosophy behind it and they've done a lot with what they have.
[01:07:20] KERENE MOORE: Any follow-up?
[01:07:23] JIM LEIJA: I do want to ask, you've had a little snapshot now, you've seen the branches and so on and you've gotten a little sense of the staff structure. You explained earlier about the way that your staff has broken up into these three areas and it made me wonder what you thought of our staff structure and what you see as potential evolutions, adaptations, changes. You've named IT and that is a challenge opportunity. Are there other areas?
[01:07:58] AARON MASON: I know a little bit, I got to say. Now, here's where the disclaimer, I'm going to come home and my coworkers are going to want to kill me but [LAUGHTER] I liked a lot about what you have. The first place I went, I said, "Well, where's the librarian?" They're like, "No. The librarian works from here, but they touch a number of locations and these are the services that we provide." It's very different than in my organization, but I get it. I was surprised to learn that people behind the desk also play a role in programming. I also learned that people float, which I talked about, or pre-COVID people. Now you work in pods. I talked to the staff about how they felt about that and only a few answered. I think they like it and I support that idea, most importantly, because of the variety. Where I work, it's likely that you could get hired at a location and work out your whole career there. I wonder what that does in terms of one-year perspective on just daily life too but on your creativity and your productivity. Given the option to float and I think it's a great idea. I was pretty impressed. I also heard a little negative feedback about the floating model [LAUGHTER]. That maybe in the early days, it was a little too much to where managers could not even get to know the people that were working for them because they were rotating in and out, but I understand some changes were made there and things are much better. But I would propose that model for other areas within the library if they're not already happening now. Working in a central location, which I do, can have an effect on your view of things. I would propose that people maybe changed locations or make an effort to change locations. I'm not saying it's inside of a library for administrators, but maybe it's at a partner organization or someone else for a temporary period of time, just to change your perspective and better understand some of the people that you serve.
[01:10:33] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I'm up next. How has diversity, equity, and inclusion impacted your decision-making? How have you practiced DEI and anti-racist principles in your work?
[01:10:51] AARON MASON: This is a tough one for me to answer. I think I'll explain a little bit about the history of our organization and my history. Many of these concepts are new to us at Cleveland Public Library. As you know, it's a majority black city, it's like a 50-50 split and give or take a percentage point. But the community that we serve, generally speaking, has some challenges in terms of income and educational attainment. We've delivered services and programmed in that way. From the very early days, our shelves were open to everyone, younger people, black, white, whoever. Many libraries can't say that. We've programmed and we've allocated resources with that in mind. These concepts have always been there for us. But many of the examples that I gave you were a direct response to that, that I think oftentimes people are well-meaning and not fully aware of how the decisions they make exclude people from the library. That programming example I referenced about other events, that's one example. But another one for me personally is, again back to our view or perspective that we have. It's easy in Cleveland to get preoccupied with the effects of poverty and of racism, and not think about the other things that people need to be productive and happy human beings. I will share a story with you. One summer, I was in a room with a lot of partner organizations, the United Way was going to give a generous amount of money to prevent the summer slide. These are all well-meaning people, many of whom are my friends. We grew up in the same area, not all of the same demographic or background, but we were brainstorming about what services would be most impactful to children over the summer. It was math class and it was science class, and it was reading instruction and all this stuff during the summer. At one point I just said, I want you guys to show hands, how many of you guys did that over the summer? [LAUGHTER] The answer was zero. There is learning happening in the summer, through self-exploration, through dreaming and going on adventures and this sort of thing. I just reminded them that that is not a luxury of affluence, it should be something that all children can experience. Did I make a difference with that particular grant proposal? No. But anyway, it changed a lot of my thinking about how we program in our city with equity and mind and inclusiveness. There's lots more arts programming in our branches and music tube that's driven by the community that they want to see. There's one branch in particular that does these wonderful or a wonderful event in the summers where people can come and listen to music and just relax. That type of experience, I think, is as important to learning as any math or science class you can have. That's one way. Just for me personally, I want diversity of ideas and diversity of experience in the staff that work for me. I think every organization is stronger by pursuing that. I've seen it over the years that these words, diversity, equity, and inclusion, appear in HR guidelines and that sort of thing but when it comes to recruitment, it doesn't really manifest. There's some ways that we've tackled that by redoing job descriptions. I'm looking for different sets of qualifications, but always thinking about your proficiency. I think we've done well as an organization in that regard.
[01:15:40] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Thanks. Any follow up questions?
[01:15:42] ONNA SOLOMON: Next question, describe for us a time in your career when you changed a long-held professional belief or assumption and the circumstances that led to that change?
[01:16:02] AARON MASON: Long-held professional belief. Well, my department, it's existence challenged a lot of the beliefs we have about what it means to be a librarian. It also challenged what we think fair compensation for this type of work is, that does not require an MLS. I will tell you, yes, I was successful in changing descriptive job descriptions. But the pay did not reflect the scale and level of responsibility that these employees had, and that was a challenge. It took years to correct, but I'm happy to say that we've managed to do it. The employees, the coordinators within my office, have pay that's on par with professional librarians. I think that that was hard for people to understand. But when they got a better understanding of the type of work that we do, it was accepted. That would be one. Two, and this one I've mentioned in my cover letter and resume and I talk about quite a bit. There's a lot of information awareness that libraries do. We're going to teach you about your body, you're health. We're going to have a doctor come in and she is going to present, you're going to learn about it and then you're going to go home and you're going to change your behavior and your going to be healthier or you need to get your record expunged. We're going to tell you how to do it and then we're going to put it off on you and you go expunge your record. In my cover letter I referenced a work by a law professor at Loyola. Financial education was another place. I saw that these programs were not well attended. There was no way for me to verify whether or not they were having an impact. Again, this speaks to your question too about anti-racism and equity and inclusion. It seems like something we were doing, maybe not intentionally, but just to say we did it and to wash our hands and say it's your responsibility. That's an easy out. Early on, I reached out to some friends at the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cleveland and said, what can we do to provide direct services to the community? Over the years, we've built this beautiful partnership to where pro bono clinics are offered 13 times a year, I think. Massive scale. You'll find 14 or so attorneys come in and maybe on average 36-40 families a session, they get legal services. We provide criminal case consultations three days a week nearly every day of the year, with the idea that these bothersome warrants like for driving under suspension, or I can think of a few others, prevent people from getting jobs and they don't know how to take care of those those cases. It's scary. I once had a bench warrant issued for me. I was pulled over in my neighborhood for rolling a stop sign during a drug sweep. The policeman was like, well, this is an interesting story actually in terms of privilege. The policeman comes to me and says, "We're doing a drug sweep. We're not really here, but everyone's looking, so I got to issue a ticket. But if you were to show up to court and I wasn't there, then it will go away." This is a privilege to me that would not probably be given to most people. I was given this ticket and you know, I did not show up to court. They issued a benchmark for me and I didn't even know it. For this rolling a stop sign. I cleared it up. But for an average person, well, one that wouldn't have happened to them. Two, settling a bench warrant and paying the bond on it and all that is a lot of steps to doing it. It could be confusing, they may not have the money to do it, and then it balloons into another one and another one and another one and you can't get a job. That is why we provide direct support in that regard. In the early days, maybe it was a hard case to make, but now it's accepted because impact is what we really want to have.
[01:20:58] ONNA SOLOMON: I have a follow-up question. Can you talk a little bit about how you got from the more traditional library science lens of what a library is. Because you've been talking about how you've moved from these more traditional ideas of what the library is supposed to be to the community service orientation of programming and things like that. Can you just talk a little bit about how that shift happened in your career?
[01:21:35] AARON MASON: Yeah. Serendipity, I guess [LAUGHTER]
[01:21:40] AARON MASON: But that word in and of itself explains the user experience and libraries, which is one of the things that makes us unique. You can walk through shelves and you can see things maybe that you wouldn't normally see with a traditional search in the catalog and new ideas come to mind. What happened was, I was in the business department as a librarian and they asked me to put together some business programs. This is another good one, how you're bringing back all these memories. We used to always partner with score, which is this brands of the small Business Administration, society of retired executives. Something very well, meaning people who wanted to help develop their small business ideas, but huge cultural gap and not really realistic given the level of income that people have in my community right. I'm really score is set up to funnel people to SBA to get alone. But I was interacting with people. We're just wanted to open an hair salon. Why don't I do this business areas where invite local business owners to share their business experience. We did, we had this wonderful this woman named Monica Greene, who had a hair salon and a few other things. We had to bail bondsman all come and just talk about their experience developing their business, and coincidentally, I think Monica actually did get an SBA loan, but the vast majority of them did not, and they offered very sensible advice to the community and people wind star businesses, like if you think that it's an employment solution, you're wrong, but you're probably going to end up working a job in building your business at the same time. That's what got me noticed, and then they're like, he seems to be creative and go to this, why don't we put them into this new role? That's how I got to where I am. Was that the question? For the most part, yeah. It's evolved. But I tell you I don't do traditional library work, but I'm very much connected to it. The point of a lot of this is to get people back to resources that we have. Right? Over the years we've just evolved to where digital access now is becoming a bigger part of the work that we're doing in my office, and I don't think we're ever going to go back to this entirely in-person model, and so we have a lot of thinking to do in terms of what it means to be engaging people online.
[01:24:21] AARON MASON: I think to put a finer point on your question on a two is to also, I mean, guess I am curious about over this period of I think it's about a 10-year period. Like how do you manage the friction of that change, which you're basically in a Change Leadership Project, and what would you say are the qualities and strategies you use to bring people along with you?
[01:24:56] AARON MASON: Yeah, there's a lot of friction [LAUGHTER] . I would think so. Continued dialogue with partners and staff. I think first and foremost, and admittedly, I could do more of that. But I do have I devote some time to it. But I think in the early days it was a lot of conversation and back-and-forth and talking about the role of my department in relation to the work that others do, and in that conversation, the quality that's needed is an open mind to understand how the work they do and forms the work that I do, and learned a lot. I mean, mentioned this, I think before that I had no exposure to services to children, and I was brought up by a group of just wonderful children's librarians. I mean, they were probably the most influential people in my professional life. Now, this is the type of work we've been doing all along, and here's how we do it. Just wonderful conversations and just amazing relationships I have to this day with people whose core responsibility and passion in life is to deliver services to families and children. Jim, if you could please just am I answering your question?
[01:26:31] JIM LEIJA: Yeah [LAUGHTER].
[01:26:31] AARON MASON: So it's that but it takes a lot, and so I think in my presentation, I thought that talked about the type of training or development work we need to do with staff, and I think for any organization, regardless of how open-minded are creative, they are its development around how to negotiate with the people and have conversations in a way that's engaging and productive. We all loves lots to learn that about.
[01:27:07] JIM LEIJA: Well it sounds like we're about to take off on a spaceship. I don't know what's happening. [LAUGHTER]
[01:27:13] KAREN MILLER: Did anybody else have follow questions?
[01:27:16] JIM LEIJA: I mean, just to mirror back to you, Aaron, what I heard you say was listening, dialogue, relationship-building empathy in negotiation.
[01:27:24] AARON MASON: There you go. Empathy is huge. Huge.
[01:27:27] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. I think my next question goes, well, after this one that you just asked them to follow ups, actually, what processes have you used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and services provided by your library? Sorry, these are long words to say, [LAUGHTER] what stays and what goes in order to accomplish the Library's Mission.
[01:27:51] AARON MASON: Some are easier than others. Very early on, I figured out this way with the help of a guy who no longer works for the library. But to think about one transaction in a library setting that's actually timestamped, and we know the class of employee that performs that duty at the time it was like an online reference service. We have this baseline for cost per person that we could apply to programming as our own internal guide, like if we spend X number of dollars, we wanted to equal, let's just say $24 an hour per attendee. That would be a fair amount to pay per person. For years. I use that to look at return on investment for more pricier things like bringing in Temple Grandin or Rebecca's grooved or something. How much money, how many people need to attend for it to be worth it as an organization. That works, sometimes it makes you feel bad, but [LAUGHTER] for the most part, it was a useful tool in the early years. But in terms of impact and evaluating how effective our relationships are, there's two tools. One is something we developed where we modify it in house. I think that I borrowed from Philadelphia Free Library is called a stress test, and you go through this checklist and evaluate certain aspects of a relationship. Partner organization, determine whether or not that service or relationships should continue, and so things we look at is their capacity to serve at a scale that we need, their area of expertise. They're reporting to us. When we asked for quarterly reports, and then we have to make tough decisions. But I am not here to say that we are unlike Ann Arbor and then it's easy for us to just continue our relationship with a partner. It's hard. But we're doing a better job of it, I would say in the past three years. But anyway, so there's that educational outcomes. There are two is a little bit different, that there's a lot of testing pre and post, that parents and caregivers agree to be a part of the program or we evaluate success, but we're very open-minded with that one. Again, the challenges that people face on a daily basis sometimes affect performance, and certainly it's almost scientifically impossible to draw a causal link between something we did over a two-hour time period and the gray is a child receives in college. We I mean in school. We look at what happens in our space and under our direction. But a useful tool for us, this is sustained engagement. If you're doing something that happens over a period of time, how long are people staying with you? We've learned a lot, for that. We have a very mobile community that move throughout the city even on an annual basis. But for those who don't, how long have you, What's your retention rate? Even with summer programs, the same thing. There's registration as one but two. You know. How long or how often did we interact with you over a three-month period of time. But then there's other, examples where it really is, are you meeting your contractual obligations? We write agreements much differently than we have in the past that we asked the partner organization of the vendor to Identify what they think they can provide realistically and agreed or reporting structure, and also be agreed to evaluation at the midpoint at the end of any contract period, and then we decide whether or not we want to continue on, and that's a difficult conversation to have. I can think of two organizations that we had to part ways with. But I think they understood our position.
[01:32:25] JIM LEIJA: Back to me. What person taught you a valuable lesson about life? How has it become a guiding principle?
[01:32:43] AARON MASON: Just in general?
[01:32:58] AARON MASON: Well, I have a very close friend who's significantly older than me. I won't name him because the story is a little tricky. We have nothing in common in terms of background. He served a great deal of time in prison just because of challenges in life. The way he presented to the public I think reflected that life in prison. Now had I judged him on the outset, and Ben turned away by the language he used, I would never have had that friendship. But over time I got to know this man and he's just truly a remarkable human being and I'm getting a little emotional talking about him. But I guess he would be described as a racist back then, just by the language that he used. But I found out that he was just a very kind man and this was a result of a lifetime of being neglected and a lifetime of abuse and he was just operating with what he had. I've watched him grow and just change over time to where none of those characteristics that I saw when I met him exist today. He's just a dear, dear friend, a dear friend of my family. He just taught me so much that you truly can't judge a book by its cover. In this day and age, we're very quick to react without thinking about the story of the person in front of us. He taught me that lesson. He's just a wonderful man and we laughed together but I just can't think about what I would've missed had I not given him a chance. I don't think he's watching this. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, that's one, and that applies to this day. I might have told you the story about a person would come to our board meetings and get very upset. Another person where I gave her an hour of my time just to talk about what was interesting. Did I tell you guys that story? Well, public meetings, a woman shows up, she yells and screams very angry. I think it's understandable most people wanted nothing to do with her. She was asking for things that we just couldn't give her, like a platform to run for president or to talk about her book. One day, a few years ago, I spent an hour with her and asked her, what can we do for you? I was honest with her. I think I told this to the staff. I said, here's the things we can do for you and I'm going to tell you why. Like I can give you a podium every day of the week but I can't generate an audience and I care about you. I don't want you to have that feeling of getting a sidewalk coming to give a speech to the library and no one's in the room. I learned a lot about her and a relationship of sorts evolved. She calls me from time to time and leaves me since wonderful voicemail messages where she sings me a hymn or something like that. She likes to sing. I found that there's a recording studio at one of our branches and I referred her there and she recorded a lot of songs. It really changed the way she interacts with the library. She asked me point-blank, what's the best way for me to engage with your board? I said stop bringing a hammer to the board meeting and don't talk for more than two minutes. But she was open to it. Here's the thing that bums me out about this story and then people started to refer to me as the so-and-so whisper. I'm like, no, this isn't some trait I was born with. It's just a practice that was taught to be by my parents who are also social workers. I think there's a few people. But just this practice of listening. Then when you listen, you parrot back what you think you heard because oftentimes a person's just going off and you'd think you're hearing him say one thing, but what they really mean is something else. I think with this individual, there was something else there. Not a life without challenges, but I think the quality of our experience inside the library has definitely improved. This is like a practice I think that can be imparted on everyone in any organization. It just takes some willingness.
[01:38:08] JIM LEIJA: Dharma.
[01:38:16] DHARMA AKMON: This is our last question before we turn it over to you. What have we not asked that you wish to share with us?
[01:38:33] AARON MASON: Well, I would say I've referenced digital strategy a lot, but there's little on my resume that would give you any indication that I have a background or knowledge in that area. That would be one.
[01:38:44] DHARMA AKMON: Can you say a little bit more about that?
[01:38:46] AARON MASON: Sure. Let me see. As you know, I'm also an artist or have been the majority of my life in one way or another, whether it's through music or visual arts. But as an adult, I got heavily invested in digital arts. What that led to was a greater understanding of the inner workings of digital arts. Right now, my preferences or my preferred way of creating is in procedural design with some leanings towards code, whether in JavaScript or Python, and utilizing some of these tools that I mentioned in my presentation. Machine-learning, for the most part, in a very traditional sense but this background and other digital technologies also. But this is part of my experience that I think is valuable here. Again, I think we put a pin in something. I don't know what it was. Oh, about the role of the librarian. This is something that I'm very passionate about. In our profession in the early years, information literacy or bibliographic instruction we're huge. Kind of slipped away. But now we're in this day and age where digital literacy or media literacy are so, so important in terms of understanding the role of confirmation bias and the way you consume information online. The role of predictive technologies or algorithms and just your online experience alone how we engage online and how are we inclusive online. There's very few quiet spaces online now that aren't gently guided by algorithms that aren't really there to serve our interests. They're there to do something else, to generate revenue. But as information professionals, this should be our focus if we're going to invest in this and teach people how to consume information and really understand what they're experiencing when they're online, that appears to be the trajectory of most people that come into our buildings. That has to be our emphasis. It's almost the core of librarianship, to be honest. This whole idea of primary and secondary sources, now today it's synthetic media versus media that's created by an actual human being. I don't know if you're familiar with OpenAI or GPT-3 but these natural language models are so sophisticated that it's almost impossible to discern whether or not you're reading something that was authored by a machine or a human being. This gets to just the very core of what it means to be a democracy and what it means to be a literate population. As libraries, I think this is a big part of our mission. Really, if we want to remain relevant and we want to stand out as a place that does it, these are the things that we need to get behind and help our patrons understand. Just lastly on this one, this is this applies to every group we interact with, whether it's old people, wealthy people, poor people. It doesn't matter, everyone's influenced by it. May or may not be aware of how much it's impacting their daily life.
[01:42:45] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[01:42:46] AARON MASON: Yeah.
[01:42:48] DHARMA AKMON: Any other follow-up questions before we turn it over to the candidate? All right. I'd like to invite you to ask questions of us if you have any left. [LAUGHTER]
[01:43:03] AARON MASON: I want you to help me think this one through. I watched all the presentations the other night. You have a community that supports you. It's evidenced that they're very passionate and behind you all the way. But how do we describe or define the library as a unique space at a state level? That's my question. Because in my mind and look, I'm a programming librarian. You can't say, oh, we're just a place that just does special projects. It doesn't resonate. It may resonate at a local level, but at a state level, how do you describe our space? The follow-up question to that is, is a library space in Ann Arbor, fundamentally different than one in Flint or Detroit? That is my question to you. If you don't have an answer.
[01:44:09] DHARMA AKMON: Who would like to take that? [LAUGHTER].
[01:44:14] JIM LEIJA: Time to theorize, it's a good prompt.
[01:44:23] JIM LEIJA: I like the idea. There are things that have come up in this interview that get to that description. There's something interesting and complicated about Ann Arbor in the sense that, as someone who is a programmer here, the competition for eyeballs and time is fierce and intense.
[01:44:48] AARON MASON: Yeah.
[01:44:52] JIM LEIJA: I'd like to have more words to describe what is the niche that we fill in an articulate and explicit way.
[01:45:01] AARON MASON: Yeah.
[01:45:02] JIM LEIJA: I think there's a very intuitive sense of what we do. But you see some of that productive ambiguity allowing for programs to flourish and lots of the stuff to explore lots of different directions. But then it also does become, I think, a challenge to describe exactly, wait, what are the three priority audiences or who do we see as those three patron profiles on a very molecular level, I guess. I am very interested in this question of how cultural institutions are participating in democracy. I was glad you spoke more about digital and media literacy. Yesterday you had talked about algorithmic literacy which is a very big interest of mine, personally. Just the sensation that actually people don't even know or don't even understand that it's a problem and don't know the ways in which they're being coerced or manipulated by algorithms when they think they're not. I do think that the question of how all of our cultural institutions participate in democracy, whether that's a library and art museum or performing arts presenter, etc., is also a big one. I wonder how that plays out on a state level in a state like Michigan which is very politically divided and now becoming more of a purple swing state. Also the idea that public goods like the library they are really socialist systems ultimately are not so in favor in a capitalist culture of monetizing everything. You've touched on a lot of ideas that I think start to describe what is a library supposed to do and be at this bigger level.
[01:47:08] AARON MASON: Yeah. I'm sorry to throw a heavy question. [LAUGHTER] I've been thinking about it. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:47:16] JIM LEIJA: I can riff on this for awhile.
[01:47:19] AARON MASON: Anyway.
[01:47:19] KAREN MILLER: Please, go ahead. If you had something to say.
[01:47:22] AARON MASON: No.
[01:47:25] ONNA SOLOMON: Well, I would say, I guess, I have a question for your question [LAUGHTER] which is you're asking how does this local institution that's funded locally, obviously, there's not just locally, account for itself and explain itself on a larger scale on a state level where we aren't representative of the state. Can I ask you how do you think about that? Because I do think that's a really interesting question of a highly resourced local institution and whether it has obligations to interact and respond to the needs. [OVERLAPPING]
[01:48:15] JIM LEIJA: Advocate, maybe, yeah.
[01:48:19] AARON MASON: Sure. If equity and inclusion is something that we value as an organization, we need to think about the communities that sit in areas that aren't like ours. We need to think about librarians or libraries as a profession or as an institution across the state and how our decisions work in concert with theirs and how we could be of help. Ann Arbor is different than other communities. Cleveland is very different than the majority of our state. We are very fortunate to have a tagline that works very well with whichever side of the aisle you're on. The people's university speaks to a left-leaning idea of empowerment. But you can flip it and also say, if you want to do better in life, you've got this library. Go in and pick yourself up from the bootstraps. It works that way. At a state level, I think, you can have those conversations. I've found, Ohio is a different state but people are receptive to that idea. But here, locally, I'm looking at Ann Arbor and I think the space is very important and how people use it is one thing. But the information within it, whether it's digital or in print, is really that common thread that makes us unique. Then two words that came to my mind as I'm walking through the branches is the branches appear to be a landing spot or a roost of sorts for people. I'm going to stop here on my way to there and get some peace of mind. But they also seem to serve as a bridge between different communities. Especially the last one that I went to, you got this coffee shop, you have families, people are shopping. I've looked and there's a Chinese language newspaper on it. We think about how can we leverage that to the benefit of everyone? In Cleveland we talk about it, the library, as being a convener of different groups. It's a little bit easier for us to pull from the suburbs to come in and engage on that level. But in Ann Arbor, I think, the two words worked very well for this organization. The challenge is when we have the conversation on a local level, it seems like more resources are needed to redevelop this location, in particular, and a long conversation about how this space is used. But these are the types of things we would need to think about if we're going to go out and ask for the taxpayers to contribute more money towards a project of this scale.
[01:51:29] KAREN MILLER: Any other questions for us?
[01:51:31] AARON MASON: No, I'm dehydrated. [LAUGHTER] I think I talked to her ears off but I really appreciate you guys taking time to talk to me and to the staff that I met, I can't say enough. It was just wonderful all the way around. You have a great group of people and a great community. I admit I had some skepticism coming here. Well, I'm going to come on and then see empty branches, but I did not see any. [LAUGHTER] That they're just alive. You guys have just done a fantastic job. If you choose to have me, I look forward to the challenge. If not, it's just been wonderful meeting you and I will be coming back Ann Arbor. [LAUGHTER]
[01:52:20] JIM LEIJA: Great.
[01:52:21] AARON MASON: Yeah.
[01:52:21] JIM LEIJA: Aaron, It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[01:52:23] AARON MASON: You're welcome.
[01:52:24] JIM LEIJA: Thanks a lot.
[01:52:25] AARON MASON: Yep. Thank you, everybody.
[01:52:25] JIM LEIJA: All right. Thank you. I think we need a little break. [NOISE] [BACKGROUND]Ten minutes. [BACKGROUND]
[01:53:14] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND] It's great, yeah.
[01:53:24] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND] Thank, God. [MUSIC]
[02:06:38] JIM LEIJA: Hi there.
[02:06:39] ELI NEIBURGER: Hello. How's everybody doing?
[02:06:41] JIM LEIJA: Good.
[02:06:41] DHARMA AKMON: Good.
[02:06:42] JIM LEIJA: It's nice to see you.
[02:06:43] ELI NEIBURGER: Nice to see you too.
[02:06:45] JIM LEIJA: Welcome, Eli. I think that we should treat you as if you are any candidate today and ask you to introduce yourselves to us and we will do the same for you.
[02:06:59] ELI NEIBURGER: Sure. My name is Eli Neiburger. I'm currently the deputy director at the Ann Arbor District Library. I've worked here, it will be 25 years in August. My background is in architecture and IT. Very excited for this opportunity and to the possibility of leading this outstanding organization.
[02:07:19] JIM LEIJA: Terrific. Thanks. Me I'm Jim Leija, and the board president. Been on the board for almost eight years, two terms. In my daily life, I'm the deputy director for the U of M Museum of Art Public Experience and Learning department. I've also been in Ann Arbor a very long time.
[02:07:39] DHARMA AKMON: Dharma Akmon, Vice President of the Board, not closing out in my fourth year of my first term. I'm from Northern Michigan, got my PhD from the School of Information and work as a research scientist in the Director of Project Management and use their support at ICPSR, an IMLS award-winning institution.
[02:08:05] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Scott Trudeau. I'm in my second year of my first term on the board, which I got wrong earlier because apparently, I can't measure time. I'm a treasurer. I grew up in Michigan. I would graduated from the University of Michigan. I've worked in tech my whole career after graduating in non-profits, in government, and in startups, lived in New York City for 10 years, moved back to Ann Arbor a couple of years ago, and continued to work for a tech company as a Chief Technology Officer?
[02:08:41] KERENE MOORE: I'm Kerene. I feel like this is silly. [LAUGHTER] I'm at the end of my first year on the board, I have actually worked at a lot of libraries. I don't know if you know that. I started out at the Detroit Public Library in high school, and when I came here, I worked at the ugly and the grad library and the Law Library, and I'm a double Wolverine so undergrad [LAUGHTER] in law. I'm a social justice attorney and I work downtown at the Washington County Circuit Court. Before that, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, and before that legal services of South Central Michigan.
[02:09:20] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Hi, I'm Molly Kleinman I'm also my first term on the library board and I serve on the finance committee. I'm originally from the East Coast. I'm one of the many people who came to Ann Arbor for grad school and got sucked in and never left. [LAUGHTER] I have a Master's Degree in Information Science from the University of Michigan and I worked as an academic librarian for a few years. Went back to school for PhD in education policy and I'm now the managing director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, which is a research center at the Ford School of Public Policy at U of M, and I'm also on the Ann Arbor Transportation Commission.
[02:09:57] ONNA SOLOMON: I'm Onna Solomon and this is my second year on the board, and I'm a social worker with a private practice specializing in kids with learning differences in autism. It feels funny to introduce myself to you all and I have lived in Ann Arbor for a really long time too.
[02:10:21] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Hi Eli. I'm Jamie Vander Broek. Like the others, I came to Ann Arbor for a reason, and then I never left. But I lived in the East Coast when I was in college for a little bit. Then maybe I'll try to say something that you wouldn't know about me [LAUGHTER] or at least what I do for work now, that sometimes I've heard Josie characterize it like I'm the head of a library, but that's actually not true. I've managed staff, so I supervise the music, film, architecture, and art history librarians. But we have a structure where I managed those people as individuals and their librarians, but the operations of the library actually manage up a different chains. That's not what I do. I buy a lot of artist books which you know, and [NOISE] I still sometimes plan events and have crazy ideas for the library. [LAUGHTER]
[02:11:22] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:11:23] JIM LEIJA: Thanks, everyone. It's a good reminder that we're re-introducing ourselves today in a different way. I want you to take 2-3 minutes Eli, and share with us what attracted you to apply for this position in the Ann Arbor District Library and how your career and professional development have prepared you to be our next leader?
[02:11:52] ELI NEIBURGER: When Josie asked me to be Deputy Director in 2014 after Ken Neiman left, it didn't occur to me what that really meant and what would be coming next eventually, but from that moment, she and I worked so closely on basically every aspect of library operations. Prior to that, this is a type of organization where you have a lot of autonomy to do a lot of different things within the well-fenced-in scope of library operations. But as I got more involved with the strategy and the decision-making and the finance and the benefits and all the dry as well as the exciting. a big part of it is recognizing how unique this organization has become in its industry and in the community, and the intense knowledge of all aspects of library operations that is required to keep a place that is doing this many things going without breathing down all the steps necks. It simultaneously hands-off and free-wheeling, but it's also very closely managed. At the same time, we were always very aware that if neither Josie nor I could know everything that was going on in the library, how is the board or the staff or the front desk people supposed to know everything that's going on in the library? It's just not necessarily knowable. But we tried to come as close to [BACKGROUND] it as possible. A big part of it is just adapting that mindset, and also the whole notion of get to the yes and understanding that our primary competitors when we're trying to attract new patrons, it's not like there's another public library that they could belong to. Usually their perceptions of libraries that were set as a child. Our most avid library users are the people in the community who are trained by their parents become library users. Through those years understanding how every time we make things difficult for a prospective patron, we run the risk of turning them away forever. You have to watch out for those opportunities, and sometimes it can be very subtle and nuanced moments and mixing that in with the fact that in some cases, libraries attract people who really like rules to work on them. [LAUGHTER]
[02:14:34] ELI NEIBURGER: The rules are super important. But getting to the point and understanding the nuance between the unalienable third rail types of rules and the like, this is the way we like to do it, but if you can make the person happy, make them happy. I think a lot of our success as an institution has come from that mindset, and that's really, I think the thing that I've learned the most. I can think about times 10 years ago when I would have been much harder on certain rules, especially when I was living almost solely in IT and you could tell the system what the rules are and the system is not going to break those rules. But even still when I first developed the first version of our session manager that runs on the public computers, one of the things we wanted to do is not have people have to get up if nobody else was waiting. At that time and even still, there's almost no other systems that have that feature. Really just approaching everything from the library around the patron's experience is what I think has really prepared me for this moment. The integration of the library into all sorts of things that are going in town, so there's many things that the library is involved with and many things that administration of library needs to know about. I think I have the connections in the community. I have the awareness of what's happening in the community and most importantly for this town, the understanding of the political dimensions of it, which barely touch us practically, but completely define the possibility space within which we're operating. Like we're very fortunate, thanks to most of you, to have the relatively small amount of nonsense in the administering of this library service. But we still exist [LAUGHTER] in a community that can indulge in nonsense from time to time, and understanding how that impacts us, understanding which alliances to make and which alliances not to make is extremely critical for the success of the organization long-term. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Follow-ups.
[02:16:42] JIM LEIJA: I'm going to start out with one follow up that I was maybe going to save for later but because you've talked about the working with the patron experience in mind, and one thing I would like to hear you talk more about is what your theory of community is. How you think about the concentric circles of patrons who participate, and where you think we're lacking in that regard?
[02:17:09] ELI NEIBURGER: It's a great question. I think one thing is to make sure we don't look at communities singularly. It's all about the numerous communities and how we shouldn't attempt to develop one library service that works equally well for all of them. I think at its core we've got the diehards, the super fans, the people who are going to use the library intensely no matter where they live, no matter what their life conditions are, no matter what their household income is, they are library users habitually. It is important to help them have a good experience using the library. But they understand what a library is, they understand how to use it, they understand the notion of placing a request and then we'll hold it for you. They're not the ones asking us, can I return this book to this other location, is that okay? While that is our core group, at the same time, we really need to spend most of our efforts on the outer circles from there. Because we do very well serving that core group, we always will, and they're going to make the most of the library no matter what. Like the next circle out are people who may have a library card but don't see a lot of need for the library in their lives. But they're aware of it, they are members, they are tuned in in some ways. When we take our surveys, we see we've got that 25 percent of people who are here once a week. Then there's about another 25 percent who come once a month. For them it's really mostly about what are they interested in? What do they want to see? How can we provide them unique value around the other things that they have in their lives? We've seen a big change in the use of the collections, particularly with video, where it's not that long ago that video was our fastest-growing format. Now it's probably our fastest falling format because of streaming, we can't compete with the convenience of streaming, but we can absolutely compete with the breadth of that collection and we're seeing actually more growth in sections of the DVD collection because we have things that are unstreamable, which you can't watch anywhere. Again, finding for that next circle out who are already watching the library and already think of the library when they have a need in their lives. Figuring out what is most valuable to them, what are we giving them uniquely, not what's already on Prime, what's already on Netflix, but what can we give them that nobody else can give them. That was a big part of the tools collection. The next step out then is the people who are dimly aware of the library but perceive it as a hassle. There are a lot of people like that and particularly, that lines up with demographics that we don't always reach very well. I think that there's a lot of room for us to just put on their radar, what the library does, how easy it is to use. Here we are we haven't charged a single overdue fine in two years, and we're still getting people, assuming that we do every day. People use a library and now we don't want to do a big push, no fines, because we want the staff back. But at the same time, it is an important message when you're trying to get a reluctant or a non-user dialed in. For them to know that it's like, it's a lot easier to use a library than it used to be in all sorts of different ways. A lot of the things we've done with the summer game, once you get people into playing the summer game in a lot of cases, it is already a core audience, but you see it grow around the edges with families particularly. Then secondly, in addition to the families, you'll also see a lot of adult women who are engaging with the game for something to do and playing in groups and things like that. That models the way that you receive [NOISE] value from the library. It's always been a secret mission of the summer game is to model, to casual patrons how they can receive more value from their library, and it really works. We see it every year that every year you get some summer gamers that then become intense library users where they previously might've been passive library users. Then the furthest ring out, you have the people who basically don't have the library on the radar at all, it wouldn't occur to them to use the library. They don't see the library as having things that need them in their lives. Now, there's two different demographics in that ring. There's the people who have basically unlimited access to anything that they want in their entire life, and then there's people who are struggling so hard that they don't have time to use the library, and you can imagine which of those two audiences are more interested in reaching. Because if people have the disposable income, it's completely valid for them to not use the library. If they find the convenience of using their personal revenue, go right ahead. We want to still have something for them, but I don't necessarily feel that it's a failing of the institution if we're not able to provide a compelling value proposition to people for whom their personal out-of-pocket is not really part of that calculation. The other part is the struggle, and I think it's a demographic that's changing very often and frequently in Ann Arbor.
[02:22:12] ELI NEIBURGER: But it's one that gets overlooked because it's not the dominant demographic, but it is here in the community, and we see parts of those demographics all the time in the library because those are the people who know that they can get things from us, but they can't get any other way. How do you reach the people who really need library service but it's not on their radar? Only a certain amount of that is marketing. Most of that is always going to come through basically reaching out to the organizations that they are engaged with and making partnerships with their community organizations, making partnerships with their neighborhood associations, with all the different groups that they are already engaged to, and doing things with them so that you're coming to them through a trusted partner, because in many cases people don't trust the library because it's part of govern, and they don't trust government. I think that that's the main hill we have to climb. Does that answer your question, Jim?
[02:23:08] JIM LEIJA: Oh yeah.
[02:23:09] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:23:10] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[02:23:12] DHARMA AKMON: It's my turn. Please give an example of a time when you have challenged the status quo in your professional life. Why and how did you do it and what were the results?
[02:23:21] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, to pick just one, [LAUGHTER] I think the thing that we have done here that remains the most unique is our approach to digital licensing. It is the thing that still here 10 years in very few other institutions have followed our lead on this. There's two components of it. One is for us to directly license works that our patrons are interested in from the rights holder. Not from the publisher necessarily, although in some cases those rights holders are publishers, but in many cases directly from filmmakers, directly from artists, directly from musicians, and paying them directly for a perpetual license to digitally deliver that material to our library card users. It is not very hard to get that economically to a win-win where they're going to get more money from us than they ever would have from the people we serve and we get permanent access to that content. We're able to put it into our corpus and keep it there for a long time. That is very far from the status quo in this industry. All of that content is hosted on servers in this building using open-source architecture with no licenses involved. It's not that long ago that the library industry was rallying around products like Adobe Digital Editions, which literally Adobe charges the library every time a patron checks something out. That's the other big part of this, is that we have established, for as long as they've been around, that a pay-per-use licensing model is not an acceptable use of public money for a library. We may be the only library in the United States that feels this way.
[02:24:58] DHARMA AKMON: Can you say more about why that's not acceptable?
[02:25:01] ELI NEIBURGER: Because the goal of the library is not to subsidize access to individual works and pay every time it's used. The economics of a library work, when the library takes a risk and purchases a piece of material and we can use it until it falls apart, whatever that means, and we're taking the risk that nobody wants it. When you engage in pay-per-use licensing models, well, you're taking the risk is that people will want it because if they like it, you're stuck because you got to pay every time someone clicks on it. More to the point, in many of these products, you've got to pay in the first 30 seconds even if a minute they're like, "I'm not that interested in the complete works of Kevin Sorbo. I'm going to stop watching this." [LAUGHTER] We still get billed for the full amount of that view. That is not a sustainable economic model for public libraries. I am appalled the way that this industry has rushed to that model from some sense of desperation, and also, as we talked about the other night, driven by providing more intense service to our most intense users. The entire library e-book industry exists because libraries were like, "That's a crappy deal. Sign us up." [LAUGHTER] That's something where this organization is frankly iconoclastic and very much a merchant to the beat of our own drummer. What's most interesting about that is when we hear from patrons, why don't you have Hoopla? Why don't you have Kanopy? Those are the two products that people hear about the most, especially because they are presented in their own marketing to patrons has free. Well, it's free to you, but it's not free to you because your library is paying every time you click. When we hear that question from patrons, instead of saying, "Sorry, we don't have those available," we explain to them why every time. We say, "This library does not engage in paper use licensing schemes because the cost per use is not sustainable and the collections are not worth what they are charging, and the model is not acceptable." In 99 percent of those interactions, the patrons are like, "Oh, thank you. I'm glad you're looking at it this way." I can't think of a time when we've had a patron who was like, "I don't care, you need to buy it." [LAUGHTER] We're just demonstrating to them we are being responsible with your money by not flushing it down this particular toilet. [LAUGHTER] I think that that's probably the most status quo bucking thing that we do, other than, and I don't want to brush this under the rug too much, our entire stance as an organization that you don't have to learn something to get something out of your library. There's plenty of people who want to learn something at the library, but you shouldn't need to be pursuing learning to get value from your library. I think that our entire collections and programs are all built around that notion of you just have to be interested. That's enough for your library. It doesn't have to be socially redeeming necessarily. It doesn't have to be scholarly. That's a place where sometimes we run into conflict with people who have a different vision of what a public library should be, but like I said the other night, we believe we should have something for everyone, even people who don't like to read. It's their library too. Did I answer your question?
[02:28:13] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah. Any other follow-ups?
[02:28:17] JIM LEIJA: You clearly have [LAUGHTER] known strong opinions about the streaming services. I think generally as a board, we've discussed this over the years and understand the rationale, but I'm going to use this specific issue. What happens when this is a different group of people? How do you make a case on something that you feel so passionately about? What if you have board members that are really resistant to backing that trend?
[02:28:53] ELI NEIBURGER: [LAUGHTER] I don't feel that much angst about that moment because in the presence of a board like that, it's the board's decision which direction the library goes, and I'll make the case and explain why I think we should do what I think we should do. But for one thing, if we have a board that thinks that that level of thing is their thing to decide and they decide that we need to have Hoopla.
[02:29:20] ELI NEIBURGER: Then we're going have Hoopla. It's ultimate that this is a governing body and you are the elected officials. While I think a lot of our success is driven by the board of trustees as a body, understanding its role, and staying focused on the big issues of which $40,000 in the licensing budget goes to which vendor is not one of them. But at the same time, it is the board's responsibility to decide what's a good use of public money and what isn't, and the staff's job to advise that decision not to make it. At the same time, I think that we are mostly operating within the space that is defined by the board for making those decisions. If it came up and the board said, we really need to have this, we're hearing about it all the time. The changes that calculus as opposed to right now where you're generally not hearing about it. The other thing that's in the mix, it's like at some point they might change our licensing terms. If Kanopy would let us use the academic licensing model, we would have it immediately. But when we ask them if we can have it while we were on the phone with them, they took it off their website. That's not a company you necessarily want to get into. Does that answer your question?
[02:30:38] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah.
[02:30:38] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[02:30:39] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:30:40] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Next one is mine. Please share an example of an operational change you made that resulted in financial savings for your library?
[02:30:53] ELI NEIBURGER: I got several of them that come to mind. One big one is we made a big mistake in the late '90s, early aughts of investing in RFID. We decided it was a way of the future. I said I wasn't convinced at the time, but it wasn't really entirely my decision as the IT manager. We invested in a product, we put tags in every item in the collection. The tax cost over a $1 a piece. The hardware was completely unreliable, didn't deliver any of it. Basically, it offered no improvements over using barcodes. Only was harder to use. Avoiding the sunk cost fallacy in that moment and saying "This isn't working, let's just stop." Was a decision that's probably saved the library millions of dollars since the time we made that decision. Because we would have probably had to convert our RFID hardware three times between then and now. But it was a solution desperately in search of a problem. Similarly, many libraries of our sides of investment materials handling systems. Which are very cool, and very robotic, and exciting, and require almost as many people to tend to them as the people who are doing the work in the first place. The other thing is that those things don't notice when there's too many buggers between pages 3 and 4. [LAUGHTER] Which is an important part of the human touch of processing library materials. [LAUGHTER] That's another example. But I think the bottom line is that I personally, since I've been pretty much in control of IT decision-making at this institution since around 2000. Looking at vended proprietary products as the absolute last solution to a problem once you have exhausted all other means has worked extremely well for us. I mean, we bought, during my time here, two automation systems. The first automation system cost us $0.5 million. The second automation system cost us $60,000. The things that we've been able to do with Evergreen compared to the things that we used to be able to do with the proprietary system. It's night and day, and it costs us so much less. In many cases you'll spend the same amount of money. You're just spending it on people, but those people didn't work for you. But I don't think that's even the case here because these products are so overpriced, because libraries are so stuck without them. My staff will tell you I'm not nice to vendors who cold-call. [LAUGHTER] We're not here to help them make their quarterly sales goals, sorry. However, there are times when it makes sense to buy a vendor product. For example, we are currently in the process of moving our accounting system to the Cloud. Which two years ago I would've said never, no way, not ever. But it's to the point now where we don't need anything unique out of our accounting system, quite the reverse. We need a completely basic accounting system that does the same things that every other audited government entity does. The software that serves the government entity market has finally evolved to the point where it passes the sniff test. You're like, ''Okay, that looks like a modern piece of software.'' It's all web-based, you don't have to install a terminal clients on everyone's station anymore. I think overall this is an industry that thrives on buying big expensive things from bloated vendors. I think that our stance, if you can roll your own start with that has served us very well. I get the question all the time about the summer game. We love the summer game, we love your website. Who's the vendor you bought it from? They don't like it when I explain the answer. It's no big deal, all you have to do is start 20 years ago and built an IT infrastructure. [LAUGHTER] Does that answer your questions, Scott?
[02:34:45] SCOTT TRUDEAU: It does. Anybody else have a follow up?
[02:34:50] KERENE MOORE: It has been said that a challenge is an opportunity we did not ask for. Based on what you know today, what are the biggest challenges facing AADL and what opportunities do you see that may not have been previously explored?
[02:35:05] ELI NEIBURGER: I think there's a couple of different things there. One is the never-ending goal for a public library to reach everyone who wants to be reached in its community, or even people who don't yet know that they want to be reached. They just don't understand the libraries we were talking about before. I think it is absolutely a challenge. We serve a community. Actually, it's just revised. Just this week I got the new census numbers. Our surface area has increased for the first time that I've worked here, is now 177,000 up from 166,000. That report just arrived from the Library of Michigan this week. Out of those 177,000 people, we typically have about 60,000 active library cards. Now, many of those represent two or three people. I think we know from our previous market studies that we reach about 78 percent of households. There is still room to grow from there. In many cases, that's 78 percent of households that the marketers can get on the phone. There's definitely room to expand our reach there, and I think that that's a big opportunity and a huge challenge. How do you get to the point where you are reaching as many of the people in the community who would benefit from your services as you can? I think the other part that goes with that is the challenge of these communities in this moment in American history wrestling with generational change, with demographic change, with urban and economic change, and what technological change. I think that some of those challenges have barely touched us yet. But I do expect over the next 10-15 years, as some of those frankly, knowledge hostile movements continue to spread across the US that we'll see more of that ''even here.'' Those elements are absolutely already in this community. But it's not something we deal with a lot and I think that there will be some challenges there.
[02:37:16] ELI NEIBURGER: Some libraries on our scale in urban communities have made terrible missteps about who they have platformed. It's easy to think about the library as a neutral organization, but there's nothing neutral about public libraries. Believing that the world of human knowledge is open to everyone, is not a neutral position. Believing that there's a line between truth and lies is not a neutral position. We are challenged on that occasionally from time to time, I expect that temperature to heat up. I expect us to be asked at some point to offer a space to a organization that will gladly sue us if we deny the space. That's what they're looking for in some cases. But in some cases, it's still the right thing to do is to deny the platform. It's a challenging thing, those are absolutely bored-driven decisions when those things come up because that's when it gets very real, very quickly. But we are not insulated from that thing that is happening in American culture. [NOISE] While I'm an optimist and I don't think that the thing that is happening is going to continue forever because I think it has a pretty sharp demographic edge. The things will start improving in the next 15-20 years. But it's still going to be a rough go between here and there, and I expect us to have some real struggles to wrestle with. It comes down to the intolerance paradox. [LAUGHTER] I think the only intolerance that should be welcome in public libraries is lactose intolerance. [LAUGHTER] For us to be intolerant of intolerance is an important position for us to be willing to take. It is ultimately a board decision when it comes down to it. But I think that that's the challenge and opportunity it's most likely to face us in coming years. Some libraries have basically set their communities on fire by being unwilling to do the right thing in that moment. The right thing isn't always a legal thing. That's a big challenge. Did I answer your question, Kerene?
[02:39:33] KERENE MOORE: Yeah.
[02:39:34] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:39:34] KERENE MOORE: What else.
[02:39:35] DHARMA AKMON: Can I ask a follow on? Because I think you spoke a lot about the challenges, but framing this as an opportunity, what's the opportunity?
[02:39:43] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, in many cases, the opportunity there is to make it more clear what the library stands for. It's not a shelf full of mysteries, that's not an important part of what goes on here. But the library stands for something. It stands for access to all and that's revolutionary. I think the opportunity really there and this is something that has already begun because you don't have to wait for these things to happen. We've already started bringing in the programs that other libraries wait to be approached about. Been seeking them out in the community, trying to make organizations, for every community within our service area to see themselves in library programming and collections. It's a huge opportunity, it's ongoing work that happens across all levels of the library. But I think we can triangulate where the safe space is for public service between these various pressures still demonstrating what the values are of the institution and giving something for people to aspire to. People feel really good about the library and that's precious. It's also fragile. I think that really the opportunity to continue to build that make people really proud and be proud to be part of the communities that they are in.
[02:41:02] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[02:41:02] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:41:05] MOLLY KLEINMAN: My turn next. How has diversity, equity and inclusion impacted your decision-making? How have you practiced DEI and anti-racist principles in your work?
[02:41:20] ELI NEIBURGER: I feel like it's very much the way the Prime Directive operates. [LAUGHTER] It's something that is at the top of everything that you do. It's not a project, it's not an initiative, it's more like it is at the center of what you do. It's been a personal value of mine for a very long time. There was a story I mentioned to the staff yesterday that we had an employee who we hired. I think it was 1999 or 2000, who said, well, call me my Americanized name. I said well, but what is your name? What does your family call you? What would you like to be called? Twenty years later, the name that person actually has is the name that everyone calls them here at the library. Because at that moment of hire, when they were deciding to be known as an Americanized name or their actual name, we gave them the space to bring their full selves to work. That's just one small example. I think a big part of it really remains understanding when you're encountering staff. Lack of comfort with new partners or people who aren't, we used to call it the dinner circle. A lot of libraries only want to provide service to people that they would have in their own homes for dinner. When someone comes up to the desk and they're outside your dinner circle, you need to work so much harder to demonstrate to them, overcome your internal biases and deliver excellent service even to someone who you wouldn't be friends with. When we started talking about this, the context of that was someone with a nose ring. Honestly, that was where we were at that time. It's like people with nose rings get to use the library too. [LAUGHTER] Of course, it's a much bigger conversation now. It is something where we don't really have the same internal resistance that we did in the '90s. But at the same time, bias is real and everyone understands that. I think continuing to make up part of the conversation with staff, continuing for them to see us working with organizations that are different from the staff, and continuing to model truth and social justice and opposite, just this week had a fresh round of complaints about the 1619 exhibit out at Malletts. We mounted that exhibit back when we first had booked Nikole Hannah-Jones right before the pandemic. We've put it up a couple of different times and it's about handling that. The complaint was basically, you shouldn't have this. Historians have said it was wrong. That whole thing. You should take it down right away and you should buy this book about how the New York Times always lies. Well, no. The response was thank you for your feedback. The exhibit will stay up until it is planned to come down and we will pass along this book to our collections department for consideration. Thank you very much. That was the end of the conversation and it was effective.
[02:44:33] ELI NEIBURGER: I think in some cases, it's about keeping your eye on the ball, making sure that you are focused on where you're trying to get to not getting distracted or drawn into a fight. Another good example is when we had the First Amendment audit a few weeks ago, that's another thing that is happening to a lot of libraries, and your staff have to be prepared for it. What they have to be prepared to do is nothing. Let them come, let them go they're looking for a fight, don't give them one. I think it really comes down to allowing people to be their full selves at work. That comes through mutual respect, through particularly checking in with them when they have taken abuse from the public, and making sure that they know that administration does not find that behavior to be acceptable on the part of the public. It's not always something that's outside the rules of behavior depending on the way, because in many cases, those things are macro aggressions, but they're presented as microaggressions. It's not the thing that you'd necessarily trespass for someone making a casual comment across the desk, but that doesn't make it okay, it doesn't make it acceptable. Checking in with staff after this moment saying do you need to take a moment, you need to take those, and we're sorry that someone said that to you. Because it's a part of the thing working in urban library that a lot of people new to the industry don't expect to be a daily part of their lives, but it is. I think supporting particularly the underrepresented people that are on the staff, making sure that they feel that the administration is supporting them, and is not finding it acceptable that they are taking abuse that majoritarian members of the staff are not generally taking. But putting that in that position where they feel supported not just by the organization's rules, and processes, but by the management team itself in all of those moments. Then they propose programs, then they want to be in more involved than they know that it is okay for them to bring themselves to work and that it is you get a lot more exciting opportunities happening from there. Similarly, when working with partners, I've said many times to some of our staff, not every partner we want to work with is going to be responsive to email, and sometimes you have to work harder to make a first connection with an organization that you haven't worked with before. You can't just always deal with the people who are super on top of their email, and super responsible when the library comes asking. There's lots of room there to make all kinds of things happen for the community, and our goal is just for every single member of every community that we serve to see themselves in the library and its collections. I think that about sums it up about, we practice it in hiring. I articulated the other night the way that the fruits of the DEI industry as it has become, how that looks to me of a more diverse staff providing increasingly equitable access to increasingly inclusive services, and I think that that's been guiding us long before there was a DEI industry. That comes down to making sure especially the rare occasions when there's issues of conflict between staff, making it very clear what behavior is acceptable, what behavior isn't in the workplace. I can hardly think of two things where that's come up over the years, it's not a frequent problem, but when it does, you really have to get it right. Does that answer your question?
[02:48:15] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah, it does. Thanks.
[02:48:16] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[02:48:16] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Any follow-up?
[02:48:17] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. A lot of the examples are on this molecular level internally if supporting people, and that is a lot about your staff culture. I guess a really specific question would be, if there was a systemic change that we could make, or that you would make that would make some aspect of our work as a whole system be more equitable or more inclusive, what would that be?
[02:48:55] ELI NEIBURGER: I think the hardest part, particularly with building a diverse staff, is positioning this as an institution that is valuing that genuinely, and not performatively, it's very hard to separate that at this moment. But also positioning the institution as one that wants to give opportunities that are explicitly anti-racist, and we've had some success with that recently. A good example is our call for artists. We've been delighted by the response with that, and a lot of it came from not just the fact of how we framed it up in the text about we're specifically seeking people who are members of underrepresented communities. But then following that up with reaching out to all of our partners that are parts of those communities, and asking them to push this to their members, so that their members are hearing it from their trusted community member, and getting that out there. I do think that there is room, as I said the other night for internships that are designated for particular communities. It's on the edges of the way that labor law tends to understand these things, and as a result, it is tricky you have to frame it up in just the right way. But I think we have a great opportunity with our internship program in particular because we are always struggling to get enough people for the internship program at all. So there are always going to be opportunities available for people who wish to apply for the position. Because of that, I think we have an opportunity to say, here are positions that are designated for particular communities we wish to better represent among our staff. If that can be positioned in such a way as not excluding others who are not parts of underrepresented communities from opportunity, then I think you can be in a better position there. So that's one very basic way of doing it. I think the other really big thing is like I talked about the other night, it needs to be outside the heritage months, you make so much impact on people. One thing we've talked about, for example, with the story team let's not just have two mommy ducks during pride month. Why can there not be two mommy ducks out of the blue for no reason you hardly mention it, it's not a special storytime. It's funny because it's like what we really want to do is have nobody notice. That's not actually what's happening, but you want it to be so mainstream, so much a part of normal operations that it is not presented as a special project or special initiative, it's just what you do. Does that answer your question, Jim? Thank you.
[02:51:44] ONNA SOLOMON: I think I am up. Describe for us a time in your career when you changed a long-held professional belief or assumption and the circumstances that led to that change.
[02:51:58] ELI NEIBURGER: This is such a nerdy one, but I just talked about this a little bit. I do not trust the Cloud. [LAUGHTER] The Cloud is just somebody else's computer. It took a long time for us to put our email on someone else's computer. But we ultimately got there. When we first started thinking about a new accounting system, I said, well, so long as it's something that we can host in-house on our own servers. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw what the products were. Not insignificantly, the fact that hardly anybody sells one anymore. It's like, well, this is something that needs to change. I need to realize that I'm a little ossified and my Gen X, IT sensibilities of mainframes forever. To get it something that is a little bit more accessible to everyone. That's the direction that things are going. That's very much inside baseball. It's a very sort of, but like my staff will tell you, that is a long-held and deeply held value of mine, that I do not want to let our most important data outside the system. Now, all that said, I will never support putting our patron data anywhere other than in this building on servers that we control. Because if a government agency wants to know what's in there, they need to go through me. I don't want them to be able to go to the vendor that's providing a service for 800 different libraries and just ask them to get whatever they want. It is statutorily defined that the most important information that we have is the titles of the things that patrons checkout. More so than their personal identity. The titles are protected by state law. We take that very seriously and I don't see how you can do that on someone else's server. Our accounting data, who cares about that? [LAUGHTER] Honestly, at the same time, there's absolutely nothing private about it, nothing at all. It's not our payroll data. Any of it is voidable. All of it. It's not information we're trying to protect and keep safe. We want to make sure that it's available. Increasingly that is most available through a vendor. I had to talk to vendors. [LAUGHTER] We signed a paper earlier so they could meet their sales goals. [LAUGHTER] Then he was appointed salesman of the year. Happy to help [LAUGHTER] what was your question on.
[02:54:32] ONNA SOLOMON: Because I have a follow-up question because it sounds like in that you were flexible in adapting. But I don t know that challenge changed a long-held professional belief. Can you explain if it did and or give an example of something where you really feel, because it seems like you still hold the value. But this is a little bit of an exception.
[02:54:58] ELI NEIBURGER: That's right. Yes. I'm capitulating [LAUGHTER].
[02:55:03] ONNA SOLOMON: I'm pushing you a little bit harder.
[02:55:04] ELI NEIBURGER: No, this is good. I think I was a lot more open to the notion of all material has a home at the library. Before what's happened over the past 10 years. I've never identified with any libertarian values whatsoever. But the notion that the library should contain the entirety of human thought, even the awful parts, was something when I first came into the industry, was something that made sense to me. It was also, however, very much part of the library orthodoxy and still is. But I think I have definitely come to the point where it's like no, there are materials that you should not have in the library because of what it says to the people who those materials are speaking out against, that you have them on the shelf. You can't be welcoming to everyone. If you are embracing it. It's just material. You just put it on the shelf. It's a big deal, it's on their face. Well, but we bought it, we paid for it. We gave that author money. We're voting with public dollars on what's good and what's not so good. I think I've come to understand that that is a much higher. It means a lot more when we do that. It's not just buying a copy of some piece of crap and putting it on the shelf. Not that there isn't times when it makes sense to just buy the piece of crap and put it on the shelf. Because sometimes it does. But I think in a lot of circumstances, I definitely have come to understand that our society is extremely vulnerable to bad faith attacks. We basically as media, as government, we have no defense against bad faith because our society is basically never grown up to understand it. Increasingly, a lot of things that are produced by the publishing industry are being produced in bad faith. It's one thing to have a book that says, you can achieve self-actualization through these seven tips of yogurt or whatever it is that the book says. [LAUGHTER] It's one thing. It's another thing when you have a book that says, these people should not be allowed to live. I don't see those as the same thing. I don't see those books as intellectual freedom issues. It's not saying that those books shouldn't exist or those people shouldn't be able to sell them. But should we as a public library, it's a unit of government beginning of the platform. We are giving them a platform when you put it on the shelf. Us having something on the shelf is not the only way that one of our patrons can get access to a piece of material. I think in many cases, I've definitely stopped believing in the big tent notion of public library collections. Because as we've seen in American society, the big tent has started including some real clowns. [LAUGHTER] That changes the calculus in a way that in the '90s it didn't seem was as much of an issue. Is that better? Thank you.
[02:58:11] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I do [OVERLAPPING] oh, yeah.
[02:58:13] JIM LEIJA: Sorry. Go ahead, Jamie.
[02:58:14] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I have a follow-up question. I've been thinking about as a thread throughout your questions. I think of you as a person who has strong beliefs in certain areas. I'm talking about these. Listening to you now, I'm thinking I see a thread of you changing your mind when you need to. I wondered how you know when you need to change your mind, if there are people in your circle that you count on to tell you when you've gone the wrong direction, or if it's more like you have a process of thinking that helps you identify when you need to.
[02:58:46] ELI NEIBURGER: That's a good question.
[02:58:48] ELI NEIBURGER: I would say that I'm very strongly influenced by the opinions of the staff at all levels. Of course, I talk a lot more with my co administrators and with management and supervision and stuff like that. But I also have worked very hard over the years to be very available to the front-line staff so that they feel that they can say something to me and they do. I hear that a lot. Decisions have less import than truth and justice and who gets to live on earth. I'm very flexible in those moments. I would think of, I'm sure that some staff had been frustrated by my ability to be convinced by someone else's argument. [LAUGHTER] It's like in some cases it's like I'm the balloon in the middle of the room and whichever fan is blowing strongest. I'm not very dogmatic about that stuff, my opinions are very able to flex to meet the current needs. Value is not so much, but relatively few of the decisions that we make day to day are about values. Many more of them are about objectives and what's going to get you closer to the values. I always want to hear it, and in many cases developing relationships, not just on the administration team but across the organization where people feel empowered to push back. I'll send people an email and it's this long and it's all this COVID stuff and it's ended by saying, if you disagree with any of this, please let's talk about it. I want to hear it because I want to hear, and it doesn't mean that we're always be able to change it but I always want to hear that. It's partially about making sure that you are hearing the things that the staff is talking about because it's always better to be aware of them than for them to be festering quietly. But it's also about they have opinions and they are exposed to things that we don't necessarily always see. We work hard to see it but making sure that we are hearing the full spectrum of what staff are experiencing is so important across all levels of the organization. I would not call it fickle, I'm sure others have called it fickle [LAUGHTER] because I can be convinced. Someone can make a strong argument. I can absolutely completely change the direction I was going to go with that. We've had some projects and we're like, ''Oh, we're going, oh, no, we're going to go.'' That has happened from time to time as the discussion matures. That I think is healthy and to be expected, even if it means that you have to throw away some work that you did. Did I answer your question Jamie?
[03:01:25] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's great. Thanks.
[03:01:26] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[03:01:26] KAREN MILLER: Jim, did you have a thought?
[03:01:29] JIM LEIJA: I did. I want to make sure we get through all the questions, but this whole line of conversation about materials in the collection, the big 10. Collection thinking and your change on that front. We continue working together [LAUGHTER] so we can talk about this more in another time but it does get me thinking about how to do that work of what goes in and what goes out transparently, inclusively, rather than black-box effective decision-making. I do wonder what your thoughts are on how? Because I think we all are all grappling with that question of what content is actually unacceptable when we're trying to think about an equity stance and how you build something that is transparent, and what challenges that brings? I don't know if there's a question there other than what's your thinking about that? Corollary to that is that other candidates have spoken about diversity audits in their collections. I think that there's something along, I think that also lives in the same [OVERLAPPING] space two degree.
[03:02:47] ELI NEIBURGER: That's been happening. One thing that I do feel pretty strongly about is that what specifically is in the collection really should not be a board decision. Mostly because you all need to keep your powder dry for when someone appeals a staff decision, there has to be somewhere for that to go. We're way ahead of a lot of other institutions here because we have an established process for this. It comes up currently a couple of times a year and we handle it, and it's generally not a board issue. Because if it becomes a board issue it should be because they don't like the staff's decision and they need to have some recourse there at that. I think in many cases for the board to make sure that their values are clear to the staff and that the staff is working in support of those values, so that we don't wind up with a values conflict in the event that staff makes a decision that the board wouldn't have made. I think that that's a very tricky challenge. At the same time, I think that they are the right people to make the decision of what's in the collection of library and to develop those collections. It's not me and it's not their manager. It's the people who are sunk into the list of new titles all the time, and are reading the reviews, and evaluating, looking what other libraries have etc. I think we're really in a pretty good position as far as have a process that is robustly defended against that type of bad faith attack. I do not believe from all the requests for reconsideration that I've been aware of over the years, I can't think of one that has been bad faith. They've all been very good faith and have been resolved amicably, even when we haven't done what the person wants.
[03:04:27] JIM LEIJA: Thanks. [OVERLAPPING]
[03:04:28] ELI NEIBURGER: Is that helpful?
[03:04:28] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[03:04:28] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you.
[03:04:32] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think I'm actually the next question. [LAUGHTER] What processes have you used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and services provided by your library? What stays and what goes in order to accomplish the library's mission?
[03:04:47] ELI NEIBURGER: It's a great question. As most of you know, I'm not a big fan of metrics as a whole. I think in many cases, when you introduce a metric to an evaluation process, you just wind up with people gaming that metric for whatever. My favorite example of this is when we re-cased all the DVDs so that you had the entire season of a TV show in one box instead of each disk in a different box. Our circulation numbers crashed as a result of it. It was a huge increase in service to the patron but if we had a board who is like, ''Why did your numbers of DVD circulation crash this year?'' We never would have done them. I think that's a great example of why sometimes metrics just, that's where the death spiral comes from. [LAUGHTER] That said, it's really not that hard to know when you're hitting and when you're missing. When you work to develop open lines of communication with the patrons. We handle a very high volume of patron feedback every day, every week. We know what it looks like when we mess up. We know what it looks like when something is a hit and we know what it looks like when something is doing fine. Part of that is when you're doing fine and doing well, you generally won't hear anything. If you hear something, it's because you really hit it out of the park. But if you mess up, you're going to hear about it immediately. My favorite example of that is when we removed the new bookshelves. I think we might have talked about this recently, we moved the bookshelves from the lobby because nothing ever circulated off of the new bookshelf, nothing [NOISE]
[03:06:15] ELI NEIBURGER: But people wanted to look at them, and we heard about it immediately then remove them from the lobby because people like to look at them even though the things that people want to check out are not there because they're checked out. It's like here's the new things that nobody wants. [LAUGHTER] But people want that experience of looking at the new things at the library, and particularly for audiences that aren't comfortable looking at it online. It is critical. I think by establishing and it's not just all the online feedback and that's a big part of it. It's the mechanisms by which staff can report upwards the things that are said to them over the desk. Generally, almost anytime someone compliments or criticizes a library service across the desk, administration sees it within minutes. It's because of making sure that the staff is aware that that is their place to do that. It staffs out of that conversation in the moment saying, "Well, I'm going to put in an alert about that so that the big way could get to see it." Then the person says, "Oh, thank you," and they leave. Putting all those tools in place to make sure that administration is not cloistered and has a really solid idea of what the public feedback is, in addition to the part that we see directly is the best measurement technique. The other part of it in the old world is very much butts in seats. I look forward to getting back to butts in seats metrics. But the same time that doesn't always tell the story. There are programs that make a lot of sense that may only have five people turn out. It's complex calculation. You don't ever want to get into that position of making the decision purely on their merits. It's making me think of years ago when I first started becoming acquainted with the entire notion of collection development. I saw a report from some of the old school librarians that said, "Well, there's some items that you just have to have regardless of whether or not people check them out." At that point, I was like, "Well, if the data doesn't say," but of course, it's absolutely right. There are things that you need to have that people will yell at you for not having. They'll never ever check it out, ever, but you're going to hear about it if it's not there on their shelf when they are motivated to see if you have it. I think it's very much about feet on the grounds and having a sense of what people are talking about, making sure that there's easy ways for staff to escalate that. Really, I think the things that guide us the most are those market research surveys, because those are the things that really help us know how the community feels about the library. It's not very useful to make decisions based on how the community uses the library, because that is subject to so many other different types of things. Really, when you think about what is the political risk to the library, how people feel about it is much more important than whether or not they use it. That's something a lot of libraries wrestle with. Similarly, this is for fortunate not to be in this position, but I always advise libraries when they're asking these questions, when they are subject to a county or a city or a board, a board that has to make decisions in library is a tiny little piece of the decisions that they have to make. They say, if you do a market research survey and you're able to show that 92 percent of your community has positive feelings about the library, no politicians can touch that. They didn't even know the charts went up that high. I think in many cases, libraries enjoyed this really broad popular support. We should relax into that in some ways and know that you'll hear it, you'll see it in that data. You'll see it in the way people feel about the library independently of whether or not they're using it. Does that answer your question? [BACKGROUND] Thank you.
[03:09:50] JIM LEIJA: What person taught you a valuable lesson about life and how has it become a guiding principle?
[03:10:02] ELI NEIBURGER: I'm sure it won't surprise any of you for me to say, Josie Parker. [LAUGHTER] I think the thing that I learned the most from Josie over the years I worked with her, was everybody in, nobody left behind. That's not just about the patrons. It's also about the staff. It's the opposite of the way that things work in the corporate sector. In many cases, it's not coming at it from a defensive position the way it does in a lot of government. In a lot of government people will stay on forever because it is too expensive to resolve the problem. But it's more about finding a place where everyone can be successful in the institution. Finding a way for people whose skill sets or capabilities or capacity or life is no longer as good of a fit for what the institution's needs are. Even if they're an at-will employee and you could just say, well, it's been great, that doesn't make it the right thing to do. I think to make sure that it's not really putting people out to pasture. [LAUGHTER] It's more adapting their responsibilities to meet their capacity. For them to be able to continue to be productive and contributing members of the staff and secondarily of the community, not leaving behind any groups, not deploying. This is such a simple reason, but it's why we don't have any native apps, because we don't want to spend money in developing things that only work for people who bought the certain pieces of hardware. You don't want to leave behind the people who don't have any phone at all. In many cases, they are the people we need to work to reach the most. I think that the guiding principle of everybody in and nobody left behind, it's something that is extremely well-suited to the world of public libraries and Josie embodied that every day. I think this institution shows it. I know my life has been changed forever as a result of it. I don't think you can overstate how important that value is to have a heart of operating government entity, because government often doesn't work that way. We remain, we're a unicorn. We're certainly unicorn among government entities as far as having that room to do that and having that value at all.
[03:12:58] DHARMA AKMON: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
[03:12:59] JIM LEIJA: Oh, no, you go ahead.
[03:13:01] DHARMA AKMON: [LAUGHTER] Because you mentioned Josie, and because you're unique and our candidates of having been here for such a long time under such an amazing leader, I'm curious to what degree you would consider your leadership of this organization, should you get the position as a continuation of Josie's leadership and in what way would it be an evolution or a departure? Is Eli the director of this place without Josie.
[03:13:30] ELI NEIBURGER: I hope I'll find out. [LAUGHTER] I got to say it's hard for me to envision them. Josie and I worked together a long time, and a considerable part of my mind is Josie. That's to my personal benefit and to everyone's. Everyone works here, all our patrons. I think that I would definitely classify it as somewhere between continuation and evolution, primarily because there haven't been a lot of things that I've wanted to do here that I haven't been able to. I don't have a list of things that's like, great, now finally we could do this and this and this. It's a continuation of what we've been doing because I also learned from Josie to listen to your lieutenants. Because they're going to know better than you in many of those cases. I don't want to have too many one-to-one relationships as an administrator. Not that you don't have the relationship, but the decision shouldn't be made in those moments. The decision should be made in consultation with a diversity of opinions. We made most of our decisions over these years, on Monday mornings in Josie's office all of a us sitting there together. There are certainly things that I'm into that I'm interested in, but that are different from the things that Josie were interested in. That's such a small part of the job, and we're already doing them. So there's very few things that we haven't been able to achieve here. I really look at as a continuation. Certainly, there's not a lot of space values-wise [LAUGHTER] between the way that Josie approaches problems and the way that I've learned to. I think that it's very much a continuation. I would definitely not characterize it as a departure. I think evolution is close, but then that does leave something behind. Continuation or expansion is really more of it. But again, there haven't been a lot of things that we've wanted to do that we haven't done. We've been fortunate to be able to make a lot of stuff happen.
[03:15:38] JIM LEIJA: Dharma and I are on the same wavelength. So I said, because you mentioned Josie, [LAUGHTER] you were her deputy director for eight years, nine years. We're not going to ask you to cut your position. [LAUGHTER] What do you need in a deputy director?
[03:15:56] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, I wasn't actually being facetious. There is a difference between Josie's management style and mine, because I am more hands-on into the details, that won't be always a luxury. But I think part of it is we've really already built the team. In that Sherlonya and Len and I, Sherlonya and Len are that person that I always was to Josie. Sherlonya and Len were as well, not to say that that wasn't that. But I do think that what I need is counsel. I need to have people who can understand, you know, I can already feel this at the moment, there are emails where I'm like, what is this about? [LAUGHTER] I know exactly who to ask. What is this about, and they tell me what they think. But it's not like it was always very clear when something was a director decision and when it wasn't. Josie was always extremely good at knowing what landed on what side of those lines. The reality is not a lot of them are actually director decisions. The director is really more about really being the interface to you all, making sure that the staff have the room to operate, and making the distinctions between things that are administrative decisions and things that are operational decisions. I think that that's why we really already built the structure where there are two sides of the house. There's the front of the house and there's the back of the house really, and those are both extremely important parts of what happens here. It's not a value judgment. But I think in Sherlonya and Len we have two extremely capable administrators who excel at what they do. I think that just in the past month, the way that we've been making decisions and working together and working with you all, and I think that what I most need is for people to see when they can be the completely knowledgeable one about something. I don't have to be. Josie was very good at knowing, I don't need to know this. I just need to know who I can trust to know it, and I have complete trust in the staff of this organization, and to consult with them as needed. I'm not sure that there's a role for a single deputy director the way that Josie and I worked together, which is very much drawn out of the transition that got us to that point. I think at this moment, it makes most sense to me for being a director into associate directors. We'll see what happens from there. Does that answer your question, Jim?
[03:18:49] JIM LEIJA: Oh, yes. Thank you.
[03:18:49] ELI NEIBURGER: Okay.
[03:18:52] DHARMA AKMON: What have we not asked you that you would like to share with us?
[03:19:09] ELI NEIBURGER: I think what I wonder about when I think about this possibility is how can we keep big ideas happening? A lot of things that came off my desk over the years, how does that still happen? How can we spread out the initiation of new initiatives outside the board level? I think it is a challenge as I'm thinking about this. I don't want to just be like, oh, let's go to the moon or whatever it is and throw it out there and be like, you guys go do that. How do those things happen organically? Like how does my role, as far as initiating a lot of those ideas and guiding their execution and their evolution, I mean, Summer Game is a great example. It's like, for 10 years I wrote every shop description, every one of them. Over the past two years, I write zero of them now. It's been training up people across the staff and inspiring them, especially for something as ridiculous as the Summer Game shop descriptions. But all of a sudden I was like, we got like eight people who can write this ridiculously. [LAUGHTER] That's been great, and my work has already transitioned in many ways, away from being the person who brings the ideas to the table, to the person who facilitates the ideas of the staff.
[03:20:54] ELI NEIBURGER: How I will adapt to that change is something I think about a lot. There's a lot of big things happening in the community. I'd love to talk about some of that stuff, but I don't think it's appropriate for this venue. I think that's something that this Board has always had an excellent understanding of. The library is not really a political entity, but we are involved in the politics of the community and for us to understand what our role is to play is a big part of that. I think probably the one other thing that comes up is how can the heart of the organization continue as warmly as it's been for all these years? It's not something that I feel that I will struggle with but at the same time, it's not as central to my personality as it was to Josie's. I'm going to think what would Josie do every day with the rest of my life? Come on. I don't feel that it has gone from the organization, it never will be. It mostly comes from the fact that Josie had a much more native understanding of when people were suffering and that's something that I've worked to develop and that I will work to watch out for and within the scheme of the suffering that we encountered here in this community. But that's something that I see the value that it had to the community and it's something that I will be, given the opportunity, working on constantly. I don't worry about my ability to understand all of the details. I don't really worry about my ability to understand all the big picture. But I do want to make sure that I don't lose the ability to know what's really important in those decisions, even when it's not necessarily, the most pressing aspect of them. That's what I really want to work on over the next years.
[03:23:20] DHARMA AKMON: Any other follow-ups before we turn it over to Eli to ask us questions. What are your questions for us?
[03:23:30] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, I have a big one and that's, one of the challenges every time we onboard new board members, is them understanding that there isn't a lot of action associated. Actions to be taken as part of being on the Board. The past six months excluded. You said something earlier, Dharma, about how it's challenging because there's not really a lot to do as a board member, because the Board acts in concert as a body, as individual board members. A lot of people come into it thinking that it's equivalent to being a State House Representative or something like that. It's not actually like that. But I'm very interested in thinking of, what are some things that it makes sense for board members to be directly involved with? Where it is justified, works within the Open Meetings Act, it makes sense, it's an appropriate level, to avoid the Board getting into the weeds, but also to give the Board, especially new board members, meaningful things to be involved with, that they feel good about being. I don't want to present it as some dog and pony show. It's more like, this is something that we've heard many times over the years. Because the actual work doesn't line up to what the outside perception of what it would be as. I'd be curious from all of you. What are things that you would like to be more involved with as board members that we might look for ways? Just as a total example, years ago we had a technology advisory committee that was open to the public. It didn't go well, it wasn't a good use of time. But that mechanism where there's a combination of public and Board, where it's not actually a board meeting, you don't have a quorum, it can put it in a very different situation. Does anyone have any things that they'd like to see happen or things they would like to be more involved with or ways they would feel more fulfilled as a board member rather than just reading agendas?
[03:25:35] DHARMA AKMON: I'm just going to go first because I'm the one that brought it up. Maybe, I'm also thinking about it this way because I'm running for city council. It's more of a question than an answer, but how can we create a space to be more conduits to and from the community. I think it's because we're so high functioning, you don't get a ton of people coming to our meetings and participating in them, which is great. I'm not complaining about that. But I still wonder how there's opportunities to proactively engage with the community so that we can serve as the conduit, as representatives of the people that live here. I don't have an answer, but that's one way that I would think to make it meatier.
[03:26:26] MOLLY KLEINMAN: My thought is similar actually as you were talking. Before you mentioned the technology advisory committee, I was thinking about the roles that Boards and commissions play in the city where the volunteers who serve on commissions. They're members of the public but maybe they have some experience that's relevant or knowledge. They're members of the public with more time and attention to a specific issue. I wonder about whether there might be areas where it's not just board members, but where board members could be involved with members of the public. The three areas that come to mind for me first are collections, programming, and space as areas where there might be ways for people who think a lot about the built environment or people who think a lot about materials. Where there might be ways that don't become just more work. [OVERLAPPING] That's the key thing, is that it would have to really add value to the work of the staff.
[03:27:28] ELI NEIBURGER: Especially if they are consultative bodies and not approval bodies.
[03:27:31] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Correct. Which is how most boards and commissions in the city are, is it's purely advise and recommend. Sometimes that can be frustrating for the people on the commissions, but sometimes it can be very fulfilling. The library is in many ways a much less contentious space than city government and so I think that could potentially work. I don't know that I want to be on it. [LAUGHTER]
[03:27:59] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I think a lot about materials, especially for my kids. But yeah, that's what comes to me first.
[03:28:07] ONNA SOLOMON: I just like getting all the credit for everybody's hard work. [LAUGHTER] I'm joking. I mean, really because people are like when they hear that I'm on the board, they're like, "Thank you so much for everything that you do." I'm just like, I just let them do what they do. I think that [OVERLAPPING].
[03:28:25] JIM LEIJA: That's revolutionary. You have to understand in this industry how revolutionary is.
[03:28:30] ONNA SOLOMON: No. It is revolutionary. That's what I'm really trying to say is that like, to use your phrase, I don't want to create a solution. I don't want a solution that's looking for a problem, but I do think my role is an ambassador. I have texted so many people that link to the shelf service [LAUGHTER] to be as informed as possible about what a wonderful organization it is and to be out in the community letting people know what is happening and to reach that final percentage of people. I do think that that is something that I believe the board should be doing.
[03:29:16] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I do think I have sometimes felt a pang when there's a new thing and I didn't know about it. I think that comes from wanting to feel like an authentic ambassador, and so to be like, "We're doing that, that's so cool." I think that it's fine when that happens from time to time. But then if that is the only experience that you have as a board member, I can probably start to feel a little like you're disconnected. I do like this idea that if there are things that are spun up that invite output, I guess just the board be utilized as ambassadors when it feels appropriate. That I really agree about this solution in search of a problem issue where I think a big part of the special magic of the library is that we are as involved. We are not very involved because I think that's our revolutionary stance, that's our decision, and that is what facilitates everything else. I don't want to mess with that, but I do agree that hiring the director is giving us all this thing to dig into and it makes me feel more like, this is very important, this is the most important thing we're going to do. When this is over, having some way to facilitate engagement I do think would be positive. I don't know. I see [OVERLAPPING].
[03:30:42] JIM LEIJA: I left Monday [LAUGHTER] thinking after all those presentations. I had a better sense of trends in the industry just given overlaps and conversations that people or presentations that people were giving. Then I think I've gleaned because I'm not in the industry. That made me think a little bit about a couple of things. One is, what would it mean to unpack and dismantle the formality of this meeting which I think is, to a degree it has to have a formal structure? But we've also done workshops around strategic planning and community building, and I wonder about turning the format of the meeting around in a way that would essentially, you'd bring a group of staff to lead us through a workshop about a particular issue that you're grappling with so that we have an understanding of what the questions are, maybe offer some consultative support, and then just get a sense of what idea generation is happening. I always like seeing more. Pandemic hasn't made this particularly possible, but seeing more representation from the staff in this context. I guess my one overarching reflection because we've been through this transition together, is that this is much more. We are all peers to each other and we are also peers to you in a way that was not the case, I think eight years ago. We're all operating in similar spheres of influence. We are all in the meaty part of our careers and lots of ways. I think that there's just a different ethos that I think you can tap into, I think that ambassador roles, trends and forecasting, not just about our system, but about what you're seeing out there broadly. Really thinking, I don't want more committee work personally, and I did a lot of work beginning of my tenure to get rid of committees because I thought they were unproductive and they led to a lot of bad communication at that time. I'm not saying that we couldn't have more committees, but I'd want to be really thoughtful about them and I'd also want them to take a form that was not about just like, this is a marketing committee, this is a finance committee. We have to have certain ones, but what about a committee that's around a particular idea, like outreach or ambassadorship, which would put us out there circulating more as ambassadors. That's the other thing. I just think you could take us with you to rotary, you could take us with you to a city council meeting, at least your executive leadership and to have that deeper engagement.
[03:33:34] KERENE MOORE: Yeah. I would agree more opportunities for board members to act as liaisons in important scenarios, but as someone who's been Executive Committee the entire time [LAUGHTER] that I've got on the board, I have to say that I did feel very engaged and I do know when you're not on exactly don't know things until the meeting and the people who've been on board know the difference and what's happening. But I do appreciate the willingness of the staff to entertain my interests and auditing to trespass decisions and our decision to go through and look at our policies with AADL ends. In a way it's up to us to remember what we [OVERLAPPING].
[03:34:21] JIM LEIJA: Don't raise our hand.
[03:34:22] KERENE MOORE: Yeah. Why we joined and if we see something, say something and investigate. But yeah, some of that work that they have us doing on those city commissions, they need it to cut me a check. That was crazy. I don't know about all that.
[03:34:36] ONNA SOLOMON: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I made this suggestions and I was like, wow [LAUGHTER]. Yeah, I'm not convinced that my idea is a good one, but yeah, it's an idea.
[03:34:49] JIM LEIJA: You know the story I tell over and over again which I knew were there. When I had my orientation with Josie and she said, "Don't worry, we'll make it easy on you." I said, "Josie, don't make it easy, make it interesting.” And she did.
[03:35:01] JIM LEIJA: To her credit. [LAUGHTER] But I think there's a balance there but we don't expect this to be exactly easy like we expect to have work to do. Any other questions?
[03:35:19] ELI NEIBURGER: That's my big question. Thank you all for this opportunity.
[03:35:23] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you so much, Eli.
[03:35:24] JIM LEIJA: This has been a wonderful conversation and it's a pleasure to really get inside your head and hear how you're thinking about the position and about the library system. Also thank you for letting us put you through your paces here today in a very long interview. Thank you so much.
[03:35:47] ELI NEIBURGER: Thanks to all of you. [OVERLAPPING]
[03:35:50] JIM LEIJA: You-all, we are way off schedule. We're going to take a lunch break now and we'll see our other two candidates after lunch. It's going to be about a 30-minute break, 30-minute-ish, maybe a little bit more. But try to be efficient. Karen, do you want to interview? Try to keep it to 30. That would be helpful. Thank you. Dismissed for lunch, I guess. [MUSIC]
[03:36:16] Toby: I just love a rainy day, don't you Otto?
[03:37:24] Otto: I tend to prefer sunny days, but this isn't bothering me one bit.
[03:37:33] Toby: I know but we need to stay cozied up inside the house and listen to the rainfall.
[03:37:40] Otto: All the plants drinking up that awesome rainwater.
[03:37:47] Fred: All the bullfrogs soaking up that rain.
[03:37:51] Otto: Glad you're sitting with us, Fred.
[03:37:53] Fred: I can't pass up a chance to just laze around the house on a rainy day.
[03:38:01] Otto: It's beautiful, isn't it?
[03:38:04] Toby: Sure is.
[03:38:15] Otto: Well, we shouldn't dally any longer. Let's get the show started, Toby.
[03:38:21] Toby: All right. [MUSIC] [NOISE] Good morning, everybody and welcome to the Saturday Show, AADL TV's one and only Saturday morning kids variety show. My name is Toby.
[03:39:10] Otto: I'm Otto.
[03:39:13] Toby: Otto, it seems like us at the Saturday Show, we just can't stay away from water.
[03:39:19] Otto: Sure. Seems like it, Toby.
[03:39:23] Toby: Today we're using the beautiful springtime rain as our inspiration.
[03:39:27] Otto: It's just so soothing.
[03:39:31] Toby: It is.
[03:39:41] Otto: I'll help us out here, Toby. Let's get this show started by going to Kashi and Christopher for the Word of the Day.
[03:39:52] Kashi: I just rolled looking at a newspaper on a rainy day.
[03:39:57] Christopher: I know Kashi, isn't it nice to snuggle up for the book?
[03:40:01] Kashi: It's so cozy.
[03:40:02] Christopher: I know. What else do you like to do, Kashi?
[03:40:06] Kashi: I like to do puzzles. I like to build with my blocks and get cozy under the blankets.
[03:40:17] Christopher: Me too. That sounds great on a rainy day. Well, let's see what the word of the day is.
[03:40:25] Kashi: Wait. Did you say something? I was so busy reading.
[03:40:28] Christopher: Yes, Kashi. I'd said let's see what the word of the day [LAUGHTER] [NOISE] Well, let's see what it is. Can you read that Kashi?
[03:40:46] Kashi: Precipitation.
[03:40:48] Christopher: That's right. It is precipitation. Do you know what precipitation is?
[03:40:53] Kashi: Does it mean water that comes out of the sky and it can be snow or water or rain?
[03:41:01] Christopher: That's right. Exactly. Well, are you ready for the summer game code? That's right. Summer code. Here it is. It's seven letters. It has all the colors in it. It shows up after a rainstorm, and legend says there's a pot of gold at the end of it. Kashi, if you think you know the answer, you can go to play.aadl.org for big points. We'll see you next time.
[03:41:41] Kashi: Bye.
[03:41:43] Christopher: Bye. [MUSIC]
[03:41:51] Lucy: Do you ever wonder what to do when it's raining outside and you are stuck inside? What if you decided to use the rain to help you create something? I'm going to show you how to paint with rain.
[03:42:09] Lucy: First, you just want to take any kind of paint that you have. I'm just using some watercolors and I'm putting them on a piece of paper. You can do any drawing. You can just do a pattern, different colors. I'm just going to create some circles on this piece of paper with my paint. Then when I'm done with it, I will show you how we can use the rain to help finish our painting. When you have painted everything on that page that you want to paint on there, you are going to take it outside and put it in the rain. Let's see what happens to my piece of paper as the rain starts to fall on it. See those drops, they're starting to spread the paint like a different paintbrush. Here's a drawing I created with some magic marker instead of paint. I wonder what this will look like if I take it outside and let the raindrops add their magic touch to my drawing. Look at the remarks at the rain left on my drawing, that's so cool. See what you could do with the rain in your art.
[03:43:46] Loren: Where do all of those raindrops go when it rains? We're here with Susan Bryan, who builds rain gardens and teaches other people how to make them right here in Ann Arbor.
[03:43:56] Susan Bryan: That's me.
[03:43:57] Loren: Susan, what are rain gardens and how are they useful?
[03:44:01] Susan Bryan: Good question. Well, a rain garden is a garden that does two jobs. It captures all the rain that falls on it from the sky and lands right on it and it soaks that water in. But it does a second job too. It soaks in all the water that comes off a roof or a driveway that flows into the rain garden, and then the rain garden soaks that water in too. So it does double duty. It also cleans that water. The water that comes off those surfaces may not be super clean and they have pollution from the petrochemicals or oils that come from a car or it could be just from the shingles and what the shingles are made of. It could be from bird poop or animal poop, all sorts of gross stuff. Without a rain garden, it would get washed all the way into the street, into the drains in the street, into a pipe all the way to the river. That's not clean, that's not fun for birds or fish or kids who want to swim in the Huron River and have fun there, go tubing, stuff like that. By putting the water into a rain garden, the rain garden cleans it and lets it soak into the ground. That's what a rain garden does.
[03:45:12] Loren: Wow. You've created rain gardens yourself. How do you make one? Are they hard to make?
[03:45:20] Susan Bryan: That's right. I've built a rain garden, a small one at my house, and then another small in the backyard at my house. They're not that hard to make if you like to shovel. If you like to shovel then they're fun to make actually. First, if you follow that raindrop to figure out where that rain is going and it's going maybe to a place that's far enough away from your house, like ten feet away from your house, that's a place where you could put a rain garden. All you need to do is dig and sculpt the soil so that the water will puddle. When the water puddles there you plant some plants and that helps the water soak in, and there you are, you have a rain garden.
[03:46:03] Loren: Susan, you've helped many people learn how to build rain gardens. How many rain gardens are there in Ann Arbor?
[03:46:10] Susan Bryan: I've talked to a lot of people about rain gardens. Now in Ann Arbor, we're up to more than 500. Lots and lots of people have built rain gardens in Ann Arbor. One of the ways you can actually get some help for how to build a rain garden is maybe look around your neighborhood and find someone who has a rain garden sign in their yard and ask them about it. How did you build it? Was it hard? What advice can you give me?
[03:46:36] Loren: That's a good tip. What's your favorite thing about rain gardens?
[03:46:41] Susan Bryan: My favorite thing I think is that it makes people curious about the world. Once they've built their rain gardens, so they've dug it and they put in plants and maybe a tree in that rain garden, every time it rains, people get all excited. They run outside, they see what's happening. Is the water getting into the rain garden? Is it soaking in? Is it paddling? They want to know what's going on. I love that it starts all that curiosity in people. The second thing that I love about rain gardens is sitting quietly in my rain garden and listening and looking for birds and butterflies, and they're just doing their thing, and I like watching them do their thing.
[03:47:25] Loren: Wow. Rain gardens are so cool. Thanks for talking with us today about them, Susan.
[03:47:29] Susan Bryan: Thanks so much for having me.
[03:47:34] Loren: You can watch a cool video that Susan made about rain gardens or learn how to become a master rain gardener yourself by heading to adl.org/thesaturdayshow. [MUSIC]
[03:47:58] FEMALE_1: What is it? It has numbers going down from the top to the bottom. It's a cone shape with this flat, pointy end. But the top has a curved open-end that looks like it could be filled with something. What is it? [MUSIC]
[03:48:31] Fred: Sir Toby, what are some of your favorite things to do in the rain?
[03:48:45] Toby: Well, Fred, that's a good question. I don't mind fishing in the rain.
[03:48:49] Auto: Fish.
[03:48:51] Toby: When I was a kid, I used to love riding my bike around right after it rained. It was magical.
[03:48:59] Auto: That sounds fine, Toby.
[03:49:01] Toby: Yeah, it was Auto. In particular, I remember the smells.
[03:49:08] Brian: What smells are you talking about, Toby?
[03:49:12] Toby: Well, here let's take a break. Brian is going to show us exactly what I'm talking about.
[03:49:18] Bryan: Hey, folks. Well, we finally got a good spring rain last night after a little dry spell and you can see the woods in the creek behind me are flooded. I'm out here because there are just so many cool sensory things to experience after a good rain. One of which is just the smell that's one here. It smells amazing out here. Did you know that that smell is actually being caused by chemistry that's happening in the earth and air. Check it out. [MUSIC]
[03:49:47] Bryan: The biggest contributor to this smell is geosmin. Geosmin is an organic compound produced by various microorganisms, including blue-green algae and other kinds of bacteria. It has a musty, earthy aroma that the human nose is extremely sensitive to and it's largely responsible for the distinct taste of beets as well as that wonderful smell of damped soil. In fact, the word itself is derived from the Greek words geo, meaning earth, and osme meaning smell. The smell actually has its own cool name, petrichor, which refers specifically to the pleasant, earthy smell when rain falls on dry soil. Like geosmin, the word petrichor is also derived from two Greek words, petros, meaning rock or stone and ichor, which in Greek mythology was an arterial fluid that circulated through the bodies of the gods. Now, why ichor? What does that refer to here? Well, in addition to geosmin, petrichor is caused by an oil exuded by certain plants during dry spells. This oil is absorbed by soil and rocks and then released into the air as aerosols during the rain. If that rain is accompanied by a thunderstorm, you might also notice the smell of another compound on the air, trioxygen or O_3, better known as the ozone, which gives off a sharp, pungent odor, which many folks can smell even before a storm has started.
[03:51:29] Bryan: The smell of science. [MUSIC]
[03:51:40] Toby: Spotlight on Washington State. I'm sure we're all a little familiar with the world's tropical rainforests like those in South America, Central Africa, and Indonesia, but did you know there are rainforest right here in the United States? This is the Hoh Rainforest located in Western Washington State. Hoh Rainforest is a temperate rainforest and is much cooler than the tropical rainforests located near the earth's equator. With an annual rainfall of over 10 feet of rain a year, Hoh Rainforest is one of the wettest places in America. Mosses and ferns layer the floor of Hoh and up above, towering Sitka spruce trees announce themselves as some of the tallest trees in that country. All the rain prevents natural wildfires from resetting the ecosystem of the rain forest, and because of that, it is one of the most biologically dense places in the world. Bears, black-tailed deer, tree frogs, marbled murrelets. Look how cute he is. Banana slugs call the Hoh Rainforests their home. Next time you're looking for a rainforest adventure, don't look too far from home. Just remember to bring an umbrella.
[03:53:15] Katie Kitty: This is so fluffy.
[03:53:18] Amanda: Katie, what are you doing? Is that my shaving cream?
[03:53:21] Katie Kitty: Yeah. I thought I would try and set up the experiment to see if I could make it rain inside the house.
[03:53:38] Amanda: What do you mean rain inside?
[03:53:43] Katie Kitty: If I add shaving cream in a glass, I can make it rain.
[03:53:50] Amanda: Here, let me take a look at the directions. This does look pretty cool and it does simulate rain. Would you like to start over again and this time do it together?
[03:54:04] Katie Kitty: Yeah, that would be fun. Let's make it rain.
[03:54:11] Amanda: But just to be clear, we are not making it rain inside the house. We are going to do a science experiment where we can make a storm in a jar. Katie, we followed our directions. We have everything we need. We've got shaving cream, food coloring, a glass, three-quarters full of water, a spoon. We also need another cup with half a cup of water.
[03:54:34] Katie Kitty: We're ready. Now, first part is to put the food coloring in the water. Can we do blue?
[03:54:42] Amanda: I would love to do blue.
[03:54:43] Katie Kitty: Blue is my favorite color. Amanda, can you do it? I don't want to get my paws dirty.
[03:54:48] Amanda: Sure. We're going to do blue. We're going to put 10 drops of food coloring in the bowl that's half a cup of water. You're ready?
[03:55:04] Katie Kitty: Now the shaving cream. This is the best part. You're ready?
[03:55:09] Amanda: Katie, I'm going to do this because I don't want this all over my table.
[03:55:12] Katie Kitty: I know you don't want to messes. That's why she put a towel down.
[03:55:15] Amanda: I did. We're going to fill shaving cream up. You're ready? I'm going to put shaving cream. One more. Making a mess. Then we're going to smash it down, flatten it out. Now we are going to add spoons of the blue water to our shaving cream.
[03:55:43] Katie Kitty: I'm so excited. Let's do it. Let's make it rain.
[03:55:55] Amanda: Now what's happening is the shaving cream is dense like clouds that are in the sky. As the clouds fill up with rain, like our shaving cream is filling up with food coloring, when the cloud is full, the rain releases.
[03:56:09] Katie Kitty: Let's keep going. Make it rain. It's raining.
[03:56:25] Amanda: There we go, we made a rain inside the glass. Wow, that was so cool. Hey Amanda, do you think we can do it again but maybe use red?
[03:56:40] Amanda: I would love to do that.
[03:56:42] Amanda: See, I knew we can make it rain inside the house.
[03:56:46] Fred: Well fellas I've had fun hanging out with you this morning. I think I'm going to go ahead to my bed and curl up with a good book.
[03:56:56] Toby: That sounds good Fred. I think I'll do the same once the show is over.
[03:57:01] Toby: Well Otto, what else have we got for today?
[03:57:04] Otto: Well, I asked Professor Encephalon to tell us a little bit more about where water goes after it leaves the sky.
[03:57:14] Toby: That sounds cool dude. Dial it up.
[03:57:17] Otto: Here we go.
[03:57:22] Professor Encephalon: [MUSIC] With all there rain we've been having lately I've develop a leak in the ceiling. But I'll catch that pesky and cowardly drip one way or another. I've set out a series of cups and bowls to do just that. But this reminds me a lot of watersheds or drainage basins. A watershed is an area of land such that if a drop of rain falls, it will end up in a stream or tributary and probably feed into another river. Rain will end up in one or another watershed. Now, watersheds are usually separated by some kind of ridge, a hill or mountain range, perhaps. In the United States, the largest watershed is the Mississippi, represented here by this large wooden ball. A drop of rain that falls from Montana to Pennsylvania and Minnesota to Mississippi, will end up in this bowl. [LAUGHTER] Well, hopefully not the bowl, but the actual river. The Mississippi drains 31 states and two Canadian provinces. I hope you've learned a little something about watersheds. Now to that drip. [MUSIC].
[03:59:24] Lucy: It's a rain gauge. A rain gauge is a simple device that's used to record the amount of rainfall in a certain period. That pointy end goes in the ground and then it's sunny right now, but let's imagine this is rain filling up the rain gauge. Now the rain gauge tells us that we've had a little bit more than two inches of rain in a certain period of time.
[04:00:04] Lucy: We all know that gentle fall of rain can be soothing, calming, and peaceful. But did you know it can also be extreme? Heavy rain can cause flooding and landslides. In addition to rain, water can also fall from the sky in the form of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and hail. The biggest fall of hail ever fell in South Dakota in 2010, and it was eight inches across. Awesome. Depending on their size, raindrops fall to the ground at a speed in between 15 and 25 miles per hour. That's faster than I can run. The record for most rainy days belongs to Hawaii, which has had up to 350 rainy days per year. The Meghalaya state of India is the wettest place in the world. They receive an amazing average of 11,971 millimeters of rainfall every year. That's almost 40 feet of rain per year. Radical. It can even rain in outer space. On the planet Venus, it rains sulfuric acid. Due to the intensity on Venus, it usually evaporates before it hits the ground. That's extreme. [MUSIC].
[04:02:34] JIM LEIJA: Trustee Vander Broek will be joining us momentarily. [NOISE] How many open beverages can I? [LAUGHTER] [BACKGROUND] [NOISE]
[04:04:01] JIM LEIJA: [BACKGROUND]. [LAUGHTER]
[04:04:04] ONNA SOLOMON: That is an intense clock.
[04:04:07] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I like it though. It's very readable.
[04:04:11] ONNA SOLOMON: I think it's the seconds.
[04:04:12] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah. The second is definitely give it an [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGHTER]
[04:04:17] ONNA SOLOMON: When is this room going to explode? [LAUGHTER]
[04:04:22] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Like we're in a Die Hard movie. [LAUGHTER]
[04:04:29] ONNA SOLOMON: This boardroom will self-destruct.
[04:04:33] MOLLY KLEINMAN: [BACKGROUND]
[04:04:47] ONNA SOLOMON: Really?
[04:04:48] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. Exactly. [LAUGHTER]
[04:04:50] MOLLY KLEINMAN: [BACKGROUND[
[04:04:54] ONNA SOLOMON: Good. I haven't read them at all.
[04:04:56] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Me neither. I can't keep up with her.
[04:04:58] ONNA SOLOMON: Me neither.
[04:04:59] MOLLY KLEINMAN: She reads so much and so first.
[04:05:00] ONNA SOLOMON: [BACKGROUND] [OVERLAPPING] [MUSIC]
[04:08:13] JIM LEIJA: First off, our apologies. We are just running late today. [OVERLAPPING] Thank you for your patience and we're so happy to see you again.
[04:08:22] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Of course, I did the Academy Award thing and was in the bathroom, a break. [LAUGHTER]
[04:08:26] JIM LEIJA: That's just fine.
[04:08:27] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Perfect timing.
[04:08:30] JIM LEIJA: Bio breaks are perfectly acceptable. Kristin, thank you.
[04:08:36] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Absolutely.
[04:08:37] JIM LEIJA: You can take your mask off too if you wish. It's up to you. We are really happy to see you again.
[04:08:45] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Thank you.
[04:08:46] JIM LEIJA: Would [NOISE] you just introduce yourself briefly and then we're going to go around and introduce ourselves.
[04:08:51] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Of course. I'm Kristin Shelley, the current Director of the East Lansing Public Library and I've been in East Lansing for 11 years now. I have started two jobs on the day after MLK Day. I started my first public library job ever on the day after Martin Luther King Day, and then left the State of Ohio and started in Michigan the day after MLK Day. It's a tradition. [LAUGHTER]
[04:09:17] JIM LEIJA: A tradition. Terrific. I'm Jim Leija the President of the Board as you know. I have been on the board for almost eight years. I'm in my second term and I've lived in Ann Arbor very long time. I went to undergrad and graduate school at Michigan and have mostly been in Ann Arbor for my adult life, grew up in Detroit. In my real day job life, I'm the Deputy Director for Public Experience and Learning at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
[04:09:49] DHARMA AKMON: Hi, I'm Dharma Akmon, [NOISE] Vice President of the Board. I've also served as the treasurer for two years. I'm in the fourth year of my first term. I'm from Michigan, Northern Michigan. I lived in East Lansing for quite a while because [NOISE] that's where I got my undergrad. Go Green. [LAUGHTER] Last but not least, in my career, I worked as the Director of Project Management and User Support and a Research Scientist at ICPSR, which is a large social science data archive here.
[04:10:21] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Hi, I'm Scott Trudeau. I am in my second year in my first term on the board, I'm the treasurer. I grew up in Michigan, graduated from the university. Like a lot of people here, stayed Ann Arbor for a while. I've worked in non-profits, government, and startups in tech and software. It's what I currently do. I work as a software engineering, Chief Technology Officer for a small tech company. Lived in New York City for 10 years and moved back to Ann Arbor a few years ago. I'm also a former planning commissioner and transportation commissioner for the city.
[04:10:57] KERENE MOORE: Hi, I'm Kerene Moore. We've met. I am the former Vice President of the Board, the current secretary of the board. I wear a lot of hats as a social justice attorney, formerly worked for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. Currently, a judicial attorney at the Washtenaw County trial court. Before that, an attorney at legal services of South Central Michigan. I'm also a former human rights commissioner, amongst other things, and I love libraries. Before I was an attorney, I have worked at libraries since freshman year of high school, I worked at the Detroit Public Library and went on to work at three libraries here on campus. Then I became a lawyer, which has made me a lot less happy. [LAUGHTER] My participation here keeps me in good spirits.
[04:11:50] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Hi, I'm Molly Kleinman. I am also in my second year on the board. In my day job, I am the Managing Director for the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, which is a research center in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I am formerly an academic librarian, so I have some professional experience in academic libraries many years ago. I've been in Ann Arbor a long time, but I'm originally from the East Coast.
[04:12:18] ONNA SOLOMON: Hi, I'm Onna Solomon and this is my second year in my first term as library board. I'm on the treasury committee [NOISE] or the finance committee. That's a new post, obviously. I don't even know the name. [LAUGHTER] In my day job, I'm a social worker and I have a private practice and I specialize in autism and kids with learning differences and I'm a long time Ann Arbor resident.
[04:12:50] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Hi, Kristin, I'm Jamie. I am the second longest serving member of the board. I've been on for a well, I guess 61/2 years. I have an undergrad degree from the East Coast, but otherwise, I've been in Michigan my whole life. Like many people here, I moved here for one reason and then I just stayed and stayed. Professionally, I'm a librarian, I'm an art librarian at the University of Michigan. I manage a small team of people and a book art studio. I'm like on the artsy side. One thing to notice that I worked here from 2005-2008.
[04:13:32] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Very good.
[04:13:33] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Nice to meet you.
[04:13:34] JIM LEIJA: Thanks everyone.
[04:13:35] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Kerene, I should tell you that I was going to be a lawyer. That was where I was headed and took one semester of law school. Torts of contracts about killed me and that was it [LAUGHTER]. I decided to be a librarian, which in many of the places where I worked, I acted like a lawyer.
[04:13:56] KERENE MOORE: It sounds like a gig.
[04:13:59] KRISTIN SHELLEY: It sounds like it [LAUGHTER].
[04:14:01] JIM LEIJA: Welcome. I have the first question for you, which is to take 2-3 minutes and share with us what attracted you to apply for the position at the Ann Arbor District Library, and how your career and professional development have prepared you to be our next leader.
[04:14:19] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Ann Arbor is a leader in libraries, not only in Michigan, but across the country. That is very attractive, especially to someone who is at the point they are in my career. I have worked as a library director for 11 years in East Lansing. Just an incredibly similar population and demographic, except for smaller university town, not hugely diverse. The diversity comes with the university and then our outlying areas. But Ann Arbor is a larger city. It's more the size of city that I grew up in. The attraction is the wonderful things that Ann Arbor District Library is doing and the involvement of the staff with the community and frankly, the budget to be able to do these great projects and to think bigger and to move out and work with the community. As I said, my career, I started out in a very large system and a system with a huge budget of about 75 billion and then went to a medium-sized system in Ohio, which probably in Michigan would be more of a larger system because of the volume that it saw and that it circulated over four million items that have three locations when I was there [NOISE]. I was deputy director there. Then moving on as director in East Lansing, I have worked very closely with city council, with our legislators, with city management to really make the library from a nice place to have to be thought of as essential. We work with Michigan State University, with students and faculty and the libraries closely to do lots of collaborative work. Actually, even to help supplement some of the projects that we're doing in-house at the library, like our teen after-school programs so that we have staff there that can help with the 100 teams that come in every day after school. But I have worked on a national level in committees with the American Library Association and worked in both both the Ohio library council and the Michigan Library Association to work towards expanding funding for libraries and knowledge of libraries and keeping libraries very relevant to our legislators. I would say the work that I have done, I have grown tremendously. Even though I'm at a much smaller location that I started out, I have grown tremendously because of the interaction that I have more intensely with community leaders and civic organizations and that I am the face of the library rather than the face of a library branch. I do budgets. I've done budgets actually my entire career because when I was the assistant manager at the branches, the managers that I was under used it as a growth opportunity to do the budget, which meant they didn't like doing the budget [LAUGHTER] I was the budget person. Actually, at Columbus when we changed business enterprise systems, I was the go-to person for many of the managers on how to do the budget, how to work the budget, and how to look at the budget so that when it went through to finance and the board, it was accepted. I've worked with many levels of staff, have been on many different committees. One of my favorite committees that I was on was, I was on for six years the diversity committee for the American Library Association, and then I was on the subcommittee of Spectrum Scholars. Some of you are familiar with what's the Spectrum Scholars are, but the Spectrum Committee to provide scholarships to diverse library students library and to increase the look of what libraries and library schools look like because we are very underrepresented when it comes to diversity. Just a multitude of things that I have done in my career, I've done tremendous amount of programming. I was a children's librarian for eight years and then moved into adult services. I worked very closely with immigrant populations, specifically the Somali population, the Latinx population, and the Southeast Asian populations. I started the only English for speakers of other languages classes and really grew the collections when I was at Columbus metropolitan library. Now, they've expanded since then, but they had nothing at that point and reached out to community leaders and reached out to literacy councils and to refugee resettlement organizations to start those programs.
[04:20:03] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I have worked on a multitude of building projects. I've built three branches from the cement slab up. I've renovated many locations, installed in some very tight square footages, 11 the homework help centers and well about three fourths away renovated the interior of the East Lansing Public Library in 2015-2016. Now we're currently undergoing a major HVAC system and site upgrade. I'm not afraid of facilities or building projects. Just sad that they take so long. [LAUGHTER] I've done fundraising. Shortly after I got to East Lansing, we had a patron who came in every single day and wanted to use our computers. He wanted to help to be able to email pictures to his grandchildren who are in New York and then in Texas. You would never ever expect this person to have $1.5 million to handover to the library. Never in a million years would have thought that. But one day he came in with his lawyer son and said I have something for you and handed a $1.5 million check. That was because he said, " I love what you're doing. I love what the library has done. It has supported me as a person and my wife who died. We loved coming here. We walked here and this is how we want to say thank you. I want to say thank you before I die." It is really nice. I have been able to cultivate those relationships. I have been able to increase our foundation. Not as quickly as I had hoped, but we are putting money towards it. Ran a successful first levy for the system back in 2012 and it passed by 71 percent. Which was nerve wracking because East Lansing notoriously supports it's schools and just before that, it had voted down a school bond issue. It was a little nerve-wracking and it was in a very short period of time. In June, the council said, ''We want to put you on the ballot.'' November was the ballot. We had a very short period to get on the ballot and to get that levy going and we had a small group of people. About three of us went door-to-door to over 4,000 homes to get the word out. We raised money very quickly, but it passed. We are once again on the ballot until November, so it's 10 year levy and we're going to hope it's just as successful. Lots of collaborations, like I said with Michigan State University. The organizations around the city, libraries in our area because we're surrounded by libraries but also the schools. We do a great deal with East Lansing public schools and parochial schools. We have a really good relationship with the Islamic Center, which has a school that comes in. I can keep going if it's okay.
[04:23:36] JIM LEIJA: It's quite a roster of accomplishments. Dharma, why don't you take us to the next question?
[04:23:41] DHARMA AKMON: The next question is give us an example of a time when you challenge the status quo in your professional life. Why and how did you do it? What were the results?
[04:23:52] KRISTIN SHELLEY: There's been a couple of times [LAUGHTER] because I don't think you'd get where I am without doing some challenges. But one that really sticks out and then I can go to because it was an uncertain area for everyone involved. That was starting the English for speakers of other languages classes at the Columbus Metropolitan Library system. I was the branch manager of a location where the majority of resettlement was happening in Columbus of Somali immigrants. Columbus has the second largest population in the United States of Somali immigrants or refugees. Second after Minneapolis-Saint Paul. It was literally all of a sudden that we noticed that the people were there and they came to the library. That was one of the first places that the elders said," Go get your library card, go to the library, immerse yourself in the library." I was literally sitting at the reference desk and realized nobody around me is speaking English and knew that I had to do something. I had to do something for the staff who was suddenly experiencing a completely different culture from what they were used to. Most of the Somalis we had were 99 percent Sunni Muslim. They were resettled in an area of Columbus at that time that was just starting to transition, was just starting to get a little more diverse. There were long time people that have lived in those neighborhoods that were well entrenched. It was not an easy transition. But I realized that we had to do something. I needed to bring people in to help train the staff, to help the staff here the stories, to help the Somalis be able to feel more comfortable and feel like they belonged in the library. I went to the library administration and said we need to do something. We have this influx of people who need our help, who we aren't serving. We need to do something and my staff needs help in doing it. They were like that's not one of our goals right now. That's not where we're focused at this time. I said, "Okay. Well, that's where I'm focused as I have to be." I worked with the Columbus Literacy Council and wrote a $75,000 grant so that we could start English for speakers some other language classes at this location and then really broaden the world collection specifically Somali collection. Which was not easy because at that time there was not much published outside of Somalia. We were literally buying mimeograph copies of books out of the trunks of people's cars. Let me tell you. Trying to work the finance on that payment [LAUGHTER] it's not easy, but we did it.
[04:27:15] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Once we establish this and then I brought in Somali elders to talk about the culture, to talk about what the young people that were coming to the library were experiencing, what they had experienced throughout their entire lives. That none of us had any idea that we never lived in a war. We never lived where there wasn't a government. For four hours in our meeting room, these people talk to our staff and to the administrators that came and you could have heard a pin drop. It was an intense conversation with what they needed, where they had been, what they had come from, how they are being resettled, how the library can help. Slowly, over years, months and years, the administration saw the light and we won awards for the work that we were doing. But it was not front of mind. It was not readily their thought at that time, especially because the population, while to Columbus it was about 30,000 people, which didn't seem like a lot, but there were 30,000 people in this particular area that needed help. That's a very specific example.
[04:28:39] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[04:28:46] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Next, please share an example of an operational change you made that resulted in financial savings for your library?
[04:28:55] KRISTIN SHELLEY: When I came to the East Lansing Public Library, I was told the budget was in really good shape. [LAUGHTER] I think we're doing well. At that time, we were aligned item on the city's general revenue fund. There was a transfer from the city to the library. About three weeks in or so, maybe a month in the city manager sat down because we have directors' meetings every week with the city directors, leaders of the city, and then in the City Manager. Although I don't report to the city manager, I'm included in those meetings. The city manager said, look, the city is in dire straits. We need to save money. You all have to cut from your budgets. Specifically, staff, so not a place a new manager or a new director wants to be at all. I had every intention of coming into the East Lansing Public Library, listening to the staff needs, listening to what the public wanted and needed for a good year before I made changes. Well, guess what? [LAUGHTER] That's a few months in and I had to make changes. In a very short period of time through attrition, we lost six staff. We also didn't have self-checkout at that time. If you're going to lose staff, you have to have something that can help the patrons and help the staff. We implemented self-checkout. When we did that, we were very conscientious of not replacing a person with a machine. At that time, we still had this huge circulation desk and we very intentionally put the self-checkout stations on the desk so that when somebody had to come up to check out, they were checking out with a person just right there with them that could chat with them, that could help them through it. But installing the self-checkout stations really did help with the workflow. When you lose six staff members, you've got to be able to keep going. It let us look differently at how we were serving people and how we were using staff. Instead of using staff to check people in and out, we were using staff to be out on the floor, doing reference out on the floor greeting people and interacting differently with our patrons. That was a cost saver. Pipe dream was to add a return automatic return system. Our building unfortunately it's not set up that we could do that. We'd have to blow out about three walls. That wasn't going to happen. The other cost-saving thing that we did was we had to make our studio downtown and a smaller one in the building. When we renovated, we made sure that there was space. We reuse space to be able to put our Maker Studio in our main, in our library rather than have had people downtown. Because that to what we were spreading staff very thin to have them in two different locations at that time. Most recently, we added lockers. We added remote lockers so that patrons could, while we were closed, come and get their items. They have been hugely popular, so popular that another patron or one of our patrons bought a whole another bank of lockers for us because she loved them so much as she wanted other people to experience them. But that too has helped us with staffing because we did lose staff throughout the pandemic and we have not completely replaced those numbers and we have not replaced those numbers from back in 2020, 2011, and 2012. We've gotten close. We're just not completely there.
[04:33:17] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Great. Any follow-ups?
[04:33:21] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I should mention that we use volunteers and we use volunteers to do many different things. We do not use volunteers to replace staff. We use volunteers next to staff or to help staff get through their day-to-day jobs like shelf reading. We use volunteers to shelf read, but we have a tremendous pool and knowledge of volunteers. Many retired school teachers, many retired professors, many retired librarians and they want to give back and they want to help and so we're able to use them to help with some of the areas that we might not get, like getting our magazines re-shelved or process thing.
[04:34:05] KERENE MOORE: All right. It has been said that a challenge is an opportunity that we did not ask for, based on what you know today, what are the biggest challenges facing AADL, and what opportunities do you see that may not have been previously explored?
[04:34:22] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Great question. I would say, and it may not be specific to the Ann Arbor District Library, but coming out of this pandemic and figuring out where we need to serve people and how to best serve people. We all talked about isolation. We talked about isolation before the pandemic. But why did we see it during the pandemic? I think that one of the challenges is really reaching out into the community and I mean deeply into the community so that we are fulfilling and doing wellness checks almost on some of our elderly patrons, or our patrons that are community users even they don't have to be patrons. But people that need and may show that they need more interaction with people. I think that libraries across the country and Ann Arbor is right for it, will be hiring more and more social workers, and we'll be looking at how our libraries are staffed so that we are adequately staffed to serve the public. Maybe we don't need an extra circulation person instead, we need that person and outreach and we need to get people who are out in the community who are serving the 300 Afghan refugees that are coming to the area or are meeting the literacy needs and literacy and reading, and finance, and computer skills, everything. Meeting them in information. Meeting those needs on a different level. I think Ann Arbor is not isolated from that. It's going to have to really look and see how do we get the people back in our branches? How do we get people feeling very comfortable? Yes, programming will bring people in, but what else do we need to look at? How else do we need to be serving people? I really think it's connection. It's providing community space. It's connecting on a really different human level. One of the things that I shared, and this is very important for libraries, is connecting with people with cognitive issues, specifically Alzheimer's. Alzheimer is one in four people are going to be affected by it or are affected by it, and having these tables that I talked about in my presentation, that is from a Dutch company, but their projectors that project down onto a regular table that have interactive scenes on them where people with cognitive issues or dementia can interact. The studies are showing that just that interaction is helping with their apathy, helping with their feeling of sadness, with their anger issues, and with their isolation. I really think that as we emerge out of this, and this isn't looking five years down the line. This is looking near. We're going to be really working with people. Making sure that they feel that they belong here, making sure that we are providing what they need just in their day-to-day lives. Maybe it's having more nimble vans to go out into the community and that we're in their neighborhoods that we're delivering library materials to them. Like a Meals on Wheels.
[04:38:15] KERENE MOORE: Any follow-up?
[04:38:20] JIM LEIJA: I want to go to this question of hiring social workers and I want to know what that job description looks like in the context of a district library and what you see, their day-to-day work looking like.
[04:38:42] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Great question. But I think when I walked around Ann Arbor, I came a couple of times before the interview. But then also on Monday night, there is a definite homeless population that is using the main library but is very much around the area, and you're right across the street from a transit station. Having a social worker on staff that can maybe help people who are appearing a bit agitated when they're in the library. Maybe work with or instead of some of the security that they approach people that they provide programming for people. They provide aid for people, but they also are going along with outreach. They're going out into the community as well. To answer your question, what I envision a social worker because I've been thinking about this for our library as well. Even though we have social workers and our police force that we can have access to. But having 100 teenagers after-school in our building is difficult. We have had tremendous amount of interaction with those teenagers. Many of them who have come to us and said, I can't go home. I'm suicidal. I need help, that kind of thing. Having a social worker on hand, because as good as library schools are, we are not trained to be social workers. We are not trained necessarily. We go to workshops, but we don't use it every day. We don't use that training every day. I see those people working within our areas that need them the most and helping those people that are identified as needing help and going out into the community. Those might be the people who knock on the doors and say, here's your library materials. How are you doing today?
[04:40:53] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Thank you. I'm next. How has diversity, equity, and inclusion impacted your decision-making? How have you practiced DEI and anti-racist principles in your work?
[04:41:07] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I'm very fortunate. The City of East Lansing is currently going through a nine-month of training of all staff in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are using consultants to go through this. But I was part of the very small team of the city who developed the capacity-building training and the cultural realignment training. I'm still part of that team that meets every couple of weeks to talk about where we are as a city and to look at developing our police oversight committee or developing our Human Rights Commission.
[04:41:45] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Within the library, all library staff are going through that same training. I have worked with and brought in people from Michigan State University to do Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training. We have looked at our policies and are very systematically going through our policies to make sure that they are viewed through an equitable lens. I work with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion administrator to look through these, but then also a group of people from Michigan State University as well. Our job descriptions and job postings have been reviewed and changed and we've eliminated some words that may be trigger words for people, or/and we have added a land acknowledgment at the top of all of those job positions, as well as on the top of our board agenda. We really look at providing cultural programming for the library and we do an excellent job at that. As our former mayor, who's still on council said, "The library is the most diverse place in our community," which is saying a lot. I have my entire career worked towards being as equitable or as a place where people feel that they belong. With my work with the Somali, Latino, and southeast Asian communities, I have joined committees, specifically the Latino Empowerment Outreach Network while I was in Columbus to work with refugees and immigrant organizations that were working closely with the Latino population and beyond. I've done quite a bit and we're continuing to do a lot of work in DEI. It is a journey. It is a slow journey at times. But we are looking at our signage, we are looking at how we place materials. We're doing collection audits, and not just looking at representation within our collection, but also looking at how we're classifying those materials, and should we be classifying those materials? We've done a great deal of work and the staff have developed committees themselves to talk about change and to talk about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion access and justice within our organization.
[04:44:26] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Thanks.
[04:44:27] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Any follow up questions?
[04:44:28] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I do. Can you talk a little bit about hiring in the context of DEI?
[04:44:33] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Absolutely, and I should've said that. We have really looked at our recruiting process and reached out to places. In the past, we would just post our postings and we would get a ton of people applying. But we wanted to make a conscientious effort to reach out to a more diverse population. When working with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion administrator or director at the city, we have expanded our search. We contact the YMCA, we contact various organizations, brothers and sisters that are working with organizations that have more diverse outreach. Still I will say that is one of the areas that is hard because I wish we were getting more of a diverse representation. We're starting, but it's slow. Our demographics, the East Lansing demographics are not hugely diverse. As I mentioned, they're very much like a nervous demographics, so with Asian being the largest, which mostly is because of the university. But, yeah, we reach out to the university. Actually, I should have mentioned that one of the cost-savings things we did was we partnered with Lansing Community College and with Michigan State University to be an offsite work-study location so that our pages or some of our frontline staff are work-study students.
[04:46:14] JIM LEIJA: That's great.
[04:46:14] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's cool. Thank you.
[04:46:18] ONNA SOLOMON: Describe for us a time in your career when you changed a long-held professional belief or assumption and the circumstances that led to the change?
[04:46:31] KRISTIN SHELLEY: It's been very long held. [LAUGHTER] Let me think about this. Well, libraries tend to think that we know our patrons, and that we know what they want and what they expect. Then conversely, patrons look at us as books and just books. I have really been working hard. When I go out and when the staff goes out and when we talk about what libraries are, we are not talking about books, we're talking that our brand is information. That is one way that we have really worked to change the belief that libraries are books in story time. No, we're so much more than that. We're so much more than that in ways of how we interact with the community, what we're disseminating, and how we're providing information, and that we offer instead of a place of total consumption of information, we're also offering a way of producing information through our Maker Studio and some of our programs. That's one long-held belief and it's still one that we're fighting because people do think of libraries as books. But we definitely are far more than books. I will tell you when I came to the East Lansing Public Library, one of the issues with the city, they had cut all of their funding for after-school programming, and they had after-school program at the community center, which is corner across the street from us. There was really no place for teens to go or children go after school. It was put on the shoulders of the library to provide this space because we are literally next to the high school and up the block from the middle school and an elementary school.
[04:48:53] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Our regular patrons thought libraries are quiet places, libraries are not for socialization. Libraries are; you come in, you read the newspaper, you get your items, and then you leave. You don't have gaming for kids, you don't have after-school programming for kids. It was a hard lesson. It was a very hard lesson. People would say to me, "Why are you doing this? Why are you changing our library for these school of choice kids?" Which was a failed racist comment actually. Because many of the kids that would come in after school are not necessarily kids from our area. Many of them are, I don't ask what zip code they're from, but that belief that the library was to be a quiet place and everybody in the library was to be quiet, was held strong and was held for a long time. I would say if the pandemic did anything, it erased people's memories of what the library [LAUGHTER] was like after school. It was a fortunate thing. But it took a long time. I still get letters from people that are really angry that we have so many kids after school and they're having a good time. But that's a long-held belief that libraries are quiet and that we need to tell people to be quiet. That's another struggle, but I think we're there. People are more accepting. Many of these retired people have figured out they don't have to come to the library at 2:30 in the afternoon, [LAUGHTER] they can come at different time. It's working well for everyone.
[04:50:57] ONNA SOLOMON: One of the things this question is getting at is how you've changed one of your own beliefs, and did you have to do any shifting in those situations for yourself of what your conception of, what was supposed to happen for a library and what was happening in their library? Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[04:51:15] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Sure. Yes, I did have to shift. I had to shift thinking about the library as a true gathering place. That shift came probably later in the '90s and the 2000s. That wasn't necessarily the case always. I had to shift that, it's very acceptable to have people at the library all over the place, people praying in the library or doing whatever they needed to do, and that we had to be accepting of that. That not everybody use the library in the way that I as a librarian wanted them to use it. But changing the thinking that, okay, it's okay for staff to play video games with kids after school or teen librarians, that was hard, that's hard to think that we're paying people to play video games, we're paying people to do crafts, that we're paying people to interact with people differently. But that's what people needed. That change came, and my attitude changed with that, as I saw how happy people were and that people were returning for that, and that young people in an age group where library usage usually drops off was remaining strong.
[04:52:46] ONNA SOLOMON: Any follow-up questions?
[04:52:52] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: What processes have you used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and services provided by your library? What stays and what goes in order to accomplish the Library's mission?
[04:53:03] KRISTIN SHELLEY: We're really going through that right now. We're always looking at how to tweak, how to better our programming. Are we being effective in our programming? But tools that we have used are surveys. We do end user surveys, and we do surveys of people who are attending story time or attending different programs. When we partner with the university, there's always a survey to enter that program. A lot of surveys, a lot of talking to people, a lot of talking to community people about the effectiveness of what we're doing. We have used consultants to go out and look at our market penetration to see if there's areas or places or things that we can be doing that would be more effective. We do a lot of word of mouth, a lot of talking with people, a lot of working with consultants, a lot of working with university students who are working in an area where they want to do surveys, where they want to get feedback. Right now, we're looking at, do we keep a hybrid of virtual and in-person programming? Our virtual programming started out strong and then just fizzled. I'm quite sure it's because people were tired of being on a screen all day. We're looking at as we bring programming back in-person, do we do the programming the way we always did? Do we need to do as many story times as we've done if people aren't quite back into the library yet? We had a very robust knitting group. They loved it and they came, and they kept coming because up until Monday we required masks and this group of people wanted masks. Here's the thinking, does a staff member need to lead that group? Does a staff member need to lead book discussions or can they be community-led? Those are the kinds of things that we're looking at for effectiveness. Is three people coming to a program, effective use of taxpayer money and of staff time. That's what we really have to figure out, or are those people going out into the community and telling everybody how wonderful the library is and we need to support it. It's a real balance, but we're definitely always tweaking, always looking, always trying to figure out if we're doing what we need to do for the community and listening. Listening to the community, turning outward to the community, having community conversations with groups of stakeholders, with patrons.
[04:55:54] KRISTIN SHELLEY: One of the things that has been great about being a municipal library and about being very in touch with our city council, is that the past two mayors have used what we call our cyber cafe as a place where they do their monthly coffee with the mayor. It's great to see people line up or gather around to talk to the mayor. I listen to what those people are saying, and what their issues are with the city, and trust me, there are many, but it's really an interesting and easy way for staff to be embedded, but not the inconspicuously listening to what's going on and what the community needs are. We're going to be doing work with a consultant probably this summer, and figuring out where our library on the go van needs to be and how we differently think about it, and this is looking at it through an equitable lens. How we differently think about, okay, this part, we get tons of people coming, but they're the same people that come into the library. So do we look at it like maybe we need to go to this apartment complex where these people don't have transportation to the library and we can embed ourselves there and have the van there more often than at this other part. Even if it's only five families that come, there are five families that need to be there and want to be there.
[04:57:35] JIM LEIJA: Related to this question of evaluation and services, I'm curious to know based on what you've learned from the various forms of evaluation that you've done, what are the key talking points for this next millage campaign? How are you making your case to the community? Not that you exactly get to make the case personally.
[04:58:00] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Over the 10 years we have renovated the interior of the library, and we've done a lot of facilities' work that desperately needed to be done. One of the things that we're really going to share is what we've done, the wonderment of what we do, and where we've been. But also how we have listened to the community, how we want to reach out to the community, how during the pandemic we were very nimble, quickly shifted like many libraries and we're able to serve our population, how we want to be where the people are, and we want to get materials to them or get information to them. Being out in apartment complexes, being out at the schools, being out at parks, being downtown. We are now going to have a regular stop downtown, which is right outside, a 55 and plus apartment or condo area, because they've asked for that and we are going to listen. Again, it's turning out and listening to the community and hearing what they want, hearing what they say. It's hard because as in many places when you talk to people about the library or you mention the library, we love the library. What does that mean to you? What does that mean to your neighbor? What does that mean to the community? Again, one of the great things that has happened in the last 10 years is that people, especially the elected officials, understand that the East Lansing Public Library is essential to the community, and is not just a nice place to have. Property values around the library are higher and more desirable, and people want that walkability to their library. Our message is going to be, we've done wonderful things in order to keep those wonderful things and to keep our doors open, and to keep these faces that you have grown to love so much, you need to support the library.
[05:00:05] JIM LEIJA: Reinvest.
[05:00:07] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Exactly. The hard thing is that we're just going to go for a renewal because trying to explain a whole new levy because of Hadley, is just a bit too daunting for people right now, especially coming out of what we're coming out of, and probably entering into a recession.
[05:00:28] JIM LEIJA: Other follow-ups? The next question is a little bit more of a personal one, what person taught you a valuable lesson about life and how has it become a guiding principle?
[05:00:43] KRISTIN SHELLEY: That's a really good question. Many people have taught me lessons about life. I will say, and I know you're not supposed to say your parents, but I will tell you, when I was a very young person, and I'm the youngest of seven, my father was unemployed for a period of time and I didn't know this until much much later in life. He tried to establish that you don't judge people, never look at people just for face value. But then later on as I was entering my professional career and I was assistant manager at branches that needed a lot of work or physically they were in bad shape or in areas that people needed a lot of help, he said to me, "Value your custodians and maintenance staff to the utmost because they are the ones that are keeping your doors open and running your libraries." I have always kept that true to my heart. I can't tell you how invaluable maintenance people are to our libraries and to our buildings and to our facilities. That was a life lesson. I'm like, whatever dad, [LAUGHTER] you don't see them around as much. They're not the front of our business, but oh boy, they sure are the front of our business. I will tell you when I came here on Monday night, Ken from maintenance greeted me at the door and he said, "Do you want me to take you up?" I'm like, sure. We had the most delightful conversation on the elevator riding up. He said, "I work in maintenance," and he said, "we run the place." I was like, "You're right, you absolutely run the place." That was a life lesson that actually served me very, very well, especially in East Lansing, because the city of East Lansing has one full-time facility person for the entire city. It doesn't mean they don't have a department of public works that they rely on other things, but the actual person that comes in and fixes things is one person. Treat them well.
[05:03:04] JIM LEIJA: Important life lesson.
[05:03:05] KRISTIN SHELLEY: It is.
[05:03:05] JIM LEIJA: We would not have this amazing facility that we're sitting in right now without our facilities folks. Other follow-ups to that? Dharma.
[05:03:18] DHARMA AKMON: What have we not asked you that you wish to share with us?
[05:03:23] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I had put a whole list of things. I wanted to make sure that I did share with you. One thing that may have come up when you're talking to people, to my references and stuff is the East Lancing Public Library unionized during the pandemic, during COVID, in the heart of it and it was the first time I have worked with a contract or done a contract. Columbus was not unionized. Actually, Worthington just unionized. It's a wave. But notoriously, Ohio libraries were not union libraries. Working through that process all via Zoom was very challenging and it was so hard because nobody was necessarily even in the buildings. We couldn't even have these face-to-face conversations and it took an enormous amount of time. It took over a year to finish that contract because people weren't working or they were working from home or many different things. I'm happy to say we have a very solid contract and the union stewards and the Assistant Director and myself are meeting on a monthly basis to talk about and to keep lines of communication open, which is so, so important. I will tell you I love building projects. I love the challenge. I have faced lakes of urine underneath buildings that just happen. What you have to do and where you have to find $200,000 quickly, but those are all challenges that make what we do and our buildings that are so special to everyone that much better.
[05:05:18] JIM LEIJA: I will assure you, we're sitting on those very lakes in this building right now that became a little bit of a routine in older days of this meeting to see how many times you can mention the sewage crocks. Which we haven't had a big problem within the last two years because there hasn't been anybody in the building, but those problems are coming back. We know what you're talking about.
[05:05:37] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Yeah. I used to walk into the women's restroom and say, why does it smell like a clean dairy barn in here? Guess what?
[05:05:45] JIM LEIJA: Library facilities.
[05:05:48] KRISTIN SHELLEY: One of the other really fun projects that we're working on is we're working with our local muralist in East Lansing who is going to do, I think I mentioned the interactive mural on the side of our building, the exterior side of our building. It's a depiction of African-American families sitting around the kitchen table with historical civil rights artifacts within the Green Book is on the table. The year 1964 is on there, the year 1972 is in it and there's going to be a QR code where they can click on the artifact and click on the QR code and get information about those artifacts. We're so excited about that and that's also going to dovetail into the second half of our site work that we're having done this spring and summer and we're going to create an interactive sensory children's pardon, in the front of the library.
[05:06:44] JIM LEIJA: Wow.
[05:06:45] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Yeah. That's all through donated money and that's another thing I guess I should mention is that although they said the budget was really good, [LAUGHTER] I came to East Lansing, coming from Worthington libraries and Ohio library, no library was going to compare because they have a very healthy budget, but there was zero fund balance. Many of those building issues and building things that needed to be done were pushed back for years and decades because there was no fund balance to do it and the city didn't have the money to do it because at that time would have been the city's coffers. In probably about six, seven years, I was able to amass over $2 million and we're close to probably $2.8 million in a fund balance just by savings, just by looking at doing business differently and that is how we're able to fix the likes of urine and [LAUGHTER] fix them. We also found out that the limestone around the building is cracked and water seeping in and I don't just mean a little bit of water, like three-fourths through rooms of the library were having and we didn't realize it until we're closed. That's when we really saw it. All the windows around the building have to be replaced and the limestone is going to have to be shored up. But fortunately because of the relationship with the community and with the city, we're going to be able to get some city RPA money to do that. The library came in second, I think of the community of what to do with the cities or for money. That's a good place to be.
[05:08:29] JIM LEIJA: It's quite an accomplishment to have a $2.8 million fund balance where there was none before. Congratulations to you. That must be very diligent financial work on your part.
[05:08:39] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Well, it had to be.
[05:08:41] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[05:08:42] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Yes. It's not just my part. It's the part of the entire staff that we all work together, and they all got it. Thank you.
[05:08:55] DHARMA AKMON: Any other follow-up questions before I turn it over to Kristin to ask us any questions that you have for the board?
[05:09:03] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I do have some, but I know we're super short on time, so I want to be very conscientious of that. I guess my biggest question is, what are you looking for in your next director? I know that's a very stereotypical question, but truly, what would you like to see? Josie was a legend and whomever comes in here won't be a Josie. They'll be them. They have the right to be them.
[05:09:27] JIM LEIJA: That's right.
[05:09:29] KRISTIN SHELLEY: That's not a bad thing, but what would you like to see in your next director?
[05:09:35] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. Go for it on.
[05:09:37] ONNA SOLOMON: Well, one of the things that I think is wonderful about being part of this board is that we have really good-- Josie was great at helping us understand because we're a volunteer board and we are also all working professionals and a lot of us have young children and so one of the things I know I'm looking for from a director is guidance. It goes both ways. Obviously, we're helping to guide you, but that you're giving us enough information and context for us to be able to make good decisions.
[05:10:25] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I guess something I should add. I know it's my turn to ask you questions, but something I should add is that when I came to East Lansing, I came in after a director who had been there 29 years. She was loved and the staff loved her. They were very comfortable. Then you come in and you start shaking things up and then in three weeks really start shaking things up. But I can tell you that and I believe one of my references. She said it was everything for me not to get emotional when they were talking to me. She is a former mayor who's not on council anymore and has chosen to be on the library or the board is also volunteers. But she said, "You have put us in such a great place going forward." That's what we want. That's what we can only do as directors with all of our aspirations and all what we want to do with the community and for people. But to have an organization be in a good place to move on, is very good to hear. Thank you for sharing that.
[05:11:40] JIM LEIJA: Others want to weigh in on that question? You heard a little bit from the search committee when we talked about this in the interview.
[05:11:51] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think I said this recently in one of our public gatherings. Maybe you already know this, but I really appreciate the fund balance work that you have done because I think that that's very important to me. None of the other stuff can happen unless the finances are well managed so that you can say yes to things. I'm definitely looking for someone to continue that sound fiscal management for the library.
[05:12:19] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I will say it's hard to convince people who are city minded and city council people that your fund balance should be greater than 20 percent because they feel that you should spend out your fund balance before you go for your levy or before you do all this. I'm like, well I came from a philosophy at Worthington to my race that you had two years operating as fund balance. We're not there yet, but [LAUGHTER] we're close
[05:12:46] JIM LEIJA: It's a good thing to point out and it's something that we've talked about in the relationship too. We have a very healthy [OVERLAPPING] eco-balance which we've just spent down recently in order to purchase a warehouse facility, which is another site for us to be able to move operations. But yes, it's a really privileged position to be in. One thing I want to add is that we're very keen on preserving the team ethos here and the innervation ethos. It's very important to the success of the library. It's what we sometimes call the special sauce or [LAUGHTER] the special recipe. There's a very collaborative culture here that is, in lots of ways I think flatter than people expect. It's like ideas are coming from lots of places. People are bringing projects to the table, they're being nurtured and lots of different corners of the institution. I think like a director comes and is able to balance, I think a sense of vision and expansion or evolution alongside really maintaining a positive collaborative culture.
[05:14:02] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Absolutely. That's the beauty of libraries. We collaborate and many times we're innovative because we have to be. Because funding is suddenly not there, or because people are burning books. We have got to be innovative, we've got to be collaborative, and we have got to be together and working together with, absolutely. I have a series of questions, but I know you're in a time crunch.
[05:14:27] JIM LEIJA: I think we can take one more.
[05:14:32] KRISTIN SHELLEY: This one. You have a very strong internal candidate. But do you have a plan in place, or are you thinking of a plan should he not be the chosen person for the job?
[05:14:48] JIM LEIJA: By plan, what do you mean exactly?
[05:14:53] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Have you thought about how it will affect him and how it will affect the team going forward. Have you made plans if he chooses to leave or to look elsewhere? How do you plan to bring a person in to work with that person seamlessly in step and easily?
[05:15:14] JIM LEIJA: It's a good question. It's certainly on our minds because we were hoping to finish the process this week. The executive committee has had some conversations about that. I think it's been important for us to go into this whole process with just a completely open mind that anything can happen. We don't have a predetermined outcome. This is a very authentic process in the sense of like, we're not sure until we finish today what that outcome will be [NOISE]. But I do think that we recognize that that internal candidate is a very strong member of the team. I think that our desire to retain and cultivate those team members is really strong. But ultimately, it's like it's all about mics, and on-boarding, and understanding how people are working together. Also that people have their own volition, and when new leadership comes, as we know, people move on and out to other [OVERLAPPING] opportunities if that's the right thing for them [OVERLAPPING] do so. I suspect that some combination of all of that will happen. Leadership changes are good to a degree because they do allow for a chance for this movement to happen in a way that just directs us into the next phase. I don't have a clear answer for you. [OVERLAPPING]
[05:16:48] KRISTIN SHELLEY: No, that's a great answer.
[05:16:49] JIM LEIJA: It's the best I can do.
[05:16:51] KRISTIN SHELLEY: It's in your heads and your thinking and that it's important that staff understand the reasons behind or the why behind the reasons for the choice and that everyone feels that they play.
[05:17:02] JIM LEIJA: Whoever we choose for this position will have our support in [NOISE] onboarding and being successful.
[05:17:10] KRISTIN SHELLEY: I have no doubt.
[05:17:11] JIM LEIJA: Absolutely.
[05:17:12] KRISTIN SHELLEY: [LAUGHTER] Thank you-all.
[05:17:14] JIM LEIJA: [OVERLAPPING] Kristin, thank you what a delight to talk to you again.
[05:17:17] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Thank you.
[05:17:17] JIM LEIJA: Thanks so much.
[05:17:18] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Sure.
[05:17:18] JIM LEIJA: Thank you for our terrible time management.
[05:17:21] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Or building issues [LAUGHTER] building experience. [LAUGHTER] Talk for days.
[05:17:25] JIM LEIJA: It's actually really fun to be able to mention the sewage croc again [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING]. We're going to take a very quick five and then we're right back in it again. Thanks a lot.
[05:17:36] KRISTIN SHELLEY: Thank you.
[05:25:13] JIM LEIJA: Not to worry, we're very happy to see you.
[05:25:14] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Oh, thank you.
[05:25:19] JIM LEIJA: Thank you for letting us be such poor managers of time today. [LAUGHTER] We appreciate your flexibility.
[05:25:25] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: You're welcome. You're welcome.
[05:25:26] JIM LEIJA: I believe we haven't interrupted your flow?
[05:25:29] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: No, I do have a mad dash out at four o'clock.
[05:25:32] JIM LEIJA: We understand that. [OVERLAPPING] We're going to work to keep it to an hour with you.
[05:25:38] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure.
[05:25:39] JIM LEIJA: But of course, not in any kind of rushing way because we are looking forward to talking to you. Why don't you reintroduce yourself to us and then we're going to go around the room and introduce ourselves.
[05:25:51] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Okay. Would you like me to start with my bio that I shared the other night?
[05:25:55] JIM LEIJA: Yeah, sure.
[05:25:56] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Okay. Well, my name is Scott Duimstra. I'm currently the Executive Director of the Capital Area District Libraries. We serve Ingham County except for the city of East Lansing. You met my neighbor, Kristin. [LAUGHTER] As I said on Monday, I've been there for 17 years. I'm a graduate of the School of Information at the University of Michigan, and my first library job, as I mentioned the other night was with Los Angeles Public Library. After that, I've been with the Capital Area District Library ever since as a public service librarian, so I did everything from book groups, to story times. Moved my way up to training staff on circulation and being in charge of our digital services. Moved my way up to be in charge of programs. Moved my way up to being in charge of collection development and then became director in 2017. Again, it was a position that I never imagined that I would be in. But it's one that I've actually grown to like and I feel that I've done it in a very good way.
[05:26:53] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[05:26:54] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Yeah.
[05:26:55] JIM LEIJA: I'm Jim Leija, President of the Board of Trustees of AADL. I have been on the board going on eight years now in my second term. I'm up for reelection in November. In my professional life, I am the Deputy Director for Public Experience and Learning at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
[05:27:17] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Cool.
[05:27:19] JIM LEIJA: I'm now I think officially a townie. I went to undergrad and graduate school at Michigan and I've lived in Ann Arbor for most of the time since then. I think officially in Ann Arbor now. Although some people would still debate me on that. Dharma.
[05:27:36] DHARMA AKMON: Great. I'm Dharma Akmon, I'm Vice President of the Board. I'm in the fourth year of my first term. I've also served as the treasurer on this board. I'm from Northern Michigan. I actually did my undergrad at Michigan State. Spent quite a lot of time in East Lansing and Lansing, and perhaps recklessly, I'll say go green. I got my MSI and PhD from the School of Information like you went to and now work as a research scientist and director of project management and user support at ICPSR, which is part of U of M. It's a big social science data archive.
[05:28:15] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I'm Scott Trudeau. I am in the second year of my first term on the board, I'm the treasurer. I grew up in Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan, worked in software and tech my whole career after college in non-profits and government and startups. I lived in New York City for 10 years and moved back to Ann Arbor a few years ago. I'm also a former city planning commissioner and transportation commissioner.
[05:28:45] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Nice to meet you.
[05:28:46] KERENE MOORE: I'm Kerene, current Secretary of the Board, former Vice-Chair. I'm at the end of my first term. This is my last term on the board. I'm a social justice attorney, a double Wolverine. I attended U of M for undergrad and law school. I'm currently a judicial attorney at the circuit court downtown. Before that, I was at the Department of Civil Rights. Before that Legal Services of South Central Michigan. I feel like I have to come up with something new every time I introduce myself. [LAUGHTER] Last time, I talked about how I worked at my first library freshman year of high school in Detroit, the Detroit Public Library. Then I went on to work at the ugly here and the grad library, then eventually at the law library. But I got my first start really at libraries in middle school when I was kicked out of four of my six classes. [LAUGHTER] They sent me to the library and that is where I stayed for the entire year.
[05:29:47] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Hi. I'm Molly Kleinman. I'm also in my second year of my first term on the board and I'm on the finance committee. In my day job, I'm the Managing Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, which is a research center based in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
[05:30:03] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure.
[05:30:03] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I do have a Masters in Information Science. I worked as an academic librarian for a few years, but I have been out of the library as a profession for I just realize it's been over 10 years. [LAUGHTER] But blows my mind. I still feel very assist, library connected. [OVERLAPPING]
[05:30:19] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: It never leaves you.
[05:30:21] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Right, exactly. I still love Cardigans. It's a whole thing. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, that's me.
[05:30:29] ONNA SOLOMON: Hi.
[05:30:30] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Hi.
[05:30:30] ONNA SOLOMON: I'm Onna Solomon and I'm in my second year of my first term as a library board member. I'm also on the financial committee, and in my regular work, I am a social worker and a therapist with a private practice in downtown Ann Arbor. I'll add something new this time. One of the reasons that I'm a board member is that both in my personal and professional life, the library has just been so essential to me. It's just been really an honor to be able to be a part of this process, be part of this board and help serve this amazing institution, and it's been wonderful to hear from all the candidates. I'm excited to hear from you because I just feel like this whole process is giving me even more depth of appreciation for the commitment of librarians and people who work in this field. Thank you.
[05:31:27] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. I love it. Thank you.
[05:31:30] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Hi, Scott. I'm Jamie Vander Broek. In my outside of this work-life, I'm also a librarian. I went to the school of information as well, like a bunch of people in this room. [LAUGHTER] Before that though, I actually worked here, which I think is very helpful to know from 2005-2008. I grew up in Michigan and I went to the East Coast for undergrad, but otherwise, I've returned here and stayed also like a lot of people in this room. What I do now is manage staff who work in the arts at the library at the University of Michigan. I've been on the board the second-longest. I came on a little bit after Jim started. Nice to meet you.
[05:32:14] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Nice to meet you.
[05:32:15] JIM LEIJA: Thanks, everybody. I have the first question.
[05:32:19] JIM LEIJA: Take a few minutes and share with us what attracted you to apply to this position at AADL and how your career and professional development experiences have prepared you to be our next leader.
[05:32:30] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. Before I respond, is it okay if [OVERLAPPING].
[05:32:32] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. I was going to say, you're welcome to take off your mask.
[05:32:34] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Thank you. I'm having a problem with my glasses fogging up when I'm with the mask, and so I want to look at you actually--
[05:32:40] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[05:32:41] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I thought I had it down when I was preparing in the Director's Office, but I obviously did not. It's what attracted me to position and then how I prepared for it as well too. What I can tell you and I'm sure you've heard it from all the other candidates as well, this is a very attractive position. Ann Arbor District Library is not only known in Michigan, but it's done nationally as a well-used and progressive library system. When you're one of the library journals, five-star libraries for the amount of years that Ann Arbor District Library has been, you know it's a very very good library system. What I mean by that is one that the public heavily uses. I saw that when I did the tours of the library yesterday, I talked to staff, which was phenomenal, and then I went back and just sat in the space and observed how people use it. It was amazing. Just the multi-uses of the space as well too. I didn't even realize that. I knew it but I just didn't realize how well used they are because numbers are one thing, but once you see it, you experience it and view it in a different mindset. But then related to that, it's not only just the awards that an Arbor District Library receives. Josie has done a lot for your library. When I was in library school and I worked at Ann Arbor District Library, she was just starting now and she was already very well regarded at that time as well. But when you have a director for that long and one that is highly regarded as Josie, people notice your library system and also directors around the state who want to move on to the next level want to be that next Josie Parker. That was another part for myself and what attracted me to it because [LAUGHTER] it was when you had the write-up about Josie and all of that she accomplished. It was amazing. It was truly truly amazing. I'm not saying that I could come in and replicate that, but it's very appealing to have the opportunity to continue that. But also see what I could do in the future to continue that tradition of what Josie has truly done because when you look at from what she started to what Ann Arbor District Library is now is truly phenomenal in. My experience lead up to what would make me feel qualified for this position is my time as director. I think when as I've talked about in my bio is I've moved up positions and whenever I've moved up a position, there's almost a fake it till you make it. Because when you move into one of those positions every morning as a power pose and I'm standing there to do a power pose so I can build up some confidence because people expect more of you. When I was a training specialist, I did know every single library policy because I was the person who had to relay that to staff, to train staff, and also when the public called a complaint about a policy, I was the one that had to respond to it. I didn't know that on day one, but I had to act like I knew it on day one. That's what I mean by fake it till you make it. Then as the time goes on, you feel much more comfortable. If this was my first year as director, I probably would not have applied for this position because I don't think I could have faked it till I make it for this position. But entering my six years as Director of Capital Area District Library, I do feel comfortable in it. There were no better initiatives that we have done in some of the things that I had to do in my current position that have made me feel more comfortable with it. We've done well. I've been director, we've done 3-4 library renovations. As part of those, I was on the fundraising side of that. For one of our current renovations at our Mason Library, I've fund raised and what I mean by that is I've applied for impact grants through the Kappa region Community Foundation and through the Dark Foundation, and it's just under $200,000 for that project. That was just two grants just starting out. We've done it about 3-4 of those and I've always been on the fundraising side, but also on the planning side for those renovations as well too. I've been on the negotiating team for the administration for a union as director, I'm no longer on that, but I worked with the administration side for our union negotiations. I'm in charge with day-to-day management of library. I'm in charge of the financing, the budget for the library. Or we're actually just in the process of hiring a finance director for a library, our long-term finance director is retiring after 20 years. I'm sure it's stressful to hire a new director. It's very stressful to hire finance director and especially one that taking over for someone that's been there for 20 years, but that's been an educational experience for me. I've dealt with contracted finance services like what you use, but I've also now in the process of dealing with actually hiring a finance director as well too. As I mentioned on Monday night, I'm in the second millage term that we're having for our libraries. I was in charge of 2018 when our millage was approved by just over 70 percent and now I'm in the process of planning for 2022 millage campaign. This a lot because in that process you learn how to show the value of the library to your members. I know that I talked about the use of the Ann Arbor District Library and how it is well used and that's because people, they know the value of it. While you can walk into any library, essentially our library is not free because your tax dollars go to support it. What people have to see is the value that they're getting from those tax sellers. I'm aware on the other side of planning on how to sell those millages to the taxpayers, but also to promote the library and to know how libraries are funded and explain it to the public so they understand it as well.
[05:38:41] JIM LEIJA: Perfect. Follow-ups.
[05:38:48] DHARMA AKMON: Smart idea to wear [OVERLAPPING] [LAUGHTER] can you please give an example of a time when you have challenged the status quo in your professional life. Why and how did you do it and what were the results?
[05:39:00] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. This relates to our current library system and one of the status quos of our current library system similar to you being a multi-branch system was when staff were hired, they were assigned to a specific library. We have 13 locations.
[05:39:20] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: When I started out, I worked with what’s our [INAUDIBLE] branch. When I was hired, I was assigned to the Hazel Branch. We have about 230 employees. In looking at that and the years that I've been director, one of the goals of myself and our human resources director was to better utilize staff and have them move around. That is a breakup of the status quo because there's a really big identity between staff and the library that they work at. What I did is actually promote the library as a system as well too and explained the benefits of moving around to different libraries that you're working at. That was one of the questions that I asked some of your staff when I visited yesterday and they explained the benefit of moving around and working at different libraries as well too. We instituted a plan and gave it a cute name called buddy libraries. You're assigned your buddy library. It started out small, so your buddy library consists of two libraries and your buddies. You alternate shifts, programs, different things like that. I didn't want to belittle it by giving it that cute name but it actually helped sell it and then people truly understand what the mission was to do that. We've actually had a really positive feedback and it was essential for us, especially during COVID-19, because if we didn't have that, you could have a whole branch that was essentially knocked out, especially for some of our small roll branches where you have at max five employees. If three of them are either quarantining due to close contact or they have COVID, we couldn't keep that branch open. But with buddy libraries, we could move staff over there and that branch stayed open. It was a disruption of status quo but our staff are starting to see the benefit of it as well.
[05:41:04] DHARMA AKMON: Great. I do have actually a follow-up question. It's a question that I've been wanting to ask since I think I can't remember which time that we talked to you. [LAUGHTER] But it came up.
[05:41:13] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: It feels like an eternity.
[05:41:14] DHARMA AKMON: Yes. But you have 19 direct reports?
[05:41:17] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Yeah, I knew that one was going to come [LAUGHTER].
[05:41:20] DHARMA AKMON: My understanding is that you inherited that.
[05:41:22] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I did inherit it, yeah.
[05:41:23] DHARMA AKMON: That's why I'm slipping it into the status quo question, but, I just want to know why? [LAUGHTER]
[05:41:29] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I can tell you that it's difficult and I knew it was going to come up because I watched the meeting where we were anonymous but you announced the three people that you were going to interview. I know Jim mentioned it when you had him on [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGHTER] But I did inherit it. We used to have an assistant director. The previous director before me became director and she was assistant director. She did not replace for assistant director position. What that assistant director position did, is it supervised the 13 head librarians at our 13 branches. Essentially she took those direct reports with her and then also supervised our management team as well too; which is our IT department, collections department, finance, marketing, and public service, and human resources. That's where those 19 individuals came in. She was director for about five years and then she retired and then I became director after her so I inherited that. I can tell you it has been difficult and my board will tell you, actually you'll have my review with our board tonight, and I shared that with them, went in myself. Yes, it's been a long day for me. [LAUGHTER].
[05:42:44] JIM LEIJA: Who scheduled this thing? [LAUGHTER].
[05:42:50] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Every year I have a self-evaluation for them and that's the thing that I truly do want to change. But when you get rid of a management position at that higher pay, it was the second highest pay, scale wise that assistant director was in our system. As soon as you get rid of it, it's really hard to bring that back. That's something that I've been working on. But it takes retirement. It takes moving positions around. I've been on the backend trying to do it and in the meantime, managing with it. What I do is, is I still have very open communication with my staff, I makes sure that I meet with my direct reports. I can tell you Decembers are insane for me because, for any of our management group, it's merit pay and then for our head librarians, it's they get a guaranteed increase and then a merit bonus on top of that. When merit is involved, I know I have to give it my all for their evaluation. In December I do 19 evaluations but ones that I feel that I have to have the time and the effort into that because it's their job, it's their livelihood, and merit is based on that. December is a really tough month for me. It's not easy and it's something that if I was in charge back then I would not have done and it's a long process to change it. It's just I need to find some way to be able to afford an assistant director and get someone in that position who is able to especially take over those direct reports of the head librarians because it's a crucial role and one that I don't want to just say, well, let's just farm this out to someone, because it plays such an important role in our organization.
[05:44:38] DHARMA AKMON: I had 19 direct reports once and I don't think I've ever met anyone else that did. [OVERLAPPING]
[05:44:42] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: We're a small group.
[05:44:43] DHARMA AKMON: I wasn't directing [LAUGHTER] the whole library.
[05:44:47] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I can tell you it's difficult and especially difficult when I try to have meetings with them and I try to have that open communication with them. Having something like Teams where it can be very instantaneous and you can have a quick virtual meeting helps a lot. Because early on I was going out to those libraries and meeting with them and I can tell you time-wise, it was almost impossible. But I've hired a lot of new head librarians as well too and I feel for them they need my focus because they're newer into that role. Then for our management group I've hired an operations director and so I obviously dedicated time to that and then with our finance director coming on board. I think the one thing that has helped me is our management group has been there for a long time. That is essential.
[05:45:33] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah.
[05:45:34] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Any management group from Capital Area District Library, if you're watching this interview, I thank you. You've really helped me.
[05:45:40] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you. I guess if there are any other follow-up questions.
[05:45:48] SCOTT TRUDEAU: The next one is for me. Please share an example of an operational change you made that resulted in financial savings for your library.
[05:45:58] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: One of the things that I did, it wasn't in my time as director, it was in my time as the Collection Development Director. I was in charge of our selection groups. We had, at that time, two selectors and then we moved it up to three selectors and then our technical services department. We were in charge of materials, and ordering, and getting the materials out to our libraries. When I was in that role, we did not have centralized selection. Our selectors would order some materials and then our head librarians, at those 13 libraries, would order some materials as well too. What myself and the selectors were finding is, it wasn't being done on the level that we would like it to be done. What I mean by that is not all the money was being spent or it was being overspent in certain areas and it wasn't truly fitting into, collection-wise, what we see on the macro level. What was happening is the selectors would purchase on a macro system wide level and the branches would select on a very focused level as well too. What I did from that is move to centralized selection. What that was is it took the selecting ability away from the head librarians and moved it to our selection staff.
[05:47:17] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Then had the ability for the head librarians because you can imagine they were doing this for a number of years, why are you taking this away from them? Explain the benefit of it, but then also give them other lists that they could order from, like replacement lists and other lists, we call them gap lists so if they feel that there's a gap in their collection. It did save us money as far as our material budget being spent more efficiently and actually circulation increased as well too. This was something that we could look at the data because we made the change in 2014 and you could see a bump in circulation from 2014. I can tell you it was a very difficult process. I remember it was myself and our selectors, we met with all of our libraries. There were tears shed because it was very difficult at the beginning but now we couldn't imagine it any other way. I think that the librarians hopefully they would say the same because the overall benefit is to the public. They want to check out materials that they're interested in, and we were able to do that with our materials budget. This was a time when we were slowly coming out of the financial crisis so we had to be much more efficient with our collection budget.
[05:48:33] JIM LEIJA: When you lead a transition like that you're exercising changed leadership or changed management. What for you are the key strategies, philosophies, practices that you pursue to bring people along with you?
[05:48:51] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. I think number 1, communication is key. I know that seems like such an obvious thing, but it truly is. Communication, why you're doing it, and having communication throughout the entire process. The example that I gave, we started meetings a year before we actually started to change. It wasn't like, by the way, next month you're not going to be ordering materials anymore. It was, starting in 2014 this is how we're going to do it. 2013, let's spend a year up to it leading, answering your questions, hopefully, addressing your concerns so that we can move towards this new model. Communication, having meetings, giving updates, but also being able to have the confidence that it's going to work as well too, I think that's one of the things that I heard back from some staff is it's not going to work. You don't know expert level at the branch level and it is going to fail. I think what you need to do is in that role you have to be confident yourself as well. You don't just brush those comments aside, but you have to have a confident approach to it so that they know why you're doing it. But also it raises their confidence in it as well too, that he's done the research, that he knows that this process, that was one of the questions I got, if it doesn't work what are we going to do? What will be the next step? Again, having a plan if worst-case scenario happens as well.
[05:50:25] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Any other follow-ups?
[05:50:29] KERENE MOORE: It has been said that a challenge is an opportunity that we did not ask for. Based on what you know today what are the biggest challenges facing AADL and what opportunities do you see that may not have been previously explored?
[05:50:41] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. I think one of the biggest challenge is not looking at your statistics, I'm going off of the challenges that I think all public libraries are going through right now after the pandemic, is that re-engagement with the public. Visiting your branches, it seems like people are very safe coming back into your library. Some, when I went yesterday they were very busy, but not everyone is making it back. How to either cater services to those individuals who still don't feel comfortable coming to your library, developing new services if they never feel comfortable coming back or addressing any safety concerns that they have once they come back into the library. I think re-engagement in library services is not only for Ann Arbor District Library, but just for libraries in general is going to be truly key. Then some of the things that I tried to talk about on Monday is engagement with partners and other areas that fit the mission of the library but are also community needs as well too. I know I talked about food gatherers on Monday and I know for Washington County and also for Ingham County where I work as well too. The pandemic has truly heightened the need for food assistance in our communities. I think when I was researching my presentation for Monday night, food gatherers had a statistics, this was in August of 2021, that food assistance has gone up by 20 percent in Washington County. Again, to address that question on Monday we can't be all things to all people, but what fits within our mission and what role can the library play in helping some of those more community wide initiatives, and I think that strengthens the library and it also gets the library out there and relates back to my other point about getting people re-engaged with the library and raising awareness and profile the library as well.
[05:52:45] KERENE MOORE: Any you follow up? Thank you.
[05:52:48] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: You're welcome.
[05:52:50] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I'm next. How has diversity, equity and inclusion impacted your decision making and how have you practiced DEI and anti-racist principles in your work?
[05:53:00] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. I'll start with the second one first because we started a diversity equity and inclusion and belonging task force at our library, and it was part of our strategic plan. Our strategic plan was approved in 2019 and then the pandemic happened. But it was approved in 2019 and we had a work group to specifically focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our librarian. Part of that work group was getting staff at all levels, letting those staff know that they're empowered to actually meet, offer their input, and let's make some real system wide changes on this. One of the things that I've always addressed and that is, and again this topic came up on Monday night, it's not a box that you check and say, "Hey, we achieved our goal for that year 2019." This is another goal that we achieved so let's put it in the finally cabinet and we move down. One of the things that I've stressed with that group is this is an ongoing group so you can come off, you can come on, but this group is a permanent group at the Capital Area District Library. What we do is we look at hiring practices, we look at programs offered. I talked about diversity audits on Monday. We look at our collection in our collection development policy. We look at library policies and see if there's any barriers in library policies that are inhibiting someone from using the library, and then we also look at some bigger topics.
[05:54:33] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Some of those topics are raising awareness of staff as far as safe there. If we have a diversity audit and we bring diverse materials in your collection, you need to know about those diverse materials and also use them in your day-to-day work like booklets, story times, book groups, things like that. We also have a focus in there on a topic that I talked about on Monday for library services, for those with dyslexia. So making sure our libraries are accessible for all members of our community. We also have a part of that were true, that focuses on the back-end work of our organizations. It's not just on the public service side, it's on us as a customer and client for businesses in our community, and that's where I talked a little bit about it on Monday. That's where we have a diverse supplier or focus on that as well too. That work group has allowed us to realize that this is an ongoing process, and how that has affected me is I need to be up-to-date on that. Whether it's training, whether it's workshops, and I know that all of you have gone through training as a board and I've gone through training as a director, but it's not gone through training and you're certified, and that's it, it's an ongoing process. One of the things that that I've done is taken apart. I'm very active in the Michigan Library Association and they have a phenomenal training session for directors called, Think Space. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is the sole focus of this Thing Space work group. We had a meeting in December and I have to tell you is truly, truly moving, we had three different speakers and the last one was probably the most impactful for me, her name is Jyarland Daniels and she is from Harriet Speaks an organization, I think it's based on the west side of the state, but she's located in Grand Rapids and she had us first go around—so this room is about 95, probably reflective of that profession, it was about 95 percent white. She said as a group, go around and talk about, what was the first time that you've thought about race or encountered any topics that made you uncomfortable about race, either when you were a library user or when you worked at a library. We can tell you that for the group of library directors, it was usually high school and it wasn't even a direct occurrence, it happened to a friend or something that you tried to check out and someone said maybe you shouldn't check that out because it was a diverse topic and after that, she shared for stories about what the history of public libraries denying library access to Black Americans. She said, as a group, look at this practice, and go back to your library and when you think about anti-racism and your library. Don't forget about the history of libraries as well too, and the history of libraries portrayed and denying access of library services to Black Americans as well too. That alone showed me that this is an ongoing process and one that all of us as directors need more training on that. I'm so thankful for the Michigan Library Association for bringing library directors together to have that training, and we have another one in May. They also realize as an organization that they need to keep training library directors as well too. So continue training as one back to the first part of your question, one that is key for me.
[05:58:22] ONNA SOLOMON: Follow-up questions? Describe for us a time in your career when you changed a long-held professional belief or assumption and the circumstances that led to that change?
[05:58:37] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. Use that one. [LAUGHTER] I have plenty. So one of the things it's not new to the library profession but last year, based on the discussions that we had with our diversity equity inclusion work group, is we looked at the fairness of fines and some of our library policies that are not intentionally, but did segregate certain groups of our population based on socio-economic status. Basically, what fines we're doing, we didn't always charge fines, but we started instituting them in 2009. An unintended consequence of that was some people could afford to pay fines and they gladly did so, and they continue to use the library. But what we found there was about 13,000 individuals that they would hit that $10 or more in fines and they would never come back to the library. When we looked at the CDC's vulnerable social vulnerability index, it was almost a match for where they lived and where they show up on the CBC social vulnerability index. So we knew philosophically that we had never changed at the library. And that change was not only educating staff, educating our board, but educating the public as well too, because you would think that overall, the public would be very for no longer charging fines, but it's not always the case. You have to have a marketing plan to explain why you're doing it, how you're still going to get library materials back because it's kind of doom and gloom like people are just not going to bring stuff back, which is not the case. What we did is if you don't bring something back, if it's ten days past the due date, your account is just blocked until you actually bring that item back. There's no charges after that, but we found that that is a much better way to get our materials back than ever charging fines. It doesn't displace anyone from library services. But it took a lot of explaining to our staff, kind of changing that mindset and then also for the public as well too.
[06:00:59] ONNA SOLOMON: Did you feel like you had to change your mindset in that situation?
[06:01:09] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I did. Honestly, when you look at some services, fines, I think one of the big reasons that not all libraries are fine free is because when you look at the revenue that it brings in, it's a larger amount. For us it was about $170,000. For me, as the director when I'm looking at the financial health of the organization on that first, it was uncomfortable, but then again, philosophically, should you really have a policy and a revenue stream that is betting on someone messing up? I said, No. Looking at the district libraries budget, we still get a lot of money from penal funds from the state. I'm still really conflicted about that because again, you're betting on someone messing up as well too. I think organizationally, it needs to be kind of a change in mindset and not looking at it as a revenue stream, looking at where you can balance your budget and other areas, getting rid of that revenue stream, and looking at more as a service for members of your library.
[06:02:21] ONNA SOLOMON: Anybody else who have follow-up questions? Okay.
[06:02:30] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: What processes have you used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and services provided by your library? What stays and what goes in order to accomplish the library's mission?
[06:02:40] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. We look at two things. We look at outputs and outcomes. We look at how many people attend our program, but then we also look at what's the overall benefit of the program as well too, and I'll give you some examples. We do similar programs to what Ann Arbor District Library does and other classic libraries do, our bread and butter storytimes and that early literacy focus as well too. Not shockingly, that's our biggest attended program as well. But we also look at, based on attendance, what time are they offered? How can you move them around? If there isn't that engagement from the public, what can we do to enhance or increase attendance as well too? Then on the outcome side of it, what's the overall benefit of the program? Say, if you only have 1-2 people who attend the program or say, 10 people view the program online, do you need to offer that program? Sometimes the answer is yes. One program that we do at the Capital Area District Library is citizenship program. What this process is, is individuals can come in and we help them train for the citizenship test. Lansing Area is one of the first stops for refugees and immigrants coming to the United States and so we actually have a big refugee population in Lansing. This has actually been a fantastic program for us. Sometimes we only have, say, two attendees for those programs, but we have 100 percent passage of the citizenship test. If two people attend those programs, I am overjoyed because that made an impact in two individuals' lives. That's an example of, you can look at outcomes. What is the outcome if people attend this program? If that gives you a good reason to keep that program, even if they're a small attendance, I think it speaks for itself. Attendance can't give you the all. I think sometimes you have to look at, does it play into your values as well too? Storytimes obviously play into our values, and one of the things that we do is we preach the five early literacy practices of read, write, talk, sing, play. Even if five people attend, they still leave with that knowledge and that mindset as well too. We try to instruct staff, if you have a small attendance, work on some things that you can explain to the attendees so that they walk away with something then as well.
[06:05:04] DHARMA AKMON: [LAUGHTER] My follow-up question is, you talked about looking at outcomes and you talked about numbers, and also adherence to values, but are there other ways in which your system collects feedback? Like qualitative feedback.
[06:05:24] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: We do. Sometimes we do surveys. One of the best things about offering virtual programs is you could attach a simple survey to that virtual program. That's one of the initiatives that we have at the Capital Area District Libraries. We base our early literacy education on, like I've mentioned, five early literacy practices of read, write, talk, sing, play. One of our goals is at least, 80 percent of the families that attend storytimes know what those five early literacy practices are. When they go home with their child, they practice those skills and actually use the library more as a result of attending storytimes. The reason for that is when I go out and I present to our municipalities and talk about the impact of our storytimes, I could say that. It's the numbers, but also it's the impactful stories as well too. For us, it's reaching out to our members, gathering stories from them about the impact that it's made, but also some simple surveys that we can gauge some of that feedback as well.
[06:06:19] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[06:06:20] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Yeah.
[06:06:24] JIM LEIJA: This is related. It's probably the opposite question which is, yesterday, you said you were a data nerd.
[06:06:31] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I am a data nerd.
[06:06:33] JIM LEIJA: I wanted to know more about that, and about a time when looking at some set of data affected the decision you made.
[06:06:43] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. It obviously affected it when we looked at circulation data in Scott's question about a policy that we changed in our circulation. For our programs, we have all of that data as well too. I look at it because every month for my Board, which I have to do tonight, I give a director's report. In that director's report includes our circulation data. It also includes our program attendance. I always look at our program attendance and what those numbers are, but I'd like to talk to our head librarians and see where that's broken down as well too. Because again, storytimes, related to your question, they skew the numbers because that's where a lot of our program attendance is on. If the numbers are low for a program, we usually talk to staff and see, is there a reason for that? Similar to your question, is there an outcome that we're missing for that? Is there a benefit for us to keep this program? Otherwise, there's always a cost to it. There's a cost to market the program, there's a cost to staff time. If there is no a large intent then you to have to realize that even though you're using staff time and you're not charging an outside speaker, there's still a cost because that's a staff time cost. Also on the other side, even if you're using social media platforms or print, there's a cost to market that program as well.
[06:08:15] JIM LEIJA: This is, maybe, tangentially related. I wondered now that you have a snapshot of what the branches look like and you've met with staff, what you think of our structure and how it will be responsive or not to whatever the next phase of our work is. What you see in our structure, what would you continue? What would you might want to tweak or play around with?
[06:08:46] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. Well, as I talked about on Monday night, you do a fantastic job with the early literacy focus and also the entertainment value of your children's programs as well too. Your readers' advisory programs too, that focus on authors that focus on topics, I like those as well too. It engages with what's going on in person at your branches as well too. I don't know enough about the in-person programs that you offer that relate to that. But I think sometimes there has to be a connection between what you view online and what programs that you have at certain libraries, and then also having the option or availability at all of your locations as well too. That's one of the things that I've done at Capital Area District Library, is if you're going to have a technology or a STEM-focused program, you've got to have it at all of your libraries. Because if you don't, you're going to be denying someone access. On Monday, I talked about transportation issues and accessibility issues for members of the community. That's why we have that focus and I think library should, because again, not every location is convenient for someone. If you do offer a program, try to have it at many libraries as you can, and then also think of the time that it's offered as well too. Then I'd also talk about accessibility for your collections as well too. You're like us, you are a shared member of that overdrive collection. One, for you, it's heavily used. It's about 400,000 checkouts a year. We're right around that mark as well too. I talked to you about users with dyslexia on Monday night, that collection is amazing for individuals with dyslexia because not only do you have the e-book, you have the audio book as well too. There's a book by an author called Ben Foss that talks about the Dyslexia Empowerment. He talks about, dyslexia should not be something that's shameful. There's different ways that you read. You read with your eyes, you can read with your ears like an audio book or you read with your finger with braille. I think if we're known as an organization that focuses on literacy. You have to have that opportunity for everyone. Whether you have it in print, whether you have a physical copy or whether you have that digital copy, you need to make it easily able to find, and accessible for everyone,.
[06:11:25] JIM LEIJA: Great.
[06:11:28] JIM LEIJA: What person taught you a valuable lesson about life and how has it become a guiding principle?
[06:11:34] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: That's a good one. What person taught me a valuable lesson about life. Do you know Lance Warner from Kent district library? Everybody knows Lance Warner. His is more professional for me. He taught me a very valuable lesson professionally and especially when I was the youngest director. He said be a known entity. I see that as a value because within being that known entity, you're a trusted individual as well too. I've taken that into my work. I take very seriously that I'm in the face of the library as director, and so when I go out to the community, I'm ethical in what I do. I'm ethical in social media that's why I try to stay off social media as [LAUGHTER] well too because you have to be an ethical in everything that you do because you truly are that known entity and the face of an organization. I've been stopped at when I've been shopping at whole foods, I've been stopped when I've been at a library program and they ask me about library stuff or they complain about library stuff. That's why when you are that known entity, you have to be aware of that, and whatever you do into the community, whatever you do in your professional work, whatever you do outside and in your private work, it has to showcase that value as well too. That was one of Lance's wise words and one that I've taken with me because I see the value in that. I like it. I liked being that known entity. I like being the face of the library and it's something that as a director, you need to be comfortable with. I love going on television, I love going on radio, I love speaking to groups, and that's something that's truly important in being a library director.
[06:13:26] JIM LEIJA: Follow-ups.
[06:13:30] DHARMA AKMON: Oh my gosh, my pen is out of ink.
[06:13:32] JIM LEIJA: It's been such a long day.
[06:13:34] DHARMA AKMON: I know, right.
[06:13:34] JIM LEIJA: It was probably pretty new at the beginning.
[06:13:37] DHARMA AKMON: Very picky about my pens too.
[06:13:38] JIM LEIJA: I am too. [LAUGHTER].
[06:13:43] DHARMA AKMON: But this will do.
[06:13:43] JIM LEIJA: I love that you like that.
[06:13:43] DHARMA AKMON: What did we not ask you that you wish to share with us?
[06:13:51] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Is that the ninth question?
[06:13:53] DHARMA AKMON: That's the last question before we turn it over to you. [OVERLAPPING]
[06:13:57] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Let me lean back then and plunder. I talked about why I feel qualified for the position, and one of the things that I always ask potential employees, especially ones for higher-level positions is, why do you want it? Why is there something with your current job that is not going right? Just so I'm clear We're going through this with our finance director being a management position, especially with our finance department, I want to be certain that this is the job that they truly want and why are they considering it. I talked about how I'm qualified and then I alluded a little bit to why would want it. But it's funny because my wife she watched my presentation on Monday and she said, you said like Capital Area District Library like a million times. They're going to think it's a promotional piece for Capital Area District Library and I do love it. It made me who I am as a professional, spending 17 years in an organization and moving up and being a director of that organization. I do love it. You've probably asked, well, why do you want to leave it then? For myself, I see this position as something that I could truly offer to your organization, but also something that your organization could offer me as well too, and that's professional growth. I can tell you that this has been a long week so far, but I love how you've structured it because I came in today so much more relaxed because I already presented to you on Monday because I went out and met staff and interviewed with staff yesterday, it felt like when I drove in, I already knew the parking spot to go to and where to come in the building [LAUGHTER] and it felt comfortable. Back to my original point. It's a position because I can help you and you can help me grow as a professional as well too. One of the things that I look at when looking at other positions is the relationship to the board. I know I talked about that on Monday, but it's something very important for directors, and it should be something very important for directors, that you should look at what's the relationship with the board now between the board members, but also between the director. I can tell you that I looked at your other annual reviews of Josie, and it's amazing. Being a director is, I can tell you, I've done so many jobs at libraries, this is the most difficult job. It's one that can be very lonely at times because you are that sole person sometimes. The voice that you rely on is your management group, but also your board members as well too. For me, I feel working with you, that I could grow as a professional not only by learning with community but with a library system that has a larger budget, that has larger circulation and has a larger reach and engagement with the community as well too. I can help you by the focus that I have, and I know we had a little bit of laugh when I brought it in my initial interview but I know it was a very serious question about me and I was the comfort candidate and it came [LAUGHTER] up in my first talk with Karen, and then it came up when I talked with the executive committee as well too. But I want you to know that I like to be very uncomfortable in my approach to library services, and I truly mean it by looking at the community members that currently use your library, and it's easy for them to use, it's comfortable for them to use. What about those members of the community that it isn't so comfortable for them to use? It's something that I focused on at the Capital Area District Library, and I feel that I could bring that same approach at the Ann Arbor District Library as well too. I know that was a very long explanation to it, but I feel that as I would want to know, why do you truly wanted the position.
[06:18:25] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah. That's helpful. Thank you.
[06:18:28] DHARMA AKMON: Any additional questions before we turn it over to Scott?
[06:18:34] JIM LEIJA: That really stuck with me since your first interview. As libraries were good at providing services for whom the library is convenient. I found that in your presentation last night, just your sense of the value around relational work, that comes out very clearly. But then I also wondered a little bit more about how you think of that relational work alongside the technology space. We are so out there in terms of our online outreach and the tech we're developing, and all of this stuff. I wonder how you think of those things meshing.
[06:19:23] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: They can definitely mesh. I heard loud and clear from talking to your staff that they want someone who is going to continue that innovation, continue that flexibility as far as following interests and being innovative. I understand that because that was one thing, in the current hybrid system that I work at, that I loved as well too. Because that was one thing that allowed me to grow as a professional. Because you could follow your interests and you could see what works, what doesn't work, and you could have successes with that as well too. I think it can work. Because when you have that innovation side and you also work with the under served side. If you can bring the innovation side to the under served, that is amazing. I can give you an example of that. I talked about the student success initiative that I started in Ingham county. That's the one thing that, when I look at professional achievements, one that I'm so proud of. But it's one thing, just like when we talked about diversity, equity, inclusion, it's something that doesn't end. It's not like, "Okay, the kids have library cards. All right, let's go back to the library." [LAUGHTER] We want them to use it and we went them use it for academic success. But we also talk to the students and say, "What else do you need? Is it technology? Is it training? Is it steam focused programs?" And so the answer was yes. [LAUGHTER] We serve some rural communities where there's no commercial provider for Internet access. I know Washtenaw County has this as well too. There's a Broadband task force for Ingham County. The library was included on it because of some of the initiatives that we've taken with merging the technology that we have with helping the under served as well. But one thing that came out of this is, they needed internet access. Not internet access at the library, not internet access in schools, they needed internet access at home. So we said, "Okay. We have hotspots, we'll have hot spots that can only be checked out by students and the students' success program." What we found was, especially one particular rural library, was they weren't returning them. Talking about the policies and disrupting it, rather than getting mad and saying, "We're going to turn that off and you better return it because we have a 100 people waiting in the whole queue for that." I said, "What can we do to help these individuals?" And so I do what I always do when I have something like that, I applied for a grant. We applied for a grant, we received it, and we purchased extended loan hotspots that could only be checked out by students in the most need. Then our first step was, how do we find the student? The school knows. We worked with the school, they identified the students. I don't want to tear up, and being the last interview, and we've had a long day but [LAUGHTER] one of the things that we did and we talked about surveys. Man, I'm going to tear up. [LAUGHTER] Hopefully no one's watching anymore. [LAUGHTER] We did a survey and there's one family in particular, it was truly impactful [LAUGHTER]. It's been a long day. [LAUGHTER] But this family, they had a daughter who had a disability, and they use that hotspot to attend to therapy virtually. They could not attend that therapy firstly, without our help. We just did it as a thing, we said, "Well, students will use it so that they can do their schoolwork longer." This was truly impactful. That's what they said, they said, "No one else would help us with this." So there is a way that you can take technology, you can take innovation, and you can merge it with those groups that are in most need as well. I think once I have this, I stop the tears [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING]. That's one of the things that you learn from me, is I tear up really easily so [OVERLAPPING] Especially during the interview, which [OVERLAPPING].
[06:23:28] JIM LEIJA: Well, it just shows you're passionate about your work.
[06:23:30] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I truly am. Again, it's a merging of innovation, but it's also a merging of realizing everyone deserves library access. Wherever they live in your service area and they pay taxes to it, whether they own a house or whether they rent, they're still paying into the library service. So how can we make sure that all of them get library service. Not everyone wants library service, but if they do want library services, how can we ensure that we can break down any barriers so that they can get that library service. This is a napkin [LAUGHTER].
[06:24:11] DHARMA AKMON: What are your questions for us?
[06:24:14] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I think you alluded to them a little bit, and I'm sure every candidate has asked this one, but what do you want from a director? What are maybe the two top qualities that you want to see in a director?
[06:24:28] DHARMA AKMON: I'll go first this time. [LAUGHTER] I think I said this in our public meeting, and it's something that you alluded to in your conversations with staff. That's at least good to know that we're feeling the same thing. It's the one that's going to continue this culture of innovation. The most striking example of how well it served us was during the crisis of the pandemic starting, and how quickly the staff were able to pivot and offer real value. The bummer game comes to mind. We couldn't do the summer game, they created something new called the bummer game. I'm just so impressed and I would hate to lose that ever, because I think it serves our community so well.
[06:25:07] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. That was a library system as well too when we were all home during stay home, stay safe. That was the only way that we engage, was our virtual programs and our digital collection. Our public let us know that as well.
[06:25:21] DHARMA AKMON: Yes. People have other things to add?
[06:25:25] ONNA SOLOMON: I'll say what I said the last time [LAUGHTER]
[06:25:30] ONNA SOLOMON: That we're a volunteer board and I'm a social worker, so I have a learning curve in understanding the library. Of course, we want to be giving you our opinions about things, but also wanting a director who's going to help guide us in making good decisions.
[06:25:53] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure. I like that. I think that's one of the most important jobs of a director and one that I had to learn. The first year, it was definitely a learning curve. I've served on boards, but that was my first time directly reporting to a board and knowing the communication that was needed, but also the engagement that was needed as well too. I have that now, six years and I feel much more comfortable. But I can tell you, it does take a learning curve for that as well too. But again, as I said, you seem like a fantastic board and one that works really well together, supports the director, but also support the organization. You can see the organization supports you as well too.
[06:26:38] JIM LEIJA: The team of ethos is very important here.
[06:26:40] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I see it.
[06:26:41] JIM LEIJA: I'm sure in your meetings, you discovered that innovation comes from all corners.
[06:26:49] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Correct.
[06:26:51] JIM LEIJA: I don't work here, but I get the sense that it's not a very hierarchical place ultimately. I think there's a lot of value in that it connects very closely innovation.
[06:27:01] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Sure.
[06:27:02] JIM LEIJA: Then also say, it's the things you expect like we're in good financial shape, we'd like it to stay that way. We also are sitting in a real question mark-
[06:27:13] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Correct.
[06:27:14] JIM LEIJA: -right now in this building.
[06:27:15] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Well, your branches are beautiful. [LAUGHTER]
[06:27:18] JIM LEIJA: They are beautiful. Under Josie's leadership with the amazing staff here, we've done all this work on the branches to really show them up. We also continue to work on this building, though for all of us it is a question mark about what we need in a downtown location and how to get there.
[06:27:38] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Correct. Again, I don't have access to tell your statistics, but we're going through this right now. We have the traditional library model was a large main library and you had these satellite branch libraries, which were essentially community libraries, and that's really shifted. The uses is allotted in those community libraries, and so what is the role of that main library as well too? We're going through that same discussion at the Capital Area District as well too. If I was chosen as director, I think I could help with that conversation, but also help on the fundraising side and the idea side of what to use the space as well too.
[06:28:18] JIM LEIJA: Do you have another question for us? I think there's time for one more. [LAUGHTER]
[06:28:29] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Who was the board member who came up with the present 2027?
[06:28:34] JIM LEIJA: I think that's Molly.
[06:28:35] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: [LAUGHTER] That was very good. Very hard, but very good. I will put it back on you. Say it is the year 2027 and the director was reporting on the library, what would you like to see?
[06:28:50] DHARMA AKMON: I nominate Molly to [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGHTER]
[06:28:53] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: I could tell you, as an outsider, I was like, oh, my gosh.
[06:28:59] DHARMA AKMON: I was kidding.
[06:29:00] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I think there are some clear things. I think there's so much that we've learned over the last two years in crisis mode that I would love to see operationalized. We've felt like the shelf services are great example where we're keeping that because it turned out to be so popular. Because some of the adjustments I think are going to be permanent, the things that you and other candidates have talked about in terms of re-engagement and new ways of engaging with the public. That's definitely one thing. I'm not going to give a [LAUGHTER] whole vision.
[06:29:48] DHARMA AKMON: I would love to just see in her report, did we say 2027? What year was that again? That we engaged with a new community that we had not been able to engage with before, or communities.
[06:30:07] JIM LEIJA: You hit on some things that I hope to see you in 2027. I really appreciated your notion of community partnerships that are collective impact partnerships that are about a problem out there that we can collaborate on something together. I also feel like there is more room for us to lead in the DEI space on a lot of different fronts. I wonder what it would be like for us really to become even more of a resource to the community in that way.
[06:30:44] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: So like a facilitator or?
[06:30:45] JIM LEIJA: Maybe. I considered that before. I also would just like to see a big picture of a big scissors cutting a ribbon [LAUGHTER] on the street, on a building that does everything we want it to do. That may be a fantasy, but at least you know where I stand.
[06:31:07] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Exactly. You'll get there.
[06:31:09] JIM LEIJA: I hope so. [LAUGHTER]
[06:31:09] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Well, thank you. I know that it's an extremely difficult process, probably a very stressful process to not only replace an executive director, but replace the Josie Parker. When you mentioned the name Josie, people know that Josie is, there's like four of them now. [LAUGHTER] It's very difficult to replace a director, but also very difficult to replace a long-term director, but very difficult to replace long-term director that made the impact that Josie had made as well too. I know it's stressful, but I feel that myself included you had a very good candidate pool and you had a very good process, you had a very good help along the way as well too. I know it's stressful, but I know that you'll come out on the end no matter who you choose. You'll be in a very good place, because as I met with your staff yesterday, you can feel it when you walk in, they were engaged and they were happy. They told me where to work when the snow is falling, come out and work at the Travers Wood branch because it's simply beautiful. The branch is lovely. It's amazing. They were truly engaged and friendly.
[06:32:41] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: All of you as well too. I just want to thank you because in this entire process, I had an outsider perspective of the Ann Arbor District Library, and now I feel that I have a somewhat insider perspective of it as well too, and I've been very, very impressed. These three days, it felt very comfortable coming in here and engaging with all of you, and so I just wanted to end by thanking you for all of that.
[06:33:06] JIM LEIJA: Well, thank you, Scott. Thanks for your time today and this week.
[06:33:09] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: You're welcome
[06:33:10] JIM LEIJA: It's been really a pleasure talking with you and learning more about what you do. Good luck tonight-
[06:33:16] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Thank you. [LAUGHTER]
[06:33:16] JIM LEIJA: -in your board meeting and performance evaluation. [LAUGHTER] How many boards can you stand in front of in one day is really the question. But thanks so much.
[06:33:27] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: You're welcome.
[06:33:28] JIM LEIJA: We will be in touch soon.
[06:33:30] SCOTT DUIMSTRA: Thank you so much.
[06:33:32] DHARMA AKMON: Thank you.
[06:33:32] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you.
[06:33:35] JIM LEIJA: Ten-minute break?
[06:33:38] Toby: [MUSIC] Oh boy oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Today is the day I get to go camping. I better get Toby. Toby, no. Toby, no. Toby, there you are.
[06:34:25] Toby: Hey, Otto, you're ready to go?
[06:34:28] Otto: I certainly am, Toby. Do you have everything packed?
[06:34:32] Toby: I have everything except your to-go bag. Do you have that?
[06:34:35] Otto: Yeah. I put it by the front door. I've got my clothes and my fishing pole and my hat. I'm all set to see the great state of Michigan.
[06:34:46] Toby: All right, seems like we're almost ready to go. There's one more thing to do. We've got to call Lucy and make sure she's got everything she needs to host the show.
[06:34:55] Otto: I'm on it.
[06:34:56] Lucy: [NOISE] Is that the phone? Hello.
[06:35:06] Otto: Hi, Lucy. Oh boy, am I excited? Me and Toby are going camping today.
[06:35:11] Lucy: I'm glad you're finally getting to go.
[06:35:14] Otto: Thanks, Lucy. Do you have everything you need to host the show?
[06:35:19] Lucy: I sure do. As a matter of fact, I was just reading a book about Michigan.
[06:35:25] Otto: Glad to know you're prepared, although I didn't expect anything else. I hope you have fun hosting the show. Bye. [MUSIC]
[06:36:13] Lucy: Good morning, everyone and welcome to The Saturday Show. [NOISE] Was that my doorbell? Hold on a second, I better get that. Hello.
[06:36:30] Clarissa: Hello.
[06:36:31] Lucy: You're a flamingo in Michigan.
[06:36:37] Clarissa: I'm Clarissa. I left my home in the Caribbean four days ago.
[06:36:42] Lucy: The Caribbean? That's quite a distance. You want to come in? It sounds like you flew from a very great distance to get here.
[06:36:55] Clarissa: I as a flamingo can fly over 350 miles at one time. I stopped here today because I saw all this water from up above. What is this place?
[06:37:17] Lucy: Well, this is Michigan.
[06:37:19] Clarissa: Michigan? Tell me all about it; food, water sources, culture.
[06:37:27] Lucy: Well, Clarissa, I'm not from Michigan either, but you know, I have an idea about who we could ask. I bet that The Saturday Show friends could help us out. What is it that you want to know?
[06:37:40] Clarissa: Absolutely everything.
[06:37:42] Lucy: Well, we'll start with my friends Kashi and Christopher, who will tell us the word of the day?
[06:37:46] Clarissa: Word of the day. Can't wait.
[06:37:55] Christopher: Marco.
[06:37:56] Kashi: [LAUGHTER] Polo.
[06:38:13] Christopher: Marco.
[06:38:14] Kashi: Polo.
[06:38:20] Christopher: Marco.
[06:38:22] Kashi: [LAUGHTER] Polo.
[06:38:23] Christopher: Hey Kashi, there you are.
[06:38:27] Kashi: You found me?
[06:38:27] Christopher: I did and look who else I found.
[06:38:29] Kashi: Hi, Lexi.
[06:38:31] Christopher: [LAUGHTER] It's Lexi. You know Kashi, we're filming on location today, location in Michigan because this episode is all about Michigan.
[06:38:42] Kashi: Where are we?
[06:38:43] Christopher: Well, we're at the Peony Garden in the Ann Arbor, on the campus of the University of Michigan and the peonies are just about the pop.
[06:38:53] Kashi: Wait. So we're in a garden full of flowers called peonies.
[06:38:57] Christopher: That's right, and they're going to be so beautiful. I just love it here. Are you ready for our word of the day?
[06:39:05] Kashi: Yeah.
[06:39:05] Christopher: Okay. Let's talk to Lexi and see what she's got for us. Well, let's see what it says. Can you read this Kashi?
[06:39:21] Kashi: It says paw paw
[06:39:23] Christopher: [LAUGHTER] That's right, it does say paw paw.
[06:39:25] Kashi: What's a paw paw.
[06:39:26] Christopher: Well, a paw paw is a delicious fruit. You have to wait until it gets a little bit soft, and it's also a city in Southwest Michigan. Are you ready for the summer game code?
[06:39:40] Kashi: Yeah.
[06:39:41] Christopher: Okay. Here it is. It's nine letters.
[06:39:44] Speaker 1: Wow.
[06:39:45] Kashi: It means a piece of land that's surrounded on three sides by water, and Michigan is very famous for it. [OVERLAPPING]
[06:39:54] Kashi: Oh, I see.
[06:39:55] Clarissa: For both of them [LAUGHTER]
[06:39:58] Kashi: Okay.
[06:39:59] Clarissa: Well, if you think you know the answer, you can go to play.aadl.org for?
[06:40:05] Kashi: Big points.
[06:40:06] Clarissa: That's right. Until next time, Happy Michigan.
[06:40:12] Christopher: Marco.
[06:40:13] Clarissa: Polo. [LAUGHTER]
[06:40:17] Lucy: [MUSIC] So Michigan is very large. Was there something specific that you wanted to learn about?
[06:40:23] Clarissa: Do you know that the beautiful color of my feathers comes in large part from what I eat? I am very curious to know what kind of foodstuffs are grown locally so that I may think about enhancing my brilliant image. Perhaps a rich yield fruit?
[06:40:54] Lucy: Michigan does have a rich history of food and agriculture. Let's check in with A Shark to learn more about this.
[06:41:18] A Shark: [MUSIC] Hey, it's A Shark wandering around Michigan, trying to find some snacks for Clarissa. Let's take a look at the ground to see if there's any shrimp or fish to munch on. What's this? A tiny dolphin brain?
[06:41:39] Farmer Pete: No, A shark. That's what humans call an apple.
[06:41:44] A Shark: Thanks, Farmer Pete, whoever you are. Do humans often eat them?
[06:41:51] Farmer Pete: Well, sure. Have a bite.
[06:42:01] A Shark: [NOISE] Yum, that was delicious. Where does such a apple come from? Are there more?
[06:42:12] Farmer Pete: Why sure there are, A Shark. In this special part of West Michigan, we're surrounded by apple trees. They grow easily in this fertile area called the Fruit Ridge.
[06:42:25] A Shark: Wow. So are you telling me that the Fruit Ridge was formed millions of years ago when glaciers pushed the land into gentle rolling hills, leaving behind clay loam soils with superior moisture-holding qualities and because of its proximity to Lake Michigan, provides a unique climate that is ideal for growing fruit and vegetables?
[06:42:53] Farmer Pete: That's exactly what I'm telling you.
[06:42:57] A Shark: What a fruity wonder then, Farmer Pete. Well, Clarissa, it's an all-you-can-eat apple buffet over here on West Michigan's Fruit Ridge.
[06:43:10] Clarissa: Wonderful. So many different types of apples to give a boost to my chromatic feathers.
[06:43:22] Speaker 3: Is your curiosity being satisfied so far?
[06:43:25] Clarissa: Well, you scratched the surface but I'd like to know more.
[06:43:33] Speaker 3: Do you like guessing games? [MUSIC]
[06:43:46] Clarissa: What is it? This delectable-looking dish is a favorite of many Michiganders. We start with steamed hot dog bun and add a grilled hot dog. [OVERLAPPING]
[06:44:04] JIM LEIJA: So we can carry on and not have to order dinner.
[06:45:25] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND] [MUSIC]
[06:45:39] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND][LAUGHTER]
[06:45:42] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND]
[06:45:44] BACKGROUND: [BACKGROUND]
[06:45:47] JIM LEIJA: Yeah, that's fine.
[06:45:48] KAREN MILLER: Okay.
[06:45:51] JIM LEIJA: Well, thanks, everyone. Wow. That was an incredible day.
[06:45:56] KAREN MILLER: And darn it, it's not even over yet.
[06:45:57] JIM LEIJA: It's not over yet. We have some discussing and decisions to make.
[06:46:03] KAREN MILLER: Now that everybody's back, what we want to do is before we start any conversation now that you've had a chance to see all four finalists yet again, we want you to pull out your post-it notes and what we would like for you to do is take a few minutes. We don't want to rush you, but we also know you want to start discussions so just bear in mind, this is just a gut check basically. I want to remind you to put your name on it so we know whose is whose, and then I want you to rank the finalists in order of preference just from your own perspective. Bear in mind, this is not any kind of major decision. This is just a start conversation just based on your own personal feelings at this time.
[06:46:46] KAREN MILLER: Okay.
[06:46:46] JIM LEIJA: One being most preferred, four being least preferred.
[06:46:50] KAREN MILLER: Top of the list should have your Number 1 candidate basically, and then move your way down through four. [OVERLAPPING] When you have that and you want us to come take it, just wave your thing and I will come get it. [BACKGROUND] If I can hold it for another second exactly. Thanks.
[06:47:30] JIM LEIJA: [LAUGHTER] Sequestering. [BACKGROUND] Thank you. [NOISE] [LAUGHTER] [NOISE] Oh, it's another. I love being involved, although [BACKGROUND] the tiny tip is too tiny for me. That's not right size.
[06:48:25] DHARMA AKMON: [INAUDIBLE]
[06:48:26] JIM LEIJA: I think it's also weird.
[06:48:28] DHARMA AKMON: [INAUDIBLE] .
[06:48:28] JIM LEIJA: It's not as quite as like fine.
[06:48:33] KAREN MILLER: That's okay.
[06:48:36] JIM LEIJA: [BACKGROUND]
[06:48:45] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Are you talking about Muji pens?
[06:48:48] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Doesn't make [INAUDIBLE].
[06:48:50] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Jim [NOISE] my Muji pen's over here.
[06:48:53] JIM LEIJA: Oh yeah [LAUGHTER].
[06:48:56] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I love them.
[06:48:56] JIM LEIJA: I was like, what other Muji things do I have? I have a little pencil case in here.
[06:49:03] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I think I have another Muji I can lend you, but you have to give it back [LAUGHTER].
[06:49:08] JIM LEIJA: This is also a thing for Muji.
[06:49:10] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Oh yeah. I have Muji pouches. [LAUGHTER] My brother got me a sweater from the Muji store in LA.
[06:49:16] JIM LEIJA: Okay. [LAUGHTER] Love it.
[06:49:18] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I got this one. [BACKGROUND]
[06:49:27] JIM LEIJA: [NOISE] Oh yeah. [BACKGROUND] You don't like the feel of it, you really aren't. [LAUGHTER] I know it's a great tragedy of not having been to New York City in so long.
[06:49:43] MOLLY KLEINMAN: My brother lived in LA and he was my source.
[06:49:45] JIM LEIJA: He would just send them to you.
[06:49:48] MOLLY KLEINMAN: For Hanukkah, it was just the Muji store and he would just again.
[06:49:50] JIM LEIJA: Love it. Such good stuff. [NOISE] [BACKGROUND]. It's been pretty interesting because it does actually change. It's surprising. [BACKGROUND] They're very like density of posting. [BACKGROUND]
[06:51:46] ONNA SOLOMON: That's like immediate feedback [LAUGHTER] right there.
[06:51:52] JIM LEIJA: They are.
[06:51:52] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: [LAUGHTER] Oh, my goodness. It's the definition of [OVERLAPPING] another guy I guess [LAUGHTER].
[06:51:53] SCOTT TRUDEAU: [BACKGROUND] Finally. [LAUGHTER] [NOISE]
[06:51:59] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I already have one. I don't need now. I'm good. I have my one.
[06:52:04] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Thank you.
[06:52:05] ONNA SOLOMON: Thank you. [OVERLAPPING]
[06:52:06] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I think I'm wearing mine today.
[06:52:12] ONNA SOLOMON: [LAUGHTER] Dharma is like wait, wait. [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING]
[06:52:18] MOLLY KLEINMAN: It's so good. It's the perfect cheese board when you have lunch with cheese.
[06:52:22] SCOTT TRUDEAU: It's a good size. I have one that's too skinny and I have one that's too big [NOISE].
[06:52:26] MOLLY KLEINMAN: No, I just bring it to the table and it's my plate and I have cheese and crackers for lunch.
[06:52:31] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I'm hungry now.
[06:52:33] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Sorry.
[06:52:33] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I’m going to have a charcuterie dinner.
[06:52:35] MOLLY KLEINMAN: So good. [LAUGHTER] It was like one of my pandemic meals.
[06:52:38] JIM LEIJA: [INAUDIBLE] The Excel file. [NOISE]
[06:53:23] KAREN MILLER: I'm happy to say that you all seem to be fairly close on the same page.
[06:53:28] ONNA SOLOMON: Okay. I was worried we'd be like [LAUGHTER] starting from a farther part.
[06:53:32] JIM LEIJA: From like a way-off place.
[06:53:36] ONNA SOLOMON: [LAUGHTER] I don't know why I think so pessimistic.
[06:53:43] DHARMA AKMON: Before we show these, I'd just like to say from my perspective, we had four very excellent candidates.
[06:53:52] DHARMA AKMON: I was extremely impressed listening to all of them. I would just hate for that to get lost as the rankings get shown.
[06:53:59] KAREN MILLER: That's a great point, Dharma and actually, I would say the same. I felt like you've had the strongest pool of candidates we've seen a long time, honestly, since the pandemic began, I would say, if not longer. [OVERLAPPING] You had very talented people to choose from. I honestly thought it was a very tough decision throughout the process, but I felt like you were very consistently good at identifying strong talent.
[06:54:25] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yeah. I want to second that. I was really impressed with all four candidates. I mean, it was amazing. I learned so much.
[06:54:34] KAREN MILLER: Well and I can promise you that anybody who is not selected for this job will be heavily recruited by us.
[06:54:41] JIM LEIJA: Yes, I'm sure no doubt. I'm still thinking it back on Josie's retirement day and had got up and said, we didn't need to have a national search back then. I disagree with it [LAUGHTER]. I do believe, of course, in really seriously nurturing our talent within it. But I also think this was a good learning opportunity for us just to see what the field's like and what's happening at other libraries, we don't do that a whole lot. Also, just to learn of these different flavors of philosophies that people bring to this work. What their starting places and how they envision the work? Just really, I found it to be energizing and informative. I just appreciate the process you've taken us through.
[06:55:38] KAREN MILLER: We're happy to do it.
[06:55:39] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. All right is it time?
[06:55:42] KAREN MILLER: I hope so.
[06:55:42] ONNA SOLOMON: Drum roll.
[06:55:46] JIM LEIJA: Drum roll.
[06:55:46] KAREN MILLER: Perfect timing.
[06:55:47] JIM LEIJA: Great.
[06:55:48] KAREN MILLER: Okay. Again, why I asked you to rank them each, in order of preference, and as you all noted, that does not make someone less qualified for this job. It's just, this is based on gut preference. You could change your mind at any point in this conversation as to who you decide to make a potential offer to. The one thing I would say is it will be great to have a little conversation and then we will share the survey responses. We did a summary report this morning and we have copies for you to share, but we'd like you to have a chance to have your own conversation before you start looking at other people's input. Then we will talk a little bit about if you're ready to make an offer and what that might look like. The executive committee was going to talk about more of the details of that. Correct?
[06:56:38] JIM LEIJA: Yes, that's right. Well, we will just have a short preliminary conversation about how to structure the offer.
[06:56:45] KAREN MILLER: Correct.
[06:56:46] JIM LEIJA: Can you explain what the numbers actually mean?
[06:56:51] KAREN MILLER: Sure. Where'd they go? You just saw a set of numbers. A lot of times we will have two sets of numbers. One will be the rank score, and then the number of people that selected them. You all put four names on your list so it was a moot point. Seven people, seven responses, you put all of them on your list.
[06:57:14] JIM LEIJA: Got it.
[06:57:15] KAREN MILLER: The ranking score is based on where they placed on your list. The first person who was presumed your top preference was given four points. Then the second person three, the third person two, and then last person, one.
[06:57:29] JIM LEIJA: Got it. Four, 3, 2, 1. Oh, they changed. [LAUGHTER].
[06:57:36] KAREN MILLER: Did the number get bumped?
[06:57:37] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Okay. I was confused about those numbers. This makes more sense.
[06:57:40] KAREN MILLER: Yeah, it gets a little funky. This is the way to score based on seven individuals. The highest score one could get would be seven times four, 28, which someone got.
[06:57:52] JIM LEIJA: Great.
[06:57:52] KAREN MILLER: Thanks for fixing it quickly. So there you have it. Every person who submitted, all seven of you, had Eli at the top of your list.
[06:58:13] JIM LEIJA: Great.
[06:58:16] KAREN MILLER: Now it's time to have a little conversation about what you liked in different individuals. Although, I will say you don't have to have a lot of conversation if you're feeling comfortable with this decision, but I want you to talk it out a little bit.
[06:58:29] JIM LEIJA: Sure. Can we take this down now that everyone has seen it?
[06:58:33] KAREN MILLER: Absolutely.
[06:58:33] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[06:58:38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's really powerful to see that though. I think that's like a long journey to get to see that, especially for a particular individual, but for us too.
[06:58:49] KAREN MILLER: Sometimes people will be like, why do we do this when we knew we had a great internal candidate? But what you did was you gave Eli the opportunity to show that he is absolutely competitive against the best of the best. He still is incredibly strong. Honestly, if you hadn't, I'll put him at the top of your list and did end up offering the job. Guarantee, we'd be recruiting. [LAUGHTER]
[06:59:15] DHARMA AKMON: I'll start. What I loved about Eli's presentation on Monday night was no less about the content, but more about like how it showcased the creativity of his thinking and ability to respond to crisis. Like, did I want to hear that there might be a pandemic in the future? He kind of took it to a sci-fi level. [LAUGHTER] But honestly, I think, it showcased his personality and his approach to leadership and the thing that we keep talking about, that we love so much about this organization which is innovation and creative thinking. That to me, just a really stood out.
[07:00:09] MOLLY KLEINMAN: For me coming into this, I was very determined to keep an open mind about all the candidates, even knowing that Eli was stellar. But at every step of the process that I saw, reading those application materials, the presentation, Eli was just so stellar at each step of the process. The letter blew me away. The presentation blew me away. I'm really grateful that we have this national search so that I could see that. I will also say, just zooming out a little bit in terms of how we're going to have this conversation, for me, there was a pretty big gap between the top two and the other two. The scores suggest that that wasn't the case for everyone, but I'm just going to put that out there in terms of how we want to direct our discussion going forward.
[07:01:00] JIM LEIJA: I mean, you should say more about that.
[07:01:05] JIM LEIJA: I think you should say more about that.
[07:01:08] MOLLY KLEINMAN: There was confidence of vision in both Scott and Eli that I think is going to be really important in this role. They were different visions. But I think with both of them, I felt like I knew what the vision was pretty clearly. Again, the various supporting materials, the presentations and everything else. I'll reinforce that for me.
[07:01:40] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[07:01:44] ONNA SOLOMON: Yeah. I think that I agree with everything that you're saying. For me, the thing about Eli's materials and presentation and interview that really struck me and that I think is a huge value of the AADL is a sense of playfulness and fun that came through so strongly. I can understand how that might be hard for someone from the outside to bring to their presentation because they're trying to be professional. But that ability to infuse playfulness and fun into a completely professional, polished, excellent presentation is just this unique ability that he has that's remarkable.
[07:02:39] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I guess we're going around the room.
[07:02:42] SCOTT TRUDEAU: I can jump in. I'll say, I agree with the sentiments on the table. I think building on one of the things I noticed with the presentation is the innovation that Eli would describe in response to what we're anticipating. This sci-fi future set of challenges weren't technology for technology's sake. A lot of the innovative programming was very not technical, but it was addressing specifically the imagined scenario we found ourselves in. Despite the fact that he's know for using technology creatively. Recognizing that isn't necessarily how we need to solve the problem with the latest and greatest. Where some of the other candidates, I felt like there was slipping in like buzzword tech just to make it seem like they were hip to the lingo. [LAUGHTER] Little bit where I felt like Eli really grasped what that means in a fundamental way.
[07:03:41] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I really appreciated the healthy skepticism.
[07:03:47] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Will say to that end, I received some communication from someone I know who's a vendor. That's her profession. I was reminded that there are a lot of vendors in this town because ProQuest and Ithaka are here. They're literally our patrons and I do think that we should be mindful that's the professional passion of a lot of people who live in this town. I guess vendors aren't necessarily evil entities. [LAUGHTER] I do think that we should probably acknowledge that as much as I do tend to skew towards this. I think the direction or decisions about independence from a digital licensing standpoint have been super smart and have been the right ones for this institution. The university has to make different decisions because it needs to have a completely different set of resources for its community. That point is taken. I want to acknowledge that I received that feedback and just share it with you all.
[07:04:56] DHARMA AKMON: I think it's also worth bringing up this was before we did any interviews and I'm probably going to mess up the details. But we got an email from the representatives of I think two of the unionized groups of staff here who strongly indicated that they would want Eli to have the position. I guess I just want to put a pin in that because I think right now we have such a crisis of leadership in organizations because of the tumultuous time. People are generally not very happy with leadership in my experience and so to have that is amazing and impressive.
[07:05:39] KAREN MILLER: It's not something that I see every day.
[07:05:43] ONNA SOLOMON: Yeah. I hope it's okay for me to say this. But I had probably a dozen different community members that I know contact me independently to be like it's going to be Eli. It has to be Eli. You can't let him go. I was like I'm not talking to you about this. [LAUGHTER] But he's a strong candidate. [LAUGHTER] Every constituency that I've heard from was giving us feedback that they want him to be in this role and I think that's really powerful. I will say I also agree that I felt Scott's vision. I felt Scott was an incredibly strong candidate for this position. The comfort choice. He clearly would do an excellent job in this position and if it wasn't for Eli's strength and history with the organization, I would have been so happy to have him fill down role. Just to throw that out there.
[07:07:04] JIM LEIJA: He's a really clear, focused communicator. The styles are just really different. Scott, just having had the experience in the director role, I think it's just a big plus. I see in them two different sides of the library coin and I am really drawn to these ideas of solving for greater community good through collaboration. I have often thought that it's a little bit of a deficit for us in the sense that we push out and we don't sign-on or invite in or join on. But I also don't think that that isn't anything that can't be encouraged and developed and grown.
[07:08:13] JIM LEIJA: It's really difficult to say that Eli isn't the top candidate when you look at the track record, just period. I thought his interview today was exceptional. He did a lot of things in the interview that I just think really showed me some different sides of him actually than I've seen in working very closely in board meetings and that is exactly what he needed to do. I saw some vulnerability, I saw some conversational stuff. I think this idea of unpacking how he thinks about the user community was really helpful to me to hear it. It also opens a door for all of us to have a different conversation about what we might want to see the library do. I mean, I listened and I also would say to all of us that we should push him on the idea of who are you after Josie? Because I think we want things to be great and then greater.
[07:09:22] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Right.
[07:09:23] JIM LEIJA: I'm excited to see him figure that out and also be supported by us in doing that. I listened today a lot with the hat on of what does it mean to onboard you? Also just we can't fall into the mind frame that he's fully formed. This will be a totally new role. There will be unexpected responsibilities and experiences that he will have to learn his way through. I think it's really exciting and I also think then that idea of who am I beyond my long partnership with Josie will become clearer. I just thought it was a sensational interview. I also thought Scott's interview was pretty sensational too. If I could interviewed like that I would just die [LAUGHTER] I mean, the tone, and the empathy, and the passionate about the job and just specific examples and really clearly doing some really impactful work in his community. But for me, I just thought Eli, he stood out in the process in a way that I was really hoping he would. Yeah.
[07:10:43] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I have one more thing I wanted to add about Eli specifically, which was that I really appreciated both in his presentation and in the interview today, the way that he was really operationalizing the diversity, equity, and inclusion values. He was verbing them in a variety of different ways. He's talking about how he's putting them into practice, very specific actions and decisions across a lot of different areas of the library. That really stood out to me. That's how I someday hope to be able to do that in my own work. I thought that's really important piece for me.
[07:11:27] DHARMA AKMON: I really appreciated what he said about keeping the heart of the organization warm and [OVERLAPPING] I think that's how he put it [LAUGHTER] and how central Josie's personality was to that and that he's not like that. I just thought it showed a lot of self-awareness and how he's worked to be more emotionally empathetic and that's something that he has to work on. That to me was just insightful and it just gives me confidence when someone's aware of themselves to that degree. I'm not expecting him to be Josie because he's allowed to be his own person, but I think that warmth is also important.
[07:12:10] JIM LEIJA: [LAUGHTER] Here comes paper [LAUGHTER]
[07:12:19] KAREN MILLER: I asked Brian to share with you the feedback from the staff and the presentation attendees.
[07:12:26] SCOTT TRUDEAU: While that goes around maybe I can share my worry, which I don't think [OVERLAPPING] is overwhelming, but anything else so the worry with hiring Eli and eliminating the deputy director [OVERLAPPING] position, especially after hearing Scott talk about the experience in the capital area and how eliminating that position made his position that he inherited than that much more difficult and it's been incredibly difficult to backfill the gap created by eliminating that position. I do worry about what that means for the leadership team here to make sure they have what they need to do their jobs effectively with one fewer people. I think I have all confidence in the team that we have, I think our staff is excellent all the way. But that is one worry I have. I don t think that's overwhelmed by, if we hired anybody else, the thought of losing Eli, I think would be a big loss to the organization. I don't think it's worth making the decision on that point, but that is the concern I have for us and for the organization going forward. What does the new leadership look like? Well, we have the capacity and are we creating potential future strain that we might want to think about?
[07:13:37] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I wrote that down too Scott.
[07:13:40] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. I think that's something we have to probe more with him. Also, just think about if it's not a deputy director position how to retain the FTE in a leadership role that might be conducive to his vision.
[07:13:54] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Exactly. It's not so much a comment about the team. His comment about the team resonated with me. But maybe that means elevating someone from the team and then adding person underneath that. But I think eliminating the position, when Scott said that, I went back on my notes and added another yes plus one to retaining deputy director.
[07:14:17] JIM LEIJA: Let's not forget, we're also down a financial manager right now too and that's another administrative gap that we people have to address if he's chosen by us and accepts the job. One way that I might approach that would be turn around and ask the question of like, he talked a lot about the programmatic innovation work that he's more now delegating or is there space there for someone that more formally takes up that innovation roll or something like that? I don't know. I'm not going to prescribe it because I'm not the director of the library [LAUGHTER] But I'd be happy to entertain the conversation about it.
[07:15:01] DHARMA AKMON: Yeah. I was struck too when he said that he is much more hands-on than Josie, I mean that's the nature of a deputy director position.
[07:15:08] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[07:15:08] DHARMA AKMON: He's going to have to change that approach I think [LAUGHTER]
[07:15:14] JIM LEIJA: It's true [LAUGHTER]
[07:15:18] ONNA SOLOMON: Yeah. I will say I was happy to hear that he had already delegated the descriptions of the summer game prizes [LAUGHTER] because I still think they're really funny [LAUGHTER] so he did a good job that I didn't know that he wasn't still writing them.
[07:15:38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I do want to say that I wrote down things that I loved about each of them in a separate little note book and I really loved that Aaron said that yes is a stable and consistent policy, I want to adopt that in my own work. I loved when Eli said that he was a balloon in the middle of the room [LAUGHTER] I thought that Kristin's work with the fund balances is exceptional and really to be commended and noted. I wrote down in all capital letters made Onna cry [LAUGHTER] Scott really gave an excellent interview. I was so impressed and I think any library would be lucky to have him as a director. I especially appreciated the power pose in the morning also [LAUGHTER].
[07:16:25] JIM LEIJA: Yes, I am in that club as well. I also just stepped back and I thought, gosh, this is a really privileged system. I don't ever want that to be like a blind spot for us. One of the things you get from an outsider coming in is that they're aware of how privileged we are here and so I just want us to remember that. I don't want to have a blind spot for how functional, fiscally sound we are and what that presents to us in terms of opportunity of innovation of all kinds, both in terms of our community relationships and the technology interventions, content creation, etc. Does everyone understand this? Do you want to interpret it for us? [LAUGHTER].
[07:17:23] KAREN MILLER: I was waiting for you guys to just--
[07:17:24] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[07:17:25] KAREN MILLER: Keep an eye little.
[07:17:28] JIM LEIJA: Also Kerene do you want to chime in in any way?
[07:17:31] KERENE MOORE: Honestly, I think Eli has put in a lot of work over the years when I text the summer games, he's the one who responds. Even if he doesn't sign his name, I'm like that is totally Eli and it's on a Saturday [LAUGHTER] he's not just creative and innovative, he's trustworthy and accurate in his analysis of data. I think that's really important for us. We can trust that things that are important to us that have made this library what it is. It's something we love and he's a huge part of that and for me that's pretty undeniable. How we structure to make sure he has the right support. I think he's going to be open-minded. I think Josie also left us her advice on what that should look like and we trusted Josie [LAUGHTER] There's a lot to be said for that. A lot of respect, lot of love for Eli. Not surprised at the numbers.
[07:18:47] JIM LEIJA: Thanks.
[07:18:49] KAREN MILLER: Well, what this document is, is a summary of the responses from the feedback from anyone who participated in the presentations, which includes potentially people from YouTube watching online, as well as staff. We've broken the group out into the management and administration, and I think we have accidentally spelled administrator wrong. Sorry to say. We were trying to do this fast. We have the administrative group separated out, the leadership team basically the staff that participated either by viewing the presentations or participating yesterday in the interactions there. We also have others that attended from the presentation primarily in the third group that says volunteer, friends and foundation. Then on the back of the page, you have the total responses. Now what these numbers mean? We've asked anyone who completed the feedback form to rate people from a scale of 1-5, with five being the highest and one being the lowest. Then these numbers represent the overall response per group. I want to just point out that, that the last category that says overall impression it is rated it is not a calculated score. People chose those numbers they didn't calculate from the other ones that they filled in. What you can tell from this is we highlighted the person who had the highest score from each group in each category so very consistently Eli hit the top of the range with each group. There's only one area where seven respondents that were volunteers, friends, and foundation hit on another candidate aside from Eli with a higher score. That's the only one in the entire chart.
[07:20:53] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
[07:20:56] KAREN MILLER: What we wanted you to get from this was whether you had the same basic perspectives as the other people who were able to participate in any aspect of this process. It confirms that you're all on the same page [LAUGHTER] I guess my question to you now is do you feel comfortable moving forward with offering position to Eli? Will anyone not feel comfortable with that?
[07:21:29] JIM LEIJA: Well, I'd like to make a motion that the board authorized the search committee to make an offer to Eli Neiburger to be our next director.
[07:21:38] DHARMA AKMON: Second.
[07:21:40] JIM LEIJA: That’s a second?
[07:21:41] JIM LEIJA: [LAUGHTER] Great. Any other discussion?
[07:21:48] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I just think in the course of that offer, I don't know at what point it's appropriate, but I do think we want to encourage him to think about his initial leadership plan I think that's a pretty important. Just he start thinking about how he plus Josie is two people, more than two people [LAUGHTER].
[07:22:08] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[07:22:09] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: What capacity does he need and he can have nice things. In terms of this is not a scarcity situation in terms of we want them to have what they need to do the best work that they can do.
[07:22:25] JIM LEIJA: I'm also going to insist that he take a healthy period of [LAUGHTER] time off between his current responsibilities and officially becoming director. I just think a actual break in time is a good one. I can't force him to do that, but I will encourage it.
[07:22:47] JIM LEIJA: Anything else anybody wants to add?
[07:22:51] ONNA SOLOMON: I'll just second that I do think from hierarchical standpoint, I don't know exactly what needs to be filled, but I think elimination isn't the right, I think there needs to be a conversation about if there's a restructuring and where those positions need to be filled and he'll be able to know what that is, but just seconding that, we want that supportive structure for him as he moves into the position. Because he is a powerhouse of work, but he can't be answering people's emails anymore like that. [LAUGHTER]
[07:23:38] DHARMA AKMON: He really doesn't need to feel like he needs to save us money because he doesn't have the ALA. [LAUGHTER]
[07:23:46] MOLLY KLEINMAN: I just wanted to say that we will figure that out.
[07:23:47] JIM LEIJA: That is not a problem.
[07:23:48] KERENE MOORE: We already have figured it out. It's a non-issue.
[07:23:51] JIM LEIJA: Yeah, it's a non-issue.
[07:23:53] MOLLY KLEINMAN: But it doesn't require some slicing right out of the gate.
[07:23:56] JIM LEIJA: Yeah. No, absolutely not. It's a non-issue for us. To everyone's point, I think there's just a reflective and explicit, intentional set of on-boarding and starting out activities that can happen that will likely be done mostly by the executive committee, but we'll also be doing this as a group as well. Do we have to do a roll call vote? Call ‘em out Karen, let's do it.
[07:24:32] KAREN WILSON: [INAUDIBLE] roll call. [LAUGHTER]
[07:24:34] JIM LEIJA: I would think so.
[07:24:37] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Akmon.
[07:24:37] DHARMA AKMON: A very enthusiastic yes.
[07:24:40] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Kleinman.
[07:24:41] MOLLY KLEINMAN: Yes.
[07:24:43] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Leija.
[07:24:44] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[07:24:45] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Moore.
[07:24:46] KERENE MOORE: One hundred percent, yes.
[07:24:48] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Solomon.
[07:24:49] ONNA SOLOMON: Yes.
[07:24:50] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Trudeau.
[07:24:52] SCOTT TRUDEAU: Yes.
[07:24:53] KAREN WILSON: Trustee Vander.
[07:24:54] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
[07:24:56] JIM LEIJA: Sounds like the motion passes. Congratulations to everyone for getting this far. Also congratulations to Eli, wherever you might be in the ether. This puts us on a path to making an offer. It's not official until it's official. But wow, what an incredible amount of process and work. I'm very happy that we're here at this point.
[07:25:24] DHARMA AKMON: I would like to actually say especially thank you to Jim, for leading this process. It's been a ton of work just watching you do it so long. [APPLAUSE]
[07:25:34] JIM LEIJA: Thank you. I learned a lot, and it's been a really good process. I'm also happy that the work of it will be tapering down. [LAUGHTER] What will happen next is Dharma, Kerene and I are going to peel off with Karen and Brian for a few minutes just to get them started on the next steps for the offer. What you've done is you've given us the ability to make an offer and negotiate with the, Karen just threw a pencil. Where did that come from? [LAUGHTER] We just got stuff from the heavens. [LAUGHTER] It's the ghost. We'll go through that process. Then when we have the result of it we'll bring it back to all of you.
[07:26:27] KAREN MILLER: When you say bring it back to all of you, are saying we're going to just step away everyone's staying?
[07:26:32] JIM LEIJA: No. Well, not today. Meaning that we're going to give you instructions right now. Then Karen and Brian will go to do all of that negotiating. We will not have probably a quick answer on the offer for a couple of reasons. It'll be a process.
[07:26:57] KAREN MILLER: We'll certainly share information with the committee that we've been working with over time, just to keep everybody in the loop. We will reach out to Eli today and just let him know. We're going to reach out to all four of them today to make sure everybody knows where they stand. Normally, I would have asked you if you had a second in mind, but I'm pretty confident that you're going to be able to come to terms with Eli. That's in my view. To bear in mind, it's not over yet.
[07:27:26] JIM LEIJA: That's right.
[07:27:27] KAREN MILLER: That's really my point.
[07:27:28] JIM LEIJA: If we can cross that bridge, since we're all out in the open. I hope that you'll just convey me now, do it right now because they may go back watch the video. But I hope you just convey to the other finalists that they were all truly impressive and we enjoyed meeting them so very much.
[07:27:47] KAREN MILLER: Without a doubt.
[07:27:47] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
[07:27:47] KAREN MILLER: I'm not kidding when I say, I think we had a really incredibly strong pool, and I will happily recruit any of them for future positions. I thought everyone stood up well. They did excellent work. They really put their hearts into this. This is one of the reasons I enjoy this work, is that I'm likely to be in this cheerleader and I want to see everyone succeed. Maybe they don't get to succeed here, but they can succeed somewhere else. We're going to do our best to find places that will make them happy too.
[07:28:15] JIM LEIJA: Terrific. With that you all, the meeting is [NOISE] adjourned.

Media

March 16, 2022 at Downtown Library: 4th Floor Meeting Room

Length: 07:29:50

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Kai Petainen Collection
AADL Board Meeting