AADL Board of Trustees Meeting - February 19th, 2018

Mon, 02/12/2018 - 11:21am

When: February 19, 2018 at Downtown Library

Watch the January 2018 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 Packet for this meeting

18-023 I. CALL TO ORDER
18-024 II. ATTENDANCE
18-025 III. APPROVAL OF AGENDA (Item of action)
18-026 IV. CONSENT AGENDA (Item of action)
CA-1 Approval of Minutes of January 16, 2018 
CA-2 Approval of January 2018 Disbursments 
18-027 V. CITIZENS' COMMENTS
18-028 VI. FINANCIAL REPORTS - Bill Cooper, Finance Manager 
18-029 VII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
18-030 A. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
18-031 B. BUDGET AND FINANCE COMMITTEE
18-032 VIII. DIRECTOR'S REPORT - Josie B. Parker, Director
18-033 IX. OLD BUSINESS
16-154 A. AADL STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL 3.3: REIMAGINE THE ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY'S DOWNTOWN PRESENCE - Len Lemorie, Facilities Manager
16-154 B. AADL STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL 4.3: IMPLEMENT THE NEW WEB PRESENCE - UPDATE - Eli Neiburger, Deputy Director
18-034 X. NEW BUSINESS
18-035 A. APPROVAL OF BOARD RETREAT DATE OF MAY 23, 2018 (Item of action
18-036 XI. CITIZENS' COMMENTS
18-037 XII. ADJOURNMENT
 

Transcript

• [00:00:01.84] LINH SONG: Call meeting to order. Karen, do we have attendance?
• [00:00:08.37] KAREN WILSON: Yep.
• [00:00:09.94] JOSIE PARKER: We have a quorum.
• [00:00:10.93] LINH SONG: We have a quorum. Great. Can we get a motion to approve the agenda as it stands?
• [00:00:18.88] ED SUROVELL: I'll move.
• [00:00:19.91] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Second.
• [00:00:21.30] LINH SONG: All in favor?
• [00:00:22.44] ALL: Aye.
• [00:00:23.51] LINH SONG: Opposed? Great. Can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda?
• [00:00:31.68] ED SUROVELL: You move it this time.
• [00:00:33.12] VICTORIA GREEN: Oh, I so move.
• [00:00:34.82] ED SUROVELL: Good.
• [00:00:36.85] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Support.
• [00:00:38.51] LINH SONG: All in favor?
• [00:00:39.41] ALL: Aye.
• [00:00:40.62] LINH SONG: Opposed? Great. Thank you. Do we approve the minutes to--
• [00:00:48.98] JOSIE PARKER: Oh, you've got to go now to--
• [00:00:50.16] LINH SONG: To citizens' comments. So--
• [00:00:52.71] JOSIE PARKER: Where are the approval of the minutes? Did we--
• [00:00:55.03] LINH SONG: It's under the consent agenda, it's already--
• [00:00:57.04] JOSIE PARKER: Oh, I'm sorry.
• [00:00:57.49] LINH SONG: Yep.
• [00:00:57.93] JOSIE PARKER: And we should make a point of letting you know that we updated the minutes to include Dan's letter.
• [00:01:03.33] LINH SONG: Yes.
• [00:01:03.84] JOSIE PARKER: OK.
• [00:01:05.14] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I'm going to say out load, there was-- the first draft of the minutes, there is a statement that trustee Barney Newman read into record, and I felt it should be part of the written record as part of an addendum, or I thought it was one idea, one way to do minutes, so it has been added. That's the approved version with this statement.
• [00:01:26.75] LINH SONG: With thanks to Karen for making that addition so thank you Karen for amending that. So this is a time for citizens' comments. Karen, do we have anyone signed up for comments?
• [00:01:40.49] KAREN WILSON: No.
• [00:01:41.46] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you. Moving on, can we have Bill with financial reports?
• [00:01:53.58] BILL COOPER: Good evening. As of January 31st, 2018, we have received $15,164,993 or 97.2% of our estimated tax receipts for the year. And we are currently under budget by $1.1 million. Anybody have any questions for me?
• [00:02:21.55] ED SUROVELL: Where are the major points of being underbudget?
• [00:02:26.31] BILL COOPER: The same ones that keep repeating. We have the employee benefits, we had several people that have retired had large vacation payouts We have the software licenses and maintenance, and that's primarily due to the launch of the new website and the expenses--
• [00:02:40.61] ED SUROVELL: That's overbudget.
• [00:02:41.79] BILL COOPER: Yeah, these--
• [00:02:42.43] ED SUROVELL: I misunderstood you, I thought you said underbudget.
• [00:02:44.55] BILL COOPER: Well our total underbudget is $1.1 million, yes, we are underbudget.
• [00:02:48.12] ED SUROVELL: All right. But that's what I'm interested in--
• [00:02:50.50] BILL COOPER: It's all underbudget priorities. I don't have those right here with me, let's see if we can--
• [00:02:58.14] ED SUROVELL: It's kind of a lot of money, I'd like some of it to--
• [00:03:01.07] JOSIE PARKER: Well since some of the new budget, the taxes that are in that we didn't anticipate?
• [00:03:06.61] BILL COOPER: Yes, we've collected more taxes than we-- we're going to overshoot our estimated tax revenue for the year. If you look on page 16, if you go down the list, everything with parentheses around it when you look under the expenditures, those are all the line items that are underbudget.
• [00:03:30.19] JOSIE PARKER: Would you list some of those?
• [00:03:33.03] BILL COOPER: Salaries and wages, employment taxes, custodial services and professional services, utilities, communications budget, materials.
• [00:03:49.12] VICTORIA GREEN: But the capital fund is the largest one?
• [00:03:51.99] BILL COOPER: Yes, the capital fund is under-- we've only spent $118,000 of that and we have a balance of $186,000 in the capital fund that we've only spent $118,000 of that so far this year.
• [00:04:06.51] JOSIE PARKER: But that's the fund that exists outside of--
• [00:04:10.71] BILL COOPER: Outside of the general fund.
• [00:04:11.94] JOSIE PARKER: Right, correct, right, right. So for instance, if you look at the materials budget, it's under almost $200,000, that's just as of this date.
• [00:04:23.33] BILL COOPER: Right.
• [00:04:23.67] JOSIE PARKER: It will not be anywhere near under--
• [00:04:26.21] BILL COOPER: Budget by--
• [00:04:26.50] JOSIE PARKER: --by the end of the year, right.
• [00:04:30.07] LINH SONG: Then we're underbudget for custodial services, right? Even with the change?
• [00:04:34.07] JOSIE PARKER: Correct.
• [00:04:34.72] BILL COOPER: Yes. Yeah, it's finally-- yeah, because, you know, each month it starts to catch up.
• [00:04:38.69] LINH SONG: OK.
• [00:04:39.04] BILL COOPER: Yeah.
• [00:04:39.88] ED SUROVELL: I think for the benefit both of the audience and maybe for ourselves, it helps to give a little bit of commentary, although frankly some of that can be read here-- and because we're published, it can be read out there too. But I think that it helps to give a little bit of a commentary just to make certain that there isn't anything really underbudget or really overbudget-- that is to say, we have expenditures in excess of what we thought.
• [00:05:17.57] And it's always frustrated me a little bit-- and I don't know that I'm going to get much done about it-- that we don't annualize our expenditures so that we know what percentage of certain lines will be spent by February, for example.
• [00:05:36.71] BILL COOPER: Right.
• [00:05:38.66] ED SUROVELL: So that what appears to be budget really isn't underbudget, if it is right on target or if we know that all of the subscription fees come due in a particular month that we really aren't underbudgeted on that. And I'm interested in how we underestimated taxes, what happened there?
• [00:06:01.19] BILL COOPER: Underestimate our--
• [00:06:03.09] JOSIE PARKER: We used the number that the county gives us, an expectation of what the percentage is going to be, and it's going to be more money for every taxing unit. So we can only go by what they have given us in terms of that number of expectation of the percentage that will be above what our-- and they determine what our millage levy will be because of Headley.
• [00:06:28.25] So that's how we do that. And that comes out the county's assessment office.
• [00:06:35.99] ED SUROVELL: Kind of amusing that the person who assesses the taxes gets it wrong.
• [00:06:42.57] JOSIE PARKER: At least it's wrong to the good.
• [00:06:45.30] ED SUROVELL: Well, but it could just as easily be wrong in the bad.
• [00:06:48.59] JOSIE PARKER: And when we expected it to be less, we've always budgeted cautiously below.
• [00:06:53.96] ED SUROVELL: Yes, that I understand.
• [00:06:55.50] JOSIE PARKER: You know that. The other thing I'll tell you is the finance committee met, and Victoria could give you the good news if she wants to.
• [00:07:01.95] VICTORIA GREEN: Sure. So this is going to roll over a little bit into some of the later agenda items, but in the last finance committee meeting, Jim made some of the exact same comments that you're making now about the difficulty of seeing what our expenditures are budgeting on a 1/12th basis as opposed to at this point in time, we would expect to have spent more or spent less rather than it's been present the number of months that have elapsed in the year so that we have more of a where we are at this moment in time compared to where we expected to be at this moment in time.
• [00:07:36.65] ED SUROVELL: Yeah.
• [00:07:37.16] VICTORIA GREEN: And the upshot from that meeting was that we would look at doing things so that trustees could see more-- we should be at 70% when we're 30% of the way through the year in this line item.
• [00:07:49.94] JOSIE PARKER: And we'll start it in July, in the next budget cycle.
• [00:07:54.14] ED SUROVELL: Go ahead. I think that would be appropriate. And I'm glad Jim and I agree on at least that one item.
• [00:08:02.30] VICTORIA GREEN: I was pleased about that too.
• [00:08:06.14] LINH SONG: Great. Do we have any additional questions for Bill?
• [00:08:10.25] ED SUROVELL: No. Thank you.
• [00:08:10.64] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, Bill. Committee reports. Let's see. So the executive committee met briefly last month and we had a discussion on preparing for the retreat in May and what needs to be done to prepare. We're working with another consultant from Bridgeport Consulting, Fran Alexander. She's well-known in the community. Lots of experience, people have had a really good-- I mean, we've heard some really good things about her.
• [00:08:51.44] So she's preparing an agenda, and then another thing that came up was trying to see what kind of work that we can do as trustees to prepare before the retreat. If we can revisit the presentation that Richard Murphy had presented last year, come up with questions that we can use to format the day, you know, and also see if we're comfortable with what we did last year, which was kind of a discussion between ourselves and with staff, and then we broke out into small groups at the end.
• [00:09:25.98] So I think each one of us, if we can kind of think about what our expectations are individually and as a group, that would really help Fran kind of frame the day.
• [00:09:36.18] JOSIE PARKER: You'll have Epic MRA [AUDIO OUT].
• [00:09:37.98] LINH SONG: Yes. And we'll also have Epic MRA results too to help us frame the discussion. And that was the gist of our meeting.
• [00:09:46.28] JOSIE PARKER: And for the audience, that date is May 23rd in the afternoon, at 3:30 likely into the early evening, and it's a public meeting at the West Side Room at the West Gate branch.
• [00:10:01.31] LINH SONG: So last year we had it beginning in the day, and I think the motivation behind having it start near end-of-day this year is so that we can capture folks who could come in after work and encourage more participation.
• [00:10:16.25] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Are you going to make curry?
• [00:10:18.76] LINH SONG: [LAUGHS]
• [00:10:19.60] JOSIE PARKER: It's not necessary.
• [00:10:21.24] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Because I know you can make it for 50 people.
• [00:10:23.89] VICTORIA GREEN: Or freeze--
• [00:10:24.58] LINH SONG: --get 50 people to come for a retreat, I'd call it a win. Yeah, so that was-- I think there's a lot of excitement around our retreat this year, I feel like we've come a long way since last year and kind of just thinking about our future and our future work, so it's time to get to it. Great.
• [00:10:49.67] Budget and finance committee. Is there anything additional that you want to add, Victoria?
• [00:10:53.90] VICTORIA GREEN: Just a little bit. We've met once since our last meeting, and I think I already discussed what we talked about in terms of financial reporting, but we did also briefly touch on the Fifth Avenue Press. Josie, I wonder if you want to summarize what we said there.
• [00:11:05.03] JOSIE PARKER: Sure. The board had asked the finance committee to talk about The Fifth Avenue Press in that model that the library's using to make available local history in a digital format through the public library. And so we did that, and I consulted with the attorney, with Dykema, Mark Melven, who has helped us with our digital licensing agreement and other agreements that involve digitally licensing material for a number of years.
• [00:11:38.96] Mark said that our use of that license for Fifth Avenue Press as it's being done now is exactly how was intended. The library has not put-- we are continuing to put mission over money. We are not a publisher. Nothing about how we're doing this makes us a publisher. We we're simply in kind providing services, and in return, receiving a perpetual license to a digital product that can be circulated any number of times over that period of time.
• [00:12:15.65] And he said that-- he appreciated the library's approach to this based on the licensing. He said the library does not have the resources to enter into a publishing work, that it's not a money maker place right now, it's a money taker, And he did not feel that anything needed to change about how we were doing this.
• [00:12:41.92] If anything at all, he felt if we wanted to ask from the writers/authors that for some sort of agreement to help promote their book within 18 months of the library's finalizing the digital process, but other than that, he said he felt like what we were doing was appropriate for a governmental unit that's also a 501(c)(3).
• [00:13:09.36] And we're not competing with local interest to our publishers, which was another point he made.
• [00:13:15.41] ED SUROVELL: I'm sorry, which attorney is this?
• [00:13:17.50] JOSIE PARKER: Mark Melven from Dykema. We've used him over a number of years with our digital licensing.
• [00:13:26.64] ED SUROVELL: Just for the record, I am not altogether certain that-- hearing this second-hand, I can't really speak fully to it, but as you know, I don't necessarily agree with some of that.
• [00:13:41.40] JOSIE PARKER: I think-- I anticipated that, and so at a board meeting when we know we're going to have a full board, including Jim, who has some of the same questions you did, and Jamie, who doesn't ask those questions in the same way, Mark can come and speak to the board directly.
• [00:14:01.32] ED SUROVELL: I hope he speaks with the board rather than to it. There's a difference.
• [00:14:07.59] JOSIE PARKER: I won't determine that, I'll leave that to the board president.
• [00:14:13.09] LINH SONG: As acting board president, we can add this to the agenda for the next board meeting, so we can put that under consideration.
• [00:14:21.58] ED SUROVELL: I will not be at the next board meeting, I should point out.
• [00:14:25.40] LINH SONG: We will also need to check availability with Mark and Dykema too, so this is something we can coordinate and have Josie coordinate. So thank you.
• [00:14:32.77] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
• [00:14:33.70] LINH SONG: I'm glad we have excellent counsel. Great. Directors report.
• [00:14:40.50] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you. It's going to be on the screen here very shortly. I'm going to do this. I actually have a script.
• [00:14:52.83] OK, so the first thing I wanted to show in the director's report was that the Westgate branch was featured in CAM, which is the Construction Management Association magazine that goes out nationally, and it's a great article and you should have received it in your packet about the Westgate's design, its use, and the process around the architecture and the fact that it was a renovation in a shopping center. So I'm very happy about that.
• [00:15:29.44] This one is about the website, and it shows you the dip, which is when we were down for-- to bring up a new website, but what's interesting about this is that the page views-- we had it spike up when it was brand new, but you can see where it's holding steady, and it's a new line, it's well above our old page view line. So we have the same patrons looking at this website more, and we're very happy about this. So its sustaining.
• [00:16:05.20] The website is called a responsive website. What that means is that no matter what device you choose to use to look at the website, you get it on that device in a format that fits that device, and it's legible and you can see it and you can work through it in a good way.
• [00:16:27.63] This is not easy to do. It's a goal to achieve that many websites don't make, and our website is being acknowledged nationally for accomplishing that. This group of people are some of the people who-- in the technology world who are well-known for pressing for these responsive websites.
• [00:16:49.26] When it came out, within days, they had emailed and asked if I would be on a podcast with Peter Morville, who was our information architect for this website, to talk about it. And that podcast is due to launch on March 5th, so we're happy about that.
• [00:17:09.86] Project's initiatives underway. We offer Blind Date With a Book starting February 1st, MLive did a great article about it. For children, the book is called a surprise. So we do it for them in a little bit different label, and they're having fun with that too. Blind Date With a Book is something libraries are doing all over the country and in Canada a lot. We've been doing this a long time.
• [00:17:33.73] And so we wrap up books, we put hints about what that book is, written on it, on the brown paper that it's wrapped in, put it out on the shelf, and people check it out, take it home, unwrap it, and find out if this is a good date or not, so we're happy about that.
• [00:17:47.64] And this is Elizabeth Pierce, who is a library tech with us now who has recently graduated from library school who's in charge of this program. Happy about that.
• [00:17:57.69] Len is on tonight's agenda talk to you about facilities management primarily, the work that's being done on the downtown library-- not solely, but part of that, the 3.3 of the strategic plan. And also, the Epic MRA field work is complete, and their report will be coming to you in March. So that's also--
• [00:18:18.21] This is a delight. This is a new partnership with the Ann Arbor News featuring our archive and select Ann Arbor Stories podcast. And this is a comment from the great niece of Marcellus Scott, who was the 1936 Ann Arbor City Marbles Champion. And she saw her great uncle's story and shared it with her family and then wrote this great little note about it.
• [00:18:44.49] He traveled from Ann Arbor to Wisconsin to compete in the regionals, and he didn't win-- a boy from Chicago did-- but he-- in 1936, Marcellus went to Wisconsin to play marbles. And this is a photograph of him in front of the old doors at the Ann Arbor News. And so if you recognize those doors, that's what those are. That's great.
• [00:19:08.58] And then these are patron photos showing the diversity of our collections and events. Both photos were posted to Twitter. One is the yarn swift and ball winder, and another is an 8-year-old artist attending a watercolor workshop.
• [00:19:25.01] Then more patron photos, just pretty much Westgate love. Someone didn't know about it, found out about it, and now that's the only place to go for their meetings and coffee. And then the other one are just-- the books that someone's taken out to snuggle up on a cold week in Michigan.
• [00:19:46.76] And I think that person called themselves a Millennial curmudgeon, which I think is really interesting. I mean, I know what a Millennial is, I know what a curmudgeon is, I just can't put it together, so I want to meet this person.
• [00:19:58.88] This one is more patron photos, and we average about 20 a month. I think you mentioned, Rich, we get about 20 photos a month from patrons about what they love. And this one's a sewing lab where someone has come to the library to learn to sew, and the other one is just cute kids at branches playing on the floor, checking out books at Westgate. And so they send us the photos, we're not making these.
• [00:20:25.67] And this last one is a summary of public and staff comments. So it's not all pictures, some of it-- some of it's words. Most of it's kind. People talking about the Martin Luther King Day event that we had here was so popular that even the spillover room, which is actually a secret lab, was full. And it was really great fun.
• [00:20:51.38] Then someone else said, "Totally love that AADL's downtown library has a secret lab-- a name way more fun and less alienating than 'hackerspace' or 'makerspace,'" and we're happy hear that.
• [00:21:05.66] Someone said I'm truly in love with the AADL and have been for the past eight years, so it's clearly someone who's moved here in the recent past.
• [00:21:13.64] In emails we had kind words. Facebook, five-star reviews, the library is awesome, workshops, meetings, musical instruments, tools, you guys rock. Kudos for a patron who competed in one of our monthly video game tournaments, I really appreciate that fun events like that can happen here. I can't wait for the next one.
• [00:21:32.96] And the last slide, a few more pictures to close out. Somebody showed the packed house from a Macaroons 101 cooking workshop. And then a young reader at Malletts-- I love this one-- he's totally relaxed down there on the floor with his book, he's into it. And I recognize the book, so I hope someone's happy about that.
• [00:21:56.34] And the last one, the very beginning of a beautiful sweater someone began making in the secret lab. So that's my director's report.
• [00:22:05.63] I also just want to point out, you have in front of you two pages of upcoming events. Included in those on March 8th is a panel discussion here in this room called Civic Life in Ann Arbor, City of Ann Arbor 2018, Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum.
• [00:22:21.85] It's sponsored by the city, hosted by the library, and Linh will be on that panel along with Neel Hajra, President and CEO of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation; Ashley Blight, Community Building Team Lead at Avalon Housing, and Patrick Campion, Program Director for WEMU. So that should be very interesting, along with a number of other events that we've highlighted for you in our handout.
• [00:22:47.53] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I'm sorry, Josie, you said we have two pages--
• [00:22:49.54] JOSIE PARKER: Should be-- should be in the ephemera.
• [00:22:54.42] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Oh, so it's in the attachment?
• [00:22:56.51] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah, yeah. I think that's right.
• [00:22:59.53] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
• [00:23:00.80] JOSIE PARKER: But I have it in print so I could not forget to talk about it. That's why I have it, so yep.
• [00:23:08.45] LINH SONG: Can we look at the picture again from when-- the macaroon?
• [00:23:12.11] JOSIE PARKER: Mm-hmm. There it is.
• [00:23:14.30] LINH SONG: So that's where we used to meet. That's the fourth floor--
• [00:23:18.16] JOSIE PARKER: That's correct. Now we took out-- if we go up there and look, you'll see, all of that fixed furniture's gone. And so now that room sits-- it can sit about 250 people if you do it that way. Yes.
• [00:23:32.69] LINH SONG: I think that's significant, because I think last year when we discussed not only just broadcasting or meetings, but also putting in the investment to change that room, it's hard to actually visualize it actually in use. It's nice to see that we can put 250 people-- that's a lot of people--
• [00:23:51.32] JOSIE PARKER: Can. You can. I think that's the number on the wall is 250 people, yes.
• [00:23:56.71] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's a lot of people learning about macaroons, right?
• [00:23:58.74] JOSIE PARKER: Uh huh. And they're all there. He is fantastic. If you haven't-- Keegan Rodgers does a great job.
• [00:24:05.71] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
• [00:24:06.05] JOSIE PARKER: He talks about all types of food and cooking.
• [00:24:09.23] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Can we invite him to the board retreat [LAUGHTER] --do dessert. Like, we'll give everyone a course, Linh's going to make the curry. I'll do a salad.
• [00:24:17.01] LINH SONG: What kind of retreat is this?
• [00:24:19.28] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Pot luck retreat.
• [00:24:20.57] LINH SONG: Yes, I'm sorry Ed. Did you have a comment please?
• [00:24:23.30] ED SUROVELL: I've a question. Is there still a marbles contest in Ann Arbor? That we know?
• [00:24:28.80] JOSIE PARKER: There is not.
• [00:24:29.95] VICTORIA GREEN: There's a Lego contest.
• [00:24:31.85] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Did you want to have--
• [00:24:32.72] ED SUROVELL: Does anybody-- well yes! Why not?
• [00:24:34.55] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Because I still have my marbles from my childhood. Do you have yours?
• [00:24:38.26] ED SUROVELL: I don't have anything.
• [00:24:41.35] LINH SONG: I have marbles I can share with you, Ed.
• [00:24:44.92] ED SUROVELL: I just think-- I-- look at that little kid. And are there national-- there must be national marbles contests.
• [00:24:57.08] JOSIE PARKER: Rich? Yes there is. Yes there is. This was sponsored, apparently sponsored by the Ann Arbor News. So when he won, they paid for his trip to Wisconsin, they went with him, and even though he lost, he is reported in the archive, you can read it. He had a blast.
• [00:25:19.59] ED SUROVELL: To me, that the went was a much bigger piece of news than he either lost or won.
• [00:25:28.34] JOSIE PARKER: Correct. I agree with you.
• [00:25:32.25] ED SUROVELL: And-- well let's look into it.
• [00:25:38.96] VICTORIA GREEN: We'll do that.
• [00:25:40.67] ED SUROVELL: You might-- so even we can send.
• [00:25:45.53] JOSIE PARKER: We've helped send-- I'll tell you one thing the library has done. The library helps send spelling bee winners. We host-- we've been at the space where people do the spelling bee, and our home school parents often use the library for their practices and for their-- and we help-- the spelling bee contestant has to have a sponsor, official or sponsor. Homeschooled children don't. So the library has been their sponsor.
• [00:26:12.87] And we had a young girl go pretty far-- I'm looking at you, Sherlonya, we had a young girl go pretty far in this a few years ago. She did not win nationally, but she went past the state, and I think she went regional.
• [00:26:25.29] ED SUROVELL: And the other children are sponsored by public schools?
• [00:26:30.59] JOSIE PARKER: Or private schools, wherever they attend.
• [00:26:32.69] ED SUROVELL: Or it's by an institution. Homeschoolers have to seek an institution.
• [00:26:37.92] JOSIE PARKER: And we have agreed to be that--
• [00:26:39.31] ED SUROVELL: We have-- do the funds that we spend come out of our tax dollars or our contributor dollars?
• [00:26:47.57] JOSIE PARKER: We don't give them money. It's just-- it's just to sign a form for them to be able to say that an institution supports they're going there, and they set the public library as that institution. We do not fund their trip. Their parents do that.
• [00:27:06.63] ED SUROVELL: What if they can't? Well, homeschoolers are not likely to be in that position.
• [00:27:14.92] JOSIE PARKER: I don't know that-- that has not come up. That's not what they've asked of us. They just needed an institution that was real and had standing in the community to sign off on them competing as a homeschooler or in the National Spelling Bee.
• [00:27:32.22] LINH SONG: And when does that happen?
• [00:27:34.71] SHERLONYA TURNER: It's at National Geographic. And we just have that in January or February. The first trial [INAUDIBLE].
• [00:27:46.90] JOSIE PARKER: Right.
• [00:27:48.61] ED SUROVELL: There are other types of contests like that-- for example, National History Day, but those are all sponsored through the Historical Society of Michigan, we don't get involved in that. Or do we with homeschoolers?
• [00:28:05.56] JOSIE PARKER: If they approach us.
• [00:28:08.16] ED SUROVELL: If they approach us, but we don't know if they have or not, right?
• [00:28:11.69] JOSIE PARKER: Right.
• [00:28:12.58] ED SUROVELL: And there are no other types of national--
• [00:28:16.00] JOSIE PARKER: Not that we-- not that we have been asked to support this way, no.
• [00:28:23.09] LINH SONG: Well kudos to staff who are supporting the students to do this.
• [00:28:27.01] JOSIE PARKER: Well, and that just lets me talk about-- I mean, the library does the writing-- It's All Write writing contests for our teens, and then those younger children, we have a separate writing contest and that's active now if I'm not mistaken. We're taking submissions.
• [00:28:42.85] That's-- I mean, that's international. We always get submissions from somewhere else in the world, and occasionally a child from another country will win. And we had a young person from Pakistan win, and they said there was no way they could ever do this in their own country and how much they appreciated that we were able to.
• [00:29:02.38] ED SUROVELL: And do we publicize the results?
• [00:29:06.10] JOSIE PARKER: Yes we do.
• [00:29:06.82] ED SUROVELL: Press releases?
• [00:29:07.57] JOSIE PARKER: Big party, big press releases. Those stories are published, they're available for circulation, so yes we do.
• [00:29:15.88] LINH SONG: My son is actually trying to submit something. He's trying to sell fewer pickles this summer.
• [00:29:20.61] ED SUROVELL: We have a big party? Did the Pakistani child--
• [00:29:24.87] JOSIE PARKER: No. He was not-- that child was not able to be here, no.
• [00:29:29.32] ED SUROVELL: Because they couldn't afford to or because not able to?
• [00:29:33.76] JOSIE PARKER: Wasn't free to come. He wasn't--
• [00:29:37.40] ED SUROVELL: I'll tell you right now, that if we ever have a situation again of an international child or somebody else in the United States that can't get here, other than being politically restrained, I think that-- we certainly have the contributed funds adequate to bring them here if that were appropriate.
• [00:30:06.58] JOSIE PARKER: Ok.
• [00:30:07.46] ED SUROVELL: I'd certainly would like to know about it, because if we don't have enough funds, they can be found. Can't they, boys and girls? Say yes.
• [00:30:17.41] JOSIE PARKER: This is our 22nd or 23rd year to do this? 23? Don't look it up, it's 22 or 23 I know. So, I mean, it's something we've done for a long, long time and it's-- we're very happy to continue to do it.
• [00:30:34.19] LINH SONG: There's a cash prize?
• [00:30:35.35] JOSIE PARKER: There is. Cash prizes, that's what--
• [00:30:38.06] ED SUROVELL: Did the Pakistan child get the prize?
• [00:30:41.05] JOSIE PARKER: I can't remember how we did that.
• [00:30:42.85] ED SUROVELL: How long ago was that?
• [00:30:43.90] JOSIE PARKER: Oh, Ed, I can't tell you that. Several years ago.
• [00:30:46.27] ED SUROVELL: Long time ago--
• [00:30:47.14] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah.
• [00:30:47.47] ED SUROVELL: OK.
• [00:30:47.93] JOSIE PARKER: Yep.
• [00:30:48.86] ED SUROVELL: Enough.
• [00:30:49.51] JOSIE PARKER: It was sent. Whether they got it or not, we can't know. It was sent.
• [00:30:53.98] LINH SONG: I love this.
• [00:30:54.58] JOSIE PARKER: Yep.
• [00:30:55.09] LINH SONG: I love it. I think it's great getting our young people to write-- read and write. Thank you. Do we have any additional--
• [00:31:03.25] VICTORIA GREEN: That is a great story. That's a great story.
• [00:31:05.82] JOSIE PARKER: Mm-hmm.
• [00:31:08.59] LINH SONG: Oh, did we have the Ann Arbor reads?
• [00:31:12.52] JOSIE PARKER: Oh, that was great. That was at Rackham. And the author and two faculty members from the university were speaking in a conversation. Over 800 people attended. The faculty member from the unit on campus that had invited the author did a marvelous job opening the conversation and acknowledging Washtenaw Read, and how across the county, people were reading the book through the support of public libraries and literacy groups in schools, and she was lovely.
• [00:31:54.43] And at the end, during questions, it was very support-- it was very rewarding to all the people in the room who were part of Washtenaw Reads, because a high school student from Chelsea asked a question and said, we read this as part of our class work at Chelsea, and here's my question. It was great. I don't remember the question, but she did, you know, she asked her question.
• [00:32:19.15] So there were people there that-- the age of a high school student to the very elderly who had read this book and wanted to come and hear the show and want to talk about it. Another person who stood in line for a question was someone who had recently lived for-- had lived in South Africa.
• [00:32:41.75] And she said that when the book came out a couple of years ago-- because this is not a brand new release-- she had a book group in South Africa who talked about this book, and how excited she was to come and hear the author, even if-- now she's not in South Africa, but she was letting all her book group friends in South Africa know that she was there. And then she had her question.
• [00:33:02.80] So it was well-attended, it was extremely interesting, it was one of the best one-- it was one of the best presentations of those we've had because the conversation between the scholars and the writer was fascinating. And it was very-- we were very happy about the attendance.
• [00:33:23.43] It was cold. That was on a cold, windy, bitter night. I asked him, how many years-- we have walked across this campus to events at night for the library and been so cold. And so we were just keeping on, keeping on.
• [00:33:41.85] LINH SONG: That was a fantastic book, though.
• [00:33:43.23] JOSIE PARKER: Yes.
• [00:33:43.84] LINH SONG: That brought me to tears, I love that one.
• [00:33:45.45] JOSIE PARKER: Yes, yes.
• [00:33:46.76] LINH SONG: Thank you. Do you have any additional questions for Josie? Great. Well thank you, Josie.
• [00:33:53.32] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
• [00:33:54.76] LINH SONG: OK, moving on to old business with-- actually Strategic Plan Goal 3.3. Let's welcome Len. Thank you--
• [00:34:06.21] LEN LEMORIE: Good evening. So I'm here to tell you everything we've done in the building this year, which would kind of tie into our re-imagining the downtown building for what it is. Josie had already mentioned I guess our biggest project this year, which was the fourth floor meeting room. We did remove all the fixed furniture, re-cord the electrical and the data in the floor so we can rearrange that room in several different areas-- different ways. Carpet, lighting was replaced there, so there's dimmable LED fixtures in there.
• [00:34:37.68] That's about that for that room. We're right now we're working in the atrium on the fourth floor, same thing, removing all the wallpaper, painting it, doing carpet up there. We've done carpet in the basement this year, an AV package in this room that we can use for this meeting. We've replaced about 21,000 square feet of carpet in the building this year. And I can't tell you how many meeting rooms or study rooms or offices we've painted, but maybe, I don't know, 15 or so? And it's continuing on.
• [00:35:09.75] The security office has moved from the first floor staff side to the second floor public side. Part of that project, we're also moving the public computers and replacing all those with new computers and new tables. Several spots of the roof have been patched this year. We also replaced all the flashing where the second floor and the third floor roof meet each other.
• [00:35:33.72] We've reworked the second number two boiler this year and rebuilt the steam loader. Because it was such a cold winter, we usually don't run the steam boiler all that much, but this year, just the cold temps, we were forced to, and of course, it failed a few times, so we reworked a bunch of that.
• [00:35:51.68] We've replaced all the electronic door locks, including the ProxCard access to the exterior doors downtown. And just last week we had a 30,000 kilowatt generator put out back to keep up our network in case we lose power downtown.
• [00:36:07.13] Those are the big projects. That's not maintenance and repairs, there's quite a few projects that we do that things that break and we're replacing, but these are some of the big items we've done downtown this year. And we hope to do quite a few more, whether it be carpet or painting or just kind of updating finishes before the year runs out.
• [00:36:26.22] ED SUROVELL: Is the generator big enough to run the whole building?
• [00:36:28.91] LEN LEMORIE: No, it will run the network and the cooling unit in the server room.
• [00:36:32.47] ED SUROVELL: OK.
• [00:36:33.70] ELI NEILBURGER: It's about not having to close the branches when it [AUDIO OUT].
• [00:36:37.38] ED SUROVELL: How do we turn on the lights?
• [00:36:39.86] ELI NEILBURGER: Well the downtown library would close, but the branches would--
• [00:36:42.98] ED SUROVELL: Oh, all right, I'm sorry. Branches, all right.
• [00:36:47.21] LEN LEMORIE: I would assume to run the downtown building, it'd probably be around 300 kilowatt generator. But we have enough to keep, as Eli said, keep the branches open, keep emergency lighting on here, and we can--
• [00:36:58.82] ED SUROVELL: And we did that for $30,000?
• [00:37:02.55] LEN LEMORIE: The generator itself was $14,000 plus install.
• [00:37:08.66] ED SUROVELL: I'd get one of those in my house.
• [00:37:11.87] JOSIE PARKER: You can get one for a lot less.
• [00:37:13.38] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah, you can get one for a lot less nowadays, yeah.
• [00:37:17.72] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The bathroom upgrade from last year, I know that was a last year project, but it didn't go off perfectly, there are a couple of issues that you're having, correct? There are some backups. Has that smoothed out?
• [00:37:28.04] LEN LEMORIE: It has.
• [00:37:28.84] COLLEEN SHERMAN: How are we on capacity in the bathrooms?
• [00:37:30.92] LEN LEMORIE: You know, I mean, if you have a large program or if it's a home football game, something like that, you know, we're pushed to the max. But the big issue we ran into was the city's fiber project. We've bored through the sewer line. Since that's been repaired, we've been OK.
• [00:37:49.43] Shortly after the restrooms reopened, we did find a few things that were more-- the way the piping runs out of the building around structural beams, we looked at a few areas there. So I think we backed up twice the first two weeks that we all reopened and we've been able to improve that, so--
• [00:38:09.87] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Great.
• [00:38:10.52] LEN LEMORIE: --it's been better. All in all, the bathroom project went well. It is about the capacity level. So if we have-- if we have a big program or if there's 2,000, 3,000 people in the building, it is a strain on the system.
• [00:38:23.03] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah. OK.
• [00:38:25.16] LINH SONG: So if we fill that fourth floor meeting room with 250 people, there's one bathroom on that floor, correct? One public bathroom?
• [00:38:34.13] JOSIE PARKER: That's right. Two toilets in each one.
• [00:38:37.28] LEN LEMORIE: A little bit different, though. So OK, so the fourth floor, that is gravity to-- let's talk about the sewer crocks. That is gravity down to the sewer crocks. Whereas the first floor restrooms actually discharge gravity out of the building.
• [00:38:51.10] LINH SONG: So it's going laterally--
• [00:38:52.04] LEN LEMORIE: It's the same line, but where the first floor restrooms leave the building, the injection crock's come in on that same line.
• [00:38:59.17] LINH SONG: OK.
• [00:38:59.50] LEN LEMORIE: But the fourth floor restrooms actually go eight feet, 10 feet below that, and it would be able to be held, so--
• [00:39:07.82] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So it's more of a problem or it's less of a problem?
• [00:39:10.58] LEN LEMORIE: Depends on the day.
• [00:39:11.86] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
• [00:39:11.93] LEN LEMORIE: I mean, I would say if there was not an event in the lobby, it wouldn't be an issue. But if you have a large event and the fourth floor, then you have both of them working at the same time and it was probably--
• [00:39:22.34] COLLEEN SHERMAN: When we plan events, do we have to think about that?
• [00:39:26.54] JOSIE PARKER: Sure. [LAUGHTER] Sure. I mean, it's like, you wouldn't you-- for instance, you wouldn't have-- you wouldn't have the comic convention or Tiny Expo and have what you expected to have-- 250, 270 people on the fourth floor. I mean, we would-- we would have to think about that.
• [00:39:44.97] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Right. OK.
• [00:39:46.22] JOSIE PARKER: And we would. And our down here--
• [00:39:48.99] COLLEEN SHERMAN: But it's not just a bathrooms issue, it's many issues. It's about traffic flow and it's about people's and capacities--
• [00:39:54.77] JOSIE PARKER: But it's mostly about the bathrooms.
• [00:39:56.68] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK. Mostly, OK.
• [00:39:57.80] VICTORIA GREEN: Would we also not schedule an event for Art Fair? Or another day when we just have a lot of traffic? Would it actually prevent us from scheduling events when we have the most traffic because we don't want to bring yet more people through the door?
• [00:40:10.33] JOSIE PARKER: The thing about Art Fair is that we know we're the cleanest, coolest public bathroom in town. And so we are going to have that traffic no matter what we do. And we are careful around programming around-- during Art Fair, because of--
• [00:40:28.71] VICTORIA GREEN: Because of our plumbing.
• [00:40:29.57] JOSIE PARKER: Yes. Because it's where you're going to bring your children-- because it's clean, it's private, and it's cool in here.
• [00:40:41.72] LEN LEMORIE: Any question?
• [00:40:42.68] VICTORIA GREEN: Len, I had two other questions. You mentioned the steam boiler?
• [00:40:45.85] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
• [00:40:46.20] VICTORIA GREEN: And that we rarely use it but would occasionally use it in weather?
• [00:40:50.02] LEN LEMORIE: Steam boiler puts-- it's humidity. It brings up the humidity in the building. So there's three boilers that actually heat the building, and then the steam boiler on the cold days where the humidity is super low--
• [00:41:00.58] VICTORIA GREEN: It makes it more comfortable.
• [00:41:01.75] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
• [00:41:02.45] ED SUROVELL: Is that part of the original building or was it added later?
• [00:41:08.67] LEN LEMORIE: That-- so the tag on that's 1989, so it'll have been in the second-- third renovation, sorry. Yeah, second, second.
• [00:41:16.23] VICTORIA GREEN: OK. And I have one more question for this section about the downtown branch, but it was about power outages at our other branches. I know that there are problems in Ann Arbor and that DTE is doing some projects on the northeast side, for example, which I think of as the spot where we lose power most often.
• [00:41:33.94] But we've lost power in our other branches a couple of times. That's always because the power grid has gone down in Ann Arbor. Are there things we could or should do?
• [00:41:45.03] LEN LEMORIE: Something we've worked on for a long time, or since I've been here, is looking at opportunities to put backup power at all the branches. I mean, cost is always a factor, but we've looked at what we could do.
• [00:41:57.03] VICTORIA GREEN: Have we done those things or just talked about it?
• [00:41:59.71] LEN LEMORIE: We spent about 18 months working on Malletts Creek, and we were told by DTE that the line coming off of Homestead Commons wasn't big enough to supply a backup generator with natural gas. Since then, we've learned through somewhat distribution that we could come off the line that's on Eisenhower that is a four-inch main, and it is possible, but we've had those conversations of installing backup power at the branches.
• [00:42:26.20] JOSIE PARKER: And Malletts is where we-- the system, AADL loses power the most often. It's Malletts. So we looked at Malletts first, and then we're told we couldn't. And so we proceeded downtown to make sure that the network stayed up. And in the meantime, we're told perhaps we could come off this other gas line.
• [00:42:46.15] ED SUROVELL: Did DTE come back and say we've decided we gave you bad information in the first place?
• [00:42:55.66] JOSIE PARKER: No, just a different line.
• [00:42:57.85] LEN LEMORIE: What had happened was we had two valves leaking at Pittsfield on the meter, and just through the process of conversation it came up, and we were again-- we got in touch with the right person. So I was on-site the day we replaced the meters. Had the conversation with him, asked some questions of why we couldn't do it, had the right person that he was in distribution, and he pulled up the map and was kind enough to show us where our electric came in, all the meters around us, and how we could solve the problem.
• [00:43:27.74] ED SUROVELL: Did we cancel the library card of the person that gave you the wrong information?
• [00:43:32.17] LEN LEMORIE: I'm going to guess he's not a user.
• [00:43:34.57] JOSIE PARKER: Or a resident even, right?
• [00:43:37.54] LINH SONG: So I had a quick question, Len. The downtown branches, we're a warming center, right? In severe cold?
• [00:43:43.70] JOSIE PARKER: No.
• [00:43:43.93] LINH SONG: No?
• [00:43:44.46] JOSIE PARKER: No.
• [00:43:44.56] LINH SONG: Is that not right?
• [00:43:45.32] JOSIE PARKER: We're not. We are not technically a warming center because were we, we would have been open on Friday for the morning--
• [00:43:55.10] LINH SONG: I wondered about that.
• [00:43:55.99] JOSIE PARKER: So no, we are not. We are here. Anyone is welcome. And when it's bad weather and we're open, you can be here, and we're not going to ask you to not be here. And in the cold, cold weather we have, we had people sitting on the floor and around walls in this building, and we work with that.
• [00:44:17.07] LINH SONG: OK.
• [00:44:17.56] JOSIE PARKER: But when-- but we're not-- we are not technically a warming center.
• [00:44:23.50] LINH SONG: Is that a county or-- county designation, OK.
• [00:44:26.13] JOSIE PARKER: Yes.
• [00:44:29.11] LINH SONG: Thank you. Any other questions for Len and 3.3? No? Great, thank you--
• [00:44:37.05] LEN LEMORIE: Thank you guys so much.
• [00:44:37.98] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's helpful, thank you.
• [00:44:41.13] LINH SONG: Great, moving on to 4.3 on our new web presence update with Eli.
• [00:44:47.79] ELI NEILBURGER: Up?
• [00:44:48.67] LINH SONG: Yes.
• [00:44:51.32] ELI NEILBURGER: OK, so things are going pretty well. So I have a number of small things that we're still working on. The additional accounts is still not working, so that's one thing that we're working on, we are continuing to help patrons who have multiple accounts be able to navigate those.
• [00:45:11.79] We are getting close to getting all the old bills aged and applied on the system, but all the other stuff has been working pretty well. One thing that's still remaining is that we just started last week making robotic phone calls for people who don't have email when their holds are ready for pickup.
• [00:45:29.49] Many of those users that are actually avid users of the website have been coming in and getting their things, but if we just started making robot phone calls last week, about a hundred of them have gone out so far, and so far, so good with that.
• [00:45:41.46] JOSIE PARKER: And that represents what?
• [00:45:42.72] ELI NEILBURGER: 4% of library patrons don't have an email address.
• [00:45:46.36] JOSIE PARKER: Listed with us?
• [00:45:47.37] ELI NEILBURGER: Yeah. Have not provided us with an email address. So 96% of patrons are getting an email notification.
• [00:45:52.95] LINH SONG: That's really high.
• [00:45:53.82] ELI NEILBURGER: That replaces the mail-- postal mail notices. Part of the reason we made this change with Evergreen is because we can no longer really depend on a mailed notice arriving at someone's home in Ann Arbor within a week from when we mail it.
• [00:46:07.39] LINH SONG: OK.
• [00:46:07.95] ELI NEILBURGER: So they were arriving after people's holds had already expired.
• [00:46:14.40] Other things that we have, the event stuff is all working pretty well. There is one thing where calendar feeds of events aren't yet working again, and the calendar feed's due dates, we're getting a couple of questions about that.
• [00:46:25.81] Oh, we're just about to deploy site search and local history search, which has been something we've started to get questions about. And that's coming probably this week, and that's about it. Yeah.
• [00:46:37.86] VICTORIA GREEN: So Eli, how will that work? Will it be-- I mean, currently you say search collection, you can search old news and send?
• [00:46:43.02] AUDIENCE: Basically where the catalog dropdown is, you'll be able to choose other collections there. And when you arrive at landing pages, like the old news landing page, it will default to search any old news collection, that kind of thing. Any questions?
• [00:46:55.19] LINH SONG: How's the team doing?
• [00:46:57.57] ELI NEILBURGER: Recovering.
• [00:46:58.18] JOSIE PARKER: We have cookies today
• [00:46:59.40] ELI NEILBURGER: Yes, we have many cookies today. Had some vacations here and there to catch up a little bit, so doing pretty good for the most part. The email volume is way down and much more sort of routine. And much less sort of-- you know, it's still-- we're getting a lot of questions about MelCat, which is to be expected.
• [00:47:16.62] LINH SONG: Right.
• [00:47:17.42] ELI NEILBURGER: And we have just this week started the process. We've-- down to our last few MelCat transactions that need to be resolved. So we're starting the process to finally close out the old system on MelCat and start turning on the new one. And again, it tells us it's a three to four-month process.
• [00:47:31.61] LINH SONG: OK. Great.
• [00:47:33.44] ELI NEILBURGER: Any questions? OK, thank you very much.
• [00:47:38.11] LINH SONG: Thank, Eli. Moving on. For Under New Business, I'd say-- can I move-- can I-- I'd like a motion to approve the board retreat date for May 23rd, 2018.
• [00:47:54.17] VICTORIA GREEN: So I'll move.
• [00:47:56.02] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Second.
• [00:47:57.87] LINH SONG: All in favor?
• [00:47:59.39] ALL: Aye.
• [00:48:00.73] LINH SONG: Opposed? OK. Citizens' comments. Do we have any--
• [00:48:06.99] VICTORIA GREEN: Oh I'm sorry. Can I raise up one more issue of new business?
• [00:48:09.83] LINH SONG: Oh yes, please.
• [00:48:11.64] VICTORIA GREEN: Door counts. In our packet-- I'm not seeing numbers on door counts.
• [00:48:16.91] JOSIE PARKER: You explain that?
• [00:48:17.65] ELI NEILBURGER: Sure. So we had had for years beam break door counters, OK? Which is an infrared beam and they break through the beam and then you divide the number by two. We've gotten to the point where our traffic was so high that that was stopping to be a realistic measurement of the-- because people were coming in at the same time. And if the beam gets broken once but it's four people walking in and out at the same time, you only get one count for that.
• [00:48:45.49] So we experimented with a new product, and that was in August and it was an utter disaster. It was a recently out of Kickstarter product that was relatively well-reviewed and totally inadequate for our needs.
• [00:48:58.99] So after a couple of months looking at that data, we saw it was very clear that was not capturing the full numbers in and out, and we actually had to do a audit in looking at-- we watched the security camera footage and counted the number of people actually in and out and compared it to the number to demonstrate for sure that the door counters were not counting, and basically they're not-- they can't handle our volume.
• [00:49:23.89] So we found a more established company. The door counters have arrived, the issue is-- the nice thing about the system that we had is that it was wireless and it didn't require us to run a lot of new infrastructure. Well, that didn't pan out. So we are now in the process of running the new cable to be able to install door counters that are a much more sort of enterprise-level product.
• [00:49:45.27] What we will do after we get the new ones in is when it comes time for next year's State Aid report, we will make estimates based on the door count based on our actual numbers from this year and the months that we have good data, and we'll make estimates for the months that we have missing data.
• [00:50:01.50] But we got to a point where the number was so inaccurate, it was better not to report it at all. And it's all during this current fiscal year, so when we get to State Aid reports just under a year from now, we'll make estimates based on-- and we'll estimate conservatively, estimates to get it to State Aid.
• [00:50:19.97] ED SUROVELL: Curious-- what the costs of the cabling that we were concerned about.
• [00:50:26.95] ELI NEILBURGER: Well, the issue is-- you know, at several thousand dollars, but the bigger issue is, there are some places that it is extremely difficult to get cabling. For example, it's right above the patron entrance at Traverwood, right above the elevator door at Traverwood, the bottom of the stairs at Traverwood.
• [00:50:43.84] These are not-- and these things are ceiling-mounted. So when we have a drop ceiling, it's easy, but almost none of our buildings have drop ceilings right inside the door. Westgate, super easy. That's not of the deal at all. Pittsfield a little trickier. Traverwood's super tricky.
• [00:50:58.96] So it's mostly a matter of we were trying to avoid having something hanging from the ceiling, but unfortunately, the technology-- in order to capture the number coming through the doors, we're going to have to have something that is mounted on a pole from the ceiling above the doors. Does that answer your question, Ed?
• [00:51:18.25] JOSIE PARKER: So where are these used? What other institutions--
• [00:51:22.26] ELI NEILBURGER: This is a library industry product.
• [00:51:23.56] JOSIE PARKER: And it's-- OK.
• [00:51:24.05] ELI NEILBURGER: This one. Where the other one was a little bit more oriented toward cafes and things like that.
• [00:51:27.80] JOSIE PARKER: OK.
• [00:51:28.12] ELI NEILBURGER: So, you know, we've done a test with it, and the nice thing about the other company is their API was pretty good, so we could get the data out of it. But this one will have its own server, it lives in the building, we'll be able to harvest the data on that.
• [00:51:39.40] ED SUROVELL: Is the Traver installation ugly? Or does it interfere with something? Or--
• [00:51:46.95] ELI NEILBURGER: It's mostly that there's not-- it has to be a particular height-- Len, you want to jump in on this at all?
• [00:51:52.04] LEN LEMORIE: Yes. It needs to be seven and a half feet to ten feet high and seven and-a-half feet to three and-a-half feet inside the buildings. A lot of it was field trips going around each location saying, I want one hole right there versus wire mold or cabling that we could see. Like Eli, we moved it to Pittsfield, we came up with a solution. Westgate's simple. The front doors here are simple. Malletts Creek, they actually made us a bracket for.
• [00:52:17.45] So it's about getting the cable to the right location. So I've had three field trips to branches over the last few weeks to pinpoint all those location?
• [00:52:26.61] ED SUROVELL: All right.
• [00:52:28.87] VICTORIA GREEN: So it sounds like it's unfortunate that we don't have the data for these six months or so, but it's not fatal in any way and you don't expect any impact from having to estimate to the state?
• [00:52:38.53] ELI NEILBURGER: No.
• [00:52:40.01] VICTORIA GREEN: OK. Great.
• [00:52:41.50] LINH SONG: Great. Great question, thank you. We have numbers from events anyways. I mean, we-- do we not-- so when programs-- We have voice tags. So at least-- there's some numbers. Good.
• [00:52:52.99] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Awesome.
• [00:52:54.16] LINH SONG: OK. Karen, do you have any citizens' comments?
• [00:53:01.83] JOSIE PARKER: Anyone interested?
• [00:53:04.62] LINH SONG: No? Well great. Great meeting. I guess with that, we're adjourned.
• [00:53:10.09] [GAVEL BANG]