AADL Board of Trustees Meeting - March 18, 2019

[00:00:04.64] LINH SONG: Karen, do we have attendance?
[00:00:06.47] KAREN WILSON: Yes, we do.
[00:00:08.97] LINH SONG: I apologize, I have the flu. So, I'm told that you can still hear me through the mic, but I just didn't want to spread. So, anyways-- so thank you for coming tonight. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please?

[00:00:32.39] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So moved.
[00:00:33.87] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Seconded.
[00:00:36.14] LINH SONG: Any discussion? All those in favor?
[00:00:41.26] AUDIENCE: Aye.
[00:00:42.28] AUDIENCE: Aye.

[00:00:42.98] LINH SONG: Any opposed? Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda?
[00:00:50.68] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So moved.
[00:00:52.16] LINH SONG: A second.
[00:00:54.61] DHARMA AKMON: Second.
[00:00:56.58] LINH SONG: Yep, we've got a second. Any discussion? No. All in favor?
[00:01:06.51] AUDIENCE: Aye.
[00:01:07.04] AUDIENCE: Aye.

[00:01:07.52] LINH SONG: Any opposed? Great. Moving on to citizens comments. Karen, do we have anyone signed up?
[00:01:14.63] KAREN WILSON: Yes, Mr. David [?Debise?]
[00:01:16.57] LINH SONG: Great.
[00:01:34.27] DAVID: So the annual report came in through the email recently . And this weekend I, started looking at it. I kind of love data, so, I started looking at some of the old annual reports and said, how does this data inform our understanding or what questions that bring to mind. So, I this afternoon, I had some time, so I went through, and ended up collating a little bit here for you.
[00:02:02.08] The first page is just sort of what the millage rate's been over the years, our total expenses, total revenue, and also where we get most of our money and where most of the expenses go. Not a lot there, just one question that did come to mind, is, as you see, on employment expenses, why has that jumped a million in the last three years? I'm sure there's very good reasons for it. I can think of a few off the top of my head, but to me, these are the type of questions that get informed by our data.
[00:02:34.67] The second page is sort of a history of material circulation, all the materials that are available for circulation, as well as a program attendance over the past few years. And as you can see, our circulation on materials has substantially dropped over the past decade. I'm sure that there are very good reasons for that. It's how we stream our video, our audio, maybe how we even keep track of this data. I don't know, but that's sort of a question in my mind, why has it changed so much?
[00:03:13.87] And the third question is our program attendance. As you can see, our program attendance has increased by almost double-- more than double in the last 10 years. So I asked myself, are we going to be able to double this again in another 10 years? What's it going to take to do that? How much money is it going to cost? What facilities are we going to need?
[00:03:36.59] So, these are the type of questions that came to my mind as I looked at this data. So, really my point is to ask you to look at these annual reports and see what questions it brings to your mind, as you're seeing these trends over the longer period and the shorter period. So, thank you for your time.
[00:03:56.14] LINH SONG: Thank you. Karen, do we have anyone else?
[00:03:59.60] KAREN WILSON: Yes, Dave [INAUDIBLE]
[00:04:00.83] LINH SONG: Great, welcome.
[00:04:05.78] DAVE: Hello, so this is just a cool type of comment. I noticed while browsing the events on the library website that this board meeting was on there. And I thought that's cool, because now it's not just advertised on that piece of paper at the front door. It's not in the adult program, but hopefully it will be in the future. So, cool.

[00:04:31.92] LINH SONG: Thank you. Karen, do we have anyone else? So, as a reminder that folks are welcome to give comments at the end of the meeting as well. Great, OK, moving on. Financial reports with Bill.
[00:04:50.85] ELI NEIBURGER: OK, Bill is out sick today, so I'll be giving the financial report. It begins on page thirteen of your packet. It's the financial summary for February 2019. Just to go through it, our cash balance is $13.7 million, down from $14.8 million at the end of January. We've now received 97.4% of our annual budgeted tax receipts as of February 28th. That's fairly customary for this point in a year. Typically, it hits 99 or 100, or even 101%, depending on how the appraisal tribunals go.
[00:05:21.19] Fund balance activity, positive fund balance of $14.2 million, down from $15.4 million. Again, fairly normal for this point of year. Year to date revenue, so far, our actual cash receipts was $16 million, which is $42,000 more than projected. And again, that's mostly because of penal fines and things that come in unpredictably throughout the course of the year. There were no receipts in February for state aid or penal fines, which, again, is normal.
[00:05:47.94] So on page 14%, year-to-date expenditures, budget versus actual-- we currently have no line items that are over budget. And just to touch on a couple of the grant memorial funds-- Friends of AADL fund is currently $27,000, expenditures in February were $1,500. It's mostly related to prizes, for tournaments, and events, things like that.
[00:06:06.31] The Archives Grant balance stands at $50,000. That was an anonymous donation to support archives equipment. That's about half of that is left. And then the City Lore Grant, which was a small grant from National Endowment for the Humanities in conjunction with-- the City Lore is the name of the organization in New York City. That grant has been fully expended and all of the funds have been spent from that. And it was a small amount of money in the first place.
[00:06:30.61] And there were no capital fund expenditures in February 2019. The lobby was funded out of capital outlays, not out of the capital fund. And so, our year-to-date revenue over expenditures is $6.3 million. And that's, again, fairly normal for this point in the year. Any questions about the financials?
[00:06:50.04] LINH SONG: No, I did not make Bill sick.
[00:06:53.34] ELI NEIBURGER: Oh, I can certify, no contact.

[00:06:55.99] LINH SONG: Yes. Good, so no questions then for Eli on the report? No. OK, good. Moving on-- committee reports-- the Executive Committee met last week. We met along with Jim Greene, from our general counsel at Dichama. It was a good opportunity to review our bylaws. At the last meeting, we had a bit of a discussion on how committees are formed, how the Executive Committee is formed, how we report to each other.
[00:07:36.89] And we were just trying to figure out a path on how we can better coordinate meetings within the Executive Committee and with all the executive officers. I am happy to say that we've figured out a way where Colleen and I will be meeting every Wednesday of the week, before Executive Committee meetings, which will be comprised of myself, Jim Leija, and Kerene.
[00:08:03.69] Gosh, what else did ask do we touch on in the Executive Committee meeting? We are thinking about taking a look at our-- how we do trespassing in the library, and that policy, and how would we notify folks who've trespassed, or are being removed from the library. So that's something that will be coming up for, I think, first reading next month. And then voted, I think--
[00:08:34.40] ELI NEIBURGER: The following month.
[00:08:35.06] LINH SONG: The following month, right. Am I missing anything else from when we met last week?
[00:08:39.93] ELI NEIBURGER: Compensation study.
[00:08:42.14] LINH SONG: Yes, the compensation study.
[00:08:43.55] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So, the compensation study, we can address together, because it was part of the Executive Committee meeting this time. In your Ephemera, it was page nine on, I think, 9 to 16. If you got a chance to read that, that's a three-year study that we do where we look at wages.
[00:09:04.37] I'm going to go ahead and go into this. This is going to be a topic we'll come back to next month and we'll definitely talk about under the budget. I made a few notes. So, as Bill submits the budget-- as managers submit the budget to Bill, Bill brings the Finance Committee the budget.
[00:09:23.69] Relevant to this is our employee wage analysis that we do. So, Jim Greene reported to us-- and Josie asked him to tell us the story, because I wasn't familiar with the history. It started in the early 1990s. So this goes back more than 20 years. This man-- what's his name?
[00:09:46.15] ELI NEIBURGER: Ed Yura.
[00:09:46.79] KAREN WILSON: Thank you-- Ed Yura does this analysis for us. And early on in our history, our librarians were paid more than the average. And over time, that number has moved. That number didn't-- the libraries didn't get paid less. We found out things like, we have really great labor negotiations. We have unions who trust us here. The board has tended toward the generous with employees and with salaries.
[00:10:18.17] When we created the report, we asked that they bring the base wage up from-- what was it? $9.50 to $12 an hour. So, you'll notice some pretty big changes, especially on page nine. We can talk about that. That is not set in stone that we're going to do that, or that the Finance Committee, or the staff will recommend that, but that's an early analysis based on Ed's report.
[00:10:43.14] LINH SONG: And moving us closer to minimum wage.
[00:10:45.56] KAREN WILSON: Yeah.
[00:10:46.75] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Nice, that's something I think--
[00:10:47.31] LINH SONG: Or past minimum wage. Sorry--
[00:10:48.77] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Sort of watching. It's nice to see-- I mean, I think it's very good to keep on the librarian salaries and make sure that they advance as they need to. But I think it's very good we're paying attention to the most entry level staff and bringing them up in line. You see a lot of other businesses in our community doing that. And it's like a little painful for the library to not be on par with that. But, you brought up labor costs going up. I think this is like something that-- I think it's important for us to do, but it is going to cost money.
[00:11:22.61] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's going to cost money and also, we continue to see the tax base rise. So, we might not go up in terms of headcount, but if we go up in terms of staffing dollars-- when you look at how minimum wages are going up at the bottom, that's because there is a demand. So, the competition is much more fierce. It's not the only reason to do this.
[00:11:44.54] The reason to do this is because to shelve books, $12 an hour seems reasonable. That's what most kids get paid babysitting these days. I looked at the average salary of McDonald's in Ann Arbor. It is--
[00:11:58.64] LINH SONG: Is it not $15 yet?
[00:12:00.35] KAREN WILSON: Yeah, I think it's-- no, it's not $15 yet, but it's at least $12. Because it's competitive. Yeah, the state law has us going up to $12.05 by 2030, which is terrible. We anticipate that it'll go up much further, much faster than that.
[00:12:16.83] So this is a way for us to stay competitive and also looking at the job pool. So Ed, who has been doing this for us for years-- it's informed by a 20-year history, which is great. You got the-- three years ago, the 2017 report analysis, as well, to take a look at. And there was nothing earth shattering about that. It's really all about those part-time workers that we have, those numbers really popping up for this year.
[00:12:48.11] LINH SONG: Great, so we covered this analysis, the salary analysis. We covered a little bit more about trespassing policies, bylaws. I think that was the gist of our Executive Committee meeting.
[00:13:04.71] KAREN WILSON: Committee structures.
[00:13:06.27] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Can I ask one more question-- oh, sorry. Closer-- OK. One more question about the salaries. So this competitive midpoint that you've identified, is that what you're going for? Or is that just like data?
[00:13:19.48] LINH SONG: I think it's data and we can talk about it a little bit more.
[00:13:22.64] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK.
[00:13:27.01] LINH SONG: We had talked a little bit about being anywhere-- what was it-- anywhere plus or minus 10% of the median of competitors.
[00:13:34.33] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK.
[00:13:34.61] LINH SONG: Right? Is that what our discussion--
[00:13:35.73] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah, so--
[00:13:38.71] LINH SONG: So the one thing that we need to talk about before we do the first reading, I think, or figure out how this works in the budget, is figure out what the total-- how we feel about the total being a percentage of the overall budget. That's something we need to get into later on.
[00:13:57.67] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Right, and on that page, you'll see that it would pop up from 41.3 to-- well, 43 to 47, depending, of total budget. Dave has done some of this work that I asked Josie about, which is give us the last 10 years, help us understand the trends of salaries. And by next month, we should have that. So we'll be able to talk about that in depth.
[00:14:25.05] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, so we'll talk more about that.
[00:14:25.84] LINH SONG: Yeah.
[00:14:26.29] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah, we have a couple of months to talk this over. This is not, you know-- and also, you and Jim are probably the two board members who have been through this process before. So hearing your perspective on what you did three years ago would be useful too.
[00:14:39.25] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, sounds good. Thanks, guys.
[00:14:42.32] LINH SONG: Anything else on Executive Committee that folks want to share? No? Great, OK. Moving on, budget and finance committee.

[00:14:55.38] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, so the Budget and Finance Committee took on its new formation at our last meeting, which was-- I didn't write it down in my notes. When was our meeting? It was February's something. It's Dharma, Victoria, and I.
[00:15:12.46] We have two major items on the agenda right now. The first is contracting an audit firm. We've come to the end of a three-year contract with our audit firm, which is Rehmann. They've conducted our audit for nearly 20 years. We've submitted an RFP to eight firms to provide audit services.
[00:15:30.73] In your Ephemera is a copy of the RFP. Rehmann is one of the firms to whom we requested a proposal. The three components of our service are-- conduct an audit, create our own 990, make comments on our internal controls. In order to give you recommendations by April 14th board meeting, we will be conducting interviews the first week in April.
[00:15:56.95] So our process is Eli, Josie, Bill will review the submissions and then recommend two to three firms for the committee to interview, with Eli, Josie, and Bill present. The committee will have the opportunity to review all the documents that they submitted if we want to. We chose to proceed this way so we can make sure that we start work on time, so we can bring the audit in on time.
[00:16:16.09] We'll be conducting those interviews a week before. And the committee plans to come to you with recommendations at that time. And the committee is establishing its own criteria for the interviews separately from the staff.
[00:16:30.36] LINH SONG: Great, anything else from Budget and Finance Committee?
[00:16:34.37] VICTORIA GREEN: One comment about the audit, which is the scope of the audit that we're asking for through the new RFP is similar to the service we've gotten in the past. So this isn't a change in scope. It's a change in--
[00:16:45.05] KERENE MOORE: Provider--
[00:16:45.31] VICTORIA GREEN: Re-bidding it out, basically.
[00:16:49.06] LINH SONG: Do you guys have anything more on the budget?
[00:16:51.82] DHARMA ACKMON: I don't think so. I think we've covered it.
[00:16:52.36] LINH SONG: OK. Great.

[00:16:54.37] LINH SONG: Thank you. Moving on to Director's Report. And Eli--
[00:16:59.00] ELI NEIBURGER: OK.
[00:16:59.40] LINH SONG: Sitting in for Josie--
[00:17:00.13] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, who is probably watching us at home.
[00:17:02.39] LINH SONG: Hello Josie--
[00:17:03.07] ELI NEIBURGER: Hi, Josie.
[00:17:03.55] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Hi, Josie.
[00:17:04.45] ELI NEIBURGER: All right, so here's the Director's Report for March 18th, 2019. So the downtown lobby renovations were completed on schedule. If you didn't get a chance to look, the graphics went up today. So you can see what that looks like. There's the new book's graphic. There's the teen graphic. There's one for the hold shelves. There's one for comics and graphic novels.
[00:17:22.03] There will also be a new graphical treatment for the entrance, the youth area, which has been very long in the tooth. And that will be-- they just started some of the patch work on that, so that will be coming in upcoming weeks. That also included the removal of the high bay lamps that have been there for at least 20 years.
[00:17:38.83] Those were HID fixtures, so they were not efficient fixtures, particularly. So those have been removed and replaced with LED fixtures up there in the ceiling. They're also dimable, so we'll be able to adapt to a lot laboratorium events. We also added new shades. We had had some metal blinds there that had stopped working a long time ago, so we have new shades, roller shades, all along those windows, again, when we need to darken the lobby for displays or presentations in the middle of the day.
[00:18:08.71] We also, just a few weeks ago, handed over about 2,000 books to Mott for their Book Babies project. This is a project that they started by contacting Rich. And they had an opportunity where they wanted to have bags of books distributed to the infants and toddlers who were patients at Mott. We started with the cardiology department.
[00:18:30.48] So those books are not good candidates for circulation for lots of different reasons. So it is a good thing for us to be able to use some of the Westerman Fund to fund delivery of those brand new books, purchased at the library rate. So we were able to use our discount on them and make it a much more bang for the buck. And so we delivered many pallets of books to Mott a few weeks ago. And they were delighted by that. It got some good press from Mott. It was also listed in "All About Ann Arbor." Question Victoria?
[00:19:00.43] VICTORIA GREEN: Eli, you said that it was for infants and toddlers--
[00:19:04.03] ELI NEIBURGER: Yeah.
[00:19:04.61] VICTORIA GREEN: Does it include newborns, or is it children--
[00:19:06.69] ELI NEIBURGER: It does include newborns. There is a zero to three-month set of books. So that is mostly about time spent holding the infant and something to do with--
[00:19:16.29] VICTORIA GREEN: So it's any baby who's born? Not just a baby--
[00:19:18.66] ELI NEIBURGER: No, it is children who are patients there. It is not for the babies who are--
[00:19:22.02] VICTORIA GREEN: Not for childbirth.
[00:19:22.65] ELI NEIBURGER: Not for childbirth. And it's-- is it mostly cardiology, Rich?
[00:19:26.37] RICH REYTI: Congenital heart floor to start.
[00:19:28.35] ELI NEIBURGER: Congenital heart floor to start with.
[00:19:30.30] RICH REYTI: Age 0 to 12. 0 months to [INAUDIBLE]
[00:19:42.12] ELI NEIBURGER: So, many of the patients are there for weeks or months. So, it is something where they get a bag that Mott provided, and the books that we provided, and it's a great program.
[00:19:54.42] All right, moving on. So our meeting room project begins with the first branch closure, that's Millets Creek branch, which is coming up, will close April 8th for six to eight weeks. During that time, we will have both meeting rooms will be built. Here you can see where the two new meeting rooms will show up.
[00:20:10.90] These will be self-booking meeting rooms. You can see one of them is right next to the computer room, and the other's in the weird, back corner next to the reading room. So those will each be-- one of them is a 10-person room, and the other's a six-person room. In addition to that, all new floors in the building. So all of the cork will be replaced, all of the carpet will be replaced. We'll also be rearranging the shelving to make the space better accommodate the materials that are used at that location.
[00:20:36.16] We'll also be converting the collection to categories, so that means relabeling approximately 75,000 items that happened during that closure. It will also include the recarpeting of the staff area and the meeting room as well. This project is being funded out of the capital fund with a small add on for the meeting room, is actually being funded out of capital outlays. Any questions about this? Yes.
[00:20:59.47] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Are you using cork again?
[00:21:01.75] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, it is cork, but it's a new-- it's a different cork product, the larger plank and a different adhesion method, yes.
[00:21:09.45] LINH SONG: Can you remind us how old Mallets is?
[00:21:11.07] ELI NEIBURGER: Mallets Creek is 15 years old. It opened in 2004, January of 2004.
[00:21:15.33] LINH SONG: I feel like it was just yesterday.
[00:21:17.54] ELI NEIBURGER: Victoria?
[00:21:18.64] VICTORIA GREEN: Eli, what are your plans again for materials, and how we're alerting the public about this.
[00:21:24.73] ELI NEIBURGER: So signage will go up next week. There is also an ad in The Observer, at the bottom of our ad. We also took out an ad in The Ann Arbor News, to say that this closure will be happening. Of course, the signs on the door and the notice on our website are the two things that hit most of our users.
[00:21:40.44] VICTORIA GREEN: So social media streams and various things as well.
[00:21:42.22] ELI NEIBURGER: Yep. And so, then, all of the holds will be moved to Westgate, just like they were ordering the downtown closure, because that's the branch most easy to accommodate another branch's hold shelves. And it's also the one that tends to be more convenient for most people over the course of their day.
[00:21:56.50] That worked out very well during the downtown closure. We had very few issues with that. So that'll be happening again. And then, we will not likely be able to page or retrieve any of the materials from Mallets Creek during this closure, because they will all be being relabeled. So however, there are very few items that are held only at a single branch. That was more of an issue with downtown offline, than it would be with a branch offline. Because there's relatively few items that are only held at a single branch. Any other questions about that? OK.
[00:22:25.52] We also, in April, will start our fourth floor staff area work. When you come up to Josie's office up the back elevator, you'll start to see that get very disrupted the same week that Mallets is getting disrupted. We have a plan for where all the staff will crash during that interim. But that will be new carpet, new furniture, and we'll be able to fit more workstations in there as a result. So that is happening starting in April. Questions about that?
[00:22:53.03] And new iPads are coming to Westgate this month. We have our prototype. It's been doing very well. So we are making 12 more of them. And those 12 will be going out to Westgate, eight of them on the table and four of them scattered around, to add more capacity there, now that Minecraft will stay working.
[00:23:10.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Can you explain what you mean by scattered around?
[00:23:12.65] ELI NEIBURGER: So, there's a couple of smaller tables. So some of the iPads will be placed on the tables. But they are movable. So they can be picked up and put somewhere. They can put it on the floor. They can take it into one of the cubes. It's a very large, heavy base, so we're not really worried about them walking off. But you can see this is what the base looks like.
[00:23:28.85] So, it is just out of the range for only the most determined toddlers to move themselves. So it's mostly a matter of the parents moving them to where they have space and where it's most comfortable.
[00:23:40.12] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, cool.
[00:23:41.00] LINH SONG: What's the age range for Minecraft?
[00:23:44.15] ELI NEIBURGER: Really, two and up. Very young kids can poke around at it and be doing things.
[00:23:51.34] VICTORIA GREEN: And Eli, I know that our community in some ways is split. Some of us love that our children have access to electronic media in the library, and a certain percentage don't. Is there any changes that we've made, or any approach that we've taken, recognizing that that is a split among our patrons?
[00:24:10.22] ELI NEIBURGER: Not in particular. These are a service that we provide for everyone. And there are many materials in the library that parents might prefer their children not consume. And that is between the parent and the child.
[00:24:21.95] VICTORIA GREEN: I think my last question was about the physical role out of them, in terms of their-- are they in any way spread differently throughout the physical space?
[00:24:30.08] ELI NEIBURGER: No, not particularly. We actually hear more there aren't enough than that there are too many. So the major issue is we're going from eight iPads to 12. Because many parents would complain about conflict over the iPads, because there weren't enough of them. So that is something that we are-- that's how we're addressing it, is by adding more of them. I know that part of the audience will be disappointed to see that they're back.
[00:24:49.99] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It still doesn't seem like there's a glut though. Like 12, does not seem like that many. I mean, that's a 50%--
[00:24:56.63] ELI NEIBURGER: I mean, not for a building that has 30,000 people a month through it.
[00:24:59.94] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Right.
[00:25:01.14] ELI NEIBURGER: OK, any other questions about this? All right. OK, so, we're coming up on the start of festival season. And festival season, we've got a couple of strange events coming up. One of them, you have this folder on your little book on your table. This is the "Explorer's Journal" for the In-Between Quest for the Keystone, which is an interactive kind of mystery that we'll be doing here on March 30th.
[00:25:25.76] This is kind of a spiritual successor to our very successful Raccoon Ranch event that happened back in the fall. And this requires patrons to interact with staff that are playing roles throughout the building.
[00:25:37.16] LINH SONG: Oh, my gosh.
[00:25:37.52] ELI NEIBURGER: And try to solve a mystery, involving puzzles and ciphers, and then make a decision about how this in-between world should progress, that will then effect-- what happens the next time we do this will be dependent on what the patrons choose.
[00:25:52.91] VICTORIA GREEN: So, I just want to say the board has absolutely nothing to do with this kind of programming. And the staff are so fabulous.
[00:25:58.67] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I know, it's so cool.
[00:25:59.99] AUDIENCE: It's wonderful.
[00:26:00.17] ELI NEIBURGER: It's a lot of fun. We're all looking forward to this one. I have a role to play in this one.
[00:26:05.09] COLLEEN SHERMAN: What do you get to be?
[00:26:06.26] ELI NEIBURGER: I'm the alchemist, yes.
[00:26:08.50] LINH SONG: Is this costumed?
[00:26:09.92] ELI NEIBURGER: It is costumed, yes. I have a lab coat and everything. So then, on April 13th, this is Record Store Day. This was moved fairly recently by the Record Store Day organization. So that is going to be on April 13th. And that is a vendor fair. And we have people selling used records here. And there are a lot of record collectors all over town that day.
[00:26:31.79] DHARMA AKMON: Is that the same one that used to be at Weber's?
[00:26:34.10] ELI NEIBURGER: No, this is separate. That one at Weber's still goes on and it's quarterly. That's a big record show. And those vendors typically don't have access to Record Store Day, because Record Store Day is much more about the retailers, the permanent locations. But several of the vendors who will be selling here are sellers at the Weber's show as well.
[00:26:52.42] OK, then, the next day, on Sunday, we have another weird event. This is called Swamp Gas, Stars or a Close Encounter. And this one's a spiritual successor to our Wondrous Strange event that we had a couple of years ago. And this is based on the UFO sighting in Dexter in the '60s, which the official federal response was that it was swamp gas, that nobody saw anything, it was swamp gas.
[00:27:14.36] So we're having some fun with that, with all the archival materials from the time. So that will be that event. We will be converting the lobby. I believe a UFO is planned. So then in May, May 15th, is Visions 2019. After how successful Visions was at the downtown library last year, this is our adaptive technology, assistive technology fair, focusing on people with visual impairments.
[00:27:35.72] And after how successful it was last year, we decided to make it an annual event, instead of a biannual event. So that is something that is now happening every year in the spring. And that will be happening on Wednesday, May 15th, here at the downtown library. Then on May 18th, we have the Gardening and DIY Fest. That's something we've done a couple times. And that's been going very well. It's not Mother's Day this year, so we should have a solid audience.
[00:27:58.55] And then the next day, May 19th, is AACME, which is the successor to the Ann Arbor Mini-Maker Fair. So that stands for the Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo. And we have vendors exhibiting all kinds of stuff that they've made, exhibitors with projects that they've built, and robots, and all kinds of exciting stuff there on that day.
[00:28:17.00] Then on June 14th, Summer Game begins. Then June 15th and 16th is A2CAF, the comics convention. Then June 16th, 23rd, and 30th, we present Kids Rock at Top of the Park, so three different bands we're bringing in. We have-- I can't remember the names of all the acts, but it's a really nice run up. We'll give you some more details about that at the May meeting.
[00:28:38.00] Then June 13th, mark your calendars for the AADL Summer Games Spectacular at Vets Park. That's a Saturday-- sorry, July 13th. Then July 20th, we're having a bunch of special events here at the downtown library, crafts and such, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. And then on August 4th, it's a Lego contest, on Sunday for a first time. That will be at Kensington Court Hotel, because we cannot accommodate it at the downtown library. So that's Sunday, April 4th.
[00:29:03.89] And then April 31st is the Game over Gala at the end of the Summer Game. Any questions about any of that?
[00:29:10.92] LINH SONG: This is really intense.
[00:29:13.09] ELI NEIBURGER: That's a lot of stuff going on. All right, so then the annual report was sent out on Friday. It went to 95,502 email addresses. And so far, as of this moment, we've had about 15,000 views so far, which is about 15% open rate, which is outstanding. So we're very pleased with that. And that will continue to tick up over the next couple days as people look at it.
[00:29:35.75] But I wanted to give you a couple of highlights of some of the responses that we've had. Unlike all other email newsletters, there's somebody listening when you click reply. If you click reply, there's not a-- do not reply to this email-- there's someone reading it. So here's some of the responses that we've gotten.
[00:29:51.29] A jewel in our midst. That was the entirety of the email response. So that's always nice to get an email like that. I am pleased to have my tax dollars spent on this outstanding service. I wish all aspects of civic life were as rewarding and such a great value. Can't really top that one.
[00:30:05.84] So, here's a question we've gotten several times, I wanted to mention to you, in case you get a similar question. What happens to the profit of $1.8 million? There was-- the revenues did outpace the expenses last year by $1.8 million. However, that is not a profit. That's a surplus.
[00:30:23.28] And so there's two things that happen to that. For one, is that it goes into the fund balance, so it is not lost or returned to some other organization. And the board has the option, at the end of the fiscal year, to leave it in the fund balance or vote to make a move into the capital fund. So that is something the board can do at any time.
[00:30:40.44] Furthermore, it was kind of unusual last year, because there was a number of capital fund appropriations made, but the work was not completed during that year. So there were some expenses that then would have landed in the following fiscal year, which is the whole idea for the capital fund, is to enable purchases that can easily crossover fiscal years. Any questions about that?
[00:31:00.02] OK, and then one other question we got. What are state penal fines, which was about $228,000. When people see penal fines on a library annual report, they assume it's library fines. But these are actually when you get a traffic ticket, or a citation, or any sort of payment that is required to be made as punishment associated with a civil case, or an infraction, or a violation.
[00:31:21.11] Those go to the county treasurer. And then the county treasurer distributes those to law libraries and to public libraries. It's actually in the state constitution, since 1835, that any penal fines collected must be spent on library service. So, we receive a per capita disbursement that's almost half of the money collected in Washanaw County.
[00:31:43.00] And we have almost half of the residents of Washanaw County in our district. So that's where that money comes from. And so that is not library fines. That is our share of that. And every library in Michigan gets those. Any questions about that? All right.
[00:31:58.30] OK, so here's some public and staff comments. Here, we got a lot of love when we reopened the downtown library and showed off some pictures of the new flooring. So you can see that hit about 5,800 people. And we had a lot of engagement on that one, many shares and lots of happy faces and hearts. So you can see Date night was one of the first comments. Date night to come see the new luxury vinyl tile at the public library. So that's always good.
[00:32:21.57] But lots of great comments. Holy-moly, see the giant chess set. I mean, that's the same giant chess set that was there before, but it looks really nice on the new carpet. And then, I love the comment, I forgot what it used to look like. That's how you know a renovation has been successful, that no one can remember what it used to look like.
[00:32:38.51] Here is Brain Gym had to be canceled because of a-- I'm not sure what that event was, but instead-- they were planning to do one thing, but instead our staff stepped up to the plate and came up with something on the spur of the moment, which was dancing and board games for the Washanaw SD Cultural Arts program. And then we also, through the Washanaw SD Cultural Arts program had a special program turning t-shirts, old library t-shirts into tote bags. So they learned how to use a sewing machine. And thanks to Valerie and Beth on our staff for helping make that happen.
[00:33:13.05] Our storytellers go out to a lot of the elementary schools and do assemblies. So this is Laura. And I think that's Allison from our staff doing a storyteller assembly over at Laughton. So you can see this is from one of the teachers at Laughton, and very excited about that. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. That's a great hashtag.
[00:33:32.33] OK, and then this is Nathan Hat. He's one of the teachers over at A2 Steam. This is the second year that we've done this, that they've taken a field trip from one of the Steam classes of design and modeling. That's one of the Project Lead The Way courses.
[00:33:44.16] And they came to the Secret Lab for a letter press demo and learned how to print their own things. You can see there, in the bottom right, someone printed their initials in a very large format. So it's delightful to see these post-millennials embracing 150, 200-year-old printing technologies. So they have a great time with that. That's always a big hit with that class.
[00:34:06.33] And then, this is just a wonderful tweet recently about a band that played at the Zal Gaz Grotto Club, and they'd borrowed a bunch of lights from AADL circulating lights collection to make it look good. And that was a benefit for those in the community who are housing insecure. And so they were thanking us for providing the lighting effects and to the Grotto for hosting. And that was just this past weekend.
[00:34:27.30] And then, this is a great one. As you may know, we circulate thermal imaging cameras. It's an infrared camera that allows you to visualize things. It's great for finding leaks in your house. As we found out here, it's actually also great for beekeepers to see if their colony is still alive. So you can point the camera at your hive, and they can see their colony is doing well, and nice and warm in there. Because you don't want to open up the hive and let the cold air in to check on them. So they were very excited to see their hives were still-- and this is a local beekeeper.
[00:34:55.98] And then here's a-- we share this guy's pictures a lot, because his kids are so adorable. And this is Baby Bear. Had a great time this morning at his first time to Dancing Babies at the AADL. Dancing Babies is a monthly program that is a big hit with kids who are right on the cusp between a sort of toddlerhood and preschool. And they love to to get into it.
[00:35:16.90] Here's another picture. This is Young Mind in Action, Fatherhood Chronicles. And this is at Pittsfield again, experiencing what we call Bernie, the Bernoulli Ball exhibit. And then this is Dr. Roxanne Prichard, who works for the Study for College Sleep. And she was in town for a college mental health conference. And she happened to stop by our library and stayed in Ann Arbor. Feeling grateful for public transportation, public art, and public libraries. Thank you, taxpayers.
[00:35:45.77] And then here is Kiel Phegley. The downtown branch of our library system is closed for a few days for remodeling and they're still honoring all holds by shipping them to another location during construction. If there's a for-profit entity working for its constituency as hard as libraries, I'll eat one of my own books. He is a children's author. And I will note he writes readers, so they're very thin books. So that's not a-- yes, but, thank you Kiel for an amazing, amazing testimonial. And that's it for the Director's Report. Any questions?
[00:36:12.42] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Well, I guess if I was going to eat a book, a reader might be choice.
[00:36:14.55] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, that's a good place to start.
[00:36:17.81] LINH SONG: I was so relieved that for the duration that the downtown branch was closed that we didn't have excessively cold days. I was checking every day. I was really nervous about that. So I think we were really lucky. But you had given notice to agencies before hand.
[00:36:36.28] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, specifically reached out to all of the warming centers and let them know.
[00:36:39.75] LINH SONG: Yeah, great.
[00:36:40.86] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I just had something to say about the letter press. I had a meeting the other day with one of the other letter people on campus. And he's like, oh, I love when I meet with the AADL letter press people. Sometimes I just say a couple ideas and then next time I see them, they've done all of them. And I just said them. I think he's just-- his mind was blown at how you guys like see an idea, and then you just like tackle it, and do it, and do more things. It's just pretty awesome.
[00:37:08.24] LINH SONG: I have kind of a funny question about when we send storytellers out to schools. And know PTOs, like PTO budgets are really tight. A lot of it is allocated. Each school fundraises for assemblies and field trips. Is something that the library charges for?
[00:37:25.90] ELI NEIBURGER: Oh, absolutely no. No, these are free assemblies that we provide. There's no charge to the schools for this. So that's a nice slot for them to get an assembly with no cost.
[00:37:35.25] LINH SONG: Excellent. Thank you.
[00:37:36.81] ELI NEIBURGER: Good question.
[00:37:38.48] LINH SONG: Any thing else? Any other questions for Eli? Awesome, thank you.
[00:37:43.41] ELI NEIBURGER: Thank you very much.

[00:37:45.46] LINH SONG: OK, so moving on, old business. An update on construction projects with Len. Hi, Len.
[00:37:56.69] LEN LEMORIE: Good evening. I feel like Eli did a really good job of updating all of us though.
[00:38:01.52] LINH SONG: I have full confidence in your abilities too.
[00:38:04.14] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah, so the downtown closure went very smooth. We were closed from the 25th of February to the 8th of March. We were able to accomplish everything that we set out to. And I would like to think not just our staff, but our maintenance staff, and Andre Williams, our supervisor, that he accomplished at least five to seven projects that were not on any list, that he took full advantage of the closure. Did some repairs to restrooms, painted the banisters in the staircase. He just did an amazing job with the closure. It was a lot of help.
[00:38:35.57] So it went smooth. We were able to open on time, which is always good. The fourth floor staff very will happen this month, or start this month, and be completed the week of April 22nd. And then, of course, our Mallets Creek closure is April 8th, for six to eight weeks, we hope. Any questions?
[00:38:58.65] LINH SONG: It looks really amazing.
[00:39:00.85] LEN LEMORIE: Yes, we're all very happy.
[00:39:04.23] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's really nice to see the LVT tile too.
[00:39:06.39] KEREME MOORE: Yeah.
[00:39:07.32] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we had carpet in the lobby for so long.
[00:39:11.13] LEN LEMORIE: We joked that we added 1,000 square feet to the lobby. It just looks wider.
[00:39:16.09] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah.
[00:39:16.67] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It does.
[00:39:18.40] LINH SONG: And this will really hold up for events, like a couple of months ago, we had the robotics.
[00:39:24.47] LEN LEMORIE: Yes.
[00:39:24.70] LINH SONG: And I saw with each one had those their own carts they had built. So this will hold up too.
[00:39:30.91] LEN LEMORIE: It will and it's really about the traffic in and out. We have a lot of patrons that come in. We're in Michigan. We have wet seasons and winter seasons. It's about giving boots the ability to run off before they get to carpet too. We should get our 25 years out of it.
[00:39:44.57] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Len, in addition to the public comments we got online, what has the public response been here in this space? Do you get feedback.
[00:39:53.05] LEN LEMORIE: There was so much conversation, I think, for us, internally. The lighting was the biggest thing. We were-- when you do something like that, you have a goal in mind. And I think we surpassed that. And several people mentioned that, like wow, it looks a lot better than I anticipated.
[00:40:10.18] I heard from someone, and I can't remember who, but when we reopened that parents noticed the carpet and children noticed the lighting. So it just-- I think it depends on what you're looking for. And I did see the-- I saw the comment on Saturday when we opened, that one of the patrons had said they forgot what it looked like. And I agree, that's a success.
[00:40:27.15] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah. That's great. Congratulations. It's so nice to walk in here now.
[00:40:34.97] LEN LEMORIE: All right, thank you.
[00:40:35.72] KERENE MOORE: Thank you.
[00:40:36.45] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Thank you.

[00:40:38.57] LINH SONG: All right, so we've got a batch of-- I've got a couple of-- I've got a resolution. Can I have someone read the resolution? This is to establish the Strategic Planning Committee. Any volunteers?
[00:40:56.52] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'll read it for you.
[00:40:58.16] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[00:41:00.17] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: The board resolves as follows, that the strategic planning committee consists of Linh Song, chairperson, Victoria Green, and Jamie Vander Broek. That the charge to the Strategic Planning Committee is to act as a steering group for the planning process that includes the entire board of trustees and the AADL staff, to engage at their discretion an external consultant to facilitate the process with the staff and board, to plan at minimum three facilitated substantial conversations with a quorum of the board, at regularly scheduled public board meetings, that will determine the time period the strategic plan will cover, and the components and structure of the plan.
[00:41:35.93] And that one of the three meetings will be structured as a town hall style event, that includes an invitation for the public to engage in conversation with the board about the future of the library, and to provide a strategic plan document for board review and approval no later than January 1, 2020. All resolutions, and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded.
[00:41:57.01] LINH SONG: Is there a second?
[00:41:57.36] KERENE MOORE: Second.
[00:42:02.89] LINH SONG: Do we have any discussion on this?
[00:42:06.44] VICTORIA GREEN: I have a clarification. So a resolution calls for three facilitated conversations with a quorum of the board. And one of them will be at regularly scheduled public board meetings. And that one of those will be structured as a town hall style event. So one of our regular board meetings will become a town hall style event?
[00:42:27.87] LINH SONG: No, I think it would be a separate. I think, it would be a separate event.
[00:42:32.70] VICTORIA GREEN: So the way-- but that would be my expectation, that we would have a regularly scheduled board meetings every month, and then we'd have the town until one on top of that. But I'm not sure that's what this says. Kerene, do you agree? Sorry, I looked at you as a lawyer, a contract lawyer, my apologies.
[00:42:54.98] KERENE MOORE: I mean, I agree, it reads the way that you interpret, that's how I interpret it
[00:42:58.69] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
[00:42:59.39] VICTORIA GREEN: --meetings will be structured as a town hall style event. I think what we're singling is that in addition to, an additional meeting will be offered that is a town hall style event, but it will still be public.
[00:43:13.55] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Well, if you wanted it to still just be three total meetings, including this thing, you could leave it this way maybe. And then because we often don't meet in August, or something.
[00:43:24.00] LINH SONG: And have a town hall in August as an option.
[00:43:27.15] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Or not even in August, but just like it would still be a regular board meeting, but a different day. I feel like you could play with-- you could probably accomplish that with this language.
[00:43:39.02] VICTORIA GREEN: It feels to me like what we mean though is to plan at minimum two facilitated substantial conversations with a quorum of the board and an additional town hall style meeting that includes a quorum of the board.
[00:43:50.59] COLLEEN SHERMAN: But it's at minimum. That seems like that gives us more flexibility. Then we have a minimum of two in-public at the board, or regular board meeting. And then we do the town hall.
[00:44:00.41] VICTORIA GREEN: Exactly.
[00:44:00.98] COLLEEN SHERMAN: And we do that at all by end of January? No, January 1. It seems really reasonable. And that seems like three public spaces for dialogue. Then if we decide we want to add a third, we can add a third.
[00:44:11.36] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah.
[00:44:12.33] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Board meeting discussion.
[00:44:13.84] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah.
[00:44:15.59] LINH SONG: So, I think we're
[00:44:17.36] VICTORIA GREEN: On the fly, sure.
[00:44:18.71] LINH SONG: Would you like to amend the--
[00:44:20.60] VICTORIA GREEN: See if I can get this right. I would like to propose that we amend it to say to plan at minimum two facilitated substantial conversations with a quorum of the board, et cetera, and down to that, in addition, an additional public meeting with a quorum of the board will be structured as a town hall style event. And then the rest of the language. Is that reasonable? Does anyone see a problem with that?
[00:44:49.35] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I second it.
[00:44:50.19] AUDIENCE: Yes.
[00:44:51.94] LINH SONG: Any discussion?
[00:44:55.03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Sounds reasonable.
[00:44:58.87] ELI NEIBURGER: First vote on the amendment.
[00:45:00.51] LINH SONG: Let's vote on the amendment and then we'll vote on the resolution. All those in favor on the amendment.
[00:45:10.91] AUDIENCE: Aye.
[00:45:12.32] LINH SONG: Any opposed? So the amendment is approved. And then let's go ahead and vote on the resolution as amended. All those in favor?
[00:45:26.22] AUDIENCE: Aye.
[00:45:26.56] LINH SONG: Any opposed. Great, So it's so passed, so moved. Great, so moving on, thank you for piecing that out. I know we're all very, very busy. And this is something that we also really rely on staff to help us coordinate too, because as much as we love to convene with each other, it's also-- we also face limitations of availability on space too. So say thank you in advance, too staff, in helping us plan this down the road.
[00:46:00.23] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Would you like me to read the shortie?
[00:46:02.19] LINH SONG: That would be great.

[00:46:03.50] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, great. The board resolves as follows, the meeting room policy, 4.1, is revised as proposed. That all resolutions and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded. Would you like me to read this? Or did we-- do we need to? We don't need to read that.
[00:46:22.59] LINH SONG: Read the actual policy.
[00:46:24.28] DHARMA AKMON: It looks like it's just the removal of one sentence.
[00:46:26.50] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yeah. So we're removing library meeting rooms are not available for religious services or social events.
[00:46:33.80] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Seconded.
[00:46:35.03] LINH SONG: Great, discussion.
[00:46:36.95] DHARMA AKMON: Can I just--
[00:46:37.83] LINH SONG: Yes.
[00:46:38.26] DHARMA AKMON: I just would just like to learn a little bit more about how this came to be and the history of it.
[00:46:43.11] LINH SONG: I think where this is moving us in line with case law. Is that right?
[00:46:47.52] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, there have been some challenges to libraries that have rules like this in terms of religious services, and libraries have not won in those cases. It's mostly an issue of bringing into line with that. And then as far as the social goes, we would like to have the flexibility to allow that. We've started to get some requests for weddings. While we would not be offering a full AADL wedding package, if someone would like to--
[00:47:15.98] DHARMA AKMON: You should consider that.
[00:47:17.42] ELI NEIBURGER: If someone would like to hold their ceremony, and our rooms can accommodate what they have in mind, why not? Similarly, we've never wanted to end someone's birthday party when they have a birthday party and self-booking room. So there's a combination here of case law and flexibility for enforcing the rules of behavior in the library.
[00:47:39.36] VICTORIA GREEN: Eli, I have a question that's a little more detailed, which is, I think that in our bookable rooms, we don't provide AV services of any kind.
[00:47:46.44] ELI NEIBURGER: It depends on the room. Some of the rooms, the two Westgate rooms both have screens built in.
[00:47:50.67] VICTORIA GREEN: And so people are responsible for figuring out how to hook their stuff up.
[00:47:54.09] ELI NEIBURGER: We'll give them the same support we would with anything else in the library. We do help them. The desk staff will help them if they are having trouble getting connected. But we can't guarantee that they'll be able to get it working.
[00:48:05.28] VICTORIA GREEN: We don't have a person who walks them through it, for example.
[00:48:07.32] ELI NEIBURGER: Correct.
[00:48:07.44] VICTORIA GREEN: It's a little self-service kind of basic technology.
[00:48:09.69] ELI NEIBURGER: The two downtown rooms don't have screens yet, but that is planned. And all of the new rooms going in all the buildings will have screens.
[00:48:15.51] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah, I can see that, if you're holding a meeting of any kind, I'd want to project.
[00:48:18.54] ELI NEIBURGER: Yeah.
[00:48:19.38] VICTORIA GREEN: And then along the same lines, I don't think it's a matter of board policy, but it might be a rule rather than a policy, but what is it about food in meeting rooms?
[00:48:30.09] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, there is a policy, when you are renting a room there is a food surcharge. That is actually procedure. So that's not policy.
[00:48:37.53] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
[00:48:38.07] ELI NEIBURGER: In the case of the self-booking meeting rooms, it's the same rules as the rest of the library, which is we prefer that your drinks be covered and if you're making a big mess and you're serving a whole meal, we're going to ask you be considerate about it.
[00:48:52.62] So it's not a hard and fast rule. It's for the staff to use their judgment. But generally, snacks are not a problem and meals are where it gets a little more complicated, depending on how the room's being used. Does that answer your question?
[00:49:03.70] VICTORIA GREEN: It does. I was just wondering if we saw this as a-- I don't think of this as a problem. I can't think of a theoretical problem, and I haven't seen an actual problem. But I wondered what we are seeing in practice, whether there were issues with food, per se, in the rooms? I mean, we obviously allow covered beverages.
[00:49:22.23] ELI NEIBURGER: It happens a little bit, sometimes there'll be chips left behind, but there's nothing--
[00:49:26.59] VICTORIA GREEN: That's my kid.
[00:49:27.81] ELI NEIBURGER: There's nothing egregious that's happening in the room. So there's not really a behavioral problem we need to address.
[00:49:31.47] VICTORIA GREEN: No reason to address, OK, thank you.
[00:49:33.72] ELI NEIBURGER: And just as a reminder, this is just a hearing, there's no vote on this month.
[00:49:37.86] LINH SONG: Right, this is just the first reading.
[00:49:39.51] KERENE MOORE: Can I ask another question. In practice, is this what we're already doing at the library? I mean have we told people no, you can't book this because it's a--
[00:49:47.88] KAREN WILSON: We have not had cause to turn away any religious usage. And social has been a pretty fuzzy line. It's kind of hard to say when something is social or not. However, in practice, we've definitely seen birthday parties happening in rooms and not stopped them. So we are not about to ruin somebody's birthday at the library.
[00:50:07.57] KERENE MOORE: Thank you.
[00:50:08.89] LINH SONG: Do we have anything about the about food in the library? Is there anything with our partnership with Sweetwaters?
[00:50:17.05] ELI NEIBURGER: No, there's nothing in our agreement with them that precludes or makes any requirement, other than we ask them to serve drinks with lids. And the lids are available there. But that's-- we ask the drinks be covered. And that's the extent of it.
[00:50:31.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I've personally distributed a lot of Sweetwater's muffin crumbs in the children's area. But I appreciate that I can do that.
[00:50:37.91] ELI NEIBURGER: Of the things that need to get cleaned up at the library, muffin crumbs are welcome anytime.
[00:50:42.03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Good point, good point.
[00:50:43.63] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Sometimes I wish I could check out a handbag from the library and then just walk around.
[00:50:48.10] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Me too, I do wish they had a tiny tools collection of one of those--
[00:50:51.87] ELI NEIBURGER: Oh, boy.
[00:50:52.62] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: The silent one's that don't have--
[00:50:55.84] ELI NEIBURGER: We would like to avoid adding cleaning products to the library circulating collections.
[00:50:59.83] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: All right, I'm done with my joke.
[00:51:03.37] VICTORIA GREEN: I have one other comment, which I mentioned when I called you earlier today, Eli. This is not any change, but I noticed that we-- the policy says that individuals and groups approved to use library meeting rooms shall not discriminate against any individual on the basis of age, race, sex, ethnicity, or religion, with respect to access to library space. I have no problem with that statement. I just wonder if it's too small. It doesn't include gender identity, it doesn't include sexual orientation. It doesn't include a number of things that we, in other parts say that we don't want to discriminate against.
[00:51:41.20] LINH SONG: So we could change that at the same time next month?
[00:51:44.82] ELI NEIBURGER: Yep. We could bring a draft of that. We could bring it in line with the other places that's mentioned the policy.
[00:51:48.88] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Doesn't sex cover gender identity?
[00:51:51.58] KERENE MOORE: Not necessarily.
[00:51:53.70] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
[00:51:56.08] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So what would you use as a reference, Eli?
[00:51:58.25] ELI NEIBURGER: I believe we have an anti-discrimination clause elsewhere in the library policies.
[00:52:02.72] LINH SONG: OK.
[00:52:03.14] ELI NEIBURGER: And we can look at that.
[00:52:04.62] LINH SONG: Great, thank you for doing that. Thank you, Victoria, for bringing that up.
[00:52:09.53] VICTORIA GREEN: I'm really rocking on this meeting, aren't I?

[00:52:11.91] DHARMA AKMON: I think we skipped an item. I think we might've skipped an item though.
[00:52:15.20] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah. Dharma's correct
[00:52:16.04] LINH SONG: Oh, did we? I'm so sorry.
[00:52:17.84] DHARMA AKMON: That's OK. The board retreat date.
[00:52:20.49] LINH SONG: Oh, yes, I'm so sorry. Sorry, Kerene, we're making this harder on you. We did skip see the approval of the border retreat day on May 4th. And that is an item of action that we do need to vote on.
[00:52:34.72] VICTORIA GREEN: May 14th.
[00:52:35.45] LINH SONG: Yes, May 14th. So there is no resolution, is there? It's just a motion. OK, can I get second to approve the board retreat date?
[00:52:51.49] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Should I make the motion? OK, I move that we meet on May 14.
[00:52:57.83] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I second.
[00:52:59.40] LINH SONG: Great, all in favor?
[00:53:02.77] VICTORIA GREEN: Or do we have hours? I have 3 to 7 on my calendar, is that right?
[00:53:06.94] LINH SONG: I believe-- I think that was the time that we decided, is that right, Karen? That was the magic the Karen was able to pull from all of our calendars. OK. Let's vote. All those in favor?
[00:53:23.18] AUDIENCE: Aye.

[00:53:24.73] LINH SONG: Opposed. So that passes. And then we'll get back on track to the next item of discussion, which is the revised smoke free policy. All right, so if I have this right, this is just to align us with state laws. Is that right, Eli?
[00:53:45.29] ELI NEIBURGER: Correct.
[00:53:48.15] LINH SONG: Does anyone have feelings about this?
[00:53:50.66] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Is this because of vaping? OK.
[00:53:54.18] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I asked my teenager if people should be allowed to vape in the library.
[00:53:59.65] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'm sorry, I'm laughing.
[00:54:01.03] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It's OK.
[00:54:01.86] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: What did he say.
[00:54:03.45] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Well, I thought it was a reasonable question. I wanted to get the teenager perspective, because who's the most likely to vape in the library? I don't know, but I would suspect like the teenage population, vaping gets me high, so I'm like hey, is this a big deal. I don't know if people do this-- well I know some. But he said, it smells bad or it can, no, you shouldn't do it in the library.
[00:54:25.59] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Good.
[00:54:25.95] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So, there we go. That's a a vote of one.
[00:54:31.62] LINH SONG: So this is just our first review. And we'll vote on this next month. Any other thoughts? Or additions?
[00:54:40.12] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I have one more question about vaping, which is, Eli, does anyone from the library, is it a problem?
[00:54:45.43] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, it has been a problem occasionally. There is a perception among vapers that it has no odor. And that it is somehow allowed indoors. So it has happened. And it has been something where we need to refer to the policy. And so it would be helpful to refer to, and also to bring it in line with what the state language is.

[00:55:07.69] LINH SONG: Great, any other thoughts, feelings about the smoke free policy? Great. I look forward to another rigorous discussion next month when we vote on this, fantastic. OK, moving on. We need a roll call vote for a closed session next month. And this is for the director's evaluation that the Executive Committee will be working on. And presenting back to everyone.
[00:55:41.59] Karen, do we do go jump into roll call.
[00:55:43.52] ELI NEIBURGER: You need a motion.
[00:55:44.80] LINH SONG: Oh, yes.
[00:55:45.70] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So moved.
[00:55:47.71] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Seconded.
[00:55:48.89] LINH SONG: Great. Great, thank you, Karen.
[00:55:54.03] KAREN WILSON: Dharma Akmon.
[00:55:54.74] DHARMA AKMON: Yes.
[00:55:55.57] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green?
[00:55:56.94] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
[00:55:57.39] KAREN WILSON: Kerene Moore.
[00:55:58.29] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
[00:55:59.02] KAREN WILSON: Colleen.
[00:55:59.70] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes.
[00:56:00.54] KAREN WILSON: Linh Song.
[00:56:00.93] LINH SONG: Yes.
[00:56:01.75] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
[00:56:02.50] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.

[00:56:04.68] LINH SONG: Great, thank you, everyone. All right, any other citizen's comments for tonight? Great, well, I think this has been the fastest, speediest board meeting.
[00:56:22.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Nice work.

[00:56:22.87] LINH SONG: Even though in my head I'm going really slow. So I thank you all. With that, our meeting's adjourned. Thank you.

Media

March 18, 2019 at the Downtown Library

Length: 00:56:33

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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AADL Board Meeting