AADL Board Meeting - June 17, 2019

[00:00:08.19] LINH SONG: OK, This is call to order. Karen, do we have attendance?
[00:00:15.19] KAREN WILSON: Yes.
[00:00:18.74] LINH SONG: We had a recess, a closed session-- oh, can I get a motion to close session for--
[00:00:24.06] [SIDE CONVERSATION]

[00:00:29.47] Oh, yes, can I get a motion to approve the agenda?
[00:00:31.90] KERENE MOORE: Motion to approve the agenda.
[00:00:33.91] JIM LEIJA: Second. Discussion.
[00:00:39.17] LINH SONG: Discussion? Is there any discussion on the agenda? OK. All those in favor?
[00:00:45.00] ALL: Aye.

[00:00:45.85] LINH SONG: Opposed? OK. Can I get a motion on the consent agenda?
[00:00:52.64] JIM LEIJA: I move to approve the consent agenda.
[00:00:54.73] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Second. Any discussion? All those in favor?
[00:01:00.01] ALL: Aye.

[00:01:01.34] LINH SONG: Opposed? Great, so moved. Thank you. Karen, citizens comments. Do we have anyone, anyone at all?
[00:01:10.28] [LAUGHTER]
[00:01:17.50] So if you can, when you come up and give comments, we've asked folks to let us know your name. You don't have to give us your address or anything. But generally, where you live in the Ann Arbor.
[00:01:29.88] JIM LEIJA: How much time do they have?
[00:01:30.57] LINH SONG: You have three minutes. You have three minutes. Great, thank you.
[00:01:33.93] KAREN WILSON: All right, first person is Sarah-- is it [INAUDIBLE]?
[00:01:46.53] SARAH: I just wanted to say, I'm very thankful to the library and making things fun for adults as well as kids. I really, really appreciate it. And I was just wondering how much money I saved every year by checking materials out of the library. And I started looking on my shelf at home with my library items, and I have about 65 things out right now-- I mean, all sorts of things-- and I read a lot, and some are reference books.
[00:02:19.51] But I kind of did a quick counting of how much they were worth if I had to buy them pre-tax, and it was over $1,000. And then I got nervous and quit counting, because I don't want to be responsible for that much. But I would say I save about $200 to $300 a month on reading materials, just by using the library, and it means a lot to me. So thank you. And I don't have anything to write with, so--
[00:02:54.12] JOSIE PARKER: Take a picture?
[00:02:55.18] SARAH: There's no paper. You can call the next person while you're waiting.
[00:03:06.31] JIM LEIJA: Got to get those points. Take a picture of it, too, if you want to.
[00:03:09.64] SARAH: Oh, I don't have a smart phone.
[00:03:11.64] LINH SONG: Thank you for your comments. Thank you for coming tonight.
[00:03:14.11] SARAH: Thank you. I'm gonna just leave the pen here, OK?
[00:03:17.61] KAREN WILSON: Sure, go ahead. Emily Durham.
[00:03:27.34] EMILY DURHAM: Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm 10 years old. I like the Summer Game because I love reading. I love scavenger hunts, I'm also kind of a good detective. I also have a wide range of books and series I love. I also don't travel in the summer too often, so I have plenty of time to read. It also gives me something to do when I'm bored. Thank you for the summer reading program and thank you for listening to this speech.
[00:04:08.28] LINH SONG: Thank you, Emily.
[00:04:09.67] [APPLAUSE]
[00:04:15.31] LINH SONG: Emily. Did you want to get a picture of Emily at the podium?
[00:04:20.46] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I have I have a question.
[00:04:22.72] [LAUGHTER]
[00:04:32.26] KAREN WILSON: Cora Lee.
[00:04:38.05] CORA LEE: My name is Cora Lee, and I enjoy the library. Libraries are essential for a location. They provide so many benefits. And Ann Arbor is exceptional in the way they provide so many different materials and media in so many different formats, which complements the different learning styles.
[00:04:57.07] The Summer Game has added so many different layers to the benefits of our local library. The badge quests are informational and often mind-stretching. I appreciate the witty comments in the clues. The library staff are very helpful and patient during the Summer Game and throughout the year, and I thank you for providing such fun.
[00:05:18.58] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[00:05:19.63] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
[00:05:28.23] KAREN WILSON: Karen and Lauren [INAUDIBLE].
[00:05:35.79] LINH SONG: Hello.
[00:05:36.67] JOSIE PARKER: Hello.
[00:05:40.52] AUDIENCE: OK, I'll start first. We just wanted to say thank you for all the amazing programming and events that you do, and we enjoyed them so much. And I think we have some specific requests for more with--
[00:05:54.64] AUDIENCE: More events for the petting zoo.
[00:06:00.22] AUDIENCE: Animals and food. No? She likes Zingermans. She was trying plan an event the other day for us to do with Zingermans, because she knew it was summer game. But I also appreciate the fact that there are things for everyone, but I really appreciated the book signing yesterday and how it was run. We were on the fourth floor, and we were out of here by a half hour after it started. It was pretty impressive. I think librarians should run all events, or library staff. So thank you.
[00:06:42.50] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming out.
[00:06:44.71] AUDIENCE: Thank you.
[00:06:50.34] KAREN WILSON: Lucas.
[00:06:56.18] LUCAS: Hello, I'm Lucas, and I'm 10 years old. I go to King Elementary. One of the things that I really like about the library is this Summer Game. It is fun because you can get badges by exploring all around Ann Arbor. Another thing that I like about the library are the fun games you can order for free. I think they have every book in the world.
[00:07:15.32] One of the things that I wish that they'd change are the hours. I wish the library had longer hours because sometimes I have another thing to do, and I don't have enough time to pick out a new book from the library. I really like the international events that you have and also just the regular events. Thank you for having me.
[00:07:35.78] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming. That was fantastic.
[00:07:37.84] [APPLAUSE]
[00:07:42.32] KAREN WILSON: Susan Baun.
[00:07:46.79] SUSAN BAUN: Hi, I'm Susan, and I live over by the Pittsfield branch. And I appreciate the summer games because it gets me out of the house during the summer now that my kids are grown and exploring different places in Ann Arbor. And I've also encouraged the students that I work with at Forsythe Middle School to come to these. And I've actually taken a former Forsythe student, who's a special needs student, around to get codes with me. So it's a wonderful thing, great for the public, thank you very much.
[00:08:18.67] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming.
[00:08:20.08] [APPLAUSE]
[00:08:23.54] KAREN WILSON: Ann Scott.
[00:08:31.94] ANN SCOTT: I first wanted to thank you for having the Summer Game. I do appreciate playing it. My husband and I have especially enjoyed exploring the parks around Ann Arbor with those badges. And kudos to all the staff.
[00:08:47.55] But I also wanted to make a comment asking that you please revisit the decision to convert all branches to the subject heading style of cataloging. I would ask that you ask yourselves if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, which include alienating longtime users, in particular following the blog that happened about the mallets closing when it was said that it was going to be changed. There were a lot of comments there, which I do understand that the staff does read, and I have seen that the staff has responded to, so I do thank you for that.
[00:09:31.26] I would also suggest that having an alternative type of cataloging is confusing for the many new people who come to Ann Arbor each year to use the library. So thank you for your consideration.
[00:09:46.39] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[00:09:58.48] KAREN WILSON: [INAUDIBLE].
[00:09:58.98] TAMMY: Yeah, there's two of us.
[00:10:00.05] LINH SONG: Hi, girls!
[00:10:00.65] KATHY: We're doing a twofer.
[00:10:02.97] KATHY: Hi.
[00:10:03.70] LINH SONG: You came last year.
[00:10:05.36] KATHY: Yes, we did.
[00:10:06.82] TAMMY: It's the Tammy and Kathy show part two.
[00:10:08.61] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[00:10:10.04] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So when I worked at Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Tammy and Kathy were there pretty much every night, and they just make everything brighter, and happier, and shinier.
[00:10:20.03] KATHY: Thanks, Colleen, that's so sweet. So I would like to thank the Ann Arbor District Library for the variety of materials and tools that we are allowed to borrow from the library and for the range of programs that you provide throughout the year, not just the Ann Arbor summer game. Recently, I was talking to some friends who do not use the library on a regular basis. And I went on and on and on about how wonderful our library is. So much so, that they asked me if I worked here.
[00:10:49.91] [LAUGHTER]
[00:10:51.46] So thank you so much. And we were participating in an event next door, and I had just enough time to say thank you.
[00:10:59.85] [AUDIENCE AWWING]
[00:11:02.02] TAMMY: And we can't stay because I haven't finished mine. So I'm going back. Thank you so much. And no one has said it yet-- thank you for the ultra-cool pins!
[00:11:10.40] KATHY: Thank you very much.
[00:11:18.56] KAREN WILSON: Karen Stover.
[00:11:24.86] KAREN STOVER: Hi, I'm Karen Stover. I'm a current resident of Pittsfield Township. One of the reasons that I stayed within the Ann Arbor School District is because I wanted to keep my library card. I loved the library. I'm moving soon, and I realized I can save thousands of dollars by just putting $150 a year. On that, I'd like to talk about the summer games. I think it's amazing. I can echo everybody in here. I went to a bunch of programs through your Facebook postings of things to random events I would have never attended, like smell and tell and hiking activities. So that was great.
[00:12:05.05] One thing I would like to say, though, is that for outside residents, I kind of heard through a rumor that you could attend and do the summer games if you weren't a resident. And so I got my boyfriend signed up. However, it is horribly advertised. I talked to basically every artist at the A2 Comic Arts Festival, and they were all like, I don't know what's happening. I don't know who these people are. They don't care about the art. They just care about codes.
[00:12:35.51] And so in talking to them, I was like, oh, and you could play, too. And they were just so surprised. And I think another thing that isn't well advertised upfront is the prizes. If you're coming from anywhere else, prizes are not cool in a summer reading program, and I think that that's something that the library could do more and really bring more people. And I tell people, oh, yeah, I got these cool pint glasses with the library thing. And they always say, like, what? That's crazy. And if you've played, you know.
[00:13:04.90] But I think even when I did it last year, I had no idea what I was playing for. And even just saying, these are some of the things that we might offer, even shirts or anything would be really helpful, I think, toward convincing people to actually participate. Because we know it's happening, but a lot of people don't know why or that it's even worth it. So thanks.
[00:13:26.53] LINH SONG: Great, thank you.
[00:13:28.55] KAREN WILSON: Enzo.
[00:13:35.97] ENZO: Hello, my name is Enzo, and I'm almost 11. Thanks to AADL for devoting your time to make cool events. Have a good summer.
[00:13:45.67] LINH SONG: Thank you. You, too.
[00:13:49.93] [APPLAUSE]
[00:13:52.79] KAREN WILSON: Tess Rosa-Davies.
[00:13:54.65]
[00:14:00.53] TESS ROSA-DAVIES: Hi, my name is Tess. I don't have long message, but I would just like to thank you all for how awesome the summer game is. I really enjoy playing it. The staff here is so nice. I love meeting all the new people. I love going everywhere. My family did an awesome badge at the cemetery last year. And that was just a place that we had never really been to before. So there's a lot of places that we've never gone to that we really enjoy going to. So thank you for the whole program and everything that you guys do.
[00:14:32.05] LINH SONG: Thanks for coming.
[00:14:33.21] [APPLAUSE]
[00:14:38.17] KAREN WILSON: Rachel Kaufman.
[00:14:41.87] RACHEL KAUFMAN: So, yeah, I'm Rachel. I'm 13. And I go to Slauson Middle School. And our family is longtime library people. We always come to library. And from a young age, we always go to library story time every Tuesday. It was a thing. It was a tradition. And even after we became too old to enjoy library story time, we still come every Tuesday, and it's our family ritual, and in the summertime it's great.
[00:15:05.67] And my mom, like most parents, probably are like, oh, god. I'm cooped up with these kids all summer. What am I going to do? And so the Summer Game has been awesome for our family. We do all the badges online and in the catalog, and we go to all the different places and events. And it fills the summer with a lot of more things that we usually wouldn't have.
[00:15:23.68] And I found a lot of new things through Summer Game, new books, new movies, new places, and new activities that I really ended up doing from all of the things. So, basically, saying the thing everyone's been saying all night, thank you so much, and cool pins, and-- yes-- Summer Game, you guys are doing great. Keep doing a good job.
[00:15:41.48] ["THANK YOUS" FROM THE BOARD]
[00:15:43.16] [APPLAUSE]
[00:15:48.40] KAREN WILSON: Sadie Kyles.
[00:15:53.98] SADIE KYLES: Hi, my name is Sadie, and I'm 9 years old. And today, I just want to talk about how much I love the Ann Arbor Library and its codes. So first off, I would like to say that I've been doing the codes for a few years, and I really enjoy them. And they helped me go to a lot of new places that I've never been before.
[00:16:15.50] And I've been going to the library since I was really young. And it's really a nice place to read your books and have a quiet space to read. And it's really nice because you can just hang out with peace and quiet and just read your book. So thank you for listening. Have a good night.
[00:16:35.57] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming.
[00:16:36.91] [APPLAUSE]
[00:16:43.69] KAREN WILSON: Marina.
[00:16:54.29] MARINA SILBERGLEIT: My name is Marina Silbergleit. I'm 12 years old. And I have been coming to the downtown library for my entire life. When I was really little, my parents brought me here, and I have just been going my whole life. And it's really awesome how many different books there are. I've always been able to find a book. And, recently, I've really been reading a lot of manga. And it's great how there's such a wide selection so I can always find new manga.
[00:17:22.93] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming.
[00:17:24.11] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Thank you.
[00:17:24.33] [APPLAUSE]
[00:17:28.90] KAREN WILSON: Eleanor.
[00:17:33.25] JOSIE PARKER: Perfect.
[00:17:35.09] ELEANOR: Hi, my name is Eleanor. I am eight years old. And I am going into third grade next year. I just wanted to talk about my favorite part of the library. Most people, when you ask them, what's your favorite part of the library? They would say, the Summer Game, or the Comic Arts Festival, or any of those other cool and fun events.
[00:17:59.90] But my favorite part about the library isn't technically an event. It's just the books. Like, I feel like it's entering a whole new world, as soon as I walk in. They're, like, surrounding me. Like, you search whatever you want. And it just, poof, its there. It feels like magic almost. So I'd just like to thank all of the people who have helped make that happen.
[00:18:26.54] LINH SONG: Thank you so much. We are a magical library. Thank you. [LAUGHS] That was lovely.
[00:18:41.83] KAREN WILSON: Joshua.
[00:18:51.04] JOSHUA: Hello, my name is Joshua. I'm 11. Hello school board. Hi, mom. I just wanted to say, last year, my previous request was that we get more classical Doctor Who. And thank you, because we did. And I would like to make the same request again this year, because we finished it again. Thank you.
[00:19:18.47] ["THANK YOUS" FROM THE BOARD]
[00:19:19.37] [APPLAUSE]
[00:19:24.74] KAREN WILSON: Kim and Jamie.
[00:19:36.24] KIM: I'm Kim, and this is Jamie. And I want to say thank you for the summer games. And he said he wanted to say, "bus." You want to say "bus?" No.
[00:19:48.45] [LAUGHTER]
[00:19:50.95] [APPLAUSE]
[00:19:56.45] KAREN WILSON: Jennifer Kaufman.
[00:20:01.31] JENNIFER KAUFMAN: Yes, these are two of my three children. The third one wouldn't come because it's summer, and she's refusing to put clothes on or leave the house. She's in pajamas, just laying around. And so it is not summer until we come to the Comic Arts Festival. This is the official summer kickoff in our house, so we were here a lot on Saturday, and it was great.
[00:20:21.64] And Eleanor found an origami book in the catalogs she wanted. And it was on the second floor, and I told her to write down the call number, and she could go find it. And I would just sort of trail her, and see if she could find it on her own, and help her reach it if it was up too high. And it's very exciting, all very positive. And I have to say one tiny negative thing. Everyone's all so positive here.
[00:20:40.50] But I came up to the second floor with Eleanor, we were looking around, and she kind of went the wrong way, and we ended up going by the bathrooms. And it still smells like such mildewy smell. And I was puzzled, because last summer we were here for something and I thought, oh, there must have been some water damage or something happened. And it seemed so strange to me that a year later we would still have that.
[00:20:59.46] So I'm sure someone has mentioned this to you, oh, library board, but this is an odd thing. So, normally, I would not complain about it, but since we were here, I thought I would mention it. And we did find the book. And it was not quite too high.
[00:21:11.54] And she's made some origami already for Father's Day out of it. And I mean, it just really an amazing thing to have so many different things at are fingertips here, and we take great advantage of it. So thank you for all the time you put into being on the board. We appreciate it.
[00:21:25.03] LINH SONG: Thank you for the feedback. Thank you.
[00:21:28.73] KAREN WILSON: Katherine [INAUDIBLE].
[00:21:35.58] KATHERINE: My name is Katherine, and I'm 14. And I live about 10 minutes away from the Traverwood branch. And I'd like to thank Summer Game for being here. Because it's like, instead of being on the internet and just watching YouTube all day, I can be like my parents. I'm like, I'm researching stuff on the internet.
[00:21:53.27] [LAUGHTER]
[00:21:56.00] And I really think it's cool that we can get stuff for free as prizes from summer games, and also competing with your friends is really fun. Because I can laugh at my friends for like two places behind me on the leaderboard. So, yeah, thank you for doing this.
[00:22:12.15] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming.
[00:22:13.91] [APPLAUSE]
[00:22:19.38] KAREN WILSON: And last, Dave.
[00:22:29.46] DAVE: Hi, I'm Mr. Dave. I'm just here for the codes, so I'm going to leave now. No, I'm just kidding. So I wanted to follow up on a few comments. One is it's great to see attendance by so many people. I think, in part, maybe it's just because we said there's a code here-- maybe just in part, but also it's-- I mentioned a few months ago that the board meetings now on the online event schedule, so people actually are aware of it. I've still noticed the in person book schedule does not have it. So it would be cool if that gets advertised there, because not everybody's online.
[00:23:11.37] Are these for us? Awesome! Another follow-up, A2CAF was awesome. This year, I had a lot of fun. Last year, I had heard privately that the Summer Game might have interfered with some vendors. And I didn't really ask people this year, but it just seemed less obtrusive. So props there for whomever was involved. I feel like there was something else. Oh! The codes. I might actually play this year, but I probably will only enter two codes, this one and another.
[00:23:45.83] LINH SONG: You can still have the pin.
[00:23:47.57] DAVE: What?
[00:23:48.06] LINH SONG: You can still have the pin? Yes.
[00:23:50.08] DAVE: Cool. I get a pin. All right, thank you. Bye.
[00:23:52.42] LINH SONG: [LAUGHS] Thank you.
[00:23:53.28] JOSIE PARKER: Is there a little boy? Is there anyone else?
[00:24:00.03] LINH SONG: Come on up.
[00:24:05.81] JOSIE PARKER: He can do it here if he wants to.
[00:24:14.48] JASPER: Hello? Hi. I really like the Summer Game.
[00:24:26.64] AUDIENCE: This is Jasper. He's nine. He's a little shy. He wanted, he chose -- We said we can go home and watch a movie or you can go to the library board meeting.
[00:24:40.89] [APPLAUSE]
[00:24:48.37] LINH SONG: Do we have anyone else who might--
[00:24:56.53] TOM BROWN: Hi, I'm Tom Brown. I'm almost 61 years old. And I'm supposed to say my age. Is that right?
[00:25:02.87] JIM LEIJA: Mm-hmm. What grade are you in, Tom?
[00:25:05.99] LINH SONG: He asked what grade you're in.
[00:25:07.76] TOM BROWN: Yeah.
[00:25:09.75] LINH SONG: I'm sorry. So sorry.
[00:25:11.23] TOM BROWN: I actually teach 11th graders. My daughter, Lat-- many of you know Lat-- she's at Westgate right now at the Emerging Writers Workshop. She said to say hi to you. And I want to say that our home library is Malletts Creek.
[00:25:28.39] And the thing that I really like recently in the last year or so, the option to freeze your holds. That was a really nice thing that we added. So props to Eric down there. He told me about that. My favorite clue of all time, was the one about beans. And it had a mafia theme to it. It said, "Say hello to my lentil friend." I love that one. And I brought some favorite items, too.
[00:25:58.00] JIM LEIJA: Nice, the favorite items. This is my favorite part.
[00:26:05.47] TOM BROWN: One of my favorite things this year is the umbrella. I have magenta umbrella, too, magenta umbrella. I use my hat all the time. I had this bag of holding from the summer games here. I still don't how to fold this, though. Any of you guys know how to fold this? Because I just can't. So thank you very much. Have a good summer, everybody.
[00:26:27.33] ["THANK YOUS" FROM THE BOARD]
[00:26:28.80] [APPLAUSE]
[00:26:37.11] ALLISON HOEKWATER: Hello. My name is Allison Hoekwater. I'm actually a trained librarian. I've worked at a library for a year, and I work at a company that works with libraries. And so this is my favorite library in the world. And I've actually visited a lot of libraries in the world. I have been living in Ann Arbor for three years. My library is Traverwood.
[00:26:57.80] And in the three years I've been here, I have learned how to make macarons. I've learned how to make my own handkerchief. I have mastered-- honestly, I've become a very good Indian chef with all the cookbooks that we have at the library. My boyfriend has learned how to fix a roof with some of the books at the library. He's built different wood projects with just random books from the library. We've checked to make sure that our house is insulated properly, with some of the tools from the library.
[00:27:31.01] Honestly, we have saved thousands and thousands of dollars and learned thousands and thousands of new skills and have actually been able to use those in our daily lives. It's such an amazing thing. There's so many amazing programs and so many amazing books and resources, just with the audio books, and the e-books, and it's honestly-- I cannot imagine living anywhere else. And I know that it's five stars for a reason.
[00:28:01.69] And it's been five stars for 11 years for a reason. And it's amazing to see everyone here. And the amount of money and support that this community provides this library is, honestly, why I want to stay. I want to be a part of it. So thank you so much.
[00:28:16.85] LINH SONG: Thank you for speaking.
[00:28:18.70] [APPLAUSE]
[00:28:27.80] Great. Well, should you want to speak again, we have room for comments at the end of the meeting. We won't have additional points, though. That was just a one-time thing per meeting. We do have another board meeting next month.
[00:28:43.88] ELI NEIBURGER: Same code.
[00:28:44.86] LINH SONG: Oh, same code. OK, thank you for clarifying, Eli.
[00:28:47.69] [LAUGHTER]
[00:28:50.72] We are not offended if we don't see you next month. But we do appreciate all the comments. I've told kids that I've seen, around the library collecting codes, that you can come. And any kind of feedback, the board and staff are open to it. You could sing a song. You can recite poetry. You can just say, I'm just here for the code. We're just happy to see your faces, so thank you for coming. With that, we'll continue deliberations. If anyone wants to ease on out, you're welcome to. All right, so moving on with our agenda.
[00:29:25.49] JOSIE PARKER: We're not offended.

[00:29:26.71] LINH SONG: We're not offended. We're totally not offended. We're also live streamed on YouTube. [LAUGHS] So if you want to continue watching on YouTube-- so moving on, Josie with financial reports, please.
[00:29:43.38] JOSIE PARKER: We, as you know-- our finance manager is out due to injuries sustained in an automobile accident for a period of time. And so we do have Maner Costerisan. We have a person from their firm here helping us with our CFO work in the interim. But because of the timing around the accident and this board meeting, we did produce financials for this evening. What will happen is we will have our May and June financials in the July meeting.
[00:30:22.22] At the same time, we will have our budget reconciliation resolution ready at that meeting. So at the end of the year, we must have a balanced budget. So our money has to be moved from one line to another, and this line item budget will present that in July. So July will be a pretty financial-report-heavy meeting.
[00:30:44.47] LINH SONG: OK.
[00:30:45.96] JOSIE PARKER: But we're covered in terms of the financial controls aspect of what we do. Our new purchasing clerk began today. Our auditor is meeting with, you all selected Yeo & Yeo as the auditing firm. They meet with us Friday to start talking about what they'll need from us through the summer to start the audit in August. So we're on track, and we're covered in that respect. So we're going forward. I apologize for our inability to pull these financials together under these conditions, but we just weren't able to.
[00:31:21.38] LINH SONG: I think we more than understand, given Bill-- and we hope for his quick recovery, if possible.
[00:31:30.15] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah, we all do.

[00:31:32.27] LINH SONG: Any questions for Josie? No, OK. Moving on, committee reports. Executive committee met prior to our closed session, and we discussed the director's evaluation, reviewed the letter they'll be reading later on tonight. And that's pretty much it. Yes, it was a quick and lively meeting. Executive committee, and moving on to strategic planning committee. Jamie, do you wanna--
[00:32:06.77] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Sure, we met three weeks ago-ish.
[00:32:10.52] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah.

[00:32:12.50] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And mostly, that meeting was just a summary of the results of the retreat, as well as the interviews that took place with trustees. But we are about to hear from Kerry Sheldon-- actually, I think Anica Madeo only, but Kerry is in attendance behind the podium, or was anyway. Oh, there she is. Sorry, Kerry. I was just talking about you. [LAUGHS] So I think maybe I'll hold off on anything else until then unless there are questions.
[00:32:42.36] JOSIE PARKER: The timing, can you remind us what the timing of the strategic plan is again?
[00:32:46.53] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I believe we said January 2020. So we're right in there with planned engagements, which I'm sure we'll talk more about with the community.

[00:32:56.06] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you. Anything else? Anyone else? OK, moving on. Josie with the director's report.
[00:33:07.50] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you. Another thing that happened in this week was the director's report came to you this evening in printed form that you have in front of you. But the first thing in my report was the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission awarded the library an award for its work in digitizing old news at AADL, which was primarily the Ann Arbor News, but it's also other newspapers that we have acquired over our 10 years doing this work.
[00:33:48.35] So I want you to recognize by name Andrew MacLaren, who is back there on the back row, who is the archives manager, who's been working on this project as a librarian here from the moment we brought it in off the moving truck. And Andrew, with a number of other people over the years-- Amy Cantu, Debbie Gallagher, and Eli, and others, sort of shaped the focus and the scope of this project and allowed it to grow, but not to grow like topsy in a way that made it impossible for us to afford it or to manage it with people. And I'm looking at him over the top of the podium.
[00:34:24.80] And I just want to say, thank you so much for all those years and all that hard work, Andrew. Thank you. And this is a photograph from Memorial Day Parade, May of 1945 in Ann Arbor. And I think-- is that Huron?
[00:34:40.59] SPEAKER 2: You can see the fire station. That's where [INAUDIBLE] is. That's looking west on Huron.
[00:34:45.44] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. And I don't know what service. I see two services in uniforms. It's not something I can tell you. Thank you.
[00:35:02.90] The friends of the library have made their final contribution to the library in a year lately, and I wanted to acknowledge them. It's $100,000. They fund summer game prizes and other events for kids and teens. So the money that the friends give us is used to support the program that we do here for kids and teens. But it is the money that purchases the prizes that people were talking about for Summer Game. We do not use tax money for prizes. We have not done that ever, and it's the friends' money that has allowed us to go in that direction.
[00:35:44.42] So their money buys the prizes, and that for the writing contests for teens and other things, not only summer game, but all those types of prizes-- and some food. Although we do use operational funding now for reception food-- but for a long time, the friends did purchase food that was served at the library. So I just want to say, when we think about $100,000 and a gift, this money is a consequence of hundreds of people handling thousands of used books to prepare them for sale in the shop and in the book shelves around the system to raise this money. It's not a small feat.
[00:36:25.49] And I just want to say how much we appreciate them, and I wanted to do it very publicly this evening. A2CAF was Saturday and Sunday. And it was amazing. You can see down at the bottom, we had a two-day attendance of 6,500 people. It was on Saturday, a record downtown door count of 3,872 people. This was amazing. While it was very crowded and there were people there for the game, it was controlled chaos in the right way.
[00:37:01.25] And the person who spoke about the signing, that was the comic artist, whose signing line went from down here all the way up the stairs to the fourth floor. And we managed to get that through and down in 45 minutes. And people were able to interact with her. It was amazing. So I knew that was happening. She's one of those artists that a lot of people wanted to get their material signed, so it was great.
[00:37:26.52] So I'm very pleased. I want to thank everybody on the staff who had anything to do with that. It's a collaboration with an outside group, and then we work with them to produce this exhibit, which went with it. And out in the glass cases are examples of work of Elfquest, and the writers and the illustrator for Elfquest were here. And they were very amazing people to be around, and they had a great time. So I think we were able to pull it off in a wonderful way. The weather cooperated. And so thank you, Eli. Nicole and Audrey. OK, Nicole and Audrey are the two people we should recognize the most. Thank you.
[00:38:17.02] Malletts Creek Branch reopened Monday June 3rd and after eight weeks of renovation, which you all know. It's 9,000 visits since it opened, which is a 4% increase over the same part of time last year. So we're feeling that in the use of the building in the last few days. It's been pretty astonishing-- and the use of the collection.
[00:38:41.35] For those of us who had something to do with the opening of Mallets to begin with, watching what's happening to the collection go off the shelves and out the door is reminiscent to-- when we opened Mallets, it was our first built branch. And in the history of the people who were, at the time, present-- some still are-- we were hauling picture books to Mallets the day after in our cars and trunks picture books were just going, and we didn't have enough material for that collection, so we were hauling picture books around from all over the place.
[00:39:15.64] We did not do that this time, but we had a pod in the parking lot. And it was full of big, heavy-duty carts full of new material. And as we had shelves empty, the carts came out of the pod. And I think Lynn's looking at the pod being empty by the end of this week. So that's how fast and how quickly material was moving off the shelves.
[00:39:37.51] I'll give you another example. If you looked in the program room that day, you saw lines stacked up of these carts full of material, waiting to go out as material moved off the shelf. By the end of the first day, 2/3 of that had cleared out. That's how much material was moving. So it's a wonderful problem to have. Wonderful problem to have.
[00:40:02.14] Upcoming events and issues of interest. Japan week began today. And that is the embroidery program that's next door in the secret lab that people were talking about. That's part of it. That is in partnership with the U of M Center for Japanese Studies. There are no events on campus as well as other places in the Detroit area, all are at no charge, and then those that are happening at the library.
[00:40:30.02] Summer Game. What can I say? That's the billboard that went up today. And if you know where that is-- it's down by the way? It's the bridge by the Y? Down by the Y? And there is a code on it, too, also. There's a code on it-- for those of you who are seeking codes.
[00:40:53.72] [LAUGHTER]
[00:40:56.10] The other thing we're doing this year that's new that we've not done before, we have a Summer Game library supporter yard signs. And they're going to be available first come, first serve at the desks, beginning next week?
[00:41:13.53] SPEAKER 2: [INAUDIBLE]
[00:41:16.88] JOSIE PARKER: Half of it came today, and the other half didn't. So that's going to happen. And there's a code on the yard sign, but we were really careful to make sure the same code's on every yard sign. So we don't have people creeping yards. So that will happen. So you'll see those as well.
[00:41:34.76] LINH SONG: There's going to be so much security video footage of people walking up, too.
[00:41:40.04] JOSIE PARKER: Hopefully, people will get it that it's one code. So the banners went up on library lane, and that's got to be 5th Avenue-- yep, 5th Avenue. And there are building codes on banners on all the buildings. There are codes on banners out here on Library Lane as well. And then people are talking about the parks all over town. So they'll start going up. We dropped 42 badges since Friday-- so 42 badges. There's plenty new to do in the Summer Game from past years.
[00:42:14.76] These are comments that I wanted to bring to your attention. We'll begin with three scenes from Westgate. This mom writes, "Rainy day, so we decided to attend the library baby play time. Perfect decision." Next, we've got a voracious reader who's quote, "Double fisting my reading today at the library along with sipping a latte." That's fun. This is a beautiful picture. Our last scene from Westgate, for now, it's "books squad in the honeycombs."
[00:42:52.50] And a newcomer to the downtown library and her little enjoy the kids section. Mama offers her positive thoughts about the library in Japanese, including a remark about how many people are playing the Summer Game. So she's letting someone know there's this thing, and it's called the Summer Game.
[00:43:14.71] Another family enjoyed the downtown library, and this mom wrote all about parenting and hanging out with her little guy in Russia. One more from West. "Thanks to the Westgate, AADL, and Sweetwaters, I am making the best of an oddly short time between kid one's beginning and end of her last day of school."
[00:43:39.08] The downtown library was a stop on the A2 Tech Trek, hosting four conversations with some of Ann Arbor business community's innovators. And we worked hard to become a stop on the Tech Trek. And I want to thank the staff involved in getting that through and done-- for getting that done-- who was that? Rich? Thank you very much, Rich. Because we have tried, and you made it happen. So I really appreciate it. We needed to be on the Tech Trek.
[00:44:10.15] After Literati bookstore was overwhelmed with interest for author Sara Dessen's appearance there, they called our events team to help out. Tim Grimes and his staff went right into action. And less than a week later, 222 people saw Miss Dessen's speak at the [INAUDIBLE]. So thank you, Tim, and Emily, and all the-- I know Emily was involved in that and getting that pulled off in such a short period of time.
[00:44:39.73] And Literati was so grateful. They are able to bring some really great people into town, but their space is not large enough for the crowds, and ours is. They were in the fourth floor auditorium. So we were really pleased about that.
[00:44:56.24] And we received this wonderful message, an adorable photo from a mom raving about the light table we have available for checkout and our tools collection. We love ADL for so many reasons. Most recently, we learned that the library has a light table that we can check out. Oh, the endless exploration and joy. We are so grateful.
[00:45:17.94] Not to be outdone, these next two slides celebrate three of the 50-odd new guitars, bases, and ukuleles patrons are raving about. So new guitars ukuleles and basses, not new items for circulation, but new in the tools collection in addition to the old guitars, basses, and ukuleles I want to point out.
[00:45:45.09] "I can't believe I can borrow this at my library." And a few tweets from this past weekend's A2CAF, featuring artists Porche Johnson and Ben Hatke, plus more than 60 artists tabling in our artist alley. So you can see those. Finally, a few sentiments from people who love the Summer Game-- "Best day of the year." "Forget about Memorial Day or the end of the school year. This right here is what officially kicks off summer." Thank you.
[00:46:18.80] I also included in this director's report-- because if you haven't seen it, you won't know-- we do something in the library called "service alerts." And it's when a person comes up to a public desk and says something to the staff that's positive, it's critical, or negative. And the staff reflects that comment back directly into Service Alert, which is in an email that we get. So I see it almost immediately.
[00:46:52.02] And so I included in this director's report a selection of service alerts. And I've not done that before. But I thought, this time, we're so relevant to Malletts Creek's opening and the responses regarding the categorization, where you could see some of the comments that are very much in favor of it and very appreciative of it and some that are not. So it's both. And I wanted you to be able to see what we see and hear what we hear, too, as well. Thank you.
[00:47:25.67] LINH SONG: Josie, with Westgate having the same organization as Malletts Creek right now, now that we're three years in, has there been similar concerns about how that library's organized?
[00:47:41.43] JOSIE PARKER: I think when Westgate opened we did hear the same concerns. But most of the feedback is positive. Most of what we hear is, this is working. I get it. I now can find what I'm looking for. One of the comments in here's from a kindergarten teacher, who likes coming in into the category system and getting exactly what he's looking for by going to the category. And he's able to do that.
[00:48:07.88] And he was very clear about why. He's able to send students' families there, and he can explain where they're going to find what they're looking for-- trucks, dinosaurs, science books for space or something, it's all done that way.
[00:48:25.79] The Malletts Creek response has been surprisingly positive. We expected more criticism than we've received, to be fair. And so we're continuing forward. And we'll see. Malletts Creek gives us a better opportunity of gauging the success of the collection because it's apples to apples. Westgate wasn't.
[00:48:51.46] But Malletts is an existing collection that's been relabeled, and we close with certain collection information, and we've opened. And, in a year, we'll know a lot more about, or even less, is there a difference? And is it a positive or a negative? So we're able to do that.
[00:49:11.92] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: You mentioned that you were going to do fewer categories.
[00:49:14.50] JOSIE PARKER: We did. I think I heard Sara say, while they were labeling Malletts Creek, they were also relabeling out at Westgate at the same time. I asked them to do that. I put that on them. And so, in the process, they re-evaluated and eliminated 100-plus categories. Because in the doing of it at Westgate, it became too granular. And that was confusing.
[00:49:45.91] So now they've seen it working, they pulled back, so there are far fewer categories. And the categories at West, while not yet 100% matching Mallets, that's the goal. So by the time we do this at the next location, we'll have a much more refined system. And everything is relabeled at Malletts Creek. Nothing's left to be relabeled. It's all come in.
[00:50:12.00] ELI NEIBURGER: I'll just check that.
[00:50:13.24] JOSIE PARKER: That's right. Right. Right.
[00:50:14.98] VICTORIA GREEN: Josie, in relabeling things at Malletts Creek, was there a substantial change in what's at Malletts Creek today versus before the renovation?
[00:50:24.56] JOSIE PARKER: There's more material at Malletts Creek than before the renovation. There are more shelves at Malletts Creek, the same is at Westgate. We added to the collection at Malletts Creek.
[00:50:34.32] VICTORIA GREEN: What I was wondering is, I totally understand-- and would expect that some folks would find it hard to get used to a new system, but I was wondering if we had any way to pull metrics that would show change in circulation after the change was made, i.e--
[00:50:48.92] JOSIE PARKER: That's what we're doing.
[00:50:49.88] VICTORIA GREEN: --20% of our items more are circulating.
[00:50:53.21] JOSIE PARKER: That's what we're going to measure. And we're better able to do it at Malletts.
[00:50:58.14] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah. Perfect.
[00:51:03.87] JOSIE PARKER: OK.
[00:51:04.46] LINH SONG: I just had a comment about A2CAF. I spoke to the vendors, and I was really surprised that the distances they came from to present, one was the father and son team they had produced, their own comic book together. I think it was called "Punk Taco" or "Taco Punk."
[00:51:25.14] JOSIE PARKER: Punk Taco.
[00:51:25.75] LINH SONG: Punk Taco. Excellent idea. And they drove all the way from Connecticut. And this was their first time here. And they were so delighted. They said they hope that they'll be invited back next year. There is the artist who comes-- he's come the past couple years from Toronto.
[00:51:44.83] And then I spoke at length-- I've always asked where folks are coming from and what they think about the library. And the response I had was that they were just surprised that a library can be like this and that, coming in, they were just amazed that so much can be done in the space. I was just really hoping that the air conditioning would hold up. I was a little worried. It was pretty crowded.
[00:52:14.59] And it was also good to see young artists. So there was, I think, fourth or fifth grader was here, Chloe, and her friend. And not only did she make the comics, but she also made the table covering and had sewed it with a mascot that you could-- it was amazing. Her display was thought out. Her books were thought out. Her mom was holding the cash. It was a family endeavor. It was really impressive.
[00:52:48.35] Oh, and the last thing was that-- I just wanted to share-- I thought this was really funny was that my daughter had to get on a plane to Korea with her father the day that A2CAF started. And then we made the mistake of telling her that she'd be missing A2CAF. And she's very disappointed. And she was wondering if it was a really good decision to send her to this amazing trip or come to the library instead. She got on the plane.
[00:53:15.23] JOSIE PARKER: I'll say this, too. There's a privilege in the vantage point that I have at these events. I stand at the front door, usually with Eli, and welcome people and to answer their questions. And there are always those people who come in the library that day who are not coming for the A2CAF, who don't even know it's happening till they get here.
[00:53:38.81] And they're, like, what? What's going on? And you can see that they have an inquiring look and a happy look because it's a buzz, and it's a fun buzz. And then when we talk about it and we show them, almost every one-- I mean, they're coming in here for some other reason, and they're going to go and do that, whatever that is, but almost all of them divert, and they make the circuit through where the tables are set up. And they come back out, and they walk up to us and say, this is amazing. That was incredible.
[00:54:09.80] And one gentleman was talking to me about-- he laughed and he said, well, comics of my day-- and he started naming off these comics of his day. And I said, well, I don't think you're going to find any one here today representing those comic strips. But go look and see what you can see. Go see might interest you. So he comes back, and there was a comic artist who does classic literature in comic form, graphic novel form, Shakespeare, [INAUDIBLE].
[00:54:39.92] He was so excited about that, because he was going to be able read Shakespeare in a graphic novel form, and he had not expected that when he walked into the library. And so he was thrilled. And he went on about his business. And so having the vantage point that I do and where the interaction-- where we surprise people is so gratifying. So I invite you to join me at my vantage point next time we have a major event in the lobby, because it's fun.
[00:55:09.65] LINH SONG: You know, I didn't know that CAF is something that major cities host until we went to Toronto this summer. We saw a poster for the Toronto CAF. And the kids didn't know that this is a standard event for larger cities.
[00:55:25.12] ELI NEIBURGER: A standard name for it.
[00:55:25.90] LINH SONG: A standard name, yes.
[00:55:27.01] JOSIE PARKER: And ours is free, of course.
[00:55:28.91] LINH SONG: Mm-hm. Thank you, Josie.
[00:55:31.57] JOSIE PARKER: You're welcome.

[00:55:31.98] LINH SONG: Is there anything else? Any other comments? OK, great. Thank you, Josie. Moving on to old business, Bridgeport. Great, thank you. Come on up. Thank you.
[00:55:45.98] ANICA MADEO: I didn't realize we were old business.
[00:55:48.67] [LAUGHTER]
[00:55:49.86] JOSIE PARKER: Only in a matter of speaking.
[00:55:51.48] ANICA MADEO: Good evening. I know all of you. But for those in the audience who don't know me, my name is Anica Madeo. This is Kerry Sheldon. We're here from Bridgeport consulting. And it's our honor to, again, be supporting the Ann Arbor District Library strategic planning process. I was inspired listening to everyone talk about Summer Games and A2CAF.
[00:56:11.80] I have an eight-year-old who has really struggled to learn to read and has been in remedial reading. And she's coming along. She grabbed that book by Raina, Smile, and she had finished it by the time the evening was over. It was just amazing. So thank you for that. Let me start by recapping where we are in the strategic planning process, and then we'll move into our discussion for tonight.
[00:56:35.33] So we started meeting a month or two ago with the strategic planning committee. So that's Lynn, Jamie, Victoria, Josie, and Eli. And then, as you know, we came through and interviewed all of the trustees to get your early thoughts on directions for the strategic plan, important implications, considerations, we held a trustees retreat in May. Many of the staff attended that retreat. We discussed progress under the current strategic plan.
[00:57:02.79] The purpose of this next plan-- because every strategic plan is different-- what we know about the patron experience. And we did some collective future visioning around the library 20 years from now, so kind of casting ourselves a little ways out into the future. Earlier today, we met with the staff managers, and we shared the same document that we're going to be discussing tonight and got their feedback. And just to bookend the timeline, as you mentioned, Jamie, the intent is to have the strategic plan done by January of 2020.
[00:57:34.61] So the purpose of tonight's discussion is to reflect back to you, what did we hear in the interviews, high-level themes. Share the emerging focal areas that are starting to percolate from these discussions-- so we're still pretty early in the process, but we're starting to hear some common themes from you, so we want to relay those back and get your feedback on these early directions, and then just briefly discuss where the project will go from here.
[00:57:58.79] So I believe you received on Thursday by email the emerging focal areas document, but I have a handout. Do you all have those paper-- or does anyone need them? I don't know if they made it into your packet.
[00:58:19.28] [SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
[00:58:37.05] So we'll actually start on the bottom half of the page. There, you'll see key themes from trustee interviews. So the strongest signal we heard-- and this is because we asked you specifically-- what do you want the strategic plan to do? But we heard a strong signal that this plan will serve a different purpose than the previous plan.
[00:58:57.63] And, really, we had a discussion about how every plan is of its time and that plans can range from a high level strategic plan that has priorities, maybe a few goals, some values, it can go all the way on the other end to almost a detailed implementation plan. Your previous strategic plan was a little further along that direction and served that purpose.
[00:59:22.15] But you've made it clear that, this time around, you'd like a plan that is more on the side of a higher level, less-detailed plan that really focuses on how you make decisions, rather than specifically what you'll be doing. And a piece of that-- and I've shared this, I think, with many of the staff already, but maybe some are in the room who haven't heard it-- is that you have a high level of trust for the leadership of the library, as well as the staff, who implement all these amazing programs every day. So you've made it clear that you're not interested in dictating to them how they implement, but rather to think about what's going to help make this incredible library carry on into the future, and maintain its strength, and where can you even push the boundaries even further on what you're doing?
[01:00:09.01] Another thing we heard from pretty much everyone is, we've got to talk about the Downtown Library. We know something needs to be done with this downtown library, but we're not quite sure what. And part of that is because we don't have all the information that we need to understand feasibility, what are the options, what are the financial options and implications. So we heard that loud and clear.
[01:00:28.54] And lastly, many of you expressed interest in laying down clearly the institutional values that make this library what it is, the values that you would like to carry on into the future and, in particular, have an impact on issues such as social equity and public access as Ann Arbor continues to grow and, by many accounts, become less affordable and accessible for people.
[01:01:01.77] So with that, do you have any questions or comments on what we heard you say in the pre-interviews before we move on to the themes that are at the top of the page? Probably doesn't come as a surprise. There was a lot of cohesion among you on these topics.
[01:01:23.03] OK, so let's shift to the emerging focal areas that are at the top of the document. I'll just cover these briefly so people in the audience know what the content is, and then I'll ask you whether they resonate with you, what feedback comments you have, and I'll stop talking.
[01:01:40.33] So the first is "Build for the Future." This covers assessing the feasibility and desirability of all potential funding mechanisms for the downtown library, narrow the field and build cohesion around a common direction. The second is other facilities' development, and that is to explore the parameters of potential new facilities' development, including whether there's a purpose or need, timing, cost, value proposition.
[01:02:08.39] The third is institutional values. Like I said, articulating a clear set of values to serve as guideposts for your decision-making to ensure the continued success of the library. The second focal area is currently called "improve equity and access." That includes developing a high-level vision for diversity, equity, and inclusion, developing specific strategies to identify underserved populations and improve equity of access, and undertaking intentional planning around how to advance DEI through institutional partnerships, such as with public schools or other libraries.
[01:02:45.69] So, again, these are early thoughts, draft thoughts, that have been percolating, and we'd like to turn it over to you to tell us, what do you think? Does it resonate with you. What additional comments do you have? Don't be shy.
[01:03:04.56] LINH SONG: I think we're trying to remember the conversations that we had. This was at the retreat and individually. So this is going back six weeks or more? Is that right?
[01:03:16.24] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Also, I feel like Lihn, Victoria, and I have had a chance to think about this more than the others, so I'm kind of hanging back. Trying to have thoughts.
[01:03:27.59] ANICA MADEO: Putting the pressure on the rest of the--
[01:03:29.58] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
[01:03:30.98] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The board retreat minutes were captured very well. Thanks, as always, Karen. I read them last night. For some reason, it wasn't on my radar, you were going to ask us to react. I read this, and I'm like, well, this is cool. This sounds perfect. And it wasn't like, oh, something's missing. But I wasn't looking for that.
[01:03:52.09] ANICA MADEO: So in general, you had a positive reaction? Nothing jumped out at you as shocking?
[01:03:57.24] COLLEEN SHERMAN: No.
[01:03:59.76] DHARMA AKMON: I think, like you said, it seems like we were pretty consistent, and I think that comes through. There's nothing surprising here.
[01:04:10.33] LINH SONG: I think one thing that-- when we talk about institutional values, the more casual discussions have been-- we've been describing it as, what is the library secret sauce? Or when the young lady who spoke earlier today called it "magical," there's just something here that makes things happen that staff have captured in a really unique way. And having that be part of-- building for the future and being part of that future, kind of vision, is pretty vital. I'd put at the top, if I had my way-- institutional values. But folks can feel differently.
[01:04:56.77] COLLEEN SHERMAN: If you wanted to take that point, I think you could write it stronger. I mean, because it is secret sauce. It is magic. It is the thing that we don't want to lose and why we're here.
[01:05:14.95] LINH SONG: Any other thoughts?
[01:05:16.94] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I guess, when we talked the last time, looking at this an kind of thinking about whether it reflected our own thoughts and opinions, I think the thing that-- given our incredible trust and pride in the staff, I was very curious how the conversation would go with them. Because I think if they don't agree with this, then we need to talk again, right? So I think that is the piece of information that I really am curious about and looking forward to seeing.
[01:05:46.41] ANICA MADEO: You set me up perfectly because I have a few notes I could share with you.
[01:05:49.48] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, that would be awesome. Great.
[01:05:51.64] ANICA MADEO: So, yes, we had this conversation earlier today with the management team. There were no objections to the high-level draft that is proposed-- like you said, Colleen and Ellen said, objection. I think this is terrible. What some people pointed out, some of the staff said, oh, yes, we're waiting for the downtown library to be figured out. And until then, we'll keep moving things around, and we'll keep making it work.
[01:06:14.09] And it's a testament to the staff that they're-- all the work that goes into making this flexible space work so that those of us who come to the library, we don't even think about it. But, really, there's a lot of labor that goes into that, and it's making something that doesn't quite work work. And so, yeah, they're excited to hear that this is--
[01:06:39.51] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Well, no pressure, guys.
[01:06:41.41] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I know I was just laughing because I feel like, oh, right. That is our responsibility. Right.
[01:06:44.88] ANICA MADEO: They keep doing such a good job, though, of covering up the inconvenience that it is to move all these things around all the time. A couple of specific ideas came up when we were discussing improving equity and access. One of them was making the library more welcoming and "what does it mean to feel welcome" is different to different people.
[01:07:11.29] There were ideas around specific populations that could be focused on. One is youth who are expelled or dropped out of high school. Another that came up was issues around computer literacy. And we raised a question that I would like to raise for you all as well. We are considering stakeholder engagement, what stakeholder engagement might look like in this process. And so we asked the staff, do you have specific questions that you would like to ask the public or portions of the public?
[01:07:45.99] And what we discussed was talking with agency partners about clients' unmet needs that might overlap with the library's mission or services. So is there access to some resource that the library could help provide? And so that was a suggestion, not just the broader public, but specifically with agencies that serve vulnerable populations.
[01:08:12.33] Reactions or reflections to-- that's a little bit of what we heard earlier today.
[01:08:18.35] LINH SONG: When we talked back in February, I think we talked about broad staff representation within the strategic plan. Do we have that? Is it more broad than the managers?
[01:08:30.15] JOSIE PARKER: As of right now, no, but we have months to go.
[01:08:33.39] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, OK.
[01:08:35.03] ANICA MADEO: I think similar to the public engagement, if we have a particular purpose and question that we would like to bring to the staff, then that'd be great.
[01:08:48.09] JIM LEIJA: I'm again, reflecting on the staff's ability to obscure the problem that is this building, and I do not think it serves our purposes for actually solving the problem, even though I continue to appreciate and be dazzled by the ability of the staff to so tactfully make a lobbytorium and like I say, we don't have a lobbytorium, we have a lobby.
[01:09:16.47] And I say that because every day that I end up having a conversation with someone about why it is that we keep thinking about downtown and what should happen or be here-- everyone says how amazing it is, and how everything is so great, and all the thousands of people that came through last week. And I just wonder, through the process, could actually start to develop a sense of the amount of time and resources that are being actually diverted to maximizing the potential of this building that are not being used to provide other kinds of core services, which is a slightly different way of framing it.
[01:10:05.06] I'm looking for a way to start talking about how this building isn't actually serving us in the way that we want it to. And it's an incredible hardship on the staff, too. I'm also really happy, just reacting to this, to hear that there's openness in the staff to thinking about some real target populations and thinking about stakeholder engagement as a way to potentially get into that conversation, but also looking out to community social services and agencies to be really thinking about how there might be some overlapping agenda on our part and that of the agency's.
[01:10:47.93] I really think more and more that it's important for us all to find consensus around what our institutional values are. Because if they can be practiced as lenses on our work and actually really be invoked when we are at critical decision-making junctures, that will help us be a better institution and have more integrity when it comes to walking the walk that we talk.
[01:11:28.00] And I think that would be a wonderful exercise for us to go through in the context of this work, together as a staff, as a board, and so on. The last thing I'll say is that I'm very happy that you've captured in the document the feeling of trust and pride that the board has in what is really an incredible staff.
[01:11:51.15] ANICA MADEO: Thanks, Jim.
[01:11:54.63] VICTORIA GREEN: So I'm going to make a comment about improving equity and access. I think when we talked about this before-- and I think this is what most of the board was thinking about is that-- I mean, that's the value we have as an institution that's reflected in hiring, and staff, and decisions. But I don't think that-- I certainly didn't intend to say things like, we have a problem that needs improving here. It's more of a focal point, rather than a need to get up to some base level.
[01:12:25.69] And my thoughts about this, frankly, were more about service provision that the library provides to all of our patrons. And that, administratively, of course, you would reflect those values as well. But as a board, I feel like we're more focused on the services that we provide to the community and our strategic plan, as opposed to being involved in individual hiring, which we would assume that would reflect those values. Is that where everyone else is to? OK.
[01:12:55.87] JIM LEIJA: I mean, I don't necessarily think that there's a problem to be solved, but there's also always room to be improving in all of these dimensions, not just in services.
[01:13:11.50] VICTORIA GREEN: I would agree with that. But this should be a central-- I mean, I think what we're drafting at this point is the idea that this is a central organizing principle of the library and a value.
[01:13:22.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right.
[01:13:22.78] VICTORIA GREEN: It's a cross.
[01:13:23.87] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right. We're calling it out as a value so that it will guide decision-making. But I don't think we're calling it out as a deficiency. That's what you're getting at?
[01:13:31.72] VICTORIA GREEN: Yep, that's what I was getting at. And the idea here, I think, is that if this is a central value that we are putting in a strategic plan, that we-- as Jim says, we need to enact that, too, so that when we have questions before us, we need to think, OK, wait. Is this is really getting to this value?
[01:13:47.20] Not everything will, but we should be thinking that way, in terms of, this is our central organizing focus for fulfilling the mission of the library, of course, that we would-- I mean, I think we all think about it, that this would be putting a stake in the ground, that this is going to be a central way to think about it.
[01:14:05.38] LINH SONG: Putting it out in the universe, putting it out in YouTube, putting it out in transcripts.
[01:14:09.64] COLLEEN SHERMAN: What if you changed the verb to "grow" from "improve?" I know what you mean by that. It sounds like there is a problem, and there's not. It's simply a matter of, this is an important critical piece of something that we want to do, because it's about service to the community.
[01:14:34.06] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah, and I also think it's a challenge for our community currently. And that's one of the reasons that it makes sense. No library board I would expect would ever say that we're going to fulfill the mission without this, but this is why it's important now.
[01:14:55.18] LINH SONG: So in the past couple of years, when we've talked about the downtown library in reference to the past strategic plan, we've referenced it as "3.3." It would be really amazing if it continuous as, like, 3.3B . I'm hoping for new life around this. And because it's new life off of-- away from the pages of the old strategic plan and into the hands of staff, and then staff informing us as to what they see, what they know, and how they know the community, it will have, I think, a better, bigger vision. Great. Any other questions for Anica or thoughts?
[01:15:49.79] ANICA MADEO: Questions, comments?
[01:15:51.05] VICTORIA GREEN: I have just one other comment, which is-- the other thing is, how can we tie the pieces together? If we have two main things here, Building for the Future, which is focused on facilities, especially downtown, and equity and access, are those separate things, or do we see them as inimitably joined, that focusing facilities, we're going to think about it in terms of what can we spend capital dollars on to improve equity and access? Does that make sense? Those two things are not two separate things.
[01:16:21.09] LINH SONG: I kind of saw it as, so we can be super specific and talk about the downtown library, but then we can also think bigger. When we're saying, "building for the future," it's not necessarily literally building for the future, but anticipating future needs or future populations.
[01:16:35.33] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah. But I think what I was also trying to say is, downtown is the center of Ann Arbor. It's the place that has the most public transportation. And there's a way that building downtown and maintaining a central location enables us to meet access needs. Does everyone--
[01:16:56.75] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, absolutely. The two are certainly linked, and I think that, yeah, I suppose if we divide them into two columns, then you could see how you follow one path and end up here and another one there, and you want to make sure that the two are always in concert with each other, maybe?
[01:17:13.85] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah.
[01:17:14.19] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK.
[01:17:14.36] VICTORIA GREEN: I mean, not everything will work like that, but that those two things are not in opposition, that they're joined together.
[01:17:19.71] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right, right.
[01:17:20.69] VICTORIA GREEN: OK, I feel like I'm getting blank stares, but I guess not.
[01:17:24.29] LINH SONG: I like the double-helix movement that Jamie was doing. So I like the idea of merging ideas.
[01:17:32.45] ANICA MADEO: Let the record reflect the double-helix movement.
[01:17:34.41] LINH SONG: Yes. Any other thoughts for Anica? All right, great. Thank you so much for all of your work.
[01:17:42.56] ANICA MADEO: And you'll be hearing from us again soon.
[01:17:44.30] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you so much.
[01:17:44.92] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[01:17:46.20] ANICA MADEO: Do I get the code now?
[01:17:47.95] LINH SONG: Yes, and a pin.
[01:17:52.96] JIM LEIJA: And thank you, Kerry.

[01:17:54.56] LINH SONG: Yes, thank you Kerry, too. Thank you. Moving on. Len on update on construction projects.
[01:18:02.81] LEN LEMORIE: Good evening. So as Josie said, I thought I'd let everyone know that Malletts, as we know, has reopened. We are starting to install the glass to the meeting rooms tonight. So when I'm done at the podium, I'm going to Malletts Creek, and we hope to have that completed by Thursday morning. We're going to do all the work third shifts, no other closures needed. But it's going really well. So fingers crossed. This time next week, we're going to have meeting rooms.
[01:18:29.44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Awesome.
[01:18:31.67] LEN LEMORIE: We're still working on the fourth floor meeting room here, waiting for construction estimates. We'd hoped to have that early July to kind of rework that room. And if all goes well, we could possibly-- go ahead.
[01:18:45.13] VICTORIA GREEN: Yeah, I'm sorry, Len. What space are we talking about on the fourth floor?
[01:18:47.41] LEN LEMORIE: Our fourth floor meeting room, where were you guys used to meet?
[01:18:50.25] VICTORIA GREEN: Oh, yes.
[01:18:52.78] LEN LEMORIE: We've been working with Dan Mooney on kind of reworking that space, adding some seating in there, move the AV room, the podcast room, stuff like that. So there'll be more to come on that. I hope to have a budget early July.
[01:19:10.90] And then the other thing is, its old projects for us, but maybe new for you guys. We are working on putting backup power at the branches, generators, or at least getting cost estimates to explore the opportunity for it. In the last three years, probably, we used to deal with outages at Mallets Creek. It's kind of grown. We're seeing it at Pittsfield now. We're seeing it at Traverwood. It's pretty regular.
[01:19:38.30] And we've had damage to plant systems, things like that, that's just out of our control. We have worked with our DTE rep. So we're going to look to see what that-- we talked about doing Malletts a couple of years ago. And we were told that the gas line wasn't big enough to support it. So we left it.
[01:19:56.38] Since then, we've met with gas distribution, which they feel we can pull it off of Eisenhower. So it's kind of back on the table. But, again, hopefully, August, we can have some preliminary numbers to see if that's something we want to do. I think last week, we had three outages.
[01:20:16.04] LINH SONG: Oh, my gosh.
[01:20:19.24] JOSIE PARKER: It's not the inconvenience, although that's a problem. It's the damage and the brownouts to equipment. The same as at your house, when it blows something, because you had an outage, it came back, and then it went out again? Our damage is huge and very costly. And so it's adding up.
[01:20:39.97] And because it was, as Len said-- it was a time when this happened at Malletts. And if there was a thunderstorm, everybody laughed about it. There was not going to be a power at Malletts. Now it's happening at Pittsfield, and it's happening at Traverwood. And what Len's not saying that I will is it's in direct relation to the development in those areas and the draw-down on the power grid.
[01:21:02.82] LINH SONG: So the new substation up off of--
[01:21:05.80] VICTORIA GREEN: Pioneer.
[01:21:06.47] LINH SONG: Yeah, off of the Plymouth Road, that DT's building, Plymouth and Huron Parkway, that's not going to help--
[01:21:14.20] LEN LEMORIE: I don't know. I met with our DT rep last week, and he actually-- he brought someone with him. They have the cleanest, most reliable power.
[01:21:23.06] [LAUGHTER]
[01:21:24.19] LINH SONG: Yes. Thanks, Len.
[01:21:27.37] ELI NEIBURGER: That's available in our area.
[01:21:30.23] LEN LEMORIE: They are working with us. They know that we offer a different service. Josie mentioned that. With the commercial building, you have three-phased power. So if we lose it at home, we have one line coming in. In a commercial building, if you lose one leg, you're still drawing power. So everything in the building is trying to come on, and it's just-- it's damaging. Because you'd have to shut the building down completely, which we can't do that. We want it to come back on.
[01:21:57.97] We actually had one at the archives a week or so ago that had a brownout. We had a damage. And that's in a leased spot. The system did what it was supposed to do, but we were all troubled by it. And so that's the same kind of grid that's at Malletts Creek. Last summer, we replaced two compressors at Malletts Creek for the chiller. That was about $20,000. And we can't tie it directly to a storm, because you have to report it within so many hours of the storm. So it's just-- it's a growing problem.
[01:22:24.52] LINH SONG: So we can't organize with other surrounding commercial entities? So if there's Traverwood and the apartment complexes-- it must be--
[01:22:32.59] ELI NEIBURGER: No leverage.
[01:22:33.77] LINH SONG: There's no leverage.
[01:22:34.91] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah, you're either-- how did they word that? They're either primary power or secondary power. So downtown, this building is actually primary power. So we have a little more leverage in this building because the switch gear from DTE is actually physically in the building. Our branches are secondary power. So there's a main feed, which it may be Google at Traverwood. There's something there that's-- we're on our own on this.
[01:22:59.00] LINH SONG: OK. OK.
[01:23:03.40] LEN LEMORIE: Any questions?
[01:23:05.40] VICTORIA GREEN: I guess I'd say that when you have preliminary numbers, it'd been nice to have an understanding of what the financial impact is likely to be if we don't do it based on what's happened in the past, so sort of the picture of what services we've lost to patrons and also cost in terms of--
[01:23:23.13] LEN LEMORIE: Well, another thing is-- and we've dealt with this over the last few years. All of our buildings have a UPS, a big battery bank, or I think it's called the watt stopper at Malletts Creek-- to replace those batteries, which happens-- we do it. There's a maintenance fee involved with them, and then there's a replacement cost. To replace those batteries is around $11,000. That's every five years.
[01:23:43.00] And if something goes wrong, we're either doing maintenance to them or replace them before that. And that's just part of what we do. We have to have a system like that so if we lose power, there's emergency lighting. But that's just another cost that, whether we have backup power or not, we eat that cost annually.
[01:24:02.95] LINH SONG: Instead of every five years, it's annually?
[01:24:05.55] LEN LEMORIE: It depends on the draw. So how much are they used? So a battery needs to lose charge and then be charged. The problem with those, I feel, is that they're always ready to go, which kills some of the life of the battery. You want them actually cycling. And they don't do that because they're supposed to be fully charged so we have them during an outage.
[01:24:25.20] But we have replaced those, December of 15, we replaced all of them a Malletts Creek. Since then, we've replaced the banks twice at Traverwood and once at Pittsfield. So in the last four years, you can see the amount of money we've spent, just have backup batteries in the building. And with the outages-- you it really is a weekly thing for us, that there's some power issue at one of the branches.
[01:24:49.52] LINH SONG: But not here.
[01:24:50.85] LEN LEMORIE: Again, this is different. It's all underground. And we are a primary here. So we actually had one, this past month.
[01:24:58.64] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah, a blink a couple of weeks ago, it went out. It was less than half a minute.
[01:25:04.37] LEN LEMORIE: Yeah, again, downtown's a little bit different. The overhead power's not there. Everything comes in underground, so there's no tree falling on the line or anything like that. So storms aren't a huge impact. That's more of a larger equipment problem, which I'm sure that's probably what we had.
[01:25:17.86] LINH SONG: OK.
[01:25:18.66] LEN LEMORIE: So I hope to have something for the July meeting at least, so you guys can look at it and see where we're going with it.
[01:25:26.19] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you. Any other questions for Len?
[01:25:30.61] VICTORIA GREEN: Congratulations on Malletts Creek.
[01:25:33.41] LEN LEMORIE: I would like to piggyback on what Josie said. We worked with Kathy Hoskins, which is the building supervisor, who was the building supervisor at Westgate when we relabeled that. And her comments were how everyone worked together. We had Andrew MacLaren involved. We had Sara Wedell involved. All of the right people were there. When a problem came up, it was just solved. It was really a smooth project. So a lot happened, but all the right people were involved. It was a lot of fun.
[01:26:04.73] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[01:26:05.62] LEN LEMORIE: All right, I'm going there now. You guys have a good evening.

[01:26:10.76] LINH SONG: And now, myself, the director's evaluation letter from the board. Josie I'll read this from my laptop. "Dear, Josie, many congratulations on another successful year as library director for the Ann Arbor District Library. The executive committee and board of trustees are honored to serve alongside you and fully appreciate the impact that you've made on communities within and beyond Ann Arbor.
[01:26:40.12] "The AADL continues to set the standard in public library programming, community outreach while challenging itself to do more for more people. The library system that we experienced today reflects the cumulative efforts that you and the AADL staff have made over many years. By opening our doors wider, building new doors, and looking through the horizon for the challenges and wonders ahead. We are all lucky for it.
[01:27:04.86] "In this past year, you have continued to fully integrate a new website into operations without unannounced or significant down times. This is an incredible feat and often a struggle in the private sector, much less in the public sector. The website's launch in transition using an open source system showcased strong leadership given its impact and collections management to communications.
[01:27:24.85] "Patron and expectations and questions were quickly addressed with facts and good humor without excuses. The process of introducing something new, informing the community, and bringing them along may be routine for the AADL. But that is not the case for many entities. We strongly believe that this is possible because you and the AADL staff have developed keen empathetic insight into various communities.
[01:27:49.12] "There is trust and proof of trust in the work produced. Projects are not task lists, but opportunities to engage groups, such as the blind community via the Visions Conference to seniors and broad multigenerational programs. Thank you for expanding efforts to meet community members' needs with respect and imagination. Beyond these notable projects, your performance was reviewed by the executive committee and board of trustees in respect to all 2018 programs and our strategic plan.
[01:28:19.96] "You've met all strategic plan goals, many ahead of schedule, with an eye to what the AADL system will be like in the short and long term. As we work towards developing the next strategic plan over the course of the next six months, trustees would like a more expansive view of the AADL's role as the city's convener, host, and incubator.
[01:28:38.42] "Our epic MRA survey indicated extremely high patron satisfaction. Our status as a five-star library, for the 11th year in a row, demonstrates respect as a national library leader. The trustees believe it is time to develop our own ambitious goals, especially in diversity, equity, and inclusion with staff programs and community outreach.
[01:28:56.65] "We look forward to your proposals on specific and strategic efforts, informed by staff experiences and expertise. The trustees eagerly anticipate next year's review process to be just as informative and as exciting as this year's process.
[01:29:13.10] "Finally, I would like to highlight your success in negotiating a long-term five-year agreement with our unions while also streamlining organizational structure by creating two departments and eliminating another. You have prioritized a culture of generosity so that we can retain our greatest assets, our AADL staff.
[01:29:31.22] "Your skills also demonstrates a keen sense of our financial condition so that, with these contracts, we can better plan for future budgets and projects. Thank you for definitely navigating this work in a transparent and fair manner. Again, congratulations to another year full of accomplishments and reflection. Your trustees and I remain steadfast supporters in your efforts. We look forward to serving our community with you by our side."
[01:29:54.25] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you very much. Thank you.
[01:29:56.96] [APPLAUSE]
[01:30:03.14] Thank you. It's always overwhelming to listen to a letter about your work read in public, but it's overwhelming in a good way, in a lovely way. I want to say, I look around the room, and I see the staff and the number of people who are here, and all of you. But I also see some people who are still waiting to get a code, right? Exactly.
[01:30:27.89] And so here's what I want to say about that. I appreciate you very much. Because you step up into a public place and a public view, and you add a dimension to your life that you bring it into the public library world. You give us this time out of your lives, and you do it for all the right reasons.
[01:30:54.42] And for someone who's in my space, you cannot know how important that is, how much that means to all of us who work here, who do the thing that we chose to do as professionals or for this point in time in our lives, whatever that is. It's so amazingly gracious of you. It's also your own brand of culture of generosity.
[01:31:19.19] And I want you to know I feel that way about it. Thank you. And out here, in the middle, it's we're bread, the staff and the board. And the staff's on the other slice, and they know how much they do. They know what it takes to get it done. They know how to work with each other to support it. They know it when it's working. They know it when it's not. And I really appreciate that they're able to do that with the kind of flexibility, frankly, that we give them.
[01:31:49.94] There are situations I've been in in my own working life, where I was not in a situation where I was trusted with that flexibility. And for someone like me, that's frustrating. For someone else, it's scary. Maybe I should have been scared more than I was, but it's scary.
[01:32:10.07] And so there are people here who leap on it, and then there are people here who gladly follow and do that work with each other. And I want to thank you. I'm aware of the difference. We need everybody. And it works.
[01:32:25.19] Then, there's what's in the middle of the red. It's the gooey, delicious, magical jam. And it's people like these young ladies who are sitting here waiting so patiently to stand up and tell us how they feel about the library and get their quote. That's why we're all here. And I never thought I'd make a metaphor about a sandwich in the library, but it kind of works.
[01:32:51.16] ELI NEIBURGER: There's a badge series about that.

[01:32:52.43] JOSIE PARKER: Oh! There is now anyway, whether that's a magical-- so thank you. So that these young ladies can get their code, I'm going to stop talking. But thank you. Thank you all very much-- very, very much. So it's your turn. Come on up. She'll still say it. She'll say it. Go for it.
[01:33:16.38] VARSHANI: Oh, OK, I'm Varshani. I'm going into ninth grade at Huron. I just finished eighth grade. So I turned 14 in December. So my mom thought that I should start doing more things in the community and stuff.
[01:33:34.96] PA ANNNOUNCER: Your attention please. The library will close in 15 minutes. Internet stations will automatically shut off at 8:55 PM. Please make any final copies at this time and take all materials to be checked out to a self-check station or to the circulation desk by 8:55 PM. Thank you.
[01:33:57.88] VARSHANI: OK, so my mom thought I should do more things in the community. So she signed me up to volunteer at the library. And I've only done it like two or three times, but I already know it's going to be fun in the future. And I hope I can do it in high school, too, and use it towards my volunteer hours. So I just want to thank the library for giving me that opportunity.
[01:34:19.06] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you very much.
[01:34:20.18] [APPLAUSE]
[01:34:24.31] KAREN WILSON: Claire.
[01:34:28.15] CLAIRE: OK, so my name is Claire. I am going into ninth grade, and I'm actually moving out of state, which is actually really sad for me. Because ever since I was really young, I've been playing the Summer Game. It's like, honestly, the only fun thing I do during the summer. If I didn't do it, I'd probably just lay around all day and do nothing. So I'm really thankful that the library has taken the time and the energy to set this whole thing up.
[01:34:58.89] And it's like, yeah, I'm just really sad that I'm moving out of the state. Because, also, I didn't appreciate how good your whole library system was, but it's really efficient. It's really like straightforward and easy to use. And I've just-- yeah, OK. I'm not really sure what else to say, but thank you.
[01:35:18.39] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
[01:35:18.84] LINH SONG: Thank you for coming.
[01:35:20.22] [APPLAUSE]
[01:35:24.04] KAREN WILSON: Eric.
[01:35:30.26] ERIC: I don't know how you follow that, but I'm not in eighth grade. I moved out to Ann Arbor two years ago from Berkeley, Michigan, and I want to say that I tried to use the library system there quite a bit. I live in the Traverwood area now, and we use that a lot.
[01:35:49.36] And the thing that we and my family appreciate so much about Ann Arbor is the hours that the library keeps, being able to go when it's convenient for my family, being able to go after dinner if need be-- like, kids have a different schedule than most mainstream libraries do. So that, to me, has been probably the best thing about moving to Ann Arbor, has been the ability to take my kids out for low-cost fun indoors, when it's raining like heck, every day of the week lately.
[01:36:22.57] So I really appreciate having it available. And the Summer Game has been good, too. Because it's made me explore a little more of the city, and get to know a little more of the city, and get outside, which is a little tough. Thank you.
[01:36:36.09] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[01:36:46.85] KAREN STOVER: Hi, I spoke before and I decided to stay. So here are my comments of listening to your meeting. It was great. I think that, for your next meeting, where you have people for the Summer Games come, you should have something like Josie's director's update.
[01:37:03.66] There was a bunch of Summer Game information in it that I would have never learned. And I think it would be like a insider sort of thing. It might also help with people coming to other events. I've kind of always wondered why you guys don't put more point values on showing up to the ones off-season, because I feel like people would show up. And if you're trying to get attendance and you're trying to get people to show up, these points are pretty arbitrary. So I think that would definitely be something that would bring people out.
[01:37:34.84] LINH SONG: Thank you.
[01:37:36.01] KAREN STOVER: Oh, and I also wanted to mention, for the events that aren't summer games that I really enjoy-- just so these keep happening, hopefully, I love the Splatoon events that are going on. I know Splatoon is kind of not the most favorite game, and Smash is way more of a cultural phenomena. But there is a big Smash community in the area, and people drive from all over to come to this one in particular.
[01:38:01.13] We've talked about potentially-- we got the information; we're just bad at planning. But there's things to unlock on that game that just require people to show up and play. And so having open play for those games would be a fun event, I think, and might help for some of the events, because it's just-- and you guys have subscriptions to it so it's kind of going to waste if you're not doing that.
[01:38:23.76] The other thing I really love going to and plan my evenings around are the Live events for Nerd Night. Those are great. They're always wonderful. It doesn't matter if it's not the speakers that we showed up to see. It's always a great time, and I've gotten friends to go to that.
[01:38:39.66] Another thing that I love from the library is all the art. People are so surprised when I tell them about it. The library that I came from also had our checkout, so I was less surprised by it, but it's definitely something that I love. I really, really wish that there was more on display at other branches, even if it was a couple pieces. Because I seemed to always be returning to another branch, and then I have nothing to fill that with.
[01:39:06.41] I would love for some of them to have duplicates that are super popular. Because some of the hold lists are really, really, really long. And, specifically, I would love more dinosaur paintings. They also need to be recategorized to say "dinosaurs" somewhere in the metadata because they are so hard to search for.
[01:39:30.37] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Do we have a lot of dinosaur paintings? Is this a genre that we--
[01:39:34.52] KAREN STOVER: Well, they're from like 1918, so they're actually real old school, but they're classy pieces of art. And I know people who have worked here, and they said, like, oh, yeah, I always loved when people checked those out. But they always have holds on them. But, yeah. So thanks.
[01:39:51.88] LINH SONG: Thank you for the feedback.
[01:39:53.89] JIM LEIJA: I love the idea, Josie, of moving the director's report up for these special meetings, but I had a question about whether or not we are allowed to rearrange citizens' comments per the format.
[01:40:09.36] JOSIE PARKER: Citizens' comments and the agenda is the board president's purview. So if you wanted director's comments in front of the public comments, you could do that. I just can't not have public comments.
[01:40:24.27] JIM LEIJA: Right, I kind of love that idea potentially, as a way to inform-- to give people a little more information, yeah.
[01:40:31.69] LINH SONG: But we did have a lot of little kids. So we might have to--
[01:40:36.17] JIM LEIJA: But they have parents.
[01:40:38.20] VICTORIA GREEN: Well, we also could display it not talk about. It could running the slide show.
[01:40:43.36] JOSIE PARKER: I mean, you're not going to have a Summer Game code at the podium every month, either.
[01:40:49.74] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Is there anybody else who wants to present and get the code-- or, oh yeah, or the pin?
[01:40:58.72] LINH SONG: I just love that we have classy dinosaurs art as an option at the library. This is not something that I ever thought I'd talk about.
[01:41:07.93] DHARMA AKMON: I'm going to be looking for it now.
[01:41:10.35] LINH SONG: Great, well, I think we finished our work for the night. So I will--
[01:41:16.43] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do have to vote for closed session?
[01:41:17.84]
[01:41:20.59] LINH SONG: Oh, yes.
[01:41:22.27] JIM LEIJA: Do we have to amend the agenda first? I move to amend the agenda so that we can add an item to vote for closed session for discussion of real estate in July.
[01:41:32.15] LINH SONG: Second. A discussion, any discussion? All those in favor?
[01:41:38.11] ALL: Aye.
[01:41:39.06] LINH SONG: Any opposed? Right, so moved.
[01:41:42.05] JIM LEIJA: I would like to move that we meet for closed session in July for the discussion of real estate.
[01:41:49.66] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I second.
[01:41:51.07] JIM LEIJA: This is a roll call.
[01:41:52.44] LINH SONG: Oh, right.
[01:41:53.39] JIM LEIJA: Discussion?
[01:41:55.20] LINH SONG: Any discussion? No.
[01:42:00.72] JOSIE PARKER: All right, Karen, you OK? We've sprung it on you.
[01:42:04.01] [SIDE CONVERSATION]
[01:42:10.53] KAREN WILSON: Dharma Akmon?
[01:42:11.01] DHARMA AKMON: Yes
[01:42:11.48] KAREN WILSON: Victoria Green?
[01:42:11.93] VICTORIA GREEN: Yes.
[01:42:12.41] KAREN WILSON: Jim Leija?
[01:42:13.27] JIM LEIJA: Yes.
[01:42:13.67] KAREN WILSON: Kerene Moore?
[01:42:14.46] KERENE MOORE: Yes.
[01:42:14.87] KAREN WILSON: Colleen Sherman?
[01:42:15.58] COLLEEN SHERMAN: All for it.
[01:42:16.96] KAREN WILSON: Linh Song.
[01:42:17.90] LINH SONG: Yes.
[01:42:18.16] KAREN WILSON: Jamie Vander Broek.
[01:42:19.11] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.

[01:42:21.12] LINH SONG: Great. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, everyone. We are adjourned.
[01:42:27.62] NARRATOR: This program was recorded on June 17, 2019 at the Ann Arbor District Library.

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June 17, 2019 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Length: 01:42:33

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

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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Library Board
AADL Board Meeting