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AADL Board of Trustees Meeting - July 17th, 2017

When: July 17, 2017 at Downtown Library

Watch the July 2017 Meeting of the AADL Board of Trustees. Select an agenda item below to jump to that point in the transcript. For more information, please see the Board Packet for this meeting.

17-120 I. CALL TO ORDER
17-121 II. ATTENDANCE
17-122 . III. APPROVAL OF AGENDA (Item of Action)
17-123 IV. CONSENT OF AGENDA (Item of Action)
17-124 V. CITIZEN'S COMMENTS CA-1 Approval of Minutes of June 12, 2017 and June 19, 2017 CA-2 Approval of June 2017 Disbursements
17-125 VI. FINANCIAL REPORTS Bill Cooper, Finance Manager
17-126 VII. COMMITTEE REPORTS
17-127 A. DIRECTOR'S EVALUATION COMMITTEE
17-128 B. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 17-129 VIII. DIRECTOR'S REPORT – Josie B. Parker, Director
17-130 IX. OLD BUSINESS 16-154 A. AADL STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL 3.3: REIMAGINE THE ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY'S DOWNTOWN PRESENCE (Item of Discussion)
16-201 B. UPDATE ON TRAVERWOOD BRANCH LIBRARY CAPITAL PROJECT – Len Lemorie, Facilities Manager
16-154 C. AADL STRATEGIC PLAN GOAL 4.3: IMPLEMENT THE NEW WEB PRESENCE – UPDATE – Eli Neiburger, Deputy Director
17-131 X. NEW BUSINESS 17-132 A. RESOLUTION TO AMEND THE 2016-2017 APPROVED BUDGET (Item of Action) - Bill Cooper, Finance Manager
17-133 XI. CITIZEN'S COMMENTS
17-134 XII. ADJOURNMENT

Transcript

  • [00:00:00.00] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, well, I'm going to call this to order because we have a quorum. And before we get started with this meeting today, I have a very important task that I was told I must not mess up. So for those of you who are paying attention--
  • [00:00:15.02] JOSIE PARKER: And watching on YouTube.
  • [00:00:16.35] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And watching on YouTube, you can get points for watching at home tonight if you enter the code AADL Yeah. So A-A-D-L, and then Y-E-A-H.
  • [00:00:28.46] JOSIE PARKER: And also if you're present.
  • [00:00:30.11] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And there's extra points for being present, and extra points for talking. So tons of incentives to do your civic duty tonight. OK, great. And colleen, did you want to share your--
  • [00:00:42.63] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Oh, my friend code is Space 993. Space 993. Do you guys know you friend codes?
  • [00:00:49.77] JIM LEIJA: Oh, I have to look mine up.
  • [00:00:51.03] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
  • [00:00:51.39] JIM LEIJA: I don't remember it though.
  • [00:00:54.09] LINH SONG: I think my 11-year-old knows it.
  • [00:00:56.17] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Knows your friend code? Of course. I had to look mine up over the weekend. I'm like, I should memorize that.
  • [00:01:02.37] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: We can have [INAUDIBLE] tell us when he gets back from summer camp. OK, great. OK, well, welcome everyone. This is our first time doing this out into the world, and so bear with us if we are a little bumpy as we take off. OK, so to get started here-- so we have call to order, attendance, approval of the agenda. Does anyone make a motion?
  • [00:01:27.79] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I move to that we approve the agenda.
  • [00:01:30.81] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I second.
  • [00:01:32.01] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Is my mic really loud?
  • [00:01:34.48] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, but kind of in a good way.
  • [00:01:36.00] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK.
  • [00:01:36.27] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. All those in favor?
  • [00:01:40.18] JOSIE PARKER: I.
  • [00:01:40.45] JIM LEIJA: I.
  • [00:01:40.83] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I.
  • [00:01:41.79] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Opposed? OK, great. Great, so we move on then to the consent agenda, which includes the minutes of June 12, and the approval of the June disbursements. Is there a motion?
  • [00:01:57.69] JIM LEIJA: I move to approve the consent agenda.
  • [00:02:01.39] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I second.
  • [00:02:02.68] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Great. If we just have four of us, you guys can just trade back and forth tonight. OK, great. So all those in favor?
  • [00:02:10.87] JOSIE PARKER: I.
  • [00:02:11.22] JIM LEIJA: I.
  • [00:02:11.54] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I.
  • [00:02:12.14] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Opposed? OK, that brings us to citizens comments. I know there is at least one person already registered.
  • [00:02:21.13] JOSIE PARKER: We do. Our first one is Mr. Jackson Potter.
  • [00:02:25.99] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, I think we have a hand held mic for you.
  • [00:02:31.31] LINH SONG: Do we have a step stool?
  • [00:02:32.76] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Great No, it's perfect. Just head over there. You want to introduce yourself.
  • [00:02:39.82] JACKSON: Does this go any higher?
  • [00:02:44.53] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: You got to get it right.
  • [00:02:47.06] JIM LEIJA: You're a pro. There you go. How's that?
  • [00:02:49.87] JACKSON: Good.
  • [00:02:50.64] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So tell us your name and then tell us what you wanted to say.
  • [00:02:53.98] JACKSON: Is it first and last?
  • [00:02:55.92] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Just your first name is OK.
  • [00:02:57.70] JOSIE PARKER: Your first name is OK.
  • [00:03:00.96] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Go ahead.
  • [00:03:01.29] JOSIE PARKER: Speak up into it. You're good.
  • [00:03:09.30] JACKSON: My name is Jackson Potter.
  • [00:03:13.49] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Very good.
  • [00:03:16.15] JACKSON: And also I would like to say that people are hiding the codes really well, and also following the points good. Like 200 and once I found one that was 300. And there were Olympic banners, and they were 1,000.
  • [00:03:40.72] And also they have things that you can get more points of like reading, but you can only get 1,000 points a week. And if you get over the amount, it shortens the amount to whatever points it needs to.
  • [00:04:00.00] If you get 2,000 points or just 1,000, then it just sets it for-- let's say that that book was really long, and you were at 942, and you went over. Well, that would bring you to 912 maybe weekly, say it was just more like 958. Then it would shorten it to some more points under.
  • [00:04:47.15] JOSIE PARKER: Very good.
  • [00:04:50.03] JACKSON: And also, I didn't do the calculation yet, but I would estimate 50 points added or more, more or less. And also I hope that you have a good summer game, and that's all for right now.
  • [00:05:21.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you.
  • [00:05:22.33] [APPLAUSE]
  • [00:05:25.83] JOSIE PARKER: Here is your code for tonight.
  • [00:05:28.16] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, make sure you get that. Thank you, Josie. Close one.
  • [00:05:31.90] JOSIE PARKER: It's 1,000 points. He can't forget that.
  • [00:05:33.84] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: 1,000 points? Wow!
  • [00:05:35.44] JOSIE PARKER: 1,000 points, yes. Is there any one else to speak tonight for 1,000 points? Summer game? You do not have to have signed up ahead of time. You can just walk up here.
  • [00:05:51.65] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Mr. Potter, I hope you encourage all of your young friends to come and speak, including my own children. Thank you.
  • [00:05:58.76] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And if you all change your mind and want the points, there is the second period of comments at the end of the meeting. Well, thank you. That was a great way to break in the first use of the space. OK, great. So that brings us to financial reports. Bill will join us.
  • [00:06:21.57] BILL COOPER: Good evening. You have my report in front of you. After the close of June 30, 2017, we had four line items that were just slightly over budget. But all together, our total expenditures, we were under budget by $816,405. Are there any questions?
  • [00:06:44.82] JOSIE PARKER: And there's a resolution?
  • [00:06:46.27] BILL COOPER: Yes, there will be a resolution that we'll be asking to transfer some money for those four line items later in the agenda.
  • [00:06:54.66] ED SUROVELL: What were the line items? I would appreciate knowing what they were.
  • [00:06:59.07] BILL COOPER: Professional services, materials, software licenses and maintenance, and repairs and maintenance.
  • [00:07:06.80] ED SUROVELL: All right, thank you.
  • [00:07:10.13] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: The software license stays stable, but we know what it's going to be, right? Always? Not the repair, necessarily.
  • [00:07:18.84] BILL COOPER: That's correct. Some of that had to do with or migration with the new email servers.
  • [00:07:25.98] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: And we anticipate the same fee annually.
  • [00:07:31.59] BILL COOPER: Yes. Any other questions?
  • [00:07:36.22] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Other questions for bill? OK, thank you very much. So we'll get to that resolution later, but we're going to start with our committee reports. You all might notice that we added little timers. So we are not going to go over 10:00 PM tonight. So I don't think this will take us 15 minutes, but you have 15 minutes.
  • [00:08:00.97] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Where are our timers?
  • [00:08:02.33] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, I just mean--
  • [00:08:03.58] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Oh, OK.
  • [00:08:04.64] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Literally there's on agenda, a time. Nothing more sophisticated than that.
  • [00:08:10.48] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I was looking.
  • [00:08:11.03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I can time you on my--
  • [00:08:12.11] COLLEEN SHERMAN: No. I'm totally OK.
  • [00:08:14.66] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, so Lyn was going to give us a report on the Director's Evaluation Committee.
  • [00:08:20.54] LINH SONG: The executive committee met on the 11th last week. It was myself, Jim, and Jamie. We reviewed a proposal that was subpoenaed by Bridgeport Consulting with a consultant named Sarah Winston.
  • [00:08:37.79] She has a background in leadership development training, 15 years worth of experience in nonprofit management, executive search work, talent development. And essentially, the proposal is to have them present a turnkey solution so that we can have an evaluation for Josie, as well as a description on her essential functions at the library.
  • [00:09:01.34] We're looking to see if this work can come in before-- I think starting as early as this month. So later this month and have it so that we can do a year long evaluation with a report and summary by the end of this fiscal year. This was going to come in at $10,000.
  • [00:09:27.29] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: My email is I got no email after the retreat, and just assumed there wasn't an email coming out. So I finally got it reinstated, and I'm kind of catching up. Tell me exactly what you're expecting to receive.
  • [00:09:46.17] LINH SONG: So we are waiting for them to respond to a request that we had made on an updated proposal to more--
  • [00:09:52.17] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Right, I remember that. You want to restructure.
  • [00:09:55.01] LINH SONG: Yeah, so we asked for an itemized list on materials that they'd like to pull together besides interviews with peer and aspirational organizations, linking Josie's work to the strategic plan. We're looking to come up with benchmarking protocols, and get this--
  • [00:10:19.10] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: And this $10,000 is going to provide these for us?
  • [00:10:21.87] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:10:22.14] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah.
  • [00:10:22.50] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [00:10:23.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: They provided us with-- so Sarah gave us a proposal based on what-- she interviewed Lyn and I about what we wanted, and then after we told her what we wanted, she gave us a proposal, and we read it, and thought it was 80% there because we really want to walk away with forms to use to evaluate Josie.
  • [00:10:44.18] We want to just be able to use stuff. We don't want to have to have another person help us with that process. So their proposal was a little heavy on the research side, and not as heavy on the deliverables. So we gave them that feedback, and they were really receptive.
  • [00:11:00.44] LINH SONG: We're looking to--
  • [00:11:01.10] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Can you give me an example of a deliverable?
  • [00:11:04.52] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So if you think about when we evaluate Josie now, we have none. We just take a blank piece of paper and write up what we think about her she did this year. But I think it would help us a lot if we had some sort of structure, like a form to use that have specific questions that we use every year.
  • [00:11:20.81] And then whether it's Josie or another director, we can kind of compare a little bit more, and then we'll have more qualitative and quantitative data, instead of it being kind of informal.
  • [00:11:31.51] LINH SONG: So a more survey format versus a narrative. So I think we've relied too heavily on a narrative, and what we're looking for is a tool, a survey tool. But that has to actually have to be marked against what other institutions are doing too.
  • [00:11:47.51] So I think that's what's been missing from what we've been doing in the past. They're able to turn this around pretty quickly. We're hoping to have our first meeting at the end of this month, but this is a proposal that's also on Josie's desk too. So I think that's where it will land for final approval.
  • [00:12:08.24] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, I know Josie will welcome this too.
  • [00:12:10.13] JOSIE PARKER: Yes, I will, and I gave feedback about the life of deliverables as well.
  • [00:12:18.77] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: I always have trouble knowing what a deliverable is.
  • [00:12:23.06] JOSIE PARKER: Results.
  • [00:12:25.21] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: No, I know what you mean.
  • [00:12:29.27] LINH SONG: My MSW is in policy evaluation. So I have a little bit of a background I think that can help guide us in this work as the proposal comes in, and as we look at the materials that they're proposing if we look at it as a program evaluation standpoint. But where I'm lacking is on executive evaluations, and this is where this particular consultant has an expertise in.
  • [00:12:54.70] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do you have anything to add?
  • [00:12:56.92] JIM LEIJA: I don't think so. I think you guys covered it. I know among the other deliverables, of course, we were suggesting, actually, a summary of crucial duties and responsibilities that are part of the job because we're all interested in documenting what is being done. Both as a way to build accountability into this process, and also be able to communicate in the future about what are the essential duties of the position.
  • [00:13:32.34] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, this has been something we've struggled with.
  • [00:13:34.82] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, I agree with you.
  • [00:13:38.03] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: And we've asked Josie, how does she evaluate her departments. And there's just a lot of different ways of going about it. So it's important that we--
  • [00:13:50.00] JOSIE PARKER: Well, I think in that respect, Jan, if I may, I think hopefully what the result will be will be instruments that are used that are not the same as what we use here for our full time staff and our supervisory staff.
  • [00:14:06.30] But the fact is, there is an instrument that we use for all full time staff, and then those for supervisory staff. That exists now, and so what is-- the only position that's full time in the library without such a instrument is the director's job.
  • [00:14:24.44] So in the past, we've done the narrative where I've written a narrative based on seven or eight factors that have been assigned by the board. This is a different way of approaching it, and will, I think, ultimately be a better picture of the board in agreeing about what the library does.
  • [00:14:41.70] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: We've been frustrated. I agree with that.
  • [00:14:44.62] LINH SONG: So hopefully, it will give us something more substantial than if Josie submitted her Google Calendar to get an overview of her daily work, and also how her work over time aligns with our strategic plan, and then hopefully, how we can support her in professional development and growth too. Jim had mentioned this, but I think it will hopefully also inform us on succession planning too.
  • [00:15:09.56] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Which we have to have in place.
  • [00:15:14.16] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Great. Thank you so much. Any other questions for Lyn? OK, well, the executive committee also met about strategic plan 3.3. What are we going to do about downtown? So we talked in the last meeting about how advancing that conversation as a large group is an unwieldy process.
  • [00:15:36.51] And there needs to be some kind of give and take between smaller groups of people working on projects, and then coming back to the larger group so that we can keep things moving forward. And we agree that the--
  • [00:15:49.38] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: I'm really glad to see that. When we first adopted the committee, it was the whole idea. Was when I was first present. Former presidents, former officers who were not intimately involved with what we were doing, kept saying, well, what's going on?
  • [00:16:10.98] I don't know anything. It was frustrating, and we thought we could get worked in, but it seems to me that the committees that were able to get into deeper things and then report, actually wasn't a bad idea.
  • [00:16:26.74] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right. Maybe we just had too many committees. It was not functional the way we were operating, necessarily. But, yeah, I agree. Trying to do it all together, everything is just--
  • [00:16:40.07] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, some things just need a lot of time, and some things don't.
  • [00:16:44.29] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right. And so we met to start to talk about that a little bit, and we talked with Josie. So we talked about one thing that we might start with is to commission an assessment of the downtown library building.
  • [00:17:00.61] So this is something that Josie can do without even asking us. It's something that's within her role as director, but it's something that in collaboration with Josie, we might suggest as the starting point for this process.
  • [00:17:13.86] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, that's what came up to me at our last meeting, when we were talking about getting this discussion started. When I got on board, this had been going on for years, what they were building up to before our last try at dealing with the building, and you can't just snap your fingers and do it. So it does take some serious work. And it's often the job of committees who are willing to do the work.
  • [00:17:43.52] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes.
  • [00:17:44.79] LINH SONG: I think we're updating a 10 year-- I think the last review we had was 10 years old.
  • [00:17:50.98] JOSIE PARKER: 2006. Full review, yes, and then there was a review in 2012 of that work that substantiated it so that we could go forward, and the numbers in the [INAUDIBLE] were correct. That was the idea, was to make sure those numbers were correct.
  • [00:18:07.47] And then last year, Lyn looked at the building just in terms of the report he gave you about the roof and different things. But to have someone come in and go through it all the way through it again in every way, I recommend that we do that.
  • [00:18:23.64] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: And his estimate of what it would cost is just his estimate of maintaining half a million a year. That's a sobering number.
  • [00:18:36.03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, that's half a million that we can't spend on other stuff.
  • [00:18:40.17] JOSIE PARKER: And it doesn't take you back to good, as he said it. It doesn't let you really change what you do here very much.
  • [00:18:51.39] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So we thought that would be a starting point, but we also wanted to work with Josie to come up with more of a plan. Something more formal that takes us from there to somewhere with intermediate stops, and that's something that we were thinking we might ask her to do. So I wanted to see what you all thought about that as a first step.
  • [00:19:12.63] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Seems logical. It seems like the right first step, and if it's not, we can go back, take a different one, but it's something that when we had the conversation last month, I think there was a lot of struggling in that conversation, and we'll be able to have more conversations if we start with this. Who conducts that evaluation?
  • [00:19:35.30] JOSIE PARKER: The construction company.
  • [00:19:36.42] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The construction company that we worked with to do the wall, who has built some of the branches with whom we've had a past relationship. Correct?
  • [00:19:43.70] JOSIE PARKER: Likely. I haven't talked to them, but likely.
  • [00:19:50.05] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's not something that requires a big RFP. It's a smaller part of the process. But there will be things down the line where we will need to--
  • [00:19:58.21] COLLEEN SHERMAN: And it's the right expertise in the right place.
  • [00:20:03.04] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Other questions? OK.
  • [00:20:05.96] LINH SONG: Well, Josie, do you know how long this would take?
  • [00:20:08.89] JOSIE PARKER: Which piece?
  • [00:20:10.12] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: The first.
  • [00:20:10.66] JOSIE PARKER: The first piece? I'd have to-- what does it take to assess a building? A month to come in and go through it? Yes. Once we work out the work itself, and what the expectations are, and what that deliverable would look like.
  • [00:20:28.99] I think for them it's 30 days. About 30 days. It's mid-July. I would expect something by the September board meeting. If they're free to do it, we can do it by the September board meeting, we should have that.
  • [00:20:42.56] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That would be great.
  • [00:20:44.41] JOSIE PARKER: That's, in my head, in a bigger calendar, that would be what I'm looking at. I'm looking at three month to six month pieces, and this one is about a little less than a three month piece, but it's the first piece.
  • [00:20:58.98] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: What have we paid for that in the past?
  • [00:21:00.76] JOSIE PARKER: I don't remember, Jan. That was such a long time ago. I don't honestly remember. It's nothing compared to other larger construction company contracts that we have to do for major projects, but it will be within the range in which I'm allowed to approve for sure.
  • [00:21:22.60] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, maybe I shouldn't even ask this, but what was the assessment that we hired an architectural firm from Arizona or somewhere-- well, I don't know where it was from.
  • [00:21:33.46] JOSIE PARKER: No, that was--
  • [00:21:34.09] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: We were very disappointed.
  • [00:21:36.58] JOSIE PARKER: That was Providence. If you look, it's still online. They came in, and did interviews with a lot of people in the community, and with staff, and they basically came up with what they considered a program statement.
  • [00:21:53.19] Anyone can look at it. That was a failed effort, and so we didn't use it. Pieces of it were useful. The interviews with focus groups were really useful because that was factual information coming from different people in the community about what they would like to see in the library.
  • [00:22:10.36] But the conclusions that were drawn were very biased by the backgrounds and experience of the consultants in other libraries around the country, and there were some boilerplate language that we found that wasn't specific to us. It was just not a good outcome.
  • [00:22:30.33] And then we asked Luckenbach to do the program statement. So Carl Luckenbach came in as an architect, and redid the interviews with many of the constituents, and then took that information, and created a program statement, which is a narrative of what will happen in a structure.
  • [00:22:52.18] What's the desired activity within the structure, and then he determined from that what square footage do you dedicate then to those activities, and he worked through all of it. What are the competing objectives, because you weren't going to be able to do it all.
  • [00:23:07.48] And then he, with the staff, and with the board, and with people from the friends, and other people who are directly impacted by the-- what are the right words for the space when you're next door to--
  • [00:23:23.77] JIM LEIJA: Adjacencies.
  • [00:23:24.19] JOSIE PARKER: Adjacencies. Thank you very much. I was still trying to say competing objectives. The adjacencies in a building have tremendous amount to do with how well it functions. And so working through the adjacencies-- and it's one thing to work through the adjacencies in a 15,000 to 21,000 square foot space that's pretty wide open.
  • [00:23:44.53] It's another thing to do adjacencies in, at the time, we were looking at 160,000 square foot building that's five levels. So all of those things. So Carl did that and he came out with a program statement. When that program statement was done and accepted by the board, the board-- through an RFP process-- selected Luckenbach Ziegelman to design a building.
  • [00:24:09.07] And the library board then agreed for Luckenbach to go ahead and do 75% of schematic design work so that there could be a better understanding of what the building would look like floor to floor, and then there were some elevations developed to give some idea of what the massing would be on the street, and a little bit of an idea about what the outside would be.
  • [00:24:31.12] So we had a 75% schematic done in the mid 2000s. When the board made the decision to seek a bond, it was determined that that building was not necessarily the building that would be built with that bond.
  • [00:24:48.93] So those schematics and those elevations were not part of the bond campaign. So I hope that if we do this again, we know that whatever we're hiring an architect to help us do will be-- if we're going to do a bond campaign, that that's what we're going to use them for. So a lot of money to not use it.
  • [00:25:08.32] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Right. I remember a discussion that we don't necessarily have to do a bond campaign.
  • [00:25:15.67] JOSIE PARKER: No, we don't.
  • [00:25:17.02] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Right, exactly. That's not necessarily [INAUDIBLE].
  • [00:25:18.55] JOSIE PARKER: So that's why I'm being careful with my language. You're a governmental unit like any other, and so you are able to bond without a millage, but there are things that have to be taken into consideration if an institution does that.
  • [00:25:35.49] And I'll just say it quickly because it's come up, you may bond without a millage, but if there is a downturn in the economy, and your millage capture is less, that bond note is paid first, and the rest of the operations come after that.
  • [00:25:55.33] So the board and the library administration must make a decision about what's not going to happen while that is taken care of. Because if you have a bond that's elected, a bond millage, that's a separate amount of money that comes in in addition to your operating millage. They're not affected. They don't affect each other. That's something to understand. And then operating a new building too-- that has to be taken care of.
  • [00:26:21.73] LINH SONG: So with this first pass, this first step, Josie, will that help us see a financial [INAUDIBLE] priorities on the septic tanks versus the roof.
  • [00:26:33.45] JOSIE PARKER: Yes. And I'll say this now because I don't think it's going to be a problem if I say it out loud. We have brand new renovated, rehabilitated restrooms on first floor, and they're backing up because the system that they flow to is not one you can upgrade without tearing out the basement floor.
  • [00:26:54.16] Which is a lot more money than you probably want to say to me spend on this building because it's a domino effect. We had hoped to try to remedy some of that through design and flow. It's not possible. So we're cleaning up, and we'll keep cleaning up, and--
  • [00:27:15.43] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: How often does that happen?
  • [00:27:16.82] JOSIE PARKER: It's happened three times since they opened a month ago.
  • [00:27:19.63] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Good grief.
  • [00:27:20.94] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So it's literally not flowing.
  • [00:27:22.36] ED SUROVELL: And it will happen on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
  • [00:27:27.37] JOSIE PARKER: It's important for me to say that to you. So when we get this building assessment, you will have a detailed assessment of what-- the numbers, your end of the year numbers for the door counts here and programs is increased from last year. You cannot bring that many people in here with the same bathrooms you had in here in 1958, 1977, and 1990.
  • [00:27:49.51] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: The point about do we even know the substructure that we're feeding?
  • [00:27:55.03] JOSIE PARKER: Yes.
  • [00:27:55.45] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: That we're getting into. The city pipes are very old too.
  • [00:27:59.80] JOSIE PARKER: We know enough for them to tell you what your limitations are in that respect. Some of that was upgraded when the street was torn up, when the library garage was built. A lot of those pipes were upgraded, but under us was not, and how it moves from here out was not.
  • [00:28:20.17] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: That's the problem.
  • [00:28:20.98] JOSIE PARKER: Right. So Jan, this assessment is going to give you that detail on every aspect of the building and its functions, all of it, and what you can expect in it's life. That's what we're hoping for.
  • [00:28:35.83] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Will any of this expense be city expense for the substructure?
  • [00:28:40.21] JOSIE PARKER: I don't know. I don't know how. You have to get numbers before you start negotiating share.
  • [00:28:48.29] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's an interesting question, though.
  • [00:28:49.14] JOSIE PARKER: It is an interesting question.
  • [00:28:54.24] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So we'll return to this issue later. Well, we will talk about sewage every meeting. We must. But we'll return to almost the same agenda item later in the meeting. So if there's further questions about the downtown question, we can [INAUDIBLE]. Great. So that brings us to the director's report.
  • [00:29:20.17] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you. I'll direct your attention to the screen, in addition to what's written in the comments that I included in the report. Maybe I'll try direct you-- there we go. This is an update from this first month of the summer game, compared to last year. So we have 17% more players just in a month, earning 70% more points.
  • [00:29:47.99] So what that indicates to us is the engagement level is so much higher. So we're very, very happy about that. This is just a reminder that there's the Urbanwood Tour on July 28 in the county, and it ends with a talk that I'm giving at Traverwood that afternoon about the use of the ash trees at Traverwood. And just backup a minute [INAUDIBLE]
  • [00:30:11.85] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: You know what time your talk will be?
  • [00:30:15.13] SPEAKER 8: Roughly 4 o'clock.
  • [00:30:16.06] JOSIE PARKER: 4 o'clock. Thank you, Karen. I just want to show this tree because people ask about what do the emerald ash borers do? And this is what they did. They go right under the bark, and they make all these indentations, these trails where they're moving up and down the tree.
  • [00:30:32.28] And it interrupts the transmission of the nutrients from the roots up. It cuts it off. It starves the tree to death is what it does. And so for those of you know what xylem and phloem are, you have a little idea about how this works. There are five or six of those in the building. Children trace them with their fingers.
  • [00:30:54.15] This is a result of a current number. After one month, we partnered with AAATA to promote the ride and to promote summer gain. You can see that there are about 2,500 redemptions of the bus code, which is outside the bus. About 662 of inside bus code. Saturdays, anyone rides the bus for free if you have your library card, and then they have a code on their website.
  • [00:31:23.68] So you can see there are far more redemptions of that than the others. Actually [INAUDIBLE] Just so you know, I go to the DDA board meetings. I go to a committee meeting. It's called the Downtown Partnership meeting.
  • [00:31:42.63] The DDA has their annual State of the Downtown report, which I talk to you about in the director's report. I recommend it to anyone who's interested in what the DDA actually does, what they're doing currently, what they're considering doing.
  • [00:31:57.78] It's a lot of work, and whether one agrees with it or not, it's a lot of work. Their board meetings are monthly, and they're open to the public, and anyone can come and make comments there as well. But I do go as a rep from the library. So I am the president. So I wanted you to know that.
  • [00:32:18.78] This is just a photograph of the Traverwood outside the youth windows, and Lyn will give a better update later with better pictures. We have on the agenda tonight, something about the website development, and what's going on, and that will come up.
  • [00:32:37.09] And this is June event attendance, and I just want to show it to you. The 210 events, 11,000 so adults. About 11,000 kids and teens coming. It's an average of 105 persons per event. But what that means is you can have an event with 30, and you can have an event with 1,000, and all in between.
  • [00:32:59.92] So this is June, but last Saturday we had our Summer Fest at Vet's Park, and we had over 1,000 people attend. It was amazing. Colleen was there. It was very fun, and we saw people we've never seen before at anything we've done, which is very gratifying for our big family event. So we're very happy about that.
  • [00:33:21.21] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I was so sad to miss it.
  • [00:33:22.11] JOSIE PARKER: It was great.
  • [00:33:22.93] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It's like right by my house.
  • [00:33:23.27] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Where was it exactly?
  • [00:33:24.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It was right by Vet's Park.
  • [00:33:25.58] JOSIE PARKER: Veteran's Park, Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00. We had all the games. A lot of the games we circulate that are yard games, we had them out for people to play.
  • [00:33:33.77] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Oh, I see.
  • [00:33:34.29] JOSIE PARKER: We had a local group that does, what I call, circus acrobatics, and including trapeze. And they set their trapeze up in the middle of the center field of a baseball diamond, and they gave two shows, and then they talked.
  • [00:33:56.46] They were very engaging. They made themselves very accessible. So kids could ask all about the training, and how they do what they do. But that they're trained locally, so we were very happy to have them there. You can see the trapeze. See one of the people were performing right in front there.
  • [00:34:10.53] LINH SONG: I think folks in the audience also attended, right? Raise your hands if you went.
  • [00:34:15.48] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, you guys were there? Good.
  • [00:34:16.55] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I want to say something about it that was-- there were two things that were really cool. I was told what I could check out. The long games, everyone said you can check these out at the library. Go check them out at the library. This looks like fun. You an do it.
  • [00:34:28.41] And then the volunteers that we had, I know Shoshana was very glad, and was working very hard to get the volunteers implemented. And some of the volunteers that were there were just so excited and happy to be there, and that was pretty neat to see that mobilized.
  • [00:34:42.09] JOSIE PARKER: It would have been very difficult to pull off an event with a thousand attendees without the cohort volunteers that we had. They did a fabulous job.
  • [00:34:50.08] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: How many were there?
  • [00:34:53.20] JOSIE PARKER: 20, approximately 20.
  • [00:34:54.91] COLLEEN SHERMAN: A couple dozen.
  • [00:34:56.33] JOSIE PARKER: It was quite a few people, and then a lot of people on staff were there. So it was good point. And I want to just say, I thanked the city. They worked really hard for us on the permit for this, because this is not an event like any they've-- we had the entire Vet's Park except the skate park. It was ADL everywhere, and it was swarming with people everywhere, and so we're very happy about that.
  • [00:35:23.38] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: How did you publicize it?
  • [00:35:26.10] JOSIE PARKER: On the website, on banners, Facebook, and other forms of social media, the truck, on a our truck.
  • [00:35:35.94] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Didn't hurt that you had a nice day.
  • [00:35:37.59] JOSIE PARKER: No, and we did have people see the food trucks we had there, and all the activity, and come in to see what's going on, which is really good.
  • [00:35:46.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do you think you'll do it annually?
  • [00:35:48.99] JOSIE PARKER: Don't ask that. I don't think you want to ask people. I think we will. We learned some things, and weather mattered. There's no way to move it. If it rains, it rains out.
  • [00:36:02.75] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, that's hard.
  • [00:36:05.25] JOSIE PARKER: Some of our comments that aren't what I included, someone took a picture of their thing they got from the store, and--
  • [00:36:18.66] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's a much larger bag than I would have expected. That's amazing.
  • [00:36:21.89] JOSIE PARKER: And then someone was very happy that they could check an ear out at the ADL in a much larger bag than they would have expected, which was funny. And then others. The picture on my right is someone that says, what a wonderful way to introduce babies to the joy of music, the ADL in our district library.
  • [00:36:42.09] And this is a baby story time with singing, and dance, and finger play, and these are infants. Barely walking. We've done that for a very, very, very long time.
  • [00:36:54.64] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: A Kindermusik teacher. I think there is a Kindermusik person who teaches here sometimes.
  • [00:37:01.12] JOSIE PARKER: Sometimes, yes, sometimes. We have more than one person who does this now because it was such a high demand.
  • [00:37:05.78] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: And when I took [? Audi ?] a few weeks ago, there were 60 babies. It was wild.
  • [00:37:10.97] JOSIE PARKER: It's fun to look at all the babies.
  • [00:37:13.39] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I brought my babies when they were babies.
  • [00:37:17.01] JOSIE PARKER: This is a thank you from Anna [? Rakovic, ?] who taught mokey mokey?
  • [00:37:23.65] JIM LEIJA: Mochi.
  • [00:37:23.94] JOSIE PARKER: Mochi Mochi here, and she sent a picture of knitting, and a thank you to us. Thanks to all who came to the stop motion workshop. I was blown away by your creative animations, including knitting. So it's nice to have someone come back to us this way, who's done something here that they feel is successful. This one you have to read from the bottom.
  • [00:37:47.77] This is a man who wrote-- Charlie Frank, you did a series of tweets about interactions he witnessed in one visit to the library. And our public library combos currently. Number one, English teacher explains to Chinese woman that the best way to integrate is to learn football, talk politics, and find American boyfriend.
  • [00:38:11.07] Conversation number two, 14-year-old girls have friendship breakup right here in the library. I thought you were there for me, but you're fake. Just like everyone else. Conversation three, me explaining to a librarian that I'm turning myself in for turning a movie in one day overdue, but I'm happy to pay the $1.00 fine. And then because I'm in love with ADL. So we thought we'd show you that.
  • [00:38:36.70] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: It's so cute.
  • [00:38:37.13] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah, it is. And that's my director's report, unless you have questions.
  • [00:38:42.27] LINH SONG: I wanted to mention a rather epic comment frenzy on the Ann Arbor Momma's Facebook page on Facebook. It's a group of, I think, over 4,000 members. And folks were sharing their friend codes, but there are limitations that came in, and I think there was a bit of a frenzy there where folks were not allowed to share location codes. Is that it?
  • [00:39:09.54] JIM LEIJA: You're not supposed to share game codes. Friend codes are the only ones you're supposed to share. However, that's not our problem.
  • [00:39:16.77] LINH SONG: Well, I commented on this thread, and I was really thrilled to see folks so engaged, and so excited, and so in love with the library, and the game, and reaching out to people that they don't know in real life, and hopefully, they can engage each other in real life at library branches, and meet each other that way. It was really powerful.
  • [00:39:40.64] JOSIE PARKER: Or at Vet's Park, where there were a lot of people-- mommas.
  • [00:39:44.13] LINH SONG: It was really lovely.
  • [00:39:47.61] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you, thank you. And as Eli says, we're not slapping hands about codes.
  • [00:39:55.35] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Definitely not the point of it all.
  • [00:39:57.42] JOSIE PARKER: Not all. It's now what it's about. We brought all the codes from Saturday. After Saturday, it was over. We brought all the codes into one place, and they made them into a bouquet on the lawn, and people were taking pictures. I know those were shared. Of course, right? We're just not concerned about it.
  • [00:40:21.07] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: But that's clever if you can figure that out.
  • [00:40:23.53] JOSIE PARKER: That's right, it's clever.
  • [00:40:24.42] LINH SONG: There was one year when I think all the codes were on the-- when the construction of the library lab was going on, and the codes were on the window.
  • [00:40:30.40] JOSIE PARKER: Down here.
  • [00:40:30.97] LINH SONG: Down here. I think there were 20 of them along the window, and my children screamed. They were so happy. It was like winning the lottery, and they sent it to their father right away. It was the most wonderful thing they've ever come across. They loved it.
  • [00:40:47.92] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thank you, Josie.
  • [00:40:48.55] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
  • [00:40:51.44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, let's see. So we move onto old business. So we're back to the [INAUDIBLE]. So we took a short detour to see cuteness. There's two things I wanted to mention. One is that we were talking a little bit-- Jan, you said we don't have to go for a bond.
  • [00:41:10.87] That's not the only thing we can do. So one thing I had talked with Josie about is that maybe you should learn because Jan and Ed have done this before, but the rest of us are new. Maybe we should learn a little bit more about what our options are if we're thinking about improving this building. And so you had mentioned we might be able to bring someone in to educate us.
  • [00:41:33.34] JOSIE PARKER: Yes. There are a series of steps we can do. We can have a bonding company come and talk. We've done that before, and they walking through all the legal options that you have to bond, whether it's through a millage or not, and what the risks are, and what the advantages are either way.
  • [00:41:54.82] So that's something that we can do, and that's usually done here in a board meeting so that everyone gets that information, and everyone has it. I think doing that upfront closer at the beginning of the conversation helps you as you move through all the information to know what's possible. So whether you plan it or not, you as individuals will be able to think about it intellectually, what's possible.
  • [00:42:21.07] Also donate development is another way to fund a building project. That's a way many of my colleagues across the country have to do it, and it's not out of the realm of possibility for us to do it that way as well. So there's more than one way, and there's a combination of a way, and so I'd ask a bond company to come in and talk to you about the.
  • [00:42:48.55] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: How long would we-- if we do it during a board meeting, is it something that would make the meeting extra long?
  • [00:42:56.59] JOSIE PARKER: No. They make presentations all the time, and their information isn't different. To a political unit, the same, and so they're ready to do it. And then they would just answer your questions-- a half an hour.
  • [00:43:10.60] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: What do you all think of that?
  • [00:43:12.67] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Having that conversation in public seems great, and getting access to it, a half an hour, even 45 minutes to that. If we take our discussion of 3.3, and say this is part of what that is, and then that time then goes to that. Makes sense. Does the bond company talk about the development piece of it? Or what happens if what if philanthropy pays for part of--
  • [00:43:41.14] JOSIE PARKER: They can. They know that world in the sense of--
  • [00:43:45.42] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, we can bring that up in the questions part of that conversation.
  • [00:43:48.84] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: So they're not just selling their own expertise.
  • [00:43:52.63] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Jan and Ed, is this duplicative for you? Is this information you know already? It may be, but it brings us all into the same-- we've had the same conversation about it, even though it's educational in nature, it does seem to be a platform, and it builds on the--
  • [00:44:08.26] OK, so say in September, we get the evaluation back. At the same time, either in the August or September meeting, we do this educational piece. Does that seem like a highest best use of our time to get us to this place?
  • [00:44:20.38] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: I think we have to. I don't think it's an option. I think it has to be done.
  • [00:44:26.96] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, so this is not duplicative to you in terms of education.
  • [00:44:31.02] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: We're at the age where we forget things too.
  • [00:44:33.49] LINH SONG: I forget things every day.
  • [00:44:37.03] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I walked up to the fourth floor tonight, all proud of being early and stuff. I don't know. I think you can forget things at any part of your life. OK, well it sounds like people are into that option. So maybe you could let us know what might be possible, which meeting. And this would come after the evaluation?
  • [00:44:54.82] JOSIE PARKER: No, it doesn't to. It doesn't have to. If it's something that could happen sooner than September, then I can find out. It might not. So it just depends on time scheduling. So September-- in some ways, if you got both reports at the same time, it might make more sense. So if I go for September, I think that would be better.
  • [00:45:20.49] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Are we sure we're having an August meeting? Sometimes we don't.
  • [00:45:24.84] JOSIE PARKER: I forgot to mention to Jamie that when there's not an item on the agenda that requires a vote, sometimes the board does not have a September-- October-- excuse me, August meeting.
  • [00:45:39.12] JIM LEIJA: We did not have all those other meetings.
  • [00:45:41.44] JOSIE PARKER: But I didn't put it on the agenda as a question. So tonight at the end of this meeting, you may as a group decide-- depending upon what you've decided about business going out-- that you can not have an August meeting, and move this to September.
  • [00:45:58.13] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, I know I won't be attending. So you need to know that for a quorum.
  • [00:46:02.37] JOSIE PARKER: Yes. Right, we do. Thank you, Jan.
  • [00:46:04.11] JIM LEIJA: What about the financial business?
  • [00:46:05.91] JOSIE PARKER: The financial reports-- in years when we've not had an August meeting, and sometimes when we don't have a December meeting, those are combined with the next months.
  • [00:46:17.43] JIM LEIJA: So we can do disbursements--
  • [00:46:19.41] JOSIE PARKER: One month.
  • [00:46:19.80] JIM LEIJA: One month later.
  • [00:46:20.34] JOSIE PARKER: One month later. We wouldn't go any further unless we had an emergency. About one month.
  • [00:46:24.14] JIM LEIJA: OK, all right. Thank you.
  • [00:46:26.88] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So it sounds like it's maybe better-- I'd rather do it when as many of us are here as possible. So even if we do meet in August, it seems like we shouldn't do it then.
  • [00:46:36.02] LINH SONG: Will the bonding agent give us information on similar bonds?
  • [00:46:40.62] JOSIE PARKER: Yes.
  • [00:46:41.37] COLLEEN SHERMAN: And then within the state or?
  • [00:46:43.74] JOSIE PARKER: Mostly within the state and locally because that's generally how bonds are sold. People-- munis as they're called. People pick up school bonds, and who buys them, how they're marketed. There were people, locally, who wanted to buy into the library's bond, and were clearly interested.
  • [00:47:08.43] So that's not such an issue because our credit is so good. But the other thing that they make clear, and this was something that happened in the campaign, was people took the estimates of what the worst case scenario would be for the payback on a bond as a given, and they used it as this is what it's going to cost.
  • [00:47:31.23] In fact, you may get a positive vote by the community that allows you to extend bonds to the millage. And you as a library board, can get that forecast, and look at those numbers and think, this is too much money.
  • [00:47:46.20] You do not have to go immediately out to do that. You can wait until a more favorable point in time. You can delay that project. And that's something that was very hard for us to recover in the narrative because the library board is in control of that, and so library board would not have sold bonds at those outrageously high numbers.
  • [00:48:09.03] But when the bond person comes to you, and gives you that range, they have to give you that range. So it's there. They will talk to you about the success. They will talk to you about how they've been done at other places, what way.
  • [00:48:26.49] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Do state laws impact and are they able to change and throw us off?
  • [00:48:36.90] JOSIE PARKER: I don't know of any legislation, currently, and I keep up through Bill Tracker, and through other instruments that we pay for, subscriptions that I keep up with through them, and through the Michigan association.
  • [00:48:54.24] Right now I don't know of anything that's going to affect the ability to bond by a municipal, by an authority like ours. The only thing that's being talked about that will have anything to do with us down the line is the future of Hedley.
  • [00:49:11.70] And how Hedley's impacting now, so negatively on counties, and cities, and some townships, that they're beginning to talk about a constitutional change because that would be what would be required. If that happens, that affects us.
  • [00:49:31.36] And if it's changed in such a way that it changes the formula so that when it goes down, it doesn't always stay down, then that helps the library down the line, and any other governmental unit that has a millage. So we'll see, but right now that's the only thing I know of that's out there that's remotely tied to funding for [INAUDIBLE].
  • [00:49:57.55] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So the other thing I wrote down, but I wanted to make sure to bring up again was this idea of having a citizens advisory group. We talked about that a little bit in our retreat, and then we didn't advance it in then retreat.
  • [00:50:11.20] But there was some enthusiasm among at least some of the board members, I think for a group of people that would be sharing what's important to them with us, and who would have our best interests in mind when thinking about their networks down the line. So I wanted to just bring that up again and see if people think that's something we should pursue. If people have concerns.
  • [00:50:42.94] JIM LEIJA: We discussed this a little bit in executive committee, and I think that the slight shift in thinking that we were talking about had to do with reframing as an advocacy or sort of ambassadors type of group.
  • [00:51:02.02] So really, the purpose of the group is to have them hooked into what's happening at the library, and be able to get up, and speak, and advocate on behalf of the library for a variety of things. Some of them related to objective 3.3, potentially. I really think, personally, that could be a really important piece of our future.
  • [00:51:29.12] And we wanted to move away from the word advisory, as in the sense that we are not looking for advice, necessarily, but we are looking for people who really want to be engaged with, and really have a high regard for the library, and want to get out there in the community, and make sure people are getting good information.
  • [00:51:48.19] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: You want to do extreme vetting of your ambassadors.
  • [00:51:53.11] JIM LEIJA: Well, they're our ambassadors, Jan. So we will all have to vet them.
  • [00:52:01.62] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Do you see any downside, Jim?
  • [00:52:05.91] JIM LEIJA: No.
  • [00:52:07.59] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: How large of a group are you thinking about?
  • [00:52:09.96] JIM LEIJA: It's not my group. I'm just talking about the concept of having a group like this.
  • [00:52:18.62] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: The one thing that I was thinking about--
  • [00:52:20.35] JIM LEIJA: Oh, sorry.
  • [00:52:20.76] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, no, I didn't mean to--
  • [00:52:21.65] JIM LEIJA: I was going to say, to go back actually was if I recall, a group like this was actually a recommendation to the library--
  • [00:52:30.69] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: By the architect.
  • [00:52:31.38] JIM LEIJA: --after the last or during the last bond campaign, and it's not something that we've--
  • [00:52:36.76] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, it happens. They rise to the occasion just because of their interest. It does happen, but I can't decide. Are you thinking about a formal invited group? I don't understand exactly what you have in mind.
  • [00:52:53.01] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think one question is-- so to me, it makes sense conceptually, so you have a group of people who are filling this need for us. But what will they do when they come together? What will happen?
  • [00:53:03.75] I think, especially, the types of people who I was thinking it would be useful to invite, are the types of people who want to know how much time do I need to commit, and exactly what will we be doing when I come to this thing. I love the library, but I'm very busy. So I think that's a good question, Jan.
  • [00:53:21.61] LINH SONG: I think when we met, one of the thoughts was that many of us come from very specific communities, and backgrounds, and different experiences with the library. And it would be interesting if we could find folks who can share their own experiences.
  • [00:53:41.66] So it's more like storytelling. So tell us what are your experiences, what are your expectations of the library, how can we answer your questions, and how can you interpret the information we're giving to you in a way that makes sense to your community?
  • [00:54:00.75] I feel like it would be more grassroots and direct communication with folks verses this is everything that's on the website, here is a PDF and a link to the website. Here are our plans for 3.3. And more of if you're interested in our future plans for downtown development, you can come to these sessions, or you can come work more closely with us.
  • [00:54:23.81] JOSIE PARKER: Or invite us to your group.
  • [00:54:25.10] LINH SONG: And invite us to your group. So neighborhood associations. I mean there are a number of groups that meet here and work at the library, who we can engage, I think, more closely in this. These things can go sideways if they're not managed. I don't see many downsides either, unless we don't structure it in such a way. I have a process.
  • [00:54:55.59] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I was thinking. Well, we have this professional staff here who could maybe help us think through how this could function.
  • [00:55:02.79] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The biggest risk on going sideways is you then have people in the community saying the library asked me to be on a committee, and they didn't give me anything to do, or a real job, or I thought they wanted advice from me, or I thought I'd have a voice, and I didn't get a voice, and then I was just to name, and then they don't feel good about the experience.
  • [00:55:20.70] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: And you've named exactly what has happened in the past the volunteer community members. We had a techie group, they never were called upon, and they complained about that a lot.
  • [00:55:33.08] COLLEEN SHERMAN: It leaves a bad taste in people's mouths if they feel like they've committed to make the obligation, and then nothing happens because the institution doesn't structure or organize it. And that can actually be really hard for an institution to do because what do you do? You have meetings to talk about what? To do what?
  • [00:55:51.71] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Well, right.
  • [00:55:52.98] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: At UMS we had a challenge of that. We finally had a staff member meet with them every time to give them direction.
  • [00:56:07.33] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I think there needs to be a high-level professional staff member driving the process every time because I think that's a useful relationship building aspect of this because we talk a lot about succession planning. I think this can potentially play into that a little bit.
  • [00:56:28.02] I think it's really good that you both have this idea of what we don't want to do now because it would be worse if we just thought, it's going to be great, and we weren't looking out for those pitfalls.
  • [00:56:38.92] COLLEEN SHERMAN: So I think you hear that I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I'm saying let's make sure that we think about these things.
  • [00:56:45.31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: No, I think that's smart.
  • [00:56:48.45] COLLEEN SHERMAN: We've talked about a position in the PR communications realm, in that doing this kind of liaison work is a great place where then that position is able to work with the folks involved, so they're engaged. And as long as they're engaged, even if everything's not perfect, then they can give that feedback, and it can be changed, and evolve.
  • [00:57:11.43] JOSIE PARKER: And that position's being posted this week.
  • [00:57:13.41] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Oh, OK. Great.
  • [00:57:15.33] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Exciting.
  • [00:57:18.99] LINH SONG: I think it's worth noting that in the past six months, we've only had a handful of folks give public comments too. So if we're really going to guide future efforts based community input outside of tweets, Facebook posts, and public comments, this is an opportunity where we can engage a wider audience. So instead of just waiting for the chance opportunity from folks, this is a more assertive way to do it, it seems like.
  • [00:57:53.97] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, I agree with you. And Jim, you were going to say something?
  • [00:58:00.15] JIM LEIJA: Two things are on my mind. If we are walking down the path to a different idea or a different reality for downtown, one of the key things is going to be just having people who are already a part of the conversation before the conversation becomes a big one.
  • [00:58:26.90] And secondly, I am interested in a way for a set of community members that would like to make an investment in the library to be able to do that, but not to the level of having to become a board member, necessarily.
  • [00:58:47.56] But maybe as an entree to becoming a board member at some point too. So I also see it as a way to start to learn about the library as a potential pathway to maybe having one of these chairs at some point.
  • [00:59:02.05] COLLEEN SHERMAN: A different kind of succession, but succession--
  • [00:59:04.08] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah.
  • [00:59:05.00] COLLEEN SHERMAN: That's what you meant, wasn't it? This idea of succession being--
  • [00:59:10.67] JIM LEIJA: Because it would be great to see a little bit more representation and rotation on this board over time.
  • [00:59:19.15] LINH SONG: So like library operations 101. We can start with the septic tanks. That will be--
  • [00:59:26.77] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes. They must come up in every meeting. I know when we've talked about this before, I have heard other concerns. So I want to make sure that we're getting them out on the table. Ed, I think you had some reservations about this idea before. I don't want to blast on for it without--
  • [00:59:59.12] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: But Josie, you've already posted somebody to be organizer of this?
  • [01:00:02.71] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: No, that's the PR job that we talked about. We are hiring someone to do that. So maybe they would have a role in this. No, we talked about the PR job. That was a big part of the budget.
  • [01:00:17.29] JIM LEIJA: So communications and marketing manager, just to be clear.
  • [01:00:19.83] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'm sorry.
  • [01:00:21.15] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Not public relations [INAUDIBLE].
  • [01:00:24.91] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I should be correct.
  • [01:00:29.22] JIM LEIJA: To back up a couple of steps, you had talked about when does development or fundraising enter the picture, and that was something that also surfaced during the conversation that we had an executive committee, and certainly very much on my mind. And how that might develop, and also could be again, wonder how an advocacy or ambassadors group might be deployed as a kind of cultivation strategy, potentially too.
  • [01:01:01.15] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Right. Could identify prospects work with prospects? Prospects is development language. It sounds cold, but people who might be interested in supporting a library facility who like the idea of bricks and mortar, and effecting programming over time through what the building looks like.
  • [01:01:20.44] JIM LEIJA: Exactly.
  • [01:01:24.25] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I think you're right, completely, to think that way. To think about the people who may have the ability to give it time, but not exclusively. It's how do we tap into knowledge because there's so much we as individuals don't know. So how do you do you create group think in the constructive way?
  • [01:01:47.50] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So what if we take this idea, and give it to Josie and her staff to kind of think about some scenarios, and then returned to us? I really don't feel like we've come to a place where everyone is enthusiastically super excited about this, but I think that's OK. We need to talk it about again, but I want us to have something else to talk about.
  • [01:02:05.92] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I have no concern except for the execution of it, which we don't want it to be laborious, and it should pay off.
  • [01:02:12.61] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I agree with you.
  • [01:02:14.93] JIM LEIJA: Somebody write that down.
  • [01:02:20.78] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Does that sound amenable to you all?
  • [01:02:22.11] ED SUROVELL: Well, what do you mean by it should not be laborious? Because it seems to me, having lived through it, that it is laborious. Such is life.
  • [01:02:36.28] COLLEEN SHERMAN: OK, it should not be overly laborious in terms of what is the effort put in versus what is the return on that effort in terms of advancing the library.
  • [01:02:48.62] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Sure. So some efficiency built in.
  • [01:02:50.26] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Yes. My experience in groups like this is they can become-- if you don't have forethought, you can get a lot of people with different ideas, moving in very different directions, and then there's just too much chasing, and there's not that moving in the same direction or fluidity that you want to have happen.
  • [01:03:12.69] What it does is it burns time, and burns energy, and then you're reacting to instead of moving forward. So the laboriousness gets in the OK, so say you invite 50 people to be on a committee, and they all say yes, and then you have to manage 50 people, and engage them. That becomes a pretty big task for the institution.
  • [01:03:35.28] ED SUROVELL: Welcome to public service.
  • [01:03:38.74] COLLEEN SHERMAN: True that.
  • [01:03:40.75] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Well, we want the people to you end up still loving us afterwards. I think that's an important part of us. It's OK if we are tortured, but we don't want to torture them, I think.
  • [01:03:54.71] LINH SONG: I think if we look at it as an extended engagement, or extended relationship with the community, versus coming to an event, coming to story time, paying your dues. It would be great if we could get a longer snapshot of how we work together. And then have that contribute to the next five years.
  • [01:04:16.53] Tell us what the last five years were like, please stay for the next five years. Please stay in Ann Arbor for the next five years. What would you like to see while you're here? So I think it's just extending the conversation and extending the relationship. Hopefully, it's beneficial for both parties. So it's not just asking folks for time.
  • [01:04:36.63] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The way Jamie summarized it was perfect. I think that gives us a consensus about yeah, let's come back to this with a few ideas about what a plan might look like.
  • [01:04:48.11] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK. Great. OK, thank you.
  • [01:04:51.95] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Thank you, Josie.
  • [01:04:55.31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's all I thought would be-- I don't want to do what we did last month, where we spent so long talking, that it was hard for us to really be on our game and think. But if there are other burning things that we can't leave until next month, this would be the time for the downtown 3.3.
  • [01:05:15.67] LINH SONG: Or September.
  • [01:05:16.85] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Or September, depending on when we meet next. All right. OK, so we move onto update on the Traverwood Branch Library Capital project.
  • [01:05:29.17] LEN LEMORIE: Good evening.
  • [01:05:30.33] JOSIE PARKER: Hi.
  • [01:05:33.13] LEN LEMORIE: I think last month we were waiting on for some concrete work to be completed, and that has happened, so this last couple of weeks, we've been working on the rain gardens that are down below where you can see where the wall was.
  • [01:05:51.26] In between those stone areas, where the runoff will go, they're working on plugs in that area. The only big ticket items that are left on the job will be planting the trees in the fall. Other than that, we're just trying to catch up with some of the scheduled payments to see where we are. I'm going to say we're about 95% complete right now.
  • [01:06:10.28] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Where are the trees going?
  • [01:06:11.75] LEN LEMORIE: There are some trees going on this hill, and then in the lower lot where the river birch trees had died, there are trees going in that big island as well. It's not the teardrop island as you're leaving. It would the lawn between Traverwood and our exit drive from the garage. And there's a before picture, right before we started, and there is the hill as it stands now.
  • [01:06:39.31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, it's so much better.
  • [01:06:41.54] LINH SONG: Do you think the space would ever be used for events?
  • [01:06:45.33] LEN LEMORIE: You know, since we started this project, and being on site, I've had a few people coming to different programs bring up the lawn in the lower lot where we are going to plant some trees. They talked about that, if that was mowable, or if they could put a blanket out. I don't know if we would do events down there, but patrons have mentioned certain [INAUDIBLE].
  • [01:07:06.66] I don't know about this hill because the grades are steeper than it looks in that picture. I wouldn't want people walking up and down through there. Plus when that's established, those rain gardens, some of the shrubs you can see in there, they'll probably be about four foot tall. We try to make it an obstacle for sledders.
  • [01:07:29.22] LINH SONG: I was thinking sledder.
  • [01:07:35.01] LEN LEMORIE: You can see some of the erosion sediment control will still be there for the next month or so, but we are getting very, very close.
  • [01:07:44.70] LINH SONG: There are a lot of sledding options on the Northeast side. There's Sugarbush Hill and Leslie Science and Nature Center. So we can always--
  • [01:07:52.07] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Redirect?
  • [01:07:52.92] LINH SONG: Yes.
  • [01:07:53.69] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Well, we definitely would redirect.
  • [01:07:56.96] JIM LEIJA: If it snows again.
  • [01:07:58.26] LINH SONG: Yes, if it snows again. That's right.
  • [01:08:00.51] LEN LEMORIE: Do you guys have any questions?
  • [01:08:05.04] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I know there were a lot of questions before. It's kind of nice to see the final product more visually.
  • [01:08:11.55] LEN LEMORIE: Well, in a lot of the landscape we're doing to-- I guess the ornamental plannings, they're starting to come in now. So I think September or even August probably, we'll get to see some of the color, which will be really nice around the building.
  • [01:08:28.47] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Other questions for Lin?
  • [01:08:31.18] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Thanks Lin.
  • [01:08:31.72] LEN LEMORIE: Thank you.
  • [01:08:32.38] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Thanks Lin. All right, that brings us to something that I'm so sad Victoria is missing this meeting. She's been waiting for this. She always asks about it.
  • [01:08:42.08] ELI NEIBURGER: We'll be sure to go over this with her when she's returned. She can watch it and we'll also give her any time she needs. All right, so website update. So we're in the midst of a huge, huge, huge project. So first off, I want to go through what is a tentative timeline. We've given you a timeline before. This is as firm as it has yet gotten. There's still a number of known knowns, and known unknowns, and such in this timeline.
  • [01:09:08.39] But the one thing we are still in the process of talking with MCLS that operates in MeLCat about just how far out we need to stop allowing MeLCat borrowing. They're saying four to five months we're negotiating, and we'll see what we're able to work out with that. But we have to have all the MeLCats out of the system on the day that we migrate.
  • [01:09:27.55] So that could be a MeLCat freeze as early as September 3rd, which is the Sunday right before Labor Day. All right, so that's a potential. We hope to tighten that up, but that is a likely date at which MeLCat would need to stop.
  • [01:09:43.01] Then we have an acquisitions freeze. Meaning we stop adding new items to the catalog, because that has several weeks of stuff in it at a given time. So it has to stop before the migration so there's nothing in the midpoint at the moment of cut over.
  • [01:09:59.14] Then a request fulfillment freeze, which means we stop fulfilling holds on Christmas Eve. Then a request freeze, you cannot place holds over the New Year's Day weekend. And then a closure and a cut over. We are currently looking at January 2nd. January 1st would be ideal, but the vendor who we're working with will not have their people available on that day.
  • [01:10:23.21] So we're looking at an additional day of closure after the first. We'd be closed the first and the second, and on the second, we would all be working furiously to get the migration actually done. It's a good opportunity to do it, especially Christmas and New Year's is a slow time for circulation. So it's a very good time for us to not be filling holds because not too many people are desperate for their library holds between Christmas and New Years.
  • [01:10:45.82] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I was going to ask you that. I would have the opposite guess. You'd think that people would be stocking up on DVDs for the break.
  • [01:10:52.78] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, and they will be able to, but the--
  • [01:10:54.87] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, they'll just come in.
  • [01:10:55.84] ELI NEIBURGER: It's actually, it's just between the two holidays would be that the only time that we're not fulfilling holds because of the hold shelves need to be empty on the day we cut over as well. So that kind of thing. Then requests would resume. As soon as the new system comes back up, you can start placing requests again.
  • [01:11:11.46] Requests fulfillment, we would probably take another week to make sure everything's working before we start filling holds again. If everything is going great, that could be earlier, but we want to set expectations that after the new system comes up, there'll still be a little bit more time, and we're not yet filling holds.
  • [01:11:26.11] Then acquisitions resume what happened at that same date, if not sooner. And then MeLCat resume, hopefully by March 5th. We want to give ourselves enough time to solve a lot of technical issues there. Many of which, we anticipate will not surface until the new system comes up.
  • [01:11:42.16] There are other people using this new system with MeLCat, but they have a fraction of the volume that we do, and they do things-- they can tolerate solutions such as oh, it's easy. Just do all your circulation transactions twice. Once in MeLCat and once in your automation system.
  • [01:11:56.92] We do 3,000 in and 3,000 out a month. It's not realistic for us to do any of those transactions twice, which means we have to integrate before we bring it back up. So we're just allowing a worst case scenario of needing as much as two months after we migrate to get that up in there. Any questions about the timeline?
  • [01:12:13.75] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Six months of no MeLCat is kind of long, but on the other hand, this has to go well.
  • [01:12:19.99] ELI NEIBURGER: And we're working on what will be interim solutions for people getting material that we don't have without overburdening the traditional ILL process, which is a very staff intensive and expensive process. So we're looking at what our options are in between there.
  • [01:12:34.17] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I'm picturing like in It's a Wonderful Life, when they rush the bank. He's like, what do you really need? What do you really, really need? And then she wants $1.50 for the next week or whatever, but then the one guy is like I have $20 in here, and give me my $20. So I feel like that in ILL, I can imagine that.
  • [01:12:53.41] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, we'd like to avoid an ILL run moments into the system. Any questions about timeline?
  • [01:12:59.09] LINH SONG: So when you're talking about we, who's we? Your team, all the circulation desk?
  • [01:13:05.61] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, the ADL staff.
  • [01:13:07.45] JOSIE PARKER: Everybody.
  • [01:13:09.12] LINH SONG: It's all hands on deck.
  • [01:13:10.19] JOSIE PARKER: All hands on deck, yeah.
  • [01:13:11.95] ELI NEIBURGER: This touches every single part of the operational. OK, so just to touch on project status of what we've done so far, the new information architecture that was done by consultant Peter Morville, that was completed in May of 2016. Then we have just this past spring, completed the theme graphic design. That's what you're going to see tonight. That was completed in April 2017. I was done by Q Limited.
  • [01:13:35.66] Then ILS migration round trip. What round trip means is that we have successfully migrated all types of data from the old system to the new system. We've not migrated all of our patrons, we haven't migrated all of our bibs, but we have migrated all the pieces.
  • [01:13:51.42] We've round tripped it, saying we can get it out of the old system, we can put it into the new system, and it works. We haven't done that actual migration. They'll be parts leading up to the cut over day, and then they'll be a bunch of things that happen on cut over day.
  • [01:14:05.66] The most tricky parts being the checkouts and the holds, as of the moment, that the old system has discontinued, and the new system has continued. But at this point, we're very close to having round tripped all of the pieces of data that need to come with us from the old system into the new system.
  • [01:14:19.99] Theme implementation, our first pass of that is complete. We're going to show that to you in just a moment. That is taking the graphic design that the designers developed, and actually implementing it as a webpage on a Drupal server. So it has already been implemented as a theme. So that is a major milestone in terms of being on software development.
  • [01:14:38.27] What we'll show you tonight are not static mock-ups. They're not connected to a database, but it is real webpage in a real browser, served from a real server. OK, milestone development, this is us planning out what are the various steps that we need to do.
  • [01:14:52.97] We just completed that in June 2017, and these are things like specific software development targets, those kinds of things. Just that the IT development team is working on making sure that all of the milestones over the next six months are planned out.
  • [01:15:07.60] The module redevelopment-- this is taking all the things we've made Drupal do over the years, and making the new one do them again. So this is migrating all of our custom code, all the things that we've made over the years.
  • [01:15:17.42] That's in process. Everything else here is in process. The data cleanup is in process. That's deciding what we're going to take with us from the old system into the new system. What things are messy that can be made cleaner and make this process simpler.
  • [01:15:30.17] Node migration is the migration of all of the data that is on the current Drupal site. That is not check outs and materials. That is historic photos, copies of magazines, blog posts, all of the things that are part of our website as opposed to part of a collection. That's in process. We're planning that out.
  • [01:15:47.03] Workflow redevelopment because we'll be using very different tools on the staff side, our goal is to make this as minimally disruptive for the public as possible. It will be more disruptive for the staff because we've been using these tools for 12 years. So it's a completely new workflow in terms of acquisitions. It's a completely new workflow in terms of circulation. All of those sorts of processes.
  • [01:16:06.44] We've got a jump start on this by we moved our acquisitions accounting system out of the ILS a year ago. So we've now had a whole year handling requisitions outside of the ILS. So we're already on the new requisitions platform.
  • [01:16:21.99] What we are not on is the new acquisitions in terms of the metadata, meaning how your catalog records into the system, barcoding items, all that kind of stuff. OK, and then feature development, all the new features that will come that is in processes as well. Any questions about this so far?
  • [01:16:36.14] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: You are really talking library talk.
  • [01:16:38.88] ELI NEIBURGER: It's what I do for a living, ma'am.
  • [01:16:40.46] JOSIE PARKER: The one thing he didn't say, that he has said before, and if I'm jumping ahead of you, I apologize. One thing that will happen in this timeline-- when we cut over, we will not bring fines forward. So all the fines will be waived at that point of cut over, January 1st, or whatever it is. And we estimated what that was going to be--
  • [01:17:04.81] ELI NEIBURGER: In the budget.
  • [01:17:05.50] JOSIE PARKER: --in the process. So just a reminder, fines will begin again within that first check out period for people, but if you owe fines at that point, you won't. Happy new year.
  • [01:17:16.56] ED SUROVELL: Well, don't keep us in suspense. What's the figure?
  • [01:17:20.55] ELI NEIBURGER: We don't know the figure because we won't know the figure until that day of how many--
  • [01:17:23.89] ED SUROVELL: Well, but you said you've estimated.
  • [01:17:26.00] ELI NEIBURGER: We estimated a $30,000 decrease in this fiscal year of fine revenue out of approximately $250,000 worth of--
  • [01:17:34.43] ED SUROVELL: Merry Christmas.
  • [01:17:35.37] JOSIE PARKER: Yeah. Right, exactly.
  • [01:17:37.10] ED SUROVELL: So to speak.
  • [01:17:38.17] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So I do have a nerdy library question. In listening to this, I am hearing you worked with Peter, and then you worked with people to do themes, or skins and stuff. But it sounds like everything else is being implemented internally?
  • [01:17:51.94] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes. The software developed now. We are working with a vendor that supports this particular open source automation system. It's actually where all the people work who wrote it in the first place. They are a nonprofit. It's called the Evergreen Initiative, and so they're a nonprofit that provides paid support for this automation system.
  • [01:18:14.00] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's nice.
  • [01:18:14.72] ELI NEIBURGER: So we do have a contract that has just begun with them. It was well below the threshold, which is in contrast to our current contract, which is well above the threshold. So any questions about that?
  • [01:18:28.48] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: It's hard to know enough to ask the question.
  • [01:18:31.31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: As someone who knows this stuff, it's super well planned out. I'm impressed.
  • [01:18:37.12] ELI NEIBURGER: So just a reminder of what new features will be coming with the new website.
  • [01:18:40.90] LINH SONG: I was just wondering. Are you documenting this process? Only because it would be interesting if this could be used for other libraries as they go through a similar process.
  • [01:18:50.14] ELI NEIBURGER: We have all of our internal documentation base camp stuff and things like that. It will not be very useful to other libraries mostly because our combination of software and hardware-- we have released our catalog that anyone could download it and install it 10 years ago, just one user of it out there. Unfortunately, there are very few organizations that are in the situation to do all of this internally.
  • [01:19:16.47] LINH SONG: If not best practice, then it would be interesting if there's any way we can just document-- but only because it's all hands on deck, and it's been such a long involved process, and it's going to make such a big difference on user experience. It would be nice to explain it to the folks who are not watching this on YouTube now.
  • [01:19:36.83] ELI NEIBURGER: Oh, well, there will be a lot of migration cut over communications out to all of our users. All that stuff will be available to other libraries as well.
  • [01:19:45.89] LINH SONG: But also, to toot your own horn, this is a lot of work.
  • [01:19:48.13] JOSIE PARKER: Yes, and we know it, and we're proud of it, and we are not going to hide our light under a bushel at all.
  • [01:19:57.52] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: But other libraries-- are you saying other libraries aren't in the same position? They aren't as [INAUDIBLE] as we are.
  • [01:20:04.07] ELI NEIBURGER: Most the work is from a specific set of tools to a new specific set of tools, and there are very few others that are in that situation. Now, all of the code that we make, as we've always done, will be available for any library to use. So we release all the code. However, that's if you build it. So we've build it.
  • [01:20:22.99] LINH SONG: I just think it would be of interest to the community to understand how this happened. If we're going to say Merry Christmas, here's your Christmas present, but I think folks would like to know who the elves are. How did this happen?
  • [01:20:36.78] JOSIE PARKER: Well, it's a good idea, and we'll have to do this because we have to start telling people in less than a month about MeLCat, and that won't be welcomed. But we'll also let them know that in December, they'll be a nice surprise. Happy surprise.
  • [01:20:55.53] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: That's if they have fines. If they don't have fines, they don't get a prize.
  • [01:20:58.66] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: But they'll get a nice new website.
  • [01:20:59.89] ELI NEIBURGER: They'll get a bunch of great new features that people are waiting for.
  • [01:21:02.86] COLLEEN SHERMAN: The prize is huge for everyone because the impact this will have on regular library users will be huge.
  • [01:21:11.03] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Now, are you still looking for testers? At one time you said it was too soon for testers.
  • [01:21:14.98] ELI NEIBURGER: Oh, it's still too soon for testers in terms of actual usable functionality. We'll get there, and that'll be like late fall in the final weeks and months of the project. So just among the features that'll be coming with the new website.
  • [01:21:29.17] The big one is suspend your requests. You're going on vacation. You have too many things, whatever. You can pause all of your requests, and you'll continue to move up the queue while you wait. So you could get up to number one, and when you unfreeze that request, the next copy that comes in is yours.
  • [01:21:44.68] So this is our number one most requested feature. Something that is supported, technically, by our current system other than the fact that it does not work at all. So it's been something that we've wanted to offer for a very, very long time, and people will-- this is the number one thing we hear about.
  • [01:21:59.27] JOSIE PARKER: Love it. People will love it.
  • [01:22:00.70] ELI NEIBURGER: Custom notices and alerts. This is another thing we hear about a lot. Right now, we have to set all of our notices one size fits all. There's only one way that we can set the sequence of notices that people get when their materials come due.
  • [01:22:13.06] With the new system, people will be able to set their-- we'll have a default for different material types, and people will be able to configure that however they want. If they want to get notified every single day when something is overdue, the system will do that. That kind of thing. However they would like to set that up.
  • [01:22:27.58] More bookable rooms and tools. We're working on developing a reservation system, which will allow our big outdoor tools, the things that are hotly contested, to be bookable for a specific date. That is completely antithetical to the way that library systems operate. So it takes a lot of careful planning to implement that, but we are hoping to add more Westgate style bookable rooms as part of that as well.
  • [01:22:55.69] Improved events engine with the ability to add things to the calendar, remind me that this is coming, automatically get e-mailed after the event. Tell us what you thought of it, all that kind of stuff. As well as notify me of events like this, improve list, and reviews, and other commonly requested things.
  • [01:23:11.17] Site wide mobile theme. I'm going to show you this in just a minute. Right now, currently, we have basically a mobile app that is a web app. So you can go to the app version of our page on the web, and you have a truncated version of the website that's optimized for what people do on the go. With the new website, it will just be that every page is mobile friendly, and is able to be viewed. I'll show you how that works in just a moment.
  • [01:23:32.80] A new music archive. We've already been doing this with our download collection, and that has grown into local artists, but several other libraries have done projects where they have really strongly branded their local digital music archive.
  • [01:23:45.60] And this is a good opportunity to kind of take that content that we already have in the project that's already going on, and just relaunch it as part of the new website, with something with a name and a place to download that material.
  • [01:23:56.44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's great.
  • [01:23:57.84] ELI NEIBURGER: And then search integration, which is a big thing. Being able to have a better search of the nodes on the website, meaning all the documents that we've stored in addition to the catalog, as well as integrating e-books into the catalog search in a way that doesn't confuse people, and things like that. So those are all big features that are upcoming. Any questions?
  • [01:24:17.01] All right, so here it is. All right, whoops. I'm looking at it. Did we lose our-- let me see what happened here. Oh, there we go. OK, wait a minute. Just dragging and lagging a little bit behind here. OK, there we go. All right.
  • [01:24:41.30] So based on the layout-- and this little fuzzy stuff that you see, that's just the wireless from the laptop. So up here at the top, this is the header that is across all pages on the website. We have call, text, and email up here in the top left.
  • [01:24:57.84] We have get a card and sign in up here in the top right. Our top level nav is simply about us, collections, which includes the physical circulating collection as well as our digital collections, events, and services.
  • [01:25:09.48] We have, by default, a search box on every single page. It defaults to catalog because that's what most people want to search, but you can choose collections, or website, or all of the above. One thing I should mention as we're going through this. This is about the look and feel. It is not so much about the content.
  • [01:25:25.10] This is all placeholder content being held in here, and there's a lot of change that will be coming in this. But the idea is for us to take the graphic design work that the company has done, implement it as an actual webpage, and see if we have all the building blocks that we need to make the different parts of the visual design.
  • [01:25:42.31] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: So Eli, what does collections mean in the context of that search?
  • [01:25:45.92] ELI NEIBURGER: Collections means if we go to the collections page, that's the catalog page, as well as all of the different things you can browse, as well as the local history collections, and the podcast that the library produces.
  • [01:25:58.16] This was something that Peter tested very carefully during his information architecture work because this was the number one most challenging question. What do you call this? And of course, there's the whole collection means you've been sent to collections kind of thing.
  • [01:26:10.40] But that in testing proved to be less of a concern than library people are inclined to worry about it. And it's really the most inclusive term that includes all of the different things that you find here. And then the catalog is a thing within collections. That's why up here at the top, you see catalog. So we'll come back to that in just a minute.
  • [01:26:31.08] So this is for features, things that we're pushing. This will not rotate on its own. One of our design guidelines is nothing happens without a click. So you can page through this, and basically the idea is on different page loads, different ones will come up the first time.
  • [01:26:48.86] So we're showing people a different starting point from this. Some people will get page one loaded in, et cetera, but it does not auto advance on its own. Nothing on the website will change without you clicking to make it change.
  • [01:27:01.02] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Good.
  • [01:27:01.30] ELI NEIBURGER: All right?
  • [01:27:01.85] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: That's good accessibility design.
  • [01:27:04.53] ELI NEIBURGER: So here's our feature stuff. Here's news and event highlights. For example, just similar to what our front page blog is like now. Then you've got about us, services, and events calendar, which is a thing that people constantly are asking for.
  • [01:27:16.56] Then especially for kids and parents, teens and adults, people with disability, news and reviews from librarians and staff. Then you have what we call the explorer bar. This is something that is configurable by users. We expect that most users will use the default.
  • [01:27:31.01] This appears several places on the site, and basically, you can see here is a fiction slot. You can choose the new fiction and the top fiction. Here is nonfiction, et cetera. So different types of material all get here, and it jumps right into the new in the top. We are retiring the word hot in favor of top.
  • [01:27:46.07] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Oh, thank you.
  • [01:27:46.88] ELI NEIBURGER: So that is a-- top should hopefully have its own utility there. So we've got magazines--
  • [01:27:54.22] LINH SONG: There's been controversy over hot? I didn't know about this. OK.
  • [01:27:59.18] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I don't know that there was explicit controversy, amongst us anyway, but--
  • [01:28:02.56] ELI NEIBURGER: No, but it's something that is just generally-- it's a word that has attracted ire.
  • [01:28:07.01] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: OK, you replaced it with what?
  • [01:28:08.98] ELI NEIBURGER: With top. As in these are the top items at the library right now, as opposed to the hot items at the library right now. Then we have the community explorer bar, the podcast explorer bar, social media icons, and then the mega footer as they call it in business.
  • [01:28:24.17] COLLEEN SHERMAN: Where is Pulp lit?
  • [01:28:26.51] ELI NEIBURGER: Pulp has its own front page, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. Pulp is one of the few things that retains its own identity as part of this website. Most of our local history projects will be folded in-- we call it a big hug-- but Pulp will retain its own site, and basically, pulp posts will show up here. That will be like new in pulp, and that sort of thing.
  • [01:28:45.42] Now, I want to show you here quickly what happens when you're viewing it in different sizes, and we'll see if this looks OK. All right, so this is tablet size now. Let me grab the edge here, make sure I get my counter. So you saw computer size. This is tablet size.
  • [01:29:01.36] As you continue to go to smaller and smaller screens, then it pops over to phone size. OK, so at phone size, you get this here, and then all of the things that had previously been side by side are now below. And you can see some of the things that had great, big pictures, now have smaller bars.
  • [01:29:18.02] And then the things where you could see an entire bar across, now it's one thing that you swipe right to left. So all of the pieces that are on every page are there on mobile, and it just knows how to collapse them into more mobile friendly sizes. Any questions about that?
  • [01:29:35.33] JOSIE PARKER: It's so clean.
  • [01:29:36.62] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I know, it's really clean
  • [01:29:37.51] ELI NEIBURGER: So moving on to just the About Us page just real quick. This is relatively static content. This is the quick links list that Peter developed in conjunction with all of the interviews that he did. This is what a likely landing page could be-- the vision, and the mission statement, those kinds of things.
  • [01:29:52.76] Again, this isn't about the content, but this is like a relatively static page, what it would look like. Related Links along the side, see also, and then also some events information on almost every page. Any questions about us?
  • [01:30:05.92] OK, so we skipped forward to this, but you'll see the explorer bar at the top of the catalog. Of course, you have your search bar right at the top. You have this browse list, which is something that we know we will hear a lot about if it goes away because it's such a quick way to get into whatever part of the collection interests you the most.
  • [01:30:22.73] You see, this still has the hot item. He didn't update [INAUDIBLE]. You can see yes, that is not pleasant. Then are community connections, then the podcasts, and again, just like the rest of the other pages. Any questions about this page? All right, over to the events page. On the events page we have-- is it still loading?
  • [01:30:43.41] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Page not found.
  • [01:30:46.76] JOSIE PARKER: Page not found.
  • [01:30:48.70] ELI NEIBURGER: Troy, is there a different URL for that?
  • [01:30:50.24] TROY: No, one second.
  • [01:30:51.84] ELI NEIBURGER: OK, while Troy's looking at that, we'll go over to services. So the services page, this is something that, again, up at the top. This is similar to the content that we currently have on the services page.
  • [01:31:02.68] This is the home for subscription databases, and we're able to give them a much more prominent spot here at the top of this page as opposed to putting them under research, which was a tap that people didn't necessarily come to.
  • [01:31:12.63] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: I was we could do something like this so that makes the databases more visually--
  • [01:31:16.03] ELI NEIBURGER: Well, helps that we only have about 20 of them as opposed to--
  • [01:31:19.96] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: 2000.
  • [01:31:20.48] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes.
  • [01:31:20.92] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: But, I do think it's nice for a database to look like a book.
  • [01:31:24.94] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes, very much so.
  • [01:31:25.93] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Otherwise, it's like what's a database.
  • [01:31:27.38] ELI NEIBURGER: Try again? All right, thank you, Troy. There we go. So here's the events page. This uses the front page elements from design, but instead of featured services, it's featured events. Then we have upcoming event highlights. These are things out of our specific events that have been marked for special promotion.
  • [01:31:43.81] Then we have upcoming this week. A couple of links that you can get into it. Featured lecture series. These are the things that happen over and over again. Then there's the calendar, and then here's the jumping in point to different types of events for different audiences, as well as the browse list, and then here's an explorer bar just for events.
  • [01:32:01.15] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Wow, that's great.
  • [01:32:02.15] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: It looks wonderful.
  • [01:32:03.33] LINH SONG: Who did the photos? Are the photos just in house?
  • [01:32:06.52] ELI NEIBURGER: They're mostly things that we've taken for the annual report, and newsletters, and things like that.
  • [01:32:10.79] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: They're great.
  • [01:32:12.04] ELI NEIBURGER: We're trying to get away from the little tiny thumbnails, and use more large images, and have less stock photography sort of things, more custom photos. So that's what we've got to show for the website. Any questions?
  • [01:32:25.51] [APPLAUSE]
  • [01:32:26.74] Thanks a lot to Troy Leonard on our staff. He did all the implementation of the design into a Drupal theme, and he's done a great job of that.
  • [01:32:35.15] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Nice job, Troy. Thank you.
  • [01:32:37.81] ELI NEIBURGER: Any questions?
  • [01:32:39.91] JIM LEIJA: Are there design standards for titles of events, given how this design is laid out? Just curious.
  • [01:32:49.42] ELI NEIBURGER: This can force a style guide of a level that we haven't had before, in terms of the maximum number of characters for the name of an event as an example. The maximum number of characters in a tag line.
  • [01:33:01.04] One thing that we've really learned over the years is we have probably 80% too much text on most of our webpages. So it's going to be a big process as far as reducing the amount of stock content that's showed on the top level, and keeping the detail because we always have the questions from patrons.
  • [01:33:19.17] That's not saying we can't have the whole detail when you click through to an event, but having a much smaller piece description of the event upfront. I will say that this is a choice list of events to make them fit in the space available, and we'll be working on those as we go.
  • [01:33:35.89] JIM LEIJA: I really like how within the context of these short titles you also get the phylum that they fall into. And that's interesting on the other [INAUDIBLE]. So you can instantly understand what you're looking at. And I'm also just wondering just in terms of the visuality of the events page-- do you anticipate a need for more photography just period in order to be able to keep it all up?
  • [01:34:04.00] ELI NEIBURGER: I think in some places, yes. And also, establishment, one thing we've talked about with the designers, but isn't in this version is icons that represent types of events like from the noun project. Really straightforward things that show you this is clearly a story time.
  • [01:34:21.52] Those sorts of things. What you don't see here are any result lists. So there's a unified theme for catalog search results, event search results, local history search results. They all have the same template.
  • [01:34:35.92] And in the place where the cover would go for a book, that's where we need a nice photograph for the event to go as well. And if there's not one for it, then we need to have a nice icon that goes in that place. Does that answer your question, Jim?
  • [01:34:49.84] JIM LEIJA: Yeah.
  • [01:34:50.62] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: It does seem though, like you'd want to use the icon as little as possible. So that does push you to have a nice photo ready. That would be a work flow thing for sure.
  • [01:35:00.98] ELI NEIBURGER: There was another question.
  • [01:35:02.35] JIM LEIJA: I'm also just wondering about in terms of style choices, which I don't think-- we don't have a unified style guide at the library at this moment.
  • [01:35:18.40] ELI NEIBURGER: There's some pieces of blogging style guides as far as dates and things like that.
  • [01:35:23.68] JIM LEIJA: But I guess I'm thinking more about color palette, that kind of thing because of course, there's a decision being made here about a black and white graphic treatments, with blue accent, and I'm wondering at what juncture does that meet how the rest of the print--
  • [01:35:48.60] ELI NEIBURGER: Yes. There is a couple places in the graphic designers design for highlight colors, and you've seen a couple of them here-- the orange and the blue. We want to do an internal study of print and online colors together, and look at what some of the colors are because the web safe colors and the accessible colors is actually a really narrow bandwidth. With
  • [01:36:11.86] There's very few choices. So as we get closer to implementation, and we have more real content in there, we'll be looking at-- because that's a real easy thing to change. We'll be looking at different color treatments across the site, and how that impacts style across all our publications.
  • [01:36:26.85] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Do you think if you feel a lack of color, the photographs are really going to have--
  • [01:36:34.72] JIM LEIJA: Oh, I don't feel-- I have no problem with lack of color. I'm just wondering about how the choices are being made. I have been known to describe too much color as Carnival-esque, and that is not a compliment.
  • [01:36:48.88] JOSIE PARKER: Accessibility is the first consideration?
  • [01:36:50.59] ELI NEIBURGER: Yeah.
  • [01:36:51.39] JOSIE PARKER: And then we go from there.
  • [01:36:52.44] LINH SONG: I will never use that to describe--
  • [01:36:56.27] ELI NEIBURGER: So that's it. One more thing I wanted to mention for any summer gamers who might be watching is that as part of this, summer game will need to completely be rebuilt for 2018 because the current summer game will not be coming with us to the new website.
  • [01:37:10.48] So we will be working to launch a new summer game that is very much built upon all of people's favorite things, the codes, and the points, and all of that kind of stuff, and change some of the things that have emerged as bigger challenges over the time. So summer game will be all new for 2018, and you're going to love it.
  • [01:37:30.19] JIM LEIJA: Does that mean that we lose our points like we lose our fines?
  • [01:37:32.64] ELI NEIBURGER: No.
  • [01:37:33.10] JIM LEIJA: OK, I'm just checking.
  • [01:37:34.36] ELI NEIBURGER: We might have some kind of a buyout of some kind, but we are not going to be throwing away anyone's hard earned points.
  • [01:37:39.40] JIM LEIJA: Oh, I like a buyout.
  • [01:37:41.78] LINH SONG: It feels like a magazine. And the papers, it's like a vinyl record cover. I really like the feel of it. It's great.
  • [01:37:52.21] ELI NEIBURGER: OK, thank you very much.
  • [01:37:53.74] JOSIE PARKER: Thank you.
  • [01:37:54.97] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, amazing work, everyone. Holy cow. And I guess you have your work cut out. It's a lot of work. So we have just one little bit of new business, this resolution to make the changes that Bill talked about. I think we actually-- yeah, great. So we have Bill for questions, but we should have someone read the resolution first.
  • [01:38:15.22] JIM LEIJA: I will read. The board resolves as follows, to transfer $2,423 from salaries and wages to professional services. Two, to transfer $2,675 from salaries and wages to software licenses slash maintenance.
  • [01:38:34.44] Three, to transfer $2,035 from salaries and wages to repairs and maintenance. Four, to transfer $15,745 from salaries and wages to materials. Five, that all resolutions and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded. Second
  • [01:38:56.77] JOSIE PARKER: Second.
  • [01:38:59.08] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, Questions for Bill, or anything you want to say, I guess?
  • [01:39:03.03] BILL COOPER: No, unless there's some questions.
  • [01:39:08.02] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Well, we had some questions about it earlier. So it would make sense to not have them now. Do we feel ready to vote? OK. All those in favor?
  • [01:39:15.75] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: I.
  • [01:39:17.02] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Opposed? OK. August, thank you so much. So before we get to the last chance for citizens comments, and there are points, so yous should do it even if you just say your name, and that you hopefully, love the library. So we should talk about whether we're going to meet in August. So Jan, you know you'll be gone. Anyone else know that they'll be away?
  • [01:39:43.09] COLLEEN SHERMAN: I want to make a move motion that we don't need because if we're having robust executive committee meetings in the meantime, that don't establish a quorum, but move along the things that we want to do at the next meeting in September.
  • [01:39:59.68] And then we anticipate at least a two hour meeting in September, where we take up these two items as discussed previously, I think that taking August off is a resource saver in a way because then it's not let's just do a board meeting for the sake of exercise.
  • [01:40:18.85] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, I agree. And I think we are going to come through some stuff now where we really want everyone to be there. If someone misses something, then they will not be part of, like you said, the consensus building.
  • [01:40:30.46] JIM LEIJA: I would second your motion to cancel the August meeting. That's an official second.
  • [01:40:37.12] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, so is that something we can do as a quick resolution?
  • [01:40:41.28] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Yes.
  • [01:40:42.68] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: OK, great. All those in favor?
  • [01:40:45.56] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: I.
  • [01:40:46.02] JIM LEIJA: I.
  • [01:40:46.95] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Opposed? OK. Great, so no meeting in August. Anyone who sat here this whole time and wants more points? Yay!
  • [01:40:57.91] UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I can't bring my daughter in August to get points.
  • [01:41:00.23] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes, so now you must get them.
  • [01:41:01.90] ANN: I must get them.
  • [01:41:02.44] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Our convention is to say your name, and formerly, we would ask people to say their address, but we are now broadcasting. So we're collecting the address for the public record in a written form. You don't feel like you have to say it.
  • [01:41:17.04] ANN: OK, sure. My name is Ann Dulture, and the few things that I wanted to comment on besides getting my points was that the event on Saturday was wonderful. We attended that with several kids and really enjoyed that.
  • [01:41:35.02] I had one question that was interesting to me that I was wondering on both your discussion on the executive evaluations, and then also all the work with the downtown library center, and is there a dollar amount?
  • [01:41:53.80] Is it the dollar amount that Josie can approve? Is it over that, that you have to go out for RFPs? Or is it just up to the decision of the board in terms of when you go out for RFPs for work?
  • [01:42:09.55] JOSIE PARKER: I can answer that quickly. If it goes above $32,000, we usually solicit RFPs.
  • [01:42:16.35] ANN: Oh, OK.
  • [01:42:17.98] JOSIE PARKER: We're not required to solicit RFPs for all services, and the policies dictate which ones we must. Architectural services are actually when we don't have to solicit RFPs for, but the practice in the past has been that we did.
  • [01:42:35.23] JIM LEIJA: And Josie, would you just explain where that's written as a matter of policy?
  • [01:42:39.31] JOSIE PARKER: That is in the policy manual adopted by the board.
  • [01:42:43.33] OVERHEAD SPEAKER: Attention please. The library will close in 15 minutes. The internet stations will automatically shut off at 8:55 PM. Please make any final copies at this time. Take all materials to be checked out to a self check station or to the circulation desk by 8:55 PM. Thank you.
  • [01:43:05.56] JOSIE PARKER: It's in, I believe-- is it in the finance part of the policy manual? In the finance portion of the policy manual, there's a section that spells out the RFP requirements, and what services the library can contract for without an RFP, and why. In the past though, architectural services have been done by RFP because there's been a presentation process.
  • [01:43:32.83] ANN: Well, for transparency, and community interest you would be in trouble not doing that in this community, I would expect. And then my other comment was on your discussion about getting citizens involved, and having ambassadors or committee.
  • [01:43:47.92] I would recommend that very quickly you start thinking, as you think about the Downtown Project, I would hesitate to call it a building committee because you don't know that you're doing a building, or anything related to that. But what your downtown library committee might be if you're looking out six months or nine months, what group you're getting together that it doesn't have the voting decision, but can do a lot of that work with a couple of the board members on that committee.
  • [01:44:21.22] That's something I see typical that a lot of the libraries do. Maybe has plan commission people, friends people, and has that group who can do a lot of that heavy lifting, and then bring that to your committee. So when you talk about what you're looking for ambassadors to do or not, I think starting to think of what a downtown library committee might be created would be a good thing to start thinking about.
  • [01:44:48.22] JIM LEIJA: Thank you.
  • [01:44:48.61] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yeah, thank you. Anyone else?
  • [01:44:53.06] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Did she give her name?
  • [01:44:54.76] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: How many points is it? It's 1,000 points.
  • [01:45:02.35] LINH SONG: You can sing a song.
  • [01:45:03.86] JAMIE VANDER BROEK: Yes, no pressure. I guess I'm giving you a lot of pressure. All right, so I think with that in mind, are we said to adjourn? OK, great. Thanks, everyone.
  • [01:45:17.70] LINH SONG: Thank you, good night.
  • [01:45:18.05] JAN BARNEY NEWMAN: Thank you.
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July 17, 2017 at Downtown Library

Length: 01:45:26

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

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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AADL Board Meeting