 Great, well, first thing that is approval of the previous month's minutes. I was not here, thank you so much, Catherine, for leading that meeting. So, from somebody that was here, do we have a motion to approve the minutes? I'll move to approve. Thanks. A second, and it looks like Catherine's seconding. So, minutes from last month approved. And I'm not sure if I need to sign or Catherine does. I think it's okay, what I do, I don't know. Let's do that. And then if not, we'll sign it. Hi, Susan. Hi, Susan. I was kind of like, okay. I mean, so does not appear to be of any of the members of the public here? So we'll move on now to... Just a little bit. To name business. And Catherine, I think you volunteered to do our monthly ice breakers, so thank you. Do you enjoy Thanksgiving and you celebrate and a little time off, you think you don't? Hopefully. Metaphor is, of course, a really English teacher. So if you, I was just gonna invite you to share, kind of reflecting at year's end, a rose from your year. If you'd like a thorn, you don't have to. That might not be what you wanna say, but either way, and then a bud, something you're looking forward to in 2024. So I can go first, or someone else, if you feel so moved can go, give us a moment. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Let's see. I put this in my holiday letter, actually. My rose from the year was just like a dorky law school thing, but the hell versus state of Montana case, did any of you follow the kids who took on the state of Montana? They basically, Montana has a constitutional right to a healthy environment. And it's the state, because the state was giving a lot of deference to extractive industries. And so they sued the state saying, hey, you're not protecting the environment for our futures, and they won. So it was a big deal. Yeah, it was a long time coming. Some of the kids were like two when the case started. And of course, there was many different stalling tactics along the way. So they're like, some of them are adults now. They were youth when they started out, but I just found it really encouraging and I'm getting involved in the, it's called a green amendment. So trying to have a right to a stable climate, et cetera. I'm getting involved in a movement to try and get that on the Colorado ballot. So yeah, it inspired me this year. And my thorn was definitely getting COVID twice in a row this fall. That was torture. And my bud is, I'm gonna be quitting teaching this spring. So my last semester of full-time teaching in the classroom for 2020 is gonna be this spring semester. So, and it's like a kind of a bud. And we also do a fungus, something you're dreading. You don't have to do a fungus, but it's sort of a bud and a fungus for 2020. Thank you. That's a great question. I've heard of frozen thorn. I've never heard of bud before. And I like fungus as well. Okay, okay, next. Rows for us, just so that I'm personal note, we've been working on our backyard for what feels like forever. And finally got the deck in, got some grass in. So it's functional. So that was a big rose. I'll say thorn was the results of the Langmont ballot measures. I think for the library as well, I was really hoping for the Performing Arts Center. And a bud to look for you too. It's just, yeah, I'm hoping for some good travels and get back into hiking this year. I'm just looking forward to that. And I'll pass it to whoever wants to get next. I'll go next. So for going off on a travel, probably that would be my big rose for the year was I got to go to a couple countries, which is the most I've ever done before. So I was glad to be able to have those experiences. Thorn, I'll repeat patterns. I also got COVID twice in a row after. Yeah, so that was no fun this year. And then probably bud for next year is I'm having friends reach out from out of state saying that they're gonna come visit. So looking forward to that for next year. I can go next. I don't know who all is in the room. So, but I'll go. So my rose is, I was selected by the city council to be Mayor Pro Tem. So I was very excited about that. Yeah, I was like, yeah, so we did. Congratulations. Thank you, thank you. Thorn is, right now I'm at home with a respiratory infection. My eye is actually better this morning. It was just a little slit and it was really swollen. So I think all the antibiotics I'm kind of flushing it all out. I have not been this sick since COVID and it's been lingering on for about three weeks now. So, and my kids, I had seven out today. No, six out today, seven out Friday. And yeah, it's just, it's bad. So the sickness stuff is that's a thorn. A bud. So my daughter is, she lives in Phoenix. She's actually decided to study law. So currently she had stepped away from school. She decided to go back. So she's just going to the community college there, but she'll be transferring to ASU next year and she's studying law. But that is like, I'm living vicariously through her right now. I'm very proud of her. So she's overcome many obstacles and I'm just proud of the young human being she's become. So yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to. The few of us left are looking around at all. And just so you all know, you can't see who's in this room is myself, Cynthia, Jamie, John and Tracy, as well as our Langmont public media representative. So that is who you were talking to. Go ahead, Tracy. Sure, I'll go next. My roasts and the thorn are kind of in the pet say package because we've had car troubles for the last, I don't even know how many years. And our last car, which was a Subaru, which should have been really good, but we got it from Pennsylvania and it had a lot of rust, unfortunately, kind of just quit on us. And so I could be from Fort Collins. It's definitely a need for us to have a car. So it was a big struggle in the moment. And my dad blessed us hugely by just buying us a branding car. So that was a huge rose for us this year. Finally, did not have to stress about that. And so it was just a huge blessing and not have to worry about it. And then Bud, I would say, is just going to actually visit family this next year. And then also celebrating my mom's 60th birthday and my grandma's 80th birthday, all in one kind of big party. So looking forward to those. Clunch, why not? I'm in a weird headspace tonight. So this is actually challenging me. It's, interestingly, it's an exercise that my family has done for probably 10 years at least around the dinner table, and we still do it. And we come up with our own stuff to add too, which is funny. I'm used to doing it about my day. So when I think about the whole freaking year, my gosh. You know what, I got to do a lot of neat stuff this year for the first time, like try different things, volunteer in different capacities. I'm not like, I'm not making this up. I think that being a part of this board and part of this work and my work with the friends and I volunteer in the Central Elementary Library. Like those have definitely kept me afloat and connected me to something that I have a passion for. So yeah, those were highlights to my year. Getting to participate in an election in the way that I did. You know, actually, I think I was more informed about the issues and the candidates and everything going on in Longmont and Boulder County than I'd ever been. I mean, this is my second year in Colorado. So it took me a minute. My thorn, I also tried to do some neat stuff that didn't quite pan out. So my thorn is gonna be tied to my bud in that I am hopeful that the next year brings new opportunities and kind of new paths for me. Yeah, I guess that looks good. Yes it does. We're always welcome to pass. No, no, it's fine. Totally, yeah. So in all cases, this is all very personal for me. I mean, there's certainly work things that are tied into this. I think everyone or at least most everyone knows that when I started here last year, my wife had passed away a week before. And so my, what is it, Rose? I mean, I've made it through this first year, I guess, is my Rose, you know? I mean, and a lot of that has to do with Longmont and the people here and everything about it has kept me, my family of course, my wife's family in particular actually. So I try to keep a positive spin on things. That's something that came from Lori if you knew her. So my thorn is that she's still in that frickin' here, so that's gonna be my thorn every year for as long as I can see without, it goes without saying. But my butt is I'm still here, I'm talking to everybody, I did make it through a year, I wasn't really sure what this first year was gonna bring, if I'm honest. So I'm here to tell about it and in this year, I've done some things for her, I've spread some ashes in some places that I wanted to do for her. So I'm holding on to those things that keep the good memories there. Well, thanks so much, Catherine. Thank you all for sharing. I really wish that we were sitting around the table if you dream coming to drink right now. Whether I'd be continuing on with business, but I really appreciate the question and everyone's responses. Okay, let's see. Moving on. The next item I put on was, I wanted to talk a little bit about sustainability in the future and I think that this can be a continuing conversation, so of course we don't have to have it all right now. But I wanted to pose the question is what is going to be sustainable for the library going forward? And I'm thinking, particularly in the short term, now that we know the will of the voters with that ballot measure earlier this year, as well as learning that the budget will stay the same, which in my mind is a cut with the collections budget increasing. I think that in my time on this board, I've just been blown away by the commitment of the staff here and how much they're doing. And now John, from our conversations, burnout is a concern I would have just because there is so much that everyone here is doing. So John, I don't know if you have any thoughts on this. And like I said, I just hope this is a continuing conversation. Susie is early as on and I was gonna ask you a little later during your report, but I'm not sure if you'll continue to be early as on in the new year or not, but just any ways that we can get this information to council that there might, I don't know, there might need to be some things that change in the short term. But John, I'll pose that to you first because I'm not sure if that's actually the case. Yeah, Noel, I mean, I think it is. The staff here long before me have just been tremendous in what they provide at a level that's way above what I think anything is realistic for a staff of this size, for the city of this size, honestly, and everyone just works tirelessly. And that's with programming and services we do. And I don't know, I mean, for the benefit of retaining good staff and not burning them out, I don't know at least going forward in whatever it's gonna look like certainly in the next year, but maybe beyond if we can really sustain that without losing good people, and what does that look like? I don't have exactly that answer. I could just thinking about the sheer number of programs that we do in a year between children and adults and outreach, which I'll talk to you specifically in a second, but I don't know. We may have to really take a deep look. That's something I'm talking with my leadership team here and really prioritize and make some, a previous boss of mine would call force choices. So what do we prioritize and what can we let go, at least for now, in order to maintain sanity here? I think people have plugged along, all along thinking there's some future here of support and it was twofold, right? The voters had a say and then the city didn't do anything for my budget. So it's like the knife was turned a little bit, so that hurts. For outreach specifically, and I probably said this before, but it's a department of one and my priorities for my budget requests as well as the election were to support that new department and really get out there and lawn mower and continue to make the difference that Lillian is making and you'll get to meet her. Some future meeting here, she'll come here if you haven't met her, but she's fantastic, but that candle's burning and so I'm talking with her probably more than anybody in this kind of prioritization and force choices like what needs to go so that it's something that she can continue to do without burning completely out and we're left with nothing which would even be worse. These are things on my mind in that sense when I think of sustainability. Some is gonna be a matter of fact collections you brought up and I see your hand, Catherine, just one second while I ramble. But with collections, the biggest thing there and that I tried to budget for is when I started here, we were just starting in pre-processing materials, right? We didn't do that before here. We had staff that did all the physical labor of jacketing and stickering books. Now we pay for it as a part of getting the books in which is still a way better decision because it gets materials on the shelves much faster, its trims lines, everything regarding that. However, that comes at a cost. So without a budget increase to collections it effectively means a cut because we have to pay for that pre-processing through that collection budget and that's across the board. So that'll mean less adult books, less children's books than we've had in any year previous until we can get that resolved. And it may not be immediately obvious to a lot of people but think about for sure things that we would normally do like a top selling author that has a new book out that everyone wants that we would probably buy a minimum of 10 copies of, we're probably gonna have to cut that in half or maybe just buy a few and rely on the consortium to borrow it to fulfill that. So that'll hurt at some point. Okay, Catherine. This is just a quick question and Suzy, you might know the answer but prior to you meeting and getting the information that your budget was not being increased did our letter go out to council? Yeah, I sent the letter out. Sorry, Suzy. And I mentioned it as well during our council call. Okay, so our question please Helen Duffiers, all right. Well, I mean, it's a process. It's a process. So we cannot just, we had our organizational meeting so we had the election. We had our organizational meeting where we were assigning positions for liaisons. And so the last meeting we had where we did the reorganization, there wasn't any major business to be conducted. And then it's last one was kind of filling in past ordinances and readings that we had a year prior to the election that were on the docket. So I'll continue more during my council update but I don't think it fell in Duffiers. It's just gonna be a process in how we can relook at things. And really what's gonna come up to council for a vote? It sounds like right now a lot of the stuff was and John, you can correct me if we do have something we can kind of get in there. You know, I think if we look at reallocation of funds, I don't know if we have all the council support on that, but a lot of it is Harold. So Harold decides where- I suppose when we've already voted on our budget. So then there's reallocation of funds or what is it? There's a word for it. It's not reallocation of funds. And I can't, it's escaping me right now. I'm taking a lot of cool bits and stuff. And the fact that it's the start of it. Yeah, so I've had conversations. It sounds like there's some things that are organizational and there's some things that will become to us as a policy, does that make sense? And I'll get into more detail when I bring up my council update, because I have some ideas. Okay, I just wanted to clarify, in terms of John's sharing. Yes. I think it's healing about it, that we were given a hard no after they read our letter. I know, there was no hard no. There was no, like they took it in. By Harold though. I mean, the letter never went to Harold or Harold didn't get, I don't know. I'm just curious about the timeline kind of, how it all. So I was sure, and then John and Susie, please let me know if I'm wrong. My understanding is that the budget news was communicated prior to our meeting. And then, thank you all for working on that letter. I sent that out after Yale met. I CC on my communications. So I sent it to the council. And then I CC on the city manager. I'm gonna get the title wrong, the system city manager, as well as the head of this department. So Jeff, it just kind of as a matter of course. And so, it sounds like to me, that just nothing changed, like right after that. Is that, am I getting that timeline correct, John, as far as you know? Pretty much. I mean, the only slight difference there, as far as Harold and the city goes, is I believe I had met with him before the letter went out. And that's when I was told that my budget wouldn't be changing. And just to echo what Susie was saying, the budget had went to council as it was without any changes to the library that was voted on. And so, me coming to Harold after the election is after hoping that there was something that could be, well, I'll use Susie's term, reallocated then. Because I don't know either. And that's where I was told that there's really no movement there. And then I believe your letter went out after that. Now, I haven't received any communication, at least personally from the city or anybody in that sense. And then, as Susie stated, they haven't had meetings where they can address that yet anyway. And well, thanks for clarifying that. Thanks for asking that question, Catherine. I think it's good to know that timeline. Susie, I think that we'll just continue like I said, I think this is an ongoing conversation. I'm thinking towards our next communication to council, which is probably gonna be, I'd like it to be at least early spring, what format that is, I think we can decide whether it's a communication like we passed last time, council night to be heard or so on. But I think that whatever our next communication is, and that's, you know, our scope as an advisory board is to make that communication that I think it could be based on this continuing conversation. It's really easy for me to suggest that you know, services be dropped because I know the nature of this work, that if you're not doing something, somebody's missing out. You know, it's the same in cross education as well. And since I'm not an employee here, it's easy to say that from the outside. But I just really want, as far as I'm concerned, I want John to know also that he is, I didn't want to speak for the board, but he is my support in that, like sometimes things need to drop if they're not being supported, which is a really hard thing to say. And so I just hope that, like I said, this can be ongoing. So I plan to add this to old business when appropriate in the next few months. I think I had one thing speaking in my role as liaison to the Friends of the Library. I've been thinking about this question a lot, certainly from before the election really, and then all the way up through till now. And I just came out of a weekend where the Friends were putting on their quarterly or seasonal book sale and volunteered quite a bit. I love doing that. It gives me joy. It puts me in contact with the community, sort of fills my cup with this kind of work. And because of what happened with the election and with the budget, I was so acutely aware of not only how much work this group of volunteers does, but the not sustainable nature of it. Specifically, I can say more about the Friends when that part of the agenda comes along, but in regard to library sustainability, the amount of money that the Friends raises for the library and what it covers, i.e. operational costs, program costs, I would be very, very sad to hear that any council members or anyone with the city thought, oh, well, the Friends fill that gap so we don't have to try harder. This is a group of largely folks over 60. I've sat around a table with the board members and heard them talk about how one bed full may take them out of volunteering. So in terms of legacy planning for that group, they have their own work cut out for them in terms of recruiting members and some other organizational stuff. However, the fact that we're all relying on this group of volunteers, it's so physically laborious to go through those, can collect those donations, sort them, get them up here, put them out, move them around, get them out of here. It's a little, I'll just be transparent. I'm a little ashamed that our city is okay with this. It's quite a big chunk of what keeps the library going and allows for all of these wonderful innovative programs that we do offer. Going into next year, if we're not going to, oh, the other thing is that it's not reliable, right? You can't predict how much money you're gonna bring in in a given month or a given year from selling the used books or the bookshop. You can estimate, but you can't really know. So you can't really budget for what the friends are gonna bring in. So going into next year, I would just like to revisit the aspect of the conversation that I may have missed before I joined, which is around what fundraising avenues are available to us because we are under the city. I don't know how that works. Are the friends the only avenue that we can use what would be involved in setting up a foundation on and on and on? What are just the options? Even if they will require work, I would rather think of a way to put some energy toward that because I feel like we run the risk of going off a cliff. If something, it would not take much to derail everything that the friends is doing right now. And in that instance, I fear that the library would be in a very tricky position. I think, Jamie, I really appreciate that context. And I think it's incredibly important to keep in mind. There were some brief conversations. Katherine might have a better memory of looking at into what does, why don't we, what is the foundation for the library? Why don't we have one? What does it take to set up? I can look back, Tuesday might be your assistance, but I can look back at some of our notes. I think that would be a good conversation to have on the screen. I'm also interested to hear about how the museum fundraising is going. And I just want to add, from my perspective as well, it is amazing what the friends have provided. You talked about, you know, that there might like one bump could derail that organization on this ad. I think it's really important for the library to be making the calls who is coming, who is not coming, what speakers are coming with who is not. And not having a volunteer organization make some of those decisions. I don't think they are. Don't we have to, I mean, they always say yes so far, but do you submit requests to them for purchase? If we need funding, yes, they have to approve it and the funding. My knowledge, it's never been, you know. No, right. But technically, you're right. So if we funding for an author to come in and for some reason the friends don't have it, or for, you know, something that we would either have to find a different way or not proceed, that's technically true. Yeah, so I think, and I just know for the friends part because I go to all their board meetings too, is they just want to help this library. They want to say yes to as many things, the only reason why they might say no is if they didn't have the money. That's the only reason that they go, yeah. I mean, they're willing to support things financially that really they shouldn't be, you know. And I think about the hours they put in and that it's free labor and I don't want to take advantage of them. But yeah, you're right. That boundary is a little. It's a little shaky. I mean, not with this group but I'm thinking, you know, in the future. Yeah, right. What if the friends did change over it? That dynamic could change, right? Because there is some power in having the purse strings technically. Yeah. And anyway, we'll talk a little bit more about thinking them, I think, once we get to the reports and information items. But before we move on for this agenda item for now, John, is there anything you'd like to add or is there anything anyone else would like to add? For me, I think for this current meeting, I think I've said what I wanted to. Yeah, I'm just curious to clarify. When I first started, we also had kind of like another staff member and it sounds like we sent that person the letter as well. But I was wondering with maybe some of the city processes or discussions, like, I don't know if that was like temporary to have that person sit in these meetings as staff or be a part of the orientations to bring us on or if that's something next year that we want to have someone from the city, whether the same role or a different role be a part of these meetings to have kind of like that understanding or be a part of like hearing when we're contributing to things like putting the letters together or just expressing our support or, because I know it's super helpful to have John and Susie and folks from the city here, but if we maybe need another role or staff member have a better, on the city side for them to kind of better understand what the library is going through, I'm not sure, but like bringing another person in would be useful and kind of making that happen, so. Are you speaking of Jeff? Sorry. Yeah, I think you're speaking of Jeff who is the head of the Department of Recreation and Culture. Recreation and Culture, so that us, the music film. He's my boss. Jeff, John's boss, the rec side, the golf courses, all that stuff, in my nursing funnels up to Jeff. I think that's a great idea to see if we could have this conversation in a meeting he could attend. I don't know if that's a possibility, John, or. Oh yeah, just with some notice. Jeff, and then if it's relevant, I mean we tossed around some ideas here and there before about maybe it was a little bit related, but unrelated, but having someone from the city attorney's office here because we were discussing something very specific that where that might have been relevant. That might be also what Rihanna you're getting at, where we kind of talked about that. Or other city officials where it might be relevant to have them here, but certainly with enough, with notice that's generally possible. I know some assistance team managers have attended some other boards and commissions when requested. So Jeff's boss is here. Great. It's a really great suggestion. Thanks for bringing that up. So I'm gonna try to, I think we have a few things to talk about in the spring. I'll try to plan out our agenda is a little further in advance so we could get the right people here for those conversations. And Catherine, I think you had had your hand up. I did. I don't remember what I was thinking about. Oh, I just wanted to echo Jamie's point in terms of the reliance on the friends and just saying that for the five years I've been on this board, it's been an ongoing point of pain and gratitude, of course, but also just embarrassment. And why can the city not see that? I don't understand. Seems very confusing to me. Susie has her. Yeah, thanks Susie. Do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, so some of the ideas that I have been thinking about and I know that we put in for grants for mental health, for different, we have a lot of ARPA dollar coming in, opioid money, different sources or pots of money coming in from the federal and state but primarily the federal. But I'm thinking about opportunities where we have not for the library but for other departments where it might free up some dollars. So I'm kind of wanting to look at that where if they put in for a grant for something that we have maybe initially thought we would be funding, you know, it kind of puts that money inside. Okay, well, not that it's extra money but if a grant is covering a certain program of being in a core or a lead steam, how can we kind of manipulate things to kind of move funding from one source to another? No, I think that would be kind of taking an avenue of general fund where maybe general fund dollars that would be going to public safety if they've received a grant for X amount of dollars, maybe that X amount of dollars from general fund could actually try to go towards the library, if that makes sense. So trying to create a creative approach. The other thing, you know, I spoke with Harold about this and I was very upset with the idea of cutting children funding. And you know, not to punish adults but it was really adults who made the decision that they don't want to fund the library. So I think, okay, and you know, it's hard because people who have participated, I can see, I saw in some of the pictures friends of mine who took some of those classes. I think there was one that was like little books, the ear rings are one class, you know. So there are people who are passionate about the library who want to attend and participate in these programs. But I'm thinking of the two, you know, it's our youth. I mean, really when I had a chance to have a debrief with the youth council, they were very disappointed to hear about the library. The performing arts in the library, I think were the two that they were most upset about. That, you know, library serves as a great equalizer. People who don't have access to books or don't have access to quality technology. And it's usually our low socioeconomic status individuals. And I see what it will do to our kids in the future. You know, right now we're trying, you know, one of the things I talked to Harold about after that incident that happened at countryside, the little homework that I drive by, I don't know if you all worry about that. Yep, those are my, those are our families that go to Indian Peaks. So, you know, the next day we were here in the next couple of days, even today, you know, kids are traumatized. So what are some ways that maybe we won't have a brick and mortar facility, but how we can create some kind of library, mobile library. And I've heard that idea kind of be thrown around before, but maybe let's look for a resurgence of that and how we can set up satellite stations. I really like to see one in that community room over there, so I go, oh, run it, I hope you don't have to pay me, I'll do it. But if, you know, so kind of getting a little creative where maybe it's not as expensive to oversee as opposed to building a ground up brick and mortar branch, but how we can get these services out to community and really keep the youth portion going. And then, you know, I'm still talking to Harold about, okay, well, we get this money for public safety or we get this money for the open space or how can we kind of free up some dollars that could make its way back to library. I think the capital campaign, I was trying to look up the last number that I got for the museum was 6.5 million and that was as of November 6th, so that was prior to the Colorado Gives. So I'm sure it's more now. But, you know, and then looking at how we can create a foundation, that would be another option where people who really want to see this can help contribute. It's tricky, right, Susie? I hear you on the grants front, my mind is kind of going in that direction too. And I work for the county and I don't know if you know following what's happening to the county budget and public health I got slashed and we're trying to figure all that out right now, I'm heading into next year, but there's always the conversation where I'm working right now around grants and that you can't really count on that long term either because there's no guarantee, you know, if you get a grant for three years, five years, there's no guarantee that you're gonna get that grant again. So I would worry about reallocating money from like the police or health and safety, public safety and that would be awesome. And what if that department doesn't get that grant again would the library have to give that money back? So that's one question with that piece. Also, I don't know, John, I've worked in libraries where a lot of the youth programs beyond story times cost money and that's how the library could fund craft and musicians and puppets and all of that is like it was five dollars. And I think that would be a really sad direction for this library to go to because of the accessibility and inclusivity angle. Yeah, it's just so hard. Yeah, thanks for those points. Captain. Okay, maybe I'm just being stubborn. But I feel like even having this conversation is just letting the city off the hook for not providing a basic service. It owes to its citizens for the tax dollars we put into the pot. And I hundred percent believe it's a responsibility that a city has similar to education and preschool and all the things we should be providing for edgy. For children as far as their education but also for adults and for all the reasons we all know. And I just feel like saying we should have a non-profit pay for, it's like saying we should have a non-profit provide us with our water or our power. This is a city, in my mind is the same thing as a utility. It's a responsibility government officials have to its citizens to provide a functioning library. And we've been told by the city's own study that we're not doing that. So I personally, I love how creative you all are but I just feel like no, they should come to the library. I agree with you too, Catherine. Like that's in another reality where everything made sense. The friends would be fundraising for all of these expansion and innovation ideas and mobile library satellite. And the city would pay for the things that the friends are paying for, right? Because your friends, the other friends groups I've worked with, they raise money to further the mission not to just kind of meet the day to day. Right, and the city doesn't want to lose the library. It's crown jewel that everybody loves. They won't let us become a district but they won't fund it. I know one or the other in my mind. You can't keep saying like, hey, you can't go be a library district. We love you so much. And then it's a bait and switch. Like, we love you so much. Yes, please stay. But we're not gonna actually fund your program. I think that one of the points that I would like to continue to raise with the city is exactly what you did, that this is the C-suite and center of the central service. And it hasn't been for a number of reasons. And so what is our role within this, which I think is to continue to communicate that to the C-suite and central service. And we need to, it sounds like there's some ideas for appropriate staff, city staff, to come in to hear that as well. So I really think that those are important points that you're raising. And I would like to let that kind of set the framing of our conversations. This is an essential service in my mind as well. And I think in all of our minds. So, okay, well, I think that we have discussed this as much as we can tonight. But I would like to just open up one more time for final comments on this issue before we move on to our old business life. We'll continue the conversation. I was also taking notes, just in terms of a strategy for next year. And like I said, we'll continue in 2024 with this as appropriate, right? Action plan update is our only old business item and I'll turn it over to John for that. Okay, so I won't fumble around and bring up the dashboard on this talk through the action plan, where we stand with that. So a couple of items on there that I wanted to do this year was form a couple of committees, one of selectors. Those are the various staff that actually do the purchasing for our collections throughout the library. It's many libraries do this in a centralized form but we have it throughout each department. So children's staff choose children's books, adult staff choose adult materials, what I should say. Anyway, I formed these committees to create a little more cross-departmental knowledge of what's going on with selection but also some larger items within selection in particular that impact the library overall. And the biggest thing that's come out of these meetings of recent is really discussing challenges, right? To our collection, censorship kind of stuff. This library fortunately hasn't really faced too much of at least since I've been here. However, you always need to be prepared and what we've discovered as a selection committee is that our process, even down to the form that someone would fill out and submit to challenge an item or items in our collections a little bit out of date needs to be writing. So there's been some real good progress in this that'll continue a little bit and rethinking about how we approach this. And in some ways, thinking about worst case scenarios that were prepared to handle something a little bit better than we are now. I'd rather be set up for that. So we've been doing a lot of research into other libraries in Colorado in particular on how they manage challenges and kind of taking note of that and seeing what we want to implement here and just to give you a couple of examples. Currently here, anybody, anybody, can challenge something in our collection. And I say that because many libraries restrict that to being minimally a resident of the city that we serve or what we would call in library land service population, right? Because if in Longmont it's easy, we serve the city of Longmont because we're a municipality. If you are a county or a district, what we do would be different. We don't really have anything written that states that we restrict that. And I feel, and the committee feels strongly that we really should, in that sense, if you really want to go as far as to question something in our collection or programs that we do or something even on display, you need to live in Longmont. And then other items too, like should we take that a step further and require that they have a library card as well? And many libraries do this and many libraries require both now. Some libraries are taking this even in a completely different direction and they've taken away any form you fill out. And if you wanna challenge something, you have to have a one-on-one meeting with a director. And you have to prove that you read the book or whatever it is. So interesting how other people are approaching this. So I could go on, I just wanna let you know that's one of the results of that committee that I think is really good for this library in Longmont. I mean, we obviously talk about other things selection wise, but a lot of it is data informed and how we are choosing what to take out of the collection, what we should be adding and having common practices and how we evaluate that, which we don't have. Like, from what I can tell, and that's another benefit of forming this type of thing this past year is to realize that what maybe, for example, children's staff do to evaluate what they need to keep or remove from the collection might vary very differently from what adult services does. And in some case, that might make sense. It's going to be different removing picture books, for example, as opposed to mysteries, right? Your criteria might be different, but there's also some commonalities. Anyway, that was a long explanation of that. The other committee I formed was for programming, so we could talk about, and again, cross-departmental within the library, but even bigger than that within recreation and culture, thinking about cross-departmental programming, what are we doing as a big department? We haven't really touched that level, but at least in the library, really having a better understanding of what everyone's doing with programming, where we even internally could do cross-programming, adult and children, right, in particular. So sharing ideas like that, but a couple of big things that have come out of this committee was really in how we promote our programs and how we get that out. So one of the first steps we did is the recreation of course, there's a camera. You know, you've all seen this, you probably get it in the mail, the rec guide, right? So the library has not had a presence in here in a number of years. So one of the first things that I wanted to do is make sure we have a presence. So now we have a page. And you know, it's a thing, right? Just people get this and they need to know what's happening and it's one page, so it's obviously not everything, but we talked a lot about prioritizing what we're going here and so we'll be in here going forward. And then the second thing, and this will involve sharing so bear with me, but internally, we wanted to create a new brochure. What we do now, and can you online see my screen and this cover page? Yes, I can see it. Thank you, okay. So right now, and a lot of you know this, you know, for the public, they come in and if there are any service point, we always have a paper calendar of events. That's great. People love it, they take it home, they ask for it. I wanted something where someone can grab one thing that has all the calendars of events but also promotes other things going on in the library. So our wonderful marketing person worked with us in the programing committee and made this brochure which should be out and in fact it should be delivered here I think next week Tracy, right? Because we've put in the order for professional printing services. So this will have, this is almost like our own little library specific Wreck Guide, you can see my magazine again. Anyway, but it's just for the library, they convinced that I should have a little from the director which I resisted completely, but whatever. So. It goes right forward. It's there and that might have been partially go straight forward. But it doesn't matter. So we have really good stuff here, like what's new, everything, a lot of stuff's QR coded. You can just see how this is going to look. So it'll be sort of like a little booklet, right? Someone can grab from any desk, we'll of course take it to outreach. This is stuff that's coming up, starting pretty much in January. And I'm not expecting you to read all this. I'm going down so that you can kind of see when we get to the calendar point. And what you can't see as you see this represented in the PDF here is that the calendars in this little magazine will be perforated and you can tear these out and put them on your fridge or whatever. Whatever people do with these things. How often would this come out? Every about quarterly. Kind of in line with the record. So this goes through I think April. So this is something new we're starting now. And again, a direct result of forming this committee circling back to the action plan. So this is an outcome of that that I think is really beneficial and positive. And I'm just a real fan of streamlining stuff that we produce out of here. Pieces of paper with calendars and bookmarks and it makes me nauseated a little bit. So I like things neatly packaged and everything they need in one thing. And it looks professional. What's the other thing? Not that the paper calendars, they are what they are and they're useful but something that people look at this and think they're getting something from a professional organization that just print outs from someone's copy machine. I love this. Jamie, I'm wondering if you're gonna ask if there's anything I have to write. Who's paying for this? We are. So it's coming out of the library budget? Yep, yeah. So is there something else you have to let go in order to make this happen? Well. Because printing ain't cheap. No, it's not cheap. And neither is the one page in the record, by the way. So I planned enough to get through this year which maybe isn't the smartest thing I've ever done but I will figure it out next year. We have a budget for this. We have a budget that covers like advertising and marketing and we haven't really always tapped into it. So let me start there. So we don't always expend that. But this will go quickly. So are we gonna have to give something up? Maybe, maybe not. We have some other budgetary items if we get into the details that are kind of older items that have been in place for years that we never use. Like we used to send magazines to a blind tree and have things bound. Like a college or university would. But we still have that line item. So it's really some of this is a matter of reallocating. Like the money's there, it's just not in the right place. So I'm not exactly concerned about that or that something has to go in order to make this happen. And are there restrictions because we're the city, are there restrictions on say, taking in revenue from sponsorships, community sponsorships like pads? Well, the REC guide has it, I'm pretty sure. Those aren't free, those are paid placement? That's a good question. And now I don't see any ads. I'll look into that. I can't speak for here cause I haven't done it. Cause if you can. In one of my last organizations, we definitely sold ads for sponsors. And that in this case could pay for it. Easy, especially for the library one. I can't really control the REC guide. That's really controlled by others. I just thought it was good to be in there cause the museum's been there for a while. Yeah, library could be very good. It just makes sense. My next thing is I'm going to try to convince my boss to rename the REC guide, the recreation and culture guide. Now that culture's in there, but you choose your battles and you pick your timing. We've only had one page so far. Right. So anyway, that's something I'll explore actually, Jamie, because I think that we probably could do something like that. And if something we produce like that looks that good, I think someone would want to be in there and be a part of the library in that way. And it builds community partnerships. I mean, there's a lot of benefits to it. So let me, I'll stop that for now. So go back to seeing everybody. Okay, a couple other things related to the action plan. So the, we wrote a new computer use policy which this library didn't have. It's pretty standard. I probably should have thought to either bring that or put it in the packet, but I can do that next time. The group that did it really looked at a lot of other libraries. We had some form of that here before. So it's not exactly a new invention, but it kind of fell off and it needed to be revised. We needed something with the amount of computer use we get, you know, just things that come up and you know, how much time you get on a computer and in privacy things and what the library is responsible for or not. So I will try to remember to share that here next time but it's like a one pager. It's gone through the city attorney's office here and it was fine with very minor tweaks and it's publicly available as far as printed like for people who come in. It will be on our website in the policies section where our marketing person gets back from her vacation. So that's done just keeping updating on policies that was another goal this year. And then lastly, when it comes to action plan I had a good productive meeting with the school district with a project that's been going on long before I got here on student IDs and importing those into work as library cards effectively. And I kind of just jumped in after a while because it wasn't moving and realized there were some complications in there and some assumptions that were not correct in which I think was causing it to not really move forward. So and also including myself, all the players have changed. So the person from the school district, Susie I didn't know him, the person's name was Zach something you probably know what I'm talking about but came up with this idea at some point and everything's in place. There's an MOU between the city and the school district. We've done test runs of importing student IDs into our system. The glitch was the district at least at that time and maybe still currently felt they needed, well they do need, I shouldn't say felt. They need parental permission because of getting library access. But where I came in was proposing the idea of how much access is needed and therefore could it be more of an opt out rather than an opt in which is a little bit easier and it's something I did successfully previous to here when I was in Englewood. We didn't import anything other than the ID. In fact, we didn't have a student name or anything. We just called them like student one, student two. So that they could have access to all our databases and everything they would need. And if they wanted the library card they would come in just like anybody else but it was an easy conversion. So we made some progress in that meeting. I helped contribute to a document that they started to describe the benefits and the lies kind of in a way starting over a little bit now that there's new players and maybe rethinking how it's approached particularly through the school district, understanding there's a lot of things they have to consider with parents and what they know what their students are doing are not understandable. So I think we're getting a lot closer now. That won't happen for the end of the year obviously, but we'll see, we'll see. That document and the MOU is gonna be taken back to some people within the district to talk about and bring that back forward and see what, if anything else is needed in order to move this forward. I think in particular from the school district's aspect is can we do this as an opt out? Not having worked in schools, but I think that would be a lot easier, right? They have access unless you say no, right? So, and I think the district has decided or almost decided that this would make a lot more sense to start with just high school students because they already don't have limited access to library materials. Currently the school district has access to e-books through Libby through a program called Sora, which I'm sure many of you know about. And if you're in middle school or below, it restricts access to what you can borrow, which is good for a lot of people, but the high school students don't have that restriction. They have the full collection. So it takes, if we just do high school at least to start, it takes away any conversation about should they not have access to this A versus B versus C versus D. That sounds really promising. I think all of these updates are both important in promising. John, I also just want to, I mean you, you've been here a year. Like this is a lot of progress across the board, so great job. Thank you for those updates. I think they're all wonderful. The district. Who's what? Who's going to pay for this? Is there a cost associated with this project? There's not any cost. I mean there's staff time cost, but there's not like an actual, someone has to pay anybody. It's a matter of an agreement that we can take in certain data points of students that import it into our system. Cool. Good question. And just one last thing on the action plan. I've met with my leadership team because here we are in December. I see you Catherine. Of next year. So we had some conversations I've proposed at this point that at least within the library they go back to their departments, children, adult tech, and sort of talk within there and think about goals they have for next year. However, I'm also thinking about doing a larger strategic planning process, which I've mentioned here before, but within the city the museum had a pretty successful experience doing this with our very own assistant city manager, Sandy Seeder, and they felt really good about, it's just spent a day on planning for their next few years. So that could impact whether we actually have an action plan or strategic plan, but regardless we're starting to think about that. Catherine? Yeah I just had two thoughts about the school piece. Are you aware of any student groups that have been involved in that conversation? Student groups? I'm not aware. Okay, because I know in our school we have a National English Honor Society and I think they might get kind of excited about the idea of library cards and promoting library access and you might be able to get some more support that way too. Yeah. And then has there been any, in terms of parent pushback or parent concern, has that been primarily in like elementary conversations or I'm just curious. No, so basically when this all came into place and they started some testing the district decided to do some like a test pilot program to test the importing of the data and whatever but they still needed parental signatures and they chose a couple of middle schools. One was here in Long Island, I don't remember which one and the other one was in Erie. And they were basically having trouble getting parents to respond. So like the response rate was low. And part of that that I learned too through some of these conversations there was like a period of time where they could respond to this request to allow access. And then when that period ended there was no option to just like you couldn't come in later and just say, oh yeah, I want my kid to have this. They had a period of time where they were allowed to do that. I'm not sure how they came up with that. I think they, in me being in a couple of meetings I think from what I could tell they've talked about that process and maybe particularly if they moved to opt out I don't think they need to have a time frame. But it gets into rules of school districts and things like that that I just don't know of how they come to that stuff. So there was no elementary school involved. I don't think they have any intent of involving elementary schools at this time for something like this. But yeah. Yeah, I was just curious you know in terms of like the role parents in that conversation. Yeah, I've been on both sides of that. I've had my kids bring home books that I'm like, oh, okay, we're not reading that right now or we're gonna read that together, you know. But then of course I'm also a huge advocate for students having access to the library. So I think it's complicated in many ways when kids are very young for sure and then it evolves. Right. And I think, you know in this case it's the primary goal and because all students get a device I don't know what they get these days they either get a tablet or a laptop or something. But, and so they have what they need to access digital resources. And there still is, you know, an aspect there of parenting of what's in there, right? You know, I mean, you can search for you could be doing a paper on breast cancer research and find all kinds of stuff at EBSCO that I'm sure some parents wouldn't like. But you know, it's just, it's a reality of what's in there and different opinions. But when it comes to physical collection this particular model doesn't give them instantaneous access to our physical collection. That still requires parent or guardian signature in order for them to check out physical materials. So it still comes back to how the public library functions which is the parent or guardian's responsibility for that but we also won't allow it without that. Digital's a little different but there's also if we either have the opt in or opt out from the school district and the parent has either agreed or not that their student can access instead you kind of cover it that way as far as what a student might access. But again, if it's only high school at the beginning I think there's a lot less concern not that there wouldn't be some parents concerned but I don't know at some point. As a public librarian it's like, I don't know. It seems to me less instead of the opt out. I hope that that's how they move. Yeah, I don't know how those VP classes especially the research junior and senior year one do it without scholarly resources. I don't know. And I feel like the district at least from what I can tell they're fairly limited in what they are able to provide their own students. So I mean, just it's a partnership that makes sense. All right, well, thanks so much, John, for those updates. And just to circle back quickly in the beginning I think that sounds wonderful that y'all are also thinking about restrictions to service populations and challenges. Seems like that's a really important conversation to be had as well. So let's go ahead and move on and let's continue with John giving the report from any updates from last month. I'll just share our programming highlights which I like to do is a nice positive aspect of everything that still goes on here. What I've named our monthly highlights, right? So just going through some really good stuff in November. A lot of crappy things coming out of, I'm sorry, this is children and teen if you didn't catch that. I'm literally making hats and gloves. This, I was gonna comment if Katie was here because she was here with her daughter for this program. Came out with some jar of something very sugary looking that looked terrible. But they had fun. They had fun, that's what matters. Not for me. The tween stuff is still going strong as you can see here. Our, and then the teen programming stuff. So we're getting good stuff here. And you get 15 kids coming to Dungeons and Dragons every other week. I mean, that's, I'm feeling pretty good about that. That's that bi-weekly one here. So this continues to grow. Of course, part of that's because we have this teen library that started last year. So it's getting stronger as we go. We do a lot of passive programming in kids. So things that don't involve staff that people can just come in and use. I'm sure some of you may be having experiences with those who have kids. Some numbers here. So just a little bit of data. So if you look at programs. 52 programs. And over 1,210, he's just another number. That's the kind of stuff we're doing. See why sometimes I worry about how much we're doing. Adult programs. Had a really good author come in. I'm not sure if anyone was able to go to that. I was not, but it was really popular. We actually had two authors. We had second one on climate change. This conversation was really good. So the first one brought in over 50. This one brought in almost 50 people for adult, an adult program. I'm pretty highly received. Our ongoing groups were really successful. And then some numbers here. So all these different programs. And then totally almost 200 in attendance for adult, which is pretty good actually. It'll do, which is normal near the programming that kids and teens generally do. And then good old outreach. Doing their usual in the park. Visits, that'll dive down a little bit here in the winter. This is Lillian, who I refer to often here. So she has a couple of programs in parks. In the winter, she'll plan on it, but if it's looking like bad weather, she'll cancel it. She's actually talking with someone who might be willing to donate space in the winter so we can continue it on an indoor space. So that's other stuff Lillian does in the backgrounds besides just delivering the program itself. But we've actually had some nice days here this winter, so much to my pleasure, I love it. Anyway, so, and then this is at PI, Parents of Author Education, which I talked about a few meetings ago, really developed into a full-blown outreach program, it used to be basically babysitting. Now, they did yoga last week, the other, the time before, the month before they did something with the anime arts. So it's just, it's turned into something really fantastic. And a lot of attendance here, and just, it's really good. Lillian's very proud of it, and I'd like to see that. Just another slide from that. She's really good about reporting these with the pictures, by the way. Intercombeo, who Lillian connected with, so they're coming into the library a lot more than they ever used to, maybe at all, actually. As a result of one of her outreach at Timberline, and that Timberline outreach, I think was, I can't remember what the program was there, but this is what happens when Lillian goes out a lot, so this family was there, never been to the library, never has been to the library. But because of her, I'm going, they wanted to come, and they connected with her, so they got a personalized one-on-one tour, which Lillian does often, and no less than an hour or two. And just going in-depth on everything that's here, and of course in most cases, just as with this family, largely Spanish speaking, so that's also where it's a true benefit, and that's why we had that role. To connect with that population who really wants to learn, but needs to have that support in understanding in their own language, just really good. I mean, this is just one family of many that this happens, but I love that she captured this. If any of you were here for the tree lighting, that was pretty well attended. Lillian was there reading stories and all kinds of stuff that night. So a couple photos from there, and then this is everything that happened in November, still a lot for a winter month. December will be a lot less just because it's December, and Lillian, she spends the last couple weeks in December back with her family in Mexico, so, which is just fine, it's not the month to really be out there a lot in the end. So this is how many, this 649 is how, I've talked about this before, that's how Lillian tracks just interactions with people, any interaction that she has had. But the real interactions, it's not just I waved at you, it's she talked to somebody about the library. So it's a very real number of what's going on there. And overall November, over 750 people that she talked to just a month ago. So, I'm a broken record, but you can see why out, which is a priority for me. So that's my only addition to everything I've been collabing about for the last whatever, but that's my direction. Okay, thanks, John. I'm so glad that, first of all, Lillian's taking a vacation. And second, that I think I understand why quantitative data is important, but I don't ever want to pin success based on numbers. So it's so wonderful to have the pictures and the stories as well that really speak to the true successes there. Any questions for John on the updates? All right, let's move on to friends. But before I pass it off to Jamie, I didn't want to share it. Jamie, if you don't mind, they still are coming here. I had the wonderful idea of making sure that this group thinks the friends for their work from the advisory board. So I have letters to each of the friend board members that I can pass to you to sign in a moment. However, what I can also do is leave them at the right at the Cirque desk or wherever would make sense. Kat and Rihanna, if y'all would be coming by the next few weeks, we could do that if you wouldn't mind assigning these. I was imagining I would bring them on Wednesday. Never mind. No, no, that works. I wasn't sure when the meeting was. Don't worry about it. We could do it at the January meeting. No, let's just do it now. It's the holidays. Well, Jamie and I will just sign these. I think that works. And I wrote on behalf of the one month library advisory board, so it's coming from all of us. I'm happy to forge anybody's signature. You can send it to me while you're there. Yes, I can stick it to you. It didn't sound. Yeah. So I'll pass off the update to you and you can sign these. Maybe we'll split these. They'll see your name on it. I'll write it all. Okay, thank you for doing that. I was all ready to order some cards and there's just one less thing on my list. One thing fewer, I should say. So, yes, the December book sale. I understand that this is the first time, at least in a long time, that the friends have done a December sale. So there was a little bit of an experimental angle to it. I think, at least in recent history, they were doing maybe three sales a year and it was roughly the beginning of the year, spring time and then that fall time. What we all observed in volunteering this weekend is we started Wednesday night for friends, members Wednesday evening and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the sale was running during library hours. We took in less money than we had been. And so there was a question about, the market's saturated right now. Is this one sale too many? Is it timing related? Might this sale have brought more folks in during a different time? Maybe it was when fewer things are going on in people's lives or weather is different. I know that the board is going to be looking at those numbers and having those discussions in the next few meetings. They have their dates already picked out for 2024 and they made bookmarks already and those dates suggest that there will be four sales again in 2024. So the friends are at least committed to doing four sales next year. And then 2025 remains to be seen. I believe another angle that they will be exploring is maybe at least one of those sales is more specialized. So instead of having four sales that are pretty much the same, you might have one sale that's just paperbacks or you have one sale that would be more geared towards children and maybe could be paired with some programming to have a full robust children's event that would bring folks into the library. So those things are to be determined. Pricing, I think they'll be looking at, I've only been volunteering with this group for the past maybe year and a half and pretty much every sale, somebody suggests raising prices for these youth books because it is definitely the best game in town, especially on the last day of sale when it's $5 a bag day. The bags that are used are certainly bigger than they've been in some sales last year. They purchase some paperbacks with branding, friends of the library logo, and that's a little bit of outreach or brand awareness, but also they hold more than the flimsy plastic bags that were single use stuff that, yeah, it was just not good on a lot of fronts. I did field a question from a friend's board member that I would like to get back to them on and that was someone had been asking this board member if I make a donation and I wanted to go to the library specifically, do I send it to the library or do I send it to the city? And so the board member's understanding was that they should make a donation to the city and then it would go into the general fund and earmark fund. I mean, I have my suspicions, but I wanna be able to give them reliable information. My question was why aren't they donating to the friends? I have an answer. Oh, you have an answer. Okay. The best way for that is to donate to the friends. It directly comes to the library. That's our only source of money that there is in no way the city can touch if it's in the library fund. The library fund is the friend's money, basically. I mean, there's other forms of donations that can come in there. That's like the easy... I'm looking at Tracy. I think that's the easiest route. If you write it to the Longmont Library or the city, it's just a little more wishy-washy in my mind. The friends is the best route. That was my instinct. So I will confirm that with them. It's fine. It's fine for this to go on the record, but I still remain concerned and for myself, we'll continue speaking with this group about their efforts to increase membership and their efforts to increase non-sales and non-membership related revenue. In other words, an annual campaign Colorado gives, other solicitations throughout the year. I think that those to do significantly more work in either of those two areas will require more capacity than they currently have. They are really good at doing those sales and it sure takes a lot to pull them off each and every time. I just don't think that they have the bandwidth to take on more energized membership and development initiatives and that frustrates. And that's all. I wish for their ranks to grow and expand with many different generations of volunteers and then they could have people assigned to all sorts of different tasks. Very grateful to them for all of the work that they do. And if there are any questions from this group that I can either try to answer or take back to the friends, I'm happy to do that. I think having a mutually respectful and congenial relationship between library staff, the advisory board and the friends not only is crucial, but it's very new. It feels very new. I think there was maybe some past drama that is now really past and we can move forward being more collaborative from one another. Thanks, Amy. I really appreciate your kind of keeping an eye out for sustainability as we were talking about earlier. Yeah, I would love this board to make sure that the friends or I'd love the friends to know that how much this board appreciates their efforts. As well as library staff, that also made me think, Heather, I know a couple of years ago you'd set up a Cudas board for some of the library staff. Maybe it's something we can do to get it in a screen just because I want to make sure they realize that as well. And I did have a question, I guess this would be for John. I was looking back in the notes. We had somebody come in, like maybe it was late spring talking about a specific bank account, like there was now a way to have funds earmarked. Thanks, Catherine. Have realities as well. It seemed like there was somebody who came in and I was talking about there's now a way to have funds earmarked specific to the library. Am I just completely misremembering this? Okay, so if somebody jumped on that, I was gonna say, great. I might just be in my head. So I will look back in the notes and see if I have imagining things. Okay, I think I just made that up. Cause I didn't find it in the minutes here. Great, any questions for Jamie about the friends? Okay, Susie, would you have any updates to share? Yeah, so tomorrow we'll be voting on or finalizing the selections or appointments for boards and commissions. And you guys, you know, we didn't, I don't think there were there any openings this round? Not for me. No. It'll be June, correct? I know the museum leads onto the museum board and they did have openings, but nobody applied. So what challenge is that we're dealing with is getting people to apply to these boards and commissions. And, you know, I see things posted on Facebook, you know, the applications and it could be, you know, maybe I'm looking for them or because I already have those, you know, the city page already light and things. So it shows up on my feed. But oftentimes we hear, well, I didn't know about it. I didn't know about it. And so, you know, just trying to get that communication out to people as well as something that I'm very passionate about is that access to language. So we have communities within our city who come in with a different perspective, but the barrier is language. So I think about a lot of my parents, their first language is Spanish. They can speak English, they can understand English, but to have a meaningful conversation, it's very challenging. They prefer, you know, to be able to get to that higher order thinking and people thinking, you know, folks feel more comfortable expressing that in their primary language. So something, how can we bridge that gap so we can get a more diverse pool of applicants in our, in our, on our boards and commissions, you know, at this point, I'm like, I know I'll just be happy if people fly. So that's something we're looking through and we're getting out to kind of expand that and get more of a diverse pool. I really liked, in the senior center, we actually have, you know, some folks coming, you know, folks coming in with, one is not, her language is not predominantly English, but she participates in the senior services and so we do have a few BIPOC applicants who came in. But it was interesting, like looking at some of the folks that have lower socioeconomic who are wanting to engage, but, you know, because we're on Zoom, it was really evident the lack of technology, you know, one called in and the other one had trouble with the technology piece getting the app and doing all this, so it's, it's really interesting how we expect people to conform to our structures and how we do business rather than us making those arrangements, our changes to accommodate people and meet them where they're at. So that's, that's something that is ongoing. And I saw you end up, I don't know, is that the whole, all of you all? I think it was John. Oh, it's John. Yeah, I didn't, I don't know how that shows up on the other side, but I just wanted to say quickly, you know, when it comes to that kind of like, digital literacy or digital like navigation, digital navigating, library can play a huge role in that we already do, you know, so we already, I mean, we have a program of that in place, not for that particular purpose, but we do a class once a month and it's specifically, we have a Spanish instructor come in and it's for basic computer skills for non-English speakers, I mean, particularly Spanish speakers, but, and there's a whole statewide grant currently being written for a whole digital navigator program to be implemented statewide. And I'm on a committee in Boulder County that's a part of that to talk about that. So Longmont already does some stuff there in that, besides the library. Anyway, I just want to, you know, I'm happy to talk to you more about that, but wow, I'm just thinking to get more engagement on this level, you know, we can definitely play a role in that to help people, whether they're on the library board or any other board or commission. No, I think that's fantastic in finding ways to bring different departments together and kind of have what we all are doing here in the library and how that can support others. You know, and then tomorrow, before council, we do have our boards and commissions updates. So council, all the liaisons we share out and I will definitely be sharing what we discussed here tonight and the importance. I mean, there's so much room to have the library be an integral part in, you know, building that bridge for people who are linguistic, socioeconomic, you know, there's all these avenues that we can tap into the library resources if we just need to fund it better. So I'm going to keep pounding, you know, maybe one of these days it'll, what is it they say that, how long does the person have to hear the same message before they're all like, oh, I haven't, yeah? Seven. Seven or one, three. What is it? Seven. Seven? Seven or a million, somewhere in there. Well, they also have to hear in different places. Yeah. Yeah, people, different people as well. So, yeah, I think, you know, that was kind of the big thing we're looking at right now. We have our new council member, Diane Chris, who's on board. We did make our appointments for liaisons. So I'll still be on the library. You all have me. So, you got to pick up your game, woman. And it will also be part of the, I'll continue on at the museum, as well as the arts and public places. So I kind of, that would be a cool way to kind of link those. Yeah, you got all the cool stuff. Yeah. Thank you so much, Suzy. I'm so happy to hear you're continuing as our liaison, because I think it takes a little bit of time to get someone up to speed on the functions of the library and the value of the library. So we really, I think next year, we'll be leaning on your advice and expertise on how to spread this message more effectively. Yeah, yeah, I'd be happy to. Thank you. Any questions for Suzy on that update? Wait, well, our next standing item is library profession news. The next thing, and that's just to share if there's anything happening in the greater world of libraries in Colorado, the US, or beyond, I have nothing that you're so ready for the semester break that my mind has not been thinking about the big picture of libraries recently. The same as this one. Anyone else have anything from the world of library news they want to share? Well, at this point, I'll open up to any other library board comments. Great, well, thank you all so much. Our next meeting is January 22nd, 2024. And I will call this meeting at 841.