 more of a turnout tonight, but that's okay. This will be an intimate conversation with the folks who are here. Maybe other people will join us as the evening goes on. I'm Rachel Muse. I'm the director of the library. I've been here for just over a year, I think 14 months now. And the library commission really have long been talking about the library doing some strategic planning. And this is such a great time to do that because relatively new director, a lot of staff transition over the past few years. The library has been fully reopened since the pandemic. Starting last June, and we've slowly over that time loosened up our various COVID protocols. So we're finally at the point where it feels like we are back up and running like a library. Circulation numbers are back up to the numbers that they were before the library closed. We are seeing the after school kids that we didn't see in those years. The programming is always going to look a little bit different going forward. Sometimes we do it in person, sometimes we do it on Zoom, sometimes we do a hybrid. So it seems like a good time to kind of reflect and think about what we want to see from the library going forward. So this meeting was our opportunity to just reach out to the community and say, do you want to sit down and have a conversation with us and provide some input, some of your vision for what you'd like to see from the library, what's working, what's not working, just any ideas that people might have. So Ann Turkle is going to lead this meeting. She is a former Johnson State professor from former Johnson State College and a Waterbury resident about six years, a Vermont resident for many years. And I'm going to let her kind of get the ball rolling with some questions. Okay. Well, I just want to say what a huge fan I am of the library. I figured out I did a little calculation. I think there are at least six things that you offer that I take advantage of, and I really depend on it. I mean, it's just so great to have it here. I love it. And I'm always curious what other people find most attractive, what they do take advantage of. I know that I'm always surprised that there's more going on than I even realized. Rachel, before we started, gave me a printout of the newsletter. And my gosh, there is just an amazing array of things that are happening. And so I'm very admiring all of that and impressed and enjoy it. What I would like to do is just talk. And the thing that we are perhaps most interested in is your sense of what the library is already doing really well and what helps you. And then what you could see is opportunities, things that perhaps they're not doing yet, or they could do more of, or however it might work. So please, just join me. You know, it's going to be so noisy. Yes. The new visa up here for you. Yeah, exactly. We're just getting started. Yes. How do you get a newsletter? And how often do they come up? Newsletters, check in with me with your email address before you go, and I'll make sure you're on the mailing list. And we generally have two a month, one that promotes youth programming and one that promotes adult programming. And you get both if you're on the list. Okay. And I forgot to say one of the things I hope each of us would do is if you have a question or want to make a comment, please introduce yourself just very briefly. So I know who you are. We know who you are. I'm Penny Hallabaugh, and we live in Waterbury and have been here six years. And our daughter married Ava Majer, and so there's no place else to live. What do you, what do you love? What do you take advantage of? I come to the writing group, which meets once a month. Fabulous people on that group. It's really impressive. I get books through interlibrary long. That's one of the things that I have found is so useful. I'm just amazed at the things they can, they can chase down for me. So, you know, what has your experience been? As a former teacher, I always like to say, don't make me call on you. So, please, you know, please just let us know, you know, what are you using the library for now, and yeah, any ideas? Well, I'll say, so my name is Diana King. I've lived in Waterbury now for just over a year. And I'm also on the library commission because I love libraries and I wanted to get involved in my new community. So here I am. And I'll say that my toddler and I have read hundreds of books from this library and all of which I would not have been able to read with her if I had to purchase them myself. So I am forever in the dead of the library for being able to offer variety to my life in the form of kids books. Such a service to everyone who can use them and share them. And I know that it's doing so much good for her and her language development. I'm Teresa Wood and I lived here my whole life and have seen the evolution of our library services. Used to look across the street and used to come to the library as a kid and go upstairs to what I did, what I now know, was the historical society, but I thought it was always the library. And, you know, we were able to kind of look at one of those things where stereograph or something. Something like that. I said, maybe similar to that anyways. So my usage has certainly evolved over the years from being a young kid. What I use it for right now, honestly, is the connection to the digital books that I listen to in my car when I'm driving all around. And I've done that quite a bit lately in the last couple of years. And I'm just grateful. I got the newsletter now. I signed up for the newsletter. And it's, I'm grateful for all the programming that the library does, even though I'm not able to take advantage of it all. I was like, oh, oh, I wish I could do that. Or I wish I could do that. Like the one with the poetry and Pardon? Was it music? It was poetry and yoga or something. Yeah, body, yeah. Yeah, I thought that sounds really cool. So, you know, but you know, didn't fit with my schedule, but it's not for the lack of wanting to participate. And there certainly is such a variety of things, both for adults and for youth. I'm just, you know, really proud of what our library does, and has, and offers. And so glad to support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. My name is regulation assistant of the library. We're here for about a year now. And what I love about the library is people from the bases I see all the time, to somebody that I've made with our football search fights. I just love interacting with so many different people. And I love, I love seeing people come into the library and be like, oh, hey, how are you? I haven't seen you in a long time. Like, I like that it's a nice community space in that way. And then like with my personal use of library, I love Libby. I love the audio books and the ebooks. And I use that resource personally so much. I appreciate it. I think I think it's kind of fun. It's great to be the library director, but we've been getting a lot of tourists lately, who are passing through and visiting Waterbury. And they come to the library because it's a place to find a bathroom and a place to sit down and figure out the plan for the rest of their day. And they always say really nice things. They seem to really enjoy our library. So it's we've kind of become this sort of de facto tourist stop for a lot of people, which has been really nice to see. That's great. That's funny, because I just heard somebody this week. We were outweeding in front of the train station and somebody came by and they were looking for the community room to be open. And of course it wasn't yet because it wasn't late enough for Amtrak to be in. But I will say that one of the people I was with said, why don't you go to the library? You can use a restroom there. We've been now calling now. Like I would have never thought to tell them to come to the library, but I was like, oh yeah, well, yeah, this is one of the days, you know, the evening's it's open, so yeah. So it was just funny that that you said that, Jim. I'm Maureen White. I'm a library volunteer, also a president of the Friends of the Library of the Library. I absolutely love the library. I never came to the library. I was just obviously busy working once I retired. I said, I'm buying books I can't afford it. So I'll figure out the library. And I originally decided to be a volunteer because I knew they had a book sale on my back post in finance. I thought they must need somebody to cut the money, right? Well, no, they didn't. But they said, would you like to sell books? I'm like, okay, I can do that. I love that. I love seeing what people are reading. I love, you know, it's kind of a quiet space to, you know, it's kind of my zen, just make sure everything's nice and straight. I really love it. And so I read a good variety of books. I love the programming, the book club that they do. Just being around, being part of the community, the field, the kids in, making noise. And it's such a lovely place to be. And I find that I come here and sit upstairs with the quiet, was here today. I had to go through like a 50-page document up there. Pretty quiet. It was lovely. Looking out, the people who designed this building did a really good job. So I just find this a great place to be, making more friends with the community. I'm already volunteers at the senior centers. You know, I'm a volunteer too, so I'm on the board. I spend a lot of time there, too. That's nice. You're there. I know, you're just like, back and forth, back and forth. I do, I do. It's a good place to be a part of. Our granddaughter says that the library is so quiet and it smells good. And she gets work done here. She said that the reason that she comes is if she goes home, she's distracted by so many things. So she comes here to get things done. She's 16. So she's asking. So I have a question. I'm sorry I was a little bit late, but did somebody explain sort of is this part of a, you know, what was it part of? So this is, we are working on the library's first strategic plan since 2009. We started off with a community survey that went out, and this meeting is just an opportunity for people who wanted to maybe share a little bit more beyond the survey or have a conversation with us to get their input in. And the next step will be to process all that information and start drafting the plan with a, the commissioners will hold a retreat and figure things out. And then I'm hoping that that final plan will be done early in the coming year, before town meeting date for sure. So you'll be seeing that all over town once it comes out. So that's the goal. Great. Thanks. It's really interesting. The last strategic plan 2009 was all about getting a building. Yeah. Everything just, you know, going through at that point and what happened two years later. We're in a really fortunate position because we don't have a real pressing need like that. We don't need to launch a big capital campaign. We don't need to worry about a building. So this really is more of an opportunity to just say, Hey, what does the community want from your library? Are they happy with things as they are? Is there something that we're missing that they'd really like to see? So that's brilliant. It's just so nice to be able to do that. Yeah. It's a very good position to be in. So we're just listening and getting input from the community at this point. Penny, when we talked earlier, you mentioned that you enjoyed some of the movement classes, which I've never taken advantage of. Yeah. I come to all of the movement classes and now there are not so many. And I was wondering, actually, my question is two parts. Is it because there aren't people available to teach the funds are not there or it just hasn't ramped up yet. So there actually are two right now. There's the cherry yoga class, which is a zoom based class. And that might be part of what the shift was was that that that shifted to zoom during the closure, but people like it on zoom and we're going to keep that one here. And then there's another class that it's being advertised as an arthritis exercise class, but it is open to anybody who might want a lower impact movement class. And that's on Wednesday mornings this fall. So if you're interested, that might be a good one to check out. But so those are the two we're offering right now, but we would if we do, we would be open to adding to it if we if we didn't find a good, it is about finding a good instructor really. In the past, we've had Tai Chi and Chigong, local instructors and some yoga and some wine dancing and all these kinds of things. So I would be interested in having something every day if that was possible, just for me. And so the other part of that question is, what about space? I don't know how the steel room is allocated. The use is allocated. And is there any expansion space in the basement? Because the cell room is lovely, but it's not so good when you're trying to have a group of people doing something physical. The basement has been retrofitted to deal with flood mediation. So it's really not usable. It's kind of it got raised up pretty high. So it's very fun to get. That's kind of interesting if you're ever down there. Hi, welcome. And the steel room is available when we can when we can get it. But we're in competition with everybody else who wants to use it. We don't get priority for being the library. So but it is an option for us to occasionally use the steel room. Our Honey Bees Steel Band is actually going to be performing in this room on October 8th. And I'm really excited for that program. If anyone's looking for a very lively music program with people dressed as Honey Bees. It should be a blast. Our largest classes are also available at the Senior Center. It's the same class as Tuesday Night. I haven't taken part in them, but I've observed them and they look wonderful. And just different, you know, where she's got people moving and different, you know, moving with weights and everything else. Hello, my name's Anne. And we would love it if you came and sat up here. Because yeah, thank you. Well, it's sort of that proposal as we have the chair of the Select Board remaining and walking in and we have another Select Board member. One of the things that I have had people ask me about this isn't as much about programming, but as you know, we think that the future is how, you know, since it's a it's a Waterbury library and we have people from other communities who use the library on a regular basis is how, you know, is there any contribution or something like that? And I shouldn't only answer to that question because I should have, you know, read the chat report from the center all the way through that I have and all of that. So if people want to be members of the library and have borrowing privileges, they do have to pay an annual fee. It's $25 a year. So I feel like that's a steal. We don't we don't ask folks who are coming to programs where they're coming from. That's just been by and in fact, during COVID, when all of our programming went on to Zoom, we started we have somebody who comes to the writers group from Japan. So so so that is that is something that I think has always been a little bit of a question mark is how, you know, should we be asking for paying for folks who are not from Waterbury? Is it is an entirely community library or are we open to, you know, understanding that we're going to be doing this community anyway. It's okay to have other folks drop in. I will say we have an amazing friends of the library group that does fundraising for us. So that's been a wonderful way to, you know, things like with the tourists who drop in and use the bathrooms, they'll frequently put a little bit of money in the friend's jar. They'll they'll buy a book from the friend's book sale. And Marine's been doing a great job with finding some new ways to get the friends out with the community and do a little bit more fundraising. And I think there's a lot of potential there to to do some to maybe do some merchandising for the library since it's becoming such a hot place. Said people want to be, why not sell Waterbury for the library hats and t-shirts and things like that. So farmers market twice this year just did a ton of the book sale on the road. And it was great. It was really people were just they wanted to have a library. Some people who are from out of town love books and you just want to talk about their library and it was a great way to get us out there. What a good idea. Yeah, it was it was fun. It kept raining on Thursdays. We were cursed on Thursdays. So do they pay an annual 25-dollar membership fee? Yeah, it's an annual membership fee and that and I know that sounds low, but that recently was was raised from I think was $15 for many, many years. So so and then most people pay it very happily. And yeah, we have a lot of users from more town from Bolton, even from as far as Richmond, we have folks from Montpelier who you don't have to come through. So we do have a lot of people who take advantage of that. Duxbury residents have a unique situation because they don't have their own library. We're kind of their library. So they pay the $25 fee. They can be reimbursed by the town of Duxbury for that because they don't have a library there. So so we have a lot of Duxbury users who do that. So they pay us, but then they get their members get it money back from Duxbury. Yeah. Thanks. Hey, you've been sort of a really cool position to hear people's reaction to what's going on, what they like and you know what might rub their fur the wrong way. What is your sense of that? I mean, most of the feedback that I received has been about like in-person events. I think like moving back kind of what you were speaking about moving back into less virtual events and more in-person programming, which I feel like we have been ramping up. And it's so nice to have the garden space and be able to get outside and things like that. Yeah, I mean, ideally that's the most feedback that I get is about yeah, just like programming and wanting more programming is just really positive. Yeah. Excellent. I just want to comment as much as I love libraries, I'm probably not a good user, although when I was younger, I was a heavy user of libraries. But since the internet, I think I search, I think I'm a typical person. I searched a lot of things on the internet that I formally would normally do in a library. And I think I look at the Waterbury Library, the things that I like are the events. I think it's really kind of important that because it's something different, you know. I'm probably not going to check out too many books here. You know, I'm either going to buy a book. It's like, for instance, I was over at Restore and they have in their book section, if everyone's familiar with Restore, it's kind of like, you know, you could get, for the month of September, a box full, you know, like a carry box for a dollar as many books over. We're interested in the end of the month. And it's a really good deal for them. They have some, you know, it's not something you're going to get. Like if you're going to get a travel book, it's going to be something that's going to be 10 years old or something. But there are kinds of great biographies cooking. And I guess I, I wind up, I find more things at bargain places such as yard sales and stuff like that because everyone wants to, you know, to me, unless it's something I love a book, they don't keep trope, want to keep it. And I think there are so many ways. And I guess, you know, to me, the library is kind of a resource, the kind of things, you know, I do check as things like coming, look at the consumer reports when I want to buy something. But I rarely check out the, I bet you I haven't checked out a book in 10, 15 years. And I think maybe I'm somewhat typical, but maybe I'm not. There are other people maybe who are. I'll give a weird, just different perspective. So my name's Alyssa Johnson. Teresa said I own Select Board, which I will say was made possible by the library because I printed my petition to run out the library because I did not own a printer at the time and then got waved because of COVID. So I will say, you know, certainly I'm really for that, having a computer, all these things. But I do think that like having just a public space, someone can go print. One of my previous roles in town was also working with revitalizing waterway, which does a lot of similar kind of programming for the community. And so two things that stick out to me is just really robust programming at the library. We all have talked about it. But in particular, revitalizing waterway has a community event calendar. And I would say the proportion of events on that calendar that are from the library is often quite high, but just it's one of those places you can always look to for programming. And just folks have touched on, but the spaces, having the smaller meeting rooms for folks, we had a guest coming to a meeting recently who needed to take a separate meeting, not in this room before. And so the fact that there is bookable private spaces, I mean, suggested municipal manager search in the south room, thank you. So I just want, you know, we have some of those spaces in the community, but I think they are really important. And it's often requested inquiries I got in that kind of RW hot. I like the idea of thinking about the technical resources, as you said, relying on the printer. I know that there are other things here that people come and are able to take advantage of. I am one of the people that needs technical assistance. And rather than drive my son completely mad, I come in and ask for help. And it's just for me, it's for what I am trying to accomplish, but it is so nice to be able to do that. It's just remarkable. I'm curious how many people do take advantage of that? Oh, quite a few. So what Anne's referring to is one of our, we have a tech librarian who can book time with one on one time to sit down and get a tech support with. And I think in a given week, he probably can tell me about six people. And he'll sit for a solid hour with somebody. He'll give you a lot of time. And then I'll say that on a smaller scale, Haley, myself, and whoever happens to be running the help desk will be helping people on the fly all the time, who are using the public computers or trying to print something from their phone or something along those lines. So it's, you know, the library really is, we are trying to, you know, focus out kind of the digital divide situation. There's a lot of people out there who don't necessarily have access to the technology or the expertise with the technology or these days of printer or something along those lines. And the number of people who are sitting in their cars using our Wi-Fi when I get to work at nine in the morning would surprise you, I think. Rachel, you need to advertise that a lot. I found that out through you. Like, you know, I've been having some problems with and I'm going to contact Kyle to, you know, have him take a look at what's going on. You know, I was just going to bring it to, you know, a small dog and, you know, bear the price. I mean, it could be something really somewhat ex-Savvy, but nowadays everything's so, you know, can't be very gaunted sometimes, even if you aren't ex-Savvy. And it's a really good resource for those people. I think there are a lot of people in town who are not, especially the senior generation, which I am one, you know, who are not that ex-Savvy. So I think it's, you know, that's a really important, you know, maybe I'm a little new school because I don't necessarily think, I think a lot of people are less than much borrowing books, but maybe I'm wrong. I would say we have, we still have a lot of people borrowing books. Our numbers, our circulation numbers, 2019 was actually the busiest year this library ever had. And then, of course, shortly after that, the library had to close, but our circulation numbers are creepy, very much close to the 2019 numbers again. What we have seen that has changed is during our closure, a lot of people learned to use Libby, and people who maybe never would have thought they'd be comfortable with audiobooks or with ebooks did get comfortable with that. Interesting thing is those people aren't going away. They're still using Libby, and they're still using the audio and ebooks, but they're also coming back to the library, and they're getting physical books as well. So it's interesting to me that that number of ebook users hasn't really dropped down very much, but the number of traditional book users has longed back up. There are a lot of, I was very surprised, but the things when we did a community survey, we've had 100 responses so far. And the number one thing people think the library should prioritize is still books. A lot of our users are still very interested in traditional books, even as opposed to ebooks and audiobooks. Do you have any number contrast from say like 20 years ago? Would it, more clearly, the internet wasn't as terrible? Yeah, I would have to, I'm sure I could figure out those numbers. That'd be really interesting. In my fingers. Because I know years ago, I used to use the library quite a bit, you know, because you didn't have that research ability. But nowadays, you know, it's a lot easier going on the internet and your sweatpants and, you know, what I love about is that it's not an either or proposition. There are people who will always be more comfortable with this, you know, the book in their hands. But there are many people, and I feel that what the library is doing is so democratizing, because there are people who simply can't afford a computer. And that they have that access is just, I think, terribly important. And along those lines, the borrowing from other sources, I haven't used it, but my husband has had wonderful success for several years with getting things through the library long and then so efficient and so quick. Really nice job, nice job. What is the source now, since we don't have a newspaper anymore, what's the source going to be for the programming, seeing what the programming is besides having the newsletter? Yeah, the newsletter is probably your best way to see everything. Major, major programs get posted to front porch forum. The Waterbury Roundabout does pick up our program information as well. And while they aren't going to be printing the Waterbury reader anymore, you can still get the Waterbury Roundabout emails. Which is helpful. Those are really the best sources. Major items we do have on WDEV. And of course, most of our events we post on our Facebook page. And then some of our events we post on Instagram as well. So those are most of our sources. But I really, I'll make sure that you get the newsletter, because that's going to be your very best method of getting that information. On our website too? Yes, our website is very up to date with the program information as well. So that's always worth checking out. I was wondering, because there's been a proliferation of the little community library boxes around town. Is that had any impact on your visits or the people using? Yeah, I really don't think so. I think that the, you know, it's interesting. I just think there are those readers out there who their way of reading is what they come across. And those are the type of people who take what they find out a little free library or out of a take a book, leave a bookshelf or something along those lines. What we see are really passionate readers who read a lot and who have requests and who have things that they want to get some things on. Yeah, so I think that we see some of those types of folks. And especially our book sale probably has more over that with our book sales by donation. So people just pay whatever they feel comfortable with. And they pay nicely to make a lot of money off of that book sale. Yeah, but I think that the little free libraries, they're so small and they're so hit or miss that I don't think that the library users. Maureen might have a sense of that too. I totally agree with that. I think if you and somebody's reading, you know, they have a favorite author and they're working their way through the series, they're not going to go to the little libraries that they find that come here. But I also know that Penny and I hit the little free libraries and leave books there because that's what I'm always looking to do. You know, I wish I could steal myself. I cannot go to that place that you mentioned that you can get the bucket of books because that would just ruin me. I already have too many books. And so I'm always looking, you know, I'm driving by the little free libraries saying do they have room for a few more, you know, that's like the whole idea is like buy a book. You know, it's so cheap, their books are like soft covers of 50 cents, fine covers. Yes, I know, you know, sometimes it's something you're interested in. Like I get a lot of cookbooks. I like looking like a lot of international things. And you don't want to go and go to Barnes and Noble and pay, you know, $25 for a book. But, you know, if you get it at the restore, you know, for a 50 cents or a dollar, it's a bargain. Yes, then David. Oh, for if you get it at the library, it's free. But you have to get it on that. Right. There's no fines anymore. There's no fines. No fines, yeah. So our book sale volunteer actually takes some of the rejected books from our book sale and brings them to the little free library. Yeah. So it's kind of like full-time. Yeah, a funnel. Yeah, and eventually they end up in this. That's great. Yeah. I was depressed when I was in the senior center the other day. There's a huge table of books there. And that's new since I was in last. They're just trying to clean out the basement. And so they decided to have a little sale and just make a little bit of money. Because it's more to clean out the space because there's so much stuff from the basement down there. So this was trying to kind of push it around. It's not in competition with this. Well, I went on a bag full. I know. One of the things that I wasn't as much aware of. And I think, I don't remember if it was you or Judy or somebody who posted recently about the things that you can borrow here. Mm-hmm. You know, like, no shoes or like, you know. No shoes. Right. No shoes. Yeah. I mean, that's something that's really interesting. That's actually something I'd love to hear from you folks as to are there like, what do you see as the kind of most useful things for that? Because I'm always looking to add to that collection. So the telescope's hugely popular. The snowshoes are very popular. And those are the kinds of things that I think are great. Because they're the type of thing that it's a little bit expensive. It's something that maybe you're going to use. If you're somebody who's not an avid snowshoer, you're going to try it out once in the winter and not necessarily do it all the time. And we have some, you know, cake pans that are funny shapes, things like that, some board games, some craft type items of Belting Kid. What do you think was the Chilobot meter? Oh yeah, that's pretty cool. Wood, pile, what do you call that thing? Oh, the moisture meter. Moisture meter to see if your wood is ready to burn. So that's the kind of thing you only need once in a year. So try to bring your wood in. Somebody just donated a very elaborate roughing calculator. Oh, I didn't know that. But it's not in the collection. I just got it. So do any folks have thoughts on the types of things that you think, boy, once in a year, I need blank. I'd love to be able to go to the library and get it instead of having to rent it or buy it or not thoughts on that. I think, like, well, it's my bent and I probably could donate would be like fishing poles. You know, there are a lot of young family life on free fishing day. You know, if they're limited, they don't have, they don't want to go out and spend $25 for a fishing pole. Especially, you know, I would say that's what kept me from being a juvenile expert was going fishing when I was a little kid. And I think, you know, both for adults and kids, but I think, you know, sometimes, especially people on lower incomes just don't have the money for something. And we're right next to, you know, when you ski or stuff like that, you know, I think it would be something that would be appreciated for people who just don't want to maybe invest because they don't use it, only about once or twice a year. One of the things that my friend's library that she lives in the town of Hartford, but there's several little libraries in the town of Hartford, they have purchased, like, seasons passes to, you know, various, like, vins or, you know, various things like that. Shover museum they have. Yeah. Museum pass. Oh. Which I was amazed at. A lot of museum passes. Yeah. You don't, you don't, you don't. Okay, let me see. I didn't know that's going to help. Well, that's part of, this is great because it's helping me to figure out what I need to promote from this stuff a little bit. Mm-hmm. It was a good, like, state parks. I don't know if you do or don't work, that's awkward, but given that we have two literally in town, I know, like, for me, it's worth it to get the whole state park-wide one. But there was something in town on adjacent recreation. I love to cross-country ski here. I don't know if the schools already do that, but if not, again, it's like, this is a great flat field for folks to try, and we often do their lights in the winter. So, um. Yeah, that's true. I know, you know, folks, that might be a more complicated rental, which I understand. So that's not a, that's a look into it, and I understand either way, but it is also right here. But apropos, I love seeing kids out here sledding in the winter, and if they built those steps, and that would help. I mean, I'll step down this hill. Yeah, I know. It's our dream. That's how we care. It's on the hill. That's only more of a problem than an opportunity. Yeah, but inevitably, you go down. Yeah. It's all good. This is going to be fun. I'd like to try the Henry Club over a while. Walk up there and try it. Two, what's I'm going to say? What is it that people play on the tennis courts, but it's not? Pick a ball. Yeah, pick a ball. Pick a ball. Like, that's one thing I want to learn how to play. I don't know how to play. Are you sure? A couple more court in town? I think that, I don't know, but somebody told me that tennis courts are marked for pick a ball as well. Oh, I know the tennis court. Yeah. I think that's often the thing. It's the same court. Yeah, well, so maybe that's the immigration committee. Oh, I'm sure it is. So I'll pick a ball. But I'm not, I don't know if I would, if I would like really take it up, so I don't want to run by supplies tonight. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. More and more seniors, or even people of some age, are playing pick a ball. Yeah, and people obviously have a tennis player. And, you know, when you get older, you know, pick a ball just, you know, especially playing singles, it's just a little bit more accommodating thing. Yeah, smaller court stuff's not as heavy as, yeah. It looks fun, yeah. It's a lot of fun. It's a, if you have thoughts about that after this meeting, because that's an area that I think that we are always, you know, curious, like, what's going to circulate in the library, about the library of things? What kinds of things do people want? Send them my way, because that's an area that I'd like to get some suggestions in. So, like, on the website, I should probably know this, but does it, like, have a list of items you can borrow from them? There's a page of library of things. Yeah. And actually, you can search the catalog, too, which is, which is good, so that you can bring up those items. Oh, you made a list of them. Get a small list of them. Yeah, yeah. And that's just a non-traditional way that I think you support the community. And I think a lot of people, I hate to say this, but I don't know. You know, I'm charity select board. Some of the things I didn't know about what, I didn't know about the park pass, you know, like showroom, museum, and stuff like that. You know, I knew about the telescope and snowshoes and stuff, and I have all that stuff, but, yeah, it's neat to know that. And some people just don't even think to ask. They don't think of that as a library function. The small, what are they, 35-millimeter slide projector? It would be nice to have access to one of those. And then also something that still plays tapes. Both VHS and audio tapes. And all the VHS would hold a scar to them. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I actually had it. Yeah, or you got through the attic and no way to hook them up. They don't go with what you've got. Yeah. Something that can convert them to DVDs. Yeah. Or digital formats. Yeah, a converter would be great. A converter. And that just popped into my mind. Oh, gosh, that would be nice. Wow. Yeah. Well, it really is. This is great. Yeah, to me, it's just more, you know, how you advertise better but making the community more aware of you. I know you try doing that, but it's a hard reach sometimes. Yes, it's great. But how do you get information about what's going on in the community? What are your preferred Trim porch form? Trim porch form is when I look at it. Yeah. I get little circulars at the supermarket. I'm old school. One minute you're old school, the next minute you're new school. I can be very, I go from old school to new school. There's like a lot of community molding boards. I think they're really, you know, especially, you know, the old, you know, country stores where we're having big bold, you know. I just love looking at it. I kind of found some neat, really events around the state, you know, just by looking at some of those community molding boards. Does front porch form operate so that you can have a weekly posting of stuff? Yeah, I think post, well, we can post pretty much whenever we want. They do limit. They don't let us post. They don't let us spam front porch form. But between all of us, we can post pretty much anywhere we want. So we mostly use it to remote events, but this is making me think that, you know, maybe it makes sense to kind of use it to just promote. Promote availability. We have so many news. We have tons of those. Or even link to your newsletter. I was, I am also, don't think I'm on the newsletter list just because I never thought to click subscribe. And so that showed up in a front porch form. I believe that's true. I want to say I follow your social media. I don't know who does the book drop update. I do look at them. I also will say though, I think like I'm a pretty weird bend diagram who's like very into the library and also on social media. And I don't know who else exists in that bend diagram, but I'm a part of it. Which is just to say, I share that to say like I do look at it. I don't know that I'm necessarily encouraging investing more time and effort into it, but I do at least. Instagram's been popular. It's been more and more popular. So that's been great. And yet it's fun to do those cook drop. We take a picture of just all the items that we pull out of the book drop in the morning because it's kind of like just to see what people are returning and what's going on at the library. What guys and things did they put in there? Well, it's mostly books, but sometimes there's other stuff too. It was a squash or something like that. A squash? She's ever said that. Surprise, you haven't been finding zucchini. We do find something very odd with that. Yeah, luckily we do. I love our new book drop. I don't know if folks noticed, but there used to be a very ugly green one out there that very much looked like a trash can. So this is, we don't get as much trash. I am so impressed. And this has been fun. And I, and I know that you all really appreciate your taking the time and talking to us and giving us ideas. I thought this was wonderful. Thank you. Really nice to know the support that we have in this community, definitely. Is there any chance that the book group is going to stop being on Zoom and be live? The book group members who are regular goers love it and love being on Zoom. So I think that group is staying on Zoom, but we are hoping to launch a new book group that will be an in-person book group. And the theme of that book group is probably going to be banned books. So if that interests you, I think that's going to be a really interesting group. So watch for that. And a shameless community, you know. I believe Bridgelye Books has an in-person book. Yes, and that's a very active book group that is in person. But I think that the No Pressure Book Group, which I will, I will say is a ton of fun. We all like to be home in our pajamas while we're on it. So, yeah. Something that we should do about that. There is. So you just brought up the topic of banned books. I'm just curious if you've had any, like people coming in and, you know, with complaints about certain books or wanting to know if anything's been taken off the shelf. This community is so supportive. People, we have a really nice banned books this late right now. Yeah, they have a section on it. It's really lovely. They have a banned book section. And mostly I get, we get a lot of comments from people saying, wow, I can't love you yet. People would ban those books. So I've not received any challenges. I think, I'm really impressed with Waterbury. It's a community of readers and very passionate people. And it's been really nice to get that support. I'm just wondering that just popped into my head about, is there any sort of connection with the library, librarians, libraries at our schools? I wondered about that too. Yeah, not as much as there should be because in recent years with the, I think the school librarians have been pretty overwhelmed with what they've been dealing with with the pandemic. But we do talk pretty regularly, especially with the CrossFit Brook Mill School librarians. And actually just today, Cynthia and I, the children's librarian, were talking about making more of a concerted effort to have more relationship with them. But this past year, we did do, we received a grant that was pretty cool that allowed us to give out books that dealt with social-emotional learning topics to kids in all the schools. And so we connected with the librarians to help us figure out the best way to do that and to help us choose the books. And then Cynthia made a little video of herself introducing herself, talking about the library, talking about the books, and then the books went out to the kids. And so what was really fun about that was then when we started our summer reading program and kids started coming in to see Cynthia for summer reading, they said, I saw you in the video too. So it was a good way to connect with them at a point when we weren't really allowed to go into the schools and connect with them. But we're hoping that this year, with things kind of being a little bit more normal with the schools, we'll be having more back and forth with the school librarians. You just mentioned something, you know, another thing on your plate, and that is grant applications. Do you do that much? We've just come out of a period where we had a lot of major grants going on. Like the town, libraries received Arba funding much smaller scale, Arba funding, which came to us through the Department of Libraries, and most of that was spent on some technology projects, some digital books because that was a big push for Arba, things like that, and actually purchased our new book drop some other major kind of facilities items like that. And we just closed the children's library grant, we just closed was over $5,000 from the Vermont Children's Trust Fund. So that was a really, really nice grant that allowed us to really shore up our children's book collection and let us buy some very cool children's book technology launch pads, which are these little learning tablets that we can loan out to kids and Wonder Books, which are talking books, books that read the story to you, which are really cool. And so we have some grants that we receive just about every year from the Department of Libraries that support things like the ILL service, which is a career service that runs through Vermont, support our summer reading program, things like that. And then other grants that we apply for when something interesting comes along. So we are always on the lookout for potential. We're very successful with getting grants too, I will say. So I think we have very strong grant writing skills on staff, which is really nice. Hey, that just made me think when you said ILA or whatever the initial sort of English language learners. Do you have any resources here for folks who are learning English as their second language? We don't have a lot. We have a little bit. We don't have a lot, and we don't have a staff member who's really skilled in that area. So that's an area that we could definitely put some energy into. I didn't know what the need is in our community, but I know often we have people who have immigrated to the country and have moved to our area. That's something you might learn about more with the connection with the schools, because they will be aware of the people who might need that kind of support in the community. That would be a really good option for people during the daytime. Actually, in another city, I met at the library with some moms after their kiddos got to school, and they were from the Middle East. And we went to the grocery store together. We went to the drugstore together. They talked about how do you work the washing machine and what kind of soapy. You got soap in the box. You got soap in the bottle. You got soap in little things. What do you use? And that kind of thing. And you have to be available during the day to do that. So that would be an outreach perhaps for people who are available during the day. That just made me think of, you know, you have a basic area across the street, and I was just, do you have connections there? A little bit. I've talked to them a little bit. We promote them a lot, and they promote some of our programs, so we've done that. But I think they use our space sometimes. Yeah. What a surprise. How many interlibrary transfers do you have either per month or per year? Oh boy. Because it is a lot. It is a lot. It's incredible. Yeah. Do you have a guess? They kind of think it's a lot. 15 spokes go in and out every week. Yeah. And we send 50 to get this. Wow. I've never seen this. Yeah, it's a lot. And then there's even more that, there's at least a handful more that go out through mail. Yeah, that's true. So it's pretty significant. For folks who don't know, we're part of a consortium, the Catamount Library Consortium. So our catalog is a shared catalog with a number of other libraries that we're not. So it's really easy and convenient for people to place holds on books that are at other libraries. So I think that's something we do really, really well. And it's thanks to that consortium and thanks to the support that the State Department of Libraries provides with that career service. So a little career van drives from library to library with little bins of books. And twice a week they come and they drop off bins and they pick up bins. So it's pretty cool. And you even go beyond that too. I know a few doers have asked for books that were not within that consortium. And you still got them. Yeah, we will. It'll take a little bit longer, but we'll mail things back and forth to libraries that are further away too. So it's a really, and that is supported by a grant from the Department of Libraries. So that's really nice because a lot of that can get expensive, but a lot of that is covered from the state. So that's a really, and that's something that I think, and you said you're a big user of the ILL. A lot of people do like that service a lot. I think I would like to ask on the strategic planning committee you talk a lot about reaching non-users. You know, people are here because you come to the library, you like the line or whatever, but there's a lot of people that don't use it. And I know the farmers market market was walking around and just grabbing people. Just wondering if there's groups like that, like people that were missing. Like how do we connect to these people? And are there groups that, you know, we're not serving that we should be likely, you know, or are there new ideas? I think it's just the services. People think, especially older people, think of libraries in a much different way. They don't think of it as events and borrowing things. They think of it as getting a book. And again, I think there are so many sources. There are so many books out there. John Walter probably hates this, you know, where, you know, we should be recycling all these books and stuff like that. But, you know, it's a hard task. And it's a combination of, I'm not a huge social media person, but it's a combination of social media, you know, more outreach events. You know, having like an open house, you know, a pizza and something open house. You know, get to know your library. There's all kinds of, you know, and some of those people are just never going to come. I mean, it's, but to at least know, put the thing up on the laundry mat on their bullet board, you know, it's places that they, you know, there's some people who never open up social media and you have to go very old school and people don't think about that. I want a better sign, I'll probably talk about that. I really love your idea about going to the farmer's market with the books too. That's a great idea. Is the literacy project for adults active anywhere in the area? Is the project for adults? An adult basic education. Yeah, across the street is the adult basic education office. So they do those, and they do do some, some of that here as far as advertising and bringing people in. So they're, they're pretty, I think they're pretty active. In terms of outreach, my general sense of waterways, waterways has a ton of awesome, really specific different types of organization. So if you're into mountain biking, there's a group. If you're into biking, there's a group. If you're into the library, you're in this room and there's a group. And so just, I feel like most of the, one, it's a hard and time intensive task. So like it's something we on the select board think about and like, again, it's just, it's hard and it takes a lot of time and resources. So I just want to acknowledge that to like get out of our bubbles. But I think if you can find liaisons in those other groups to share with that other network of, you know, even like people who work in the restaurants in town is a network. People who mountain bike is a network. The more you can get into those different other places that might not overlap. That's where I feel like I've had a lot of success in kind of getting things beyond. I'm going to say the local municipal government circle, which, you know, is a wonderful circle, but often kind of the same. One of the things that I appreciated is that Rachel and her predecessor were, are both members of the Waterbury Roadway Club. And so that's also enabled some connections in the community that might not have otherwise happened. And so that's, I think that's been really, really nice, really nice to have you there and really nice to have that connection. And I know I'm walking with a book. I said, do you have any of these here? Oh, maybe I'll put it in the book sale. So, you know, they're, I think, I appreciate that. Also, just because it hasn't been said, I just want to say I really acknowledge the library as a universal accessible place in the community. Just every time we're thinking about a public outreach survey, where to put a poster. I mean, even our municipal offices are wonderful. They're open standard business hours and you all have more extended hours on some nights. So just if there's something that we're trying to get out of the community, just knowing that like those bulletin boards, and I feel like I would not committing you for the future, but I've never had the library say no to like, can this other strategic planning survey also live in the library? So I just think that's really important and also appreciate just like the bulletin board. It's a little gallery space. I know there was just a little opening that I wasn't able to make, but just two other things. When you said accessible, maybe think of there are so many places in a community that has the age on it that ours does, that are not physically accessible to people. They're all library. And so we're moving in exactly. So I appreciate the fact that it's a space where people who have physical mobility challenges are able to so easily access. And the design of the, even the design of the parking lot and the ease of access to the door and stuff like that is really nice. So I appreciate that because there's times when you need to be able to meet with somebody and you look at the library. Okay, last chance. Well, thank you for doing this, though. I appreciate it. I apologize for being late. I had my calendar being started at 6.30 or as early. It's been great to get your input. It's really interesting. Thank you all. This was great. Thank you. And thank you for all what you do for the community. It's really important resource. Sometimes you'll hear the complaints a lot quicker than you will when we're not on time. Maybe we should establish a library appreciation day. Where people drop off some flowers and things. I mean, we just need an appreciation month. We should do a library one. Anyway, future items. Oh, really? Well, thank you. Like I said, we feel very supported in this community. It's a great place to be a lot of people. Yeah. It's a much better space. That's what I get. I see some pictures in it. Oh, it's cool. I always said, I never knew how, I remember when I was going to my job at the USDA, we donated a bunch, we have surplus furniture. And they said, yeah, bring it on. They had, you look at what kind of furniture you have today. You know, I'm sure you got rid of all our old shows. Well, we've been just talking about the smell. And like, you didn't feel that way when you walked into the old library. The smell smelled exactly like a mold building with lots of old books and old stuff. And it smelled like, so musty. Actually, there was probably a lot of mold on it. Yeah, I don't know. That's not what I'm talking about. Not heaven. All right, nice to see you all. Thank you. Thank you.