- Call to order the Monroe County Public Library Board of Trustees meeting for May 21st, 2025.
- May I first get a motion to approve the consent agenda from the last meeting.
- Second. I have a quick note on the consent agenda. You may notice in the finance report
- the column headers on page nine of the packet, which is the monthly summary of budget categories,
- says April 2024 versus April 2023. It should read April 2025 since that's the current year.
- The numbers themselves are correct. It's just the column headers are a typo.
- Any questions before we vote? Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
- Okay. Ayes have it. And next up we have Greer with our director's monthly report.
- Okay. I know I typically lead off with comments on our circulation numbers for the previous month.
- Tonight I want to emphasize how strong our overall collection use has been over the past year.
- We are now almost as strong in overall circulation as we were prior to March 2020 when the pandemic
- hit and effectively curtailed access to physical collections overnight and in some cases recalibrated
- library patrons' approach to borrowing materials. And that's a milestone we should be very proud of.
- In particular, our digital collection use, which includes all e-books, e-audio materials,
- downloadable and streaming content, online databases, is higher than at any other time
- in our history outside of those early pandemic months when many patrons had no choice but to
- shift to digital use. We attribute this positive trend to a number of factors including thoughtful
- selection and curation of our collections both physical and digital, careful and strategic
- management of our physical collections on the shelves and on display, the excellent public
- service recommendations our staff provide patrons when looking for resources, our first rate
- marketing and promotion of those collections, and our community of library users and supporters who
- make borrowing materials from MCPL a priority for themselves and their families. I'm very happy to
- highlight the success of our collections and would like to thank the departments who make this
- happen,
- collection development, circulation services, all of our public services audience areas,
- our communications and marketing team, and our IT department for maintaining and enhancing
- our website and our online catalog and discovery tools. We have added a new type of read-along
- material in the form of vox and wonder books. These are physical books which come with built-in
- audio that has a simple and intuitive push and play function which triggers a recording of the
- text. We introduced these at all three branch locations and as of today we've had a total of
- 116 checkouts of these materials. We're receiving positive feedback from Southwest patrons about
- our
- new Steed library at that branch. We also held our annual seed swap in partnership with Mother
- Hubbard's Cupboard and saw strong attendance at the event. In addition to their normal monthly
- local meeting coverage and production schedule, our CAT staff worked with the City of Bloomington
- to formalize the acquisition, presentation, and archiving of specific city council committee and
- subcommittee meetings held in council chambers as required by Indiana House Enrolled Act 1167.
- CATS also began working on the new lighting system in Studio A which is our primary production
- studio
- for programs like CATS Week. April featured a number of local media stories on public libraries
- and literacy and in some cases focused on MCPL itself. Collection development manager Lisa
- Ciampelli, communications and marketing director Tori LaHorn, teen services manager Sam Ott, and
- myself all participated in one or more of these local interviews and we're glad to see that our
- community is paying attention to libraries and the principle of intellectual freedom
- and showing support for MCPL. Southwest teen librarian Kate Long is partnering with Jackson
- Creek Middle School's special education department to bring students to the southwest team space
- once
- a month as a special school day field trip. This gives students and teachers an opportunity to
- explore what our southwest branch library has to offer and reinforces our long-standing and very
- valuable partnership with MCCSC. One of our teen patrons shared a paper they had written for a
- school assignment with teen services manager Sam Ott and we included a quote from that paper in
- the director's report. I'd like to share that quote with you all. It reads, "The importance of
- libraries cannot be overstated. From the freedom they give all ages to the priceless knowledge they
- hold and the kind people holding it all together, libraries are a backbone of our society." As we
- celebrate the 10-year anniversary of our first dedicated teen space and as we continue to think
- about how public libraries can reach teens and young adults to engage them in reading, creating,
- and interacting with each other and with library staff, it's wonderful to see that our own teen
- patrons not only use and value our teen spaces as much as they do, but that they also reflect on
- these spaces and on public libraries in general as being crucial to society. Thank you to the MCPL
- patron who's shared this with us. And finally, with the passage of Indiana Senate Bill 1,
- we now know that the impact of reduced property tax revenue on our operating budget will be
- approximately $350,000 a year beginning in 2026. While this is far from the significant and
- worrisome change in operating revenue we were expecting, it does mean that we will have to make
- some adjustments. Our finance and HR teams have been working with us on a number of options which
- we look forward to sharing with you all and speaking publicly about beginning next month at
- the June board meeting and then again at the July meeting when we present the first draft of the
- 2026 budget. In the meantime, we've been meeting with staff and small groups to talk through what
- these adjustments might entail and how we'll work together to make them. As always, happy to answer
- any questions about the director's report. Two things, one I was when you made a comment about
- the Jackson Creek so is that MCCESC bringing the kids over or MCC or you guys so it's they are
- that's my understanding they're bringing the kids over to the teens so they're taking care of that
- transportation. We have a similar arrangement with another school and forgive me I want to say it
- might be Tri-North coming to our teen space here uh twice a month on a Wednesday I believe so yeah.
- I wonder I'm pleased that MCC is doing that. Yeah yeah it's been great. And the other throughout
- the
- report this I was reading it at home it was talking about some of the April's things are
- down a little bit here or there I was wondering do you ever compare year to year for that different
- social media stats and things like that because this time of the year with the students and
- everything's a very busy time and IU is finishing up and all that so I wondered if it was really
- very similar. So we do we completed that social media audit about a month or so ago and with that
- is us looking at year to year. Last April not just from month to month. Correct yeah so I don't
- have
- those stats with me but I'm happy to share them but we looked over the last few years of social
- media stuff. Okay I just didn't know if it was compared month to within the year or whether it
- was month in the past. We will sometimes highlight a significant jump from year to year given a
- particular month if we're looking at stuff like summer reading where everybody tends to be focusing
- on the same thing but usually we just do the month to month comparison but that audit we
- did on all of our social media accounts showed across multiple years. So I'll make a note and
- bring that some of that data to you all next month. Thank you. Any other questions or concerns?
- I don't know where this will lie on the agenda but I'm just curious to know
- does the board or does the public library and I haven't found it have a standing guidelines
- procedures for if ICE agents come into the building? Yes we do. We've been meeting with
- building services staff vital staff and public services staff about this for a couple of months
- now. So we do have a set of internal procedures for how to handle such a situation. It's not that
- different from if local law enforcement were to arrive with a couple of exceptions and so Brian
- Liebacher and myself and Josh Wolf and a few others have gone through those with the security
- staff and public services staff so that everybody knows what to do in the event of an ICE visit.
- Do you take an does the library take an active stance in providing information about know your
- rights to any of the patrons? We provide information on how to get that like we would any other
- resource so we don't encourage one thing or another we say here's where you can go to find
- know your rights related information. No but but staff are prepared to direct people to that info
- as they need it yeah. Is that a sticky wicket for this entity to do that since we take. Yes because
- if somebody wants to come in and ask a different question like how do I report someone who I think
- is here illegally we would need to provide that information as well. Kathy I can share a little
- bit as a vital volunteer also what was shared since we're working with people who often come from
- international spaces and into the library and and different than the library we were giving this as
- individual tutors but we were given access to information to be able to share if if asked by
- the people we work with. So you you as a volunteer for that program can share staff members can't
- share? They can direct patrons to where that information is but we don't have stacks and
- handouts to give to people. I'd like to see the guidelines or the policy or some see what it is
- because absolutely I just had a couple people in my neighborhood ask what happens if somebody comes
- into the public library an ICE agent. How do you know they're ICE agents actually do they show
- their
- badges? Yes and we we consulted with our attorneys on this question as well when the when the issue
- first arose a couple of months ago just to be prepared but I'm happy to share those with you.
- I'd like to see it yeah sure. Thank you.
- Okay we've got um do I have a motion to approve the 2025 fee schedule adjustment?
- So moved. Second. Okay so our fee schedule is approved every year at the December meeting and
- it includes updates to our plaque which is public library access card and subscription card fees.
- For 2025 we actually miscalculated the appropriate fee for non-resident subscription cards.
- We originally sought approval to increase that fee from $65 to $80. This fee adjustment is based
- on previous year expenditures and that adjustment was approved at December's meeting. However in
- consultation with the state library we understand that the annual fee should actually be $82
- instead
- of $80. So we are asking to adjust the annual fee by $2 for 2025 in order to be in compliance with
- state library standards. My apologies I included the pre or the previous year's version of the fee
- schedule in the packet that actually has $65 in it so it's that's not the one we're talking about.
- We're going from $80 to $82 in order to be in compliance. Quick explanation of subscription
- cards versus plat cards. Plat cards allow a library patron to use any public library in the state
- and they cost $70 a year. In order to qualify for a plat card you actually have to have a library
- card with your own public library in your county of residence. A non-resident subscription card is
- specifically for use at our library and no other public library in the state. It costs $80 or now
- $82 a year and this option is for people who live in a county in Indiana that doesn't actually have
- a public library or for people who are here temporarily on sabbatical or something like that.
- So they're slightly different cards and for reference we have had about 77 non-resident
- subscription cards issued a year since 2021. We have a total of 25,431 non-resident checkouts
- since that year so an average of about 5,000 checkouts a year from non-resident cards.
- We currently have 59 non-resident cards but only 23 are active. That means that the other
- and I don't know I can't do the math but the other non-resident cards
- probably have items that are still checked out even though they've gone into expiration because
- they're good for a year or they have replacement fees associated with their cards and so we don't
- get rid of those cards until we settle those accounts. So we have 23 active non-resident
- cards right now and after they expire the the expiration date is rolling so it doesn't sync
- up with January 1 so when someone comes in to do a non-resident card their year starts that day.
- We do not have to retroactively charge 2025 non-resident cards an additional two dollars
- thankfully so it's from here going forward when we increase this to 82 dollars.
- Can I ask a quick question for the non-resident card just because I hadn't really thought about
- it before but when you apply at your county library there's that burden of proof for residents.
- When they do a non-resident card can they just come in and sign up?
- No I believe they have to approve where they live and meaning they don't live here in Monroe County.
- Okay yeah thanks yeah that would be an easy one yeah I'm not sure why you would want to come
- in and get a non-resident card if you actually lived in Monroe County but yeah well that I'm
- like since you don't live here do you even need to show like that was just like how do we go about
- that okay great thank you uh motion to approve the 2025 fee schedule adjustment oh sorry go ahead
- sorry I've been shy about asking because I feel like I should understand this uh you're explaining
- about the plaque card versus the um subscription am I missing something why would somebody not
- just get a plaque card right um am I understanding that right so it's a great question we talk
- about
- this all the time the cost differential suggests why would you get you know one versus the other
- the answer is if you if you don't have a library in your county then you're qualified to get a
- subscription card a non-resident card if you do you can't get a plaque card unless you have a
- library
- card with your county so you can either have a plaque because you're a library card holder with
- your own library or you can get a non-resident subscription because your county doesn't have a
- library but you can't do both or whichever one you want I guess okay yeah that's a great question
- actually yeah yeah yeah yeah okay thanks yeah any more questions or comments okay all in favor of
- approving the 2025 fee schedule adjustments say aye those opposed say nay okay all right may I get
- a motion to approve to hear about the resolution for surplus items second we're going to hear from
- Kerry so for this resolution for surplus items there's a list of several things here that are
- obsolete and in storage and we're running out of storage space so that's why we are asking to
- have these items declared surplus so we can get rid of them and I think that you know for this
- type of stuff I just talked to Brian but we typically look at organizations that might
- take these kind of donations first and then if we don't have any success there then they're disposed
- of
- up any questions
- am I right in thinking that teacher's warehouse has been mentioned yeah that's one of the
- organizations that we check with and then st vincent de paul would also be yeah I think that's the
- other one yeah those two are the ones brian mentioned any questions for gary okay all in
- favor of approving the resolution for surplus items say aye aye okay those opposed say nay
- okay thank you gary next we're going to hear from brian leibacher who is going to he's the director
- of building services to tell us what's happening hello my name is brian I'm the building services
- and security director here for the Monroe county public libraries so I'm going to quickly provide
- a brief overview of what building services is and building services consists of kind of three
- different sub departments that it's maintenance custodial and security when we talk about
- maintenance we're easily talking about the building grounds heating and cooling systems
- plumbing lighting electrical library vehicles and repairs to the buildings and many of the contents
- within the building custodial responsibilities include cleaning the interior of the buildings
- emptying trash processing recycling processing daily facility requests whenever somebody will
- submit a work ticket through our our internet system for example grounds cleanup of items that
- were left behind on our sidewalks and grounds emptying exterior trash as well custodian
- custodians are also usually the ones that run a daily route between our buildings so that is if
- there are materials here that somebody has put a hold on for example either out at southwest or
- Ellitsville we all those items are put into containers from our circulation services department
- and then someone from my department then we usually drive that out to the building and
- anything that is there that needs to be returned then we'll come back to this building and so
- we make that that route daily that we will drive out to Ellitsville drop things off pick up things
- come back here then go out to southwest rinse and repeat so that that is the the daily route
- it's usually about 10 to 20 crates that are full of books movies cds
- inter-department mails office supplies things like that and then finally security security job
- duties
- include enforcing the behavior policy oversight of our camera and door security systems opening
- and closing the buildings to the public and assisting with unloading patron donations
- and assisting with multiple deliveries throughout the day and making sure that those deliveries
- find their way to the appropriate departments the staff that make up these three kind of
- sub-departments not including myself there are six different job descriptions within building
- services these include there's one building services assistant manager who assists in the
- big picture coordination in the day-to-day oversight of these three departments one maintenance
- expert
- who maintains the physical integrity and safety of the library's facilities and equipment one
- maintenance technician who performs routine maintenance and grounds work eight security
- technicians who are mainly tasked with again with the physical security of the building and
- enforcing the library's behavior rules one security lead who is tasked with coaching
- and training newer security technicians and then again just providing coaching kind of throughout
- that and then 10 custodians who are responsible for providing clean and welcoming grounds and
- facilities for staff and patrons. Looking back at 2024 and into 2025 some of the major
- accomplishments
- that have happened kind of in the past year since I last reported we finished upgrading
- all of the door software systems at Ellitsville and that brought the door
- software that we use at all three of our buildings in line now they all operate on the same system
- so we can log into one system manage our door software and not have to log into different
- different systems. We completed a sidewalk extension and then added a bike rack at Ellitsville.
- We upgraded the downtown cctv system that filled in some gaps that we had on the exterior of our
- building and that also brought all three of our buildings in line using the same software so again
- now we can log into one one platform hop between the different buildings and then check out check
- out our security cameras. The other thing that's really nice about this particular
- software is that I'm able to access it from my phone so in the middle of the night if something
- unusual is going on I can just kind of roll over check my phone I can cycle through cameras
- I don't have to get up break out the laptop you know log in and wake up everybody in the
- house those kind of things. One of the other things we did this past year was we retrofitted
- the downtown staff entrance off of the parking lot to be automatic doors and this came as a
- staff suggestion we had a staff suggestion for accessibility it's not a true ADA door
- space kind of prohibits from it from making it a true ADA door but we were able to make that much
- more manageable for folks that have difficulty getting in and out that door. We're also looking
- to help circulation services here downtown and then Ellitsville staff in general stream
- streamline their workflow by revamping their office and work areas so here downtown we
- did a kind of a kind of a major overhaul to their to their work area where we had a kind
- of a built-in counter that went all the way around we took that out we put in a bunch of shelving
- that went in moved their desk kind of more to a central location and again just kind of really
- revamped their their work their workflow area that I think has helped a lot and again we're
- working on doing the same thing with Ellitsville in the next the next coming months and then I and
- the assistant director we co-led a policy review team that policy then the behavior policy review
- that came to you that you all voted on recently and so now Josh Wolf and I have been meeting with
- the different department groups and small groups and have been walk kind of walking them through
- some of the changes with that and some some implementation goals and strategies that they
- can use with that with that new thing all right one of the other things one of the handouts that
- you've got there in front of you it is the blue and green one of the other things that happen
- so looking at this document here we worked with a subcontractor for Duke called Michael's Energy
- and they gave us five thousand dollars basically to retrofit our existing equipment and what
- that entailed was we worked with an engineer from Michael's Energy who then in turn worked with the
- individual who does our software on our heating and cooling system here downtown and so that
- individual that does that software he is the one that actually got this five thousand dollars
- because he did all the heavy lifting here and in making changes from this engineer as a
- recommendation
- and so what they projected you can kind of look at the bottom line here total for all measures
- was in energy savings over 12 months of 24 000 lifetime savings of 173 000 and then of course
- there's also the benefit in just lowering our kilowatt hour use significantly and then also the
- amount of carbon dioxide that we're putting into the atmosphere as a result of energy use all right
- so that was their projected savings of what was what was going to happen on the next page if you
- look at the bar graph that is there if we look at the green bars those are 2023 the yellow bars are
- 2024 and then the blue bars are 2025 and so some of the interesting things here to kind of note
- if we look at if we look at the prior nine months okay so this is august 2023 again if you kind of
- on the first page we looked at this retrofit commissioning happened in august of 2024 so if
- we start in august of 2023 and we look through april of 2024 our energy use our kilowatt hours
- was a little over two million kilowatt hours and if we look at the last nine months then so going
- back to august of 2024 when this retro commissioning happened through april we don't have the may
- the may
- duke uh energy bill yet we've uh only used one million five hundred thousand so we've just in
- the nine months we have we have dropped uh five hundred thousand over a half a million uh so far
- kilowatt hours in that and looking at the savings in that time period it has been about eighteen
- thousand dollars that we have saved and again if so if you take that eighteen thousand dollars
- divided by the nine months that is an app that's the savings of about two thousand dollars a month
- which is exactly what michael's energy predicted what what would happen so so that that part is
- working the other thing that has recently happened um gary and i and uh jason met with a different
- subcontractor here just recently um and they proposed tweaking our system in a little bit
- different way um not reversing anything that we just previously did but doing something extra a
- little bit different and so the red graph shows um comparison now this is just one week so far in
- may
- the hashed line represents where we were at last year what our energy usage was last year
- and the more solid line indicates where we're at this year okay so in addition to the retrofit
- commissioning that we did through michael's energy making this additional tweak then um i'm
- expecting
- once we see our may and then especially june once we see those bills we're going to see that that
- number even go a lot better um that we're going to see our energy use go down and our savings go up
- on that so that will be something to look forward to in the next in the next few months the other
- thing i'll say is that looking at kind of the bar graph you'll notice that in the on the bar graph
- our energy use is higher in the summer months may june july august so cooling takes a lot more
- energy
- than what our heating does so we've started this at a really opportune time that we are going to
- hopefully see some of that savings as we get into our warmer months here and that our our cooling
- expenses are normally higher so hopefully that will again like i said be another another big
- savings
- looking forward to 25 and 26 a couple of things that we're working on right now
- as i mentioned we are kind of wrapping up this the policy review meeting in small groups so that
- they can better implement that whenever that that policy goes live and then we are also we are
- reviewing as part of the strategic goal number three we are reviewing and improving the existing
- incident reporting system that the library uses we have kind of a homegrown system that our it
- department has put together that has worked very very well for us over the years but there are
- other systems out there that will allow us to maybe run statistics a little bit better and to
- track things in a little bit different way provide provide more information to our frontline staff
- our librarians our library assistants and other folks that are dealing with patrons and so that
- is one of the things that we are reviewing right now it's kind of a large committee there's about
- 11 11 or so of us in this committee and we've reviewed three different products so far we've
- kind of completed our product review at this time and so in the next week or so then we're going to
- be reviewing those products and kind of making a decision on if we liked one of those products and
- we want to advise career that we want to move forward with that or if we want to go back and
- look for some more so we're going to be looking looking forward to that a little bit i'd like to
- thank you for your 24-hour service if you're doing that app phone thing because that means you
- never
- get to sleep so thank you for that so i'm assuming you really looked well to make sure that
- the new piece that you're putting with the michaels whatever is compatible i mean that there's that
- tweaking uh yeah so the the michaels energy that was for our heating and cooling system
- and what we're reviewing right now is more of a patron um patron tracking system or or or an
- incident report writing system so if somebody were to have a behavior issue at the library and we
- need
- to write an incident report about that one time about the red oh the one in the red yes yes i'm
- sorry yeah i'm sorry i was on the wrong page there with you yeah it is um and again it was just it
- was a minor tweak that we were able to do without bringing in the software uh consultant that does
- the software for our heating and cooling system it was it was uh low brow enough that i was
- actually
- able to make the change in the software myself so yeah yeah okay i appreciate that thanks for
- saving
- the money for us yeah trying i had actually a question about that and michael services um as a
- subcontractor contractor coming in when will it be reevaluated um as far as if there needs to be
- additional tweaking is this something like are you on a maintenance schedule with them or no no
- again
- this was this was kind of just a one-time consulting opportunity now that now that we've had a very
- positive experience with them i think we could reach out to them in the future it's some it's
- certainly something that they that they do this was something that you know duke had contracted
- them
- and had encouraged them to reach out to government agencies and municipalities and so that they
- could
- work to kind of help them out with their with their energy efficiency i will say duke has been very
- proactive with us over the past few years in reaching out with opportunities for us whether
- it's been lighting efficiency or anything like that they've been they've been very proactive to
- help us lower our our energy use love that they're working somewhere
- anybody have any additional questions
- thank you great work thanks for the update thank you brian and we do have someone online
- any questions comments okay just making sure we don't have any questions or comments
- okay
- seeing that we have no public comment do i have a motion to approve
- so moved second ending our meeting okay we are adjourned
- are adjourned
- okay our bills just keep going up
- (orchestral music)