I call to order the Board of Trustees meeting for the Monroe County Public Library for December 10th,
2025. I'd like to hand it over to Rear for, nope, let's do a consent agenda first. Motion to approve
the agenda for minutes from the November 19th board meeting, the executive session, the monthly financial
report, monthly bills for payment, personnel report, and board meeting calendar.
All in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay. Motion approved. And now to hand it to Greer for the director's
monthly report. Okay, thank you. So one of our biggest stories for 2025 has been the strong circulation
statistics we've seen particularly in digital circulation for the second month in a row.
overall circulation was stronger last month than any previous November going back to 2020. As we prepare
to adopt a new collection analytics tool and in thinking about some of the patron use and seasonal patterns
you all asked about last month, we'll be looking closer at these circulation stats in 2026 to better
understand correlation, causation, and some platform specific trends that are driving our digital circulation
increases. But with that said, the bottom line is that our patrons are making greater and greater use
of our digital collection
and that our suite of digital content platforms is meeting the needs of more and more patrons. So that's
just a great thing. Outreach Librarian Libby and Outreach Associate Dan participated in the second annual
Highland Park Elementary School Community Fair. They brought the Outreach fan as part of their presentation
and students got to explore the vehicle and its heavy duty lift. Next year, we're hoping to have Outreach
return to Highland Park for the third annual event and this time, of course, with a brand new bookmobile.
We held our annual volunteer celebration last month. We hold this event every year to thank our many
volunteers for the remarkable work they do in supporting our library. We're proud and fortunate to have
had 344 unique volunteers in 2025 who've helped with all kinds of projects, including seed library packaging,
friends, bookstore sales, and stockroom work, our friends by annual book sales, library program support,
and community service projects.
Mario Kart is not surprisingly one of our most popular multiplayer games at the library, but it and
other popular video game programs often center around teen services. In November, our downtown children's
department hosted a lively and well-attended Mario Kart tournament, and the winners, who by the way
were decided by a photo finish, received 3D printed trophies.
As we've shared previously, our partnership with Heading Home of South Central Indiana involves a diversion
and prevention case manager being stationed on site here at the downtown library. Our case manager,
Shaquay Norris, has been working on site and is starting to connect MCPL patrons who are at risk of
losing their housing with local agencies to help them develop a plan to avoid becoming homeless. This
position is funded by a generous grant from the Lilly Foundation to the Monroe County Community Foundation
and Heading Home of South Central Indiana.
The $7 million grant is aimed at reducing instances of homelessness in Monroe County over the next five
years. We'll have a full update on this partnership and on the work that Chiquet is doing in probably
quarter two of 2026.
And back in 2023, MCPL developed its own policy and procedures for mitigating pest infestations. Over
these past three years, we've refined and expanded the procedures to identify and eradicate bed bugs
in particular, which are sometimes found in return library books as well as materials on our shelves.
Now with three years of practice and success under their belts, our circulation services department
gave a presentation at this year's ILF conference on how MCPL manages this challenge that all
public libraries now face. This is the first time that our circulation services department has presented
at a professional conference, and we are very proud to celebrate their great work and well-earned accolades.
And happy to answer any questions about the director's report. I do have a quick question about the
look at digital resources and platforms moving forward. You had mentioned looking at the usage statistics
for the platforms and adding new.
What is the possibility of looking at account level to see, you know, who's maximizing accounts, how
we're not, and looking at rather, and I'm not sure how our subscription services work if we're paying
per individual account or if we're paying for like volume usage, but if we could use that as a negotiating
point? So it depends on the platform, it depends on the vendor. So Lisa Giampelli of Collection Develop and I are
are going back and forth on this to see which platforms we can actually drill down to say weekly daily
use trends. Can we see
user-specific use trends, or is it just sort of MCPL as a package on a given day, whatever it is, and
it really does depend on the platform. But what I know now is that we'll be able to get more granular
analytics on digital collection use, in part with the aid of some of our new tools, but really just
a more concerted effort on our part to take a look at digital collection use and what the trends are.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to do that across the board with digital collections, and there
are apples, oranges, and pears, because some of them
databases for research, some of them are streaming platforms, downloadable platforms. They're all kind
of different. But we want to get a better sense for what digital collection use is about in terms of
meeting patron needs, rather than saying, as a whole, these 90 to 100 digital collections we have are
doing extremely well. It's great, but it's not detailed enough. So we don't know how detailed we can
get yet, but we're working on it. Okay. And if we can't internally, we could reach out.
We generally reach out to the vendor with those questions anyway. Sometimes we're met with, that's not
what our license allows us to do, but we'll see. Okay, I appreciate it, thank you. In the report under
goal two, website updates, the first bullet point. And I, sorry if I should know this,
I don't know how to pronounce it. A-T-O-Z, Food America. Oh, A to Z, Food America, and A to Z,
World Food. Sorry, the space would have helped. Well, it's throughout the whole thing, so it's like
an organization. So those were some pretty amazing statistics, and I don't know really what that is.
Are you able to explain that? I don't know a lot about A to Z, Food or World Food either, so I'd have
to pass that on to Lisa and also to Tori in our CNM department.
Yeah, and I can probably get on the website and read about it, too, or something. But I thought these
statistics were pretty amazing. I didn't know if it was something to help the community, no resources
for getting food. I think it's something like that. But what's interesting about this, and we see this
pretty much every month with the website,
updates is that when we do a featured e-library resource for a given month and we do one every month,
we expect to see some kind of increase in use as a result. So that's sort of the causation. Sometimes
we see enormous increases in use, which is the case this time and some other times this year. So it's
just an indication that it's worth our while to continue the e-library of the month kind of focus. So,
yeah. Great. Thank you.
Anyone else before we move on? Okay, we don't have any old business today. We've got a lot of new business
to work through. So can I get a motion to hear about the El Centro contract for 2026 from Gary? Second.
Great. This is the annual renewal of the agreement with El Centro to rent space in the building.
And the only thing that's changed is the dates. And thanks, Jamie, for getting that right for us. But
are there any questions about that agreement? Well, I don't know what that is. When I looked at this,
I looked at introductory material, and I couldn't quite figure out what El Centro is. Do you mind explaining?
Anyone happy to they are on the first floor and It is basically They are providing services to the Latino
population here in Monroe County so it's just a place for them to go and I don't know a lot of details
about their services, but oh Yes
So it's a resource for the Latino community here in county, and they're able to connect people with
other resources in the community or if there's a need where we're seeing a large, large need and anything.
they kind of are able to connect people to whatever resource they may need. I know of this because I
used to use it a lot to promote the speech therapy services that I was providing, but they're a wonderful
resource for our Latino community here in Monroe County, so I hope that
I got that feeling. Sheds a bit of light. I want to just make sure that I was getting that right. Greatest
person to describe them. I just know I've used their services before. An outside group, technically,
using library space. It's OK. Sounds a little collaborative. They sort of lease a space from us. It
was in a different location some years back, and now it's in one of the offices at the back of the Indiana
Room. So they have their own dedicated space where they can meet with clients and families and things
like that.
share that having it at the library is phenomenal because for families that are new to our community,
getting them here to El Centro and then getting them here and introducing them to our library is just
phenomenal. So I'll add that little bit. And I don't volunteer there. I just have used the resources
before. So we want to keep that partnership. That's basically what this is.
Yep. All in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Gary, thank you for
continuing to stand there. Can I get a motion to hear Gary speak about the resolution of surplus items?
I will so move.
So this was triggered by a request from our IT department. We had an employee who wanted to purchase
their laptop was going to be declared surplus or because it was a 2021 laptop and this employee wanted
to purchase it. And so it was done through the bookstore, but we needed this resolution to declare it surplus.
All in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Can I get a motion to approve the policy
update to the fee schedule? Thank you, Josh. Hi, folks. We do this every year. We review our fee schedule.
a handful of changes last year, some updates that we thought we needed, and there are none this year.
If you look on page 57, you will see that the plaque card non-resident fee of $70 is highlighted in
red. That's just because the state library had not set that rate at the time the board packets were
sent out, and it mercifully was kept at $70. So if you have any questions about any of these individual
items, I'd be happy to discuss them.
Any questions? Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Thank you. Do you
have a motion to approve or to hear Greer talk about the board bylaw update? Sorry, we'll do the art
exhibit first if we could. I'm sorry. Policy update, yeah. Oh, thank you. The policy update. And this
one's pretty easy.
So one of our policies manages the way we handle art exhibits and displays such as we have right outside
of this room. This is just a housekeeping piece because now that we have a second branch location, we
need to include that in this policy. And it currently just talks about downtown and Ellitsville. What
we would do is at the bottom of the second page of the policy, which is page 59 in the packet,
It says Ellisville branch, and then the language there just says where it is. At Southwest, the exhibit
space is also right outside the meeting room or meeting room lobby. So we would simply use the exact
same language that we have for Ellisville and build a paragraph specific to Southwest, and that's it.
We would consider the policy updated. So that's all it is.
All in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. All right, now the motion
to hear board bylaw update. So moved. Oh, sorry. I second. Okay. So our board bylaws outlying what we
do as a board
how we're structured, how it relates to the Indiana code specific to public libraries, which I think
was passed in 1945, and how our meetings are structured. And we are required by the state library to
review and update this every three years, whether we make changes to it or not.
The last time we updated it or made any changes was actually 2019. We didn't accuracy check on the bylaws
back in April of this year, but we're bringing it to you all for discussion to see if there's anything
you want to change. We do not have to vote on changes to the bylaws tonight. We can talk about them,
bring it back again in January and make a vote. The one thing that I know has been asked, and I think
Amy asked this in a relatively recent meeting is, have we ever thought about moving public comment from
the end of our meeting to the top?
A lot of other public boards do that because it's more intuitive for the public to get to speak at the
top of the meeting rather than after all the votes are done.
And so that's something for you all to consider. If we did, we would of course keep the same policy
for public comment in place that we currently have, which is that individuals are limited to three to
five minutes to speak and the board does not engage or respond to any comments. So there would be no
changes to the nature of public comment, but it might be worth considering moving public comment to
the beginning of our meetings.
And other than that, most of what's in the bylaws is how we have officers, when and how they're elected,
how we manage committees, how often we meet, who's present, and so on. Stuff that generally doesn't
change all that often. Does anybody know what our local school board does? I'm just trying to use that
as an example here in the community.
I think they have comment at the top of the meeting and not at the end. And they do have the same policy
where they don't comment. They just listen. Got it. That makes sense to me. Yeah. OK, so first question
that I would like to ask you is, would you like to vote tonight, or do you want to wait and revisit
this in January, with the change being that we would move the public comment to the top of the meeting?
I would prefer to wait until January.
if Amy's here since she suggested that maybe we don't want to vote it all down without her I mean we
not that I would but it's just so we can hear her opinion might make sense the person that's it would
be it would be nice and respectful if the person that suggested it was here we will move that to a
a January action item. Good thinking. It's okay, Nancy. It's all good. All right. Motion to hear the
resolution to approve the 2026 holiday closing schedule. So moved. And second. All right. If you wouldn't
mind, thank you.
So this can be found on page 64 and 65 of the packet. It's just our holiday clothing schedule. We update
this every year. There are no changes to the observed holidays. It's just been updated for the calendar
dates. Any questions? Do you want me to read the whole resolution, or do I just pass it around?
I think you could, Tom, do we need to read the resolution aloud for this or can we pass it around? It's
okay in writing, right? Okay. It's in the packet. Yeah. Okay. Let's do a quick vote. All in favor say
aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Thank you.
Next up, can I get a motion to hear the resolution to approve the 2026 payday schedule, wage schedule
and annual wage increases? So moved. I second. So this is found on page 66, 67 and 68 of the packet.
The pay date schedule is just updated for our 2026 paydays. The way that our payroll works is we pay
out every two weeks. So the pay period runs Monday through the following Sunday, and then we pay out
on two Fridays after that. The only thing to note that is not a Friday payday is December 23rd, that's
a Wednesday, because the 25th is a holiday and we didn't want folks to have their paycheck delayed.
So that's the only payday that's not a Friday.
And then the wage and salary schedule. We worked with NFP back in 2023, well 2022 for our 2023 wage
and salary schedule. Part of the work that they did with us was to help us with the adjustments to our
wage and salary schedules.
We were on track to do that for 2026, but with SB one and the impacts that that had, we did decide to
pause that. And so we didn't do a full review of the compensation study or the compensation schedule.
We have committed to do that for 2026. So we'll do that work in 2020. I'm sorry, we'll do that work
in 2026 for 2027 wages.
The only change that we have on this right now is that we're moving the maximum out so that our folks
continue to get those annual pay increases and don't go above the maximum. So that's the only change
that's been made on this and then we are committing to adjust the entire schedule for 2027. And then
the other piece in this is the compensation increase. So this is
Similar to what we've done in years past, it would be 75 cents or 2.75% incremental increase, whichever
is higher. And it's subject to those wage and salary schedule maximums. And the wage increase would
be effective for the first payday in 26.
which falls on January 9th of 2026 and includes the pay periods beginning December 15th, 2025, ending
December 28th, 2025. And it would be for anyone who works at the library as of December 15th, which
is that first day of the pay period. And I have the resolution to pass around, but do you have any questions
on any of that? I have a really quick question. Yeah.
Have we ever discussed non-exempt and exempt being paid in different times, like versus a biweekly?
Or has that ever been discussed? I think it's something that we talked about with NFP, but I think we
decided to keep it the same. I know there have been some questions about maybe increasing the frequency
of compensation for our hourly folks to be like a weekly versus biweekly. But I don't know that we've
ever discussed it beyond just
sort of the anecdotal. OK. Are you aware of anything that we talked about, Greg? That sounds right.
So maybe with the next. That's certainly something we can bring up with NFP next year when we do this.
Yeah, with the next discussions, just to see. Yeah. OK. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions?
All in favor of passing the resolution for the 2026 payday schedule, wage schedule, and annual wage
increases, say aye. Aye. Aye.
All opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Motion to hear the resolution to renew PERF. Thank you. So this is
found on pages 69 through 73 of your packet. This is just the annual agreement with PERF. So that's
Public Employee Retirement Fund. It is run by, in PERS is the,
organization that does that. Every year they adjust the normal and supplemental rates. So the way this
is set up is there is an employer contribution to the retirement fund and an employee contribution.
The library pays both the employer and the employee. So the employee contribution is 3% each payroll
and the employer is 11.2.
So it's a total of 14.2% that the library is contributing into our full-time folks perf accounts. The
normal and supplemental rates change every year. There's a published schedule that those change on.
And so for 2026, the normal rate is 4.4% and the supplemental rate is 6.8%. Last year, the normal rate was for
and the supplemental was 7%. So just a little change there, and we have to sign this document to continue
and renew our PERF retirement account for folks. Any questions? No? All in favor of approving the resolution
to renew PERF, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Thank you.
Motion to hear the resolution to set the library director's salary. I'm going to read from the Board
of Trustees of Monroe County Public Library, having conducted appropriate evaluation and considerations,
hereby adopts the following resolution concerning the annual salary for the library director Greer Carson.
For the calendar year 2026,
The annual salary for the library director, Greer Carson, shall be $118,600.17, together with all appropriate
benefits consistent with the position. Any questions? In favor of approving the resolution to set the
library director's salary, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it.
Can I get a motion for the approval of the 2026 board calendar? It is in the packet. So any questions
or comments before we take vote? I'll point out that there is one alternative meeting space to this
space. That's in April. We're going to meet in the auditorium. That's when we have our
spring book sale and it takes up this entire space so we'll happily return to the auditorium for that
one. Otherwise we have one meeting at Ellitsville in June and then one in Southwest in September which
is what we've been doing for the last couple of years. All in favor of approving the 2026 board meeting
calendar say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. And last up we're going to hear from
Becky about the Hoosier START program. No, you're good. I'll let you guys sign the papers. You're fine.
It's not like we gave you guys eight documents to sign.
So we have been reviewing some of the benefits that we offer to staff. And one of the opportunities
that we saw as a chance to improve some benefits and offer additional retirement savings to folks was
to change our retirement plan in addition to PERF. So PERF is the one that you guys signed to renew.
That's the employer contribution. Employees want to contribute money as well to help save for retirement.
And so we currently offer a mechanism to do that, but there's some barriers to entry there's not great
participation there's not a lot of education that we're able to do with that plan and Hoosier start
is a program that's a statewide program. It's a bigger.
of employers that use that. There's a lot more education. They have a specific person for our region
who would come out and educate staff on how to save for retirement and plan for retirement and what
those mechanisms look like. They also are able to have a much lower fee for participating in the retirement
plan. And they also offer a couple of different options that would meet folks where they really need to.
be saving for retirement. So there is a pre-tax and a post-tax option. The annual fee is $54 a year
in order to participate in Hoosier Start, and that's paid by the employee in order to be able to use
the plan. The employer doesn't pay anything for it, we just would be able to offer it to staff. It is
run by Nationwide, so they're the planned administrator, and it's a state program that's been in place
for quite a long time.
We met with them yesterday. They've got over 70,000 participants in the plan. It's over $2 billion total.
So it's part of a really large plan. And then they have 60 plus counties out of the 90 counties in Indiana.
They have fire departments. They've got public libraries that all participate. And so it's something
that a lot of employers are offering that we thought would make sense to offer for our folks as well.
And then they also have the option for part-time folks to be able to save for retirement, which is something
we can't offer now. And so that would be a voluntary enrollment for folks if they did want to save for
retirement.
We are just starting the discussion, so we still have some work on our part to do. We have already asked
for contacts of other public libraries who use it, so we can talk to them and hear a little bit about
how it's going and do a little bit more research. But wanted to start the discussion with you all, see
what questions you have, and just kind of go from there. I have a lot of questions. Yeah.
This is new to me, so I'm trying to figure out and think about the distinctions and the benefit for
Hoosier Start. Things I'm hearing are PerF is run by the state, right? So it's public versus nationwide
running Hoosier Start. So we're moving private, right? So Hoosier Start is a state program. Nationwide
is the organization that manages the plan, but they're both state programs. So they're both intended
for folks to be able to save for retirement.
and they're both specific to state and public entities. Okay. But the Hoosier Start is not overseen
by anyone at the state? It's just in coordination with? They have people at the state who are overseeing
the plan and the nationwide is the one that is basically administering the plan. Okay. So there's oversight
and there's a couple of different places where the state is overseeing the policy and overseeing the plan.
So I understand that we would pay the enrollment fee with Hoosier Start. How I think it would be really
beneficial and I as we move forward of this to be able to see some type of table of comparison because
I hear you and I know that we wouldn't be looking into this if it wasn't advantageous for the employees
but I think being able to see that as far as
Why? You know, what is our reasoning behind this? What makes Perf unattainable that Hoosier Start would
be able to satisfy that need? I'm sorry. So it's not to replace Perf. So we would continue to have Perf.
We have a 403B plan right now that's an additional retirement fund option for folks to put money in.
And so Hoosier Start goes hand in hand with Perf and would just be another option instead of our current
403B. What other option is right now?
Is that what you're saying? It's replacing that. Yeah. So we have a 403B option. We only have a few
folks who are enrolled in it. The employee pays the cost on it. So there's a percentage fee with most
retirement accounts that folks pay. The benefit with Hoosier Start is that it's $54 as the flat fee
to participate for the year, which is significantly less than most other retirement options would cost
for the employee. And it's completely voluntary.
folks contribute, the library doesn't contribute anything to that because we max out perf for folks.
Does that make sense? Yeah. It's helpful. I'm sorry, I didn't do a very good job explaining that. No,
that's OK. In my head, I was just like, what? OK. But I may have misheard. OK. One of the other things
that the Hoosier Start program offers that we think would be a benefit, because as Becky said, we only
have a few people who are participating in the 403B right now, is that they do a lot of education and
consultation with
staff members, financial planning for retirement and so on. So whether that results in more people using
the supplemental retirement option or not, at least there's the opportunity for people to learn more.
So that was attractive for us, yeah. Could you also say that it would include part-time where PERF does
not include part-time?
And again, this isn't replacing perf. So our perf plan is currently only offered for full-time folks.
And so the library contributes all of the amount for the perf plan for full-time folks.
other voluntary retirement saving is only available to full-time folks. Just the way that plan is set
up and administered and managed. There were some changes with the secure act here recently that allowed
for part-time folks to be able to save in an employer's retirement fund. And so this would be an opportunity
for us to potentially offer that to folks. We as the plan
Sponsor plan administrator on our part would be able to say if we do or don't want to offer it to part-time
folks And we can change that if we start out conservative and then open it up Don't know that I see
a reason not to offer it to part-time folks, but we could definitely talk about that. Okay Thanks for
getting started is there any information that you guys would like to see in
for the next meeting. Do you want me to do a cost comparison for what it costs employees to have the
plans? Anything? I know you're looking into all of those things as you're comparing the options.
Trust you. If there's anything you guys would like to see specifically, I want to make sure we bring
it to the next meeting. If we can't think of something right now,
Yeah, yeah, and you had mentioned that they have you know traditional and Roth plans, correct? Yes full
part-time employee more fund investment options. I Believe it's more fun investment options I can't
say that confidently because I haven't seen the difference between what we currently offer and what
they offer enrollment fee but no fees on the fund and
Correct. Yeah. So there's a $54 enrollment fee to be participating in the plan. But there's no administrative
that covers the administrative fee. Getting a list of referrals specific to public libraries will be
important to us because we want to see comparable compensation packages that use who should start and
whether or not that's effective for those employees. And that's probably going to be through public
libraries. So that'll be a part of what we
want to get from them too. So we'll hopefully have that by January, bring it back, and can discuss it
further and either vote then or just continue to talk about it. You had mentioned the current plan doesn't
have a lot of participation, the second option. Yeah. Do we know why? Have we reached out to staff to
find out why they're not contributing? So we make sure that what we're looking for, OK? Don't know.
Yeah. I can look into it a little bit and share
some more details with you guys on if you've had any feedback I guess that would be great to know I
just want to make sure that this doesn't sound like it is a negative move in any way but I also want
to make sure we're meeting staff needs if that's an issue now yeah yeah and we did start looking into
this based on some staff feedback and just questions on education we've seen a big need for that and
Perf does a really great job of helping our folks, but they can only help really with the Perf plan.
And so this is an option for us to also offer education for our folks as well, which I think is really
important and really valuable, no matter what stage folks are in. I do know also that the Roth is one
that we've had folks ask about, and we don't have a mechanism right now to be able to do a Roth contribution
through payroll. And so this would give us the ability to do that. That's big. Yeah.
It's really big. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Next up, we're gonna have a department
update from CATS with Martin O'Neill. Hello. There we go. It's good to see everybody. Happy December.
I'll try not to take up too much of your time, because I know it's going to get really cold and everybody
wants to go home. But I'm just going to start by thanking folks, Josh, Greer, and all the people who
work at CATS for another year where we are doing more than we ever did. So great thanks to everybody,
and thanks for Greer and Josh's guidance through the whole year. It was great. I'd also like to thank
Mike Adams, who came on with us this year.
from a videographer editor, he moved up into our equipment expert, and as such he's led to a better
inventory of equipment and an increase in our digitization projects. And the ADA compliance for our
CEPPS website is well underway.
This is some highlights what we want to do here. Replace old equipment throughout the CATS network.
We actually did some of that this year as well as some equipment we have at City Hall, Ellisville, and
Monroe County. We continued partnership with WAFHB and our weekly government roundup program called
CATS Week and increased digitization of our community collection. Some numbers for this year. This is
for the government meetings, the comparison between 2020 tour and 25.
We don't have December of this year in yet just because we're not that far into the end of the year.
So we, you know, and it will be a low year because, you know, Christmas Thanksgiving or sorry, Christmas
in that. But you can see it's the years have been comparable. There's always a little increase the next
year. It hasn't been as dramatic this year, but you see March in there, there's, we reached 70 government
meetings, which is a,
record that we have never hit before. And a lot of that was down to some rules that the state brought
in where municipalities needed to have more of their meetings recorded and have them archived for at
least 30 days. And the city of Bloomington and town of Ellisville has asked us to help them out with
that. So that's where that sort of bump came there. Our community events.
Yeah, more this year than last year. Some months went up and down. The biggest increase was in September.
And that was due to the Lotus Festival. We actually covered more concerts this year. So there's an increase
there in that. And combining them both together, you can see for over the year, Harvey did. And again,
slight increase.
comparison side by side between 24 and 25, it's about a 5% increase that in all our programming for
2025. And this is just a list of the meetings and stuff that we obviously you're not going to read all
this. I'm not going to read it to you. But this is just the meetings and programs that we did this year.
And you can see just to get a sense, it's really quite a lot of stuff.
Our storage, the last time we upgraded our storage, everything we do now is digital. It all comes off
servers and plays back on it from a server and all that stuff. We last upgraded that server seven years
ago, and with the assistance of MCPL staff, we have determined a course of upgrading the server environment,
which is mainly storage capacity. One small thing is,
Right now we have our storage and then we have our backup storage, which is great. It's all mirrored
and everything is exactly the same. The problem is they're in the same room, which doesn't really help
if we have a fire or flood or something like that. So the plan would be to take the backup storage and
put it in our southwest branch. So there's a nice separation.
between the two of us. And FYI, we also use Amazon Web Services for our deep, deep storage. So we keep
things backed up in three different places all the time. Due to Mike's help here too, enhance
the workstations using legacy equipment to continue to digitize our old legacy tapes.
So this year we've managed to do over 250 programs. But the problems that we're running into, and this
is leading to the packet that I left for you earlier, the Memnon packet, we've realized that converting
250 programs a year is really nice, but considering just for our government stuff, we have about 8,000 tapes
That's gonna take us a long time. The other problem is that the equipment that we use to do that, our
old legacy gear is breaking and it's hard to keep it going and they don't make them anymore. You can't
get parts anymore. So that led us to think about having to look at other alternatives for getting this done.
And as we started looking around and we were looking at companies across the country, really, we came
to discover that one of the foremost companies in the world actually have an office here in Bloomington.
So this is a company called Memnon. And if you wanted to read through that packet, it gives a history
of the company and everything else. I believe they started out in Belgium, but then were acquired by
Sony and then were sold yet again. But they did all the archiving for
IU when they had their huge push to get all their analog programming tapes, audio, video converted.
Memnon kind of parked themselves at IU for about five years to do all that conversion. But then when
that was over, they decided to just to open an office here in Bloomington, which could work out great
for us. Part of the great thing on that is that we don't have to ship any tapes. We just stick them
in the back of the truck
bring them over, which cuts down on costs and also safety of that. What is a valuable historical resource
that we have, and I think there are very few communities in the country that have the kind of archive
that we have there. So that's, we are looking into doing this. They give us the proposal. It's of course
not cheap.
For the government stuff, it would be around about $240,000. But breaking that out per average per tape
is about $38 per tape. That is comparable, if not cheaper, than any other service that we used before
with some other legacy stuff that we had converted. So we feel good about them. They're here in time.
We met with them. It feels good. They have given us a contract. But of course, we'd have, you know,
Tom looked that over and everything else. And again, this is just something that we're looking into.
But we know that we are contractually obligated to keep the government stuff archived and make it available
for folks online. So that's one thing. And then the tapes are degrading. And every year that they're
there, that degradation just keeps accelerating. And we'd hit to get to the stage where, you know,
dust shitting on the shelves. So that's what we're doing now. These are just some clips of what we've
done through the year. So that's in there. But any questions? I know that was a lot just to throw right
there. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Martin.
have any members of the public for public comment okay all in favor of adjourning say aye we are adjourned thank you