like to call to order the Monroe County Public Library Board of Trustees meeting for February 18, 2026.
We chose to move public comment to the beginning of our meetings, so we're going to at this time see
if anyone is here from the public to speak or online.
Hi, Paula. Oh, maybe. Did she chat? I see something down there.
I can't read it. Okay, okay, we'll move forward. I would like to make a note that in the minutes from
our last meeting, Jennifer Whitley was in attendance and was excluded, so we have that addition to the
meeting notes. Other than that, may I get the motion to approve then the consent agenda from last? Okay,
all in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay.
and next we're gonna hear the director's monthly report from Greer. Okay, January saw record use of
Overdrive, which is our incredibly popular ebook platform. This is the second month in a row that we've
seen record use of Overdrive, so that's very exciting. We also saw record use of Freegal, which is a
music streaming service we've offered for years, but it provides access to the Sony music catalog
specifically, and it actually allows
Up to five free downloads per week for patrons, which they get to keep. So they're DRM free files. Uh,
it's a, it's, I'd say sort of a little known resource, but we've seen a jump in frugal use, which is
really great. January also saw record Instagram engagement. And this is thanks largely to our heated
rivalry inspired real, which became our highest performing post of all time. So that's very exciting.
Our partnership with Health Net resumed in January. You may recall a couple of years ago we started
that partnership when we had some folks from Health Net come and speak to you all about what
their partnership and what their work is all about. That started in January after a brief hiatus. We're
glad to be able to work with the group again. They provide space and opportunities to support patrons
who are experiencing homelessness who have some basic health needs and they provide referrals to those
folks for more serious needs.
We did have to close to the public during the winter storm of January twenty fifth and twenty six. We've
taken those closures as an opportunity to review our own internal inclement weather communication protocols
for library staff and we're soon going to be adopting an automated messaging system for future hours
adjustments and closures. Our public communication protocols will remain the same and they of course focus on
website banner update as the closures or hours changes. Our mainline voicemail provides that update,
and then we do social media posts as well. So that won't change, but the way we communicate internally
with staff and departments will change pretty soon. One operational exception to the January 26 closure
is CATS. Our team is contractually obligated to cover local government meetings, including those that
are held during inclement weather.
So our sincere thanks to Martin, Adam, and the entire CATS team for braving the bad weather in order
to cover those meetings during those winter storms. We also work closely with city parking during the
storm to ensure that our staff had adequate parking options for working here at the downtown library.
The lot over there we call lot five on Lincoln. We have a number of those spots reserved for our staff.
We also give out parking passes to staff for what we call zone four in the surrounding blocks.
Both of those were pretty much off limits because of snow accumulation. So Becky Throckmorton and our
HR team worked very closely with city parking to make sure that we had temporary alternative parking
solutions for staff that did not cost them anything. That's a tough thing to do in the middle of an
inclement weather crisis. So thanks not only to HR but also city parking for working closely with us on that.
At the start of our new budget year, I'd like to thank our foundation and Friends of the Library group
for their continued financial, volunteerism, and advocacy support. The Friends and Foundation received
donations from the public to support library services and the Friends annual gift to the library of
over $110,000.
covers the vast majority of our programming costs. This is a critical partnership which makes so much
of our work here at the library possible. And also a big thank you to all in our community who make
donations to the foundation, either in financial form or through volunteerism. Happy to answer any questions
about the director's report.
We are gonna move on. Do I have a motion to hear about the CATS annual contracts from Martin O'Neill?
Second. Yeah, these are four contracts this evening. One from the city, the county, town of Ellitsville,
and a memorandum of understanding with WFHB. The city contract is a 1% increase over last year. County
is a 3% increase.
Ellisville is a 2% and our agreement with WFHB, that is the continuation of our weekly government roundup
show called Cats Week that we do every Friday. And that's basically it. No questions. I know we usually
take care of this earlier, so thank you for... Oh, no, thank you. ...to have it all wrapped up. Yeah,
it was just a weird time. You know, everything was just getting later and later.
All in favor say aye. Those opposed say nay. Motion approved. Next up, motion to hear the Code of Conduct
Policy update from Tory Lohan.
Hi, this is just one line in the code of conduct policy. So the code of conduct policy was updated just
before the new media relations policy. So it's the line in regards to photographing and recording activities
within the library. So currently the code of conduct says patrons who wish to photograph or record activities
at the library must obtain permission
from the individuals involved. And then it says, please see the library's media relations policy for
details. That refers to our old media relations policy. So it was pulled from that into the new code
of conduct. And then we're proposing that we take it from the updated media relations policy. So we're
proposing it changes to, in general, photography and recording is permitted in public spaces on MCPL
property, provided it does not interfere with MCPL staff and patrons
do not wish to be recorded, including minors whose caregiver has not given consent, please see the library's
media relations policy for details. And all of that comes verbatim from the media relations policy.
So we're trying to give some general guidelines while also keeping it open for interpretation as well
to help staff. So does that mean that if somebody sees you take pictures of somebody, that they would
just go over and share that they don't want their child's picture taken?
When I read this, how do they know if their child is going to be given their picture if they are not
around to see the pictures taken? The way we approach it is because this is a public space. The way
we approach it is
you know, you're out in public, so chances are you're gonna be recorded. The way we approach it is if
either a staff member or a patron, especially one who is a caregiver of a minor says, hey, I don't wish
for my child to be recorded, then that should be respected. And if it does not, then it kind of goes
into maybe a violation of the code of conduct policy, and then we approach it from there.
So if a child doesn't have a caregiver present, that is just something that the caregiver would be proactive
about communicating. Yes. Any other questions? All in favor of approving the change to the code of conduct
policy, say aye. All opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Motion approved. Thank you.
Next up, we are going to move to formally adopt the remote work policy motion to hear Becky on the remote
work policy.
So I know I presented last month with some information on the room at work policy. What we've seen from
use didn't want to offer the opportunity to answer any questions that might be lingering from last time
or anything that we didn't go over that you all were hoping to cover. The policy that's in the board
packet, the only two things that we've updated from the initial pilot program
Are we added some clarity around what happens if there is an emergency closing for a particular branch?
That came out of some feedback and questions that we had from staff and managers. Just to clarify, if
a particular branch is closed and the staff member is working remotely that day, they would still need
to clock in and work. If it's something that's like a utility outage or something like that that's specific
to one branch versus like a weather, inclement weather that
you know, impacts all three branches where everyone is out. Obviously that would be an emergency time
as well because that probably includes that employees place of residence. Um, and then the other change
that we made is just formalizing to remove names. Um, so we put in positions for, um, who to contact
and who makes approvals on things so that it's a little bit more formal and less, um, tied to particular
names. So any questions?
Appreciate you doing that so that we don't have to continue to approve changes when there are name changes.
Any other questions? All in favor of approving the remote work policy as presented, say aye. Those opposed
say nay. Ayes have it, motion approved. Thank you. Can I get a motion to hear the resolution for the
surplus equipment?
Gary, tell us all about it. This resolution for surplusing equipment is the result of a request from
our IT department. We had another employee who wanted to purchase their retired computer through the
bookstore. So that's what this is about.
I really like that that is an option. So thank you. Any questions? All in favor of the resolution for
the surplus equipment say aye. Those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Motion approved. And next we're
going to continue to hear from Gary Letler about the annual financial report.
Yes. So this is the annual financial report that is done for the Department of Local Government Finance
and it's uploaded to Gateway and it's open to the public. And this is the first time that we've had
this annual report in the packet. And the reason we are doing it now is because in our last audit the
auditors ask us if the
annual report was being reviewed, and in the past, I've just filed it because it always gets, as we
get an audit, that is the focus. It's those reports that are uploaded to Gateway. And so I thought,
well, that's the review. But anyway, they said, you really should have your director and your board
review it. So it's in there.
just in case you have questions, but it's gonna be thoroughly tested later. And the other annual report
that you have seen in the past, which is usually in the packet in March is for the State Library, and
I think Greer knows more about this than me, but they're having a lot of problems, and we're probably
not gonna have that in the March packet.
Annual report Gary's referring to is sort of the state library's public library annual report where
we focus on everything from operating costs to total staff to types of services we provide, data points
supporting those services and all of that. And we usually do it in January. The due date is March 1st
and then we give you all sort of a PDF version of it and then we summarize the highlights. So you may
recall that Baker and Taylor closed once and for all late last year.
Baker and Taylor actually owned and operated the web portal that we use for doing the annual report.
So the State Library has been working to find a new vendor. They have found a new vendor, but establishing
the new portal has taken a little bit of time. So we heard from the State Library representative just
last week that we still plan to do the annual report. We don't have a date yet for when it
will be distributed. Obviously, once it is, we'll probably get about three months to get it done.
If I had to guess, I'd say we'll give you all the PDF version of the report that we complete probably
around July, and we'll go through it like we do every year. It's just going to be a little later than
usual. I do have questions about that. Understand the pickup with tech and vendors. Why is the timeline
changing though for completion?
The data's there. The data changes from year to year. The questions that they ask is changed year to
year. So some of the data gathering we're gonna do in a preliminary fashion because we always have to
have certain data points entered and that's pretty like boilerplate. But the way they ask questions
about particularly programming, digital collections use and things like that do change from year to
year enough that it's hard for us to. Even this year. Yeah. You think so? Yes. So it's hard for us to
anticipate
what numbers they're gonna ask for when it comes to those things. So some of the report we can get started
on early and just have the numbers ready, and some of it is we're just gonna have to wait and see how
they ask those questions. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Thank you. This is just for
Information for the board the conflict of interest form is available in the packet If you feel there
is something that you would like to disclose if you would like to talk to career about it If you have
a question or fill it out and turn that in if you feel that you do not have conflict of interest Then
you do not need to worry about that Does anyone have questions about it Okay In a previous meeting we
had talked about our election a board of officers so I'm going to have
Motion to do that now and we will vote individually on each person. Can I get a motion to vote for the
election board of officers? Okay, I am gonna start with Amy O'Shaughnessy as the treasurer. All in favor
of Amy as treasurer, say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. Amy is treasurer. Aye. Like,
A vote in aye if you support Chris Hall remaining as secretary. All in favor say aye. Those opposed
say nay. Chris, thanks for continuing to be secretary. And stepping into the role of VP for approval
from everyone is Whitney Eads for vice president. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay.
Thank you Whitney. And continuing in the role as president, myself, Jamie Burkhart. All in favor say aye.
Those opposed say nay. Thank you guys very much. Anybody else have any other comments before we adjourn?
Oh, sorry, not on my list. Sorry, Tory. We have a department update date from Tory, so come on down.
I'm back and this time I have pictures. I'm sorry, I have a Mac.
Anyone? Anyone? Okay. Down there? All the way over? One more? Okay. Can I do it without my notes? Nope.
Okay. There we go. Nope.
Man, I'm sorry, guys. All right. Is this view okay? Okay. All right, well, okay. All right, so my name
is Tori Lawhorn, and I am the Communications and Marketing Director for MCPL.
I'll give you a little department update. So our purpose, so the CNM team aims to support the library's
mission of strengthening and enriching the lives of Monroe County residents to support equitable and
impartial access to read, learn, connect, and create. And we play a crucial role in promoting library
services, events, resources, as well as engaging with the community to build awareness and strengthen
relationships.
And our team's purpose is to make sure that MCPL's message is heard, understood, and appreciated, fostering
a deeper connection between the library and our Monroe County community. We use a variety of media platforms,
strategies, tactics, and communication efforts to build awareness, increase engagement, and generate
support for MCPL's mission, vision, and values. We are an award-winning team.
So we won best in division under the booklet or brochure category at the Great Lakes Graphics Association
Graphic Excellence Awards in 2024 for our summer reading game boards. And then in 2025, we won a promotion
award from Downtown Bloomington, Inc. We are also stewards of accessibility and inclusion. We're very
proud of that. We ensure that all of our fonts, colors, and copy are dyslexia friendly.
We also test for additional accessibility, such as color blindness. We truly aim to strike a balance
between an art and a science behind everything we do. We also make sure that our imagery, if we choose
to show people, accurately reflect the diverse population that MCPL serves. And we make sure that all
of our materials, both digital and print, are ADA compliant. Nope. All right, so who we are and what
we do. So we are a team of four.
So Keller and I started at MCPL in July of 2022. So we're about to hit our four year anniversary. Christie
started in October of that year. And then Aubrey has been with MCPL in a variety of roles for more than 25 years.
We are both a proactive and a responsive department. So proactively, we seek to initiate creative campaigns
throughout the year, including Library Lovers Month, which is this month, National Library Week in April,
Library Card Sign-up Month in September, and Band Books Week in October, among a variety of other things.
Responsively, we have a form that any MCPL staff member can fill out should they have a request.
On average, we get about 50 a month. That request is sent directly to me, evaluated, and then put into
our project management system. We typically turn these around within five weekdays. For those projects
that require a little more back and forth and creative brainstorming, we generally meet with a requester
and get a sense of their idea. This is a great opportunity for collaboration among subject matter experts,
particularly through the public service lens of MCPL, who regularly interact with the public.
We also look for opportunities in which projects who may originate at one location can be adapted to
other locations to help create a universal patron experience. So currently, we're using our 2024-2026
strategic plan as our guidelines, specifically strategic goal number one and strategic goal number two.
At the start of 2024, we took a hard look at our 2024-2026
2026 strategic plan goals, and we decided that every decision we make moving forward should relate back
to one or hopefully both of these strategic goals. As we begin planning for the 2027-2029 strategic
plan, the CNM team will take a close data-informed look at how we effectively support these goals through
our messaging, branding, and engagement. We'll evaluate what resonated with the community, which campaigns
increased awareness and participation,
and where our storytelling around intellectual freedom, literacy, and digital equity can be stronger
or more inclusive. Community feedback through surveys, engagement metrics, direct conversations, and
anecdotes will play a central role in shaping our next steps. This reflective process will help us refine
our strategies so our communications can continue to amplify library values, respond to community needs,
and support the library's mission with clarity and impact.
So these are a couple of recent examples that we did last year. So this is National Library Week. This
was the week of April 6th through 12th. The national theme was drawn to the library. So we decided on
a campaign that encouraged patrons to visit all MCPL locations to get them to check out what the various
library locations had to offer, including different collections, unique physical spaces, and conversations
with different staff members.
Our promotional copy was National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role
libraries and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities. So staff
members provided input to us for their mascots over on the left. Each location had a special sticker
that patrons could get and each mascot was special to each location through various characteristics.
And we encourage patrons to collect them all
And many did. And we still have some today. We also had postcards over on the right. And on the back,
the copy said, tell your representatives why you're drawn to the library. Learn how to take action by
scanning the QR code. And the QR code went to a blog post on our website about intellectual freedom
and resources provided by the American Library Association.
This was our campaign for Library Card Sign Up Month this past September. What we normally get feedback
wise is, I love the library, but I don't know how to support it. And so we took that feedback, and we
decided that we really wanted solid call to actions for our Library Card Sign Up Month.
This is particularly important because not only do we want people to be introduced to the library, but
we also want to give them solid action if they choose to support the library. So we decided on three
particular actions. So join, discover, and support.
So how to sign up for your library card, materials that you can access with your library card, because
that's supporting your library simply by checking out materials. And then additional support being get
a library card, join the friends of the library, attend programs. So we wanted to make it pretty simple
for our audiences on here's how you can tangibly support the library. Band books a week.
So the campaign from ALA was actually very similar to this. Normally we look at the campaign and we
decide if we want to kind of mirror it or if we want to do our own. This one we actually really liked.
Their national campaign was Read for Your Rights Censorship Episode 1984. We really liked that. So we
did kind of our own spin on it, but very similar. So it's kind of red, white, and blue, which we really
don't do. So we did that.
We did kind of quotes on banned books and intellectual freedom. We did the top 10 most challenged books
and why to kind of educate our audience on that. We also were able to reserve half of the glass case
in City Hall for September, which is something we haven't been able to do before. So that was another
way to kind of get our message out in the community.
We also always have a blog post that talks about statistics for book challenges and intellectual freedom,
especially throughout the country. ALA always releases those numbers right before National Library Week.
So we try to make sure that our posts and our content are always data-driven to inform our audiences
as well. And those always do really well.
after you've educated the people on these books that they say, well, let's put them back in the library
and let's not ban them anymore? Or is there any comments as far as that we can do things differently
than other areas just because we're more educated on those books? We're very lucky where most of the
time our comments are very supportive, where most of the time it's, I can't believe these are banned
in other places. I wish people would
have more empathy and read characters that are not about them or would have a different perspective.
We haven't had really a lot of comments where they're very negative. So a lot of them are in support
or a lot of the comments are, thank you for reminding me, I need to check these out because I haven't
read them since high school. And so we really see a lot of circulation with that.
A lot of them are actually thanking us for reminding them, or, you know, I want to read about that.
I want you to check this out. So we get a lot of supportive comments. So literacy learning and digital
equity. ADA, DEI, and accessibility truly guide everything that we do.
for providing accessible and digital content. So that includes websites, emails, and social media posts.
We make sure that they are screen reader friendly and follow accessibility standards like the web content
accessibility guidelines. And we work with our web administrator to make sure that our content follows
those guidelines. With our physical content, we make sure our language does not surpass a certain reading
level. And all of our fonts and designs are accessible as much as possible.
In terms of culturally relevant marketing, messaging and programming, we make sure that they reflect
the diverse communities that the library serves. This includes ensuring that promotions are not biased
toward a particular group, but instead cater to all backgrounds and experiences. Although we tend not
to show people in our marketing, we follow these guidelines if and when we do show people equitable
access when we promote our services.
We ensure people from underserved or marginalized groups are aware of and have the same access to library
resources such as language services, support for non-English speakers, or outreach to lower
income communities. We continue to work heavily with vital and outreach services on these initiatives.
Inclusive language, using language that is welcoming to all such as avoiding stereotypes and being mindful
of terms that promote inclusivity.
especially using gender neutral language, for instance. So for example, we use caregiver instead of
parent. Ultimately, communication and marketing in a public library setting must aim to build awareness,
inclusivity, and community engagement while making sure that all individuals, regardless of ability,
background, or identity, can fully access benefit from our library's resources,
And these guidelines ensure that MCPL not only fulfills our role as community hubs and beloved third
spaces, but also serve as equitable and welcoming spaces for all of our patrons. To help evaluate our
efforts, we were the client last semester and we are also the client this semester of a public relations
campaign for this semester at the IU Media School.
So in small teams, PR students are taking a specific part of MCPL as their client in the hopes of doing
an unbiased third-party evaluation, as well as ways that we can improve our marketing and branding.
So each of their efforts are guided by one of our strategic plan goals, and we are excited to see the
culmination of their semester-long work this April. Yeah?
to like the small group or is it going to be more of a, I just wondered. Yeah, yeah, so they have client
presentations so it will be just to the CNM team right now and then we try to take that information
and see what tangibly that we can do on our end.
Last year, we took some of their marketing tactics specifically for IU students. And we used those in
August. And we actually got triple the amount of IU students signing up for library cards. So they're
very insightful, very helpful, especially because it's our target audience doing work about themselves,
which is great insight. So generally, we get all of their data, all of their research. But I am happy
to present that to you all as well. Yeah.
Yeah. Or something like just insights that they came up with. Yeah. No, absolutely. No, it's semester
long, and they work incredibly hard on it. So no, I would be happy to present that to you all. Yeah,
no, thank you. So just a final note that the CNM team provides essential support to MCPL staff and our
patrons by promoting library news, programs, and resources.
which helps build stronger relationships with our community. And this support helps MCPL staff focus
on their core mission, which is of course to serve patrons and enrich the lives of our Monroe County
residents. And I would be happy to take questions. Great job. Yeah. Do you find that you're in a position
right now where you're dealing with any kind of challenges where you feel like you could use a little
more support to get you to meet
that your strategic goals, because this is really important work. Yeah, thank you so much. Actually,
we are very privileged right now. I don't think so. We have an incredibly supportive community. Even
when we had to close for a couple of days, I know that can be incredibly challenging for a lot of our
patrons, but we had nothing but support of stay safe, we understand. So we're very lucky to be in that
position. So I don't think so right now, but thank you.
Any other questions or comments? Thanks, Tori. All right, thank you all. You make us look good. Any
other board comments before we adjourn? Motion to adjourn. All in favor say aye. We are adjourned.