47, we do have a quorum. Um, yes, thank you for starting recording Amy.
And I'll call this a regular meeting of the Seattle public library board of trustees to order.
Before we get to approval of the agenda, we do actually have a change. There's the social services team update that was under the chief librarians report.
That's actually being postponed, so we're going to strike that item item from the agenda.
If there aren't any additional changes, I will entertain a motion to approve.
As amended so moved 2nd.
All right, all in favor aye, all the agenda Thank you.
Um, public comments, um, oh, here comes tally. Great.
Um, Amy, or I should say we are currently accepting public comment via email.
Amy, is there any public comment? There is no public comment this month.
Okay, so next item before we get to the chief library report is the consent agenda. We do have the minutes from our January meeting as well as the year end for 2022 financial report.
Um, if there aren't any changes, I will share a motion to approve. a motion to approve
The consent agenda also, so moved.
2nd, all those in favor, say I, or raise your hand.
Hi, right.
Thank you thank you tally.
All right, those items are out of the way Tom, your chief, labor and report and system report.
Great great, thank you. I'm going to actually see most of my time for our system's report today, since it's on the future of libraries.
I just wanted to point out, um, a couple of things keeping on that future kind of mindset. We, um, I did spend time, uh, at the University of Washington, high school, and the class of the future of libraries that course, is taught by.
Former employee and a colleague of mine tangent spent time with students going over.
Some of the work we're doing, obviously our report wasn't done, so I couldn't share all of that, but I could share the process and some of the the findings were we had at that time. So that was a a good day for me.
It's always great to talk to the students who also a couple of them actually had an interest in public libraries as well. So always good to see who might be out there that we could be hiring. So that was a positive the other 1.
I wanted to point out that also is looking at both present and future as we hosted the.
Statewide directors, Washington, public library directors group at Central. It is the 1st time that we've ever had that at Central. It's usually in a kind of a neutral area.
Uh, we haven't been Spokane back in September, and they are moving it around, uh, throughout the state. So we were happy and proud to host that.
The team of course, did a great job manage in the space and the technology so that those that were had to attend remotely could do so we were able to test out some of our new hybrid technologies for conferencing, speaking of the future.
So that was a good thing and it proved itself. Well.
As we move through it, um, we also just to keep the rolling rolling on the future side of things. We had our strategic planning consultant. Um.
Meeting our initial 1 with them a 4 hour discovery session on the 6th of February.
And that went very well went very well. I'll open it up. If there's any questions for any of that or any of the other items on.
The chief librarians report. All right and just 1 note on the, uh, rest of the report. Uh.
Jay had asked for inter, library loan statistics that is included in your report. So we'll give you an idea of how we're doing with that. What the numbers look like.
If you have any questions about that, please do let me know and we can get you additional information if needed.
And if there are no questions, then what I would like to do, and I hope we have them here. Um, Amy, I can't see much. Um.
I'd like to turn this over to Andy Heinz to talk about our future and libraries and our foresight work.
And where we're where we're at, we are have been wrapping it up and doing some final edits and Andy's here to.
Run us through where we're at, with this process. Are you there, Andy? I'm here.
Here you are about to share my screen.
Well, thanks, Tom, I really appreciate the opportunity to share with you all about some insights that we got from our several month long project on the future of libraries that we completed roughly last month. So let's sorry.
Oh, boy.
I'm going to start with some key takeaways and really focus on key takeaways from the project.
And then I'll talk a little bit at the end about, like, how we got to those, but we don't want to focus. Like, what do we get out of this? And.
I mean, our goal was to feed the strategic planning activity. So that was our thought, how do we help that strategic planning guy could activity um, the best way possible.
Thing we do is we create a mental model among participants about the future. So when you ask people, what does the future look like we hope that the information that pops into people's head is different.
And it was before we did the project, um, and in a sense, as we go through all the various activities to develop our view of the future, we also, in a sense, we're rehearsing.
We're saying if this future happened, what might we do? So it's kind of it's practice.
We all know the practice makes perfect. So this 1st takeaway is that is literally created, you know, what's that mental model of or image of what the future might look like and there are possibilities.
You see, we, we organized, we did a 10 year, look into the future, and we, we typically use the 3 horizons model to organize that timeframe. And we say the 1st horizon is the current system.
How does the current how does the library? How do the libraries currently work? Horizon? 2 is a zone of transition where we start to see change and we start to see change taking place. Horizon. 3 is the seeds if not the actual.
The system starting to emerge.
And 1 way you might think of this is almost like a horse race. Now, I'm assuming that you're reading the little blurbs about each scenario.
But if if I can walk you through, how we think of it in a horse race, all the scenarios are in the starting gate together in the beginning. So to speak.
But horizon 1 leaves out of the gate. 1st, so the horizon 1. uh, sorry. Um, let me put the names of the scenarios that are part of the horizon 1 scenario, which we call not enough. That's fast out of the gate.
And it may lead the pack for quite a while, but eventually over the course of our 10 year timeframe, it's going to start to feed. It's not going to start. It's not going to fit as well with.
The emerging future so what happens is horizon 2 scenarios.
If you will start to gain on the baseline and eventually pass it now, a very interesting thing that we've spent a lot of time ruffling.
That transition could be rocky and we call that the collapsed future.
Dysfunction might be a better word, but color.
And by, by putting that down on paper, it gives us a way to say. All right, we don't want this to happen. What can we do right now? And the present to do our best to avoid that future?
Is what it might look like. Okay, so the other, the other sort of transition, uh, typical transition scenario is we call it new equilibrium. It's, it's a gradual approach.
And then at the end of the race now, in the beginning, the 3, uh, we have 2 to 3 different kinds of scenarios, we call 2 versions of transformation and a 3rd 1. we called the preferred future, right? They're lagging behind in the early going.
But, over time, they're starting to gain strength or starting to gain strength. Right? And of course, by naming a preferred future, the team has said, this is what we would hope.
This is our, this is what we would hope we would get to.
Now, so that's kind of the landscape and I'll talk a little bit more, uh, in just a 2nd, about some of the details.
But I think 1 of 1 of our jobs is the future is knowing that we're again, we're setting up the strategic planning activity, is we, we, our job is to poke into prod. It's a stretch stretch the team to think differently.
How might the future be different and sometimes radically different?
And so we considered some radically different ideas, but then as a team, we came together and said all right you know, here's our if you will our best, plausible guess. And I think it was really interesting to us.
So, we do we do a lot of work with folks who are relatively new to the foresight game and what we were really surprised is how well aligned.
This team already is which speaks to me of the leadership that's that's been going on. Before we got here. We tried to. In other words, we tried to make them, but we found that, you know.
While we did see a spirit of considering differences we did see at the end that there was a fair degree, not not 100, not agreed on everything, but there was a pretty strong sense of alignment and that we, and our experience is a little unusual. So.
Kudos on that front. The 2nd key takeaway was all right so this idea of a preferred future now, we say a preferred future.
Doesn't mean, you know, we say it's not buddies in rainbows and everything. It's the preferred plausible future.
And we did a lot of work to decide, you know, to determine what we thought was plausible. So, this is definitely working within that constraint of it's not just, you know, what happens if everything goes right? It's like, what is a pretty plausible guiding future that we could kind of aim at.
It's an aspirational future visionary future.
Now, remember, I mentioned that there's this transition, so well, 1 of the ideas we played with, in that new equilibrium scenario, we called it the, the, the library of things where we really were the team for various reasons, ends up.
There was a scenario in which the library gets deeply involved in actually providing social services.
And we just we explored what that looked like and thought about it considered it.
And then in the preferred future, I think we got our answer and the saying, well, you know, we really don't necessarily want to be providing these things. But what can we do.
We can be the anchor. We're good at managing information. That's our specialty. We're good at developing partnerships. We're really good. And so they really, it's a, it's more of a hub role where, um.
The job of a key job of the library system is to get, you know, get get the right information to the right people at the right time. So it's more of a coordinating information a role.
As opposed to, and actually providing the services ourselves, so that's, you know, so this, this whole idea of looking at a landscape, it gives us some ways to play with different things that might happen. Say I know we rehearse that. We don't want this 1.
we like this 1.
I think the other thing I would say about the, um.
This preferred future you remember, you noticed that it was, it was in, between what we call 2 transformation futures right? So, in other words, we thought of 3 versions of the emerging new library system and again we saw that.
There was a lot of commonality and again we poked in product, but we came back to a fair degree of alignment around what those. So those 3 scenarios really are different more and kind and emphasis than 3 really different things.
And I say that, because again, in in our experience, sometimes those futures are really different.
So it was yeah, again, the, the, the, the, the difference here, I think is.
Is is, you know, interesting and useful but again, we just thought that that the, that alignment was quite, uh, quite notable.
All right what else did we find? So, another thing we do after we've created our scenarios, we step back and say all right what are they telling us? What are the themes here? What are we seeing?
And again, this does not always happen, but in this case, we saw that there was a, if you will a common core now, we ended up calling the Super 7.
and what it said is no matter which scenario is as we crafted each of these scenarios individually. And we had different teams working on it our team certainly.
Polish them up afterwards, but we saw it no matter what.
In all these different scenarios, these 7 issues will pop in.
Which way the future unfolds. In other words, we need to have a viewpoint on these different.
Um, 7 issues now, let, I'll show you some details here. Oh, sorry. Again, the, the titles. Um, so you can see how how we kind of characterize those.
And that doesn't mean that there's a 1 size fits all strategy where you can just say, oh, here's the 1 thing we need to do in all these 7 issues. It means we're going to have to deal with them how we deal with as an example. How we deal with staffing.
In the baseline scenario is much different than how we deal with it in a, in a collapsed scenario is much different than how we deal with it in a transformation scenario. But we know we're gonna have to deal with it.
So, they really give us a good solid sense of what does a robust strategy looks like, look like it's, it's centered around those what we call the Super 7.
So, there's some common elements, still some distinction and then the, you know, the other piece that goes along with that and this is kind of fundamental to the future's work in general.
Since we can't know which way that these scenarios are, are actually going to unfold.
So, we want we monitor and that's part of the, you know, the ongoing work of the team is to be saying, all right as we look at what's happening in our landscape. Are we moving towards a particular scenario? Are we moving away for 1? And, you know, so we have to keep our eyes on this.
So it's not like we do the project and go away and just wait for the future to happen. We get to watch.
And react again, I think.
Um, okay, the other thing, the, the, the last major point I wanted to make in terms of these, the, the takeaways. So, you know, again, when we step back and say, what do we find from this work?
Well, for each scenario, we went through a process of identifying the individual implications and we ladder those up into potential strategic issues that we might plug into the strategy process.
And you can see there was, uh, 20 ish.
All of those, um, and not only do we identify the issues it says all right Here's a question. If you will that we need to address we then took it a step further and identified what we call options for action.
And there recommendations, and we used a tool called an elevator speech that gives us sort of a preliminary.
Viewpoint on how we might respond now again, we know that the team is where this work is going to feed a strategic planning process that is going to address those things in detail.
So, we just kind of teed up some ideas and, uh, you know, at a higher level.
Is that, as we looked across this landscape it's all right so, you know, WH, what's what's stuck out to us I think.
1 of the clues in this game is when a theme keeps appearing, we pay attention. Right that's usually telling us something. And you can see that. We actually had 2 options called prioritize.
And, you know, in the discussions that I certainly witnessed, and from the, from our weekly team meetings to our in person scenario, workshop meetings, you know, there's a sense that there's so many things we want to do.
You know, that's great. There's a great spirit of wanting to offer as many things that we can, but, you know, obviously there are limits and, you know, we need if you will, we need to get better at prioritizing.
Now, that popped up as a key option in in 2 scenarios in the 1st, 2 scenarios.
I don't think that's a surprise. I mean, honestly, every single project, I think we've ever done. There's some degree of that.
Now, the question is, you know, is it more in this case? Possibly I don't know. It could be. Um, there are cases where, you know, I think especially with clients who just want to do.
People want to do good things, you know, sometimes that is hard.
We don't want to stop doing things. That's hard. Right that's the hardest thing to do.
Adding new things to do easy, stopping existing things, you know, very challenging. Okay.
So the other theme that came up, you can see it came up twice, right?
And we call it right in the middle T1, which is the transformation 1, hyper localization and then the very last option from the community, the communities preferred scenario was called hyper local.
Well, basically, the same idea from 2 different groups. What does that mean? Well, I'm glad that it gives me the opportunity to emphasize here. here
Again, from an outsider, what did you hear? Well, I tell you what, I heard community a lot. We were, we were really destruct by how important it was to get community input. So, you know, we did community interviews.
We did a community survey, we translated that survey into 15 languages. We did scenario workshops with community members. We did implications workshops with community. I mean, it was an amazing.
So that community.
The need to consider the needs, uh, considering the needs of the community, what was a huge theme throughout this whole project.
And those 2, the hyper local is just a way to say, how do we, you know, not only identify and hear those needs. But how do we customize to them?
And, you know, just different options for how you would customize to different community needs. So, 1st, you're going to be aware.
And then, how do you meet them? So, those were a couple of the themes that came up. There's there's so many more, but I don't have time to go through them. All. I did want to give you at least a snapshot on how we did it, because you might say, well, this is all what, how did you get here? Right? And, um.
It was basically a 12345 month process, right? We started in August.
And we, at Houston foresight, we, we follow a basic approach that we use in our most of our engagements. We always tweak it a little bit, but there's a pretty fundamental core process. We call it framework. Foresight.
And as you might suspect it begins with framing and I'm going to sneak in a slide here. Really quick because I just want you to. So, framing is basically saying, what, how are we going to investigate the future of libraries. You might be saying.
Well, I wonder if they really oh, if they really put some time into this or not.
But this is, as we've said, in our history of doing domain maps, we have never seen a more thorough domain map than we got in this project.
I mean, and you know what this says is there was a deep concern to make sure we didn't forget anything. So, to speak.
So, maybe we'd say a little bit of overkill, but we appreciate the sentiment that if we're going to understand the future of libraries here, and just categories that we need to search.
So I think the thoroughness was, it was quite quite something, so I thought I'd show you that, even though we are a little pressed for time, right? Uh, the 2nd, step is the, uh, what we call scanning for signals of change.
We build what we call a scanning library, we had somewhere around 300 what we call signals of change and it might be an article a blog post, a video Journal piece, whatever. There's any kind of. of
Publication of some sort that's talking about the future, and we have a method of collecting those and pulling insights from it. We identify trends and issues and, you know, we had some other specific types of information about the future.
And then I mentioned already that we did oh, I think it was 50+interviews and had over 100 survey responses.
So we, when, when you're seeing these takeaways that we just went through, they did not just materialize, you know, out of thin air. They're really coming out. really coming out
A, pretty thorough research process.
And what we do to get to some, to help it if you will build the stories of what the future might look like, there's this kind of intermediate step. We call the drivers. Uh, and basically it says, what are the major themes of change.
In the future, why are we space? What do we agree upon? And we had at 14 of them and we use those 14 drivers as a way to kind of like the ingredients.
The main ingredients, not the only ingredients the main ingredients to build our stories about the future.
And then we had our, as I mentioned, we had our 2 scenario workshops in November where we took all based on the drivers,
but also bringing in all the other information that we had developed to that point and crafted it into a sense of the 6 scenarios.
That I showed you earlier on, and then to develop the recommendations, we had a 2nd set of workshop. So we had, as we did the 1st time, we had a staff workshop community workshops.
Workshop community workshop, and from that we developed a set, develop a set of issues that I showed you just a little bit ago on the 20 ish issues and options.
We also did an activity it's called, we depicted here as the integrated strategic approach. So, again, we look across the landscape and say, what, what does that tell us now each domain or each topic has a different.
Type of, you know, response. Right? Sometimes there is a common ground. Sometimes there isn't.
We don't always find 7 issues in the middle.
We did here, but we don't always. So.
That activity, and and again, I think, by the time we get here now, I hope the team is really starting to internalize that mental model of the future, and actually starting to almost think about the moves.
Right we could do this and then this, and we'll adjust that and so that, you know, that kind of rehearsing I think it kind of brings the hopefully brings the future to life. So, as we transition into the strategic planning process, there's this.
Context that is gonna help them. I hope sounds like we already had a good a good kick off meeting where they hit the ground running.
So, I think that's, that's what I wanted to share in terms of the high level overview of what we get out of the project. And, and if it's allowed, I'll take, I'll take questions.
Questions are always allowed, um.
1st.
Yasmin so, um, I think my, my 1st question is around.
Um, how do you take into account.
These, you know, what you've talked about is very much dependent on external parties.
So, I figure that in some of the community workshops that you hosted that you were able to get feedback but, um.
It feels like there's probably going to be more there's going to need to be more engagement with those external parties to.
Figure out, if they're heading in the same direction, as we are is, uh.
That's 1 question and the 2nd question I have for you, because I think your team particularly works for the libraries is how does this compare with other library? Foresight.
Processes yeah, so I think maybe the 1st question, I might not put Tom on the spot, but my guess is the strategic planning process would definitely be, you know, again, bring the community back in, is that that's I mean,
it's like anyone I've ever seen right? Absolutely. So, the next.
Level in the strategic planning will be even more.
Talking to more folks trying to bring more people to.
The discussion, I think, you know, the 1 thing, when you're talking about, you know, we would be relying on others in the community for some of this jasmine.
I think 1 of the things we also heard from the community workshops is that, you know, our librarians are great or library staff or grade or program managers are great, but.
Wouldn't it be great to 1 of the examples that was given is wouldn't it be great to have library partnerships specialists who really just focus on that? The listening and really engaging deeply?
And that's really their focus is partnership development and building.
And so that was some of the things that was coming out so that we're also knowing where, where are we lacking? And it's not that they didn't think everybody was great. They just said, well, we need more time with us and vice versa.
To really understand each other to be able to Co, create Co develop, et cetera.
So, that that was a key, but there'll be there will be more opportunities. Uh, we'll be inviting those groups that participated with, uh, Andy.
We will invite them back to the next round. They may not all be able to participate again, but again be surveys interviews. There'll be a couple different ways that people can participate.
And I don't know how many libraries that I know we're 1 of the 1st to do anything of this scale. So, at least from what I've heard, but you might know more.
Yeah, so we, we don't specialize in libraries. We do all kinds of different, um, do communities and I was just working with the CDC this morning public health. So we're all we're all over the map right now.
I would say that I've done a lot of library talks and workshops over the years. So, um, I personally am pretty familiar with the landscape.
And I'll share the team sentiment as we started to, you know, we're doing our preliminary framing around oh, what's the, what's the Seattle up to? And we're like, oh, this is going to be hard because, like, you guys are, like, you know, 1 of the best, right?
So, if you will, when you have a client, that hasn't done a lot, it's, it's almost easy to recommend, right? Cause there's like, well, you know, there's 10 things you should be doing right away.
And so, in a sense, it was very challenging, right? Because you guys are at the top of the game.
So we said, Ooh, we've gotta we gotta work cut out on this 1. now it was, it's fun to have the challenge, but we, everybody remarks that it's like, we think of something to go out they're already doing that. Not correct. You know, like that kind of thing.
So challenging, but, uh, I hope we stood up to it.
Question can you just help me understand when you.
Investigated community members or community what communities where are we talking about? And how many and just, I'm sure you did. I just want to have a.
Good understanding that we did a comprehensive or appropriate reaching out.
We, we sent out we sent out to about 40, or I think it was 50 different community based organizations that we work with. Um, we had in the workshops, um, maybe.
At times, 10 to 11 folks, depending on the particular workshop that came out that were consistent and then we also had our interviews with some of them as well and some completed the survey. So we had a pretty good.
Mix of folks, um, every, uh, we had.
Uh, I represented the depth blind community.
We had, um, gender Justice league.
We had, um, Atlantic street.
Um, group that just gives you a range of the types of things, or types of folks, and organizations that we have present. So.
You know, you'll never get everyone. They're busy too. Uh, we did pay for their time in all of these efforts.
Uh, depending on which 1 they did, but, um, this next 1 will probably be looking for a little.
Uh, even a little more and aside from organized groups, I mean, who represents.
Gen, or, you know, when you think demographically, as opposed to.
Other things, so I can grab that cause, I mean, that comes up in, in all these kinds of workshops, right? Cause you're always taking such a small microcosm of a huge context.
And I think as we do our research, that's kind of on us to kind of fill in some of those cracks. So to speak, because you can't have every group there. So, you know, we've got a.
Hope that we did our, and then that was part of that detailed domain map that I showed you to say, like, all right well, we thought about this group and what about this type and what about this you know so.
We do the best we can to kind of cover as much of the ground as we can, but like, you know, it it is impossible to get everyone in the room. Um, but again, that's not an app. That's you.
I would say you guys do way more than as a typical typical project we work on it. I mean, you are way more inclusive than most of the projects we do.
Yeah, and even as we've looked at our strategic planning consultant, you know, they've said the same the same thing. They're like, wow, that's a lot. And we actually.
We actually worked with them in the for territory who is the strategic planning consultant? 2.
Instead of spending 4 weeks, spend 10 weeks.
On community engagement, so they've also agreed to that so that we have more time to.
Because 1 of the problems with our for our community based organizations, they're busy, actually doing the work. So when we ask them to drop everything and spend a day with us.
That doesn't always work on our schedule so trying to find times that work. We learned that through this. Um, not that we didn't already know it, but it was still too compressed at a time. Um, so this time we're going to take a little more.
Time to get more and more involvement.
Hi, um, this is Ron. Can I ask a question? Um.
I'm curious, um, obviously you work with a variety of organizations and sounds like some.
Other libraries as well and while, while it's great to be viewed as being at the top of the.
Learning curve I'm curious. Will there be an opportunity to perhaps at least see what.
How other libraries in particular are dealing with.
Similar challenges and different scenarios for the future.
I mean, you can Andy share some of that as we move forward.
I am convinced you can always learn from other sister institutions.
Where they are, because everybody does something better than the other person.
Well, the way the way that we approach that, and it's, you know, it's.
All these things you got to make his choices on how you want to spend your time. I mean, our goal is to try to find who is doing stuff that you could, you know, in a sense that we could learn from.
So, as I said, in the early going, when we looked at all the obvious things, hey, you should try this. We're like, we go back and look up who they're already doing that.
But, I mean, so we actually expanded our search globally, and we looked across the globe, and some of the examples we were filing from Europe, and I remember we had 1 from Finland, and all across the country.
So, we look for examples of what, you know, how other libraries are approaching some of these things. Now, do we.
We wouldn't claim to comprehensively, um, you know, got every aspect of the landscape, but we feel like we did a pretty good job in terms of, especially future what, in terms of future oriented changes. We have. We had a pretty good inventory for some of those things.
Now, we didn't like, actually map them all out, but we, we have them in our scanning library for instance.
But you will, I think, when you see the full report and we're doing the final edits on that report, Ron, when you see the full report, it's 100 pages.
And of that 100 pages, it has many links off to other, uh.
Articles et cetera, and so you really will start seeing how extensive this is. Andy is really giving you a very.
30, maybe 50,000 foot view of what this report contains really to just to let you understand where you kind of need to.
Dig in a little deeper as you go through the report, the report. So a lot a lot to read when we send that out I'm still trying to get a chance to review the edits that have been sent to me.
And then we'll get that out to the board, but we did want to make sure you had this higher level presentation. So you had a place to start before we just dropped 100 pages on your.
I'm looking forward to reading the book.
Book a little bit.
But I think it, to me, it was very, I mean, I think a lot of the things that you're, you know, are thinking of Ron, I think you'll find in there.
I found myself going down a lot of rabbit holes. I know.
Andy, and his team went down a lot of rabbit holes too just looking at those links those articles, those ideas.
And I think you'll see some of that as you go through the report.
So, I had a couple of follow ups, um.
1, is the preferred future is you've called the ecosystem anchor, and I'm curious again. I realize we'll get a chance to read the report but can you just define the ecosystem in that?
And the 2nd question is.
The way that that preferred future is defined.
Talks about, um, social and other services distributed to other niches in the community ecosystem.
That are more qualified to handle them. Um.
I, you know, I think part of the reason the library is in the position it's in today is because.
The ecosystem doesn't have the resources to handle some of the things that we are being asked to handle.
So, I assume that, in order to actually reach that preferred future.
We have to actually proactively and ensure that the ecosystem can take that on.
Other people other groups in the ecosystem and so.
That'll be interesting to come up with what those strategies are. So, I guess that's not really a question. It's a comment.
I thought, oh, go ahead Andy.
Sure, well, I think I can jump in a little bit on it in the sense of.
As we as, as we went through some of this, it's.
We know that there's not going to be a safety net for every single aspect and we can't, we cannot.
We can't be that place that's going to always provide it. However, we might prioritize certain certain things that we're seeing in community again. Not necessarily doing the work.
But better partnering, so if we say we have a partner.
And I'll use something I'll use something like homelessness, which is always mentioned in the press.
We know that we can provide great referral services.
Through our social workers, our social services, like brand teams we know we can do that but are we going to be.
Would we be the best point? Maybe we partner with.
The King County, regional authority on that, and maybe they have people in our spaces.
And we prioritize where those areas are in the city. So that's an example of really kind of looking at that entire ecosystem and saying, okay.
As a referral agency, here's our strength, but when we don't have the strength to really do the in depth, instead of just pointing and saying going, go over there, which is the worst thing, maybe the go over here is let me walk you over to this counselor.
I can provide a more direct service to you because we're also housing it.
So, that's that's how I'm looking at it and really having a deeper.
Deeper partnership, and that's what I think was pointed out by those in the workshops with the community based organizations to be able to do that. Then you've got to really have people that are spending the time all the time in developing those partnerships.
I could think of it, you know, I, I just started working with the boys and girls clubs of America.
And I was a big user of the services when I was a kid. So, this is so awesome for me. Right 1 of the things. I real, I didn't know about this is they, they actually have a lot of their operations.
Do not have a physical facility that they actually operate inside other facilities.
I think to me, that's those are the ideas that we were engaging with is we thought of this, you know, should they be here? Should we be there?
And, you know, rethinking those kinds of relationships and I think, you know, to your point about the resources, it's such a group and a preferred future. We have those resources. But, to your point, they kind of just magically appear probably not.
So, there aren't there is some work to be done and if we don't get those resources, so to speak, that's, you know, that's the baseline future. Where are we getting them?
We do pretty good and we have to struggle and prioritize and then we think that that that future could be the 1 that, you know, andrew's on longer than.
Then we think.
Possible and if it goes really bad, that's the collapsed 1 where, you know, they're really scared. So W, we do think of like, you know, you can't just, you really got to dig into those tough questions and say, all right, what would we do in these different, you know, and in these different scenarios.
But obviously, the main thrust is like, this is the way we want to this is where we want to get to what's the best we can do to, you know, if you will get on that preferred pathway. And I think pathway is the way we always think of it. What's the pathway look like.
More questions.
Comments so I will, I will at least say this, I think, as we go through it, you all or will be involved in the strategic planning process as well.
Um, so I do encourage you when we send out the report that you really go through this, and if there's questions, you know, bring them up.
To me, and and we'll definitely go through them. We can also.
Bring back specific information at board meetings that there's that as well.
Um, well, we're looking at this. This is a very.
And I, I tried to explain this to colleagues and really what we're doing is we are creating the pathways for the mid century.
Library system, and I know that sounds weird because we all think a mid century being the 20th.
And those 9,950 s, but we are really thinking of this being driving us towards that 2033 2032 timeframe that's going to be pushing towards that mid century timeframe in this century.
And so we've really got to be saying, okay for this to happen, or we know that we're going to have and expect to have. happen or we know that we're going to have and expect to have
Significant changes, we have got to do things differently, but we also have to stop doing some things.
That is going to be the tough and tricky part as we go through the strategic planning is along that pathway that Andy's talking about to that preferred future.
Some things are going to be left behind and they have to be if we want to actually reach those new populations, those new generations, and really be able to do the work with the resources. We have doesn't mean, we can't ask more doesn't mean we won't get more.
Because we'll know what we want to get, but we have to be realistic to that.
There isn't an endless part of money. We can't carry all that legacy stuff behind us. And that's not to say that we're not going to do all those things. You think of the library we're still going to have collections. We're still gonna be information providers. It's just, you know, how are we doing that?
How are we engaging the community to do that work? That's what's going to change significantly as we move over the next decade.
And the tools will as well artificial intelligence, all these things that you here in, just the whispering of today 10 years from now, everybody will be using them every single day. And not, even though it.
Tom, were you surprised at the preferred alternative or does this just confirm where you thought you were going anyhow?
I, you know, I think the organization has been on that path.
For quite a while, not quite a few for a few years. Let's say 5 years. Um, already, I think the issue that we have seen in the past is we've never been able to.
Do any of it at scale? We haven't been able to prioritize.
And we haven't been able to leave things behind and because of that, we will not get it to scale. We will not reach those communities. And from an equity perspective.
We won't reallocate the resources to get it done.
And those are the, those have been the limiters to the great work that staff have been trying to do as we move forward.
So, I think a lot of what we see is yes. Um.
Not a surprise, but then, I think, as you see the community really drive out jumping in and aligning with some of that.
And where they want to see things going, and where they think the library's done good work and where they could do better.
I hope we'll hear more of that as we move through this again.
As Andy said this as a starting point, and through that strategic planning, we're going to tweak and twist and what that preferred future really looks like and what's obtainable and what the organization's readiness is to perform it.
Uh, that's going to be key as well. That's the next, you know, that's 1 of the final steps of the strategic planning will be, what is the organizational readiness to do this work.
Because a lot of times you got to do the, and that's the painful.
Painful part to get to that great story at the end.
Great, thank you. Any last questions or comments.
I think this is great and I want to thank you it. It seems to me that.
The preferred the future is, um.
Makes so much sense to me, it has 2 parts. 1 is.
To to put a stake in the ground to say, this is what we do.
This is what import is important. We are the only ones that can do this and we want to be great at it.
And it follows from that is a whole lot of stuff that people might like us to do that we cannot do. And we have to find alternatives.
To meet our goal, but it's, you know, how we reach those priorities. But I think what's really a self definition of what.
What we want to do what we feel, our central purpose and strategic advantages and providing.
Services and so I look forward to it. I think this is great. And I, thank you.
Yeah, I just want a 2nd that, um, I do, I agree with Jay that I feel like what the library is providing today. Some of it.
Has been thrust upon the system, um.
And when you read the, the reports of what staff are working on, like the.
The intellectual freedom training, the digital literacy work that the staff are doing where.
You know, it's, it's an extension of the work of the library to.
Give people the tools as well as the resources for.
Figuring out how to navigate democracy and to be a full player in democracy that work is just so important. And when we're having to.
Set it aside or give it lower priority because of things that really shouldn't be in our Bailey wick. We're losing an opportunity, especially at this incredible moment of transition.
Around what is democracy and how do we educate everybody so that there's a baseline of understanding. So I, I really appreciate that as well. Um.
And I think as we move forward Tom in the actual strategic planning effort to think about.
How we need to be proactive and how the board of trustees can be helpful in leading some of that proactivity.
Yeah, thank you for that. I, well, I think and you have seen some of that as we.
You know, we moved to more advocacy, we've asked you the board to also be part of that advocacy network as we continue to push and push on in those areas going after different types of funding sources.
Uh, both government and other types of grant makers out there. Those are all going to be areas that are going to be critical to this work, uh, the next level as we go for that.
To actualize this work and all of the strategic planning and futures work that we've done.
It's gonna require that next Levy. We know we're gonna have to carry a portion of it for our operating for those services that we do every day. But then we're going to have to also then decide what in there it gets repurposed.
And then what is absolutely brand new that we need to make sure that we have to see the next couple of years of that strategic plan, come to fruition and move us down that path.
To that preferred future so it's definitely going to be a lot of board involvement moving through that process.
Thanks Tom. Thanks, Andy for your presentation. I really appreciate your work on this and I actually enjoyed the workshops that I participated in. So, um, thanks for that and I think we all look forward to reading the report. Uh.
As soon as it's ready. All right, well, thank you. I'll appreciate it and good luck going forward. You're in good hands.
Yes, thanks, Andy. Alright.
Uh, Tom, was there anything else on the chief library in your system report?
There is not we'll move 1 that we have planned for day to probably next month sometime or the following month. We've got a few things queued up. So, uh, we'll get back to those.
Okay, that would be great. Our next item on the agenda is old business, which we don't have any. So on 2, new business, our library foundation and friends of the library reports.
I believe the foundation did not have a February meeting. So we're just looking at.
Friends meeting, which I attended, um.
It was actually very brief, um, because I actually spent their February board meeting, mostly as a work session for their committees, but they did welcome 2, new board members. Um, Julio Rodriguez and Wendy Overton.
And then actually, vice president angel solve. Oh, I think some of you have met, she actually was running the meeting and she recapped their recent retreat.
And then they, they spent the rest of their meeting in the committee breakout rooms and they actually they also.
Back to new board members, they did have 2 potential new board members visiting and participating. So they are evolving as ever.
And I think that is it for the friends board report.
Um, back to our agenda.
Were there any questions or comments? Oh, yeah, I just wanted to say, thank you for covering the friends board meeting. Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that.
No problem it like I said, it was short, so.
Next item is updates from library board members, whether did anyone have any updates or anything else? We should.
Be, uh, no about picked up on.
I'm going to go to the library this evening. Oh, no, I'm not. Yeah, I'm going to actually be there. It's tonight, um, lessons in chemistry the offer's going to be there and there's a oh.
Before that there's a foundation reception, which is the norm and.
Um, I always look forward to that like, we, my wife and I walk over and enjoy and.
Bear the cold weather and and warm up it's supposed to be a very good book. I've just read some reviews. I haven't read the book itself.
It's a really thought provoking book and I'm really bombed. I can't go here her speak, um, cause it it, uh.
Definitely, there are parts of it that rubbed me the wrong way. But, um, also parts that were.
Inspiring, I guess to some degree, so that's a really cool author and.
I have a question if I could follow up.
I'm curious where this is the big Seattle reads anniversary.
And I think it's happening in May Tom. Can you just remind us what's planned?
So, I was on mute, um, actually, we'll have come in and give a little more of a detailed presentation of what we have planned and Amy. I can't remember if that's planned for April or March next month in March. Mm. Hmm.
So, she'll, she'll give you lots of good information and the, the sneak peak.
Great looking forward to that and enjoy tonight today.
Thank you, um, any other updates.
All right, well, um, our final, I believe our final item on our agenda is that we are having an executive session today.
So, it's now 2259 so, at this time, the sale public library board of trustees, we will have an executive session to review confidential personnel matters. No decisions will be made during this closed session.
And I expect this executive session will conclude at about. executive session will conclude at about
I want to say 120, probably about 20 minutes. So the boarding staff we're working on these issues will now be moved into a private.
Online meeting room, and then the public meeting will remain connected, but meeting attendees will not be able to view or hear members in executive session. And then the public meeting public portion of the meeting will recommend in about.
15 to 20 minutes, and then we'll come back and will adjourn.
So, um, I see is on screen I'm.
We, the, the process is happening.
Good afternoon board members. Hi.
Hi Kerman. Okay. All right. Looks like we are back.
Um, it's now 114, our executive session has ended.
And I believe we can adjourn this regular meeting of the public library board of trustees. Our next meeting is March 23rd.
And I look forward to seeing you all then.
We're adjourned, thank you. Bye. Bye. Everybody.
Bye.