So I'd like to call to order the July sixth meeting of the Venetia Board of Library Trustees.

Have a roll call, please.

Present.

Secretary Lois Kazakhov, present.

Trustee Linda Ordonio Dixon.

Present.

Trustee Ruth Workman.

Present.

President Todd Hickey.

Present.04.

Of the City of Benetha's open government or governance ordinance.

Secretary Lois Kazakoff.

Aye.

Trustee Linda Ordonio Dixon.

Aye.

Trustee Ruth Workman.

Aye.

President Todd Hickey.

Aye.

Written, comments submitted.

Is there anyone online who has a comment?

So

we'll move on then to point seven information and presentations.

Very impressive.

It's a brand new building, very impressive uh both in its public uh spaces, but also sort of behind the scenes and the technologies that that were being um deployed.

Um so I was I was very impressed with that.

And I've as I think I've said in the past, I found these meetings um to be very informative, it's very uh

uh

I think important, useful to um learn what is going on with other uh libraries in the in the county.

It was a pleasure this time uh to meet the new director of the county system, Michael Eitner, and uh and to see this this new uh facility.

Have you been able to see it, Jennifer?

I have, and um it was a real treat to actually go because I used to work there.

Uh as a uh I was there the last time they remodeled, so it was nice to see that they finally got rid of that awful um casino carpet.

Um so yeah, but it it you know it was really interesting because uh they put in a lot more programming space.

Uh that building was one of the few spaces that even had a little bit of dedicated programming space, but now they've got a beautiful couple of huge spaces and additional to some new study rooms.

Um there's an outdoor space now in the children's area.

One of the things that they did, which is interesting is they reduced their shelf space by about half, and nobody noticed.

So, yeah, so that just seems to be the trend of where things are going.

Libraries are moving much more digital these days, uh, and they're definitely following that trend in terms of materials, and uh we're just talking a lot actually with the number of librarians across the state, how the pendulum seems to be swinging a little bit back toward uh kind of a high touch uh library use because for a long time we were pushing people to using self-check machines and you know, doing every things independently, and and uh people are really craving that personal connection more these days.

And so uh that's one of the things that they did in creating that new space was really addressing that.

So it's a lovely space.

I encourage any other members of the board uh who have the opportunity to check it out.

It's it's good it's really impressive.

Next uh report from the city librarian, Jennifer.

Yeah, if um anybody has any questions about the uh budget and staffing report, happy to answer those.

I got a little long-winded, so hopefully I didn't put you all to sleep.

Um but I'm gonna just fill you in on kind of where things are right now.

I also wanted to share with you the uh priority-based budgeting categories that we created.

Um we are now in the costing out process of that.

We've got until the July 16th to complete that, where we assign a dollar amount to each of these items, and then uh it'll go on to the city, and they will do whatever magic they're planning to do with that information, and we will all stay tuned to find out.

Uh, of course, right now uh they're still waiting to hear the outcome of the bad grants, uh, which we won't know until September.

Um, but this is all in preparation for the next budget cycle, which will begin uh no later than January.

I wouldn't be surprised if we got an earlier start than that.

This go around, but uh usually we start in earnest around January.

Any questions about that report?

Yeah.

So uh thank you.

It's uh very informative, Jennifer, and I wondered whether the budgeting categories that you came up with might be shared with the foundation because I thought there was it was a very useful sort of overview of all the things that um the library does, and you know, I've said, oh, okay, we do this.

And so I I I thought that I know it's intended for another purpose, and I don't know whether it's it's confidential or not, but I I thought it would be useful for the foundation maybe to see uh in my capacity working with them.

Um so that was a comment, and then I have a couple of questions as I read through.