Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

Welcome to the today is April 27th, 2026 regular uh board meeting of the Indianapolis Public Library.

Can we have a call of the roll?

Uh yes, Mr.

Peterman.

President.

Ms.

Johnson?

Present.

Dr.

Michelle.

Present.

And do we have Dr.

Bossio?

I thought he said he did later.

Dr.

Riolo present.

Dr.

White.

And Miss Woodard present.

We do have a form.

Excellent.

Good evening, everyone.

It's my pleasure to welcome you to the monthly meeting of the Indianapolis Public Library Board of Trustees.

My name's Ray Bieterman, President of the Board of Trustees.

Tonight we are at or hosted at the Decatur Branch.

Thank you very much for having us here this evening.

We're very excited to be here.

Before we move to the Decatur Branch report, I'd like to highlight one of our current initiatives.

It's our and and this one's actually very very close to my heart.

I have very recent experience with this, actually.

It's the library card campaign, which uh supports our strategic plan of growing our our base.

Um so did you know that your library card needs to be renewed every three years?

I found out this week when I uh couldn't uh read a book anymore to my kids on the Libby app and it kept trying to do it, and then and then I looked at my email, and you guys emailed me like a hundred times telling me I needed to do it.

But there you go.

There you go.

So you will keep very close.

Yeah, yeah.

So my kids were upset that evening, but I took care of it, so we're good now.

All right, uh, many of our most engaged patrons know this, but it's a helpful reminder to all of us.

Um we're in the process of reaching out to Lap's card holders um with invitations to rename.

Um using your library card not only gives you access to millions of resources for free, but using your card adds to our continued growth and demonstrates the library importance to taxpayers and decision makers.

So we encourage everyone to get a card, renew it if needed, and most importantly, use it and tell your friends about it.

Yeah.

Uh so with your library card in hand, uh, you'll be ready for summer reading.

And our summer reading program actually registration begins this Friday, May 1st.

Isn't that exciting?

Like we made it past winter.

We're working to summer baseball season started, everything.

We're in full swing.

It's wonderful.

Um, looking so also looking ahead, we're excited to unveil two new beautiful bookmobiles next month.

It's exciting.

Very exciting.

Uh design with improved accessibility and modern features.

We're also preparing for the grand opening of Kids Central and Teen Central, featuring two floors of refresh spaces at Central Library, just in time for summary.

So there's a lot of positive news to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

Um now let's move on to the agenda and let's move to our monthly branch report.

Um so to learn more about the Decatur branch and its service to the community.

I'd like to invite uh Miss Dorian Smither, uh Branch Manager, to step forward and share the branch report.

President Bieterman, members of the board, Mr.

Hill, and other guests.

Welcome to the Decatur Branch Library.

I am Dorian Smither, the branch manager.

Um this snapshot of our staff represents a total of 144 years of Indianapolis library experience.

And the staff member who has been here at Decatur the longest is our page, Jason.

He started working here over 21 years ago.

Wow.

There's no such thing as a typical day at any library, but this will represent a more or less ordinary day.

Um we started out as a storefront Marwood branch in 1967.

It was the first county branch, and this building opened in 1990.

As you can imagine, there have been many changes in libraries since then, but some things remain the same.

We begin the day by emptying the drop box, opening the totes of holds and new books, and starting the shelving.

The totes are often here before we are, even though we're the last delivery on our route.

Last year we checked out 86,000 92 physical items, and we have 3,360 active card holders.

As soon as we open, we can expect people to arrive needing computers or help with mobile printing.

That does remain our most common reference question.

And that is three people right at opening, waiting for the printer, and there are other people that aren't even in the shot.

We also do one-on-one computer classes with people by appointment.

We find that people appreciate the flexibility of scheduling their classes when it's convenient for them rather than offering them at a set time.

According to Savvy, almost 8% of the households in our service area are without their own computers or internet service.

Many of our computer class attendees are repeat customers.

We also answered almost 6,800 reference questions, and we had 6,551 computer users.

On any given day, our pay our regular patrons come in to browse, to pick up holds, to use the computers, and sometimes just to visit.

Children look forward to the scavenger hunts.

Oh sorry.

Um, to the scavenger hunts and the I spy activities we have, and they enjoy finding Waldo.

When they finish, they get a small prize, sometimes a sticker or an eraser.

To the amusement of parents, many of them choose the noise tube.

Over and over and over.

That's triggering.

If it's Monday, we need to count the seeds in our seed library to send in the inventory.

And I'm happy to report that we are in a growth trend with that program.

Last year we gave away over 2400 packets of seeds, and this year we've already gotten 500 more seed packets in our restocks than we had this time last year.

And soon we will be counting the summer reading prizes.

Last year we had 454 people participate in the program, putting us solidly in the middle of the branches for participants.

If it's the second Tuesday of the month, we have our craft and chat program.

Patrons come in and sit together to work on whatever whatever creative endeavor they choose, and as the title indicates, chat while they do so.

Sometimes they even show up early because it's less distracting here than it is at home.

If it's Wednesday, it can be busy with a variety of activities depending on the week.

Story time is every Wednesday, and our pause to read therapy dog visits on the first Wednesday of each month.

Children look forward to seeing Piper, that's the dog, and sharing books with her.

This plates takes place in our small study room, which is also used for tutoring, supervised visits, testing, virtual meetings, and occasionally even violin practice.

Also, every Wednesday afternoon, the NEST students from the high school come to do a half hour of volunteer work.

NEST stands for nurturing and educating students through transition, and the purpose of the program is to support 18 to 22-year-olds who have finished high school to become as independent as they can.

While they're at the library, they clean book covers, but they have also helped make seed packets and dedecorate windows.

The teacher told me recently that one of the current students, who's mostly nonverbal, did some rather emphatic stemming to make his disappointment clear on a week when they were not able to come for their visit.

It's nice to know that they value their time here.

Wednesdays and Thursdays are also busy days for attending meetings and doing outreach to nearby schools.

And speaking of schools, on Fridays, we have regular visitors that include a class of adult students from Daymar and classes from the Decatur High Ability School.

These groups come every week, and at the beginning of the school year, we make sure they all have library cards.

The high ability school does not have a library in their building, so they're happy to come over and get books from a on the regular basis.

We also recently had a field trip from the fourth graders at West Newton, and they all got library cards during the visit.

And now two of the boys are apparently having a reading competition.

We've been getting huge stacks of books for each one of them, which I think is fabulous.

Um just some added thoughts.

We've done some rearranging of our collection lately.

We relocated the world language materials to a more visible area right between the juvenile and the adult nonfiction.

We also moved the teen collection to um hopefully more appealing corner in the hopes of attracting more teens.

People are surprised that we don't have more teens in after school, considering that we're right next door to the high school.

And the only theory I have for the difference between here and other branches who do get teens is our much later dismissal time.

The high school does not dismiss until almost four o'clock.

And I think at four o'clock, they're ready to go home and have a snack.

However, we did just hear that the school board has art changing dismissal times, and next year the high school will dismiss an hour earlier.

So it will be interesting to see what happens then if my theory is correct.

And we're one of the pilot branches for the library of things.

Our very first checkout was a patron who had been contemplating buying a button maker, and she was thrilled to try ours out before she bought her own.

Another recent patron had just recently moved and she wanted to hang pictures.

She did have her own stud finder, but it was packed in some undetermined box.

So she checked out our stud finder on a Friday and returned it on a money Monday, quite pleased with her weekend progress.

Finally, I those are kind of small, but I would just like to share with you two lovely recent five-star Google reviews for our library, and answer any questions you might have.

Thank you very much.

What questions do we have?

What started the relationship with the nest?

What started it?

Um the teacher called um and wanted to know if they could volunteer here.

So this is actually the second year that they've done it.

Last year they volunteered for an hour each week, but she just she determined that this year the students might need a shorter amount of time.

So that just we see um I could probably give you all one of these if you wanted it.

No, thank you.

Um so they um I I foresee it being an indefinite on ongoing thing because um it really helps them, and you know, our books could always use a good cleaning.

Okay.

What other questions do we have?

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

Okay, uh, so also uh tonight's gender agenda includes a report from the bilingual story times.

So I'd like to ask um program specialist core of Fuqua and Miss uh Jessine Smith to step forward and share a report.

Hi.

Hello.

So uh I'm Jasneb Smith.

I'm the Herbert Simon Early Literacy Specialist.

Um my name is Sakura Fuqua, I'm the immigrant outreach program specialist.

And tonight we uh I know we were requested to talk about bilingual story time, but we really wanted um to cover a more broad um uh assortment of programs.

So we're gonna talk about all of the bilingual and monolingual programming that we do for kids and adults uh at the library.

And I just want to point out that that is a picture of Dr.

Palacio that I was really hoping to thank him for because he has actually participated in some of our bilingual story times.

Uh we'll let him know.

Thank you.

I can see.

Oh, he's here.

Hi.

Thank you.

Oh, didn't you see?

Okay.

Okay.

Um, it's important to distinguish between monolingual and bilingual programming because both types of uh programming serve a purpose.

Uh, the intention of monolingual programs is to be spoken entirely uh in another language other than English, for example, all in Spanish.

Um spoken in one language is important because it allows patrons to learn about subjects, concepts, and ideas uh without worrying about a language barrier.

Uh, this is especially important if the subject is completely new to a person, um, or there might be academic or technical vocabulary involved.

Um, you might run into a patron that's comfortable speaking uh English, but uh conversational English, but when it comes to a niche subjects, they would prefer uh to have that taught in their home language.

Another reason why monolingual programming is important is because um hearing your home language spoken in a public area uh or public spaces can be given uh make people feel comfort and welcomed.

Uh, language is also a part of identity.

And um, as we all know, when we see ourselves represented in spaces, we we feel welcome.

By during our bilingual programs, uh, the presenter will speak uh two languages instead of the same the same information in both of those languages, so everyone can follow along uh with whatever language that they prefer.

For example, uh we might have a program that's conducted in French and English.

Since we are delivering the message twice uh in two different languages, this can add time to a program.

Uh so it's important to plan bilingual programming so that attention is given to both languages, but information is not sacrificed.

Uh these programs can be led by a presenter who's bilingual or um with a uh monolingual interpreter or a monolingual presenter and interpreter of the other language.

Um bilingual programs are important because they can accommodate bilingual or multilingual families, so everybody can be involved.

Um as mentioned earlier, some patrons find comfort in hearing their language spoken in public places.

Uh, this is also true for bilingual programming.

For example, you have the generation 1.5 children who grew up in who were born in one country and then come here as uh uh elementary school age or teenage, and then you also have the um second generation that are accustomed to listening to two languages or more growing up.

Um so again, that's that's comforting to hear multiple languages if that's the environment that you grew up in.

Um the last important point to make about bilingual programming is that um or sorry, your next, so not the last, but um one of the uh most important points is that it invites everyone to join.

So you can be um a native English speaker, you can be uh native speaker of another language or speak both languages, and everybody can't be accommodated.

So I think that's the beauty, uh, one of the beauties is that um we can open the doors to more to learn something new.

Absolutely, and the same goes for bilingual programming for children, which is what I'm gonna talk about.

Um a lot of you are educators or former educators, and so you know that language development happens in those early years.

The brain is rapidly growing and learning, and so um by providing these bilingual experiences for even uh people who are native English speakers, um, hearing a language other than their own.

Of course, for everything that Sakura just said, um, we want you know to offer programs in these other languages so that they feel welcomed in our spaces, but also for English speaking families to have another language experience, um helps with kids to have flexibility, adaptability in their thinking, it increases their um their uh working memory, you know, the things that we can recall quickly, right?

Just because they have um they have more uh development in their brain because they're hearing things in multiple languages, and so um it's it's just a really important time in the in life, right?

It's a way easier to learn another language as a child, right?

Than if we were to now try to try to pick one up.

So that's why we offer bilingual story times.

Um currently we offer them in three languages, um, Spanish, American Sign Language, and Ukrainian.

Um the Spanish story times are far and away the um the largest offering that we have because that represents our community.

Um we have Spanish story times that are done partly by a presenter, Miss Laura, who you see there, she's lovely, and also by um some of our bilingual staff members.

Um so they get to um share their their talent, their home language with uh with our patrons.

American Sign Language Storytime is really sort of unique in that it is uh story time presented by a deaf individual, and so um with with a with an interpreter, a hearing interpreter.

And so it's really accessible to both deaf or hard of hearing and hearing children and families.

Um, and then Ukrainian uh story time um happens, you'll see it there on the left side.

That is an old Nora.

It does still happen in new NORA now that they're reopened.

Um, but that's a partnership with the Ukrainian Society of Indiana.

Um, and they uh they actually have volunteers who just really want to share their language.

They want to um to have Ukrainian kids be able to have a space where they um are welcomed and and sort of celebrated.

And so um they have volunteers that do those for us.

Um and now I I want to say that yes, we only have them in three languages.

I'm always looking to add additional languages, right?

Because those are not or those are not hitting every every piece of our community.

Um but the most important thing about a story time is that it is a high quality story time.

Um we don't uh want to just not every person that speaks another language would make a good person to do a bilingual story time, right?

You have to have some knowledge of child development, of how to work with young children.

Um we try to incorporate early literacy practices, singing, talking, writing, reading, playing.

Um, and so we are always looking to add additional languages.

We are um starting Farsi storytime in the fall, um as sort of a response um to offer a place for people um who uh are of Iranian background um to uh share their culture.

So um just a little uh review of of the programs that we had in 2025.

Um so you'll see, right?

Spanish, Spanish is the biggest one, we served the most patrons.

I will say that these numbers don't include anything that happens at Dia del Nino, um, which is an event that just happened over the weekend at our West Perry branch.

Um I and what what Dr.

Palacio has uh has participated in before, um just uh just in that one day alone, we had 332 people participate in bilingual Spanish bilingual story times.

Um we had a significant number of Spanish speaking families join us, and so um we we try to find other ways to incorporate these bilingual story times into our everyday events and programs.

Okay, um the next couple of slides list programs that we offer for adults uh to give you an idea of what has been offered in the last couple of years.

Um however, I'm gonna mainly focus on um how we've chosen the programs that we offer up to this point.

Um most importantly, the programs that have been chosen um to support various areas of our strategic plan.

Um we also aim to choose languages uh for programs that are a reflection of our Marion County community.

Um based on the community language reports, we are headed by the uh strategic planning and assessment office.

Um they have identified specific languages based on internal data that suggest some of the top language to focus on um now and and moving forward.

Uh some of these languages are Spanish, French, uh Haitian Creole, American Sign Language, Arabic, and Swahili.

Uh most of our bilingual programs have been in Spanish.

Um we are learning uh more on how to incorporate other languages um that reflect Marion County.

Um although we try our best um to offer programs that represent the community, uh it can be challenging to find presenters that speak specific languages, uh connects to a specific culture and experts on subject areas.

Um this is where connecting with community outreach uh community outreach and partnership become important.

Uh these reflect uh in interactions connect us to community members who are able to collaborate and help us develop those programs.

Um the 2025-2027 strategic objective identifies the goal of offering programs that transcends language and welcomes all regardless of the language spoken.

So we believe that um bilingual program is a step in that direction to be able to accomplish that goal.

And this is just a small snapshot.

Uh, we hope to continue to offer more, both adult for adults and for kids as a programming department.

Well, thank you very much.

That's uh slide information.

Uh what questions do we have from the board?

I have a question, and I don't know if you can answer it, and that's okay if you can't.

I was at a program last week, and it might have been our partner's decision, it might have been our decision, but instead of an ASL interpreter, they had AI on the screen, like it was an ongoing closed caption, and there were a lot of errors.

And somebody lost a job with ASL.

They because that person wasn't there.

Um I don't know.

An ASL interpreter might have been as inaccurate too, but I was wondering how that happened, if that's a new direction we're going in, because that didn't happen from McFadden.

Yeah, are you speaking about the WFYI film screening?

Yeah, I wonder if it's their decision.

I I can't speak on whose decision that it was, but I do know that we have received feedback that even ASL interpretation uh is not always the most accessible for for deaf people because they're they there are things that they miss, right?

And because they're not it's not an exact interpretation of one language to another.

And so um we've actually had that request before of can we have uh uh closed captioning?

Um and so we that is a live closed captioning system that we're investigating.

Um and so I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if we'll continue to use that, but but we it is a it is a request that we have received to have sort of this closed captioning, and of course AI is yeah, yes, but I'm not sure about the minuses either way, so yeah, thanks.

ASL is my first language, and there are people who are excellent at interpreting.

Sure.

Finding the right people who have the right skills, but also developmentally appropriate is important, just as you mentioned earlier.

Because without that developmental appropriateness for a young child, then that person may not be interpreting in the way that makes that same connection.

Right.

But I'm very clear that, and she pointed it out.

Sometimes those captionings are so off.

So off.

Right.

You're watching live TV, right?

It's yeah.

I have sorry, I had to jump.

Um the um what we were trying was actually a service.

So at that screening, it was actually people watching and typing at the same time.

So we actually, because what we've been told is that there's a lot of people who actually they don't speak sign language, they might have hearing loss or um, I mean, I watch everything with the subtitles.

But so I um we were trying to reach a broader audience by by offering that.

There you go.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Thanks.

But I to your point, yes.

We do uh we do hire for our uh for our kids' programs.

Um we hire Easter Seals Crossroads um to do an interpretation for at least one session of every package program that we offer as well.

I mean, and by request, of course, additionally, just a note of appreciation for all the efforts that you're putting forward because offering the bilingual programming really does say we're meeting the needs of the community and we continue to try to do that best.

So just a note of appreciation.

Thank you.

Um working with the Indiana School for the Deaf will also be of uh another step.

They often they often come to the to the ASL story time, yeah, which is awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, any other questions from the board.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, now we will proceed to public comment.

Do we have any public comment for today?

Uh yes, Mr.

President, we do.

We do have three people.

Uh first one up is Kay Washer.

She's a teacher.

Indicator is her home branch.

Okay.

Um, I've got to read my little statement here while you're getting ready.

So please.

Uh we welcome feedback from the public about Indianapolis libraries, and this is a time when pub the public may address the library board.

If there are several individuals representing the same group, please select a spokesperson.

Please do not repeat the same comments someone else has offered.

Please note that these public comment time is not an appropriate forum for commenting on matters related to employee charges, employee complaints, or alleged employee misconduct.

Any such matters should be brought promptly to the attention of the CEO or the human resources department where matters can be properly addressed in compliance with established library policies and procedures.

A five-minute limit will be allowed for each speaker.

Each speaker should give their name and let us know if they're speaking on behalf of a group.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so I am Kay Washer.

I am a fourth grade teacher at West Newton Elementary School right down the road.

Um it was my two boys that Doreen was mentioning earlier.

Um, so a few months ago, um, I told the kids that we were gonna go on a field trip to the library.

Um, I have 28 fourth graders in my classroom, and out of those 28, I think maybe five had library cards.

Um, and my particular classroom is made up of more high achieving kids as well.

So um, you know, one would think, well, you know, if they're uh reading a lot, they're you know, certainly going to the library, and they're exposed to those great things that the library offers.

Um, but they weren't.

And so um we came here on a field trip, and you would have thought that I handed them the greatest gift on earth.

It was amazing.

So um, I just wanted to thank Doreen and Ashley and their staff for opening up the doors and really working with the kids, meeting them with the knowledge that they needed to be able to do some of the great things that they didn't even know the library offered.

Um I have kids now who, like she said, have competitions or um I try to come every week, and so they will put their books on hold, and then they'll you know, wait for me to tell them when I'm going to pick them up, and then um they'll let me know whose books I need to pick up and check and who's on hold, and and then they'll give me their books to return, and I've got a book for Ben, you know, Ben to return the books, and today I wish I would have saved it to show you my bag was overflowing.

Um, and that was just I think from two weeks ago.

So um it's just a great opportunity for the kids, and this is the first time that I've ever even thought of doing a field trip to the library, to be honest with you.

And because I again I just assumed they go.

Why wouldn't they go?

Um, so um this is definitely something that I'm gonna continue to do every year.

Um, gonna try and do earlier in the year.

Um, and then again, a second time in the later part of the year.

So um we love our library.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we had Desiree, and she's a student in our comrades, Just Decatur.

Hi.

Welcome.

I have something here prepared that I would like to share.

Just give it a second.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

My name is Desre Rojas, and I am a student at Decatur Central High School.

I was born and raised in Indianapolis and have spent most of my life working to make my community better.

The other day, as I was looking through a photo album featuring multiple key memories of my childhood, I noticed something truly amazing about a lot of those photos.

Many of those moments were spent in a library, specifically this Indianapolis public library.

And I have some photos here to share with you when I was younger.

The public libraries where I did the free summer reading programs, where I opened my very first card in my name, and where I printed out my first job application.

Growing up, the public library had never failed to foster a sense of belonging within my own community.

As a young adult, I find myself still seeking that community presence within the library, and I have real visions of everything the library can be for other students like me and the rest of the community.

I want to share and talk a little bit about my biggest endeavor this past year.

Throughout my entire senior year, I have worked to bring sexual education resources to the students of Decatur Township from personal health back drop-offs to conversations with administrators.

I have made real efforts to create an environment where students have access to any resources they may need, even if that may prompt uncomfortable conversations.

The Damon Center's Indiana's oldest and largest HIV slash STI service organization and has provided care, support, and prevention to all of Indianapolis since 1987.

By allowing for this pop-up to take place, I hope that it will set a precedent for all of Indianapolis's public libraries, bringing resources to neglected youth across across the city.

While I understand that this may prompt public discourse, it is important to know that you only have to be 16 years of age to be tested for HIV slash STIs without parental consent in the state of Indiana.

Additionally, allowing these mobile testing sites would provide personal support to youth and community members in a way that enriches and supports communities by inspiring lifelong learning through stewardship and engaging service per the Indianapolis' public library's mission statement.

I hope this information finds you all well and is taken into consideration as a way to continue the public library's commitment to serving their communities.

Thank you all for your time.

Thank you.

We'll um connect you with um the proper people to um see what can happen.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Our last speaker is Denise, and she's a library patron from the theater.

So we love her too.

That's wonderful.

All right.

Um sounds like that concludes public comment.

Yes, sir, it does.

Excellent.

Let's move on to uh the next part.

Um we gotta we gotta cruise through the rest of it so I can beat Dr.

Mertada's time.

All right, so approval of minutes.

Uh we had a regular meeting on March 23rd, 2026.

Is there a motion to approve minutes from the regular meeting?

Oh uh, March 23rd, 2026.

We had a move.

Is there a second?

Moved and seconded.

Any discussion hearing none, we'll have a call of the roll.

Ms.

Johnson.

Dr.

Matata.

Present.

Dr.

Palacio.

Palacio approved, approved Dr.

White.

Sorry, President.

We said we're present and approved.

President and approved.

Approved.

And Mr.

Bavan.

Approved.

The motion's carried.

Now we will move on to the finance committee.

Uh Dr.

White, you're chair of the finance committee.

Thank you for letting me know that.

I'm gonna call Lilita and uh Mary Ford to give us the uh presentation.

We are one revolution for action this evening.

Uh and we have updates of leading.

Thank you.

Good evening, board president Bieterman and board of trustees.

How's everyone?

Good.

Well, Mary and I are here to present our monthly financial up through um March of 2026.

Um our revenue, um thank you.

Also, do you want to do it?

Oh, okay.

All right.

Um, we're here to present our um financial or treasure report up through March 31st to 2026.

Um our revenue um is at 3%, but the library overall revenue cadence is remains consistent, and with the stable cash flow um pattern, it you know is still is the same, um, despite the compressed interest yield that we have.

So um our property taxes, we have not received that, but again, we will receive that in um May and June and November, December.

Um, we received our low it and code in the intergovernmental funds, and then for the other chart is um printing we receive about 27k.

And for our interest, which is under miscellaneous, we received um 109,000.

So um this again our revenues only at 3%, but this is the cadence of um the library, and on this slide again, you'll see two uh different ways to present the revenue.

The first um on the left side is our March, which is um 2026 versus 2025 revenue, and as you can see, the the ski slope they represent the same, just shows the consistent cadence, and then from the next on the right is the year to date of the revenue, and again it's right in line with it what it has been for a few years.

Um let's see.

Next, Mary will represent the expenditures.

The expenditures overall for the operating fund are 20 percent, which as um this represents the three months of so a quarter, so we're doing well comparison to budget overall, and in every category as well.

Uh the largest category being personal services and benefits.

Um we call it type 401.

The budget for the year is uh 43.9 million, and our actual year to date is 10 million or 23 percent of the budget.

The supplies is a smaller category, and um its year to date is 369,000 out of the two million budgeted, other services and charges um is a larger category that encompasses all our supplies um minutes and services 3.2 million year to date so far out of approximately 20 million and capital outlay.

This is primarily our books budget at 4.2 million.

Um we've spent year to date 558,000, and so um the operating uh expenses are within budget due to our careful cost management, and then we show um expenses for the month on the left comparing to the prior year as well as to the budget.

The budget is the gray bar, and this year is blue last year, orange.

So we were are within budget, the largest category is the personal services and benefits.

Um we had planned to spend more than last year.

That's the nature of it.

And then year to date as well.

Um is on the right in the line graph showing the largest category personal services and benefits.

This year is in blue, and the yellow is the budget.

So we are under budget and on budget for um other categories as well.

Are there any questions over the operating fundancial report?

All right.

Any questions?

No questions?

Okay.

Um so uh is there a motion to accept the report of the treasurer for March 2026 for filing for audit?

There are second.

So uh can we have a call?

Any discussion?

Sorry.

Uh all right, can we have a call of the roll?

Uh yes, Ms.

Johnson, approved.

Dr.

Machada approved.

Dr.

Palacio.

Approved.

Dr.

Riolo approved.

Dr.

White?

Approved.

Ms.

Approved.

And Mr.

Bitter.

Approved.

Motion's great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I like to call Deb Lambert up for our resolution, resolution 12-2026.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

So we're asking to shift um transfer.

Pardon?

Transfer.

Sorry.

Transfer.

Um million dollars from materials contractual to books and materials.

Um materials and contractuals are for um our e-materials, uh, databases, ebooks, e-audiobooks, online learning platforms.

And um, we have a mix of bond funds and operating funds that use we use to fund our collection.

Um, and we've been getting some new um bond funds recently um from leftover from previous projects that were surplus that we can spend pretty quickly.

Um, but it was getting very complicated with funds for our collection development librarians and both lines, and they were keeping track of.

So at the beginning of this year, we just wanted to do a realignment to put all of our physical material budgets in books and material.

Um, so this is just kind of some housekeeping to make it cleaner for our staff to purchase all physical materials out of operating funds along with some e-books out of those funds as well, and the majority of our e-materials out of our bond funds.

Um, we didn't do this before because we um had an unclear understanding of what we could use bond funds for, but we did get clarification from our attorneys and um other advisors that we can use bond funds for e-materials, so that's the reason for this, and then going forward we should have it straightened out year to year.

So we're asking for that approval.

Sorry.

Oh, I was gonna say also moving this and using bond funds um to cover those the e-resources, it frees up operating funds as well.

So there's no reduction in um materials funding for either physical or materials, and I think um Miss Johnson asked about uh where we were spending, so that's why I put that graph right there.

Oh the uh is committed recommended you pay okay, great.

Uh so resolution 12 2026 regarding transfer between classifications and accounts received a positive recommendation from the finance committee.

So the chair would request a second such recommendation.

Second.

Any discussion here call the roll.

Ms.

Johnson, from Dr.

Machada approved, Dr.

Palacio, approved, Dr.

Riolo, approved, Dr.

White, approved, Ms.

Witter, approved, and Mr.

Green.

Approved.

The motion's carried.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you again.

And last on our list, this is some updates.

Um, we're all on schedule to complete our audit in June.

Yes.

And we're and confirming confirming that we're pursuing 2026 bonds to cover the um Urbitin renovation.

Great.

And last but not least.

It's okay.

So um this slide was supposed to have been our um GFOA award.

It's okay.

Um, we receive this award and we receive it every year.

And this is one of the highest um awards that you can oh, there it is.

Um this is one of the highest awards that you can receive.

Um this certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of government accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant um accomplishment by the government in our arraignment.

So this is I mean in a management.

This is something that we have received over um about close to 40 years.

Um I'm happy that within my tenure that we are continuing to receive it.

So I just wanted to share with others, and I want to thank Mary and the Romanian with that because without them, this wouldn't happen.

All right, let's do that.

All right, thank you very much.

Anything else from Finance Committee?

No, thank you.

All right, thank you.

We'll move on to the diversity policy and human resources committee.

Dr.

Plasio, you are chair.

Anything to report today.

So uh we don't have any resolutions today, but we did discuss um a series of policies that are under review, and we'll have a more action request uh for May.

Excellent.

That's uh beautiful bookshelf behind you.

Thank you.

All right, it's fake.

Only the plans are fake.

Let's move on to the uh facilities committee.

Uh Dr.

Riola, you're the chair of the facilities.

Yes, and we do not have such an award, but we do have three resolutions, and we have Adam Cristons, please come forward and present those to us.

Excellent.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Three resolutions.

First one is uh resolution 13-2026, approval to award or construction services contract for the Central Library HRIM ceiling repairs project.

So the H room ceiling at Central Library has been leaking for several years.

Um we have tried uh several other um solutions.

We've looked at the plumbing, we've looked at the insulation.

Uh some of those did provide their own um fixes, uh, but ultimately the overall HRM ceiling is leaking.

Um the main culprit is the uh sealing sealant.

Uh and I was gonna make a joke about a tongue twister, but it slipped my tongue.

Um, anyways, uh it's approximately at the end of life.

It's been about it's about 20 years old, and uh the sealant needs to be replaced.

So we put this out as an invitation to bid.

We gave uh public notice in the IBJ, the Indy Star, and the recorder.

We posted the invitation to bid on the website.

The bid documents were available at Reprographics, and we held a pre-bid conference and site tour with five vendors in attendance.

Uh we received two bids.

Wells Masonry and Restoration was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

Uh their bid was 159,880 dollars, which is below the estimated budget of 200,000.

And uh this is funded via the uh surplus funds from the Nora renovation bond and fund 488.

Vendors based in New Palestine, they are not a city certified XPE and will self uh self-perform 100% of the work.

Uh approximately four to six weeks lead time for materials.

Uh this would put a smack dab in the middle of summer reading program, so we're going to wait until after summer reading program.

Uh, we hope to have substantial completion by October 2026.

Um, definitely because they're going to be lifting up the ceiling atrium panels and you know cleaning and resealing them.

So we don't want holes in the roof later in the year.

That's the last slide for that one.

That resolution did receive um full recommendation from the committee to bring to the board.

Excellent.

Uh resolution 13 2026 regarding approval to award construction services contract for central library atrium ceiling repairs project.

Received a positive recommendation from the facilities committee.

So the chair would uh request a second to such recommendation.

Second.

Um I've been moved in second in any discussion.

I know that central staff will really miss all those bins that we put out every time it rains, but we've gotten fond of those, but we'll let them go.

This time great.

Uh one one other thing, just um so the public knows um this is separate and apart from the other issue involving yes, yes, yeah.

This has been planned for a while.

We released this in October, awarded and or yeah, received the bids in November, so it's months before the uh the current issue.

Okay, great.

Any other questions?

No, all right.

Hearing when we'll have a call of the roll.

Ms.

Johnson, approved.

Dr.

Marchada, approved, Dr.

Palacio, approved, Dr.

Riolo, approved, Dr.

White, approved, Miss Woodard, approved, and Mr.

Goodman.

Approved.

The motion's carried.

All right.

Next resolution is uh approval to award a services contract for system-wide trash removal.

So the initial contract with Republic Services was back in 2023.

Uh that was a three-year term.

Normally, NDPL's contracts are three one one, so a three-year term with three one-year additional terms after that.

Republic Services only offers three-year contracts, and so this is basically three one-year amendments bundled into a brand new contract.

Um the extension, I'm calling it an extension.

It basically is a brand new contract.

Uh, we'll run through August of 2029.

So the good news is that there's a 31% price decrease from year three of the initial contract to year one of the new contract.

Um, and additionally, the first three-year contract had eight percent annual increase in prices baked in.

Uh the new three-year contract only has five percent annual increases.

So we are paying more but more slowly.

Um, and all of this is funded via the operating fund uh fund 101.

Uh yeah, Republic Services is a multi-billion dollar company.

They're not headquartered in Indianapolis, they're headquartered in Phoenix.

Uh, but they do employ Indianapolis and Central Indiana residents.

Uh they are not a city certified XPE, and they will perform all of the work.

This one did receive full recommendation from the committee to the whole board.

Great.

All right, resolution 14-2026 regarding the approval to award services contract for system-wide trash removal received positive recommendation from the facilities committee.

So the chair would request a second to such recommendation.

Second.

Uh, any discussion.

Hearing none, allow a call of the roll.

Miss Johnson, approved.

Dr.

Martada, approved, Dr.

Passio.

Approved.

Dr.

Riovo, approved.

Dr.

White?

Approved.

Miss Winnard, approved, and Mr.

Federman.

Approved.

The motion's carried.

All right.

Last resolution is approval to award a construction services contract for the pike branch egress improvements project.

So the pike branch was uh recently renovated.

Um, and we added some additional egress doors um to for emergency evacuation, uh safety and security protocols.

Um, in addition to those, uh, there were some uh concrete improvements, uh including the parking slopes for ADA accessible parking spots, uh the delivery area and the external walkways from those uh new egress points instead of just running through dirt and mud and grass.

Um this was uh an invitation to quote uh notice was directly sent to 18 vendors, 11 of which were XPEs.

Uh the invitation to quote was posted on the NDPL website.

We had a pre-quote pre-quote conference, uh, and we did not have any vendors show up.

So we received two quotes.

Uh Holiday Construction Group was the lowest responsive and responsive bidder.

So the awarded cost of 110,887 was less than the estimated budget of 150,000.

Uh and this is funded through fund 486, which is the facilities approvement for bond.

Uh holiday construction is based in Indianapolis.

They are not a city certified.

Uh that should be a XBE, not WBE.

Um, they have a subcontractor um who will perform 47% of the work, who I think is a WBE.

And that's the last slide for that one.

This one also received favorable recommendation from the committee.

Okay, great.

Resolution 15-2026 regarding the approval uh to award construction services contract for the Pike Egress Improvements Project.

Received a positive recommendation from the facilities committee.

So the chair would request a second to such recommendation.

Second.

Excellent.

Any discussion?

Hearing none will have a call of the roll.

Miss Johnson, approved.

Dr.

Martada.

Approved.

Dr.

Fossio.

Approved.

Dr.

Riovo.

Approved.

Dr.

White?

Approved.

Ms.

Woodard?

Approved.

And Mr.

Bittermann.

Approved.

The motion's carried.

All right.

That's you got that's all we've got.

Sorry.

And an award because we're great.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

I guess just have one question question or comment.

There seems to be less participation by XBEs for the various projects.

Do we have any explanation or calls for that lack of participation?

So I think what we'll do is there's a time for future agenda items.

There are two that I was thinking that we could add because I I was noticing the same thing.

And I know you know every every half year or so we do an analysis of that, so it might be time to check it out.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to the library foundation update.

Yes.

The foundation received a 2026 silver bell seal for workplace mental health, the nation's leading recognition for U.S.

employees employers committed to creating mentally healthy workplaces.

And the foundation is proud to join the NDPL for um, who is also a gold recipient for um prioritizing employee well-being.

Remember that circulate is coming August 15th.

You can purchase purchase your tickets at ndpl foundation.org slash circulate.

Um it's a really fun night, so be there.

Um also remember that on ndpl.org website, right in the corner there.

There's a little heart that you can donate to the foundation anytime right there.

Um the foundation thanks 255 donors who made gifts this past month, and some top corporate foundation donors are boards Barnes and Thornburg, Fuller Family Foundation, Indianapolis Airport Authority, KRN Architecture, Luminant, Roland, Nina Mason Pullium, Charitable Um Trust, and one American Financial.

The foundation this month has provided support for more than 440,000.

Right.

100,000 to the library.

Um, examples of major initiatives that were supportive for the foundation included the summer reading program, fall fest, intro to gardening, and making together collaborative art project.

Always good work.

Thank you.

That's wonderful.

Yeah, let's clap for them too.

Thank you.

All right, let's uh move on to the report of the CEO, uh, Mr.

Gregory Hill.

All right, thank you, board president.

Welcome everybody.

Uh the first thing I want to go through is the confirmatory resolution 16-2026, which is uh the resolution related to travel financial personnel matters that occurs between each board meeting.

It's in its typical format, and I would ask for your approval.

Um there a motion to uh approve resolution 16 2026 regarding finance personnel and travel.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Uh, any discussion.

Uh hearing none, uh, we'll have a call of the roll.

Ms.

Johnson, approved.

Dr.

Martada.

Approved.

Dr.

Fossio.

Approved.

Dr.

Riola.

Dr.

White.

Approved.

Ms.

Winner?

Approved.

Yeah, Mr.

Bitterman.

Approved.

Uh motions carried.

Mr.

Hill.

All right, moving on.

So really quickly, here's my agenda.

Uh, we'll cover March results, the heart of every neighborhood.

We'll talk about our staff.

Uh, there'll be a uh question and answer session, and then uh Miss Mary Ann McKenzie will give a Q1 statistical report.

Uh the first one is our key data point for the month of March.

We had 6,123 was our average uh daily patron count for the month.

We had 189,827 visitors.

Our daily average circulation was 12,832, and that's only physical material that does not include uh e-materials, and that total was 366,752.

Uh, our programs you see here we have uh adult programs, all ages programs, and youth programs, and our youth programs, programs uh had the highest uh, of course, uh of guests attending our programs with 11,739.

Talking about the programs, we'll go through some key engagement data.

Of course, throughout the month, we had uh several programs, but these are the ones that I chose to highlight here.

They're also in your board packet.

The first one was at Martindale Brightwood.

It is the art at Martindale Brightwood program.

Uh, they had a featured local guest artist, uh, Tanya, Michelle Wine Glass.

Uh, we hosted a reception there for her, or the Mart Del Brightwood staff hosted reception there for her.

They had uh 43 visitors who browsed through the exhibit that she had.

It was very engaging.

Uh, they engaged with the artist, and then uh there was also some purchasing uh artwork and light refreshments were also provided.

Um the next one, and I won't go through all these.

The next one was at various branches, physical activity program series, which includes low impact exercise, chair rubrics, chair yoga, traditional yoga, Tai Chi, and simple strength training.

Uh the low impact exercise remains the most popular option with a total of 218 participants at eight events in the month of March at various locations.

Uh, up until up to date, we have 1,967 folks who have actually participated in the physical activity programming.

And then I'll jump down to the McFadden lecture on uh March included the 47th annual Mary McFadden lecture featuring the author of Goosebumps, R.

L.

Stein.

Uh Stein appeared in a conversation with reading rainbow host Michael Threats at the Madame Walker Legacy Center on Thursday, March 19th.

Uh total of 737 attendees joined the event to hear the conversation, meet the special guests, and enjoy a book signing.

And then I like to say I thank you, of course, to Madame Walker Legacy Center and also our partners from Kidding uh for uh from the bookstore for the books.

Last is East 38th Street.

The most notable accomplishment for the branch for February and March was tax season.

And to date, they had 776 people that they served.

And when this was submitted, they still had about a hundred appointments left that they had to complete uh before they finished the program.

Next, I'm just gonna talk about uh digital and space utilization with digital indie.

So first I'll talk about Encyclopedia of Indianapolis.

Encyclopedia of Indianapolis is home of knowledge about Indianapolis, which is the past and the present.

Uh, it tells the story of people, organizations, places, and events that define Indianapolis and its metropolitan region.

Uh, as you can see on the graph, we had a pretty big uptick in uh views compared to March of 2025.

The next one is Digital Indy.

Digital Indy is a digital archive containing more than one million items related to the culture and history of Indianapolis.

Uh, there's a just a slight uh downturn on views for digital indie, and then um our Wi-Fi sessions are down slightly from this period last year, as well as the public PC usage.

Next is the heart of every neighborhood.

Uh, I'll start off by thanking uh the staff at East 38th Street.

They did an amazing job.

We had a really great turnout.

Thank you to the board members who attended.

I believe we had anywhere from 10 to 12 testimonials that we had.

And then I just want to say the heart of every neighborhood event.

Main goal again is to raise awareness about NDPL and highlight the important role of our branches that they serve in our communities and encourage people to share their stories.

It also offers a chance to emphasize our four key messages, which are free access for everyone, literacy, great experiences, and the importance of signing up for using and renewing your library card.

So I'm gonna show a brief clip, which is about a minute long from one of our participants at our last event.

I will tell anyone go to the library, do the reading program because they helped me out at a stressful time.

Well, I was a single parent of three young boys, and I was in the process of getting my bachelor's degree.

And I always, you know, took my children to the library.

Well, this one day I had a big paper I needed to do.

I was like, let's go to the library.

Let's see what we can get the library while I do my paper.

And so, I mean, that day the kids just kept bothering me, coming up to me, and the librarian walks up and she said, You know what?

I see you're working.

I'm gonna take the kids over here.

I'm gonna read them a story.

I'm gonna engage with them in the activity, and you can do your paper.

That was such a big impact for me when it came to the library.

I will tell anyone go to the library, do the reading program, um, get your kids involved with the activities, everything they have because they helped me out at a stressful time.

Well, I I had to get this paper done, and she just she I don't know if she saw the stress on my face or what, but she just stepped right in and she assists.

Don't didn't know me, she didn't know my voice, but she helped me in that moment.

All right, thank you again.

Thank you to Bambi P and the staff at uh East 38th Street.

Thank you to the communications and marketing team.

Uh, our next event is Lawrence Branch on June the 17th from 5 to 6 30 p.m.

Next is staff recognition.

Uh, we just had our uh quarterly uh star awards reception, and I just want to uh recognize our staff uh who received awards.

Uh Laura Cooper for the month of March was our peer support, Glenis Concle Ruys uh Patron Services, and Eve Xavier St.

Jane is Page Excellence, Casey Penangetty for community involvement, Liana Meeker community involvement, and Bria Durnham community involvement, and these three work together on a particular uh uh event that was going on.

So, congratulations to them.

And then our volunteer partnerships was the Ness Event Center, uh, other duties assigned is Elizabeth Sheriff, and then the Central Library Control Room for Team Excellence.

And if we can give our award winners a round of applause.

All right, next is the quarter one exceptional experience award.

The award winner for quarter one was the West Perry branch, and they were very excited, as you can see.

Um again, West Perry was the quarter one recording in progress.

And then uh Susie Haman had a retirement ceremony on March 31st, and then thank you for everyone who that attended.

She uh retired after 39 years of service.

Um a really great turnout.

Uh, just got a chance to meet her, some of her family, and then uh her friends, and then thank you to the staff who uh came out as well.

So, can we give Susie a big round of applause?

And then um that's the end of my presentation.

But Miss Mary Ann McKenzie, our chief tragedy and analytics officer, will give the quarter one statistical update.

If anyone has any questions, I'll take those at this time.

If not, thank you.

We'll turn it over.

Just to uh just want to make a comment.

So glad to hear about the regional awards.

Um, we haven't always done that, and so to hear from Hallville and Martin O'Brienwood, Westboro, that's really exciting.

So thank you for that recognition for that.

Thank you for missing it.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Good evening, everyone.

Hello, I am here to give you your quarterly report on statistical operations.

Um, per usual.

You have a long version in your packet, and then I'm gonna give you um about nine highlights.

Um the theme of this report is what happens when a large branch is closed.

And I think we're gonna uncover some surprising things along the way.

So um, to start with, I'm gonna go ahead and dive into looking at circulation and collection usage.

Now let me grab our click here.

I was gonna do it for you.

There you go.

You know, man likes me in control.

All right.

So I always like to start off with card holders.

That is, of course, the key metric for us.

Um, I changed the colors a little bit this year to try and make this a little bit clearer what's happening.

Um, yellow at the top is what we would call our inactive cardholders.

So those are folks who have a library card.

We keep them um registered with us for up to three years.

They can come in and use our card at any time.

If they choose to use it, they become an active cardholder.

And then we also have our new cardholders, which have a special light blue color there in the middle.

And as you can see, the blue bars are going upward year after year.

So that's exactly what we want to see.

We want to see more active card holders.

Um, what you'll see if you look at the inactive numbers is we've gone down slightly, a very small amount, um, less than one percent.

That's not the uh uncommon at this point in the year because we have some big card enrollment pushes that are tied to the academic school year and some are reading program.

So, usually we see inactive people who may have moved away or stopped using the library fall off during this period, and then they return over those um big pushes.

So on the whole, very excited.

And you can see active and new cardholders is a 2%, 2.6% increase over prior year.

So very pleased with that.

If you want to take a deeper dive into new cardholders, I wanted to give you some context for this slide here, because over on the left hand side, we see our normal central library huge numbers.

They are the default location for anyone who registers online, which is a very popular way of registering for cards.

So you'll see that about 1,100 of centrals this month is from that.

But you're also going to see this really large number over at West Perry, and they always do a fantastic job, but they had a little bit of extra support this quarter because they were part of the school e-card campaign where all members of uh who participated of the West Perry School District received a library card.

So it's not every student, some of them already had library cards from big pushes, but usually when this happens, we're seeing somewhere between a thousand to two thousand students get added in in a big push.

So that's why their number is very large this quarter.

So I wanted to give you some context for that.

And then, of course, Nora and Pike, this is you know, they're hitting that one year mark of being open, and we're still seeing strong numbers from both of them.

And of course, Glendale and Fort Ben, they just consistently um pull in really high numbers of new cards.

So very pleased to see that as well.

So so far, everything has been, you know, positive, normal.

Now we're gonna start to see some places where we start to see a little bit of a hint of some impact of some of Central's closure.

It didn't have as much of an impact as we would have thought.

I would have thought that when I pulled all the data out and I looked at it, I would have been like, everybody who usually goes to Central goes to this branch and they do these things, and we didn't see it.

We saw a slow dispersal of people using library resources at other locations or online.

Um, but in total, central was closed for about 40% of the quarter, and we saw about a 40% reduction in central numbers when we look at their specific branch.

So that's expected, but we did see some of that absorbed by other branches, which is a positive.

So in total circulation, what you're gonna see is that we are up very, very slightly, um, not even quite 1%, but we'll take any growth we can.

Um, as in prior uh quarters, physical circulation tends to be trending downwards.

This quarter, it trended down a little bit more than normal.

That is because Central is a high physical lending branch.

So when they're closed, we see a little bit of a dip.

If they had been open and we had their numbers, I don't think we would have even seen a decrease this quarter.

Um, and then electronic circulation, it just grows and grows and grows, and we are happy to see it and always looking for new ways to engage those digital borrowers.

So you have the um eCirc and physical circulation broken down in more detail.

I didn't break down by branch this quarter because a new CEO report this year shows you every month a snapshot of circulation by branch.

Let's take a little bit of a different um perspective here and think about services.

I'm gonna highlight branch visits because of course that is something that I suspect you all might be curious about.

Um, you're gonna see Central normally gets about 100,000 people, and they only got about 53,000.

So again, a little bit around 40% of their door count is kind of not there.

Um, we do see it show up in some of the other branches.

Uh, when we look at this quarter, one thing that we have to remember is that in quarter one of 2025, we did have Nora and Pike.

Um, we're still in that reopening process.

So you'll also see that there are some decreases in places like um Michigan Road, I think was one that you see that quite starkly.

There's a drop-off.

Those are people who chose to migrate to those other branches once they reopened.

And in our experience, that's usually the case.

We definitely see an impact in um total visits and things like that when individual branches close, but most folks are able to use the network of 25 branches that we have to continue to see um resources and to gain access.

Um I have the another visualization in your print packet if you want to see kind of um percentage-wise what each branch um what the impact was and then what the impact was on total branch visits.

Another area that we see a little bit of an impact here is percent utilization of total available hours of public PCs.

Central is also a high public PC uses branch, it has the most public C PCs of any of our branches.

And one way that we like to look at impact is percent of hours available that were used.

So I wanted to give you some context for this one, um, just because you're gonna see that central's number here is 39%.

And this particular graphic and data set, if they were closed, we remove them.

Those hours weren't available to the public.

So they still had strong numbers.

Where we see the impact is if you look at places like East Washington and Hallville, we were seeing reports from them saying, hey, we're seeing some new faces that tell us they used to go to Central.

Of course, during the central closure, branches who are receiving an impact did receive visiting staff to support them.

And then we are finding that some folks who were visiting other branches have found a new home and are happy to continue to visit another branch.

That's always great to see.

I know I went to visit East 38th Street one weekend, and I looked around and I was like, oh, these are all my friends from Central for you to use the computers.

And that makes sense because, of course, if you're using our public PCs as your primary way of accessing computers, you absolutely have to find another location to visit.

So that matches our intuition, so no huge surprises there.

And of course, we are very happy to have Central back and reopened and able to meet that need in that core area.

Another graphic that I wanted to give you a little bit of context for.

I've spoken with you about this in previous quarters as well.

Our reference and service assistance, we are shifting the way that we measure them.

So it used to be if you interacted with a staff member, they were supposed to count it in this thing we call desk tracker, regardless of what type of interaction it was.

But the state library, when the compare are peer libraries, they only care about was it a reference question?

That's the core piece of library work, right?

Um did you ask a question and someone help you find information?

They don't necessarily care if you asked where's the bathroom.

But we're asking people to count every time they were asked where is the bathroom.

So we took a hard look at what we were gathering and where that data was used, and we decided there are a few things that we capture what the impact of this somewhere else, so it's an approximate measurement, and then we also found some things that we're like, we just don't need to count this.

I don't need to know how many times we're asked where's the bathroom.

That's just not useful data to make a decision on.

Um, so as a result, you're gonna see that if you compare this quarter's um results to 2025, there's a huge drop.

That huge drop is expected because we're asking people to count things differently and be more intentional in their efforts.

And what we do see is if you look at the dark blue bar at the bottom, is the total number of recorded reference assistants has gone up.

Some of that could potentially be people using the library and asking more questions, but we also know that every time we um update the system and ask staff to be more intentional, people are more intentional and they make sure to track everything that counts and they take the time to do a review to make sure that they understand what's being expected of them.

So our goal is that hopefully that reference assistance number will remain strong in future quarters.

We also made it easier for them to track those interactions.

It used to be you had to hit, I think it was like two buttons and then hit submit.

Now it's a single click.

You could say something happened.

So our um goal here is that we're gonna have better data that can actually inform decisions, have a more accurate court count to report to the state library and to compare us to our peer libraries.

But overall, the total number is definitely gonna have dropped off because we're definitely tracking fewer things.

So just wanted to make sure that you had some context for that.

So people ask what the bathroom was 30,000 times.

Um maybe not that exact question, but honestly, maybe.

That's a very popular question.

Yes.

Um, the other thing that we did with this, and this is in your print packet.

I didn't pull it out this time because we're still in that early gathering phase.

We added a new question to ask about um did you assist someone in a language other than English?

So usually that would be are you using language line to have someone translate for you?

Are you using your own language skills?

Did a patron bring someone with them who's helping navigate that language barrier?

Um, so for the first um quarter and a half-ish, we said, tell us what language you encountered, and then also did you use technology, did they bring someone with them to translate, just to kind of get an idea for how we were encountering this at service points.

Um, after that initial period, we've identified some key languages that we're seeing a lot.

To no one's surprised it is Spanish, um, but we're also seeing some other languages, and we converted that question to something that is easier to answer, faster to answer because that will increase the response rate from staff.

Um, and so we're gonna be monitoring that over the coming year.

Our goal is to make sure that we have our own source of languages we're seeing in the community because we know that because of um decisions decisions external to the library, some of that external data that we would relied on in the past may not be as reliable to help us understand what our community need is.

So we're just gonna be proactive and prepare for that.

Next, I want to talk a little bit about programs.

Our programs are going great.

We've been doing more of them, and when we do our programs, we get more attendance.

That's a great correlation.

We love to see that.

Um, if you look at what we've done both full year and prior year, our number of programs consistently goes up.

And then the attendance that we get consistently goes up.

In a similar way to how we looked at what are we measuring and are we being intentional about how we measure?

We are planning on looking at programs with that sort of similar lens this year.

We track things that are programs in the definition of the state library and federal to compare ourselves to peers.

We also track things that we call passive programs or passive activities.

And those things sometimes the act of tracking them can be just a little bit more time consuming than we'd like, and we'd rather use that time actually offering more activities.

So this is a slide that you probably are gonna see some shifts either this year or next year hitting it.

But for now, we're still comparing it to the same thing that we did in prior years.

So it's a one-to-one comparison.

So definitely more programs, definitely more attendance.

Um and we're getting ready to head into our heaviest programming season, which is the summer and summer reading program.

So I am predicting that we are going to see an increase in total programs by the end of this year.

One thing that we did tweak already this year is our program survey.

So it's our program evaluation.

You attend every program, you get a QR code, or you can fill in a paper form and tell us about your experience.

We gather some sort of you know, like art scale, strongly agree to strongly disagree.

We have some fill in the blank options.

Um previously, what we did is if you were responding to the survey, you're responding either for yourself or one child who attended the program.

But we know that we have families or groups who tend to attend.

So the shift this year is that we moved to allow you to respond for yourself and up to four people in your party.

Um, for the data that you see on this slide, all that that really means is that it used to be we'd give you one number for evaluations.

Now you're gonna see the number for evaluations and the total number of respondents it represents.

You're also gonna see that these percentages down here that look really similar to what we were reporting in the past.

Um, we've switched them to responding um to the total number of respondents, so it reflects the experience of everyone that we gather data on.

As a result, we're getting stronger responses, which is great to see.

But if people have negative experiences, that may not always be the case.

But um, that is rare for us because we're really good at offering great experiences.

Um the place that we're really gonna see the impact, and the reason why we made this shift is on this slide here.

When we have people attend our programs, we ask staff to estimate their age to kind of know are we attracting a lot of kids, are we attracting a lot of adults, seniors, but we don't ask them to estimate things like sex or gender, race or ethnicity.

Those things need to be self-reported by the attendees.

And by allowing them to report on multiple people in their party, we can gather more of that demographic data.

And we're hoping that we'll be able to see over time a better snapshot of what our anecdotal experience from staff be reported is in our actual data.

Now, anyone who attends a library program can look around and probably see that you know, 22% male is probably pretty accurate.

We attract more women to our programs than we do men.

Um, but when we look at things like race and ethnicity, we've definitely seen that that wasn't matching our observed experiences in the branches, and a lot of that was you know, you might have people who had four or five people in their group, they were only responding the race or ethnicity of one of them, so they were just picking someone.

Same thing with um true age.

We tend to underestimate the number of seniors who attend our programs because staff feel um bad about telling someone they're a senior.

Um, it's a frustration of mine, it's a you know, age is a fact, but um, we definitely see in our program evaluations that the seniors show up on a much higher rate.

So um this is really useful for us for long-term planning to reporting um impact to donors and funders to do grant writing.

It's very important information, and we're very excited to see it grow and become more valuable over the coming year because of the shift.

So this one again looks very similar, but technically what you're seeing reported is more and better data as a result of this change.

Okay, that's all that I wanted to highlight with you.

There's more in your packet.

I'm happy to answer questions about your packet, anything I presented, or any other data questions that you have, although I may have to refer them to an email after the meeting.

What questions do we have?

I don't know if it's a question more or more of a curiosity.

So specifically regarding the reference data.

Yes.

Um staff, if they saw that drop, did they also see opportunity for transforming a ready reference question to something that was a bit more you know elaborate?

Yeah, so when we look at that reference data question, um we looked, we we have the option to allow them to input if a question was like a deeper question.

So if they got an interesting question, we encourage them to note what that is, and that's an optional, it's not a required thing because you don't always have time.

And we did take a look at what was entered in that box, and that's where I can say the where is the bathroom.

Like that showed up in some of those questions.

Um, but yes, if they were if they were um asked multiple questions by a patron, right?

It's where's the bathroom?

And also, by the way, can you help me locate a book by this author?

Um, technically, when they report in that database, they're asked to report on every question, not every patron.

So it's the total number of questions they answered.

If any of them met the level of being a reference question or a computer reference, they're supposed to report those and ignore the ones that don't count.

Okay, yeah.

But I did have one quick question earlier.

Uh President Bieterman mentioned that um he's an active um library card user, but he said that his card went into an active status.

And so I'm curious the data that you provide with an active card users, if that includes individuals in situations like Mr.

Biederman, where he reached his three-year mark, yeah, and it went into an active status unbeknownst to him.

So the status he entered is technically expired.

Okay.

So everyone does have everyone.

It sounds even more extreme.

Best practice from the state library is that we verify residency every three years or property ownership, whatever reason you have for the card.

Um, and if you don't come in and do that, you do entered expired status.

We don't remove you from our system, we keep you in our system as potentially someone who could become reactive for another three years after that, and then per state data retention, we remove you from our database.

Um, so when you're an expired status, you have three years to come back and we welcome you with open arms.

Everyone hits expired status eventually.

It happens to us all.

Um, and you know, you just have to come in and show us that you still live here, and we'll make sure you're active and ready to go.

Thank you.

I just wanted to protect this key.

We don't care.

We are um extinguished.

Any other questions, please?

I also have a question about careholder status.

Did you figure out some magical way to evaluate the success of our billboards and say get your library card?

Okay.

Um the answer the answer is no, we did not find a magical way.

Uh, we are monitoring where people register.

Um, so we can look to see how many library cards in total we got from after the billboard, but we can't necessarily see what that reason was.

And um, when we started talking about card campaigns, like how we were gonna attract people for library cards, we quickly discovered is we were gonna have a marketing department making these big sweeping marketing pushes, but we also asked branch managers to look at like low-hanging fruit.

Who in your community have you not spoken to recently that you could go and say, Hey, come register for library cards?

And yeah, and asking asking them to do both those things at once and measure impact was gonna be impossible, but our ultimate goal is to have more cardholders.

So we just said we're not gonna necessarily chase after that data point most of the time, occasionally we'll do something and we'll have a way to track that impact and we'll do it.

Um, because our goal is just do everything all at once because everyone should have a library card.

Yeah, great.

Anything else?

Just a quick one.

Yeah, we've got new book mobiles coming up.

How will we track that data?

Sure.

So there's a couple things that we'll measure for that.

So we will continue to track, um, they do door count, so people count, they manually track and report that to us.

They don't have the special head trackers like the branches.

Um they will we continue to track circulation for them, and when we track circulation, we can break it down to the bookmobile level.

When I report it to all of you, I put outreach in general.

They also check out for all the staff at LSC, which are quite a few of us, and we really appreciate that.

Um, but we are able to look at for each book mobile which book mobile checks something out and what that impact was, and then they also participate in the TELUS survey.

So when someone visits, they are able to go in and say, I had a good experience.

And anytime we have a branch remodel, we also do a six-month period where we ask them some additional follow-up questions to say, what did you like about the new location?

What did you not like about the new location?

Usually that survey is just those likert skills, you know, give us five stars, things like that.

But when we have something new, we take the time to say, answer this, take a another three minutes of your life to help us understand what we got right and what we can work on.

Frog and toad still will be their names.

I will have to refer that to I refer that to my marketing team and they say yes.

One last question.

The intersection between age and race and ethnicity, um, I think exploring that will be of use to the data analysis.

Sure.

And so um when I present it to all of you, I give you that sort of um, you know, high-level view.

Um every staff member is able to look at both the evaluation and their program attendance at um a date level so they can look to see an individual program, but also for what we call those community action plans, those big sets.

Um, and then we also use that, of course, for grant writing, foundation reporting, things like that.

Um so staff are tasked with looking at that breakdown for their specific type of program based off of their age groups.

So if you're offering a teen program and you're saying, I am only getting 10 year olds, but this is a teen program, that's a sign that you need to like adjust your program.

And similarly, when we look at race and ethnicity, if you're saying that the people who are answering your survey don't match the people who live in your community, there's probably something that might be a barrier to them participating.

And so you need to do a little bit of research, talk with your community members and figure out why people aren't embracing the program the way you expected.

Um, we do have one known thing with the survey, which is it gets a very small response rate.

Um so sometimes people will tell us, oh, I don't have a lot of program data, so I don't have this, you know, race and ethnicity or sex information available to me.

And for us, the answer there is then you need to push the survey, maybe not every single program, especially like story time where people are juggling a lot, but at least a couple times a year, make sure you're putting in the effort to gather this information because it's information that you need to use to plan those programs in the future.

Some of the neighborhoods, the demographics are changing and shifting, and so how do we pay attention to the different ages as well as that intersection out?

Absolutely.

And um, if you want in the next packet, I can give you a breakdown um of branch data for each of those categories.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dr.

Placio, you've been extremely quiet quiet this meeting.

Do you have any anything?

No, this this is this is all good information, and I'm always appreciative of all the updates and the data presented.

Great.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for all the questions.

I appreciate it.

That concludes the board.

Excellent.

All right.

Uh no unfinished business, no news business, uh, future agenda items, times made available for discussion of items not on the agenda, which are of interest to library board members, and the opportunity is given to suggest items be included on future library board meeting agendas.

Do any board members have something to suggest for the May 2026 board meeting?

So we're gonna give uh an update on the status of the XBE and WB too.

I mean participation scene being dropping off.

Great, great.

All right.

Um, one item that um I had that we started discussing a little bit is periodically we look at employee turnover and see if there are any trends or any analysis that can be done there.

Um so you know, if we can get an update on that, I think that would be just good for us to have them to understand.

Okay.

Any other items?

All right, hear none.

Um the next meeting is May 18th, 2026 at the Eagle Branch, 3905 Muller Road, Indianapolis, Indiana, 46254 at 6 30 p.m.

Just concludes the meeting.

Meetings adjourned.

Thank you.