Johnson here Kim Nature

here.

Yang Chair Jose.

Here.

For present three absent and four members.

We Yang and Kim who are excused.

Item number one is approving the minutes of item number one, minutes twenty-six-thirty approving the September second, two thousand twenty-six library board minutes.

So I will take a motion from Councilmember Coleman to approve the library board minutes from September.

Is there any discussion?

All

those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Five in favor, none opposed.

The minutes are approved.

Item number two, staff report twenty-six-154 newcomer services.

Wonderful.

Um and I'll turn it over to Director Hartman, and we also have uh I believe it's Idriana Galvin.

Did I say that right?

Here to uh present to us today.

Oh,

and welcome Ms.

Ryan as well.

Thank you, uh

Library Board Chair

Jost.

Um I'm Rebecca Ryan.

I'm really excited to introduce Adriana Galvan, uh currently the library's newcomer services coordinator.

Um

Adriana has worked for SPPL since 2018, uh primarily in her role as our Spanish speaking community specialist.

Um in her work at the library, Adriana has continued her noteworthy career as an educator, um, even winning the Coalition on Adult Basic Education's Teacher of the Year award in 2024.

Adriana's work has been particularly impactful and essential over the past two years.

She helps the library fulfill its role as a provider of trusted information to the community.

Um this role has been necessary as the information landscape, particularly at the federal level, as we all know, has been changing on a near-daily basis.

This combination of relationship building, partnership, education, and information provision laid the groundwork for the recent grant to the library through the friends from the Mellon Foundation.

Well, thank you.

And as Rebecca mentioned, my name is Adriana Galvan, and I'm one of the community specialists, but now I think I have a super special role as a newcomer services coordinator, which means I don't do the work, I help and others help me support this work.

Um physical care, dental care.

And one that is really important is the digital accessibility.

And with that we mean access to not only internet but devices in which our community can connect to services.

Because otherwise, as we learned during COVID, it was that a lot of people in our community were left behind because they didn't have no access.

And at that point, it was only perhaps through the library and other partners that we could get that accessibility to our community.

We not only provide the digital access, but we do actually tech support, which is a light tech support.

We don't build a computer out of scratch, but we can help people to navigate different software using the devices they have.

And the other part is connect to social support services that are essential.

And by coming through the library or us going through the community, we ensure that those support services are not through scammers.

With vulnerable populations.

If somebody has any questions about legal services, a power of attorney, or how to talk to children about different crises at home, then they can connect with library staff, and the library staff can connect to any of the community specialists.

Sometimes money is tight, and especially people have been laid off or they have lost their jobs because of the circumstances.

Now we had expanded also our education program in digital literacy.

And right now we offer classes for adults in Korean, Spanish, and also for the African American community in a very unique space and safe space.

So we're strong partners with Literacy Minnesota International Institute, Clues, and four more.

Because transportation sometimes is a challenge, and especially in our communities that were afraid to go out again.

We had to like in COVID, pivot to online services.

So a lot of our services are over the phone, but we're not scrolling down doing Instagram, okay?

We receive text messages and emails from people that refer to our services.

We continue to provide digital access, and the most important that we use is cell ed, which is an application that is not AI, is a live instructor, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that can help people learn English, citizenship classes, parenting classes, those are in English and Spanish, and also prepare for GD or the Minnesota Adult Diploma.

This is really important because they also have special lessons to learn Spanish.

So if you any of you are interested, this is a free of charge for the end user, and the licenses are free just because we have this grant.

The library pays through this grant.