Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: Recordings on.
Tali Hairston: Thank you. It is now 1101 A.m. and we have a quorum and I'd like to call
Tali Hairston: this regular meeting of the Seattle Public Library Board of Trustees to order.
Tali Hairston: I would like to point out that in our agenda we have a numbering error.
Tali Hairston: And the agenda currently goes from letter H to letter J, skips letter I.
Tali Hairston: So I'm noting that adjourn should be I and next to library board meeting should
Tali Hairston: be J.
Tali Hairston: So with those changes, and if there are no other changes,
Tali Hairston: I hear a motion to approve the agenda as corrected.
Faith Pettis: So moved.
Bendixen, Carmen: Second.
Tali Hairston: Moved and seconded. All in favor, raise your hand.
Tali Hairston: Grooves.
Tali Hairston: Okay, okay, public comment. As noted in the top of the agenda,
Tali Hairston: the library board is accepting public comment that is directed to matters on
Tali Hairston: the agenda by email, in person, at the Central Library,
Tali Hairston: and in this remote meeting. Any public comments so far?
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: There is no one present at the Central Library, no one has signed up in Q&A,
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: and there are no public comments by email this month.
Tali Hairston: Thank you, Amy. Hi, Ryan, how are you?
Ron: I'm doing good. Great. Great to see everybody.
Tali Hairston: Okay.
Tali Hairston: Good to see you. We're rolling. We're at number D, the consent agenda.
Tali Hairston: So we have a consent agenda with minutes from our April special meeting,
Tali Hairston: our April regular meeting, and the April financial report.
Tali Hairston: So if no one has changes to these documents, may I hear a motion to pursue?
Tali Hairston: to approve the consent agenda as published.
Bendixen, Carmen: So moved.
Faith Pettis: Second.
Tali Hairston: It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, raise your hand.
Tali Hairston: And the motion passes. Thank you.
Tali Hairston: All right, and Tom Fay is out for today. Hopefully vacationing,
Tali Hairston: hopefully doing something he loves, as we have admonished him to do so,
Tali Hairston: to take time. So we have Rick today, who will be going in for Tom.
Tali Hairston: And so the Chief Librarian report will come out today, the written report stands.
Tali Hairston: And Rick, if there may be something you wanted to
Tali Hairston: share about that, but I'll leave that open to you. If not,
Tali Hairston: we'll jump right into the system report.
Rick Sheridan: Just to Mr. Vice President, just to add that Chief Librarian Tom Fay
Rick Sheridan: did express his regrets for not being able to attend today because of his
Rick Sheridan: vacation, but he did mention that if there are any
Rick Sheridan: questions about his report, he'd be happy to answer them at the next
Rick Sheridan: board meeting.
Tali Hairston: So we will hold our questions about that report to the next board meeting,
Tali Hairston: and we'll go straight into our system report. Thank you, Rick.
Tali Hairston: So the 2026 Global Reading Challenge is our first item for system report.
Jenny Craig: Hello. Hi, I'm Jenny Craig. Greetings, everyone.
Tali Hairston: Hi, Jenny.
Jenny Craig: I'm here to talk about Global Reading Challenge this year.
Jenny Craig: This was the 31st year of the program and we got through it.
Jenny Craig: It was delightful and celebratory. We gave away, okay, I'm going to just
Jenny Craig: tell you a lot of statistics, but I will answer questions as desired.
Jenny Craig: And if you need me to stop, just tell me. Okay,
Jenny Craig: because there's a lot of things to tell you. So we gave away 9,
Jenny Craig: 992 paperback books for the competition and as prizes.
Jenny Craig: That included 300 Spanish language copies,
Jenny Craig: We also distributed 6 PlayAway and 141 Vox audio books to schools,
Jenny Craig: which are embedded audio players with the books with embedded audio players.
Jenny Craig: Those were specifically sent to schools with high English language learner
Jenny Craig: populations. We had 10, 112 downloads of digital formats.
Jenny Craig: And despite the uptick in downloads, because that's almost 1000 more than last
Jenny Craig: year, schools report that kids still prefer to
Jenny Craig: read physical books and that the physical audio books are critical to some of their
Jenny Craig: readers. So we're happy about that. 72 schools accepted books.
Jenny Craig: 71 participated in the semi-finals and finals. Almost 3,
Jenny Craig: 700 children competed in an in-school challenge.
Jenny Craig: on approximately 532 teams. We also had 23 in-person author talk
Jenny Craig: events with authors Sean David Hutchinson, Ernesto Cisneros, and Chanel Miller.
Jenny Craig: All of those were at Title I schools. All of those were really well received,
Jenny Craig: and approximately 2, 248 students attended those talks.
Jenny Craig: They were super engaged and really enjoyed them. So our total numbers are 3,
Jenny Craig: 696 in the trivia competition, 2, 248 in the author talks at Title 1
Jenny Craig: schools. There was an overlap of about 1, 000.
Jenny Craig: So the total participants accounting for the overlap is 4,874.
Jenny Craig: which is a huge impact. Very pleased about that.
Jenny Craig: And I just wanted to mention that at Rox Hill,
Jenny Craig: which is a Title I school in West Seattle, the whole school read Chanel Miller's
Jenny Craig: book, Magnolia Woo, Unfolds It All, which is about reuniting Lost Socks with
Jenny Craig: their owners. And so their art teacher got involved.
Jenny Craig: And when we came for the author talk, the whole school was decorated with
Tali Hairston: Mmh.
Jenny Craig: hundreds of paper socks that the kids had designed and drawn and colored in order
Jenny Craig: of the, in honor of the author talk. And all of the staff were wearing their
Jenny Craig: zaniest socks. And like, as we were trying to get to the cafeteria,
Jenny Craig: everyone's like, oh, I gotta show you, this is what I'm wearing today.
Jenny Craig: This is what, these are my socks. These are my favorite socks.
Jenny Craig: It was really cute.
Tali Hairston: Pugh.
Jenny Craig: So some highlights from this year was a huge year for publicity.
Jenny Craig: Elisa and Comms and Will from the foundation have been working on
Jenny Craig: developing a pitch for more publicity for Global Reading Challenge for the last
Jenny Craig: couple of years, and this year it got picked up.
Jenny Craig: Seattle Times reporter Claire Bryant, Brian.
Jenny Craig: Picked it up.
Jenny Craig: She did two features. She actually came to both a semi-final
Jenny Craig: and a finals. And Elisa also wrote up a really
Jenny Craig: fantastic shelf talk post about the power of the author talks.
Jenny Craig: Our finals then were this party, because Mayor Wilson attended,
Jenny Craig: as well as our library leadership, both Tom and Kay.
Jenny Craig: And then we had reached out to the Seattle Storm because of one of our books,
Jenny Craig: which is called We Are Big Time, which is by Hana Khan,
Jenny Craig: which is based on the real experiences of a team of hijabi basketball players,
Jenny Craig: which really, really resonated with the Storm.
Jenny Craig: So they brought their mascot, Doppler, to the City finals and a bunch of swag
Jenny Craig: and gave away tickets. I mean, they were just
Jenny Craig: incredibly generous and really kind. Let's see,
Jenny Craig: we had 50 staff outside of the children's librarians assisting with Global Reading
Jenny Craig: Challenge in a scorekeeping capacity, and that's staff from lots of different
Jenny Craig: levels, everything from ASLs to LA ones and twos.
Jenny Craig: So it was.
Jenny Craig: It's tremendous. They help so much by showing up and doing
Jenny Craig: the scorekeeping. But that is a huge lift for our system.
Jenny Craig: So I just want to thank everybody in our whole system who found ways to send the
Jenny Craig: staff, to PSO for scheduling them, and to those staff members for coming out
Jenny Craig: to support. It makes a big difference on how well
Jenny Craig: these
Jenny Craig: various challenges go when we've got our people in place.
Jenny Craig: And I also want to take a moment to just highlight how much work the children's
Jenny Craig: librarians do for this program. They maintain relationships with the
Jenny Craig: schools. They move their schedules around to
Jenny Craig: accommodate in-school timings.
Jenny Craig: because a lot of times the schools are the schools are on a significantly
Jenny Craig: earlier schedule than we are. They enthusiastically greet the
Jenny Craig: participants who come into branches looking for books and sometimes come in
Jenny Craig: to the branches to rehash challenges and how well that went down and want to know
Jenny Craig: a little bit more about why decisions were made. Behind the scenes,
Jenny Craig: they write questions. They make video promotions.
Jenny Craig: We had a spectacular video this year where our Southwest CSL, Amanda,
Jenny Craig: actually wrote and performed an original GRC song. It's totally adorable.
Jenny Craig: And the kids loved it. That was the feedback we got from schools.
Jenny Craig: They also do school visits or celebrations.
Jenny Craig: They encourage non-CSL staff to come out and be scorekeepers.
Jenny Craig: They run the competitions. And in addition to that,
Jenny Craig: many of them help with selection or other projects when I put out a call for help.
Jenny Craig: My work group is a small but mighty team of two.
Jenny Craig: Jesse and Kat are my work group mainstays. They're amazing to work with,
Jenny Craig: and they've been a huge support. But the way the program works is with the
Jenny Craig: collaboration of our whole SPL village.
Jenny Craig: in addition to the large contributions of the Seattle Public Schools Village.
Jenny Craig: So just, just want to put that out there that
Jenny Craig: everybody really brings a lot of heart and time and thought into this program.
Faith Pettis: Can I just say, Jenny, that Chair Mehdi and I were at the finals
Jenny Craig: Um...
Faith Pettis: of the Global Reading Challenge at the Central Library,
Faith Pettis: and the atmosphere in the room was just electric. It was really fun to watch,
Faith Pettis: the excitement. So thank you for doing that.
Jenny Craig: Well, thank you for coming. I mean, this is part of what makes it so great is
Jenny Craig: having everybody really celebrating the readers. So, yay. Okay,
Jenny Craig: so the challenges we had this year, we had another really long season to try
Jenny Craig: to accommodate Ramadan because we're trying to make it.
Jenny Craig: We don't necessarily, we don't want the kids who are choosing
Jenny Craig: to fast to have to compete while fasting. That seems like a lot to ask.
Jenny Craig: But that is going to change next year because Ramadan moves earlier in the
Jenny Craig: calendar year. We do continue to receive feedback that
Jenny Craig: the timeline is too long because
Jenny Craig: Well, there's a couple reasons. One, most of the Seattle Public School staff
Jenny Craig: are half time and they need GRC to take up a little less time in the teaching
Jenny Craig: year, I think. Also, as one school Librarian pointed out in
Jenny Craig: our recent listening session, reading the book once or twice before the
Jenny Craig: in-school is enjoyment. After that, the teams that are going on to semis and
Jenny Craig: finals are often memorizing the books, which isn't really one of the,
Jenny Craig: isn't really in keeping with the goals of the program. So we're thinking about that.
Jenny Craig: talking about that, listening some more, seeing what we can do about it.
Jenny Craig: Our other major challenge was that the selection,
Jenny Craig: so our selection committee chose eight books, 2 graphic novels, no sequels,
Jenny Craig: because that's what the schools asked for, nonfiction,
Jenny Craig: and we chose one of the books that they specifically asked for.
Jenny Craig: and only one book was over 300 pages. So that seemed,
Jenny Craig: we were going into it thinking, oh, this is great. This is great.
Jenny Craig: It was well received by the participants. But despite our lower page counts,
Jenny Craig: our feedback after the event was that the reading level and the subject matter
Jenny Craig: skewed a little bit too high. The kids who participated in the
Jenny Craig: competition really loved the books, but we heard that many of the lower level
Jenny Craig: readers who opted out this year,
Jenny Craig: it was because the books were too hard. So for next season,
Jenny Craig: we're planning to re-center the 4th grade readers in hopes of addressing those
Jenny Craig: concerns. So we're working on selection right now.
Jenny Craig: We're planning to get the list to schools before school-led, so that's in June,
Jenny Craig: so that's happening.
Jenny Craig: And I wanted to finish with a couple of stories just because this is what this is
Jenny Craig: all about. So from BF Day, I have to share a reaction from one of
Jenny Craig: our 5th graders yesterday when the GRC books were revealed.
Jenny Craig: When it was time to check out, she excitedly grabbed We Are Big Time and
Jenny Craig: started paging through the book. She came up to me and said in excitement,
Jenny Craig: Look, they look like me. She then went through the book to see how
Jenny Craig: many different hijabs matched ones that she had at home.
Jenny Craig: She was so excited to get a book reflecting her and her identity.
Jenny Craig: She and her family are new to the school this year,
Jenny Craig: and it was just a special moment of connection.
Jenny Craig: We also had a story from Central. A patron walked into the children's area
Jenny Craig: looking for GRC books.
Jenny Craig: This was a mom, and she said last year her son was a very
Jenny Craig: reluctant reader, and his teacher at Pathfinder had to
Jenny Craig: bribe him with nerds candy to be on a team, but he loved it,
Jenny Craig: and he loved it so much that, and loved a couple of the books in
Jenny Craig: particular, that he's thinking, he was thinking about being a team
Jenny Craig: captain this year, and it completely changed his
Jenny Craig: relationship to reading.
Jenny Craig: Um...
Jenny Craig: From South Shore, the teacher there collected feedback and
Jenny Craig: the students said that the things they loved the most were reading a realistic
Jenny Craig: account about deportation and ICE because it's so relevant right now,
Jenny Craig: reading new books for free, learning about new stuff,
Jenny Craig: talking to classmates about the books, finding connections to and between the
Jenny Craig: books,
Jenny Craig: They loved that the books were multicultural, working as a team,
Jenny Craig: getting a gift even if your team didn't win,
Jenny Craig: and the excitement of only having 30 seconds to answer a question. Let's see.
Jenny Craig: And then two quick stories from Leshi and Emerson. At one school,
Jenny Craig: the winning team from the school challenge included a reluctant reader.
Jenny Craig: His mother contacted me before the semi-final round to let me know.
Jenny Craig: that her son was willingly reading chapter books for the first time because
Jenny Craig: of GRC. His mom and his grand were coming to
Jenny Craig: watch the semifinals and were super proud of him. And at his other school,
Jenny Craig: it felt like academic achievement rarely takes the spotlight.
Jenny Craig: The GRC is really one of the few recognitions for good readers,
Jenny Craig: and all of the students on that winning team were extremely proud and felt like
Jenny Craig: they felt seen as readers.
Jenny Craig: So that, I don't know, that's why we do it. That's what we,
Jenny Craig: that's those are the those are the stories that make the difference when we
Jenny Craig: keep going forward.
Jenny Craig: Anyway, if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer questions.
Jenny Craig: Carmen.
Tali Hairston: Yeah, Carmen.
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah, thank you, Jenny. This was, I always love hearing about global
Bendixen, Carmen: reading because it like, it just makes me smile.
Bendixen, Carmen: But I was wondering two things. Were there any new schools that joined
Bendixen, Carmen: the challenges here? Are you guys you guys have really grown
Bendixen, Carmen: over the years so that you're covering like the whole district,
Bendixen, Carmen: but is there is there pockets or or schools that you still need to need to be
Bendixen, Carmen: brought in?
Jenny Craig: So, okay, the total schools that we could have in
Jenny Craig: the challenge would be 74. And right now we have 72 who are
Jenny Craig: regularly participating. The 2 that opt out have, like they,
Jenny Craig: it's an optional program. So
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah, yeah.
Jenny Craig: And the two that opt out, they feel like either it's too much work
Jenny Craig: for their capacity or the, and also that our reading levels aren't
Jenny Craig: necessarily the right fit for their school,
Jenny Craig: because they are the two schools that generally don't participate are quite
Bendixen, Carmen: Mhm.
Jenny Craig: High performing, so they, they not, and they're not always, they're not,
Bendixen, Carmen: Mm.
Jenny Craig: they're also, so basically they're not really our...
Jenny Craig: highest priority schools. So we just, you know, I talk to,
Bendixen, Carmen: Okay.
Jenny Craig: we invite them every year and they decide, make their decisions every year.
Jenny Craig: We almost had one of them join this year, but they're thinking about how they would
Jenny Craig: do that. It's probably not going to involve their
Jenny Craig: school librarian because he doesn't have the capacity. So,
Jenny Craig: and that's also something across the system.
Bendixen, Carmen: Mm.
Jenny Craig: that we're seeing is in some schools we're needing to end up working with,
Jenny Craig: I mean, this has always been the case. Sometimes we work with teachers instead
Jenny Craig: of librarians, if that's how that works better in that
Jenny Craig: school. This year for the first time, we actually had a group of parents
Jenny Craig: running one, running a
Jenny Craig: Running.
Jenny Craig: running basically, like they were the ones running it out of
Jenny Craig: one of the schools and that, we've been reluctant to move that
Jenny Craig: direction, partly because parent turnover is every
Jenny Craig: year with elementary school or maybe every two years at most,
Jenny Craig: and partly because
Jenny Craig: One of the most important things to remember about this program,
Jenny Craig: and it is really hard to remember because there's so much joy in the competition,
Jenny Craig: is that the competition is the incentive, but it isn't the point, and it isn't,
Jenny Craig: and like performing well in the competition isn't one of the goals.
Jenny Craig: It's not one of the things that we're like, I mean,
Jenny Craig: we track it because it happens, right? Like, and we,
Jenny Craig: care about the kids and we care about their excitement.
Jenny Craig: But the importance is that they're reading the books.
Jenny Craig: And so when parents get involved, sometimes they're just really excited for
Jenny Craig: their kids and things get a little bit too intensely into the competition when
Jenny Craig: we're intensely about the reading and not about the rest of it.
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah.
Jenny Craig: So we're really intentional while working with parent groups to make sure that
Jenny Craig: everybody's on the same page. And they were great this year. So I don't
Jenny Craig: So, but that's it, but it will take more if we are starts to
Jenny Craig: see more of that switch that takes more front loading time with with with our
Jenny Craig: team as well to just make sure to keep that everybody's on the same page.
Jenny Craig: And we do and with that school, the principal was involved.
Jenny Craig: So the principal was the basic basically the school liaison. So
Jenny Craig: It's challenging. And so that I think if we were to get one
Jenny Craig: of the other two remaining schools, that would have to be a similar kind of
Jenny Craig: like non Librarian led situation. So hard to say whether they will join us
Bendixen, Carmen: Mm.
Jenny Craig: or not.
Bendixen, Carmen: Okay.
Bendixen, Carmen: And then my other question was about, you said the chat,
Bendixen, Carmen: you talked about the challenges that you face this year and about the reading
Bendixen, Carmen: level issue that schools mentioned. I was wondering if, is it,
Bendixen, Carmen: is the number of books
Bendixen, Carmen: I guess, have you looked at considering?
Bendixen, Carmen: Fewer than 8 bucks.
Bendixen, Carmen: Is that?
Jenny Craig: So originally, yeah, so originally it was 10 up until the
Jenny Craig: pandemic. We had 10 books every year and that we do
Jenny Craig: have those conversations pretty regularly with schools. So in the pandemic,
Jenny Craig: we went down to seven for one year, which is basically there are teams of
Jenny Craig: seven. So it was basically one book per kid on a
Jenny Craig: team.
Jenny Craig: And the feedback after trying that was that eight books seemed better,
Jenny Craig: so that there's that sort of encouragement to read two books as
Jenny Craig: opposed to maybe just one. It seems to be working well.
Jenny Craig: The eight books seems to be working well. There were a couple of different
Jenny Craig: challenges with the reading levels.
Jenny Craig: One of them is that we did deliberately pick a couple of books that have pretty
Jenny Craig: intense.
Jenny Craig: subject matter. So we did have Efrain Divided,
Jenny Craig: which is about deportation. And we have and we had a book called The
Jenny Craig: School for Invisible Boys, which tackles homophobia pretty straight
Jenny Craig: on. And they required a little bit more, the teachers,
Jenny Craig: the school librarians felt like they required a little bit more pre-teaching.
Jenny Craig: a little bit more hands-on conversations with the kids,
Jenny Craig: which they're not objecting to, but they don't actually have time in
Jenny Craig: their schedule to add that in very well. So some of it was that. Also,
Jenny Craig: we had a couple of shorter books that we thought were lower reading level,
Jenny Craig: but weren't really lower reading level. One of them is very fantasy-based.
Jenny Craig: the Guardian test and we thought, oh, this is super Pokemon-like,
Jenny Craig: the kids will really get into this. But because so many,
Jenny Craig: because it is a totally fantasy world, if you're trying to read it,
Jenny Craig: all of the terms are not, a lot of the terms are not terms that
Jenny Craig: people are familiar with. So like all of the animals are fantasy
Jenny Craig: animals, so they're not
Jenny Craig: bears. They're, you know, bear, I can't remember what they did instead of
Jenny Craig: bears, but like, you know, they're not directly bears.
Jenny Craig: They're not direct. So it turned out to be more challenging
Jenny Craig: for some of our earlier readers when they're trying to interpret the words and
Jenny Craig: then it turns out the words aren't actually words that they're familiar with
Jenny Craig: as well. So
Jenny Craig: It's that sort of like looking, we need to look more carefully at making
Jenny Craig: sure that we have some books that are more,
Jenny Craig: that are really straightforward and are very easy to access.
Jenny Craig: And we need to make sure that when we're doing,
Jenny Craig: it doesn't mean that we're not going to pick books that have big topics in them,
Jenny Craig: but we have to be a little bit more,
Jenny Craig: thoughtful about making sure that that's not every book, that that's, you know,
Jenny Craig: that there's not that kind of teaching required for most of the books.
Jenny Craig: We want this to be as much as possible, optional, independent,
Jenny Craig: let the kids be able to, let the kids opt to read these as
Jenny Craig: independently.
Jenny Craig: without needing a lot of extra help for them. So that's just a re-centering.
Jenny Craig: There is a lot of really exciting publishing going on in middle grade right
Jenny Craig: now and has been for the last few years. So that is a big challenge for selection
Jenny Craig: because we get super excited, but then we have to be like,
Jenny Craig: wait a minute, if I was a, you know, if I was a basically a rising 4th grader,
Jenny Craig: where I've just started 4th grade and I'm at a third grade reading level and I've
Jenny Craig: never,
Jenny Craig: And I don't have a lot of background in American history or world history for
Jenny Craig: that matter. And I'm reading this book while I have
Jenny Craig: any idea what's going on in it. You know, like just what context am I starting from
Jenny Craig: in order to have those conversations. So anyway,
Jenny Craig: that's what we keep having to recenter those.
Bendixen, Carmen: Thanks, Jenny.
Tali Hairston: Anything else for Jenny besides just wanting to encourage your passion and
Tali Hairston: energy for this because it is infectious and that's why we do this work as a board
Jenny Craig: Yeah.
Tali Hairston: is to make sure folks like yourself can run programs like this that really impact
Tali Hairston: all of our citizens and give
Tali Hairston: folks a chance at literacy in a vibrant way. So any other thoughts for Jenny?
Tali Hairston: Okay. Thank you, Jenny.
Jenny Craig: Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.
Faith Pettis: Thank you, Jenny.
Jenny Craig: Thank you.
Tali Hairston: Okay, well we have no old business. So let's get to new business.
Tali Hairston: We have our first quarter 2026 levy report.
Tali Hairston: And I believe that is Elisa.
Tali Hairston: Be called to the panel.
Tali Hairston: There we are.
Elisa Murray: Hi everyone, I had a small glitch because I'm in
Elisa Murray: Laura's office. How are you doing? Can you hear me?
Tali Hairston: Good, good to see you. We can hear you.
Elisa Murray: All right. Yeah, good to see everyone. Yeah,
Faith Pettis: We can.
Elisa Murray: I'm excited to just talk a little bit about the Q1 2026 levy report,
Elisa Murray: which was a big quarter around levies in general.
Elisa Murray: So this is the final year of our seven year 2019.
Elisa Murray: million levy, as you all know. And in Q1, we spent about $9.
Elisa Murray: 6 million for the 2019 levy and $75, 000 from the 2012 levy.
Elisa Murray: And I think we made some good progress on some ongoing projects.
Elisa Murray: and also some really nice results from indicators of key library use.
Elisa Murray: So I'll just kind of outline a few of those in the main levy categories,
Elisa Murray: and then we'll be open to questions. And I just want to shout out David
Elisa Murray: Kristin, who is a huge help in
Elisa Murray: contributing to the levy report, especially in the area of statistics and
Elisa Murray: helping develop interesting illustrations and graphics around that.
Elisa Murray: So under hours and access, and we have a page that summarizes some
Elisa Murray: of the key indicators. So the number of active library users
Elisa Murray: continues to increase.
Elisa Murray: about 12% compared to the first quarter of 2025. We had 340,
Elisa Murray: 000 active library users in the last year. So that includes folks who check out
Elisa Murray: books or use their library cards in any other way,
Elisa Murray: such as to access databases or online programs.
Elisa Murray: Digital checkouts continued to increase.
Elisa Murray: and also the number of physical and digital borrowers,
Elisa Murray: even though our physical checkouts have declined a little bit as you would expect.
Elisa Murray: We had 900, 000 in-person visits in the first quarter.
Elisa Murray: That's A 7% increase compared to Q1 2025. A peak day for in-person visits was not
Elisa Murray: surprisingly February 11th, which was the Super Bowl parade.
Elisa Murray: We had 4, 100 people visiting the Central Library
Elisa Murray: that day, and of course, many, many other people outside.
Elisa Murray: It was a really exciting day for those who were here.
Elisa Murray: And I don't think our increase in in-person visits was just due to that one
Elisa Murray: day. We did make some modest changes to open
Elisa Murray: hours at three branches in the Mid City East region.
Elisa Murray: We added a day of service at Montlake and then reduced hours at Douglas Truth and
Elisa Murray: Capitol Hill to improve staffing stability.
Elisa Murray: We now have 14 branches or library locations that are open seven days a week.
Elisa Murray: The use of pickup lockers continues to grow. We had almost 10,
Elisa Murray: 000 locker-supported checkouts. Our social services team continues to do
Elisa Murray: really wonderful work connecting patrons to lifeline resources and community.
Elisa Murray: through interactions, referrals, welcoming programs such as Coffee and
Elisa Murray: Conversations and Crafternoons. I've been able to look at,
Elisa Murray: we have some wonderful images showing some of what is produced at these
Elisa Murray: Crafternoons. And then they're continuing to provide
Elisa Murray: life-saving overdose prevention supplies, distributing almost 1400 naloxone kits.
Elisa Murray: in collaboration with King County Seattle Public Health.
Elisa Murray: One of our community resource specialists, Lee Nguyen,
Elisa Murray: received the Washington Library Association Outstanding Service Award for
Elisa Murray: this work in Q1 as well. In collections, continue to make investments in digital
Elisa Murray: and physical materials.
Elisa Murray: while, you know, responding to and managing the, you know,
Elisa Murray: continued growing interest in digital books and digital materials.
Elisa Murray: Digital checkouts continue to grow. And I think what's really interesting is
Elisa Murray: you can see one pager on, let's see if I can.
Elisa Murray: Figure out the page number. Page 10, we looked at the share of audio books
Elisa Murray: compared to e-books, because audio books are responsible for
Elisa Murray: an increasing share of our digital checkouts. And in 2025,
Elisa Murray: the library's e-audiobook checkouts were 49% of digital books.
Elisa Murray: And if you break it out by category, by audience,
Elisa Murray: adult fiction and adult nonfiction e-audiobooks outpaced e-book checkouts,
Elisa Murray: just barely for the first time. So we kind of break that down and look at
Elisa Murray: some interesting possible reasons for that. And we actually did a,
Elisa Murray: Tom did a City Cast
Elisa Murray: If you're familiar with that, it's a new podcast,
Elisa Murray: a new source in Seattle. He did an interview with City Cast about
Elisa Murray: that particular issue and did also reiterate that eAudiobooks is reading.
Elisa Murray: It does count. So we're all clear on that. Under technology and access,
Elisa Murray: Our integrated library system project is very much on its way.
Elisa Murray: We concluded successful contract negotiations with Clarivate,
Elisa Murray: announced the selection of their integrated library system, Polaris,
Elisa Murray: as the future replacement. So we're moving into implementation phase
Elisa Murray: for that. Patrons used
Elisa Murray: 102,000 computer hours in Q1, and they printed almost 600,
Elisa Murray: 000 million pages, sorry, 600,000 pages, not 600,000 million pages.
Elisa Murray: On library printers, this is a 12% increase compared to Q1
Elisa Murray: 2025. Our hotspot program continues to be very
Elisa Murray: popular.
Elisa Murray: Patrons checked out 2000.
Elisa Murray: hotspots from our general collection, and we provided 80 new long-term hotspot
Elisa Murray: loans through our outreach program. Our Kaleidoscope Play and Learn program,
Elisa Murray: you know, continues to provide really holistic and
Elisa Murray: wonderful child development sessions at 7 branches in four locations with partners.
Elisa Murray: We also offered over 340 story times at our locations and in the community.
Elisa Murray: Our major maintenance and routine maintenance teams were very,
Elisa Murray: very busy in Q1. The university branch, of course, continues.
Elisa Murray: We completed the seismic retrofit portion of the project in Q1.
Elisa Murray: And my colleague Bennett Barr has been doing some really great updates on our
Elisa Murray: blog. I think another one is coming soon with
Elisa Murray: lots of photos of the
Elisa Murray: work in progress, so I encourage you to check that out.
Elisa Murray: And the branch is expected to reopen in Q3 2026.
Elisa Murray: The HVAC installations in the Fremont and West Seattle branches received final
Elisa Murray: permits in Q1. They'll be publicly bid in Q2,
Elisa Murray: so that's making progress. We also began replacing the aged,
Elisa Murray: the aging HVAC system at Rainier Beach, and that'll be finished in
Elisa Murray: Q2 with an upcoming closure in June. And then our facility and janitorial
Elisa Murray: custodial teams continue to do really important work in keeping our libraries
Elisa Murray: safe, clean, and welcoming. And they completed more than 3,
Elisa Murray: 300 work orders in Q1.
Elisa Murray: And then we continue to make progress on strategic plan initiatives,
Elisa Murray: many of which overlap with what I've already talked about,
Elisa Murray: including expanding language access, refining processes for planning and
Elisa Murray: promoting library programs, the back end of how we get all these
Elisa Murray: programs into our calendar and then promote them effectively,
Elisa Murray: enhancing security training,
Elisa Murray: and then finishing up the first year of the Story Squad literacy project with
Elisa Murray: Seattle Public Schools. And then, of course,
Elisa Murray: the 2026 library levy was proposed and will be on the August ballot.
Elisa Murray: And the final piece of that happened in the beginning of Q2.
Elisa Murray: So that's my brief summary and highlights, and then you're welcome to ask any
Elisa Murray: questions or share any observations from the report.
Tali Hairston: Go ahead, Fay.
Faith Pettis: Can I ask a question? When I was reading the packet,
Faith Pettis: I found that statistic on the audio book increase so interesting.
Faith Pettis: And I know it says there that they might be more expensive than ebooks.
Elisa Murray: Yeah.
Faith Pettis: more about is are we talking exponentially more expensive and do they
Faith Pettis: have the same kind of license issue that digital books have?
Elisa Murray: Yeah, so I can't speak with a lot of expertise
Faith Pettis: Rick.
Elisa Murray: about that, but I can send you a follow up.
Elisa Murray: From what I understand, and Rick, you're welcome to chime in as well.
Elisa Murray: They do tend to be more expensive. I think e-audiobooks increasingly have
Elisa Murray: more of the licensing than as the e-books, and that didn't used to be the case.
Elisa Murray: but they are two different kinds of licensing models. Interestingly,
Elisa Murray: I think e-audio books have tended to be some of the more popular ones,
Elisa Murray: more available through always available on OverDrive.
Elisa Murray: So this wasn't included in the Q1, but a couple of our most popular e-audio
Elisa Murray: books in Q1 were The Heated Rivalry.
Elisa Murray: e-audiobooks. We have, I think, the first three in that series available
Elisa Murray: right now. But I can send you a quick follow-up on
Faith Pettis: Justin.
Elisa Murray: that with help from our collections team, or if anyone is online now and wants to
Faith Pettis: Yeah, sorry, and I don't mean to put you on the spot
Elisa Murray: chime in. But it's, oh, no, absolutely. Yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah. Sorry,
Faith Pettis: about that. It's just such an interesting, and I know we've been, yeah,
Faith Pettis: I know we've been thinking about how to deal with the digital book issue,
Elisa Murray: go ahead.
Faith Pettis: and I'm hoping as we do that, we're also thinking about audiobooks as
Faith Pettis: well, if this is going to be a licensing issue
Elisa Murray: Yeah.
Faith Pettis: as well.
Elisa Murray: No, absolutely. I think our team is very, very thoughtful about that and in terms
Elisa Murray: of the choices that they make and what they make always available and really
Faith Pettis: Thank you.
Elisa Murray: responding to our patrons' needs and interests,
Elisa Murray: as you can see with things like that, the Heated Rivalry books are always
Elisa Murray: available. And then I think Braiding Sweetgrass,
Elisa Murray: you know, we joke that about 20% of Seattle has now
Faith Pettis: Right.
Elisa Murray: listened to that book.
Elisa Murray: It's been always available, I think, for several years and continues to be
Faith Pettis: Wow, interesting.
Elisa Murray: checked out really, really frequently. And I know I'm a recent e-audiobook
Elisa Murray: convert. It took me a long time. And I think a lot of you can probably
Elisa Murray: resonate with that, that either you are or you know people
Faith Pettis: Oh yeah.
Elisa Murray: who are, as with the rise of podcasts and just
Elisa Murray: The discovery of multitasking while listening to eAudiobooks.
Faith Pettis: Right, right, right.
Rick Sheridan: So we actually have Kate Sellers, who oversees our collection team here.
Elisa Murray: Oh.
Rick Sheridan: And Amy, if you could promote her, she could potentially add additional
Rick Sheridan: color on face question around e-audio and e-materials.
Elisa Murray: That's great. Thank you, Kate.
Kate Sellers: Hello. It's nice to see you all. I'm Kate Sellers.
Tali Hairston: Okay.
Kate Sellers: I'm our Technical and Collection Services Manager.
Kate Sellers: So it's my team who gets to do the fun job, actually,
Kate Sellers: of choosing all of our titles for our overdrive, our e-book,
Kate Sellers: and e-audio collections. And they get to navigate all of these
Faith Pettis: And.
Kate Sellers: very complicated
Kate Sellers: license models. So for audio books, it is similar to ebooks and that will buy
Kate Sellers: a license that will last for a particular amount of time or for a certain number of
Faith Pettis: Mm.
Kate Sellers: checkouts. So for a 20 month, 24 month period is common for these
Kate Sellers: licenses. They do cost two to three times more than
Kate Sellers: the ebooks themselves.
Faith Pettis: Ell.
Kate Sellers: most often, not always. The thing to keep in mind is that each
Kate Sellers: publisher negotiates their own license process and agreement.
Kate Sellers: So some publishers have terms that are a little more favorable for us.
Kate Sellers: Some publishers have a pretty high cost and
Kate Sellers: Low.
Kate Sellers: low access model, I should say. So it really just depends if we look at
Kate Sellers: the particular publisher, and it's usually a different publisher
Kate Sellers: for audiobooks than it is for ebooks. But in general, more expensive.
Faith Pettis: Interesting.
Ron: Can I can I weigh in a little bit on this issue?
Ron: I know I've talked to Tom a little bit about this as well.
Ron: We've begun to raise the issue within AARP. That's another hat I wear.
Ron: The issue of providing for libraries, public libraries,
Ron: more access and addressing the issue of the high fees, because it affects many,
Ron: many of our members, myself included, who really rely on
Ron: you know, the ability to migrate from simple print
Ron: publications to large print to actually other forms where you can actually even
Ron: given liabilities in terms of your ability to see.
Ron: Jill.
Ron: It's migrated actually up to the advocacy policy level and the national level
Ron: within ARP. And so I'm hoping to continue to push
Ron: that issue both locally as well as nationally.
Tali Hairston: Thank you, Brian.
Faith Pettis: Yeah, thank you for that information, Kate. It's so,
Faith Pettis: so interesting because I do agree that we're going to see, Ron,
Faith Pettis: you're spot on as the population ages and our eyes go bad.
Elisa Murray: Yeah.
Faith Pettis: I've moved from the print books to e-books,
Faith Pettis: which you can brighten and make the font bigger, to now audio books.
Faith Pettis: I think we're going to continue to see that demand go up.
Elisa Murray: Yes.
Faith Pettis: So it is concerning to hear that there are two to three times more than e-books
Faith Pettis: and e-books themselves are so much more than print books. So wow.
Ron: Yeah, and I know Tom's brought it up at some of
Faith Pettis: No.
Ron: our previous board meetings. I don't know if there's been a real deep
Faith Pettis: Yeah.
Ron: dive into that, but, you know, we need some advocates to push on that
Faith Pettis: Yeah.
Ron: issue, ensure that libraries get, you know,
Ron: fair access to the most current titles.
Ron: and digital materials, and because it serves our population.
Kate Sellers: I don't have an update on that, but I know Tom is part of the connection
Kate Sellers: of folks who are working on that. The Urban Library Council also recently
Elisa Murray: Yeah.
Kate Sellers: put out a statement about this that's illuminating and helpful in conjunction
Kate Sellers: with a few other library organizations calling on publishers to address this
Kate Sellers: issue.
Kate Sellers: So, hope, I'm hopeful we'll see some movement on
Kate Sellers: that and results.
Rick Sheridan: Yeah, I would just add that Tom, Kiersten and myself have been working at
Rick Sheridan: the state level on this issue pretty intensely,
Rick Sheridan: have made some progress in Olympia in terms of convincing legislators that
Rick Sheridan: there is an issue when it comes to the pricing, when it comes to the models,
Rick Sheridan: and trying to seek some sort of redress at the state level for what we see in
Rick Sheridan: terms of all these different elements that make it very expensive for us to
Rick Sheridan: provide EU.
Rick Sheridan: Audio, e-materials in general, as a library system.
Ron: Yeah, and just to add a little more detail,
Ron: I've, you know, spoken at length to AARP Washington
Ron: Director Marguerite Rowe, and she's briefed on the issue,
Ron: is fully supportive, and I have
Ron: Jenny Pugh, who I think is the chair of the Urban
Ron: Libraries Council, about this issue. She's actually one that,
Ron: knowing that I was with ARP, pushed the issue and I, you know,
Ron: so there's an active conversation going on.
Faith Pettis: Yeah.
Tali Hairston: Thanks, Ron.
Tali Hairston: Any other questions or concerns to share?
Tali Hairston: I just want to note that the 29th for all those listening,
Faith Pettis: The.
Tali Hairston: the 2019 levy accounts for 39. 8% of the library's total revised budget
Tali Hairston: right now for this year for 2026.
Tali Hairston: That means something.
Tali Hairston: Um, and as we are approaching.
Tali Hairston: an opportunity to continue to think through what's on the horizon,
Tali Hairston: that statistic really caught my attention. And so I thought I just want to make note
Tali Hairston: of that for those listening, the significance of that statistic in
Tali Hairston: what many believe to be
Tali Hairston: an important number to carry as we move into August.
Tali Hairston: Anything else?
Tali Hairston: Okay, thank you, Elisa and Kate. Appreciate that sharing and we are,
Elisa Murray: Yeah?
Tali Hairston: if we are, oh, I'm sorry, if there are no other, let me just finish,
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: Kelly, you do need to vote to approve the report,
Elisa Murray: Thanks, everyone.
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: please.
Elisa Murray: Oh, oh, sorry, I'll...
Tali Hairston: if there are no other further discussion or proposed changes,
Tali Hairston: may I hear a motion to approve the first quarter 2026 levy report as public?
Tali Hairston: Ash.
Bendixen, Carmen: So moved.
Faith Pettis: Second.
Ron: Good.
Tali Hairston: All in favor of approving this report, raise your hand and say aye.
Tali Hairston: Motion passes. Thank you.
Tali Hairston: Now I can say thank you, Elisa. You're welcome to step off and move to
Elisa Murray: Yay, we got it approved. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Kate, for chiming in.
Tali Hairston: the right.
Elisa Murray: Really appreciate that, your expertise. And Ron,
Elisa Murray: appreciate hearing about your efforts, which makes so much sense. Okay.
Faith Pettis: Thank you.
Tali Hairston: Okay, next on our agenda is the Art Review
Tali Hairston: Committee Charter.
Tali Hairston: And we will also be voting on this as well, to approve this as well.
Tali Hairston: And who are we promoting?
Tali Hairston: for this conversation.
Rick Sheridan: If we could promote Sean Lanksbury and Kate Tang, Mr. Vice President.
Tali Hairston: Thank you.
Tali Hairston: And.
Tali Hairston: Hi, Sean.
Sean Lanksbury: Hi, Tali.
Sean Lanksbury: Hello everyone, is Kay also live? Before I get...
Sean Lanksbury: rambling here.
Tali Hairston: We are waiting to see her.
Sean Lanksbury: Okay, there she is. Okay, great. All right.
Tali Hairston: There we see, there's K.
Kai Tang: Thanks.
Sean Lanksbury: Hopefully, thank you for this opportunity to speak.
Sean Lanksbury: I'm Sean Lanksbury. I'm the Special Collection Services
Sean Lanksbury: Manager here at SPL, and I'm also the Art Public Art
Sean Lanksbury: Collection Manager by just dent of the job. So,
Sean Lanksbury: I'm here to present changes and also a call to reactivate our art review
Sean Lanksbury: committee. Hopefully, you've received the redlined and the
Sean Lanksbury: clean updated version of the document for review.
Sean Lanksbury: Some background, and I'll quote mostly from the memo here.
Sean Lanksbury: This committee, its charter was established by the Board
Sean Lanksbury: of Trustees following the 1998 Libraries for All levy and had been active through
Sean Lanksbury: subsequent levies. The charter was last updated in December
Sean Lanksbury: of 2008.
Sean Lanksbury: but has fell into dormancy over the past decade.
Sean Lanksbury: The committee is a core element of standing administrative procedures at SPL,
Sean Lanksbury: the standard for collection and management of public art,
Sean Lanksbury: which was last updated in 2015. And in that charter,
Sean Lanksbury: and the procedures, all the activities related to collection
Sean Lanksbury: management and deaccession of the art collection are guided by the
Sean Lanksbury: recommendations of this art review committee.
Sean Lanksbury: They go to the Executive Director, Chief Librarian,
Sean Lanksbury: and then ultimately to you, the Board of Trustees. These
Sean Lanksbury: Meetings were historically scheduled a couple times a year, if not more,
Sean Lanksbury: if there were big issues to discuss. And there's been a lot of work over the
Sean Lanksbury: past couple of years, really, since I came on board to reestablish this
Sean Lanksbury: committee.
Sean Lanksbury: because there's a great need to start having conversations about around the
Sean Lanksbury: system, its care, its management, what lies in the future.
Sean Lanksbury: And so with that in mind, I set about just taking a look at the
Sean Lanksbury: pre-existing charter and seeing how it
Sean Lanksbury: how it was written and where it works and where it's a little challenging to
Sean Lanksbury: restart from the original text because it has staggered positions that are assigned
Sean Lanksbury: that are appointed. And so also, there's a need to have a greater
Sean Lanksbury: facilities presence because of the coordinating.
Sean Lanksbury: effort across 27 branches in the system. So I made some recommended changes,
Sean Lanksbury: adjustments to the charter, which is the to clarify that the
Sean Lanksbury: management role is limited to of this of this committee is limited to the public
Sean Lanksbury: art collection.
Sean Lanksbury: and not other art or artful features or aspects of the library spaces,
Sean Lanksbury: because that's not entirely clear from the original charter,
Sean Lanksbury: that we do indeed need an additional position added to the charter for
Sean Lanksbury: somebody representing the Capital Improvement Program.
Sean Lanksbury: either as an ex officio position or as a term appointment.
Sean Lanksbury: And that we'd like to adjust the term lengths and cadences of the
Sean Lanksbury: representatives from the community in order to conform to the expectations that
Sean Lanksbury: there's a new member
Sean Lanksbury: sort of coming on board as one is leaving, so that there's a refresh rate.
Sean Lanksbury: But that requires us to start with some, you know, one year, two year,
Sean Lanksbury: three year terms, and then they normalize over renewal.
Sean Lanksbury: And also how we fill vacancies will be interim vacancies rather than just like
Sean Lanksbury: getting them back out of alignment with each other. So
Sean Lanksbury: Um...
Sean Lanksbury: And so my role as Special Collections Manager is to be the Arts Collections
Sean Lanksbury: Manager and my first duty once, if you choose to approve reactivation and
Sean Lanksbury: changes to this charter,
Sean Lanksbury: is to do a call out for a Library Foundation board member who might be
Sean Lanksbury: interested in joining the committee as stated in the charter,
Sean Lanksbury: plus staff and community applicants for their respective open slots.
Sean Lanksbury: I'm hoping to get this process started in June with the hope of reviewing the
Sean Lanksbury: applicants
Sean Lanksbury: possibly having them delivered to Tom and to you all sometime in August,
Sean Lanksbury: so that we'll be prepared to be an active committee in the new fiscal year.
Tali Hairston: Sean, just a quick question for me. I, well, let me say two things.
Sean Lanksbury: Sure.
Tali Hairston: Are you aware? I'm not aware. Are you aware of why the committee has
Tali Hairston: been dormant? That's my first. I looked to see if and read to see if
Tali Hairston: that was in there.
Tali Hairston: Secondly, the process for the board approval of,
Tali Hairston: is it, are we approving?
Tali Hairston: applicants to serve? Are we approving recommendations?
Tali Hairston: What are, what are the, what's the board's role? Just to clarify.
Sean Lanksbury: Scheff.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah, so my understanding is that we will
Sean Lanksbury: review and recommend forward our top applicants,
Sean Lanksbury: the ones that we feel are good fits based on the charter.
Sean Lanksbury: And then they're presented to you and Tom for approval,
Sean Lanksbury: but not that you'll have a pool of applicants that you need to sort through.
Sean Lanksbury: and make selections from that we will we will recommend from applicants that we've
Sean Lanksbury: reviewed good fit for the committee.
Sean Lanksbury: And, and to address your first, oh, sorry.
Tali Hairston: And it's.
Tali Hairston: No, go for it. Let me go for it and I'll come back to
Tali Hairston: that.
Sean Lanksbury: Okay, sure. To address your first question,
Sean Lanksbury: I don't actually know how it became inactive.
Sean Lanksbury: I think a lot of the work centered around
Sean Lanksbury: putting art into place following LFA and some of the maintenance issues in the
Sean Lanksbury: early days and in the inventory of the collection.
Sean Lanksbury: I feel like some major strides were made. There was, you know,
Sean Lanksbury: some decent inventory work done, though we've done it.
Sean Lanksbury: We've done a follow-up inventory just to try to
Sean Lanksbury: differentiate public art from other forms of art throughout the system.
Sean Lanksbury: And I think that it may have just sort of fell by the wayside and slowly just
Sean Lanksbury: slipped away into inactivity. My predecessor announced their retirement
Sean Lanksbury: in 2018, I believe, and that might have
Sean Lanksbury: been sort of the final, the final straw, you know, in it sort of freezing out.
Sean Lanksbury: I know that Yazmin at one point served on the art committee. And so, you know,
Sean Lanksbury: she may have more insight into that if she was around towards the end of its
Sean Lanksbury: existence. So
Sean Lanksbury: But I don't have a lot of background notes on why it fell out of practice.
Tali Hairston: Okay.
Tali Hairston: A state.
Faith Pettis: Tali, can I use the straw that I won't be able
Tali Hairston: Mhm.
Faith Pettis: to use for long of being a newbie on this board and not knowing the history of
Faith Pettis: stuff? Can you just inform us, Sean, so that the library has an art collection
Faith Pettis: that it owns, or are we talking about checking out or
Faith Pettis: borrowing or renting?
Sean Lanksbury: No, this is a great question. It's actually really complicated if I can
Sean Lanksbury: admit it. There is a there is a City Art Office of
Sean Lanksbury: Arts and Culture collection which is present in across our branches.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: Things that have been cited cited here.
Faith Pettis: Right. Oh, okay. Okay.
Sean Lanksbury: through funding. There are materials that have been over
Sean Lanksbury: decades, over a century, have accumulated that are actual library
Sean Lanksbury: property.
Faith Pettis: Like donated or purchased or?
Sean Lanksbury: donated or we commissioned them through possibly through the board.
Faith Pettis: Okay.
Sean Lanksbury: Some of the history of that is a little hazy and part of this work is to try to
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: get to the bottom of the background history of each of these pieces and whose
Sean Lanksbury: jurisdiction it falls under, whether it's Office of Arts and Culture,
Sean Lanksbury: whether something is actually
Sean Lanksbury: on parks property, whether, you know, all the different things.
Sean Lanksbury: And then within the SPL organization, what elements are more architectural
Sean Lanksbury: features that are artistic that might fall more under a facilities maintenance
Faith Pettis: Right.
Faith Pettis: OK.
Sean Lanksbury: program or are wayfinding that are created as part of murals and whatnot.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: So we're
Sean Lanksbury: That's part of the committee's role as well is to help differentiate working
Sean Lanksbury: with our partners as to what constitutes our actual public art collection and that
Sean Lanksbury: we follow the rules for addition, deaccession, reciting, maintenance, etc.
Faith Pettis: Bye.
Faith Pettis: Got it, got it, interesting.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah.
Faith Pettis: Thank you for that.
Tali Hairston: And thank you for that question, Faith. My curiosity is around whether the board
Sean Lanksbury: You're welcome.
Tali Hairston: needs to approve.
Tali Hairston: the members of the committee.
Tali Hairston: Is that a is that required? Is it is it even necessary?
Tali Hairston: And and I'm thinking of if if a Seattle Foundation,
Tali Hairston: if a Library Foundation board member is on there,
Tali Hairston: it's not like I I'm just curious as the board's interest and the necessity of the
Tali Hairston: board approving.
Tali Hairston: The committee applicants, but we can discuss that without.
Tali Hairston: interrupting the approval process for the committee.
Tali Hairston: Is that something that can be possibly discussed at a later point.
Tali Hairston: I don't know if there are other board members who.
Faith Pettis: So the charter, yeah, the charter does say that the candidates
Tali Hairston: Have that as an issue, but...
Faith Pettis: are referred to the City Librarian before approval by the Library Board of Trustees.
Faith Pettis: So, Tali, are you saying that it's awkward for us
Faith Pettis: to be approving candidates put forward by particular organizations?
Faith Pettis: Is that what you're worried about?
Tali Hairston: Well, it's, I'm concerned that the, and it's less a concern,
Tali Hairston: more of a curiosity of why we need to approve the committee.
Tali Hairston: If these management team is pulling applicants, approving them, querying,
Tali Hairston: approving, and then recommending,
Tali Hairston: Then I, I get that process. I mean, it's fine. Is it?
Tali Hairston: We're not going to know as much, obviously,
Tali Hairston: about those because we don't get and to vet the applicants per se as much as
Tali Hairston: approve their decision. So I'm just curious about that process
Tali Hairston: and whether that process is required.
Tali Hairston: Can it be changed? Is it necessary? That's all.
Tali Hairston: I'm just curious as to why that is.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah, I mean, I believe that it's something we can
Sean Lanksbury: discuss it more before approving, but also we could set the committee sort
Sean Lanksbury: of
Sean Lanksbury: just the call for applicants that it's approved that we can we can reestablish
Sean Lanksbury: this. Mostly, I'm trying to respect the precedent of
Sean Lanksbury: the previous charter that it's, you know, I don't want to sidestep any, you know,
Sean Lanksbury: necessary, you know, approval by the by the group who actually
Sean Lanksbury: helped author that and approved the original charter.
Sean Lanksbury: And as far as the functional aspects of that,
Sean Lanksbury: like whether or not all members of the committee need to go all the way to the
Sean Lanksbury: board or just go to Tom and are approved at that level and we call that an
Sean Lanksbury: acceptable stop point, I think is can be a follow up issue that
Sean Lanksbury: we just
Sean Lanksbury: We can make adjustments to the charter following the approval.
Sean Lanksbury: We can separate the two issues, essentially.
Sean Lanksbury: We can just approve that it's okay to reestablish this committee,
Sean Lanksbury: and then we can adjust the charter in a separate.
Sean Lanksbury: conversation. But I don't have any personal misgivings
Sean Lanksbury: about it being simplified. And in fact, as we've discussed in the past, you know,
Sean Lanksbury: sometimes I think the complication of the whole process is maybe part of what slows
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: the ability of the committee to work and maybe brings it to a halt because it's a
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: lot of various steps to go through.
Rick Sheridan: So, Mr. Vice President, I just offer there are two courses of
Tali Hairston: What's that?
Rick Sheridan: action you could take here. You could amend the draft charter that is
Rick Sheridan: before you right now to essentially leave approval in the hands of the Chief
Rick Sheridan: Librarian, or we could table approval of this
Rick Sheridan: charter until a future meeting if you want additional time to sort of discuss
Rick Sheridan: the matter.
Rick Sheridan: amongst the board.
Tali Hairston: I don't think it requires us to table the. ..
Faith Pettis: Right.
Tali Hairston: the vote. I think the way it's written is the
Tali Hairston: highest level of by coming to the board. So I think if the board decides at a
Tali Hairston: later point, it could decide at a later point to amend
Tali Hairston: that particular responsibility.
Tali Hairston: But I, there's no reason to table it, in my opinion,
Tali Hairston: unless someone feels that it's necessary to table.
Faith Pettis: I don't think it's necessary to table and I could offer an amendment that might get
Faith Pettis: us there so we don't have to revisit this, which would be right after that sentence.
Tali Hairston: Mhm.
Faith Pettis: It says candidates are referred to the City Librarian for review before approval
Faith Pettis: by the library board of trustees. We could say which approval may be
Faith Pettis: delegated.
Faith Pettis: by the Library Board of Trustees to the City Librarian.
Tali Hairston: I love that amendment. It gives us the option, right?
Tali Hairston: It gives us the option.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: I think some of the protection, if, sorry, if I'm interrupting,
Sean Lanksbury: but some of the protection might be because,
Sean Lanksbury: remember this was chartered during libraries for all,
Sean Lanksbury: where there were a lot of proposals for public art coming in and the worry for
Faith Pettis: Yeah.
Sean Lanksbury: abuse of funds might be high. And so it gives the flexibility for the
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: board to step in and say,
Sean Lanksbury: We want to slow this process and be deliberative about it, so...
Faith Pettis: Yep.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Faith Pettis: So, that said may, it's not a is right, yeah.
Tali Hairston: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah.
Tali Hairston: Yeah, if we could.
Tali Hairston: include that edit, that amendment, I feel comfortable moving forward because
Tali Hairston: it gives us some option to pivot at a later date or as a board. And we can,
Tali Hairston: once again, work this through as needed. It may not even be an issue.
Faith Pettis: Right.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah.
Tali Hairston: It may not even be an issue. But I do want to encourage the work.
Tali Hairston: I think the board wants to encourage this committee.
Faith Pettis: Yep.
Tali Hairston: And so by creating another level of, you know,
Tali Hairston: Approval approvals would be to be diminished.
Tali Hairston: energy around the work. So any way I can encourage that,
Tali Hairston: any way we can encourage that, I think that would be important.
Tali Hairston: Any other discussion or questions for Sean? Please do so.
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: Hey, can I just jump in really quick? If, if you guys are sorry,
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: if you guys are gonna make modifications before you approve,
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: could I also suggest that you?
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: Move to change City Librarian to Executive Director and Chief Librarian.
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: I don't think we caught that in the draft.
Faith Pettis: Good idea.
Tali Hairston: Are we getting?
Hybrid Meeting Cart 01: Yeah.
Sean Lanksbury: Ah.
Tali Hairston: Okay, so.
Sean Lanksbury: Okay.
Tali Hairston: Any other friendly amendments?
Ron: The.
Tali Hairston: Okay, so we have...
Tali Hairston: The charter, the proposed amendments with a motion,
Tali Hairston: we need a motion to approve the updated charter with those amendments,
Tali Hairston: not as published, but with those amendments.
Faith Pettis: I will make the motion to approve this charter with the amendment to the last
Faith Pettis: sentence of the second paragraph.
Faith Pettis: So that sentence would read, candidates are referred to the Executive
Faith Pettis: Director and Chief Librarian for review before approval by the Library Board of
Faith Pettis: Trustees, which approval may be delegated.
Faith Pettis: to the Executive Director and Chief Librarian.
Bendixen, Carmen: Second.
Tali Hairston: We have a second.
Tali Hairston: All in favor, raise your hand or say aye.
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah.
Tali Hairston: I think Ron is frozen. There he is, Ron. Okay. The charter is approved. Thank you,
Sean Lanksbury: The.
Tali Hairston: Sean. Thank you, Kay. Kay, I didn't know if you wanted to add
Tali Hairston: anything. We already voted, but.
Sean Lanksbury: Yeah.
Kai Tang: No, thanks. I was just here in case there were
Tali Hairston: Yeah.
Kai Tang: additional questions that could possibly be asked that you might need me and Sean.
Kai Tang: Does everything and knows it, so.
Tali Hairston: Awesome. Thank you so much for being present.
Sean Lanksbury: Thank you all.
Tali Hairston: All right, let us move to our number three item,
Tali Hairston: our union report.
Tali Hairston: And who are we promoting? Is it Jessie? Jessie today. Hi, Jessie.
Jessica Lucas: Hi there.
Jessica Lucas: Yeah.
Jessica Lucas: Hey, how's it going? You get a nice view of my dirty work room
Tali Hairston: Good, good to see you.
Jessica Lucas: today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I just wanted to expand on my report a
Jessica Lucas: little bit and say that we're having a very interesting time with our.
Jessica Lucas: the beginning to our negotiations, and we're all learning about
Jessica Lucas: interest-based bargaining right now. It's a different process for folks.
Jessica Lucas: A lot of our teams have not experienced it before,
Jessica Lucas: so it's a little bit of a learning curve at the moment.
Jessica Lucas: But hopefully we will get on top of it.
Jessica Lucas: by the time our training that is provided by PERC runs out at our next meeting.
Jessica Lucas: PERC is the Public Employment Relations Commission,
Jessica Lucas: and so they have oversight for labor relations and collective bargaining,
Jessica Lucas: and they also assist if there is a labor management disagreement that
Jessica Lucas: goes beyond what we can do in-house. So anyway,
Jessica Lucas: she is there and helping us learn how to do interest-based bargaining,
Jessica Lucas: and we're getting there. Hopefully we'll actually get down to some
Jessica Lucas: real negotiations in just like a month from now.
Jessica Lucas: Yeah, just a little update and I hope
Jessica Lucas: everything is going well with all of you.
Jessica Lucas: Mhm.
Tali Hairston: No, we are staying plugged in.
Jessica Lucas: Okay, wonderful.
Tali Hairston: We are staying plugged in. Thank you. Any other questions for Jessie?
Tali Hairston: Great.
Tali Hairston: All right, looks like we have our Library Foundation
Tali Hairston: and Friends of Library updates from Ron and Faith.
Ron: Yeah. Let's see, I'm looking at my notes here.
Ron: The Library Foundation Board met on May the 13th. It wasn't that long ago.
Ron: But my notes, I wouldn't even remember what the heck
Ron: happened so many meetings. But no, there was a report on fundraising
Tali Hairston: Yeah.
Ron: performance so far this year. Three million raised so far towards a $5.
Ron: 5 million goal this year. You can do the math. It's
Ron: Looking pretty good. So congrats on that. Both Library Giving Day and Give Big
Ron: campaigns were successful. Although I believe Brian noted it,
Ron: the numbers are down a bit from last year. A special thanks to all the donors,
Ron: including those in the room.
Ron: for their generosity and commitment to the library.
Ron: Brian Lawrence also presented this trust-based philanthropy model.
Ron: It's very interesting just how they do their fundraising.
Ron: And I actually took notes on a lot of this because it's really foundational
Ron: stuff for anybody doing fundraising development work.
Ron: Um...
Ron: There was a report on the audit, which was presented and unanimously
Ron: accepted. Clark Nuber did the audit, and it was a clean audit,
Ron: no corrections or adjustments.
Ron: There was also action on renewing the Library Foundation Friends Partnership.
Ron: And that agreement clarifies how those 3 entities.
Ron: of the foundation and friends in supporting the library.
Ron: Ah.
Ron: I wish.
Ron: A bit of focus.
Ron: Um...
Ron: Moving forward, and there's a lot of good energy,
Ron: and Tom made a great presentation on that front.
Ron: And I think those are the main highlights.
Tali Hairston: All right, any questions for Ron? Thanks, Ron.
Ron: Thank you.
Tali Hairston: Okay, Faith, we'll pass it to you.
Faith Pettis: Sure. So the friends met last Tuesday on the
Faith Pettis: 19th via Zoom following an in-person meeting the prior month.
Faith Pettis: And the success of the in-person meeting was so great that they talked about
Faith Pettis: meeting more frequently in person, which is terrific.
Faith Pettis: It's really fun to see the people out of their boxes in person.
Faith Pettis: and especially when we get to meet at the Friends facilities.
Tali Hairston: I.
Faith Pettis: So the bulk of the meeting was taken up with the same report that we had heard at
Faith Pettis: our special board meeting on the household survey,
Faith Pettis: Seattle Household Survey, and they got a similar presentation from
Faith Pettis: Jessica Smith that we heard that was very well received.
Faith Pettis: Just a couple of activities that happened, and all this is last week, the Friends.
Faith Pettis: really busy last week. On the 21st, they had three events,
Faith Pettis: including an event at the Green Lake Branch,
Faith Pettis: one at a Seattle Arts and Lectures event that was featuring Tommy Orange,
Faith Pettis: where they were giving away books and totes.
Faith Pettis: And then they had a third event with an organization called the Seattle Chamber
Faith Pettis: of Connection. All of that on the 21st.
Faith Pettis: And then last weekend they had a pop-up sale,
Faith Pettis: a book sale on Overlook Park down on the waterfront.
Faith Pettis: So they are a busy group of people.
Faith Pettis: That's it for me.
Tali Hairston: Thank you, Faith.
Tali Hairston: All right, updates from library board members.
Tali Hairston: Do we have any updates?
Ron: Take a minute, Tali, to mention the the kickoff for the the
Tali Hairston: Yes, Carmen.
Ron: bond measure campaign. I know I saw you there and Yazmin was
Ron: there as well, and I thought it was a great event.
Ron: It was over in the park right across the Green Lake. The energy was terrific.
Ron: That was a great presentation by everybody.
Ron: And so just a shout out to the foundation team and those involved on the campaign
Ron: for a very spirited event.
Tali Hairston: It was a beautiful day outside.
Tali Hairston: Carmen.
Ron: Yeah.
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah, actually, this isn't an update, but I meant to ask this earlier during
Bendixen, Carmen: the Chief Librarian's report, and I know there wasn't really a report,
Bendixen, Carmen: but Rick, maybe you could note this for Tom.
Bendixen, Carmen: In his report, he mentioned the all staff day and the
Bendixen, Carmen: folks who had received awards. And I'm wondering at some point,
Bendixen, Carmen: because we usually, in the past, we've gotten a list.
Bendixen, Carmen: of folks. So I'm wondering if we could get that
Bendixen, Carmen: list of folks just as a extra recognition for their
Bendixen, Carmen: Their work.
Bendixen, Carmen: Thanks.
Faith Pettis: It's a great idea.
Rick Sheridan: Carmen, I'm sorry for that that occurred that we
Rick Sheridan: didn't provide that list to you and we certainly can get it to you.
Rick Sheridan: So we'll be happy to share that with the board in order to further recognize some
Rick Sheridan: outstanding work by library staff.
Tali Hairston: Thank you, Carmen. And speaking of outstanding folks,
Tali Hairston: this was from last month and I just recently was made aware of this.
Tali Hairston: And it is about one of our board members, Faith Pettis,
Tali Hairston: the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle King County honored Faith,
Tali Hairston: honored Pacific partner Faith Pettis this week with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Tali Hairston: in recognition of her exemplary contributions to affordable housing
Tali Hairston: progress in Seattle and the wider Puget Sound region.
Tali Hairston: Titus received the Carl Okigwe Award, which is named for the HDC's founding
Tali Hairston: Executive Director at the organization's annual celebration of affordable housing.
Tali Hairston: Congratulations, Faith. I know you would never tell us about that.
Tali Hairston: So when I found out about it, I reserved it for this moment.
Ron: It.
Faith Pettis: Thank you, Tali. That was very kind.
Tali Hairston: Congratulations.
Ron: Wow. Congratulations.
Bendixen, Carmen: That's awesome, Faith.
Tali Hairston: Yeah.
Faith Pettis: Thank you all.
Tali Hairston: Well, we do not have an executive session and
Tali Hairston: it is now 12:10 and this meeting is adjourned. Our next meeting is June 25th,
Tali Hairston: 2026.
Faith Pettis: See you all next month.
Tali Hairston: Everyone have a great day. Take care.
Bendixen, Carmen: Yeah. Thank you. Bye.
Ron: Bye, bye, everybody.
Faith Pettis: Kai.
Rick Sheridan: Bye.