Good morning, everyone.
The February 27, 2025 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.
It's 9.32 a.m.
I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.
I would like to note that Councilmember Solomon is excused today.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Councilmember Moore?
Councilmember Hollingsworth?
Here.
Vice Chair Rink.
Present.
Chair Rivera.
Present.
Three council members are present.
Thank you.
And Council Member Moore will be here momentarily.
She let us know.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
There's one item of business on today's agenda.
We have a presentation from the Seattle Public Library on the Seattle Public Library annual levy update.
I'd like to thank Chief Librarian Tom Fay for coming to the council chambers today to present.
We will now open the hybrid public comment period.
Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.
Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?
And I also wanna know council member Moore has joined us.
Currently we have one in-person speaker and one remote speaker signed up.
Thank you.
May you please read the public comment instructions.
The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.
Public comment period is up to 20 minutes.
Each speaker will have two minutes.
Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.
We will start with in-person speakers first and then remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.
Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.
The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
The first speaker on the list will be our first and last in-person speaker, Vivian Song.
Good morning, council members.
I'm Vivian Song, parent to Seattle Public School students, former school board directors, Families Education Preschool Promise, or FEPP Levy Oversight Committee member, and current board member of the Denise Louie Education Center, an early learning provider.
Seattle voters just overwhelmingly passed two school levies at 82% and 76%.
It's unequivocal.
Seattle voters see a very real need and believe our kids are a worthy investment.
I urge you to be bold with the upcoming FEPP levy renewal.
Denise Louie, with its locations in District 2, 3, and 4, has Seattle preschool and Head Start classrooms.
Despite Head Start supposedly being exempted from federal funding disruptions, our funding was briefly cut off.
With continued uncertainty likely over the next four years, Seattle must ensure our youngest and most vulnerable residents have stable access to early learning, a proven driver of strong future outcomes.
Regarding K through 12, children spend 80% of their waking hours outside of school.
Parks and Recreation successfully delivers after-school programming at James Baldwin Elementary in District 5 and several middle schools.
I ask you to consider expanding and deepening investments in after-school and summer programming of high-dosage tutoring, sports, and other enrichment activities.
This is a matter of public safety as well.
In 2024, in King County, at least 22 homicide victims were children, and 14 juveniles were charged with murder or manslaughter, the highest number since records began in 2010. I agree with the devastating assessment of Councilmember Hollingsworth.
Our babies are shooting each other.
And also that kids are not bad.
They are bored.
Let's make Seattle an amazing place to be a kid.
The voters will support us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The first remote speaker is David Haynes.
David Haynes, when you hear that you are unmuted, please press star six.
Hi, thank you, David Haynes.
It doesn't matter how much money you allocate if you implement bad policies that impose society.
The Central Library has been overrun with homeless who have nowhere to go, and there isn't any service providers reaching out inside the library.
Yesterday, I was in the Central and had to leave within 20 minutes out of sheer frustration and anger at how horrible it is to try and go in there and read without some crazy evil demon acting like we're in Afghanistan where they punish and persecute people who find their own business trying to read and write.
Invading your personal space, dropping their body dust on you, trying to bully and bother, dumping their frustration on the innocent others as they try to step on your toes as you're reading the newspaper.
So I go to the computer area and some whacked out of their brain ignorant fools start spewing their mental problems onto everyone else, purposely bothering people.
The librarian came over and talked to the person and then walked away and went back behind the counter.
And the person continued running their mouth.
So I went and asked the librarian, are you going to call a service provider?
I know you have some business cards that can have nonprofits show up here and help out.
And the librarian said, that's up in security guard.
And they were still waiting for the security guard to get there.
And it seems to me that the librarians are using the public safety as an excuse to act like they need more staff on hand or they get to take another day off and extend their three-day vacations with the excuse that it's not safe to go in the library.
Then, since the escalator was broke again, it's overcrowded at the elevators with about 20 stinky homeless people who are surrounding a mom and her toddler in a stroller who can't get on the elevator because it's overcrowded.
Then I get bumped into some guy in a group starts talking smack like there is a gang of pissed off homeless people with nowhere to go, acting like they own the place and they can do whatever they want, including looking at porno, ruining the computers, needing replacements.
Seattle's nonprofits are not doing their job when it comes to building capacity of living, inviting shelter and housing.
For some reason, the library wants to virtue signal for the people.
I think that the city council and their staff should go to the central library unannounced and see how horrible it is when you try to
All right.
Thank you.
There are no additional registered speakers.
The public comment period is now closed.
We'll proceed to our item of business.
Clerk, will you please read item one into the record?
Agenda item one, Seattle Public Library annual levy update for briefing and discussion.
Thank you.
This item has been read into the record.
Today we are joined by Tom Fay, chief librarian at the Seattle Public Library.
Chief Fay has a presentation on program supported by the Seattle Public Library levy and a preliminary levy update.
The Seattle Public Library is a leader in its field and Seattle is so fortunate to have such a thriving and vibrant library system.
He's joined by Kirsten Nelson and I will say that library, excuse me, that Chief Fay has a hard stop at 10.05 because he has to be at a board meeting of the library's board.
But Kirsten will stay with us if you have additional questions after the presentation, colleagues.
Chief Fay, please go ahead.
All right, thank you.
State your name for the record, both of you, and then you can start your presentation.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Tom Fay, Chief Librarian for the Seattle Public Library.
Kirsten Nelson, Government Relations Manager for the Seattle Public Library.
And good morning, and thank you for having us here to discuss our library's 24 levy accomplishments.
We'll get through as much of this as we can today.
I think we can get through most of it in the time allotted.
Let's see, make sure we're all on the same page here.
As you might remember, for those who have been in Seattle for some time, we passed our 2019 library levy by 76% of the vote.
This is a seven-year levy, $219 million, and it is to maintain and enhance library services through 2026. The 2019 levy is a renewal of the 2012 levy, which restored funding for the library following budget cuts made during the Great Recession.
It also provided $5 million of annual general fund backfill to help avoid further cuts.
Before I go any further, I want to provide a little bit of a caveat around the numbers that you see today.
We're a little early in our presentation as we're still wrapping up all the financials as well as the data elements.
So some of this may change as you see our full report that will be delivered to council in April.
So you'll see some of those changes even in the next few weeks potentially as we finalize this.
This slide, however, gives you a sense of how important these levy dollars are providing over a third of the library's total revised budget in 2024. The city's general fund provides about 56% and other sources contributing to the budget include the Seattle Public Library Foundation, gift funds directed specifically to the library, REIT, which is real estate excise taxes, library revenues, and the library fund balance.
And of course, state and federal grants as we receive those.
The levy provides funding for collections, children's programs, open hours, technology, and online services, and building and maintenance.
To give you a sense, some context around this, over 40% of the levy funds ours, nearly 20% funds collections, and then about 17% is the building maintenance, and about 9% to 10% is technology, to give you a sense of how the funds are distributed.
Importantly, the levy funds a quarter of all staffing positions at the library, including 35% of the children and teen services librarians.
Staffing helps support all the activities we are known for, such as supporting our open hours, answering patron questions, providing reading recommendations, developing collections, hosting literacy learning and enrichment programs, providing referrals to community resources, conducting community outreach engagement, and much more.
It also supports 47% of our non-labor books and materials budget, 40% of our non-labor technology offerings, and most of our major maintenance and capital improvement projects.
A small amount of funding, less than 1%, supports the administration of the levy.
I'll share a few of our accomplishments in these categories, starting with what we are best known for, our collection of books and materials.
As I've said here a few times to all of you, e-book growth has increased considerably since the pandemic, both e-book and e-audio.
Since 2019, checkouts of e-books and e-audiobooks has grown 160% from excuse me, 3.4 million checkouts in 2019 to 5.4 million checkouts in 2024. In 2024, we increased our physical and digital collections with support from all funding sources, including the levy.
And as mentioned earlier, the levy funds nearly half of our collection budget.
Last year we added over 45,000 titles and nearly 100,000 copies to our e-book and e-audiobook collections, and over 168,000 items to our physical collection.
We added over 19,000 copies, to our No Holds No Wait Peak Picks collection, which is 100% levy funded.
Since that collection's launch in 2017, these titles have been checked out over a million times and are routinely in our top 10 most circulated books.
To respond to increasing patron interest in digital books, the library has nearly doubled the size of that collection since 2019 to over a million items now in 2024. Our total digital and physical collection contains 2.9 million items.
We also increased language access in our collections in 2024, adding over 4,000 titles and 13,000 copies to our world languages collection.
We invested in 15 languages, including our new Hawaiian and Ukrainian collections.
We've also expanded our availability of Spanish language books to all branches.
This work is in part responsive to a levy-funded collection diversity audit we conducted in 2022 and 2023. We have also preserved and digitized thousands of local history items in our Seattle Room and Special Collections.
Our Seattle Room curator and Special Collections digital librarian positions are both funded by the levy.
Our Seattle Room provides in-person access to treasured local history items while our digital collections make Seattle history easier to access for students, researchers, historians, and others.
Among many accomplishments, the Special Collections team added digital archives of the Northwest Asian Weekly and Marine Digest and introduced first scans from the impressive Paul Dorpak collection.
A recent prize addition to the Seattle Room includes two rare 1950s copies of Bamboo, a short-lived magazine about Filipino life in Seattle.
In 2024, this team added approximately 3,800 items to our digital local history collection.
We now have 30,000 digital items, added more than 1,000 physical items to the Seattle Room, including local manuscripts, menus, photos, postcards, books, and more, and offered over 450 research appointments.
The library also offered access to digital newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
digital magazines, and streaming options, including Hoopla for music and comics, and Canopy for movies, including the revered Criterion Collection.
Next, our accomplishments with literacy and enrichment programs, Using a mix of funding, we offer thousands of free programs, events, and classes each year for all ages and abilities.
This work speaks to the library's role in helping our community learn and grow.
And much like our public commenter earlier in this meeting, this is a very large portion of what the library does from a programmatic standpoint.
Through our programs, we seek to help cell residents embrace a love of reading and learning, increase community literacy, and enrich the lives of all who call Seattle home.
In 2024, we offered 4,000 in-person programs.
Our Kaleidoscope Play and Learn programs, which is fully funded by the Levy, connects children's ages zero through five and their parents and caregivers through guided play and story times.
This program was offered 300 times in 2024 at seven library locations and was offered in five languages, Amharic, English, Mandarin, Chinese, Spanish, and Somali.
This program saw 7,600 in attendance in 2024 and supports children and parents and their caregivers in developing a love for reading at a very young age.
In surveys with these families, 83% reported an increased understanding that play helps children develop school readiness skills.
85% reported they were having more discussions with their children about numbers, shapes, and sizes.
While not directly funded by the levy, levy dollars also help provide staff support for other programs as well.
One example, we supported over 6,000 students in 2024 with our after-school homework help available at nine locations through the school year.
189 local volunteer tutors connected with students at these drop-in programs to provide support on school assignments.
While this is a volunteer-supported effort, levy dollars help fund the librarian staff responsible for coordinating the program.
We do this work in partnership with the Seattle Tutoring Coalition, an interagency initiative with Seattle Public Schools, Team Read, Solid Ground, and others.
In surveys, 76% of participants reported the program helps them better understand their homework help assignments, excuse me, their homework assignments, and 83% report using the library more often with their families.
We also offered over 900 of our very popular story times at 19 branches in three languages in 2024. These drew an attendance of over 34,000.
With enthusiastic feedback from patrons who participate in these programs, we know there's a strong community interest for more.
At the Northeast branch, for example, our weekly story times on Tuesday morning see over 100 people in attendance.
Our patrons express appreciation for these programs and also wish we could hold them more often and at more branches.
Our current funding and staffing capacity makes it difficult to grow programming to more locations and more residents.
The same staff who plan and carry out these programs also work to keep our doors open, manage our free public spaces, check out materials, answer phones, help patrons with questions, prepare for meeting room bookings, and much more.
Dedicated funding would increase the library's ability to support community interest in these learning and enrichment opportunities.
Next, some accomplishments with library open hours and other ways we expand access to library resources.
Since the pandemic, maintaining staffing and public facing customer service organizations has been challenging in industry and libraries have been no exception.
With some budget uncertainty in 2024 and challenges with our staffing levels, the library worked to stabilize open hours and prepare for an increase of hours this past January.
That work included adjusting summer hours in 2024 to reduce unexpected closures while we were understaffed identifying hiring freeze exemptions to improve staffing capacity, and adopting a fixed schedule model in our union contract to create more staffing consistency throughout the year.
Patrons' needs around open hours have also changed since the pandemic as well.
Pre-pandemic patrons wanted more evening hours, but post-pandemic patrons wanted more weekend hours and found them to be the most important.
We're now happy to say that all library branches, except University, which is closed and starts construction on March 3rd, are open at least six days a week, providing at least one weekend day at every location.
And 13 locations are open seven days a week.
We've also expanded access to books outside of our buildings with pickup lockers that provide access to holds 24-7.
With the addition of a locker at Ballard last year, thanks to our levy-funded CIP team, these have now been installed at seven locations throughout the city.
Ballard, Beacon, Broadview, High Point, Montlake, Northeast, and Rainier.
This January, we also celebrated five years of fine-free borrowing, thanks to the levy.
Initially, this policy change was made to address an issue that fines disproportionately impact low-income families.
This change, however, has made a difference for all, making a more welcoming and stress-free environment.
When we first proposed this change, understandably, a few patrons shared concerns that our fine-free policy would keep them waiting too long for books.
However, return rates have on average not changed.
Some patrons do keep certain materials a little longer, such as young children who aren't quite ready to give up their board books at bedtime.
But we are happy to make that small trade-off if it means Seattle's children are building a love for reading.
The levy also funds our social services team in providing information and resource referrals to patrons who need help or are in crisis.
As the library is the city's largest referral agency, this team expands community access to critical information and resources.
Members of the team do not act as caseworkers or counselors, but connectors.
They work with many community-based organizations, service providers, and city and county agencies.
This includes coordination with the Mobile Integrated Health Program through Seattle Fire and Human Services, the city's care team, and Seattle Police Department's community service officers.
All of these to assist patrons with complex crisis needs.
They also collaborate with public health and DSHS to bring services and supplies on site to our libraries.
And there is strengthening ties with King County Regional Homeless Authority, especially around response during severe weather.
Human Services has been a supportive partner from the beginning and we thank them for helping us shape our approach to this work.
In 2024, the team helped community members over 1,100 times to find resources for shelter, transportation, healthcare, and more.
They launched a coffee and conversation program that simply provides space to visit with others and a warm cup of coffee.
They also worked with dozens of community partners that host resource fairs at the Central Burry and Lake City Branch to provide access to clothing, haircuts, voter enrollment, job resources, and more.
The team provides support to other library staff throughout our system who do not have the same level of training with social service support and referral.
The levy also helps support the use of community meeting spaces, which are free at our 26 neighborhood branches and available for a modest fee at the Central Library downtown.
In 2024, the library provided access to over 10,000 meeting room uses by community nonprofits, public agencies, elected officials, school groups, book clubs, library staff, and more.
In addition to increasing language access in our collections, the levy also helps expand language access in our marketing and informational materials.
In 2024, our library-funded marketing team launched a new strategic plan website translated in five languages, English, Spanish, simplified and traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese.
They also launched a welcome back to your library campaign in six languages, reminding the community of our broad array of services following our summer ransomware incident.
Our communication office did similar work promoting library resources to local Spanish language media outlets and produced relevant news releases in Chinese and Spanish for local media.
We continue to grow in this area each year.
Some important accomplishments in library building maintenance and upgrades.
Most notably, we were thrilled to reopen the Green Lake branch last year after a seismic retrofit and remodel.
With this project, the library improved the safety of the building, preserved historic character, increased public space with two new study rooms, installed air conditioning for the first time ever in this space, reduced carbon output by an estimated 20 to 30 metric tons per year, and improved accessibility by adding a new ramp ADA parking stall, new restrooms, a new elevator, and a new fully accessible building entrance.
This project was funded 65% by the library levy, 18% by REIT and payroll expense tax revenue, and 16% by a Washington State Commerce Grant.
The University branch is now closed through 2026 for similar upgrades and construction will begin as noted on March 3rd.
The Columbia branch is also slated for similar improvements and we are still working to determine construction dates for that project.
The library maintained our facilities and made our facility improvements in 2024, including routine and preventative maintenance at all facilities.
Our facilities and janitorial custodial teams responded to nearly 6000 work orders to keep our buildings clean and in good working condition.
Roof replacements at the Capitol Hill and Queen Anne branches occurred.
HVAC replacements at the Broadview and Capitol Hill branches, and thanks to council funding and some support from the levy as well, we were also able to install HVAC systems at Northeast and Southwest branches.
With HVAC installs and upgrades, we now have air conditioning at 22 of 25 branches.
And a grant award from FEMA last year is expected to fund HVAC installation at the three remaining locations in the next few years.
Those locations are Fremont, Queen Anne, and West Seattle.
The last levy category update is in technology and online services.
The library's 850 Wi-Fi hotspots, which are levy funded, are one of the most popular items in our collection and were checked out over 5,400 times in 2024. Last year, we began to work to upgrade these devices to a new 5G model, which will provide faster and more stable connections.
As you know, all of our technology systems were affected by our ransomware attack last year.
And in response, the library accelerated a number of efforts to improve our cybersecurity, including moving systems to the cloud, implementing multi-factor authentication, hiring a new cybersecurity analyst who will lead the development of a more mature cybersecurity program at the library.
Even with that disruption, we facilitated 240,000 public computing sessions and patrons printed 1.5 million pages using library technology in 2024. We also made progress on two levy funded technology initiatives that will pick up more steam this year, including a new library app and a replacement of our integrated library system or the ILS.
ILS software helps libraries manage books, catalogs, checkouts, patron accounts, and other services in one centralized system.
It is the technical backbone of our operation and requires significant coordination, training, testing, and documenting to implement a new system.
Our current system is outdated by a great number of years and limits what we can do for our patron experience.
The work is beginning this year and is expected, the first phase of it is expected to complete around mid-year 2026. Lastly, I want to share how we are looking out into the future of the library.
In 2023, we conducted a levy-funded study with researchers from the University of Houston to better understand the future of libraries.
We considered everything from the impacts of cybersecurity, AI, quantum computing advancements to climate change, culture wars, changing reader habits, and much more.
We then developed a new 10-year strategic plan that is impact and equity focused to address future challenges and opportunities.
The plan emphasizes literacy, enrichment, empowerment, community belonging, and organizational resiliency, areas that were impacted during the pandemic and are calling for our attention.
This plan will help guide the development of a new library levy proposal tentatively planned for 2026, along with additional community engagement we plan to conduct this year.
We are working in partnership with the city budget office and the mayor's office on that proposal.
And we look forward to being in discussion with this committee, the full council and the entire community to ensure we propose a package that meets the needs of Seattle residents.
While the contents of a future proposal are not yet decided, we do know some future needs and opportunities.
We know we will continue to provide free community access to books, information, referrals, learning opportunities, public spaces, and technology.
To do this, we know we need sustainable long-term funding and that we are operating in uncertain times when it comes to federal funding availability.
We know that costs are rising to provide access to increasingly popular e-books and e-audiobooks.
These digital materials, as I've discussed before, are sometimes three to five times more expensive for libraries than for the average consumer.
More of our collection will need to be digitized to be more accessible and to help us better preserve our local history.
Digitizing collections is time consuming and costly work, but well worth the effort for a leading 21st century library.
We also know our community is growing and diversifying.
Over time, we have seen need for more specialized staffing to help manage our public spaces, such as additional security officers.
We know we need to maintain our aging buildings, six of which are historic Carnegie Libraries, and that we lack dedicated funding to carry out needed and often deferred maintenance.
It has been 27 years since the 1998 Libraries for All campaign.
which built or upgraded most of the libraries we operate today.
Over the next 20 years, we anticipate somewhere between 100 to 150 million dollars of basic building maintenance needs to occur.
This does not account for major maintenance, such as seismic retrofits.
At the world-renowned Central Library, for example, we tended to several issues last year with out-of-order elevators, escalators, as well as issues with an end-of-life HVAC system.
These are all costly systems to repair, and we also lack often the funding resource to do them in a timely manner.
Lastly, we know that our digital security needs will increase to ensure we are providing a safe and secure online experience.
It's a lot of information to share in a short amount of time, but this is my last slide and simply shares a few recent patron comments about what the library means to them.
Please do note that we'll be transmitting our official annual levy report to you in April, so more information and final 2024 numbers will be coming soon.
We've also provided additional materials for your review as you have time, which will help tell more of the library's story over the last year.
And at this time, happy to take any questions you might have.
Thank you, Chief Faye.
And I want to say, colleagues, that there was a minor change to the slide deck, so that was why that was at your desks, and we provided one for anyone in chambers up front, and we'll make sure that gets updated into the system.
I want to thank you for taking us through this and also give some context in terms of the report will be available in April.
The reason I asked libraries to come today was because, as you all know, we'll be taking up the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy, And so I didn't want to wait till after that process to bring the libraries in to start to talk about some of the levy funded work.
As you know, next year we will be taking a Seattle Public Libraries levy.
And I wanted to begin the work of looking at the programs and all these great things at the levy funds.
So this is why I asked and I really thank you Chief Fay for putting together an abbreviated version of the bigger thing you will be submitting as your annual report in April.
I'm also gonna request, if possible, that you make available to us your comments from today, because there was a lot more information contained there than is on these slides, and I wanna make sure that everyone has all those great data points and information.
Colleagues, let's see, do any of you have any questions?
Council Member Moore.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation.
It was very helpful.
I know we've had this discussion in the past and just was kind of wondering about an update on where we're at with the digital collection and dealing with the costs involved with that.
I think you mentioned there was some effort at state or federal level to deal with copyright and all of that.
If you could just give an update on where that...
Sure.
We do have a request into the legislature to conduct a study on e-book and e-audio pricing.
really to bring in everyone who's involved.
So that would be publishers, the middlemen, so to speak, like an overdrive, those companies that are helping us provide the collections, as well as other interested parties to this.
And in it, we're also asking the state to consider what does it mean in the long term as well for state aid potentially for libraries.
The state is one of a few states that don't provide state aid to libraries and collections would be a really good place to be able to do that.
Our rural colleagues often can't even get in the game.
or get in the game at a very small level, which means it's an access issue.
So we have that in progress.
As you all know, the state has a big budget issue itself.
Studies are not free, but we do, Kirsten and I and a group from our advocacy group from the foundation and friends were down in Olympia a couple weeks ago and we have some legislators who are willing to champion this from a couple places in the state so we're hopeful that at least gets a reasonable hearing and it's as I always say and I think all of you know with state legislatures it's always best to begin the awareness campaign usually doesn't happen year one it usually takes a couple of years for it to stick and to make progress
Thank you.
May I ask you a few more questions?
Of course.
And are you seeing any impact from what's happening at the federal level?
Is that impacting you at all?
The federal level, we are not dependent upon federal funding, but we most certainly are opportunistic in the sense that we do go after earmarks.
We will go after certain types of federal funding, like the FEMA funding I mentioned.
We do have concerns that some of those sources will obviously be turning off in some way or be redirected.
Another one that is really big for public libraries is the E-rate that runs through the FCC.
Schools and libraries actually benefit from that, and it allows a reimbursement for a lot of those data and internet connections.
And that is to the tune of about $1.5 million over about three or four years to us, so it's not a small amount of money.
So that is another concern because that's been targeted as well.
But yes, I think the concern for us as I've talked to colleagues across the country is that what we see now is the trickle.
And once we actually see the federal budget and through that either budget or a continuing resolution and all of these other impacts, it's gonna be like the hose is turned on full at some point and we'll feel it, everyone will.
It'll trickle down through the state and then obviously into the city.
So I think that's probably something that we should be mindful of when we're looking at the levy funding, I imagine, is the impact of that.
And then the other last question I have is, and it does continue to remain a concern about safety and people feeling like...
I heard the comments from the caller, which obviously...
Anyway, so just wondering how that is impacting people's willingness to come.
I know the library in Lake City is a huge community hub, lots of children there, families.
Just wondering how...
Are you doing any kind of survey of library users about how they're feeling about sort of the...
the kind of social challenges that our library is, you know, valiantly and very dealing with, very, you know, trying to be very mindful of and thoughtful in the way they're dealing with.
But kind of how is that impacting just the day-to-day experience of library users?
Yeah, we will be conducting some surveys later this year that are going to get to some of that, some of the programs and services we might want to offer.
At the end of the day, we know these things occur.
Our staff are well trained in de-escalation skills.
That would be our librarians and those library staff members, not just simply security.
But as mentioned here, as we look at that next levy, We do need to, we have to own all the conditions, right?
We have to have that total cost of ownership in everything.
And that includes the security.
For years, we have not had it as funded as well as it should be.
We are now a big city.
I hate to say it, having come from another city, we're now growing into a big city here with all the big city issues.
And so part of it is security, but it has to be multi-dimensional.
It can't just be security.
So having those additional social worker classifications on staff that can again be there before crisis begins.
So that's what we see a lot even with our security officers.
We can see these things starting to occur.
So let's go ahead and try to interrupt before we have crisis.
How can we help you?
What are you needing today?
You know it can be simple things like I just need a drink of water.
I need something to eat.
So some of those things we have, we have the good fortune of having a foundation that can provide us some of those things, and that can diffuse a lot of situations.
We know, unfortunately, as the individual may have said here, sometimes it may not diffuse all of them.
When we talk about mental health, that's a different type of issue.
You can try to intervene before crisis, but sometimes crisis is already there when the individual walks in.
That's where when we work with our partners in CARE and all the other institutions I mentioned, it's really critical.
They know that we're part of this ecosystem.
They know that we are kind of a central place that people come because they feel safe or they at least feel like they'll be heard.
And so I think they even know that, yes, we need to respond to these because the library has done what it can do.
And they're also identifying a crisis that they are there to help resolve.
Okay, well, I would really be interested in seeing what the surveys are, the user surveys, and making sure that the other majority of people using the libraries are also feeling like it's working for them and it's a safe place for them.
You should see all of that as we enter into that actual levy proposal build once the mayor starts the transmittal process to council.
All of that information should be available.
If it is available beforehand, I'm happy to make that available to you all.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Council Member Moore.
And we can certainly, I will talk to Chief Faye perhaps at a meeting, a committee meeting after we get through the FEP levy, we can come back and have a conversation about this because I know it's something that many of our colleagues care about just throughout the city.
So let's put a pin on that.
It's an important issue.
Thank you for raising the federal funding issue.
I want to put minds at ease in terms of what you just said and reiterate that the Seattle Public Libraries is not dependent on federal funding.
I think that's important for people to hear because we are in this crisis moment and so that's really good to hear.
I appreciate what you're saying about trickle down and we have to monitor it and we definitely should.
And folks should also know that it's not dependent on federal funding.
So we don't wanna unnecessarily panic people on this score.
So thank you, Council Member Moore.
Council Member Rink.
Thank you, Chair Rivera, and thank you, Chief Librarian Faye, for today's presentation.
It was great getting to connect with you a bit more a couple weeks ago and talk at length about our wonderful library system, which is such an asset to our community.
And it was also wonderful to actually join the Library Foundation earlier this week, speaking at the Green Lake Library branch, really just celebrating again the incredible work to bring those renovations online.
It was a great space.
Our community loves our libraries.
We are so lucky.
And the levy-funded renovations at Green Lake are just beautiful.
The upcoming work at University and Columbia City branches look amazing, and these capital improvement projects are a big physical reminder of the importance of the levy, but also the true enduring impact of the levy and the libraries it funds in the thriving communities we serve, host, and are really an anchor in every district in our city.
And I have a couple questions for today.
One is, where are we with closing out the last of the previous levy's planned capital projects, and are there any major roadblocks to getting those across the finish line?
Are you referring to 2012 or the ones here in 2019?
2019. So in 2019, the last, what I would consider major project, and that's not talking about all the other minor maintenance projects, would be Columbia.
In Columbia, as I've said, I think the last time we talked about this, these projects were underestimated as far as cost.
throw on top of that the pandemic, the supply side issues, the hyperinflation and construction.
And so we sit with projects that are more than double what was anticipated from the levy.
We've been fortunate to secure state and federal funding to help in those areas.
We've been fortunate to have a foundation that's also helped.
So as we look at Columbia, we know we have an earmark in right now with Representative Smith.
We hope that that continues forward because it really is important funding.
We would have to find another resource or hold the project until the next levy where we could secure enough funds to finish the project.
The projects were basically slated at, I will say on average, I can't give you the exact details, but around $6 million.
Those projects are now coming in at $10, $12, and $13 million to do that work today.
Understood.
Thank you.
And looking ahead at future needs and opportunities, it's been exciting to see the way that the digital and physical collections have grown.
I'm wondering for a library system of our size, what is our goal state?
What is our North Star when we're talking about our collections and the size our collection should be?
So there's a couple of factors.
We haven't built any new space in a number of years.
So much like retail, every single foot is very valuable when it comes to being able to put material in it.
When we talk about the physical material, we are probably close to where we would start saying we're at max, probably within a half a million items across the entire system, maybe a little bit more.
When we talk about the digital arena, we're not limited, but we are limited in our funding to be able to support it.
My goal, very simply, as I look out in the next few years, because of the readership that we have in Seattle, and obviously a very educated population, I really want us to have the largest e-book, e-audio collection in the country, if not the world.
I think we have folks here that would support that.
It will require considerable funding.
It also will require, to Council Member Moore's comments on the study, the other piece that we hope to seek, which is publishers, all publishers, not just a few, will provide us perpetual licensing so that I can actually develop a collection, much like our physical collection, that has depth and breadth.
Because right now, if you were to say, well, what's your collection look like 10 years from now, if everything stays the same as it is today, I'll say, I don't know, whatever's popular 10 years from now, and there'll be nothing else behind it.
We've got to grow as a country, and most certainly, the profession has to push that so that we have those types of collections.
Because it's pretty meaningless to have three million items, and it's all that's the most popular in the last five years.
Certainly really appreciate that.
And how can, I mean, this point about having like perpetual, what perpetual licensing is the term you used?
How can we support and trying to push in being able to garner that state?
Because it just makes a world of sense for our public libraries to be able to have that ability.
I think in our case, we know that Mina and her team in government affairs at the city are supporting us in that effort as well.
So we have the city's support in those efforts and really it's getting this study to go through.
And if it's not there, it will be the next year.
Somebody else in another state may also have some success.
We are keeping track of this nationally.
I sit with national colleagues at the largest library systems in the country.
We meet multiple times a year.
either online or in person at various conferences, and this is something that's on all of our radar.
So if somebody has success, we all know about it instantly.
And my final question, just related to just data security and some of the issues that we've faced, which I think were concerning for many of us.
Have we seen, and I really appreciate the way in which you all at Seattle Public Libraries have connected with library partners across the country, Have other library branches experienced things like this and are we able to take learnings from what they may have experienced with some of these data breaches or cybersecurity challenges and apply them to resolving our own challenges?
Yes, most certainly.
Before we had experienced it, the British Library had, Toronto had, and Boston Public had as well.
The British Library to this day still suffers some of the effects from it.
Older systems in place, so a little more complication.
Toronto went through about six months of struggles.
They're a huge system.
They're the largest library system in North America.
So, of course, they also have a lot of big systems and also some older systems.
But it was actually, I was on the phone with the executive director for Toronto Saturday night.
And by Sunday morning, she had her teams meeting with us.
So that's the kind of collegiality there is in libraries.
We have actually offered our advice and our teams up to folks who are either experiencing it or planning to make sure they don't experience it.
Our chief technology officer has been on a number of programs and is on another one in the middle of March, really talking about how cybersecurity in this particular program is also an equity issue and surround access and making sure that that continues.
So we continue to do that work and I'm sure be an interest for a while.
Thank you.
And thank you so much for your work.
Thank you, chair.
Thank you, Councilmember Rank.
And I'll just say that I very much appreciate in the year I've been here the conversations with Chief Fay and how robustly you partner with other library systems across the country.
You have a really great network and when these things happen, like last year when the cybersecurity piece happened, I know that you had partners like Toronto that you could reach out to and I appreciate you doing that for others.
I very much admire the way and I'm happy to hear the way that the library system across the country systems keep in touch.
And I will also say that we are in Seattle, big fans of the e-books and digital books and materials.
And I'm happy to hear that we have one of the world's largest e-circulation libraries.
And of course that's not to say that We need to improve upon that.
And so definitely supportive of all that work.
But it sounds like Seattle is really almost leading in this space.
So that's something to be proud of.
And thank you for your leadership on that.
Because these things don't just happen.
The Seattle Public Libraries and the staff under your leadership are really giving big focus to this.
And I appreciate hearing your work at the state level in terms of eBooks and also trying to figure out a way to deal with that licensing issue.
And it would be really great to get state funding for libraries.
But I understand the state also has budget deficit like we do, but it's something, you know, when you think of your long-term 10-year strategic plan, these are all things that you need to start working on now.
So I really appreciate that.
Chief Faye, I have a couple questions.
So on just on page seven, in terms of the helping children literacy and enrichment, you did mention that you have a partnership with Seattle Public Schools, and I'm just wondering, because the city is a big bureaucracy, and big bureaucracies often suffer from lack of communication between departments, and so I want to know, you know, how are you partnering with the Department of Education and Early Learning in this literacy space?
We know that kids are not meeting their reading books where they need to be in reading and math and in terms of literacy that's a big component obviously with reading.
So how are you partnering with that department?
Are you partnering?
Is there opportunity to make sure that we are coordinating with our efforts on this and helping kids meet their literacy where they need to be?
Yes, and I think we, the director of DEAL and I obviously have opportunities to discuss a number of items.
I would say our probably, as far as partnering, our most, it would be somewhat indirect in that a lot of the folks that deal funds, the organizations that deal funds, are the ones that we are partnering with.
to either help provide the service, it could be around language, it could be around instruction, it could be a number of different things.
That's where we really kind of do the partnering.
We know, obviously, we know who they're working with, DEAL is working with, and who they're funding.
And that also allows us to work with groups that are in community, already embedded in community, so that we're not trying to recreate that wheel ourselves.
So that's a lot of how we kind of work around that partnership with DEAL.
I'd love to see a more robust partnership in that you all have something to offer to DEAL by way of you are providing this direct service to students.
And I know DEAL often works with schools and community-based organizations.
You also have information that you can share, and I think that that's important.
as they're doing their work and prioritizing their funding.
So I'd love to see more of that just moving forward.
And then I also, is it your expectation that the new levy will account for the same percentage of budget in the graph you showed in page three?
So that is not a question that I can't answer, and there's a number of reasons for that.
First, we don't know what the biennial budget will be when we get to that point.
We also don't know what the amount will be that we are seeking in the next levy.
You know, if you want me to go from my gut, my gut would say that it will be most certainly no less of a percentage than what it is today.
Great, thank you.
More to come.
More to come.
You'll have plenty of that next year for sure.
Yes.
So my other question is, sorry, I have had a list of questions and you addressed some of them.
Oh, on page 14, regarding the integrated library system, can you talk a little bit about this system and what the integration is?
It says new integrated library system under technology and online services, and so I'm wondering what falls under that.
If you could elaborate a bit.
So yes, it is the backbone of all of the library electronic services that you see as far as when you want to look up a book that is, while we have kind of a discovery layer, which is one company, which is Bibliocommons, Behind that is this ILS where all of the records are stored for the books.
So as we buy material, process that material, that's all put into these electronic systems on this integrated library system.
So it is that back end to everything.
When you check out a book, either you're checking it out yourself through self-check or you're having a staff member do that, that is all happening in the back of that system.
All your holds, the hold requests, all happen there.
So when we talk about this being one of the more complicated things to replace, it is.
Because the one thing I know after 42 years, don't mess up people's holds.
In the early days, that happened a lot in systems migrations.
It doesn't happen very often today.
But it just shows you the importance that people have in these systems.
Sometimes they don't know it.
It's this big system behind the scenes.
But it's a critical system.
And we hope to be able to re-engineer some of our business workflows to make things more efficient as well.
Because the system is 35 years old.
And while it's had a few upgrades here and there, any system that's 35 years old is not providing the best experience for anyone.
Thank you.
That is, you know, it's something that people don't think about.
And it's a huge piece of the work that you do.
It's that.
it's always the back of the house work that requires a lot.
And so I recognize, you know, we have a lot of the back of the house stuff at the city.
So I certainly understand.
So thank you for elaborating on that.
And then I think this will be my last question, which is when you talked about the social services piece and doing the referrals that you do, and I know that libraries have faced more of that.
Council member Moore, you certainly just raised it earlier.
We now have UCT and CARES in either the district or at least in regions.
UCT is now in every district and then CARES is in regions, it's throughout the city now.
How are you partnering with those entities because they do plug people in with services and so I wanna make sure that as their, and UCT has already started on the ground, so as that work is done, there's that partnership.
and you can refer people perhaps maybe even in a faster way than you've been able to.
because I understand you don't have the security that you would need that takes more funding, but we do make these other investments that also help the same populations.
And I'd love to see a partnership there.
We do.
We actually utilize our relationship with the UCT.
So as we have issues in particular hotspots, we can work with them.
Sometimes it's a combination.
In our case, we may have emphasis patrols at night because UCT can't start until X time.
Sometimes UCT can start when I can't get, you know, security personnel out.
So there's that kind of work.
Obviously, we work with CARE.
Chief Barden and I talk quite a bit about various issues as they come up, as well as Chief Scoggins.
So if we have incidents and issues, we're able to say, hey, what happened here?
How can we do this better?
Maybe the library didn't report something as well, or how can we manage this differently?
So we do have those discussions.
I feel very comfortable with that.
I know UCT can always count on chatting with Deputy Mayor Washington or her team if necessary, if we're having some new issues cropping up in other areas.
Great, really happy to hear that.
And I'm so glad UCT now is in every district because hopefully it'll really help you and your team as we are trying to support our unhoused populations that might be going in and needing services.
So that is really important.
And like I said, happy to hear.
Well, you've given us extra time.
I very much appreciate you staying longer to answer our questions.
I have some other questions, but you and I meet regularly, so I'll ask those in.
I really appreciate you being here today, Chief Faye, and your team of one today, but you have a much bigger team than that.
Kirsten, thank you for being here.
Colleagues, do you have any other questions of Chief Faye?
And thank you for being here.
Thank you.
They always appreciate the partnership.
All right.
Thank you all.
Love our libraries.
All right.
Colleagues, any further questions or comments?
Seeing no further questions or comments, this concludes the February 27th, 2025 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.
Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 13th, 2025 at 9.30 a.m.
If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.
Hearing no further business, it's 10.33 a.m.
and this meeting is adjourned.
Thank you, colleagues.