King County Library System Director’s Report April 2013 GOVERNMENT RELATIONS As the process continues, progress is being made on the Renton Library project. KCLS held a public meeting on March 26 to present the design for the new library over the Cedar River. Even though some of the 150 attendees objected to breakout stations, staff gathered good input from those who participated as well as from the audience comment period at the end of the meeting. Miller-Hull architects identified some of the main concerns raised by the public and addressed them in a follow-up presentation to the Renton City Council on April 15. Council members responded well to the design changes and the City has indicated it will consider increasing the budget to build a larger library that is closer to the size of the existing building. It is anticipated that the City Council will make a decision on the schematic design and project budget at its meeting on Monday, April 29. At the April 15 Renton City Council meeting, KCLS requested that if the City considers increasing the budget for the downtown library that it not be increased at the expense of the Renton Highlands Library. Council members agreed and asked staff to bring back plans for increasing the budget without impinging on the Highlands project. The City of Renton and its housing developer have made enough progress on the project that library design and planning is finally able to move forward. KCLS is scheduled to present schematic design and budget estimates to the Renton City Council on May 14. Over the last few years, library directors around the State have reported that audits of their districts called into question activities that were deemed “inappropriate” for libraries. In response, the Washington Library Association (WLA) contacted the office of newly-elected State Auditor Troy Kelly who sent a team of administrators to meet with a delegation of library directors and WLA lobbyist Steve Duncan to discuss concerns. The Auditor’s team was very helpful and the group reached an understanding of the criteria for “appropriate” services. The Auditor said that libraries must be able to document that its programs and services tie back to the public education mission of the library. Under a broad heading of providing information to the community, there is a lot of leeway. The auditors provided contacts in their offices so that if problems arise with specific audits they can help to ensure that consistent standards and requirements are upheld. KCLS and the Washington State Housing Finance Commission have reached agreement on a term sheet for the property at SW 107th Street and 14th Avenue SW in White Center and will soon begin reviewing drafts of the purchase and sale agreement. The property is anticipated to close this summer. In the meantime, KCLS has issued a Request for Qualifications and twelve architectural firms have responded. KCLS will invite a Board member to participate in the architect selection process and will also include staff and community members. Representatives of public libraries from around the country have been meeting with U.S. Congressional staff to discuss public policy issues related to eBooks and the dilemma public libraries face regarding restricted access to digital content imposed by some publishers. KCLS met with staff from Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Adam Smith’s offices. Congressman Smith was well informed on the issue and said he would look into holding hearings on the matter. Senator Murray’s staff is checking with colleagues in Washington to determine if there is support for conducting hearings in the Senate. While publishers have begun to soften their stance toward selling to libraries, the bigger issue that is still looming is whether libraries across the country can be allowed to provide broad access to information and content. The Urban Libraries Council has agreed to organize all of the information gathered and develop messaging for the upcoming Federal Legislation Day on May 7-8 in Washington, D.C. KCLS staff member Jennifer Wiseman, incoming Washington Library Association President, will represent KCLS at the meetings. OPERATIONS KCLS completed another successful Global Reading Challenge. The program is modeled after the “Battle of the Books” radio quiz show and pits students from various schools against each other in answering questions from books they have read. More than 2,000 students from 56 schools across 11 school districts participated this year and four finalist teams competed in the Grand Challenge on March 22 at the KCLS Service Center. Woodridge Elementary School (Bellevue School District) beat competitors from three other schools and took home the trophy that will remain at their school until next year’s challenge. All finalists received prizes and certificates for their efforts. System-wide circulation was down 4% in March and 2% cumulatively for the year. Staff spent a fair amount of time analyzing circulation to determine whether decreases are associated with any particular area or type of material and presented a report at the Planning Committee meeting. Staff also compared library visits to circulation and found that trends are fairly consistent across all locations. There does appear to be a decline in the circulation of movies and music in CD format, which is not surprising given the popularity of downloadable items. Circulation of eBooks continues to increase and circulation of some print material is declining slightly, with the exception of Children’s print materials. KCLS will continue to monitor circulation trends throughout the year. Virtual Library Services continue to be popular with KCLS patrons. Thanks to a marketing campaign by Community Relations, KCLS experienced a nice jump in the number of “Likes” of its Spanish Facebook page, which is now up from 129 to 6,163 compared to 12,184 for KCLS’ English version. In the first month of offering a new online magazine service called Zinio, more than 10,261 magazines were downloaded and 1,243 patrons registered for the service. One online news source that will no longer be available to KCLS patrons is the Seattle Times.com. On March 23, the Seattle Times switched to a fee-based service that does not allow libraries to provide the online newspaper to patrons. The Times is following the lead of other newspapers around the country that are driven by the need to generate revenue from online content. The Seattle Times is working on a solution to provide access to patrons using KCLS’ public computers but a timeline for implementing this service is not yet available. In the interim, patrons will be restricted in viewing articles on Seattle Times.com unless they have their own paid subscription. KCLS conducted a comprehensive employee assessment to measure organizational dynamics and 77% of staff responded. Six areas for improvement were identified that will likely have the greatest positive impact on the organization. Six teams will be convened in the next few weeks to develop recommendations for each area of improvement. Teams will be comprised of staff members from middle management positions across KCLS who either volunteer or are recommended along with a member representing KCLS’ three union groups selected by Local 1857 leadership. A full report on the survey and action plans will be presented at the June Board meeting. KCLS’ new adult programming series, A Place at the Table is off to a great start. More than 120 people turned out to hear Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Moss discuss his book Salt, Sugar, Fat at the Redmond Library on March 14 and attendees gave the event high marks. KCLS has also already collected close to 5,000 pounds of food that will be donated to local food banks. A Place at the Table is garnering a lot of attention throughout the community and KCLS is receiving numerous inquiries from organizations, restaurants and chefs who are interested in becoming program partners. KCLS is sorry to learn that Library Express @ Redmond Ridge will be closed effective June 1. The Redmond Ridge Homeowners Association (RRHOA), which owns the building that houses Library Express, notified KCLS that it is terminating the lease and remodeling the building. RRHOA indicated it may be open to renegotiating the lease later this year but KCLS has not heard back anything further. Given the growing popularity of the service, KCLS anticipates a strong reaction from the community. OTHER King County Library System was featured in an article in the most recent issue of Public Library Quarterly. Author Glen Holt said his analysis of the language and character of KCLS’ 2012 Annual Budget demonstrates its place as “a superb example of using the annual budget narrative as one important tool to build a library’s relationship with its various constituents.” The King County Library System Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Literary Lions Gala was a glittering event with more than 500 guests, outstanding local authors and keynote author Dennis Lehane. The event on March 23 raised more than $230,000. Bestselling author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island, The Given Day, A Drink Before the War, Moonlight Mile, Gone Baby Gone and his new book Live by Night) was gracious and funny and spoke highly of the value and impact of libraries. As a child growing up in a working-class immigrant family, his mother took him to the neighborhood library but on occasion would take him to the main branch of the Boston Public Library as a special treat which, for a young boy growing up on the wrong side of the tracks was like going to Versailles. Mr. Lehane said, “Libraries say to any kid ‘you matter, you have worth’. The society you live in – be that represented by your town, its city, its state, the country – cares about you.