Director’s report: Why this award matters

Parker focused her remarks in the director’s report on AADL’s recent 5-star rating from the Library Journal Survey of Public Libraries. Nationwide, 7,115 libraries were evaluated and only 3.5% of those received stars – of the 88 libraries in AADL’s budget bracket, AADL was among 10 nationwide to receive the 5-star ranking.

This is the first year for this rating. Another rating system – the HAPLR index – is bogus, Parker said. It uses data such as how many books the system owns and how many square feet its buildings cover. It doesn’t measure the effectiveness of what you’re doing, she said.

In contrast, this new rating looks at how the public uses your institution, Parker said. The Library Journal index is based on circulation transactions per capita; visits to library buildings per capita; computer sessions per capita; and program attendance per capita. Though this index also has some problems, she said, it’s more valid than any other system. And she said she’s proud of the rating AADL received.

“It’s a choice to be this type of library,” Parker said. “It’s not an accident, it’s a choice.” For her and the staff, she said, what’s significant and worth celebrating “is that the public thinks that we’re relevant, and they say so.”

Archive of Ann Arbor City Council minutes

Amy Cantú and Andrew MacLaren, production librarians who are involved in the library’s online projects, made a presentation to the board about several online local history projects, including one that has digitized Ann Arbor city council minutes from 1891-1930. The Chronicle previously reported on this project when Cantú and MacLaren gave a similar report to Ann Arbor city council at their March 2, 2009 meeting.

The minutes represent 1,300 different meetings and roughly 16,000 pages. MacLaren said the project arose from a conversation between Debbie Gallagher, an AADL government information specialist, and city clerk Jackie Beaudry. The actual scanning was done by a local company, National Archive Publishing (formerly part of ProQuest, which used to be known as University Microfilms International, or UMI).

He gave a quick demonstration by searching for “library,” and pulled up minutes from July 6, 1903, that included the following resolution:

To accept the donation of Andrew Carnegie:

Whereas Andrew Carnegie has agreed to furnish $20,000 to the Board of Education of Ann Arbor, Mich., to erect a free public library building, on condition that said city shall pledge itself by resolution of council to support a free public library at a cost of not less than two thousand dollars a year and provide a suitable site for said building, now therefore Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Ann Arbor that said city accept said donation and it does hereby pledge itself to comply with the requirement of said Andrew Carnegie.

Resolved, that it will furnish a suitable site for said building and will maintain a free public library in said building, when erected, at a cost of not less than $2,000 a year.

Resolved that an annual levy shall hereafter be made upon the taxable property of said City of Ann Arbor sufficient in amount to comply with the above requirements.

Cantú noted that there are several other online databases focused on local topics, including Ann Arbor Cooks, a collection of heirloom recipes and cookbooks, and the Ann Arbor architecture archive, with photos and text taken from “Historic Buildings Ann Arbor, Michigan,” a book by Marjorie Reade and Susan Wineberg.

In addition to these projects, the library is working on several other digitization efforts. They include creating online archives that can be searched or browsed for:

• “The Signal of Liberty,” a 19th century abolitionist newspaper from the Bentley Historical Library’s collection, published in Ann Arbor in the 1840s.
• 75 years of historical programs from the University Musical Society’s collection, including programs from the regular season, special concerts and the May Festival.
• articles on local history from the Ann Arbor Observer by local historian Grace Shackman.

Evaluation of AADL director

Trustee Margaret Leary, the board’s secretary, laid out the process by which the board will evaluate Josie Parker’s performance as AADL director. Parker has already completed a self-evaluation, Leary said, which will be sent by regular mail (not e-mail) to each board member. They will read her evaluation and write their own comments. All comments, along with Parker’s self-evaluation, will be compiled by a committee consisting of Leary, trustee Carola Stearns and board president Rebecca Head. That committee will draft a formal evaluation to be discussed by the entire board at an April 20 executive session. The committee will also bring a salary recommendation to that meeting. After the board’s discussion, Parker will be invited into the meeting to talk about the evaluation. Based on those discussions, the board will present a formal evaluation to Parker in the form of a letter, which will be a public document and read into the record at the board’s May 18 meeting.

Purchase of controls for new air handlers

The final order of business was a resolution added late to the agenda to approve the purchase of digital controls for two air-handling units that the board had authorized to buy at its February meeting. Background material given to the board indicated there were two options: 1) to modify current controls to operate the new air handlers, for $38,725, or 2) to buy new digital controls, thermostats, humidity sensors and software for $67,905. Carola Stearns asked why the administration recommended option 2. Ken Nieman, the library’s associate director, said the new digital controls would pay off fairly quickly, allowing library staff to control the HVAC system more efficiently.

In response to a query from Jan Barney Newman, Parker said the controls were supposed to have been included in the original proposal to replace the 57-year-old air handlers in the downtown library. She said they discovered that the cost for the controls had not been included only after the board had already voted on approving the purchase of the air-handlers for an estimated $235,000. “So it’s our oops,” Parker said. The resolution was passed unanimously.

Present: Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Josie Parker, Prue Rosenthal, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell.

Next meeting: Monday, April 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Ken Nieman, the library’s associate director, gave his monthly update on the current budget with a summary of January’s financial statement. He noted that AADL’s cash balance as of Jan. 31 was about $11.5 million. The library received a $30,000 grant from the Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library, prompting a thank-you from board president Rebecca Head.  Nieman said the roughly $46,000 in capital outlays for the month included the final amount paid to Luckenbach Ziegelman Architects, for work done on the proposed downtown library building project, which was halted last November.

After Nieman’s presentation, Ed Surovell gave a brief report from the budget and finance committee. He said the committee met with staff earlier this month  and had an extensive discussion about the economy and what might happen to the library’s revenue base. Projections are going down, not up, he said.

[All local governments are facing lower revenues, primarily due to a drop in the property tax base. The impact of Pfizer's departure was another blow, coupled with the likely acquisition of Pfizer's Ann Arbor property by the University of Michigan, which is tax-exempt. What's more, Pfizer is appealing the taxable value of its land for 2008 and 2009. The library board's packet for Monday's meeting contained a letter to Ann Arbor taxing authorities, which includes the AADL, from city treasurer Matthew Horning, city assessor Dave Petrak, Ann Arbor chief financial officer Tom Crawford, and city administrator Roger Fraser. The letter stated that Pfizer is appealing the taxable value of its land for 2008 and 2009, and if the company is successful in its appeal to the Michigan Tax Tribunal – a process which could take several years – the library could lose $242,072 already received in 2008 and the same amount anticipated for 2009. Starting in 2010, the AADL will also stop receiving roughly $456,000 annually as a result of UM's purchase of the Pfizer property.]

The economy came up again in Josie Parker’s director’s report. She said that earlier in the day the library had an all-staff meeting that more than 110 people attended, focused on the local economy and its impact on the library. Describing the meeting as very productive, open and straightforward, Parker said they discussed the fact that revenue projections are down. Following Monday’s board meeting, Parker added that they’ve made no decisions about how to deal with the decline in revenues yet, and that a draft of the library’s annual budget will be ready in April.

The meeting included two other staff reports: Ken Nieman gave the last in what had been monthly updates about the new Traverwood branch, reporting that a dedication plaque will be installed there later this week. Celeste Choate gave an update on the Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, which opened at the AADL earlier this month after transitioning from operation by Washtenaw County. She said there are 482 registered patrons, and that library staff will be calling each one to welcome them to AADL and update their profiles on things like author and topic preferences. Parker gave Choate a shout-out for managing the transition.

The board also unanimously passed resolutions to revise AADL’s exhibitions policy and to approve $235,000 for the purchase and installation of two air handlers for the downtown building. The issue of replacing outdated air handlers had been discussed at the board’s January meeting, as had the proposal to change AADL’s exhibits policy to eliminate specific references to the application process. Both resolutions were passed without comment on Monday.

Present: Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary, Josie Parker, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell.

Absent: Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Prue Rosenthal

Next meeting: Monday, March. 16, 2009 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Washtenaw Library for the Blind & Physically Disabled @ AADL

Josie Parker, AADL director, gave a brief presentation about the Washtenaw Library for the Blind & Physically Disabled, which was formerly housed with the county and was, at the request of the county last year, moved to the Ann Arbor library. It opened under AADL management on Feb. 2.

Parker praised all the people involved in making the transition. She noted that the library board had waived the district’s residency requirement so that anyone in the county who’s eligible for those services can participate at no cost. And rather than being in just one location, as it was at the county, the services for the blind and physically disabled will be accessible from every branch, she said. [Some of these services were also described by staff at a recent library board meeting.] Over the next few weeks, library staff will be doing outreach by calling every person who has registered for the WLBPD, Parker said.

Commissioner Barbara Levin Bergman asked whether the software being installed on AADL computers – which allows vision-impaired people to use the computer – would be installed in other library districts, like Ypsilanti and Saline. Parker said that it’s expensive software, but that they’re hoping to engage other library districts in the county to make their patrons aware of the services at AADL.

“We won’t let those clients down,” said Parker, “and we won’t let you down.”

Vendor preferences

The topic of giving preferences to local businesses for county contracts had been previously discussed but came up again on Wednesday. An agenda item asked commissioners to approve a contract with Allied Building Service, a Detroit firm, to provide as-needed general construction services to the county, and with Huron Valley Electric, based in Scio Township, for electrical services.

At the evening’s first public comment session, Cindy Carver of Manchester-based Carver Construction spoke about her concerns over the bidding process, saying that it’s difficult to know what the county is looking for and how it awards its contracts, and that the process is frustrating and confusing.

Commissioner Jeff Irwin moved to postpone the item until the board’s March 4 meeting. Commissioner Jessica Ping said she’d like to discuss the topic of local vendor preferences and the procurement process at an upcoming working session. By a voice vote, commissioners approved tabling the contract.

Meet the staff

Bob Guenzel introduced two interns and a former intern who’s now part of the administrative support staff. He said the county had great success working with interns from both Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. He first introduced Scott Rasmussen, who’s in his final semester at the Ford School working toward a master’s degree. Rasmussen, who’s been an intern since September 2008, spoke briefly to the commission, saying that after graduation he hoped to make Washtenaw County his permanent home. He currently lives in Pittsfield Township with his wife and two sons.

Kyle DeBoard has also been an intern since last fall, and is attending EMU for a master’s degree with a concentration in public management. He was unable to attend Wednesday’s board meeting. And Guenzel introduced former intern Stephanie Jensen, who now works as an administrative coordinator for the county. She recently finished her master’s of public administration from EMU.

Public comment

In addition to Cindy Carver, the only other person who spoke during the public comment portions of Wednesday’s meeting was Tom Partridge. He spoke at all four public comment sessions. He berated the board for not doing more to help house the homeless, especially when temperatures dropped below zero, as was the case that night. Following the discussion of county finances, Partridge said that if he were a commissioner, he wouldn’t focus on doom and gloom but would come up with creative concepts to move forward, like a countywide transportation system and an economic development department that’s part of the county, not a separate nonprofit, referring to Ann Arbor Spark.

When Partridge spoke past the three-minute time limit, Conan Smith – who, as Ways & Means Committee chair, was leading that part of the meeting – told him his time was up. That prompted Partridge, raising his voice, to say, “You know it’s unconstitutional!” Partridge was referring to a recent vote by commissioners to change the time limit for public comment speakers from five minutes to three minutes per turn.

At the final public comment session of the evening – following the board meeting, which was chaired by Rolland Sizemore Jr. – Partridge said he was disappointed the commission was not funding lifetime education for county residents, countywide transportation or a county economic development department. He asked why he hadn’t heard about county projects for the proposed federal economic stimulus package, and said they should send such projects to President Obama forthwith.

Several commissioners responded to Partridge’s comments. Wes Prater noted that the county had submitted about $61 million in projects that might be eligible for federal funding through the stimulus package, and said the road commission had submitted a similar amount. Barbara Levin Bergman noted that Ann Arbor Spark was doing economic development for the entire county. Both Mark Ouimet and Sizemore pointed out that commissioner Jeff Irwin had been a leader in regional transportation initiatives. Sizemore also asked the county’s administrative staff to provide Partridge with copies of the proposed stimulus package projects.

Misc. items

Commissioners Barbara Levin Bergman and Kristin Judge reported that they’d had an orientation tour and meeting with the county jail and community corrections staff. (Judge took the tour as a newly elected commissioner; Bergman serves on the community corrections advisory board.) Bergman said she wished that other commissioners could have attended, and recommended that they find another time to set up something similar for other board members.

Bob Guenzel said he appreciated the Ann Arbor News article and editorial about the county and city of Ann Arbor sharing an IT data center, but he wanted to clarify that county employees would not be working at the city, as The News seemed to imply. Only the equipment is located at city hall, he said.

Present: Barbara Levin Bergman, Leah Gunn, Jeff Irwin, Kristin Judge, Mark Ouimet, Jessica Ping, Wes Prater, Ken Schwartz, Rolland Sizemore Jr., Conan Smith

Absent: Ronnie Peterson

Next board meeting: Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the County Administration Building, 220 N. Main St. [confirm date]. The Ways & Means Committee meets first, followed immediately by the regular board meeting.  (Though the agenda states that the regular board meeting begins at 6:45 p.m., it usually starts much later – times vary depending on what’s on the agenda.) Public comment sessions are held at the beginning and end of each meeting.

Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled @ AADL

“We’re ready to rock and roll on Feb. 2,” Celeste Choate told the board, referring to the opening of the WLBPD. Choate – the library’s associate director of services, collections and access – described the range of services that will be offered, as well as outreach efforts the library is doing to reach more potential patrons, including children and non-English speakers. About 500 patrons are registered, but Choate estimated that as many as 5,000 people countywide could be eligible for the services.

The Library for the Blind was previously run by the county, which last year asked AADL to take over those operations. Choate said it’s unusual for this kind of library to be located within a public library, and that their goal is to encourage WLBPD patrons to become active in regular library services as well.

Eli Neiburger of the library’s IT staff described the technology that’s being put in place for WLBPD patrons, including JAWS, a type of screen-reader software that makes it possible for visually-impaired people to use the computer. He also told the board that a new website was being launched Jan. 27.

The board approved a policy change as part of its preparation to open the WLBPD. They passed a resolution waiving the fee typically charged for non-residents to get a library card. For those eligible for the WLBPD, no fee will be charged.

Budget and finance

Board member Prue Rosenthal reported that staff is working on the 2009-10 budget, which will be presented to the board in April. Though the library is authorized to levy up to 1.92 mills and does levy that amount, the goal is to work within a budget of 1.55 mills, she said, and they’re not considering any layoffs or reduced hours. There will be a public hearing on the proposed budget in May, with the board voting on it that same month.

The board approved two resolutions for the purchase and maintenance of two large air-handlers, which circulate air in the eastern and center sections of the downtown library’s basement, first and second floors. The equipment must be custom-made and should ideally be installed when the weather is temperate, said Ken Nieman, the library’s associate director. That’s because the air handlers will be out of commission during the transition, and if it’s too hot, the library would have to close down during the replacement.

In part because of the time crunch – Nieman said they’d like to install the equipment this spring, as opposed to waiting until fall – the board was asked to waive its competitive bid process and award the contract to Pace Mechanical, a company that for the past three years has been the library’s HVAC maintenance contractor. Pace, based in Westland, estimates the project would cost $235,000.

Board member Jan Barney Newman asked whether the new equipment could also be used if AADL were to move ahead on building a new downtown library. No, Nieman said, the equipment could be recycled for its metal parts, but could not be reused on a different building.

The board approved the contract with Pace, and also approved extending an $89,700 maintenance contract with the firm through June 30, 2010.

Friends of the Library

Prue Rosenthal reported on a meeting that she and fellow board members Margaret Leary and Jan Barney Newman had with officers of the Friends of the Library, a nonprofit that raises money to help support AADL. “We had a fabulous meeting,” she said. “We had fabulous cookies.” The meeting with Pat McDonald, Rae Ann Weymouth and Liz Ong focused on the future of the Friends, Rosenthal said. She said the group would prefer to keep its used bookstore at the downtown library, and that they understand there will be upheaval because of projects like the replacement of the air-handling equipment. The Friends are also talking with other groups, like the PTO Thrift Shop and the Salvation Army, about possibly sharing space outside the library in the future. Rosenthal said one of the issues discussed was that if the store closes, it’s done in such a way that long-time volunteers are respected and celebrated. She also said the law firm Dykema Gossett is drafting an interim agreement between the library and the Friends, at the library’s expense.

Withdrawing from regional cooperative

In a move that AADL director Josie Parker said won’t affect library services, the board voted to withdraw its membership from The Library Network, a regional cooperative of libraries in southeast Michigan. A TLN board member, attorney Helen Vick of Ypsilanti, spoke during the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting, urging the board to keep its membership. She said it struck her as odd that in a time of dwindling resources when libraries needed to stick together, the AADL would leave the cooperative.

Just before the vote, Parker said the library was assuming too great a financial risk by being a member. Because of its size and resources, AADL doesn’t tap services from the cooperative. Yet if state aid that funds TLN isn’t sufficient to cover the cooperative’s costs, members would be on the hook to pay the difference, she said – even members that don’t use its services. Though co-ops were originally designed to share the wealth by providing services that smaller libraries could use, there hasn’t been a recent analysis about their effectiveness, Parker said. Because of the way state funding is structured, if AADL is not a member of the cooperative, it would receive only half of the $120,000 it gets annually from the state – although that funding is never guaranteed.

The board voted unanimously to withdraw its membership.

Director’s report

Josie Parker had kudos for several staff members. She praised Madelaine Krolik, who has worked for AADL 17 years and is retiring at the end of January. Krolik is “quietly wise,” Parker said, the kind of person that it’s easy to take for granted until they’re gone and you realize how much they contribute. “We will miss her.” Parker also gave props to Eli Neiburger, Celeste Choate, Ken Nieman and other library staff who helped with the transition of the Library for the Blind, noting that a lot of the hard work happened over the holidays. And she praised the staff for pulling off the Jan. 24 appearance by best-selling author Greg Mortenson, who packed the auditorium at Huron High. She said the Ann Arbor News article about the event didn’t make it clear that it was organized by the library, and that library staff handled every aspect of the evening. “It’s way beyond what’s normally expected for a library,” she said.

Parker also said that they had some good news about the loss rate of their materials – essentially, the percentage of items that get stolen from the collection. The rate was so low, significantly under 5 percent, that last April they decided to “uncage” the CD collection at the downtown location. Cages are the clear plastic containers that CDs and DVDs are kept in while on the shelf. Librarians take off the cages when the items are checked out. From April through November, they tracked the loss rate of the CDs – it was only 1.3% during that period, “an amazingly positive number” out of around 14,000 items. Now, they’ve decided to uncage the DVD collection, too. Parker said it’s a way of rewarding the vast majority of patrons who are honest.

Misc. items

During an update on the Traverwood branch, Parker noted that they’re getting complaints about parking on Traverwood Drive, because there’s no access from those parking spots directly to the sidewalk. Parker said the property without the sidewalk is owned by the city. When the library submitted plans for the branch, they’d included a proposal for steps along that stretch, but it was rejected by city planners because of liability concerns. “There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it,” Parker said. “It is what it is.”

During the board’s public comment time, Glen Modell, who identified himself as a 33-year employee of the library, said he was there to present his annual criticism of the library’s audit as it relates to retirement benefits. He did not elaborate.

The board was presented with a proposed policy change regarding its selection of exhibits. The change in AADL’s exhibits policy would eliminate specific references to the application process. The board will be voting on these changes at its Feb. 16 meeting.

Present: Rebecca Head, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Josie Parker, Prue Rosenthal, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell.

Absent: Margaret Leary

Next meeting: Monday, Feb. 16, 2009 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

A cart full of gift-quality books at the Friends of the Library bookshop.

The Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library receives over 200,000 books every year, but they found out on Dec. 4 that the area they use for sorting them will soon be shrinking by half. The other half of the space that they use currently will be needed to accommodate equipment and materials from the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, which the AADL recently assimilated. Part of the strategy to ease the space crunch is to suspend acceptance of donations effective immediately. Expect to see signage in the library to that effect soon.

But the other part of the plan is to reconfigure the existing bookshop layout to display more books, as well as to cut prices in half. Prices for hardcover and trade paperbacks will be cut from $2 to $1, and mass paperbacks will drop from $.50 to $.25.

Janis Detlefs, who works with the Friends, let The Chronicle inside the bookshop yesterday morning to get a peek at some of the new layout for the bookshop. The bookshop area is separate from the sorting area and won’t be reduced as a part of the new configuration. She described how additional bookshelves would be lining the center of the shop to make room for more books.

Janis Detlefs shows The Chronicle where the new shelving units will go.

But she also said that a fairly rigorous culling of existing materials would be taking place. Alphabetized fiction, for example, wouldn’t disappear entirely, but it would be afforded less space. Likewise for videos in VHS format.

Detlefs said that the relatively short time frame came from the fact that the requirements for fire codes – the need to have 36-inch aisle ways, for example – hadn’t initially been factored into the planning. But Detlefs stressed that “we’re not being evicted or anything,” and said that the library had been very cooperative and was providing logistical and labor support. The reconfiguration of the sorting area needs to be finished by Jan. 5, she said.

Customers of the bookshop will notice the new pricing and new layout starting the next time the bookshop opens on Sat., Dec. 13 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sun., Dec 14 from 1-4 p.m. The following weekend there will be a $3 bag sale on selected items.

A German first reader printed in Fraktur style. There aren't many older books like this one at the bookshop, and The Chronicle has its eye on this one. Readers who want it better show up early next weekend.

Images from otherwise unusable books get recycled into holiday cards and are available for purchase at the bookshop.

Adam Chaib in the ready-to-stack position.

At the Traverwood branch of the Ann Arbor District Library on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the room at the back of the building was awash with the colors of blue, purple, red, orange and green cups. On entering the room, the ock-ock-ock of cups getting stacked into pyramids then rapidly collapsed by small hands became audible. There were 20 or so kids from kindergarten through eighth grade at the event – enough to fill the room without making it feel cramped – which culminated in a competition with prizes awarded in the form of gift cards to Target.

Youth librarian Elizabeth Schneider, who organized the event, warmed the kids up with a little bit of cross-training: “You’re going to do it with your eyes closed, and when you’re done, do two jumping jacks!” Cup stacking itself just involves stacking and unstacking cups in various prescribed patterns. Competition is based on time.

Although the event was featured prominently on the events section of the Ann Arbor District Library website, we found plenty of people stacking cups who had just happened upon the activity on an ordinary visit to the library. Among them were Mirna Chaib and her son, Adam, who recognized the activity from his gym class at school.

Omairiana Chandler and Talaya Mathews prove that cup stacking can be a team effort.

Also there initially to visit the library’s regular stacks – of books as opposed to cups – was Karen Hague, with her granddaughters, Omairiana Chandler and Talaya Mathews. After an encounter with the cups, the two girls were ready to head off to find princess books, which is what they had really come for.

And Randy Clepper, who was documenting photographically the cup-stacking efforts of his two daughters, didn’t drive his family all the way from Columbus, Ohio, just to stack cups at the Traverwood branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. They were spending Thanksgiving weekend visiting his sister-in-law’s family in Ann Arbor, and the visit to the library seemed to have been planned independently of the cup-stacking opportunity. Clepper said that his daughters, who had been introduced to the activity at school, had a set of cups at home and practiced from time to time, but not every day.

Still, in the two categories of competition – with places 1-2-3 for each – representatives from Clepper’s clan took three of the six placings: Erin Clepper, 3rd place for the cycle; Gina Clepper, 2nd place for the 3-6-3 stack; Teresa Grijalva (the Cleppers’ cousin) 1st place for the 3-6-3 stack.

Incidentally, there were some folks there who did find out about the event through the library’s website: John and Celeste Choate, who were there with their daughter, Kathryn. Celeste is associate director of the Ann Arbor District Library, but said it wasn’t some internal memo, or special insider word of mouth that led her to discover the event. She actually found out about it by looking at the website.

Kathryn Choate completes a purple pyramind to match her sweater.

Gina Clepper practices the cycle stack after her competitive effort in the 3-6-3, which earned her a second place.

Erin Clepper's hands turn blue cups into blue blurs as she competes in the cycle stack. Her 16.8 second effort earned her third place.

Kathyrn Choat concentrates on her cups.

Josie Parker, Rebecca Head and Jan Barney Newman at Monday morning's special library board meeting.

A somber Ann Arbor District Library board voted unanimously this morning to suspend its ambitious project to build a new downtown library, though they held out the possibility of resuming the plan if and when the economy improves.

“I think we’re talking about a detour – at least I’m talking about a detour,” said board chair Rebecca Head.

The board called a special meeting for this morning which began in a closed session with the library’s real estate attorney, Jim Adams of Butzel Long. They reconvened for a public meeting at 10:15 a.m., and Head announced that Adams had delivered disturbing news about the bond market that was “very sobering.”

In addition to a nationwide crisis in the financial markets, board members cited reluctance to add to residents’ tax burden in such a difficult and uncertain economic climate, particularly in Michigan where the future of the auto industry hangs in the balance. Funding a new downtown library – the option that the board had been pursuing – would have required both a millage and the sale of bonds to cover the estimated $70 million cost.

For the past two years, AADL director Josie Parker and the library board have been exploring what to do with the downtown library building. Since 2006, the library has spent $900,000 on the project, an amount which includes consulting and architectural fees. The local firm Luckenbach Ziegelman Architects has been working on the building design, and Carl Luckenbach has made presentations at the board’s monthly meetings for the past several months.

Part of that work was evaluating the condition of the current downtown library. At the October board meeting, Luckenbach said that the decades-old building faced a laundry list of structural problems, including a failing sanitary system and outdated wiring.

Just last week at the Nov. 17 meeting, Luckenbach had led the board through a discussion of their vision for the new building, with the goal of bringing back a more concrete design to the board in December. Even then, however, the specter of the economy was raised when board member Carola Stearns urged price limitations to be set, given current economic conditions.

During Monday’s meeting, several board members noted that the work done up to this point won’t be wasted. “What we’ve paid for so far we can still use,” said Margaret Leary. The board now knows the extent of repairs and alternations the current building requires, Ed Surovell added.

After the meeting, Head told The Chronicle that the board doesn’t have a time frame for coming back to the project – that will depend on economic conditions, she said. Meanwhile, the board will do what’s necessary to keep the current downtown building up to standards, she said.

It isn’t clear what impact, if any, the library board’s decision will have on a separate, nearby parking project being undertaken by the city’s Downtown Development Authority.

Jennifer Hall, chair of the DDA board, voted against the underground garage project at the Sept. 3 DDA board meeting, along with then-board-member Dave DeVarti. Reached at home by phone a few minutes after the library board’s decision, she said she’d like to understand more fully what the library’s time frame was, if any, for the suspension.

But she also said that the library board’s decision to suspend their building project could be an occasion for the community to re-think the need for parking at this particular location. She said one of the reasons she had reluctantly voted against the project in September was that she felt it was important to be a good partner with the library. She said that the amount of parking required was in part driven by the discussion of the possibility of a 400-seat amphitheater planned for the new library.

Hall also recalled the overall context of the design for parking at the library lot location, which was a directive from city council for the DDA to provide various options for increasing parking capacity, and that the DDA had provided them – ranging from adding levels to the Ann-Ashley structure, to building additional parking on the Larcom Building site in connection with the new police-courts facility. The library lot had been identified by council as the location for which it wanted the DDA to design parking.

Another part of the context for the parking project was the Nelson-Nygaard parking study, which Hall said she read as a directive possibly to add additional parking capacity only after allowing various other strategies – like elimination of monthly parking permits, and parking demand management – to have an effect. Hall acknowleged, though, that her colleagues on the DDA board did not read the Nelson-Nygaard study in the same way.

Hall also noted that it would be important to determine if the library’s existing basement wall could accommodate structurally an entrance from the underground parking garage. The new library building was to have had a fairly grand “lower lobby” area designed to welcome library patrons in from the garage.

Reached by phone on Monday morning, Susan Pollay, the DDA’s executive director, said it would be important for the DDA to sit down with the engineers and architects to determine how to address most flexibly the sheltered entrance to the library, as well as Library Lane (also a feature of the parking garage site plan that would presumably be retained even without construction of a new library building).

Pollay said the parking project “has a validity in its own right. The two projects are interconnected, but not dependent.”

“I’m grateful that they’re [the library board] doing their due diligence,” she said. “Projects can develop a momentum, but they are clearly checking at every point along the way.”

Pollay said benefits of the parking project, independent of the new library construction, include:

• upgrading utilities on the block (electricity, water, sewer)
• an increase in the downtown parking capacity
• the provision of a sheltered connection (underground) from parking to the library.

Also reached by phone Monday morning, Joan Lowenstein – who still serves on the DDA board and until two weeks ago served on the Ann Arbor city council – confirmed that the context for the underground parking garage historically was consideration of a range of locations to add existing parking capacity. The council and DDA had contemplated additional parking at the library lot well before the library had made its decision to build a new building downtown in the same location as the existing facility. As Lowenstein summarized it: “The library is still there.”

The site plan for the underground parking project will be coming before city council sometime in the near future, but the city clerk’s office has not yet received information that would allow reporting a precise date.

Present: Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Josie Parker, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell.

Absent: Prue Rosenthal

Editor’s note: Jim Rees left the above text in a comment on the preview article, and we’ve elevated it to be a bit more prominent.  We have a reporter at the meeting this morning as well and will follow up with more details.

The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. with a closed executive session. It will reconvene in a meeting open to the public at 10:15 a.m. If anyone wants to come at 9:30 a.m. – though they won’t be allowed to enter the meeting – they’ll need to use the back entrance to the building. The main entrance opens at 10 a.m.

No further details are available about the meeting’s agenda. Earlier this year, the board hired Luckenbach Ziegelman Architects to work on designing a new downtown library, and is expected to ask voters to approve a millage to fund the project.

Contact information for AADL board members is here.

Audit report

Dave Fisher of the accounting firm Rehmann Robson gave a brief summary of findings from the audit of the library’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2008. The audit determined that the library’s finances were in good shape, and included a couple of minor recommendations related to internal controls. One of the recommendations related to keeping more up-to-date worksheets on the library’s inventory of assets, which includes items valued at $1,000 or more. The library’s director, Josie Parker, said that many libraries tie their worksheets to items valued at $5,000 or more, and that might make more sense. Later in the meeting, board member Prue Rosenthal, who chairs the budget and finance committee, said they’d considered raising the amount to $5,000, but had reached no decision yet. Board members had no questions for Fisher about the audit.

Director’s report

Josie Parker described “a very interesting week” for the library system. On Sunday, she and eight library staffers met with about 25 users of the county’s Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, for which AADL is assuming responsibility. They had mailed invitations to 500 people, and though only 25 people came, it was a cold, snowy afternoon so they were pleased with the turnout, she said. The people who came were very interested in talking with the library staff, since the relationships they’d developed with the Library for the Blind employees – who were not hired as part of this transfer – were an important part of that service. Parker said the people who attended gave some great feedback, and that she and her staff were able to address most of their questions and concerns.

The Ladies Library Association, a group which founded the library 170 years ago, is still active in its support and has recently selected an oil painting to be hung at the new Traverwood branch, Parker said. Titled “Still Life with Brushes,” the work was created by local artist Mignonette Yin Chen. Two current board members – Prue Rosenthal and Jan Barney Newman – are members of the association.

On Friday, about 400 people in their teens and early 20s came to the downtown library for a talk and performance by Nerd Fighters – brothers John and Hank Green, who’ve become an Internet phenom. They’re on tour now, and clearly a draw – their fans showed up though there was virtually no local publicity. “We’ve never brought a crowd of that age group and size here,” Parker said.

Finally, she noted that Eli Neiburger and the library’s IT staff were instrumental in organizing Saturday’s “National Gaming Day @ your library.” The event, held locally at the Malletts Creek branch, allowed video gamers to play in real time with each other across the country. The technology enabling this project was developed by the Ann Arbor library’s staff.

Articulating a vision for the new library

Carl Luckenbach, lead architect for the downtown library project, began his presentation by noting that “we have nothing as interesting as Nerd Fighters to talk about.” He summarized some of the aspects of the proposed building that he felt they’d come to consensus on: the concept of the library as a “community living room” that’s highly transparent and visible to the street; the decision to build the library out to the sidewalk, with its primary orientation facing the proposed Library Lane; the commitment to sustainability, reflected in both design and construction; various other design aspects, such as “zoning” activities based on noise levels, with floors becoming progressively quieter as you go up.

“I think we agreed it’s a 21^st century library and should look like it,” he said, adding that he wanted to hear what exactly that meant to them. Turning to board member Ed Surovell, Luckenbach said, “Ed, rumor has it that you’ve got some strong feelings and I’d love to hear them.”

So Surovell kicked off a discussion aimed at guiding the building’s design. “I think the building needs to be monumental,” he said. “I think it needs to be a grand statement of purpose and place.”

Ann Arbor doesn’t have any building of modern architectural significance, he said. “We don’t yet have an iconic structure.” The downtown library building is now “surrounded by mediocrity,” and this new structure should set a standard for future development that will inevitably follow.

“We haven’t fared well in our city and I don’t want to be responsible for a failure,” Surovell said. “And it’s all in your hands. It’s a huge load, but you have a board that’s going to stand behind you.”

Prue Rosenthal said she wants a building that’s iconic and enduring, as well as suited to its function. “I would like it to be unsilly,” she said, later adding that “I want it to mark its time as well as being useful. I don’t want it to be a throwback.”

Barbara Murphy agreed that the building should not be silly, but said she would like to see some playful elements in the design. She cautioned against having a structure that was impressive yet “frightening,” and said it should be warm and inviting, a place where people of all ages feel comfortable, light and airy and designed so that some of its activity is visible from the street. And “no halo,” she quipped, referring to the widely maligned design feature that encircled Michigan Stadium – then was taken down – during president Lee Bollinger’s tenure.

Margaret Leary talked about the importance of the quality of materials and finishes used in construction, wanting to build something that people would respect. She also said that human scale was important – she’d recently visited buildings designed by well-known architects that were so huge they overwhelmed the people who used them.

Carola Stearns voiced concern about cost, saying that she was fiscally conservative and wanted to make sure there were price limitations in place. Yes, use quality materials, she said, but be aware that the Ann Arbor taxpayers who’ll be footing the bill are enduring tough economic times.

Luckenbach said his team would take this feedback and bring back a more concrete design at next month’s board meeting.

A2D2 overview

Wendy Rampson, systems planner for the city of Ann Arbor, gave a presentation about proposed downtown zoning changes, a project known as A2D2. It’s a similar talk and slide show to the one she’s doing at a series of public meetings, and provided both an historical background and overview of recommendations that city council will be considering early next year. (The Chronicle reports in detail here on one of her presentations earlier in the day.)

Ed Surovell and Rebecca Head both told Rampson they thought the proposed guidelines didn’t go far enough in allowing for density, especially in the context of the Ann Arbor greenbelt and other efforts to cluster development in urban areas while maintaining the county’s rural character outside of the city.

Josie Parker asked how these changes would affect the library. Rampson said that development on public land is not constrained by these zoning standards. However, she said she hoped the library would use the zoning as a measuring stick for its future projects.

Prue Rosenthal said she felt the city was being reactive rather than proactive. She said the library board and administration had a clear vision and were showing leadership to reach that vision. “As a private citizen, I’d love to see the city act in a similar manner.” Rampson said that A2D2 is an attempt to do that.

Literacy initiatives

Josie Parker told the board that she has agreed to co-chair the Washtenaw County Literacy Coalition, along with county administrator Bob Guenzel. (Guenzel wrote about the initiative earlier this year as a guest blogger for the online publication Concentrate.) Parker also noted that because board members will be out in the community making the case for why the library needs more space, she wanted to brief them on some of the programs that are driving that need.

Library staff members Terry Soave, Sherlonya Turner and Cecile Dunham spoke about a wide range of programs that deal with different aspects of literacy, from early childhood reading skills to English as a second language tutoring to financial and computer courses for adults.

Turner described several youth services programs. One of their largest annual efforts in the fall is a program to bring all second-grade classes into the library – roughly 1,000 students, brought in a different times. The point is to introduce kids to what the library has to offer. The library makes another outreach effort to fifth graders in the spring, when librarians visit schools to talk about library services.

Programs for teens include a Telenovela writing workshop, bringing kids together to write and produce pieces based on the popular Spanish-language soap opera style; poetry and comedy-writing workshops, where teens perform their work before peers; and one-on-one tutoring.

Soave talked about songwriting workshops for students; a book-sharing program aimed at expectant mothers; health literacy efforts, including a partnership with the Spanish Health Outreach Coalition; ESL and adult basic literacy tutoring and conversation groups; computer classes; tax prep assistance and several other programs.

Finally, Dunham noted that the current economic crisis has heightened the need for programs addressing employment and financial literacy, and she described several efforts in that area. Several workshops are planned for early 2009, including a six-week program that brings in experts on writing resumes and cover letters, career counseling and job interviewing. More information is available on the library’s website.

Votes

The board ended its meeting by voting on three items, all unanimously approved: 1) accepting the 2007-08 audit, 2) forming an ad hoc committee – chaired by Margaret Leary, with Carola Stearns and Prue Rosenthal – to work with Josie Parker in developing a communication strategy regarding the downtown library project, and 3) setting an executive session at the Dec. 15 meeting to discuss real estate and legal issues.

Present: Rebecca Head, Margaret Leary, Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman, Josie Parker, Prue Rosenthal, Carola Stearns, Ed Surovell

Next meeting: Monday, Dec. 15, 2008 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave.