Letter from The Ann Arbor Chronicle to the Ann Arbor District Library.

Last month I trekked over to the Ann Arbor District Library to hand-deliver a paper document to the library’s director, Josie Parker. It was a letter that stated our intent, as owners of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, to grant all necessary legal authority to the AADL to preserve public access to our publication’s archives, in the event that The Chronicle closes or that we get hit by a bus.

It was an important decision for us, and one we didn’t take lightly – “we” being me and my husband Dave Askins, who’s editor and co-owner of The Chronicle. For me, The Chronicle has always been a convergence of the professional and the personal. Launching the publication on Sept. 2, which is also our wedding anniversary, reflects that connection. So choosing how to ensure the preservation of The Chronicle’s archives was more than a business decision.

The corpus of civic affairs and local government reporting that we’ve compiled in The Chronicle’s first two years, we believe, is a community asset worth preserving. During my tenure at The Ann Arbor News, I was always appalled at the condition of the archives there, neglected and deteriorating in a basement space we called The Cage. I was thrilled when the AADL negotiated to become caretaker of that massive collection, some items dating back to the late 1800s. Given the AADL staff’s obvious competence and eagerness to dig into the project – organizing more than 1 million items – it seemed a natural fit to ask that they consider shepherding our much less space-demanding slice of local journalism, too.

The Chronicle, of course, was born digital, and at this point would fit on a thumb drive. Although we’d likely be classified by most folks as “new media,” in many ways we embrace an ethos that runs contrary to current trends. And that’s why I liked the idea of walking a few blocks to the library and handing over a letter – a physical artifact that outlines the hopes of a digital future. And on this occasion of The Chronicle’s second anniversary, I’d like to chew on that notion a little more, and talk about what its implications might be.

The Importance of Showing Up

When we started The Chronicle, we knew that a focus on local government – specifically, the actions and deliberations that take place at public meetings – would be a cornerstone for this publication. What we didn’t know is whether anyone else would think it was a worthwhile place to focus our efforts. And, in fact, we received a fair amount of pressure, especially after the Ann Arbor News was shut down, to pick up coverage of things you’d normally find in a traditional newspaper: crime, sports, business, schools, arts & entertainment.

We didn’t – and still don’t – have the resources to take on that breadth, not without killing any hopes of depth and not without sacrificing The Chronicle’s main mission: To chronicle, in detail, our community’s civic affairs.

I didn’t always believe it was important to document what goes on at public meetings. Like most journalists, I’d been trained to regard meetings as a necessary, but in most cases avoidable, annoyance. This was especially true as the Ann Arbor News newsroom staff dwindled in numbers. I remember very clearly a conversation I had years ago as business editor, talking with Cathy O’Donnell, who covered the Ann Arbor city planning commission at the time. Cathy would diligently attend those meetings, which are held in the evenings and can last several hours. I viewed the “payoff” – usually a couple of articles – as not worth the investment of time, especially if the basic information could be gathered by making a few phone calls the next morning.

I was an idiot.

I think there’s a lot of truth to the idea that “The world is run by those who show up,” which was a theme of a column Del Dunbar wrote for us last year.  In the relatively short time we’ve been sitting through the meetings where official public business gets conducted, we’ve witnessed a fair amount of revisionist history. Such is the nature of politics, and maybe of human nature as well. People are more comfortable with a narrative that’s clean – but democracy is messy. And unless you’re a witness to what happens – or have a witness, by proxy, like our publication – it’s virtually impossible to speak confidently and challenge the veracity of events as described by whoever was in the room at the time.

Covering meetings in the gory detail that we do also provides context. To the extent that people have their discussions in these public venues – which is, ideally, where they should be taking place – we capture that deliberation, and show how decisions are reached, recording the dissent as well. While there is a great deal of posturing in any forum, there are also many instances of candid debate. Rather than eliciting these differing views by having officials whisper in a journalist’s ear, it’s far better to thrash it out during a public meeting, for any citizen to see – or to read about, later, in The Chronicle.

There’s also the hope that just by showing up, we can “move the pile” a little. This is a phrase borrowed from football that Dave uses, and one that I really like – the idea that an organization like ours can exert influence incrementally, by observing and reporting and connecting the dots in a steadfast, thoughtful, non-sensationalistic way. We don’t have the resources to pick up the whole pile and toss it around – the “pile” being, in some cases, the culture of an organization or the status quo. But by paying attention and shining a light on things we feel need to change, we believe it’s possible to nudge our local government toward a better place.

Yes, We Show Up – But Does Anyone Care?

One of my main questions when we launched The Chronicle two years ago was whether anyone else in this community would value this kind of approach. Early on, I was explaining our philosophy of news coverage to someone who pretty quickly dismissed the whole idea, and suggested that the only way we could possibly make a viable business was to model ourselves after the the Daily Kos or Talking Points Memo.

Uh oh.

The whole idea, he contended, is to generate site traffic. And to do that, he continued, you need the widest possible readership – readers who by-and-large are looking for brevity, opinion and churn. In other words, he thought the only way to have a chance of success was to offer the same kind of material you’ll find on many other news sites and blogs.

I walked away from that discussion extremely discouraged. And if we hadn’t been making a living at this for the past two years, I would still wonder whether it was even remotely feasible to do what we’re doing. Virtually any media consultant would find the idea laughable of writing lengthy reports on local government meetings.

In a different way, a recent article in the American Journalism Review emphasized the distance between what we’re doing and the path that many other news sites are taking. The article, by Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi, describes how news organizations are increasingly shaping their coverage based on what articles are drawing traffic to the site. [At The Chronicle, we call this the "brick tit" phenomenon, a reference to a short column by Dan Madaj we published that to our surprise spiked site traffic – but it didn't motivate us to write more stories like that.]

While noting that the Post obviously still produces in-depth articles, Farhi also describes how the push for site traffic affects his own newsroom:

Universal desk editors are under constant pressure to maintain the paper’s traffic goals; several told me that they believed their job evaluations depended, at least in part, on how often they meet these goals ([Washington Post executive editor Marcus] Brauchli says this isn’t the case). Nevertheless, when the numbers fall below targets, the staff scrambles to goose the count. There’s no real playbook for this drill, but there are some gimmicks. The Post often throws up celebrity photo galleries, sometimes with dubious or tenuous news value (a recent gallery featuring the British royal family was pegged to mere speculation about a forthcoming royal engagement). Another gambit: frivolous “user polls” (a recent one asked if readers in Montgomery County, Maryland, planned to flush their toilets in defiance of temporary water restrictions). Editors also monitor trending topics on Twitter and Google, and sometimes adjust their mix of stories to include something about a hot topic.

To which I say: Gah!

Farhi also describes the pressure to be first at all costs, and quotes his colleague Roxanne Roberts on this issue: “Journalism always put a premium on speed and scoops, but up until recently we never had to make the decision that speed trumps vetting or verification. That dynamic is shifting because of the need for hits. It’s a very slippery slope from an ethical standpoint. … The feeling nowadays is, ‘we don’t make mistakes, we just make updates.’” By trying to grab traffic at all costs, “We’ve placed the premium not on being correct or thoughtful, but on being first. When you do that, everything is Balloon Boy.”

I’m heartened that journalists are having these discussions, but it seems clear that when industry leaders are mainly freaking out about how they’ll stay in business, the screaming, mile-long search-engine-optimized headlines and insipid, meaningless polls will win out, on most days.

And What About the Money?

But it’s not like I have the luxury to be smug. On any given day, I could also be freaking out about how we’ll stay in business – this is a really crappy economy, in case you haven’t noticed, and we’re living through what appears to be its nadir. To date, we’ve been able to support ourselves and pay our freelancers through a mix of advertising and reader “subscriptions.” [The scare quotes are there because subscribers don't get any special access to content – it's just a familiar term to signify that they're paying us for our work, even though they don't have to.]

As any business owner or nonprofit leader can attest, it’s not much fun to ask for support for something you believe in passionately, only to be met with rejection – even when that rejection is the silence of an un-returned phone call or email. And that makes me especially grateful for the organizations and individuals who’ve supported us over the past two years, who’ve believed in what we’re doing and are willing to put some skin in the game by sending some of their money our way. This is no small thing, and it’s not something we take for granted.

In writing The Chronicle’s monthly milestone in March 2010, Dave laid out a philosophy of “selling journalism” that serves to guide our thinking as we talk to potential supporters. More recently, Mary Kramer – publisher of Crain’s Detroit Business – wrote a generous column about why she sent us a check, but says she’s got some doubt about whether our business model will keep us afloat in the long-term.

It’s a fair doubt to have, especially as we look at our own ambitions – two years has taken us a long way, but we have much farther to go. Earlier this year, we took another step in the right direction when Jennifer Coffman started regularly chronicling meetings of the Ann Arbor Public Schools board of education – a crucial addition, especially with the recent news that the district will be hiring a new superintendent. We’d like to build on our reporting of public bodies, adding to our regular coverage of Ann Arbor city council, Washtenaw County board of commissioners, Ann Arbor District Library board, Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board, Downtown Development Authority board, University of Michigan board of regents, and Ann Arbor’s planning commission, park advisory commission, greenbelt advisory commission, public art commission and – what have I left out? It’s a pretty long list, but there’s still much that we don’t have the resources to cover.

And though our bread-and-butter is civic affairs, The Chronicle’s regular columnists and freelancers are like our rich dessert – both nourishing and tasty. I look forward to reading Joel Goldberg’s columns on wine, Laura Bien on local history, Domenica Trevor on books, Marianne Rzepka on gardening, John U. Bacon on sports (or Hemingway), and Jo Mathis on whatever strikes her fancy! Alan Glenn’s historical reports on local events and personalities of the 1960s and ’70s are fascinating reads. Judy McGovern has brought her intelligence and experience to bear on a wide range of complex topics, most recently an update on what was originally thought to be a local hate crime.

And, of course, there’s the gift of the inscrutable Bezonki, conjured up each month by Alvey Jones.

Will this community continue to support these efforts, and will we find additional support to match our ambitions for The Chronicle? For readers who want to make an initial subscription or to renew one they’ve made earlier, here’s the subscription link. I don’t take anything for granted, but I do take satisfaction in what we’ve accomplished in two years.

And I’m hopeful that no matter how many years we have ahead of us, we’ll be adding to a historical record that – with the Ann Arbor District Library’s help – will be available to the community for generations to come. That’s about the best anniversary gift I could ask for.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

This is an example of a future Chronicle "house ad." The drawing was done by former Ann Arbor News artist Tammie Graves, and the ad itself was designed by Laura Fisher.

In last month’s milestone message, I focused on the idea that part of The Chronicle’s aspiration is to establish a valuable archive of our community’s civic history. The corpus of The Chronicle comprises an independent record of the events of our public bodies, the words spoken at their meetings and their actions taken.

This month I’d like to focus on a different aspect of the accumulating Chronicle archive. One is advertisements – different ads are inserted “on the fly” every time a new page is loaded. So will they be archived in any meaningful sense?

Another angle on The Chronicle archive are the bylines that appear in the publication. Our publication was launched by two people, who reported, wrote, and edited all of the articles.

The collection of bylines now includes a fairly robust collection of freelance writers. And this month I want to tell you about a byline that you won’t be seeing here for the next long while, perhaps ever again – but it’s for all the right reasons.

Ads

Chronicle advertisements, which appear in the left and right sidebars of the site, are inserted each time a page is loaded onto your computer screen, in a random rotation scheme. The computer code for that scheme was programmed by a Workantile Exchange co-worker of mine, Trek Glowacki.

Another Workantile Exchange co-worker, Tom Brandt, pointed out to me in casual conversation recently that a plan to archive all of The Chronicle articles wouldn’t necessarily result in archiving the advertisements. Not unless there was a plan for it.

I certainly would like to include the advertisements in any permanent archive. Why? As I explained in last month’s milestone column:

Sure, in an unguarded moment, I’ll indulge in the reverie that Ann Arbor’s 2110 version of Laura Bien will be mining The Chronicle archives and writing – for some next-century information distribution system – an article called “The Man Who Loved Parking Meters.”

Laura Bien, of course, writes the local history column for The Chronicle. A recent column of hers, “In the Archives: 10 Least Persuasive Ads,” included 10 ads published in newspapers over 100 years ago.

That column of hers pretty well cinched it – the ads needed a safe place in our archives.

And so, to my monthly duties, I’ve added a little job that consists of rounding up all the graphics for the current adds and collecting them into a stand-alone page for the Chronicle. Here’s the June 2010 archive. We’ll include links to those graphics archives in the current list of links in our summary of advertisers.

Bylines

Part of the information that will be archived with each article published in The Chronicle is the byline. Some readers probably won’t have noticed that the set of bylines over the last year has grown more diverse. Others, who pay attention to details like that, will have noticed, for example, that Jennifer Coffman began covering the Ann Arbor Public Schools board of trustees for The Chronicle earlier this spring.

For readers who pay attention to bylines, the name Helen Nevius will be familiar as the reporter who broke an interesting Washtenaw Community College offsite board retreat story. She also has filed some of the recent Ann Arbor District Library board meeting reports, and has written several other pieces as she traced an arc, over the last year and a half, from an Eastern Michigan University intern for The Chronicle to a paid freelance writer.

Helen is moving to Chicago – to attend Northwestern University’s Medill graduate school of journalism. We’ll miss Helen. But we’ve got her byline secured, safe and sound in The Chronicle’s archives.

And in the future, when Helen’s byline turns up in other publications, it will read “Helen Adamopoulos” – she and Sotiri Adamopoulos were married last Sunday at Cobblestone Farm.

We wish Helen and Sotiri all the best.

About the writer: Dave Askins is co-founder and editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Jan Longone, giving remarks at a June 8 reception: "Culinary history is a subject worth studying and fighting for." (Photos by the writer.)

At a June 8 reception at the Hatcher Graduate Library in front of more than 200 guests, UM provost Teresa Sullivan accepted the donation on behalf of the university, saying that the Longone collection turned UM into a “national leader” in this “emerging field of scholarship.”

Sullivan noted that the archive extends far beyond collections of recipes, and provides valuable insights in such areas as the study of gender roles, regionalism, health, diet and cultural identity.

The Clements Library will house the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive, as the collection is formally known. Kevin Graffagnino, the library’s director, said that the “groundbreaking donation … vaulted the Clements into the forefront of culinary history.”

In remarks during the June 8 reception, Jan Longone said she had long believed the new field “was a subject worth studying and fighting for.” She is also curator of American Culinary History at the Clements.

In 2007, the New York Times called Jan Longone “the top expert on old American cookbooks.” For decades, she has operated the Food and Wine Library from her westside Ann Arbor home, purchasing and supplying ephemera of culinary history to international collectors and culinary luminaries.

Chemistry Professor Emeritus Dan Longone, whose specialty is wine history, also donated numerous items from his collection to the archive.

The Hatcher’s Audubon Room will display four documents from the archive through June 28.

Dan and Jan Longone, by the some of their collection's rarest books.

One of those items, Malinda Russell’s 39-page “Domestic Cook Book,” is the only known copy of the first cookbook written by an African-American, published in 1866 in Paw Paw, Michigan. The Longones’ sleuthing to track down its author and background was the subject of the 2007 Times article.

Also on exhibit is “Tractatus de Vinea,” published in 1629, which the Longones describe as “the most significant 17th century book on wine,” covering topics from grape-growing and vinification to commercial and legal considerations surrounding wine.

About the author: Joel Goldberg, an Ann Arbor area resident, is editor of the MichWine website. His Arbor Vinous column for The Chronicle is published on the first Saturday of the month.

The Ann Arbor District Library's Traverwood branch will be closed starting Thursday, Aug. 20 and reopening on Friday, Aug. 28. (Photo by the writer.)

Ann Arbor District Library board meeting (Aug. 17, 2009): The Traverwood library branch will close Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. and remain closed until 9 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 28, the result of difficulties with a floor resealing project. It’s connected to a two-day closure earlier this month, when sealant incorrectly applied to the branch’s hardwood floors failed to dry.

Josie Parker, the library system’s director, announced the unanticipated closing at Monday night’s board meeting, but it was a different closing that stands to have a longer-term impact on the library: The recent closing of The Ann Arbor News. Parker and the board discussed plans by the owners of The News – Advance Publications – to give the library most of its archives. Though no formal agreement has been reached, the board authorized up to $63,000 to lease storage space for bound newspaper copies, newspaper clipping files and most photo negatives. Parker called the digitizing, organizing and use of the archives an exciting, major undertaking, with “huge implications” for the library.

At Monday’s meeting, Parker also told the board about a live webcast she’ll be making next week as part of an international library conference – a reflection of AADL’s growing reputation as a model for library programming and technology.

But of most immediate concern to library patrons will be the Traverwood closing, and that’s where we’ll start our report.

Traverwood

Traverwood, the newest of the system’s five locations, opened just over a year ago and is well-used. The branch reported a door count of 32,213 people in July 2009 – second only to 59,749 at the main downtown library.

A distinct design – featured in the video “Up From Ashes” – includes wood from dead ash trees harvested at the branch’s site on the north side of Ann Arbor. The wood was used for the floors – the only wooden flooring in any of the system’s buildings. As part of regular maintenance, the floors need to be resealed every year. This was the first attempt, Parker said, and they thought they could do it themselves. They’ll be contracting out the work in the future, she said.

Because the initial attempt was done incorrectly, workers will have to sand down the floors, reapply the sealant and let it dry. Prep work includes wrapping the shelves of books and other items in plastic, to keep them clean amid the dust from sanding. The entire project, including the initial resealing, will cost about $8,000.

While the branch is closed, staff from Traverwood will work at other locations. Items put on hold can be picked up at the downtown library, Parker said. The Traverwood dropbox attached to the building will stay in use, but the portable dropbox in the garage will be removed until the library reopens.

The public will be notified with a post on the AADL website, Parker said, as well as an email sent out to all cardholders.

Ann Arbor News Archives

Advance Publications, which owns the Ann Arbor News and decided to shut down the 174-year-old newspaper earlier this year, has agreed to give AADL its archives. At this point, the agreement has not been formalized, though Parker told the board that it is “all but” final. The board will have to approve whatever legal agreement is reached – meanwhile, Parker is looking for space to store the collection. On Monday, she asked for authorization of up to $63,000 to lease a maximum of 3,500 square feet (at $18 per square foot). She hasn’t yet identified a space, but said she expects to pay less than the amount requested, given the general availability of vacant office space.

The archives include all bound volumes of the Ann Arbor News and the Ypsilanti Press, which the newspaper acquired in 1994. The library will also get the paper’s photo archives of up to 1 million items – excluding negatives and images of University of Michigan football and basketball. The newspaper’s extensive clipping files will be going to the library as well. “It’s not a small piece of history,” Parker said, noting that the library has been asking for access to the clipping files in particular for two decades.

The space they’ll need must be climate controlled, Parker said – though the archives haven’t been in climate-controlled conditions at The News building, “from the moment we get it, we want to do right by it,” she said. They need access to a loading dock, since the bound copies will arrive on pallets. They’d also like the location to be on a bus line and fairly close to downtown, so that library staff can easily reach it.

The library has permission to digitize the photo negatives as well as the clips – but not the bound copies. A new business – AnnArbor.com, launched earlier this year by the newspaper’s owners – plans to digitize that portion of the archives themselves. Board member Margaret Leary asked Parker whether there was a time frame attached to the digitization of that part of the archives. Leary pointed out that the library would be paying to store the bound copies, which will be getting more fragile each year and more difficult to preserve. She wondered whether they could revisit the issue, if the owners hadn’t moved to digitize those papers within, say, three years. Parker said she would discuss it with them.

Leary also noted that the $63,000 was an amount to cover a lease for just one year. What happens after that? she asked. Parker said she didn’t know yet. She stressed that it was a gift, and that Advance also would be paying to move the archives. However, she said, it’s like getting a free kitten – there will be costs involved.

Board member Carola Stearns asked if there were sufficient staff resources to handle the project. Parker said that staff have lined up to be involved, but that until they actually get the archives, they won’t know how much work it will entail. Eventually, there will be programming associated with the archives as well, she said – but again, it’s too soon to know what that might involve. “It’s a fun mystery – a very fun mystery,” Parker said.

Ed Surovell raised a broader issue: What’s the future of other newspapers in the state, and their archives? He guessed that other newspapers owned by the same company might see a similar fate as the Ann Arbor News. “I don’t mean to foretell their doom, but I doubt this is the only one they will deaccession.”

It might be an opportunity to create a statewide repository, Surovell said, “and what better place for it to be than here, in the real capital of Michigan?” That’s especially true given what’s happening with the Library of Michigan, he said. [Gov. Jennifer Granholm recently issued an executive order abolishing the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries, of which the Library of Michigan is a part.] Surovell suggested that the board consider whether AADL should take leadership in this.

Rebecca Head said there could be grant opportunities as well, since AADL could serve as a model for this type of archiving project. Parker said that they’d already been considering these broader issues. “It has huge implications for the library here, for the community and for the state,” she said. However, they can’t move ahead until a formal agreement is reached and the library actually has access to the archives.

When in Rome …

At 6 a.m. on Monday, Parker will be making a presentation and answering questions in a live webcast about innovative public library programs. The early hour reflects the international audience she’ll be addressing – the U.S. embassy in Rome is hosting her talk, and 6 a.m. here will be noon in that time zone. The presentation is part of the International Federation of Library Associations’ World Library and Information Congress, held this year in Milan, Italy. Questions will be asked in multiple languages, and translated into English.

Parker told the board that AADL has a reputation for innovative programs and projects. One recent example is the digitization of the Ann Arbor News archives, she said. She’ll also discuss the summer reading program, which she characterized as a uniquely American service. Parker had earlier given the board an update on this year’s AADL summer reading program, which she said has seen the highest participation since she arrived as director in 2001. That might be because more families are staying home this summer, due to the economy, she said.

Elevator Repair

The economy came up again, indirectly, in a board action taken Monday night. One of the motivations for wanting to build a new downtown library – a project that was put on hold last year because of unfavorable economic conditions – was the fact that current systems in the existing building are starting to fail. The freight elevator, for example, broke down in May. Ken Nieman, the library’s associate director, said that when it became clear that the problem was more complex than they initially thought, they enlisted the advice of O’Neal Construction. Owner Joe O’Neal and staff member Tim Stout attended Monday night’s board meeting.

There are two options, Nieman said: 1) replace the broken cylinder that operates the elevator, or 2) install a new elevator. AADL solicited bids for both options, and asked O’Neal to review the bids and interview the contractors. Three companies – Detroit Elevator, Otis Elevator and Schindler USA – bid to replace the cylinder. Only Detroit Elevator and Schindler bid to replace the entire elevator.

Because the replacement cylinder would be larger, the project entails taking out the faulty one and drilling a slightly larger hole, which goes down the equivalent of four stories underground, Nieman said. They’d keep the existing elevator doors and car.

Installing a new elevator would be more expensive. A new elevator would use a cable system rather than the cyclinder used in hydraulic models, and they’d have to fill the existing underground hole with concrete. The project would require a general contractor, adding to the cost.

Based on O’Neal’s advice, Nieman said the library recommended replacing the cylinder and awarding the contract to Detroit Elevator, which made the lowest bid at $112,814. When queried by board member Carola Stearns about why Detroit Elevator was significantly lower than the other two bids, O’Neal said that Detroit Elevator does their own drilling – the other two firms would have to subcontract out that work.

Though the actual work will only take two to three weeks, the replacement cylinder must be ordered and likely won’t arrive until November, Nieman said. Parker also warned that the work would be very loud, occurring mostly in the dock area, basement and the library’s first floor.

The board unanimously approved awarding the contract to Detroit Elevator for the repair work. O’Neal Construction will coordinate the work – their fee is part of the $112,814 approved for the contract.

Financial Report

As the first month in their fiscal year, July is typically a time when they have the lowest amount of cash on hand, according to associate director Ken Nieman, who gave the board an update on finances. At the end of July, AADL had $5.8 million in unrestricted cash, he reported, and a fund balance of just under $6.8 million.

Board Retreat

The library board is planning a retreat on Wednesday, Sept. 30 from 3:30-8:30 p.m. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at the Ann Arbor offices of the law firm Dykema Gossett, 2723 S. State St.

Board president Rebecca Head said that they’ll focus on strategic planning – the current plan runs through 2010. One major component of the plan that remains undone is to determine the future of the downtown library, she said. Last November, the board called off plans to build a new downtown structure, citing the poor economy.

The board needs to take the temperature of the community about what the library’s role should be, Head said – the downtown building is just one part of that. More broadly, “What does the community really want from the library system?” she asked.

Margaret Leary, the board’s secretary, asked that the retreat agenda include a discussion of finances and what their approach should be. In May, the board voted to lower the operating millage that it levies for the 2009-10 fiscal year – again, citing the economy.

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

Absent: Prue Rosenthal.

Next meeting: Monday, Sept. 21, 2009 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]