Library Board Meeting Date: February 14th, 2024
To: Library Board Members
From: Natalie Draper, Library Director
Title
Library Strategic Plan Update.
Body
Action Requested:
The Library Board receives an update regarding staff activities.
Summary Report:
The attached staff report includes items not included as agenda items for this meeting.
A note on the statistics that accompany this report, as some may look at this sheet every month and wonder what to make of it.
This report is a compilation of many of the monthly stats we gather that go into the Minnesota Public Library Annual Report (MPLAR), which the Library Board must approve in March every year before we submit it to the state. Those reports eventually go to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the federal body that provides funding to states for libraries and museums, among other things.
This month, staff have highlighted the stats that are most likely to tell a story about activity in the library. As activity varies based on time of year, it is best to look at the aggregate data when it all comes together in the spring. This is a better indicator of impact and emerging trends from year to year. While every data point in this report tells a story about how the community uses their library, few of the data points exist independent of the others, and even altogether we don't have a complete picture for there are many uses of the library that are harder to track. For instance, Internet use (more accurately computer use) may decline in tandem with increasing WIFI use, and print circulation may be replaced by digital so those numbers can be seen as a pair. It may be less obvious where to track in-house use of library laptops.
Visits to the library, highlighted, are trending back to 2019 levels so we know there are other ways the library is serving the community that isn't easy to measure, but you can look at wear and tear on the furniture and say "people are gathering here". And, a...
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