2/6/25 – Library Commission Meeting
have the requirement for graduation. All of the PUSD schools do and possibly some of the private schools. We even use it for training as well. We put training videos online and we can yeah. Very extensive, awesome product that we like to use. I just have 1 question and might get into discussion. I’m just curious why the teen programs went so down. Like, it was 47 in 2022 and 23 in the in the data we got in the That’s a great question. I think it came up we used this data for our prior presentation, and that same question came up. And I think it was how, and, Jeff, please correct me if I’m wrong. I have some recollection, and we can get you a more definitive answer. There was a change in the how we measured the the age groups. So what the library does is we report information to the state every year. So they give us categories, and we are trying to track all our stats based on the categories for the state report. It just makes it a lot easier. So I think there was something to do with that and possibly that we didn’t measure teens in in that period in the same way. Is that Or did you measure them in all programs? Grama that We could have done that. They could have been but we can get you a a a more accurate answer on that. 1 of your slides described interactive programs for youth as something people wanted. What does that mean exactly? So I would consider that a program I would consider that a story time program, but I would also consider it, like, our robotics and coding programs for kids, any art and craft program, anything that they’re participating in instead of just sitting and listening is how I would Okay. Like, not passive, I’m assuming. Even in the library world, I guess you could a a passive program could still be interactive and participatory. Passive would be more of, on your own versus a staff led grama, generally. And 1 of your slides mentioned community partnerships. Do we have any community partnerships with the library? We do through our, Value Humane Society with Paws to Read. It would be 1 of the biggest ones I can think of. School district. School district. Yes. Yes. That could definitely be a community partnership. I think we often refer to it as a district partnership, but it’s it is still a community partnership. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Are we exploring the report further than or is this our discussion area? Oh, we are. Yes. I think we were trying to segment, we have, actually some questions we’d love for you to consider. Okay. You don’t need to respond to them all, but just, you know, kind of to kick off the discussion, but you’re, of course, welcome to discuss anything of interest. So I’ll pass it back to Jeff for that. Excellent. So we’re ready, moving on to our discussion. Using the perspective of your connections in the community and your personal experience, we would like you to input on the following. Do the planned program areas reflect the needs of our community? Are there emerging trends or community interests we should consider for future programming? And finally, what additional information would help you support outreach? And again, I’m more than happy to slide back to different slides here as needed. I guess 1 of the questions, and I’m not sure, you might have included it in the teen programs, but I know that in the past year or so, we had, the finance. We we sort of had a couple of presentations for teens or workshops for teens that had to do have the requirement for graduation. All of the PUSD schools do and possibly some of the private schools. We even use it for training as well. We put training videos online and we can yeah. Very extensive, awesome product that we like to use. I just have 1 question and might get into discussion. I’m just curious why the teen programs went so down. Like, it was 47 in 2022 and 23 in the in the data we got in the That’s a great question. I think it came up we used this data for our prior presentation, and that same question came up. And I think it was how, and, Jeff, please correct me if I’m wrong. I have some recollection, and we can get you a more definitive answer. There was a change in the how we measured the the age groups. So what the library does is we report information to the state every year. So they give us categories, and we are trying to track all our stats based on the categories for the state report. It just makes it a lot easier. So I think there was something to do with that and possibly that we didn’t measure teens in in that period in the same way. Is that Or did you measure them in all programs? Grama that We could have done that. They could have been but we can get you a a a more accurate answer on that. 1 of your slides described interactive programs for youth as something people wanted. What does that mean exactly? So I would consider that a program I would consider that a story time program, but I would also consider it, like, our robotics and coding programs for kids, any art and craft program, anything that they’re participating in instead of just sitting and listening is how I would Okay. Like, not passive, I’m assuming. Even in the library world, I guess you could a a passive program could still be interactive and participatory. Passive would be more of, on your own versus a staff led grama, generally. And 1 of your slides mentioned community partnerships. Do we have any community partnerships with the library? We do through our, Value Humane Society with Paws to Read. It would be 1 of the biggest ones I can think of. School district. School district. Yes. Yes. That could definitely be a community partnership. I think we often refer to it as a district partnership, but it’s it is still a community partnership. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Are we exploring the report further than or is this our discussion area? Oh, we are. Yes. I think we were trying to segment, we have, actually some questions we’d love for you to consider. Okay. You don’t need to respond to them all, but just, you know, kind of to kick off the discussion, but you’re, of course, welcome to discuss anything of interest. So I’ll pass it back to Jeff for that. Excellent. So we’re ready, moving on to our discussion. Using the perspective of your connections in the community and your personal experience, we would like you to input on the following. Do the planned program areas reflect the needs of our community? Are there emerging trends or community interests we should consider for future programming? And finally, what additional information would help you support outreach? And again, I’m more than happy to slide back to different slides here as needed. I guess 1 of the questions, and I’m not sure, you might have included it in the teen programs, but I know that in the past year or so, we had, the finance. We we sort of had a couple of presentations for teens or workshops for teens that had to do with budget and managing money and learning a little bit more. And I know that I I remember they were fairly popular. I mean, there’s always been the the stock game, which is, you know, kind of interesting. It’s certainly a learning opportunity, but it seems like there’s a vast number of teens, a larger number of teens who could benefit from the the other, like, budget 1 0 1 workshop that I think that we did. And I I didn’t I wasn’t sure if that was still in here. I didn’t see it called out. But it seems to me that increasingly, that’s still an important factor. I mean, I hear more and more that that kids are coming out at coming out of college and just having absolutely no idea how to how to deal with their money. Yes. So, I know we have done programs in the past. We do also have digital resources. Our wife’s financial ratings and reports has actually a lot of PDFs online that kind of talk about finance 1 0 1. But again, yeah, for a programming, perspective, yes, I think I think the future ultimate goal would be to to have those and to continue to have those. Yeah. Yeah. I think that having them as a group, I mean, it’s it’s great to have online resources, but we all have that. I mean, we all have that at home. But I think to have the the opportunity to have community among that age group is huge. And the fact that the ability to sort of see the fact that other people need to know the same thing. I mean, it’s 1 thing if you’re at home and you don’t know and then you’re kind of alone. But it’s another thing if you’re in a group, and you have some community and you all say, well, gee, I really don’t know anything about this. You know, how can I get the help? I think there’s a there’s a hand holding element to that that’s valuable. It’s part of why we see so many teens in the library, like, after school and, you know, sharing about their homework and everything because it’s community. So I I would encourage us to think about, you know, continuing to do that sort of, you know, that sort of, project. Is this the adulting? Was it, like, adulting? I think it was adulting 1 0 1. Yeah. I think it was something like that....
