WLFFTA Meeting Minutes

2021 Minutes

Friday, May 7, 2021 | Virtual

9-10:30 a.m.

Attendees: State Librarian Sara Jones, Angi Anderson, Diane Huckabay, Karen Buxton, Craig Seasholes, Shawn Schollmeyer

Sara described her experience as director of three public libraries and state librarian in Nevada. Her most recent work in California allowed her to work with library commissioners. She described her interest in working with trustees, friends and advocates as the unsung heroes of libraries. Her vision of the state library is to increase awareness of services and make libraries more flexible in response to providing services across the state.
Craig has been working in school libraries in the Seattle area for many years and will be joining the Friends group in Winthrop and North Central Libraries this year.
Karen has worked in academic and corporate libraries and is now a trustee at the Richland Public Library. She is interested in helping their library with a new strategic plan.
Diane is a librarian at the Brooks Library at the Central Washington University. She has been an Ellensburg Public Library board member for over ten years.
Angi is a member of the academic library staff at Seattle Colleges and a WLS member of College Libraries Across Washington State (CLAWS)

Shawn described the removal of expired content and updates to the Meeting Notices and Resources tabs.
Craig suggested some updates to the Resource page might include an inventory or examples of successful Friends’ websites and commented on the links to the Library Legislative Fact Sheets.

Shawn mentioned that updates to the WLFFTA Charter is still needed and made an open invitation for assistance in making the charter relevant and more inclusive for 2021.
Shawn also invited WLFFTA members to assist with future meetings & board positions to bring relevance into the current group activities.

Shawn described the current WLA session proposal submitted last Wednesday to create a panel of 4-5 panelists from all types of library support groups including a trustee, friend, board member and library staff member to discuss their successes in recruitment, diversity and digital equity at their local libraries.

Shawn invited ideas for other presentations outside of the conference relevant to library advocates.
Sara mentioned inviting a local, state or national speaker, such as a legislator or Senator Patty Murray for example. Another possible topic could be ways to raise funds and implement EDI opportunities around the Build America’s Libraries Act.
Craig agreed it would be a good way to magnify voices of communities with small and rural libraries.
Sara acknowledged that EDI should always be a lens to filter all our activities through. Don’t do an activity without thinking about EDI as an important part of our services.
Angi expressed her appreciation for Sara’s approach to EDI. Agreement was echoed among the group.
Karen asked to learn about what other groups are doing. She found ALA’s United for Libraries (ala.org/united) useful and would like to see similar Washington resources. Her local library was just starting to have a joint library trustee, friends & board gathering just before the pandemic started.
Craig suggested an asynchronous forum to create a safe space for discussion, short videos and ideas on how local libraries were able to meet challenges with topics such as EDI and allow brief answers from participants.
Other topics proposed by Shawn were:

Diane asked about some additional resources and if it was OK to invite other trustees and board members to future WLFFTA meetings.
Shawn will confirm with WLA, but would like to see guests at future meetings and invite the guests to become future WLA members.
Shawn & Diane discussed the WSL grants page and where the ARPA funding information will appear.