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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-20-2026-BLT-PUBLIC COMMENTS January 20, 2026, BLT Agenda Item Comments These comments on Newport Beach Board of Library Trustees agenda items are submitted by: Jim Mosher Item No. 1. Minutes of the Nov 17, 2025 Board of Library Trustees Meeting The draft minutes appear to have been carefully reviewed. I have no corrections to suggest. Item No. 2. Patron Comments Is the response to December Comment 4 (agenda packet page 10) correct? It says an item on hold can be picked up by a person other than the requestor, but only if the other person uses their own card. I would have thought it would have to be checked out using the card used to place the hold. The response makes it sound like a random cardholder can check out anything on hold. Item No. 4. Board of Library Trustees Monitoring List Based on the November 17, 2025, minutes (Item 1, above), shouldn’t the “Feb 17, 2026” date should be “Feb 23, 2026”? Item No. 5. NBPL eBranch, Database, and Downloadable Services Update I appreciate and use the eBranch databases. That said, I think some improvement is possible in the usefulness of the Local Newspaper Historical Records database, which provides searchable online access to NBPL’s microfilm collection. At present, there are two problems with the search capability, which is the key to its usefulness. The first, is that the optical character recognition of the page images is very imperfect, so that words appearing in the source material are frequently missed because they were mis-recognized (garbled in unpredictable ways). That may not be easily fixed, but from time to time it would seem useful to check if technology has improved to where it would be useful to redo the recognition with a new product. The second, and I would think much more easily solved problem, is that the search capability provided to users is frustratingly limited compared to that provided for other non-NBPL document collections in the City’s same Laserfiche system (which it confusingly provides access to, but under a NBPL logo and with a similarly limited an obscure search capability). At present, one only seems to be able to search the entire database for a word, which can return thousands of hints. Even more frustratingly, if one initiates a follow-up search using the same input box, instead of looking within the previous results, it searches the City’s entire Laserfiche system. At a minimum, users should be able to specify the range of dates or publications they want to search within, and there should be a help window explaining how to operate the searches. Ideally, there would be flexible options to search for specified combinations of words or phrases, including wildcards. January 20, 2026, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 3 Item No. 6. Annual Budget - Preliminary Review Although only tangentially relevant to this item, the Trustees may wish to know the City is undergoing a restructuring of its internal departments. Although it is created by City Charter Section 605, the former “Finance Department,” which processes that budget requests, seems to have been demoted to a “division” within a larger “Administrative Services Department,” which has absorbed the former finance functions as well as the personnel functions (including Library staff hiring) formerly handled by the Human Resources Department (which no longer exists). The Trustees should also be aware that we have a new City Manager whose attitude toward requests for budget increases, and justifications for them, may differ from the former City Manager (who had indicated line item overruns in the budget for the prior year were a prime indicator of a need for an increase in that line item in the coming year). The Trustees should also be aware that the City’s budget is always designed to end the year with a sizable surplus of revenues over expenditures, which the Council then has to decide between using to fund enhanced services or for other functions, such as paying down retirement debt. As to Library staff’s proposed budget, it is good to see the recommendation for increases in several line items1 in anticipation of increasing costs. It is especially good to see the request for a $50,000 increase in the “Materials” budget (which had remained static for many years). However, it is a bit curious this seems to be based entirely on observed and anticipated increases in the cost of online services. What has been the trend in the cost of the physical objects that I presume continue to constitute the bulk of the “Materials” budget? I am also a bit puzzled by the explanation of the $45,000 “Programming” increase requested to pay for a concert by the Pacific Symphony. As I understand it, the City Arts Commission was hoping the Newport Beach Arts Foundation would provide the funding for this. But such gifts are not usually anticipated in the budget, and, instead, handled as a budget amendment when and if they are received (see, for example, the “$0” of anticipated NBPLF and Friends revenue on agenda packet page 21). Is the inclusion of this expense in the initial budget intended as a request for the Council to fund the concert out of the General Fund if the Arts Foundation gift doesn’t come through? Finally, I don’t know if the Trustees were previously made aware of the termination of Notary Services that is disclosed in a footnote to agenda packet page 21. This was for many years a service provided (more logically) by the City Clerk, rather than by Library staff. Has the service gone back to the Clerk’s Office? Or does the City no longer provide it at all? Item No. 7. Acceptance of Donations from the Library Foundation The staff report indicates this is a single donation of $5,000, which seems unusually small if that were to be the Foundation’s only support for the year. Is this something from an individual donor who requested it be directed to “materials”? Or part of a larger campaign? If it is the pass-through of something from an individual donor, did they ask that their identity not be disclosed? 1 What look like line items in the staff report are a consolidation of the more detailed line items that appear in the actual City budget presented for approval by the Council. The latter breaks down the expenses by the various branches and administrative divisions within the department, and in more detail within the divisions. January 20, 2026, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 3 Item No. 8. Library Activities The December report includes a helpful “2025 Year in Review.” As might be expected it highlights positive accomplishments, which is fine. But one might ask: Were there any disappointments or needs for improvement that became evident in 2025? If there were, it would seem the Trustees should know. Item No. 9. Library Foundation Liaison Reports My understanding is the Library Foundation’s founding documents described its mission as being confined to raising money to support the Newport Beach Public Library. If that is true, I am a little troubled by the recent rebranding, which seems to change the focus from being a foundation that supports the “Newport Beach Public Library,” to being a generic “Library Foundation” that simply happens to be based in the City of Newport Beach. In other words, it could be raising money to support library-like functions of its own or of other libraries, independent of and unrelated to the NBPL. It could even mean it exists to correct deficiencies in the services provided by the City. At least for me, the “beyond books” in the logo’s tagline only reinforces that impression. If true, I really have to wonder if this is consistent with the existing Articles of Incorporation dated January 13, 2000, found in the Trustees’ Handbook. While those Articles do include a provision that funds raised can be used for “capital expenditures” and “community programs,” the clear implication is that would be confined to funding the capital expenditures of the Library and community programs hosted by the Library. Are those the incorrect Articles?