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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-21-2025-BLT-PUBLIC COMMENTS January 21, 2025, 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 18, 2024, Board of Library Trustees Meeting The passages in italics are from the draft minutes, with corrections suggested in strikeout underline format. Page 1 (page 5 of agenda packet), Item II. ROLL CALL, last line: ”Staff Absent: Annika Helmuth, Branch and Youth Services Coordinator” Comment: I am puzzled why this line was included, since most of the library staff is absent from most BLT meetings. Isn’t the assumption that any staff members not listed as “present” were not at the meeting? Why is Annika’s absence being singled out for mention? While she was the author of one of the sections of the Library Activities report included in the agenda packet, I would not have thought that would have created an expectation she would attend the meeting. Page 3 (page 7 of agenda packet), line 2 from top: “it has warm pictures and is a heartfelt story about a grandfather who has a very loving relationship” Page 8 (page 12 of agenda packet), Item XI, paragraph 1: “Jim Mosher, Newport Beach Resident, commented that on Handwritten page 26, the January meeting anticipated a day late could be rescheduled to January 24 as the circulation policy reviewed in January 2023 is on track to be reviewed again at the January 2025 meeting, as the state law goes into effect on January first. Under the new policy they will be receiving Director determination reports as an Agenda Item in the consent calendar to be received and filed, which could inhibit the appeal process as members of the public don’t call consent items up for review, only Board Trustees. That can appeal the determinations, but a mechanism for the Trustees to call them up for review is currently absent in the Collection Development Policy which is not due to be reviewed until 2026. The Board may want to review it sooner.” Comment: The first sentence above probably reflects the close to unintelligible initial comments I made, in which to introduce a possible defect in the Collection Development Policy, I inadvertently read (and may have misread) the line from the Monitoring List referring to the Circulation Policy. That said, I do believe I correctly stated the remaining part, as edited above, to the effect that under the Collection Development Policy, the presentation of Directors Decisions on the Board’s consent calendar allows members of the public to appeal those decisions to the Board, but does not allow the Board members to, themselves, call them up for review. As the minutes reflect, Trustee Kramer indicated calls for review were not included because “there had been case law that states you can’t be a judge in your own appeal.” I suspect she was referring to Woody's Group, Inc. v. City of Newport Beach, 233 Cal. App. 4th 1012 from 2015, in which a court overturned our City Council’s decision on an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of a permit, where the appeal to the Council had January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 7 been filed by one of the Council members who heard the appeal. The second paragraph of the opinion says “First basic principle: You cannot be a judge in your own case.” As one can see from Item 20 from the April 14, 2015, Council agenda, most of the “call for review” language currently found in the City’s Municipal Code1 was actually added to the code, starting with Ordinances No. 2015-8 and 2015-9, in response to that court decision, and has been regarded as consistent with it. The defects claimed to have been corrected by adding the call for review process included: (1) In the Woody's Group case, the filing of the appeal identified the Council member as an “interested party,” which should have required recusal, but the member did not recuse himself; (2) the code required payment of fee to file an appeal, but the member did not pay it; and (3) the member showed extreme bias by, as the appellant, leading the argument against the permit and ending the hearing with a statement of conclusions prepared prior to the hearing. In place of requiring one of the reviewing body’s members to assume an advocate’s role, the filing of a call for review is regarded as part of the oversight function vested in the body. So rather than being a judge in “their own” case, they are asking to exercise their right to be a judge in someone else’s case. It is akin to the Supreme Court deciding what cases it will hear, out of the many appealed to it. It seems improbable the justices would bother to hear a case unless at least some of them2 suspected the lower court may have reached the wrong conclusion. Nonetheless, they are presumed able to consider independently, and impartially, the arguments presented for and against the decision, with a possibly different conclusion.. Two important procedural distinctions between appeals and calls for review claimed to make this possible are that: (1) the appeal form requires the appellant to state the grounds for appeal, while the call for review form does not, and (2) a fee is charged for an appeal (generally refundable if the appeal is successful),3 it being seen as a special, and potentially unnecessary, burden placed on staff by the appellant, while no fee is charged for a call for review, it being seen as a necessary part of Commissioners’ / Council members’ oversight duty. The reason it is important to have a call for review mechanism in the context of the Library Director’s Decisions is that the patron filing a Request for Evaluation will be aware of the decision, and if it is unfavorable to them, will likely appeal it to the Board. However, if the decision is favorable to the patron, since most patrons don’t read the BLT agenda packets, few people other than the Trustees will be aware a decision was made, and the Trustees 3 I do not believe NBPL charges for either evaluations or appeals. 2 For the California Supreme Court, it actually takes a majority of the justices (4 or more of the 7) to hear a case, suggesting they go into the hearing with a majority suspecting the lower court’s decision may have been wrong. 1 As examples of the added procedures, NBMC Chapter 20.64 allows Planning Commissioners to call for review decisions of the Planning Director and Zoning Administrator, and City Council members to call for review decisions by the Planning Commission.NBMC Chapter 17.65 allows Harbor Commissioners to call for review decisions on Harbor Code (Title 17) matters by the Harbor Master, Community Development Director or Public Works Director. Many similar opportunities for appeal bodies to file calls for review are sprinkled throughout other sections of the code where an appeal is possible. January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 7 are powerless to ask to review the decision even if they suspect some of those other patrons would disagree with it. That is, for the Trustees to review a result favorable to a patron objecting to a book, some other patron would first have to see the decision presented on the BLT consent calendar, and then have enough interest in the matter to file an appeal to the Trustees. Hence, without the possibility of a call for review by the Trustees themselves, there is a strong bias in favor of the patron seeking to move or remove a book to get their way, since the patron objecting to a book gets two chances to achieve the result they want (first from the Director, and, if that fails, from the Trustees), while those who might object to that result will likely not even know any decisions have been made. And given the finality of the decisions, by the time their favorite book disappears, there is nothing they can do about it. Finally, in the draft minutes passage quoted above, the “state law” referred to in my comment is 2024’s Assembly Bill No. 1825, which requires our Collection Development Policy to be submitted to the State Librarian by the end of this year for review as to the policy’s consistency with requirements set forth in that bill. Item No. 5. Internet Use Policy (NBPL 5) General Comments I’m not sure staff’s review of this policy was as thorough as it might have been. It seems important to realize that the Board has a separate Wireless Internet policy, NBPL 11 (being reviewed, separately, as Item 6 on the current agenda), which states that those accessing the internet on their own devices, but via NBPL’s wireless routers, are subject to the rules of both NBPL 11 and NBPL 5. But many of the statements in NBPL 5 appear to apply only to internet use through NBPL-owned devices (such as the public workstations, NBPL laptops and the media labs) and not to personal devices using the wireless connection. This confusion makes commenting on NBPL 5 particularly challenging. It seems likely that NBPL 5 should reference NBPL 11 and vice versa, or that the two should be combined into a single policy. It might also be noted that many of the NBPL Policies (see, for example, agenda Items 6 and 7) are presented in a format with the body consisting of numbered, or lettered and numbered, paragraphs, while others, like the present one, have no numbers or letters. If, as the staff report suggests, it is important to get the lists of amendments sections at the ends of the policies into a uniform format, wouldn’t it be equally desirable to try to put the bodies of the policies in a uniform (numbered) format? Specific Comments Paragraph 1, sentence 1: The opening sentence implies “internet” and “World Wide Web” are the same. But use of the World Wide Web, accessed through web browsers, is just one of the January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 7 functions made possible by a worldwide network of internet-connected computers.4 It would be more accurate to say something like: “The Newport Beach Public Library (“Library”) information resources include access to the internet, including the World Wide Web.” Paragraph 1, sentence 3: It is unclear why this sentence includes the modifier “serious.” Isn’t it part of NBPL’s mission to provide access to “unserious” (for example, humorous) recreational material as well as “serious” material? I would suggest deleting “serious.” Paragraph 2, sentence 1: The statement that “Use of the Library’s internet requires a Library card number” was once true. But to the best of my knowledge, access with personal devices via NBPL’s wireless routers no longer requires a library card or number, as there is no longer a log in required. Is it the Board’s intent that persons using the wireless connection without a card are violating library policy? Paragraph 2, sentence 2: This sentence contains a single quotation mark, even though English grammar requires them to appear in pairs. I believe the missing quotation mark was intended to appear just before the word “computer,” to produce the quoted expression “computer use only". Paragraph 2, sentences 2-4: The distinction between “computer use only" cards and “guest passes” remains unclear from the policy. I believe the former may refer to a permanent, physical card given to the requestor, while the latter is a slip of paper containing a password for one-time use. But the wording implies a “guest pass” is harder to obtain than a more permanent “computer use only card,” since obtaining the “guest pass” is said to require the patron to be 18 or older. Is this correct? It seems a strange policy to have. It might be useful to include a cross-reference to NBPL 12 (the Circulation Policy, see Item 7 on the current agenda), which more fully explains the “computer use only" card and appears to impose on it a parental consent requirement for patrons under the age of 18. Paragraph 4, sentence 1: Is NBPL’s wireless service filtered differently than the connection to NBPL-owned devices? If that is true, should it be explained here? Paragraph 4, sentence 3: This differs from my understanding of library policy. I thought adult patrons could ask a librarian to temporarily remove the blocking so they could view any legal site. But the policy now says NBPL will remove the blocking only to allow viewing of sites that are both legal and “not harmful to minors,” even if the patron is an adult. Is that correct? The policy also fails to distinguish between what seem to be two distinctly different situations: (1) requesting the correction of an error in the filtering software (i.e., fixing an incorrectly blocked 4 For example, library patrons can send or receive email using dedicated, internet-enabled applications that do not rely on the World Wide Web. January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 7 site),5 and (2) requesting the temporary unblocking of a correctly-blocked site, for the requestor’s temporary and exclusive viewing. Paragraph 5, sentence 2: This warns about copyright protections. NBPL 11 contains a more extended discussion of this issue in connection with wireless users, which presumably applies equally to use of the wired public workstations and other devices. That seems additional reason for combining the policies. Paragraphs 6-7: The phrase “parents, guardians, and caregivers” appears five times in two paragraphs. It would seem possible to make those paragraphs more concise either through more artful wording, or by defining a single word to stand for the phrase. For example, at its first appearance it could say “parents, guardians, and caregivers (“caregivers”).” Paragraph 7: Has staff verified that the two web links provided are still the ones that provide the best information to guide children, and their parents, in safe use of the internet? Item No. 6. Rules for Acceptable Use of Wireless Internet Connections (NBPL 11) General Comments See my comments regarding agenda Item 5, above. This policy references that policy and it seems like it should be combined with it to remove inconsistencies between the two. For example, as previously noted, numbered paragraph 1 of NBPL 11 requires compliance with NBPL 5, but NBPL 5 prohibits use of the NBPL internet without a library card. As a result, this policy seems to say anyone caught using the NBPL WiFi connection without a library card could be prosecuted – which I do not believe is the intended policy. Specific Comments Unnumbered opening paragraph: This sentence seems to be missing a word: “Regardless of whether the Wi-Fi source originates from the Library premises or outside the Library, patrons are subject to the library's Internet Use Policy.” As I understand it, this is saying the policy applies to library patrons (i.e., people on NBPL property) even if they are using an outside, non-NBPL WiFi connection. Is that correct? Probably more importantly, shouldn’t the policy also apply to anyone using the NBPL WiFi, even if the person is not using it on NBPL property? 5 I recently had an interesting experience of this sort in attempting to follow, through one of the public workstations, a link to another city’s general plan. The filtering software announced the site was blocked because it was pornographic, but it offered an opportunity to challenge that classification via an online form. I submitted the form and the site was unblocked within a few minutes. But this did not involve speaking to a librarian, and my impression is I was communicating with the filtering software vendor rather than NBPL staff. So, this seems something different from the “Library staff shall respond to requests regarding the filtering software promptly” referred to in NBPL 5 – which I am guessing relates to requests by adults to temporarily view a blocked site without challenging or seeking to change its classification as potentially harmful to minors. January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 6 of 7 Numbered paragraph 2: How can this be binding on patrons who may be unaware of the policy? That is, when and how do “users expressly agree” to follow NBPL 11? Notice: Warning of Copyright Restrictions: This seems like it is equally relevant to NBPL 5, and should perhaps appear there rather than in this policy. Wherever it goes, I do not understand sentence 2: “The Library reserves the right to delete or disable any post or link that, in the judgment of Library staff, violates copyright law.” Where does NBPL staff expect these posts or links to be, and how would NBPL staff be able to delete them? Amendments list: I believe this list consists of administrative notations and would not normally be thought of as part of the policy approved by the Board. As a result, assuming the Board accepts staff’s recommendation to make no changes to the body of the policy, it seems erroneous to add the notation “Amended – January 21, 2025”: as indicated in the final notation, the policy would have been reviewed on that date, but no amendments to the policy would have been made. Item No. 7. Circulation Policy (NBPL 12) Section 1.0 Library Patron Cards: Considering the policy consists of numbered paragraphs, it is unclear why the first two sentences appear in a paragraph without numbers. They also appear to state two conditions intended to be applicable to the issuance of all cards, not just “individual Library patron cards,” although that is not clearly stated. They also do not indicate what cards are available free of charge. And finally the issuance of cards to Newport Beach residents does not seem to need to be separately stated, since it is included in paragraph 1.02. I would suggest deleting the unnumbered paragraph and beginning with: “1.0 Library Patron Cards Individual Library patron cards are issued to all residents of Newport Beach upon presentation of proper identification. All applicants under the age of 18 will be required to have a parent/guardian signature to obtain a library card. 1.01 Issuance of all cards requires proof of identity and for applicants under the age of 18, the signature of a parent or guardian. All cards are issued without charge unless otherwise indicated. 1.012 Under the State Universal Borrowing Agreement (California Education Code § 18731), individual Library patron cards will be issued to persons who do not reside in Newport Beach, but who are residents of the State of California, utilizing the same criteria as above. 1.023 A family borrower's card will be issued to a non-California resident upon payment of a $10.00 annual fee. 1.034 A replacement for a lost card will be issued upon proof of identification. 1.045 A “computer use only” Library card with no material borrowing privileges may be issued to any persons who wishes only to use the Library’s public computer workstations and on-line databases. Proof of identification is necessary. January 21, 2025, BLT agenda item comments - Jim Mosher Page 7 of 7 1.056 Lifetime cards may be issued at the discretion of the Board of Library Trustees.” Section 3.0 Loan Periods: The statement in the second sentence of the unnumbered opening paragraph (that “Eligible items will automatically renew for four additional loan periods if the item has not been reserved”) is of limited use since there is no indication of what items are “eligible.” If it means all items that say they may be renewed four times will attempt to do so automatically, it should say so. But what, then, about circulating Periodicals, which it says may be renewed two times, and laptops, which can apparently be renewed without limit. Are those renewals also attempted automatically? Or is manual renewal required for those? Sections 3.06, 3.07, 3.11 and 3.12: These do not say if any renewal is possible. Section 4.01: Why the vague reference to fines? Shouldn’t it say the fine schedule is set forth in Section 9.0? Section 5.0 (Library Privileges): The inclusion of “may” twice in the opening paragraph makes the policy unnecessarily vague. I would suggest: “The Library reserves the right to refuse borrowing privileges to patrons who abuse Library privileges. Such, including patrons may be identified as deemed delinquent. Delinquent may be defined by for any of the following circumstances:” Section 8.01 (Fees for Use): Why the vague reference to a fee set by the Trustees? Why not refer readers to Section 9.0 where the fee adopted by the Trustees is stated? Section 8.03 (“A fee is charged for Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service”): The Orange County Public Library system provides the same service at no cost other than possible pass-through of charges imposed by the lending library, which patrons will be asked to approve before the transaction is completed. NBPL’s $5.00 per item fee (per Section 9.04), charged even if a request is not fulfilled, seems out of line. Additionally, the NBPL ILL webpage is unclear as to whether in addition to the $5.00, NBPL will pass through costs imposed by the lending institution or absorb them. Amendments list: As with the previous item, assuming the Board accepts staff’s recommendation to make no changes to the body of the policy, adding the notation “Amended – January 21, 2025” would appear to be erroneous. Item No. 8. NBPL eBranch, Database, and Downloadable Services Update The report regarding databases is extremely brief, and, curiously, databases are not included in the table of eBranch offerings shown on page 54 of the agenda packet.