Let's go ahead and pause the meeting to order. And in terms of the previous minutes, Tracy, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to sign tonight, obviously, but anyone see any corrections for the previous three minutes or anyone like to make a motion to approve? I'll have to know if we're good and second that. And hopefully I'll be able to be in person at the next meeting. So I can sign for December, February. Any members from the public? I don't think so, but since I'm not there, I might be able to see someone. Any members from the public who would like to be speak at this point? There's no one here. Thanks. Wait, and do you remember who signed up for the monthly? I speak at Rihanna, is that you? Yeah, if it was. So for this one, if folks could share their favorite movie or a CD or kind of on something other than a book that you found in the library. And so I'll just go ahead and start for a movie. I found Pantiki, which is about just based on a true story where someone was trying to prove that it was possible for the population of the Polynesian Islands for them to have sailed there. And so he built a crowd to prove that it was possible. And so the whole movie is like his degree to prove everybody wrong. Okay, I'll turn to the next. This is not media, but I originally did not even have to speak it, but I still enjoyed seeing packets from the library in the past and look forward to checking those out this year. So I just now realized that kind of some classic musicals are not necessarily in the children's section. I kind of assumed that if it was rated G, it would be in the kids' section, and that's not the case. And so like Sound of Music, Annie, Newsy's, they're upstairs and our family recently discovered that. And we watched Annie recently. I'm a group, I'm the one here. Kind of, okay. So I don't know that I have a specific single DVD, but it was 2003, 2004, somewhere in there. And I was living on my own in this tiny, no way could have been legal, like trailer apartment kind of shadow was in New York state. And I was working at the Valley Cottage Library and I was new to that library, which was not humongous library, but very beloved by the community. And they had an amazing, amazingly curated DVD collection. And in particular, their foreign films, some title, just all over the place. And as I worked there, I got to know that the woman who was in charge of developing that collection that surprised she was super passionate about foreign films. So while I was living by myself with nothing going on in the woods, I would come home from work with like a stack of DVDs and I would just watch all of these foreign films. So that still sticks out to me all these years later as some kind of cultural education that I had that year that I was there, getting to discover all of these things from outside the United States that I know I never would have heard that otherwise. That was cool. Name of it. So one that I found was Kiss the Ground. It is a documentary, narrated by Woody Harrelson and our library has it.  And so the carbon, it's not supposed to be up in the air, it's essentially supposed to be in the ground. So carbon, yes, it is good when it's in the soil. And so how, you go back in this three to the dust bowl and how these mass agriculture, it's really destroying our planes and our natural, healthy soil. And so how we can reverse that. It was really interesting. And I think as we look at council priorities and what we can do at the local level, considering Longwood has a history of agriculture and farming that just kind of tied it in. So I was fascinated by that. So that was good. I think it's specific, but it was sort of a book but also sort of not the wonder books that are new to our community question which other libraries have. I do so with my daughter and they're very, very fascinating because it's kind of like a real long story, the actual like device that reads the stories in the book. So you can kind of listen along and actually read the book along with the audio. So it's been kind of an interesting experience because I grew up with the CDs where you would listen to the book on a CD with the actual physical book as well. So this is kind of a new modernization of that. And it's really interesting to kind of have that as an option for books that are called wonder books. Wonder books, okay. Yeah, and so last, I'll just say wonder books, it's a newer thing that we've started to receive within the last year. Can you sell them down? Yeah. No? You know, they're certainly not the cheapest item because it's technology built with the book that they're really, really popular. And then Cynthia, just since you met, I think you were saying that mentioned the C Library, right? Anyway, I just want to mention we had our kickoff on Sunday for the free C packet stuff. And I had over 400 people here on Sunday. It just gets bigger and bigger. And I have to acknowledge that that's in a large part funded by the Friends of the Library, like many things here. But that's a huge thing that we couldn't do without them. And we have some sponsors to do around that are contributing free things to that program. So after all those plugs and everything. Boy, this one, this was easy for me. A friend of mine years ago, or a colleague, I should say, when I lived in Northern California, told me about a movie she loved. It's called The Red Violin. I don't know if anyone's heard of this. And so I borrowed it from the library and she was just fascinated with it. When she told me about it, it was actually a theater, but I didn't see it then, I waited. So it's really worth finding if you haven't watched it. It's truly the story of this violin. It's like that through the violin's life and its experience with all these people through history. And then it bounces back between the violins, when it's built by this Italian violin maker and there's a lot of it, I should say I'll give away the story, but it's like, and then it bounces to current times where it's being auctioned. And so you hear integrated all these stories. Is there a various? Yes, yeah. Yeah, I saw that movie long ago. Yeah, because it's from the early 2000s, for sure. Oh, it's just such a good story. It still ranks as one of my favorite films to watch.  Not so much. Well, that's the story. Anyway, I was last. Move on. Samuel Jackson. And Samuel Jackson, he plays the auctioneer in current time, which was an interesting casting thing. And so you get a little of Samuel Jackson-esque things here and there, you know, this is not taking anything from anybody. But it's really, but he's also very different. If he didn't have anything he's done, he would never be shooting in this role. You're wrong. That's a great question. Thanks for asking that one. I just took and tried to take it on some of these. Okay, I'm gonna be going to do the next one. It's been a while. I'd like to continue to keep this as an agenda item, if anyone has different thoughts. I know it does take a little time, but it's lovely to get to know everyone in this manner as well. Let's move on now to our more serious business. I picked the budget process update under new business and I hope to bring this up under old business in the next few months. Just asking for an update. I know the process, my understanding of the process will start pretty soon. And my hope is that this board will have a strong understanding of what's being requested this year. So we can, our role as an advisory board, really communicate to council, what we agree with the priorities and hopefully we'll be able to learn more about that when we talk about it every month. So John, you wanna share us a little bit about the timing in any particulars? Yeah, so, well the timing, I mean, this will be my second year at it. I think for us staff, we start talking about it and getting the system probably in March, so pretty soon. And there's a whole timeline and as we get closer, I'll share that. So this board knows of deadlines and things coming up, but outside of that, what I can share you with you, given where this library is between the election and then my budget requests effectively, none of them getting filled at all. So my intention this year is really to put the exact same budget requests back in. There was a lot there and I'll be sure to update this board with the report, remind this board, I guess, because I did share last year of what that was. You know, there's a whole slew of budget requests, between personnel, a high priority supporting outreach with staffing and funding to support that department, which is now in still a department of one with no budget, except for the person working. And then other increases would be to collections across the board, both physical and digital, pretty substantial increase there, if I remember right, to help us be able to add, not just physical, but also digital collections to really meet a population of the size and offerings that we should be providing. You know, and then a number of things throughout, which I'll get into more detail with this board next time. There was one component of the budget request cycle last year that I put in, which was to add like a, it was in addition to what the election would have funded, which was a full-blown branch library, but I also added to my budget request, if you might remember, basically like a storefront type of a branch. This year I will likely leave that out. That was fairly intentional last year, given everything going on, but this year I need to focus on just the funding of the library and not really trying to add things like that. At least that's where I stand right now. Outside of that, it'll pretty much be the same request, which was amounted to somewhere in the $700 or $800,000 of budget increase to this current budget. Well, thanks, John. I didn't expect there to be too much on this meeting. Just wanted to start the conversation. And I think that we can also discuss in the next two meetings, that Suzy will leave on your guidance as well. Help us to communicate some of this to Council if they want to try to appear in the meeting we've emailed in the past. So I think we can craft some of that going forward. I don't have anything else on this agenda I don't know for right now. Does anyone have any questions or comments? No, we will dive more deeply next time. Jamie, go for it. I have a question. It does not have to be answered right now, but it's more of a can we think about it, which is, is there any sense to the strategy of sort of narrowing down the budget items that we approach Council with to those things that are essential and operational and having the items that we've definitely benefits for you to be able to case for meeting, but they're not strictly operational. They are like, well, we're expanding because when I hear you say that let's hold off on the storefront. My immediate thought was just like, I think that's good because the more that we can encourage or persuade Council to see Longmont City's role as really funded populations in your day-to-day. Let's get there first because that would then create an opportunity for volunteer groups, such as the friends, to start to move the way toward focusing on advancing the mission and expanding. And so it's just a baby step toward starting to separate those functions into what I will humbly say where they're right from this. I mean, I can address that in part. I think you're right, the storefront, I think that'll clog things up like in the sense of what are my core operational needs. As I'm trying to visualize the budget requests I have from last year to this year now, that's the only thing out there that I can say is not critical operational control or everything else in there in the screen of my mind. That's not to say it couldn't still be prioritized. And I did that when the results of the election came in and I went and talked to the city manager about all my budget requests, what if anything can I get, and the answer was zero. But I went in there prioritizing even within that, figuring and so the higher prioritization in there was certainly personnel costs to help staff things that we need, which is always the most expensive. Then it went down. But if I think of it as the bigger picture, it's all there. I mean, we need some more staff, we need to spend more on collections. We definitely need a programming budget. We've talked about that here before. That's a core service anymore, just like collections, it's been a long time. That we don't have that. So it would be hard to start outside of the satellite branch where you're gonna call it. Everything else left is pretty much false within what you just said in my mind. Yeah. It's not that you would change necessarily what you were going to do. It's how you talk about it. It's the language that you use that you could authentically or one could authentically represent that list as core needs. Operational needs, like this before anything else. And there's a lot of else that we would really like to have. Yeah, that's all. Understood, I agree. Okay. Thanks, Jamie and John for that clarification and content tax. I think that's a good point that I was given how we communicate to the council. And especially, you know, besides the programming is a core component that's not being funded currently. So let's continue the conversation on that as well. Any other comments or questions right now? Let's move off the budget. So, I mean, sorry, this is Mary. And by the way, we could have a number of public meetings, a little believably and unexpectedly. Well, she's not allowed to comment on this point where we asked them. That's fine. I'll just see what you can do. I'll let her do it. Well, like I said, this is really an introduction. We'll bring it up next month. For old business, the first two items are really just updates that came from the action item report. So I didn't put that as an agenda item. I just thought we could maybe discuss a few. If there are other updates from that, please feel free to join in. But these were two of the ones that I wanted to touch in on. To ask if there have been any... Last time the conversation was that for state-framed dual card prospects, it pretty much stalled. And so I just wanted to check in to see if there have been any movement. At least from my side now, I mean, I had sent Susie's... the contacts I had had meetings with just in case there was any chance. But yeah, from my standpoint, the last it stood from the district's perspective was going to be difficult because they needed it to be a signature to opt in. And that's how it's been working when they did the testing. They weren't getting enough parents to sign. And so it's... That was the last communication I heard from the district, at least for myself, was they don't see it moving forward unless that changes to other people. That was... That was essentially... I did speak with our city manager because, I mean, this is an intergovernmental agreement. So one of the things... So I have spoken to the district and they told me the same thing. That it was going to be really hard to navigate. You know, I just kept hearing about reasons why it wasn't going to work. But we have signed. I mean, I remember approving that. You know, you have the intergovernmental agreement that is a signed document by both representatives from the city and the school district. So it is a legal binding contract. So, you know, my feeling is we need to, you know, uphold the contract. You know, and looking at the language on there, it's not very specific about that it has to be one way or the other an opt-in or an opt-out. I think, preferentially, we want the opt-out. Is that correct? That's my thought to make it easier. But I'm not a school warden. I'm not a school administrator. And I have noticed that the school district when we do Blue Sky Bridge or GRIP traditionally they had been opt-outs and now it seems the last few years are, you know, under the school district everything is becoming, you have to sign the permission slip. And I think what has happened is that in the opt-out maybe kids aren't giving the parents the paper or something. So they didn't know to even that they could opt-out. So I think that there had been some conflict with that. So that's kind of what was the feedback I was receiving. So, you know, how could we make this functional? How could we make this work? Especially for kids, you know, for me it's an equity issue. For kids who at least have access to books and parents being able to take them to the bookstore or pick up those books that this then provides that gap, that closes that gap for kids who are least able to attain those books or maybe don't have internet at home so they have to come over here for those kinds of issues. I was wondering about that after we last talked about this issue. I don't know if it was last month's meeting or... And it came to me as part of my parenting duties, which is, and I don't know the IT behind it and everything, but what I remember hearing is that part of the lack of enthusiasm around the opt-out was how the system was going to be able to work with the opt-out to mom more easily that it was going to be able to work with... Trying to figure out who signed the information so I have to... Yes, just like how you, I guess, integrate the data. But we have... Our district has a big campus and there are certain forms that are created and housed online and parents are may be reminded and communicated to about completing for various things. And I think that if you could set that up electronically so that the parent-facing piece is you see, opt-in or opt-out, you pick one or the other. And then, basically on the back end, as long as everything else was not done, you can just export that opt-out list and bring it into whatever... I don't know. I don't know if it's cleaner to do it that way or it gives you more options for working with the responses. I mean, on that specifically, that's a school district issue. Yeah. For importing, for the libraries to import the technologies there to import all these student IDs. But basically that has to happen and then they'll know which IDs they can put into basically a file that we take. So once it hits the library, that's been worked out. So you're right. It could be a technology issue that can be handled in a way to make it work better. I really like that platform.  And to your point, Susie, about the, did the parent ever get a thing? Right? I have that happen more than once with my elementary school-aged child. I said, why are we sending papers when we die? Max, can't you put this in new campus and if I forget about it, it sends me a reminder when I see what I want. I forget to send one of the Thursday folders that then become next Monday's folder. Digital signatures aren't relevant. I mean, the other thing too with this is when I was having conversations, because when this started, this was not necessarily age-restricted at all, which is ideal. However, my thought was, we're really trying to get digital access so that they have access to our databases and things like that. And it was the idea of one of the people from the school district that I was working with in this said, well, maybe we should just make this for high school students initially because the school district doesn't place restrictions on content they can access. Or on some level. In comparison. Yes. Whatever that means. Which is great in the sense that because obviously as a public library, we don't restrict access to any content. That's up to the child's So if that's the case and it's only high school, there's at least in my mind and I'm probably over-simplifying this, that makes it a lot cleaner because you don't have to worry about the younger ages and what content they may be able to access because the high school students don't have the same restrictions according to what I was thinking. So I really tried to push that in a sense like that's a great idea and that's who's going to use this stuff the most. Yes. Highly limited. And then the other, all the other students already have access to eBooks through Sora which is the Libby version of for schools and that's already content restricted. That's built into how Sora works. I'm talking about just the library stuff. So I don't know. That's the, there's nothing that's developed as far as I know except for what Susie shares as far as having some conversations. Okay. Well, thanks for having Susie, for those updates. You know, if there is a big Mac, we can read it. I can, I did solve them. You did solve them. It was like, it sounds like we always have to solve the problem. I for them. I feel like I do. They have to say yes to John's solution. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I would, but you know, but to that point, I would be more than willing to have another conversation or conversations with the powers that be happy to have you and Harold there or anybody. Okay. That can help, you know, support where I'm coming from and what I'm saying. Yeah. To help guide that conversation and more than happy to do that. But, okay. Turn it down. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks for this update. And hopefully there will be a movement at some point in the future and we'll bring it back up. So, another thing that I know is a long-term project is cats. I currently remember, but that stands for our children and teens. The shopping update. So John, if there's anything on that, you wanted to share. Yeah. This will be much, much quicker because it's not a necessarily, but so we, we've been working with a consultant. We had everything in order to get materials ordered. I signed off on it. And then one of the vendors and as a part of this is stopping operations of a particular product to another company or they're moving operations to another state. I can't remember what's happening. So, my consultant found a different vendor and they came back with a club, which is within reason of what we were originally quoted. It's a little bit more, but it would help to not have to wait because I don't know with this movement of warehouses what that means. I mean that could be a few months and it could be a year for all I know. So, I just said move forward with it. I signed off on it. They're confident they can still get everything shipped here in mid-April, by mid-April, all the materials and then we would be able to, well, they would be able to then move forward with removing all the shelving and have everything done before summer reading, which is the goal. But if there's any delays at all that's going to push materials not getting here until May or mid-May, that would be a challenge and then I'm just going to have to push this until August or September. Not a huge deal. That's not like a year or so out. I mean at least I know where we're standing, but that's the, it's going to be fantastic when this is all said and done. Just to refresh that area, it's new shelving. The shelving is, the shelves themselves will be bright white and then some woods and a lot of color and panels and then we have some shelving that's on a combo like curved shelving on one side and seating on the other. So then you can actually have a story time by the back windows. It made a lot of better use of space in that sense, so I'm excited about it and so not good with it. There's no delays in ordering. As far as I know, the order is more pricey. Thanks, Jen. Hopefully the first summer reading. Yeah, it would be too disruptive to interrupt that. So it's either going to have to be done before that or wait until that's over. Any questions or comments on those items? Wait, so we started talking about this yesterday. Cool. Last month. But one time again. About one month staff. And one of the things we're going to do is pause having staff members come to these meetings. I would love to for us to learn more, but I think it's important to give them that time. So, but I just wanted to ask John if there were other movements right now that we should be aware of. I know last time we talked a little bit about limiting some of the table cleaning and some of the larger city events, which we are of course supportive of. But kind of what other whether I know homes or great areas. Once again, thinking about burnout and trying to protect from all the necessary trying to make that balance with what's necessary and what can be cut back right now. So John, any updates on that? Just a couple, yeah. So you're right, I mean effectively kind of got paused. I was bringing staff here for some library 101 kind of stuff, which I would like to continue at some point, but it's just a little challenging with everything going on with staffing. And then we've had some turnover recently. So it's just every month Cynthia and I meet a week before this meeting and kind of talk about the agenda. I finally just said last week, I keep saying like, well maybe next month, but I have to be realistic and just say like, let's just table this until I feel like I can bring staff in here again. It's just I can't prioritize right now. Even though I know it's much appreciated. So we'll get there. And then as far as festivals, it's an outreach component, right, when we go to these big festivals and set up a library or a tier or whatever. So I spoke with Lily, our outreach coordinator about that and prioritize some of these events and even the ones that we still might go to of how to downsize it to reduce the staff requirement of how we staff those events and the activities we have. I mean, we just, we always want to all out for these things. So it's not just being at like single to mile with the tech, but we would be there in a booth with staff and then we have all kinds of games and you can make a craft and all this stuff. And I just said, you know, anything like that we do we need to limit the staff requirement to be there and limit what we're doing. I mean, we don't really need all that stuff. And some of this coming from Lily herself, right, is the outreach coordinator acknowledging that there's outreach outreach which is like connecting with people and she goes to the parks and the schools and then these are festivals that she calls on which it's great for the visibility but really the return on investment of that isn't really as great. It's not that it's not valuable. And with all the staffing and everything we need it, I would be happy to be all of them. But it's just not something. So there'll be a number of them that we probably won't participate in that level this year. So one of them is and some of this is a trade off I should add to. So if you think about a big city event like Rhythm and Rosamund so last year the library did two things. Not only did we have a booth that had crafts and acquired no less than 12 staff for the day. We also had to staff it to help just with the event itself and so we had people helping with volunteers coordinating that or other tasks that as a division of recreation and culture we need to help recreation staff with ease. So if I remove the tabling part I have more staff to help with the actual event which is truly what's needed. And it's valuable. And Rhythm specifically people are going here and using they enjoy food trucks they're not and the library visitors that come to the tent they're already like visitors. We're not garnering new. So that's the to make it a long story long. Anyway that's what that's all about. So there'll be so many do like it's hard when you start thinking about certain events what you prioritize or not you know we're always certainly conscious of reaching out to specific communities within Walmart right so Cinco de Mayo is very important for that reason as a cultural event. So Lily really wanted to be there I agree so that's one that will still be up and really will scale it down so we're there but not in the same way we were last year which required no less than 10 staff okay because of how we approached it we did it to ourselves and I would love to do that but we don't need to it's a lot of and honestly when people visit your tent you've been to play events I mean people want swag so I'd rather spend the money on like a free pen that says Walmart library and then that's it. You don't need to make them head but yeah. So we were in agreement so there'll be a few things like that and we'll be at Pride but that's a little bit easier to use staff because it's a shorter event it's only 4 hours but in the same sense as a cultural event in communities and we want to make sure we have a person set that's also where we are. That's the biggest conversation we've had Cynthia and the board so as far as capacity other budgetary effects aren't necessary about capacity it's just for realization of things like collection budget numbers you know the one thing to share in this realm certainly is we made a number of cuts to our physical magazine collection which I am starting to get some comments about. This is largely budgetary last year we over spent on physical magazines but not all of it and some of it that's being pulled from those shelves are publications that already cease to publication we were just keeping back issues to fill space so there's no need and then other um titles up there we were very conscientious about what it was decided to cancel the print to and a high percentage of those are already available in Libby through our digital magazines. That's not everyone's cup of tea right? People like to hold a physical magazine as much as I like to hold a physical book but those are hard decisions and so that's something that's not necessarily staff capacity although on some level it is for the staff to have to maintain a collection but that's really not the reason why. Stan, you mentioned today's New Yorkers are doing some charity yeah a little bit so we had one of our librarians up in adult services her name was Devin Smith well her name still was Devin Smith she's not quite dead to me but she she laughed, her last day was last week family reason she's moving to Missouri somewhere really was hard for her to leave but she had a big role here she managed our homebound service and so one of the staff up there wanted to resume that responsibility so we had the benefit of that person getting a good week or 10 days of overview and training from Devin to that person to help ease that transition for such an important service so that was good and Devin also oversaw all the Libby collection, she was our collection development for all our e-content so we have another internal staff member up there that wanted to take that over and that's a good opportunity the person that's taking that over doesn't have experience in collection development so we're creating this opportunity he will learn this from the department manager Penny who we met at one of these when he came here for the adult department head get some coaching there and part of the requirement for him to take that over will be to do some collection development coursework so he's very excited so I think that that's great to do that and then we've had a couple of people within our technical services area leave somewhat recently well one was just Friday as well last Friday also family business one of our catalogers was leaving but that's shifting some responsibility we had a part-time Spanish cataloger that was recently brought in but she already had a job that was already nearly full time so I think the idea was great but she could have managed both and decided that she would stick with the other one but what I will say if there's an advantage to something like that in some conversations I had with the department head for technical services that oversees that I proposed the thought that other staff because we have other valuable staff within that department that could do Spanish cataloging and then there's not a great deal of it there's some that maybe doesn't want a whole position so I'm taking that position and I'm talking with HR now and I intend to transfer those funds to outreach and actually have a position that supports that part-time but it's it's something to get us somewhere so good question I'm glad you brought that out Cynthia I was going to put that in my department my director update but it's just fine here so so that's some of the recent turnover we've had thanks John any since the I'm sure this is starting right now but any since timing when does it be built or so the well with the part-time Spanish cataloger that's so that'll be internal so I mean although we have to there's a little timing issue there because we don't have a job description that's would basically be an outreach assistant right whatever you want to call it so we kind of have to create that and get that through HR and then post the position so there's a little timing there but the librarian position up in adult services that is just about ready to be posted and and actually with that I mean speaking with the department head there because some of the responsibilities that she had are being absorbed by other staff we are posting that job to be someone that does more outreach to the business community and it's like like a lot of big library public libraries out there will actually have a business librarian we're not going as far as to say better recruit it like that but the intention is to be really be a counterpart to what Lily already does but from this side of things and kind of engage with entrepreneurs in the business community and I'm thinking help develop partnerships there out in Longmont the other part of this is we're requiring Spanish fluency in this job whereas usually it's preferred or some level of that but in this case it's required so we really want to recruit there to help build our engagement with the growing Latino population in Longmont that sounds great, but will that stay as a librarian position? it'll stay a librarian position okay can you give me a quick question or comments? moving on John let's get it back to you for a state-owned service record you're great although some of that I was going to cover in my director update so this is just fine there's two other items I wanted to bring up one of them I think came up last month I think I brought up a challenge we had on a graphic novel last month and I think in that conversation I mentioned there's some pending state legislation yeah does that sound familiar? can we talk about it? yes we don't talk about it content material in the library correct Senate bill 24 bill 49 just an update on this today was a hearing on this and a lot of testimony they call testimony it's basically public comment I was able to tune in for a little bit of it because there was a lot of people who wanted to have something to say about it I'm pleased to say that most of the testimony shared were in support of the bill I think that you know I might have mentioned this last month but at a very high level I think this is a good effort to really draw attention to the fact that maybe we do need legislation that protects this basically our first amendment it's sort of ridiculous in a way that we need it but given where we are in this climate that's what we're trying to do and model what some other states have done some people call it a ban or bans you know that's it's it's kind of what it is in a sense but so they talked about that today I'm not really sure that that's there but anyway it's coming back again on Wednesday the 28th at 1.30 but they're gonna have another oh they are okay this Wednesday at 1.30 because those are things you can tune into or at least audio wise I would have liked a video to see who was there so just an update on that but also internally I met with our selection committee here because we have been talking about revising our request for reconsideration process that we have and some of this might be informed by this legislation because it has some requirements in there if it's passed which are things I would put in place anyway things that we don't have so one is a residency requirement to challenge materials in the collection and now we don't state that um and I think that's important and then the other that we debated a lot as a team but after looking at a lot of other libraries and the legislation doesn't state this but I'm stating it you have to have a full use, a full access Longmont library card to challenge you have to be a library user there's various opinions on this around the state of whether but many libraries have a commitment about so those are a couple of things we will put in place we will also mimic some of what the legislation says although we came up with this before which was to have caps so an item that might be formally challenged if it is it can't be challenged again that item cannot be challenged again for five years so people can challenge it but we're not going to review it because it was already challenged once and then the other side of that is a cap on how many times a person or an organization can challenge and I don't remember what number we came up with as a team but there was some cap on that and some of this is unfortunately this is in the response to not necessarily anything that's happened in this library but it's certainly out there where organizations organize themselves and you challenge after challenge and they flood the system and then just like so it's kind of setting it up so that we don't run into that here so my hearing that there's a cap on the number of challenges that can be made by any one entity is it within a certain timeframe or it would be a timeframe I just don't remember when I don't remember the timeframe as a team that we talked about but yes there would be a timeframe so let's just say it's also five years like the item so if you as an individual organization challenge something you can't challenge something I mean you can't it's just we won't be acknowledged we're most defensive yeah so you get one shot at so the with regard to kind of flooding the system that made me think also what you are inundated with a lot what happens to the materials while they're being reviewed are they still available or do they get pulled while they're under review no my policy and our current policy states this actually but it will remain anything that gets formally challenged to the request for reconsideration it states in there that the item will remain on the shelves or if they're challenging a display or a program it will remain on display or the program will be cancelled okay I think that's great because and you don't have to worry about being flooded you can't use flooding the system as a strategy no you haven't noticed any items disappearing no from the collection no we haven't had that year and that has happened in places so that anyway that's where we are internally on this process and then you can look up the legislation to kind of see what's going on there so that and then the other thing I have which I want to just share this group here so I haven't even brought this up here yet but we every year we gather a number of statistical components as a requirement that we file with the city library and so I've been trying to work and Tracy's done a lot of this of simplifying how we gather this information and it made it much easier to then gather data that we have and vary it's kind of like it exists in various places so we're kind of streamlining that and then my marketing person took that and made basically an annual report and I'm trying to do is show you this really quickly like where did it show you this it's visible on my screen to you folks on so that's the agenda this is the annual report that my marketing person compiled and this could be something too you know I know this board talks about various communications with council but it would be great to incorporate this in communications that you have and you can present an annual report to council many boards do this some have requirements but I'll just show you quickly what this looks like so it captures some key data points of what we're doing and I will definitely send this out so don't feel like you have to capture this out now in fact some of these numbers just came in today that's why it's a day when we met I didn't mention this because I didn't have it yet so this is a lot of programming numbers here you get down and then digital usage and this I think is good we're separating so this is the 433 thousand is what Longmont has done between e-books and databases just e-books is 223 but it's worth pointing out our e-book in the audio the Libby collection is shared right that's a consortial partnership we have with Lafayette Louisville room filler and we broke a record this year by hitting over a million checkouts of that between the libraries and out of that million we have well almost well 200,000 that's a lot of these if you want to encourage the people the library is being used even if they're not coming in these are the numbers you can share right and then physical materials we all got close to a million circulating out of this library which is a lot of library use in the year almost 70,000 holds retrieved it's probably more holds were placed but we were not counting the ones that people decided to bring out that can be reported and then it's broken down between areas here worth mentioning discovery passes 1400 that's that 100% funded to give to museums and other things same with library things over 500 items checked out through library things we don't even have that one so happy to talk through any of this but I'll send this out and we can even hope this is old business again but if you want since this is new over 5,000 library cards issued last year top top digital downloads and then then there's a whole marketing to show our e-newsletter engagement here and then our website engagement I'm pretty sure the library's homepage is the most visited site in the entire city of whatnot website so you get it's really broken down here because this is the marketing person so she got very detailed in what her app, her realm is and that events and programs as it relates to online we don't do a whole lot of registration so but that when it says events sold out obviously we don't charge for registration author events only so these are 36 of them in a year we're at full capacity and then the last part is social engagement which is largely Facebook I know I'm scoring here fast but I just want to share this with you I'll get it to the board and this would be something good for now for sure we hear presentations all the time and part of part of my conversations with staff here with our number gathering is I want it in a way where I can extract I don't know if it will be this fancy but something where I can create a little quarterly report that can be presented to councilor show I just don't I think if you don't see it a lot of people just don't know and you hear it out there right even someone today legislator admitted he was a legislator I love the library I'll support anything but I know for me I get what I need largely without it except that I check out physical books but I recognize people need it and it's like yeah and let me show you how I just don't think you know and that was the other conversation that I had with councilor was the hidden costs things that we don't really see but these are costs that are incurring these are actions that are happening you know people are tapping into these digital selections a lot but we're not because we're not physically seeing this you know it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen hey John I have one question on one of the statistics in there you don't have to reshare it the very first statistic said that there was 120,000 people is that a duplicated or a unduplicated number no it's a it's a total of people that attended programs between adult children and outreach and otherwise so it's looked individually you know add up between adult children and their value of 223,000 people excellent thank you yeah thanks so much John and thanks for the names out I agree we'd be great to counsel to see we'd be great to remember the longest which is very odd to me but in my time here we have not presented to counsel so I think it's maybe should do Susie or Tracy how did that happen any suggestions you know we can go about a couple of ways you know one the mayor can request it which he's writing up the agenda she can just have that put in I can request to have that be part of a presentation or so we have not general business I think it would be a special recording presentation to have to request to have you all come in but I probably wait until you you know you kind of give me the the cue that okay we're ready to present this and I don't know if it has to be a certified board or so there are a couple of ways that it comes back to us it comes back in special reports of presentation yeah Cindy I think what Susie said is the best way would be to just try to get it on the agenda in that sense not just try to come in during public invited we've heard but actually be on the agenda to present it as the library's 2023 annual report and that's something that the board this board could decide you know I mean the report's there so you know I don't think there would be much tweaking to it at this point there would be much more of a matter of typing and what groups here people here decide who and when people I mean that stuff gets booked out a little bit so you know it's hard to know when it would be but I don't put that in process it repeats to go ahead and put it in process what do the other board members think and of course and I I'm not sure what it works to you is that the board members presenting or the director or I mean I'm happy it can't contextualize it in the same way John can but I'm happy to at the end of the day we could work together whoever presents it so a better you know intimate understanding of it but generally would be the board presenting I would certainly be there help answer questions which presumably could come up just like key answer but what does that number mean you know so if we get into that I would certainly be there but it's generally would be a board presentation okay um yeah that would be great Susie if we can request that would it be helpful if I emailed you tomorrow okay yeah I don't even know the formal process so yes the two ways that I've seen things happen is that the mayor will just put it on the agenda so when she sets the agenda with Harold they'll decide what's to come forward and then other times it's a council member requesting I'd like to hear from you know so and so I made a motion a few weeks ago to have open space you know the department to come out and do a presentation on you know what areas do we have well you know sectioned off for true open space and natural areas we were getting a lot of questions from residents saying we're cutting down these areas or and we're actually not we're expanding some of our open space so really an informational meeting that'll be coming you know a few months ahead but uh so that you know I've seen it happen no place you know I can ask the mayor and you know she says just make a motion while and then I don't we don't have to set the day I could just get it so it's on the docket to come sometime in the year for you thanks Susie for helping with that I think can you go ahead Jimmy it's under the current agreement what do you all think any comments to add just that you know during um the weeks leading up to the election um one of the frustrating things that I heard most frequently was that you know some variation of a Longmont resident not knowing about dot dot dot not knowing anything about the library you know all of its many services and um also the needs specifically and this was there's someone else maybe in this room who shared my sentiments here on the friends board where um way after the election we're talking with somebody about the library and it comes up you know what is really needed what are the gaps here and how is it potentially going to impact the community long-term and the person's like oh my gosh I had no idea it's like just I just had this unfail it all this information out there in the ether and you do nothing to the library needed more funds to offer so I think that's still out there that people selectively take in information and often if they don't see if they're not confronted personally with the visual of the crisis then it somehow doesn't land because it's in competition with all of these other needs and we're in information which is saturated culture so I think any opportunity that the library has to get out in front of decision makers in front of the public and say look at what we're doing look at how much we're doing right when the comments I heard all the time was why does the library need more money every time I go there there's no one there it's never crowded they seem like they have enough space what they're not seeing are all of these the activity that's happening online or from people's homes or the programs that just again aren't right in front of you when you walk through the door to pick up your hold you don't see the 100-200 people stuffed into a room in the children's department so yeah it's just right it's yeah I agree any other comments okay Susie I'll email you tomorrow kind of so we can make sure and remember that for me and then yeah let's go ahead and try to get on the agenda for the months thanks for sharing that John anything else and then the director's report nope that's all I have hey I need to switch screens tomorrow which is next and I think it is friends yeah any report from the friends in the library that you sign I was not able to attend last week's meeting there's nothing John you were there you could share the highlight but I for my part it's just getting ready for the sale which starts on Wednesday and that's this Saturday and the other conversation topics I know are sort of top of mind on the friends board is there are I think there are two spots on the board that are potentially opening up in the not too distant future I think there's one spot that is opening up in the next couple of months with the vice president stepping down and then there might be some shuffle internally and launch this whole big long conversation last month around what do you call it legacy planning and not only needing to recruit more members and volunteers within the friends but to then recruit some of those recruits to join the board and discussing the various approaches to that and maybe what types of strategies, what types of outreach make the most sense but it was kind of like this little wake up ripple that I saw go through the room you know it's like oh yeah when's my turn ending we're going to need some new people in the pipeline to fill these roles in the next you know anywhere from the next couple of months to the next two years so then that connected with it they're talking about their upcoming retreat and what agenda items might be most highest priority for their retreat talking about membership and development really sort of fleshing out a membership program or a donor program that has a little bit more structure to it has maybe some more tears and some clearer benefits and some clearer language around what that support translates into literally in terms of the impact that your membership dollars have just like you would hear on an NPR or CPR membership drive like friends can be adapting some more of that language instead of I think the model that they had is not helping them to grow and they're going to need to grow to meet goals to be able to help the library at the same level that they've been helping them try to get them moving anything out there's a lot of things that would kind of interwoven returning to the question of upgrading the website and the whole relations management software that's connected to that so I don't know where those conversations will be some of them are certainly complex enough that they would make sense to have them in a a retreat type setting to allow for more creative longer conversation more iterative conversation but yeah like a long growing needs it's kind of exciting about eSale about the sale they're doing really well between the workshop and what we're bringing with the sales I mean one thing I can add from that meeting that we're going to do with the sale is have some signage around they show the sample that lists out all the various things that they're funding fund their support funds so basically if you buy books this is what you're funding and then it lists all of these things out library things discovery whatever you name it is there and I you know so I think that's not a bad idea to let people know what is my money actually going to this program so that was one thought they had that they planned to implement this next sale and then the friend's chair sent me a note that they wanted to send a council that is to let council know or maybe remind council that the library depends on the friends for 100% of programming and so that'll be getting sent out so I think they're also in addition to everything that Jamie just said I think they're trying to think about how can we increase communication that really lets people know exactly what this is going towards and why it's so important I'm curious if they brought the idea again of having a little table in the corner during the sale where instead of telling people we're asking them about membership at point of sale have a separate location for those conversations that has membership I don't do you remember tracing that detail specifically for like memberships I think they were willing to have more discussions with patrons not related to the sale I don't know specifically for memberships but probably along the same lines yes there was some ascension with the more members of how realistic that is within the space they had available for the sale that's true and this step into just how how many other people beyond the members of that board actually sign up to sit there at the tables my experience is that it is more than half more members during all of that alright so I don't have anything else from to you Thanks for that and for those who don't know I just want to mention that Junie also volunteers at the sales so I'm hoping for everybody to recognize your efforts there as well and I'm hoping this is on our set in communications when we do share about programming coming from the friends how unusual that is and how that is not the ideal section or role of that group any other questions for Junie and John on that well that's me and on to our city council liaison and Susie will pass it to you so I kind of embedded a little bit of stuff going on but again just informing the council of what the needs of the library are especially as we start thinking about the pre stages of budget planning the budget a couple of things that will be coming up to council that we'll be talking to tomorrow is our fourth of July event so in the past we used to have it at the Boulder County fairgrounds they canceled that space during COVID and then one of the things and I guess there were other conversations that I really wasn't aware of as to why they decided to stay at Fox Hill golf course including really concerns from from public safety around being able to manage the fallout zone and traffic impacts get in and around the you know and that whole area so I think that as our population has increased that area we were determined was less and less feasible Kiwanis public safety and Boulder County then they had it at Fox Hill golf course but you know there were concerns that arose there with it being close to the hospital you know it's kind of it's far away from the city center so you know there was an equity piece around people four would just be able to go outside of their homes and watch the fireworks where then a lot of people in town were having to drive to the outskirts to be able to see there was a private white space so you know again it was having to pay to access food trucks or you know whatever they had there so you know so we're going to be talking about it tomorrow personally I would like to see it come back to Boulder County or Boulder County programs somewhere in the center you know I heard from residents about that we're going to have it at Dickens and I have not heard about that on my packet so I was kind of taking it back where this idea came from but we're going to be discussing it all tomorrow as well and then other things that we're going to be discussing in relation to the Fourth of July will be the possibility of moving it to a drama show instead of fireworks because of climate dry brush you know the concerns for wildfires so again that's we're going to kind of mull around the two topics see what's going on there I mean my feeling is okay well let's give it a try it's Blobs we have next year you know we just won't know if we don't try either way oh yes so you know and the other there's things that we could what we're trying to do is kind of create a space where maybe we just don't have the fireworks show but we also by itself but we also have you know kind of carmel games food trucks you know different other activities as well so picnicking live music so to kind of make it as an event type thing but it does need to be closer to the center of the city not I'm not a fan of it being over where it has been and I think yeah so I think one of them will be going fairgrounds Dickens Farm yeah I don't know so we're just going to be exploring other options and how we can create it back another item that will be coming and this was brought forward by council member Yarbrough was around compensation for city council so currently every two weeks I bring on my $380 check for my work I do on council and you know that's what I work with kind of hard to do about but one of the things that we were looking at was really at sustainability so not necessarily for those of us who are sitting on council now but long term for the next group of people coming in and really our community has been very vocal about wanting to have representatives who represent the community so we have a large portion of people who are working class individuals so really having that kind of representation on council and we're not going to get it with the pay that we have because again people who can afford to stay at home or who can afford to cut part time to devote the time needed to run you know to be council or mayor you know they would be able to afford to do that so I think for her one of the arguments was really looking at long term and then you know we are going to be looking at comparable cities you know for Collins their council members made 300 or 3,321 a month and our council we before taxes were a thousand and I think the mayor is 1500 so for Collins then their mayor makes a little under 5000 a month council makes a little more than 3000 a month so it's you know we're going to be looking at different communities there are other communities Aurora council members and mayor they all make a little under 1800 a month that's it so you know we're going to have a discussion around that as well and again that will be met with opposition discontent so you know we had our monthly council retreat or annual council retreat and we went over our goals and objectives our priorities and again they continue to be housing, transportation and early childhood education so how that those goals really fit into everything else that we're doing as a city around equity, sustainability core services making sure that as we expand housing that our core services we provide to the community is sufficient, sustainable and accessible transportation we're moving towards vision zero so really that multimodal sharing the road with pedestrians, cyclists and cars we're moving away from that idea of car centric and really we're sharing the road with many different types of passing participants and the other thing we recently were working with different agencies around microtransit so instead of the large buses through RTD, just smaller vans and like the via type services and having where we're able to get these vehicles out there more frequently to pick up and drop off passengers we're working with RTD to expand services when they do the cutoff time at eight o'clock it's really not feasible for people who are depending on public transportation that's the cutoff so we've had parents residents who said they want to come to public invited to be heard at council but they know they have to be back on the bus by eight o'clock or before eight so they can get back home before they end service so I know that we have flex and other types of public transportation that run maybe run a little bit later but yeah that was that's kind of what we're exploring and seeing how we can expand services I know RTD really doesn't want to expand services if the ridership is low but what we're saying is ridership is low because you have not expanded services it's very inconvenient if you expand these services make these stops more frequent you know extend the morning and evening time and get more ridership so we're kind of going back and forth with that so it's like literally the chicken to the 48 kind of thing so we'll see we're doing whatever we can to fund it grants, federal funds are for dollars on how we can fund the transportation as well as the housing for those what was it I think the last time they raised the 99 no they raised the council pay yeah it was 1999 well you don't think it's really changing which is cool oh my goodness so any questions or I'd be happy to you know if there's anything oh you know tell me more about that you know connect or send me an email well I personally they raised it's so important I guess tell me when I hear early childhood education is one of the council retreat schools such as high end or split library services so did that come up at all yes yes yeah absolutely and how we have these programming you know what I think one of the places we're connecting with is a wild quorum what's the one that's near here TLC or is it what well there's an early childhood there's Aspen right that's what it is so you know being able to connect library services with some of these nearby child care facilities especially ones you know where you're getting TLC also serves well income so you know there's a lot of opportunity there if you know we provide the funding for thank you so much for that update my next standing oh I shouldn't pause any other questions or comments my next standing agenda item is library professionals we talked at fair about that already from what's happening in the state legislature right now anyone else have anything else to bring for that go for it so last month I name remember I briefly mentioned this librarian individual that was just starting to kind of explode into forming shoe awareness right and I couldn't remember their name at the time but it's in Michael 3 and I had been yeah I've been following that Instagram account for some time and was just absolutely delighted that this librarian was getting so much positive infectious attention for our public libraries in just the most the most inclusive way that you can imagine and so I was really excited to tell all of you about last month and I got to remember you know get the right names or the links so that you could share it out everything then I saw in my feed that Michael was invited to be the kingdom speaker for Capcom 24 I was like oh my gosh this is perfect this is amazing and right this day I got to tell you know at the next meeting I shared that this is happening too because this is like the awareness and now as I was preparing for this meeting I saw that Michael 3 was resigning from this position because all of that fame and exposure that brought such light to public libraries had also brought out a lot of this role yes a lot of less positive energies that were very unfortunately directed at him and making it not only untenable to do this job but untenable to what difficult to maintain one's life so I don't know yet this happened a day ago is when it was being reported so I don't know if Michael was still participating in Capcom it sounds like he's stepping away from his position at the library but he's not stepping away from library advocacy and would like to have more conversations even the national level with lawmakers and so forth so all that to say I'm very very concerned about our country I'm very concerned about our librarians I'm very concerned about the ones who are working today and the ones who might be vulnerable to being driven out and the ones that haven't entered the field yet and who may be discouraged from doing so as more and more of these unfortunate events take place purely that like a final is HB 1661 in Tennessee which I say that I could have brought it up when you mentioned John the Colorado Bill but this was another thing that just kind of rolled across my radar and I was like what? I'm afraid that it's President's setting basically it's a bill to lower the barriers for community members to have materials so to make it even easier and the language that was being used by the proponents of the Senville was slippery and sounded like it was going to be they were doing this to help the libraries you know let us come in and take these books off your shelves before an angry community member comes forward we can proactively preemptively remove these things and if we just let the residents decide what they consider to be their community standards for obscenity or inappropriate material don't worry about all this first amendment stuff because we here in our little town of Oak Ridge or something in Tennessee we really know that that stuff doesn't move on here it's I would say it's unbelievable except that enough of this kind of thing is happening now but I wanted to bring it to Alan Roos attention because I think things like what John is moving forward with already having these conversations about updating the challenge request form it's kind of like we're already supporting Legislature in Colorado to lock down you know no bans this is what we mean by free speech stuff like that like proactively do it now do it now so that if some of these experimental bills start making their way toward us hopefully we have some some things in place that those things just keep going they go on they go on to some other library or state they're coming from it was all the the school library stuff that I was hearing about the most for a few months now it's starting to be more of a library stuff like San Diego yeah I mean Arkansas for sure I think Alabama they have some things in place that are horrifying like some laws or policies such that affect public libraries Arkansas particularly librarians can be quite uncharges yeah so there is some wild stuff out there I say wild but whatever that remains like you guys are whatever don't have this be a thing that starts growing now but it's still disturbing fairly much so I'm very concerned that these things are going to start I'm not starting they're going to increasingly disincentivize people staying in the field which is similar to the way there's a climate change I think that Ash very sat in a conversation with me even if it's not even if our state is moving in a different direction but anyone who doesn't know CalCon is the Colorado institution of library conference this year it's at Breckenridge I haven't attended it for many years but when I have it's been great it's in early September and it's open so I mean it costs the money and I want to check this because my understanding without looking but as board members we could attend once again it does, there isn't be associated John I know y'all are going to the public library conference I think it's in April I hope that there is funding for y'all to go to CalCon and that would be of use to you and some of your staff I mean last year well last year it was easier to go to Dublin which it had been for many years you know with PLA and the staff going of course I got funding for that from my friends but my existing professional development budget would barely support that because it's far enough to require more financial commitment mileage and obviously moving forward and that ends up quickly so that's going to be pretty challenging but it's not out of the question at least to maybe get one or two people but with CalCon when it was in Loveland I was able to send a number of people and so that was great but you're right boards and commissions in fact they have specific tracks sometimes or at least sessions for that some of it's it depends on the conference but there's usually sessions that are specific to boards and commissions so it's worth looking at if they've gotten far enough to have specific sessions or agenda like that so far the person that Jamie Breyer was still on the agenda because he just sent that out today but his announcement of residing that I don't know if that were made or not I'll try to keep an eye out and see what there is a session specific to boards and commissions and some of that out to this group alright moving on library board comments moving to the comments for any members of the board okay our next name I'm just going to say because I'm not library board at this point I wanted to share something with the board at the end of the meeting so if there's no board comments I can do that now this might end on a more positive note censorship which is what we need to talk about but I just wanted to share with this board I received a thank you note today randomly this doesn't happen very often usually if I get a note in the mail it's something I probably don't want to read but this is short so I'll read it to you all my husband and I moved to Longmont a couple of years ago and are so impressed with the services the Longmont library provides we appreciate being able to hold books and pick them up from the library this is a tremendous service recently we have noted your offerings of library of things the seed garden and the multiple CD and DVD offerings and audiobooks congratulations also on your very effective ways to engage a diverse community assigned a happy pager so I just wanted to share that because for someone to take the time to write something we all know that goes most of you back people leave our role to leave this not this nature so I decided that I appreciate hearing that I did I thought about writing a thank you for the thank you I know I wanted to read that for somebody to consider when we do share for a console that type of feedback as well is so powerful yeah another staff member told me over the weekend a patron was up in the computer lab and stopped one of the staff and just said you know I just wanted to say that I got my high school degree because of this library I did all my coursework here and without it I wouldn't have a high school degree so talk about a story to share I know what's your name and put it on the end yeah I know the anecdotal that's also powerful oh thanks that is a great tip to have done our next meeting is scheduled March 18th that is the first day of St. Rain's spring break so if somebody let me sit on that and go to the tent just let us know if you have any questions or comments but otherwise I will join us at 8.53


Hello and welcome to a summary on all you need to know about Adeline Yen Ma's extract, Chinese Cinderella. Now I'll read and explain this extract in depth and the version that I'll be reading is what appears in the Pearson-Edexcel International GCSE anthology. Now do remember that this was taken from a larger novel which is an autobiographical account of Adeline Ma's own life. So what I'll do is I will read through the passage and explain the meanings related to the text as well as language devices that you need to be aware of and other contextual factors that you will find helpful as you study this text. So let's get started. Now as I mentioned, this passage is based on an autobiographical account that Adeline Yen Ma herself wrote about it. So this passage is based on that. Now do remember that she grew up contextually in a wealthy family in the 1950s Hong Kong and she would have otherwise had a really enviable childhood, however she was rejected by her family. Now remember the reason for her rejection is because Adeline Yen Ma's own mother actually died after giving birth to her which was seen as bad luck by her family. Now her father remarried and the woman that he married, the stepmother, as well as her father really mistreated her. They were quite dominating and they all really despised her because they saw her as a sign of bad luck and so she was sent to boarding school and left there. So this extract taken from our autobiography relates one of the few occasions when she went home and of course you're going to see how she was treated quite coldly. So what I'll do is I'm going to read through different parts of the passage and then explain interesting linguistic techniques. Time went by relentlessly and it was Saturday again. Eight weeks more and it would be the end of term. In my case perhaps, the end of school forever. Four of us were playing Monopoly. My heart was not in it and I was losing steadily. Outside it was hot and there was a warm wind blowing. The radio warned of a possible typhoon the next day. It was my turn and I threw the dice. As I played, the thought of leaving school throbbed at the back of my mind like a persistent toothache. Adeline Ma Mien Valentino was calling. You can't go now, Mary protested. For once I'm winning. One, two, three, four. Good. You've landed on my property. Thirty-five dollars please. Oh, good afternoon Mother Valentino. We're all stood up and greeted her. Adeline, didn't you hear me call you? Hurry up downstairs. Your chauffeur is waiting to take you home. Full of foreboding, I ran downstairs as in a nightmare wondering who died this time. Father's chauffeur assured me everyone was healthy. Then why are you taking me home? I asked. How should I know? He answered defensively shrugging her shoulders. Your guess is as good as mine. They give the orders and I carry them out. Now what this opening does is it really sets a scene for us. We realize of course from very early on that she feels a lot of fear. She's quite fearful, quite anxious. And of course, as we read through the passage, we realize the reason for her anxiety. She's very excluded by her family and she's quite mistreated by them. Now she opens this part of the passage by stating time went by relentlessly and it was Saturday again. And what this compound sentence does is it slows down the pace of the extract. It shows just how dreary and how slow life is for her and how difficult it is. Furthermore, the adverb relentlessly shows that time actually isn't her friend. Time is something that's quite slow for her, quite laborious. And of course, we can assume it's because she's back home and it doesn't really feel like home for her, especially when she's back from boarding school because she probably gets really mistreated. And so this just feels like a very difficult time for her. Also, the term again emphasises the slow pace of life for her. She's not really enjoying her time home from school. So whilst most people who go to boarding school and they come home, they see time as really enjoyable. It's a respite from school. Actually for her, it's the other way around. School is a respite for her from her home life. Also, she talks about the end, the end and the repetition here shows her pessimism and her pessimism at school ending. Now, not only was it the end of term, but possibly the end of school. She might be taken out of school because she is scared that her family will see her as not even good enough for higher education. Also, the hyperbole forever shows that she's really sad school is over. Perhaps school was a real escape for her. Boarding school was a place where she was treated better and she's really, really sad that this is all possibly going to be over. She then tells us that four of us were playing Monopoly. And this simple sentence just shows that she was engaging in a game, but probably she was meant to lose this game and she really, her heart wasn't into it. And of course, we learned that later when she tells us that she really wasn't paying attention to it and she was losing. Furthermore, the alliteration was a warm wind blowing really tells us and gives us a sense of the warmth. Of course, she lives in Hong Kong, which is a fairly warm island, which is next to China. It's a territory of China. So this gives us an idea of the atmosphere. We then get the idea that there could be possibly a typhoon the next day. This is when there's a lot of wind and it becomes a very, very dangerous kind of typhoon. And this perhaps could be symbolism of how she feels internally. So maybe once she learns that she might be taken out of school, she will also feel the same kind of sadness, but also the same kind of turmoil internally. Furthermore, she mentions how school, given that she might be taken out, this thought was like a persistent toothache in her mind. This shows that she feels persistently anxious and fearful of being taken out of school at any moment. Furthermore, the exclamatory sentence Adeline, this direct speech now shows us the voice of her stepmother. We get the sense that her stepmother is quite harsh, very brutal. When she speaks to her, she speaks to her perhaps like someone who is not really worth any kind of emotion. She's not someone that's worth being pampered or treated kindly. Furthermore, Mary, presumably the stepmother's daughter, states for once I'm winning. And this highlights to us just how competitive the home environment is. And this probably must be quite exhausting for her. When you go home, you're treated, not only are you treated very miserably, but also you constantly have to compete for your parents' love. Furthermore, the possessive pronoun, which quotes what her sister or rather her half-sister says, my property shows again that she is, Adeline Ma is really excluded and her siblings, the ones who are probably treated better, that always emphasise in her face just how she's different to them. They own things that she might not own. And of course, this is still tied just to Monopoly, but actually probably the game reflects how she's treated also in real life. She then mentions how we all stood up and greeted her. Now, what this shows is that all the children, including the children of the stepmother, they're quite respectful, but also fairly fearful and emotionally detached as a sense that maybe the home is run somewhat like in a militaristic style. Furthermore, the stepmother speaks quite curtly, quite harshly to Adeline. Hurry up downstairs, and this imperative sentence shows the harsh tone that her stepmother addresses her in. Moreover, Adeline Ma tells us that she felt full of foreboding and this alliteration shows that she's fearful and she's also used to getting punished, getting bad news, really just being treated quite negatively. Furthermore, when she mentions father rather than dad, this standard English shows how her relationship with her father is very formal, probably very emotionally detached. Moreover, she speaks to the chauffeur who also talks to her in a quite sarcastic way. The rhetorical question, how should I know, shows that she, Adeline, is always kept in the dark, not only by her immediate family, but even by the servants. Everybody is perhaps trained to treat her as an outsider and to exclude her because as I mentioned, do you remember contextually that Adeline's mother died after giving birth to her and at the time it was seen that that meant that she brought bad luck. So maybe even the servants were trained not to treat her kindly. Also, it's really interesting that the chauffeur says they give me orders referring both to the father and mother or rather stepmother and I carry them out. And of course, the contrast in these pronouns, they, which is third person pronoun versus I to refer to the chauffeur himself, first person pronoun, shows the vast social divide that exists between the workers and of course, the really wealthy family that Adeline comes from. So let's carry on. During the short drive home, my heart was full of dread and I wondered what I had done wrong. Our car stopped at an elegant villa at mid-level, halfway up the hill between the peak and the harbour. Where are we? I asked foolishly. Don't you know anything? The chauffeur replied rudely. This is your new home. Your parents moved here a few months ago. I had forgotten, I said as I got out. Our gum opened the door. Inside, it was quiet and cool. Where's everyone?   Your father is in his room and wants to see you as soon as you get home. See me in his room? I was overwhelmed by the thought that I had been summoned by father to enter the Holy of Holies, a place to which I had never been invited. Why? Timidly, I knocked on the door. Father was alone, looking relaxed in his slippers and bathrobe, reading a newspaper. He smiled as I entered and I saw he was in a happy mood. I breathed a small sigh of relief at first, but became uneasy again when I wondered why he was being so nice, thinking, is this a giant ruse on his part to trick me? Dare I let my guard down? Now here, essentially, we find that she was in a different house. Of course, this is highlighting just how much wealth her family had. And now she's been taken to what appears to be the main house. Again, we now find that there's this exclusion. And do remember that contextually, Adeline, her mother also had other children. And so she's the fifth of five children. And of course, the mother died when she was given birth to her. So perhaps maybe the other house is where the children of the first wife are being kept. And maybe this house, the main house, is where the children of the stepmother reside, in addition to the father and the stepmother. Now she mentions during the short drive home, my heart was full of dread and I wondered what I had done wrong. Now, this complex sentence shows just how isolated and alone she feels. Her only interaction with her father is negative, much like her interaction with everyone else that's around her. It must be such a difficult feeling to live with daily. Also, the pre-modifier, elegant, to describe the villa, highlights her family's wealth and opulence. And so it's interesting because whilst she lives this opulent lifestyle, she is still excluded from it. She's still mistreated and she doesn't really have this enviable lifestyle that outsiders might assume is quite enjoyable.  She doesn't really know anything. She's been kept in the dark. Nobody has informed her of why she's having this journey. However, she doesn't see it that way.  And also it's interesting that the chauffeur also reinforces this by saying, don't you know anything? He replies rudely.  So she's internalized this. And the chauffeur answers, this is your new home. And so it's really interesting. These monosyllabic words show that she's excluded even from family decisions. She doesn't even know where her dad lives, right? So this is the first time that she's seen where he lives. Now, the chauffeur tells her about what all her half sisters and brothers are doing. Of course, again, she's excluded from this.   And of course here we can see that she really is an outsider. Whilst all her family members are together interacting, especially the family members that are part of the stepmother's side of the family, she's totally excluded and she's kept in the dark. Furthermore, the adverb timidly shows the emotional distance that she fills with her father. So she feels really timid and really terrified when she's about to interact with him. And she goes to his place and especially his room, which is described as a holy of holies. And she doesn't feel accustomed to being close to him, so that's why she's so scared. Also, she says that she breathes a small sigh of relief and the sibilance here shows that internally she feels really, really happy that she's not being punished once more. And again, of course, we know that her father seems really happy but she doesn't quite know why. But again, she can't quite trust his actions because she feels like maybe this might be a ruse, this might be a trick on his part just to maybe mentally torture her. Furthermore, the rhetorical question, dare I let my guard down, shows that she constantly feels quite defensive and fearful around her family. She's never been accepted and she doesn't feel like her family sees her in many ways as a human being. So let's carry on. Sit down, sit down, he pointed to a chair. Don't look so scared. Here, take a look at this. The writing about someone we both know, I think. He handed me the day's newspaper in there in one corner, I saw my name. Adeline Yen. In capital letters, prominently displayed. It was announced today that a 14-year-old Hong Kong schoolgirl, Adeline Jun Ling Yen of Sacred Heart Canisarian School, Cane Road, Hong Kong, has won first prize in the International Playwriting Competition held in London, England for the 1951-1952 school year. This is the first time that any local Chinese student from Hong Kong has won such a prestigious event. Besides a medal, the prize comes with a cash reward of 50 English pounds. Our sincere congratulations, Adeline Yen, for bringing honour to Hong Kong. We are proud of you. Is it possible? Am I dreaming? Me, the winner. So here, Adeline obviously realises the reason why her father has summoned her is to actually congratulate her for winning an award and she herself can't quite believe it.  And again, it also shows kind of how unpredictable his treatment to water is. So she doesn't quite know where she stands ever with her father. Also, the capitalisation of her name and the repetition, so this is of course an euphoric reference, really emphasises that actually the spotlight is on her. Furthermore, the pre-modified 14-year-old Hong Kong give us more information about Adeline and the proper nouns Cane Road, Hong Kong reveal more about where she is based in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the proper nouns here to highlight London and England highlight the prestige that's associated with this particular award. Do remember that at this time, even if today Hong Kong is technically part of Chinese territory, at this time Hong Kong was classified as an English protectorate. And essentially the English were, they had a large presence, they're still due to some extent today. However, anything also tied to the English people and the English presence was seen as also quite prestigious. So in this instance, this prize and this competition is seen as very prestigious because it comes from a Western institution. This is specifically the UK. Furthermore, there is the semantic field of winning medal prize and this shows once more just how competitive their family dynamics are. Furthermore, the article says that Adeline has brought honour to Hong Kong and this alliteration shows culturally speaking, there's a very, very massive sense of pride that comes with really standing out. So not only is this competitive dynamic within her own family, but also I suppose within the city, we can argue that there's this idea of always competing, always trying to really outshine others. Also, she asks herself a series of rhetorical question. Is it possible? Am I dreaming? Me the winner. And this shows the self-doubt that Adeline has. She doesn't recognise her talent in writing. She doesn't really know that she is really good at what she does. Of course, this comes from the fact that her own family constantly puts her down, even the servants in her family constantly put her down. So let's carry on. I was going up the lift this morning with my friend, CY Took, when he showed me this article and asked me, is the winner Adeline Jun Leng Nian related to you? The two of you have the same uncommon last name. Now, CY himself has a few children about your age, but so far none of them has won an international literary prize as far as I know. So I was quite pleased to tell him that you are my daughter. Well done. He looked radiant. For once, he was proud of me. In front of his revered colleague, CY Toon, a prominent fellow businessman also from Shanghai, I had given him face. I thought, is this a big moment I'd been waiting for? My whole being vibrated with all the joy in the world, I only had to stretch out my hand to reach the stars. Tell me, how did you do it? He continued, how come you won? Well, the rules and regulations were so very complicated, one has really to be dedicated, just to understand what they want. Perhaps I was the only one determined enough to enter, and there were no other competitors. He laughed approvingly. I doubt it very much, but that's a good answer. Please father, I asked boldly, thinking it was now or never. May I go to university in England too, just like my brothers? Now here, of course, the relationship between her and her father is really emphasised. It's almost non-existent. It's very formal. It's very much based on his negative view of her. So he probably sees her as a cursed child. She doesn't have any talent. And now we start to see that she herself has realised she doesn't have any talent, but for some reason she decided to just submit her writing to this competition and won. And also herself doesn't quite believe that she's won. Now her father mentions that it's his friend who also is very accomplished, that showed it to him and he has children and he highlights none of them has won. And what this shows is the father is very competitive. He's focused only on gaining prestige and looking really good in front of his other successful colleagues and friends, and of course in this case is C. Y. Tung, who's also a really successful businessman. So the father is really seeing Adeline as only useful in so far as looking good, because now she's won a prize and out shined his own children from the competitor. Also to modify international, again, highlights the prestige attached to winning a Western style prize. Moreover, the exclamatory sentence, well done, this appears to probably be the only positive feedback that Adeline has gotten from her father and she's probably not used to it. She notes that he looked radiant and this shows her father's love is conditional on achievement. In other words, a lot of people always emphasise the importance of parents having unconditional love in their children. However, in this case, her father makes it really clear that the only reason why he now kind of acknowledges Adeline in a positive way is because she has achieved something. And probably that's why he has a very competitive family because he makes it clear to all his children that he'll only love them and look after them and care for them if they are achieving things. Moreover, the adjectives and pre-modifiers revered, prominent to highlight how he saw CYTING, the other businessman, the short how the father really focuses on external appearance. He only associates himself even with people who are revered and prominent. Moreover, Adeline says that I had given him face and this refers to something called face-saving, the idea of reputation, how you look externally to others. And this of course reveals that reputation is so very important to her father. Moreover, Adeline uses the metaphor, I only had to stretch out my hand to reach the stars so she realises that this is just a small sliver of a chance that she could use to really get her shot at getting further and higher education. So she feels like she maybe has a shot at getting a better life than she initially assumed. Now her father asks her how did you do it?  And the repetition of this second person pronoun shows that her father really didn't have any faith or belief in her. He just saw her as a cursed child. Moreover, the reliteration of rules and regulations when Adeline is explaining to her father why she won shows her very robotic way of seeing things. Now her father laughs approvingly and this shows how competitive he is and he even wants his children to interact with him in a really specific way and so given that she's responded in a very robotic way he's very pleased with that. Now when he mentions I doubt it very much, this shows that he doesn't really care for his daughter, expect much and he even clearly shows this to her. Now Adeline asks may I go to university and this modal verb which is extremely formal shows just how distant the relationship is. Moreover when she says like my brothers this shows that her brothers are benefiting from a western education, they're getting even higher education to university but she's treated differently. So of course if you remember at the beginning of the passage she was really scared about the end of her education it seemed quite likely maybe to her that she might not get any formal education beyond school so she's trying to see if she can claw her way back into her father's good books and get at least a university degree. So let's carry on. I do believe you have potential. Tell me what would you study? My heart gave a giant lurch as it dawned on me that he was agreeing to let me go. How marvellous it was to simply be alive. Study I thought going to England is like entering heaven. Does it matter what you do after you get to heaven? But father was expecting an answer. What about creative writing? After all I just won first prize in international writing competition. I plan to study literature. I'll be a writer. Writer he scoffed. You're going to starve. What language are you going to write in and who's going to read your writing? Though you may think you're an expert in both English and Chinese. Your Chinese is actually rather elementary. As for your English, don't you think the native English speakers write better than you? I waited in silence. I do not wish to contradict him. You will go to England with third brother this summer and you will go to medical school. After you graduate you will specialise in obstetrics. Women will always be having babies. Women patients prefer women doctors. You will learn to deliver their babies. That's a full proof profession for you. Don't you agree? Agree? Of course I agreed. Apparently he had it all planned out. As long as he let me go to university in England I would study anything he wished. How did that line go in Wordsworth's poem? Bliss was that in dawn to be alive. Father I shall go to medical school in England to become a doctor. Thank you very very much. Now in this part of the passage she actually learns that maybe her father will accept her going to get further education. And the declarative sentence shows that her father's opinion has changed after she has been celebrated by others. So he says I do believe you have potential. Now we learned that her heart gave a giant lurch so of course the personification of her heart shows that Adeline can't quite believe it. She feels almost like she's won the lottery that her father has actually agreed to send her to study not only to go to university but actually to study abroad in England. Furthermore that her internal dialogue study I thought shows that she just can't quite believe her luck. She initially probably thought that she would never even get the chance to go to university. But she now can't believe that no only will she go to university but also to England. Furthermore she highlights and emphasises just how much prestige there was in studying in England by saying that going to England is like entering heaven. And this similarly shows how highly she values a western education and especially a western education in somewhere like the UK which really had a lot of political control at the time over Hong Kong. Also the declarative sentence here when she says I'll be a writer actually foreshadows her future career as a very successful and award-winning writer but of course at the time she didn't quite think that she had that kind of talent. Her father of course scoffs at her dream and this verb is quite degrading it shows just how harsh he is towards her and then the exclamatory sentence in this hyperbole you're going to starve shows he has this stereotype of this starving artist in his mind. The job of being a writer or even being an artist in any regard as she lacks prestige people would respect her in her culture so her father really dismisses this talent and dismisses any idea of her going abroad to do any type of writing. Also the simple sentence here awaited in silence really emphasizes a powerlessness towards her father. She really doesn't have a say and hence why she's even silent. Also it's interesting that the father refers to third brother which is even capitalized and it shows that her father really runs the family like a business he has it all planned out everybody is going to be a doctor everybody has to be a nurse and once they come back to Hong Kong these are the jobs that they're going to get he runs the family like a business also he uses imperative sentences to tell her exactly how her future will look like he tells her you will go to medical school and he uses medical jargon to tell her specifically what she's going to specialize in and then of course the repetition of women shows his underlying sexism he has the idea of what jobs suit her as a woman and especially as a female doctor now Adeline says agree of course I agree and this is hyperphora hyperphora is when you ask a question and answer it directly after and of course it shows her internal dialogue and she's really happy to be going abroad also she says how did that line go in Wordsworth poem? bliss was that it was it in that dawn to be alive now again this is hyperphora she asks a question relating to Wordsworth poem and then answers it and of course this shows just how much love and avid interest she has in literature it never really leaves her furthermore the modal verb here again highlights the very robotic and emotionally distant response that she has when she's interacting with her father and then she responds by saying thank you very very much again the repetition of these intensifiers show that she's so grateful for him showing any kind of help and any kind of interest in her further education so that's all if you found this video useful please make sure you visit our website which is www.firstreadtutors.com where you'll find lots of study materials that will help you in this and indeed other parts of English thank you so much for listening