City Council - Human Services Committee Hearing on Docket #0284

Thank you.

and many more.

Thank you.

Good morning everyone. For the record, my name is Erin Murphy, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Human Services. Not to be confused, it is the former committee, Strong Women, Families, and Communities. Despite my not wanting to change the name, it is changed to Human Services, but we still uplift all of the needs and trying to make sure we continue to focus on what Former Councilor and now Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley had created that committee years ago. So just so the public is aware, the Human Services Committee is just renamed. But today is February 20th and it is 10.06 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv.

in broadcast on XFIDITY Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and FIOS Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccchs.boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they sign up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. And if you're looking to testify virtually, you can email the central staff liaison, Megan Cavanaugh, that is M-E-G-H-A-N dot K-A-V-A-N-A-G-H at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0284.

It's an order for a hearing regarding equitable access to services and programming throughout the Boston Public Library system. This matter was sponsored by myself and was referred to the committee on February 4th, 2026. Today, I guess I could say we are not joined by any of my colleagues and I would like now, yeah, I can introduce. So before I introduce the panelists, I filed this hearing order. I know we've had hearings before on different library You know, issues uplifting needs and sometimes the focus is on individual libraries, sometimes the focus is on, you know, services that may be interrupted due to construction or building new libraries. David and I, thank you. We had a nice conversation. To kind of be clear, I know we write out the hearing orders to be specific about what we want to talk about.

I think we got on the same page, so thank you for bringing more people from your team to address it. This came out of, like most hearing orders come out of, a conversation with You know, a resident and someone had told me in my neighborhood on the Adams Street Library that they went to play chess and were told that they lent their Chess Boards to the Lower Mills Library, which was wonderful and sharing is great, but the idea that we wouldn't be able to, even though we know that's not true, like we can buy chess boards for different libraries But the conversation then continued, which I think is important. And it happens also, like we talked about, like when a branch is temporarily closed, people find other libraries, right? People love their libraries.

Although they may like services at some, and it's not a conversation to say every library has to provide all of the same things, but making sure that residents realize that they can uplift and maybe advocate for certain activities or you know things they need at their local library. So I'll skip an opening statement and kind of get right into the panel that we have here today and then I'll ask some questions to just kind of Make sure we have a good understanding, especially going into budget season, knowing that every year we're worried about having to make cuts, but I think this time it will be true that every department is going to have to really look You know closely at their funding and how they're going to provide the services that we've been able to so

We are joined today by David Leonard, who is the President of the Boston Public Library, Priscilla Foley, Director of Neighborhood Services for the Boston Public Library, Angela Viazaga. Vezaga, thank you, Chief of Youth and Family Engagement. That's a good one, I like that job, okay. And Deandra Williams is on her way, correct? And what's her title?

Programs Supervisor for Systemwide.

Perfect. All right. So when she comes, she can join us. But if you'd like to start, David, that'd be great.

Thank you, Councillor, and we're as always grateful for the Council's interest in libraries and for continued budget support as we go through that process coming up pretty soon this year. and I think, Councilor, if I may, you are someone that I see at pretty much every single library event that we do that is public or every other city event, so I appreciate your Thank you for your particular attention and presence. Given today's topic, we want to uplift our branch-related services and programs in particular. and while we are one Boston Public Library with 25 branches across the city and our central library in Copley Square, we still focus on

The individual uniqueness of every neighborhood, every community, every branch, every staff configuration. So we are both one library but also have a level of difference across all of our neighborhoods. As you're aware, two of our branches are closed pending renovations, although the Fields Corner one is going up very quickly and we'll have an opening date a little bit later this year. I do want to highlight, as we're talking about programs and services, our statistics for 2025, where branches alone, excluding Central, The staff offered over 10,000 programs across all of the branches with an attendance numbers reported in aggregate of 150,000 attendees across those programs.

So that's an average of 460 programs per location, with actually Rosendale coming out on top with 903 offered. and average attendance of about 15 individuals per location. The mixture varies right across neighborhoods and so we are always paying attention to Are the needs different in each neighborhood or are all of the resources, in fact, as the hearing order calls for, We do know also that the two largest factors are a new modern branch space. We are proud to have multiple renovations completed over the last 10 years.

and secondly, a strong staff with minimal vacancies on the team. So those are the two real factors that at a meta level influence our ability to ensure A strong range of programs and services as well as unique to that particular neighborhood. and so I think we can move to questions and my colleagues now also joined by Deandra who's our system-wide programming so we have a mixture of People for Youth and Adults who have system-wide responsibilities and Priscilla who oversees the branches individually. So some things are offered system-wide and other things are generated purely locally, either through the branch staff or in conversations with community members or friends groups in particular. Thank you, Councilor.

Thank you. Thank you. Priscilla, would you mind kind of giving an overview of kind of the The big programming that you see that's more system-wide and kind of how you see the individual branches offering different services. And like David said, I think it's important that we do. You know, that different neighborhoods and different, you know, attendees at libraries have different needs. So it's not, you know, a question of, you know, equitable meaning same, which I think you know, but like, how will we just making sure that we're reaching our

Sure. So I want to also make sure my colleagues Angela and DeAndre will talk since they do oversee the system wide. We develop programs at branches through a number of Things could be interest, it could be coming in like, oh, people are asking for, I'll give an example of the South Boston branch. They had a lot of mocktail programming. And then they've also then shifted that over to the north end. So there's a lot of ideas sharing, and so we could have Oh, this is something that started here. It's been very successful. So all of the staff at the branches do their own programming, and we'll also have You know, people coming into the branches saying like, oh, we really want to have this program coming. Do we have time? Do we have space? Do we have a schedule? Is this the right fit? So the way that the programming comes up

is organic and then at the same time we have this opportunity to have these amazing system-wide programs for both youth and then also for all ages and then some just focus specifically on adults.

How is it shared? I did see a flyer. I thought it might have been the Lower Mills one about the mocktail because I definitely took a screenshot. It was interesting. But how do you kind of share out the events? How do we make sure that it's kind of? Different platforms that we know people can go to to see what's happening at the different libraries.

So we use all sorts of things. We've actually found, and I'll let my colleague Deandra and Angela speak about this as well, We've actually found that even just a basic calendar of what's happening at the branch is helpful for people because they put it on their refrigerator and they've got it so we We found that those are really helpful. The staff also share flyers out as well as if you've had a successful program at Lower Mills, they'll send out either the adults librarian or the children's librarian will say, Hey, everybody, this is a great program. This is how much they were. This is fantastic. And that's sharing to other librarians? Yes, yes.

Internally?

Yes, and we do that within a second and then additionally we have weekly updates that get sent to managers in the system and then all of their upcoming programs so this is like a shared I know it's low tech, but it's a war dog. And it's all of the upcoming programs per branch plus whatever fun things happen that week. So any tool that we can use to talk about it That's what we do.

Yeah, and we also take advantage of social media. A lot of our branches have Facebook, Instagram accounts as well. If we are working with a partner, we also encourage the partner to... help us spread the word about a program. So we have worked with many nonprofits throughout the city of Boston who also have contacts with other youth or patrons that visit our library. So we are able to use that as a way also get the word out. And a lot of our staff, similar to what Priscilla said, a lot of their work is to leave the library and to go into the communities and do outreach, get the word out, school visits for youth staff or other organizations that we try the best we can. and we also have our website that has our calendar and information that highlights any programs coming up.

So we have a central website and individual All of our programs. Does every library have a social media account?

Yes, varying accounts, but then also our communications department amplifies other programs, and then our main website will show programs from other, like, you know, so the main bpl.org will have multiple programs that are listed and then each individual website also lists those programs.

We try to get it out as much as possible. Because I feel like I see it, but then I'm always wondering, because I know even different police departments, like their community outreach, some have a website or some have a social media account.

So to add on to what my colleagues were saying, ultimately with our communications department, that's something too that they really tried to really show that the word is getting out in various ways. So even if that includes thinking about different outlets that we can promote programs to, It's really exciting. There's other ways that we have promoted programs, so that also includes, like, if you guys notice on the news, we've been in different interviews, and then really making sure that those are different opportunities that people know about some of the different programs that we have. Ultimately, a big part of it too is asking our partners to cross-promote because there are so many programs that happen in the library. And so when people hear about them, they're like, oh, we don't really per se know which one we want to go to. So really encouraging our partners to cross-promote our programs is really important for us because that is also another way that we can ensure that people know about what's happening in the community. And then also, too, it also gives them the opportunity to really kind of share their work.

I would just add, while there is a central communications team that supports the staff as well as promoting its own The role these days of word of mouth cannot be underestimated and particularly in branch teams where They are fully staffed and have deep relationships with other community organizations. That is some of the best way to literally get the word out about what's happening. I think anecdotally, The phrase I hear very often and which sometimes sets me off is, I didn't know the library did that. And it could be about anything under the sun. It's a tribute to the range of things on offer but also a reminder that every channel has to be explored because these days people respond differently to different channels of information.

Like I didn't know my mom had been spending her Monday nights playing chess at the library, now I know.

I think many counselors have parents who love the libraries also.

and before I pass it off to Councilor Flynn just one thing too about the social media accounts because I do know like in our role too as elected officials there's this expectation of keeping up a you know social media presence and it can be a full-time job in itself so do we have support for the local branches if they have their own social media accounts so that because that can take a lot of time to keep it up and update it because once people want to go to it then you have to kind of make sure you're updating it so they're

There is one dedicated person on the central communications team whose only job is to pay attention to central social media as well as support branches. but you are correct that you can't be on all channels fully all of the time and so making sure Thank you. Thank you. More personal dimension these days have the larger impact.

Thank you. And we've been joined by Councilor Flynn. And thank you. I know you were on a very important safety meeting for the upcoming evacuation day parade. And it's always about a million people who attend. But this year with the 250th, it will be bigger. Thank you for being at both this morning, but you can have your statement.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I do want to apologize to the public library team for being late. I had a Zoom meeting with residents in my neighborhood about safety-related issues. So again, I want to apologize. But more importantly, I want to say thank you to the Boston Public Library team for being accessible for working with residents for outstanding professionalism that I see at public libraries that I visit. and I love the library system. I love seeing people engage with the library staff. I love seeing families Go to the library and do their homework. I love seeing elderly people looking at magazines and books and talking. But I love everything about the library.

In fact, I was with my parents Boston is writing an opera, community workshop. hosted by the Boston Lyric Opera and Boston Symphony. And they had an outstanding guest speaker. Her name was Tracy K. Smith, if you might be familiar with her. but she's an award-winning poet and I believe a Pulitzer Prize-winning and nationally known author as well. But watching her, In watching her interact with the community, talking about opera, many of them didn't know anything about opera. I don't know much about opera, but she explained it perfectly and she explained it well.

and to elderly people, to young people, to kids. And she brought out the best in the residents of Boston, but that's what the library system does. It brings people together, diverse backgrounds, And so I just want to acknowledge the library team. And it is about a team. So David Leonard, you're in the hot seat. That's the good news. That's the praise. But now the tough questions. You know why I always come with tough questions, David, right? Balance, counselor. Just since I have you, what's the latest on the South End Library, as you know? It's directly across the street from Villa Victoria, down the road from Castle Square, but also from Ruth Barclay, BHA, the old cathedral, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city.

I just want to give you an opportunity to talk about the South End.

Thank you. That is also my home neighborhood, so I'm doubly aware of the challenges and the needs and the opportunities as well as you have just referenced. Right now we are putting final touches to the design. There was a design review requested by the Public Works Department. Given the proximity of the new building, new proposed building, the footprint would change slightly to the alley behind the library. Our architectural team working with public facilities who is running the process. and Public Works are reconciling any concerns on that front and maybe doing a minor design. So I happen to believe we are just a few weeks away now from that completion. I had thought

We would be past this point several months ago, but that is the current update given that these new requirements did emerge. And then it really will be at the discretion of the and the capital budget team to release the funds so we can go out to bid and begin construction. As you will recall, and I'm quite happy to put this back on the record, our agreement The city, the library with the community was that rather than try and repair the damaged building, we would try and move as quickly as possible through our programming study design and then into construction in order to get a Thank you very much. and it's this last wrinkle that has slowed us down just by a few months at this point.

But I do know that City Capital is reviewing all of the citywide projects and so We hope to have news as we approach the formal budget planning season coming up and I'm sure we'll all have eyes on this project and one or two others from the library's point of view.

David, thank you. Excellent news. Thank you for the update. I met with the mayor's team recently, and I said they were just asking my opinion about the budget, especially the capital. And I said my number one priority really is the South End Library. and I want to do everything I can to ensure that that does happen. I do want to say thank you to the library team. Yes, there were challenges, but I think the library team handled them with professionalism. and you still have to do your due diligence. You have people like me constantly advocating and hurry up but you do have to do your due diligence and make sure it's professional and that's why we have a great library team. So I just want to acknowledge

Acknowledge our professionalism, David. Thank you so much. And in the meantime, our team under Priscilla's leadership has been providing pop-up programs and other We have equally been doing this in the Fields Corner area too, which is the other branch that is currently closed and running well from a construction point of view.

Okay. Yeah, thank you, Priscilla. Maybe I'll ask Priscilla a question. and I'm working obviously with the library team on a new Chinatown library. The residents of Chinatown, most of the adults, Speak Cantonese, as you know. But what are we doing to support English language learners, whether they're young children or they're adults? And how do we make a library more welcoming to them? They may not speak the language or they might be learning the language, but how do we ensure that they are involved, they are part of the process, and they are included? I do know you do a wonderful job on that but I just wanted to hear your answer because I do want the public to know what you guys are doing.

Well I'll speak to a bit about Chinatown and then actually if we're talking about younger Our younger residents and we'll ask Angela to speak about that as well. So we do provide ESOL classes at the Chinatown location and additional other We have opportunities for conversation circles and to making sure that people do have the opportunity to practice those skills and learn and then we also do have Multiple Cantonese speakers at the branch itself which does actually help in our branches. We make every effort that we can to make sure that we have language access For people that are coming in asking for resume help or asking for a book, we want to make sure that we can give people the service in the language that they're most comfortable in. But I'm talking about younger people.

Yes. So we have a children's librarian in every one of our locations. And we provide baby lab sets and story times, which provide early literacy tools to caregivers. So parents are the first teacher for a lot of youth. So those story times are essential moments where they can learn tips on how to introduce their children to concepts, playing, Singing, those are early steps to get a child prepared for school. And so all our locations have those programs available. We're also going to launch a program that starts hopefully sometime later this year where we're calling it a Parent Ambassador Program. This program is hoping to find Patrons that are involved in our neighborhood who speak a language that is spoken in the specific neighborhood who will be advocating for the communities and hopefully making connections because sometimes language barriers can be

We're hoping that that tool will help us to break those barriers and make sure that we can connect Patrons who don't speak English as their first language to come to the library. And we also try very hard to hire more bilingual staff as we can. It can be a little difficult sometimes, but we're trying as much as we can.

Excellent. Do we have time for more? Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't want to take up too much time. And thank you for those answers. Really appreciate it. Language and communication access are critical. And I also want to highlight the wonderful team at the Chinatown Temporary Library. I love visiting them, but I love seeing how they interact with the residents and how respectful they are. and want to acknowledge them. So just getting back to language access. So again, in Chinatown, oftentimes the child will speak English and the parent will speak. and Cantonese. And the parent will want the best for the child in accessing books and accessing various educational programs.

What is the interaction between the parent and the library when the parent doesn't necessarily speak English, but how do we ensure that that parent is included. Is that the program you're talking about?

Yeah, that's what we're hoping with the Parent Ambassador Program. My role, Chief of Youth and Family Engagement, It's fairly new. It's more of a shift now that we provide services to youth, but also incorporating that It is a family project, right? So it's also going to be a focus on bringing tools to caregivers as well so that they can learn about our services and not only know that they can bring their children I know in the past we've also talked about that some caregivers can't attend those ESL courses because of Thank you. Thank you. But yes, we try to provide as many ways to include parents to give them the tools necessary.

I know that we've also worked with BPS and a lot of their parent university programs as well to help Connect parents to understand that they also need to advocate for themselves and for their child when it comes to their education.

I think, Councillor, your question has indicated the importance of having multilingual staff that are able to speak languages that are more commonly spoken in a given neighbourhood. Where that's not possible, We also participate in the city's interpretation service, which is a video on demand interpreter. And so that can be useful as well.

And I was actually going to mention that. Yeah, that's one of the ways that we can provide that on-demand service to families. And so that is actually really helpful. And that's through the city's language and communication access. and so making sure that our staff knows how to use that equipment and how to reach out to get an interpreter for on-demand services. We make sure that we have that available to them. And currently with our EDI Manager. She has been working closely with the branches to identify liaisons among our 25 branches to make sure that people are able to know how to navigate the system, and then how to actually fulfill that service when needed and demand.

We haven't mentioned collections. We are still also about books at libraries. And so working with our collections team and the local staff to understand Where do we need more books in different languages and occasionally multilingual books so that you can actually see the side-by-side interlinear interpretation in multiple languages?

Excellent. And my final question. would be, how do we provide the safest environment for library staff, for the public, for families, Knowing that we also have challenges in many of our particular neighborhoods including the Copley Library, without getting into specific I do want to ensure that we provide the safest environment for learning and for engaging on academics as we can. I do know that we do have public safety challenges and we want the library to be accessible to everybody, but we have to have a zero tolerance for any type of criminal activity.

Criminal Activity or Intimidation. But can you speak generally just about that? Because I know it is a concern. I want to do my due diligence to provide the safest environments we can for employees and for the public.

It is one of the more commonly discussed topics, and over the last several years, probably at least since the pandemic era, we have seen a larger number of Patrons who visit our spaces with their own sets of challenges which may or may not conform to the appropriate use policy for use of a library. We have added social work capacity to our own staff in order to try and meet those people where they are at and get them referred to the right resources which We do not have the skills or capacity to deal with. Also, in last year's budget, we were able to expand our employed security management team by one. And so those things make a difference. in combination, I think, with some security officers that's under contract at many of the locations, if not all.

I will say that probably the biggest factor Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. visual deterrence, and Priscilla can certainly speak about this in branches. And so I think as we go into budget season, we're going to hope that we can get through this and continue to have a robust staff because it is the branches and the staff that make for a successful library system.

And we have a strong appropriate use policy that we've just recently updated, which was actually Staff and Management Creation. And we ask that all of our library users follow the appropriate use policy and when library users are not able to, we do have a process for Asking them to leave or sometimes people need a timeout for a couple weeks or longer. And so we work, so as David mentioned, with the increase of our security team, Ali and Michael, we work with them every day to make sure that staff are aware of any concerns and we work on this. We also additionally launched a training for all staff about boundaries, trauma-informed approaches and these trainings are a way to

Sort of making sure that we have more of a shared vocabulary when we're working with people that are struggling with challenges being in our libraries.

And when that is not enough, we in particular continue to have a strong relationship with the D4 BPD team so that we do know when the line is crossed, we engage the appropriate resources to address the situation.

Has anyone from the library staff ever been assaulted by the public? Yes. Is that common? No. But it's infrequently? Yep. Okay. I am concerned like you are just about the safety of our staff. They do a tremendous job. They bring people together. They're respected in the community. They're helping everybody. But I do want to make sure that We are advocating for the staff as well because they only can do their job if they're safe.

Yeah, and I think under staff, we would want to consider our contracted security officers part of that, part of our body who do that work, who are often the persons who are Thank you. Thank you. We don't want these situations. Our process, our policies, our training is to prevent and de-escalate, but in situations where something unfortunate happens, and many more.

Thank you, David and Priscilla and Angela and D'Andra. Did I pronounce D'Andra?

D'Andra.

D'Andra. Thank you, D'Andra. I just want to say thank you for being here, for the important work you do. I've had an opportunity to work with you, David, for probably eight years, and you've always been very responsive, as has your entire team. You've always been very professional. Just want to say thank you for your commitment to the residents of Boston. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a few follow up from When we just mentioned BPS, I know the library's always had a close relationship with our schools, but are there other city departments that we work closely with or that you wish you have stronger relationships and then tying into the safety conversation, I just was thinking like you have to contract out a private security. Is there a reason why we don't use Municipal Police, seeing as though we own these buildings. They are city buildings. Has that ever been a time when the municipal police and property management oversee the safety of our libraries? But I don't want to just focus on the safety of it, but that's a department that I was thinking of. But if there are other departments that we could either help facilitate better relationships or just share out so that I'm aware of that collaboration.

Well, I know D'Andrea will have more on this, but in talking about ways to just going back to the program, We work with Age Strong and all of the city departments and they send out their own flyers and their own newsletters every month or week depending. And so any of those connections, they are often where we are like, oh, come to the library for this program. So that's just another way that we're able to work with our city colleagues to get our other programs that we have out. Additionally, we work with Zero Waste pretty regularly and definitely make sure that we are highlighting The fix it clinics that we do and other zero waste programming that we have throughout the city.

So if Age Strong is wanting to do a program How do they connect if they want to use the library? Is it the library saying, hey, we'd love you to come here or is it both ways?

It's a combination of both. So we have opportunities where A Strong has came and they have offered programs, especially as they have been developing their team, which is really exciting. And so they'll come and share that these are the different sub departments that they have within their department. and they'll share their different programs. And so we've worked with them in various ways of where they've come out to our branches if we have some programs for our older adults and then they'll have something that would dovetail or they'll come and they'll do things such as a memory cafe and other programs there. But most recently as we are thinking about all of our adult age populations and then just also intergenerational programming, we have been thinking about what are some of the ways that we can Thank you. Thank you.

and they will share some of their amazing folks that's doing work around health and wellness, and even folks that they've partnered with in the community and refer them to us and collaborate in that way. So that's one of the things we're doing with them. They also offer training, so we make sure that our librarian staff are aware of them for their creative arts program. and our library staff have attended and they've been able to also form relationships. We've also strategized and came up with other ways that we can think about when we're talking about how do we develop programming and marketing in serving more as a As a thought partner in the work around like what can we both do on both of our ends so we can advance the work that we're doing is really helpful. And I think a big thing as we think about, well, who falls into this category of Older Adult Populations, understanding retirement age varies, right? Or it looks different for a different individual.

They say that Council Flynn and I are age strong, aged now, yeah. I don't agree, but 55 or older, so I guess we can't.

They call myself and David dinosaurs.

So just thinking about those different things have been really helpful in our working relationships with them. And they're one of many. We also partner with the arts and culture department here. where we think about what are some other programs that we can have. So our collaboration varies, whether it's us coming to them or they come to us to think about ways that we can expand our work. and we're doing so many great things kind of across the library system as we think about health and wellness, arts and culture, creating knowledge exchange opportunities, so whether that's through lectures and other well-informed ways that we partner with

Flynn, and I have an elder scamming hearing coming up soon. Is that something that you try to have at different branches, like highlighting, or do we have workshops at libraries to make seniors aware?

So within our library... A Strong Hats came out and they've done some workshops around that. But then also at the library ourselves, we have a media literacy librarian. And so she'd offer programs around scamming and knowing these different things and how to be able to detect and figure out What is considered appropriate? So whether it's phone calls, if it's ads, all those different things, like walking them through those different ways in which people can contact individuals and what's real, what's fake, right? So those are the different things that we do as a library within ourselves to make sure that people are aware of these. And they're not just open to older adults. They're open to adults in general, people who just have those questions. So that's that intergenerational component.

We piloted at West Roxbury our first ever age-strong dedicated librarian and that's been an opportunity to not just learn the neighborhood needs for that demographic but also our demographic but also to to partner with Age Strong as well. And I would just add that because we are part of the Human Services Cabinet, We do have an extra set of responsibilities to partner with Age Strong, Office of Youth Engagement, Veterans Affairs, Returning Citizens. and the community centers. So we're very aware of that and we haven't stopped being an arts and culture partner just because we left their cabinet and came to human services as well. on the BPS. I think, Angela, the BPS relationship is strong when there's a good local relationship between the school and the library. That's where it works

The best way to address the safety needs and safety capacities is an ongoing conversation, including with Amon Shelton, Commissioner of Property Management, a former BPL manager. And so we have relationships there. It's really about what is the right resource for the right situation.

Thank you. We've been joined by Councilor Mejia. Would you like to ask some questions? Yeah, it's your turn. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Sorry for my tardiness. I did not hear the bell ring. Bad Student. So I am just here, I'd like to learn a little bit more about support services for recent arrivals. and the role the libraries can play in helping to support the social and emotional well-being of some of our students and also acclimating recent arrivals. and I don't even know if that exists or if I missed that part of your presentation, but I am very curious about recent arrivals, and having access to programming.

We do a variety of things and I think if we're going to be talking also, my colleague will be talking about youth in this capacity as well. We do have ESOL classes that we have throughout the system. We also have immigration corners, so it's resources that the city provides. So every one of our locations has a dedicated space for new arrivals for people to be getting information about Thank you very much. People are coming for all different things and it's not one size fits all for that. And so often when people are coming in, they'll work with the location, the neighborhood branch that they're in and to go from there, whether it's even something of like, Using translation software to update resumes and getting people onto computers.

So it's a variety of things.

Yeah. And I want to go a little bit deeper. Just for a second, I'm thinking about the Boston Public Health Commission. I'm thinking about BPS. I'm thinking about how sometimes, you know, you are probably the only public-facing entity that and so kind of just diving a little bit deeper in terms of I always say that we are resource rich but coordination poor when it comes to support services for our residents and so curious about what that interface How are we integrating other departments? the Office of Immigrant Advancement, the Office of LGBTQ.

How are you, not just with the immigration, but just overall, helping to navigate everything that we have to offer?

I think it's, I agree with you, and thank you for your support, Councillor, around our literacy agenda for the city, for sure. And I do agree that the library is most often the first stop on a new arrival, an immigrant's journey, a refugee's journey. to interface with how do I acclimatize myself to this new city? How do I engage with government in a way that is not threatening or not frightening? and I think our staff do a very good job of helping navigate, really doing an intake around what does this person need and what do we have on offer for them. But your point about the other city departments, We frequently brief department heads and cabinets on the range of services that are available. We're probably overdue to do that because there have been a few changes.

and then it's really about connecting people on my team at the management level or supervisory level to their peers in those organizations. There is always more work to do and I agree with you wholeheartedly that more coordination is certainly required It's not always about more resource. Sometimes it is actually just about more coordination.

Yeah, thank you. And I would love to, and I don't even know if there's any time limit here. I would love to see... Some more interfacing with our neighborhood liaisons. I think that there is opportunity for collaboration so that it doesn't fall on the library. You guys are already strapped. I think that the city neighborhood services can be a better partner alongside you all in terms of resourcing, so that you don't have to own it, but there has to be some sort of organizing or commitment or coordination that happens with and many more. from the city neighborhood that represents this particular district that could potentially help you.

I think that level of efficiency is what I'd love to just offer, not for you to carry it, but for whoever's listening right now.

It's a two-way street, for sure.

For the city to see that.

I welcome the prompt. because in my experience at least anecdotally now almost 10 years in this role that's one of the roles that turns over fairly frequently so even if we did a briefing Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. You know, my assistants, and if there's, I mean, I can't keep asking y'all, what are y'all gonna do if I'm not willing to do it? I'm citywide, so if there's anything that I can do to support you all, please. Know that I'm here, and as you mentioned, I'm deeply committed to the work around literacy. You know a lot of people have interrupted education when they come here. We have young people who are literally disappearing from our school halls and ending up in DYS and in spaces and places where they on the school to prison pipeline and it makes people, it's harder to learn how to read and write when you have so much going on. Just want to thank you, David, for your leadership in that space and working alongside Elizabeth and the other folks on the Literacy Task Force to get it right. And thank you for being such a great partner.

And thank you all for showing up on a Friday to listen to us.

I do want to mention though the neighborhood services managers that work out here they are fantastic and for the most part whenever I reach out to the branch librarians they have a they have a really strong I know that they do turn over a lot and I just want to recognize that there's a 24-7 job for those recent grads and we appreciate them and they are always connecting with the library but I think I have no more questions.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy.

Questions or closing remarks?

I just want to briefly state thank you, Councilor Murphy, for chairing this important hearing. It's good to be with our colleague, Councilor Mejia, as well. The Boston Public Library system brings out the best in residents, and it's about working together, treating each other with respect and dignity. and I think that's what the library system is all about and just want to acknowledge the team that's in front of us but also the workers throughout the Boston Public Library System Thank you for coming.

I do just want to uplift what both Councilor Flynn and Mejia highlighted when they spoke, just how libraries are such a lifeline for so many of our residents. And so thank you for showing up. And I'm happy to see that. Angela and Deandra in your new roles. I'm not sure if your role is kind of new also, but this is great to see that we're really having kind of this umbrella to support each branch with our youth, family, and senior programming. I'm happy you came. Thank you, David, for inviting all your team to really go over the questions we would have. And just looking forward to the budget season, right? And I know we're talking about just making sure that we're Thank you for the work you do and if you have any closing Remarks or anything, please take the time.

Just again, thank you, Councillor, for the hearing and the opportunity to Showcase and have dialogue about the work that is happening that is necessary for our system to succeed, for our city to succeed. And we look forward to ongoing conversations during the budget season. and we look forward to your continued support to the extent that we can expect it. So again, thank you all for what you do.

Thank you. And obviously thank you to you Sarah also, but I was just highlighting that Two new people in the library branch, but thank you for always being here, and I see you out in the neighborhoods and the branches, so thank you for that. Did you want to say any closing remarks? Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So we do not have any public testimony. So with that said, this hearing on docket 0284 is adjourned. Thank you.