Letter from Debbie

May 28, 2020

Anyone else feel exhausted? Fatigued? I took the advice of one of our MLA Connect Coffee Hour speakers about taking care of yourself with a mental and physical break last week. Even when working from home, with nowhere to go due to the pandemic, it was time to slow the world down. I highly recommend it.

While we have been working remotely since March 13, the MLA staff continues to work hard on your behalf. I honestly believe that in MLA’s 129-year history, we have never needed to pay attention and synthesize so much information coming at us from so many sources, so quickly. The staff cancelled programming plans, made new plans, and are now updating plans to keep our advocacy, communications, education and engagement strong.

I know that each and every one of you is feeling the same and wanting to get back to some semblance of “normalcy.” As I contemplated all that has happened since early March, I truly believe that what has caused the exhaustion and fatigue is in the not knowing what is coming next, trying to anticipate, and changing plans (almost daily, sometimes hourly) that is the most tiring. And I’m sure that this is not just the library community experiencing this either, everyone is in the same storm.

As we anticipate MLA’s future and what the next fiscal year will look like, our finance committee has been hard at work too. With the reduction of revenue for our Spring Institute and all of our spring workshops, MLA regrouped quickly, secured a PPP loan to carry us through the end of the fiscal year, and have amended our current year budget and proposed a FY21 budget to reflect a new reality. While we anticipated our staff structure to return to five full-time members, we will not be looking any time soon for a finance and administrative director, instead we are contracting our bookkeeping and payroll to an outside firm, saving us thousands of dollars. Dollars that we know will not be generated based on our predictions of changes in attendance and how we deliver content at our conferences and workshops. We are being proactive in identifying changes and extremely conservative in our forecasting – as it should be, with so much unknown of how this pandemic will play out.

But what about next year – how will our fall programming be accomplished? What will the annual conference look like? Will we be able to hold it? Will you be able to travel? Will you want to attend? How will we adapt to the conference venue guidelines – will they protect us? We are still unsure how our fall programming will be produced – in person, a hybrid event or fully online. We are planning to make hard decisions on our direction at the end of June based on the environment that we are in at that time. Our annual conference work group, led by Kevin King at the Kalamazoo Public Library, will help guide those decisions. We have our fingers crossed that we will see you in late October.

Which reminds me of the thing I miss most during this remote time – I miss travelling across this beautiful state and visiting with you at your libraries. I miss talking to you in person. I miss seeing how innovative and creative your spaces are. Travel is an essential and critical part of our work and we have gained many new members by personally meeting them in their spaces and spending time with them to understand the differences each face. While we are in the midst of our organization renewal cycle, we have gained a number of new members who have stated that the reason for their renewal is due to our advocacy work, our robust communications, and our attention to our members. Thank you for your faith in us…we are excited to be serving you once again.

So until we can begin our visits again, when libraries are safe to reopen to the public and we have lifted our travel restrictions, the MLA staff, board and committees (made up of members like you) will continue working hard to make the best decisions, based on the information we have at hand, at the time it is given to us. What we write and verbalize is not in a vacuum, we are listening and synthesizing and analyzing every minute of the day. As a member, don’t forget how important it is to share your input as well. Feedback is always welcome.

Time off last week gave me a chance to take a deep breath, read a good book, take a break, find my balance (and patience) again, and to step outside and enjoy the green grass and blue skies.

Stay well, be safe.

Deborah E. Mikula
Executive Director

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