The Iowa City Public Library interim director presented a midterm progress report on the library’s three-year strategic plan and trustees discussed accessibility upgrades including hearing-loop/T-coil options. The report covers the last six months of the plan and staff described a color-coded progress chart used for internal tracking.

Why it matters: The strategic plan guides program, collection and facility decisions through fiscal year 2026; the board’s accessibility choices affect how patrons with hearing loss can use library meeting spaces.

Anne Mangano described the report as “pretty much as a progress report, of where we're filling our goals and objectives for the current strategic plan,” noting the document aggregates activity from the past two years and that fiscal year 2026 is the final year of the plan. She explained the packet uses color-coding to indicate completed work and items with ongoing progress.

Trustee Kelsey Patrick Frey, a hearing-aid user, asked whether staff had contacted local audiologists so they would know the library now has T-coil/hearing-loop options. Frey said clinicians could inform patients about the library’s new capability when discussing hearing-aid features. Mangano replied that staff had discussed future technology changes and that the current purchase was of existing technology with a plan to revisit newer options in “5 to 10 years.”

No board vote was taken; the item was presented as an update. Trustees suggested staff use the strategic-plan materials for external reporting (annual report, council briefings, newsletter) with language adjusted for those audiences.

Ending: Staff will incorporate trustee feedback about wording and accessibility outreach into future reporting and continue to track progress toward the plan’s FY26 completion.