AADL Annual Report 2027

For the AADL Director Interview process, finalists were asked to give a 10-12 minute talk as if they were presenting the AADL Annual Report to the board 5 years in the future.

There’s a lot that I can see AADL doing, and there are things I expect could happen in the world that AADL would need to react to. This is a little bit of all of that.

Here’s all the text (and a bit more) that appears on slides in this slide deck.

Hello, I’m Eli.

My background is in Architecture, IT, Music, Comedy, and Puppetry,

and my experience includes Writing, Financial , Personnel & Facilities Management, Event Production, AV Production, and of course Libraries.

I was first hired at AADL in August 1997 as a Helpdesk Technician. Then I worked as:

Desktop Engineer
Systems Planner / Advanced Content Designer (I made up that title myself!)
Network Administrator
IT Manager
Associate Director of IT & Production
And I’ve been Deputy Director since 2014.

So, to frame up the Library Sci-fi you’re about to hear:

I won’t be talking about specific partners
I won’t be talking about specific buildings
I won’t be talking about the strategic plan
I (mostly) won’t be talking about numbers

I will be talking about things we could do and things that could happen in the world and how the library might respond and how things will be ok.

So with that….

Ann Arbor District Library 2027 annual report

SERVICE DAYS

16 days closed - All Locations
5 days Mostly Open - Some Locations Closed
11 weeks Vestibule Service (2 runs)
4 weeks Basic Service (Transition into and out of Vestibule Service)
34 weeks Full Service
5 Days Resiliency Center Service in partnership with Emergency Management

ENERGY USE TRENDS

HVAC - Down
LIGHTING - Down
LIBRARY VEHICLES - Down
OTHER - Flat
EMBODIED ENERGY - Up due to some major equipment purchases involving a lot of aluminum

210 Days of Zero-emission Delivery Route! (Charging Electric Delivery Truck from the Plaza Solar Array)

SERVICE UPDATES

Fifth Avenue Arts
Fifth Avenue Labs
Fifth Avenue Kitchen
Packaged Partner Services

Phonocalypse - August 2026

A sudden, constant flood of spam calls besieges any phone number, making voice calls unusable.

Webapps launch like InstaYak, howRya, TINCAN, Moshi, Fonecal, and Lotus Dialer

AADL Launches New Correspondence Services for those unable to use new phone alternatives.

Facebookalypse - September 2026

A swarm of false traffic from real but dormant facebook accounts floods everyone’s feed with gibberish.

AADL Launches new in-person and at-home social / informative events for those most affected.

Adpocalypse - October 2026

The IoT botnet comes for the ad serving, tracking, and federating industry. Local News Outlets are Liquidated as the Private Equity that owns them decides they’re no longer profitable enough.

AADL creates a community newsroom and adds staff positions and tech resources to support it.

Cryptopocalypse - December 2026

Cryptocurrency exchange sites are knocked offline as fast as they can be brought up. Bitcoin and ETH crash.

No Impact on AADL or new services required.

Credit for these 4 Apocalypses is taken by an anticapitalist hacker collective calling itself the Horsemen, using cartoon character Bojack Horseman as their signature meme. So yes, it is the Four Apocalyses of the Horsemen.

More Service Updates

AADL.TV releases native app for smart TVs
Say Hello Service
BookBoxer - inventorying Little Free Bookboxes
Help Your Shelf - Sharing personal collections through the AADL infrastructure

CHECKOUT Trends

Books - Up
eBooks - Down
Magazines - Up
audiobooks - Flat
Bluray - Down
DVD - Up
LP - Up
CD - Up

BOOKINGS Trends

Tools - flat
Online Rooms - Up
Meeting Rooms - flat
Working Rooms - Up
Program Rooms - Flat
- AADL Events - Flat
- Partner Events - Up
- Room Rentals - Down
- Community Events - Up

FEATURED EVENTS

Protest Lab
Community Cubesat Flyovers
WAPUR 2026 Robotics Competition
Not-so-scary Haunted House

FESTIVAL SEASON

Foolmoon & Festifools
Record Store Day
Library Camp
AACME Invention Fest
Gardening & DIY Fest
VISIONS
Fifth Avenue Studios Podfest
Gundam Fest
Fanrock Fest
A2CAF
Summer Game Spectacular
TretonCon
AADL Lego Contest
Dead Media Week
Wayzgoose
Game Over Gala & Auction

WEEKLIES / SERIES

Futbol Saturdays
Summer Sundays
Pokémondays
Trivia Tuesdays
Writer’s Wednesdays
Synthursday
Fiber Fridays
Lobbytorium Movie Clubs
Lobbytorium TV Clubs
Touring Authors Series
Antiracist Lecture Series
Anishinaabe Speaker Series
LGBT+ Event Series
Artists with Disabilities Series
Desi Cultural Series
PULP Presents Concert Series
Silver Social Hour
Sensory-Friendly Series

Note: some of these series concepts are for staff organization only and would not be used in promotion.

OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY

Card Drives and Cardholder Recruitment - Up
StreetCraft - Flat
Pop-up Checkout eBike - Up
Pop-up Program eBike - Up
Partner Programs - Up
K12 onsite events - Flat
University Outreach - Down
Custom Courier Service - Up

INTERNAL GOALS

A MORE DIVERSE STAFF
- Community Internship Program
- Equity-focused Benefit Offerings
- Partner Jobs Program
IMPROVING EQUITY OF ACCESS
- Service Access Assistants
- Clothes Connection
- Say Hello Service
TO INCREASINGLY INCLUSIVE SERVICES
- Not Just Heritage & History Months / Days of Observance
- Special Collections & Events
- Community-based Event Hosting

TO SUM UP…

Things are going well at AADL!
More events, more patrons, more cards, more engagement
Room to improve for reach, efficiency, planning, inclusion
Challenging things continue to happen.
Our communities are proud of how we’ve responded.
Thank you to our amazing staff and our incredible patrons for making it all happen every day.

Any Questions?

email me at eli at eliworks.com !