 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time. But if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show as we are doing today, and it will be available for you to watch later at your convenience. Both the live show and the recording are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the shows we have on Encompass Live. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries, so similar to your state library. We provide services and resources and training and grants to all types of libraries in the state. So we will have shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything. Really, our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. Something cool libraries are doing. We do book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products, sorts of things. We sometimes have Nebraska Library Commission staff that come on Encompass Live to talk about resources and things we're doing here through the commission. But we also bring on guest speakers, too, and that's what we have today with us. From two of our University of Nebraska campuses, libraries. Native them here in Lincoln. I'm in Lincoln. Craig and Omaha, Jenny and Carney, three different locations. That's why we love this technology. And they're going to talk to us about digital libraries and digital third place, something we've all been dealing with for years, working with for years and years. Just how things are going now. This was a presentation, correct, that was supposed to have been done at our state conference last year in Nebraska, but was unable to be done then. So we're happy to, for trying to be able to share the research and everything that Craig and Jenny have done. So I will hand it over to you both to go ahead and take it away. Introduce yourself more fully and talk about what you found out. Yeah. So hi, thanks for having us. Yeah, I'll just start by introducing myself. Yeah, I just noticed it says Steven Finlay, but which is in fact my name, but I go by Craig and I'm the open educational resources and STEM librarian at UNO Chris Libraries. I'm Jenny Haddon. I'm the processing and outreach archivist at the University of Nebraska at Carney. Yeah, so I'm going to I'm going to be doing kind of the first part of this and I'll turn it over to Jenny and then she'll take it back over to me. So what we've been sort of wrestling with in terms of ideas when we've been doing this research is thinking about, and this is also something that I want you to think about as you're doing this as well, is, you know, as libraries are very much in a time of transition as online services and virtual services are increasingly becoming such a huge part of what libraries do. Think about what libraries have been able to do in the past and the the value and benefit to society and the purpose that they serve. And and think about, you know, are we continuing to do that in a virtual sense? And that was kind of the question that was guiding our investigations here. And it led us to look at ideas of third place, ideas of loneliness and disconnection and isolation. And so, yeah, it's it's a bunch of content to squeeze into an hour, but we're going to try to get through it. So. So the story that we tell about ourselves as as libraries. So let's start by stopping here. And, you know, probably the last place that I'm going to need to make the why we need libraries, why our library is great argument is to encompass live presentation to a bunch of librarians. But let's assume that I am or you are. And let's stop taking it for granted. So just to kick things off here, let's just take a couple of minutes. And you can put it in the chat. Where's the chat function again? The question questions. Yeah, type into the questions. I'm seeing that I have got that open here on my screen and I'll be able to see what everyone's typing in and let you know. Yeah, I was just wondering because I don't. Right. Yeah, you don't look like if it was me doing it. Oh, oh, chat. It's in chat. Yes, sorry. So take a couple of minutes and think back to library school. Think back to sort of your induction into the profession. And, you know, what are the. The big value ads that libraries get? Why? Why? Why are libraries important? You know, part of those talking points that you probably haven't had to use in a while. And if you put them in the chat, then we can. Yeah, go ahead and start typing in this question section of the chat there. You're thinking about it still, yeah. No, I will say. For anyone who is typing, I can't. It's not like I can't see if someone's in the middle of typing something if they wait till they're done. So somebody's putting together this great sales for what their library is a great. I won't be able to see it until they hit enter and it pops up. So we'll get people a few more seconds here and then. Surrender to the attendees immunity to silence a version. OK, well, I release other people offering suggestions there. But fortunately, I have already written down some of the likely ones here. OK, so what did you come up with? Well, nothing, but we've got a couple of things that are now. Of course, as soon as you say. Someone says printers and scanners. OK, so very specific service there. Something that people probably don't have at their own homes. It's not the kind of thing you would generally invest in regularly. And so any of those kind of things that people do use often, but don't think, well, do I need my own? Let's see, providing resources and materials to assist patrons. And as I think they're important because they welcome everyone. OK, great. Yeah. And that's what I had written down. Like there it's the great equalizer. Everyone is open to everyone. You don't it's free. It's a safe space. Someone just typed in, yeah. Yeah. And that's, I think, to a great extent, the the story that we tell about ourselves, that we are this place that is open to everyone, that is a place of equity. Right. So one of them is that libraries are free, at least, you know, to the people who walk into the door. So they're one of the few remaining institutions that don't really place a monetary demand on people to use it. Right. You can just come in and and use those services. Another common one. And this is actually sort of like I actually went through and I read a whole bunch of like 10 reasons why libraries are great lists and those like just to see like how many all four of these were on and they were on all of them. But public education. So libraries offer public education for lifetime learners. So offering services to patrons, but also those very specific technical services that were mentioned. Equity and access, what you had just mentioned, right. And libraries offer their services to all regardless of social economics, race or gender. Right. It's a it's the great equalizer, as you said. And then one that I recall hearing a lot in a library school, actually, was sort of that libraries embody democratic ideals, you know. So they embody everyone having a voice. They embody, you know, equity access, sort of this kind of lofty conception of the the the ability of democracy. Right. And I think that's going to be the elevator pitch that most library science students come out of their MLS with. So ultimately, yes, a part of the community. But what does this mean in the age of digital library services? So, yeah, I just I grabbed some quick numbers here. So East circulation. 2020 saw 430 million items circulate through overdrive. Now, at the time, the dramatic increase was just distributed to covid and no one wanted to go outside. But 2021 surpassed that number. And then in 2022 overdrive alone, and this is, you know, that common public library e-services app hit 555 million. So 120 million, you know, since 2020 of an increase. And in terms of online education as well, I looked at a couple of market studies. Some forecasts predict that the size of the online education market will double between 2021 and 2027. So not just an increase on the level we're seeing in circulation, but the whole market will double in size over that six year period. So public education and library services increasingly moving and then at an increasing pace, apparently, into online services. And yes, I appreciate that we're also taking advantage of that right here. And we're taking advantage of these virtual services to do this thing. I mean, I can tell you we've had Encompass Live has been. This is our 15th year of Encompass Live. So we've been doing this long before, you know, since 2009. And we did have a huge increase in attendance in 2020. Obviously, people needed interaction or just needed to do, you know, they couldn't attend conferences in person, so they needed something to earn their continuing education. But it has it has stuck to just like that. Or I think it's definitely overall more than it was overall before. I think people have just decided, hey, we can do this. This is a thing. Why shouldn't we continue doing it? Yeah. No, I mean, it's a it's, you know, I'm I'm on Team Zoom. I really am because it dramatically decreases the number of daily meetings that I have to go to a conference room for. Yeah. So I found this article from last year that was a meta analysis of looking at every sort of practice article that they could find, looking at describing digital library, virtual service blank, right? And the four areas and sorry, there should be another space there between the citation because it's kind of crowded, but the four areas that they identified that were the sort of most common categories into which they could place these initiatives were infrastructure, access and outreach. So extending circulation and services and reference services into a virtual arena, information literacy and particularly health education, which makes a lot of sense and kind of covid and with libraries putting on things like information literacy and fake news workshops, which I've given myself to public libraries, policy, management and growth. So what are policies for virtual type rate services? How do we manage this growth? How do we assign labor hours and money to it? And then staffing training for new modes of librarianship. So as we offer these new services, as libraries change, into becoming increasingly digital, that's going to need new training and new kinds of staff and new job requirements to be brought in. So those were the four that they picked out across all of the studies that they looked at. So what was missing there? I found this great quote that bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities. Oh, yes, I've seen that. Yeah, I see this quote. Yeah, so I don't know how many of you all are familiar with the idea of third place. So Ray Oldenburg, a sociologist in the Great Good Place, which is published in the 80s, he started to look at community at as as far as places and spaces in communities that serve essential functions in those communities. And so he articulated this idea of third places. So these are social environments that are not work, that are not home, that serve an essential role in building and maintaining communities. So first place being home and then you have to go to work. But then instead of those two, you can head to this third place. So aspects of third places that have been identified is that third places are typically a neutral ground. There's no political and little to no financial obligations incurred by being there. They are a leveled place, so community is emphasized over social status. Again, what you had mentioned for libraries, the great equalizer, right? And conversation is a main activity, though not necessarily the only activity, right? So it is a place where a socialization can be unstructured, it can be organic, or if it is structured according to a place, right? People can still find these organic interactions and conversations within them. So the one that Ray Oldenburg researched quite a bit was this sort of traditional neighborhood barbershop, right? So the idea of a barbershop, and there's a bunch of people hanging out in the barbershop, and very few people are getting haircuts, they're just there to be. Also, more recently, the idea of sort of the decline of the bowling alley has been examined in the context of the decline of sort of close-knit communities, you know? So that's a structured activity, but also people just mostly go there to hang out. So casual, non-pretentious atmospheres, third places evoke the every person rather than status. And another aspect is accessibility and openness. So they are readily available and open to the people who use them. So not a big financial investment to use them, and ideally easy to get to, or at least not terribly difficult to get to. So I found another great quote in talking about third places. This is from Jeffrey's 2009. By the way, so all of our references at the end, we just made a Google Doc, and these slides are going to be uploaded so you can just follow the link to the Google Doc. For an individual, the third place offers stress release from the everyday demands of both home and work that provides the feeling of inclusiveness and belonging associated with participating in a group of social activities without the rigidity of policy or exclusiveness of club or organization membership. So a golf country club while serving a social function to the people who pay to attend it isn't really a third place. It doesn't meet all of those requirements. Bowling allies you do have to pay for, but it's a lot easier. The barrier for entry is a lot lower. So Putnam in Bowling Alone, which I had mentioned earlier, he uses bowling allies as a metaphor for the decline in civic and community engagement in the United States. So in the fifties and sixties, bowling was the most popular leisure time social activity in the country. I didn't know that. Yeah, and there were more than twice as many bowling allies as there are now. So Putnam noticed that while the number of people who bowled actually increased from 1980 to 2000, participation in leagues decreased sharply. So whereas bowling allies once functioned as a third place, people were now bowling alone. Jenny, I am not, so real quick to break out. These aren't numbered on here where I'm seeing them. So can you just give me a bonk when I switch over? I can't hear you. You're muted. Get yourself muted still. I think it's the one after this. Yes, OK. Oh, I clicked too early. I'm sorry. Name some other third places. I've got one here for you already, which is churches. But what would a couple other examples be? Oh, here we go. Coffee shops, public parks, public playgrounds. Well, obviously the library. And yes, parks serve that function as well. Yeah, so any place that you can really think of with a low barrier for entry and a high socialization and community building function. And yes, I now recognize on the next slide. So I'm going to turn the next portion then over to Jenny who's going to talk about libraries as third place for a little bit. OK. And for some reason, my first slide always misses one section. So thank you. So I'm going to revisit some of Craig's points as I continue forward. But mostly we're going to discuss the idea that libraries and including digital libraries are automatically third places. And we're going to go into how libraries were forced by the COVID pandemic to rapidly adapt in order to stay functional. And then introduce the concept of the loneliness epidemic and how libraries are well positioned to combat that in both physical and digital third places spaces. So libraries automatically function as an important third place in communities. Whether it's for a multi-generational book club to meet for when parents of young children are socializing during a weekend, children's story time, or if it's a place for students to study or hang out between classes. They're not just defined by rows and rows of books or banks of free computers, but it's all the spaces surrounding them where individuals can retreat or where groups can gather. And unlike other, most other third places such as restaurants, coffee shops, or areas where people tend to gather, libraries are free as we've pointed out already. They're often open for extended hours depending on their location. And again, as we've mentioned, they're available regardless of age, ethnicity, self-identity, occupation, or socioeconomic status. And outside the realm of strictly reading material, libraries also have the capacity to function as a facilitator for public health outcomes. There was a study by Philbin in 2019 that examined the rules of libraries in a number of areas, but not limited to providing information or limited access to health care, addiction services, employment services. And they specifically noted that libraries can address social exclusion among structurally vulnerable groups, which includes the homeless, poor marginalized peoples, immigrants, the elderly, or LGBTQ youth who might feel unsafe at home or on the streets. And so the commonality found in the compiled data from the study, it was the focus on the social role of libraries both in public and academic as physical third places. And the facility of why is this changing by itself? Actually, we still, Steve, or Craig is still sharing his screen. Did you want to switch to you doing the slides, Jenny? Oh, yeah, thanks. Didn't hit over to you, yeah. Hang on a sec. I can make you. Sorry, I just clicked over too quickly. Ah, there we are. There you go. Now you should be able to share your screen. Sorry. It's all right. We just didn't do that switch, and I wasn't sure when you wanted to do it. So there you go. Okay. Now it's your screen, Jenny. All right. So, well, we'll start on the next slide then. So the third place focus, it's not limited to public libraries, either for, are my slides not on the screen yet? No, they are. Nope. Nope. That's yours. Yep. Okay. Yep, we're seeing it. Yep. So academic libraries serve much the same capacity, the same role for students. They're spaces for study or socializing, group programming, facilitating connections to other services on campus with learning commons, financial aid, the student health center, et cetera. And many of those same functions as public libraries are available just maybe under a different name. And I've worked at larger institutions that have purpose built study centers that operate the sort of a home away from home for students who just need to get out of their dorm rooms to work. But a lot of campuses don't have that. So the university library does serve a vital role as an impartial third place outside of dorms and classrooms. And this is especially true and necessary if it's somewhere like UNK. It's a small school, slightly isolated from town and students might not have access to transportation to get off campus and go somewhere else. So one important question we're asking you to consider is, you know, are libraries as third places dependent on the existence of libraries as a physical space? So from book clubs to maker spaces to youth programs, libraries fit the definition of a third place, but now we've entered the digital age. Quite a while ago, I would argue, but many people have written about digital third places. And of course, as many library services transition online, digital libraries are a known entity, but we haven't seen much in the way of studies or literature about digital libraries as digital third places. And this is an important topic to that's appropriate for future research, because while both academic and public libraries continue to serve in this role as physical third places, what about in an online environment? Universities are increasing their number of online educational offerings and resources. And many of them are offering classes that are guaranteed to only use online or open access teaching materials. Public libraries have to consider the changing needs of their patrons, possibly serving, you know, growing populations who are unwilling or unable to physically enter their buildings. And as seen in the case of global pandemic and lockdown orders, the question of how to continue to function as a third place in a digital environment, it became a really important consideration for all types of libraries. And digital libraries certainly existed before COVID, but the shutdown very much accelerated the need for libraries to transition their third space function to digital, as well as to enhance their digital repositories. And how well or gracefully, thoughtfully, or effectively this transition occurred is one of the focuses of our discussion here. While the role of libraries as places that facilitate socialization is established, it's not automatically the case for a digital library. For physical libraries, often merely just providing the space for socialization, again, the book club, allows for social interaction to occur on its own. And librarians certainly participate in the creation of activities, but community involvement or organization is far more common in physical spaces. Online interaction is much trickier animal and far more difficult to achieve without institutional forethought and planning. And the simplest form of digital library services, which is allowing access to materials is not one where a digital third place can occur. For that to happen, design with intention is essential. The librarian has to consider not only the content or the subject of the class or the meeting, but also the number and types of users, the ease of digital accessibility, and in many cases with digital programming, technical support, and a host or moderator of some kind would be required. And while that sort of approach can have different outcomes, depending on the type of social media or the age of the user or the method of use in the context of libraries, this research now is important because it can inform how we approach virtual programming. You know, it's not all about shifting collections and information seeking requests online. If libraries are going to continue to function as a third place amongst the continued growth of digital services and use, then there has to be at some of those community building services mentioned earlier, access to health care, employment services, in some cases, immigration services, these need to transition to online platforms as well. Otherwise, as digital services grow, the library's function is a third place it will diminish. And libraries need to be thoughtful and deliberate to develop their digital programming and collaboration spaces in tandem with enhanced online services in a sense, they're future-proofing their function in community building in both the physical and the digital realms. And you can't deny the need for or the growth in online library services even before the pandemic, but certainly accelerated by it, public library digital services were primarily concerned with increasing access to and the delivery of services and materials. And academics libraries too, you know, even as universities have returned in-person classes, there's going to be an increased demand for virtual services for students. And again, the survey that Craig mentioned earlier by research and markets that predicted that online education market was going to more than double their 2021 numbers by 2027. So while COVID-19 required a very sudden and a massive move to temporarily, exclusively online services, that increased engagement just only accelerated already existing trends. Oh, I believe that totally. The people who have benefited so much from being able to do things virtually and remotely, the accessibility issues where people can now use your library who you had mentioned, physically couldn't get to it or for social anxiety issues or other, you know, issues that they just couldn't go out publicly, health issues, immune compromised people before the pandemic related to that, they're not going to give that up. Now that they know that it's possible, it's almost like they have permission to demand it. Exactly. And I think that's great because it also helps other people who never thought about it. There are the parents, speaking in public libraries, who would always want to take their child to a storytime but didn't have the time to get the child bundled up, get them in the car, take them to the library for the 20 minute storytime and then take them home. Now they can pop into a online event and get the same interaction for their child. Huge. And I'm so glad. I hope this does stay. We need both in person and virtual. And I think it's awesome doing this. Right, exactly. And I came across one very interesting case study in the ALA newsletter last week, actually, and they were saying that Vermont State University is announcing that they're closing the physical libraries on all five of their campuses and transitioning to an all digital platform. I saw the new people and that is... Some of the students are pretty nervous about it. And it was mentioned that some of the buildings are going to be repurposed as study spaces. So, you know, some form of third-place function is going to be retained. But how well is that institution's digital library positioned to provide some of the same functions as their physical one? And, you know, is the administration reducing library function just to mere information seeking and data retrieval activities? Or are their libraries, librarians, they're positioned to move their social and instructional content online and provide the students with the interactive experiences that they're used to and that they still require? Yeah, it feels like they haven't thought at all that all through. I mean, they thought about it from a budget perspective, but not from a functional one. Yeah. So that's, I mean, I don't know that there's going to be any follow-up on that, but it would be something interesting to keep your eye on. So, what is some of the trends in how libraries adapted their services due to COVID shutdowns? Like, we're just now starting to see articles and such published by individuals and organizations detailing their personal and their institutional coping strategies. And despite the fact that many physical spaces were forced to closed, most library functions remained accessible and even improved throughout the pandemic. You know, libraries saw a rise in e-book checks and the number of libraries saw a rise in e-book checkouts, both for personal and educational use. They saw a rise in the use of online tutoring in classes and virtual reading programs, recorded story times, and book chats. A lot of libraries use spring share and features like lib answers and lib chat saw a huge uptick in use and so by as much as 400%, because this was often the only means for patrons to communicate with their librarians. Some libraries transform their maker spaces to allow for the 3D printing of face shields for local hospitals and county facilities. Others coordinated operating day shelters for the homeless and at least one instance, city services calls were routed through the library because they had the additional staff available to handle the increasing call volume. What's interesting is that a lower percentage of the studies that I reviewed focused on how these shifts and functions affected the rule of libraries as community building spaces. You know, a lot more attention was spent detailing the delivery of digital content and reasons for that might be that the sudden dramatic change in library services that were required by the pandemic didn't leave a lot of room for philosophy or discussion as to the how of things as libraries were scrambling to move everything online. You know, everything just seemed to be folded in because it had to happen. Community services are so baked in to the foundation of library functions that finding ways to facilitate community programming was a given and so it wasn't sort of like a separate line item in response, it seemed like. So the most extensive outreach during the COVID-19 pandemic was exhibited in the form of libraries reaching out to patrons who were physically unable to travel to their physical space due to lockdown restrictions. So instead, they were bringing the library to them. In the UK, Kent libraries launched their Touch a New World scheme which offered extended checkouts for tablet devices as well as weekly training sessions so that their elderly and disabled patrons could use online resources to connect and interact. Similarly, the Department of Media's Culture and Sports sponsored a program, the Reading Agency, that dramatically expanded their digital and outreach services resulting in almost 70,000 recorded social interactions between January and May of 2021. In Australia, some libraries expanded their e-services, they organized deliveries of craft kits or workshop supplies for online classes or they instituted a program of calling elderly patients or patrons to check in and provide verbal assistance for how to access the internet, how to use devices or download e-books and movies from the digital repositories. In the US, a lot of libraries did much the same but many more worked not only to expand their digital collections and interactive programming but actively sought to address the digital divide, especially with patrons with accessibility issues or in rural or low-income areas. According to the Public Library Association, more than 20 million people in the US lack home broadband access and libraries are often used to fill that gap. As mentioned earlier with the printers and scanners, due to their ubiquity in many communities, public and academic libraries are a really uniquely positioned to bridge the digital divide for multiple age groups or demographics. Students and the elderly, low-income individuals, they all require and deserve the ability to connect to centralized intersecting depositories of access and information and libraries are primed to fill that role. In this PLA survey found that even when closed to the public, 93% of libraries left their Wi-Fi services turned on. Libraries in several states collaborated with a project run out of San Jose State University that installed antennae on the rooftops of library buildings in order to amplify their broadband signal and that would then be connected to Wi-Fi routers located throughout the local community, including there were 51 small community branches in Idaho and they used federal funding to keep their internet services running. The Southern Oklahoma library system used a $12,000 digital inclusion grant from the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act to launch a digital bookmobile service offering Wi-Fi access laptops and hotspot devices for checkout designed to reach patrons who were unable to reach a branch and these sorts of services were duplicated nationwide, worldwide, and they were all seeking to maintain access to technology and information to all of their users. COVID highlighted the vital importance that community centers such as libraries play in many people's everyday lives and libraries had to quickly respond in order to address the effects of social isolation on their patrons and so libraries could use social media to inform how digital programming and interactive services are designed and one can argue that the silver lining of our pandemic cloud, the consequence of COVID is that libraries now have documented proof of their importance to the communities that they serve and they can hopefully justify the additional expenditures that come from expanding digital services and catalogs. So as far back as 2010, researchers were publishing studies documenting the negative chronic effects to the body of cellular changes triggered by social isolation. These health implications were so broad and affecting so many different demographics of the population that by 2017 the U.S. search in general had dubbed it an epidemic and a year later the United Kingdom had appointed a minister for loneliness and loneliness rates differ by age and generation though they usually lean more towards young adults and the elderly. One study reported that nearly half of Britons over the age of 65 consider their television or their pet to be their main source of companionship which is a little sad. Another states that more adults struggle with loneliness than have diabetes and consider the discrepancy and attention given those two conditions. Neil Howe in Forbes magazine reported that 42 percent of millennial women are more afraid of loneliness than receiving a cancer diagnosis which I thought was interesting. Wow, yeah. But it seems counterintuitive that we can at a moment's notice reach out to the majority of people that we've ever considered friends and whether it's through Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, text messages. We are more appraised of the day-to-day lives of our friends than in any generation prior and most of us are aware of the careers and families of people we haven't seen in years just by looking at their status updates but the question of whether or not we really care about this information or that it impacts us in a meaningful way is another issue. There's a superficiality to a lot of social media and it's becoming the norm and there's any number of studies that look at the emotional connections or lack thereof that result from replacing physical interactions with an electronic device of some kind and it's true that loneliness is a subjective experience. It transcends race, gender, preferences, class and it doesn't require physical isolation to exist and it's possible to have a large group of acquaintances and not feel emotionally or intellectually close to any of them you know the so-called alone in a crowd. Between 2012 and 2018 the loneliness nearly doubled in prevalence with young adults arguably the most digitally connected coinciding with the explosion of social media use and connectivity is not the same as connection. Most humans crave that sort of contact and feel the effects of its absence and I'm sure most of us can recall our frustration during COVID lockdowns when physical contact was almost taboo you know how did that affect our thoughts or our feelings or behaviors. I remember very vividly that it was May of 2021 when I had the first my first hug in 14 months from somebody other than my husband you know the stress hormones of being a social animal denied social interaction they exert a long-term detrimental effect on our bodies the the lonely are more predisposed to physical conditions like metastatic cancer heart disease Alzheimer's disease as well as psychiatric disorders like depression schizophrenia anxiety and the effects of those conditions are amplified for individuals over the age of 65 who also happen to be the loneliest population in many countries. The reason why growing loneliness is a concern for public health officials is it's not limited to personal happiness loneliness and social isolation the lack of mental stimulation these are ailments that have real observed physical health ramifications it literally kills people and the problem in many areas was exacerbated by the long-term social isolation imposed by COVID shutdowns. So what does this have to do with libraries in third places physical interaction in library spaces is well documented as an effective response to combating loneliness which is why in the UK they have specifically been named as a means of rectifying the issue of loneliness in aging populations special interest library options such as maker spaces displays workshops cultural or esl programming book groups or social gatherings they serve to routinely bring people together and foster socialization there was a study of Canadian libraries combating elder loneliness that examined various tactics for encouraging group interactions and bridging age gaps with knitting sessions digital library clubs movie or quiz nights and fitness classes and another example of how libraries and librarians straddle that line between mere information-seeking capacities and social or community services one respondent to that survey stated that refreshments were often served at their events in order to surreptitiously offer food to anyone who might be low income with limited access to regular meals or snacks. Some of the coping mechanisms we developed during the pandemic point the way towards mitigating loneliness using the same technology that has come to dominate our lives there's a website from the UK national health service called what you can do if you feel lonely during the coronavirus lists a number of suggestions including checking in with friends not merely as consumers of status updates but to inquire about well-being it stresses that sharing is important that being able to share your feelings with others can help with loneliness and hearing a familiar voice or seeing a friendly face even via zoom makes us feel less isolated there's a webinar on youtube published by the national library of medicine that details the efforts that Oceanside library went to at the beginning of the COVID lockdowns not only examining their existing programming for anything with an anti-loneliness element to it but also creating new ones with that as the primary function keeping in mind to span multiple demographics and include both passive and active programming and this included Zumba and canasta clubs hosting online group chats and gathering special needs social time and even facilitating counseling appointments and what's great about that level of service is that it catered not only to people who need large gatherings to feel fulfilled but also it met the needs of more introverted patrons who required more individual interactions and one of the hardest things a person can do when they're lonely is to admit it and reach out for help but if libraries are thoughtful in their program design if they can offer safe spaces for individuals to congregate and enjoy a diverse range of offerings you know if they're dynamic and proactive with their advertising for their programming like these are things that institutions both public and academic can offer patrons and overcome the barriers of loneliness while utilizing some of the very tools that both connect and isolate us and this sort of online activity will come to define digital library spaces as digital third places whether they operate in conjunction with or independently of a physical library third space and with that I'll turn it back over to Craig I can figure out how to do that oh I can do that here from my side for you sorry no I got it there you go Craig you should see the pop-up to share your screen again there you go perfect are you seeing it yep there's another consequence of the loneliness epidemic beyond sort of health concerns for physical health and that is that you know at the same time as you know we have this seemingly disconnected simultaneous like hyperconnectivity and increase in loneliness is also the same time where we have widespread online political radicalization we have the rise of these sort of online communities like QAnon for example and it begs the question you know like what happens when a socially isolated person seeking some sort of community goes out on the internet and finds it and are they more vulnerable and a lot of research indicates that yes so as early as 2014 a a research team at the University of Chicago was looking at the relationship between sort of the way between loneliness and the way that a lonely person sees the world and they find something really interesting is that the socially isolated person begins to view literally everyone they meet as a threat that our brains interpret social isolation and exclusion as an existential threat and so we develop a threat response to that as we would develop a threat response to any threat and so slowly and toxically over time a socially isolated person will begin to see just people as the source of this threat as the source of these stress hormones and so they become a ripe target for a group of people who they might meet online you know they already have this established threat response and so they are offered a sense of inclusion and belonging at the small price of turning that established threat response against a certain group of people it's really easy to do so social exclusion serves as a pipeline to online extremism in 2022 meta-analysis researchers found across the board whether it was sort of this you know QAnon or looking at like anti-vax Facebook groups or people recruited into ISIS via the internet in 2014-2015 a recurring theme was social isolation loneliness and a sense and a longing for some sort of acceptance and community and you know being at the point where you know people weren't necessarily particularly too picky you know and so it's the interesting application is that you know people who sort of become embroiled in these online radical political groups like Q or like again like the anti-vax Facebook groups it might not necessarily be that the philosophy or the ideology was so persuasive it's that they offered an opportunity for inclusion and community as toxic as it was so but can online relationships foster a sense of community does it all have to be toxic and research suggests that it can so we actually looked at a lot of research into social media being sort of a more widely researched field than library online services so I particularly was interested in and I even Peter Calden had a good conversation about it with the author but Pittman 2016 found something really interesting found that the creation of content through social media as opposed to passive consumption was positively correlated to decreased self-reported loneliness interestingly this was only the case for Twitter and Instagram not Facebook but I think moving forward I think fewer and fewer people are using Facebook anyway but so it's likely not the case that social media causes loneliness rather that socially isolated people simply attempt to substitute social media for real-life interaction so these early studies that found that the lonelier people also use more social media and people were sort of like yeah correlation is causation and social media causes loneliness well no it doesn't it's that the usage is of primary importance here so yeah that the loneliness epidemic is occurring during the age of social media indicates though that something in social media use is not satisfying our need for meaningful interpersonal relationships but it's not that one causes the other it's that the use varies according to if a person is already isolated or if a person is using and has access to and has found online interactions that enable these sort of organic development of relationships in an online setting so even though you know like when you think of people in the library hanging out or like a library book club you know you can think of people at tables and it's well lit and it's nice and pretty and so even though the experience of somebody using an online library services is more likely to look like this as opposed to a nice well lit library full of people it doesn't have to necessarily be a lonely experience so facilitating organic social connections so in a follow-up Pittman found that the most important factor correlating social media and sorry correlating social media use and self-reported loneliness was perceived intimacy or else the lack of it so online friendships and by that I mean actual friendships sort of with emotional engagement they fulfill the same need for socialization the trick is finding them and a number of studies have looked at sort of you know the emotional benefits of actual intimate online friendships those kind of friends who you can lean on and share with and bent to but only online it serves the same need as in person friendship so it's not the setting it's the type of the relationship and it's not the setting it's the type of the use and as we're moving forward we're going to have to address these issues because again thinking back to the idea of libraries as embodying democracy right and being this place a this great equalizer as you put it or you know this place of equity this place of community building if we're simply extending library services in terms of circulation online and calling it a day or extending the reference services then libraries are not accomplishing that democratic purpose that we still like to tell that story about in terms of physical libraries and we're gonna have to address it because as research shows as people get younger they are spending more and more in time online so in 2021 72 percent of Americans reported regular use of social media in one form or another and by that I mean daily but among teens that number is 95 percent in 2021 average screen time for tweens currently in 2022 it's probably got up was 5.5 hours daily and 8.6 hours daily for teens so again if people cannot find a sense of community elsewhere and if they go online if they look hard enough and they're rolling the roll enough they might just find it so applying this research to library services what can we do right so it's understandable as Jenny said that the first things that were extended by necessity from COVID were things like reference services and were circulation services and public health right and it was the sort of like essential everyday use things that COVID necessitated a quick move but what can we do now that that's been established right so again thinking about perceived intimacy allow social media to function as a stand-in for real-world interaction perceived intimacy may increase if individuals with whom one interacts are also friends in the real world so that might not always be an option but it's helpful when it is and also researchers found that images and video are more effective than text as a means for meaningful social interaction so if a platform is designed for the purpose of social communication it may serve that pair of social function which also is true for platforms like instagram and tiktok so the act of creation and experience and the experience of actual engagement seems to be integral to fulfilling that social function that need for social interaction passive consumption doesn't provide those benefits again those everyday services are the foundation and they were the things that need to be moved first but as we move forward thinking about suggestions for library programming as we continue to invest more labor and more money into these services so the first suggestion that we kind of have as our call to action portion is to move beyond simple online materials access a flipping through a candle doesn't serve as a third place create library programming in which active patron participation is an essential component right so this also doesn't mean you know lining up speakers to do talks or lectures and broadcasting those online again like we're doing so we're providing an informational service here but this isn't serving as a third place here because we are not facilitating that sort of organic social interaction and by social interaction I don't mean between the librarians and the patrons I mean between the patrons themselves so communities of interest be it arts or books or local history right sort of creating these online spaces where they are sort of im seed and managed in terms of events but then feedback creation and organic social interaction between people is really sort of the the big value add so one second so focus on patron creation create virtual spaces in which patrons can interact organically and find friends and build relationships and if it's related to a local interest area then that increases the likelihood that people who already know each other outside are going to be interacting online so yeah examples might include book clubs or study groups communities of interests tick tock seems really well suited to this oddly is just so I don't use to talk but I in my research I found you know these vibrant communities of people who have gathered around knitting or certain types of pets there's apparently a big tarantula community right these people are finding each other and they're sharing and they're creating videos they're creating content they are interacting they're getting to know each other and they're doing it in a format again video and image seems to be more effective than simply text which makes sense text being so abstract and depersonalized in comparison you know actually sort of being able to see and interact with a person virtually as opposed to just reading what they're writing and so you know in some cases it's going to be very easy just running like a zoom book club is a super easy thing to do but if you could design into it like breakout rooms where people discuss what they're talking about and then conversation is the only thing going on it's the purpose of the meeting then yeah that that could very easily serve that social function so again our references are in a link to the google doc here and we're going to put these slides up so you can just follow that and you can see all of the research that we've done including the images the images outside that they are public domain because we're trying to be good about that so questions that was a lot of information it could probably be a longer presentation but that's kind of the big ideas that we're wrestling with right now and that we're still kind of drafting we don't know what it's going to be hopefully a journal article or maybe a book chapter if we can find a good home for it but thank you for this opportunity to kind of present these and speak them out loud to you and would love to hear your feedback and your thoughts on it now it is already 11 so okay yeah we did just hit 11 by my clock here but that's okay we did start a little after 10 and we can go as long as people want to yes thank you Craig and Jenny that was well as you said I was gonna say I do a lot to think about definitely for libraries and I think some libraries have fallen into doing the things you were asking suggesting to over the last couple of years but not all of them yeah there some are still struggling with what do we do how do we transition all of this and do both and have that connection and that interaction both virtually as we have in in person so does anybody have any questions comments thoughts go ahead and type into the question section or if you have been doing things like this that at your library let us know how you accomplished it if you did any struggles you might have had I don't know we do have first questions come in here let's see oh okay first comment we have this was fabulous thank you I have many ideas to show my director nice well you will have the slides and all those resources afterwards to use okay okay so here's the first question I have here what approach would you recommend for older generations who are unwilling to adapt to the changes in technology or feel uncomfortable with virtual platform platforms and digital services um well so I here I'll go first and then I'll let uh Jenny if you want to share but I recently had an experience with that so in 2020 um actually and this was uh I was working down in Oklahoma experimenting with being a library director at a small community college library and it was a tiny little town called Tishomingo and I got uh invited to right when I moved down there and this was actually pre-pandemic uh invited to a uh the the monthly book club which was already on zoom because so many of these you know I was easily the youngest person in this book club the heavy majority were retired um but they lived kind of spread out like around the Oklahoma countryside and so it was already on zoom anyway um and this was the most vibrant book club I've ever been a member of it was great uh and and I've been in a few right and these kind of lively discussions and the guy who ran it Michael Henthorn who's head of the public library branch down there in Tish um you know he was very kind of hands off about it the book that we were reading he would talk he would he would give his thoughts 15 20 minutes then have some questions and then just kind of open up the floor and then people would have this really lively discussion and and it would it was super engaged and sometimes they were going for like a couple hours um and there was no there was no issue with that um and I asked him I was like did you have a difficult time getting people comfortable with using zoom to do this and he said no not at all a couple people uh we had to show how to do it but people were eager to they were very eager to be able to you know hop on zoom and interact with uh their friends that they didn't get to see very often he's like but even those he said were a minority of the cases again this is rural southern Oklahoma retired citizens um and he's like he was like honestly most of them already are familiar with video chatting just because they're talking to their grandkids um he's like he he he said he was expecting a lot more of a hurdle to get over uh than he was um you know but I would say um you know if you are encountering a patron population that doesn't that may seem to be kind of predestined um record them there's you can record a zoom meeting and you know put those videos up as kind of examples of you know and you could edit out the dead space maybe and just sort of show like a lively discussion and what people are being able to engage in and what they can do um and that might help a lot of I don't I mean actually this person may be personally experiencing it with um his own community members but I also think there's um assumption that people older people are reluctant and always the case I was stunned my mother who is turning 75 this year when she's in a book club not through the library they're just their own book club and as soon as pandemic came out they immediately switched into doing zoom and I was just like you're doing what how do you even she had never done it before but they figured we gotta do something we've got to talk to each other about these books we're reading every month and every sunday if I was on the phone with her so she's like I gotta go I got my zoom and like I am I am shocked that this is but they just she just jumped into her whole group and and they would do it and they still do it now it once once the weather got nicer they meet outside but if there's a chance that someone can make it it's bad weather they're like we'll just zoom it forever why not because and they just jumped right in and I was just shocked that she did so you never know maybe they you're thinking they were reluctant and if you just give them the one chance to do it they're gonna be like oh I think you are gonna encounter some people who you know there is a fear of technology in a way or just a reticence to use it and look like a fool I know it wasn't my mom's concern um she hated going on zoom because she you know of course never liked how she looked and all that and that's a whole another group of studies you can look at of you know people with surprising plastic surgery that came out of the pandemic and having to go on zoom but I think for for if they're when you encounter any population that that that doesn't use technology because they don't know how or because they're they're reticent it's just you know small steps um baby steps to to sort of remove those those fears and when it comes to you know start small with um you know technology that doesn't look intimidating and you know if you have a tablet just show one feature like teach one feature of it and then you know if they can move on to the next one when they're ready for it and in the context of of trying to get people interactive on on a zoom online or in a you know involved in a group chat for one thing you have to create content that makes them want to try uh to that interest them enough to step out of their comfort zone uh and again with my mom uh you know trying to get her to do anything with technology I mean she once handed me a shrink wrapped box of a digital camera and she's like I can't figure out how to use this I was like well no because you haven't opened it you haven't even tried so I yeah it does involve you know if if librarians are encountering patrons who who are reluctant to to engage in those respective you just try to start small try to one-on-one personal time you know let's sit down let's coach you through it and then see make you comfortable with it I think the technology is a lot easier to use than people assume to off the bat they're like oh gosh I don't know what if I hit the wrong button what if I don't unmute myself and there's so few even in our go-to-webinar says there's so few buttons really it's it's not as scary as some of the systems that we've used previously for doing online things but they are very very more streamlined now and I think um I'm three steps removed from a leadite so if I can figure this out no other people can yeah all right well we have another questions come in um do you have any suggestions for the sustainability of digital programming our online programs have reduced since the height of the pandemic as in-person programs have resumed and our libraries have experienced staff turnover that's two different things going on there but ideas to sustain it to keep it going that's not really been part of our research so far is kind of that maintenance of it we were really kind of focusing more on you know if you're having these these online services as a companion to or an extension of what you're doing in person you know how do we allow them to serve that same purpose um so I'm sorry I don't have a good answer for encouraging the sustainability of online programming I don't know if Jenny if you've encountered any of that literature well I haven't any other audience members want to type in what they've done to keep it going yeah no I would I mean I didn't necessarily come across that in the research other than you know how specific libraries were re-tailoring their functions but I would learn from that example and say you know figure out what your patrons want what they're asking for and and tailor your deliverables to those wants and needs uh as like with with the Oceanside library that I would use as an example you know they didn't they they looked at what they had with the content with anti loneliness components and then they actively sought to create more and in with consideration of their their types of users or their demographic you know do they need to cater to you know people who require large groups of of activity or the more one-on-one and they did both so you know it's almost like a scatter shot at first to create content and then see what's used get your feedback from your from your patrons and then you you have a more a better idea of what road you need to go down as for long-term use I I mean I would just say you probably in this day and age you need to constantly refresh you can't just rely on that you've created something and three years later it's still going to be relevant it's just like any any I think it is like any library program there's going to be things that are more popular or that Wayne um and yes ask your users what they might want um the ones that were your regulars is this something we still want it's a different way to do it what are we missing here that you might want yeah I mean I think um you know content creation on the part of the library is still important right um I remember uh one study that I encountered we didn't cite it in here because we weren't kind of in that place yet but it was looking at sort of like establishing and maintaining like a a successful kind of social media presence and it was something like new content in some form has to be posted every single day right to keep people engaged and so I mean so if you're doing sort of like let's say you're doing online programming your a community of interest right birdwatchers or or something like that you know and then you can they get together and zoom to kind of chat and share you know you could in uh like a library tiktok channel or a library instagram channel right you could share and repost user or group uh creation so you're you're encouraging them to create even asynchronously because then they're sort of posting to the main channel even outside of that kind of weekly or bi-weekly meeting right and so you're creating content you're keeping people engaged with looking at the channel and then you're also encouraging kind of a consistent level of creation and engagement and then as soon as you post that you you know tag the person then other people are going to be commenting as well so then there is that that patron to patron uh interaction um that's happening outside of you know the standard like it's that you know this is our monthly or bi-weekly one hour to sit together and talk about a thing but you uh some in libraries might have a small problem with that because I know in Nebraska a couple of years ago the governor signed a law that state institutions have allowed to use tiktok as we in our at UNK discovered a couple months ago because we the one of the student workers started a library tiktok channel and we had to take it down so some libraries are hampered in their efforts to be as effective as they can be tiktok's kind of a special case with the whole where does it come from but there's lots of other options yes all right um I don't see oh of course things pop up as soon as I say I don't see anything else um oh he just says thank you for the response and informative presentation great point that pointers to share with my colleagues um and more thank yous come through yeah um all right yeah so I don't see any new questions um right now I need disparate urgent questions that's okay um it is about um quarter after almost so I think we will work on um wrapping things up here I'm going to show my screen now put that up there we go all right so thank you so much Jenny and Craig this was um yeah a lot to think about a lot of great um resources and information and research that you're doing um investigating what's going on it has been going on in libraries and what we should could be doing in the future um I hope we do get some things more out of this and get published somewhere we'll see uh so um that will wrap it up for today's show um thank you everybody for joining us as I said we are um the show is recorded and it'll be on our recording page I'm going to go to our assistant session page our main and compass live page um if you use your search engine of choice and type in and compass live we're the only thing called that on the internet no one else is allowed to use that name um but you'll get our upcoming shows but right underneath there is a link to our archives this is where today's archives will be um the most recent ones the top um by the end of the day tomorrow everything should be processed and up here everyone who attended today's session and registered will get an 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some march dates in here we're getting we'll get more added to our calendar as things get finalized so do keep an eye on that and sign up for any of our other future shows so thank you again everyone thanks jenny thanks craig this was a great session um glad to help you get your research out there i hope many people watch this and um you get some feedback and you can uh expand more on this so thank you everybody and hopefully we'll see you all on a future episode of encompass live thank you very much thanks bye bye thank you