 Thank you all so much for being here. I'm Lisa Guernsey, I'm director of the teaching, learning and tech team at New America and a co-author of the report that we're going to be talking about today. We have a terrific program on tap for you with some inspiring leaders and thinkers in the world of digital equity libraries and education. And it's been really exciting to see the response to this event with hundreds and hundreds of RSVPs and are already reaching more than 175 people who are joining us right this moment. So just a big thank you to all of you for being here. Our hashtag on Twitter is hashtag libraries digital shift. And that hashtag is just one of the key findings in this new study of how the pandemic has affected the use of libraries, including the downstream effect of what happened when people couldn't enter library buildings to get internet access. So we're going to talk about that much more in a moment, but I first want to introduce and thank Doren Weber of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This report could not have happened without the foundation support and we're just so grateful for the chance to do this research. Doren is vice president and program director at the Sloan Foundation. He runs the program for the public understanding of science, technology and economics at Sloan, which uses diverse media books, radio, television, film, theater, new media to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities. And I know he's been a huge supporter of research related to digital access. So I'm going to turn it over to you, Doren with just deep gratitude for your support of this project. Thank you Lisa, and it's a great pleasure to be here. Just briefly Sloan is a nonprofit philanthropy we make grants for research and education and science technology and economics and this grant falls under a different program that I run called universal access to knowledge. And the goal is to harness advances in digital information technology to make the fruits of scientific and cultural knowledge available for the widest public benefit under fair and secure conditions. Now I know that's a mouthful. We've supported things from Wikipedia for 12 years now we help them scale up in the digital public library of America which john Bracken is here to represent and have been big supporters of libraries. And recently we're also very concerned with privacy and security of the range of issues we're really thrilled about this report. And when congratulate Lisa and new America Foundation because a they were on time be they went into the community and got us real information from I think was 120 people. So, you know we always need to be up to date and obviously COVID has changed a lot of things and the report is very illuminating and obviously, we need to do a better job regarding inclusivity, especially towards people of color, lower income people, we think libraries can be subscribed to the palaces of the people school. They are, as you all know free non commercial neutral spaces. And I would just add to the inclusivity banner, the notion that we're living in very polarized times and would be also good to include people don't always agree with us or see everything the same way. I think libraries can do all of that they have a huge role. And with that, I'm going to look forward to this wonderful panel. Thank you again to Lisa and the American Foundation for our pleasure to be here. Thank you so much, Lauren. We're going to jump into a discussion of the report for about 15 minutes or so and then we're going to turn it over to a panel for a deeper dive and conversation about it and I just want to say thanks to everyone who's been putting their ideas into the chat. It's really exciting to see folks from all over the country in the library and education world and beyond. So if you can move us to the next slide until I get us to start here on this. So what we are trying to do with this report is to really better understand what the pandemic has meant to people all over the world who may have relied on and may not have known about but are now starting to understand what public libraries could offer. So I want to start by just casting our minds back to the summer of 2020, a few months into the pandemic and it's about when we started planning this study. Public buildings were closed, including libraries students were taking all of their classes remotely and millions of Americans were and still are trying to run their lives almost entirely online. And meanwhile, reliable health information and other kinds of information were desperately needed and jobs were halted and hours reduced so finding hubs for reliable and trustworthy online information was more important than ever and libraries were working very hard to serve that And let me know just for a moment that New America has for several years been keeping a collection of articles and reports on how libraries are adapting in this time of rapid technological and social change and one of my colleagues will put a link to that collection in the chat for us here. But what we want to know in doing this study was whether people across the United States knew about what their libraries were offering new about the free online resources and ebooks and other information that libraries had would they find this material would they use these these resources when they were stuck at home would they have the internet access at home that was adequate enough to be able to tap into this. And what would happen to those who relied on the libraries free Wi-Fi or computer labs but who now could no longer easily get online, because those services were closed to them. So we conducted a multi prompt study in the fall and the winter of of 2020, just few months ago we tried to move this as quickly as we could to get this data out as timely as possible. We conducted surveys to try to find answers to these questions and we gathered data on how, or if people were discovering accessing and using their public libraries during the coven 19 pandemic. We talked about libraries materials that were available online but we also talked to library leaders across the country about how they were dealing with the crisis. Next slide Angel. So as we embarked on this study we catch these questions in the context of the pandemic, of course, but we also really wanted to make sure we acknowledge the reality before the pandemic. So John always connected world now and and that's been happening in part of our lives for well over a decade information available seemingly anywhere at any time. And it had already raised questions about what libraries should do to best serve their communities here on screen, for example, is a finding from a 2016 survey and report by John Horrigan of the Pew Research Center. We're fortunate to have john with us today as a moderator for our first panel so you're going to hear here from john very soon. And in addition to what libraries are facing and had been facing even before the pandemic. The so called digital divide had been of course looming large there are some that thought oh everyone's fine right we now have smartphones. And to worry about this, that was not the case at all, as many many reports have shown sense. So big questions have loomed about who was able to get online via high speed connection could really get online in a way that could help them get their work done or take courses or learn about the world. My colleague Claire Park of the open technology Institute and a co author on the port is with us here to give a little bit more context from that perspective on digital equity so Claire let me turn it over to you now. Hi everyone. My name is Claire, I work at the open technology Institute where I focus on issues including broadband access and consumer privacy. And, like Lisa said, I'm just to give some background libraries and schools are institutions that struggle with the same problem that low income households and households of people color struggle with which is cost. The broadband marketplace is really distinguished by high costs. Our cost of connectivity research and report published last year found that the on average internet costs about $68 and 38 cents a month. And this is a huge burden for families who are already struggling to pay for other essential utilities pay for food, etc. There's a connection that Sabia will expand upon later, but between income and high cost and internet adoption but agencies like the Federal Communications Commission has found that on average, the proportion of the population with access to different speeds of service is highest in counties with predictably the highest median household income and the lowest poverty rates. One survey from 2019 found that 51% of 6 million US households with annual incomes under $25,000, which is pretty low, did not have home internet explicitly because it was too expensive for them to afford. So lower household income and higher poverty directly affect the ability to afford service at home, and I'll turn it back to Lisa. Thanks so much Claire and yeah as you see on the next slide and it will show you here some of the points that Claire was making about the affordability of internet at home, which I think maybe in the chat or noting right now as well as really is that those who have studied this were aware of but it I think was not something that most Americans were aware of until the pandemic hit just how much of a barrier this is for many people. So if we go to the next slide. I'm going to tell you now about how we got started on our study and want to first just say a big thank you to and Duffett our survey consultant on this with FDR group, and we really could not have done this without her expertise so big thanks to and our methodology we did a nationally representative survey of the general public, and in that we had 2,620 respondents that was collected from conducted from September 25 to October 13 of 2020. We also surveyed educators and those who work in community based organizations who work with constituents who are in process of learning, whatever age they are so we did that survey to just better understand where people who might be the connectors stood and what they were understanding about public libraries, and then we also did interviews with library leaders at select sites around the country. So a couple of notes here about that survey of the general public which is where you're going to hear most of our findings today. As, as you see here on this slide, 88% of our respondents said that they had high speed access oh yeah if you can go back. Sorry, thank you. Yeah, if you. Yeah, sorry so 88% said that they have access at home to high speed Internet. And I want to know and I think is really important as we're talking about disparities that that number is higher than what you see in other surveys such as those that Pew has done in terms of who has access to broadband access at home. In part because this survey, we did it online, partly because of our need for speed. But we want to recognize that doing it online meant that we're leaving people out. So what we believe is that the results you're going to hear about today may in fact undercount the prevalence of the challenges that people are maybe having and gaining access to online services. A couple of notes is this other number on the slide here 15%. This was the percentage of our respondents who said that they lost their main source of Internet access when libraries had to close. Okay, so if you go to the next slide. Now we can start to talk about what we found in this study. We, some of the big takeaways were mixed awareness of public libraries online resources a shift towards online resources, positive attitudes about the public library and disparities and access to those online, the online resources that the library has if you go to the next slide Angel. First, we found that respondents have positive attitudes about their public libraries, which I think is notable, given that and as Dorn pointed out as well, these days one is hard pressed to find an institution, particularly a public institution that the general public regards favorably. And this is across you know, a variety of different kind of viewpoints and political leanings. Next slide. So we also found that respondents have a positive. Sorry, so here's the data on the positive impressions 76% of our respondents had a positive impression. Next slide please. We also saw evidence of a digital shift. So if you go to the next slide you'll see our data on that. And then we asked people when whether they used an website or app from their public library before COVID-19 hit and that number was 28%. And then we asked if they had done that since the pandemic and the number jumped to 39%. So what gets interesting is how those numbers start to shake out when you take into account demographic differences among our sample. And that is going to lead me to pass the mic now to Sabia Prescott, who's a policy analyst and colleague of mine at New America, and she's going to walk us through those results. Turning it over to you, Sabia. Thank you Lisa, can we go to the next slide. Hi, my name is Sabia Prescott and I'm a policy analyst on our education policy team here at New America. So this next set of findings that I'll talk about here showed a number of interesting results, including some expected and some unexpected relationships between the use of online resources and particular demographic categories right such as income, age and race. So starting with the first results showed a positive relationship or correlation between income and the use of online library resources. Next slide. As you can see in the chart here, the higher the income that respondents reported, the more likely they were to also report using their library's website or app, both before and since the start of COVID-19. And though it's not depicted in this chart, we also found that the higher income that respondents reported, the more likely they were to answer yes when asked if there is a public library in their area that offers online resources. Next slide. The second relationship that the survey results uncovered was between age and the use of online library resources. Interestingly, this relationship was not so linear. Next slide. As this table shows respondents who reported being between 30 and 44 years of age are most likely to report using their library's website or apps since the start of COVID-19. Respondents 18 to 29 were a close second, and those 60 years and older were the least likely group to have reported using a library website or app. At the same time, data also showed that the older the respondent, the more likely they were to report having a positive overall view of the public library, the less likely they were to report having difficulties navigating the library's website. And the less likely they were to report having relied on the library as their main source of internet before the pandemic. As Lisa and Claire both mentioned that last bit is part of a larger set of findings that I'll talk more about in a couple of slides. Next slide. But first, lastly on this piece, survey results also showed clear trends in the use of online library resources by racial demographics. Next slide. Like the previous findings underscoring experiences of respondents with economic privilege, the findings also showed that there are racial disparities in those who experience issues navigating libraries websites and apps, finding the resources that they need, and sometimes having the physical tools just to access them at all, such as devices and wifi. So overall white respondents were less likely to report needing help navigating their library's website or app, and less likely to report experiencing technical or connectivity issues. Black and African American respondents for the least likely group to report having no issues getting online from their public library. And they were also the most likely to report internet connectivity issues when attempting to access online resources. Next slide. Now, last but not least, excuse me, some of the most important findings in the report we thought were the differences between respondents who reported losing their main source of internet when libraries shut down in person operations back in March of last year in 2020, and those who did not. So data show key differences in both populations, folks who lost their internet, and in use how and for what purposes these two groups use library resources. Next slide. The results show demographic differences between those who lost their main source of internet and those who did not. As you can see those who reported relying on the library for their primary source of internet, we're more likely to be male to live in an urban area to speak a language other than English at home, and to be Hispanic black or African American. So 39% of respondents you can see here who reported losing their main source of internet when library closures happened back in March, also reported speaking a language other than English at home. This is compared to 18% of respondents who did not rely on the library as their main source of internet. And finally the in addition to differences between those who lost the internet and those who did not. Again survey data show that those who did were much more likely to align the library to meet critical needs such as accessing information related to employment, education or healthcare. There are less likely to use the library for personal enjoyment only than those who access the internet at home or elsewhere. Again, for example, you can see here that 35% of people who lost the internet when library shut down relied on the internet, relied on internet access at libraries for work or professional development, compared to only 21% of those who access internet at home or elsewhere. Next slide. So each of the findings that Lisa and I just described here results from the general population survey that we conducted as part of the study, but for the last part, and to get kind of a clear sense of what this work looks like for library leaders in this moment we talked to folks who are working to address some of these digital disparities right now. And what we heard was a number of examples of innovative approaches to community engagement and online programming during the pandemic, including mobile wifi vans, right new virtual tools and types of programs, shifting operations outdoors where folks can engage safely and the use of digital navigators to help facilitate digital and media literacy. Each of these stories is included in full in our report. So with that I'll turn it back over to Claire to walk through some of our recommendations. So can we move on to the next slide. Great yeah so first starting with recommendations that we make through the report for policymakers. Number one just investing in efforts by libraries and schools to bring internet access to patrons and students. So there are ways to do this. For instance there's an existing federal program called erate, which is federal funding to go to these institutions so that they can get their patrons and students connected. Another approach is to lower the cost of home broadband, like I mentioned to cost are pretty high right now and subsidies are one way to go about helping people for them but another way to helping people for internet is to make it more affordable One solution would be to introduce more competition into the marketplace, the broadband sphere is pretty heavily saturated right now by a number of key providers I'm sure you you all are familiar with which those company names are. So, allowing for communities for instance to build their own municipal broadband networks is a great way of lowering costs. Another approach is to encourage community based organizations, CBOs libraries and schools to work together to develop grant programs and other incentives for collaboration will allow each other to all these institutions to communicate on what the needs are and how they can help. We also need investment and funding and tech support programs like digital navigators that help build literacy skills and help people get to know how to use the internet and devices. And finally, supporting and funding needs assessments and other research on public library use specifically by marginalized or underserved communities will allow us to figure out better how to reach these communities, and also what what they need what their needs are so if we can go to the next slide. We will continue with some recommendations for library specifically focusing on improving awareness of resources so this would include targeting outreach and communication with underserved low income black Hispanic and Asian households, and also patrons who don't speak English. So, you know, building websites where people that are more accessible that are in multiple languages will really help offering mobile options that bring the library to underserved communities rather than requesting that underserved communities go to libraries will also help expand awareness and use of resources and supporting like we said digital and media literacy programs like digital navigators and other mentoring initiatives to help build help patrons build necessary skills will also improve awareness and also improve actual ability to take advantage of these public resources. So I'll turn it back to Lisa for the last set of recommendations. Thanks so much Claire. And so, if you go to the next slide we have just a few more recommendations and that's for educators and leaders of community based organizations. We saw in our in our surveys with educators that there's perhaps a need to deepen partnerships between libraries and community based organizations and schools as noted in the previous recommendation and also to ensure that library leaders are engaged in strategic planning across all sorts of different resources that are available in the community. So if you go to the next slide. I just want to say a big thanks to Claire and to savvy and my co authors on this report. It was a lot of a lot of work and also a lot of fun to work on this with both of you, and of course a big thanks to our work group for this, and I'm just going to many of them are here with us and we're with us from the beginning in terms of the survey, Paula Balboa from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance John Bracken with Digital Public Library of America Amanda Lenhart Data and Society Research Institute Donald probes with the National Association for Media Literacy Education, and Dr. Watson now director of the Las Vegas Clark Clark County Library District. Just a huge thanks to all of you and and up it, and to Alfred police piece and foundation as well. So we now are going to be able to move over to our panel, and I'm just really excited to introduce you to john Horrigan, who is a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute he's conducted research on and written many national reports on these issues we relied on his research quite a bit and are in our piece and we're just incredibly grateful john to what you've been doing over the past decade or more on these issues. He was previously a senior researcher at Pew Research Center and prior to that serves as research director for the development of the national broadband plan at the Federal Communications Commission. So john I'm going to turn it over to you and say thanks to you and the panel is a lot to unpack here and we're looking forward to the conversation. Thanks. Great. Thank you very much Lisa, and thanks to you and all your colleagues at the New America Foundation for really an outstanding report. We have now a panel of distinguished experts in the field to comment on the report. We have with us john Bracken of the digital public library of America, john called bizarre of digital promise Tracy Hall of the American Libraries Association, and Kelvin Watson of the Las Vegas Clark County district library. I wanted before we get going with our panelists just make a reflection or two on the New America report in light of some of the work I've done in the past, and just two things as struck me. One is libraries have faced the pandemic, as they have faced a decades plus long challenge to adapt to a new world where digital resources are more pervasive. At the same time, public libraries have a heavy weight of public expectations to meet a variety of needs. So the public expects libraries to go digital. Public libraries to do the things that they've always done in terms of being a physical presence in a community. Another point, which I think both Lisa and Doron both raised earlier on is just how trusted public libraries are as institutions in this community. At the Pew Research Center we asked, what are the most trustworthy institutions asking respondents to compare across a variety of different institutions health care institutions government at all level, financial institutions, and libraries took the prize as the most highly trusted institutions. So they have a incredibly important role to play, especially at a time of national crisis. So what I want to turn to our panel how we're going to proceed is to go in alphabetical order asking folks to give about four minutes overview on their reactions to the report and other reactions they may have on this topic. And after that we'll have a conversation and reserve some time for Q&A. So with that, I turn it over to John Bracken. John. Thank you, John. Good afternoon, everyone. Congratulations to the New America team. I know that Claire, Savia, and Lisa put a lot, a lot into this and it shows. So first, so I'm at the Digital Public Library of America. For those of you who don't know us, we are nearly an eight year old effort designed to ensure that as we move into a digital world that access to knowledge and information becomes more equitably available, rather than less, that we think that it would be a terrible loss if as we move from analog to digital modes of communication and sharing and learning if access becomes more locked down rather than less. And, and I guess within that I want to reflect both on the report and since we're in this mode of kind of reflecting on the year since lockdown, some of the things I've been hearing around the field, both from some of our, the partners we have across the country and and and generally, I think first is, you know, more, I've heard the term digital equity more in the last six months that I had in the previous, I don't know, six years. And this notion that a library's digital strategy cannot be separate or cleave from its equity and inclusion strategy is more and more apparent and I think that was made manifest in some of the data in the report, you know the notion that African American respondents to it to the library were twice as likely to report unreliable in internet and white respondents. That's a national crisis, and that's a national crisis that libraries need to stand can be part of the solution to, and, and, and we're not fulfilling our missions if we don't take that on. The second learning that I'm hearing from lots of folks in the field from the last year is that it's incumbent upon us to own our digital branches that that for too long we've enabled for profit commercial vendors to be our foray for content and conversation for our digital presence with our patrons. Today is very privileged to be part of a national effort initiated by IMLS and with lots of support from Sloan Foundation, attempting to build a collaborative platform that will enable libraries to own our own digital future going forward. And I think that that realization of the importance of the experience that so many of us had where our entire spirit, our entire library engagement was through digital through much of the year, I think has given us an opportunity really to reclaim not just the digital future but the digital present. The last bit, I wanted to pick up something Doran touched on that, you know, I think and that and tie it to something in the report. Libraries are an incredible asset for this moment in American history. At the same time, present company accepted as I look at some of the other library voices that I get to be a part of with this panel. We've not done a very good and as the report makes note, we don't always do a very good job of explaining sharing and touting what we what our capabilities are. And at this moment in time with these sort of triple crises we have in terms of civic mistrust. In terms of the national conversation about the inequity and access to, to broadband into content, and the lack of common places to come together across civic divisions. Libraries are an asset to all three to solve all three of those crisis moments, and it's incumbent upon us, both to tell that story but also change who we are, how we do our work and how we talk about it in such a way that we are more greatly perceived to be part of that solution I think we've got an incredible opportunity right now with national leadership, including folks you're going to hear from shortly. And, and if we don't lean in to seize this moment now, shame on us and I think this report helps put a spotlight on on some of those opportunities. Great thank you very much john and now we turn to Jean Claude Rizard. John, thank you. Good morning good afternoon everyone. The new president CEO of digital promise this is about three and a half weeks into the position. The idea was at the Gates Foundation. For those who don't know digital promise. We are a global 501 C3 it was created out of an act of Congress under George W bush and physically launched under President Obama. We live at the intersection of research practice and innovation, we do a lot of work around the digital gap. So, one, a line with everything in the report so many things in there think they resonated. Give you an example of an experience I had a few years ago in Renton, Washington, was touring the community, and had the opportunity to walk into one of the local libraries in Renton, the place was teaming with middle school kids some lower school mostly middle school kids who are studying socializing doing a ton of different things. The second largest group I saw were adults who are at various stages of research and reading etc. But the place frankly was serving as a quasi out of school time provider for a lot of kids in that community. And if you know anything about Renton is also pretty as a pretty large immigrant population. What really for me was a microcosm of what quickly we see so many of our communities a safe place for Wi Fi, a place for kids to continue to school work, a place to be where parents work, and of course a place for adults to find information. I can only imagine what happened frankly after schools shut down, because of the pandemic. And by the way Renton public schools was the first school in the nation to actually close. Last spring, many of us in education talk to the three Rs respond, recover, reinvent. No one wants to go back to normal, because normal wasn't working for a lot of our kids, especially our poor black Tino and indigenous population. So, for example, we know that there are massive disparities before the pandemic so let me focus on two things. I would add to the issue that we're talking about. One is we do know how to properly close the digital gap. Let me let me add to that. The Boston Consulting Group did quite a bit of a work for us at the Gates Foundation. One is we know that a long term digital divide impacts 15 to 16 million US K 12 students and three to four million post secondary students of course we would variation by geography, race and income. While many of us, many actors in the field, I've taken heroic action to close the gap since March at best in K 12 we've closed 20 to maybe 40% of the connectivity divide and 40 to 60% of the device divide. And for secondary efforts of course I've had some impact largely through the distribution of student aid and devices, but the one thing that is worthy of underlining is that most of the progress is temporary. We know for example that 90% of the solutions will expire in one to three years, due to limited funding and or lack of a plan for repairs and replacement affordability, you know, but me 50% of this connected students, especially black and urban students are unable to pay for services. We know that 15 to 25%, especially native indigenous students and rural students, that coverage to to wide or fix the wireless broadband in about 15 to 40% have barriers beyond availability and cost. No fixed address we know a lot of our kids are experiencing experiencing housing instability. So no fixed address low digital literacy and language barriers. So that leads me to figure talk about some of the things that I know we can we can do. We know that the divide is a fundamental equity issue in closing it is essential to the future of our economy and our society. This is not just a nice to do. We know this really is the fundamental underlining what we have to do for our society, closing the divide reduces learning inequities, and is a contributing element to breaking the cycle of poverty. So again, three things we have to focus on one is affordability. Second is availability and of course adoption and some of you guys in the chat will talk a little bit about about that. We have an example of digital promise with a partnership with Verizon actually has been demonstrating how this should be happen. We call it the Verizon innovative learning schools we're now in about 500 schools will be in about 600 schools by the end of the calendar year. And it focuses on a number of different things so hotspots for access to devices and hotspots for two years, right now, world without 5G across many communities. But the most important part of the of that work is not just to divide the devices and the hotspot, but it's a professional learning is given to teachers in principle so they know how to integrate the work into what they actually do. And of course it's a stipend to continue the work of refresh and everything else, including by the kind of micro credentials for kids. Last thing I'll say very quickly is I would encourage us to push is that when you look at schools in school districts we have lost a lot of libraries. Over the last say five to 10 years New York City's lost nearly half of the school based libraries, those were advocates made sure there was connection between the school and the library infrastructure we kind of push out on our policy infrastructure to reinstate bring those things back into our schools. Thank you very much John Claude. Now we turn to Tracy Hall of the American Libraries Association Tracy. Thank you so much. Time is brief but I want to piggyback on one thing that John just spoke to. In Philadelphia where the American Library Association was founded we were there last year, and in Philadelphia, our birth home for the Association there were only nine schools in the entire city that still had staffed school libraries so I, I cannot say enough that we have seen in my 20 year career the decimation of a school libraries and school library funding and we must fight for school libraries I'm delighted to be here today and to congratulate the New America Foundation. This report is all about access and equity, and the deeper notion of social responsibility and that is where this report speaks to the heart of LA's values. At a high level, there are three areas that I want to draw out from the New America report that align well with LA's current work. One, the recognition that libraries have sometimes been carriers of racism and bias, the racism and bias that has compounded, I think, literacy information and technology disparity. This truth is the impetus for LA's five year strategy letter legacy be justice, which I will talk about later. The issue of broadband access to, and it's ongoing impact on inequitable education employment and healthcare outcomes I just want to point out that we are now a time in our social trajectory, where both, where the three education employment and healthcare, I think three of our primary quality of life indicators are all dependent on digital platforms. This is why in January, the LA council voted to declare access to broadband as a human right. And finally, three, the need to rethink dramatically, I would say, library outreach, especially connecting information disinvestment with broader community disinvestment we have not always connected to. And I think we do need to create engagement models as New America's report speaks to that bring the library collections technology and resources into greater proximity with and I think we must focus on low income, adult heads of households, economic mobility is the greater predictor of generational poverty so at LA when we're focusing on outreach and outreach models we are really focusing on those adult heads of households so I want to just deep dive very quickly into the report to the point that the generational harms at the libraries, segregate history and classism is one that the field must contend with and repair, if we are to make remain relevant and resonant with our communities, and we must talk about the generation of compulsory illiteracy, and how they have contributed to the achievement gap, we don't always locate the two and how they are contributing to over incarceration. There's evidence, of course that African Asian Latino and indigenous peoples, and those from lower income and rural communities as reports speaks to tend to rely on libraries for more critical information needs. The report answers, the reports answers match with a la's five year framework, let our legacy be justice, as well as the work we've been doing on information redlining and as I get ready to close here I want to, I want to talk about the fact that it is important to pay attention to information redlining sociologists call redlining the practice of arbitrary arbitrarily denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, because it's residents are people of color or poor. We believe that information redlining built on that definition, and is the continual denial of equitable access to information information services and information retrieval methods. When we think about that as we talk about access as we talk about socio economic mobility, we are going to have to reconstruct a notion of libraries that includes but it's not limited to our bricks and mortar we need our bricks and mortar because of the history of spatial exclusion that is tandem in tandem with racism in this country, but we also need to rethink how we move into proximity with the needs of our users. So I'll stop there and pick up more in our conversation. Thank you for those very powerful remarks, and we have as the final panelist Kelvin Watson from Nevada Kelvin. Thank you john and again congratulations to the new America's foundation and certainly I'm happy to, I guess wrap up with the practical pieces of the report. Let's talk a little bit about some of the work that we did in Broward County. And I'm also going to talk about some plans and ideas that I have here as the new Las Vegas Clark County library district executive director of on my fifth week here. So what I want to start off saying is what drew me to this profession and that is my own wavering belief that libraries can create a future of equity diversity and inclusion through technology innovation. These are certainly things that I focused on throughout my throughout my career. And so, as I've had the opportunity to work at Queens library and Broward library and now at Las Vegas Clark County. The idea about expanding digital services has just been really at the forefront right so we in Broward, for example, we had already been putting some things in place to provide a virtual library experience to our resources. So we had already been doing pop up libraries for example on buses, so that we could expand those resources to individuals who were primarily using that mode of transportation. We also pushed out an airport location and provided airport library resources even that parks. So we had begun to see from, you know, just the experiences about digital shifts, more and more from the physical aspects to digital, even partnering with some of the recommendations that were made in report, like working more closely with schools. So in 2017 we implemented a program with the Broward County schools, where we worked with, with that school system sharing our digital resources to the community share program. So when the pandemic hit, we actually were able to. We already had 80, about 80,000 students that had digital library cards. We saw our digital resources increase that usage increased by about 70% just in that particular area alone focus on the on the youth. Some of the things that we had also been doing to work to bridge and close the digital divide. And there's some of these have been already mentioned, you know, from a higher level but these are the practical things that we did. We began lending digital tablets preloaded with school library content, as well as job assistance resources making that tool, a family of resource so that, you know, as Tracy mentioned, you know, moving, moving the family, the parents to to employment and helping them become reemployed. We also were lending hotspots to veterans. So we had been looking at these things already and trying to increase that digital, that present that digital presence, and now focusing on moving more to workforce development. So we're in Las Vegas Park County and already starting to begin those conversations. Again, taking the taking recommends a recommendations that from the report, meet having already had a meeting with the school superintendent last week. Reaching out to Nellis Air Force base, for example, to put a digital library there. I'm having a meeting actually later this week with the, the bus, the bus folks here in in Las Vegas so again expanding beyond where we are to actually get those digital resources into people's lives so that we can improve people's lives. To me the library is always represented a community gathering place, and we remain that in spite of the challenges of the pandemic. But as you know we are so much more than a physical space or books on the shelves. The library is a state of mind, a hologram of possibilities, and a key community influencer. And so what I continue to work on and my colleagues continue to work on. And we do this through partnerships is providing that accessibility discovery and delivery of content so that we can have a more equitable society. That's it. Thank you. Thank you very much Calvin we've had a lot of excellent observations, both on the report and where libraries fit today in society. We have a few minutes for discussion and I might just start out by throwing out a question to the panelists, which is. Today, you're thinking about, oh, a stimulus package, or an infrastructure bill, and you had a chance to talk to policymakers, senators from your state about where libraries fit in and how libraries can help address some of the problems we're facing as we as a society come out of a in the context of the societal challenges with respect to equity that we all see so what would you say to your senator in terms of an ask in an infrastructure bill and I'll just let someone start out and we'll maybe go around. Maybe we'll go in reverse order for a quick one minute reaction to that starting with Kelvin and then Tracy, John Claude and then john. I'm thinking about two things when you're when you ask when you're asking that question one is a focus on our schools and our youth are pre K that's one area and another area would be on workforce development. Those are the those are the two things that I immediately think of. That's that's two spectrums that's the, that's the beginning, and then it's later in life, you know, in really trying to focus in a, in a more positive impactful way, so that's what I would say. Tracy. Yeah, and I will pick that up to I, Kevin I've talked about this as well, I think that we have to focus on rescaling. I've seen statistics that say that by 2025, we could have up to 76 of the black and Latino community combined under prepared or unimpaired unprepared for jobs as they become hybrid as they become more remote. And so I think we need to focus on rescaling and second, I think that we have to make interventions in terms of the monies that are going to the Department of Justice. We have to see preemptive strategies to bring more of those monies into library services so that we can interrupt the school to prison pipeline. John Claude, do you have a thought. Absolutely. Let me just add two things. One I would, we know that it to close the digital gap takes about 611 billion dollars. And then of course two or three billion every year just to make sure that we have the kind of sustained long term effect around this. The second I would, I would really lean on the state education departments and thinking about school libraries to perhaps begin to reverse the trend that we know actually exists and we supporting superintendents and school principals really understand the value and begin to rebuild that infrastructure. So both the gap and of course looking at the school district infrastructure and school libraries. John Brack, do you have a. Yeah, well I would say, I mean, one, we are so in addition to Tracy and her, her colleagues, we are so lucky to have the type of national leadership that we have right now representing libraries in Washington. Actually, I'll use that as a plug. One of the one of our key assets in the field is Crosby Kemper at IMLS and he's going to be part of the meeting we're doing our open community board meeting next month, which I'll put it in the chat but it's at the bit.ly slash DPLA open board. And then I guess the last bit that I said it's related, you know, related to that but I just think I want to come back and recycle it is that in order for us to have that level of impact. We have just as we would not rent out or give away or sell our physical in person branches, we can no longer give up and and lease our way and give away our digital face to to our public and to our patrons. And if we didn't know that before we should know that today from a year ago. That that's excellent. Another question we may want to consider is the issue of community content. I think in the chat as I try to multitask I see some people asking, not just about broadband access but about devices. And, you know, John Claude has talked about that in terms of the cost of supporting that for communities but when you get to access and devices you get to the what for we've talked a bit about what users may receive. But Tracy I think especially hit on information informational redlining. We have for a different panel maybe one day that the issue of local news organizations being gutted. I want to start with Tracy since I can see the body language even on zoom, wanting to jump in on the notion of content creation. Yeah, I mean, there's so much to say and I would, I definitely believe we're moving into a mode where we have to think about co creation and co curation with our communities. I can almost even stop there but I do think that we've only touched, I think the head of the of the needle, when it, when it comes to the kinds of content that is actually going to draw and resonate with with our communities. And I love the fact that the report really honors that and says that we are not really not mining our complete talent, or even our mind, our genius mind, I would say, but I think that we have to push that's why I'm really pushing very hard that for for really diversifying the ranks of the profession, we, I believe that if we continue we will be out of step and, and maybe in danger of being irrelevant, or at least not resonate with our community so that co creation and co curation also means that we have to think about who is decision making for libraries, and actually how do we think about libraries being embedded in their communities and literally of their communities. Other reactions to that. I would, I would just double down on what Tracy's been talking about. When I think about the reinvention part of the three hours I was not mentioning before, where I see the real long term effect is going to be on sort of content on curriculum, and that range to the range of not just K 12 think about the adult learning micro credentialing actually have been giving people access to information, and know how to use information is critical. The technology is a means to that and it is necessary but insufficient without the content build both for K 12 students and families frankly, who are now, who have now seen the inside of schools from their homes have parents support kids without that kind of pedagogical and curricular creation. We're not going to go anywhere. I'll just close out with a final observation if I may. No good report and doesn't inspire other future reports, and I'm hopeful that New America is able to revisit this topic in the future to see how people view their libraries as we quote unquote return to normal. I know that the post pandemic normal is going to look different than what came before given all the changes that haven't sued, but I think, among the biggest contributions of this report is the need to keep an eye from a research perspective on where libraries are and where the public thinks libraries are as the role of libraries continue to evolve. So, with that, I would like us to have a zoom round of applause for an excellent set of panelists. We really appreciate your comments and your wisdom. And with that I will turn this back over to Lisa and New America. Thank you all very much. Thank you so much, John and everybody on the panel really appreciate it. There's a lot of food for thought there that concept. The co co creation and the in the building and participatory content building is something that's very resonant with us at New America as well on several projects so it's exciting to start talking about that and what it means to get participation from all aspects of community instead of those who are more traditionally connected to their libraries. So I'm really pleased to have a moment to move us over to our next panel and I first though want to note that some good questions have come in the chat and thank you all so much for for doing that continue to add some questions in there there were a few questions. And I know that john didn't have time to get to to many of them at all but one question came in around the report itself and I just wanted to to answer that for you all it was about why the report may have focused entirely on how users access resources. Like, just basically getting online in the first place rather than aspects of digital collections. And I did want to note that there were some questions in our survey that went a little bit deeper wasn't just about whether you knew about the website, or used a app like Libby that an app that a library might have made available to you. But there were also questions about once you got into the library's digital resources, whether you were able to kind of find what you wanted and who were able to kind of get to the ebook that you're looking for etc. So I encourage you to look at the data from that it's not as much of a pretty picture yet there were definitely some challenges people are having in getting down to what they actually really were looking for when they went to the library so happy to talk more about that too. So I'm going to move it now to our second panel, and this is exciting for us because we can really start thinking about solutions and and bounce off a little bit of what we heard from Kelvin in terms of where libraries already are and what they're trying to do next so I'm going to introduce Linda poon who is our moderator for this next panel and I'm going to turn it over to you Linda Linda is a staff writer for Bloomberg City lab, where she has written on a host of urban issues, including urban development climate and the urban development and just last week community responses to anti Asian violence and the wake of the murders in Atlanta. We at New America have been following Linda, because of a story she wrote back in June, how the coronavirus is changing public libraries and that story hit on so many of the issues we're talking about now she was very, very ahead of her time, writing that piece. So thank you Linda for that piece. And I'm now going to turn it over to you to introduce the next panel. Thank you so much Lisa. I'm really excited to moderate this panel my own reporting has sort of brought my attention to a lot of different innovations out there and I'm really excited for this. These panels to talk a little bit more about what their institutions are doing. With that we have really for for a really great guest today. And so please allow me to introduce. One of them is Paulo Balboa the program manager at the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. We also have Jenny Jeremy Markham, assistant director of the Kotoba County Public Library in North Carolina. Meet the Jennings acting director of Newport News Public Library in Virginia, and Michelle Jasky president of the Public Libraries Associations, and the director of Denver Public Library in Colorado so thank you all for being here, and a big welcome to everyone. I want to start with just having you guys talk a little bit about what programs you guys have been offering right throughout the pandemic we know there's a lot adaptations a lot of pivoting. So let's start also go in alphabetical order. Let's start with Paulo. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Thanks Linda for the introduction. Happy to be included on this panel presentation, and also just to an extent my congratulations to do America on publishing this report. It's been a real pleasure to be a part of the working group for the report to learn from my colleagues who are so talented so experienced and it's just been a real delight. So I'm excited about me and the sort of work that I do with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. Officially we've been around since 2015, but myself, like co workers there and our network of affiliates have been doing this work in some shape or form for much longer than that. Maybe it just hasn't been called digital inclusion, but everything that we do, we do in lockstep with our affiliates. So one of those things is defining this work like what do we mean by digital inclusion and digital equity. And then change last March when the pandemic hit. One of the analogies that we like to use is this analogy of the three legged stool to describe affordable broadband affordable devices, as well as digital literacy training. We view those as the activities necessary to get to this framework of digital equity. We know that not everyone is there. That's why we're here to sort of do that work and advocate for resources and policy to to make a more digitally solution. Affordable broadband right like some of the panelists were mentioning earlier is this idea of availability versus adoption that's mentioned in the report as well. Income is a big driver of, you know, trying to figure out who isn't adopting internet at home, just because there's wires in the ground that an ISP provides that doesn't mean that that internet connection is necessarily being used by folks. Income can be a main main barrier to digital inclusion. One way to address that is discount internet offers like a Comcast internet essentials AT&T's internet access plan, for instance. The idea of devices prefers to local national computer refurbishers device hotspot lenders, right, but then as to go deeper into what the report like really really digs into I think well is this idea of this elusive third leg of the digital literacy, just training on how to use those devices and how to use the internet. The digital literacy piece, I think represents what I'd say that is a human component of digital equity work. It's nice to get somebody signed up for home broadband service. It's nice to make sure that they have a Chromebook in their hands, but who can they call on if they don't know how to use those devices. A place like a public library has traditionally fit that digitally equitable equitable space. It fits those three legs of the school with public computer centers with reliable internet, and then most importantly and I think having staff trained to help patrons and community members get to the resources that they need. In the past year. NDIA has piloted a program that we're calling digital navigators with several different types of social service organizations across the country. We've been working with economic development in Appalachia. We've been working with workforce development in Ohio, but most importantly, and I may be biased because my background is in public libraries. We're piloting this program with the solid city public library with help from the Institute of museum and library services. Since the very beginning of that project, the program leadership over there, just shout out to China as an adjustment strange you are absolute all stars program leadership at the solid city public library has been intentional about making sure that they're partnering with community based organizations in solid city that already serve historically underserved underrepresented community members. So they're partnering with an organization called the Catholic Community Services of Utah, which is a social service organization that helps migrants and refugees community members in solid city. They're also partnering with community based organizations that emphasize business development for the Hispanic and Spanish speaking community in solid city. The goal of digital navigators is to develop this replicable framework for organizations, maybe like other public libraries, maybe like other social services organizations that wants to be able to continue to serve their community members their clients their patrons in this pandemic age. Just to begin to wrap up, but I know we can have a conversation around this. The pandemic has exposed like these major, major gaps in digital equity, historically under represented historically under certain communities are at risk of being left even further behind. Now that we have the stronger reliance on using the internet. So, fingers crossed but as the country continues to trend towards higher vaccine roll out and maybe the end is in sight big big fingers crossed. And as especially as public libraries can consider full or partial reopening. So that the components that we've seen come up in a digital navigators program, like a remote service can can may stay in a been what looks like a post pandemic world. Being able to, you know, close that gap for community members who may not be able to leave the home and digital navigators representing like a remote way of reaching them is something that I think could be integrated into library programming moving forward. Thank you, Paula. And I do think that sort of digital literacy conversation. It's less talked about right then the other other schools. So next we have Jenny Jeremy Markham. Thank you Linda. So, my name is Jenny, I'm from Catawba County, North Carolina, very rural 90% of our schools are considered Title one schools, and we have a service population of about 115,000. And addressing these access issues and reaching our underserved populations has always been a guiding force for our library. And I feel like our pre COVID foundation of being outward focused and attuned to their community needs, along with collaborating with other community agencies helped us to shift very quickly. When we set down schools and businesses, our library staff was deemed essential by our county. And I believe that came from a long standing practice of aligning our library goals with our county's goals and strategic plan. For example, our county had a health and wellness initiative. So our library began offering exercise programs and worked with our public health to address issues that they found in the community health assessment through our programming. County had a place making initiative we partnered with our parks to install literacy trails and story walks. When they have an educational initiative. Each of our library has an outcome to partner with schools and teachers to help them teach one of their curriculum. So once the county was shut down in just a few short days we began our curbside service. And as one of the johns had said earlier, we needed to be all things to all people, both physically and digitally. So our staff remained in the building to answer phones and to provide one on one assistance for tech for job and career and for those unemployment questions. We served as those net digital navigators that Paula was talking about. So library buildings then reopened day one phase one. Not easy to do but we did it and the success of that was heavily dependent upon the many and deep relationships that we had fostered with other departments, community groups and businesses, like others on this panel will continue to look at the needs of the community, and then put those programs and ideas into place to address those needs. So our Wi Fi had always been on 24 seven but we did increase our signal strength. We shifted our budgets to increase those electronic resources. We added more resources. We already had a hot spot and laptop lending programs in place, but thanks to more grant funding. We also got Samsung Wi Fi enabled tablets, and that was able to allow us to ensure more access, because we were already partnering with our schools. As mentioned earlier, library media coordinators were able to contact us directly and say, I've got this kiddo that needs this or I've got these parents that need this. We have those pre established relationships in place. So being responsive to our patrons needs and requests. We also tried to figure out how we could delve into programming. So like many of you we offered pre recorded programming then went to live online platforms. We created make and takes, and then thankfully being in North Carolina we were able to look at outside programming. And that's part of what the report focused on. We were able to add Zumba into our parking lots, Tai Chi into and hiking into our parks. We have programming in our community gardens. We've been able to promote our story walks and literacy trails as a safe way to engage in early literacy opportunities. Again, leaning into those pre established partnerships. That's not enough because that's still expecting the public to come to us. So with the goal of meeting people where they are, one of the programs that I think was most responsive from us was we were able to partner with our community agencies and through LST a funding. We now provide Wi Fi in the community we supply the access point that public housing sites, recreational department soup kitchens, local churches and businesses that are in specifically targeted area. We also hosting social workers and community navigators in our library. Again, thanks to funding from our state library and our social work students come from nearby universities, they have regular office hours and they make themselves available for appointments, drop in visits or appointments, and they're well equipped to provide support and help with navigating these processes. They're also training our library staff though, so that our library staff can do the same job they can in case they're busy. We're looking to expand in the future with library outposts. We're talking about setting up in a laundry facility with a book vending machine, regular visits from our mobile library which is our library to go and programming done in conjunction with our other partners. We're still working for digital library cards so that we have students that can have direct access using their own logins. And we're also working for more online classes and in person classes eventually for caregivers that will allow access to more digital navigating and technology learning. Thank you. Thank you so much Jenny. I think this idea of like taking services literally out of the building is obviously a huge part of a conversation right now right. So thank you for that. Next we have Anita Jennings. Good afternoon. The this report and the discussion this afternoon highlight the importance of what libraries bring to any community. I just want to share with you some of the experiences that we had at the city of Newport News at the onset of the pandemic. The pandemic first hit the city of Newport News we're a department within the city of Newport News, the city closed down for public public could not come into the building. The schools closed and many local businesses closed. At the very beginning we assumed that the schools were just closed maybe an early spring break we did not realize that they would not return to online learning until actually this month. We knew we have three libraries and we knew that we were the main place for many of our communities in order to access the internet. We have we're a snap center so we provide assistance with individuals looking for jobs, as well as individuals trying to apply for unemployment. And when the school system closed. One of the things that they had to do was do the online learning for some students that was seamless, but for many students in some of our communities, they did not have the access to online. They did have access, and then they did not have anyone in the home that could actually assist them with their school work. We have three libraries like I said, and most of the libraries were very active in our community so we knew that there was a need within the community. We did some of the same things that many of the other libraries have done in across the country we added curbside service, we went to virtual programming. We also increased our digital collection. The school was not meeting the need for the digital divide and the digital equity issues. So one of the programs that we implemented to try to reach more individuals was a mobile hotspot program. Since the city was closed, we have a fleet of vehicles other departments weren't using those vehicles. So each of our libraries was able to get a vehicle and have that vehicle house on at the library site. So we had to go out with the to watch by hotspots to staff members per vehicle and deliver service to where the school buses were delivering lunches. We also packed materials book materials, so that we could have those so that the students could pick up those as well during that time. We did that we were able to meet the needs we had individuals coming doing homework, turning in assignments, we had people coming in checking email, trying to apply for their unemployment insurance. It just highlighted the importance of the opening of a library and what libraries do provide to the community. At this point, we are still closed, we are planning for reopening. We should be opening next month, but we still we have rolled out a hotspot program at all of our libraries at the onset of this program we had piloted a hotspot program for one of our the Ridley Place neighborhood, and we only had a few library hotspots but since there, there was such a need, we were able to purchase more hotspots to be able to deliver those two individuals. The school system also at that time they purchase more hotspots because most of the kids had a device, but they did not have the internet. This highlighted so quickly the differences of our communities and how quickly some communities can adapt and how, how some are left behind, and the importance of the work that we still need to do to try to continue to bridge that digital divide, but we are meeting the needs of the community but there are some things that we would like to continue to do as we learn more as more resources become available and bring that to the community. Thank you so much Anita. One of my favorite things about this is just, it really highlights this need for collaboration right across different departments. You partner with school, you partner with other departments to use their vehicle fleets which is amazing. And then last but not least, we have Michelle Jesky. Great. Thank you for having me. First I'm representing the Public Library Association today but I'm also, I'm going to speak a little bit about what we've been doing here in Denver at the Denver Public Library. And like many others today I just want to thank New America and everyone involved in this research and report. It is really helpful I think to libraries as we think about how to move forward, but also to those we work with and others we may want to work with or who may want to work with us as we come out of this really difficult year. I think it points in some directions that we all, we all need to pay attention to. The report also really aligns with what PLA's own research last year showed how libraries immediately work to pivot programs and services online, and also out in the community when buildings close to the public. And as my fellow panelists just really well demonstrated library staff served communities virtually yes, but also already recognized how many people lack broadband access at all and connected people out where they were in parking lots on sidewalks in lots of partnerships with schools and housing authorities and other places, and really in some very creative ways as we've just heard. In Denver we've been taking hotspots and laptops out to safe outdoor spaces for people experiencing homelessness and also supporting them in the use of those devices. We've purchased and circulated additional Wi-Fi hotspots and laptops specifically for our immigrant refugee community to use at home. So again, as Paulo and others talked about it's also the digital literacy piece to really help support them in the use of it. And then lastly, we're in the process of purchasing several hundred smartphones with the year of data prepaid to give away to people experiencing homelessness with no strings attached. We'll be preloaded with apps and links to useful resources and we'll be working with them through digital navigators. Much of that is to address the immediate needs that we've been speaking about this morning, but also to see what works and to evaluate and really figure out how to work toward longer term solutions. And as part of that our library is co-leading our city's digital equity planning along with the Office of Economic Development. For this year, our library committed to prioritizing the most vulnerable among us, the unhoused, the unemployed, black, indigenous and people of color and older adults just to name some of the populations that we've identified. There's all the intersections among them. And so that means we're rethinking how we spend our money, what programs and services we provide. And yes, the hard part, figuring out some things that we're going to have to let go so that we can really work toward racial and social equity. This report really lays out well. This pandemic has laid bare the deep rooted inequities in our communities, as well as the resourcefulness of public libraries and their staffs, and also how important our public spaces and resources are to the community. We need to be really creative about our existing physical and digital resources. Our physical spaces are going to be more important than ever as we re-knit our social infrastructure as we help people upskill and reskill for employment and recover from learning loss. If passed, the Build America's Libraries Act currently being considered in Congress could really help ensure that public libraries can expand technology access, host vital community meetings, enable telehealth, and improve accessibility, energy efficiency and resiliency in all of our communities. So we are really excited by the opportunities that ALA and library advocates were able to secure through the American Rescue Plan Act, including funding for libraries through IMLS, and funding for the emergency connectivity funding. These opportunities are really exciting and important, but we also need to think about the sustainability of funding and support for public libraries. We need to ensure we continue to maintain local funding support because we cannot afford to lose staff or library hours as we recover from pandemic losses and the economic inequity that both preceded it and is now exacerbated by it. Our communities need strong libraries and strong libraries need strong support. And libraries cannot be the fixer of all things. So how do we work better together with our local government and other community partners to bring our strengths and assets together in smart efficient ways to best support our community members, not duplicating efforts, but enhancing each other's work, creating true collaborations and collective impacts. The pain we've experienced and the resilience we've shown this last year should be the catalyst for transformation and growth. Libraries can and should improve our outreach and visibility, particularly within communities of color and low income communities. And our educational and nonprofit colleagues should look to libraries as partners for technology access and skills building. I just want to end by thanking all the librarians on the panel and out in the audience for what you've done and what you will do. And thanks to our many partners and supporters. Back to you Linda. Thank you so much Michelle. I really love this idea of, you know, well it leads directly to my next question which is that libraries themselves cannot be the fixer of all for all problems right there support that not just funding but sort of broader policy support that are needed. And I do want to talk a little bit more about what you guys kind of want from your local government from federal government, as well from some of these these partnerships that we've been kind of talking about like what do libraries need in order to do the role recognizing that they cannot be the only solution to the problem. So let's throw it out. Whoever wants to talk next. When we throw out the power again. Yeah, I think so it does come down to funding like libraries and for money right but like I think that one way to put that into action like how to make that the use of funding most effective is to recognize that, as has been mentioned several times already on during our libraries represent like the community trusting a public institution, like having a public library in an area and using their strengths which I think is community trust, and you know trains staff who are there to assist community members or patrons with whatever they need. That's the way to really dig into using funding, most effectively, just to dig in a little bit harder digital navigators is one way to try to do that. Right, like building staff capacity to make, you know, more of those resources available to the community members who need it most and housing those resources inside of a library. It doesn't put all the onus on a public library but rather uses their strengths, the best. I agree I think you know including the library and this comes up in the report including the library at the table to talk about these big important things so that we can share the assets and strengths that we have. I'm being proactive about that. And honestly addressing through other agencies and other funding other people who have other expertise. I'm not just having a lot of the challenges fall at the public library because anybody can walk in the door I feel like we have inherited a safety net that is not sustainable and others need to step up a bit. I think it's very important that libraries have a seat at the table and to be part of the solution. I think some communities don't recognize all that the library has to offer when you're trying to come up with solutions to some of these problems that we're trying to solve that are much greater than the public library. But I think we absolutely can be part of the solution and should be. There's nothing else to say on that subject. The other thing I'm really interested in. I know we're running out of time but I do want to talk more about these collaborations with different entities within right with school libraries with with different department it's not something I personally have ever thought about we always thought about libraries as a standalone entity right you go to the library. And I'm wondering going forward was sort of collaborations will be needed. What are you guys specifically looking for in your own institutions. Maybe we start with Jenny this time. I would love the idea of co locating with social services with the other other departments. I think that would be really neat. We already collaborate with our cooperative extension. We have a community garden but again if we could communicate that would be wonderful. Also as I addressed earlier, our library outcomes and output are specifically aligned with our government's outcomes output strategic plan so that we hope not always but we hope that they'll recognize us as essential services. So we have those those outreaches those collaborations built in to what we do on the daily basis. Is there anyone who wants to talk a little bit about sort of what sort of collaborations they're looking forward to with their own community. I can jump in as well like from that, like the macro perspective I guess for digital inclusion like as I was describing earlier, a lot of public library represents a like a digitally equitable system because it has all of those three components of that three links to the stool that I was mentioning. So libraries public libraries are already digital inclusion leaders in their, and their local municipalities in their local cities towns, whether they describe themselves that way or not right like the issue of language is important, but they're already doing this work. So since last year, from our perspective we've seen new types of social service organizations joined a digital inclusion fold organizations that serve migrants and refugees for instance for course development. A lot of people are coming together to do this work and I think that they can look to the library to sort of as a thought leader for this kind of space. Awesome thank you so much. I do want to turn back to Lisa and just to see if we have some time for Q&A if you guys have any Q&A questions. Thanks so much Linda, really great to hear all of the important with collaborations but also really creative and innovative projects underway. And this question of like how to test experiment and gather data on what works I think is top of mind as well so we're at a key moment to really start doing that. Yeah, we have a minute or two more if any big questions come in there have been some great ones in the chat folks are also really interested in being able to follow up and see the slides and the report and so we'll make sure that that's available afterwards as well. Thank you so much to everybody and hopefully there's a lot of good chat going on Twitter, I haven't been able to multitask quite in that level yet to get back on Twitter. But I, I do want to say one last thing while all of you are here because this three legged stool of motion is really really helpful Paulo thank you so much for that analogy and this, this digital literacy piece, it would be remiss if I didn't think that in addition to the digital navigators program, we at New America have been writing about media mentorship as another kind of component of digital literacy it's a way to think about that human centered approach to digital literacy that that libraries can provide. And I think it really runs really nicely and in sync with digital navigators this notion that a librarian can be there to help people navigate through all the different media that's out there and how to start making some of their own evaluations about what they see as quality and and useful in the media that they're, that they're able to get from their library or from elsewhere so I wanted to note that briefly. I want to say a big thank you to Linda for moderating to Paulo and Anita and shell and Jeremy and Jenny, and to everyone on our first panel as well. I think we're going to close up at this point. Say a farewell, but there's lots more to do a lot more work ahead and it's just very inspiring to hear from all of you.