 All right. So, we are at our final session of the day for Big Talk from Small Libraries 2022. I'm your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. We've had a great day. We have a great final session for you today. How to be stealthy in your library. I love that. And serving our marginalized communities that we have many of them. With us is Molly Balmachi is from the Walled Lake City Library in Michigan. Population serves 7,000. That's still close or accurate. Yeah. Everybody's getting updated information now with the new census. For sure. So, I'll just hand it over to you, Molly, to tell us all about how to be stealth, how to use stealth in our libraries. Well, hello. My name's Molly, and I'll talk a little bit more about why stealth first. And so, with the definition of stealth, according to the generic Google search, because you know, trustee Google, stealth is a noun. And it means cautious and surreptitious action or movement, right? So, when you see me, what do you see? I'll provide about 30 seconds or so if you want to chat in the text box. And if you've read my bio, you might have a slight advantage to who you think I might be. And you're probably wondering, like, what the heck is this gummy bear image on the screen? This illustrates the genetics in a quick visual format. I saw this not too long ago, and I thought this was perfect. Genetics is complicated, and I'm a librarian, not a biologist. So, what I do know is that colonization happened around the world. And many of us have a richer history than we may think. And I'm really thankful to know some of mine to share with you in the next coming slides. So, first, a little bit more about me. I'm Molly, she, her. I've also had the Eya La here with Spanish, I speak Spanish. A picture here with thanks and more on thanks later. Including pronouns is a first step towards respecting people's identity and creating a more welcoming space for people of all genders. I often wear an enamel pin with my pronouns for patrons to see. It's also included my email signature. And I think I've changed my background name, so I did try to log in with this space with my pronouns as well. I'm the children's librarian at Wall Lake City Library in the Metro Detroit area. The Native Americans of the Potawatomi and Algonquin tribes originally settled this region. I've begun to include this information within my email signature as well. Maybe you will too. I earned my degree in Milwaukee at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee where I study children's services and public leadership with a focus on Latinx Hispanic usage. The Milwaukee area was home to many indigenous peoples including Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk and many others. My first professional position was at the department head in a small library in Indiana and fortuitously interviewed just before renovation of the department. I loved Julie's presentation because that was all about what I did. My contribution to the renovation included a kitchen with an oven and range to promote cultural literacy. The idea stemmed from a volunteer opportunity for a program at the Milwaukee Public Library where a Mexican genealogist shared her history with the children. Prior to the program start where I was a volunteer, I shared a little bit of my roots with her. She asked me what kind of tortillas I ate at home with my family and I said, store-bought. She reassured me that it was okay. She also shared with me that the base of the tortilla could help determine where your family came from, which was news to me. In the program she prepared flower tortillas for the participants to have a hands-on opportunity to make quesadillas. The next stop for me was a large library system with 24 branches and a bookmobile. Many of us were required to attend the two or three-day seminars on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The entire organization, including pages, were required to read the teen version of stamped from the beginning. It's a much more accessible book than the adult version and since it was required reading, this allowed me to remove my self-clog, which I very much enjoyed. And I created lots of displays, programs, and shared materials to include diverse voices oftentimes very boldly. As previously mentioned, I have some lived experiences and that's a factor to why I'm an advocate for marginalized communities. I have to admit I'm not an expert, but I'm always learning more ways to be a better accomplice to the cause. Here's where the gummy bear analogy comes in. My paternal grandmother's parents were immigrants from Sicily. My grandma shared stories of learning English in school and helping her parents navigate the Wisconsin area where they lived. They changed their name when they arrived at Ellis Island because at the time, Italians and Sicilians were not considered white. Of course, there are other groups that fall into this category. My maternal grandparents are in more Mexican. They're pictured here. There's me with my mom and family on my graduation day and we identify as Mexican-American, Tejano, Hispanic, and Latino. They grew up in the San Antonio area of Texas in the 1930s and 40s. They raised their children in a time where assimilation was key to survival, which led them north for better opportunities. Although my grandparents spoke Spanish, English was language spoken in their home, and my mother and her siblings did not learn Spanish. They even went as far as to anglicize their name. My siblings and I learned Spanish in school and continue to maintain our varying levels of fluency. There's a side note I have here about being Latina or Latinx, Latina, Latino, Hispanic. What's the difference? They're not interchangeable. Latina or Latinx or Latina or Latina. It depends. It refers to being from Latin America. Hispanic refers to belonging to a Spanish-speaking community or coming from the country. Haitians are Latin A, O, X, but not Hispanic because they speak Haitian Creole in other languages like French. Additionally, folks in Brazil speak Portuguese and are Latina, but not Hispanic. People from Spain are Hispanic, but not Latin A because they are from Europe. Furthermore, Latin A's preferred non-gendered pronoun term rather than Latin X and within the community. I use Latin X, Latina. Don't use Latin A too often. And finally, a little bit more about that. I'll go back one slide. I'm here pictured with my spouse, and this was taken at my last library system. They identify as non-binary, and I use the term queer or bi for myself because biphobia does exist. Again, which falls under the bi umbrella is a newer term for me, and it fits me best. However, I've heard a lot of pan jokes, which are homophobic jokes, and I put a stop to those quickly. Plus queer, which was a formally derogatory term, has been reclaimed by the LGBTQIA community and puts the power back in our hands. It also allows me an opportunity to share this bit of information about being queer with folks when I use that term. So here are the marginalized stats in the US. The US is filled with diversity. Here are some of the numbers to consider on a country-wide level. Asian Americans make up about 7% of the population. Black Americans about 14. One in four Americans have a disability. Hispanic, Latin A make up 31%. Indigenous Americans about 1.7%, and about 8% of the population identifies as LGBTQIA. The whopping 86.7% of the population that belongs to a marginalized community. Your area may vary. Also, this list does not include all marginalized groups. Additionally, what was common knowledge in my family isn't so. I'm learning that most folks don't know that many Latin A Hispanic members of it are indigenous to the US. We are blended. If you have seen incanto, you will see the rich diversity of the Latin A community. Recently, a colleague and I were chatting with a patron about incanto. Another side note, I consider this to be community building and not a violation of intellectual freedom. The patron stated that they were surprised to see the diversity in the film within the blended family. And I reminded them both that the United States made interracial marriage illegal in most states until 1967 with loving versus Virginia. So it's no wonder that we're still fairly homogenous in the United States. The Waldeck service area here, we serve about 7,000. This image is from the city data. It's my go-to website for demographic research. According to the website, and it's not included here in this pie chart, is that the website lists 0.4% of households or lesbian couples and gay households are 0.3%. So that's not even a whole percentage. There's biracial in here to be sure. But what I want to emphasize was the fact that we now know it's actually 8% of the population. So a lot of erasure is going on on this website. So the community here that's listed is 81.6% white, but that's not who comes through my doors. When crunching the numbers and adjusting for the LGBT community and folks with disabilities, 59.9 or so is the estimated percentage of folks that are coming into my library. And that's why I'm creating this presentation. The goal for me for you is that you'll learn how to create more inclusive displays, build and promote a more diverse collection, and create programming to reach marginalized community members and subtler yet intentional ways. And by doing these changes, you're less likely to receive pushback from either patrons or other groups. First, we're going to talk about including diversity in displays. Here are the Belcher children from Bob's Burgers, big fan of the show. Inside the box are knit scarves from the parents, Linda and Bob. Does anything stand out to you in this picture? I'm sure many of you have seen the show, but you may know that Bob has come out as bi. The scarves that are in the box are laid out to represent the bi flag. Be still my heart when I saw that. Oh, so happy. So if you watch for it, you'll see these. What's that? Same. I love the show. So if you watch the show, you'll see these colors appear on the screen regularly. So shout out to the bi writer. You can also create these warm bubbly feelings for your patrons by creating well visual displays that represent your community. So here's a tip for your buyers and signage. When creating these, you'll want to incorporate pride flags in your color motif. Similar to the Bob's Burgers reference, your patron patrons will recognize their flag and their hearts will fill with warmth. I promise a tip for learning your community. You can drive around the service area to see which flags are flying in front yards and include those colors in your displays. Keep in mind though, you'll want to be sure that you're in supporting groups of love and not hate. You can also use colors from country of origin for your community. And this was a sign I created for my current library to promote the new picture books. Which flags can you identify if you can recognize them? I'll pause for a few moments. I did. I was very deliberate when I created this. I wanted it to be subtle, but also stand out for those in the community. So for the bottom left there with the bi flag, you know, that was for me in the bottom right is the pan flag again. It's under the bi umbrella. When you're creating social media, you'll want to find social media that. So I'm sorry, creating social media is a job that we weren't prepared and taught how to do right. We're learning as we go. I'm still learning. However, the important thing to remember is to include folks from marginalized communities. You can find copyright images from Pexels in Canva if you're using canva to create more inclusive flyers. And that's where I found this image. They are holding the pan prime flag. And I use they because I don't want to assume a gender on this individual. If you do use real patrons in your advertisements, be intentional to invite marginalized community members to participate. Remember that diversity includes people with disabilities, both visible and invisible low income and other intersectionalities. However, and this is the big one, the big one avoid using digital blackface. I have a quote here. It's kind of long. Digital blackface is when non black people use the images and voices of black individuals to explain emotions or phenomena. So it's Jordan Dogen, the MEDS, a counselor and education educational speaker specializing in black mental health. And the creative a popular Instagram account. It will be linked in the bottom. I promise it's a tricky one to say when people use images to claim black identity, but they don't identify as black. It is as innocent as sharing these images may seem. Digital blackface is problematic because it perpetuates negative stereotypes about black people, namely that they're typically overanimated, loud, aggressive, angry, hypersexual and much more Dogen explains. So while you may want to use black and brown folks in your promotional materials, do so with intent to include folks rather than to react to response. Additionally, are using social media to promote posts using hashtag own voices. These should be updated to better reflect who is saying what I've included links in the reference slides for your reading pleasure. So we've got book displays who doesn't love creating a large monthly book display. I certainly do, but I just don't have the space for it. So instead I create smaller displays for the tops of the shelves in my children's area. And that seems to be working pretty well. So when I find a theme, I tend to focus on topics that might not be done in other libraries. We've all seen Valentine's books or blind date with a book, which are fine, but you can mix it up to create a display for National self check month and find materials that feature marginalized creators, including foreign language materials in the displays is another way to reach marginalized community members. And the end of shelf displays, the ones that we randomly place a book shelf out or face out be intentional to find material with diversity. I had one team gal gosh about a book that was face out but she had been looking for it and I had it right there. So are you doing like steam program or other program. I often feature women in math and engineering or other marginalized groups that fit into the theme for the program. I host a regular steam craft club, which features selected materials to coincide with the craft and recently I hosted a Valentine by not binary code necklace craft and in the display. I featured Catherine Johnson and Ada Lovelace when chatting with parents about binary coding computers. I brought up the book movie hidden figures and one of the moms hadn't heard about Catherine. So this allowed me to share the materials with her hashtag win. This leads to promoting the diverse collection. So when you're building a diverse collection, it can be tricky. I'm rediscovering the building component. In my previous system, we had a few like literally five hands on selectors to purchase for the whole system. And then we were given, you know, what we got, you know, we relied on algorithms, and I'm not a fan of algorithms. I kind of imagine like if you're driving down the interstate and then there's a roadblockage because there's, you know, you want to get off but there's a parade. You can't just drive through you have to find a way around it and that's the same with algorithms. They're written by people that have unchecked biases. So, you know, they're going to do the best sellers and not necessarily what's needed in a community to really reach your true audience. So with that in mind, you know, when you're building your diverse collection, you want to keep these things in mind. So right now in my current position, I'm rediscovering that role, like I said, and so I select for picture books and middle grade readers. We do use a vendor and we're part of a shared network of 74 libraries. We can borrow from each other, which allows me to buy more unique items from my library. It's also important to utilize other vendors, you know, Amazon or whatever to search for local authors who are self published when available. When purchasing your queer content, it was mentioned earlier in the Crystal Queer session. You don't want to use spine labels on your queer material. It is a big flag and folks are not likely to check it out. I did use this example here of Love Violet because it was originally cataloged to be in our Valentine collection and I'm thinking, well, all right, let me find out what's going on in here. So I read through it and it is darling. If you don't have it, please buy it. So as I'm reading through it, it talks about Valentine's Day making special Valentine for your special friend. And it's got a girl and girl crush and I'm just like, ah, so for me, I'm like, nope, goodbye Valentine sticker. We're going in the regular collection. So I definitely want this book to circulate more than two to four times a year. I think back to the younger me and what this book could have done for me to see someone like me there. As I mentioned, you know, you want to avoid using those spine labels because folks are just going to be like, what are they going to think when I check out one option that I am discovering again is free books. I opened up an email one day and there was an email from the great start collaborative of Oakland County. And they asked in this email, just essentially anyone who wants Spanish books and I'm like, I do, I do. So in a very short turnaround, we received about 75 items in Spanish and bilingual. So we're going through right now to add these to our collections. We were given the choice to add them to the collection or give them away is giveaways and there are some that aren't perfect for, you know, the collection. There's a little puppet one board book that you have a little puppet in there. I'm like, no, that'll be a giveaway, but 75 free books. That's probably, I don't know, $200 at least that I saved on my budget, which is essentially my monthly budget. So super score. And the other one that I want to mention was I got an email from Kisa kids and this is the image here. This is a sample of what they offer. They mentioned that if you don't have a healthy budget to buy materials, they can offset that cost for you. So they will send you books for free to your library if you don't have that money, and it features Islam and Islamic educational resources and jumping forward a little bit. I learned about PJ library books about Judaism from a presenter that we had in here. Going to the next slide, we want to talk about building inclusive policies. Take a look at your collection policy. What does it say? Are you limited to hardcover books for your picture book collection? Are you limited to one vendor? Start to work with your director and your board to allow for marginalized voices on your shelves if there are specific policies. If you've been assigned a budget, send it to help support DEI work. There are some organizations that are taking the number of folks in their community and assigning a percentage of materials to be purchased to be identical. In other words, if I were to buy from my community, I would buy 81% white author characters, 8% black author characters, etc. But I learned that since 2018, children are now predominantly black and brown. And in our DEI work that we're doing, we need to be intentional and do a little extra now to help fill that gap. So I won't share specific percentages of how you should buy and select for your library. But what I can recommend is that you follow the next tip, which is audit your collection. Yeah, that's a legit. This one is tricky. Where do you start? It's very overwhelming. Trust me, I'm in the process of going through just the picture book collection. To start, I would recommend watching the webinar from Diversity to Inclusion, How to Audit Your Collection and Why, by Kimberly Powell. Lots of information in there, really great. She also has a spreadsheet that she shared with everyone that I'm like, okay, great. Thanks for this free stuff. I'm going to, you know, modify it for my needs. So I'm kind of going through the old stuff and the new stuff to get to where I can figure out where my picture book collection is and start doing more of a fine tuning of that collection purchasing. My goal is to go through the picture book collection by the end of this year. But if you're pressed for time, you could begin by checking to see if your labels are using outdated terms. The example I have here is Lunar New Year, and again, we're changing that hashtag own voices. If you have used hashtag own voices in previous posts on social media or whatever, go back and change them. It'll do your marginalized patrons a big favor. And, you know, with having that collection, you should be able to promote that collection and you can't promote what you don't know. I think of reading like daily food intake. You can't eat pizza all day every day. I mean, we can, we're grown ups, but we'll not feel satisfied after a while. We're going to crave something because our bodies are missing those nutrients. We're also missing out on other amazing food options, right? We've got sushi or Pad Thai or enchiladas and the list goes on. Much like our diets, we need to balance our reading, and that includes adding voices that we might not have in our social circles. Even if you have folks in your social circles, reading a variety of materials will help you better understand why your friend makes a cell sense or a cream. One short touch reading all of the books because who has the time to read it all is following the folks on social media. Here's a very short list of the folks I follow. I'll oftentimes pull these books and put them on my collections and in displays because they were recommended by my now virtual friends. What you do want to do, though, when you have your collection is avoid some of these topics. So, you know, we want to think about our vulnerable patrons and, you know, with the whole trans thing happening in Texas, we don't go there right now. But emotionally, that is, we want to keep in mind, you know, the author of Harry Potter. She said some purple things about the trans community and the LGBT community stand with the trans folks. I'm very proud to say that I've never read Harry Potter. As a children's librarian, it's kind of like this bragging right of mine. Do we need to keep replacing her work? There are folks that have read it and said it had changed their lives. So I'm going to defer to say that, sure, we can separate the author from the work. But this is a big one to keep in mind in the next example with Dr. Seuss. Remember last year when we had to like pull books from our collections because they're not publishing them anymore? Yeah, well, this one was not on the list. And you can see at the bottom of the image why I'm offended by it. I'm offended by it. I think it needs to go. It does not need to be in the collection. I can only imagine what the black community feels when they see this. So if you have it in your collection, get rid of it. There's so much out there and actually just found this one today. It fell into my lap. It's beautiful. This is a much more beautiful picture book about alphabets. And that's what this Hooper Humperding gives about an alphabet book. Get this one, not that one. Oh, moving on. We're creating programming with diversity in mind. Right? So we're doing programming. Some of us are experts at it. Like I have lots of experience. I love it. We want to create an environment where folks can come in for any program, not just ones that are targeted for them. And we want to make those too. But, you know, like the drag queen story times that have been happening or the drag loyalty. They are becoming popular, but there's also quite a bit of pushback. So if you're not quite ready for a drag queen story time and that's okay. Here are some ways to build programs to ensure that we're providing mirrors and doors for our patrons. To create programming for marginalized members. In my introduction, I mentioned banks banks is one of the puppets I use for my story time. Luna is on the left and she's my Mexican gray wolf. She only speaks Spanish and she is very shy. I created her to honor my Latin ex roots. She helps host bilingual story time. In my story time, I found that other languages are spoken, like Korean and what was the other one Belgian. So we're learning more words, not just the two. We're learning many, many more languages. And so Luna speaks only Spanish with the kiddos. And when I do my story time, I don't read the whole book in Spanish. I'll instead kind of find a word or two to throw in there just to introduce the kids to new languages. Because I think it's very important for them to experience that we're not all the same. America, the United States doesn't have a national language. So who's to say Spanish is not right. Then I again, here's banks again. Binks is a non binary by Bobcat who uses they them pronouns. They're very adamant about being respected when we use their pronouns. I under I created things to honor my my spouse, my non binary spouse. The puppets can also increase create and incorporate diversity. But please keep in mind that you'll want to avoid using stereotypes, especially of using human like puppets. Puppets also help children come out of their shells. They're in a world where COVID isolates them but having a fuzzy friend in the story time will help put them at ease. The other trick that I do is to get the ball rolling. You might do it too, you know, I've done this for many, many years and it works really, really well with teens. So one of the tricks that I do is I will write with my non dominant hand on a whiteboard or something to get the kids prompts, you know, coming in. This example I have here is a the color and contest entry that we did and I asked my really amazing director child to carry. She said I could go ahead and do this. So I spent a few hours cutting out with washi tape around the tree and in the curtains to make it, you know, really stand out. I used glittery stars in the tree to make it spark a little bit extra. Or what I did to, if you notice at the top, there's the trans flag in the light scheme there. So it's the trans flag and then I break it up with the yellow and then another trans flag. And this is a really subtle way to do some of your signage where you've got things, you've got, you know, your folks coming in, they will see it. I promise you they will see that and feel like, oh my gosh, someone was there for me in the gifts as well. You can see that there's like different colors in each one of those represents a buy, sorry, a pride flag. The other tip that I recommend is inviting a guest speaker to come into your program in November. I was still like spanking brand new and was informed that the patrons were going to need a substitute for the Hanukkah storytime. And I was, you know, again brand new like, yes, I want to do this program, but I don't know much about Judaism. I did some reading and I thought, well, you know, I could do it, but what if I called someone else? So I'm sorry, I jumped ahead and they didn't need to do that. I reached out to the Jewish organization here in Walled Lake, and Julie was very gracious and she came in to help out with the storytime session. I could not have done what Julie did. She came in, she brought in donuts, she brought in dreidels, she brought in, you know, celebration party materials, and it was a blast. The kids had a lot of time, like how can you not call it a success with donuts, right? It's just a super win. So we also learned to count in Hebrew. It was by far, you know, one of the more well attended programs, and this is during COVID, so this was a huge success for me. The other opportunity I want to talk about is free presenters, as I mentioned before, free, there's free. I love free, free, we're librarians, we don't have a lot of money, you know. So when you have this opportunity, you take it. Here is a screenshot of some of the books that this Las Musas will cover. They have authors from different middle grade and young adult, and it's kind of small, but there's more information again in the reference links. And they, the authors will host a 30 minute session for you if you include their books in your book clubs. You can work with teachers, I sent it to teachers. You can, you know, host one yourself. I'm currently working a, working on a book club. I have it just starting off the ground and I'll explain more in that later. But I'm planning for next season, if you will, on how to incorporate these two. The other option then too is the local authors. When I was in that large system, I discovered a local author named Jalisa King. She is the author of a book called When I Grow Up, I Can Be Anything, available on Amazon. It's a beautiful picture book about young girls who are doctors and astronauts and so much more. I contacted her to plan a program for youth called Local Author Writers Workshop. She was beyond thrilled to get started right away. I was too. However, we know how much planning goes into creating and implementing the programs. And with my previous system, there are more checkboxes to mark off before starting any new programs. When I asked her how much she charges for coming out, she didn't know this was her first time. So I had experience with that. I reached out to other local authors and we found a fee that worked for everyone that still fit within our budget. Let's see. The other names that were part of this program was the Sandra Mitchell. If you don't know her, get to know her. She's amazing. And Emma Oland, she's an up and coming author for teens. And because of COVID, we ran the program virtually and 11 children were in attendance. I partnered with a nearby school with a teacher to help boost Saturday morning attendance. So I had 11 kids virtually on a Saturday, like super, super went for me. We did have a budget for that. And so attendees received a kit that included a journal, coloring pencils, a regular pencil eraser and a flash drive in the hopes that they might be able to share their final product with the library website. I left before all of the, I left the system before all of that was finalized. So I'm hoping it's still running. The other recommendation I have for you is to join professional development groups. If you're a member of ALA, you can add a few roundtables. You've got the rainbow roundtable at the bottom and the ethnic and multicultural information exchange roundtable. I'm a member of that one. If you're not a member of ALA, you can still join the BC ALA. You can also join reforma. The BC ALA is just $45 a year reforma, depending on how much you earn. If you earn under $30,000, it's $35 a year and support staff pay $25. With these two groups as well, your organization can join for a nominal fee and that might be the more feasible way to join, but you have access to webinars, you've got access to resources and materials to promote again. I can't emphasize enough if you're not reading them, get on board with just finding out who has read them and promoting what they're reading. And if you've noticed a trend, you should incorporate what we've already learned. So like layering these things. If you're hosting a book club, add a marginalized author to the list. I host the passive book club that I would talk about. I call it Book of the Month. And for February, in an honor of Black History Month, I originally selected Root Magic, a historical fiction book based on the color, sorry, culture of Galagici. Originally the title caught my eye and after reading the author blurbs on the back, I discovered that the Sondra Mitchell had written a blurb. Following previous advice, as I said I read the material and I discovered that I finished reading I should say on January 31. So like the last day and I discovered that this book had some imagery that I was like, I don't know. I'm not going to spoil it but here's the scene. We watched in shock as she took off her dress and shoes leaving only her underwear on. She reached up to her head and there was a ripping sound. It was like when you pull apart pull apart two pork ribs that weren't quite finished cooking yet. The sound made my stomach do a flip flop. My legs felt wobbly weak and Jay squeezed my hand tight as we watched character redacted split her scalp straight down the middle and continue right down her back. Then she just shuffled out of her skin like it was a winter coat that got too hot to wear. She folded up that skin and left it tucked up near the base of one of the largest trees. Yeah, this is geared for 8 to 12 year olds and it's a little much. I was a little like creeped out by it. So I told my director that I had an idea that I was going to incorporate a second a second book and I chose the Watson's go to Birmingham 1963. They're actually both set in 1963 so it was perfect for Black History Month. Watson's go to Birmingham is originally set partially set I should say in Flint, Michigan, which is just an hour north of where we are. And it does have some other images that are could be problematic for some folks not saying which ones and but it's not fantasy based. It also has some shiny labels, the award labels. So, you know, parents, they're not going to push back. Additionally, I did reach out to these under Mitchell to ask for her reasons why we should include it if I did receive any pushback. She is the best I'm telling you she reached out the very next day was like here's all of the reasons why you need to include this. And I thought okay perfect. So the first day of the program the books on the shelf behind the surf desk and an adult patron visited the library and the title caught their eye. What's that title what's that book. And he's like, Oh, that reminds me of stuff that I grew up with like I'm from Gala Gichi and I said this book is for you. So, you know, with that first day encounter I know I knew that I, you know, spawned the right book for my community. There was no question about it so regardless of any pushback I might or might not get. I did I did my, my job diligently. The inspiration for this program was an earlier reading song of song for a whale. If you're not familiar with that one it features a deaf girl. So in honor of March for deaf history month I'll be promoting that one to you. The other thing I wanted to mention that I just remember to put on here and it's not on the slide. Starting on Sunday is the inaugural black children's book week. There's so much on social media. If you are not in the loop that just go search for it. It's included in the references and you can do some programming. You can link to programming partner with those that are doing some stuff, create a sign and just promote it at your library. That'll be a big step for your marginalized patrons. Finally, I want to talk about appropriation versus appreciation. The definitions are here on the screen so I'm not going to read them. I used the image here because the previous system I worked for wanted to host a Dia de los Muertos event with a partnering organization. I really wasn't okay with the event because it didn't really honor the history and the culture of the holiday. And remember back to my bio when I mentioned that assimilation happened in my family. We weren't allowed to celebrate to traditional holidays and maybe I'm still better about not having a quinceaneta. But anyway, I began an email dialogue which then included lots of input from colleagues and my message to you that might not be inside that marginalized group. If the subject doesn't pertain to you, please listen instead of sharing your opinion. I say this because when you speak up on behalf of the offending side, you're defending them and from the marginalized community, it hurts. It's just not a nice feeling to see your friends side with the offender. Other Latinos in the email exchange share their perspective and then it's not just a Mexican holiday, which was news to me. And what I learned is that Guatemalans create great big giant kites for the holiday and big teams work together to pull up these ginormous or ginormous Google Guatemalan Dia de los Muertos kites. It's spectacular. And so in conclusion, we're going to breathe. There's a lot I covered a lot and I covered it quick. The too long to too long didn't read version because sometimes you're just like, oh, and you look like Darla, like I'm just burnt out. We spent all day on the laptop or your computer staring at a screen having people talk at you without any interaction. The short version of this is just be intentional be intentional to add diversity to your displays in your collection your programming, create a plan. Whether you want to start, you know, are you more of an artist start with flyers? Are you a data person? You could start with the audit and you might really enjoy that. If you're programming library like me, you can create new opportunities for your patrons that really says you are welcome here. We are welcome here. And soon you can like I said you can add layers and add layers and add layers and soon you'll be doing much more for these marginalized community members, and they will become second nature, I promise. We're at the questions part. That's Hank. He's my big old lap dog, cooling off at that air conditioning vent. If you have, if you have questions for me, there's my email. It's Molly with an IE at wild lake library.org. Feel free to reach out at any point if you have questions or suggestions or concerns. I'm always open to listening and hearing feedback. And having an open mind. And that concludes my presentation. Awesome. Thanks Molly. Or welcome. Yes, if anybody just efforts anybody does any questions you want to ask them I right now we have plenty of time. Since there's no other sessions after her, we don't have to, you know, we can do as much as long as we want. In the questions section. I do feel like the previous slide that I've been here obviously hosting this conference all day today stare looking at my computer screen. But I hope it's been as as as interactive as we possibly can be. Oh for sure. It's good it's just, it is a lot. This is great. I'm so many good resources here so many very important and good tips and things that I didn't know as well you know there's some so many things I do know. And then there's all the things that I'm completely I had never heard of that particular before. Yeah, so it's it's you always learn something definitely. Someone did comment here and I'll, I'll echo this as well thank you for bringing so much truth out to the light. This is so much that people do need to know about and I think people, you know, in libraries we do know this, but getting it out there. So we do have a few questions then we'll get into your some requests and information and whatnot. We're talking about the labeling of the books. And she says I understand about not doing a spine sticker and as was mentioned in our previous session to. And they had an idea about mainly just so someone looking in the book may at least know what else something inside a sticker inside the front or back cover so as they're like thumbing through a book they'll still have some sort of notice that this is the book maybe for you that you were wondering about so not something right out on the front but something more hidden. That's a great question. And I think that a lot of especially because I do read a lot of teen stuff. And I think there are some metadata stuffs in that in that, you know, copyright and first publication stuff like that. They do use some terms in there that will say, you know, LGBTQIA. I don't speak for all LGBT folks when I say this. I think it might be nice to see a little sticker and they're like oh yeah okay there's a little mention of some kind of queer thing. I can say try it in your small library see if patrons complain if people check out the books that you put on there you can ask them directly like hey side note you know what do you think of this is this too much for you. Absolutely. It's hard to start a conversation you know be involved in what your patrons are doing. Yeah. Yeah, my library, you know I do want to emphasize we are Metro Detroit so we have diversity around us and within the community. But I feel like it's not, you know, I was in rural Indiana completely different so so different where you know you might be in that rural environment where even having like a pride flag in your office makes someone like flush like oh they know they see me. I'm embarrassed because I'm not oh yeah they see me like you know so you want to be careful with some of these things and that's why I do this stuff, because you know when when people see me like we have a known racist person in the library, and I can help them without being fear of you know her being hurt by him because I pass for you know everyone else here. Or I mean I pass for straight you know I'm wearing a skirt today so like our patrons don't see me as this queer Latina person they just see me as the new person. So you know I would definitely reach out. What's that the new librarian just the new library. That's your identity now as librarian to them. Which is a good identity to have as well. In addition, yeah. I've got a few other nicknames here that I've started. I don't know if they're totally appropriate. The silver box and like okay. All right, so we do have someone that has a question and earlier you also mentioned the own voices hashtag own voices. That is something to no longer use. Can you can you explain that everybody has heard about what the reasoning behind that can you explain that a little more so that yeah. There's a link in my I kind of stopped where I did on my slides but if there's references there so I do include an article about it, but essentially publishers co opted that hashtag on voices to start including like hashtag on voices for like a white dude. It's his own voice he's writing the story. It was originally supposed to be for the marginalized. Yeah, now we want to not. Yeah, we want to use something that's more reflective of who's writing it if you want to use indigenous voices if you want to use indigenous content, something like that. You know, and so you know I was practicing through this session last night with my spouse and they're like well you didn't mention anybody with disabilities and I said well I do allude to it a little bit. But you know for so I do a cookies and canvas program, and it's once a month and next month is women's history month so I will be featuring Frida Kahlo who also had a disability and Latina right so it was like two intersections. You can count the female component because that's the other that's another one in this like that big wheel and I didn't share the wheel, because we've all seen it. We've all seen that power wheel I didn't want to cover what we already know. If you don't know you can reach out to me and I'm happy to share it with you but essentially, you know we, I am very intentional to include marginalized voices, all marginalized voices and diversity. So, instead of saying just own voices to be you specifically say what it is what the voices and is it. Yeah, yeah, because it's just it's not. Yeah, it's not working the way it was intended. Not anymore now. Yeah, and that happens things change and that's okay. Yeah, let's go forward that's what a lot of this is about you know we thought things were different, you know okay to do previously, you learn more, you adjust, it's okay. You know, queer, we didn't use it. Now we do. Awesome. Yeah. All right, any other questions get them in while I'm going to wrap up these last few one we have here. Someone wants to know if you have any tips on advertising a Spanish language section or resources in library. You can start by reaching out to your. Now the folks that are coming in who you might know to speak Spanish, you can reach out to schools and find that Spanish teacher in the school, you can reach out to your Mexican restaurant that might be owned by, you know, Latinos, or I should not just say Mexican, but, you know, any kind of Latin X Hispanic, where I was previously there was like a Honduran restaurant not too far from the library so I went there very often and share the materials with them to say hey we have them here, creating a flyer. And just leaving it out like here's this book list in Spanish. Lots of outside the box thinking yeah just, you know, doesn't have to be your typical just something in the library. That's why I try to push a lot to our libraries in Nebraska to partnerships get outside your building to find where these people, the people are that you're trying to connect with. If you, you know, know that there is those kind of restaurants or stores or whatever go there and connect with them, you know, they're not always going to come to you. No, to come to you. You need to do the, the reach. Mm hmm. I, you know, it's hard to get out of my building. I'll be honest, we're very small team. There's six of us. You know, my last branch hundreds. But here, you know, with just six of us, I will go out and like, I should not say go out I will go out of my way to look online to see like okay where can I email who can I email to say I'm here. I'm partnering with other nearby. You know, I did a, we have lots of libraries like I mentioned we share 74 libraries in our system. We're all independent of each other. It's very interesting. It's new to me. But there's two next door libraries or like let's partner together so we can do this, you know, tag team. Oh, there's an outreach event here. Oh, tag you're in. Here's our stuff to share along with your stuff. So that's an option as well. And I think also you mentioned earlier, the change in demographics in your community. And just in the United States in general so many more brown children that they are the minor the majority now. The census data is coming out. Go and look at those numbers. It's been 10 years since it's been a full census, and lots has changed. And that will help you, you know, identify what is in your community that the previous speaker mentioned about that that she discovered that apparently a lot of our community or seniors living alone. And she had no idea until looking through the data. So look at those demographics and get a current idea of what it is actually going on in your specific community. I mentioned before this, the website that I use, it has nicer visuals for me, like the pie charts and things. But, you know, the queer data is very much skewed, you know, and there really isn't a way, you know, and honestly, if it were on a census, I wouldn't volunteer that information up. I just don't think it's any of the government's business. So, yeah, it's a bit tricky. In other places, you can find that info to, you know, reach out to the right organizations that would know that, you know, exactly. Yeah. All right, any other last minute desperate questions that people want me to ask of Molly type them into the question section. Otherwise, there is her email of course you can reach out to her with any questions you want any more information that you want to get from her or share with her. And as we said with everything else, the slides and everything will be available. You said you had resources on there as well so those will be available afterwards. Comments come in a good program. Great job. Thank you. So, this is great. All right, doesn't look like anything else. I think we wrap it up. Thank you so much for sharing with us today Molly was great to having me on the conference. All right.