 Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's TechSoup webinar, Assisting Patrons with E-Readers, Tactics for Teaching and Troubleshooting. My name is Crystal and I'll be your host. Today we have two guests who will share some of their tips and tactics for helping library patrons with e-readers. But before we begin, I have a few announcements to share. We will be using the ReadyTalk platform for our meeting today. Please use the chat in the lower left corner to send questions and comments to the presenters. We will be tracking your questions throughout the webinar and will answer them at the designated Q&A section in the middle and at the end. All of your chat comments will only come to the presenters, but if you have comments or ideas to share, we will forward them back out with the entire group. You don't need to raise your hand to ask a question. Simply type it into the chat box. 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Megan Vasquez is the Technology Coordinator at Crete Public Library in Illinois where she provides training and support to staff and patrons on E-Readers and other devices. She has also worked for the Public Library Association on DigitalLearn.org, a website that contains technology tutorials for library patrons and resources for library staff. My name is Crystal Schimpf and I'll be your host for today's webinar. Assisting us with chat and Twitter, we have Becky Wiegen, Ginny Mies, and Arielle Gilbert-Knight. So you'll see their names in the chat as well. If you are using Twitter, please follow us at TechSoup4Libs and use the TS4-L-I-B-S, TS4-Libs handle here on Twitter. Now Jennifer and Megan have organized their knowledge into a few categories for this presentation. First, Jennifer will break down some tips and tactics for troubleshooting E-Reader issues and the most common problems that exist. Then Megan will talk about developing useful handouts and share models for teaching patrons. We hope that through their stories and their ideas you learn a few tactics that will help you provide better E-Reader services to your community. We will have time for questions after each presenter so please send in your questions using the chat as they arise and we will address as many as we are able to. If you ask a question that we are not able to respond to during the webinar, we will follow up later via email. And all of the resources discussed today will also be available in the archive of the webinar which you should receive within about a day. Now today we are focusing on the intersection of E-Readers, Libraries, and Library patrons. And more specifically the way that libraries can provide better assistance and customer service to patrons with E-Readers. If you are from a charity or nonprofit organization that's okay and welcome. You should still be able to transfer some of the ideas from the library examples into your own setting. Now there are other topics related to E-Readers and E-Content but we won't be able to address all of those in today's webinar so we will stay focused on the services for patrons and the assistance for patrons. And the images just to credit them on your screen came from the Vancouver, Washington, and Atkinson, Nebraska Libraries. So thanks to those libraries for sharing their images on Flickr. Now before we begin we would like to learn just a little bit about you. So tell us how confident you feel assisting patrons with E-Readers. Now your response is completely anonymous. Just select the radio button and then click submit. I can see many responses are already coming in at a very fast rate. And once you've put in a response you can actually see what everybody else's responses were in terms of the totals. And right now it seems like the majority of people would say they're somewhat confident assisting patrons with E-Readers. A fair amount of people say they're not very confident and some people say that they are very confident. So you have a wide spread range. And of course there are a handful of folks that say it's actually maybe not part of your job to assist patrons with E-Readers. And I would assume that you're here for some other reason and hope you'll share this information with those that do. Now regardless of where you are in terms of your comfort level or confidence with assisting patrons, we hope that you do gain a few practical tips and ideas today to help build your confidence. So you've come to the right place. It looks like all of the responses have come in now that will. So I'm going to close the poll and we'll move on. And you can see those final results there. All right, so we have one more poll for you. And this one is a little bit trickier. We would like to know what your biggest challenge is when helping people with E-Readers. And we are asking you to select just one challenge which I know can be tricky. You might look at these and say well actually all of the above and we're not giving you that as an option. So try to pick the one that's most common. And then if you select other, please tell us in the chat perhaps what it is specifically that is your biggest challenge. Or if you would just like to elaborate on what you've selected, tell us in the chat. We'd love to see what it is that's on your mind, what your biggest concerns are. Now I can see in these results so far responses are still coming in. But the most common challenge amongst us is that not being familiar enough with the device that the patron has brought in. And that's certainly a challenge. I mean it can be very scary and terrifying to have to help somebody with something you're unfamiliar with. So I can understand why that would be the biggest. Closely following that or next in line is needing more training which I think goes hand in hand with that. If you have more training you might feel like you would become more familiar with the devices. So those are good responses. I'll give just a couple of more seconds to see what comes in there. I'm also seeing things coming in that one person mentions that helping patrons be a phone or email. So having to help them when they're not physically in the room with you can be a big challenge. So thanks for those of you who are putting in your comments into the chat. I'm going to go ahead and close the poll now. It looks like our responses are done trickling in. So we'll close the poll. You can see the final responses there. And we'll go ahead and move on to the next. There we are. So we're going to move on and it's time for Jennifer to take the controls. And she's going to give us some tips for troubleshooting. So Jennifer, please. Good afternoon or good morning to some of you I think. My name is Jennifer Rush and I'm very happy that you are here with me today in this webinar and really excited to share some things with you. I started my eReader journey in about 2007 and what that meant is I started reading everything that I could find about eReaders on the Internet in professional publications. I would go to the websites for things like the Kindle and read up on it because this is something that I was really interested in and I really wanted to be able to help patrons when they came in with questions about eReaders. The one thing that I would always tell everyone though is that I'm someone who loves eReaders but never actually bought one. So I don't have an eReader myself. I prefer the print book. It's still my favorite and I occasionally use my tablet to read or my phone for an audio book but for the most part I just want that good old fashioned paper book. But I want people who want to read in ways that are more convenient for them to be able to do it and so that's why I got started. Right around 2010 I finally felt like I had enough knowledge that I could start sharing it with other people. So I started teaching others how to use eReaders, did some customer workshops, and went out a little bit and taught at places like a teacher in school library and conference about how they could use eReaders in the classroom or the school library. But for the most part most of my time was spent teaching staff at Columbus Metropolitan Library how to use them so they could help the customers there. And I taught about 400 staff during that time. So it took me about three years to even get to a place where I felt like I was ready to talk about it. So I don't expect everyone here to learn everything they need to know about eReaders in one hour. But I do want to try to get you on the right path. And sometimes some of the words I use can be a little technical and I try not to do that but they seem simple to me but I want to make sure you understand what it means. So if I'm using TechSpeak in any way just ask the question and we'll get it answered. So if someone comes in with their eReader, where do you begin? Getting eReaders to work generally takes three pieces. And if those three pieces don't fit together it's just not going to work. The first piece that I need to tell you about is the device. And I have good news for you if you were one of the people in the poll that said that not being familiar with the device is the worst part for you because there are so many ways to figure out what device someone has. And it's really simple once you figure out what kind of operating system the device works on because most operating systems work the exact same way. So it will transfer your knowledge from device to device. You want to know what you're dealing with. You might need to know what's the type of device you have in your hand? What's the operating system? How do you get to the browser on this device? How do you get to the app store and download apps? And where are the settings? Because you need those settings in order to get connected to the Wi-Fi which is one of the most important components. So let's say someone walks in and they have a tablet and you have no idea what this device is. But you see that stamped on it is the word Acer. So that's a good clue. It's probably something that's manufactured by Acer. A good place to start when you have a device dilemma is at the manufacturer's website. You can go to the manufacturer's website, for example Amazon.com for a Kindle or the Acer website for this particular tablet that somebody has walked in with. And look up the specs. And when you look at an Acer tablet online you'll find that they all run on Android. So it's going to work like any other Android device. The next piece to your puzzle is your software because you have to have the right software to get the content from your digital library onto your device. Now I listed Kindle separately here because the software conversion happens on the Amazon website for Kindle books. And so even though Kindles can use the app you do have to go through the Amazon website to complete the process. But most devices honestly use the OverDrive app. And once you get the app you'll create an account and sign in. And then you no longer have to try to find your place if you move from device to device with your e-rating. It will all sync up. There are some devices out there that still use a desktop software in order to work. A few of them that are kind of popular right now would be your Nook Simple Touch and your Nook Glowlight. These are Android devices but they are so simplified in the way that they work that they do require to be plugged into a computer to get your content. So you would go onto a desktop or a laptop, download Adobe Digital Edition software, get the Adobe ID and authorize the computer. And that would allow you to transfer the e-book onto that device. Our next piece is the Format Formula. I don't have a lot to say here other than to say there are specific formats that work with specific devices. And when I get to the Help section we'll talk about that a little bit more. But here are a few examples of the formats that you will see. Those are the three pieces to the puzzle. Now if you're certain that you have all three of those things lined up together, I've got a Kindle device. I've got the Kindle software which happens on the Amazon website and I'm downloading a Kindle book. Everything's sitting together but it's still not working. It might be time to just go back to the basics. Sometimes just turning off and turning back on the device will really help you reset, refresh, and get it working again. If you're using something that has to be plugged in to a laptop or computer, sometimes unplugging and re-plugging the device will help it to be recognized. You want to make sure the device is fully charged because if the battery life is very low it may not have the charge it needs to complete the process. And like I talked about before really important you have to make sure the Wi-Fi is turned on and the Wi-Fi is connected. And that pretty much happens in the settings for most devices. There's also a sync feature. And on a device if you start to download and it gets hung up, if you sync the device it can refresh the download and like I said kind of, I like to say it kind of goes back out to the interwebs and grabs it and tries it again when you sync the device. So that's a good thing to try. Also setting the clock strangely enough if you're in the wrong time zone or you have the wrong time the device just might not work. Okay so you've tried all the basics and you're still not getting that download to work. Time to go a little bit beyond the basics. Sometimes you have to uninstall and reinstall your software. You know how software works sometimes it just doesn't work the first time. That could also be your app that you're uninstalling or reinstalling. You want to make sure you're working with the most recent version so you might have to upgrade to the current software. If you're using a browser to download you want to clear the cache on your device even your mobile device because it forces the download of the latest version of whatever you're trying to download. And you'll want to enable cookies on your browser because Overdrive does require the use of cookies for its best experience. Sometimes you just have to try the download again. If it doesn't go the first time give it another click, see if it will download the second time. Every once in a while your device can't recognize the document extension or know what to do with it. So a certain files have to be open with certain software. You go into your settings and then you would open with the Overdrive app when you get those certain formats. So there will be information about that in the Overdrive Help section. And finally you might just have to go to the Overdrive Marketplace and log in and make some changes to the actual content. Someone at your location should have an Overdrive Marketplace login. When you log in here what you can do is you can return a book early or you can delete it from someone's account. When this might be helpful, for example, if you have a Kindle device and you accidentally click the EPUB download it's not going to work because those puzzle pieces don't fit together. But if you go back and try to download the Kindle book it's not going to work either because it thinks you already have that book checked out. So you're going to have to get a hold of someone to log into the Overdrive Marketplace and return that book so you can download the right format. You can also reset a download in the Overdrive Marketplace. And that means just basically setting it back to the beginning again. If you've tried it too many times it might just time out. So you go in, reset the download, that will really help. All right, so we've gone through all the basics and it's still not working. Or you're just kind of starting out and you'd really like to know more about how to work with e-readers. This is the number one place to go if you have Overdrive. So on your Overdrive website you click the question mark and that's how you get to this screen right here. You can do the free text query in the box in the middle of the screen. You can just type in whatever that you might have question. Or you can use the tabs for certain topics. For example, on the left you'll see the Get Started tab. There you can just get a basic overview of how Overdrive works. If you click on the e-books tab there is a wealth of information there. You can get device specific help. And there are videos that go along with each part of it. So for example, if somebody walks in and they have a Kindle, you can go to Overdrive Help, you can go to the e-books tab, find the Kindle, and take them through videos that will give them an introduction. Information about how to get the app and how to install it. Information about how to get an Overdrive account. Information about how to add books, how to borrow them, and how to download them. So they'll get the whole process step by step with videos right here through Overdrive Help. It's also a great thing maybe you have some time off the desk or some slow time on the desk. Watch those videos. They'll really give you a good background. If you're having trouble with the app itself, you want to click on the app tab here. This will tell you how to navigate through and use the app. One of the questions that's answered in there is, where's the title that I just downloaded? So you're using the app and you figured out how to do that, but now you can't find your content. So if you go on the app tab you'll get lots of questions answered about how to actually navigate in the app. And remember when we talked about formats and how they had to be the right ones to work with the right devices? Well it's actually under the e-books tab. So if you click on the e-books tab and find your device you'll get information about which software you need to use and which formats will work with that device. And then finally there's a troubleshooting section. And what that will do will allow you to go through a list of common errors that happen with e-readers with answers on how to fix them. So that's a really, really helpful place to start. Let's say you go through the troubleshooting section and you don't find the answer to the specific problem that's happening with your device. Well there's another place to try. If you put the text in quote, the exact error message that you're getting, and Google it, you might be able to find someone else who has had the same problem and has talked about how they've been able to fix it. There are also support forums. This is a really good place for help and advice. If you just want to read through these you'll see what other people are experiencing and how they're making those fixes to get things to download. Okay, well that was a really, really quick overview. And I want to make sure that you ask all the questions that you have and we'll try to answer them. And if you want to contact me I'm happy to answer all your questions. Jennifer, thanks for extending that hand of help and for sharing a very nicely organized way to think about troubleshooting. And we have been getting some questions in so I'm going to have us answer as many as we can right now and then we'll try to answer some more at the end after Megan has presented. Now we've actually had a couple people ask you to clarify what you mean by syncing. And I know you can't necessarily demonstrate it, but could you describe that process and what you mean by that? Okay, I'm actually reading this directly from the Overdrive Help site. I clicked on the eBooks tab and then there's a subsection syncing eBooks. And there's information that says how to sync progress and bookmarks for eBooks. And it basically says when you read, watch, or listen to a title or have an active Internet connection, your progress and bookmarks automatically sync when you open or close. Basically that just means that everything, because when you think about your device and it's connected to the Internet, all the information doesn't actually live on the device. It lives on the server where you go to get the eBook. So when you have separate devices, you will have one device and you sync it and it will refresh with what's going on on the server. And if you go on the next device and you sync it, it's going to go to that exact same place because it has been synced. Does that make more sense? Well, I think that was a good explanation and gets into it a little bit more. So if those of you who had questions about that have further questions, please continue to put them in the chat and we will try to address them. Now we also have a question, a couple of people who asked about maybe examples other than Overdrive. And I'll just say I know that your library uses Overdrive as your main source of eBooks, but we know that's not the only one out there. There are both other library providers and also commercial providers like Amazon and iTunes. And so do you have any words of advice in terms of transferring what you've just shared about Overdrive into those other platforms? I think the best advice is that whether you're using Overdrive or any other provider of eBook content, it's still going to have to be those three pieces that fit together. You're going to have to identify your device. You're going to have to get the right software to get the download to happen and you're going to have to make sure you're using the right format. And so that's very likely that there's a help section on that other provider's website as well just like there is on Overdrive. The other thing is like I said, once you know you have an Android device, everything's going to work the same way it is on any other Android device. So for me, I can use my laptop, my tablet, my phone, and all of those are Android devices. And so each one of them takes the app the same way and works the same way. So once you're able to find out how to do those specifics, and there's not really a lot of them. As long as really there's Kindle, Android devices, your iOS, Mac, Apple products, and your Windows products. And pretty much those are the big four when it comes to the manufacturers of the platforms for devices. And so each one of those pretty much works the same way. Once you get it down once, you should be able to do it on any device with any provider. Great. Yeah, and I think that idea of once you learn it in one area or one platform, then you are more easily able to transfer it to other platforms, but the concepts will remain the same. Very good. Twenty-first century skills advice there, absolutely. Now we have a question actually, speaking of platforms and apps, and knowing that I think actually many people may have this question, can the Overdrive app be used to manage other e-books from other vendors? And I think you know the answer to this question, so I hope you don't mind me putting you on the spot, but can that app be used for other vendors? I do not believe that it can. I think that the only, that app will only work for Overdrive content, but my guess is that if there's another provider that they also have an app that can be used for their content. Right, right. And so they are kind of a vendor exclusive, and I think you are right there. I mean we can't speak specifically for Overdrive. We don't know everything about it, but I think you are right that it is a vendor specific app, and so other vendors may have different apps that are available as well. And of course that may be a whole other complex can of words. If you have an Overdrive library, meaning that that particular library gets their e-content from Overdrive, then all of the things that are available to you as a patron with your library card number are only going to be through Overdrive because that is what your library buys for you. Right, right. And just in case there are any nonprofit folks in the room right now who are saying what is Overdrive? It is a specific vendor, and some of these other ones we are mentioning are specific vendors where libraries can check out e-books to their patrons as opposed to the Amazon or the iTunes store. So hopefully that is a little bit more clear for you just to know that it is a specific library sort of vendor for checking out e-books. Now as we are talking about all of these different apps and different environments that we have to work in, we get back to the question of the frustration, both that we might have some frustration, but also our patrons might have some frustration as we are trying to navigate this. And so I want to know if you have any tips for people as you are going through the troubleshooting, do you have any tips for navigating the connection between the person that you are helping with the device if they happen to get frustrated or disappointed that they can't do something? Was that question for me or is that for Megan? I think she might have a question. Well I know Megan is going to cover it a little bit, but I want to maybe get your perspective on it before we hit Megan with that part of the topic. Okay, well pretty much what I like to say to anybody that I am helping with is I constantly assure them that this is kind of a complicated process. And I kind of use a little joke and I say Jeff Bezos or the guy from Amazon or whoever, they want to make money. So they make this process a little more complicated for us that are going to get it free. So I usually say something like that or I'll say those authors, they want to make money from the books they wrote. So I constantly say to them, this is a little more complicated process, but once you get it down once it's going to be smooth sailing from there. I didn't know how to do this right away. It took me time to learn it too. And I am willing to go help you with this as much as I possibly can and I am willing to point you to more help if I don't have enough time today to go through the entire thing so that you can try it on your own. And we are always here if you need to come back again, we are still going to be here. So those are some of the things that I like to tell the patrons. Great, great. Well I think those are great examples. And I know Megan may have some others that she will share with us as well, but I don't think it hurts to hear different perspectives on it. So thanks for giving us some responses there and some of your thoughts. And I think maybe just one last question now along the lines of the frustration, but then just as you just said, once you figure out how to do it once, then it becomes much easier. And so Grisel asks, does anyone, and I am going to ask Jennifer, do you know of anybody keeping a log of the different types of devices and the difficulties that patrons have, the common questions that get answered along with the solutions? And Grisel actually suggests maybe if there's a wiki or something that's being used. So Jennifer, do you know of anything like that? Or do you have anything like that within your library? We do not have that here at Chilicothe and Ross County. I've just started the training process with Stop Here. I haven't been here that long. But we did have a wiki at Columbus Metropolitan Library that had an e-reader section that I actually maintained. And we had a frequently asked question section where we would put down what are the common errors and what are the answers. But the truth is it was very hard to keep up with that because it was constantly changing. And the best place to start is in the help section for the particular vendor because those common errors that are happening are in the help section for Overdrive. And they know about them because they get reported to them through their support link and then they put those problems and those solutions on their help page. Great. So there are some that exist that maybe aren't one library specific or library generated but through the vendors. So that's great to hear. So we'll keep that question up and maybe see Megan if you have any ideas for that later. But now I'm going to say thanks Jennifer for everything you've shared so far. We'll bring you back later for some additional questions at the end. But it's time for us to hear from Megan who is going to actually focus on telling us how to teach patrons to use e-readers in a variety of ways. Megan? You're very welcome. Thanks. Hi guys. This is Megan Vasquez. I am Technology Coordinator over at Crete Public Library. I previously worked as a reference librarian at Lansing Public Library where I really had a lot of hands-on help teaching not only patrons, e-readers, but staff. So I can really understand some of you that are talking about having a small staff and not knowing really how to reach your patrons and help them with e-readers. So I hope to kind of go over a few things that will help you guys who might have large libraries, who might have small libraries, kind of help learn tips and techniques where you can use to help train your patrons, and in a way also train your staff because if a patron is learning something your staff also kind of has to learn it. The very first thing that I always like to tell people about are personalizing your handouts. And what does that mean? That means basically taking the handouts that places like Overdrive or Zinio, Access360, other e-reader apps have and making them really your own by putting your library's name on them, your library's web address, your library's phone number, all the information so that when patrons look at this, their understanding that this comes from your library and that you guys are there to help them. Because if anyone's ever looked at the help handouts that are given by things like Overdrive, they're very generic. They do not have a library's name on them. They rarely even have the library's consortium on them. So that gives patrons this kind of, well, this is just some random thing type feeling. And when you personalize them with your library's name, it makes it a lot easier for patrons to follow and understand them. And it's simply done by using ScreenCaps. ScreenCapping the software, you can ScreenCap on any kind of tablet or you can do it on a laptop or a computer. You don't need any kind of editing software or nothing. And just posting the picture so the patrons can follow along and visually see them. And it also will help staff learn better because there's somebody who has to do this. So the staff member is going to go through the process and do it over and over until they like how it looks and then they'll understand it. And doing this might seem time consuming, but it's really a one step that will help you later throughout pretty much everything because having these ready means you can hand them to a patron. The patron can go over it with you and there's no need to kind of sit there and struggle with helping a patron because even if your staff member doesn't understand the steps, they can go through the steps that you've created on this handout with the patron. Well, I know that there are going to be some downsides doing this. It is time consuming. I'm not going to lie, these things take time when you're making these. And if you have a small staff, it might take a while, but it's really something you can do that does not take that much time, but it will. You know, that's kind of hard to say. I'm sorry. It also relies on your staff's knowledge and your willingness. If you have a staff member who really doesn't know a lot about e-readers and kind of really isn't into it, it's going to take longer and it might not come out great. And there's also the problem of finding existing documents for what you're trying to do. Overdrive does have a lot of help, handouts, but some other vendors might not quite have that. And when I'm talking about these handouts, I'm not referring to just how to use your e-reader handouts, but handouts that are about a specific vendor, or even using Amazon Store, using the iTunes Store, stuff like that. But if you do decide to do these personal handouts, I have an example to show what I'm kind of referring to. This is what an overdrive handout genuinely looks like. They list the steps, short little paragraphs. As you guys can see, there's really no library name. There's really not even the word library all that much in this. Some patrons who are not familiar with their devices to begin with, kind of look at this and just go, huh, help? What? What am I doing? I'll show you guys the one that I've done. This part of the handout is pretty much just basically two steps on the handout before there. See, there's big pictures. They look a little bigger on the actual piece of paper, but nice big pictures. I use my library's name, Create Public Library. I use our consortium name, My Medium All, and this is what patrons are actually seeing when they're using the app. And all I did here was use the app on my tablet. I screen-capped it and put the images word file. And then I took the existing text of the document here and I just expanded on it. I took away the simple words and just kind of expanded so it's more personalized to my library. So instead of patrons seeing your library's website, they see Create Public Library slash Medium All. If you decide to go a little bit further with what you're doing and go beyond handouts, you could start doing one-on-one help with patrons. There's a lot of good things about doing one-on-one help. It allows for a personalized teaching because we all know not everybody learns the same way. Some people like things a little slow. Some people just want to hear the basics. So if you do a one-on-one session with a patron, you're really going to be able to cater your teaching style to the learning they need. And it also allows you to pick a good time and say, if a patron comes in and says, I need a one-on-one session, you could say, all right, I'm free tomorrow at this and this time. It doesn't make – you don't have to help that patron immediately. I know a lot of patrons come in. They want to be helped immediately. But if you put a spin on it and say, oh, you know, we're a little short-staffed, or let me gather some information, or why don't you think about what you would like to know and come back? We can learn together. And it also helps you address specific questions that these patrons might have in a post – a kind of a classroom setting. Here you can help one person with their one question. And this is the best part. If you say you can come back tomorrow, it gives you time to look up questions. So if you have a staff member who doesn't know a lot, but is going to do these one-on-one sessions, putting time in between when the patron comes in and when you're doing it allows them to go to Google and look up something real quick, or allows them to use what Jennifer was talking about, the help from any kind of vendor, or from the actual e-reader. Because on one-on-one sessions, you can cover just going beyond using things like Overdrive, but you can go over using a device. But there are some downsides to doing this, like there's downsides to doing a lot of things. You have to have the staff members to do this. I know that a lot of people have that issue. They come from a very small library. They might not have the staff members. And there's also patrons who really just want to use up all your time. I'm sure we're used to having some patrons who can sit there and talk to you for hours. And it also really requires staff to actually start to get to know the device better. Because if they're going to do a one-on-one session with a patron, they're going to have to understand how to use this device. But kind of on the other side, doing more one-on-one sessions kind of helps you learn more. And it also is kind of time consuming for staff because they are taking this time out of their day. They're leaving the desk. They're going to a private area. And not all of us at libraries can afford to have a staff member leave the desk. I completely understand that. But if you would like to do one-on-one sessions, there are a couple tips that I have. Get the device information before they arrive. If you're not the one taking the appointment for somebody, make sure you're writing down what kind of device they have and the questions they have. Up on the screen is an example of a book a librarian appointment sheet that we use here at CRETE. It just has simple information. The patron's name, their phone number, their email, their card number. It has like best time to contact. But it also has assistance required. Please be as specific as possible. So you're writing down, you know, the patron would like to know how to download the books. You know, the patron's having a hard time using the device or the patron's never even opened the device before. That way when the staff member is going in for the one-on-one session, they have all the information there. Like I said, they can look it up beforehand and they come prepared. And it's also good to ask the patron to write down any questions they have before you have the session. That way the patron can come prepared and ready to kind of get things going. Also advise the patron to write down the information while you're helping them. A lot of people kind of, when I say that to them, go, oh, I'm fine. But I always try to insist, will you write down at least something? Or, you know, I also kind of advise some people to draw the pictures of the icons that are on their device. That way they can remember what they're talking about when they say tap the home button. Well, if they have a little picture of the home button, then it's a little bit easier. And the best advice that I can give is to set up a time limit for these one-on-one sessions, half hour to an hour. An hour is kind of stressing it, but sometimes people like to have a longer time period. But you want to set up these sessions, one to save your librarian from having to be stuck in a one-on-one session for a long time and off desk. And two, the more you shove at a patron, the less they actually retain. So keep going in saying, okay, this will be a half hour. Kind of allows to get the questions they really want answered first, and then maybe next time in a couple of weeks come back. What I usually do is I tell people, give this time to sink in. Take a breath, go home, practice. And if you're still struggling in a week or so, give me a call. We'll set up another one-on-one. You kind of try to let them take what they learn and, you know, go off on their own. The next thing you can do if you don't want to do one-on-one appointments or if you want to do more help is you can do the group sessions. There are a lot of good things about using group sections too. It helps more patrons at once, obviously. One-on-one sessions take time, but group sessions you can handle several patrons. And also, it encourages patrons to help each other. I cannot tell you guys how many times when I've been teaching any kind of class, patrons will lean over to someone who's struggling and help them. And that's wonderful because not only does it take the pressure off you in a way, but it also shows that that one patron that's helping somebody is learning this and they feel confident enough that they can kind of reach over and say, no, she means this. And this also gives you guys the opportunity to make these classes structured. When you're doing a one-on-one session, it's hard to kind of keep it structured unless you go in knowing you're going to teach someone how to use a vendor's app. But when you're doing a classroom, it's completely structured. You can write out exactly what you're going to teach, write down the line, and teach it that way. There are cons to doing this. Multiple people become a huge handful. I'm sure we've all been there where we have multiple people asking multiple questions. It's kind of not a fun place to be. It's also hard to find the perfect time. You can pick a day and time to do a class teaching and think it's perfect, but then have nonstop complaints about how, oh, I can't make that one. Can you do it at this time? I can't make that one. So it's sometimes hard to find a happy median for patron and for you. And also the biggest one, there are so many devices out there. And even if you limit your classrooms to, okay, today we'll come in and teach about Kindle, there are tons of different kinds of Kindle. And unfortunately, as they get new ones, the technology evolves. So it's very difficult to teach one class and one device. So in that case, here are some tips. Have small groups. Three to five people sound small, but it's a lot easier than having more than that. But if you do want to have more than that, I recommend having one staff member per five patrons. I know it seems weird, but trust me, if you have about 10 people in there, it's good to have two people. One person teaching and one person just literally walking from patron to patron with questions. And that's also so you don't have to stop in the middle of your teaching and kind of lose a couple people while you're helping that one person. And I know a lot of libraries might not have that many staff members, but that's kind of the best way to go about it. And it's also a good idea to require a sign up so you can be aware of who's bringing your devices and what. I also do kind of drop in tech teachings where you say, okay, from 12 to 5 on this day, if you have a Kindle device, come on in and whoever's available will help you. That way you can kind of see who trickles in and trickles out. It kind of is less stressful atmosphere than having a group teaching between okay, between 12 and 1, we're going to do a class. So that's kind of something to keep in mind. But here are some general tips that I've learned from doing this for a while. And I know someone brought it up in the chat that we're really not supposed to be touching patron devices. That's why I always say let the patrons just take their own device. And I know that's hard. Believe me, I've had many patrons try to shove something into my hand so they don't have to deal with it. But what I usually use is the good old fashioned, I'm not allowed to touch it, sorry. But really it's good for them to handle it because they're the ones that are going to have to use this at home. You can't be there at their house to do this for them. So that's why I was usually kind of stressed too is that you're the one taking this device home, so you're the one that has to learn this. So why don't you go ahead and touch the screen? There are a few exceptions. They're missing something. You can point it out to them on the screen, but it's a really good idea to let the patrons do this. Don't do it for them because they're never really going to learn. Be honest with the patrons. If you don't know the answer, kind of just say, you know, that's a really good question. I'll have to look that up for you and let you know later. Or, you know, oh, if you want to set up another one-on-one with me, we can go over that. There's nothing wrong with being honest and saying, I've never encountered that problem before. Or, you know, that might be a little beyond me because I'm really not supposed to know everything, right? We have to, you know, be able to say that's something a little beyond us or I'm really sorry I don't know that. And honestly, although I've been doing this for many years, there are times when I struggle with something and a patron will come in with an e-reader problem and I'll say, I have no idea. I'm really sorry. You know, let me look that up for you. Give me your phone number. I'll get back to you. And then sometimes I even just say, unfortunately, this is something beyond what I can do. And then I give the information to call the e-reader, you know, if they have a Kindle to call Amazon or if they have a Barnes and Noble, if they have a Nook to call Barnes and Noble. And then the number one thing that I can always stress is try to get patrons to remember their login information. And I saw that a few times on the chat that patrons don't know their login. Unfortunately, nothing you can do if a patron does not know their own password because, you know, we don't know their password for them. So patrons that can do one-on-one sessions or sign up for the group sessions, always remind them, bring your login information to not only, I'm sorry, not only your e-reader, but, you know, to the Overdrive app, to the Zinio app, to the Access360 app. Tell them to bring anything they know because even if they think that it's not the right stuff, it might end up being the right stuff. I know that's a lot of information at once. Kind of what I tell my patrons when I'm trying to, you know, give them a lot of good information is just take it in, you know, think about this. And if you want to use any of these, you know, at your own library, you can always, you know, change what you're doing, change the advice I give you, and make it your own because it's really what you guys are capable of doing. And you have to understand that not all libraries are going to be able to be these masterminds of e-reader help. Do what you can and let your patrons know that you're doing what you can. And I'm sure that, you know, no matter what, your patrons will appreciate any kind of help that you are willing to give them. With that, I guess I will open myself up to any questions you might have. Great, Megan. Well, thanks first. That's a nicely organized set of tips there and really taking us through the different types of assistance that you can give to help patrons really learn and focus on, you know, getting them very self-sufficient with their devices. I think it's very good advice that you just shared. And we have had actually a lot of questions coming through so we're going to try to get to as many as we can right now. Before we do that though, I just wanted to make sure everybody knows a couple of things, you know, that we are including all of the links to resources in the archive. And Megan's also agreed to share her version of the handouts with us so we'll be including that in the archive as well. So you'll be able to take a look at hers. I've seen that actually a few other people have shared their handouts. And I always love when that happens because really, you know, being able to not reinvent the wheel every time we're creating something, it's nice to be able to learn from what other libraries have done. So thanks to those of you who have been sharing that in the chat as well. Now going back to the handouts, Megan, we have a couple of questions. And some of this question has been answered. A lot of people were asking what you meant by screen caps. And I think we all kind of helped out there because we assume you meant just screen captures taking an image of what's on the screen. Is that correct? Yes. And that's really easily done on computers. There's a little handy button on your keyboard that says print screen. It's usually the top right. If you click it, it'll take a picture of what's on your screen. And all you have to do is use, you can use Word to edit photos actually. You can just edit it down. And then on devices like tablets, your phone, it's usually a combination of holding down the button you turn it on with and the home button on your screen or something with the audio. They're sometimes different, but that's what I meant by screen capping. And I'm sure this is another one if we take Jennifer's advice to just Google it if you Google how you can do screen captures. There's also other third-party apps that you can download that are free or that you can use that are online to help you do that. And each computer can be a little bit different depending on what your keyboard looks like, but it's something you can do. And it's very handy for taking those images of what your screen looks like when using any of these e-book programs. Now actually this leads us to the next question though because in both using existing handouts and I'll just say this question is going to be about copyright and whether or not is it okay to take images from the Overdrive app and also from their original handouts. And since you've been doing this Megan, maybe you can respond a little bit to how you've addressed any concerns related to copyright or what you're aware of from your experience. Oh sure, and I can completely understand that being kind of a little reary to use it. I do use my own screen caps. I make them on my own. I don't usually look for them just because of that sticky copyright issue. But since it's my theory that since I'm creating these screen caps and handing them out as handouts to patrons, I don't think Overdrive has a problem with it. I actually at a conference spoke to one of the representatives from Overdrive and mentioned that I had been doing this and he did not call the police immediately. So they didn't seem to mind. But I see the kind of the question talks about using the text that they use as well. What I meant by expanding the text is I kind of go in the order they have their steps which is the general order. And I don't copy and paste their exact wording. I change up the wording but what I meant by that is kind of going in the order in which that they kind of have their steps and just expanding on what each step is. But I can understand the worry about using something that is already created and marking it within your own library. But it's my general consensus that since you're doing it to help your patrons, I don't think Overdrive or any other vendor would have a huge problem with you using what they have and just making it slightly better for your patrons. Right. And it sounds like you're definitely talking about an inspired or derivative work based on what they've done. And it is to promote their product. And I'm sure if any of you are concerned, if you go to the Overdrive website and I'm sure they have contact forms for them if you just want to double check there and make sure that it's okay. I know that some vendors in the past actually create and if you look at the handouts they create, they actually give permission for the library to customize it with their logos. And so there's already a little bit of permission there. Obviously in each case it's different and you'll want to do what's right for your library. So you'll have to make those decisions on your own and check in with the people. But like Megan says, the vendors can be very friendly and just talking to them and making sure that it's okay. Again they want the libraries to be successful in using the tools and this is part of making that happen. So thank you Megan for addressing that from your perspective. Actually Jennifer, if you're there I wanted to see if you had any perspective on that. I know you're probably also dealing with similar issues in your library. So how do you approach the handouts or the copyright issues maybe related to that? We actually got some handouts that were made by Overdrive and that's what we're using right now. So you're just using the ones that came straight from Overdrive? Yes. And I don't think they're the most helpful because they do seem to have a lot of detail. I have tried to hand them out a couple times to patrons here at Chillicothe Library and I find myself almost getting lost in the details and I know how it works. So I have to tell you the truth, I almost always get a piece of paper just write, get app, click here, and try to drill it down to a very simple sort of thing. And like I said, I show them the steps on the Overdrive help site because that's really somewhere they can go and look at the steps again. Now at Columbus Metropolitan Library they did create handouts that were put together by the marketing department, the IT department, and the e-book trainers. And they just used step-by-step instructions. So there wasn't really a copyright issue because we weren't capturing screens from Overdrive, we were just simply going through the steps one by one. Great. All right, so thanks for chiming in on that one as well. Now we're getting a couple questions. Megan, I'm going to throw these back to you because they're specific to classes. And then Jennifer, if you have anything to add, we'll give you a chance to chime in at the end as well. But Megan, how often are you offering classes, specifically the e-reader types of classes you're offering to patrons? It varies. I would say when we first started, when I first started offering these kind of classes, I tried to do it once a month. But then it really depends on what kind of response you get. At first, when we first started with the once a month, we had a lot of patrons at once. So then I started trying to do it two times a month, kind of two weeks apart. Before I left Lansing for this job, we were about to start a kind of cycle we go through is we had Zinio Overdrive, Freeding, and Access 360 available. So once a month, just kind of going in order, I was going to offer one class. And if I felt the need to kind of throw in another class in there based on how many people attend, I was going to try to do that. But I think the best thing to do is kind of do testing grounds, throw out one class in a month. And if you get tons of people coming in, then, you know, unfortunately I know with newsletters and promotions, it's kind of hard to throw a class in there. But if you kind of start with the once a month and just kind of going from there, you know, you tend to see kind of a natural. And I'll give really good advice is if you're going to try doing classes, do them around Christmas. Do them right before Christmas and right after Christmas because the majority of people get E-readers as Christmas presents now. And you will be amazed at how many people will show up to an after Christmas E-reader class because they simply have no idea what to do with the device that their child has now bought them. So absolutely, yeah, very popular gift items. And so we see that surge. Now Kelly actually asks a question about projecting. I'm going to kind of paraphrase her question. Being able to project from a device like some type of E-reader device whether it's a Kindle or a Nook or an iPad. When you do your classes, Megan, are you able to project that device onto the wall or to a screen? And so how do you do that? No, unfortunately. And I realize I probably should have mentioned that during the class when I was talking about classes and I apologize. I have not found a good way to project this. Apple products have the ability to be used as a projector. If you use, I think Epson has an app with them. I have never been able to get it to work for the life of me. What I do is I once again take screen caps of each step and I put them in a PDF and then I just use the PDF as a PowerPoint. I'm not going to lie. It's not easy because a lot of the times you want to be able to kind of move stuff around and show the patron. I use the Overdrive app on Windows 8 because laptops you can use as a projector. That's the way I've kind of gotten around that. But any other kind of app, unfortunately, the best way I've found out is using the screen caps. If anyone knows of a good projector that works, something like a Kindle, please share it with everyone including me because that would be wonderful to know about. But unfortunately, I don't think that technology has quite caught up to what we are trying to do with it. And I know depending on the device there are some different types of cable connectors that can help you connect to a TV screen or a projector, but it is so complex in terms of having the right both ends of the cables and then whether or not it will actually work with the technology you have. So definitely it's kind of an individual scenario that you have to handle depending on what your case is. So Kelly, I guess the answer to your question is there may be some things out there that are available but the technology is still kind of being developed and improved and you'll have to kind of look at what your own devices and your own projection are. And so this is really great. There are still some questions that are coming in that we won't have time to answer during the webinar, but I want to assure you that we will follow up via email. And so I'll be sending those responses to you within about a week or so. And also we'll do our best to gather all of the links. I've seen more links coming through in the chat from participants sharing things that you've used or that are examples from your library. So thank you very much for doing that. Megan, thanks for your presentation and for answering the questions. And Jennifer, thank you for your part as well. Megan, we just have a few minutes of wrap up here. So I'm going to ask you to stay on the line because at the very end we'll ask you to take a brief survey that will tell us what you thought of today's webinar and also you can suggest future topics for other TechSoup for Libraries webinars in the future. Speaking of future webinars, we have three coming up on the calendar that I just want to let you know about. We'll be including the links in the archive and you can also then locate them on the TechSoup website as we get them posted there. On April 2nd we'll be talking about online fundraising strategies. On April 16th we'll look at how tablets and mobile devices can help you be more green at work. And on April 21st we'll partner with Web Junction to look at the role of the Library as Community Connector. And that will be our next library-specific webinar on April 21st. Like I said, I'll share those links with you in the archive. And we hope to see you at one of these webinars in the future. And you can also share them with all of your friends and coworkers if you're not able to make it. And we also want to thank our webinar sponsor ReadyTalk for providing the tool for today's webinar. ReadyTalk is a tool that can help you collaborate and share information. And it's also available as a product donation on TechSoup.org. Please stay on the line and take a brief survey about our webinar today. Thanks again to our guest speakers for sharing their e-reader expertise. And thank all of you for joining us. Have a great day.