 So what we have first up for the afternoon is you're going to learn the why's and how's of technology planning from Laura Johnson the continuing education coordinator at the library commission and Michael Sowers will be he's the second half of their presentation our technology innovation librarian at the library commission. So Laura you're first. Take it away. Hi, I hope everybody had a great lunch. Kudos to Krista to vegetables there. We had two for lunch. Well, no, you know how you have to five every day. Well, we got two at lunch. So that was really cool, huh? We're gonna talk right now about technology planning, why and how. I'm really, Michael's warm-up act. So I'm gonna do why. I do want you to know that I was a blonde baby. Okay, and I'm sorry. I feel like I should stand on my tiptoes. That's just the way it is so we can the camera will broadcast us. But we'll be here. We're gonna talk about planning and the old IBM sign from the 50s. Really this is the executive summary of this presentation right here. Think ahead. Okay, I have some quotations in here that I thought might help us make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's block. And this is from Daniel Burnham, the architect of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The man wrote a plan, an overall plan for the city of Chicago and for a number of other cities around the world as well, Madrid. He was a very well-known architect in his time. And what Burnham was telling us is that the act of planning itself is an inspiration. And it can go past us to our children, even our children's children. Burnham felt that planning was really an important activity. And it was he was the first example of comprehensive planning, as I said. He thinks we ought to be inspirational. And you know, when they do studies of the various kinds of leadership, they say that visionary leadership, inspirational leadership, really is the most effective over time. People want to be inspired. And the very act of planning can inspire people. So there's one reason why to plan because it's inspirational. What is planning? Well, I think it's about 10 parts inspiration, about five parts aspiration, about 15 parts imagination, about 35 perspiration, and probably about 35 information. That's my own word. I made that. But I do think that that's what we're talking about. That's what goes into a plan. Why do we want to plan? Well, to reach a port we must sail, sail, not tie at anchor, sail, not drift. And that's Franklin Roosevelt. He tells us that whether you're in your boat, we're metaphor now, and it's going to happen whether you want it to or not. So you might as well try to direct it, try to navigate. And you have to do something. You can't just sit and do nothing. So that's another reason to plan. Okay, what do other people do? Well, golfers walk a course before a tournament. They look at the way the land lies. London taxi drivers actually have to learn the city of London. They have to memorize the city of London. They have to take a test on city geography. So they have to plan. They really have to learn a lot. Conductors have to follow a score. They don't just go out and say, let's make music. They actually have a plan to follow. Entrepreneurs have a business plan. You can't get any money from a bank without a business plan. And Boy Scouts and the Coast Guard are prepared. So this is one reason to plan because you want to be prepared. If you've built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. Anybody want to guess? It's a row. Right. Walden. He tells us that if you have dreams, you can make them a reality with a plan. Now, what is planning in a nutshell? This is kind of my quickie thing on planning. And I wouldn't even call these the stages or the steps in planning. I'd kind of call them maybe stages. The first thing is you look around, then you find out what are the needs. Then you say, well, which of those needs could the library address uniquely well? And then you figure out, how will you do this? So to look around, well, you look at the community. You look at the library. You look at the general environment. You've got to know the territory. Who's that from? Come on. Somebody knows that. Yes! You got it. It's Meredith Wilson, the music man. And by this, we mean really look at your community. Look at the topography. Look at the demographics. Look at the economics. There's a lot to find out. Then you want to look at perhaps the demographics. Well, a good way to do that is the census. The census was just done in 2010. They do have the numbers out now for communities in Nebraska. The census is where everybody gets their numbers. People will tell you, oh, we updated numbers or we have new numbers. Those numbers are based on the census. So this is a great way. And they have a new, they have the new American fact finder now to make it easy to find the numbers you need. Look at your library. Take a look. Really, really take a look. It's very, very hard to be objective after you've been in your library for a while. So maybe you need to get somebody else to take the look for you. Trade with another librarian or something so that you can really take a look at your library and really assess. Look at the building. Look at the space you have. Look at your collection. Check out your staff, your funding, what services are you providing. Really do a little look at your library. And here's another place that you can see some things about the library. This is the library statistical reports you turn in. Well, you can find them on the IMLS website. You can compare them with other libraries. In fact, if you haven't used this, this Compare Public Libraries thing that they have there, it's just a hoot. It's really fun to use. So you could try that. Another place, the Library Research Service, does have statistics about libraries generally. And the Pew people who do kind of studies of socio-economic things. Also, here's one, libraries in the new Community Information Ecology. But these are the kinds of things that affect your library. And this is what you do when you assess what's going on in your world today. Okay. I have to stay near the microphone. Then we have the Nebraska Rural Reports. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln does this. And so this gives you also information about what's going on in your community in the state. And OCLC. This is a newsletter that OCLC puts out. You can sign up for it, get it in your email. And they kind of aim you toward interesting articles that talk about things librarians might be interested in. What might be a good kind of background what's going on in society today that libraries want to be aware of. I thought it was kind of a neat news. And you don't need to read the whole thing. Just read the article if you're interested in. But it's a good place to kind of stay aware. The Boomer Project. I think there's a lot of things on the internet like this. But this is about marketing to baby boomers. And they're a big piece of your audience. So this talks a little bit about the demographics, their interests, another place to get information. Okay, now here's one. The best late schemes of mice and men gang after glee. Yes, Robert burns to a mouse. Another really good reason to do this. The more information you have, the better able you are to handle it when life throws you a curve. And you know that life has thrown us a lot of curves. So the more you know about your community, the more you more background you have, the better able you are to kind of navigate your way through, you know, changes. So that's a really good reason to plan to. So yes, be prepared to change. That appears to be the 21st century thing so far is we're all changing all the time. So the second thing we talk about after we've really done an assessment of what the community, what the environment is like, we talk about what are the needs and wants. Takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. That's Eleanor Roosevelt. So what do people wish for? Let's turn it into a plan. And there's several ways to do this. You could do surveys, focus groups are just keeping your eyes open. Surveys. It's gotten very easy to do a survey on the internet. Of course, SurveyMonkey is terrific, but then it only reaches people who are on the internet. And surveys can be a little tricky to put together. And it's probably worth spending the time to make sure that you've tested it. That you've made sure that your questions really say what you want them to say, because if there's one thing you can count on, it's that if someone can misinterpret a question, they will. So you have to be a little careful with surveys, but they can really find out good information. We don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that everybody is like us. Oh, I'm just an average guy. Everybody's like me. Doesn't everybody agree with me? Probably not. Not me anyway, I'm not. So we do want to actually go out and make sure that we've asked people. Focus groups are another good way. Focus groups, you get a group of people together to discuss one issue. Usually you get somebody to kind of run the group. It's a little tricky to make sure that everybody gets to speak, that no one really dominates the conversation too much, that everybody stays on topic, but that you really investigate what people are saying. But it can be really worthwhile. A focus group can be used before a survey to help you narrow down and choose what questions you're going to ask, or it can be used after a survey to help explain a little bit more about the answers you got on your survey. But a focus group can be interesting. Then just keeping your eyes open helps. This is a little bit different than just knowing about your community or doing your community assessment, because this involves looking to see what people's needs are. You see that the Senior Center loves it when you program, so maybe they need more programming, so you just keep your eyes open. You notice that you only get teenagers in a certain times of year when they have to do a paper for school or something, or you notice that they need particular kinds of materials that you don't have, so that's what I mean by keeping your eyes open. Just really, you know, see what's going on. Then number three, after you've done your assessment, you've really looked at the community, you've tried to see what the needs are. You think about what needs or wants can the library address uniquely well. You probably can't help people with fire protection, or not very much. But you can help people with a lot of information needs. You could help people who need to be able to apply for jobs. You can help people who have literacy issues and need to address that. You can help people who are new to your community get acclimated and learn about things. So there are things that the library can do uniquely well, and you want to kind of narrow in on those. What you want to do is you want to consider the library's mission. What is it that you think is the library's core mission? What do you think that it's important for the library to do? Then which of those needs can you help fulfill? What about the library's self-image? What do you think the library is up to? Who do you think the library is? Or what do you think the library is? And then what resources you have? What time do you have? What money? What space? What expertise? What equipment? And then do you have the will? There isn't probably a project that's much of a project that hasn't at some time bogged down, and sometimes it just takes that sheer ordinary termination to get it done. Do you have that will? Do you want to get it done? And it's okay if that's not a priority with you and you don't have the will to do a particular project. Maybe that's not the project for you to do. But I think you really have to fairly assess whether you have that to get something done. And then it does not matter how small you are if you have faith in a plan of action. Anyone want to guess? It's Fidel Castro. He says that he could have taken over Cuba with a lot fewer people because they had faith in a plan. So you have to believe in yourself too, and that's one thing about a plan. It can help you believe in yourself. It can help other people believe in you. Because the planning process itself can help you get buy-in. And that means that when you go to do something, everybody else is on board already. You don't have to spend six months trying to convince people or working uphill because there are people who really are kind of working against what you think you want to do. So it's really sometimes the planning process itself helps you move a project along. Okay, then how do you do it? We've assessed the community and the environment. We've looked at the needs. We've decided these are the needs that we really can help with. Now how are we going to do that? Well, our goals could only be reached through a vehicle of a plan upon which we must vigorously act. There's no other route to success. Pablo Picasso, the plan will help us get there. You know, have some faith in yourself. If you've got a good plan, it'll you don't have to do it alone. That's the thing. If you have a good plan, you'll get help from other people. There are people out there dying to help you if they think that you've got a good plan. So that in itself is a good reason to have a plan is to be able to get that help, very often financial help, that you really need. So, you know, really, let's just talk about how you make a plan and then it comes to fruition. And you get a great big new beautiful building. And don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Who's that from? Yes, you got it. Okay. So, are there any questions? Okay. Mike, you want to take it? So, we're talking about technology planning, so eventually they got to bring the geek up front. And I noticed how Laura graciously looked at me when she was talking about, well, doesn't everybody think the way I do? Laura and I have had some interesting conversations of late about, you know, doesn't everybody think the way I do? So, what I'm going to talk about is kind of a little more into the specifics of the technology plan. And our next speaker, well, we have a question. They probably didn't hear who said the last quote. Oh, who said the last quote? That was Hannibal from the A team. So, those of us who grew up watching television in the 80s, yes, the A team. All right. So, our next presenter this afternoon will be talking about a particular tool that can help you build your actual technology plan, or at least one core component of it. So, I'm going to be talking a little bit more about the tech and things like that. So, what a technology plan is? Laura talked about just having a plan. A technology plan, yes, there's a plan, but it's also a demonstration. It's a lens with which to focus. It's a prioritizing agent. It can be a budgeting tool. Something that can help you align with other institutional goals. It can be a training schedule. It can be a fundraising tool. It can be all of those things. And if you keep those things in mind, you're going to be able to better put your plan together. Your plan should be smart. That's my new car. I didn't make up the acronym, however. It needs to be specific, measurable, aggressive and attainable, results oriented and time bound. Your technology plan needs to say, this is what we're planning on doing. We'll probably in two years need to upgrade something. It's not very specific. Some of you are already laughing at me. You've written that. You've read that plan. Measurable. Well, you're going to upgrade the public access computers. How many of them are you going to upgrade? You need to be able to, at the back end, say to yourself, did we do what we said we were going to do? What was the measurement? Aggressive and attainable. This one I find very interesting in that you don't necessarily hedge your bet. Be aggressive with your plan, but still have it be kind of within the realm of reality. You know, you don't necessarily, this isn't necessarily a plan that somebody is going to judge you in the back end. Maybe they will, but if you say we want to upgrade from four computers to eight and you only get to seven, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but don't say we want to upgrade from four to five. Be a little aggressive about it. Results oriented, you want to be able to show that you at least attempted what it was you set out to do when you're all done. And time bound, give yourself a timeframe in which to work. Say we're going to do it in this amount of time. One of my last slides will be kind of here's how you can phrase everything into a nice neat little package that covers all of this. So what makes a good tech plan? One that's concise, specific, integrated, foreseeable, and flexible. I've seen tech plans that are absolutely wonderful that were three pages long. I've seen tech plans that were really horrible that were 30 pages long. I've done other workshops where I've actually handed those. Be concise. Specific, as specific as you can be. Integrated, what I mean by integrated is integrated into the larger plan for the library. We're talking about technology plans here, but I'm hoping you have kind of other plans about maybe facilities, staffing, that sort of thing. This all needs to tie together. How can your tech plans support your staffing plans or support your facilities plans? Each one of these things is not necessarily independent of all the others. Forseeable, that's fun when talking about technology, right? We'll get to a point, we'll talk about what is the tech coming out that we need to be planning for, maybe. Think about the tech that you're dealing with now in your library and how foreseeable was that technology just five or ten years ago. So you don't necessarily want to go far out. And then flexible, you want to give yourself some wiggle room, kind of overlaps a little bit with that aggressive yet attainable. What doesn't make a good tech plan? Yeah, sad robot, I know. Tech for tech's sake. Not everybody thinks like me. I've learned to accept this. Not everybody puts cat six wiring in their house to hook up all the computers and installs one in the kitchen recipes and all that other stuff. I understand that. But can we all agree that we're kind of stuck with the technology in the library now, we're not going to get around that anymore? Some of you are accepting this very well, some of you kind of kicking in screaming, I get that. But you don't want to plan new tech just for tech's sake. Is it going to work with the library? Is it going to work with the staff? Or with your patrons? A plan that doesn't connect with the mission of the library. Laura talked about the mission statement of your library. Do you all know the mission statement of your library? If you're the director, you probably should. I won't quiz you on it right now, but just in your head, what's the mission statement of your library? A bad tech plan is not going to explain why the technology is needed in the library. If you can't explain why you wanted to do that, it really falls into that tech for tech's sake. Because it's cool, although some of us will completely understand that statement. I know who I'm looking at back here. It really probably doesn't need to go into the plan. One that's poorly organized, you know, you just throw in pasta at the wall, hey, you know, we're going to need new stuff. Includes techno babble. New stuff out. There is planning that you need to consider here, and this is why we're talking about planning. Okay, so what will others look for in your plan? One of the things they're going to look for is alignment with the mission of your library, your organization. Does, if you're using this plan to do fundraising, does your plan kind of align with the person you're asking for funding their goals are? What's the business case for your technology? Again, how is it going to impact the library? How is it going to help your staff? How is it going to help your patrons? They might look for what's called discrete initiatives. In other words, make your plan a series of steps. Okay? Now, this BTOP grant is great. For some of you, I know that, you know, some of the libraries I think we still had some that were still using discrete-grant computers from 2000s, and this is their first upgrade. That would not be considered discrete initiatives. That's an 11-year upgrade plan. Okay? Please don't wait another 11 years to upgrade your computers again. I know, some people ask me, is it time to upgrade my computer? And I do say to them, you know, does your computer do what you needed to do? And if the answer is no, you can upgrade your computer. Ask your patrons if they're able to do what they need to do on those 11-year-old computers, and they might have a different answer than you. People are also going to be looking for viability and sustainability, and sustainability is one of those very important things that's being talked about with this grant. This is, if I stand correctly, kind of the last time, Bill and Melinda are handing out money for this. For hardware. They expect you to now kind of take over the reins, and again, that 11-year upgrade plan does not fall into what they would consider taking over the reins. So, who are the players involved? Laura was talking about having to kind of take a look at the environment, and we'll come back to the environment in a little bit, but who should be involved in writing your technology plan? I'm going to kind of open this up to the audience in front of me, and for the folks remotely. Who do we think should be involved in writing your technology plan? If you're in front of me, just shout something out if you got something. Okay, the geek? Yes, alright. Somebody involved in running the technology. Now, some of you don't have a specific person involved in running the technology. You might need to find somebody. Who else? You're just going to hand it over to the geek and say, go write our tech plan? Oh, God, no. George here is saying, oh, God, no. Okay, because that would be you, George, you don't want to do it by yourself? You're everything. Okay. Who else might want to be involved in this process? Staff. Ask the staff. Have a staff representative. Some of you have you and the staff person. They're now involved. You have several staff. That's fine. Okay, two. They can be all involved, or you can just ask them. We're going to talk about staff training and staff issues in a few minutes. Who else might we want to involve? The board. Yeah. Some of you just got that little shiver. Some of you are board members listening. That's fine. I've been a board member too. Okay, so I can relate. I was on a board in a library back in Colorado, so I've been a board member. So I can totally understand that angle. Is there anything coming in remotely? No. Okay. You guys out there too. Okay. Anybody else? Patrons. Patrons, the public. Okay. And again, some of you just got that shiver. Okay. But the public, okay, they're the ones coming in using your equipment. Okay. They're providing technology for them. And in a lot of cases, if they're coming into your library using the technology, that is the technology they have access to. That's it. They probably don't have something at home. Something come in? Youth. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Ask the kids. Somebody earlier mentioned the 14-year-old. That was just a minute. I think, you know, what is the 14-year-old understand this stuff? I don't know why they understand this stuff, but they seem to. Ask the public. Laura was talking about, you know, talking about looking at your larger environment and maybe creating a focus group. Okay. Here's the interesting suggestion I've made to a couple libraries when I've given this or similar presentations is it's enough to ask the people who walk into your building what they think the library should be doing. Ask the people who never walk into your building what the library should be doing. Why are they not walking into the library? I was at a library in South Dakota and they literally, like some people's backyards, was the library grounds. And I said, have you gone and you talked to them? And these were really nice houses. It was a much newer building. So chances are, I was making some judgments there, but they were probably a little more affluent and they might not use the public library as much. Go knock on their door. Go ask the people who don't come to the library why they don't come to the library. What could the library offer? And some of this might be technology, some of this might not. What could the library offer to get you to come to the library? And even just by talking to them, maybe the next time you ask them for money, they might go, oh yeah, I remember I had a really great conversation with the library. Yeah, libraries are good. They should have more money. Can't hurt. Microphone. That actually connects to a talk from North Platte, which they just said donors whoever is giving the money to the library ask them, what do you want us to spend your money on? Will you give us more money if we do what you want us to? There's an interesting question. Yes, Richard. Oh, okay. Richard, Richard, just oh boy. Richard suggestion was somebody from city county town government. Okay. And I don't know if you can hear the reaction here locally, but that that really made people nervous. They're not all that bad. Some of them understand that the library is different than the accounting department and the people who collect ticket money and things like that. Okay. So what resources we've got the players together. You're going to kind of get this group together. Even if it's not a direct group, you have input from these folks in one way, shape, or form. Okay. What sort of resources might we want to pull together to help us write our plan? What other sort of documentation or information might the library already have that you think would be relevant to writing a plan? And again, I'm going to open this question kind of back up to everybody including the remote folks. Oh, computer usage figures. All right, statistics. Okay. How many people come to the library to use the computers? How long are they on those computers? Maybe even if you can tell, although you're getting some weird issues, what are they doing with these computers? I mean, even if you don't want to know what they're doing with the computers, chances are you have a good idea what they're doing with the computers or at the computers, whatever. Sorry. So some sort of statistics. And I can guarantee you, you will never have enough computers for everybody unless you get a one-to-one ratio. So, you know, but that's a good one. Okay. Numbers, statistics, what else? Demographics. There's some good information. You know, town, city demographics. Okay. Do any of your libraries have any sort of other planning documents, long-range plan, anything like that? Not your head, yes. Even if you're lying to me, just say yes. Because you should. Okay. I'm going to need that. Your mission statement, your vision statement, if you have that sort of thing. Because again, we want this all to tie together. Okay. Do you have a previous technology plan? Okay. If you have a previous technology plan and you're looking to update it, you might want to look at the old one to see what you did or didn't do from the previous one to start to do the next one. All of that information for whatever your parent organization is. So does your city, town, county have a long-range plan? Kind of the demographics overlap for that. Does the city, town, county have a technology plan? Was the library involved in the town's long-range plan or technology plan? And if not, why not? And if you said, because I wanted no part of it, well, okay, I can't help you there. Okay. Outside resources, journals, blogs, magazines. Laura mentioned OCLC's newsletter about what's going on. Okay. Follow a technology blog. Follow Gizmodo. There's one, I read. You don't have to understand all this tech stuff, but you'll start to see what's coming down the pike, technology-wise. Okay. I have just one example that I think is like the next cool thing only because I'm buying it. But, you know, it's where computers are going that you may not already be aware of. Okay. These are the sorts of resources. Yes, remote. Microphone. Yeah. The Scott's Buff has what you already have in your inventory now. Yes. Yes. In fact, existing inventory is something Kendra's going to talk about this afternoon with the tools she's going to be using because one of the things is you got to know what you have before you can plan for what you want. Okay. So the structure of your technology plan is going to look something like this. Basically you want to write some sort of executive summary. Describe the library. List the library's challenges. We're going to go through each one of these a little separately. What's your current technology environment? So Scott's Buff just mentioned the inventory. What are the emerging technologies that you're looking forward to and want to include in your plan? Evaluating your website if you have one. If you don't have one, maybe getting a website as part of your plan. And then what is it you are actually recommending? Okay. So the executive summary. Basically that's your one or two paragraphs. This is the library. This is what we're trying to do. This is the maybe one whole page if it's a slightly longer plan that basically just says here's what we want to do. The why's and the how's will come through the rest of the plan itself. The library description. You get bonus points if you could name this library. Which is funny because I can't remember so you have to help me out if you're in the audience. I got the picture from us. The commission's account. So Alana, you might know where this is. Oh, it's in Nebraska. Sorry. Plymouth? Well, there's a Plymouth dealer over there. That would be... Plymouth. I just was trying to pick the smallest one I could find, I think. No? No? No, Alana says it's Paxton. Paxton, that does sound right, yes. Thank you. It's not the Plymouth library. Okay, all right, thank you. It's what she's been told. Okay, whatever that means. Okay. And Richard says it's not Paxton. Hey Springs? Wait, North Platte says it's not Paxton too. Hey Springs? Okay, it's in the notes if you're looking at the original PowerPoint. It's Hey Springs. Okay, I thought I put it there. It's not in my notes on my little screen here. Okay, so the library description. What sort of information are we going to include in the library description? Describe your library? Physical description of the library. How many square feet? When was it built? How many books do you have? How many computers do you have? What kind of wiring do you have? That's a... If it's wrapped in cotton, it probably needs to be updated, right? Okay. Um... Don't... If the junction box is made out of skull can. Oh, no, sorry. My brother got an old house. Anyways, I've seen that. What else might we include here? We kind of get... Excuse me? Hours? Demographics patrons, you know, yeah, exactly. Number of gate count. If you do something like that, you would call it the gate count. Okay. What services are you offering? Do you do any programming? Do you do story time? How is the library used? Okay. What is your current technology? Okay. It took us to figure out just exactly which library this is. My little note to myself here is visuals never hurt. Include some pictures. Okay. Maybe part of your technology plan is we need a digital camera. Location. Location. We need a new building. And here's why. No, I'm not picking on this library. Sorry. That came across very wrong. I apologize. Okay. So, yeah, okay. That's us from down in front of me here. Okay. What are the library's challenges? I mentioned this needs to go in the plan. Because the challenges are going to kind of provide a reasoning for what it is you want to do. Whether it be technology is not always the solution. But, you know, we're still on dial-up modems. Is a challenge. Space. Space is a challenge. Okay. Staff. The staff or lack of staff? Lack of staff. Well, the staff might be a challenge too. I don't know all of you libraries. And this is where I'll fall back on one of those businessy things. Doing a SWOT analysis. How many of us have ever done a SWOT analysis? Say it with me. Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities and threats. Very good. But it helps, doesn't it? I mean, you get those big posted notes up on the wall and you've got everybody's input as to what's going on. And you can really try to figure out where the challenges are. Some of them are really obvious, but sometimes you start talking to the staff and some of them aren't as obvious. So figure out what those challenges are. Okay. Then you need to look at your current technology. If this is the state of your current technology, if this is the state of your current technology, you're worse off than those 2,000 Gates computers. You got rid of those a few years ago. Okay, this was actually my second computer, the Atari 800. And this is not my photo, unfortunately. I don't have the Star Wars glasses up top there. I wish I did. Yes? I missed that we had... Oh, we have a question from a row? No, just another one of the challenges, the economy. Yes, okay. The economy has a challenge. Exactly. My first computer was an Atari 400. It had the flat keyboard instead of the actual keys there. I did have the cassette drive and the disc drives and all that fun stuff. So if this is the state of your current technology, you probably do for an update. Okay. So things you're going to list, such as what are your staff computers, what are your public computers, what networking equipment is and what do you have, what peripherals are involved? Okay. I've got a really old inkjet printer and the ink cost me, you know, $40 an ounce or something. You might want to update that. What operating systems are those things running? What software is installed on those computers? Okay. Kendra later this afternoon is going to talk about something that will really help you get all of that information collected very easily. It's this amazing service that they have offered. Okay. But you're going to need to list the state of your current technology. Okay. Does your current technology look like this? Okay. When was the last time you took, you know, a vacuum cleaner or a can of compressed air to your computers? You might want to take a look. The amazing what cleaning out a computer like this will actually do to make your computer work. Okay. All right. So let's talk about emerging technologies. This is the part of the talk that I really wanted to get to a lot because I want to see what you guys are thinking about that's coming out. And so those of you who remotely start thinking about this, but this is one example of an emerging technology. I have my phone over there. It's an Android phone. This is the phone that is coming out. This is called the droid bionic. And if all the rumors are right, I was hoping to have it on September 8th. I was hoping to have it by today. But what's really cool is if you look kind of down to the left of the phone, there's a thing there that looks like a laptop. Okay. What you can actually do to this phone is plug it into the back end of this thing. This is just a dumb monitor and keyboard. You plug in the phone, you now have the laptop. Okay. I will admit I'm due for a phone upgrade anyways. I also need a new laptop. And this is cool. Not everybody thinks like me. Okay. I told you that. But some of you are going, yeah, that is kind of cool. Okay. Because, you know, carry around a phone, carry around a laptop, carry all this stuff. Just start integrating it into the one thing and then I can use my phones internet connection when I don't have Wi-Fi and I'm always online. Okay. Now, is there a direct effect to the library of this necessarily? Not really, but what it's kind of showing is that the phones are getting that powerful. Okay. There was a quote, this is the one quote I think I'll throw in from the guy who invented the C++ programming language. So kind of a smart guy. He said that he had a dream that one day his computer would be as easy to use as his telephone. His dream has finally come true. He no longer knows how to use his telephone. Okay. So at what point do you call this thing a phone? I guess it's my question. Okay. Some of you now on the other hand, okay, are just having, it's enough to deal with email. Some of you don't have email addresses yet. Okay. Email's been around for 35 years. Yeah. Not emails, we know it per se, but email itself. The web, anybody know what anniversary? The web just celebrated? 20. Yep. The web's been around for 20 years. Most of us didn't hear about it until 1994, but it was actually around a couple of years before that. When I was in library school, the web happened. I took the internet class that taught us how to rate gopher sites. Do you remember gopher? I got an email address on campus because I was a grad student. Not because I was in college, but because I was a grad student, I could get an email address. By the time I finished library school, everybody was required to have an email address as a student. So I was kind of in library school when this stuff happened. I think that's kind of made my career path go the way that it's gone. Okay. So let me open this one up, especially the folks remotely. I want to hear from everybody here. I want to hear at least one thing from every location. What is the technology we need to be thinking about in our libraries? If for you the answer is email, that's okay. The answer is email. Sure. E-readers. Yeah. I'm working on a workshop right now. I'm trying to figure that one out. Mobile applications. Okay. Do we even want to create mobile applications? Or do we want web things? Okay, now get super geeky here, but this HTML5 thing is coming out. It might make things instead of writing an app for the iPhone, you write a web application in this new language that just works on everything. Okay. Okay. Some of you, I have just lost you completely. That's okay. That's what some of the libraries are thinking about. What are the rest of you thinking about? Update to the E-readers. Offsite usage of the E-readers. Okay. Do we want to be checking them out? Or not? Is that okay? Yeah. What sort of access to e-books are we going to be offering in a couple of years? If any. There's new technologies out. I was just out in Kansas, but they're moving from one system to another, and they're looking at these devices where you actually, they are dedicated e-readers that you can look, you say I want the book on their e-reader, it puts it on it, you take it out, you check it out for two weeks. It's not a Kindle, it's not a Nook, it's a completely dedicated e-reader unit, and then you return it and it deletes the content off of it, and then the next person says I want this content on it, and I want to check the device out. Richard. The clock, according to Richard, has a green screen. Has a wall painted green so kids can do videos. In fact, Topeka Shawnee County just did that too. We have our friend David who works out in Topeka. They took a meeting room and they painted one wall that special green. And now patrons can come in and create their own videos and add effects with the green screen. Okay. I know we have one library in this state who's got one of those photo printer kiosks in the library. We interviewed them for Encompass Live probably about a year or so ago now. What else? We got anything coming in from the row folks? Yes. There we go. Making high-end software like Photoshop available to the public. Okay. I guess purchasing it for something you wouldn't normally purchase for the library or software product and making it available. So now that we got these newer, more powerful computers, maybe we need to be offering newer, more powerful software. Of course, newer, more powerful software. What's the problem with that? Costs, more money. Okay. And potential licensing issues. So, yeah, something you need to be aware of. Okay. Laura just said integrating social media. Into the ILS. Okay. We don't even are doing any social media. Okay. So, again, everything's on a scale here. Are we on Twitter? Are we on Facebook? Google Plus? Do we have to be? I'm not saying you have to be. Oh, okay. So Laura just wants to make the ILS user-friendly. Okay. No, that's a good idea. I'm sorry. A little sarcasm there because I've been waiting for this. Yeah, exactly. Integrated library systems were designed for librarians, not for normal human beings. Okay. We're not normal. Come on. We're a special breed. Then there's the catalogers. They're the really espresso breed. Sorry, my wife's the cataloger. I can make those jokes. Yes. Oh, yes. Laura is saying these changes are really important. Okay. Mark, they're looking at changing that around. Okay. And again, some of you, I just kind of, you know, went right over the head. That's okay. You know, if you're not a cataloger. Any other technologies that we need to be aware of? Richard said scanning. Okay. Do we offer, are we offering scanners for the public yet? Down front. Ooh. Don't forget the legacy technologies where we might be the last place where one is available. The first thing that popped in my head were floppy drives. But what was suggested was a typewriter. Okay. I didn't even go there. I, I, but, you know, that's exactly, I did take typing high school. So I'm not, I'm not that. Typewriter is more relevant to the floppy drive. Mm-hmm. Typing a form and mailing it. Exactly. I mean, you know, do you have a typewriter? Mm-hmm. This was Papillion. Right. Yeah. Papillion's Feeshreader died in film and they were trying to figure out whether it was something they really didn't need to replace and according to the public, yes. Okay. North Platt has a kind of. A slide projector, like the slides. Slide. Slide. Show your vacation. Yeah. Okay. Slide scanners. I've been slightly paying around with some of that technology recently or else my wife has because she has all of her father's decades worth of slide carousels in our garage and she's trying to figure out how to digitize them and I just kind of let her work on that project. She asks, I'll help, but so. Question? Yeah. Cassette players. Wow. Okay. We're really kicking it old school here. The Walkman was just recently discontinued, wasn't it? Reintroduced, actually. Well, I was going to say record players for vinyl, but I've seen them for sale now in Best Buy. Yeah. So, I don't know anymore. Vinyl is making. I actually bought some vinyl yesterday, believe it or not. I was just called a nerd. It was Miles Davis. It came with the CDs and the vinyl. Okay. Comment, yes? We do have a comment from North Platte about this topic that says technology is only as good as the end user and we are not equipped to be schools. Okay, so let me try to rephrase that kind of as a question and maybe I'll provide my own answer. Well, yeah, well I'm not sure I have an answer, but as we provide these technologies to the public what is the level of expectation that we as the librarians can assist them in using such technologies? I've had a related conversation to this when I was at computers and libraries this spring and the conversation outside of all the sessions was e-readers. Just every time a group got together in a corner somewhere to talk about it, e-readers came up. And one of the big questions was okay, we're offering them at what level of support are we expected to provide? And I'll get to staff training in a few minutes. My simple answer and I realize this is one of those answers that most people don't want to hear is I think if you're offering the technology you do need to have a minimal level of proficiency to be able to help your patrons with it. And I understand that takes time. I understand that takes time. I mean, more how I was going to say education, but education takes time. You do need to learn it. There are, you know, a certain the technology competencies necessary to work in a library today are not what they were when most of us listening to this got into libraries. It has changed. That was about as delicate as I could have put it, isn't it? Pam was kind of mumbling after I said that. It was still new to me. I expected to go work a reference to ask in a public library somewhere. This is not where I expected to be. So, what technology do I plan for? Let me mention just a couple of other things. We kind of got audio and video production. Wireless issues. Some of you, I don't know if everybody yet is offering Wi-Fi to the public, but it is something you I would argue you should be doing. RFID technologies are coming. Some libraries are already starting to do the checkout with just, you know, kind of wand over the book instead of a bar code. We mentioned social media. We mentioned printing. So, there's a lot of different things here that you can talk about. Sorry, I'm jumping around in my slides. I apologize. So, how do you decide which technology to plan for? And I would say there are two major things you want to think about here. The first thing is kind of think about competencies. You are, as I just kind of really said if you're going to offer it you're going to need to understand it. I'm not saying being expert in it. Okay? You have a lot of information about a lot of topics in your library. You are not an expert of. Correct? That's what makes reference interesting. Okay? So, I'm not saying you necessarily need to be able to physically dismantle a computer and put it back together. Not a bad piece of knowledge to have but not necessarily something you need to do. But if the computer locks up do you know what to do next? Do you know what to check? Kind of the basic level competencies. I'll come back to a list in just a moment. The other thing you can think about to answer this question is what do you think your staff needs to know to move the library into the future? We just listed a whole bunch of things that are coming down the pike. And in some cases, not only have they come down the pike, they are so well established. Some people go, do you don't do that yet? I was just reading an article the other day that said something like 90% of people don't know what CTRL-F does on the computer. How many of you know what CTRL-F does when you're in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, the web, anything? In this room, it is about a third. Okay? The point of the article was that geeks like me were all completely flummoxed by that that like the rest of you don't know what that does. CTRL-F is find. It allows you to keyword search whatever you're currently looking at. So if you are in Word and reading a 100 page document and you're looking for something, hit CTRL-F and you can search for what it is you're looking for. I just saved you 10 minutes of your week. Web pages especially. So when I say what does your staff need to know to move things forward? I'm not necessarily understanding the difference between 802.11g and 802.11n. How many in the room even know what I was just talking about? Six people just raised their hand and a room is 70. It's Wi-Fi standards. But maybe CTRL-F is where we're going. What does your staff need to know to get things moving forward? All right. So staff competencies. I've read some very interesting blog posts lately. One of which specifically from Sarah Houghton-Jan who is the librarian in black and I can't remember what library she's at. Krista, can you help me out? She just moved. She was in California. I don't know if she's still in California. She wrote a very interesting blog post, librarianinblack.net about what she kind of thought a library staff person should know technology-wise today. I don't necessarily want to read you the whole list but let me read you some of the highlights and then I'm going to gauge everybody's reaction here in the room and the remote folks watch the reaction here. Under Hardware she's got listed parts of your desktop computer. How to use a printer, how to use a photocopier, how to use a fax machine, how to use the shelf check, how to use the projectors and then she says digital still cameras, digital video cameras, and digital microphones. She thinks this is stuff every library staff person should know basic use of right now. Under Software, whatever operating system it is you're using. Effective management of files and folder systems. I don't get this phone call anymore but I used to get that phone call. I just downloaded something from the internet where did it go? And unfortunately the answer is wherever you put it. I don't know where you put it but now in Windows you can just click start typing the file name if you remember what that was. Basics of Word Processing Spreadsheet and Presentation Software Do you have a basic grasp of PowerPoint even if you don't give presentations with any regularity? You might have a patron coming in trying to put one together. Basics of Web Browsers, Email and Calinering Software If you have Computer or Room Reservation Software the basics of how that works. Then at the end she says Photo, Video and Audio Editing Software. Some of you are kind of going I don't know. Stuff in the audience? Yes? Well the recommendation is Education and Microsoft Office Updates. I think they mean updating. Oh the difference so if you move from 2007 to 2010 what's the differences? How many of you are still on 2003? From 7 to 10 not so much from 3 to 7 when the ribbon was introduced. That's where everybody freaked out. I love the ribbon once you get the hang of it. Under public computing she lists familiarity with the software and the hardware your network itself and with network use policies in your library. So basically if somebody walks up to you and says you've got public computers over there what can I do on it? You can actually answer that question without having to go I don't know let me see let's go click on start and find out. She lists basics of ergonomics as one of her competencies. How to set the machine up so you're not going to hurt people. If your library has a web presence do you all know the URL off the top of your head of the library's website? I'm hearing a lot of yeses that's good. The basics of what's on the website and how to use the web catalog best practices for searching the catalog or website. Familiarity with ebooks available that you have available if any. Familiarity with databases. Now a lot of you get the databases from us. How many of your staff know what databases are available from us or that you even have access to. Then she gets into things such as how to write for the web, how to post content to your particular website, how to post photos to Flickr, how to post video and audio files to your website. To a certain extent I guess this assumes that you let your staff post to the website. Any of you in the Nebraska libraries on the web project you are generally allowing your staff to post things to the website. Basic troubleshooting for any of the hardware you may have in your library. Including the computers the printers photocopiers I know of libraries that basically says if the photocopier stops working you call this phone number and you don't touch it. How patron friendly is that? I mean I realize there's contracts involved and what not but really they just want it to work. Then her last area is under personal skills continuous learning change management which is just a phrase I find funny in and zone right. Planning and evaluating new information technology systems ability to quickly learn and adapt to new web services and one-on-one training best practices. Now I did end up reading you pretty much the whole list. I did skip a couple of things here and there. But this is what one librarian who I do respect and mostly agree with on this list says that if you work in a library you should be able to do. Now I've got this group I've got three other locations I can't ask everybody here but I just want you to think about A, do you agree with this list? B, especially if you agree with this list how well does this list describe what your staff can and can't do? Do we have a, excuse me? We do have comments. I'll invite comments. Two comments that now they come separately they actually go together. Staff needs to know a lot many libraries here only have one or two staff this comment was actually before you went through your list I said this and then it says this now afterwards this says seriously seriously in all caps, long list where will we learn these things? And get the rest though I am did I say I had all the answers? No I did not somebody said yes that person needs their hearing checked they want you to have all the answers they want me to have all the answers this is where I also say I realize not everybody is me I this I usually say this when I'm teaching a class on the social web and the flicker and all these different things and the comment comes up well where do I find the time to do all this? My initial reaction to that is do not use me as a role model for that because I'm paid to play with all the stuff and figure out how it works and that's part of my job I don't currently work a reference desk I don't also have to do circulation I don't also have to kick kids off the computer I also don't have to call the cops I also don't have to be the janitor I also I feel for you okay I do understand I've been on the board I have worked a reference desk I have done all these other things I just don't do them all at once right now a lot of it I think comes down to figuring out to a certain extent what your priorities are okay especially because of the economy and partially because of technology who needs the library when you can just look it up on Google okay the library is being forced more and more to justify its existence okay this is where I get everybody really depressed okay and we have to figure out what it is that is going to help us justify our existence and maybe part of that is technology right I understand this list is really long right to some people in the library world right now they would say this list is not long and often needs to go even further and that's just reality suck it up and get over it I'm not that bad right there it is going to depend based on your environment your library your staffing your public but some of these things if you can't get them you are then therefore going to have people not come into the library another time because the last time you were in you couldn't help them the example that was used I saw once that was used for much larger libraries and would probably not apply to anybody right now in attendance the example was it all comes down to priorities and then the presenter showed a picture from the full team competition at ALA which is totally cool and totally fun and I get it but how does that help your patrons that was the point that was being made it's all about priorities a lot of you have gotten this new equipment if your patrons come in and quickly figure out that you don't know how it works they are not going to necessarily be ready to come back because they are looking to you for that help you are their resource so there is a certain point at which we do have to just start sucking it up and figuring out where to find the time at the commission we do as much as we can to help you out I mean please call us we're doing this we do Encompass Live every week where we talk about these things if there is a technology or an issue you want us to talk about tell us Krista will get it scheduled she is nodding for those of you who can't see her many of the sessions that we do of Encompass Live are weekly online webinar are from library requests or questions about something or recommendations or even volunteering which is great I will talk about so and so topic for everyone else so tell me what you want to know about we will stick it on a show absolutely the Breskel Learns 2.0 our monthly learning 2.0 program with the online self-placed tutorials we are doing the one we are doing right now if you are not familiar with it we took a break from doing our monthly thing and we are participating in an international program about professional development and so what we have been doing for the last couple of years is a full piece of technology that we think you should know that might help your patrons what the professional development one is looking at is here is some technology or services that you might want to learn about because it will help you be a better librarian is anybody in this room participating in that nobody is raising their hand this might be an easier question for the live room in front of me here but is anybody at this point thinking this is just impossible and really wants to just smack me upside the head I am an open target I missed was it Laura or Krista Krista wants to smack me upside the head for completely different reasons yes the comment was it is not a perfect world not enough time, not enough money tackle what you can when it comes in the door yes Laura a couple of things to really think about which is one you do have to set your priorities it was a formidable list it was yes it was a long list and if you can't do all of those I think you have to decide which ones are the ones that are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck which ones are your patrons really asking for the most right now and try to do those first and number two I go back to the Ben Franklin quote again if we do not hang together we will assuredly hang separately I think you are going to have to get together and cooperate with one another and know that you may not know a lot about it but the next library over does and they call you when they have a question on something else and I think working together is going to be one of the answers is trying to help one another yeah let me just kind of bring it back just a little bit here especially for those of you getting the new equipment from the grant on that list was basics of video editing software well if you don't have video editing software for the public you probably don't need to know it but if you do start offering it you better have somebody who knows how to use it some of you are now moving to Windows 7 on these new machines and have not had any other operating system since Windows XP or 95 there are some significant changes now if you have been following along the whole time they were kind of incremental and some people still freaked out when Vista came out but Vista to 7 not that bad now Vista done right but anyways but if you are moving from a much older operating system and those patrons that only use your computers have been using that much older operating system suddenly just everything looks different okay yeah I know it does so in that case that's the stuff you need to be focusing on right now because they're going to ask for your help you have offered them Windows 7 you need to understand the basics of Windows 7 so maybe that's where you start making your choices okay no you don't need to necessarily know video and editing audio editing software right now alright she works at much larger libraries than most of us in this room in fact probably all of us in this room combined quite possibly alright but I would assume that they offer that so they need to have their staff understand it you now offer Windows 7 you now offer Office 2010 in those cases you need to have a basic understanding of how it works we're doing our best we're here to help question comment yep for the recording and for the remote folks who couldn't necessarily catch all that the short version is help each other some of us especially with the larger staffs have found the time and have been able to learn this because they have to train their own staff and their own public use your system mailing lists to say hey who knows how to do this who's got training materials who knows of websites that will help you out with this we're librarians we're bred to share aren't we I mean isn't that part of what makes us librarians is we like to share things I bet we all got shares well with others on like our kindergarten school reports to go from that from the other direction of asking if you know this stuff put it out on the systems listserv and say hey I found this cool five minute video that tells me this stuff basic stuff about office 2010 anyone wants it here's the link to it or hey I've come up with some training materials about this thing here it is or I'll send it to you if the listeners don't take attachments or whatever you know put yourself out there and say hey here's some cool stuff I've done it already one of my favorite things if you ever hear me talk about stuff is don't no reason to reinvent the wheel borrow, steal, whatever from everyone else cause you know that's what we do but for the good I didn't take all these pictures you know so if you have stuff you have out there that's what we do we share out things Laura will share months and months of all the free webinars and free continuing education related stuff that she's found so that you guys know that it's out there cause that's what she does her job is to find all this stuff that you can do so she shares that so yeah share the stuff out there that you find so that other people can benefit from it who don't have the time to figure out themselves okay I'm gonna move on that was all very wonderful okay if you have a website this is my plug if you don't have a website libraries.ne.gov go sign up we will get to your website some of you in the room are already on that project does work we don't rush you take your time we provide all the training we provide all the hosting we run the software on a platform called wordpress it's wonderful if I do say so myself okay we will get you a website we got at least one here participating she's nodding her head yes so that I assume means you're happy with it it's easy okay there's a learning curve I mean you have to do it especially if you've never put anything on the web before half your problem is going to be getting the content that goes up on the website but it's it's free I think we mentioned did I mention free I don't know I'll say it again it's free okay all the training is online web videos you do it at your own pace okay so really there's there's no excuse not to have a website these days if you do have a website things you just might want to think about is it following current design practices was your website last updated ten years ago or redesigned ten years ago what platform is it on are you still handwriting HTML or using some sort of content management system are is it accessible are you working in social technologies does it work on a mobile device these are the things we need to be thinking about with websites these days which I'll say the wordpress platform does all of those things good alright somebody else is on web well unfortunately hosting with us we pick your URL so there there are downsides but that's that's not a big deal exactly well you can do that too yes if you have an existing URL we can work with you to make it sort of work to the new one anyways that's a complete side project but if you're looking for a website we're offering you the service to do it you're not already familiar with that so libraries.ne.gov there's no excuse anymore okay I also mentioned you're going to need to include the recommendations in your actual proposal so here it is here is what we are going to do okay here is what we're going to upgrade we're going to redesign our website we are going to train our staff in how to use all of these services we are now offering as a result of these new computers your technology plan can literally be we're going to train our staff okay and we're going to have to somehow find the time and the resources and all the things to do that what is it you actually want to accomplish that goes in your recommendations we are really out of schedule that's alright we can open it up from our discussion under those recommendations include your priorities prioritize what it is you want to do because remember you're going to be aggressive so you want to prioritize what it is you have on your list so that you can get to the things that are really really important and there are things further down the list that maybe you can't get to in the time that you've set up somebody ringing somewhere sorry um descriptions of relevant categories list the specific recommendations okay so if you're going to have new software you're going to get an application if you're going to get new hardware list them how much is it going to cost if you're going to have to maybe pay for some training because you're getting new equipment list that and ultimately what are the benefits of what it is you're doing what was it no sorry we're having a phone go off here if you can't hear from the remote folks it's just distracting enough sorry okay everybody else are your phones off now's your time to check okay what is the timeline over which you're thinking you're going to do this okay I would generally say that a timeline you want to be looking at right at this point is about three years and I think under e-rate it was three years right wasn't it the max to let you plan out okay that doesn't necessarily mean however you write a three year plan and don't look at it again until the end of three years and go oh did we do that okay you're going to have to revisit your plan you might need to update your plan at least that one was different anyways okay no fair enough I turn mine up all the time that would fall under accessibility issues if you're hard of hearing and you turn up the volume okay under your recommendations also include something along how are you going to assess what you've done how are you going to measure those results and definitely is any training going to be needed alright I think we've stressed very highly here that there are training issues involved with all of this okay maybe you do need and and I understand every time I say something like what I'm about to say I understand that some of you even when I say pick one staff member to go get trained there is only one other staff member okay I want you to honestly believe that I do understand that some of us have a few more staff okay not everybody is Lincoln and Omaha who has a lot of staff right but you know and sometimes you're just coming here you're being trained you're able to pull off coming here and sometimes I was having this conversation with some of the other day sometimes you know it might just benefit everybody in the long run to close the library for a day and go learn something and get trained okay Lincoln cities does it once a year on Arbor Day okay and staff training day even brown paper the windows on the first floor downtown that was the funniest thing I'm like what are they doing in there brown papering the windows over before I started at this job my then boss Shannon called me up and said I hate to ask you to work on a holiday but can you go speak at their in service day on Arbor Day and I said that's a holiday it's a state holiday we get the day off and she's like well I hate to ask before you've even started here sure I'll work on Arbor Day it's just a just a Nebraska holiday yes so find a day shut down it's a state holiday so that's yes yes it's a state holiday but I don't pick Arbor Day I mean pick a day shut down and get trained watch videos do whatever okay it can be done you might need to negotiate with your board you might need to negotiate with the town but explain to them that we've got new equipment we need to learn it we can't learn it and run the library at the same time but if you let us take a day where we're still paid but the library is closed so we can learn this we will be able to better function as a library and provide better services to you hopefully your town council city council are also patrons maybe not no yes getting mixed results here on that one yes okay where are you from? Fairfield they had the city council come have a meeting in the library instead of where they usually hold the meetings and one of the council people came in and said gee I didn't know you had that many books here and then complained how hot it was and our librarian here said well you know be careful those two floor frames and then complained how hot it was and our librarian here said well you know be careful those two floor fans please trip over the court so we can soothe the city because that was their condition they had an air conditioner within the week and they didn't even ask so you know invite them over invite them to your meeting room and see how they like it okay so I'm going to open this up to questions we're kind of ahead of schedule here you know that never hurts and in fact I might have an alternate suggestion of kind of meeting and groups in the separate locations a little extra to maybe a little longer break but have it a little directed anyways here as I said kind of at the end by the end of this I would give you something that if you can phrase your technology plan this way or the things you actually want to accomplish you've probably done all the other stuff I've talked about okay so under the recommendations kind of in the end you say something like in the next 12 months the library will learn how to use our computers which will result in us being able to help the people who actually walk in the door in fact you might want to do that sooner than 12 months make that the next three months in the next two years the library will decommission the 15 year old computers and replace them with new equipment which will result in patrons being able to do you know actually use word instead of word perfect I don't know something to that effect phrase it like this if you can phrase what it is what your goals are what your actions are like this you've pretty much accomplished all of these things that I've been talking about questions or comments in general we've got plenty of time whether from the remote locations or from the audience if you want to back up to something I talked about earlier you thought about another piece of technology you want to try to get out of me exactly how you find the time to do this again we can try to do that again if you want here's one other recommendation I will make just go to google type in library technology plant and go read others now you might find some big ones Topeka, Seattle Salt Lake City wouldn't hurt to read them just to see what they're dealing with then you'll find some smaller ones some medium sized ones you'll probably find some really small ones too you might have to go hunting a little more this assumes they're on the web there's the catch it's not that the small libraries don't have technology plans it's the really small libraries don't necessarily have websites and even if they do they don't necessarily put the technology plan on the website but go find others they can scale and even if you read Salt Lake Cities and you're nowhere near the size of Salt Lake City they're still a library they're still dealing with a lot of the same issues you are dealing with they're still having budget problems they still have those special patrons they still have computers that don't work they still have photocopiers that smudge they're still a library Richard oh web junction actually that would be Kendra's presentation oh yes there is all okay Krista why don't you go ahead what Richard is talking about is web junction is a website for librarians to get to that you can share information and they've got courses and documents and things there's a whole section on there on technology planning where librarians share what they've done and you can look at other libraries plans on there as well so go to webjunction.org and look for technology planning on there as well and that's what actually our next session is going to be about a resource in web junction that you can use anything come in from the remote sessions? any questions comment yes yep talk to your texts some of you might just have the guy come in I'm assuming it's a guy apologize and say you say please go fix that then you go off in the other direction while they fix it yes yes try talking to them trust me I'm stressing try talking to them some of them can talk normal person a lot better than others okay and unless you're paying them by the minute you know if you didn't understand what they explained to you tell them to try again yes oh yes and I'm repeating what she said not just answering the question she was basically suggesting talk to the folks and the scuttlebut you got recently was canon is going to stop making okay the scuttlebut recently is that some major provider of microfilm readers will be stopping others will probably follow suit at least on the analog devices and will be moving to digital so if you have the old analog devices things like new ones and parts in the next coming years might be a problem now that you know that maybe part of your technology plan is trying to deal with that issue this is why I want to stress again the whole thing about finding a tech blog somewhere and at least reading all the headlines okay because at least then you'll kind of get an idea of what us geeks are talking about and what's coming down the pike and what might be happening and what might be being cancelled and what might be changing and what might new might be happening so you can kind of react so you can be a little more proactive as opposed to reactive I have a question I just want to say so the lesson learned from that is talk to your tech guys and your repair guys when they come in and see what they'll tell you become friends with them yes feed them feed them some of you bake I know feed them we have a question from Scott's book which is actually to either Michael or anybody I think who has dealt with this issue does anyone have any suggestions on how to train staff on topics they really don't want to be trained on and the groans yes which was half of my list right wasn't it anybody have any tricks or tips they've used yeah things will continue until morale improves well okay Laura's got something to say that I might follow that at one level eventually you've got to have people who will deal with this stuff and if your staffers won't deal with this stuff they need work somewhere else at another level some of them are wonderful people who do wonderful jobs and if you have other people who can handle it great but I think to me the big thing is showing them what's in it for them if you can find a practical use for it for someone to learn I think they're much more willing to learn it and yeah especially a Facebook fan in another few years do you have children do you want to know what they're doing get on Facebook the comment here was she's not a Facebook fan and I will add neither am I but if you want to know what the kids or grandkids are doing get on Facebook because that's how you're going to find out we have librarians learning together a Facebook page which would be a great place to for instance post something like your text said that Canon was going to stop making microfilm reader printers here's a place to actually exchange some of these interesting tidbits that are worth knowing Pam you had your hand up well to the mission of your library the mission of your library is to be a technology resource for your community then it has to be in the job description and in the valuation of every one of your employees that they serve that mission Pam was saying that looking at the mission of your library the job descriptions and evaluations need to serve that mission technology is part of that mission that needs to be accounted for and to be dealt with I'm kind of glad Laura said what she said because that was pretty much what I was going to say and I'm glad somebody else said it besides me one time and a lot of you for those of you in the room who are directors or board members there is a leadership component to this I understand that some people are very nice people and you really don't want to tell them that they've got to learn this to keep their job but maybe you do I'm not picking on anybody in particular I am not and what that thing is is going to differ from library to library but we are in a position as a library that just I don't want to bother to have to learn that maybe needs to be not accepted anymore in certain circumstances and that's something that to a certain level even makes me uncomfortable to say but enough of you are nodding your head yes that I know I'm not alone in this and that happens pretty much anywhere else we are nice people okay we aren't in this for the money really anyone here in this for the money MLS makes lower salary we are public employees so we are doubly not in it for the money we want to help people we want to get along we want everybody to be happy but we are at points some of us where those budgets don't allow us to be that nice anymore in some cases and yes even the technology is part of the problem just the whole ebooks thing completely separate conversation but you know where are we going with that so we've got to adjust somehow and in some cases it will come down to a point of leadership I know of libraries that basically are like you know we do annual evaluations and you are expected by your next evaluation to learn how to do x, y, and z and if you haven't and you can't give me a really good reason as to why you haven't you are not keeping that job anymore you are expected to keep up now I will admit that is a larger library but there are more and more libraries that is just that's what is coming down to these days any other comments from outside just north plant when we first were talking about just a big stick well you can have a big carrot too I do think it helps a lot if you can really define what it is you want people to learn you have to actually be able to tell them what it is you want them to learn not that you want them to get techy you have to be pretty specific you need to as Michael was saying as part of your plan you have to have a deadline you have to have dates you celebrate your small victories when they learn something small celebrate it that's a great thing and a support it people who need to learn something need to have the time to learn it they need to have the time to reinforce their learning they need to be able to show off their learning and very often that are kind of technical that people do infrequently are really hard for people to learn what you really need there is cheat sheets you really well good great minds we all work except if you remember nothing else cheat sheets George the one thing I will say is that most interfaces are relatively homogenous there is a lot of stuff which will be different from one thing but an awful lot of the time you really learn one program if you go and you are like well I was here before you look around you can probably find something similar and hope you are waiting for it things really aren't just randomly thrown together 15 years ago everything was different but now it's been told to still what George is stressing is that a lot of software today there are a lot of consistencies between the software I am pretty much constantly asked to help people with software I have no familiarity with but I don't know if I can put my finger on specifics but I have used enough software that I kind of have learned how software works does anybody know the keyboard command in word for print control P ok what is the keyboard command for print in excel control P powerpoint control P your web browser control P control F that we talked about earlier a lot of these things are not even the software let's assume you are using windows if you can learn basic skills you can apply them across the board yes go for it very good point HVAC manufacturers and what their distributorship lines were we are getting HVAC questions here for reference for those of you in the remote locations yes yeah ok ok I am going to the applications that you have in the library you can't help somebody just because you know how the toolbar works right you understand what you can do right the comment was sometimes it is not just the mechanics of knowing control P as print but knowing what it is you can accomplish with the tool or what it is you are trying to accomplish with the tool recently I found myself when requested for information or when requested with a how do I do my first response is ok what are you trying to accomplish because sometimes the question they are asking is the way they think what they need to do to get to where they need to be and really there is maybe a better way to get there so sometimes with the technology there is a reference interview what is it you are trying to accomplish and then you can better answer in the more familiarity you have with the tools that are available they might be in the completely wrong tool but if you don't know that then they can't necessarily be able to help them corollary how do you transfer that to the rest of the people on your staff so that it is sustainable right well I can probably give you 15 ways you can do it one of which might work in your situation staff blog printed cheat sheets in a notebook with page protectors um wiki if you want to go that way my first things seem to be tech but if ultimately I think what that is going to boil down to first of all make sure you are even telling them in the first place ok so the methodology is you need to share that information former co-worker, former job we were kind of going through this information management phase and she created the Karen got hit by a truck notebook and it was Karen's documentation of how she she handled database renewals and all these things that Susan Alana do a lot of at our place and so if her joke was if I get hit by a truck here is how to do my job ok and she literally she put like clip art of a semi truck on the front of it and called it Karen got hit by a truck notebook you might not need to be that literal about it but document it somewhere then once you've picked your documentation method as the director courage encourage if not require the rest of the staff to be paying attention to that resource ok it's enough to put it on a blog but if nobody on the staff is reading that blog it's not going to do any good and so that's where you need to be making sure that the staff is participating in whatever that methodology is you came up with and that they're also contributing to it if at all possible cause all of your staff knows something the rest of the staff doesn't at least one person is shaking their head no I am not going to ask publicly what their response is to that but you know so figure out a way for your group of people to share information and then make sure they're using it and that I think comes back down to that leadership the evaluations it's part of your job you are expected to sort of thing ok we are running out short on time do we have anything remotely coming in do you think I have one more comment in front of me not recently ok yes oh yeah no all this technology is great don't forget the books yeah no I and come to my house I'll show you my several thousand books I mean I no not without a deposit anyways and I can't wait until the ones in college finally get their own places so I can put the library in cause half my books are in boxes so yeah as much as those of you have met me and talked to me and know I'm a geek and I'm going to get the cool new phone because it's a cool new phone and whatever I am still a book lover I am still enjoy when I've worked a reference desk and I loved answering the phone because I knew it wasn't a computer question about the 30 machines behind me so I can still totally relate to kind of the old school librarianship that most of you are dealing with on a daily basis and I appreciate that as a library patron too so as much as I talk the tech you know I am glad you are all doing the jobs you are doing