 There you are. All right. So, our final lightning round of the day of Big Talk from Small Libraries 2021. A Small Library with Big Dreams. And we have Rachel McMullen and Dilsay Dominguez from Highwood. Highwood Public Library, Highfoot, Illinois. So, go ahead and take your time to tell us about even doing it at your library. Yeah. So, thanks, Christo. We're super excited to be here to share our story here at Big Talk. We definitely have big dreams, but those dreams have been realized through a series of approaches to programming and fundraising that we want to talk about today. And those approaches have seen success. And, you know, we'll talk about this in more detail in just a moment, but we've seen significant increases in the number of visits and program attendance. We've had some wonderful fundraising success. And we also recently were nominated for an IMLS National Gold Medal for Museum and Library Service from U.S. Congressman Brad Snyder. So, we feel like these are works. Thank you. We're so over the moon about that nomination and honored. So, we want to share sort of our recipe for success in hopes that it can benefit others. So, first I'll talk briefly about our library where we are. We're in Highwood, Illinois. That's on the north shore of Chicago. Our community is super interesting. We have a population of just over 5,200. But it's incredibly diverse. In fact, half of our population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and then 32% of our population are foreign-born. So, we face some unique challenges that Dulce can speak to a little bit here. I think to describe Highwood a little bit more, for those of you that are not in the area, Highwood is like one of the north suburbs just outside of Chicago. A part of something known as the North Shore. And the North Shore is known as a very wealthy area, very affluent. Highwood itself is very well known for its local restaurants and its amazing festivals during the holidays. And it's just, like I said, a quick train ride to the city. So, at a glance you wouldn't think that our library was providing the services that it is, or that the city is in need of the diverse things that we see here. So, two things that I want to highlight from this slide is just that at a glance, one might not know that 18% of children are living in poverty, or that 31% of adults do not have a high school diploma. And all that makes the library all the more needed and essential. Yeah, and you know, it's been a collective effort to overcome those challenges or to at least address them. And one of the things that our amazing board did was develop a strategic plan, and that strategic plan was really the first formal strategic plan that the library had. It was implemented in 2018. And since then we've seen incredible changes in our library. The strategic priorities that you see in bullet points here, they're inspired or based on the Aspen Institute's action guide for re-envisioning the public library. So, this allows us to sort of interpret the library as a people, as a place, as a platform, and then further as a literacy hub. So, we're sort of thinking of ways that we can reimagine our little library so that we can really serve our diverse and unique community. And you can see those strategic priorities that are listed there. We're talking about aligning our library services in support of our specific community goals. So, we had to have an awareness of those first, then providing access to content in all formats of being a digital library as well as a physical one. And then ensuring the long term sustainability of public libraries so that we become relevant to our community in ways that we had not previously. And then that last piece is cultivating leadership. And that's a really important thing that we have, you know, and our executive director, who we'll talk about in just a second, she's done an excellent job of empowering her staff to become leaders. So, one of the things, and Dulce can speak to this a little more, one of the things that was presented in our strategic model is a new staffing model. Do you want to talk about that, Dulce? Yeah, like Rachel just mentioned, the strategic priorities, you know, require a very innovative and maybe outside of the box way of looking at staffing from the executive director to the librarians to volunteers that we have. So, while some institutions look at a person's level of education, the degrees, the awards, the spaces that they have been in, what the strategic plan outlines was something that is gained through experience, a genuine understanding and passion for the work. And thinking outside of the box in terms of the characteristics and the skill sets that were needed at the table to execute the plan. So a few of the things that, you know, three main points that are considered in our staffing model is representation. As Rachel said, almost half of the population is of Latino origin. Many of them are recently arrived migrants. So while some, you know, have lived in the Highwood area for over 20 years, there's also families that are coming from Central America and Mexico. So having a representation within the staff that speaks a language that is culturally sensitive, that understand some of the barriers is very important. The second is skill sets. I think that we often joke that we small libraries where many different hats. But I think that with our staff as well, you know, not all of us have a library background, but we do have a background in engagement, social work logistics, which is, which are all things that you need when you're working inside of a library. The third thing we talked, I mentioned it a little bit when it came to representation, but language. There were many families that were coming to the library, but did not see, you know, a collection of books that reflected what they were interested in, or that they could read because it wasn't in their language. So currently 80% of our staff is bilingual, and about half is of immigrant origin as well. Yeah, it's been awesome to be a part of. And, you know, Carmen potlun is our executive director and I think that it really started with her. The new staffing model takes into account the three aspects that I mentioned hiring for experience passion representation and taking into account the necessary skill sets. So this approach is what helped identify our executive director in 2019 and her track record speaks for itself, bringing in several years of experience working with immigrant and Latino communities. And incorporating community engagement strategies that really cultivate and represent all communities for them to feel and understand that it really does take a village to address barriers like inequality, poverty, and, and growing literacy among families. So her approach and programs have proven to be a doorway to progress and opportunity, increasing adult and early childhood literacy access to education and combating the impact of the digital divide. So getting into these approaches. So first we'll talk about programming. The three approaches that you see listed on this slide are again inspired by the strategic plan and then implemented by by our executive director. We before we even develop a program we evaluate these sort of three aspects to determine whether or not the program is going to again be relevant to our specific community. And again, these approaches have seen great success. So at the end of 2019, we saw increases in library visits of up to 20% our adult program attendance was over 250% increase, and then our children and teen attendance increased by 30%. So all of our programming was being well attended people were coming into the library and this year alone, despite the challenges of coded. We've seen again these approaches still be effective with our transition to virtual programming and then developing kind of creative ways to still serve our community. So really the the first approach is opening doors. So we see the library as an opportunity to provide and equip our community with the skills necessary to open doors for themselves. So some of the programs that we implemented and I should say before the strategic plan there weren't necessarily that many programs available and certainly there weren't programs available in Spanish. And now we offer Spanish GED classes we offer ESL conversational classes and we also have health and literacy, health literacy and empowerment programs that are all in Spanish for our community. We also want to support personal growth and that looks like that's that cultivate leadership piece. So when we talk about young adults in particular we try to provide opportunities for them to enhance their their academic performance, but also to have the opportunity to host programs for our younger audiences but also be a critical part of the library. So the two programs that I could really speak to in that regard are homework help program, which since we've been doing virtual homework help since October and we have at this point over 110 hours of academic support that we've provided for a number of students throughout the community. And then our teen advisory board which encourages it. We encourage the members of that board to be able to host programs and develop them. And then that last piece is super critical creating experiences right we focus on experiential learning on develop developing and cultivating those 21st century literacy skills that are super important for our younger community but also for our adults as well who are still trying to adapt to technology and overcome the challenges of the digital divide. So the way that this is expressed is focusing on early literacy initiatives and we have a early literacy program that's in Spanish and then stem and arts education programming. And then I should say that really the underlying principle of all of our programming is that we want to support the personal growth of all of our community so focusing on self actualization and that's inspired again by the by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of the programs that we really have seen a lot of success with is this, you know, since the beginning of the pandemic we started serving meal kits out of the back of the library in our storage facility. And we've served an average of 240 families on a weekly basis with a peak service level of 380 families so again, meeting basic needs while also supporting the personal growth and moving toward self actualization of our of our amazing community. And then do also can talk about the approaches to fundraising here. Yeah, and you know to keep these programs sustainable and consistent and strong. Like we know it's it's fundraising it's having the sufficient funds and resources to be able to continue our programs and not just continue them but grow them. So in just two years our little library has secured close to $200,000 to multi million dollar libraries or big nonprofits that might just seem like jump change but it truly is, you know, a goal that we are very proud of. And this is heavily due to the board of trustees vision and the car and Carmen's innovative implementation approach to community engagement. It has set the foundation for the success of our library. And just the way that we cultivate people can see themselves as part of the work that we are doing. So three different things that we, you know, have kind of implemented into our fundraising approaches one again that community engagement that stems from the board of trustees strategic plan and Carmen's vision and history of partnerships and cultivating relationships. In addition to, you know, community engagement. It's really also about being able to tell your story, being able to tell your story but then also being able to reflect and elevate the stories of the patrons that you serve in a way that is culturally sensitive and and that is realistic. Yes, we have needs but also we have we are resilient and we have the capabilities of leveling the playing field and I think that libraries play that role. And what better way to tell the story than to draw on the people that are implementing these programs and that are serving our patrons. So we truly have just rotated and taken terms, writing grants. And while that, you know, ideally we would love to have a fundraising department or somebody, you know, centered on writing grants. I think that's something that makes our library unique, and that truly helps connect the dots of engaging our community, being able to elevate the story and then drawing on the skill set of our staff to participate in the development piece. And then we'll go on to our capital campaign because that's also a highlight of the fundraising that we've been doing. It gives us really amazing pleasure to be able to share the work that we do the accomplishments and the challenges that we have experienced as a library. And we take great pride in the strides that we have made. We know the but we know that the infrastructure and the technology that we currently have is limiting our ability to help families in the way that is most effective. So thanks to the amazing efforts and the support of the board of trustees and the friends group. We have launched a capital campaign for literacy and transformation. And this capital campaign will help renovate our library and take it into the 21st century. As Rachel mentioned, we have a history of coming together as a as a community. And, you know, crew library because they saw a need so since 1976. The library has not had too many renovations. And you can tell it's serving a great need right now but I know that we can do more. So providing experiential learning, upgrading our technology and having a safe space for children to grow and learn, but also for people to see the library as a community center for leisure recreation and relaxation. So really excited about it. We have raised 43% of our goal. And we also did secure a state grant from state of Illinois for 671,000. So we have quite a way to go, but we are very proud of the, the, the success that we have had so far and we're excited to keep continue going. So just to summarize, because we know we're kind of running a little bit over, but do you want to talk about sustainability? Dulce, a little bit and how what that looks like for us. I think the three main things that we wanted to elevate was just, you know, making sure that library service is relevant and representative of the needs, the interests, and the growth that we see in our, in our community and from our patrons. And it really is data driven and driven by the patrons and their their passions and what they, it is that they want to see. The second thing is that representation really does matter. You know, I think that representation linguistically, culturally, and just having a genuine understanding and care for the community is really important to the work that we have been able to do. And of course, one of the most important pieces is the fundraising success, being able to tie this all together to secure resources and cultivate relationships so that us as a community can come together and make sure that, you know, what we've done in the last two years doesn't just stay in the last two in the last two years, but that it really goes beyond even the staff that's currently there that it's something that that stays there and that has a future for growth. Yeah, so that that's our story, you know, we in even in the like I said since 2018, since the implementation of that strategic plan. And then since Carmen came on it 2019 we have seen so much growth, and we are excited for what our future holds but we do think that the approaches that we've shared with you today are sort of our recipe for success. This is, you know, it wasn't just by chance that we are where we are today or that we've received the funding that we've received it's because we had there was a strategic plan in place there was a specific approaches there was a vision for how to get here. So we believe that these approaches are replicable and they're also sustainable along a period of time so we're excited to see where we're headed to go. And we hope that you are able to kind of take what we've shared here today and maybe make that happen for your library. If you have any questions here are our contact information and also provided a link to the presentation on this slide I know that Chris is going to be posting all the slides to so if you have any questions about anything we're happy to to receive emails and and respond in any way that we can. Yes, absolutely yes I could all that absolutely thank you so much. Dulce and Rachel that was, that's a great information I think very encouraging and inspiring to other people that you can do this have a plan. I do want to share from one of our librarians here Nebraska thank you for referring skills that small rural towns cannot possibly pay an MLIS librarian there are so many communities there's not there's not the money for it's not going to happen. But the skills are just an important as important in all those communities as well as far as staffing. And I should say so we actually use language so Dulce is a librarian we've she doesn't technically have an MLIS but we refer to her as a librarian because she is acting as one. In fact I should say to our executive director doesn't actually hold a college degree, but her experience and her stature in the community and her approach to programming her approach to fundraising that and community engagement in general. Those things have made us incredibly successful so I don't think that the MLIS or or you know that that formalized library education is actually necessary to have an effective and relevant library in the community so that was really a critical element of our strategic plan and I think that it really speaks to the fact that you have to look at a person for their for their skills and their perception and ability to really connect with the community. All right, thank you very much.