 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. But if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show as we are doing today and it will be posted to our archive website afterwards for you to watch at your convenience. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you will find all of our archives. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have on Encompass Live. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries. So, so much your state library. So, we provide services to all types of libraries in the state. So, we have shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, corrections, historical societies, museums, etc., anything and everything. Really, our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. We have book reviews, interviews, many training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We sometimes have Nebraska Library Commission staff come on the show and do presentations about services and programs we offer here through the Commission, but we also bring in guest speakers from all across the country. And that's what we have today with us. There we go. It is Robin Newell. Good morning, Robin. Good morning, Christa. And she is from just south of us here on the Emporia Public Library in Kansas. Robin used to be here in Nebraska, previously. I did. Yeah, a long time ago. I still have family. And I still have family there, so I'll be back. Of course, yes. And she is going to talk to us today about retirement, what we all need to know to plan for a successful retirement, hopefully, at some point in our lives. So, I'll hand it over to you, Robin, to take it away and tell us all about it. All right. Thank you very much. Just a little bit about the presentation. It came about during COVID, about late 2020, when I started seeing a lot of our librarians retiring. And I thought about this might be a really good conference presentation and a good time to start talking about retirement, because I hadn't seen this just entire tier of librarians of all different types retiring, academic, public. There just seemed to be a lot of people saying, okay, this seems to be a good time to retire. So, I started talking with people. I talk with a lot of retirees, and I'll mention some of those later. And I also did some reading and some literature. The really thing that really drove it forward for me was thinking about my husband's retirement and my retirement. So, it is time to ease on down, ease on down the road. Now, if you're up a certain age, you'll recognize that song, and you'll know why I used it. Because that's what this process is, is an ease on down, ease on down the road, because you're going to want to start that journey, and you're going to want to take it take it slow and easy. Okay. And for whatever reason, we are not we are not okay. Nope. Sorry. Hold on. You should be able to just click on it to advance the slide. Yeah. Or right there. There we go. So, why should you retire? And that's probably the biggest question. Again, I'm going to be telling you some of my personal information. I'll be talking about professional information. But why you should retire? One of them is you're just done. I've had a lot of experience with retirees. I watched my dad, who was a farmer in Nebraska retire. I don't know, I got tired of counting. He retired from farming, and then he went back and he retired from from driving a truck for a farmer, and then he went, you know, he retired. And so just a lot of different types of retirement. My mom was a school lunch lady for over 25 years. And she retired, she was done. I mean, she just she just flat out said, I don't want to do anything for a while. She took that painting. And she traveled the craft circuit in Nebraska for 15 years selling crafts and going to craft shows. And for somebody who never traveled loved doing that. So there's just a lot of different types of why you want to retire. But one of them is you're just done. You're ready to let the rains go. You're ready for somebody else to take charge. You've lost your edge. You know, you just can kind of tell when you're not so much interested in going to conferences anymore, you're just not so much interested in what that newest technology trend is. And it's really good that you can recognize that in yourself and think about, you know, what does your next step need to be does your next step need to be to push yourself to develop as a professional, or is it a time to turn a page and go somewhere else? And that that comes with knowing when to retire, but don't retire on the job. I've seen individuals who who really did lose their edge and didn't retire and just kind of hung on and hung on and hung on until until it got kind of embarrassing for their colleagues. It got embarrassing for their staff. So don't retire on the job. Another reason to retire is you've accomplished it all. You've done what you wanted to do in your career. Part of that was a big part of my decision to retire, which I'll be doing here at the end of this month. I feel like I've had a wonderful career. I feel like I've accomplished what I wanted to do, and I'm ready to do something else now. So for my for my director career, I am a library director for my director career. I feel like I have made made the changes that I wanted to make and I can move on now. Congratulations to you to retiring. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Age is a huge part of this. So I told you I'm going to be giving you some some other experiences. I've I've watched three husbands retire. I've watched a husband retire at age 62 and he only lived eight more years. So his time was short after retirement. And that is something you really need to think about is, you know, what is your age? What are your family genetics? Another husband retired at 62. And he's now pushing 80 and he's doing he's doing fine. He retired at 62 because he was going to be dead at 63 because of his family genetics and everything. So we really can't guess about that. But it is a good thing to to take into consideration is what your age is and what your health is. Another part of COVID. And I think that that was again part of that COVID drive for a lot of librarians to retire is they saw people's health really affected after they had COVID. And they and they if they were older and that COVID effect was dramatic, they realized that they don't have all the time in the world. And as much as we would like to live forever, it's just not going to happen. Again, age is something to think about and whether the time is growing short for you. Like you said, the beginning of this COVID has changed a lot for everybody. I think it has. Yeah. And and again, just a personal for me. We shut the library down our library and employee on on March 16 of 2020. And my husband went into the hospital for a surprise surgery on March 17 where they put in he had open heart surgery. They put in five bypasses. And when when you have something like that happen, when you have that COVID stress, and you have this health situation come up that you've never had before. And again, an individual who's 62, he'd already retired once he again went back to work. So that age and those genetics and that health really make a difference. And the other other situations you want to do something new, my husband retired my after 39 years of teaching middle school science and math, he was he wanted to do something new. So he drove he drove a bus school bus and he loved being with those kids. He still likes being with those kids. So he wanted to do something new. He didn't want to be back in the classroom. He didn't want to have to deal with the the politics of administration and and the bus barn seemed to to work really well for him. So doing something new is definitely something to think about as far as why you want to retire. And then his interest comes first. And I want to talk a little bit about this. You really need to think about yourself and your responsibility yourself. They will find someone else to fill your position. And that's okay. Don't ever think that you are irreplaceable. A long time ago, one of my great library mentors said, you know, think about sticking your finger in a glass and pulling it out and seeing how fast that that hole fills up with water because they will find somebody to fill your position. So although we like to think about ourselves as being irreplaceable, some of us do, there there is always somebody that can replace you and it may be more than one person. And I saw that happen in COVID with the COVID retirees too. We saw we saw positions empty and they would hire two individuals. We saw positions empty and they wouldn't rework the entire job descriptions. So lots of changes with retirees. And I want to say that it's not just about retirement is not just about the individual that's retiring. Retiring affects the entire organization. It affects management. It affects the frontline staff. It affects your institutional knowledge. You've got somebody that's retiring that may have been there for 20 years or 10 years or even five years at this day and age. So you're losing some institutional memory. I like to think about retirement in a holistic fashion in that everybody is touched by the person who's retiring. And that's why thinking about retirement is not just not for the retiree but it's also for the other individuals that come into contact with that individual who is retiring. And then the other the last thing why retire you need that physical body to do some things. If you want to travel when you retire, if you want to you know be able to go and see grandkids, if you want to be able to do that world tour around the earth, you're going to need that physical body to do some of these things. So that can be a very important reason to retire if you have some health problems. So when should you retire? Again it's a very personal decision. It's a decision that you make with lots of information and we'll talk about that just a little bit. There's tons of resources out there for you but it's a very personal decision when you retire. It's a decision you make with your family support, with your colleagues support, but it's a decision that you have to make at some point. Again your age comes into play, your social security situation, what does that look like? Are you in a relationship? Are you married? Can you claim on your partner's social security? Do you retire when you're at the earliest social security age? Do you wait until 70 when you can get the most? There's just all of these moving parts and you should have a retirement plan. Now somebody said when should I start on retirement plan? And I had this conversation back with another colleague when I was working in Papillion, Nebraska, who had just turned up 65 and was retiring and she's like, I don't understand why we don't talk more about retirement. It's like a little secret or something like that. Why we don't do more education about retirement? Why we aren't having programs about retirement in our libraries? People can come together and talk about their social security and what would be best. And I know that there are some that's done, but I really don't think that we do enough of that. So you should have a retirement plan. And that's a timeline. That's a financial plan. That's a future plan. And again, you'll need that physical body to do the things you want to do, if you want to do, you know, go skiing. COVID really pushed the priority buttons for a lot of people. Again, like I said, this was driven by COVID and just the tons of people that I saw retiring. And I will say to you right now, I'm just kind of starting to see that ease off a little bit. I saw the most of them start again in late 2020. And then through 2021, I just saw a lot of leaders step away from their position. So let's talk about retirement. You've heard of the five stages of grief. Well, there are the five stages of retirement as well. The first stage is free retirement. This is when you're going to think about what your new life should look like. And you want to plan for it. So use your imagination. It's a prime of excitement and anticipation you can set and think about, you know, where do I want to live? What do I want to do? Do I need to buy a new car before I retire? Do I need to buy a new house? Do I need to move? So this is the time for you to think about all the possibilities and dream big. There's nothing you cannot do without the support of your family and your colleagues. So imagine your new life. Imagine what you want to do and then plan for it. It is a time of excitement and anticipation. And I think about this kind of like if you are graduating from college or getting married or something like that. It's one of those life stages. So it's a time of excitement for retirement. The second stage is full retirement. And this is when you're done. And you've stepped away and you've separated. And it's very liberating. It's kind of like a honeymoon. It's like you can do whatever you want. You're free to a certain degree. You can just feel the rains kind of fall away and hopefully the stress fall away unless you pick up a different kind of stress. And it can last for one to two years. And it's a time of rest and relaxation. It's a time to change your routine if this is something that you want to do. I'm having ongoing discussions right now with my husband who wakes up every morning at 5.30. And I would like to wake up at 7 o'clock in the morning. So it's a time to change that routine if you want to change that routine. But think about what you want your full retirement to look like. So this fun full retirement happy time can last again a couple of years. And then disenchantment can set in. The emotional high wears off. You start kind of missing people. There's a sense of disappointment and disillusionment. Did I make the right decision? For me right now I'm retiring two years before I thought I would. And I've got a little bit of that going on right now is like am I making the right decision? And I expect to have some of that in a couple of years too once my honeymoon phase wears off of should I've gone two more years? Should I have? Should I would? And I guess we you know we second guess ourselves all the time as humans is just something we do. So there is that possibility of a sense of disappointment and disillusionment. And then there's the downside. Something's missing. I am the type A. I work a lot. I love what I do. I love my profession. I love the people I work with. I love I'm a public librarian so I love that excitement of coming to work every day and literally not knowing what's going to walk through the door. That to me is part of why I like the profession. The people that I meet the problems that they have that we're able to resolve whether it's I can't print my bus pass or I've got cancer. What does this mean? The ability to do that is going to leave. So I'm missing that. And unless I fill that with something else that's going to meet those needs, there will be something missing. Boredom can set in. I've seen one person who retired who turned to their computer and would get up at like one o'clock in the afternoon and play computer games until three o'clock in the morning. Just bored didn't have anything else to do. Felt very bad for that individual because they weren't happy but they didn't know what else to do. Loneliness can creep in if you don't stay in touch with your friends and your colleagues. Luckily we learned that through COVID that you don't always have to be face to face in person with people. Zoom has been wonderful as far as not just Zoom, but just the technology has been wonderful to stay in touch with family, to stay in touch with colleagues. And I know that COVID time for a lot of people was a very, very lonely time when they had to be quarantined. Our senior citizens really that were quarantined to their room really felt that loneliness that we weren't able to come in and visit. Children were the same way. Grandparents couldn't visit their grandkids. Loneliness is something that you need to be aware of when it hits you that, yeah, it is just a normal part of the retirement process. And then the feeling useless is like, well, you know, I'm not a teacher anymore. You know, what am I going to do if I'm not a teacher anymore or I'm not a librarian anymore? What am I going to do? Well, again, you've had a successful career. You've been working your entire life. I will guarantee you that there is somebody that can use your skills and all you have to do is barely raise your hands and they will be coming to you and asking. The fourth step is the period of actual reorientation. And then this is the most challenging stage because you have to think about creating yourself anew. You're going to be doing something different. And for instance, it's like, I'm not going to be working necessarily in a library again, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working in the library profession. I can be a consultant for public libraries. I can be a rep for Baker and Taylor, and I shouldn't have said Baker and Taylor, but I can be a rep for a book for a vendor, a library vendor. There's just lots of options. But you are going to have to create that new identity because what you did before is not necessarily something you will do in the future. And for many of us, that's kind of a relief. So I love to volunteer and I'll be doing some volunteer work. And I'm looking forward to doing something not necessarily in a library, but for other organizations. So think about what kind of identity you want to have in the future and then go about creating that. The reorientation is going to help you provide a sense of closure. If you know that that's coming, if you know that you're going to have to think about creating a new identity, then you know that you're going to have to think about being done with working days. Now, that doesn't mean you sit all day long. It just means from working in your field maybe or working in your profession, but there's going to be a sense of closure. And you have to be okay with letting that door close. And again, you'll find out that there'll be many other doors that will open to you as a retiree. And this is time to find something that gives you a sense of meaningful purpose. You want to pursue a passion, volunteer and add new fun activities, or you might want to go back to work to do something completely different. You might want to work in a customer service position somewhere else or in office or part-time doing whatever. But again, that's the opportunities that retirees have right now. And of course, with the baby boomers retiring and everything, there's lots of opportunities for those people to be employed in a part-time fashion. The last step in retirement is reconciliation and stability. This could start up to 15 years after the official start of your retirement. I saw this with my mom. Like I said, she was a school lunch lady. She did that for over 25 years, and then she retired and took up this painting craft thing that she was very successful with. And she did that for about 15 years. And then her health caught up with her and with my dad who also traveled with her, and they had to quit traveling. And so it was almost 15 years after the official start of her retirement that she really, I don't want to say hit the wall, but it was kind of like hitting the wall when she couldn't travel anymore. But that's when that stability took over and she found another way to fill her volunteer hours and to do something with crafts and to be able to paint. And she still paints paints today. She's 90 by the way, lives by herself and still drives, which is kind of scary, but yeah. And she's in Nebraska. But again, this is a process. It's not like on September 30th, I retired, I'm done. This is a journey. This is a process. And it will continue after that last day of retirement. So you're going to settle into a fun and rewarding retirement lifestyle, whatever that looks like to you, because you get to make the choices now. And I just want to reiterate that after I told you the story about the individual who was so unhappy and bored. Like you're making the choices. Nobody else is your boss unless you're in a relationship and you have to do that kind of stuff. But yeah, that's something that's hard for some people to adjust to. They've always had some place or someone telling them, here's what your day is now. Here's what you do with yourself from like the first time you start preschool all the way until your retire. And now you get to decide. And sometimes I think that's hard to like, how do I decide to do with it? Yeah. And it's not only not just the partner. What we're seeing is a lot of retirees are taking care of grandkids. And we're also seeing a lot of retirees who who right now before they retired, they may be caregivers for their parent. They may be living with a mother or a father and being the caregiver. And going to work is a place like you said for them to go outside the home. And when they retire and they're there all day long, it's a completely different dynamic. So the choices are yours though. We have so many, like I said, so many resources in our world today as far as options for caregiving and that type of thing that those choices to settle into a fun and rewarding retirement lifestyle are yours unless you're married or in a relationship or in a partnership. Anyway, you want to really focus on maintaining your health and independence during that time. And again, this can start up to 15 years after your official started retirement. I've seen it happen in a lot of cases that the next month after where they realize that because they've moved, they have to get new doctors or, you know, lots of different things have or they've moved into another area. They've moved out of their three-story Victorian home into a ranch style. So there can be much more independent now. They don't need to have the health cleaning the house like they used to have to pay for. So there's just a lot of a lot of questions and a lot of decisions to be made. So how to retire? We're going to talk about the workplace now. I'll just remind everybody since we're about halfway through the officially time today. If you do have any questions, comments, thoughts on this, on what Robin's talking about, go ahead and type into your question section. And we can answer them. All right. So we're going to talk about how to retire and we're talking about the workplace first. So you're going to give your notice. Is your notice firm or is it flexible? Are you going to be done on December 30th period? Or is there a possibility that you could be flexible and work until they transition somebody into your position? Be very careful with that transition situation. Make sure that you're going to be available as you go forward. But those are two negotiables for you. Is it going to be a done done or is it going to be, hey, I can work until I can train somebody else. Ask what the workplace needs. Do they need overlap? Do they need an interim? And then once you find that out, what's going to work the best for you? Because you have to say true to yourself. There should be a succession plan. If you don't have a succession plan or succession policy, you need one. And I will be sending that to Krista to put out there on that magic archives place that she says she has. I will send you a succession plan that you can look at. We have one in Emporia. Succession plans are wonderful. You know their plans. So it can change at the drop of a hat. And that's what happened with us. We had a wonderful succession plan. We all had it all in place. And then for my retirement, our assistant director left in November of last year. And that everything went out the window and we had to start over with a new succession plan. But because the staff know who the manager in charge will be, it really helps alleviate some of the stress. You want to prepare your board for your retirement too? The Kansas trustee manual is out there on the web, the 2020 Kansas trustee manual. If you have never seen how to prepare a public library board for a director leaving, it's a really good board resource. And I would strongly suggest you talk to your board president if you're a library director or your supervisor. If you have a firm retirement date, you need to kind of start having that discussion with them or your HR department or whoever it is you talk with. But you do need to have that discussion so that the board can prepare, especially in a public library with a director situation to prepare to hire someone else. I'm going to mention this just a little bit because it's kept coming up with my discussions of directors who had retired. When you retire, you just need to step away for a while. The comments that I was having from directors who had retired was that they'd heard a lot of unpleasant stories about directors who retired and then wanted to not turn their key in. They really wanted to come back in the building and shelf books. They really wanted to come back in the building and look in the staff area. So they really wanted to be on the library board. They really wanted to be on the friends of the library board. So there needs to be a little bit of space there for that next director that's coming in or that next staff person is coming in. So there is great orientation ability. There's great training ability there for that relationship. But you can't turn it loose. It's not a helpful situation. So that's a how to retire workplace hint. This is definitely right. Sounds like it may possibly be people who were maybe really not ready to retire even though they thought they were. That's correct. Or they wanted to retire and wanted to come in and be able to do what they wanted to do when they weren't the director. Here's how to retire personal. You need to have a financial planner. Start early. I mean, if you don't already have a financial planner and you're over 55, I would really suggest that you start looking for one. Make sure that you get somebody that's licensed and knows what they're doing. That's retirement finances. Now your financial planner, you can talk about your personal finances and a little bit about social security and how should I invest my money early on. But you should really look at your retirement finances and depending on what stage you're in, you're going to have a completely different retirement system than we have in Kansas. So when I say capers, that's our Kansas Public Employee Retirement System. So just think about this in your own retirement system. If you have one, you need to check for your dates as far as when you can retire, how you can retire, do you have to give 60 days notice? What happens after you retire? Kansas has a very interesting situation where when I retire, I can't work for my library or talk with my library for 60 days. For teachers who are also under capers, it's 120 days. So that's Kansas. I don't know what there is in Nebraska or other states, but I highly recommend that you check your retirement dates. And this is for your retirement plans, not social security and Medicare that happens. This is the retirement finances. And then make sure you sign up for Medicare and I've got it's a mystery because oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And you know, many of us are learned people and Medicare. I started with Medicare with my mom and dad back in the in the 90s when they retired the first time. And I was just amazed that they were expecting. Yeah, it's just a lot at the lot of different, different missing pieces. It's Medicare part alphabet soup. There's Medicare Part A, there's Medicare Part B, there's Medicare Part D, you know, and you will learn that. But again, start now because when you sign up, it's interesting even to the point where you can sign up and think that you've done exactly what you were supposed to do and it's wrong. And you call in and they say, yeah, I see where you signed up for this date. But for whatever reason, it's wrong. So start early, make sure you understand Medicare, the different parts of Medicare and when you have to sign up for Medicare because they do, they will find you and penalize you. And this is national, this is, this is for everybody. They will, if you don't sign up at the right time for the right part, they can find you for the rest of your life. Social security is another one. I feel like social security is a little bit easier to understand than Medicare, because there seems to be less, less pieces to it. There's not that alphabet soup. But you do need to look at your social security, have a social security account, make sure you're going in there and checking that every year to see where you stand. Know, again, if you are retiring on a certain date, know what you're supposed to get on that date and check in and be savvy as far as, you know, if you work X amount of years, you'll get so much money more. And then there's a way to figure out when the best date is to retire for you as far as when it is usually 70s is when that max is out. So, do look at your social security. If you haven't gone to Social Security.gov yet, go there and get an account set up and then be checking that in every year. Succession planning. Again, I will send you a succession plan. It relieves anxiety, it's plan, it's a plan for who is next. It helps you develop staff talent and cross-train. And it's a plan to plan. It says Huba, but I forgot to take that off. But I will send the sample succession to policy to Krista and she'll put it up on the archive page. And then get started today. Don't put that off. Don't think I'm not going to retire for another two years. We don't really need a succession plan. You don't know what's going to happen. The succession plan that we did in Emporia was when I took a position in Destin, Florida for about four days and that position didn't work. And I came back to Emporia and they took me back. And when that happened, we all agreed, not only me, but the board agreed that we needed to have a succession plan because when I said, hey, I've got a job in Destin, Florida, they all went, no, no, you're the director, blah, blah, blah. So that succession plan really relieves anxiety with the staff. It relieves anxiety with the board because there's something on paper. There's something that they can look at. And it's a tiered situation now where you've got an assistant director or if that person's not there, then somebody else stepped in. But get started on that today. There's no reason at all why you can't have a succession. And I think it helps those staff know that, sorry, yes, you may want me to be here forever, but no. I can't. Exactly. And this is, here's a plan for when that will happen and just keep that in your mind that someday I will be moving on to something else. Yes. Well, and our staff see that succession plan. I mean, we are, we're very transparent with our staff. We've got 20 people on staff and any policy or any plan that goes to the board goes to our staff as well. So, and you can't really have a succession plan without going to the assistant director and saying, hey, do you want to be next? And going to the technical services person and saying, hey, do you want to be third? So they are part of that succession plan. I mean, it's not just one that the board and the director sit down and do themselves. But again, the template helps a ton. So think about to, you mentioned earlier in your presentation about how being responsible to yourself and what you need to do for you, you were don't feel guilty about leaving your, leaving them, you know, leaving their job. You know, you're not responsible for what happens afterwards. If you have this succession plan in place, you know what will happen and you've got it all planned out and you're not just like leaving them hanging. I think that really helps. Yeah. And they feel, they feel comforted and they feel like you're taking good care of them. It's an empathetic way to retire to have that plan in place. It's a kinder, it's a kinder, gentler way, I guess. So for the transition, if you, if you are, and I'm going to talk from director here for a minute, but it's really not just for directors. You, I'm going to say develop a building book. If you will go to the association for rural and small libraries, website, there is an individual there who does a wonderful job of teaching how to develop a building book. And it's my understanding that her resources may be on that website. So that's the association of rural and small libraries. I got to give her props. I think, I think it's a great book. I, I did not put that as part of this presentation because it is, it is hers, hers alone. But do develop a building book. And I'm talking about where's the cut off on the gas? You know, how do you turn the water off? Who do you call when the toilet overflows? Just those kind of things. So that the next person is not walking in blinded. They have at least something on paper that they can look at. And hopefully that transition book will be the first, one of the first things that they skim that first week on the job. Now, the reason I say it not just for directors, you should have documentation for any of your positions, you know, wherever you're at, if you're an ILL person, if you're a cataloger, you know, wherever you're retiring from, you should have some kind of documentation of, of what you do every day or how, you know, if Wednesday is the day that you send the books off on the courier, then that should be in that transition notebook. So we do encourage individuals to be cross-trained, but we also encourage the building of a paper or an online document so that individual can, that new person can have a clue. And that's part of the document the daily. Don't do so much with library director because it's kind of hard to document the daily because, you know, like, what's, what's a normal day like Robin? This is like, I have no normal days, but I do have cyclical things that happen. The board report happens, you know, financial reports happen, we pay the bills. So there, those cyclical things, I document more than document the daily because my routine, I'm a morning person, so my routine is going to be different, maybe then, and I work from like eight to five, my routine is going to be different from maybe an afternoon or evening person that might come in at 10 and work till six or seven. And again, encourage the transparency and cross-training. This is not a time for people to silo themselves or have these turf wars about, you know, we're not going to share information. You just need to get over that because you want to make sure that the new people that are coming in have what they need to do their job. Purge and prepare. And I can't say that capital P on that purge enough. This is a time to go through whatever it is you have been stacking up or putting in file drawers or in the storage room downstairs and get rid of it. If you're, if you haven't touched it or you haven't used it and it doesn't mean to be archived. Now, you know, you don't want to toss the stuff that needs to be archived or kept for legal purposes, but get rid of it. Do the new person a favor and don't make them have to go through your stuff. So you want to purge and prepare for that next person. So here's another caper saying, have a contract with the library to answer questions. Again, I can't, I can't even contract with Emporia Public Library to answer questions after my 60 days. I have to wait until after 60 days to even contract with them. But I will have a written contract to work with that library if they so desire. And I will be paid as a consultant. I don't mind answering small questions, but if it's large questions, it's definitely going to be a consulting thing. But that's that caper state. I can't retire on September 30th and October 5th. Have somebody call me and say, oh my gosh, Robin, we need you to come in and work with us on this budget. And no, I can't do it. So know your, know your dates. That's what I was going to ask. Can they contact you, but that 60 days goes both directions. Oh, yes, ma'am. Yeah. Kansas, check your state. I think of it almost like a non-conflict, no conflict. Sure. You know, it's like, you know, we don't, yeah. So, and it's also a double dip clause. That's why it happened in the first place. Sure. They had teachers that were retiring and they would retire on in May and then they would go back and teach in September, which is more, or, you know, it was less than 120 days. And in teachers, and in teachers, you have to have a contract and look, librarians in Kansas are just well employees. So there's no contract there. That teachers have contracts. So they were seeing people double dipping. They were getting their capers and they just gone right back to work. So there is that time period there that they built into that because of the double dipping. Please realize that once you announce your retirement, you will be viewed differently by the board and the staff. This one was kind of interesting. It was almost like being a lame duck. It's just like, oh, okay. So no communication, not as much communication. And the staff kind of were not happy at first. The board wasn't happy at first either. But they work through that. And, you know, that you'll hear things like cheater, you know, quitter, that kind of cheater, but quitter. And I can't believe you're leaving. You know, what are we going to do? And just that kind of stuff, all those comments. But you just smile and nod and tell them how wonderful they are. And they're going to do a great job and with the board as well. You know, just reassure them that somebody's going to come in there and run that library just as well as you did, if not better. So you will be viewed differently. Your relationship with those individuals will change. When you announce your retirement, you'll find that some individuals who you felt like you were close to in a working relationship will not want to continue that as a friendship. And then you'll find others that will absolutely, you know, I want to stay in touch with you after you retire. Rob and I, you know, let's go have lunch. Let's go have a drink. So those relationships will be different after you retire. You want to see your librarianship activities to their natural end. Now, this one is about being on a professional organization. You know, if you're the president of your state organization, you want to try to see that to the end. If you're the secretary of a library organization, you want to try to see those activities to their natural end. I was able to do that with KLA. I was not at the Kansas Library Association. I'm past president there. I was not able to do that with the Mountain Plains Library Association where I was the president because we moved from the state in June. And one of the requirements of the Mountain Plains Library Association is you have to live in the 12th state region to be an officer. And we moved to the Gulf Coast, which is certainly not in the Mountain Plains Library area anymore. And I had to resign about halfway through my term there. But if you can, this is one of those you try to do a good job, but you also have to think about yourself. And for me, it was time for me to make that move. So try to see your librarianship activities to their natural end. And you're give me for the day is the transition notebook, which I will, it's not on Hova, again, didn't take that out. But I will send that to Krista. And she can put that up. This is compliments of retired librarian Chris Ripple. This is a great fill in the blank transition notebook. I've used it. Other people have used it. Again, it's a great template. It's not everything. Nothing is everything. But it is something to work towards. And I've started mine. I haven't finished yet, but I've got a couple more weeks here. And it's something that you, if you're going to retire in the next year, I would say to wait until you're about six months out to start filling it in, because there are some things that could change in that six month period between you starting to fill that out and then retiring. But again, a great place to start and a great place to just, again, skim down for yourself and think about what do I need to do before I retire. And this is a transition notebook for the library, not for retiring, but to retire from the library to transition. One of my, one of my library directors that I, that had resigned, retired about, I don't know, a year ago, when I was talking with her, she said this and, and it reminded me of this picture that I had taken not long ago. But it's lovely on the other side. This is the dock that goes out into the bay where we live. And, and I think about that other side a lot. It is, it is definitely a journey and, and a path and, and a lot of excitement and a lot of work on my lack, you know, moving as work, if you move. But it is lovely on the other side. Don't procrastinate. If you're thinking of retiring, your work is finished when you decide to step away, not when somebody tells you to step away, but when you decide to step away. Get out of the way. Let people do their work. Don't burn bridges. It's going to be a tough one sometimes. You will have, you think you're going to have the luxury of time, like I said, that six months out. Time will pass very quickly. When you decide that you're going to retire and you have a date, date in your head, you will, you will find that there's lots of paperwork that has to be done. There's lots of planning that has to be done. Just, it will go very, very quickly. Understand as a retiree, you're very competent and you will be recruited. People, people will know that you have worked in a library. They will know that you are smart. They will know that you know how to use your resources and they will not hesitate to recruit you for everything from service organizations to churches to, yeah, just lots of different things. Very important for you to learn your boundaries and how to say no. My husband and I just worked the mullet festival. The mullet is a fish here that they actually throw, but we worked the Optimus Club mullet festival this weekend. We have been looking for a service organization in this community to work with and we just had a wonderful time, but we've also been recruited for a couple of other things that we've had to say, no, we're still looking. We're still looking. So know what you want to do, know your boundaries, because the other thing I've heard is don't take on too many things. Know your limits. If you're going to start consulting, it makes it tough, but then be a brain trust and think about doing some consulting. Retirement restrictions. I don't know why that came up. Know your dates. Be aware of the five stages of retirement and be prepared to grieve after you leave, and then the best is yet to be. Invest more time in friendships, and I heard this again over and over with the people that I work with. Here's four books, Pre and Post, Retirement Tips for Librarians by Carol Smallwood. Get What's Yours by Lawrence Hoppe, by those authors, and Get What's Yours for Medicare, 10 Costly Medicare Mistakes. These aren't necessarily the most wonderful, but this is what I found. This is what I used. The Carol Smallwood book is a little old, and there's a good possibility that someone will be writing another one of these. Retirement Tips for Librarians, but these are great resources for you. Thanks to those who have gone or are going on before me, these are the people that I interviewed. Rob Beggs in Topeka, Carol Barda in Manhattan, Cynthia Burner, Wichita, Roger Carzill in Iowa, Laura in Northeast Kansas, Linda Nuff in Manhattan, Gina Millsap at Topeka, Richard Miller from the National Library Commission. Are there any questions, and these are part of my retirement. These are our three littles. We have six grandkids. These are the three of those twins that are four and Coraline, who is five, all born within a year, so very close. It was like, yeah. So here's my information. If you want to contact me, please do. My phone number still works on that 6203406464. I'll be glad to talk to you. I love to visit about libraries and retirement and any other library questions you might have, and you just want to bounce it off of people that. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Christa. Thank you, Robin. Okay. Yeah, we do have some comments. Thank you so much. This is a great session. Definitely. I don't know how close I am to retirement yet, but it's always in the back of my mind as things go on and on. So no matter what age, yeah, where you're at. And so we do have a few, some comments. Anybody have any questions? Get them typed in. Even though it's just 11 o'clock, we did start after 11. So we will keep going as long as it takes to answer your questions or anything else Robin wants to share. So please do type in your questions. I will let people know right now before we get into that, that yes, as I said, the show is being recorded. The recording will be available by the end of the day tomorrow. It's got a process through, go to webinar on YouTube, so that should be ready. The slides will also eventually be ready. I'll be available. Robin has some other things she's doing with this presentation. So maybe sometime after the end of this month. Yeah. I'll send all those to you. Yeah. But then the planning guides and things you're going to send, you'll send those right away. Okay. Yeah. So we'll have those linked off of the archive page for you right off the bat. So that will all be available. So we have some comments. Someone says, the stages as listed, those five stages would help me generate a to-do list for each stage. They said that was very nice. Yeah. And someone says in reference to the Medicare issues that her husband is 70 and uses good Rx instead of paying for part D and that that can save money. So there's a tip. I've heard of good Rx before. Yeah. And someone says the day to retire equals jubilation day. Yeah. Absolutely. That's a good way to look at it, definitely. And thank you for frying the notebook. Thank you for addressing an important topic that is often not often discussed. Someone else says, enjoy your retirement. I have 11 months left. This other person does. Yay. Congratulations. Yeah. And we did one question type thing that did come in. So and it's kind of a general question. She wants to know, do you have any guidance or thoughts to share if someone wants to start the transition to later retirement by moving from a higher stress career to a less demanding career? So thoughts about other jobs that use information and communication skills. So this would be needed work that would sell allows the employee to earn enough of a living without using retirement savings yet. So they want to stop doing what they're doing now and still have another job but not in libraries? Probably. Yes. Or something in that that would use those skills that we have. Like a gradual retirement or a tiered retirement. I don't know. So my sister right now, she's turned 65 in January and she or next January, she will go, she'll go part-time at her business. And so there's a possibility that if you're if you're looking for that same amount of salary, I would look at the skill set you have. And then I would get out there and start looking at job postings and see what other skill sets match up and then start applying for those positions. You know, I've often thought a public library director could probably be a nursing home administrator. As far as I, you know, you don't have to know the medical, but you have to know the administration and you have to know people and you don't have to know the public. So I think that's the same type of thought process that this individual would need to go through. They would need to think about what type of environment do I want to work in and then what transferable skills. And if they're looking at doing something like that, I mean, I don't think it's ever too early to start looking at job postings and talking with other individuals that work in those positions. And sometimes retiring isn't, this is the end of my job career, my job life. It's sometimes people retire and you mentioned going back, you know, getting bored and going back. It could be your first retirement, you're retiring from this career, but going to go into something else because you just are still, you know, young enough to be able to do that. And, you know, you said, but you're someone 90 years old still going strong, you can't be working. It's just you're retiring from the current thing you're in and maybe you will just go to something else. Yeah, exactly. And again, we saw that a lot with the boomers. We had a lot of boomers who start retiring at 50-55. My husband could have retired at 55 with his points in the school system, but then what? So a lot of people did go into second careers, but yeah, you just need to think about, again, easier choices and you can make yourself over and go for it. And a lot of people do go into consulting. They do become that that brain trust and then, you know, put their card out there and say, you know, I can do leadership development for your church. I can do, you know, that type of thing. So yeah, that's a good tip too, that consulting, creating your own kind of little business. And I've seen lots of people do that. I don't, I no longer want to be right in the library world, but I want, I still want to help those people doing that. So I will come and do consulting for them. I will do presentations for them on things, on professional development or whatever, but I don't want to be running the library anymore. That's, I'm over with, I'm over that, but I still love the field and I love the work they do. And I have got what you talked about, the institutional knowledge and the history of how things can be done and the experience and expertise. And I can pass that on to other people in this way instead of being actually in the middle of running an actual library. Right. And even something like trustee training, which I, we do, we do trustee orientation for all of our, all of our new board members and a lot of library directors, like, I don't know how to do that. It's like, well, you just call me and I'll come in and train. You know what I'm saying? I mean, there's lots, like you said, it's the institutional knowledge is the experience given forward that we have the opportunity to do as retirees. So. All right. Well, I didn't see any other new questions come in while we were chatting. That's fine. Just another comment that I missed earlier, the title of your presentation, retirement time to ease on Donnie's in the road. Now that song is stuck in my head for the day. Thanks. And I said, that's okay. I'll be humming it along. But that's it. All right. All right. Say it doesn't look there's any other desperate questions. There is Robin's contact info up until the end of this month. And so if you do have any questions, comments, if you want to talk to her about reach out to there. Yeah. So I think we will wrap it up. Thanks so much, Rob. I was glad I was going to have you on the show before you do retire. As I said, Robin was here in Nebraska previously. Good luck with your retirement. I hope you have an easy time of it. I'm sure you've planned appropriately. So I will put my new contact information on that slide as well before I send it to you. Okay, great. So then, yeah, right after this, when we get the slides, you'll be able to reach out to her personally too. I'm not a problem. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. I'm going to pull presenter control to my screen to wrap up and there it is and bring you to our main and compass live page to show you where our archives are. As I said, this is our main and compass live page. If you just use your search engine of choice and type in and compass live the name of the show where the only thing called that on the internet, no one else is allowed to use that name. These are upcoming shows, but our archive links is right here. Here's all of our archives today show be at the top of the page. As I said, by the end of the day tomorrow, have it up here at the very latest everyone who attended today's show and registered for today's show, even if you weren't able to attend live, you get an email from me letting you know when it's ready. We will also push out on our various social media. We have a Facebook page if you like to use Facebook, you post reminders of here to log in for today's show information about our presenters, but we also do post to when our recordings are ready. So I will post up here and we use the end comp live little abbreviation as a hashtag out on Twitter and Instagram. I'll show you here. This is our full show archives. We have a search feature here. If you want to search for any other particular topics, see if we've done a show on a topic, you can search the full show archives are just most recent 12 months. If you want something very current and that is because this is our full archives and I'm not going to scroll all the way to the bottom. As you can see, this is a huge list, but this does go back to when encompass live first premiered, which was January 2009. So we have going like 12 something years of recordings here. So just pay attention to the original broadcast date of anything you watch. If it is some things will stand the test of time, be still good, useful information, but some information will become old and outdated and no longer be accurate or pages and resources might not exist anymore or might not work anymore. So that wraps up for today's show. Thank you everybody for being here. Thank you, Robin. I hope you join us next week. We'll be talking about reader zone. This is a program that can be used for tracking reading, like summer reading programs or any sort of reading events you have. We have a statewide subscription for this for Nebraska libraries. So we'll we've renewed that for the next year. So Jake Ball, the founder of reading zone will be here to talk about that. But it is something if your library is interested in, we highly recommend that we do we do great with our libraries like it. So sign up for that if you want to hear about that or any of our other upcoming shows. Thank you everybody and hope we'll see you on a future episode of encompass live. Bye bye.