 Hello, so we're going to start off with probably the weightiest of the four questions of the day. Our library is neutral and should libraries highlight or should we stay away from social justice and political movements or concerns of different vulnerable populations like undocumented residents, people with mental or physical illnesses or disabilities, recently incarcerated individuals, victims of violence and the many, many, many, many other groups and individuals that feel under threat right now. So are we neutral? Should we highlight social justice or stay away? I know I'm sitting next to the social justice librarian, so that's kind of, I kind of don't want to get smacked for asking that question, but what do you guys think? Crazy time we're in. I was listening to everybody's phones beeping today with that national alert and it's like we're bombarded all the time with these questions about who belongs, who doesn't, who should receive services and who shouldn't receive services. I tend to think that it's about how you define the issue of neutrality and I, with the work that I do, tend to think about these issues with regard to a big table. Who's sitting at the table and, you know, I love the time that we're living in in many ways because it's giving us a chance, at least in my lifetime, this is the first time that we've really had the space and willingness to discuss these issues because we really don't have any choice. So we use words like intersectionality and you know, having a seat at the table and equity and equanimity. So, and I think it's these are important conversations to have. My thoughts around this table and libraries have to do with this question of are libraries going to stay relevant? And I tend to think we're not all at the table when we walk in the library branches. We don't see in large part people of color. We don't see people who have perhaps recently been released from an institution. So oftentimes what we do, what we need to do, what I think we need to do is take those library services to them, which is what I do. Core to the central sort of, you know, our values as librarians is that we provide services regardless of one's ability to pay for them and that in and of itself, I think as a political act, that's the definition of socialism, right? That you get services regardless of your ability to pay. So I think that we are we are going to be political, we're going to stay political. I don't know. I have some other stuff to say, but I can't think of it right now. We can throw it open for the other panelists. Yeah. Anybody else at the table? Yeah, of course. Thank you, Lisa. But actually, I just want to say I'm sitting here not because I want to be far from Valerie, but because I want to look at people's faces. It's very hard for me to not be looking at faces. So actually, it's kind of interesting thing, this whole concept of neutrality and it's like what is neutrality? And I'd actually like to talk about this from the other that what is the position we take? So libraries in a sense, you know, we always talk of ourselves as the great equalizer and so I think of libraries also as the great neutralizer where we are presenting those opinions that are not being heard. So really trying to make it so that everyone can start from that neutral ground. We really aren't neutral. We do provide services. We pick, you know, viewpoints. We have to support whatever our city council or our board of supervisors, whatever their opinion is. So really as a starting point, we're not neutral. We take a stand on intellectual freedom. We do take a stand and we do things like that, you know, for us in our library. The moment Trump was elected, we are a county which has a lot of undocumented people. The first thing we did was printed off hundreds of little red cards to hand out. So, you know, we have these. We take a stand, but the point is of bringing everyone to a neutral starting point. This point, kind of the equity that making it an equal sort of ground for everyone. But I just want to mention the other thing that I think is really important for us as libraries, you know, we see ourselves as this very, you know, which should I say, fair. We want to represent all viewpoints, but what is the image we have in the public and it's not. It's not a neutral image. We are seen largely as being a liberal organization, as supporting liberal causes. And I'll just give you and those of you who know me know that I'm a big storyteller. We started at our library, this thing, a series called Community Matters, Public Discourse at the Library. And we were one of the topics we did was gun control, gun, not gun control, it was called gun violence, sorry. And I was really, I mean, I could find people on the side of gun control very, very easily, but I really wanted some, you know, a panelist on the side of gun rights. And it was almost impossible in my county to get someone. I had called the NRA and they would not come. They would not send anyone. And finally, there's a gun instructor in our, in the town where my library is. And he said he would come, but he said on condition that I control the liberals. And I, you know, and I realized that is part of the narrative they're trying to project, that they're trying to, you know, sort of give the impression. But it was interesting because at the end of the program, and he actually came and he was excellent, you know, he completely had the NRA script in his hand and he used it. And he had a lot of his NRA friends in the audience. And they actually came up at the end and shook my hand and said how they were so surprised at the image that they had never thought the library would let people that were talking about gun rights actually be in the room. So to me, that's one of the things for us to be aware of, you know, we might think of ourselves as neutral, but not everyone thinks of us as neutral. And so we need to really figure out how do we improve that image. I'm glad you brought up the issue of the red cars, because when Trump was first elected, we had a bit of batting back and forth, you know, in my system about how we would distribute those cards. Would they go at the reference desk? Would they go at the public information desk, along with all the flyers for everything else? And would where we place them mean that we were taking a position on the information that was contained on them and the issue of immigration? I tend to think that that, like anything else, is just a matter of giving people the real facts. It's not a position to say that you don't have to speak to an ICE agent when they come to your door. And I think that people come to libraries for that kind of information. So I'm happy that, and I'm also happy that we give those cards out not just at branches. We give those cards out at jails. We give those cards out in juvenile hall. They're actually really popular in juvenile hall. We have quite a few kids that we're serving right now who are in on immigration holds. We give them out at homeless shelters so that people know their rights. Giving people information I don't think is necessarily a political stance. It's just what we should be doing in an era where this notion of fake news is even trotted out. Well, we'll take questions at the very end of the panel. Are there two panelists? Anything to add to this discussion? Well, I would add that I think it's important for us to actually embrace and instead of staying away from the issues, actually welcome them as long as we are prepared to be on or either hold seminars with the various opposing views so that we can then educate ourselves and our community about the various opposing views. But it's also important to put this under one possibility would be two civility. Some of you probably know that two civility is yet another growing movement that is a community wide initiative where you choose respect, consideration, empathy in really everything that you do in work and at home. That's the vision for that to be a model of civility. So if you put this under that and you lay the ground rules of in these particular at these events at these at these seminars, we choose civility. We listen, we are respectful and we choose empathy and consideration in our interactions. And so the concept is to address these challenging issues in the community because sometimes people want to talk and they just don't really know how to begin that. So conversations, the hard conversations can be held at the library where we are perceived I think as neutral because we do welcome in our collection in the classes that we try and teach and in the events that we either are partners with or hold. We aim to include all viewpoints. And so I think it's important to be presenting ourselves as such where we do actually we never stay away from the hard conversations. So I'm going to break the first rule of moderating and push back against that a little bit. I'm going to push back just a little bit. I think the concept of neutrality and what you're talking about to me isn't necessarily neutrality. I agree with everything you're saying except the word. So to me we do represent or try to represent all points of view. We are open to everyone but by the very fact of being open to everyone that's a non-neutral stance 100%. And so to me I think that the issue of neutrality is something that we stand in the great halls of Susan Hildreth. So I'll reference how Susan Hildreth describes it as we've hidden behind this this guys this shield of neutrality in order to remain politically viable, viable for funding regardless of the politics of your community. But it's really not neutral what we do and have been doing for the last 100 or 200 years just by the very nature of you know since libraries open to more than just men who could pay the membership fee we're not we're just we're not neutral just by the very nature of being inclusive. So I guess it's it's kind of a fine point of how you define neutrality. I'll just add you know we have stakeholders that might not agree with the stance of social justice and doing right by the whole community. So we still have to take that into consideration when we're dealing with trying to serve vulnerable populations. But at our library we definitely do everything possible within those boundaries of not upsetting stakeholders and city council members and you know so we definitely educate we program all of our collection development is based in that too but we also try to hire and social media but I think hiring is a good way to approach things as well. So I just want to add something else so you know it's also interesting like when we talk of vulnerable populations who is vulnerable and you know which are the hidden populations and the elections were a really good indication of groups that really a lot of the people that voted for the current administration were not what we would call library users and many of them are just you know vulnerable in different ways they are being marginalized whether you're the you know the white church woman or you are you know whatever I mean and to use like the what should I say real cliched you know whether you're a redneck or a blue collar or whatever you know the different groups that we who is who is this vulnerable population we're talking about but you know also Lisa you talked about fake news and that's a big thing for us and I think that's maybe where libraries really we are about this whole where I think our neutrality comes in in sort of a roundabout way that we know because there is so much of news the bots that are bombarding us and taking over our social media you know the whatever artificial intelligence which is being used to discuss to sort of profile us and feed us information whereas for in libraries we are about human information this is we are people this is ideas what you know the founding principles this is ideas off the people for the people by the people this is from human beings and I think that's what makes libraries so special you know but I will say that you know when you really as a library system commit to being available for all people you'll get your own staff who will take you on you know I think of a particular instance we have we have you know our services to homeless shelters and the family justice center through the district attorney's office it's a it's a catch-all space for people who've been victims of violence and our collection for inmates so I'll contain him one wrong we uh I do collection development and I try to get the latest greatest stuff I believe these are our patrons and they deserve the same things that any other patron would like so I wasn't there this day but I heard about this we had a staff person from another branch who came over because she could see that we had a copy of a of a newer book and they were they were completely out at that branch she comes in she sees a collection she goes why are these people getting the brand new good stuff I've worked with this this particular woman for years why why are we not giving them our discards because wouldn't that be a better way to a better use of the money you know sort of more efficient use of the money and I was shocked but I wasn't shocked because as I said this really calls upon us to you know to really put feet to faith do we really believe in equitable library service for all people do we believe that someone who does not have a permanent address deserves the same library service as someone who you know lives in a gay community I don't know it really and I think that the times that we live in are really making us hold our own feet to the fire about this throughout the country and you just gave me the perfect segue to the next question so our next question is what is the library's role and what is effective or what have you found effective to be in a library and working with unhoused or precariously housed individuals or families I'm going to take this one to start so I think we've already named the two you know things that we are obstacles against and as stakeholders and staff so training both of those people both of those groups is essential no matter what library you're at regardless of size urban rule we're dealing with the same situations which is housing mental health and addiction no matter what size library you're at so it's a really crucial time for us in my city did I say I don't represent all of the ideas of my city um there's roadblocks so there's a juxtaposition by what we do with treating homeless and unhoused and precariously housed as to what our police officers might do with treating our homeless and unhoused so we have not quite figured that one out but I'm definitely on a mission to work with our our city and our city manager to kind of figure this out I think our role is definitely crucial we're open to everybody and you know we make a welcoming space for homeless people and at homeless families and my city has a different level of unhoused I I like to say I grew up at this library I worked here for a long time so I definitely learned all of my soldier and triage skills at this place so the unhoused here are definitely different than the unhoused in south san francisco we have a lot of families that live in cars we have a lot of people that are I guess I call them hidden hidden homeless they don't really admit to being homeless they definitely hold their own and you know don't want to to fess up to the situation that they're in so we do our best to help help them in their situation we stay open we have Wi-Fi that connects all the way to the outside so the people that are still outside at closing time are still using our Wi-Fi all night long we will just definitely be running into those roadblocks constantly with our stakeholders and staff so we have recently done a lot of training and I think staff definitely opened up we have a lot of staff that are like you know lifers so just getting that retraining again on how to be sensitive about the situation and how to approach people and how to step back from your own situation and see why are you might be judging a situation I think is super important so I'm all about the training and the partnership with other people we have a couple of different organizations that work in san mateo county that help people find housing but it's rough it's seriously rough how many of you have done ryan dials training the it's fantastic because it just you know we hosted it at our system earlier this year but when I first went through it the one thing that occurred to me he's he's um for those of you who don't know he's a gentleman from Chicago he works in a homeless shelter and um he's taken this this training about how to deal with unhoused individuals and sort of adjusted it for different settings and the one he does for library and libraries is it's truly remarkable but when it when it really gets down my mother used to call it home training just you know how to treat people how to talk to people like you want to be talked to I highly recommend that you bring that to your system because it really is invaluable with just and it breaks down to treating people like human beings it's interesting because at lunch while we were during lunch I heard a couple of people actually speak out against ryan dogs training so it was kind of interesting hopefully that'll come up in the conversation or in the in the while we're having the questions I just want to talk a little bit differently from the point of view of small and rural libraries because we have a completely different the homeless problem is unhoused or you know not stably housed is very very different for rural and smaller libraries because for many of us people are moving out of bigger cities especially in our area because of the rents and jobs all these issues they're moving into smaller and rural areas and we have no services we really have no services one of our neighboring counties was at some point I think they stopped it giving bus passes to people out of their county and many were coming into our area and so it's you know we really put this pressure on the staff where we say okay well create this list and you know we make these lists of how the places where they can get assistance well it's 45 miles away we don't have churches we don't have post offices we don't have anything in many of our areas and we are then saying okay deal with these issues and you have someone who walks into your library who is hungry who doesn't have shoes and needs help how you know I mean I can be as nice as possible but what good is that doing really what so you know I want to really give a shout out to this librarian from Trinidad in Colorado who is amazing and this is again you know I they might not be a lot of rural and small libraries represented here but she what she did is she's dealing with the same problems that all of us are dealing with where you have you know you're in food deserts you really you have just no shelters nothing so she's made it her life goal to educate her city council and and that's I think a lot of what we also need to do to take these censuses to make you know that make the case represent any vulnerable population but the homeless are particularly vulnerable and really make the case for them point out how there is so little that we have in our different areas what can we do about that and you know I mean for this this lady at Trinidad they have this wonderful system of putting food out on a shelf in their fire and it is take something if you need it leave something if you can which is such a great idea and she says you know we don't just say you have to be homeless to to take something you've come for a story time or a story class a children's class and you know and your child is hungry take something but that's so you take away the stigma also that you know it's only if you're homeless you get to take something from this shelf they've also started this program of where they hand out laundry coupons she's partnering with one of the local laundries and someone comes in and you know our first thing is oh well our policy says if you smell so bad you're disrupting services you have to leave well how about we hand them a laundry coupon when you don't have somewhere to live when you're lacking in this most basic of human rights there's a place a safe place to live how can you think about hygiene how I mean that's not even your priority so how can we fill these little go these little needs in our homeless population so really trying to sort of be it's not just about being empathetic and nice and saying hello and treating people about human like human beings yes that is necessary but we also need to try to find a way to fill those gaps you know really again talking about how are we are we neutral how are we an equalizer we need to be an equalizer in many more ways than we are actually doing right now one of the things that we did in Howard County for homeless families and homeless children in particular was that you all have homework centers at your library we made each of our branches a homework center to and from college and career was the tagline and part of the vision for those areas was a place where if you're a child or if you're a parent who knows that your child needs a poster board or some tape or whatever it is you know how those poster their their projects are always do the next day and you never have it at home and you have to go get it well it was a place at each of the branches where a child could ask for it and we wouldn't ask any questions and we got donations for it so it was a way to partner with well partnerships with with is is is part of the role for the library too I think for all of the homeless needs but here in particular it was to maximize the chances of each child actually completing the project because they show up at school and they just couldn't afford the materials that were needed for that poster board project so we supplied all of that at the branches and the tables and all of the scissors and things that were needed and tape for it so that was something but it was donations and we ended up applying a piece of the operating budget for that as well so let's move from poster board into not poster board um do we as libraries and on the whole uh need to get away from focusing on technology so much okay well I think I'm supposed to take that one um so again you know this is it really depends on where you are I don't think I absolutely don't think we should get away from technology this is you know and I'm going to keep going back to that point of being the great equalizer is again you talk of small and rural libraries your opportunities are so limited you know not the things one of the challenges I'll have its staff are like well you know you can't invest money in something that's only going to be a fad well it's a fad today it might be a trend tomorrow and then it might be the norm or it might be a fad today it's here today gone tomorrow that's also okay but one of the things that I think from our point of view is when we're talking you know we're a poor library we have limited resources do we invest in in technology in new technologies yes for sure because from my point of view one of things is not only are you preparing people for the future and this is how it's going and if it does become the norm they are ready this is you know we all know about how technology is in our world but for me I feel that everyone it doesn't matter how poor you are whether you're a homeless person or whether you live in a rural area whatever it is you should have a chance to be a part of the conversation so if google glasses came and went and you never even had a chance to be a part of the conversation how is that fair and I think that libraries we do that we give people a chance to be the part of the be a part of the conversation and so at least from that point of view I think it is important for us to continue to support technology and you know really obviously we we do more and more and more and I think rightly so we do need to keep those broad you know broad sort of bases for people opportunities but technologies needs to remain in that mix and needs to be really a big part of our focus at our library we're relentless we relentlessly teach technology we probably have three we definitely have three adult digital literacy classes a week probably three to four children's digital literacy classes a week and we have tech drop in any open hours anyone can come in with any tech question and we'll handle it and that's all just working around your staffing situations and maybe taking librarians off the reference desk would be an awesome idea um so no I don't think we can get away should we get away no we still have people trying to figure out how to apply for a job that are typing like this no we need to help these people get jobs what one of the great fears that I have though doing what I do is um if if books paper books actually become obsolete because I work in systems um namely the jails um they tried they weren't iPads but they were notepads at um through the alameda county shares department and somehow because when you got a lot of time on your hands you do figure these things out somehow those uh pads were refashioned into cigarette lighters so I thought you were going to go the shiv direction but cigarette lighters all right that's possible too so so then they go away and no hard back books are allowed so we're left with paperback books I I find myself in fear of the day when we don't have paperback books because an entire segment of the population in jails and prisons around this country will be left to their own devices I just recently heard this week at juvenile hall I was not made a part of this conversation so I'm a little irritated about that but the kids are going to be given um iPads as an incentive um and they'll have sort of prescribed games um movies uh some books but books that are open source books PDF versions um and they can be controlled by the facility one of the things you'll constantly hear and I've worked in jails and prisons over half my life um one of the things you'll constantly hear inmates say are people who've been locked up say is I only read when I come to jail and I say good that's fine that's okay um I I think it's it's our responsibility to expose you to as many things as as we possibly can while you're here if you got to be here let me give you some good books to read I just told a kid that the other day um so I live in fear the day that books I I'm noticing every every year when we get our magazine subscription list we have less and less titles available because they're all becoming either no one's reading them or they're becoming digital and that again that leaves an entire thing out of the population now well that's interesting just to comment on the book I don't know if you all have flicker sites I know your libraries do but I have my own flicker site and somebody said to me you know that could actually disappear and you could lose everything the only way to ensure that you've got those pictures is actually to print them so keep a printed copy of anything you want to keep indefinitely it's really the only medium that has withstood every single piece of technology so I Lisa don't think that the book is going anywhere it's always in addition to and it may be something else in 10 years than it is now but I I think I have a millennial son who's 28 and he likes everything he likes the printed he likes the e and so I just don't think that that I'm worried about the printed book going anywhere so that's my own personal I'm not real up on industry trends right now but as I say I see more and more titles that are only available in Kendall version and magazines that are only only available digitally and again we're Jesus said the poor you will have with you always we're always going to have jails and prisons in the society and how are we going to provide information to them so that they're not taking it and refashioning it to cigarette lighter I'm not knocking what you do on your spare time just you know like I don't really want to be a part of it but you know I think that it's going to be in coming up on people who provide services to these folks try to figure that out I think as with multiple media we've seen things shift from physical to digital and I think with with printed the printed word we are seeing it shifted in periodicals first whether it's newspapers or magazines I I think the book's going to take a lot longer to shift because it has been so it has withstood the test of time as you said I know when I started my job as a library director the staff knowing that I had a tech background had spread a rumor that I was going to get rid of all of the printed books in the library and only have computers and digital books and I was like what is wrong with you people like that's the stupidest thing I would ever do like no one's going to do that because some people don't have the devices number one or have access to them or they may not have access to devices that are new enough to receive the content that we have and the formats that we have it those divides are always going to exist until we come into some kind of a utopian society which is very far more rare today so I think the book's going to be around for for a while as I I like talking to my nieces and I've given them digital books and comic books and I've given them physical books and they said auntie don't don't send us the the e-stuff anymore we want the stuff we can touch and they're three and five so that that gives me hope yeah but that wasn't really the topic I just wanted to add one more thing that I think the future's in the balance and I think that what we have done today is capitalize on new technology to achieve efficiencies so that we can prove that we are accountable and responsible fiscally responsible with our budget so to capitalize on the efficiencies and save our staff time so that we can focus on perhaps some other things that are more fun in our work and be be simply more fiscally responsible but the other five g six g is being developed as we speak so what we know today as four g is super fast is going to be even faster in the future and so there will be more and more technology that we can capitalize on for our own operations and also as as teaching tools for for the community but I would just say it's it's always a balance and how much does it cost can we incorporate it and then to be to be forward thinking so that we provide equal opportunity for everyone to to at least be aware of what is happening and and to experience it if we can do that could I just want to add and and really I was not knocking books at all I totally you know miss supporter of the printed a printed word also but I think that is as Valerie says the opportunities using technology are so much in terms of for us the reach increases so much like if you have a parent who doesn't read and write and wants to read to their child a book on you know something like tumble books which many of us have or just something on a Kindle on some kind of small device is so great it gives you that opportunity read along so technology really gives us so many opportunities we've never had we've got all these little the or computers all of you know all these little things that have been like in libraries for so long but really helping children learn to read on their own without their parents help it's there's nothing like technology for that so we have it's it's managing that balance also the idea of in the end we all know that children need that adult interaction that's so core so basic and I think for us at the libraries we need to figure out ways to integrate that bring that make sure we are talking about that a child and you know the parent child or any adult and another person interaction with the child for the child to grow how do we build that into our programs as we are pushing technology more and more because technology is necessary it's not just pushing but really making it available and I think as libraries are one of the earliest adopters of almost every technology as it's come out from microfilm to VHS to I mean typewriters for goodness sake I mean all these things anything a telephone I mean these are all technologies that we've adopted in most cases earlier than other institutions in our communities and certainly faster than most of the other public service institutions in our communities and that kind of leads to our last formal question and I'll get to all of your questions which is should libraries be providing virtual reality and augmented reality services and programs that seems to be one of the many hot technology topics of the day right now so is this an area where we should be paying attention well I would say that that is a for my response to that would be similar to the technology question earlier this this notion that we can capitalize on virtual reality for instance if you've got a building project and you want the community to experience what that new branch is going to look like put it in virtual reality invite them to come and experience it they will both learn the technology itself and then actually be able to for foresee what it's going to look like it's a completely different experience if you've never experienced it before so we can use it for our own benefit while also teaching the community and enabling them the opportunity to experience it and well if you have STEM education initiatives you can maybe partner with some high tech companies around here and maybe even be the first to and Howard Canyon we had one of those little robots we called them Zeus and we programmed them to say hello and have various conversations and it was one of the first experiences for the whole community there so it's good for the image of the library while also an educational opportunity for the entire community to actually experience some of what they probably just read about and then have the ability to to to experience that at the library so I think this question stems from the California State Grant that a lot of us received and got VR equipment I'll show you this sign virtual reality coming soon this has been in our library for about a year there's obstacles and roadblocks just like everything training staff so about 90 libraries in California received virtual reality equipment I'd love to know how many are actually utilizing it wonderful so there's age restrictions on it so you have to be 13 years old to actually use it there's cords there's safety issues there's equipment there's space issues but it definitely is educational it's immersive it's a social kind of education you could get from it and benefit from it we have not quite figured out how to make it work out in our space so it's coming soon here's an idea for you the next time you work with an architect on a project put that in the agreement that they'll put together the virtual reality for it and we'll be present at the branches for a week at a time yeah and there are so many great ways used and as you know if you if you have a child in your library who's planning to be a surgeon someday this is the reality so much of what they're already doing is using you know tools just like this you know training to be a pilot there's all these different things one really interesting thing one of our library staff who's now left us but and gone to a different library system did which was so touching to me is he this library has a lot of immigrant populations there and so he had this program for the for adults and they each well you have the glasses but you can also view on the computer on the side what they are watching and so he had people go using Google Maps this whole combination which you can do now all these great things Google Earth go to their home where they came from and everyone in the room got to see their homes and it was such a touching amazing thing to have different immigrants sharing what where they had come from and so you can just take things like this and make it into so much more than just virtual reality try this new gadget it's sort of a real community building opportunity you can do different things I've heard of people taking them out for like outreach at senior centers so people who are homebound can still virtually go places yeah we have our annual fundraiser which is coming back coming up in a week and we had our all our VR equipment at the last one it was so popular I mean and these are really a lot of wealthy people who have access to all kinds of things for them it was something new it was amazing and you know so we were really able to leverage that and they really wanted back again at our fundraiser this year so we're going to do that have it there and it's really educates everyone people love learning about what's out there and again as I say I really feel it is important for everyone to be part of the conversation if someone wants to say is VR good or bad or is AR good or bad they need to have tried it they need at least that opportunity to know what is it really like before I you know weigh in on this and I mean just going back to the issue of equity you know that that old library campaign it you can get it at the library we can if we can provide these technologies to people who are I don't know who it was we were on the phone and we were talking about this technology and offering virtual reality technology to people in hospice so that they so that they you know and they've they've noticed that their heart rate goes down and they're much more calm about this process that we're all going to go through I think if we if libraries can offer that to everyone we should actually we should absolutely be doing it what you said about the the truth being somewhere in the balance is absolutely true we don't need to do too much we don't need to do too little the secret is is is getting that sweet spot where it's just available to everyone and I think this is just a great example of how libraries do equalize the playing field with technology I mean Oculus is releasing a standalone wireless headset very shortly that's going to be more affordable but more affordable is still way out of reach for most people and the first the first VR situations that we had as options for us were thousands of dollars you had to buy a high end gaming computer with great graphics cards and high processing speeds you had to buy the headset itself you had to buy the peripherals I mean it's it's an expensive endeavor and I don't think any of our library staff could afford to buy one for themselves at home without great sacrifice of something else like a vacation or food or something and so I think it's not it's it's one of those great things where I mean I can think back to when the first computers came out the first computer I bought was a Tandy anybody remember Tandy yeah it was three thousand dollars that's insane and I mean you think about that now it's crazy but at the time that was that that was on the cheap end but I knew I needed it for college and so I was going to buy myself a computer but the libraries I didn't know this the libraries had computers at the university that I didn't really need to buy one for myself and I think this is another good example of that where it is so price prohibitive for such the bulk of our community or maybe just outside their scope of awareness as you were saying like these could be very wealthy people who could afford this but it's just not something on their radar to buy but we can introduce these technologies that can bring education that can bring a moment of joy that can bring an aha that might stimulate the next great invention and that's that way that we service everyone in the community and get to that equity piece that we started off by talking about so with that I'd like to turn it over to the audience for questions I think we have a mic runner somewhere with a mic yeah we've got two okay we've got one mic runner all right so what questions do you have for us we've got about 14 minutes left so we've got a good amount of time I think there's one way at the back so until recent until recently I'm the community I work in was a farming community mostly of pit fruit so apricots that sort of thing nuts and so we've we're in an interesting spot where we've got a very large still rural sort of focused community with roughly 32 36 thousand people that are all new to the area and we're stuffed into a room about the third the size of where you're snow about know about the size of where you're seating sitting right now and I heard somebody mention about computer classes and I'm the first adult services provider in the in the area ever and that position was created last year so I've been trying to get people to come in to learn computer because we have people that have actually never even interfaced with a computer and it's it's very strange because I've not had a single person show up and I've reached out I'm like what ideas might you have to make people understand that just learning the basics to get yourself started is an important part of modern life and that you'll need it I mean we're relentless we just keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it and if nobody shows then that's okay we just keep doing it we advertise a lot on social media we announce it every program we have I think that our tech drop-in situation really helps because we handle any question at any time yeah so but I would just be relentless make sure your classes are on a schedule that is consistent all the time and if you're teaching one person then that's great yeah so yeah if I could just answer we are in a very I'm in Monterey County which is a big agricultural community and some of it is really understanding who you're trying to serve that is really important one of the things you can do is actually talk to the employers because now even to run a tractor you have to be able to use a computer I mean there is a high level of technology in agriculture and one of our things we've seen is that employers will refer people that they see as having potential they want to make them into managers will refer them and this is both for our technology programs and also our literacy programs and I'll just tell you one of the things we did for our literacy program is and I realize nuts and apricots and I'll really have more of a year-round kind of a thing but I know you have a peak season and not so much but for our literacy program one of the things we did was we broke the year up into the growing season and the learning season and the learning season was when people are out of the field so from November to March is when we were doing these real targeted programs and that might be something if you work with the employers and say how can we do this how can we get your people and that might be a really good way to do it and I just want to add I haven't worked in rural environment but what I have found one of our sites I mentioned was at the family justice center which is a catch-all space for victims of I shouldn't say victims people who have been party in some sort of way to some sort of violence about 60 percent of the people there don't speak English so what we found is reaching them through reaching their kids was a way to get them in so we offered things like we had a back-to-school series of workshops a couple years ago where we just talked about interacting with your child's teacher ways to create a study space in an otherwise chaotic environment and it was packed just because we were trying to because I think most parents most if not all parents have that abiding need to want to make their children's life better than their life was we have a program through you know at the two jails that we serve call start with the story we really want to reach the people who are coming to visit because it's a way to push information about community-based resources and things that the library does but you know just handing people pamphlets is really not going to do the trick but we've got this program start with a story where every kid who visits every single week gets a free book to add to their home library um we do book talks we do story times and in doing that we push information to the parents and and we're overwhelmed there we're overwhelmed so you know just use the kids all right let's get another question in here mic runner literally run hello so I work at a public university library and we know that many of our students are food and housing insecure and but we also get the occasional random homeless community member come again so I think there is a hierarchy of who we have responsibility towards but we also do want to be equitable any thoughts on how we can balance this are you looking at me I just transferred from a public system and having a whole my whole career in public libraries to a university system and I'm very familiar with working I actually did work in a public university where we were open to everyone and had had similar you know it's the public so you get random members the public wandering in and I would say that the first thing is to not make assumptions about whether they are students or not or whether they are homeless or not some people do present as I think you mentioned the invisible homeless someone did anyway and I think that's that's a real big piece is to not make assumptions and I think when you're working in a more specialized environment where you do have a responsibility I'm sure your mission or your value statement says something about students faculty and staff right something like that so that is your primary audience would be my guess your secondary audience might be the public so I would look to your leadership to see you know where where their value values lie and where their ethics would lie in terms of is everyone treated equally as they come into the door or to those those three groups that are paying for or employed by the the organization take precedence over others I think in public libraries it's everybody everybody's everybody's everybody and so we can't kind of draw that same distinction whatsoever in terms of prioritizing who gets help anybody who comes to that door is entitled to the same service I don't know other thoughts I think you know one of the things and I'm not sure this is exactly related to what you're saying but especially in urban systems and I like I saw in the bathrooms over here there's a sign saying not to use the bathroom for more than 10 minutes and you know the toilets were completely empty and if one person wanted to use the toilet for 30 minutes you know why not let them use it but I think sometimes we create rules that sort of infringe on basic human behavior or human needs so you know many of us say no sleeping in the library why not you know really thinking about some of these things that are these rules targeting just like we are picking one vulnerable population and saying this is for you and this is in your face and I think we have to really think about some of these things how we make our rules and why we make them and you know so it and it would affect everyone because you know you might be saying a homeless person is not supposed to sleep in the library I know students sleep in the library all the time in universities especially at exam time so really thinking about this who are we making rules for and why that's a rule I've always wondered about why can't you sleep in the library unless you're being obtrusive with snoring or sort of twitching punching yeah I yeah I guess I've always wondered why that's a rule and I would agree sometimes we just have rules because we've always done it that way and we have to really look at why we that's big in libraries that's just the way we do it I would say just making sure your staff understands why you have like rules such as no you know you're allowed to sleep in the library because staff definitely has a different opinion than you might think and so you know we do not have that you are allowed to sleep at our library and I've definitely been questioned by staff why is this a situation why would we let this happen you know so you have to train gotta explain why yes toward the front I think it's right behind you coming up just um went away in on that because we just started implementing a rule as well with the whole no sleeping no having shoes off and it's not necessarily because it's aimed just off most people but we just like implemented to everyone the same so then we have patrons that are like well why can't I sleep in here and they're sleeping on their laptop but they've been there all day and it's just I think it's there's reasons why those rules are there but it's about implementing it the same for everybody so as long as you're telling you know the kids are sleeping or if the teens are sleeping everybody has to go through the same rule like we have a rule you can't eat in the library and people seem to get really upset when you have a mother and her baby and they're eating inside and they're like why can't I eat in here this is a challenge those rules are for everyone it goes to the person that's eating in the teen room they're throwing pizza at each other it's the same thing so I just wonder waiting on that thank you I have always had so I've always had issues with the no eating and drinking in libraries like what do we think patrons do when they go home yeah until I managed a public library facility and then I realized rats and mice that's why we don't eat in the library so drinking is fine of non-alcoholic beverages but the eating thing I totally get now another question got time for one maybe two more I have a question about libraries and Facebook so recently Facebook has really come out as not a an information source that supports the research of whether the information that's being promoted on the platform is accurate and there have been large issues with their algorithms and the ways they've been targeting their marketing but libraries often use Facebook as a way to reach out to our users and communities and to market our programs do you feel like this affiliation with Facebook is at all damaging to the public image of libraries given their recent controversies oh okay I'll go out in a little bit here so you know we use a lot of platforms there are people who really really dislike graphic novels there are people who dislike well just are allowing people to watch porn in the library there's all kinds of things we do that people don't necessarily like to me I see Facebook as just another entertainment source and why not you know we do we use Twitter we use Instagram we use Facebook so there's a lot of them and you know we might at some point say yeah Facebook it's not really working for us but even if it's reaching one segment you know one small population who have somehow on their Facebook indicated that they read they write they you know watch porn it's like okay library is your source so you know but the point is they are still doing us some amount helping us get the word out and I think for us libraries one of our biggest challenges is getting our reputation out marketing ourselves so any opportunity we have to market ourselves you know especially to tell people all the good we are doing that they're not aware of you know we I there was a mention about a library's remaining relevant that you know my blood boils when I hear people talk about libraries remaining relevant what do you mean we've always been relevant we continue to be relevant we are one of the most nimble organizations we constantly change to serve the public so to me it is you know that all we need to do is make sure people know what we are doing and you use whatever resources you have a Facebook's one of them more power to us then I recently tried to boost a post do you guys know what that means okay so I got denied because the author was a political author so it means you pay for some advertisements so you get more traffic to the the post so because the author was of a political nature they would not let they would not take my payment yeah I think with many technologies they all have their day and then they fade I mean I doubt any of us is on live journal or Facebook anymore or my space anymore so you know times change um so we're out of time please join me and welcome and thanking our wonderful wonderful panel