 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I'm your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar where we cover all sorts of topics that may be of interest to libraries. The show is broadcast live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. But if you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. We need to record the show every week, and then it is posted to our website. And I'll show you where you can get all of our SEAR archives at the end of today's show. Both the live show and recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, neighbors, family, colleagues, anyone who think may be interested in any of our topics. Encompass Live, this is the beginning of the 10th year of Encompass Live. We do have a lot of archives, so I'll warn you right away. If you do go back and look at some of our old shows that you will find some outdated information, perhaps some old info. But everything is dated, so you will know when these sessions were actually presented. But we are librarians, so we do save everything. It's archives. It's archiving for historical purposes. So keep that in mind. We are looking at our archives. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live, interviews, book reviews, demos, many training sessions. Really our only criteria is that it is something library related. Something libraries are doing, something we think they could be doing. Programs and services that we offer here through the Nebraska Library Commission to libraries in our state. And things that libraries are doing everywhere, we bring in guest speakers. Sometimes we have commission staff and sometimes we have guest speakers from elsewhere in Nebraska or elsewhere in the country. So we have a little bit of everything here on the show. This morning we have a mixture of presenters, guests and commission staff. Right next to me is Holly Wolt, who is here from the Nebraska Library Commission. And over next to her is Tom Woltus, who is from the Nebraska Information Technology Commission. So two commissions here. And together they and a few other staff here at the commission and at the Information Technology Commission have been working on a project that we're going to talk to you about today. Nebraska schools and libraries breaking the ice and igniting internet relationships. It's a pretty big project we're working on. Good opportunity for some libraries and schools in the state to get involved. And I'll just hand over to you guys to take over and tell everybody about what we've been doing and what they might be able to do. Well, thank you, Kristen. And so Tom and I are here just to provide you with an overview of a grant that we submitted a proposal that we submitted for funding last week and we're excited about this opportunity. And so today we'd like to tell you a little bit about the opportunity and how we came up with this idea and why we think it fits well for our rural communities, schools and my public libraries to work in a partnership. And we're hoping that you'll take an opportunity to take a look at the application and consider this is something that you can bring back as a library public library director or staff and visit with your public school district and move forward with this opportunity. So anyway, a little bit more about the opportunity and about us again, Chris has already indicated where we come from Tom and I, and I'm excited about this because this is a joint project that we're doing with the O. C. I. O. Office and it's just fun to work within the state system and try to make collaborative collaboration and resources and knowledge to work together. And the amount that we're seeking out here. I know that sometimes if you look at our library commission grants we have some pretty hefty one this one in particular is not so big it's only $25,000 but I think as we explain more about it you'll understand where this is coming from and I think it's kind of a unique idea and appreciate the support of the IMLS to try out some new things related to collaboration and coming up with a new kind of ability to offer a new practice for libraries working on public libraries working all across the country. So the funding request comes from the National Leadership Grant for libraries. And it's anchor institutions and it's called the categories called sparks grant. And so if you're looking at the PowerPoint here talks a little bit about what the sparks grant is which is more again it's an innovative type of idea that we're testing out here and so we're getting a little bit of money and we're getting a brief amount of time. And really to try to to try this out and see will this work or not and so it's a prototype of a proof of concept. Right, exactly. And so we're, we're looking forward to trying this out. And so again we're, we're looking for some communities that are interested in doing this, and that in particular we have five public libraries and public school districts. And we're looking to see if they are interested in providing faster internet at the public library. So, the, some of the ideas for why we're addressing this and you may be familiar with this yourself in your own community is that there are a large number. It's this 88.5 of our for our libraries are ranking in the third amongst the all states for small and rural libraries and so the definition for that is coming out of I'm less than it's for service areas so that that does indicate we only have a a handful of six or so public libraries that would be considered larger than that in our state. Right. And the service area is of 25,000 or less population served is what they consider small rural. Right. And so we're also looking here at some of the survey data that we've collected from the public libraries in 2016 and it indicates that that over 80% of Nebraska public libraries have a service level that's below 25 megabits down and 30 megabits up for for a standard that they have in their library and the broadband standard right at this point in time is considered by the FCC to be that 25 correct Holly that's actually a residential standard. So an individual's home 25 make down three make up would qualify by definition as being broadband. So when we look at the public library there's there's a lot more, you know, use your residential standards for your public library we've got way more use. Yeah, but what we realize is that even attaining that are for all of our libraries would be a significant achievement and being the new minimum. So, we'll introduce you to yet another commission in Nebraska public service commission compiles data broadband availability, and also subscription around Nebraska. Somewhere in the vicinity of 17% of all of our households do not have broadband that meet that definition. And then many of these underserved households are located in the state's rural areas. And we didn't write it here but it's an additional statistic that would translate into almost 50,000 public school students to go home without significant internet. And that helped provide the basis why we wanted to do this train. And then we also see that in most cases and then these communities and you may be very much aware of this to that the only community internet Wi Fi access this free is at the public library. And so again, you know, we know that we see vehicles parked out in the parking lot and people that stop into the library that are traveling but also. Yeah, oftentimes if we have in particular school age kids who after school need to find a place to go to do something that they are often at the library. Whether they're doing academics or they're just chilling with their friends, you know, it is the place that they go to. And again, as we spoke before the speeds are not at a level that can provide, you know, for what the community needs during certain times of the day and then the restriction we have with the public libraries is the fact that there's a limited amount of funds and can you afford to pay for faster internet. And so that's another focus area for us for a challenge. So, from a high level I want to insert something here. Can we talk about this slide. We know that every Nebraska public school district is connected by fiber. We know that they have tremendous amount of internet for their own use, but they also are in a position to share that if they were incentivized with other community anchor institutions, particularly libraries, because they both participate in the e-rate program. So that's a tremendous asset that Nebraska has that not every state does. But on the flip side, you look at our libraries across the state, over 250, and many of them are at a very modest internet speed, but yet they serve the entire community. So if there was any way where we could get the two community anchors to work together and share in the fiber assets of the school, we thought that would be a good thing. Now granted, we love fiber to every household in Nebraska, and we love fiber optics to every library in Nebraska. But we also know that that's not a tomorrow's reality. And so we propose this grant as an interim solution to help communities and also to incentivize our community anchors to work together. So any of you on today's program who also have had children in school or you've come face to face with kids daily, you know that their daily curriculum in school is becoming more and more digital. And they're expected to take content home or access content while at home to complete their homework. And in many of these cases, they don't have sufficient internet access in order to do that. And many of these devices are actually only an issue by the school. The one-to-one, yes. And so we know there's over a hundred thousand of those devices just in Nebraska that are going home with students, and that's very significant. So now the term in quotes there is homework app. So they come home, they have an internet connected device for no internet, what should they do? Well, they go off and resourcefully to anywhere they can to get internet. They might be a family member inside the municipality. They go to the library. It may be a restaurant or a coffee shop that also offers internet. So they're without, and if they don't have removable media to take home, and many of these devices do not accommodate, they have to get internet one way or another. So we're thinking and propose that if the internet from the school could be dropped into the library, not only would it be a great demonstration project, but it could be speeds many times faster than what the library currently has through their internet service provider. This is something that I actually, another thing that kids need access to the internet for is just came up when we had here on snow days. We had Blizzard warning here in April in Lincoln this early this week. And I'd seen in other berries of the country, some people commenting online, the parents about a, even though it's a snow day, that doesn't mean no learning. And the schools are actually setting up, they call it digital learning day. If you can't come to school, here's some things online. You can do your kids just to keep them just sitting around doing nothing during the day they still learn. So they need a connection for that too to keep going even when it's a day off from school for some reason. Correct. The schools are setting up those programs on purpose for this kind of a backup. That's a perfect observation, Christa. About 20% of our Nebraska school districts use learning management systems as a 24 seven strategy, in order to meet their learning outcomes. But we don't have a single learning management system statewide, and many districts have not yet engaged in it as a deliberate strategy. And so some do, but districts are just, just falling short of being able to send kids home with the same exact learning opportunities. But that time is coming. And so the faster we get there, the more internet will be needed. And it will become even more critical. So we talked here about are there opportunities for collaboration between schools and libraries. We think there are certainly that they both can participate in e-rate, but also they both have been a learning instructional and information mission. And students often turn to the library as their place away from home and away from school to to conduct their learning particularly in small groups. So when we're looking at this and talking again, we know that oftentimes it is stated that the library is the only place free Wi-Fi access in many rural communities. But the idea here is that we want to think about the free Wi-Fi access is available at all times when the school is closed would be our model. Potentially I guess it would have to be an agreement with the school and with the library, but definitely after school to have the ability to use a separate network to be able to have students and staff from the school district to be able to log on. But we know that many of the libraries would not have adequate speed to service both the student population and the patrons in the community. This may be another reason why potentially that sometimes we don't have to see students in some libraries because they've gone there and they can't get the speed that they need to be able to do that. So they are turning to alternative places to do that. And maybe even waiting until if they have a situation where their parents work in another community, they have to wait there to be picked up and they may not even be able to work on their homework. They may not be able to work on their homework necessarily at the library, but they go home and potentially they can. But by then it's after supper, it's late, you know, the mind isn't thinking homework anymore. So that's one thing that I think would be an advantageous with the funding and the setup that we're talking about for this grant. So, and again, we know that the speed is generally not met in the community itself, maybe even in the residential area, it's not available. We talk about putting the school and the library partnership and we know that the school district already has at least that and much faster internet available to be provided to students during the day and hopefully potentially with this grant at the library and after hours or other hours that they agree upon. So it could improve the public access to the internet and because when somebody comes into the library and they want to use the computers that they're being used by students that are in there on the same network instead of on a school network that's been brought into the library. You will find that you know your internet speeds will be way down and diminished. And also the idea is that you could save money with this project. Exactly on one of the earlier slides we mentioned network Nebraska and anyone on today's program can go to www.networknabrasca.net and find out more about the statewide network that serves all public school districts in Nebraska. It's probably lesser known that our statutory obligation or mission is to meet the demand of state government, local government, which includes libraries, as well as educational entities as defined and by definition, that's public and private key 12 and public and private higher ed. So we could directly serve libraries through network Nebraska. But we find that if they work together in a community basis with their school district, they're on rent to network Nebraska would be less expensive and ultimately could save money by their connection. So network Nebraska's mission is faster internet greater reliability and lower costs and we try to do that in every connection that we that we make with any of our community anchors. So here we are we're now at the point where we're going to be talking a little bit about what it is we want to do. We've given you some background and the reasons why we think this is a good idea and we wanted to see if we could get some support for financial support to try this out. So we're looking at an innovative partnership between the public school district and the public library, and we want to increase availability availability and the quality of the internet access. And we look at the Sparks grant, which is a maximum amount of $25,000, which is what we're seeking funding for and we'd like to incentivize a rural school district and their rural library and a community to work together to increase the speed of the library using fixed wireless technology. And if you're going, whoa, you don't know what that is, wait a few minutes and we'll have an explanation on that also. Exactly. And what we propose to IMLS is that we're not going to immediately replace the internet that the library has but instead we're going to augment. For that we mean that the public school district's internet would be shared with the library as an additional network at we wrote as minimum 25 May 3, 3 May up and 25 down. But in reality, the internet speeds at the school district could be replicated over fixed wireless at almost any speed, and we'll make that to be a local decision. If the district wants to share 50 meg of internet, that wouldn't be a problem if they wanted to share 100 meg of internet, that wouldn't be a problem over the technology we're proposing. So I'll reemphasize the current internet service provider relationship would stay in place, and we would drop in an additional network with the most current standards that could be used by any K-12 student or any staff member who have access to the public school network. So our goal would be to create at least one supervised hotspot in each of the public libraries. And it would be available for that school district's K-12 students and in particular the slide doesn't indicate it and staff to be able to come in and use that when it's available to work on their homework. They would be accessing it through their authentication that they have with the school district. And that would be something that would show up as a network for in the library as Tom was talking about as an augmented or secondary network. So when a patron would come in, they would see your current library network and then they would see another network which would be the school network. But that would only be accessible to the K-12 students and staff because there would need to be a log on authentication for the school in order to get to it. And so this would be happening, of course, outside of the school. And that's what's exciting is that the students, once they leave the school, they can still work on their homework or access the internet to do research or whatever it is they need to do. The school technology allows them to do what they could be doing in the library. And then also this would free up some of the existing usage of the internet by students who are in the library. They would be able to have that available to more of the community patrons to use. So in the afternoon hours, you might find adults or young children who generally say, I can't do anything in there. Those kids are in there. And then they would at least be able to come in and also access the internet and work more often than they may be now because they would have a speed available to them. Well, we mentioned fixed wireless could be a new term for many of our library staff. So here we've inserted a slide to try to give you a picture of what we're talking about. The grant would pay for at least two antenna to be placed on the roof of the library and the closest school through a line of sight. All this fixed wireless and it usually travels with a radio signal often called microwave. And as long as these two antenna can see each other without trees or obstruction by buildings, or if they could relay off of a water tower grain elevator. They're capable of incredible bandwidth. Some of these wireless connections around the United States travel up to 25 miles and several hundred megabits of speed. And so that's what we're proposing in order to do a very quick, very inexpensive or affordable technology would be paid for by the grant. And then emanate back to the school district for Internet and then be received by the library and terminate in either a wireless router or a wireless access point, as well as a wired connection to two desktop computers. Brand new that the grant would pay for and be resident within the library. So we want to reemphasize here that fixed wireless is not Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi would happen once the wireless or wired connection is terminated in the library then you would create Wi-Fi within the library, but the actual connection is is wired or wireless. So the next slide here shows you a kind of a pictorial image of what we're proposing. The public school district is connected to network Nebraska. And that's where it's Internet comes from. And so we would use a fixed wireless connection and drop a part of the school's network into the library. As shown as the blue elipse, but the actual ISP Internet in the red, excuse me, red rectangle would stay in place. So we would actually have a network within a network. And as Holly mentioned, a school district student coming in with their smartphone would be able to see both the library connection as well as a district connection. And then they would authenticate back to the public school while sitting in the library. So we look here and this is really our proposed schedule of activities and what will be happening in the during the grant period and the grant period is for just one year. And this is one of the reasons why we are asking for applications ahead of time. We're actually doing some work on this and and putting our positioning ourselves to be hitting the ground running May 1 with our five communities already identified and to begin our work. I just want to mention to you, we, if you see over on the on the right side, there's this phase one and phase two is on the left side there. This is the indication of pretty much phase one is what will be getting done within our year. And the phase two optional is more of an area for what what we hope once you experience this high speed and your community from the library from the school to the library that you will consider making a more permanent. Not an augmentation, I could still be an augmentation, I guess, but. So, let's kind of frame this from the beginning and I don't know if we mentioned when will I have that last promise is a grand award. Well, I expected to be here. But in April, sometime in April, we'll get that. And like I said, and we will have already identified the five communities that we're going to be working with. And go ahead. So the whole application process we're talking about today that's being launched with applications to March 9. We're doing all this in preparation as if we will receive the grant, but we don't know that. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. So this is all only. Right. The one thing I'd like to say and the effort of everybody that's been engaged in it. We did. We did. There's a two, two step process to this and we did pass the first step of submission, which is the proposal on five pages or three pages. Right. Yes, right. We are invited to submit the full proposal, which was last Tuesday, we submitted it and it is a bit. It's a, it's a lot of effort. So we, we, the both agencies, I think feel very strongly that this is a very good idea. And we would like to see it at least get a nod for trying it at a small scale. So what's not on this slide is that applications are out today. They're due on March 9. They'll be reviewed and prioritized so that by the funding notification in April, we'll already know preferably which five district library combinations that we hope to work with. And then by May, we will be boots on the ground at each of the five communities to start meeting and to actually be breaking the ice between schools and libraries that have never likely shared infrastructure or internet before this will be a brand new relationship. We'll equip you with a media package that you can send to local newspapers, and we'll also do a statewide news release. And then immediately in May and June, the Nebraska Library Commission with the 25,000 will purchase the equipment on behalf of the library in the school, the fixed wireless equipment, the desktop computers. And then we're ready for installation in the summer months, July and August. And then by August and September at the start of school, the library would be able to conduct an open house announcing their local project and inviting students and staff in to reach their high speed internet. And then what we'd ask is, you begin to collect data about the number of student and staff patrons that will visit the library throughout the entire year, but particularly between then and winter months because an optional phase two may start. Do you want to be library. Well, that we have stuff on that future slide. Yeah, true. The other piece of this is, you know, one of their, there's some things that we would like, we are, you will agree to do and one of them is to working with making sure you engage in library training. You may have had it in the past, you may have had it recently, but part of what we're asking each library to do is participate in that and that would be Krista's area as our E-ray coordinator for the library commission. And so she would be working with you with training and don't, it would not be anything new necessarily unless you make a decision to go forward with a partnership with the school. So you're probably more engaged with a mini consortium entity numbers if you want to talk a little bit about that. And so we didn't put any retraining category one and two, but both would be involved. And for the first time, many libraries will see the newest standard wireless equipment. You go to 11 EC, which is being used in almost 100% of our school districts. So it's faster, more robust than any previous wireless or Wi-Fi standard. So that also will be part of the demonstration. So when we put optional phase two, we would expect all of our five applicants to get through the Wi-Fi and the wireless equipment interconnect. But to go forward from that, where you would solidify a more permanent relationship with your school district will be entirely optional. So we'll explain what it involves, what parts would be played. You form a mini consortium that it is not an expectation that all five of the participants will go forward with phase two. So it's just an option for you to continue with it. You're going to have more costs and with E-ray available, you can get a discount on those costs, equipment, anything else you need to do to keep going with this, the pilot afterwards. And that's what I'll do is help you get through that and we will offer specific. I always do training, basically rate training every fall, but there will be something specific for the libraries and schools involved in this about joining together on a consortium so you work together to get this discount. As we said, it's really optional. We'll be here for you to make that happen. And then the other part of that is, you know, you would actually be working in the community or you would be asking for bids or whatever it is you need that community to move forward for the phase two. So that's pretty exciting. So if you actually did download the PDF that I had for sent out with the announcement for this Encompass Live a few days ago, the minimum assurance is to apply have been modified slightly and we'll make this available for you to access right after our Encompass Live is done. In fact, if I have an email, I can send it to you and then we'll put it out on our website also so it'll be available. But these are again the minutes minimum assurances that the library needs to provide and you'll be the lead on this as far as being able to submit an application versus an accredited library. And then the other piece about this is the library has to be within five miles of the school district, which is 60 to 70 blocks. And there's as Tom was talking about when he was talking about the wireless technology, the geographic and structural impediments between the library rooftop and the school district building rooftop. I don't think we're really going to be asking you to go up on the rooftop. I think that's Sam's job. But I think that I think you'll understand that there will be ways that you can you can determine whether you're in a good situation for that. I can expand. Yeah, so there are limitations to fix wireless or microwave technologies. They do have to be line of sight. So we know that this solution will not fit every community. 150 years ago we were treeless. But because we're also the Nebraska. We have lots of trees in our communities. They're wonderful. But if you were obstructed between the rooftop of the library in the school, and you cannot see a community high point that be classified as a water tower green elevator, common to both rooftops, then you're probably not a candidate for this project. We could help you with trust real interconnections, been through the rate and things like that. But this particular project in low cost affordability and rapid access requires a line of sight connections between rooftops. So just be aware of that before you get outside. Or if it's just trees that something to consider and you're in applying. Is there something you're willing to. This will have to be cut down completely, but trim, you know, figure out where it is. You saw us in the grand. No, but the trees are modifiable. But other things, obviously. So the next one, the library is willing to partner with the local school district. Obviously, if they become part of your upstream internet access. We need to forge a new relationship with the school district. And they need to be aware and willing to partner with the library in order to make that happen. As far as the state CIO's office and network Nebraska is concerned is completely permissible. We cannot require the school district to work with the library. It has to be voluntary. So to that goal we are the state CIO at Toner will be sending an email to all superintendents in the state, either today or tomorrow informing them of this grant possibility and letting superintendents know that libraries may be in contact with them to submit a joint application. That will be a cold call. So if you, if you wait a day, if you're really excited about this, please wait a couple of days before you visit your local districts in front of them. What do libraries and schools have to come up with in terms of. Well, they have to come up with a few bucks here. We're looking at a cost share between decisions made by the school district in the library. We're looking at a cost share between $60 up to $960. And what we're looking to cover with those cost is the cost of the wireless router. As Tom was saying, the most current one, the 802 11 AC. And any type of installation cost. And if there are any access points, we may also be looking at. And remember, these will be an extension of the school network. It's not a replacement for what you have. It is definitely a separate unit and separate wifi. And then any of the cabling that would be required to bring that down into the library and folding table and or a table to be used in four staff chairs, something that maybe you can consolidate in a small area in your library. Oftentimes the small, the libraries that are rural areas are small to begin with. But this would be where we would have our hotspot set up with the two desktop computers to be used. So again, that would be a $960 cost share and the decision. And you may not need to come up with all that money again because you may already have a table sitting around and four chairs, my guess is you may. But if you don't, then we'll need to make sure that we have the actual infrastructure for the hotspot. Right. As much as anything, this was an estimate to IMLS that there would be local buy-in to this project. And that we had to put a dollar amount on the cost share. So that was our estimate for this type of equipment. It was all bought brand new. It is not a requirement that you buy new equipment. If you have chairs, tables, Ethernet cable, and the school had an additional wireless access point. All you need to do is commit it to the project. There would be no new purchases. So just want to make that clear. Do you have a question about the cost? And I think the answer is yes and no. Is the cost a one-time cost? I guess it would depend. This is one time, but it would depend on if you need to continue and do the bottom phase two would be continuing. A very good question. So let's talk about that. On the scheduled events, we showed that the grant performance will end in April of 2019. Let's suppose that a school library, like the interrelationship that has been forged, but they don't want to go to a mini consortium status and the homework hotspot is working just fine. They could elect to keep the fixed wireless equipment in place in perpetuity. And the district continues to share internet there after hours and on weekends. And the library continues to provide this service for area patrons that belong to the school district. Nothing new needs to be done. Nothing wrong. This equipment that we provide to the schools is yours to keep. Correct. That's the thing that this isn't like a, you've got to give it that. The only condition we put is in optional phase two, we would be rebidding a circuit between school and library for a more permanent relationship. And that connection could be copper fiber exceedingly fast. It would be what we'd call trust war, which means underground at which point to fix wireless equipment would no longer be necessary. And we could voluntarily ask for a relocation of that equipment to another school library connection somewhere in the state. So we really, to be quite honest, haven't thought through what would happen with that. But if they wanted to keep it in place and not apply for a mini consortium, there's nothing wrong with that relationship. It can continue as is until the light into that equipment. The library. Staff needs to be willing to share their experiences in particular we're thinking about regional library meetings. And for something comes up across the state that we'd be interested in having to go and provide your story about your library and your school and your community and the impact that this sparks grant has had in that way for you. I believe we're paying for transportation costs for that. We aren't expecting you to take that on your own dime, but I think it's very, it'll be very important for it to be the first hand story that comes out from these communities. Tom and I can go out and talk about it, but I think it's very impactful. Now, if you're super shy and you can't talk, we'll set aside and visit about that later, but don't make that the reason not to apply for this grant. But it is, I think it'll be a great story to tell. And so we would like to keep you and keep that in mind is something that you're, you're willing to do. And as an assurance, and then the very last bullet here is on the face to which is optional we've been talking about this already impact Tom just mentioned about this doing infrastructure upgrades related to after we've completed the grant. And I think for this one we're talking about a willingness to do this. We're hopeful that we will have ignited the fire and that you are actually willing to take the next step on and in our goal in the original the phase one part of this is to equip you with everything that you need related to your training and any type of resources to be able to move forward with phase two and and move on in your community to establish a more permanent connection between the library in the school long term. We do have another question before we go on to this about the school access point. And I think it's a good question. Does the access point have to be the school district building or can it be just any of the schools. We're talking about having a partner with the school district. Sure, if it's a multi building school district, so they have five buildings a high school middle and three elementary, as long as all of them are fiber, they're part of the school district network. So it could be the closest most accessible school, providing it's high bid with access and part of the district network exactly. It could be a question to figure it out once you're making contact. Right. Yeah, I was going to say once you work with the school and figure out how is their fiber set up through all the buildings, you'd be partnering with the school district because they're the one that runs the internet. But yes, whichever school building happens to be close enough to you. Yeah, you just connect with different one of those is the is the closest one to. We have a couple dozen school buildings in the state that are actually restricted by DSL or cable motive, and that's their sole source of internet. They're not part of a full district wide area network. If that's true, they're not going to be a high bandwidth upstream provider for you. And that's a really good question. It'd be rare to find a school that's not hyper connected, but just understand that they are out there. So very good question. So again, since we've talked about this, you could have multiple school buildings in your community. So this rooftop to rooftop thing is, of course, you know, you're looking at any one of them in a smaller community, you could be small enough that you need the five mile limits and just keep looking and I know he's ready to chop their trees. Probably not known, but about two thirds of our Nebraska school districts out of 244 reside within a single structure. So that is so common in rural Nebraska, a K 12 building, three actual schools elementary middle and high, all within one building tends to be a two story or three story structure, which is an advantage because it means the rooftop is higher. Yeah, but that is so typical in rural Nebraska if they haven't built a newer school. In my community, I live just north of there and we have the maintain their two elementary schools in the small communities and then they have the rural school. My guess is they may not have fiber into the small communities. So should we turn to the application or the requirements. Sure. And you have one question I'm just going to respond to right away because it's an easy answer. They want to have access these PowerPoint slides. Yes, at afterwards when the recording is available to you. These slides will be posted online as well so that you can see them and to share them if they want to share it and show it to their school administration. That's great and that was one of the other reasons with the email that I sent out I attached just the one page abstract and also the application form which I just mentioned it's changed it hasn't changed dramatically but prefer that you wait and take the most current one if you need to share that. I think we understand it's somewhat complicated to understand these slides are really good to explain. And it helps if you're talking about this. I mean, not to make it make you nervous about it but terminology is really important so I would encourage you to take the slideshow this PowerPoint and provide it and also of course this will be archived and you will be able to actually see our presentation in a few days to if you wanted to share that as you went through to get more the conversation that went on. So now we'll turn to the actual application process which is available today. The first bullet says that you demonstrate that the school district library candidates for fix wireless technology as we mentioned, it must be line of sight so in the application you're going to provide a map cluster Google map image or a map that shows the actual distance between your library in the nearest school district building. So that'll be helpful. You may not have to climb up on top of the library rough, but you should certainly know that you're a candidate for a direct line of sight eligibility for the project. The second bullet says you include a letter of support from your school district superintendent so that is part of the application process. You'll need to create that relationship or, you know, forge that relationship, or maybe get the superintendent who you already know to write a letter because they're in agreement with what the grant is asking you to do. Yes, that's the point. If the ice is in existence, find a way to break it and we think it'll be mutually beneficial as a project proceeds. The next one has to do with the rate training and Krista has talked about that. The phase two which is optional would require a new build entity number for the school library to work together. That's optional, but it would also make eligible for category one. The wired infrastructure between school library, which would be a more permanent relationship. And so also again we mentioned this before that we're asking for a cost share or your skin in it for up to $960 and that was basically what we had to put into the budget to submit the grant. And we're not sure that will be the amount of money so certainly we can, as we get closer in and we're actually working with the five communities, I honestly believe it will change. And then complete the application fully by March 9 and submit it to us. That would be our, that is our timeline and our date for submission. Exactly when you open the application you'll see other questions about what's your level of the re-participation currently. Do you see student usage of the library after school and weekends, and so you'll answer these other informational and demographic questions as part of the application. That concludes our part of the presentation. And we have the questions continue to take them in. If you have any other questions on monitoring here and I think there was someone did want to know if this would be potentially be a grant that would be that we would do again in the future. We're still trying to get this one done. Well, that's the idea of the Sparks grant, though, is that we, you know, we've discussed this too that it's a, this is a smaller amount of money. We would certainly be hopeful if it's successful and we see this that we wouldn't, for sure, apply for a larger amount. We should mention that this grant concept is already attracting national attention. And there are some folks at the national level who would emerge a much larger and more aggressive. I think we're not going far enough, even for this first trial. So they wanted us to apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars on an untested concept. So that's the point of Sparks grant is to try out something that's new, untried and somewhat risky in that not everybody would participate or maybe the relationship does not, there is not going to be as productive as we thought it might. But certainly if we do have success in the 2018 and 19 grant year, then it could be followed by much larger, more ambitious grant application to follow. So the five communities or if you're and of course if you're interested in making an application, you're going to be the pioneers. So as Tom's talking about this, I think sometimes it's, you know, you want to see a little success before you put your, your boots into it. So, so this is why we're asking for a few, a few communities to come forward and try this out. We honestly feel this is a great partnership that has not been utilized before and we're really excited about it. We know that the internet and is basically it has become the foundation in your public library for much of what you can do and what you can offer in your community. And as an anchor institution in your rural community, we want to be able to sustain your, your position there and sustain the library. Did you want to show you had on the application application? I think you had it up there. Do you want to show that? Yeah. You just hit escape. You can get out and then you'd be able to bring it up. We're not in the bottom. Thank you. Okay. So basically, if you, you did receive this as an attachment potentially. And so we just, again, this is also very good to take with you as you're visiting about it. So people can understand there's some background information. So this will be made available to you if you guys know any later. Yeah. The updated one. And this is the current assurances that we have. This is the only piece of this modified. And then here are the series of questions and they're all pretty easy to answer. Take up as much room as you need. If you feel like you need more space and go for it. It's just a very informal, but we do want all the questions answered. So if you have any help with any of these related to your e-rate participation, if you're a new library director of you can call attack. Yeah. Okay. There we go. I was going to volunteer Sam. But I guess that would be, we'll go with Christa. I think that'd be great. At least you can introduce yourself to each other. And so a little bit more about what, what's happening in your school district. If you know about it, you may need to make some inquiries about that also. If you have anything you wanted to add. No, but we're getting to the end of our time. We want to thank everyone for joining us today on this program. We sincerely encourage applications. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that one, another place where the project timeline is, and this would be also nice to be able to take along with you. That's your. So we did have a net link on here. So this will be the newer one will update this. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then I think if we, if we have your email, we can find it. I'll go ahead and just send you an email with that application today also. And they'll probably be as far as those that are. In the state of Nebraska public libraries, or if you want to go to our website, I will have some type of. Announcement about this. Probably middle of next week. How do we know that the district superintendent. Yeah. But anyone who's signed up to this yet, we can automatically go actively. So you'll, you'll have the most recent copy to begin working on. And if, if somebody works on it, and they didn't have the most recent is just basically an insertion of one page that we'll have to be modified. Well, we really appreciate your taking the time to, to listen to what we're offering as far as the possibility. If our grant is funded, of course. But we think it. Yes. And lots of good questions sounds like people are interested, which is. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. Hi. The final slide that are. Contact information. So feel free to follow up. If you encounter any school district personnel that. Are inquisitive. Please direct them to me and I can. I reassure them that this is. It's okay. Yeah. This is an okay relationship because it does have e-rate implications up to the highest level of our network. But again, everyone is an eligible entity. So. We'd be thrilled to have more libraries. Either directly or indirectly connected to the state network. We buy an awful lot of internet every day. And we love to be able to share it with other community anchors. So thank you so much for your answers. And it's fast. Awesome. All right. All right. Well, thank you very much. And Holly for sharing that with us. Like you said, keep your eyes open. We'll be sending you the application for any of you who signed up here today. So you can take a look at it and keep an eye as. As Holly said on our website. We will be actually announcing more about it. To get even more libraries. So. Hearing about it and sending applications. And yes. Send good thoughts about. I guess what watching I thought about is one of the reasons why the. We. Have a full month of February. So if you are going to take action and you're interested in this. One of the big pieces of that is that you, if you're having to go before some kind of board meeting. Or anything that relates to that. If you're interested in this, one of the big pieces of that is that you, if you're having to go before some kind of board meeting. That's a big piece of information that relates to that in your communities. You want to be sensitive to that and looking at your calendar right now and making sure you get this. This item put on the agenda. So if anything that needs to be done. So that's kind of give you a lot of time. Yeah. The whole month of February to get yourself scheduled. All right. Thank you very much. And thank you everyone attending. On our encompass live website, which you can get to through the library commissions page. Or also if you just use your. We are the only thing called that. So yeah. So encompass live, you can find the commissions page or through here. The recording will be available right here. These are upcoming shows brand new. That is our archives. Most recent ones come at the top. So we will have a link to today's recording. The slides will be available here. The application will be available here. We'll also be emailing you proactively. The application form as well. So look for it there later this afternoon. I'll send out an email to you all. So you'll know when the recording is available and up there. We should mention if you're new to this concept, there's an archive presentation next best thing to have a year. That's true. Yes. We did do something about this previously. Yeah. Yeah. This is one that Tom and Holly were here before with a lot more detail about the whole. How this kind of connection could work before we had actually gotten really into getting approved for the grant. Well, I think we were doing both simultaneously. There's like one slide. We're working on this grant. We hope we'll get it, but here's a lot more details. And this, this, this says a lot of, this presentation has a lot more. Like diagrams. So I would say use this one in conjunction with today's presentation together and have a really good representation. It will talk about where you can start and then how you can move forward, you know, to maximize their school district superintendent. It'll give you some suggestions. Right. So this session is actually in with today's, they go together. They're, they're part one and part two. I would say maybe of the same project, the same concept. So I'll look for that there. So that will wrap it up for today's show and recording. I hope you join us next week. Our topic is the innovation in libraries. Awesome foundation. Chapter, which sounds. That's really cool. This is a, the awesome foundation is a group that does, let's any sort of organization set up chapters where they can provide grants to any sort of organizations, whoever they're involved in. And there is a libraries one about innovation and libraries here. So if you are interested in doing something new prototype, something prototype and something. They have grants available on a regular basis. I believe they started just last year, but don't put me on the idea before. So some people who are involved in that, and these are people at libraries all across the country and group together to provide this, this chapter of providing grants. So sign up for that. Presentation next week. Also, any of our other shows coming up. I think we're going to have a, like our page here for big Facebook user. Give us a like over there. We post notifications. There's a notice about logging in for today's show. When our recordings are available and you need topics that come up. I posted here. So please do give us a like over there. If you are a big on Facebook to keep up with us. Other than that, that wraps it up for this morning. Thank you for, thank you everyone for attending. And we'll see you next week. Bye bye.