 Programs and services, this is our last analysis of a leg. There are plenty more, but these are just some examples for you. So this one is the most green olive, okay? I was, remember I said this whole approach was shaped over years by thousands of professionals just like you. Well this was Chester County, Pennsylvania in 2010. I got up and I said, stand up tall and say things like our programs and services are first grade or world class or second to none. You use strong terminology and somebody raised their hand and he said, well, you already told us that program is a nothing word. Have you looked up the meaning of service? Performance of duties helpful to others. And he reasoned that's gonna get you generic funding at best. They looked up on the spot the definition of the word curriculum. Now I'm okay because words change over time and we have the power to change the meaning of words too if we want to. But look, the word curriculum. He said, you've already established that we're an educational institution. Check. Group of subjects studied. We're all about subjects throughout the library. That's self-directed education and we teach the classes too. Any plan of activities and look at this. Transformative experiences that take place in and outside of school. I was flabbergasted and I said, wow. That's kind of green olive to me right now but see what we can do with this. Went back to Howard County Library System. I said, we can call this our curriculum. Most of us say services, but it doesn't really say anything. So I'll tell you that curriculum packs as much punch and power almost as the word education does. And I love to say now that our curriculum comprises three pillars. Self-directed education, research assistance and instruction and instructive and enlightening experiences. Say that to anybody and they'll just be, wow. So it's very, very, very powerful. We'll now take a little peek at some titles. We already digressed a little bit onto this. So question, if I tell you I'm your seatmate on an airplane, you're somebody from the outside world who knows nothing about libraries. I say to you, I'm an instructor. What do you think I do? Teach, yeah. If I say I'm a librarian, what do you think I do? Sit around and read books all day, Sheld. Why are libraries so expensive? It's such a simple idea. Get a cheap place where people can donate, use books and volunteers, organize them, some volunteers to learn them. It could be done in an old building with folding tables and use bookshelves. Anyone who works in a library is a librarian, right? Experts from the outside field tell us that libraries and the professionals who administer them are obsolete. They say these things because they don't understand. So self-explanatory titles, again, we already touched on these. Instructor and research specialist is very good to be self-explanatory and no one will ever ask you again. Tell me again what you do. You can switch it up if you prefer. Research specialist and instructor, that's what we had at first in Howard County, but then the staff liked instructor so much that they said, can we please switch the order? And I said, by all means, I would have suggested that first. I was trying to be gentle, use what I thought they wanted first. Instructor, educator, teacher with a lowercase t. Circulation clerk, customer service specialist is what we used in Howard County. Programmer, unless it's computer-related, instructor, facilitator, educator, teacher with a lowercase t. Director, city librarian, county librarian. In some parts of the country, California being one of them, somehow the old title of city librarian and county librarian has continued on. There's nothing wrong with it. But consider that you don't call the person who is head of a school system the city teacher or the county teacher. And you don't call the president of a college a city professor or it's just not, it's unique to the libraries. And so as you are able, sometimes you can't get past the director if you're part of a city government or a county government. Although there's the police chief. And I'll tell you, Brian Bannon, he said, oh, I like commissioner. I think that's better than president and CEO, but look at his title now. He saw the light. He's commissioner and CEO, so he added it. And he's part of the city's government. So he was one of the early adopters of this approach too in Chicago. They've adopted quite a bit of this, but even, I haven't seen him since, but the last time I saw him it was, oh, no, no, no, commissioner is good. But to add CEO is what, so you can affect and change even if you're a college, you got the fire chief, the police chief, maybe you work with that to get a version of this executive director. Oh, this all started by the way, is when I would be at an event and I would say, hi, I'm Valerie Gross. I work at Howard County Library System. Oh, what do you do? I'm the director. Oh, which department? And I said, oh, I kind of dabbled in all of them. But then we got to looking at the definition of director. And in the business world and in the academic world, a director reports to an executive director who reports to vice president of operations who reports to president or superintendent or, right? So it's a middle management position in the business world and our board in Howard County said, well, we want your title to reflect your actual position. So they looked to New York Public Library. I think New York and maybe Boston had president and CEO at the time. So they wanted to change my title to that. And so since that time, number of other library systems have gone that route. Gina Millsap, chief executive officer. There's president and CEO, quite a few in Maryland now are CEO or president and CEO and in Tulsa also. So as you are able to look at, again, it's a reflection of your organization, what it requires is your president of your board needs to first change to chair and vice chair. That elevates the perceived value of them too because you wouldn't really have the president of the hospital board. No, there's the president of the hospital, the chair of the board. So you're actually elevating the perceived value of the board with those changes to see how that works. So first you get used to chair there then you can move president over to the president of the library system. So just for you to start thinking about is all. Similarly, services is a nothing word. So what would the school say? What would the college and the university say? Do they call, you know, what is it? Adult instruction and research is what we changed it to in Howard County. Children's services became children's instruction and research. Do you see how powerful that is? Youth and teen services, youth and teen instruction and research. Teacher with a lower case T, you all seem to be okay with this based on the conversation earlier, but you don't have to have a certification to be a teacher at a private school. My mother was a German teacher at a private school for 20 years, never got a licensed degree. She was the best teacher there. You don't have to have a certificate to be a professor at a university. What do you need? Expertise in your field, a master's degree or doctorate degree. You all have masterists or doctors, those of you who are librarians, and we're all experts in our field. So teacher with a lower case T. In Howard County, we decided not to use the word teacher. We could have been library teachers, but we used the word instructor to differentiate. Instructor, teacher, professor. You see, library, education, we are instructors. That was the choice there. I was at a workshop once, somebody raised their hand and they said, well, why can't you call yourselves faculty? That was a green olive for me. I said, whoa, yeah, I guess we could. Hadn't really ever thought of that. So I tried it. We have in Howard County, something we called Hi-Tech. It's a STEM education initiative. And so we were at some event and the whole team was lined up and I said, and this is our Hi-Tech faculty. That's Angela and Brian and I went down the line and nobody batted an eye. Well, of course there are your faculty. And so you use it. Nobody thought anything of it. I was very much aware that I had said the word but for everybody else it's well, of course there are your Hi-Tech faculty. So give it a shot and see how it feels and it's kind of fun. I'm now setting the mood for a one and a half minute skit. This is somewhere at LAX. So I'm gonna need some volunteers. I need a narrator. This is the shortest part. So who would like to be my narrator? You will stand right here at this mic. Narrator, come on up, narrator. I need a Chris and a Nancy who are the millennials in this skit. So you are, Rebecca. So that's your part. You can just read it up there. And so stage right behind that. So I need a Chris and a Nancy. Millennials, you can pretend to be a millennial if you want to or if you are one. Chris or Nancy? Chris. So Chris, you can be over here, stage left. And you've got, it's highlighted in red there. So I need a millennial Nancy. Anybody name Nancy? Nancy, come on up. Yeah? Nancy, you've got almost the biggest part here. Congratulations. You're the green. And why don't you stand. Would you back up just a little bit, Chris? So you can stand right there. So you can go over that. So, I usually play the part of the baby boomer. But in the Czech Republic, I didn't speak enough Czech to be able to play the part. And it was actually quite amusing to have somebody else play the baby boomer. So it's, oh, there we go. How do we turn this off? Can't turn it off. We good? So, didn't speak enough Czech to play the baby boomer and it was amusing to have somebody else do it. Would somebody else like to be the baby boomer? You have to be trying to be out of breath if you're at an airport. But he would like to play the part of the baby boomer. You want to hear me talk some more? No, come on up. Great. You told me your name and I've forgotten it. Chris. Well, you should have been. No. No. Okay. So you're going to take this mic. So you've got, you start here. This is your, you're the baby boomer right there. And so what you'll do is once you get over there, oh, again? Maybe it's a different, that was AT&T. Should we just ignore it? Yeah. Okay. So when you get over to your group over there, it's just gonna be a conversation. You can share the mic. Okay. Yeah, pass the mic. But you, yeah, so make sure to be in the mic and give it to me. Testing. Okay. So are we ready? Take it away, narrator. Somewhere at LAX, two millennials are chatting as they wait at the gate. They are traveling back from an ALA conference. They work at different public libraries. They hold the same position and they perform identical work. That's underlined. A civilian baby boomer who knows nothing about libraries arrives at the same gate. Out of breath, he approaches the two millennials. Excuse me. Has Flight 442 to Chicago started boarding? It's delayed half an hour. Oh good. I thought I was going to miss the flight. I've been visiting my son and his family. Been here for a week. I can't wait to go home. It's nice to see them, but one week in Lotus land is more than enough. I'm Valerie. Nice to meet you. Likewise. I'm Chris and this is my friend Nancy. Nice to meet you. What do you do, Chris? I'm a children's librarian. Oh. So do you read books all day? No, I provide patrons access to information. I promote information, literacy and reading and I do story times. Oh, that's nice. My grandson uses his computer at home to get information when he gets home from school. And my son and his wife read to my granddaughter every day. Nancy, what do you do? I am an educator, a children's instructor and research specialist. Oh, what kind of research do you do? Depends on what students need. Specialized research assistants, tailored for individuals and groups. I also enable self-directed education. Oh, what do you teach? For younger students, classes that teach reading and reading comprehension, as well as creative and social skills. And any subject matter, including math and science through children's literature. And for older students, I teach expert research skills, classes like Science Research 101. Wow, in what school district do you work? Oh, I'm not with the schools. I work for ABC Public Library System. Wow, I didn't know the library did all that. I have a half an hour. I'll call my son and daughter-in-law right now and tell them to take my grandkids to the library. I'll call them right now. Thank you, team. That was fantastic. So you see, Chris said, language that the baby boomer said, well, what do I need that for? I've got everything I need at home. I have all the information I need on the internet. Why do I need libraries, right? Switch up the language. And suddenly it's, wow, my grandkids are missing out on education. I'm gonna tell my son and daughter-in-law to take my grandkids to the library. Same thing, same position, different language, different result. It works every time. But now, it's your turn. Take out the first exercise, Harnessing the Power of Words. In this exercise, you will examine common words and explore more effective terminology to increase perceived value. Working in groups of three or four, so just kind of turn around. It's okay if it's two, but what you're going to do is transform the traditional phrases into strategic ones. You can consult the Education Advantage Study Guide that you also have in your packet. Consider including the strong terminology that is listed here. Consider bold phrases, the ones that are listed there. And I challenge you to consider using the three pillars and the word curriculum. Now, one more thing before you get started. The only reason there's bold here is that that's kind of the traditional vocabulary. You don't have to keep the structure of the sentence. You can completely rewrite it, okay? And the other thing is this side of the room, start with one and go down. And this side of the room, I know you're bigger, but that's okay. Start from nine and go up. And then what we'll do is stop about halfway and we'll get a little bit of transformed sentences back to the group, so go ahead and get started. All right, with my apologies to those of you who are still working because I know I would be in your camp, will hopefully have gotten a rewrite of everyone based on both groups. So let's start over here. What did you get for number one? So California libraries are vital and enhance people's lives. Yeah, anybody get something different over here? Transforms, okay. Essential, okay, all right. So number nine, what did you get for number nine? How about this group here? Did you do number nine? I will come back to you. Did you get to number nine? Testing, testing, it's just, yeah, sorry. So workshop teacher and instructor and then teaches is the verb. That was the idea for number nine. How did that feel, Kim? It felt weird, yeah. Well, say it a hundred times and then it will be like you've never said anything different. Okay, number two, this group. Now you're never gonna sit on the aisle again, are you, Rob? We replaced clerk with customer service and circulation info desk with customer service. Circulate with lend or borrow or give. Yeah, that's the idea. Back to number one, just again, the concept being you can completely rewrite it and say deliver equal opportunity for students of all ages in California. You could have gone really broad with that. Okay, number eight. I'm gonna go back to the first group here. See if they'll take this one. No, nobody wrote anything down? That's too funny. Okay, here, eight, do you have eight? You didn't write it down. You didn't write it down. That's okay, it's in your head. You can make it up as you go too. For number eight, we did, here is the research area. This is our vital collection of California research materials. Yeah, good, good. Number three about you all over there. You didn't think I'd find you. Children's instructors teach early development classes. And number four about this group. Come up with anything for, oh, no, no, no, seven, sorry. You worked up, right? Lynn, can you do seven? Instead of do programming, we did develop curriculum for classes and offer classes and workshops. Yeah. And number four about you all. Did you get the four? No four, about back here. Steve. Library professionals help access the knowledge, help you access the knowledge you need. And number four, you could have gone with teach expert research skills as well. Number six, the side, right here. Did you get six? Anybody would like six? Yes, can you just project? Curriculum, you used that word, how'd it go? You wanna say it again? Oh, sure. ABC Public Libraries Curriculum empowers community members. Yeah. And the last one, number five, anybody? I have it over here. Did you all get to five? Juan? We had Delivery Education to Community Members. Yeah. So you get the idea. When you go back to your libraries, just take a look at all of your documentation, anything that's in print, anything that's online, anything that's on your Facebook page and start changing. It's a long, long process. And you'll start with certain words and then see phrases and it's a slow process, but it's wonderful when you start seeing it all fall together. So before we can expect others. Oh, yes, question. You mean I have materials as a suggested strong terminology? And you're thinking it's, can you give us an example? Let's just say page, whatever, you know? Just, let's find it. Oh, on the exercise? As opposed to, I'm sorry, I was in the study guide. Yeah, which of the sentences? Number eight. Non-circulating collection. Oh, materials is not on there. So you're asking me why it's... Oh, research materials, reference materials. You're right, materials is kind of a generic nondescript term. I'm gonna have to look and see. I mean, you all can help me out with this too because I do go out and talk about this. If you see a suggested stronger phrase, I'm gonna look through this to see where it might be materials and what I recommend, or if, and again, I say I recommend. This is the culmination of feedback as I've called it together to present back to you. So I edit it practically every time. But for instance on page three, juvenile materials. The suggestion is children's materials. But maybe collection doesn't really improve it, because that's like money. Educational resources, yeah. Good, so it's improving it one word at a time. And that's a very good catch. What's the one? Online databases. Specialized online research tools is what we ended up going with. It could be premium online research tools. But the research tool is maybe you can improve on that one too. But online databases is just, you know, it's kind of nondescript. Okay, thank you, yes. What's the JPA? I have only feedback from individuals. They don't ever disclose whether they report, with the exception in Texas, when she told me she reports to a city manager. And that was a story at a workshop in Texas where she stood up and she said, I've got a story to tell you and it was fascinating. So I don't know. I would simply think that it would be one more committee meeting and a little bit slower process. You know, to agree on which, you know, if you're gonna stomp out the P word, you start with that. Or you decide that you're gonna start moving to children's class instead of story time. And you give it a fun name like three, two, fun. That's the name of the children's class. Some of you probably just call it story time. Give it a fun name. Terrific. Yes. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah. So anything that conveys the value and people don't have to ask what it is. So optimism internally. Here's what we say about ourselves. We're doomed. We have to keep libraries relevant and our question to ourselves are libraries relevant. ALA has a t-shirt endangered. And the future of libraries, do we have five years to live? They probably thought this was funny. But you know, the mayor of Miami sees this stuff and they say, well, even the library profession thinks that the libraries or the age is probably ending, why don't we cut half? So do you see all of these? How many of you have either said or read we must remain relevant in the last month? Yeah. Okay, so those of you who have said it or written it, I ask you, if you were investing in a company, stock, and their sole purpose was to remain relevant, how much money would you invest? None, you would take out anything you had and invest it in a company that said we deliver high quality public education for all through a curriculum that comprises three pillars and you rattle them off. Or we design and deliver a world-class curriculum for the benefit of our diverse community. Then you've got the investor, but no one knows what we do. We just need to eliminate all these phrases and it starts with you. And then when you catch your colleague saying things like that, no, no, no, no, replace it with either of these powerful phrases and we'll eventually then stop all of those absurd efforts to cut our funding or just the concept of libraries are the age is ending. Okay, just a couple of to show you where this can go and how long it takes. 2006, do you remember? Storytime with County Executive, it took two years. The headline is library has classes for ages three to five. And then this is a page from the Tourism Guide. I don't know where you all find yourselves in the Tourism Guide, but this took until 2014. There it is. This is the education page. It took that long to get there. We were invisible, I could hardly find us before. But do you see this page? World-class education, school system, excellence. And then it talks about the college and the library. See these pictures? They're all from the library. Why do you think they used them? Because they're great pictures and we submitted them. This is the school system. That's our new branch, 63,000 square feet. Completely new. And then here are our branches. So we get the major real estate on this page because we sent in great stuff. You all do this extraordinarily well as well. Send it, use the right language. They'll eventually put you in the right category and give you center stage. So, statistics. We were successful in Howard County with this. Items borrowed, doubled. Research assistance doubled. It's not called information questions. We switched the header. And this used to be circulation, items borrowed. So visits tripled. And then class and event attendance quadrupled. We have 300,000 people in Howard County, just to give you a ballpark of what these statistics can compare to. Most importantly, our budget doubled to 23.3 million and we added 39 and a half FTEs. And then we had a capital budget of $100 million and we had added close to 100,000 square feet of space. So we went from not even on the radar to center stage and indispensable. Others, Delaney James, applying libraries equals education. They received budget increases when every other library saw dramatic funding cuts. In 2014, simply stunned by the power of the E word. He went armed with all kinds of statistics. He wanted $365,000 for a little renovation knowing that he would get rate over the coals for even a small request. He said, this is to advance education. This is equal opportunity in education. Education advances the economy and quality of life. They didn't even ask him for anything. They said, well, of course we support education. We'll approve that next. He didn't have to talk at all. He was completely stunned. This is Vicki from Okaloosa, Florida. This was her second experience that she sent me. In 2017, so this was a year ago, this was in the news, low taxes, adequate public safety, what's more important. Commissioners are having to come up with creative solutions to fix the budget deficit of $3 million. Every department from the county sheriff's office to the local libraries face cuts. So this was what she was dealing with. She went in. I needed to convince the commissioners to restore our 3% proposed FY18 budget increase. This was even though she knew that they were $3 million in the red, which had been cut to address their $3 million deficit. This was a no-frills year. Decided to just use education for everyone. That was her hook. Challenge to herself was to say curriculum and to describe the three pillars neither of which I had previously done. After an education-focused presentation in which the commissioners learned how and to whom education is delivered by libraries, I explained that the 3% request had been cut from the budget they had in hand. Four of the five spoke up in favor of restoring the 3% increase and the finance manager found a fund from which the money could be drawn. In five minutes, the library cooperative went from a flat budget to a budget with an increase. How's that? For the power of the shared value of education, Vicki PS. I counted. In a five-minute speech, they said the word education 19 times. Vicki is almost as much of a crusader for this as I am. And why? It's because she has seen its power in facing three millions of cuts and it was all over the news. She got a 3% increase with this approach. And the only reason is because people fund what they value and once they understood that she is in their highest priority, they were willing to fund it. In Oklahoma, used libraries equals education. It was amazing. They were expecting to need to submit an increase and on their own, they proposed it. Here, they used the word classes instead of story times and landed a new partnership. Why? Because suddenly, the partner wanted to partner with them because they understood what was in it for them. Mentioned international in the Czech Republic, also in Haiti. Gone is the reference section. That was after a webinar. Here, it's time for us to start changing people's perceptions of our skills and capabilities by better identifying ourselves as educators in the community. This is from California. After a webinar, rebranding ourselves in this way is necessary and a fairly easy approach. Also, after a webinar, I intend to share this webinar with my staff. I'm a director, oops, CEO of a public library in Connecticut. Love this, wish I had seen some of these ideas years ago, we'll be implementing in Illinois. This is from a friend, friends of the library. Yesterday, I spent the day at the state capitol, so our friends are very important. They need to understand why this is so important and says that they will be using this. In Kansas, they've jumped on the three pillar strain. Oklahoma started introducing classes and the library's equals education concept. This is a board member in Oklahoma. Public libraries educate everyone. They educate people in school and out of school. Library Journal has started an educator segment of Movers and Shakers, not ideal because I would argue that every single category is an educator. In fact, I probably should have included a slide I have. I haven't been, I haven't used it, but it features Jill. And it goes from a librarian of the year to educator of the year. And what kind of a message that would send. Librarian of the year is clearly the highest academy award for any of us, so congratulations. But the concept being, what if that award were called library educator of the year? And then it would differentiate Jill as CEO, President and CEO, and then she could get her position in there, but it would be library educator of the year. And para educator of the year. So that was the idea. Urban Libraries Council, Public Libraries Equals Education. They've used it several times. And ALA has the ease of libraries. This effected that change. Still not ideal, I used, this is poetic license. They don't have the indentation. But my argument is each of these falls under the larger category, but at least they've got education there. Denver, two excited library guys did this after the presentation. Does this sign convey everything the public library has to offer? They said I could show this to you if I provided the disclaimer that it was their views. And then they were all excited because they suggested some edits that were effective to somebody who was writing something. Just a couple of shots from websites because websites, you can effect all kinds of change with this in Howard County Public Education for All in the logo itself as the tagline. Oklahoma Libraries Equals Education. Providing education for all stages of life. Isn't that nice? Okaloosa, here's a story time. They describe it now, teach social skills, listening comprehension, it's a children's class. And I love this, a modern educational hub. Not good? That's in the latest issue there. Wikipedia puts public libraries under education sometimes. The soundbite exercise, do consider looking at this. There's one for academics on the other side. This is always the most fun exercise, but you'll get to have the fun on your own. Implementing the vision, we already covered this, but take a look at what happens here. Do you see how unfocused all this is? Now look, the first change is gonna be, ah, right? You saw that? The little library guys were placed by that. Now it says, our futures and times of change are future regardless of the times. And you don't lose any of this. Do you see how this works? You keep all of that because this is very important to all of us. It's just that it's under the education umbrella, crystal clear and in focus, a unified message. Baby steps, just do it. You don't have to tell people that you're making the changes, just do them. Again, you're using words that they already understand. You're the biggest impediment. So stomp out the P word, use the marketing plan, use the class word, these are other library systems. What's our business education in Michigan? Program guide transforms into classes and events guide. And this was health information center, changes to health education center. So look for signage. I wanted to show you this one because we were inspired by Oakland and Berkeley's Tool Lending Library. We called it the DIY Education Center. It's our tool lending library. We copied much of the brilliant work that you all do, labeled it education. Statistics, you can use the three pillars to your advantage in your annual report. And when you're writing, you can say thank you for enabling high quality public education for all for your support of California's libraries. And with that, I've got in my sophisticated bag here, some buttons for you. I'll put them here. Help yourselves. We use these legislative day to great effect. For a while, everybody at Howard County Library wore them for a week during legislative day. Kansas put together t-shirts and you can use the logo effectively that way. Love the three pillars. That should become the international symbol for libraries. Your colleague in Carlsbad, California, Barbara Chum. And we'll skip the education innovation. Do any of you do battle of the books? Yeah, well we've got some great battle of the books and we will close with, now you can imagine, the national symbol refreshed. Equal access to information transforms into equal opportunity in education. I have all this in a book. I have a copy here if you'd like to take a look at it. This is also available on my website and at Howard County Library System. Wouldn't it be great if these were all available at ALA and they soon can be? But for now you can just use it. So we'll close with in this world that we find ourselves in where none of us has enough time. It's a world of texting, a world of just needing to speak in as few words as possible. And so now we can say how crucial and critical California's libraries are in six words or fewer. You ready? Six. Equal opportunity in education for all. We can say it in four words. Public education for all. Two words, education, everyone. And we can say it in one single solitary word. Altogether now, education. Thank you all so very, very much. Thank you.