 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10am central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays that's fine. We do record the show as we are this morning and it's posted to our website for you to watch at your convenience and I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can access those recordings. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in the show. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission here, we are the state agency for libraries in Nebraska similar to your whatever state library. So we provide services to all sorts of libraries in our state, public, academic, K-12 corrections, museums, archives, etc, etc. So you will find shows, episodes on our show that will be for all types of libraries. So you should be able to find something for you. We do book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things are on there. We have the Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes do sessions on things that we're offering here through the commission, but we also bring guest speakers from around the state, around the country. And that's what we have with us today. So on with us this morning, we're going to be talking about education programs, getting your education programs leading to credentials and librarianship, as you can see there. So hopefully all of you are interested in becoming librarians like all of us. And on the line with us this morning is Dr. Sarah Churchill from the University of Brass get Omaha. Good morning, Sarah. Good morning. Dr. Judy heading who's the University of Brass get Carney. And Dr. Becky Pascoe who's recently retired. Yay. From University of Omaha. Good morning, Becky. Good morning. And I think I'll just hand it over to you guys to tell us all about what we need to know about getting a library degrees here. What focus are we talking about? I think Sarah, you're starting off by soon. Excellent. Thank you very much, Krista. It's great to be on and great to see so many people interested. Obviously, we are passionate about libraries and how they can serve our communities serve our kids and how they can really make an impact. So we're excited to see so many people who are also interested in joining this profession that we're so passionate about. We are, as Krista said going to be talking about education programs leading to credentials and librarianship. This will be focused quite a bit on Nebraska specifically, however, there will be similar programs in all the states. This will give you kind of a general overview, and then certainly for more specific details in your state context, you can reach out to either university programs. Like what Dr. Henning and I are in charge of or to a library commission, like, like Krista works for so. We are going to give you that general introduction, like I said, just kind of an overview of what you might expect if you're looking for credentials in librarianship. And we're going to talk a lot about the school side of things because that's Dr. Henning and I's focus, but we do touch on some of the other areas as well. And we know that everybody's situations are unique and different and we all bring a wealth of experiences to whatever we do. So what if you have specific questions about programs, we are going to give you this link to a chart that has contact information for all of the programs. So you will be able to reach out to the people in charge of the programs and talk more specifically about details and about your context and your situation. This is going to be just a general overview. I'll also jump in and mention here to everyone. So you know, these slides and then links to anything that's in here like that page will be included in the archive and the recording afterwards. So we'll send you links to all of that. So if you don't get anything, you know, scribble down right now, that's okay, you'll have it later too. Absolutely. Okay. So we're going to start by talking about being a school librarian. As I said, that's Dr. Henning and I's specialty. So that's what we're going to focus on first. In order to become a school librarian, the first requirement is that you have to be a certified teacher from any accredited college of education. Despite the stereotypes that somewhat still persists a little bit. School librarians don't just sit and read and check books in and out all day, neither do public librarians, but school librarians spend a good portion of their day teach students from PK to 12, depending on their settings, and sometimes all of those ages. So being a master teacher and understanding best practice in teaching is truly crucial to our role. And that's why you will find in most states in most accredited programs that you have to be a certified teacher before you can get your school librarian endorsement. Then the next portion of that is school library endorsement. Once you have that school library endorsement added to your teaching certificate, then you are qualified to be a school librarian in a school and in the state of Nebraska. We're going to talk about all the different the program that will get you that endorsement in just a moment. Dr. Henning, do you have anything you want to add there? You know, I just wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, the 20th, the 20th century librarians, school librarian in the 21st, you know, with with technology. It has freed up the school librarians time a lot. We're no longer spending lots of time managing a collection by ordering new materials and things like that. We still do that, but it's not as time consuming. We don't have to file the cards and process the materials that has become a lot easier. So we take the time to become a instructional leader. We go into the classroom, and we help the teachers work on collaborative research projects. So we have to be somewhat flexible and knowledgeable on, like you said, best practices, strategies that we can use to increase student academic achievement. So I know some people out there might say, oh, but, you know, I can easily learn that. That's something that you have to go to college and learn classroom management. You have to learn teaching strategies. You have to learn lots of things to make it work. And so I just wanted to stress that the collaboration with the classroom teacher is key to being a good school librarian. And I know I said a school librarian is an instructional leader. A lot of times, you know, they don't go into the school library and have the administrator say, oh, you're an instructional leader. They have to be on the school improvement team. They have to do the professional development for the teachers, maybe on new applications that they can integrate into their curriculum. So it's something that they have to work on, but a good school librarian is an instructional leader. Very key. Rule 24 in the state of Nebraska are the guidelines that govern the endorsements and what's required of endorsements. And so in Nebraska, what is required is 30 semester hours of coursework. And that coursework encompasses a lot of the things that Dr. Honey and I just mentioned. Leadership in terms, you know, in terms of working with administrators in terms of working with those teachers and collaborating with those teachers. Advocacy, you know, we work with a huge range of diverse student needs. And so we have to be able to understand those needs and advocate for those students. The library administration and then resource management down below those two things can incorporate some of those concepts that Dr. Henning first mentioned about trying to organize the materials and ordering the materials and selecting them. But it also includes things like working with Paris and planning programming and things like that. Technology is certainly a huge portion of what we do these days. Many school librarians are technology leaders in their building, often they're the technology leader in their building. And we are very much looked to for best practices in how to integrate technology into learning and staying what's on the forefront of technology. And so that becomes a big part of our curriculum as well. Information access. Again, advocating for those needs for all of our diverse learners and trying to get them access and certainly in the pandemic, this has been even more of a topic than it was before. Because we're seeing gaps in access and what our students and our staff in excess. Children's and young adult lit that is certainly an area where people get really excited they love the literature and they love the reading that's the chance we get to actually read those books, but it also involves promoting reading and understanding the different strategies that you can use to engage readers and build that lifelong love of reading that is so crucial to becoming a productive citizen. We also take courses in resource resource management, as I mentioned before, and then certainly curriculum and instruction, like we have already emphasized already several times understanding curriculum and content, not just ours, but also the entire curriculum because we are responsible for making sure that we have the materials that meet the needs, and that materials can be integrated into the curriculum. With my managing collections class this semester, for example, we have in our textbook a chart that they are they see where all of the different subjects are plugged in, and then the main topics that all of the teachers across all of the subjects study with their students, so that the school librarian can then make sure that they are finding places to collaborate with the teachers finding resources that support those needs. And that was very eye opening I think for many of my students to see that chart and how ultimately we're responsible for understanding everybody's curriculum and not just ours. And anything you want to add there. No, communication is key to all of this, and, you know, making sure that the classroom teacher, and you have good communication as to what they're going to need if they, and you are the school librarian is on big when they change their textbook curriculum, you know we have to be there to make sure that all of our print and digital resources meet their needs for what they will meet need with the new curriculum so. Excellent. Can I step in here so. Yes, please Dr Vasto. This says 30 semester hours and library courses, and what you'll find if you look around Nebraska and the country Nebraska is really, really lucky to have two nationally recognized programs. And you get nationally recognized, truly, you gather five to seven years of data about everything you do, turn it in and it's a long process and so good for you and K and good for you and oh for both going through that process and and being nationally recognized and, and but in general what I would say is these 30 semester hours cover these concepts, generally, but what Carney or what northern Iowa, or what central Oklahoma, or what in any of those programs around the country call that course will be different. Like some will call it young adult lit some will call it adolescent lit. There's a variety of technology courses Carney has a whole variety of technology courses so. I guess what I'd say is those 30 semester hours won't look the same, but will cover the same concepts. So when you go out shopping and looking know that there is some alignment. But, but we all run our programs a little differently and and. So, don't be surprised if it looks like there's a great deal of difference but you can be assured that both Carney and you and I'll cover those concepts in one of their courses that just might have a name that might be named differently so that's all I had to say. And that's a good point that to say that, although this is specifically Nebraska's rule governing governing our program, we also are tied so closely with that national recognition program that, you know, we have guidelines from the American Association of Librarians that are giving us we have standards of what school library preparation program should cover. And so, these aren't just concepts that we just randomly picked out. So, they are tied to national standards developed by experts who have been long in the field. So, as I mentioned before, if you are going to be in a school library in the state of Nebraska you do need to have the school library and endorsement. However, there are some special circumstances. And so there are some exceptions to that. This is currently called rule 10. Dr heading and I just spent time in a meeting yesterday where we learned it's going to get a new. It's going to be revised so in the next year. This will name will change so if you're looking for it might be called something else but any person who wants to have a school library job, like I said you should have the endorsement. Once you get an exception and you put six credit hours each year towards that endorsement. So you can be placed in a school library, as long as you're a certified teacher. As long as you're working towards the library endorsement and six credit hours per year would generally be two classes. As long as you're you're moving that direction towards the endorsement, then you can be in a school library. So we have a lot of people who will get their provisional school library endorsement and then continue working to finish that, but they'll be able to be an active school librarian. I'll step in here again Sarah just for a second. So let's say, like an opening comes up in August, and a principal sitting out there going, it's so late in the summer and where would I find somebody and I don't know if I'll get candidates etc. You know and what they when they call me with that they say oh Becky what am I going to do I don't have. You know I just say you find the best teacher. You have because she's going to work with every grade every kid etc. And I said, and by rule 10 because schools get dinged if they don't meet these requirements and they don't want to have a black mark on their record. But as long as they can find a master teacher. As long as that master teacher takes six hours to classes a year and works towards that endorsement. They can they can hire that person and so this special circumstance works in favor of districts who end up with last minute openings that don't have lots of candidates and it's better to have somebody who who's always wanted to do this but never thought about getting started. This gives them a way to do so and they end up with a good school librarian who's a master teacher. They're getting right away. And so it's a not all endorsements have this privilege and we do. And so it's a nice way for some for some of you who are considering school libraries to know that they your district has this exception and can use it so I also want to mention that you said get dinged. What that means is, you know, these schools all have to be accredited by the University Department of Education, and if you don't have that position in place. That is what the black mark will be so it's when they're searching for their state accreditation that they have to have all this taken care of, and really six hours is not a lot. And, you know, to do and I mean they're very understanding so yes. Yes, and I will also add that both UNK and UNO have very flexible programs for adult learners and lots of options online for coursework as well so we have. We try to really meet the needs of our candidates so we do have we're going to in a few minutes we're going to show you a little bit more about that instructional component that we were referring to earlier Dr. Henry has some lesson plans to show you examples of what kind of work may be expected in terms of designing instructional content. But we are before we get there we're going to move on to the other programs. If you need to contact either one of us, our contact information will be on that handout that we shared. And it's also here for you as well, and you certainly can reach out to either Dr. Henning or myself, and we can walk you through our specific programs. We can take a look at where you're at with your education and what you may be interested in and what your goals are. So now we're going to talk a little bit about special public and academic libraries and credentials that would lead you to librarianship in those fields. Do you think we need to define special public and academic. Nope. Okay. For, if you're interested in your associates degree or a certification program, Central Community College in Nebraska has a program. I'm going to let Dr. Pasco maybe fill you in a little bit more about these programs. So if you've never gone to college and, and you're thinking, oh, it's so expensive, or I, you know, I don't know, can I do this, I'm a, you know, I'm a parent, I work 40 hours a week, can I, you know, this program is a great way to get started. You can get either, they have the option of either a full two year associates degree, which you can transfer right to any four, four year degree in the country and they have a certificate program. And both D Johnson, who's at Central Community College and Marty McGee who kind of works with all the instructors and the coursework would be glad to talk to you about this program. We have many small rural libraries whose directors come directly out of this program, because they do the same people who teach in this program often teach in our programs. And they'll cover the same kinds of concepts of leadership and advocacy and resource management and collections that masters level programs do, but this is, we are so lucky as a state to have this or only I think 32 states in the country that have a two year program available to their residents. But I mean for the money. I would tell you that if you talk to D or Marty, this is a great place to dip your toe in and and see if you can, you know, how you with your time management system, you know, how that works. So, all right. Another option our library science education undergraduate programs, which you would earn a bachelor's degree in. We have one at the University of Nebraska Omaha, that is fully online. And it has, again, very similar coursework to what we have been discussing so far leadership advocacy management literature, all those different aspects. And like I said that program is fully online from UNO and Erica rose is the program coordinator for that, and she would be your contact. And she is happy to take any messages or emails about the program. Let me talk about this just a little bit. Let's say you've lived around the country we have lots of folks who have lived lots of places maybe been married to a vet. You know, a veteran, I should say, you know, in the armed services and Erica daily works with people who have six hours from some community college in Alaska, and nine more hours from some community college in Florida. And, you know, and she what she does is she puts all of those scraps together and puts together a plan of study for you that will get you a four year undergraduate bachelors degree in library science. So if you've just dabbled, trying to find out what you wanted to be when you were growing up. You know, Erica talks about that with talks about that with lots of people every day and so feel free to contact her or, again, her to contact the two year community college program also takes transfers in coursework and content from all over the country. So, you know, I think some people say, Well, I don't, I don't have anything I don't know and you might have more than you think. You know, lots of times I think it's just getting started going to college at any level. That's daunting and you think my gosh this pandemic this, you know, how will I afford it how will I manage that into my time. And I think that the only real crime here is if you don't call them and check it out. You know, if, if really, we have fabulous folks, all leaders leaders in our library associations and in our public academic and special libraries, who came directly out of these two and four year libraries and gain the confidence and figured out took time to figure out and how to proceed. And so get started. And if libraries is in your heart, then lucky you and Nebraska have all these options. You know, so thank you, Sarah. That dovetails nicely into what I was going to say to wrap this up. I just want to remind you again that although we've focused on Nebraska programs, there are programs like this in states all around the country. And so he is finding the person to talk to. And so reach out to your local university or college and find out who's in charge of the program there. And see if your state has a library commission. Christa does that. I didn't think about that. But is there a link to a database or something that would have all the state different state commissions or anything. Oh, oh, um, good question. I should know that. Okay. I imagine that you can find a list of those. Here in Nebraska, we're, we have to be specialist in many things. Like I had mentioned when I was introducing the show, you are whatever state library, you know, New York State Library or Missouri State Library, whatever. Those would be the say the organizations to go to to look for what the state is offering here in Nebraska, we're just called the library commission because that's what they call this. Yep, could have been called the state library. So look for whatever your state library is or, you know, in your state, what would be the similar level. And we do have a link. The other place to start to look is the list of a la accredited programs. And we do have a link to that on the chart, the flyer that we have linked you to and will link you to when we send out the recording information. So that's another good place to get started if you pick somewhere off of that list. That's in your state that they would be able to at least point you in the direction if nothing else. Oh, look, there it is. I just needed to click there's the list to the a la accredited programs that I just mentioned. That will give you more information about that have masters in library science, which that is a lot of times that an expectation in public libraries for leadership positions not necessarily always but your masters in library science goes by a variety of different acronyms there. And that a la accredited programs list will lead you in that direction. Sarah if I can hop in here. Many of those, you know, I think they're 20 or there are 62 accredited programs around the country and some states have multiple programs and some states have none. Nebraska does not have an Emma, an MLS program, but we have worked closely with the important Missouri over the years, but you have access because of the online nature of many of these programs we have people. I work with people who are going to gosh programs in California and Pennsylvania and programs in Louisiana and programs so you have the world is at your feet. So if you're looking to acquire an MLS. This is the list, make sure they're accredited by a la, and you can proceed from here so. All right. Now we're going to circle back. We wanted to put this at the end just to make sure we had enough time to talk about what we needed to talk about. I mentioned how important it is to have that grounding and best practice for education for school librarians. And so what we have here are some examples of some lesson plans there. They're even more in depth than just a normal lesson plan, but that Dr. Henning will walk you through to kind of show you an example of what we expect of our school library candidates. And before I get started, I want to backtrack a little bit. They just showed you the link to the MLS programs, master's in library science across the nation. And I'm going to stress that typically those are geared for people who want to go into the public library setting. I want to tell you a little story about someone who decided while she was in college she did not want to be a teacher. She wanted to be a teacher for teachers, but she wanted to be in a library. So she went, I think, to Missouri and got her MLS. And I met her when she was doing a practicum at the Carney Public Library. Her name is Stephanie Green. And I got her approval to mention her in this webinar. And she had the kids doing an activity where they were in a contest baking and decorating a cake that showed their favorite book for the summer. A real cute idea. And I talked to her there and she says, you know, she goes, I think I might be interested in being a school librarian. And I said, well, you do have to get your teaching endorsement. And what she did was she went to UNK and she already had an English major, but no teaching certificate. And she went through what we have here at UNK. And I know UNO also has kind of a fast track system. I'm not sure what it's called, but ours is called the transitional program. So she went to the transitional program. And once you get accepted and have a program of study, you can teach at a, you have a provisional teaching endorsement that you can have at a school, even though you have not finished all your teaching. You can go through the TPC transitional certification, sorry, TCP, transitional certification program, and she got her endorsement. And then after that she went to UNO and got her school library endorsement added to that teaching certificate. Now, was that a big ordeal? She says yes, it was. I wish, wish, wish I had when I was an undergraduate, just got my teaching certificate, but she said she didn't. So when she finally decided she wanted to do that, she had to go back and take her practices core, her practice subject assessment. And then when she was in the library program, she had to take the practice library media specialist assessment. She said that was a long way around to get to do what she's doing, but I'm so glad she's doing it because I knew when she was at Carney High School, I was the school librarian there at that time that she was an outstanding English teacher. She did a great job and then she went and after I retired and went full time at UNK in the library program here. She actually took my position and is doing a great, great job there. And so it's, you know, if you do have an MLS, it is possible to go back and get that teaching certificate and then add the endorsement. It's kind of a big deal. I mean, there's a lot of things you have to do, but it can be done. So any, Sarah, any additions to that? I know, I know that there's a fast track system at UNO also. Yeah, and I don't know why I didn't think to mention this earlier because I have it in my notes, but we do have an accelerated teaching program as well. So if you have your undergraduate degree in a different area, whether it's science or or English, whatever. We do have an accelerated program as well that will get you your teaching certificate in a condensed amount of time. And then you can certainly add the school library endorsement onto that as part of that. Okay, so, you know, I've already talked to you about being an instructional leader when you are in the classroom in the school. And that's that's so apparent when you are collaborating with your classroom teachers on project based or research projects that the students are doing. You know, right now we are at a point where we're doing a lot more student centered research or student centered projects. The students become more autonomous, they take ownership of their learning and and school and because this is this teaching strategy is so effective. School librarians are busy with their classroom teachers, taking the time to I mean classroom teachers have a lot on their plate. And so by collaborating with the school library and we are able to allow them some extra time or an extra person in the classroom. So I just cannot stress the importance of the instructional part of being a school librarian. So there are three different there are three different lesson plans. Now, these are lesson plans from my kind of my last class, TE 893, which is a field experience class. And this is these are some of the lesson plans that the students had to do when they were doing their field experience. Now, when you look at these, there's a lot in there, like there's they identify all the ASL standards that the students have to that this that the lesson will address. So that is something that is probably not something that you have to do every time you do a research project. But in my class I wanted them to do it so that they were aware of how these standards fit in to their instruction. So, you know, I talked about, I have always felt that school librarians need to be married to technology. The classroom teacher does not have the time to see what's out there and and let the teachers know how this can be integrated into their curriculum and be part of it. So the, the, the technology aspect is is a big one. And two of these projects use Picto chart. And it's just another way of changing up the artifact that the students will come up with. You know, back in the day, all we have were research papers that came out of here now we have slide presentations we have video projects we have Picto charts we have different different things that the apps that the students are using to to showcase what they have learned. So, I have, can are those actually links that you can click on to show these. Yeah, are they on the middle one. Whichever one Dr honey wanted me to click on your infographics would you click on that one. Yep. There we go. I love these infographic things you get so creative when they get so creative with them. So this is remember this is a collaborative project with the school librarian and a classroom teacher. And this particular one is great for and as, and as most educators know great for is when you are looking at Nebraska history. All teachers need to look at the state content and benchmarks and indicators for learning, and that is identified here. And then like I said the ASL standards again, I don't think you'd have to do this for every lesson, but it's nice when they're doing it for me so that they can be aware of the domains of thinking creating and sharing and growing and then how those go with the foundations of inquire include collaborate curate explore and engage. Now, you know, if you didn't have also if you didn't have the background in education. You know, about all the different assessments that you have to do in this particular in this particular assignment they have to do a pre assessment to see what the students already know. And then after the after the class they will do a post assessment, but you also have to know what a formative assessment is and what a summative assessment is. And those are those are things that you get through your educational studies. So just a little bit there. Okay, this is a, this is the activities that the students will do this is a fourth grade unit where they're going to compare and contrast what the settlers in the early in the Midwest, what they did and compare it to what they do to this in this this day now. This was, they use the KWL again that's a teaching strategy of best practice to record notes. They also include online resources which in this case is World Book online. And so and then they use the app Pecto chart to come up with what a graphic example of what it was like to be a pioneer in the Midwest. So, there's, so this is, if you keep going down it, they have to curate the materials for the students, both print and digital. Okay. And then this is more about the ASL standards. Again, I don't know if you have to do that every time, but this indicated that all the students had met those standards. Then we have a rubric for the infographic. And this is an important thing to know that when you have that you have, you know, you want to make sure the students are graded fairly. And a lot of things that are in our area are a bit subjective. So having a rubric for infographic is a great idea. And here's an example of one. Keep going. Okay. We I also have them take the time to reflect on the planning that they had to do with the classroom teacher. This is so important in the collaborative process. And there are a lot of roadblocks that sometimes you have to overcome, such as finding planning time that time when you're both available. Now on the secondary level in Nebraska, most of the school library and that's the middle school and the high school are on a flexible schedule. And that means that they can, you know, they schedule stuff in. And they don't have a fixed class that they have to have to teach. Whereas, elementaries, a lot of elementaries in Nebraska, unfortunately, are on a fixed schedule. And that fixed schedule means that they have to teach the multiple literacies standards in Internet safety. All those are taught, usually in the elementary during a fixed time with the school library. Now, what does that mean for collaboration? It means that sometimes you just don't have the time available to collaborate on research projects. So, so this, so I had them go through and talk about this with with their cooperating, you're not cooperating, collaborative teacher, and and then also to evaluate how they could improve what they taught. And if you keep going down a little bit, I have them show me some examples. That that's an example of the worksheet they have to complete. This is fourth grade. And then they showed some examples of the project, the infographic that they actually had. So this is just one example of how a you can collaborate with the classroom teacher and is a big, big part of our of what we do. So let's see. I mean, I tried to get grade one grade four and grade nine so you can see the different areas. When I went back and looked there was infographics for both grade four and grade nine, but that could easily be changed to a research paper for the for the ninth grade students. You know, we're, we're kind of the school librarian is also the copyright expert, I say that kind of, I mean, people go to them and ask them, you know, about copyright and ethical use of information. And we're also kind of the pro when it comes to whatever style they use MLA or APA style in their school. So, lots of stuff that that we have. We don't just sit and read. So, excellent. So thank you and you will have access to those via a link so that you can take a look at those in more depth if you want. I wanted to make sure that we saved time for questions. Again, you'll have all this contact information for everybody so you can reach out with specific questions about your particular situation or particular programs. But if there are any other questions we can answer. I don't know if, if any have come through Krista or. Yeah, let's see. Yes. So anybody if you had any questions about any of the programs. As we said this is specific to Nebraska. Because that's where we are. But I know so some of you are not here from Nebraska and that's okay you can still ask general questions about things. But if you are wanting more information about any of these, you know, type into the question section. I know what you want to know more about what you're thinking is on getting your degrees, whichever type of degree you may be looking for. And what you're interested in. Yeah, and there's the that first document that we mentioned that will have is the links will be in the slides for. Yeah, I would interject here that you will get the best information about the two year and associates degree program from Dean Marty. And you'll get the best information from Erica about that for your bachelor's degree. And all of your some of the states that have MLS degree programs, certainly will be on that list and so. You'll not be able to answer some general questions for those programs, your best sources for those people on the list there so. And we've had I should mention. Those names are familiar to me of course they've all of them have been on encompass live for other topics sometimes they did the program related sometimes other things Erica Dean and Marty, all of them. Absolutely, Krista, thank you. All right, we do have my question before but I'm going to ask this one here. If you're already working so Heather wants to know if you have already working in a library but don't have a degree. What is the best degree to start with. I'll interject here. That one to you anyway. I always chat with people about, what's your flavor. You know, I know that sounds funny. But if you're thinking about, I love to work with kids, or I never want to work with kids that would change what I would suggest to you. You know, if it would, if you want to work with kids you can do that both in a school library, or as a youth services library and in a public library. We have opportunities to do that either place and so we would talk about the programs that would get you will compare the programs that will get you your goal so that you could make a good decision. But if you have if you've never gone to college at all you have no college credit. I would hop right on that community college program and all those credits transfer right into the four year bachelors program but get started. Figure out I know lots of people say, oh, how could I do this on that. I said you'll never have more money. You'll never have more time. That is a myth. We all did it when we were in the midst of 7,000 things, you know, Krista, you, Judy, you, Sarah, did anything slow down when you decided to do this? No. So, I would tell you for the buck, that is cheap college credit and good learning. And I would start there and get yourself figured out and then if you decide, wow, I'm on a roll here, then move into that four year you can get, you know, you have an undergraduate degree in library science to go into an MLS program. But this will give you, yeah, absolutely. And so this will give you a great background though for those concepts that you'll run into. So if I were going to start the best bang for my buck would be at that community college level and Marty and D can talk to you about that. And then you'll be done in about a year with a certificate in two years with the entire degree. And then guys, Judy, I love to see your Sarah love to talk to you down the road. You know, it'd be nice to come into even a school library program with some sense of librarianship, you know, that'll give you some context for the discussions. So, but if you've never put together a program that might be your best place to start. Yeah, as I say, anyone going into libraries to get your MLS, if you're going to end up there, you can come from all sorts of areas. I was my undergraduate degree, there's an English with a specialization in Irish literature and folklore. Just because. And, and then I went to do my MLS they you can be any do anything and jump right into there when you decide oh that is what I actually want to do when you figure out where you're going in life. Yeah. You know, I think sometimes you think well what would have community college degree get me if I want to work in an academic library. I would tell you that many of the people at those front lines desks that looking it over the circulation desk that look at you over that reference desk that look have two year associates degrees, because the other master's level candidates are doing other things with around campus in terms of teaching and learning. I would tell you we have lots of candidates in both those forums who are working successfully in special and public and, and academic libraries in a variety of positions. Yeah, that give them real context for what they're learning. So don't, you know, don't be afraid to just hop in. So, you don't have to the master's degree does not have to be what you're going for you don't have to go to that if you don't want to you can still do these. That's why we have the bachelor's and associates because those are useful for for think for as well. Yeah. You know, and there's a lot of library leadership around Nebraska. And I won't shout out names here but there are many leaders in our professional associations and in our different kinds of libraries that have come right out of that community college program and kept going so good for you. Yeah. Anybody have any other questions type them in. There's one here from earlier that I was going to address but I want to see if anybody had anything else you want to ask of Sarah, Judy and Becky or here go ahead and type your questions in. We've got at least five minutes left of this hour but we did start a little late because of our weird technical things. So, we will go as long as it takes to answer all of your questions that you guys may have anything our presenters want to say. We'll keep going and keep recording. We don't get cut off just right at the top of the hour. So do. If you do have to take off because you only a lot of an hour for this that's fine you can always come back and watch the rest of the recording later, which I'm going to have to do because I have an 11 o'clock meeting but it's great to see my my buddy Judy it's really good to see I see you every day talk to you every day. And Chris to thanks again it's wonderful to work with you and I'll see you guys around but feel free to email me or any of these good people in front of you and and we'll answer your questions as we can thank you. Absolutely thank you. It's going to be my emphasis that you know reach out and and talk to somebody and get you know it doesn't hurt to ask questions and find out a little bit more about your specific situation so I highly encourage you to reach out to any one of us listed on that. I also wanted to mention that you know when you are you know if you are an endorsed teacher and you're out there teaching and and you get into the programs and I'm sure I'm not sure how yours works, but this is an opportunity for you to get a master's degree in instructional technology with school library emphasis which gets you your endorsement or curriculum instruction with the school library endorsement. Now some people already have their masters and so they come here and instead they get the endorsement only and they can do that also so all you again like Sarah like Sarah said you just have to figure out what you know where you're at what you need and and let us know we'll do what we can to get you get you going. Yeah, we have lots of masters options as well and endorsement options that we can tack on. Our itl endorsement is one that lots of our library itl instructional technology leadership is one that lots of school librarians do in addition to their school library endorsement, and it's not that far off from the school library endorsement to a master's. So, most of our candidates if they don't already have a master's go on to complete their master's as well. Yeah, and that's so important if you're teaching because that dictates your salary so you want to want to move over on the base scale as quickly as you can so. Yep, absolutely. And one other question here that I was going to address. And I just want to preface this with the description for today's session was about you know education programs leading to credentials and librarianship and specifically said we're talking about education and getting your associates bachelors and master's degrees. So actually getting those degrees however we have a question that is very interesting and is something luckily here in Nebraska that we do address. And the question from Lee was, what about non librarian credentialing. And for those of us already working in libraries on what we make the cost of such credentialing really is a negative. So basically talking about what if what what can you do if you can't afford going into actual college courses and things like that, and going to UNK you know or any other universities. I kind of talked about that when she talked about the community college. And I'm not, I'm not an expert on that I know it's available, but I'm not an expert but usually the community college classes are very reasonable. Oh yes. But like, like Dr. Pasco said, a great way to get started is figure like if you've never gone to college sometimes just going to college is intimidating like what is all that it's such a huge thing. Community college is a way to just kind of sneak in. Yeah. So that's definitely a way to get started. But what we actually have here in Nebraska, talking about. Non librarian credentialing here in Nebraska and in many states across the country, we have lots of we have here in Nebraska 270 something public libraries, and many of them in very, very rural areas. And many of them, because of their being rural small areas, do not have the MLS requirement for their library directors they do not. There's just no way they would get anybody who has that kind of a degree and as you were talking, Judy if you get these credentials and degrees you can get a better paid there's just, there's just not, it's not going to happen people in small rural towns, someone with a master's degree and library science, unless they're just going home to live there they're not going to be looking for that and the library is not going to be able to pay them something to measure it to that. But there are other options of being able to learn to educate yourself about being a librarian. And you don't have to have a degree to be called a librarian. But I'm going to pull the presenter control back to my screen because I want to share with you guys. There we go. This is Nebraska and this is not in every state but some other states do have this as well. We do have a certification program for librarians. And part of that certification program is either having a degree. You get a certain degree, depending on what your degree is you get a certain certification level, and that's so many what you do with schools. But if you don't have a degree, and you're not able to go to library school we have a thing called basic skills programs. And this is here in Nebraska preface that be very clear. This is free for any Nebraska citizen who is interested in being a librarian or working in a library. And this is some of the basic courses. Things that you might do in actual at a university, but done by us here at the library commission. They're generally two weeks or month courses of just learning the basics. So for someone who is a very small town. I'm the librarian 20 hours a week and I'm the postmistress to the other 20 hours a week. I just need to know the basics and I know hardly anything here's where you can get some of the basic instruction and education about what does it take to do that without having to go and take a whole library program. So I think this would help answer that person's question about what about non like brain credential and what about learning about this and it's just being a getting a degree is not something for me, it's just not going to happen and I'm not. But I just need to know how to do my job. We have this available. Excuse me here in Nebraska. Some other states do have credentialing or certification programs just it's not a national program each state does it state by state. There's nothing national dictating this to us or dictating the certification programming to us each state library decides what they'll do and how it works so check with your state to see if they may have something like this for you. Excuse me, sorry. Also, it's another way to get your feet, you know that what, if you're just really not sure or like I said you're in a really rural area or something is just I don't have. There's no way I have the money for anything. This is something that could help you figure out if it's what you want to do. All right, any other last minute questions before I pop up I don't see anyone that came in just some thank yous great presentation have a great afternoon. Yes, thank you. Did we get Heather Dormer. Did we get her question answered. She has a little question mark. Yeah she was the one who asked about what if you're already working and don't have a degree what's the best to start with. Yep, yep. Great. Thanks for letting us beyond today this was wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, no this is great. I, as this series at the beginning we are all very excited about getting education, becoming librarian and whatever way you can. And being able to provide the good services to the people in your community with the communities your public library or academic library your school and whatever education you can get for that. The programs through the universities. You can learn and become good librarians. Okay, I was going to say somebody had a question but now they're gone. Oh yeah there's they're saying just thank you thank you and then logging off yeah that's all right. Alrighty. All right so I think that says nobody's asking you that's will wrap up officially. You guys will have all the contact info for everyone you need to depending on which program you might be interested in. And the links and the recordings afterwards. And I said I'm going to show you over here. Back to our encompass live page. Yeah. The recording our archives are right here these are upcoming shows our archives link is right here underneath those most recent ones at the top of the page so today's will be there should be up by the end of the day tomorrow. You'll have a link to the recording a link to the slides, which within those slides have links to everything that are presented for talking about today. Everybody who attended this morning's show and registered for today and didn't attend. We'll receive an email from me letting you know on the recordings ready. We also have posted up into our very social media we do have a Facebook page for encompass live so if you'd like to use Facebook, you can pop over there and give us a like we do reminders is reminder about logging into today show. When information about our speakers when our recordings are available we post about that. So, if you do like Facebook, give us a like over there. We also post on Instagram and Twitter and we have this end comp live as the hashtag for our show so you can look for that everywhere. I'll mention here while we're on the archive page there's a search feature here so you can search our previous shows to see if there's any topics that interest to you. You can do the full archives or just most recent 12 months. That is because this is the full archives for the entire history of encompass live and I'm not going to scroll all the way down because it would be crazy. The show premiered our show premiered in January 2009. So we have over and all of our recordings are here so over 10 years worth of recordings are here, which is a lot. So, search for topics but I'll give a warning pay attention to the original broadcast dates of any of these historical shows. Some information will stand the test of time reading lists things like that, but some things may change services and products may no longer exist anymore. They've made change completely and what they offer links might be broken or not exist anymore because it's sold. But we are librarians we keep things for archival purposes for history and we will always keep them up here as long as we have a place to host them right now it's all on our YouTube account. So just pay attention to that original broadcast date when you are watching anything on our archives. So that will wrap it up for today's show. Hope you join us next week when our topic is board games. Yes, a fun topic for engagement with soft skills. It's just playing board games but using board games at the library. George Bergstrom who's from the Indiana State Library, the library State Library will be joining us to talk about how to do this at your library using them not just as to just get hand out and circulate but for more engagement. So please do sign up for that show and any of our other upcoming shows got a couple of March dates on here already. And you'll see more of them fill in there as I confirm presenters. So sign up for anything else you see there than that. Thank you everybody for attending. Thank you. Dr. Pascoe was left. Dr. Henry Dr. Churchill for being with us here today. This is great and hopefully we'll get a lot more librarians in the field. Thank you. Thank you guys very much. Bye bye.