 All right, good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly online event. We are a webinar, a webcast, an online show. The terminology is up for debate, what we call these things. But whatever you want to call us, we are here live online. Hopefully only good things you call us. Bad things. We're here live online every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. The show is recorded, however, so if you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. You can always go to our website and watch recordings of any of our previous shows. And I'll show you where that is at the end of today's show. We post recording if there are any slides or documents or handouts that are included from presentations and links to websites that were mentioned during presentations or all gathered together into an archive spot. Both the show, the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with any of your colleagues, friends, neighbors, family, whoever you think might be interested in any of our topics. They are welcome to join us live on Wednesdays or watch any of our recordings. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live, book reviews, mini-training sessions, demos, interviews. Basically the only criteria is that it's something library-related. Either something libraries are doing, some could be of use to libraries, some new resource or service that could be of use to them. Sometimes we're a little outside the box thinking, but we always link it back to libraries. That's our focus here. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that do presentations and we sometimes have guest speakers and today we have a mixture of that. To my left here is Richard Miller, who is our library development director here at the Nebraska Library Commission. And to his left is Reggie Carlson, who's from the Nebraska Community Foundation. She's the communications director there. And we also on the line, two libraries that are going to be chatting in a little later and we'll get to them and introduce them later on, I suppose. Yeah, we'll talk about this. And what we're going to be discussing this morning is getting money specifically grants for small town libraries, public libraries in Nebraska. And I'll just hand it over to you guys to take it over, Roy, and explain what's going on. Okay, well Reggie and I decided we do kind of a question and answer format. And for those of you who know me, you'll be surprised that I'm not doing most of the talking today. It's going to be Reggie. I'm going to ask the questions and she's going to give the answers because actually she's a little bit closer to the money than I am anyway. So Reggie Carlson and I have worked together and she just told me she's been there nine years. I can't believe how fast this has passed. I worked with her predecessor as well when these Coots Bennett donor advised fund monies first became available, but it's really gotten rolling during her time here. So we'll do a question and answer format. I'm going to ask the questions and she's going to give you all the information you need to know about these grants. All right, so Reggie, can you tell us what the Coots Bennett donor advised fund grants are first of all? Yes, but first first, I'm going to explain to everybody how you really pronounce the name and that is the Coots Bennett donor advised fund. And it's, you know, it takes a while. You said Croix. Croix. Did I say it right? I think not. I think you said Croix. All right, I'll change my pronunciation. But almost every phone call that I get is about the Croots Bennett donor advised fund. But it's Croix. So think of, oh my gosh. Oh, Croix. Oh, Croix. Anyway, these are these are grants that are made possible through an endowment that was established by the late Shirley Croix Bennett, who is a lifelong educator. She believed that everyone should have access to a world of information. And she specifically intended for the funds to support small town, small town libraries, libraries that have populations of 3,000 or less. And so in a nutshell, that's what the Croix Bennett donor advised funds are. Very good. Okay, there. Okay. Well, before we get into the details of the grants themselves, could you explain a little bit about what the term donor advised fund means and how that works through your operation? Okay, briefly, like almost all community foundations in the United States, the Nebraska Community Foundation offers people with charitable intentions the opportunity to set up a fund within our organization. So a donor makes a tax deductible, charitable contribution, usually fairly significant, and that establishes a fund that then the Nebraska Community Foundation administers. That money is held or within our foundation, and the donor or his or her advisors can determine what charitable organizations they'd like to support. So they let the Nebraska Community Foundation know, we handle the distribution of the funds. And one of the reasons that people choose to use a donor advised fund instead of a private foundation is that we do all the paperwork. We do all of the tax reporting and all the auditing and all of the receiving and all of that stuff that could really overwhelm some of the small town community leaders that are running these programs. And so our donor advisors then are left to do the fund part, and that is just granting the money. Well, in the description of the program today, we mentioned that the nieces and nephews of Shirley Croites are involved in this whole thing. And can you describe how their decision making about these helps to fulfill the wishes of the donor, Shirley? Right. At Nebraska Community Foundation and any community foundation, donor intent is the number one concern that we have. So before Shirley died, she made it very clear in her will that she wanted to establish a fund that would be advised by her first surviving siblings, but then her nieces and nephews. And she made it clear also that she wanted to help small town libraries. However, she did not want to cause an undue burden on her family for an unreasonable number of years or forever, which is what an endowment is. It's a permanent fund. So Nebraska Community Foundation suggested that she set up what we call a turn endowment. And that means that the money is held within our foundation for a number of years, and in this case, it's about 10 years. But then the funds are spent out. So the funds are invested, the earnings on those investments are used to make grants every year. And in addition, I should mention that Shirley did not expect her nieces and her nephews to be experts in funding libraries. And so they asked Nebraska Community Foundation to administer the program. And also, they asked that the library commission provide guidance to the fund advisors. And so that's how this whole thing works. Richard and I worked together with the nieces and nephews to provide the grants once a year. Okay, yeah, it's fun too. I really enjoy meeting them. I forget their names from year to year, but then they reacquaint me with their names. They're a great bunch of people. They all are from, I would say, South Central Nebraska. Yeah. Donaldson, St. Paul. Are any of them in Harvard anymore, where she went to? No. No, okay. Well, I understand that there are three categories of grants. And if you could spend some time reviewing those, we'd appreciate it. Why can't I get this to her? Use the right arrow. All right. Thank you. All right, tell us about the three categories of grants, if you would, please. Okay, three categories. There's planning grants, and those lead to accreditation. Enhancement grants, and they lead to those are for enhancing library services and programs. And facility grants, which of course, like it sounds, is used for renovating or restoring or rehabilitating your current facilities. Let's first talk about the planning grants. Excuse me, that time of year. Planning grants are for non-accredited public libraries, and the money must be used to work toward accreditation. Activities that could be funded would include education, planning, collaboration. Very importantly, the money could be used to support salary or stipend for personnel to extend your library hours, which is so often very necessary to get accredited. It can also be used to help support additional hours of staff time who are working on accreditation requirements and planning and meetings. So that is what the kind of activities that planning grants go to. There's a $500 minimum that you can apply for, and you can apply for up to $2,500. It's a very generous one-to-one match, $1 in court-spendent funding, $1 in local funding. In this particular category, in-kind matches cannot be allowed, meaning that your volunteer board members cannot count for your in-kind match. The time frame is multi-year grants are possible, and you say, why would you need multi-year grants for planning to tell you that some of our libraries do? And so if your planning process, it takes more than one year, we will invite a proposal if you can show us the need. The second category of... Let me talk for just a minute about that, if I could. We have had two public libraries in our state so far, one of which had never been accredited, which became accredited through this. One of which had actually lost their accreditation through, I won't go into the ugly details, but they actually regained their accreditation. And so this is really, really interesting. And Reggie mentioned in particular that often the open hours and staffing is often the thing that gets the libraries into difficulty with trying to become accredited. And this is so helpful in doing that. I'm so glad that the nieces and nephews and Reggie and Jeff over at the group said, yeah, we'll do this, because this is something that leading these smaller libraries to accreditation results in so many benefits for them. So I really applaud the folks for doing that. Right. And at the time that the Courtspennet donor advice fund was established, I think that there was almost 100 libraries that were not accredited at the time. But so I don't know, I'm hoping that that number decreases. Okay, so we move on. Okay, the second group of grants are enhancement grants. And these are four accredited libraries, you have to be accredited. And they're used to create community education and outreach programs and services. We especially look at services that benefit low income individuals or families or new Americans or underserved populations. These grant monies can be used for existing programs or new programs. And the thing you want to consider, however, is that routine costs such as utilities and general maintenance are not eligible. Microfilming and digitization project proposals at this time are not eligible as well. The other thing is that equipment such as computers and software programs are not eligible unless they are only a component part of a much larger project. So I guess an example would be a Makers program, a Makers Club program in a library that was having a volunteer or a stipend person come in and run a program and was purchasing equipment to help, to make that program possible, to help kids learn how to program computers and do digital printing and that sort of thing. So in that case, the computer program and software wasn't the focus of the program. The focus of the program was the teaching of the kids. So I'm hoping that was clear. Oh yeah, that was clear. Let me talk for just a minute about both the planning grants and the enhancement grants. Talk about the multi-year grants. And one of the reasons that that's really a good thing is that let's suppose, for example, that you want to move your library toward accreditation or that you want to start a new program under these enhancement grants. Well, if you want to sustain that over time, getting your local to come up with additional funding that becomes part of the library's budget, you often can't do that within one year or less than a year. So that's why the multi-year grants are really good. So we really appreciate the fact that you guys are allowing that. Right. And so often what you need to do is show success before somebody's willing to invest in ongoing success. And so enhancement grants can be helpful that way, I believe. And is it in Valley that Valley was able to hire a part-time youth program specialist this past summer and using a grant from Quartz Bennett Donor Advice Fund. And the program was so successful that she is thinking that maybe next year, maybe the year after that, she can get those fundings from the sit, from the village to make that part of the regular budget. Yeah, this is a good way of showing that the service is needed and wanted by the community. If they see that using the grant to get that person to run that program, look at what happened now, maybe we should keep it going. Just to look at the numbers, the increase in patronage and that sort of thing. Yeah, we originally planned to have Valley on the presentation today, but unfortunately for us, but fortunately for her, she's traveling. She's on vacation, so she couldn't do it. But it's a great photosmanship, too. Yeah. For this particular area of grants, the annual amount that you need to be looking at is you need to be applying for at least $1,000, but you can apply for up to a maximum of $20,000. And once again, a very generous match of one-to-one. In this particular area, 50% of the match can be in-kind. So if you've got volunteers running your program, you may be able to count those volunteer hours as part of your local match. And yes, multi-year grants are allowed. The next one is facility grants. And it's interesting, when we first did our first round of grant making, and I believe that was 2012, when the first grants went out, almost all of them were for facilities. And as the years have gone by, we're seeing more and more enhancement grants. And I don't know if people just couldn't think of ideas at the time, or if they just immediately thought of facility improvement when it came to asking for money. But anyway, facility grants are for accredited libraries only. They're for the construction of a new facility or rehabbing an existing facility. There is some preference given to libraries that have a historic, the Carnegie Libraries. However, the Fund Advisory Committee understands that sometimes rehabbing an old building just simply is not reasonable. And it's much more efficient and effective and will meet the needs better and more effectively if a new facility is built. And so they're aware of that. They also look at programs that are libraries that have a long-term sustainability plan. Very important to them. So the grant minimum that you can request is $5,000. The maximum, again, is $20,000. Generous match of one-to-one, but in-kind matches are not allowed. So if you've got a great volunteer who's willing to pour your cement, that's terrific, but we can't count as ours. We can buy the cement. One important thing to remember about facility grants, because sometimes these projects take a long time. You may be doing parts of the project at one point in time and then continuing on and continuing on. The Courts-Venant Donor Advice Fund cannot fund costs that have already been incurred. In other words, if you've already built this room and paid the vendor for it, we cannot reimburse you for those costs. So that's a requirement. Anything else on that? I don't think so. We've had a good number of libraries that have participated in this whole thing. In fact, I talked to Reggie about this and we haven't got this straight yet. I think one thing that would really be useful is on our website at the commission if we maybe have a historical record of which libraries have received which grants and how much. I think that would really be good. So I think we'll work that out sometime after the show is over. We have that grants database. This isn't part of that that we have? No, no, no, because that's only for grants from the commission. Since we have the link to Courts-Venant, I said it right again, to Courts-Venant, but I was just thinking that maybe we could have a list there just at that point. So we'll talk about that. It can be done. All right. Well, now that we have a pretty good understanding of the three categories of grants, why don't you talk to us about how the process works, what the due dates are, and all of that sort of thing, Reggie? All right. Well, it's really, really easy because I have written grants all of my life, all of my adult life, and I know how complicated they can be. That was not the intention here. All you have to do is if you think that you have an eligible project after you've downloaded, listen to this program, you can download the guidelines in the short application form from our website, and you can get to that download area from the commission's website as well. And we'll talk about that at the end of the program when we talk about contact information. Anyway, the short application mainly just establishes whether your library is a public library, whether the funds are going to the library or the library foundation. So it has to be a public library or a 501c3 charitable organization like a library foundation. And it's very important that you are accredited if you are applying for either the enhancement of the facility grants and non-accredited libraries can only apply for planning grants at this point in time. Basically, all you have to do in this short application that you download is explain the purpose of the project, the total budget, how you plan to raise or commit to the matching funds. Short applications are due October 1st, and what will happen is if you are eligible and the project seems reasonable, we'll invite you to submit a full proposal. And what that full proposal is is just providing a little bit more detail, more detailed budget, just offering the same explanation in the short proposal, but just expanding on it a little bit. And that long proposal or full proposal is not due until January. I think one of the things I'd say as we've worked with the nieces and nephews over the years is that that idea of demonstrating actual and real and solid local support is very important to them. Because when they look at these applications, they get recommendations from us here at the commission and from Reggie and so forth, but I can tell that over the years they have said, is this really something that is likely to be sustained, likely to be supported? Is there real support in the local community for this? And I think that's important to them, so be very careful about that. Right. The other thing I would say is especially for facilities, grants, if you can submit copies of actual bids on things, the nieces and nephews appreciate that because once again, we're not experts on putting up drywall, and so it really is helpful if you can have bids. You don't have to do that for the short application. That will come when you submit your full application in January. I've noticed also that they're very practical people, so they don't go much for show. They want to see actual information. All right. Well, let's see. We're going to talk to libraries now, aren't we? Yeah, I think that's it. Let me just double check what's our next slide. Yeah, we're going to talk to libraries first. For those of you, probably you'd most likely go to our website at the Nebraska Library Commission. There are flyout menus from the left-hand side. Notice there's a flyout menu under grants, funding, an e-rate, and Krista has put a big red arrow right there on the Croix Bennett Donor Advised Fund grants so you can get to it from there or you can go to the website from the Nebraska Community Foundation. And that will bring you to that link that's on the previous slide. And actually, when you click on that, it actually pops right out to... Yeah, just go back one. Did you go back? Whoops. Yeah, oops. Yeah. Yeah, too many. Keep going. There. There. We actually directly write into their page. All right. Now, if we decide to put up a list of who's actually received it, that might change. At some point, we may then have an intermittent page that'll list that. Sure. It'll get you to something about it. Okay. We're going to talk to those two people who have been nicely hanging on for so long from a couple of libraries that received the grants. And as I told you, Valley is not on here, but Reggie wanted to tell us who is on and who's going to be speaking to us today. Okay. Well, from Genoa. Yep. We've got Tammy Thiem. Is that how you pronounce your name, Tammy? No, it's Tammy Thiem. Thiem. Okay. Well, I had that wrong. Tammy Thiem. Hi. Hi. Good to visit with you again. Yes. This is Genoa Public Library. Tammy, you'll be talking about the grant that they received in February 2016 for $2,000. And I'll let you talk about the program yourself. And we will also be talking to Anne Quigley in Valentine about their Facilities Improvement Grant. So, do we want to, Tammy? Do we want to talk to Tammy first? Sure. Go ahead, Tammy. Take it away. Good morning. I am the Library Director at Genoa Public Library and we were fortunate enough to get a grant. What our goal was was to have a maker space. We had such a successful children's programming that the children wanted more to do. So, we had a wonderful space beneath the windows. We had a window seat made by the local shock class at Twin River High School. So, all we had to pay for were the materials and it had a front open storage. So, we bought containers that would fit in there. And for those containers, we purchased things such as Legos, Megformers, Play-Doh, Snap Circuits, fashion plates, Polar Beads, Sparrow Spark, Ozobot Zoob, plus many other things. These were all STEM type items. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, things that will enhance their creativity and creative thinking. We also purchased several board games. These we use during our reading programs for the older children for getting the game. The games promote strategy, logical thinking, and then there's other games such as Apples to Apples where if you're familiar with it, it has word definitions. So, it's a sneaky way of getting them to learn during the summer. We'd like to incorporate some sort of family board game nights with these games come wintertime. We purchased books for babies, kids. These come with a bib and a board book and different pamphlets talking about how wonderful it is to reach your children and a card that they can exchange for a real library card. Try to promote reading early for community members. Back to the makerspace items. We have kids come in here every day and sometimes we'll have, for a small town of a thousand people and community members, we'll have 14 to 20 kids come in to do different activities just on their own. And the great thing about that is once the kids come in, they'll check out library books. Kids who may normally would not have come in and they also tell their friends because we have different kids come in all the time. And what's exciting is without the grant, there's no way our regular library budget would have been able to sustain or get this kind of thing. So, I am very appreciative of it. Any questions? Can you talk about that window seat storage thing that we're looking at right now with a little girl sitting on it? Yes, this is what our Twin River shop class built. It cost about $67 for all the materials. And I have to get some pillows because it's a popular spot for the kids to kick back and read or play or sit and visit. It has storage in the front so it fits plastic containers really nicely with the lids to separate all the different makerspace items. Well, I have been to your library and I know it's quite small so I think the extra storage for that particular purpose was really a great idea you guys had. Thank you. Sure. Hey, you know what? The kids are really cute there in Genoa, too. Absolutely. Who is this? Can you see that photo? That's not my library. Oh, this might be a picture of the Itzwicham Valley that we're in there. We weren't supposed to. Oh, okay. I don't know. Is that one of your kids? No, not that one. Well, the kids must be cute in Valley also. These are all around the thing that you said. A lot of great children's programming going on in the last couple of years. I'm really, really pleased to have these creative people thinking about the kids in their community. And Tammy, it's so nice to be able to know how to pronounce your last name along with Croix Bennett. Now we can say Tammy Thiem. Sorry about that. Oh, that's fine. Can I mention one more thing? Sure. Okay. I happen to be also the library that had the unfortunate ugly experience with losing accreditation. Yeah. Right. And you got one of these grants, and what happened? I was able to dedicate a whole lot of time to getting all my ducks in a row and applying for it and succeeded. Not only did I succeed, but we were accredited at the silver level, which is huge for our small library. And because of the accreditation, that's what made applying for the enhancement grant possible. Let me point out also that this loss of accreditation had nothing to do with Tammy. She kind of came on board and things were falling apart, which we didn't know about before she came on board. So she's the one who got it restored through the planning grant and through all the efforts of her and her staff. We do have a question for you, Tammy. That's why I went back to this slide that described the grant, because I'm not sure if you haven't answered yet. That's why I wanted to go back to this one. Someone wants to know, we're wondering if you're able to get local support to keep the makerspace activities going and to continue to upgrade the materials. Now, I see this says that the project completion date is supposed to be not to the end of this year. So are you even beyond to that point yet or? I do still have some funds to purchase. I already got the main things I wanted. So now I'm being very selective. Now that I've learned what the children enjoy, I know what more to gear towards. And yes, I've very much promoted between newspaper articles and Facebook, and I talk to the city council regularly so that they know what's going on. So I have pictures out there. Parents really help promote it. So people in the community, they really appreciate it. So I really think that will help encourage the budget for the city to allow the budget to be increased to keep this going, to enhance it, ongoing rate to keep supporting it. Tammy, let me go off on one more tangent here, which I think is interesting. Why don't you talk for just a minute about your activities within the Three Rivers library system? Yes, I'm also the system peer coordinator for a five county group, Antelope Boone, Madison, Nanson Platt, and this is kind of a new venture we're doing. But what it is, try to promote different learning activities for directors and staff. Try to promote carpooling to make it easier to go to. Try to make the director meetings very viable and exciting and learning experiences for everybody, increase networking, and it's just nice to have someone locally within the group go to people to open up communication and networking for all the directors. Now, Tammy is the first and so far only one of these people for the Three Rivers library system. One of the reasons that Anika Ramirez, the system director, felt this was necessary is that her office, of course, is down at Omaha, and there are a whole bunch of public libraries up there in the northeast part of the state. So they came up with this plan about having the peer coordinators. Is that what you call it? Yes, system peer coordinator. Do you know have they come up with any additional ones at this point, or are you still it? I've not heard that they have gotten anybody else on board yet. Okay, so you're the pioneer. So you're going to set the standard for everybody, right, Tammy? No, that's right. Okay. All right, let's go on to Valentine if we could. And Kristen is going to try to take us through the photos, which are not all from there. There we go. Hello, Anne. This is Reggie. Hello. Good morning. Good to talk to you again. Thanks. You and I have talked quite a bit, haven't we, because I'm laughing. I'm laughing at this completion date. That's pretty funny. Yeah, I think that we just put it off a little bit because you ran into some problems with, especially with weather in completing the project, wasn't it? I should have changed that. And I'm sorry, because we did, we changed that on your grant agreement. And I just, this is one of those copy paste errors that pop up every now and then. But it's nice to understand. I can be adjusted. Yeah, absolutely. If you don't get something done by the time chat with you, it's okay. We can adjust things. Yeah, we heard that. I mean, it was nice that we had a nice wet summer last year, but it does put a cramp on certain things. But just tell us about your project and, because you certainly have more quotes to do it than I am. This was probably the project that gave this librarian gray hair. I haven't been for that. In 2010, we did a renovation of the interior of the library where in which we gutted the library, everything was out of the library. And then we started again and put new shelving and new flooring and stuff like that in here. That wasn't as difficult as the front entrance, which was a much smaller project. But it was a terrific trial and it made me extremely nervous. And just from the fact that things did not happen according to my timeline. I really like to watch that. And I had to learn to adapt and adapt again and again. But anyway, the project, we had kind of an unsafe almost entrance to the library with concrete steps and a handicapped ramp. But the handicapped ramp was a little steep. It didn't have a railing that really helped anyone. It was not usable. I have a friend that is in a wheelchair. And he showed me that, you know, as far as anything with the handrail on that ramp, it did not help him at all. Also, interestingly enough, his grandfather needed a walker. And it was steep enough that the handrail on the ramp didn't really help him with the walker, didn't make him feel safe. So we hired an architect to redesign the front. You can see from the picture too that there was some spalling and some dark mold in the corners of the old steps. And so it really did. You can't see from this picture that's up there right now about that you can't see the ramp too much. But the handicapped ramp railing was just a little bit low. So it didn't provide anybody with any security or support as they were coming into the library and especially leaving it as they felt like the grade was just, for some reason, a little steep. So we had an architect come take a look at that and redesign and draw. And he made up a project manual with some renovations that have now been almost complete, almost. We're right at the edge of being done. Which we took off all of that handicapped ramp. We took off all of that. So yeah, what you see there is everything being gone from the front entrance. And our dirt pile. And is this the gray hair portion of the project? This was the gray hair portion of the project. As they started jackhammering that away, I worried about the windows breaking. I worried about, oh, anyway, they took off all of the front of the project and then began to reconstruct the new portion. What I will say that was, oh, you see the bricks that he's working on in this slide? Those were delayed. They came out of Georgia. And part of our delay was that the bricks were delayed like two weeks. So we just were sitting there with a dirt pile and no bricks to get going. The footings were all poured and everything was ready, but no bricks. So we waited two weeks for bricks. Anyway, that's now kind of you see some completed pictures there. The other piece I didn't tell you about in the earlier photograph were the railings as they went down the steps. And you can see these new railings where people have a chance now to grab a hold of those. And they have assistance going all the way down before the railings were completely ineffective for anybody that needed to use a cane or a walker and they wanted to come up the steps. It was pretty difficult to have the support of a railing. So now with this new enhancement, they do have railing help all the way to the top. And I will tell you that I fell off your front steps at least once. There was something non-standard about the tread. I don't know what that was. I don't know what depth or height or something. Did you really? Yeah, I don't know what that was about. Of course, I'm not too coordinated, but it really was very strange coming in there. Well, yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that. We did have a child that took a jump off the old front step and there was a piece of aluminum that was holding on a carpet piece and he cracked his head open on that piece of aluminum. And his parents didn't really realize that he kind of started to cry and they picked him up and carried him halfway down the block. And the next thing we knew, our security cameras were showing this family running into the library with this kid with blood everywhere. So we even had to call an ambulance for him. And he was not hurt badly, but you know how a head wound will bleed. Scared the parents to death and I'll tell you it scared us to death too. So hopefully we won't have that again. But anyway, as you see, the grade there from now the handicapped entrance is very easily accessible. They built that up so there's no need for a railing now. And my friend who is in a wheelchair has told me over and over and over, this is just great. It's so much, much easier to navigate. So we have plantings in now, landscaping done. We have new benches that were just installed. One of the benches has a crack in it so needs to be replaced and that's our last thing that we're going to do. So there's benches in front of the wall and benches out kind of at the end of the handicapped ramp where people can sit down and enjoy the shade of the tree. It's really, it's very, very pleasant now. And I have to tell you the renovation you guys did in 2010, the interior of your library is absolutely gorgeous. And now the front looks like it finally meets the interior. Well, it does and it's really, we have a really pleasant little library. We have the, is it the National Star Party here right now? There are lots of these people come in during the day, they're from all over, and they're just stunned when you can't believe this little library. So it's really, it's really a nice interior. People are very comfortable in it and now the exterior looks terrific too. It's wonderful. And one of the things that the Croix Foundation helped us do, I mean hiring the architect was very comforting and I would suggest anybody doing any kind of renovation to a facility have good engineers and architects, you know, designing and helping you with your project. Because when you get into a small town sometimes you only have one cement plant or one, you know, construction manager and they want to do things their way and I can say no, in the project manual he really had it designed for this particular reason. And so that project manual was worth its weight in gold. It was expensive to do it that way, but it was worth every penny because I could just show the plans to the construction manager and he could say, oh yeah, okay, all right, we'll build that this way. Okay, we'll put the, we'll pour it this way. And that was extremely helpful and very comforting to me because I certainly don't know about cement mixes and how much to put into their concoction to make it correct. I have no clue. So that was all taken care of in this project manual. That's an excellent idea. I was wondering about as you were talking about the ramp and obviously the original one, and maybe it was built before was not because of the grade, not ADA compliant. If people were afraid of getting down it, was it like being too steep? That's something too. I think that the architects are going to know it needs to be at this certain angle. Otherwise it's not in compliance and it's not useful. Well, you know, they can, they can see things too. I had a really hard time visualizing and if, if, you know, this design, I mean, it was just really difficult for me to see it because I kept saying, aren't you sure? Are you sure we're not going to need our hand railing? And he said, no, you won't. And I'm like, are you sure? I just could not, I could not get that into my head that that grade would be so comfortable and so gradual the way they have that extended out there that it would not need a railing because all I could see was that descent down the old one, which I don't know if it was ADA compliant or not, or if it was grandfathered in, I don't, I don't know. But, and I don't even know for sure when that was added to the facility, the original facility, but I do know that it was not particularly user-friendly. I helped many people, I helped many people down that old ramp and I stood in front of their walker to keep it from sliding away from them. Wow. And one question or one comment about your, I think about the project manual and so forth. This, I know I'm going to be drummed out of my gender here, but so typically we have seen with smaller libraries, and I've worked in three different states where the construction guys tend to be men, the librarians tend to be women, and the construction guys will come in and try to, and even if they don't say it, they'll have the attitude like, you're a woman, what do you know about this? And when you have that construction manual, you can just say to the construction guy, do it this way, and then he will. That's a wonderful, a wonderful object lesson, I think. Well, it is, it was worth the expense of doing it through an architect. And, you know, the other thing, when you live in rural Nebraska in the middle of nowhere, you don't even have an architect in your community. So I happened to, in my first years of college, work for a firm, and I have a good friend, he's now since retired from his firm, but he comes by and visits us once in a while, and I asked him about it once when he was here. And so this was his firm that did some of this for me, and they did some of it the early parts of that, as much as they could for free, in deference to my old friend, and then, you know, did begin to charge us for their time and the production of their project manual. But it was worth every penny. Okay, good advice. And I would also say that the production of, or having a production manual would certainly be eligible for funding from the Courts Bennett donor advice fund. I mean, it doesn't have to be bricks and mortar. It can be design, architectural drawings, all of those things. Well, also with a production, with a project manual like this, you have some really good estimates for your expenses. And even if some of those are, you know, go over a little bit or under a little bit, you still have a pretty good idea of what the project is going to generally cost as a whole. So the project manual was almost my Bible during that time because we used it over and over and over. And actually, they just came in and got it the other day when they were installing a bench for me and said, where was this supposed to go? And I could pull the project manual, I could pull that project manual out and say, well, here you go. And they could see right away where that was supposed to be installed. And you have an idea of how much the total project budget was? Yeah, 65,000. 65,000, yeah. Well, it looks nice. It does look very nice. And I need to say two things. One's a great thank you to the Quartz Foundation, Quartz Bennett Foundation for allowing us to, or partnering with us in this project because we would not have been able to do it without them. And the second thing is that it's very wonderful to work with people like Reggie when I can call her and say, I'm not going to get this thing done by my deadline. We were nowhere near done, but I mean, we're almost a year later. At one point during this project when you saw the big dirt pile in the front, we had a rainstorm that was unbelievable in Valentine. And so the tamping, you know, the big, the big looks like a big, oh, I don't know what you call it, a tamper thing. And it's probably about, it probably comes out about up to my chest. That's how big it is. It's a big, heavy piece of equipment. It was in the middle of that place right by the front door. They were tamping down the dirt as they were firming everything down. That was almost completely underwater. Oh, dear. Yeah. I mean, they had a trench kind of there. And I looked out during that rainstorm. And I mean, the only thing I could see were the handles of that where the guys would hold onto the handle. I thought, oh my God, here's this expensive piece of equipment and it's nearly underwater. It was crazy, crazy. That's how much rain that we had that time. So that delayed them. I mean, they had to get rid of all that water. And it delayed the project as well. But the other thing is that I could say that we had a really wonderful experience was one of the family members was driving through Valentine just a month or so ago. Coming from South Dakota, I believe. Maybe they were on vacation. And because I had sent pictures updating Reggie on what we were trying to get done, he had the pictures in his phone and recognized that he had seen these pictures. So he did a U-turn and came back to the library. And I was right in the middle of a board meeting with our board of trustees. So he pops in and he goes, hi, I am, and I can't remember his first name. Was it Russ? I think so. Was it Russ? I think so. Yeah, it would be Russ. Sounds like a character, yeah. Well, no. I was one of the nephews, I believe, and he popped his head in and said, hi, and I'm from the, you know, I'm one of the nephews, and I'm like, oh. So I was able, it just was a shock, but he had seen the photographs on his that you had shared with them on his phone, and he saw the library, and he thought, well, I'm going to stop in and see him. So I took him out and walked him around through the project a little bit, and was able to introduce him to the board of trustees. So that was really a fun moment. Good. How serendipitous. Yeah. Well, Ann and Tammy, thank you for your time, and Reggie, can you share with our listeners today the essential contact information about these grants? The essential contact information is, my name is Reggie Carlson, and really the best way to get a hold of me rather than phone is just to email me, and that is our Carlson at n-e-b-c-o-m-n-f-o-u-n-d dot org. You can download all of the guidelines and the short application form if you go to NebraskaHometown.org slash fund slash Croix hyphen Bennett. And we'll just leave that up there for a minute if people want to write that down. And there's a little bit of information about Shirley there, and then you can download the materials that you'll need. And once again, I'm really encouraging a lot of libraries to apply. We were a little bit low last year for some reason. And so we have over $80,000 a year that we can grant out. In fact, the advisors have complete control over how much they want to... There's no stipulation in Shirley Croix Bennett's will that says you grant out so much per year. So, I mean, if you've got a great project, please do apply. And you've got a couple months to work on it, so get going. Before we wrap up, does anyone have any last-minute questions for anybody, for Reggie or Richard or... Anne or Tammy, if you want to ask any last-minute questions, get them in now. I just want to thank Reggie for everything that she does over there, too, and for all the good that this fund is doing for public libraries. And Shirley Croix Bennett. I mean, she's not with us anymore, but she gave $700,000 for the use of this thing, and that's really quite wonderful. And you can get to the same information by going to our website, where we showed you that earlier. There's a little bit of information when you get there about Shirley herself. We must have been a really interesting lady, so we thank her. All right. And actually, I think what we'll do is... I can talk right over to there. I'll just go back here and show you. This is on our website, Library Commissions Grants, and it pops out right over here. And... There she is. There, Shirley. So this has all the information, all the applications, and you even have a list here of who got the grants for this year. So you got two ways to get to it, so you have no excuse not to send in grants, right? Anything you need to apply, and then Reggie's info here, of course. All right. It doesn't look like any urgent last-minute questions have come in, which is cool. That will wrap it up for this week's show. It has been recorded. And, well, it is being recorded still, as we're wrapping up. And it will be here on our website. This is the Encompass Live website. And Encompass Live is the only thing called that that I found on the Internet, so you can just Google us. It comes up here to our website here. And all of our archives are here underneath all of our upcoming shows. And this one will be posted in the last week's show. I think we had about the same as we have now. Yeah. The recording will be here, just like the link is here. The presentation, this PowerPoint will be loaded up there. And link to the website for the fund on the Nebraska Community Foundation page. We'll have all of that there available for you. Probably by this afternoon, as long as YouTube cooperates with its processing and uploading of things. So that wraps up today's show. I hope you join us next week when our topic is clouding up. How to use cloud storage? Craig Lefteroff, who is our technology innovation librarian here at the Nebraska Library Commission, will talk about how to use cloud resources. This is not going to end up in the sky, but things saved and held elsewhere for you that you can access and be able to use things remotely from all over the place. Google Drive, Dropbox, other ones. So Craig will be with us here next week. That's next week's show. And you can see our upcoming shows here as well. Go ahead and sign up for any of those. We're always adding new. I've got a couple in the works already for September as soon as I have things finalized. Those dates will be added as well. So keep it on our website. It is on Facebook. So if you are a big Facebook user, it's slow, but it's there. There we go. You can log into over there. And I wish this would go away. It doesn't. See what's coming up. You can say I do a reminder for the current show for today. And whenever the recordings are available, I post here as well. Wait. Not now. So you can go ahead and like us on Facebook if you are a big Facebook user and keep up with everything we do here on the show. Just get rid of you. So that wraps it up for today. Thank you, everyone, for attending. Thank you, Ann, Tammy, Reggie, Richard. That's everyone. Yes. Cool. All right. And just let me see. Nothing last minute has come in. Always check that before I go. So that wraps it up for today's show. Bye-bye. Bye, everyone.