 I want to go back to the new members. This is the only place I go to where it's top happy with seniors. Every other place I go to has more of a mixture of 20, 30, 40 year olds. So I really think we need to do that. I've come to, I've only been a member one year and I don't come to all the functions, but I really do miss the different age groups. And a lot of people that I associate with give me good ideas that are a lot younger and they tell me they really appreciate my good ideas. So you're talking about, as you think about, I think the comment is, as we think about membership and we think particularly about who the membership should become, I'm trying to encapsulate the comment. So as we think about what the membership should become, you were asking for a membership that's more intergenerational and you had the feeling that right now it's more senior citizen. So that's the comment. Thank you. Is the San Francisco Mechanics Institute in touch with the few other remaining Mechanics Institutes around the world? We are. Thanks to the staff here. There's been good communication, particularly with the Australia Mechanics Institute. And there is some talk about creating a gathering of the International Mechanics Institute. So we'll keep you apprised of how that conversation goes. Well, can I say, I'm here kind of in the library directory and actually we are a part of the membership libraries group, which is a group of about 20 to 25 who lost a few. We're trying to get them out of Athens and Anne's and other membership libraries in the Mechanics Institutes in North America. And we email all of them to meet once a year. And so there is a vibrant group still going on in membership libraries. And then it's ground set beyond the U.S. as well. So I don't want to take too much more time. So if there's one more question or comment. Yes. We're in a time now of essentially digital libraries, electronic libraries, which gives this whole library a good chance. But a good chance to become in effect almost a research library. So much has been digitized. And I wonder if you've done any explorativeness towards becoming, in the sense of being libraryed by the use of electronics. So one could do serious research on one of those company things. It seems to me that it might be a way to go forward to the Mechanics Library. Yeah, that's absolutely, I don't think we'll ever abandon the book. But I think that we're making serious efforts to have subscriptions that will help with that kind of research. Just the other day I was talking with someone who's a science writer and she suggested some, for her research, the kinds of subscriptions that would help. And I know the library staff is seriously considering which directions would be appropriate for this institution to go with that. All right, well without further ado, and before I introduce Ter and I just want to say, as part of being executive director, I want to be very open to conversation. So feel free to come by my office. If you see me walking in the library or the chess room or in the building, grab me and tell me your thoughts, send me an email. I invite that. I think it will only make the institution stronger. So now it's my pleasure to introduce Terrin Edwards. And you all probably know Terrin from the library. She has terrific energy. She's in many ways our in-house historian, so smart. She's the librarian and member relations and marketing specialist here. She's embarking on a biography of Andrew Smith Holliday, who you'll hear, I'm sure, a little bit more about in a few minutes. And she lives in the East Bay with her husband and daughter and two energetic dogs. She's been with the Mechanics since 2007 and has a BA in anthropology from Cal State East Bay and an MLIS from San Jose State. She's born and raised in Oakland, so please join me in welcoming Terrin Edwards. 2007, that's seven years. Oh yeah, sorry. You know what I look like? First I wanted to say that if you hold on through this presentation, you'll get some cake, okay? The cake will be cut after. And I promise this will be short and sweet, maybe a little too short for my taste, but you can always ask me if you have any questions. Can you hear me alright? How about that? No, louder. My father always said I had a boom boom voice. Anyway, so about five years ago I became fascinated with the history of the Mechanics Institute and that coincided with the time when I started doing a lot of the Wednesday tours, a lot more than I had been before. And one thing I noticed is that a lot of the tourists would say that they'd never heard about us before. And I wondered why that was the case. The short answer, I think, is that 1906, the earthquake and fire was completely devastating for us. Not only did we lose our library and everything in it, but we also lost our fair building at Larkin and Grove where the Bill Graham Civic Center is now. And that fair building held our fairs, but it also held virtually all of the buildings but it also held virtually all the good times in the city. We were literally in the newspaper every day. That pavilion held circuses, horse races, boxing, bicycle matches, or bicycle races, dances, musical concerts. It was fun back then. Anyway, somehow over the next century we came the city's best kept secret. And I want to change that, basically. And I really feel that understanding our past is crucial to help envision the coming decades. Not that we aren't doing very well now. We are, but I want to see us be in the newspaper every day. I hope there's still newspapers. I still want to have some boxing matches. Anyway, we have had a thrilling history and I'm not joking when I use that word. Thrilling, at least, to me. But perhaps more exciting is its future. The decision to found a Mechanics Institute was made on December 11th, 1854, which means we're going to be 160 years old next week. So please come to the holiday party. I won't sing Happy Birthday, but we certainly will raise a toast. Mechanics Institutes in general were the offspring of the Industrial Revolution. They were created with the objective of providing useful knowledge, useful education to those for whom a traditional university was impossible to attain. Such a facility was greatly needed in Gold Rush, San Francisco. Let's look at some statistics, and I promise this is the only page with numbers on it. In 1848, San Francisco had roughly 800 people, but by 52, the population had mushroomed to 34,000, with over 100,000 a year still coming. Can you imagine that? Most of them left the city to go elsewhere in the state and try their hand at mining. But the gold by 52 had gotten harder to find, and the city began to experience an influx of former miners returning to the city, often physically broken because mining was very hard. Depressed, often with drinking problems, and most of them didn't have enough money to go back home or support themselves. So basically, we were up the creek without a paddle. But by 52, there was now a group of people that hoped to make their pile in a different way. They hoped to start businesses, start families, and make San Francisco their permanent home. But they were stymied by the city's lack of organization and lack of infrastructure. Meanwhile, the residents, like they still do, crave news from home, news from around the world, and books. It's hard to imagine the internet not being there, but it wasn't. Anyway, reading was one way you helped fill the evening hours. And mail and newspapers arrived on the same ships that brought the mail, newspapers and books. Anyway, reading room started cropping up almost immediately. The earliest in San Francisco that I could find opened in 1849 in June over a store. And the owners of that store had grand plans. They wanted to have files of all the principal newspapers, plenty of books skewed towards the merchants of the world, and also have a daily meeting where merchants could get together and discuss business. This was the city's first merchants exchange. And there was several more. This one, in particular, got blown up by one of the fire departments at the time in order to prevent a fire from spreading. How's the sound going? Is this better? Okay, it's creeping down slowly. Some of these proto-libraries, as I call them, I call them that because they didn't tend to have a staff. They didn't have a system of organization. They didn't have all the things that come along with being a library today. Anyway, many of them were private social clubs, like the Lightest Dorf Club and the San Francisco Varine. One was in a hotel. That was the, what, cheer house. And they were very expensive. The Clay Street Reading Room, for example, the one at the top of the list, cost $5 a month, which sounds very reasonable, but that is $111 in today's money. It cost a dollar a day to use. Information back then, as it is still today, not free. Very expensive. Public libraries, publicly funded libraries, were virtually unknown in 1850 nationwide. And in fact, California wouldn't fund libraries via state taxes until 1878. This is the only time I'm going to mention Mr. Andrew Smith-Hallity, because he wasn't involved with us in our first five years.