 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 doing today, and it will be available to you watch at your convenience later. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can access all of our show archives. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone who you think might be interested in our show. For those of you who might not be from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries, similar to your state library. So we provide services to all types of libraries in the state. So you'll find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries, public, academic, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything really are only criteria that's something to do with libraries. We have book reviews, interviews, many training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We bring in guest speakers sometimes from across the country and even sometimes outside of the United States. But we also have Nebraska Library Commission staff that do presentations for us. And that's what we have today. Joining us this morning is Gabe Greenberg. Good morning, Gabe. Good morning. And he is our director of our Talking Book and Braille service here based out of the Nebraska Library Commission. And he's going to talk about all the awesome things they do through the TVBS, right? No pressure. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll hand over to you to tell us all about it. Sure. Yeah. So we're just going to kind of go about, talk about the past, present and future of the Talking Book and Braille service. As Krista said, I am Gabe Kramer, the director of the Talking Book and Braille service. Just a little bit about myself. I've been with the commission for almost 13 years. I received my master's in library science from the University of Missouri back in 2017. No, 2018. 2018. And I have been director since June of 19. So my first year or so was quite the experience. Not only was I hiring two or three people within the first six months, but then we got shut down because of the pandemic. Right. It was a big learning curve for me. Right into the deep end. No problem. Yeah. But today I want to talk about, you know, where we started as a Talking Books program, where we are currently and where we hope to be in the future. So let's just jump right in. One thing with the Talking Book and Braille service goes back to actually the National Library Service, which is part of the Library of Congress. The foundation for Talking Books lies in the Pratt-Smoot Act of 1931, provided for the Library of Congress to provide books to people who are blind and to work with regional libraries for book circulation. The Talking Book and Braille Service or TBBS is the regional library for Nebraska. In 1996, Congress passed the Chaffee Amendment, which addresses copyright and allows for the reproduction of materials in specialized format, which we will get to in a bit, for the exclusive use by individuals with visual and physical disabilities. We've always been able to record materials in our studios, but the Chaffee Amendment just made it law. The National Library Service, NLS, is a division of the Library of Congress. Through a national network of cooperating libraries, which the Talking Book and Braille Service is one, NLS administers a free library program of Braille and audio materials circulated to eligible borrowers in the United States by postage free mail. The collection includes audio and Braille books and magazines, music stores in Braille and large print, and specially designed playback equipment. These materials are available for residents of the United States who are unable to read or use standard print materials because of visual or physical impairment. NLS administers the program nationally while direct service to eligible individuals and institutions is the responsibility of cooperating libraries in the various states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. Service is also extended to eligible American citizens residing abroad. The Talking Book and Braille Service is the NLS network library serving the state of Nebraska. TBBS provides free books and magazines on cartridge through download via Braille and audio reading download. So the Braille and audio reading download we'd like to call BARD, B-A-R-D. And in Braille, to individuals with a physical or visual condition or reading disability, which limits use of regular print. You must meet NLS requirements to qualify for service, though. So a little history of the technology. As I said before, everything has to be recorded in a specialized format. And that is because we don't need copyright permission to record written materials. So back in the 1930s when the National Library Service first started, Talking Books were recorded on 33 and a third RPM records. Back then the industry standard was 78 RPM. Then in the late 40s and into the 50s, 33 and a third became the industry standard. So the National Library Service said, well, this is no longer special. They ended up going to 16 and a third and eventually eight and a third RPM to get more audio on each record and to be proprietary protected format. If you can imagine eight revolutions per minute, that's really slow. But the slower a record turns on your turntable, the more audio you can fit on each side. So they didn't have to ship out as many records to patrons when they wrote books. Eventually they went to cassettes, but again, to be a specialized format, they went to four track cassettes. So your normal cassettes that you had when you were a kid had two sides. They didn't have four sides. And what they did was took your A side of a cassette and cut it in half the long way. If you can imagine a line going through the middle of it. And that was side one and side three. Then you'd flip it over for side two and side four. And also was recorded at one and seven, seven eighths, or half speed. So you can get 88 minutes per side. That means a cassette could hold almost six hours on it. Wow. And then, where we are now, this could have held that much music. Oh, I don't think of how many mix tapes you could have made. So much easier. In the middle age, of course, we skipped CDs. So cassettes lasted until roughly 2012. And now we've gone digital to our digital talking books. And it's just a set of audio files and navigation files, which are encrypted for copyright protection and limited in size only by storage capacity of the cartridge that they're on. The original a 70, well, not the original machine, but the most popular machine record player. This is the C one cassette player. This was the longest in use machine in analyst history, it lasted from 1981 to 2012 officially. Although it is still in use today, we have somewhere between five and eight patrons that still have one of these. And all of the materials that they can get for the C one machines are limited to the roughly 500 titles that we still have on cassette. And that is it. And when your machine breaks or the battery dies, it's a dead machine it's obsolete, we cannot fix it replace it, put a new battery in it nothing it is it is done. So a little bit about our recording process. We have about 25 volunteer narrators that read anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours a week. All narrators must go through an audition process before they can become narrators. Everyone goes through the same audition process it takes about 45 minutes or so. And because we're quite picky, about 70% of everyone that auditions does not pass the audition. So we're looking for the best that we can that we can get within our studios we mainly focus on magazines we've recorded about 25 unique titles. The magazines are of local and regional interest. And because of timeliness we use multiple narrators per issue. This allows us to get the magazines out as fast as possible. Books take more time they take anywhere from six to 18 months from the time we start recording them to the time they are ready for public consumption. And that is one voice per book. Because those are permanent. We want them to sounded the best that they possibly can. The recording is finished magazines go through what we call the assembly process. So even though we record in digital. Not an analog we still think about things through an analog lens. So during the recording process each article is recorded as its own standalone file. And this is for magazines not not books of course, then they are assembled into what we call a side, each side is 88 minutes long. If an article if we're in the middle of an article once we hit that 88 minute mark we'll just start side two or side three or whatever we're on. And a lot of this has to do with file size. We we've noticed that when files get larger than about 88 minutes or 90 minutes. We find a lot more errors and computer glitches that can happen. And when we upload the files to the barred website. They also like to have the 90 minute file sizes because it's just easier to transfer the smaller files than one long 30 hour file. After the magazine is assembled, they go to our post production where the audio is cleaned up. After post production is what we call markup for markup we use a program called Hindenburg. It is a proprietary software developed just for us. And if you think of markup. That's where we insert the markers that allow you to skip between articles or chapters or parts so if you're listening to an audio book. Markup is we insert the markers that allow you to skip from chapter chapter. Then we move to the encryption process after encryption. The recording is essentially locked. The only way to listen to the recording is to insert the cartridge into one of our digital talking book machines or DTBMs. If you were to place the cartridge into the USB port on your computer, you would receive a message that you are not authorized to view this file. So if you think of the machines as having a key and the key is built in that unlocks the encrypted cartridge books go through an extra step. Before they go to post production. Then we call it review. One of my colleagues sits and listens to the recording with a copy of the book and finds everything that we did wrong in the studio extraneous noises pronounce words or wrong words. Then we send the book back to the studio to be fixed. After fixes books continue down the same path as magazines. So this could be anything as major as you know, literal pages missing which we have done before. Something as small as if it's the boy jumped in the pool and you say a boy would go back and fix that. We strive for perfection on everything we do. But books I really believe. Excuse me are about 99% accurate. Magazines are probably more like 95% accurate. So we have two types of circulation models within the talking book and Braille service, and there are pros and cons to both physical and digital. The pros to physical materials is their accessibility. They are stored on physical media on shelves. However, physical media must be inspected and reshelms. The pros for digital files that can be circulated through traditional means such as cartridges, but they don't have to be stored and reshelmed. Additional methods are also possible such as Bard, which allows patrons to download books straight to their mobile device. But digital files can become corrupted. Access can be cut off if the internet is down or if you don't have Wi-Fi at home. So now we're up to the digital cartridges. Digital books were initially made to circulate on specialized shape flash memory cartridges. They're about the size of a credit card. Each cartridge used to hold one book or one magazine title. The labels identified its stable contents. You know, if it was the Great Gatsby, the label on it said the Great Gatsby. Digital had better sound, better storage capacity. You could navigate easier. You could just skip from chapter to chapter instead of rewinding or fast forwarding. There are two models of digital talking book players available to patrons. We call them the standard and advanced player. Standard and advanced as you see the pictures there. The advanced machine just has one more row of buttons. There are five extra buttons on the advanced player. Prior to duplication on demand, which I will talk about in just a minute here. The standard player worked just as well as the advanced player. I feel that with duplication on demand and the fact that we are now able to put multiple titles on a cartridge, the advanced player is actually easier to use. But most patrons do not like the advanced player. They're intimidated simply because it has more buttons on it. Sure. Bard is our downloadable web page that patrons can go to and download books to their smart device. So as the slide says, it is the National Library Service Download Web site. Books and magazines produced by NLS can be downloaded to a computer, unzipped and copied to a blank cartridge and used on one of our players. Or you can download it straight to your mobile device. And let me go back. When you are downloading to a computer that is Windows only. They call that Bard Express and it does not work for Apple computers. This is the main page of the Bard website. It's very simple and that's to make it easier for our visually impaired patrons to use stream readers. When you get too many graphics or just too much clutter, the stream readers cannot read the page as easy. So this is our mobile app. Apps are available for iOS and Android devices. Bards can find and download their books to play directly on these devices using their Bard login and password. For those who have their own mobile device, like a Kindle Fire or an iPad or a phone or anything, they don't have to load multiple machines around. They can just download straight to the machine, no cartridge or talking book machine is required. This is a picture of what the app looks like. If you can recall from a few slides slides back, the app and the machines look almost identical. And that was of course done on purpose so people that were used to the machines could use the app as easily as possible. So now we're up to the present day, which is duplication on demand. Now what is duplication on demand? Well it combines the home delivered cartridge and Bard together. It essentially functions as a modified version of the digital talking book cartridge distribution model but incorporates some of the advantages of the downloadable models as well. Cartridges are still delivered to patrons via mail. And they still play on the standard and advanced players. But now we can put multiple books and or magazines on cartridge. That's a picture of what our system looks like. Well, that's a lot of just being done all at once. Yeah, we were able to create 20 cartridges at a time. And each of those cartridges is for one patron. And these created just for them so duplication on demand in a nutshell. So when a patron request a book either through the truly on demand process such as contacting their readers advisor and asking for a specific title or through the automatic fulfillment process or turnaround. These are all different ways that you can have a cartridge created for you for you. It requires a patron or readers advisor to create a request list within our ILS system which we call web reads. And then a cartridge will be created specifically for that patron. So web reads sends the books to the stack on the right here. Each cartridge corresponds to a box on the monitor. So when the cartridges finished duplicating we scan the barcode which is located on the back of the cartridge and a mail card is printed it's about the size of a postcard. We put the cartridge in a box, put the mail card on the outside of the box, put it in the mail. It's done. And if a patron keeps the request list updated the automatic fulfillment or turnaround process is great. So when a cartridge is returned a new one is sent immediately with books off of their personal request list. So the duplication demand you do it for people based on what they requested. That is correct but it's mostly automated. So, if a patron calls their readers advisor and says I want, I just want Westerns. We'll create a request list with say 100 Western titles. And we'll create a cartridge their first cartridge might have five books on it. That are all Westerns will send it to them in the mail when they return that cartridge. When we check the previous cartridge in the duplication on demand system will automatically find that patron's file and just pull the next five books off the request list and create another cartridge. Nice. So advantages for patrons they can receive multiple books on a cartridge if they prefer. There's less fussing with mail delivery and return just less items coming to them in the mail. No waiting for books. There's an infinite copy or infinite number of copies of books so prior to October of 2018 when we switch to duplication on demand. We would get the new Stephen King book and we might have five titles. Or five copies of that title. If those are all checked out just like it any public library, you have to have a waiting list with occasion on demand we no longer have a waiting list we have an infinite number of copies of books so for the one book one Nebraska for example. Every single one of our patrons wanted to read that book at the same time they could. Another advantage for patrons is reading books and series in actual series order on a single cartridge again. When we had physical copies sitting on our shelves prior to DoD. If you read the first Harry Potter book, and you wanted the second book and it was all checked out, you could skip and read the third if you wanted. Well now we can just put all seven in the correct order on a cartridge for you. There's fewer cartridges to keep track of around the house. And new titles produced by NLS can be borrowed immediately and that really is a big deal. It used to be that you would have to wait not only for NLS to record the national titles. You know your New York Times bestsellers, which could be delayed because recording takes time. But also they had to get mailed to us and who knows how long they could be at the post office or be in transit. And then we have to process them put barcodes on them. So it could be weeks if not maybe a month or two before patrons could actually access the old physical titles with DoD it's immediate electronic copies it's all just on the computers yeah. Yeah. So this is interesting. A question someone's asking here about because you know many librarians deal with ebooks and the whole ebook model that some publishers or providers limit the number of copies you can have and it's a huge problem issue controversy. So this digital just make as many as people need and you all don't have that issue that obviously that's because of how NLS or has been set up with the the original acts I assume that yes worry about any of those kind of concerns with publishers. Because we don't need copyright permission to record the books. We essentially have cart launch to do whatever we want with them as long as they are in a protected format. That's why that's the special format. Correct. Yes. And one big game changer besides DoD happened. I want to say it was roughly 2016. So until 2016 either the local regional network libraries such as Nebraska we had to record books or NLS had to record books so even if it was a national title you know the newest John Grisham book. The publisher made an audio copy of said book. We were not allowed to use that specific recording. You had to make your own. He had to make our own. In 2016 a deal was made between the Library of Congress and the big four publishers. You have access to those national recordings. So now a lot of the big books you know your New York Times bestsellers. One of the major audio books that Barnes and Noble is selling or that is on the shelves of your of your local library. We now have access to those exact recordings. So now the National Library Service can focus on more of those secondary titles. So again prior to 2016 the National Library Service was only able to record roughly 3000 titles a year. So now they're still recording those 3000 titles a year but we have access to an additional roughly 3000 titles that are given to us by the book publishers and publishers themselves. We've doubled the amount of books new books per year for our patrons. But yeah the key is the specialized format. This is just creating a series on a cartridge. We already kind of discussed that. Advantages for staff when it comes to duplication on demand. Again every book is always available for anyone delivered just in time. Less storage space is needed for book copies. And in fact on the next slide there's going to be a picture of our stacks full of these blue boxes. Now imagine those stacks being completely empty which is what they are now. There's less staff time pulling shelf books for the outgoing mail inspecting return books testing the old cartridges or in the old days having to rewind the cassettes. And we no longer have to reshelf books. And there's just less overall mail volume now. If we're putting an average of three book titles per cartridge our mail has been cut by two thirds. Although I will admit I kind of miss pulling books in the morning that was the first job I had when I started here was in the circulation department. I love being able to get here at eight in the morning and I could have my coffee and put my headphones on and listen to the music or whatever and just roam the stacks and pulling. You know it was about 300 or 400 books a day for patrons it would take me the first hour and a half or two hours in the morning you can ease into your day. Well that's no longer the case anymore. I did I do truly miss that that job. So here's the or what our stacks used to look like prior to September of 2019. So in September of 2019 we officially got rid of all of those blue boxes. They are a huge project I remember that. Yes it took. I want to say it was like nine months to do. So during the transition phase some of our patrons were receiving books by duplication on demand which is the card on the left with the looks like white they're actually translucent boxes but the white boxes. While some others were still receiving the books by our old physical circulation method. The cart on the left created via DoD. I guess I already said that. But what's great is in this photo was since this photo was taken the amount of books on the left has not grown that's pretty much our outgoing mail every day of the week now. Where in the old days we might have four of those cards completely full without going books every single day. We are now average averaging about three to three and a half titles per cartridge. So again as I said before, our outgoing mail has been cut by two thirds. If everyone is getting three books on an individual cartridge. That's less that we have to send out every day that's less that is clogging up their mailbox. Nice budget saver to for us I assume. Well, I mean if you think of it in like staff time we can devote staff time to other things but you know all of those those boats they didn't cost us any money so they were given to us by the National Library Service, which is why we had to then send everything back to the National Library Service. Send all those blue boxes back yes. We began transitioning patrons to duplication on demand October 25 of 2018. Our initial plan was to phase the transition over anywhere from like a three to a six month period. We ended up having all of our patrons switched by the end of the year. We decided to just rip the bandaid off it was a lot easier than slow playing it. As of the end of September 2019 we have sent out almost 75,000 duplication on demand cartridges that contained almost 230,000 individual books or titles, and that averages to 3.1 books per cartridge. Our traditional mail card based deliveries drop to about one every two weeks. We do still send out some old VHS tapes that have descriptive video on them. We have a few DVDs but not not many. We do still send out the occasional cassette because as I said before we have like five to eight patrons that still have the old cassette player. So those are not duplication on demand. We have to use our old mail cards for that. 50% of our patrons were responsible for 95% of our actual circulation and that still holds true today. And almost all of our patrons love the change to do duplication on demand. They just like having more books on one cartridge. So let's picture of our current cartridges and the mail cards as you can see on the mail cards. It has your name and address on one side and on the other side. It has a list of the books that are on the cartridge as well. In the future, currently duplication on demand. It kind of supports magazine materials. We still circulate magazines the old way which is one issue of a magazine per cartridge. However, the national magazine program is produced by National Audio Company. They are shipped with multiple titles per cartridge. So you might get a cartridge with sports illustrated and the current issue of time and the current issue of people all on it. We now have access as of February of this year to the Braille e-readers. Our Braille readership has gone up almost 500%. Wow. February. Braille e-readers work. So that's actually really good question because I still have not been able to get my hands on one. I am, we'll say, arguing with NLS. If it's something your patrons are going to be using, you think you should be able to have at least a knowledge of what the whole works for them. So what has happened is Utah Talking Book Service, which is based out of Salt Lake City, they are running the Braille e-reader program for a few of the states in this part of the country. New Mexico is one, Nebraska, Wyoming, Alaska, I want to say Montana maybe. So it's the smaller states, population-wise anyway. Sure. I don't know why this is the case because we distribute the Talking Book, the audio Talking Book machines, but that's just how they set it up. I was not privy to any of the negotiations or conversations that set this up. I think that's going to be short-term, you know, probably for the first year or so of the Braille e-reader program. And then we will have a pilot project or... No, the pilot is done. Oh, there you did that. All right. Yes. The pilot went on for, it was almost two years. Now they are rolling it out to the states. And in fact, I think it's California doesn't even have access to the e-readers yet. And a lot of that has to do with, of course, supply chain issues. They just can't get their hands on either the machines as a whole or humanware who creates the machines can't get their hands on parts to make the machines. Then I don't know how many public libraries have either heard about or used the Marrakesh Treaty. But the U.S. joined the treaty as its 50th member, allowing NLS to assist patrons in requesting accessible materials in a wide range of languages from other libraries around the world that are also treaty members. I don't really believe it's created any more interest locally here in Nebraska for foreign language materials, unless you count materials from England as foreign language, but it's still English. Yeah. But I really think the treaty is going to help out talking book libraries and less developed countries have access to our materials. And then wireless delivery, the new machine, which I have seen a picture of, hopefully will be in beta testing either late this year early next year. And it will have the ability to send books wirelessly. But those with no internet or spotting internet will still be able to use the current cartridge based system here. So we're getting towards the end here. How to sign up, you can use the old paper applications. If we were in person, I would have some to hand out, but that we're not in person. Okay, if you would like applications or even promotional materials, if you want to set up display in your library, shoot me an email Gabe.Cramer at Nebraska.gov. If you want to apply or have someone, you know, that wants to apply for service online is probably the best way to apply. But if you want paper applications, I can send those to you. If you want to email me, give me your library's address. Or if you want, again, display materials. I have that stuff I can send you also. And I'll mention too, while we're looking at this slide here, if you're thinking about going, you know, if libraries are thinking about wanting to go to the website and do this. These slides will be available to you all afterwards with a recording of today's show too. So, Gabe will get that to me so don't try and scribble down all these URLs and things. We'll get the links off from the website too, which is in the session description, but you'll have access to these slides, all this information as well. Yeah. So we do have questions while you're on here about, you know, who is eligible, how to apply, what are the requirements for being eligible. I know you mentioned that briefly at the beginning, but how does the process work for people? Yeah, so anyone that has, well, that is that is blind, legally blind, or anyone that has a visual impairment impairment. It could be someone that just has low vision but still has some sight. There is a technical definition. It's like 20 over 200 with glasses or something like that. I honestly can't remember what it is. It's on the application. Or someone that has a neurological disorder like dyslexia. Dyslexia is not technically a visual disorder. It is a neurological disorder. They still qualify for the service or someone that has a physical handicap that does not allow them to read or use regular printed materials. The example I always give is someone that, you know, say a veteran that was in a war and lost an arm. You know, it's, they can't really hold a book anymore. They qualify for our service. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize. I think about talking book and braille. Oh, it's just for people who are blind and can't see. But that whole physical thing is a whole nother group of people that this would work for. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one thing that people don't, whenever I manage people, they're like, Oh, really? Yes. And yeah, you can't, that's a, you can't do the traditional way of reading. Here's a way that you can and you are totally eligible just because of that physical thing. Yeah, your eyesight might be 2020, but there's other physical reasons why you can't hold the book, hold the magazine. Boom, you're eligible. That is correct. And in fact, February of 21, the National Library Service, along with, I mean, it literally took an act of Congress. They made it easier for people to use our service now. Prior to February of 21, if you were blind or visually impaired or has had a physical handicap, you could have someone like an actual medical doctor or a psychologist, or even a librarian or principal or a school teacher to sign your application. But if you had a cognitive disorder, again, the best example is dyslexia, which is technically not a visual impairment. You could only use our service if an actual medical doctor signed your application. Now, those people that have those disorders can just have a principal or school teacher or a librarian sign their application. Nice. When it comes to librarians, I will say that I know I'm talking to librarians. That's the one group of people that we do scrutinize a little bit more than school teachers or, of course, doctors. When we get someone like that that is signed off on an application, we do, we would prefer if the person that signs it actually has their masters in library science, as opposed to just someone that's working at your local library. That's not a necessity. It's not a requirement. But we just want to make sure that we don't get in trouble for having someone sign up for a service that doesn't technically qualify. That wasn't actually qualified. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's interesting that, you know, it's, it feels like this kind of thing would be, you need a doctor to verify that, yes, this person has this particular issue and that's why they are eligible and something we always teach librarians and try and tell them is if someone comes into your library wanting legal help or medical advice or something your first thing you got to say to them is I am not a lawyer I am not a doctor I cannot do this for you. I can refer you to the people who are though. And I can get you the information you need to do that yourself but do not ask me for medical advice I will not give it do not say for legal advice, but in this case they're, they are one of the people in school teachers to who are allowed to sign off on these forms saying yes I do know this basically I know this person yes they do have this issue is what you're, you know, certifying on the form. So it's just the one different place where it's okay for you to be the one who is approving the fact that this person is absolutely correct yes. Yeah, so any other questions. Yeah if anybody does have any other questions I've been grabbing some of them go ahead and type into the questions section of your go to webinar interface. And as I said I'm monitoring that here if you have your own microphone you can use that to ask your questions as well just type that in I have a microphone unmute me and we can do that. I do have a couple other questions here. I'm curious how many patrons and how did you mention this how many do we do you have in Nebraska. We currently have around 2700 patrons statewide. That's great. I would say that's probably on the low end nationwide. But of course we have a smaller population here. Sure, sure. Yeah. nationwide in the last decade. Patron count has dropped by about 25%. And I think that has to do with a couple things number one our average patron is an 80 plus year old female. So of course they're going to eventually die. Sure. And people with because of medical advancements. They're losing their sight later in life so we're not getting as many people at the young end of the spectrum either. That's honestly one reason why the National Library Service made the change to make it easier for those with like dyslexia to sign up for the service. Because that's not something that can as easily be necessarily like not affect people that you know once you have that yeah there's you got to figure out how to work with it. And this is one way. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Yeah, but it's also because it's a way to boost their patron count to. Yeah. Expanded more people. So I wonder that more audio books in general are becoming more popular, just to everybody. You know, I think they are. I don't personally like listening to audio books which is weird because of the position. Okay, I've tried and someone I've learned someone reading to me is a great way to put me to sleep. Yes, yes, I'm sorry it's just not yeah. But I also, I don't really like reading on a tablet either I like holding that that physical book in my hands. I don't like listening to be both of their preferences. I will read on anything I'll read on a tablet I'll even read in a book, not on my phone that's too small, extend a period of time. But yeah just the audio for myself yeah but I know people love it they listen to all different on the road when they're driving without be bad for me driving. I don't need to be put to sleep. But yeah. So you're talking somebody has a question about what you record and what the national nls records. So they do more of the, like you said that the popular titles the best sellers, and are the states, then just do the local type publish things how what's the how is that split up with what they do and what you do. That's a really good question actually. Yes, the National Library Service focuses more on your popular national titles. I would say if a book hits the top 100 on the New York Times best seller list, be it number one or number 100, even if it's for a week. It's probably going to get recorded by nls. Now you'll get it from the publishers since that you get it from the publishers correct yeah the states we we fill in the gaps you get that local flavor. Here in Nebraska our collection development policy for the talking books is books by Nebraska author. That's number one. Number two is books about Nebraska. Number one is books that take place in Nebraska. And then lastly is books that take place, you know, in the Great Plains. We really focus on number one and number two. I prefer not to read the third and fourth categories, although that's not to say we, we have not recorded those books though. They tend to be a little less popular. A little more. Yeah, yep. So then you're recording things that are like you said Nebraska centric. If are the things that so, so figure out this answer this, ask this question that yeah. Nebraska has talking book and Braille service that is for Nebraska residents. Every other state have every single state have one. Yes. Yeah. All right. Yeah, well almost every state. Wyoming. And Alaska, I believe they co op with Utah. Okay. Utah is kind of the big clearing house. For example, our Braille patrons, not just the e Braille users, but the physical Braille users get all their Braille from Utah. We just don't have the space to house Braille. Sure. You know, the, the seventh Harry Potter book is like 10 volumes in Braille. Oh my gosh. You literally, you would get those books are huge though I guess. Yeah. But you know, a typical adult novel. It might come delivered to you in a FedEx box instead of the USPS just because it's so large. So we just don't have the space for it. Utah has like an airplane hanger full of Braille. Yeah. So if someone who is interested in the Nebraska titles that we have recorded, but they're like in New York, can, can they get access to the things that Nebraska has recorded? How does that work? Like, like if some move to New York and they want, you know, they still want to keep getting those same Nebraska titles they used to get from here. Is there. Well, can you, how does that all work? We actually upload our local books to Bard. So you could download it to your phone. But you could also if, and actually, I don't think New York has switched to duplication on demand yet. Or they're just kind of in the beginning stages of it. But any library that has switched to duplication on demand. Those books and the duplication on demand computer, they're actually connected to the National Library Services servers in Washington DC. So that's how we're, we don't store those audio files here in Nebraska. It's all done and through a cloud based systems, we upload our books to that cloud. Okay. And everyone has access to them. Okay, so all the states upload their stuff that they record locally up into the big cloud and then anyone can get it down from there. Nice. Okay. Yes, or at least the vast majority of things that they record. There are a couple states that have decided that they're going to be very picky about what they upload to the national website. And that has to do with maybe the recordings aren't very good, maybe they're old. But I would say 95% of all the materials are available nationwide. And you could still enter library loan it also. So if there's something and say Ohio that they have on physical cartridge but isn't on the cloud. Nebraska patron, we can I l l it from Ohio and just have it sent that way. Because other states are probably the same situation as you mentioned here where we still got a few people doing those cartridges or the old cassettes just because. And until those machines die, we're not going to make them change. And we also can get as public well public or private school signed up for our program also, not just the individual student, we can sign up rules or nursing homes for that matter. Nice. So not each individual person in the nursing home has to apply as a whole can do the only thing the nursing home has to prove is that at least one person in that nursing home qualifies for the service. And usually there's at least one person and they're the qualifiers for the service. Yeah, yeah. And for the school the same thing. The schools it's a little bit different. You have to actually send us a list of the students names and how many students. So at the beginning of actually it's better if we start with the at the end of the school year. We'll send a letter out to all the schools that had signed up for the service with a school account, and they have to return all of their machines all of their materials to us. Okay, then in August so I'll be sending out these letters probably around the first or second week of August. Any of the schools that the previous term had an account with us will send out a letter. Hey, do you still have students that need our service. If you do, please fill out refill the application again with the students names and I think they're great level. And we will send you the materials again. Where nursing homes don't have to do that every year. Kids graduate or they move up to another grade they're not in the middle school anymore they're in the high school. That makes sense you want to make sure people get the children are still where they were before. Yep. Yep, so when I talk to school teachers I actually tell them that you're better off trying to get the individual student to sign up for the service. Instead of the school. Because it tends to be easier as long as the student remembers to bring their machine with them every day to school. Because that's not hard to get kids to remember to do things no. So the student just signs up for it once and so so individuals don't have to renew every year they just sign up once and they're good for as long as they want to be doing for life if they want. Yeah, they're good for life. Yeah, and I said, that's the same with your, your nursing homes and things like that too. And also keel just mentioned this too that you mentioned the very beginning. All this is at no cost to anyone. No cost to anyone. It doesn't cost to sign up for the service. It doesn't cost to use the service. It does not cost to mail things back and forth between your home in the library. Everything is prepaid. I'll cover yep. Yep. So the only cost the time of doing it. Yeah. And that's the big thing I always like to stress because we don't have the collection that audible has audible has a lot more books to choose from that we do. However, you have to pay for it. We are, we are free. And let's be honest, we've got, I don't know, say 100,000 titles in your lifetime or you're ever going to be able to read those. Yeah. And like I said, all the best sellers all the ones that everybody is clamoring for when those new books. I mean, every week we hear the next James Patterson is coming. And we even have a lot of like the autobiographies that have like say the author reading their own audio book. I won't say all, but a lot of those we have those recordings with with the author reading their own book. That's cool. Yeah. And also another thing you have which I think is really cool and we didn't really get a much into. And I feel bad that we kind of didn't get to that yet because we're getting to the end of our hour but that's okay we'll just we'll keep going as long as anybody has any questions just ask your questions we won't cut things off. We'll get them in so we can ask Gabe right now, your readers advisors that work with your patrons that keep track like you said we keep track they put in their listing what but you have a staff of people that actually talk to these patients Okay, so what are you interested in and having that kind of personal concierge of your reading. We've got, I would say it's probably half to two thirds of our patrons. They call in, at least once a month to order books or to refresh their request list and talk to our set with three readers advisors. And they're wonderful. They really are the hardest working people in the talking book service. They have a thankless job that I'm, I couldn't do I mean I just I'm not made that way I'm not built that way. A lot of customer service type. Yes, yes, but they really get to know these patrons on a personal level and know what they like what they dislike and they're really they're able to fine tune that what they want. But then we've got a small percentage probably 15 to 20% of our patrons. We literally never hear from. They are so sufficient. They read everything on their tablet or on their phone. And we never get an email a phone call, nothing. They just have access to it and on their device and they're good to go. That's correct. And we're just providing the connection, I guess the game setup. Nice. So I didn't see any other last minute desperate questions come in while we were chatting. That's cool. We're about the end of our hour though so that's perfect timing. Yeah. And one thing I would like to reiterate before we go is again if you want any like display materials or promotional materials, feel free to email me and ask for stuff. If you have access to like posters that are that are on like poster stands or easels to postcards that, you know, someone can just put in their back pocket and all kinds of stuff in between. If you if that's something you would like in your library. Yes, we can send you all those things so you can promote it and get people signed up. And since it's just you promoting it, you don't have to handle the signing up and mailing of things at the library, you just connect the people who need it to. Correct. And our promotional materials, they will either have the national website on there, or our local website on there and some of them have both. If you go to our local website, you can fill out the application directly online. If you go to the national website, you can fill out the application online and then that will get. Eventually, we'll find its way to Nebraska. There's also, you can call us, or you can call the 1-800 number to the National Library Service and they'll send you to Nebraska as well. They'll direct you to the right state of wherever you know. All right, then. Awesome. Thank you so much, Gabe. I'm glad we're able to get you on to talk about this. It's been a few years since we've had anything unencoupled live about our TVBS here so. Well, I know I wasn't director then. No, yes. Your director ship time. But, you know, lots of things have changed. And then when you started the beginning of this, I was like, yeah, there's been so many things are so different from when I first came here to the commission to what was, is how it's run now. It's cool to see the history of it. A lot of things I did not know about how it all started and everything way back in the beginning with all our vinyl vinyl is becoming popular again in music. I don't think it will be back popular in this. It was terrible because they would come back all stretched up and it just was was awful but that's what that's what they had at the time. Absolutely. All right. All right, so I am going to help present your control back to my screen now wrap things up for today. There we go. So yeah thanks so much gave this was great I'm glad we got all this information out there for people what's going on right now and hopefully we'll have you on sooner. Again, again, sometimes when things change again. As I said, the recording will be available. We're recording right now, we'll get posted to our library commissions YouTube channel, everyone who attended today and register for today show again email from me, but you know what's available. I'll have the slides available as well. You can get those to me anytime today. Like the next day tomorrow to get everything up and processed. So this is the session page for today's show has a link to the TVBS website to where lots of the links were as well on our main and compass live page here. If you just use your search engine of choice and type in and compass live the name of our show it's the only thing called that on the internet. Nobody else is allowed to use that name. And this main page for us. We've got our upcoming shows and here's where our archives are there's a link right underneath the list of upcoming shows. The most recent ones at the top of the list here so this is last week show. Today's will be up here by the end of the day tomorrow. Everything should be ready and processed you'll get the email from me. We also push it out into our various social media. We have a Facebook page for encompass live if you like to use Facebook give us a like over there. So you do reminders she's a reminder about today's show little intro meet our presenter who is presenting and when our recordings are available we post on here. You can keep us there. We also use the hashtag and comp live a little abbreviation of our show name on Instagram and Twitter to push out this information as well. So whichever type of social media like or just check our face our page here. We also will put out emails on our mailing lists here to the library commission as well. While we're here on the archive page I'll show you there is a search feature you can search our show archives to see if there's anything any other shows of any topics you want to watch. The answers the full archives just the most recent 12 months if you want something just current. That is because this is our full show archives and I'm not going to scroll all the way back because that this is a very long long page. Going back to January 2009. That is when encompass live premiered and we have all of our show recordings here. And we will always have them here where librarians is someone thing we do keep things for historical purposes keep them available out there and as long as we have somewhere to put them right now they're all on the commission's YouTube channel. We always have them available. So if you are watching any of our old archives just do pay attention to the original broadcast dates. Everything has a date when it first was done as a live show. Some of the information in our old shows will be will still be good and valid and stand the test of time at some things will become old and outdated and information may no longer be correct. Services and products may have changed drastically some things may no longer exist anymore. So just do pay attention to that but like I said for historical purposes and archival purposes we will always keep these all available. So that's our day show. And here's our upcoming schedule for July and August and got more August temper dates you'll see getting filled in here. So hope you join us next week when our topic is a learning opportunities and resources from Web Junction Web Junction is a great website for librarians to learn about there are all sorts of things it's free on demand courses webinars and Kendra Morgan from Web Junction she's been with us on the show many many times over the years. We'll be with us talk about what things you can learn at Web Junction. So please do join us for that and if our other shows. Thank you everybody for being here. Thank you for being here with me this morning Gabe. Thanks for having me. And hopefully we'll see you all on a future episode of encompass live. Bye bye.