 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 10 a.m. 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 in our archives for you to watch later at your convenience. 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 do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have at Encompass Live. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries here in Nebraska, which is similar to your state library. So we provide services and resources and training and grants to all types of libraries in the state. So you will find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, really our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. We do book reviews, interviews, many training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that come on and do presentations for us. And we have guest speakers that come on. And today we have a little of both of that. It is the last Wednesday of the month, which means it is pretty sweet tech day. Yay. And that is when our Technology Innovation Librarian, Amanda Sweet, comes on. Good morning, Amanda. Good morning. And she talks about something techy related. We do have other tech related shows throughout the month too, as well, depending on our topics that come up. But you can always guarantee that Amanda will be here on the last Wednesday of the month, too, with something like that. And she is invited on our colleague, Brian, who's going to talk about shaping the libraries of the future and what he does. But I will hand it over to you, Amanda, to talk about what we're doing today and what you and Brian do together and then Brian to do his presentation. So take it away. So I met Brian many moons ago. I can't remember if it was, I think it was computers and libraries that we met the first time. I think that's right computers and libraries. And so I saw he was doing cool stuff. And he had he brought like shiny robots to entice me and it worked. That is definitely the way to get get Amanda's attention. One of the way. And like over the years we wound up doing the games and gadgets together. So we're actually doing that again next month so that'll be cool. It's coming up next month. Yes computers and libraries highly recommend that conference in Washington DC area. Nebraska libraries if you're looking to go we currently have a discount rate for that check out our website for how you can get help with attending that. Anyway, robots. So we were playing with robots. And then I found out that he did like a whole bunch of other stuff. And I asked him to help with the tech kits that we do here in the library commission, because he is the one who tracks all the tech trends. And I was too lazy to do it myself. So I borrowed all of his tech trends and he helped me pick out like a whole bunch of different robotics drones and all these different kits. And it also helped that he also had him on hand so I could play with him and robots. So after that, I was like, what else do you do. And then I found out he did all this strategy stuff he helped with AI VR, you can talk about it later, you do stuff. And that's what the session is all about because Brian does stuff. Cool. Yeah, thanks Amanda and yeah, I think you do a wonderful job with your tech kits, not many consortiums of any kind I think have that many plethora of games gadgets and gizmos that are available for circulation so kudos to you putting all that together and for those that are watching and you aren't sure what those things are I would highly encourage you to check those out. There's a variety of cool circulation and curriculum that Amanda has developed over the years. We've done over the years a lot at the library commission it's just something as far as like helping libraries get a taste of what they could do without them having to buy it themselves. Before this we had our, our makerspace grant or we gave libraries a set of makerspace equipment that went temporarily into a library to get them to learn about that. Years before that we had, we did gaming and libraries gaming equipment we bought a PlayStation and Wow, and since revolution and rock band and we showed libraries had to use that with a couple of workshops we did so that's something we've got a history of here and Amanda's continuing that now with all the tech kits. Yeah, that's great. And so yeah I'll talk a little bit about like where I came from and like what sparked my passion in the library world, as well as so I always like to show people like how I run the evolved project because I want everyone else to do the same thing I do. I'm in it for, you know, riches and glory. I think the process that I put together for the evolved project is repeatable for anybody. And I'll talk a little bit about a little bit about that today. So, I apologize if I don't mute fast enough I am like under the weather. And so if I start gagging or coughing just know that I'm probably alive. And I just rehashed up some tea or re boiled some water for some tea so I should, I should hang in there. So, found some baby photos of me in the library world that my library I used to work at, posted without my, like, I'd say that joking like I don't need photos of my baby picture all over the Internet people make fun of me enough. And so, here's some more ammo and figure out which ones me. I think I went in prize of the good feeling inside. So, my parents would bring me to every single library event that our local library hosted we were in walking distance to the library so naturally we were there every day. Either to check out books compete in the summer reading program and things like that. To which child I am. Are you in yellow on the left. I am. And blue on the right. No, I guess it's like a multicolor shirt I'll be I'm behind my brother that dressing like a sailor I guess with the red and insects rights. That's my little brother. So yeah we were we read the library quite frequently. More baby photos. I don't know what I'm excited about but I'm the bottom right there. And then I am less excited on the other picture as well probably because my brother was cleaning on to me because he's needy. I hope you watch this recording I'll probably send it to him. We'll have a couple laughs. But every single event that our local library house did. I'm pretty sure I was in attendance and so there's probably thousands more photos of me somewhere and somebody's camera roll for 1994 if it shows my age is the one on the left. So I'm going to send it to Brian and then slightly less baby Brian but still baby on the right wearing. I think that was a monarch shirt. MFG, what the F stood for, but so yeah that was that was my upbringing. And so, when I turned 16 my parents were like you should get a job. And I was like, Ew, gross, but luckily my parents already told the library that I was willing to work there, because I like computers. I was lied to, because my first jobs at the library was nothing to do with computers. Instead, they made me dress up and go to a variety of different events and so we did. Every Halloween we had something called a haunted trail, and our library had like a booth if you will on this force preserve and we would dress up as pirates leprechauns. So what else do we do we had a whole bunch of different themes. And so we had to constantly dress up and I was kind of like, you know, like, I hope none of my high school friends do these things because I'll never live this down. What are you talking about pirate Brian is awesome. I had longer hair back then as well, as you can see, with my luscious locks. I had a run programs in the library space so I did guitar and puppetry and everything else. And then finally I got into computers and I was 18 years old. I was the director of IP for the library system. And so, but that was my brain I was always involved in the library whether from the patron perspective or from the putting on the programs and events. And so, I learned that there was heights within the library space like we were super super busy during the summer reading program and not so busy everywhere else. And so I questioned like why is that why why don't we always have the same amount of traffic that we do in the summertime versus during the school year, or in the middle middle winter there's nothing else to do when it's snowing and cold outside here in Chicago Illinois. Go to the library it's warm, they got coffee, it's free hot cocoa it's free, but we always had a dip in usage. And so, if you're familiar with the Pew research they do a bunch of surveys and data collections and gatherings. And so I saw this slide deck I was I went to my first library conference which was computers and libraries I was 21 or 22. And my library director forced me to go to this library conference and I told her look, I don't travel still in college, and I can't take off a week to learn, and I have nothing in common with librarians I don't read books. And she's like, no Brian, you're going to this library conference and her name is Phyllis Jacobic. So, after much arguing, she convinced me to go because she's like we'll give you a stipend you get you can go eat food there, learn a whole bunch of stuff and come back with new ideas and I was like okay fine. If I don't have to pay for it I guess it's really not that scary to go on a plane for the first time by myself, and go to another state that I've never been to I've only been to like local touching states really. So, panic and scared, I got there, learned a whole bunch and right before them that was like the before people started talking about maker spaces. And so, I was bewildered by all the really cool things that people were doing and thinking about doing eventually and other wallet tech nerd so I can do all these. But the slide that I saw from Lee Rainey and the Pew Research Foundation was this one where 53% of the people said they use the library in the last 12 months but 91% say it was important. So why on earth are we missing 38% of those patrons like if it's really that important, they should have at least used it within the last 12 months, and that's like a bare minimum. And so, I posed the question to one of my colleagues Dave Hesse, and we went back and forth of how do we like get people excited about our library space so we came up with a concept called the evolved project. And the goal of it was to build an environment so exciting and engaging that people desperately wanted to be part of it. And so we're like what kind of tech do we need what kind of things do we do kids like. And so we came up with a design concept that ended up looking like this. I should have found the original architecture drawings. But we completely renovated the children's library and we were told by industry experts it would cost about half a million to do. And we're like, no that that's impossible. And my director was very good with like guiding folks so she goes Brian you have a budget of $165,000 figure it out I want you to do everything you have in your plan, figure out how to make that work. And what I did, and Amanda alluded to it a little bit that I partnered up with startup companies so I went to consume electronic shows. I followed Indiegogo and Kickstarter religiously and anything new and exciting that popped up. I was like, yes, this is what I want to join. This is what I want to be part of. And so I reached out to these companies and I said, hey, would you be willing to donate your products to our library space. And the vast majority were like we never even thought about selling to libraries. Sure, here you go. And so some of our first partners were sphero and little bits and tickly shapes, which are, you know, pretty well known within the library community and we helped shepherd that conversation. So this idea came up with we wanted to change the way people see libraries. In order to do that successfully because from what I know libraries don't have money trees. We came up with the idea of building partnerships. And so I would go to a trade show, and I would ask this very simple question that I encourage everyone else to do and it's how much is it cost you to market to X amount of patrons or your library group. We had 20,000 patrons that funneled into our district. So I said how much does that cost, and most folks don't have a number off hand some do, but then you know, look, take that amount of money that would cost you to market and provide it as a donation to our library from your products. So I know your products might charge $100 it costs you $50 to make. It costs you, you know, five grand to market to us, give us 50 of those products and everyone wins. And it works super super well. So this was the original sphero ball. If anyone has ever seen it I still have the original one in a glass case that I like hold near and dear to my heart because it actually what kick started a lot of these education conversations. So originally sphero was designed as like an RC car. Sorry, couldn't need fast enough. So sphero is designed as like an RC car for people to play with. And so we were like well let's see if we get people to play with this and get excited and amped up. So we went to the schools and we just drove it around the hallways and people came up to us and said what are those. Oh, this is called a sphere of all, you can come to our library and play with it. Most kids are like libraries only have books what are you talking about. I'm like no our libraries doing all this new stuff we have new tech new gear new gadgets and gizmos and our patron usage skyrocketed through the roof. Because all these kids immediately from school come to library to play with whatever new games and gadgets that we had. And we tested our theory very slowly. We got these two tables that you see on the left and right of this picture, the blue countertop of the touchscreen table from a company called smart technologies. We got one of them donated through a grant and another one was from friends library. We started with one of the friends of library saw how many kids were huddled around it playing every day. So they're like we need to. And so that's what we do as our as our proof of concept will we get more patrons into our library space to free incorporate technology in a different way. We did this gesture based computing so you can stand in front of a TV screen and just by moving your hands you're able to paint. And we started slowly testing out these things and then once we saw the adoption rate pretty successful. We closed the library down for three months, me and my colleague. We took down drywall we ran we couldn't run electric because we weren't building. So we had a that was like the only expense was having a contractor run electricity. And we had people donate tons of stuff. Sphero donated swag like t shirts and giveaways and extra products to lead to the same thing. And we even had a company called siftio, which is no longer around work with us to as we're building kids thought that what we were creating was so impressive. We had a lot of people who were trying to open up the library. We had a lot of people who were trying to open up the library. We had a lot of people who were trying to open up the library. They had to wait outside days in advance, like you would for black Friday sales. And I was like now you should be able to just walk right on in but I like the enthusiasm. But we built all this hype up by having some of our products out in the in the hallway, like our four year of their library, because there was concerns about people stealing stuff. They were willing to experiment with you. And so we found people willing to experiment with us and test things out. And so they got super, super successful. And then all these other startup companies heard about what they were what we were doing, because those startup companies that we're already working with with brag like oh we're working with Brian at the McKinnell library, you should too. So all these different companies started reaching out wanting to work together. And figuring out like what can we do in our library space what type of curriculum do we need to develop what type of programs and activities can be created through it. And so, I continued that process when I left the library and I built the evolve project. And I went to variety of trade shows. One year I went to see yes and made people take pictures of I love libraries. So on the far left, that's Paul he's a he's a former CEO of sphere out the middle is the gal that created a little bit. And on the right is the people that work behind the scenes at module robotics. And so, all these folks came together because they all have the same passion that I did that I want to see libraries continue to evolve and make things better. And that was tell people what what we need help with what we need to work together on. There's tons of opportunities to pilot programs. So there's new tech new tech coming out every single day and the cost to. So I was at a trade show once I actually went into a room I wasn't supposed to. And it's a funny story. So in this room is all the executives of leapfrog toys or us like all these big wigs, and it was supposed to be like a meeting upon the like the brilliant minds that run these big toy companies and education companies. So I like, I just hopped on in like they had what I thought was fruit juice from a water spec it was actually sangria. So that that was that was wild and then they all sangria tasted good until that time. So I'm drinking this juice. I'm like, I was. Wow, let's just make him he's like sleepy and tired and dizzy what is this. I'll get more. And all these folks are talking and they were mentioned about how it's very very expensive for R&D for a new product so somebody has a new product idea and they want to see how it works in a community. So it's super expensive because you have to pay all these project managers you have to pay the testers etc. So keep in mind, I've had a couple glasses of what I thought was juice. I just raised my hand in the middle of this presentation. And really a panel discussion, and I saw a few other people interject so I'm like, raise my hand. And they're like they look at me like who the heck is this kid. And they're like, you. And I was like, have you thought about using libraries to pilot. It wouldn't cost you a dime. You call up a local library say hey, we have a company in your area that's building a new product. Would your library be willing to product test it and write everything up for us and how it works. They would do that for free, you know, like they would love that. And then they're all looking at you like how come we haven't thought of this. And they're all like discussing it and then they pause and they're like, first of all, who are you. And like what are you doing here. And I was like, I don't know the door was open and I saw people chatting and I'm like oh I like tech companies or toy tech so I sat down. And I'm like, oh, like afterwards like the lady running and she's like hey you know this is like a private thing but love to have you for next year as well. And I got like an inside scoop of how like some of these things work. And so I always tell people like, just ask like, you don't need the fruit juice to make you confident. Just ask people like hey is it possible to do this, would you be willing to try. After that you share stories of what you've accomplished what you're planning on doing next like this is what you can do as an individual library. And it takes no like technical training at all know, like, you don't have to be slightly outgoing if you want to like ask for things. But it's super simple. I want to share the story of how libraries are very instrumental with collaborating with the community like we are a community anchor like we know everything going on in the community. We don't have to reach out to our fellow community members to make things happen. At that point, I worked with a group wants to get furniture for a library and we had a budget of $0. So it's like hey open up the phone book and start calling all the local businesses around your library and say hey could you donate 50 bucks we want to buy a couch that's $200 or whatever it was. And so, as they're calling folks. I was like, oh wow, like I've always I love your library I didn't know you needed money. I'll just buy the entire couch that you want like just tell me which one it is and I'll go buy it. So they got this couch then for free and all they had to do is speak with the phone and ask. And so that's like a big, big thing for me. So shifting gears a little. So I've been doing the maker space tech for, I want to say like 10 or 15 years now it's been a while and like teaching kids how to code how to do stem stuff. And that Amanda promotes within her tech kits. And so then I was so then I partnered with this company called mind care. And what they do is they create technology for people with all timers or dementia or other like learning challenges. And like that's a huge area that we're missing I think in some of our library spaces like, like, like from the tech nerd that I am to pause and go well actually like we're missing this whole group of people like fancy new tech isn't always the best for both all timers or dementia. And so through that I've been doing a bunch of research and reaching out to a variety of different groups of how can we build like build maker spaces but what other spaces should we design. And so through these conversations of talking to folks with ADHD or dyslexia or any other learning challenges or differences came up with this concept called a serenity room. And so my new idea that I'm floating around to the world is what should a serenity room be. Like we would want something low tech, low, like high, like new things, and more stuff to make you feel calm and comfortable because if you are afflicted with any of those learning challenges. It's really hard to adjust to something brand new and flashy or too many buttons. And so, in working with mind care we came up with a few products that would work really well and what we're calling a serenity space. Things like an Alexa without the confusingness of an Alexa so they've created an alarm clock that you can talk to and send reminders and things like that you can have a program in your own voice. And you can also use Google, Google kit to build your own. Another big thing that we found through study is wall clocks can be hard to read, like the brand new ones with the giant digital screens might not be comfortable for folks that grew up seeing these types of clocks. And so, like, what should we what else should we incorporate in in these serenity spaces. I love that wall clock with the date on it to why isn't that a standard. It's very inexpensive, and it's simple to do and it's easy to install like you don't have to check with it to do it like you just buy it and mount it on the wall. Maybe facilities, but it's a very turnkey solution. You can get one for like 20 bucks and they actually talk about they actually created videos of like, like waterfall so you can watch a waterfall if you will on the TV with the sound and everything. You can easily do that with YouTube if you wanted, but just having that play like brings that tranquility. One of the other things that folks talk about is pets. So how do we get pets in the library without having barking and meowing or the things that come out from the other side. And so, what they've figured out and we'll go back and forth here is they have it they call it a meta dog and a meta cat. And you can actually, like, talk to it and say raise your head and the cat will raise his head. The breathing dog is supposed to help you if you have anxiety. The breathing rhythm is at a tempo that helps you calm yourself down so when you hold it. It's tempo your heart rate will match because of finger pressure I don't know the science. But then your, your, your heart rate slows down your anxiety dissipates through these types of things. And so you could in theory, have pets in the library, albeit little robotic sometimes a little weird. But caregivers in particular that do like nursing homes and stuff uses pet therapy to do is how to be responsible, or how to help people like jog memories or be calm and relaxed space. They even have realistic dolls so you can like, take care of a baby without having an actual baby in your library. There's a bunch of really positive outcomes that come through variety of studies about using pets. But this is one way to get into that. And that's good. There are lots of libraries that do bring in therapy dogs, we've had people on the show about that for like actual real dogs. But I always wondered about that, because there's so many people to some people having allergies. I mean, it's a great thing for the people that can do it but what about the ones that have the severe allergy to the dog or, or libraries that have a library cat which is a common thing to which is always fun to the cat lives here sure. But this would be a great way to not have to worry about that aspect as well. Yeah, absolutely. Turtle. Yeah, I've seen a lot of turtles and fishes. They don't like it too much. Yeah, we had them at ALA right. Yes, yeah, we had them at ALA. And then to change gears a little bit. They say that for people with anxiety or memory recall challenges, having things like a busy board which is this kind of considered a busy board with locks switches gears motors etc. And play with helps jog memory and or reduce anxiety in a stressful situation. So it's almost like a fidget spinner on steroids. If you will. If they had like a noiseless click pin, I would be clicking that like all the time. I'm a clicker. I like the pens with like the multiple in colors and trying to shove all of them out. Yeah. I don't want. Because they're awesome. Or even doing things like these are called fiddle mitts. And so the idea is to put your hands inside this like fiddling area and you can fidget in private. There's a variety of different sensory stimulation gadgets that you can incorporate that helps reduce anxiety or depression, or even like, you know, I have fidget toys on my desk. You can fidget stuff but you can't see me playing with it because cameras neck up, but really I'm here just playing around, but in a in person room. It's kind of a knock some spin in this in my lap so this will help you, you know, still be able to fidget and what not without people noticing and they're very easy to clean and helps build this like engagement so how do you set these things up. So, very similar to the idea of circulating robots or tech kits you can do the same things with these types of devices. But you would probably change the loan period a little bit longer because you need to let them borrow for a month or provide instruction cards. There's also the concept of the cost of nursing homes are so expensive for people that are afflicted with memory challenges. Usually it falls along the lines of like their, their children that have to take care of them. And so there's this undue tax going to caregivers that they don't have a resource to support them. And so using the library to support the caregivers as well as those other individuals, you've opened up your library space to a whole bunch of new ideas. So this is something I'm like, pretty passionate about and excited for seeing that I've now discovered I have family members also afflicted with these things. And so I'm like, well, yeah, libraries going to do this because I think everyone has a story of where they know someone that has all time or she mentioned or other types of memory challenges. So I bet true. So a couple other like engagement ideas. What's that. I was hoping there'd be at least in one more cat. There's always cat names. But I think learning other languages is another big piece that or even sign language can be a really good program for older adults. They're looking for things to do. They might not be that interested in learning how a drone flies, but they might be interested in traveling in VR or traveling in or learning other languages. Other like activities that aren't tech at all. So this is called call to mind. And it's a conversation game. It's actually really good for like library visitors, especially those with dementia to play like engagement games to get the memory going and to like spark interest in new things. And again, this is another activity that you can bring both the caregiver and the person afflicted for the group that can't do cards against humanity. And this is a ball that you would throw and catch and when you catch it however your thumbs land is the question you answer so it's like an icebreaker activity. So it's very neat way to even bring other cultures in and other groups of folks to share what they do as like enrichment activity. And similar to the soccer ball thing. This is a paradise that you basically roll and then pull a card from designed to help like shake loose memory and triggers like new conversations and new ways to engage. Can be awesome open a can of worms. It could be, but it's always fun. God try it call it a pilot. And so I think the goal of libraries has always been empowering independence and this is a new phrase that I've said I would like to use. So I think that libraries are good at empowering independence and we should figure out ways to do more of it. So what I mean by empowering independence is we provide curriculum or circulation items like books and movies and things like that that will teach people stuff, or give them access to things they ordinarily don't have therefore making them more independent. We're showing them how to program or code or use office or use Excel, learning about smart home devices or mobile apps. So we look more about how we can empower people to be self sufficient I think we can do a lot more good to the world on that focus. Love the feline innovation there. Go straight to the source. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. And then in terms of programs that I think we should start looking at is we're again I mentioned like the idea of caregivers. caregiver for folks. So I think running programs that educate people even if like they don't have to worry about that yet they may have to eventually. I think, again, giving them that independence to know there's a resource they can go to and collection and curriculum and resources information online databases, etc. So that's the information or fingertips that I think we can use to more focus on that initiative, because as always, libraries are filled with books. And so I think we give people more of those things and start empowering people to do more I think that would be widely helpful. So that's, that's my thing about the evolved project now change gears a little bit and talk about a few other things that I've been working on over the years to give people some context and support. So for me, I always like to find ways of again I've been in libraries as a small child. I want to see libraries continue to grow and be successful. One of the challenges that exists is the idea of hosting content. So building websites. is often pretty expensive to host a webpage. And so I worked with Amazon. We figured out a way to design a platform for libraries in particular to leverage or librarians if they want their own blog space that we called Lib talks. And so the goal of it is to provide a very inexpensive space to host your library webpage or a personal blog. And so that's what we've decided to do since we're, we got a decent size grant to give newly graduating or graduated librarian free web space. So to go to our webpage Lib talk.com, you can sign up for free, like web hosting package and we'll even get to a domain and everything. Because we want to see people be successful and share stories and share ideas. So we always encourage people to reach out to us and build those things because we feel that it's important. And at the same time, I like to play in the code only if I have to. And so there's a bunch of other opportunities, such as like we wanted to make AI more accessible paying $20 a month is a little excessive we think. So we built our own AI tool that leverages some of open AI is chat to PT framework. So you can create images, translate audio, you can convert text to audio or audio text using Amazon. And we did all the heavy lifting so you literally just fill out a box and it makes it for you. And so what we will we what we've been doing is giving people free access and through a 30 day trial. And then if you need more time you just messaged us and then it extends. And that limits because we don't want people to get advantage of the system and make like thousands of images. So we do have some thresholds that we try to make sure we don't exceed because then it'll be very expensive to run and we're doing it all for mostly for free with a few paid subscribers that will help funnel the free use. So that's our AI tools. It's a pretty fun one I've used it. And I think it's like my goal has always been providing opportunities whether in the AI space to make things a little bit more safer and enjoyable. Because obviously if I'm doing it I'm not collecting anyone's data like I have zero desire to do so. And so there is, it's safer in that regard, because at least there's a name with the face. Whereas there's thousands of people that open AI or other that you may not know. And so what we want to do is provide a platform where you can play without like worrying that your data is going to appear somewhere else. You can avoid the dirty dirty data mongers. I don't care enough and also it's expensive to host and contain all that data. So I don't want to pay for it so away it goes when you don't need it anymore. And then lastly, one of the things that I've been working with lately is a company called by order solutions. And so we're trying to look about open source software really quick and then open it for questions and we can talk about anything along that that pathway. So my entire director has always been trying to find resources and solutions for people that like don't hurt the bank and don't like make you go broke because the more money you spend on something is less money can spend on a community. So I kind of built the evolve project to find partnerships and give out free technical built the hosting website to give people opportunities for cheaper hosting. And by water has been doing this really great open source solutions for, I think they're 15 year anniversary is coming up. The high level about open source. There are like a lot of myths like open sources and secure because people can see the source code. That's not entirely true. Because usually within open source framework and apply from there's a bunch of people looking at it and making sure it goes through all the necessary checks and balances. Put tons of support opportunities. And in order to change code there are a lot of approvals needed to do that before it goes live. So here's a couple of products that by order supports and encourages people to use. Koho is your integrated library system. If you've never heard of to check it out. It's very clean. It's pretty and super super easy to use. I haven't used an ILS in the library, you had to use Sierra, I think it was from what is that triple I innovative. So this is a thousand times easier in my opinion. They even built an open source discovery layer called aspen allows you to search for content a lot easier. He asked management system called lipkey. And so if you're doing like PC reservations or print control, and you're paying for like a license system. And I recently discovered meta base. And so I'm a big data nerd. So all my decisions I always make I leverage data to do it. And so I've used tools like ThoughtSpot or Google Data Studio, all of which come with some level of cost, and it's kind of expensive to like put your data on there and then let it power through. So I'm a big lover of ThoughtSpot, which is incredibly expensive meta base basically does the exact same thing. So, check out like ThoughtSpot like wow I love how it makes those reports and generates graphs and charts etc. How do I do that without paying a billion bucks meta base. I'm a big fan of using and leveraging open source software as well, because it just the unlicensed aspects of like my server infrastructure, if you will from libtalk is all open source so that's why we don't have to charge as much because we don't have a licensing stack that we have to worry about. It's just the data traffic that Amazon charges is what we build back. I should have left enough time cool for questions answers little discussion. Hopefully I didn't want to make it like salesy so I want to give you a cool arc of like things that exist out there in the library world. And I encourage people to like play. It doesn't cost you anything to try something out is my big belief in life. I just asked people to like hey I don't want to spend, you know $1000 in a product and I borrow and get a copy of it and play with it and I can ship back if you want. And most people are very okay with that. And so, if there's nothing that you've learned today except that of just asking that I feel like it's been a successful day for you. So, I will, my email shared so you can always email if you're watching recording, but we'll open it up for general discussion I guess. Awesome. Thank you, Brian. Go ahead and leave your slides up there so in case anyone wants to pop back to anything and we'll have that up on the screen to. If anyone does have any questions, comments, thoughts anything you want to ask Brian about or share about any of these things you've used in your libraries we'd love to hear that to type into the questions section of your go to web and our interface. I'm monitoring that here and I will grab your questions. Thank you, Brian. Tabby or not Tabby. Yes. Why not both. That's my answer to that question. My first, like one question that I had, and actually one that I get a lot is libraries that want to build out courses that are available through the library. Like they want to do the digital skill courses life skill courses. And I think live chalk actually has like the course component. I know like versus niche Academy which is like 10 K a year. Can you talk a little bit more about how live chalk does the course stuff. Yeah, so what we've done is again I like open source so there's an open source platform called canvas. From infrastructure has a closed model that does software as a service to pay for the house and they manage. And then we have another version of cannabis that we've created over the years that you can upload your own content to. And we don't charge like a licensing fee we just charge the data behind it, which is considerably less expensive. Again, that's like a really cool thing about like the open source infrastructure frameworks is the recurring costs for like student licenses, if you will, or teacher licenses are very expensive it's like a very lucrative business. The more popular your courses the more money it costs you. In my belief system I don't think that's right. I think you should charge more for your popularity but because it's not really doing anything different so resources might change slightly. But at the end of the day the cost of that is insignificant most of your cost is on that data piece, or the bandwidth piece. And so, I think using so we use a tool live talk is a tool called canvas. So if you don't know how to set it up yourself be more than happy to show you, or we can spin you up your own version of it that you can play on. Because I know that like in house we use Moodle, but it's like, you know, source to. Yeah, we use Moodle for a lot of our courses are basic skills classes, but we're also expanding out into niche Academy now. And for more self paste courses, tried to do some self paste I think in Moodle but Holly Duggan who's our CEO coordinator is experimenting now with niche Academy see if that's a better place to have some self paste work in there. And it's like, I looked at the niche Academy versus like I scan through some of the resources for canvas, and it's like, it looks like niche Academy you just upload a video and you can put some text with it and add some questions and it's pretty basic. Yeah, like for a cheaper rate canvas is pretty good. And if canvas can get integrated into a website. It's a pretty decent option for libraries. You have to get started with absolutely. You go. You talked about buy water and open source, Brian, we actually I am a huge supporter of them. We worked. Well, we have a consortium here in Nebraska of libraries across the state. I think they've got 12 or 15 libraries in the group now. And I've had a shared catalog for years and years called the pioneer consortium. And they just last year of the year before switch to buy water, actually. Oh nice. Yeah, they had been with something for a long time and a different, still coha, but a different provider, I guess, of it, and they were not very happy at all. And a few libraries had dropped out actually and gone their own way, but they switched to buy water and we gave them grants to help them to do that actually library improvement grant that happened. And they're so much happier. Yes. It's like I saw and I remember the coha drama. And I was like, buy water for the win. Yeah, they do great work. I love that the Nebraska Library Commission puts on a ton of events and builds out grants and things for people to attend conferences, or ILS is I don't, I don't think too many groups do that these days. I just keep up doing the amazing work because it falls in line with stuff that makes me excited and makes me passionate, which is like trying to extend what a library can do with its limited resources. So that's beautiful. We try wish we had more money. It would be nice if we had more but we do with what we can with what we have yet giving people we do continue education grants to go to conferences to. So that's a whole separate thing. But for computers and libraries we actually just have where. We reach out to information today or they do to us and we offer a discount if you go through us kind of thing to just registration. Sorry, sorry, sorry, someone from the consortium I just mentioned the pioneer consortium in the chat and said, now that they're with buy water it is 1000% better. Nice. We have someone who typed in pretty long thing here let's see what I got here. So everyone we have at least 10 minutes left in our hour here so definitely type in any questions you have. And even if we go over will just anything you want to share about what you're doing in your libraries or anything get it in it will make sure Brian or Amanda. So, Alright, so here's a long question comment here. Would it be untoward to create and have ready a library wish list, almost like a registry with the tech materials or furnishings the library is aspiring to. I'm wondering if something like that would be helpful to have when people are groups the library might approach say, Oh, we didn't know the library needed money. We took something up, but they don't even know what, as in your example so come up with your ideas and kind of have a, like you said registry, or like people do it Amazon wish list. I was going to say the Amazon wish list approach. I've seen a few libraries do that works really well, or even putting a web page together that says here's the things that we want to purchase and why and the cost. If you'd like to donate like a PayPal link. And then do it that way. That's low cost and quick and easy if you don't like the, the Amazon monster. You do it that way. You're directing you. Yeah, I think that's a great idea definitely think of the, you know, wish list if you know, if we had all the money that we could possibly have what we love to do with the library and just put that out there. If you're on your website or when you are talking, you know, have some flyers or something or a little half sheet something you can hand out to some people want something they can take back to their organization or their group or their board of directors of whatever, or the company saying hey here's some of the things you want to do, pick one and help us out doing it. So it would have to have though already planned who's going to implement the thing, whatever they, the company picks to help you out with after new ones they say yeah we'd love to pick this thing forth on the list. Make sure you have the resources and someone ready to jump into whichever thing gets, you know, selected. You know, do that do that prep work and planning ahead of time of if we had the money who's going to do it has it going to happen. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think Brian you had an AI tool recommendation list I think I remember seeing that floating around. I'll throw it in the chat. It's one of those things that it's like, if you want to experiment with the cool fun stuff you also have to find out how much it costs and what the maintenance costs are. It's like Brian tracks the trends but if you want to build out a budget or like your wish list to find out what you want to get and when. Yep. Point you in the direction then you can figure out what's in your budget. If you go to links.evolvedproject.org slash AI tools it'll take you to the cool doc I have. See if I can. Can you say that again. links.evolvedproject.org slash AI tools. We do have the general of all project web page linked off of our event page for today's show. I assume somewhere in there that would eventually get you there too. Now it's like a URL shortener. But I put a link to the chat. Yeah, we will add that. I already put it in there won't put it in again. I was only able to send it to the organizers. Yep, I got it. Yeah. Any other questions though. And can you flip back through. It's one of those things where I need like the memory trigger to get to the slide that made me think of the question. I'll go back. Any triggers. I think I'm looking for the serenity. I'm looking for the serenity. I'm looking for the serenity. I'm looking for the serenity rooms and super over there. I also can't get the image of that weird looking muff thing out of my head. Because when I first saw it, I was like. What is that? And it looked like a cat that had been punched in the face, but then I looked at it closer. And I was like, that makes sense. So. Are there any like consultants or people who are able to help design specialty rooms like this? And I don't know if that or if other people do that. Yeah, so the group that I've, I work with the most frequent is LFI library furniture international. They have a really great designer on their team for like, because I'm not good at colors like you. I'm not coming to paint like it's white, white and dry. That's all you get from me. And you're lucky that I can like coordinate my outfits like that's that's extending up beyond my capabilities. And so, yeah, LFI library furniture international has a great team that does a really, really good job at helping you figure out what furniture to use what colors what design schemes, etc. I personally think they're the best in the business. They want a ton of different awards for libraries they worked on. And they have the same philosophy as I do of not like raking you over the coals for for money that's just like more about like doing the best you can for the community needs. I like it. The number one question we get is like recommendations for service providers. So I figured that question will come up. What is the name of that again on us is they have a website or you know, yeah, I'll find it really quick. It's LFI library furniture international. Okay. So then the chat really quick library furniture international.com pretty straightforward there. For a website like. Easy breezy. I have those Lego to the Lego tables. My nephew would love one of those. Really cool. Yeah. And then the other question that I get is, do you have an up to date list of all the gadgets you recommend on your website. Yeah, so when you go to my website evolved product org. I went to my own web page. That's embarrassing. I believe I have a link called partnerships. If you click on that and scroll the page should load. And it's all listed there. So you have like the punched in muff and the soccer ball and the. No, not those yet. Those will all be listed on a different web page, eventually. Mostly just trying to find the spot where people can find this later. Yeah. The link. So I was wondered why go to webinar only lets the panel, the organizers and panelists email and chat to other organizers and panelists. And then I can as an organizer due to everybody. Yeah. I don't know. It's a weird lockdown that it's a restriction. Yeah. I would be happy to allow my organ. My panelists and presenters just send things to everybody. It's all right. Technology only works when you want it to. Yeah. All right, well, all these links will be will make available also in. On the archive on the page archive page. We do put this up so. There's larger and then the project one. It's like I also missed the blur feature from zoom. But, oh well. That is one thing that it does not have yet. Yes. And I know there's been requests for it and well. Let's admit that request. All right. All right. I am going to get my screen up here now so you can show anybody has any got another almost at the top of the hour yeah. If anybody doesn't have any last minute desperate questions or comments you want to share type into the questions section. We got to thank you all thank you Brian Christian Amanda you're welcome. Brian is a lot of great information as you and Brian and Brian's been on the show before. If you search on show archives you can look up his just look up his name, and you'll find previous sessions that he's done for us over the years. Also, I think Brian needs a nap and another cup of tea. Yes. Yeah, yeah, my drugs killing me, but thanks for having me as always it's always a blast to hang out with you folks. Let's hear about everything the new ideas new things you're doing. Like I said you, you came to computers and libraries years and years ago and I. I think I was at that same computers and libraries when you first came. When you were first there. If I'm remembering pricklyx I used to go to the conferences years ago to come back at the blast. Yeah. And so it's great to hear you have the new things you have going on so it doesn't look like anything type anything yet. But if you do reach out to Brian on his website it was email, you do want to chat with him about anything else. And we've got our links here here's a link we have to evolve project website, the AI tools specifically list that he had and that library furniture international for help with designing your areas. And I will link add these links to the session page here when I put the archive up. Thank you. Yeah, thank you everyone for being here so I should have the archive ready the recording ready by the end of the day tomorrow at the latest anyone as long as go to webinar and YouTube cooperate with me we do post our recordings on to our YouTube channel for the Nebraska library commissions YouTube channel. Everyone who attended today's show and registered for today show get an email directly from me. When I also send it out to our mailing list here in Nebraska. We also pushed out onto our social media we have a Facebook page for encompass live if you like to use Facebook, give us a like over there. We have here's a reminder about last about this week show when the recording is available we also post that up here as well. We have a hashtag and come live a little abbreviation on our Twitter and Instagram so if you want to just look for that hashtag. If you use any of those particular services. I'm going to go back to our main page here and show everyone here's our upcoming shows. But I want to show you where our archives are right here underneath is linked the archives, most recent one goes to the top of the page. So, today's will be up there by the end of the day tomorrow. And as I have a link to. Oh, Brian, if you send me your slides or link to your slides I can. Well, and then all the other links will be added in there along with to our YouTube archive as well. And while we're here I will show you. You can search show archives to see if we've done a topic on something of your, maybe interested in. You can search the full show archive or just most recent 12 months you want something just current. Because this is our full show archives and I'm not going to scroll all the way down. If you look at the scroll bar over here because it's very tiny. This is our full show archives going back to when and compass live first premiered which was in January 2009, which means this is 2024 is the 16th year of our of the show. Oh my gosh, every time I say that it just was amazing. That's really awesome. I started this out is just something to do every week to help libraries learn things to share what they're doing with what libraries in Nebraska we're doing outside and to bring into Nebraska what's happening outside the state. But now people from all over the country attend and present and I love it yeah we'll keep going as long as we've got topics to talk about which I think we will. Yeah, but if you do watch an old show, pay attention to the original broadcast date. They all have the date when they first happened. Some shows will be great and good to watch and stand the test of time but some things will become old and outdated. Resources and services may have changed drastically or no longer exist anymore. People may work at different libraries or different organizations and they did and links may be broken we do not have we have. I don't know how many recordings we have for here now five some 600. We don't have the capacity to go back and fixed links regularly so just do pay attention to that. And just for an example here if you type in Brian's last name. I don't know how often he's been the show going all the back 2012. When you first came to talk about the evolve project. And if you have your CS, CS there. Yeah. Brian have you asked your year. Maybe Brian. Yeah, there's a video there go ahead and take a look at it if you want. All right, so I think we'll wrap it up for today's show then. As you can see right now there is nothing on the schedule yet for next week I'm still working with some people to see if we can get somebody on. If not we may take week off we do that every now and then sometimes you just need to take a take a little break. But we do have other dates filled in for March and April. So I think it's a good visual. I've got the end of March priest we take on there I'll get April's there as well if you wanted to walk that in and get your registration and for whatever Amanda has for us next time. I might try to get the CL recap in. Oh, sure. Yeah. Because that would have been a couple of weeks before. Yeah. By the 20 by the 27. Yeah. All right. So, thank you everyone for being with us hopefully you'll join us in the future. Good to you. See you Brian and Amanda. Hope you feel better Brian take care of yourself. Thanks, take care everyone. Bye. Yeah. All on a future episode of and help us live. Thank you.