 Hi, 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. You can always watch our recordings in our archives at your convenience. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where to get into all of our recordings. Both the live show and our archives are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think may be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. So those of you not here from Nebraska are not watching us from Nebraska. The Nebraska Library Commission is a state agency for libraries in Nebraska, and that is for all types of libraries. So you will find things on our website and on our show topics that are for publics, academics, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything. Really, our only criteria is that it is something to do with a library or with libraries. Something that libraries are doing, something cool resources we think they might find beneficial. We bring in guest presenters from across the country to talk about what they're doing in their libraries or in their organizations. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff come in and talk about things that we offer here at the Library Commission. And we also bring in guest speakers from around our state. And that's what we have this morning with us. And one of our speakers has walked away again. That's okay. It's all good. Everybody's done that. So today, what we're talking about is a Nebraska libraries in the time of COVID, COVID-19, planning for reopening. And one person who walked away is actually they're open for the first time today. So he may be in and out as needed. What I wanted to do today, I invited some library staff from a couple of places in Nebraska to talk about what they've been doing. Well, how they have already been open some, as I said, the other one library opening just today and some help they've had from some of our library systems. So we have a group of people here today that are going to talk about that. We have with us today, Denise Harders, who is Wave Denise. Other hand. She is the director of our Central Plains library system. For those of you not in from Nebraska, which I think right now nobody is. But if you're watching this recording, we have regional library systems in Nebraska. They may not work the same way you think of in your state. They are not like where you join the system and everybody is a group. They are, I more think of them as an offshoot of their part of the Nebraska Library Commission. They are people on the ground, so to speak. Four different regions in the state where they go around to do training and consulting and help libraries do a lot of the visiting for us to the library. So she's more of a support system, I would say, for the libraries. We also have Cecilia Lawrence, who's the director of the North Platte Public Library. Good morning, Cecilia. They've been open. When did you first open? May 11th. May 11th, yep. So they've been open for a little bit. So she has some experience. You can talk about that. Also with us is just back perfect timing, Steve. Steve Voslemann is the director of our Grand Island Public Library, who is just opening officially to the public today. Today? Yes. Hi. So hopefully everything will be fine over the next hour at least. Also with us is Celine Swan, who is also from Grand Island Public Library, the services library in there, who has been very helpful to Steve with this. So she's going to talk about what they've been doing there. What I want to talk about show first here is across the country, we are still in the throes of the pandemic, the coronavirus pandemic. But communities and organizations, municipalities and libraries as to who we are concerned with here. Are working on opening up some it's there is no standard across the board. Everybody is going to be doing it and is doing it on their own time states timeline in their own way. But it is something that is happening in some areas. Some are not opening at all. It all, you know, varies here at the library commission, we've been trying to help our libraries out with this by gathering resources for them. We have here on our website, there's a list that we've been trying to keep up to date of libraries first started out in about mid-March when everything first shut down of libraries that were closing and how what was happening. We just kept an eye on social media and news items and things and we actually put out a web Google form it's still out there where libraries let us know just trying to keep track and gathering one place what's happening at Nebraska libraries. So it's more about when who was closed what they were doing, if they were doing things like making special accommodations like the Wi-Fi in the parking lot, things like that, whatever. The bare minimum they were doing in the beginning. So we have this here. We have now added it updated to be also reopenings. Now that is happening at some of our libraries. So if libraries do let us know what they're doing or we just see on, like I said, social media or in the news, what's happening. We try and keep this up to date as much as we can. So if you're interested in what's happening at a library or if you're at a library, check this list. If your library is on there, make sure it's correct for us, please. If it isn't, shoot us an email here to our reference desk and they'll make sure we have the correct info up there on the list. We also have pinned to the top of our website this COVID-19 and pandemic resources for libraries blog post, which has the link to the web forum that people could use to let us know what's going on. We have a couple of interactive, active maps that Sam Shaw, our data guy, has put together about libraries that we're offering modified service and Wi-Fi outside of their libraries available. So this is just based on the information we gathered from them. So if you wanted to know if people did have it. If we just want the yeses, the places that you can go and use the Wi-Fi out in the parking lot based on the information we've gathered. We also have our sub-page here from all of our pandemic resources that we've gathered and you'll see here there's things for not just for libraries, but for anyone in other situations. What do I do with my kids? What about applying for an employment? How do I teach my kids at home? And our thinking on this was this is the kind of questions that people have always come to the library about potentially. Like, I need information on something and how do I apply for unemployment? How do I, you know, work with, do this with my business? Related to it. So to help our libraries be able to support their users in whether they're open or not, we have a lot of links here and information on them. There's a specific section just for libraries, of course. We've tried to gather lots of information here and this is updated regularly when we hear of new studies that have been done or webinars available or information from ALA or IMLS or the CDC, whoever, we try and keep this up to date here. We had information about closings, help for reopening your library, and we're going to talk about the realm project. Great thing being done by OCLC and IMLS to actually study what's going on with library materials. If you were thinking about holding, how are you going to hold your board meetings or any other public meetings? The governor in Nebraska did give a special water and water to the library. The organizations who do have to do public meetings and meet the public meetings, open meetings act, be able to do it remotely via teleconference, Zoom, whatever. And that was extended through June 30th. It originally was, ended in May, I think, but it's been extended. I don't know where we're at now. I suppose we should double check that now that's July. But there is, even if his order of saying that does expire, there is actually already in the Open Meetings Act, this is here for you in Nebraska, for anyone who's wondering, there is a section that does say you can do your meetings virtually. It's already benefiting, so his was just being a little more forceful. I don't know where we're at now. I suppose we should double check that now that's July, but there is, even if his order of saying that does expire, there is actually already in the Open Meetings Act, this is here for you in Nebraska, for anyone who's wondering. It's already benefiting, so his was just being a little more forceful. I think with it that definitely it's okay to, because of what's happening in places can't be open and people can't be near each other. That's okay, but it is actually already in the Open Meetings Act itself that you can have video conference meetings or whatever technology you want to use. I have information about some other policies that some libraries have put up, so we shared them there. We've got North Platte and Great Islands is on there, just got yours on there this morning that you had sent to me Steve. So, if you want to use them as examples for your summer reading program options, lots of things going online with that. Here in Nebraska, we did do a statewide and we still have it ongoing readers own statewide subscription to that. Any public library in Nebraska can sign up for that. So, if you're still doing your summer reading or going to maybe continue something with that, that is something to look into. I know there's other resources out there too. And then just some more resources from other health education, teaching education, online resources, so as much as we could get here on the page. Always being an updated, like I said, as much as we can, if we hear something new or find something new and useful for a library. So, Nebraska libraries, take a look at that, keep an eye on it. If you're not from Nebraska, see what your state library is doing or your state library association, they may have similar kind of resources out there for you. You can see a lot of our things here are general for anybody, but some specific to Nebraska. So what I want to do first is have Denise have Denise talk about first is she's Central Plains library system, as I said, and she has been doing weekly zoom calls and meetings with library directors. And so Denise, I wanted to have you talk about how, because I know that's how some of you guys all of you here on the call today and make sure some of you who are on listening. Ended up talking to each other and, you know, just chatting about things. So how did that all get started and how did you, you know, how's that all going. Yeah, I would love to take credit, but I really can't. I got an email at first and then a phone call because I made a follow up phone call to Lori out in Cozad at Wilson public library. And she said, I, I'm at a loss. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what other libraries are doing. My board, my city are asking me questions. Can you help me figure out what's going on at the other libraries around. And I, I thought about it. And I said, yeah, we can, we can figure out what's going on with other libraries. We just got to ask. And so I didn't have a zoom membership, but they offered a free one. And I did a, I do use a telephone conference calling company. And so the first one, I think we even use that telephone conference call, which is very difficult, even more difficult than zoom. Because you can't see who's talking and you don't know what who's going to be talking and you talk over each other. So that was difficult. So then the next time I said, let's do the zoom thing. I don't know anything about it, but we'll learn. So we did. Consequently, I now have a zoom membership, because they cut you off after 40 minutes and I'm telling you we had more than 40 minutes worth of stuff to say. And that's how it, it first got started is just a question as comes into my office on a regular basis I get phone calls I get emails, people say what do you think, and that's that's how the readers own thing happened to by the way. I had a call from a library so what do you think. So the crazy stuff happens, but so our first talks we talked about what was just going on people just needed to know like Laurie said, I don't know what to do and I, my board is looking at me like I do know something. I mean, it's a cliche now but this is unprecedented nobody has there was no me in library plans and we talked about this inter strategic planning and things that there is disaster planning that you go through, or that you should have somewhere in your plan, your community your municipality has it. I don't know if this particular situation was was in there. I just thought of it will be now I'm sure. But there was nothing to base what do we do. Yeah. Right. So that's, you know, we talked about, you need to talk to your library board you need to talk to your city administration and you need to talk to the local health department, who knew that they, they were going to be the ones who really were leading the charge here. So that was one conversation another one we talked about what are you going to do with summer reading I at that point we were it was early enough on. Some of us were still thinking, maybe, maybe we can do something. But as we know that all went down the tubes but we had to come up with something different. So that's what we wanted to talk about is, is what should we do about summer reading, should we try and at least have something. The other conversation was how to keep your staff working, what they can do inside the library when you're closed, because you know, a lot of the general population thinks the only thing we can do is have served them so there's no reason to be inside the library if it's close waiting for them to show up to give us something to do. Yeah. Right. So, but so we, I, we talked about all the different things that library staff can do when the libraries closed and also some people needed to stay at home. So, what kinds of things could you send home with them to work on so that they could continue to get paid during this time when everybody kind of needed their paycheck. So that was another conversation. One time we talked about morale, because this was the middle way we were slogging through the middle I'm telling you that the mental health of our staff and how and ourselves, and how we could keep going and be positive and keep some of the morale up and running. And really practical things like where do you buy some cleaning supplies, what cleaning supply should we buy and how do we get our hands on them, because you can't find a sanitizing wipe to save your soul in this state. I'm telling you, there are, they're just not out there. And then we had changing guidelines coming, you know, we're doing phase one. Okay, and then we did phase two, almost everybody did phase two, but not Steve he couldn't do phase two, when everybody else did his grand island was always somebody different. And then, you know, then we moved to phase three, what are we going to do with phase three. And so, those were, that was a conversation one day is, Okay, the phases are a changing. And what, and what does looking at that study from realm, the, the reopening one, the national study that was done to figure out what we do with our library material once we do reopen. How do we keep it safe and clean and not wreck it by spraying bleach on it every time it comes back. And don't microwave it. No, don't microwave it. So, all of the things that we have to figure out. And so there was some actual good solid scientific research done. And they did it fairly quickly, and there's it's ongoing. And so that those are things we talked about is, is to know what to do with the stuff that we get back from the public, which you know, when you think about it. I have stood at the front desk and gotten some really ugly stuff back, not even a pandemic thing. Just, you know, you know, this is something that my friends have been dealing with from the beginning of libraries that you guys can all speak to this people bring back things in terrible condition. There's no known substances on them. Bed bugs, that's a, you know, bugs. It's already been a thing that we had to deal with the past so I think some people were surprised that libraries were like, well, but what we're all is just, you know, I think it was just common sense. Okay, so how do we take care of this because we've been taking care of all these other situations in the past. What do you mean people do that to their books. Oh, you have no idea what people do. And how they come back. Yes. So, you know, that was a conversation that that I thought was important and everybody joined in on it was really terrific. Then we've had our reopening plans, because everybody starts out with a plan. And then we have the reopening that happens, which is Steve is in the middle of right now, you know, you have your plan. Do you what what really happens when you open the door. So, so we've had a couple of conversations about experiences so that we can everybody can learn from each other. And then we're great about what you guys you've done it this has been a weekly thing that you've been doing right every Thursday you have. Yeah. So, like you said, things changed almost day to day sometimes with this, that we know what it was all about what COVID was like. And then you wait tomorrow know it's different or our municipality wants us to do this or our governor wants us to do that but then the next day the mayor wants something different. It's changing so quickly I think I think gathering those people together to talk has been a great thing that you've done to just make sure everyone just can keep communicating I know all of you have mentioned that that's been a really I think it's a life saver to you. Well, and one of the last things that we talked about last week was the budgeting is happening. So, we're looking forward. Not only have we're looking at where we are right now, but we're trying to look forward. So what I was just going to say is we did the weekly meetings and that allowed people to, to share the knowledge that they gained because that's what we do experiences. A little bit of venting, maybe we had a teeny bit of venting on occasion. Keeping up your mental health, definitely. Retirement. I did try and talk people out of retirement. And we learned a lot from each other, even, even the people who were in the throes of it all learned from the people asking questions saying hey what do we do. And they, I hadn't thought of that. So the more people you can have as your network or community in that situation is is helpful yeah. And the, and what I heard the most was, I'm not alone. I'm not alone. In one week I had a meeting that I that I did not schedule but I had to attend and so I, I let this group know a week ahead of time said hey can't be here next Thursday, we'll we'll catch up on the next one. And oh my goodness, I got a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails saying we, we got to get together. And I said, we will Thursday, we'll be there Thursday. So yeah, it really was missed when it wasn't there. And so and I truly and honestly had no idea because there were times throughout this that I thought oh maybe they're tired to talk to each other. Maybe we should go to every other week or, you know, but no, no, we, we just keep going. Because they're like you say it changes day by day. So that's what our plan is right now is to keep on going. Well, I think that's great and I'm sure people will keep attending and this might just become a regular thing for anything. As long as you can keep it up every week, we'll see. We've had truthfully 25 to 45 people every week and that for our small system. I mean we we have a huge geographic system, which is part of my struggle with getting people together in person is we have all those green and so it's it's a lot of miles, but this has made me really learn about the possibilities of zoom and all of that because it has been important to get together and it has been every week and I'm, it's been very well followed. I can say I can't say that other than summer reading meetings, where you learn about summer reading and get all your ideas. I haven't had that many people respond to anything else I've done. That's awesome. Well, I hope you do keep doing it definitely. So Cecilia, let's talk to you next because you have been open. So, how did you get. I know it wasn't your decision. How did you end up becoming what were you planning and what happened and as you said you sent me something that will show to you and let me know we will show that that things don't always go as you maybe thought they would have as Denise mentioned. So in those early days, we were like many libraries we were like working on curbside I mean I think we spent 80 hours just focused on curbside, and North Platte got a new city administrator and he said, No, you are going to open, throw your curbside plans away. And so that really threw us that was on Friday, and we had to reopen Monday. And we quickly plan. No. And so it threw us into a very focused looking at so many different aspects of reopening. And it one of the things when Denise started all this is there were little libraries that had stayed open during this, the pandemic, because they had zero cases in their county. And I will say that North Platte has followed the governor's recommendations for his faces phase one, we move started on May 11 phase two is June. First, and then phase three he he did June 22 we went with July 1 for our changes. So we have progressively loosen. And I will stress every library is different so that that comes out of the systems meetings as well. But everybody takes away good suggestions and both Steve and I applaud the little libraries that stayed open, the smaller libraries they were so vital to their communities to keep going. And then as cases did start showing up in their communities they had some things that we were sharing back and forth about how to operate. So, some of the things that we had to consider in the very first round when we opened up phase one was mask requirements of staff mask requirements of the public. And then we would take all of our cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, sprays, Lysol spray, anything that we had that was a disinfectant we took everything and put it all in one area because they were scattered all over the building and we really didn't know what we had. So we went ahead and put it all in one place and it gave us a really good gauge when we are getting really low and needed to find some other resources. One of the other things that we spent a lot of time on in the beginning was, how do you make your automated library system, your ILS, how do you make it work for you, are you going to wave fines, how are you going to push people's their their due dates forward into the future, are you going to keep your book drop open how are you going to handle returns and that realm study in the early days when we reopened there was nothing out from realm yet they had just announced it. And everything that we read and we did a lot of reading had to do with three days seem to be the length of time that the virus lived on plastic. Most of our books are wrapped in that plastic. So we went with the 72 hours. We added a light spring of a medical disinfectant. A lot of people can't get a hold of it we found a medical supply company and ordered four gallons of it we're still on our first gallon because it is such you use so little of it. And of course the realm study is based on just letting things sit with nothing on them whatsoever. So that you know it gives us a little makes us feel a little bit better, but just sitting will get those books in a safe status. And that's so important I actually did a Facebook post on, is it safe to use your public library, because our numbers when we first reopened I mean we had expected them to be low, I really did I expected them to be about 25%. And they didn't hit 25% for about three weeks. We're still unsure. I mean, even if you are open, they still don't know, but is it safe. Is it, you know, what is the library doing to protect me what are other people doing to protect me and themselves. And what is my personal situation do I have extenuating circumstances of my own that I need to figure out how to deal with. But when you throw your books in quarantine you got to remember that you've got to add a grace period, or extend due dates, or not charge fines or check them in exempt so we had to work through all of those procedures to help people out. And when we went to phase two, we actually stopped moving due dates forward and started implementing fines. And we had hundreds of overdue notices that we sent out, but again I'm, you know we debated about sending them and I'm glad we did because I had so many people say I don't get the newspaper I don't do social media. They had no idea we were open even though there's big signs on the front windows. And like here's your blog post that you post that you did at the end of June about new changes coming July 1. That's pretty in your face but if you're not on social media or something. No, you wouldn't know. Exactly. So, we've always during this time and I think most libraries have really leaned to the benefit of their patron, you know, in waving fines. Certainly it's extenuating circumstances. And that first few days that we opened, they were quirky. We didn't have a lot of people in the building which was good. But on the third day that we were open we had a guy trying to access pornography which we are a filtered library. That was a community decision to filter. And so, I mean it's like really, you know, we're dealing with everything else and you're going to hassle. That's your most important thing that you came here to do during a pandemic is that people had people believe they don't believe that the coronavirus is real. They have coughed on money deliberately. You know, not, I mean it's just like, like a couple a handful of people that have had this or they're disparaging about, you're not wearing your mask correctly to our staff who up until phase three were required to wear masks. They were dropped recently and then that immediately got challenged on Facebook. Why are you dropping the requirement because it's a perceived level of safe when you walked into a medical facility into a business into a library and everybody is masked. The people who are walking in believe that it's a safe facility because you're all wearing masks. So they don't have to. And so yeah I love that. I love the guy that took the dime out of his mouth to pay for his copy. That was just. No, no. No money coming out of your socks or your. No. And, you know, Steve has the same issue today and the reason he was having part of an empty chair. We had a petitioner on day one, and he does too. And I think of all days and I've got to dig through my files. I bet Steve's like me. We haven't had petitioner problems in probably three years. And I had to dig through and find what our ordinance said what our policy said and go take care of it, because I was just like, are you kidding me, you know, and staff is nervous. My suggestion is to Celine for for your reopening day is have food for the staff. We do. We do today. Yes. Because they are. Yeah. First day is the worst and you get through today and it'll get better. And by day three, it feels like the new normal because it's so much slower we you prepare for business to come back in droves the way you're expecting the lines around the block. I'm curious to hear from Steve and Celine tomorrow, how if they had lines around the block. That was not our experience, but I'm sure some libraries somewhere probably did. dependent when you open up to you opened up way early, as well as far as I would describe it when people were still. I guess everything locked down. Don't go anywhere without a mask. I mean, then may that would that was like the throws that do not go anywhere and restaurants were no things like that. We had 10, we had 10 people in two cars drive here from Denver because we were the closest library that was open to them. And they needed to print out citizenship green card type paperwork governmental paperwork, and they needed to find someplace that had a connection to a computer that they could print from that was day one. That was one of our libraries are there for you. That's what we're struggling with. Yeah. Yeah. Other things we had to do we chose to implement age restrictions because we just could not see how kids could social distance. We were eight weeks later, and we are dropping our age restrictions. It's 10 o'clock we haven't had any moms with kids in the library yet. But I did by this afternoon I'm anticipating that we will see a few I don't think we're going to see a lot because Facebook I see it both ways I've had somebody talk about privately they private message me and they're like are you going to bring my kids in and you're not wearing masks and I'm a grandma I'm not bringing my kids in. And other moms and parents are just like we're so excited. My child can't just wait to come in and pick out his own books. So you've got both ends of the spectrums of parenting and grandparenting out there that they're struggling to know what to do. Most are staying home. It's been my experience so far. One of the things that we also looked at in the beginning was hours for vulnerable populations. So our first hour of the day was was really kind of set aside for that population. It wasn't used very much. And here we are in phase three and now we're just open our straight Monday through Friday eight to five. Our hours were set by our new city administrator. We will not be getting Saturday hours back probably for at least one year possibly two and evening hours are off the table unless we can be open nine hours a day. So we choose what nine hours and that that that's coming down for budget reasons so that's been heavy on my mind as as our budgets as we're working through those. As you go on it does get better. The quest for for hand sanitizer you can find it is wipes the wipes you cannot like. Denise said you can't find a way to save your life. We are we I've got a staff member her mission this week is to create the DIY wipes. She's trying several different models. It goes online way back in the beginning. Yeah, the ways to do that paper towels and your own things. Yeah. So we're we are definitely playing around with that a little bit and Krista can you show them the one spreadsheet that I put together. I think one of the things that I did both from my purposes and for I did this for another library and in our system because they were like, can I see how you're walking through this so you've kind of got the questions on the left hand side and then going across the top goes through the different phases so it's like closed with staff reporting. And I would always say please open your book drop a week or two before you open to the public because you want to get the material coming back in before you reopen curbside that for us that whole option got stripped. And I told Krista I said oh my gosh this isn't even right because it I needed to go back in and change and update it with all sorts of information so Well, that's what you're saying for things are going to change you're going to come up with a plan and library planning in general and disaster planning. You'll have a plan of what you can work with but be flexible with some things going to come up that's going to make it go totally out the door or some part of it's going to not do what you think it was going to happen, and you have to do 180 and figure out something different. You know we looked at all different aspects the whole mask thing it's a it's a big deal and I was a really I'm interested in what happened to the city of Grand Island with the governor in this phase three because they were going to require their employees and the public to wear masks to come into a municipality, municipal government building. And then the governor said, we're going to pull you're not eligible for any coronavirus financial assistance funding from the from the governor's office and not eligible for if you require that people wear masks and that is huge for them to be able to request that assistance we've tracked it we've already because we made 3D masks for our hospital. I mean our cost is already over $1000 because we kept but we had to buy filament or lamination pouches. In addition to whatever cleaning supplies you can find which their prices are increased for sure so it's definitely makes you really look at this from many, many different aspects of your library and I'm going to phase three for us. I'm hoping that our numbers will come back, but it's, it's still we, we are not even at 50% yet. We are still hovering 25 to 35% of our norm from a year ago. And I don't, I don't know that that will change much like you said people are still unsure, scared, because we are, we're still in the height of this this is even though you're in Nebraska and in other states. They are going through reopening and sitting you know phase whatever 123 and making things more open. Everything has changed with the virus itself. It's still out there full blast. There's no cure no vaccine. We're still not even sure where it all is sometimes. So we're still, you know, in the middle of this. So there are still going to be your, I don't think libraries numbers are going to go back to normal. Next year maybe when we do know more when thing there is something I don't know. It certainly will affect us budgetarily. I mean, we're only open five 45 hours a week, as opposed to formally 66. Yeah, that is not going to change. And we started our budget process with a minimum 10% budget cut. I think to a lot a lot of means, but because people aren't out spending money sales tax income it's all down yeah everybody is going to have to deal with that too yeah. It's across the board everywhere it's not like there's going to be libraries who are saying everything's fine we're totally have all the same people and no. Probably the best thing that has come out of this is the fact that we've said for years we really needed to get more active online as far as like story time and other events that are going on with whatever it is crafts and things like that. And we've never done it we've never done it we've never done it guess what we're doing it and it works and it's fun and. They actually have a good following of about 200 people, whereas normally the numbers that came into the facility we're probably closer to 60 to 75. So we actually are getting a bigger audience. The statistics need to be tracking. I, I, one of my questions are different now. Yeah, one of my questions for the library commission I was going to talk to rod about was, I want to see if we can somehow add social media something off of the dashboard on Facebook into our statistics. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because that is definitely an audience that we are hitting. So, it's been a real interesting I've always said I never wanted to be a beta tester for any ILS product. And I feel like we were. And it's been a good experience for the most part. And one of my, my favorite things that happened during the meetings we had is, we could laugh, we could laugh some, and one of the best laughs we got was, it was early on, you were the only one. And you said, here comes this gentleman in the library and he has his mask on and pretty soon. He obviously needs to sneeze, and he reaches up and grabs the mask and pulls it down and sneezes. So difficult of the public. I mean, yeah, you just never know what you're going to see. Yeah, what do how do I do. Yeah. All right. Thanks. So I just want to remind everybody if anyone out there if you have any questions for anybody here type into the questions section. If you have your own ideas or things you've done at your library. I can share we can I can read off what your situation has been how you dealt with the same things if you have any tips tricks ideas of what you've done. Go ahead and share it, or if you want to ask anyone here are just as the audience in general that they can answer back as well. What have you done in whatever situation go ahead and get it typed in there. So let's go on to Steve and Celine now in Grand Island. Where did I get your. There's your website. Who are opening today. How's it going. I have, I have the camera system on my computer, and I have everything all worked out so every once a while I can see how things are going how the petition demonstrators are doing, whether they're still in the shade, or if they took my suggestion so that they wouldn't be in the way of the petition, and, and so we'll see how that goes. One thing I was reminded of, and I'll make sure I share this on Thursday, Denise and Cecilia is. Well, I've been the one that's been talking about a retire. That was my discussion. Now Cecilia has got many years ahead of her. Before any of this happened. Yeah, last December would have been a good time to retire. But I am going to be retiring soon. And so for many months now, Celine are you services librarian. She's been, you know, following along with many different aspects of library administration. And I'm going to be asking that she be named the interim director when I retire. I've learned a lot the last few months. Yes, that I was reminded of is is COVID-19 the worst thing that ever happened to me in my career. I can honestly say no, there are a couple other things that were worse than this. And one that was worse than this is related to COVID-19. And that is that you know you're you're talking week to week after the shutdown. On March 16, you're talking about what the library staff is going to be doing. And then all of a sudden a couple weeks later, all that talk gets pushed aside in the, in the form of a layoff. Personally, that equals anything that could ever happen to you is if your library has been saved from a layoff, count yourself as very fortunate and that your advocacy has had a party. I don't think there's any book on advocacy that can stop a steamroller. That has been what has happened. However, on May 26, we got most of our staff back. We did it through a lot of scrutiny that we had never had before. Strangely enough, you know, for under some odd years, we've been a value to everyone in the community and we still are. We just need to prove our value in ways that we've never done before to, to those who make decisions. We were able to make those plays on May 26. We got most of our staff recall. And that was the day we started doing the book. And that was the day on where it was close to that. It was, yeah, it was June 1, I think just a couple days after they came out. June 3, we started the curbside service. We're starting today after a couple days of a soft, unannounced opening. We're starting our open hours. We're going to be open 46 hours a week as opposed to at one time we were open 70 hours. And then over the past decade, things have kind of whittled down as far as both parks department and the library in, you know, with the great recession and other things. So we're down quite a bit on our hours, just like you are Cecilia. July 6. That's the day that the governor has decided. Rand Island, Hall County go to phase three. We're currently on phase two. But we're already decided we are not going to change our operations. We'll be open less than one week. We're not going to change our operations again. We'll be open limited hours, limited services until we, I like to say, you know, get our feet under us, figure out how the community is responding to us and how our, our staff are able to get services. Since we still don't have all of our staff members back during that time. Both Sean, who is our adult services librarian, but especially Celine have been doing the operational elements. We've all been doing a lot of reading all been doing a lot of listening. And Celine is making sure that it gets into practice. Celine over to you. Okay. Well, when we just had our small group of staff here. We learned a lot, and we did watch a lot of webinars. And I think our, our weekly meeting with Denise was kind of like, that was my favorite one to be able to listen to what other libraries you're doing get some, some ideas from Cecilia a lot of ideas and other live, other libraries and we learned some new things about how we do library programming and how we get our information out. And I think our social media went from Sean and I scraping some things together to having one of our staff members almost do it full time. So, getting the word out, letting people know what's going on, either on our website, Facebook, Instagram, or through public service announcements and our library columns. People really appreciate knowing what's going on. And so, you know, we've, we've made signs we've used our maker space equipment to do a lot of promotions with also within the library. We made some round circles that, you know, six feet and we just been doing a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff and having fewer staff members, you know, everybody's always busy. I made a really simple schedule for when we weren't open to the public of people being assigned either a curbside, pulling books, doing virtual programming. Everybody had things to do and I think it really shows, not only me but our, our city administration how valuable the library is and I think Steve was right you know we really have to do some advocacy for for libraries right now and, and make sure that we're promoting our, our libraries and, you know, I know essential services are important but it kind of made me feel really bad and all the years I've been here that the library wasn't as important be, you know, life and death and libraries but still very very important to people, people that are coming in today are so thankful everyone says oh thank you we missed you. We had some people say, thank you for having, you know, for letting us wear a mask and some people said I don't want to wear a mask and so you know we've got a big division there with that, but we've had a lot of people come in today a lot of families. I was surprised to see as many families and kids as I did today. And, you know, the first hour we set aside for, for seniors and for the people that might have health concerns but we had a lot of people. When we opened the door there was, I'd say probably like maybe 12 people out there right when we opened so I think we're going to be busy and I think you know we're like, it was mentioned that we're at a little bit of a different time because Cecilia when you opened it was a scarier time and I think people are a lot more comfortable. And so, I know I've kind of rambled but I just wanted to cover everything and one broad, broad thing but. Okay, that's all I have. I wanted to have another camera up on my computer and it shows that so far we've had, we've had 50 people enter the building, not, not definitely what would normally happen in 47 people leave the building. So people are coming and going and coming and going very regularly. Now we have more people leaving than entered, which is an anomaly but. Is a lot of it I think they're just getting it out quickly. I mean, that's what I do like when I've had to, I mean I'm mostly like with getting groceries I'm doing a lot, pick up mostly every now and then after running for something and it is a, where is it, where do I get it, get in, get out, get away from the other people. That is definitely the truth. We are, we're billed as a community center. We have so many community center services that we're not providing. I have to say they're taking a back seat right now. And partially it's because we've taken almost every seat out of the public areas, so that people do they come in, they get their materials. They leave they don't use the children's discovery area, which is just an absolute wonderful children's museum like atmosphere, but we're, we're spending a lot of time sanitizing high touch areas. And so, and at this time, the difference between Cecilia's operation and ours is, we don't have the track record that shows, and our community is still, it was a hot spot. Very, very hot. We're still experiencing a downward trend. I think that overall on Cecilia is at a good point where she's able to relax some of those restrictions. We decided not to have magazine, not to have newspapers out to the public right now. Cecilia, you, you had that restriction and you've lifted that restriction so you're, you're at a good point. Some day we'll get to that point and when that day comes, then we're going to be as careful as possible like every other library to make sure we're not adding to the spread of COVID-19. That's a good comment. Yeah, that's a good thing to think about isn't just about how when we get our services back out there, it's make sure that someone mentioned that someone wrote that in a grant application that we just received here. We want to make sure that there is zero is the, any, if COVID is not at all, we're not one of the hotspots that they say, oh, like, we're having, we're hearing about, because people went to that beach or went to that bar, or went to that event that was hot. We want to make sure that that never is our library is the reason for any of those spreads. Yep. All right, so we do have comments and questions coming in here that I'll get to. We, it's almost 11 o'clock getting up close there we started a little after 10. We will go as long as it takes for everyone have your questions answered discussions anything you guys want to say we don't just stop right at 11 o'clock for this or anything. So please do type in your questions comments suggestions ideas whatever. First, Gail Robert says congrats on the retirement Steve we all miss you of course. Yeah, but I'm negotiating that. It was kind of funny because in a couple months back I'd say, Steve, don't you wish you'd retired and he's like, no. And then one day you walked by and I think he said, Oh, I think I kind of wished I'd retired. Just one time he said one low point one low point one low day. Yeah. But a question she has which I'm not sure if any of us have the answer I've been trying to see if I can find anything about this and it's something I'm sure everybody was talking about. As things shut down he's trying to provide services like the videos and things you're talking having had on your Facebook page there. Cecilia. So online story times is a concern for her she says publishers and authors were lax until she thinks August 30th you know a lot of them did say like penguin and the other announcements saying, don't worry about copyright go ahead and put everything out there that you want to do your story times. You know, because of the situation, but after that can what happens after that can we still call reading a book online fair use or do we need to start obtaining permissions. What's does anybody have any idea about what the situation is for that. I think it's unfortunately it's publisher by publisher making the announcements in the past, you know, previously as well to begin with, that it's going to depend on there is no right now, overreaching regulation or law that says here's how it works, each publisher had to say yes we will allow this or no we won't. I know on our page we had some links to some information. So for librarians looking for information library journal offers temporary free access to all their content that's for us like doing our jobs. Remote teaching research so does anybody have any ideas or know what is. Has anybody heard anything been said from penguin or anyone about what happens after we haven't gotten to that point yet but I don't go ahead. I think I don't think they've made made any decisions yet and I think they're kind of waiting to see what the schools are going to do because a lot of the schools, like Omaha they're doing that 32 where they're going to have kids there, like every other day. And so if they, I bet they'll be supportive again of the copyright but I know I read up on everything before we started doing our virtual programs and it seemed like everybody was pretty. Free and giving us the rights, the publishers are being very supportive of the situation, which is great coming from them. Hopefully they will continue me this is you know something new for everybody and they want to be supportive of kids and children and school. And I think the, yeah, talking about what schools are doing that is different all across the country to starting to hear I saw something. I don't know where saying our schools so they're just going to open up like normal in September August whatever everybody comes back, no special case, no special anything. Okay, and then we have some that are doing yes some coming back some. Partially, some universities are doing, we're going to be remote completely starting September we just can't even think about bringing all these college students back from across the country, I mean, if you go to a different state you need to be quarantined for 14 days because you came from somewhere else, you can't just can't be doing that. I think right now, unfortunately, Gail, who has the question. We don't know yet, but keep an eye on the different publishers and see what if a la IMLS OCLC reports on what they're doing. Well, I will keep on following national and regional trends. I hope that this is one trend that those national the American Library Association. There are others that can forge new alliances. There were several attempts. When we had the conflict over ebooks, and didn't always work out, but there were some alliances that that did work out. And in this case, I think it would be a real good feel good. I think that three times real good feel good for libraries and publishers to have little kids happy for the next. You want those kids to have good thoughts about you for when they grow up. Remember. Another question which is specific to us here in Nebraska I think. That fellow is asking at this time, is there a direct order for when we have to resume regular operations with no restrictions. I would refer you to the Nebraska directed health measures is what comes from Department of Health and Human Services of the different guidelines in the different phases. It is in different agency here depends on your county of course and for what they're talking about, but there is also directed health measures measures from counties themselves and for your municipality potentially like what Cecilia dealt with where her city administrator says open up. The governor says, there is no date for phase four. I think that some point it'll get introduced for what phase four is. Yeah, for us is just continued modifications and, and more looser guidelines and looser restrictions but we're pretty close to where we're going to be for quite some time I think our new normal, so to speak. Yeah. And you see here, they even have on the state's page links to the specific counties of their own health measures so check your county and see what they're saying for your area. If you're not Nebraska state. And I think part of the question is too is, are we going to be forced to open, because I have small libraries that are asking me that to is. Okay, so we're right now we're closed, and we're doing curbside delivery, we're letting people pick stuff up we'll take an appointment now and again, but do we really. Are we, is there a day that they're going to say you have to be open and I think that goes back to your library board and your municipality, more than the state tells us how much closed down we have to be and the health measures. But I'm not sure anybody except your own governing agencies will tell you when you have to be open here in Nebraska that's the way it is yes. And that's what's interesting about these health measures says, you know, if you read through them it says bars and restaurants can do this now can do this now can do this. It doesn't come down in Nebraska and I got to be specific about this. There isn't a you have to do this. In some of those cases, because I do know that in other states, the situation is different for libraries. And I will I can't say this with state it is because I don't want to get it wrong but I know there was one state where it is actually the state like the state library, which is like us the library commission does is in charge of what libraries do, and did dictate to the libraries, we are telling you your closing as of today, as of whatever date we're telling you, and we will tell you when you open up that's just the way their statutes and their, you know, government works. You can check your own state for what they what theirs are but here in Nebraska is exactly what he said the it's you have the directed health measures telling you what you can do, and then in each of your own situation. Talk to your board talk to your municipality and figure out how you do it in your town. I guess that I think there may be a first phase to phase for where I think personally, I think social distancing and other elements would be part of America's regimen for quite a while. Oh yeah. In the meantime, getting restaurants to 100% capacity is something that's on a lot of people's minds and businesses to 100% capacity, and they'll work out their own regimen for that. And I think they need phase four for that to happen. So there's two different things going on here. And in neither case to, and maybe that's a good thing, neither case have decision makers been thinking, Well, what's going to be the best thing for libraries should they go to phase three so libraries can have more open. It's not really at the top of their yeah thinking. Yeah, and their libraries are only specifically mentioned in the gatherings part where else so we're borrowing a little bit from the bars and a little bit from the tattoo parlors and, you know, the guidelines that I was looking for well where's the parks there's only specific things where's the library one. But we do have some stand up areas and so someday if you come in here and people are drinking a cocktail don't be surprised. You got to do it to get your budget. All right, let's see what we have here anybody else have any questions comments thoughts. I think I know Cecilia mentioned the making your own wipes and we've had our custodians. They take some microfiber towels and they prepare the towels for the staff in the morning. So they're wet so we use those to wipe down the books that have something on that would kill any, any germs and stuff we wear gloves and we wipe everything off. We did get our hands on a few of our Lysol wipe Clorox wipes but so we've been using the that and then they take and take them to a commercial place and wash them. So, we use those to wipe down our keyboards we've haven't covered with. We've ordered these little covers that they use in hospitals and so after people use the computers we wipe those off so we're staffing their own areas and then the custodians hit all the high touch areas for us in the restrooms. We found after the first batch was made that maybe we were a little too zealous. We made too much up in advance. And after a while they get a little musty. You have to find the balance. There's a balance. Yeah, you want to be prepared. Well, that's like what you said Cecilia bought how many gallons of. Yeah, four gallons of this cavicide, you know, only on one such a light dusting it's only used on that particular purpose but we could use it as a general disinfectant. Yeah, so about the Imperial says they're open with restrictions they've been open with restrictions since June 15. And Rizelle and Chadron says they're using ultraviolet lights for keyboards to help with that too. That's another thing I know has been suggested that that can help. I will say we tested the wrap. The person seal. I'm going to say it cling wrap I friend people with libraries. Okay, the press and seal, I will tell you leaves a residue. We left it on for three days, and then we, and this was just in a staff office and peeled it off. And granted you wouldn't be leaving on that long, probably in a public setting, but we were testing it and my shoes just absolutely miserable because it took a long time to get it. Not that's not the main use for that. Yeah, unfortunately. Rosilla says yes Steve you're doing the thing yeah Rosilla says yes they're wands they have one ultraviolet light one so Rosilla and Chadron if anyone's interested in wanting to know more about what she's doing there. There's lots of things and that's the thing too about this. And I know people there have discussions. They have strong opinions on this. Don't we don't know a lot, even the CDC World Health Organization, the experts do not know a lot enough about COVID-19 yet really they're still studying it. And what does work on it or doesn't work on it may change day to day. And they may discover tomorrow, the thing that really kills it or they may discover oh what we told you we thought we're sorry we did more testing. That's how science works you test you investigate you make new decisions new, you know, we have new results and change your decisions on what actually works and doesn't work. So new, we just don't know, but I think if you just do the things that work that you know can have some effect. And if they're not like damaging, like, don't microwave your books. That it doesn't hurt to do these things to at least keep everyone healthy. And it's just, you know, for germs and general me I know I worked in the university library where they had keyboard covers for years. It's not it's not something brand new just this last few months there's some places that have been doing that for a long time because during flu season or just the students coming back to college from across the country. And the staff are like, I don't want to touch the stuff that these kids are touching and so they have keyboard covers already so in some cases as things we're doing yeah. So we do get a lot of calls to use our meeting rooms and the AARP everybody kind of wants everything just to return like instantaneously you know and. So, you know, most people are pretty understanding about Steve's new motto, we had our morning meeting was at this time. So we're all kind of remembering. We had a deal with someone you know, like, you can't argue with a lot of people so we just at this time, you know, I was like, I like that that's a great line is always turned it into a thanks for that idea. I guess crime. Yeah, I think, I think your wording has a lot to that idea. Yeah, we're going to make you a shirt that says at this time. And then on the back will put retirement. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because any at least you give that you don't shut them down completely. You say with what we know right now at this and it gives an open ended as things may change tomorrow and don't be mad at us when we change today we told you one thing tomorrow I told you something different because things change we learn new things that we need to base our decision making on about how many people should be in a room together how safe is it for everyone. And everyone of you out there could be a presenter. Today, or any other time, whether it's to your city council or your library board or your community or the state, or whatever, you're going through something that a lot of people will consider valuable learning experience when you have graduates. So you'll be able to not only say you went through COVID-19, but that you were in charge of something that held together and held our community together, and a very crucial time. And we were the ones that showed people right ways to do things and inclusive ways. Absolutely, that is, that is, share your, you will, you're going to be the experts on this that in the future. Document everything you're doing and put it into your strategic plan put it into the disaster planning part of your take pictures be sure to take pictures we've done every phase we've taken pictures. That's what it looks like to document it because it, it, it does change. And thanks to you so much. Yeah. All right, so it's about 1115. I think we wrap things up. Anybody have any last minute desperate questions you want to ask or anything you want to share and get it typed into the question section. Denise Cecilia, Steve, Celine anything last you want to say I think Steve that was a great little final word you had there but I would say listen to your patrons if they post something on your social media like if somebody's not understanding something, listen to what they're saying because that means something needs to be changed somewhere, you know, so everybody gets it. So make rules for the few people who are very vocal about their personal opinions whether that's mask shaming, you know, if I, you know, your policies need to be for the majority of your patrons, not the few people who are causing you a thorn in your side. That's what you do it every day with. Yeah, how you it's this is different a new situation, but it is very similar to some of these confrontations you had in the past and you know how to work to deal with that you've done it before. Yeah, watch for people that might like employees that maybe might be a little apprehensive or maybe need some counseling or you know, we've had a couple I think where we've talked to them or they've made some changes because they knew they were really, you know, in troubled waters, so to speak. So, watch for that. A lot of places are not thinking about as much as the mental health issue that we talked about earlier that you know when this all started. Oh my gosh what's happening I'm stressed out. But now months later, it doesn't mean we're okay with it yet. It's actually, for me, I know, weighing on us, even whether it's still a problem still happening. Things are not going to go back to normal anytime soon. And how do I, you know, deal with that now that it's not all this new crazy thing that's happening but now it's this ongoing thing and that's a whole different mindset to try and deal with. Oh, mental health support is going to be something to ongoing definitely. I love your at this time I think she's going to steal it. It's a good one. 61 people in the building and 61 people out of the building. At this time. So the staff if they couldn't remember just think upon once upon a time once okay at this time. That's how I remember. I will absolutely yes, we'll hear all the libraries across Nebraska saying this now. We support it absolutely. That's right. Our new motto. Yeah. All right, well, thank you everybody for being here with us. Denise Cecilia, Steve and slain this is, this was great I'm glad you're all available to join us today. To talk about this this is definitely something. And everyone's mind. We'll, we'll see how things go. Steven slain good luck today. I hope things stay uneventful for you as much as they can be. And, um, yeah, so, um, keep an eye on your pandemic page here on the library commission. Denise I know you're going to keep having your weekly zoom calls. They are set up for 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Yeah. And everybody's welcome you don't have to be from central Plains. That's I was going to say I was wondering, yeah, because I know, um, I think three rivers library system had to had been previously had done some regular online community communications type discussions on zoom. With things going on how they are now I don't know what's going on with that right away but yeah this is open everybody look into the three central Plains info here in Nebraska if you are and you know join your colleagues with discussing what everybody is doing. I know slain slain Denise sends out that information on to the mailing lists here in Nebraska for everybody so that you know where to log into for it. Oh, sorry, they are right Tammy there you are okay yeah Tammy is the director of our three words yes they are still doing their weekly ones as well for three rivers library system so check out three rivers as well to join into there as I know Tammy it started these last year the few years ago they started doing regular meetings of their directors just to talk about things. They started doing their weekly as well awesome. All right, so thank you everyone for being here with me thank you for attending I think that will wrap it up for today show. I'm going to go back to our income slide web page here and show you I mentioned we are recording and we are and the archive will be up by the end of this week in our archive section that's right here underneath their upcoming shows. Most recent one goes to the top of the page. I will have a link to the recording on here. We have links to the round project or pandemic page and the resources from Steven Cecilia are on there so you can, I'll link to that maybe so they have a quick link from the recording there. But it will be on here. I'll let everyone know when it is ready like I said by the end of this week although Friday's a holiday, so I'll do it tomorrow. I'll show you while you're here you can search our full archives if you want to for any of the topics we anything we've had on the show. You notice there is a limit to do it with most recent 12 months if you want to only just find something really current that is because encompass live premiered in January 2009. And our full archive and not going to scroll all the way down because the full archives are here going back to the very beginning. So, if you do search the whole archives just pay attention to the original broadcast date, so that you know that's when that was actually talked about certain presentations will stand the test of time, like this one that I just randomly clicked on meeting your library collection, always important, but some things may become outdated services and products might exist anymore links might no longer be any good. So just pay attention to the original broadcast date when you do watch something that is older on our archives here. If you have a Facebook page for, there it is, and cut the slide and the right tab. So if you'd like to use Facebook to keep up with things give us a like over there I post reminders of shows when they're available and when the recordings are up here's a reminder to log into this morning show information about our presenters. So, keep it if you do like to use Facebook if you are still someone on there, give us like over there. We also use on Twitter, we have a hashtag we made up for encompass live and come live as a little abbreviation there. So you search the hashtag on Twitter or other social media you'll find other things elsewhere about encompass live. All right, but for today. I hope you join us next week here's our schedule come in for July I also have a couple of things coming up in August them can get confirmed you see those sessions on getting added to the calendar soon. Next week we're talking about Python, not snakes. I don't need snakes it's not as I have a set of my phobias. Python as in computer program. Here's what Python does for us what can I do for your library Catherine Frazier is from North Carolina State University Libraries and she's done some great things with Python there. And if you're a techie person or maybe you want to learn a little something, there's definitely be something for you to sign up for and join us for that show next week, or any of our phones we have coming up on the schedule. So thank you everybody for being here. Thank you, Denise Celia Steve Celine, and we'll see you another time on encompass live. Bye bye.