 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly online event. Yes, we are a webinar. You can call us that. We won't be offended. We do our webinar here at Encompass Live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time. But it is recorded, so if you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. You can always go to our website and watch all of the archived recordings of all of our sessions. The sessions last approximately an hour, give or take, depending on what we're doing. And we do a mixture of things, presentations, interviews, book reviews, mini training sessions, anything related to libraries we are happy to have on the show. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes do presentations and sometimes we bring in speakers from outside the commission, which we sort of have a mixture of today. Today our topic is libraries lending e-readers. Now, e-books are a big deal in libraries now, as anyone in the library world knows. But I knew that some libraries are doing lending of the actual devices themselves, in the universities, some public libraries. I wasn't sure how big a deal it was. I found some libraries to write in Nebraska that are actually doing it. So we have three librarians from here in Nebraska from three public libraries. Karen Stewart, who is up first, Columbus Public Libraries. I'm going to talk about their program there. You can say hi, Karen. Hello. And then we will have Megan Boggs, who will be on from Seward Memorial Library, followed by Sarah Lee, who is from Central City Public Library. You may have noticed, if you read the description of the session, there was a fourth librarian, Nancy Black from Meade Public Library, but she's having technical difficulties and unable to join us this morning. Also, in the room with me here, just in case we have any questions or anything we need answered from the Library Commission point of view, is Susan Isley, who's our online services librarian here at the Library Commission. And she works with the Overdrive Group, basically keeps that up and running. We have an Overdrive Group in here in Nebraska for e-books. And also does our e-reader trainings across the state. She was actually just doing one yesterday. Hi, everyone. So if we have any, Susan will type in whenever needed with any comments, questions from her side. So that's our plan for the morning. Karen is up first, so she's online right now. You can hear her there. So why don't you just go ahead and Karen tell us about what you guys are doing there in Columbus. All right, we'll do. My name is Karen Stewart, and I'm the Reference Librarian at Columbus Public Library. I'm just going to share a little bit today about our e-reader lending program that we started this year. So I'll just dive right in. We'll start with you. Well, anyone can check out an e-reader from Columbus Public Library so long as they have a Columbus Public Library card in good standing according to our privileges and account collection policy. So basically that means if they have fines over $10, they have to get it under $10 before they can check out. And that applies to any material, not just our e-readers. If they have an overdue library book or a library item, they would have to renew that or return it before they can check out the e-reader. And if they have any lost or damaged items, that bill has to be taken care of before. So that applies to really any sort of checking out, not just with e-readers. We don't set an age limit for who can check out our e-readers because as I'll explain later, we do require some form of payment security just in case the item doesn't come back. And we figure if they have that, it doesn't really matter how old they are. We do as part of our card policy, an adult has to sign for a minor. So if they have a card, there is an adult responsible for their account. We currently lend four e-readers, so this is going to go under what. We have one Nook, two Nook Wi-FIs, and a Sony Reader that we lend out. We preload them with content and offer the option for patrons to download overdrive content before they check them out from us. It has been a little bit of a struggle for us to keep the content up to date and consistent among the devices. But I'm hoping that as we implement more technology in our library, we'll be able to spread the load among staff and find a better way to do it. Right now what I'm doing is with the Sony, since we just have the one device and it's a little obsolete. We just load it with free books and classic titles. With the Kindle, I also do a lot of free titles, but then also requests. So if a patron wants a book that isn't actually published in print, maybe it's in the middle of a series and just sort of an addition, but it's only available in e-book form, then I'll purchase that book, load it on the Kindle, and have them check out the Kindle to read the book. With the Nook, we do a lot of the bestsellers simply because we have two Nooks, and if we get more e-readers to lend out, we will be purchasing Nooks because of their privacy policies. We feel like those fit better with us than Amazon does. So we just try to balance fiscally, be fiscally responsible, and not purchase a lot of titles for the Sony, which isn't as popular, versus the Nook where we have two, and we can use that same title on multiple devices. The next topic is Win. I knew when I started working here about a year and a half ago, I saw e-readers just sitting in a closet, and they were for staff use. But they're older, so even if staff used them to become familiar with devices, it wouldn't really help them help our patrons because patrons have moved on past this version of the device. So they were just sitting there. We needed to do something with them. Of course, it took me a year to make that happen, but that's okay. I had lots of other things to conquer first. So in February, we launched our e-reader lending program, but it was probably late fall, early winter when I started developing the procedures and policies that we needed to start the program, which leads me to where. I looked at policies and procedures of other libraries pertaining to their e-reader lending programs and modified them to create what works best for us. There were lots of very strict policies out there, and some libraries with no policy at all. I decided it'd be better to start somewhere in the middle, maybe towards the strict end, in my opinion, because the library board agreed that it would be better to start strict and loosen the policy over time if the program was going well and we didn't have a lot of un-returned devices. We were a little afraid that they'd just walk out the door and never come back. That has not been the case at all. So as we implement more, the policy will probably loosen up over time. And why? Well, I decided that Columbus Public Library needed to lend e-readers because not everyone has access to those devices on their own, and our job as librarians is to provide access. We needed more technology to be in the hands of our patrons, and these devices were just sitting in the closet. So I didn't have to wait for funding the next fiscal year or the city to budget it for us, any of that. So it was just quick and easy, and we got it done. It fulfills the goal of our new strategic plan as well. And so it gets people thinking about what we offer in a different way. The library is more than just books. All that build-up leads to the how, which is my longest point. I'm just going to open some of our paperwork, I suppose, that I'd call it, that we give patrons when they check out. So I'll start with the policy. Our e-reader lending policy just sort of goes through the borrow work criteria that I explained earlier. They have to have a card in good standing with us, and we will train the patron how to use the e-reader before they check it out so that they aren't afraid of it. We also have some quick tips that we've laminated and put in the bags with our e-readers that they can refer to as they have it checked out. We do allow them to check out some overdrive titles and load them on there ahead of time, and we have to do that for them because the devices are registered to our accounts. So with the way the overdrive works, we've got to do that. They're just like books for us that they check out for three weeks with a three-week renewal, and they can put e-readers on hold, and we hold it for seven days just like any other item. We do have a little bit of a different procedure for returning than other items. We require that they do not return the e-reader in our book drop simply because another book could fall on it and break it. So we do ask that they give the e-reader to a staff member who will complete the check-in procedure, which I'll go over later, and to not just leave it at a desk unattended or put in the book drop. We go through and check, make sure everything is working properly and that it's in the same condition coming in that it was when it went out, and then the security checker or credit card information, we can return to them. Again, I'll go over that in the next form. Our LLC goes over fines and fees, which is just like the rest of our items. A little bit different here is if the item does not come back to us at all within 30 days, that is when we would either charge a credit card that they gave to us or cash the traffic they gave to us for the item with the assumption that it's just not going to come back. Now, we don't just say, oh, it's three weeks overdue, you're charged. They have their three weeks and another 30 days, and we would be contacting them during that time to let them know that it's overdue and they would need to either renew it or bring it back. A part of our policy is that they don't download titles onto the e-readers, and we do have a little bit of security in place on some of the devices their password protected in order to download things. A patron with technical knowledge could get around those, so we make it part of the policy that they just don't do it, and if they violate the policy, we can charge their account for those titles. It hasn't happened, we're not really worried about it happening. This is sort of what I mean by this policy is very strict in my mind, so it will loosen up over time. I'm sorry about this, I'm not sure why it keeps popping up. All right, the next thing I'm going to go over is the borrower agreement. So when a patron comes to the information desk to check out an e-reader, we give them two forms, well, two pieces of paper. We give them the policy and we give them this borrower's agreement and have them read through it, check mark that they agree to all these things, not returning it in the book drop, not tampering with the device, that they accept responsibility for the device if they lose it or break it, and that they would pay for that if that happens. This is all included in our card policy that they're responsible for items that they check out, but we just want them to be sure they realize this is part of that since it is so expensive. It's so much more than just a paperback book if they lose it or damage it. So we go through and have them sign and put their information and then we date an initial that they did sign this. And then the last thing, which is more on the staff side, is our e-reader lending staff procedure checklist. So a patron comes to check out an e-reader and we go through this process. We give them a copy of the e-reader policy, review the guidelines with them. We have them fill out the borrower's agreement and either get a check for the full amount of the item that they're checking out or we make a copy of their credit card. Now obviously we're not going to do anything with this. Information, keep it with their borrower's agreement in a locked closet and they each have a folder, so it's all confidential. We just hold it in case the item doesn't ever come back and then we have sort of a security. The next thing we do is confirm their contact information in our system. Workflows is what we use just to make sure that their address and phone number is correct. So if we need to call them about it being overdue, we'll be able to get a hold of them. We make sure the e-reader is charged. We complete the e-reader settings checklist, which I will scroll down to here in a bit. Make sure that everything is included in the bag and then we check it out. And when the e-reader comes back, we do all in reverse. We make sure it's charged. We complete the settings checklist again. Make sure everything's in the bag and it looks good. We go ahead and clean it for the next person. Just get rid of all the little fingerprints and then check it in off their account. Then we can give them back their credit card, the copy of their credit card or their check if they want us to. We've had a number of patrons who have just asked us to keep it because they want to check out again, either the same device or another one, and don't want to go through the whole process again, which is fine. We're happy to do that. Again, we just keep it in our locked closet with the rest of the devices. So it's not a problem and we're happy to do that for them. And this is when we would, if the patron had checked out an overdrive book for that device, we would return and delete the item from the e-reader. And here is our e-reader settings checklist. Just a few settings for the different devices just to make sure that they're locked down this one. It's purchase password enabled, so they can't purchase items without our password. Make sure that the owner is correct and our email is part of that. They're registered to us, all of that. Pretty simple. And then I also included instructions for staff on how to load an overdrive book on each device because it is different for each device with the versions that we have. And I don't want staff to feel like they don't know how to do it and then the patron misses out. So it seems like a lot. It's very in-depth and a huge deal to check out an e-reader. But the whole process takes maybe five minutes or less. And once you've done it once, it's a lot easier to do it again. We've had pretty good response. We've had them for six months and the nooks have been checked out. Well, both of our nooks have been checked out eight times. The Kindleton and the Sony only one time, which speaks to Sony just... It's not as popular in the U.S. So one of the reasons why I don't load a lot of purchased titles onto that device. As the program progresses and more money becomes available for technology in our library, we'll add some more devices, nooks, and the more updated nook for patrons to use for the checkout procedure. And like I said, the policy will loosen up over time as that goes. So I'm available for questions if anyone has any now. Great. Thanks, Karen. Yeah, you guys are very organized there, I see. Yeah, I can be a little bit obsessed with the organization. Well, I think you have to be for something like this, especially to make sure, like you said, that everything is tracked and kept up with two questions that came in. They're actually the very same thing. Are these forms and your policies available on the library website? The policy is the borrower's agreement and the settings checklist for staff isn't, but I could make it available for anyone who wanted to use it. Sure, yeah, that was one of the questions. We get a copy of your sample forms and everything for other libraries to use. Yeah, when I send you my presentation, which is just one page, I'll send these as well. Yeah, definitely. And so what I'll do is I'll put them up. When we put up the recording of the show, then everyone will have access to all her forms to use and modify for yourself if you want to. All right. Any other questions or comments or anything for Karen here while we're got her online? Nothing else came in while you were talking. So if anyone does think of anything, type it in. We'll pop back to her when we, if needed. Yep, I think, thank you very much, Karen. We're going to pop over to Megan. Where are you on my list here? All right, Megan. You there, Megan? Hi, Krista. Does that sound better? Yeah, actually, it sounds great. Yeah, you must have fixed something, right? Good. Yeah. All right. You have a presentation too, correct? I do, yeah. All right. I'm going to make you a presenter now so you should be getting the option to switch to your screen. Okay. You should be able to share yours. Yep. There we go. We got it. Okay, great. All right. So next up for everyone, so you know, this is Megan Bobs from our Seward Memorial Library. So go ahead, Megan. Go ahead and take it away. All right. Thanks, Krista. As Krista said, my name is Megan Bobs, and I am from the Seward Memorial Library. And to get started here, let me just tell you a little bit about our library. Seward Nebraska has a population of approximately 7,000. Our library has three full-time staff and seven part-time staff. We have over 50,000 items in our physical collection. I'm just telling you this so you kind of have a rough idea of the size of our library and what we do here. We have actually been circulating e-readers since early 2011, actually probably in February, I think, since when we started. So we're coming up here on about three years, and it's gone well so far. And if you want some more information just about our library in general, I have our library website up there. It's sewardlibrary.org. All right. So first of all, just let me tell you about the e-readers that we do have. We have two of the older Kindle keyboard style. We have one Kindle fire. We have a color look, a nook tablet, and a Sony e-reader. And as Karen was saying, definitely the Sony e-reader is not very popular. It rarely circulates the Kindle and the Nex by far been the more popular devices. So that gives you an idea of what we have. So we have a little bit of a different philosophy, perhaps, about lending our e-readers. So why we lend them is primarily as a try before you buy kind of thing. We preload the devices with a few materials, just kind of a variety of things. We have a few classics, a few mysteries, a few romances. The popular items that we put on there are maybe currently popular, but when we first started lending them, things like the help or the girl with the dragon tattoo, some of those really popular items that we're circulating like crazy at our library for a while. But we just have a little bit of variety on there so that maybe someone could at least find something that they'd be interested in reading. We do not continually add items to these e-readers. We preloaded them when we started the program and we really haven't added any new items since. That's like I said, it's just a try before you buy, get people comfortable with the technology, be able to experience what an e-reader is like. We don't really see it necessarily as an extension of our collection or as a way to allow people to read the popular things, the best sellers that are coming out all the time. We just want them to be able to experience an e-reader. See the difference between a nook and a kindle. See the difference between screen types and available features. So that is why we lend e-readers. We also use our e-readers as tools for instruction. So there are times when they won't be available for patron use because we have them reserved for a class that will be held or we've done some community outreach things with our e-readers where we've taken them to different locations throughout town, restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, a university library to allow people to try them out. Staff would be on hand to show them how they work. So there are certain times when we would reserve them for staff use and not allow them to be checked out. All right, the next thing. It looks like it started back at the beginning. Let me go back here. All right, the next thing I'm going to talk about is what our circulation procedure is. We also have an equipment, we call it an equipment loan agreement form, that we have our patrons sign before they can check out any equipment from the library. This is what the form looks like. We just have them put in there, name, the library card number, date it, and this kind of has the basics of the policy. They have to be 17 or older. If a child comes up who's under 17 and comes up to the desk and wants to check out an e-reader, we do ask them that they bring a parent along with them so that the parent can sign the agreement form. We have other things on there about them being able to check the equipment, make sure that it's functioning so that before they take it out of the library, they can verify that it is working. They agree to pay a complete replacement cost of the item if they lose it or damage it. They pay any overdue fees that are accrued. They agree to the loan period. They agree to return it at the circulation desk, not in the book drop. They agree to alert staff to any loss or damage when the equipment is returned. So if a court has starting to fray or anything like that, that's their responsibility to tell us. They will not attempt any repairs, adjustments, or alterations. So kind of that strict policy that Karen was talking about as well. They agree not to personally purchase any replacement parts or any equipment to add to the e-readers. So those are the things that they agree to when they sign this loan agreement form. Then you can also see these are the devices that we have. We list their replacement costs, fines on all of these items are $1 per day, and the circulation on all the e-readers is two weeks. The other piece of equipment that we have that's not an e-reader, we have a little mini projector that people can also check out for a shorter amount of time. It's not related, but you see it on the form there. So we have everybody who wants to check one out sign this. We file it so that if they want to come back and check out another one, they don't have to sign the form again. They've signed and agreed for all items. There's also a place in our ILS on their account where we can indicate that they have already had an agreement loan form signed and is on file so that we don't have to go into a notebook and look it up every time to see if they have one or just take their word for it. There's just a little place then on their account when we bring it up on the computer that indicates yes, they have an agreement of form signed already. So that is the loan form. As the loan form said, it is a 14-day loan period, which is a little bit different than most of the items in our library. Most of our other items check out for four weeks, but we do have some items, best sellers, hot items that we do make 14 days as well. So it's not a completely different thing to our patrons to have a shorter loan period. When we check out the items, we have them in bags and we have some instruction sheets in the bag. We also have a listing of every item included in the bag. So if the eReader has a case on it, if it has charging cords, if it has a stylus or anything additional with it that could be removed from the device itself, we list that and include it so that they can double check that everything is there before they return it. We also have a little tag attached to the bag that is laminated and has these patron reminders on it that they should not add or delete any items to the device. They shouldn't put any other books or materials piled up on the device. Don't leave it in a hot place like a car for extended periods. Don't return it in the book drop. Just those basic reminders. Since they don't have that equipment loan agreement form in front of them anymore, they signed it and left it at the library. The important things we want them to remember are right attached to the bag. We also have a little bit of a special check-in procedure when an eReader is returned to our library. We have one staff person, myself, who always receives those devices. So if I don't happen to be working at the time or I've got a day off or something, the other staff members will just leave it on my desk and wait for me to double check that item. Our library director also can do this if I'm going to be gone for an extended period of time. But most days it works just fine for me to be the one who is responsible for that item. So when I check it in, the kinds of things that Karen was talking about, I double check that it's still registered to our library. I do things like go through. Most of our eReaders like the Kindle and the Nook have internet access. So I go through and I clear any internet history that was saved, or if they use the Kindle fire to log into their Facebook account to try that out. I make sure that none of that information was saved. I make sure that no books were added or deleted to the list that was preloaded on there, and those types of things. Just double checking that it's returned the way it was checked out. And for the staff who are right there at the front desk checking in the devices, we also have a little pop-up note that comes in as soon as they type in the barcode of the item that reminds them to just check the very basic things. Like does it have the cord with it, everything that should be included in the bag with it, and then put it on Megan's desk and she'll do the rest. So we do have that in place as well. I think that is about it for what I have. If you have any additional questions for me, this is my email address, and I'd be happy to show you anything, give you any copies of materials. Let me just exit out of here real quick, and I will just pop over to our library website. All of our library policies are online, and as part of our circulation policy, we do have a little bit about equipment circulation, and so people can read that online. And I just have the website set to that right now. So any questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Megan. Sorry, I had to wait for my microphone to cook up. We do have a couple of questions that came up. And now this one might go to you and to everyone, but I'll ask you first since it came up during years. And I know you were talking about that you don't put very much on yours, but do you put a variety of genres on a single device or dedicate one device to a particular genre, like one reader with all mysteries, one with all something else? Is that something that you've organized it that way at all? We did not. We have a mix of genres on each device, since ours are meant to just be, you know, so people can try out a nut can try out a candle and try out a Sony. We've got a mix on each one so that they can try what they like on each one. Right, because you're kind of going, as you said, this little difference just here to try out you readers to see what they're all about. Yes. Karen, I'm going to unmute you to see what about at your library, Karen, in Columbus, do you guys do something like that or do you guys have a mixed bag too? We do have a mixed. It depends on the device as far as the best sellers. So I will get what's popular now, books that we have a long holds list for. I will buy that title for the nook. The Kindle is more for requests of books that aren't in print, that we can't get in print. So e-books only that I'll put onto that, and the Sony is just classics. Okay, so I would, I do get a variety, like I'll put some mysteries, some thrillers, some romance on each device. Right, right. Okay, great. So back to you, Megan, since you're on yours. Sounds to know, do you find the need to reload or preload the content, reload the preloaded content a lot? Or are people, how are people doing with that, I guess? We have not had to reload anything. We haven't had any issues with people deleting what's on there. Once we loaded it, it stayed there, thankfully, so it hasn't been a problem. I don't know, can you guys still see my screen? Yes, you are. Okay, I just brought up our library catalog. One thing I forgot to mention as well is that when we entered these devices as items within our collection, we did type in a list of all the preloaded titles on them so that if someone searches, for instance, for the health, and stuff, the Kindle comes up as one of the options so that we can tell, oh yeah, I could read the help on the Kindle. Yeah, nice. Okay, great. We do have a couple of other questions, but I think I'm going to wait and hold them to the end so that there are kind of questions that all of you guys could answer and have Sarah go through and do her presentation first and then go back to those questions. So thank you very much, Megan. Thank you. And Sarah, I'm going to find you on my list here. Sarah, I've got you unmuted. Can you say hi? Hello. Hello. Hi. My name is Sarah Lee. I am the director at the Central City Public Library and we are located in Central City, Nebraska. And I apologize for not having a slide presentation like the other gals, but we switched over to new operating software a few days ago, so we've been rather busy at our libraries the last few days. You've been quite busy. That's perfectly fine. I've got your website here and I also have the... Sarah did send me ahead of time your policy. So we can have both of those up as needed. Just let me know. Okay. As I said, I'm from Central City. We are a rural community located in the middle part of Nebraska. We have six staff members at our library, which consists of two full-time librarians and four part-timers. And we have approximately 4,500 patrons. There are about 34,000 items in our collection. And again, I just wanted to kind of give you that information to give you an idea of the size of our library. And we're always looking for new ways to serve the ever-changing needs of our library patrons. And I just thought I'd give you just a couple statistics here that I found when I was doing some research for my presentation. Librarians are always kind of wanting statistics, I guess. According to Pew's ongoing Internet and American Life Survey, 25% of respondents, one in every four Americans, now owns a tablet while e-reader ownership is now at 19%. Biggest of all is the fact that now one in every three people owns some kind of device, tablet, e-reader, or both for e-reading. And I know that statistics can kind of vary what type of survey you're looking at, but that's just amazing that there's so many people now with e-readers or tablets and electronic devices. But the statistics for print materials that's still encouraging, though, are not everybody's doing away with reading the print materials. Their quote for their statistics said, we are not yet at a tipping point for reading, however. E-reading printed books continues to decline, but it still remains well ahead of e-reading. The percentage that said they read printed books now stands at 67% down from 72% a year ago, so it's still hanging in there, which is we still want to hear that, too. With the popularity of e-books increasing, our library decided to begin circulating e-readers to both our adults and youth patrons. So we've got e-readers circulating to both our adult population and our youth patrons also. And when we look at our patrons, I guess there's multiple reasons why the adult patrons are checking them out. And I know this is, you see the similarity in other libraries. The most prevalent reason appears to be that they're trying them out prior to purchasing one to see if they actually like it or not. And like when I'm talking to patrons face-to-face, that's one of the big reasons why. They just want to see what the, I guess I've heard this stated many times when I'm talking to them, the quote is, they want to see what the big deal is about those electronic things. They just want to, you know, they see them advertised on TV or they see them in media and they just want to try them out or just kind of see what all the fuss is about them. For the youth e-readers, the parents, I guess, are checking them out for their kids to try to get them interested in reading or maybe just as another alternative type of resource to use for them. We have a total of four e-readers that circulate in our library. The two, we have two adult ones that we use that are Sony's and the ones that we use for our youth are Nooks and each of the devices have a barcode on them just like all of the other items in our library collection. So when somebody wants to check one out, we keep them in the back and they've got a barcode on them so we just pull them from the back and we scan them out and check them out just like we do everything else in our collection. And we have laminated instruction cards that are inside the case of the Nook or the Sony that have step-by-step instructions with them that show them how to power them on, how to look up the book, just real basic instructions with them and it's laminated to kind of keep those instructions protected and kind of keep them nice so they don't wear out quickly. And we also include a charging cord along with the device when it's checked out and the devices are pre-loaded with content. Some of the content is purchased and then we also have free books like I know the other libraries are including the free books also so we've got those on there in addition to the purchase items and in answer to the previous questions we do have a variety of genres that we include in both the adults and the youth devices. As far as our policy goes we have a two-week loan on the devices just like the majority of the other items in our collection and they can renew them if they want to unless there would be a hold on the item by another patron. They're limited to one device per person at a time. They cannot add or delete and the policy is right. They cannot add or delete the e-books from the e-reader and again we don't want them to add any additional files or items and it says that right in there. And if possible we'd like them to recharge it before we return it. I mean we usually check that when it comes in to recharge it anyway so that's not that big of a deal if they don't do it and we ask them to return it directly to the staff. We don't want it to be put in the book drop so where it can be damaged. There's a dollar per day late fee if it's returned after the due date. We've got our email on there. And then further down on the policy we've got a replacement cost on there of $125 for the e-reader, $25 for the power cord, it's for a total of $150 and they do have to sign the agreement at the bottom that they understand that there is a replacement cost if it gets damaged or lost. And so they sign off on that and the staff will check in and check out, initial that check in and check out on it when it's checked out and returned. Right here and here and that's where the patron signs it. And when this policy was created we reviewed numerous policies from other libraries and it's kind of a combination of multiple policies and we definitely aren't as strict as some libraries and we aren't as lenient as other libraries and it's just kind of a, I guess in between kind of a nice medium I guess. And we haven't had any problems with any of ours not being returned or being damaged so far but we've seen to be doing well with our policy and with the e-reader so far. In June of 2012 our library was awarded a $750 grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation awards grants to organizations and communities served by Dollar General and this grant was used to purchase two Nook e-readers and 25 e-books that children can check out and read and the goal of this program is to present books that are appealing to both boys and girls and hopefully attract the reluctant readers who are more comfortable with a technical device rather than a traditional book. And we thought this would be a good program or a good grant to apply for to use the funds for because our library is always looking for ways to make reading more fun and enjoyable as children sharpen their reading skills and vocabulary. And the e-books are from a company called Gallipade and Gallipade International is an award-winning publisher of more than 15,000 educational products for children and adults. And when the e-books were purchased from Gallipade with an unlimited use license for five years and this unlimited use license allows a library to download the book multiple times and these books are a variety of books. They're like sports and mysteries and they've got books on just a variety of topics and we have those loaded on the two Nooks and just like the adult books they've got the laminated instruction cards right in them and they seem to be pretty popular with the kids and the parents that check those out for the kids. For the adults e-readers our library or platform received a grant from the Northeast Library System in the amount of $100 in March of 2012 for e-books and that's kind of when we started lending the adult e-readers out and this was spent for books that were loaded onto the Sony e-readers and that's when we started loaning the Sonys out and ways that we advertise our e-readers, our e-reader lending program we have an annual open house for our Central City Public Schools and Nebraska Christian Public Schools teachers and support staff. We put the e-readers on display and we make sure that the teachers all know about it. We put articles in our local newspaper we advertise it on our Facebook page we put it on our Twitter page we advertise it on our Pinterest page we put it on our website we advertise it on our local cable access channel we also mention it in our monthly library newsletter and we also have mentioned it in our monthly e-newsletter and we definitely notice that when we advertise it there's always a spike in lending of course right after we advertise it and we just do that every, we try to do that every couple months or so and it seems like interest picks up after that and on average they only circulate two to three times per month we would definitely hope to see that increased as the program continues on we don't see a lot of repeat circulation from adult patrons and I think that's because adult patrons we see more that they're trying the devices out I think they're trying to try them out before purchasing I think for the adult patrons kids might be, the parents may be more apt to check them out more of a repeat because it's not more of a purchase decision with them I think so they may be more likely to repeat checkout than the adults so that's kind of a little bit of a different thing at this point in time in the near future I don't see us purchasing any additional ones however we will probably maintain our numbers if we need to replace one but that could change in the future but it is a good program definitely so did anyone have any questions? Great, yeah thanks Sarah we actually have a bunch of questions come in while you were on and like I said the ones earlier as well first one thing from you can you repeat which Pew study it was that you were getting your stats from I looked up and found one about tablet ownership in 2013 was that the one or did you have something else that you found? it was an internet and American life survey right the Pew internet and American life project yeah so the Pew internet the Pew research center has been doing an ongoing putting out these ongoing survey and has put out lots of reports about it so the Pew internet and American life project website where you can find lots of the stats on tablet ownership 2013 and I'm adding to the delicious links for this episode so that maybe have some of the numbers in there let's see I'm going to go oh and someone did also want to know and that's why I brought up here this is the Gallipade site this is the one that you were talking about yes I believe and a lot of the ones we have are the Carol Marsh mystery books that you can see it right under that more great products so and that link will also be included in our show notes afterwards along with I found a link also to the Dollar General site where the Dollar General Literacy Foundation is if anyone else is interested they always give great grants and helping out with libraries let's go back up to the top of our questions that we had and we'll just start with you Sarah since you're on the line right now do you keep track of the number of books that are read like stats on the how many books are read or just the fact that the e-reader is circulated is there any way to track which books have been read on the e-reader actually is that even we just keep track at our library we just keep track of the number of e-readers that are circulated right I don't know is there even a way Susan to yeah if it's preloaded on there there's no way to tell if they actually read which things they read on it correct yeah alright so what about nonfiction how much nonfiction compared to fiction are you doing on yours on ours we're doing a little bit of nonfiction but the majority is fiction okay Megan I've been muted you how about you at your library fiction versus nonfiction same here I'd say yeah so we probably have maybe 15% nonfiction the rest is fiction okay so a little bit Karen I see you got booted out and came back in that's okay I don't know if you have a question people wanting to know how much nonfiction are you putting on your e-readers compared to the fiction not much again it's more of the popular nonfiction so Bill Riley's popular books those kinds of things but yeah it's mostly fiction okay great what about this interesting question I don't know if I've seen this if Susan if you have any idea about this have any of you downloaded a book that has a warning about not distributing the book under any circumstances I'm not sure what that's about they mean distributing as in lending it from the library it's not allowed I haven't seen that I haven't either now Susan says it's never come up in any of your yeah I work mainly with the overdrive and so that's all been pre-approved for lending right that's kind of the point so I don't know about individual titles you might purchase from a bookstore so nope not an issue yet and then here's a question this is based on what kind of what you were saying about how you're buying your books and also what the rules are for lending them is there any concern that loading purchase titles to an e-reader will needlessly tie up that copy of the book you put it on an e-reader but you've only bought one digital copy have you only bought one digital make did you buy more than one so that if someone on a fly wanted to get it they could as well is there any concern or issues with that kind of thing anybody speak up you're all unmuted no? yeah we don't do any overdrive books on our e-readers so we don't have an issue as far as checking one out to an e-reader and then it not being available for someone else on their personal device and as far as the purchased copies that are loaded onto the e-readers we did purchase copies for each e-reader individually right so you're buying them on purpose for that reason so that it doesn't actually affect your regular circulating right that we did the exact same thing we just bought a purchase copy for each e-reader so it doesn't affect that either and actually several of the preloaded items that we put on our devices were free books that didn't have any cost to them alright that's true you talked about doing free ones so it doesn't matter and you can just put them on each one especially the classics and things like that wouldn't be something that that would be a concern with Julia Erickson who's from South Dakota has sent us some links about some articles that are good that are out there that I'm going to add to our show notes things from digital book world about a shift from e-readers to tablets continues and the Pew survey on younger Americans reading and library habits so I'll add both of those specific links into the notes as well so that may have some of the statistics that you are talking about Sarah that you got from so does anybody have any other questions comments for our speakers thoughts on what you're doing just checking to see what else we've got here just some thanks for the great information it's a little after 11 so I guess if no urgent questions are coming through right now Susan is there anything you want to add to anybody? even just sitting here no I've just been enjoying that everyone's experiences it's useful for me to hear it since I get asked questions about circulating them when I'm out so it's nice to be able to say well I heard this library does this I've enjoyed the presentations now I have people we can refer everyone to sorry thank you very much for the information good information thank you everyone for presenting and attending thank you Karen, Megan and Sarah this is great information from all of you I think we'll wrap it up for today the show has been recorded as I said so it will be posted later today the show is put up I will have all the presentations and policies from everyone if you guys will send me your presentations Karen and Megan and your policies I can put them all up together with the show notes and everyone can have access to take a look at those so that should be later today maybe tomorrow all of you who attended will receive an email automatically from me letting you know that the recording is available and all the information is available so that wrap it up for this morning and I hope you join us next week when it is our monthly tech talk Michael Sowers the technology innovation librarian here at the Nebraska library commission usually the last Wednesday of the month he does a tech talk he talks about the techy things that have come up during the month and brings in people he interviews this month he's got Beth Koolaz here in Nebraska Broadwater Public Library and she has built her own ILS from scratch very small library unable to purchase their own from anywhere so she did some coding on her own and has come up with a great system of her own and is available for other libraries to borrow and use if they want to so she's going to be on the show with Michael next Wednesday so please do go ahead and register sign up for that on our website Facebook user we are on Facebook within Compass Live so please like us there if you want to you'll get notifications of when new shows are coming up reminders when as you see right here when today's show is going to start and when the recordings are available I post on here as well so you can keep up with what we're doing on Facebook if you are a big Facebook user so other than that thank you very much for attending this morning and I'll see you next time on Compass Live