 Good afternoon. I'm so delighted that you've joined us today. Equity diversity inclusion starts with understanding the lived context of others. The daily practice of EDI must embrace and respect knowing each other and knowing how best to work with and serve one another based on our unique needs, barriers, and challenges. My name is Dr. Anthony Chow and I'm the Director of the San Jose State University School of Information and we are proud to sponsor today's symposium entitled Deaf Culture and Community. We must all protect against superimposing how we see and experience the world onto others. To falsely assume that because it is okay for us, that is automatically okay for someone else. We're honored to continue the hard work of building this mutual and collaborative understanding by sponsoring such symposiums through our EDI symposium series. Today we celebrate Deaf community and culture. I want to give a special thanks to our staff who have worked very hard to make this available to you as well as our honored guests. So again, thank you very much for joining us and I will turn it over to Dr. Mary Bolin. I'm here and I was muted. So I am very excited to be here today and to be part of this very exciting event. We have an awesome panel of presenters and, you know, I've gotten to meet new people. You know, famous librarians whose name I know but, you know, now I see them. So our keynote speaker today is very well known, Joan Natarale of the NTID Library at Rochester Institute of Technology. Joan will have a slide presentation. Please feel free to put your questions in the Q&A. We'll save those to the end. Chat is open as well, I believe. So I just want to thank everyone for being here. I'm very excited that we have so many people here. So Joan, please take it away. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for inviting me today. I'm thrilled to share with all of you what I've learned during the past 30 plus years of deaf education and library studies. The topic of my presentation today is breaking new ground, deaf-hitting collections. Now what does that mean? Well, it means shifting our thinking, looking at different ways of developing collections. You'll notice the picture of NTID students breaking new ground. They're breaking the new ground for a new NTID building in 1971. NTID is a deaf college at RIT. Now before we go ahead, I would like to define deaf culture. The deaf community is a beautiful community of diverse cultures, identities, and sign languages. The deaf community is a parallel world to the hearing world. There are many complex identities within the deaf community. I would like to talk to you about this theory that I used to help develop collections. It's called the deaf community cultural wealth model. Oftentimes we think of minority cultures as lacking. But this model shows that minority cultures, they have positive capitals. These may not be recognized or overlooked by the majority culture. This is a similar concept of deaf gain when we look at the cup as half full, not half empty. Now this model implies empowering the deaf community. It means coming up with different ideas for collection possibilities, encouraging deaf people to tell their stories, developing a partnership with the deaf community, learning from others' perspectives. And I think this is very important, avoiding colonization of deaf people and their collections and focusing on deaf contributions to the world. Now how did we start developing deaf collections? Well I started here at RIT in 1999. And during that time we had a growing deaf studies department and they needed materials in order to help develop classes and teach. That's how we got started developing these collections with our talented deaf faculty, alumni and the local deaf community. Here are some examples of deaf collections showing deaf gain. I want to let you know that we have global, national, regional, local and state deaf collections. We find common themes in our global deaf collections, especially in the signing arts like deaf art, sign poetry, sign language theater and so forth. An example of a library collection we have is the silent film collection. We had deaf silent film actors, for example, Granville Redmond. He was in Chaplin films, a few. Chaplin was fascinated by sign language. He could see how it helped acting through facial expressions and body language. Granville taught Chaplin finger spelling, as well as a few signs. Chaplin helped set up an art studio for Granville. They often visited each other. Emerson Romero is another silent film actor. He was a Cuban-American. And his cousin Caesar, he was also a famous silent film actor. When the talkies arrived, Emerson experimented and created captions to make movies that were accessible to the deaf community. During that time, the silent films era, the deaf community loved going to the movie theater. And they took the opportunity to watch many of these silent films because they were truly accessible. I find that period of history fascinating. I want to let you know, too, we've had visitors from many different countries like the UK, France, Poland. They've come to review and study this collection. A fascinating collection is the International Deaf Film Posters. It's interesting to see how different countries interpreted these films with deaf characters or deaf films. Another collection we have is the silent film photographer Melbourne Spur. He had a Hollywood studio. He took portraits of silent film movie stars. I would like to talk about the Australian Deaf Theater Collection. Because when I went to Australia for the Deaf History International Conference, I thought that it would be cool to bring some photos and program books to share with the Australian Deaf people. They were thrilled to see the collection. And it brought back memories for many of them. They told me no one had preserved that collection in Australia. So I was happy that we have the collection so people can access it if needed. Another important collection relates to deaf periodicals. If you notice the middle article about the International Deaf Artist Club. Deaf artists from America used to visit Europe, visit exhibits and write articles about them. Articles written by deaf people give you an idea of what was happening in their world. What was important to the deaf community at that time. It was also a way to keep in touch with deaf friends. Know what was happening with friends in the nation? Or around the world? You'll notice on the right, the cover picture. A woman named Florida Corey, mother of Rita Corey. She's a Mexican American. She moved to California and danced in Arizona and California with a partner. Another reason deaf periodicals were important was printing these periodicals at deaf schools. Deaf students were taught printing as a profession and many worked in the printing world. A popular deaf collection developed by Patty Durr is this website. Where there are over 100 artists you can explore. Look up, use and research. I want to explain a little bit about common themes you'll find in global deaf art. One theme obviously will be hands. And there's other themes you'll find when you get into the website. I'm letting you know all of the resources I'm sharing with you are freely available. And you can link them and use them. Here's an example of a flag designed by a deaf blind artist. Arnaud Ballard. The colors symbolize different concepts. I want you to pay attention to the hand design. When the flag is waving, it looks like it's signing as the flag waves. We have the full flag in our collection. And it's also on display in the student union building. This slide talks about a Scottish deaf weaver. She was inspired by the flag. And she decided to create a new plaid design that represents the deaf clan. In order to celebrate passing the British Sign Language Act. If you noticed, I'm inspired by her. And I used the plaid design as a border for my PowerPoint presentation today. Another very interesting collection developed by Patty and Newby Eli. Donated deaf Japanese materials related to their experiences. This website gives the deaf global experience during that time in history. There are many different materials there. Videos, readings, and more. As you'll notice, this slide talks about deaf Nazis. People need to realize that deaf people often want to be the same as their hearing peers. Even though you may be surprised by this, I'm not. Because I think during that time, deaf people wanted to be the same as their peers. They were involved in marches. They had their own deaf Hitler. Even though deaf people were considered imperfect. 17,000 deaf Germans were sterilized. But they still had this participation by deaf people. The government told them they couldn't participate in these marches. And stopped them from marching. I want to emphasize that it was some deaf. Not all deaf. This slide shows Princess Alice, mother of Prince Philip. And she herself was deaf. She was recognized by Yad Vashim for sheltering Jewish refugees. Notice the hands motif in the artwork. The artist's name is Uzi, a deaf Israelite. Another important collection is the ASL poetry movement that Karen Christie helped develop. In February 1984, NTID had a deaf beat summit with two poets. Panera, he was our first deaf faculty here at NTID. And Allen Ginsberg, Allen asked who could translate the phrase hydrogen jukebox. Patrick Graybill, deaf faculty at NTID offered his translation. And it really visually captured the concept. After that we had an explosion of ASL poetry. We had students Peter Cook and Debbie Runney. They were inspired by that. And they started developing their own poems, not limited by English. This slide shows Panera in a video that describes the five senses and compares the senses to strings on a liar. When you pluck one, that sense goes to your mind and to your heart. I wish I could show you that beautiful video where he is teaching about the five senses. But you can go into the ASL poetry portal, which is free, online and available. Vali graduated from our institute and we can see the Italian deaf artist was inspired by his poem, Hands. Vali was the first to write an ASP poetry dissertation in 1993. And the video shows the 11 second poem. And even though it seems simple, really it's a very complex poem and has layer over layer of meaning, structure, rhythm, symbolism and so on. One researcher wrote a 15 page paper analyzing that 11 second video poem. That ASL poetry collection was digitized through a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. We had 61 videos that were captioned, voiced, provided an interactive transcript and made sure that they were all also signed. I want to end now with this slide by Teresa Madison, herself an alumna of our institute. She's a beautiful quilt designer. She said, hope is what we have for accessibility. ASL is visual, like our eyes on the hands. I also want to talk a bit about the recent movie, Coda, recognized by Hollywood. Hollywood broke new ground by recognizing and awarding Troy Cotzer. They recognized the film as best picture. It's been 35 years since Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God. There will be more breaking ground projects in the future and you all can break new ground. You can be a hidden gem and make a big difference. I'm available for presentations if you want me to go more in depth about the collection or cover a more broad discussion of our collections and so forth. If you would like to donate a collection, get in touch and we can review. My contact information is here. Also, if you need help finding deaf people near you, we can help you find a school or a community interested in donating. The deaf community is small. We know many people all over the nation and really all over the world. Here are more links to our library collections that you can link to. Notice Granville's artwork, California Poppies. He loved to paint landscapes. Thank you again for inviting me. And I hope this gives you some ideas for developing deaf collections. I would like to stop now and turn it over to Alice. Thank you again. Bye now. Joan, thank you so much. That was wonderful. Could we have that question? Just one question for Joan. It is, please say more about colonizing the deaf community. Explain a little more. Thanks. Sure. That's a great question. Sometimes in the academic world, it's really homogeneous. So you know that the homogenous community is used to working in diverse groups. And sometimes they don't mean to, but maybe because they're just so excited, they have such drive and passion. And in doing so, they take over and aren't really involving the deaf community or the deaf person. They need to be more open to collaboration. Maybe for example, maybe not just to ask them their opinion, but value their feedback about the collection. So I think it's very important to show respect for those who are contributing deaf staff, deaf librarians that are providing information to the library and not overlook that. Try to be inclusive because really inclusion starts with all of you. Thank you for your question. That's great. Thank you. Let's see. Joan, I can put someone asked for your email so I can put it in chat or you could do that. Yes. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'm happy to add that. Sure. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Awesome. We're doing very well on time. So I'm going to turn off my video now. Okay. I will do. So our next presenter is Alice Hagmeyer, who is a very, very well known librarian who's been very active in ALA and other sorts of initiatives. So Alice, we're very excited to see you. Hello, everyone. Hello. So before I start my presentation, I would like you all to know that I was an oralist. I was an oralist victim. One of 90% of deaf children born to hearing families and people did not know sign language. They did not know anything about deaf history. So while I did attend deaf schools and I would go home only during the summer and for holidays. I lived in Nebraska and I went to the school in Omaha and my home was far west. And I would take the train home for the summertime. For the summertime. There was no communication at home. So we made up our own signs. We did our best. I did my best. And I will one day I will never forget I was 10 years old and my mom said, I want to talk to you. So I did my best. I sat with my family and my mother patiently wrote everything down on paper. They were not highly educated, but she was literate. And my mom wrote to me that you will never get new ears. And I was shocked. I thought, I didn't think it was a big deal. Everybody was hearing. I was the only person who was deaf. I was always happy to share what I learned in school, the signs I learned in school, but I was shocked. My mom kept saying, you're deaf. You can't hear and you'll never be able to hear. After that, I stopped using my voice. I love my family. But what my mom said about deaf culture and about being deaf really stuck with me for a long time. I'm very thankful to the deaf elites. These are deaf people who were born to deaf families or were born to families who could sign and they grew up with language. Those people are considered the deaf elite. Those are the 10% of people who were born to deaf families. Most of us, the 90% of us, learned so much from them. We learned how to sign. We learned about literacy. I always enjoyed my learning outside of the classroom because the classroom did not allow sign language. If we signed, we would get our hands slapped. So we worked on reading lips and speech therapy. And learning was tough at that time. This was back in the 1930s and the few decades after that. I also need to thank the person who coined deaf game and the concept of deaf game. This recognizes all of the contributions about deaf people. That recognizes that deaf people are bilingual. The deaf elites and deaf game was very valuable to me. They are my horses. They helped lead me. They are my deaf heroes. Even though I worked in the hearing world, I was born in the hearing world. I found my way because of these deaf heroes. Before I go on with my presentation, I would also like to thank San Jose State University for this opportunity and their celebration of deaf history. That is very important. I will tell you why. I am also thrilled to see my friends, my co-librarians, Joan, Rosa, Marty. I am thrilled to meet a new librarian, Danica. I have read about Danica, but I had not yet met her. I am so impressed by her. She is head librarian and she named a library after another deaf person. That is unusual. Danica is now in Oregon, which is a new place. We are breaking ground. Often we hear about libraries in California, Ohio, D.C., but I did not know that Oregon is now also making a name for themselves. I am very inspired by Danica and all of her tremendous work. It is very important. We are responsible to keep our deaf collections, our deaf history alive. I have been retired for about 30 years. I do a lot of volunteer work. I am an advocate. I have had a tremendous amount of experiences. I founded FADA, Friends of Libraries in Deaf Action, and we are able to share our many experiences. Many of us have the common challenges. If we are sitting alone, we think there is no one like me. I am the only deaf person working in the hearing world. I know how to get along in the hearing world, even though hearing people do not sign. I do not have everything memorized. Please bear with me. I need to check my paper. I wish I had slides up, but I do not. I apologize. I just want to make sure I am on track one moment. Where are my glasses? As I said before, deaf history is so important. Now we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Deaf History Month. March 13th through April 15th. You may not be familiar. Most people do not. Deaf History Month started in 1972. That is before I got involved with FADA. The founders are two good friends of mine from Gallaudet. Jerome Morse and David Anthony. Two deaf leaders from Colorado. The agency deafness. They were in the government in Colorado. They announced Deaf History Week in November of 1972. At that time I was working in D.C. Public Library. I read about Deaf Awareness Week. That was a new term coined by hearing people, not deaf. Later I was friends with hearing parents of deaf children. Deaf people never share their deaf culture. Many hearing parents do not know about deaf culture. There was not much information. They are trying to raise their deaf children the best they can. There is not enough information out there. Hearing parents wanted everyone to know it was okay to be deaf. There is nothing wrong with being deaf. There is nothing wrong with sign language. I was shocked. There are other people saying it is bad and we need funds to help deaf people. I learned about this debate. That led me to this amazing opportunity. To go to the University of Maryland. I studied for my masters of library science. I had my BS from Gallaudet. That did not help me with job promotions. I decided to get my masters in library information studies. That was in 1974. I was 40 years old at the time. It changed my life. I went through deaf culture shock. Both my hearing experience and deaf experience. Before this time I did not understand why deaf children were not allowed to sign in class. We never talked about deaf history. We had a lot of complaints but we were told to be quiet. We were told to be complicit. All of a sudden I realized things needed to change. I am so thankful to the library community. Including the library friends. As well as deaf game. The concept of deaf game. My first two deaf heroes. The CEO of the national association for the deaf community. Fred Schmeyer. He was an avid reader. His mother encouraged him to become a librarian. My second hero is a Spanish deaf person. This person became deaf later in life. When they were 8 or 10 years old. This person's name is Fred Schmeyer. His mother encouraged him to become a librarian. This person's name is Lopez. What's wrong with me? I can't remember the first name. Let me check my notes. Anyway. Yes. My two heroes have since passed. Later I met a new person. I will talk about that one. That new person in a bit. My true first cherished memory. During national deaf history month. Was 10 years ago in Maryland. This was at the Pratt library. They had a celebration honoring the 300 year birthday. Or anniversary of Abby. A hearing person who founded the library. A hearing person who founded the very first school for the deaf. In the world. And that encouraged sign language. Many deaf people went to the school. Many bright deaf people graduated. And one of them. Is Laurent. Clerk. Later. Clerk and Gallaudet. Went to Europe. Went to study under lepe. And then they brought their learnings to the United States. Many deaf people didn't know about that. They didn't know about the history. How was our first schools founded here? So this program was very successful. And I'll never forget that history. We had fabulous speakers back then. The three speakers were. The first speaker was. The second speaker was. Gannon. Who is an author. He just died. He wrote the very first book talking about the deaf experience. And at this time. And now we're talking about a second book. About deaf people worldwide. A fascinating book I learned so much. Another person who is involved at the Maryland school for the deaf. The third speaker. I'm trying to remember their name. Pardon me. Well maybe that. I'm going to into too many details. But my point is. The guest there. Watching the presentation. One of the one of the guests was the president. Of the American Association. Molly Raphael. They were there. They were there learning about this program. Another person was the director of the library. Pratt library in Baltimore. I'm so sorry. I'm having a hard time remembering all the names. But this person is now the head librarian. Of the council. And I simply can't remember their name. What's wrong with me? Anyway. Those three presenters were there. And this program supports. This was supported by the Maryland. Association for the deaf and hard of hearing. The program was fabulous. But I must be honest with you. From the bottom of my heart. I need to thank. Alec McFarlane. This person just moved. From Puerto Rico to Maryland. And he's a builder. And fascinated with library science. I became his mentor. And he made this program incredibly successful. I'm so thankful to him. So again, this was in 1972. And two years later. In 1974. I believe. Maryland finally founded its first. Deaf. Cultural. Digital library. It's the first state that followed. The White House conference on library and information. That recommended. That. The government support. Deaf collection digital libraries on a national level. As well as state level. This was set in. 74. And finally. Maryland became the first. First person to set that up. And Alec worked very hard. To support this effort. He lobbied. Politicians in Maryland. And then the library sciences. He just studied the. Deaf organizations. Basically collected information. And joined. The Maryland Association for the Deaf. He joined. The National Association for the Deaf. He joined. The Maryland citizens. For libraries. His involvement. His deep involvement helped. Convince the state of Maryland. To sign. This digital library into law. Now we're waiting for other states to follow suit. And I have complete. Faith that it will happen someday. And. That's why. The Pratt library is so important. There are four types. Of libraries. There are academic libraries. And Joan does a fabulous job there. There are school libraries. Ohio school for the deaf has a. Fantastic library. It's a great example. Of one in Ohio. Ohio. Ohio. Ohio. And then there are special. Oh. PL is the. Type of library. That is. Fully responsible. To serve all people. In the NAD. Community. Now how many is. How many people in the community know. That. Pratt library has volunteers. Who serve on the board. Who serve on advisory committees. Any librarians who are interested in. Disability. Information or. They need to know about charities. This is very important. And the deaf community. And the deaf community. Should know. Because you can make a difference. To the community. By helping each other. And that is still. It's an ongoing problem. But we will not give up. You know, librarians, we do not give up. Oh, I lost my notes again. I'm jumping all around. So I'll just speak for myself. I'll just speak for myself. I'll just speak for myself. So I'll just speak for my heart. I will. I'll just speak for my heart. I'll print this paper later. So. Library friend friends of libraries. We are advocates. And that that is one reason I decided to retire. From the public library after working there. 36 years. After I graduated from Gallaudet. I worked. For the last 15 years. I was the librarian for the deaf community. And I learned so much. About deaf organizations that I had not heard about. I worked with NAD. And Gallaudet. To understand the importance of deaf education. I worked with the Alexander Graham Bell Association. For the deaf. I know a lot of people say no, don't work with AG Bell. They're against deaf culture. Well, I disagree. They're doing. What they know and they're sharing it. It is up to the library friends to discuss. What is the best way to serve the community? We don't serve just deaf people. We serve all people. We want people to know about deaf culture. And all of its diversity. We want people to know about deaf culture. And all of its diversity. Deafness can happen to anyone. It's not limited to a few. It could be your neighbor. So we need to serve everyone. That's my mission. There at the library friends. Now we can talk about the deaf community. Do you remember Troy. He just won. An Academy Award. I'm sure you all have heard about it. That was a huge respect. The deaf community. The disabled community. And the Coda communities were all honored. Through these awards. I'd like I thank Troy certainly. But I wonder, am I a member of all three communities? I'm a deaf person. I've been deaf since I was born. I'm a deaf person. I'm a deaf person. I've been deaf since I was three. I sign. And I understand deaf culture. Now. In the disabled community. I'm a member of the disabled community. I accept that. I have additional disabilities as well. I have glasses to help me see. And I'm thankful to them. Because without them I am blind. Now I can walk. Thanks to a walker. I don't walk alone. I don't walk without it. Without it, actually, I have no hope. So a walker saved my life. And my independence. So yes, I am a member of the disability community. And I always support others who have disabilities. Now, am I a member of the Coda community? Yes, I am. My daughter's a Coda. She's hearing. And my three grandchildren. Are also hearing. And they are Codas because their father is deaf. Now. How would you describe the deaf community? Who are members of the deaf community? What does the word deaf mean to you? These are serious questions. If you look in the dictionary. Deaf is simplified. The definition is simply. A noun. And it says the deaf. An adjective. Is deaf. And it says total. Or partial. Hearing loss. And while we see many words. There's big D deaf. Small D deaf. There's hard of hearing. Hearing loss. So many terms have. Been invented. All associated with the word deaf. There's nothing wrong with just saying deaf. There's no. There's no. There needs to be no stigma attached to deaf. Many people say. Hard of hearing because they feel closer to. Hearing people. Another term deaf end. Is born hearing lost their. Hearing later in life. But all of these terms bother me. I was working in the catalog department. Before I became a librarian. And I was wondering how are we going to categorize. All of these. Collections under the single collection of deaf. We've got all of these terms. All of these names. It was confusing to me. It wasn't until I became a librarian. Until I realized, wait a minute. I'm going to talk to my friends. And ask people, why are you saying deaf and hard of hearing? What about deaf blind? Are you forgetting about all of the others? One word will it incorporates all. We never thought about discussing the definition. And I decided to start asking about it. Because I had to use that term. As a librarian. I was thinking about different ways to. Include all of the different interest groups. Under the one. Term. The deaf. So I haven't really discussed this with. Many of my friends yet. But I've been practicing using. A term. That others seem to like. But why don't we try this? The deaf of many cultures. From disability. To heritage. When I read books about deaf. When I read books about. The war and how deaf people are involved. It would be interested to read something like that. I think about the people of the war culture. Or if I read a book about. An autistic program. I would think the deaf of. Autistic culture. The deaf of. Popular culture. Would be performers and writers. Authors. That would attract people's interest. Or the deaf people of. Oral culture. The deaf of. Education. There's so many ways to think. About deaf culture. And it's many. One more minute. And it's many aspects. And that would make it easier for all those people. Looking for information about the deaf culture. Be easier to. Find what it is that you're looking for. There are many people in the academic libraries. And very few of them are thinking of the children. We don't have. Pioneers today like we. Like we did in the past. Like clerk. We need books for children. That talk about. The important historic events. And how the civil rights for the deaf community started in 1988. Deaf children need to know about this. Yeah. Alice. Thank you so much. I have to. I have to tell you two things. First. I live in. Nebraska. I was born here. I grew up here. So I'm very interested to hear about the school for the deaf. Which is it's closed now. But in the past. I think there have been discussions. About their archive. School archive. And I'll never be able to fingers about this. Digitize. The archive. Of the school for the deaf in Nebraska. So I hope. And the second thing. I want to tell you is. My daughter. Her name is Alice. It's my favorite name. I love it. So I thank you so much. Okay. So. We now. And I'm so sorry. No. No. No. Okay. I can give another presentation someday. No, it's good. Yes. Yes. We hope. We'll see you again. Yes. So. We've now come to the panel discussion. And I want to mention two things. And I think. You the interpreters you've already taken care of this. Of course. You have to be on screen. When you are speaking. Okay. And the second thing is. Marty, I believe you have slides. Rosa, do you have slides? Yes, I do. If I could share them. Okay. So maybe what we should do is. Have Marty and Rosa present your slide. Then Danica, you know, you can, you can join the. The discussion and I, you don't have slides, right? I don't have. Go ahead. Yes. I do have plenty of comments to say about. Yes. So maybe we'll have the first, first slides. Second slides. And then Danica. You know, you, you discuss. And then everybody. Sounds good. Okay. Perfect. All right. So I'm going to turn off my camera. Everybody carry on. You want to go first, Rosa? Sure, I could do that. Okay. So. Hello, everyone. My name is Rosa Rodriguez. I'm going to try not to sign, even though I can sign. I know it's very difficult to sign and speak at the same time. So I'm going to let the interpreter sign. Okay. Especially because I have the PowerPoint. And I know sharing a PowerPoint. And trying to sign and change the slides is going to be difficult. Well, my name is. Rosa Rodriguez. I am the deaf services manager for the. Pinellas Public Library Cooperative. In Florida. I am the deaf services manager for the deaf literacy center is what we call our program. It's an honor to be here. So thank you. San Jose State University for having me. And an honor to be here presenting with this amazing women who are all my heroes. For years. I've depended on many of them. To try to establish this program and keep it going. The deaf literacy center. It's a program that was established. Inside a public library through a library services and technology act grant. Because of a need. A local. It's tiny little town in near Tampa Bay, Florida. Then the town of safety harbor one day in. 1998 had an influx of deaf people. So the library. We came overwhelmed with the communication. Breakdowns and barriers that they were experiencing. With the deaf community at the time. The response. Which was pretty unusual was not. Let's hope they go away. It was what can we do. They're part of our community and we need to serve them. So we are the deaf literacy center. Like I said, we're part of a library cooperative. We are not part of a library per se. And the panelist public library cooperative is a nonprofit umbrella organization. To libraries. In the county. In Pinellas County, Florida. So a little bit about who we are. Like I mentioned before, we were. Established as a response to a local need. With library services and technology act. Funds. The library, the program is now. Funded directly through the panelist public library cooperative. But for the first two years of it, of the existence of the program, we were strictly. Undergrant funds. And part of the local little library and safety harbor. Books are not our thing. Even though we're inside the library. We started working with individuals who had. With deaf plus is what we call them. So most of them were group homes. So reading was not something that they were interested in. They came to a library to watch videos. To learn how to use a computer. To. Meet other people. So space is mainly what we do. Our vision today. Has changed greatly from the time we started. And it's to foster lifelong. Love for learning, for reading. To connect families and communities. And to educate and empower deaf and hard of hearing children, youth and adults. With the goal of changing lives. While we do hear a DLC. When I first started, as I mentioned before. I had to resort. Dependent to. All this other academic. And public librarians that were serving the deaf community. Throughout the U.S. So immediately I went out and I said, okay, what does the libraries do? I am here to serve the deaf community and they don't want books. But they're here in the library. So immediately we thought programming. Let's see what libraries do. We're going to start with the deaf community. We're going to start with the deaf community. We're going to start with the deaf community. We're going to start with the deaf community. And we've adjusted. 90% of our programs are deaf led. And I think that's what has kept the program going now for almost 24 years. We have a collection. Of course, we're inside the library. The collection used to have about 2,500 items. I think we're down to about. I don't know 1500 maybe. Again, because the lack of usage. We have teen programs. Now also because everything is on the internet. And we're trying not to duplicate. So our funds are mainly for programs rather than collection. We have teen programs. We have summer programs for the deaf. We have. Mentoring programs after school program where we help with homework. And where we just work on literacy. For a few years, we had a mentoring program through the deaf community. We had a mentoring program for the deaf community. We had a mentoring program for the deaf community. For the deaf community. For a few years, we had a mentoring program through the Barbara Bush family literacy foundation. And now we have it at a smaller scale with our own funds. But we have deaf mentors that work with children on a weekly basis. We typically go to the schools because it's easy to access the children. As Alice was mentioning before, it's really hard to get families with deaf children into the library when only one of their children is deaf. And they don't really communicate with them. So we go to them as much as we can. We work on different programs. We have the children create books. We do story times just like the library does with everything else. And the only difference is that our programs are geared specifically to the deaf. And we also work individually with deaf adults. We do individualized or small group tutoring. Basic English, driver's ed, citizenship, and sign language classes to foreign deaf people. Family programs. Every month we try to have a program where the family can all participate together, whether it's a story time, a picnic of some sort in the back of the library, a movie night and such. We have sign language classes throughout the county. In fact, at this time, I believe we have five classes in five different libraries. So it's about one per day during the week. The classes are at night and we have sign language one and two. Our instructors are all deaf. Every month we do a library student. Let's celebrate Hispanic heritage, but we do it with a twist. We invite deaf Hispanics to give a presentation on Hispanic heritage in the deaf community. Same thing for Black Deaf History Month, Women's History Month. We try to compete with the library in terms of whatever they're doing for the hearing community. Instead of providing access and providing an interpreter, we host typically our own programs so that they are presented directly in their language. In the past five years, because of a community, we've been working with VITA, V-I-T-A, and that's to the IRS to provide services such as tax preparation, assistance, and so forth. Our goal, like I said, in the beginning is to change lives and to provide not just library services, but quality services where deaf people can access the same type of services that hearing people can access. So we're going to do that. And we're going to do that with the VITA. And we're going to do that with the VITA, the library services, where deaf people can access the same type of services that hearing communities are accessing at the local library. We consider ourselves a bridge to the world of information. I remember the first time working here, I thought we have everything deaf people don't have, which is information. our main programs that attract the community to come to our programs. During COVID, it was pretty, pretty stressful and we were not sure we were going to survive. And fortunately, because we were all such visual people and we had already done so much through video, we kept all of our programs going. In fact, when the libraries were closed, we were still providing programs. Like Alice mentioned before, libraries are for everyone. And they play a crucial role in empowering communities, empowering people. And that's our main goal. And I think the best way to empower a deaf community is through information. The way that we are able to reach people, it's mainly, like I mentioned, our programs are led by the community. We partner for almost everything we do. It's a win-win situation, whether it's the college and their interpreting programs, social service agencies, the actual library itself, if they're presenting a program, could we partner and have our speaker be part of the program, not simply let's have an interpreter in the program. And because we share our spaces and our resources with other organizations, we partner with the Association of Late Deaf and Adults with the Hearing Laws Association of America. We have a deaf club that meets in our library. We have vocational rehab comes and uses our facilities to meet with our clients. And that gives visibility to our program. We could not be here without our volunteers. The program runs with one full-time and three-part-time staff and probably a total of five full-time hours of volunteers on a monthly basis. So we have people volunteering for us every single day, deaf and hearing. We encourage a deaf community to come volunteer. This is their program. It's for their community. So we let them lead. And by that, they come and tutor others. They help with driver's ed. When we're tutoring someone who's foreign, who doesn't understand English and now needs to take a driver's ed course or citizenship course, so we let the deaf empower them to do that themselves. This is some of my information. If anybody wants any contact, I would like to stop sharing because I know this is awkward. I'm like, I can never see myself not signing, but I'm just going to let the interpreter do that. And we talked about best practices. And for me, the best practices in a library are empower the community. Let them take charge, take their input. We try not to say, these are the programs we're having. Therefore, you need to get used to it. We're going to provide an interpreter. We let them lead. And that's what's successful. The interesting thing is, I am not a librarian. I am not deaf. I work for a nonprofit program that is housed in a library. And we've been here now. It'll be 24 years in November. But we do exactly what the library does with just a little more flexibility in terms of fundraising, in terms of big programs, we're able to bring people nationwide to present in our programs at least six times a year because of the type of funding. So if anybody has questions, I'm going to give some time for the other panelists to go on. And then we can share questions at the end. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you so much, Rosa. That was great. And we have a number of questions in the Q&A. I think we can save them till the end. And if Marty speaks next, then that will be great. Good afternoon, everybody. It's a great pleasure and an honor to be with you all today. And I'm excited to tell you a little bit about the space and the collections and programs and staff at the San Francisco Public Library's Deaf Services Center, which was established in 1977. So it was established in 1977. And I hope folks who are tuning in from the Bay Area will come to visit our center. It's currently open Tuesday through Saturday from the time the main library opens until 6 p.m. We worked really closely with members of our Deaf community to plan for and design this center, which opened in 1996. And the center was deliberately designed and furnished to make it welcoming and comfortable for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. I'll show you some of the elements here. There's a big bulletin board that has information about events and programs and self-help, employment opportunities, just information for the community. We have a space that we set up, or we set up our space for baby storytime when needed. This is kind of a bigger view of the center, which is on the first floor of the main library. And you're looking into the first floor through that big bank of windows. We asked to be in a spot in the building that did not have windows to the outside, because it's hard if sunlight streaming in to see faces and see hands when people are signing. And so we were really happy to have this big bank of windows that looks into the library and keeps this separate space connected to it, but not to have that glare. And the architects worked really hard to make this space very quiet, believe it or not. There's little or no reverberation in this room, and so it's really easy for people who are hard of hearing to hear to the best of their ability in the room. And we have a low ceiling with really even lights throughout the center, so it's easy for people to see. This is another view of the room. And you can see we have low shelves, so that it's easy for our deaf staff members and for people using the center to see what's happening all around us. We have round tables in this center, and that's very important because people should not sit shoulder to shoulder. They need to be able to sit at a round table and see one another's faces to be able to communicate effectively. And you can see a couple of sort of cushy chairs. People who were helping us design this center said they wanted to have a place where they could just come hang out and talk. So we have a couple of sets of those chairs that are just for comfortable communication. Collections in the center are both a nonfiction and fiction, and you've heard a lot about deaf history and culture today. That's what all of our collection is about. It's really important for people to see themselves and their experiences through characters and experiences in the books and films they borrow from the center. And when I visit other libraries, I usually make a beeline for the 360s and the 419 section to see what I can find. And frequently, I find just one shelf with a couple of very general titles about deaf culture, very often about hearing loss, that medical model, and books for learning American sign language. But the Deaf Services Center at SFPL has lots of shelves filled with materials for the deaf community, not just for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but for their family members, for their friends, for allies, for teachers and interpreters, for people providing service in the community, and people who are just curious about the deaf community. As I said, we have ASL and we have other sign languages. So when we have visitors from Taiwan or from France, they are really excited to find books with sign languages from their country on our shelves. We have books about deafness and deaf culture and for some folks coping with their hearing loss, we have books about law as is needed by people in the deaf community, books with deaf characters and books by deaf authors. Our video collection has DVDs with all those same subjects. And here you see on the left videos about ASL poetry. We have that hydrogen jukebox video. So if you're in the Bay Area, you can come borrow it from us. So we have ASL poetry. We have here an Alcoholics Anonymous Guide. We have a basic signing series. We have fables and fairy tales. We have a Hollywood movie with a pivotal deaf character. We have a series called Deaf Mosaic, which was a monthly sort of 60-minutes-ish news show for people who are deaf, made a hell of a debt. And on the right, you see a little collection in 1984 with funding from the National Endowment for Humanities and an organization called Deaf Media. SFPL Media Production staff created a series called American Culture, The Deaf Perspective. The DVDs are about deaf heritage, deaf folklore, deaf literature, and deaf minorities. And though they were made decades ago, they're still relevant if you're interested in deaf culture or ASL. You can see this series on the SFPL YouTube channel. We also have books for readers of all ages, nonfiction, as well as fiction. Again, books by deaf authors and books with deaf characters. And here you see a baby board book that is a big hit called Book in Bed, an award-winning graphic novel that I recommend for everyone called El Deafo, written and illustrated by a deaf author. And I absolutely love it. And not a biography called Flight of the Gin Fizz by a deaf pilot. A mystery with the deaf PI called Deaf Man's Hand. And for nonfiction, I showed the hearing loss source book and a book called When Your Child is Deaf. That's used by parents. Our periodicals collection includes historic titles like some Joan mentioned, Silent Worker, Deaf American, Silent News. On the right, you'll see that we have current titles too. Here there's American Annals of the Deaf. And we actually have that since its beginning in 1867. And as librarians, you may be interested to know, I think this is the longest continuously published professional journal in the United States. So you can see the whole run at SFPL. You also see the California News, which is a newsletter from the California School for the Deaf in Fremont. On the right, there is Hearing Loss Magazine and Hearing Loss California, both from Hearing Loss Association of America. And so they show a national and then a local focus and Deaf life, which is just a really fun magazine with history and stories about people and answering questions. So that's a really great magazine. If your library has a local history or archives collection, you really should think of collecting materials of interest to your local Deaf community. In the Deaf Services Center, we have a cabinet with files about all kinds of topics. And one of my favorites is this one about peddlers. And you can see it has a cartoon. It has articles, including this one called ABC Peddling and Overview. And then we have a bunch of cards that staff have collected and people have donated to us that we've gotten from Deaf peddlers on trains and planes and in the airport. So those are interesting. You see one of them actually is from Ontario and it has a Canadian key ring attached to it. But they have pins or a pen or things attached. On the right is a file that now resides with a lot more information in the San Francisco History Center about the Deaf Aid Center in San Francisco, which now is closed. Our center also offers a lot of programs. So, wow, Rosa, I am so impressed. We have ASL Baby Storytime. We have Author Talks. And you can see Rebuilt, How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human, written by a Deaf author, community gatherings. And here you can see the celebration that we had the day that the archives from the Deaf Aid Center were given to the library. We have film screenings. And then we have useful workshops like Writing Your Own Will or Financial Planning or Domestic Violence in the Deaf community. Deafness and Addiction. Some program ideas for more general programs that are based on regularly occurring events are International Week of the Deaf, which has been celebrated since 1958 globally during the last week of September and commemorates the month, the first World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf was held. This year's theme is called Building Inclusive Communities for All. During that week, there is an International Day of Sign Languages ever since 2018. And this week's theme is Sign Languages, Unite Us. As someone said, sign language is certainly not universal. Excuse me. And Better Hearing and Speech Month in May is something that we often have programs in cooperation with the Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California. We love having exhibits by Deaf artists and of special interest to the Deaf community. And I think that in any library, this is possible. Here are examples of some of our art shows, a show of photographs, a show of woodblock prints. And then the Art of Ellen Mansfield was a collection of paintings. And we love having those exhibitions in the library. In the center, we also have technology mostly focused on communication. We have video phones, a couple of them, one from the Sorenson video relay service, another from Purple. And those are very, very frequently used by people who come to use our library. My favorite story is about a young man who came into our center and started regularly calling his mom in New Hampshire that had been disconnected for decades. And actually they reconnected through using the video relay service here in the library. And he has gone to live with his family in New Hampshire again after being homeless in San Francisco for a very long time. We also have a TTY, the little one on the left is on our public service desk. And the big green one is an historic one from World War II times. So you can see telecommunication technology here, but I have to say video phones are what people are using. We also have assistive listening and you can see here an FM system with a conference mic, but we also have the FM systems in our program rooms for people who are hard of hearing. And the little device on the bottom is called a pocket talker. That's a one-on-one communication device. And we have those at all of our branch libraries and all of the public service desk in the main. So if people come to the desk and it's clear that they are not being able to communicate easily, staff can offer those to them. And here's the Ubi Duo. It's a little set that has two screens and people sit down across from one another, one another and type back and forth. If you have viewing stations in your library for DVDs or even for old VHS materials, I just wanted to point out that it's really important that your staff knows how to help people launch the closed captioning. So that's what two of the pictures are. On the bottom right, you see a computer that's in the deaf services center. And we have, this one is special because it has ZoomText technology. And then we actually have people who are blind as well as deaf who come in and use the center. And so they use this computer. So think not only about people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but people who additionally have vision disabilities. We offer basic program support for SFPL programs in general too. Interpreter services, real-time captioning. And here you see a program where we had a deaf author talking and a lot of deaf people in the audience and that shows our setup for a captioned program. Assistive listening, as I said before, we have in all of our program rooms and our auditorium. And then we caption videos created by the library. And I think Alice will be happy to see an old friend in this picture. Ron Hirano is a local author in San Francisco who wrote a book called Mother Delight Rise. That's in our collection. And Mr. Hirano came in and made a public program for us. In the end, staff members who are comfortable meeting and working with people who are deaf or hard of hearing are really key to our success. Here you see our current deaf services staff members, three of whom are deaf. All of us are fluent in ASL. And obviously having a staff that represents the community we are serving and speaks the language of the people using the service is vitally important. And I said earlier our open hours are limited right now and that's because we need more staff. So if you have your MLIS and if you know ASL, I hope you will contact me and I'll talk to you about how you might apply for a job at SFPL. Most important, I really hope you'll come and visit us. So thank you. That was great, Marty. Thank you so much. I think everyone today is generating a lot of interest. So Danica. Danica is San Jose State University School of Information Graduate. And we're very proud to have her today. Danica, you, I asked you first and you readily accepted to be on this panel. And then I'm pretty sure you gave me, you suggested to me many of the names of the people who are here today. So I thank you. I thank you doubly for that. So please go right ahead. I think that this panel, this group, just give me a second. Yeah. I can't tolerate hearing myself talk. So again, hello. Hello. I am Danica. And I graduated from San Jose State University in 2017. I'm presently working and helping deaf and other disabled folks find employment at a company called Geriton. It's really fascinating and wonderful. But the reason why I'm able to do that right now is because I'm focusing on building a library based in Oregon. And the oddity is that Alice, Alice Himmler, she set up the library. And that's the one that was in Maryland. And that library in Maryland, I applied for a position for a job there. I was accepted for the job. However, I decided after much thought to turn it down. I did so because I live in Oregon, and my heart and my soul are also in Oregon. So I just couldn't envision myself moving there, knowing that I would just instantly desire to move back. So with a heavy heart, I had to turn down that job position. It was my dream job. But now I decided to create my own library, my own dream job. So creating and building a library based on signing and deaf signing. People who have created deaf content, so created for deaf, by deaf. And while I'm working on that right now, that library is an honor woman who graduated from Gallaudet University. And she was a very close friend of mine. She graduated and moved to Seattle, Washington from British Columbia. And I knew her for a while. And we were close during that time. Anyhow, one thing I'd like to make sure that I can cover. With the panel today, since we're short on time, I want to make sure we have time for discussion. And one thing that we haven't talked about yet is how do we, ASL librarians, how do we help the deaf community in the library? Once people walk through the doors, how do we initiate that exchange? We're trying to learn sign, if you can. It seems obvious, but really just even the most bare minimum, the most basic of sign can be effective. It means so much. And it's invaluable to the community. Just a simple finger spelling. Knowing how to talk about the catalog. Just anything will be able to help out the community. Deaf people have the challenge. We, many of those library friends, you know, we're birds of a feather. Sorry, lost my video for a second. So as I was saying, we're birds of a feather and we flock together. Now with that core value of the deaf community, of us being together, supporting one another, advocating for one another, and maybe if one person bought a car. Someone else was saying, well, yeah, I'm thinking about buying a car, but this, that and the other and the other community member can say, hey, this one place is great. They're accessible. I got a good deal. They seem to engage with the deaf community really well. I felt they've opened to communication. So that can be referral for someone who's interested in buying a car. And that information shared can be then populated amongst the entire community. And then everybody knows that that's the place. That's the connection that brings us all together. Now imagine if that the same thing happened when the deaf person went into the library. Just one deaf person has an incredible experience. How that reverberates to the community. Now, if, if say there's that one deaf person who doesn't have a good experience and with that bad experience, imagine what might happen and what might be shared. That person might say, oh, this library, I don't advise it. They didn't even open themselves up to communicating with me. There was no interpreter available, no one offered to write this, that and the other. It just becomes a story that is then shared along within the community. All their friends will know word of mouth indeed. So we as a community need to advocate. Yeah, just like what Rosa said, that word of mouth is really important and we need that because long ago we didn't have communication access. We didn't have the technology that we have today. So those means and ways to communicate was just sharing. One person told the next and then the next in their community until many knew. I'll say, I plan to have a gathering next week at this coffee shop. And you have to talk about things. You have to get it out there. Want to meet the coffee shop next Friday? Let's go. Let's set a date. We set a time. That's done in advance. We did that because there was no connection. There was no telephones. There was no technology. But now we have the technology. Unfortunately, the traditions still stand. So people were to come in the library. You don't know that they're deaf because there's no way to appear deaf. They're just a person coming into the library. So your response when you see someone coming in is just to talk to them, right? Well, if you get a curious eye, someone that seems not to comprehend as an ASL librarian and advocate, you can respond in a way that is key to connecting. If you respond in a way that seems hesitant or maybe if you grab paper and pen and say that patron is going to be so happy, you've engaged, you've opened. But if your response, as I said before, is hesitant, you don't really know what to do. It's you trying to go find somebody else. That opportunity, that moment is lost. I think that's why many people say, you know, deaf people never visit our library. Well, you might wonder why that could be a reason. So that's just a critical thought to consider. The effort means the world. Any effort. And just the basic to keep in mind, try to caption your videos to make sure they're accessible. If there's signs and there's a whole bunch of information on them, remember that it's, you know, English might not be the first language of every deaf person. So when you've got something heavy, heavy with text, it might be overwhelming. It might be too much for them to take in. Maybe instead trying to add a blog or a video that shows the information. Make it accessible for anyone to be able to read it. Maybe it could be someone who's young, someone who hasn't learned to read yet, or folks who have some vision challenges. They do when they get older. But when you have something simple and clean and visual, it helps a whole host of people. It could help other people who don't speak English, who speak Spanish, say. You're connecting to a whole different group of communities. And then also think about if you're trying to learn a language, imagine trying to learn Mandarin, Mandarin Chinese in a glass soundproof booth. That'd be hard, wouldn't it? Because you would have a hard time trying to lip read someone, how they're moving their mouth, how is it, what is going on? You can't follow because you can't hear anything. So how are you able to learn a language if you're not able to receive that language? Everyone in the community can benefit from things like this that you're doing. Everyone communicates differently. Everyone has a different background. Some people have learned sign early in life, and some have learned later, as Alice mentioned earlier in her presentation. The interesting part is some, because of their struggle with English, their writing and writing style might look different. And it's important not to judge folks for their language difference. If they're writing something, just consider it as they're writing it but writing it as if it were in ASL. For example, we've got an English phrase, the ball is red. That translated from English into ASL might be written as ball red. No is, no are, no articles. None of those terms that you might be accustomed to in English. The subject is the most important as ASL is a visual language. The subject being seen is most important. So with the visual language, there's the descriptor of what the subject is. So we have the ball, and what color is it? It's red. That's all you need. That's all you need for visual language. So perhaps a paper might be writing something or maybe drawing a picture to be understood. So learning just a bit of finger spelling. Learning how to engage. And remember, not everyone signs. There are a whole number of people who might not be able to do another deaf. So I think just trying to ask the person, what's the best way to communicate with you? A little bit of sign or writing back and forth. Give them the agency to make the choice on how they engage with you. Because they're the one you're trying to serve, right? They're your patron and you're trying to help them. The more you do that, the more attractive you are as a library. So I think that's a synopsis of what I was trying to say in a very short period of time. And I'd like to open it up for questions and discussion. But please, reach out to me anytime. I'll put my information in the chat. Can you reach out to me via email? What have you? Thank you so much. Annika, thank you. That was awesome. I feel like the panelists that we have today have built upon each other in a very interesting way that I would not have expected or anticipated. So I'm going to read one question that's in the Q&A. I know people, you have the contact information of our presenters today. You will be able to see this video on YouTube. So I hope that a lot of different conversations are going to be, they're getting going in chat already. So I want to pose the one question. It came in pretty early. Let's see where did it go. How do libraries maintain safe spaces when books are being banned and certain people's histories are being ignored? So that is not specifically relevant to the deaf community. But I think it's really quite relevant to all the issues that we're discussing today. Okay. So I'm sorry, I was just reading an interesting observation in chat. Would anyone like to say anything about that question? I'll read it again if you need me to. This is Marty. I will say I think actually librarians are heroes in this whole effort to ensure that people keep those books and whatever materials they need in the library. At SFPL, I can't remember any time when we've had people request that things be removed from our collection. So maybe we're just in a weird lucky community, but I think librarians really do stand up and explain how they have curated and developed the collections they have and defend them. Does anyone else, would anyone else like to weigh in on that? We have so much interesting information today. This is Joan. Well, for the library to share information, we are here to educate. We want people to read what's out there and to interpret information for yourselves to ask questions and learn. We are not in the business of banning books or hiding information. That is not our business. Our business is to inform and to share information. Yes, we need to speak up. I've never experienced this myself at RIT library, but I've not faced that personally. This is Danica. I'd like to say that. Well, do you mind repeating the question? I just want to make sure I understand. Sure. Just one second. How do libraries maintain safe spaces when books are being banned, when certain people's histories are being ignored? The purpose of the library is to be a safe space when we are experiencing bias and people are working against culture. We need to fight against them, against that negative perspective. These hate groups, extremist groups. The point of libraries is to provide information about all groups and to support people. People who get less information because they may not be, you know, they're not quite extremists. If somebody is in a less extreme group, they may get less information, so it's best to emphasize a positive view of everyone, and we provide information about everyone and to everyone. Thank you for asking that question. We have five minutes. Anthony, would you like to make some further remarks and then maybe we'll have time for one more question? I hope that you will all keep up a conversation with each other because I think there's some contacts going on here that, you know, I think there can be some very valuable things that grow out of this. Mary, I think maybe we can field one more question and then I'll just thank everyone and have a few more. Okay, thank you. Okay. Oh, this is Danica. I'd like to let everyone know. I'm going to take my video. I'm going to type in my contact information in the chat and anyone that is interested may contact me directly. Feel free to do so. Okay, thanks. Thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so if someone has a question, please type it in chat or Q&A. There is also one question. There was another question in Q&A and I want to look at it. Let's see. It was a question about assisted devices. Maybe it was in chat. I have a brief comment. I'm so sorry that I went on and on and I wasn't brief, but feel free to contact me about the Friends of the Library Association. And in the summertime, we encourage people in the public libraries to work together. We work together on the same topics, on history, awareness, deaf history, deaf culture. So I would like us all to work together. In June, we're going to have... The interpreter believes there's an event in June, but I want to thank everyone for attending this event and I really hope that we work together and there are more deaf people who work in the library. Thank you so much. Thank you. Your presentation was great. So the length was okay. It was good. Hi, Mary. This is Alfredo. I just wanted to let you know there are a couple questions in Q&A and I believe you've won from Ranny Way, the second to last one. Okay. Okay. I'm going to paste this into chat. Send it to everyone. Also Alfredo again. All attendees can click on Q&A in the menu and see the questions as well. Yeah. Okay. So you can see that question in chat. Thank you. Yes. Would someone like to give us one minute? This is Marty. I don't know what that listen tech.com thing is, but I will say I'm a real fan of FM listening systems because they're very flexible. With loops, people have to sit within the looped space to use the technology. With an FM system, you can be anywhere in the room. You can have different channels in your systems and have three different programs going on in the same building without bleeding over into each other. So I'm a fan of FM. Okay. Thank you. That's great. Yes. This is Danica. I'd like to say that any access to all deaf, any access is excellent. You might have something for a deaf person. You might have somebody for a deaf-end person. Any listening device will help someone. That's then it's worth it. That's my opinion. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Looks like we're out of time. So, Anthony, if you want to say hello and goodbye, etc. Sure. Sure. Thank you. Special thanks to Mary for all of her work. Just want to thank everybody again for taking the time to attend today. Special thanks to all of our wonderful speakers. I think I've had individual private chats with each of you and a lot of wonderful collaborations have been formed today. The entire proceeding has been recorded and will be transcribed and posted on YouTube along with slides if it's okay with our panelists and speakers. We also plan on holding this celebration every year moving forward so we can go ahead and start planning on the next one for next year. Also wanted to mention the next symposium in our EDI symposium series will be celebrating Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month on Tuesday May 10th from 10 a.m. to noon Pacific time and it'll be featuring our very own Patty Wong, the president of ALA and also high school adjunct professor along with the number of API library and educational leaders including Michael Lambert, director of the San Francisco public library system. So, I cannot thank you enough for your time and your contribution. One of our priorities of course is to record and transcribe and share all of the wonderful ideas and resources so that people can access that again via recording or our website. So, just wanted to rest assured that your contribution will continue to live in the digital world long after the symposium. So, just want to thank again everyone for attending today and that concludes today's symposium. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone.