 Okay well welcome to our webinar today which is the kickoff for the second year of the NUSF special funding that's allotted for special construction fiber to your library and we're excited to be here with you. It's a nice number we have at the webinar that's offered this afternoon and what I like is that there are libraries from all four regional areas too so we are we've got a nice gathering of folks and then we do have regional directors who've also elected to attend and we really appreciate that because we see you as obviously as a partner to help with answering questions related to fiber the fiber to the library project and let's see what was I gonna say some more. Oh I guess we should do our introductions. I'm Holly Wolt and I'm with the Nebraska Library Commission and I'm actually a member of the computer team but primarily have been working in my tenure here with public libraries and initially with the BTOP grant as a manager for technical installation of equipment and then moved on into some other areas as basically as an advocate for broadband and now specifically I'm focused on fiber but anything I can do to help you increase your speed at the library is something that I'm interested in helping with and that's my job and move on to Krista and then introduce Tom. Hi I'm Krista Porter I am the library development director here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Part of one of my duties here is also in the state e-rate coordinator for public libraries which means I help all of our public libraries to apply for and receive their e-rate funding. I've been doing that since 2009 so longer long time so I'm gonna be I will help with this as far as when it gets the e-rate portion of doing things to make sure that you can submit your forms and get everything done correctly there. And then Tom our special partner and in our agency partner agency partner in the state. Very good glad you didn't mention crimes but partner in crime. I'm Tom Reckless education IT manager with the state office of the CIO or chief information officer. I work with a project called Network Nebraska that serves all of our schools public schools ESUs public colleges and a good share of the private schools and private colleges and we have three public libraries on the network right now Omaha Lincoln and Grand Island and on July 1 we'll be adding Beatrice and we'll get more into that as the webinar goes along like Chris I'm very involved in e-rate for a statewide consortium of 293 entities that work together for more reliable and cheaper internet and and better telecommunication services so thanks for allowing me to be a part. Well thank you Tom you're a great partner to work with in these projects this project for the library. I am gonna just ask everybody and to just introduce yourself I really feel like this last year of the group that went through and are working toward getting fiber to their library they all kind of got to know each other and a little bit and I think it's important at least to begin with to maybe and find out a little bit about what brought you here to this webinar of course it's fiber but one of I'm trying to ask a question but try to be positive about it and my question would be what would partners online experience when you move to fiber and as faster speed but they you know just what what would they be able to do that they can't do now maybe it's that they don't even come to the library you can be honest about it but just I just really want to know you know kind of what what the pain point is you're in potentially with a speed of the internet at your library and what fiber will make what how fiber would make a difference so we can just start down the list if we want to I know we have some system directors maybe they can kind of paraphrase what they hear yeah we'll start with the libraries and just because this is how they're arranged in my list it's gonna be just alphabetical by your first name so I'm gonna unmute you from my side and if you have a microphone you can unmute so Amber I've admitted you if you have a microphone you can unmute yourself and talk about what's going on in Kimball if you there you go I first heard about this I don't know like a year ago and I mean obviously I'm interested because it's a it would be a huge asset for the library just to have that faster speed you know I know since we started the e-rate process and I got the filtering software in place I've had a lot of frustration from patrons because it has slowed things down so one of my hopes is that with having a faster connection even though it's being filtered it might help balance that out a little bit that's good point thank you all right Beth you're next Beth and Carney if you have them you can unmute yourself or if you don't you can just type in the questions we could catch up later or is she yeah I can't see you know all right Chuck you're up next if you have a microphone to give you yourself if you don't have a microphone go ahead and type right away into the questions so I know and how it's just I won't but I've unmuted you Chuck all right Jessica looks like you are unmuted Jessica you should be able to talk okay my name is Jessica I'm from the Battle Creek Public Library I my interest in this is just this is not my language I don't talk computer stuff very well or anything broadband fiber any of that so looking into that and just trying to figure out that works for our library here as far you know anytime we can offer better and faster services to our community is always going to be a positive so hi Julie Julie just typed in good timing Julie at Bellevue says we're looking at renovating our library building and are interested to see if this would coordinate with that big project yeah it definitely could if we time it right Linda I've unmuted you looks like you're unmuted go ahead Linda you should be able to talk you're unmuted I can see I'm on am I on now there you are yep okay I didn't know it just all once turned green we have a lot of users and we're in a community building where there's a lot of events that takes place and in that sometimes add to the users using our wireless so we definitely need some faster connections all right absolutely and Norma you're next you're I've unmuted you but you're still muted if you have a mic you can unmute there you go thank you this is not from logical we would like to do anything positive but more users for the long and always positive they have more services sister service so we hope this will work with your help thank you thank you Norma yeah and Tanya I've got you unmuted you can I am the new director at the National Public Library and so that is why I'm here and it was brought up that our library board meeting about e-rate and why we aren't doing it and then I saw the fiber issue and I was like hey two for one and really you know we have so many users be it if they're using our computer lab computers our Wi-Fi I mean a lot of kids even hang out outside the library to use our Wi-Fi so I think and then we have stuff in here so we're using a lot and I think the faster speed is going to be a huge huge help sounds very familiar yeah all right if anybody else wants to chime in you can right now I've got everybody unmuted from my side so you're welcome to mute and unmute yourself if you want to anyone who you know please do remute yourself when you're done talking so that we can make sure there's no background noise or anything going on anyone who didn't say anything before you want to jump in now you can or you can type in the questions section or if any of our system directors as Holly mentioned Denise Tammy or Cindy do you like to what is the pain you hear from the libraries related to their speed Internet I'm at a different computer so can you hear me yes we do see oh yeah I'm just eager to learn more about it to support and thrilled Amber and Norma on the conversation to support them trying to get fiber and really to help those that don't realize what fiber can do for them and so the more knowledge I have the better I can promote I think that that to me is one of the biggest things we've we found is that when you don't know what you're missing you don't know how important it is to have it and it's difficult in some role areas to really experience that fast internet and we we do have many stories over the years about that but all we can say is I do think that is a big hindrance for some libraries is they just don't even realize what they could be able to do have to experience it yeah yeah and I agree with Cindy that as this is Denise in Central Plains we have to have the knowledge of what is available to even offer it or to suggest it when a topic comes up that's that's why I'm here is to I'm like Cindy I got to learn because I'm not well versed in this part of it yeah well I if there's nobody else that has anything to offer I think we'll just go ahead and move to the next slide and just talk a little bit about today's agenda so again this is a great opportunity for everybody to learn more about e-rate special construction and are established now Nebraska Public Service and USF state matching funds for additional funding for fiber construction to the library this is the second year like I said before so we've had our first year done and we had not done yet I guess we don't have the fiber litter anything but basically as far as the programming as far as submitting forms etc that's all been completed we have seven libraries five have been received their funding notification letter for fiber and I don't know if Krista has an update but there were two more that they haven't been denied but they are you know I think they're still waiting and pending for fiber so we're very excited about that opportunity for them and and being the first to go through with that and let's see what I wouldn't say so what what this is is an overview and I you won't get all the information you need but you should get enough information to to maybe know what questions to ask and to see if this is what you want to do we will be offering a training and there they're none of this requires you to do anything or buy into anything you are still learning about it our famous words from Tom and our last training was you're going fishing so you're just checking this out and finding out more information we think we've got quite a deal for you but you know it has to be right for you and your community and in order to be engaged in it and so the other topic we're going to cover and it was alluded to a little as from one of the library directors is SIPA I hear a lot from libraries that you know that can be an issue for them as far as considering using e-rate funding and and this project is based with e-rate funding the e-rate funding is for special construction and your application for that puts you in line to be able to apply for that extra 10% from the Nebraska Universal Services Fund which then if you are funded or you would automatically be matched but additional money which is another 10% from the federal FCC from the government so so that is the basis for it and if we want to be sure that we talk a little bit about SIPA so you understand more about why you it isn't maybe not as big of an issue as you might think it is and then we want to talk about what your options are for for applying for fiber we pretty much we have two options one is more library driven this would be library directors being more responsible in fact responsible for moving the the process through and the other one is called Network Nebraska which is what Tom is engaged in and overseas for the most part I believe maybe you are the overseer of that and it is another option that is becoming a more interest to our our libraries to and each of them has slightly different ways of approaching things if you work with Network Nebraska they are able to take care of more of the you know the bidding process because it goes through the state for evaluation etc. and and you are not doing it locally and so we also want to just overview for you what it is you need to do to properly apply for e-rate how to use solicit for a fiber bid and we're also going to be engaged with I don't know how many of you've been listening to the news lately and I know I've received a couple of emails from system directors about items related to broadband in the legislature but I believe there were like 19 bills that were proposed originally or put forth by senators related to broadband and there are two that have been signed by the governor and they actually impact this project so we'll be talking about that and providing you information about that as well as all this federal funding that's coming in and some of that can be used for broadband fiber or equipment to support fiber in your library so I think that is about all I wanted to cover on this slide so here we go we're going to talk about planning for your fiber install and one of the things is again this the NUSF portion of it is a four-year plan this would be year two and we are excited about the opportunities that you'll have so we'll switch on this is just a header page we'll go to the next in particular we wanted to show you this is the calendar year for the library for e-rate that some of you are familiar with it looks like maybe about three or four of you actually do apply for e-rate already so the July to June calendar sequence should be something that you're familiar with and we will start with Tom talking a little bit about how the network Nebraska bidding process goes for starting with the funding year and the beginning for 470 all the way to your fiber being lit at the end of the funding or the beginning of the next funding year July one very good thanks Holly so you can see from the calendar here the first strip of white boxes suggests that it'll be managed by Network Nebraska it's a year long process to involve yourselves with the rate do the procurement qualify for the special construction matching funds then place an order with the vendor and then the fibers actually constructed with the goal of turning the service on on July 1 2022 that sounds like a lot sounds like a long time but trust me it moves very rapidly and you have a great cast of support characters here at the library commission and or light network Nebraska to help you through that process so this is an excellent start finding out more information about special construction how do we maximize our state and federal funding and is this an affordable project for our public library so we help a lot for those libraries that want to take a chance with the state but if you look at the second row of boxes as Holly mentioned you're actually in charge of the very same parallel process and what's neat about what we're presenting today is that the two structures are not mutually exclusive you can actually seek bids for fiber locally you could allow the state to do that for you and then compare the two processes without obligation to either one so you may get all the way through procurement get bids back and we find that the community says we're not able to do that at this time you could postpone for another year or yes this is definitely in our future we want to do it as soon as possible and should we select a local contract with a provider or enable the state to do that on our behalf so that's kind of a profile of the the same process but in its two flavors Holly if you have anything else to add on this one well I think that the thing to remember too is you can go through this whole process there's no obligation and these are the kinds of things that I think are important for you to know too that there's no obligation you can submit a form for 70 and yourself and you can ask Tom to do that on your behalf through the state and you can get all this material back and you can say no I don't think we're going to do it this year and one thing that's good about that is at least it gives you an idea where you what where you're at as far as your costs are concerned with that the other thing I don't think we mentioned at our last webinar but I think it's important for you to know you do not need to be an accredited library to participate in this program so I just want to to be sure that you're aware of that I think that we're ready to move forward from here so I think what I was just trying to make a point about here is and what I found out from last year with the libraries there's a lot of acronyms there's a lot of parts and pieces to this and you might feel overwhelmed by it but that's what that calendar is kind of I hope helps you to understand it's a long year-long process again as Tom said we're here to help you but some of the items that you may not be familiar with is you know with e-rate you may not know how do I access e-rate and as far as with the NUSF funding grant it's actually very simple it's a two-page process grant that you fill out on a Word document and most of that you already know and can copy from the results of your bidding process and just put it in there and send it via email you can put an attachment on and send it off to the Nebraska Public Service Commission where they will review it and they do have questions sometimes but again it's it's not a cumbersome process and it's part of that calendar year at a time when and when you will be doing that and then the only other thing I want to mention is and we will talk about this more in our training that we have funding in e-rate also for your network infrastructure because I'm sure some of you aren't even thinking about this but I'm aware that some libraries are still using their routers that they received 10 years ago with our grant from the library commission and but you may be thinking oh I just can't afford to get fiber and then have to do make a change with my equipment and pay for that those are things that that we we can handle and work with you so the best thing to do I think and as we go through today and if you have questions beyond is just ask those questions and again there are requirements in order to participate in this grant for heaven's sakes you know you have a 70% funding and then another 20% you probably have some sort of an obligation to do some things as those who are awarding you funds want you to do and in this case you know you have the SIPA we've talked about and with the NUSF 117 grant and I have an asterisk there because I think by the end of our webinar you'll see that things may have changed slightly with this but at a minimum they're asking you to apply for you know you have to apply for 100 megabits per second and I think originally they were thinking 100 down 20 up but things will be changing related to that but you'll realize that that's not enough even in a small rural library to provide patrons with the type of internet that they need for say some kind of makerspace equipment or to offer a some type of training in the library definitely when everybody has a cell phone and their own device it really becomes a problem with it very quickly so so anyway I think we move forward and I think Krista you're our next yep all right so so that's kind of a get a nice introduction to everything we're gonna be talking about today and what this is all about I'm going to get into the specifics of a little bit of the specifics of how you're going to apply for this what it's all about in e-raid and in the system there it's your mind or if you do have any questions go ahead and type into the questions section you go to a better interface or if you want to ask just on your microphone go ahead and do that raise your hand just so we know that you want to ask something and I'll make sure that I pause so that you can do that now as Holly mentioned we know that some of you do apply for e-raid already and some of you don't so we're gonna do it's gonna be a very general very very general quick overview of e-raid and what it is and what it does for some of you it'll be refresher which is always good to have for some of you it'll be new but this is not in-depth I usually do do a workshop in the fall when the regular e-rate process starts up two to three hour workshops specifically about how to apply so if you do want that that will be coming up if you want to look into you know watching that we will also have special workshops specifically for special construction coming up later as well but you will both have the more the details this is where a overview introduction to it so e-rate is an FCC program to get discounts for schools and libraries on their internet and telecommunication costs this is the official wording here from their website to ensure that schools and libraries can obtain high-speed internet access and telecommunications at affordable rates and keep students and library patrons connected to broadband by providing a discount on eligible services it is overseen by the FCC and they created a not-for-profit organization called USAC the Universal Service Administrative Company who does the day-to-day running of the program so that is who you will deal with whenever you are applying for e-rate as Holly mentioned all public libraries in Nebraska are eligible to apply for e-rate there's no other requirements besides being a public library here in the state and discounts that you can receive will range they depend on the school lunch number of students that are in school lunch program in your area and they range from 20 to 90% and I can get you specifics and what yours are if you are interested that's the URL for our library commission's general e-rate web page we can go for lots more information about e-rate I'm going to talk a little bit about it here but I'm just so that you know you can go there there's recording of last year's training and lots more information Tanya you have a question I see you got your hand up you can go ahead the for the discount range I know it goes off of the free reduced meals is that the people who apply for the free reduced meals are the people who are eligible to apply it's actually that's a very good question and that's a very important thing it's who is eligible not necessarily who applies okay so it would be potentially a higher discount higher number and that is important to note yes that in communities not everybody who's eligible necessarily will apply they don't think they don't need it or they just don't want to for other reasons but it would just be whatever has been reported to the Nebraska Department of Education is who how many students are eligible to apply so there is no information there's nothing and also no information is handed over about who applied or who the names of these children are these families it's just a number you know 67% of this of the students are eligible that's the only thing that's handed over that we look at for this so what is irateable what can you get a discount on every year there is an eligible services list that is published the FCC puts that out on the case it changes they do pay attention to you know changes in technology and new things they might need to cover or not cover so there's a new list you look at every year to make sure you know what's coming and there's two categories to separate two categories services providing connection to the building and then once you have that internet connection how do you make it work throughout the building on your campus and I've got a graphic here put together you can see that brick there and the walls of the building so category one is generally would be just bringing it anything outside and then inside would be all of that equipment and this is what Holly mentioned as well on your connections and equipment do you need to update things do you have a modem and a router that's been in there for so long that it's buried under dust do you need more access point or switches racks servers anything that is that physically within the building those pieces of equipment cables everything this isn't everything here but anything that will make it work you'll notice here though that what is not eligible is the end device what you use to connect to that internet service irate is all about the service itself so your actual laptops or phones or anything that's going to be using it are not eligible for irate discount just what makes the internet service work what brings it to the building and then what makes it work throughout the building so specifically in category one basically anything that can get you high speed and broadband over power lines cable modems DSL wireless satellite anything to think of and fiber that's highlighted here I've got a kind of bullet that's specifically what we're talking about today is getting that fiber connection that's that extra funding we're talking about today but any way that you can get internet to your building is category one category two all the pieces of equipment hopefully and Holly had spoken previous in a in the past about helping libraries with their network and their closets and this is a very nice looking one here Holly I'm not sure if you've seen any come across I have at libraries and it can be invest you may be totally you know you may have something that looks not this neat and pretty but all the wires where you don't know what's in there it's under a desk it's behind something it's in a closet but all of that could potentially need updating so your cables your the actual rack the physical piece of furniture that this sits on about power supplies also if you need any updates being done to these online ongoing maintenance of this software that needs to be installed all of that work as well so it's not just the piece of equipment and then your luck hanging but you need to keep things updated you need to install software to make the network work this is the kind of thing that Holly would help you to evaluate as well correct Holly that you talked about before I do an assessment with each library if they were in need of that type of an assessment and and I would also help you to understand we talked about RFP request for proposals for equipment etc that part of it related to submitting to e-rate I would also be engaged in yeah so you don't have to understand all this necessarily that's okay if you don't right now we can help you with that Holly will help you with that now we did mention SIPA yes and filtering this is a any funding the anytime you receive funding from the federal government that's related to providing internet service you do need to be in compliance with SIPA the Children's Internet Protection Act this is the protecting children from all the bad things on the internet so the actual so as a cut applies for pretty much almost everything e-rate related getting connection to the library and paying buying all of that equipment e-rate can be overwhelming to some people it can be confusing luckily for our purposes it's not too too confusing if we just look at it very simply and clearly related to e-rate purposes I'm not gonna talk about well I'm not gonna give advice or opinion on if it's something you need to do in your community or not that is a local decision you can decide you your board your community if you do want to filter or not and at what level but for e-rate purposes if you want to receive their discounts and funding you need to figure out some way to do it e-rate the SIPA Act is actually not very long which is something beneficial to us as well 12 to 14 pages if you actually printed it off the internet not a lot of wording to it it really requires these few things here on the internet safety policy which is something you may already have actually this is just basically state something a policy that states how people can and can't use the internet when they're in your library don't look up anything illegal don't hack our systems and don't do things like that so you probably possibly already have something like that in place in your general library use policies and the second a technology protection measure that's the year they're large freezing for a filter and this can be any type of internet filter that that blocks things coming through on the internet it can be individual software installed on each workstation each each computer it can be something at your server level it can be something at your ISP level they may handle your filtering for you and that's just where it goes through the key to this is that it is to block anything that is coming in for what SIPA considers minors which are 17 and under that is their legal definition of it in the act not to access anything that is visually graphic representations of anything illegal pornographic those kind of things what level you have that at is up to you some libraries the range of opinions on SIPA goes from block anything and everything protect the children at all costs to the other end of the spectrum don't even talk to me about it it is an intellectual freedom issue and it is censorship and I'm not going to block anything we're going to let our community decide how they want to look at and anything and everything in between for e-rate purposes in SIPA you just have to have a filter installed in some way and have it turned on at whatever level of blocking blocking you need in many cases you can have it at the very lowest level though and it blocks hardly anything and nobody ever notices is there but you end up you get your e-rate discounts so there is also the third requirement of SIPA is having some sort of a public notice and meeting or hearing you know hearing may sound very intimidating but just basically have it and discuss it with your community generally this would be done not as a special event or special meeting but you just be an agenda item on your library's board meeting the board meeting of your library board so as long as you've done something of that that is something you just have to do once the first time you've done this you may have done that by back when you first decided to filtering and that's fine you don't have to do it regularly you know every year or something there's a lot of more details about SIPA on the USEC website there I've got their direct link and on our e-rate website that I had linked earlier I've got some information and about looking up what kind of filters they're available and what you can do but it is required for what we're talking about here today that you do need to be in compliance with it anybody have any questions about at this point about SIPA or anything we've talked about you can type in your question section yes Tanya go ahead you need to be able to turn the filters off correct sorry you need to be able to turn the filters off if somebody yes that is correct too that's also a very important feature that needs to be remembered too that's something that for anyone who is an adult who is doing something for bona fide legal work you have to have a way to turn it off that is also something that some legal don't realize that you can turn it off it if somebody you're not gonna be constantly permanently blocking anything somebody wants to use the can you say what the legal age what is the age of 17 17 is what and under it so is what SIPA determines is a minor so is there any so like our filter we have minimal filters at somebody else controls them so we just put in a ask to remove you know our pharmacy got blocked because of drugs and so and then we just put it in but it can take a couple hours before they remove that block isn't that you and that's that's that's not the best there is nothing in SIPA that states anything like rules about it has to be done immediately it has to be done quickly unfortunately there's nothing that says that quicker would be better so or for you to have more control so that you can you know somebody comes in and says I'm researching for you know breast cancer and you're you know filters have blocked the word breast I need to do this because I'm here right now you'd hope you could say oh hang on let me go in the back and flip a switch or type a few things in we'll be back in 10 minutes and you'll be good to go but that's not always the case yeah sometimes you have to tell them we can get that taken care of and you'll have to come back unfortunately I wish there was there's nothing that says it has to take a certain amount of time and be quickly done Tanya can I ask you who is this like a web-based filtering or why does it take that long it runs through access systems who run our computers and we're switching to bizco and hopefully that'll make it a little more smooth be able to do some of those things and really we have like I said minimal filters on there they just I have one patron who manages every single time to hit one I mean it doesn't blanket like breasts it blankets like certain websites that will get rocked through yeah that's James a lot size how so filtering is done is done based on IS or IP address or the actual URL or something yeah so yeah that is important to realize you can turn it off also something important which some people do not remember always this has to be the the filter has to be on every computer that the library owns that connects to the internet that is being covered that is receiving an e-rate discount this includes staff computers so even though SIPA is about blocking children from accessing thing the act itself did not does not say only on children computers that children's use it says on all of the it's all of the library's computers is what it actually says so yes you will need to install a filter on all of your staff computers as well however as we just discussed thank you Tanya you can then go and turn it off on all of your staff computers like so that they can do their jobs and that's okay and you're in compliance any other questions here so I take up too much time on this and I guess that we get more into this in the e-rate workshops to look up more information online so there are Holly mentioned in that calendar the beginning as well e-rate is an annual process and I'm going thing throughout the year there are multiple forms that you submit I'm not going to go into details of all these forms here just so you know that there are these things that you'll be doing in order and my full e-rate training that's we give you all the details of all of them so it generally starts the first term does form does become available in July of a year and then the other ones follow throughout the year throughout the fall and into the spring and sometimes in the summer of the next year so these are the forms in the past they were paper forms they're not anymore gay it is all done online so we are so happy about that don't be intimidated by this graphic here this picture they are forms but they're all online we should mention the NUSF application process is kind of wedged between 470 and 471 yes so when they hear back from the Public Service Commission that yes you've been approved for this funding then the copy that letter gets submitted with their 471 to USAC in order to get the greater discount right yeah so what I've got here this is just the e-rate process and this new thing we're doing with the Public Service Commission fits in there in between the yeah 471 and I've got actually a future slide that talks about that too I also want to mention when you're looking at these forms and being intimidated Krista does work directly with you as you work towards submitting for the special construction at least this last year she did and I'm sure she would again remotely is able to assist you looking right at your form as you're getting you know prepared and then submitting it which is a really is really great because some folk we had some library directors who just did it on their own and it's interesting one of them in particular I can address up later if we have some time but she she did it wrong and but she's just that kind of a library director she's like oh I will resubmit it I'll delete you know I'll delete that one and resubmit it and and others are just so worried that they might make a mistake you should know that you can and you can in many cases recover from it but if you visit with Krista and have her help you I think you'll have a great chance of getting that you know I don't know why you wouldn't get the form completely in and be able to have a success with your forms everything can be fixed mistakes me fix things can be canceled and redone yeah yeah what Holly's mentioning yeah what I have been but I do do with libraries is I will actually set up just like we're doing here a go-to webinar session with you and have you show share your screen with me so I can see exactly what you're doing on your forms and I can tell you click there no not there the one to the left and I can see everything that you're doing so we do that I handheld you through the whole process if necessary and I will sit on the session with you for an hour how long it takes to get you through your whole form and I think if you mess up it and she'll she'll even help you get out of your mess right okay as the state e-recordinator I can work with the reviewers who are looking at your forms and if needed and I have done it before above things up to their managers it things need to be done sometimes oh and we do have a question a good question Amber asked and the questions is it normal that I still haven't heard if I am approved for this year unfortunately yes the e-rape process is a can be a long process for approval the e-rape funding year as it says is in the previous calendar starts July 1st just when your funding would be your discounts would start however they're working on reviewing all their forms right now and sometimes it does take and as Holly mentioned to a couple of our fiber libraries still haven't heard yet either generally every Friday they announced the next wave of approvals so we'll see tomorrow if any new ones have come through and they can keep reviewing things on and don't just get scared I don't want to see an even set or face it up into the fall into December into November sometimes people have not heard back yet however that doesn't you don't lose out on any of your funding if they don't approve it until that late you still get funded back to July 1st it's just all retroactive and you get all of that all at once so you will eventually get all that if you are approved but it is common yes we still have right now the last time I did I think we've got 64 libraries who've applied and 50 some have been approved we're still waiting on 10 or so left that have not received approval as of when I just checked on Tuesday so yeah sometimes you do have to wait and that's the thing with the rate to sometimes it's a risk you may have to start paying your bills in full in July but eventually you will get credited once they do get your application hopefully you get approved all right so as I said this is all done online now through the E-Rate Productivity Center epic is the acronym for that you just submit all of your forms on here if there are any questions that E-Rate has that their reviewers they will you'll answer them here they'll send you an email but they have a question but you go into this it's a one-stop shopping for everything E-Rate related so your notifications will be your forms everything and there's URL to get to that this is just a screenshot of the main landing page as I said I'm not going to go into all the details of submitting your forms today but just this is where you will go to do everything and this is where some things I can see into your accounts in here as a state E-Rate coordinator on sometimes I do that screen showing with you and have you show me what's what's going on in your in your system now what we're working with today this oh Amber do you want to ask another question is that still your hand up from before sorry hang on let me I've unmuted you if you wanted to ask another question or so if I'm waiting on my approval because in order to do the fiber optics I have to be approved for E-Rate already correct um if it depends on what you've put into your application we are actually having when we're doing it through this program we are putting in a clause that says even if you sign a contract with the provider nothing will be paid unless it's all under you know unless the E-Rate application is approved okay so then it's not so if I don't get approved until October it's not going to hinder me starting the process in July for the fiber optics no no no for the next year it would be that you're you're going for the next funding year I but I don't believe it would I'm sorry yeah no evening it's just a matter of that the provider has to understand that the clause that we are putting in when we do this as I said states in legal terms if we don't get E-Rate funding the project doesn't go ahead so and that that's what we have as the wording so for all of these libraries doing this special fiber the way it's worded is we don't do anything until the approvals come through now right now you have you're still waiting for your current year to be done now have you already as your current E-Rate application having to do with installing fiber or it's just right now it's just your regular but I thought when I did this this seminar last year I thought that I had to be on E-Rate for my service in order to apply for the fiber optics oh for the for when the monthly service starts you mean exactly yes yes and that will follow after doing yes because what you're gonna what you're gonna apply for here is both getting the fiber installed and getting the monthly service starting in July now I think what I think I understand what she's saying I think you don't have to be on you can start from not being on E-Rate at all in July one of this year 2021 you can begin the process of applying for special construction fiber but then Krista they also at the same time they're they're applying for their monthly recurring cost internet as part of that that's so I'll let you right yeah so if if because you haven't been approved yet like if hypothetically you haven't been approved yet by July so this fiber hasn't been installed that's okay because it's gonna have to wait until that can be installed and then that's when things will start because you won't have the fiber until it's installed I think that I think she's actually applied for no fiber at all and so she's gonna get it this next year because she'll want to have that internet service until July of the of the next year when she is happily installing fiber and has a contract with that vendor for three years for a gig for her library that I'm just dreaming but that would be nice so so what are there two different filings that I think is what the condition is and yours in your connection can change in the middle of the year too so if you start in July with your non-fiber connection just because the fiber is not gonna be installed for some reason until June or August and then at that time it can switch to be then the fibers what you're getting the discount on that's a whole thing that's built into the process too so things can change in the middle of the year that's ideally this would all get approved and done before July so we don't have to worry about that but this is our this year we're in right or in right now is the first time we've done this and as we said we've got two libraries we're still waiting to hear but it's only May so they still have all of June to get approved and then get the fiber installed before July starts so we're hoping with this being special construction that that would be nudging the reviewers and the rate on so the special construction that we're talking about is the as it says here the cost involved with the actually getting that new fiber one to rent a library so special construction this is a special section of category one only for if you don't have fiber yet you can have the construction discounted and design project management anything going along goes along with getting that run to your library can applied for and get a discount on if you're lucky it can begin earlier before that July 1st start date of the funding year they know that sometimes processes and schedules won't necessarily match up be able to wait until the funding year so this actual work can be done before that July start of the official E-rate funding year and so anytime after July 1st you could potentially start digging trenches and having things installed so that you're ready to go July 1st that's the perfect scheduling of it hopefully that'll work out with our last two libraries what we have what they have also set up E-rate USAC has set up the state matching fund program this is something they said about five years ago four five years ago where if a state entity of us will put up part of the funding for the extra part that the library has to cover E-rate will match that so the way a project would work is you have a project costs and this is just made up numbers I don't know if any of them actually got caught none of ours is going to cost this much but it makes for nice math a hundred thousand dollars to do a fiber project in your libraries eligible for 80% discount E-rate covers 80,000 and the library is responsible for that extra 20 we have a state matching fund who will contribute 10% of the project so they say we'll cover 10 thousand of that and then E-rate says great since your state has done that we'll cover we'll match that cover the other 10,000 and it costs zero for the library so two libraries that were in that situation will be in that situation this year so free fiber the perfect line now here in Nebraska our E-rate discounts our average is 73% of our libraries at the moment so some of you will pay a little bit some of you might not pay anything if your E-rate discount is over 80 you don't get money back it's just nothing like that it just covers everything so what we have is this is Nebraska Universal Service Fund and USF 117 and this is the extra thing that you'll apply for that Tom mentioned in between the 470 and the 471 the starting last year they budgeted a million dollars to use over four years time to help cover that extra cost for any libraries or schools which most of our schools I think are all good to go but as we libraries that are not currently have not currently have fiber so you do your form 470s starting off your E-rate process that goes live as I said July 1st and then you will also submit to Public Service Commission the NUSF 117 application saying that you want to use that special matching funding if we do get approved you'll send them a copy of 470 you'll pick who you've wanted your provider and let them know like I said you pick your provider but we only if you sign a contract with an agreement there's that clause that says this only will happen if we get approved by E-rate so nothing is in stone you're not committed to anything even at this point when you're applying for and asking for all this funding you still are having out so this is a good check out and see how much this might cost and I'll tell you too also the timings we have in here the mid-December 2021 this is what the timing worked out for last year we're assuming they'll be the same kind of timeline for upcoming year but don't you know put me on that then the Commission will send you a letter if they approve it which you will then include that letter when you submit your 471 the second form the process letting letting you set know that we picked provider and we do have this matching funding also with your 470 is what you would you would include the RFP that Holly would help you work on which we'll talk more about and so that's the basics of the process will work going through E-rate and like I said it we will help you and told you through every step and make sure you get all these forms and all these things submitted between myself and Holly and Tom any other questions before you move along and this is back to you guys yeah I think this is Tom Tom's portion this is talking about what your options are for fiber so let you start Tom very good thank you so as we've talked about already in the presentation we have two parallel processes either network Nebraska or driven by the local library and a lot of those steps are the same it just who gets to do them but one subtlety subtle difference between being involved in the statewide network network Nebraska or getting internet service at your local area directly from a provider is that they're technically two different services when we say ISP or Internet service provider internet it's delivering you data plus transport so we think of that as the pipe plus the water in the pipe is actually the internet when we're dealing with network Nebraska since the start of the project we deliberately separated transport which is a fiber from the internet or the water that runs in the pipes and we tend to bid or procure those two services separately we've had great success with that we've driven down the cost of fiber to rural areas unit cost by about 75% on average and we've driven down the cost of internet since we started the project by 99% and then our job according to legislature is to pass those savings on to the entities that comprise network Nebraska so that's our our directive our primary mission speaking you know with the bias we'd love to have more libraries participate but both service levels can meet the needs of the public library so next slide so on the left-hand column this would be the local ISP working directly with the local library on the right side as Holly mentioned the state can be perform some of these functions for you and you'll see here that a lot of the bullets are the same we need a form 470 in the FCC language to start the procurement if you're doing it locally Holly and or Krista will help you with that initial form which will be coupled with an RFP and you do what we call putting it out on the street and you're trying to attract interest from vendors to bid on your project in many of the rural areas in Nebraska that's only one provider some areas two or more and competition between vendors is a number one determiner of cost so they charge you what they need to in order to get your business on the right side very similar we would do the form 470 for the libraries that elect to participate you would be part of a much larger RFP driven by the state and then we in both processes ask for detailed cost for construction of the network design and engineering and project management and vendors have to partition their costs when they reply in these different categories otherwise there would be no special construction expenses and therefore it wouldn't do any good to apply for grant funds because the costs that they've enumerated would be ineligible so they have to be in these three categories at the end of the 28 day or longer bid period at the local level as Holly will explain the public library would convene a small committee to review those bids and select a potential winner and at the state level we do the exact same thing with the mathematical formula state purchasing has worked with our agency over the last 15 years we're veterans of over 20 different RFPs and every vendor must comply with the state's terms and conditions for legal and technical next slide so here again on the left side getting an approximation every library director and every library board is interested what's it going to cost me and maybe some of you are answerable to a city council or village board as well so in the left hand side as best we can estimate your non-recurring fiber build cost you'll get to your normal e-ray discount plus 20% or up to 20% as long as you're not a 90% library and then you'd get a plus 10% and that would be true in both of these occasions we use your e-ray discount that you inherit from your school district your cost for service after the fibers been constructed is called your monthly recurring cost as Holly mentioned you have to take out service at at least a hundred megabits or greater to qualify for this program and you may ask for only a hundred by hundred at the local level or you may ask for multiple increments so that you have growth potential over the life of the contract we do the exact same with the state we might bid for you five differing increments up to 500 meg or maybe it might be a thousand Meg and then we'll give bid cost back on each of those increments on the left hand side your internet service provider can also charge you a miscellaneous taxes and fees or surcharges as part of that service and they are also e-rate eligible as long as they're known in advance and you can apply for those with your form 471 major difference between these two alternatives Network Nebraska is a state consortium convened by the legislature and as part of our statute they said even though we're voluntary we must also be self-funded so we have costs of maintaining the network to stay wide backbone and some administration for hardware software and personnel support and we boil those down into monthly fees that are paid for by all the consortium members for public libraries we try to keep those absolutely as low as possible because we know the budgets are tight and yet you still are deserving of the fastest telecommunication services that are available so what we would do as part of the procurement and then the bid and the award process is break out those costs for you so you know the total project costs upfront and ongoing to enable you to make the best decision possible in some cases the higher the bandwidth the better match you would be for network Nebraska and you may elect to go that way in other cases small library more modest speeds it may be that you deal with an internet service provider directly and that's the beauty of this is that you get to evaluate both alternatives neither which is an obligation until you know the total cost communicate with your decision makers and make sure it's the way that you want to go and it's most fitting for the community next slide so the pros and cons of either option I probably shouldn't be the one sharing this information because as administrator for network Nebraska I'm biased with the service level that we create for all of our participants but both of these are are valid alternatives for local public libraries and Holly you can you can elaborate here and I can jump in as well on the right hand side. Okay so when we've already talked about this idea that you would have bandwidth increments and in your contract terms for the bid and this would be part of the RFP that we're going to be discussing shortly that way you have a basically a scalable situation and because we're hoping that if you build it and you bring fiber they will come and you may not know what you can do and you know I could see programming working with other organizations in your county or anywhere else you it gets out that you have some some fast Internet and you may be a gathering spot for a lot of opportunities for programming but by doing that you allow yourself just to to check and move up to a faster speed. The for the research and draft the key narrative for the 470 RFP document and it's separately posted I have put together and we'll discuss it shortly while I shouldn't say I because I use a lot of Internet help and Tom was a great contributor for to tell me yes or no as far as what things I put together but we use this kind of a standardized RFP for our libraries this last year and we were quite lucky I think that we didn't hear a lot back from USAC telling us that you know where's this or where's that it was more that they they hadn't really read it to know where things were so we would be providing that to you so you you really don't have to come up with anything more original then and that's not original is but find and replace for much of it and provide contact information we we have text that is appropriate we believe for all the libraries and also a calendar of events that would be something personal that you would have to put together as far as the activities to go from applying sending out of 470 to actually having no construction work done and we'll go over that shortly so that would be something you have to do but hopefully when you see these RFP the RFP that we have you'll realize it really isn't that difficult and I and I'm sure Christy could help you too would be happy to assist you with anything you might not understand about it and so again it's just you also have to and that's why the calendar is critical in the very beginning you need to know what your dates are and when you need to be ready I know you like library directors and libraries are busy all the time and you do have to fit that into your schedule and I think both for on our behalf Christa and myself we try to be very flexible and help you out but we have to remember like with Christa she's also not just working with special construction she's working you know primarily with recurring costs for internet service at the same time all those deadlines even though there are different types of 470 filings you need to be thinking about being prepared and lucky you have me because I will help you with that if you're a part of this that I will give you gentle reminders seriously you know and to help you with that and Tom I guess I kind of took it all the way down so you're on the other side what would you like to well and this may be obvious to anyone on the call but by contracting with a provider locally at the library level you are in direct contact with that provider all the time and some library directors like that because they know who to call if there's a problem with the service they're dialing that 1-800 number and getting a response and seeing it through until it's resolved for whatever reason and that goes with any of the service disruptions that but potential disadvantages sometimes you feel very alone and sometimes powerless when you've been on the phone for a couple hours and it can get very frustrating in the network Nebraska model we watch all the fiber circuits that are connected to our backbone we have a 24-7 help desk operators at the university that watch these circuits all hours of the day and night so if there was a potential outage because of electrical or fiber break or whatever by the time the library opens next morning there's a high likelihood that a trouble ticket has already been submitted on behalf of the library and that trucks have been rolling in order to solve the problem so that you have the minimum amount of downtime so that's some people just prefer that and they don't they're you're paying a fee that's a service that results one of the interesting loopholes in separating transport from internet is that SIPA compliance is only required if there is an internet service being supported by e-rate in our model you can get e-rate on the actual fiber transport circuit by itself but the internet that flows over the fiber circuit we separate out as a separate service and if a library was diametrically opposed to filtering for some reason you could still get e-rate on the transport but pay a slightly higher rate for internet from network nebraska like a college or university would because they're not eligible for e-rate some libraries find that attractive uh lincoln public library is one of those but grand island and oma public art library are full participants in e-rate um we receive their invoices monthly we pay their bills file for e-rate and then just charge them the net part of their bill as if you were receiving discounts from your vendor so anyway that's kind of a comparison if you have additional questions you can reach out to me individually and i'd be happy to explain i i have to an anecdotal story about all this is i when tom talks about how nice it is well he didn't say how nice it is but i can say i'm sure that their library directors who've showed up in the morning and have a full plate on their hands and potentially their usual users are coming in to use the internet and it's down and they're kind of powerless they call the company up and they say well you know we are not we don't know yet and you know you may not be their most important customer um ten years ago i was working to install some network equipment at a library and i was getting almost ready and completed with it and then i went off for lunch and i came back and everything nothing worked and of course i i didn't think that it was the the provider you know so i spent another hour troubleshooting and then finally um i did call the provider because it came to my senses and they're like oh well we're not we're down right now we don't know you know when we can fix this and so um i think i would rather just be able to enjoy a cup of coffee and get a phone call that says you know we know we're down and we're working on this and and we're going to fix it so i could see the other side also of this but again it's it's a a matter of you know your your rubric and your decision once you get your bids as to uh what what you might find is best for your community so i just want to say that i i feel the pain of and i've heard many stories from library directions and if hopefully you're not one of them but um that have been down for a day or two and really no resource to call because nobody is you know available to talk to them they're too busy whereas network nebraska would be uh proactively working on something like that so thank you tom okay what's next oh we have next yep and we can partner on this one as well holly so um so again the two processes are very similar harkening back to the calendar that you saw earlier in the presentation but now's the time to learn about the program what the requirements are what the timeline will be and how you need to put that into your own work schedule with the public library or in the case of the regional directors you may be re-explaining this process to other libraries that were not able to attend but each of the two procurements um can include their own bandwidth increments um the resulting contracts that are signed with the provider have different um durations in the state we tend to use a 48 month contract and then allow the library to re-examine their bandwidth needs on an annual basis and you can increase those um each year or keep them the same um holly's been working with libraries the past year as well as krista on the rfps and you might want to explain uh those durations of agreement or contract yeah well in the rfp that uh we present to you um we're we have a uh three year contract set up and the increments so you have three year contract and then you have incrementally from 100 to whatever there's probably five or six spaces available for the vendor to respond to and give you some pricing just to let you know i um it did have one library that uh they went with a half a gig or 500 megabits you know because the pricing was so great and she's like you know i'm not going to start it with 100 or 200 you know i'm i'm going to go for the whole enchilada right off the bat and um and again it was very reasonable pricing and and oftentimes you'll find these vendors some of them and this is a local um uh telephone company wanting to support its community um have have some excellent pricing but that also can can be your decision um as to what you do but what you'll find is like tom said that probably the longer the contract the better the pricing opportunity too and we should add that somewhere between the august and october time frames the two different rfps will be in process again we have to wait at least 28 days with bids to be submitted then we evaluate we award and in the state's situation we actually contract with the vendor and put those bandwidths into contract with costs associated but there's no obligation to buy it's sitting there as kind of like a buffet line that you either decide to go through or you don't and you may may elect to use your local agreement with a provider internet service provider to go forward um it's worthy of mention here that the reason that this whole program got started and approved for nebraska is the governor's world broadband task force and we were seeing early on that libraries and schools have a significant role to play in communities in providing high level connectivity we would like for the public libraries in every nebraska community to be the most advanced fastest speeds available to general patrons and we think that there's good results to come with that you know the ability to apply for jobs to get telehealth services to give webinars to participate in virtual field trips video conferencing or just coming in to do normal internet dependent activities that if they return to their farmer range for example their bandwidth may be quite deficient so we really want this to be a total magnet for the community with the library at the center that's extremely powerful and holly mentioned a story about one of our libraries participating in the sparks grant from 2018 and parents were invited into an open house to see the homework hotspot that had been established for their children in the public library with the speeds that were coming from the school district and the the parents said oh yeah sure i don't mind looking and once they saw the refresh rate of internet that was 1500 times faster than what they were used to they couldn't believe it but they had never experienced it so when holly said they don't know what they're missing this is one of those examples so anyway thanks for allowing me to share that story and i guess i i would just like to offer one one more bit of information i think sometimes if you're in a small rural community you may even know the tech person for the vendor that services that committee that community for the most part but i was surprised at the bidding process and in a few cases the the more incumbent provider didn't win the contract and another provider came in and offered a far better deal and one of the other things is to be thinking about when you hear from your tech person you know what what it's going to cost to bring that fiber in that may or may not be coming from the business manager of that particular company and that business manager may have some other reasons for wanting to give you a sweeter deal and so i i do really you know want to push for you to think about making sure that you if you're interested at all to just go fishing you know submit a 470 with you know with an rfp with network nebraska and with you locally working with christa and and myself and find out you know what's out there you may be surprised i mean i was genuinely surprised in a couple cases and that's it for me from that slide okay um we do have the next slide here is break um we do a five minute or do we not have time or we can do break yeah um do just want to see um if anybody has any questions go ahead and type them in i have one question that came in from chuck that i want to just answer quickly before we do go to break because it is an important question um about e-rate going back to when i was talking about e-rate um he says that um i just found out all phones in hebron have fiber how does that affect e-rate we have internet through the phone companies basically saying um that's actually good to mention phones uh what your provider would need to do is your the bills somehow have to be separated out phone charges and internet charges you receive an e-rate discount on just the internet not on the telephone connections um it's fine if the phones have five are you go through fiber that's that's great but they will need to provide some sort of way of determining this is the actual part of the fiber that's providing the internet as opposed to this is the part that's doing the phone and e-rate only gives you a discount on the internet portion of that most providers know about that and will be able to do that no problem so yeah let's take a break it's um 55 now 155 now um it was five five minutes be okay we can come back up right at the top of the hour i think that sounds great chance to run to your restroom do what you need get a drink answer answer a few questions from somebody whatever you do yeah um so we'll take a break we'll become back right at um two o'clock at the top of the hour to continue on um if you do think of any questions while you're sitting there go ahead and type men will grab them when we come back all right it is 201 if we want to start up again um do we need tom back right now or can you just go ahead with this part i can go i think it's fine i can go ahead oh there is oh we need tom back we need tom back all right well um we've been talking about this request for proposal and uh throughout uh this presentation so far and and for uh special construction um it's required uh for your e-rate 470 form and you can see the reason why um as we're talking about things the complexity of all the things that need to be done and i just pulled these kind of blurbs off the internet but i think it it basically describes that rp should be used when a project is sufficiently complex requires a great deal of technical information and i believe most libraries that i've talked to about this project their their biggest concern is that they will be visiting um with usack or about to something technical for um for their fiber to their library and of course that's part of in the rfp the vendor that you choose decide says yes we will be your technical con contact as usack is uh making a decision whether they want to fund the project or not so these this kind of information is laid out in the rfp for both your protection as a library and so that the vendor understands uh what uh what you're after again we talked about this last year was the first year for the special construction projects for Nebraska this was the first time the funding had been used um it was available i think i don't know how many years christa uh four or five years more four or five yeah but no nobody had stepped forward and and i honestly think it was fantastic that the rural broadband task force uh looked at a way of making that happen because it really is that last 20 percent that the the small small communities and maybe your community would have a hard time coming up with to pay you know or the last 30 percent and now you only have to worry about 10 percent so anyway so we put this rfp together and um and it was utilized last year and what we're going to do uh when we put it together last year it was after we had even had our training i it wasn't complete yet um so you'll have the benefit of uh seeing this uh uh ahead of time to kind of get an idea of really how much you how little and you do have to do i should say because it isn't uh that complicated it's a lot the template is there so let christa bring that up and then we'll go through some of the pages of it that are i feel are important i'm gonna switch to there you go now you should see okay all right so this is just to give you kind of an idea as to what the oh i can't see it now myself i didn't done something um the table of content what is included um in the rfp you see if if you look at the bottom there it's 28 pages um and that might seem lengthy to you but in many cases the template is is pretty much done um just some filling out needs to be taken care of by you so one of the things um if we look here tom talked a little bit about uh special construction um and the vendors in the background of this and he put together a very nice piece that's in there that kind of explains to the vendors who will be receiving this talking about where this happened and when when we actually i mean why this happened and so that's a good thing for them to have they won't be asking you lots of questions okay one of the things you put in there is a picture so this happens to be the clay center public library and so you have an option of a graphic or a picture you put in and you can see the address goes in there um the other part of this is uh you have a sequence of activities and i talked about this as probably being one of the more extensive things you're counting on your fingers and counting in your calendar and trying to figure out where that 28 days is and and uh how many days you need to do this or that and and where that 471 form needs to be submitted by so this is a lot of just time spent to kind of lay out your plan for your calendar if you look here on the under the activity the release of solicitation would be the day that uh you work either with crista or on your own and actually submit your form for 70 saying hey i'm here i'm looking for fiber to my library and then we allow a few days for questions to come back and forth between the library and in that case if you have a question that you can't answer you can come to me and i will be able to help you to answer that we used the library commission's website as the platform for that type of activity to go on i think there was only one library that had a question that needed to be answered out of all seven of them um and so the library responds to the question so it's actually you as the director but more than likely it will be formatted by myself and if i don't know the answer i'll find out the answer and put a put a response back together for you um so the bitters then have a deadline um and there's things written inside of the rfp that say you cannot send me an email with this you have to either have it mailed and delivered by midnight at this time or you can hand deliver it if you want and then we chose a team of three uh to do the review and all of this you can take to whomever it is in your community if they want to modify something i i really do suggest you take it to your go-to person in your community to look through it and make sure they may even take it to a legal kind of pass through to see i'm not saying suggest that they do that but know that that's probably something that you should at least make available to them and so they'll review the open the bids and review the bids and then they'll think about it perhaps and and make a decision come together make a decision and we'll look farther in the rfp to see how they and how that's managed and then you'll notify an intent to award because uh you uh you're you're not necessarily uh saying that they are going to be awarded the contract uh but there's a time period that you can go back and forth you say we would like you to be the vendor of choice but you may have questions or maybe your community ends up with a few questions for them until you can finally award a contract and when that contract is awarded that's basically submitting your 471 to form and so there is a deadline that could be for that also when you submit it to usac and then after that you have the award recipient and you wait for the funding commitment decision letter that fcdl is critical it's written in the rfp that nothing will happen so that protects you and the library in the community as far as building fiber until uh you have received that and you also have it written in the contract that you will sign with the vendor so nothing at all it can all if you don't get the funding you can't afford to put fiber in so that's how you manage that let's move on let's see what i have um and so again this was this would be good for you to read too as a participants this kind of gives you a nice overview of of how this in usf funding became available we'll just move on and and let that be something i i can make that available to you if you want and you'll certainly see it in august because we'll probably go over this in much more detail so here the scope of services whoever the vendor is who's interested in this needs to know what it is you want and in the case of the libraries we're looking uh who are looking to move forward with this project it's lit fiber but again all of this is all prefilled out you're just putting in the library name and information and here we see this is the first place we have this we we have a place for the bidders to check to say yes um i i've read this and i agree to comply and so you'll see this highlighted red all throughout the document uh let's see what was my next thought about uh you tell the library about yes special construction because this this means that they have to provide certain information um in their response for you to uh be able to um for them to be able to be awarded the the contract not awarded the contract but for them to be able to pass usax review of whether they are able to move forward with the contract and the usax will pay okay so there's a lit fiber services um let's see how about if we go to the rubric is that next this is more detailed part about the activities kinds of kind of explains it all so the rubric is where you have your three folks that you meet up with you have uh the copies of all of the different responses to the rfp they've all read them this scoring rubric was just an example but seemed that many libraries didn't change much of it again price is your primary um uh more most weighted um criteria for awarding the contract there is something in here i thought was interesting and it was for you know 20 points which could be significant in some cases but the the bidder completed a walkthrough of the library and it wasn't required in the rfp um and not all of them did that but um i know the library directors really appreciated having a walk through from the library and in one case it was a walk through as far as points awarded they were very competitive but um that took them over the top um so then they come up with they decide on their points they all come together and they show they fill the rubric out themselves and then together they decide who they intend to award this to so this is a very simple um scoring rubric that could be that is there and to be used aren't there any questions yet for anything no any questions yeah type into the question section or um anything here raise your hand and i can unmute you and you can ask your question um either way if you want to know more about any of the parts of this we're still not more to go through on here but just i'm just highlighting pretty quickly but now let's go to the next uh item the the appendices so this would be uh for the as we talked about before i think it was um amber asked the question you know related to the the contract related for the bandwidth versus uh versus you know when if the fiber is in or not so in this case this this contract for fiber the company is also bidding for services so we have uh non-recurring costs and then we have uh recurring costs so this is a recurring cost and this is where we talked about the bandwidth would be itemized out under the column of bandwidth and you could have a one two or three-year contract i told all the libraries and it turned out that way but recommended that even though you have that information and i wouldn't go farther than three years out that uh all libraries awarded the three-year location i mean three-year contract so this would be one part that is critical for also making your decision together with your rubric because you're going to take this analysis from your rfp along with if we move next to the next with the appendix b for uh the special construction this is where you're going to find out the cost of the fiber coming to your library and it's interesting um that the what i said at the end right before break is so true you don't realize sometimes where fiber is in your community and um so in in some cases fiber was in the parking lot for one library was 400 feet away for another one now uh another one it was seven miles away but actually they won the bid even for the incumbent that was in town because uh they just their their pricing was just so much better and there and especially their their monthly recurring costs for the three-year contract for internet you know after the fiber was there so this would be also a critical piece that when the rfp comes back to you it's going to be filled out with information for to help you make an analysis of the data for the cost and then there's one more i'm not sure i said to stop there but let's go it's the c the next one down it's a little ways down and this one here is option kind of it's it's optional i believe when you fill the 470 out but when you fill the 471 out the usac wants to have a lot more details about what what you're doing and pristo saved our our our fledgling group of seven libraries and helped them out because in some cases our rfp responders did include information what did you say it was the number of feet yeah there's a question that says this business says how many feet of you know how many what is the distance how many feet and since that wasn't in the area that was required um that we had to um we're going to change that now for this next round that's yeah you all have that problem here we get all that um but it was actually very interesting to see how they could so easily work with the provider um because at least twice that i recall i was in a go-to-webinar session with someone we were going through their 471 we got to that point and i had a copy of the response and the and the contract and i couldn't find it anywhere and the library director just says oh let me call them okay so we just you know i stayed online we stayed connected they had a quick phone call they got the person on the phone within a minute and said i just need to know how many you know sometimes it was how many strands they'd forgotten for how many feet and i said oh yeah it's this much okay come back put it in so not even five minutes we had an answer so they know the information that we just didn't realize that you know having it ahead of time would have been just yeah five minutes less time to have to do it and then um at the last page basically it is uh the signature and the signature would be whomever's authorized to sign with the whatever the company is um that is responding to your bid but it was very interesting because some oh there's some pretty fancy rfps that came back to the libraries you know spiraled and beautiful photos and and and all kinds of diagrams of everything and anything yeah that we don't even know but but one thing i will do one another thing we will do is ask for a when we ask for i think we ask for three copies to come back to the library if they were interested in bidding we are going to make sure that they give an electronic form of it because that was the biggest challenge for the library directors was to make copies of these things that were all spiraled together so that was kind of funny because the the contract or some of this is going to need to be submitted to e-rate and it needs to be done electronically right having a pretty binder is nice but it doesn't help when it comes to having it to right yeah i'm going to undo it and scan it so what and so that's basically if you have a question about the rfp for special construction now would be the time to ask and you know you can contact me afterwards if you want to but if it's a question that might help others if i've not explained something um well but but again it is simply it is pretty much a fill in the blank type of a thing there isn't a lot of original thought or you can put it in again the other piece of this is you really should be sure to not just fill this out without letting somebody in your local government you know know what you're doing please they'll make them nervous and maybe they'll they'll be okay with you saying oh i was just going fishing but it they may be concerned about you submitting something like this and and not know anything about it if we have time i would like to put up and just kind of over talk at the the rfp for the or two so we've talked a little bit kind of alluded to this um that it's possible you might need to upgrade your equipment but again i was one for this one you're looking for but yeah this is fine um so this in category two um you're not required to provide an rfp but i think that it's a really great way especially if you have a number of pieces of equipment that you might need to get if you'll i can't see the bottom part of it if you scroll right about there you can see it's you know very easy to put the number of quantity your model your part number a description or and in the text up above it talks a little bit about the the library and it says you know something this or uh equipment um that is similar and right above here what i see on my screen it says no refurbish re-manufactured equipment will be accepted i don't believe e-rate allows you to do that for funding so that's why that's probably in there so this would be uh if you had uh myself come or if we did it remotely do an assessment of what your equipment is and i would encourage you even if you choose not to move forward with this fiber i'd be happy to work with you to do a network uh equipment to review with your library so that even wherever you're at you may be able to get a faster speed um inside the building if you have the appropriate uh i think that is i think that's pretty much all i wanted to say and again this will be addressed more in our our next training in august um but i thought i'd just give you an idea of what that would look like also if anybody have any questions about the rfps either one of them anything else you want to see anything you had more detailed questions about right now before we continue on all right we'll switch back to our slides so how are you going to introduce this part oh well i i can i'm just going to say money money money money money it's out there and i also but but really truthfully um pay attention to what christin and tom are talking about i know you all are i'm sure but um there is funding and money available um and if you place it in the right way or work with it you know you may find that you don't need to apply to category two to get some network equipment that you might need in your library um if you're looking toward fibride you know the dates there's there's some complexity to it as far as you know when that money will be available will it still be available um in next year can i install it now and and all of that type of thing but but really it is there are lots of opportunities for funding for things even beyond uh fiber which is we're talking about today and uh just pay attention so thank you so i thought i take a chance here and update um everyone all the attendees on two bills um that just passed through the legislature out of almost a dozen that were introduced uh the first ones will be 338 changes provisions regarding broadband and funding and is really a corrective action to a bill from last year um but what i want you to focus on here is this is no time for libraries to be staying in one place with their broadband because the definitions around us are changing so right now the FCC indicates that the definition of broadband is 25 megabits download and three megabits upload or greater and that's really a residential standard or guideline as community anchor institutions we'd like our schools and libraries to be as fast as they can be or as fast as they can afford and to be a real um anchor and show place for advanced telecommunications well here the definition for Nebraska is changing this bill indicates that advanced telecom is now 100 down and 20 make up and so if you are not being served by those speeds in your community you could think of yourself if at least being underserved if not unserved and we'll see that on the next slide so this bill uh mainly enables the public service commission to take greater control of the funding provided by the Nebraska Universal Service Fund when we talk about e-rate that is a federal Universal Service Fund Nebraska has its own fund and that's what has helped fund the NUSF 117 project that we're speaking of today so it allows the PSC in the funding that they provide to telecom providers to take greater control over how that gets used and greater accountability on the part of providers this bill was signed by the governor on May 5 it's immediately in effect next slide there we go lb 388 not to be confused they both have threes and eights in them uh this is the broadband bridge act introduced by senator friesen at the request of the governor and it was signed yesterday so talk about timely it provides 40 million dollars of state funding over the next two years at a 50 match level to providers and municipalities or tribal governments uh that want to uh compete for these grants and so think about that as 80 million new dollars for broadband development uh particularly in rural areas or areas where a bandwidth right now is under 120 so um midway through the slide there again if you were a community activist and you brought this information to your city council or village board they could actually get actively involved find a provider that may be an incumbent or somebody wants to come in to the community and serve and apply for these grants probably starting up in october uh the buildout speed minimally must be scalable to 100 over 100 for any of the customers of the service and uh projects must be completed within 18 months of the grant award so even though this will be administered by the public service commission it's very reminiscent of the governor's grants that were the second half of the year 2020 and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development awarded 30 million dollars for 29 different projects and it may have affected some of the communities on today's call but the whole goal if for Nebraska is to push the most advanced telecommunications as far as possible into rural areas as well as farms and ranches so these grants will be awarded in a priority basis first of all unserved so that would be any locales proven to be under 25 three or speeds and then second priority would be unserved areas that are already receiving federal funding through RDOF or um reconnect or one of the other federal programs but these funds may accelerate those programs and deployment faster than what the federal schedule would be and then thirdly you could be in an underserved area so you're under 120 in speeds but you have a digital inclusion plan so this might be areas that have faster DSL or cable modems above 25 three but still not fast enough for the needs of the local library or the residents that would be in that service area so as an information service within your communities we encourage you to find out all you can about these pieces of legislation we're only highlighting them today but you can be a community leader an activist just by having that information to share with other stakeholders so thank you so much for allowing me to share all need to bug out here in about 15 minutes but if i don't get to speak again thanks very much for the opportunity to participate in share info look forward to working with any libraries on future projects I just wanted to mention one thing related to this the last survey data that came into the library commission 50 percent of Nebraska public libraries are at 25 megabits or less and I would say out of that 50 percent that's less the the larger number is those that are 12 12 and below as far as speed we do have a couple of libraries that are just 1.5 megabits the the remaining 50 percent is above 25 so as tom has said you know in order to you know remain viable even some somewhat because if you if your residentials are getting that higher speed even though there are so many other things the library can offer you know that technology and what you can do there and how you could enhance your community by making sure that you're in fiber fully scalable and and ready to be a part of the you know the technology that makes a difference in your community that'd be great so i'm not sure you know the few if you're one of those that's under 25 which i think a few of you are but i have been telling libraries to start with their contracts with the rfp not telling them recommending to them strongly and that some didn't follow me and that was okay but i've been saying start at 200 if you can at least because it'll it'll creep up on you really fast so if you look at a library that has 200 and you're down under 25 um what a boost this project would be to your community and to the library so we'll talk more but yeah and now with these legislative actions um being signed and official it's going to be available the faster speeds i mean these are what they're saying has to be the minimums now go for the go big um yeah yeah i agree now it's coming yeah anything else about the anybody have any questions about the legislature anything on to tom or holly you haven't seen about this thank you all right all right so um we've been talking about uh the fiber special construction that you can get to bring fiber and now you've got these um legislative actions that are forcing precisely it's not the word they like but we'll we'll make the providers right even more um there's lots more money as when i said money money money uh coming available arpa i'm sure everyone's heard about arpa the american rescue plan act um has lots of things are in there it's huge one of the things is the institute of museum and library services was awarded 200 million dollars and has provided is providing part of it goes to their grants to states programs and each state the state library agency here in nebraska's nebraska library commission gets funding from them um this is similar to the funding we got last year for the cares act grants if you recall we had cares grants um that this year it's a lot more money we um the commission has been there's a there's a two million dollar base for every state and then a per capita depending on population so we have two point four million dollars here in at the library commission to um spend uh from the imls on library related things um let to give you a perspective last year we gave out grants to the cares act grant we were given hundreds about about 175 thousand last year so this is a huge increase for us um and we have various things we're going to be um using it for some statewide initiatives and some things that specifically go to libraries i'll get to in just a second but these are the goals the priorities from the imls of how this funding is to be used ultimately everything is supposed to be in response to the pandemic so in response to pandemic enabling libraries to reach residents with internet hotspots wi-fi other digital inclusion so um if you missed out on last year doing the cares act grants we're looking for doing hotspot lending programs or updating your wi-fi this is something you can now um use this funding that's coming out now also the second option there rapid diversity relief to libraries to safely respond to the pandemic that's all those ppp um equipment um masks screen um plexiglass screens uh stand-up um hand sanitizer stations um all of those things related to that if you still need to purchase any of those um this is in here as well and there's a third section here that's new was not last year last year for the cares act it was very much in response to pandemic do things um virtually do things you know safety uh all of that now as things are moving along they realize that libraries do just need their basic services still supported um funding is maybe going down receipts are down in some communities because of the pandemics you're not getting as we may not be getting as much funding from your community municipality so the last one here is basically covers anything and everything a library may do as you can see to meet the needs of the communities with personnel technology training materials supplies equipment costs so um buying books buying dvds getting um doing training anything and everything your library might need can fall into that third category so these are the three priorities um that thymalis has said this funding have been used for specifically here at the library commission we have been needing to discuss how to give this use this money um first thing we're doing is the majority of the money 1.4 million of it is going to be done as direct payments to public and tribal libraries um this is similar to your state aid funding that you get so if you receive um you know just because you submit your public library survey you get a chunk of money just given to you we're going to do the same thing with some of this money uh with the math based on how many libraries we have and how much money we're allotting to this the proposed right now base amount is $3,750 so every library will get that and then on top of that a per capita amount so based on your legal service area 0.275 cents this is uh these direct payments they're not going to be sent just out to you exactly as the state aid money is where that's just sent to you and automatically you will need to request it um because this is part of this specific ARPA we do have other paperwork that needs to be done so you will say yes i would like that funding we'll then issue it out to you and then you will have to follow up later with invoices uh that cover um meet these priorities of how you spend it um but basically like i said anything could possibly fall into that whoops um we are working on a website right now and on applications uh we had to have this approved by our nlc commissioners which was done two weeks ago and we are now working on getting all this done so look for specifics coming soon for that for those uh drip payments unlike the cares act you won't have to submit an application that states here's the project we're going to do here's what we're going to um um spend it all on we're being a little making a little easier for that direct payments where you just say yes i would like the money and then later just start sending us invoices um we had some a few many libraries from the cares act grants who because they couldn't find things or things change over time weren't exactly able to do what they originally said in their grant application and they had to be some back and forth with that we want to have to make it a lot easier for everybody for these direct payments so as long as you are meeting those criteria and sending us invoices if you need to like switch gears in the middle last year we had a lot of problems and we still made this year hotspots it's been hard to find them to buy them there's huge demand and some libraries had to switch gears and said i just can't buy any can i do something else with this you won't have to even worry with us just spend it on what you need to send us your invoices in addition to that we are going to offer a couple of competitive grants uh we are going to have it so it's our typical like our library improvement grants or cares acts last year depended grants one specifically for maker spaces library automation upgrades or changes and other technology related things so if you are wanting to change to a different ils system or you need to do upgrades and update your current one you can apply for a grant in that category in addition to that our youth grants for excellence our usual grants that sally snider does in the fall we are giving more money towards those grants typically in the last few years she's had around 18 thousand 20 thousand dollars each year to give out we are allotting 75 thousand dollars to our youth grants for excellence so keep an eye out for those coming in the fall usually august september she starts that up so with those things there that we have money coming from you're going to have to think about where do i what do i want to use to pay for what so if you have some sort of technology project you're definitely want to look for that competitive grant to apply for anything youth routine related wait for sally's grants to come out in later in the year um then anything else you could use your direct payment for so you're going to just think about in your head you know what is everything related to what be the best place to do this and you can do all of these you do not have to pick and choose you get your direct payment and you can then apply for a maker space library automation technology grants and you can apply for youth grant for excellence you don't have to pick or choose you can do all of it in addition to that we are doing some statewide things just so you know as well these are not things that you would apply for just so you know that other money is going out for things that are statewide probably adding money to overdrive to increase the collections our lender compensation program for libraries who do interlibrary loan to each other each of our four regional library systems are getting a chunk of money to help them expand their services our state institutional libraries corrections and our rehab centers they are in desperate need of upgrading their technology and equipment and collections so we are allotting certain funding right to them we're also going to continue for another another year of niche academy which has got online training that we've been using last year and reader zone if you use that for your summer reading program last year or for anything over the year for reading competitions that was the first year that was funded with CARES Act grants we're going to do another year of that with our ARPA grant funding and then our book club kits and our library professional collection here at the library commission we are going to add titles to those as well so some ideas of what you can do with this if you're wondering you know so what do I do with all this different money and this is not exhaustive this is not only the things you do this you just to get you thinking about things look at what we did last year for CARES that's all still available but if you need to upgrade update date anything do your equipment improvements and upgrades now just like e-rage this is federal funding so if you're going to do anything internet related like anything that connects you to the internet you will need to be SIPA compliant so that is something to think about but it's just another place to get funding for that and lending anything doing a hotspot lending program lending laptops tablets maybe you started that up last year or and you realize you need more or you missed the CARES Act grant last year because it was a lot less money come to us again to do it this time and then just get creative with what you can do to get out into your community these are ideas about other libraries have done pop-up libraries bookbikes story walks anything out there can possibly an idea and as far as collections last year the CARES Act was specifically about doing things digital and virtual but we specifically asked and this money can also be used for physical collections so you can buy books magazines dvds anything that you need to let you lend at your library and of course the digital content and then all the your COVID-19 safety things now that we are getting into potentially opening up and having people come more into the library people are talking a lot more about air filters and purifiers how do we keep the air circulating to keep it safe safer indoors when people are inside that might be something someone asked about self-checkout stations you can do self-checkout stations to help you know keep distance and those touchless hand sanitizer and so dispensers i never investigate myself but i learned from the CARES Act grants those are pricey so if you wanted to get those you didn't have them before or you want more that is definitely something so this is just some ideas of what you can use this for now there's even other money coming to because there has to be more the emergency connectivity fund this is something also a new program part of ARPA and this is specific this is a lot of people talk about this as more e-rays some funding added to e-rate it's not exactly i i describe it as e-rate adjacent because it is using the same e-rate system but it is not for adding more money to you or what you get and just get on that is e-rate considered e-rate this is specifically for remote learning to close that homework gap or the connectivity gap this is something we have known for years in the library world and school world that um kids are in school and this is something that our spark screen address was working to address and then they go home and they do not have the connection at home to continue and do their homework they come to the library to try to do it or they go to the neighborhood bar whoever has the the internet we've known this forever the past year of the pandemic other people who have realized that this is a thing and a problem that needs addressing so uh seven point one billion dollars has been allotted to help close this and what this is specifically providing internet connection off-campus as they describe it outside of the library beyond the libraries uh walls and property beyond the school's walls and property and that's where you get that big difference between what's e-rate and what's emergency connectivity fund e-rate is on campus in the library the emergency connectivity fund ecf another acronym is sending that connection out so you already have a connection at your library for internet and now you can purchase um wi-fi hotspots modems routers construction to make that go to somewhere else to use it in someone's home or in a community center it will be using that same epic system that you use to apply for e-rate and it's being administered by usack um because the FCC and their orders have said they know usack has done this kind of thing before with e-rate will have them handle this program as well it's a separate program it's its own it's not e-rate just going to use that same interface something new about this too that if you remember e-rate does not cover this will cover the devices themselves as well laptops and tablets can be used this can be used to purchase laptops and tablets for um to be loaned out and given to your patrons uh specifics about this is to help uh patrons who are unable to get good enough internet at their homes we expect there to be a filing window for this opening up this summer we're still waiting for the specifics and the details of how it all works so keep your eyes open for that once i do know what all that is i will hold a specific special workshop just about the emergency connectivity fund and how to apply for it um and this is also for purchases to be made in the future to start with so buying things in the next what they will call the e-rate funding year they use the same year july 1st 2021 through june 3th 2022 if there's enough funding left after that is people have applied libraries and schools who applied for that they will do a retrospective they can do a retrospective window it's been allowed um going back to the beginning of the pandemic in march of last year so anything you had pre already purchased you may be able to get a reimbursement for that will depend we'll see oh and i should mention this now that i mentioned going back the arpa funding that we have at the commission that is also you can apply for reimbursements on things that you had purchased going back to when we were awarded this funding which was the exact date is march or april i'll know i'll get that to you but um so if you'd already bought something and we are now finally letting you apply for these grants and for the direct funding direct payments you can go back to then we did the same thing last year the cares act grant we were awarded the funding in april march april we worked on getting it all worked out and how it was going to be awarded how you can apply for it by the summer and then um but you were able to give us invoices going back um so the key emergency connection fund this is can be anywhere education occurs not just at the home you know we think of the homework gap is the kids go home and they have no connection but anywhere that you might be doing educating so in churches on school buses wi-fi hotspots on school buses community centers homeless centers any of those other kiosks are places that you set up so um get creative and think about that um the key also though about the hot spots and the laptops and tablets is they must be used outside the library many times you might buy hotspots um and loan laptops and have people use the loan hotspots but the laptops and tablets um you may check out them for someone to use in your building the the laptops and tablets you specifically buy from this money has to be taken out of the library that's the whole point is you're extending the library or the school's internet connection out into the community so you will have to differentiate between which laptops are for use in-house and which ones get checked out something else to be very clear about this as well is um even though some people do use their phones to do things smart phones and pc desktops are not allowed in this program it's specifically thinking about being um portable more portable but bigger so laptops and tablets specifically um any questions i have one other thing here to talk about but i wanted any questions about these yeah the arpa funds and the emergency connectivity funds um both arpa so go ahead and type in or raise your hand and i'll get throughout your question but while i'm waiting to see if you do have any um both of these are coming soon with how to apply for them and um one last thing is the emergency broadband benefit evb that is a um new program um another way that um low-income households can get um just um get internet good internet to their houses um this is a temporary program um through the FCC 3.2 billion um which gives a discount on broadband service um and a discount on purchasing um so an individual could purchase a laptop a tablet or desktop computer this program is specifically for consumers the emergency connectivity fund arpa um special construction e-rate that's all the libraries in schools apply for this one is your community members so something for you to encourage them to do but also to realize that they may be able to start getting a discount on their be able to afford a better broadband at home um they'll get a $50 discount on their service and then um a one-time discount of $100 to purchase a laptop tablet or desktop computer um they will have to do a small co-payment to go along with those but this is temporary and will end once these funds are exhausted or six months after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that the COVID-19 pandemic is over so um that is something these people will have to plan for is that eventually this 50 month $50 per month discount will end right now consumers can apply for that get emergency broadband dot org um you'll notice if you do go there that it is on the USAC website they are also administering this program but it is not through the epic system because this is for consumers not for libraries in schools so it's a whole separate section there but you will recognize that so with all these different things you have there's lots of different ways that internet is being hopefully increased um i'm thinking if uh homes here are saying they want this $50 a month discount uh they will help encourage providers to increase their speeds um as well the legislation we have here in Nebraska um and then you as a library will just decide where what funding you're going to use for what purpose and hopefully this isn't too confusing but we'll give you some ideas on how you can do this anything else uh uh holly that you wanted to add about any of these no just you know five before your library with all the funding yes there's a lot of money coming from lots of different places so go and investigate it and ask us for questions if you have anything else all right and now so this we're at the tail end here just a couple more slides and we're running out of time we have nine minutes to get you out the door here but um i um just had a couple of things i wanted to mention the broadband toolkit i some libraries i don't really think that i've listed that we had today that any of them may have participated in this or perhaps you have seen it as i think it's part of our continuing education it's available but this is a great tool for you to use especially in this conversation today if you're feeling like you don't really understand a lot of this this is the the person on the street kind of knowledge and helps in the words and has a great glossary of information that will help you to maybe take a look sit down in your library and and well actually you won't be sitting you'll be moving around and looking at things and finding about things related to your network configuration if you choose to move forward and you would like an assessment for your network equipment i have been using this for a couple of years when i go out to a library certainly could be done via zoom session to help you to kind of empower you to know more about the technology in your library and to be making decisions especially with like we say all this funding available making good decisions that will help your community and your library we have that linked off we have a broadband website on our commission page and i have a link to it off our e-rate page too so yeah all this product right and if you have any questions about oh then i think also you can receive ce credit for if you complete that and it had historically been that it got passed back to me and looked it over and that and then but you keep a copy of it because that's the cool thing about this toolkit is you keep it in the library and in every you can share it with your staff or go back and consult it again if you get a call or you're calling somebody about a problem that you have so anyway the other opportunities that are for resources again we talked about the special construction training that's going to be happening in august i don't have a date yet for it our first one was supposed to be i think six hours it turned into kind of more a little longer than that i i think we were maybe at seven hours not all at once no panic no yeah right it was over over two days again that's ce credit too if you're interested but during that we'll work with christa will be basically uh kind of i i think we can probably put people we had the last uh last year we had folks online logging on to their epc profile account and working their way through not necessarily completing but and this this year depending on how we do it they might be able to because they could have an rfp given to them ahead of time and checked and they could actually submit their you know their 470 if they wanted to but talking a little bit more about sipa i i we will not endorse any particular product but i'm wondering if there's different ways i don't know a lot about it christa would know more but if there's you know web based systems if they're ones that are more local control it might be nice to just kind of give an overview of how they work so people can make an informed decision myself personally when i get asked a question about what to use for filtering i often recommend that you talk to a community library that's close by you so that they're using it and then you can go see what they're what they do or how it's how it's installed there and how it works or if they don't like it at all then i guess i wouldn't go visit them i'd be continuing to pursue other opportunities let's see and also i know that i i false advertise a little bit here i expected to at least get one of our library directors who's part of this first group going through to give you a testimony or talk and it's they're not it's the reason they're not here isn't because none of them like us or anything if the reason is they were all so busy it was amazing the stuff they had going on and i'd like to think it's because they're preparing like a mother for a baby's birth or a family for a baby's birth they're getting other things done in their libraries where they're getting ready for fiber they've got other things going on so i think definitely for the presentation or for our training in august that i'd like to have it for a brief time a panel of our library directors to come in and and give you the real story from their point of view and of course at the commission we've said it over and over again christa and i are available and tom is an excellent resource too i would say if you have a question that we can't answer we may send it on to tom i'd like to filter it for him because he's a pretty busy person we are too but i but he does have some good some information that he may be able to to provide for you especially if you're interested in network nebraska i would definitely just contact him directly through with an email and of course we have three of our regional system directors who have been participating today and we see them as a resource also certainly they can answer questions for you or getting touch with us hopefully they can get the word out i hope that each one of you if you're excited about this and you have another community library public library that person that you're engaged with that you share this information with them because i think it's critical this is the time and we have this opportunity for you to move to fiber again remember it's fully scalable it doesn't matter if you have dsl at you know 100 megabits right now yeah you've got fast speed it's adequate but at some point there's a threshold for what dsl can do and as i understand it you know i know that the companies aren't investing in dsl anymore obviously fiber is where they're going so if you can move to fiber and you still want the same speed great but you're completely scalable so i'm off my soapbox i guess we'll wait and hear if there are any other questions yeah so if you have we have a few more minutes left and we'll stick around as long as you need to ask questions if you have any desperate questions you want to ask us right now type it in the questions section rate your hand i'll unmute you you can ask that way but there is also our contact information phone numbers and emails for all three of us we did record this today so this recording will be made available to you soon if you needed to revisit anything or as holly was just saying share with other libraries who maybe we're not here today you know spread the word love this and the slides available to you at your convenience Denise just i said i agree with holly money money money yes lots of money available maybe too much maybe confusing but hopefully we've given you some ideas and well what i want to i hope you understand is if you um if you feel like you're overwhelmed and and you can't get something done you know related to making this kind of decision process um we certainly are available to talk to you about that you know to help you out to see your way through it because again you know for 10 years i've been visiting libraries and i i'm there sometimes i'm not engaged with the library director but i'm seeing what's going on and so i i really understand that you you have to move from this to that back again and and you know to have a focused time to spend on making decisions or you know in researching information particularly i would be happy to try to help you with that if you have a question yeah we can give you advice on what might be the best best direction if something new comes up that we learn about okay it doesn't look like there's any questions right now call or emails us um if um you have any questions or if you are interested in doing the the special fiber construction which this was mostly about um let us know holly or myself send us an email and say hey i want to i'm ready to start in that we can start talking to you about it um make sure you get involved in the training and i'll guess when we get into the step by step well thank you very much for your time we really appreciate it i know it's precious so take care yeah thank you got a lot of thank yous coming on this is very helpful thank you so much you're welcome hopefully we'll hear from you soon