 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Christa Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly online event where we cover anything that may be of interest to librarians across the state and across the country. We do these shows live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but they are recorded, so if you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's not a problem. You can always go back to our website and watch any of our recordings that are posted up there every week. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live. Presentations, interviews, book reviews, demos, many training sessions. Basically, if it's related to libraries, we'll put it on the show. And we have guest speakers that come in and we have commission staff that do sessions, and this morning we have a mixture of that. We have Katherine Brockmeyer sitting next to me right now who's actually a staff person here at the commission in charge of our grant program for scholarship students, and she'll talk more about that. And on the line with us, and we'll bring them in a little bit, we've got a couple of the students who are part of our 21st century librarian program scholarship program and have them talk about some of their experiences they had in certain parts of it. So I will just hand over to Katherine to take it away and talk about what you guys are doing this morning. All right. Thanks for being here today and thank you to our two presenters today who I will introduce in just a moment. I am Katherine Brockmeyer, I'm the grant program manager for the IMLS 21st century librarian program, and it's a grant that we received in 2010 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to distribute funds for scholarships and also for grants to public libraries for internships. And we'll focus on the scholarship program today. The scholarship program is twofold. The students receive funding in form of scholarship for tuition books and fees while they're pursuing a credential in library science. And they also receive stipends of up to $2,000 for the purchase of a laptop since so many classes are now offered online and also laptops tend to have, can be portable, take them to class, and also they can handle graphic heavy online modules such as watching videos online or having to participate in an online forum or Moodle or something to that effect, Blackboard. Also, it also allows for membership in one association, one professional association, and the other one that we're going to touch on today is for attendance at a regional or national conference. And so we have two students here with us today. Part of the stipend program is that the student applies for the stipend. It's, they estimate how much it will cost, they provide a justification for it. And then they, let me just show you the application here real quickly. Sorry about the scrolling if that makes anybody dizzy. Apply for a stipend, conference attendance. And so they provide their contact information. They talk about the conference they're going to attend. They provide a justification for attending. And then we give them a worksheet so that to help them estimate how to estimate their lodging meals, airfare, mileage, the registration fees, and miscellaneous. And so hopefully that gives them an opportunity to start thinking about exactly what they're going to be doing at conference and how much it's going to cost them. So there is some footwork that needs to be done prior to submitting the stipend application. It's then reviewed by committee. And should they be awarded, they receive a letter of award, at which point in time they can start expending funds for registration, making hotel reservations, buying their airplane ticket as needed. And as soon as they've completed a purchase, they're able to submit that for reimbursement. So let's say that they register and they buy their airplane ticket. They can submit that immediately for reimbursement. And then after the conference, they can submit their lodging and their meals and any other incidental expenses that they had while they're at conference, including if they live farther away from an airport that they have mileage and also parking and so on and so forth. So that is the stipend process of application and reimbursement. And we hope that we have made that fairly clear and that the process has been fairly smooth and hopefully we'll hear from the students how that went for them today. And if there were hiccups along the way, we want to hear about that from our students too. So that is the process. We offer scholarships to attend many different regional and national library conferences. And we do offer a list of various conferences that they might attend. For example, someone is going to midwinter right now. We have the library technology conference coming up in St. Paul, Minnesota. We might have a couple of nibbles on that. Computers and libraries. And then the ACRL. So the biggie that's going to be coming up is the American Library Association Conference in Chicago, late June and early July. And then another biggie for us is going to be the Association for Rural and Small Libraries, which is going to be in our backyard right here in Omaha. Today we have two scholarship students who attended what became a regional conference with the Mountain Plains Library Association in conjunction with the Nebraska Library Association and the Nebraska School Librarians Association, formerly known as Nebraska Educational Media Association. Yes, NIMA. And so that became a regional conference, and so that became eligible for stipend conference attendance. And so let's transition on over to our first student. Her name is Libby Munsell. And she's here with us today. I'm going to have her talk a little bit about what educational track she's on, introduce herself a little bit where she's going to school. She might talk a little bit about the application process for the stipend, and then if she can talk about her conference experience, who she met, what she learned, what surprised her, and I will show what she posted in our forum, which is the Nebraska Librarians Learning Together webpage for all of our scholarship students and other Nebraska Librarians. They post in the forum, and I'm going to go ahead and pull that up so that she can refer to that if she needs to. Hi, Libby. You're on air. Hi. Can you hear me all right? Perfect. All right. My name is Libby Munsell, and I live in York, Nebraska, and I work at the public library, Kilgore Memorial Library. And at first I went to Central Community College and got my associates. And as I was finishing that up, I heard about the scholarship from a number of sources, from a couple of my library teachers and from the director at the library where I'm working now. And so I applied for the scholarship, and I continue my education at UNO, and so now I'm a junior at UNO. And let's see. There's been several different things that I've been able to do because of the scholarship, like Katherine was talking about. It helps with tuition and everything. Books are paid for, and the biggest thing so far has been the conference, I think, besides tuition. And it's really nice to be able to go to a conference the NOA conference was the first conference I've ever been to. So I was kind of nervous at first to go because I didn't know what it would be like, but they really help guide you through what it's going to be like. And they send people to walk around if you need help. And Katherine did a great job of texting us about all the times that everyone was going to meet up. And so that was kind of cool. Let's see, you wanted me to talk about the application process, right? So I first applied for the stipend for the conference. I knew I was going because I wanted to go and everyone at the library where I work was planning on going, so we all kind of registered together and everything. So I did my application for the conference and sent in my registration and everything. And once I was approved for the stipend, then I was able to send in reimbursement requests. And so as I filled out the application, I estimated all my expenses at first of what things are going to cost, and that was pretty easy to do. It explains at the end there that Katherine's showing you, it explains how you can estimate your expenses and on the website for the conference they had the expenses lined out as you registered. So you knew how much the conference itself was going to cost and how much each meal. I went to a couple luncheons in the banquet and so all those costs were outlined in the registration and on the website. So that way I knew what it was going to cost and I could calculate my mileage and write that all down on the application. And so that way I knew later on is that when I was going to send in my request for reimbursement, I knew what it was going to cost and it was all planned out. So after I got my approval, then I worked on sending in my first request for reimbursement for the registration itself and the luncheons because I paid for those ahead of time. And then I waited until after the conference to send in another request for reimbursement for the mileage and other miscellaneous expenses that I had during the conference that I accounted for at the beginning. So we were supposed to keep all our receipts and everything and keep organized so that we knew everything and had proof of all our expenses and then send it all on one envelope to the commission and they worked on sending us back the money for it. So it all worked wonderfully. I did want to interject there that the typically the per diem is a guideline that's a national guideline and so they give you based on the location and the time of year that you're going to be in any particular location, what the guideline is for the maximum allowable amount, which is still a guideline for meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we made an exception for the luncheons and the banquets so that the students could participate fully in the conference and so even if the amount that the GSA said was going to be $45 and there was a $50 banquet cost, we allowed for that and allowed the students to, because we wanted them to have the full experience of the conference. What did you want me to continue talking about? Well, if you would like to talk a little bit about what you attended, you can start. Here's your, here is one of your reports. What we ask of our scholarship students that do attend on a stipend is that they in one post submit something they learn that surprise them, something they learn that they can apply to work or coursework and someone they met and what they learned from them and their work or education. In other words, networking. So I think Libby, this first post that you did, you posted of all the different sessions that you attended and if you want to refer to it, that's fine, I'm just going to leave it up for everybody to read. Okay, I talked about a couple of sessions there and I have some more in my notes here so I might expound upon that. But I mean, I went back to the future which talked about different ways to increase circulation as I mentioned in my forum post. Let's see, on my notes here I have, we talked about the basics of who we are, what we do as libraries and who we serve, different ways that we can organize the library to meet patrons needs better and how the libraries there were looking at statistics to figure out what people check out most and what they can continue doing so that patrons continue to come to the library. I really enjoyed innovation on the shoestring and I mentioned Zoho Chat in my forum post which I thought was kind of cool and our library is working on changing its website and so I thought that would be a good thing, a good pointer to tell my director and let him know that that's something that maybe our library can do to assist patrons who don't necessarily want to come into the library to ask a question, they can just type their question at their computer at home or wherever they are and it'll come to us at the library and we can answer that so that's kind of cool. Catherine had me meet up with this man named Andrew Sherman because at one time I was thinking of my secondary field at school being computer science or something along those lines and he kind of talked with me about WordPress because I've been interested in websites and I don't know that much yet but I'm definitely learning and so that's something that I might be doing on the side and thinking about just having that knowledge and learning that on my own is kind of a good challenge for me I think. I don't think I talked about it in my forum post but I really enjoyed the customer service session that I went to and it was kind of fun to talk to all the other librarians about problems that we've had in the library and how we've dealt with them and how they would deal with them and we talked about how everyone has a right to stay safe in the library and we don't have problem patrons, we have patrons that need help so everyone has some kind of question that they need help answering and so that's what we are there for as librarians to help them with their questions and their problems that we can help solve so that was kind of cool. I went to a library signage session and we are working on renovating our library sometime in the future and there's plans that have been going on but it hasn't been completely in place yet but we're working on it and so I think library signage was a good thing to talk about as we try to change our library and make it more accessible for the patrons and easier to navigate for them so that they don't always have to ask us where the restroom is, of course, if they do, we'll answer but things that they can figure out on their own and want to come back without having to to always be with us, they can do it on their own too. So yeah, it was really nice to go to all those sessions, it was pretty easy to find when I got to the conference, they handed out a packet with all the information that we needed for the conference and we have all our tickets in one bag and it was really nice and organized. We had a map to go to all our different rooms for our sessions so we knew exactly where we were going and the commission had a booth and at the vendor section so we met up there a couple of times, all of us scholarship students met up there at the booth and were able to talk to other students who haven't been part of the scholarship but are interested in it and throughout the whole conference, Catherine kept posting on the Facebook page letting people know what was going on and we all kind of tried to chime in and tell people what we were experiencing and I like that Sheldon Cooper down there, that was kind of fun. Very popular at the conference, yes. Yeah, he was. So it was kind of fun to walk around the vendor's booth too and see all the things that they had to offer and to meet lots of different people. Not only did I get to see some of the scholarship students that I've already been acquainted with like Monica, we've kind of become a little bit closer now because of the scholarship and because of school so it's nice to be able to talk to her into a couple other students who are taking similar classes and to get pointers on what classes to take and what things they've done with their scholarship so that I can kind of get ideas and do things like that or come up with ideas on my own and I actually roomed with Monica so I was with Monica and a couple people from my library that I work at and so we kind of went to a couple sessions together and then other ones, we went to different ones and talked about what we learned so it's a good experience. That's a great summary, that was it in a nutshell. Basically I think you touched on so many different aspects. One question I have for you is how did you choose the sessions that you attended? Whoa, I can hear feedback, that's kind of weird. They had a list of all the sessions that were going to happen on the website ahead of time so I think it was even a month before the conference. They had everything listed out with descriptions and times and the rooms they were going to be in and at first I kind of asked a couple of my coworkers at the library in York what they were planning on doing just to see their plans but I chose a couple that were with them that I thought we could all go to to apply to our library like the signage one was kind of good for us but all in all I just kind of chose ones that fit the public library aspect because there were lots of different sessions for different types of librarians and I wanted to kind of focus more on the public library because that's where I'm at and that's where I want to continue being after I graduate too so yeah, I chose it based on that. Okay, so based on what some of your interests are, your career interests and then it also looks like in terms of you were taking a class at UNO and so you followed one, you went to one session that had something to do with WordPress and creating pages. One question that we do with our grant is especially with our scholarship students who are working in the library is to find out if you learned something, have you applied it at your library and has it had an effect on any of your library users? So you talked a little bit here about working with computer classes with seniors. I'm not trying to put you on the spot but has there been a chance to implement that or even the Zoho chat, has any of that been, maybe have you had a chance to put some of these things to use and what have you heard back from the page and what have you heard back from the patrons? Well, I haven't exactly put them to use yet. As I said, we're kind of in the process of renovating things and both our website and our physical library. And I have talked with the director about possibly doing classes for seniors. So maybe that's something that we can do in the future and I don't know, he's kind of the tech person of the library so I don't know if that's something that he wanted to do and if I could help or maybe do it myself. We haven't got there yet but I did mention the Zoho chat to our assistant director and she thought it was a good idea so maybe when we get our new website up and running in the next couple months that's something that we can add and we can all just kind of be a part of as we're sitting at the desk and doing other things that we'd also be available on an online presence which would be really cool. How about the problem patrons who have become patrons who need help? Based off of the change in your attitude, have you seen a change in your interaction with patrons who used to be called problem patrons but now are called patrons with help? Yes, I really liked that session because of that statement exactly that they're not problem patrons but they're patrons that need help because it really changed my attitude about how I deal with people because sometimes it's very frustrating when someone wants something and they don't know how exactly to express their needs so not only making sure that you understand what they're saying but just being, we like to call it killing them with kindness, the kinder you are to them maybe the more they'll realize that their frustration level goes down a little bit and so in the opposite is true I mean if you're more frustrated and show that frustration to them then the situation's not gonna be very good so it's been good to keep that mindset and to realize that they're there for help and they have questions and we're there to help them no matter whether they're angry at us or were their best friend either way, were there to help and so we talked about phrases we can use like tell me more and let me see if I understand you correctly just to make sure that we're on the same page and we can help them the way they need to be helped so. And even if you weren't able to help them get the answer that they were looking for are they walking away at least less frustrated and a little more satisfied? Yes, and they're coming into our library again which is a good thing. Okay, that's a great indicator. That's, I wasn't looking for the perfect answer from you but that's the kind of story that we're hoping to be able to show that what you're learning at conference, you put to use and that the end user which is your library user or patron gets something out of that. So super, thank you Libby. Does anyone have any questions for Libby at this time? You can go ahead and type into the questions section of your go-to webinar interface if you want to or if you have your own microphone just let me know there and I can unmute you and you can talk on the show just like we are. And if no questions for Libby at this time she'll be hanging around and so when we do some wrap up later on she will be available for questions. Whenever you think of anything just type it in and we'll grab it. So thank you so much Libby and we're going to now speak with Monica Tiedemann who's going to introduce herself. Talk about her current position, her educational track and if she wants to talk about the stipend application process and the reimbursement that's fine. I think Libby did a really great job of providing a background story on that but Monica if you have something you'd like to add that'd be great. If you would like to talk about the sessions you're attended and how you chose them, networking and any specific sessions that you would like to discuss. I will pull up your additions to the forum here for you to reference. You have a couple of them here. So just let me know if I need to scroll down or anything. Hi, Monica. Hi. My name is Monica Tiedemann. I work at the Stromsburg Public Library here in Stromsburg, Nebraska. I was just hired October 1st officially to work there. So the conference was already kind of in the works and I already had it scheduled and things before I was actually working at a library. What else? I graduated from CCC with my associates in 2011 and then went on to UNO as was my plan from the beginning to study library science. I'm looking at public library continuing on in that forum, that type of job. And I will hopefully, everything's on track because I think it is. I will be graduating in December of this year with my Bachelor of General Studies. It will have a library concentration with a public administration minor and actually a religious studies minor. So that is where I'm on track with my education. This semester I am taking a fundraising for non-profits class to fulfill my public administration minor. And then I am taking special libraries with Dr. Pascoe, which is really fun. I'll be able to see a lot of different libraries here in the state. So as far as the scholarship goes, I actually just kind of stumbled on finding the scholarship. I liked, before I got my job, I was constantly checking the now hiring at your library with the Nebraska Library Commission page. Just to see what library jobs were available, I was also looking a lot at what education was required. Could I get a job with my associates? Was I gonna need a bachelor's, that type of thing? It just, I checked the now hiring quite often just to kind of keep track of what the job market looked like. And it was while I was on that page that I saw the scholarships. And I think this was probably like the summertime maybe before I started with UNO. And so I looked over the scholarship. I debated, do I need it? Do I not need to do this? Decided to go ahead and pursue it. Extra money when you're going to college will not hurt in any way, shape, or form. And so I did that and received the scholarship. It's been a great help. It has really made a difference in being able to continue my education at UNO. The difference in prices, between going to Central Community College and then transferring to a university that's a huge price difference. So the scholarship really helped just take that financial burden off of going to college and being able to pursue my degree. Part of the stipend process with the scholarship that I did was I went ahead and received a laptop right away applied for a stipend for a laptop. We have, our laptop is probably from 2007 that we have at home that was for use. I have three teenagers. We have already had to take our home computer in once to kinda get it repaired because of something someone downloaded or put on the computer. And that always made me nervous. With doing schoolwork, I wanted to be able to make sure that when I used the computer it was working properly. I've had problems with internet going down during a test and running to like a neighbor's house and trying to finish a test and things. So having a reliable computer was a big thing for me. And so being able to apply for the stipend and then receiving, you know, they okay to go ahead and get the laptop and be able to have that paid for by the library, by the scholarship was wonderful. And so that's one thing I've taken advantage of. I have also used the membership stipend that is part of the scholarship. I belong to the Nebraska Library Association and then part of that is the scholarship also pays for some of the sections and the roundtables. I didn't look this up because it gets kind of confusing but to my remembrance, I am part of the public library and trustees section, the new member roundtable and the young adult roundtable. And those were things I just picked because of my interests. I knew my interest was in public library. I love young adult lit. I love working with kind of that middle teen, older teen years. And so those were the reasonings behind picking those sections and roundtables. Looking towards the conference then, I picked to this conference, you know, mainly because it was local. Like I said, I have three teenagers. I married, you know, there's a lot of things going on with work and things in my personal life that I needed kind of ease of access. I've only flown once in my life so I thought going anywhere too far would require more stress and more thought process than I wanted to deal with at this point. So having this conference available in Omaha was just handy. It was nice and easy. And I liked that it covered a broad range, having the Mountain Plains Association in there and having the school association in there just provided more sections and sessions and things to attend that were interesting. And so that was good too. Yeah, Libby did a great job as far as how we applied, what we went through as far as getting to the conference. Like she said, we did room together. We split a room with four people. So that made a difference on how much we were requesting as far as lodging. One thing I did learn once we got to the conference is that especially if you're doing the lunches and the banquets, meals are not an issue. The first morning Libby and I ran out and got a quick coffee and breakfast type, easy quick thing, just a local fast food. But what we learned was, if you wait an hour, they're serving bagels, they're serving juice, they're serving coffee, they're serving things pretty constantly in that exhibitor's hall. And so meals aren't really an issue. There's a lot of those opportunities where you can eat just right there at the conference, especially if you participate in the lunches and banquets. And having the commission with the scholarship making those meals available to us, that was great. I was very grateful for that. It cut down I think on a lot of running around you would have to do otherwise if you didn't do those lunches. So I recommend it. It's very interesting the things that were a part of the business meetings at the lunches that maybe I wouldn't have known about otherwise. So I thought that was all interesting and very valuable as my experience as a student and being a part of a public library now. Do I wanna continue membership in these sections in these associations I'm in? Do I need to switch? That type of thing was very enlightening. So looking at the sessions I went to, one thing was my librarian that I worked for and I did sit down and go through the schedule ahead of time and looked at each session and said, okay, I'll go to this one because this interests me and then she would choose another one or sometimes we would both wanna go to the same one and we're like, that's okay. We don't have to go to different ones even though we wanted to cover as much information as we could in during the conference time. So we had kind of picked out sessions that we were gonna do ahead of time. I picked out mine on what I felt like my weaknesses were and also what I had felt was already covered in previous classes that I had taken. Looking through the sessions book again, there's a web apps for library staff and patrons. Well, I had kind of went through the teaching and learning, I mean, I had went through the teaching and learning in a digital environment class and felt like we'd covered a lot of apps and things in that class. So I wasn't sure if I'd learn anything new. Customer service, we cover that pretty heavily in some of the first few classes that you take. Like if you start at CCC, we really go over customer service, leadership, those type of things. Emergencies in your library, I know we talked about emergency plans, things like that in one of my just recent classes. So some of the things I felt like I'd really covered well in my classes and that maybe I didn't need them now but it's nice to know that those things are offered so that later when I feel like I need a refresher I can get that. Even now, some of my classes that I took, it was two years ago or more for cataloging or something like that. And now that I'm finally in a library and using that information, I have to go back and I have to look at my notes and go back and look at those books. So we all need a refresher on things that maybe we don't use all the time. And so it's nice to know those will be available maybe at future conferences. So I chose things that I felt were in the public library that interested me, definitely books. I feel a weakness of mine right now is children's books. I don't have little kids. I'm not using children's books, pictures books, those type of things. So I did attend the dig into reading where it talks about books that would be essential for the summer reading program because at this point we're still not sure how the summer reading program's gonna go at our library this year, I may end up doing it. So I kind of wanted to know a little background into the summer reading program. And of course, Sally, as always, had some great suggestions. She kind of took us outside of the box as far as the summer reading program being dig into reading. She would show how we could use gardening books. She showed how we could use construction books. For the older middle teens, how we could use books that involved tunnels or books that involved just underground type activities and things like that so that you could stretch this and dig into reading in a lot of ways. So I thought that was one good session. And then I also attended another one by Sally which was the best new children's books of 2012. And that was great just because I could write, she hands out these handouts with the titles and you could just write all over them, lesson for honesty. This was a book that had a lot of repetition. This was very cute. It had a lesson on sharing. So that's something that I can then share with my director and when we're looking at buying children's books and things, we just were going through some boxes of books and deciding what we wanted to buy. And there was a couple in there that I recognized from conferences. It's like, oh yeah, we need to get this one. This one was really good. And so it just helps those decision processes and it also familiarized me with what I need to be looking for in children's books. What kind of things excite children and those items. So then the other one I went to that was mainly about books was the 2012 Notables book list that Pat Leach talks about. And I had heard Pat at our tech radio conference this summer and loved what she had to say about public speaking. I knew she was a dynamic speaker and so I really wanted to see what this notable books list was about also. And she reads these books or tries to read as many of these books as she can. And then she kind of tells us why we need to read them, what we need to do about them or what, you know. And so it was good to recognize some titles that we already had in our library. And I hadn't read them but now I can speak intelligently with patrons about those titles. One of the ones that is brought up over and over again and my mind is blanking right now. The Laura Hillenbrand book, Unbroken. Many patrons bring that up. It was brought up in my Sunday school class last week. Somebody was talking about the book. And so even though I haven't read the book I feel like I can at least talk with them and have an idea of what that book is about and make recommendations off of what I've learned from Pat to patrons as I learn their likes and things. Real quickly, the last two that I talked about in the forum and the two that were just amazing sessions to me was the seed library, which I saw that you guys are gonna do something about seed libraries in February. So I was very excited to see that. I went to this session and this is my funny story of conference. I went to this session thinking seed libraries were like a big city library who started new branches in other small towns. Or I went thinking that, I just thought, that's what I was thinking of. I was thinking of a big library, starting small libraries in other areas, suburbs, whatever. And what it actually is, is it's really a library that you deal with seeds. And so I was just fascinated by this whole concept. And so it was just really interesting how they talked about how they started, what they learned, what problems they had in beginning the seed library, where they got the seeds to get started. They were trying to focus on more organic and things. So it was just very interesting. And I did think some day down the road, this may work at our library because we do have people in our town who are very interested in organic foods, very interested in growing their own foods. And then also at one point, we had some people who were trying to do heirloom gardening using the heirloom seeds, which is a big focus of the seed library. And so I could see that working. It's a lot of work and we only have two librarians. So it might have to be a volunteer type thing at our library, but it's an interesting concept. And then the other one that I went to that I could see working with our library is the story walk that the Hastings Public Library does. This was just, I could see it working in our town. Let me give a little background on a story walk because I had no idea what this was either. But basically you take a book and you take it apart, which Amy said made her feel like a horrible librarian to be cutting up these books. But you post them on poster boards, on wood, there's a variety of things you have to look at where you post them, but you post them in page by page down a biking trail around a lake, in a park, anything like that where it involves family fitness along with literacy and reading. And I thought this was great for our town because we do have a hiking and biking trail that covers from one end of town to the other. Thanks for that picture, Catherine, that's great. And then the other aspect with our town is that we have a really nice town square, a small town, and we do a big Swedish festival every June. And one of the ways that Amy said you could start small with the story walk program is to just do it in your business windows. Then you're not worrying about the weather and those types of things that you are adding that come into play when you do the story walk. You can just put book pictures in the windows of your businesses around town. So I thought that would work great as Swedish festival. We could do that or we could even put them around our square and just do a shorter book that way. So, yeah, and they've got great information, great pictures. They did on a massive scale. I mean, I think they did, like, was that six or seven parks all at once? And I mean, when they did this, they went big. So I would start much smaller. So that's kind of the reporting process. You saw what I did on the forum. That's easy, peasy. You know, not a big deal to report on our sessions. Were you active on the, I created an event for people to start to meet up in advance to figure out where they might, what they might attend. Here you are. Here I am. Yeah, Julia Cook was great. I found out we had some of her books, you know, in our library. So that was good. And yeah, see, I was like, look, a seed library is not an offshoot of the current library. So this was a way for students, first of all, to RSVP just so they could start to see who else was going. And then I posed some questions and polls saying, are you going to attend certain sessions? And so people could answer. And then that way they could see who else was going. But then somebody like Monica came in and posted live updates during the conference, which was great, because then other people had a chance to comment on it. Yeah, this Kristin, who commented, she's just a friend of mine from, you know, childhood that lives in another area out west. And, you know, she's very interested in gardening and all that. And obviously has a great sense of humor, too. So let's see if there was anything else that you commented on. Let's see. I commented on some of your polls. You know, I did the business cards and so shared where I got my business cards from, where I ordered them. I think that was one of the first questions, wasn't it? I think so. Right. That was a popular one, because then everybody talked about where you could get business cards and how you can get them pretty cheap or how you can make your own. And yours looked good. I got to see yours and I got to see Dana's. So, right? Yep. So that was pretty neat. So that was a chance for some interactivity prior to, during and after the, because Facebook's kind of funny that way. They, how they allow for people to interact around the one topic. So creating an event is actually one good way to do that. Yeah. The other that we have had to do with a workaround since this is a page and not a group is the forum. And so I'm just going to show that real quickly here. I, anybody can post the topic, but typically it's, I'm the one to post the topic. And then I usually do the description here at the top. And as soon as it's created, it should show up in any of the, it should show up in the feed of anybody who likes our page. And then once they've participated, they follow the link. And then they can just create a new, they can create, I guess what it says is a comments or something. Let me see here at the end. And then other people can like each other's comments. And I think that once you do that, if somebody likes your comment, I just wonder if you receive a, a notification that somebody likes your comment. I'm not sure. Yeah, you do. Okay. That's great. And then it also sometimes people, I think sometimes we'll comment like below or in the forum or whatever. And it will notify you of that. And so you can kind of get some conversations going about a topic sometimes too. Right. Right. So this one was a two pager actually. And if you don't see the, the two at the bottom, unfortunately these last few people, they're not going to, some people may not have a chance to go in and take a peek at those. But so there they are. And so there's the forum. And then the event was pretty popular too in terms of using Facebook. Let's see. So Monica, you mentioned one. Let me see. I'm trying to remember back. I didn't take a note. Did you take your laptop to conference then? No, I didn't. Well, and you know, it makes sense because a lot of the sessions you're sitting in rows. And so trying to type on your lap really isn't probably the easiest. The Wi-Fi there, I thought was okay. Or was it spotty? It was okay. It came and went. It varied throughout the days of the conference. And so that can be a frustration. Also, whether or not you have free Wi-Fi in your own room, that is something to consider when you're selecting it. When you're selecting a hotel, do they have free breakfast? Otherwise you learn to eat in the exhibit hall. But do they have free breakfast? Do they have free Wi-Fi? Let me see. I'm trying to think if there's anything else to consider when you're looking at a hotel. In terms of travel, just for anyone who's considering going to a conference, that this didn't apply to this one since it was in Omaha or Lavista. But in terms of looking at flights, kayak.com will compare all flights from almost all major airlines except for one of them that doesn't cover is Southwest Airlines. So for those individuals who are interested in attending Chicago's ALA conference coming up this summer, because you can fly out of Omaha and Southwest, you'd have to go separately to the Southwest site to find an estimate for how much the flight would cost for that. I'm just trying to think if there, does anyone have any questions for Monica or Libby? Let's check the question bank. Go ahead and type in your question or let me know if you want me to unmute you and you can ask that question that way. Nothing came in while Monica was talking. That's because she was so thorough. Monica was so thorough and Libby was so thorough. Now let's see. Libby met Sherm, Andrew Sherman. Monica, I'll put you on the hot seat. Is there any presenter that you saw or anybody that you met that really you kind of felt a connection with, an immediate connection with? I was trying to think of anyone knew that way and I couldn't, Sally, I'm familiar with her and things. Probably the most, the one note I had made here that I didn't talk about was how many librarians I already know. I'd kind of forgotten that until I got to conference and I kept seeing friends and people I'd met before. Part of that comes from the TechRodeo conference we did this summer. My best friend from high school, her sister is a librarian out west and she was there. There's three or four librarians here in town that work in other places and I would see them. I have a really big network of librarians and you kind of forget about that until you go to something like this where we're all gathered in one place and see that, so that was cool. Great, so a chance to network, a chance for reunions and perhaps if you need a speaker that you're impressed with you might be able to follow up. For example, if you are going to be the summer reading program coordinator you will be in touch again with Sally and so you kind of have a rapport with her already even if she was the speaker and you were in the audience. Right, because you already feel like you know them a little better that way. Right, excellent. And is there anything, again, I'll put you on the hot seat, anything that you took back to work that you were able to use maybe immediately where you noticed a difference in customer service or even talking with patrons about the possibility of something, what comes to mind? Probably the biggest thing is the book knowledge. As much as we'd like to we will never be able to read all the books that are in our library even though I like to try as hard as I can. So hearing other people talk about the books they've read or books they've looked through and being able to make those recommendations and having a little more knowledge about the books then I can share those recommendations and I have, you know, I've recommended children's books I've recommended adult books we have the Golden Sower Award winner The Compound and the author, you know, was at their conference and I listened to her speak and that just makes it a little more personal to you. So just being able to focus on the patrons who come in, we have a large base who primarily, you know, they're coming in to give books to read for entertainment. They're regular people who come in and want books and that's our focus in a lot of ways is the books in the library so having more knowledge without having to try to read them all was helpful. Super, super great. Well, I think that brings us full circle here and we do have some conferences that are upcoming let me see if I have I'll go ahead and mute Monica Sure. Thanks Monica, we're going to put you on mute now. No new questions came in so. Okay let me see if I can find upcoming Olly G where was I? Conferences that are coming up that students might be able to apply again Midwinter is coming right up so that's been we have one student going to Midwinter South by Southwest is down in Austin, Texas the library technology conference it's great it's close by it's just a little bit of a drive and it's starting to really gather some some moss it's really no no it's a rolling ball so no it's not gathering moss it's really starting to gather some momentum is what I'm trying to say for being a regional conference it's starting to become have some national coverage I think computers and libraries is in Washington DC in April and then the association of college and research libraries so maybe we have students who are not working in that college or research library but that's their focus in their master's program or they're in their undergraduate and they're considering going on for their masters and what they really want to focus on is college and research library so that would be an option for them to go and just really just jump in with both feet and get immersed and find out if that's really what they're interested in the special libraries association I hear a student who again I think it was Monica saying that she's taking the special libraries class this semester and so visiting all different kinds of libraries that aren't public libraries this semester that would be something if someone is interested that's in San Diego the international society for technology and education and even if you're not a school librarian going to be a school librarian there's still probably you could go to the website and see if there's quite a bit that would be of interest to you because I've got it a lot of it's going to be technology focused once again, ALA will be in Chicago at the end of June into early July Mountain Plains Library Association is in our backyard again they'll be up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and then one right here in our state is the association for rural and small libraries right here here in Omaha so hopefully like Monica who mentioned probably not being able to travel too far from home because of other obligations this is still considered a regional conference and so it is eligible for stipend now we're looking at LITA which is library and information technology association in November and the American Association for School Libraries is out in Connecticut and that will also be in November so that kind of takes care of some of the upcoming conferences and the last time we did this someone submitted to me one saying oh that's not on the list and I believe it was the one that's up in St. Paul I think that Krista Kock last time we did this that that one hadn't been listed yet so we missed it last year but we're plugging it this year and I suppose if there's other ones that you know about let Catherine know and she can see if they should be on the list absolutely if there's one that I haven't that's library related but if it's about technology and innovation or if it's talking about education for educators but that school librarians could get so much out of it so for example the South by Southwest EDU is the one that we're really plugging with that one more so than the South by Southwest one that one is a really good one that's high energy definitely one you have to take some red bull or five hour energy with you to keep up with them it sounds like it's jam packed great conference with a lot of very passionate people so for me and for on behalf of Monica and Libby I want to thank you so much for attending today's Encompass Live to learn about this amazing opportunity that our scholarship students have to attend conferences and thank you so much to Libby and to Monica for sharing your conference attendance experience and I think that they are very representative of a lot of the students who have attended our conferences so thank you so much ladies and I'll turn this back over to Krista sure great so thank you Catherine and Libby and Monica thanks for being on the show we have thanks from the audience Laura has from Santa's thank you also thank you so much Laura this is great to hear about the opportunities that you can have as a student to be able to attend these things that you possibly maybe think about and say no can't do that how can I have a possibly do that well you can you know take a look at what we were offering here so that will wrap it up for today we have your upcoming yeah I didn't know if you just type an Encompass Live there and it'll bring it up there we go so just so you know if you type an Encompass Live into Google we're the first result so that's alright that's cool so that wraps it up for today but I hope you'll join us next week when our topic is AnyWorks which is the website for the Nebraska Department of Labor and staff from there, Buffy Cranford will be here with us showing us how to use the website for doing job searching and submitting for unemployment insurance so if you do have people coming into your library asking about this this is something that has to be done online now of a full on training session about that next week for you with handouts and everything that you can use in your library to help these people that might be coming in for that so that will be our show for next week and we are also on Facebook Encompass Live has a page on Facebook as well so if you are a big Facebook user go ahead and like us on Encompass Live on Facebook and you will get notifications of what upcoming episodes there are when recordings are ready and available for you to watch I do reminders that you can jump in right on the fly for any sessions if you have not registered ahead of time for Encompass Live that's fine you can just pop in the day of not a problem there our show is open and free for anyone who wants to to watch and attend so share with anyone who might think has an interest in any of our topics and they can come and watch the show and I do want to plug the Nebraska Librarians Learning Together page if you can go back there it is oh we give Encompass Pops and they give us props and so it's the URL the extension after Facebook is just Nebraska Librarians we are 269 Librarians strong Librarians and students strong and we love to if you haven't joined us yet I try to post links of interest to students to Librarians hot topics hot issues and so it's a fun page and it's really gaining some camaraderie it is very active we'd love to have you on board I think that comes from you Katherine doing a lot of encouraging of discussion on there and posting things I try to post questions that might start a conversation alright well thank you very much thank you very much for attending and that will wrap it up for today and we hope we will see you next time and on future episodes thanks bye bye