There we go. All right. Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar show where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. You record the show as we are doing today and you can watch the recording later at your convenience. Here on our, I'm showing right now our Encompass Live website where you can see our upcoming shows and the link to our archives is right here underneath all of those. So you can always click on that and you'll get a list of all of our archives, the most recent ones at the top. So today's will be at the top there. There's a search feature here in our archives too so you can look for any topics you might be interested in. You can search all of them or just the most recent 12 months, that is because this is the full show archives of Encompass Live. I will not scroll all the way down, but it goes all the way back to when we premiered in January 2009. So that's a lot. So just pay attention to any of the broadcast dates of anything that you do watch. The shows will be still good and stand the test of time, but some things will become older outdated and services, resources, websites may have changed drastically. So just do pay attention to that. For here on Encompass Live we bring in, we do all sorts of things on here, book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products. We bring in guest speakers from across Nebraska and across the country, but we also have a library commission staff that sometimes do presentations. And that's what we have today. Today is my department, three out of the four of us are here today to talk about the library commission, the RASCA library commission grants for 2023 that are coming up with me is Sally Snyder. Good morning, Sally. Good morning. She's our children's and youth services coordinator. I think to get that right. Close enough. And Holly Duggan is our continuing education coordinator. Good morning, Holly. And yes, we are going to be talking about the grants that we have available this coming up for next year. So I'm going to pop over here to our library commission homepage and show you how you can access where all of these grants are. And then we're going to get into talking about each of them and how they're done, what's different from previous years. What's the same. So, and I'll see that Nebraska.gov is library commission's website. And on our menu here down the right, left, left, sorry, we have this fly out menu for grants, funding and E rate. Also two things about money. And the NLC related grants where it says about NLC grants that that's the page specifically about the grants that we offer here through the Nebraska library commission. Here there's also resources and links to all sorts of other grants that we have done over the year that we're still doing that we're wrapping up. This is one page that is about all all four of our grants and then there is specifics links here if you want to just go to, for example, our continuing education grants, internship grants, youth grants library improvement grants those are the four we're going to be talking about today. And then I will do a little explanation about how things are changing this year for our grants because it's related to things on here. For the last two years, we have had some lots of chunks of money given to us from Congress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first was the CARES Act grants in 2020. That was funding about $175,000 we were given to give out to libraries and we did special in addition to our regular grants we did these extras CARES Act grants. Extra funding for libraries to help deal with the beginning of the pandemic. And then in 2021, we're awarded 2.4 million, 2. something million, I can't remember what that meant from the American Rescue Plan Act funds. And what we did with that money last year was we use that to fund special grants that were just formula grants, which were grants that any library in the state can apply for just a chunk of money that was set aside for you. And we use that money for our library improvement grants and our youth grants for excellence. So last year there were different rules, special rules for both of those grants library improvement grants and the youth grants for excellence that we normally do here through the commission, because it was you were using this ARPA funding. The library was allowed to apply. There was no matching required. And there's a lot more money available. We, we put most of the money into all of this grants there's way the budgets were much higher. We do not have that funding that kind of funding this year anymore. We are back to our before the pandemic started budgets which is just our own state funds, and our regular LSTA federal funds for the library improvement grants. So the rules are going back to the previous ones, and we'll get into all those details and we talk about each of the grants. And there is, you know, we don't have 2. something million dollars of our own funding. So we will be need to be more selective as we make our decisions when we do award our grants this year. There is no, none of this extra money this time around. The CARES Act grants have completely wrapped up and are done and have been reported into the Institute of Museum and Library Services is where that funding came from. Our American Rescue Plan Act grants we are libraries are spending that money this year. We were given the money in 2021 and they were able to use it through this year, and we were wrapping up as some of our libraries still for all three of the grants that we were allotted that allotted that to. So some of you may still be working with us on some of the your last year's grants for youth grants for excellence library improvement and the formula grants that we added in. We do not have that formula grant anymore that one where it was just everybody gets a bit of money. That was just a special grant just for that last year. That was a one time thing. We did mention this last year and we did our training and our workshop about this. We did our NLC grants for 2022 session. We did explain that it was going to most likely be the last you know what the difference was that was most likely going to be only a one time thing last year, unless there was another big influx of money to us. And we were right there was there was not. So, we are back to how things used to go. So, if you do have any questions about any of the grants that we're doing the new ones for this year, or about your or CARES Act we can answer those we can answer all of that today. And you can type into the questions section of your go to webinar interface and I will monitoring that here. And one of us, depending on which grant it's about we will be able to try and answer any questions you have about any of our grants. So I'm going to go right to our library commission grants website. This is the main page we have where it talks about all four of the usual grants that we offer. We do not always offer all four of these grants I will say that we are doing it this year, but there have been years in the past where due to less budget lower budget, we have an unable to offer all of them. But so, they may come and go depending on how budgets are. But this year we do have all of them. We have continuing education and training grants that Holly will talk about intern grants, internship grants and library improvement grants that I'm in charge of so I will talk about. And our youth grants for excellence is Sally's grants and she will talk about those. You will notice here we have our when we made them available when they're due and when we hope to notify recipients and you'll notice that this year for, I think the first time, at least first time in my doing this, they're all the same dates. Previously we have staggered the grants and had them offered on different months and do on different times and there was always some confusion about which ones do when and oh I thought mine was still available. The last year when we did the ARPA grants we did everything in the same schedule and it seemed to work out just fine so we're doing trying that again this year so all four of our grants opened up on September 16. We did post a send out a notice on our mailing lists on our blog all our various social media announcing that they are available. The due dates is November 18. So November 18 is the deadline to submit your applications for all four of our library commission grants this year. Excuse me and our plan would be by December 16 everyone will be notified about if you're receiving, if your grant was approved. And then all of these grants used would be for because they're called the 2023 grants they will be for services and things you're going to be doing in 2023. I don't know if you have your funding. Anyway, we have the plan for what you're doing next year. I think that's a good over anything I missed about a kind of overview, Holly or Sally. All right. So that's the basics of what's happening this year. And what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to have, we're just going to go from top to bottom on the list here explaining by each of the grants and all their rules and different or what's the same. And so we'll start with you Holly with the continuing education and training grants. Okay. Let me just go through it or do you want me to share mine. Well, I could actually yeah I can give you presenter control if you want to do it yourself. Oh, you can just click on it. Yeah, that's fine. Yes. And you'll see here there's some changes coming right away with this one. Yeah. So, most of it will be the same if you want to go ahead and click on it. We are doing two rounds this year. Right there you can see where it's highlighted this first round will be for events or classes or trainings that will be completed before June 30 of 2023. And then we will open a second round of CE grants in March. And those grant applications will be for events and classes and trainings that will begin after July 1st. So we're hoping that the two rounds of grant applications will help us align better to like the financial years and make it a little easier for you as applying.  So hopefully that'll work a little better. We're going to try that this year.  And September of next year and with our fiscal year cutting off in that June 30th date. Yeah, it's a little bit, but this may make things easier for us and for some of you to be able to plan for those as well. You mean, can you plan now to attend something next fall. Yeah, yeah. So for ARSL, you know, when things are scheduled yet. So, yeah, yeah. So for this round again, it's going to be for any events or classes that are completed before June 30th. And then that way you can request your reimbursement before the next financial year starts. So this is just sort of the overview page if you want to click on the grant information. So this is where all the good stuff is. So again, on top is just the reminder of the dates. And for the CE grants, we, we divided into like 3 different categories kind of. So that 1st 1. Is for online learning opportunities. So this would be for any of the online classes or longer courses that you might take. From, you know, like library juice or ALA. And you can take classes from other institutions. In your application, of course, you would have to sort of let us know how this class would benefit you as a librarian in your work. Thing courses that you might take for college credit or university credit aren't eligible for this grant. Or courses that are sponsored by the commission. We're trying to expand the continuing education opportunities that you're that you do. And trying to encourage all these just what we offer through here. There's so many resources and opportunities out there. Yeah. Definitely. And things that you might not be able to do otherwise. And for all the, for all sections of this grant. And really all these grants, I guess the due date again is November 18th that everything needs to be submitted. The applicants need to be employed or a board member of an accredited Nebraska public library. At the time of application and for the duration of the grant. For any of the C grants, you'll have your, your application that will go over at the bottom. And then you'll have a indication of support form that you'll need signed by either your library director. Or the head of the library board or a city official, depending on who you report to and your position in the library. If you want to scroll down a little bit. So a lot of this is the same for conferences and workshops that you might want to attend are for out of state conferences and workshops. Eligible costs include the registration travel meals lodging pre conference sessions. It doesn't include any of the extra social networking events. Pre conference sessions will be eligible. Again, it needs to be sponsored by a library organization or association, unless you can demonstrate in your application how it would be applicable to your work in a library. Like we've had past C grants attend workshops for grant writing. So things like that. As long as you can sort of tell us why you want to take this specific training. And again with the due dates. And one thing about the classes and the conferences. We, once you get the grant we don't register you or do any of the travel planning. We don't make any of your arrangements for you. You will attend the class or the conference and then when you get back, you will submit the reimbursement form to us. And then we'll give you your grant money. Be responsible for getting yourself registered and signing up and doing all of that. Yeah. And then if you get a grant if your grants approved I will then you know in the email saying you get the grant. And then send you more information about the agreements that we need, and then the forms and you'll have to have a reimbursement or reimbursement form, and then what receipts you will need and how exactly the reimbursement will work. If you want to scroll down just a little bit. Actually, for this one someone just mentioned a Tammy who's the director of our three rivers library system reminded me and I knew that too, that this is for conferences. One conference of many of our libraries, especially being small libraries like like to attend is the Association for rural and small libraries conference, which was just last month in Tennessee, but next year it's going to be in Wichita, Kansas. Oh yeah. Now that's that again says it was there years ago. So, that is what three hour drive from here. It's not bad. So, if you were thinking of attending that this would be a. The conference workshop application for CE, but because our cell isn't until usually September, October in the fall, you'd wait for the second round of these grants. Yes, probably because they won't even announce until sometime in the spring of that registrations open what's going to cost all of those kind of things, the agenda and whatnot. So, it'll be September 20 to 23 of next year so. Okay, we're yeah they know. Yeah, so it's in September. Yeah, so look for the second round of this to open up and that would be the one to apply for to go to our cell. I know previously when it was there. It's been close to Nebraska we've had lots of people. Like, we've had 40 something applications one year I can't remember what it was when it was there. Yeah. So, we're prepared that we know that that's where it's going to be, but so keep that in mind yeah that just wait because it's after June 30 is when the actual conferences. But that's a great one to go to. Oh yes, the being so close. It's an awesome conference so. And it's for it's the association for rural and small libraries, but they've got things for anybody. Well, most of our libraries are small and rural anyways but great resources great presentations. And only a couple hours away. Yeah, absolutely. carpool or share hotel rooms. Yeah. Yeah, we expect lots of applications. Yes. So that's conferences and workshops is there any other questions for like those two those are more like the individual applications. About the conference or workshop, seeing training grants or the online learning grants. You can type into the question section your interface. Nope. I don't see anything yet. Nope. And the third section is for larger CE and training projects so these are more like the staff, larger training projects. These projects are similar to like the youth grants where you can partner with other organizations and libraries but the public library should be the primary administrator of the grant. These projects, again, will need to be completed before June 30. We have a couple examples of other training projects that people have done, like the bigger. It was like a day long in service day for bridges out of poverty or maybe bringing in a speaker for trustee training. The numbers volunteers, other supporters can be included in the training. These, this specific larger projects require the 25% match. Otherwise, same due dates and then we can go over the application a little bit. And again, after that, after your grant application, if it's approved, then I'll send out more details. And since you mentioned it here, we do have this link you may have seen it and lots of the other grant pages are grant recipients database. This is good for any of the grants. Holly mentioned it here. This is a where we have all of the grants that we've given out going back. I don't even know how far it is here. We have a database so if you're wondering about getting ideas or what could I possibly do a grant for you could look through here and, for example, look up a seat in training grants for, let's see, I don't know. 2022 be a good year to check. No, I don't think we had any big projects. No, they weren't there okay. But, let's see. We'll just do. Oh, we didn't do those in 2021. That was when you were skipped. Okay, I'll get here. I'll get here. There. Okay. For example, and it doesn't give in detail anything about the grants as you can see just as the amount, but just some ideas you can see just as usually like a one or two lines of what the grants were for. So if you're curious or wondering what you could potentially do any of the grants, a project on, you can look in our grant recipients database. And if you're new at your library or something and check and see if your live your library has had a previous grant in something. Yeah. Okay. If you want to scroll down to the applications. So numbers 1 and 2. These are the application and the support form that you'll fill out as an individual. If you're. Applying for an online course or a conference or workshop. That number 1 is the application. If you want to click on it. And it's pretty straightforward. We'll just need your information. Information about the conference or the course. The dates and then just sort of a short. Justification for why you want to attend this specific conference or course what you're hoping to get out of it. And then your estimated expenses. You might have to look at past years. If you're looking at conferences, especially for registration costs and things. Meals is going to be a little different since we switched to reimbursing on a per diem rate.  We'll, we'll get the actual numbers. And then estimate your, your other airfare and things. And then at the bottom, you should explain it. No, the per diem, it is the federal government sets these rates and it varies depending on what city you're going to. So we're saying guess at 60 and it may be different depending on where your actual event was. Yes, but the max rate is 60. So that's why we pick right number. No, you just can't go over that.  Yes, but then once we get your reimbursement forms, we'll figure out the actual numbers for where you attend. So then there is a couple, you can see like the blue links again for the support form, you'll need to submit this application, and then you will need to also submit this support form just saying that you have the support of your library, your director or your head of the library board or the city official, depending who you report to. And this is the one that you will have to print out and actually, you know, fill it in. It's not an online form, and then you'd scan and email it to Holly to me. Yep. And then, okay. So does anyone have questions about just applying for the individual part. Online conference or courses. No. Okay. So then if you go back to. Okay, so the number three and four are the applications and signature pages you'll need if you're applying for one of the larger staff training projects. Number three is the application. And this probably looks similar if you've ever applied for one of Sally's grants. You'll need to just go through what you're hoping what your goal is of this training project what you're doing. The timeline. What, what's the need so what, what have you identified in your library or libraries if you're partnering with other organizations that your staff needs training on or how will this benefit your library community. Maybe some background information how you. How you came to this certain topic. Maybe your community has a need and this, this training will help you address what that need is. So maybe something came up in your strategic planning or you're responding to some sort of community request. How will you evaluate this training. And then, let's see. He dates and then we have the proposed budget down below. Again, you're, you'll need that match. And if you have any questions while you're filling these out. Please let me know and we can certainly go over it. You don't have to wait until after it's submitted. I'm more than happy to help. Yeah, I think this budget part and the match part is something we get a lot of questions on for all of our grants with that like which one what can I do with how much and yeah. So that's about it about the, you know, the different costs breakdowns. And then here you just like the narrative of what those numbers are for. Yeah, yes, yep. Explain what an item is actually. Yep. And so you may have some blank boxes if you won't if you're not necessarily using, you know, maybe some promotion you probably might not have or some of these other boxes might be blank and that's fine. But that's just the whatever you're actually want your grant to be for yeah. Yeah, yeah, so not everything has to have this. And then I think, yeah, then you can submit that and then we also need a signature page to be signed and submitted to me. This is another one printed out fill it in scan and email it, or I guess you could mail it I suppose, but scanning and emailing is quicker. Oh, actually, sorry, never mind. Oh, applications are done electronically. Yes. This can get this this one anyway. Yeah. But if you could let me know if you do send it by mail if you could just email me and let me know to look for it. That would be great. Yeah, but email works too. So I think that's about it for the CE grants unless anybody has any questions. Anybody have any questions about the CE or training grants, attending courses, workshops, having a project. I have questions about if it's eligible, you can always let me know and I can look into it or if you're wondering about if you apply for it in this round or the next round. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I know, especially with some of the courses, there might be some overlap. But just let me know and we can look at the dates and figure out which one would be the best to apply. Yeah. Yeah, the CE grants this funding comes from our state budget. So if necessary, Holly can work on you on adjusting when the money will come and how it will work out. Yeah. All right. So do you have any questions then do reach out to Holly here's commission. See anything coming up. All right. Does this have a yes, back to the main commission grants page. All right, so next up we have our internship grants, which is, I'm in charge of those. The internship grants page. This is through our now hiring at your library website, which is has lots of information about things like jobs and careers. This is where we post our job notices if any job openings around their scholarships, education, all those things. But this is where our internship grants fall. The idea with internship grants is hopefully encouraging new people to become librarians to join us in the field by providing them with an internship at a library. So, these grants are for either $500 or $1,000. You'll pick on the application form how much you want. And this is for, as I said, having an extra staff person to work at your library. High school or college students are eligible for this. They cannot be someone who's worked at the at a library before has to be someone who's never worked at a library volunteers are okay. If they've been a volunteer before. If they have been a previous intern and intern previously at your library. That's okay to have them do it again. That was one change I did make to this program previously it did say that you could not have previously also been an intern, but we have had some multiple libraries who have had a really good success with a previous intern and the person to continue again make the next another year, especially if they're like a high school student or college students still working through their undergrad. And they want to work again another summer at the library that that's perfectly fine. This is for accredited public libraries so you do have to be a public library in Nebraska who has the public library accreditation, and we have a link here that links to information about that. And the idea here is, you know, the ultimate idea is to convince you know say show them all everything that you can do in a library, and you know that then they will then roll over into them applying to library school or wanting to continue in that in their career, or just applying to work at a library. As many of you know you don't have to have gone to library school to work in a library that's not a requirement at all. You just get them as a recruitment tool for the profession. It's okay if they don't. That is not or that is not a requirement in the end that they decide they want to work at the library but just to give them an idea of what the kind of things that go on in the library. And also to help you have extra staff we know that libraries are do struggle with staffing and being able to pay salaries and whatnot and we want to just help out with help you out with that cost. So I'm going to give them an overview of everything you do in the library necessarily. Some of my libraries do they, you know, every week or so they jump to a different department or different area and different job just to learn a little bit about everything. That's one way to do an internship. You could have them specifically assigned to a project like they're going to help us with the summer reading program, or they're going to help with promotion of our maker space for equipment or they're going to help us update our library website. You know, they can be specific projects that they do as well. As I said, it is $500 or $1000 depending on how many hours how much you think you might have someone to work. If you do have multiple branches which here in Nebraska that's only Omaha and Lincoln, they can apply per branch of the library so Lincoln or Omaha if you wanted to do a separate application for each of your locations. There's no match required for this grant. You don't have to come up with any funds you just you get the $500 or you get the $1000 and you don't have to come up with anything on your side. They are it is restricted though that this is only for staff is paying the intern or covering any tax withholding or taxes. So you can do a stipend, or you can pay them as an employee with wages up to you which way you want to do it. That would be something to discuss with your whoever at your city deals with employees and hiring people is just paying them a stipend. If you pay them a stipend, then the intern is required to keep track of everything and deal with their taxes later. If you do them as an as a, like a temporary employee and pay them wages, then you would deal with them as if just like any other employee you have at the library and do withholding for their taxes for them. You can have one or two interns you can have multiple interns if you want to. If you can have one intern. So for example the $1000 you can split it up 500 each for two different people if you wanted to have multiple people doing different things and break it up that way. You can have it just be $1000 for one person. That's up to you as well. We have some real resources here about doing internships tips and tricks for internship success we edited presentation a few years ago that's still good it's just a good overview of internships in general. These employer guidebook to developing a successful internship program is from our department of economic development is really good about internships in general so if you wanted to look at that. That's a good resource as well. As I said eligibility is accredited public libraries, you could partner with some other organization within many libraries that do something with their local school or historical society or something. And that is that they would be part of, you know, getting benefiting from the work done by this intern as well. You can as I said so we did mention. I didn't talk earlier about who's who's eligible but here I'll also mention about younger interns. High school students are allowed and going down to 14 years of age. There are laws in Nebraska about if they are 14 or 15 years of age be what needs to be done when they can work. There's a special form that you'd have to submit to submit to the Department of Labor letting him know that you are hiring someone who is that under the age of 16. So do keep that in mind for whoever does apply or whoever you're thinking of being your intern. As far as getting an intern this is something that sometimes I get a lot of questions about to you can have someone in mind already. You can post out to you or you know you've got someone in the community or who comes to your library a lot and wants to work at the library, and you can say great I'll apply for an internship and you'll get it. That's perfectly fine or you can do like an announcement saying we've got this grant and now we're hiring for someone and you can accept applications and then pick someone from who applies. Either way, it doesn't matter you can have someone already in mind, or you can open up an application process after you get the grant and find someone. There's rules here about what the intern and the library and the commission will be required for and I've got a whole document that'll send you after you if you are approved for this grant there's a long document I send you with all the resources, all the links all the forms you need to submit after you receive the grant. This is just the internship application form basic info. As I said, you can do 500 or 1000 one or two interns, and then you'll just have to explain what you're going to do what your plans are. You can have very detailed plans you may have just a general idea depending on who you get. That's okay just explain it all in here. This grant is fully online there's no extra signature page to sign and then mail in you would you just sign it electronically here by entering the information and submitting it so it's just this one page submit it and you're done with applying for the internship grant. Any questions about internship grants. I'm going to get into the library improvement grants here. We're running a little later than I wanted to we did start a little late as well, but we will go as long as it takes to get through everything we're going to talk about today with all of our grants. So the next grant up is our library improvement grants. This is the one grant that comes from federal funds. So the rules here are a little different than the other three the other three grants are all being funded with our state budget funds. Library improvement grants, as I mentioned before we did last year have our grants that we're still wrapping those up so when you click on this one and when you click on youth grants you'll see that too. You can have two different links. If you're still working on finishing up your 2022 ARPA library improvement grant your previous one, you'll click there for more info. If you're interested in applying for the next year's one you would click the one for 2023. So library improvement grants are related to as I said federal funding and related to our library commissions live library tech services and technology act five year plan. Basically, this is more for programs or equipment, bigger projects. People apply for things like Newmaker space equipment, newspaper digitization project. New furniture desks, you know things like that.  And they're not specific to being for youth or for teens or for adults, whatever they can be for anyone is using the library. This is eligible accredited Nebraska public libraries and institutional libraries state institution libraries and this is also I noticed Holly had this on her CE ones and it's also on the youth ones that you'll see in just a second here. We have a list there that we do have state run institutions that are eligible for our grants as well. The three of the grants all except for the internship. So any of these organizations can apply for this as well. We have our deadline information. Excuse me about the Fed the LCA grants. There is a deadline to when you may have, must have spent the money by next year. So when you're thinking about your program or your project whatever you're doing keep that in mind. You have just have spent everything by September 30 of 2023. So that would be your deadline for doing whatever it is you're going to be doing with this money. There are some ineligible things this is because this is federal funds, food and beverages sales tax is right as usual is never an eligible cost construction remodeling costs we do have some specific notes on that. Generally construction and installation are not allowable expenses you can't do major renovation of your library. You can have new carpeting installed or things like that or have a new ADA accessible door installed, those kind of things, but smaller things which I am less called construction light are eligible. This is if your library staff or potentially like the city staff if they're the ones that do the work on your building can do this work with themselves, then it would be allowable so drill and screwdriver. And security cameras and you just got to screw them into the awning or something yes. But if you have to hire someone professional someone from the construction trades, an electrician to run wiring to make that camera work. If you're getting a new water fountain you have to have plumber come in to rerun water lines, those kind of things that's going above and beyond what I am less would allow and that would not be eligible. If you had a previous water fountain, and you're just pulling it out and plugging in a new one like one of those touchless ones that does not require a plumber to come and do usually is just switch the water lines. That would then become allowable so you just got to think about where that line is crossed as far as construction is concerned. Because you can do computer hardware and anything like that, but you do need to be sip a compliant that's because this is federal funds it means having filters on your computers and I can talk to you more about that if you do get into doing that. So that is something to be to think about furniture I did mention that you can get new desks the tables chairs those kind of things. All of it has to be movable, not fixed and permanently like installed in the building so anything that is, you can rearrange if you wanted to. There is a final report that you will submit afterwards, and we will have that report available to you later. So, and you will submit all paid invoices so not orders. You can send us orders like when you're doing your application or if you want to say here's what we have ordered is that okay, but we need copies of the final paid invoice showing that you actually paid for the item. We have a quote, a order that isn't showing that it's been received and paid does not count it has to be paid showing that yes we actually paid this money out. This also does require a match 25% local match. Now this was different last year because of our funds we did not have to do the match because it was special funding. Now that 25% match is back. And I'm not going to go through all of this on here. This is just some of the details about it. I'm going to pop into the application form now you see there will be a completion report coming will have that available later. We're still working on getting you to apply. So the application itself basic info is is related to library services technology act monies so you will have to designate where it falls under. And as far as their purposes, you'll write up a description of what you're doing and you'll pick from these lists of what your intent is what kind of activity as you're doing. It's got all descriptions here, who's going to be benefit from whatever you're doing. If it is just a general population, you'll notice that will close up it's just for everybody. And then things will disappear. If you have a targeted group like we're doing something for seniors. It's going to be people 1669 70 then that would stay open. How you're going to be doing it. All these details just go through this and check off the boxes as appropriate. And then we have our budget I wanted to jump down to this, because it does have where you can put in the amount you need, and what your local match will be, and then the total of the project itself.  And then we just have here a box where explain in this box, what all these amounts are going to be for up here just but the amounts. And then down here say, I'll get we're buying computers of this kind for this much. And then we're going to have training on those computers for this much you'd explain that in the box here. The new is this unique entity identifier UI number. This is a new federal requirement that used to be done's number you if you remember correctly. You can get information about doing this on the from the federal government Sam dot gov is the website for that. It's free easy you just register and say hey we're going to be doing something with LST money and you can get that number. You may already have one of these from something you've done before you don't get a special number for each thing you do you just do that once for any time you're going to be getting any money that comes filtering from the federal government, but we've got a link right there. Excuse me, that shows you explains where you can go and request your number. And if you are requesting something that requires SIPA compliance this is where you'll certify that. So you're doing anything with purchasing computers that will you anything will use the internet, you have to be SIPA compliant. If you're not doing anything that requires that you just said you're not it doesn't matter. So this is a long list of assurances. This is all from LSTA the federal government they require that you just agree to all these rules and regulations for receiving their funding. And you can read this if you like to, we just need all this in here officially this all used to be separate documents we would make you sign. We've just dumped it all into the one application so you don't have to do multiple pieces of paper. So just like the internship one there is no extra piece of paper you don't send us anything more you just this is your electronic signature of officially submitting the application and note on this one. And on the other one it said library director or authorized representative, whoever is authorized to do this we know many times it's library director we've had sometimes where it was the library board president may have been the one in charge of these and we're doing this and that's the only time whoever you all designate as is allowed and supposed to be spending this can be the one that does that. And that's library improvement grant application any questions. We do have one here okay. So I'm going to read this. Okay. Can we apply for 2023 library improvement grant funding to support service to hotspots acquired using last year's ARPA grants. Does it require a sip of compliance on the hotspots oh hotspots and sip of compliance it's always been a sticky area. Okay, I'm going to say. Yes, you can apply for the funding to for hotspots, but if you're if you're using if you're providing internet service, then you would have to have the sip of compliance on there I do believe that's that's where that kind of crosses over with SIPA. Yeah, it is a sticky wicket yes and it's and because it's also something that people mentioned with erate to and that's a whole nother that's not even let's not mention that word again. But yeah so and this is if you want to continue something from previous year that's okay as well. We were we were happy to help you continue with a project or service or something you'd gotten previously with some other funding, or even funding from us so yeah you could do some applied to continue any other questions about entering the library improvement grants, any of the rules regulations information Sally. I have a quick question. Okay. Because you'll, you'll find out in a minute but I'll tell you now the youth grants. You are not allowed to buy furniture or computers with the youth grant money. Now somebody wants to do something in their children's area and they want to buy some furniture. But because they didn't get a grant last year for that. Then, can they apply for a library improvement grant, knowing that the furniture is going in the children's area, because I don't allow it. Oh, that's a good question. Absolutely yes. Okay. Yep. Yeah, that's something to pay attention to what is eligible for youth as yeah if there's something that you want to do for your youth routines and with the restrictions Sally has to have she you can't do it that one. You can't go over here to library improvement and apply for library improvement instead. Yeah, it could.  No, this can be any age group. So absolutely that would be allowed. Thank you. Glad we clarified that. Yeah, the number of applications you get but we all know that not every application will manage to get funded and always hard. So you can see here we do have yeah under the beneficiaries it goes down I mean yeah here as well the age groups that it could possibly be for yep, it could be for anybody yep. Great. So you would definitely do targeted group and then pick whichever years it's going to cover and you can see you can do however many it will. Thank you. And also, while I'm on the subject. People are really still getting into maker spaces and I do allow items for maker spaces if it's not a computer, unless it's complicated. But if they want a big, big budget thing. I don't know what it would be, maybe a 3D printer or something. Maybe better off going to you or what do you think. Well, you know, I don't know. Honestly, we, I mean we aren't going to give out the number specifically because it's not important but we have about the same budget available for library improvement and for youth grants this year. Right. We have the same budget so go for you whichever one you want. I guess you were saying bigger items and I thought. Yeah, because people generally have gone to the library improvement grants for bigger items. We used to have much bigger budget for it we don't anymore. So we have to kind of pick and choose more. So I say just apply for whichever one you want to do it on the youth do on this one. Just do one. Sally and I do communicate. And if she sees something that she can't do, we may talk to each other and say, Hey, maybe we switch this grant over to coming out of library improvement instead, because of how funding is happening with youth. I mean, that's something we could do internally. True. Or if I see something that comes in in library improvement and it's all about youth and I'm noticing well I'm getting kind of low here let me talk to Sally and maybe we'll switch it over to hers. Maybe I only have two grant applications. Oh, I doubt that. Any other questions about library improvement grants or internship grants that I talked about earlier. All right. If you do think of anything go ahead and type it in. As I said we're running a little longer than our usual time of 11 o'clock but that's okay, we'll get through everything Sally needs to tell you about the youth grants. If you do need to leave because you only said set aside up until 11 central time for this that's okay. We're recording the show and you can always come back and watch the rest of it later at your convenience. So Sally, I'll hand over to you now talk about youth grants. Okay, would you click on that link there and we'll go to the page that looks a lot like your page as you've said. And so, again, I have some people who are finishing up their 2022 ARPA youth grants and working on the reports so that link is there for them. And the bigger link the 2023 he's grants that's the one we want to click on for this year's application so please click on that. And we'll go to I, we tried to cut down my extraordinarily lengthy explanation of everything in the world so that it's more accessible. So I'm hoping that that's what it looks like to you if you've looked here before. But we just wanted to give some general information about expectations and requirements and things. And again, the eligible entities are accredited Nebraska public libraries or particular institutional libraries that are on the list provided there. And again, we have the same timetable of applications are due on November 18. And then here's just some general information if you just wonder what in the world could I do with the youth grant. Here's some information about my biggest issue with grants that applications that come in is, I don't really know what it is you're trying to do, based on what you've written, because in your head you know so well what you want to do you just put some things down that make sense to you and then, when I read it I go, I'm not sure what this is about and I will call you and say, you know, if you clarify this and send in the form again. You can always take the latest the last sent in form closest to the due date, because I told people before. The one you have now was for these reasons, if you fix this and this it will be a better application and you have a better chance of getting funded. And you can reapply basically. So, you can also apply for two some completely different things that have been two applications and all pay attention to the fact that this is application one and this is application two. But if they're, if for the same project, the one that you sent in closest to November 18 is the one that all uses the application that we should consider. Is that too complicated or did I make that okay. I don't know.  Right. And we'll use them as your final version. Same thing can happen for library improvement do I should say that for any of them yeah you can always resubmit if you if we talked to you about it and say yeah we might need more. Yeah. You can also apply for multiple ones for library improvement to I've had libraries do that. They're two totally separate project separate things they want to do yes you can apply more than once for more than one thing, but yes they would be totally different projects. Yes. So if you want to improve your application, I can send you what I received electronically. I can email that back to you, because another important thing for you to know I'm jumping around a little bit here is. As you're filling out the application form. If you leave that happily then it all disappears and you have to start over. I think that's true with all of our, whether both of ours is that right. Yeah, for all of the online application forms of grants yeah they do not save as you go and you can't go back and continue you'd have to start. Yeah, you start fresh every time. Yeah, so I recommend to you write up your application in like a Word document or another word processing form that you can save and have it there and then copy and paste it into the form. Yeah, go ahead and look at the application form to see what you need to know to enter. Write that out both elsewhere because you may have to go back and forth may have to talk to other people and get more information about what, how can we answer this question how can we answer that question.  Perfect yes. And of course there are the rare occasions and this has happened before during grant submission time that something glitches happening with the internet or with our form and you trying to plop it in there and it's not doing it. So, don't worry, we'll work with you. If it's not working that day hopefully it's not November 18, 16, you can try again on the 17th, 18th will still work with you because we want to get your application. And one of the requirements I have in this what is required form is like the third dot it says each grant project must have at least one program, one event designed for the project attended by us and usually held in the library but it doesn't have to be, but it's something that brings the children or the teens or the families together for something related to your project. And I have that requirement because I think it's important to get people in the library and this is a good way to do that. Also, it's good to have services that people can access away from the library but for my grant projects I want them to have anything from an open house to an ongoing like we're going to have for fun days, we're going to call them it's going to be every Thursday from five now four to six, and we're going to do these. Here's what we're going to do on these days. I just made that up out of my head so don't have to have a fun day can be whatever you think works with your project. So that's on here and there's other things. So that's the key that's that's different also from last year's grants. We didn't have some of these requirements on like the formula grants from ARPA, because the money was just like do whatever you want. So last year was yes just buy a bunch of books that's okay. You know update, you know, you have to have something that went along with that purchase. This is something that's always been a rule with the youth grants is having this some sort of project or event involved. I can't just say I want to buy some new titles for the teens that's great. But then what are you doing along with buying those. Yeah, if you can have a program one or several programs that appeal the teens hopefully and get them working on something and and again you can have your program in the coffee shop down the street if that's where they're hanging out. Yeah, sure.  Yeah, and I see you also have here this and this is something that came up with came out we came up with I think we were doing some of our maker space type things. Open house to give people a chance to try out the new things you purchased. Yes. Yeah, lots of libraries have done like a maker space event from you know, we're opening our new maker space or come and check out the the new embroidery machines we've got whatever. It's a specific event that would be something that would count as well. So ahead, I'm requiring one. Yes, but have however many you want or, you know, once a month or whatever you think will work with your community, because I don't know as well as you do. It's going to flow in your community. So don't let me tell you that. And then the down just a little bit is there on the screen what kinds of projects will be eligible. Well I used to have a highlighted project and if you applied for that you got to step up in your application being funded, but I haven't chosen a particular thing it had been teen readers and then other time then later it was early reading support things like that. So right now on the application you'll see what is your category of project. And this is kind of what I'm talking about. But it doesn't have to be just the ones that are on this list you can just say it's for a project for teens and and the people at the care home down the street we're going to work together. So, you don't have to have us, you don't have to choose one of these and say well I don't know how to fit this in here but I have to pick something. It's just an idea generator really for what kind of project might you want to be doing encouraging reading or developing character or concentrating on boys and reading that was popular for a while. So these are on there. And I just want you to consider. As we go down. Now, kind of stuck in here is exemplary sample applications. And I just want you to click on that for a minute because if you're wondering, how's my application looking. It's one of these and I would recommend Plattsmouth public library from 2020. It's going to scare you. Don't let it scare you. But she did an amazing job of putting in details. One of the most important things I keep saying is, I need details, we're going to buy some stuff for teens. Great. What kind of stuff. What kind of teens are you that all teens, teens are 13 to 19 really, but, you know, are you talking about the middle school teens or the high school teens or, and the things will be different. So, you can take a look at this and she has a long list of items, specific items. And then on her timeline. She really has a lot of specifics you don't have to be this detailed. So don't let me scare you with this application. But I had to choose it as an exemplary because I've never seen anyone do such a great job on the I will mention here you'll notice that this is long form. That would change as well that actually got changed last year with our grants that we've kept it. They used to be two different applications along form and a short form and it was depending on how much money you were asking for. This year Sally said, let's just make it simpler is just one form for everybody, anything you're doing. It's all the same. No difference between you know, which one should I do should I do long side you sure whatever. So for some of these previous ones you may see some of that wording, and some of the questions might be look a little different not match up exactly with what we're doing now, but that's okay it's just that's how the application forms used to be. So if we go back to the general information page from this applications. There again, there's the matching funds information yes we're met doing the matching funds just like the library improvement grant. And I said a minimum amount that that would be the grant amount you can ask for at $250 and I've had that minimum for quite a while. I talked with Chris about do I need a minimum I used to think just for everybody's time the librarian is applying and the library commission staff who are considering the grant applications and the paperwork. I just thought 250 was pretty low. But I have had people say but I only have $160 project, then get another $160 project and put them together in the same application because you can have two completely different projects in the same application, especially if you need it to get up to that $250. If you feel better about applying with two separate applications for your $250 one for the little bitty kids and your $500 one for the teens. That's fine. Neither what we're not going to gripe about either way you do it. It doesn't matter. We're just not going to know oh we have two projects here I see why he did that. That's fine. And when we get the grant award. We do sometimes say, Well, we can't give you the $750 that you wanted, but we can give you 500 for your team project that you applied for, and sorry, we can't give you the other 250. Yeah, we will award partial grants that's something to be aware of to yeah we you may get a response back saying, we can't do it all but we'll give you half or we'll give you whatever yeah. Sometimes we'll say, we can't fund that that little bitty kids one at all because of XYZ. Other times we'll say well we can give you $500 you can split it between the two projects to what you think works best for your community. I don't know if I'm getting into too much detail now but these are things that we come up with because I don't, if both projects are equally applicable. I can tell you this project's great that one stinks. No, that's not the point. So you decide, do you want to use all 550 project and and tell the little kids I'll try again next year. But sometimes there's things that are ill eligible and look right here ill eligible costs, the purchase of furniture or food. We always have no food because this is state money and the state government says no food or beverages I shouldn't put that in there I guess. And we don't pay the salary or wages for permanent library staff. If you hire someone from the community to do this project who has is not on your regular library staff. That's different and we can talk about that and that would be a contracted services thing. But sometimes people hire art teachers from school to do an art project. That's contracted service. That's fine. Or bringing in someone to do a present a program. Right. The balloon guide to come in and do a balloon show, whatever. Yeah, that would be the. And right now the salary of your actual your own library staff. Right, exactly. And we we work stations are similar stations from other companies right now. Again, they were, they were available last year but they're not included this year, and other kinds of computer equipment. Not so much. And there might be a specific need for you to do a project with this equipment that you want to use, you're going to need a laptop to run the equipment. And we'll talk about that and that is a possibility, but it has to be, you know, a special circumstance like that. If you want computers for general like this, you're for your general people at new circulation disk computer, that would be a library improvement grant. Yes. Now we'll just go down to the application form. If you don't mind for a quick visit. And yes, this looks quite a bit like the one you saw before. But I wanted to see one of the first things number one selected category of grant project. I don't know how to change that maybe I should work on that for next year but I just want to know in general, what would you call this project. So it could be team reading team reads and gaming. I don't know if that's what you want to do. And just below that is a place where you can put in your goal or goals, you don't have to have 10 goals, you can have one. I'm just trying to narrow down in what is it you really want to accomplish where you're hoping will accomplish because we don't know until you have the project. So some kind of quantitative or qualitative form of what your goal is. And then we get to number three. Number three is really important to me, because this is where you tell me what it is you actually want to do. So you want to have an after school program once a week or once a month for kids, and you're going to have a different theme for each month of the year. I've had these applications before so that's why I'm coming up pulling these not out of my head but from other people. So tell me that and tell me some of the themes you're thinking that you don't have to have every detail down specifically. But I really want to get a good idea of you're going to have it once a week, all through the school year. Are you sure that's going to work. You tell me, yes, parents ask for this children ask for this. I want to have September is going to be. No, we're going to skip September because that's too confusing we're going to start with October and that'll be Halloween of course, or, you know, maker spaces, and then November will be something else. But it's just a little box there but it expands. It gets as big as you have information to put in there. We have a detailed line for completion of the project. This is just you know we're going to order all of our stuff we need for the whole year on, as soon as we hear that we have a grant. So, December 22nd I'm going to order everything. And then we're going to have these, these days of the programs. And the kind of buried down a little bit is the youth service need on which this project is based. That's basically asking you how to come up with this idea. You can say parents have been asking for this children or teens have been asking for this. The library down the road has been doing this and they're getting a great response I want to see if my kids will like it too so I'm trying it out. That's fine that the fine reason. You know how are you going to get just how's your staff going to work with this because we're expecting if you have a children's librarian that they're going to be involved, but the children's librarian the, the page or the shelving clerk are they going to help out. I know a lot of libraries have one librarian and it's going to be you, and maybe have a volunteer who's going to help to so say, a retired teacher so and so it's going to help with this. So yes, you have some, some staff and people ready to work means a value evaluation, etc. Then we'll scroll down to the budget page which is a little different from the library improvement grant because I'm just asking you to put numbers in these boxes. If they apply. And if you don't know whether to put it under. And or library materials. Well, you know, library materials are basically the things that people check out and bring back in general and equipment would be what we want to buy a button maker and sewing machine for kids to do embroidery on. Then they were going there. And down below that is where you say how much of this amount is going to be the local match. And at least 10% of the total amount has to be cash. And it can come from your library budget. We are taking some of our children's services budget and we're putting it into this project. It can be from the friends of the library, or a grant from a local organization. The Shriners want to give us $50 we're going to use that for this, however it works for you. And I do want to point out down below this those boxes. This is where you give me details. So you're going to buy a button maker. Okay, let's go down to equipment is the what what you will call it button maker that's the X amount of dollars. Give me a name. This is, I can't think of a button maker. So it's so button maker and it's $423 for the machine. And then we're going to need the library supplies will be the equipment that you need to make the buttons out of. So you would put that in there. This is my desperate way to find out what exactly do you want. And you can send me after the after you sent in your application. If you have a Internet page of this equipment, you can print off a copy of here's the something or other machine that I'm going to get. And, and here's the their costs for the button making things we need to make the buttons, and you can either email or mail them through the US mail to me, because that helps to support your application. Yeah, let me ask for additional details. If you don't give in this one in the library improvement one if you don't give enough explanation of like, you know, this particular piece of equipment this model number blah, blah, blah, blah. We may say, okay, can you show us where you're talking about send us a link to a page where this is or send us the quote for whatever. So when you're sending the application or send us the. So when you're sending the application, you can have a quote or you can have a. Here's the website where I found it and what it costs. Yeah. And when you're done and you submitted it, and you start thinking gosh, I wonder if that one was okay, or before you submit it, you can contact me, tell me you're what you're doing. I will look at your draft information and gives you guidance at that point before you actually submit the application. I can only do that. So much of the day, you know, with other things I do but I. So the sooner you get it to me the better chance you have I'll have a chance to look at it and give you some guidance on what to add or, or I'm not sure what this sentence means. And helpful if you expand that a little bit. Anyway, I know I've gone on way too long. And this one is also an online application here as well. Yes, you just. This is your electronic signature of it. Okay. Are there any questions about the youth grants for excellence. Does anybody have any questions about the youth grants can type into the questions section of your go to webinar interface. Okay, go ahead and type in your question there. I didn't mention that one of the things that has been emphasized before is we, we have the youth grant so that you can try something you've never tried before that you think it might work as somebody else has done it and had a good, good luck with it. Or some people in your community have asked, you know, I like this. And it's fine for you to just email me and say, Sally, I'm thinking of this as a project to ask a youth grant for am I on the right track. And I'll say, sure, or no, it just doesn't really qualify. You could send that to Christa or her library improvement grants. Yeah, you can go right direction right away. Please do double check with us. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we have a question here. She typed in multiple pieces but I think I got it here. Okay, she wants to know I would like to purchase materials to put in the catalog, but they will only be in library checkout. I assume you mean they'll only be able to check them out and use them in the library. As in they won't be able to take them out of the library. Yes, would that be okay. If they check out things that are only in library use for use inside the library. I first I would ask what kind of materials but I guess I'd need more information about what your point is behind that is it. Well, I think checking them out and just not being able to take them outside of the library is okay because sometimes many libraries do have things like for makerspace stuff where you can check out the button maker or whatever, but they don't let you take it from the building. True. Yes, that's definitely okay. Yeah, I was thinking about my. Usually I have a rule where I, I don't allow you to just ask to improve your library collection for whatever, you know, I need more picture books. I'd like to buy so many. No, because then every library in the state would want to grant for that and I wouldn't blame them event. But if you have a point in mind, you know, like a project and a program, then you can buy books that fit that category, and that's okay. Yeah, and she said yes, I do I do have that I will specify the application she was just concerned about, because you know, checking out the items is it okay that they don't let them take them out of the building. That she'll specify the project in the application cool. Perfect. Yeah, yes, that would be fun. I'm curious. Yeah. All right, everybody's welcome to email me or call me on the phone. If anything I've said here you think is tweak something you're going I'm not sure what she meant by that or I think my project might be in trouble. Call me and ask. That's fine or email me I'll, I'll clarify. Any other questions about the youth grants anybody has type into the question section there. I'm going to pop back to our main page here now. There we go. All right, I don't see and I can't see when you're typing so have to wait until you stick hit enter if you do have any questions. Anybody have any questions about any of the grants that we are offering for myself Holly or Sally, the CE grants internship library improvement and youth. If you can type into the question section we will answer all of your questions you might have here today that you want to ask of us no problem. If you think of a question later just go ahead and email us the appropriate person for each grant CE and training would be Holly internship and library improvement is me, and youth is Sally. And if you send to the wrong person that's okay we'll just forward it to who it's supposed to go to. I don't see any other questions coming in right now. I don't see any other desperate questions right now I think we will wrap it up for today then. So these are our grants they're all open now you have until November 18 to submit them. Last Holly or Sally any last words from you before I wrap things up for us. That's about it. I'll think of something in 10 minutes but that'll be too late. So yeah so please do get your applications in. We are really happy that we can offer all four of our grants again this year like I said they aren't always all available, but we are able to do that this year so get your applications in you got about another month to do it. Reach out to us if you have any questions about any of the grants which one you should be applying for, and we'll answer them. So this webinar is recorded is being recorded, and should be ready by the end of the day tomorrow at the latest. So I will everyone who attended today. Today's encompass live and register for a show will get an email. Use a question I have a question that just came in here. Oh, okay this is a good question. Holly. Oh, a good tip for if you're using quotes or estimates or, you know, giving us ahead of time here's what it's going to cost. Be aware that prices may change by the time you are awarded the grant and receive the funding. Like we're talking like you may not get the money till next year. So if something's on sale, or has a discount or something. Use regular price in your in your calculations because that sale and that price might no longer be what's happening down the road. So keep that in mind. And we do, we have had that happen where even libraries have done that and then the price just the price just changes and that's okay too we will work with you on if costs have gone up or down or something. When we finally get to be able to give you the funds. And that's for any of all four of these grants that could be that the case that you know you're applying now in November and you're going to receive the funding in January or February of next year. So that's really. Things could change. Yes. But try and think about what the highest price would be of it. So you can make sure you're not going to get miss out on any of the funding that you might want. That's a good tip. Yeah. We'll be available everyone who attended today and register today show get an email from me and this link up here will change to the link to the recording so if this one is saying register for today show. I will update that to say watch the recording if you want to learn more. It will also be added to our archive page as I had shown you all at the beginning of today's show. So that will wrap it up for today show please submit your applications apply for funding we want to give money away. We're waiting here for your applications. Yeah. So thank you very much. So that'll wrap it up for today show. Next week I hope you join us. It is the last Wednesday of the month which means it's pretty sweet tech day and Amanda. Sweet our technology innovation librarian will be here talking about WordPress chat box. You can find our automated chat box that you can have on your website to answer some of those regular questions you get so definitely sign up for that. And you can see I've got some of my November December and even into January date starting to get scheduled for those of you've been looking for Sally always does her regular children's and teen books and some reading program sessions we just got those all scheduled. So if you're looking for best new children's books of 2022 of the last year best new teen reads we've got those both booked here scheduled and her summer reading program 2023 titles. She'll be talking about for the all together now theme will be in December. So for any of all any of those upcoming shows. So thanks Holly and Sally for joining me today. And thank you everyone for attending and hope we will see your applications coming in soon and see you on a future episode of encompass live. Thanks.


you are all invited to come here and look at what she brought after her talk because then it's the coffee break and we all have time for this. Thank you. I'm very excited to be talking in front of textile specialists, so I'm going to hopefully get some really good feedback. Combing the data, assessing the utility of weaving combs in the textile production sequence during the British Iron Age. Research on textile production in the British Iron Age, which spans from 800 BC to 43 AD, has associated long-handled weaving combs with the textile tool assemblage. They are one of the few non-mendal decorated objects which survive and are often cited in discussions abstracted from the utilitarian functions. As a subject for research, interest in their description typology and function has varied. John Hedges and Tina largely built on the seminal work of antiquarian researchers. Sir William Stucley referred to the two objects he recovered in Thutford as combs, though it was not until the 1870s when a clear trend emerged which assessed functionality. Nolan Coffetry began pulling them long-handled combs which was further elaborated upon by two contemporaries Joseph Anderson and, the coolest name ever, Augustus Lane Fox Pitt Rivers. By the time Bullied and Gray had published the results of the Glastonbury Lake Village excavations, the weaving theory was consolidated. The association of long-handled combs with other known spinning and weaving tools confirmed their usage with a warp-weighted loom. Such associations were confirmed by authorities on textiles such as Henshaw and Crowfoot. Counterarguments forwarded by the textile specialist Henry Lane Roth were largely overlooked by Bullied and Gray. In the published Mere Lake Village excavations, Bullied and Gray glossed over Roth's criticisms and continued upholding the weaving association because few seemed to support this opposing interpretation. More recent studies have spotlighted combs within new archaeological paradigms. In a tongue-in-cheek statement, Potter and Hedges introduced a topic of long-handled combs as a subject which required little elaboration, working at Dainbury Lynn Selwood closely inspected the wear patterns visible on many of the combs, though she only ever seemed to consider weaving as a function of long-handled combs. Tina Tui examined the use square evidence further. The outer times were typically broken in many combs which meant that long-handled combs could not have been used on the warp-weighted loom because the visible wear patterns do not support that theory. Instead, she suggested that long-handled combs were used on band looms. Crucially, the dominant research trends over the last century have primarily focused on long-handled combs being weaving tools. The history of the study of long-handled combs as weaving tools has been very briefly summarized here. The most significant problem with the line of reasoning proposed by many of these scholars is the potentially falsular of the weaving association in the first instance. During the period between the 19th and 20th centuries, domestic textile production was still a visible craft and some antiquarian scholars may have likened long-handled combs to the tools with which they were familiar. Though some antiquarians looked towards ethnography for answers, most seemed to rely on ancient Greek and Roman textual sources. Thus, long-handled combs were made to fit the channeau-pertoire of textile production based on the preconceived notions of their functions as weftbooters. This association resonates today despite the existence of a few critics and niche readership. However, not everybody seemed in accordance with the weaving attribution. Michael Ryder described their use in fiber processing and cited the transverse wear marks on the tines as evidence. Roe Bailey countered the weaving argument on several accounts and concluded that the combs were too narrow and the tines too closely spaced for effective use on the work-weighted loom. Instead, she also suggested that the combs were used for fiber processing. Unfortunately, the specialized nature of these publications has resulted in limited recognition. Contested views have necessitated the creation of a new rubric for recording long-handled combs, which is sensitive to a range of possible utilitarian functions. Aside from general metrics, attributes that address the question of function must also be recorded. Long-handled combs are created as a single, seamless piece. Morphologically, iron age combs tend to break into two or three sections that identify, handle, and terminal. They are usually found in iron age contexts in Britain and are rarely found outside of Britain. The preserved examples are manufactured from antler or bone. Within the category of long-handled combs, there are those with longer or shorter handles. They are geographically segregated and break into two regional groups, England and Wales, where the handles tend to be longer and Scotland, where the handles tend to be shorter. While it may be impossible to detect whether iron age people use long-handled combs for combing or weaving or both, or maybe neither, they are the prevailing theories set out by previous researchers. Thus, this was the springboard for the foundation for the creation of the following rubric. Previous studies of long-handled combs emphasized morphology as a proxy for function. This relationship can often be erroneous. Associations with spindle whirls and loom weights may imply usage within the textile production sequence, but my research at Dainbury has shown this relationship to exist approximately 9% of the time. To avoid contributing to contributing the same errors to the same problem, my approach utilizes aspects of object biography. When used appropriately, morphology and association with other objects can be useful for interpreting potential functions. Association with different types of objects may inform us of deposition habits, especially those which reside outside of context of production, though it does not necessarily prove utilitarian function. A rubric for recording long-handled comb measurement data was developed to determine whether function could be revealed. The rubric is flexible as new research becomes available. Various attributes can be analyzed for interrelationships between manufacturing trends and useware. Preliminary data gathered from 17 long-handled combs from the iron age hillfort of Dainbury was consulted to determine the feasibility of the following rubric. An important goal for this extended pilot study was to determine what relationships exist between cone measurements and functionality. Weaving and non-weaving theories were considered. The additional lines of evidence which could potentially reveal function include length of time, the distance between tines, shape of space between the tines, specific wear patterns between tines, and pattern of polish from use on the handle. The length of time dictates how far the comb can be pushed through material before reaching the interdentate spaces. If combs are used for warp-weighted weaving, this could reveal the angle of the active shed. If they are used for combing, wool, or hackling flax, fiber-processing estimates could be produced. The distance between tines can indicate the coarseness of warp threads if we assume that one warp thread passes between the interdentate spaces. More warp threads could pass between the tines and this must be considered as well. This measurement might also reveal possible techniques for combing fiber. The shape of the space between tines is characterized as being U or V-shaped. Salman and Tue suggested that this might relate to the method of manufacture and modification through use, therefore recording this attribute will be of interest. Walt constitutes wear is not well understood. Two major types of wear patterns are noted between comb tines. The surfaces are polish or striated. These types of wear patterns have not been reconciled in terms of use, but recording these details could relate to functionality. Completely smooth tines could indicate that they were never used after manufacturing or were worn smooth by material passing through them. The opposite would then be true of the striations. The surface polish on the combs can be the result of the manufacturing process or from use, or tapanomical ones too. Examining and specifying whether these details exist and can be recorded will convey how the comb might have been held in the hand. Ergonomic factors have typically only been considered in passing. An initial study of 17 combs from the British, sorry from Dainbury, Hillfort in Iron Age, Britain was used to test this rubric and three metrics selected for analysis. The combs were selected based on whether tines were visible. Digital photos were taken and software used to take measurements. For interpretation, each attribute category of this rubric was designed to be understood collectively. In my analysis, there was considerable consistency of the interdentate spaces. The U shape occurred 71 times and the V shape occurred 15 times. Six combs had at least one V shape between tines. The evidence points towards the U shape being the predominant style of production and that knowledge of the material, manufacturing process, and the inch product would probably prerequisites. The distance between tines measurement revealed two distinct categories. Those with narrow spaces and those with wide spaces. These distances were consistent for 14 of the eight combs. Eight combs exhibited a range of distances between 0.6 and 0.8 millimeters, whereas the other five combs exhibited a range of distances between 1.0 and 1.4 millimeters. One interesting outlier had measurements between 2.1 and 3.4 millimeters. Where patterns is a tricky parameter to analyze? The descriptors chosen were smooth and striated. 14 combs produced useful data. Nine combs had smooth surfaces between the tines, possibly from finishing or from use on a loom or processing wall. Five combs illustrate striations angles towards the front of the comb, suggesting manufacture evidence from saws or perhaps from rubbing against warp threads or processing flecks. The results are inconclusive. This rubric has demonstrated the potential to reveal important pieces of information. There are some attributes of the rubric that are easier to measure than others, but the combination of quantitative and qualitative data allows for greater flexibility. Additional attributes can be added as needed. Though it has not been possible to show the extent of the capabilities of this rubric, it has begun establishing relationships between measurements and functionality. The evidence from 17 combs indicates that creating u-shaped spaces was a deliberate act in the manufacturing of combs. This demonstrates that the v-shape might have been created through use. A comparison of material hardness between antler and other materials used during the Iron Age might provide clues to this question of function. Additionally, the consistency of distances between tines suggests that the spacing of tines matter for their function. Narrow spaces will not permit thick material to pass through without risking breakages. This rubric has provided standardized metrics that yield evidential backing to subsequent interpretations. Largely, researchers have been working within a set of assumptions which relate long-handled combs with the weaving chain repertoire, forcing long-handled combs to fit into a single place. This rubric is evidence-led without assuming function. This is not an either or conclusion. As always, context is crucial in aiding our interpretations of production, use, and aspects of discard. Tafanomical considerations relating to deposition will be a crucial next step. Research on the function of long-handled combs has produced a new analytical tool, and with that, a more comprehensive understanding of long-handled combs.


As every teacher knows, we deal with a lot of paper. What do we do with it? How do we organize it? Well, in my classroom, a solution that I have found that works well for me is I've purchased these file boxes or mailbox boxes from Walmart. And these boxes, I just placed a little name on them and they're easily, you know, they're just stickers. So I just easily take them off every year and replace them with my next class. So I just file everybody's paper right in there after I grade it. And then at the end of the week, they know they can come over and grab their papers or if they're leaving early for the week, they know that they can come over, get their papers, put them in their take home folders and take them home. This is just one way that you can organize all those papers that you have in your classroom and you don't have to send papers home every single day. I just send them home Friday and that seems to work really well. You might wanna try this in your classroom.