We're all excited for Giving Tuesday, which will be here before we know it. And here at Mighty Cause, we spend a ton of time talking about how we can help our nonprofit partners make the most of their Giving Tuesday campaign. And a topic that we haven't focused on a ton in the past is recurring giving. This is a tool set, a strategy that's really useful year-round for nonprofits. But I think it often is not connected to a standalone campaign like a Giving Tuesday campaign. So excited to have the chance to chat with you all today, give you some suggestions for how to really prioritize recurring giving as a part of your Giving Tuesday campaign to help you raise more money that day, but also set you up for better, more sustainable year-round funding for your nonprofit, which is, of course, critically important, especially small to medium-sized nonprofits. So we'll start with just a few basics on Giving Tuesday, talking about why recurring donors are so important for those small to medium-sized organizations. Make sure you're familiar with the tools available on the Mighty Cause platform that make recurring giving easy for the donors, but also for you as the nonprofit to manage your recurring supporters. And then we'll focus on really how you can build out a recurring giving campaign this year in your Giving Tuesday fundraising campaign. And then, of course, it doesn't end at the end of Giving Tuesday, once you've hopefully secured a bunch of new recurring donors, what kind of things do you need to set up and keep in place so that you can engage those sustaining donors on a year-round basis, keep them active and engaged in giving to your organization? We'll also leave some time at the end for questions, so feel free, if you do have questions, as we go throughout the presentation, type into your GoToEvanR control panel on the right-hand side of your screen, and we'll make some time to answer those questions when we get to the end. So, again, starting with just a few basics on Giving Tuesday, most of you may already know this, but just in case, want everyone to be on the same page, of course, Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Simon Monday, and to really become a global movement around giving back. Donors are hearing about it, nonprofits are, all nonprofits really are hosting a campaign, so today is here and it's happening, so you have an opportunity to just be a part of it and make the most of it for your own organization. Mighty Cause has hosted our own event on our platform for Giving Tuesday for many years now, and it's really just our opportunity to invite nonprofits that use our platform on a year-round basis to come together in an organized event that really helps to encourage and grow Giving For Giving Tuesday. So, for our event, we do require registration, it's just a short form that gives us some information, I'll mention more in a minute, and we do open Giving early, so of course Giving Tuesday happens, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as I already mentioned, but you can start the fun a little bit early, get your donors thinking about giving, get your donors making their donations before they even go home for Thanksgiving break before they spend their money on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so you're able to kick off your campaign, start early giving right at November 19th. So, you may ask why should we sign up and register for Giving Tuesday on Mighty Cause, we have a donation page on our website, I hear Facebook's doing something for Giving Tuesday, and I think really kind of the key things that we like to make sure that you're all aware of is first, we do have a pricing guarantee that we put into place, that we will make sure that your nonprofit does not pay more than you would pay, in fact, you pay less than you would if you just had a PayPal donation button on your website. We give donors the option to cover the full platform and credit card fees associated with using the Mighty Cause platform, but if they don't cover those fees for you, we promise that you'll never pay more than 2.2 and 29 cents per transaction. Most non-profits actually end up paying much less, just over 1% because so many donors are very used to and happy to cover fees on your behalf, so you can be guaranteed that you will pay less than you'd pay for just a PayPal button on your website, but you get lots of great additional tools that you won't get with that peer-to-peer fundraising for individuals, peer-to-peer fundraising for groups, through teams and events, which kind of make your peer-to-peer fundraising competitive and fun, really great customizable fundraising and donation tools, you can add matching grants to your campaign, you can customize the checkout experience, set suggested donation levels, build a thank you page that donors see, you can also add a widget on your website and just like PayPal, you can put a button on your website with the Mighty Cause widget, you actually let donors stay on your website to complete that gift, take advantage of all of these great things we've already talked about, but you're not sending people off to a separate PayPal page to make their donation, so we feel like it's a really great option for your nonprofit, so hopefully you will consider it and if you're ready, if you haven't yet, definitely come to givingtuesday.mightycause.com. You'll see a big button right at the top of the page to register, again, just a short form, gives us a little bit of information about your organization, what kind of training and resources are helpful for you. One of the key things of Mighty Cause hosting this event for Giving Tuesday is that we want to make sure that we share resources and expertise wherever possible with our nonprofits, we want to help you raise more funds, that's what this webinar is all about and the more information we get from you, in terms of feedback, what you're looking for, the more we can tailor those resources to be helpful for you. All right, so now kind of getting into the meat of what we're really here to talk about today, which is recurring giving. Hopefully you already know the value of recurring donors, you may conceptually understand the importance of the value of recurring donors, but for many nonprofits, especially small nonprofits, you're going, going, going, doing 10 jobs at a time and you don't really have the opportunity to set aside time to invest in building a recurring donor campaign or a recurring donor structure within your organization. It feels like a project that's just too hard to get to, you've just got to go from one thing to the next to the next. So this is just a little reminder of why it's worth setting aside a little time to build this out. According to AFP and almost all sources that track this have similar data and results here, less than half of all new donors that you acquire will be retained and stay with your nonprofit long-term.  And that's really donor retention is a huge missed opportunity if you will in the fundraising sector. And recurring donors or having a strategy around recurring donations is really a key way to improve your overall donor retention. It costs a lot more to get a new donor than it does to retain an existing one. And again, once you kind of get a donor into the cycle of recurring giving, they're much more likely to stay long-term for your organization. Without spending too much time here on some of the stats and the way that you can track this kind of thing, it's important when you think about the investment in building out a recurring donation strategy campaign, what have you, thinking about the lifetime value of your donors. Because of course, you might look at your Giving Tuesday campaign and think, I need to raise $10,000 on Giving Tuesday because that's my budget shortfall for the end of the year. So your goal is how to increase the size of gifts that come in on that day. And that absolutely is something that may be critical for some organizations. But when you think about recurring donors and the reason to invest in recurring donors, though they might give less on Giving Tuesday, you may walk away with less that is already in the door at that day because people tend to give smaller donation amounts, you're definitely setting yourself up for a larger lifetime value for each of those donors that signs up to become a recurring donor. And that means that overall, your average lifetime value of donors giving to your organization, that will increase. All of those things again, really good for especially small nonprofits, thinking about sustainability long-term. So just a couple of reasons why recurring donors are awesome for you as a nonprofit, they provide sustainable predictable revenue. So in a small nonprofit, you may have volunteers, you may have staff, you may have part-time staff, you certainly have recurring costs. So sustainable revenue, predictable revenue, knowing how much is gonna come in each month from these recurring donors, is going to do wonders for cash flow management and just kind of general sanity of knowing you will be able to pay the bills each month, you will be able to pay payroll. Beyond that, you're actually really starting to transition what we're one-time donors to more investors in your mission, investors in your work. These donors, because they have a deeper level of involvement and that grows over time, the more recurring donations process, they become prospects for not just being a donor but giving major gifts, bequests, getting involved as a volunteer, becoming a board of directors, whatever it might be, you're building a more engaged group of supporters in your recurring donation, your recurring donor base than your one-time donor base. For donors, there are definite benefits as well. So first, affordability. And I talked about this a little bit. You may have, if you decide to focus your Giving Tuesday campaign on recurring donors, you may at the end of the day walk away with less dollars in hand than you may have last year's Giving Tuesday campaign. That's a short-term, not a long-term problem. But the flip side from a donor is that you're asking for them to commit less upfront. It feels more affordable for them. They're not being asked to make a $250 donation which might feel like a burden or a tough decision to make. You're just asking them to give 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, whatever it might be, it can feel more manageable for a donor that wants to support your work, that wants to really be invested, but might be more limited by a larger one-time gift. Again, predictability is good for the donor. They know when they get paid each month. They can choose what day of the month they want to manage their gifts. We'll talk about this more in a little bit when we get into the tools that are available on Mighty Cause, but say a donor makes their recurring donation on Giving Tuesday, that's December 3rd this year, but then they decide, you know what, I actually get paid on the 10th of each month, so I'd really rather push my donation back and I want that to process on the 15th of each month. They can easily log back into their account and change the day of the month that their donation processes. Also, recurring giving can be a little bit more fun than one-time donations. There's all kinds of great rewards and kind of recognition programs. We'll talk a little bit more in a bit, but this kind of adds more to the giving experience than just making a one-time gift cam. So now digging more into the tools that are available on Mighty Cause. Whatever platform that you're using, and we always hope that it's Mighty Cause, you have to make sure that it is really set up for your success in managing and encouraging recurring giving, but also for the donor. It has to be a really easy experience for them to use, otherwise you will either not get them to set up in the first place or you will lose them over time. So the very first thing is you have to make it really easy for a donor to give monthly. So with every donation page, check out that you see on the Mighty Cause platform. Donors have an option to give monthly versus one-time. Easy as clicking a button. Once they do that, their donation will automatically process the same date each month. We send receipts to them on a monthly basis that can log into their user account at any time to access the receipts for those and or a giving statement at the end of the year, which kind of captures and summarizes all the giving they've done year round. Of course, you as a nonprofit has great tools to see, track your recurring donors and manage the donations through a recurring report that I'll show in just a moment. But for the donor, as I mentioned, they have the ability to edit and manage their donation. This is really critical and not something that might be available on all of the platforms if you might be using a different platform right now. But on Mighty Cause, we've aimed to make it super easy for your donor to edit and manage their recurring donation. And that means they can come in and up the amount that they want to give on their recurring donation. There are certain platforms that you have to just cancel your donation entirely and remake a new one at a higher level. Always a risk when somebody has to cancel their gift. Editing the credit card information, for sure, is a key piece. If somebody's card expires, which is definitely something that happens on a regular basis with a recurring donor program, you will lose that donor unless they come in and edit their card, change the expiration date, if that's all they need to do, or just change the card that they want to use for that. So it's really easy for donors to manage that. And then finally, they can change the renewal date. So the date that it processes each month. Again, that gives them more flexibility to decide what works for them when it comes to recurring giving and puts them in the driver's seat. So all of these things make it easier for a donor to continue their recurring donation long-term with your organization. On Mighty Cause, there are email alerts set up so that we remind the donor in advance if it looks like their next recurring donation isn't gonna process because their card is expired, they need to update it, et cetera. So the system is proactive in trying to encourage them to stay ahead of it. And we have tools available for you as the nonprofit to make it easy for you to get ahead of that, manage and communicate with your recurring donors as well. So within your own Mighty Cause dashboard, you have access to a specific report that just shows you recurring donations and your recurring donors. From here, you can see when their donation was started, how much they give on a monthly basis, when their next one is set to process, so that you can be aware of that. You will also get alerts, email alerts, just like the donor does. If somebody's donation is likely to fail because they need to update their credit card, that puts you in the driver's seat to be able to proactively communicate with that donor, get them to make a change to make sure they stay active. You can also always see the status of a recurring donor in this report, if they're lapsed, if they're active, et cetera. Again, giving you the information that you need to stay on top of these donors, stay in communication with them. There is an email tool right here in this report where if you look and see John Smith has a $25 donation that's about to expire, you can click on the email icon, send an email directly to John through the platform, or you decide on a quarterly basis to do extra follow-up to anyone that might have lapsed during that quarter. Maybe you tried to reach out to them when they were lapsing, but you wanna do additional follow-up. You can always filter your report to see who has lapsed, who is no longer active, either download the report to do follow-up outside the platform, or again, use the tools we have to send an email directly through the platform. You also, through our supporters tool, which is our CRM tool that's available for our advanced subscribers, have access to additional information to really manage and understand kind of the full picture of a donor that might be giving to you. So you can track their donor history, how long have they been giving as a recurring donor, but add other information as well. As I mentioned, starting a recurring donation is really a gateway to further and better engagement over the long term. So this is your opportunity to track some of those other opportunities, some of those other interests, or potential avenues for this supporter to continue being involved. So now, hopefully, you are excited about the idea of building recurring donations into your coming Tuesday campaign and confident about the tools that are available on MightyCuz that you know it's gonna be really easy for both you and your donors to focus on recurring giving. So how do you get started building it into your campaign? The first two things here are to gather some information and use that information to set your goals. So take a look at any existing data that you might have. Do you have any recurring donors that give to your organization currently? Is this something that you've ever tried before? What kind of success have you had in the past? If you do have recurring donors, how many, what is the average gift amount for these recurring donors? Use that and kind of compare that to non-recurring donors and see how does the average gift amount change, whether they're a one-time donor versus a recurring donor? See who you might have in your donor database, in your donor list that might be good prospects in particular for a recurring donation ask. We'll talk a little bit more about the audiences that you have in a moment, but really starts with understanding your data and how have people given to your organization in the past. Next, use that information to prepare specific goals for your Giving Tuesday campaign. And I think this is really a key piece because if you don't decide that recurring giving is going to be a key focus, if not the key focus of your donation campaign for Giving Tuesday, you're not likely to see a lot of success here. For example, if you just decide it would be great if we could get more recurring donations on Giving Tuesday and you don't really set a hard goal, come up with ways that you're gonna track it, plug it into all of your messaging, use that as a guide as you define your different segments for communication, you're not gonna likely move the needle in terms of getting new recurring donors signed up. People really need to be prompted and asked if they're going to sign up in this way. So depending on your data and kind of where you've been, set a reasonable goal for what you can really do and what you can hope for in terms of engaging recurring donors as a part of your Giving Tuesday campaign. Next, we'll talk a little bit more about these last two here as we continue, but of course defining your audiences, looking at the different lists of donors, supporters that you might have at your disposal and think about how you should segment and break them up so that your message can be most effective and then really finalize that message, figure out what you're gonna do in terms of presenting the ask, offering rewards, et cetera, that really make it an appealing call to become a monthly donor. All of those things together will set you up for more likelihood to secure new recurring donors this year. So first, creating these key segments. So every single nonprofit will have some kind of a different breakdown here in terms of what segments really make most sense for you, but every nonprofit should have multiple segments that they can break their overall donor list into to be more successful. So first, look at people that have given more than once over their lifetime to your organization. Somebody that has already given maybe multiple years in a row or maybe they've given more than once in a specific year, those are really good candidates for a recurring donation ask because they've already shown some level of interest which makes you think they might be interested in that repeat process. Next would be looking at donors who've made a large annual gift. The beauty of recurring donations, donors can give a really small amount at a time and it really adds up throughout the year. So for those that have given a large amount, this is a new way to ask them to get involved. Again, better because even though you might get the same amount from them at the end of each year, it's a more predictable coming in on a monthly basis and then you have the ability to kind of move them up the ladder, increase their giving in this way. Existing recurring donors. This is definitely a list to consider if you do have donors that are already given to you on a recurring basis. Of course, you wanna be super careful with how you communicate to these donors. You wanna make sure that you already are recognizing them for this really amazing support that they've given to your organization over the years but it's a great opportunity to consider them to give them the opportunity to ask them to bump up their recurring gift. Maybe they've been giving $15 a month for the last year or two. Why not see if you can bump them up to $20 or $25 a month? Lastly, include plans for volunteers and staff members. You may think, oh, volunteers do enough. Staff members work hard enough. We can't ask them to give on a monthly basis. First, you certainly can still ask them. Oftentimes, your volunteers and staff members are people that are most committed to your mission so they really understand why it's important. They may have smaller amounts that they're willing to give so adjust your ask appropriately so it is asking for a smaller amount. But even if you're not asking them directly, think about how you can bring them into your process, help you spread the word about what you're really attempting to do with this year's campaign. Get them on your team for recruiting new recurring donors. So I've mentioned rewards a bit in the past and this is something that can really help to set recurring giving apart from just a standard one-time gift. And of course, many times, donors are not making their gift just because of or solely because of the rewards package. Many of your recurring donors will make their donation because they believe in your mission. They support your organization. So it's important not to think that, oh, you have to have this really incredible rewards package if you want people to sign up at this level and you certainly always wanna keep cost in mind. So it's not worth building out a package that costs a lot of money and will take away from the value of their gift. But just a little something, a sticker, a tote bag, whatever it might be, packaged and presented in a fun way that it makes them feel like they're being recognized. It makes them feel like they're being appreciated for their special gift. This time of year, some kind of a holiday card is a really great thing to consider as a part of your reward package. But beyond tangible rewards like a postcard or a sticker or a tote bag, think about other ways that you can create value for your donors. Label them as part of a specific club or tier, your monthly champions club, whatever it might be, that is language that makes sense for your organization, even just giving them a special name kind of elevates their status and that doesn't cost you anything. Create a recurring donor newsletter that you share on a monthly or quarterly basis that provides customized content for this group of people that have shown that they're interested and invested in seeing your organization be successful. Go beyond just a traditional thank you, maybe think of extra special ways that you can do that, whether it's a personal phone call from your executive director, handwritten letter from your board member, some kind of fun creative way video, perhaps from the constituents, the people or the communities that you serve. Give them insider access to things that you've got going on at the organization, whether it's just an invite for a private tour of one of your facilities or early access to buy a ticket to one of your events, maybe a discounted ticket to one of your events and especially if this is one of the first times that you're really kind of digging into a tool or to a recurring donation strategy, consider creating a welcome or onboarding packet for these donors, just like you wanna do with a first-time donor making a one-time donation. It's really important to properly welcome these donors into this new experience, recognize them for the commitment that they're making, but also give them the information, give them that validation and the reinforcement that they've made a really good decision by giving to you on a monthly basis. So once you've kind of identified maybe what that reward package may look like, again, tangible or not, it's time to kind of build that into your campaign messaging. So first and foremost, as I mentioned earlier, you really need to commit to this focus for your campaign and lead with the ask of setting up a monthly donation. So your ask for, you know, throughout your GivingTuesday campaign really has to be focused on recurring giving, make a recurring donation, set up a monthly donation, really build that as the core of your messaging so that donors know what you're asking of them. Also, it's a great, it can be a great additional source of information to let them know why recurring donations matter.  Make sure the amount that you're asking for makes sense. As we've talked about a little bit, it's likely gonna be smaller than your traditional ask. So take that into account. You don't wanna scare somebody off by asking for too much and then asking them to make that gift on a monthly basis. But it's also important to look at your donor's previous giving history. This is something you can do partially with some of that segmentation that we talked about before. And don't ask every single donor in your list to give the same amount on a monthly basis. If you have somebody that's given $100 in the past year versus somebody that gave $500 in the past year, you'll want to ask for a different monthly gift amount for each of those people. Based on what they've shown you, they're willing and able to contribute on an annual basis. And something that can be really helpful with monthly giving in particular because the donor has to be willing to let their card be charged on a monthly basis, you have to make it feel like an easy decision for them. So to connect it to something that they can relate to, a cup of coffee is probably one of the most common ones that you'll see used, but there's all types of things that you can do to really kind of downplay the amount.  Your monthly Netflix account or et cetera, something that your donors will respond to, make it easy to feel like it's a easy decision to commit to that gift, but also think about it in terms of your mission. So just like we encourage with one-time donations, using the suggested donation levels that you have access to in setting up your checkout page, do the same thing with recurring donations. Help a donor understand what $5 a month actually means for your organization. They may feel like, oh, I could do a recurring gift, but a $10 a month, it can't really do that much for them.  That feels like it might make more of an impact. So helping them understand the value of the impact of that monthly gift at whatever those key donation amounts are can really help to make that decision-making process easier for your donors. One thing that you can do to kind of help beef up this year's Giving Tuesday campaign is host an event kind of to supplement your online efforts for your campaign. It's important. Well, each on-profit is different and you may find that your event is gonna be the centerpiece of your campaign and that's great. But if it's not and you're just looking to supplement your efforts, then you'll wanna keep the event low-key and low-cost. So don't spend so much time focusing on hosting a live event that you forget to build out a really strong email strategy and at the end of the day, you'll walk away with higher cost and less funds. So think of something easy like a happy hour that you can organize at a local restaurant and open house at your facility, something like that. And then at the event, you can use that opportunity to make a direct appeal. Again, all those same things that are going into that message that we were just talking about in your emails on your donation page about making it feel like an easy ask on a monthly basis, including information on why recurring giving matters. You'll have a captain audience in person at this event to make that direct appeal. Having giving stations available at the event where people can just take action, sign up and start their monthly gift right away. Even taking advantage of a text to give, another tool that we have available for our advanced subscribers, create a text to give keyword, all the people that are there in person at the event can text, that will give them, they'll get a text in response that they can click on the link and jump right in to the process of making a donation to your organization. And finally, when you do an in-person event, it gives you a little bit more of an opportunity to create some kind of fun visual display to show monthly giving. So I've seen it done in all kinds of different ways, but just something that kind of represents and gets the donors and supporters in person at this event excited about seeing the impact of what they're really doing when they sign up to give on a monthly basis. So as I mentioned at the beginning, giving Tuesday is not the end. Once you get somebody to sign up for a recurring gift, you have just as much, if not more of a role, a reason to follow up and stay connected with them on a year-round basis. So first and foremost is, of course, gratitude and thanks, above and beyond your traditional one-time donors. It's important that you find really great ways to thank these recurring donors all year-round, not just once when they sign up for their recurring donation, but make them feel appreciated all year-round, whether that's on your website, at events, recognizing them in regular newsletters and communications, putting them in your annual report, et cetera. If you have a system like the Mighty Cause supporters tool, you have the ability to keep track of donor preferences. So having a survey that you do throughout the year, or just taking notes as you have interaction with these recurring donors, understanding what appeals to them in terms of recognition and gratitude, et cetera, you can track that kind of information, keep it available in your CRM tool, and be smarter about the way that you engage those donors and express your gratitude year-round. But in general, even more so than you wanna do with your regular list of donors, you wanna build a sense of community between these recurring donors. You wanna make them feel like they're a part of something special. That's going to encourage them to continue and really see the value in what they're doing. So maybe have special events that are only available to recurring donors. You can consider starting a Facebook group. We already talked about some kind of separate recurring donor newsletter, creating special dedicated space for them at events, or even just a reception, a monthly donor reception that you have at the beginning of an event before you kick off the rest of it. Again, just finding ways to create opportunities that make these donors feel special, make them feel valued for the commitment that they're giving to your organization. And really at the core of all of that is staying in touch. I think we're often worried about sending too many emails, bothering our donors, but especially for donors that have made the commitment to give on a monthly basis, you absolutely want to communicate with them on a very regular basis, keeping them in the loop about everything that you would tell your traditional list of supporters. But again, what extra information might they be interested in knowing about because they've shown this deeper level of interest in your organization, giving them early notice about events and things that you've gotten going on. Have some kind of a regular system to check in with these donors. That doesn't mean you need to call them every single month, but find some ways to have a more regular personal check-in, keep them on track, get feedback from them, share information about what's going on with your impact and your programming. Get to know these donors so that you can again, build better, stronger, long-term relationships with them. And as we talked about a little bit earlier, stay on top of their gift. Understand when they might be going to expire. Understand when might be a great time to ask them to increase their gift amount, et cetera. And with that, we've covered hopefully a good bit of information that gets you excited about recurring giving and some tools that you can use to start building it into this year's campaign. So I will take a look and see if we've got any questions that have come in so far. Looks like no questions as of yet. So with that, I'll go ahead and give everyone a couple of minutes back in their day. If you do have any questions that you think of after you hop off today's webinar or as you're trying to plan for how to build in recurring giving to your Giving Tuesday campaign, please feel free to email us at supportatmlydiecause.com. We look forward to helping you out and good luck with your Giving Tuesday campaign. Thanks so much.


Hello, everyone, and welcome to the San Jose State University School of Information Career Webcast Session. My name is Jill Cleese, and I am your iSchool Career Center Liaison. I will be your moderator this evening, so thank you so much for joining me. We have the great pleasure to have iSchool alumna, Rosanne Masick, with us tonight, to share her expertise on what it's like to work in a public library today. So, I think we're ready to get started, and I'm going to hand this off to you, Rosanne. So, go ahead and take it away. Great. Thanks so much, Jill. And it's such a pleasure to be with all of you this evening, and I get to talk about one of my favorite things, what it's like working in a public library. So, I was asked to first tell you a little bit about my background and my career path and how I got to where I am right now. So, I am a three-time graduate of San Jose State University. For those of you who have not been on campus, that's a photo of the King Library. I got my BA in English in 1980, so a while back. My, I went right into grad school, got my master's in library science, and then I went to school much later and got a second master's in public administration. That was at the point of my career where I was making a transition from working in high tech to local government. So, I've had a lot of different jobs. My career path is probably a little bit different from most public library directors. I've spent most of my career in high tech. I actually did start as a page at our local public library when I was an undergrad. I did that for a couple of years, and at that point in my life, decided public libraries was not for me. So, I went into corporate libraries. I started off as a library assistant with a local semiconductor manufacturer called American Microsystems, which is now defunct. And did that for a couple of years, and then I was very fortunate to be hired by Apple. We were called Apple Computer in those days, because our main product line was computers. Of course, now it's a lot of other different things. And I was there for 15 years. I was responsible for providing library and research services across the company. But we reported into the advanced technology group. So, this was the group of scientists who were looking way out in the future where technology was going. So, it was really exciting to get to know them and see what they were working on. And actually seeing some of their ideas and prototypes are now things that we take for granted as far as technology. So, in 1997, Steve Jobs came back to Apple, and Apple was really in dire straits. The company was about to go under, and that's not an exaggeration. And so, Steve had to make some really tough choices, and he decided that Apple couldn't no longer afford to fund long-term research. So, my entire division of 200 people was laid off, but I was okay with that. I'd been there for 15 years, and I was kind of ready to do something else. So, from there, I went to work for a small router manufacturer called Bay Networks. We were a small competitor to Cisco. And while I was there, we were acquired by Nortel. So, we became Nortel Networks. Of course, we were 7,000 employees. They were 80,000 employees. And so, a number of us on the Bay Network side were laid off. So, I was there for a couple of years, then I got laid off again. Then I went to a small telecom market researcher called RHK, and I managed all the secondary research for them and client services and a few other departments. And then, the telecom industry took a nosedive, and the company was acquired. So, I was laid off again after two years. So, after experiencing three layoffs in five years, I decided that I was ready to go in a different direction. And even though I had worked in nontraditional environments, I started exploring opportunities in academia and public libraries. And it was really hard to get somebody to offer me a job, because all my experience had been in high tech and they were having a little trouble seeing me actually working in a different environment. But one day, I saw an email come through from the Santa Clara County Library District. They were looking for part-time substitute reference librarians. And I'd never been a reference librarian in a public library, but I thought maybe I'd throw my resume over there, see if anything happened. And they called me in for an interview, and I did terrible, but somehow they hired me anyway. I think maybe it was a mistake, but they did offer me a job, and it was fantastic. I got a chance to see if public libraries were for me and found that I really loved serving the community. So eventually, I did get a full-time job with them, managing children's services in Morgan Hill. Eventually, I managed the Morgan Hill Library for them, got to work as part of a team to build a new library from Morgan Hill, which was the greatest experience. And just bringing a new library building to a community is just wonderful. And then the County Library and asked me to go manage the Cupertino Library, which I did for a couple of years. So I was there for about eight years, ready to try something new. So I was very fortunate to be hired by the City of Mountain View as their library director, and that's where I work right now. And when I finished my second master's in 2011, I had a great experience. I was glad to have the degree finished, but I found that I was really missing academia. So I sent an email to Dr. Maine and said, what do you think about my teaching? And she said, sure, would you teach 210? So I've been doing that for about three years. In fact, I think I see a couple of my 210 students on the list there as attending. So hi, guys. It's nice to see you in a different environment. Thanks for joining us today. So that is a little bit about my background and my career path. And I would like to find out a little bit about all of you. So if you are in your first year in the iSchool, why don't you hit the little hand button and we'll see how many newbies that we have. I see you. Well, welcome to the program. As you get started, I think you're going to have a wonderful experience. And how many of the attendees are getting close to graduating maybe in the next semester? Why don't you hit the hand button? Okay. I think we have a few folks. And how many of you are currently working in a public library? So we have some good experience here. So some of you might be able to share some of your experiences as we go along here. So let me tell you just a little bit about Mountain View where I'm currently working. I think I mentioned I've been there for about six years as the library director. We are a medium-sized city. We're getting close to about 80,000 in population. We have about a 325,000, 26,000 collection of materials. Our building is about 60,000 square feet over two floors. So it's a good medium-sized public library. Circulation is about a million four and about 624,000 visits to the building, about almost 54,000 attendees at library programs. And I have a staff of 42 FTE, although I have a lot of part-time folks. So we have about 100 people all together. So that is what I'm doing now. So the title of this talk was The Good, The Bad, and The Exciting. So let's start with the good and what our strengths are. Oh, I see a question about my circulation number. The question is, does that circulation include digital titles? It does include the e-books that people check out through Overdrive and Access 360. Okay. So let's talk about the good. And there's a lot of good if you work in public libraries. Public libraries are valued. This quote is from the American Library Association's report on the State of America's Libraries. And I think they're actually using numbers from the Pew Research Report. But this report says more than two-thirds of Americans agree that libraries are important because they improve the quality of life in a community. They promote literacy and reading and provide many people with a chance to succeed. So that's one of the great things about working in a public library is people really value what we do. And I included just a few quotes. There are so many of these. People have such strong, heartfelt, positive feelings about public libraries. That first one, I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of a library. We actually had that quote on the front of the building when I worked in the Cupertino Library. The second one there, a library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities applies. I think a lot of people feel that way. And then that last one from Laura Bush is just so wonderful about children asking questions and finding the answers in libraries. And once a child learns how to use a library, the doors to learning are always open. So people have very strong, positive feelings about public libraries. And people really use public libraries. These numbers are from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. They're a couple of years old, so they'll be interested in seeing what the current numbers look like. Every public library is required to report quite a lot of statistical information to our state libraries every year. And then our state libraries send that information to IMLS. And in fact, we just submitted our numbers to the California State Library from Mountain View a couple of weeks ago. So you can see these numbers. Pretty impressive. People really use public libraries. And the photo that I'm including here is at the opening of one of the new branches of the Berkeley Public Library. But it's a very common picture when a new library opens. Just one quick story when I was in Morgan Hill and we built a new library for that community there about seven years ago, maybe longer than that now. And we were about to open the doors for the first day of operation, brand new library. It had been a long time coming. They talked about it forever. They were so excited. And I remember being in front of the, by the front door, they were standing there with the county librarian and members of our board and the mayor.  And we were about to cut the ribbon and open the doors to the library. And when we cut the ribbon, this massive people came toward us. And we almost got trampled. I actually was pretty scared. There were so many people wanting to get into their new public library. They were so excited. And Americans still read. Now there's some numbers in current articles. Maybe that's starting to slip a little bit, but Americans still read books. And one of the things that's been surprising to me, when a couple of years ago, Amazon announced that they were selling more e-books than print books, I just couldn't believe it. It was such a shock to me. And so two, three years later, I thought we would have made much more of a transition to e-books, but that hasn't happened at the rate that I expected. There are still quite a lot of people who prefer print books. And then there was an interesting article in USA Today. They just came out actually today talking about with so many people with smartphones that they're starting to use audiobooks more and more. So people still read, and that's very much associated with what a public library does. Public libraries are really evolving as hubs in our communities. We found a couple of years ago, actually, I think it was in the last presidential election that we were running election results in our community room in the library. And, you know, that's something that people could watch at home. But we had quite a few people come in who wanted to see that in the library, kind of experience that as part of the community. So I think we live in a world where we're so connected online.  The Popularity Podcasts have probably helped the audiobook increase, and I think that's a great point. But people want to come together physically and be part of their community, attend a program in the library, use the Wi-Fi in my building in the afternoons, generally every seat is taken with people who are studying, using their Wi-Fi, doing some work. And about half of Americans visited a public library last year. And libraries in the United States are seen as part of our democracy. This is another great quote. With the library, you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one can tell you what to read and when and how. The thing that I like, one of the many things actually that I like about working in a public library is that we make an impact in our communities every single day.  So she's standing there proudly showing everyone the book that she got because she met her summer reading goals. And seeing that happy little face is something that you see every day in a public library. We make that kind of impact in people's lives and that's so powerful. And libraries are open to all. And this quote from Lady Bird Johnson, perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library, the only entrance requirement is interest. And the statement at the bottom is actually from me when I talk to people about working in a public library, I say the beauty of public libraries is that we are open to everyone. It doesn't matter if you're rich or you're poor or you're an immigrant or you don't have to take a test to come in. You don't have to have a license. We are open to absolutely everyone. And I love that. The challenge of public libraries is that we are open to all. So let's get on to the next part of my presentation. So we talked about the good. I don't really like the word bad. So let's say the challenging parts of working in a public library. There are a few. So I talked about public libraries being community hubs. And so what is happening in our communities is also happening in our libraries. So I have some photos to share with you. This one happens to be from the San Francisco main library. This is one of their homeless patrons. And I think probably some of you have heard about the San Francisco Public Library that their main library a number of years ago was completely overrun by their homeless residents who were taking a bath in the bathrooms. And I think there were some drug problems and it was an uncomfortable environment. And so what San Francisco Public Library did is they hired a social worker who actually became part of their staff. And she's in the building and she has about 12 staff working with her part time to reach out to this part of their community, the homeless population and connect with them and try to get them in touch with services. So I thought that was a great approach instead of just saying the homeless problem is not our problem as the public library. They really took this on and are trying to serve this part of their community. So again, what happens out in our community happens in our library as well. And we deal with, let's see, it looks like we have a question here. Do you remember when the San Francisco library hired the social worker? You know, I want to say it was probably four or five years ago and I remember it was big news at the time. They were probably the first public library in the country to hire a social worker to be part of the library staff. I heard her speak a couple of times. She is phenomenal and she does such good work there. And we discussed the idea in Mountain View, but we don't have quite the level of problems. We do partner with our local community services agency to come in the library periodically. Whoa, what is one of the craziest issues you've had while working in a public library? Well, this is a great point in the presentation to talk about that because we're talking about behavior issues on this particular slide. So I can tell you in the past year what we deal with medical emergencies. And I just love our first responders. They are there when we need them. So we've dealt with a number of strange medical emergencies because the library is open to everyone. We have a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different personalities. So sometimes there's conflict between people who are in the building and they don't always get along. And we have to deal with that. People who don't want to pay their fines and yell at staff about that. So if you can imagine all the kind of behavior issues that are out there in the community can happen in a public library as well. Oh, how great. Someone is sharing a video about the social worker in the San Francisco Public Library. Take a look at that. It's just really a phenomenal program. Probably most public libraries don't have the large number of homeless populations like they do in San Francisco. But it's something that we all deal with. And I certainly have a few regular homeless folks in Mountain View. And generally I don't have any problems with them. They come in and they use the library appropriately. But they make other people uncomfortable. And that's always a challenge. I've had people come in my office and say, you shouldn't let the homeless people come in here. And I'm really sad when I hear that because they're part of our community. They have a right to use the public library the same as anyone else. But they do make other people uncomfortable. So just all kinds of behavior issues. Now one of the innovative programs that was started by my predecessor about six, seven years ago in Mountain View was we were starting to see kind of an uptick in some of these behavior problems. Oh, has it ever had to kick anyone out? Oh my goodness, are you kidding? All the time, which reminds me, I wanted to mention that every library needs to have a behavior policy laying out how you expect people to behave in the library. And if they don't behave, they get kicked out. And it depends on how serious the behavior issue is. Generally, we'll give them a warning and maybe we'll kick them out for the day or the week. But I do work with our city attorney's office. And probably a dozen, maybe not a dozen, maybe six to eight times a year, I've got someone who I need to kick out and so I work with the city attorney's office and they send out a letter to this individual. And they tell them you cannot come back to the library for a year because of, you know, and we lay out kind of what their behavior issues were. And then on this date, you're welcome to come back. But you need to meet the library director first to discuss your behavior. I see a question here. Is a behavior policy the same thing as a code of contact? Yes, absolutely. And we call them different things. Some libraries call them behavior policy. Some call it a code of conduct. If you've never seen one, you can go to probably any public library website and read their policy on how they expect people to behave in their libraries. And you'll see a lot of similarities. Some are a little more strict than others. And some issues are included by some libraries and not by others. I'll give you an example and this is a tricky one. Some of our folks come in and it could be the homeless or other folks in the community for whatever reason and we have a problem with how they smell. And other people complain about it and they want us to kick them out because of the way they smell. Some libraries actually have in their behavior policy that you can be asked to leave for strong body odors. My city attorney said that's probably not going to fly so I don't have it in my behavior policy. But I do have a general statement in there that says any disruptive behavior that's interfering with others' use of the library could be caused for your being asked to leave the library. Where do I think is the best place to post a behavior policy? That is a great question. Oh, strong perfumes, yes, absolutely. That can be an issue and has been an issue in one of my libraries. You know, I don't post it in the building and it probably should. It's on our website but we have little flyers made up with our behavior policy that we hand to people who are having an issue and we make sure they have a copy of the policy and we reference the part of the policy that they might be having an issue with. So we do hand it out in the library. Yeah, in the strong perfume question, I actually had a patron who said that he was having a problem with this other patron who came in with a strong perfume and he wanted to ban her from the building and I really couldn't do that so that can be a tricky one. Yeah, so I see an LOL there. So there are all kinds of behavior issues in our libraries and it's part of the job, you know, we're part of the community. So we're dealing with those issues but I would say 95% of the time everyone behaves themselves and that's actually amazing to me given the large variety of people that we see in our buildings every day. So let's see. I have one more community issue. So can anyone guess what community issue is represented by this photo? If you have a guess, go ahead and type it in the chat box there. Ah, service dogs, pets, service animals. Well, service animals is a great bringing tips in. Yeah, so it looks like service animals and pets. And certainly those are issues. Service animals is an interesting one. Actually, that's not the right answer but I'll get to the right answer in just a second. Service animals can be tricky. The law says you cannot ask the person for any documentation that the animal is a service animal. So I've been working with the city attorney's office on how to deal with this issue. People will bring, say someone comes in with a dog and these days often they don't have any kind of identification on them. It used to be they wear a little thing on their back and it's very clear that they were a service animal. But often that's not the case anymore. So someone comes in the library with a dog, what do you do? Yeah, people who fake it. Well, the law is we cannot ask them if it's a service or ask them for documentation. So what we do in my library with advice from our city attorney's office is we will go up to the person with the dog and we'll say, I'm really sorry but you're not allowed to bring your dog into the library. So sometimes if it's just them bringing their pet in, they say okay, we'll go. If the person's response is oh, this is a service dog, then we're done. We have to take their word for it and I know that's really frustrating for my staff because I think not everyone is legitimate but legally we cannot ask for documentation. We just have to take their word for it. Although my city attorney has told me the only animals and this is probably just California so it might be different in other states. The only animals that qualify as service animals are dogs and small horses. So I'm telling you I cannot wait to see a small horse come through the front door. I told my staff if that ever happens, come get me because I want to see it. So service animals are tricky but getting back to this picture, no one guessed the answer to what community issue is represented here and the answer is bed bugs. These happen to be bed bugs sniffing dogs but some of you may have heard. I know, ew, I was going to include a picture of a bed bug but I thought that was too disgusting so I'm including a picture of Molly on the left there and Buster on the right. So yep, I can see somebody has heard of that. It's come up in some of our Mevring libraries in the Bay Area. I know it's a, thank you for not doing that. I guess she's referring to the picture of the bed bug. Yeah, they are kind of disgusting. I know it's a big issue in libraries in New York. I have a colleague who works there. We've been very lucky in Mountain View. We have not had a problem with bed bugs. Until a couple of weeks ago, we had a patron come out of the restroom and go to the reference desk and say I found a bug in the restroom and I think it's a bed bug. She took a picture of it. I was on my way home and my staff is madly texting me. And then my staff, thank goodness, went in and captured it and put it in a plastic bag. And they texted me and they said maybe we have a bed bug here and you know people tend to panic and it turns into a big PR nightmare and they go what do we do with it? It was six o'clock at night. We weren't going to get anyone out to help us with it. I said well, put the critter in my office. I'll take a look at it when I get in in the morning. So I got in the morning, got out my magnifying glass and looked at it. I looked at pictures I had of bed bugs. It really looked like one to me. So we had our pest control person come in, take a look at it. He said, yep, you got a bed bug. So here's a comment. We check all of our book donations for bed bugs as well. So that's a great comment. So we had a bed bug but only one that we knew of but we didn't know. So we, the pest control guy went into that restroom, treated the ground but we didn't know if it was beyond that. I didn't realize bed bugs liked books. We'll talk about that in a minute. So the pest control guy said I can visually inspect the building but you know, I can't guarantee 100% that I'll find them if you have them. So really the only way to know for sure is to bring in these dogs. They're specially trained. You know, kind of like dogs that smell for drugs, they smell for bed bugs. And so they came in one night last week at 9.30 after we were closed. So I stayed late because I wanted to meet these dogs and I wanted to see how they worked. And so their trainers showed me, they brought in a little container of live bed bugs and they hid it and they showed me what the dogs do so they go around and they sniff everywhere. And when they smell the bed bugs, they sit down. So immediately that's their signal that they found something. And so I watched them work in my building. They're just amazing. And luckily they did find some more bed bugs in the restroom that they were originally found in but nowhere else in the building so we were able to contain that. But it's just one of the kind of challenging issues that we deal with when we're running a public building and we've got everyone coming in there and sometimes these things happen. So the comment about bed bugs liking books, they don't really like books. They are nocturnal and they feed on human blood. And so most of the libraries in my area that have had bed bugs, they found them in chairs that people were sitting in. They generally come in on a person's clothing or on a backpack or something like that. But I was asking one of the dog trainers about the bed bugs coming in on books because I know it does happen. And he said what sometimes happens is people are at home and they're reading a book in bed and they put the book next to them and then the bed bugs crawl from them onto the book and then the book comes back in the library. But there's really nothing for them to feed on the books. They're nocturnal and they like to feed on human blood. So it's a very interesting issue, one that I've learned a lot about in the last six months. So one of the kind of interesting things that we deal with in public libraries. So the other thing I wanted to mention in the sort of challenging category is the use of public libraries is changing. There has been a dramatic drop in reference and of course that's because people have access to so much information on the internet. So I teach reference. So this is something that I'm really watching and to see, you know, what does our role evolve into as reference librarians when fewer people are coming to us and asking for help in finding information. And we'll talk a little bit about that. Yes, Google of course. And of course Mountain View where I work is home to Google. So we are very much aware of Google. And actually Google has been a great partner to us about eight years ago when the city was going through some financially difficult times. My predecessor cut our bookmobile service and one of the stops had been going out to Google and they said, oh, we like this service, what can we do? So they gave us a grant for $200,000 to buy a new bookmobile and we take the bookmobile out to preschools and schools and senior centers and we also take it out to Google and they love it. Surprise to me when I came to Mountain View I thought, oh, they're probably just getting all their ebooks from Amazon and streaming movies that they actually love the bookmobile. So just a little aside there. Now we talked about reference is decreasing. And traditional circulation may be dropping as well and it's a little early to tell but I've noticed in my area in talking with my colleagues we did see circulation start to slip a little bit in the last couple of years. So we're keeping an eye on that to see, you know, what's happening there. So definitely a challenge that the way people are using public libraries is changing. So we talked about the good and we talked about the bad or the challenging. So let's get to the fun part and talk about the exciting and looking a little bit to the future. I think it's going to be important for us to embrace our role as educators. One of the statistics that we track that is going up pretty dramatically is the number of people who are attending a class or a program or an author program at our libraries. And people are really responding to that. Of course, that's because we're offering more of those programs in many libraries but people are really coming out for those. When I came to Mountain View six years ago, we had any adult programs. And I told my librarians, I want adult programs. And now we've got multiple things going on every day. I have council members come up to me at community events and say, you guys are doing fantastic programs in the libraries. And the community is really responding to that and I think we need to embrace that role. We're about lifelong learning and so that's shifting and how do we fulfill that mission? And one way is to offer programs in our libraries and we get the opportunity to teach classes and bring in community members who have expertise to help us teach classes. So I think we need to focus even more on providing excellent customer service in our buildings and remotely. One of the assignments, oh, I see a question here. Program attendees, do they actually check out books related to the program? That's a great question and that's something they really promote. So if we're doing a program on a particular area, we'll bring in a cart of books related to that area. Like for example, my assistant, who's very talented, also teaches a watercolor class in the library. So we bring in the books that we have on watercolors and we encourage people to check them out. So that's our way to try to keep, you know, our circulation healthy in addition to having people attend programs with us. But getting back to customer service I think is absolutely critical. And one of the assignments that I use in my 210 class is I send my students out to libraries, either public libraries or academic libraries, with a question and they go and they pose, as a member of the public asks you a question, they go up to the reference desk or information desk and they ask a question and I ask them to look for, you know, visually, is it easy to find the reference desk? Is the staff approachable? Do they follow a, you know, reference interview that we learn about in class and to write that as part of a paper? And I'm actually disappointed that probably half of my students report pretty poor service because the library was distracted, they didn't look up from their computer, they didn't seem interested, you know, they just pointed, they didn't go out to the stacks with me. And so I think we need to really focus on that so that every person who comes in our building leaves and thinks to themselves, wow, I got great service there because that's our value add as public libraries. You know, you can go on Google and do a search and get information, but you can go in a public library and you can talk to someone in person and receive that personalized service. So I think we need to put a little more effort into that part of what we do. And I have my students read articles about Apple's customer service. If you've ever been into an Apple retail store, boy, they know customer service. And in fact, my son happens to work at one of the Apple retail stores. They actually have a process that they follow very much like what a reference librarian follows when you're dealing with a customer or a patron to try to narrow down what their needs are. So I think we can learn a lot by looking at retail and how they provide customer service. So people are coming into our libraries, but I think we need to get out of the library as well. We are part of the community. We need to be out into the community and have a presence at community events. We take our bookmobile out to a variety of community events. We do tables. So we try to get out there as much as we can, go to neighborhood meetings. So I think it's really important to get out of the library and meet people where they are as well. We are really good at counting things. And I think that's important, but we need to move from outputs to outcomes. So outputs are things like how many books did you check out? How many people came to a program? You know, how many of this or that? And we have to report all that information into our state libraries. But so the Mountain View Library circulated 1.4 million items last year. So what? What does that mean? What is the outcome of that in our community? So the Public Library Association is doing some great work in this area. I invite you to take a look at their outcome measures on their website. We're just starting to participate in that to try to find out what is the value that people get from the services that they use from the public library. And public librarians historically have not been very good at collecting that information. So we still do outputs, though, and I still think it's important to track that. And because the ways people are used in public libraries is changing, that information that we report is starting to change. So I noticed when I submitted our statistics to the California State Library this year, not only did we report sort of traditional circulation, but they asked us to report database use and use of other electronic resources, and then that's going to go up to the IMLS. So there's sort of two messages here. One is we need to track the different ways that people are using our services beyond the traditional measures, and we need to focus on outcomes so that we can show the value of that to our communities. Ah, so we have a comment here, I'm taking a big data analytics class. That's fantastic. That's great. I think it's critical that we align our services with what our community needs. You know, we can say, oh, we're a public library, we're going to do X. But if the community needs other things from us, I think it's really important to respond to that. So Pew Research, and I'll give you some citations at the end. Pew Research has done some great, very interesting research projects about public libraries. And in their latest report, oh, IMLS, I'm sorry, we have so much jargon, Institute of Museum and Library Services at the federal level. So when we report information to our state libraries, that gets rolled up to the federal level. When Pew asked people what they would like their public libraries to do, 80% of them said, offer programs to teach digital tools. 80%, that is huge. We need to take advantage of that. And by that kind of response, people are seeing us as having some expertise there. So we really need to respond to that. I work, I'm the director, so I don't get to work the reference just, oh, that much anymore. But I do a Sunday rotation when I can. And the last time I worked Sunday afternoon on the reference desk, most of my activity was people coming up and holding their iPhone or their iPad or their Android, you know, Samsung or whatever and going, how do I get eBooks on here? So we really need to respond to that and, you know, embrace that role. People want more spaces for reading. They like to come in and read and use our Wi-Fi. They want us to have tools like 3D printers. We were one of the first libraries in our area to have a 3D printer. And we did programs showing people, you know, that technology and educating them about that. Now the fourth bullet is interesting. Only 24% of the people who responded to Pew's survey said that they thought public libraries should move the print books to make room for some of these technologies that they want. So they want it all. They want the traditional print books and they want the technology. And that's a real challenge for us in our buildings. I'm in the process of doing a remodel, hopefully, from my building. We're in the design phase now and hoping to get the money for construction next year to try to achieve a better balance between seeding and space for print books and, you know, space for technology tools as well. So these are some of the things that people think their public libraries should be offering. Ah, my local small town library just got an iPad for public use this year. That's fantastic. In fact, we just got a couple of iPads in Mountain View to be used by our reference librarians so we can get out in the stacks, you know, roving reference, meeting people where they are and then have access to the catalog and other library information on the iPad. So that's great. It's a great tool. So here are some opportunities. There are so many ways that we can fulfill that mission of public libraries of supporting our communities with lifelong learning. It's more than checking out print books, although that's still going to be part of what we do for many years, I think. There are so many other ways to support education. So the first one we've talked about a bit, you know, offering programs and classes and workshops to teach people new skills. And depending on your community, many libraries are offering special programs for recent immigrants. Some of the libraries in the Bay Area where I work are offering ESL conversation clubs and we started one a couple of years ago and we've had tremendous response to that. With 30 or 40 people show up every week to practice their English. They're just a delightful group. Readers advisory is something that's a traditional library service that I think we could expand. One of the things that I do in my email signature is I list the books that I'm reading and I just thought that was kind of a fun thing to share. But people come up to me at meetings and the mayor will come up to me and say, oh, I saw you're reading this book. I'm reading this book. You know, what else do you recommend? So I think we have some opportunities there. Often the local history collection is housed in the public library. So that's a great opportunity to get that information digitized. I see we have about 11 minutes left so I'll move along here. Oh, did I miss a question? What course do you recommend for me? I'm interested in working in the public library and graduating in the spring. Why don't we take that one offline? I'd love to chat with you via email about a little bit more about your interests and kind of what classes you've already taken. So I'm happy. In fact, I'll just give you all my email address. It's rosanne.nacicatmountainview.gov. And I'd be happy to email with any of you if you have more questions. A couple of other opportunities for us, partnering with schools. We do a virtual library card for every incoming high school freshman so that they can use our electronic resources. That idea came from our school district superintendent. And it was a huge success with his support. We own early literacy so, again, I think that's an ongoing opportunity for us. And I think people are coming in. Oh, thank you for posting my email there. I appreciate that. Advice for students with no library background, get a volunteer job at a library. Get some experience that way is one thing you can do. But email me too and we can talk more. Content creation. People are coming in and they want help making a resume. They want to use a 3D printer. Maybe they want to publish a book. So they're looking to us to help them create things. So what are the important skills if you want to be a public librarian? Flexibility and being comfortable with change are absolutely critical because we are in communities and in a world that is changing rapidly and we need to respond to that and be comfortable fulfilling our mission in different ways. I mentioned customer service, really key, knowing your community and being responsive to what your community needs. I think analytical skills are important as we move from towards outcome measurements and being a good communicator and being able to share the library's story in writing and also speaking at community events. So I will wrap up and then I think we'll have time for a few more questions with this quote. If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. So I'll let you think about that. And then I wanted to give you some suggestions for reading and I read these three publications as I was putting this presentation together and kind of thinking about how the public library is changing. So these three publications are very, very interesting. So that is the end of my prepared presentation. I think we have about six, seven minutes. I'm happy to answer, try to answer any other questions that you have. There's a few questions in the chat box, Roseanne. Let's see, what did I miss? I was trying to catch those as I was going along. I asked what do you think the number one skill was and then there's a question from Kate Spaulding also. Okay, let's see if I can, ah, here's a question that I missed. Has use of the 3D printer continued to be high or did it dwindle after the initial rush? It dwindled a bit. You know, certainly there was a lot of excitement about it a couple of years ago and we did some big programs. We actually brought in some local vendors, did some vendor fairs. So there's a lot of interest in it and then we did weekly kind of drop in sessions in our lobby. And then unfortunately, a 3D printer broke and we just figured out how to fix it. So it'll be interesting as we bring that back to kind of see how much demand there is for that. So stay tuned on that one. We talked about the iPads here and someone typed in my, I think Jill, thank you for typing in my email in terms of recommendations for courses. I'd like to take that one offline. And ah, here's a comment of someone else doing a ESL conversation club. It really isn't absolutely delightful experience. We did a scavenger hunt with them and sent them all around the library so they could get to know the library and one of their stops was the director's office. So I got a chance to meet them and I asked them to tell me about public libraries in their countries and none of them reported having anything like what we have here in the United States. They just think it's the greatest thing. Yeah, and advice for students who have no library background whatsoever. I think I mentioned if you can talk to your local public library about volunteering, I think that's a great way to kind of get your foot in the door. And in fact, in my library, we've ended up hiring some of our volunteers because they come in and they do great work for us. And if they don't have the degree or a lot of background, we'll kind of start them out as pages and then, you know, kind of get a chance to move along as they develop more skills. So if you can at least get some volunteer experience, I think it's really helpful. So the number one skill for working in a public library, oh, it's really hard to pick just one. But I think I'll say there's two things that I think are really important. One is that community element and the really knowing your community being part of the community and that that flexibility and getting comfortable with change is really important as well. Because if you, you know, when I think about the different jobs that I've had in public libraries, the job that I was hired to do. Change so much that the job that I had by the time I left was completely different. So you absolutely come in with basic skills, things that you've learned through your program here. But over time, those skills need to change and you need to learn new things and you need to be, you know, changing direction. So I think that's really important. What do I find that many applicants are missing when we hire? I, we, we like, when we go through the interview process in Mountain View, we like to do scenario questions. And generally our scenarios are around customer service. We want to get a sense for how this person is going to relate to the public in a positive way. We do scenarios about challenging situations because as we discussed earlier, we have them and can, does the person have the presence of mind to be able to deal with a difficult person and still be calm and respectful? So those are, you know, two of the key things that we are looking for when we hire folks. Let's see if I, oh, I see a comment from someone. They didn't allow volunteers. That's surprising. We love our volunteers. They really help us out. Most libraries do have some kind of volunteer program.  We recently hired a part-time reference librarian who had come in working for us as a page initially, and then she moved them on to and is working on her degree. Ah, so here's a comment from someone who recently began volunteering at their neighborhood library, which is fantastic. It's a great way to get some experience and to see, you know, what working in a public library is really like. Ah, I have an interview for an aid job. So I'm assuming this is kind of the entry level where you're going to be out there shelving books. And so advice for that. Well, we actually do a test in Mountain View. So we test to make sure the person knows how to put things in alphabetical and numerical order. So that's sort of the first hurdle that you probably have to pass in most libraries. And then from there, we're, oh, I see we're at 6.30. So I guess we need to stop. It has been such a pleasure talking about public libraries with you all. Now you have here my email address. I'd be very happy to have you contact me in Mountain View if you have more questions. And if there's anything else I can help you with, please do call on me. Thank you, Roseanne, very much. This is Jill. Thanks, everyone, for joining us tonight. Excellent information. We found like we could have kept this conversation going for a long time. So do follow up with Roseanne if you have additional questions. Thanks, everyone. Good night.