Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly online event.  The shows are recorded, however, so if you are unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. You can always go to our website and all of our previous shows, going back to when we first started this in January 2009, are all on our archive pages. So you can go there and see anything that you might have missed. The show and the recordings are all free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, colleagues, anyone who you think might be interested in any of the topics we've had on the show. As for our topics, we're pretty broad. We do a mixture of things here, presentations, many training sessions, book reviews, demos. Basically, our only criteria is that it is somehow library-related and we are happy to have it on the show. We do have Nebraska Library Commission staff that come in and do sessions sometimes, talking about things that we're doing here locally in Nebraska and at the Commission, but we also do bring in guest speakers from across the country and as we have this morning. On the line with us is Jennifer Korber. Hi Jennifer. Hi Gusta. And she is, I think I have your new title here, Public Instruction Curriculum Development Coordinator. Yes, she does cool public instruction stuff at Boston Public Library. Let's say that. Yes. Yeah, and I've worked with her before on presentations and whatnot and I saw she had written this pretty cool article in Library Journal last month. It came out, I believe. Yeah, first. And about this, you know, dealing with training your staff and devices and whatnot and so I decided I asked her to come on the show and share with us what she's got to tell us about managing this crazy device tell you that we're all dealing with. So I'll just hand it over to you. Take it away, Jen. All right, sounds good. Good morning everybody and in particular good morning to Michael Sowers, who I know is out there in the audience. I saw him log in and he'll become relevant later. This morning we are talking about managing the device deluge and specifically not so much managing the devices we have in our buildings but also the devices that our patrons are coming in with because as y'all might have noticed, the number of things that people come in asking about looking to do library, looking to access library services on, looking to use in the course of doing their work at the library, that number and variety of devices has increased exponentially over the last 10 years. And I can say over the last 10 years because in 2006 I attended my first internet librarian because of a trend I'd been noticing in the branch I was working in at the time, which was that computers, we've been offering computers, public computers for a long time, people have been bringing in their laptops but there had started to be a serious uptick in how technology was affecting what I did every day in the branch and so I heard about internet librarian and attended it in the fall of 2006 and when I came back I was asked to write up a little report to put out to the rest of the staff at the library and you can read it on the screen but basically librarianship had shifted fundamentally, not changed because the core of what we did hadn't really changed, we still provided information services, we still offered learning resources and we found recreational reading and activities but there was beginning to be a shift in how we had provided the services and particularly the devices that we had provided them on and that I thought very strongly at the time and still do that the key isn't resources. But attitude, how we as staff got out there and dealt with all of this stuff that was coming into our buildings and being able to adapt, change and keep up and that has really been the core of everything that I have done for most of the past 10 years with regards to working with staff, working with the public, working on presentations and training, my own development, all of that has been about figuring out ways to just keep up and keep on top of it and be able to handle it and help when people come into our buildings looking for information about these things in their lives and I got to say when I said this in 2006 it scared people because as it says librarianship hadn't really changed, we'd been using in the buildings particularly we've been using roughly the same stuff for decades. The ILS has changed, yes we'd added catalog computers but fundamentally what we used to do our jobs hadn't changed very much and now it was and this is 2006 is before the iPhone, it's before the iPad, it's before Twitter, it's before Facebook, it's before all of these things that are now commonplace and so we've been asked to do a lot in 10 years and we're going to be asked to do even more moving forward because the problem is that the number of devices, the sorts of technology that exists in people's everyday lives, it's just getting broader, it's getting deeper, it's getting more widely varied, it's just more of it. You've got everything from iPads and Kindles and iPhones and Android devices of all sorts, laptops, all this more now what we call more standard stuff to the things that people are bringing into their homes and Chromecasts and Roku's and smart everything in your house from smart watches on your body to smart thermostats on your wall to smart onesies keeping track of your loved ones as they sleep. There's another one out there called the mother which is this kind of monitoring system for anybody not just babies but people of any age and it kind of keeps track of them and they can check in with you and you check in with it, it's kind of somewhere between freaky and wonderful all at the same time and no these are not obviously the Chromecasts, the baby onesie are not things that our patrons are bringing in with them or using for library services but they are absolutely things that people are asking reference questions about or looking for help in learning how to use or just trying to deal with the things in their lives and by helping people, our patrons dealing with the things in their lives, we also have to learn how to deal with it in hours both as staff and just as members of this technology using public. So this is the problem is that it's just getting, I won't say worse because I don't think it's worse, I think it's just more diverse and more complicated. Now complicated problems can require complicated solutions but sometimes they can kind of also be fairly simple ones and the training ideas that I put forth in the library journal article and in other presentations and writings that I've done is both complex because they can potentially have a lot of moving parts but they're really kind of straightforward and I was thinking about them just before this presentation and what came to mind is the idea of a Build-A-Bear because you are taking, you have the potential to take lots of ways in which to train staff, help them support them, maintain their knowledge and keep using it in a professional space but at the core it is silly enough all about heart, it's all about that attitude that I talked about at the beginning and that's endearingly what I discovered the Build-A-Bear process works on is you start with the heart and then you build out a bear that's right for you. You can bring that same approach to your training for staff in all of this. Now anyone who's ever done any training or really any program development, this should look fairly straightforward, this little cycle, it's and very familiar, it's how you can discern what you need, implement it and then upkeep and update it and then determine if it's been working and also what you need for that to go around. Assessment, instruction, programming and then maintenance and then keep repeating that cycle over and over again and that is really the core of any good training program. So we're going to first look at assessment, then we're going to look at instruction and then we're going to look briefly at maintenance and inside of maintenance I'm also going to include keeping up, keeping up on trends, keeping up on new tech, keeping up on what's out there. So assessment, we are librarians, we are library staff, we have been working in libraries for many years, assessment and outcomes measurements are a fairly intrinsic part of what we do and this is the first time I'll use the phrase, if it's fixed, don't break it. In other words, use what you already have. If you're already doing staff surveys or self-evaluations, if you already have tech questions in annual reviews, then keep using those tools to find out both what skills your staff have already and what they need because they're going to be the best understanders of their own skill sets and for some extent of it, what they don't know and by continuing to ask them in lots of different ways you can find out what they need to have to feel prepared to deal with all of these devices. Same thing with your users, if you're already doing user surveys, just include questions about technology, include questions about what they have, what they don't have, what neat thing they heard about on the news last night. Some other ways that may not have occurred to you yet is gadget counting. We do people counting, we do book counting, we do materials counting, do gadget counting, sit in a building and just very unobtrusively watch, see what devices people are pulling out of their pockets, what they're pulling out of their bags. You don't have to go staring at them because it's usually pretty obvious. You can tell an iDevice, an Apple device, from five feet away. You can tell what an Android screen looks like. You can see whether or not there's a little glowy Apple or a solid piece of metal as the back of a laptop. You don't have to get in people's faces to see what devices they've got. You just have to pay attention. You have to spend a little bit of time walking around, seeing what devices are walking in your buildings. For that matter, do this out particularly for a community library or an academic library. Walk around and see what people are using in the restaurants and the coffee shops on the street. Just pay attention to what people are using in your area and that's going to tell you what people might need help with. Similarly, informal data gathering. You're getting asked reference questions. You're getting asked for help. You're getting asked for training by people, hopefully. What are they asking about? What do they say they need help with? And then you can start doing some extra staff training on those things. And then if you've got those relationships with folks, just ask them with tact what they're using. What are they using in their libraries, in your space? What are they using at home? What are they using at work that they're confused about and might need extra help with? Just ask. Because that's going to tell you what to focus on. And some of them are obvious. You want to be able for your staff to be able to support library services that you're providing like eBooks or databases or mobile help or any other services, audiobooks and downloadable media and streaming media now increasingly with things like Hoopla and Xenio. You want to be able to support them using those library services on their own devices. So you're going to pay attention to what people are asking for during your needs assessment. You're going to look at upcoming technology trends. The Apple Watch has launched. What does it mean that you've got people who are now trying to look at the library's website or your email notifications or your chat help on a screen that is two and a half by two and a half inches? Those are upcoming trends that are going to be important to you. So keep on track and keep looking at those for what to focus your training on. And then general troubleshooting skills. Just how to ask good questions to help a patron get to the question they're actually asking. If this sounds like a reference interview, it is. But staff don't always make the connection between being able to ask good leading questions in a reference interview and leading questions in a technology help interview. They're the same skill set. You just have to know which kinds of questions to ask. That's the only thing that's different. And that's what you can get some help with. And then, of course, soft skills, presenting public speaking, customer service. All of the things that will also help staff interact better with patrons and their technology. In my work for the library as curriculum coordinator, I've been looking at a lot of large reports from both large library organizations and the federal government. These three, by the way, all of these slides will be available both on the Encompass Live recording page. And also, I will put them up on SlideShare. And they'll be available via JenniferKorber.com. So don't worry about scribbling all this down. I promise you it'll be available online afterwards. So there have been a couple of reports lately that have come through on my desk that really talk about both how technology is having an impact on education and learning in general, and how they're having an impact on libraries. And all three of these mentioned technology in some way from different perspectives, both generally how libraries support education, how skills need to be changed, and addressing skill gaps need to be changed across every institution in the US, and specifically financial literacy, because now you've got mobile banking. How do people stay safe with their mobile banking information? How do people stay safe if they're shopping online? That sort of financial literacy as well. So this is all about, so far we've talked about how you figure out what you need to talk about, what you need to train your staff on, and what you need to do to keep people up to date. First of all, does anybody have any questions? Are there any confusion at this point? No, not yet. Anyone, if you do have any questions, please do use your questions section of your GoToWebinar interface. Type in there, and I can grab your questions and pass them on. But nothing had come in while you're talking. Also, if I'm talking too fast, I realize I am a native New Yorker. I have lived in Boston for 25 years. Oh, yes.   I think you're doing fine. Oh, someone just wanted to know your website. It's just jennifercorber.com. I'm adding it to the links for the show as well. We do collect all of the NURLs that are mentioned websites, so they'll be included afterwards too. Also, excellent. So that's how you would figure out what you need to train on, and at what level, to what depth, and on what stuff. So what does the training actually look like? As part of my work for the Library Journal article, I put out a short questionnaire to about a dozen or so folks working in libraries who I either know personally or had recommended to me for their training programs and asked them this question, what does your staff training look like for modern devices, modern technology, and how do you do it? And overwhelmingly, it was a combination of in-person training, but not just formal in-person training, but also informal in-person training and online resources for continued learning and general support and maintenance. And it was frequently decentralized. It wasn't everybody comes down to a classroom, sits together in a class for an hour, two hours, half a day, a day. That stuff was part of it, but that wasn't the focus of the training program. It's kind of like what we just figured out during the first wave of real social media training and learning in libraries also about a decade ago with Learning 2.0 from Charlotte and Mecklenburg. It's that you need to get your hands in it. You need to get your hands on the things, whether it's learning how to use a social media site or learning how to use a piece of technology. But then you also, just doing a one hour workshop isn't as useful as something a little bit more free-form, something a little bit more self-driven, self-directed, and self-important. What makes that thing important to that person who's learning? And so informal, decentralized training, in-person training, hands-on training, plus online resources, both formal and informal, seem to be the way people found worked best for the staff in their locations. So again, here's number two repetition of this. If it's fixed, don't break it. Use what you already have. If you have very well-attended formal training classes, don't force people to do decentralized informal training just because I said so. Use those existing training classes and just adapt the topics to social media, to adapt the topics to current technologies, adapt the topics to troubleshooting, whatever it is. Take, if you've got a well-attended training program, use it. Use it for everything it's worth because people are used to it. They've got it built into their workflow. They've got it built into their schedules and their mental process. Use it for all that you can. Even if what you do in one of those training classes is a drop-in gadget, hands-on session, or a petting zoo, then you're still using it within the framework that people already understand. So work with that. Don't change just for the sake of change. If your training program isn't as strong or you don't have one, then you can start some of these other ideas just to get people's hands on things. You can do a drop-in gadget or petting zoo session at any of your locations. You can do a bring-a-thing to meetings. Basically, this is all technology. This is, again, this is not technology that people are just using inside buildings. So we don't have to come to a place in our library buildings to learn about it. Ask people to bring their favorite new gadget that they got for the holidays or their birthday to a staff meeting. Ask them to bring them to management meetings. Ask them to do show and tell. We've done this for book talks. We've done this for our favorite databases. Do it for your favorite piece of technology. Bring a thing, show it off, show how you found it, gets integrated into your life, and how you learned about it in the first place and then be able to show people what excites you about it. That's what's going to get people excited in staff meetings about this stuff, which leads directly into peer training. The Douglas County, Colorado system has worked a lot on getting basic little mini geek squads of peer trainers well-trained. And then they can go out and train other people at other locations. If you've got a branch system, you get one or two people from each branch well-trained, and then they can go back and keep showing their branch staff. People will learn.  The talking heads are good. The talking heads are useful. You listen to them online. But you also can get a lot out of having your staff training each other because it fits that informal way of figuring the stuff out. You can also have staff attend public computer classes or public technology classes either at your own library if you've got them or at other libraries. I want to give a shout out to the Akron Summit County public library system in Ohio. Because as part of my job as curriculum coordinator, I was going out and looking at what other libraries are doing for their public computer training. They have one of Akron Summit County has one of the best basic computer training programs I've seen yet. It's comprehensive. There are dozens of classes at the basic intermediate and advanced levels. They've got it really well spelled out. They've got handouts for everything. They've got online tutorials for most of it. And they're also doing things like Ravelry and our travel tools on the internet. And they have one on vacuum cleaners that's coming up on July 23rd, which I would love to know more about. If anybody can figure that out for me. But it's a great outline of both what you might use for your own public training and also what could work for staff. And so if you're in the neighborhood of that part of Ohio, definitely send staff there because they seem to really have it together. And I was very, very impressed. Another way to get a lot of good hands-on training, if you don't have the ability to get the gadgets into your own libraries or into your staff meetings, people don't have these things, is go where your patrons are acquiring them. Go out to the retailers. Go to the Microsoft Store. Go to the Apple Store. Go to Best Buy. Go to the Verizon Store, T-Mobile Sprint. Wherever your folks are acquiring their technology, you can send staff out in little groups to go and play there. All of this technology gets sold by having people come into brick-and-mortar stores and play with it because the diversity is so overwhelming. Use that same opportunity to go and train staff on it because they're going to have that not only will those places have live devices that they can try out and use, but they will also have knowledgeable sales representatives who can answer their questions and give them the basic tutorials and give them the basic walk-throughs. And they'll get the same introduction to these devices that your patrons will from the people who are actually making them and selling them. So go out and visit the stores and play because getting your hands on these devices is still the best way of learning how to use them, regardless of what kind of technology you're talking about. So up to this point, everything I talked about has been about hands-on training in either the formal setting of library in-house training or increasingly more informal settings all the way down to visiting stores and playing. You can also outsource your formal training by looking at what else is out there that might offer a similar style of training that might help your staff. So the first thing to look at is, where does your city or county or regional IT staff get their training, particularly their help dress training? Because the kind of interactions that you have in a help desk environment, troubleshooting, or learning how to use a feature well, or just figuring out how to turn the thing on, that's the sort of stuff that IT help desk staff get asked to help with all the time. And so did you lose me again? OK, I keep going. That your IT staff can figure out where they're getting their help desk training, and you can also get training along with them for your own staff. And you can see there the connection between a help desk interaction and a reference interaction, where just the topic has changed from physics or gardening to technology. Similarly, you can talk to local companies to find out whether or not they would be willing to train your staff along with theirs in those same ways. You can see what they might have available for their help desk staff in IT, or more generally in their IT department. You can ask them if they would be willing to train your staff along with their help desk staff, and then possibly that could begin the partnership that could result in them coming and doing programs for the public in technology in your organization, in your library. Otherwise, you could also pay for more formal training through companies like New Horizons and other in-person training, anything that you've got locally that offers that kind of tech training in in-person, more formal class structure. Again, particularly things like help desk training and troubleshooting, where you could also be picking up those presentation skills and customer service skills. So as I said at the beginning, to complement your in-person training, your hands-on training, whether it's formal or informal, online training is one of the best resources out there, because one of the things, this is how your public is learning how to use their devices. They can be doing it very informally. They can be going to YouTube and finding lots and lots of tutorials there on how to use whatever feature of their new device they need. There are lots of unboxing videos. If you search YouTube for Unboxing iPhone 6 or Unboxing Android, whatever it is, Moto Plus, blah, blah, the unboxing photos, the unboxing, they're fantastic because they recreate the experience of, OK, you have this new thing. You've got this new device. How do you take it out of the box? What's included in the box? What do you have to do once you take it out of the box and turn it on? And so you can watch an unboxing video to get that same experience that your public will have when they get their new shiny thing. For slightly more formal online training, there are a few really good resources, several really good resources out there. Lynda.com is either the best kept secret or the most well-known resource out there. They do a fantastic job of offering lots and lots of videos in a wide range of technological topics. Galeson Gauge courses is also increasing their offerings as far as technology are concerned. And so if you've got either of these for the public, you can certainly encourage your staff to also go through these online tutorials and learn more. If you're looking for more formal than that, you can go with a company like New Horizons or General Assembly, which do online webinars in everything from Microsoft Word 101 to developing apps for the Kindle or developing apps for the iPhone or using Photoshop or developing databases using PHP and MySQL. So you've got a huge range of technological support available through both formal and informal. And there's one which should have made it on there, which I will now tell you about as soon as I find it. Flock, F-L-O-Q-Q.com stands out specifically for its Spanish and Portuguese language content, because that company is based in Latin America. So there if, and this is something I haven't touched on, is that language training. There was a great program that the Boston Public Library had for its staff on 12 of the most important computer phrases in Spanish for staff. Something like that would make a fantastic supplement to any other training that you're doing. You don't have to be fluent in a language to say, this computer is broken. My Spanish language is limited and basic, and yet I can still conduct even rudimentary transactions and help people with their technological questions just by what limited Spanish I do have. And so any language skills that you can add to this mix and using all of the language skills of all of your staff and trusted members of the public can be a key piece to this and a key piece to interacting well with the public in using their own technology. So online training, Duolingo or Mango Languages or any other language learning where you can get those basic interactions down could be vitally important to this as well. Finally, if you have the skills, if you have the technology, if you have the resources, if you have a content management system, a learning management system, or the skill set to do it without or wiki or intranet or any of those other things, and you can create your own online training program that's precisely tailored to your own library staff's needs, by all means do so. In prepping for the library journal article, I spoke with Dan Carpenter over at the Douglas County Library System. And she explained and sent me some screenshots from their e-media training that all of their staff went through a couple of years ago as they started offering hoopla and overdrive and online services of many kinds. They wanted all of their staff to be able to support the library offering these services on user's own devices. And so they went ahead and had all of their staff go through this very tailored online training program. And then they've been updating it and are do it occasionally as a refresher since then. So if you can do this and using whatever platforms you already have, fantastic. It's obviously a great way to explicitly give your staff the kind of training support they need. There are also some more general library-oriented resources for both training and for technology that are just good to have in your back pocket or to have as a list of links on your library's intranet or your staff wiki or part of the library's web page, for that matter, because this is stuff that could be useful for the public as well. Tease for Training is a biweekly podcast hosted by Maurice Coleman of the Harford County Library System in Maryland. It's been running for many, many years. It's a call-in show oriented towards training in libraries, both staff and public training, and a lot of the questions, concerns, and topics surrounding public and staff training. TechSoup for Libraries is a technology-focused online resource as well. Idealware does both reviews and suggests software and products for nonprofits. And they also have online tutorials and webinars that they do. There are lots of, due to the events and the economic events of 2008, 2009, and 2010, there are actually a fair number of former librarians out in the world who have, at that time, needed to leave their libraries and have gone into, or they've done it since then. I don't know the exact circumstances surrounding Crystal and Karen's movement into training, but that's when I know a whole bunch of folks who personally know a whole bunch of folks who went into independent training and consulting was during the economic downturn. And a lot of folks have gone into staff training and public training, particularly focused on technology. And they're offering online webinars, customized training of all sorts. I do this. I've done this for several library systems, both online and in person.  Then on a very large national level, both ALA and Library Journal offer workshops, both online and in person, on technology, changing technology, innovations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So Jen, at this point, are there any questions? Yes, actually, someone has a suggestion. And I've looked at this too. GCF Learn Free. Oh, yeah, I've heard of that one. Yeah, let's see here. Yeah, I've used this before. LearnFree.org is what they do as well. And it's some, so it's a comment here, says, maybe helpful in some instances. This site has a section for apps and other generally labeled technology. The section starts back at the basics. For example, learning to use a computer online safety in a bit more. So that's one page that, yeah, we'll add, GCF Learn Free. And it's not for Goodwill. That's right, it's from Goodwill. Yeah, the Goodwill Community Foundation is what GCF is. Oh, well, if you, OK, I didn't even touch. There are so many resources like that out there. The ARP actually has a fantastic section on online safety for seniors and basic computers. A week or two ago, I had a gent come in. Oh, he was using technology from early 2009 that was not the best technology when he bought it. And he was wondering why he couldn't connect to wireless systems in libraries in 2015.  I said, sir, the best thing you can do with this stuff is just recycle it and buy the best tablet, the best inexpensive tablet you can get your hands on. So what I ended up doing was taking him up to the reference desk from my drop-in tech session and brought him up to the reference desk. And we found a Buying a Computer 101 page on the ARP's website that was perfectly awesome. And the reference librarian printed it out for him. And she was actually, because she is, shout out to Melissa Thoreau at the Boston Public Library. She is one of our really, really super tech-savvy reference staff at the Central Library. There are many, many savvy staff at the Boston Public Library. But Melissa in particular teaches for me as part of our curriculum process. And I was thrilled to see that she was the person on the desk because I knew that I could leave him in very good hands and get that support. So anything about .com, the federal government has a few good sites, online on guard, on guard, online, on guard, online.gov is another great one. That's all about safety online. And that's just a, if one of the topics that your public is looking for is online safety, that's one to do. So, OK. If there are no other questions, I'm going to blow through the last few slides. Yeah, we do have a question about creating your own in-house online modules. For those who have created their own in-house online modules, what program or software did you use? Camtasia, something else? People use literally whatever they had their hands on. So if you have Camtasia, if you have Captivate, if you have access to any of those, great. There are plenty of free resources online for doing screencasts and screen capture. Way too many for me to list right now. I bet you money, if you go back through the tech talk archives on the NCAPA Slime, I am positive Michael addressed many, many, many of these questions over the years. But also, really, today's content management systems and learning management systems. So WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Blackboard, whatever you moodle, that's another thing that people are going to use. They're going to, like I said earlier, use what you've got. Don't go investing in new systems just for the sake of doing it. Use whatever tools you've already been using, if you have, and if not, try to find the one that's the simplest and most straightforward to use with the least lead time. Because the more time you have to spend learning how to use the tool, that's less fast that you're able to get your staff to train. Also, there are lots of videos out already. There's lots of free resources out there for doing this kind of thing, too. Yeah, free services. Free services are just existing videos. Free screencasting, yeah. Oh, yeah, that you can just use someone else's that explains the same topic. Absolutely don't. And I say this, and I say, and do this, don't reinvent the wheel. Look for somebody else, try and train the same thing, and just watch their video. If it works, borrow it, absolutely. Common craft videos. Oh, gosh, yeah. Can be. Yeah, exactly. So last few slides. Oops. So schedule. You've all read the slide by this point. It's not that long. For instruction, you want to do large formal training at regular intervals. I do not mean weekly. I mean every other month, quarterly, semi-annually. The big formal training should be a well-selected specific thing, not the core of this. As I said earlier, unless you've already got a really strong in-person training program, and you're just adding these topics. If you've already got that, great. Keep running with it. If you don't, don't put more work on getting people into a classroom to learn this stuff, because they won't. They just can't. There's too much. It needs to be done too often for it to rely on getting bodies in a room. So do that informal training, everything I mentioned earlier, as often as possible and as often as needed. You could have monthly outings to the local Verizon store, and that would be enough on some levels. Just to get people, OK, what's the hot new feature on a cell phone this month? And then, obviously, the online training is always available. So in that original set of three, I had assessment, instruction, and maintenance. For the actual training maintenance, getting people using this stuff, the only way they're going to keep that knowledge is if they actually use it. So for additional maintenance training, it's just the continuation of your more quote unquote formal instruction. Whatever you're doing to train them in the first place, keep doing that to give them the updates, because there will always, always, always be something new to cover. So even if you did a mobile photography staff training three months ago, some new app has come out in the last three months, and now you can do it again and include that new app. And that way, people get a refresher, new staff get the new training, and everybody gets the update on the new app. So just keep doing it. This is that iterative training process. That's what's going to work well because of just the rapidity of change in technology. The other part of maintenance is keeping up with what that change is and what's coming up. And I have done entire presentations just on this topic. So if you go to JenniferKorber.com, you will find some of those, and you will find my slides. So I just gave you my best of the best places to go get news sources on what's coming up, what technology is popular, how people are using it, what the impact is, all of that good stuff. Obviously, library news sources, ALI text source, any publications or blogs or e-newsletters from library organizations, your professional journals, whatever part of the profession you're in, everybody's talking about technology at some point in their professional journals. So just read it and keep on top of it. Mainstream news sources, particularly The New York Times, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic Magazine, and The Economist. I have to tell you, for a while, I was getting all of my tech news out of The Economist. They have a really good tech section of just little blurbs and then a quarterly, in-depth special report, tech orderly special report with in-depth reporting on a particular tech topic. And it's amazing because they're writing that for the business world. They're writing this for the heads of businesses. This is the technology news they feel is important for people who are shaping the economy of the world, if you want to get grandiose about it. They have a bias, sure, but they're definitely looking at people who are relying on this information to make money. So they're going to stay on top of trends, and they're going to look at different aspects of technology that you're just not going to get anywhere else. So you find the weird places to get tech news from. Find the biased places to get tech news from because you're going to get perspectives on that technology and the use of that technology that you are quite literally going to get nowhere else. So no resource is too strange. You have to pay attention to it and keep what's about you about where you're getting that information and look for those biases, but try to get as wide a perspective as possible. Don't be afraid of the geek-oriented news sources. Don't be afraid. And I think you've just lost me again. Can you hear me? Should I keep talking about geek news sources? No, I should not. OK, great. It doesn't look like it from my end, but you can still hear me. Fantastic. Apologies for the sort of, I am just going to go back and point to, on the recording at least, three things that I wanted to point out. Follow along, again, the tech news, because it's really important, and it is actually written, some of it, for a lay audience. So go ahead and look at TechCrunch, look at slash dot, read some of those tech news sources, and get what you can out of it. If nothing else, you will see just the headlines, and the headlines will give you ideas of what's coming up and what's actually out there. Similarly, you can do things like Google I.O. or the Mac Worldwide Developers Conference, which are absolutely geared for developers in the industry. But you learn about things like, who cares about new domain names? Dot photography is a new domain name that has come out in the last year or so. And so now, if you've got somebody who comes in and wonders why they can't get to www.bobsmith.photography because they keep adding dot com to the end of it, well, then now you know that that's because the dot photography is actually the end of the domain and the end of the URL. And knowing that will help you answer that question better. So stuff like this, I had forgotten about that particular tech trend until I was looking this up for the article. So it's all important. It's all out there. And so you don't even have to understand why there are new domains or anything else about it. Just know that it exists. And half of that is the point. Finally, the most important slide of this entire presentation, if you're still listening, do all of this, both the informal learning and the formal learning on library time, that will send the message that professional development and staff technology proficiency are management priorities. Or library priorities. And the more important you make it to yourselves, if you're in management, then the more important it will be out to your staff. And so even those runs out to the Verizon store and Best Buy and the Microsoft store and what have you, let people do that on library time. Not their lunch hours, but on actual library time. Because that sends an important message about how important this tech training is. So again, just some general resources. And again, don't scribble these down. I just wanted to show you that these things are out there. These things have been useful to me in my career as a trainer and as a tech person. And I hope they're important to you as well. And then a little tiny bit of self-promotion. I recently had a book published with Michael Sowers, formerly of the Nebraska Library Commission, on emerging technologies. And the entire last chapter of that is an expansion of the Keeping Up section that I had in this presentation. So if you do have access to that book, and it comes both in e-book format and a physical format, the whole last section, in addition to just being all about emerging technologies and modeling ways for you to look at them. The last section is all about keeping up. And then finally, the Library Journal article that started all of this is available online for you to read if you don't actually subscribe to Library Journal. And so once again, there's no right way, base your trainings on staff skills, patron needs, and the resources that are available, and build a program that works for you and your library and your staff. And thank you very much. And as Krista is messaging to me elsewhere, technology, we love it, and we hate it. And we love it, and we hate it some more. And then we keep loving it, and we keep hating it. Thank you very much for coming today. And for reals, this is the end of the presentation. If Krista comes back in the next moment or two, she'll have some final words to say. But otherwise, check us back out either on jennifercorber.com or on the Library Commission's website. Thank you much. And cheers. OK, that will wrap it up for this week's edition of Encompass Live. Thank you very much, Jennifer. And thank you everyone for attending. We did have some technical difficulties with our audio throughout the show, but I did some editing after the fact, and I believe I've brought it all together into one comprehensive show beginning to end. This should all make sense to you. So as I said, thank you for attending. I hope you'll join us next week when our topic is integrate those desktop skills with online classes. Laura Johnson, our Continuing Education Coordinator here at the Library Commission, is going to tell you all about the new skill soft classes that are available now free to public library staff. So please just sign up for that on our website or any of our other future shows that you see on our list there. Thank you very much. And we'll see you next time on Encompass Live.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jaspyscasebreak.com. We just sold out 21-22 Panini Contenders Optic Basketball. This is a 10 box half case break. Pick your team number three. And here we go, guys. Whoa. So, fresh master case for three and four. We had to sell all the last seven teams via a team random. So we have a little character signing means we want that from a team random. There's everybody there. I'm gonna need another shot of espresso soon. Michael, but I've got this, man. I got this. I'm just thinking about how good I'll be sleeping today. It's like, it's fun having those sleeps, though. Like, you're just like so exhausted throughout the day from doing stuff before work, and then you have to go to work, and although, guys, you know, I'm always gonna say this, you know? I know a big guy probably out of shape, but even Joe will tell you, even though breaking isn't like a very physical job, we're not lifting stuff. It gets very tiring, actually.  All right, cool. Yeah, let's go right there. So there's two piles. All right. So, left or right? One, two, three, four, five, six? One. One, two, three. So this one right here will be for number four. I appreciate you more, I mean, to be honest with you. I love what I do. So, I'll power through these longer days, just because, like I said, I love the hobby in general. I grew up around the hobby, and then, like I said, got really more invested after high school. So, just wanted to be around sports, and this was the best way to do it for me, since I did like the hobby already. Empty. Jason Kidd, and a Dijontae Murray, uniformity. Dallas Mavs, Wayne, Dijontae Murray, that is Spurs, at Carmelo, and a very nice Bones Highland, that's a base to start us off. Denver Nuggets, going to Donald, solid here right there, and that Carmelo is actually going to be number to 49. Hoop Dreams, Alperin Sengun, and a Steph Curry, red eyes, superstars like that. Desmond Bain Red, Robert Williams, and we have a redemption. Perennial contender autographs, Blue, carnival 27, is that Anthony Davis? No, it just drew a holiday. It should be going to the Milwaukee Bucks. Let me double check though. It's probably the most likely Bucks who's currently there. Yes, Milwaukee Bucks, and Blue would be out of 75 or 49. So, since he's out of 99, it's most likely out of 75. Milwaukee, that's going ahead. Luca Donchich, uniformity, with a Hoop Dreams Herb Jones. Trey Murphy. Ooh, so we got gold. Jermaine Grant, and I bought a little Austin Reeves. He's been playing really well for the Lakers. He's like the new Caruso there. Nine of 10 for the Lakers. Gold. Brian with the Lakers. And then Jermaine Grant, I believe that's an orange. Number to 49, there you go. James Harden. But they blew Moises Moody. That's to 75. Ben Vleet, Jalen Suggs. You got Devin Vassil. And I bought a blue. Evan Mobley for the Cavs. Chris Butler. Look at that man local right here. He gets to pick this up. 44 to 49. Very nice one right there. Mobley. Oh yeah, it does. They're not numbered, but yeah, it has the 75 print. But I kind of like the 75th anniversary ones. They look cool. Let's say they're incorporating those just throughout the new products, right? They've been doing it throughout most products this year with the 75th anniversary here. Kyrie. And that's Boston edition Kyrie. That's cool. Devin Booker. Jalen Brown. Gary Harris. Porzingis. And a Davion Mitchell. Very nice one for Oliver. Oliver's on the heater today. All those purple teams. Rockies now. Kings. There you go. Pony. Pony's number to the 99. Mars daughter, Mars, Steve Nash. And a very nice sweet shot to Yanatante de Compo. Jordan Pool. Calvin Johnson. And how about a Franz Wagner to 49. Orlando Magic, that's going to Roy. And some big names over here on this side guys. This has been great. That's a blue to 99. Anybody back on the Bowl Bowl train? I never left it though, but I love Bowl Bowl, man. I'm so happy that he's finally getting a shot. I don't know why anybody did not give him chances to play, especially Denver. Did like Rudy Gaubert threatened at the time or what? Or not Gaubert, all the big men over there in Denver? I don't know why they didn't play him. Bowl Bowl, anytime he touches the court he's scoring. Jackson Jr. We've got Duarte. Jalen Brunson color match. And a Robert Parrish to 99. You're there too afraid of being too big. I won't point out what MPJ, Jokic, Bowl Bowl, they're like too tall. All right, that Parrish is going to the Celtics, going to Wayne. Land of the Numbers game, R.J. Barrett and a blue-eyes pick and roll. Sabonis and Davion Mitchell to 75. Another Vassal 75th anniversary. And there is Daddy Sabonis. Arvidas. Blazers, Steve Herrick on two more to go to us. Jalen Green uniformity and a Jimmy Buckets for the Heat. Pony, Aaron Wiggins, Bill Lambeer, 75. Here we go, last box. It looks like the Black Pandora might be in here too. Jalen Green hoop dreams and Embiid Tyrese Maxie pick and roll. Or maybe not Black Pandora. It's going to end up being the Green Pulsar. Norman Poel, that should be at a 25. And Jerry Lucas to 149. And yes, 7 out of 25. Norman Poel for the Clippers. Dennis with that one. And that is New York Knicks. So no Black Pandora, which is usually a case hit. Supposed to be at least one per inter, I was told, but maybe not. But some very nice hits on this side, guys. Second half is in the store. We did get some nice ones there. Got a lot of vets here towards the end. But of course, Franz Wagner was nice. Steve Omichle, Mowgli, Gold, Austin Reeves up and coming, Drew Holiday, and Bones Island. They're pretty well though. About five rookies, five vets. Kind of makes it normal right there. Of course, a ton of numbered cards. So appreciate it, folks. This was number three. Number fours in the store. JaspysCaseBricks.com.


Hell yeah, what's up guys, Chris Puck. My friends call me Bixie. Back in action today I'm gonna show you how to remove the background from any image. That's right guys If you're a gamer especially and you're making thumbnails and you've got a logo But you got all that white in the background and you don't want it for example There's a million other reasons why you could do this. How do you get rid of the background and keep the logo or keep the image? Well, very simple to do.  I'm just gonna click on this white area and when I do that It's hard to see because photopea isn't quite as good as some other software rhymes with Broto shop But photopea is free. So there's that going for it. Okay, good So I've gone ahead and done that and you'll see the marching ants or the lines here The next step is actually just to hit delete and when you do that if you zoom in you're gonna see here that now You see these gray and white little pixels and boxes what that basically means is this is now a Transparent background so it's now gone from You know white to nothing now. It's not perfect, but hey, you know what it's free software And it's a free tool so you kind of get what you get I'm gonna go here, and I'm gonna go to select deselect so there's no marching ants going around it So you can see exactly what we got and what we didn't get The next step here if you want to save this and use this which I'm pretty sure you do What you want to do is you want to go to file and then you're basically gonna want to export this as a Png right here export as a Png a Png has an alpha channel or a transparent channel and again You can see the gray and the whitish boxes here. That means there's no background.  What can you do? That's how you do it guys? Thanks for watching ton more stuff coming up stay tuned