Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show as we are doing today, and you can watch it later at your convenience. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have on Encompass Live. For anyone who's here not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries, so that would be similar to your state library. So we provide services and training and consulting to all types of libraries in the state, so you will find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, archives, corrections, historical societies, it's really anything and everything. Really our only criteria is that it is something to do with libraries. So we have book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. You can see here is our upcoming shows that we have coming up in the next couple of months on Encompass Live. These empty dates here in May will be filling in soon, and our archive shows, there's a link right here at the bottom of the page where you can access all of the archives that I mentioned before. Today's show will be right there at the top of the list, and we will have a link to all the different websites that we're mentioning today will be in there as well. So on today's show we have a, we do bring in, for Encompass Live, we do have Nebraska Library Commission staff that talk about services and resources and things walking through the commission, but we also bring in guest speakers sometimes, and today we have a mixture of that because we are doing a session today about new technology for the visually impaired of Nebraska, electronic magnifiers and Braille e-readers, which are coming from both the Library Commission and the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. So I think I will just, we'll start. I think, Erin, I believe we're starting with you. Yes, welcome everyone. So I'll just let you all introduce yourselves as you get to what you're talking about throughout the show. All right, thank you, Christa. My name is Erin Brandy-Berry, and I am the Deputy Director of Services within the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Many of the librarians may notice my name because I was the one that sent out emails or was the point of contact for the CCTV project, which is what I get to talk to you about today. But before I get too far into that, I just wanted to talk a little bit about what our agency mission is and the programs that we offer. So we have a three different programs essentially that we offer at our agency. We have a vocational rehabilitation program. And so that's for anybody who is interested in employment. And then we have an independent living program for youth and young adults. And so there's no minimum age limit on that. We can get referrals for kids as young as they come, but often two, three, four, when they're starting school or early intervention programs, we may be getting referrals at that point. And then we also have a program for seniors. And so 55 and older, we have an independent living program. And we're all grant funded, whether it's state or federal. And as everybody knows with grant funds, it can really, you have good years and bad years. And last year, we had a good year. And we had some additional funds that we didn't know exactly how we wanted to spend them. And so we were just thinking about how we could outreach to a lot of the small areas of Nebraska that sometimes it's a little bit more difficult to have a presence in. And also like getting this technology in the hands of more people than what we can serve at one time. And that's when the library system came to us because it's such a unique thing and that it's located throughout all of Nebraska. And some of the towns that aren't even they can have to be towns or villages.  So we were so glad to have that partnership with the Nebraska library permission. And so last August was when we started to roll it out. And basically every library was offered to have a CCTV unless they opted out. And so the vast majority of all libraries throughout Nebraska do have a CCTV is what we call it. You know, desktop magnifier, you know, anything along those lines, people may refer to it as. And so we have Patrick Fisher here today. And he can go through a little bit more of how to use this device. And so I just kind of before I get to that one to give a shout out to specifically the Carney library and TV news had done a news article on this project. And I just thought that library is such a fabulous job and showcasing what the purpose of these devices are and how easy they are to use. And that it's not there to like read books or anything like that. We saw so many amazing low vision audio braille options through the talking book and braille services library. So I just really appreciated that perspective. And if anybody else is interested in partnering on doing any like broadcasting or notices, I know we got a lot of hits on our Facebook pages of libraries sharing it too. And I was just so appreciative of all of those efforts because outreach really was a big piece that we were hoping for them to get out of this project. And so at some point when we'll have a slide up on our screen that has all of our contact information. And so if you ever have like a patron who comes into the library and you identify that it might be somebody who doesn't know about us or can benefit from our services for independent living programs, somebody struggling with their vision that's a visible thing to you. I can almost guarantee they're going to be eligible for our services. So it's really worth the referral. And we can provide often we can provide like these types of devices in their homes for them to have. So I really look forward to building that partnership further. But this has been a great foundation and I appreciate everybody who has taken the time to learn the devices, figure out a place to store them and all of those things. So without further ado, I'll pass it along to Pat to get a little bit of a demonstration of how to use these devices. Thank you, Aaron. And thank you Library Commission and NCBVI for having this presentation here. I'll show you the Onyx Desk Set Video Magnifier referred to as a CCTV. It's behind me. But before I do that, quickly, our company Nanopac, we are the Nebraska Premier Dealer for the majority of products for the blind and visually impaired. We represent Braille products, low vision, and then the blindness. Our company was founded in 1987. We're in eight states. In the state of Nebraska, I also manage a website called Nebraska Low Vision, which has all the products that we offer and a person can actually buy those. And you can always contact me. The thing that sets Nanopac apart from most companies like ours is that we're family owned, second generation, and just have a great team of professionals. Some of the best at troubleshooting and providing training on Braille, but then also the low vision products. And all of our products, our motto is everything comes with lifetime support. And that includes the machine that all the libraries have. And so my mission to this, you know, meeting here is for everybody to know if you have questions or problems, please contact Nanopac at the base of the unit. We put a sticker, which was provided, that lists our toll free number, as well as it lists the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired. And at that segue here, I just want to say that the Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired is an organization I've worked with for 25 years. We have customers all over the United States in different sectors. And this state agency is a true leader. When Aaron and Carlos Servan, the director, when they came to us with this project, Aaron had everything mapped out. She wanted videos. She wanted labels. She wanted a new documentation. Everything that she wanted, I was so proud to be able to bring together the people we needed to provide that. But with that, I'm going to switch cameras and we're going to jump over and look at this. And you know how technology is, it always works, right? And here we go. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so this is, this is the, I've got a headset on, so I'm not going to look back. But I mean, pretty much, this is the Onyx desk set. And I'm going to turn it off and kind of go through a couple of things. But the camera is on an arm and that arm actually folds into the handle. And so it's really nice for portability. I was really honored to be able to deliver about a dozen of these to some of the libraries, more of the small towns. Some libraries only open a few days of the week. And so we talked, you know, with each librarian about an idea would be you have an older adult home, assisted living, independent living home in your city, you could take this over on certain days, an OT or someone, you know, a professional that's comfortable with using it and show people in that community who have low vision how to use it. Everything is pretty much controlled by this remote, upper left is a green button. I'm going to turn that on. The camera has a light. And that light always needs to face away from the front. And it's like a computer. So it's going to take about 20, 30 seconds to power up. In addition, there was a quick reference card that we made, and it's attached to a bungee. And that's for reference. And if any librarians want the PDF file of that, email me and I'll be glad to send it. But let's just put a document under, kind of get an idea. So the remote, I'm going to bring it over into the view. So as the remote sits there, the green power button turns it on or off, plus and minus, plus makes it bigger. You can individually press it and move magnification by step, or you can just step on it and it'll go up and down that way. And to the left, we have a yellow button, makes it darker or brighter. Those are probably the most common buttons people use, get it bigger, smaller, change my contrast and brightness, darker, lighter. Above the plus is this blue button, which is the mode button. And so right now, put my hand up here, we're in normal color mode. I push it the first time we're enhanced color. So that's a much brighter version of color. And if I step on the darkness, I mean, I can, you can really see it bringing it down dark, press the brightness, it's going to go the other way. So that's, think of that normal color, enhanced color, I push the mode button again. Now we're in a bright black on white. And what I always like to say is everybody with low vision, even if they have the same type of low vision, macular degeneration, glaucoma, or other form, they all are going to have different preferences, some like to read in color, some like to read black on white. And we can zoom in. And again, I can change that brightness and contrast. And it's just so important, but this device does not have any lights built into it. So it depends on the external light. I have a little bit more lighting right now because I've got a camera and I'm wanting this to come out good, but basically black on white, hit my mode again. Now we've got white on black, there's a yellow on blue, a yellow on black, and then it's back to normal color. And so those are the modes that it comes with. You can change it. A lot of people ask, why is a color combination important? Someone with dyslexia, or as we say someone who can see, but they're print impaired, they cannot read text. Someone with dyslexia cannot read the black on white. But yet if they switch it to a mode, and there are eye doctors that can determine what color mode works the best, but they can also push the buttons and figure it out. But black on yellow might work for them. And so it's kind of nice to know that for those people, you know, you could go black and white. Or as we like to, I like to point out, some people might want to come into the library to be able to write. And so I'm going to turn my magnification way down. And you'll notice this camera, it's adjustable. I can do a lot with it. I can put it on myself for self viewing, you know, personal hygiene. The camera also has a lens that flips out. And now I can look at something distance. And, wrong place, sorry. And look at something distance. That's just, it's something that's hanging on the wall. Probably not going to be used so much in a library, but I did have one library that I delivered to in a small town. And they have a bigger TV and they just thought it might be nice for, they've got a couple of young students in their community with low vision for them to be able to flip it. And whatever's on the TV would show up here. But this is something to show you. So, so right now, I mean, if I wanted to write, I mean, I'm off to the right side, so it's kind of awkward. I can just turn the camera and look at that. I can still keep it straight there. But now it's, it's nice and even here. Don't want to get too fancy with my vocabulary. But, so that's a really nice feature. The, so going back to this remote, the power button plus and minus, greatly bigger magnification, less brighter brightness, darker. This one to the left is called rotate. It rotates the image 90 degrees. And basically the only time where it's really applicable if I was doing something distance, and there was, let's just say a box that was upside down and I wanted to read the text, I could flip the image and actually read that. There's also this, this red button here and I'm going to, I'm going to zoom way out. So the red button is called define. So if I step on that, it puts these cross hairs right in the middle, and I'm continuing to hold. And then I let up, and it zooms right in. And I'm going to back it down here. It has two bars, which is a freeze the frame. So if I push that, it freezes that image until I come along and push that again. The, and then this last button is called focus lock. And, and basically focus, focus is based on the height of something. So I push that button, it puts a lock symbol up there.  So I come along, and I unlock it. And now it's back in focus. Focus lock is kind of a, a technology, or excuse me, a feature that's been around on these devices for 25 years. And originally it was because if I was writing, I'd put my pen down there. I could lock the focus. And then I would know that it's going to remain in focus. But the technology, this is very advanced, you know, high definition video camera. It really doesn't have any problem in that regard. Just do a couple other things real quick here. And just to say on the bottom of the remote, I can slide it off. And these are more advanced features, but it'll put two lines on the screen. That's kind of showing up. Yep. And, and the left side, I can move the location of the lines. And I can move them both. I could have the lines be vertical, or I could not have them at all. And then on the right side is called shade. So there's the shades. And it's kind of somewhat tinted. And that's a blind. So in essence, I could have this blind feature. That might be for someone that really needs to focus on what is being, you know, what they're looking at. Because you have to remember that some people come into your library and need this slide that back on. Some people come into your library and may need this. They might just need like a little bit of magnification. And so for them, this could be just enough. But for others, maybe they need it much, much larger. And so in that case, I could come along and I can have these lines would just make it easier to follow along as I read. And I can read a book, you know, by just paperback. You know, and again, I'm just going to move it along. I can also move my camera. So this is just an awesome solution. And I know for the libraries, you know, people with low vision, they live in all of our communities. And libraries are, you know, I have in this project, I kind of got reattached with the meaning of a library. When I was a kid, I mean, that was the best thing was mom and dad dropping off at the library. And you could, you know, be in there for a couple hours and look in the index and find the car and then go find the book and check out books. But I have stopped by several libraries in my travels in Nebraska. And I always ask about the machine. And they are used in the community and they're helping people. And that's great. But most important, you know, I started off by saying that, you know, most important to us is to provide that technical support. And so, you know, at the base, there's a sticker, which we sent this sticker to you. If you don't have one, if you need another one, we'll be glad to give it. If you need anything from me, please contact me. You'll have my email and our phone number.  And we'll be glad to help you. And thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks, Pat. Do you have a few questions? Yes. So that whole thing there is the device. So libraries really only needed that little much of, like, desk space to have it available. Right. For them. Now, about how heavy is it? Can it be moved around very easily, like if, you know, into a different part of the library or someone wants privacy in a private room? Is it pretty easy? Yeah. So I'm going to turn it off. And I'll kind of show you the camera. Yeah, the camera just folds into the handle. Unplug it. You know, what I do is I grab the remote, kind of stick it there.  You've got to handle your picking up with one hand. Easy. Yeah. And, you know, there is an option if a person, let me do this real quick. There is an option if a person wanted, you could get a case for it.    But you plug it in and it comes right back up. And I got another question. Someone's asking, I'm not sure who is the one to answer this one. But is this a device that libraries could check out to patrons for them to take home? If someone didn't want to come in and sit in the library to read like a whole book or something? Is this something that a library could potentially put a barcode on, check it out and let people, libraries do lend devices and things? Is that allowed with this program? Well, we still haven't finished the MOU because I haven't got it all drafted yet. So it's always something we could build into it. I mean, I think that the whole point is we want it to be in the hands of people who can find it useful. Miley hesitation with check out system is if somebody takes it home and they're like, wow, this is great, I'd love for them to get connected with our agency because, for instance, this device is over $2,000 on our contract price. And that's a lot for people to purchase on their own. And like I said, generally our hope is that we're able to purchase these things when it's really justified. So I think it'd be really open to somebody getting to test it out at home because then they can see how it fits in their space or the lighting and those kinds of things. So we'll have to remember to build that into what we do in our agreement. Awesome. Any other questions? Yeah, does anybody have any other questions for Pat or Erin about the magnifier? Tape into the questions section of our GoToWebinar interface there. I think this is a great device.  Yeah. We are very happy to have been able to help libraries, just let them know that these were available. As Erin said, it was offered to all public libraries in the state, but some did not get the one from you all. I know some of our libraries already had one of their own in a few places. Some of our libraries, as you mentioned, we do have very, very small locations in some of our libraries and did not have the space for it, didn't even have somewhere to set it up. So a few did have that issue, but I believe it's in most of the state of the libraries. I don't know if we have an official count, but check with your local public library and see if they have it. Pat was doing a great demo here. I'm going to show my screen again here because I know when the information was sent to the libraries, they were also sent, here's a video about it, but here on that low vision website is also another video that Pat has of an overview of it and troubleshooting for it.  Thank you. Yeah. All right. And I don't see any other question about this. So let's move on to the Braille E-Reader. Who's going to start with that, Erin or Mickey or Gabe, since we're learning them out. Well, hi everybody. So my name is Mickey Saltzman. Can everybody hear me okay? So I am the technology specialist for the Nebraska Blind Vision Paired and I'm so excited today to talk about the E-Readers, the Braille E-Readers. This is a device that I have personally benefited from the past year and this is a Braille device that is issued to patrons of members of the National Library Service that it is based on Braille. It's a small, I'm kind of holding up here, it's a 20 cell Braille display, a wonderful little device that allows me to download Braille books. I can connect it to my phone, my computer. It's got a small, as you can see here, it's got a Perkins, yes. I'm just saying, yep, we can see it looks good. Okay, great. Okay. It's got a small Perkins keyboard. It's very sleek and very lightweight and these E-Readers are issued to folks who want them, folks who say you read Braille and you want to download books from the National Library Service. You can ask for one of these devices and they'll issue you one. And I guess I've really benefited from this. I've worked with clients who have really benefited from these little devices. And so I just pushed the power button here and I'm going to kind of go through a few of the things on the main menu and I will also kind of talk a little bit about what it does. These little devices, now these are free. So there is just one, the one I have is actually a partnership with the National Library Service as well as HumanWare. HumanWare is the company that designs these devices. But these are issued, these are free devices to folks who want them. And really so many things built into this little device. So for example, it has a book reader and this is based on Braille. So the book reader allows me to read any of my favorite books. For example, this device has Wi-Fi so I can connect it to the National Library Service and the less and I can download Braille books right onto this device and I can read them in Braille. It also has a, it has a file manager so I can copy some of my favorite files. I can create folders, I can move files around, I can even read text files on this device. So if I've got text files that I have, that I want to maybe read, I can download them onto this device and I'll talk about that in a little bit. It's got of course the date and time so I can see what the date and time is. And this option here called the Braille display. This is really a really neat feature because this device allows me to connect it to my smartphone, iPhone, Android and also my computer and I can use it as a standalone Braille display. So it really makes it really, really nice for being able to, you know, use it on the go but also use it as a portable device for my computer and Braille display. And I mentioned this device has Wi-Fi so I have online services so I can connect to NLS FARD and I can download Braille books. It has a feature that some of you that are familiar with NLP Newsline if you want to talk about that's a service by the National Federation of the Blind. I can download news papers, make sure we've got magazines onto this device and I can read it in Braille. And it also has in the latest update they've included support now for Bookshare and Bookshare is another accessible tool that you can use to download books off the internet in Braille and you can read them. So many, so many features of this device it is based on Braille but you do have to know how to read Braille. When I talk to clients about the device I do encourage them that if they are going to request a device from a library that they at least have to know uncontracted for sure because you know you actually navigate the device and you read it in Braille so there's no you know no screen or nothing like that. If you look on the side of the device it's got a USB A port and what this allows me to do is it allows me to connect to a thumb drive so I can plug in like a thumb drive flash drive into this device and I can download my favorite books and text documents that way and also this one also has a SD card slot so I can I can you know plug in an SD card that has again you know Braille files or text documents and I can use it that way as well. This does not have a sound so it's all based off of Braille. As I mentioned it's 20 cells so there is quite a bit of pain that you need to do when you're reading long books but it's a very lightweight device. I can use this device for note-taking I could use it for you know things like that. I just not have you know built-in editors and things like that because you can connect it to your iPhone or computer and do your editing that way. So it's got a built-in you know user guide so we're navigating the device. Like I said it has Wi-Fi it also has Bluetooth so Bluetooth is very important when you are trying to connect your iPhone or Android phone or computer to the Braille display you might want to plug it in Bluetooth so you know Bluetooth wirelessly is very important so really a nice little device I kind of turned around here gives you kind of a different view angle of like you said it's a freaking style keyboard two space bars on it.  I use it like I said a lot of times I'll be taking notes or maybe I'll be reading a book outside or something like you know my portfolio would have a reading a book and using it in Braille so this is a wonderful thing that the library of Congress has done and I'm so appreciative of this this is this is really it's really good it opens up the doors for folks who you know maybe can't afford a Braille display because Braille displays you know they're very expensive and these free devices allow someone to get their hands on Braille. Gabe did you want to add anything to this? I think you really covered the the basics of using the the device. I can't read Braille so I can barely turn the machine on myself. Oh go ahead Mickey. No we talked about encouraging folks so it is Braille only so again I want to reiterate the fact that you do have to know how to rebrail when you use a device you know so that's obviously important but other than that there's pretty much an issue to anybody who asks for them correct? Yeah I was going to ask Gabe so I know how does someone go about requesting one of these it's through it's through the library commission correct not through the individual public libraries like the magnifier. That is correct yeah so the the individual must qualify to use our service so they must be blind or visually impaired or have a reading disability or a physical impairment that does not allow them to read standard print. Once they get signed up and set up for the service they then can ask their reader's advisor for one of these Braille readers when that happens your information so your name your telephone number your address that's basically it is sent to the state of Utah the multi-state center in Salt Lake City they're kind of a distribution hub for the western half of the half of the country for a lot of stuff that most of our patrons don't even see you know boxes that we send the machines in and Braille paper that we used to print our newsletter on however they are at least for now in charge of distributing and troubleshooting the e-reader devices those will not come from us Utah is in charge of all of that I do think that that will change sometime in the future but that may be next year it may be five years from now I don't know when that's going to be. Oh that we might eventually have them here that we would send out ourselves just for Nebraska? Correct I think long term that is eventually what's going to happen much like the audio players that we currently distribute. Troubleshooting I don't know if we'll ever be able to do that because at least at this time we don't have anyone that can read Braille and if you can't read Braille it's really difficult to use the device. I can basically turn the device on and download a book that is all I can do. You know I will also add to this you know you talk about troubleshooting and things this device has a wonderful straightforward menu I mean I can you know literally you know I got Braille display so I've got I kind of go through some of the other buttons here so I have a next and a any previous button on the outside. I have the two little pin buttons that allow me to hand the Braille display I've got a home button that basically takes me to the home screen and then like I said I've got you know an eight dot perk and stop keyboard I've got you know back space enter and of course if you know anything about Braille you've got dots one two three on the left four five six on the right it's got two space fires and then of course it has you know the power button which is used to power the device on and or put it to sleep you know it's just like a small computer and then of course on the on the the ports on the left side is the typical standard USB suit port which is wonderful because USB-C allows you to plug in the cord you know you can plug it in two different directions you don't have to worry about you know plugging in the wrong way or something like that so it's a very straightforward and if you know Braille really you know you get to see out of the box it's like getting you charge it up it's ready to go and it really works pretty well and because it's because it's on Wi-Fi it also updates its own software through the updateable process just like you would update your phone or you know your computer you pretty much connect to the to the service and it does its same and updates and really really very seamless for the patron who uses it. That's good that you mentioned that Mickey about the the charging mic because someone did ask how is it powered so it doesn't have to be plugged in you plug it in just to charge it up just like your phone and then just use it until it needs charging again. That's correct. We've gotten really good feedback that they're very easy to use and my contact in Salt Lake City has said that the vast majority almost 100 of the people if they have any issues at all they have one troubleshooting call and that's all they ever need and they're there for them yeah absolutely so again you kind of you know small enough for yourself just decent enough to you know like I said you read your favorite book or your favorite magazine or you know books from the from the National Library Service and so it's really really a nice lightweight device that just really works works very well. How much how many people have we had specifically signed up for to wanting to borrow one of these gave through Nebraska do you know? I mean yeah we've had roughly 50 give or take which is a lot more than I think anybody either in Nebraska or at the National Library Service was expecting because our well for example our Braille newsletter only gets sent to 35 people so we assumed there was not going to be a huge demand for this device but it turns out we had a lot more Braille readers than we even thought. Need to push out our newsletter to all those people now. You know we have this too. Well again I just you know you they'd be able to take this device connect it to your phone and now you're reading emails, text messages, you know you're controlling your device with this e-reader and it just really makes it and I mean I've had people find that I've worked with that they just been like you know this is amazing I want to get back in Braille again and so that's great because Braille's you know people think that Braille has kind of gone away and that's just not the case. Braille is it's just you know so much you know it's such an important part of this of us are applying to visually impaired. We do have a question too here and this would be I think for you Gabe what is the is there any age restriction on signing up and using our services? No, absolutely not. Yeah obviously and you know and you know I was going to stretch it just like going to the library anyone can get a library card. The only restriction we have is that they meet the the medical qualifications you know they do have to have you know a visual impairment or a physical impairment or or even a reading disability if they have dyslexia you know as I said in our meeting yesterday Krista the dyslexia isn't actually a visual impairment it's a neurological impairment um but if you have dyslexia you do qualify for our service. Nice we'll get some more people using it absolutely. Yeah do you have any other questions about the e-reader? I do want to go ahead and type in if you do I do want to mention I jump back over to the magnifier and I apologize I should have done this when we were talking about it first but um Sarah from the Carney public library is on the show with us today um Sarah did you want to um share about your experiences there in Carney? You can uh it's like getting yeah okay can you hear me? We can hear you yep and it looks like the camera's trying to work but it's not showing anything yet but that's okay. I'll be able to get that to work or not but yes um and thanks for the shout out Erin that was super nice of you um we did get one of the CCTVs at our library um we ordered a special table to put it on that like people can raise it and lower it so however it fits their needs that way to sit there and use the device um so once that came in we got the device set up and we sent out a press release that we had this technology available and we got lots of interest from the local media which was awesome I think two different um TV stations came in um I think there was a write-up in the newspaper it was all over the place which was really cool we had some patrons call um with some questions like somebody had some technology that they had at their home but theirs was broken so they were wondering if they could come in and use this one of course that's what it's there for um people wanted to know if they could bring in their mail and their different documents from home and use this device to work on their paperwork yes of course they can do that um so we had some people come in and check it out and get a little demo and we just have it sitting kind of near our magazine and newspaper area and we've taught our library staff how to use it and it really is as easy as just powering it on and using the remote and it's super easy to turn on super easy for people to use so we hope we'll have some more people in using it and it's always kind of a challenge to get the word out to the people that need it but we had such a great response from our local media that hopefully they reached some people for us that definitely helps absolutely yeah and this is just one of the news stories that we saw when I just did a search for Carney and Magnifier and yeah it was in lots of different um announced lots of different places and I know many of our other libraries have put out press releases in their communities um about it as well we've seen them come across our social media and whatnot um have you had anyone like I said the library and asked earlier have you had anyone asked about borrowing and bringing it home or people so far mainly just coming in and using it in the library or have you thought about that at all um I hadn't thought about that and well until they mentioned it it is very portable and easy to move so I don't think that would be an issue um I think the issue we would have would just be afraid that maybe it would get damaged and then um getting it replaced could be tricky possibly placed or repaired if something happens yeah I love the idea of people being able to check at home or check it out and take it home and use it there if they would need to because that makes a lot of sense but um I think that would be the part that we would be concerned about on our and yeah and that's something that you mentioned Erin it need to be thought through is how would that happen and what how would that be handled um you know libraries as I said lend out um and got everything books um items all sorts of things and they always you know they know there's always a chance something will um get damaged or go missing I hope none of these would not go missing but um you know books and they do have that built into yes we know it could happen and we have that built into our budget if we need to replace anything or there are um if someone does lose or damage something replacement fees that they would charge the patron who didn't check it out um so that would be something I think would have to be taken into consideration and is there you know as you said Erin I think you said there was private funding that helps um do this particular project is their funding to buy replacements yeah it's all into our like the grants we get and kind of how like the federal grants work is if um at the end of the year some states turn in money there's other states who can ask to have that extra money and that's kind of the scenario we were in last year and so we're in that scenario again this year probably the next year too as long as everything keeps going the direction we think but we know that maybe in five five years our funding might be a little bit tighter and so we want to do this project now while we can get it out there because then when we're not able to buy these devices for every person we really think you'll see the foot traffic increase because we'll be referring people just to use these devices so that was another thing I as I'm thinking about like the loaning out piece of it if we're telling people they're counting on being able to always have this device every Monday to go read their mail or something want to make sure it's always available to them if they are making that transportation trip because most of the people who need these types of devices can't just hop in the car and drive themselves so just want to make sure we're consistent for them and as you're as I'm thinking here my mind my brain is turning and you're mentioning grants and whatnot and and I will say if it is something that at your library your public library all of the watching you think people do are mentioning hey I'd love to take this home but you don't want to like Aaron said people are depending on it to be available in the library you could apply for your own grant at your library to us the library commission or to other places that do grants to purchase a loanable version of this you know buy a second one for yourself for the grant that you receive we do library improvement grants here through the library commission I would definitely we would definitely approve one of those they're done for this year 2023 but look for 2024 but lots of other places that you can take grants from as well and you could then have your here's the in-house one and here's the one that we loan out so that's a thought yeah and I would like to mention I mean as far as problems with these we this particular model's been in existence for about five years the only problems we have is if they get knocked off a table but but a lot of students use them so after three or four years you can imagine putting the camera down up and down every day and you know where eventually some of the the joints you know some of the arm things like that have to be replaced um occasionally if a person really used the remote a lot that might have to be replaced but the machine has a two-year parts and labor warranty and so what I would say to everybody watching if you have problems or if it's not working contact us because we provide toll-free lifetime support at no cost to the libraries and um if let's just give an example a year and a half you know into the warranty it quits work and you call us we determine there's something wrong we're gonna ship a replacement there's gonna be a label you're gonna put the defective one in the box and ship it off you won't have to do anything and um it's just real important for us that the libraries know that you have nothing to worry about problem-wise and if a person did get a grant and they wanted to purchase one or even an individual you know we'll always have special pricing for you know state agencies but also consumers because um we know how important these products are all right so that is someone where we people go to use the the nano pack to if they wanted to buy an additional one for their library all right um we're almost up to we're getting a little close to one o'clock does anybody have any last minute desperate questions they would like to ask of anybody who's online uh questions for pat mickey erin gape or or sarah she's still here um any questions you want to ask get typed into the questions section of your go-to-webinar interface um and uh here is um the contact info for all of the different things thanks to erin for putting this together for us this one little uh powerpoint slide here of if you do want to um just use the services from the um the brassica commission for the blind visually impaired uh tech support for your magnifier that goes to nano pack uh braille e-readers that comes here to the library commission talking to the braille service um and as he mentioned utah is the one who utah state libraries um their blind disabled department is handling all the uh tech support for the braille e-reader and we do have to see um oh it's once is this contact information she on the commission website um it's i don't know it'll be on um posted with the uh recording for today's show so it will be yes this this one slide so you'll have that available as well and then in this format it's not on our website but on the information and resources page all of um not sure if we have the e-reader stuff up there but i can add it real quick um and then otherwise all these other numbers are on our website as well yeah i'm not sure i need to have a look i should have looked if we have something on our gabe if we have something in our um website specifically about the e-readers or do we do um well obviously four zero three that's our main phone line commission um for the talking book side not the ref desk um and the 800 number is on our website if you go to the tbbs main page as opposed to the library commission main page and then there's uh there's a there's a link that says uh something like uh additional i think it might be under additional resources you do have to dig for it a little but it is there oh there's that and to bb i website yeah so you can find the okay so now we have another question here i'm going to bring up that slide again so people can take down any info they might want to um oh okay um someone says i work with college students with disabilities can i revert can i refer uh low vision students to nc um nc bbi um if they are not nebraska residents or should i work with the agency in their state oh so are they students that are going to school here but they came from another state either way it's a good idea just to refer so um because it depends on each person on where their permanent residency is and generally speaking if they're physically here we're going to be the best able to help them so if they're not already connected with services in their original state we should be able to do it without a doubt yeah and then she did clarify yes they attend college in nebraska but they're originally from another state but they are physically here um when they're going to going to school yeah as long as we're not duplicating services that's really the only thing we have to check for nice okay so they may want to be in contact you know get them hooked up with our assist our um department but also you know if they aren't ready prompt them to check in with their own in their own state what is available when they're home yeah if they're i guess they're attending college here they can contact and yeah yeah great question yeah all right we're here all right any other um last minute desperate questions you want to ask uh type into the question section um any last words from any of you on the line if you want that you want to share uh pat mickey erin gape or sarah really just i just want to say thank you for the opportunity and there's no reason if you want to learn brawl and you want to use brawl there's no reason that um you know the cost is really not an issue and why i mean it's you know it's definitely opportunities out there to have your brawl advice yeah we do just have some thank yous coming in thanks all it's very informative um yeah we definitely want to do this this is an idea that um game suggested actually because we had the magnifiers and their e-readers both becoming available at the same time last year and we know um some of our libraries and maybe their patrons were a little confused about which thing was which who it was from how they all work and so he said let's just get all that information out there in one place so everyone knows um what's being um made available all right so thank you everybody for being here today i'm gonna switch back to my main there we go encompass live page and wrap things up so thank you everyone um as i said we uh record the show as we always do every week so this show is recorded and um as you can see here this is our event page for today's show we've got links to all the various websites that i've been sharing up here um and afterwards we will have the recording available and i show this at the beginning at the on our archive page here this is off of our main encompass live page we have all of our upcoming shows and at the bottom a link to our archives today show will be at the top of the list here most recent ones were the top um should be up and available by the end of the day tomorrow at the very latest as long as go to webinar and youtube cooperate with me everyone who attended today's show and uh registered for today's show get an email from me and we also push it out onto our various social media we um use twitter and facebook and instagram on um here's the encompass live facebook page if you like to use facebook see here's a reminder to log in today's show we do a little meet the presenters and then we're recording is um available there's a previous recording there we go um it's we post on here as well um and we use the hashtag little abbreviation for the show and comp live uh to push that out everywhere so you can also if you like to use facebook let give us a like on there like use twitter follow library commissions twitter um account and you'll see um here what's going on um i'll mention here while we're on our archive page there is a search feature here if you want to search the show archives to see if we've done a topic on anything that you're interested in you can search the full show archives are just most recent 12 months and that is because this is our full show archives going back to uh when encompass live premiered and i'm not going to scroll all the way down because it's a huge list uh the show premiered in january 2009 so we're in our 15th year oh my gosh of hang up is live um and we have all of the shows here on our youtube channel uh so do so just do pay attention when you are watching an archive show to the original broadcast date there's always a date on here that tells you when it was first done many of our shows will be fine to watch stand the test of time still be good valid useful information but some things will become old or outdated um resources and services may have changed drastically or may no longer exist 10 years you know from now ago um links may be broken or different um people may not work at the same library they worked at when they broke when they did a show for us 10 10 15 years ago so just pay attention to that broadcast date but we will always keep our show archives here as long as we um have a place to host them um something that libraries do providing historical information um so we'll always have all of them out there but just be aware when you are watching any of our recordings so that'll wrap it up for today's show um i'll hopefully join us on any of our other upcoming shows but i'll hopefully join us next week when we are talking um it is about grandpads creating digital connections for older adults um the last friday uh the last wednesday of every month on encompass live is pretty sweet tech day um pretty sweet tech is when amanda sweet our technology innovation library comes in the show and talks about something techie related sometimes we have things other times of the month that are tech related but you can always depend on the last wednesday of the month we always something techie with amanda and next week we have a guest presenter coming in from st louis county library eric button who's going to be talking about this grandpads program that they are offering for their library um special tablets designed for older adults so um amanda will be yeah so that will be our show for next week so do sign up for that and the other of our other upcoming shows keep an eye on our calendar i'll be filling in these other dates here in may pretty soon and um so thank you everybody for being here with us today and i hope we'll see you on a future episode of encompass live thank you so much thanks gay christa erin making thank you thank you this is great very informative i hope we'll have a lot more people reaching out and using these devices absolutely yeah all right bye bye


We're having an animation workshop right now, and we basically are looking for a way to solve certain concrete issues that people have now with animating, and specifically we want animators to work easier and faster by reducing the amount of data that they have to juggle. Layered animation, we want NLA-like features in the action. We want multiple ID data blocks all animated by one action. It's not going to be called an action anymore because it's going to do so much more. Currently the NLA has a big problem with that because it cannot be linked, it's directly connected to the animated object, and the NLA data is not a separate thing that you can link into other files. So because of the last two things we feel that the NLA functionality should move into the animation data. We want to keep all the related animation of different things inside one animation data block. So that could be for one character, the animation of the rig, and the animation of the another object, and the animation of the material all be contained in one thing that you can edit and you can keyframe, you can play with. I really enjoyed when we worked with the grease pencil team developers to try to make sure that the 2D and 3D animation system played well together, and it also highlighted a lot of the same problems that we were already having for just animating characters with keys, living in pose mode and object mode, and for them it's grease pencil drawings and grease pencil objects. So for that next to supporting f-curve we also want to support cells, which is an index into the list of drawings of grease pencil. We also want to have an ID chooser. Currently you can change the active scene camera with camera markers, and it's like a very tacked on system that doesn't integrate with the animation system at all. We just want to be able to animate the changes in camera in the same way that you can animate other things. There's another issue with the current blender's data model where the NLA for non-linear editing is specific per object or even per data block. So when you have three data blocks that all combine into one character, they each have their own NLA, and if you want to do non-linear animation you have to juggle between all those different entities and read time things and make sure that all is in sync and that's all manual work. So we want to bring that into the animation data block so you have one data block with one set of tools that can work across all these different objects. And the same goes for multi character animation. We want to say if you want to have a handover of a prop between two characters, you may want to put all that animation into one animation data block and that's what we are building right now, what we're designing.