And we're really excited, today's session an encore presentation from the conference that just happened earlier this fall in little Rock. Another -- if you're not familiar with the association for small and rural -- rural and small libraries, it is a great way to connect with others in these communities, and they're very excited to begin planning their conference in Fargo, North Dakota, next fall. So, plan ahead. All right. We're going to go ahead and get the recording started here. I'm really excited to welcome two of my favorite people in library land. Sharon Morris and Kieran Hixon come to us from the Colorado State Library. They are both wonderful in innovators and they are bringing us a wonderful session today that will help us move to be a culture of yes. Welcome Sharon and Kieran. >> Well, thank you so much, Kieran, how do you feel about that introduction? >> Kieran: Pretty impressive, yeah. >> Jennifer: Very appropriate for impressive people. >> Sharon: We're delighted to be here and we're delighted to have Jennifer and Kendra to help us out. We wanted to start with this quote. We really believe this. We really believe that the library we love along with Kurt Vonnegut still exists, front desk public library, and that library is all of you who have joined us here today. We believe that our public libraries are really about the relationships and experiences that people have in their pub like libraries and their staff. Kieran, do you want to add anything? >> Jennifer: Kieran, it sounds like your audio is not coming through. >> Sharon: We just heard Kieran laugh a few minutes ago, so we know he is there. Let me go on to the next slide. Hear you now. Good. So, can you see the screen we're introducing each other? I would like to start by introducing Kieran. Kieran is on the right. And he comes to us from the town of Florence, Colorado, in southern KAL -- Colorado. I have known Kieran for years. Experienced many of his sessions being in the audience. I have had the pleasure to work can Kieran on a lot of projects. Association of rural and small libraries board and one of the smartest and most creative people I know and also quite FOUNfunny and I'm delighted to be presenting with him today. >> Kieran: Thanks, Sharon. I have to say Sharon is one of my favorite librarians in Colorado. I think she is one of the smartest people I know and I -- I've just watched her go through this process of getting a doctorate. And I wanted to call her Dr. Morris, since she doesn't use a scalpel, not into that title. But I think it was hard-earned and I really appreciate the deep thought that she puts into so much of what we do in libraries. So, I'm excited to work with Sharon on this project especially. And I want to start by kind of telling you a story about the John C Fremont library actually and I know some of them are actually on the -- listening to this webinar. When I started at the John C, the director at that time was Judy, and we are a pretty small town, about 3,500 folk, small library, easily see from one end to the other. She wanted to take us to bigger libraries in other cities and kind of show us what libraries could be and kind of inspire us to do more and she and I went up to Douglas county, which is a really big library district in Colorado. And the person that is the director there, was one of her -- >> Jennifer: Kieran, I think your audio just cut out again. Now it is back. Kieran, your audio is cutting in and out. Kieran, I'm going to interrupt you a second. We're not hearing you in a sustained manner, so I'm going to have you -- I'm going to have you pause and Sharon we will let you take over for a second. Kieran, maybe you can dial in on the phone. >> Sharon: This is Sharon. I think Kieran's glitching in and out is going to -- he is going to phone back in. While he is, and thank you for hanging with me. Kieran was on a tour of a library, and -- should I keep going or is Kieran back? >> Jennifer: I think you should keep going. We will let him dial in. I know he was going to have that as an option. >> Sharon: Okay. Sorry for the glitches everyone. So, magine this. Getting a tour of the library, Kieran and everyone going around and seeing the different parts of the library. They get to the circulation desk and just as somebody walks in and throws down a book and says to the person at the desk, this book is disgusting. And everybody on the tour is like ooh, yikes. Not what you expect to see on the tour of a library. But unflinched by this, the person working at the desk turned around and she picked up the book and she said you think that book is disgusting, you should read this one. And that experience really stuck with Kieran, and he started to realize that this response was just sort of an interesting response. And as we have talked over the years about this response, we have talked about it as a response of getting to yes. And, so, I want to move on to this concept which actually comes out of comedy and improv comedy. What I would like you to do in the chat area, if you have ever taken an improv class or if you know of the concept of yes and, I want you to type in the chat area yes and so I know you know what it means. Give a few people -- Gloria I think knows the experience of yes and. Several people do. This is great. And, so, maybe you can jump in and help me out with describing this. But the idea behind yes and is that when somebody is standing on stage, and instead of knowing their lines and being ready to sort of say what is in their head to the other person on stage, they actually clear their mind and whenever somebody on stage says something to them, they take it in, and they treat it as their menu option, and they -- and they take it and they respond to it based on not what they think, but what is coming at them. In the example of the story of the woman when she came up and said this book is disgusting and put it down, what did the librarian do? She said yes, that book is disgusting, and this one is disgusting, too. Then what she did was she proceeded to say, you know, there is a lot of disgusting books out there, but, you know, for every book a reader and what are you interested in reading, moved around the desk and started with her as they moved toward the fiction section to try to find materials that the woman would like. So, this is a yes and, because she is taking this woman and basically saying, yes, I understand where you're at and I get disgusted by books, too, and tell me what you are really interested in and we'll try and find other things for you. So, imagine -- >> Kieran: Technical difficulty there. >> Sharon: Okay. I'm glad you're back. Just in time. >> Kieran: Oh, good. >> Sharon: We're just to the point where I described the yes and and now do you want to take over -- yes, asking people what the no would be and the yes but -- >> Kieran: Yeah, in that scenario, I -- from that scenario, I came back to our library and I was thinking about how we would have handled it. I think we would have come up with a solid yes but, which would have been to hand the patron a form and tell them how to complain properly. Are there other scenarios that you think -- that you can think of that would have been yes buts or nos? If you want to put those in chat. I think another thing we might have done, depending on who was at the circ desk, would be argue with the patron about what the role of libraries is and how, you know, we're supposed to have all of these materials and the library law says we should offend you. >> Jennifer: I'm going to jump in here while folks are typing in for those of you who aren't familiar with how we use chat here, there is a window called Q & A which we use just for technical-related questions, and, unfortunately, that is the one that WebEx defaults to being open. So, take a moment and find the chat bubble at the top of the panel view, if you are on an Mac, icons at the bottom, and open the chat window and that's where Kieran and Sharon will be inviting folks to post their responses and questions and comments. Thank you. >> Kieran: Oh, I like that one, oh, really, do tell. That's a good answer. Yeah, I do think people fall into that instant defensiveness where we want to, you know -- >> Sharon: And I love this one example of a yes but. Yes, but there is a warning, like a rating on it. And implied in some of those kind of yes buts is a sort of like you're wrong, and we're right. So, that's sort of the worry of saying like you kind of thing you agree, but we don't really actually agree. We're going to say the opposite of what you think. >> Kieran: Your opinion is nice and all, but -- >> Sharon: Yes, but you don't have to read it. Yes, that's a good one. Yeah, and that one that Daniela mentioned, yes, but most people like it. That sort of makes it seem like you're kind of, you know, if you don't like it then you're not really with the in crowd or something like that. You have to be careful with the yes but, don't we? >> Kieran: Yeah, and I think what we can see with a lot of these examples is the kind of range and the spectrum that we have as librarians to respond. And what we're hoping to do in the next 45 minutes is to see how many of these nos and yes buts that we can move into this yes and. So, I think we're going to start with some first impressions. >> Sharon: Right, so, what we would like to do now is have you first imagine your library and imagine your library from the point of view from somebody who is new to your community and this is the first time they have come to the library. You often walk in the back door and open up the library, but imagine you're coming to the library for the first time. And you're, you know, maybe you're driving and what does it -- as you are driving down the streets towards the library, what does it look like when you are pulling into the parking lot? And what does it look like as you, you know, get out of your car and walk towards the library, what do you see? What do you notice? And then what -- when you go into the library, what are your first impressions of the library? So, just want you to think about that as a new person would in the library and then I will show you some examples of -- I tour a lot of libraries and I take a lot of pictures. I don't mean it in a critical way, but I just notice things, and I notice that people might be saying things with what you see when you come up to the library. For example, this is one of the first signs I saw at a library recently. So, when you think about that yes -- yes-o-meter -- most people agree this is a no. And, so -- >> Kieran: It's almost a no, and -- >> Sharon: And, you know, is it just a no to people who are skateboarders or rollerbladers or loiterers? We kind of thing of it as a no for everyone in a way. So, yeah, it feels like unwelcoming to all. It's like no fun is allowed period. There are probably ways of containing this information and we are not going to get into that. We are going to look at other impressions that we have seen at libraries. Here is another one. I think that this is a yes but. Why do you think I think this is a yes but? Some people think it is the clutter, that there are no people. Actually I take a lot of pictures with no people in them, because I don't want to invade anybody's privacy. So, actually there is a staff member hiding behind that giant computer screen there. Yeah, so we did look at the little stuff. But when I walk into the library, and this is the first thing that I see, it says yes, we're open for business, but I have to navigate all of the library's policies and procedures and everything to figure out how to -- how to use it. And really what I want to see when I walk into a library is what? What do I want to see? Some of you guys are indicating that you want to see something that is personal -- I'm going to say the opposite of what you put, personal, welcoming, that there aren't barriers between the visitor and the staff. That you might see a face immediately or something that makes you feel, you know, like happy, yeah. A smiley face welcoming you. Great. Here I am going to show you a few examples of -- this is actually in a library where there is these -- call them more a perch and giant reference desk. Perch allows you to call the other person over to look at the computer screen with you so when you are looking up something you are doing it together and it is kind of a joint effort. It is a us versus you and me. And it is kind of a smaller desk so that there aren't a lot of barriers. That's one concept. And we have actually heard from people that were at our presentation -- we actually saw some pictures of them deconstructing their giant circulation desk. Wasn't that cool, Kieran? >> Kieran: Yeah, I was very impressed. >> Sharon: So, here is another library and what it looks like when you first walk in. So, this is kind of interesting. It is just like comfortable furniture and a place to sit and then the books are kind of in the background. Isn't that nice? So, the way they -- this is one of the any think libraries, in a small town called Bennett. When you walk in the door of their libraries, right-hand side, there is always comfortable furniture and a little magazine sitting there. And they have a fireplace here which is great. One of the libraries I was just in there and there is a couple of different chairs and table and all of these wonderful new books on display and new materials on display, and rarely does anybody actually sit up front. They actually have comfortable furniture in other places around corners, nooks and crannies and you notice the shelving is more rounded and not in the predetermined rows. So, it's really -- it's really kind of a relaxing place. So, that's I think our yes and example for first impressions. Now, here's one when you walk in the door where you have the plants on the right. This full glass on the right-hand side that you can't see and this rounded area with these lovely display cases made out of mahogany. I love display cases. Recently I was in a library where they had a display case pretty close to the opening, and it was near the children's library, you know, kind of in the main entrance as you walk in. And there was a five-year-old boy and he was laying on his stomach at the base of the display cabinet, and he had all of these matchbox cars, and I asked the director who was giving me a tour, I said what is he doing? And the director said oh, we have a program where for display case center in the children's area, each child signs up for a month, and they get to display their -- their items, whatever they collect, and he collects matchbox cars. Isn't that cool? I just loved that. And he started -- the director started to tell me about all of the other kinds of collections that have been on the display, and -- they say yes and to the kids like all kids collect stuff, and so they all sign up and they put their stuff -- and what's funny about this, this little five-year-old boy was putting all of these matchbox cars on display and he brought his own Lego blocks to put some of them on so that they were at different heights and everything. He was really into his display. All of these four-year-old girls were circling around him like ready to watch what he was doing. He was already the cool kid because he was doing that. So, thinking about displays and welcoming friendly way, too, it can be -- it can be a welcoming face but it can also be like a wonderful display area. Here is something that I found in front of a library. I don't know whether any of you here are from Spearfish. What do you think of this? I'm just reading some of your comments while you enter other things. So, the question that Kathleen had about the curved entrance and the planters, and the display area, and then you go into the actual library. That is kind of the hallway in. But it wasn't cluttered with a lot of brochures and flyers and everything but it was a lovely, pristine entryway. So, this middle-aged superman, I know, I actually saw this in front of the library and thought, wow, that's pretty cheesy, right, but it was also something that I couldn't take my eyes off of. A lot of small and medium towns that I tour in, there is always these cast figures usually of adorable children that look kind of Norman rockwell and three dimension and so I found this fascinating. So, then I went around to the side, and if you looked in the lower left-hand corner, you will see that there is this etched to the bottom of the statue. So, what this says to me -- I mean, I don't know what this says to you, but the fact that this is out in front of the library says to me that the library supports your vision and whatever dreams you have we can help you make them a reality. Isn't that extraordinary? So, I just -- the actual building was really beautiful too, but this sculpture out in front, what a wonderful way to welcome you to a library, right? There is lots of different ways to have a first impression. And actually one of the libraries that attended our session said that they went back and changed their library sign. As you walk in the door, it has the hours of the library and at the bottom it said please silence your cell phones. And they took the please silence your cell phones off of the sign and they still left the hours but then they put at the bottom library wi-fi free 24/7. So that's their yes and. Our library opens, we might be closed sometimes and we're open 24/7 if you want to use the wi-fi out in the parking lot. We thought that was awesome, just awesome. So, this is the sign actually that you see walking out of the library. This is the last impression of the library. What do you think of that? Isn't that interesting? And, you know, there is a lot of studies that indicate that people don't remember the in between, but they always remember their first impression and their last impression. You might think about that in your library. What are people noticing when they walk in? What's the last thing they see as they're going to their car. Are you thanking them? Are you encouraging them in some way to come back or to tell other people or to really re-frame what they think of libraries of being bigger than just checking out books but actually building communities. That's right, I love what Danielle says, some people forget that the library does more than just house books and movies. And they know it somewhere deep inside they know what the library is about, but, you know, having these visual reminders is so powerful. So, what might you do with your entryway as you welcome people? Now, let's talk about collections. So, what does this collection say to you? Remember the yes-o-meter, the yes and the yes but or the no side? Yeah, you know, and I have to say, I don't mean to pick on this particular library because this is what I see in a lot of libraries is like the shelving is all in rows in a warehouse kind of way in order to fit as many books in as possible. Actually what I'm hear to say I don't really believe this to be the case of some of the largest libraries, but I believe most libraries really could use a good weeding and actually it's several studies have indicated that when you weed the collection, the less books you have, actually increases your circulation. That is counterintuitive, isn't it? But if you weed your collections, people are going to check out more. Now, in the chat area, I want you to sort of write about why you think that might be? Why do you think when you weed the collection people tend to check out more items? Less visual clutter, dawn, I think so, too. Let's look at some ways to do less visual -- you know, like all of these books are spine out. Let's look at this. Here is a display where all of the books are on display, you know, but why am I calling this a yes and -- a yes but? Yeah, I love these comments. Keep them coming. So, the reason why I call this a yes but because it seems to me like I can't see a common theme or reason why all of these are together. Are all of these books on display -- >> Kieran: We had a shelf like that at our library and that was like when you were too tired to shelf, you just put it there. That was the only uniting theme of them. >> Sharon: Right, well, you know, and if that's the case, maybe just the too tired to shelf shelf could be abled and then people would be like, oh, that means these have checked out recently, and maybe it is something that I want to check back in. So, as you might imagine, I'm going to give a yes and. This is a library that I visited recently. Actually I was just there a couple of days ago again, and when they do displays, they do them by theme. This is a cookbook theme. What makes it easy for me, I can kind of grasp, oh, these are a bunch of cookbooks. It helps me to narrow down my thinking about what might be on display and it helps me to narrow down what of these cookbooks I might want to take in the next week to check out to cook something. Something about doing display where you're doing it kind of in an intentional way. One of the people that attended one of the sessions said something that I thought was interesting, I notice when I do displays I put up what I'm interested in. What if I thought about what is going on in the community, what events might be happening in the community and build displays based on what other people are interested in, not just what I'm interested in. That is a take-away. >> Jennifer: What you say -- someone said but with the display, does it need a sign? And there is a sign on this one. Do you think that those kind of displays need signs? >> Sharon: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, what do other people think in the chat area? I know Kieran's example is from the liquor store, if you want to give that example, Kieran. >> Kieran: Absolutely. The liquor store in the town I live in has these little things that come out on some of the bottles on they're kind of like shelf readers and they tell me, you know, this one got an 85 or an award of some kind or was the best, you know, something at some whatever it was. Like shelf talkers. Like we do occasionally in libraries and sometimes folks put them on pieces of paper and put them in the books and stuff like that. So, some kind of -- something else that I can see a reason why I want to look at this book. >> Sharon: Yes, so, if it is a pretty obvious display, it might not need a sign, but if it is a display that is kind of interesting, this one is reader recommendations and what would be cool would be to we came up with this idea, too, there is just a million ways you can think about it, but one idea is to give people bookmarks when they check out books that have something in them where if they would recommend it, they could write down why they recommend the book and that goes into the book when they return it for the next person for a recommendation. Because sometimes it's like good to know why a book was recommended. Not just that it was recommended. Right? Why was -- why is "dune" recommended here? If the reader liked it, what is it about it that the reader liked? Just more intentional about displays and more face out tends to get people to check things out. Now I will hand it over to Kieran for the customer service stories. >> Kieran: I was working at the John C, and this is kind of a yes but and I want you to help me figure out how it could have been a yes and. We have two kids, I think about 11 and 9, I don't know children so I'm not 100% sure, but in that range, but they would come in once a week, dedicated once a week and they would play a video game at the back. It was a "Star Wars" video game and they played it like all of the time. And at one point, they finished the game. They got to the end and won or whatever it was. It seems like it took a long time. They came to me and said you have to buy the next video game in the series. I took them in the office and showed them how much I had for the month and the new batman video game was coming out and I couldn't do it this month but could do it next month and I wanted them to understand that it wasn't that I wasn't getting them what they wanted but everyone has budgets. I said have you seen the graphicgraphic novels. I took them over and found the "Star Wars" one and they came back and they were like we need number four of this series and numbing three of the rebel whatever it was, you know, and I took them back again into my office and I showed them my spreadsheet of the graphic novels that I was buying and we put a couple on there and had to save a couple for the next month and timed it all out and let them see that process, and I said, you know, have you read the books? I took them over to the science fiction section and we had some "Star Wars" books. All of the sudden I was like I'm not sure if they're old enough to read these and so I grabbed one of them and handed it to the younger one and I said, you know, can you read this? And he seemed to read it and the older one looked over at me yeah, we got it. They checked out an armload and left. The next week they came back and their mom came in. And that is when I had the absolute fear of oh, yeah, I just gave adult science fiction books to small children. And she came back and I was kind of afraid, and invited her into the office. She said I wanted to thank you because it is the first time my kids ever turned off the TV to read a book. And apparently they read it out loud to each other and had an absolute blast. And I think that, you know, anything in that -- any format I would have handed them that was about "Star Wars," they would have done the same to. And as I have thought about it since, I think I did okay, but I didn't get them to actually create any content. And as I have been thinking about it, that was a yes but. And a yes and could have been if I had had them, you know, maybe write a cheap book or a walk-through for that video game we were doing or help create the content or help other people get into their little "Star Wars" things. And like make a movie about it or whatever. What do you think could have been some other ways we could have made that a yes and? >> Jennifer: Some people pointed out that the little guy needs his own seat. >> Sharon: You know, and I put down along with Claudia -- you know you took them from wanting to play video games to discovering the joy of comic books to getting into a chapter book to the point where they would rather read a chapter book than watch TV. And I think that's an amazing yes and story. I just think it is so funny that we argue over this. It looks like some people want your spreadsheet. >> >> Jennifer: Yeah, you might have to share that with me Kieran so that I can post that to the page. >> Kieran: I think getting them involved, you know, into the library and letting them share with their community their passion makes the library a little more of a community center and I think that is why it was kind of a yes but. Maybe a yes and and it could have been yes and even more or something but I like the idea of getting more community -- >> Sharon: Yeah, there are some great suggestions here about things like having them help design a program for "may the force be with you" and for doing some graphic novel discussions for kids their age. Great ideas. >> Kieran: Yeah. >> Sharon: So, when Kieran told me this story, I kind of came up with this concept of the different phases of how we respond to people when they come into the library, and so, the one way is when somebody comes up and asks you a question and you respond to it. You say, oh, yeah, let me help you with that and you get them what they ask for. Or you're just out and about and you are chatting with somebody and they say, oh, I'm looking for this thing and you give it to them. So, that's just being responsive to people when they ask for things that you need. And sometimes that's all people need. Sometimes you're predictive, right? This is because when somebody asks you about something you often know something that they wouldn't have thought to ask you about about that subject or about that author or about that genre, and so you can be predictive and you can say as Kieran did, hey, you know, I know that you like these video games, but did you know about the graphic novels? Kieran was being predictive there in sharing with them something else that they might like based on what they have indicated that they like. The next level is being encouraging. And I think this goes to those people who, you know, learning is hard, and confusion is difficult for people and sometimes they feel insecure. And one of our roles is just to be encouraging of people when they come into the library and when exploring things. That is part of the yes and, just being positive about what is going to be possible for them and helping them with possibility. Encouraging with Kieran might be when he gave the chapter book to the boys and the younger boy couldn't read and the older boy looked at it and said I think I can read this. Kieran was encouraging, go ahead, and if you need any help, that kind of thing, so encouraging them. Next level up, engaging them, as we indicate and that is like going beyond encouraging, actually engaging them to do something, as you guys suggested, maybe being part of a party, or doing craft work and then finally the empowering, and that might be like giving them all of the arts and crafts they needed to design their own and make their own comic books, create their own new characters for "Star Wars" maybe and empowering them to kind of go to the next level. We put this here so I think we do this all of the time in libraries, but nobody really calls it out and says this is what we're doing. Every time somebody comes in we talk with them we're kind of thinking about in the back of our head do I just need to respond to them? Is there something more I can provide for them in a predictive way? Do they need encouragement? Are they looking to engage in some way or are they looking to be empowered and is there something that I can do to make them feel more empowered? >> Kieran: It is not a ladder that you have to climb. I mean, sometimes I -- I kind of think of this in the same way I think of home depot. I spent 15 years building my own home. I have been to home depot a lot. And sometimes I don't need the people to talk to me. I just need to go in and get something and go out. And think that's the same with a lot of the folks that come in the library, come in and have a specific book they want to grab, they don't need to be engaged or empowered at that moment, but more of a process where you go back and forth between these steps pretty much all of the time. >> Jennifer: I think that comment -- there is a comment from Diane that this seems like the process would take a village with lots of staff involved and I was just thinking about that. I was thinking, well, I -- I'm going to take this -- these little steps, put it up so I can see it. I think it is building a practice around that. I don't think it is something that necessarily would change instantly because we're used to doing the way that our work flows, is it is from one small issue to the next or, you know, one person to the next. So, having that, building that muscle to move along that continuum and I think also as, you know, Kieran's story really helping our patrons understand that we -- we want them to engage with us in a similar way, right? So we want them to become more stakeholders and invested in the library as well. The life of a library as well. So, it ends up sort of mirroring, I think, hopefully mirrors then how the patrons react to that as well. >> Kieran: Right. >> Sharon: Yeah, I love the comments about this. Because, you know, like we said, it is not like we're suggesting that you do all of these at once or that you do all of these with every person that walks in the door. Different people need different things in the moment, but I think part of it is being consciously aware, as Jennifer indicated, that these are your tools. These are all of the things that you have at your disposal when somebody comes in to see where they're at and there is a little bit of a, kind of checking things out and figuring out one-on-one where people are at and what they need. I love what Monica said, watching body language and their eyes -- if they fidget and move away, you know they're kind of done with you. So we're just suggesting that yes and is sort of being responsive in any of these ways. Being responsive to who is walking in and what are they bringing with them? >> Kieran: Right, which is a good lead-in to the next part about policies. And I'm sure all of you can kind of relate to this. There is probably -- and for me this is the story that I have brought out in my head several times and rethought and how could I have done this better? Because I think I have made a lot of mistakes. And, you know, that's how we learn. Again, at the small and rural library, DVD collection had probably 250 DVDs at the time. And we have them out on a display. Most of them face out. And it is like a range of shelves broken into different genre of nonfiction, fiction kind of stuff. The DVDs are in their cases and you take the case and you walk up to the circ desk and check it out and we didn't have at the time any sort of security gates. And it worked fine for more than a year. And then we started to have this rash of -- and you open up the box when you're checking it out, and the DVD was missing. Now, we realized somebody was stealing from us. Like I said, it is a fairly small library. You can see from one end to the other. So we started to really watch the DVDs. One of my coworkers at the time, positioned herself to be able to stare pretty much at the DVD shelf and note of the people that came in. And at one point she saw somebody, this woman, a young woman, put a DVD in her purse. And immediately, you know, like called out to all of us and all three staff people immediately ran over to her and, you know, surrounded her and we're like you're stealing, and we ended up not only like changing our procedure -- well, I mean we banned her for life and kicked her out and called the police and stuff like that, and not only did we do all of that, but we also changed our procedure. We took all of the DVDs out of the DVD cases, put them in sleeves, put them in the sleeves in shoe boxes in alphabetical order and had all of those behind the desk and put the empty cases out. We also changed the entire policy of how many DVDs you could check out at a time. And we changed these rules just across the board because we had one person that was stealing. And it seemed like since I have thought about it, kind of like what we did was change the rules for the whole town because we were afraid to have one hard conversation with one person. And not only that, but the whole procedure of getting the DVDs out of the shoe boxes and stuff like that just took forever and so we wasted a lot of staff time. And, you know, yeah, okay, she stole, like, 20 DVDs and out of 250, that is kind of a large percentage. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on kind of taking -- how to make a yes and, especially with your policies and procedures. We didn't necessary speak to her about why she was stealing. We spoke to her as we know you're stealing, kind of a different thing. >> Sharon: I think what this story illustrates among other things, we're in our libraries and something goes wrong, and we look at it from the perspective of like there is a problem at the library. And we need to solve the problem that the library is having. And maybe, if we sort of step back and say there is a problem somebody who is at the library is having and we need to investigate what the problem is that this person is having. It kind of gets it away from changing, you know, changing policies and things that might affect hundreds or thousands of people just over one person who might be having a problem. We don't know what the problem is with this young girl, and there are so many times when we have issues, you know, vandalism or other things and we can think about it in terms of the problem of the library or we can think about it as what is the need with the person or in the community that we need to solve and are there other people in the community who are resources at our disposal that we can draw on to help us solving this problem? So, I think rather than clamping down on resources and policies, it would be interesting as the yes and approach to think about expanding and thinking what resources might we expand in order to resolve this issue? >> Kieran: And I think it happens in a lot of libraries I have seen since and it always make me think of how we treated that young woman, where we start to sort of think of the library and its possessions as ours. Our patrons would just steal that if we bought that. It's too nice. Or we lock those up, those laptops, we can't just trust people, you know, like I think we do this as libraries a lot. And it is with that assumption I guess that people are bad instead of that assumption that people are good. >> Sharon: Any thoughts? >> Kieran: I like the idea, Danielle, of encouraging people to see the library materials as community resources. >> Sharon: I'm just laughing at the -- tie your camel to the tent. >> Kieran: That's a good one. I think Debra has the -- changing the policies and procedures is for the betterment of the whole. >> Sharon: Yeah, and we have to keep in mind that policies are, in order to make the library run better and for people to be able to use it efficiently, too. So, making it difficult for people to use the library, the ones who are doing a good job may not be the best means to that end. All right. Great comments. Keep them coming. So, what we would like to do now, Jennifer is going to come on and give you instructions on an activity that we're going to do. >> Jennifer: Yes, so, let me introduce to you all the annotation tools. You should all have access to those. If you go to the top left corner of the slide, and click on what looks like a little marker, that will open the annotation view, and then you are going to go halfway down that menu of tools to the box, click on the square, and on that little drop-down menu, you should find a checkmark. So, go ahead and find that checkmark and you can practice on this screen to make sure that you have found it. Excellent. Looking good. All right. Again, it is over on the top left corner. Find that little checkmark under the box option. All right. Now, we're going to have you pause your checkmarking so Sharon and Kieran can introduce the exercise on the next slide. So, once you have found that, you can go ahead and hold on to your checkmark for a second. >> Sharon: Okay. We thought it might be fun for you to use the yes-o-meter to sort of say where do you think you're at now with each of these? And maybe use a color like black for where you think you are, and then use red for where you would like to be. >> Jennifer: And just I know some folks have found the arrow mark. Unfortunately that only gives you one option. If you want to rank yourself on the yes-o-meter for all six, go back over to the an notation tools and pick from the little box. If you go to the drop-down within the box, you can find the checkmarks or the dots work well. >> Sharon: What do you think, Kieran? >> Kieran: I think it's starting to look like one of those Jackson Pollyp paintings. >> Sharon: I'm glad to see there are not many who are clear over on the no, except for internal communications seems to be one. That is a whole other webinar. But you might think about how to when you are talking with people in your organization, are you listening to what they're saying or are you already formulating your answer? Look at all of these people wanting to be over on the yes and side. What might you do to be on the yes and side? We have a few minutes to use the chat area to let us know what you might do to move towards yes and. While people are thinking about some of the yes and innovative ideas inspired by you all, there was a great question that came through, I think you saw in terms of the -- how do you bring staff that may be are set in their ways in the -- in the no or the yes buts to move -- to move along. I think as somebody has pointed out, those of us that are gathered here are interested in doing that, but how do you prevent this to folks that maybe are more resistant? I would love to hear your ideas of how you think that might look. >> Sharon: I'm waiting for Kieran. >> Kieran: I think that is a perennial question that I have. So many times I feel like the workplace becomes a culture, and that sometimes even the boss isn't in charge of that culture, that there is other factors at work, and one negative nilly can really bring down the whole crew. And, I mean, there are many approaches and depending on the culture of your library, of course, some of these would work and not and I think some of it is explaining what you expect like, you know, it might have been okay for you in the past to say, you know, no or whatever but now you -- this is what we're expecting, and treat it like any other, you know, expectation that you have for your employees. I think another way, though, and that's a little more like top-down, I think. And another way is just kind of that, you know, leading by example and it is just like, you know, the changing a culture of kind of that negative and no is really hard especially when you are the person trying to say yes and. Absolutely. I have been there and done that. But I think it is really important to try to bring that kind of energy into the group and just try to start somewhere. Finding the things that you can succeed in from where you're at in your organization, and bring that kind of response not only to the patrons, but to your coworkers, to your managers. >> Sharon: I guess what I would say is to do yes and is not easy. The easy thing to do is just say no, right, so you don't have to work so hard. But what does yes and get you? It gets you to like feel better, be more joyful, look at possibilities, laugh more, be more welcoming, have more respect for each other. There is a lot of different things that yes and gets you, and so trying to get at like what -- what is the fun about it? What is the benefit for people in doing these kinds of things? Might be a way of, you know, encouraging change, telling a story and acknowledging people for when they are doing well. And there is probably some barriers for why some people are just saying no all of the time. Maybe they felt discouraged in the past. What can you do to help encourage them? Almost want to say that, you know, the five point system we have about responding, predicting, engaging, encouraging, and empowering, apply to the people that we work with, too. Like when can we kind of encourage them in a way to move more -- and to think more excitedly and more about possibility in their work. I know that is kind of fluffy, but that is my quick answer. >> Jennifer: That's great. I want to give applause for Sharon has actually done another wonderful webinar with us on the topic of happiness, which really I think is another way to move people along that continuum and a number of other really great webinars that address communication. So, be sure to explore those as -- and, you know, we encourage people to view webinar archives together as a team or perhaps assign folks to view the archives and then come together to discuss them. So, be sure to know that these are ways that you can use what we've got there as well. >> Sharon: And we have had a few people just take our PowerPoint and use it with their staff and you are welcome to do that. It is on the web site. You can download it and use it for your own talks. >> Jennifer: We have just about a minute left here. I will let you all wrap up and bring us to a close. >> Sharon: All right. So, there is a lot of different questions and comments. I need to revisit this fantastic text area, but just my wrap-up is thank you all for coming. It was great to have your input and to see everyone so committed with those red arrows over on yes and. Thank you so much. >> Kieran: Absolutely. Thank you very much. Try to think about your library and ways you can move it forward. >> Sharon: We have to advance to our -- here is our real summary. Eckhart Tolle says say yes to life and see how life starts suddenly to work for you rather than against you. Or a great many things can be resolved by kindness, even more with laughter. But there are some that just require cake. We think yes and is really about kindness and laughter and it is probably about cake. But thank you. >> Kieran: Absolutely. >> Jennifer: Absolutely. Thank you so much Kieran and Sharon. Yes, we will be posting the chat as a part of the archive and I know that Kieran and Sharon will take a peek at that and if they have additional thoughts will share those with us as well. And I thank all of you for joining us. The archive will be posted later on today. Or early tomorrow. And we're going to send you to a survey as you leave. We really appreciate your feedback, we will share that with our presenters and it helps to guide our ongoing programming and thank you to our captioner for today. All right everyone, have a fantastic day with lots of yes ands. Thank you. >> Sharon: Yes and cake. Thank you, Jennifer and Kendra. >> Jennifer: Thank you. Bye-bye.