I'd like to welcome you to today's session, where we'll be hearing about ways to bring your trustees towards being more tech savvy.
And this actually is a session that was presented at this last year's ARSL conference.
So we're really excited to be able to present this encore presentation so all of you can experience the great work of Bonnie McKewon.
Bonnie comes to us from the state library of Iowa.
She shares her excellent ideas and resources and learning with rural and small libraries all over Iowa, and Bonnie, we're so glad you're here, and I'm going to go ahead and pass the ball on over to you to get started.
Welcome, Bonnie.
>> Bonnie: Well thank you very much, Jennifer.
I'm so glad to be here today.
I'm so glad for the invitation to join WebJunction in this webinar format.
Just a quick background about my experience in working with boards.
If -- many of you in the audience are library directors, I can identify with you.
I was that once myself.
I was the former director of the Spencer public library here in Iowa, in the years before dewy the cat showed up.
So I've been employed by public library board in that capacity.
I was also the director of a regional system here in Iowa for 20 years.
And also there employed by a regional board.
So having been employed by boards and now continuing with the state library in the work I do providing board education and training, I guess you could say my perspective comes from both sides of the board table.
Shakespeare is pictured here because there is a method to my madness, as he said.
The method to my madness for putting this program together for library boards is pretty much described in the webinar description that you read about that maybe brought you here.
You really don't need to have a board of I.T. specialists.
In fact, I don't think any of us would want that for ourselves.
Or for our libraries.
I don't even expect that trustees will be power users of technology by any means.
But I also think that it's time, it's probably pastime now that it's 2017, for us to push back a little bit on those trustees who maybe aren't as dialed in to using technology for themselves.
You know, I've found some boards are pretty dismissive of technology for themselves, and some sadly are dismissive of technology for their libraries.
I had a trustee say to me a couple weeks ago when I was doing a presentation at a local library, a trustee said, well, I don't have a computer at home, I don't have email, and I'm fine with  that.
But what I want to say, what I don't feel I can say, but what I want to say is, yes, but you're on a library board.
And that comes I think with new expectations now in 2017.
Here's my theory behind this.
I really believe that when trustees are even modest users of technology themselves, they become better advocates for the library's technology needs.
Not power users as I said, but a modest level of understanding and use.
I think brings board members to being better advocates.
I think they can better plan for and budget for computer replacement, for software upgrades, for high-speed internet, for the library.
They simply become, I believe, stronger advocates for the library's budget, and for the funding  needed to support the library's technology advancements.
So anyway, that's my theory behind -- toward tech savvy trustees.
That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it, right?
Well, if you are fans of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series, this compilation has been out a while.
"The Salmon of Doubt" came out in about 2002.
But I think there's much truth in humor, and this quote from the book kind of speaks to this idea of digital natives versus digital immigrants, right?
And look at point number three there.
Anything invented after you're 35 years old is against the natural order of things.
I'm past 35 years old.
I'll say so.
But think about the makeup, the composition of your library boards.
I bet many people on your library boards are older than 35.
Maybe they feel the same way, maybe this leads towards some reluctance on their part to step very fully into learning technology products and programs.
And truly, I don't mean for any of this in my material to be an indictment on age or for you to think this is ageism speaking, not at all.
I just think there really is some truth to this.
This chart comes from a recent pew internet study where pew internet researchers posed the question that you see here -- should libraries offer programs to teach people, of all ages, how to use digital tools?
And the answer, as you can see, was overwhelmingly yes, it's a perfect niche for public libraries to do so.
I imagine that people who answered this survey probably aren't using the expression digital literacy in their everyday conversations like we are in libraryland.
But to think that 80% answered that the concept of digital literacy is definitely something that libraries should be involved in.
So I think this kind of bolsters my theory here for tech savvy trustees.
Board members are part of the general population.
They need to step into this arena, just to become a bit more digitally literate themselves.
I think every state library, I'm pretty sure, develops public library standards that speak to collections and policies and planning, and so much about library operations.
What I'm not sure of is if every state includes board education standards.
So what I'd love to hear from you in the chat space at this point is kind of your thoughts about the question that I've posed here.
If your state library does have trustee training standards, how are your trustees responding to that requirement?
Do you feel they're challenged by it?
Do you feel they're embracing it with a whoop, whoop!
Let me know that in chat.
I'd love to hear more about what your state is doing in terms of board education.
And you know, if your state does, like Iowa, this is the Iowa document that we just revised in July of last year, if your state does like Iowa have a board education standard, we require as you can see of every individual trustee, that right there becomes a great entree into providing them with more techie-related training.
I was state library has a continuing education catalog, I imagine most state libraries do.
My urging for several years for my Northwest Iowa trustees has been to encourage them to set up their own account in our state library's education catalog, because I think that's another just very simple accommodation for trustees in developing more of that independent learning, right?
It kind of removes the dependency of their participation away from maybe their reliance on having their directors pass along information about cool classes they might be interested in, like WJsupport webinars -- WebJunction webinars, for example.
It leads them to being more independent learners.
So just that simple accommodation, for them to register for online classes like this, or online classes your own states are providing, leads them to be even more frequent online learners.
So at this point there's some commentary about this?
>> Jennifer: Definitely.
It's interesting, so there was reluctantly complies was one of the responses, and others implied that, yes, they embrace the concept but it's hard to get them to do it or apply that learning.
Other comments about, we can't necessarily enforce the participation, or it's difficult to get them to do it.
So I think, you know, the issue of sort of -- that we have to rely on leaving them on their own to participate is really tricky.
So any ideas you have on how to encourage participation, or I don't know if there are tips or trips for creating more competition amongst them to be learners, I don't know.
It's hard -- learning, any of this kind of motivation -- these challenges come up with all learners, but certainly with volunteers, I think.
>> Bonnie: Of course.
I agree.
Well, you know, I think standards right there is a pretty good motivator.
Standards have -- and, you know, for years, Iowa's standards included trustee education.
But it was required at a different participation level.
In our 2016 revision, we brought down that requirement to the very basic fundamental level of -- at which libraries are expected to meet standards.
We do it like in a tier, one, two, three, which is like a good, better, best.
We brought it down to a tier one, because we wanted to be more deliberate from the state library in really, you know, sending this message, this is a pretty important thing.
So standards are a good motivator, I think the -- probably the most effective approach is to incorporate demonstrations or some kind of instruction at your regularly scheduled board meet cans.
That's how I roll when I am invited to attend library board meetings here in Northwest Iowa.
We always try to set it for the date when their board normally meets so they're not expected to come another --
>> Jennifer: So how do you -- sorry.
How do you track their completion of the -- how they meet the standards?
>> Bonnie: Oh, sure.
We've just suggested to our boards that they record what they're doing in their minutes each month.
And that document can easily be scanned and sent to the state library when it's time to prove it.
In fact, my suggestion to our Iowa board has been to include an extra line on their agenda from month to month.
Most agendas probably have a line that says director report.
If you insert a new line under that called board education, that's an easy way to get it into the minutes.
There may not be something to be reported on for the boards every month by any means, but at least it's the reminder there on the agenda to get it into the minutes.
>> Jennifer: That's great.
>> Bonnie: Well, you know, I've found this to be pretty universally true, that as a group, trustees are just a little bit behind in their tech savviness.
You know, I don't have real numbers for this, only my own anecdotal evidence for what I see when I meet with local boards in Iowa.
And if I didn't say this, I probably should have -- I'm with the Northwest district office of the state library.
We have like branch offices around the state, and my Northwest office spans 14 counties, I work with 90 public libraries in those counties.
So that's a lot of boards.
So this is really born from what I see in my work with them.
So anyway, I thank you for indulging me in just a little background behind my reasoning behind why I think the goal of tech savvy trustees is a pretty good one.
Now let me move toward sharing some approaches for getting there.
I'm just going to throw all of these up on the screen right now, and we'll circle back to each one of these through the presentation.
These are ideas that I know will help boost more tech savviness for your board members.
Some of these things I'll bet you're already doing, no doubt.
And if you're not doing them, they would be very easy adjustments to make to your board meetings.
You know, they may look elementary, granted, but you know, again, in my experience doing board  training, these methods are pretty universally applied and they can be very effective.
90 boards, you know, I've seen and worked with a lot of them.
And I think nearly every one of them could benefit from one or more of these approaches.
So what idles like to see in chat as Jennifer encouraged you to do, with each of these segments, is to share what you're already doing with your boards.
I would love to gather those stories, because your stories will add to my storytelling.
So there you go.
That's selfishly motivated on my part.
So here's the first tip, which is green your board meetings.
And this is probably the easiest shift of all to do.
One of the easiest.
And this is just kind of coming to less reliance on paper.
And increasingly, incrementally having more reliance on spending our board documents to a shared website.
Maybe parking your board documents on a library's website.
Or using Google Docs, which then leads you as directors to begin setting up your boardroom with a laptop and projector, and then you can show the board documents up on the big screen, right?
Storm lake public library in Iowa does this very routinely, and I am starting to see this more, but I still don't think it's very commonly done.
But, again, do let me know what you are doing in your libraries to green up your board meetings.
What follows are just a few examples of greening board meetings.
This slide comes from Minot, North Dakota, here you can see their board minutes, and agendas, and all sorts of documents are posted on the library's website.
Classic place to put it.
Also here at cedar falls, Iowa, does the same.
So you know, as I said, a few minutes ago, if you hear the expression from your trustees, well, you know, I don't have a computer at home.
You can put this stuff up on the web all day long, but you're going to have to mail my board packet to me, and I'm cool with that.
I guess that's where the incrementally getting us there, right, kicks in.
Maybe for most of your board members they are fine with navigating to your website or to Google docs to find the board material from month to month.
But it's really I think -- this can become a very gentle nudge, a very gentle push to get people there.
And even better, I think, is to do what some city governments are doing.
Now, this has been nearly three years ago already that north liberty, Iowa, this is the city council in north liberty, purchased iPads for all city council members.
Holy cow.
I love that.
A lot of school districts actually have done that for several years now.
In Iowa we call it a one-to-one school.
If each student is issued with a tablet or laptop or iPad or whatever.
So to me, you know, I saw this article and I said to myself, you know, library boards, let's do the same.
Talk about stepping into digital literacy, right?
I think this right here could be a perfect budget negotiation too by making the pitch to city council, hey, council members, let's do for the city library board what you have just done for yourself, and allocate some funding for us to purchase iPads for all the library trustees.
iPads all around, right?
That would be a great budget pitch.
It could also be a nice involvement for your friends group too.
So here's another green example, and this is something I've been pressing upon Iowa boards for a long time now.
And that is, what GarrettNA, Nebraska, public library has done, and I know many others.
A new and improved recruitment tool.
How about developing an electronic application for people interested in serving on the library  board?
This method reaches potential trustees who are already tech savvy, and accustomed to searching websites for applications and forms to be filled out.
But to me, this also broadens the recruitment pool of people available who might see these online applications and think, huh, I never thought of maybe serving on the library board.
They see it online, it might spark that idea.
Here's just another example of doing that from Sioux city.
This is from the city of Sioux city now, they have an electronic application to solicit volunteers for any city board or commission.
So whether it's the parks board, the arts center, the airport board, the museum, the library, all of those volunteer opportunities are available here and found on the city's websites.
There's one more from Mcfarland, Wisconsin.
You can see there at the bottom of the slide their library trustee application form.
If you like that idea and you haven't approached this yet, you have some good examples here to follow of library who's have these electronic trustee applications.
Mcfarland, business Winter Olympics they call themselves a village, but their population is 8,000.
In Iowa that's more than a village, that's a pretty big town.
And this, I really like a lot.
This I found in trolling through library websites.
This is a welcome message written by the board president at this library in North Carolina.
Now, this isn't high on the tech savvy scale, but it's definitely high on the advocacy scale.
What a wonderful thing for a library board president to do, right?
And as I found this, I thought to myself, you know, what could flip this to a little bit more tech savvy is, what if this trustee or any of yours at your libraries, would want to take a similar welcome message and flip it into a video clip?
Into a YouTube video clip or something up on the website.
That would be cool.
Any other green examples, Jennifer, that have been flying past me?
>> Jennifer: I haven't seen as many examples, but there were some questions that came up in discussion.
I think folks -- it sounds like there have been some folks using iPads.
The first sort of comment that one group made was they didn't like not being able to take notes on them.
So we talked about maybe blending -- having -- they can take notes on a note pad, I think the other interesting thing is around that basic how do you motivate them, how do you create the drive or the reason for them to learn tech in general, and I know you touched on that in terms of making sure that they realize their role in understanding and supporting what the library does and that technology is such an important part of our libraries.
But if you could talk a little bit about how that happens, I know one idea was, what about setting up the expectations for learning technology during the recruitment process, you know, we'll help you learn, this is an opportunity for you to learn about these aspects of 21st century living, and that that's a benefit that will come to you as a board member.
So I don't know if you've seen other ways to motivate folks.
>> Bonnie: Well, maybe if the slides still to come, I think you might pick up some more approaches towards doing that.
Yeah, I think in answer to the motivation, here's another thing that occurs to me, though.
Now that you've brought this up, Jennifer, I don't -- as it came to mind I don't want to forget it.
I think those of us who are trainers, whether at a regional system, state library, whoever is in charge in your state, or whoever is available in your state to provide board education, we kind of have an obligation to make it relevant, right?
To make what we're presenting to library boards relevant.
Not just, you know, showing them the flashiness of gizmo and gadgets, but to help them connect what we're showing them with their trusteeship, or actually, with their library programming and services.
So let me kind of proceed with some of these other approaches, and maybe you all will find some more ideas here.
If you could yourselves provide demonstrations at board meetings, I think that goes a long way toward helping your board members feel a little bit more conversant, right, about things?
And when I say demos, I mean product demonstrations.
Demonstrate for them the products that your library subscribes to, and that they as boards are approving the purchase of.
And again, I'd love to hear what you're doing in this regard.
I love this quote, too, again from pew internet.
Americans fall along this spectrum of preparedness in terms of using tech tools, and library  trustees are right in the mix.
They are not a group unto themselves.
They are a part of the general population.
They fall along the spectrum of readiness, they fall along a spectrum of savviness, I think.
You no doubt have some people who are quite comfortable with using gizmos and gadgets, and maybe you have some that are rather hesitant.
But just look at some of these products that are pretty commonly found, even in small town  libraries.
You know, this came to me with a thud one day, actually, it came to me with a thud over the course of many days.
I join about three local board meetings a month in Northwest Iowa.
On average.
So it averages about 40 board meetings a year that I go to, to provide them with an orientation, or presentation of some kind.
And this is very, very commonly said -- I will hear some trustees say this invariably.
You know, we pay the bill for ESCO every year, but I don't know what it is.
Or, we pay the bill for bridges in Iowa -- that's our E-book service -- we pay the bill for bridges, but I want to get into using E-books, but I don't know how to start.
And that is said of any of these other products that you see here on screen.
So my what if for you is, what if you could provide, you yourselves as the library directors or support staff, a live demonstration of the digital products that your library subscribes to?
I think that's a great learning opportunity for library boards.
And connected with the fact that they have paid -- they have approved the purchase for these things, so if they know what the product is, and what it can do for their community, they're much better advocates, again, at budget time when they need to be able to make that argument.
Here's why our library is subscribing to these wonderful E-resources.
You can even fire up a tutorial from any of these websites.
Both would be good ways to familiarize them.
Well, this is kind of an aside, but I really love to include this example from grand forks public library in North Dakota, because I love the way they display on their website their digital products.
It's not just the button or the logo, just to the right of it they include a short one or  two-sentence explanation about what the product is.
I think that's a great way to promote your subscription the and what a good technique, right, to improve the chances that people will actually click further.
This is another great website, this has been one of my favorites for years.
If you're not familiar with common craft, it's a.com, commoncraft.com, go there after we're done here and poke around.
Because what you find here are very simple explanations of pretty complex topics.
But they're very simple explanations, they're video clips, actually, about two or three-minute video clips, and it's done using a white board with a black magic marker and paper cut-outs.
I mean, they are so fun to look at, and it would be a great way to fire up some of these.
If you hear in conversation at your board meetings, I totally don't really understand what QR codes are.
I don't get it.
What are they?
Bring back a demonstration of the QR codes as explained by commoncraft at your next board meeting.
I think another way to really kind of boost your board members in their -- just in raising their awareness about things, is just by sharing library-related articles and websites.
And there's some overlap here with the demonstration segment.
That I just mentioned.
So if there are trustees on your board who maybe are not techie users, I bet they're readers.
And it's a very nonthreatening way to pique their interest in learning more.
If you copy articles from WebJunction, for instance, great articles there or any of the library management.
Magazines you might subscribe to, pew internet again, a great source of articles.
Here's a listing of just some of the newest ones.
You know, I think regardless of where your articles come from, whether they're light-hearted or scholarly, I think this article discussion thing can be for your board what book discussions are for your book groups, really.
It's raising awareness and having a conversation about the broader library landscape.
Here are more websites that you could share, and demonstrate with your boards.
All good ones.
Most of these are sources for articles as well as sources for webinars.
And I would say you're probably familiar with most of these.
I'm guessing.
But techOpediatric ya was new to me.
I will say that I think the articles are really dense.
Or more likely it's me who is dense.
They're way too techie for me.
But what's cool is that it offers you a tech term of the day.
You can have a new techie term delivered to your in box every day, if you're so inclined.
So a few more websites to wander.
Your own, your state library, your state association, ALA, PLA, and certainly WebJunction's website.
Now, this is pretty quick spin through in-house board education programs, really it's just a  shameless commercial for my colleagues who might be listening in today at state libraries or regional systems.
We do this stuff all day long, you guys.
This is old hat for us.
So I hope I'm not talking out of turn when I -- or adding to your workload if there's anybody within earshot of me who are with a regional system or state library by saying we do this stuff all day long.
I think that's true, we do.
Look at this happy group.
I don't even remember what the topic was in this gathering, and clearly we weren't going green, either, that day, because look at all the paper in front of us.
But we were having fun, whatever we were doing.
I think too, you know, for these in-house presentations that can come your way, what if larger libraries that have someone on staff who coordinates staff training, have you ever used that same person to help you coordinate a little bit of tech savvy instruction for the board that you have all sorts of expertise on your own staff?
Use tech to inspire tech.
What I'm hoping for here is that you will find a more intentional and a more consistent use of tech at your board meetings.
As we harken back to that article about the city council that purchased iPads, if you do that, that's a wonderful way to use tech to inspire tech.
Have a laptop at the ready, at every board meeting, and a data projector at the ready.
Then you can offer these demonstrations in real time, take people to websites in real time if questions are posed, rather than having to wait and come back to it next month.
So Jennifer, not my most flattering picture, I gotta tell you, but look what I do for the sake of WebJunction?
Webinars, right?
I include this one because this just really delighted me.
The day I went to join this library's board meeting, and they had a laptop set up and they were all ready to Skype with a trustee who was a snow bird in Arizona during the winter.
I didn't know that this library did this throughout the winter.
They Skype with one of their trustees.
So I thought that was very cool.
This was a small library, the town is about 1400, but I thought, you know, what a techie solution to what is sometimes a problem getting a quorum, especially in the winter months in the Midwest.
That I loved the idea of.
And this quote I love.
It's still -- it still fits all of these centuries later.
This really is the Hallmark of adult education.
And that's what we're about.
When we're working with our library boards in board development, it's respecting really how adults learn best.
So demonstrations would help them remember hands-on learning, of course, helps them better understand.
So my last approach to trustee tech savviness or one path to get us there, maybe, is maybe just simply to lighten up.
And if you have two women on your board like these two women who are actually trustees from Albert city public library in Iowa, they showed up at their library's ugly Christmas sweater party last year, and they threw in goofy pajama bottoms too.
It's not too hard for this board to lighten up.
I think as a trainer, I think games, any interactive games are a great way to do this, really.
If you're comfortable trying that approach.
It lightens the mood, and you know, board meetings can be stuffy at times, let's be honest.
They can be.
So using games as kind of a technique to move them toward a little bit more familiarity with terminology, that can also reveal what trustees are familiar with, but it also reveals what they're less familiar with.
Here's one of the games that I use pretty routinely when I'm doing this tech sof I trustees presentation.
The entire audience plays tech savvy bingo.
Jennifer has added this bingo card to the resources on the WebJunction page.
So this is out there for you to customize and just have at it.
Put up there whatever you know, gizmo or gadget you want to put up there.
And then distribute these as bingo cards, and have a door prize ready for whoever shouts out bingo.
Let me offer you this one tip.
This literally only takes seconds for a group to look at and for someone to shout out bingo.
So my tip is just distribute your cards face down, having everyone in the audience flip them over at the same time.
The first time I did this was with a very big audience at a conference, and I mean, a big -- it was a big room.
And somebody at the front of the room shouted bingo before the cards had made it all the way to the back of the room.
So there you go.
Keep them flipped over.
But it is a safe zone, and every time I've done this without fail, every time somebody has piped up to say, you know what?
I don't even have a clue what doodle balls are.
I couldn't fill in that square.
And that right there becomes a great opportunity to circle back, to providing them with a demonstration of those things they're less familiar with.
What about jeopardy?
A favorite game show out there, and I have used this many times with local boards.
We use so many acronyms in libraryland, right?
It's no wonder that trustees are probably not as familiar with the terminology we use as we as library practitioners.
And it's no wonder they're not as familiar with the actual products.
You know, again, I'll come back to the things that I hear expressed so often when I'm joining local boards, people who will say, you know, we pay this bill every year, I don't know what it is.
So just assume your trustees have that same familiarity.
So what you could do is play jeopardy, I'm going to reveal, I think we have time for this, Jennifer, if people want to just you know, jump into that chat space, whoever puts this in the form of a question, like a good jeopardy player would do, Jennifer has a virtual door prize for you guys.
Oh, wait, no, she doesn't.
Just kidding.
Okay, here's what you could do.
You could just give them what the thing is.
Chat people, go for it.
Possibly.
Somebody said hoopla, possibly.
Could be freegal.
Hold your horses, here's the next one.
A collection of animated talking picture books for kids.
Tumblebooks.
Popular language learning software, discover over 70 languages.
Mango.
Mango, Hmong 0 -- MONGO, with a different vowel -- Rosetta stone.
The answer is whatever it is that your library subscribes to, right?
And here's one more.
Digital magazines from the world's largest newsstand.
ZINIO, right?
Yes.
So I have one more game for you.
One more idea for a game that's -- that was inspired, I was inspired to try this out, thanks to Hollywood game night.
If any of you have ever watched that, you mostly see it in the summertime.
It's hosted by Jane lynch, and they have a panel of celebrities, two teams of celebrities who are playing these really fun parlor games.
And very often they'll do one, they'll do a game and they'll do different variations of this, but they'll take something and they blow it up on a big poster board, and they have the teams have to put something in chronological order.
For instance, one time they blew up posters of Tom Hanks movies, and the teams had to put the Tom Hanks movies in chronological order from earliest to newest, right?
So they do that a lot.
So my idea was, what if I borrowed, I've already forgotten your expression, Jennifer, rip off and duplicate?
>> Jennifer: Yep, R&D.
>> Bonnie: Rip off and duplicate.
That's what I did from Hollywood game night.
And I created the logo game.
So the next slide will better show you.
With the logo game, I took some of these logos and brands from what are very familiar things, right, but to some that are much less familiar to people, and I copied these logos onto poster boards, each of them individually, mixed them up, and asked the group to put them in chronological order as to when the product first appeared on the scene.
It's a good interactive game.
It really leads people to, again, that freedom or that safety zone to ask about any of the logos they're not familiar with.
Take note of those, come back to them, offer a demonstration at another board meeting.
I've done this in many ways.
It's certainly any of these games are of course lend themselves to being done in person, face to face.
But I wasn't sure how this would translate into a webinar, but if you get the idea, this can be a very easy and fun and light hearted way to kind of coach your trustees into maybe a bit more familiarity with some of these products just going by their logo.
What I have missed?
Jennifer, some good chatter?
>> Jennifer: Let's see.
There was a good question about how you deal or how your libraries deal with both staff and patrons, with retention of their learning, how do you help them retain that learning, and I wonder if some of it gets refreshed quarterly, or if you come up with a new game, or ways to bring them in.
But I know when they're not using things regularly, they'll forget it.
So if you have tips on how you have seen that happen, that would be great.
>> Well, I'm a big fan of repeat, rinse, repeat.
So you know, I do a lot of webinars for the state library and here in Iowa as well, board education webinars, and like WebJunction, we record those and we put them out on our website after the fact.
So there are always those chances for library trustees who maybe couldn't attend live to see it, to watch the recording of it, and then watch it again if need be, and again if need be.
I think you're right, I think those of us who are trainers need to always be freshening up our repertoire.
So I'm in the market for new games, you guys, if you want to share new games with me, I would  happily take them.
We're also at the state library here in Iowa, working towards developing more self-paced kinds of tutorials that we can put up on our website.
And I think that would help a great deal.
It's not just -- it is retention, that is a great question for current trustees, but it's also all of the new people who join your boards for whom you have to start all over helping them become familiar.
>> Jennifer: I also want to just give a plug, WebJunction, we talk a lot about building a culture of learning, and how do you instill sort of that assumption that you're going to be learning regularly.
So I'll add some of these ideas to the event page so you all can explore them further, but there's a library in Utah it's developed learning approach that gives staff an hour a week to focus on learning something new.
And they can -- there's a whole process for them to sort of select what they want to learn, and how they can align that to their work.
So I would say in looking at roles that you distribute across the trustee community, knowing that there may be specific tasks or opportunities for them to do in their work as trustees could align to some of those learning goals and perhaps asking them to spend an hour a month focused on developing that learning further, and as with any learning, it's really helpful to have the support of those around you, so learning together and, you know, certainly having your -- having the director or the rest of yourly bring staff modeling that.
I know a lot of communities have had great success with intergenerational learning, so your teens who maybe are more tech savvy, are always eager to share that learning with others, and it's a known fact that that kind of sharing in learning is good for your community.
So I think thinking about ways to make that learning happen regularly, and I love that you brought up using webinars -- any of our WebJunction webinars or any of the webinars you find out there are -- the recordings are a great way to break out and maybe you just decide for that board meeting that you spend five minutes watching this particular video so that they then can talk about it.
Break it up into segments, there's no reason that you can't break it and segment that up.
So there are questions coming in, so I'm going to let you continue and we'll wrap up at the end with a few more questions.
>> Bonnie: Yes.
Well, just one more thing occurred to me.
That is, sometimes peer pressure can really do the trickles.
We are -- the trick also.
We are big fans in Iowa because we have so many libraries, Iowa has 544 municipal libraries.
That's a crazy number.
So we're big fans of doing our training on a countywide basis.
So we love to bring boards together from all of the libraries within any given county, or within adjoining counties.
And once that really takes hold, that can really be a very effective way too, for them to all come together and discuss trusteeship, and do some of this kind of techie savviness kinds of  programming, with a much broader group than just their own colleagues and neighbors that they see every month in their own libraries.
So I like that approach very much.
The countywide learning.
So that about brings me to the end of my material.
Your tech savvy pledge is ahead.
I -- one of my favorite Maxine cartoons, I have to share with you, it has to do with her to-do list.
And Maxine has said, I organize most of my to-do things into three categories.
Things I won't do now, things I won't do later, and things I'll never do.
Sthantd good?
But that's Maxine, that's not you.
What Jennifer and I would like to hear back from you right now is, what of all of these approaches toward moving your boards to a little bit more tech savviness, what do you see as being things that you would like to try back in your library?
>> Jennifer: On that invitation, I want to spend just a second here orienting you all to the annotation tools in WebEx.
So take a moment and look to the top left corner of the slide up above the A, and click on that  marker that you should see there.
Then go halfway down the min ew that appears and go to the square, click on that little arrow to the right of the square and go down to the check mark, and then you can test your check mark on the slide, you'll probably find other tools, but for our next exercise, the check mark works best because as Bonnie said, we'll be giving you the option to check multiple times.
Excellent.
It looks like some of you are finding the check mark.
All right.
So we'll have you pause your practice and Bonnie will bring us to the next slide so you can hold your check marking and we'll move on.
>> Bonnie: You got the hang of it.
There's the wrap-up question.
Which of these approaches from today's webinar do you think you will prioritize in support of tech savvy trustees?
Which of these really caught your attention?
It looks like all of the votes are pretty evenly dispersed.
>> Jennifer: That's a good sign.
A good thing.
That's a goods thing.
Excellent.
I just saw someone posted that they're going to see if one of their annual board goals next year might be to help trustees be more comfortable with digital technology.
So I say hear, hear, a trustee's digital learning goal is an excellent way to get them all on board and share that commitment with each other.
>> Bonnie: Agreed.
And if your staff has any experience in using learning portfolios, or learning journals, following a certain track of learning that they want to just continue to build up their skills, maybe that same concept you can apply towards your board as well, have them come up with a learning journal or a learning portfolio.
I love that idea.
I'm anxious to go backwards through the chat and find out what all of your good ideas are, so I can rip them off and duplicate them.
>> Jennifer: And I just have to harken back to early on, I love the idea of including board learning as an item on the agenda or an item on their report.
What a fantastic way to be transparent about our learning and really model that community learning together.
So that was definitely my -- in my top five ideas.
>> Bonnie: Great.
>> Jennifer: Excellent.
Well, thank you so much Bonnie for bringing all your wonderful passion and expertise to the topic.
And I know that you have collected all these great resources, we've added them all to today's event page.
I will let you all know Via email, I should probably take your tools away from you.
This is where online learning can become very entertaining.
I'll also mention that -- I'll send that email to you and I'll also let you know when all of those resources are available, and I'll send you all a certificate within a week and also ask you to take a moment as you leave today to complete the short survey that we'll send you to, it's an excellent way for us to share your thoughts with our presenters and it helps us guide our ongoing WebJunction programming, and we definitely hope to see you at our future webinars, and see you on WebJunction, and one more reminder, we're excited to collaborate today with ARSL, and that you all who are interested in presenting at next conference next fall should gather together your proposal ideas and provide those by march 15th to ARSL.
So thank you again, Bonnie, and everyone, have an excellent day, and again, you've brought some excellent inspiration to us, Bonnie.
>> Bonnie: Thank you, Jennifer, very much, for the invitation.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks to all of you for joining us today.
>> Jennifer: Excellent.
And thanks to Kendra for support and to Juline for our captions today.
Have a great day, everyone.