My name is Jennifer Peterson, and Stephanie Harmon, logged in as wj support. Just a reminder to stay up to date on Webjunction resources and events, we encourage you to subscribe to Crossroads, our monthly newsletter. It comes to your in box each month and it is an excellent way to stay up to date on all that happens within our Webjunction community and in partnership with others. We're thrilled to be able to bring this session to you through our partnership with the following state library agencies. Special welcome to those of you from a Webjunction partner state. Also very excited to be collaborating with TechSoup on this webinar. You will hear more about TechSoup in a minute. Also, cosponsoring our session is the association for rural and small libraries. I'm thrilled to have been serving as a member of the ARSL board, and I want to be sure if you have not already heard, the annual conference for this year is going to be in Omaha, Nebraska, in September. And it is an excellent conference. I know for a fact. Sarah Washburn's favorite conference, and I see she's here today. And hooray for Omaha as well. We also encourage you to consider joining ARSL as a member. It is the best deal in town. It is a great way for you to connect with others who work in rural and small libraries. You will receive the monthly member E-news letter and connect to members on the members only list serve. So, please, please take a moment if you have not taken a look at the web site, there are a number of ways to stay connected with your small and rural library colleagues. All right. I'm going to begin our recording here today. Again, the archives will be available later today. I'm thrilled to be able to work with two of my favorite library land colleagues, Brenda Hough and Stephanie Gerding. TechSoup for Libraries and they are joined today by Wendy Street, director of the Pella public library. I look forward to hearing from all of you in chat today as well. Welcome, Brenda. >> Brenda: Thank you so much, Jennifer. Okay. Well, as Jennifer said, Stephanie and I both work with TechSoup for Libraries. A project of TechSoup global. If you are no the familiar with TechSoup Libraries and TechSoup global, I recommend taking a look at the site. A lot of free information, resources, software donation program that most libraries qualify for. And it is included in the list of resources that Jennifer has already started to put together. We're working as part of the library Edge project. The web address is libraryedge.org. This is a collaborative project. Webjunction is part of it, and part of what this Edge initiative is doing is putting together a set of public technology services benchmarks for libraries. They have been developed and they are -- their reference points that libraries can use to evaluate and continually improve their technology services. And today's session is in support of the first benchmark. And there are 11 of the benchmarks. The first benchmark is about libraries helping people in their community learn to use technology. Increasing the level of digital literacy in the community. And so today's session, support patron learning in small spaces with small budgets, is all about that. And we have Wendy with us, who will be talking about the Pella Iowa Library story, tech training that has been happening there. Stephanie and I will share throughout the session, sharing ideas and examples from other places, too. So, welcome everyone. And I think we will start by having Wendy tell us about the Pella community and about the library and the technology training that they have been doing at her library. Welcome, Wendy. >> Wendy: Thank you. Pella is a community of about 10,000, located in central Iowa. We are the corporate home of Pella windows. And we're also known for our Dutch heritage. We have an annual tulip festival, thus the little tulip on your slide. And it draws about 100,000 people the first weekend in May. You are all invited to attend. We have been doing computer classes for about 11 years. We offer a series of very basic beginning computer classes two to three times a year. We have experimented with a bunch of different formats. We really have kind of landed on this process that works for us. We have trade some different topics, but really it comes down to the very basic classes seem to be what is needed in our community. We keep thinking we're going to meet the demand, but we have a waiting list each time we offer them so we continue to offer the very basic classes. We have also done some home school open houses where we invite families to come in and learn as a family how to use different tools in the library, and less successfully, we have done someone on one training and drop-in training. Okay. Thank you, Wendy. >> Brenda: Throughout the day today, this session, we will talk to Wendy about some of the specifics about what they do there, and we will also talk about other ideas for ways to approach training when you are in a small space and when you have a small budget. So, the first thing we will talk about is just where, when you are in a small library, where do you provide the training? And maybe first we will start with Wendy and have you talk about what you do in Pella. Where do you actually physically deliver the training? How do you do that? >> Wendy: Originally we did our training on our public computers out in the middle of the library. That wasn't ideal. But that was what we could do at the time and we did that for several years. For the past year, we have done our training on laptops in the meeting room. I wrote a grant and was able to purchase six laptops. We do our training on laptops in the meeting room. And that works very well for us. >> Brenda: This site has some options. People sometimes do them on the public access computers. Reserving some for a certain amount of time. Wendy talked about that they did do that. You might have a lab with lab tops or desktop computers. You might have laptops that you take different places, for example, to a meeting room. We would love to hear from you, those of you in the chat. Where do you offer tech training if you offer it? >> Wendy, did you mention a grant? We are getting question about a grant for laptops. >> Wendy: It was from a local community foundation. So that is not going to help anybody else, I'm afraid. >> Unless to look for those same sorts of foundations in their places. Yeah okay. So we're seeing people say laptop labs in the meeting room. Some are considering -- mobile lab is something that they might want to do. Some people with classrooms. Okay. So I have seen a lot of ideas there. This is actually a picture from your library, isn't it, Wendy? >> Wendy: Yes, from 2004. I don't know if you can read it. The teacher is talking about modems versus Ethernet cards. This is back -- this is a shot of some of our public access computers. And I -- I'm happy to say we have retired that dot matrix printer in the foreground, too. This is how we did it in the beginning. As I said, it wasn't ideal, but it did work. And we had, you know, we did many, many classes this way. >> Brenda: Well, that's one of the things we want to talk about today. Wendy will share her story, we will share examples. But it is about finding what works for your library and your community. Sometimes what works somewhere doesn't work in another location. We will just talk about different possibilities. One of the things that I'm seeing is individual instruction time in libraries. Instead of having a class where people can sign up and come to the class or maybe not sign up, just drop in for the class, instead people setting up individual instruction time, and, Wendy, didn't you say that was something that you tried but it didn't really fit for your community? >> Yes, we -- we did try it. We haven't gotten to this yet. We use volunteers primarily for our technology training. And we did try one on one training with a volunteer where people signed up for a specific period of time, and the volunteer was here during that time. And it sounded great and we thought it was going to work really well. What happened with us is that people failed to show up. And so the volunteer was very frustrated because he was sitting here with nothing to do. When we have done -- when we have set up individual times with staff members, that seems -- that has worked better for us. But we don't have enough staff time to do that as regularly as we would like. >> Brenda: And mobile training, I'm hearing more libraries doing that too. Actually having laptops and they don't have space in the library. So going out somewhere in the community to do training. Or being asked by groups to go out to the community, too. And I think Stephanie has an example of that for us. And another type of training is online training. Some libraries have different resources that are available to them, maybe through their state library and providing training in that way, too. Didn't you say you have something like learning express, Wendy? >> Yes, we do. As I mentioned, our classes are generally very basic. And when we do get people who need a little bit more in-depth, or they want to go beyond our basic classes we refer them to learning express library. >> Brenda: Stephanie, I think you had some examples to share with us, too, of ways technology training is happening in libraries. >> Stephanie G.: Yes, I do. Part of the work that we're doing at TechSoup for libraries, the Edge initiative, we are interviewing librarians that are excelling at the different benchmarks. So, talking to them and really getting their stories from them, and letting them share their tips and what they found that works and doesn't work really trying to help the rest of us learn from them and be able to not have to recreate that wheel every time. I will share a couple of these. This one is from Princeton public library in New Jersey. They do a couple of things that I think are interesting. One thing they have had for over 20 years now is an Mac user group. I think that is amazing that that has been going on for that long. The other thing they do, which is pictured here, every Wednesday, an informal chat time and they call this the buzz. And so they talk about all kinds of different topics. Some of them are tech-related. They talk about different technologies or apps, but they also talk about music and books and just do that every week. Which I thought was interesting, and then they're doing other topics around technology. Like they had a smartphone smackdown, where they had sort of a competition between androids and apple products, and just kind of some interesting different things. I loved the idea of really bringing conversation into talking about technology. And this next example from Susan Allen at the Worthington Library. They've done a lot with helping share information with library staff. And so, really just around the country -- around the county, sorry. They've done a county-wide technology help week where they got staff from different libraries who presented to each other. Really just an opportunity to share ideas and resources and experience on all kinds of topics. EBook readers, iPADs, gaming. They have carried this forward and done sort of a technology petting zoo, where people can come in and just have time to use some of these devices and see what they're all about. With staff, that really helps getting staff members to feel more comfortable if people are coming in and asking questions of us, which I think is an amazing thing. They're thinking of the library in conjunction with E-readers. And they have also done these for other audiences. Different ages, and I think that is a really good way to extend that training as well. I'm going to let you do it from now on Brenda. >> Brenda: Okay. Thank you. We were talking about taking technology training on the road. And I know Brenda, you facilitated a webinar around this from a Colorado library. >> The library district in Colorado, and they have laptops and I think theirs were also through a grant from their state library maybe. They were taking the laptops out into businesses and to organizations in their community, but also taking them into people's homes and doing technology training actually in people's homes and I think we're going to share the web address for more information about that, too, including that whole webinar. One thing that we talked about in that webinar a lot was safety and things they did to ensure safety when doing that type of training. That is a great example. We did a webinar on health information and something that the presenter recommended or suggested and talked about that she had seen libraries do was libraries are often frustrated that people don't use the health information data bases. And she said that that was an opportunity when there is a community health air -- fair or something like that happening in the community, to actually go out with a laptop and do demonstrations of data bases that are available in another location like that, which I thought was a great idea. The text chat for this session so far has been really great. I think Jennifer mentioned this. I will just remind you. She is going to capture this. We will have all of these examples. And I know Stephanie and I will be following up with people to learn more about some of these examples that you are sharing with us. So, those are some examples of just types of training and how it doesn't -- if you don't have a lab -- if you don't have that kind of space available, that there are other ways to do it. We will keep talking about those as we go. We also wanted to spend some time on the who. Who conducts the technology training? And Wendy, they have volunteers who are their tech trainers. I will let Wendy talk to us a little bit about that. >> Wendy: Okay. We partner with our local college. The public library is only a couple of blocks from the college campus. Many of their classes have a service learning requirement. Every semester there is a pool of students looking for volunteer opportunities. We advertise our computer classes as a volunteer opportunity for the college students. We do require that they use our handouts. And this -- we have been doing this for several years now, and it has worked very well for us. There are some challenges to working with students. But for the most part, it has been an excellent partnership. >> And what sort of training do you provide for the volunteers? >> Wendy: I do an orientation for them. Which consists of a tour and going over the handouts. As I said, the handouts are prepared by the library staff ahead of time. I do give them a little bit of background about information literacy and library philosophy so that they are presenting the information the way we want it to be presented. And I think that Jennifer put a rough checklist that I use for that orientation as part of the resources for this webinar. And because the classes are very, very basic, I don't have to, you know, teach the volunteers what they are going to be teaching because they already know how to use a mouse and save a file and that sort of thing. It's less training and more of an orientation that I do with them. >> Brenda: So, that's volunteers as tech trainers. Often it is staff as tech trainers. Community partners, too. Stephanie has some examples of who -- who can be tech trainers >> Yeah, and this was a compilation of a lot of examples that we have seen. One thing that works, I always think it is great if you do have the room to have two trainers. So, this helps a lot if you have different skill levels, but just having sort of a buddy system, even with having maybe one of our staff members and then having a volunteer teen help out or senior help out. Having somebody else that can be there as well. And another example is having seniors as volunteers that help and we really have seen a lot of times that that can be really useful for teaching other seniors. It makes them feel a little bit like that if someone their age can do it, it is more possible for them. And then also community club members. Looking within your own community and just seeing who is there. So, is there rotary or junior league or depending on your community, who's there? Often they're looking for service opportunities and trying to give back to the local community. And even sometimes there is tech clubs and that sort of thing. Seeing if anybody is available that would want to be a technology trainer. As we mentioned, high school students can sometimes really fill this need. And they often really get into it and like doing it. And can often be really good as technology trainers. Sometimes they need a little bit of an overview on what to do and just how to pace themselves, but that's another good example. And then also, again, looking locally at the city departments, if you have a community REC or technology city people, I've seen some libraries having a lot of success with that. One library in Arizona actually had a great experience with that because they were kind of having some problems communicating with their local tech, and they asked them to come in and do some training after they had gotten some grant funded computers and ended up building a good relationship with them as a result of that. Sometimes tech people like to be seen as the experts. So, I think some of that was just sort of that relationship building. Another one is if there is literacy counsellors or other groups in your library that are involved even in reading and that sort of thing, they can often extend that into some of the programs that you can do online as well. And then just looking at other educators in your community. So, if anybody is available, and sometimes they have requirements as high school students or as voc tech students to do an internship or community programming, that sort of thing. So that might be a good connection there. And also just reaching out to any local businesses. I've seen libraries just put an ad in the paper asking for volunteer tech trainers. Because you never really know who you might get. And also if there is any volunteer organizations within your community or looking online to see if you can connect. Often people are wanted to give back and to volunteer their time, especially after they're retired. Sometimes they are just looking for that opportunity. And they might not really consider the library being someone who needs their help. So just letting people know. Former teachers or any kind of professional instructors. I worked with a library recently that had a volunteer who was, you know, as his job, was a professional tech trainer but really enjoyed volunteering at the Library and helped them set up their computer training program and organize lesson plans and what they were going to be doing and worked with them a lot one on one. He saw it as giving back to the community and also a way to build own businesses as well. He charges for some of those services to individuals. The more he could get his name out, that was good as well. Also, just talking with any volunteers that you already have working in the library and seeing if they have technology skills. Sometimes we don't realize that we have great skills already possible within our volunteer pool. And then another great idea, looking at what other libraries are nearby. Whether another town, school library, other type of academic library or special library and partner together and do something like training -- trading trainers. Sometimes, you know, one person might be really skilled at office but maybe not have the social media skills, and so maybe you could trade. Or just kind of brainstorm and work together as well. Those are just a few examples of who can be trainers. And I see lots of things being shared in the chat as well. >> We had a few libraries in our area, share a trainer class with eBay. A special topic they wanted to offer. Someone did it at one of the libraries and the other libraries got wind of it and started to request it and that was a way to do an interesting topic that they hadn't done. We have a question about background checks for volunteers and some people are responding to that also in the chat, whether or not you do a background check. Wendy, is that part of what you do with volunteers? Is there a background check that is part of that for you? >> Wendy: We don't do the background check on the VOL UNL -- volunteers for the computer classes. We do background checks on people who are going to work with children. >> I think that is a good point, to treat your volunteers a little bit like staff. You spell everything out for them. And you do a little orientation so that they know their role, yeah, but just kind of thinking through all of those sort of things can be good. What we have on the screen now, this is from Colorado. These are technology trainer competencies that they developed. And they're so helpful. I think when I was in the library and doing technology training, I didn't know anyone else who was doing technology training, and kind of felt alone. Looking through these competencies help you see what you already know and see what you might want to know or need to know more about. Orientation for trainers, or if you are wanting to make training a part of a job description, that kind of thing, there is a lot of good information here. So, this is a resource that Jennifer has included in that resource list for today. And these are from Colorado's, they use Btop money to do lots of things related to technology training and one of these is this list of competencies. Really helpful. Something else we wanted to talk about. This is coming up in chat too. Creating handouts. I think one of the great opportunities with technology training is that people all over are working to help other people learn about technology. So, I don't think it is necessary to also reinvent the wheel. I will start with you, Wendy. Can you talk a little about your library's approach to the handouts that accompany your technology training. >> Yes, as I mentioned, the handouts are created by the library staff, not the volunteers. But certainly we did not create them from scratch. We started by, you know, looking at what other libraries were offering and have modified those as we've moved along and gone through different versions of software, etc. And we continue to watch what other libraries are doing to get new ideas. We don't really create anything from scratch. >> That's great. I hope in that chat you will share any resources that are useful for you. We have a few here. Of course, Webjunction, a great resource for handouts. TechSoup for Libraries. We do lots of spotlights on different libraries and blog posts but we also have cook books. Those are library technology cookbooks. And so they will have -- it is not written in a lot of technical language. It is really written in language that you can understand, and that is content that can be useful, too, sometimes depending on the topic that you're covering. Infopeople. If you are not familiar with them, they're just a great resource, too. A training arm of of the California state Library, and they put most of their training materials, after the training is over, they put the content on their web site and there are really high quality things and imI'm a big fan of infopeople. And common craft, video intros to technology topics. And looking at the way they approach it, I think you can learn a lot about how to teach people about technology. Those are a few that I will give a plug for. Some of these are your personal favorites, too. >> Stephanie G.: Jennifer shared the link for the Colorado Virtual Library, and they have lesson plans and outlines and handouts available that you can download there as a result of a big BTOT grant that they received. Internet topics, office, social media, and all kinds of things. So definitely take a look at that. And they have some Spanish versions as well. And then the GCF learnfree.org, is from goodwill industries. They have over 753 free lessons and videos. 250 videos that I think you can access. That is all available online for free. Definitely share in the chat if you view some of these. A couple people shared Custom Guide, a great resource as well that you can actually go in and customize handouts that are already there. And they also offer things like just really easy to use tip sheets, but very nice to have it all done for you. It is mostly around Microsoft topics, those sort of things, but definitely share in the chat for those of you that are using these and how you're using them. >> I see Amanda said she has been using digitalliteracy.GOV. We will have to add to our list. >> Did we talk about Common Craft? >> Yes, I did. And I think Jennifer posted it in the chat already, too. Again, we will put it in the resource list and we will include in the resource list the things that you all are sharing there, too, in the chat. So many resources. It just seems like the last few years it has sort of exploded. >> Yeah, great. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing all of those resources in the chat, too. That is some good stuff. Okay. We've talked a little bit about who provides training at libraries, but we also want to talk about who attends the training libraries provide. I think that is another interesting topic, and Wendy, do you want to talk about Pella and who you are seeing in your classes in Pella? >> Wendy: Sure. Most of our -- most of our classes are seniors. Almost exclusively. We occasionally get someone who has been out of the work force and wants to update their computer skills before going back in or they have been in a job that doesn't require use of a computer and they are starting from scratch. I would say 98% of the people attending our classes are seniors. We get a lot of husband and wife couples. We interestingly get a lot of repeat customers. They take the class, and a year later, they come back and take it again. >> Yeah, I hear that from a lot of the libraries. At the library I was working at, too. Steph I will let you talk about this a little bit. I think it is a great way to brainstorm about the types of training that you may want to offer. >> Right. Yes. Sometimes I think we think about who already is coming in our libraries and offering technology training for them. I think it is also good to just look at your community as a whole and even talk to a few community leaders and find out who is out there that really does need technology training, whether it is new immigrants or, you know, those winter visitors that come in and want to check their email and you get lots of questions from maybe formalizing something around a class or even having tip sheets available. Our training takes a lot of different forms. And I feel like that is even one form of training just having that sort of thing available. But, you know, people that are needing help finding jobs. They may not think to go to the library. But really trying to look at your community and find out what the big needs are. Even talking to community leaders within your community that are elected officials and finding out, you know, who they would like you to focus on might be a good idea. Could be a form of advocacy at this same time. Trying to make sure that you are really spreading that net widely when it comes to who you are delivering technology training to. >> And that leads to the next question, which is about topics. I think the audiences in many ways drive the topics. So what topics are being covered in training in your libraries? And Wendy, we will start with you. You have talked about the basics are still popular, even though you feel like you should have saturated that need by now. >> Wendy: Yes, we still do an introduction to computers. Which is basically teaching people how to use a mouse and how to save a file. A discovering the internet class, which is how to find a web site, use search engines. Basic email class is always pop -- popular. Introduction to Microsoft word, publisher, powerpoint. Those are ones we have always offered. Other topics such as eBay, Facebook, blogging, and more specialized things, Google tricks and tips. And creating your own web site. And more specialized things like that when we had a volunteer who was interested in pursuing that. As I said, with limited success on the other things. Basic classes are the ones that seem to be most in need. Certainly when we do recently, anything that we do that has to do with E-readers is very popular. So, we're going to try to expand our offerings there. >> This is -- when people have already started to weigh in. We wanted to hear from you on this one. What topics are others offering? We're seeing Word, excel, genealogy, E-readers, E-books, iPAD and iPhone classes. A couple of people mentioned series, which I think is really interested. An E-reader and iPAD series over three different classes. >> Question about how do people deal with different versions of -- different versions of operating systems and different versions of Microsoft software? >> It always just matched what we had in the library. That is what we focused on in the training. Any others -- feel free to share in the chat if you have suggestions or just want to share your experiences with how do you handle multiple versions of software? >> Always amazing, so important for us to offer the basics, but there is definitely some fun ones in there as well. Pinterest, Craigslist. Also I think it is fun as trainers as well to break free from the basics sometimes. >> Right. One of the things, as we were planning this session that we talked about that was interesting was just what topics have you offered that no one came? And Wendy you said you had an example for this one. That you offered and just didn't have success with. >> Wendy: Yeah, and it is one of those cases where we thought it was going to be very popular and it just wasn't. A beginning how to use Facebook class. And I think we had three people sign up. But no one showed up. >> Yes, that's interesting. Facebook and some others I'm guessing would say that Facebook has been popular there. For me, it was parents and the internet. I offered a session on that and no one came. Even though people were always asking me questions. Okay. Pinterest, that was something that -- once people heard it was popular with young women they said it wasn't for them. The various job searching things. >> Cyberbullying. Yeah. It just seems to vary by community. It might not work in one place but it does in another one. >> Yeah, and sometimes I think that maybe it is getting creative about how you actually offer it or where you offer it. I like that health example for that reason, going out into the health sphere where people were thinking that kind of information. Well, I think that is a good lead in to the next topic, which is marketing. How do you market the technology training that is happening at your library? Wendy, how do you market in Pella? >> Wendy: We don't market it any differently than anything else in the library. We use the same media outlets. The most successful thing for us is that we keep a waiting list each time. We limit our class size so that each person has a computer. We have a waiting list. When we are ready to offer the next series of classes we start by calling the people on the waiting list and sometimes that fills up our first set of classes right away. We do all of the usual marketing signs in the library. We are able to advertise in the city's newsletter which goes out to everyone who gets a utility bill. Those are our two best forms of advertising. >> Stephanie, I think you have some ideas on this, too. >> Yeah, well, definitely, it's true that it isn't really that if you build it, they will come all of the time as we talked about. I think sometimes exactly as you just shared, you know, just marketing your tech training classes in the same way that you market your other programs. Whether the library newsletter or on your web site, or, you know, putting signs around your library and that sort of thing I think is really good. But I also think it is really important to get out to people that aren't regular users and how to get people's attention outside of the library. Even contacting your local newspaper or any community weeklies and news letters and that sort of thing. Often they will run these kind of things for free for us. Direct mail, as you just mentioned, finding out, you know, if your public utilities will include notices for free with the bills. That can always be a really good one. Susan shared in the chat, cable TV, the roll around. That can be a nice one as well. But just using posters outside of the library. Flyers. One library asked their local grocery store to put flyers in during checkout into people's bags as they were leaving. I thought that was a great way to get the word out. But then also doing more formal things, press releases, public service announcements that you can do on the radio. And then I think some of it is finding different partners as well. I have been working with some libraries in Texas recently. And was really intrigued by the fact that a lot of them are doing training in the local Dairy Queen restaurants, which is a great partnership but a different way to sort of get the marketing out. They just bring -- some of them bring laptop labs to the Dairy Queen, which has free wi-fi. Another library had people bring their own technology with them to the Dairy Queen and everybody that takes the class gets a free ice cream cone as well. Which I thought was brilliant. Someone shared in the chat before that they actually do theirs at a tavern. So, yeah, if you have that small space, thinking about can you partner with somebody else that does have this space, and then both get a little marketing out there for you. >> There is a library here in Kansas doing it at the local cafe. And it has been really popular for them, too. Actually they were doing E-reader training that way. Took all of the E-readers out to the local cafe. >> Some libraries, too, have partnered with the local cafe to do things like print the training class schedule on the menus, you know, or on the little paper table mats during something like that as well. Sometimes that is a place where everybody goes in town. >> Partnerships can really enhance what a library is able to do. And I know, Wendy, this has been important for you and Pella, the partnerships that you have. >> Wendy: Yes, as I mentioned, we partner with the local college and get most of our trainers for our computer classes from among their pool of students. We are also advertising right now for an unpaid internship through them, which we're very hopeful will be filled. And we will be able to develop even more classes and training and handouts and links on our web site using an intern. And before -- before we set up the partnership with the college, I did recruit volunteers successfully from the IT departments of some of our local businesses. That worked quite well for us in the beginning when we first started to use volunteers. >> That's great. Stephanie, you talked about this connection between partnerships and funding, too. >> And this is actually another of the TechSoup for Libraries spotlights. This is Alexis, from the community library. She offers three different tips. I will share the link in the chat. She offers three tips for people getting started. Her first tip is to really find out what the community needs and wants are. And she says very sensibly, you know, why spend your limited resources on things that people don't really want? I think that is a great point to think about finding out really because our communities are different. So, making sure that we know what those are. And then her second tip is to translate those needs to all of the staff members. So, really making sure that everybody understands why you are doing these things and, you know, what the push is to meet these needs to really set those expectations so that they buy in. And she also talks about setting those competencies for all library staff members. She makes sure that even though it is a small library, that all library staff have technology training skills and get that support that they need. But her third tip is this one. Write as many grants as you can. You need money to jumpstart initiatives that aren't covered in your regular budget. I do a lot of work with library grants. I think this is really true, you know. Sometimes you can do a simple grant that is just with a local funder, that is maybe $500. It is enough to really give a little extra support to your technology training. So, really trying to look at that and when you think about it, when you are doing grant work, the funders of your partners. It is really another way to build partnerships and build support in your community. One of the things you mentioned, Stephanie, was everyone on staff being able to do training. And I think -- we wanted to talk about this one-to-one tech training on the fly, too. Because that is the most popular tech training that is happening and it is happening really in any library that has computers available for the public or has technology available for the public. This counts, too, all of that one-to-one assistance that libraries are providing to people. Wendy, I think you mentioned you were getting a lot of E-reader questions. >> Yes, and we face the same issues that everyone else does. We just aren't staffed at a level where we can spend a half hour with each person who needs a little help with their E-reader. So, our solution at this point is to have links on our web site and handouts that when people do come into the library or call in, we can refer them to the more detailed written instructions that they can get online or if they need us to, we can print it off and hand it to them. It is not ideal. But it has been working for us. We've also tried setting up extended one on one sessions with a staff member. And that is wonderful when we can do it. But we didn't always have staff available right when people need the help. >> Yeah, I think some of those resources that we mentioned earlier like the GCF learn free. Making sure that everyone knows about those. If someone has a need that requires more and you don't have the staff to do it at the time, being able to refer them to a tutorial or a resource can help. Anything you want to add about one-to-one training on the fly, Stephanie? >> Just, you know, I always think it is interesting when libraries say that they don't do tech training. We're really all doing it. If we have computers, people are coming in with questions. I think sometimes just trying to formalize that a little bit and just realizing that if people are coming in with the same questions, we are taking a lot of staff time every time to think through how we're going to answer that and how we're going to help people. Maybe doing something like figuring out what are the top 10 things that we're getting asked about and maybe creating a handout around that or maybe that's something that gets turned in to the appointment times or into our courses as well. well. >> Let's talk a little about this, too. E-readers, that is something in the last few years lots of libraries have started to address how to help people with E-reader questions. New thinks are going to keep coming up. I think we're always going to be changing and adapting what we're doing. I think this is an interesting question to think about from a tech training perspective, what is on the horizon? Where do you see things going? What are your future tech-training plans. Wendy, I will ask you that first. >> Wendy: The things we are going to start doing, most have already been mentioned. We are going to take our classes on the road and start to teach our basic computer classes in senior centers. And in this case, we are going to have the library staff do it rather than volunteers. I'm not quite ready to entrust my laptops to be transported by volunteers yet. And the other thing that we're going to do is implement a regular, and I've seen people talk about this a little in the chat, a regular time, you know, where we have office hours, if you want to call it that, set up with either staff or volunteer and people can come in and ask their questions and get one on one help. And I also have already mentioned that we're hoping to have an intern this fall that will create a series of classes called advice for your device, where they will have a different topic every week. I absolutely love the smartphone smackdown idea that someone mentioned earlier. I'm going to borrow than and we are going to do that, too. >> Everyone borrowing the rip-off and duplicate. That is what this is all about. Sharing these things with one another. Jennifer put a call in the chat for anyone who has handouts that they're willing to share or resources like that, please, please share those, and we will share them with everyone else, too. So, yeah, I've seen mobile apps and Google plus hangouts as different things people are thinking about. Stephanie, how about you? What is on your radar? What do you see on the horizon for tech training? >> Yeah, I think definitely all of the things that we are mentioning. I teach a course for the public library association, a month-long course on -- for accidental technology trainers. And this was shared by one of the libraries that Albany Public Library in Laramee, Wyoming. And their team created a video on how to download I-books on the iPAD. It is just -- it is a really funny skit-like thing, but it also really is instructive. It really shows people how to do it. This was a great idea for if you have limited resources is a good way to use the teen volunteers, but -- just trying to look within your community and seeing, you know, who can help out and definitely I think that the E-reader thing is just amazing, how much technology training is involved with that now as people are just turning towards libraries for getting help with that. And I see somebody shared in the chat, petting zoos, which I definitely think is true as well. And also tech speed dating. Brenda, I think you had a good example of that. >> That was from New Jersey. They had done that with different technologies, just a chance to really quickly see a lot of new gadgets and devices and web tools, too. And that's -- the technology sand box idea, which is great, too, I think. Just giving people a chance to experiment and play with things. Smorgasbord, I like that. Well, the last thing we wanted to do today is just to ask -- we have obviously in the chat, we can see we have a lot of people who have a lot of experience. But I'm guessing we have a lot of people who are just getting started with all of this, too, and haven't really offered formal tech training or beyond the one on one on the fly. What is the first step, where do you begin with tech training and providing it in your library? Those of you in chat who have been doing this awhile, if you would share your response to that question, too, that would be great. And Wendy, we will start with you. What is your advice for someone just getting started? >> Wendy: My advice, the things we already have talked about. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are all kinds of resources out there. You don't have to be overwhelmed by getting started. As I said repeatedly, our classes are very, very basic. If you use word for your job, you could teach a very basic class on word. You know the basic things that people are looking for. That is what I tell my volunteers. They don't have a be an expert on G-mail to teach a G-mail class, they just need to know the basics. And, you know, we can always refer people to other resources if they need more information than what is available in the beginning class. >> Okay. Great. I'm seeing good suggestions in the chat, too, to practice on staff and that helps with that, you know, helping to get all staff up to speed on technology, too. And training with someone else. I think that is a great way to learn. Stephanie, what do you have? How do you suggest that someone get started? >> Yeah, I see Amy shared "keep it simple." which I think is a great idea. Don't be intimidated by seeing some of these examples of these full-fledged training programs. Just taking baby steps. Offering a few things as people are sharing, testing it out with each other, as staff members. But just kind of seeing what works. Try out a simple class and see how it goes. Definitely true that you don't have to be the expert. Sometimes it's better if you are not. Sometimes the experts have a hard time bringing it down to the basic level. Letting people know that you are learning right along with them is fine. >> And I think the perfect place to get started depends on your community and where the need is and what opportunities are there. So, I know the library that I was working in when we started doing this, it was a quilting group, local quilting group that met at the library and they asked if we would do a session, intro to the internet session for them. And so, I knew how to use the internet and knew nothing about quilting, but started to look and realized there was a whole community out there. That was actually where it started. Quilting and the internet was the birthplace in that library and we branched into all sorts of technology training. Starting somewhere. Like lots of people have said in chat, you don't need to be the experts. You need to be the one who has put it together and helping people realize that you are often just figuring things out right along with them. That is a powerful thing, too. We have reached the end of our content. Wendy, Stephanie, is there anything that you want to share that you haven't had a chance to yet or anything you've seen go by in the chat that you would like us to address? >> Brenda, when you were saying that, I was thinking about one of our favorite quotes we use a lot. You know, not being the stage on the stage but being the guide on the side. And I think that goes a long well with getting started. That you don't have to worry about being in front of the room lecturing, that you can just be in the room with people and give them lots of time to explore on their own and make it hands on. But just being there as a guide to kind of help people think through things. I think more than ever, we have to help people get used to doing it on their own and technology is just changing so fast that I think that is a real skill that we can help people develop as well. >> Absolutely. And, again, thank you so much for everyone for all of the sharing in the chat. I think that people who do tech training are always so generous with sharing what they're doing and love to get together and share ideas and examples. So, I look forward to seeing what Jennifer has pulled together. Jennifer, any questions that we haven't addressed that you are aware of? >> Jennifer: I think you did a great job. Only other thing I saw folks were providing answers to each other was around the time that you should schedule your training, and I think a lot of folks have found success jumping around a little bit or doing a morning and an evening. So, I know, sometimes that does take a little bit of experimentation or finding a schedule that works with those in the community that express the greatest need. That was the only thing I saw come through. Otherwise you did a fantastic job of covering lots and lots. I am so thrilled by all of of the contributions to chat. I may be following up with some of you. Mary, I would love to get your handouts to post to Webjunction, for instance, so that folks can access those. Know that I will be following up with you. And just one more reminder, if you are not familiar with the association for rural and small libraries, all of us on behalf of ARSL encourage you to visit our web site and join us at the annual conference in Omaha. We move the conferences around every year. If this is not a good region for you, stay tuned and I believe next up will be Washington. So, again, thank you to ARSL, thank you so, so much to TechSoup for Libraries, Brenda and Stephanie always a great pleasure working with you. Special thanks to Wendy for all of your great work and your willingness to come and join and share all of it with us. Thank you all for the great webinar. >> Thank you, Jennifer. Bye-bye everyone.