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>> Jennifer: We are at the top of the hour.  The most important thing for you folks who are just joining us to note is if you do have  issues with the environment you're in today, you can get direct assistance from our support team by posting your question to the Q and A panel, which is one of the panels at  right.  Also if you end up outside of the room, you will want to note via the email you received or this event number and the phone number to contact WebEx  support.  Obviously that is if you end up outside of the room.  If in the room, you can get  assistance from the staff here  via the Q and A panel.  So, I'm going to go ahead and get us started here.  We will be recording today's  event. And it will be available as a part of the archives.  My name is Jennifer Peterson.  I'm the community manager here at Webjunction. And I'm thrilled to be joined today by Patrick Hogan in  collaboration with ALA  Techsource, we're thrilled to bring these folks together for this event today.  Again, somebody had mentioned  tweeting, we do have a tweet hashtag for today's event. And I'm going to go ahead and pass it on over to Patrick and Patrick will introduce our  esteemed panelists today. Welcome Patrick. It is so great to be working with you on this webinar.  
>> Patrick: Thank you,  Jennifer. On behalf of ALA Techsource,  welcome.  Each of our presenters today is an ALA editions author. In honor of that, a special offer for you.  You will save 10% on the purchase of any ALA editions book or E-book, and this is in addition to the ALA member  discount.  Use coupon code EDPC10.  And the offer is good through December 31st.  Now allow me a few quick  introductions and we will get  started.  Webjunction's own Chrystie Hill will moderate our discussion.  Chrystie is a librarian,  writer, and community builder.  Director of community services for Webjunction.  Library journal mover and  shaker, Chrystie's ALA  edition's book inside, outside, online, building your library community inspired this webinar.  Nancy Dowd, Nancy is director of marketing for the New Jersey state library. Her statewide public awareness  campaigns, position libraries  as community places where people of all ages discover  their potential and pursue their dreams. She was recently awarded the  John cotton Dana award.  Best seller, realistic  solutions for overworked  libraries.  Helen Blowers, she is a library journal mover and shaker and  ALA leader high tech award winner and coauthor of weaving  a library web, guide to  developing children's web  sites.  May be best known, however, as  architect of learning 2.0, 23  things, online discovery learning program.  Blogs at librarybytes.com.  Back to you, Chrystie  
>> Chrystie: Thank you so much, Patrick, for that introduction, for all of those introductions. It is a pleasure to be here  moderating this discussion  about community building and libraries because it is a topic that is extremely dear to my own professional interests, and I would like to frame today's discussion or introduce it by talking about research that I  completed in 2009 on this  topic.  Published last year, as Patrick mentioned, by ALA editions,  investigating who is building community work libraries, how they are going about that work and what they learned through these experiences that I could  share back to the field and develop something that we all  could learn from.  I started by going back to some of the things that I had  explored through my studies in  library school.  Reading "great good places", the thesis on the social vice of documents, and Robert  Putnam's -- all of the authors  exploring spaces and services that ultimately form or bind tight communities. I also recalled some of the critical conversations that I  had had with my colleagues in library school.  This is my friend, Matt TURpin who said it me after a lecture on information needs, talking about whether or not our local  public library was meeting those needs, he said the most important information need that he had was what are my friends  doing? He wasn't talking about what are my friends doing tonight or later this week, he was talking about what are they reading? What do they care about? Where are they going? This was before the  participatory web had exploded into the mainstream where it is today. All of us I think have had that experience now of constantly  engaging with the answer to  that question, what are my friends doing? And finally I also drew on my  experiences actually working in libraries, and this was more  than a decade ago now.  But this is a photo of the  library of Congress in 1906.  And fortunately or  unfortunately for me, when I first saw this photograph, it -- I recognized this space  as some of the libraries I had worked in.  And I recognized these faces as the faces of some of my  colleagues.  My colleague Joe Jaynes  recently said to me if there were a photo of a medical  operating room, we would hope that something had changed 100 years later.  But for me, and my early work in libraries, I have to say not much had changed. We still recognize this as the -- many of the spaces that we currently work in.  And so where was the library that I had imagined in library school I started to wonder and also that I was starting to  uncover weekly, monthly, daily, in fact, in my work at  Webjunction.  Coincidentally around the same  time, OCLC published a study that told us while other ways of exploring online were  actually going up, the  libraries web site was down 10% from three years before.  As a new librarian, this didn't make sense to me, in spite of the vision I had, I know many of my peers and colleagues had, in spite of what I knew many libraries doing incredible  things, it still seemed we were out of the loop.  So, over the course of my  research for this work, I  talked to hundreds of  librarians over three years  working on this project in order to answer some of those  questions.  What I learned is that there were at least five critical concepts or practices for the  librarians who value community building as part of their work. I will talk about each of these just briefly to set up our discussion today.  The first is that community building librarians are nearly  obsessed with local needs.  They activitily and proactively seek continuous input about  what is happening in their  community, and about what their patrons are asking for.  I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but they also try to get it for them.  Coincidentally their patrons  respond, which is a good segue  to my next discovery, and that  was that community building  librarians deliver on the  services that they know are  going to meet their community's needs. I open this chapter with a collection of interviews and  transcripts from the librarians that I talked to, but embedded in all of these is a strong focus on service, human  interaction, and both of those  things over traditional library services even over books and  materials.  Next community building librarians engage with the folks that they aim to serve.  This is a little bit about  marketing, which can be  daunting to some, but doesn't have to be complicated.  And in this chapter, I tell the story of MOLly Rogers, Wayne county public library, rural library in Pennsylvania. She realized a lot of patrons  coming in over the summer months from all over the world to use public access computers. She asked patrons to put a pin on the map on the wall and write down where they were from on a yellow legal pad.  A year later they realized that a growing diversity of users that lived right in the same  county that had immigrated from all over the world were also  using the public access  computers.  Physical map helped them  partner with organizations that shared global perspectives, like the local row --  rotary  club. Next community building  librarians talk about formal  evaluation.  As a result of a formal  evaluation program in Hartford, librarian proactively  anticipates the community needs and determines if the services  are meeting them.  Recognized nationally for work in this area as a model for  proactive community service and that work was published in a  study that was supported by  IMLS and university of  Michigan. This is one of the most challenging areas that we  uncovered in the research for this work.  The librarians were struggling, although they recognized the importance of evaluation. When I asked Katherine at Hartford public library if she had any advice for those of us trying to make this a priority  or figure it out, she said  simply commit to it, make it a  priority, and the rewards are  enormous.  And finally, in all of our  interviews and underlying all  of these concepts was the  librarian's strong desire to keep library services relevant, staying in constant communication with the users about the services, but the intention here was to ensure  that the library could remain  viable for the long term.  And so I'd ask as we move into  the rest of our program that we not consider all of these things as a recipe for  community building success in  your library, a collection of the concepts or practices that  surfaced in the work that I have done on the topic.  Helen and Nancy will talk a little more and a little differently about community  building and libraries from  their experiences, I ask the audience as we head into the  remainder of our program to bring some consideration of your local communities to the  discuss that we have today.  Do you know what the needs are? Is your library actively  working to meet those needs? And how do you know when you're successful? With that, I will turn it over to Nancy to talk with us about  community building in New Jersey libraries.  We will spend a little time  directing questions to Nancy as she concludes her program.  Then we will turn it over to Helen for her program.  We will spend time with Helen  answering questions from her, and then we will open it up for a broader discussion with all of the panelists.  
>> Nancy: Thanks Chrystie.  How is my sound with everyone? 
>> Jennifer: Actually, those of you having audio issues, note that we're addressing those and also view the Q and A panel as your way to communicate, and Nancy you can stay focused on your presentation and we will  assist those folks.  Thank you.  
>> Nancy: I just picked up the phone to speak through the  speaker, I don't know if that  helps any.  
>> Jennifer: Through the  handset, if you hold the  handset, that's the best way.  
>> Nancy: Great.  Thank you for having me. This is great.  With the threat of budget cuts and the changing landscape of the publishing field, what  we're finding is that every  library is faced with proving its value. What I would like to talk about today are three of the roles that libraries are using to position ourselves to be  essential parts of our  community. And one is strengthening  community, empowering the people to succeed, and  inspiring people to transform their lives.  And what I'd like to on each of those phases, talk about how  we're doing that, the line of  Chrystie's favorite line, which is inside, outside, and online. For some reason it's not  changing.  
>> Jennifer: I will advance it for you.  
>> Nancy: A wonderful quote by Keith Richards, he says when you are growing up, two  institutional places, the  church, which belongs to God, and the public library which belongs to you.  The public library is a great  equalizer.  And when I heard that quote, I  thought, you know what? As -- as our communities continue to diversify, the job  of community building  increasingly falls to that of our library.  Jen? This is Kankakee public  library. They sponsored a two-day rock  concert, 17 bands, and I think it is a really great example of how libraries are strengthening our communities by blurring that line between inside,  outside, and online.  First of all, they -- they  create a fantastic partnership with their businesses.  They live stream this concert after it was done they put it up on video, they had flickr,  blogs, Facebook, posts, really  using every possible tool to contact people whether they were at the library, at home, or with friends.  Another thing that is -- yeah, so, I love this message from the director of the library because he said for days  twitter and Facebook and flick  r and YouTube were alive with  content with how forward  thinking Kankakee is, not just the library, but the entire  city.  A quote like that starts to  emphasize how we are building  community, we are the community, and what was really  funny, what I felt ironic about this, in 1989, Kankakee county was voted as one of the worst  Metropolitan areas to live in.  The whole county, not the town, but here is a library that is helping to rebuild that image, and it is just fantastic.  On a larger scale, New York  public library does this with their celebrity stars and they also live stream it, they post  their videos up online, and  they also put audio.  So, again, we're reaching what is inside of our library  outside to where people are going to.  The Halifax Central Library  really demonstrates a lot of what many libraries are doing in the world.  And that is showing our people  how collaborative envisioning  takes place. This web site is fantastic.  Not only do they have everything online, but all  meetings are streamed live.  For people who can't get there, they can live stream it. If you missed it and heard about the conversation, you can watch it later, which is,  again, meeting the needs of the community, giving them a voice, speaking up, listening, that  interaction, and this is what libraries are doing that are strengthening our community.  This is one of my very favorite events.  In Princeton, Albert Einstein is well known, and, yet, for his birthday, there was never a celebration.  So a member from the community actually went to the public  library and said, hey, how  about we celebrate pi day,  Albert Einstein birthday March  14th, which is the same knew equivalent as pi.  This is an Albert Einstein  look-alike contest.  The community itself had pi  pricing, so on menus, things were $3.14.  A member of the library brought it to the library and expanded  on it and made it a great  event.  The originators started a web site started a web site called  pi day Princeton.  They created an annual event.  Actually it is a pi weekend coming up next March and it has become a tourism destination. Something that started with a community member, went to a  library, became and  strengthened that community until it has become an annual event.  This is our -- the New Jersey state library.  We ran a statewide campaign for champions. I think this is a great example of what we do in terms of  reaching a larger community. And on this, we used mobile.  People were able to text in  champion to a mobile number and we were able to get those  names, the phone numbers, and  create an interactive  conversation with people who  had simply dialled in from their phone.  And one of the things that we thought would work really well on this is that this is on  billboards, and New Jersey is famous for our commuters. the average time of commute is 28 minutes, I think.  This is one way of bringing in a larger community by texting.  And that same campaign went local.  This is an example of Rose Roselle -- here is something that went into an outreach -- into a community partner, another essential part of the community, and then even further, our libraries are  creating their own champions and going into their communities and asking people to become their champions.  Something that builds community on a larger and smaller venue.  You know, empowering personal  success is the second thing that libraries are doing. We are living in an era when  life-long learning is a  requisite.  It is not an option anymore. It it may have been at some  point that people learned just for hobbies or because they liked it, but the fact is in order to survive, in order to be successful, we know it has  to be life-long learning.  The now book" smart is a new  rich" and for our libraries, part of that personal success is helping our kids, online home work help, help in the home work clubs, data bases,  but we're also doing things like oceanOcean County Library where they have brought their teens together with college  professors to educate the teens on how to be reading mentors  and the teens volunteer during the summer to help kids improve their reading.  It's inside, and yet it ups that education level for a teen and makes volunteering very  meaningful.  Darian public library, they do some fantastic things. Just a quick glance of what they were doing in terms of  computer classes were amazing.  They are taking -- they're  addressing the needs of people who are beyond the basics of computer and they're  positioning the library as a  contemporary learning  institution.  These -- and plus what I love  too they partner with a graphic designer and it all works  together to empower personal  success.  This is the British library,  and I saw this ad in the subway that they had, and libraries  across the world are starting  to address the needs for small  businesses.  And whether we're setting up  data bases or whether just as  simple as free wi-fi, establishing business centers, or even giving personal  consultation, we start to look  at the small business person and say hey, what can we do to  help you succeed? One of the things that we looked at when we were doing our mobile marketing is how to use texting with our small  businesses.  And so there is all kinds of ways that you can continue. This slide, this is a great  video, and it's by Queens  library. In order to graduate, you have to do an exit project.  Queens developed this fantastic video with kids, very normal looking kids, funny,  entertaining, and as you go through the video, it will stop at certain parts that coincide with what is on the web site.  It will say, oh, are you having trouble choosing a topic? Be sure to click to the right to choose a topic. They use video, humor,  interactivity, and online in order to help kids do their  exit project.  It is fabulous.  Of course, the third part is  transforming lives.  We know from OCLC's report from awareness to funding that  people will support our libraries if they believe that  we are transforming lives. And it is funny, because if we go back to that quote by Keith  Richards about the church, now  we're going into  transformation.  This slide is -- the state  library's newest campaign that  we're doing.  Worldwide, countrywide, 9.6 unemployment rate.  New Jersey is right there.  We are in such bad shape that we are actually going to change from paper unemployment checks to direct deposits and it is going to save our state $8  million.  It's unbelievable.  What we're doing is we are  helping people transform their  lives like many libraries by offering classes, computer  classes, resume writing, and  we're partnering with community colleges. This program is headed by our  library development bureau, and 800 sessions will be conducted  by libraries libraries.  Work South Carolina, they hired a work force specialist at the state library doing outreach to the public through libraries.  He has an online site.  He is combining all of the  technologies in order to help  libraries help job -- this is Ken from SUNY buffalo.  What I love about him, a simple idea, so enthralled with  technology, he is starting  discussion centers where staff and faculty and students can come together and envision what they could do with the new  technology and start to  brainstorm with the possibilities and imagination.  And Ted, here in New Jersey,  Janie and Pete pulled together  a terrific group with the state library and Princeton library  and we conducted the first  Tedx, local version of a larger sharing idea forum.  And this is a complete day of  brainstorming ideas with the  community. It was so successful, Princeton is doing another one online.  And this is my final -- this is a wonderful story of -- we have a talking book and braille  center here in New Jersey.  And the -- every year we put on a festival where we highlight the newest technology, and our very brilliant development  officer came up with this idea of bringing a race car driver  that would allow blind people  to drive. They have -- you can see on the right-hand side, another person who drives, but you go up to  120, 130 miles an hour and you get the feel of driving. This happened at a library. The amazing thing, I love this  quote, I might have to think about becoming a race car driver some day. When this man got out of the car, he -- all of the sudden his world was opened up.  He said I never thought I could drive.  And I drove a race car.  So, those are the three areas that I think libraries are really making impact and how  we're doing it in the three  areas, and also I wanted to mention that my state librarian puts on a fantastic  presentation for the  indispensable library that  PARLes right into this. If you are interested, she could also do a talk at your library.  
>> Jennifer: Thank you so much, Nancy. I want to remind folks, if you have questions for Nancy, post them in chat.  And we will work through as many of them as we can. In the few minutes that we  have, but I would like to start with a question for you, Nancy, about your personal journey to your current work in marketing and libraries.  I mentioned at the top of the  program, that it was something that I found in my work was a  little bit daunting to some  folks, or it felt complicated  or maybe perhaps misunderstood. I'm wondering if you can talk  about your experience helping  libraries sort of wrap their brains around marketing, and also share with us if -- if you think there is anything unique  or special or even peculiar about marketing for libraries that draws you in or keeps you interested in this work? 
>> Nancy: Well, I can say this, working for libraries and  marketing libraries -- I am  going to pick up my headset.  Working for libraries to help them market, I think what is  incredible, truly on a local  level, we are so important to a community.  And the fact that we have  dedicated staff and the fact that we're always ahead of the curve is something that just  always energizes me because when it comes to technology and ideas, libraries are always  ahead.  So, I think the librarians themselves really inspire me.  And I think one of the most difficult things for libraries is to market -- you really need to get the input of our community and I think it has been a tough transition to go from the experts in the field to really taking in that -- that information in order to  meet the community needs.  I think that is one of the toughest problems. Some questions that I see up here that says -- three  suggestions for libraries with very small staff, well, you  know, small doesn't matter. You're already marketing.  The idea would be I would say is that if you are going to do anything technical, I would talk to your people to find out where are they? Where are your customers? Are they on Facebook, listening to twitter? Are they online? Once you find out the medians  they're interested in you can find out what to do  technology-wise.  Here in New Jersey, we have just taken on learning express for resume building.  They are public -- our public libraries are bringing in people to help assess resumes,  build resumes.  Those classes that we're doing, they are computer classes that  are just geared towards job  hunting, which we -- we we expect is going to be very  effective.  
>> Jennifer: Thank you so much, Nancy.  I think we will go ahead and move on to Helene's program.  If you do have questions, keep them coming through chat, we have time reserved at the end of Helene's program and question time to open it up to all panel presenters.  Keep those coming through chat  and we will turn it over to  Helene. 
>> Helene: Hello there.  Can you hear me? 
>> Jennifer: Yeah, you sound  great.  
>> Helene: I can now see -- it looks like maybe perhaps I have control of the screen.  We shall see.  Wonderful to be here this  afternoon joining Chrystie and Nancy and everyone to talk about community building. And for my part of the program this afternoon, I want to focus kind of on, primarily on community building online.  Many of you do it very, very well within your communities and you also do it very well within your virtual communities as well.  So from my perspective, I wanted to share with you a little bit about what I've  learned, what we've learned here in Columbus as we try to  extend out the notion of  community being localized into  also our online community of local users, and it could be also distance users visiting us from other areas of the  country.  I want to start by sharing with you a picture, an image that I  stare at every single day.  It is right here in front of me on my desk.  It happens to have been drawn  by my daughter, Jessica, when she was seven years old.  She had a class program,  exercise that she had to do,  that was entitled me on the  map.  In this me on the map exercise that she did, she drew five different pictures.  She drew herself at her house.  She drew herself in her  neighborhood, what she viewed her neighborhood, what she viewed her community, what she viewed her city and how she viewed her state. As I was looking across these five images, I stopped when I saw this one right here in  front of me, because what made me stop was not just that it was the word community, but you might notice that it says the  library, I was intrigued,  happily pleased that my  daughter at the age of seven  recognized that the library was a center, or a huge center of her community, and not only that, of course, if you look at the picture, you also notice that Jessica has drawn a  computer, and she is also  viewing the digital connection to what her community is about, that it is not just local, being the town that we live in, but also that that community can be accessible to her through her computer and the  computers that the library  provides provides, extend her notion of a community throughout.  I had to cut this particular picture out and frame it and stick it here on my desk.  And I proudly look at it every single day.  You know what I look at when I come in my office and turn on the lights and sit down to begin the day.  When we talk about community, I want to share with you three  L's.  Things I've learned as I look  at my community building --  community building that we tried to do in our online  space. And first and foremost, I think we have learned very early on that it is not about just getting out there and starting  to talk to your community  online, it's that you're out there and you start to listen.  You start to pay attention at what people are staying in your spaces. If you set up Facebook or  you've got people, staff members who are on Facebook who have other community members that they're attached to, what are they hearing? What are they seeing as they're out there in that space? Some people like to call it  lurking. Once you get out in the social  spaces, you are taking a  temperature, finding out what's happening, what's important to  you, your online community.  I like to call it listen. I want to show you an example of where I think this type of  listening happens really, really well.  Fortunate here at Columbus  Metropolitan Library to  recognize that online community building is something that we  really wanted to put resources into.  I have to credit our community  relations department in hiring  a social media coordinator whose job really is, and  Julie's job really is to do a  lot of listening, and when she  sees opportunities to insert the library in the  conversation, she does that and utilizes it to create other conversations among the community.  Here is an example, and my library happens to also have a  twitter present. You can see the twitter stream in front of you there, and  Vince posted a question about -- I don't know, about nine months ago to our library out there and he said, you  know, what's the first book you ever checked out? And you can see the response there from Columbus library is your question about the first  library book you ever checked  out really got us thinking. So we're asking.  They took that and not just  utilized it in the twitter  space, but Julie posted it to our Facebook group. We are fortunate, we put some  energy into this, have over  2,000 community members who are Facebook friends of ours.  And Julie posted this and  received back within 24 hours, more like six hours, 34 different comments, people  remembering the first library book they checked out. I can't remember the first one I checked out, but many people can.  The library is that much a part of their community that they  remember the first library book they checked out.  And conversations like this happen all of the time in our online spaces.  We are actively listening.  Listening for things that people are interested in.  The events that they may be  attending.  Community things that are  happening.  And we try and find ways to  hook the library to those  things to help create  conversations.  So, listening is a very important L for me.  It is one of the fundamentals of community building is to  listen.  Nancy and Chrystie both touched on those as well. The other thing that I think is very, very important is this aspect of leveraging.  I heard Chrystie talk about local, and I heard Nancy talk about local over and over and over again.  The most important thing that you can leverage is leverage your local community.  Leverage it.  Oftentimes and I'm in a large library system, we think about  leveraging other library  system's knowledge and  information to bring it to our local community or leveraging  relationships that we may have with vendors.  Those are great in bringing  services to your community, but when you talk about community  building, you have to shift  your focus from trying to leverage things that improve  the services to your community to leveraging the community  itself and leveraging local.  The example that I will show you here is a rather larger  example, but it is one that  we're really, really proud of  here in Columbus.  And it is an event and it is a local event that we're  leveraging that hasn't even happened yet.  In 2012, our community here in  Columbus will be celebrating its 200th by centennialSEN TEN -- bi centennial. As we started to look at this  and preplan in 2010, or 2009, this past year, we started to realize that we have a huge local event that is going to  generate a lot of Cinergy,  community building here.  In doing that, we looked at  leveraging local, what other community partners that are here local have this same type of mission and vision that our  library does and we found that in our public media partner,  WOSU, public media, what we took with this partnership was we saw it as an opportunity to  actually create a web site that engages our public, and you will see the Columbus  neighborhood and contributing their thoughts, their ideas, their stories, their videos to a collective treasure box you might say of community pictures and community memories.  It's not something that we have gone and pulled from our  archives to make available.  That would be taking something that we have and making it available to our cussers --   customers -- create an online space that engages the community where they could be the contributors, where they could constantly provide  information.  The Columbus neighborhood  project, we launched a web site in March of this past year and we have had had numerous  submissions, thousands  submissions out there, people adding content and that type of stuff already, but what we have also done, we did it so far in  advance, we are also now  talking to other organizations  or they're coming out and  talking to us and saying that  the library has positioned  itself very, very well.  You have a community of users.  We would like to be part of  2012 too.  What could we do to create a phase two or a phase three? We're looking at creating  mobile apps, we're -- embedded  geotagging into it, when you  upload a picture image, provide us with the street location, we can geotag it and it gives us a step to take it in the next direction when we have a mobile app use your GPS location to tag an image that you took right then and there.  We have numerous communities within Columbus.  We created a community page for each community.  Many communities have contacted us where they want to, if they have their own local historical archives, Victorian village  does, we are giving them the capability of creating special pages on our web site. I realize this is a rather large project that is hard to  be duplicated by a smaller  library system, quite honestly  you can do stuff like this.  Do it with a blogging platform. And it all is around this idea that we're taking a very big  local event that hasn't yet happened yet and building  towards it. And so that's what we're  looking to do.  The true test, of course, is  localizing -- leveraging local comes down to when your library needs funding. I would be remiss in saying that my library for the past six months has focused on a lot of online community building, a lot of community building  physically, branch community  building in there.  That all led to the successful  passage of our levy which just  happened last week.  A large Facebook presence, we  utilized that, twitter, we had a -- of course, a separate  communities for libraries  running a separate web site.  All of that comes together in  determining, you know, how well is your library going to  survive in the future and how  valuable is it to your  community? And I will share with you when we went out and talked to community members and we went into every single branch and we had open forums talking about what is valuable to the  community? What do you want to see in your libraries? Everyone told us over and over  again, more community space, more local reflection, more local artists, community meeting spaces -- that was of  value to them, more community  space.  We heard we want more community space, more community building  and we see the library as  foundational to that. Last but not least, our last L that we have had to learn as we moved online is this notion of  letting it go.  Libraries are built on standard language and cataloging and that's all around a sense of being able to put order to  chaos so that people can find  it.  When we have gone online in community building, we had to learn to let go. And an example that I show you up here is our blogs from our teen blog. This is a screen capture taken two years ago, pardon me, but I love this particular example in there, and it was a blog post  done by one of our librarians about a new naming of the  gaming site that we did in  there.  But she happened to post,  because we had a community  event where teens could pick the name for our gaming  initiative, and she utilized a picture of the the "American  Idol" winner at the time.  One of the David and David's, I can't remember their last  names, but what was interesting about this online community  building and blog post was that you can see the 71 comments.  None of the comments in this particular blog post had anything to do with the name that was selected by the teens. They all wanted to talk about  which David should have won, or why they were happy about that  building of "American Idol."  To one respect, I guess would could have been upset to say they're not utilizing or  responding to what we wanted them to respond to, which was,  Yay, we picked a name and thank you and we're starting a new game initiative.  But the community itself, this community of teens wanted to talk about who was the  "American Idol" front runner  and why they deserved to win or why didn't they win, whatever.  And that generated a lot of comments.  That was wonderful.  They're utilizing our space to talk about what they want to  talk about but doing it in the  library space, online library community space.  And that was important for us.  And letting go, we have also  allowed teens to upload  pictures. We don't moderate them before they go live. If something is posted that is  objectionable, we will allow the community to let us know that there is something that has been posted that is  objectionable and perhaps we should take a look at it.  We have used this philosophy for three years, and I think we only ever once removed one  objectionable image or one  objectionable content, and it was easy for us because we could go right back to our  library's code of conduct.  In that particular instance,  profanity was used, and it was  addresses that we wouldn't have language like that present.  Last but not least, just a screen capture of allowing your community to utilize your space to tell their story. We have an area of our web  site, share your library love, people post pictures, stories, what the library means to them. It should reflect them.  And how they view the library.  And in this particular area of  the site we bring up  occasionally and punch it up and do a little focus to let people know they can contribute stories. For me it is a wonderful way of lefting go.  It is not about us telling our  story.  It is about utilizing our  technology and online digital space to allow the community to tell their story.  That is the essence of  community building.  Listening, leverage local, and letting go. If I can leave you with a closing thought.  Here is a beautiful image of  poppies in front of you.  And I look at my work building  web sites within libraries for the last 12 or 13 years, it used to be that we used to  focus on building a field of dreams.  If we put it out there, people will come. Get it out there and accessible for communities to have access  to.  If I have seen a shift in the last couple of years in online community development, it is not about building a field of  dreams, it is a shift realizing what our focus should be now is about cultivating community  gardens.  When you think about community  gardens, people that are --  what is important is what the community has done with it and it is a reflection of the  community.  I will leave it open.  We are approaching, probably, Chrystie the time for you to open it up for more questions or comments.  
>> I have one question for you and then we will move to  questions for both panelists.  Folks have asked about the  partners you mentioned in your  program and how you identify who makes a good partner and how you identify what is in it for them and what makes it  worth their while to work with you to develop some of the  programming that you talked  about? 
>> That is a great question.  It all goes back to our core  strategic plan.  Three focus areas, young minds, virtual users and what we call power users which are people who come check out books and  utilize the system.  Young minds, we look for community partners who have similar missions and visions and values that we do and who have the same strategic  initiatives that are aligned to achieve the same way.  That way we understand what is in it for them? What's in it for us? We let our STRA  -- strategic  planning, help us identify to our partners should be as we look through community  building. 
>> And I imagine that you try to find partners that align where you have the same goals as some of their goals so that  you have a good match from the  get-go.  get-go. 
>> You're exactly right.  Our goals, mission, visions of community similar and how are they woven together. That's where true partnerships  will help you create an even  broader community and allow you to leverage each other's  communities for good.  
>> Chrystie: I would like to invite both of our presenters  to respond to the next  question.  Many participants talked about being from small or rural  libraries, and the distinction between libraries that are  high-tech and have access to a  lot of digital tools and are  making those -- using those  tools to make digital opportunities available to their patrons, versus a library that doesn't have as much access to those high-tech  tools, as well as, perhaps, a  patron community that isn't as  high-tech either.  Many of our participants wrote back about some of the great deep live local things that  they're -- deeply local things  they're doing, farmers markets, blood drives, community fairs, instrument zoo. We have a nice collection of  fabulous examples of staying truly local, but I wonder if  Nancy and Helen, you could  comment on what kinds of  concepts or practices persist that would be relevant to a small or rural library that might not have access to some  of the online tools that we  have talked about today, what should their approach be and what kinds of things should  they be thinking about in terms of their community building  opportunities? 
>> Nancy: I'm glad you ask that question.  For many libraries, it is also just staffing, too.  So one of the things that we're trying to emphasize with libraries is that do a gap  analysis. Take a look. Talk to people.  Find out what are they offering and what do you offer that  might fill that need? For small businesses or any community group, you don't don't have to host the meeting. You don't have to run the  meeting.  You don't have to bring the people into your library.  You may be an advertising  partner.  You might be someone who connects to a community for that group. Maybe you will go to the  meeting and give a talk about  the library, just mention the  library.  You know, building the community and listening to your community means that we can fit into different places.  We don't always have to do -- we don't have to do it all.  We can work with them and  really partner.  I think that -- even the  question about the retirement  village, you know, retirement  villages have a lot of  activities. the idea is to go in and  converse and find out what are they missing? We don't want to keep  duplicating what everybody is  doing.  
>> Chrystie: Nancy, I can truly appreciate the question and where smaller libraries are coming from.  I don't see a lot of  technological barriers,  technology barriers to that.  Many of the online tools, many of the web 2.0 tools that you could use to jumpstart small community building activities are completely free and  accessible.  You may have band width issues  but what Nancy hit on it is probably more staffing issues.  With the recession, many libraries have cut back, that's where we're feeling the pinch. We don't have the resources to put into either developing a  Facebook account, seeing what young people might be doing in the twitter space or utilizing that technology in other areas, however, if you open up and you can let go, and I'm use that term let go a little differently the way Nancy did, let go and let other members of your community do it for you.  You may find people who are very willing and wanting to  look for an outlet and the  community itself just becomes the living room, just becomes the outlet that allows other  members of the community to  help you do this community  building, to help them initiate something out there with their community, invite them in.  Have other members of your community do your programming for you. You are just a facilitator.  That is what I think libraries want to be, not so much community builders, but  facilitators of community  building. And I think that is a shift a little bit in thinking.  We don't have to do it all  ourselves. We should be spending our  resources and time on is facilitating community  building, and that means letting go and letting our  community members do it. 
>> Helene when I hear that, I get so excited.  In my mind, I'm thinking, oh,  great, we bring a community member in to host a program, to SEECH something, and then from that program you get volunteers to run it in your library. How amazing is that? 
>> Yeah. And there are libraries out  there that do it very, very well.  Especially smaller libraries, we know that we're stretched for resources.  We rely a lot on volunteers. That is where some of the most  amazing facilitation of  community building happens is in the very small rural  libraries.  Chrystie, you need to do a  follow-up and get some of these people doing excellent  suggestions in the chat to come online and do those. 
>> I love that you both touched on an example of letting go of that control of our programming and our services outside of of  the online space and bringing that into everything that we  do.  One of the other questions that I saw in the chat, actually a  couple, were about our services to small business and how we can support those.  Underlying those folks  struggling with unemployment  right now, and underlying those questions was essentially I think a marketing question  about how we can best reach the users that we aim to serve with the services that we know will  provide value for them, just trying to make that connection and let them know that those  services exist.  Starting with you, perhaps,  Nancy, do you have any tips for the audience on how to make sure that you're making these  connections service to people? 
>> Well, I'll use an example of small business from us here in New Jersey.  We had a lot of different  services for small businesses,  and Norma, my state librarian  had gone to a business meeting and someone asked how many of them were using their library? One person raised their hand.  And that is when we started to  look at how do we communicate out to small businesses? What we did was go out into  their organizations, and talk to them about what we were doing and find out what their  needs were and let that become  a word of mouth program because if the -- the problem is we have great services, but often  they're too complicated.  People think it is a good idea  but don't use it. Find out which ones are  valuable.  Do we have to add other once? Then work with that group to  let them pass on the word.  You have to attend small business groups.  
>> Chrystie: Thank you Nancy for bringing it back to that  engagement and that constant  communication with our users to make sure that we're meeting those needs.  I want to thank both you and  Helene for your presentation  today, for spending time answering questions and with that I will turn it over to  Jennifer to conclude our  program. 
>> Jennifer: Yeah, I, too, am very excited to see all of the great contributions that you as attendees brought to this  discussion and I will be  putting the archive up today,  along with some of your great  ideas.  As both Helene and Nancy said, you all are bringing great  stories and would make great  presenters as well.  A couple of notes about  Webjunction and our ongoing  programming.  We will be doing an online  conference on December 1st and 2nd focused on serving the 21st century patron.  A number of folks lined up to  do presentations that we're very excited about.  We also have ongoing webinars  throughout the months.  Make sure to check our  calendars. Be sure to subscribe to  crossroads and you can get a  monthly reminder of the great activities going on.  I want to thank Patrick for joining us today and for the  great work that all of the ALA  publishing folks are doing to be able to bring this to you in collaboration with techsource, and ALA editions, and, Patrick, if you had anything to say as we closed.  I know you are on mute, so --  
>> Patrick: Thank you for -- to Chrystie and Nancy and Helene,  wonderful presentation, and I really was thrilled to see all of the good ideas in the chat  window as well.  Thank you, Jennifer. 
>> Jennifer: Absolutely.  Thank you, Patrick.  Again, reminder that these books and any ALA edition  books. This is a huge deal.  Time to do Christmas shopping  for yourself and colleagues,  especially if you are an ALA member, in addition to the 10%  discount, put on top of that, it is time to do some Christmas shopping or holiday shopping.  Again, the archives will be made available later today.  I will send you an email with all of the links that you need in addition to where to  register for the online  conference and we look forward to seeing you at future events  on Webjunction and on  Webjunction, the community and thank you again to Helene and  Nancy and Chrystie for all that you do in libraryland and for your work sharing with us today. Thank you everyone.  
>> Thank you.