My name is Jennifer Peterson and I'm really excited that you all are here today, and we are going to go ahead and get started.  And I'm going to introduce our presenter as soon as I get the recording started here. 
I'm so excited about this webinar, and would like to welcome Laura Damon-Moore.  She is the cofounder and editor of Library As Incubator Project and she also works as the community engagement librarian at the made disson must  mated  Madison public library.  And I wanted to give a shout out to all of the team at the Madison public library.  Today they are awarded and are recognized as one of the national medal winner from IMLS.  So congratulations to you, Laura and to your team!  And I'm going to go ahead and pass the ball to you to get us started. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Awesome!  Thank you so much, J ennifer!  It's so exciting to be here with all of you.  I can't wait to sort of start this conversation or keep this conversation going.  It's one that's been around for a long time in the library world but, yes, I'm really, really excited to hear from all of you today.  So as Jennifer was mentioning, as we go through the presentation, I would really love to hear your ideas and please post links to programs and resources for incubating creativity that you have at your library.  I think pros polination and -- cross pollination and group think about this stuff is really valuable.  So, yes, please keep the chat active, and I will be excited to hear from all of you today. 
Okay.  So first of all, I just want to thanks Jennifer and also Kendra at WebJunction for hosting me today.  Let's dive in here.  Thanks for the congrats for the IMLS medal.  We are excited here in Madison.  I just started in January, so I feel like I, you know, I'm coming into this really amazing team which is just doing some fantastic work.  So we are very excited about that. 
So quick intro since Jennifer went over this, who am I?  My name is Laura.  As Jennifer noted, I'm a cofounder of the Library As Incubator Project.  I did want to just note that my cofounder,  Batykerfer is a librarian in Connecticut.  She couldn't be with us today, but she is also just a wonderful resource for all of the creativity incubating libraries out there.  So I wanted to just give a shout out to Aaron. 
And as Jennifer noted, I am one of two community engagement librarians for Madison public library in Madison, Wisconsin and getting sort of moving from my back ground in youth services into adult services through this position and focusing a lot on life long learning opportunities. 
So that is a new adventure and a new chapter for me, and I'm excited about where things are headed with that.  So just a brief introduction to the Library As Incubator Project, if you don't know us already, we live at library add incubator project.org. 
I think Jennifer linked to our website in chat.  And we were founded in 2010.  Our website went live in 2011.  So we have been around for several years by this point, and really the impetus for creating the library as incubator project was to start a conversation about how libraries use or how artists, excuse me, use libraries in their creative process, and sort of on the flip side, how libraries can incubate and support the work of fine and creative artists. 
And when we are talking about artists, we are certainly talking about professional  artists, but also hobbyists, Dell le deli ants people who consider themselves creative people but are not necessarily making art as part of their professional life.  Okay.  So over the course of the LAIP's existence, we have talked with about, I think at last count it was about 350, between 350, 400 artists who use libraries at some point and as part somehow as part of their creative process. 
So I just wanted to note the different kinds of responses that we get from artists when we ask them how they use libraries in their work.  And artists use library collections in their w ork.  So the stuff that's in the library.  They use them as places to collaborate.  We see a lot of that with, of course, the make our space conversation that has been happening for several years now.  They also use library resources as materials, physical materials for their project.  So not just as i nspiration, but catalog cards are very popular with artists, and also discarded books get a lot of play in book art and some poetry that we will talk about in a little bit and different things like that, book sculptures and the like. 
They also use the library as space, so, again, part of that make or space conversation, and as a space to write, so sort of a home away from home place to get work done and get out of the house.  So libraries function as space for artists to get their work done.  And then the library also becomes the subject for artists' work including these wonderful photographs by a photographer named Jamie Powell shepherd.  I think I have another shot by her. 
And we see artists who sketch library buildings, who make sketches of people and objects in libraries and things like that. 
So today we are going to, I'm going to talk more about how you can sort of leverage your library into a creativity i ncubating space for not just these professional artists, but for people who are coming in at all skill levels and sort of with lots of different interests.  So not just professional artists today, but just sort of everyday people in your community. 
Before we get started really digging into the case studies and resources that we have to talk about, I just want to set up our webinar today with a word about creativity.  And this really is the lens that we are looking at our work through at the LAIP.  It's a very democratic view of creativity and it was inspired by a talk that sir Kenneth Robinson gave a couple of years ago at the Wisconsin science Science Festival. 
Jeep fer just -- Jennifer just posted a link to sir Ken Robinson's Ted talk he gave about creativity.  He is really a tremendous force for good in the creative world, I think, and the democratic view of creativity.  And so he talks about creativity in this way that it needs to be encouraged at the very moment when the structure of our education system is doing much to discourage it. 
And I think that's really important obviously for youth who are maybe not getting the  creative opportunities during the school day that were available to them in the past as arts and music programs are being cut out of school budgets.  Today I'm going to focus more on opportunities for learners of all ages, and even with a larger emphasis on adult learners because I think that the creative opportunities are still there for youth certainly in libraries, and schools to some extent, and in after school activities, but don'ts don't always --  adults don't always get the opportunity to be creative. 
Creativity is for and inherent in everyone.  I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.  When we talk to people about the work that we do in libraries, I think people are sometimes like, well, is this just for professional artists?  Are we really focusing on professionals here?  And we certainly are, but I think that it's important to sort of embrace the idea that everyone can be creative and is creative. 
And it's just providing the opportunity and the space to exercise your creative muscles that's really important.  And so related to that creativity is a process.  It is a process that can be taught..  And  fostered and provided that space really has the chance to flourish.  So related to space, cultivating a space for creativity is about claim mate control, given the right circumstances, opportunity and attitude creativity has a shot. 
And I think that this part is so important and we as l ibraries can really embrace these ideas and sort of figure out creative and engaging ways to make those circumstances opportunity and attitude available.  So that we are fostering especially that attitude not only in the public and for the public, but also  among ourselves.  I think that we as librarians and library staff members and library workers can really embrace this attitude that creativity is for everyone.  And let that infuse the work that we do on behalf of the public and with the public, and also sort of behind the scenes.  So allowing ourselves to be creative is, I think, a really important thing we can do too. 
Okay.  So things that you can provide to sort of make your library a creative space, and by all means if you have other i deas about how, if you can, you know, sort of drill down on what it means to create a climate of creativity, if such a thing is even possible, and if we can be, you know, I think there is sort of magic that comes with having a truly creative space, and can we just make that -- it's hard to make that magic happen, but can we be intentional about some of these things. 
I think, yes, and so some of these things that can help us create that climate are permission.  I think libraries can be a permission granting place.  As I mentioned earlier, adults don't have the opportunities to be creative, and to foster their creativity unless they happen to have a very sort of supportive work environment or if they go out of their way to find opportunities to be creative, sort of outside of their work and home life. 
So libraries can give permission for adults to play a little bit, and explore their creative sides at a place that people tend to take seriously if you are like, well, I'm going to this workshop, oh, where is it?  It's at the library.  That has gravity for a lot of people. 
So permission is one thing.  We also have a lot of stuff in our libraries.  We have collections.  So everything from print materials to AV materials, music, oral histories, we have digital collections, we have local history rooms.  I think that we have a great opportunity to leverage what we already have on the shelves and sort of in our digital spaces and offer them to our public to remix and reuse to, you know, really look at the collections that we have in a new way, not only for research but also for creative  projects. 
I'm seeing someone is weighing in and saying they have local artists giving free classes for adults at the library this summer in our maker lab.  That's  awesome!  We will talk about local partners in just a bit but I'm glad to see that's happening. 
Programs are, of course, another way we can cultivate a climate of creativity.  These are opportunities for hands-on and participatory -- oh, I'm so God people are weighing in on what they have going on at their library! 
So programs, opportunities for participatory and collaborative spaces to learn a new skill or further develop a skill that they might have already had.  So those are great opportunities there.  And then partners, so as I mentioned, partners are a really -- I'm sorry, I'm getting distracted all of these great ideas are coming through on chat. 
So I think that partners can help make creative programming sustainable and also scalable to your library, which is a big thing that we really like to emphasize at the incubator project.  We are thrilled when libraries have the resources to dedicate permanent space like maker spaces to hands on learning and m aking, but what do you do when you are that small rural library that doesn't have maybe the physical space for the -- or the budget to really make that permanent maker space available to your public.? 
One way to get around that is to invite partners in who can offer not only sustainability so that staff don't have to lead, you know, learn how to make everything and lead every program, so sustainability, and also expertise.  They are really the local experts and it's great when you can sort of have a range of classes and skill levels based on the community partnerships that you have. 
Okay.  Then last but not least, space is often a resource that we forgot, but it's a really great one that libraries do have.  And, again, I'm not talking just about meeting room space or maker  spaces, studio spaces, stuff like that, just about sort of giving yourself permission to offer your entire library as a creative space for people to come in and use in a bunch of different ways, and we will talk more about that in a little bit. 
Keep the ideas coming!  This is super great!
So the first topic we are going to drill down into a little bit more is programming, and I think of programming as a way to provide time, so there is a dedicated time for getting creative, a place, so there is a designated place, whether that's in a permanent space like a maker space or a studio space in your library, or just a table that's out in the middle of your reading room or your reference area, or whatever.  And then permission.  So that's the other thing is you are allowing, you know, you are granting permission to people to play and not be self conscious and experiment a little bit. 
So one example that I pulled up was part of the publication ler program at Madison public library which is our maker programming suite, and they host an artist in residence that changes sort of on a monthly or two monthly basis, and so this was one by a recent artist in residence named gets Angela R ichardson which her work is really awesome.  She does a lot of different kinds of relational art and visual art making. 
So she, her big thing was drawing.  She wanted everybody in the community to draw and host the drawing gyms where adults could exercise their drawing muscles and, again, that plays back into the idea that adults don't really get the opportunity to draw very often.  So that's a kind of art making that really goes by the wayside at least it did for me and it did for most of the people my age that I know.  So unless you are sort of presented with the opportunity to draw, you aren't doing that on a regular basis. 
So programming provides permission and space and time, and it also is a really good way to connect with partners in your community, and like I mentioned before, partners can help make your programming sustainable, and also really achieve a little bit higher level of expertise and just make it a even more valuable for people who are attending your programs. 
Okay.  So one partnership that I wanted to note which is really awesome, and this is featured on the incubator project, so feel free to learn more about that there.  Let's see.  So it's called library takeover, and it is a partnership between a performance poetry group called Apples and snakes and a theater company called half moon Half Moon Theater.  This is the U.K. so they work in London libraries. 
And these two groups came together and partnered library staff with local youth.  So I think they had two teams of six people who it's basically a giant event planning boot camp where these teams come together for several sessions where they learn how to plan a program, how to market a program, how to budget for their programming and then actually facilitate and host large scale cultural programs.  So the final results of this partnership were a poetry open mic night and a fashion show. 
So really, really terrific outcomes there, and also, you know, the learning that happened was huge.  It was, you know, just had a lot of good skills learned.  Okay. 
So I'm seeing -- I will also ask Laura to share.
>> Laura I was going to chime in.  Somebody commented they are from a smaller community, so I would love your thoughts on either what you have seen other libraries do when they are maybe with smaller sets of artists in their communities or smaller spaces or smaller budgets, and I have also invited people to chime in as well. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Sounds good.  I just was noticing those questions rlg in  rolling in so thanks Jennifer. 
That is definitely tricky.  Before I was at mad  Madison I was in a very small community public library, and I think for us what we saw especially with adult sort of creative programming really asking, you know, making sure that you are asking your patrons what they are interested in instead of sort of guessing and s eeing what sticks.  That can make things a lot more efficient, and I'm trying to think what else. 
So that is certainly helpful.  Maybe expanding out to look at regional arts organizations, so talking with arts guilds that span maybe your county instead of just your town.  That has also proved to be a little more useful sometimes just because if artists do live in small towns, and they do, of course, but if they are there, they might not be -- if there isn't a really active arts community in that town, they might be doing more on a regional basis.  So maybe just expand your reach a little bit with who you are inviting, and also, you know, I think talking with maybe a board member of a regional arts board or somebody in your community who is a member of I regional arts board, something like that and my terminology might be off depending where you are but sitting down and talking with them about where the experts are that might also proof useful. 
-- prove useful. 
I would suggest looking at institutions of higher education.  Even if they are a little outside of your community, you know, if there is a community college, if there is a university sort of nearby, that sort of thing, you can also maybe talk with their volunteer office, their community-based learning office, see if you can get some students who are interested in doing some programming with you. 
I would also say I think some questions about, oh -- high  high -- hi Jennifer. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  I think those are excellent ideas and I think the idea around partners too, I wonder if sometimes the trick is finding the people, even if they are not, you know, like you said at the beginning, even if they are not full time a rtists, finding a way to create a conversation about the opportunity so maybe it's like a task force or inviting just a conversation with a handful of people to brain storm, and I think as you suggest, sometimes those folks are connected with other folks so it's sort of the telephone game. 
If you find some sort of gate keeper of the arts community, it might be a bit easier to find more folks. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Absolutely!  Yes, thank you for c himing in with that point.  I think that, yi, finding a good -- finding a good connector in your community can really be very beneficial.  I had another -- oh, one other thing I was seeing some people ask about if you have problems getting people actually in the door, I also sort of embrace the idea of not limiting your programming to in the library programs, but also looking at spaces in the community where you could cosponsor events and looking at local coffee shops, even, you know, bars in your community if there is one that might be up for hosting like if there is a drink and draw program that we have done here in Madison a couple of times, I can pull up that picture in just a second, but not being afraid to bring the library show on the road and cohost an event with people outside of the library building. 
Okay.  We can talk about partners all day.  So I do have a question for all of you.  I would love to hear who are your favorite partners?  Just going back to the idea of getting outside of the library, one of my favorite partners that I worked with in the small community where I was the youth services librarian is, and you can just see her in the back one of our school librarians who very kindly decided to cohost an afterschool maker club with the public library this year. 
And that was because we had a maker club at the public library, but it just wasn't really getting the participation that I thought matched the interest level of the kids in our c ommunity, and that's, you know, there is a lot of reasons why kids can't make it to the library after school, everything from afterschool care that takes place at the schools to, you know, it's hard to coordinate rides when you have kids riding the bus and stuff like that. 
So we actually brought the show on the road and hosted the afterschool maker club in the school library.  And as you can see from this picture, we have, there is between 25 and 30 kids who attended this club in the fall and here we are doing stop motion animation using iPads and Legos.  The libraries were able to combine their resources so we sort of each had a number of i Pads so that all of these kids could work.  I think they ended up working in pairs, and doing these little videos. 
And it made that, you know, the technology plus the extra adults that we had, so we had myself and this librarian and then a couple of parent volunteers who were able to come in because it was at school and it's a convenient place for them to get to.  It really gave the kids a sort of more meaningful experience than if it was sort of split.  So either just with the school library or just with the public library. 
I'm seeing so many great partners.  Yes, this is fantastic.  So teachers and historical societies. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  These are all excellent examples.  I mean, I think it's so funny teachers in the schools, they are working on this hopefully as much as they can.  I know that funding for arts isn't as strong necessarily in schools, but they are eager to certainly make that opportunity happen. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Cool!  All right.  So by all means keep the partnerships coming, lots of good examples there.  Okay.  So we have sort of been talking around this a little bit.  Programming, of course, provides, you know, when you are programming in partnerships, it provides great opportunity for people to learn from local experts.  So one great example of that is the bubbler at Madison public library.  If you don't know about this program, I would encourage you to explore Madison bubbler.org.  Trent Miller who heads that program has done an amazing job of sort of creating a model based almost entirely around  partnerships for other libraries to emulate. 
And he just does some really great work.  You can see this is a Kanji drawing workshop at the library, and I believe this was done sort of for a group of high school students who came into the library and learned this new skill from a local expert.  Screen printing, people in Madison have sort of become obsessed with screen printing because of these workshops at the library.  Just a quick note about this workshop, so this is done with in partnership with a local screen printer, so he, his name is Craig and he comes in and does these workshops a couple of, you know, several times a  year to host these. 
And you can see this is actually at one of our library, neighborhood libraries, so out in the community it's a much smaller building than our central library, which is where the bubbler is headquartered.  So we have a room that's dedicated to the bubbler at the central library, but this is just out in one of the neighborhood libraries out in the middle of the reading area. 
And I think that that's something you can embrace.  If you don't have the space to dedicate to a  permanent making area, having art programs happening out in the middle of your library is a fantastic way to advertise the programs that you have going on.  So people will stop by, be interested in what you are doing, maybe, you know, ask when the next one is, stuff like that.  So definitely a good way to get around the space issue, and also do some gorilla marketing as well.  Libraries can be fantastic for collaborative art making programs.
We are sort of going to look at this -- oh, okay.  All r ight!  I realized my time is drawing near.  So I'm going to speed up here a little bit.  Collaborative art making programs can happen on a big scale, which is what we are going to talk about first and also a very small scale.  So the, if you haven't seen Carnegie library of Pittsburghs pop des fleurs winter garden project.  I encourage you to look that up.  We featured it in a series on the incubator blog.  This was in partnership with a fiber arts collective in Pittsburgh and they organized basically on a really, really big scale lots of fiber flower making programs. 
And so all ages got together and created these flowers, and this is what they did with them.  So here is one image.  This is decorating the out, you know, the bear trees outside of one of their library branches.  They decorated inside the building.  So, you know, highlighting book covers it looks hike here.  Really adding so much color to the library space. 
And even outside, so I think at some point in one of the mosts they talk about wanting to see what kind of material can hold up against snow and still sort of capture these beautiful flower creations.  So this was really I community effort and this is something that all ables could participate in -- ages could participate in and see very public results of. 
So the final installations were in the libraries but also all over Pittsburgh which is great! 
And then on a smaller scale, this is the Falmouth public library, their library yarns community art project.  And this, you know, in Pittsburgh they had probably hundreds or at least dozens and dozens of people making the flowers, the library yarns community art project was just I think about 15 people who got together on a couple of weekends and knitted these lovely, lovely chair covers and then other installations throughout the b uilding. 
So this is a great example of something that can be done on a large community-wide level and then also just a library, single library level.  And then I'm sort of running with the simple and scalable program idea.  Programming does not need to be expensive and creative programming really does not need to require a lot of expensive materials.  So I think that's where we start seeing dollar signs, we are like oh, gosh, it's going to be so expensive to do maker and creative programs, but you can also do things like redacted poetry or blackout poetry. 
There is lots of great examples out there, and this being national poetry month, it's a good time to talk about that. 
And then these are some drawing prompts by Angela Richardson who was that bubbler artist in residence for the winter at mad done public Public Library and I think that -- Madison public library, and I think that sometimes it's intimidating for people to be presented with a blank page and say, okay, draw something. 
These little prompts, so draw a robot and draw an animal wearing footy pajamas which is an amazing prompt.  These give you a place to start.  And, yes, I think that everybody will draw a robot differently.  So it's still, even though you are given a starting point, it's still a very yative act actually drawing that. 
And then this is the example of the offsite program that I mentioned so the drink and draw at the harmony bar and grill.  And it was insanely well attended there were like, you know, a couple hundred people who came to this.  You can see that they are putting up their drawings on the wall and that there is really, I mean, adults really embraced this program.  And it was a really fun opportunity for older people. 
Okay.  Another thing that I just want to mention briefly, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but we have a sister project called the book to art club, and, again, this is the idea that sometimes in order to be creative and have that permission to be creative, people do need a place to start.  So this basically takes the traditional format of a book club and incorporated an art making component to that book club.  And I can show you an example. 
So last year we read "the art The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, and our projects were art forgeries.  So we got together and people in our chapter bring their own supplies and stuff like that to actually make the projects, but I know other chapters of the book to art clop encourage people to make their projects at home and bring them to the club meeting where they discuss the book and then share finished work.  So you can see art forgeries h appening.  Marie     Marilyn Monroe art forgery there.  If you are interested I would encourage you to look at book to art club.org and see example projects on our blog, and if you are interested, you know, can definitely talk about starting your own club there. 
This is, we sort of hope that these will be ready to go programs.  If you are not really sure where to start or just need a little inspiration to get your creative program started, this will hopefully provide some inspiration for you.  Okay.  And there is some of our members.  So this is an action item.  I wanted to include a couple of these in this presentation, so if you are like, okay, well, what's my next step after this?  This is a, an exercise that we encourage our students when we teach the maker space mind set for UW's continuing education program, maker and creative scene analysis in their community.  And I would also expand that to your region.  So, you know, here are your bullet points, survey your community, find out who is doing what in the creative fields and related to creativity. 
Talk to them, and ask them how the library can support the work that they do.  So maybe that isn't, you know, maybe your community has pottery covered, but, you know, maybe they are interested in getting some more pottery books, and or having a place to display their work, stuff like that. 
So I'm talking to them about where the holes are sort of or the gaps that the library can fill.  And then as Jennifer mentioned, using those people as connectors to lead you to o thers.  I call that pearl growing. 
And that's really, that's a big part of how the incubator project bound all of the artists that we have talked to is who should we talk to next?  Is that sort of thing.  And then the last piece is something that I have had to really give myself permission to do is take your time and start small, and embrace this work as an ongoing process.  This will never be done.  I think it's important to sort of enter it with that mind set that this is an ongoing project, and being okay with that. 
You know, you are never going to have your perfect slate of partners, your perfect slate of artitives who can come in and teach all of your classes, and, you know, it's always going to be a work in progress.  And I think it's important to be okay with that going in because you won't feel as disappointed or defeated as you go. 
So creative programming resources, I just threw up a couple up here.  There is at once like  a ton more and things that I was like, well, I don't know exactly where people always get their programming ideas.  Pinterest is a really big one for me.  But, you know, those are sort of scatter shot.  So if anyone else has other sort of resource collections, blogs that they really like, I know that teen library and librarian websites often provide a lot of inspiration for me because I think that oh, yes, someone is noting that the programming librarian interest group is great.  It really is.  There is so much good information there, and pretty frequently if you have a programming idea, somebody in that group may have done it or something similar to it and can really give you help and weigh in on how you can develop that idea. 
So I'm going to move along.  But feel free to weigh in on other programming resources in the chat.  So the other, another piece of the creative library is your collections, and how you can make the most of them and leverage them to sort of incubate creativity in your community.  I would love to know if anyone here participated in color or collections week, which was earlier this year, I believe, and places like the New York Public Library and the digital public library of America, so or the O of and t he -- sort of and the bio diversity heritage library made their collections available as coloring pages basically for their patrons. patrons.  And anyone else to use.  I think that's a really cool way to embrace the adult coloring programs and also advertise what you have in your digital collections. 
I agree, Jennifer, it should be more than a week.  I really love this idea and I think it's a really cool way to promote the sort of hidden resources that you have in your library or that are available for free, you know, from digital libraries around the country.  So make it a community-wide event.  I'm  seeing my jiff is not working on the left-hand side, but digital public library of America hosted a Jiff it up competition.  Perfect. 
Thanks, Jennifer.  You can see it there in the link, and so Jiff making is an interesting way if you have digital collections at your disposal to, again, promote those collections and also help your community learn a new technological skill.  All right. 
Oh, yes, I see that there is a question about GIF.  I see G IF personally because I think that's what the creator of the person who coined the germ GIF uses, but I have no beef with people who call them GIFs.  And then the band book trading card project, both at the Lawrence public library and the Chapel Hill public library a couple of years back they started this trend, I think. 
And so that is another way to inspire members of your community to do these creative projects.  It's just another way to give people a starting point to be creative.  So design a new cover for one of these banned books. 
I'm seeing a question about for color our collections, for color our collections, I believe that most of these are printed out like public domain images, so from, yes, so hopefully that  that answers that question although I believe you can do photocopies of pages from books as well and since they are not being, you know, they are not being paid for, you can sort of embrace its use in that. 
Here is I question, is what do you have in tucked away places that might provide creative project starting points for your community?  Orphan photos, so things that like the photos featured in misparagrin's home for peculiar children, those can provide inspiration and that starting point for people.  So maybe it's a collection of orphan photos which are photos without sources. 
And maybe you present your group with a set of these photos and have them choose one and, you know, write the back story of why this woman is looking so sad in this chair.  And this woman on her wedding day, things like that. 
So if you have anything in your collection that could inspire patrons to make something new, I would love to hear about it.  I think the sort of thing is really useful sometimes we are like oh, yes, we do have all of those photos in the local history room that we could use for something or make something available.  At Madison, we have a huge clippings file collection which I think could prompt some really interesting creative art projects. 
I'm going to breeze through this now.  So sharing the work.  Using the Ike as an arts venue -- library as an arts venue.  So this is important because you not only want to make creative opportunities available for your public, but also give them a place to share their creative work.  And then in turn, hopefully, inspire new creative work or new ways of thinking about things. 
So, you know, consider making your library open to p erforming arts groups.  So theater groups or I love this dance company that was inspired by and performed in libraries in Alabama.  And this exhibition at the Albany public library makes use of the library space beyond traditional gallery walls.  So if your walls are completely filled with book shelves and stuff like that where else could you offer artists space to display their work?  Do you turn over tables for a day and let people install exhibitions and things like that in your public space where people coming into to see the art will also see the library and vice versa, people coming to the art to check out materials will also see art. 
And these are just a couple of other examples of i nstallations.  Definitely I encourage you to look at the Carla L obmeier it's at the NYPL mid hand hatten library.  It's beautiful.  More installations, these are a series of sound w orks.  You know, I think academic libraries, you might have more success working with an art department and relational art departments and stuff like that to do some of these things, but certainly people are interested in installing this kind of work at public libraries as well. 
So here is another action item.  And this is a way to invite the artists in.  I'm not going to go through bullet points because we are just about out of time.  But these will be available to you after the fact to if you are interested, you know, sort of a to-do list for actually inviting artists in to activate your library space. 
If you have some ideas on where is the under used or under activated space in your library, where would be cool to have, you know, a light installation or where would it really be awesome to have some musicians perform in your space is that, you know, even if you don't have an auditorium or a traditional performance base in your library, where would be really interesting to have some  performances done? 
So to wrap up, I can't  believe we are almost out of time.  So cultivating a claim mate of creativity, you are granting permission.  You are looking at your collections through this sort of creative lens and thinking about how to use what you already have in the library in a new way.  You are offering hands on and participatory programs where people learn how to do something new or expand their knowledge. 
Partners, partners, partners, you are really reaching out to people in your community and your area to help make those s ustainable programming opportunities for your patrons, and then you are inviting patrons to use the physical library to get creative.
All right.  So we definitely, you know, if you have creative programming happening in your library, we are always looking for new things to feature on our website, so that, you know, I'm s eeing a ton of gr   ideas -- good ideas and really cool arts and incubating programs coming through on chat.  I would love to hear from all of you and to share your stories.  So feel free to submit your  ideas and your programs. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  Fantastic!  Thank you so much Laura, and really, I think, it's important to remember that the art as incubator project is really a home base for all of you who are looking to either share what you are doing in this area or to get inspiration.  So, you know, don't forget about them and don't forget about it.  I just wanted to see if we can squeeze in a couple of thoughts from you on two things.  One, there were a lot of folks that mentioned sustainability as an issue, so how do you keep programs going knowing that maybe you are engaging with artists who some of which are asking for a fee, perhaps?  Can you talk a little bit about folks, how folks have approached both sustaining that programming?  How do you decide how often to host the programs?  As well as then do you run into issues with a rtists who maybe are willing to volunteer once but not necessarily to sustain that volunteerism? 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  I think those are both really, really good questions.  So certainly payment is an issue because you do want to sort of embrace the volunteerism when you have it, but I think there is also an important conversation in the arts community about getting paid for work that you are doing.  And so there is -- that's a balance, I think.  So, yes, so maybe it is asking an artist to volunteer their time once and then after that either you just offer that program once or figuring out a way to have a, even if it's a small on  on air yum, I offer something beyond that or at the very least making sure that the library can cover supplies and stuff like that. 
I think that, you know, I know that grants are, it's like okay, yes, great, I will apply for a grant, and that is possible for some, but not everyone., or easy for some and not every one. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  I'm glad you brought up the issue that making sure the artists are valued for their time and art and also maybe setting up almost like a, kind of a modeling or mentoring project, you know, perhaps some of the folks that attend those events would then see the opportunity to volunteer themselves. 
So hopefully it becomes infectious and it can build on the beginning of that relationship with that artist but also building a culture of creative innovation as well. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Absolutely, and I think it's, you know, it's always nice to have an expert leading things, but I don't think it's, I don't think that's vital.  I think you are right that you can also sort of create an art, you know, a core as in corps, of people who feel like they can facilitate if not lead if that difference makes sense, those creative programs. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  Absolutely. 
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  Someone mentioned that it's, you can, you know, do a sort of visiting artist series, so have a number of artists come in and have a different artist each month or something like that. 
That's also very good. 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  That's really great!  Excellent!  Well, we better wrap up here.  I know people need to get onto their next task of the day, but thank you so much, Laura and to all of your team at the project.  We really appreciate all that you all continue to bring to the field, and, yes, this session is recorded.  I will be sending you all an email once all of the recording is posted along with all of the great links you brought to the conversation.  I will also mention that as you leave the room you are sent to a survey.  We love to collect your feedback.  We will provide it to Laura and it will also help us guide our ongoing programming. 
Thank you, too, to our captioner and thank you all for all 69 of the great work you are doing in your communities to incubate creativity in your communities and  thank you again, Laura.
>> LAURA DAMON-MOORE:  It was my pleasure.  Have a great d ay, everyone! 
>> JENNIFER PETERSON:  Bye-bye!