I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started, and welcome our presenter for today, Dianne Connery comes to us as the director with a wonderful story of how she became the director, of the Pottsboro Area Public Library in Texas.
I'm going to move us over to Dianne's slides and pass the ball over to her.
Welcome, Dianne, I'm so excited about today's session.
>> Dianne Connery: Thank you, Jennifer.
I am glad to be here.
When you're talking about how I became a director, I still call myself an accidental director.
I lived in large cities my whole life, came to this small town and didn't really plan to get involved with anything.
I had no background in  libraries, and next thing I  knew, I was president of the operating board and shortly thereafter, I was the director.
And ARSL still, I remember quotes from some of those early conferences I went to.
They are the ones who gave me the foundation I needed to survive and thrive these last 10 years.
And so I'm going to share sort of a potpourri today, it's nerdy stuff which I am not a geek by nature, but I have picked up some important things along the way.
And then some fun things as  well.
So just very briefly, Pottsboro, we're an hour and a half north of Dallas, about an hour and a half south of Oklahoma City.
We're on a lake, and within town there are 2300 approximately people, a very small tax base.
And thus the city can't give us much money.
10 years ago they provided no money.
In fact, there was a group of volunteers who started this  all-volunteer, all-donation library, and it was an adversarial relationship with the city.
And acetaminophens then, our budget has increased every year to this year, our budget is  $33,500 from the city, which what I have discovered with small and rural libraries is there's such a range.
We have so much in common, I know some of you are solo librarians in smaller counties than I am, and some in larger.
But most of what I'm saying today I think is scalable to any size.
But just to give you a little picture on the left there at the bottom, we are on a huge lake, so this community is really divided in that many people buy lake homes here, and then eventually retire.
Those are outside of city  limits.
And then within city limits the major employer is the school district, and there's a lot of hospitality kind of workers.
And it's -- I say it's like driving back in time, but not in a quaint way.
It's -- some metal buildings, and the police station is literally over 100 years old, and when it rains, it rains into the police station.
And the reason I'm telling you that is because we knew that we had to get the buy-in from the city and get more funding if we were going to become a  meaningful organization to the community.
So a lot of what we do has a strategic reason behind what we do, and why we do it.
So that's Pottsboro.
This is -- was an old post office building, and so we have done everything that we can do for make it more than you  expect.
I still love it when people walk into the building and gasp, because once they see the  inside, it's not what they were expecting.
Both from what a library in a small town, especially  Pottsboro, would look like.
You can see we've got lots of bright colors, we have redone away from the institutional green, and everything is happy and bright, and welcoming.
And we have changed the appearance of it, as well as our whole culture.
And I'll talk a little bit  later, upper left you'll see some e-sports players, and luckily we got a wonderful grant from IMLS to make that possible in our community.
And having lived in large towns my whole life, and raising two sons, who had access to pretty much cutting-edge technology, when I got to this rural town, I saw that these kids didn't have the same opportunities.
The adults didn't have the same opportunities.
And I started thinking, how can these people reach their aspirations so a lot of our focus has been technology and digital inclusion.
In fact, in our communities, I know it's hair simultaneously some places -- heresy in some places, but not that many people check out books from our  library.
More people come here to use the internet than anything else.
And so we have fun providing digital literacy classes, and just doing fun things to be that place in the community that people can come to get the help they need.
Even if you are just getting started in all this, you can start moving forward in ways that you enjoy.
Because we started 10 years ago, it was dusty romance novels on the shelves, and all volunteers.
It was not kid friendly, children were not welcome here.
And your mileage may vary.
You just have to figure out what works for you, but I do believe it's important for rural libraries with limited budgets to be strategic in their thinking.
I know it's hard with a small staff, but it's just being intentional about where you're leaded.
And this is from my point of view, not endorsed by any other organization, but when I talk about strategic planning, what I'm meaning in my head is what is the community willing to commit to funding?
And I think it's very easy for us to get caught up in the nostalgic ideas of what libraries used to be, and what they provided, and in a town where the budget comes down to decisions on, are they going to replace the water lines, or the fire truck, it is so important that the library is providing essential services and our plan 10 years ago when we started this recreation of the library was that we would become so important to the community, that people would just be up in arms if we said, you know, we needed to close.
So this is a picture I call "42  Degrees."
And I happened by the library one night, it was about 9:30 after a chamber of commerce meeting or something, and it was drizzling, it was 42 degrees, and I found these three teens sitting on our front sidewalk to access the wi-fi.
And I knew we could do better than that, and when I started talking to teens, I went to a meeting, like a focus group at the high school, and one of the things they said is so many of them did not have internet at home, and teens being teens, they would wait until Sunday to start their homework and then they had to find somebody else's house who had internet that they could use.
And so we started opening on Sundays at that point.
The other libraries in the area are open on Saturday, we are  not, but we opened Sundays to meet that need.
And so many changes are happening right now, it's just the perfect time to reimagine our role, and I don't know if you've experienced it, but in my neighborhood, I thought I had decent internet, definitely wasn't great, it wasn't as good as when I lived in Dallas, but it was enough.
I could even stream and that sort of thing.
But when everybody was forced to go home, and multiple people were using that bandwidth, multiple adults trying to work, and kids trying to learn, it slowed what had been adequate down to something that isn't going to work, and our school here for the fall, the plan is to go back for online to synchronous education, which means if you have a couple of kids, they all need to be online at the same time, and if somebody is working from home, they've got to be online, do they have the devices they need, the bandwidth, and what is that going to look like?
And we as rural libraries can open up the world to them.
And this is why I value rural libraries so much, is we can make a difference in their  lives.
And I continually get reminded about these cases.
This past Sunday I was working and a mom came in with her three sons, and I've seen her over the years, I've seen her a number of times, she doesn't come in frequently, but she brings in sometimes her five sons who are very well behaved, and this Sunday I started talking to her, and as she told me her story, I was so moved, because she told me that three of her five sons have learning differences, three of them, they all have ADHD, one has a speech impediment, another is autistic, and another is dyslexic.
And they do not have internet at home, they do not have a working computer, and they have one car.
And that car, her husband takes to work Monday through Friday.
So they have depended in the past, before the pandemic, on the school bus picking up the kids, and getting the  specialized help that the kids needed.
But now the school is giving people at this point, you know, maybe subject to change, is giving them the option of going to school or remote learning, so she's opting for in-person school for them.
But the guidelines already are that if any of the kids, any student who has a symptom such as a sore throat, a headache, a Fiore, a cough, that they will be sent home and cannot return until they get a doctor's note.
Well, so for this mother of  five, she said unless it's an emergency, she will not be able to get a doctor's note until she could take the kids to urgent care on the weekend.
And so I -- I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but to me, I'm very concerned about whether in-person school is going to help, or happen this year, or not.
And to further complicate matters, she just received her GED three years ago, she had planned to go back to work this year because her youngest would be in kindergarten, but now she said she doesn't have job skills that she needs, which, PS, a library could help her learn digital literacy skills.
But she is so concerned about getting a job, that the second day the kids might be sick and she'd have to pick them up, that that's not going to be workable.
And I just am concerned for that family, and many others who are just like this.
So I told a friend of mine who, gigabit libraries network this story, and I said how are people like this ever going to get out of this hole?
Well, he agreed, real people living real lives, when we talk about the digital divide, a lot of times we're hearing the statistics, how many Americans without connections, but it's these stories, these people doing the best they can.
And fast forward to the next  day, I get an email, he had shared that story with a nonprofit, and they emailed me and said we want to help.
How do we make this happen.
And so one of the things I would encourage you to do, as much as possible, is to connect with organizations outside of libraries, outside of your area, because I have just found amazing resources through talking to other organizations.
So fun, some of the fun things we've been -- well, I don't  know, is this fun?
It was kind of fun for us.
We had a 3d printer for several years, and it had gone dramatically underutilized.
You know, it would -- we got it through a grant, and I was so hesitant because I didn't want to make little tchotchkes and cute little toys, I wanted it to be meaningful.
And we did do a couple of  meaningful things, we had some businesses in the area make prototypes like one guy test pilot for Cessna, and he was designing, they call them pants, for an airplane.
So he wanted to make this  mini-model of pants for an airplane before they made the full-scale model.
So we did that.
There was a home baker who does the most incredible cookies, and she designed custom cookie cutters.
So we made that.
So we did that until March, when we saw, and I bet a lot of you saw it too, that there was some Boy Scout in Canada who had designed this ear guard design for 3D printers, it's there on the right, and it's for people who were wearing masks and having to wear them long-term, your ears can get sore.
And so we started churning out these ear guards, and I had doctors come in to get them who would show me their ears were bleeding from the pressure being put by the elastics, and we  ended up, well, to two local hospitals we gave each of those local hospitals about 200, and a V.A. hospital a hundred, we  ended up shipping out all over the country these ear guards.
And then essential workers as well.
We also had, we have a library of things, so we checked out our sewing machine to people in the community who would sew cloth masks to give away at the library.
And so that was another way we connected.
And then some people were requesting this in the  beginning, I think when the -- in '-- when the N-95 masks weren't available, some of the people were requesting the masks on the left, and you can put a helpa filter in there.
We didn't make as many of those.
Just a couple notes on these pictures, in terms of being strategic, you'll notice on the right, Polly print I is visible there.
That was the manufacturer of our 3D printer.
I do not get a commission from them.
But we want to work with everybody as closely as we can, so when we put this on social media, we tagged them so that they could see that we appreciated what they were  doing.
And in fact, after that, we needed a couple of tweaks on some designs that we weren't in a position to make those  designs.
So they did them for us and sent them to us.
So it's good to have friends and know people.
And then as we gave things out, the letter on the left we always gave out to people when we donated things asking them to like us on Facebook, and make a comment, because in our small town, there is no newspaper, the T.V. stations in a town about 20 minutes away, it's hard to get the word out.
So the more word of mouth that we can do, the better it is.
So now we're about to send out an annual appeal letter, and I'm working on a telehealth project, we're leveraging these healthcare provider connections we made through this, and they have never been our target audience before, but so many things lead to other things, and so now it comes back, I was just talking to the administrator for a local hospital on how he can help us with telemedicine project.
So a couple things just briefly, we did on social media, through the last few months is -- and I've already seen in chat several of you talked about difficulty with internet access, so one of the things that became clear is I know so many of us as libraries depend on donations, and summer reading prizes and all those good things from local businesses.
So we put it out there that,  hey, local businesses, you've supported us, now it's our time to support you.
So we tried to do as much as we could for them.
And so one of the things was luckily again through an IMLS grant, we have a very fast internet speed, so we were able to -- we've always kept our wi-fi on 24/7, but we put up an outdoor access point so it's more powerful to reach around the parking lot, and in the post I featured our internet provider there, again, to say, thank you for what you do, because so often I have to chase that internet provider down to pay him.
He's so nice for the last 10 years about doing freebie services for us, but I don't want to burden our community.
And so I like to give back, so that's one way I did it.
And then another thing I did is I reached out through the chamber of commerce to local churches and businesses and asked who had a connection, a wi-fi connection that they would open for the public, so that people could use from their  cars.
And so I promoted them, and they cross promoted us in social media.
So people would know where they could go.
And then in our community, it's actually a certified retirement community, a higher percentage than typical for Texas or over 65, and what we found is people could not get to the doctor, and so the doctors didn't want them to come in if they -- if it wasn't an absolute emergency, so we did through this, and I should say we have in our community stayed open throughout the pandemic on a computer by appointment basis, and of course we would follow all the measures for cleaning things in between, and we have the computer spaced out, so there were very few people coming N. but the people who did, they were people who desperately needed the service, and didn't have it available elsewhere.
So we had people were coming in for mental health appointments, prescription refills, surgical follow-up, I had a mom with a  4-month-old baby who had a follow-up for the baby.
So this just really peerked my interest, because I've heard telehealth talked about for a long time, but you need a pretty fast connection to get this streaming, the video feature for it, and a lot of people in our community don't have that available.
So that's going to be expanding.
The schools reached out to us, I think all the high school students are ready -- already had e-cards so they could access our database.
But we ended up including middle school as well, and providing some training to the school librarians how to use our databases and of course access our e-books as well.
So this is city hall on the  left, they posted the sign for me so that people driving down the main street of town would know that they could come to the library for free wi-fi, because I hate to admit it, but I still get people who come in here and say, hey, I've lived in Pottsboro 20 years, and never knew there was a library here.
So we fight that uphill battle.
But in terms of being strategic, I wanted our city hall, county commissioners, any of the stakeholders, to know what we were doing.
Because at first they thought we had shut down and just gone  home, closed to the public.
So I make sure I email them this information, they're on my email distribution list, to be constantly updated and in their front of their mind on what we are doing at the library, how we are an essential service.
So I think that is in the  learner guide, a copy of that.
But just sharing what we are doing.
So one of the connections with an outside agency is I never heard of it, it's called Information Technology Disaster Resource Center.
Again, gigabit libraries network informed me and connected me with them.
And typically -- this is, will cost you nothing, and it is a national nonprofit who just beliefs in internet access for people, and they happen to be based in Fort worth, which is about an hour and a half of  here, and in the past they would go to disaster areas like after a hurricane Katrina, or  tornadoes, or the wildfires in northern California, they would deploy internet for free to all of these places so people could access what they would need.
And in our case, in the bottom right you can see there's a resort in the background.
I talked to that resort owner who is outside of city limits, and it is an area with very limited connectivity to make sure it would be all right to park this trailer there.
And it was fine with him, because again, win-win, he's able to get on the news and say, hey, come to tanglewood, look what we're doing.
So you can see the resort and in the background you see  apartments that are there as well.
And it so happens one of my board members lives in those apartments and so on these two different occasions in the upper left she drove by and captured these pictures.
People gave their permission to use it on social media, that would give you an example of who needed internet.
So the top left is a grandmother who is a library user, I know her well, she's disabled and raising her grandchildren.
They have no internet, she lives in that apartment and has no  car.
So the picture of her, they're sitting on the curb doing their homework.
And then next to that is a student who had come back to Pottsboro and was working on his accounting homework.
They are getting ready, the  ITDRC is getting ready to move this to a site that I think needs it even more, so they're wonderful to work with.
And again, it's free, free help for us.
So Zoom, we -- I picked this up, I virtually have no original ideas of my own, I get everything from talking to somebody else.
And I think they pronounce it  Sclow Library in Pennsylvania.
They got a commercial Zoom account so they could check it out to community groups, and they have online just perfect instructions for how to do it, and so people in the group, it can be city council, it could be homeowners associations, birthday parties, whatever, who need to use Zoom, can check out a Zoom room from us.
And so in this case, again, thinking of building relationships, I talked to the guy in the middle picture there, he's really good with social media and videos, and he's a realtor, very friendly, and asked him what he could put together for us.
And then he contacted the other businesses that are pictured there, and asked if they would like to be in this commercial.
So he made this little 30-second commercial for us featuring these other businesses and saying, you know, hey, we're all in this together, we're all still needing to communicate, so if you all need help, call Dianne at the library, and check out a Zoom room.
And so, yesterday I was helping an 89-year-old woman, I was helping her remotely, I sent her a link, her homeowners association was having a Zoom meeting that she really wanted to attend.
And so I was able, and I don't know, in 10 minutes to walk her through how to get into that Zoom meeting that she wanted, and then I followed up with her last night to find out how it went.
And she said she had forgotten to mute herself in the  beginning, but then was able to say hi to everybody and muted herself.
And she was so proud of herself, and so delighted because she really is sheltering at home, and not getting out.
So this gave her a way to connect with her community.
So I thought that was a great story.
So drive-in gaming, we do have an e-sports program.
If you're not familiar, briefly I will say it's like video  games, but it's competitive.
And it's online gaming.
And if you're not familiar, you do need to get familiar, it is bigger than the NBA now, it's huge.
Lots of colleges are providing scholarships, teams, schools now have varsity teams, there's -- and I sent some information for the learner guide, there is a nonprofit that I work for everything is free to you, of how to set up a gaming, an  e-sports program at your  library.
And it's scalable.
There are lots of ways of how that could look at your library.
But at that time we weren't letting groups of people in the library, so we couldn't let our gamers in to compete.
And so what I did was, we said, there's drive-in movies, what if we did drive-in gaming?
So we turned our trailer sideways that we use to take to festivals and things, and all we used was a Nintendo switch, and we had six controllers, and people drove up in their cars and that was a Mario Kart tournament.
Since they've been done Animal Crossing and something else.
But it was so much fun.
So some of them, the teams could -- the teens could drive themselves, some of them the players aren't of driving age, so mom was sitting in the car with them for two hours.
And the dad, one of the dads told me it was such a great  bonding experience with his son because he had never really understood what it was about anymore.
And e-sports, it's not just  the -- the stereo type is the video game player down in the basement who yells up, hey, mom, bring me a sandwich!
This is not that.
There is lots of research behind it, it's come out of the University of California Irvine, showing how it improved of proves grades, some of these kids are not -- wouldn't participate in any other extra crick Lars, so it gives them the -- that team experience, but they -- the research suggests critical thinking skills, problem solving, accepting criticism, which I think is a huge one.
The team, after a match will watch game films just like a football team would, and maybe one player made some crucial mistake that cost the win.
And so here it is, the team, all the players reliving this, watching this, and it would get to, okay, John, when you did this, it ended the game for us.
And it has to be about the other players learning to give constructive feedback, but also that player being able to own that, accept that, do better the next time, and build on it.
And I, Josh, even for adults, I think -- gosh, even for adults I think accepting criticism is something that is a needed  skill.
And also for teens, gaming is a social currency.
When I go back to how are these kids going to be on a level playing field with their peers from larger cities, if you don't have internet at home so that you're participating in this activity, then you are missing a big part of what society is about.
The culture is about for teens.
So we do drive-in gaming.
And just as an aside, it's not really digital inclusion, but the little building, metal  building shed there is our library of things.
So we keep bicycles, and sports equipment, and camping supplies, and tools, and children's stuff, tables and chairs, etc. in our library of things.
We do have some digital devices we check out, GoPro cameras and cameras, and some things for podcasting, etc.
We keep those inside.
Because of heat in Texas.
So briefly I mentioned telehealth, if you are  interested in that, that is going to be huge.
I believe there's going to be a lot of federal funding funneled towards telehealth.
And in rural communities, libraries, a lot of times are the fastest connection in town.
And so through my investigating I've learned that the V.A. has a really robust program and they're way ahead of the curve, so I've been talking to people at the V.A. about what that looks like.
So even if you weren't  connecting with the V.A., it's still a model that we can borrow from.
They do have some, in very rural areas, and they even have them in VFWs and Wal-Marts, the V.A. has set up these hosting sites for telemedicine visits, and you can learn more about it on their site.
But libraries are perfect for this.
I'm just convinced.
So we do have an accessible work station, this table moves up and down, we have talked to text, text-to-talk on this station, and so I don't know if it's all the time, but I do know a veteran who said during the pandemic that he couldn't get through on the phones to request a refill, but he to use the internet, he didn't have it at home.
So he came to us.
So I would like to stop there Jennifer and just see if we've got any questions that have come in.
>> Jennifer: Thank, Dianne.
I haven't seen any specific questions just lots of afir places and -- but encourage folks to post questions.
We'll circle back as Dianne wraps up, certainly, with any additional questions that come through.
>> Dianne Connery: Okay.
Great.
So what areas have internet coverage in your area?
And what I have found is that most of us don't know.
The FCC has maps that even the  FCC agrees are wildly  inaccurate.
If one home in a census block can receive service, not that they do, but they could possibly from an internet provider, then that internet provider says that whole census blocking get coverage.
And it's just not true.
And in our area, and we have missed out on some grant funding because I've talked to connected nation, and they said, oh, so our maps show you have good coverage?
In Pottsboro, like No, we do  not.
I promise you, we don't.
But a couple ways to get at  this, TekWav is one internet provider in this area, and I've asked him to provide his, they call it heat map coverage for this area.
He did that, another ISP in the area, Broken O gave me their potential coverage map.
And so quite can often we'll get people who are new to the community calling us to say who provides internet in the community?
So I do have contact information for who is even potentially available, and then I have these coverage maps as well.
And something I'm really excited about is in talking to Connected  Nation, they have said one of the hardest things to do is get an accurate map of what communities look like for coverage, because it -- the FCC is getting it from the  providers, and so what we need is boots on the ground to really create the map of what is the true picture.
And so in our area we've got some hills, we've got some  trees, so even if in generally splb -- in general somebody in the area might be able to get internet, there could be a whole pocket of homes down in this little valley that could not get it.
And so the University of  Michigan has a program free, again, that they will use their graduate students to help you with an issue in your community.
And last year I used them, they created an e-sports live guide for me, and also this whole, like, everything a public library needs to know about  e-sports, how to set up a guide, and they did it, they connected with me a few times like hey, what do you want to do, what can we do, and then they just sent it to me, it was fabulous.
This coming fall they will be creating a map of what is the real internet picture in Pottsboro.
House to house, who has it, where is the infrastructure, who may live where the infrastructure is, but they can't afford it.
So it is -- it's a complicated picture, but University of  Michigan is going to map that for me.
And I can't wait.
Because one of the projects I'm working on is building an internet network in our area and eventually the whole county.
So also strategic, just reaching out to the media.
We have to advocate for our communities, and I've often heard it said that a lot of people in library work are hesitant to share the good work they're doing, or maybe because it's we're super busy we don't even have time, but we've gotten so much media coverage through the pandemic because in a small town they're desperate for stories, one, they need content.
But people really, really wanted good news.
And so one of the stories, and I still have his voicemail  changed, is a man who had never come into the library before, left a voicemail saying that he was trying to get his unemployment benefits and he had never touched a computer before in his life.
And needed help.
And so he came in and that afternoon, and showed me, he had tried 143 times that morning to get through to file for  benefits.
And the phone lines were  swamped.
He could not get through.
And he had been laid off, he had been a dishwasher, he didn't have enough money to pay for some basic needs.
He needed that -- those  benefits.
And so we were able online to get in, get him his benefits, and that story resonated with people, and then it reached to Consumer Reports to talk about what our libraries are doing.
And how are real people impacted by the digital divide.
So the internet we're working on building a network is a  public-private partnership.
The blue dots you see on this are in the spring, and you know the school district had to work very quickly to try to figure all of this out, the blue dots are about 300 students that didn't have internet in their home.
The green dot at the very bottom is the library.
And so what was happening with the school district is if the students didn't have internet at their home, they were asked to drive to the school once a week to pick up a pack of work  sheets, if they didn't have a car and couldn't get there, then over the next couple days the school district would drive to their homes to get them the materials.
And in my opinion, that is not the same education that kids are getting with internet.
So we called the school  district, how can we help, it so happened that we had hot spots that we were able to share with them, but hot spots, that's a big talk right now, and I want to tell you, that's not the answer for everywhere.
It's not fast enough for all the needs, and if a particular home can't get a cell signal, then the hot spot is a paperweight.
So it has its place, but it's not the whole answer.
So working with -- oh, my  goodness -- oh, okay.
That's not a typo, thank you.
Working with gigabit libraries network, they said, hey, could we provide some money for you to set up neighborhood access stations?
Because the answer is not the parking lot wi-fi, because do you want to be in the parking lot in the middle of August in Texas in 100 degrees sitting in your car working on homework?
No.
And so ultimately we need to be getting internet closer to people.
So the yellow marker on the map is the volunteer fire  department, we're going to put up an internet station there, closer to a lot of students in need.
Again, it may be walking distance for some, some would still have to drive to get there to their parking lot.
And then the orange marker beneath that is a convenience store that will have it.
Hopefully that will be a  win-win, the convenience store has some tables where people could sit and maybe some people will come in and buy a soft drink or something from them.
So -- but any case, even if that doesn't happen, they're willing to do it.
And then the purple is the -- another volunteer fire department station in the area where internet access is really difficult, because it goes through some steep hills and lots of trees there.
And then the maroon to the far left is that bait and tackle shop you see the picture in the lower left, you know you're in the country when you're the bait and tackle shop is where you're putting up this neighborhood access station.
But I won't get into it all, but through a Texas state lie CARES grant we have been give n  $24,000 to put routers in students' homes so they'll have a very robust internet signal.
It's not depending on hot spots, and then we have many more  pending grants in the works so that we can put up -- not we, because I'm not doing it, gut the internet provider, who is local, he has a local interest in this, he can put it up to broadcast a signal to those homes.
Last week, week before, Arizona State University has this program that I was just informed of, I love it.
It's shaping EDU, and they have a particular project connecting for work and learning, universal broadband access in the United States.
I think this is something that all of us libraries in the U.S. need to be working for.
So it's really a diverse group of people working towards this common goal, so if that's an interest of you, that's a link you can follow.
They did this week of summer camp, and it was so much fun, and they've got videos up on YouTube, I can go back and rewatch.
And one of the speakers who  really inspired me, Joshua Edmonds, I should know his  title, but he works in Detroit, he's like the digital inclusion commissioner in Detroit, it was amazing when he was telling his story of Detroit, how much Pottsboro, Texas, has in common.
So, so many of us are in this together to work to find solutions.
And just a little thing on the right there, you can earn badges through badgr.com for watching these videos, which I didn't think was competitive, but I got into it and started liking to do it.
That's a site as libraries we can create our own badges for whatever we want, and then people in the community can earn these for digital literacy skills, or whatever you create them to be.
Another thing from the summer camp, Adobe Aero, we have so many responsibilities as a library, but I like to have fun, and Adobe Aero is a free app they taught me about, and in five minutes I got in there and started creating these augmented reality scenes around the library.
And I think it's going to be awesome for social media, the one on the right, we can't see it in this webinar, but it's actually -- he has a power point running behind him, the little robot, about what the library does, and come to the library to connect with the world.
And so that app is free.
There's more advanced stuff, you can purchase, but to get in on the basic level, I think teens will love this.
So David Lankes is, gosh, I am so inspired by him, and he had  May or June, something, a post he wrote on listserv blog, "the new normal for librarianship."
My take-away quote is a new normal is coming, and will this new normal be found order what we lost, or what we seek to  gain?
And I know this has been traumatic for so many of us, the things that we've always been really good at doing.
Craft time, and story time, and all that stuff, and giving that up, but I would make the case that this is not the time to tweak what we have been doing.
That this is the time to find the new missions that we need to fulfill.
And just like electricity, I think libraries need to be working collectively for universal broadband, and I  just -- I'll close with a little personal story of mine, my  33-year-old son, his wife and three young children had been living in New York City in Manhattan until all of this happened.
And as you've heard, life  changed quickly up there, so they moved down to Texas, they thought it was going to be for a week.
And it turned out to be five months, and now they've gotten a house here, which of course I'm thrilled about.
But on one hand it's very poignant for me to think that for them having lived there 10 years, that the last time they closed that door on the apartment, they had no idea that they were leaving that forever.
And their needs here are different.
It doesn't need to just tweak what they're life was in New York, they have totally -- some of the same, but also different needs.
They need a car now, they need drivers' licenses now, and so I think we need to reach out to people, again, and say what do you need now, and how can we help?
If any of you have questions that we don't get to today, my contact information is up on the screen.
And I would be happy to talk to you.
>> Jennifer: Fantastic.
So great, Dianne.
It's -- I just am inspired.
Every time I hear your stories and see the great work that's happening at your library, there are definitely a few questions.
Splb pointed out that since -- somebody pointed out since you're talking about folks that don't have internet access, what are some of the nononline ways that you're reaching them, you know, beyond the folks that have smartphones that maybe see your social media posts, but what are some of the analog ways that you're reaching folks, and there were great suggestions posted to chat, but what are your thoughts on that?
>> Dianne Connery: Oh, good, I can't wait to see the  suggestions.
We have reached out through and the school in particular to have them talk to -- through churches and the school in particular.
For us it's just about talking to as many people as we can, and you know, if we're partnering with these businesses, etc., then they can reach that much farther and talk to their  people.
>> Jennifer: It seems like your connections throughout the community probably instigate lots of word of mouth, word spreading too, so definitely talking it up with all of the folks that can help spread the word is great.
Definitely people appreciated your information about hot  spots.
Someone asked earlier on when you were talking about the telehealth, is there a way that privacy is addressed?
How is privacy addressed in telehealth?
>> Dianne Connery: So through the pandemic it happened that we could have just one user in  the -- at a time in our library, because we're small library in that we're basically one big room.
So we don't have any study  rooms, etc.
But I am just starting a pilot program, and first I looked at, you can purchase sound proof booths, which would be nice, aside from telehealth, just to have for people local businesses need to study or take a test.
But I think what I'm going to do is clean out our weeding room that opens to the outside, and convert that into a telehealth room.
>> Jennifer: That's a great  idea.
Especially to have a separate door, that's really fantastic.
Let's see, there was a specific question, how did you broadcast the switch?
For -- I assume -- I didn't catch when you were talking about that.
But were you talking about --
>> Dianne Connery: The Nintendo  Switch?
Yes.
We're out in the parking lot with wi-fi, and then we just had the controllers' bluetooth  linked to the console, and it worked just fine.
Now, we're looking forward to the day when these social distancing rules relax a little, and I am going to have people out in lawn chairs, I could  really see this being a huge hit of just like watching a drive-in movie, but lots of people out there in lawn chairs.
Because we had spectators too, not just players.
>> Jennifer: That's fantastic.
We are at the top of the hour, I think you covered most of the questions, but please, folks, feel free to reach out to Dianne if you have additional  questions.
We will send you an email later today once the recording is  posted.
I'm going to send you all certificates for attending  today, you don't need to request them, I'll automatically send those out next week.
And I'm going to send you to a short survey as you leave to collect your feedback, we'll share that with Dianne, and then it also helps us in our own ongoing programming.
Thanks to ARSL for cohosting with us, and a reminder, I'm going to jump back to that  slide, a reminder to be sure to check out all the opportunities available through ARSL membership and hopefully we'll see many of you at the virtual conference in -- at the end of September.
Thank you so much, Diane, I so appreciate this and we are -- I know your community is grateful to you, we all are grateful for you to share -- for sharing all of this great work with us.
Thank you so much.
>> Dianne Connery: Great.
Let's do this.