Welcome to our moderator, who will welcome our panel.
Thank you so much Margo Gustina, who comes to us as the special projects librarian and coordinator for the rural library service and social well-being project.
Margo, thank you so much for bringing this great work to a WebJunction webinar, and  welcome.
>> Margo Gustina: Thank you, Jennifer.
I'm joined today by this panel of rural public library directors in research create yors.
Emilie Braunel from Wisconsin, Jerianne Davis of west Virginia, Susan Green of Vermont, and Richard Styre of Idaho.
They're here to give a brief tour, about five minutes each, of seven of the 17 tools currently available for your use from the rural libraries and social well-being project.
Before we hop into specific tools, I want to take some time to clarify what these tools are, and what they're not.
In hopes that we can come to some agreements.
I created the image on the left inspired by in artist sandy Garnett's fingerprint project.
It's to describe what we field researchers learned about social well-being and libraries in rural communities.
When I say social well-being, the shorthand that you should hear in your head is, descriptions of the good life.
We can Intuit that description of the good life will be different for me, like my definition will be different for me than it will be for you.
And we can also imagine that that description or that personal definition comes from all the complexity of our own narrative, where we live, and our own context.
Our research found significantly that in rural communities, people's context and description of the good life were very much grounded in the natural environment where they were living.
So the environmental  surroundings.
And they were seen as amenities, rival to what other people might look for in a city, like  schools, hospitals, or grocery stores.
We translated these into themes, and it's the themes that make up the warp and weft of the resources  that we created to help library workers see their own unique and complicated place where they are.
To that end, we have been very intentional in creating and implementing a project that overall pulls out these beliefs.
You're going to see a lot of text on the next two or three slides, don't worry, I included them because I know the deck stays on WebJunction.
I won't read them out except for this one.
Which is that foundational belief for this work is that anything worth building in your community, through your library, is built in small, repeated or incremental steps over time,  using your heart in full view of your soul and in partnership with the people and the environment that surround you.
Belonging, mutualism, and  self-determination are the three major pathways that we observed public libraries building, shaping, strengthening, to improve social well-being outcomes where they were  locally.
And we're principled in how we view design an implementation built on those pathways.
How we're going to do it in town is just as important as what we do.
It's with, not for.
It's us, not us and them.
We want to make lives better for each individual as well as the community as a whole.
That's our major aspiration we're looking to achieve as we do this work.
We've made a getting started tool to walk through our tools, but also the resources as well as the meaning and concepts I've just barely brushed on here.
And it gives you some direction as a newcomer to the website and to the work, and it's based on an interactive form, has a lot of text, but also has a lot of questions for you, based on where you are in your thinking, and what kinds of activities you like to engage in.
That will give you a basic road map where to start.
Like which tools might be the best to begin with, which products or resources on our web site that you may want to dip into first.
The deal here is, and with all of the incredible and useful tools that we'll talk about today, there are no  replacement -- they're no replacement for real human conversation.
So this tool, everything you hear today, will be good for you to do by yourself, but consider how it's just an entry point for conversations and relationship building you'll do in your local community and with your colleagues for deepening and strengthening those connections with others.
Here to introduce our first tool is Susan Green of Vermont.
Thanks, Susan.
>> Susan Green: Hi, I'm so happy to be here today.
Well, I developed a tool called, is everyone welcome at your library?
And I developed it to help librarians identify who is using their library, who they are not serving, and to help them evaluate their current library practices to ensure inclusion.
And I came up with this tool after my own experience being a librarian in a rural area for the past 12 years.
When I first came here, I was already a resident in this community, and I h worked outside 30 to 40 miles away, smims 20 miles away, but I had never had a job right in my community, and it was amazing to be hired, actually a mile away, a mile and a half away from my home.
So I had a great window into seeing who lived here, because I already knew who lived here, I thought I did.
And as I -- about 1500 people in my town, but if you look at the surrounding towns who also use the library, it does increase by some, but still, it's a small area.
Even so, with such a small community, I still noticed there were many people who didn't use the library, use our programs, come in, or really take advantage of what we had to offer.
And I felt it was really important to try to involve people from all areas of the community.
All different people, and have some diversity here.
It did feel like we were serving this small niche.
So what I first decided to do was to just visit places and go to the general store more, and talk to people, I talked to my trustees about my concern, and we decided to develop a survey.
We did different things with programming, trying to develop programs that might attract new people.
And we started to do more outside festivals and programs.
So I developed this tool to try to help other librarians look at their library in a different  way.
I divided the tool into four parts.
The first part of the tool is actually a statistical analysis, it leads you through some different links and websites you can go to to get information about your library.
Some of it might be just looking at school lunch records, how -- what percentage of people use school lunch, and try to see if that makes a difference in how you view things.
And doing some statistical work helped me to see, we had a very large number of people over the age of 60.
We really weren't serving as many seniors as we could have been.
It also helped me see we had quite a few teenagers that weren't -- were in the community and weren't even coming in the library.
The second part of the tool helps you work with the board or your friends, or whomever makes sense to start to scout around, and like I said before, we did a survey and then we also interviewed people in the community, and we used observation and visiting different gathering spots.
For you it might be different.
The tools you might come up with to try to figure out who all lives there and who all is not coming might be different than what we used.
The third part of the tool was assessing library practices.
Like what kind of things do we need to do to change?
For example, our hours meeting the needs of the people coming to the library from our community.
Mayberry people aren't coming, we're just not open at the right time.
So we increased hours in our library on Saturdaying.
But it could also be that you're somehow making people feel unwelcome because of things you're doing.
Some libraries make a big deal, say, over certain who education and ignore others.
Some libraries really need to work on their handicap accessibility.
And some libraries need to change their policies.
For example, if you're charging really high overdue fees, or if you're -- the time you're allowing people to take materials out is short, you might be also scaring some people away.
And then the final part of the tool helps you look at how you can involve others.
I think librarians can often feel like they're taking all of this on by themselves, and  really this is a project that would interest your friends group if you have one, your library trustees, you might want to involve the local school, or your historical society.
And some libraries find forming a committee to increase diversity in their community -- in their library works best too.
So this part of the tool helps you actually figure out how you're going to go about this, and who you're going to use for help.
And I just want to give you some ideas of why you might want to take on this project.
And use this tool.
I feel personally from my own experience that it's only right to make the doors to the library accessible to all, and to encourage all to come.
And then when we promote diversity in our libraries, we also encourage new things to take place.
So we get suggestions for programs we never would have thought of.
We get suggestions for books and materials we would never have thought of.
Diversity also creates different perspectives and makes life more interesting be.
And everything is really more fun when you do it with different types of people.
By having all kinds of people come in the library, we're seen as more essential, because the more people who come in and the more people who use our library, are going to support our work.
And some patrons you might find may not ever walk in the  library, they might use your library outside when you have a festival, or they may come once or twice a year for the fall foliage festival, that's one of the things we started, because we knew that would bring in a lot of new people.
So consider looking at in the tool and opening up your thoughts to diversity and how to be more inclusive.
And now I'm going to pass the ball on to Emilie.
>> Emilie Braunel: Great explanation of your tool, Susan.
Thanks.
Hi, my name is Emilie, and my first tool that I created was on nature, going beyond the walls of the library.
Which is found in the discovery tab of the tool kit K and this tool was created to help you reflect on how your library currently supports your community's connections with the natural world, and to investigate new opportunities for the library to support and engage with the community in natural spaces.
It really came out of two  things, the creation of this.
One was out of my own desire at my library to see what we're currently doing in connection with our surroundings.
Which I realized that we do a lot based at the library, but not so much outside of the walls of the library.
And I really wanted to reach out beyond the library walls.
And then what we possibly could do in the future, and also from most importantly, the data from the project.
Nature kept coming up, and it was highlighted as such an important part of social well-being.
And I notice people come to my neck of the woods because of the nature.
The lakes, trees, wildlife.
And the slower pace.
Otherwise known as it takes forever to get anywhere.
And I notice when the summer people from more urban areas start arriving, that they're really intense.
And it takes a few weeks for them to relax and it really shows how important nature is to our well-being.
So on to the tool.
I'll give a little information about each part, and I'll show how I just use this tool this winter to provide a new outreach opportunity for us at my  library.
So the first part kind of Hones in on the nature aspect.
Like, what is already there.
What -- in what season, what's popular?
What's available?
In winter, for example, there are tons of snowshoe and ski trails here.
And with that season, what are the races or tournaments, fairs, other events already happening in the community that are connecting to either the outdoor activities, or the natural  spaces.
And then who organizes those events?
And is the library already connected with those events?
Or are there ways that we could possibly be connected?
Then also looking at the  library's collection.
How do we support those activities or spaces?
And this is where you can find ideas for book displays during the season.
Or during certain events that are going to happen.
And then also finding those gaps or needed updates to your collection.
I always try to tie the event or program back to the library and its collection, and how we can get people coming here.
And then also looking at what kind of programs and resources are already happening, and what would you like to add or adapt for different groups of people?
Being adults or youth, or the school, something like that.
And I wanted to share how for  me, like I mentioned, the snowshoe and ski trails, and there is at the elementary school, a snowshoe trail that comes -- that starts right behind the school, and the school does a winter carnival every year around December 20th or so, as well as there's a winter solstice candlelight snowshoe during that time.
And I thought, man, it would be great to get something connected to that space with the library.
And thought of a story walk.
So brought it up to the trail committee, and the school, and that's where the outreach part I thought of how could I bring the library to that activity the second part of the tool?
And so I put together a story walk on one of the loops.
And then informed the principal, ho brought the classrooms through and the community went through with the candlelight snowshoe as well as during the holidays they could visit that area.
And the trail committee reported to me that don't know if it was the story walk or the weather, or what, but it had been used quite a bit, and positive feedback for them.
Then the next part of the tool is also how could the library possibly provide a lending library of equipment for those activities?
Right now we don't have showshoes for lending, but that might be something down the  road.
That might be of interest.
And if I have concerns or  issues, I could write that down on the tool, and the third part is advocacy.
What factors might make it difficult, and how is it  connected back to the strategic plan, or the library's mission or vision statements, or any other data that you might have?
Obviously it's important to link it back to that to defend if there are questions, and to make sure that you're sticking to your strategic plan.
So that's the first tool about nature.
And going beyond the library walls.
Thank you, and now over to Jerianne in west Virginia.
>> Jerianne Davis: Hello, I am Jerianne, and I am the library director in Helvetia, West Virginia.
The tool I created is about building pathways of knowledge and discovery within your community and library.
In general we created these tools to help give new ideas and inspiration to be the best library director and community partner that you can be.
One of our other colleagues actually has a tool kit about burnout, because that is true, we can get pretty, you know, caught up in our day-to-day activities and kind of lose inspiration, and as I was  reading through all the data that the researchers and the patrons all talked about, I was shocked that under the knowledge and discover category, a lot of people just said, checking out a DVD.
And I was a little bit offended by that, because I just feel like we should and can just be so much more than that.
And libraries should not just be the place to check out a DVD or even just a book.
It can just be so much more.
And so the tool I developed was for the library staff to kind of ask themselves, how well they are promoting and encouraging different knowledge and growth within their library and community, and then some ideas on how to do this.
One of our biggest findings in this research was just how important a sense of belonging was to each community member.
So we really feel that you can really tie all this together by kind of trying to expand some knowledge within your community and kind of breaking out of the comfort zones.
In the tool I do talk about an event that we did to help people learn and pique their interests.
We did a community event that had different residents  showcasing their individual talents.
Now, ours was for our 150-year celebration, so it was kind of a throwback talents, such as bee keeping, winemaking, we had a guy doing hand hewn logs, trapping, trapped an ox, a  throwback to what our ancestors were doing.
There are so many ways you can help foster and kind of push a little bit.
People outside of what they know right now, you can offer different classes, different demonstrations, have different career people coming and agencies come to your library and help with this.
I have found that if you offer food, everyone will come.
Or a lot of people will come.
If they know food is involved, they're there.
So a lot of people will ask if you have books or DVDs about certain subjects, or hobbies or skills, and that is another part of promoting growth in  community.
But you also can, you know, kind of think out the -- outside of the box a little bit and just maybe offer some new classes, or something, a new demonstration.
We offered a class last winter, I don't know, it might have been the winter before, because this last year has been so long, we offered a class on rug making, and it was within about 45 minutes, one of the residents, she's actually one of our board members, knew it was not for her and she came up with an excuse to get out of it.
But we offered it, and she figured out it wasn't for her, and that's part of growth and discovery in your community.
So in this tool kit you kind of go -- in this tool you go through, and you think about who may be a good fit in your Community that would be  interested in helping with  classes, or demonstrations, or reading new things.
There's probably a lot of people in your community that have  hidden talents that you just don't know about.
And so I do encourage you, if you do think that would be something in your community that would be kind of beneficial, is there is like a quiz on the tool that makes you kind of think about who might be a good fit, Mayberry some things you weren't thinking -- maybe some things you weren't thinking about, and it also just gives you some  really great ideas on how you can kind of help push and foster people out of their comfort  zones.
We want to be more than just checking out a DVD.
I know when I was -- I think very fondly of our library when I was young, and kind of some different things that they did there, and your library should be the same.
I want kids and 20-years to -- kids in 20 years to look back and think, we learned this, we had a police officer come and talk, or whatever the job or class may be.
So go visit the tool kit and check it out and see, you know, if it would be something that maybe we're a little complacent and we could be kind of pushing growth a little bit more in our community in our library.
And that's that for that tool.
And now on to Rick and the tool he created.
>> Richard Styre: Thank you, Jerianne.
Hello, I am Richard Styre, I am the codirector of the Elk River free library in Elk River,  Idaho.
I created my tool because after reading the research, it became prevalent that a lot of people thought that we needed to pass down more of our knowledge, our knowledge is power.
And through a library, we can do that in more ways than the traditional ways of a library.
Books and DVDs and computer use are great, but there's so much more that we could pass down to children who might not be getting these things at home.
And you know, it could be very easy just to put a bicycle pump outside and a couple of tools.
But it helps I think to teach them what to do with their  hands, to use these tools.
How to repair their bicycle, or how to just do anything with their hands.
Do so much more we can do.
You know, I did my tool on bicycles because the children in my community, I see a lot of their bikes sitting at the park, or in our library bicycle rack, because it's got a flat tire or the handlebars were loose.
But I teach -- by teaching them to be able to do this, they'll be more self-sufficient in my eyes, I think, and it doesn't have to be just like this, it could be something simple like art, if that's what the children in your community want to do, you can do art.
And the library can check out things like paint, and paintbrushes.
We can open it up -- it can get so big when you look at it.
Anyways.
Back to my tool.
So I wanted to start it by  finding what your children need in your community.
We can do that by listening to them.
A lot of times you can just listen to what they're doing at the park, and what they're talking about, how they're doing things.
If you can't hear it, just ask them.
A lot of kids will be really happy to tell what you they would like to do, what your library could do for them.
Once you figure that out, then it's on to what tools do you need to do that.
What people in your community can help you, because not all of us library directors know how to fix things or build houses, but there is people in our  communities who do know these things, and most of the time are more than willing to help.
Once you figure that out, you gotta figure out where you're going to do it.
It could be at the park, in the parking lot of the library.
It could be inside of the library, depending on what it  is.
I don't suggest breaking out the carpentry tools and cutting wood in the library, that could be a fun mess to clean up.
But at the same time, it's a valuable piece of knowledge that we can pass down.
That's about all that I have.
Sorry I'm a little short, guys.
I'm going to pan it on the to Susan.
Thank you.
>> Susan Green: Thanks a lot for that.
I'm inspired to start a bicycle program here at the library.
We usually have it a once a year fix your bicycle day, but maybe we should do more.
My tool is dare to dream.
And I wanted to -- I wanted  this tool to help librarians and their communities look at their libraries through a new lens.
I wanted to encourage the imagination and stimulate ideas for change without judgment and censoring, because we often as librarians, we see these things we want to change, but we go,  we can't do, that that's too expensive.
No one will support me in that.
So I wanted to break out of that kind of stuck place, because I went through that myself.
When I first showed up here, even though I was part of the community, and had used the library, I had never really  looked at the library.
Critically.
And I noticed there was some really dangerous things, like rug was big ripples in them, and people were tripping over them, there were closets that were stuffed full, things that just didn't seem like they were working that well.
And then when I started a play group after our story time, it was really evident that we  needed more room.
So all of a sudden I started spending some time walking around, and trying to assess what my -- what this library needed without judging about money, or time, or energy.
Just trying to free my mind up to really think about it.
So right now I'm in Vermont, as you were told at the beginning, and my library is located in a big building that also houses the town and village clerk's offices, meeting rooms, the food bank, and a couple of area businesses.
And they seem to have plenty of room for what they were doing, and there was this one big room upstairs that was attached to the library, but wasn't part of the library that I put my -- I had my eye on for a long time, thinking, if ever that becomes available, someHowe we're going to try to make it as part of the library.
And I was -- I kind of felt  helpless, though, because the budget seemed to be set in stone whenever I went to trustee meetings, it was like very -- they were very frugal.
Frugal New Englanders.
And the previous librarian had already done a capital campaign because this library was really small at one point, and she had added on a room upstairs.
So it did take me a while to do my own dare to dream process, and start to encourage other people in the community to dream along with me, and I started first with the trustees, then worked on to working with the friends, and eventually the list terror call society.
And it did take a long time about six or seven years, to replace the rug, clean up the places  that were stockpiling stuff, get rid of a bunch of things, build new shelves, and eventual Li we added on that room, that room I had my eye on to become available.
And we were able to get the town to vote money in to clean up that area and make it part of the library.
And now it's our new history room.
We call it the hap Hayward history museum, after the man who ran the historical society in Vermont for years.
The way I thought I might be able to help people dare to dream was to start off the project with a visualize Apples to Apples exercise.
And basically you can go to the website and you can listen to me lead you through the visualize Apples to Apples exercise, or you can read it and do it on your own.
And some people think that kind of stuff is hokey, but I find it really helped me to just release my thoughts that things can be done and open up my eyes to what could happen.
So that's the first section, and you kind of allow your mind to go free form and start to generate some dreams of what you would like.
Then the second part of the tool is to actually assess your library, I guess you could say in a more thinking way.
And start to ask yourself some questions.
Like, what parts of your library feel appealing right now?
And what parts would you never, ever change?
What feels just not right?
You walk around the library and this one section just feels wrong.
It's just not working.
Do you feel comfortable in the space?
Is it comfortable for staff and patrons?
Are people always asking you the same questions about the same things?
Like, where is this section, or why can't I find the teen section?
Our library we had the teen section stuck in a corner, so we liberated that as one of our projects.
You would go through that assessment process in the tool and then after that, you'll think about who can work with you on all of this.
I mean, ideally it would be nice if you could do the visualize Apples to Apples and the generation of ideas and the assessment of your library with a group, so if you can get the group -- a group on board to help you with this right away, that would be nice.
But maybe you can't, maybe you need to do this section of the tool that -- the visualize Apples to Apples and the assessment on your own and form a group to help you.
But we really do believe that it's helpful to have other people work with you on these things.
And I definitely involved three or four different groups.
So the last part is to help you assess who can help you.
And how you are going to do that and start to plan some projects.
And some of these projects might be really hard, and cost money, and you don't think you'll be able to do it.
So you could put that in the long-range plan section of your project building.
And then you might have some things that are pretty easy to change.
I was able to get the rug  changed pretty quickly because it was dangerous.
So all I had to do was go to the town select board and say, people are tripping on the rug, and it took a while, we had to look at our budget, and they chipped in money too, and we found it.
But the new room upstairs for the Hap History Museum, that we had to spend quite a few years to make it come to fruition.
For me this tool is important to help people realize that they can dare to dream.
They can dare to come up with ideas.
They can bring these things to their community.
And to not sensor anything that you might come up with.
Because the sky's the limit if you dare to dream.
Thank you for listening, and I'll pass on to Emilie.
>> Emilie Braunel: All right.
Thank you, Susan.
My second tool is titled library as the community's welcome center.
One of the most important dynamics for the long-term health of a community is how well it can incorporate newcomers, especially those who do not have an existing social network to tap into.
They're brand-new and unfamiliar with the area.
And this is where the library can help.
This tool provides a series of considerations to help you see the library as a newcomer would.
Kind of like Susan's tool, where with a new lens, what are the possibilities, and what does it look like brand-new?
And then to build resources that support them learning to make their way in their new town.
So we want to make sure that they feel seen, heard, informed, and we would love to have them coming back for more.
So I remember the first time I visited the library I'm at now, and I have to admit, I don't know if any of you do this, but I love to check out other libraries when I travel.
And I always walk away with new ideas, but I also take in the feel of the library's  atmosphere.
And that's so important to hone in on the mood or feel of the space.
So it really is a byproduct of us and how we feel about what we do as librarians.
But kind of considering, is it welcoming and friendly?
Or is there tension in the air?
So important to pay attention to and a newcomer would be feeling this too.
So on to the tool.
The first part is a checklist of how the library might appear to someone visiting for the first time.
And it might be nice to have this first impressions checklist to have someone that might be not as familiar with the  library, to take it for an additional opinion, or an impartial opinion, but also for you to take it so you see it.
How does the entrance look?
How are the shelving and stacks?
Circulation desk?
Just general signage, and like Susan said, what works, and what might be needed some changes, or added to it.
And I notice with my library, big thing was signage.
Signage on the stacks,  bathrooms, things like that.
We needed the signs.
And then most importantly, the staff or volunteers.
You know, are they friendly?
Helpful?
Available?
Do they greet you when you come in?
Those -- some things to pay attention to.
Then the second part is a new community member checklist.
So once again, first impressions are key.
And giving an interested visitor or a new resident some of your time and making them feel welcome goes a long way in creating long lasting relationships.
This checklist is a list of ideas for you to consider when someone comes to the library and takes an interest in becoming a library card holder.
It's also a good checklist  when -- with new staff or new volunteers that are working the circulation desk.
To do in case you're not available.
But do things like introduce yourself, and other nearby staff giving your business card, wearing a name tag, sharing the library's brochure, highlighting hours, online offerings.
Services, etc.
The library registration form, and indicating the requirements.
Giving a general tour.
My library is fairly small, but there are different sections, and each library is laid out just a little different, and it's good to give a general tour of the library, highlighting how it's organized, and also finding out what areas are of interest to them, and where they could easily find them.
Another part that I realize I did not grow up in the area that I am working in.
But people would come asking for books or maps, resources of local interest.
So we've started on working on a book list and we have an area, a location in the library  pertaining to that.
So it might be a good idea to have a book list, or have that area and highlighting that so when they come back, and they want to learn more about the area, the history of the area, that they know right where to  go.
Also pointing out community bulletin board, flyers, and as always, to make sure to welcome them to any upcoming library programs, community events, and asking appropriate questions, and answering their questions.
Finding out what interests them.
What they're looking for.
And the last part is finally thinking beyond the library walls.
It might be handy to have a welcome packet ready to hand to new residents in town.
Now, we aren't wanting to really take the place of a visitors center or chamber, but it's nice to have basic information handy.
So I, like Susan, I used to live outside of this area, I had an hour commute, and I recently moved to my library's community.
And some of the things I had to find out and figure out was where exactly was my voting location, and the garbage  options.
I didn't know what was available for garbage pickup.
And also what do people do for T.V. or internet?
What was the possibilities?
I know what at the library what we have, but in different locations, it's a little different.
So just thinking of those things as what would be helpful as someone coming new to the community, and being that welcome face to the community.
So thanks for listening.
And now back to Jerianne.
>> Jerianne Davis: Hello.
The next tool that I created was about creating and preserving your community's story.
The community that I live in is pretty unique, as all of our ancestors came from Switzerland and built our little village in 1867.
Most of us living here are direct descendants of the original settlers, I am fourth and fifth generation from Switzerland, and we worked  tirelessly throughout the year to continue our heritage and culture.
There's a -- we have -- out of the whole group of us that  worked together on this project, I have the smallest population, of about 59.
But we all work together to  really remember our heritage and our culture, so we do things all year to kind of promote that.
Even if our teenagers are grumbling about it.
I truly believe, and it showed a lot during the research that the sense of belonging that is so important creates unity within your community.
And it's so valuable and should not be lost, and so it is a great idea for possibly the library staff or the director to kind of spearhead a project about preserving your town's unique history or ethnicity, or culture.
When you go to the tool, it will take you through a series of questions, where you can find out whether your community would be open to establishing a cultural or heritage-type project, and it also gives you great ideas on how to kind of start this project as library director or staff, like I said, one step that we first took, and this is really back in the  '60s, the buildings were  starting to deteriorate,  people -- at least in our area the industries that were here, the forestry or coal mining were kind of going out and farming, so people were leaving the area and going to other areas to get jobs.
They kind of -- they had a meeting with the area residents and started asking people for pictures and stories, and they started getting oral histories from some of the older residents of the community.
And it's actually my favorite thing, I always go back and read the kind of little interviews they did with those people that have been long gone and they had a completely different life than what we did.
If you were looking to start a project like this now, in COVID times, you could do a Zoom meeting or a faibs r Facebook  Live or something to that  nature, and just invite area residents and see who would be interested in starting this.
And they could start sending -- a lot of it right now can be done through the internet, as far as sending the pictures and stories and such.
You can also in your library dedicate a wall or an area of historical photographs, or family trees, or stories or whatever, just even pique the interest, and that could also start the conversation of, hey, maybe we should really try to preserve something so that the generations to come have a  really neat resource as far as who and where they came from.
There are so many good ideas for all ages, and for the library director to help start moving this project along, and I think especially after the year that we've had that people are just craving connection, and this is really a great way to start by just getting this little project going in your community.
Here at our library, we have an entire archives room, and that's where we have the equipment for people to -- we have computers, and the equipment to scan documents.
We have lots of documents, and photographs displayed.
We do have a cultural type fair, and I'm using air quotes, every year, and we do like family floats from the original families, and we do have our archives room open that day, so anyone has any questions, we have our ancestry accounts up and running for everyone to look at.
We also have a little museum, which was my great, great grandfather's first house when he came from Switzerland, so we have a lot of the original settlers' things, and my mom just brought stuff yesterday to donate that was our great, great grandmother's to put in there.
People are always bringing  stuff, or I'll get stuff sent to 3 all over that end up all over the country or the world.
And then also when we -- when you first come in we just have a little section about  Switzerland, about our little town here, Swiss surnames, pictures or any photographs, magazines that our little town has been in.
And we have visitors from basically all over the country, because we have a really pretty famous Swiss restaurant here, and that is the first part they go to when they visit from out of town, they love to look up to see if their name is in those books, and they love all the history.
I encourage you if you don't have something like this, just talk to area residents, just see what they would be interested -- it's generally the older people that are more interested and involved to begin with.
But in the tool, I do have, we do have different ideas for adults, for children, and for you as the library.
What you can do to kind of ignite a little interest, and kind of project to get really get it started.
The little kids especially love this kind of stuff, which is surprising.
They -- I'm also the school librarian here, and we have the smallest school in the state, and so -- and we're related to everybody.
But anyways, when I went there, one of my grandmothers, my English grandmothers, we're related to the people that came from the Mayflower, and so I read a book, and it was about my 14th and 15th great grandparents, and those kids, just having a personal connection to that, they absolutely loved it.
And they sat there and listened to the whole book, and you can do crafts with them that's related to your local history, and culture and ethnicity, you can put out books, offer -- you can get grants for ancestry.com to be free on computers.
One of our biggest resources is we started a Facebook page called I Grew Up, and it says the area that we're in,  Helvetia, and people from all over the world put pictures and stories up, and it's amazing.
So it's really eye-opening, people really do love it, especially right now, because everybody is stuck in their houses.
So it brings people together and what better place and person to do it than your library staff.
And the library.
So I encourage you to go check that out, and see if it would be something good in your area, and your community, and if they would really be interested in doing it.
So I appreciate your time and attention to my little story about preserving your little town or your community, and I will now hand it back to Margo.
>> Margo Gustina: Jerianne, thank you.
Thanks, everybody, for giving this, like, quick tour of the tools.
There have been a lot of really good questions in the chat, I know we only have about eight minutes, but I wanted to ask you a couple of them before we  closed out.
I am going to go to our final slide so it's up there, and we can talk from there.
So Emilie, one question is  really easy to answer for you.
Which was what book did you use for the story walk?
But then I -- I also wanted to ask you go ahead and slide in from there into how COVID has changed your view of service.
>> Emilie Braunel: I did reply I think on the book I used, Fox Versus Winter, I think it couldn't have been a more perfect book for what I used.
And it was really hard, I'm now picking out a second book.
Aye been finding early readers are great story walk books, because then some children can read to their younger siblings, or they feel confident witness, and it usually has a fast-moving story.
That keeps them engaged and  wanting to find the next page along the route.
And then how has the pandemic changed the services.
So for the -- my second tool with the community welcome center, that's a little challenging right now.
We do get calls on the phone, and we just really try to be as helpful as can be, and answering any questions and trying to go above and beyond.
But also taking the time to work on those resources.
So already when our doors are open, but with the nature part, the pandemic really made me kind of go, whoa, this is a big deal.
We've got to make sure we're out in the community, and that people know about us that, that we're still here, that we can provide needed services for  them.
So I hope that answers the question.
>> Margo Gustina: It totally does, thank you.
I'm going to ask the -- a similar question of Jerianne and if we have time, Susan, because it came up just a ton.
So many of the tools are based in gathering.
Like, one of our primary  findings is the necessity of feelings of belonging, building networks where people support one another, so that they feel that they have power over their own lives, or what we're calling self-determination.
But that can be really tricky in this current COVID era, so  Susan, do you have -- how are you reaching your community right now, even though they can't come into the library?
>> Susan Green: Thanks for having that question.
I'm doing curbside service, so we have a lot of advertising, you could call it, on Instagram, Facebook, front porch forum, it's a place where people can list things they are doing, that they own, that they want to  sell, programs.
So what we're doing is we're having a big outside celebration by building snow -- having families build snow sculptures about 30 feet apart, so it's COVID safe, and then we'll have an all-day visitation of the different sculptures, and we're going to rent -- not rent out, loan out showshoes if they don't already have them, so that's a community building event we're doing outside.
For the most part, everything is outside.
So I meet people outside with their books, and they return their items, and that's how we're functioning now.
And with a lot of work on the internet and social networking, and our websites, much more developed now.
And I have -- I do all of the  in-house stuff, and I have a person who is dedicated to all of what I call the outside  stuff, outside work.
So she's making packets,  take-home craft bags, so we also do that.
Our story time now is a bag of books and a craft in with the bag, so people can pick up the bag and bring it home and do what we would have done in a story time in a play group at home.
So we're trying our hardest, we have like 12 new maker space  boxes people can borrow, but that's about what we're doing.
We can't really do much more than that because our building is locked up.
>> Margo Gustina: Thank you.
Do we have any other -- I've been looking at the chat and I think -- well, I'm going to -- we have only two minutes, I'm going to say this.
Here's our project website.
These posts slashes are what you can add to the end to get to either subscribing for notifications, the tool kits, or other project resources.
Our contact information is right here, you're welcome to contact me, please do.
And I'm going to take the last two minutes to talk about something that happened in chat around land acknowledgement  and histories and preservation.
Just very briefly, I am no expert and I'm just going to share that from the perspective of this project, each location has a history that's pretty deep and pretty complex.
Our preservation tool is  intended to ask you to investigate all of that.
When you hear a particular history from individuals within your community or your colleague group, we invite you to approach that history with curiosity because we are interested in finding ways that we pull one another into conversation about what the future may look like.
And engage in a productive presence.
So when we talk about shared identity, it's not a racially shared identity, it is in full view of the racial differences that exist within our  communities, as well as the ethnic and linguistic  differences that happen within our communities.
And we strive to see every  single person.
Not as a tool for some abstract goal, but as an individual with a personal story that's in a place who has value.
And that that value can be experienced best when we're curious about them, and when we engage them in conversation and when we invite them to contribute to our places.
So I hope that you'll engage with these tools from that same place of curiosity, and please get in touch if you have any questions or want to talk about any of these concepts or ideas further.
Thank you.
>> Jennifer P.: Thank you so much, Margo, and all of you that have done this amazing tool kit work, this project is  fascinating, and there's plenty to unpack and use, so, yes, please return and investigate as often as possible.
I will send you all an email later today once the recording is posted, and I'll send you a certificate for attending today later on next week.
And I'm going to send you to a short survey as you leave, if you have time now to take that to provide feedback to our presenters, and to help guide our programming, that would be great.
It will also be linked in the email that I sent you.
Thank you all so much, again, and thanks for our captioner, and our tech support.
Everyone have a fantastic weekend.
Stay safe, stay warm, and we'll see you at our next event.
Thank you.