And we'll go ahead and get started with today's session. As you know, we're hearing about increased reports of book challenges across the country. Predominantly to books in school libraries, but increasingly also in public libraries. As you consider how to prepare for similar challenges, we wanted this webinar to serve as an opportunity to hear from a variety of presenters who have dealt or are dealing with challenges, and to learn more about how to proactively prepare. We want to acknowledge that this is a critical topic. And it's closely tied not only with our professional responsibility, but with our personal feelings. So this topic is drawing a significant amount of attention to our field. And our goal today is to continue to contribute to the conversation. And this includes the questions, comments, and responses you bring to chat. So, we also know that this is an evolving issue. We're all in this to learn and move forward together. So, I'm thrilled to introduce our presenters for today, who come with experience in this area. Please welcome Amanda Vazquez, who comes as the Library Director, Dubuque County Library District in Iowa. Jennifer Pearson, long-time WebJunction collaborator, is the Director, Marshall County Memorial Library in Tennessee. Brianna Hoffman, who is a colleague here at WebJunction also serves as the Executive Director of the Washington Library Association. And Amber McLain is the Digital Services Specialist, Lakeland Library Cooperative. Previously the Director at the Patmost Library. I'm going to have Amanda get us started. We'll work through that order. Amanda, thank you so much for being here. >> AMANDA VAZQUEZ: Thank you for having me. So, as was said earlier, I'm the Director of the Dubuque County library district. I've been on the executive board of the intellectual freedom round table and will be starting a term as the chair-elect for that organization as well. And today I'm going to be talking a bit about Iowa library landscapes specifically. Although I'm sure it looks a lot like the landscape of your own states. And some kind of tips and tricks that I like to share with libraries as I'm helping to support them through their own challenges. So, in the state of Iowa in 2021, we did receive primarily school library challenges. It was an 80/20 school to public library ratio. Each response is for an individual title that was challenged. We also generally saw some kind of on their own challenges in public libraries. But we did see a number that were a reaction to or went kind of hand in hand with some kind of controversy at a school library. We also ran into some nontraditional challenges that I listed here below. They're a bit of an interesting little brain puzzle. We're still used to hearing about pretty standard challenges where someone is unhappy about the inclusion of a title. But we had at least three where, you know, for the complainant disagreed with the inclusion of some materials. So they checked them out and refused to return them. Or a donation was declined. And that was the decision that was actually challenged. And we also kind of saw a flood of challenges in a couple of instances. In one day, I had about 14 form responses come through from the school. Each for different titles. And another library reported having 17 different challenges to the same title, all submitted at the same time. So, the types of challenges that we're receiving generally is what I would consider standard challenges. But we are seeing some nontraditional challenges as well. We've seen some challenges, not necessarily in the traditional material challenge field. But just challenges to the way that library boards kind of exist and function in the state of Iowa. There was legislation proposed at our state level that would have allowed city councils to overrule decisions by the library board, including the inclusion or placement of particular materials. That did not pass. But it's something that we were definitely watching closely. There's also at least one community in Iowa where there is a sort of grassroots effort to change the structure of the library board from governing to advisory. Because some community members disagree with how the library board is functioning. So, kind of be aware of what your city code has to say, what your state code has to say. And be watching the potential legislation or things coming across your city council desks. Here are some additional legislation that was proposed in Iowa. Like I said, I'm sure a lot of this similar legislation is coming through on your states. I'm not going to read this slide. What I will suggest is that if you are a member or even not a member of your state library association, they are likely to have lobbyists who are working at the capital in your state. And trying to advance your libraries or profession's interest. They probably have a bill tracker you can view. I know that Iowa does. And it just helps us keep a close eye on what's going on. What the conversations are. And when we might be needing to communicate with our personal emails, not our work emails. But our personal emails. Or kind of try to get our board members involved and communicating with our legislators on important issues. So my disclaimer here is one that I use a lot. I am not a lawyer. I am a librarian. Like we don't give our patrons legal advice, I am not giving you legal advice. You should consult with your own legal resources. I know that I -- actually, just earlier in the last couple of days, described myself as my state law librarian's problem child. I'm bringing all kinds of interesting questions to her. And asking her for things that generally don't exist in a way to kind of support arguments I'm making. And various issues on things. Not just freedom intellectual issues. You can contact your state law librarian if you have one. You can utilize your public information board. I've had questions for them as it relates to what's acceptable for board meetings. Here in Iowa, we have regional consultants. I'm sure each of you have your own state library with your own structure. And someone who is kind of assigned to you to help you give background information and assist with research. I already mentioned the state law librarian. Your city and county attorneys are generally very helpful. I also recommend that you have contacts with outside counsel. Outside your city or county attorney. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later. Sorry. Next slide. So, I am very legally minded. I have an attorney in my family. I am fascinated by the law. And I am a big proponent of limiting your legal liability. So some of the ways that you can do this are sort of described here. Weushed all have strong policies. And your state library scnlts and other librarians should be good resources as you're developing your policies. The ALA Library Privacy Checklists. I did a whole conference session on these and what great resources they are for us as we look around our libraries and try to limit our legal liability. What also is important is making sure that your board is well educated. So, your board members can participate in training. You know, from WebJunction, or your state library association. Make sure they understand why we have policies written the way we do. And what the legal basis is for those. So they understand not just, well, this is our policy. But there are actually laws that govern this kind of thing. Also make sure your library workers know what their roles are. Especially during a challenge. They should know -- one, they should know your policy. They should know who to direct questions to. They should know who your spokesperson is. If someone calls asking for comment, they know whether to direct that person to your board president, your library director or, you know, maybe a department, head of the Department of -- that has responsibility for acquisitions of that material. Whatever your policy or procedure is, make sure your staff know what that is. Another thing that we've seen in Iowa is -- and I'm sure this is not just an Iowa thing. But we've seen school library policies that have their reconsideration committees include folks who are in the library field but outside of the organization. So, that's the case in my library's policy as well. It doesn't say it has to be a staff member. And we kind of explicitly -- or intentionally leave that out. So we can call on someone outside of the organization to serve in that role. So, you could be aware of what your school library policies are around you or other public libraries around you. Consider making that change to your policy. But know you might be called upon, or your staff members might be called upon to function on a reconsideration committee as well. As far as limiting your legal liability, it's really great to have a policy that you really have to follow it. And you have to follow it evenly for everyone. Our state law librarian gives great information out on our Listserv. And every once in a while there's a request from someone. Can I do this thing that a parent asked me to do for specifically their child? And the answer is unless you're going to do it for everyone, which you couldn't possibly do, you can't do it for everyone. And even if you are a one-person library, you cannot guarantee that on a day that you're sick and you have a trustee sub or your storytime person is doing checkouts for ten minutes while you take a bathroom break, you cannot guarantee that exceptions to the standard rules will be always, 100% of the time, upheld. So, if you enter into an agreement and then fail to adhere to that agreement, you're opening yourself up to liability. Whether it's justified or not. Once you start treating one person differently and making exceptions, it gets really messy. It gets complicated legally. So, your board also needs to understand the powers that they have and the limits of their powers. One thing I try to share with people, as I am working to support library workers through their challenges is that challenges are an acceptable way for our community to communicate their concerns. If it wasn't acceptable, we wouldn't have codified it in our policies. And we wouldn't have a way for this conversation, really, between or among board and the staff and the community member to occur. I try to share that as a way from immediate panic for receiving a request for reconsideration or material challenge. They should also understand what the point of the challenge is. So I got involved in intellectual freedom work after going through some material challenges in my previous library. And the day before we had a board meeting that had a challenge on the agenda. We ended up having over 100 attendees. In highway town of 6,000 people, where we usually have zero attendees, that was a big deal. I met with a brand new board member. They were appointed the day before the meeting. I met with them and talked about how the decision that had to be made is whether the library staff followed the policy when they acquired the material. And whether the treatment of that material after it was acquired also adhered to policy. It can be difficult, I know, sometimes to communicate with people who think they have one sort of power. And they really have a different sort of power. But making sure everyone is very clear on what their roles are is really important. In terms of limiting public comment, this is something I've heard from a couple of libraries. They have questions of how to limit public comment. Go back to your public information board. You can likely set rules for public comment at any individual meeting. Even if it's not a public comment policy you have published on your agenda. You can limit based on total time, total number of speakers, individual speaker's time, certain number on each side of an argument. Or you can also, generally -- double-check this. Every state is different. You could probably also limit it to only members who live in your service area as another way to limit your public comment time. Okay. My last little bit, remember I said I was going to talk more about the city and council attorney relationship. So, you might have an organizational chart that looks like the one that I have up here on the screen. This is from my neighbor to the east, the city of Dubuque. You can probably city the city attorney works for the city council. Your library is probably slight kind of on a dotted line the way that the library is in this organizational chart. But if there's some sort of controversy and you especially find yourself kind of opposite the table of city council members or another city department, maybe like the police department, it would be wise to have contacts with another attorney, who might not have conflicting instructions or conflicting interests in the outcome. Or even just having to look at both sides of the issue. So, the slide says retain outside counsel. That could be as simple as get a quote from them to do a one-hour policy review for you. And suddenly, you are their client. You don't need to, like, keep paying to keep them on retainer. But you should have at least a business card or a contact for someone that you can call on if you need it. So, good resources for finding someone would be your state bar association, the ACLU in your state and other attorneys. It could even be just looking to someone who is a city attorney elsewhere in the state who might be able to assist you. That is my final little bit of advice for you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. And I would be happy to answer your questions and see how I can help. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: Thank you so much, Amanda. We're going to move through presenters. I encourage you to keep putting your questions in chat. If you have questions that come to mind, go ahead and post them there. I'm going to pass it over to Jennifer Pearson next. >> JENNIFER PEARSON: Thank you. I'm trying to share my video but I'm not able to. That's okay. We'll move ahead without looking at me. I'm talking about being proactive instead of reactive with book banning in your community. Yeah, it's a sports analogy. For all of you who are into sports. But I promise you'll get it even if you are not. I'm going to start with saying that we, as librarians, are generally used to sort of being winners in the community. If you look at communities and community surveys, we're usually listed as some of the most trusted folks in the community. We have a good reputation as being fair and honest. And we're generally well respected. What we're facing right now is some challenges to those opinions of librarians at both the local level and state level in many states. So, I'm going to ask you guys to get a little interactive now with your chat. And tell us whether you have seen, at the state level at this point, challenges to intellectual freedom, book banning. Tell me what state you're from. And tell me if you have. And tell me if it was the school libraries, public libraries, and whether or not it was successful. While you're doing that, I'm going to tell you what's happening here in Tennessee. We have what they call a supermajority in the general assembly here in Tennessee. Which happens to be a republican supermajority. I don't think a supermajority is good on either side. I'll just say that. Because it means that there's not a lot of debate. So, our general assembly this year has challenged school libraries in the way that school libraries do their reconsideration of materials in their school libraries. What they have said is that there is nothing that is statewide that is a reconsideration policy for school libraries. That is true. And that is because in Tennessee, we don't have an entity that is over every school library. With public libraries, the state library is over the public libraries. We don't have anything like that for the school libraries in Tennessee. We've been trying to get one for many years now. But the state legislature doesn't want to fund that. So, what's happened here is we have the state legislature passed a bill in this last session, which has just ended. To change the way that local school libraries are able to work autonomously with reconsideration of materials. And this applies to both books and databases. And so there is some tie-in to public libraries here. Because most of us rural libraries, who don't have a lot of money for databases depend on what we call the Tennessee electronic library, which also services school libraries. So in the case of databases, if a database is challenged and the challenge is upheld, the database itself -- obviously, you cannot remove one article -- is removed from the Tennessee electronic library. So, that will affect us. Basically what they've done is they've taken most of the control away from the local folks. And they've given it to a committee of people at the state level. This committee of folks are able to take a challenged book from the local level and determine whether or not they would like to remove the book or, like I said, the database, from this school library. If they determine that they would like to remove it from the school library where the challenge was, it will be removed from every school library in the state of Tennessee. Every public school library in the state of Tennessee. So, that's where we're at here in Tennessee. So, with that said, we're going to talk a little bit about being proactive about these things. And thanks to everybody for your answers. It's very interesting to see -- oh, yeah, I saw the Barnes & Noble thing. That's crazy. The best deference is a good offense. And you know that Eli manning is the best quarterback ever to play ball. Because he comes from the great Manning family, who all played for Ole Miss except for that Peyton. Guess where I went to school. So here, we're talking about being proactive. About not waiting until -- you're faced with a challenge personally at your library. What do you do so you're not playing defense when this happens? Offense has the ball. Defense defends the ball. So some of these things will be similar to what Amanda said. But with a little different slant to them. What you need to do is ensure that every one who is involved with your library, with this team, understands the game plan when this happens. So, your assistant coaches here are your staff. The management is your board. And your game plan is your collection development policy. Right? You must have a really good collection development policy in place. Because this is your main defense when it comes to a book challenge. Make sure, if you don't already, that you update this. That you're updating that policy every -- you're looking at it every two to three years to make sure it's still current. To make sure you're following it. And to make any changes. Because you're not aware. You haven't looked at your collection development policy in a few years. You realize it's not up-to-date and it's not going to help you. All right. So, another thing you want to do to be proactive -- so you're doing this outside of any sort of challenge. You want to bring in your fans. So, your fans are your patrons, friends of the library, community members. Anyone who you know in your community has a positive feeling about the library. And you want to use what we call in the business advocacy. Advocacy is so important. You should be doing it all the time. It's what will get you a long way. What I mean by this is when you talk about public libraries, you talk about them being for everyone. So, a public library is for everyone. Not everyone likes the same thing. Not everyone needs the same thing. Not everyone wants the same thing. You know the old saying. A good public library has something to offend everyone. I can tell you personally in my public library, most of my community has views that are not necessarily the same as mine. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to collect materials that reflect what the people in my community are interested in. Also, you need to talk to the people who are library advocates about how public libraries are a little bit different from school libraries. In that school libraries, there's a lot more burden placed on a school library to collect age-appropriate materials for their students. Which makes sense. So, in a public library, we don't have that same sort of -- we don't have that challenge. We collect for everyone, of every age. And so another thing, it's important for folks who are library advocates to understand that in a public library, it is the parents' responsibility to decide what is right and wrong for their own child. So, every year, we have the sixth grade from our middle elementary school come to the library. Every single sixth grader. And we try to ensure that they all have library cards before they get here. So they can all check something out while we're here -- while they're here. What I say to every group of them before they start is that I want them to take whatever they check out and show it to the adult in their home. Because I'm not going to tell them what they can and can't read. Because I'm not their parent. And I don't know what their parent thinks is appropriate and what isn't. So, that's about all I can do. If they're here without parents, I can tell them to please do that and make sure it's okay with their parents. So, these are the things that you just need to advocate on. Advocate with your fans. With your friends. Because they just need to know. Because they're the people out in the community who are talking about the library. Who, hopefully, are talking to your stakeholders and your funders about why the library is important and what the left-hands does. You want them to be armed with your elevator speech about the library. So, what do you do when it happens? And this is simplified. This is what I do. And this is what works. in Tennessee. I will give the same disclaimer. I'm not an attorney. What works in my state may not work in your state. Talk to your state library. Talk to resources there. This is very simple. So, what do you do when someone comes in and wants to challenge something? First, everyone needs to know what their role is in this process. In my case, at my library, my staff have been directed to hand someone a reconsideration form. That's it. When someone comes in and asks you for one, you hand it to them. The form tells you exactly how to fill it out and what happens next. And I've told my staff that if anyone wants to talk about this that they have to direct them to me. That they're not to answer any questions. First of all, it's not their job. They're not making enough money to do this. They're all at different levels of understanding at what go approximates on at the library. Because they're new or they don't have the same education. So, it's just not a burden that I'm going to place on those folks. What happens here is that if something is challenged in a public board meeting -- the person comes in and talks about why they want to challenge the material. And in our case, our board makes the decision. Not me. Our board. Like I said, these are open, public meetings. These folks are -- you know, they are able to bring other folks that support them. Third able to, you know, speak their mind. And they have. We don't give them any sort of timeframe on how long they can do it. And then the board will speak back to them. And they will make a decision whether or not they think the challenge is appropriate and we should remove the material. I will say that we haven't had this issue lately. But we did have an issue with this several years ago. It's been probably ten years ago now. Because it was before I was the library director. But what happened here was we had a community member to challenge all of the foreign language books in the public library. And his reasoning was that if he couldn't understand what was in the books, they shouldn't be in the library. So, basically, if they weren't English-language books, he wanted them out of the library. All of them. No matter what language they were. You may have seen this. It made CNN. Marshall County Memorial Library made CNN. It was an interesting time here. Eventually the challenge was rejected by our board. We have had a good community response to this in terms of folks were on the side of the library and advocated for the library not to do this. So, we still have foreign language books here. And I think you guys probably have seen this, too. When you have a book challenge -- when you have a book challenge -- here in Tennessee, the book "Mouse" was removed from the shelves in a county in east Tennessee. And since then, I have had ten donations of that book because of the challenge and because of the sort of outrage by folks that the library would not have this book on the shelf. If we have one "Maus" book go missing, we have seven in the back room to replace it. We have had a couple of folks take out books and not bring them back. I just have my eye on certain books. Because they were the books that were brought up in the hearing at the general assembly this year that they took out of context. But there were a couple of books there. And sure enough, they're not being returned. But sure enough we're getting another copy of them. If you want to challenge something, you need to actually challenge something here. How do you win these things? The first thing to do and remember is don't have a knee-jerk reaction. This is an emotional issue. I know when people talk to me about this, it makes me crazy. But in my job, it's not my job to have an emotional reaction to somebody who comes in and wants to challenge something we have. It is their right. It is their community. It is their library. Don't confront them or try to explain, talk them out of it on the spot. Explain what the process is. Explain how to fill out the form. Our form says, have you read the book? What do you disagree with in the book? And would you suggest an alternative source material to this? Because if they have a good idea and it's the same, then we will consider it. But the main thing is that they understand the process. They understand they will be heard. And that we take this seriously. Because, you know, it is important. It is important that people have their voice heard. Even if you don't agree. So, you want to make sure that you're logical, and that you're reasonable, and that your personal ideas or thoughts aren't a part of this. You've got to take yourself out of it. And that's -- for me, that's really hard to do. So, your hail Mary, you know, that pass that you throw at the end of the game when there's no time left. And you just hope that it hits it. Doug Flutie in the Hail Mary pass when he threw it to his roommate, and they won the game. I used to have a Doug Flutie sweatshirt. He was so cute. Okay, no one loves sports, do they? The Hail Mary is just -- if you think this is going to turn into a hot issue, if you think you're going to have a board room stacked with folks in support of banning this material, you need to ensure that your board meeting is stacked with those fans, those supporters that want the library to be inclusive. To have these sorts of materials in them. So that you -- sorry. I lost my train of thought. So that you -- so that these folks can see that there is support on both sides. Because it's not good for your team to have a disadvantage to the other team. You want equal teams, right? You want to do the best you can to ensure that your team has the resources it needs to win in the end. If it is, in fact, the right thing to do. So, that is what I have to say. I am sorry if my sports analogy did not win the day for all of you. And, you know, maybe I didn't connect the two too well. I'll have to think about that. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: You got some support in the chat. >> JENNIFER PEARSON: Thanks, JP. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: Thank you. And let's go to our next presenter. Brianna Hoffman. >> BRIANNA HOFFMAN: I'm going to switch gears. I'm coming to you from the role of your association, your professional associations. I'm hoping to tell you a little bit about how those professional associations and other potential partnerships might help you and benefit you in this fight. So, what I've done with this, we've kind of broken it down into three buckets essentially. We're going to start big and get small. We're going to start national. And we're going to talk about the American Library Association, ALA. Then we'll get smaller, a bit more local with your state library associations and other organizations. And last, I want to talk about some potential partnerships that you might consider reaching out to, to help you out. At the end, if I have time, I'm going to talk a little bit about boards as well. Because we've talked about boards already and how important they are. And your associations can be part of that as well. So, when you're thinking national, I immediately think ALA. ALA is a big organization. I know that. You know that. And it can be really overwhelming. But I do want to point out a few things about ALA when it comes to book challenges and censorship and intellectual freedom. Since 1990, ALA's office of intellectual freedom has maintained a database of all challenges. So, it's really important to report those challenges. But why? Reporting censorship and challenges that you're facing is really vital to develop the best resources to defend those resources, and protect against challenges before they happen. So, that information that's gathered from the reports helps the office of intellectual freedom, developments in the profession. And also provide library workers with the tools, resources, and programs to help them fight those challenges. When ALA knows more about these challenges -- what's being challenged, as well as where and why they're happening, we can use that data all together to draw the national attention to the harms of censorship and highlight the value of free and open access, and the freedom to read. So, to know what's being challenged, it has to be reported. ALA also provides resources on how to respond. Resources for your trustees. Toolkits. All kinds of things. The recent campaign, the Unite Against Book Bans has some great material. ALA is a national organization. Some of their resources might not work with you out of the gate at your local level. But I would still encourage you to look through them and see what you can use, what you can adapt, and what would be useful for your communities. Of course, include your own stories, your own data. That's what gives you the Maxim packet there. I did want to bring attention to that Merritt Fund, which I wasn't aware of until this year. That's out there for possible for denied employment rights for library workers because of the defense of intellectual freedom. If you're threatened with a loss of employment or fired because of your stand, I would encourage you to reach out and look at that Merritt Fund. Full disclosure, I don't know how that application process works. But I at least wanted to bring your attention to it. I know it's not on this slide. But I know we have a lot of small, rural folks here. If you're not familiar with ARSL, the association for rural and small libraries, that's also a national organization and a great one to be looking into. ASRL's Listserv is super great. It's a very -- just active. So much help on that Listserv. If you were having issues, it's great to reach out there to see what other small, rural library folks are facing. So, once you've kind of looked at the national level and you're a bit overwhelmed, I want to move down to this local state association level. That's where I essentially sit as the local director of ALA. ALA has a great database and directory for all state associations, which includes all the contacts for their board. If they have an executive director/manager, it has those contacts as well. So, really, state associations, most of them are likely going to have some sort of intellectual freedom committee, group, division, section. I feel like we all call them something different. But they're all doing the same thing. Amanda mentioned that she was part of the Iowa Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee. That's an example there. Even though we're all calling it something different, we're focusing on the same thing, which is intellectual freedom in your state. When you go local and go to your state association, the difference between that and something like ALA is going to be -- it's going to be smaller, geared more toward the nuances and political climate of your state. Several states have their own intellectual freedom toolkits they've developed. If you're not finding what you're looking for from ALA or it's too overwhelming, I would encourage you to check your state association. Not every association will have a toolkit, I'll say that right now. There are some really good ones out there that you can look to. I want to shout out my neighbors to the south, the Oregon Library Association. Their intellectual freedom toolkit is very good. The Oklahoma Library Association has one. The Texas Library Association. Texas has just launched their Texans for the right to read initiative. Which is also something I would encourage you to look into. Our own association, we have an intellectual freedom section with folks that are doing good work. But also that are connecting -- can connect you to other people doing that work. That, to me, is kind of the beauty of a state association. It's your state network. It's connection. And I really encourage you, if you're not a member of your state association, to seek them out and to use that network to your advantage. Especially in this -- in these challenges. Beyond associations, there are other folks that can -- that really have a stake in this fight. And have -- you know, they really kind of have skin in the game, I guess you could say. We already talked a little bit about your state lobby -- state library association lobbyists. I cannot stress how important it is to get to know your state association's lobbyist if you have one. They're a great resource when it comes to alerting folks to bills in the legislature. Like we already talked about the bill tracker that a lot of states have. And they are really your voice and your consultant on how to respond to those as an association. The state library, we talked a bit about that as well. If you have a state library or even a state regional consortium, something like RAILS comes to mind, reaching across library systems. See what they have to offer. Many have consultants that could be available to review policies, give you advice or any kind of consultation on those. Your state and local government offices, this one is a little tricky. But I wanted to say remember the state library association lobbist that we talked about? That's where this person comes in super handy. Your association's lobbyist is on the ground. They're usually at the capital and they know everybody. That's what really makes them a great lobbyist. They hear things. They see things. They know who the representatives are that are sympathetic to the issue or that, you know, you could kind of get on your side, so to speak. Getting familiar with the offices in your state government is also super important. Your state government likely has an office of education or something like that. They're paying attention, too. So, if you're working with your association, maybe the folks that are on the board or your executive director, they're already talking to those people. So, getting familiar with who's there. Last on this kind of outside-the-box situation, I want to mention every library. If you're not familiar with Every Library, they are a national political action committee for libraries. They mostly do work on things related to funding, like bonds and building voter support. But here's the thing. According to ALA's Unit Against Book Bans, 71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries. Every library knows this, too. If you want to talk about connections, every library has them. And they also do pro bon, wo work. I would recommend reaching out to see what they're doing. Thinking outside the box further, we talked about a few of these things. I want to reiterate it. City councils. It might be harder to do. Getting to know who is on your city council and where they stand. Depending, I know that Jennifer, you talked about the possibility of the city council essentially being the one that decides. And not your library board that possibility. I imagine that Tennessee is not the only state that's facing that. So, getting to know who is on that council is huge. Your school superintendent's and administration. I stuck this on here. Even though I know we're focusing on public libraries today. Even so, getting to know your school superintendents and the administration of the schools in your area is still a good idea. Getting to know the school le librarians. School librarians is probably a whole other webinar, I'm sure. Getting to know them is important. I hate to say it, but knowing what's being challenged in the schools close to you may help you prepare for what comes to your public library next. If it's in the school, it's probably coming for you. Community members. I know I'm talking to library people here. So you already know how important it is to know your community. It is crucial. I know you know already, but I'm going to say it again. Know your community. That really connects back to your policies. Your collection development policies are made with your communities in mind. So, what about boards? I think that as library professionals, we can and should have more ownership over our boards, when it comes to our library boards. I think there's a view out there that we can't recruit or suggest people for our boards. And you can absolutely talk to people about the opportunity to serve on your boards. Starting early in that recruitment process is a good idea. Amanda talked about the importance of board education. So, being able to answer questions for people that might be interested in the board, what they're getting into. What does serving on the board mean? Like they want to -- you need to know that, like, the folks that are going to be sitting on your board, they need to know that these things are coming. And they need to be engaged and educated about it. The way that I feel about boards is this. And it's what I've been thinking a lot about this past year, with the rise in challenges. You know, we know that people love libraries. Right? Like Jennifer talked about that just a few minutes ago. And we hear it all the time. What I want is those library lovers to become your engaged patrons, if they aren't already. If they're engaged in your programming, your events, your book club. Like Jennifer said, bring the fans. Those engaged patrons, those library lovers who love the library and what it stands for, those are the folks I want to see running for boards. We need that 71% to start making noise. I wish that I had the answers on how to do that. On how to engage those people to get there. But I do hope that some of these things will have you thinking about how to do that and where to go from here, and help us move in that direction. I know I flew through that. I hope that was helpful for you. Again, my name is Brianna Hoffman, Executive Director of the Washington Library Association. Feel free to reach out to me. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: I checked in with amber. She's able to stay a little bit longer. In this case, we're going to extend the webinar a little bit. The recording will capture everything. So, if you do have to leave at the top of the hour, know you can come back, and the recording will include that. And for the rest of the presenters, hopefully, you can stick around. We could maybe address some of the questions that have come through after amber's session. I'm going to go ahead and have Amber take it over. Thank you so much for being here, and for your patience. >> AMBER McLAIN: Hi, everyone. I'm Amber McLain. I'm currently the Digital Services Specialist, Lakeland Library Cooperative. I was previously the Director at the Patmos Library. And I'll get to why I left that position in a little bit here. I'm going to be talking about the staff roles in challenges. This is all very objective. It's just some general advice based on my experience with challenges. And your library might not have all of these roles. Some roles may be merged into one. Some may be expanded but the thing that mattereds is your reconsideration Pollieses who does what. It needs to be as specific as possible. And each time you need to follow it to a tee. So, library pages and shelvers, these are people out on the floor. They are often the first person seen. If someone goes up to them with a complaint or wishes to submit a challenge, they should listen to them. Be empathetic. Give them good customer service. And, if they still want to complain, they should direct them to the appropriate place. In my experience, people who want to come in and complain want to do it for complaining sake. So being empathetic, giving them good customer service deescalates the situation in a lot of circumstances. But if they still want to submit that reconsideration form, they need to direct them to the appropriate place. And in my library, that was the circulation desk. So that brings us to library assistants or librarians. People who work at desks, circulation or reference. And, again, giving them good service. Listen empathetically. And what we did is we provided them a packet of information with the library's collection development policy. The policy for request for reconsideration, the library Bill of Rights, the freedom to read statement and the reconsideration format the back. So, they had to go through all of that stuff before they got to the reconsideration form in the hopes that they might see something that would sway them. There are always the people who aren't going to read it at all. But on the off chance that there might be someone who is swayed by all the policies and everything, we gave them that packet. And then that brings us to managers or the library director. Could be a branch manager or the collection development manager. Could be the executive director. It's escalated to this level as specified in your policy. And typically this level has a certain amount of time to respond to this challenge. And that could be via email or via a letter. Could be within 30 days, 90 days. Again, specified within your policy and followed to a T every single time. Once a patron is notified, appeals should go to the board. There should be an appeals process. So, this is where the meat of what I want to talk to you guys about is. Empathetic listening. Hearing people rather than just listening to them. Being attentive to them. Making eye contact. Focusing on them. Pay attention to their body language. And make sure your own body language isn't closed off. Ask them open-ended questions, so you're not just getting yes or no from them. Asking for clarification. And also mirroring their language. So saying things like, I'm hearing that you're blah, blah, blah. And validating. Acknowledging their feelings. This is not you saying that they're right to feel this way. Because I know acknowledging how they're feeling in that very charged and very tense situation is difficult. It's just acknowledging that they're coming to you, feeling this way in this moment. And you're dealing with it. You're not saying that you also feel this way. That they're right to feel this way. You're just accepting that it is. And you're dealing with it. And doing your best not to react. Just listening. So, again, especially in this climate, when people come to us with these challenges, they are often charged. And they are often angry and hostile. Do your best to not react initially. Which brings us to deescalation techniques. So, I am a crisis counselor with the crisis text line. Deescalation is a big thing in any tense or charged situation. First thing is pause. Allow yourself to take a step back, to take a breath. Or a step back to think. Give yourself time to respond rather than react to what is happening. Because in these tense and charged situations, our body goes into fight or flight. And reacting to emotion with emotion just heightens the situation. Do your best to keep your body language open and neutral. Arms not crossed, shoulders not hunched. And one big thing, you are allowed to ignore challenges, loaded questions, statements that are meant to rile you up. When I was dealing with challenges at Patmos, one woman said something along the lines of, you start with this book. But there's going to end up being a porn room in the back of the library. That is intended to incite you and trip you up, to make you react and make you respond in a bad way to them. You are allowed to take that pause. Take that breath. And allow yourself to respond in a measured way rather than reacting. And, again, validate their feelings and experiences. You don't have to say, you're right to feel this way. Or that, I also feel this way. Just say, this is what's happening. It's objective that they feel this way. We're dealing with it now in the moment. Biggest and hardest thing, don't take it personally. Someone is coming at you in a hostile manner. Someone comes up to the desk or comes in -- this actually happened to me. I was not at the library at the time. But in my last few weeks at Patmos, we were dealing with a lot of hostile people wanting to get all the LGBT content out of the library because it's evil. One woman came into the library filming, looking for that pedophile librarian. Me. Realize that it's not about you. It's their battle that they've picked based on their own hang-ups. And it's nothing about you. You're doing your job to the parameters set and the ethics set. It's not about you. Don't put it on your shoulders. And, finally, the toll of challenges. No matter what type of challenge it is, even if it is just a, hey, you need to take this book out because the information is way outdated. You still have to take the time and effort to go through the challenge process with that. And at the most, there is the emotional and psychological cost of it. But following these steps that we set out to prepare and set the foundation so you're not reacting to these challenges, you have this framework to work within that will protect you and your library, will lessen the cost. And I just want to say you all are so valuable. And there's no shame in taking care of yourself. I left Patmos because it was too much. I couldn't do my job there effectively anymore. You need to take care of yourselves first. Because you are the only you we have. And we need all of you in the field. That is all I have to say for you guys. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: Wow, that is such an important way to wrap this session up. The toll is real. And we know. We've seen folks commenting in chat about some of their experiences as well. So, I really and grateful that you have covered this. I am going to go ahead and spend a little bit of time on questions. It looks like a few of our presenters -- everybody was able to stick around. So, I'm going to quickly shift this over to our Q&A slide. And I wanted to start with a question around how to communicate with the organization and your stakeholders. I know that's a big piece of being proactive. And then I think the other sort of follow-up to that question was, you know, how do you balance the amount of information? And I know, Amber, since you gave us a reminder of those different roles, can you talk a little bit about how much you encourage folks to check in with their -- how do you bring this conversation if you are being proactive, how do you bring that conversation to the community, to your staff in a healthy, manageable way? >> AMBER McLAIN: I think -- I believe in being as transparent as possible with everyone. So, just as things happen, just have the conversations. There's no use in holding it back. The other thing with this is none of you are doing this alone. You are working with your staff. You are working with a board, presumably. Even if you don't have a board, you have a staff. You might have friends. You have your state library. You have your state library associations. But the way I handled it is to just talk about it as it's happening. You. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: Thank you. That's really helpful. I want to emphasize, somebody asked about the kinds of tools and training you make available to staff around both intellectual freedom and challenges. I want to encourage folks to be sure to check out the resource that collects a number of different state library examples. I encourage you if you're not in touch with your state library to be sure to check in. Your state library training staff are very interested in supporting you in this topic. I know Amanda has done work with her state in training staff on this topic. So, definitely look at, certainly, your organization, but also within your region and your state as well. On that resource list are a number of links to state association pages. Many of them are sharing the training that they're providing. And then also on that page are a number of other additional webinars that are great for that as well. I am just mindful of the time. I know people have had to drop off. I just want to reiterate a couple of things that came through chat that I love dearly. You know, having -- I think the other piece is having those talking points at the ready with whoever you're encountering. And a couple of really great examples of this. Somebody said a public library is like a grocery store. It has something for meat eaters, something for vegetarians, something for veg vegans and so no one has to buy all the things. I thought that was great. And somebody has a comment they use in conversation. I understand you have your own lifestyle and our collection represents all kinds of lifestyles of all kinds of people. >> AMBER McLAIN: That was also, along with that grocery store analogy, explaining to the challengers that would you want to remove all meat just to appease a few vegans. I thought that comment was excellent as well. >> JENNIFER PETERSON: That is really great. You can see there's lots of talking points to get in our tool belt. And certainly lots of conversations to have around this. So, I want to thank all our presenters and all of you who are gathered here today. And for the important work you're doing in your communities. And thank you to our captioner, as well. I will send you all a link -- an email later today once the recording is posted. And, again, all those great resources are available there for you to explore further. And I am also going to send you to a short survey as you leave. We would love your feedback. We'll share that with our presenters. And it also helps us guide our ongoing programming. So, excellent. Thank you, again, Amanda, Jennifer, Brianna, and Amber for being here. And sharing your great work and stories. Thank you so much.