>> JENNIFER - WebJunction
I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started and we're going to welcome our presenter for today. 

We're so thrilled to again be able to work with David Lee King, who serves as the digital services director at the Topeka and Shawnee County public library. 

Thanks so much, David, for being here. 

We're so glad to hear from you today, and welcome. 

>> DAVID:  Thank you. 

Thank you for inviting me. 

This will be fun. 

And I will just jump right in and get started because we have an hour and we have I think nine trends I'm going to try to whip through pretty fast and then we can have a short discussion and answer questions, that kind of thing. 

All right. 

So let's get started. 

Today I am going to talk about technology trends, emerging trends. 

So this really has two different sets of trends, I guess I would call them. 

Both trends and also tipping points. 

So trends would be actual cool new stuff that maybe you've seen in the news, maybe you read about once, but your library is not doing it. 

And tipping points would be stuff that we know about probably some of your libraries are doing them already, but they haven't fully caught on. 

Not everybody is doing them yet.

We'll sort of have a mix of both of those today. 

Saying "yay Zoom". 

Things have changed in the last few years. 

A lot of you guys are probably using different types of video-based tools for meetings, doing events, connecting with customers, and you might not have done that so much a few years ago. 

That's been a huge shift. 

I mean, during the height of the pandemic did a celebration with my family, we were going to church on Zoom, meeting with different small groups, we played jack box over Zoom with my kids, who all live out of state. 

Did a lot of stuff video-based that we just hadn't done before.

Huge switch for us. 

This is actually me and somebody else on my team at the library meeting with our Zoom rep over Zoom to get a better price. 

I just thought that was funny. 

Hey, I'm meeting with Zoom on Zoom. 

I like to look at recent headlines sometimes just to see what's going on. 

This one just happened a few weeks ago. 

I just actually found it sort of weird that actually just a normal pretty minor software update for Apple products made such a huge splash. 

I think somebody picked up some nasty word or something within all of the updates and said, oh, no, everybody update fast, as you should with Apple products. 

Just funny that was sort of business as usual for Apple. 

That wasn't a major scary thing, but it made headlines everywhere. 

This one I thought was funny. 

How to spot fake reviews on Amazon. 

It's not really a technology product or -- or technology problem, but it sort of is because, also, it's online. 

Just sort of weird -- weird shifts that you see. 

It's actually a really useful article too, something maybe we should be teaching our customers about, right?

This one I just thought was funny. 

Just so you know that there are still geeks in the world -- I would be one of those. 

This guy apparently owns a Tesla and implanted his car key in his hand so he could open his door with his hand. 

Just sort of holding it over there. 

I don't know. 

I'm not planning on doing that. 

But then I'm also not planning on buying a Tesla anytime soon. 

But just to know that I guess you can do that kind of stuff. 

On a more serious note, digital divide is still an ongoing, huge problem for everybody. 

At my library we are -- we participate in a communitywide digital inclusion committee, passing out computers and hot spots for lower income people. 

I think right now it's age 65 and up. 

Just to try to help meet those needs because you have to do pretty much everything these days on the Internet. 

You know, taxes, job applications, health stuff, etc., it's all moved online and not everybody can connect. 

In Shawnee County, Kansas, where I live, I think about a third of people, if I remember recent stats, they either don't have access or don't have great access to broadband Internet. 

So pretty serious thing. 

With that, we'll get started on our trends. 

So the first trend is sort of a conglomeration of a few trends. 

You'll see that going through some of these there's a lot of overlap. 

This one is just going digital. 

A lot of us were forced to go much more digital than we ever thought we might just because of COVID, because of the last few years. 

We had to, right?

Our libraries shut down for a while for the most part and we had to figure out how to do things digitally. 

One of those things would be working digitally. 

This is me actually -- my parents had a health issue, so I went down for the week and hung out with them and helped around the house and also worked from their house, you know, working from home. 

My workplace I have discovered can pretty much be from anywhere these days. 

And part of this first trend, there's a few different catch phrases that, to me, sound sort of similar. 

But I'll sort of go through them because you might have heard some of these or might want to read more about them. 

The first would be digital workplace, just that idea that you can do your job from your home, from my parents' house, from the beach if you have good Wi-Fi. 

And this is a major shift for a lot of us, especially us in libraries. 

Before the pandemic, my library would have said, we're not going to do telework or remote working and that kind of thing. 

Why would we?

You have to be at the building when you do your job. 

We quickly found out, actually, a lot of the jobs we do at the library we can do from anywhere.

Actual working at the service desk in the building, interacting with customers, you know, physically that you need somebody there. 

I think in our case also our tech services people, people who are processing our new books and that kind of thing, they have to be here in the building because that's where the books come. 

But many of us, my department certainly, we can do all of our jobs from anywhere. 

So digital workplace. 

Similar would be a phrase -- or catch Friday called "distributed work". 

It's just sort of the idea that you can do your work at home, at the office at a remote or mobile location, that kind of thing. 

It's a distributed-type thing. 

This one is really more focused on I.T. and H.R. policies just to make that distributed work work well. 

So in my library's case, when we shut down for a few months, we had to get laptops for some of our staff who had never had them before. 

We focused on managers first, got them all laptops so they could sort of keep the lights open, so to speak, from home. 

And then we have also all of our librarian and professional-level staff now have laptops -- a laptop set up so they can work in the office or work outside of the building too. 

And that's actually great for other things too besides, you know, the whole pandemic thing, many of that level of staff at our library are on committees or teaching classes outside of the building and need to do that, right?

So this way, they can take their laptop system with them. 

Another similar concept called "anywhere operations", this sort of embraces the concept that you might want start your business digitally. 

So, for example, Airbnb, you know, that's a very physical-based business because, you know, you're helping people connect with a place to stay on their vacation or something like that. 

But it all starts on somebody's phone or computer by logging into Airbnb to do things. 

And then a similar trend to that, just bouncing over one more step, a concept called "digital first". 

Basically, digital first is the idea that you start with digital and everything you do as an organization, this came from the journalism and news world. 

I saw this a good, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago. 

We used to have at our board meetings, our monthly board meetings, we'd have a reporter from our local newspaper hang out at the board meeting and take notes. 

What she would do, she would first Tweet interesting things out that she was hearing, so using Twitter for different things she heard. 

Then she would take her Twitter Tweets and sort of use them as notes for her story that she would write when she was done --

when we were done with our board meeting, she'd go back to the office, or wherever, type up her article for the newspaper based on those Tweets and that would get posted on the digital edition, the online edition of the newspaper. 

And then, you know, like most newspapers, they don't print as much as they used to, so they would take the most interesting stories from that day or week and print that up. 

So that article might or might not make the print newspaper, but it made the online newspaper. 

And that's -- the online version is really where you would go to get everything. 

So this concept can easily transfer over to a library. 

Like I'm going to mention a couple of times, because of the pandemic, I think a lot of us found out that a lot of what we do can live online, or at least start online. 

Certainly we have whole collections online, right?

Books, videos, putting things on hold, you know, that kind of stuff, whether you're picking up a physical or an electronic item, all start online asking a question, creating some library news, having a calendar of events, meetings, story times. 

They can all start online or all happen online. 

This is actually from my library's YouTube account. 

Certainly during the pandemic we were doing -- well, all of our storytimes, we were doing them online on YouTube and I think some on Facebook too. 

Most of those we have taken down because, if you remember, a lot of kid book publishers had an agreement saying, yeah, everybody shut down, go ahead and post stuff. 

Since then they have come back and said, OK, we're sort of done with that now, you can take those books down. 

So we have taken videos down. 

With storytimes, you don't have to read a whole book. 

You can do many other things. 

You can make up your own stories and songs and your craft and that kind of thing. 

You can do storytimes, events, meetings, etc., all online. 

And people attend these. 

This one, for example, had 400 -- over 400 -- well, 400 views, which if you think about that as a YouTube video, pretty small numbers, right?

Pretty small amount of views. 

But we don't -- in our building we don't have a room that can hold 400 people, so that's hugely successful storytime, if you think about it that way. 

So digital first. 

Most of what you do can and should start with your website. 

It should start in a digital format. 

Similar to that would be the whole healthcare industry. 

With digital health or telehealth, telemedicine, those phrases, all the same kind of thing. 

Basically translates to video chats with your doctor. 

I think some hospitals and healthcare facilities are using A.I. avatar-based diagnostics. 

You know, no-contact medicine delivery, that kind of stuff. 

This year 38% of people said they used some form of telehealth. 

Probably -- the stat I was seeing earlier this month said by 2025 -- so a few short years from now -- more than 43% of the United States population is expected to become a regular telehealth user. 

That's a lot of people. 

Not quite half, but still it's -- you know, it's just convenient in many cases. 

If you think about it, a lot of -- you know, some doctor visits, you need to be there interacting with the person directly. 

But some, it's really more of a, hey, this is happening, what should I do, you know, discussion going back and forth.

So it works great in many cases.

There are some libraries doing some interesting stuff in this space. 

Potsboro library in Texas, for example, they received a grant and converted a storage room I'm thinking in one of their buildings into a private telehealth space that's made just for telehealth purposes for their customers. 

That's pretty cool. 

At my library, we haven't done that, but we do have a lot of small, like, one-to-six-person meeting rooms. 

They are set up to do videoconferencing. 

We have customers using them for telehealth-type stuff. 

This is a big one. 

Seafood district library in Delaware, they are lining out Chromebooks, Wi-Fi hot spots for the purpose of telehealth meetings. 

Works great if you don't have a storage room to convert, mean rooms. 

Great way to do that, it's also getting the camera and the device in the hands of people who need to connect with their healthcare professional or provider. 

So cool ideas. 

QR codes actually sometimes work really well these days. 

You're seeing them pop up more and more anyway just because most people's phones, the camera setting automatically will pick up what the QR code is doing. 

A little more irritating if you're trying to capture that QR code for the slide. 

So during the pandemic my daughter was going to a college Mid-America Nazarene. 

She was in the choir. 

Instead of handing out the program, the choir program, they did a contactless one. 

So put a QR code on a sign instead of meeting in the auditorium or the concert hall, we met outside on the lawn. 

I thought that was a really cool idea and just showing that this is sort of another version of digital first. 

They saved a ton of money. 

They didn't have to print things out. 

They just made a QR code. 

Anybody who wants the program can get it on their own device. 

Pretty simple and handy as well.

Couple of other things that sort of stem from going digital, two services in my library started up because of the pandemic and closing for a while. 

So curbside pickup. 

Many of you guys probably have curbside pickup now as well. 

For us, it's a very physical thing. 

This was sort of our temporary setup. 

3,000 books in this little building. 

Doing it slightly different now.

But my point is, this is a very physical thing where you are picking up physical books, but it started online. 

It started at our website. 

You can say, I want to pick up books at curbside pickup and our catalog. 

Another similar-type thing. 

We created Browsing Just For You. 

This is sort of that stitch fix-type model where you say send me some books and you can, you know, pick it up at curbside pickup or we'll deliver it to your home or you can come into the building and pick it up. 

But we pick things out we think you might like and put them in a bag. 

Again, my point is this starts digitally. 

There's a form you fill out, you check it out that way. 

OK, so that was trend number 1. 

Trend number 2 is the Internet of Things. 

This is really sort of a network of physical objects or things that come loaded with electronic software sensors, network connectivity. 

Those things enables these objects to collect and exchange data to do things, that type of stuff. 

As consumers, we're already using and benefitting from different types of Internet of Things. 

For example, some of you probably have a nest thermostat or a different type of smart thermostat. 

These things are pretty cool. 

The nest one in particular, it learns how you set things up in your house and then starts adjusting the temperature, depending on if you're awake, if you're asleep, if you're in the building, or if you have left for the day to go to work. 

If you have a bunch of people in the room, it notices and adjusts the temperature accordingly. 

Pretty cool that you don't have to touch it, right?

And that's a pretty good example of the Internet of Things, especially as far as home-based stuff is concerned. 

Some of you might own smart locks or thermostats. 

You can buy a smart window shade that will cut off the sun or let it in, depending on time of day and brightness, that kind of thing. 

Garage doors. 

You can get an app to open your garage door. 

Smart outlets, etc.   Things you can control from your home and things that will pick up on what you are doing and just start adjusting accordingly. 

Leaving your home and going outside, there are things that interact with other things in nature, for example. 

So this would be a company that makes collar and leg monitoring devices for cattle. 

Monitors things like eating, digestion, pregnancy rate. 

Basically 24/7 health monitoring for your livestock. 

Pretty cool, I think. 

There's a lot of agriculture-based Internet of Things that are pretty big. 

So monitoring your livestock, monitoring crops, figuring out when they need to be watered, for example, or fertilized, that type of thing. 

Eradication of pests, etc.   So doing bigger things in a bigger area. 

Pretty interesting. 

And a lot of these Internet of Things devices have started sort of this subtrend called "the Internet of behaviors" that I just heard about a year or so ago. 

A lot of these devices are capturing data of different types and really in a way capturing your behaviors and then maybe influencing behavior.

So that sounds like a weird kind of thing, but here's examples of that. 

So your map on your phone, Google Maps, this Google Map knows where I work, where I live, when I go to either place.

It will give me the fastest route, not that I really need that, because I drive the same way every day. 

But it knows what I do and it's trying to adjust based on what I do. 

Now, I never stop at that Subway that's in the middle there. 

Sort of weird. 

Just saying your phone knows a lot about you and what you do. 

Some apps or services that you use are the same way. 

Dillon's is a local grocery store and Dillon's knows what I buy and actually makes helpful suggestions based on my past buying patterns. 

This was actually really handy when -- I'm going into the store again now, but I was doing curbside pickup quite a bit. 

I would look at that list, oh, yeah, I want to get  eggs. 

Sends me coupons or digital coupons based on what I'm purchasing. 

Sort of interesting. 

Going one further, some of you probably have this like with your car insurance. 

You can put an app on your phone or device on your car and get a better or maybe slightly worse rate on your car insurance based on your behaviors in your car, right?

So it's judging things like quick acceleration, hard braking, fast cornering, speeding, distracted driving, that kind of thing. 

If you're a safe driver, by however this app determines that, you get a discount. 

Sort of cool, sort of freaky weird, right?

Trend number 3, wearables. 

This is a type of Internet of Things device, but these are things that you wear. 

It feels a little like this to me. 

If you guys remember the old Dick Tracy comic books with two-way wrist TV. 

Apple Watch. 

Some of these things seem sort of science fiction-y still. 

The Apple Watch was released 2015 and is by far the best-selling wearable device. 

Over 100 million people -- as of a couple of years ago December 2020 owned one. 

Probably more people. 

I couldn't find a stat for that.

Might have one or a similar type of smart watch. 

They do pretty cool things. 

I would put in the same sort of category. 

So they -- the Apple Watch tells time, connects to your Apple devices. 

Also activity monitors, they do sleep pattern monitoring, heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring, they make phone calls, they listen to music, pay for things. 

You can bring up a map on your smart device -- on your smart watch, etc.   They do a lot of things besides just telling time, as in the case of that -- 

the case of Apple Watch. 

There are things you can wear on your head. 

So Google Glass is still a thing. 

They actually are doing some pretty cool things with those now. 

You can actually -- you know, with Google, their video chat service I think called Google Meet, you can use the glasses to have a meeting and see people while you're doing other things.

Other similar devices -- so Facebook joined up with Ray-ban sunglasses. 

Basically these are just a way to capture video and photos and hook it up to Facebook to share those things through your cool sunglasses. 

Not sure I would want that, but they are out there. 

Snap -- you know, the makers -- 

creators of Snapchat have glasses that work with Snapchat.

There are quite a few different types of smart glasses that do a similar-type thing now. 

But if you don't want to wear something on your head, maybe you want to wear something on your feet. 

So smart socks. 

There are also smart shirts. 

These things are mostly made for sports-oriented people. 

So they are doing step counting, your speed, calorie counting, your altitude, your cadence, like if you're a runner, your foot-landing technique, impact tracking, that kind of stuff. 

There's actually a USB drive that you can hook up to your socks -- to your smart socks to pull off the data. 

Some smart devices -- how do you wash smart clothes?

That's a good question. 

I do not know. 

Good question, though. 

Some smart devices look more like normal stuff. 

Like one of those bracelets -- 

it's called Leaf -- it does what activity monitors like fitbits do. 

It looks more like a bracelet, something you would want to wear. 

These are sort of the same idea, but in Ring form. 

So something that you wear on a finger. 

So this smart Ring will do things like sleep, heart rate monitoring, activity monitoring, your temperature monitoring, connects to a smartphone, that kind of thing. 

One more. 

Hearables. 

Some of you might have apple Airpods. 

I don't remember -- I'm blanking. 

Airpods Pro. 

I think it's funny they have the S on that. 

It's me. 

They are not -- definitely not a replacement for hearing aids, but they have built some of that type of thing into hearing aids.

So they will do some noise cancellation things. 

They will amplify a noisy room and focus on voices close to you. 

So it can be a device that would maybe help you hear something where you might need a little help with that. 

So pretty cool idea. 

It will be interesting to see where they go with this. 

I think I have heard that Apple has possibly a new version of these coming out in the next couple of weeks. 

We'll see if that's true or not.

But could be interesting. 

Next trend, artificial intelligence. 

A few of these next few trends are pretty closely related as well. 

So you're already using artificial intelligence, even though you don't know it sometimes. 

So whenever you use your map on your phone, you're using artificial intelligence because it is adjusting to where you are automatically and telling you how to get where you want to go and sometimes adjusting on the way, right, giving you that, hey, there's a better route that will save you 10 minutes, that kind of thing. 

That's artificial intelligence in action. 

Other things -- if you have ever used a camera with an automatic setting, that's artificial intelligence or I think newer smart TVs have a way to change the brightness of the screen based on what's the brightness of the room, that kind of thing.

Change picture settings. 

All those little kinds of things that you don't necessarily think about, that's all a type of artificial intelligence. 

So most of us are using that kind of thing these days. 

Artificial intelligence in education setting is going on too. 

I read an article talking about what the EDU tech area is dreaming about. 

So being able to automate some basic activities in education, like grading. 

You can do some of that now. 

Certainly, you know, multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank questions. 

They are going for being able to grade student writing assignments using artificial intelligence. 

Pretty cool, I think. 

Also both learners and educators can certainly benefit from A. I.

So students can get help from A.I. tutors when teachers are too busy to take care of everyone. 

Sort of that chat BOT kind of idea, but focused on education. 

They are starting to think about A.I. systems that can monitor student progress and alert teachers when there might be an issue with student performance. 

Cool. 

Speaking of chat bots, Bank of America has built in a chat bot named Erica. 

Answer basic questions, show me my account, that kind of stuff. 

I can type and text or use voice commands to interact with Erica.

Trend number 5, autonomous things. 

These would be maybe Internet of Things devices, but slightly bigger, basically. 

And they do stuff on their own. 

Hence the word "autonomy"  this could be robotics, vehicles, drones, appliances." 

That would be like software or agents. 

The software and agent-type thing would be like Netflix. 

Curating videos that match preferences. 

That's a piece of software doing something on its own based on your past viewing habits. 

And let's look at some examples of this. 

The  rumba. 

It learns your floor plan and does work for you. 

Nothing wrong with that. 

Send a call to voicemail. 

There are quite a few jobs being replaced by autonomous things in some form or another. 

I mentioned Bank of America, the app and Erica, the chat bot on there replacing a teller. 

Stockroom workers. 

Amazon, in their big warehouses, they use robots to do things people used to do, like walking a football field away to basically in their huge warehouses to get something a off the shelf and box it up, robots do that. 

Closer to home at Dillon's grocery store, there is a robot version of the people who used to mop the floors or then ride the machine. 

The machine drives itself around the grocery store now. 

Some of you have probably seen that. 

Bartenders are being replaced by robots that mix drinks. 

So if you think about going to the hardware store and buying a can of paint, how they mix it by pushing a button, you can do the same thing with a Manhattan drink. 

It's just mixing a few things together, right?

Pharmacists, same type of idea. 

Farmers -- I think I gave some examples earlier with some automated-type things helping out farmers. 

Journalists. 

Some number-heavy stories like sports recaps are not written by people. 

They are written by software, basically, etc.   So lots of jobs replaced by autonomous things. 

Here's a cool one or a scary one. 

This is a self-driving lawn mower that can mow your lawn. 

It's like a rumba for your yard.

On the one hand I think it would be awesome. 

On the other hand pretty scary, this blade going around on its own. 

I don't know about that. 

Self-driving automobiles. 

So this is a pretty -- I don't know if it's a handy thing or not. 

But you're seeing these pop up. 

I just read an article saying Phoenix started a service -- a self-driving taxi service. 

This one is in Las Vegas, obviously. 

So you're starting to see a lot of -- a lot more self-driving cars out there of different types. 

Smaller taxis, larger big-rig trucks are also self-driving in some cases now. 

And especially with the trucking industry, they are really going for more of that. 

A lot of the trucking accidents that are happening today are caused with drowsy drivers, that kind of thing. 

So making it -- their goal I think is to make it a little safer, basically. 

Also less congestion. 

We'll see where that goes. 

Another similar thing would be drone delivery services. 

So Amazon is preparing for drone delivery. 

They have got them in a few places right now. 

Amazon, DHL, Walmart, UPS are all actively testing and/or starting to use drone delivery services. 

I just thought this was funny --

or interesting. 

I read this. 

Amazon's goal is actually to deliver something to you after you've ordered it in 30 minutes or less. 

Think about that. 

That's -- you know, you click "buy" and half an hour later you have it. 

Something interesting there, I think. 

Not sure if that's a good thing or not. 

OK, trend number 6, conversational systems. 

So things that you talk to that talk back that aren't another person. 

So smart speakers, voice assistants on your phone, different types of natural-language processing. 

This is a pretty big deal these days. 

So Siri -- a lot of you guys have Siri or Google Assistant on your phones. 

I use this a little bit. 

It works pretty well these days for me for texting and open up some apps or something like that, play a song, that kind of thing. 

Almost half of U.S. adults, like 46%, are using these types of services on their phone to interact with their devices and things on their devices. 

A lot of people have smart speakers in their home. 

Yeah, there we go. 

25% of American households have some type of smart speaker. 

So I have -- I have had a Google Home device and also an Amazon Echo Dot. 

I have got the Dot right now. 

That one is the most popular, followed by Google and Apple products. 

I basically use mine to play music on it once in a while. 

But I know people who have used them to tell them what to wear every day. 

They say, hey, Alexa, what should I wear?

And it will tell them based on the wear, that kind of thing. 

People use them just, you know, for news updates and weather and that that kind of thing. 

Some libraries are using these for translation work. 

Testing them out to -- you know, like putting them on the service desk and if somebody comes up who speaks Spanish, it will translate what they say into English and vice versa. 

So they are experimenting with that. 

I know some libraries have started writing, like, Amazon Skills. 

Those are the little software plug-in-type things that you can write for Amazon Echo device too. 

Let's see. 

I'm going to speed up a little bit here. 

Got a couple more trends. 

There's a ton of questions. 

Want to make sure we have some of those. 

We want to focus on those too. 

So with ARVR, virtual reality and augmented reality. 

Your libraries probably own some of these now. 

We haven't used these but oddly enough, nobody wants to put them on their heads and start sharing them. 

I think we actually have started to do more of this now with some events, that kind of thing. 

So lots of games, lots of things that you can play with those. 

Interestingly, especially with augmented reality, they are being used for some pretty cool things now. 

So doctors are starting to use them in conjunction with, like, smart glasses to sort of map out where they need to go as they are doing operations. 

They can look down and see some directions and some helps while they are doing their work. 

I think that's pretty cool. 

Also, this will be more with virtual reality. 

Some places are using these to help people connect and remember things. 

So the senior living facility was using them to help people meet up and interact virtually, especially during the pandemic. 

Also visit familiar places like, you know, a childhood home or something like that, a place that they have traveled to before. 

Some libraries are using these as well. 

Seattle Public Library is doing a pretty big thing with a couple of other libraries of just exploring mental health concerns. 

They have a VR game that's also connected with some researchers who are getting some information going from that. 

Fayetteville public library in Arkansas built what they call the "Center For Innovation.""

Part of that space include assimilation lab. 

You can learn how to drive caterpillars, big-rig trucks, etc., using their simulation equipment. 

You can do your education to get a license for some of those things at the library. 

OK, e-sports. 

I won't focus on this a whole lot, but really interesting. 

This is a huge industry now. 

So much so, like I said, I like headlines. 

Parents hiring Fornight coaches to help play. 

If you think about the e-sports industry, not so weird, right?

I have paid for my kids to play soccer. 

You know, you have on some community soccer teams that have better coaches and that kind of thing. 

This is the same idea, especially when you can go to college and be a varsity e-sports player, you can get a scholarship to be on the e-sports team at college. 

Actually, one of the managers at the library, one of her kids is a varsity e-sports player. 

Not only that, but, you know, with e-sports, there are so many ways you can go. 

There's playing the games, but there's coding the games. 

You know, there's creating the games, there's the graphic design that goes into it, there's the manufacturing process, etc.   It's a huge industry that we need to support as a library. 

All right, let's touch on privacy and then we've got some discussion time. 

So privacy, this needs to be a trend. 

It's not really an emerging trend. 

We have always liked our privacy. 

But, again, your phone knows a lot about you, maybe a little more than you want it to know about you. 

Maybe your maps are tracking where you go and when you go there and gives you suggestions based on that. 

I mentioned RUMba vacuum cleaners and Amazon buying them.

Read up on that. 

So the fancier RUMbas map out the floor plan and send that to the cloud that Amazon owns. 

If you have an Alexa device, etc., etc., some of the other, like, Ring cameras on your home, etc., do you want Amazon knowing that much about you?

Something to think about. 

State Farm. 

Do you really want an app giving you a better or worse price on your insurance?

Do you want your insurance agent to know that much about you?

Maybe, because it can save you money. 

Maybe not because it's a little weird. 

Police officers in your area -- 

this has come up in some communities as a pretty bad thing. 

Not so much in Topeka yet. 

But there are automated license plate readers in some police cars. 

They are using it -- basically if you continuously scan license plates and then find out, oh, that license plate is connected with a car that was recently stolen or we need to chat with them. 

So they can then go and do their job because of that. 

But it also means that everybody is being tracked all the time by a police vehicle. 

Perhaps not a good thing, especially when sometimes that information is stored on a third-party platform that can then be sold, etc., etc.   I think we'll skip couple of these. 

This slide is just so you know some of these companies are actually really thinking about how privacy works in their environment. 

Google, for example, they are concerned about your privacy. 

They also like your data and what you do because that's how their company functions. 

But they do within reason for them want to also protect your privacy. 

Sort of a juxtaposition. 

What does this all mean for libraries?

I think why don't we jump into some questions?

>> JENNIFER:  OK. 

Thanks. 

This is great. 

Thank you so much, David. 

Lots of excellent discussion. 

Thank you so much to everyone for chiming in with your suggestions, examples, questions, and concerns. 

Obviously this brings up all sorts of different interesting facets for folks that are at the deep end of the technology pool, for those that have limited access. 

I just want to start -- there were a few thoughts and questions shared around accessibility early on. 

Someone said the question is, how well can those who can't use their hands or can't see the screen use them?

There were comments around text to speech with assistive technology on mobile devices, somebody gesturing. 

Somebody mentioned their sister's hearing aid via bluetooth so they can take calls and listen to music. 

So lots of examples of how accessibility is addressed. 

I know that's a huge issue for libraries as they make decisions about sharing technology or teaching technology. 

Can you talk a little bit about that?

>> DAVID:  I think we definitely need to be concerned with that and also focused on that because, you know, those are our customers too. 

That might be you, for that matter, as well in some form or another. 

So with devices, yes, most smartphones certainly these days have a lot of assistive technology that works pretty well. 

I have played with some of it. 

Just a little bit. 

So nice to know that that's there. 

In our libraries it can be a little trickier at times, but something we need to think about. 

Not coming up with any examples I can think about off the top of my head. 

But if you're building a new website, make sure it's accessible in all the normal ways. 

If you're building a new space, again, make sure it's accessible. 

Your computers, your devices that you check out, make sure there's ways to do that kind of stuff. 

And then also teach people. 

I think in general just holding classes, walk-in sessions, etc., on devices and how they work and how you can, you know, maybe bring some of the either privacy concerns or accessibility concerns to that and teach people how it works can be a really good thing, even something as simple as you can make this bigger, you can arrange the apps on your phone differently, you know, that kind of thing. 

Something easy for us to teach and could be really useful. 

>> JENNIFER:  Definitely. 

I feel like a lot of what you talked about certainly fits into the libraries as teachers, libraries as trainers -- 

>> DAVID:  Everything I talked about we can teach a class on. 

>> JENNIFER:  I remember when it was people just coming to the library to ask how to use their cell phone. 

So obviously the devices have evolved, but we're still a point of contact. 

>> DAVID:  Basic questions. 

>> JENNIFER:  Yes, absolutely. 

Yeah, I think lots of comments. 

I don't know if folks have specific questions around the privacy issue. 

Again, this is an area for education. 

You know, this is something that we can bring to conversations in the community, both in how the decisions we make about the technology that the library uses, but also as a broader community. 

So, yeah, hopefully those conversations happen certainly within your library's planning. 

There are a couple of questions in the learner guide. 

I encourage folks to explore the learner guide that touched both on EDI-related issues as well as accessibility decisions with your technology and those areas.

So definitely check out the learner guide. 

Let's see. 

Other questions -- somebody put out the question to the group I thought was interesting. 

Do you use Echo or other devices for reference questions?

>> DAVID:  That's cool. 

So we do not. 

But I don't see why you couldn't. 

They answer some pretty basic things, right?

That would be a good experiment or pilot project for somebody to try. 

>> JENNIFER:  Fantastic. 

>> DAVID:  Like I did mention briefly, I have read about at least one library that was using them for sort of for that kind of thing but with different languages. 

Like, their Hispanic population or something like that. 

People who walk up to the desk and ask their question in their own language and then the device will do the translation work. 

>> JENNIFER:  Excellent. 

>> DAVID:  Could be useful. 

>> JENNIFER:  Yeah, definitely. 

Definitely in translation. 

>> DAVID:  Uh-huh. 

>> JENNIFER:  Let's see. 

There were definitely some folks weighed in a little bit on this being a list of technology that they were more curious about library trends. 

I thought it would be great to ask you also another question that somebody said -- what are the best ways to stay in the know about library tech trends, whether it's e-mail threads or magazines?

I know David's blog is a great place to return to see some of that. 

So what are your other suggestions?

>> DAVID:  Yeah, so there are some library blogs out there. 

When I do a blog post, tends to be about some sort of technology-type thing. 

ALA, WebJunction certainly has some good technology trend-type stuff, conferences out there, even local conferences will do that as well, some of the trade publications are good things to follow too. 

I tend to just like to look at the news and look at more tech-focused news sites, like CNET, Tech Crunch, that kind of thing, and then see how that translates well to a library. 

Because they will talk about all the trends I have focused on and then you basically -- you have to do a little translation work there. 

So you have to take the new device back to your library and figure out can we use this for our library. 

So at my own library that would translate to this. 

We just opened our Level 2 tech centers, what we're calling it. 

It has a couple of small recording and video studios, a digital design area that I saw somebody mention 3-D printers. 

We have two 3-D printers, we have a cricket, vinyl cutter kind of thing, putting in a 3-D scanner, computers that will handle beefier apps like the Adobe products. 

So we're doing that and that's really focused on creating technologies. 

I guess I would say that. 

>> JENNIFER:  Somebody said they heard CNET and what other source?

>> DAVID:  I said Tech Crunch. 

Tons of them out there. 

>> JENNIFER:  Thank you so much, David. 

There are a few more questions coming in. 

I want you to move us on. 

I know David is going to share his e-mail. 

I encourage you to touch base, definitely check in on his website as well. 

Lots of great resources and additional presentations he's doing. 

So thank you so much, David, for bringing your finger on the pulse to this WebJunction webinar. 

>> DAVID:  You're welcome. 

Yeah, if you have a question that didn't get answered, feel free to e-mail me or connect with me on socials and ask away.

I'll have an answer. 

Maybe not the best one for your library, but I'll have an answer for you. 

>> JENNIFER:  Thank you so much.

Thank you to all of you who joined us today. 

I will send you an e-mail later today once the recording is available and add all your wonderful links to the event page. 

A reminder that you can go to that event page and access the resources and the recording and the learner guide. 

I'll also send you automatically a certificate for attending today probably later in the week or early next week. 

I'm going to send you to a short survey as you leave. 

That link will also be in the e-mail that you receive, if you have to leave right away. 

We really want to get your feedback on today's session. 

We'll share that with David as well and it helps us in our ongoing programming. 

Thank you all so much. 

Everyone have a fantastic rest of your week.