Intergen at the Library: Programming and Engagement Across Ages-20260226 2100-1
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Transcript
WebJunction Webinars
0:00
Oh am thrilled to West welcome Christy Baran from a library consultant from Colorado. She is gonna be talking about intergen at the library, program and engagement across ages. I've had, a few chances to get to know Christy better and she is an absolute.
WebJunction Webinars
0:20
Delayed and you will learn so much from her. So without further ado, welcome Christy.
Cristy
0:25
Hi, I'm Christy Brant. My pronouns are Sheia, and thank you Brooke for that welcome. I'm presenting intergen at the library. You'll hear me use intergen versus intergenerational. It's just fewer syllables throughout, so I hope that that's ok. It's the 1st thing I wanna say. Currently I'm a brand.
Cristy
0:46
Manager in Colorado just north of Denver. And prior to this I was with the state library here in Colorado as the adult services consultant. And through the work that I've done there and in my previous lives and libraries and in education, programming primarily for adults has been my like passion that's the area where I am at, but, working with kids has also been a big part both as an educator.
Cristy
1:16
And then as a librarian of my life. And I think for the vast majority of us, I think we know that, yeah, we can be a like children's librarian and services library and adult services library, a library associate, and the reality is we're working with a lot of people, that are different and in different ages. So we're gonna talk a little bit today, I'm gonna get to my overview.
Cristy
1:41
A little bit about what generations are, like what is it that we talk about when we talk about generations? Intergen is about intergenerational, right? And so I think it's 1st really important to kind of unpack or at least just kind of.
Cristy
1:57
Take a big picture view of what it is we talk about when we talk about quote generations, right? And then what is intergenerational? I have a particular perspective on this. I'm not alone in it, but definitely talking about and defining intergenerational, I think.
Cristy
2:17
Is a really good way of exploring the opportunities inherent in in this kind of programming. I'm gonna share some examples from the field. I have so many more and I'm sure everyone on this call, regardless of where you serve and what, what job is your primary function in a library, you know and you have experiences and examples from the field too.
Cristy
2:40
Although I'm gonna be talking largely about libraries and particularly libraries in Colorado, there are so many programs and resources outside of the library fields and I provide quite a bit of them in the resources. Although what I'm showing in the presentation is library stuff. I really am gonna encourage you to tap into those other, what are folks in other.
Cristy
3:06
Their fields and other sectors are doing an intergenerational cause it's a trend. I mean of like 500 people registered for this, know that it's not just us in library land who are working on this. And we'll talk about getting practical, so ideas tips, kind of identifying some barriers and challenges and opportunities.
Cristy
3:26
For working in intergenerational programming. It looks like there are just four bullet points. There's a lot of stuff to talk about and so although I have some questions built in, I think, they're hopefully, I mean, we'll hopefully be able to I'll bang out through these slides quite a bit, but.
Cristy
3:47
There's a lot to, to kind of a lot of content. So in the interest of time, probably not gonna ask take too many questions. So I will really try. Please keep the chat going whether or not I get to see it, the conversation you guys are having amongst yourselves is invaluable. I know it.
Cristy
4:05
So, when I have been asked about generations and intergenerational workplaces and libraries and intergenerational programming, a big part of what we talk about is these like generational labels, right? And then what do they mean?
Cristy
4:25
Speaking I mean these are ones that come up quite a bit. I didn't even put Jen Alpha on here. We often think about baby boomers, right? When we talk about baby boomers, what are we talking about? We're talking about folks who are born in these particular years. That means that today or last year, they're about these ages and then.
Cristy
4:45
There's certain contexts, right? So we're thinking of situational contexts, like what are the things that happened in history, in time as current events that occurred while someone was coming of age, that would impact their experience of the world, probably the kinds of experiences they were able to have to develop kinds of personality, communication styles.
Cristy
5:13
Educational trends, technology that's available. Gen X, right? We all have these pictures of these folks, whether, wherever we are in this, we have these pictures of what a millennial looks like.
Cristy
5:29
And what do people say about millennials? So I'm not gonna unpack all of this. There is a table that that they've linked to, I certainly encourage you to look at it. But one of the things I want to do now really.
Cristy
5:44
Just now is dispel this concept of the generation, right? And how important that might be understanding the generation based on your birth year. And so one of the things I have, so I have a question for you all and I'm encouraging you to put this in the chat. What are some.
Cristy
6:04
Of the challenges of thinking of these generational labels and thinking of us as people and the people who are at your library walking in the door as these boomers, millennials, gen Alpha, zoomers. What are the some of the challenges and limitations of that?
Cristy
6:26
Generational label thinking. Preconceptions, right? Preconceptions, the boxes are then stereotypes, absolutely. Assumptions. That's exactly it.
Cristy
6:44
When I think of like boomer, right? I think of a perjorative, I think of it being used in like internet speak to say someone is old and has a fixed mindset. It doesn't matter that that person was born in a particular time, right? We think of millennials, oh, like they don't do anything.
Cristy
7:04
Maxers don't care about anything. Zoomers don't know how to connect with people. We think of all of these things based solely really if you think about it at what at the date that they were born. But the reality is that generations are bigger than just birth years, right? I tend to take the perspective that thinking generationally, right? Like about birth year only is really limiting.
Cristy
7:33
I think rather generations are kind of culture, right? So all of the things that maybe someone would consider, you know, a boomer is really only based on a very limited experience of a limited group of folks and the popular trends and what came in the media.
Cristy
7:53
In those years that they were coming of age. One of the things that was listed under boomers is the Cuban muscle crisis. That's a part of the situational context, right? Folks hiding under their desks. Well, it's very different for my family who is Cuban, right? Same years. They are still in America, but the kind of background, like their cultural history, their ethnicity, where they were born, their nation of origin, somebody's access to wealth.
Cristy
8:21
Right? Whether someone grew up in a rural or an urban setting, what religion they were in and how that informed their social norms and practices, education levels, all of those things, right? Inform really then how somebody experiences.
Cristy
8:41
That day and time where they came of age. So yes, we're gonna talk about intergenerational, but when we talk about generations or when you talk about generations, I really want to kind of blur the edges of that and really open up what that might mean. Generations as culture, I think then helps inform how then we appro.
Cristy
9:04
Approach intergenerational and multi generational audiences, participants, friends, colleagues, and all of the spaces where we operate. And I think can really enrich than the programming that we provide. So things that are really important to talk about when we talk about intergenerational programming is, well, why are we even talking about it?
Cristy
9:29
In the 1st place. One of the reasons that we're talking about it has to do with the shift in population. We are an aging nation. Some places where we live are aging more quickly or more propo like disproportionately than others. It can do with any number of things, including.
Cristy
9:50
Migration patterns, birth death rates, right? And all of these things can be explored kind of at a higher level. Like we can look worldwide, we can look nationwide, we can look across our state. I really encourage you to look at the population trends and the demographics in your area.
Cristy
10:10
Area, your local and library service area. So there are a lot of resources for doing that. There are some in the resources that I share online. But one of the really important things to consider is the demographic shifts.
Cristy
10:27
Right? Should impact, at least in my mind, who and how we serve folks in our libraries. Typically, my experience has been that we have a lot of specialization for younger folks. There's a lot of programming, there's a lot of real nuance between.
Cristy
10:47
Like what is it that an early reader, an early learner, you know, toddlers that we get a little older, we go all the middle grade readers. There's all this specialization and nuance really placed on our young lives and that is super important and I am in NO way saying not to do that. However.
Cristy
11:07
We need to also look at, well, what's happening with the rest of the folks that our library is serving? And is our community growing older? And if it is the case that our community is being less populated by younger folks, then what is then the variety of experience that someone is.
Cristy
11:27
Having as a non child, right? As a teenager, an early adult, kind of like that. Working younger, folk adult, then you get into all of the varieties and and the longer lifes that we live mean more diverse and more varied experiences of adulthood. And within adulthood, there are a variety of generations, right? Of I.
Cristy
11:53
I'm an adult, but so is an 18 year old, and so is a 75 year old, and I would say that the three of us would be totally different in terms of generational trends and experiences and in fact generational culture, right? And all the things that impact our generational culture and our experiences of adulthood.
Cristy
12:12
So, some of the questions that arise once you start looking at demographic trends and population data in your area, who does our library serve the most now and how is that gonna be different in ten years? How is it gonna be different in just five?
Cristy
12:31
What do we spend our money on now? Are we spending all of our programming budget and some libraries do, all of our programming, all of our outreach, it's going into a community and an age group that we have schools closing down.
Cristy
12:49
Right? We have a higher need for older adult housing and senior housing and healthcare that is specific to folks who are in a particular time of their life. How about in the middle? Are, are a bunch of adults in your community not having children? How are those needs different than a family?
Cristy
13:09
Right, where you have multiple adults and multiple children or even just one adult and multiple children. And then do those population changes require us or or suggest that we should change our focus? And if they do, are we able to change our focus, right? Because that's one of the barriers I think that comes up. So now let's talk, I think more gen, like more specifically, I guess about barriers when it comes to discussing generations, right? Two.
Cristy
13:44
Things come up, so a few of you mentioned this in the chat in the response to the other question, which is stereotypes, agism. It is important to note that agesm really can move like go always. I think that ageism of manifests in different experiences depending typically is it.
Cristy
14:08
Kind of discrimination against older adults where they tend to find the most discrimination experiences versus what is a younger person experience and then different ages and age ranges within, you know.
Cristy
14:24
What within what we, you know, think about as all of these, the adulthood and childhood, people do experience different things, right? So ages and refers to how we think, that's the stereotype, what we feel, there's the prejudice and how we act. And in those acts that's discrimination.
Cristy
14:44
Towards others and ourselves based on age. So I think that's really important, right? It's ageism is also internalized. So these things arise from perceptions of differences and attitudes, values, and work ethic, and you, you heard a little bit of that and you'll see that and you, you know it, you heard me say boomers, right? The millennials, they don't, they don't do anything, right? Genex doesn't care.
Cristy
15:13
So those things are stereotypes, those are things I said traits that are assumed based on attitudes, values, and work ethic. A big part of that I believe arises from limited experience with individuals with particular.
Cristy
15:33
For ages, right? So you get folks who just don't experience a bunch of varieties of people who are of advanced age, right? The only time they see someone in advanced age, you know, over the age of 70 is in a particular context and they definitely don't talk to them and have relationships with them outside of that limited scope if they even have them. Same it goes with, with children, right? And a lot of these times it's informed by the limited.
Cristy
16:02
Things that we see in, in our own lives, but we see images of folks of all ages and media, right? So what media shows us also informs our own perspectives and attitudes about folks at a certain age. Then there are, like I said, experiences that are different.
Cristy
16:25
Depending on what system and what context you're in and then what age you are. So older adults tend to experience higher rates of medical and healthcare discrimination. Meanwhile teenagers are criticized when they're assertive.
Cristy
16:41
Right or kind of act independently, who do they think they are? They don't know everything. Young adults are characterized as lazy or entitled when they're under employed or unable to find work.
Cristy
16:58
So how does the situation of not being able to find work then manifest in their experience of life and then what other folks of other ages see? They see them not working, they don't see the why. So.
Cristy
17:13
When we think of intergen, I think, and I, there are so many different definitions and I said I was gonna come at it from a particular perspective. When I think of intergen, what I encourage you to think of intergen is that we are creating intentional opportunities.
Cristy
17:33
Opportunities through and that ultimately kind of break through those stereotypes, right? We are creating opportunities that are intentionally for breaking through those stereotypes. And we do that by creating these opportunities where in programming or in conversation or how.
Cristy
17:55
Whatever it is that that we're seeing it or are experiencing it, that there is a transfer of knowledge and experience that doesn't assume hierarchy based on seniority or experience, right? And thus it mutually benefits folks. So it's not just young people have to learn from someone who has more experience and is older or older folks have to learn from someone who's more tech savvy but.
Cristy
18:23
Because they're younger and have more experience with technology. But instead, how do those folks of different generations, of different experiences, of different cultures mutually benefit from this?
Cristy
18:36
Transfer that is really a flattened hierarchy. When we typically experience hierarchies based on seniority, right? Like someone's older so they've got to know more. They've been in the field for a longer time. Thus they're more experienced and they're experts.
Cristy
18:53
And and so there's this kind of assumption of who is more skilled and knowledgeable and the young person benefits versus the older person or vice versa like I described. So to me, intergenerational and I and I find that this is shared across fields too.
Cristy
19:13
When we see intergenerational programming and in other contexts outside of libraries, folks are really talking about creating these intentional moments where folks of different ages I would argue cultures and different generations or different expressions and experiences can transfer knowledge back and forth.
Cristy
19:37
One of the most valuable things to addressing what many of us know as the epidemic of loneliness and social isolation and all of the things that, and all of the negative impacts of that.
Cristy
19:54
One of the most valuable things that we could do is create opportunities for intergenerational relationship building. Research suggests diversifying social relationships to include people who are outside of your group, right? As well as connections between people of different power status within.
Cristy
20:14
In the community are also associated with improved community health and wellbeing, but not just on an individual level, but more broadly it strengthens a community in so many respects. Cultivating intergenerational friendships, bridges, social capital.
Cristy
20:32
Right bridge. Linking folks at a kind of equal level. Mentoring exchange between youth and local mentorship exchange between youth and local employers equals linking social capital giving younger folks an opportunity to engage in meaningful.
Cristy
20:52
Ways and having older folks see the value of these younger folks through mentorship, through working together also helps kind of forward the progress of your community, right? The now increasing the opportunities for younger folks to engage and really just the over.
Cristy
21:15
For all kind of activities of your community. There are links to this. This is the 2023 former, dr. Murdy's report from the US Surgeon General's office. There's a lot of research on this. One of the most powerful findings in this to my mind.
Cristy
21:35
Is really the value of intergenerational relationships. So now, I said I come at this from a particular perspective and I've used intergen quite a bit. So, but in library land we experience a different prefix with the word generational quite often. We hear a lot of multi generational programming.
Cristy
21:59
Right? We do a lot of multi generational programming, and then we also hear intergenerational programming, and we're told intergenerational programming, that's the goal. That's what we really wanna work on. So my question to you guys, what's the difference between multi generational programming and intergenerational programming or just multi generational and intergenerational? Let's see if I could see some of that in the chat. Multi and inserts, two different prefix.
Cristy
22:34
This is being two different things.
Cristy
22:43
I love it. So a few people put like really touched on quite a bit that I see. So multi generational, right? Multi is just a lot of different and inter interacting, right? That kind of transfer back and forth. So it kind of break it down a little bit.
Cristy
23:03
On this slide. So when we think of multi generational programming, I think of all ages programming. Family programming, I've got a bunch of folks of different ages in the room. They're doing stuff, right? Maybe they're just at a place together. So they're sharing space. A multi generational location has people who are of different ages in the space together.
Cristy
23:28
Age may determine or imply hierarchy in that space, meaning like if in a home, like a parent is older, right? And then you've got like grandparents, maybe it's a multi generational home and you've got folks of different generations of that same family. There maybe different hierarchy structures within there, right? Who is more powerful.
Cristy
23:48
People who gets to say what about who, right? Whereas intergenerational, again, is more that flattened hierarchy. It's a sharing of knowledge, experience, everything is done at a kind of equal kind of level playing field I think is the better word to use on that. And it's also not.
Cristy
24:10
Limited to family relations. So sometimes I think of all ages programming, we could also say family programming a lot of the times. There's not always, but sometimes, or a lot of the time. And I would say that intergenerational, like a person alone could come two people of different generations who know one another, right? So not necessarily of the same family units and then typically hierarchy, there wouldn't be, but what is important.
Cristy
24:40
Important is an asset or a value that you have, not based on age or the amount of time. So a few of you mentioned that in the chat. I think the intergenerational programming is really that interactivity, the opportunity to move information one to another and capital one to another.
Cristy
25:02
So here's the point where I give you a ton of examples from library programs. Again, some of these will look familiar to you, some of them won't. And then once I'm done with this, we'll get into a bit of how to program.
Cristy
25:19
For intergen and then kind of looking very specifically at barriers and opportunities. So this was I loved when I learned about these three and there are so many very similar kind of concepts and they're all centered on.
Cristy
25:39
Gaming, right? So one of the things about intergenerational programming, and it's something that kind of you can see as a trend is that maybe games are at the center. Well, when you play a game unless it's like a, you have to be like really experienced at something in order to play it. Really, everyone's entering at that kind of same level. In one of my favori.
Cristy
26:07
Favorite things, Aurora public library had an intergenerational trivia. And that intergenerational trivia had questions from all different years, all different eras. So in order to win, I mean you could have been a pop culture savant that knows about all the things, but really you'd probably do really well if your team had people whom were.
Cristy
26:32
Different generations and different ages and could recognize different items pop culture, had different splaying. You come in the room and you're not sitting with the people you came in with maybe, right? You're making a friend, you're sitting by somebody who's of a different age, you maybe never bet before. So it's at that moment. Pikespeak library district, had a life sized board games throughout their live.
Cristy
27:00
Library so this is like in a traveling programming kit. They have all these resources. They're all, I put those all online too. You could literally just show up, right? And find somebody to play against.
Cristy
27:15
The game of life sized battleship, right? This idea of meeting people for the 1st time and engaging in this game and being of different ages and generations because really it doesn't matter like any one of you could be good and could win at this game. Plus it's a great way of.
Cristy
27:35
Engaging with people you don't know. Littleton has a board game board game program where they have tons of people just show up to play retro board games that they set up. I think a lot of libraries do something very similar, when they told me how incredibly popular it was.
Cristy
27:57
I was shocked and I said I need to tell everybody about it. So how are these intergen, the games and questions for that up for that one trivia were from different eras cooperation versus competition of generations, right? So instead of competing against folks of different ages, you are working with what you got, you're cooperating, you're going, oh.
Cristy
28:21
I see asset and value in people who are different and have different experiences from me. And then the encouragement to mix with people you don't know, right? So making new connections and kind of again bridging social capital and sometimes, you know, your ability to win a game with someone who's very different from you.
Cristy
28:42
These were intentionally curated opportunities, different library spaces were utilized, meaning that they weren't all in the adult space. They weren't like if you look at the life sized board games, they were all throughout the library, so it didn't just occur in the children's space. So really inviting people from.
Cristy
29:02
Different ages and from who would use different parts of the library in the case where we do really kind of, I don't want to say we silo, but we do kind of have different areas for different ages and and with really good reason in most of our spaces.
Cristy
29:20
These are literary centered intergenerational experiences that were intentionally created as intergenerational experiences. So there's a book club in the Durango public library. It curs off site, but the book itself.
Cristy
29:35
As opposed to, it's like, a young adult book club, a book club for, you know, a particular genre. It's a non traditional book club and it it outs itself as a non traditional book club. They have had, themes based on different months, so they had queer magic for the.
Cristy
29:55
Pride Month, they had a local authors, childhood favorites. So now you have people of different ages who are able to engage with the same level of material talking about all the different ways that they're interested in it. The attendance for those has been intergenerational. It has had opportunities for folks of different ages speaking on different themes. So the queer magic book club had folks experiencing queerness being out, being closeted in one era versus of.
Cristy
30:30
A much more contemporary experience that younger folks have and learning from one another. Sometimes hearing for the 1st time what somebody who maybe has a shared identity but has a different generational culture has experienced. And then the kind of learning and.
Cristy
30:46
Love and sharing that happens between folks who are experiencing it again as a flattened hierarchy. Denver public library, so Glube electuda, Equentos cortose, that in Spanish, so in English it translates to book a short, it's a short story book.
Cristy
31:06
Club. So folks are reading short stories in Spanish. These are folks from different generations. Some folks are retired, some are my age, full disclosure, I attended that as a just a participant. There were folks younger than I was, folks much older than I was, and speaking of generations as culture.
Cristy
31:26
We're talking about a lot of people who shared somewhat similar cultural identity, right? But through the different generations and different places experienced, say Latini dad very differently. And so all of the sharing that goes back and forth is informed by those lived experiences and also all the different cultures, right? Where I'm Cuban, someone else is Mexican and someone.
Cristy
31:53
Else is Costa Rican and someone else is Peruvian. Some of the more recent immigrants, someone is second generation. And so all of these cultural experiences and generations as cultural experiences kind of inform one another, bridging and sharing again.
Cristy
32:13
Age agnostic promotion is key and crucial to this and scheduling at a time when it is amenable for people of all ages to go. I mentioned I attended one of these as a participant. I would not be able to do that if that was a 10:00 A.M. book club program.
Cristy
32:30
Often we're scheduling for the folks who can come in, right? There is a, very like, I mean it's a trend in a lot of our libraries where the project or craft is the center of the program. So.
Cristy
32:50
Itself as the set like the center of promotion becomes age agnostic. So second Saturday maker meetup in Delta is about the use of the different items and the different tools in our maker space. Crafting, dresses.
Cristy
33:10
Doing mending using the crick up machine at anything libraries, there's a wire, a jewelry, and a different crossette club. So in both of those, it's the craft itself that becomes the center and they're both scheduled. Actually, all three of these are scheduled on days and times when folks of all different ages can come and not necessarily like they have to come as a.
Cristy
33:34
Family unit, but you'll get a teenager who comes in and you'll also get older adults who come in. Where it comes to, these are kind of not officially clubs but the same people show up. And so you have like in those book clubs folks who repeatedly come in and meet and mix and create relationships across generations and across cultures so that they could do these like.
Cristy
34:02
Paths or projects, not necessarily hoping to be intergenerational. These are, two, three of the three of them were kind of intended to just like go to a particular age group, so like wire jewelry whisper teens.
Cristy
34:23
But because of age agnostic marketing, time and schedule and the welcome centering on the project folks of different ages have come into all of these. I thought this was great. I cannot.
Cristy
34:41
I didn't think I was like, how was this an ongoing program and it is at Talents Reach and Aurora, there is a literal class. They come in over time. So this is like sequential program, which I have always found to be incredibly challenging, but because it's about.
Cristy
35:01
Something that's really cool to people of a bunch of different ages and anybody can come in and learn something new. Again, age agnostic marketing, welcoming folks, having it scheduled at a time when a lot of different age folks could come in and centering a group learning experience. This program, it's a seven week program, they're there for an hour and a half. They learn about, they don't just learn how.
Cristy
35:31
To read Taro, they learn about Terro. They learn about the history of Terro, they work together to learn how to decipher the meaning. Dana who created this program, said it had been intended for teens and adults and she thought for sure it was like the younger demographic of adults because those are like the hipsers who would be into like terrole cards, and it turns out that she gets a consistent group of older adults that comes in. It's.
Cristy
36:00
It's not just folks of like, you know, eclectic like kind of, you know, interests. Some of these folks are totally unexpectedly interested in this. She says that there are folks from different backgrounds, different religious affiliations and beliefs. She is someone who's a lawyer in there, some medical professionals, and she has folks surprisingly of all gender.
Cristy
36:26
So she thought that it would be more much more popular and singularly popular, to like, you know, a particular age at a particular gender. Actually, it turns out that it's been kind of diversely attended because everyone comes in with the same level of experience, right? It's not like experienced tarole readers are coming in. They're all learning things for the 1st time and they're encouraged to practice together in small groups and engage with one another. It becomes this intergenerational experience. And again.
Cristy
36:59
And it's over time. So they're coming again and again and creating a little community among themselves. And I think when we, when we see the really successful intergenerational programs and then programs that have become other programs, right? A lot of it is community building.
Cristy
37:17
Right, they've become a kind of mini community among themselves. I'm gonna pause to take a look and see if there are questions. Brooke, have you seen any questions come up consistently?
WebJunction Webinars
37:35
No, not except these last two that have just.
Cristy
37:38
Come in. Yeah, I get these questions a lot, which has to do with time of day, day, and I think for each of us, it's gonna be figuring out what works for us. So, the ones that were craft centered at the maker spaces, the ones, the wire jewelry.
Cristy
37:55
Adds the the one in Delta that's like the, they have to do like a project like mending or whatever. Those are Saturday programs. The Proceed club is a Wednesday evening, right? I want to say, I can't, I don't want to speak for Dana.
Cristy
38:17
I do know that the Durango book club is off site so that they could have it at more, at like a later time on a different day. So really it's gonna depend on what would work for your community and it's gonna be a lot of testing.
Cristy
38:34
One of the things that some of my former colleagues who work with teens and teen services often remind folks is that there's like a really big proportion of teenagers and maybe we don't see them, like we don't acknowledge this. We maybe don't know who are not just going to school all day but.
Cristy
38:54
You also have jobs, right? And you also have a lot of teenagers and increasing amount of teenagers who are taking care of adults in their home, meaning like a grandparent or a parent with a disability. So when it comes to intergenerational programming and timing, sometimes we need to.
Cristy
39:13
I don't know, be a little gentle with ourselves about our expectations of when, say, teenagers will be able to come. There's also something I should mention about intergenerational programming, which is.
Cristy
39:28
Actually, you may have a totally unintentionally intergenerational program arise from what you had hoped had would have been a team program or you had hoped it had been a family program, but the reality is that a bunch of family units didn't come Instead, you had maybe.
Cristy
39:48
Be like two teenagers come who knew each other and then maybe a parent, and then their kid, but then like three seniors showed up too. Those accidental intergenerational programs while not intentionally created as such, can continue to be like now framed with the intentionality of continuing to be an intergenerational program. So it's like building in opportunities for intergenerational exchange.
Cristy
40:18
There are a lot of whys, right? Why would this be a benefit? Well, the combating the loneliness epidemic, there's also the opportunity to get more engagement.
Cristy
40:38
Right, for folks of different ages, like a personal value to them, individual value to them, and then of course to the community. In our library spaces though, in our workforces and among our team, building intergenerational programming helps us build capacity.
Cristy
40:56
So, an intergenerational program could very well be the brainchild and the work product of a relationship of someone who works in adult services and someone who works in tech services, who happens to be really passionate about a craft and really skilled.
Cristy
41:16
At doing something, right? And now, instead of having to run that myself, I also have a partner in this. Also, when we have youth services library, some of you here work in youth services, right? But we don't have someone who works uniquely with adults. We'll have like a generalist or someone who works with everyone, but our staff, we just don't have enough to fund, to justify funding for adult services.
Cristy
41:45
At the same level or even at all compared to youth services. Well, this gives an opportunity for someone to be able to provide programming for adults meanwhile not having. Now this doesn't mean do twice as much work. It means look at what you've got and go, alright, how can I turn this one thing that focuses on this one age group into something that can kind of hold space for more than just one person and also help me work with.
Cristy
42:16
Someone else I don't have to do a hundred percent of the work. Instead we're sharing the load. We will brief the benefits of intergenerational programming by working in an intergenerational team. Libraries are intergenerational teams. I am the only person that is my age working in my branch, right? And I am not the smartest person in the room any time I am in any room at my job. Some of the most interesting things I learned aren't learned in books or in movies or.
Cristy
42:49
It's learned by listening to and engaging in somebody else's interest, who's probably of a different generation and probably of different interests, right? And so I, as an individual, Christy am also reeping the benefits of this shared.
Cristy
43:08
Flattened hierarchy, even if I'm a manager, I'm learning more from the folks that I work with who are supposed to be learning from me or something, I'm learning from them too. And they're learning from me too as I look at them as equals in this space, right?
Cristy
43:23
It increases interactivity and engagement. The reality is, is if I'm only targeting one population and I'm limiting an experience to them, and that's useful in many contexts, in many situations, I'm also limiting the amount of folks that cannot.
Cristy
43:43
Attend that program and can engage with the library. So if I remove, say, the age promotion aspect and see who wants to come into a program about some craft, I maybe giving the opportunity for folks who otherwise wouldn't engage with the library to engage with the library in a meaningful way. That's the benefits of the library, right? For any number of reasons. These are success stories that we can share.
Cristy
44:09
Of course, we extend inclusion to folks who don't fall in a definition, like in a classic definition or a traditional definition of family when we think of family programs. So we have a lot of families that aren't a mom, a dad, and two kids.
Cristy
44:29
Right? We have a lot of grandparents who are taking care, at least where I live. We have a lot of grandparents who are taking care of their grandchildren as the primary caregiver. The parent is just not in the picture for any number of reasons, right? We also have a lot of folks who have, like I have goddaughters that for a long time, they thought I was like blood related to them and.
Cristy
44:55
I gotta say I was closer to them and the family than some of the people who were, right? And so how do we then include folks who have a different definition of family? We also look at folks of different generations who are in friendships, right? And they want to experience things together and maybe they want.
Cristy
45:15
Experience some things that are interest more kind of interesting to one of them than the other. And so we get this opportunity to invite folks into our spaces and to engage with one another and us as libraries and themselves when they come and they see all the other resources that we have. If we can create these.
Cristy
45:35
Intentionally intergenerational spaces. So, are there other, I mean to you, when you think about this, are there other benefits of intergenerational programming to you as an individual working in a library?
Cristy
45:58
They put in the top, what other benefits can someone working in a library expect or experience? Increased empathy and understanding, for sure. For sure. I think it's very easy for us to to have kind of a our own stereotypes and our own barriers and our own expectations. And when we.
Cristy
46:23
Start thinking of who else do we serve and how else could I possibly serve them? How else can I interact with them? Maybe let's take away the word serve, interact with. I think that we start then increasing our own, right? That we we start reading the benefits of that being.
Cristy
46:41
In the intergenerational space. Being inspired by new programming and partnerships is the thing. I'm so enthusiastic about everything. I'll hear about a thing that like kids get to do and I'm like, why can't I do it? And, and we do it together now all of a sudden we have this opportunity for intergenerational programming.
Cristy
47:01
Simply because I was allowed to engage with it, right? And I think that finding that newness and novelty can help fill our cups a little bit, when we're so used to kind of focused on our own age group, our own work, and it gets, you know, it could get difficult, right? It could get difficult to always do the same thing and always see the same people. And so we're reaping the benefits too when we get the opportunity to pull back and try something new ourselves.
Cristy
47:28
Of something and I said this before, I really will say this again. I've been asked to do presentations on this and I have workshops on this, like really hands on. Our teams and libraries, our team, my team, your team, every single person on this call.
Cristy
47:48
If we pause and reflect, just one moment, we are all from different generations. Our teams not only have folks at different ages, but have folks of different, like backgrounds.
Cristy
48:04
Right, different religious affiliations. Our parents, you know, had, you know, these experiences in this level of education that might be different from somebody else's parents, the cultural differences between the latchkey kids of the Genex generation and then the kids who grew up with parents who were.
Cristy
48:24
Really hyper aware of like all the things that could go wrong, all the resources that they had access to. So those different experiences and cultures and ages inform our workplaces. So by doing intergenerational programming, really, we're hoping to, I think, you know, we are models of it, but we can inform both ways, like how does this intergenerational programming also give me the opportunity to reflect on my own team and my own work experience and then look.
Cristy
48:57
Get the assets among my team and the values and the skills as opposed to always looking at the challenges and the, oh, they don't know how to do this. They weren't raised to do that work ethic is different, right? And vice versa. My awesome experiences with some much younger co workers and so much older coworkers then can also inform my experience of.
Cristy
49:17
Of programming for folks of different interests, different speed, right? Like different generations and cultures. Ideating intergenerational programming, I think, and I saw some of the questions coming in, can feel like a challenge if we sit there and really like sit in the weeds of it. How is.
Cristy
49:42
Is this not a family program? If I had it to be intergenerational, the only families came in and they were only in their little silos, is that not successful? Or I intended an intergenerational program, the only teenagers showed up. Allow accidents to happen, right? 1st of all, if you have an accidental team program, oh my god. Congratulations. You have struck gold, right? And by that same token, if you have an accidental intergenerational program but you were hoping to just get families to come in, congratulations, you.
Cristy
50:17
Have done the thing that everyone on this webinar wishes they could have done so easily. So really it's about thinking about programs that you're already hosting, I think is a lot easier, looking at the stuff that maybe other libraries have done or even like some of the resources that I've shared that are outside of the library field and kind of tweaking it a little bit, right? So.
Cristy
50:41
If you're thinking about intergenerational programming, what ages are you looking at targeting? One of the things that blew my mind one day, I was meeting with Spark the Change Colorado, so these are Americap volunteers all over the age of like 55.
Cristy
50:59
And this program called senior Companions with a pair of volunteers, so again over 55 with someone who's a senior, another senior, right? Like over 70 say. And I've said something about how intergenerational programming was really popular with libraries, so is there any opportunity.
Cristy
51:19
Opportunity for intergenerational programming. And of course what I was thinking was teenagers, right? And older adults. And they paused me and they go, but Christy, you realized like I just told you someone 55 years old hanging out with someone 80. That's intergenerational.
Cristy
51:37
She was totally right. It didn't occur to me to put together the concepts of intergenerational within what's considered the older adult group. There are so many ages, cultures, varieties of experiences, interests, abilities, right? In.
Cristy
51:57
Given a space of older adults. 50 plus is what you can, you have to be in order to be an AARP. 50 years old. Plus. People love to be a hundred and 15 now. So think of all of the ages you're targeting and then is this appropriate for folks at that age what other.
Cristy
52:19
Other ages is it appropriate for? And then what barriers that will arise for each group you're hoping to attend? Well, if you're gonna do it at 10:00 a.m., I promise you I'm not gonna be there. Why? Cause I'm gonna be at work. If you're doing it on a Friday at 06:00 P.M., promise you certain other people aren't gonna be there. Why not? Because it's finally their day off, right? If you.
Cristy
52:41
You're doing it at 4pM. It might be really difficult for someone who's just getting to pick up their kids, something that always occurs to me here, the sun goes down really early during the winter. If I have a 06:00 P.M. program, a bunch of older adults are not showing up.
Cristy
52:57
Not because they can't make it time wise, but because the sun goes down means it's very difficult to drive in the dark especially if it's snowing. So what are the barriers? And then are they surmountable? Can you move it?
Cristy
53:13
Right? Maybe it's not something to do in the winter, but you can do it in the summer. If it's not, how does the goal change? Maybe I'm not gonna look at intergenerational with older adults. Maybe I'm gonna go with the younger adults.
Cristy
53:29
We are told you there's a lot of content and there's a lot to share. So I'm gonna leave you to kind of review these slides on your own, these questions, but there are definitely ways of ideating and thinking of opportunities and anticipating the barriers.
Cristy
53:49
Things that I've heard literally right before I put this slide together, someone said to me, I don't I'm done being around little kids, like on my off time from being grandma, I do not want to be around other kids. So, ok, you're definitely gonna have her in the room. Put her in the back of your mind. Maybe she doesn't want to be with little kids, but she'll definitely be with a 45 year old intergen, right? Scheduling for different lifestyles, divergent or incongruent interests, that's definitely a barrier. There are some people who are just not gonna be into mindcraft, right?
Cristy
54:23
And if you want to do an intergenerational program on minecraft, I gotta tell you, you can think of something else.
Cristy
54:30
And then the barrier I think that we have, I just kind of said that is the intergen means teenagers and seniors kind of break through that because I, it's really limited thinking too. There's final tips and takeaways, so some of the questions that you all had were.
Cristy
54:50
What has seemed to work. There are some, there are some tips in here. You absolutely can find more sharing with others. There are some links to experiences, program descriptions and resources among the resources that I shared. And definitely within that, you'll be able to see the.
Cristy
55:14
Ways that some things worked and some things didn't. At worst, you can't find what you're looking for. You're still like, I just want to be pointed in the direction of maybe a resource that can help me. You more, you're more than welcome to find me online. This is just the tip of a huge iceberg that I've spent years working on and I'm sure many of us will continue to spend years working on.
Cristy
55:37
Especially as those generations change and those ages change. So thank you that's a lot of information. I hope I hope some of this was really interesting and useful. I saw there was a little robust conversation in the chat, a lot of dungeons and dragons mentioned I gotta tell you DND comes up a lot in intergenerational programming, when you.
Cristy
56:01
Start looking, so that's a definite place to start even if you're not into it when it goes to exploring. So thank you all and thank you web junction. Find the resources online.
WebJunction Webinars
56:15
Thank you so much Christy. I, I have one, I put a question in the chat at the very end there about, you know, do you have any tips and I know it would be dependent on the community, but any tips that you've learned about how to get the word out for an intergen program considering folks might. The generations might be going different places for their information.
Cristy
56:36
I think we all know word of mouth is the way to go for a lot of programs. Depending on the culture too, I was just talking to someone about this. If you have a lot of folks who use WhatsApp, let me tell you, you will get an intergen group of.
Cristy
56:51
Particularly like every lasting group that I know of all ages is connected on WhatsApp. I think diversifying your promotional like target area is where you're gonna get the best result. You want to put it in different places where there's not gonna be one solution, right? If you're gonna put it on Facebook, you're not getting anyone under the age of 45, right? If you're only gonna put it on WhatsApp, you're not getting, you're only gonna put it here if you're only gonna put it there. So.
Cristy
57:22
Really targeting one is probably the wrong way to go and instead kind of diversifying how you reach out to people will be the best way. Using age agnostic language, project centered language, what is it that we're doing? What game are we playing is really been the thing that I've seen as the most successful consistent.
WebJunction Webinars
57:44
Certainly.
WebJunction Webinars
57:45
That's great. Well, thank you so much Christy. Thanks everybody for showing up. It was a great to see your conversation in the chat. You will be directed to a survey when you leave and we'd love to get your feedback on, this program and future programs you'd like to see within 24 h.
WebJunction Webinars
58:05
You will get a link to the recording, you will, your certificate within a week and remember that event page has the resources and, all sorts of great tips in the slides. So thank you so much everyone, have a good rest of your day.