We are ready to get started with arguably the session I'm most
excited about for the whole conference, which is to get a
sneak peek at some things you've been doing with the stimulus
funds. So you're going to hear again from Madison Bowles and
then she's going to be joined by Dennis Nangle, one of our other
program officers. Dennis has been with the grants to states
program for six years and before that in a state library, and
he's always surfacing great work that.
Because you know your impact and all the value that you bring as
you administer these federal funds. So here's a great
perspective to bring to this presentation in particular. And
he and Madison are going to tag team at the outset and then
we're hoping to hear from you. So I'll turn it over to Madison.
Thank you. Welcome back. All right. Well, our ARPA highlight
session is brought to you by you.
Because of all of the ARPA extensions that we've all had,
we do not have a readout on SPR reports for this, for this
conference and we don't anticipate to have them for some
months now as you all know with your extensions. So what we
wanted to do today is do an early snapshot of the impact of
the ARPA grants and the many projects that it funded. We
originally dreamed that this session would be you presenting
your own slides.
But considering the time restraints, what we're going to
do is that Dennis and I have chunked out all of the slides
that were given to us into general categories and we will
present them in according to those categories. And many of
you did so much work and they don't, they don't fit perfectly
neatly into these categories.
But you, you'll be able to see all the work that people have
done. We want to do that within the next 30 minutes. And then
for the remainder of the time, we want you to ask questions,
provide extra insight on the projects that may have been
featured. You know, talk more about what you did that maybe
wasn't on the slide. Not everyone submitted a slide,
which was totally OK. Thank you to those who did. So if you
didn't submit as a, if you did not submit a slide, feel free to
talk about some of your projects.
As well that may relate or not. We just want to hear all the
great work that that you're doing. So thank you for.
Taking the courage to manage these extra funds and it's in
the scope of an emergency no less.
All right. Dennis is going to start us off.
Thank you, Madison. So our first category is hotspots and
technology upgrades. And so again, I will be speaking very
quickly and abbreviated idly. I recommend taking the time to
read through these on your own with the slides that are
provided on the website. But Alabama did a lot in a
technology upgrade.
Arena with their ARPA funds giving.
100 and 898 public libraries and 66 out of their 67 counties,
different pieces of hardware and software. And what's really
interesting is they developed a pilot hotspot lending project
which 144 hotspots and over 124 terabytes of data within the
project. And this also served as a pilot for a discretionary
grant that they also ended up getting on the discretionary
side and they're tired and understandably so.
Louisiana also, again, I'm highlighting the tech tech
elements of these bullets. There's a lot of digitization
that was happening. They bought hundreds of computers, they
bought a drone, and they overall the outcome was more and better
access to everything that the state library had and people
knowing what was going on in Louisiana, in Montana, they they
were really focused on broadband connectivity amidst the
pandemic, which was another one of our.
Kind of leading key areas of focus for ARPA. So we're really
excited to see that. Again, there's a lot of great detail in
here, but they did a lot of Wi-Fi upgrades, cabling,
installation, a hotspot borrowing and this one example
is this one library that went from a download speed of 30
megabits per second to 423 megabits per second and again
that that.
Sound bite from somebody who is homebound who was able to
benefit from the hotspot. It's just really, really great stuff.
And in Washington, the state that we are in right now, they
had they gave of the ARPA funds 2.4 million in sub grants. And
then 1,000,000 of of the ARPA funds were for new Wi-Fi and a
technology consortium for smaller libraries, which I
thought was really great. And for those of us that made the
trek to the talking book and Braille Library, they also spent
funds on a memory kit for people with low vision patrons with
dementia and now.
I'm going to hand it over to Madison.
Thank you. I'm going to be talking about digital training
which occurred very often in many States and Connecticut was
one of them and they focused on digital inclusion. They had a 13
month digital navigation project in four different public
libraries, which led to Connecticut libraries and
partners creating more space for digital equity, which is really
awesome. I think they enlarged the digital inclusion ecosystem
in the state and inspired other libraries and their boards to.
Sustain those digital navigator projects moving forward.
Next, we have Massachusetts. They provided staff training to
make sure their digital materials and communications
were accessible, which we've learned is a very valuable skill
to have. And they've even pulled the the attendees and 98% folks
agree that applying these types of skills will help them improve
their library services in general.
Next we have Oregon. They focused on digital literacy
instruction and have been hosted events such as family tech
nights and had a mobile virtual reality lab. And on the this in
the scope of Human Services, they helped folks with eviction
protection and community education, which we all know was
particularly important during the pandemic.
Then we have Tennessee.
For their digital training, they utilized 187 sub awards and
hired an instructional designer to create online trainings
within their Tel Academy, their Tennessee Electronic library.
And as we all always need our additional materials.
And next we have Hawaii, who worked with a partner, Ali
League, which is a nonprofit that supports Hawaiian natives.
And they worked on a digital storytelling project, which not
only helped preserve the local oral histories, but it also
engaged families to use a technology.
And then we have Washington DC. They DC public invested in their
digital navigator program as well and made more mobile
devices available to their users.
Additional things were air filters and self checkout
machines which were important during the pandemic and as a
lessons learned for them, which I'm sure is a lessons learned
for me and for everybody else. Additional funds are really
valuable, but it takes a lot of planning to spend them.
All right. Oh, I've Texas too.
Texas utilized sub granting as well in 127 sub awards and they
had a digital navigator program and a telehealth program during
the pandemic.
And finally, with Rhode Island with digital training, they
offered statewide digital literacy classes as well as
updating technology in in their libraries. They awarded 140
grants sub awards without a grants management system, so
kudos to them for that. And overall, their ARPA funding led
to an increase in state funds for digital resources, which is
a great outcome.
Right, Dennis.
Category is vehicles. So our first state is Michigan. They
their entire Arbor allotment was dispersed in grants and some of
them were content materials. But we wanted to highlight here the
one rural library that used funds for a hybrid golf cart
bookmobile and it was done locally by a local fabricator
and it's sort of become the talk of the state that seems to be an
emerging model for.
Other other he's might be ohh yeah. He is now a full time
bookmobile maker because of the ARPA funds.
In Missouri, again focusing on the vehicle theme, they
university city used ARPA funds for an electric tricycle, which
is a tiny bookmobile. It's human power, but it has an electric
assist and just because it's too good not to bring up, even
though it's not related to vehicles. Recently the Missouri
State Library supported Excel Adult High School and they
recently had a graduation ceremony that had over 100
graduates.
In Mississippi, they did a lot peep the IMS attribution on the
app there, which we love to see. Again not be a correlated, but
too good not to highlight in the vehicle realm, they purchased a
tech van for their staff to travel to public libraries
throughout the state because the Mississippi State Library in
particular is really a key infrastructural piece for tech
support throughout the state.
And in South Carolina, Yep, that's still me. They gave over
100 sub grants totaling $1.3 million and again, in the
vehicle theme they are. A lot of those sub grants involved
bookmobiles and a book bike, which is really helpful,
especially with access and getting out to the community
after the pandemic and a lot of other great stuff too, and a lot
of paperwork.
And it Wisconsin again, a lot of great, really diverse, varying
projects in the vehicle realm. They have a they supported the
Spooner Memorial Library, purchasing a biblio dragon
bookmobile, which if you click on that link on the electronic
version, you can see the sweet van art that is Dragon based. So
it's it's very impressive. But then they also worked in the
realm of creating safe, safe libraries and safe spaces and
installing lending libraries.
And a lot of community centers also.
Take it. Oh Nope. Take away me. I'm in the next theme.
And this is related to projects that related to furniture and
outdoor library spaces. So Arkansas also did a ton and this
was their first time awarding sub grants. So that's always a
huge undertaking. And they did so many different things,
supported a lot of book lockers and a lot of support for outdoor
programming materials and furniture photos of which they
helpfully provided in the SPR, which were very nice. Thank you.
And then also in the furniture and outdoor support program was
Nebraska. Out of their 450,000 they had competitive sub grants
and so they were furniture was really popular in need and as
you all probably sympathize with was hard to get. But they still
supported a lot of projects that that helped create outdoor
spaces and things like that. And it was hard to get reports from
oral libraries to have one librarian, which also makes
sense.
Now I'm gonna take it away or give it over to Madison.
This category is science and steam.
8 Arizona AZ did some amazing work which is shown in this
really awesome pie chart and it includes distributing steam
learning kits and items including telescopes and coding
kits. And a cool outcome that they highlight here is that
after ARPA, some entities who had never applied for a
superworm before applied for their first time. So we applied
Arizona on their outreach.
Next we have South Dakota. They worked with their state parks
and funded Kenworthy and citizen science kits. They also used
funds for technology equipment and which included a scanner and
an over an OverDrive consortium books. Also a great pie chart.
We love to see a chart.
All right, now we have Utah utahs. Among their favorite
projects was a hydroponic gardens, which was located in
food desert and they had digital skills classes. Some overall
lessons, which I think are pretty valuable are that they
recommend serving libraries so they can be more direct and
intentional with what they fund and what they need. And they
also learned that using using challenges as opportunities to
get a seat at the table in larger conversations.
And now we're back to Dennis.
Category is school support to school libraries or other types
of libraries. So Alaska again did a great number of things
with their ARPA funds. They supported not only libraries but
museums, which was helpful kind of directive we gave with the
ARPA funds. That was really cool to see. And school libraries and
a lot of it had to do with the ARPA funds were there to
diversify their collections to help reflect.
The community and and yeah so that was the the school centric
things, but they they also recognized that it was very
stressful and a lot of projects weren't completed during the
grant. Which our bevy of extensions can attest to.
Next is Colorado. Again, they gave a lot of subrecipient
grants. You can see kind of how the the funds break down, but I
just want to highlight here of the of the recipient types 120,
two of those grants totaling over $964,000 went toward school
libraries and similar to Alaska, a lot of it was about doing
diversity audits of collections and diversity diversifying the
collections.
And in Wyoming again more collection development support
for school libraries which seemed to be an exceptionally
it's always a high need in school libraries but it seems
like post pandemic even more so and so throughout this state
over not over but 208 school libraries benefited and added
more than 15,000 physical and electronic materials. So and
then another great sound bite that I can't read right now out
loud for time but it's really good.
Vermont also, again, we're seeing a lot of trends with the
support to schools with collection development. And so
they created welcoming library collections for the larger
community, not just school libraries. They had supported
funding for translating introductory materials about
what a library is for people from other countries,
immigrants, refugees, who just don't even understand the
concept of an American Public Library.
Still me, New Mexico also not. There's some school library
recipients but as far as like the atypical non public support
they something of note here. There's a lot of good content on
here but I want to point out that they really did a lot of
work to make sure that they could support the Navajo Nation
library. They were initially had a barrier because they couldn't
accept direct funding, but they were able to be a purchasing
agent and as a state library and so they worked with.
Reporting the Navajo Nation in a kind of an indirect way, but
still was able to meet the need of of that community, which I
thought was really notable. Another great sound bite about
the impact of the make sewing machine installed in a maker
space that I recommend reading.
Yeah, what do we got?
Actor actually brought this up in his some of his project
overviews was how much they support in Puerto Rico, the
school libraries. And so not only did they support them in a
lot of different ways with funding, but they also did a lot
of on-site workshops up for school librarians to to be as an
ally and enhancer of student learning. So they had six hour
on, they had a six hour on site workshop and 144 librarians
participated.
And then Indiana, yes, Indiana, they also did a lot of different
types of sub grants. They distributed 74% of their $3.47
million in sub grants and 71% of that went to individual
libraries, which is great. And and yeah, so they were they,
they break down the good and they're not so good. I see that
kind of unconventional.
Story walk support, which we've seen a lot of with ARPA with
ARPA projects. But again they they reflect the challenges of
the supply chain affecting, affecting the deadlines. Take it
away Madison.
Our next category is needs assessments and analysis. Iowa
contracted with a social work professor to conduct a needs
assessment to identify strategies to help patrons with
psychosocial needs. That includes mental health,
substance abuse, homelessness and and poverty related needs.
And this this.
Contractor was set to assess gaps in libraries ability to
meet those types of needs. The recommendations from the
assessment were put into their five year plan and they are now
seeking grant funding to type to pilot a program that they've
titled Building Public Library capacity for serving high needs
patrons and the intent for that is creating a toolkit for other
states to address similar needs.
And next we have Ohio. Ohio did a collection analysis through
teaching books. They focused on youth collections, and that
included toolkits, live support and webinars. And what we've
learned of this slide is already out of date. They've reached.
88 of 88 Ohio counties.
And that's been more than 630 collections that have been
analyzed and there's also interest in replication of this
analysis in other states.
Dennis, you're up next.
Category is partnerships.
So the ARPA funds in North Carolina again are there was a
broad scope of of outcomes and support that they provided
throughout the state. They saw a lot of increasing circulation of
other technologies. But what's nice is that these funds as you
probably can also relate to, we're sort of like a a spark or
a catalyst for continuing to seek funding to fulfill the need
for Internet access far beyond ARPA and.
A lot of, I think Utah mentioned having a seat at the table with
these challenges and that's what North Carolina also indicates
here is that the funds help strengthen the Community
partnerships and understand the role of the state library.
In New York, they also did a lot of of partnering with various
state agencies and other other organizations. They worked on a
lot of digital inclusion work, most notably a digital literacy
for seniors using senior planet and and they partnered with a
lot of museums as well with STEM workshops that had a diversity
and equity awareness emphasis and yeah. And then they did some
work on partnering with schools for digital.
Resources for students, particularly social and
emotional learning.
And in Oklahoma, they had targeted grants, but they were
it allowed each recipient to address their specific needs. So
the the projects were very broad and really varied. You see the
partnership with the Community Center and the library that
created an outdoor learning space. And again, there's a lot
of good stuff in here too, but I just want to point out the
partnership with the Standing Bear Park Museum and Education
Center that you see in the photo it during the pandemic, they
used the funds to help create a website. So folks.
Could virtually tour the museum while things were shut down.
You've now.
Bringing us home with workforce development California, they
provided 6 digital workforce platforms to all of their public
libraries in the state with over 374,000 lessons completed. They
also funded the Digital Navigator program with partners
with over 50 libraries in partners in over 50 library
jurisdictions. They created home connectivity kits which included
Chromebooks and hotspots.
And they also provided free ebooks and audio books through
the Palace project.
Next we have Illinois with workforce development. They had
37 awards on virtual employment programs and related resources,
as well as helping to accommodate online learning and
working remotely.
Lord knows, we all needed those skills. They had sub awards that
helped libraries comply with pandemic protocols and to bring
people back into libraries so they could bring back people
into libraries using those protocols. And finally, the
Millstatt Public Library put up an enclosure on a trailer hitch
to help create a sort of little Free Library that had access for
one family at a time to encourage social distancing.
Next we have Minnesota. They had a career force contract to
enhance workforce grants in their state, and they also had a
parenting project with the Minnesota Department of
Corrections.
And finally, we have New Jersey. NJ worked on digital literacy in
workforce development, emphasizing computer skills and
job seeking. They also focus on digital inclusion for their
projects and a quick shout out to their New Jersey Health
Connect program. This is an ongoing program to put a
spotlight on the inequities of the healthcare system. It's
technology that offers links to telemedicine apps for doctor's
appointments.
Which is helpful through the COVID pandemic and beyond.
All right.
We got through them. Thank you so much for submitting your
slides.
Now we would like to hear from you. You can use the microphones
here in either out of the room if you have questions for other
states, questions for us if we miss something in your slide
that you want to highlight.
We'd love to hear it.
So no, I have to stand on my tippy toes.
So North Dakota, I don't know why this went over my head, but
it did. Didn't get my slides in. We created 10.
We purchased 10 book vending machines to put around the rural
areas of North Dakota. We started first where there were
no county wide library services offered, and then we went to
underserved communities we have.
Two left that we are still waiting to place. We did. We put
one in a park system.
And so one in a grocery store, community grocery store. So
we're really excited about that. It has taken a lot of work and
our two catalogers have cataloged 8000 bucks that we
purchased for the vending machines.
Each vending machine has 400 books, so we got an initial.
An initial collection for each, and then a second round of
collections and we also saw an academic consortium.
Start up in with OverDrive. We oversaw that and got them going
with.
A collection just for a starter. So those are a couple of things.
We we weren't able to submit a slide, but one of the really
important projects that several libraries did in our state of
Idaho were to get bookmobiles. Idaho is largely rural. A lot of
it is.
Even beyond rural, it's just remote. And those are places
that people don't have Internet, they they don't have access to
healthcare. It's not easy for them to drive to a library or
maybe their school library, maybe the closest library. So I
think those projects have been hugely impactful for the
communities and they just never would have been possible without
this type of funding. So kudos to the IMS and.
We're just very happy and delighted to see how those
projects have turned out.
Thank you.
Madison I have a few extra details from Rachel Cook.
A little more detail on our hydroponic gardens. When we
surveyed our public, public school and academic libraries,
the overwhelming community needed, they reported, was
student security. We couldn't pay for food with grant funds.
No, you may not.
So we partnered with the STEM Action Center that was doing
these gardens in schools to improve access to fresh food in
some of our most rural areas. It is one of my favorite projects
you've ever done.
To Rachel.
Bring different South Dakota, and South Dakota does not do sub
grants. So I want to just give a shout out to everybody who does
because wow, that was a lot of work. It's not something we've
ever done before. And we decided if we ever did do it again, we
would purchase software to do it. But wow to to those of you
who do subgrants, that's a lot of work.
So I spent the last three years building an EMS and I think that
we could not have done the ARPA grants that we did, that we were
handling 140 grants. It was insane without that EMS. And I
mean, I think it could have done it you know, on multiple
spreadsheets, but there's so much more human error that's
possible when you manage grants that way. So I was really
grateful for that. The state of Maryland and the the spirit of.
Being sort of economical in the number of grants. We awarded
large grants. So we did what a lot of y'all did too, and that
was we gave out 14 vehicle grants and my boss had this
great statistic. It will, it will be in the SPR.
But basically since a lot of these vehicles went to rural
communities their outreach is forgot who said that yes you
they're the outreach is significant and measurable. So
it's it's between 25 and 40% more of the state of Maryland is
being reached by these outreach vehicles. So that and is in and
of itself I thought was like a really valuable arpal lesson.
And thank you.
So in Rhode Island we we did more than was on the slide, but
I have been.
Really grateful for the libraries themselves in the
administration of this funding, although we did learn that some
of our library directors are not so good at doing things like.
Accounting and, you know, like attachments and uploading
things, they were incredible, especially because we didn't
have a grants management system. So we were, we were using
spreadsheets, we built something sort of ad hoc and we kept
changing it with every round. Our libraries were so creative
and they were so patient and they were so willing to try
things and spend the money and like work with us to get all of
it out the door. And I really think that this has been sort of
a, well, maybe not once in a lifetime, hopefully.
Maybe once in a while time, but a really great opportunity to
infuse our libraries with you know, we got a lot of new
technology and a lot of really innovative projects that people
did with our competitive grants and it was just a.
A challenging but very rewarding experience in the end. So thank
you, thank you.
Anymore virtual content comments? None.
Well, if no one else would like to add, I think I can speak for
all three program officers where we are greatly appreciative of
the work you've done with ARPA. I can speak for all of our
miles, I can tell you that.
With this extra work and we look forward to reading your SPR
reports when they do, when they are due. So thank you.
Well done. Great job, everyone. Great job, Madison and Dennis,
for that whirlwind tour of our ARPA.
Sneak peak and now we're going to continue the theme of ARPA
and add in cares. Last year's conference in Baltimore had us
talking about your experience going through cares and ARPA,
whether it was something the IMS evaluation team would think
about investing money in to do more of a on the side research
study. Your conversation with us was the first opportunity we had
to really discuss that.
And like so many things, Emily took up the baton and is
actually going to make this next step a reality. So we're going
to hear from her a year later on evaluating cares in our.
Hey, it's me again. Nice to see you.
This time I get a bonus 15 minutes instead of a -, 15
minutes. So just talk really slow.
Umm.
I know I I do. I do always appreciate a little bit of extra
break, but I'm of course going to make you do a little work
before you get that break, so.
I'm going to some of what I'm going to show you is going to be
a refresh of what you saw last year. We've talked about this a
number of times. Umm, I think the real important take away
that we want to share with you today is that of the evaluation
funds that we're putting towards the stimulus dollars that IMS
delivered, we're putting it all towards the work that you did.
So no pressure.
We ended up spending the majority of our stimulus funds
through the grants to states programs. The structure really
did help. I am less efficiently get money out the door and so we
want to be able to talk about that. We want to be able to
study that and understand what that meant and what that looks
like. I'm going to take a step back for a second because I was
sitting with PLA, the Public Library association at the
beginning of the pandemic and helped with the both the March.
In the May surveys that we sent out to libraries across the
United States, including state libraries, to ask kind of that
future anticipation what's going to happen? What are we? What do
we think our budgets are going to look like in this pandemic?
What do we think is going to happen to our structures? What
do we think is going to happen to our libraries? What are our
greatest fears? What our greatest needs?
And I was just refreshing. I remember looking at the data at
in in my spare bedroom, in my house and late at night in the
dark with, you know, like data just coming out of my ears. And
there is this.
Really, there was this sense across the board and especially
at the state level early on that a lot of what you all were going
to experience in this crisis was going to be a repeat of what
happened in the 2008 recession and in 2008 in the 2008
recession.
So many state libraries were gutted and then it took so long
to be able to hire state backs state staff back, to be able to
reinvigorate your budgets, to be able to get yourselves at the
level that you were when the pandemic hit. And so I remember
just kind of having this reflective thought
overwhelmingly that there was this real fear that that you
were going to lose your jobs, your state libraries were going
to be targeted, that you were just going to be wiped out.
Because of tax revenue losses and that libraries would, your
public libraries in your states would experience a lot of the
same things.
And.
To listen today, to have you. By the way, everyone's hiring, so
you know, raise your hand if you have a job.
First of all, that's telling, right? The fact that, like,
you're all in a position where you're able to start hiring
people even if you lost people early on, a lot of that rehiring
didn't happen for a number of years after 2008.
Based on my recollection of what I remember public libraries
talking about when I first started at PLA.
You know, there is also like the there were funds you were able
were able to get funds from the feds to your states, to your
libraries that really helped stabilize.
A lot of places that just believed they were going to be
shut down.
And, you know, people.
The the sentiment that I got out of the comments that were coming
through is fear of of what was going to happen to the
communities because the libraries closed their doors,
fear at the state level of what you are not going to be able to
provide your local libraries.
And we're in a position now where we're hearing we got a ton
of money we need to take a breather.
We're still trying to get the money out the door, but that's a
very different scenario that than what I think a lot of us
were anticipating when March 2020 rolled around and we didn't
know what was happening.
The we asked states in the May we actually did a division of.
Umm.
Data by state academic K12 and public libraries. In the second
survey that PLA did, we asked libraries what they needed the
most from their state organizations.
And they said they needed help communicating value, getting
funding and getting guidance on how to manage the pandemic and.
I'm gonna let you, I'm going to leave the guidance in the kind
of political realm over here, depending on who you're like,
what your legislature looks like. But when we look at all of
the work that you did with the ARPA funds and the care funds,
cares funds, I feel like I'm always so able to articulate
value of what you all were able to do and what public libraries
were able to do with these funds very quickly.
And we haven't even gotten all the data in yet. And I think
that's really telling in terms of just the the want to be able
to really invigorate libraries at a time when there was a lot
of uncertainty and a lot of fear.
And if you all even just being in your positions, give yourself
just a little bit of recognition if not a lot of recognition for
helping to advocate to get the funding that you got for your
states. We're you know, we can go back and we can start looking
at some of the data from early on and say way to go like you
guys didn't just administer the funds.
Your knowledge or experience, your want to help your libraries
really did help us be able to get you funds that weren't
around in the in a recession that had a really negative
impact.
Years ago.
You all also said that for states, look, just looking at
the state level data, 12, we had 12 state responses, so about a
25 cent, 25% response rate.
You all said that that you had concerns that you were not going
to be able to hire people.
Still seems to be a concern. Again, everyone's got a job
opening somewhere out there, but your hiring was going to get
just Nicks that you were going to have this great need and you
wouldn't even be able to hire people.
You said that you were concerned about your funding dropping.
For professional development and print collections, you
anticipated money losing money on programs and resuming
operations, but you did anticipate money going up.
For services and what I.
You know, I think it's again thinking about now like we had a
lot of money go into professional development. When
we look at the cars and our price funds. We had a lot of
money going into helping libraries shift into that
virtual space when they couldn't have people in person or getting
out in the community through the bookmobiles or the virtual or
the, you know, one off library structures, temporary libraries.
I think print collections, I'll just kind of leave that one
there. I think there's a lot more to print collections
changing than just the pandemic, but that certainly accelerated.
I think a lot of shifting from print to digital digital, so I
know this isn't it wasn't an IMLS study. I should of course
in my like due diligence of caring about research and
statistics.
This wasn't something that we sent through a statistical
package and can say with definitive assurance that all of
these data are correct, but when?
Even now, like going back, thinking back years later, I
think a lot of what we found in those surveys through the Public
Library Association really did really is going to give us a
good opportunity in the evaluation in retrospect to say,
what is it, what is it that people were most afraid about?
How are we able to help divert some of those fears? How we're
able to support libraries staying open and then help
support their communities.
So with that, I will get off my soapbox, just give yourself a
pound back, congratulations and we'll get on to the rest of our
scheduled program.
The evaluation itself like any good evaluation if you are still
traumatized from the evaluation you did from your last five year
plan.
You'll know that you're we're going to go through all of the
documentation, we're going to look at all the data, and we're
going to ask ourselves, what did we do well and what could we do
better?
That means that we will be coming to you for data
collection. You are our primary data collection targets. But
fortunately, we are going to have a lot of data already
collected like what we just saw Dennis and Madison present in
the slides, which are already reporting into the SPR. We're
going to be going in there. We're going to be dissecting it
and looking at it left, right and upside down.
With the idea that at the end of it, we're going to get an
evaluation report that's going to talk about not only what we
found in the distribution of value evaluation funds.
But our hope is that it's going to talk about that value ad that
I just shared with you as my own personal reflection.
Umm.
We know that state lawmakers are looking very closely at how
stimulus funds were spent in their states.
And we want to be able to give you data points to be able to
talk to your legislators and talk to your federal staff as
well as ourselves when we're talking about the way we were
able to move funds from IMS out into communities.
Just to reiterate the wonderful message that Terry shared about
trying to prevent further extension requests.
We do want to start the evaluation.
Sometime this year, so it would be of great benefit to myself as
someone who likes data, to have all the data in, so I would also
very much appreciate it if you're able to.
Close everything out, but we'll work with what we got.
The idea being that we'll have a report.
About a year and some change out.
This again, many of you have already seen for the five of you
that were on this side of the room who weren't here last year,
this might be a new slide for you. This is where this is cares
dollars, right. So this is the very first chunk of money that
went out the door. This is what that distribution looks like.
Again, thinking back to what we heard libraries needing early on
like these have, the hotspots showed up here and throughout,
that digital access piece became really important.
You know we.
We had to shift, the field had to shift very suddenly and that
just meant these. This is, I think really speaks to the
demand of where the library, the libraries needed to shift to be
able to provide services.
These are the areas that we tended to see.
The the types of projects being funded.
Connectivity again shows up at the at the top, including
including Internet upgrades, digital content, workforce, PAP
sanitizing and learning kits. This would be by count.
Of activity.
And then this would be at the state level. So where did
states?
Invest their funds in cares.
Last June, when we were in Baltimore, we asked LST
coordinators and chiefs about the stories you were most
interested in.
If we were to do an evaluation.
How did you want to be involved? What is it that would be good
for you and what might be some topics or things that we would
want to be more that might be more politically sensitive that
we should be aware of?
We then met in December with Cozla, shared some of what we
heard from you at the June conference, that you wanted
further discussions on administering stimulus funds
during an emergency and that that post recovery story from
the States perspective seemed really important.
I'm a westies. This is a great opportunity to leverage our
state federal partnership.
But.
We also really heard that what you wanted would be assets that
you could use, PowerPoints, one pagers, things that you could
pull really quickly off of the Internet that would that would
look nice and tell a really quick story of what your state
did or what we did at the national level.
And so we've taken the feedback we've gathered so far, drafted
these research questions here. This is what's going to start to
go into our evaluation scope of work that we will pull together
and then send out to bid, have an evaluator come to us and tell
us how they might be able to run this evaluation. And we'll focus
on the different ways the funds went out the door, technology
access and then those lessons learned.
We have, we have some hypothesis that we're going to be testing.
We certainly heard from Kasla in December that just because we
had the, the Cares Act dollars did not necessarily mean that
ARPA dollars were easy to administer. So some of these
hypotheses were already starting to get a little bit of feedback
on that might, they might need to be tweaked, but that's of
course also what we're going to be testing in the evaluation.
I'm personally very interested in the idea of centralized
purchasing or states shifting towards grant programs.
Having worked in other industries where there are
formula grants that go out the door, this is a this tends to be
a pretty centralized system where money can move relatively
quickly.
Um and.
That might not show up in an example of like HHS or
Department of Bed where there might be more complicated ways
that the funding is distributed.
So I'm I'm going to be really interested to see how that one
comes out for us.
And we also know that the museums have been really
interested to hear how well these efficient, how efficiently
these funds went out the door from their perspective, wanting
to know what the opportunities would look like in the future on
the other side of the IMLS House.
So.
With that.
We're going to turn it over to discussion. We have two
different table discussion questions that we're going to
ask.
And the first is.
We don't want to know.
What you want to know?
We want to know. We want you to think of yourself as an
evaluator.
So you just got done with your five year evaluations. You
worked closely with evaluators. They were asking you questions.
They were asking for data. They were asking you to remember
things from before the pandemic that none of us can remember.
And so if you were evaluating this program, what would you?
What would you like need to be looking for? What is it that you
as a data collection specialist?
Would be looking for. So there's definitely going to be some like
full evaluators need to know that we did X, evaluators need
to know that we did Y. That's going to show up for sure, but
do evaluators need to be interviewing every single
library?
Do evaluators need to be surveying state level staff
only? What would you be asking of states in terms of function?
Like, where do you want them to really target their energy? We
have limited dollars, you know, good evaluate every single
thing. And you don't want them to evaluate every single thing
just because you would. It would never end. So what would you ask
of of yourselves if you were an evaluator?
Well, we what do you think you'd look for in the data?
What would be really compelling for trend analysis?
And what topics or activities would be important to focus on
in a research plan? And maybe you feel like we've identified
those already. Maybe the answer is what you put up on the
slides. But I have a feeling from your, from your
perspective, there's probably some things out there that you
would want to make sure that if we are putting money behind an
evaluator, going out into your communities, going out into your
state, coming to you and asking for information, you would want
to make sure we got covered.
So we're going to spend about 10 minutes just talking to tables.
If it seems to wind down before then, we'll do the report out.
Again, don't overthink this. This isn't. You weren't getting
graded. We weren't getting tested. This is just really like
think. Think like a researcher. If you're researching what
happened during the cares and ARPA with the cares and Murphy
stimulus funds, what is it that that you should be looking at?
Sound good?
OK.
Go to it, I will find you in about 10 minutes.
OK. Which one of you gets the mic? All right. OK.
We do our round Robin, so I'm going to go.
That direction to the virtual people and then come back down
this way just so you know where I'm going next. So.
Start over wherever, OK, at our table when we were things that
we would be interested to look at from other states of was the
number of states that really focused on whether funds were
going to direct service or looking into the language of the
surveys themselves and seeing how many had very direct
actionable goals. Where it said we are going to distribute
hotspots or we are going to do XYZ as opposed to what some
states did, I'm not pointing.
Angry at our state, but our state would be a great example
where you see a lot of very vague.
Goals that have big keywords and big concepts and that's not a
bad thing. But we do that so that we can kind of cram
projects in there as we think about them or if we need to. But
it's much harder to go in after the fact and say, hey look, you
want to see what we're doing with this money. This is exactly
how it's going. So to look at the the surveys and see really
what ones what stand up. Hi.
That was done. So we would be really interested to see what
states had those actionable goals at a higher level and what
states were making that move. And then the other thing we had
noticed is we would be interested in seeing how many
states made a noticeable shift in their goals. Because I know
when we talked about this in Baltimore last year, a number of
us said that, hey, this was not a great time for us to tackle
this. So we were doing cut and paste with the years and you
know, changing them from document to document and really
not making as big a shift as we might want to. So to go into
the.
Wait and say what ones were able to pull that off, and where did
they shift their focus?
Thank you. All right.
So we talked about potentially looking at, sorry, I guess I
could address the room and not you directly family looking at
the cost like per person served across the different kind of
broad subject areas. So you know it was an early literacy
project. How much does like how many people does $1000 or
$100,000 can it get get you so that you can compare across
things. We also talked about sampling potentially.
The direct recipients of the services or whatever. So the
libraries themselves or perhaps even users of the library
programs acknowledging that that would be very difficult, but
that potentially that's where some of the most meaningful
stories and information lie. And then something I'm interested in
that I think is probably outside the scope of this, of this
evaluation is to compare.
Libraries to like sort of the distribution of ARPA funds
through municipalities and states because we were able to
move things so quickly and I think make a big impact. How
does that compare to say, a municipality where like they've
only sent 10% of their ARPA funds? I don't know what that
would look like, but I think that that could be potentially a
powerful tool for us in advocating for library funding.
Great. Thank you.
And I don't want to share that I have any bias, but I feel like
we moved funds pretty efficiently. OK, who at this
table?
OK, so we started up by saying we wanted to get bang for Buck's
analysis, but how do you do that right?
So talking amongst us with four, just four states, we found out
that it's completely different in what we were actually allowed
to do with our funding. And that's very problematic because
our hands are tied in many different ways with contracts,
with state laws, with local interests.
And then we also said it would be interesting to try to have an
analysis that could actually attribute.
The outcomes to what we are able to do because we're not
operating in isolation and there are many other things that
influence what the outcomes are. So it that's always a very hard
thing. We know that we're an influential part of it, but how
what percentage can we say is actually due to us.
So at our table.
Oh, I have to stand up. OK. Sorry. I'm merrilee, by the way.
I'm from Utah. So at our table, we kind of talked about a few
things. We kind of went through each question. And the the first
part that we thought would be important would be to talk about
what were the goals and the intentions. And then the second
part, were those goals and intentions met? And then
finally, why was meeting those goals significant and kind of
talking about like the context of what was happening?
At the time, because we talked a little bit about, you know, we
did spend money on books and well, why was that significant?
Because there was this huge demand for online material when
everything was closed down. And so just being able to to put all
that information in a way where it makes sense about the how the
intention and how those goals were met and why it was
significant. Sorry, I'm repeating myself. Thanks. That's
all I have.
That was great. Thank you. Right. Who over here?
OK, sorry, a lot of our stuff we discussed, you know, stakeholder
interviews because a lot of ours came down to things that would
be best discovered that way. The the first thing we just talked
about was how did this address, how did everything we did
address the needs of the pandemic because otherwise it's
like, well, why did you just throw all this money out there
since it was pandemic response.
One of the interesting things we said, why didn't you know asking
the libraries, what did they hope this money would do for
them that it didn't actually do for them, you know, and are the
items, you know, the items the programs that were initiated,
are they still being used is their lasting impact? You know,
there is some things where there's services that came about
through necessity that now people expect that curbside.
Then as the pandemic lanes you know what's no longer needed,
what can be set aside and and also we had sort of an
unintentional expansion of government was I think how
somebody put it at our table. You know how is this will these
creative programs be sustainable and how are they going to pay
for them. You know is this going to shift on to the the states
the counties, the the local. So how you know where is this money
going to come from?
If this is going to be sustained, so it's all kind of.
You know, is there a lasting impact and how do we keep it up?
I appreciate the sneak preview of the next group exercise that
we have coming on. All right, let's hear from our online
people.
So a couple of things. There's more than four or five people
online and so it's more like 22. So this is a longer list.
We I'm not gonna say that things because we've already seen
repeat topics already. So I'm not going to repeat myself.
And I actually have to use it for my because I have 3 pages to
work at so.
Folks are interested in trends formula versus competitive
grants, impacts of supply chain, short term versus long term
needs, LS, LSA, purchasing on behalf of libraries versus
SUBGRANTS. Did people feel safer using library services as a
result of the cares or ARPA activities?
ROI could digital projects be funded with E rate instead of
LTA funds?
Capture the flux of how libraries were responding to all
the pandemic related issues.
Were there negatives?
Schools think the e-books were so successful during the
pandemic, they're rethinking their collection policies for
print.
They would like an illustration of how invaluable libraries
actually were during the pandemic and what they did.
How would SLA's and Subgrantees use funds differently?
That would be interesting impact impact of building closures? Did
virtual services reach the intended users?
Sustainability.
Spending on dispensable, dispensable items. How much
what? And then they were thrown away. That was brought up.
Maintaining hybrid programming, is it worth it?
Higher demand for subgrants across the board.
People are coming out of the woodwork for more money.
Comparisons on populations affected pre, during, and post
epidemic breakdown by age.
One more page.
Our library is more aware of MLS and LSA.
I hope so. Did libraries not want pandemic or not seek out
pandemic funding due to whoops as far as applying or reporting?
You're welcome.
No.
Both done online? Yeah. Impressive. OK, who at this
table?
All right. So our first question would be what was the lessons
learned? Because when we get more money next time than we
know how to move forward. Also success stories, if something is
replicable and scalable, reproducible or toolkit, because
y'all are doing different things than we're doing and sometimes
we would, we can learn from each other and so they haven't all
figure it out on our own separately. So not just the
qualitative questions, but the quantitative.
Both of them. Sometimes we get fixated on the numbers and not
the rest of the story. We'd want to ask that. We'd also want to
ask if things from the pandemic have changed what we're still
doing. I think someone else already mentioned that online.
So we got it. Thank you.
We talked about a couple different things. We talked
about trends, but we figured if you're coming into this, you
probably have some preconceptions, some more. If
they like, oh, well, this didn't happen here and I expected it.
Or like, why was this thing so popular? We also were talking
about getting stories from people. A lot of times it's very
it's easier to get the.
The number data, then the story data. So kind of digging in
particularly with end users and getting their stories. And then
the other thing we think that we would probably want to look at
is kind of state comparisons and commonalities like this seem to
come up in a lot of rural environments or looking at the
differences between where all resource very differently. So
oh, that state had a lot of success. Well, that state didn't
have, you know, six people each doing 20 things, so they're not
pulled in a bunch of different directions. So kind of being
able to see that and.
Use that data to help with future funding.
We came up with several things and a couple of them have
already been discussed like how is it sustainable? How is your
state funding a problem? Hindrance because of
authorization? Appropriation? Legislature has to be in session
that shortens the time you have to use your use the funds and.
How did you measure success? How did how do you, why do you call
what you did a success? How do you measure that? And also how
can outcomes be easily measurable at the local library
level? And look at any evaluation data if available,
especially hard data like if you purchase vehicles, how many
miles were driven, you know, how your services have impacted more
people, things like that.
Great, you all are making my evaluator heart so happy.
OK. So what we discussed I think was maybe.
We were looking in, especially if you do the subgrants
themselves, just a broad survey of the sub grantees as to how
that money was spent. We also talked about, I mentioned how I
thought it, I'm sorry, I mentioned how I thought it
should be more from like a pandemic itself standpoint to
differentiate it from the current like evaluation and
stuff you're doing. How did these funds affect?
The pandemic parts off of it. And then just mainly I thought
some questions about you know if we did it this way what could
you have done differently from an SLA standpoint like if you
had this funding if you get it again, what would be you learn
from it that maybe you wouldn't have done it that way this time?
Thank you.
The stable.
What were last, so I get to say what everybody else said, so
thanks. No, I I guess I want to reinforce one thing that our
table talked about is that short term, long term challenge, short
term easily tangible things you can buy, you can count, you can
show though there is a challenge with some of that. So how to ask
for more context, especially for those smaller expenditures from
smaller libraries that are understaffed who might not have
been able to?
Track some things for you, but then that longer term approach,
I know in Wisconsin we took that approach for longer term
structural improvement. So some questions might be how was the
library library ecosystem in your state more future resilient
to support community needs in a future credit crisis? What
collaborations or partnerships were developed that might have
increased capacity for services and resources and were there any
things that you did with fungible impact so we're.
We did a database inventory because there's lots of
databases being purchased by individual libraries throughout
the state. Nobody knew what anybody was buying. We're
finding things that are spread covering 80% of our population
that are being purchased, you know, 100 different purchases
where we might be able to do cooperative purchasing, save
local money so they can address the staffing issues, which is
really a huge thing we're seeing as an impact out of this. So
what are some of those fungible impacts we also might be able to
measure?
Great job everybody.
Surprise, you were all just being interviewed for the
evaluator position. You're all hired. If you can do this, we'll
just have you do it.
That's really great, actually. You know, I've, I've been
working on starting to address the scope of work for about a
week now and Terry and I and the greats whole grains of state
team have been brainstorming. What is it that we want to learn
from the data? What can we get back to you that's going to be
useful? How can we make this evaluation successful? And I
know that was a quick round of what could we possibly think of,
but there were ideas in there that I hadn't even that hadn't
even occurred to me. And that's going to really help us shape
something that's going to reflect data that's interesting.
To you and you know, more data that's interesting to us. So as
the data lady, I loved that exercise.
OK.
The second table discussion, we're going to do a little bit
faster. We're going to do 5 minutes of discussion and then
we'll do the round Robin report out and we'll start in this
corner of the room and go that way.
And some of you already started to answer the questions here.
What programs, stimulus funded programs, did you decide to keep
permanent and or this could also be operations. So you know did
you do some grants that you hadn't done before and you're
going to continue to do that. Did you create an X type
position that you're going to keep and what did you stop doing
as a result of the pandemic that you are not going to go back to.
So this isn't what can we stop doing now that the pandemic is?
We're on the other end of it. What did you stop doing because
of the pandemic that in retrospect, you're deciding
you're not going to go back to?
OK. So I'm giving you 5 minutes for this one and then I will
find you again and we'll do our report out. OK, Jeff is going to
get us started.
So we can wrap it up. All right, here we go.
Yeah, we had a few things that we that our table that we're
going to keep going through the process. One is the hot spot
program turned out to be very popular with people and we
expect that that's going to keep going. We also had meeting room
spaces that were outfitted for virtual meetings and and remote
work if we expect that.
That's going to be a thing that's going to move forward as
well. There was also somebody had mentioned that one of the
components of some of the grant programs were.
The.
Applicants would have to attend mandatory in person trainings
and we dropped those during the pandemic and we don't see any
compelling reason to go back to that.
And also obviously remote work, I think that's the thing that
that will probably stay with us throughout the moving forward.
Did you have anything you stopped doing before the
pandemic? Did you make it to that one?
I did, I think, I think it was just mostly that we stopped
requiring people to have in phase meetings and or required
to do stuff in person that we were able to open up to this
more broad Internet based.
Worldly library stuff.
Good technical term.
Who at this table?
So all of our ARPA and CARES Act money was sub granted. So we
didn't really as a state library agency didn't act any new
programs that we're going to keep permanent or hire people
who we would keep permanently. However, Utah hired a part-time
person to help out with Cares Act ARPA and they think that
part time person is now going to be permanent. So there's that.
And what did we stop doing as a result of the pandemic that you
want returned to? And that's the the office. Basically, we're not
in the office five days a week. There's that.
OK. So across the board here, we have stopped depending upon
paper.
We're using teams and online versions and making sure that
there's a virtual option, whereas before if you couldn't
participate in person, you didn't participate.
And it's enabled a new office culture that has included
restructuring, and we all feel like we're more versatile and
able to do things.
I think, I think there are probably 20 plus virtual
attendees who appreciate the inclusion of virtual
opportunities for meetings who here?
We talked about several similar things, processes going digital,
so no longer requiring paper applications or paper contracts,
doing everything digitally now. And also online zoom meetings
for trainings, for cohort meetings for grantees and the
monthly check INS that a lot of our library development people
do. That's all gone to zoom and it really makes it more
accessible and a lot cheaper.
We also at our library, we hired a bicultural bilingual library
development coordinator and that position was ARPA funded
initially and that's been converted to a full-time state
funded position which is really great.
Another two states that did subgrants with museums found
that maybe the program it was challenging to find the fit and
so maybe not continuing that with this particular funding
source going forward.
That's really interesting, this museum partnership.
Stuff.
So definitely the reduction in paper use of DocuSign now
instead of a lot of paper, as well as the hiring and retention
of digital navigators in the in their libraries to keep up that
initiative. And as well as streamlining the audio e-book
and audiobook platforms across the many libraries in the state.
That's another one.
And I don't think we did anything that we stopped doing.
So in terms of things that we decided to keep permanent, we
talked about a lot of digital things like having zoom meetings
for directors or other staff across the state to allow
everyone to participate, keeping that one of us started doing sub
grants and that's going to continue.
The program to purchase Kindles to close the digital divide is
going to continue beyond stimulus funds and digital
Navigator program in my state that we have now moved on to
local funds, which is great. So we're going to keep that. And
then the one thing that we talked about that we had stopped
before the pan or at the pandemic and has not come back
yet as a small summer grant program in Michigan.
All right, coming over to this table.
OK. We discussed a number of things. So some things we
discussed keeping at our table e-books certainly and
Mississippi we had a little pilot project come out with.
For ebooks across the state during the pandemic, and it was
a huge hit, so we're going to keep that resource. We also
discussed I like you all, keeping the option for virtual
programming or virtual meetings, things like that.
As well as in Puerto Rico, they had a reading project or reading
a program for youth in their communities. They're going to
keep that. That's going to be one thing they continue on with
and some things that we are not keeping. We discussed maybe
phasing out the need for funding PPE since the pandemic generally
is winding down as well as what else?
Oh, and in Puerto Rico, one thing that the library provided
was access to school databases, or databases for those schools
and other supplies for students to complete homework and other
educational tasks. They'll be phasing that out as well, as the
schools have their own budget, so.
Play again some of the things that's keeping.
Several of us have done.
Weekly zoom meetings that are now monthly zoom meetings with
directors of public libraries at the State Library. We have
managers meetings within the agency. And now that even though
everybody's back in the building, we're still doing them
by zoom just because it's a little, just a little more
convenient. And in Arkansas, with the cares money, we
purchased the Learning Express for a year and our parent
agency, the Department of Education, is paying for the
next three years for us.
So we were able to leverage those cares funds and we also
did the summer reading virtual platform and we still have that,
but the number of participants is dwindling. So I'm not sure
how long that will continue with the ARPA funds. We use that to
set up a statewide virtual union catalog.
And some of the things that are no longer being done is the
hotspots and several of the libraries started with the Cares
Act funding, the hotspots, they continued the funding with the
ARPA, but now it's just not sustainable with the LSA funds.
And at Arkansas we did sub awards and we will not be doing
several wars.
Unless, of course, there's a big pocket of money. Then what else
do you do?
Interesting. OK.
Some of the things we talked about, people have brought up,
but similar things about some of the digital products, you know,
databases that were really popular like LinkedIn learning,
shifting funds around for that early literacy spending was
another aspect that people are keeping in terms of stuff that
we're not doing. Dial Story has started up, not not going to
keep doing that. A couple of us had done the reading tracking
software for libraries where we're no longer going to be
doing that.
Um, again, we're not doing a couple people not doing hotspot
programs anymore. And related to the sub recipient aspect,
similarly states that haven't done it before will not be
continuing it. In my case in Massachusetts, we had done it
before. What I learned from doing it is I'm not doing this
without a current management system. So we're in the process
of doing that. So definitely for those of you who are like, I
don't know how to do this, I didn't know how to do it and I
was like I'm not doing this on paper anymore, so.
That's a great lesson learned, right? One more table and then
we have our virtual people.
Ours was pretty much everything everybody else said, but there
was a couple extra things. One of the things that we, some of
the people in our states are continuing to do like a more of
a train, the trainer type stuff and mentor and mentee programs
and obviously the ebooks and virtual hybrid programming was
big. And one of the states no longer allows pickups. They mail
everything even if they're close by just because they got.
Used to mailing things during the pandemic and what we've
stopped doing is in person programming only. So there's
more of a hybrid approach and that's it.
Cool. All right, online folks.
Hi.
I'm not going back to work 100% or excuse me, not going back to
work. Most of these folks are 100% remote.
They are keeping accessible youth collections. They're sort
of split about sub grants. Most of them have offered them as a
result of the ARPA funds, but some are keeping, some are not.
Some are keeping them, but probably not at the same level
or amount.
They're keeping the People's Law Library, which I'm very
intrigued about.
Keeping Subgrants and the coordinator is now a permanent
position.
Stopped working with hotspots due to the grant requirements
and libraries were not maintaining the plans.
There's a teen internship subaward that they're going to
maintain. Dropped TV white space? Not understandable. I got
it.
I have a Grant's assistant. I hope to keep her forever.
Stop PPE grants keep SP SRP reader zone subscription.
Broadband is now part of our five year plan.
We've offered grants during our trip, but we want to continue.
Digital inclusion is a big thing that they want to maintain.
Great job everybody. I know I got everyone hyped up about
leaving for break early. We're right at the top of the hour.
But to let you out with inspiration on your brain are we
have a surprise guest speaker who's just going to come up and
give you a couple of great pep talks are man behind the money
CFO Chris Katanani. He's he's the one that makes sure that the
lights stay on, the door stay open you guys get your checks.
So.
Chris, did you want to come up here and just say a few quick
things and then we'll go to break?
Thank you. I hate the fact that you put me in between a great
session and the break, but guest speaker nonetheless. Really, I
just want to climb back onto the soapbox that Emilia set the
platform for us so high, you guys set it high and I just want
to give you some, maybe put some graphics into that soapbox, is
that?
So the cares funding was emergency stimulus funding. So
it was new to IMLS as well. And I remember it's almost, what,
three years ago now that appropriation was passed.
And we had to struggle with what are we going to do with this
money? We have $50 million and it was a leadership team got
together, the executives got together and had to figure this
out.
And we had Terry, the program officers from grants to states
who are leading the charge along with Cindy, Cindy Landrum, on
setting some really flexible standards that the States
absorbed and the states helped to get $30 million. We were able
to award an obligate money, which was important because
Congress wanted to know how much your cares funds were obligated.
We got 30 million out the door very quickly.
And then let's keep moving along through the year. Back in 2020,
they wanted to know how much is being spent and your
organizations were spending the money. That made us look very
good. So Congress was inquiring when we had to start setting the
budget for 2222 requests going into place. We were able to talk
to OMB and the President's administration about the
obligating and the spending that was being done. And there is a.
Very strong correlation between the work you did that got us the
much larger art funds in 2021. So we know the work's not done,
but it was your efforts, it got us to where we are. The
evaluation is very important because.
Well, let me go back. We were leading that in getting money
out the door and spending money, so.
Evaluations, we want to be leading edge in that too. We
want to be first out the door and what you're talking about
now during the last half hour is really going to drive some
important thoughts and help us by good narrative for future
appropriations and request. So keep it up. We know the work's
not done at the CFO level because we're doing all close
outs that you're sending in.
Umm.
It's important work and it's not going to stop. We're in a new
reality now and we need people that are on the ground seeing
what's going on to help us get more money to you, to the
communities, and help this nation. So keep it up.
Terry, are you going to take us to break? Oh, go on break.
Come back at quarter after. Thank you.
That's a couple of years that we have dealt with a lot of things
that were unexpected. Perhaps, maybe things are a little bit.
Something came out of left field that you weren't quite prepared
for and so you know we were thinking this is a great
opportunity to kind of take that memory of that sort of caught
off guard feeling and.
And try to think ahead. Think about what could be done in the
future to sort of do some flex some scenario planning muscles
if you will so.
That is what we're going to do tonight, this afternoon, and
then a second session tomorrow afternoon to do a couple of
exercises in this realm. So what this really is, is the scenario
planning. Another potentially more popular way of discussing
it is futures and futuring. And so it really is about these
three things here, making projections, being prepared and
actually planning in advance in the case that those kinds of
things were to actually take place.
And specifically we wanted to it's talked a lot about in a lot
of contexts. IMS in other capacities has supported on
future schools, futures training librarians to be futurists. But
we obviously for the sake of time and to hone in on the
purpose of our time together as LSA coordinators we wanted to
hone in on the LSA and state library contexts of scenario
planning. So what we're going to do to this afternoon and.
Tomorrow afternoon is have an opportunity to think ahead, and
we're hoping that by doing this it can help you all anticipate
changing roles of state libraries, LSA coordinators and
think of how the work that is done in a state library can
maintain its relevance no matter what may befall the world or the
state or the country. So.
Here's how the sections are going to be structured.
Will break out the in person attendees in three different
groups. I'll, I'll do that in a second once I eye up the tables
and who's at what table, and then they'll be in three groups
and you'll all have a unique scenario that we have come up
with that takes place in the year 2040. And the virtual
attendees will also have their own scenario to work through.
They'll go to their own breakout room, and I believe that they're
providing the link to the breakout room in the chat.
And and then each group will have a facilitator from IMLS to
kind of help guide the discussion, answer any
questions, kind of yeah, Shepherd that conversation.
And then what you'll be doing in this session is you'll have 30
minutes to 1st digest the scenario. So we'll have handouts
so you guys can kind of process it. And then there's a space
where you can kind of make some individual notes about what you
think the implications are for that and and like as a group for
the 20 remaining 25 minutes, you'll collectively consider the
implications for the work of state libraries and then within
that time the 30 minutes you'll identify.
A representative who will share a summary of the group's work
when we come back together. And just as a reminder, the
summarizing part is going to be helpful because you all have
different scenarios. So just be thinking about that with the
with the share out piece. So today we have again I mentioned
well first of all the breakout rooms have flip charts to gather
and arrange your ideas. The ILS representatives will also help
with kind of gathering and organizing the thoughts and
ideas that you'll.
The brainstorming today's session I in the Wizard of Oz
theme, I would say is more of an alphabet moment. Here
challenges, curveballs, things that are not great happening.
And then tomorrow session is more of a Glenda time where it's
windfalls and wonderful things, the very positive things that
would be happening in the future.
OK. And so another way too, especially if you're new to this
sort of way of thinking, many of us are we've, I know me
personally, I've heard of this process. I haven't actually put
my sink my teeth into it before. So this is just one possible way
to think through the implications of of what this
means to libraries is called organizing them by order of
consequence. So we'll have different things you can jot
down on your paper etcetera, and you can organize maybe by the
1st order.
Consequence, like if if this thing were to happen, this is
the first consequence and then when that happens then this
consequence will take place. So it kind of allows your brain to
organize a chronological cause effect of of what this scenario
would do to libraries and state libraries.
And then we just again because this is very new kind of
exercise, we have a couple of norms to put out there for
everybody, be open to new ideas. This is very much similar to
brainstorming environment where you kind of let things marinate
for a while, challenge your assumptions, suspend disbelief
is very important when you're talking about things that could
happen in 2040, staying future oriented. So really be thinking
about, OK, this is what the scenario says, so I'm going to
stay in that moment.
And fully participate by listening, actively
contributing, really leaving space in the conversation for
others you may have. This may be something that comes really easy
to you. You may have a a ton of things to share, but kind of
letting as many people kind of get comfortable with this
conversation as possible. And stay engaged of course.
OK, so these are the breakout assignments. Madison will be in
her namesake the Madison Ballroom. So umm so yeah, let
me, let me take a minute then. Just do these breakouts. Now
visually, let's see when I go with this table, this table,
this table, and.
Yeah, that should.
Our scenario was that a sophisticated multinational
cyber terror organization launches a coordinated cyber
disaster in 2040. So all government systems worldwide
have been targeted on some Internet remains mostly for
personal use, not for government use. Connectivity returns at a
snails pace and it's eight months, it's completely.
And then there's also an epic present threat of more cyber
attacks. So we approach this as.
It feels a lot like a reverse COVID. So instead of taking
everything online, we're bringing everything back to in
person, so library spaces become a lot more important. We also
were lucky enough to have a hector and a it's Amy, right?
We've experienced. Not that we're they're not.
That communities have come from hurricanes have experienced this
similar loss of connectivity and so there was a lot of talk about
the sort of phone tree systems, the satellite phones having
paper backups of everything. And so we talked a lot about how we
would need to maybe support libraries with paper toner
physical resources and we thought about that there might
be some supply chain issues around opposed to around
technology this time.
Around.
That you bring to her and physical material. And we also
talked about the security and facility risks. So if everything
is on a, you know, heat card, those will have to be repeated
so that you can use lots. And how are we protecting our
interpersonal spaces? Are we remaining security guards? Are
people looting the buildings and anyone, can everyone get in?
We talked a little bit about how this disrupts funding
completely. If your payroll is online, if you're drawing down
funds, safer EMS, you can't do that. So how are we accessing
our funds? I also think you talked a little bit about it in
the wider scope, what other services are out. So it's water
out, spanking out like we don't quite know, but we can do a lot
of critical services for people are probably also out and then
talking a lot about being a trusted source of information.
So as we're rebuilding, are we rebuilding?
Local intranets, so that library can at least communicate within
the development online, and also, you know, steering people
in the correct direction as things begin to come online and
making sure that they're safe.
I did mention like maybe less resource safe libraries might be
an advantage if we don't have those virtual systems in place.
So if you're still doing your payroll by hand or in a non
cloud based system maybe it wouldn't be that that bad
potentially.
Yeah. And so just a big question of how does everybody get paid
if the banking systems are down any, did I miss anything? I will
say that they also mentioned SPR reporting came up in ours as
well that they can't be expected to do as much with the SPR
report if it's all paper based and we would be receiving
binders of of paperwork from them. We're not very interested
in filling them out by hand. Thank you. So.
Thank you. All right, the 3rd and final in Person Group and
then we'll move on to the virtual group.
Hi. So our scenario was that Congress decided to no longer
fund any program or collections that would all be local issues
and we would go back to the LCA system.
And local libraries would be required to put up a 50% match,
but we'd have a lot more money because we'd get $500 million
that was each state, right? Yeah, yeah. So we'd be swimming
in cash. But it was kind of interesting because as we
developed our ideas, especially around the implications, we
started off with kind of doomsday negative things and but
at the end, we kind of came around to some positives.
So we worried about a rich, poor divide because we thought that
people who couldn't come up with a match wouldn't get money.
But then later on we said, well, maybe the state could be
instrumental in how it was divided and it wouldn't
necessarily have to depend just upon the local library. But we
did think that aspirational projects would probably
disappear.
Consultants, library development type consultants would no longer
be needed. Not sure if that was good or bad.
But we did think that smaller libraries would have a lot more
difficulties. Statewide projects would be imperiled because
unless the state decided to fund them without any federal
funding, they would disappear, probably as long the structure
and award would probably have to go over a larger period of time
because construction takes more time. In some cases, state laws
would have to be changed because their current status wouldn't
allow this program.
We think it would be very expensive. We'd probably end up
paying a lot more.
It could be something that would be very popular with areas that
were already very rich.
We said we would need more staff overall at state libraries
because of different specialties that we're not really covering
right now. And in any case the staff would change. What the
staff does and what their expertise is would have to
change. So how would the money be divided and who would make
the decisions? Would it be a better infrastructure or not?
And then we also said five year plan, whole new ball game,
right? So we were asked to talk a little bit about the rules.
And we thought that there'd be a lot more compliance role for the
director and that would probably need severe retraining for staff
that could remain. And then we talked about distribution of the
money and.
Whether or not this money could be available to nonprofits that
have libraries as well as to publicly funded libraries.
And it could be more equitable, but there's no guarantee that it
would be more equitable. So it would be kind of more of a
lottery across different states. People could make up their own
minds about how they wanted to do it.
There would definitely be political ramifications. And
then we kind of said, well, would it only be public
libraries or would we also be funding school libraries or
academic libraries? So in that. So for jobs we said that we
would need lots of project managers, we need labor
compliance specialists, we would have to become experts and
things like prevailing wages. We would probably need more lawyers
for legal advice and maybe staff architect could be a great idea.
Thank you. Thank you. All right. And now for our virtual cindie's
coming around.
Climate change climate change is reaching catastrophic levels in
the United States. In 2040, a third of the country is
experiencing drastic, permanent change of the landscape due to
historic heavy rains and flooding. Entire swaths of the
country are now uninhabitable, and it's resulting in a mass
relocation largely to the Great Plains. By 2045, it's projected
that the majority of the United of the country.
Has lived in their residence for a year or less.
It's fascinating.
I'm going to hit the highlights. I'm going to do my best.
We talked about for the implications for the state
infrastructure was a big discussion because we got a lot
of folks coming into a much smaller section. SLA is helping
the transient folks and continue to offer resources. Obviously
all federal versus state funding is a possibility. The Great
Plains states might create new states. I think this was
something that someone else had mentioned you.
Library buildings as a building, a reconstruction,
reconceptualize, possibly pop up libraries and connect with
communities beyond jurisdictions. It would just be
us.
Kind of like.
Second question, how would the role of the LC coordinator
change get rid of the SPR?
It was tough. I'm sorry. It was tough. I can't make this up. I
swear to God they they did. They did mention possibly
subcontracting that out.
They would, they would think that a shorter year plant like
not a five year plan, it would probably be an annual five year
plan. We're still split on the grants, some would like fewer
someone that some would like more.
LTA coordinator responsibilities could be shared given the change
in every everybody's daily lives, especially the
coordinators themselves, the worker bees.
And then how would funding be best utilized?
Subgrants construction.
Breakdown barriers for the subgrants.
To address the potential homelessness that this mass
migration is likely to bring about food insecurity
operational funding.
Engagement specialists to help navigate social agencies, forms,
things like that. Social services librarians going back
to being Sherlock and research prove who I am. Kind of folks,
you know, if you need to track down a a birth certificate or
something like that. One central piece of ID. So one ID.
And addressing the emotional well-being for library
employees, that sounds great. And then lastly, how what new
title titles would be emerge, outreach positions, obviously
community engagement, someone suggested a four day work week.
Remote tech positions. I know those are hard to do. I also
mentioned circulation because I know that those folks are
pretty, pretty married to that desk.
What do collections look like?
Are there prints materials in my follow up with statement was?
Social workers and if offering grants make them non
competitive. Thanks.
Virtual team. All right. Well, that was really, really
interesting. I have to say at least from our perspective that
that 30 minutes like flew by. And so yeah, it was a really,
really interesting discussion. And I if you have any thoughts
or observations about the process, just hold on to those
because like I said, tomorrow is a longer session where we'll go
over nice things, wonderful things and then we'll have some
time to talk about the process in general and like.
What your thoughts were on that and how it could benefit you as
you plan for the future. So good job everybody and now I'm going
to hand it over to Terry who's going to begin the wrap up of
day one.
No.
And actually, I'm going to turn it over to another colleague of
ours who has been dutifully helping the virtual team all
day. So Laura, why don't you make your way up as I'm
introducing you?
Correct.
Laura's been with I am LS for over 6 years and with our grants
to states team for about 2 1/2. And I think we all agree that we
just don't know what we do without her. I mean, she tracks
thousands of things for us on an annual basis. She keeps us all
organized across the portfolios. She has been instrumental in
getting all your web profile pages updated because she's got
access to the website now and she's just generally wonderful.
So she's getting to do the wonderful part of the day.
Which is to do the recognition of all of you. And we're also
going to pull Cindy Boyden out from behind virtual screens. So
it's me for a moment. I'm going to hop in there and just hold
down the Fort. And maybe Emily's in there too. So. So don't don't
dismay. We've still got some MLS peeps on the virtual side. But
Laura, come on up and get us started.
Oh, thanks so much, Sherry.
First of all, just a couple of announcements before we do the
awards. At 6:00 o'clock, the program Officer office hours
with Madison Bowles and Cindy Boyden will be here in this room
plus the South room on the third floor for Dennis Nangle and we
will use the same rooms for tomorrow morning's office hours.
And the sign up sheets are in the registration area for
reference and if you signed up for.
Lying around. So you might want to meet your group here by the
easel when we're finished to coordinate. And if you had any
parking lot questions, we can start off day 2 by addressing
those and also remember the peer-to-peer appreciation wall
as well. And now for the fun part.
Recognition. So every year we really look forward to
celebrating you all based on different achievements, some of
which are, you know, pretty mundane part of our program, but
are very important to us. We are going to have several of our
award recipients participating virtually, so they won't be able
to come up and get a group photo like we often do, but we will
acknowledge them all the same. And I especially want to thank
Dennis Nangle for spearheading so much.
With this and creating the lovely certificates, I also want
to just claim that no federal funds were used in the creation
of these prizes. We have certificates and an emerald
colored candy for each of you if you're in person, and we'd like
you to stay here at the front of the room with your fellow award
category winners for a group photo. As you know, our theme is
Emerald City.
So with that in mind, we will kick it off with the over the
Rainbow award. This award recognizes states who are the
1st in each of the three program officers portfolios to submit
their interim FFR's ahead of the December 30th deadline. So to
kick it off with Wyoming, I believe we have Susan Mark and
Jessica Otto in person.
Congratulations.
And North Carolina Catherine Prince also in person.
And Alabama. I believe they are virtual Kellen Ralia.
And we also wanted to note that Wyoming and North Carolina
submitted before anyone else with mid-october and Alabama was
close behind in early November, so.
Great job.
No.
OK. Next up is the yellow Brick Road award for states that got
their signed certifications down the yellow brick road faster
than everyone else's. These are the annual certifications that
states need to submit within 10 days of receiving their annual
award. And we have three states from each portfolio for this
one. So I'll start with Madison bowls and the first one is
Connecticut. They are virtual. Congratulations.
And Next up is Maryland. I know we have some in person attending
Mary and another Laura.
And Maine, we have Jenna Davis, who is virtual.
And Next up, Cindy Boyden's portfolio on Nebraska, Sam Shaw
virtual.
Virginia, we have some in person attendees here. Kim and Wendy,
please.
Thanks.
And Utah, I know we have Rachel Cook, virtual and Marilee
cannon.
And now for Dennis, New Jersey, Maura Walsh.
And Idaho.
Leave to Layla's here, yeah?
And last but not least, Missouri.
Any.
Next up is the Ruby Slipper award.
No.
And this is for showing us that before anyone else, that there's
no place like your home state, that we're recognizing the first
states to submit slides for the Lightning talk session.
And once again, Connecticut was first.
Virtual.
Next up, Montana.
Becca.
And followed by Missouri.
Ohh.
So sorry.
Yes.
All right. Thank you.
Ohh the Lion Heart award. These states submitted their ARPA and
allotment reports together on time in the SPR within 120 days
of the September 30th and period of performance. And since almost
every state came in for an extension, this is especially
noteworthy once again by portfolio. I'll start with
Arkansas.
And Alabama your virtual.
Missouri.
Again.
Tennessee.
And Louisiana.
Yes, Cindy.
Yes, sorry, Cindy is Wyoming.
And.
And South Dakota?
Massachusetts.
And Florida, I know we have a couple online participants, Amy
Johnson.
And Madison states, Rhode Island.
And Arizona.
Right.
All right.
And now we have the Oscars. Oscars are People's Choice
Awards. You all had an opportunities to submit nominees
via the conference registration form and we have a great slate.
Starting with Maura Walsh of New Jersey, nominated by Karen Reese
of the Library of Michigan.
And Jamie Ball of Arizona, not also nominated by Karen Reich.
Amanda Gammon of California, nominated by Michelle Killian of
the California State Library.
And Evan Strubel of Ohio, nominated by Jeff Regensburger.
And Karen Reese of Michigan had a couple nominators, Jeff
Renzenberger of the State Library of Ohio, Shannon
furlough, Georgia Public Library Service and Kellen Ralia from
Alabama.
And Erica McCormack was nominated by Rachel Cook from
Utah.
Yeah.
And Rachel said that Erica McCormick always has the best
answers and provides them with the right amount of humor to
help ease the stress of the situation. I always appreciate
her input.
Next Wendy Copeland of South Carolina.
She was nominated by Jeanette Schaefer of Vermont, and
Jeanette said that Wendy is is nominated because she's the best
mentor ever and she's always available. Good advice, a
listening ear, and great questions.
And finally, Rachel Cook of Utah, who is joining us
virtually. She was nominated by several of you, Terry Blauvelt,
Tamara Adam, Marilee Cannon, Alexandra Sanders, Maura Walsh,
who said without a doubt the fabulous Rachel Cook from Utah,
Wendy Copeland said Rachel Cook from Utah is always so helpful
and clear in Memora from Washington State Library.
You said whenever I have an LSA question, I look to Rachel
Cook's guidance. It's comprehensive, easy to
understand, and publicly posted.
And there are also two nominees who can't join us today, in
person or virtually. But we wanted to recognize them, too.
Mary Jean Haver of Puerto Rico, nominated by Hector.
And Shannon White of Michigan, nominated by Jeanette Schafer.
Jeanette said that Shannon or Shannon White first facilitating
our development director meetings faithfully every Friday
for three years. And Shannon was also nominated by Evan from the
State Library of Ohio.
Alright.
And this concludes our Emerald City recognition for the year of
those participating in the optional state networking
activities should stay here in the ballroom and we've asked to
keep the cameras on for this portion and.
We're also going to put up a directional slide for office
hours for the people in the room. We appreciate you and
we'll look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.