Julie Edwards: Hello, everyone. I see many of you starting to join us. Welcome
Julie Edwards: if you would like. You can go over to the Chat button and say, Hi, let us know where you're from. We do
Julie Edwards: publish the Chat Transcript. After all of our webinars with so many librarians in the room, there's so much great information that goes back and forth. You do not have to put anything in the chat if you don't want to. But if you would like to
Julie Edwards: please feel free.
Julie Edwards: Hello, North Carolina! Pennsylvania.
Julie Edwards: Rock Island. Wow! More North Carolinians. Hello, Maryland. Oklahoma, Indiana. hey? Hi! New Hi, New Hampshire! Hi, Montana!
Julie Edwards: North Dakota! Wow! Arkansas, Alaska! Hello! Everybody! Wow! What North Carolina is representing? I think that you all have the most people here so far.
Julie Edwards: Pennsylvania's not far behind you.
Julie Edwards: Welcome, everyone welcome. We'll start in a few minutes, but we're just going to come in and get settled. Hey, Washington, Texas, Mississippi. Connecticut. mentioned to some of you in the past that we've done webinars where we've had 46 of the 50 States, and one of these days is.
Julie Edwards: I want to get everybody in here. Hey, Canada!
Julie Edwards: Hi, Florida! Hope everything is settled down with you.
Julie Edwards: California's in the house. Hello! Hey! Southern Arizona! One of my favorite spots, hey? From the Berkshires western part of my own home State.
Julie Edwards: Those of you who've done webinars with us before know? I've said this before. This is like my nerdy version of the license play game. I just love seeing. Oh, and Cape Cod from the eastern part of my home state. So nice to see everybody. Hey, Al! From the north shore. Alright! We are right at the top of the hour. So we are going to go ahead and get started. We have such a great webinar this afternoon.
Julie Edwards: Thank you for joining us. I am Julie Edwards. I am a librarian and instructional designer with Niche Academy, and you are here in this webinar on future proofing your library. So before we get started. I'll do our brief sort of housekeeping. Let me start by introducing Niche Academy. We are an easy to use all in one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure success.
Julie Edwards: So our platform is the perfect tool for libraries. Looking to increase your Eresource usage. Move your programming, including your story times online and deliver and track training for staff development.
Julie Edwards: If you're interested in finding out more about what we do. Talking to a member of our team. Hearing what your colleagues and other libraries have to say, I will drop a link to our website in the chat, and you can contact us. We are recording this webinar. I will make the recording, the slides and the chat and audio transcripts available after the presentation. I will email, all of you who have registered directly, and I will post this on our blog, so you can find it in just a few days.
Julie Edwards: You can turn on the closed captioning in zoom. If you would like to use that feature. please go ahead and keep chatting with each other in the chat box, but if you have questions for the presenter. Please use the question and answer box. It's not unusual for us to get many hundreds of people in these webinars. There are almost 300 of us in here now. And so things do get lost in the chat.
Julie Edwards: so I would like to encourage you to put questions in the Q. And A. Box, and I will do my best to moderate that at the end of the webinar.
Julie Edwards: This webinar series is part of our commitment at Niche Academy to solving bigger problems together and providing continuing education in the library world. I am so happy that so many of you have joined us today.
Julie Edwards: You can see our upcoming webinars and register for future sessions at our blog. I'll drop the link to that in the
Julie Edwards: chat box as well. So, without further ado, our presenter today is Peter Bromberg as associate director for every library Peter brings over 30 years of library experience to his work, advocating for libraries on local, state and national levels. He provides pro bono, counseling to librarians, boards, associations, ballot committees, and watchdog groups, helping them fight censorship through the use of effective messaging political strategies, to build coalitions and community support.
Julie Edwards: As the executive director of the Salt Lake City Library from 2,016 to 2,021. Peter was honored with a distinguished
Julie Edwards: mit Ctl. And I'm sorry, lost my place here. Distinguish service award from the American Society of Public Administrators for his work in eliminating inequitable barriers to service, and in 2,019 the Utah Library Association awarded him the legislative award for excellence in political affairs, for his work, building a coalition and marshaling public support, to successfully fight the cancellation of research databases and school libraries
Julie Edwards: following unsubstantiated claims that they contain inappropriate materials. I am absolutely thrilled to have Peter here with us today, and I will turn the webinar over to him.
Peter Bromberg: Well, thank you so much, Julie, and thanks for everyone for being here today for this presentation on future proofing, future proofing the library
Peter Bromberg: how to anchor the library and values and mission and effectively communicate library impact in the community. We have a lot to cover, and hoping to have some time for QA. At the end. So that's that's the goal. So let's dive right in real quick. Just if you're not familiar with every library where a you know, a political action committee of 501 c. 4, that works on election days with libraries, on funding issues, negotiations, also a lot
Peter Bromberg: around legislative agendas, outreach and activism to the public and not on this slide. But I think many of you know. We're increasingly just working across the country right now helping on local communities, librarians, but also just local civilians. Fight censorship in their local communities. And on our side we do research training
partnerships, etc. That's us. Check us out
Peter Bromberg: And I also wanna mention there isn't. I always like to have a what I call a playbook? It's really, you know, a handout in addition to the to the slides here, so that you can take what we're doing and actually apply it. I you know, if this is a nice hour for you to spend. And you say, Hey, that was lovely, that's good. But really I'm as someone comes from a training and staff development background. I'm hoping that you actually take this information and get into action with it. And I want to make it easier for you to do that. So that QR code, or that bit leak
Peter Bromberg: link which Julie will also share with you can help you actually apply what we're going to cover today. So what are we gonna talk about? One of the goals for today? So one we want to. If I do my job right here at the end of this, you'll understand how to future proof the library, by staying anchored in your library's values and purpose.
Peter Bromberg: And by creating meaningful outcomes and experiences for patrons, and we're going to talk about what all those words mean.
Peter Bromberg: I want you to also feel encouraged and confident at the end of this, so that you can. You can talk about the library, your presence in the community, the value that the library's providing, and that your message will resonate with a variety of listeners in your community who may have different beliefs and ideologies. Right?
and but we have libraries for everybody. We need to be able to talk to everybody about the library, and lastly, to understand how to construct really effective messaging and engage stakeholders
Peter Bromberg: and get organized for successful action.
Peter Bromberg: So we will. We'll talk about really, these 5 things break it down, anchoring and values and mission focusing on outcomes and experiences. Effective messaging message, a little bit of messaging practice as on the handout, and maybe some key takeaways and questions at the end here. So I always like to start with a little bit of context?
Peter Bromberg: and the context is, what and what world are we living in like? Because we have to apply ideas and concepts and strategies and tactics in the real world which is changing rapidly. So this idea of like that we're living in a deeply weird world is something that I've been talking about and playing with for a while. That idea of a deeply weird world comes from this fella. Michael Edson. Who, going back, you know, over 10 years now.
Peter Bromberg: So I think that the future, even 10 or 20 years out, is going to get deeply weird. It's gonna challenge us as a species in ways that we've not had to confront in our long evolution. Michael Edison used to be at the Smithsonian Institute, and currently at the United nations live. But looking at the Smithsonian. So he's looking at millennia of human experience and cultures, and and how hu humans evolve and change over time. And he's looking out in 2,000,
Peter Bromberg: Levin saying things are about to get really, really weird. He says, and this is due to the the pace of change. We're experiencing that this kind of change that we're experiencing is exponential. It's fast, it's continuous, it's global in scale, accelerating in speed and enormous in scope. And that anyone who's reading this has already seen more change in their lifetime.
Peter Bromberg: A broader scope, a larger scale, faster speed than our ancestors saw in hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years. In other words, like human reality, humans lives like we. You know, we hunted, we gathered, you know, we we had fire, we.
Peter Bromberg: you know, but my grandfather's life he grew up in in, you know, in early in in Russia, in the early 19 hundreds, before coming to America in a in a one room house with a dirt floor and a brick oven, and you know they had a river where they bathed and and went to the bathroom, and whatever you know, it was like, they raised some goats
Peter Bromberg: that was no different than than you know for generations before him, but in in the last 80 years of his life, right, he saw moon landing and television and radio and air travel. And so so change is is happening faster and faster. And, as Michael Edison says, we're just getting started. But we're just beginning to chart the surface of what will come.
Peter Bromberg: And we can see this in a number of ways, I mean, certainly. Chat gpt right? Where is? It's just the latest thing to come down the pike that we're realizing like, Oh, my gosh! Like, what does this mean? And you can see right in this headline, things are, gonna get weird.
Peter Bromberg: And and you
Peter Bromberg: trust me. If you pay attention to news stories from here for the next 2 weeks, you'll see the word weird showing up a lot right? And so in terms of this, this fast pace of change that we're dealing with right? I like to show this picture of the graveyard of obsolete technology. There's a you know, a bonus for anyone that can identify that thing in the upper right hand corner. I think most people can understand like there's a pager and a disk man, and a you know
Peter Bromberg: Videocassette, and a floppy disk and a pager. I put the ATM there, even though there's still a riot round because we're increasingly cashless that thing in the upper right. If you didn't get it as a modem. I used that in my first library job in 1,992,
Peter Bromberg: we actually, you know, put the phone down there to connect to what was sort of the Internet, you know, was barely a compuserve aol, I kinda think. But all of these things right have come and gone in in my lifetime, anyway, maybe not your lifetime, and is was replaced by this right
Peter Bromberg: type it away on our phone right? And then. But this is is being replaced now by this. In other words, we're not even typing. It's all things are moving to voice
Peter Bromberg: and even having that phone right is being replaced by this, our little echo, dot, or whatever where we have these, these smart listening devices that we just say, Hey, siri, or Hey, Alexa! Right! Turn on the lights. Do this. I traveled recently, and I was controlling my lights and things from, you know, 3,000 miles away. Turn the lights on it and all that.
Peter Bromberg: And now this is being replaced by this right? So AI is getting built in
Peter Bromberg: operating systems. It's getting built into everything. I mean, I have smart light bulbs. Now, right? I have smart refrigerators. It's it's this is, it's all it's just getting built in. And in terms of this idea of exponential change.
Peter Bromberg: Right? This is just a chart. That shows how long it took different new technologies to reach 1 million users, you know. You see, Netflix, 3 and a half years Twitter, it took 2 years. Facebook took 10 months, spotify 5 months. Chat Gpt. Took 5 days to reach 1 million users, and Chatg is a pretty powerful.
Peter Bromberg: disruptive new thing that in 5 days, like the whole world is using it. And all of a sudden, like we have to, we have to refigure out everything right. And that's that's the challenge with with these this exponential change is in the old days. We get a you know, the printing press or the car, or the you know, the steam engine, or even a computer.
Peter Bromberg: Then we would adapt to it and then come, go back to normal for a while until the next thing came out it was the iphone, and then the next thing came out. Well, at this point there's no more going back to normal before we can go back to normal. There's the next thing.
Peter Bromberg: That that hits us. So that's that idea of deeply weird is about exponentially accelerating pace of change. So that's the world we're living in. That's the context. So how do we future proof in a world
Peter Bromberg: where we we don't know what's coming tomorrow? Right. Well, we know this. We know that what got us here won't get us there right. There's all of the different ways that we've come up with our policies, our methods, our tools, our you know all the ways in which we've organized ourselves organizationally, and and
Peter Bromberg: you know, as libraries, as institutions, etc., and even as librarians, the skills that we need. I mean, I was a reference librarian, right? And Julie and I were just talking about being a reference library. It's a different job now, right with AI. Maybe it's not a job at all, or barely right, or if it is, it's a very different job. So that what got us here and meaning like what? What helped us be successful and survive and thrive is not gonna work moving forward.
Peter Bromberg: having said all that talking about everything that's changing. Some things don't change. So what does change are the tools that we use, the methods, the techniques, right? The skill sets that we need, maybe the education, the ways in which we do our work.
Peter Bromberg: We have to be willing to let that go, because that you know, it's if we hold on to them, we're gonna find that they're no longer mapping to reality, right? They're mapping to the reality of a year ago or 5 years ago doesn't change, or certainly doesn't change as fast is our values and our purpose. And we can think about this both individually and and organizationally. Right?
Peter Bromberg: but our values rep and purpose or purpose is also, you know, we can think of mission stays relatively consistent. Right? So I'm gonna suggest 2 strategies here at the outset for for future proofing. And that's that we really anchor ourselves and our values and our purpose, and and individually and organizationally, I would I would offer. I would invite you to do some reflection and some work around what are what is my, what is my individual set of values as a human being, as a librarian, as a library worker?
Peter Bromberg: But also as an organization. What are our shared values? And then what is our purpose, right, the purpose being the mission like, why do we even exist? And then the second strategy is really to focus on observable outcomes and meaningful experiences for real people, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But we're gonna start
Peter Bromberg: with values and purpose again. Thinking about this as as something that's stable. Our values don't shift that much. Organizationally or individually. Our purpose as an organization, right? That that core purpose of why we exist. Look at your mission statement on your website? Why does the library exist? Why was it started? What value does it have in the community? What impact does it have?
Peter Bromberg: Like that purpose is gonna be relatively stable and coming back to that and anchoring in that is going to be helpful when everything else is like changing around us. So we anchor in that we ask that question is, what what are what are organizational values and purpose? And we say, why were we created? What difference that do we hope to make? And and for whom? Would anyone notice or care if we didn't exist? And why that will that have? Those are some provocative questions that help us get to the values and purpose.
Peter Bromberg: I just went up on, out, on, out on the inner tubes, as it were right and and just found a lot of different libraries, mission statements. And I fed it into like a word. Cloud slits. These still look really futuristic. Now, it probably looks dated. This is like just an idea of like, what are those things that are probably relatively
Peter Bromberg: unchanging, that we're here for the community. We're about knowledge. Freedom of information, right? Giving people the power to explore and right treating. P. You know, equal service, learning, all those types of things. Right?
Peter Bromberg: So this is just this, this gives an idea of what are those things that are not really going to change that that much?
Peter Bromberg: And then, once you know what your what your have clarity organizationally around your your libraries values and purpose. We wanna go out and be talking to stakeholders right that stakeholders can be different organizations and right social services, faith based elected officials, other nonprofits and talk to them about what are their mission and priorities and values. And where do we overlap?
Peter Bromberg: And that's library operation? So how did so? In other words, our values and purpose aren't going to change. But the things that we're doing are going to change, and we want to align them
Peter Bromberg: with the priorities of local stakeholders, local organizations, elected officials. And if we then diagram that
Peter Bromberg: right of like, what does the what do people in the community care about? What are the organizations? The elected officials care about? What are the priorities? What are the challenges? What are the hopes and dreams and aspirations? And we overlay that with our values on our purpose?
Peter Bromberg: What's in the middle there, that becomes the stuff that we do. Aka library operations right? So library operations are going to be anchored in that purpose and aligned with the aspirations and goals and priorities of the larger community.
Peter Bromberg: and but the operations that are going to focus on outcomes and experiences. So this is sort of where the rubber hits the road. And we're going to distinguish a little bit between outcomes and experiences here.
Peter Bromberg: Right? So we core services and programs are the things that we do right. It's the stuff. It's the programs. It's the book clubs. It's the right it's the reference services. It's you know, all those. It's the stuff that we do and the spaces in which we do them. And that's going to lead to outcomes. And I'm gonna offer a definition of outcome as an observable difference that we make in the lives of people that we serve?
Peter Bromberg: Are they smarter? Are they more literate? Have they started a business are, they feel better connected as neighbors do. They have a better appreciation for art, etc., etc. Right? There's some observable difference.
Peter Bromberg: In their life as a result of the library doing stuff and offering things right, and spaces
Peter Bromberg: and expert staff as well.
Peter Bromberg: And the experience is the quality and the emotional resonance of those outcomes. So what does that mean? Like? That's sort of a mouthful. So
Peter Bromberg: here's an example. Actually, I meant to take this slide out just in the interest of time. So the the follow up slide to this, isn't there? But what I'll say is this, since it's here, I'll I'll reference it. My wife is a soist, she shows, and so the outcome is like, so if she wants to make a pair of pants she sends away for the
Peter Bromberg: you know the pattern, and she sewed the pants. That's the outcome. Now I have a pair of pants. The slide that I cut here that you can't see is they send this lovely little note with original art, a little Smiley faintly. So it feels good. It's not just. Here's the pattern, but it's like you receive it. You're like, Oh, my gosh! This is beautiful! They took some time and care, and a little personal note with a smiley face. Right? That's the experience of it. So to put that into
Peter Bromberg: like library world, right?
Peter Bromberg: I mean, we offer a library card. And so one way of offering a library card might be like, Hey, there's the self that you know. Go punching your digits in that computer and we'll spit out a card or, Hey, you're in the wrong line, you know. But yeah, you you have to go to that line over there. This is something when I was at Salt Lake City public Library, like we did a kind of, you know, game of thrones Day, and we had, like the meisters of the city library of House of Salt Lake, where you go to get your library card. So this family is kind of causing it
Peter Bromberg: playing, and we did a special card with that, you know. So it was an experience. And you see, everyone's smiling. So it's like, Oh, my gosh! Like the kids first library card is a special experience.
Peter Bromberg: So how do we take that? The the outcomes the same. They they walk away with a card, but the experience is like, Oh, my gosh, we're gonna we have to instagram this. So the family can see this is great. So how do we create those outcomes in a way that feels good for people right?
Peter Bromberg: and sometimes we think about this as customer service. But II just wanna offer that customer service is certainly an important element of creating positive experiences. You could have all the best customer. Service in the world, and that's like, you know, hey? I'm smiling at you. And you know we're thanking you and making eye contact all that customer service, those behavioral
Peter Bromberg: things that we do that relate to customer service. But that's not gonna take us to to creating positive experiences unless we also have, like humane policies and reasonable procedures and decent signage and good building design and nice spaces, with good furniture, and lighting and parking and merchandising and ux, and you know, in terms of how is our you know, websites, you know, set up? Are they? Are they appealing? Are they
Peter Bromberg: easy to use, you know, marketing, the messaging, the sound, the furniture, the smells, the visual appeal, cleanliness, accessibility, curve, all these other things are elements that I want you
Peter Bromberg: to think about in terms of how do we create positive experiences? So? Let's talk a little bit about, you know, how do we talk about? So that's what we do, right? It's the outcomes experiences. So assuming that we're doing great work, and I know many of you, all of us are doing like libraries are incredible. We're offering such amazing things to the community. Why don't we talk about that
Peter Bromberg: to our community. Talk about it with the community in a way that builds support right? Because we have to have support. Either, so that proactively will continue to be well funded and perhaps defensively, so that we're well inoculated against the tax that we're seeing across the country censorship
Peter Bromberg: characterizing librarians as anything less than we are like, you know, public servants with Webinar heart.
Peter Bromberg: so effective messaging really talks about library library values, talks about experiences and outcomes with stakeholders and community members across the political spectrum. Right? And some of us are more in more blue spaces, some of us in more red spaces. But wherever we are no like, it's not. It's it's it's it's heterogeneous to some extent, right? We always have to talk across the political spectrum.
Peter Bromberg: And 1 one useful frame for that is this book my arnold clean called the 3 Languages of Politics.
Peter Bromberg: and it helps us to tailor our message to appeal to multiple audiences across the political spectrum, because not everybody who's a supporter or a potential supporter cares about the same issues or sees the world in the same way that we see it. We're going to talk a little bit about the danger of, you know, only talking about the world or love the library in a way that kind of appeals to us so real quick like in in Arnold Kling's book. Real short. I highly recommend it.
Peter Bromberg: he suggested. Humans evolved to send and receive signals that enable us to recognize people that we can trust right kind of that. That idea of being a little bit tribal right, and one of the most important signals and powerful signals that that we have is the language that we speak, and in politics.
Kling claims that progressives, conservative and libertarians are really just. We're like tribes that are speaking different languages, and that language is going to resonate with one tribe
Peter Bromberg: but it may not resonate or connect with others. So, to kind of lay this out in in Arnold Klein's idea, there's this idea of 3 axes or 3 lenses progressives will tend to view the world. Through this lens of an axis of oppressed reverse oppressed
Peter Bromberg: right, so that oftentimes progressives will talk about. You know, marginalized communities, and we'll talk about equity, and we'll talk about, and that certainly the library can tell our story in that frame easily.
Peter Bromberg: The libertarian lens is on this axis of liberty to coerce, and particularly governmental coercion. Right? It's gonna happen like, let it let me live my life self reliant. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps right? And again, I mean, the library is a place we certainly can tell our stories around how it's a place where anyone can walk in and you know we don't tell you what to think what to do, and you can make something of yourself by teaching blah blah blah, you know, developing your own skills.
Peter Bromberg: and we'll support you on your agenda. And then conservatives have a lens that looks at an axis of sort of civilization versus barbarism. So like, it's kind of shared values, particularly shared Western values and and rules and and and regs and law and order and things like that. And if we don't have those things in place, then
Peter Bromberg: you know, and and there's a little bit of you know, there's there's there's us, and there's them, and there's and I need to protect our way of life and our way of thinking and things like that. And of course, libraries being places where where we have local histories and and
Peter Bromberg: and and and we, you know, we collect, you know, human information. And we have, you know, local histories and genealogy, and the story of our town, and all that again, many like we can tell our stories in all of these ways.
Peter Bromberg: So to put another another frame on this.
Peter Bromberg: Ling talks about how? You know, we can look at this in terms of our heroes. So Progressives will say, you know my heroes are the people who stood up for the underprivileged and people I can't stand are people who are indifferent to oppression of women minorities, and the poor
Peter Bromberg: and libertarians might say, my heroes are people who stood up for individual rights. The people I can't stand are people who are indifferent to government, taking away people's ability to make their own choices and conservatives, may say, my heroes are the people who have stood up for Western values. Now, the people I can't stand are the people who are indifferent to the assault on moral virtues and traditions that are the foundation for our civilization. So again, just to kind of help flesh out these 3 lenses.
Peter Bromberg: Right? And no one is all of any of these things like like we can see value like I mean, if you stand up for the end of privilege, it doesn't mean you can't also appreciate you know, value tradition, right? And or the or the protection of individual rights. So it's just where do we tend to default, to see the world and experience make meaning through those lenses right?
Peter Bromberg: So we can talk about the library honestly. In in all of these frames. And and
Peter Bromberg: if we're if we're speaking, if we're putting in a progressive frame. We might speak to equity and social justice, and if we're putting in a libertarian frame, we might speak to like liberty and self direction, self reliance, and in a conservative frame speaking to shared cultural and traditional values. So let's put this into play so you can see what it looks like. And I'm just taking an example of like if we're if we're making an argument for going, find free in our community.
Peter Bromberg: A progressive argument might be, hey, you know, fines create this inequitable barrier of service that hits hardest those among us who can afford at least, and who are historically disenfranchised.
Peter Bromberg: and we can make that argument and its effective argument. or people who are progressive.
Peter Bromberg: who are libertarian or conservative, or hearing the world, or seeing the world through that lens might say so. What like? That's not a good argument to me. It might even be a negative argument to me, so we can't just stop there. We have to go on if we're starting with that one and and make make that libertarian argument as well, you know. But you know, the library is this place where people, by the sweat of their brow and their hard work and individual choice teams, grow their skills and build businesses and prepare for college or career.
Peter Bromberg: and that is gonna help reduce the use of government assistance on the back end. And it's the place where nobody tells you what to do or what to think. So like. We don't want to lead people into welfare, unemployment and incarceration. That's an expensive drain on a taxpayer for an unpaid $10. Fine! That's just not rational libertarians like these ideas of rational and low taxes. So
Peter Bromberg: that's that libertarian argument we can make and, by the way, I've done this, when I went home, when I made the arguments to Salt Lake City and did like 30 plus public meetings, and and I could literally see different heads nodding in the audience as I did did these different messages right? And then people said, Yeah, sounds good. And we did it.
Peter Bromberg: So conservative speak to shared culture values. We might see another. Many new arrivals who rely on the library to learn what it means to become an American, to become part of our community and understand where Utah values like that was, you know, since I was in Utah. That was how I framed it. And we will still hold people responsible for materials. If they don't return the books, they will be built. That idea. We have to hold people responsible like law and order. And right, I mean.
Peter Bromberg: so so we're still gonna hold people responsible. That that was very important for for people to hear.
Peter Bromberg: So that just gives you an example of how we can frame these things, and you can play around like whatever your topic. However, take a night, take a something the library is doing and play with that. This can be like a group activity with with your colleagues. How do we frame this in these different in these different frames. So here's the danger, right is that we tend to default, to talking about the library in ways that reflect our own ideological worldview.
Peter Bromberg: We all do like we have a lens, and that's how we're gonna default defaults talking about things. Well, guess what
Peter Bromberg: this is. A Bloomberg story. From the 2020 election. 93% of librarians gave money to Biden, and 7% gave to trump. We are a very, very, very, very progressive organization. As a matter of fact, I think we were tied with social workers. Nobody. Nobody gave to biden over Trump more than us and social workers. Nobody is more progressive as a prov profession than than librarians. According to this data from election giving.
Peter Bromberg: Well, that is a danger in terms of like that. We're going to default to talking about the library in progressive terms, using progressive values, appealing progressive values. So we have to know that
Peter Bromberg: and know that our default is largely going to be
Peter Bromberg: aggressive lens and a progressive language, so that we intentionally use language that will appeal to others. And if we don't do that.
Peter Bromberg: we're gonna wind up just talking as progressives and we're gonna and again, I'm in red state. I'm originally from New Jersey. But I'm in a red state like, and I'm sure there's I know that I saw other people from Utah to other Red States coming on on the call here.
Peter Bromberg: You know my red State librarians like the struggle is real like, right? III feel like I understand what it's like to do librarianship in in, in a red community, in a red state, right? And sometimes the advice that that we're getting from professional associations or from our colleagues is like, you know, social justice warrior kind of advice. And it's like that that'll work in Seattle and Brooklyn, and wherever. But it's not gonna work in Paducah. It's not gonna work in
Peter Bromberg: or it's not gonna work in right? So we so the good news is we have so much that we can do to talk about libraries and the value of libraries in ways that will appeal for more libertarian or conservative community. We can do that.
Peter Bromberg: We have to do it intentionally. We have to just be aware, doesn't mean we don't talk about progressive values. It means we don't only talk about the library in that frame. Okay?
Peter Bromberg: so I'm going to talk a little bit about now, effective messaging and mapping that to the community. So that's really about 3 broad frames that that map to political ideologies in terms of the community.
really like in terms of coalition building, like coalitions. And and you know.
Peter Bromberg: partnerships are built on this idea of common cause and common concern, not on programming or services per se, right? So that we have to message the library with different stakeholders and different groups around shared values, which means we have to understand their values to common mission, which means we also have to understand their mission
Peter Bromberg: and aligned vision, which means we also have an understand their vision for not only their organization, but what's the shared vision for our community that those aspirations and those fears that maybe we need to address right? So if we come back to that Venn diagram where we have our values and purpose, and we we're talking with stakeholders.
Peter Bromberg: about their their values and their mission and their priorities. That's where we can come to some shared vision, some common cause and common concern. The common causes we care about. Maybe the same outcomes like we, we have a shared vision. Common concern might be. We have a shared population of people that we serve that we care about
Peter Bromberg: but it's that idea of that commonality. And we don't like we're not gonna find a hundred percent overlap with other organizations, right? Otherwise we'd be redundant to them. And we have to be willing to like partner with and be in coalition with organizations.
Peter Bromberg: Might you know that idea of politics makes strange bedfellows, you might think. Well, gosh, that's I mean.
Peter Bromberg: that's a very conservative organization, a very libertarian organization. But but we might have some shared values and vision around having a community that doesn't sensor materials, or that, you know, supports. You know, help helps businesses, you know, be self reliant and things like that. So
Peter Bromberg: we we do that Venn diagram, and this idea of like asking, who else cares? This is how we identify right like, who do? Who can we connect with, build partnerships with and build coalitions with coalitions, meaning people who will show up and and speak up for us right in the community.
Peter Bromberg: whether standing with us at a press conference, or writing an OP-ed or or being there at the at our budget, hearing to say, Hey, we support the library because we have this in common with them.
Peter Bromberg: and you can. We can break this down by thinking about. Who are the educational stakeholders? Right? Who else cares about education? Is there a local college? Obviously, it's like local schools. But there's also probably other nonprofits.
Peter Bromberg: That care about student success, etc.
Education, learning. We can think about social welfare and faith based stakeholders. We can ask, who else cares about the same populations.
Peter Bromberg: Is is it an UN sheltered population? Is it a population of new arrivals? Is it a population of
Peter Bromberg: you know, people who are coming out of a you know, a you know, a a shelter or a domestic abuse situation, right? I mean, so that we have common common concern, common cause with people that we're serving there? And how do we work together? And how do we demonstrate to the potential or existing coalition partners that we're also valuable in those spaces.
Peter Bromberg: government stakeholders, civic social arts, organizations, right business stakeholders, politicians and local elected officials, formal and informal media and social networks. And again, this is something that you can do. You can literally put these on a spreadsheet. Say, Okay, who? Who's out there? Who's in the educational space. Who's in the social welfare space?
Peter Bromberg: There's right. And let's start identifying. Or I shouldn't say starts. I'm sure you're doing these already. Right. But who else do we need to talk to? Who have we not talked to in a while? Where has there been turnover? We need to re-establish these relationships. And again, the idea is to have these conversations where you're listening for their values. You're listening for their priorities, and you're looking for those places that you.
Peter Bromberg: You have common cause and common concern to build those coalitions of of other people and organizations in the community.
Peter Bromberg: Another strategy here around messaging
Peter Bromberg: is this idea of 9 of 27, 9, 3. Sometimes you might get framed as the elevator speech. Right. But it's 27 words 9 s, 3 points. And practicing and practice is a key word here.
Peter Bromberg: How do we talk about the library in different ways in this very structured, concise way? And and you practice it in structured, concise ways. So then you can kind of riff and improv it
Peter Bromberg: like in the moment. Right? Here's just some examples to get this in your your head. 27, 9, 3 right. Students are struggling in school. The library is helping our kids from slipping through the cracks. My staff and I are deeply committed to supporting kids, parents, and families. So there's 27 words there. You can say that in 9 s. And there's 3 key points. Students are struggling, libraries helping.
Peter Bromberg: and we're deeply committed to supporting right? That's that idea, that passionate librarian in the community.
That's how you might talk, you know, if you're talking to someone who cares about education.
Peter Bromberg: So talking to someone who cares about like the downtown business community, right? Hey? Main street struggled for years, you know, when libraries are renovated and expanded downtown to revitalize, and our library draws thousands of people a month to our downtown shopping area. Right? So there again, 27, 9, 3 libraries are this community anchor? You know. Or if you're looking at expanding or building a new location, right. This is a a message that you can use to get the the local business community on board to support. Right? So again.
Peter Bromberg: you can go through these different sectors and practice. Wha what's my 27? 9, 3 messaging for, you know. You know, governmental stakeholders or an arts organization right? And really practicing this order. Some pizzas, and, you know, play around with this and start to developing this messaging.
Peter Bromberg: Not just necessarily. The director or the assistant director, like anyone who works in the library. If you're out, you know, if you're if you're at the supermarket, guess what you're an ambassador, hey? There's the person who works library. I like that person. They're so helpful. And being able to, you know.
Peter Bromberg: have some of these in your pocket. Right? So developing these 27, 9, 3 messages on that handout, the playbook that you'll have access to again. There's the QR. Code. There's some some form or some practice sheets that can help walk you through this?
Peter Bromberg: Who is the audience we're going to be talking about? What do we think they care about?
Peter Bromberg: What do we want them to think, feel, or do. As a result of this conversation we want them to think something about the library might feel something about the library, we might want them to actually do something. But going into a conversation like having some clarity around that can also help your messaging. And then anything that you're doing is, how do you infuse it with your personal passion is always. I put my hand over my heart to talk about personally like, why are you in libraries, you know, and and when you get out of bed in the morning, what is the you know that you're making a difference in the world
Peter Bromberg: talking a little bit about that is, and and having that infuse what you're saying goes a long way towards building support as well.
Peter Bromberg: So we wanna talk a little bit about combining data and stories, because there's a lot these last few years about data data. And sure, and even your elected officials will say, you gotta show me the data. There's well, there's a lot of data that shows that people don't really make decisions based on data. Right? So. Yes, you know, different people appreciate data to different extent. And yes, we live in a in a current environment where data
Peter Bromberg: is required often for showing value. But it's not gonna carry the day, even if people say it will. We need to have some stories, too. So how do we combine stories and data to make this like maximum impact. Knowing that people
Peter Bromberg: human beings overall, we make decisions emotionally, even when we don't think we do, there's a lot of research that suggests that data alone is not going to persuade us, right? So we can support
Peter Bromberg: you know, the with data. But we really need to have some some emotion that's gonna explain the library's positive impact in the lives of real people. So here's just an example. I'm gonna give you some data, a story. And then how do we combine it? Right? And and this is this is this is
Peter Bromberg: based on in reality. But so data might be. Hey? We referred 37 people to the Voa. For housing assistance in the last quarter, and you know what? Gosh! Darn it! I cut out again in the interest of time. I cut out a slide here. But the story is I'm writing in regard to one of your librarians. Tell you a bit about how she helped my wife and I at a time when we were in dire need, and feeling extremely distraught.
Peter Bromberg: I'm pretty sure that if we hadn't met the sensitive librarian compassionately acting beyond our duties to put us in touch with those who she hoped could help help us, that we'd probably be dead, considering the depths of our despair. This is a true story. This is
Peter Bromberg: sorry.
Peter Bromberg: this is a true story. This was at Salt Lake City Public Library, where a couple, an elderly couple, due to
Peter Bromberg: health events, basically lost their life savings and found themselves out on the street. From the library.
Peter Bromberg: help them. So I cut the slide out. I will put the slide back in. So when you access these slides after the fact, you'll see what the slide is that I cut out. But the combining the data. And the story is like, you have that data of like, Hey, you know, we did X number of Referrals last year for people to find housing.
Peter Bromberg: Here's like, a photograph of this couple. It's not the real photograph, but you know, an elderly couple, and like when they came to us they were on. They were, you know, in in despair and contemplating suicide, and we helped get them housing.
Peter Bromberg: And then the you know the the last piece is that when we find people housing like that it helps people to be healthy, live long lives and stay in the community. So like we kind of end with the the big research impact piece. So the the slide that I did keep in was related to combining stories and data for maximum that impact around going free. Right? So
Peter Bromberg: like, the data piece is just, hey, we got 26,000 new people signed up for cards after we went, find free, and if you just ended it there, that's not quite enough. That's 26,000. Is that good. It's better than 10,000. Should it have been 100,000 like? It's just a number, right? And then the story is, you know, hey, this this kid, who like, couldn't use the library because, you know, their their card was banned because of fines.
Peter Bromberg: And now they got their card, and their grandma takes them to the library every week, and they read 127 books. So that's a nice story. But again, that story alone is not gonna be good enough for the data. More, you know, for the data people. That last piece of the outcome of adding the outcome is, you know, reading Bill's vocabulary, which is a key indicator of future academic success. So kind of put you string those together. So here's the cute little story in the picture.
Peter Bromberg: We multiply that with the data times 26,000. Here's here's little Bobby with this card, multiply Bobby, by 26,000, and the impact for our community is that when we have 26,000 bobbies who are learning to read and build a vocabulary sticking indicator of future academic success, and you could expand that to, you know, which means
Peter Bromberg: they're gonna be, you know, someone who's generating tax revenue in our community. They're gonna be starting businesses. They're not gonna be on welfare. They're not gonna be on unemployment, etc. You can kind of expand that a little bit more.
Peter Bromberg: so again, just there, there's that example of how to tie them together. But you really, that outcome piece is that last piece, and often the outcome is about long term impact. We that we have to often look to outside research longitudinal research. But it's out there. We're not necessarily going to do the 20 year study. But we can find those things that will talk about the outcome.
Peter Bromberg: so to put up to, I guess. A period on the end of the sentence or an exclamation point. When we're building support in our community.
Peter Bromberg: Library support is not based on usage. Library support is not based on usage. Library support is not based on usage, and oftentimes what we're doing when we talk about the library
Peter Bromberg: especially through our marketing or our social media, or like our, our, our newsletters, our email is like, Hey, we have this program coming up. Hey? We have this thing right? We have this new service, hey? There's mango languages. Hey? You can rent our meeting room, hey? We have this program on retirement.
Peter Bromberg: there are so many people in your community who are never, ever, ever, ever, gonna use your library, ever? And they might be annoyed by you trying to get them to use the library. And they might like no longer subscribe your email because all it is is about like library usage stuff and new programs.
Peter Bromberg: We need to tell stories about library impact in ways that are not about just as I say, getting answers and seats for programs. Right? So one thing that every library has to offer you to do this is we have a medium.com slash every library. It's it's an online magazine where we're adding new articles to that every week.
Peter Bromberg: And this is, these are these are written, and
Peter Bromberg: about all different ways in which libraries are important in communities, and you can take these articles.
Peter Bromberg: repurpose them, slap your name on them. Change a couple words, put the name of your library in it. Then send those out and and let
Peter Bromberg: people in your community know how the library is having an impact. Not just that we have this program coming up. And these are just some examples. Right here's how the library can help you adjust the college courses. Now the library can help you with your family tree. How the library helps seniors stay fit, how the library can help local small businesses. Halt the summer slide. It's a great hack for live for families on a budget, right? We literally have hundreds of these articles on every coming at it, from families, from business, from health, from right
Peter Bromberg: community fabric. You can take these articles again, take every library's you know, name off. Put your name on, or leave leave our name on to, you know whatever you want, and you can just send it out, as is, or you can customize it a little bit.
Peter Bromberg: But again, whether you use these articles or not, make room in your communications to talk about the impact, the library in a way that you're not trying to get people to sign up for a card like it's great to get card sign ups. But some people are never gonna do it. They don't wanna do it. What we? But they're willing to support us if they if they know that what we're doing is impactful. So we wanna give them that information. Another way that you can build support in your community. And this is really around.
Peter Bromberg: not something that the library is going to necessarily do under the official banner of the library. This is a great thing for you to do more informally or through friends of libraries, but point people to fight for the first org, and this is particularly helpful if you have some trouble brewing
Peter Bromberg: censorship, trouble, etc. Fight for the first.org is a platform that we launched earlier this year that allows community members. It's really designed for civilians, not necessarily librarians to organize in support of the library, and they can use petitions and events. To identify other supporters in your community, activate them when necessary, and every library provides free coaching and consulting and puts money behind digital marketing. And really, it's about identifying and building support.
Peter Bromberg: Just some examples here. So again, you can create a local group. This is in Arkansas, the sailing County Library Alliance.
Peter Bromberg: Are building this this group of people. Who are stuffing up to speak out.
For the library, and again, censorship.
Peter Bromberg: You can have a petition so like, and it doesn't have to be a negative petition. Just me. I support. I support the library. I support Utah Library. I support my local library.
Peter Bromberg: and just be putting that out there on social media. And as people are signing that you're getting their their names in. In you know, people who have self-identified and can be activated in the future to show up
Peter Bromberg: board meeting at a city council meeting at a County Council meeting at a State legislative hearing. If there's some shenanigans where the library is being attacked, if there's some, you know, legislation being promoted that we need people's voices to speak out
Peter Bromberg: and again, like the like, I would the library should shouldn't necessarily do this under the banner of the library. But anyone that works at the library can certainly start this after 50'clock, when you check out and be the person who's who's running it?
Peter Bromberg: And again, I'm happy to talk more about that. This isn't a presentation. I just want you to on fight for the first, but I want you to understand this is there for you. Here's another example of a petition. The Samuel's public library in Virginia. Within 24 h. They had 2,000 people sign this petition within a couple of days. They have, like 4,500 or more at this point. And now, these are people who can be activated with a click of a button in an email
Peter Bromberg: to show up at the board meeting and say, no, you're not gonna do that to my library. You know we value the freedom to read. We post censorship, etc. You can also use it for events. To just put what's your you know County Board meeting or a Library board meeting and say, Hey, we have this event coming up. Put the link out there and encourage people to show up and through that offer talking points and things like that, if there's something that's problematic.
Peter Bromberg: so with that.
Peter Bromberg: look at that 15 min for discussion and questions, Julie. I told you I could talk fast.
Julie Edwards: I love it. Thank you.
Julie Edwards: That's and
Peter Bromberg: yeah, so what I'm gonna do is there's my, thank you. There's that, you know. You already have the link. I'm gonna stop sharing so we can see each other, or I can see you.
Peter Bromberg: and I can see the chat and stop that.
Peter Bromberg: So I'm ready like, let's talk like what's on your mind.
Julie Edwards: Awesome. There have been some great questions.
Julie Edwards: we'll jump right into them. Someone's asking if your various audiences catch on to the library message appearing in quite different language. Do you run the risk of being accused of being deceptive.
Peter Bromberg: It's an interesting question. So in my experience. And and and it's the question just dropped off. I was reading it. Can we get that? Was it dismissed, answered, where is where? That question? It's okay. I know. I see it. I got it. I got it. So
Peter Bromberg: so I
Peter Bromberg: I in my experience. This is not a fear that comes to fruition because there's an authenticity to it as well. So again. We can talk about the library in different messages, in different frames, and talking in threes is just a very common way to talk, anyway, and we know that we're, you know, if we, if we run through the like the find free argument, for instance, and say, you know, we we have people. It's hitting them hardest who can really afford it the least.
And you know the some of the people that we're keeping out like there's an opportunity for them to like if they could be in the library, like to to learn new skills and lift themselves up by their bootstraps, and and also like in a lot of people who are being impacted by this or new arrivals. And you know we know that when we work with them it helps them to acclimate it to the. So it's just offering 3 reasons. We know that those 3 reasons are sort of in different buckets, but it's not necessarily obvious to an audience. And in my experience.
Peter Bromberg: like offering, like people are just when they hear the one that they agree with, they're gonna go. Okay, that makes sense to me. And then they're gonna sort of tune out the other 2 that maybe weren't as as persuasive
Peter Bromberg: So
Peter Bromberg: so I haven't had that experience that people that were going to be at risk and and and quite. In fact, we're not being deceptive. We're being honest, right, we're not. We're not telling lies. We're just talking about how the library
is providing value in in different ways.
Peter Bromberg: Hope that answers that question.
Julie Edwards: Fantastic. Thank you. What do you do when you ask the question, who else cares? But the answer seems to be, no one.
Peter Bromberg: Okay.
Peter Bromberg: Whoever asks this question. my heart is going out to you because I'm I'm inferring. I'm reading into the question that there's some frustration and that there's some.
Peter Bromberg: There's not a lot of gas in the tank right now, right? I would. I would suggest.
Peter Bromberg: that in any community that has a functioning library.
Peter Bromberg: there are people, and there are organizations who care about the same things that we care about
Peter Bromberg: and and taking the time, and and if you're not seeing it yourself, I think that's where there's value in talking with other people, and it could be other people in the library. It could be family and friends it could be, you know, other people in the community
Peter Bromberg: to talk. You know you might talk a little bit about. Here's here's what the library is doing.
Peter Bromberg: Here are the things and the people that we care about. Who else in the community do you see caring about that are doing similar work?
Peter Bromberg: Like every community? Has people who care, everybody cares about something and asking other people what they care about, and being able to listen in a way that you can translate that
Peter Bromberg: right like so people like parents who are coming to board meetings and are are concerned and saying, I don't. I don't want my kid reading this book. They care about something they care about their kids. They care about childhood development. They care about
Peter Bromberg: aid appropriate reading materials. They care about making sure there's an opportunity for public input they care about and and in listening, and and we didn't get this is not. This isn't a workshop on how to necessarily have that type of conversation, but we need to listen and reflect not.
Peter Bromberg: What I hear you saying. Is, you really care about your type? What I hear you saying is, you care about age? Appropriate what I care you saying, and when people hear that reflected back.
Peter Bromberg: then they can open up and start talking about, and then being willing to listen to what you care about, you can start to find those connections. So so I guess I you know in some ways like, you know, I encourage you to like to
Peter Bromberg: see that that that statement as a limiting belief in some ways.
Peter Bromberg: and and if and if and if that's where you're stuck right now, you might not be the best positioned person to have these conversations, and that's where I think, reaching out to colleagues, friends, and family, to help like help surface where those common cause and common concern is is gonna is gonna help have those conversations.
Peter Bromberg: I hope that's helpful. It's like what I want to do is now shift into like. Let's have an hour workshop on that question, because we can also talk about the techniques around having those conversations. It's not easy. It's not easy for sure, right? Especially when we feel like we're under attack.
Peter Bromberg: The other side also feels like they're under attack. They do.
Peter Bromberg: And when we have 2 sides, both families under attack. It's, you know.
Peter Bromberg: So the question becomes, what what are the things that we can do? What are the behavioral choices, the language we can choose. A lot of listening goes a long way
Peter Bromberg: towards towards getting to a place where we can just even start hearing each other and finding some common brand. And I will say, like, there's.
Peter Bromberg: I'll say, 10%. It might be 3%. It might be 20% of people that we can't have these conversations with. They're never going to have these conversations there. And and it's okay to say, those aren't the people that we need to talk to. But in most communities, even communities, it might not seem like there's there's a broad middle.
Peter Bromberg: People who might not share our default worldview or or political values, but are still reachable. They are
Peter Bromberg: and they're reachable around common sense solutions. And we all care about kids. And let's work together. And Americans are by and large, so tired of the the vitriol and the fighting that if we come out and say, Hey, we care, but we care too. Let's.
Peter Bromberg: I mean, let's take temperature down and find ways to
Peter Bromberg: like those. Those. Those ways of framing things can go a long way in every community in America.
Peter Bromberg: Problem is that that 5, 1020, whatever that percent is on the on the extreme are very loud and they're scary and they're scared.
Julie Edwards: Thank you I when you get a chance, Peter, please look at the chat, because people are just so thrilled with this. It this leads us actually into a similar question, do you have a general answer? When random strangers in the community find out what you do for a living and say, Do people still use libraries.
Peter Bromberg: Yeah, I mean, that's like every lift and cab ride I take right is
Peter Bromberg: because I would say, Oh, I'm in town for this library thing, you know, do people? So and the answer is, Yeah.
Peter Bromberg: yeah. Yeah. And and you can talk about, oh, thank you so much for that question. It's amazing how people are using libraries. It's different, maybe, than how you use them as a kid. But yeah, like. And you know, would you like to hear some different ways in which libraries are being used now. And you ask that question.
Peter Bromberg: we can even say, so, yeah, absolutely. Like, I know, things have changed a lot like, can you imagine like, how do you think people are using libraries these days, or you know, so you can put it back on them to engage them to think about it. Oh, well, maybe they're using them. But yeah, we'll always offer appreciation. Thank you.
Peter Bromberg: And then just talk about it again from that sense of excitement. Or, if you have a story, you know, let me tell you a story. I'll just. This is a true story for me. Let me tell you a story about someone came into the library. And they've been coming in for a couple of weeks. They're they're cutting a movie in using our computers actually like in the software to cut their own movie
Peter Bromberg: and they're always in like kind of a janitorial outfit. And I talked to them the other day, and I said, Hey, I see you come in a lot. And what do you? They're like? Oh, yeah, like, I'm I'm a janitor over at across the street here at the Help Club, and on my lunch hour I come over here. I'm making a documentary about my family, and I come over here so like, that's one way right. It's just a great story, and it's true, and it's it's just fun to hear. So you have to come up with your stories and and be honest about how people are using your library.
Julie Edwards: I love this, and I swear you're anticipating the the rest of these questions. Someone says, I think it's a great idea to get personal statements from people that the library has helped. How do you suggest soliciting these stories without being exploitative.
Peter Bromberg: Oh, I mean, you know, there's there's many channels to do that. I mean, you can put links out on your web page in in your email, newsletter. And you can also just stand at the front door and say, Hey, if you had a nice experience today, you know, would you be willing to offer a story? If the libraries made a difference in your life, you can have a sign that's put the QR. Code as a library made a difference. And it's just that. That's it. It's just asking people, do you have a story to tell?
Peter Bromberg: There's nothing necessarily exploitive. III would. I don't think about asking people like to share their stories, and of course, if you're asking them, you're also asking them for permission to share that story. As an example of how the library
Peter Bromberg: has value. I mean, I think, people, there's many, many people that have been touched by the library, who would love to be an unofficial or official ambassador for the library, and saying, Here's the difference it made in my life.
Julie Edwards: Thank you.
Julie Edwards: Someone is saying in dealing with city councils, there's often no priority other than getting through the business of the night. How do you align to rapidly shifting priorities or to the priority of the moment.
Peter Bromberg: Yeah. So some of this is about pre-work with city Council and County Councils, and so I'll speak just to my own approach to that in my own career, which is, you know.
Peter Bromberg: relationships, relationships, relationships. Right? We're human beings. We're wired to forge relationship. My colleague, Patrick Sweeney, at every library has often says, you know, people don't help you because they like you. They help you because they think you like them
Peter Bromberg: right? And so as a as as a lot as a former library director, I mean, I'm was continually reaching out to city council, county, community leaders. Anytime a new new new person want an election? I would want to go in and and say, Hey, II wanna get to know you. I wanna know what your priorities are. What do you care about? And and really kind of explore ways in which the library can support your your agenda, or the things that you care about, and it's a lot of listening and
Peter Bromberg: and and doing the research before you go in. So you're, you know, if you know. Oh, this person is coming from a place where they really care about unsheltered populations. You can come in and say, Hey, you know, Andrew, I really know that you care about this. Are you aware that libraries doing some things? How can we work together? So you know there's no substitute for doing that work.
Peter Bromberg: And having those conversations and staying in touch. Making sure that you're you know. And and you know spreadsheet is your friend. You know, if you have salesforce or some customer, you know. Crm management system. Great, most libraries don't, but it's having a spreadsheet of the people that you want to stay in touch with. And when did you last? Stay in touch with them and
Peter Bromberg: little notes about that conversation? I say, II come from a retail background. In my early twenties I worked for Nordstrom. You have a personal book, right where you're like, okay, this person likes green sweaters. And they like this brand. And I'm gonna call them when like, just, it's a very basic like analog way of keeping track. But it's also very effective.
Peter Bromberg: And so once you have those, really, you know, having those relationships in place allows you then to be talking to people, offline about things, and, in fact, in in my experience, many times city council members were out there as not just ambassadors, but evangelists for the library before I could even get something out of my own mouth, they were saying, I think we should support the library on this or that, and that's just
Peter Bromberg: putting in some hard work. And also I was lucky that I've had a very supportive, you know, a great city council to work with. Not everyone does. But if you don't have a good city council to work with, it's all the more important to build those relationships arguably right.
Peter Bromberg: Thank you. There's one more comment in here. It's a comment, not a question. But I'd love to get your take on it. Someone says these ideas are what we're considered neutrality quote unquote. I think we abandon neutrality at our peril. Excellent discussion. Thank you. I don't know if you have any comments on that in the last few minutes. Sure. Yeah. I mean that neutrality discussions been going on since I went to library school in 1,992 and I would say, look, libraries have never been neutral. We've been, not, we are, and we must be, and we shall be nonpartisan.
Peter Bromberg: We don't. We're not neutral because we have a set of values right? And those values are around. Well, I mean from from a progressive standpoint. Around equity, from a libertarian standpoint. We have values around.
Peter Bromberg: You know self-reliance and not. And you know we have something for everyone, and you come in and you make your own decisions, and from a conservative standpoint we have a value system around preserving history, local history, human history, and you know all you know, so that people can come in. And and also that idea in a local library reflective of local community and a new people come to the community. The library is the place where they come to start to feel a part of the community, a part of that fabric that
Peter Bromberg: our social fabric right, our local social fabric? So that so those are, those are those aren't neutral. Those are values, right? And we can talk about those values and those values are gonna oftentimes be shared with many others in the community. Argue, some people in the community or the organizations are gonna share to some extent or another, one or more of our values.
Peter Bromberg: but we have to be nonpartisan, which means we're not. We're not
Peter Bromberg: not saying we're Democrats or Republicans. We're not saying we're conservative, Progressive. We're saying that we are an institution that is here for the benefit of all and and for the benefit of this community. And and
Peter Bromberg: and that's the difference between neutrality and nonpartisanship, and in my mind. and I know that other people may or may not agree with. But I think it's a pretty good answer.
Julie Edwards: Peter. Thank you so much. This has been fantastic. Someone wrote in the chat, this is just what I needed to hear today to get reenergized and inspired. So thank you so much.
Peter Bromberg: And I'm gonna fix those missing slides. See? That's what happens. Really like, I'm gonna fix this 10 min before 2 h before. I'm like, I'm gonna tighten this up a little bit.
Peter Bromberg: Detail orientation. I'll fix it, and you'll have access to the right slides after the fact. So, Julie, thanks for having me here, inviting every library to participate. Thank you to everybody. I should also say, follow up with me directly if if I or every library can be of any direct assistance with anything going on in your communities.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, Peter. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. I will send out the slides, the recording, the chat and audio transcripts, and I hope we see you next week at our next webinar have a great afternoon. Everybody.