WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:18.160 [Music] thank you we are the federal government 2 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:23.920 we do start on time uh and it's it is so great to see you 3 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.560 all i'm so glad to be here in person with 4 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:30.640 all of you um i want to kick this off though by uh 5 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:35.280 introducing ann friedman uh ann friedman created this place 6 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:39.760 planet word she's the founder and ceo of planet word and i think you can agree 7 00:00:39.760 --> 00:00:45.640 with me this is a pretty extraordinary place to uh to be 8 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:51.680 she she was a teacher uh in the montgomery county public schools here we 9 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:55.920 are in a a great public school building chairman of the board of the seed 10 00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:59.600 foundation the parent body of the nation's only public inner city college 11 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.879 prep boarding school she's a trustee of the american alliance 12 00:01:02.879 --> 00:01:07.119 of museums which whose event advocacy of that i spoke to 13 00:01:07.119 --> 00:01:10.640 yesterday by the way and has worked with the aspen 14 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:15.200 institute's ascend program and as a co-vice chair 15 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:19.360 of the aspen music festival we're really honored to have ann friedman here to 16 00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:22.759 welcome us 17 00:01:24.820 --> 00:01:28.000 [Applause] 18 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:41.040 so welcome everybody it's so great to have you here and when i saw there said 19 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:46.799 empowering readers empowering citizens i was like wait did they steal that from 20 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:52.840 planet word because that is exactly why this museum 21 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:58.479 exists i was a reading teacher the best job i ever had in my entire 22 00:01:58.479 --> 00:02:02.240 life the most fun most meaningful 23 00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:07.200 but then i retired and i didn't want to leave literacy behind 24 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:11.760 so i was looking for ways to continue in the field 25 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:16.400 and i read about a museum in new york that 26 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:21.520 was bringing math to life with technology in a museum setting and 27 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:25.040 i i thought oh there's the idea 28 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:31.200 and why was that so important to me and and what you're all here about is 29 00:02:31.200 --> 00:02:36.720 because i had heard a speech in 2004 30 00:02:37.200 --> 00:02:42.319 given by the former head of the nea who said that they had done a survey showing 31 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:48.080 that readers were voters readers were more likely to be active in 32 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:53.120 their communities to be volunteers and to vote 33 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:56.720 so i felt like the only way we could ensure 34 00:02:56.720 --> 00:03:02.000 the strength of our democracy for the future would be to create 35 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:07.440 citizens who were readers and how could we do that when all the 36 00:03:07.440 --> 00:03:12.720 evidence was that reading was you know declining and people were finding too 37 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:19.599 many other ways to entertain themselves and so i felt like we've got to 38 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:26.319 get bring a buzz to reading we have to make it cool how could we do that and 39 00:03:26.319 --> 00:03:30.560 seeing what they were doing with math in new york i thought okay we can do that 40 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:36.000 with words and language and that was that's the origin story of planet word 41 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:41.840 and i hope that when you have time later this afternoon to go through our museum 42 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:47.200 and see the experiences that we've created that you'll think that 43 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:52.959 that we've done what i wanted to do and made really reading really cool and fun 44 00:03:52.959 --> 00:03:58.000 and um something you know that everyone would want to 45 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:04.000 to try and also not just word and not just reading but words themselves 46 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.080 we want to make sure that people are aware of the words that they use 47 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:13.519 the words that are used around them that builds empathy in our globalized 48 00:04:13.519 --> 00:04:15.760 community and 49 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:20.880 we need that more now than ever so thank you and enjoy your lunch 50 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:27.920 and your meeting [Applause] 51 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.160 thank you ann so much um 52 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:43.520 so the the last time uh before the pandemic the fir last meeting before the 53 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:47.680 pandemic that i went to uh there was a celebration of the 54 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:53.759 community librarian of the year rivka sas from sacramento rivka is with us 55 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:58.800 today and the deputy mayor yay 56 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:05.199 the the deputy mayor of uh of sacramento was there i think that that's his title 57 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:12.320 uh and he said uh to to us uh he said when we have a problem in sacramento we 58 00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:16.560 turn to rivka into the sacramento library 59 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:20.880 the first meeting post pandemic i went to was to hand the national medal for 60 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:25.039 library service to keenan mccloy in the memphis public library and i don't 61 00:05:25.039 --> 00:05:27.919 remember the exact title but he was like the deputy mayor 62 00:05:27.919 --> 00:05:31.440 kenan uh came came to that meeting and he said when we have a problem in 63 00:05:31.440 --> 00:05:34.240 memphis we turn to keenan and the memphis public 64 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.680 library then i went about a week after that i 65 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:42.800 went to highwood illinois uh where we gave the national medal to carmen patlin 66 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:48.639 the highwood uh library uh their account of uh five thousand people nestled in uh 67 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:53.360 among the uh the north shore elite that's five thousand first and second 68 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:58.639 generation immigrants uh that uh uh the library serves in so 69 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:03.520 many ways and uh the the congressman schneider united states congressman 70 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:07.919 showed up the mayor showed up the state senator state representative the city 71 00:06:07.919 --> 00:06:11.440 council showed up two-thirds of the population showed up and the dog catcher 72 00:06:11.440 --> 00:06:15.199 and the meter made and they all said when we have a problem in highwood 73 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:20.479 illinois we turn to carmen and to the highwood public library 74 00:06:20.479 --> 00:06:25.360 so we're the we you are the um 75 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:30.960 swiss army knife of the communities of this uh this this country so why did i 76 00:06:30.960 --> 00:06:34.880 cajole and vegel and blackmail you all to uh to come here 77 00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:40.160 uh the first group uh of library minds uh pulled together actually probably the 78 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:44.880 most exciting and and uh extraordinary group of library minds since the last 79 00:06:44.880 --> 00:06:48.560 conversation that thomas jefferson had with benjamin franklin 80 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:53.039 um and it seems it seems like that uh you know was right before the 81 00:06:53.039 --> 00:06:55.599 pandemic 82 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.440 uh so i i the the reason is 83 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:04.080 we we know how how important we are to the community 84 00:07:04.080 --> 00:07:08.080 but what's happened because of that 85 00:07:08.080 --> 00:07:10.960 an awful lot of what we do in the library world 86 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:14.880 is inertial inertial response to whatever the 87 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:19.360 community wants to whatever is going on in the world 88 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:25.280 the digital revolution has taken us over the pandemic took us over for sure the 89 00:07:25.280 --> 00:07:29.440 polarization of this country is at our front door we're we're on the front 90 00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:34.240 lines of the of the culture war uh the changes in our country the demographic 91 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:38.960 changes uh the changes uh the political changes 92 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:43.520 uh in our country uh the deep immigration we we have the highest level 93 00:07:43.520 --> 00:07:48.479 of immigrants in the united states since the 1920s which was the highest level of 94 00:07:48.479 --> 00:07:51.120 immigrants ever in the history of this country 95 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:55.440 uh the focus on inequality and on equity 96 00:07:55.440 --> 00:07:58.400 to actually i think different things but two 97 00:07:58.400 --> 00:08:03.199 important things and george floyd the racial reckoning in this country 98 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:07.840 which we have to go through we must go through in which libraries are engaged 99 00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:12.960 in but how much purpose 100 00:08:12.960 --> 00:08:17.039 are we showing in this i want to step back and think about the 101 00:08:17.039 --> 00:08:20.240 library as a place in a place with a purpose 102 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:25.120 and i hope that that's the conversation we can have here 103 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:28.560 when i thought about this conference originally there were three people that 104 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:35.120 i wanted uh to invite uh robert putnam and shaylen uh romney 105 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.760 garrett his co-author uh of upswing and and bob i've known for a 106 00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:44.080 long time i wanted to uh to invite marianne wolfe 107 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:48.240 because she is the most inspirational person i know about reading and i wanted 108 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:52.320 to focus on reading and danielle allen and danielle couldn't 109 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:56.880 come but danielle's book our declaration 110 00:08:56.880 --> 00:09:00.720 which is about the declaration of independence is in my view 111 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:04.959 one of the great books of our time she discusses how she her belief that the 112 00:09:04.959 --> 00:09:09.360 declaration of independence addresses our problems today and can 113 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:13.600 profoundly inform the dialogue that we need to have 114 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:17.279 on all these issues [Music] 115 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:21.200 she decided she agreed to come but then she decided to run for governor of 116 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:25.839 massachusetts fortunately 117 00:09:25.839 --> 00:09:30.399 bob putnam and shaylynn romney garrett who's with us here today in person 118 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:35.440 agreed to agree to come right off the bat and you'll find that in upswing and 119 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:39.120 i'm going to mention this again uh when i when i do the actual introduction of 120 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:43.040 bob and shaylan that daniel allen is is there 121 00:09:43.040 --> 00:09:47.200 prominently in the book on the last page actually um 122 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:52.959 but bob is of course the the uh uh the the most important delineator of the 123 00:09:52.959 --> 00:09:58.560 decline of community uh in in the recent history of the united states and he and 124 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:04.240 shailene of course address what we might be able to do about it in in this latest 125 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:08.320 book um i believe that one of the things that 126 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:13.360 they say in this book um and and that is something that danielle also her work is 127 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:19.600 about and and marianne's work is a about as well is is about what happens at the 128 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:24.320 local level it's a topvillian view of the world of uh what happens when we 129 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.079 associate the great thing that tocqueville said about america the 130 00:10:28.079 --> 00:10:32.560 unique thing he said about america was that we come together in our townships 131 00:10:32.560 --> 00:10:37.839 it was the 1830s in our townships and associate bring create associations 132 00:10:37.839 --> 00:10:42.160 around our problems and they spring up spontaneously 133 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.200 and i believe that the power of the traditional 134 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:49.839 library and our role in reading uh and particularly in children's 135 00:10:49.839 --> 00:10:54.320 reading and the art is the archimedean leverage 136 00:10:54.320 --> 00:11:00.800 point in what we do with our partners uh in the in the community uh and i wanted 137 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:06.000 the greatest evangelist of that uh mary ann wolf to be here with us uh and she 138 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:09.200 will be virtually um 139 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:14.320 and and then i had this all set uh and then i read tim coates's freckle 140 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:18.320 report using imless statistics tim came to the 141 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:21.920 conclusion that there must be correlations between 142 00:11:21.920 --> 00:11:26.720 the decline in spending on books and materials generally particularly print 143 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:29.839 books the decline in circulation and visits to 144 00:11:29.839 --> 00:11:33.360 the library and particularly the decline in children's 145 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:37.920 circulation and children's visits and perhaps a 146 00:11:37.920 --> 00:11:41.760 correlation with a decline decline or failure to do anything about the 147 00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:45.760 problems of reading among the most challenged people in our 148 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:49.519 community and the literacy of our communities 149 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:53.600 and what we know is true about reading is that it correlates with virtually 150 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:57.760 every measure of success and it correlates with virtually every division 151 00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:02.639 and divide that we have in this country 152 00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:06.800 so i believe that is the right question tim's question is the 153 00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:10.880 right question and so we we put together a panel to to 154 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:14.959 uh to discuss that and we'll we'll see uh this should be should be an 155 00:12:14.959 --> 00:12:19.200 interesting discussion uh about whether or not we're using our resources 156 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:23.040 correctly and what the focus of our resources ought to be to me that is the 157 00:12:23.040 --> 00:12:26.399 ultimate question the focus of our resources 158 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:31.040 but i had one more conversation that was important that we added we added on to 159 00:12:31.040 --> 00:12:36.079 the to what we're doing here tony again called me and some of you will know 160 00:12:36.079 --> 00:12:40.079 tony many of you will know about tony's the chief technical officer at the new 161 00:12:40.079 --> 00:12:44.320 york public library uh formerly doing the same things at the bbc and the 162 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:49.519 guardian in england and uh and and we knew we didn't have enough uh people 163 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:53.920 from great britain coming to this conference uh is our form of diversity 164 00:12:53.920 --> 00:12:59.760 um and so uh tony in his conversation i asked a group of us some of whom i think 165 00:12:59.760 --> 00:13:05.040 all of whom were here uh today and asked us uh what does a bookless library 166 00:13:05.040 --> 00:13:08.720 looked like he said i'm creating a bookless library 167 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:12.000 and what does that look like and he said this with a certain amount 168 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:14.240 of shock and 169 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:16.800 startling 170 00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:19.600 attention to the fact that he was creating 171 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:23.120 something that he didn't particularly i think like 172 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:27.200 um and so i think what the conversation 173 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:30.639 over the next two days is all about um 174 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:34.079 bringing these people together bringing the great panelists group that groups 175 00:13:34.079 --> 00:13:39.519 that that we have and all of you uh is if anything about the soul of the 176 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:44.240 library what is a library today what will it be in the future what are we 177 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:48.639 doing for the community where is our leverage point in the community where is 178 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:52.639 our importance in the community and so i'll leave you 179 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:56.800 with that thought i don't know what will actually come out 180 00:13:56.800 --> 00:14:01.920 of this whether it will be research orientation of the imls of best 181 00:14:01.920 --> 00:14:05.680 practices a call to action 182 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:09.839 about reading or simply a redoubling of what we do 183 00:14:09.839 --> 00:14:13.920 today so well in our communities but i do not know it's a conversation that 184 00:14:13.920 --> 00:14:17.760 we've got to have and i'm really glad i'm having it with you 185 00:14:17.760 --> 00:14:21.290 so i'll turn it over to terry devoe to explain what we're doing 186 00:14:21.290 --> 00:14:24.429 [Applause] 187 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:32.720 brene brown's calling this the great awkward you can see i'm navigating it 188 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:37.040 already um i'm terry devoe from imls and i'm so 189 00:14:37.040 --> 00:14:40.880 happy you're all here i normally have more of a backstage role 190 00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:44.880 at our agency administering grants to the wonderful state library 191 00:14:44.880 --> 00:14:48.880 administrative agencies some of whom are here today 192 00:14:48.880 --> 00:14:54.399 but because we have a very packed agenda i'm gonna go 193 00:14:54.399 --> 00:14:57.839 to show you that over the next one and a half days we're trying to fit in a lot 194 00:14:57.839 --> 00:15:04.160 as crosby has sort of outlined for us my main role as the facilitator in this 195 00:15:04.160 --> 00:15:08.560 event is just to keep us moving so 196 00:15:08.560 --> 00:15:13.680 i am aided by our fabulous organizers in the wings they are all over 197 00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:18.720 and we collectively are going to keep this moving on track 198 00:15:19.199 --> 00:15:24.880 we are collectively the yin to crosby's yang he can expound on all the wonderful 199 00:15:24.880 --> 00:15:28.000 philosophical things and we'll come back to the timing 200 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.399 we're the collective brain or brawn i should say to his brains 201 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:38.079 but we are so happy you're here and we welcome you to washington d.c 202 00:15:38.079 --> 00:15:42.720 it's our deep desire throughout the next few days to ensure 203 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:47.759 a safe space for everyone in this venue we have some requirements 204 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:52.320 and some flexibility so we're going to do our best to navigate both 205 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:58.079 masks are required inside the common areas these include the lobby downstairs 206 00:15:58.079 --> 00:16:03.519 all of the hallways and the restrooms masks are not required in this fourth 207 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:08.959 floor venue that we are in together so to navigate people's personal 208 00:16:08.959 --> 00:16:14.079 preferences in this fourth floor level we're using stickers on our 209 00:16:14.079 --> 00:16:18.480 name badges um if you have a green sticker we are 210 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.240 signaling that you're open to handshakes or hugs 211 00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:26.959 yellow is more like a fist bump or an elbow bump and red means you're really 212 00:16:26.959 --> 00:16:30.320 social distancing still 213 00:16:30.560 --> 00:16:36.639 there are restrooms on all floors this this restroom on our floor is a single 214 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:41.519 restroom gender neutral so if you want more options you can head down the 215 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:46.720 stairs or the elevator on this side it's a little easier to access the multi-unit 216 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:50.560 restrooms which are just a floor below us and there are restaurants on all the 217 00:16:50.560 --> 00:16:53.600 other floors as well 218 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:58.480 all the food is packaged as single serve to also keep 219 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:02.320 us safe and we'll have snacks throughout the day 220 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:07.520 and a lunch for you a grab and go style lunch tomorrow 221 00:17:09.919 --> 00:17:14.000 at your table i guess i will stay on this slide for a moment sorry at your 222 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:19.039 table we have prepped readiness tense 223 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:23.280 which we encourage you to use to signal to your table mates if you're feeling a 224 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:27.520 little more introspective and you want to reflect on things a little bit longer 225 00:17:27.520 --> 00:17:32.559 you can flip the side of the tent to your table mates that says reflective i 226 00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:37.200 believe or i'm feeling reflective and if you're ready to just jump right 227 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:41.200 in and have the discussion then you can flip it around to the ready to discuss 228 00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:44.960 side so we figured that would be a helpful signal as we move into our table 229 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:49.200 activities there are fidgety things if you need to 230 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:52.960 keep your hands busy i see lots of pipe cleaners 231 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:58.559 feel free they're for you we've got sticky notes or little post-it 232 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:02.320 notes in there we're going to be collecting questions on post-it notes 233 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:05.760 that's one option we're also going to have mics during the 234 00:18:05.760 --> 00:18:10.160 question and answer session if you would prefer to stand up and ask your question 235 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:12.640 in person 236 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:16.799 there is an imls staff person at each of your tables if you haven't met them 237 00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:21.440 already you'll meet them shortly and we also have host designations on 238 00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:24.720 our name badges so if you have any questions just seek one of us out and 239 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:29.440 we'll be happy to help you we have easels in a couple of places one 240 00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:32.799 on the side and one in the back these are our parking lots 241 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:38.400 so if topics come up that feel adjacent to the topics of conversation a 242 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:43.280 little off topic but you still want imls to know that you have thoughts on your 243 00:18:43.280 --> 00:18:46.559 mind we welcome you to use the parking lots 244 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:51.039 and if something comes up that seems like it needs more 245 00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:54.960 emphasis you can use the parking lot for that too 246 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:58.640 we we do have a kind of overriding question at the front of the room which 247 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:02.960 crosby touched on and that could be used for parking lot thoughts as well we want 248 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:06.000 to keep at the top of your mind the question of 249 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:10.480 you know as imls what kind of grant making or policy 250 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:13.520 research or other kind of work should we 251 00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:18.799 prioritize to advance literacy so we're going to keep coming back to that theme 252 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:22.480 and would welcome you to keep it at the top of your mind and use the parking lot 253 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:26.160 for thoughts along that vein as well 254 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:30.480 all right so we talked about physical safety 255 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:34.799 but we also want to foster a safe space in our dialogue together over the next 256 00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:39.360 day and a half so to ensure that our discourse is 257 00:19:39.360 --> 00:19:43.679 productive we would ask you to lead with courtesy 258 00:19:43.679 --> 00:19:49.120 and demonstrate respect for others this convening topic is really important 259 00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:52.400 and we know a lot of you feel really impassioned about it 260 00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:58.000 and we are welcoming your passion we just ask that you continue to listen 261 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:01.919 with an open mind throughout the remarks 262 00:20:02.159 --> 00:20:06.720 create an environment where everyone can choose to speak deeply and freely about 263 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:12.320 their experiences we ask you to think before speaking 264 00:20:12.320 --> 00:20:16.799 and more logistically when the time comes for us to be in dialogue together 265 00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:21.200 we do ask you to use the microphones if you're asking a question we're both 266 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:26.000 recording this and the microphones enable us to pick up the conversation 267 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:29.840 for perpetuity and it helps each other 268 00:20:29.840 --> 00:20:33.880 in the room hear each other better 269 00:20:34.080 --> 00:20:39.440 do your part to let everyone participate everyone here brings different 270 00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:44.480 experiences that are really important you've all been hand selected to be here 271 00:20:44.480 --> 00:20:50.000 and we think of you as thought leaders so we want everyone to get a chance to 272 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.799 ask the questions that are important to them 273 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.799 and say the thoughts that are on their mind during the table discussions 274 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:01.120 and that means that all of us need to be gracious and give each other the chance 275 00:21:01.120 --> 00:21:04.720 to speak so we're depending on you to make this a good 276 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:08.799 safe dialogue space not without passion not without strong 277 00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:12.400 thoughts but just respectful 278 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:17.840 now we get a chance to try this out we are going to have a 10-minute 279 00:21:17.840 --> 00:21:21.600 activity where you get to introduce yourselves to 280 00:21:21.600 --> 00:21:26.400 each other at your tables so we're calling this pass the mic 281 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:31.039 we don't actually have mics for each of the tables so you know get a pipe 282 00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:35.440 cleaner or something but we're going to have you introduce yourself one at a 283 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:40.559 time passing the mic to the right and you each get about one to two minutes to 284 00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:44.720 tell us the following we want to hear your name role 285 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:49.360 organization and title so all the where are you from what do you do 286 00:21:49.360 --> 00:21:54.000 and then share the goals and activities of your organization and how they relate 287 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:59.840 to literacy and social well-being and then we'd like to know what you're 288 00:21:59.840 --> 00:22:05.440 hoping to take away from the convening so with 10 minutes 289 00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:08.960 pass the mic [Music] 290 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:13.120 so now it uh it is a real honor for me uh 291 00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:18.640 we we're going to present to you uh virtually uh bob putnam the malcolm 292 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:22.720 research professor of public policy at harvard uh and then a member of the 293 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:28.080 national academy of sciences a fellow of the british academy tim and tony 294 00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:35.440 and in 2012 uh president obama awarded bob the national humanities uh medal uh 295 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:40.640 and shaylynn romney garrett uh and shilin has worked with bob on upswing 296 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:45.440 co-author on upswing worked with him on the book american grace how religion 297 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:49.840 divides and unites is a contributor to the aspen 298 00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:54.559 institute's initiative weave the social fabric project 299 00:22:54.559 --> 00:22:58.080 has her own personal journey 300 00:22:58.080 --> 00:23:02.240 documented in her blog project reconnect her personal journey 301 00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:05.919 back to community as she says and co-founded with her husband think 302 00:23:05.919 --> 00:23:12.159 unlimited uh a venture in catalyzing social innovation in the middle east 303 00:23:12.159 --> 00:23:16.240 in my 15 years at the kansas city public library i invited bob 304 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:20.320 to speak three times he represents to me 305 00:23:20.320 --> 00:23:25.440 and certainly in his work uh with shay lynn in upswing the latest 306 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:29.840 book the best thinking about social well-being in our community 307 00:23:29.840 --> 00:23:34.880 uh in bowling alone he chronicled the decline of community and and civic life 308 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:39.440 uh from rotary to republicans and democrats in our social life churches 309 00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:44.000 family and even friendship declining and better together 310 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:48.320 uh his he assimilated his his critics comments 311 00:23:48.320 --> 00:23:52.000 on bowling alone and and wrote an ode to 312 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.080 those new forms of community represented by things like mega churches and 313 00:23:56.080 --> 00:24:00.000 importantly for us libraries 314 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.640 in our kids a book about in many ways his most 315 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.559 personal book a book about port clinton ohio where he grew up 316 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:13.360 he wrote about the the decline of community there and the generational 317 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:18.720 decline in mobility uh from his generation to the younger generations 318 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:22.400 in which he said in in upward economic 319 00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.480 socioeconomic mobility uh the factors for 320 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.400 is it poised to plunge the factors for which we have found 321 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:34.480 growing class gaps are precisely the same factors that economist raj chetty 322 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:38.320 and his colleagues have found to be associated with socio-economic mobility 323 00:24:38.320 --> 00:24:43.919 across america today family stability the decline of residential segregation 324 00:24:43.919 --> 00:24:48.000 the continuation of school quality take your pick 325 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:54.720 community cohesion and income inequality now in upswing 326 00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:59.360 bob and shaylynn try to answer the question of what we can do how 327 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:04.320 america came together a century ago the progressive era and what we can and can 328 00:25:04.320 --> 00:25:08.480 we do it again and here they quote on the last page 329 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:12.400 uh danielle allen political philosophers have generated 330 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:17.440 the view that equality and freedom are necessarily in tension with each other 331 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:22.640 we think we are required to choose between freedom and equality 332 00:25:24.159 --> 00:25:26.960 under the general influence of libertarianism both parties have 333 00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:31.520 abandoned our declaration they have scorned our patrimony such a choice is 334 00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:37.279 dangerous if we abandon equality we lose a single bond that makes us a community 335 00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:42.159 as alexis de tocqueville and so bob and shaylin say like alan we reject the view 336 00:25:42.159 --> 00:25:45.360 that more freedom necessarily entails equality 337 00:25:45.360 --> 00:25:48.640 and less equality in community believing 338 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:53.120 instead with alexis de tocqueville that individualism rightly understood is 339 00:25:53.120 --> 00:25:57.039 perfectly compatible with community inequality i think 340 00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:01.360 shayla and romney garrett and bob putnam are the right people to talk to us about 341 00:26:01.360 --> 00:26:04.880 what library means in a world 342 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:10.200 in which freedom and equality have to be sought together 343 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:21.600 i think actually maybe i'm coming next unless shailene wants to take over here 344 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:28.559 and uh wait for my turn i can see you can you hear me 345 00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:32.400 yeah okay sure and um 346 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:36.159 well let's go back just a second because i wanted to say something can we go back 347 00:26:36.159 --> 00:26:40.720 to the uh there i wanted to say something to crosby 348 00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:44.799 um who correctly reports that he and i have known each other for a very long 349 00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:47.279 time and we've known each other for a very 350 00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:51.440 long time for many reasons because we share values and so on 351 00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:58.559 um we both have midwestern roots but especially because we both value 352 00:26:58.559 --> 00:27:02.880 the importance of libraries and 353 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:09.600 in the first part of our remarks today uh libraries won't uh won't seem to be 354 00:27:09.600 --> 00:27:12.720 an important part of the story i'm going to be talking about a much larger 355 00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:16.720 picture in which toward the the second half of our 356 00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:20.080 remarks though when shaylin is talking she's going to be talking about how what 357 00:27:20.080 --> 00:27:22.799 happened when we face similar problems to those 358 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:27.440 today but we faced them 125 years ago and libraries 359 00:27:27.440 --> 00:27:31.520 and especially carnegie public libraries are going to play a very important part 360 00:27:31.520 --> 00:27:36.240 of that story so i ask you to bear with me now and now we 361 00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:39.919 can go to the uh the powerpoints if if you'd like 362 00:27:39.919 --> 00:27:43.120 um what i'd like to do now is 363 00:27:43.120 --> 00:27:49.120 summarize for you very very quickly the first half or part of this book 364 00:27:49.120 --> 00:27:51.919 called the upswing um 365 00:27:51.919 --> 00:27:56.000 how america came together a century ago and how we can do it again 366 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.600 and then you see this chart and which is a little puzzling what's 367 00:27:59.600 --> 00:28:02.399 the chart doing on the on the front page of a book 368 00:28:02.399 --> 00:28:06.159 if we go to the next page i'm going to try to explain to you why that chart is 369 00:28:06.159 --> 00:28:09.760 important here's the fact 370 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:15.600 america today by many many hard measures 371 00:28:15.600 --> 00:28:21.279 has reached historic levels first of all a political polarization 372 00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:25.120 where we've hardly ever in our american history 373 00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:31.600 maybe in the period between 1860 and 65 1860 and 1865 but maybe not even then 374 00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:35.600 have we reached the level of political polarization that we are now 375 00:28:35.600 --> 00:28:40.240 and then independently of that we have reached historic levels of 376 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.880 economic inequality perhaps never in our history as the gap between and 377 00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:48.399 poor been greater and then 378 00:28:48.399 --> 00:28:52.640 seemingly independently of that the level of social isolation and social 379 00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:57.279 fragmentation in america is extremely high 380 00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:02.159 and probably has we it's a little harder to measure this but probably we've never 381 00:29:02.159 --> 00:29:06.399 had the degree of social fragmentation and social isolation 382 00:29:06.399 --> 00:29:10.399 as we do today and finally and this is a little also 383 00:29:10.399 --> 00:29:14.240 hard to measure but i actually we in this book we do try to measure this 384 00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:20.320 the degree of cultural self-centeredness the sense in which we're focused on 385 00:29:20.320 --> 00:29:27.360 ourselves on not ourselves on each of us individually on our own self-interest 386 00:29:27.360 --> 00:29:32.399 that too has hardly ever been reached so the first question of the book is how 387 00:29:32.399 --> 00:29:35.039 did we get here and i'm going to say a little bit about 388 00:29:35.039 --> 00:29:37.679 that and then of course the much more important question is how do we get out 389 00:29:37.679 --> 00:29:41.039 of here in other words how can we reverse 390 00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:44.640 these um these trends and that's when shaylin 391 00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:48.720 is going to come in and provide at least the beginnings of an 392 00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:52.080 answer to that so let's go to the first slide 393 00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:56.159 um if uh i'm a numbers person and if you 394 00:29:56.159 --> 00:29:59.840 like numbers you're you've come to the right place i'm going to use a lot of 395 00:29:59.840 --> 00:30:02.080 numbers here but if you don't like numbers 396 00:30:02.080 --> 00:30:04.880 don't worry it means you know part of it some of us like numbers and some of us 397 00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:09.120 don't if you happen to be a non-numbers person that's okay settle back close 398 00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:12.720 your eyes and um and i'll try to tell you what the 399 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:17.520 what's in these charts so the horizontal axis of this chart i 400 00:30:17.520 --> 00:30:20.320 know of all the charts that i'm going to be talking about 401 00:30:20.320 --> 00:30:24.640 is history american history running over from the left-hand side 402 00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:28.720 1880 1890 the end of the 19th century and 403 00:30:28.720 --> 00:30:32.799 zooming across the 20th century all the way up to the right 404 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:39.279 we find if you run a little uh laser pointer over to the far bottom right 405 00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:42.720 uh that's that and then here we are 406 00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:47.760 and that this is now basically uh 2020 or 407 00:30:47.760 --> 00:30:51.279 right now we're out we're down and down in 22 but basically 408 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:55.600 each of these charts horizontally is going to show 409 00:30:55.600 --> 00:31:00.080 change in america across this 125 years from the end of 410 00:31:00.080 --> 00:31:03.600 the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century 411 00:31:03.600 --> 00:31:09.039 and the vertical axis is going to be some aspect of politics or economics or 412 00:31:09.039 --> 00:31:14.240 society or whatever in this case we're talking about polarization 413 00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.640 political comedy or polarization the way the chart is 414 00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:20.880 oriented um 415 00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:24.640 polarization is uh up 416 00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:28.640 i'm sorry polarization is down and political getting along bipartisanship 417 00:31:28.640 --> 00:31:32.399 is up so let's let's see what we let's 418 00:31:32.399 --> 00:31:35.440 probably just talk through this chart first so you can see what i'm talking 419 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:40.080 about over at the beginning of the at the end of the 19th century american 420 00:31:40.080 --> 00:31:44.399 politics was extremely polarized 421 00:31:44.399 --> 00:31:47.840 um earlier it had been even more polarized 422 00:31:47.840 --> 00:31:52.559 in the in the civil war period of course but then by that by the end of the 19th 423 00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:56.240 century american politics 424 00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:00.720 was tribal basically no cooperation 425 00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.200 across party lines i'm going to skip here saying anything about exactly how 426 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:08.480 we measured this but you'll just i'm happy to talk about 427 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:11.519 it of course because i'm a numbers guy but behind each of these charts 428 00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:15.760 including this one there are have a dozen other charts that 429 00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:20.799 are specific measures of that variable so here for example we're measuring 430 00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:23.840 oh for example the degree to which parties cooperate or don't cooperate 431 00:32:23.840 --> 00:32:28.399 across uh maybe politicians cross across party lines in congress or the degree in 432 00:32:28.399 --> 00:32:33.440 which ordinary citizens like or dislike people on the other side of the aisle 433 00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:36.480 many different measures they all saw the same story and you can see here that 434 00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:39.279 what they show is at the beginning of the 19 the beginning 435 00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:43.360 of the 20th century america was very polarized but then 436 00:32:43.360 --> 00:32:46.960 in that began to change in the early years of the 20th century began to 437 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.640 become a little more cooperative not perfectly cooperative of 438 00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:56.159 course but then that rises steadily keeps going up during the twenties and 439 00:32:56.159 --> 00:32:59.279 30s and into the 40s 440 00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:03.600 and into the 50s even now we're now into the 50s and even in the 441 00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:07.600 middle of the 50s and about in the middle of the 50s we're 442 00:33:07.600 --> 00:33:11.360 amazingly amazingly 443 00:33:11.360 --> 00:33:16.240 unpolarized that is lots of political cooperation across party lines 444 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:20.240 symbolized by dwight eisenhower who was president at the time 445 00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.519 who was almost certainly the least partisan 446 00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:27.840 president in american history except for george washington he could have run for 447 00:33:27.840 --> 00:33:31.440 either he could have voted for the presidency in either party i do not mean 448 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:35.279 that eisenhower caused that i only mean that he reflected the degree 449 00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:39.440 in which people cooperated across party lines and 450 00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:42.880 they didn't think basically about their own party they thought about the 451 00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:46.399 national welfare and that continued into the 60s but then 452 00:33:46.399 --> 00:33:50.320 as you can see toward the end of the 60s and into the 70s that begins to change 453 00:33:50.320 --> 00:33:54.480 and then suddenly we begin to begin to plummeting um 454 00:33:54.480 --> 00:33:57.840 uh cooperation or increasing polarization 455 00:33:57.840 --> 00:34:01.760 down down down through the 80s and down through the 90s and 456 00:34:01.760 --> 00:34:06.320 down through the 2000s and down through the 2000s and tens 457 00:34:06.320 --> 00:34:10.800 and until now and if we actually if they we if we put on the graph the res the 458 00:34:10.800 --> 00:34:15.359 numbers up to now it would be even lower we're amazingly polarized we're back 459 00:34:15.359 --> 00:34:19.839 even worse than we were 125 years ago now let me pause just for a second some 460 00:34:19.839 --> 00:34:23.520 people think that in terms of american public polarization 461 00:34:23.520 --> 00:34:28.800 politics today that a lot of this was the call it was the consequence of um 462 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:33.280 of ex-president trump but as you can see trump is can't 463 00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:37.520 be the cause of this he comes in way too late he doesn't enter american politics 464 00:34:37.520 --> 00:34:41.440 until this trend has been going down for three or four decades so this story 465 00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:46.399 is the broad angle the wide-angle view of how american politics have changed 466 00:34:46.399 --> 00:34:49.440 over the last 125 years now i'm going to be a little 467 00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:52.560 more quick as we go through the other dimensions of change let's have the next 468 00:34:52.560 --> 00:34:56.720 slide please the next slide here same horizontal axis 469 00:34:56.720 --> 00:35:01.119 from the 1890s over to the ninth over to today 470 00:35:01.119 --> 00:35:05.599 this graph began this is a measure of the gap between rich and poor 471 00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:10.720 um and it the graph actually begins in the 1910s because that's the period when 472 00:35:10.720 --> 00:35:13.280 we begin to have really hard evidence that's when the 473 00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:16.880 irs is created we begin to have really good evidence on the distribution of 474 00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:20.800 income and of uh and of wealth in america and you can 475 00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:23.920 see when the when the curtain rises america 476 00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:28.880 is very very unequal and that continues 477 00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:33.200 um for the first uh 10 years of the measure and then 478 00:35:33.200 --> 00:35:37.040 and then it accepted it it's rising a little bit there's a pause during the 479 00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:41.760 1920s that's the that's the gilded age that's when once again inequality is 480 00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:46.320 rising as you go from from the 1920 to to the late 20s that's 481 00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:49.760 the gilded age you can see it in the in the numbers but then 482 00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:53.839 coming out of the gilded age long before years before the new deal you can see 483 00:35:53.839 --> 00:35:59.040 that in the 30s america was becoming steadily more equal 484 00:35:59.040 --> 00:36:02.480 by that i mean the gap between rich and poor was rising and that's true whether 485 00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:06.480 we measured it in terms of of income or in terms of wealth whether 486 00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:09.760 we talk about the degree to which you could rise from the bottom of 487 00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:14.320 society the top to the top rungs of the of the economy 488 00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:18.000 every year as you can see through the 30s and through the 40s and through the 489 00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:22.160 50s steadily more equal and that keeps rising 490 00:36:22.160 --> 00:36:28.400 um and in rising even during the 50s and hits the peak just about the 1960s looks 491 00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:32.560 a little similar to that other graph and then suddenly surprisingly that 492 00:36:32.560 --> 00:36:36.320 begins to change when we were let me pause up at the top there at the top 493 00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:40.800 there in the 1960s we were very equal america was a more 494 00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.359 egalitarian society in terms of the distribution of income than sweden or 495 00:36:45.359 --> 00:36:49.200 denmark all those nordic social democracies we were even 496 00:36:49.200 --> 00:36:54.160 more equal than they are but that ended in the late 60s you can see we begin to 497 00:36:54.160 --> 00:36:57.200 become suddenly more less equal the gap between 498 00:36:57.200 --> 00:37:02.000 rich and poor grows steadily through the 70s and especially in the 80s 499 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:06.240 and 90s down through the 2000s 500 00:37:06.240 --> 00:37:10.320 you can see over there at the right hand side for just for a second in the in the 501 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:14.160 period around 19 around 2010 it looked like maybe that was ending but no no if 502 00:37:14.160 --> 00:37:16.720 you kept on the graph um 503 00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:22.320 with trump and the and the epidemic and so on now down in eggs way down way way 504 00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:26.880 even further down this is we are now way over there in terms of 505 00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:30.880 economic equality so that's another church it's actually a 506 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:33.839 little similar to the previous chart it shows how 507 00:37:33.839 --> 00:37:37.839 our economy began by being unequal 508 00:37:37.839 --> 00:37:41.359 and then there was this half century long rise to the 509 00:37:41.359 --> 00:37:45.200 to the equality of the middle to the 20th century and then suddenly this 510 00:37:45.200 --> 00:37:49.359 collapsed back down even worse than ever before let's have the next slide 511 00:37:49.359 --> 00:37:52.720 now where the next slide is looking at social cohesion or what i sometimes call 512 00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:56.480 social capital that's the degree to which we're connected with our family 513 00:37:56.480 --> 00:38:00.720 and our friends and our neighbors and our community institutions 514 00:38:00.720 --> 00:38:04.960 and again you can see down at the end of the 1990s children will have a chance to 515 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:07.839 say a little bit more about what that looked like but at the end of the 516 00:38:07.839 --> 00:38:12.880 of the 19th century america was americans were very disconnected they 517 00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:17.119 didn't because they just moved from rural small towns where they knew 518 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:21.040 everybody into the big anonymous cities and people were didn't know their 519 00:38:21.040 --> 00:38:24.160 friends and neighbors and and they separated from their families and so on 520 00:38:24.160 --> 00:38:28.000 and so we were very disconnected from one another low social 521 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:30.880 capital but then again as you can see as we entered the 522 00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:34.240 the night of the 20th century there around 1900 suddenly that begins to 523 00:38:34.240 --> 00:38:37.280 improve and the degree of social connection with 524 00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:41.040 with as i say with family and friends and neighbors and 525 00:38:41.040 --> 00:38:45.280 um so on begins to rise steadily rises through the 526 00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:50.320 teens and in the 1920s again there's a little bit of pause in the 1920s but 527 00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:55.280 then coming out of the 20s probably the greatest into the 30s and 40s probably 528 00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.240 the greatest civic boom in american history 529 00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:00.720 every our we were 530 00:39:00.720 --> 00:39:04.079 we were having kids we were getting married at record levels we were having 531 00:39:04.079 --> 00:39:07.440 kids at record levels that's the baby boom period we were 532 00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:12.240 joining clubs we were uh getting to know our neighbors 533 00:39:12.240 --> 00:39:17.119 steadily through the 50s and 60s and into this into the 60s and then suddenly 534 00:39:17.119 --> 00:39:22.560 up there at the top in the middle of the 1960s suddenly silently mysteriously 535 00:39:22.560 --> 00:39:26.880 people stopped going to clubs they stopped joining bowling 536 00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:32.400 leagues um they stopped getting married quite so frequently they didn't know 537 00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:36.000 their neighbors as well and then as you can see there 538 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.320 once again into the 70s and into the 80s it just 539 00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:45.119 goes down down down more and more social isolation less and less connection with 540 00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.119 our friends and neighbors and again it stops there the data 541 00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:54.079 stopped there in the in the um in the in the middle of the of the you 542 00:39:54.079 --> 00:39:58.400 know roughly 2015 is where the data go to but it just keeps falling 543 00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:03.200 down down down further and further now if you go back go back up the curve just 544 00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:08.319 to two to two thousand to point to the curve that's where the 545 00:40:08.319 --> 00:40:12.400 book bowling alone was was published and at that point i was 546 00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:16.160 describing the previous two or three decades of that downturn bowling alone 547 00:40:16.160 --> 00:40:19.280 was basically a story only about this chart 548 00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:22.680 and only about those three decades from the 549 00:40:22.680 --> 00:40:28.640 1970s to the to or three or four decades to about 2000 but remarkably as you can 550 00:40:28.640 --> 00:40:31.040 see i wrote the book and then it just 551 00:40:31.040 --> 00:40:34.480 continued straight down that is real prediction the social sciences 552 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:37.040 it kept getting worse and worse and worse 553 00:40:37.040 --> 00:40:42.319 and and now as i say we're back down to the level as we were in the at the 554 00:40:42.319 --> 00:40:46.640 beginning at the end of the 19th century let's go quickly to the next slide 555 00:40:46.640 --> 00:40:51.200 this is a um this next slide is a about 556 00:40:51.200 --> 00:40:56.400 um what we call social cultural solidarity here i really wish i had more 557 00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:59.359 time to talk to you about the how we measure this because i'm really 558 00:40:59.359 --> 00:41:02.079 proud we have about its culture seems like a pretty 559 00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:08.480 squishy idea but we've got some really hard measures about the degree to which 560 00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:13.280 americans have thought of themselves as even either 561 00:41:13.280 --> 00:41:18.480 being each of us in it only for ourselves 562 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:21.200 or we're all in this together 563 00:41:21.200 --> 00:41:25.119 and it turns out you can actually measure the degree to which americans as 564 00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:31.680 a whole thought of ourselves as either each of us out for his what was it for 565 00:41:31.680 --> 00:41:33.680 me or 566 00:41:33.680 --> 00:41:38.240 conversely thought of ourselves as being basically in the same boat all this 567 00:41:38.240 --> 00:41:42.400 together and we rise or fall together at the end of the 19th century and 568 00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:47.440 shailin will surely say more about this at the end of the 19th century americans 569 00:41:47.440 --> 00:41:51.760 we're unbelievably focused i think we could call it i focus 570 00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:55.680 very much focused on self-interest um 571 00:41:55.680 --> 00:41:59.520 not just but thinking it was a good thing we should be just focus on number 572 00:41:59.520 --> 00:42:02.240 one but then as you see once again beginning 573 00:42:02.240 --> 00:42:05.680 in the early years of the 20th century that begins to change and we begin to be 574 00:42:05.680 --> 00:42:10.400 a little less focused on eye a little more focused on we steadily upward 575 00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:13.599 during the 1910s again there's that pause during 576 00:42:13.599 --> 00:42:17.839 the 1920s but then again beginning in 1930 roughly 577 00:42:17.839 --> 00:42:22.720 again steadily upward more and more focused on what we have in common 578 00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:27.119 and what we owe to one another steadily upwards until 579 00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:34.880 amazingly the same middle 60s and and middle 60s is when we were basically 580 00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:38.319 compared to ourselves in the past or even compared to other countries we had 581 00:42:38.319 --> 00:42:42.880 a very kind of communitarian sense that we were all in this together and that we 582 00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:48.000 should look out for one another but then again at almost that same day 583 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:53.040 that begins to change and we begin to focus more on more in our self-interests 584 00:42:53.040 --> 00:42:59.280 i would say our selfish interests down down down down 585 00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:02.160 down and once again 586 00:43:02.160 --> 00:43:06.880 this graph happens to end about you know uh five or six years ago but if we kept 587 00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:10.319 on the graph it keeps going down further americans 588 00:43:10.319 --> 00:43:15.760 are maybe not quite as focused on self-interest as we were 125 years ago 589 00:43:15.760 --> 00:43:19.280 but but nearly so now i want to put all those charts 590 00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.440 together and 591 00:43:21.440 --> 00:43:24.800 let's see what they look like here we've just put all those same 592 00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:29.520 charts on the same graph you can see economics and politics and society and 593 00:43:29.520 --> 00:43:32.960 culture and 594 00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:37.599 this graph passes what statisticians call the 595 00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:42.079 interocular interocular trauma test 596 00:43:42.079 --> 00:43:45.440 it hits you between the eyes but there's something similar here 597 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:49.359 something going on here it's not four separate stories it's one story as 598 00:43:49.359 --> 00:43:55.119 america or moved at the from the at the end of the 19th century from very much 599 00:43:55.119 --> 00:43:58.640 an eye focus economic inequality political 600 00:43:58.640 --> 00:44:03.200 polarization social isolation and cultural narcissism 601 00:44:03.200 --> 00:44:06.880 toward a we society in the middle of the 20th century 602 00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:12.560 in 1960s roughly we were focused we were relatively equal 603 00:44:12.560 --> 00:44:16.960 we were politically cooperative we were socially connected and we were 604 00:44:16.960 --> 00:44:20.720 culturally focused on we and then 605 00:44:20.720 --> 00:44:24.560 almost symmetrically and almost simultaneously all of those charts go 606 00:44:24.560 --> 00:44:28.160 down that's not it and what it is what we're 607 00:44:28.160 --> 00:44:30.880 saying is those are not four separate charts that's 608 00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:34.880 a fundamental history of how america changed 609 00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:38.000 over the course of the from the end of the 19th the beginning 610 00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:40.800 of the 21st century and if you go quickly to the next chart we put all 611 00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:44.000 these together that's the trend 612 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.000 that basically is the core empirical study 613 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:51.119 of our book the upswing you can see 614 00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:55.200 they're beginning in the the first half of this period things are getting better 615 00:44:55.200 --> 00:44:58.480 and better almost every year things are getting better more equal more 616 00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:02.720 cooperative more connected more focused on what we have in common 617 00:45:02.720 --> 00:45:07.680 and then almost simultaneously in the in the second half of this period we move 618 00:45:07.680 --> 00:45:10.880 in the other direction now shaylin is going to 619 00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:13.839 take over here and tell you a little bit more about what may like behind that 620 00:45:13.839 --> 00:45:17.440 graph but especially she's going to focus on so what 621 00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:21.920 because we're focused here not just on describing history but we want to draw 622 00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:25.839 some lessons from history to say how do we get out of this pickle that we're in 623 00:45:25.839 --> 00:45:30.400 now and sheila is going to explain that 624 00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:33.839 say bob and i feel like we make a pretty 625 00:45:33.839 --> 00:45:37.359 good team here because he's the numbers guy he's of course the world-class data 626 00:45:37.359 --> 00:45:42.319 scientist and um and i'm the storyteller he's also a fantastic storyteller but 627 00:45:42.319 --> 00:45:46.560 and he's taught me pretty much everything i know about that um 628 00:45:46.560 --> 00:45:49.920 so if you if you've gone to sleep with regard to the numbers now is your chance 629 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:54.079 to wake up and join me in the land of the non-numbers people 630 00:45:54.079 --> 00:45:58.400 and i want to pick up the story here by talking about by going back to the 631 00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:01.680 question that bob started with which is how did we get here right that was the 632 00:46:01.680 --> 00:46:06.319 motivating question behind this research we all recognize 633 00:46:06.319 --> 00:46:09.920 from our day-to-day experience that we are in the midst of a multi-faceted 634 00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:13.680 crisis as a nation that's not something that the numbers we need numbers to tell 635 00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:16.240 us but 636 00:46:16.240 --> 00:46:20.880 how did we get here and and ours is not the first study that attempts to answer 637 00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:24.319 that question there have been so many books actually 638 00:46:24.319 --> 00:46:27.680 in the past decade attempting to answer that question 639 00:46:27.680 --> 00:46:30.960 that one of the reviewers of our book said this is just the latest edition in 640 00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:35.440 the how america got into this mess genre of literature right 641 00:46:35.440 --> 00:46:38.560 but we tend to think that our studies a little bit different in that most of 642 00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:42.319 these books are looking at one of these phenomena just polarization or it's all 643 00:46:42.319 --> 00:46:45.599 about inequality and we're looking at the fact that all 644 00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:50.240 of these are part of the same thing the same trend that's one difference the 645 00:46:50.240 --> 00:46:54.480 other difference is that we tend to zoom our lens out a lot further there's been 646 00:46:54.480 --> 00:47:00.000 a lot of books written about the decline over the last half century or more in 647 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:05.200 one or many of these different phenomena but less clear is the story of what 648 00:47:05.200 --> 00:47:09.839 happened before that so if there's been a decline since mid-century america what 649 00:47:09.839 --> 00:47:14.319 happened before the decline and as we can see so clearly in what bob has 650 00:47:14.319 --> 00:47:17.599 discovered through this this data-based story 651 00:47:17.599 --> 00:47:22.400 is that there was actually an upswing that preceded the downturn 652 00:47:22.400 --> 00:47:25.119 so when you ask yourself what's the lesson 653 00:47:25.119 --> 00:47:28.720 from all of this data and each of the graphs that we showed you represent 654 00:47:28.720 --> 00:47:33.359 scores of underlying measures so we're talking about you know all kinds of 655 00:47:33.359 --> 00:47:36.800 different measures um so disparate that's kind of hard to believe that they 656 00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:40.240 all follow the same trend we're talking about things like how often congress 657 00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:44.400 people you know vote for legislation introduced by the other party as well as 658 00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:47.280 you know what people have named their children whether they've chosen more 659 00:47:47.280 --> 00:47:50.640 common names or more uncommon names over the course i mean all of these data 660 00:47:50.640 --> 00:47:54.240 points very very different measures are combined here and are illustrating the 661 00:47:54.240 --> 00:47:57.280 same trend now there's one way that you could look 662 00:47:57.280 --> 00:48:00.880 at this story which is that we need to just turn back the clock 663 00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:04.319 to this supposed golden age in american history when everything was better i 664 00:48:04.319 --> 00:48:07.359 mean we can see it right here in the chart right 665 00:48:07.359 --> 00:48:12.400 and and we've seen that rhetoric a lot particularly in the last several years 666 00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:16.559 right that we need to make america great again 667 00:48:16.559 --> 00:48:20.000 now we want to emphasize that this is not the story that we want to tell from 668 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:23.760 this data the story here to us what's less 669 00:48:23.760 --> 00:48:27.839 relevant to us is looking at the period in history when these trends supposedly 670 00:48:27.839 --> 00:48:31.680 culminated when we're at some sort of peak that's actually less interesting 671 00:48:31.680 --> 00:48:35.599 than the realization that this multifaceted crisis that we are in 672 00:48:35.599 --> 00:48:41.440 right now we have been here before by hard measures across scores of 673 00:48:41.440 --> 00:48:46.240 different phenomena we have been in the exact same place that we are in today 674 00:48:46.240 --> 00:48:50.000 once before and just like today 675 00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:55.119 the social commentators from the first gilded age during the 1890s 676 00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:59.119 1900s were decrying the end of democracy the 677 00:48:59.119 --> 00:49:03.359 american experiment has failed plutocracy tyranny all is lost does that 678 00:49:03.359 --> 00:49:06.480 sound familiar but 679 00:49:06.480 --> 00:49:09.839 what the story of the upswing tells us is that none of those doomsday 680 00:49:09.839 --> 00:49:13.920 prophecies were realized it didn't happen 681 00:49:13.920 --> 00:49:16.960 on the contrary we entered 682 00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:22.480 a multi-faceted multi-decade upswing in which year upon year 683 00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:27.839 the ship righted itself so the question of our study is what can 684 00:49:27.839 --> 00:49:32.240 we learn from the upswing the moment that looked most like the moment we're 685 00:49:32.240 --> 00:49:36.880 living through that gave way to a period of things getting better and better what 686 00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:40.559 can we learn from that moment in terms of how we could bring about 687 00:49:40.559 --> 00:49:44.160 another upswing today so i want to highlight just a few 688 00:49:44.160 --> 00:49:48.079 lessons from this period when the upswing when the gilded age gave way to 689 00:49:48.079 --> 00:49:51.599 the progressive era which is when this upswing really picked 690 00:49:51.599 --> 00:49:55.680 up steam now before i do that i want to just pause and clarify that when we're 691 00:49:55.680 --> 00:50:00.000 using the term progressive in this presentation we're using what we call 692 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000 capital p progressive meaning the historical period or the 693 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:08.160 movement that took place during the early 1900s 694 00:50:08.160 --> 00:50:12.480 and historians have called the progressive movement of that time so 695 00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:18.079 diverse as to be barely coherent it was a bipartisan movement that 696 00:50:18.079 --> 00:50:23.359 included all different types of people different genders different classes 697 00:50:23.359 --> 00:50:27.440 and it was not what we would call progressivism today the term that we as 698 00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:31.280 we hear it used today is what we would call small p progressivism which 699 00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:35.119 describes the left-most side of the political spectrum okay so when we're 700 00:50:35.119 --> 00:50:38.240 talking about progressivism we're talking about this historical movement 701 00:50:38.240 --> 00:50:43.520 that was incredibly diverse but that was animated and united by this galvanizing 702 00:50:43.520 --> 00:50:46.800 belief in the power of everyday citizens to 703 00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:49.599 make change that's the progressivism we're talking 704 00:50:49.599 --> 00:50:53.680 about so if we go to the next slide let's look at a few of these lessons 705 00:50:53.680 --> 00:50:58.240 from america's last upswing this moment when the progressive era began to to 706 00:50:58.240 --> 00:51:03.040 change the course of american history so as bob noted we're looking at you know 707 00:51:03.040 --> 00:51:06.640 all of these this is a data-based story so we're looking at all these different 708 00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:11.680 measures and when you have trends over time that start to all move in the same 709 00:51:11.680 --> 00:51:16.240 direction at roughly the same moment you might say to yourself well if we could 710 00:51:16.240 --> 00:51:21.040 figure out what the leading variable is in other words which of those trends 711 00:51:21.040 --> 00:51:23.839 started moving in the right direction first 712 00:51:23.839 --> 00:51:27.119 if we could figure that out then maybe we would know what was driving or 713 00:51:27.119 --> 00:51:30.160 leading the rest of the variables to go upward 714 00:51:30.160 --> 00:51:35.119 right so the question is statistically can we identify that well 715 00:51:35.119 --> 00:51:38.800 the first thing that we can identify is actually the lagging variable the 716 00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:43.520 thing that happened last which surprisingly turns out to be economics 717 00:51:43.520 --> 00:51:48.000 we kind of have this bias in american culture that economics drives everything 718 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:51.440 and i think that comes mostly out of the social sciences where people are often 719 00:51:51.440 --> 00:51:55.359 treated as economic animals we tend to think if we could just fix 720 00:51:55.359 --> 00:51:59.680 the economic inequality first then we'll start to feel like we're all 721 00:51:59.680 --> 00:52:03.680 in this together and those other big trends will begin to change well we're 722 00:52:03.680 --> 00:52:06.800 not saying that fixing economic inequality is not important it's 723 00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:10.800 absolutely critical but what we do learn from the last upswing is that it is not 724 00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:15.760 the thing that changed first it's the thing that changed last 725 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:20.559 so what do we learn from that there may be underlying things that we need to get 726 00:52:20.559 --> 00:52:24.400 moving in the right direction first before we'll have the political will to 727 00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:28.960 change our economics that's potentially one lesson we can learn here so if we 728 00:52:28.960 --> 00:52:33.359 know that economic equality was the lagging variable what was the leading 729 00:52:33.359 --> 00:52:37.520 variable it seems clear from both the data and 730 00:52:37.520 --> 00:52:42.960 the historical record that it was a cultural and moral shift 731 00:52:42.960 --> 00:52:47.680 that actually began to change first bob spoke briefly about this but the 732 00:52:47.680 --> 00:52:52.319 gilded age again end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century was 733 00:52:52.319 --> 00:52:56.240 characterized by a highly narcissistic self-focused culture 734 00:52:56.240 --> 00:53:00.880 and a big part of that was something called social darwinism so not too long 735 00:53:00.880 --> 00:53:04.960 before this darwin had articulated his theory of the survival of the fittest 736 00:53:04.960 --> 00:53:09.440 which of course was meant to describe the natural world and how it worked but 737 00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:12.000 there were social commentators that came along and said well if that's how the 738 00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:15.680 biological world works that's how the social world should work 739 00:53:15.680 --> 00:53:18.240 and that's a great way to organize society 740 00:53:18.240 --> 00:53:21.760 and darwin himself was not there's some evidence that he was not very excited 741 00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:25.440 about this idea um just to sort of clear his name a bit 742 00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:28.880 but um but there were people who really took 743 00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:32.400 this to heart and said you know society is not about cooperation it's about 744 00:53:32.400 --> 00:53:38.079 competition and only the strong will survive and the devil take the hindmost 745 00:53:38.079 --> 00:53:41.440 that was really the reigning cultural ethos of the day 746 00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:45.440 and into that and that's what produced the robber barons right 747 00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:49.040 and the huddled masses on the lower east side and equivalent places all over the 748 00:53:49.040 --> 00:53:54.079 united states into that moment came moral voices that 749 00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:59.119 began to question that as an organizing principle of our society 750 00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:02.559 and this interestingly moral movement came first and foremost out of 751 00:54:02.559 --> 00:54:08.000 evangelical protestantism it was christians who began to say first 752 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:12.400 to themselves i don't think we're actually living our 753 00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:15.520 own moral values and there was a movement called the 754 00:54:15.520 --> 00:54:20.319 social gospel that began to say now wait a minute at the time christianity and 755 00:54:20.319 --> 00:54:24.079 the theology of christianity was very much focused on me and my personal 756 00:54:24.079 --> 00:54:27.520 relationship with god and my personal sins and whether i was going to get into 757 00:54:27.520 --> 00:54:31.119 heaven and everybody else's that was everybody else's business not my 758 00:54:31.119 --> 00:54:33.760 business the social gospels came along and said 759 00:54:33.760 --> 00:54:36.559 wait a minute we can't just apply our morality 760 00:54:36.559 --> 00:54:42.640 to our own life we have to apply it to society and think about social sins and 761 00:54:42.640 --> 00:54:47.119 how we can begin to change those that first took root in christianity it 762 00:54:47.119 --> 00:54:52.000 began and then it took root more broadly until we had a sort of moral outcry 763 00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.480 happening through the muckrakers and all these 764 00:54:54.480 --> 00:54:58.880 people trying to bring to light what was really happening and call for change 765 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:03.280 and so this was this was the first trend that we began to move upward that began 766 00:55:03.280 --> 00:55:07.680 to change the way we thought about whether we were all in competition 767 00:55:07.680 --> 00:55:12.160 or whether we were all in this together so that's a really important lesson we 768 00:55:12.160 --> 00:55:17.040 think from this period so who were these progressive reformers 769 00:55:17.040 --> 00:55:23.440 who were having these moral moments they were largely young they were very young 770 00:55:23.440 --> 00:55:26.960 the jane adams's who started the settlement house movement and the paul 771 00:55:26.960 --> 00:55:32.240 harris's who started the rotary club and the ida b wells who was out there you 772 00:55:32.240 --> 00:55:37.680 know um showing forth to the nation the evils of lynching they were all under 773 00:55:37.680 --> 00:55:41.599 the age of 30 when they were doing their most important work 774 00:55:41.599 --> 00:55:45.839 these were young people who were living in a world completely different 775 00:55:45.839 --> 00:55:49.680 from the world that their parents had lived in the industrial revolution had 776 00:55:49.680 --> 00:55:54.079 changed everything and the old rules and the old institutions and the old social 777 00:55:54.079 --> 00:55:58.160 structures just didn't apply and so these young reformers were energized 778 00:55:58.160 --> 00:56:03.440 with a totally new innovative lens on what we would have to build to move the 779 00:56:03.440 --> 00:56:07.280 nation forward and we believe that today 780 00:56:07.280 --> 00:56:11.520 any upswing that we will that we will see has to be led 781 00:56:11.520 --> 00:56:16.319 architected orchestrated by young people just as it was last time young people 782 00:56:16.319 --> 00:56:21.599 who are not afraid to use a moral framework to call for change 783 00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:25.359 and we're inspired by the fact that we are already seeing this we're seeing it 784 00:56:25.359 --> 00:56:28.240 in the climate change movement we're seeing it in the black lives matter 785 00:56:28.240 --> 00:56:33.119 movement we're seeing it in the calls for gun control young people who want 786 00:56:33.119 --> 00:56:37.280 change and who are framing it as a moral issue 787 00:56:37.280 --> 00:56:41.440 so we think that there's cause for hope there as well as cause for hope in in 788 00:56:41.440 --> 00:56:44.559 youth voter participation numbers which have 789 00:56:44.559 --> 00:56:48.559 never been higher except in this exact same era that we're describing the last 790 00:56:48.559 --> 00:56:54.160 upswing another lesson from this period 791 00:56:54.160 --> 00:56:57.359 is that these young reformers these young progressives 792 00:56:57.359 --> 00:57:03.520 they were all about association building and association as both an end and a 793 00:57:03.520 --> 00:57:06.319 means so what does that mean well if you look 794 00:57:06.319 --> 00:57:10.559 at the story of paul harris he came from a small town in vermont moved to chicago 795 00:57:10.559 --> 00:57:14.559 he was part of that huge demographic shift during the industrial revolution 796 00:57:14.559 --> 00:57:18.480 he became a lawyer and he was very lonely he just didn't know anybody in 797 00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:22.160 that town so he decided to get three business people together to start 798 00:57:22.160 --> 00:57:25.040 something that was sort of like a lunch club 799 00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:29.440 and it became the rotary club which of course has you know 800 00:57:29.440 --> 00:57:33.440 multiple millions of members worldwide but it was really just first and 801 00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:38.160 foremost about meeting his need his loneliness a new way to bring people 802 00:57:38.160 --> 00:57:42.559 together but progressives were also geniuses at 803 00:57:42.559 --> 00:57:46.000 bringing people together across lines of difference the social settlement house 804 00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:50.799 movement is my favorite of those movements that was really intended to 805 00:57:50.799 --> 00:57:54.400 bring people who never had any contact with one another into contact with one 806 00:57:54.400 --> 00:57:57.440 another and we of course know that libraries 807 00:57:57.440 --> 00:58:01.359 are another of the inventions of this period that do 808 00:58:01.359 --> 00:58:06.400 exactly that so association was first and foremost 809 00:58:06.400 --> 00:58:10.240 about meeting that social isolation that we saw in the graphs but then it became 810 00:58:10.240 --> 00:58:14.799 a means for creating change over time 811 00:58:14.960 --> 00:58:18.799 the other thing to know about this period was that 812 00:58:18.799 --> 00:58:22.079 there was no real charismatic leader out there saying i'm going to lead a 813 00:58:22.079 --> 00:58:25.200 progressive movement here's a giant national blueprint for how we're going 814 00:58:25.200 --> 00:58:28.000 to change everything 815 00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:32.640 the progressive air is often framed this way in sort of cartoon histories that it 816 00:58:32.640 --> 00:58:35.440 was all about these big national programs 817 00:58:35.440 --> 00:58:39.440 but actually those big programs the consumer protection agencies and the 818 00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:42.640 national income tax and all those things were sort of the caboose of this 819 00:58:42.640 --> 00:58:46.319 movement the engine was grassroots organizing 820 00:58:46.319 --> 00:58:51.839 was people working in communities right outside their doorstep 821 00:58:51.839 --> 00:58:57.440 in tenements in neighborhoods in municipalities tinkering with solutions 822 00:58:57.440 --> 00:59:02.319 in what the progressive louis brandeis called laboratories of democracy 823 00:59:02.319 --> 00:59:07.599 coming up with new models for how to solve problems that then went viral and 824 00:59:07.599 --> 00:59:11.760 became things that became adopted in other states and other places and then 825 00:59:11.760 --> 00:59:15.359 some of which became models for national programs that changed the face of the 826 00:59:15.359 --> 00:59:18.480 nation so there was nobody laying out a grand 827 00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:23.599 plan that then went from the top down it started as a bottom up and was met from 828 00:59:23.599 --> 00:59:27.920 the top down with national programming we believe that that is what another 829 00:59:27.920 --> 00:59:31.599 upswing is going to have to look like today so the work that you are all doing 830 00:59:31.599 --> 00:59:37.200 out there on the front lines of your communities is the absolute most vital 831 00:59:37.200 --> 00:59:40.880 work of a new upswing 832 00:59:40.960 --> 00:59:44.160 so those are some of the positive lessons of this period i just want to 833 00:59:44.160 --> 00:59:48.480 end with sharing with you that there aren't all positive lessons from 834 00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:53.839 this period of the upswing right there are several cautionary tales as 835 00:59:53.839 --> 00:59:56.000 well and i don't have time to share all of 836 00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:58.799 them with you and i have only a little time to touch on this briefly i wish 837 00:59:58.799 --> 01:00:02.400 there was more time to go in depth but i will just say this 838 01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:05.440 one of the biggest cautionary tales of the progressive era 839 01:00:05.440 --> 01:00:11.680 is simply that this we the progressives were building toward was not inclusive 840 01:00:11.680 --> 01:00:17.200 it was largely a racialized we and 841 01:00:17.200 --> 01:00:21.040 not to put too fine a point on it but you know most of the progressives not 842 01:00:21.040 --> 01:00:25.680 all of them but most of them were racist so a lot of the programs that they built 843 01:00:25.680 --> 01:00:31.040 that actually fueled this upswing that got us closer to 844 01:00:31.040 --> 01:00:35.920 we than we'd ever been before had to knit into them the seeds of their 845 01:00:35.920 --> 01:00:42.400 own demise because they failed to take into account the need for full inclusion 846 01:00:42.400 --> 01:00:46.079 as we've seen so many times in american history the progressives too largely 847 01:00:46.079 --> 01:00:50.079 kicked the work of racial reconciliation down the road 848 01:00:50.079 --> 01:00:53.599 and the needs of people of color and to a certain extent women were sort of 849 01:00:53.599 --> 01:00:59.280 sacrificed on the altar of progress so any upswing that we would hope to 850 01:00:59.280 --> 01:01:04.319 create again today can't kick that problem down the road anymore 851 01:01:04.319 --> 01:01:07.760 and i think one of the things that we can learn putting all these lessons 852 01:01:07.760 --> 01:01:11.920 together is that the beginning of an upswing today is going to be about a 853 01:01:11.920 --> 01:01:15.920 cultural and a moral shift and the place that that has to start is 854 01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:19.520 with inclusion it's not just about programs and 855 01:01:19.520 --> 01:01:24.559 policies and economic equality it's about doing the hard work of racial 856 01:01:24.559 --> 01:01:30.079 reconciliation to create a new north star for what a 857 01:01:30.079 --> 01:01:34.400 real inclusive we could look like if we could do that 858 01:01:34.400 --> 01:01:38.400 and mobilize at the grassroots and get our young people involved and put 859 01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:42.400 association across lines of difference at the first at the forefront of what 860 01:01:42.400 --> 01:01:46.880 we're doing we believe that we can see another upswing one that hopefully will 861 01:01:46.880 --> 01:01:51.680 be durable and will lead us closer to that ideal 862 01:01:51.680 --> 01:01:55.680 beloved community that we know is possible 863 01:01:55.680 --> 01:01:58.480 these are just a few of the lessons from this period there's so much more we 864 01:01:58.480 --> 01:02:02.000 could say i wish we had more time but i will just leave you with one parting 865 01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:07.119 thought if we can go to the next slide teddy roosevelt 866 01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:10.720 who became one of the most articulate leaders of the progressive movement said 867 01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:13.839 this the fundamental rule of our national 868 01:02:13.839 --> 01:02:20.240 life the rule which underlies all others is that on the whole and in the long run 869 01:02:20.240 --> 01:02:25.599 we shall go up or down together we believe that what these graphs and 870 01:02:25.599 --> 01:02:30.240 charts and statistics show is that when we lean into we 871 01:02:30.240 --> 01:02:34.400 things get better and better and when we lean into i 872 01:02:34.400 --> 01:02:38.799 things get worse and worse in the words of one of my colleagues who 873 01:02:38.799 --> 01:02:44.559 i love to quote eric lou he says we all do better when we all do better 874 01:02:44.559 --> 01:02:48.720 that's what the data shows us that's the story that we want to tell today we 875 01:02:48.720 --> 01:02:52.079 believe that we've been in a mess just as ugly and gnarly as the one we're in 876 01:02:52.079 --> 01:02:56.640 today but we got out of it once before we made a lot of mistakes that we don't 877 01:02:56.640 --> 01:03:00.079 have to make again today but we believe that we can do it again 878 01:03:00.079 --> 01:03:03.039 and that's the hopeful message that we want to share with you today and we're 879 01:03:03.039 --> 01:03:06.480 of course humbled and inspired by the fact that you're already doing it so 880 01:03:06.480 --> 01:03:10.319 we're really grateful to be here and share this message with civic innovators 881 01:03:10.319 --> 01:03:13.680 such as yourself who are making this happen all across america today thank 882 01:03:13.680 --> 01:03:17.079 you so much 883 01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:30.720 so thank you so much shaylyn thank you bob 884 01:03:30.720 --> 01:03:34.960 and and now we'd like to get three panelists up here to to talk 885 01:03:34.960 --> 01:03:38.880 uh uh about what what we've just heard from shaylynn and bob 886 01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:43.599 um and and i think they are all three people who 887 01:03:43.599 --> 01:03:47.039 are putting the wii in the upswing in fact i think we should call them up 888 01:03:47.039 --> 01:03:50.880 swingers um 889 01:03:50.880 --> 01:03:56.079 so diane connery uh if you would come up diane uh is the 890 01:03:56.079 --> 01:04:01.359 pottsboro librarian pottsboro texas the postboro library has been getting 891 01:04:01.359 --> 01:04:04.319 known and diane's been getting known over the last few years as one of the 892 01:04:04.319 --> 01:04:08.880 great libraries in the country in rural rural texas one that voted one of the 893 01:04:08.880 --> 01:04:13.039 top three best small libraries in america in 2017 894 01:04:13.039 --> 01:04:16.240 and diane herself was honored as an 895 01:04:16.240 --> 01:04:20.880 innovator in library journals mover and shakers class of 2021 and those of us 896 01:04:20.880 --> 01:04:23.920 who've been on the many calls that we've all resumed calls that we've all had 897 01:04:23.920 --> 01:04:28.000 about what we're doing in the library world and know that diane 898 01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:31.680 is doing so much in the way of outreach digital outreach and every kind of 899 01:04:31.680 --> 01:04:35.760 outreach in in her community i've already mentioned carmen patel and 900 01:04:35.760 --> 01:04:38.480 carmen please come up 901 01:04:38.480 --> 01:04:42.640 the highwood public library in highwood illinois getting our national medal the 902 01:04:42.640 --> 01:04:46.640 the truth about carmen is that she's won it twice she did it uh before in 903 01:04:46.640 --> 01:04:50.720 waukegan uh as well she was partly responsible or significantly responsible 904 01:04:50.720 --> 01:04:56.720 for that uh uh the imls has given her two gold medals and and i'm uh two 905 01:04:56.720 --> 01:05:01.520 national medals and i'm sorry that's it for this decade carmen um 906 01:05:01.520 --> 01:05:06.720 yeah uh and and her her uh outreach efforts are are extraordinary across a 907 01:05:06.720 --> 01:05:10.880 wide variety of literacy 908 01:05:10.880 --> 01:05:15.359 ged english skills esl programs 909 01:05:15.359 --> 01:05:19.119 etc and she's done work with a house of peace a culturally informed shelter for 910 01:05:19.119 --> 01:05:22.640 women and children struggling with domestic violence uh she's an 911 01:05:22.640 --> 01:05:27.520 extraordinary librarian and our last icon of library world for this panel is 912 01:05:27.520 --> 01:05:31.440 felton thomas i think everybody knows everybody in the library world knows 913 01:05:31.440 --> 01:05:37.039 felton the cleveland public library uh director formerly 914 01:05:37.280 --> 01:05:42.640 the white house champion for change in in 2016 915 01:05:42.640 --> 01:05:46.319 president of the public library association 916 01:05:46.319 --> 01:05:50.240 of america a leader in technology education 917 01:05:50.240 --> 01:05:55.920 economic development every aspect so take it away panelists 918 01:05:55.920 --> 01:05:59.590 all right [Music] 919 01:06:02.880 --> 01:06:07.039 well i'll i'll start i want to read something to you really 920 01:06:07.039 --> 01:06:11.039 quickly social well-being what is social 921 01:06:11.039 --> 01:06:14.319 well-being social well-being is having a sense of 922 01:06:14.319 --> 01:06:18.559 belonging to a community and contributing to society it involves 923 01:06:18.559 --> 01:06:22.400 building healthy nurturing and supportive relationships 924 01:06:22.400 --> 01:06:27.200 as well as fostering a genuine connection to those around you 925 01:06:27.200 --> 01:06:30.000 so that is what highway public library has 926 01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.559 done we have nurtured a community a community 927 01:06:34.559 --> 01:06:39.200 that has been neglected it's a small town of 5400 people 928 01:06:39.200 --> 01:06:45.359 and 50 are immigrants mostly undocumented immigrants who live in fear 929 01:06:45.359 --> 01:06:51.599 who live hidden who live invisible and so the library is working very hard to 930 01:06:51.599 --> 01:06:56.640 make them present because they are the economic engine they are the underbelly 931 01:06:56.640 --> 01:07:02.240 of that community and so why not provide them the resources the literacy the 932 01:07:02.240 --> 01:07:07.520 access to support that they need so our library is focused on 933 01:07:07.520 --> 01:07:10.559 early childhood young adult 934 01:07:10.559 --> 01:07:16.240 and adult literacy we've created programs specifically based on the needs 935 01:07:16.240 --> 01:07:21.039 of the public the public informs our programming and so i'll give you a very 936 01:07:21.039 --> 01:07:25.760 quick story about betty betty came in to our library well she didn't want to come 937 01:07:25.760 --> 01:07:28.559 into our library because she didn't trust her library 938 01:07:28.559 --> 01:07:35.039 but i met with her and i encouraged her and she felt welcomed betty came in and 939 01:07:35.039 --> 01:07:40.079 all she ever wanted was to get her ged and to continue her education 940 01:07:40.079 --> 01:07:46.079 so an immigrant an undocumented immigrant now has a ged and is now on 941 01:07:46.079 --> 01:07:50.160 her way to getting her business degree at the local college 942 01:07:50.160 --> 01:07:56.160 betty is now changing generational cycles of poverty because 943 01:07:56.160 --> 01:07:58.160 her son 944 01:07:58.160 --> 01:08:02.880 will no longer be invisible and her son is excited to go 945 01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:07.920 to college and so this is what the library is doing in 946 01:08:07.920 --> 01:08:12.720 highwood it is transformational it is impactful 947 01:08:12.720 --> 01:08:16.880 we have programs like i said for youth young adult 948 01:08:16.880 --> 01:08:24.000 adults and we recently received a major grant of 578 000 949 01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:29.279 to work on health equity and so getting health access to individuals 950 01:08:29.279 --> 01:08:32.719 so i think we're doing a pretty decent job 951 01:08:32.719 --> 01:08:36.520 of creating upswings 952 01:08:38.200 --> 01:08:43.279 [Applause] hi dianne connery i am here 953 01:08:43.279 --> 01:08:48.159 i think as a spokesman for rural public libraries pottsboro is about an hour and 954 01:08:48.159 --> 01:08:53.440 a half north of dallas a town of 2500 people and 955 01:08:53.440 --> 01:08:59.040 i often say it's like driving back in time and not in a good way it's not a 956 01:08:59.040 --> 01:09:03.839 quaint little town i have an advantage that maybe many of 957 01:09:03.839 --> 01:09:10.400 you do not and that is we have almost no budget ten years ago 958 01:09:10.400 --> 01:09:16.000 it was an all donation all volunteer library and the first 959 01:09:16.000 --> 01:09:20.080 meeting i went to was a discussion of how many months left 960 01:09:20.080 --> 01:09:26.239 before we closed and long story short a group of us decided 961 01:09:26.239 --> 01:09:31.040 what if we just did everything differently and made this library so 962 01:09:31.040 --> 01:09:36.080 important to the community that then if we were going to close people would be 963 01:09:36.080 --> 01:09:41.679 up in arms and so through grant writing 964 01:09:41.679 --> 01:09:46.239 thank you imls and tslac and many other 965 01:09:46.239 --> 01:09:51.199 foundations we've had a lot of success with innovation 966 01:09:51.199 --> 01:09:56.560 and that's energizing to me we have been in the position 967 01:09:56.560 --> 01:10:00.400 and the reason i said that i have an advantage that you don't 968 01:10:00.400 --> 01:10:06.719 is there's very little bureaucracy over a small town library if i get an idea in 969 01:10:06.719 --> 01:10:11.440 the morning i can do it that afternoon i don't have to go to a bunch of board 970 01:10:11.440 --> 01:10:16.800 meetings and i think i have come to library world 971 01:10:16.800 --> 01:10:21.120 in such a fortunate time 972 01:10:21.120 --> 01:10:26.960 because of covid it was recognized what the lack of 973 01:10:26.960 --> 01:10:31.679 digital inclusion meant for rural residents 974 01:10:31.679 --> 01:10:35.920 and so when we talk about kind of that that 975 01:10:35.920 --> 01:10:41.920 social movement that then leads economic movement there's money coming for 976 01:10:41.920 --> 01:10:48.400 infrastructure for rural libraries i was fortunate enough thanks to imls to 977 01:10:48.400 --> 01:10:52.640 attend the national digital inclusion alliance 978 01:10:52.640 --> 01:10:56.170 two weeks ago in portland and 979 01:10:56.170 --> 01:10:59.760 [Music] that's where librarians need to be with 980 01:10:59.760 --> 01:11:07.040 these cross-sector coalitions of people talking about how are we going to make 981 01:11:07.040 --> 01:11:11.280 real impact because if libraries are about information 982 01:11:11.280 --> 01:11:15.040 how much of it occurs now online 983 01:11:15.040 --> 01:11:20.480 and so our library focuses on digital inclusion 984 01:11:20.480 --> 01:11:25.440 we started with things like an esports team i think we were the first public 985 01:11:25.440 --> 01:11:30.640 library in the nation to have an esports team because so many people 986 01:11:30.640 --> 01:11:35.679 in our area don't have internet in their homes and they don't have computers in 987 01:11:35.679 --> 01:11:40.560 their homes and i saw these kids and like how will they ever be on a level 988 01:11:40.560 --> 01:11:44.800 playing field with their peers from bigger communities if they don't know 989 01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:49.600 how to use a computer and the pandemic started and we couldn't 990 01:11:49.600 --> 01:11:54.800 close because we're so essential to the community people didn't have internet at 991 01:11:54.800 --> 01:11:59.440 home so they came to us and they started asking us if they could connect with 992 01:11:59.440 --> 01:12:02.000 their doctors and 993 01:12:02.000 --> 01:12:06.480 through a national library medicine grant we launched a telehealth room 994 01:12:06.480 --> 01:12:11.120 and then that led to connections with national library 995 01:12:11.120 --> 01:12:16.320 medicine and health systems science researchers and 996 01:12:16.320 --> 01:12:21.760 clinicians and health literacy specialists and it evolved in so many 997 01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:26.320 ways and ecf funding there's so much money on 998 01:12:26.320 --> 01:12:30.880 the table for libraries and in my 999 01:12:30.880 --> 01:12:36.239 sphere that i'm aware of so few libraries who were asking for that money 1000 01:12:36.239 --> 01:12:40.719 so our all-in and pottsboro taxpayer-funded 1001 01:12:40.719 --> 01:12:46.400 operations budget all in 39 000 a year that's our total 1002 01:12:46.400 --> 01:12:54.800 budget we have requested fingers crossed 7.5 million dollars in ecf funding to 1003 01:12:54.800 --> 01:12:59.440 put up infrastructure throughout our county around libraries 1004 01:12:59.440 --> 01:13:03.440 so that people can have internet in their homes 1005 01:13:03.440 --> 01:13:07.440 people who live within a mile of the library come to our library check out a 1006 01:13:07.440 --> 01:13:13.760 router take it home and have internet in their homes hot spots aren't a long term 1007 01:13:13.760 --> 01:13:19.719 answer so at ndia they were talking about hey government has 1008 01:13:19.719 --> 01:13:27.199 42.5 billion dollars to spend on digital inclusion and they're not quite sure yet 1009 01:13:27.199 --> 01:13:32.480 how to spend it librarians need to be at that table and 1010 01:13:32.480 --> 01:13:36.560 when when shailene talks about grassroots efforts 1011 01:13:36.560 --> 01:13:41.760 i think and again i'm biased rural library i think these are happening 1012 01:13:41.760 --> 01:13:48.080 amazing things around the country are happening in rural libraries but our 1013 01:13:48.080 --> 01:13:53.679 capacity is limited because we're cleaning the bathroom and i'm spraying 1014 01:13:53.679 --> 01:13:59.840 weed killer in the edible landscaping and you know all that kind of stuff um 1015 01:13:59.840 --> 01:14:06.080 and so we don't have the time or don't make the time to advocate for 1016 01:14:06.080 --> 01:14:10.640 the difference we're making in our communities and that's something that i 1017 01:14:10.640 --> 01:14:15.920 want to see come out of this is for librarians to 1018 01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:20.000 kind of have a louder voice amplify their voice 1019 01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:23.520 in the difference they make in their communities 1020 01:14:23.520 --> 01:14:32.239 so that these grassroots efforts can multiply and be bigger than themselves 1021 01:14:32.239 --> 01:14:37.360 because i can't tell you how often i think i've had an original idea i try to 1022 01:14:37.360 --> 01:14:42.560 google it find nothing two years later i find oh some other library was doing 1023 01:14:42.560 --> 01:14:47.440 that two years ago i just had no idea and 1024 01:14:47.440 --> 01:14:52.560 i'll close up with saying one of my couple observations i said i was closed 1025 01:14:52.560 --> 01:14:58.480 and then i said a couple couple observations from the pandemic is 1026 01:14:58.480 --> 01:15:01.679 um all these the well the federal 1027 01:15:01.679 --> 01:15:08.560 government and all these organizations and non-profits need libraries to make 1028 01:15:08.560 --> 01:15:13.840 these programs and services real they've got the theory they've got the 1029 01:15:13.840 --> 01:15:21.440 money but how do they get to the people and by libraries speaking up we can be 1030 01:15:21.440 --> 01:15:25.520 at that table and we need to be at that table 1031 01:15:25.520 --> 01:15:32.480 um so that's been one of my um takeaways is the the importance of 1032 01:15:32.480 --> 01:15:38.400 of coalitions these cross-sector coalitions getting out of library world 1033 01:15:38.400 --> 01:15:43.520 and in our case i think we've had to fight against the stereotype of what a 1034 01:15:43.520 --> 01:15:48.000 library is um and what we provide so that's an 1035 01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:50.400 uphill battle but 1036 01:15:50.400 --> 01:15:56.560 but we're making progress on that and so i think we are needed and we just need 1037 01:15:56.560 --> 01:16:01.440 to amplify our voices more and then the final piece of that 1038 01:16:01.440 --> 01:16:09.600 is researchers i am not a numbers person but i have now seen 1039 01:16:09.600 --> 01:16:12.800 and i have learned from some of the numbers people 1040 01:16:12.800 --> 01:16:17.199 that if when we went into our program planning 1041 01:16:17.199 --> 01:16:22.239 we could talk with some of the researchers to find out like what would 1042 01:16:22.239 --> 01:16:27.679 be a good assessment of this program what are we trying to accomplish because 1043 01:16:27.679 --> 01:16:32.800 i i will admit cover your ears james that when i'm as a small library writing 1044 01:16:32.800 --> 01:16:36.640 a grant i want to get something out there and i want to get the money and 1045 01:16:36.640 --> 01:16:42.320 then i need to implement it quickly but if we could think bigger and get 1046 01:16:42.320 --> 01:16:46.000 everybody working together the researchers want us 1047 01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:50.960 we want them how do we get together and so i really feel 1048 01:16:50.960 --> 01:16:56.880 like coalitions working on this are the way to make some progress 1049 01:17:01.280 --> 01:17:05.840 thank you i want to thank crosby for this opportunity to 1050 01:17:05.840 --> 01:17:11.360 actually say bob hey bob you know i mean to the professor 1051 01:17:11.360 --> 01:17:15.600 beyond the same kind of talking space with bob and 1052 01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:18.960 jaylene who i have great deep respect for and 1053 01:17:18.960 --> 01:17:22.239 i've been reading their work for a while and i've been thinking a lot about a 1054 01:17:22.239 --> 01:17:27.199 couple of concepts that are brought up in his earlier work around bonding and 1055 01:17:27.199 --> 01:17:32.480 bridging the the idea of bonding is that we typically kind of hang out with 1056 01:17:32.480 --> 01:17:37.840 people who are very much like us same age same religion you know um 1057 01:17:37.840 --> 01:17:41.920 uh and we though to be successful need to do more 1058 01:17:41.920 --> 01:17:46.080 bridging be around people who are different from us different ages 1059 01:17:46.080 --> 01:17:49.760 different religions different ethnicities and so i wanted to share a 1060 01:17:49.760 --> 01:17:53.440 story of that i think shows that really the 1061 01:17:53.440 --> 01:17:58.080 leadership is going to come from the youth um and and uh it was a very 1062 01:17:58.080 --> 01:18:01.920 interesting um program that kind of led me to this 1063 01:18:01.920 --> 01:18:06.560 kind of thought that i wanted to share with everybody so a few years back um 1064 01:18:06.560 --> 01:18:09.440 the jewish federation who's a partner of the library 1065 01:18:09.440 --> 01:18:13.920 came to us and said right we've heard about our the partner city with 1066 01:18:13.920 --> 01:18:18.719 cleveland which is beijing israel um that they have this great library and we 1067 01:18:18.719 --> 01:18:24.159 would like you to go to israel and my answer was okay i'm on i'm packed 1068 01:18:24.159 --> 01:18:29.120 let's go right right and so i went to see the library 1069 01:18:29.120 --> 01:18:33.280 and all of a sudden i started walking around and there was nothing but like 1070 01:18:33.280 --> 01:18:36.880 12 year olds and 13 year olds and 14 year olds they were working behind the 1071 01:18:36.880 --> 01:18:40.000 desk they were doing circulation they were doing all of these other things 1072 01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:44.320 throughout the library and i was like and they said this is it 1073 01:18:44.320 --> 01:18:49.760 the kids run the library right i was like okay 1074 01:18:49.760 --> 01:18:53.520 right and they said well let's go meet the librarian so the librarian was in 1075 01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:58.320 the back in the back room with his feet up and i was like this is genius 1076 01:18:58.320 --> 01:19:01.520 right get the kids to run the whole library 1077 01:19:01.520 --> 01:19:04.960 you just sit up and eat snacks right 1078 01:19:04.960 --> 01:19:08.480 and he goes no this is this is my thought right 1079 01:19:08.480 --> 01:19:12.400 we you know we uh always tell the kids what 1080 01:19:12.400 --> 01:19:18.560 to do and israel has a long history of letting young people lead so i just 1081 01:19:18.560 --> 01:19:21.040 let them run everything 1082 01:19:21.040 --> 01:19:25.760 and literally he let them run everything every decision in the library was run by 1083 01:19:25.760 --> 01:19:28.960 the young people right and so 1084 01:19:28.960 --> 01:19:32.640 um i would i was just kind of like really 1085 01:19:32.640 --> 01:19:36.800 surprised and i spent some time with the kids and i started to see the leadership 1086 01:19:36.800 --> 01:19:41.440 development that was coming from this as i was they asked me to speak to the 1087 01:19:41.440 --> 01:19:45.280 kids and the like there was a 11 year old doing my 1088 01:19:45.280 --> 01:19:51.520 microphones and all the technology right and i was like no disrespect not to say 1089 01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:55.920 that right only 11 year olds could do that but 1090 01:19:55.920 --> 01:19:59.920 but it was so interesting seeing that and and so 1091 01:19:59.920 --> 01:20:06.080 i wanted to come back to cleveland and kind of put forward this option 1092 01:20:06.080 --> 01:20:12.159 let's let the kids kind of run like the library of which my leadership 1093 01:20:12.159 --> 01:20:16.880 team said that's the stupidest thing you've ever said right but what became 1094 01:20:16.880 --> 01:20:19.760 very very clear was that 1095 01:20:19.760 --> 01:20:23.920 we have a kind of history of always telling young people what they're going 1096 01:20:23.920 --> 01:20:28.560 to do how they're going to do it and as we started to kind of do a similar type 1097 01:20:28.560 --> 01:20:32.480 of program it was the same thing that continued to happen 1098 01:20:32.480 --> 01:20:37.040 our our older folks couldn't allow the young people to let be free and allow 1099 01:20:37.040 --> 01:20:41.600 them to make decisions we always had to make sure and tell them this is not 1100 01:20:41.600 --> 01:20:46.239 going to work right so they never had a chance to leave so 1101 01:20:46.239 --> 01:20:50.400 the jewish federation brought some of the kids from israel 1102 01:20:50.400 --> 01:20:55.679 to cleveland to meet our young people to kind of like push them to kind of move 1103 01:20:55.679 --> 01:21:02.880 forward and it was so interesting right initially these kids are from 1104 01:21:02.880 --> 01:21:06.880 two different countries but they were kids who were in 1105 01:21:06.880 --> 01:21:11.120 in beijing they were poor kids who were there and 1106 01:21:11.120 --> 01:21:15.840 they were with some of the poorest kids in cleveland right and they started 1107 01:21:15.840 --> 01:21:19.840 talking and they started bonding 1108 01:21:19.840 --> 01:21:25.120 and soon they were starting to create a bridge between the two cities right 1109 01:21:25.120 --> 01:21:31.440 and what we had what came out of this was after the kids started like like 1110 01:21:31.440 --> 01:21:34.639 stopping wanting to do anything because they all wanted to go to the mall they 1111 01:21:34.639 --> 01:21:38.239 all wanted to hang out and they became really close friends 1112 01:21:38.239 --> 01:21:43.520 so now continually they send messages to each other ahead of time 1113 01:21:43.520 --> 01:21:48.480 because they're on different you know time zones right and they talk about how 1114 01:21:48.480 --> 01:21:53.679 they're moving forward with their work and the value teams that now they are 1115 01:21:53.679 --> 01:21:58.159 called the volun instead of volunteers there now the volunteers who run a 1116 01:21:58.159 --> 01:22:02.800 volunteer program out of our library for their community right 1117 01:22:02.800 --> 01:22:05.360 are have just seen 1118 01:22:05.360 --> 01:22:10.880 unbelievable growth in those kids right they are now leaders all right and you 1119 01:22:10.880 --> 01:22:14.080 know they're getting up doing speeches in front of 1120 01:22:14.080 --> 01:22:17.840 of their peers telling them how like they don't need to listen to adults 1121 01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:21.120 anymore because they know how to do everything 1122 01:22:21.120 --> 01:22:26.000 right and it's a small scale thing to see these two countries bridged by these 1123 01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:30.480 young teens from the poorest communities in their countries 1124 01:22:30.480 --> 01:22:34.320 but what it said to me and what i took from this 1125 01:22:34.320 --> 01:22:40.480 was that there is a way for us to move forward if we get out of our way 1126 01:22:40.480 --> 01:22:45.679 right that our the adults aren't willing and if this is going to happen 1127 01:22:45.679 --> 01:22:49.199 right if we are going to see ourselves somehow 1128 01:22:49.199 --> 01:22:53.120 take that bridge space and the leadership is going to come from 1129 01:22:53.120 --> 01:22:56.400 these young people somehow the older folks are going to have to find a way to 1130 01:22:56.400 --> 01:23:01.440 get out of the way so i am going to ask you two a question 1131 01:23:01.440 --> 01:23:05.520 right because we're showing our time all right and i wanted to make sure that 1132 01:23:05.520 --> 01:23:08.880 this was one of those kind of questions in crosby has pushed 1133 01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:12.719 me to to put this out there is 1134 01:23:12.719 --> 01:23:16.800 while i agree that there are a lot of rural librarians doing great work and 1135 01:23:16.800 --> 01:23:19.520 there are a lot of folks doing great work 1136 01:23:19.520 --> 01:23:23.600 i think sometimes we take this room and say that there are 1137 01:23:23.600 --> 01:23:27.360 lots of we could fill this room 10 20 times over 1138 01:23:27.360 --> 01:23:30.239 but many times i see the same people in this room 1139 01:23:30.239 --> 01:23:34.239 right right we're like the illuminati we we 1140 01:23:34.239 --> 01:23:39.520 we're always here right and i think what we have to ask is in this profession do 1141 01:23:39.520 --> 01:23:45.120 we do need to do more to make sure that we could fill this room with 10 of us 1142 01:23:45.120 --> 01:23:49.360 10 times over rather than the same folks that we see who are doing very 1143 01:23:49.360 --> 01:23:52.159 progressive work 1144 01:23:52.480 --> 01:23:57.679 i just wanted to add that what i've heard here is commonalities 1145 01:23:57.679 --> 01:24:03.199 i have a very small budget i would consider myself a rural library 1146 01:24:03.199 --> 01:24:05.360 a island 1147 01:24:05.360 --> 01:24:09.199 you know in a community of extreme wealth the north 1148 01:24:09.199 --> 01:24:13.679 shore is one of the wealthiest parts of illinois of the country for that matter 1149 01:24:13.679 --> 01:24:19.440 and so highwood my operating budget is 297 000 a year 1150 01:24:19.440 --> 01:24:24.639 but my real budget now is 1.5 million and it is 1151 01:24:24.639 --> 01:24:28.960 because of grants and it is because of grassroots efforts that we have been 1152 01:24:28.960 --> 01:24:35.440 doing and is because all of our programming is run by informed community 1153 01:24:35.440 --> 01:24:41.520 engagement so we are out there we are boots on the ground the reason why i was 1154 01:24:41.520 --> 01:24:45.679 able to receive two iml s's is for a community engagement strategy 1155 01:24:45.679 --> 01:24:50.560 that we have developed that we connect with leaders from within our own 1156 01:24:50.560 --> 01:24:55.199 community and power them to go out and be our boots 1157 01:24:55.199 --> 01:24:59.280 eyes and ears on the ground during covet that's what allowed the 1158 01:24:59.280 --> 01:25:04.080 library to be a lifeline for our community we never closed we 1159 01:25:04.080 --> 01:25:08.639 closed the front door but we left the back door open we served 23 000 meals 1160 01:25:08.639 --> 01:25:12.639 during covid we partnered with department of public health to do 1161 01:25:12.639 --> 01:25:18.000 vaccine tests i mean covet testing and so far we partner with walgreens to do 1162 01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:23.040 over 3000 vaccines in the arms of community members so we're a trusted 1163 01:25:23.040 --> 01:25:28.080 source in the community we are a bridge to connect individuals we have a tab 1164 01:25:28.080 --> 01:25:33.679 team which is a teen advisory board that is doing all of the the teen programming 1165 01:25:33.679 --> 01:25:39.520 so we have commonalities we don't let bureaucracy get in our way 1166 01:25:39.520 --> 01:25:44.400 we were on the verge of being shut down it was because of elizabeth martin that 1167 01:25:44.400 --> 01:25:48.719 stan sitting over there who wrote a strategic plan that made sense 1168 01:25:48.719 --> 01:25:54.159 that they hired a non-librarian because i am not a librarian by profession and 1169 01:25:54.159 --> 01:25:58.080 they hired someone with community engagement skills and that made all the 1170 01:25:58.080 --> 01:26:02.639 difference the library is now vibrant we are about to do a four million dollar 1171 01:26:02.639 --> 01:26:07.520 renovation um with a 300 less than 300 000 budget 1172 01:26:07.520 --> 01:26:12.320 right it's all possible if we were creative in what we do 1173 01:26:12.320 --> 01:26:16.960 and we leverage partnerships with key organizations and key funders funders 1174 01:26:16.960 --> 01:26:21.120 are out there and they do want to give money and they want to give money to 1175 01:26:21.120 --> 01:26:26.560 changing change agents and we are that every one of you in here has your own 1176 01:26:26.560 --> 01:26:32.239 story and has that change agent mentality that's why we're in this room 1177 01:26:32.239 --> 01:26:36.800 so i think listening and hearing to the community especially the most vulnerable 1178 01:26:36.800 --> 01:26:41.840 now that it's been very clear to us with covet who the most 1179 01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:46.239 vulnerable are that we do need to see them and we do need to be inclusive and 1180 01:26:46.239 --> 01:26:51.760 we do need to be a we it can't happen just with an eye so i really am grateful 1181 01:26:51.760 --> 01:26:55.360 for this opportunity that i have been given to share a little 1182 01:26:55.360 --> 01:27:00.080 bit of the work that hollywood is doing and the work that's yet to come this is 1183 01:27:00.080 --> 01:27:04.480 just the beginning for us to work in libraries and begin to change what 1184 01:27:04.480 --> 01:27:08.080 libraries are really all about 1185 01:27:09.360 --> 01:27:14.800 i think of it in terms of entrepreneurs thinking like an 1186 01:27:14.800 --> 01:27:17.360 entrepreneur because 1187 01:27:17.360 --> 01:27:23.760 in in my situation the lack of taxpayer funding i had to look at things of okay 1188 01:27:23.760 --> 01:27:29.120 an entrepreneur wants income i need income how do we make that happen 1189 01:27:29.120 --> 01:27:36.159 and um so so we were able to be creative and then work with the people 1190 01:27:36.159 --> 01:27:41.360 i i would write subject lines to um people and it would be subject line 1191 01:27:41.360 --> 01:27:46.159 would be what if dot dot dot and then their answer would just be hell 1192 01:27:46.159 --> 01:27:53.120 yes whatever whatever the crazy idea was it was like yes let's do that um the 1193 01:27:53.120 --> 01:27:59.440 other thing and this may be unpopular here but i received my mls two years ago 1194 01:27:59.440 --> 01:28:02.660 um and i got it out of spite it 1195 01:28:02.660 --> 01:28:07.360 [Laughter] i got it to prove 1196 01:28:07.360 --> 01:28:12.800 that i did not need what the library educators were teaching 1197 01:28:12.800 --> 01:28:15.800 and 1198 01:28:17.199 --> 01:28:21.120 with the hindsight i will say 50 1199 01:28:21.120 --> 01:28:26.400 i think about 50 of the curriculum applied to my reality 1200 01:28:26.400 --> 01:28:29.760 of what i do so i 1201 01:28:29.760 --> 01:28:37.120 i would be a proponent of looking at what is taught by library educators to 1202 01:28:37.120 --> 01:28:42.280 get more creative people into the field 1203 01:28:45.600 --> 01:28:49.199 well if anybody disagrees with any of the 1204 01:28:49.199 --> 01:28:53.719 comments say they came from kelvin watson 1205 01:28:56.960 --> 01:29:01.520 so terry's coming i think uh we i know we're close to time 1206 01:29:01.520 --> 01:29:05.760 so listen believe it or not you have 10 more minutes if you need it but um i'm 1207 01:29:05.760 --> 01:29:08.480 going to give you the option of needing it first i'm going to explain what's 1208 01:29:08.480 --> 01:29:12.159 going to come next and then we'll go to break 1209 01:29:12.159 --> 01:29:16.239 after the break jalen's going to come back up and join us for a question and 1210 01:29:16.239 --> 01:29:22.239 answer session of 30 minutes so we would love for you all who are with us today 1211 01:29:22.239 --> 01:29:26.480 to think of questions that can foster a good deep discussion about the things 1212 01:29:26.480 --> 01:29:31.040 we've heard from robert putnam and shaylin and our panelists on the dais 1213 01:29:31.040 --> 01:29:34.960 right now we have post-it notes that you can 1214 01:29:34.960 --> 01:29:40.159 either write your questions on attribute them to yourself or anonymize 1215 01:29:40.159 --> 01:29:43.679 them either way or calvin 1216 01:29:43.679 --> 01:29:47.920 and feed them to your notetaker your imls no 1217 01:29:47.920 --> 01:29:51.760 taker with the host badge at your table or feed them to me 1218 01:29:51.760 --> 01:29:55.600 and we will come back after the break and have a robust question and answer 1219 01:29:55.600 --> 01:29:58.719 session um so with that i will give you all the 1220 01:29:58.719 --> 01:30:04.719 laughs can i can i can you hear me yes can you hear me yeah 1221 01:30:04.719 --> 01:30:10.400 um is it possible uh we're going to do a q a for shane and me to respond but i 1222 01:30:10.400 --> 01:30:15.040 wonder whether we could at least i would like to comment very briefly on the what 1223 01:30:15.040 --> 01:30:18.400 we've heard now from these panelists because i think 1224 01:30:18.400 --> 01:30:21.920 it was to me very instructive we would love that but 1225 01:30:21.920 --> 01:30:25.600 i don't want i don't want to throw the whole organization 1226 01:30:25.600 --> 01:30:30.639 off kilters so now what i'm afraid of is 1227 01:30:31.360 --> 01:30:35.040 we're getting the yes from crosby we we've got a yes okay 1228 01:30:35.040 --> 01:30:40.560 so um the idea professor putnam thought i was crazy is great that is 1229 01:30:40.560 --> 01:30:45.760 is all-star thank you professor hold it felton hold it 1230 01:30:45.760 --> 01:30:49.360 first of all felton you you may or may not know 1231 01:30:49.360 --> 01:30:53.360 that i grew up in a small town a tiny town 1232 01:30:53.360 --> 01:30:57.520 um about 70 miles uh 1233 01:30:57.520 --> 01:31:00.400 west of cleveland yes um 1234 01:31:00.400 --> 01:31:06.400 ages ago so i can right now this is probably 1235 01:31:06.400 --> 01:31:10.719 70 years ago i could name for you the starting lineup of the cleveland indians 1236 01:31:10.719 --> 01:31:15.520 well what they were then called the cleveland indians in 1919 1237 01:31:15.520 --> 01:31:18.800 50 so they're i'm going to identify with 1238 01:31:18.800 --> 01:31:22.560 both the small town people in the audience but also with cleveland 1239 01:31:22.560 --> 01:31:25.199 um and and i apologize for calling the 1240 01:31:25.199 --> 01:31:29.360 cleveland indians i'm i'm that old that i don't even remember uh the the new 1241 01:31:29.360 --> 01:31:33.679 name of the indians of the uh cleveland audience um 1242 01:31:33.679 --> 01:31:38.239 i wanted to i only wanted to make one point because it's relevant actually to 1243 01:31:38.239 --> 01:31:44.080 what everybody here said i really like felton's question which is 1244 01:31:44.080 --> 01:31:47.679 how can this group stop preaching to the choir 1245 01:31:47.679 --> 01:31:52.320 you all know all these things and the question is there's a very large 1246 01:31:52.320 --> 01:31:55.840 i know actually that there's a very large number of librarians out there who 1247 01:31:55.840 --> 01:31:59.280 ought to know what you know and ought to be doing what you're doing 1248 01:31:59.280 --> 01:32:03.920 well they've not yet got the message and that seems to me they're that it it the 1249 01:32:03.920 --> 01:32:08.239 direction in which that moves me is to say 1250 01:32:08.239 --> 01:32:13.120 there needs to be a social movement among librarians 1251 01:32:13.120 --> 01:32:15.920 to kind of no i mean of course to social movement 1252 01:32:15.920 --> 01:32:19.520 beyond libraries but in particular among librarians 1253 01:32:19.520 --> 01:32:24.080 to mobilize many larger numbers of libraries i'm a 1254 01:32:24.080 --> 01:32:28.159 huge fan of libraries as as as crosby knows better than anybody i'm an 1255 01:32:28.159 --> 01:32:33.440 enormous fan of libraries not just as a consumer but but as a as a analyst of 1256 01:32:33.440 --> 01:32:36.880 society but i do think that there's that i do 1257 01:32:36.880 --> 01:32:40.560 think that more thought is needed about that question that 1258 01:32:40.560 --> 01:32:44.239 felt and asked not what not just what good things are you guys doing 1259 01:32:44.239 --> 01:32:47.520 but how can you get the how can you reach out to mobilize a much larger 1260 01:32:47.520 --> 01:32:51.840 number of librarians and the the last point i want to make has to do with 1261 01:32:51.840 --> 01:32:55.199 the way that the role that libraries played 1262 01:32:55.199 --> 01:32:59.199 in the progressive era because it was an extremely important role 1263 01:32:59.199 --> 01:33:04.320 and that is the carnegie libraries and i don't know how widely maybe the carnegie 1264 01:33:04.320 --> 01:33:10.080 library story is very well known among contemporary librarians among all of you 1265 01:33:10.080 --> 01:33:13.600 so i maybe i'm just again preaching to the choir you all know about carnegie 1266 01:33:13.600 --> 01:33:18.560 libraries but if if you don't there are deeply interesting parallels 1267 01:33:18.560 --> 01:33:22.480 between the problem that the carnegie libraries 1268 01:33:22.480 --> 01:33:25.840 that andrew carnegie set out to create and 1269 01:33:25.840 --> 01:33:30.159 and the problems that face america today for example 1270 01:33:30.159 --> 01:33:36.159 andrew carnegie was himself a librarian he was a librarian who made his fortune 1271 01:33:36.159 --> 01:33:39.920 i'm sorry he was a he was a person who made his fortune 1272 01:33:39.920 --> 01:33:43.440 because he came out of libraries that's i don't mean library school i mean 1273 01:33:43.440 --> 01:33:47.920 because he was a he was in libraries that's what first of all 1274 01:33:47.920 --> 01:33:53.199 awakened his intellect and he he gave back 1275 01:33:53.199 --> 01:33:57.920 do you know that hat at least in that in 1930 or no maybe more recently that 1276 01:33:57.920 --> 01:34:02.320 1950s half of all public libraries half of all 1277 01:34:02.320 --> 01:34:07.120 public libraries in america were founded as carnegie public libraries it was a 1278 01:34:07.120 --> 01:34:12.480 huge im had an enormous impact on the reality of libraries in america 1279 01:34:12.480 --> 01:34:17.679 and um so it was intimately tied with the immigration of that period both 1280 01:34:17.679 --> 01:34:21.120 he himself as an immigrant and secondly he was 1281 01:34:21.120 --> 01:34:27.600 intending the library should serve uh should serve the purpose that um that 1282 01:34:27.600 --> 01:34:32.560 carmen was talking about in her uh in her town 1283 01:34:32.560 --> 01:34:36.719 and he was he was intending to reach out to rural areas that was 1284 01:34:36.719 --> 01:34:41.119 that's i mean the the the resonance between 1285 01:34:41.119 --> 01:34:45.520 what andrew carnegie was trying to do and did do 1286 01:34:45.520 --> 01:34:50.080 was first of all to make libraries present in in 1287 01:34:50.080 --> 01:34:54.000 throughout america but secondly to make libraries community institutions of 1288 01:34:54.000 --> 01:34:57.679 community learning community centers 1289 01:34:57.679 --> 01:35:01.760 and that's i think a lot of what you're all doing 1290 01:35:01.760 --> 01:35:05.360 and so i'm not trying to say that you don't that you have to take instruction 1291 01:35:05.360 --> 01:35:08.080 from from andrew carnegie but in the carnegie 1292 01:35:08.080 --> 01:35:12.480 libraries but i do think you'd find a lot of inspiration and some lessons 1293 01:35:12.480 --> 01:35:16.800 in that which which why am i talking about it because it's the progressive 1294 01:35:16.800 --> 01:35:20.800 era that's it was libraries and carnegie played a crucial role 1295 01:35:20.800 --> 01:35:25.520 in the upswing sorry to go on so long 1296 01:35:25.600 --> 01:35:31.360 we appreciate your comments um i will give the panelists a last word one one 1297 01:35:31.360 --> 01:35:35.600 last thing is our we change our library name 1298 01:35:35.600 --> 01:35:40.239 to the highwood library and community center 1299 01:35:40.239 --> 01:35:45.520 because that is exactly what we are now is a community center that welcomes all 1300 01:35:45.520 --> 01:35:50.239 people that listens to the needs of the community and we respond with relevant 1301 01:35:50.239 --> 01:35:55.119 programming so it's important for us to say that we have a community center 1302 01:35:55.119 --> 01:35:58.239 within our library because that's what we are 1303 01:35:58.239 --> 01:36:02.480 wonderful i i jumped the gun i'm sorry all good i think felton wants the 1304 01:36:02.480 --> 01:36:07.280 microphone back no and but to the professor's point i think they're 1305 01:36:07.280 --> 01:36:11.920 they're hassle bob please okay all right i could say bob look at that 1306 01:36:11.920 --> 01:36:17.600 look at who i am today all right but it goes to the the idea that 1307 01:36:17.600 --> 01:36:20.639 i think most of us believe that we have moved 1308 01:36:20.639 --> 01:36:24.400 from the traditional model to the transformational model in library world 1309 01:36:24.400 --> 01:36:27.440 and we're many of us are so far 1310 01:36:27.440 --> 01:36:32.080 gone from the traditional model that we don't even think about it in that sense 1311 01:36:32.080 --> 01:36:36.800 anymore but i think if we really were to look across the especially for us who 1312 01:36:36.800 --> 01:36:42.080 were in public libraries the you know 9 000 public library systems and we 1313 01:36:42.080 --> 01:36:46.080 started to examine how many of them still operated in the traditional model 1314 01:36:46.080 --> 01:36:49.119 i think we'd find a lot more than we probably think 1315 01:36:49.119 --> 01:36:53.679 right and so i think having that traditional model 1316 01:36:53.679 --> 01:36:57.199 being there is can can be transformational for many 1317 01:36:57.199 --> 01:37:00.880 communities but what you see here 1318 01:37:00.880 --> 01:37:03.600 you know with you know 1319 01:37:03.600 --> 01:37:07.119 us here is that we have really been able to 1320 01:37:07.119 --> 01:37:12.800 to be to create much more transformation and connect our communities to their 1321 01:37:12.800 --> 01:37:17.280 libraries in different ways by being transformational rather than traditional 1322 01:37:17.280 --> 01:37:21.600 and i think there needs to be much more discussion about that in library 1323 01:37:21.600 --> 01:37:26.080 i think we we find ourselves in the echo chamber many times when we get together 1324 01:37:26.080 --> 01:37:31.280 and i've we've got to figure out how do we go out and and do that work outside 1325 01:37:31.280 --> 01:37:34.320 and lastly to your point bob i think we do 1326 01:37:34.320 --> 01:37:38.560 need to find a carnegie um and it may not have to be someone 1327 01:37:38.560 --> 01:37:44.639 who's spending boatloads of money on us but we need i think in libraries someone 1328 01:37:44.639 --> 01:37:48.960 to be a hype man out there for us um in the general 1329 01:37:48.960 --> 01:37:53.840 larger world um and i'm not sure who that's going to be 1330 01:37:53.840 --> 01:37:57.440 but i you know well i don't think it's flavor flav but 1331 01:37:57.440 --> 01:38:01.199 you know i think there should be somebody we've got to figure out who 1332 01:38:01.199 --> 01:38:05.440 that is because in essence what andrew carnegie did was 1333 01:38:05.440 --> 01:38:10.480 make libraries seen as the most important part of their communities in a 1334 01:38:10.480 --> 01:38:14.639 lot of ways and we've kind of we continued to do that 1335 01:38:14.639 --> 01:38:19.280 but i i don't know if everyone sees it in that way 1336 01:38:19.280 --> 01:38:22.800 beyonce would be great 1337 01:38:24.719 --> 01:38:28.960 for a long time i called myself an accidental librarian and i guess i can't 1338 01:38:28.960 --> 01:38:32.639 do that anymore because i'm so passionate about it 1339 01:38:32.639 --> 01:38:39.280 but i think all of us are at an incredible once in a lifetime 1340 01:38:39.280 --> 01:38:42.159 once in a hundred years 1341 01:38:42.159 --> 01:38:48.719 time for libraries right now i just think this is is the time and i hope 1342 01:38:48.719 --> 01:38:54.320 we spend our money wisely and we don't let the opportunity pass us by 1343 01:38:54.320 --> 01:39:00.639 great what a great note to end on thank you panelists thank you kino 1344 01:39:03.040 --> 01:39:06.960 all right we've got we've got our two keynoters and our three panelists here 1345 01:39:06.960 --> 01:39:12.000 for our 30-minute question period we did get some sticky notes to kick us 1346 01:39:12.000 --> 01:39:13.920 off if you 1347 01:39:13.920 --> 01:39:18.480 have sticky notes that haven't made it up this way there's some imls folks that 1348 01:39:18.480 --> 01:39:22.560 are wandering you can you know bring them up to me on the podium we also have 1349 01:39:22.560 --> 01:39:27.520 three mics in the audience so there's a possibility to just get up and stand and 1350 01:39:27.520 --> 01:39:30.800 ask your question the mics are on the floor we're going to start with the 1351 01:39:30.800 --> 01:39:33.920 sticky note questions but we'll get to the mics 1352 01:39:33.920 --> 01:39:38.159 and we have many questions so to the extent that our panelists and keynoters 1353 01:39:38.159 --> 01:39:42.080 can be brief in the response to the questions we'll get through more of them 1354 01:39:42.080 --> 01:39:46.480 so i think we're going to start with one that came in and is probably directed 1355 01:39:46.480 --> 01:39:52.000 more to bob and shaylynn the question is if the 20th century 1356 01:39:52.000 --> 01:39:57.280 wasn't truly radically inclusive or racially inclusive excuse me 1357 01:39:57.280 --> 01:40:03.440 was it really that strong and upswing across the four metrics 1358 01:40:06.320 --> 01:40:09.520 would you like me to repeat it or you got it 1359 01:40:09.520 --> 01:40:13.679 no no we got it okay um caitlyn you want to 1360 01:40:13.679 --> 01:40:17.440 you want to take it well i mean but you never should take it but you're the 1361 01:40:17.440 --> 01:40:19.520 specialist sure 1362 01:40:19.520 --> 01:40:22.480 so um 1363 01:40:22.480 --> 01:40:26.080 okay brevity being the key i'm gonna just give it a minute to think where to 1364 01:40:26.080 --> 01:40:30.719 start and how to make this brief because i i will just say this is a fantastic 1365 01:40:30.719 --> 01:40:33.520 question it deserves much more time than we're 1366 01:40:33.520 --> 01:40:36.960 about to give it um there is an entire chapter in the 1367 01:40:36.960 --> 01:40:41.840 book that addresses the question of race and and the and the movement over this 1368 01:40:41.840 --> 01:40:46.960 period toward or away from racial equality and how that maps on to the iwi 1369 01:40:46.960 --> 01:40:50.800 century so if you're really curious about this i would encourage you to just 1370 01:40:50.800 --> 01:40:53.119 take a look at that and you don't have to buy the book you can check it out of 1371 01:40:53.119 --> 01:40:58.239 your library so um so 1372 01:40:58.239 --> 01:41:03.440 so what i'll say is this um i think that 1373 01:41:03.440 --> 01:41:06.960 our question we approached this question from a data 1374 01:41:06.960 --> 01:41:10.639 standpoint because the whole backbone of the book is data right 1375 01:41:10.639 --> 01:41:14.639 so the question is what longitudinal data do we have that maps onto this same 1376 01:41:14.639 --> 01:41:19.320 period that can help us answer this question 1377 01:41:20.960 --> 01:41:26.719 when you talk about what people assume the data looks like over this period 1378 01:41:26.719 --> 01:41:30.960 a lot of people assume that because things were in fact extraordinarily 1379 01:41:30.960 --> 01:41:34.320 bleak from a racial equality and inclusion perspective at the beginning 1380 01:41:34.320 --> 01:41:38.560 of the century there's often this assumption that nothing changed for the 1381 01:41:38.560 --> 01:41:43.280 better until the lightning bolt changes of the 1950s and 60s civil rights 1382 01:41:43.280 --> 01:41:46.960 revolution and 1383 01:41:46.960 --> 01:41:51.040 what we would call so so the the graphs that you saw look like sort of inverted 1384 01:41:51.040 --> 01:41:55.040 u curves right by contrast a lot of people feel like the movement toward 1385 01:41:55.040 --> 01:41:58.719 racial equality inclusion looks more like a hockey stick no change in the 1386 01:41:58.719 --> 01:42:02.000 dramatic change that turns out to be true when you're 1387 01:42:02.000 --> 01:42:05.280 looking at measures of inclusion particularly things like the 1388 01:42:05.280 --> 01:42:08.880 long-delayed entry of black americans into professional schools and 1389 01:42:08.880 --> 01:42:13.760 professions um lack of representation in government 1390 01:42:13.760 --> 01:42:17.360 uh residential segregation on and on and on 1391 01:42:17.360 --> 01:42:21.440 there are many measures uh where it was just purely exclusionary and it took 1392 01:42:21.440 --> 01:42:24.800 that sort of um changing of the du jour 1393 01:42:24.800 --> 01:42:29.920 segregation for things to begin to move interestingly and what came as a 1394 01:42:29.920 --> 01:42:33.760 surprise to us is that it does the curve does not look 1395 01:42:33.760 --> 01:42:37.040 that way when you're asking questions about material equality between the 1396 01:42:37.040 --> 01:42:39.520 races and when we say when i say between the 1397 01:42:39.520 --> 01:42:42.639 races i mean between black americans and white americans and the only reason that 1398 01:42:42.639 --> 01:42:46.159 we are framing it in that way is because that's what we have data for over this 1399 01:42:46.159 --> 01:42:49.760 long period it's not because other peoples of color don't matter it's 1400 01:42:49.760 --> 01:42:53.199 because we don't have data over the full period to answer that question with 1401 01:42:53.199 --> 01:42:56.639 other groups but we do for black americans and white americans 1402 01:42:56.639 --> 01:42:59.760 and what's so interesting is that when you look at the data and when we're 1403 01:42:59.760 --> 01:43:03.199 talking about material equality we're talking about things like 1404 01:43:03.199 --> 01:43:05.040 um [Music] 1405 01:43:05.040 --> 01:43:10.400 health measures so infant mortality and life expectancy we're talking about uh 1406 01:43:10.400 --> 01:43:13.679 income distribution we're talking about wealth 1407 01:43:13.679 --> 01:43:16.880 or home ownership for example we're also talking about voter registration and 1408 01:43:16.880 --> 01:43:20.480 voter participation when you roll all of those measures together 1409 01:43:20.480 --> 01:43:24.239 and you ask yourself were we moving more toward equality was 1410 01:43:24.239 --> 01:43:28.800 the racial gap narrowing or widening over this 20th century period and when 1411 01:43:28.800 --> 01:43:32.960 and how fast what you actually see 1412 01:43:32.960 --> 01:43:37.119 is that the bulk of progress toward narrowing the gap 1413 01:43:37.119 --> 01:43:41.520 took place during the upswing actually before the civil rights 1414 01:43:41.520 --> 01:43:44.800 revolution which i think particularly for white 1415 01:43:44.800 --> 01:43:49.119 americans that's a surprising story it's not that surprising i think for a 1416 01:43:49.119 --> 01:43:52.320 lot of black americans because this is their genealogy this is their family 1417 01:43:52.320 --> 01:43:56.560 history this is the great migration the main driver of that 1418 01:43:56.560 --> 01:44:00.239 move toward equality um 1419 01:44:00.239 --> 01:44:04.560 was because black americans stood up and claimed their place in the american we 1420 01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:08.080 and left the south for the more hospitable 1421 01:44:08.080 --> 01:44:12.320 west and north in this country and so you see that very clearly in the 1422 01:44:12.320 --> 01:44:14.960 data um and and we often get the question 1423 01:44:14.960 --> 01:44:18.080 well you know there was just so much room for 1424 01:44:18.080 --> 01:44:21.040 improvement for black americans maybe that's the whole explanation but it 1425 01:44:21.040 --> 01:44:24.239 actually turns out that everyone in america was doing better and better over 1426 01:44:24.239 --> 01:44:27.280 that first two thirds of the 20th century but black americans were doing 1427 01:44:27.280 --> 01:44:30.400 actually better at a much faster rate than white 1428 01:44:30.400 --> 01:44:34.560 americans which is really interesting right 1429 01:44:34.560 --> 01:44:38.719 but then comes the other surprise right when 1430 01:44:38.719 --> 01:44:43.840 the damn of exclusion breaks and the civil rights laws are passed 1431 01:44:43.840 --> 01:44:48.159 you see very clearly in the data what we call in the book a foot off the gas 1432 01:44:48.159 --> 01:44:52.239 period so you had all this progress on material equality 1433 01:44:52.239 --> 01:44:57.199 that then stagnates stalls and in some cases reverses 1434 01:44:57.199 --> 01:45:03.280 during the i period in american history so we have this view when i say we i'm 1435 01:45:03.280 --> 01:45:06.639 referring mostly to white americans we have this view that like 1436 01:45:06.639 --> 01:45:10.000 the civil rights movement happened we fixed that things have gotten better and 1437 01:45:10.000 --> 01:45:12.960 better right and i think one of the most important 1438 01:45:12.960 --> 01:45:16.000 messages of the black lives matter movement has been to shed light on the 1439 01:45:16.000 --> 01:45:18.639 fact that that's a completely false narrative 1440 01:45:18.639 --> 01:45:22.560 the data is very clear that things have stagnated or gotten worse for black 1441 01:45:22.560 --> 01:45:26.719 americans in this country and when you look at that over the full course of 1442 01:45:26.719 --> 01:45:31.199 what we're looking at here of this this i we i period 1443 01:45:31.199 --> 01:45:34.880 you have to ask yourself well how does this map on to the iwei story well it 1444 01:45:34.880 --> 01:45:38.639 turns out that time at the the time when america was 1445 01:45:38.639 --> 01:45:42.400 moving more and more in the direction of we turned out to have been better for 1446 01:45:42.400 --> 01:45:47.040 black americans than a time when culturally more broadly we turned toward 1447 01:45:47.040 --> 01:45:50.639 hyper-individualism hyper-individualism 1448 01:45:50.639 --> 01:45:54.719 is bad for everyone it's particularly bad for 1449 01:45:54.719 --> 01:45:58.639 traditionally excluded groups and that bears out very clearly in the 1450 01:45:58.639 --> 01:46:02.159 data and so it's it's a complicated story because 1451 01:46:02.159 --> 01:46:05.360 we're not saying wow this first two thirds of the 20th 1452 01:46:05.360 --> 01:46:09.440 century we should model everything on that because it was so great but what we 1453 01:46:09.440 --> 01:46:14.639 are saying is again if we're getting underneath these questions 1454 01:46:14.639 --> 01:46:18.080 there is some cultural work that we need to do 1455 01:46:18.080 --> 01:46:23.119 around restoring this culture of we the belief that we are all in this together 1456 01:46:23.119 --> 01:46:26.639 the feeling that we are all in this together 1457 01:46:26.639 --> 01:46:30.719 that work has to be done because that actually 1458 01:46:30.719 --> 01:46:34.719 is an incredibly important part of this story not just policies that are going 1459 01:46:34.719 --> 01:46:40.480 to equalize things or make things less segregated we have to do that hard work 1460 01:46:40.480 --> 01:46:44.480 to get back into the cultural and moral ethos of we 1461 01:46:44.480 --> 01:46:48.480 i think that's a really important lesson here it's not just it's not an easy 1462 01:46:48.480 --> 01:46:51.119 thing of saying two-thirds of the first two-thirds of 1463 01:46:51.119 --> 01:46:54.560 the 20th century good or bad should model on that shouldn't i mean it's 1464 01:46:54.560 --> 01:46:58.719 obviously much more complex than that um and so hopefully that gives you a 1465 01:46:58.719 --> 01:47:04.639 little bit of a taste of our thinking on this and and how the data lines up here 1466 01:47:05.760 --> 01:47:11.199 thank you thank you so much we're going to turn to a question for 1467 01:47:11.199 --> 01:47:16.880 our library panelists can you talk about how your library has activated local 1468 01:47:16.880 --> 01:47:22.639 networks of support and social cohesion in your communities maybe an example or 1469 01:47:22.639 --> 01:47:25.679 two so how have you activated local networks 1470 01:47:25.679 --> 01:47:30.800 of support and social cohesion in your community 1471 01:47:33.760 --> 01:47:37.040 sure um 1472 01:47:37.040 --> 01:47:41.840 so our air conditioning went out last year 1473 01:47:42.239 --> 01:47:47.440 and we just put out a call to the community we don't have have money to 1474 01:47:47.440 --> 01:47:52.320 fix it and we can't open until we get the money and within four days we had 1475 01:47:52.320 --> 01:47:57.679 eighteen thousand um to replace it i got a ten thousand 1476 01:47:57.679 --> 01:48:02.480 dollar check somebody handed me and they said 1477 01:48:02.480 --> 01:48:07.679 we trust you to do something important for the community with this 1478 01:48:07.679 --> 01:48:13.440 no direction no strings attached ten thousand dollars and so we started a 1479 01:48:13.440 --> 01:48:17.679 library of things to check out pressure washer and carpet cleaner are 1480 01:48:17.679 --> 01:48:22.480 most most popular but but bicycles and canning supplies 1481 01:48:22.480 --> 01:48:27.280 and all kinds of things i i um we have an annual lunch and friends at the 1482 01:48:27.280 --> 01:48:32.880 library luncheon every year and i just talked about and briefly because they 1483 01:48:32.880 --> 01:48:37.119 don't want to hear me talk i talked briefly to we feed kids snacks after 1484 01:48:37.119 --> 01:48:41.280 school and um the next week i got a check in 1485 01:48:41.280 --> 01:48:46.719 the mail from someone i didn't know and i opened it up and it was for seventeen 1486 01:48:46.719 --> 01:48:51.280 thousand five hundred dollars and it said keep feeding kids 1487 01:48:51.280 --> 01:48:54.719 and um honestly 1488 01:48:54.719 --> 01:49:00.719 my brain could not make sense of the amount i kept thinking is this 17 and 50 1489 01:49:00.719 --> 01:49:04.159 cents because that seems so odd 1490 01:49:04.159 --> 01:49:09.360 but because we have done what matters to the community we're doing an aging and 1491 01:49:09.360 --> 01:49:14.560 place initiative right now the community has really responded and i 1492 01:49:14.560 --> 01:49:18.320 do think now if the library was to close there 1493 01:49:18.320 --> 01:49:24.320 would be pitchforks i mean people really support us now 1494 01:49:24.320 --> 01:49:30.560 awesome example of social cohesion and support i would also say that for us at 1495 01:49:30.560 --> 01:49:33.679 highwood when i said earlier that we were able to 1496 01:49:33.679 --> 01:49:38.000 serve 23 000 meals we didn't use tax levy dollars 1497 01:49:38.000 --> 01:49:42.400 we during covet we partnered with two other nonprofits 1498 01:49:42.400 --> 01:49:45.360 the other two non-profits received grant funding 1499 01:49:45.360 --> 01:49:50.000 and we became just a distribution site and we became the trusted entity so we 1500 01:49:50.000 --> 01:49:56.000 had lines of individuals uh and when you see the stark 1501 01:49:56.000 --> 01:49:59.440 poverty within this extremely wealthy community 1502 01:49:59.440 --> 01:50:02.000 it's very 1503 01:50:02.080 --> 01:50:05.599 heartbreaking that i would see families 1504 01:50:05.599 --> 01:50:11.119 take our recycled dumpster and use that as a transport because families also do 1505 01:50:11.119 --> 01:50:16.000 not have transportation in our community so so for us to be to have become a 1506 01:50:16.000 --> 01:50:20.719 lifeline and have partnered with other entities to make that a possibility is 1507 01:50:20.719 --> 01:50:26.639 incredible the other piece is the recent grant that we received yesterday as a 1508 01:50:26.639 --> 01:50:31.280 matter of fact a 578 thousand dollar grant to partner 1509 01:50:31.280 --> 01:50:35.599 with one of the largest health systems in the community to do 1510 01:50:35.599 --> 01:50:40.239 the access to health services in the area of mental health 1511 01:50:40.239 --> 01:50:44.400 that is a very important partnership because we know the stigma behind mental 1512 01:50:44.400 --> 01:50:48.719 health especially for communities of color and especially for an undocumented 1513 01:50:48.719 --> 01:50:55.280 population so partnering is very important we can't do it alone and so 1514 01:50:55.280 --> 01:50:59.199 there is where the we comes in and i can go on and on about the different 1515 01:50:59.199 --> 01:51:03.760 partnerships we had to raise four million dollars to renovate a very 1516 01:51:03.760 --> 01:51:09.360 outdated facility is it was it used to be three restaurants in the past and so 1517 01:51:09.360 --> 01:51:15.280 they that became a library in 1976 and so it had not been renovated since 1976 1518 01:51:15.280 --> 01:51:20.480 and we still had the same furniture so imagine that nails sticking out and 1519 01:51:20.480 --> 01:51:26.560 holes in the furniture how is that an acceptable space for learning for for a 1520 01:51:26.560 --> 01:51:29.440 population like we serve so 1521 01:51:29.440 --> 01:51:35.040 it's miraculous to be able to raise almost the four million dollars during 1522 01:51:35.040 --> 01:51:38.960 covet but people care when they see that there 1523 01:51:38.960 --> 01:51:42.320 is organizations that are trustworthy and that are willing to go above and 1524 01:51:42.320 --> 01:51:46.400 beyond for their community so 1525 01:51:46.400 --> 01:51:50.800 just a little tidbit more and you know 1526 01:51:50.800 --> 01:51:53.520 very similar whether it is working with our food 1527 01:51:53.520 --> 01:51:56.560 banks working with our hospitals you know 1528 01:51:56.560 --> 01:52:00.560 giving a test or doing being a site for covid 1529 01:52:00.560 --> 01:52:03.599 testing or like working with our legal aid 1530 01:52:03.599 --> 01:52:09.040 society so people can come in and get assistance and and not be evicted or you 1531 01:52:09.040 --> 01:52:12.639 know working with our school district to hand out 1532 01:52:12.639 --> 01:52:17.760 thousands of pcs to their parents so that the kids can actually be able to 1533 01:52:17.760 --> 01:52:20.480 get online there were just so many different 1534 01:52:20.480 --> 01:52:23.920 partners that we were working with during this period of time 1535 01:52:23.920 --> 01:52:29.040 but the great thing was that came out of it in this last year we are 1536 01:52:29.040 --> 01:52:33.040 having a big run-up for our new mayor and 1537 01:52:33.040 --> 01:52:38.080 one of the candidates stood up and said at as his first line he says the way 1538 01:52:38.080 --> 01:52:42.000 we're going to get out of this is that we were going to make the library 1539 01:52:42.000 --> 01:52:45.520 our public library the front door to democracy 1540 01:52:45.520 --> 01:52:49.920 anyone yes so 1541 01:52:49.920 --> 01:52:54.159 he is already we're looking at how we put government innovation labs in all 1542 01:52:54.159 --> 01:52:59.520 our buildings right so those are kind of examples awesome 1543 01:52:59.520 --> 01:53:02.400 all right i'm going to ask one more question from the stickies and then 1544 01:53:02.400 --> 01:53:06.480 we're going to go to the mic so if anybody's ready you can make your way up 1545 01:53:06.480 --> 01:53:13.440 this this one's more for bob um how can you measure the impact libraries have on 1546 01:53:13.440 --> 01:53:18.000 local networks of support and social inclusion 1547 01:53:24.080 --> 01:53:27.920 well i i'm trying to figure out a way to 1548 01:53:27.920 --> 01:53:30.480 not answer in a too 1549 01:53:30.480 --> 01:53:33.280 um academic away i mean there are lots of 1550 01:53:33.280 --> 01:53:36.960 ways in fact to measure um 1551 01:53:36.960 --> 01:53:41.760 uh i i don't i there are lots of 1552 01:53:41.760 --> 01:53:46.480 cis serious ways in which you could evaluate 1553 01:53:46.480 --> 01:53:50.639 your initiatives especially by doing before and after 1554 01:53:50.639 --> 01:53:55.199 that is measuring something like 1555 01:53:55.199 --> 01:53:58.560 youth well-being or like 1556 01:53:58.560 --> 01:54:02.239 um uh political participation 1557 01:54:02.239 --> 01:54:05.760 well there are a range of things you could measure before and after you've 1558 01:54:05.760 --> 01:54:11.199 tried some initiative and that would tell you did we actually move the needle 1559 01:54:11.280 --> 01:54:13.520 um 1560 01:54:15.040 --> 01:54:18.800 i'm i'm a little 1561 01:54:18.800 --> 01:54:23.119 torn here because i i want to 1562 01:54:23.119 --> 01:54:29.199 emphasize what i think you could do 1563 01:54:31.440 --> 01:54:35.040 beyond libraries 1564 01:54:35.040 --> 01:54:38.880 um and beyond um 1565 01:54:38.880 --> 01:54:40.800 providing uh 1566 01:54:40.800 --> 01:54:44.239 social services which which you were which you are doing and it's wonderful i 1567 01:54:44.239 --> 01:54:47.760 know i'm not being negative about that at all 1568 01:54:47.760 --> 01:54:53.520 how could you positively affect politics in america 1569 01:54:53.520 --> 01:54:58.880 and that's i know seems like a stretch i recognize that seems like a stretch 1570 01:54:58.880 --> 01:55:03.040 so let me ask i mean i will tell you how i think you could do it 1571 01:55:03.040 --> 01:55:07.040 but i'm i'm asking you now to challenge yourself 1572 01:55:07.040 --> 01:55:10.639 don't think of yourselves as victims of polarization think of yourselves as 1573 01:55:10.639 --> 01:55:13.440 agents that maybe could work against 1574 01:55:13.440 --> 01:55:16.239 polarization and 1575 01:55:16.239 --> 01:55:22.239 that means building in my jargon um which felt referred to earlier bridging 1576 01:55:22.239 --> 01:55:25.119 social capital that is politically bridging social capital that is bringing 1577 01:55:25.119 --> 01:55:28.000 people together to discuss 1578 01:55:28.000 --> 01:55:32.960 local community problems across party lines that's not easy that's a big 1579 01:55:32.960 --> 01:55:35.760 challenge um 1580 01:55:35.760 --> 01:55:40.880 and i think i just mentioned or one of us mentioned earlier on in the 1581 01:55:40.880 --> 01:55:44.840 maybe that was in another another session today um 1582 01:55:44.840 --> 01:55:48.800 in uh not long ago sheila and i were speaking to a group in kansas city 1583 01:55:48.800 --> 01:55:52.639 actually have a local a group in kansas city that is devoting 1584 01:55:52.639 --> 01:55:56.639 it's not a library but they no doubt are cooperating with 1585 01:55:56.639 --> 01:56:00.719 the kansas city library um bringing 1586 01:56:00.719 --> 01:56:04.960 people from very different backgrounds together to discuss 1587 01:56:04.960 --> 01:56:10.000 urgent practical community local community problems like schools 1588 01:56:10.000 --> 01:56:12.560 um everybody's talking about schools right 1589 01:56:12.560 --> 01:56:15.679 and fighting about schools that's that's the biggest one of the biggest flash 1590 01:56:15.679 --> 01:56:20.960 points in american society today but we're shouting at each other about 1591 01:56:20.960 --> 01:56:25.040 that and so the challenge there are many other examples besides schools but the 1592 01:56:25.040 --> 01:56:27.840 challenge i'm suggesting is could you bring 1593 01:56:27.840 --> 01:56:33.040 people from different points of view in greater cleveland i'm using that 1594 01:56:33.040 --> 01:56:36.080 example because i know it much better you know people from 1595 01:56:36.080 --> 01:56:41.119 cuyahoga heights and people from you know down toward 1596 01:56:41.119 --> 01:56:46.400 young son on akron and people from you know the inner city and so on 1597 01:56:46.400 --> 01:56:50.719 together to talk about schools and how they could be fixed 1598 01:56:50.719 --> 01:56:53.280 intentionally bringing people from different backgrounds and different 1599 01:56:53.280 --> 01:56:55.520 political backgrounds different especially different political 1600 01:56:55.520 --> 01:56:58.159 backgrounds um 1601 01:56:58.159 --> 01:57:00.320 i'm and then of course 1602 01:57:00.320 --> 01:57:03.440 the question was asked me was could you measure that absolutely i could tell you 1603 01:57:03.440 --> 01:57:08.880 ways in which you can measure that but i'm trying to put that as a challenge 1604 01:57:08.880 --> 01:57:14.480 to you all and not just to the panelists here but to the to the room as a whole 1605 01:57:14.639 --> 01:57:17.440 thank you and can i just add one thing there which 1606 01:57:17.440 --> 01:57:20.480 is that you don't have to do that programming 1607 01:57:20.480 --> 01:57:24.800 yourself i mean there's a whole dialogue across difference movement happening in 1608 01:57:24.800 --> 01:57:29.520 america there's probably three different organizations nearby every one of your 1609 01:57:29.520 --> 01:57:33.520 libraries that's figured out the facilitation model and figured out you 1610 01:57:33.520 --> 01:57:37.440 know how to do this well you could just invite them into your 1611 01:57:37.440 --> 01:57:40.000 space right this doesn't have to be another thing that you have to create 1612 01:57:40.000 --> 01:57:42.719 from scratch 1613 01:57:43.679 --> 01:57:46.560 so why don't you name a couple uh dave a couple 1614 01:57:46.560 --> 01:57:50.719 um braver angels is the number one that i would recommend 1615 01:57:50.719 --> 01:57:53.920 for political discussions specifically but 1616 01:57:53.920 --> 01:57:55.920 there's there's just 1617 01:57:55.920 --> 01:57:59.520 um so many that 1618 01:57:59.520 --> 01:58:02.639 and they're so a lot of them are really regional and really local so but bravery 1619 01:58:02.639 --> 01:58:06.080 angels is national they're a chapter based organization so they're entirely 1620 01:58:06.080 --> 01:58:11.840 citizen run i would say um start there thank you 1621 01:58:11.840 --> 01:58:16.080 just as a time check we're we're already halfway through our q a so we're clearly 1622 01:58:16.080 --> 01:58:19.440 not going to get to all the stickies but i will commit to putting them on a 1623 01:58:19.440 --> 01:58:23.040 parking lot so that they can be um you know 1624 01:58:23.040 --> 01:58:27.840 rumbled with in our personal time and we have a question from the floor 1625 01:58:27.840 --> 01:58:32.560 i actually i had a sort of follow-up to this to this conversation on the role 1626 01:58:32.560 --> 01:58:37.920 libraries can play in in sort of active civic discourse you know part of what i 1627 01:58:37.920 --> 01:58:41.840 pulled from from the from the data that you put out there is that the 1628 01:58:41.840 --> 01:58:45.760 how divided we are is in part what gets in our way of being able to have civil 1629 01:58:45.760 --> 01:58:49.360 conversations and i know that we in libraries you know many libraries that 1630 01:58:49.360 --> 01:58:52.159 i've worked in we've tried various different versions of this some 1631 01:58:52.159 --> 01:58:56.080 successful and some less successful and one of the things i'm curious about is 1632 01:58:56.080 --> 01:58:59.520 is how do you get people back to a point where they actually can't trust again 1633 01:58:59.520 --> 01:59:04.400 trust one another um in it is the first entry point conversations around you 1634 01:59:04.400 --> 01:59:08.320 know gun violence in my neighborhood or like is that the right place or is there 1635 01:59:08.320 --> 01:59:12.560 is there a before point in terms of how we how we build back some of the social 1636 01:59:12.560 --> 01:59:16.800 cohesion and how do we tie that back too so i'm just curious like i think in the 1637 01:59:16.800 --> 01:59:20.400 public library space we generally think of ourselves as being able to do 1638 01:59:20.400 --> 01:59:23.840 this kind of stuff well and yet we continue to struggle to do it well and 1639 01:59:23.840 --> 01:59:28.080 so i'm curious if there's a if there's a it's a it's an earlier step that we can 1640 01:59:28.080 --> 01:59:31.599 actually give ourselves credit for for building those connections before we 1641 01:59:31.599 --> 01:59:35.119 jump you know right into some of the really hairy 1642 01:59:35.119 --> 01:59:38.639 issues i i have two quick responses and i think 1643 01:59:38.639 --> 01:59:41.920 probably shelian has more one um 1644 01:59:41.920 --> 01:59:47.679 don't always think of failed experiments as a failure 1645 01:59:47.679 --> 01:59:53.119 entrepreneurs if they never had a losing you know if they never had a an idea 1646 01:59:53.119 --> 01:59:56.719 that they funded that didn't go well they would think they're not being risky 1647 01:59:56.719 --> 02:00:00.560 they were not taking enough risks and you have to this is what the laboratory 1648 02:00:00.560 --> 02:00:05.199 democracy meant you try out ideas so you shouldn't be discouraged if you try out 1649 02:00:05.199 --> 02:00:09.920 ideas it didn't work try something else trying is it's that experimental 1650 02:00:09.920 --> 02:00:13.760 attitude that the the progressives above all had 1651 02:00:13.760 --> 02:00:18.960 secondly my my uh view is that you ought to look first for 1652 02:00:18.960 --> 02:00:23.599 topics that are not political but that that people get care to care 1653 02:00:23.599 --> 02:00:27.760 about but that um 1654 02:00:27.760 --> 02:00:32.719 that cut across party lines and and the my best example i i use it a lot but i 1655 02:00:32.719 --> 02:00:36.000 just don't think i'm just picking on or just 1656 02:00:36.000 --> 02:00:39.280 using cleveland i bet there are a lot of people in 1657 02:00:39.280 --> 02:00:43.440 cleveland who care about the um 1658 02:00:43.440 --> 02:00:47.360 the cleveland sports teams um yeah 1659 02:00:47.360 --> 02:00:51.520 maybe huh you don't have to worry about that 1660 02:00:51.520 --> 02:00:58.000 across party lines and and they probably have divergent views about 1661 02:00:58.000 --> 02:01:01.520 you know who should be quarterback next year or 1662 02:01:01.520 --> 02:01:04.159 or you know you i don't even have to go 1663 02:01:04.159 --> 02:01:07.280 through all those um issues 1664 02:01:07.280 --> 02:01:12.320 and hosting a session like that 1665 02:01:12.320 --> 02:01:15.280 it seems a little weird i recognize and maybe it's not the right example but 1666 02:01:15.280 --> 02:01:19.360 what i'm trying to say is finding topics that lots of people care about 1667 02:01:19.360 --> 02:01:23.119 in which their differences do not correlate with their politics 1668 02:01:23.119 --> 02:01:28.159 that kind of discussion builds is what builds a little bit of 1669 02:01:28.159 --> 02:01:32.159 trust because they you know after you finish the conversation people are then 1670 02:01:32.159 --> 02:01:36.320 feeling a little more positive about the guy who turns out to be actually turns 1671 02:01:36.320 --> 02:01:40.800 out to be trump's supporter or whatever but that was not the most important 1672 02:01:40.800 --> 02:01:44.639 fact the most salient fact in the conversation i don't think max it makes 1673 02:01:44.639 --> 02:01:47.679 sense or not phil no it does 1674 02:01:47.679 --> 02:01:52.320 i did want to ask though if i could say laying in you 1675 02:01:52.320 --> 02:01:56.000 has there been any research to determine if the 1676 02:01:56.000 --> 02:01:58.639 younger you are the more flexible you are 1677 02:01:58.639 --> 02:02:04.159 more likely you are to be open to other discussion as compared to folks 1678 02:02:04.159 --> 02:02:07.280 maybe over 25. 1679 02:02:07.360 --> 02:02:11.199 that's a bob question for sure i mean i can give a vague answer but you can be 1680 02:02:11.199 --> 02:02:15.840 much more specific bob and then i do want to add a couple thoughts 1681 02:02:16.239 --> 02:02:19.239 yes 1682 02:02:19.520 --> 02:02:24.480 [Laughter] [Applause] 1683 02:02:24.480 --> 02:02:28.639 yeah i mean i would just say to the previous question you know braver angels 1684 02:02:28.639 --> 02:02:33.119 for example and there are many they have been honing a facilitation 1685 02:02:33.119 --> 02:02:37.199 model to be able to create safe space to talk about hot button issues they've 1686 02:02:37.199 --> 02:02:42.719 been working on that for instance 2016 or earlier and so that's why inviting 1687 02:02:42.719 --> 02:02:46.080 these organizations in that have the tools and templates built they've 1688 02:02:46.080 --> 02:02:49.199 already made all the mistakes you can make and they've figured out how to 1689 02:02:49.199 --> 02:02:52.480 facilitate those conversations in a positive way 1690 02:02:52.480 --> 02:02:56.480 so that's one reason to look to that expertise but the other thing i would 1691 02:02:56.480 --> 02:02:59.360 say is the more you are building community 1692 02:02:59.360 --> 02:03:03.199 around affinity affinity meaning we all like basket 1693 02:03:03.199 --> 02:03:06.719 weaving and so we come to the library to learn basket weaving and then i discover 1694 02:03:06.719 --> 02:03:11.360 that the person i most across the table with weaving a basket is a democrat and 1695 02:03:11.360 --> 02:03:14.960 i'm a republican you know that is incredibly important 1696 02:03:14.960 --> 02:03:20.639 work you cannot you cannot understate the value of that work 1697 02:03:20.639 --> 02:03:23.520 actually i think that's probably more important 1698 02:03:23.520 --> 02:03:26.800 than these um staged conversations where we get in 1699 02:03:26.800 --> 02:03:31.040 a room and debate our hot button issues so i'm going to hop back to advocating 1700 02:03:31.040 --> 02:03:34.080 for the hot button issue debates though which is that you have to keep in mind 1701 02:03:34.080 --> 02:03:38.000 that if you are structuring debates well 1702 02:03:38.000 --> 02:03:42.480 you're building citizenship skills so the goal is not always to get people to 1703 02:03:42.480 --> 02:03:46.320 come to the end of an hour and agree or think oh all of a sudden i think well 1704 02:03:46.320 --> 02:03:51.599 of my republican neighbors or vice versa but you think of it as citizen skill 1705 02:03:51.599 --> 02:03:57.280 building for having better debates right learning how to debate is a 1706 02:03:57.280 --> 02:04:00.079 democratic skill 1707 02:04:00.480 --> 02:04:05.599 and who's the quarterback of the cleveland browns as a hot button topic 1708 02:04:05.920 --> 02:04:09.520 interesting so debate that and then you're building 1709 02:04:09.520 --> 02:04:13.920 skills that then you can transfer to harder topics later on 1710 02:04:13.920 --> 02:04:17.040 all right um as a time check i've gotten 1711 02:04:17.040 --> 02:04:20.239 permission to let this go a little longer so we're going to have 15 more 1712 02:04:20.239 --> 02:04:25.040 minutes of q a and we'll make a little bit of a shorter activity so i'd love to 1713 02:04:25.040 --> 02:04:29.760 have another question from the floor hi my name is nicole cook i'm the 1714 02:04:29.760 --> 02:04:33.119 augusta baker endowed chair for childhood literacy at the university of 1715 02:04:33.119 --> 02:04:37.599 south carolina and i have a question for the panelists 1716 02:04:37.599 --> 02:04:41.679 so i just wanted to give a little context there was a comment made about 1717 02:04:41.679 --> 02:04:44.719 lis education 1718 02:04:44.800 --> 02:04:49.760 i hear i hear the laughter already um so 1719 02:04:51.119 --> 02:04:57.280 so it's really not as simple as saying oh the library school should teach x y 1720 02:04:57.280 --> 02:05:01.360 and z and i you know before i make my next 1721 02:05:01.360 --> 02:05:06.560 comment i have personally told tracy hall at ala all of these things 1722 02:05:06.560 --> 02:05:10.800 love tracy happy to support her and she's on board but we are very much 1723 02:05:10.800 --> 02:05:17.599 constrained by accreditation we are constrained by the phd pipeline 1724 02:05:17.599 --> 02:05:21.280 um you know i personally have been in two 1725 02:05:21.280 --> 02:05:25.520 programs where i have innovated the curriculum for equity diversity 1726 02:05:25.520 --> 02:05:29.679 inclusion and social justice i am the only one teaching these classes 1727 02:05:29.679 --> 02:05:33.280 in my programs right so who's coming to help me teach 1728 02:05:33.280 --> 02:05:36.480 these classes and more importantly these classes are 1729 02:05:36.480 --> 02:05:38.960 electives right so 1730 02:05:38.960 --> 02:05:42.800 you know i think that part of what's happening is 1731 02:05:42.800 --> 02:05:48.239 uh is that you know the classic conflict between theory and practice but i will 1732 02:05:48.239 --> 02:05:53.440 say that our programs are absolutely putting out the upstanders the uprisers 1733 02:05:53.440 --> 02:05:57.760 the bystanders whatever we want to call them um they may be geographically 1734 02:05:57.760 --> 02:06:03.840 constrained we certainly need more of these students but they're there 1735 02:06:03.840 --> 02:06:08.239 and so i mean you know there's lots of debate we can have about this but i just 1736 02:06:08.239 --> 02:06:10.960 i needed to push back a little bit on that 1737 02:06:10.960 --> 02:06:15.440 i have at least six of my lis faculty colleagues in the 1738 02:06:15.440 --> 02:06:20.000 audience here today and we are dancing as fast as we can 1739 02:06:20.000 --> 02:06:25.199 so with that said um several of you in the room have guests lectured for me and 1740 02:06:25.199 --> 02:06:30.719 i have my eye on quite a few more so if you would like to guest lecture 1741 02:06:30.719 --> 02:06:35.760 and talk to the children directly um i am happy to have you but just to 1742 02:06:35.760 --> 02:06:39.280 say we are we don't do the mechanics of literacy 1743 02:06:39.280 --> 02:06:43.920 right we leave that to our wonderful k-12 educators but we are talking about 1744 02:06:43.920 --> 02:06:46.800 the practice of reading and what it means and how to have these 1745 02:06:46.800 --> 02:06:50.960 conversations i think a lot of you would be really surprised at the things that 1746 02:06:50.960 --> 02:06:56.000 we're talking about so if we can you know add to the lengthy list of what 1747 02:06:56.000 --> 02:07:01.520 we're doing here in the two days and find a way to better partner up with the 1748 02:07:01.520 --> 02:07:09.079 lis programs i think we can absolutely contribute to that progress thank you 1749 02:07:12.560 --> 02:07:17.119 i just wanted to comment what brian was saying about uh facilitating these 1750 02:07:17.119 --> 02:07:20.400 conversations these difficult conversations and i reach out to our 1751 02:07:20.400 --> 02:07:25.199 office of human rights and they have been an extraordinary 1752 02:07:25.199 --> 02:07:30.719 partner in diversity dialogues we have ongoing dialogues 1753 02:07:30.719 --> 02:07:34.480 they like you said are skilled at this so 1754 02:07:34.480 --> 02:07:38.560 even when i had a staff discussion 1755 02:07:38.719 --> 02:07:42.800 i don't have the lived experience of my staff i live in a majority minority 1756 02:07:42.800 --> 02:07:47.760 community in prince george's county maryland and so i had the director of 1757 02:07:47.760 --> 02:07:52.719 the office of human rights lead this conversation for me because i felt it 1758 02:07:52.719 --> 02:07:56.880 was important that my staff were able to voice their opinions 1759 02:07:56.880 --> 02:08:01.199 but not from someone who looks like me because i don't have that experience so 1760 02:08:01.199 --> 02:08:05.040 i just there's a lot of groups out there that can help you facilitate so you 1761 02:08:05.040 --> 02:08:08.800 don't have to feel like you're on your own island which of 1762 02:08:08.800 --> 02:08:13.920 course we all do sometimes so i just want to make that comment thanks 1763 02:08:15.590 --> 02:08:20.400 [Applause] um hi folks i'm rich rescal i'm the 1764 02:08:20.400 --> 02:08:25.119 director here at the d.c public library anne friedman who welcomed us to this 1765 02:08:25.119 --> 02:08:29.360 building that she started she mentioned a 2004 study that 1766 02:08:29.360 --> 02:08:34.159 the nea put out called reading at risk and that was the study that documented 1767 02:08:34.159 --> 02:08:38.560 the decline in reading and also just and also 1768 02:08:38.560 --> 02:08:42.400 sort of attached it to the corollaries and other declines in civic 1769 02:08:42.400 --> 02:08:46.960 participation voting going to sporting events 1770 02:08:46.960 --> 02:08:51.920 volunteering and all these other social ills that we're talking about today 1771 02:08:51.920 --> 02:08:54.719 and while you're all talking about the great things that so many of us are 1772 02:08:54.719 --> 02:08:57.679 doing in terms of you know providing covet tests and all 1773 02:08:57.679 --> 02:09:01.119 these other great things i'm just wondering fundamentally are any of us 1774 02:09:01.119 --> 02:09:05.199 figuring out a way to tie all these great programs back to some of the core 1775 02:09:05.199 --> 02:09:09.199 stuff that we're to be doing right how do we get how do we leverage giving out 1776 02:09:09.199 --> 02:09:13.920 a pcr test to getting somebody interested in reading a book because i 1777 02:09:13.920 --> 02:09:17.440 think part of what and i won't speak for crosby but i think part of what he wants 1778 02:09:17.440 --> 02:09:20.719 to do here is how do we like do all these how do we take all these great 1779 02:09:20.719 --> 02:09:24.000 things and get people back to reading 1780 02:09:26.159 --> 02:09:29.840 open question if anybody has any ideas [Music] 1781 02:09:29.840 --> 02:09:36.400 well i i can say for us that um we are not a quiet library we're a no shushing 1782 02:09:36.400 --> 02:09:42.159 library um we do a lot of things that are fun 1783 02:09:42.159 --> 02:09:45.199 drones you know stem nights all those kind of 1784 02:09:45.199 --> 02:09:51.840 things so now we really are a hangout for kids it used to be a place 1785 02:09:51.840 --> 02:09:56.960 that children weren't welcome so at least we are getting them in the 1786 02:09:56.960 --> 02:10:03.760 building and exposing them yeah i'll say to that i think one of the 1787 02:10:03.760 --> 02:10:08.480 keys to what we want to do um in getting people in the building is 1788 02:10:08.480 --> 02:10:14.320 for them to recognize the traditional model of what we do right and and the 1789 02:10:14.320 --> 02:10:19.040 importance of reading for them to be successful but a lot of that comes along 1790 02:10:19.040 --> 02:10:23.920 with having it co-signed by others one of the 1791 02:10:23.920 --> 02:10:29.520 part of the our new mayor talking about uh us being the front door to democracy 1792 02:10:29.520 --> 02:10:32.560 was the first thing he said is i want to do a 1793 02:10:32.560 --> 02:10:37.280 city-wide campaign on literacy right and i want the library to to lead this 1794 02:10:37.280 --> 02:10:41.520 campaign they all kind of started because he came 1795 02:10:41.520 --> 02:10:45.599 into the library before he became mayor to get a cover 1796 02:10:45.599 --> 02:10:50.239 test right right this is not not part of of 1797 02:10:50.239 --> 02:10:54.639 of many other things that he used the library for and he did you know he he 1798 02:10:54.639 --> 02:10:58.880 did the swearing-in of his of the honorary swearing-in at the library that 1799 02:10:58.880 --> 02:11:05.119 he went to as a kid right so the idea that we have to take advantage 1800 02:11:05.119 --> 02:11:08.800 of these folks in our communities who are tied to the library for a variety of 1801 02:11:08.800 --> 02:11:15.119 different reasons and then use their bully pulpit to keep talking about that 1802 02:11:15.119 --> 02:11:17.920 i mean that's our job to get out there and talk about reading and the 1803 02:11:17.920 --> 02:11:22.800 importance of reading but we need a lot of people talking about it right and you 1804 02:11:22.800 --> 02:11:27.920 know beyonce talking about it would be great right i 1805 02:11:27.920 --> 02:11:31.520 believe i have two daughters who would do whatever beyonce says right but i 1806 02:11:31.520 --> 02:11:36.880 think we we need as many pie pipers as possible talking about it and i 1807 02:11:36.880 --> 02:11:42.159 appreciate the idea at my table when we first introduced ourselves i said i 1808 02:11:42.159 --> 02:11:46.000 appreciate the idea that i have to try to 1809 02:11:46.000 --> 02:11:49.840 move away from my concept of really focused on being focused on social 1810 02:11:49.840 --> 02:11:54.719 justice back to where i started in libraries right and find a way to 1811 02:11:54.719 --> 02:11:59.599 integrate them together and i will make i'll make a comment and 1812 02:11:59.599 --> 02:12:04.239 say that in communities like mine where i come from 1813 02:12:04.239 --> 02:12:08.560 where i grew up as a child i there were no libraries 1814 02:12:08.560 --> 02:12:11.840 i'm an immigrant i came to this country undocumented 1815 02:12:11.840 --> 02:12:14.320 uh there were no libraries 1816 02:12:14.320 --> 02:12:19.599 and so for my job in my community is to really help 1817 02:12:19.599 --> 02:12:24.400 broaden that mindset of the community that this is a library it is not a 1818 02:12:24.400 --> 02:12:28.400 libridia and a librarian means a bookstore so for 1819 02:12:28.400 --> 02:12:33.920 changing the culture and the mindset of what this institution is is very 1820 02:12:33.920 --> 02:12:37.760 important once we get them in the door we can gain their trust 1821 02:12:37.760 --> 02:12:41.679 then we connect them to the book and we connect them to the literacy programming 1822 02:12:41.679 --> 02:12:46.800 all the programming that we we create at our library is outcome based programming 1823 02:12:46.800 --> 02:12:51.520 so we are measuring the success of the reading levels for children we partner 1824 02:12:51.520 --> 02:12:54.639 directly with the school district and support the school district in the 1825 02:12:54.639 --> 02:13:00.320 extended learning process so it's changing um the culture for a 1826 02:13:00.320 --> 02:13:06.079 community like ours and so like i said earlier ours is 50 latino which 1827 02:13:06.079 --> 02:13:11.119 presumed that our library is a bookstore and so teaching that and helping them 1828 02:13:11.119 --> 02:13:15.840 understand that no we are a free institution where you could access these 1829 02:13:15.840 --> 02:13:20.000 resources and learn how to read 1830 02:13:20.000 --> 02:13:22.560 and so 1831 02:13:23.599 --> 02:13:27.760 i think we have time for one more question may i ask one may i ask one 1832 02:13:27.760 --> 02:13:30.480 sorry yes 1833 02:13:30.480 --> 02:13:34.000 can i ask one quick question are 1834 02:13:34.000 --> 02:13:40.159 uh i'm so old that i when i was learning to read i went with my mom every 1835 02:13:40.159 --> 02:13:43.360 saturday to a reading group at the library 1836 02:13:43.360 --> 02:13:46.480 and in those years that's very old-fashioned i know the family 1837 02:13:46.480 --> 02:13:50.400 structure was different and so on but it's an updated version of that also now 1838 02:13:50.400 --> 02:13:54.960 common are reading groups for kids common in libraries because i think 1839 02:13:54.960 --> 02:13:57.199 that's a brilliant 1840 02:13:57.199 --> 02:14:00.239 yeah i mean i'm just responding to the question that had been asked earlier 1841 02:14:00.239 --> 02:14:02.480 yeah yeah 1842 02:14:02.480 --> 02:14:07.040 story time is the foundation of what we do yes 1843 02:14:08.320 --> 02:14:12.800 am i on you are yes hi i'm lisa um and i run a 1844 02:14:12.800 --> 02:14:16.800 large public library system and you know i think we're in 1845 02:14:16.800 --> 02:14:20.960 a really interesting period because we know technology saved us during the 1846 02:14:20.960 --> 02:14:25.119 early part of coven right all of us who run public libraries say libraries open 1847 02:14:25.119 --> 02:14:30.480 technology technology we put out hot spots we boosted signals we had people 1848 02:14:30.480 --> 02:14:34.159 we lent out hot spots we lent out laptops 1849 02:14:34.159 --> 02:14:37.840 the problem is i think we're moving back to transaction 1850 02:14:37.840 --> 02:14:43.520 felton it's not just the lending out of the thing it is what they're doing with 1851 02:14:43.520 --> 02:14:46.560 the thing and i think this is the opportunity 1852 02:14:46.560 --> 02:14:51.520 crosby because and the citizenship part and i know uw is doing some fabulous 1853 02:14:51.520 --> 02:14:54.560 work by the way i need more money from uw 1854 02:14:54.560 --> 02:14:59.840 to do that work but i think what we need to do is be 1855 02:14:59.840 --> 02:15:05.520 carnegie was about improving and we can all disagree what improvement meant in 1856 02:15:05.520 --> 02:15:11.040 19th century versus now but he was about bettering the community bettering 1857 02:15:11.040 --> 02:15:16.400 oneself and i think we have the opportunity now with technology if we're 1858 02:15:16.400 --> 02:15:21.119 good and careful to get away from the transaction part and how are we 1859 02:15:21.119 --> 02:15:26.400 bettering our communities how are we helping them navigate the technology 1860 02:15:26.400 --> 02:15:31.360 that we are now providing the broadband the stuff out all the stuff our rural 1861 02:15:31.360 --> 02:15:34.639 communities need and by the way our suburban communities need to 1862 02:15:34.639 --> 02:15:39.280 so that's just the question i have of all of you and all of us to be 1863 02:15:39.280 --> 02:15:43.199 thoughtful when we jump on the technology bandwagon and i love 1864 02:15:43.199 --> 02:15:47.679 technology that we're doing it in the way public libraries do it the best 1865 02:15:47.679 --> 02:15:52.400 which is to help the people people be the better of themselves that they want 1866 02:15:52.400 --> 02:15:58.400 to be to be them their own better selves whatever that looks like make sense 1867 02:15:58.400 --> 02:16:02.400 thank you all right 1868 02:16:03.280 --> 02:16:07.440 i want to give each of our speakers one last closing 1869 02:16:07.440 --> 02:16:10.159 thought maybe 30 seconds or a minute each 1870 02:16:10.159 --> 02:16:13.119 responding to questions or just if you have something on your heart you want to 1871 02:16:13.119 --> 02:16:15.360 say 1872 02:16:16.560 --> 02:16:19.840 anybody want to start 1873 02:16:20.239 --> 02:16:24.400 can i just respond quickly to that and maybe make this my closing thought i i 1874 02:16:24.400 --> 02:16:28.800 mean i see enormous opportunity for libraries to be stepping into the space 1875 02:16:28.800 --> 02:16:33.519 of training citizens for how to navigate the information 1876 02:16:33.519 --> 02:16:36.800 that is coming at them which i think is a little bit what you're getting at 1877 02:16:36.800 --> 02:16:39.280 right and i think this is 1878 02:16:39.280 --> 02:16:43.200 the number one arena in which we need civic 1879 02:16:43.200 --> 02:16:46.800 innovation how are we going to manage the fact that 1880 02:16:46.800 --> 02:16:51.120 we have a citizenry that doesn't know truth from falsehood 1881 02:16:51.120 --> 02:16:54.639 how do we train because it used to be you know you could just check out a book 1882 02:16:54.639 --> 02:16:58.000 right and yes there were some debate about what books were good and what were 1883 02:16:58.000 --> 02:17:01.679 bad but like now we're not in that space anymore that's obvious you don't need me 1884 02:17:01.679 --> 02:17:05.040 to expound on that but i think that this is 1885 02:17:05.040 --> 02:17:08.719 going back to the to the root of what libraries originally were it's about 1886 02:17:08.719 --> 02:17:11.920 information and that is one of the most hotly 1887 02:17:11.920 --> 02:17:16.880 contested spaces now in our democracy that may be 1888 02:17:16.880 --> 02:17:20.639 the do or die for our democracy information 1889 02:17:20.639 --> 02:17:25.359 and so i i would just challenge you um not to put one more thing on your 1890 02:17:25.359 --> 02:17:28.559 enormous plates but what 1891 02:17:28.559 --> 02:17:34.000 is this what is the action there that is directly tied to citizenship 1892 02:17:34.000 --> 02:17:38.960 about navigating a very difficult information space much 1893 02:17:38.960 --> 02:17:44.240 of which is online and i would say 1894 02:17:44.240 --> 02:17:48.240 thank you thank you for being patient with 1895 02:17:48.240 --> 02:17:52.800 my story our story here and being willing to hear this story 1896 02:17:52.800 --> 02:17:57.280 uh what i what i will share is what drives me daily 1897 02:17:57.280 --> 02:18:02.639 is to be relevant to our community all of our community all the taxpayers 1898 02:18:02.639 --> 02:18:07.679 not just a certain segment of the population that speaks of their needs 1899 02:18:07.679 --> 02:18:13.040 i i want to work towards that in our library i'm going to continue to enhance 1900 02:18:13.040 --> 02:18:16.639 the programming that takes place out of the community center 1901 02:18:16.639 --> 02:18:21.439 and and transform a community to make them more productive members of society 1902 02:18:21.439 --> 02:18:25.439 through the work that we're doing in our library so it's exciting to be a part of 1903 02:18:25.439 --> 02:18:29.840 something like this and it's exciting to be a leading force 1904 02:18:29.840 --> 02:18:34.800 at least in my neck of the woods to do something like this i have been 1905 02:18:34.800 --> 02:18:38.719 approached by several libraries in my community who would like to learn more 1906 02:18:38.719 --> 02:18:42.960 of how to do this and i'm excited to be a part of that teaching and that 1907 02:18:42.960 --> 02:18:47.280 connectedness because we're all together in this like like you shared earlier 1908 02:18:47.280 --> 02:18:50.960 we're in this together we're all one people and so 1909 02:18:50.960 --> 02:18:56.000 it's exciting to be a part of such such a thing where we could help transform 1910 02:18:56.000 --> 02:18:59.760 all members of the community 1911 02:19:00.160 --> 02:19:04.000 and i'll i'll just speak to the technology 1912 02:19:04.000 --> 02:19:08.240 through an example we are starting a program that 1913 02:19:08.240 --> 02:19:14.319 we're hiring 15 teenagers to be digital navigators for specifically for older 1914 02:19:14.319 --> 02:19:18.000 adults and we're starting that in partnership 1915 02:19:18.000 --> 02:19:22.160 with the health science center is coming and they're bringing a simulation lab 1916 02:19:22.160 --> 02:19:26.960 for the teens the first training session will be to learn how it is to work with 1917 02:19:26.960 --> 02:19:33.519 computers if you have low vision or hearing issues issues or mobility issues 1918 02:19:33.519 --> 02:19:37.280 and so through this program we will be teaching 1919 02:19:37.280 --> 02:19:43.679 the the teens will be learning some soft skills they'll be learning job 1920 02:19:43.679 --> 02:19:49.520 skills um i've been reading about the longevity economy our rural area needs 1921 02:19:49.520 --> 02:19:55.200 people to be able to to age in place i hope some of those teams 1922 02:19:55.200 --> 02:20:00.080 see entrepreneurial opportunities as they go through this 1923 02:20:00.080 --> 02:20:04.479 program through ecf those 1924 02:20:04.479 --> 02:20:10.000 seniors will be getting specific devices that they can keep so it just to me it 1925 02:20:10.000 --> 02:20:14.560 all comes together all these things work together for 1926 02:20:14.560 --> 02:20:22.080 social well-being for our communities and i would say and this is a point 1927 02:20:22.080 --> 02:20:26.880 which you're making there certainly um success moves at the speed of trust 1928 02:20:26.880 --> 02:20:29.920 right and we are very fortunate that as an 1929 02:20:29.920 --> 02:20:33.680 industry and as a profession we are very trusted 1930 02:20:33.680 --> 02:20:37.359 right and we can use that trust um to really 1931 02:20:37.359 --> 02:20:40.399 make a difference in our communities but i think we 1932 02:20:40.399 --> 02:20:43.680 and i was just saying this i think we have to really start to focus on our 1933 02:20:43.680 --> 02:20:47.520 youngest people because they have been through a trauma that no 1934 02:20:47.520 --> 02:20:52.000 one else can ever ever experience just imagine all of our 10 year olds 1935 02:20:52.000 --> 02:20:55.840 eight-year-olds who haven't been to school who have gone through and seen 1936 02:20:55.840 --> 02:21:00.720 losses in their life they are willing to and ready to make a change in this in 1937 02:21:00.720 --> 02:21:05.760 the way this world is and we've got to be willing to help them do that 1938 02:21:05.760 --> 02:21:10.640 thank you robert putnam 1939 02:21:11.040 --> 02:21:16.560 i'd like to uh build a little bit on on what felt just said libraries have many 1940 02:21:16.560 --> 02:21:22.800 different age constituencies uh very young kids 1941 02:21:22.800 --> 02:21:24.840 um you know young 1942 02:21:24.840 --> 02:21:29.680 adults uh older adults even really old adults like 1943 02:21:29.680 --> 02:21:31.680 me um 1944 02:21:31.680 --> 02:21:35.760 but from the point of view of building a social movement that is going 1945 02:21:35.760 --> 02:21:39.359 to change america i'm going back to our the 1946 02:21:39.359 --> 02:21:45.280 story we told in the shalin told it was young americans in their late 1947 02:21:45.280 --> 02:21:50.160 teens and twenties the last time who let us out 1948 02:21:50.160 --> 02:21:54.319 there are some good examples of that now that is there are some terrific examples 1949 02:21:54.319 --> 02:21:55.760 of kids 1950 02:21:55.760 --> 02:22:00.000 of that age group uh that are helping to lead a civic 1951 02:22:00.000 --> 02:22:05.120 renewal in america but inevitably they're a minority 1952 02:22:05.120 --> 02:22:09.760 most kids of that age are not leading civic 1953 02:22:09.760 --> 02:22:12.479 renewal activities they've got other things on their mind it's my 1954 02:22:12.479 --> 02:22:15.840 grandchildren i know them i know that age group very well 1955 02:22:15.840 --> 02:22:19.840 but i think libraries ought to be thinking about that constituency too not 1956 02:22:19.840 --> 02:22:24.000 just the people who are learning to read not just the people like me who you know 1957 02:22:24.000 --> 02:22:28.319 or need to be brought into libraries to you 1958 02:22:28.319 --> 02:22:32.640 know to keep us from being lonely but 1959 02:22:32.640 --> 02:22:38.080 this is really a point that that um tell me earlier and i'm just i'm 1960 02:22:38.080 --> 02:22:42.000 risk reiterating and not just the what you do for young kids 1961 02:22:42.000 --> 02:22:44.560 but inviting 1962 02:22:44.560 --> 02:22:48.160 peop young people in their late teens and twenties 1963 02:22:48.160 --> 02:22:54.240 into libraries to be agents not to just to receive stuff from you but to be 1964 02:22:54.240 --> 02:22:59.600 agents to help you become um active contributor to revitalizing 1965 02:22:59.600 --> 02:23:04.240 american democracy well on that note can we all thank our 1966 02:23:04.240 --> 02:23:08.200 panelists and speakers 1967 02:23:09.920 --> 02:23:13.899 [Applause]