Jan 27, 2021 NHLTA Roundtable Zoom

Speakers are labeled SPEAKER_N. This transcript is machine-generated.

Recording

great i just want to say thanks to
everybody who is
joining us and some are in the process
um
and say happy new year to everybody and
do sign in on the chat feature if you
haven't already just to say hi
you know just your name and library
we've got all the
registration information it just helps
us keep track of who's here
um i will do my best to
acknowledge questions we're on more than
one screen so it can be tricky
but my able-bodied
fellow board member marshall mclaughlin
who's in greenland
will be monitoring the chat so if you
have questions
putting them in the chat is a great idea
and we'll we'll do our best and if
you're on the screen with me
i will see you if you jump up and down
and raise your hands and
or just you know it's okay to interrupt
if you've really got something good to
say so before we get into
oh gosh you know what's gone wrong um
or you know the budget woes or anything
i just
i was at a in a talk yesterday and they
were talking about
positive things that had come out of the
pandemic
and hopefully there are some and it just
occurred to me that if anybody
did have something positive that it
happened
because of the pond the pandemic for
their library or
you know something that you know we've
all had good
success with curbside pickups and stuff
but at least
you know something that really was was
good something positive i just thought
i'd like to kick off with with some good
stories
so does anybody have any good stories
i can share one okay great rick i'm rick
wood from antrim uh tuttle library
we were able to uh install a
100 foot train in our children's room
during
the downtime and with the occasional
visit of kids coming in it's been a
great
uh attraction for the kids when they go
into the children's room to see the
train running
uh it was helped with donations on our
historical society and
and the library itself so it was a great
event and we had five
elder gentlemen installing it and they
were like kids installing the train
it was awesome oh that's fun
does anybody else have anything
julie from jeffrey said she had some
good stories
okay julie
you guys hear me all right yes and i can
see you you're on
no okay so i'm the director in jeffrey
and um
actually we're trying to always look at
the silver lining to everything and i
know that's hard right now but
um in many ways there were lots of
forward thinking service models that we
had in mind
before the pandemic that we thought
would be hard to implement
or that would take a lot longer to
implement things lots of
things related to self-directed
programming and um
certainly online access creating
programming that could reach people who
might not actually be able to
physically attend at the library so
these were things we had talked about
in 2019 as goals and
um so the pandemic was a little bit of a
of a boost in that way it was really
like a catalyst
that people sort of got on that roaring
train whether they wanted to or not
and um it's actually been really
successful it's allowed us to take some
of those service models that we
talked about and thought about that were
ways to deal with
um being short-staffed for example so
that self-directed programming for us
was we were so busy
we had so many staff trying to do
programs just not enough staff not
enough time not enough space
um but we actually able to perfect that
model
because of the circumstances and it's
turned out to be
to be really great to create those ways
for people to engage with the library
whether they're physically here or not
so
um just try to find the silver lining oh
yeah
there's always a silver lining yes
rosemary
uh just a quick thing i'm rosemary darcy
from the maya sleeper library in bristol
one of the things that we started during
the pandemic
was home delivery we have a number of
elderly people in our community
and rural very rural
and we've been able to bring materials
and pick up materials
and it's not a unique thing i'm sure
but um it was the pandemic that sort of
was the impetus to get us to do it
and i'm sure it will go on long after
the pandemic is no longer a problem
yeah my library has we've and we did
this before the pandemic we
did as a home delivery service for shut
you know
people who are ill or shut-ins or
whatever
and it's it's been pretty popular we
don't like to
talk about it too much because then
everybody will want it
but and um i see new market
says that they got some maintenance done
and
antrim yep mentions that they got some
wood floor
refinishing so yeah it's get
any anything else that is a little
unusual or
yeah terry
you have to understand no yeah i was
working on it uh not really unusual but
um we finally got the newsletter going
that we talked about for years
and um it went from
we knew we had an issue how do you get
hold of those people who are homebound
how do you get the information out to
them
and put some articles in the local
shopper because almost everybody gets
that um but we also
you know it was just hard the newsletter
still only gets people
who are online yeah but it became
not just a library newsletter it's now a
community newsletter
if you want to know how to what you know
the hours of
the transfer station they've got a link
on the on our newsletter
uh what are we going to do about voting
it's there
what is you know all those kind of
things how to sign us how to sign up for
weather alerts in the town
just all kinds of things and we got a
very nice wow this is a great
and i had never heard this term so i
don't know if she coined it
but she said the patron said we have now
created
a now vital resource
for the community i hadn't heard that
now vital but
it was good uh and we will keep it going
it's it takes a little time
right now we're doing it weekly we will
probably go to bi-weekly or
monthly at some point
yeah once once you gear up and get back
with all the
the people coming in hopefully yeah
soon but yes
it's diana from um i'm from sandown
so i think um the pandem
the pandemic has allowed us all to be
more creative in how we deliver services
um are are we're having children's story
hours recorded
um they're on our website so it's for
people that would come live but for
maybe parents who work
and can participate in it after work
so we're you know it's it's giving us
more freedom
to allow people that can't come to story
hours
to participate with their children at
home now so i think
um it's really stretching our staff
to to be more innovative in the way they
deliver their program
we also in sandown have um
they did a lot through the summer they
did make and
take programs so when they did their
summer reading programs
they had the children's
librarians put together little packets
of crafts for the children to make
and people had to register they picked
up the craft
then there was a zoom demonstration on
how to do this
so i mean it was very interactive
some children could ask questions they
also
had um they invited people from the
community to come in one at a time into
the library to
to do a zoom story reading for the
children at home
so you know we tried to be really
creative and
these are things that we think we're
going to continue
even after the pandemic because we find
that
people like a little more freedom in the
time they sit with their children and
listen to story
so katrina we had susan
she had her hand up yes yes and you're
unmuted go ahead
okay and this really picks up on what
diana said our programming
has changed and we have a great uh take
grab and make take and make um
crap more crafts with a ch with young
kids
and parents doing um craps together
and because we're a very small library
in barrington
um this is allowed for more people to
participate
so that's garnered a lot more
participants
to to participate and
similar to what julie said from jeffrey
it's staying positive
and we've been very fortunate we've had
a lot of donations
good-sized donation financial donations
coming in
oh good
and that's been a very positive it's
another way of
showing the appreciation so we've been
happy about that
well yeah because you're still hoping to
move forward with your
building project oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah
katrinka i don't know if d bergeron or
martha wilson from dunbarton would like
to expand on the items that they put on
chat
oh the books on the books by the bundle
yeah
i don't know i've checked a lot of the
screens a lot of the people
are are black just with their names so
um it's
i can't see a raised hand if there's hi
this is martha
i'm martha they're my martha hi i just
wanna we've uh we're a small library as
well and one of the things that we
started doing
first started with for kids and now for
adults as well as if if a patron calls
in and they're like well i don't know
exactly what i want
you know people can uh reserve things
online but if they don't know what they
what exactly they're they they want we
can our librarian will
uh hand poke a hand hand pick a handful
of books
and get them ready for curbside pickup
for them
okay just talking about a certain
interest or
right right you say i wanted to i'm
bored of my recipes i'm tired of cooking
some cookies
my my son loves trains so how about some
books about trains that kind of thing
yeah
okay oh that's yeah that's a really good
idea
yes mo hi mo it's mo beptis and i'm from
the francis town library
and um one of the things i thought was
really creative was last week we decided
to have kind of a
covet clinic um basically how not really
a clinic but
helping individuals setting up an
appointment to come in
and to try to sign up for the covert
vaccine online
last week on friday for the 65 and older
people
and that was really really well reserved
i'm
very well attended you know one by one
by one and then the other thing we did
we've taken the time to just redo flaws
and
touch up all kinds of painting and um
and to make the library look a little
spiffier
and um we've also um
it just seems like we've had more people
that have
had an interest in the library in the
library which has been great
in our children's um programs and our
children's librarian has said there's
been a huge increase because enough a
lot of the
children are at home doing remote
learning and therefore
and a lot of them have chosen to do home
school instead of doing
um you know public school education so
um many many mothers are saying we're
starting a unit on
you know snow or we're starting a unit
on this and so we've just been
our children's library has been getting
large quantities of those books together
for the different families who have been
doing that as well as
extending it with um projects that
kind of go with the um units that the
parents are doing with the students so
we've seen a real uptake in the use of
the library from
families points of view which has been
very very
encouraging for us yeah because those
they
hopefully will stick with you that's
what we're hoping
so jane from in walpole
library you mentioned a virtual bake
library bake off that you're planning
i want to hear about that yes okay um
so what we're doing is we're having
people
um bake a cake and decorate it and then
they're gonna take pictures of it
and send us the picture with a brief
description
so they do that the first two weeks of
february and then we're going to post
the photos online
on our website and we have a google form
and people can vote for
the most delicious looking cake the best
decorated cake
and the cake that makes them smile and
the winners will each win a cookbook
it's really cool i can't claim credit
for it totally because i've seen
other libraries that have done it too we
just had i hadn't
heard about that and they get to keep
their own cake too so
[Laughter]
okay bundles for the kids anybody else
before we want to move on to another
topic
looks like pat pat there was her what he
had though
maybe pat wilson is that the man
i'm from joseph patch library and warren
very
small library i have a question
um on the newsletter that you're putting
out we have a newsletter but
the fact that you've moved it into a
community newsletter is very interesting
and um how do you distribute that
um this is a constant comment platform
so it goes um we started with a very few
emails that we had permission to use
and then with word of mouth and putting
notes
in anything that was going out on
curbside delivery
it just has gone word of mouth it's it's
gone um
higher um we don't we did not have
when we autumn automated the collection
or whatever we didn't build the database
with all the
um emails and those emails we did have a
lot of emails that we did have we didn't
have something that said yes you can
email me
so we tried to take it very slowly
um and then building it up and then with
the
couple articles in the the shopper
it is has built it and people are the
first time it went out
people didn't click on it and i knew
for a fact that mine was going into
promotions
even though i i'm the chair of the
trustees but i couldn't find it in my
email because it was under promotions
so we had to talk to people about you
know making sure you somehow highlight
it so it comes into your
your normal email
and then we had issues with the phone
service because
they thought it was junk mail so they
were not delivering it to a lot of
people
so it was not the first month or two was
a little bit difficult
just things to watch out for
okay thank you i did um post i put in
the chat i put the link to the
newsletters
okay great and i don't want to remind
people that
it's easy to um when we stop i'll leave
the chat up
for a little bit so that you can copy it
and pay
and paste it um you know if there's
anything in there that you
that you want to see and remember
especially if anybody puts yep there's
the pillsbury free newsletter link in
there
and so um so yeah
i know just to changing gears a little
bit lori fisher
is here somewhere she's not on my first
screen but
she did sign in in the chat and she's
been at
the ala convention which just ended
yesterday
and any any news from the national
library world yeah there's always news
so let's uh um let me start with
um so at the state library we're still
doing
uh i think pretty well with the van
service um
you may have heard from some of your
library directors or staff that there
have been
um some cancellations of roots and
pickups
along the way and this isn't um due
really to
covid per se um we've had some staffing
shortages over the past couple weeks and
remember it's winter
there have been some weather issues
particularly back around christmas
and um there's also um you know people
taking vacation
and there's a hiring freeze so for the
state
so we're doing the best we can um i did
a ban route to the capital
uh region uh route uh two weeks ago
um so we're all pitching in to try to
help so um
you know just please be patient just
know that we're all we're all working as
hard as we can at the state library to
keep
all the roots running um at all times uh
when we cancel there is a really good
reason
and we're not trying to be difficult so
so there's that um the director's calls
are continuing
uh that i have changed up uh sort of the
uh what we're doing on a monthly basis
we're doing we're doing
one monthly director's call um at the
beginning of the month and then i'm
trying to do a professional development
uh
webinar presentation once a month too so
this past month in january adam
schleiger who's the director at sandown
library
he uh did his master's thesis on
communications in the healthcare field
which had a lot of parallels with
communications
ideas and the science of communication
in libraries so he did a really good
presentation on the 21st which
was recorded and i'm trying to find a
home for that recording so it can be
available for everyone
i'm really had some good points about
how to communicate among your various
stakeholders which includes you know
your board of selectmen your budget
committee
library staff library trustees so it's
probably going to be well worth you guys
taking a look at and once i find a home
for that which i'm hoping
i will soon then i will be able to send
a link out to the nhlta list
so upcoming professional development
webinars are there's going to be a
series of three of them
for from primex over february march and
april
on hr so that'll include things like
hiring practices
dealing with programs such as fnla and
ada
and employee evaluation so i would
encourage your this is mainly geared
toward
library directors um and library
managerial library staff so i would
encourage them to sign up i've sent
out the links to the nays list a couple
times now
um so and i will be soliciting questions
to
provide to carol kilmister who's the
primex representative who i'm sure some
of you know who she is
she's very good with hr questions um
sending questions to her prior to each
session so that she can
try to gear um the presentation to what
our various libraries need
and then after that i'm in the throes of
trying to figure out what that's going
to look like
for upcoming ones so there's that piece
of it
the other thing i wanted to talk about
today is is something that
um somebody else mentioned i believe it
was
mo baptiste mentioned about the um
having her library on friday have
computer reserve time so that people
could get internet
access and assistance on the vaccination
process
so uh the state uh the governor's office
put out a call to all state agencies to
recruit people from every agency every
agency had to
get have some people volunteer to help
staff the call center and because i
wanted to be able to get a good handle
on what's going on i'm one of the
volunteers
so i have been in the call center four
hours a day since friday
so last week so um i'll give you
just a quick overview um and then i'm
more than willing to answer questions
you have but my basic message
to all of you is that this is a golden
opportunity for libraries to be
very to show their value to their
communities by
helping this over 65 population
to do the registration process
so what happens and for those of you who
haven't
dealt with the vaccine piece yet it's a
two-step process
first you have to pre-register and that
determines your eligibility
and that is through the 211 call center
or you can go to the state's
website that provides you the online
ability to online register
so that's just registration to get to
schedule
so the second piece is through what's
called vams the vaccine administration
management software 35 she's voting
right now
are we okay so um
the next step is to schedule the
appointment which
is through vams which is the cdc's
vaccine administration management system
so your scheduling is not taking place
through
any kind of state maintained software
it's actually through
federal software through the cdc so it
it really is somewhat confusing
actually i'm gonna be honest it's more
than there are some just
general questions that have come in via
chats
uh while you all are responding uh there
are about 250
people attending today for those of you
that were asking
how many are on this webinar
and for those of you that are raising
your hand
um can you beverly marshall please
i can't call on you
thank you i think they are obviously
listening to something else
okay yeah i just muted her thank you for
that yeah
so um so in any case the this process
i'm going to be bluntly honest highly
confusing
um the communication has been abysmal
and uh we libraries right now could be
of great assistance in their communities
i can tell you that the biggest
questions i am
seeing over the past just two days
are uh seniors who are have
either no internet or very little tech
skills and they are trying to
do this whole thing online and they are
i spent 45 minutes on the phone
with a woman just trying to get her help
her to set
up a password for the scheduling
software so
she could get in to schedule her
appointment so
i guess my bottom line is i'm just
encouraging you
even if your library is closed to the
public there's no reason why your staff
at the library could not
put out uh even just an informational
thing
to the their community and there's been
some great graphics shared on the nays
list
about um you know the eligibility um
about what the process looks like um and
just at telling people that they can
call the library and maybe schedule an
appointment to talk to a librarian if
they're having trouble
because um you know it's it's really
tough to troubleshoot something over the
phone like that so if you
even if you do have your library open in
any capacity and can schedule
um computer sessions um for people to
come in
and get some of that one-on-one help
that's even better
so the volume is absolutely huge
and i am scheduled to do four hours a
day for the next
two weeks on this call center okay and
there is
it's it's um frankly it's overwhelming
so um but i'm happy to answer any
questions you have on the vaccine
process
as it's appropriate for libraries if you
have individual questions you can always
reach out to me by email i'll put my
email in the chat
hopefully i'll be able to help you or
direct you to where you need to go
um and i guess i think that's uh
midwinter that was the last thing
so yes i just got done attending ala
midwinter and
i'm just for those of you that don't
know i am the
new hampshire library association
chapter counselor so i
am on the governing body of ala i'm also
a member of policy corps
um the committee on legislation and the
committee on library advocacy and i'm
actually the new member on
the advocacy committee for united for
libraries which is the trustees arm
for the national association so um i
think one of the biggest things that
came
two of the biggest things that came out
of the council stuff
um was that there was a resolution that
was created by the committee on
legislation that i'm a member of um that
affirms broadband as a human right
and that is going to start moving um
some influence forward to get some
federal legislation for
more broadband initiatives the second
one
is somebody else talking or am i
okay no i think you're good okay um the
second piece
is there was a resolution put forward
because some ala members really felt
they wanted ala to push for library
workers to be prioritized for vaccines
i worked with the committee on
legislation to
drastically amend that resolution which
did carry
because i think you all may understand
and this is why i'm mentioning this
going asking the cdc to amend their
guidelines
is going to do nothing to get library
workers the vaccine
the cdc makes whatever guidelines they
want and then the states can do whatever
they want
case in point new hampshire cdc
says that teachers and educators should
be in the level one
priority groups in new hampshire they
are not
nea new hampshire has been lobbying
unsuccessfully so far
to be put into level one to get the
vaccine
so i'm just pointing out and there are
other states that have put
educators into level one for vaccine
priority
but it's up to the states so vaccine
distribution is a local and state issue
so it
needs local and state advocacy so
the bottom line is the resolution was
amended to basically acknowledge that
um and to affirm also that library
workers do have a right to a safer work
environment
and that's that's a truth universally
acknowledged does that translate into
some kind of action step to get
library workers the vaccine quicker no
it's not going to or else we're going to
be shooting ourselves in the foot if we
try to
uh try to lobby any or or try to
influence any
federal agencies to do that it's going
to be a lost cause
so i think those are the two main things
from midwinter i wanted to mention
because you might start hearing about it
i have had a handful of emails from
library directors asking about
prioritizing library workers and new
hampshire's vaccine
you know eligibility um and i have put
that to
the nha la leadership president yvette
kauser who's out of merrimack and past
president amy lapin out of lebanon
um and i know we're gonna have a further
discussion but um
you know there's there this is fraught
because as you know new hampshire is
local control
so um i think we we'd be doing ourselves
a disservice if we really made that
um tried to make that into a big issue
and it would
it would be bad for us in a perception
political perception
way for the future so i'm happy to
answer any questions you have
um so rick wood
rick wood you had you had had your hand
up did you have a question
i put it in the chat it's with lori with
your unique uh
experience of being on the front line
call center
uh you had mentioned there are a number
of good resources but from your
perspective it'd be nice
if you could share which resource or two
that you found the most helpful being in
that
real life experience uh that we can use
as a guideline
okay um as far as signing up um
you know the easiest the fastest way to
get an appointment is to do it all
online
we all know in this group but we all
know in this group
that that is a ridiculous thing to have
people do who are 65 and older
i mean see it really ridiculous um i
thought that when the governor did his
press conference and announced it
and and and then said probably the call
center at 2-1-1 will be able to take
registrations by phone and that's why
they did the turnaround and they asked
all the state agencies to contribute
people because they realized oh
crap there's going to be a lot of people
who aren't going to be able to do it
online and they're going to be calling
so um resources as far as information
bobby has sent
a bunch of things to the nays list and
what i can do is i can uh forward them
bobby slosar is our technology resources
librarian she is also doing call center
time
um and she has been putting together
stuff from the tech end to be aware of
so
i can forward those emails to the nhlta
list to share with you
um there's also been one or two graphics
that have been shared uh by
librarians that they're using on their
social media sites to
promote the idea that um you know here's
how you go about
doing an online registration and if you
need help
call the library if you have questions
and they can try to help you
so well well my question is more in mind
of the staff
helping you know we i've gone through
the procedure and i've seen the
procedures and
for a tech savvy person to your point
you can follow them
yeah but they're not easy but from a
staff but from a staff standpoint i
don't want to frustrate the staff
without having some good direction and
guidelines if there are such things that
are even available
oh i mean this is burt saul
just a quick interruption it would seem
that
trustees well this may be inappropriate
trustees but those of us who are
of it the age that we've had to register
and we've gone through this process
might be good resources to
help as well i appreciate we're not
staff
members but having gone through the
process and hit the
browser requirements and this
requirement and the vans this and the
vans that
i've actually been through it and it's
hard for a younger person who hasn't
actually
suffered through the process to
to uh consult
it can be i think one of the biggest
things is
that um it can be frustrating to do tech
help over the phone but i do think there
are qualified
library staff people across the state in
various libraries who can do that
and who have the patience to walk
people through bobby did share and this
is one of the things i'll share she
shared some screenshots
uh from the process so that you can sort
of see
what the person is probably seeing on
either their phone
or their their laptop um we finally
we finally got today and now what is
today today is wednesday and we started
this on
friday being in the call center we
finally got screenshots today
in our resource links through teams
we didn't get a teams group for the
state employees doing this until
yesterday
right so it's been raw it's been
honestly it's been really rough
so um like i said i think the resources
that
i can send to you all that would be the
most useful right now and then we can
continue to update and send things is
things that bobby has put out to the
nays list already we've we've been
dealing with some librarians who are
interested in having their library
um take a more active part in their
community with helping
do i think that having some kind of
in-person
you know computer time with the
potential for troubleshooting help
uh is better than over the phone oh god
yes
um but if your library is not in a
position to do that
the next best thing is just to be
available even
to talk to someone on the phone so they
can tell you where they're at
in the process and with bobby's the
information she's put out and
information that i'm going to continue
to put out
they there may be some troubleshooting
that can be done there that will save
them an hour and a half
wait on the 211 line right the better
screenshots are
i'm really glad to hear that because
when i registered on the 23rd
there was almost a conical thing on the
either you know with uh you know black
magic marker crossing out
various things with arrows it was a sort
of reminder of well i
won't say what it's a reminder of um
much
much glad very glad better screenshots
that should really help
yeah but and just on a minor note
when i finished signing up i was given a
street address
without any indication of where that
street address sent to me
and when i went to google maps there was
nothing there
i found out later on that it was a
parking lot at an athletic field where
they're going to do it
without knowing that it would have been
a very odd situation and didn't know
what i was looking for so
yeah the analogy that i have heard in
these teams meetings and remember
i am not part of the decision-making
team for any of this
um um is that they are building the
plane as they are flying it
that was the analogy that was used so um
i
i agree with you there have also been
instances where there has been
a vaccination location that um people
have been scheduled to
and then they are canceled absolutely
and then today i just heard
that there um on a on a call i j i got
on for five minutes before this call
because i was on another call previous
to that
but i wanted to get in on this training
call to see if there's any major new
developments and one of them is that
um there's been a glitch in the bam
system today and some people have
received cancellation emails
that are not true and you go if they log
back into their van's
account and they see that their
appointment is still intact
it is still intact so it's it's little
things like that
that um are making it really difficult
to have the good communication and it's
just
it's not coming from the top down it's
like that like i said they're building
the plane as their
as we're flying it so i apologize that i
can't
help more but bobby and i are trying to
assemble information
as quickly and as as comprehensively as
we can so that
if libraries do want to help with this
process
they would have some resources to go to
i have referred to there was one email
by the librarian from kensington
she sent when she did her form i think
it was for her mother and she sent some
pointers for the bams
um piece of it and how for those of you
who have done it when you get to the
ethnicity how you can't just check on
the ethnicity
you have to then click the arrow to move
it over to the right
that was super helpful to know that i
have pulled her email up i don't know
how many times to go through that and
that's nothing that the state gave me as
a resource
that's from one of our librarians so
i'd like to say one thing that
apparently is a problem is that
if you don't have a 603 area code on
your cell phone
[Music]
you know if you put your phone number in
and it's you know
my husband has a four seven five one for
some reason
you know anyway he when he signs up he
needs to use our
you know my phone number because it's
603.
is that on the registration piece of it
or on the bam's side of it
i think it must be the registration part
okay that would make sense because
that's a new hampshire
generated form and and registration
system
so but i do i do know people who you
know have moved into the area
and they still have their dc area cell
phone
and that is their that's their phone i
mean you know so it's
that could be another issue yes john
yeah i think it was the uh noontime wmur
or maybe this morning said something
that if you're registering
uh multiple people uh if you do it you
can't do it from the same email
yeah you have to use a different email
account that is correct
the the set van the registration system
will only take
one email um that covers and when you
register what we've been doing
is if you have a spouse for example who
is also
over 65 now they have to still be
eligible it can't be i've i've had calls
from people who where either the husband
or wife is over 65 and then their spouse
is younger than 65 but
and they want to register together i'm
like no you can't because if you're
it's different criteria over 65 is 1b
1c is 65 and younger have to have two
or more pre-existing conditions that has
to go through doctor's office
that's how that works right now and they
will have separate appointments there's
no way
on god's green earth that they are going
to ever have the same appointment for a
vaccination
because of that so getting people to
understand that
has been very challenging to say the
least
i do want to answer i want to speak to
um leslie put in the chat
the governor said that registering for
second doses will happen through a
separate sign up that is true leslie and
the criteria is you have to have your
first vaccination
done before you will receive an email or
a phone call to schedule your second one
so there is no way to sign up for your
first
your second dose until after you get
your first one
glory marcia here um i heard yesterday
that someone who had gotten their shot
was not able to register for their
second they i mean they had the
information
but that all the slots are full have you
heard anything about that
it's not that slots are full it's that
that
you have to understand that again
building the plane as we're flying it
there this is you know a certain
number of days away and we don't know
how much vaccine we're going
to have we're guessing you know it's
been really haphazard
how much how much vaccine we're actually
going to get at a certain time
that's been the main problem is trying
to predict that now we're all hoping
that
with the new administration in
washington that that
they are from what i understand and what
i heard today on an ala policy corps
uh call is that they are working very
that by demonstrations working very hard
on streamlining that a national vaccine
distribution plan so that it's it's more
reliable and more consistent
in how much is delivered and when to
each state
so but that's in process and so second
doses if you even if you get your first
dose today
you're not eligible to get your second
dose until probably about 30
plus days from there um so
yeah you know that's that's a whole
different animal
second dose oh
i know i'm sorry i don't mean to be a
downer to everybody but i did want to
mention that you know this is something
that
your libraries will probably be hearing
about you you will probably hear
from frustrated patrons but it's also i
would like you to just look at it as an
opportunity if
you have the staff with the skill set
and the desire to
um show library value in your community
to try to
help those in your community that are
trying to register for the vaccine
and get it right now yeah that's that's
a really good
point especially as we're going into
budget you know budget hearings and
budget season right now it never hurts
to have to
have support um well thank thank you for
that
synopsis i didn't really mean for this
to turn into
a vaccine thing but so many of us are in
the right age
group anyway for the to start
signing up as a friday and thank you for
manning the call center um i'm sure
that's
rewarding but frustrating it is and i
appreciate you saying that katrinka
because it is
and um people mean well but there are a
lot of frustrated and scared people out
there right now and um
i just my goal and bobby's goal is to
come away with information we can share
with our library community to try to
help
them help other people in their
community directly as well
so please read i'll put my email in the
chat anyone can reach out to me with
questions you may have no question is
stupid
no because this hot this process is nuts
so you know please feel free to
communicate with me i will try to help
you as best i can
laurie this is burt's all can i ask a
different uh an ala question
sure thing and it's hopefully could
drink it'll keep us on track it's
related to
uh ala finances any uh
up-to-date news on on that or should i
just read my
all the stuff i'm getting from ala and
then well i'll be sending out my ala
counselor report
uh by early next week and i'll have
links to the various documents um
long story short um tracy hall who is
the current
president of ala has done some major
work on trying to
she's created a five-year pivot strategy
really made a good
plan for revenue enhancement
and also that one of the biggest
struggles they've had with
the accounting and finance processes
they outsourced their
um accounting a lot of their accounting
stuff to a firm overseas which when
coveted hit
they could not they weren't getting
reports at all
so they really had no official tally for
where they
were that is turning around they are in
the process of getting out of that
contract
i was pleased with maggie farrell the
ala treasurer's report on how we're
doing
and where we're going into from 2021 and
looking towards fiscal year 2022
but the details will be in my report
which i will share with the nhlta list
so thank you for that question i
appreciate it
thank you i just want to say that susan
gilbert put in the comments that laurie
fisher is a new hampshire
treasurer so well thank you susan
your treasure too all of our library
directors and library trustees are
because
you guys are what keeps your communities
informed and and you're all here trying
to do this
in a way that's going to benefit the
people that you live with
and interact with so i applaud all of
you because that's
that's just awesome thank you um
we are starting to wind down as we you
know i mean i'm happy to go we don't
have to stop right at three o'clock
you know but i realize that some people
might have places to go
things to do phone calls to answer and
um is there any other subjects that
anybody wanted to talk about today
anybody having budget crisis
or i don't know problems we started off
on a positive note so i'm happy to if
anybody has any questions that
maybe we could answer now or at a later
time
yes terry um we've started looking at
the social media
uh policy and i was wondering if anybody
had anything good out there yet
um we have two kind of questions one we
know
our formal meetings for the trustees we
have
have to let people in because they're
open meetings
yep we got into a big discussion we
haven't decided what we're doing at what
if we have a program
can we restrict i mean with a if we have
pre-registration we'd obviously know
who's coming in
so i think that's the best way but what
if we just said
put out a newsletter here's our link to
our meeting
and it's a well we do it all the time
for the story time
and people start showing up in the
waiting room that obviously aren't from
town or you know what's the gray area we
might be getting into there
i don't know if anybody has been looking
at that or not
um terry i think that is a good question
honestly for new hampshire municipal
association
i'm going to put in the chat the email
for on their legal team
it's legal inquiries at nhmmuniciple.org
their attorneys will give you um some
guidance on that i i think
you're going to if you if it's for a
public meeting i don't think you can
necessarily not let anybody in
you know yeah i don't think you can
cherry pick in other words so
um but i would confirm with them on how
to move forward with that because
if you're talking about a public body
meeting they're the ones that would have
the best information
yeah i would i would agree if it's your
regular trustee meeting it's open to the
public
and you know there you know whoever
the public is i do know our library has
started
on their adult programming to do
pre-registration
um and i you know i don't know if we've
had any problems with people
coming in but just even to get an idea
of how many people would be there
so right you know i don't think we've
had any problems with story time that i
that i've heard of
for our official meetings we read the
preamble i don't know if you
preamble and that gives us the
opportunity if someone
is disruptive to kick them out
but we have to let them in right um
yeah it's it's um it's i think my issue
more is on with the
public meetings i'm not the the
programming type meetings
you know whatever so i will yeah i'll
put something in if i hear anything i'll
share it um
just have a quick question because i am
actually working
on a social media policy for the library
for our library
and i'd be really interested in seeing
if anyone has
one that they feel is a pretty good
pretty thorough
um uh so i'm i'm happy to put my
email in the chat if you have something
rosemary i i have a bunch of policies
that i've solicited from
library directors to share it'll go um
up on the nhla website
i'm hoping to have them up by the end of
the day friday
um it's just my i start a lot of stuff
on my list got bumped
when i started the call center thing so
um but he's hearing you say that um i
did collect a bunch of policies so
i'll make sure to share that link when
those are up on the on the nhlta list
okay thank you just know what's coming
thank you
sleeping these days
um you know i am uh but i don't have
much of a social life
well actually i think most of us don't
have much of a social life right
you know the these these days anyway
um is there anything anything else
anybody wants to
mention ask questions um
get the wonderful lori fisher to help
you with and
yes marcia atd or no you're reading
no silence
well one of the having trouble getting
unmuted i was going to respond to terry
on her thing about the programs here in
greenland
uh we have posted a lot of our
adult programs on our website
for the library and we have been our
life our director has been surprised
at how often we've had few
residents of the community
tune in for a program but people
from out of state out of community and
they're
we haven't had anything disruptive with
that they've just been people who
must have been surfing uh and and found
our program and tuned in
so it really it's expanded our outreach
whether it meant to or not
oh so we're back to our silver lining
perhaps
that well one thing i would like to talk
just
take a word to put in an ad for the few
minutes we have before three o'clock
is that um this year the spring
conference
is going to be virtual um it's
we announced it in the newsletter if you
thought it's going to be may 12th
and may 13th um we're just kind of
spreading it out
so that you will have to make some
choices between programs but
not too many and we're trying to keep it
relatively easy on
us too it will be a platform
it kind of works with zoom a little bit
but it's not zoom
and but it's similar um
and i think we're getting to a pretty
good lineup lori
fisher will be doing a couple of
programs he will be
talking this came as a request from
somebody one of our trustees in
rochester we will be doing
a round table on city libraries because
you're all so different and hopefully
lori will be able to help you with your
questions and
any problems i nothing i know about
because i'm in a very small town
and we'll have a talk on the rsas
and julie perrin who's one of our other
stars
we'll be talking about future proofing
your library
and the keynote speaker as a gentleman
the motivational speaker do
i'm probably going to mispronounce this
deo moano
who will talk be talking about diversity
in new hampshire libraries
and um oh gosh what else
the goffstown library will be talking
about their commute courageous community
conversations that they didn't get to
talk about last year we
bringing them back there will be a
social media
workshop and that might be
a good time for some questions on social
media
there'll be a round table on small
libraries uh exeter library will be
talking about
its building program which will be
hopefully finishing up in in may there
and that'll be broadcast
live from the exeter library um
anyway it's shaping up to be a really
good conference
and watch your emails in our website and
we'll send out a snail mail brochure
with all the information and
registration information
probably towards the end of the month so
and it'll be cheaper than usual because
we're not doing any food
or yeah you're responsible for your own
lunch and breaks
but so before we go
um are there any other comments
questions
concerns success stories failures
katrina betty betty yellen brock
okay betty hi i'm you on me
[Music]
i'm asked there you go okay hi betty
i had a personal question uh for laurie
do i approach her later or now
it's about the kovid vaccine
uh betty why don't you give me shoot me
an email or i will also
i'll put my email and my phone number in
the chat again just so that you have it
you can either call me or you can
um email me email is probably better um
because
it's uh calling me i'm i'm like on the
phone for four hours straight a day
so it's gonna be harder to get through
thanks
appreciate it
so anything else anybody else
um hi i heard a
professor from uconn say yesterday
stay positive test negative
so i thought that might be a good way to
sum up what we're talking about
nice great well we've had we've had a
lot of good positive comments at the
beginning and i'm really glad i was
writing them down
i think there was you know there are
some really good things and shows that
you know it's not all doom and gloom um
hopefully this summer we'll start you
know getting back to more in-person
things but we'll
just take take it as it comes
to quote a former president it is what
it is
[Laughter]
sorry
um so yeah and as always
you can if you have any questions or any
problems
uh anything that nhlta can help with you
can email us
we have the contact form on our website
we try to keep it up to date when laurie
puts links on
nhla we try to put them you know connect
to all on nhlta
so that we're keeping everybody as
connected as possible and with the
current information
so and
one minute left till three last chance
we didn't talk about budgets that's a
good thing
hi sandy from the wolfeboro public
library i just wanted to tell john i
like his changing backgrounds
with the frame
we need the one with the caribbean
background to have some
nice uh you know island so he's gonna do
it
i don't know if i have it but at least
bernie's
bernie's not showing up with his mittens
[Laughter]
i had a great time with those memes i
just have to say i think every single
one of my friends and my family got like
i don't know eight to ten memes
through that whole thing and they're
still coming which is really crazy
but anyways it was a fun thing that came
out of the whole inauguration
so now you can tell my sense of humor
no i've got i've got one a picture of
bernie you know
you can go to a website and type in your
address and i've got them sitting on
the corner waiting for a bus in front of
my house pretty much
but anyway yeah that yeah that was a lot
of fun but i want to see him going down
on the titanic and then
no more but i haven't seen that one yet
but anyway i on this note i do want to
thank you all for
joining us um these these are fun
and it's good to see to see people
and even if i don't get a chance to say
hi to everybody
individually or if you
any questions that didn't get answered
just email us through the contact or
are you all the trustees the board
members
our emails are listed in the newsletter
and you can just
shoot us questions happy to try to
answer things or contact the people
who do have the answers so we'll be
scheduling more of these
um not not too often because we have to
go into recovery mode and
lori's on the phone four hours a day so
i don't know when you sleep my dear
but anyway so thank you for being here
thank you katrinka we'll see you next
time
okay let's stop the recording