How to Keep Libraries ALIVE: 5 URGENT Strategies

Is this on? You can hear me? Alright, we gotta start with a selfie, right? Of course. Let's, let's get everybody hands up, both hands up like this, hands up high. Yeah, 1, 2, 3. Nice. Thank you guys, I love it. Cool, it's an honor to be here with you guys today. I've met a lot of people over the past couple days, and I love your mission, I love what you're all about. Today I'm going to talk about how to be relevant to the selfie generation. When I think about libraries and when I ask my friends about libraries, a lot of times this is their reaction. People, people are bored. People don't think libraries are relevant. Libraries are not a part of the daily fabric like they used to be. And I think that's kind of sad. I think that's kind of sad considering how important historically libraries have been and how you guys have reached to hundreds of millions of people. Oh, I need my clicker. That slide. There we go. I want you to be great. I was looking up famous libraries on Google when I was at home preparing for this presentation, and the one library that kept coming up over and over and over and over again was the Great Library of Alexandria. And I agree, it's a great library. I think we can learn a lot from their success. I'll touch on them a lot in this presentation. But I want you guys to be great. I found it kind of sad that there was no other library that was consistently referred to as a great library, as a model library. And my goal for you guys is that in 1,000 years people are still talking about how great a library you built. I want your library to stand the test of time and be a model for other libraries to look up to. And so hopefully I'll give you some of the tools today to help you do that. But first I want to tell you a story. This is me when I was in grade school. I had a lot more hair. And this is my librarian, Mrs. Donnelly. And anytime I had a problem, anytime I was researching a project, I would go to Mrs. Donnelly and she would give me the knowledge that I needed to finish my project. Right? I would walk into this library and get thousands of books and I didn't know where to start. And I would talk to Mrs. Donnelly and she would guide me to the knowledge that I needed. As I got to high school, Encarta came around. Encarta was the big thing, if you guys remember Encarta. And when I first heard about Encarta, it was from Mrs. Donnelly. And I would go in with a problem, Mrs. Donnelly would load up the Encarta and help me find the knowledge that I needed. When I graduated, internet came around. And I went to Mrs. Donnelly and she didn't know how to use the internet. And that was a problem because now my sources of knowledge expanded infinitely almost, and I didn't have a guide to help me. So because Mrs. Donnelly didn't know how to use the internet, I had to figure it out for myself. And this is where Mrs. Donnelly and the librarian's role started to lose relevance and value. These are stats that you probably already know, but a lot of the knowledge search now starts with a search engine, right? 83% of new searches start from high school students, or sorry, from teenagers with a Google search, and less than 1% start on the library's website. And as a result, libraries are getting funding cuts. Now this is American data. I'm assuming that the data is kind of similar for where you guys are at, but 23 states recently cut budget in the United States, and another 40% are expecting more cuts. And the challenge is, as libraries have been so attached to books and how they haven't kept up enough with the growth in knowledge, they become less relevant, and because you're less relevant, you're not getting as much funding as you were before. And my goal, I want to, I want to change this. It's gone as far as some people expecting libraries to be extinct. People are predicting that in 10 to 20 years there won't be a library anymore. And I think that's really sad. But I'm optimistic. I think there's a bright, bright future for libraries. We just have to figure out how to keep calm and stay relevant. And I'm going to give you the tools, hopefully, today to help you do that. For me, it starts with thinking about what a library is, and I always look back to the origin, because words to me are important. And if you look at the definition of library, It always comes back. Look at the root origin. It always comes back to books somehow, in whatever language, at least that I saw. It always relates to books somehow. And that's a problem because libraries aren't just about books. And I know a lot of you get that and you're making changes, but the changes aren't happening fast enough. They're not radical enough. And as long as we hitch our wagon to books then you may end up going extinct. I would redefine it as a house of knowledge. Libraries are a house of knowledge, and I would love for a library to be so bold as to even change their name, recognizing that the word itself relates to books, and we are not just about books anymore. We're a house of knowledge, and in the past, books were knowledge. That's how we got our knowledge. And as we've evolved, The longer you tie yourself just to books, then the less relevant you're going to be because our knowledge scape is increasing. And books will always be a part of it. They will always be a part of it, but it's not the only part anymore. So I'm going to assume now that we're on board with this mission of being a house of knowledge. And that changes decisions that you make. It changes how you act, it changes how you lead your team, it changes strategy for your organization. I'm going to give you 5 ways to stay more relevant as a house of knowledge instead of a house of books. So if I'm a house of knowledge, what I want to do? The first thing I want to do is provide access to the knowledge. And libraries typically have been great at that. They had books, you come in, you find access to the knowledge. Now the knowledge is online, you want to provide access online. And most libraries have internet, I think that's pretty basic now, there's Wi-Fi, but it's not great Wi-Fi. It's not great internet. You know, if I had to come to a city and I really needed to get online for a presentation or to learn something, my first choice wouldn't be a library. I would go to Starbucks. I would go to McDonald's. At least from the libraries that I've been to, McDonald's and Starbucks have faster Wi-Fi. McDonald's and Starbucks give me faster access to knowledge. Than the house of knowledge? Why can't libraries have the fastest internet in the city? If I was running a library, that would be one of my top priorities. The fastest internet anywhere in the city is at a library. Come get rapid access to the knowledge that you're looking for. Next is guide them to the knowledge. So we're a house of knowledge. We need to guide people to the knowledge, just like Mrs. Donnelly guided me to knowledge when I was in school. And I think as our options have expanded, the need for a guide has only grown more important, right? When I went into the library, there was only 1,000 books. Now there's billions of pieces of information out there. And the librarian helps provide the context. So we need guides more than ever. The role of the librarian is only growing in importance because people have information overload. We need knowledge, we need somebody to help us, guide us to the knowledge. But you have to have the context. You have to know the knowledge to be able to take me to the knowledge. I think that's part of the challenge is a lot of librarians now don't have the relevant knowledge anymore to keep me up to date. It's also expanding the definition of what knowledge is and what services we offer as libraries. This is a picture from a Toronto library where they installed a green screen room for people to come in and film videos. I don't know if you guys have green screens, or I know some of you are slowly changing and evolving. Some libraries are offering 3D printing and are part of the maker movement. Some libraries allow you to take out musical instruments, allow you to take out technology to loan. And it's expanding our definition, right? Now that we're a house of knowledge, we're not a house of books, what does knowledge consist of and how can we be a resource to the people in our community? Number 3 is we want to bring people to us. When I go to a Starbucks— talking about Starbucks a lot today, I just finished a Starbucks— you go to Starbucks in any city, what do you see? I just did this in fact. There's a Starbucks just down the road here. I grabbed a cappuccino. What do you see? You see people studying. Right? You see people studying, you see people working, you see people learning. Why are they not in the library? Why are they here? And part of it is because Starbucks creates a great environment, right? Starbucks has music playing, Starbucks sells you coffee, sells you food, gives you a place to work, lets you plug in. I think this is a missed opportunity for a lot of libraries because, and I know this is changing for a lot of libraries now but too slowly, there's still the perception that in a library "Shh, you're in a library." Where does it say that to learn, there has to be quiet? How much learning have you guys done here today talking to each other in rooms and over dinner last night? Knowledge happens from connecting with people. And yes, there's definitely a place for quiet independent study, and that will never go away. But the opportunity to connect with others, and the reason why people are going to Starbucks is because they want that environment. Why can't you play music in part of the library? Why can't you sell food and sell coffee and give people an environment that they want to work in? Starbucks is— half of their business model is created, in my opinion, because libraries couldn't keep up. This could be your business. How much billions of dollars does Starbucks make while your If you're worried about funding cuts, this could be an opportunity to revive the library and make it a home where people want to come to. TED Talks, another example. Oh, and just back, sorry, one more point on this slide. The Great Library of Alexandria used to have shared dining rooms, because they understood that people learn when they connect with each other, and they learn while they're eating. And somewhere along the lines we decided that that's not cool, that doesn't take place in the library. But the model is there, you just have to look at the greatest library of all time. TED Talks. The Library of Alexandria also used to have people come in and speak at their library, and they would pay a stipend for the speaker and the speaker's family to come and educate the people who were attending at the library. And that need still exists, but it's no longer happening at libraries. We're full of librarians here and we're not learning in the library. I want to have a space that I'm proud of, hosting events, bringing in thought leaders, and being that house of knowledge. So taking that shift from just being about books to radically changing and being about knowledge impacts a lot of decisions that you make as an organization. Number 4 is go to them. As a house of knowledge, you want to reach out and be part of the community. So here's an example with— out of the UK with mobile libraries. And I know all of you, or some of you, already have some of these initiatives happening. And it's a great idea to reach out in the community. This is a trend taking off in North America. I don't know if it's happening here, or maybe you guys started it. But people are taking a pole and putting it in their front lawn and building a box. And inside they're putting books. You guys have this? Yes, OK. There's a sign on it that says, "Take a book, leave a book." Why is this not being led by libraries? How many of you guys are actually a part of this movement? A couple of hands? I love it. Why can't I go to a library and buy— this is, you know, in my neighborhood, our library has nothing to do with these. And they should. Like, teach people how to build these things. Give them the map so they can then go to a local hardware store and buy the tools to make it. On your website, promote links to where people can go. Like, give them a map of all the different places that have these things, right? This is about spreading knowledge. You should love this. This should be a part of your model. The fact that people are doing things like this and that you're not involved shows that there is this need, and the trend has already started. You don't have to lead the trend, just be a part of it. Wherever people are, that's where you want to be. Wherever there's a group of people, that's where you want to be providing knowledge. There's a big rock concert happening, you know, Bruce Springsteen is coming to town. Why is there not a pop-up library there giving me knowledge about Bruce Springsteen and the history of rock and roll? There's a big football match. I didn't say soccer. I'm so used to saying soccer. It's good. Big football match. Madrid-Barcelona is playing. Why is there not a pop-up library at the stadium with the history of football and how Real Madrid came to be, right? Where the people are, that's where you want to be as a library. We're talking about selfies, selfie generation. You need to know about trending knowledge. You want to be leading that front and providing resources. People want to learn how to take selfies? Give them knowledge on how to take selfies. Teach people how to take a picture. Have resources around cryptography or link out to videos where people can learn. Will Smith, one of the defining actors of this generation, loves reading. When he won an award, he went up on stage and he said, "The keys of life," to teenagers, "keys to life are running and reading." And reading because any problem that you have has already been solved. It's in a book somewhere. Whatever problem you have in your life, somebody has figured it out and wrote a book about it. So go read. Then he goes on Oprah Winfrey's show and he brings his kids and he talks about reading. And his favorite book for his kids is "Rich Dad Poor Dad." He could go on Oprah and talk about anything. Talk about his movie, promote something that he has coming up. He chose to go on and talk about reading. This is somebody that today's generation looks up to. How many libraries Then create an exhibit around Will Smith where they're sharing that video clip, where I can walk in and see the Rich Dad Poor Dad series. Are you sharing it in your newsletter and on your website and on social media? Right, you've got somebody who's looked up to as an icon by this generation that could jump on board to help you in your cause. When new movies come out, when elections are happening, When sports teams are facing off against each other, you want to have relevant trending knowledge. This is why people think libraries are boring, because you're not part of trending conversations. So Star Wars comes out. When I walk into your library, do I see Star Wars displayed? Are there, are there books and links to videos and resources about Star Wars and science fiction books and astronomy and astrology? And some of you may be doing that, and that's amazing. All of you should be doing it. This is, this is the basis of kind of having trending knowledge. So I was supposed to talk about social media. We haven't gotten to it yet. Because social media for me is awareness. The challenge for me when I look at libraries is you're not providing enough value first. Because you could have all the greatest Twitter strategies in the world, but if you're not providing value, then the awareness is isn't helpful. So on the value side, I want you to provide access to knowledge, guide them to knowledge, bring the knowledge to them, go to them— sorry, bring people into you, go to them, and be a part of trending conversations. Now we can hit up awareness. So awareness 101, introduction to awareness, is wherever your clients are, wherever your market is, that's where you want to be. So if I was selling to redheaded women, Wherever this is, I want to be, right? So if you're selling to 13 to 17-year-olds or 17 to 35-year-olds, whatever your audience is, wherever they are, that's where you need to be. That's marketing and awareness 101. So where is today's generation? They're going online. You've probably seen the figures. This is the most recent one. Teenagers are spending 11.3 hours on YouTube per week versus 8.3 on TV. YouTube they feel good about watching, they feel is relevant to them, and those numbers are only getting worse. Those numbers are only skewing more and more and more online. So as a library who targets that generation, that's where you need to be as well. Here are 5 people. I want to know how many of you know all 5 of these people. Smosh, Fine Brothers, PewDiePie, Ryan, KSI. Do you know all 5 of these people? Can you tell me what they do? Have you seen them? Are their names familiar? No? Now, this is American data, so it's a little skewed, but the top 5 celebrities for teens are YouTubers. These 5 people are YouTubers. And they polled teenagers and said, "Who are the celebrities? Who do you like? Who is your favorite celebrity right now?" And the top 5 are YouTubers. They're not singers, they're not musicians, they're not actors, they're not athletes. They're YouTubers. Further down the list, Paul Walker, who's an actor, Jennifer Lawrence, Hunger Games actress, Katy Perry, international singer. But the top 5 are all YouTubers. And the fact that you wouldn't know who the YouTubers are shows kind of a lack of knowledge, right? Because these people can be great resources for you. And this is where the lack of respect might come in towards librarians, where somebody coming in and these are people that they look up to and you have no idea who they are, that creates a problem. There's a disconnect. They're going to feel like, well, this person can't help guide me to the knowledge because they don't know what I'm talking about. If we're in the business of knowledge and we need to market and get the attention of the youth, then you have to know what they care about. And a great way to model that is look at other businesses. I love modeling success. You know, the answers are already there. We've talked about the Great Library of Alexandria a lot. Look at a company that does well marketing and connecting with youth. You look at a company like Coca-Cola. Who's always trying to target the next young generation. You talk to people at Coca-Cola, they would know who these people are. They would be trying to work relations with these people to get the awareness out. And so that's going to be your business. If that's the industry that you're in, is connecting with young people, then you have to know these people too, and you have to know the things that your audience cares about, because until you do They just see you as a history resource, and that's not relevant as much anymore. Only having a part of the knowledge isn't great for an organization that's supposed to be the house of knowledge. Do you guys know who Xenodotus is? Anybody know Xenodotus? Anybody? Zenodotus was the first head librarian at the Great Library of Alexandria. And I struggled to find who are great librarians. Nobody came up. You know, are kids graduating high school and university saying, "I want to be a librarian"? I think they should be. You need to give them a reason to be. It's standing up and being proud of your profession. And this guy was the greatest librarian of all time. And one thing to understand about Xenodotus was that he wasn't just a manager. Yes, he managed a great library, but he was a thought leader. He was an expert. He was a writer. He was a speaker. He shared his powerful opinions. He was the first editor of Homer, and he was the editor for a bunch of other epic poets. When was the last time you saw a great book being either written or edited by a librarian? Maybe they exist, but I couldn't find them. And I think that's sad. And I think for the directors in this room, This is your job. It's not just about managing an organization. You need to be a thought leader. You have knowledge and opinions that can guide people, that can make changes to the city that you're in. And that's your responsibility to stand up and let your voice be heard. And if we're redefining what a library is to be a house of knowledge, then the house of knowledge needs a leader. Needs a leader to impart that knowledge and share that knowledge. And inspire others. At the Great Library of Alexandria, the other people who worked at the library besides Xenodotus, they were in charge of transcribing all the scrolls. Right, a scroll came in and they needed to make 1,000 copies of it. They were providing access to more people. That was the job of the people who worked in the library, and it's still relevant today. What you need to do is provide access in a way that today's generation understands. Because they're not going in and reading 500 pages of a book. So your job is to translate the text into things that they can understand. Translate it to Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat. And if something new comes up, shmoo tube, you put it on the shmoo tube too. That should be the job of the House of Knowledge. So here's some ways to do it. If you've got Hamlet, you're looking at putting it on Facebook. So on Facebook, we would have a picture, and then we would have, you know, make it relevant. So tie it into current events. Maybe there's something from Hamlet that can be relevant to the US presidential election right now. Tie those stories together. Give me long-form content. Give me 5 points of What lessons Donald Trump could learn from Hamlet and share it. Now we're posting valuable content because most people, what they put on Facebook is they put in their hours of operation or they put in, "We're closed tomorrow," right? Social conversations are about conversations. It's about something that people would want to share. Is anybody going to share that your library is closed tomorrow? Is anybody going to go talk to their friends, "Hey, I heard the library's closed tomorrow." I'm going to eat a lot of prawns tomorrow. Right? It's not going to happen. But lessons that Donald Trump could learn from Hamlet, now you're sparking conversation. So the stuff that you post on social, you want it to spark conversation. It's just in micro formats. Twitter is even shorter. Twitter, you have a limited number of characters. It usually has some kind of link that you want to include. So a quick headline and a link off to somewhere else. YouTube, we're making videos. So I would love to see you guys as directors coming up and sharing your opinions on the election. Tell me something that I can learn from. You are a thought leader. You're shaping the fabric of this city for decades to come. Embrace that and give me your thoughts. Or you have students come on and share their opinions on how Hamilton is relevant to their daily lives. Right? Content that makes me think. That's what you want to post. Instagram, we're going to hear a lot more from. Felipe went somewhere, but we're going to learn a lot more from him on Instagram. Picture-based, so you have a picture with— you can put a headline on the picture and you use a bunch of hashtags to help give it exposure, but I want the picture to make me think. And Snapchat, the latest darling, the newest thing to come out, is all about super short videos. 5 to 10 second videos. Really rock. Cell phone, start recording some videos. And again, give your 10 second opinion on how Hamlet is relevant to something happening in society right now. That's your job. So I'm going to give you some 5 examples using real libraries and what they're doing. So first thing you want to do is express yourself. And this is back to the Xanadotas idea. You want to share your expertise. You want to share your opinions, but it doesn't only have to be the librarian head. It could also be the people who work at the library, people in charge of social media campaigns. So this is from the Toronto Public Library. That's where I'm from, Toronto, Canada. And they put a quote of Sigmund Freud, and they say, "Not everything Sigmund Freud hashtag said still holds true today, but he was right about cats, and time spent with cats is never wasted." And a picture of a cat. And this got 24 retweets and 21 likes, and it's fun. It doesn't always have to be serious. I think that's the image a lot of libraries is that it's super serious and boring. It can be fun. Have some fun with it. You guys have personalities. Express it. Let it get out there. This is Molly Raphael, who's from the American Library Association. They created a YouTube series on empowering diverse voices. And this should be you, right? This is the leader. This is Xanadotus. Getting on camera, sharing her opinions, bringing on experts, doing interviews, trying to impact change, trying to say something meaningful. And she has guests coming on talking about how to empower diverse voices. I'd love to see this kind of content coming out of libraries. This is Library of Congress. They made a lesson plan for To Kill a Mockingbird. So here you can get serious, right? They take a picture, they have a link to their lesson plan so people can learn about "how to teach To Kill a Mockingbird." 41 retweets, 33 likes. We're providing value. So that's express yourself. 2 is answer their questions. And this is something I think that librarians are naturally good at, right? Like people come in and they ask you a question, you answer it. That's what librarians are fantastic at. So here's an example from Santa Barbara City College Library where saying, hey, if you need help with finding the proper citation or sources for research, come check out our mobile librarian. And I tried to search and search and search for other examples, and I couldn't find them. This is sad because the people who are visiting your library are searching for knowledge. They have questions that they need answers to, and you as the guide are not providing a way for them to ask questions apart from coming into the library. And the, the Q&A doesn't only have to be around How to do a citation, how to find references, right? If you're attached to university, you have students coming in and they're wondering, how do I pick my major? My parents want me to do accounting, but I want to go into psychology. How do I pick? You are the guide to knowledge. What resources can you give them? What texts can you pull from? What videos have you seen or stories can you tell them to help them make that really important decision? I see that as your role as a librarian, as the guide. So here's an example from the business world. Gary Vaynerchuk, he's got a show, AskGaryVee. If you're into social media, he's a good guy to look at and follow. He does a show once to a couple times a week called the AskGaryVee Show, and he just sits at his desk and answers 5 questions about business, and he gets 30,000 to 70,000 views on each video. Just him sitting at a desk, answering questions from people who need help. This could be you. I'd love to see an Ask a Librarian series where you're giving them life knowledge to help them along their path. Next is involve the crowd. You know, you have talented people around you who are part of the culture and the fabric of your library that you could put pull inspiration from. So here's an example from Brooklyn Museum where they did a crowd-curated exhibition where if we're saying, hey, we're going to put trending stuff up front, we're going to do Will Smith, or we're going to do Star Wars, we're going to do something else, put out a poll on social media. Ask them what they want to see next. Put out a Twitter poll or Facebook poll or make a YouTube video and ask them to leave comments below. Get them involved. And whoever the winner is, they're going to want to go and look at what you did with it. Star Wars, they're going to come into the library and see what you created. So you want to use your audience to help you build something amazing. I was just talking with Fiona outside. Where's Fiona? She's somewhere here. She was sharing an example of this museum that she follows on Twitter, and they were looking for people who were seniors to share their story before they passed on, have this archive. And she volunteered her I want to say grandfather. Grandfather? Grandfather. And he did the interview and he felt honored and treasured and he passed away last year. And now there's this living memory that anytime she wants to hear her father, her grandfather, sorry, she can go to the museum and listen to him. That came because of a Twitter post. Right? And she's following That museum, because they're not just posting our hours of operation and promotional stuff, they're trying to involve their audience with things. So that led to a powerful moment between Fiona, her grandfather, and the museum. And she can take her kids there, her grandkids there, and say, "Hey, this is your family member." And you want people to have that emotional connection to your library. So get them involved in things. Now that's deeply emotional and personal. You can also have fun with it, like picking what exhibits you're going to have coming up. The other benefit you have is a lot of the people connected to your libraries are really savvy with the technology. So here's an example from the J. Willard Marriott Library where they created a makerspace and they involved the students in making the videos. So you have students coming, filming it, students who are in the videos. And for those of you who are saying, hey, you know, I don't, I don't know how to make YouTube videos, or I don't have the resources to do it, You have the resources, you have the students. Get them involved. Right? Are there not students in film at your university who would love to be able to help make a project? Have your audience help you make the content. Number 4 is get personal. I didn't know much about Mrs. Donnelly. And it's kind of sad. And if you want to ask me why I accepted to come here, because I've been turning down most speaking engagements. And it was mostly because of Miss O'Donnell, because she had a huge impact on my life. And she passed away last year. And I didn't really get to know her that well. And she never told me why she became a librarian and what it meant to her and what her favorite books are and her story. And that's interesting. And as a, as a librarian, as a librarian, you want to tell your story. You want people to make an emotional connection to you. I'd love to see you share what your favorite sources of knowledge are and why you like them. And a lot of people think that, oh, it's not about me, I don't want to share my things. It's not about me, it's about the people, it's about the library. What's the value in telling my story? And that's a big fallacy, it's a big flaw in the thinking because when you can make things personal, you get people to care. If you go to a boring library website and you click on the About Us and there's boring pictures and a boring bio of everybody, nobody cares. That's why people like the YouTube stars, because they're personal. Now, you don't have to be silly and stupid, but tell me, go a little deeper, something, so it's not so incredibly boring. I was talking to Skip last night. I hope he doesn't mind I share this story. He doesn't know what I'm going to say. We'll see. At dinner, he was telling me that when he gets invited to do speaking engagements, he'll donate the speaking fee that he gets to a local family. In need. Not a charity, just a local family that he wants to help out. And he doesn't tell anybody about it, he doesn't tell the organization, he doesn't broadcast it. He just does it because he feels it's the right thing to do. Hope you don't mind me telling this story. And I told him, you gotta tell people. And it's not about, I'm Skip and I'm the greatest guy ever and I give money away, hurrah, look at me. It's about inspiring other people. If he made a video that shared that story, and 1,000 people watched that video, and 100 people, 10%, decide, "You know what? That's a really cool idea. I want to do something like that too. The next time I do a speaking gig, or the next computer I sell, the next paycheck that I make, I'm going to give it to a local family in need." That can inspire 100 people. Instead of Skip just helping one family, now he's helping 100 families. Just by telling that story, we get inspiration. You can tell the guys who are egotistical, right? You can tell the guys who are all about themselves, right? Donald Trump will get up on stage and tell us all about Donald Trump. But you can also tell your story in a way that's humble, in a way that is inspiring, in a way that is educating others. And part of being a leader is leading by example. How are you leading by example if I can't see what you're doing? So tell me. I want to know your stories. Be xenodotes. Lead by example and tell me your story. So here's an example from the American Library Association. You know, Erwin Magbanua works there in charge of programming, obviously is a big Star Wars fan. You know, I know something about him now. This is not a boring picture on a website where Erwin is just smiling there with the books behind him. You know, this is something personal and different. In Canada, our largest bookstore is Chapters Indigo, and it's run by Heather Reisman. And when you walk in, the first thing you'll see are Heather's picks. And she has her favorite books that are recommended by her. If you don't like them, you get a refund. Read through it, you don't like it, she'll refund your money. I would love to see this at a library. You know, give me the director of the library's favorite picks. Give me people who work at the library, what are their favorite picks? What are you reading right now? Skip reads a book a night, he told me. Imagine having the last 30 books that Skip has read as I walk in and I get to know Skip, even though I've never met him before as a student coming in, right? I've never met you before as a head librarian or director. But I feel a little bit of a personal connection. Share that. It ties people to you. You become much more than just an institution. And the fifth one here is trending conversations, being a part of what's happening right now. We talked about trending knowledge, this is the application. So this is the Texas libraries around Martin Luther King Day, big holiday in the U.S. They posted content related to Martin Luther King. When fair use was a big thing happening in the US, Boise Idaho went to Twitter and posted an exhibit. It's not an amazing exhibit, but they're doing something. They printed out flyers, they have some books and resources around fair use week. This one is my favorite, not just because it's Toronto, and it's baseball, which is my favorite sport. You might think it's boring, but I love baseball. The Blue Jays, the Toronto Blue Jays, were in the playoffs last year. First time in like 20 years, it was a huge deal for us. And we were up against the Kansas City Royals. And normally, a custom in North America is when two teams are fighting against each other in the playoffs, the mayors of the two cities would bet each other. "My team's going to win." "No, my team's going to win." And whoever loses has to wear the jersey, the shirt, of the other team. And it happens every year, and it's kind of boring, it's kind of part of the tradition now. What was interesting is that last year during the playoffs, the organization that stole the show, the organization everybody was talking about, was the library. The library? What? Libraries are cool? What's happening? And the Kansas City library went up against the Toronto library, and they had a book battle on Twitter. And they would send messages to each other using books. So this is after Toronto won. Kansas City won the first 2 games, Toronto won the 3rd game. After the 3rd game, tweeted this out: Amazing job, Blue Jays! That brings us to round 2 of #VokesFinePoetry. And they wrote: The comeback! Blue Jays blow out the Royals! Come together! And #ComeTogether was a hashtag that people were using. And look at it! 1,400 retweets, 954 likes. They were leading the— not just a part of the conversation, leading the conversation from a library. It was awesome, and it got people to care again about the Toronto Library. When these relevant things are happening, everybody is talking about in your city, you want to be at least a part of the conversation. I would love for you to do something creative and lead the conversation, but at least be a part of the conversation. So this happened in October, and this week I was reading an article in our local paper about the 5 biggest fights that Toronto has gotten into with other cities in our history. And in the top 5 was this, was a fight that the library started. It's still being talked about. And it's a library that led the way. And I'd love to see that vision coming from you guys as well, and putting your library on the map in your city. Here's an example from Ahn. Where's Ahn? Ahn, there he is. I spoke with Ahn on my YouTube channel. He has his mobile bus that goes around. This is what it looks like. And inside the bus is not books. Ana's taking a picture. Hold on that slide there for me, man. Thank you. No problem. There's no books inside the bus. And it's not that books are the enemy. Books are a part of knowledge. We're not trying to eradicate books. They're just part of the solution. So it teaches kids how to make things. And they go to different events trying to help provide access to knowledge. So when there's a concert happening, they'll show up at the concert and they'll have 3D-printed wooden CDs with music from the bands that are playing the concert on it. When there's a street festival, they'll show up to the street festival, right? Where the people are, that's where you want to be as a library. So that's the awareness side. Express yourself, answer their questions, involve the crowd, get personal. And be a part of trending conversations. You mix both of those together— people are taking pictures, I think you're going to get the slides, I'm pretty sure we're going to give you the slides, we are going to give you the slides, but it's still a good slide. Mix that together and you have a recipe for a library that I hope people will talk about for thousands of years. One last point I want to make on this is that you don't always have to create your own audience. I know a lot of folks are focusing on how can we build our Twitter following, how can How can we build our Facebook following? How can we get more awareness? You can partner up with others as well. So this is Marina Abramović, had an exhibition and partnered up with Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga was a fan, they made a video together, they're starring together, Lady Gaga's promoting her social channels. Lady Gaga is the queen of social media, tons of followers, and that gave a lot of attention awareness to what the artist was doing. You guys can do the same. There are people in your community, there are already people in the student population if you're connected to at university who are already doing big things on social media that you may not have even heard of, that are already big on YouTube and already are big on Vine and Instagram, that they would love the opportunity to give back to their community. There are people who have graduated from having gone to your library, right? If Mrs. Donnelly asked me to do something, I would have done it in a heartbeat. If that school came back and asked me to be a part of something they were doing, I would have gladly shared it. There are people who live in your city who would be happy to partner up with you. You know, we're here in Madrid. Whoever is from the Library of Madrid needs to find Lionel Messi and ask him what his favorite books are, what his favorite videos are, what his favorite knowledge sources are, and then create an exhibit around it and have him share it on social. You have people connected to you who want to help. You just have to reach out. So yes, we want to build our own networks up for sure, but you can also ally yourself with people who already have networks who are connected to you and feel warmly towards you who would want to share. The last point quickly I want to make is that a lot of people might be thinking, well, I love all these ideas, Evan, those are great, but we don't have the budget to do that. We can't afford to do any of these things, our budget's being cut. You had a slide saying our budgets are being cut, now you want us to make all these investments and do these things. I think it's an important mindset shift. In any leadership situation is that you accept responsibility. That you never make progress if you're just blaming other people, right? You blame the government for not having enough funding, you blame patrons for not having enough funding for you. As long as you place the blame on anybody else but yourself, you're never going to make progress. You blame your director of booking who doesn't give you the resources and the time to be able to do it. When I started in social media, Zero. I had zero dollars. I had zero investment. The banks didn't give me money. The government didn't give me money. Nobody gave me money. I just started. And if you look at the people who are big on social media, you look at how they started, it wasn't with a bunch of funding. It was from a passionate person who wanted to get started. And when I launch a project, I try to involve a team. I try to get people interested in it. And if I can't get them, I'll just start it. I'll be an army of one. I will create it because I want to create it, and it will become into existence. And that's what you need to do. And I get that the resources are limited, and I get that you want to be up here, right? You have this vision, vision for where you want to go, and right now you're here. And you can't get here without the resources, and I get that, and it's frustrating. But you can get here. You can do this on your own. You can go from here to here and prove that it works and get some momentum and then get more people behind you to help you slowly rise up. So JC Griffey is on here because he was recently voted as the number 1 librarian to follow on Twitter, and he's a librarian and he has his own Twitter account. He's not tweeting through the library, it's through his own account. And so if you're frustrated, stop blaming other people, start accepting responsibility, and start doing something. Failure is okay, but try and try and try and try again. And once you accept that responsibility, you're much more likely to succeed. I don't want people to be seeing libraries as boring. I don't want libraries to be forgotten. I don't want libraries to go extinct. I feel like Mrs. Donnelly, who helped me so much when I was younger and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, solved my problems, who was so helpful to me when I was younger, could still be just as helpful, if not more helpful, in today's information overload society. I want libraries to be great again. I want kids to grow up and say, "I want to be a librarian." I want your libraries to be remembered for thousands of years because the leadership and the vision that you created, maybe here tonight or maybe what's going to happen in the next year, I want that for you. I want to search great libraries and your name shows up consistently. And if you follow the recipes that I gave you, those 10 points, you'll get there. I believe.