0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to today's Infopeople webinar Facilitating civic Engagement with Pop-up Programming. Our presenters today are Amy Holcomb and Christine Goertz from Skokie Public Library, and I am now happy to turn the webinar over to Amy and Christine.
0:18
Hello. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Amy. Hi, this is Kristine and we're going to get right into it. So for today, we will share our starting premise and the background of our main civic engagement program. The civic lab will move into the current operations of the civic civic lab how we staff and logistical aspects of those events the types of different pop ups.
0:45
We do lessons learned and then we Plenty of time for questions and reflection.
0:53
So our starting premise is that libraries are not neutral we stand for information and this is a really important point that we share in the beginning of anything anytime. We talk about civic engagement at the library. So for us to think and civic engagement means that we're sharing reputable reputable resources.
1:15
There we go, and a wider range of perspectives on topics to help people become more informed and therefore like You take a neutral stance to us. That means you're being hands off. Our approach is not hands off but it is information centered not issue centered. So we share this disclaimer and it will set the tone for how we discussed civic engagement at our library.
1:42
So one of the reasons why we have this starting point is because historically the public library has been a convener of civic engagement libraries have acted as sites of Engagement for generations. And really we're viewed as a catalyst for civic engagement because libraries have become invested in giving patrons the opportunity to obtain useful resources that can allow them to make informed decisions.
2:12
And so again being information focused instead of issue focused and there's an article by Nancy Greenwich in a from 2012 that says that evidence suggests that when citizens participate in deliberation and decision-making they learn how to take responsible social and political action. So public participation builds the capacity to go from being a spectator to an actor and that gets to the engagement part of civic engagement.
2:42
And I'm here at Skokie, we've been increasingly more involved with encouraging patrons to consider ways to be more active in their civic lives, so we do this through displays and through programming and really we're trying to provide patrons with various entry points for engaging with a topic that is relevant to them.
3:03
And then in our current climate political climate over the past year, we've really seen the need to provide patrons with reputable information and resources. So quote unquote fake news quote unquote alternative facts and other phrases have made it harder for the public to stiffed and accurately pinpoint what is actual news and what is quote unquote news, and that cycle really we're seeing perpetuates anxiety and fear in our community.
3:32
So we have a responsibility to our patrons to find and present reliable resources so that they can make Intelligent Decisions.
3:43
So at our library we define civic engagement in a few ways first. It refers to the programs and opportunities that promote and facilitate a deeper more critical understanding of how civic institutions operate.
4:01
So how the government works a broader more empathic knowledge of how issues policies and decisions affect the lives and an increase awareness of confidence in one's ability to take an active role in civic discourse and participate in community decision-making.
4:23
So as a result of participating in civic engagement opportunities at the library really hope that patrons will be able to make up their minds on issues based on credible information and critical reflection. And as one Patron put it happened to be a youth Patron. You need to have good information in order to make up your own mind if you have bad information someone else is making up your mind for you.
4:50
We really are like, yes. Thank you. Thank you for telling us that.
4:56
So when we talk about civic engagement here, we're really using it as a lens that we can apply across all of our programming and learning experiences regardless of audience age program format or Staffing. So here the we have the learning experiences Department, which is what I'm in is responsible for coordinating all programs public programs as well as learning spaces and these kind of it.
5:25
Twin stuff like pop-up programming. So we have the ability to really influence that development and we created this chart to help apply that civic engagement lens, excuse me across the Spectrum. So the rows on the left are the types of events or programs or opportunities and then the columns are the breakdown of our age range and that's how we organize.
5:55
Programming here. So we have Youth and Family coordination with teen program coordination which includes Junior High and high school and then we have adult with which also includes high school students to but some of the I know this is probably not the best interest that we have knowledge building opportunities. So that's your learning something with skill-building opportunities. So that's acquiring a skill. I know those two can get interchanged sometimes.
6:25
We've given examples to break it down. We have pop-up events, which is where the civic lab Falls in and you can see the civic lamp is across the board for ages more passive experiences. So that would be non-staff facilitated experiences service opportunities.
6:45
We're actually seeing an increase in interest from our community around service opportunities on indigenous peoples day people showed up to the market events, which was really Surprising, we usually just have a plan and we hope to recruit but we had people came with purpose which was awesome and then Community Building opportunities and then related to our curated materials or collection. So we're trying like I said to apply this lens to everything we do because it's such an important aspect of the library.
7:20
Okay, so The civic lab is our main way that we do civic engagement programming here at the library, but it started as a more passive experience.
7:36
So in 2016, we were hearing a lot from staff who were talking about the political climate and I'll a lot of issues that we're coming up in the news and really they they were seeking each other to talk and process and to Also find out more information about those topics or issues and we were also seeing this happen within our community where patrons were asking for more information about specific topics. They were asking more questions related to reputable news resources. So combining the staff interest and the observations and conversations among patrons. The civic lab was born it started in our Boutique area.
8:22
I it was the first official Boutique and this is a carved out space on our first floor where we can feature resources from The Collection as well as handouts. And we do have a video screen you can see in on the left the upper left and but this was a non facilitated space that provided access to collection materials handouts and more.
8:53
Passive type activities. So the six there were six issues that were we decided to focus on because of what we were hearing from the community and you can see the banners in the back of the image. So they were black lives matter climate change immigration income inequality lgbtqia+ and reproductive justice. So for all those six issues, we had two books for with an adult audience.
9:22
For an intended for an adult audience to for teens one for middle grade use and one picture book those were carefully curated by people involved in this project because we wanted to provide critical credible perspectives on the issues. So it wasn't just oh this fits in this category. I was like, no we really need to select with purpose here.
9:45
So the collection was kind of the main part of this display then We had different ways that patrons could engage and we were hoping that they would do. So again, I want to remind you this is this is unstaffed. So one thing was a prompt Cube and these were intended to be conversation starter.
10:08
So either to have people engage with if they were all in the the boutique together or to think about and bring up later on so they were open ended questions around the six issues and we rotated them weekly one question. For example, we asked was is income inequality look like in Skokie. So we're relating it back to the community also, like what is your family as migration story for the immigration topic Skokie is very diverse and has a lot of new immigrants. So we thought that would be really relevant.
10:43
And next to that we had these postcards so that was intended for people to they could pop them in the cube. I'm going to go back one. So you can see there's a slot they could put it in the cube and we would mail it. So this was a way for people we were encouraging people to start the discussion with someone that wasn't in the building essentially didn't go so, well, that's what I but the intention we think was good. So, that's awesome.
11:13
We saved on Postage and then we also had a voting element and like black foam core. And again The Prompt changed weekly.
11:23
So this one was to focus on black lives matter and we were asking to relate it back to racism in Skokie a lot of Staff participated in the yes, no voting, but we would also occasionally see patrons do it as well and we were always careful to make Sure, we had lots of Post-its available.
11:46
And then finally started what you can't see I think in any of these images is the curated resource handout. So these were handouts that were meant to be taken home. They included conversation starters. They included additional resources beyond the books that were available in the collection. And again, it was really intended to take the experience and Beyond what was happening in the library.
12:17
Okay, so the civic lab exists now as a program that allows us to discuss and engage with our patrons about topics that are relevant to our community. But more importantly it allows us the opportunity to provide information about these topics and the core value of this lab is to provide credible information. So we have two kinds of popups. We have are curated and planned pop-ups and we also have a rapid response pop-ups.
12:43
So we try to do two topics a month and then one rapid response and then each topic will pop up twice. So we're look you're looking at you know, four pop-ups for the two topics and then a rapid response by pop-up.
12:59
We also we have a team of civic lab lead to brainstorm potential pop-up topics and we research resources for our handouts while also reaching out to other staff members who maybe aren't part of this core team who might be able to provide potential topics and With us and every pop-up we display our beautiful banner that you can see in our slide and that kind of lets people know that something's happening here and what it is. We have our curated handouts for our plan pop-ups and then for our rapid responses, we just have a go to news resource handout.
13:35
We have a discussion prompt for both types of popups and then with our planned and curated pop-ups we do we'll have like a DeLand a print media element to it and we also try to have an activity and we've found that a matching activity has been by far the most popular and reaches a super wide age range, which is kind of what you want when you're popping up and we'll go into these in more detail later. This is just the general. Okay, so we started experimenting with rapid response pop-ups because I'm a couple of years ago the new cycle started to become really eradicate.
14:16
Egg and slow newsweek's seemed, you know to be a thing of the past and we wanted to reach our patrons as news is happening and while our curated pop-ups they do have a timely subject matter. We noticed certain topics were prevalent in most news cycles, you know, so we wanted to be able to discuss these things with patrons as they were happening. For example, you know, we've done pop-ups about gun violence.
14:41
We did one about immigration how immigration works And a staff member explain the difference between emigrating an asylum which you know, a lot of patrons didn't really know the difference between the two so a rapid response pop-ups. They're much more low key than are curated pop-ups while both you know, provide the same opportunity to engage rapid responses are much more flexible for our staff members time. We spend, you know, at least a few weeks researching resources for our curated topics.
15:14
So but for a rapid response, you know, we have an evergreen go to news resource handout see something could happen in the news and you could pop up that day, you know, as long as your schedule kind of allows it we also display our banner and we use our white board, you know for discussion questions, but we don't have an interactive element. It's very Bare Bones.
15:37
So some thoughts on unintended audience for civic labs. And again you want to reach a really wide age range and then within that you know for youth it's really key to have it some type of interactive component and you want to make sure you have a family-friendly question with our teens. We found that, you know, the subjects need to be personally relevant to them and knowing their names.
16:01
It makes a huge difference because it's really easy. It's easier to get them into the conversation. So in this image, you see two teams with their arms crossed and they look like really uncomfortable but they I invited them because they knew their names. There's like Hey, we're talking about this right now. This one was do you stand with Standing Rock? And Matt actually had been there participating as an upstander.
16:26
So I invited them over and I asked if they were learning about this in school and they They said no and it's like oh, well, you know what the implications are and so we got into it a little bit that way and they stayed for over a half hour. So they look super uncomfortable. But again inviting them over like have a really positive results and then with our adults we provide intellectually stimulating conversation points that can be related to either their personal or and or professional experiences.
16:55
Okay, so our staffing Logistics and roles McLeod pop-ups. So this is our calendar and hopefully it doesn't look too overwhelming but this was a way for us to stay organized because without having like one person being in charge of everything so we meet bimonthly and then what happens is someone will run the meeting and then that person is in charge for two months of coordinating the popups and what that is is basically it's just checking in with the people who are scheduled to do them. Like, you know, how's everything going do you need any assistance?
17:31
Sentence when will your handout be ready things like that? And we try to schedule a couple of months ahead. But occasionally we're able to schedule a farther ahead and we'll kind of talk more about how we choose our pop-ups, but we can plan for their head when we know like in June. We know we're going to be doing something for Pride. We know we'll be doing a pop-up for women's history month. We know we'll be doing indigenous perspectives in November next year.
17:59
Our pop-ups will be Census heavy because that is something that will be happening all over the country. So and you can kind of see you know, we have what we're popping up about who's popping up.
18:14
And this again can change it anytime to it's really just meant to be a guide and to be transparent with the team. So if you have someone who has a personal interest in a topic, sometimes that's awesome. And you want them to be the facilitator, but sometimes the they will choose to not be involved and maybe share some resources just because again, we're not trying to persuade anyone in these pop-ups.
18:37
We're sharing information and if you want to really check your personal bias before you put yourself in that situation, So for the narratives of gun violence, I popped up with another staff member. We both have lost family members due to gun violence and we were sure to talk about like what the goal was of this pop-up.
18:58
And again, it's information centered, but we were also able to hold each other accountable to make sure that we weren't getting personal in our in queue personal at least on our end with our discussion with patrons because again, that's Not the point of it and the rapid response. We try to have someone signed up for every month. But that's largely based on who is being personally informed about something and who also has the time so we'll admit that rapid responses are not our strong suit right now just because of capacity but it's usually someone is like, oh my gosh, I saw this in the news. I really think it's relevant to the community. I'm going to go ahead and pop up today.
19:43
So It's more on the onus of the team members then like sticking to the schedule. Okay. So how do you activate staff? I'm you take into account personal experiences. You know, for example, Amy is super interested in science. So a lot of her civic Labs tend to be you know, Science Focus, where as you know, I'm more concerned with environmental issues.
20:07
But this is also a great opportunity to reach out to other staff members who are not part of the civic lab team Amy mentioned And you know our staff member who attended the Standing Rock demonstration and we knew we wanted to have a civic lab. What's happening at Standing Rock someone knew that this person had attended. So he was able to do the civic lap and provide the perspective of a participant you want to make it easy to bring an idea from another program into a civic engagement setting.
20:38
For example, we have many book discussions at the here at the library and the people who lie But discussions, you know kind of notice that conversations kept happening around content creators and the News who had assault allegations against them and that ended up becoming a civic lab separating art from the artist. You also want to think about how library jobs relate, you know collection specialist reference staff and then you also really want to intentionally create a cross-departmental team and we are almost there. We have pretty much someone representing.
21:14
Being every department and our team except for maybe Building Services and and youth but technically I guess I count but yeah, but as much as you can you really want to have somebody from every department on your team and the more like guests facilitators. You have the more they'll spread the word.
21:33
We also try to give them a t-shirt which I know can't be done everywhere, but it's an incentive so someone in Access, which is Christine's Department who does Processing in ordering popped up with me in an early civic lab and she'll wear her shirt to to work and people will ask questions about it. So it's a you're not just promoting this pop-up to the community or promoting it internally to because it's relevant to stuff as well.
22:02
Okay, so preparing stuff for civic engagement. You want to provide clear goals about staff participation expectations and you also want to establish understanding of how to differentiate between breaking news versus analysis versus opinions. And you also most importantly want to have discussions before programs about personal and news bias and how to redirect these interactions because a lot of times when you're popping up you will have someone, you know may be coming in a little hot that has really strong.
22:32
And that are vastly different than your own, you know, or even the library's mission statement and its really good to have a framework for redirecting in those interactions. We often get questions about stuff training. We don't have formal stuff training So Christine is a collector and has collection management knowledge and applies that as you're curating resources and we all most of us are all quota like professional Librarians and that sense but a lot of it is holding each other.
23:02
Accountable and also sharing sharing resources, even if you're not facilitating a pop-up we keep everything transparent so I can share a resource for Christine's pop-up and she can share one for me across the board. And in one of the handouts we have for you. There's an FAQ document that does talk explicitly about prepping staff.
23:27
So we really encourage you to read through that and then if you have further questions about how to get stuff Bald and make sure that everyone's on the same page and feels confident in addressing some of those more heated interactions. We're happy to answer that later. One of our favorite thing responses to say when you hear something just totally outrageous just be like, oh that's interesting.
23:51
I have never thought of it from that perspective and then you can either redirect to the handout be like, oh have you seen this resource or you can totally redirect you another Patron, so there are ways That we handle it gracefully but it requires a little bit of practice.
24:06
And so when we get into like our best practices having to people there really helps keys this Okay, so what it takes to pop up I'm just going to we're going to talk about these six key elements very briefly, but for more extensive description, you should reference the FAQ because it's very thorough. So we're going to talk about facilitation our handout a curated resources and our and an interactive components visual display Patron calendar entry and documentation.
24:41
Okay, so facilitation practices Is kind of key to have two facilitators because one you want to you want to talk to as many people as you can and it you know, it helps welcome a wider range of patrons and manage interact interactions because if you're by yourself and you're talking to somebody and you see a another Patron walk by and they're you know, they're kind of there you can see that they're curious and they're stopping to look at your materials.
25:07
You don't want to stop the conversation that you're having with somebody so it's easier when you have two people for somebody to step away and H with that other Patron and it can also help mitigate those awkward moments that you may have. Sometimes we do have we have a handful of patrons who are instigators. We shall say and because this is a public event in order to events calendar they can seek us out. So if you have a buddy, it makes it safer for everyone and it also can help guarantee a better experience for others and like we're all different people. So we have different perspectives.
25:44
On things to that can drive discussion in totally different directions and having that flexibility is really helpful to again like Reach This wider range of patrons and we talk to you about how we try to get all ages to engage in some way. So having staff who have different expertise like having someone who both Christine and I work with these audiences.
26:09
I also work with teens and you have experience to but having that mix of like use In an adult somehow across the board is really helpful to balance those facilitation practices and welcoming people to join you.
26:25
Okay, so our handouts so aside from engaging with patrons handouts are my next favorite thing about civic lab because it really lets you take a deep dive into a subject and you can again spend a couple of weeks doing research for your handouts and a lot of times you will have so many resources that you need to To whittle down but it's really important on your handouts to include a variety of formats because you have people who learn differently or get their information through different formats. So we always try to have you know, a long and short article and audiobook or podcast and something visual, you know documentaries YouTube videos and with those resources were thinking about access.
27:05
So there they should be free to access either through the library's databases or just generally online and Again, like thinking about ways that people are going to get there eventually so not everyone has internet. So we also have this on our website and we promote in other ways and then our discussion questions, you know, they should be thought-provoking but do remember that you are appealing appealing to a wide age range.
27:33
So you do want to make them as family friendly as possible you we have definitions that pertain to our civic Club topic and then you Leave this is most important. You want to make sure that you have different viewpoints. We when we did an endangered species pop up. We had a long article about fighting extinction, but then we also had a podcast featuring a professional Hunter but you also want to stay away from opposing viewpoints the opposing viewpoints model where it's you know, the typical progress is Con or either or argument because as with any issue, there are more than two viewpoints.
28:10
So you want to make sure you have as wide arranged as possible and then you also Also want to make sure that your handout is accessible to a wide age range. 
28:20
Okay. So this is what one of our handouts looks like and this is for our what is the Department of energy civic lab so you can see that we have conversation questions and we try to always have at least two but this one has three we have our we have our core resources and this is where you know, we kind of pull the bulk of our information and then you see that we have that taco. That's a podcast. Okay, as you know, that's the thing.
28:48
The energy has their own podcast, which I don't that is good to know and then so on the back of their always two pages front and back we'll have a book and that link is to our catalog. So we always, you know recommend something from our own collection and then explore that's usually a resource that's one or two resources.
29:11
That's quite expensive, you know, typically a blog or some sort of database that He lets you take a deep dive like, you know, it's usually something that you could spend hours on learning about this topic. So I actually put together this civic lab and I was inspired by reading the fifth Risk by Michael Lewis. I was like, oh, I didn't know this. I bet a lot of people don't know this and that's what led me to develop it. So sometimes a book will be like a core resource for your hand out. Sometimes my handouts don't have any books from collection. Just kind of depending on what it is.
29:46
So these are samples of the I'm going to flip back to the front side. These are examples of the types of resources we can have and we format them in a way that they're broken down by category, but really the conversation questions and core resources are essential components and sometimes even definitions depending on the topic and then the rest of it is kind of up to the facilitator and what resources they're finding or what I have been recommended.
30:17
And we have plenty of handouts for you example and else for you to look at you can also get it from our website.
30:23
Okay, so our pop ups always have some sort of interactive component because that is a great way to start conversations with your patrons. It's usually voting or discussion prompt and some sort of matching game because again that has been what has been the most popular with kids but also adults. So if we go to our next slide, that's what our discussion prompts looks like.
30:48
We just initially we were using like postage to put on the little boy Wooden blocks that maybe you've seen in previous slides, but then we kind of found that the whiteboards a little easier. It's a little not less committal but people are like, oh sure. I'll add a comment or two. This is actually from a rapid response pop up that we had. So it's that's how we get comments for our discussion prompt.
31:15
So even if somebody doesn't want to talk to you a patron, you know might want to leave a comment and then we have Our matching game. So this is when we did our endangered species pop-up. So we printed out pictures of different animals that are on the endangered species list and then we print it out little slips of paper and people had to match up the animal with the level of endangerment and while that wasn't our most fun matching game. It was actually really eye-opening for people because they did they were like, oh I didn't even know this animal was on the endangered species list.
31:49
So that was you know, kind of a great interactive element that And even like the different levels of the yeah German, there's different categories. We had a really good matching game to for actually she'd than that for women's History Month where we had photos of women and then the they have a match the accomplishment and that was a really great conversation started particularly with youth Patron. Okay, and then my favorite visual displays because not only does it help delineate the space.
32:19
It's a great way to promote you know, the Many many items in your library's physical collection and especially items that you know, maybe our only checked out, you know for like an academic purpose or if somebody has like a really, you know Niche interested. It's just a great way to promote those physical items and that's what our that's typically what our visual display looks like. It depends on where we're popping up, you know, but we always try to pop up near an area that has some sort of display component or something that we can turn into.
32:53
Display, okay. So program promotion. How do we promote the civic lab? So patrons can view our website when and where civic labs are happening and on our website we have access to our handouts and we also have links to previous civic lab topics and materials. So this is what our page looks like on our website for civic labs, and you can kind of see what's coming up next.
33:19
And then you see our past events. So if you click on, you know, if you clicked on civic lab built for whom and it'll show you a description. Can you go to the next video? Thank you. Sorry, it'll give you a description of what the civic lab is about. And when and where it's happening and then once it becomes a pass to the cloud pop up, it'll have a little link on the side that has so you can have access to the handout.
33:46
So after you pop up you want to document what happened? So documentation, that's we use Basecamp for that and that's you know will write a post pop-up summary. It's a great, you know succinct way to share Patron feedback and experiences and it's also a great opportunity to reflect so our base camp kind of looks like this.
34:14
Which is very it's organized to us, you know as an outsider, you're like what is happening here, but if you know what you can go into past experience or past appearances and then you know, someone has typed up a summary of what happened during their pop-up.
34:33
So this was our climate change pop-up and these were responses, you know that were either post has or our whiteboard and then You're able to list patron feedback and when we meet those bimonthly meetings we use these write-ups to drive the meeting because the first part is reflecting on the past appearances. So what did we learn because this is an iterative process.
35:02
So we're learning something new every time we're popping up and being able to go back to a write-up is really helpful to remember what you actually learned because some like if you do, Pop up in the beginning of that two-month time period it will be quite a while before you meet as a group. So document document document. We also report participation by youth teens and adults in our events calendar. We use communicable. So this does count towards our programming participation numbers.
35:37
Okay, so are different types of popups that we have we have four different types of pop ups are four main areas are timely topics to put the news into contacts if Eclipse literacy issues in the news and news literacy. So timely topics those are recurring other events in government or cultural groups.
36:00
So that would be something like what is FEMA which we popped up during Hurricane Season or talking about taxes because every year There is a tax season or actually she did that which was our pop up for women's History Month.
36:14
And as you can see those that's another great interactive element that Amy mentioned earlier. Those are pictures of women who made like great contributions to our society that they weren't necessarily acknowledged for.
36:29
And our civic literacy, that's basically how does your government work and how a bill becomes a law. What is the EPA? How does the Supreme Court work? Those would be examples of civic literacy?
36:42
no issues in the news are like what what everyone talking about and we try to make sure that the issues or topics that were choosing relate back to the community that they would actually care about or that there's plenty of father. So to speak for the pop-up. So two examples of genetic editing known as there's a tool called crispr surprised. I did that one and then narratives of the gun violence.
37:14
So those were both Pretty hotly contested things happening and crisper. We've actually popped up several times as don't new developments have come up with that technology and but other examples to include executive orders and immigrants. So that's a man earlier probably did in 2017 when a series of executive orders was issued enacting the travel bans. So I popped up with a with that colleague. I was talking about earlier from access who proudly wears her t-shirt.
37:46
And and then news literacy is intended to support community members and developing news and information literacy skills, so they can better assess and consider and make informed decisions based on reputable information. So this is more skill building what is journalism and what isn't and that's where we had a matching activity there to where we have different articles from different resources.
38:11
And we asked if it was news analysis or opinion and that let's a discussion about how you can tell like what are the cues for this and then we also did a pop-up social media & viral news and that was part of we were focusing on.
38:31
social media for a grant I can't remember what it's called, but we had a bunch of programs around this and it was held the deeper understanding around the interplay between social media platforms and viral new sharing and this is again one that pops up again and again and again and again and we update our resources accordingly.
38:55
Okay, so we've gone over the four main areas, I know this is a lot of information and again, we really encourage you to read the FAQ and to go through the slides again, I am going to get through the site and then I'll pause because I do see a question so for finding relevant civic engagement topics, we are keeping our ears open to what's happening at our service desk so not just like the information or Readers advisory just that all service desk. So that means that having a team comprised of members from across the library is going to put us in a better situation to be able to respond to Patron needs an interest with respect to civic allow pop-ups and connecting with colleagues about the feedback that they're getting desk that you may not be working at or even at different programs. And then also consider what's happening in locally like in your town County School.
39:55
Strict or state so local elections were really important for our school districts for boards. We did not have great representation of our community on the school boards, and we were seeing more candidates running. So that was something that we wanted to connect to more in the civic literacy aspect of it. So how does local government work? Okay.
40:20
So before we get into our lessons learned There was a question. How do you deal with the patrons who inevitably accused the library of presenting biased information when the objective information goes against their own biases. So this person's thinking particularly of LGTQ+, I or I+ and gun violence.
40:47
We thankfully haven't had a lot of these interactions generally when when someone pushes towards that area and we remind them of the the goal of the civic lab we on our Banner it says what the civic lab is intended to do. So it's a good visual to redirect to and say like this is what our intention was.
41:12
This is how we can explain the process of how we found the resources, I think often I'm like I say the and I don't know if this is the best way but it's like I'm really sorry that you're seeing it this way Our intention is this and this is the way that we curated these resources and we really just want you to be able to engage beyond the interaction here with these resources to learn a little bit more to make better decisions about this perspective and I have thoughts on that. Well, I also think because our four main areas.
41:45
We really do try to you know pick topics from like each of As for main area, so it's never I don't feel like, you know will pop up about you know government agency. So I know when I maybe that's why no one's ever like really accused of saying like, oh you're promoting, you know, like I don't know what like a liberal agenda or something because we pop up about so many different things. Yes.
42:13
I think we did get push back this summer with pride we participate in a community-wide event do that wasn't even held at the the library but there was a little bit more Community pushback for that large event that the Pacific lab was just a tiny part of Not the best dancer, but we're working on it. Another question. Where do we purchase the prompt cubes? No idea. I'll get back to you. Please email me. I also don't recommend them. They're really hard to move and they don't stack. Well, another question have any Community groups local media organizations or others expressed interest in the civic Lads are offered to collaborate. Yes.
42:58
So one of our junior high schools in Skokie has like How many school districts - five different districts that we serve one of the junior high schools in one district has a what is their group called? A social social social justice is club and that student-run and the media specialist has a really great relationship with the library anyway, and we've collaborated on different maker related things, but she reached out and was like, hey, I saw your civic lab can we totally do this?
43:31
And we were like absolutely so we rebranded our handout like template for her and gave permissions to use the logo and everything and there are student run civic Club pop-ups in this junior high school and they're actually really active like they do something I think every other month because then they're coordinating with like this other student group.
43:57
But yes, so that has happened we if we get questions from other libraries, so not necessarily like to collaborate but two Share what we do like we're doing right now and then there's a question. Have you hosted a pop-up outside the library at a community that so yes this summer we did at a community-wide pride event that was supposed to be outside doesn't end up in a breeding so they had it in a school. But this is an area of growth for us. So we utilize outdoor spaces and like with immediate proximity to the library because there's a Village Green that separates those eyes.
44:40
It in the village hall, but we also have a mall that's on the north side of town. So we've been thinking about going there. And and now that we are moving away from those cubes. It seems a little bit more actionable, but with our renovation we are thinking of ways to be more in the community versus having people come into the building because there won't be as much of the building to access. So that's something that we are working on.
45:06
Okay, we have one more section for you. And then the rest of the time will totally be for more questions. So we're going to wrap up with our lessons learned that involve some best practices.
45:20
So we learned this from the boutique like the origin story of the physics lab where it was a passive experience, but patrons really need to see a clear facilitator and have a facilitator present before they're really willing to engage in discussion or anything you have to offer them. So like the interactive component for whatever reason we're seeing patients want the invite like they need to be told it's okay.
45:49
It's It's like being in a museum where now there's all these signs that they you can touch this and we're we have to facilitate that vocally and with your body language. So being mindful of like, I'm not a natural Smiler. So when I was still at eight, I have to be really mindful of my body language to make sure that I'm I'm giving that invite physically and then also I can match that verbally we've emphasized this a lot. It's really helpful to have a minimum of two staff.
46:20
Members present for each pop up for a variety of reasons one that we haven't mentioned is when no one is participating. You have a buddy. Sometimes it's a really slow so always have to people and then always wear your civic lab t-shirt or something that signals that you are a member of staff member for the library and not a government official when Christine and I popped up for what is FEMA.
46:50
We were wearing.
46:52
Library logo students and this Patron comes up to us and was like, I emailed you last week bubble butt like starts talking about something and we're like what she told I thought we worked for FEMA. We're like, oh no we work for the library. We're here to share information about disaster preparedness. Would you like them a handout?
47:15
So it especially when you're doing government really two things and depending on the demographics of your Ready, it can be a total like red flag for patrons and they're not going to want to engage. So try to make it like yes, we're from the library. We're here to share information. We won't we're not taking things.
47:35
And t-shirts are one way to do that.
47:38
So I approached with your facilitation really just matter I talked about being conscious of my body language, but also staying hello, and we all have a different way of doing this. I like to do like, oh we're sharing information about X today. Would you like would you like to have a handout or would you like to respond to our question? So it's welcoming people in and directing them to something specific.
48:05
And then for staff focusing on one Topic at a time in planning civic Labs is way more preferable and it's way more manageable. We're already stretched pretty thin like we do a lot in public libraries and in libraries in general, so to be able to just hone in on one at a time actually like the amount of popups. I do now has decreased and it really gives me the time to hone in and find good. Good good.
48:35
sources that are matching all of our goals and to also be able to feel a little bit more confident and comfortable and Fielding any questions related to the topic and get feedback from others on the team feel like am I missing something or do you think something should go so we like the idea of the rapid response but arguably like the plan civic Labs that are curated really well have a better impact and you're NG better Justice to civic engagement and literacy Okay, so we have shared the origin story not a great transition into what we're doing now, but basically we learned from the the boutique that it was better to have a set facilitator and we applied Concepts that we learned to the popups. Now we shared how we do pop up with the types of topics that we focus on our and now we would love to hear more of your questions.
49:45
You don't have any other questions waiting, but maybe people are typing so we could give them a few minutes.
49:56
The answer everything we did and we didn't miss anything. Did we? Marry? I think you did a great job. Okay a lot of them. So, um, okay. We just have a question and do patrons. Sometimes ask what the point of this program is our people just talking or is there something else? I think they asked the point in indirectly where it's like, what are you doing?
50:22
So not quite As directed at that but when we explain like, oh, we're sharing information and having that Banner with standard language is helpful for our message to be consistent and also to frame what it is we're actually doing so when we say like it's founded in sharing information about a topic that seems to be kind of a catch-all response Christine.
50:45
Do you have anything else to add I think sometimes people think it's a lecture like sometimes people will see it in our calendar and they'll show up with like Like a pen and paper expecting to go in there like I'm here for the lecture and it's like well, no, actually we're here to have a conversation and they're kind of like oh, oh, okay, and we kind of talked about that for a while like, you know.
51:07
Would we be able to Branch off and do like a lecture format? But this was just so much better, you know, like a better way for us to kind of catch people as they're walking through the library. And yeah, I think you're right. I've never had someone say like what's the point of this? They're just kind of like wait what's happening right now? And I think when you assure people that they can engage in whatever is comfortable for them. Sometimes lurking it's just watching but I popped up a couple weeks ago with built for him.
51:37
With our topic and it was looking at gender biases and design essentially so thinking about articles recently about pockets in jeans designed for women and also the all-female spacewalk had to be rescheduled because of the lack of space suits.
51:56
So that's what prompted it but we had a really great engagement of with a patron who runs a salon and so Initially she was like, what is this? And we explain what we're doing just like oh and then totally went on a tangent about her experience in trying to do.
52:15
Genderless haircut bookings for her salon and how there's no platform for it. So it totally went off in this different direction that we didn't even anticipate and then she shared that and then left and so it's like, okay that was that's that's great. So it's all the the response is all different and thankfully in our community. It's not like I can't believe you're doing this or why you're doing this.
52:39
Yeah, actually it's kind of the opposite because we have like civic lab Ladies, yeah, essentially because they'll show up for every single club and they are great to talk to her and like sometimes you spend, you know, a huge chunk of time talking to that one Patron who shows up, you know for every civic club, which is great. And remember we started this because patrons were starting to have communication. So it seems like it was a good match for our community.
53:09
Okay, we have a few more questions that have come in here. Can you give us an idea of how many people participate in a given pop-up maybe an average?
53:21
Probably like 10 to 15. So it's not super high numbers. Yep and say hi. Yeah, I mean I think like the lowest has been like eight people and then like the highest has been like in the 30s. Yeah, you know, so but that's also kind of why the handout is really great because even if somebody is not stopping to talk to you. It's like oh, you know, I'm super interested in this but I'm on my way to a meeting or I'm on my way to this and it's like we do.
53:48
To take a handout. It's like yes, thank you. So you're still getting that information out there, even if somebody's not stopping to have a conversation with you.
53:59
How have you measured the success or impact of the program?
54:04
So in our first year we did do like an annual report where it was a summary of all the topics. We did numbers are part of that but also because we document after each pop-up we were able to do some not testimonials but just include Patron responses and then you can draw conclusions from there. So we're not as concerned about proving the value of this.
54:33
It seems to be proving it on its own just because we had administrative support in the beginning and we're seeing people participate but one thing that I think can shouldn't be discounted as also the impact it has on staff. We have a lot of Staff who will take handouts and who will join conversation.
54:54
So I think like internally, there's been a positive impact to where we're seeing people are more aware of it and more willing to engage and then also, So more willing to be like hey, have you thought about doing this?
55:09
And you make any specific efforts for second language speakers translate topics or prompts Etc. Not yet. That is also one of our growth areas and particularly with our community make up our demographics.
55:28
What kind of budget do you need to start a pop up program? How did you fund your new program?
55:34
So I would say now you if we had to do it again. We probably wouldn't even need a budget we could use resources that were readily available and you don't need a fancy poster. You can use giant Post-its or the whiteboards, but I can't remember where the money came from initially. I think it was a combination of programming fun already budgeted and then collection funds.
55:58
So for the boutique, we purchased all the materials through the collection budget and the cubes I believe we're purchased out of programming.
56:08
But you could just be there with I think like some sign is necessary to denote that like what you're there for and that you work for the library, but we use like built-in shelves that are already exist. Like in the library. We don't really use technology all the time. Sometimes we'll have a laptop or we can use an OPAC that that's on the second floor where we pop up but it's really a minimal budget.
56:34
I guess printing costs can add up but we're pretty conservative on how many handouts we print initially knowing that we could print again so low low budget.
56:47
And someone noticed that there were no chairs in the area. Is that a strategy? Kind of so there are chairs in our Central Lobby the stools or the cubes, excuse me, can also be used for seats, but we when we pop up we believe that people are in the library for a lot of things aside from like our regulars. We know that they're usually going to be a shorter interaction.
57:17
but we are able to be flexible and accommodate any if someone needs a chair and sometimes that happens like in that Central lobby area where most of our photos are there and you just can't see them there on the left.
57:33
How much time do you allocate for a pop-up? We used to really two hours they were two hours and then sometimes an hour and a half. So they're mostly an hour. Yeah. So the actual pop up is an hour the time it takes to curate depends on the person and the topic.
57:54
Is the primary goal to have discussions between patrons and staff or discussions among patrons initiated and facilitated by staff?
58:04
I think it's a combination. We would really love the discussions to continue after the pop-up. So we're looking at it as the catalyst for that engagement and we want patrons to connect to one another but we also want them to carry the conversation at home or at work. So it's kind of multi-tiered.
58:30
And we'll wrap up with this one here. Have you ever been asked questions you can't answer?  Do patrons see you as authorities in these topics? Would you say you are?
58:44
Do you want to take this one?
58:47
Now I think that like initially when I joined civic lab, I was like I am not an expert in anything and it's like no you don't have to be and I don't know that a patron has ever asked something that we couldn't answer. They might ask something where we have to do like a little more research which is why sometimes it is helpful to have an iPad or a computer with you because it's like, oh, let me look that up really quick. Like I'm not entirely sure. Yes.
59:13
I've definitely been asked questions that I don't have the answer to and like oh I actually don't know that didn't come up in these resources and you can turn it to be like, what do you think like, where do you think we should get this information from?
59:27
So I totally - we're not experts on this. Again, we're experts on curated curating quality removal resources, but this is very much a starting point. And we want to have some skill development as part of these ongoing pop ups. So that patrons can do this beyond what we give them.
59:47
All right. Well, we're right at the top of the hour. So if some people still have questions you're both okay with having them contact you directly? Absolutely excellent. Well, thank you both so much for that fantastic webinar. 
Thank you. Thank you.