Episode 8: Help, I Need Somebody!

May 26, 2021 
Dave Lankes & Mike Eisenberg 

In the last episode, Mike ranted about his frustrations and hours spent in trying to reach a human being for assistance with airline reservations, prescriptions, and insurance. In this episode, we dive deeper into the topic of help and information services of all kinds– human, mediated (telephone, digital), online. What’s going on with consumer help and what’s the status of Q&A, Ask a Librarian, and reference services in library land?

In Wazzup, Dave describes the master class in the new librarianship he’s part of with the National Library School of France, and Mike shares concerns stemming from a disturbing text from a friend related to vaccines loaded with mis- and dis-information that raised all kinds of issues about the credibility of information and the undermining of quality of information. Dave’s Awesome Library Thingy spotlights the Toronto Public Library and Pam Ryan, Director, Service Development & Innovation, and their cutting-edge information literacy classes in machine learning, algorithms, public data, AI, and more.

References & Resources 

École Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de l’Information et des Bibliothèques: the national library school of France., https://www.enssib.fr/

Angela Craig interview (May 12, 2021), Libraries Lead in the New Normal, Podcast Episode 7. https://www.acechicagoevents.com/libraries-lead-episode-7 

Ewen, Lara (May 3, 2021). “Healthy Distance, Telemedicine brings house calls to local libraries,” American Libraries. p. 14. online: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2021/05/03/healthy-distance-libraries-telemedicine/ 

Radford, M., Costello, L., & Montague, K. (2021). Surging virtual reference services: COVID-19 a game-changer. College & Research Libraries News, 82(3), 106. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.82.3.106   

Toronto Public Library https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/ 

Digital Innovation Series, Toronto Public Library https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?N=37867+4288098632 

Credits
Audio, Production, and Streaming Services:
Yoni Yemini, ACE Chicago Events

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Greetings, this is David Lankus. Um, welcome to the library's Lead in the New Normal podcast, uh, where Mike Eisenberg and I get together and plan world domination through librarianship, primarily through arguing and being two world grumpy gray guys talking out loud. But anyway, uh I want to thank Ace Chicago Events and Yanni for helping put this together. And I want to thank all the people who have been giving us ideas and input. Please keep that coming. We'll give some links at the end of the podcast where you can really give us your ideas, your feedback, and ideas for moving forward. So, with that, I'm gonna turn over to Emeritus Dean at the University of Washington, an esteemed, esteemed scholar, Mike Eisenberg, to give you an introduction to the podcast. Hi, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Hi, Dave, and thank you. It's good to be talking to everyone. Uh, just a quick reminder that the reason for this podcast and what it came about is Dave and I were talking, and we realized that because of the pandemic, that there's a new normal emerging in our society, that 2020 and into 2021, it's been really tough and brutal, but it's also been an opportunity for some resetting and looking at things in new ways. And the question is it's what happened temporary or permanent, uh, what's within our control and what is beyond it. Uh, in this podcast, Libraries Lead in the New Normal, we'll be covering such topics as coping with the pandemic, social justice, political unrest, myths and disinformation, education, families, home life, work life, digital and virtual aspects of all of those things, including recreation, employment, and jobs in the new normal, training and disasters and emergency preparedness, and lots of other things. Our unique focus, what makes our podcast different than others that might be trying to make sense of all this, is that we focus on the nature and scope and role of libraries and librarians and information in all these things, library functions, and services and systems. The structure of our podcast is in a few different segments. The first segment is the intros, which is this, and then the what's up, where Dave and I tell you what we've been thinking about or what's been going on in our lives. Then we have our main topic, which today is going to be question and answer and online help and phone help and face-to-face help and no help. Uh, and then we'll take a short break after the main topic, and then we'll have our awesome library thingy, where each of us nominate a library program or librarian or situation for special recognition. So uh let's cry to it. Dave, what's up with you? What's going on?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Well, um, I am honored that this year and last year I've been a visiting researcher at the French National Library School Nsib. And um, I've been honored. I've been absolutely terribly disappointed that it's been during the pandemic and I haven't been able to hang out in Lyon to do that. But um, this week we put on our first master class, and we were talking about new librarianship, new approaches to librarianship based on communities, based on uh learning, based on knowledge, not just based on stuff and buildings, facilities, and collections. And this one was specifically looking at questions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. And it's very interesting. Um, I think that we all very much acknowledge, accept the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion in libraries and library services, diversity being having voices from varied backgrounds, varied races and creeds and religions and life experiences, but that we have to match that with inclusion, which is it's not just nice to have different folks lying around. You actually have to include them in decision making, policy making, give them power within the organization. Um, and then um equity to get all of those ideas together on how we can best provide the best impact and service for a community, realizing that that's not by providing the same service to everyone, but by matching the service to the individual. So there you go. That's that's my brief definition. But what's really interesting is talking about it in an international context and talking about it from the approach of librarians as knowledge organizations, because you know, this is the truism, uh, truism of our field is the richest knowledge comes from the richest sources of information. And that includes the people that you're talking with, the ideas, the inputs, the narratives, the history, the lived experience. And um it's very interesting because when you move to an international context, the language that we build up on any area of scholarship, but certainly the language that we built up around um diversity, equity, inclusion can be very off-putting for international audiences. And so it was a real learning experience for me to sit and talk with these folks, preparing to be the leaders in the French library fields in all sorts of libraries, to talk about how we match our experiences, how we match our expectations, and looking for this fundamental drive for diversity. So it's not just, well, we have a race issue, let's fix it with some diversity over here, but saying if you're in the library and you're in the knowledge business, you're in the diversity business. It's essential to what you're doing. So it's just been um it's been a great conversation to truly map important conversations in different contexts in different countries and see what matches and what varies for it. So I've been learning a lot. How about you? What's up?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, um just to say that I I think that's a really interesting topic that we might want to expand into one of our podcast topics. Uh, not just the equity and diversity, but the but the global nature uh of commonalities and differences in library land and the information needs in different uh geographic um and cultural contexts. So yeah, uh I I think that's worthy. Well, mine again, I had I, you know, I seem to be doing this, but uh it's a bit of a rant again. And uh it happened just the other day that I got a very disturbing text from a friend of mine, and he is a friend, um, and it was a link to a so-called expose from a supposed reputable doctor about COVID and the COVID vaccine trials, and that this particular doctor claimed, and it was proven totally false, that the vaccines are going to change recipients' DNA and that COVID-19 vaccines are designed to make us into genetically modified organisms. And this doctor also claims, again, without evidence, according to sources that I've since checked, including the BBC, that quote, vaccines will hook us all up to an artificial intelligence interface. Now, what really I'm sorry, hold on. Okay, go ahead. I'll mute for a second. Got it? Yeah, but but this was serious, and this was a person that I know and uh get along with, and uh it but it bothered me on a whole bunch of of levels. Uh first the lies themselves, uh secondly, that my my friend bought into this and he shared it with me and and probably others, and that this whole miss and disinformation spreading on the internet, and then what happened was this friend of mine wanted me to watch a video of this person and then to engage with the so-called facts. He said, You know, I um when I said that this was bullshit, um, my friend said, Well, you know, why is it bullshit and whatever? And I said, I'm not playing that game. Uh, you know, it's not my job to refute this and whatever. Instead, I focused on the issue of credibility, the credibility of the source. This particular doctor had appeared on Alex Jones' InfoWars show and other conspiracy-oriented sites. And I did a a search and I came up with some BBC um information, which will be in the references and resources for this particular episode. People can look at it, um, that uh showed that no, no, this this was not a credible source. And then and what I realized was that my response to to my friend, and he's still a friend for a while, we'll see how things develop, um, is not to engage in the in the content. That's what they want. They want me to argue about whether DNA, whether whether the whether vaccines can, you know, uh change our DNA, which they can't, by the way. Um, but and I'm not an expert on that, so it would be easy to refute me or to get me down into the the the details. Instead, I can argue and I can talk about credibility, which is something I know something about because I'm an information scientist. And that may be one of the ways that we address this problem of mis and disinformation. And it's not to address the specifics of it, but to address the source and the credibility and the relationship. So, what I am gonna propose, Dave, that we talk about in another future episode is the whole idea of, and this will sound familiar to you, relevance and credibility and accuracy and value-added attributes of information and the roles and responsibilities of libraries, search engines, news sources, and public uh information websites, databases, and the like. So, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

I I think that's an essential conversation to have because as we begin restitching together our communities, often divided by ideologies that turn that that present themselves as if it were different belief systems and facts, it's gonna be really important to understand how you bridge ideas and how you come up with credibility decisions and it to realize that that is an extraordinarily local and complex issue. So I think it's absolutely worth talking about.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, yeah. But boy, I tell you, I I I my my temperature is rising even even here, so I gotta calm down.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

So uh you understand you're you're talking you're talking to technically a chimera on the other end of this. I actually have two different DNA systems in my body right now because I had a bone marrow. I had a bone marrow transplant, so I've got like the cuff, the stuff that grows my skin and organs, and then my blood is literally my son's DNA. And which means if by the way, if I ever decide to rob a bank, I'm leaving blood evidence so that he goes to jail for it. Um so but but that I'll send that conspiracy theory to you later. No, no, yeah. Well about the blood evidence part.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yes, the blood evidence, that's what I meant, not the other stuff. All right, so let's take a short break and then we'll come back with our main topic for tonight's or uh this current episode, which is digital reference, question and answer services, human help, uh AI help, and the like. So, Yanni, cue the music, go. Okay, so we're back now on to our main topic. And uh my question is again um about this question of online help, uh voicemail, calling up businesses or government agencies or whatever. And it was my my rant and frustration from the last episode. And so my question is uh I thought that Dave, who's really an expert in digital reference, as we call it in library land, um, is the same thing happening in libraries, Dave? Are are libraries deferring people with their question answering to you know elaborate voicemail menus and stuff? Or are libraries answering digital reference uh with a real person? Uh is it mostly via chat now? Uh uh telephone. What percentage of library patrons actually know about or use digital reference or QA? You know, that that whole thing, uh, I thought are libraries a model or have libraries shown that people are not interested in this? Uh this whole topic is is of great interest to me. And and you're an expert, and I'm just uh uh a novice on this stuff these days.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Well, these days I'm I'm uh not an expert on it. It's been a while since I spent a lot of time specifically on gathering the data and that we pull together. But what we do know is that reference numbers, that is, questions being asked of libraries, are is still going down. We're seeing a decrease in the number of questions coming to academic libraries and public libraries that are formally tracking them. Because what we've seen uh is a real transformation of what that function is. What we're seeing is that reference is much less about here's a question, I go find an answer, and it's become much more about instruction. That is, I have a question, how do I learn about this? You know, going into classes, having workshops, etc. And so it's more much more about sort of solving the questions before they come up. Um and we're also in a radically different situation now. Google has changed what we've done. Um, the kinds of questions that go to libraries are just different now. They did it's no longer what you can look up in a phone book or what you can look up in an encyclopedia or you know, who was the, what is the, when was the. These questions are pretty easily answered out, or at least the perception is that they are answered out amongst them. And so you're seeing reference change in terms of their focus around instruction, around answering questions, around doing sort of more in-depth research and working with people than the sort of sitting at the desk waiting for lots of individual questions. Reader's advisory is huge and getting bigger. People want to know what's a good book, what's my next book? But the the where you and I really started out with reference back when we ran Ask Eric and all these kinds of services, you know, we were thinking that we're, you know, we're answering questions of people in a pretty information scarce environment. We were getting content questions, we were answering them now. That world has changed. And so what's interesting is you mentioned AI and artificial intelligence or machine learning, all that sort of world. It's not that the libraries are implementing these kinds of AI systems to answer questions. It's the fact that these AI systems are driving things like Google and driving things like even finding Wikipedia entries and doing basic entry, that's influencing what's happening in the library, but the library isn't controlling what's happening there. So um it would be interesting that I should get the data that you're asking for, but I I want to be clear that you know the trends I got, the the individual answers, not so much.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So the the the trend of libraries providing facts or you know, fairly standard uh reference question and answering is continuing to decrease. Uh uh one of the things that happened uh last episode is I I was talking, we were talking to Angela Craig, and she talked about people coming to the library for help about rent support and filling out forms uh and those kinds of uh information needs. Uh is that happening or are is that kind of is that what you mean by uh instruction or more in-depth, different type of question-answering that's coming through?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

That's absolutely and that's where we're going, right? We're going from in in higher education, it's no longer the, you know, I need to know the date of this for my term paper. It's much more about how do I do research and what the heck is a peer-reviewed and much more in-depth stuff. And what you're seeing a hundred percent in public library contexts, like Charleston, and even internationally, is the rise of services that what you're seeing, um, I remember in the rant last week, um, the idea that, for example, you know, you have to wait online, you know, you have to go to the website to get the answer. To talk to a person takes five hours of waiting. This is happening all over and including social services. And so, where you used to say, Where do I find food? Where do I find help with rent? Where do I find help with heat? Where do I, you know, all these sort of government services, all that human intermediation is disappeared and put behind a website that is getting pushed into libraries. And so libraries are responding in a couple of ways. You see libraries develop training librarians to answer and provide those kinds of services. And increasingly, and I think a really cool thing that you're seeing is you're seeing libraries hire on and cross-train social workers to handle these kinds of social issues and support social work and connection. And one thing that's a little left field, but I think is related, in academic libraries, you're seeing on one hand, if you looked at the act the floor plan of an academic library and you looked at sort of a time lapse over the past 30 years, it would kind of look like the glaciers retreating, right? You're seeing more room and more space. Reference areas, reference, they're gone, materials, lots of materials are gone. But what I but what's really happening, which I think is brilliant when you look at what's happening at the University of Texas, what you see happening at Clemson University, what you see at the University of Washington, is as they're getting space back, they're using it to create and co-locate allied services like the writing center, like tutoring centers, like technology centers, like teaching excellence centers. And so they've sort of expanded the collection and used the space to bring in these allied services. And so what you're seeing is as reference questions have moved from factual and stuff that Google can frankly answer quicker to much more complex, impactful questions about my study, my life, my food, my meaning of life, you're seeing that happening by reference services, sometimes retraining librarians, but a lot of times partnering with social services, partnering with other organizations that have that expertise. And to your point, with human beings in front of those services, with human intermediation that they understand that, you know, I need to know, you know, I've just been kicked out of my apartment. Please wait three hours is not an acceptable response.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Or or check it online when they've been thrown out of their apartment and they can't get inside to get online or whatever, to get uh to get onto their computer and trying to do it on a little mobile device isn't working, or they don't have the access. So um uh I think this is fascinating because what you're saying is the the nature, we used to talk about that as ready reference. That's what you're saying. The ready reference need for libraries is gone. The the the quick answer, you know, what's the population of, or how do I do this? No, we can go to Wikipedia, we can use Google, although I have some questions, and I hope that you and I at some point can have a discussion about search and Google and where that might be going. But uh what you're saying is that the libraries and the librarians, um, if we could the public is beginning to realize that they can go to those people for more in-depth uh assistance in learning how to do things and to open up the the gateways to these various online perhaps services that if someone's trying to get in touch with the housing authority or that and and they're frustrated and they can't, they could go to the library or they could contact a librarian who would then help them to open that door for them or that window.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Right. You know, uh a mutual um hero of of you and I. Bob Taylor and Bob Taylor really reinvented reference in the 60s, and he developed this whole idea of how someone asks a question. And the problem that's fundamental to this is that we still have not figured out a good way. How do you ask someone to express something they don't know?

unknown 22:20

Right?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Because that's what a question is. It's an articulation of ignorance. And um, so Taylor went through this whole thing in a library context and said, well, you've got this stated need, what they said, you've got the the compromise need, which is what they can say and what the system can do. You've got he did all this, but then he had these these sort of filters that librarians would run them through. And one of them was the end was, how does this question match our collection? And reference at that time, and reference for a long time, ready reference was very much about a sort of collection-driven approach. I can answer your question so long as it's somewhere in behind me in this collection. That's gone, right? Because the collection's everywhere. And what you're seeing is people are are it's about impact, it's about how they're finding meaning in their life, and that goes beyond simple ready reference into these deeper issues. And and it's it's what's interesting, and we talk about the new normal and libraries leading in this, is being solution-oriented as opposed to here's a question, here's an answer. It's let's find out what the real issue is and how we can begin to solve it. Um, the example I have is a great librarian, Meg Bacchus, used to run a reference service at a public library. And to this day, people would come in to apply for jobs online. If you wanted to work for UPS, if you wanted a janitorial job, you still had to apply online. And those online systems, not only would you have to enter the information on the web, even though the job itself required absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever, but they were timing them. How fast and taking all this other stuff. And what Meg would do, what I love, is as soon as they applied, she would pick up the phone, she would call UPS or FedEx or whatever and say, I would just like you to realize what you're doing is inequitable, this is unfair. In other words, begin to advocate for this community. Advocate. You know, yeah, that right. And so we I think you know, when you talk about the issue of online QA and online support, one is the the systems and the methods, right? How fast to talk to a person, how much of that can we automate, you know, and and that's one question. I think it's an important one. And then you've got the idea of the kinds of questions that are coming in. You was it just last month? Yahoo Answers closed down for the first time. Yahoo Answers was a service where you could go on to Yahoo, like people still do that, and you could post a question, and anyone could provide an answer. And and uh the best part when they closed down is people were just reading like the best answers ever, which of course were completely ludicrous. But I remember in the early days in the in the sort of late 90s of virtual reference and ask Eric and all that, we were convinced that you know Yahoo Answers was going to put us all out of business. And ironically, it probably did outlast most of those services, but not for the reason they intended. Um, and so, you know, but I think so. I think what we're seeing is the questions aren't being articulated as questions so much as needs, um, and looking at impact, and they're going well beyond what a piece of information is going to solve to this idea of connecting to services, connecting to opportunities, connecting to those things. And that's really takes this higher level experience and understanding, knowledge or credibility that you get with a librarian versus someone who can read a script.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So, do you think there's a role for the library or librarians to help with this larger question that that I was frustrated about, whether it was contacting the airline or I I have a particular insurance company. One of the things I always liked about the insurance company was I could just call up and my call would be answered within a minute by a human being, that I didn't have to go through all of that. Well, over the last year, that all fell apart so much so that I couldn't get to a human being, and that callback service was non-existent at that particular company. And it would, I I I have literally waited for well over an hour doing other things while I'm waiting for them to pick up, where I'm again listening to their music, and then every three to five minutes they punch in and says, you know, please check our website for the information that you need or something. It just drives me absolutely crazy. Do you think that there's a a role for libraries to try to get the message across to these businesses who I would think they they they they should be falling over themselves to provide human customer service because that's what makes you know them more valuable. Um rather than you know, again, these uh uh my my pharmacy. I know how to get to the pharmacist to talk to a human being because I've uh called it so many times to do that, and I know which numbers I have to punch in, and then what I have to say to the you know, automated uh voice recognition in order to get to, I have to say, no, something else. I need other. And then they say, let me get you a pharmacist. I mean, but I have to go through it every friggin' time. Could libraries intervene and to help with that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

This is this is probably not the answer you're expecting, but the answer is no. Um and and here's why I say that uh because we have we have a pretty I guess we all have our feuds in our life. And so one of my early feuds was with a fellow by the name of Steve Kaufman, and Steve Kaufman very much saw reference as customer service and very much saw how we could adopt customer service models into reference. He talked about call centers, he talked about maximizing, using these kinds, in other words, going the other way than you're talking about. And I mean, he's still pushing to this day. He's also a big advocate of outsourcing library services. But anyway, um, and I always looked at it and I said, you know, the problem is once again, we're asking people to articulate their ignorance. We're asking people to say what they don't know. And so therefore, pressing one and two and three doesn't work because they they can't think in one, two, and three because they haven't they don't have that clear of an understanding. So I think part of what we can be doing is we can be teaching business the importance of human-to-human contact. Yes. Um, I think that part of what we can be talking about is as we're gonna see, and we are absolutely going to see more and more rolling out of artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated, smarter automated systems. We can talk about the importance of privacy, diversity, making sure those systems are well implemented. In fact, that's my library thingy of the day. Um, but so I think we can, yes, we can have that conversation, but it's not to try and improve a broken model. I think that's that's the issue is that there's a fundamental different thought between these two things. And that is a library is about you can ask us anything. And the pharmacy's um phone tree is you can ask us about our hours, you can ask us about free filling your prescription, or well, really, that's all you can ask us. And and I just wanted to point out one thing, which was you talk about pushing people to the website, pushing people to the website. So there's a there's a psychologist by the name of Barry Schwartz, and he proposed something called the paradox of choice. And it goes something like this. It's he says, you know, in in the good old days, before you know had to go to the website and you could just talk to someone and work it out, you know, he said, I wear blue jeans. This is an example. He's a great, you go to YouTube, it's great. He goes, I wear jeans, that's all I wear jeans. And he goes, it used to be there were three kinds of jeans, right? There's Levi's, there was Lee's, and there was Wranglers. And if they didn't fit well, oh well, you have two other choices and you're done. He says, now, when you go in to buy blue jeans, there are hundreds, right? There's boot cut, straight cut, high hip, low hip, left, right, purple, whatever it is. He says, You can find a better fitting pair of jeans now than you could ever find in your life. He says, But the problem is that if your genes don't fit back when there were three kinds, it was their fault. Now it's your fault because you didn't spend enough time looking through the genes. Yeah, and if you think about, you know, back to you know, the where I'm connecting this is you know, it's it's a you problem that is that that when you get on these, when people say, Oh, go to the website, you can fix it on the website, right? The implication isn't because the answer's there, the answer is it's now your problem to find it. And if you don't find the solution, right, whose fault is that? Right? And he goes to the point of saying this, by the way, is a major issue in terms of people, depression and psychology and the whole thing. And and you know, talking about the example, also is is think about Netflix for a moment. Netflix is so popular, yes, some people would say by you know how many things they have to watch, but it's because you don't have to go through all of their catalog to find the thing you want that made Netflix virtually successful. It was finding, tracking, seeing what you like, being able to make suggestions to you, and that's knowing what you're doing. That's where we need to go, right? As opposed to a bad phone tree, which is this is the only five questions we believe people have, right? And if you don't fit in them, good luck. Or go to our website where we also have 60,000 different questions you can't answer, and good luck, that's your problem. But not the one you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

You're right. No, you're absolutely right. It's the offloading of the time and effort to the customer or back instead of the business assuming it. Uh, another example is we used to have something called travel agents. I loved having a travel agent. I'd call a travel agent. I know, I know she is. That's why I love it. The fact that, you know, that I used to be able to call. You remember when we worked together, we had a travel agent that we would call, and and we would say, This is Mike, and she this travel agent knew everything about my needs and what I preferred and what it was. And I told her where I was going, and she would take care of it. It would be booked, and uh, and it was great. Now it's all on me. I got to try Expedia or Orbits or whatever, and I go to the different airlines and all this. It's it's it's all on me. So we're gonna uh have to pull things together. So I want to summarize a few things, though, that I think are relevant here. I think one of the things that the library world and the information science world could do is to begin to inform the other side, the business and the government and the social services and whatever, that, you know, just because everybody else is doing it this way, that is forcing people into these voicemail systems or to the web, whatever, that may not be the best way to do it. Number two, the thing that you said, which I think is is actually the most insightful, which is quoting Bob Taylor, who by the way, everybody, Bob Taylor was a dean at Syracuse in the uh 70s, who was the first one to start an information type school. He called it the School of Information Studies, but that um teaching people how to ask for something that they don't know. That is really interesting. So, one of the other things that we in the library world and in the information science world might do is um help people to learn how to navigate these systems, whether it's Google and how to make a Google search more uh efficient and effective, or how to use voicemail systems or uh AI systems, and that the the library role that you were talking about, which was moving from a one-off question and answer to learning how to do and to navigate the new information landscape, that maybe that's the worthy role for us to be providing, and not in long-winded, you know, attend a class in it, but maybe it's a you know a 45-second YouTube video on, hey, here's two tips on how to do better Google searching, or, you know, hey, Wikipedia really is good for lots of stuff, and here's how you might do it. Or if you're calling an airline for voicemail system, here are three things we recommend that you do.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, it connects back to your original your discussion at the top of the episode about vaccinations and viruses, right? If you teach people how to ask questions, you teach people then credibility and connection. Because the problem isn't the problem is that conspiracy theories and all this other stuff are presented in a way where they present themselves as if they're an answer, that they preempt questions. And therefore, when someone challenges you on them, you go back to what's in that domain, right? No, no, see, they said this, and what about this, and what about this, as opposed to asking the larger question of wait, what if this is bullshit? Um, I can't let you off. I can't let you off, though, without a quick story about a demonstration about the different world that we're in when you talk about the travel agents back in the day. This was back in the day. Mike would go, he would find the flight, he would have a travel agent, and I want to say they this person knew them absolutely well because it was in the days that if Mike for some reason couldn't make it, he would literally hand me his ticket and I would get on the plane and sit in his seat and go, right back in the good old days, right before security, before anything. And I remember this one time, it worked out perfectly, except to the end when I was getting off the plane and a very upset stewardess looked at me and said, Sir, if you request the kosher meal, you really should eat the kosher meal. And so, you know, that's how well they knew you at the time.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

So oh, the good old days. It's right, and whatever. Well, folks, um, we can go on and we will in other episodes, but we're gonna have to uh leave it for now. Uh again, if you have questions or comments, your own rants or raves and advice, please do email us at librarieslead at gmail.com, or you can post it to our Facebook group, which is Libraries Lead the New Normal, or you can Twitter to us. We have a Twitter handle at Lead Libraries. At Lead Libraries, it's a little inverted because the other name was taken. So at lead libraries is our Twitter handle as well. So we're gonna take a very short break again, and then we're gonna come back with our awesome library thingies. So uh uh Yanni, cue the music, and we'll be right back. Okay, we're back now for our last segment: the awesome library thingy. Dave, what's your awesome library thingy for this episode?

SPEAKER_00 38:12

My awesome library thingy is a person and a program they're putting together. Uh, Pam Ryan, who's the head of um Library Innovation and their public services at Toronto Public Library. Um, we were just talking about the idea that AI and artificial intelligence is sort of in how we search. It's going to be increasingly in how we answer questions and what's on the other end of the phone is going to be less and less a person and more and more a piece of technology. And um, I just I may have mentioned her before in the podcast, but I definitely want to mention it again. Toronto Public Library has as part of their initiative really the idea of information literacy, but modern information literacy dealing with they have classes in machine learning. They have classes in algorithms, algorithmic interpretation, they have classes in public data and how this data is used and not used and made forth. And so talking about libraries leading, Toronto Public Library, I think, is one of the leaders right now in saying artificial intelligence, machine learning, these things that we attribute to these trillion-dollar companies impact us every day. And you can know and have power in how they work. Come in and they have open workshops in machine learning. They have open workshops in AI systems and building this software and trying out what does it mean to use deep learning algorithms and trying them out. And I just think it is absolutely amazing to see a public library look and say, this is really the new essential knowledge. You know, yes, we have classes in Excel. Yes, we have classes in writing your resume. And by the way, we have classes in how Skynet will take over the world and how you can defend yourself. So that's my great library thingy of the day, is the great work they're doing. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, well, I have one that I'm gonna relate next time that's very close to that, but it's in an academic situation. So um I think that'll be relevant, and uh we'll have to be re remember to bring this up. But my awesome library thingy, uh, related to something I read, I just got my issue uh uh a few days ago of American libraries. And there was a this is the May 2021 issue on page 14. Um, and there was something about telemedicine through local libraries, that in rural communities, apparently there's something beyond just a digital divide. Um, there's a digital health information divide. And that is that people in their homes don't necessarily have the equipment or the internet access or even the know-how to have a telemedicine session, and particularly in the pandemic, as that became more and more important, and in some ways the only way to connect with uh the health services. And it talked about uh uh a number of people. First of all, uh Pam DeGuzman, associate professor uh in the Department of Family, Community, and Mental Health Systems at the University of Virginia School of Nursing, talked about access issues being only the beginning of a looming problem, and that the uh digital health divide, and she's working with rural libraries to provide telemedicine access. And that the core of the library's mission, this is a non-librarian saying, is information access. And um, this is happening across the country in Texas at a uh community called the Pottsboro, Texas Area Library. Uh Diane Connery, Diane Connery, the director of the Pottsboro, Texas Library, um, started out, she saw this need and she let patients use her own office for telehealth visits. And it was wildly successful. And they wound up converting a former junk room into a new private telehealth space in the public library with a separate entrance, uh, good ventilation and lighting, and of course, privacy and equipment and the connectivity and help needed. The Dayton, Ohio Metro Library did a similar thing. They took a spare room and set up a Zoom telemedicine center. Um, and interestingly, they found the need wasn't just for the equipment and the connection. Some of it has to do with that people at home, even if they had access, they didn't have the necessary privacy or there was a stigma in contenting, say, mental health services, uh, and they didn't have a conf a confidential place that they could go. And Dayton provided that. Um, and it was, you know, you're gonna go to the library with the kids and whatever, and let them stay uh have access in the children's services area for a while while this person went off and did a telemedicine session. And uh this is this just really this just I I I just think that this is great. Um the uh director Connery in the uh Pottsboro said she really wants to expand these services to other aspects of what she's calling wellness in her community. And she said that she's making the case that what she's doing and what the Pottsboro Public Library is as essential as police and fire. And I say absolutely, and that's information and information services in communities is as essential as police and fire. So these libraries are awesome, they get it, and I wanted to really highlight that. So that's my awesome library thingy for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

That is awesome indeed, and that That concludes our podcast for this episode. Once again, we have solved all the problems of customer support. And so you're welcome. Thanks for listening. Thanks again to Yanni from Ace Chicago Events, our producer and sound guy extraordinaire, Ace Chicago Events for events production services, including sound, lighting, photo booths in the Chicago area, or online virtual streaming. Go to AceChicagoEvents.com. Please take the time to subscribe to us and rate us on Apple iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please share and review. It's very important that we get the word out. We really want to hear from you. So I'm expecting lots of angry reference librarians to write to us, and that might be a great session to bring us all together. But I want to thank also Mike Eisenberg for supplying the music. I don't think we give you enough credit on that. And we are out of here. Thanks, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye, Mike. Bye, Dave. Bye, audience. Bye, Yani.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Take care. Thank you.