Antilibrary on these people. You what . I told them and i warned them beforehand that i hate libraries, and so, but, one of the striking things that i have been talking to people for weeks about, and preparing for this, and it is that people have childhood memories in particular of the libraries and when they first got, and they are the favorite moments and curious if they can start, and i have to introduce you, my goodness, and to my left, Susan Hild Rhett is the former director of the museum and library service, and Senate Appointed service, and treasurer of the American Library association, and to her left is the director of the director of the future of the center for libraries and initiative of the American Library association examining Library Innovation and the communities they serve and finally susan packer who is the Deputy University librarian at ucla where she builds University Design and serves at the the librarys chief financial officer. Susan parker, let me start with you. Favorite library moment or, and or, and what do you like about libraries . Arent you sick of them, and if you have been working in a fast food joint and you stop eating it. And do you still like libraries . I like libraries. They are a place that obviously i feel very comfortable. And i that is one of the things that attracted me to the libraries and kept me coming back is that it is a place where i was always welcome even as a small child and so you will develop after ffection for the e who treat you kindly and even more so, they lure you in with bigger and better books and you will be excited about reading and thinking and looking things up. Is there a moment in your childhood where you said, this is the coolest place . Well, probably the first time that i ever went in, too, it was cincinnati, ohio, and the west side, and the Public Library over there, and the first time they i went in there i said, this is thele coolest thing. I had seen books before but not that many books. Ah, very good. And miguel, what is your fondest Library Memory and why do you like libraries . Well, a lot of people have fond memories of libraries, because they are welcoming and a first degree of responsibility as a a child. I remember that you got the phoenix Public Library used to be a yellow card, but it is laminated and it felt so adult, and so you could do so many thing, and a tangible expression of the sign of the growth and the opportunity, and responsibility that, you know, it is it opens up things to, you and it is a predrivers license of sorts. Oh, my goodness, the state hath deputized you. Oh, my goodness. Susan hildrich, your favorite moment in a Childhood Library . I was and only child and moved a lot as a child. So i would usually move after school got out, and i would hit a new community and have no friends and what would i be do manage the summer . I would go to that library. So it was my second home, and very special to me, and welcoming to me, and really the libraries and the books were my friends, and i think that they helped me early on the become a librarian, because i found many years ago a pap er from junior high where i said that i wanted to do this. So it e made me feel good when i was very young. Do you recall the reason that you wanted to do that in the paper . Well, i think it is because frankly,le al e though it does not work today, i did not want to be a teacher. And librarians have to want to teach today and i d did not wid to be a nurse and i am old enough that there werent many choices and i knew that i could find a job anywhere in the u. S. And did you want to leave your hometown, pat of the well, ugh curious, you could get a job anywhere. I wanted to be mobile and not so much that i wanted to run away, but i was growing up in the time when people got out of college and they left home. They didnt go back home. That is what i wanted to do. That is a dig. And so we have dispensed with the warm and fuzzy part, and i did, again, talking to the people about the bad things about libraries and the first thing and no disrespect to anybody was homeless and porn. Second thing was what is it for . My father who is a library freak and he lives in burbank and he said that last week, they advertised that it was so hot that everybody could go to the library. Is that library as a cooling center. Library as, you know, the porn i dont know, porn distribution, and library as a place to sleep in the day. And that irks a lot of people. And people dont understand it, and the people dont and can you just, and one of you had spoken to it earlier and said, hit it headon and talk about the homelessness and the porn at the library and maybe it is or isnt a problem . Well, so having worked in many urban libraries in my career, and dealing with all kinds of customers and population populations is challenging, and we are one of the only free opportunities for people to come out of the cold and the heat and whatever, and in terms of dealing with people who are homeless, we want to make sure that we are tri tying to help t in their struggle, and so for instance, the San FranciscoPublic Library and many others have social workers on duty to do intervention with folk, and libraries have many well thought out rules of conduct, because we expect everyone to behave so we have a safe and comfortable environment. That is how we deal with the people of all different kinds of vagaries and also that has to do with the issue of pornography and whoing at ip appropriate information and our co codes of conduct deal with that. And i have said in previous interviews with regard to the porn, sorry, folks, but people have been looking at porn and masturbating this in Public Library s fies for a long time e have been having to deal with itt for a long time, and hoppestly, it is a different containers they say in a way. Different visual, and you grimace at that, susan parker, and you can go next. Well, i can tell you that you may think that a person is homeless by the way they look, but you dont know that. E think that the libraries are trying to be places where they are not judgment on those levels. And when you have had a crisis so many years back, you will see that we had to roll back the library at the undergraduate library and we heard right away that we had homeless students at ucla and news to me, and opened my eyes that they were depending on the library as part of the support system at night. So since a lot of us were surprised to learn this, because you dont know necessarily by looking at this what the situation is dealinging with this, and so the libraries tra traditionally are about el helping people in the private way. You know, i dont nt know the identity of everybody, and privacy in the library is a key element. And so, suzy, you mentioned that the introduction of a social worker in San Francisco and before we get to that, what year is that . Do you recall . We began working with the department of social services when i started to work there which i believe is 2004 and now they have a full time social worker on staff, for several years, and it is helping our population. And at some point, does that possibly dilute to the possibility of in some way making librarians and libraries responsible for the social ills that all of us should be at the ending to. And you guys are so generous that you will el hehelp. And is there a limit to what you can do with the library. We unfortunately exist in a lot of the for mall services that would support Mental Health issues and Poverty Issues have been stripped away and whether it is because of the economy or other political decision, and because the libraries is among the few civic assets that is open to other people, it is inevitably what happens, and the real libraries can be a part of the solutions, and they engage with the commune e ti partners and whether it is a Public Health worker, and tucson Public Library has a nurse on staff, and social workers and relationships with the public showers and food banks and other types of things. And the library can be a fundamental platform for lots of players in the community to come together for a wonderful Distribution Channel not only for the information and book format or the Database Format or the eformat, but general civic information. And so for all of you at no point tending to the social ills make your primary jobs which is to presuming to distribute and archiving General Information to the public, does it come into conflict with the aspects of the job . We are responsible to provide the information and where you can go to get a mealer or where a shelter is, and we are responsible for the information. The one thing about the pornography though, it is always coming back to that. If you have available access to free information, it is going to be used towards some of the more negative end, and case in point, new york city introduced the link nyc kiosks in place of the telephone booths and they will be disabling the internet on them, and individuals were using them for pornography. And they could have asked the librarians about it. And yes, it is tip formation of the nation, and it is the nature of the free public place. And so, this Pew Research Center survey, and 2016 most recently on libraries and 69 of the respondents say that the local libraries contribute a hot to the safe place for people to spend time. What i have found, and it is interesting and not surprising, but what did surprise me is that 58 think they contribute a lot towards creating Educational Opportunities for people of all ages. And so that the notion of safe space actually had more respondents saying yes than the notion of creating Educational Opportunities. Does it surprise you. And it doesnt. And it is i cannot read your face very well. And it is slightly surprised. Oh, well, no. And it does not surprise me, because i think that people do, and safe spaces especially in the contemporary societies is more and morel valuable. Neutral space. And so people are seeking that, as much as the numbers are very close, and as much as they are seeking educational opportunity, and you wont say that come the 69 and the 58 are close, but not close numbers. And 11 . And so when did libraries become just starting to play that role of safe space, does anybody know . Well, we have always played the role of safe space in the communities, and that is a very consistent role and valued by our communities on our behalf, and just in terms of the educational statistic. There are are many people who i think that many people who may not use libraries or not be as aware of the libraries, and they dont understand the role that libraries play in educating all of ages, and all levels in the community. Libraries brand as books and many folks still think of folks as book warehouses, and we have gone far beyond that and depending who pew was surveying, i dont believe that everyone understands that we are part of the educational eco system in our communities. All filling in the gaps after school, weekends, so that educational role is critical, but i dont believe it is as recognized as i would like it to be. I a talk about it constantly that important role. And the societyt is shifting and the idea of common education is front of the room to the audience, but increasingly we are looking at how important peertopeer learning is and facilitated learning and those are things that have always happened in the library and maybe a delay of recognizing that what we do is of educational value, but it has helped people grow as individuals. I find it odd that you say that the link has not caught, because to me that is the number one link, and that is where you find the books that are for education, and anyways, that is odd that, none of you think that it is odd that safe space comes before learning . No. I find it a branding issue, and it is still part of the what is the library for that you are all saying that it is for all of these thing, but it is a hard thing in america when you cant in this day and age that you cant say that something is principle reason for being is. I dont get it for me, so far what the principle reason for being is, and so far it is everything. What dont you do, susan parker. There is some things that i wont do, yes. And this thing about the safe space is maybe more important today. If you have asked that question to an audience ten years ago it may not have resonated the same way, and another Important Library moment for me as a child is to be able to have the privacy in the library to go and look up information that is maybe kept from me at home. And if you have, you know, young people who are gay or trans or any number of situations that db that is interesting it is a safe place for people to find out about themselves. And so it is a safe place intellectually. Yes, and maybe that is the librarys best brand, because people want to contest what is contained in the library, because they care what message people have access to. And the value for intellectual freedom is still fundamental to the work that we do. And what are some of the classic arguments for the necessaity of libraries has bee that they exist to nurture and enlighten an electorate. And again, i will let that lie [ laughter ] i am obsessed. I am sorry. Is that true . Is that that still true . I mean, you are all going to say yes, it s but i am not going to the library to look up prognostications and polls today, i am going on the web. And one of the challenges that we are facing is that there are multiple spaces where people are segmenting themselves into, and we have private clubs and starbucks and other coffee houses, and we dont have the opportunity to mix anymore, and the Public Library are remains one of the civic spaces where you encounter people from different perspectives and on the level Playing Field and it is not necessarily a programmed space where you have to do certain thing, and you are allowed to engage in thing, and our society is tending to move to spaces that we are spending less time together, and so i worry if we continue to play that role, and if city support libraries and Community Libraries can and should, then we can move towards that. And miguel, you mentioned starbucks, and it plays a, and they seek to be a place where people convene and read even. All sorts of the a cafe culture, and does that in any way din nish the popularity or compete with the libraries at all for that role . I think that it is funny that even as i look at the coffee houses and the restaurants of different types, they are trying to become more neutral spaces where the sole transaction is not the menu item and they want you to to come in and work and socialize with friends and do lots of Different Things, but i worry that always comes at a cost. It is funny they are stealing a lot of the elements that make libraries what they are. We have always allowed you the to do any number of things that you want and you could selfdirect how you could function within a library and you dont have to give anything to the loyaltyp app or order off of the menu or anything else, and you can come in here and be who you are, and you get the be a little worried and i dont know if you are intentionally doing it, but they are taking something away from the libraries. This is interesting, because i think that when you said that there is more corporation to create civic space and third places. At a cost. Yes. And you have to pay for the latte, right . You think that it might be, and you see it as a threat. And potential threat. I think that it could be a potential threat. It is also should be taken as a compliment to a certain extent to say that we are doing it the right way for a long time and e we hope that people become aware that you are paying for the are freedom in the spaces with your user data, and by signing into the Wifi Networks and by any one of a fnumber of things. Are there efforts afoot in libraries across the country to createt new ways to convene people, and to yes, i definitely think that there are many ways. We have had a convening role in our history, but for instance, many Public Libraries have embarked on maker spaces which are great opportunities to allow kids and families to be krcreate together, and there are many ways to be engaging the people, and teen spaces and all kinds of things, but in terms of the question about the dem kocracy d u how are we supporting democracy, i think that libraries have a great opportunity to really take on the significant role as a community facilitator, and there is so much, i think dissension in some of the communities as we have segmented groups, and the library can play the role of bringing those controversial groups together. And now, when we do that, and i think that we will see it in some areas, it could be clashing somewhat with our very much are respected role of neutrality. And so, neutrality is a huge l value for libraries, and if we do get into the space of bringing different differing points of view together, it is a huge service to the community, and we can support informational resources to understand the discussions, but we have to make sure that we are traped to do that effectively, and so we dont want to lose that concept of being a neutral place. And so the the function of enlighteninging the electorate is Something Like this, a convening more than simply providing information . Right, yes. And suzy, any thoughts on that . Yes, i do. Because in ucla for example, we provide a lot of the public programming this the open not just for anyone, but to the university and on a range of topics. Sometimes it is designed to highlight the check shuns that we have, and collections th have, and especially if they relate to los angeles. And depending on the library and the the focus, they may convene even cure yat the audiences that are defined in ways like hearing are from art from this one art expert and then look at the paintings on display next door.