- Coming up on IGI, we discuss the value of Kansas libraries and the benefits of your local library.

Stay with us.

(♪) Hello and welcome to IGI, I'm your host LaTiffany Obozele.

Libraries provide a wealth of resources, including books, access to research and public databases, job resources, the internet and entertainment.

The list goes on.

Libraries are a tremendous center point for the community, providing programs and classes for youth, meeting spaces for social and civic programs, and so much more.

On today's show, we'll discuss the services that Kansas libraries provide and how you can get the most out of your local library.

Joining us for this discussion today are Marie Pyko, CEO of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

Sean Bird, Senior Associate Dean of Washburn University Libraries, and Rachel Hissong, the library director at the Basehor Community Library.

Marie, Sean and Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today.

I think before we delve into it, it's always so interesting to learn about the historical aspects of things.

So Sean, why don't we start with you and you tell us about how the first libraries in Kansas were created.

- I think libraries in Kansas are a part of the story of libraries that go back to the beginning of our ability to write back in the Fertile Crescent, thousands of years ago, 5,000 years ago, in the Lower Nile Valley, in the upper part of what's now Syria and in what's now Iraq, people were learning how to write things down that they had previously only been able to to say.

And what that allows is the ability of humans to have conversations across space and time.

But one of the other issues that comes up is where do you keep all that stuff?

In Egypt, they were rolling papyrus into scrolls, but in the area, up in what's now Syria and in Iraq, they were building rooms to store their clay tablets.

They were storing them as a librarian, would love to hear on edge with, on the, on the very edge, the, the spine, if you will.

There were additional pieces of information that talked about how to keep things together and how to find the content.

So in a way, those are our first libraries.

Libraries were a part of the human experience.

Then moving forward across to the west, into the east, and in the West, you see things like in Julius Caesar's, Rome public library start to be developed and used.

- Well.

So you're talking about usage, you're talking about where they were trying to figure out to store these books.

And so I wanna start with the storage of 'em.

Those first public libraries, were they more for storage?

Did they limit who could come in?

Tell us about that.

- Well, the content, as you might imagine, were those things that people find important.

Even today, some of them were commercial, they wanted to keep track of inventories and sales.

A part of them were our stories, our narratives, where we come from.

Some of them were epic poems.

The Epic of Gilgamesh comes from a, a clay tablet in Nineveh in what is now Syria, for example.

But an issue is literacy rates are extremely low.

So they weren't as widely used as they would come to be later because the, the number of people who could use them was fairly small.

- Hmm.

So you say the number of people who could use them was fairly small.

So were libraries more of a public thing back then, or were they open to like the wealthy or the elite who was using the early libraries?

- That's a great question, and it's important I think, to how Kansas libraries develop later.

There are monastic libraries.

There is a huge library at the Vatican in seats of power, seats of government.

There are imperial libraries, and the common thread that unites all of those kinds of libraries early on in library history is that there is a, a powerful source of revenue because it costs a lot of money to copy materials.

It costs a lot of money to store them, to organize them to care for them.

And so the, the places that had libraries had a source of revenue.

Then over time, of course, as things change in technology, we get the printing press in the middle of the 15th century.

And that has to power to, in one way, democratize information.

It becomes less expensive to create books, but it also, with the concept of supply and demand, creates more materials out there that then pulls up the literacy rates that allow more people to be interested in those worlds beyond their horizons.

- So when I hear you say money, where the early libraries, a status symbol?

- Oh, they very much could be.

There were some of the imperial libraries were put together by aristocracy and leaders that couldn't even read.

They just knew that those that have access to the information have access to power.

- Okay.

So we've talked about a lot of the historical context of the library.

So now I wanna talk about Kansas and our public libraries.

How many public libraries are there in Kansas and how do we get to that more public library system?

- So it's interesting to me that the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 allocated money for a territorial library, and that territorial library actually becomes the framework that the State Library of Kansas uses to develop.

And then over time, communities across Kansas that it is important for their community members to have access to books and reading rooms.

In 1872, there was a statute passed that allowed communities to build, establish, and maintain public libraries and reading rooms at the expense of the city.

Mayors in a subsequent law were allowed to appoint 13 members of a board that were chosen with respect to their fitness for office.

So there's a recognition early on in our state history that libraries are important.

At the current moment, I think there's somewhere very close to 383 public libraries in Kansas, there are 1,305 school libraries associated with nearly every school in the state.

And the Kansas Board of Regent says that there are 32 college and university libraries.

- Okay.

So with that, we've got Basehor here and we've got the Topeka Public Library here.

And so I'm interested in learning a little bit more about the Topeka Library and how it came to be.

- So our library started in 1870, so very, very early on in the, the creation of Kansas.

And it started by women, it was called the Ladies Library Association.

And it was actually in a storefront.

It was in a Dr, a dry goods building on Kansas Avenue.

And it, it lived there and it, it, it, it prospered.

It, it was about four shelves worth of books for a very long time until several decades later.

Edward Wilder, who was over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, who was that was in Topeka, decided that Topeka deserved a, a proper library.

And so he lobbied and raised funds to be able to build our very first physical library, which was on the State House grounds.

We were there for numerous years, and it was an amazing space because it wasn't just about books, it was about art, and it was about culture, and it was about bringing the community together, and it was free and open to everybody who was a citizen of Topeka.

And so that's where it started.

And you can even stand on that hollowed ground still and, and see where, where that library was and know that it was so close to the places of government and the central area of this community.

So it was a vibrant place for people to be.

And there was some loss when we moved.

We moved in 1953, and the history writes that citizens weren't happy about that.

'cause we were moving to the Wild West, basically.

So we're right across the street now from Storm Montvale.

Yeah.

That was considered way west.

And so there was, there was concern about that.

And, and so we have been in that building since and have obviously gone through several remodels along the way.

- Yeah.

- But we've had such a strong participation and commitment from the leaders of Topeka as well as all of the citizens.

So it's a very exciting place to be.

- Well, I'm excited to learn about some of the exciting things that people can get from their library and what Topeka's Library is doing for the community and getting from the community.

But before we get into that, I wanna talk about Basehor's Library and what Basehor's Library is doing for its community and its importance.

- Sure.

So the Basehor Library is very focused on the community and working with the local entities and local organizations.

One thing that we do really well is we have a lot of programs for all the different age groups.

So a lot of libraries, smaller libraries really focus on children's programs.

And we have a very strong children's department, great leadership there, but we also have a really good strength, great programs in our teen department and our adult department as well.

- You mentioned Teen and Children.

What are some programs that you do with the children that are really successful?

- Okay.

Well, one that we have going right now is children are able to drop off a letter to Santa at the library, and they get a handwritten response.

Each letter gets a response from Santa himself.

So that's something that is really neat.

And we do our regular story times, our department is really involved with the schools.

So that's something that we really focus on is the engagement there and visiting each classroom and having a presence there.

So, and we do, you know, we do wiggle workshops and where kids can come and move around and it's very involved with music and movement.

We do craft programs, art programs.

We, we do a lot of different things.

We work with local groups.

We have read to a dog program, different things like that.

So, quite a few things.

- It sounds like there's a lot of comprehensive programs going on at Basehor.

And so I'm gonna go back here to Topeka and you told us about the history of it.

What kind of programs are being offered and some of the services that are being offered to the community in Topeka.

- So one that actually connects both Rachel and I is that we are part of the Dolly Pardons Library Imagination Library.

So every child from birth to age five can sign up and can get a book in the mail, and it's their book.

So if you stein up your child as an infant, they could end up with 60 books before they get into kindergarten.

And what a powerful thing to have an entire community have read the same books as they enter into kindergarten.

And our, we, we, Rachel talked a little bit about story time.

So story times are about literacy and learning and setting those benchmarks and helping kids be successful once they get into school.

But it's also about engagement and connection.

And, and so what we find is that families are coming in and are going to numerous different programs that have to do with early education.

We have a learn and play bus that is a mobile classroom that goes out into the community, pops out its walls, and we have Preschool on Wheels.

And it's wonderful.

So not only are kids learning about story and craft and play, but they're also learning how to wash their hands and how to take turns and how to sing and how to do all those things.

And again, those are all benchmarks to be successful once you enter kindergarten.

So that's the little kids.

But we are, we're, we're launching and we're really excited about the robotics clubs that we have going for our school age kids.

Topeka's Library after school is a, is a bustling hub of energy.

- Yeah.

- Kids are, are interested in, in gaming both online and board games, which is amazing to watch and building.

And so they're coming together with their friends and we like to call that sneaky learning.

They've been in school for a very long time and had a great time.

But then they get to meet not only the kids that are in their schools, but kids from all over the community.

Adults.

We're doing a lot of things having to do with music.

We have a wonderful program we've had since the early or the late sixties called Music for a Sunday afternoon.

And we bring in artists to perform.

And so you have harpists and you have, you know, pianists and you have vocalists.

And that place is pretty, is is is really wonderful in hopping when it, when that's going on.

We have a gallery.

Oh wow.

The Alice C Sabitini Gallery has exhibits six, six times a year.

We have 12,000 permanent art pieces.

Wow.

And a lot of those art pieces actually were purchased and brought over by Edward Wilder, our first board chair.

So 1870s, 1880s.

And we still have those pieces.

So it's all about engaging.

And then finally we have outreach programs because as you, as I've said, we have one building right now.

We don't have branches.

We're not out in physical bricks and mortar.

So we have the bookmobiles that are out in the community and we have deliveries to home.

We're not gonna claim to be Amazon, but we're pretty darn close.

And so you can get your resources.

And so it's exciting.

And then we also really do lean into keeping our older adults connected to literacy and learning.

We go out to 55 of our older adult retirement communities and we engage in not just books, but also teaching 'em how to use their digital resources.

A family member has bought them a Kindle or an iPad, and we show them how to download those books that we have available.

So the role of a library and the role of librarians is very different than just the book.

But what I love about it is it's different every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which really makes it exciting, but it's all responding to what our community has asked us to do.

- Yeah.

What I hear from you, and I hear from Rachel is a lot of different programs that seem to be community specific.

And I know Sean, one of the things I heard you talking about was high speed internet and literacy, kind of being a whole community effort.

Tell us a little bit about how libraries are helping with that digital transition.

Kind of like with older adults getting books down.

What, what's going on there?

- Well, one of the things that I've been able to do in my role this past year as the Kansas Library Association President is go out into libraries and across the state of Kansas into communities and think about and talk to people about the role of libraries in this modern era.

And one of the things that we've learned is that in a, a city or a state that has almost 3 million people, according to the Institute of Policy and Social Research, in 2020, about a million people lived in areas that do not have access to high-speed broadband internet.

And you think about how critical broadband internet is to our way of life in Kansas and across the nation, who's gonna provide that access as we figure out how to get it into homes, it's gonna be public libraries.

And then looking at the national assessment of educational progress from 2022, we find that 40% of Kansas fourth graders are reading below basic.

And 30% of Kansas fourth graders are reading at basic.

So 70% of Kansas fourth graders in 2022 are reading at or below basic, and an an information age.

In a knowledge economy, that's probably not gonna be sufficient for those young people to be able to transition into the kinds of jobs that are gonna be available to kinds of lives that they're gonna wanna lead to be happy, healthy and whole.

And so the Kansas Public Educators, Kansas education is second to none, but it takes all of us in the community and public libraries are gonna be at the forefront of being available for assuring that those students are able to, through the programming at libraries, are gonna be able to get their literacy skills to places where they can be genuinely successful.

- Okay.

Well, Rachel, you were talking about those letters to Santa and some really unique programs that you've gone on got going on in Basehor .

And so I'm wondering how do you know what the patrons want in Basehor?

How do you as a library meet the needs of the community if we're having a whole community effort?

- Sure.

Well, I think the first thing is to really develop a relationship with your public and work directly with your patrons and listen to what the needs are.

And also being involved in different groups throughout the community is very vital to learning what is needed, what the interests are, and really just listening.

I mean, you can do questionnaires, surveys, things like that, and find out some good data and good information, but just building those relationships is essential.

- And you mentioned you had some programs that you're really excited to tell us about.

What are some of those programs that came from interacting with the public and realizing services and things that they needed?

- Sure.

We have a lot of programs that have been traditional programs that have gone on for years in Basehor.

And one of them is the Haunted Trail program.

So we have, it's a teen program and we have dozens of teens who volunteer and they put acts on through the, throughout the park.

And it's basically a haunted house in the park, so families can walk through, they pay a fee to go through.

So it's a fundraiser and they walk through the park and the teens dress up in their costumes that they created and put on these scary acts.

And it's, it's a lot of fun.

And then there's snacks afterwards.

So that's a fun program that this year we had over 700 people attend.

So, okay.

Another one that stands out is we do one, it's a field trip for adults.

So we went to the Overland Park, Arboretum and Prairie Fire Museum.

And that was a lot of fun.

And then we all had lunch together, so exploring local places and you know, libraries are more than just information from a book or on the internet or so forth.

It's really about educational experiences as well.

So we really try to embrace that.

- Okay.

So I hear you guys saying there's art, there's theater in the park, there's letters for Santa.

You're engaging our older individuals to make sure that they're getting resources.

And so I wanna build off of those educational opportunities that you're talking about, Rachel.

And I wanna ask you Marie, about what kind of databases, I think when people are coming to the library, they get to use them for free, but are they actually free?

No, they're - Not free.

They're, they're ones that we purchase, just like we would purchase books and we just make them available.

So it's, it can scale.

And so a couple of ones that, that are unique that you might not think the library would have is we have purchased a number of genealogy databases.

So if you're looking to do your family history and you are not in the, you don't have the means to be able to purchase that on your own, most of that information is digitized at this point.

You can come to the library and, you know, 78 hours a a week, you can actually come and do your genealogy, recess research with our resources.

And then we have databases that we actually, the state library leverages for all of us.

And so some of 'em are peer reviewed research documents.

Some of them are like mango, where you learn a new language.

So the, the benefit, the other benefit of public libraries is we lean into on each other and we leverage our resources.

So the dollars that are spent are open and used for beyond just Topeka and Shawnee County, that they're used for all of the different libraries, the school libraries, the academic libraries.

So some are fun.

Our, our eBooks are, we have Canopy, which is downloading and streaming movies.

So you can be at home and you can watch movies much like you would do with Netflix and stuff like that, but you can do that with your library card.

And so it doesn't cost you anything.

And they're really good movies.

And so it's, again, it's leveraging those resources, it's providing what our customers have asked for.

And not everybody can afford, you know, all the platforms of streaming, but they wanna have the access and they need to have the access.

So it's really important that we're here and that we're able to kind of pull all the dollars and then make 'em available to everybody.

- And I wanna make sure for anybody that's watching that, I didn't confuse them.

You're paying for the resources.

We are, but they're free to people to use, right?

- Absolutely.

With their library card, - Yes.

- We like to say it's, you've already paid for it.

- Yeah.

- You're paying for it through your property tax.

You're paying, you're paying for it through any additional fees that you pay.

But, so it is free to use for you, but we have purchased it, or the State Library of Kansas has purchased it for all libraries to use.

- Okay.

And what other types of digital resources are you seeing made available at libraries right now, Sean?

- Well, the academic library here at Washburn, we began 15 years ago to recognize that we were a little bit of out of balance, that we were spending the majority of our collection budget on monographs or books and a small part of that budget on digital resources.

And over the last 15 years, we've kind of swapped that, those figures around.

And so we add onto the databases that we get from the State Library of Kansas to buy unique databases that have specific content for disciplines, for departments, for schools at Washburn, more and more students are seeking information being provided through Audio Vi visual.

So Canopy is one, but there are other databases that provide access to students, faculty, and staff for audio visual materials.

- Okay.

And Rachel, what digital databases are you offering in Basehor?

- Sure.

So we really lean heavy on the state library databases.

So thank goodness we have that resource available to all of the, all Kansans and all public libraries in Kansas.

But we also have lots of e-resources.

So electronic resources are becoming more and more popular like eBooks and especially electronic audio books.

So we have Hoopla and we have, we also have Canopy.

And so we have several different programs that have become very popular with electronic resources.

- Okay.

So, so Rachel, for, I wanna start with you.

Where do you see the future of public libraries in Kansas in - Basehor?

Well, Basehor is a very quickly growing community.

It's grown quite a bit, pretty quickly, and we just built a new city hall right next to the library, the city did.

And we're excited because we are also looking at expanding our building to reach the needs of the community.

So it's, there's a lot of opportunity there.

In the future, one of the things we're looking at, really focusing on is our children's department.

So we're going to build a children's story time room just for the library services because right now we have meeting room spaces and they're so popular that it's, it can be challenging sometimes trying to make sure everything is scheduled far enough in advance to make sure we reserve those for everything we need.

And also reaching all of the needs of the community to use those spaces as well.

So expanding that and adding more study room spaces.

So I think the future is bright for libraries in Kansas.

- That sounds very exciting.

What about in Topeka Marie?

- So we're really leaning into that idea that content can be created by the individual.

So we have introduced two sound recording studios, much like here.

And so actually people are creating podcasts and they're creating their original music and they're doing all different kinds of things.

And the fun thing that we're really excited about is they're beginning to tell their share their family story.

So we're gonna have that.

So the idea that the book is, is it's always gonna be present, it's always there, but it's about the community creating the content and, and making sure that everybody in the community feels like they have something in the library.

So that's exciting.

Yeah, it's very different.

Yeah.

It's, it's helping them with side hustles to start new jobs.

It's looking at being on the cutting edge of dig, digital literacy, and it's making sure we're even evening the playing field.

So that's where the future is.

The future is making sure that everybody has an opportunity to create their own story and to create their own future.

And it's very exciting to be there.

And just listening to people coming in - And, and, and playing music and doing podcasts is just amazing.

Well, that sounds really exciting.

Sean, what about you?

Where do you see us in Kansas in the future with public libraries?

- I'm so excited about Kansas libraries and looking both into the future and where we're gonna go and what we've done, and to tie those together in a bow.

I think that Kansas libraries have been central to communities from our very beginnings being agents of books, being providers of information, and the content that people need to be happy and healthy.

But I think looking forward, I think looking at what the community asks of us is gonna be so critical.

Each community's gonna be different, but it's gonna come down into those same themes.

It's gonna be information that's provided historically through books, through print.

It's gonna be digital information, it's gonna be the opportunity to be information creators, to be artifact creators.

And it's gonna be an opportunity for Kansas libraries as they always have to make sure that they are at the forefront of their communities in helping the members of those communities be all that they can be to leverage themselves.

- Well, Marie, Sean, Rachel, thank you so much.

That's all the time we have for today.

And thank you for joining us on this episode of IGI for this enlightening discussion.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org For IGI, I'm LaTiffany Obozele and thank you for watching.

(♪)