Highlights Part 4 - Libraries and Librarians: From COVID Lifelines to Book Bans - Transcript

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Highlights Part 4- Libraries and Librarians

About This Transcript: This text version of our radio show/podcast is created to make our content more accessible to all audiences. However, it may not be 100% accurate. Some things to keep in mind: The original audio is always the most reliable source. Some words or phrases may be transcribed incorrectly due to audio quality, accents, or overlapping speech. Speaker labels are our best attempt at identification. We welcome your feedback if you spot errors that affect meaning or understanding. 

George Koster: [00:00:00] March, 2020, a grandmother in Hayward holds a book to her iPad watching her exhausted son and grandchildren drift off to sleep from miles away. The library gave her away to still be a grandmother when everything else was taken away. It wasn't an outlier from wellness checks to hand washing stations when hospitals overflowed and businesses shuttered.

George Koster: Public libraries became the institutions that saved us, but five years later, those same libraries are fighting for survival. We are witnessing an unprecedented assault. The librarians who served as our lifeline are now facing death threats, budget cuts, and organized efforts to impose ideological. Here to unpack this crisis, our associate producer Eric Estrada, introduces us to our show guest who will share their [00:01:00] experiences in addressing both the problems and the solutions facing libraries and librarians, as well as the historical perspective on why libraries are fundamental to our democracy.

Eric: Joining the program is Don Logston, co-founder of Serendipity Films and Director of the Public Library documentary Free for All, and Lucy Faulkner. Co-founder of Serendipity Films and the film's producer.

George Koster: I'm joined remotely via Zoom from our mutual self quarantine by Lucy Faulkner and Don Logston. The co-founders are Serendipity Films.

George Koster: Thanks for being here, Don and Lucy.

Lucie Faulknor: Thanks

Dawn Logsdon: for

Lucie Faulknor: having

Dawn Logsdon: us.

George Koster: I'd like to, to have each of you to share why you created Serendipity films, and then what are some of the titles that you've either produced or worked on?

Lucie Faulknor: We started the film company because when I first met Dawn, she was working on our other film Treman, the Untold Story of Black New Orleans, and it was going through her own personal bank account as a DBA.

Lucie Faulknor: So once you get a bunch of funders you need to keep for [00:02:00] the financial reporting, you need to have everything, you know, very clear and concise. And so that's why we started Serendipity Films because we needed a new bank account and in order to report to them. It's very mundane, but that's why we started it.

Lucie Faulknor: Don will tell you the type of films that we like to make

Dawn Logsdon: case you can't tell. She's the one who handles the business and thank God for that. So we made a film about New Orleans, which is about a historic African American neighborhood there that I made with a friend of mine from high school and went and Maral was the executive producer who's also somebody that I went to high school with in New Orleans.

Dawn Logsdon: It's my hometown. Then I, prior to that time, had a long career as an editor, and so in between that film and Free For All, I've been editing films as part of the Serendipity Project. So I did a piece last year for American Masters about the chef Jacque Pepin. And I worked on an experimental film called The Royal Road, which is certainly very timely.

Dawn Logsdon: Again, because part of what it's about is Juniper, Sarah, and his [00:03:00] legacy of, well, I don't wanna say destruction, but um, his mixed blessing, legacy, to say the very least. And how. Much children growing up in California were taught one side of the mission story, the story of the Spanish and the missionary, uh, period in history.

Dawn Logsdon: And that film, uh, was made by Jenny Olson and it went to Sundance. So most of what we do is work this for PBS, occasionally, BBC, or HBO, but mostly PPS.

George Koster: And you both created Free for all, and please walk the audience through why Free for All. It's a wonderful film and probably a very large project for what you guys have done in the past.

Dawn Logsdon: It was her idea. It's all her fault.

Lucie Faulknor: Yeah, it's been a huge project. It started when we were working on the Treme film where I was. Spending a lot of times in archives and libraries, and I just fell in love with librarians because they were, that would have all the answers to anything we needed. If they didn't have the answer, they would look it up, and by the time I got back to my [00:04:00] office, the answer would be in my inbox.

Lucie Faulknor: And so I told Don, I said, we should make a movie about public libraries. And she's like, I'm sure it's already been done. And so we of course, Googled it and it hadn't been done. So we started thinking about that. We found out who the best historian was on the subject, and we called him up and he got him on board.

Lucie Faulknor: And then Hurricane Katrina hit. So we didn't get to start it right away. We had to go back into production for the cover Chima film. And here we are 10 years later. Yeah,

Dawn Logsdon: we

Lucie Faulknor: had to evacuate New Orleans. Ended up in Baton Rouge with just our three days worth of clothes, thinking we'd be right back home, and discovered that we wouldn't be able to go back home.

Lucie Faulknor: And we didn't have our computers or anything, so we knew where we were or what we were doing. And so we went to the library to get on the computer to tell people where we were. And we were okay. 'cause my family's in California here in San F. Once we got to the library, we realized librarians are [00:05:00] first responders because they were there signing people in to get on the computers so they can get in and check loved ones list.

Lucie Faulknor: There was lost pets. They had FEMA forms, they had Red Cross help there. It was amazing. And just somebody to listen to you too, you know, if you lost everything librarian or they like talk to you and help you with your insurance forms or whatever. So that sort of solidified it. And then we had to finish the other film and.

Lucie Faulknor: Finally we got back into it. Even though we said we weren't gonna make another film, we did. Here we are

Dawn Logsdon: and we've actually been filming a lot of disasters over the years as we're traveling around working on this project, starting with Hurricane Katrina and going all the way through the COVID Pandemic,

George Koster: what would you like to see as the biggest impact in Free for All, for the importance of public libraries?

George Koster: What are some of the major goals, you know, in the outcome of that wonderful film?

Dawn Logsdon: You know, until we started this film, it was something we really took for granted. The fact that we had a public library every place we've ever lived, and it was free and it was open to [00:06:00] everybody,

Lucie Faulknor: every place we ever traveled.

Lucie Faulknor: There's a public library

Dawn Logsdon: in the United States. Yeah, and and most countries now to other places too. But I don't think we can take our public spaces for granted forever. And if we do, we're really in danger of losing them. And I think this moment is super acute for us. Being aware of that now that they're all closed, it's like as a society.

Dawn Logsdon: How do we wanna bring them back? Do we wanna commit to bringing them back and paying for them? Because it means taxes and not just our public libraries, but our public schools, our universities, all those things.

Lucie Faulknor: We're already hearing about all these counties because they're losing so much tax revenue with, you know, all the stores closed and nobody paying property taxes.

Lucie Faulknor: They're just gonna be completely and utterly strapped. And so already. They're cutting out public library funding around the country,

Dawn Logsdon: and it should be said that this film is at least half history, if not more than half. And in this moment, especially, what I hope is that the history can kind of help inspire us and guide us because it's really a [00:07:00] remarkable and beautiful and very inspiring story.

Dawn Logsdon: About how Americans of all different stripes came together and created this library system and made it more and more inclusive over like a century long journey, really, and that it was women at the forefront. So even though we're a little distressed about how long it took us to finish this, it's really appropriate that it's coming out in 2020, which is the year that women a century ago got the right to vote.

Dawn Logsdon: And those two struggles were very closely intertwined. The fight to build our library system and the fight for women to get the right to vote.

George Koster: How has COVID-19 and the whole epidemic impacted your completion of the film?

Lucie Faulknor: Well,

Dawn Logsdon: how has it not?

Lucie Faulknor: We were almost done again. We were like gearing up to get everything done so we could premiere this summer, so the composer couldn't.

Lucie Faulknor: Record with his musicians in the recording studio anymore. All the archives closed, and so we can't get the rights to all the footage. You know, like she said, it's historical, so a lot of footage [00:08:00] and photos that need rights to, we can't get 'em out of anywhere. Nobody's working, and the houses to transfer them are closed.

Dawn Logsdon: Festivals that festival just been accepted at. We had to, you know, they either got canceled or we had to decline 'cause we couldn't deliver a finished film until we get our archival material. We had to give up our broadcast on PBS that was supposed to be happening in a few months. Oh, and then I made the big decision that we needed to go in and make a few, what I thought would be very minor changes to the film to habit.

Dawn Logsdon: Be reflective of the new reality that it would be coming out into. And that's proven to be a little more daunting than I thought it would be.

Lucie Faulknor: And in, in addition, in our office, we have a large suite and a really great building and to help offset our rent because we all know San Francisco rents are crazy.

Lucie Faulknor: We sublets part of our space out. To people, and two of the people that were in here, they left. And so we have empty offices and one person, it [00:09:00] works in the printing industry for a lot of nonprofits like the opera and the ballet. Everybody just like stopped and she's got no work coming in at all. So it's affected us that way as well.

Dawn Logsdon: I, I'd say on the positive side, we have a lot more time to focus on things, you know, it does make you realize like you've been running around and doing a million things and Lucy, in addition to working on this project, had two other jobs at theaters in town and those are both gone for now. So she has a lot more time to work on the project and, and just a lot fewer distractions.

Lucie Faulknor: I feel like we are so lucky compared to a lot of people 'cause we're still able to work, you know, we aren't getting any money, but we have this space that's just a couple blocks from our household. Even though we're not essential workers, so we can still like try and figure out what's gonna happen, you know,

Dawn Logsdon: we're also very, very lucky that we weren't in the midst of fundraising.

Dawn Logsdon: I really feel for all of these organizations and artists and nonprofits and social service organizations that are trying to stay afloat right now. That'll be a challenge for [00:10:00] us down the road, but at least right now, we're not trying to fund this film.

George Koster: Speaking of which, how can people help?

Lucie Faulknor: So because theaters are closed and festivals are closed, we really feel the need to get the film once it's done out into the community.

Lucie Faulknor: And I don't think theaters are, or festivals are gonna open for a long, long time in close places. So our new brilliant idea. If I do say so myself is we're gonna get an RV and we've been donated a screen and we have a projector that we could use. To tell people, bring BYO chair and popcorn and come to the parking lot of the library or on the lawn or whatever, and we will broadcast the film and we'll be there available for q and a afterwards for people, and they can be outside, socially distant, and we can still have that.

Lucie Faulknor: Sense of community with them at that point,

Dawn Logsdon: and we were hoping to do a few of those as a test this fall. But given the situation right now, I don't think that's gonna be happening until the spring of 2021, but we're laying the [00:11:00] groundwork for it and people should sign up so that they know when we're coming to their town

George Koster: and where can they sign up?

Lucie Faulknor: They can sign up on our website, the serendipity films.org.

George Koster: Are you looking to get someone to help underwrite, provide an rv, help underwrite the tour?

Dawn Logsdon: Yes. That's all the amount.

George Koster: That would be a yes.

Lucie Faulknor: Yes.

Dawn Logsdon: We have some funding to get it started, but you know it's gonna be expensive.

Lucie Faulknor: Yeah.

Dawn Logsdon: As we're looking into it more, it's gonna be a lot more expensive than we thought.

Dawn Logsdon: At first, we were like, oh, well this will be actually the economical tour, as opposed to flying all around and staying in hotels. But it's gonna be really expensive.

Lucie Faulknor: Yeah. Just to rent an RV for a couple weeks is like $12,000 or something. It's ridiculous. So that's why we're thinking of buying one or getting one donated, but we are looking at buying them.

Lucie Faulknor: You know, we don't want a big one, but they're expensive and there's anywhere from 60 to $120,000.

Dawn Logsdon: We also wanna try and give the, the film away for free since the is about three [00:12:00] public libraries and the name of the film is Free for All and we know that libraries are gonna be really hurting right now.

Dawn Logsdon: So we're hoping to find people and foundations and funders who can help us underwrite, making it available. To every library in the country with a kit, a toolkit that makes it accessible so that librarians can use it for their own screenings, but also if they need to use it for, you know, making the argument for funding for like just helping their communities in whatever ways they need to use the film.

George Koster: So out of the COVID-19 meltdown, what do you think are some of the positive things that could come out of it to help our local filmmakers, such as yourselves here in the Bay Area?

Dawn Logsdon: In the course of researching this film, I've become really aware of how important it is to have public funding for our public services like libraries and schools, but also for our artists.

Dawn Logsdon: You know, philanthropists are not gonna save us all the time. If we really wanna have a thriving arts community and if we really wanna have thriving social [00:13:00] services, we need public funding for them. And I think people are starting to realize that a little bit during this period. So that's what I hope for more city funding, more state funding, more national funding for the arts

Lucie Faulknor: and tax people, you know, all across the board.

Lucie Faulknor: You know, that's

Dawn Logsdon: more equitable

Lucie Faulknor: taxation. Equitable. That would help. That would help a lot.

George Koster: Well, thank you both for sharing your story today, and we'll make sure that everyone who's watching this and listening to it has all of the contact information, your social media, and you have a wonderful trailer, as I recall on your website about the film.

Lucie Faulknor: Update that too,

George Koster: and collected lots and lots of stories. So it's a really wonderful project and I hope that you can bring it to fruition this year, or at least, you know, beginning of next year.

Dawn Logsdon: Thanks for having us, and thanks for everything you've done to support the project over the years. Yeah.

Eric: Coming up is Susan Stewart Clark, founder of Common Knowledge, bringing decades of experience helping communities learn, lead, and [00:14:00] collaborate, as well as Derrick Wolf Graham Library, director of Redwood City Public Library and Genty Delman, library Director of the Hayward Public Library.

Susan Stuart Clark: Genti. I love that you brought up the theme of learning and the lifelong learning that the library provides for all age ranges, and then how you and your team and Derek and his team have been through your own learning experience. It was Showtime, right during COVID, and as a backdrop for talking about how you adapted or adjusted during COVID.

Susan Stuart Clark: I'm just wondering if you could tell the listeners maybe a little bit of an overview. About what the Hayward Public Library provides, what is the part that people may not understand about the library's role in the community?

Jayanti Addleman: So, Hayward, you know, one of the things which, even though I did a lot of research before I came to Hayward, which really surprised me myself, is the level of service we provide to young people.

Jayanti Addleman: Hayward has a very young population. We are a very large immigrant population, new residents in the [00:15:00] United States. The children in school, many of them need a lot of help because either the parents are both working all day out of the house. The parents don't necessarily understand the system or just don't speak the language.

Jayanti Addleman: There are many reasons. So at Hayward we have this really strong program of being in school. So we have 10 homework centers. Really sort of focus so strongly. I mean, children, it's a cliche, but children are our future and we feel very strongly about that. And so we've been doing this and of course when suddenly all of the schools closed and all of our library branches closed and we were like, how do we help the children?

Jayanti Addleman: We need to continue to do. And so pivot is the word of the day for us. We are constantly talking of how fast we pivoted, but literally the day we closed and we knew it was going to be a long closure for the pandemic, is we started our e-cards. That was the first thing. Get the E-cards. People should be able to get their library cards without coming into the library.

Jayanti Addleman: [00:16:00] Immediately. We started that and then we had all this. Funding set aside for the homework centers. And we also immediately changed over to using our technology library, so the hotspots, all of that, getting that in the hands of the students. And we really thought about this very carefully and we said, children, you give them a Chromebook, something to take home.

Jayanti Addleman: We should not take it back in six weeks from the child. They should have it. They should be able to. Be confident that they can continue to work with it. So we actually changed our loan periods to one year for all of our devices immediately. So you do little things that don't sound very big, but the impact is so tremendous.

Jayanti Addleman: So that's one of the things I really like to talk about is how our tech lending library has been, and we don't. Perfect coverage in terms of broadband internet in the city. There's lots of real dry pockets, deserts, and so these hotspots and MiFis, which we've lent out, have been really a huge help. [00:17:00] So I like to talk about the technology and the helping students that Hayward does that.

Jayanti Addleman: Many people are just not aware of.

Susan Stuart Clark: That's a fantastic example. And Derek, as you begin to roll out all the amazing ways that you pivoted and responded, what is the starting context that people need to know about the Redwood City Public Library?

Derek Wolfgram: I think in a lot of ways, similar to what gents talked about, that.

Derek Wolfgram: The immediate concern, definitely as libraries closed and as students went home, there was a lot of concern about connectivity and we did many of the similar things with our hotspot devices. Being able to get those checked out to people, extending loan periods, working with community partners that we had relationships with to make sure that.

Derek Wolfgram: The most needy folks in the community were the recipients of those devices because the school districts actually did a great job in Redwood City of helping the students with connectivity. But there were a lot of folks that fell through the cracks for various reasons, whether there were language [00:18:00] barriers to understanding what was going on.

Derek Wolfgram: In some cases, it's multiple children in a household and there's only one device per household, and they actually, you've got multiple families sharing a dwelling and there's not enough. Bandwidth in a single hotspot to account for all of those needs at the same time. And so we filled in a lot of the gaps, you know, in terms of other things that we changed or started doing right away.

Derek Wolfgram: But one of the things that we did was shifting a lot of those programs and events and activities that we talked about that are such a critical part of the Redwood City Public Library's identity. Moving those online, we were always for the very reasons of. The digital divide, we were hesitant to want to do online programming because we were afraid that there would be segments of the community that would be left behind because of their connectivity.

Derek Wolfgram: And what we've actually found out anecdotally since the pandemic started and we shifted our activities online is that we've actually made things a lot easier for engagement with the library for some different categories [00:19:00] of, of folks, whether they are people with physical disabilities, people with transportation issues.

Derek Wolfgram: People with childcare issues, all of these folks struggle to get to a particular event in a time and place. And if they're able to do it from home while dinner is being cooked and homework is being done, and all of the other family activities that need to be taking place are happening, it actually gives people the opportunity to continue to engage with us in a different way at a different time, and we'll talk later on shifts for the future.

Derek Wolfgram: But I think that. This is something that's with us to stay, even when we return to in-person events, there will be some sort of hybrid model where we are doing some things online and doing some things in person. And the only other thing I wanted to add back to the context question about something that's maybe not understood about the library.

Derek Wolfgram: I think one of those things is just how seriously we take our role in lifting up the most vulnerable residents in our [00:20:00] community. And the development of youth and children, and part of the reason for that is I just have an incredibly creative staff who does really fun engaging things. We have some activities that we do that range from our human library and library takeover programs.

Derek Wolfgram: We have beehives on the roof of the library. During the pandemic, we've started an online story time series called Stories from our Community that we've invited partners in to read stories. And those partners have ranged from firefighters to Caltrain engineers to circus performers to the black student union at the local high school.

Derek Wolfgram: So I think we're always doing things that. Seems so fun and engaging that the stealth mission of the critical social support and lifelong learning almost gets buried because it just looks like we're just doing things that are fun. But all of these things have a critical role in lifting up our community.

George Koster: I think the only other piece I would add to that would just be, and this will be a question for each of you. I'm gonna start [00:21:00] with you Derek, 'cause you had mentioned it. And that would be, so much of library experience is what I would consider to be analog in that it's in person, you know, the library is, has really been the community center.

George Koster: I think it's even becoming more the digital community center and Community Square. So for the marginalized folks in communities, especially the unhoused community members who use the library as a way to have access to technology and email address, you know, for services, et cetera. And then for. Community members who don't have access to technology, how has COVID-19 impacted your relationship and the ability to help serve those patrons?

Derek Wolfgram: It's a great question, and it's something that we're actually still working through, uh, a year in particularly with our unsheltered population. You know, the way that information gets out to that community is word of mouth and is, you know, one-to-one connections and it's very difficult. To do that in an environment where people are worried about the public health concerns about interacting with other people.

Derek Wolfgram: And you [00:22:00] know, for our unsheltered folks, we provide a whole array of services. One of the most critical is actually our restrooms. And one of the things we had to do within a week of shutting down the library was we realized that we needed to get accessible. Portlets and Handwashing stations in the parking lot of the library, because that's a role that we play, is we are a public restroom in a very public, very welcoming space, and all of those public welcoming spaces went away and there wasn't any place for people to go.

Derek Wolfgram: And so we had to shift. Kind of our Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how we were looking at things, and we've started doing a lot more that's around food and shelter. In addition to continuing to do some things that are about intellectual enlightenment and some of the, you know, more profound impacts that we try to make on our residents.

Derek Wolfgram: We had to take care of some of the basics for people as well. So I think that. Again, community partnerships were really key for us being able to work through [00:23:00] local organizations that we have, like the Downtown Streets team, who are some folks who do street cleanup in the downtown area, and they're reimbursed with gift cards from local merchants for that work.

Derek Wolfgram: And they actually have, their base of operations is in a shed in the corner of the library parking lot, and so they're a great point of connection. With the homeless community. There's also another organization in Redwood City called Street Life Ministries that does a lot of providing food and shelter and connections to resources.

Derek Wolfgram: And so we worked through them to make sure that the word got out about, you know, what was going on with our hotspots, because that's something that group needs from us. And hopefully as we are starting to reopen. We'll figure out some ways that we can place some priority on making sure that these people have access to the things that they need once again,

George Koster: and Genti, same question for you.

Jayanti Addleman: Yeah. So, you know, similar to what Derek said is we are the defacto daytime shelter for [00:24:00] our own house. Populations, they do come in. It's a warm place, it's a safe place. There's the restrooms, there's water, all of these things. And there's definitely just the ability to sit there and keep themselves occupied in a safe environment.

Jayanti Addleman: But we did exactly the same thing. Put the hand washing stations, the ported, the portable toilets in the front. And for us in Hayward, there are many issues about security and concern, which it's been hard balancing those, and I hate to say this, but one of the things we had to do around one of our branches is actually put up sort of a chicken wire fence because it had become the camp which had become the security issue for the neighbors.

Jayanti Addleman: I mean, we had someone with their bow and arrow up. On the wall there. And so it really does become a concern. And so really trying to find that balance. And for the staff, it's very traumatic because these are the people they work with daily. They're used to working with our unhoused populations, they've built relationships.

Jayanti Addleman: And so really trying to [00:25:00] find that balance. But I think we've done a good job to keep those relationships alive, and we do make the contact, we've got our curbside services going, and part of the curbside for us was the lunch, giving out the lunches to the students. And so families would come with their children and pick up lunches.

Jayanti Addleman: The library and Hayward was one of the first cities in the country to start free testing when COVID happened. And so the library was very involved in all of these. The library, you know, we were part of the volunteering to give out the lunches. We were part of the testing. I myself was one of the first probably nonmedical non.

Jayanti Addleman: Form volunteer at our testing site. And so we've really tried to keep the relationships there and make sure we are still reaching our populations as best we can, helping get the word out about the services that are available and you know, really also being a voice as the city. Talks and we make all policies and we make decisions.

Jayanti Addleman: The library [00:26:00] is at the table and trying to speak for groups that we've served traditionally. I mean the porta parties was a huge part of, you know, making sure we have that bathroom right there for our regular users.

George Koster: So Jeanti, you've been at the library for a long time, I think would really be wonderful if you could share with the audience, perhaps one of your favorite stories could be of a person or a nonprofit or community-based organization you've worked with over the years.

Jayanti Addleman: I'd like to actually just tell one again about the COVID. You know, recent thing, there's one of our library users, she contacted us about picking out books and we were doing curbside and she said, I can't really do curbside. I used to bring my grandkids into the library and they would pick books out. So I just need you to pick the books out for me.

Jayanti Addleman: And so staff said, okay, we can do that. And she said, just start from a and go across. They count, you know how librarians are, they couldn't, this, the thought of just not putting some thought into [00:27:00] selecting books was very difficult for them. So anyway, they had conversation with her and they talked about, you know, what the ages of her grandkids were.

Jayanti Addleman: And so they began to put these book bundles for her and she would come and pick them up. And then she called me back and she could almost tell, she was almost crying about how happy she was because her. Son who was uh, divorced and he had moved with his kids, they just moved away. And so she had started reading the books to them every night before they went to sleep.

Jayanti Addleman: And she said, and every night on my iPad, I read your books and I watch my grandkids fall asleep and I also watch my son fall asleep at the same time. As I read. And so she said, not that he's bored, but you can tell he's so tired as a single dad and he's so grateful that his mother can do this from far and, and you know, she really kind of appreciated the way the librarians had done it.

Jayanti Addleman: But I just love that story and I told her, you really need to take a video [00:28:00] of this whole scene and I want to put it on our social media. Share it with the public. But the other thing, when we closed the staff, were really suffering from this withdrawal, not being able to see the patrons. We are just so used to talking to people and that's, we are all about service and that contact.

Jayanti Addleman: And so when we decided to do curbside, we were going to launch, our curbside staff just said, we have to do something, really make this a moment. And so they made a music video. It was just the most fun music video, and it's hard to explain this on a radio show, but they had the song Happy and everyone was wearing their masks and they were socially distanced, but they were dancing and.

Jayanti Addleman: Who knew how well they could dance. We had one of our pages break dancing twirling on his head doing all these things, and there was such genuine joy in the thought that patrons were [00:29:00] coming back, and it was lovely and we posted it on all of our social media. People were thrilled. And then our city clerk's office loved it so much.

Jayanti Addleman: They said, well, can you help us make a video? For voting to get people out for the vote. We were like, sure. Now the library has a new job. You know, when we are making music videos for all the departments in the city. It was very sweet and very fun.

George Koster: Thank you. That was a great story. And Derek, how about you?

Derek Wolfgram: Sure. I'll share one brief story from actually slightly before the pandemic. That is just one of the moments that's really helped me understand the value of what we do. Something that Redwood City Public Library started a couple years ago was a program called Social Service Office Hours. And some libraries, particularly large urban libraries, have brought social workers onto their staff to help the unsheltered folks.

Derek Wolfgram: People that are dealing with mental illness or substance use issues that are in their libraries to find help. [00:30:00] And I had worked with our local county behavioral health department trying to set up something like this, but basically I didn't have the money or the resources and they didn't have the money or the resources, but we came up with this idea.

Derek Wolfgram: Of what we call the social service office hours, which is for all of the different nonprofits in the community that provide services to the unsheltered community. We set up times for them to be in the library and have the opportunity to interact with the people that are in every day. So one Tuesday morning of the month, it would be life moves who work on shelter issues.

Derek Wolfgram: One Tuesday it would be Heart and Soul who works with substance abuse issues and rotating through all of these different nonprofits. So everybody could come up with two hours a month that they could put into this. So it became a collaboration instead of just having a social worker. And not long after we started this program, I was talking to a gentleman that I would see in the library every day as I walked through and I just said, how are you doing [00:31:00] today?

Derek Wolfgram: And he said, well, I'm not that great. And I asked him why? And he said, well, I was just at social service office hours and I've been placed into housing. I have a. Place to go and live starting next week. And I was, okay, so where's the bad news? And he said, but it's in a neighboring community and I'm not gonna be able to come to the Redwood City Public Library every day anymore.

Derek Wolfgram: And the fact that was in that moment. Overshadowing for this person. The fact that they had housing that they could go to was just heartbreaking and extraordinary all at the same time.

Eric: In our first half, producers, Don Lockton and Lucy Faulkner shared how libraries became essential lifelines during disasters from Hurricane Katrina evacuees to the COVID-19 isolation. Their decade long [00:32:00] journey culminated in free for all now streaming on PBS's independent lens. Get engaged and support your local library and organize a screening@freeforall.org.

Eric: We rely on your support to produce these stories. Please consider making a tax deductible donation by clicking the donate button@georgekoster.com. Thank you for your support. I am associate producer Eric Estrada guiding you through our second half. If you are just joining us, we are hearing from the voices of Susan Stewart Clark from Common Knowledge, Genti Delman, director of Library Services for the City of Hayward, and Derek Wolf Graham Library Director at Redwood City Public Library about the state of our public libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eric: Let's continue the discussion.

Susan Stuart Clark: I wanted to follow up on these COVID experiences with a theme that's been sort of ing under your examples. But [00:33:00] we know from our work with the libraries north of you, library recovery.org, that mental health. The library's role in supporting community mental health. You know, whether it's formally or informally breaking down the isolation.

Susan Stuart Clark: I would just love to hear from both of you a little bit about how you saw supporting community mental health and just general psychic wellbeing during a time of such disruption. Derek.

Derek Wolfgram: It's a great challenge because like we've talked about the fact that people were cut off from having interactions with each other and you know that human day-to-day contact is for many people the thing that keeps them going.

Derek Wolfgram: And so in one sense, I think that just all of the activities that we did, the picking up a craft kit or just coming to get a curbside book like this. Ability to do something normal-ish and to have the self care of being able to [00:34:00] retreat into a book or into an activity really made a difference for people for the truly, deeply mentally ill.

Derek Wolfgram: You know, this is an area that our social service office hours was probably the best way that we had been providing points of connection for these folks. And honestly, I don't. Know that we did the absolute best job in the world with finding a way to sustain that. It was very difficult without having the physical contact.

Derek Wolfgram: So I said, we've kept in touch with our community partners and we've tried to funnel resources through them, but I am feeling a renewed commitment to make sure that we're providing some opportunities to help those people first as we move into our reopening phase.

Susan Stuart Clark: I so appreciate that. And one of your peers has talked about libraries as essential workers when it comes to community mental health and gente.

Susan Stuart Clark: I'd just be curious how in Hayward you felt that you were playing a role. [00:35:00]

Jayanti Addleman: Yeah, our main library, which was this big beautiful library we had just opened it. And COVID hit and we had to close it again. So a lot of our services, we were still getting them up and going, and we didn't have a formal kind of social support program as yet, but we were talking about it.

Jayanti Addleman: We had just started our veterans resource center. We were doing all these things, but a lot of it just had to do with how we dealt with the unhoused population, how we provided them that safe space. Because for many of our unhoused population and. Many of our residents with mental health issues, the library really was that safe space.

Jayanti Addleman: And just before we closed it was very devastating for me. We had one of our patrons who would just come and sit there and would talk to herself and would be bent over and we could tell, I mean, she was just deteriorating, but there's only this much you can do. And I had a couple of times when she would go into the restroom and she would just.

Jayanti Addleman: [00:36:00] Close the door and she would lie down on the floor. And obviously that's something we have to take care of. First thing is you can't have someone sleeping in the restroom, but also you wanna make sure they're okay. And she came out and she was so ill, she was obviously so Ill, obviously not a sound mentally, and we called the ambulance and they took care of her.

Jayanti Addleman: And of course we have no way to force someone to go to the hospital. It's just things like these are very traumatic for staff. I'll tell you. And I. Talked with them and they got her out. And then just about maybe an hour later, I had to go to a lawyer's office that's pretty close to the library. And I went there and there she was lying on the pavement outside the lawyer's office.

Jayanti Addleman: So clearly they had taken her out and then refused whatever services they had offered her. And you see that, and you know the pressure it puts on you as a library staff member. Trying to make those decisions of do [00:37:00] we call for a next level of help? And of course now there's all these other issues also with the police that you're afraid to call the police.

Jayanti Addleman: Like trying to find that balance and what is gonna happen to this person who I know and see all the time. And this patron, her name was Linda, and a few days later she did die and write out very close to the library. And that's very devastating. You wish you know that she had been inside and warm for those last four, five days of her life and you always feel like, you know, if I hadn't called, maybe she'd have come back for the next three and four days and stayed inside with us instead of ending up just feeling like she couldn't come into the library.

Jayanti Addleman: So it's a very difficult situation and all libraries, we are really trying to work through this and trying to find a common. Understanding a shared way of serving our mentally health. I mean that you've done a lot and whether it's like issue of giving Narcan or there's [00:38:00] all kinds of things we do as a group, but it's not uniform and it's something it's very hard to police in the sense of make policy on,

Susan Stuart Clark: and I really appreciate your being candid about that.

Susan Stuart Clark: This is why libraries have such a unique lens on the intersection of the social issues that a city or a community is grappling with. And then they all come kind of into a place at the library and where the library is a caring place. And so you're part of government, but you're also the human side of government.

Susan Stuart Clark: I think. As we talked earlier about lifelong learning. What from this COVID experience have you learned and what would you like to carry forward?

Jayanti Addleman: Derek, you wanna go?

Derek Wolfgram: Sure. I'll take a stab at that. You know, one of the things we learned, and Gente hinted at this or talked about this earlier, that I'm just grateful for and I knew, but it's helped reinforce for me, is the incredible passion of the library staff.

Derek Wolfgram: For service to the community at every [00:39:00] phase of our reopening. When we started bringing people back into the buildings, when we started doing curbside services, when we expanded curbside services, when we announced our upcoming opening date that we'll be reopening to the public every time I expected there to be.

Derek Wolfgram: Pushback or concern or safety worries from our staff. And every time they said, oh, thank goodness we're gonna be able to serve the community better once we go to this next phase. And that's just amazing that that's people's perception. There were discussions in December when case counts were so high and everything was shutting down, and there was the statewide shutdown order that, you know, questions about whether we were gonna shut down our curbside services.

Derek Wolfgram: And I said no, because if our practices didn't feel like they were safe, we wouldn't have been doing this since June already, so we're not gonna shut down. And everybody said, oh, thank goodness. We were afraid that you were gonna say we needed to shut down. Which is just not the picture that people [00:40:00] have in their head of like the response that civil servants have to a situation.

Derek Wolfgram: I think that was really profound in terms of like practices and ways that we can be ready for the next disaster, or the next pandemic or the next. Crisis that comes our way. I certainly don't think that this particular crisis is gonna allow us to create a manual that we can just get out next time and say, oh, this is what we did with the COVID-19 scare.

Derek Wolfgram: Let's do it again now because there's never gonna be anything exactly like this. But I think we have learned a ton about how we can. Actively use technology for communication and interaction, not only with our employees, but with our community, you know, in everything we do. The additional flexibility that we have now to conduct our business is great.

Derek Wolfgram: I've talked about the resilience and the commitment of the staff. I think something that I've learned that I haven't fully processed yet is this idea of making fast. Changes. Knowing that they may be long-term has been a [00:41:00] really interesting, you know, government does not usually move at the speed that the shutdown in March happened.

Derek Wolfgram: And then a lesson that I'm still hoping to learn that I haven't quite yet is the community engagement and conversations and feedback loop with the community during a time like this. You know, without the chemistry and the magic that happens with in-person gatherings, it's really difficult. To continue to have the kind of meta conversation with the community about what the library is about and what the library needs to do next.

Derek Wolfgram: You know, we're blessed to be working in an environment where we have a number of really strong relationships with community partners, and so we can rely on them as. Key informants and experts and proxies for the residents of our community. But I'm really honestly just looking forward to the day where we could have a bunch of people in a room and have a conversation with them again about the library and what we're trying to accomplish, because I feel like that's something that we [00:42:00] haven't figured out a good way to do in this environment.

Susan Stuart Clark: Genty, what have you learned?

Jayanti Addleman: So I will say the first thing was humility. If anything really brought me to my knees, it was the pandemic. You know, I've been in libraries a long time. I've seen Loma Prieta. I saw what it can do to a building, you know, what it can do to your shelves, how they can be just twisted.

Jayanti Addleman: When COVID started, when it broke out, the first thing we were told is no one can touch your books anymore. So we actually had to immediately say. No lending out books. Keep what you have, please don't bring it back. I mean, we were in this whole panic mode of we are libraries and we have to tell people you cannot touch our books.

Jayanti Addleman: And that was a shock for many of us. And then of course it took a little while and then you realized, yes you could, and you did the quarantine period and all of that. And we went through that. But you know, I really had thought, I have seen it all. No one can surprise me anymore. I was so wrong. But we [00:43:00] got through it and it was really kind of.

Jayanti Addleman: As again, Derek referred to that we really kind of rose to the occasion and were able to make these decisions fast and really change because information was changing so fast every day. But the one thing that really we were ready for was, as I mentioned, you know, I came into Hayward and we had got this new library.

Jayanti Addleman: I was hired and one of the charges I was given was to get the new library open. It was highly delayed. You know, the community was extremely unhappy. This library was supposed to be a good thing, and suddenly it was no longer a good thing was actually becoming a negative because people were so angry they'd paid for it, it wasn't getting done.

Jayanti Addleman: So when I arrived, I found that the old building had been raised and the new building was closed. And so this was the main building and staff were just scattered all over the city. And there was just generally unhappiness among the public, unhappiness among the staff. And so my first thing that I told the staff is, you don't need a building to serve the community.

Jayanti Addleman: [00:44:00] And that was like, you know, suddenly the staff was transformed and we, you know, partnered, we went out, we were doing all these services, we took over little rooms in city hall. We started partnering with the veteran center and started providing service from there, doing children's services. But that concept of you don't need a building to provide library service really stayed with us.

Jayanti Addleman: So in that sense, I think we were somewhat prepared and were much more comfortable with this idea of we didn't have to see our coworkers every day. We could still serve the community. So that was a really good thing, you know, being able to do that. The other thing was really how key our role is in communicating with the public.

Jayanti Addleman: The libraries in almost every community are the most positive aspect of a government service. We are, without doubt, the place where people communicate most, where they actually see their government workers. And it's true, you know, like road workers are out in many areas, but they don't talk to [00:45:00] the public the way we do.

Jayanti Addleman: So we are really key in making those communications. And some of the things that happened during this period, one of which is the census. We were able to be this group, you know, that helped get the word out. And in fact, Hayward was probably one of the first libraries that did this. We started calling our patrons doing these wellness checks.

Jayanti Addleman: How you doing? We don't see you kind of. Thing. And at the same time, especially in the communities, in the undercounted communities, we would then say, have you filled out your census form? And then we had these scripts for all of the staff. And in fact, then the state library took our scripts and shared it with all of the libraries in the state.

Jayanti Addleman: This is a really good use of library resources and library staff. And so that was kind of wonderful to do that. And so then of course during elections, the same thing. We were able to beat these centers and help get the word out. And you know, this year, as you remember this last year, the elections were very kind of stressful.

Jayanti Addleman: People were worried, how's it going to go? And so again, libraries being distrusted, [00:46:00] institution, we were able to use that power to help get the word out and help get the vote in. And before I talked to you, I was talking to our California redistricting commission and we are talking about doing exactly the same thing.

Jayanti Addleman: I feel like I'm lucky. Key to have my role at the California Library Association to be able to help get this word out. We want to support this, make people aware of how important it is to be part of this process. And you know, your library, your trusted friend is telling you to do this, is inviting you to participate.

Jayanti Addleman: And so, you know, really taking our role very seriously as this voice for so much that's so important, that civic voice in the community. And really keeping that risk. It's a big responsibility. It's a weight on our shoulders, but I think we stand proud and do it well. And truly remembering that's a role we can always take on.

Jayanti Addleman: And we are there for the community and we are there to serve and serve well.

George Koster: [00:47:00] Final question for each of you, and I'm gonna start with ti and this one. So over this last 14 months of the pandemic, the economic meltdown and crisis, what are some of the positive things that you could see coming out of the pandemic and the economic meltdown for libraries, for libraries services, and for your communities that you serve?

Jayanti Addleman: I felt, you know, there's a lot of positive has come out of this. You know, we've certainly re-looked at the way we live, what we value the most in life. I think that's been huge, how we've started, you know, as individuals and as organizations. How we serve the community and just that whole idea that we can be broad-minded, we can be much more flexible in how we serve the public, has been to me, probably one of the biggest things that we are going to go into this sort of a more hybrid mode of service.

Jayanti Addleman: It's not going away. We really love what we've been able to do with the online [00:48:00] programming. You know, how we reach out to the public. Literacy programs been thriving in a way that is really hard to believe. We've done so much of giving away the technology, so I'm sure we are going to continue to do a lot of this.

Jayanti Addleman: And I'll just give the literacy as an example because we started doing tutoring online and we realized that, well, you know, a lot of our literacy learners. Need the technology, they definitely don't have it. And so we partnered with the community agency that refurbishes old computers, and we started giving that away, but we did it as a loan to own program.

Jayanti Addleman: And so they start off as a loan and we could set some goals for our literacy learners, and then the computer would become theirs. And these were not high bars. But it was still something that you had to participate. But just realizing, I think this was something we could have done even before the COVID crisis.

Jayanti Addleman: We could have been getting computers to get into the hands of our learners, but it put us into situation that we had to rethink how [00:49:00] we provide service. And so just this whole rethinking, looking at things with new eyes, thinking of how can we do it differently and are we really reaching people? Build the best way we can, and I think that's going to be big.

Jayanti Addleman: The other thing about COVID, again, and this is related not just to COVID, but to all of the things that happened in the last year in the country, is really being much more aware of our equity, diversity, inclusion, which, you know, we took pride. I think libraries have always been proud in how we've served the community, but you suddenly realize.

Jayanti Addleman: Maybe we aren't as good as we thought we were, and you begin to start looking at things and really reevaluating and delaying a lot more sort of stress on these different aspects of service. We've been forced to look at everything again and really reevaluate how we are serving, and I will just want to give credit to what's happening in the COVID recovery, the money that's going to [00:50:00] come through this arpa through the stimulus funds.

Jayanti Addleman: I just want to mention that because. That's unprecedented. The amount of money that's going to come in through this, you know, American Rescue Plan Act, $1.9 trillion going into simply rebuilding our nation and for the first time probably. Ever that money is coming directly to cities that it's always otherwise come through counties or, you know, so local government cities have never got money directly and we can actually get this money and it's coming with so few strings attached that it's genuinely focused on serving at the local level.

Jayanti Addleman: You know, helping people recover at the local level. And I think that's been an amazing, amazing set of moment for us in history, the way we are going to move forward. And I think we are all going to come out of it much stronger.

George Koster: And Derek, what are some of the good things that could come out of all this?

Derek Wolfgram: You know, I think again, for a long time I've been part of the Genti [00:51:00] Fan Club because she articulates so much about the way that I feel about what libraries can do. So what I think has been transformative about this past year plus is that I think that libraries have recognized that we can make a difference in anything that's facing our community.

Derek Wolfgram: There are very few agencies that are equipped to deal with the effects of a racial equity reckoning, a economic crisis, a public health crisis, all at the same time. But these are all problems that we have tools to help our communities work through. And these are all. Issues that, you know, can be part of our purview?

Derek Wolfgram: I think that libraries can easily kind of put ourselves into boxes. That there are specific things that we do. Obviously literacy and child development and school readiness, you know, these are things that are obvious. Nexuses with the library. [00:52:00] Susan mentioned some of the work that was done in Redwood City and other communities using the library as a central point for discussion of the housing crisis and how people can be brought together for solutions to address that issue that has Flaked Bay area for quite some time.

Derek Wolfgram: So, I mean, for. While I'm exhausted in some ways, I also feel energized by the realization that, you know, libraries don't have to just transform communities in kind of the narrow ways that we stereotypically think of. That libraries have the power to really contribute to whatever our communities are facing.

George Koster: And Susan, turning to you, you've worked not only with our two wonderful subject matter experts today, but libraries across the state. What are some of the good things that you could see coming out of what looks to be darkness into the light?

Susan Stuart Clark: Well, thank you. I had high expectations for this conversation, and I love that we've had a chance to hear how these leaders blend.

Susan Stuart Clark: Being an accountable public [00:53:00] agency with nimble, caring people, we're constantly monitoring the pulse of the community and what it needs. And for me, what I hope comes out of COVID is what Derek said, that we are not going to unsee. The realities facing our communities. But I think libraries have a unique set of site lines where these things come together not to overwhelm, not to ask librarians to be superheroes that solve it all, but really to be those key collaborators that's both Genti and DAV talked about.

Susan Stuart Clark: What are those collaborations? What is that web of understanding who needs what and the supports and the ecosystem in the community, including. Activating those community members who can be part of making things better and transform so that people are not just a bucket of needs, they are part of the solution.

Susan Stuart Clark: So as the library helps people grow in their own individual potential, I get so excited about the collective potential. And I think George, your series, the Voices of Community, you know, let's do this pausing what we just [00:54:00] did today to reflect it. Been working with libraries up and down the state on library recovery.org, preparing to respond and recover together.

Susan Stuart Clark: And we have some libraries and some public agencies that are so busy. It's like, oh, will this be over soon? And it is the organizations that pause and reflect and figure out just what we were doing today, how can we leverage it? How were these disruptions positive? That is where we can accelerate that growth and that transformation.

Susan Stuart Clark: So this series, these leaders. The whole thing to me addresses. It's not if but when that next disaster's coming, but we can make the transformation happen in between as well.

George Koster: Thank you. That was great. I wanna thank Susan for helping put together this really wonderful panel with Ashanti and Derek to talk about the importance of public libraries and our community and all of their wonderful stories and insights.

George Koster: And we'll make sure that everybody who's listening to the show will have your websites and information. And of course, the music video. Gotta make sure we share that out. And [00:55:00] wanna just thank you for being a part of a really wonderful conversation. But more importantly, going forward, I, I'll be really excited to see how libraries reinvent themselves, because you've discussed a lot about reinvention today, so stay safe and healthy out there, and our crazy new normal.

Derek Wolfgram: Thank you so much, George.

Susan Stuart Clark: Thank you,

Derek Wolfgram: George.

Susan Stuart Clark: Thank you so much.

Eric: As we wrap up today's Voices of the Community Program, we reflect on the powerful issues raised in the second half of the show, how public libraries became Lifelines. During COVID-19, our guests described libraries expanding digital access, supporting students and families.

Eric: Serving unhoused neighbors and providing trusted information when communities needed it. Most libraries emerged not just as service providers, but as essential civic anchors. Earlier in the program, we heard from Susan Stewart Clark of Common Knowledge, Genti Delman, director of Library Services for the City of Hayward, and Derek Wolf Graham, director of the Redwood City Public Library Leaders [00:56:00] demonstrating how libraries advance equity.

Eric: Learning and community resilience. To learn more about our guests and their organizations, visit voices of the community.com. Click on the COVID to 19 series and explore series highlights, part four. Please subscribe to the Voices of the Community Newsletter and consider making a donation at voices of the community.com by clicking the donate button to help us continue producing programs like this one.

George Koster: Before we sign off, a sincere thank you for spending time with us today. This episode is part of our special highlight shows drawn from our COVID-19 special series, a body of work that began when Beak Media invited us under Paula a's leadership to co-produce SF non-Profit Spotlight. Those 10 television episodes, we helped produce letters to chronicle the wider ecosystem of social government and economic support.

George Koster: We introduced you to nonprofits, small businesses, libraries, artists and public [00:57:00] agencies adapting in real time to the first global pandemic in several generations. From April, 2020 through January, 2023, we produced 105 episodes documenting what it look like to serve, survive, and innovate under extraordinary pressure and what our common community ecosystem demands from all of us today and into the future.

George Koster: Here's how we can keep the momentum going. Start by subscribing to the Voices of the Community podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. So new episodes find you automatically. Next, please rate the show and share it with friends or colleagues. Your reviews and reposts markedly increase our reach, putting these voices in more ears that can act.

George Koster: Then subscribe to our YouTube channel. For full video episodes and archives, search YouTube for geo cost. And click subscribe. If this storytelling serves you, please consider making a tax deductible donation at voices of the [00:58:00] community.com. Just click the donate button and your contribution directly supports field reporting, editing, mixing, transcription, and distribution.

George Koster: It keeps community media independent and accessible. We also want to hear from you. Send feedback on today's show, proposed topics, or suggest guests by emailingGeorge@georgekoster.com. Your notes shape our editorial calendar and introduce us to new problem solvers. We could not make these shows possible without our wonderful team.

George Koster: Associate producer Eric Estrada for co-hosting, plus his audio and video wizardry and designer Casey Naz of Citron Studios for her visual brilliance. Thanks also to our broadcast partners, K-S-F-P-L-P FM 1 0 2 0.5 FM in San Francisco, and K-P-C-A-L-P FM 1 0 3 0.3 FM in Petaluma. We're highlighting these stories.

George Koster: I'm George Koster in San Francisco, and join us for our next highlight episode in the [00:59:00] COVID-19 series. Until then, take care and remember, your voice matters.

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