All right.

I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started.

And shift us over so we can introduce our presenters for today.

I'm super excited to welcome Amy Mikel, director of customer experience at the Brooklyn public library and who has led this project and the research along with Emily Thomas who is the senior director of research and consulting at Avenue M group, the folks that worked with Brooklyn public library on this research.

We're happy to have you here, Emily and welcome to both of you.

I'll have Amy get us started.

Welcome, Amy!

>> Hi, thank you, Jennifer.

And welcome, everybody, thank you so much for being here.

My name is Amy Mikel and it's really my pleasure to be here with you today to share the work that we've been doing at Brooklyn public library to study library card signup practices at public libraries nationwide.

And it's so wonderful that I have this opportunity to be here with you to share what we've learned so far as a result of this research.

But as Jennifer has been saying in her welcome, I'm also really looking forward to learning from those of you here today as well on this particular topic.

So again, I'm joined by my colleague Emily Thomas at Avenue M group, the market research firm that we contracted with in this work and who was a true partner in the effort to undertake this important research.

So it's wonderful to be presenting along with Emily who had such a hand in making this project successful.

As well.

So really, by the end of the hour, we are really hoping to accomplish a few things.

We hope that by the end of the Webinar, you'll have a really good understanding, of course, of this project.

And why Brooklyn public library launched this project, our motivations for collecting and sharing this data.

We want to make sure we spend a little time with you to show you how we structured the approach to this research, our methodology so we'll be taking some time to walk you through that as well and absolutely, we'll be sharing some of the key takeaways in terms of what we learned from the effort to collect this data around cardholder signup policies and practice.

In public libraries in the United States.

Also in the course of the hour, we'll be making sure to share with you all the kinds of information that's now available to you with the publication of the results of this research as well as some other tools and information for libraries and library stakeholders, too.

Everybody who might be interested in taking a second look at how they structure their own library card signup policies and practices.

So we're going to make sure to get through all of that in the course of the hour as well as leave some time for engagement from you in the chat and some time at the end for questions.

So before we really dive in, I wanted to begin by explaining a little bit more about this project and about this work so everyone has a good sense of what I'm talking about.

In a nutshell, Brooklyn public library is spearheading an effort to research how public libraries nationwide structure their cardholder signup policies and procedures.

And in fact this seems to be the only recent attempt that we know of to collect a substantial data set in this very specific area of practice at a nationwide scale.

So, of course, now more than ever, we think that this is a very crucial area to be looking at in libraries because the ability to get a library card is so important.

Unlocking access to so many resources and services so this work is actually really grounded in some of our core professional values -- namely access, equity and intellectual freedom.

So with this work, we are seeking to learn a few key things.

First and foremost, what is the established practice across the field of public librarys in the United States?

Just in regards to cardholder signup.

Why are things done a certain way?

And how often is this practice really challenged?

How often do we take a second look and interrogate why we do things a certain way?

Then also, along those lines, where could we all working -- 

those of us working in public libraries really benefit from a little bit more clarity on this area of practice.

Some more standardization and some more guidance as we try to work through structuring this particular policy in our own library.

So in the Spring of 2023, about a year ago, Brooklyn public library received some funding from the Mellon foundation to undertake an 18-month research project to collect this data, to publish the findings and to develop a framework of guidelines and best practices just in the area of cardholder signup at public libraries that we hope will really serve everybody working in public libraries nationwide.

So that's what I'm talking about, this is the nature of our work and the nature of our project.

You can see a short project timeline here.

The first major part of the project was to collect what public library cardholder signup policies and practices are.

And reflect this data reflect this information back to ourselves.

Back to the library field just as a baseline and just to be used as a reference.

In this work, we also collected -- attempted to collect the rationale behind those policies.

Like I said, why do we do things a certain way?

In some cases, what other rationale that we use to set up policies a certain way or feel like we need to protect policies being a certain way.

So we attempted to collect all of that as well in our research.

Including other kinds of contextual factors like how these policies are changed and revisited.

How often they're changed or revisited, how are they communicated to staff?

How are they shared with patrons?

We completed this section of the research at the end of last year, so by December of 2023, the data collection piece was complete.

We took a few months to do the analysis of the data that we collected.

So we had nearly 1900 public libraries across the country participate in the data collection phase namely through an on-line survey as well as a few focus groups.

And now, the report that has summarized all of our findings, you can see a snapshot of the cover there on your screen, that report is now available freely to redownload and share on the Brooklyn public library website so you can see a link there on your screen.

Of course, we'll share that link later.

So the report is available as well as the data itself.

That is the basis for the report is also available on the Brooklyn public website via an interactive dashboard as well as the raw data set is available to you by request.

So quick question for everybody here at the Webinar.

Before I really dive in, I was curious, I would like you to share in the chat if you're interested just introduce yourself, your name title, the library that you're associated with and, perhaps, a little bit more about why you're here today and what you hope to learn in terms of the findings from this research.

So please feel free to post that in the chat.

Who you are, why you're here, and what you hope to learn from these research findings.

While you're doing that, this is the rough plan for today.

I'm going to share a little bit first about the inspiration for this work, how we, Brooklyn public library, came to arrive at this concept in the first place, why we felt necessary to undertake this research.

Then we'll hand it over to Emily who will talk more about the structure, how we designed the methodology to collect and analyze the data.

Then I'll review what we learned from the research and share some key takeaways from those findings as well as a few reflections and then finally, I'll review what's next.

Specifically, I'm going to make sure how we hope to translate the findings to actionable steps for those working in libraries.

Especially those who might be wanting or willing to take a second look at their cardholder signup practices in order to create as much access as possible to their library's resources and services.

How did this project get started?

There were a few kind of -- 

there were a few kind of things that happened at the same time.

So the first thing that happened was that in my role at Brooklyn public library as the director of customer experience, I'm, in fact, in charge of setting circulation policy and process.

And over the past few years, I have been taking a very close look at how we do that here at Brooklyn public library, how do we structure our library card signup policies?

One major catalyst for this was that the New York city libraries collectively went fine free in the Fall of 2021 so that's, of course, a very natural opportunity to welcome new cardholders to your library, sharing that you're now fine free and welcoming people back to your library.

But also, at the same time, of course, we all know this.

We are situated now in a climate, a very interesting climate, a climate of coordinated and well funded attempts to ban books, a climate of attacks on our libraries, growing misinformation and in some cases, access to our libraries are being challenged -- is being challenged and even restricted.

So that incentivized me personally in my role at BPL even more so to make sure that our collections and resources at Brooklyn public library were as open, as accessible as they possibly could be and looking to stand with other public libraries across the country who were trying to do similar kinds of work in terms of making it as easy as possible to get a library card to serve as models in that respect.

The second thing -- related thing that happened was about two years ago in April of 2022, Brooklyn public library launched a freedom to read initiative called books unbanned.

This program allows any young person ages 13 to 21 anywhere in the United States to apply for a BPL E-card and receive access to Brooklyn public library's entire digital collection of over half a million E-books and audio books as well as over 100 databases.

As a result of this program, Brooklyn public library has received thousands upon thousands of stories from young readers who are approaching us to sign up for a library card and I've personally read many of those stories.

They're very difficult and sobering stories to read.

Many of those stories share a climate, their personal experience with censorship where they live or their experience of fear or intimidation around book banning, the resulting loneliness and isolation these people feel.

But the other thing that these stories shared that I was not expecting was in how many cases they're talking about the struggle to access books at all.

They're not talking about certain attempts to ban books at the title level necessarily.

They're talking about how they just don't have much access to the books that they would like to read or that they need to read for a variety of reasons.

They're living in a situation where they have very, very limited access to books.

Including difficulties getting access to books at their public library.

So the freedom to read is a right, I think many of us -- all of us would support that.

But the other -- half of that is that the freedom to read is not possible if you don't have access to the kinds of books in the first place that you might want and need.

So that was another factor in Brooklyn public library's decision to research and reflect library card signup practices back to the field because libraries are about access.

But in fact, who is being left out in the way that we structure our cardholder signup policies?

 And by the way, if you're interested, Brooklyn public library has published a report showcasing the major themes from these stories and you can read that report by going to booksunbanned.com.

So really, in summary, in my attempts to restructure Brooklyn public library's own cardholder signup policies to talk to other libraries doing similar work, realizing in the course of doing that that our profession, in general, just did not seem to have recently taken stock of this basic set of policies around cardholder signup.

That combined with being in this climate where intellectual freedom and access is so important.

It's more important than ever.

And that's where the concept for this research really began to come together.

I began having conversations with other professional organizations, public library association, ARSL, the association for rural and small libraries, ULC, the urban libraries council, the chief officers of state library agencies, and really there was widespread support and encouragement for us for Brooklyn public library to step up and do this work, do this research.

So that's what we decided to do.

So at this point, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Emily to talk more about how we designed and set this up.

>> Hello, everyone!

My name is Emily Thomas.

As a quick reminder, I work for Avenue M group which is a research and consulting company that specializes in conducting research on behalf of professional associations and nonprofits.

And Avenue M was Brooklyn public library's research partner for this really important project.

I'm going to outline the combination of research methods we used and how those methods worked together to generate the findings that Amy will share later in this presentation.

So at the very beginning of this project, Brooklyn public library and Avenue M had several discussions on BPL's goals for this project and Amy shared examples of cardholder signup policies at U.S. public libraries.

So for this research, we wanted to collect data on the many aspects of library cardholder signup.

So eligibility requirements, apologies for the cat, documentation requirements, electronic cards, library cards for children and teenagers and many, many other dimensions of cardholder signup.

We wanted to learn about how those policies and procedures change at libraries and how the policies and changes are communicated to staff and patrons.

We decided our approach would encompass multiple research methods to try and reach a wide range of libraries and to capture the many elements that make up library cardholder signup.

So first, one of my Avenue M colleagues and I conducted 75 brief in-person interviews at the American library association ALA conference in June of 2023.

And for these interviews, we approached ALA attendees who worked at U.S. public libraries and asked for their permission to interview them about their cardholder signup policies.

As a personal observation, through the early discussions with Amy and these exploratory interviews at the ALA conference, I learned how complex of a topic library cardholder signup really is.

I'm a library patron but I'm definitely not a library professional so it was really fascinating to see how many nuances and considerations there are in implementing and changing cardholder signup.

So after the interviews, at the ALA conference, we conducted an on-line survey which remained open for a few months.

And per guidance from Amy, we incorporated the library names from the public library survey data set from the institute of library and museum services.

And doing so enabled survey respondents to select their library from a dropdown list rather than have to type out the full library name and location in the survey.

In addition to the survey and while the survey was in the field, we also conducted two in person focus groups.

One at the association for rural and small libraries, the ARSL 2023 conference, and one at the urban libraries council ULC 2023 forum.

And we also conducted an on-line discussion group where participants could answer questions about their cardholder signup process and interact with other participants.

So overall, as Amy mentioned, we collected survey responses on behalf of almost 1900 libraries.

And the qualitative research included approximately 115 libraries.

I'll now share a little bit more background on how we developed the questions we asked in the research.

So in the interviews, we asked library professionals to give us an overview of their cardholder signup process.

And the themes that emerged from those interviews informed the questions we included in the survey instrument.

And also, how we phrased those questions.

So we did not have an existing template of survey questions focused on all of the nuances of library cardholder signup.

So we had Avenue M collaborate closely with Amy and her colleagues to design the survey instrument.

So Amy and her colleagues shared their strong expertise and experience with libraries, and the avenue M team shared our experience with both qualitative and quantitative research.

So we went through many iterations of the survey instrument to refine and revise the question phrasing, answer options and the order of the questions and as a result of that collaboration, we created a pretty comprehensive survey that included about 60 questions.

And with an estimated time to complete of approximately 25 minutes.

So if you're interested, the full list of survey questions is available for reference in the full report that Amy mentioned.

And on the slide are two example questions from that survey.

And there are a few things that I wanted to point out so first, it was really important for us to primarily use close ended questions in the survey to help with reporting out findings on what percentage of libraries have certain requirements or follow certain guidelines.

And additionally, since we were also conducting interviews and focus groups, we wanted this quantitative data to complement the qualitative data.

With that said, it was also important to include opportunities for write-in responses so that survey respondents could share the nuances, the exceptions and explanations behind their policies and requirements.

So these two example questions showcase the typical format we used for many of the close ended, single select questions in the survey.

These -- in some ways, are simple yes/no questions but they do include the answer options that recognize that libraries may be the process of changing various guidelines and requirements.

We also included some survey logic which you can see in the italicized orange text in the examples.

That survey logic allowed for some questions to only appear based on how someone answered a previous question.

So, for example, in question 15, the second example, we asked about considerations for patrons whose name does not match their legal I.D. but we only showed this question to respondents who indicated in the previous question that the library may have I.D. requirements.

As a quick recap, our research process included collaborating on the design of the research instruments such as the interview guide, the survey, the focus group questions, and as I mentioned previously, the research instruments are available in the full report for those who are interested in learning more about what kind of questions that we asked.

And once we collected the data through the multiple methods, we began our process of cleaning, organizing and analyzing all of this data.

The full report includes details on our data cleaning process but one key part of this process for the survey was resolving multiple responses on behalf of the same library entity.

And this is where using the list of library names from the public library survey was incredibly helpful.

As a note on the analysis, because we conducted multiple research methods, we were able to pull out some overarching patterns that emerged in both the qualitative and quantitative research.

And Amy will share some of these findings very shortly.

Finally, the last stage of this research process is sharing the results with the library community and this presentation is one of the ways we're sharing this research.

So thank you so much, everyone, for your time.

I'll now hands things back over to Amy.

>> OK, so this slide is certainly not comprehensive but it's designed to give you a quick sense of the survey sample that we were working with.

As both of us have mentioned a few times, we received nearly 1900 usable responses to our on-line survey.

So that exceeded our expectations and that was really wonderful considering there are about 9,000 public librarys in the United States, according to the institute of museum and library services.

And we were additionally fortunate to collect responses from libraries in every single U.S. state and the district of Columbia, and some -- for example, on the upper right-hand side, you'll see that the survey sample also resulted in a fairly good and distributed spread of small rural suburban and larger urban libraries.

And I really do credit the help of ULC, ARSL and CASLA in helping us promote this project last Fall and really encourage their member libraries to complete the survey so we could have as rich a data set as possible.

And as a result of those organizations helping to share word about this project and encourage libraries to participate, you can see, as I said, on the upper right hand corner about half of the libraries in our survey sample serve a legal service area with a population of less than 10,000 people.

And then again, about half of our respondents in the survey also indicated that they have fewer than 5,000 registered users.

And that's all data that we were able to cross link through the PLS data set.

In fact, that's somewhat representative of public libraries where more than half of the public librarys in the U.S. are considered small or rural according to ARSL.

The published report includes much more comprehensive analysis of the regional differences between libraries as well in terms of how they structure their library card signup policies.

So I just wanted to highlight how Avenue M did that analysis based on the library location, we subdivided library responses into four -- one of four regions so west, south, midwest and then northeast and then we further subdivided those into nine divisions.

So, for example, Pacific, midwest -- Pacific mountain, New England, etc.

There's also much more comprehensive analysis done in the published report on trends in libraries based on the legal basis code associated with the library entity, whether it's a municipal government, library district, non-profit and so on as well as much more comprehensive analysis on how libraries set up their cardholder policies based on their service population.

So that's all cross referenced with the PLS data set but then also using information that respondents shared with us directly, a few things that I wanted to highlight on the left-hand side of the screen, we saw that most of the survey respondents were completing it on behalf of other library system in their capacity as the library director or other high level administrator.

So about 85% of the survey responses came from people who self-identified as being in those titles.

But then another 15%, the remaining 15% of survey responses came from those who more than likely serve in public facing roles in libraries such as clerical or librarians.

And we very intentionally made sure our survey was open to correct responses from staff and any title working in a library.

As long as they worked at that library.

Currently or in the past year.

To collect as rich of a data set as possible.

And then a little more than half of those respondents indicated that they regularly assist patrons with library card signups.

So this is just to give you a general sense in terms of the context of who participated.

Once again, to give you a sense of the types of questions we asked in the survey, these, as Emily mentioned, these 60 plus survey questions covered a whole range of things.

So in terms of getting an adult full access standard adult full access library card, we collected the library's requirements for receiving that card such as proof of residency.

We collected data about whether the library had any probation period set.

We collected information about if and when those library cards expire, any approaches the library might take for non-residents or those who are outside that library's defined service area.

Whether or not there's any fees charged for those types of cards, whether guest passes exist, whether library card is required for computer or printing services.

Whether the library has made E-cards or digital library cards available, what the general application process looks like, whether the patron is required to show up in person, whether the patron is required to sign -- provide a signature of some sort in order to get the library card.

The library's approach to revising their policy in this area, how this information is communicated more broadly to staff as well as with patrons.

And then we had a similar set of questions in regards to youth card signup followed by questions about how the library makes those policy changes.

How frequently it's done and by whom and who or what has been typically prompting and the next handful of slides I'm going to pull out some of those findings.

The data points that I'm going to highlight were selected for a few reasons so the first thing I wanted to do is try to give everybody a sense, again, of the kinds of questions that we asked in the survey.

And therefore, what kind of data we were able to collect as a result.

But at the same time, I wanted to try to pull out some examples, some key examples for you of the kinds of trends that we can see now are happening in public libraries in terms of a few key categories.

So what are the trends happening now in public libraries in terms of the types of data or information that we tend to collect.

About patrons.

What types of information do the majority of libraries tend not to collect?

So we wanted to kind of put those two things in contrast for everybody.

We also pulled out -- I will be highlighting in a minute the different kinds of library cards that we're seeing most libraries are the majority of libraries tend to make available so the card types or the types of options available for patrons as well as what the indicators seem to be, the universal trend lines in terms of what the patron experience, how are libraries creating the experience for the patron during the overall registration process?

As well as contrasting that with some of the outliers in terms of library practice.

So the next couple of slides are going to go -- I'm going to try to go through some of the highlights in all of those major areas.

What we're looking at here is the first kind of snapshot in terms of what the majority of public libraries that responded to our survey collect, the types of information and data that we collect in regards to your typical full access adult library card.

The first one is just kind of a baseline.

It's fairly unsurprising, but the vast majority of libraries, more than -- about 93% actually require a primary mailing address for library card signup in all cases.

And then highlighting here a few other examples of what the trend lines seem to be.

So 66% of libraries also require a phone number during library card signup in all cases compared to about 9% of libraries requiring phone number in some cases, and then about 1/4 of libraries, 24% that optionally collect phone numbers so it's not required to get a library card.

And then the next example you see here, 65% of libraries optionally collect preferred name with about 19%, about 1 in 5 of libraries not collecting this information at all.

The assumption being that the information collected must match the name on the patron's identification.

61% of libraries optionally collect E-Mail address, but then a further 27% of the libraries represented in our survey require E-Mail address in all cases.

Contrasting that with the types of information that most libraries do not collect in terms of your standard full access adult library card.

67% of the libraries represented in our research do not collect gender as a data point during the library card signup process.

A further 21% do collect this.

It's a field that exists in the ILS and that information is collected optionally so not required.

But then about 1 in 10 libraries have been shown to require collecting gender as a data point or as a part of the application process.

In either all or some cases.

59% of libraries do not collect an identification number so in our survey, we prompted that to be something like a driver's license number.

About a third or 27% of libraries require an identification number like a driver's license or a similar number in all or some cases during library card signup.

The vast majority of libraries, about 85% do not collect any information on the patron's employer or place of employment.

But then it's notable to point out here that 1 in 10 libraries were shown that they either require this information, the patron's employer or place of employment in either all or in some cases.

The vast majority of libraries, 91%, do not collect community references when a patron attempts to sign up for a library card.

But it's further notable that, in some cases, in some libraries this is practice.

5% of libraries require community reference in either all or in some cases.

In terms of the trends that we saw and the research in terms of the types of adult library cards, about 7 in 10 libraries do offer a library card to a non-resident so somebody who is shown to be not part of the library service area.

Of that group, about 35% offer non-residents so half of that, 7 in 10, half of those offer the non-resident cards for a fee and the other half offer that card for no charge.

About half, 53%, of libraries then offer a temporary card or a guest pass or something similar to help somebody obtain a library card if for whatever reason they can't do that through the standard process.

But it's further notable to show here that 45% of the libraries in that -- that participated in our research do not offer this option whatsoever.

There's no option to receive a temporary card or some other card type for a patron who is not able to show that they may be eligible.

This data point really surprised me.

I'll be honest here, that 82% of libraries shared that they do not require patrons to have a library card to access a computer or printing services.

About half of libraries do not offer what's called an E-card or electronic library card that we defined as a card typically available to primarily access the digital resources of that library.

So about half the libraries offer this kind of card.

About half of libraries don't.

And of the half that offer this card type, half of those only introduce this card type very recently, about one to three years ago and the natural assumption there is that was a result of the pandemic.

>> I wonder if before you move into the youth cards we could touch on a few of the questions that have come through.

>> Please.

Let's take a pause and do that.

Thank you.

>> Excellent.

Sounds great!

There were a lot of folks that were curious what a community reference is?

And I had never heard of any library collecting a community reference so can you talk a little bit about what that is?

>> You know, this is something that as I was preparing for this project and I was collecting examples, I did not realize that this was done in some libraries, and I found evidence of libraries that were doing this.

And put simply, it's the patron has to provide a reference in addition to their standard information in order to get a library card.

The -- I think the idea behind this is that there are people in the community that vouch for this person and acknowledge they will be a responsible library user.

>> Fascinating.

That's simply fascinating VENLT there was a question about --

>> Someone just commented they worked at two libraries that do that.

>> I wonder if that's a historical thing.

I don't know.

Maybe had when libraries were selective about who their members were, I don't know.

That's so interesting.

There's a question about the difference between collecting the I.D. number and requiring that you see an I.D. number.

Can you talk a little bit about that difference?

I know --

>> Yes.

That's an important difference because many, many libraries in my very first example basically asked the patron to show proof that you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live.

Many, many libraries including Brooklyn public library ask for some kind of documentation, too, and many libraries although not all further require that it's a government issued document.

BPL accepts a list of documentation, types of I.D. and things that can validate you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live.

That's different from having a field in the ILS that must accept something like a driver's license number in order for that account to be saved and confirmed as a fully registered patron.

>> Did you get specific responses, you know, somebody mentioned that some states or some libraries require that they see a state I.D.

Did you, in terms of the types of I.D., did you get any of that?

>> We definitely have a handful of questions that ask respondents to share more about how that exactly plays out in their signup process.

>> There's a question sort of differentiating card registration at the library vs. 

Card provided during outreach.

Were these questions -- were there questions asked in the survey that sort of asked where the, you know, was it different if you were doing it in the outreach situation vs. At the library?

>> We did try to -- and Emily, correct me if I'm mis-remembering.

But we did try because working in libraries, I know that many libraries do this where you can bring the library to the patron in the sense that you're doing outreach.

You're in a community event or a park or you're going to a jail or prison or you're visiting home bound patrons or going to a community center or going to a school.

And you collect the patron's information and you bring it back, enter it into your system and Tada, they have a library card.

We did try to differentiate that from a process that a patron has the option to independently sign up for a library card and have some kind of access to the library's resources in that way.

So trying to differentiate between a library that may have a requirement that patrons show up in person to get a library card under the assumption that there's the exception for outreach and that kind of thing vs. A library that does not have that requirement and creates an alternative option for somebody who sign up for a library card independently without physically having to go in person.

>> OK.

>> Helps to clarify.

>> Yeah, that's super helpful.

One more thing around the, you talked about, you know, requiring address.

Did you get a sense how libraries are collaborating to provide library cards to houseless folks that maybe don't have their own address?

>> We tried to get a sense of what the standard practice was at that library for a typical full access library card.

And then to get a sense of the standard exceptions or alternatives to help patrons that may not meet the criteria for the standard practice.

So I think you will find, if you look through the findings in the report, a sense of whether a library, for example, says we're very open.

We don't collect address so most patrons don't have to meet that first threshold to begin with vs. Libraries that say no, collecting address is a requirement.

And this is how we kind of found work arounds for patrons who are unhoused or for whatever reason can't provide that address.

>> OK.

And then just, this is a question posed to the full group, but I'll be curious what you found.

This person said we've heard anecdotal info about no library, about no libraries allowing immigrants or refugees to get a card without a government photo I.D.

Does anyone attending issue cards to people without?

>> Brooklyn public library issues cards to people without a government I.D.

We've created a specific card type to accommodate that situation.

And I think in the findings that you will see -- I know others might chime in.

You will see maybe some data to support that.

That in fact is not the case.

It's not true that no libraries do this.

And to get a sense of how many, in fact, do and if you go into the data set, then you'll be able to see which libraries have that option that you can, perhaps, reach out to them and learn from them.

>> One more interesting point.

This library doesn't require a reference but do require a contact person so that if they can't reach them, they would be able to reach their backup contact.

So that's an interesting variation on that.

>> Yes.

That is an interesting variation.

>> Keep your questions coming and we can circle back as we wrap up.

Let's continue on.

Thank you.

>> OK, thanks so much, everybody, for the conversation in the chat and for the questions.

I really appreciate it and as Emily mentioned, there is certainly a ton of nuance in how this all works at different libraries.

So let me speed through a couple of the final slides so we can continue to have more of a conversation.

This slide is a snapshot of what libraries told us in terms of issuing youth cards.

Half of libraries, about 53%, told us they have no minimum age requirement so you can be a newborn and someone obviously has to take you to get a library card.

There are other libraries that told us about 14% of libraries indicated that their minimum age requirement is set at 5 years old.

And what's interesting is that a further 9% of libraries told us that their age requirement starts at 10 and it falls into the range of between 10 and 18 years old.

In order to -- what age you have to be to get a library card at that library.

The vast majority of libraries, 68%, issue library cards to youth so we define youth as between ages 0 to turning 18.

With no limitations on access.

So they basically act and operate similar to an adult library card.

But 16% of libraries told us that when they issue library cards to use that library card has a limitation on access based on the fact that they're issuing a card to a young person.

And of those libraries, that told us that they have limitations on access where the card has limitations on access.

How that frequently shows up and 60% of those libraries told us that limitation is on the types of items so that library card can only check out certain types of items in the library.

And 32% of those libraries told us that the limitation is on the number of items that can be checked out.

85% of libraries do require youth up to a certain age to have stated permission from an adult to get a library card.

And of those libraries that do require -- so first of all, 15% of libraries don't do that.

They don't require any permission from an adult for a young person to get a library card.

Of the 85% that do require that, half of those libraries, 54%, indicated to us that permission is required up to the age of 18.

So if at those libraries, if you are under the age of 18, you must have a parent or guardian permission to get a library card.

Then, we asked a bunch of questions about the process itself and just wanted to speed through, you can get a sense here of what seems to be typical in libraries in terms of the length of time that it takes to sign up a library card.

What happens when you get the card, whether there's a probationary period that you must kind of work through in order to graduate to a full access card.

I know there are some questions about cardholder signup to patrons who are homebound or unable to get to the library physically.

And then also interesting, we asked some questions about how the library communicates this information to patrons and how the process is done.

The application itself at 62% of libraries is available only in English.

And at 72% of libraries, any introductory information about the library is available only in English.

So couple of key takeaways.

It's definitely notable that many libraries are trying to open up their collections, open up their resources to be as accessible as possible and I know this.

I feel this keenly.

They are trying to make many -- 

take many factors into consideration at the same time.

And what we learned from the research is that, in fact, most libraries indicated that they have made some kind of change to their cardholder signup policy or process in the past five years.

But a further 30% of libraries have not.

They have not touched this policy in recent years.

Barriers to access can present themselves in all sorts of ways.

They frequently show up in the information that's collected from the patron during signup, how proof of eligibility is determined, what types of information we ask the patron to provide, that must be stored in the record in order to continue.

Of course, youth signup, and any considerations or options available from the library in terms of digital access and language access.

One more key point I wanted to make here is that what we did hear from libraries particularly in our focus groups is that libraries are asking for more data and more information to help support or to help make these decisions.

So, for example, can there be data available to help somebody make the argument that patrons not able to provide an I.D. or patrons not able to provide an address are unlikely to have a higher materials loss rate than patrons who may be able to provide those things.

Next steps.

Brooklyn public library has convened a working group of libraries that are representative of regionally representative and libraries of all sizes.

We will be meeting over the summer in order to create a policy framework of guidelines and best practices to issue back to the field in terms of how we recommend or what we feel libraries should consider when looking at restructuring or setting up their library card signup practices.

So we hope that framework will be available in the Fall.

We are doing a lot of work to share this information presenting writing, learning from those in the field, practitioners helping us to create meaning from the information that we've collected and further reflect that back to ourselves, and working with the professional organizations I mentioned already as well as the American library association office of intellectual freedom to make sure everybody is in support of, has signed off on and provides really critical expertise in terms of that framework of best practice for library card signup.

Here is a snapshot of our working group.

The libraries that are involved in our working group that we'll be meeting over the summer.

So thank you to those libraries and certainly thank you so anybody here that is helping us with that.

And then last thing I wanted to share is a snapshot of the learner guide that we've developed that will go along with this presentation.

And really, the guide is structured in order to help you at your library sit down with the data we've collected, perhaps, or even just have a structured way to go through how you might tackle revisiting and revising your library card signup practice at your library.

So you'll see on the left-hand column, there's a few areas of practice that we've subdivided out for you asking you to think what do you do in these areas of practice and why do you do it that way?

Identify where there might be opportunities, some low hanging fruit where you can make some easy changes or areas where you can get creative within the stated policy or, perhaps, feel like it's easy enough to change the policy itself.

Are there areas that don't seem so easy that you anticipate running into barriers, pushback or road blocks?

What do you need in order to make progress in those areas?

And then prioritize.

What do you feel at your library are the three most urgently needed changes in terms of revisiting areas of your cardholder signup practice.

And what solutions can you think of to move forward?

So we have about five minutes left for questions.

So Jennifer, I could use your help to let me know what kind of keeps coming up.

>> Yeah.

And it's interesting because there's more questions that came out as we were sort of going over that final piece that are sort of questions to ask, you know, potential road blocks or things as you are really looking through it at your library.

Questions like I'm curious to know if the adult has to have a minor when they want to get a card.

So some of that that you maybe didn't necessarily get specifically from your research.

Questions about did you ask about limits of number of items that folks could check out per card?

Did you ask about that?

>> Well, let me say this.

All of your questions and I know there are probably many more than we can get to.

Are hopefully spelled out in the report in terms of as Emily mentioned, you can see exactly the questions that we asked verbatim.

We have it spelled out for you.

And then we go question by question and do a very thorough analysis of what -- how the responses came back in regards to that question.

I will say upfront that there are probably nuances that we didn't quite capture in the survey.

Whether or not the adult has to have a child with them when they get a library card.

In fact, we worked through that at Brooklyn public library a few years ago, and I will say for examples like that where you want to do a kind of thing at your library, I will say the approach that we took at Brooklyn public library is ask ourselves why not?

Why can't we do it that way?

And is it some sort of reluctance or some sort of holdover?

Is there anything written down?

Is there literally any justification for not letting an adult sign their child up for the library card if the child is not present?

And we at Brooklyn public library went back to what are we trying to accomplish?

We are trying to open up access.

We can't see any reason why unless it's sort of like what if they're lying?

What if they're faking?

We can't think of any other legitimate reason why that child has to be present.

If their grown-up wants to give them a library card so we did it.

We just changed it.

It wasn't written in policy anywhere.

It was a process that we could be reflective on, interrogate internally and make a decision.

And then just do it.

>> OK.

There are definitely some folks curious about how book banning laws have changed, cardholder policies and there are indeed folks at the beginning when you asked why folks were here, somebody said we are having to make policy changes to all public libraries in the state due to new laws keeping children under 18 away from sexual content.

So I would say yes, that is a firm yes that there are places where this is impacting card holder processes for sure.

>> What I can say there is that, of course, I am aware of all of this.

It makes your head spin because these things are happening so quickly and showing up in so many different ways across different states.

I will say that what we're trying to do when we issue this framework of best practice is really try to ground that, as I said earlier, in library values of equity and access with the acknowledgment that some libraries based on laws that have been passed or other climate of fear or intimidation in their community might not get as far as they'd like with meeting those best practices.

But I did mention the partnership of the office of intellectual freedom to try to give some legal framing or at least some support to say that -- to recenter this and somebody's right to access the library, reasonable checks and balances you might have in place to ensure it's not just a free for all and your materials come back.

But at the end of the day, it's everybody's constitutional right to have access to library resources.

>> Absolutely.

So many different facets to this work.

Another thing just before we wrap up not necessarily an answer to it.

But somebody brought up  issues if you're not checking their address, how do you contact them to return their materials?

How do you address debt collection?

You know, some of those pieces around collection.

>> Sure.

>> Collection management.

>> Well, in fact, at Brooklyn public library, we don't contact you at your address to get your materials back.

We E-Mail you or text you or call you.

So the address is not for materials recovery except at the very end, I'll talk about that.

The address is for internal purposes.

It's to help us understand where our patrons live and where they're coming from.

And it's an opportunity to kind of validate that they're in the service area, and we didn't have time to talk about ways -- ways to do that without collecting or validating the address.

But the materials recovery thing comes up a lot in different elements of how the cardholder signup policy is structured.

And the way that we've approached it at Brooklyn public library is that if your materials don't come back after two weeks, we put a temporary block on your card.

We try to contact you to let you know what's going on with your account.

We try to make that friendly and welcoming and let you know what your options are.

But you're not able to borrow more materials with us until that's resolved at the end of the day.

So we're trying to put those checks and balances in place.

At the point where the materials are not coming back, not presumptively in the beginning before they can even get a library card.

>> Excellent.

Well, I can tell you people are super excited about your Fall information.

But I just want to emphasize that there's so much here.

Just working through to pull those questions into the learner guide, there's so much that you can do now in sort of assessing your current practices, starting to sort of identify the barriers that you maybe need to figure out.

So there's lots that you can do now and then we'll certainly let folks know when the rest of the information is released.

But thank you so much, Amy and Emily.

This is super exciting to know this research has been done, and already, we're learning so much from it.

Thank you so much!

And a reminder, too, I'll send you all to a short survey as you leave and we'll share that information with our presenters.

And I know that Amy and Emily love to get additional information from you.

So if you have anything about your own story to share as well as those things that you'd like to see more information on, please definitely utilize that survey to provide additional information for our presenters.

And I will also send you all an E-Mail later today once the recording, the chat, the captions are all posted to that event page.

And then within a week, I'll send you a certificate for attending.

So thank you all so much for being here.

 Again, thank you, Amy and Emily.

Thanks to our captioner and our WJ support and everyone, have a great rest of your week!

Thank you.

	
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