Embracing Diversity in Libraries

The Porch welcomes Ken Feser from the Medicine Hat Public Library. Lynnette and Ken discuss the importance of books, the resources at the library, plus some of the great programs and activities taking place at the library.  

Transcript

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Where does it come from? I feel like we're kind of riding a wave a little bit in that way. It was something that was personally important to me when I, came to Medicine Hat and came to this library. I do believe in the public library's being an open institution, that's there for everybody. And there's a real strength to that. And, I've just been supported in that, at every turn by, the city of Medicine Hat by political and administrative leadership, by the staff at the library, by the board of the library. And that's huge. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. Hi, and welcome to Bring Back the Porch. I'm very excited to have our guest today is Ken Feser Like laser from the Medicine Hat Public Library. Welcome to the porch. Oh, thank you for having me on. I would like to talk to you about a million things that happened at the library, going on at the library. We are going to be a little bit topical. So I think since the budget came out yesterday, I noticed you have a book about Mark Carney. And I thought, maybe why don't we start with the book that's a good opener for if you want to talk to somebody and meet somebody is, a new person or a new guest, talking about something they like, like a book is a way to get to know somebody. So tell us about this book. You brought it? Sure. It's my comfort zone. Maybe to talk about books a little bit. So I did bring in, Mark Carney's, book values, Building a Better World for all, which is just my read. Right now. I'm not particularly, endorsing or, you know, him or, you know, the liberals or anything like that. But it's a really good book. I'm really enjoying it. I guess for me, the surprise of this book was I went into it expecting kind of one of those, political, you know, biographies, you know, that are sort of fairly simple and inspiring, all this stuff, this is kind of a deep read to me, you know, it's, it's an economics book, more than a, political book, I would say. And, I find the ideas really interesting. Yeah, yeah. I, I liked the idea that he called it values because it can. It has double meaning, right? Yeah, yeah, he's talking about value in the economic sense, you know, capitalist value and, you know, but also that, value is built on our values, the, you know, what's important to us, what we consider, what we prioritize, those sort of more social values and I think that's a really, great way to analyze or to put human humanness into economics in a way. And also it sort of reflects something that, a journey I've been on in my time in the library around values driven leadership and, basically making decisions based on our values, which I think is a very powerful, good way to do things. I have, had the chance to come and visit the library over the summer this year. I was laid off from TV and, had a little extra time on my hands every day. And, I found a library, a place, a give me a place to go. And, I spent some time wandering around upstairs and downstairs and trying to find books that I thought would be interesting. And, I know that, it's the bane of existence. Probably for the library is people come in and go, what should I read? But I found just one. We love it. But I found wandering around, I, I actually stumbled into the reference area of all places and picked up a book about Bell Island, which had a picture of my great grandparents in it. Oh, cool. So I thought, you know, there's there's, resources that people probably don't even realize are part of the library. And the other thing I noticed with and it's something that should be complimented to you and your staff, is the idea that people smiled, people waved, people said, can I help you with anything? Are you looking for something? That idea of inclusion and empathy, I think is a great, reflection of not only our society but of our library, that it is a place where people can come in and and be seen, you know, what? How did you get there? Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for that question. Thanks for the compliment to, I feel like, you know, to, to sort of the thing you started with about how there's something for, for everyone. I do think there is in the library, you know, I believe very much in the role of the library and the mission of the library. And we do have something to offer everyone. And one of our challenges is, is that we have to kind of, explain, you know, to everybody fresh, that the library's not kind of what you might have thought it was from, you know, your perceptions 20 years ago were kind of depictions in media and that sort of thing. We have a slogan that's we're more than just books. And, I mean, that's literally true. We have lots of other collections. You can, get a sewing machine or a serger or, badminton racket, things like that. From the library. We have different types of collections. And then we also have lots of different services. We have a social worker in the library. We are very programing heavy. There's always things that are happening at the library events and that sort of thing. So that's part of, you know, I guess, yes, we are, you know, we do have something for everybody or we have lots to offer. And then the kind of, you know, being the community, however, the place where, lots of different people can come together, that is really important to me personally. And where does it come from? I feel like we're kind of riding a wave a little bit in that way. It was something that was personally important to me when I, came to Medicine Hat and came to this library. I do believe in the public library's being an open institution, that's there for everybody. And there's a real strength to that. And, I've just been supported in that, at every turn by, the city of Medicine hat, by political and administrative leadership, by the staff at the library, by the board of the library. And that's huge. You know, the board is very much behind this by the community. It's just the path has been made, very has been opened up and made easy for us to be that. And there's a huge power in it. It's really, it's kind of amazes me every day that, we are a place where different groups in society come and mingle quite peacefully and get along. And, some of the most challenging patrons, you know, some of the folks who have struggles in their lives that maybe play out in the library, they really bring something, beautiful to the library, a diversity. And, they're not people are not hard to work with. If you go in with a feeling of that, you want to lift them up and, lift everybody up and, find positive resolutions and respect people. It's amazing if you treat people like that, even the most difficult people tend to be very reachable. And, you know, you can kind of leave them in a better place than they were. What could be better than that? Yeah. And, you know, you have, I've, I've witnessed it where you maybe you probably didn't realize this at the time, but there was a lady struggling to find books that were, large print, and you just sort of said older right over here. Like, even as, working at, as a chief librarian, you still have time for for everybody. And I love the idea that the role of the library is just to be a place to connect. And, books offer that as well, because a lot of times, books offer maybe a perspective you weren't expecting. You get involved with a character if it's a fiction book or if it's a real life person and you hear their real story, books can be that sort of, touchstone to communicate with other people. And so the library being a touchstone for the community, I think is really cool. Now, you are trying to do some different things. You have this beautiful theater, it is going to be showing, movies, all through. Well, it does every Sunday, right? Yep. Family movie. You have a big one coming up at the end of the month called, Walking with dinosaurs to kind of end your dinosaur themed month. Yes. Dino Vember. Yes. And then you move it kind of into Christmas movies. So you've got Home Alone and Home Alone two and I think, Jingle All the Way. So those are great kind of kind of things to have for for families that are looking for a cheap alternative to a Sunday afternoon. But also, you are trying to bring something different. And that's maybe you want to talk about some of the music that you're bringing into the theater. Yeah. Thanks for that, for the chance to talk about that. So we do have this beautiful theater, that was renovated in a pretty difficult project just before I came here. I got quite lucky that way. There was, asbestos remediation, all kinds of fun stuff that the previous person had to deal with. And I walked into it. Nice shiny, theater. And it's a really. It's a good community resource. It is, of all our spaces, it's probably the least utilized or it's the one that sits idle the most. We have meeting rooms as well, and it's really easy to fit stuff in meeting rooms is always people want to use meeting rooms and stuff. The, more specialized space like this. Not so, not so easy. So I really and there are lots of activities, but just not quite to the level of those other spaces. So I would really like to see this theater used in use all the time. And so we came up with the idea, of doing musical concerts. We have I think there's five total. We've had one, happen already. We have another one coming up the Wednesday after tomorrow. So eight days from now I'm not. I should have brought the day of the week with me or the day of the month, but, I didn't, but it's coming up next week. Anyways, on Wednesday night, we have a, fiddler or a violinist and a guitarist. A kind of a, folk duo like that. So it's going to be a great concert, and I'm really hoping we can get, people to come out to that. And then next year, January, February, we have three more concerts of that sort coming. Are they local musicians? Are touring musicians. These are touring musicians through an organization called Home Roots or Home Roots. Not sure of the pronunciation, but it's a, a they basically, the theory behind it is that typically people actually play do home concerts with this organization, and then the musicians stay in the homes of the hosts. So it was a good, avenue to get these good folk singers, you know, performers, we are putting them up in a hotel and they're playing in our theater. So it's a little different than some places, but good model, is it? Is there a cost involved to go to the show? They have been free. You know, but, our first concert, we didn't get a huge turnout. I kind of thought, you know, naive me. I thought, oh, if we have a good concert with good musicians and, And it's free, we're going to pack the place. And we didn't have a huge turnout, for that first show. So I actually talked with, with Pete Anina, who were the hosts of the Jar Bar. If people ever heard of of that, up in Viner Vineville, it's a little venue that has some fantastic music, and it's just the greatest place. If you ever get a chance to go to the jar bar, go. But, I sort of wanted to talk to him about the business of how do you attract people to concerts and, you know, get a crowd out and everything, because we don't really know that. And one of the things he said was, you know, free is, just a little it doesn't necessarily work because there's no commitment. And, you know, when it gets right down to it, I'm guilty of this, you know, when it comes right down to the night. And do I really want to, you know, put on pants and, shoes and go out and do something well, to stay home. So, maybe it'll be better if we charge just a nominal amount for for tickets just to have that commitment. You know? So what we're thinking is that for the three concerts in the new year, we'll probably charge $10, a ticket for the concerts, three for 20. And we're going to partner with the, you know, with local charities and give some of the money to the local charities. And then also this will help us to pay the musicians, because I do think it's important that artists get paid for their for the work we are paying them. It just makes it that much easier to do it. So these concerts will be coming up in January, February. There will be that nominal charge, and I really hope people come out and see some good music because these are good performers. They're really high quality performers. That sounds really exciting to be able to sort of have something a little bit different in the theater, too, than, just movies. Yeah, yeah. I, I want to talk to you about a couple of the programs that are going on. One of the things that we kind of talked about, before we started the podcast, was connecting to reconnecting to play. And could you maybe describe that for our listeners and our audience? Exactly. What is reconnecting to play? Yeah, the premise of it basically is adults come to the library and do playful things like, you know, we've had Nerf gun wars, you know, that's the most of that sort of illustrates what we're talking about here better than anything, I think. Running around the library, the closed library on a Friday night with Nerf guns and shooting each other. And the idea there is a kind of a method to the madness, it really is, is that as adults, we need to be lighthearted and do recreational things and reconnect to play. You know, we're sometimes a little bit too serious, and this is a good way to de-stress and also to meet people, make connections, you know, all the good things. It's that sort of higher level of stuff that places like libraries provide. So we have a social worker, and she has spearheaded this along with, our, adult, community librarian who sadly left the library just very recently and is going home to, Ontario, will be replacing that position. But, it was them that started this. And it's the kind of thing programing is really interesting because it's an art, it's not a science. And you never know what's going to take off. You sort of throw spaghetti against the wall and if it sticks, it sticks. And this program, you know, it could be a hard one to get going, you know, to get people to drop their adult role and to sort of run around and laugh and all that stuff. It's it's in tune. It's not easy. But they've really built this up. It's become one of our most popular programs. There's a waiting list. It's packed every time it happens. And that's because of the people that were doing it who brought their energy and their passion and their love to this. So, speaking of the waiting list and that, is there an age range that this is designed to be for? This is for adults. But I think, you know, any adult would, would be happy if you're, you know, 60 like me and you want to come on down and shoot Nerf guns, sign up, you'll be welcome. Yeah, yeah. I also noticed that there's a program going on called adulting 101. I'm assuming that's for maybe young adults that are sort of getting ready to step out into the real world and they need some practical, education. Yes. What it's like to live on their own. We did in our time. And they do now for sure. Yeah. And that's exactly what it is, is, it's for young adults. We have a really active young adult program. We have a, a room we call honeycomb House that's, got lots of cool, things. And then there's tons of cool programing that happens around that. It's something that's pretty important to us. And it's there's again, a definite, both local community need and also universal need in the world today for young adults to, to get some help, you know, getting established and, and, finding their place and finding good things in the community. So, yeah, that's one where they will learn all kinds of skills that, you wouldn't necessarily pick up, in your day to day life. So we've talked about adults and we've talked about young adults. I want to just take a second. I would looked at your calendar of events before you came on, and I was intrigued to find Santa has lost it. Scavenger hunt. So is that taking place? I'm assuming maybe in the children's library? Yeah, and scavenger hunts are so much fun. You know, it's what we call a passive program. We don't actually have to be there, you know, in front of a group or whatever. So it's economical for us to do these things and also a lot of fun. You know, I've always loved the idea of, it gives kids something to do in the building, you know? So, yeah, you run around, you collect, you know, your items and stuff like that. And then there's typically prizes at the end of it. And yeah. Yeah. So that's something that, folks can be looking forward to in the month of December. Yeah. And I should mention that to all of our programs. You know, there's stuff happening constantly in the library. Again, our community loves programing more, even so than, relatively speaking, them books and that sort of collection. So we're very programing heavy. There's something happening. We're open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights. There's typically something every night, in that period. Sundays we call Family Day. There's stuff every Sunday from 1 to 5 for just drop in and there's giant blocks and all kinds of things, movies like we mentioned. So, yeah, programs are very, you know, important. Yeah. I know that you also have, community coffee on Mondays and Fridays. Yeah. This is a really interesting one. Again, talking about sort of being a place for everyone. So we got, we saw this opportunity a couple of years ago, a local agency. We had a grant available for providing casual employment for, people who kind of need it, you know, for whatever reason, marginalized folks, you know, struggling people, just a little bit of, employment, really. And the reason for that is to put cash in people's hands, you know, for work done, which is important. And to create a sense of, to, community, you know, to bring people in, again, people who are isolated or alienated from, from, sort of mainstream culture, give them a place in the community. And then the last one is to build some skills for, you know, resume and that sort of thing. And, strangely enough, to me, nobody else really was, going for this. And I'd heard about it. So we put together a proposal and, it mostly built around as we, as you said, community coffee. And, we have that running. So we get a grant for this, and, we basically bring people in and, they, host a coffee for us. And, these are people, again, who are struggling with one thing or another, you know, in their lives. And that really varies, you know, the groups. But I have to say, these folks, they're amazing. They're probably, you know, like almost, I'd say better than regular employees in terms of showing up every time that they're asked to and that sort of thing. We just had no problems with these folks at all. It's really been, you know, an amazing thing for me to see and learn. And, yeah, they are there and they do, Monday and Friday mornings come on down to the library. They have free coffee, and you can meet some folks who, maybe are in a different place than you or maybe the same places you, you know, in their, journey. And, it's a very positive thing. And we've had really good results. Those folks have also been doing work for us. They help with our book sales. Or I should say, you, the friends of the library. That's a, a, a nonprofit that supports us and holds our book sales. So these casual, casual employment folks work for that, and, it's beautiful. Everybody just has a great time. The ladies who run the books, they'll love these workers. You know, really appreciate the help that they bring. And, it's interesting because we survey these folks who do that program and, you know, if you're poor or in financial, you know, difficulty, a little bit of money makes a big difference. So we're paying people, you know, 50 bucks or whatever they get for a shift that makes it can make a huge difference in a person's life that might, you know, mean that they can keep their phone and sort of all the connections and things that that enables or they avoid, you know, one NSF charge on a, check or a rent payment or something that would end up putting them even farther behind the hole than they were. So the money's a big deal for folks. It makes a big difference. But what they self-report as being the most important thing for them out of this is a sense of connection, a sense of purpose, a sense of dignity, a sense of being part of something. That's, you know, part of the community. And again, that's the that's our secret sauce. That's our, you know, super power that we bring to the table is we can create that. Well, I really hope that we can continue to have conversations about what's going on in the library and that you and, other members of the library will come to the porch and have conversations with us. You got to talk to. Some of the some of our folks who are doing amazing things, like Crystal, the social worker who does the, both, you know, is involved with the community coffee stuff and the connecting to play and also the amazing things that the social worker at the library does. And we got a whole bunch of folks for you to talk to. Oh, that's good to hear because I like to talk. Ken, thank you so much for being on the porch. Thank you. And, we will see you in the New Year. Awesome. Thank you for.